News -- July 31, 2006

Israeli Strikes Resume After Brief Lull - "Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes in southern Lebanon on Monday, hours after agreeing to temporarily halt raids while investigating a bombing that killed nearly 60 Lebanese civilians, mostly women and children seeking shelter."

Olmert: We need 10 more days of military operations - "Israeli PM tells US Secretary of State Rice country needs 10 days to two weeks to finish Lebanon offensive. Defense Minister Peretz warns of 'final strike' by Hizbullah in retaliation for Qana attack."

Days of darkness - "Since we've grown accustomed to thinking collective punishment a legitimate weapon, it is no wonder no debate has sparked here over the cruel punishment of Lebanon for Hezbollah's actions. If it was okay in Nablus, why not Beirut? The only criticism being heard about this war is over tactics. ... Lebanon, which has never fought Israel and has 40 daily newspapers, 42 colleges and universities and hundreds of different banks, is being destroyed by our planes and cannon and nobody is taking into account the amount of hatred we are sowing."

How can 'terrorism' be condemned while war crimes go without rebuke? - "Washington's partners in this hypocritical war on terror are given free rein to wreak their own brutal, illegal violence."

New maximum-security jail to open at Guantanamo Bay - "The controversy over the US-run detention centre at Guantanamo Bay is to erupt anew with confirmation by the Pentagon that a new, permanent prison will open in the Cuban enclave in the next few weeks."

Agency hid rising costs of Iraq projects - "The U.S. State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects in Iraq and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found."

'Definitive answer' on depleted uranium sought for troops - "After years of veterans pleading for help with illnesses occurring after service in the Gulf wars, the U.S. House and Senate are calling for an immediate study of health effects of exposure to a radioactive metal used in U.S. weapons and armor."

Congresswoman Woolsey Calls for Repeal of President’s Iraq War Powers - "One of the most outspoken critics of the war in Iraq, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma) today introduced H.R. 5875, legislation that would repeal the President’s War Powers for the Iraq War. While the Congress authorized President Bush to wage war against Iraq in 2002, the original authorization did not anticipate an open-ended U.S. military campaign against Iraq, or the occupation that currently exists."

Key prewar intelligence report section may not be released until after November elections - ""The section most Democrats have sought, however, is not yet in draft form and might not emerge until after the November election, staffers said," reports Dafna Linzer."

U.N. issues nuke deadline for Iran - "The U.N. Security Council passed a weakened resolution Monday giving Iran until Aug. 31 to suspend uranium enrichment or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions."

Seattle Shooting suspect was baptized - "He told friends he felt alienated from his own family, in part because his career had disappointed his father and also because he had disavowed Islam last year, converting to Christianity. ... Yet in the midst of his shooting spree in Seattle Friday, he declared himself an angry Muslim."

Child soldiers wake up from a nightmare - "When he was 6, Sam was kidnapped. He spent the next six years as a captive of a rebel army, where he was forced to kill other children, sometimes by biting the skin off a screaming victim who would slowly bleed to death. For nearly two decades, northern Uganda has faced the terror of an army of child predators. The children live in a wilderness of towering elephant grass and attack at night. They have been known to attack villages -- killing all but the children between 6 and 15, whom they take away."

U.S. set to issue passports with RFID chips - "The U.S. Department of State is on track to start issuing passports with radio frequency identification (RFID) chips next week, despite warnings from some security experts that such systems could be accessed or tracked by hackers. The new program will start in the Denver passport office and be rolled out across the country over the next several years. All American passports are expected to include RFID chips containing personal information by 2017."

Building Artificial Viruses - "In the past five years, new technology has made it easier to genetically modify microbes and even create new ones from scratch. Some worry that the developments could lead to novel and more dangerous kinds of bioterror threats."

Mysterious Skin Disease Causes Itching, Loose Fibers - "Imagine your skin burning and itching, and feeling like bugs are crawling under or on top of it. Imagine having open sores on your face and body. Then imagine having stringlike fibers literally coming out of your skin. That's exactly what patients with a mysterious illness called Morgellons disease say happens to them."

Itching for Answers to a Mystery Condition - "Fed up with doctors calling them delusional, a group suffering from nightmarish symptoms has pressured the CDC to look into their disease."

HIV hides in gut to escape attack - "Even when blood tests suggested antiretroviral treatment was working, the virus continued to replicate in the gut, suppressing immune function."

FDA Considers Morning-After Pill Sales - "The government is considering allowing over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill, but only to women 18 and older. The surprise move Monday revives efforts to widen access to the emergency contraceptive almost a year after it was thought doomed."

Silence of the Lam - "Accused of sexually abusing young boys, a Brooklyn rabbi lit for Israel 22 years ago. Now one alleged victim wants him brought back for trial."

Churches Putting Town Out of Business - "They are not the words one expects to hear from a politician or a Southerner, and Leonard Scarcella is both: "Our city has an excessive number of churches."Scarcella is mayor of this Houston-area community, which has 51 churches and other religious institutions packed into its 7 square miles. With some 300 undeveloped, potentially revenue-producing acres left in Stafford, officials are scrambling to find a legal way to keep more tax-exempt churches from building here."

More than 60 percent of U.S. in drought - "More than 60 percent of the United States now has abnormally dry or drought conditions, stretching from Georgia to Arizona and across the north through the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin, said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist for the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln."

Killer heat waves here to stay, global warming researchers say - "And the computer models show that soon, we'll get many more — and hotter — heat waves that will leave the old Dust Bowl records of the 1930s in the dust, said Ken Kunkel, director of the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Illinois State Water Survey."

French ban nudity - ""People must behave according to good standards to maintain tranquillity, security and public order," the decree said, according to Saturday's edition of Le Parisien. "Notably indecent attire (nude sunbathing, g-strings and toplessness etc) is forbidden.""

CNN snatching page out of YouTube's book - "On Monday, CNN is expected to announce the launch of CNN Exchange, a page on the company's Web site that will feature user-submitted video, audio and articles."

California radio station changes format from God to sex - "KFYE-FM hasn't budged from the Fresno-area dial, but it's about as far as you can get from the Christian music, sermons and Bible stories it was broadcasting until about a week ago. Now it calls itself "Porn Radio" — "all sex radio, all the time," with a suggestion that people under 21 not listen."

MySpace blurs line between friends and flacks - "The volume of advertising in MySpace and other social networks is expected to balloon in the next few years, and much of it could blur the lines between socializing, entertainment and marketing."

The egg that will tell you when it's perfectly boiled - "Revolutionary "self-timing" eggs designed to overcome the perennial problem of how to avoid runny whites and overcooked yolks will appear on supermarket shelves in the coming months."

American astronomers claim that black holes may not exist - "They swallow everything that comes their way and exercise the world's finest minds, but the portrayal of black holes as awe-inspiring celestial menaces may be woefully inaccurate, a team of scientists claim. Indeed, they might not exist at all. According to the researchers, the traditional astronomers' view of a universe liberally sprinkled with invisible, all-consuming black holes should be replaced with an alternative that sees strange, magnetic balls of plasma floating in their place."


No bumper sticker today.


Quote of the Day
"You just take your pill and everything will be alright."
~ Everclear