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- Flight 93 voice recorder goes public
- Rice steps up war of words with Iran
- Crazy Berlusconi says there is fraud!
- Iran decides to pursue nuclear build
up
- Sri Lanka has some bombs and riots
- *permanent headline* More die in Iraq
- 25% of all species extinct by 2050?!
- Space stuff
- More 9/11 email
- Steven Jones is at it again
- White House admits that WMD
intelligence was made up
- Yet another missing link found (Satan
plans to plant even more evidence
soon)
- Multilateral talks with North Korea are
failing
I will be interviewing Cindy Sheehan live and in the URH studio (1640AM in Hilo) either Sunday
April 23rd or Monday the 24th. This is a really big and special event for our little college radio
station to be able to host. Please tune in on the web to hear it. I will be posting more accurate
times as they become available!
Flight 93 cockpit recorder goes public.
Excerpt:
The American jurors who will decide the fate of Zacarias Moussaoui have been played an audio
recording of the final moments of the Sept 11 flight which crashed before it could be flown into
its target.
It was the first time that the half-hour cockpit recording from the United Airlines jet had been
played publicly.
Groans and noises of a struggle could be heard as a hijacker asked in Arabic: "Shall we finish it
off?" at 10am, just three minutes before the airliner smashed into a field in Pennsylvania.
"No, not yet," he is told, before a passenger apparently urges others to take on the men with
the words: "In the cockpit! If we don't, we die!"
In what some listeners interpreted as a fight for control between passengers and hijackers, the
court heard English-speakers saying "push up" and "pull down" in the flight's last minute, as
data showed the steering yoke moving wildly.
Much of the tape is open to interpretation. The Sept 11 Commission concluded there was a
struggle for control but reached no conclusion about whether passengers killed a hijacker.
As they listened to the tape, the jurors watched a simultaneous video presentation showing the
flight path, speed and heading of the plane.
The last words heard as the plane hurtles to the ground and the recording ends at 10.03am
were those of a hijacker repeating four times in Arabic: "Allah is the greatest."
After that only the sound of roaring static is audible.
What is your secret government black ops response to this? Face it. The only real conspiracy is that a
bunch of religious nut-jobs hijacked planes and crashed them into buildings. The more complicated the
plan gets the more Murphy's law takes over. An administration that can't get Afghanistan, Iraq, Katrina,
the economy or Iran right could not pull this off.
Full transcript of Flight 93 cockpit voice recorder. (sobering)
Excerpt:
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that it is "time for action" on the
international demands for Iran to cease its uranium enrichment activities.
Iran said Tuesday it had enriched uranium at a level of concentration high enough to operate a
nuclear power plant, defying last month's U.N. Security Council presidential statement calling
for Tehran to suspend the program.
"When the Security Council reconvenes [later this month], I think it will be time for action," Rice
said. "We can't let this continue."
Rice did not elaborate on what type of action the Security Council should take, but senior State
Department officials said it could include a move to impose a travel ban against Iranian officials
and freezing assets of the regime.
The plan for nuking is already there on the table...
limo driver humping, booger-eating antics; claims there was election
fraud
Excerpt:
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday denounced Italy's general election as
fraudulent and said official results giving victory to his centre-left rival Romano Prodi had to be
overturned.
Berlusconi has refused to concede defeat in the April 9-10 vote, and demanded a review of
thousands of disputed ballots.
"The election result has to change because there was widespread fraud," Berlusconi told
reporters after meeting President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi on Wednesday evening.
"Did you think you were about to be free of me?" he said, adding that the voting irregularities
had been at the expense of his centre-right alliance.
But Prodi, attending a victory celebration in his home city of Bologna, in northern Italy,
dismissed the allegation.
"We have won ... Berlusconi has to go," Prodi said.
Berlusconi's accusations raised the prospect of a long, drawn out battle over the election
result which could paralyse Italian politics.
The prime minister himself said there was no time limit for a review of the vote, adding that he
thought it would take several days. "There are statements from 60,000 voting stations to be
checked, one by one," he said.
What makes Berlusconi think he is so special that he would be the first Italian PM to win a second term?
build up nuclear stockpile of enriched uranium
Excerpt:
A day after Iran announced that its engineers had reached a new, more advanced stage in
uranium enrichment, a top nuclear official said yesterday that the nation planned to expand its
nuclear program by installing and operating thousands of centrifuges in the coming years.
Iran's recent declarations about its nuclear program drew international criticism and concern
yesterday from several countries, including Russia, China, Britain and the United States.
Like I said yesterday, making a bomb is not hard. You put uranium in a centrifuge, heat it up and it
separates. Once you get enough U-238 you hit it with a bunch of neutrons (something most physics labs
can do) and you have plutonium. If you want to make a low-yield weapon you slam the plutonium together
and all of a sudden you have entered The Club. Piece of cake for anyone will to spend the money on it.
bomb kills 16, riots break out
Excerpt:
A BOMB ripped through a vegetable market in northeastern Sri Lanka today, killing 16 people in
the latest of a series of blasts that raised serious doubts over upcoming peace talks.
At least 50 other people were injured in the port town of Trincomalee when a bomb fixed to a
bicycle exploded, hours after a Claymore fragmentation mine killed two constables in the same
district, police said.
An indefinite curfew was clamped on the area as rioting erupted after the market blast. At least
seven shops were torched and several vehicles damaged, police said.
Mobs attacked two passengers of a van, which was set on fire near the town, police said,
adding that the victims were yet to be identified.
The government sent Industrial Development Minister Rohitha Bogollegama, who is also a
government peace negotiator, to Trincomalee, 260 kilometres north-east of here to try to
restore order, officials said.
They said President Mahinda Rajapakse had a telephone conversation with Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh and discussed the situation, but details of the discussion were not
immediately available.
The government blamed the rebel Tamil Tigers for the blasts. There was no comment from them.
Thirty-seven people have now been killed in four blasts since Tuesday, dimming hopes for talks
slated for next week between Colombo and Tamil Tiger rebels in Switzerland to save their
tottering ceasefire.
Yet another example of religious people who are also crazy doing their part to make the world a worse-off
place.
Excerpt:
American soldiers again have hit the streets of dangerous neighborhoods in western Baghdad
that had been handed over to Iraqi forces, trying to keep a lid on sectarian attacks that have
raged since the February bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.
The U.S. military has refocused its mission to confront death squads that have tortured and
killed hundreds, a tacit acknowledgment that Iraqi troops have not been able to control
violence between Shiites and Sunnis on their own.
"Iraqi security forces can control large acts, but you can't be everywhere at once. It's like
serious crime in the U.S. How do you prevent someone in Houston from going into someone's
house?" said Capt. Matt Brown of Eau Claire, Wis.
Fewer attacks now are directed against Americans, soldiers say. But the number of Iraqis found
slain, apparently in tit-for-tat killings by Shiite and Sunni extremists, has sharply increased in
western neighborhoods like Shula and Ghazaliyah.
Did you notice that I underlined the word "try"? That is because trying is all they can do. The article did
not say, "US forces actually curb violence in Iraq." The article also says that there have been fewer
attacks on US soldiers... We are a week and a half into April and already more troops have died than in all
of March! Iraq is screwed and we screwed it.
species of life... That is on par with some of the great extinctions in history! We don't need a comet to hit
us we can do it ourselves)
Excerpt:
Using several models that project habitat changes, migration capabilities of various species,
and related extinctions in 25 "hotspots," scientists predict that a quarter of the world's plant
and vertebrate animal species would face extinction by 2050.
A report detailing the projections was released today.
Biodiversity hotspots are some of the richest and most threatened biological pools on Earth.
They contain 44 percent of plant and 35 percent of the Earth's vertebrate species on only 1.4
percent of the Earth's land. Each hotspot contains its own set of unique species.
"Climate change is rapidly becoming the most serious threats to the planet's biodiversity," said
Jay Malcolm, an assistant forestry professor at the University of Toronto. "This study provides
even stronger scientific evidence that global warming will result in catastrophic species loss
across the planet."
If all these animals die what are General Schwarzkopf and Bush the elder supposed to hunt?
Excerpt:
An Indonesian maid posed in her underwear for pictures her female employer promised would
appear in the Indonesian version of Playboy, but complained after receiving no payment, a
Malaysian social group said on Wednesday. Playboy magazine caused a stir at its launch in
Indonesia last week, despite having less skin on display than U.S. issues of 50 years ago.
Although banned in Malaysia, it became big news because the centre spread featured a top
Malaysian model named Amber Chia.
In exchange for a promise of 1,000 ringgit (570 pounds) and the use of her connections with the
magazine to get the pictures printed, the woman took pictures of her 25-year-old maid in
seductive postures while her family was away, the Star newspaper said.
What do you want to bet there are going to be some hysterical fundies that claim the lady taking the
pictures is a lesbian?
network," to AT&T
Excerpt:
AT&T and the telcos are threatening to charge Google and other Web sites extortion-type fees
unless Google and others pay for adequate bandwidth. But Google and others may soon have
this answer for them: No, thanks. We'll build our own fat pipe into customers' homes.
That's the speculation, anyway. Investor's Business Daily points out that big swaths of the
wireless spectrum are about to go out to bid -- and whoever buys them could build a
high-bandwidth wireless pipe into people's homes and businesses across the country.
I won't go into all the gory details, but there are two big blocks of spectrum up for sale, and
Internet companies like Google are expected to bid on both.
Google, eBay, and Amazon could form their own consortium to spend the many billions of
dollars needed to buy parts of the spectrum, and build a high-speed, nationwide wireless
network.
Investor's Business Daily quotes George Dellinger, an analyst at research firm Washington
Analysis, as saying "A consortium of new media companies could wind up leading the pack to
buy that spectrum and provide a third (broadband) pipe into homes."
Sound far-fetched? Google is already building wireless networks in San Francisco and its home
of Mountain View. The company is sitting on top of the biggest pile of cash south of Bill Gates --
probably close to $10 billion after a planned $2 billion new stock offering. It can afford to do it.
And when it comes to cash, eBay and Amazon aren't slouches, either.
The second coming of Ma Bell is not going to like this. A nd you wouldn't like it when Ma Bell gets angry!
officially illegal to ejaculate on to somebody if they did not give you
consent first.
Excerpt:
Outraged by an incident in a University of Connecticut dormitory, the state Senate voted
unanimously Tuesday to change the definition of sexual assault to include cases without direct
physical contact.
Lawmakers were responding to the case of three UConn students accused of ejaculating onto a
female student's face as she slept in a dormitory in September. The three men, who no longer
attend the university, were charged with disorderly conduct and public indecency, but could
not be charged with sexual assault under state law.
The incident caused widespread outrage as the state's victim advocate, chief state's attorney,
women's groups and legislators vowed to close the loophole. The problem is that the existing
legal definition of sexual assault requires "contact" between the victim and the perpetrator.
Well, I am glad they finally got that sorted out. Did those three knobs think that they had outsmarted the
system or something? Or were they just lucky that there happened to be no law against what they did?
support HoustonWade.com at the
same time. Thank you.
Excerpt:
An embarrassed charter school has discovered it booked the wrong Jon Stewart for its annual
gala.
The DaVinci Academy thought it had made a deal with comedian Jon Stewart, star of ``The Daily
Show'' and host of this year's Academy Awards, to appear next week. It sent out 500 invitations
to businesses and planned for 900 people.
But last week, it learned that it had booked Jon A. Stewart, a former motivational speaker,
businessman and part-time professional wrestler from Chicago.
School leaders said that earlier in the year they had sent out invitations to a number of
celebrities, speakers and authors for the school's annual benefit dinner.
A Stewart had responded, and through months of discussion there was no indication that they
had not booked the Stewart they wanted, officials said.
But last week the Standard-Examiner in Ogden called Jon Stewart's publicist in Beverly Hills,
and found that the only place Stewart was scheduled to be the night of the gala was on ``The
Daily Show.''
Mars
http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/flash.htm#Main
they have some other interesting "eyewitness" accounts that would seem to contradict the
official "eyewitness" accounts. And interesting questions, too! Hmmm.
Dennis
First things first. If this guy really did his research he would have gotten some easy things right. He claims
a 757 is 80 tons. Wrong. A 757 with fuel is about 130 tons.
Second, this dude also makes the claim that the plane had to bash its way through several "reinforced"
walls when in fact the first floor of the Pentagon is, I'll say it again, and open floor plan. The only
reinforced wall the jet made it through was the one on the outside. The wall in the E-ring was just two
layers of brick
Third, how does a missile and jet sound different?
Fourth, "I saw a two engined plane..." A 757 is a two engined plane.
Fifth, Make up your mind. Was it a missile or a small plane that hit the Pentagon. If it was a small plane
then how could it have done the damage it did when you people claim that a jet weighing some 270,000
pounds can't even do it?
Sixth, what are you going to say when the Pentagon tapes get released at say, the Moussaoui trial, like the
Flight 93 voice recorder was?
Excerpt:
A Brigham Young University physicist said he now believes an incendiary substance called
thermite, bolstered by sulfur, was used to generate exceptionally hot fires at the World Trade
Center on 9/11, causing the structural steel to fail and the buildings to collapse.
"It looks like thermite with sulfur added, which really is a very clever idea," Steven Jones,
professor of physics at BYU, told a meeting of the Utah Academy of Science, Arts and Letters at
Snow College Friday.
The government requires standard explosives to contain tag elements enabling them to be
traced back to their manufacturers. But no tags are required in aluminum and iron oxide, the
materials used to make thermite, he said. Nor, he said, are tags required in sulfur.
Jones is co-chairman, with James H. Fetzer, a distinguished professor of philosophy at the
University of Minnesota of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a group of college faculty members who
believe conspirators other than pilots of the planes were directly involved in bringing down
New York's Trade Towers.
First off, duh. There was an aluminum airplane that crashed into an aluminum facaded building that
contained iron and steel, much of it probably oxidized (especially once the fires started, that tends to
oxidize metal real quick). That is all you need to create thermite. Aluminum, oxidized metal (preferably
Iron), and some heat.
The sulfur would have easily been detected by every New Yorker who had been outside that day so there
was probably no agent like that in there.
Second and finally, Steven Jones needs to make up his mind too. First he claimed the fires weren't hot
enough to bring the buildings down and now he is offering an excuses for why the fires were so hot. This
is called "grasping at straws."
Excerpt:
ATF agents are always on alert for anything suspicious — including ninjas.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearm agents, on campus Tuesday for Project Safe Neighborhoods
training, detained a “suspicious individual” near the Georgia Center, University Police Chief
Jimmy Williamson said.
Jeremiah Ransom, a sophomore from Macon, was leaving a Wesley Foundation pirate vs. ninja
event when he was detained.
After being held in investigative detention, he was found to have violated no criminal laws and
was not arrested.
“It was surreal,” Ransom said. “I was jogging from Wesley to Snelling when I heard someone
yell ‘freeze.’”
Ransom said he thought a friend was playing a joke before he realized officers had guns drawn
and pointed at him.
I am glad the threat has been neutralized. Thanks, ATF, for nailing that college kid going to a theme party.
of Iraq was made up
Excerpt:
President Bush's claim three years ago that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq
was based on U.S. intelligence that was later proved false, the White House acknowledged on
today.
Spokesman Scott McClellan vigorously denied suggestions that Bush was making claims that
already had been debunked when he said that two small trailers seized in Iraq were mobile
biological laboratories.
McClellan did not directly answer questions about whether Bush, when he made his statement,
was aware that a team of experts had already concluded the trailers were not involved with
WMD manufacturing.
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," McClellan said.
"...That's right because no intelligence has ever gathered here ever." Impeach already!! How many times
does gross incompetence get pat on the back instead of a swift kick in the butt in this country?
made school lunches healthy for kids
Excerpt:
Gov. Bill Owens has vetoed a bill that would have required schools to make sure half of all
items offered in vending machines are nutritious.
The governor said lawmakers should look at their own vending machines in the Capitol before
they try to tell others what to do.
Witnesses had told lawmakers that many schools rely on revenue from vending machines to
pay for athletics and other programs, and that many children prefer junk food.
Is this guy retarded? Of course kids prefer junk food. So do most people, it doesn't mean that it should be
given to them while they are growing. Especially when obesity is one of the most expensive medical
problems in America. I am sure all the state's voting parents are really going to be happen that you took a
stand against them. Smart move.
Excerpt:
Florida's newest problem is roughly the circumference of a telephone pole. It has no toes. It
snacks on rabbits. It's the Burmese python. And in South Florida, the problem is growing in
number and in feet.
"Last year, we caught 95 pythons," said Skip Snow, a biologist with Florida Everglades National
Park. That's not counting the 13-footer that exploded after trying to eat an alligator, or two
others that got loose and ate a Siamese cat and a turkey.
To keep the problem from sliding further out of control, state Rep. Ralph Poppell, R-Titusville,
wants to add Burmese pythons to Florida's list of regulated reptiles. His bill (HB 1459) could
force python buyers to complete state training, buy a license and face jail time if they let their
snakes loose.
The giant, unwanted snakes take other animals' homes and prey on fragile native species,
Snow said. They're also the products of impulse shopping gone very wrong.
"People buy them when they're small," he said. "I've seen them as cheap as 20 bucks in flea
markets."
The inch-long hatchlings start off cute. Then they hit puberty.
"By the end of the year, they're seven feet long," Snow said. "By the end of two years, they're
10 feet long. And that's more snake than anyone can handle."
Overwhelmed with pets that eat more than they do, python owners decide to release their
snakes into the wild. It's so common in the Everglades, Snow's had to start a python hot line.
And there the Asian natives breed and find a comfortable home in the Everglades' water, heat
and vegetation. They have no predators.
Man, most communities have to worry about an influx of pet rabbits after Easter. Florida sucks, dude.
link has been found!
Excerpt:
In following the fossil tracks of human evolution, scientists have for years searched for links
between Australopithecus, the kin of the famous "Lucy" skeleton, and even earlier possible
ancestors. Now, they think they have found some connections in Ethiopia.
An international team of paleontologists is reporting the discovery of transitional species
superimposed in sediments in the neighborhood of a single site. The findings are to appear
Thursday in the journal Nature.
Tim D. White, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was a leader of the
team, and his colleagues said the 4.1-million-year-old fossils were anatomically intermediate
between the earlier species Ardipithecus ramidus and the later species Australopithecus
afarensis, the Lucy family. The newfound bones and teeth are the earliest remains of the most
primitive Australopithecus, known as anamensis.
"This new discovery closes the gap between the fully blown australopithecines and earlier
forms we call Ardipithecus," Dr. White said in a statement. "We now know where
Australopithecus came from before four million years ago."
The scientists said the fossils supported the hypothesis that Australopithecus anamensis was a
direct ancestor of afarensis, which lived between 3.6 million and 3 million years ago. The
Australopithecus genus — resembling apes in stature and small brain but unlike the great apes
in that it walked on two legs — is thought to have given rise to our own genus, Homo.
Some later australopithecines survived until about 1.2 million years ago, existing in Africa as
contemporaries with Homo erectus, a predecessor of modern humans.
The genus Ardipithecus, discovered by Dr. White in 1992, appears to have lived between 5.7
million and 4.4 million years ago. It was even more apelike, but also walked on two legs.
That's a lot of big words. Have I told you how much I hate historical geology because of all the goofy
words? I love physical geology because it is very straight forward. With historical geology I think that the
geologists go to the most remote, backwoods seasonal creek to make a major discovery just so that an
entire region of the planet gets some strange-ass name like Boobleblarstrarp orogeny or something. And
they do this just so geology students have to remember these stupid names for their exams. It's a sick
joke really.
in rolling out high speed Internet access
Excerpt:
The United States still trails South Korea, Canada and much of northern Europe in rolling out
high-speed Internet access, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development.
An OECD survey published this week counted 16.8 broadband subscriptions per 100 people in
the United States in December, putting it in 12th place among the 30 industrialized member
states of the Paris-based organization — up one notch from a year earlier.
In an editorial published April 3 by the Financial Times newspaper, U.S. Federal
Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin wrote the United States was "closing in on
President George W. Bush's goal of providing broadband access to every U.S. household."
The United States ranked fourth in 2001, when only South Korea, Canada and Sweden had
larger ratios of broadband subscribers. Since then, Iceland, the Netherlands, Denmark,
Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium and Japan have jumped ahead.
First-placed Iceland claims 26.7 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, according to the OECD
survey, which was based on government data as well as telecommunications operators'
published figures.
Remember, dismantling the telecommunications giants is on Houston's list to economic success.
SkyNet is going to take over?
Excerpt:
For most people, snakes seem unpleasant or even threatening. But Howie Choset sees in their
delicate movements a way to save lives.
The 37-year-old Carnegie Mellon University professor has spent years developing snake-like
robots he hopes will eventually slither through collapsed buildings in search of victims trapped
after natural disasters or other emergencies.
In recent weeks, Choset and some of his students made what he said was an industry
breakthrough: enabling the articulated, remote-controlled devices to climb up and around
pipes.
Rescue workers say such robots would help them meet their challenge of locating survivors.
Current equipment has limited mobility and is usually lowered into fallen structures, Choset
said.
"Right now, the way to get to these trapped survivors is to pull the rubble out one rock at a
time," Choset said. "So our dream is to have the snake robot thread through this collapsed
rubble and get to victims more quickly."
Way cool, but expect a lot of heart attack victims...
Duke Cunningham's seat
Excerpt:
The race to succeed former Representative Randy Cunningham, a California Republican who
pleaded guilty to corruption charges, took a complicated turn for both parties on Tuesday after
a crowded primary in which a Democrat came in first, but did not win enough votes to escape a
runoff.
Lenny Ignelzi/Associated Press
Francine Busby, the Democratic candidate for the 50th Congressional District, reacts to early
results Tuesday. She drew 44 percent of the vote.
The muddled outcome left Democrats and liberal activist groups cheered by the strong
showing of the Democrat, Francine Busby, a school board member, but debating whether to
pump significant resources into the June 6 primary. The district is strongly Republican —
President Bush drew 55 percent of the vote there in 2004 — and Ms. Busby, in winning 44
percent of the vote, benefited from a splintered field that included 14 Republicans.
The race has been closely watched by both sides for a clue to the extent corruption
investigations of Congressional Republicans could help Democrats in their drive to take back
the House. Ms. Busby said Wednesday that she thought her strong showing suggested the
power of the attack concerning the issue of ethics.
"This is a message that works," she said in a telephone news conference. "It is resonating with
people across the country."
Steven P. Erie, a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, said he
was struck by how well Ms. Busby had done. She drew 36 percent of the vote when she ran
against Mr. Cunningham in 2004.
"I think her chances are better than the conventional wisdom thinks," Mr. Erie said. "It's an
uphill battle for Democrats given the registration figures, but it's not as steep as many people
think. And I wouldn't have said that a while back."
Just more proof that Howard Dean is a genius and the DLC needs to shut the hell up.
Korea isn't even showing up
Excerpt:
The chief U.S. envoy to multilateral talks on ending North Korea's nuclear programs said on
Thursday Pyongyang was boycotting the discussions, but urged patience for the stalled
process.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill held no substantive discussions with North
Korean nuclear envoy Kim Kye-gwan in Tokyo this week when the two were in the Japanese
capital for a private security forum -- dashing hopes for renewed progress in the six-party
nuclear talks.
The other chief envoys in the talks were also in Tokyo, with most attending the same forum.
"They (the North Koreans) are boycotting the six-party process," Hill told reporters prior to
meetings with South Korean Foreign Ministry officials.
The last round of talks between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States
took place in November. The negotiations have hit a snag over a U.S. crackdown on firms it
suspects of aiding North Korea in illicit activities.
If Bush had just stuck with what worked we would not be having this problem. What a tool.
Excerpt:
Chadian attack helicopters fired rockets at rebel forces around the capital Thursday, and tank
fire and mortar rounds echoed through the city as government troops attempted to hold off a
rebel attack.
French fighter jets based in N'Djamena could also be heard, but it was unclear if they were
overhead or just revving their engines at the airfield, an Associated Press reporter said. The
sounds of fighting could be heard coming from the north, south and southeast of the city.
Columns of thick black smoke could be seen rising from the center of the city.
The French government has said in the past it will not directly intervene in internal politics, but
would provide logistical support to the government.
The fighting began before dawn, when residents of eastern neighborhoods awoke to heavy
gunfire, sending panic through the city a day after reports that rebels were marching on the
capital.
Man, that is one place you do not want to live. Woof. Thank your lucky stars you are safe, fat and secure
in this screwed up den of debauchery that we call the "first world."
Excerpt:
BRITISH doctors have revived a 12-year-old girl's dormant heart and removed a donor heart
which she had started to reject, hospital officials said late today.
Hannah Clark, who lives in south Wales, underwent the operation on February 20 in London by
surgeons advised by heart specialist Sir Magdi Yacoub.
Sir Yacoub came out of retirement at the request of the girl's parents, they said.
Hannah had enjoyed good health until November when a cardiologist found during a routine
examination that her body was rejecting the organ which Sir Yacoub had transplanted 10 years
ago in a life-saving operation.
She had been suffering from cardiomyopathy, which made her heart double in size and (the
heart) threatened to fail within a year.
"We are delighted that Hannah is doing so well," said a spokesman for the cardiac team at
Great Street Ormond Hospital. We believe that this combination of circumstances is the first for
children or adults in the UK."
Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said: "This
is an exciting and important event.
"Surgeons like BHF Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub have thought for some time that if a heart is
failing because of acute inflammation, it might be able to recover if rested.
Crazy!
sends someone over to collect or she goes to the clink.
no traffic since 2001
Excerpt:
Tawfiq Musmar takes up his place behind the lost luggage desk at Gaza international airport
each morning, checking all is in order at the baggage carousel before wandering off to spend
much of the day chatting with the "land hostesses" at the check-in counters.
Not a single flight has landed since Israeli army bulldozers tore up the runway in 2001 at the
beginning of the Palestinian uprising, and Mr Musmar wonders how long he will be paid to do
nothing. "There were lots of flights to all the Arab capitals, even Moscow," he said. "Now we
get paid but these are not real jobs. Maybe now the jobs are going to disappear like the
planes."
For five years the Gaza airport staff have collected their salaries from the Palestinian Authority,
not because they earned them but because so many other people depend on the money to
survive.
Mr Musmar, 43, earns about £250 a month from which he supports his parents and children. At
the check-in desk, Reem Nisreen is paid about £140 a month which pays the rent and feeds her
unemployed husband, two children and members of her extended family.
The wages of every one of the PA's 152,000 workers are paid in part from about $1bn (£573m) a
year in foreign aid. European and American donors long ago accepted that while they were
subsidising many real jobs, such as medical staff and teachers, they were also paying for what
amounted to work-for-welfare. Those wages came to be a crucial part of an economy that has
contracted by one-third through the intifada.
Well, maybe Israel should make those bulldozers smooth out and repave the runway? How does tearing
up the runway benefit anyone? What is Sharon? A stroke victim?... Oh, that's right...
Thank You.