News (Page 2) -- March 9, 2006

Ranking of World's Billionaires by Forbes -- You know you're not on this list. Gates has $1 billion for every year of his age.

Bush Signs Renewal of Patriot Act - ""We saw the terrorists' destructive vision for us when they killed nearly 3,000 men, women and children,'' Bush said. "In the face of this ruthless threat, our nation has made a clear choice - we will confront this mortal danger, we will stay on the offensive and we're not going to wait to be attacked again.''" -- He only has fear to run on.

U.S. Pushes U.N. for Strong Iran Statement - "The U.N. Security Council must deliver a strong statement that "gets the Iranians' attention" when it addresses Tehran's disputed nuclear weapons program for the first time in the coming days, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said Thursday."

Iran's President Warns West Will Suffer - ""They know that they are not capable of causing the least harm to Iranian people," Ahmadinejad said during a visit to Iran's western province of Lorestan, according to the ISNA news agency. "They will suffer more." Ahmadinejad did not elaborate. Some diplomats saw the comments as a veiled threat to use oil as a weapon, though Iran's oil minister ruled out any decrease in production. Iran also has leverage with extremist groups in the Middle East that could harm U.S. interests."

Arab ally senses Bush no longer has control in Washington - "Mr Bush had warned repeatedly that blocking the deal would send a dangerously discriminatory message to the world. He threatened repeatedly to veto any congressional legislation. But with his public approval ratings at record lows and his Republican party abandoning him, one of the US’s closest allies in the Arab world concluded that he was no longer in control in Washington."

Get a nuke - it pays! - "During his ongoing trip to the sub-continent, Clinton's successor George W. Bush is not even trying to persuade India and Pakistan to give up their nuclear weapons. He is making sure that they are more or less on the same side as the United States, and that they are not tempted to use nuclear weapons. One key for the temptation to have nuclear weapons is that once they have been acquired, they are difficult to take away. In order to force a country to give up nuclear weapons, one must be willing to wage nuclear war. The threshold for this is tremendously high. ... The benefit is based on the simple fact that no more awful weapon has been invented with which people can threaten each other. This is why a country with nuclear weapons expects to be treated differently from those that do not have them."

The abortion row in the US is not about babies. It's about power-mad grown-ups who despise each other - "Lofty rhetoric. But I have studied the eyes of the fanatics who regularly picket abortion clinics in the US and I do not see love of tiny unborn babies. I see hatred. What is really going on here is the same culture war that has been raging in America since I was a kid - the same stand-off between the strait-laced, self-righteous toe-the-line types who wear hats to church, and the grubby, licentious long-hairs brandishing peace signs with whom I grew up. Both factions are still shouting at each other across the cultural divide, and these poor foetuses are just weapons flung like ripe tomatoes. The abortion issue in the US is not about babies. It's about control, about power, about who can tell whom what to do, about who despises whom and their disgusting lifestyle. In short, it's about grown-ups."

From The People Who Brought You Ketchup as a Vegetable - "Right now, the government is a on a spending spree. It just can't stop spending money it doesn't have. ... Another problem the government has turned a blind eye to is employment. ... Now we're supposed to believe that the government is creating new jobs. That is what was supposed to happen with the passage of NAFTA and CAFTA. The reality is, they just haven't happened. Recently when WalMart opened a store in Illinois, 25,000 people stood in line for 300 available jobs. WalMart would like to think because it's such a great place to work, but a job that offers no benefits is not a great job. 25, 000 people stood in lines for hours because they want to work!"

The Footballer Who Became A War Hero Who Became A Scandal - "Over the past two years investigations by the San Francisco Chronicle and Washington Post, with help from Tillman's family, have since pieced together the truth about his death. It is a complicated narrative but it can be pared down to a simple fact: he wasn't killed by Taliban fighters but by members of his own platoon who, in the confusion of nightfall, believed he was attacking their positions. ... Tillman's family was only told about the true cause of his death five weeks after his memorial service had been broadcast on national television. "People in positions of authority went out of their way to script this," said the dead man's father, Patrick Tillman. "They covered it up. I think they thought they could control it and they realized their recruiting efforts were going to hell in a hand basket if the truth got out. They blew up their poster boy.""

The Arab Role in the Discovery of America - "When European scholars In the Middle Ages were still arguing about the shape of the earth, the earth's roundness had long been a settled fact for Muslim Scholars, who were in possession of various proofs and arguments. And when Europeans began their studies in geography, Muslim Arabs already had well-developed theories on the topic. When Europeans began developing in philosophy and the science of astronomy, their way of thinking was based upon the knowledge and theories of the Arabs and Muslims. Muslim-Arab scholars had left behind a great scientific legacy, for al-Qalqashandi's book Subh al-A'sha, al-Idrisi's book Nuzhat al-Mushtak and Ibn Fadl Allah al-Umari's book Masalik al-Absar were all lamps that lit the way for Europeans to reach America."

US men fight child support laws - "Men's rights activists in the US are to argue in court that fathers do not have an obligation to pay money towards raising a child they did not want. ... Activists say men should have the same rights as women in dealing with the consequences of unintended pregnancy."

New Hampshire named most livable state - "Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quitno said New Hampshire had "a stellar record" in the categories of economic, educational, health-oriented, public safety and environmental statistics. "Citizens of New Hampshire enjoy low unemployment, low crime rates, high levels of household income and high levels of education," he said."