Friday News Bucket

35 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on March 17, 2006 at 7:18 am

   becoming more acceptable to the Rs by the day: WashPo:

   The Bush administration could continue its policy of spying on targeted Americans without obtaining warrants, but only if it justifies the action to a small group of lawmakers, under legislation introduced yesterday by key Republican senators…

   …The bill would allow the NSA to eavesdrop, without a warrant, for up to 45 days per case, at which point the Justice Department would have three options. It could drop the surveillance, seek a warrant from FISA’s court, or convince a handful of House and Senate members that although there is insufficient evidence for a warrant, continued surveillance “is necessary to protect the United States,” according to a summary the four sponsors provided yesterday. They are Mike DeWine (Ohio), Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Olympia J. Snowe (Maine).

   Is this the same Hagel and Snowe who were supposedly going to vote with the Democrats for an investigation into the NSA program last month?

2. 

   ask on March 17, 2006 at 7:26 am

   A new twist to the term ‘youthful indiscretion’.

   Mandela the teenage pig stealer

   Nelson Mandela has spoken of his youthful exploits as a pig thief.
   The former South African president made the revelations during a visit from the director and stars of the film Tsotsi, which won a Best Foreign Film Oscar.
   Tsotsi is about a young gangster, and Mr Mandela said he identified with the main character.
   Mr Mandela told how as a teenager in South Africa’s rural Transkei region, he and friends would use the dregs of traditional beer to lure pigs.
   (more)

3. 

   ask on March 17, 2006 at 7:29 am

   “Dismal” world strategy on Darfur risks more horror

   NAIROBI (Reuters) – The international community’s “dismal” response to a three-year conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region risks costing thousands more lives and creating proxy wars in a swathe of Africa, a think-tank warned on Friday.

   The International Crisis Group (ICG) said thousands of U.N. peacekeepers should immediately join a stretched African Union (AU) force to prevent more suffering in the vast region of west Sudan where fighting has displaced 2 million people.
   Failure to implement that could also fan tensions between Sudan and neighbouring Chad, which accuses Khartoum of backing rebels intent on overthrowing President Idriss Deby.
   “The consequences if these steps are not taken are all too easy to foresee: tens of thousands more lives lost, spill-over of the conflict into Chad and proxy wars that destabilise a wide swathe of Africa,” said the ICG report titled “To Save Darfur.”
   (more)

4. 

   CabinGirl on March 17, 2006 at 7:29 am

   Is splitting apart? Spiegel Online

   Normally new rivers, seas and mountains are born in slow motion. The Afar Triangle near the Horn of Africa is another story. A new ocean is forming there with staggering speed — at least by geological standards. Africa will eventually lose its horn.

   Geologist Dereje Ayalew and his colleagues from Addis Ababa University were amazed — and frightened. They had only just stepped out of their helicopter onto the desert plains of central Ethiopia when the ground began to shake under their feet. The pilot shouted for the scientists to get back to the helicopter. And then it happened: the Earth split open. Crevices began racing toward the researchers like a zipper opening up. After a few seconds, the ground stopped moving, and after they had recovered from their shock, Ayalew and his colleagues realized they had just witnessed history. For the first time ever, human beings were able to witness the first stages in the birth of an ocean.

   Wow.

5. 

   ask on March 17, 2006 at 7:32 am

   Serb objections mar second round of Kosovo talks

   VIENNA (Reuters) – Serbs and ethnic Albanians met in Vienna on Friday for a second round of talks on the future of Kosovo, marred at the outset by Serb objections to the presence of a former guerrilla leader Belgrade accuses of terrorism.
   The two sides opened direct talks last month, seven years since late Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic went to war with NATO and lost control of the southern Serbian province to the United Nations.
   After a timid first round, the gloves came off on Friday as the Serbs submitted a formal protest to U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari over the Kosovo Albanian delegation’s choice of former rebel commander Hashim Thaci as leader.
   “This is a man convicted of terrorism in 1997 and is under investigation in Belgrade for war crimes,” said Serb negotiator Aleksander Simic. “We told Mr Ahtisaari that this is not good for the future of the negotiations.”
   Thaci shrugged off the objections. “The dark past will be buried tomorrow with Milosevic in Serbia,” he told reporters.

6. 

   CabinGirl on March 17, 2006 at 7:47 am

   Lawsuit time: Newsweek

   Earlier this month, after interviewing a number of patients across the nation, New York City attorney Susan Chana Lask filed a class-action complaint citing clients who’d driven, shoplifted and feasted on raw eggs and uncooked vegetables in their sleep after taking Ambien. In the most serious case, a New York lab technician was actually assaulted twice after taking Ambien when she opened her door for a stranger–something she says she never would have done had she been conscious of her actions. Lask says she has now been contacted by about 200 others who’ve experienced similar effects, and expects more reports to come. Even if only 1 percent of those who take the popular sleep drug experience such side effects, she tells NEWSWEEK, “One percent of 26 million prescriptions is a lot.”

   • 

     Second Nature on March 17, 2006 at 7:56 am

     I can see it now: the Ambien defense…

     • 

       kansas on March 17, 2006 at 9:45 am

       Maybe George has been taking it. “Warning: May cause uncontrolled tax cuts, war-mongering, and falling off bicycles.”

       • 

         IndyLib on March 17, 2006 at 10:50 am

         A couple of years back, didn’t the WaPo quote Colin Powell saying that he was on Ambien, and so was basically everyone else in the White House? He didn’t seem to really understand the drug, iirc. Hmm. We may need to start searching for a shadowy Batmanesque villain among the boardrooms of Big Pharma.

         • 

           kansas on March 17, 2006 at 11:00 am

           (Hi, Indy!) Really??! You know, that rings a bell with me, too. If that’s so,then my goodness gracious sake’s alive!

         • 

           kansas on March 17, 2006 at 11:05 am

           Now you’ve really got me curious, cause I think you’re right. I went googling and found a couple of references to Powell and Rice allegedly having said they took a lot of it after 911, but the references were on blogs, with no confirming links. I haven’t found any actual quotes from Powell yet.

           Maybe somebody else will find something. Hint.

         • 

           IndyLib on March 17, 2006 at 11:16 am

           {{{{kansas}}}}

           Over at This Modern World, the quote is reported (maybe 3/4 of the way down the page) thusly:

           “They’re a wonderful medication — not medication. How would you call it? They’re called Ambien, which is very good. You don’t use Ambien? Everybody here uses Ambien.”

           It’s sourced to the WaPo on November 9, 2003, and it’s even linked, but I got a “page expired” notice when I tried to get to it, and my two minute dance with the WaPo search feature was very unpleasant so I ditched out. 😀

         • 

           kansas on March 17, 2006 at 11:38 am

           You’re good!! That quote gives me the heebie-jeebies. I hope some national reporter is reading this and it gives her a jolt of the Wanna Knows. Seems like a story to me, but then if I were assigning stories, our newspapers and tv news would look a whole lot different than they do.

         • 

           kansas on March 17, 2006 at 11:42 am

           Not that I’m suddenly obsessed by this, or anything :), but did you see what that same source quotes further down?

           Ambien addiction is also more likely among people who have been dependent on alcohol and can cause amnesia.

         • 

           IndyLib on March 17, 2006 at 12:07 pm

           If it weren’t actually happening, it would make an excellent suspense movie. A few core Big Evil politico-guys manage to control & manipulate all of the Slightly Less Evil politico-guys with pharmaceuticals, thereby convincing them of things such as: that they are actually President; that a memo entitled Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside US actually is about the past and not the future; or to give false testimony about WMD in front of the United Nations.

         • 

           kansas on March 17, 2006 at 12:10 pm

           What excellent plot instincts you have, m’dear.

7. 

   Carnacki on March 17, 2006 at 8:11 am

   Vote in the poll.

8. 

   olivia on March 17, 2006 at 8:29 am

   Afghans dispute Canadian shooting — “Drastically conflicting accounts of the death of a civilian at a Canadian-Afghanistan checkpoint emerged Thursday as the dead man’s grieving family disputed key details of events both before and after the shooting.” (…)

   Canada agrees to Qaeda suspect extradition hearing — “The Ontario Superior Court agreed on Thursday to hold an extradition hearing for a Canadian man who is wanted in the United States on charges of buying weapons for al Qaeda and conspiring to kill Americans abroad.” (…)

   U.S. frees B.C. man who deserted 38 years ago — “The U.S military has released the British Columbia man arrested last week for deserting the U.S. Marine Corps nearly 40 years ago at the height of the Vietnam War. Allen Abney, 56, was arrested a week ago as he tried to cross the border with wife on their way to a holiday in Reno.” (…)

   How To Steal an Election — “It’s easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman.” (…)

   Black Shamrock dot org — “The Black Shamrock symbolises our mourning for all those who died as a result of Irish collaboration in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, for which the airports at Shannon, Aldergrove and Baldonnel have become pit-stops. It also symbolises our mourning for the loss of Irish Neutrality.” (…)

   U.S. plans to reduce mad cow testing — “Despite the confirmation of a third case of mad cow disease in the U.S., the American government intends to scale back testing for the brain-wasting disorder blamed for the deaths of more than 150 people in Europe.” (…)

9. 

   idredit on March 17, 2006 at 8:59 am

   Prof. Juan Cole asks the question of the decade, {do} “You wonder if the Bushes will be able to vacation in Europe when he goes out of office, or if Pinochet’s fate awaits George”.

   Ya think? Oh yes I do. History has a way of repeating.

   BBC breaking News Banner: “Israel confirms thousands of poultry found dead in the south had H5N1 bird flu.”

   Experts warn the avian flu is only months away from US as Secretary of Health, Leavitt said we should stock up on tuna and milk – put the stockpile under our beds. It could have been a repeat of “buy duct tape.”

   • 

     Denim Blue on March 17, 2006 at 9:59 am

     The government has quite an extensive website concerning the bird-flu.  One of the pages states:

     “Social Disruption May Be Widespread:

     • Plan for the possibility that usual services may be disrupted. These could include services provided by hospitals and other health care facilities, banks, stores, restaurants, government offices, and post offices.
     • Prepare backup plans in case public gatherings, such as volunteer meetings and worship services, are canceled.
     • Consider how to care for people with special needs in case the services they rely on are not available.”

     Other topics on the same page:

     • Being Able to Work May Be Difficult or Impossible
     • Schools May Be Closed for an Extended Period of Time
     • Transportation Services May Be Disrupted

     • 

       Knoxville Progressive on March 17, 2006 at 11:34 am

       I’ve posted this link before, but it’s worth mentioning again for folks who might have missed it:

       A detailed look at how Philadelphia was affected by the 1918 flu pandemic.  Some excerpts:

       Warning:  The following may be disturbing reading.  But we are supposed to be the “reality-based community”, so here you go:

       Worried Philadelphians, wearing gauze influenza masks over their noses and mouths, quickly cross to the other side of the street if a passerby chances to cough or sneeze.

       Weeping women in West Manayunk block the car of Dr. Joseph Schlotterer, who is making a house call, and permit him to leave only after he treats 57 neighborhood children.

       Frantic shoppers strip pharmacy shelves bare. The press of customers is so great that the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Temple University suspend classes so that pharmacy students can help fill prescriptions. Most are for whiskey, which, now that saloons are closed, is available only in drugstores. Rather than wait to become a statistic, people turn to home remedies: goose-grease poultices, sulfur fumes, onion syrup, chloride of lime.

       In many families, both parents are ill and unable to care for their children. Their cries for help often go unheeded, as many neighbors fear entering a house where there is influenza. Others, without thought of their own safety, tend the ill, care for the children, and comfort the dying. Roman Catholic Archbishop Dennis Dougherty gives permission to 1,000 Sisters of Saint Joseph to work in private residences caring for the sick.

       More than 500 corpses are awaiting burial, some for more than a week. The Office of the Coroner cannot keep up with the demand for death certificates. Cold-storage plants are used as temporary morgues, and the J.G. Brill Company, manufacturers of trolley cars, donates 200 packing crates to be used as coffins. Prisoners from the House of Correction team up with seminarians from St. Charles Seminary to dig graves, as the cemeteries cannot keep up with the demand.

       To deal with the problem of hundreds of unburied corpses, volunteers drive horse-drawn carts through the city streets, calling people to bring out the dead. Wagonloads of bodies, each tagged for identification, are buried at Potter’s Field at Second and Luzerne Streets, where the Bureau of Highways is digging trenches for graves. Only the promise that bodies can be reinterred when the epidemic abates persuades grieving relatives to give up their loved ones to the “dead wagons.”

       Full disclosure:  My great-grandfather and a child of his died in Philly in the 1918 flu pandemic, leaving my great-grandmother alone with 3 small kids halfway around the world from her home and family (in Italy).  Two of the kids (including my grandfather, about age 6) ended up in “an orphanage” (as the family always called it) run by a Catholic charitable group.

       • 

         Denim Blue on March 17, 2006 at 7:26 pm

         Urban Survival’s Free Daily Financial Newsletter had quite a bit on the bird flu and how it might affect us all in the Thursday post.  Another site to keep an eye on is H5N1 although you might want to take a Xanax tablet before reading it.

10. 

    growthrate on March 17, 2006 at 9:42 am

    Costco checking authenticity of Picassos

    I know you can get an awful lot of great stuff at Costco (especially if you’re willing to buy, say, two year’s supply of shaving cream at one time), but maybe this time they’ve overreached just a tad.

    One of Pablo Picasso’s daughters has questioned the authenticity of a drawing listed for sale on Costco Wholesale Corp.’s Web site, and for two others already sold over the past two years as works by the iconic Spanish cubist.

    “Picador in a Bullfight,” a drawing listed at $145,999.99, was removed from Costco’s Web site this week after Maya Widmaier-Picasso questioned its authenticity certificates, and the certificates for the other two works.

    Costco has begun probing their authenticity, Jim Sinegal, chief executive of the nation’s largest wholesale-club, said Thursday.

    Res ipsa loquitur.

    • 

      CabinGirl on March 17, 2006 at 9:44 am

      and they already sold two others?

11. 

    Oui on March 17, 2006 at 10:55 am

    .

    Pinta May Hold Key to Beating MRSA Superbugs

    (The Scotsman) March 10 — A substance nisin which occurs naturally in milk could become a new antibiotic capable of killing off MRSA superbugs, according to new research. Scientists in the Netherlands and US have managed for the first time to create the antibiotic in a test-tube in the same way as it is made naturally, a development which should enable the creation of a “super nisin” that is tough enough to survive in the bloodstream and still kill off bacteria.

    MRSA – Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus

    As of early 2005, the number of deaths in the United Kingdom attributed to MRSA has been estimated by various sources to lie in the area of 3000 per year.

    Publications (a.o. September 9, 2005) in The Netherlands report of transmission of MRSA bacteria from pigs to humans. During the summer of 2005 it was discovered that three pig farmers or their families were infected by MRSA bacteria that were also found on their pigs. Researchers from Radboud University Nijmegen are now investigating how widespread the MRSA bacteria is in pigs, and whether it will become characterised among the zoonoses.

    “But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”

    ▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY

12. 

    Knoxville Progressive on March 17, 2006 at 11:18 am

    Gwendolyn Bart, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, says  it might be premature to conclude that certain recent Martian gullies – made within the last million years on the sides of some craters – were carved by water.  Her assertion counters hypotheses by scientists interpreting images from the Mars Orbital Camera taken five years ago. Writing in an issue of the journal Science, the scientists concluded from the images that liquid water flowed on the Martian surface relatively recently.  Bart told attendees at the 37th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference that craters on the moon also have gullies that look exactly like their counterparts on Mars – which means some other process could produce such features.  “We’d all like to find liquid water on Mars” she noted. “My point is that you can’t just look at the Mars gullies and assume they were formed by water. It may be, or may be not. We need another test to know.”

    Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have released a study supporting the findings of several studies last year linking an increase in the strength of hurricanes around the world to a global increase in sea surface temperature.

    An eight-year follow up to the landmark Harvard Six Cities Study has found an association between people living longer and cities reducing the amount of soot, or fine particulate matter, in their air. The study has been published in the March 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

    Chemists have for the first time identified at wastewater treatment plants the metabolites of two antibiotics and a medial imaging agent. The results reinforce concerns about excreted pharmaceuticals from wastewater systems that may end up in the downstream water supply, potentially resulting in adverse effects for humans and the environment.  For example, antibiotics and their metabolites can significantly increase antibiotic resistance in the population. Synthetic hormones can act as endocrine disruptors, by mimicking or blocking hormones and disrupting the body’s normal functions.

    The universe went through a traumatic growth spurt before it was a billionth of a billionth of a second old, according to the latest data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).  The probe has also given physicists their first clues about what drove that frantic expansion, and revealed that the cosmic “dark age” before the first stars switched on was twice as long as previously thought.  On Thursday, the WMAP team revealed the best map ever drawn of microwaves from the early universe, showing variations in the brightness of radiation from primordial matter. The pattern of these variations fits the predictions of a physical theory called inflation, which suggests that during the first split second of existence the universe expanded incredibly fast.

    Violence broke out Thursday in Mexico City as experts and conservationists from around the world gathered to search for ways to safeguard one of the world’s most precious commodities: water.  A gang of youths, many of them in ski masks, attacked a patrol car with sticks and rocks, and riot police fired tear gas into the crowd, local media reported. At least a dozen protesters armed with knives, pipes and Molotov cocktails were arrested in a separate incident on the first day of the fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City. However, most of Thursday’s demonstrators seemed intent on getting their message across peacefully. Many carried banners decrying what they saw as the forum’s hidden agenda: privatizing water.  Others were concerned about water pollution and inequitable water supply in the metropolitan area.  More coverage.

    The deadly bird flu virus, which has hit Asia, Europe and Africa, may spread to the US late this year and risks mutating dangerously there, Russia’s top animal and plant health inspector said on Thursday. “We forecast that bird flu mutation is possible in the countries where the number of different viruses is high. This group includes the United States,” he added.

    The NY Times looks at what’s coming in robotics:

    In a vaguely female synthesized voice — but always in plain English — Scoty, the latest robot from the robotic-toy maker WowWee, demonstrated its functions for a visitor recently.

    Chief among them are managing a personal computer’s communication and entertainment abilities, finding and playing songs by voice request, recording television shows, telling users when they have e-mail and, again by voice request, reading the e-mail aloud. It takes and then sends voice-to-text e-mail dictation. It takes pictures, and gives the time when asked.

    Scoty, pronounced Scotty, has no keyboard and does not require mastery of any specialized computer languages to nudge it to perform and reply in a likeable human manner, its makers said.

    Is it just me, or is this a little creepy?  I guess it would be good if you didn’t have use of your hands to work a keyboard…

13. 

    olivia on March 17, 2006 at 1:15 pm

    So says Cdn Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette. (Not sure if any BTers are aware of the Cdn Seal hunt controversy.)

    Senator fires back at U.S. family upset with seal hunt:

    A Liberal senator has replied to a family in Minnesota upset about Canada’s seal hunt with a letter denouncing the United States for executing prisoners at home and killing people in Iraq.

    The McLellan family had written to Canadian senators to say they cancelled a vacation in Canada because of the hunt, which they called “horrible” and “inhumane,” Montreal’s La Presse reports.

    In her response, Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette said that what she finds horrible is “the daily massacre of innocent people in Iraq, the execution of prisoners – mainly blacks – in American prisons, the massive sale of handguns to Americans, the destabilization of the entire world by the American government’s aggressive foreign policy, etc.” (…)

    And more from another link, Seal hunt pales next to Iraq slaughter: Senator:

    Hervieux-Payette told Montreal’s La Presse that Americans should worry about their own country’s behaviour before pointing fingers at other nations.

14. 

    Arcturus on March 17, 2006 at 1:25 pm

    Small Arms Dealers Defy UN Embargoes

    International arms makers and traders have violated every UN arms embargo of the past decade with almost total impunity, watchdogs said Thursday in a dossier submitted to the Security Council. The world body has named hundreds of companies involved in the illegal transfer of arms and ammunition to dictators and death squads but violators have escaped punishment, according to Oxfam International and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA).

    Their reports were aimed at turning up the heat on Security Council members to back an international arms trade treaty in the 100 days leading up to a UN conference on small arms. Governments have yet to agree an agenda for the June 26-July 7 talks, let alone find common ground on a legally binding new pact.

    ”In the 100 days until the UN world conference on small arms starts, an estimated 100,000 people will be killed with arms and many more will be injured and suffer severely in other ways from armed violence,” said Rebecca Peters, IANSA’s director.   {snip}

    The Control Arms Campaign also faulted the international sanctions system, saying that it offered too little, too late. Of 57 major conflicts that broke out between 1990 and 2001, it said, only eight triggered UN action and then only after widespread reports of killings and human rights abuses.   {snip}

    ”They have good reason to be afraid. Most victims of armed violence are not uniformed soldiers, nor even fighters, but ordinary men, women, and children,”   {snip}

    The United States ranks top among the world’s arms exporters. In developing countries, a majority of American arms have been sold to regimes ”defined as undemocratic by our own State Department,” said a separate 2005 report from the Arms Trade Resource Center at New York-based New School University’s World Policy Institute. The increased weapons transfers were aimed at rewarding coalition partners in President George W. Bush’s self-styled ”war on terror” and ensuring continued U.S. military access to overseas bases, the report said. It assailed the strategy, saying it undermined rather than buttressed American security.

    Blair on Iraq: ‘I’d do it all again’

    Amy Goodman confronts Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent for The New York Times & co-author with Judy Miller of some of the articles reporting on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in the run-up to the invasion.   

    Nuclear Reactors Found to Be Leaking Radioactive Water in Illinois & other sites around the country, just as the nuclear industry is gearing up (with the support of some environmentalists!) to renwew itself & go on a building spree.

15. 

    Oui on March 17, 2006 at 1:26 pm

    .

    Small Protest at Colin Powell Speech in Toronto

    Colin Powell was in Toronto to deliver a speech on US-Canada Relationship. Former Canadian ambassador to the US Frank McKenna also delivered a speech at the venue.

    There was a small group of protestors outside the Roy Thomson Hall last night. According to Torontoist reporter Ron Nurwisah, probably the smallest he had seen. Probably the cold weather or the lack of publicizing the $270 tickets.

    
    The group ACT for the Earth
organized the protest.

    ● “It’s a matter of public record that the war in Iraq was and is illegal”

    ≈ Cross-posted from Six Degrees of Aaron’s diary —
    This Week in Canadian Politics (March 17, 2006) ≈

    “But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”

    ▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY

    • 

      olivia on March 17, 2006 at 1:32 pm

      When I heard last week he was speaking I wondered if anyone would protest. Glad to see that some did.

      • 

        Arcturus on March 17, 2006 at 6:59 pm

        I read that Toronto residents also recently gave the Haitian coup-installed thug, Latortue, the kind of reception he so richly desreves when he was visiting.

16. 

    idredit on March 17, 2006 at 2:12 pm

    9/11 brought us the Patriot Act and Homeland Security.

    Bird flu brings us the horrendous NAIS – national animal identification system – even those animals in a non-commercial activity. Using GPS and RFID chips it includes “premises identification” and requires owners to report any movement or visitors to their house. Have a few chickens or goats, how about your kids pet guinea hens, rabbits?  If you buy feed, items from a catalog or vet services they’ll find you. An invasion of privacy? You bet.

    Small farmers, weekend farmers have pitch forks at the ready.

    Being touted, “It’ll make you safe…meme”  Next it’ll be human implanted RFID chips. NAIS will be mandatory in 2008.

17. 

    Arcturus on March 17, 2006 at 6:55 pm

    Updated my diary with more details of this. Anyone know if this has been mentioned on the cable networks?

    A senior Iraqi police officer said autopsies on the bodies, which included five children, showed each had been shot in the head. Community leaders said they were outraged at the killings and demanded an explanation from the U.S. military.

    • 

      DuctapeFatwa on March 17, 2006 at 7:09 pm

      and that is what they are doing.

      Operation Swarmer is just the ticket to boost Mr. Danger’s sagging poll numbers.

      It is likely that this family was suspected of opposing US policies.

      May God accept the martyrdom of this family, and protect the Reuters reporter and his family.

18. 

    idredit on March 17, 2006 at 7:06 pm

    We knew they were favored. Bush’s Secret Service poses as Fox News journalists

    we understand.

    (via Laura Rozen, war and piece)