British troops attack Iraqi police station in BasraBAGHDAD - Hundreds of British soldiers assaulted a police station in the southern city of Basra on Monday, killing seven gunmen, rescuing 127 prisoners and ultimately reducing the facility to rubble.
When British forces eventually gained control of the facility, they found the prisoners being held in conditions that a spokesman, Major Charlie Burbridge, described as "appalling." He said that more than 100 men were crowded into a single 9-meter by 12-meter cell, or 30 feet by 40 fe... (more)
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Parasite 'turns women into sex kittens'A COMMON parasite can increase a women's attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid, an Australian researcher says.
About 40 per cent of the world's population is infected with Toxoplasma gondii, including about eight million Australians.
Human infection generally occurs when people eat raw or undercooked meat that has cysts containing the parasite, or accidentally ingest some of the parasite's eggs excreted by an infected cat.
T... (more)
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"Media Matters"Time magazine's selection of "You" as its "Person of the Year" has -- justifiably -- drawn criticism.
Writing for CJR Daily, for example, Christian Vachon argued, "By giving the award to 'You,' it effectively gave the award to no one. In doing so, it has insulted its readers ... (more)
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Wall St. Bonuses: So Much Money, Too Few Ferraris It’s a brisk Wednesday morning in the windy caverns of Wall Street and Sarah Clark’s toes are cold.
Dressed in a purple flight attendant outfit, Ms. Clark, a 26-year-old model, is trying to entice recent bonus recipients at Goldman Sachs into using a charter plane service, handing out $1,000 discount coupons to people in front of the investment bank’s Broad Street headquarters.
“Where am I going?” asks one man, heading toward the Goldm... (more)
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More of the Same in 2007Yesterday, we celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. In Iraq, however, war rages on with no end in sight.
The midterm congressional elections are over, and the Iraq Study Group report is complete. Many Americans are unhappy about the war and want a change in policy. But what we are going to get from both parties in Washington is more of the same – much more – when it comes to Iraq.
President Bush not only wants to stay the course, he ... (more)
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Self-Reliance"Ne te quaesiveris extra."
"Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."
Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune
Cast the bantling on the rocks,
Suckle him with the she-wolf's teat;
Wintered with... (more)
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Did American fire on Iraqis for sport?WASHINGTON - Shane Schmidt was a U.S. Marine for seven years, the leader of a sniper unit. Chuck Shepard spent seven years in the U.S. Army. After leaving the military, each found his way into the legions of heavily armed private security contractors working in Iraq.
The two were working together on July 8, 2006, when they claim they witnessed what they believe was a crime. They say another American fired, unprovoked, into two Iraqi civilian vehicles. They say it started during a ... (more)
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Bar investigating lawyer with possible link to CIAThe Oregon State Bar plans to investigate a Portland attorney over his work for a shadowy company linked to allegations of CIA-sponsored torture.
Scott Caplan represents Bayard Foreign Marketing, an Oregon company that took ownership of a Gulfstream V jet in 2004. Human rights activists say the CIA used the jet to ferry terrorism suspects to countries that practice torture.
Though Bayard listed a Portland address in its state business registration, searches turned u... (more)
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O'Reilly denies allegations of White House/FOX symbiosis in one segment, thanks CIA-linked private airline for lift to Iraq in anotherLast night 12/18/06 on the Factor host Bill O'Reilly did a segment attacking retired newsman Dan Rather for comments about the White House and FOX News having a "different" relationship than other news networks. O'Reilly said he is rapidly losing respect for Rather and complained that Rather is "too busy" to come on the Factor but managed to fit in an interview on CNN, where he reiterated his opinion that the two are operating in synch. O'Reilly was adamant that there is no such relationship,... (more)
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War Profits Trump the Rule of LawI. The Wings of the Dove
Slush funds, oil sheiks, prostitutes, Swiss banks, kickbacks, blackmail, bagmen, arms deals, war plans, climbdowns, big lies and Dick Cheney - it's a scandal that has it all, corruption and cowardice at the highest levels, a festering canker at the very heart of world politics, where the War on Terror meets the slaughter in Iraq. Yet chances are you've never heard about it - even though it happened just a few days ago. The fog of war profiteerin... (more)
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Slouching Toward ChimerasWhat happens when you cross a human and a mouse? Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke but, in fact, it's a serious high tech experiment recently carried out by a research team headed by a distinguished molecular biologist, Irving Weissman, at Stanford University's Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine. Scientists injected human brain cells into mouse fetuses, creating a strain of mice that were approximately 1 percent human. Dr. Weissman is actively considering a follow-up experi... (more)
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Ex-agent reveals KGB mind control techniques - paperMOSCOW, December 22 (RIA Novosti) - A former KGB officer has divulged secrets of special mind control techniques that security services in developed nations used during and after the Cold War, a Russian government daily said Friday.
General Boris Ratnikov, who served in the KGB department for Moscow and the Moscow Region, told Rossiiskaya Gazeta that people in power had resorted to various methods of manipulating individuals' thoughts since ancient times, and that it was hardly s... (more)
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Israel 'poisoning the Palestinians'ALGIERS: Israel was yesterday accused of using illegal chemical weapons in the occupied territories.
"Analyses carried out in laboratories outside Palestine have shown that Israel has had recourse to banned chemical weapons and depleted uranium" in the territories, said environment minister Yussef Abu Sofia in Algiers, on the sidelines of a conference of Arab environment ministers.
He also accused Israel of having "transported major quantities of dangerous chemical ... (more)
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Navy vet says he was tortured by U.S. forcesDecember 18, 2006 - A Navy veteran from Chicago says he was detained and tortured by U.S. forces in Baghdad without being charged. Twenty-nine-year-old Donald Vance was a private security employee in Baghdad at the time of his arrest. He has filed a federal lawsuit against former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Donald Vance is a lifelong Chicagoan. After graduating from Taft High School he joined the Navy. He was discharged in the 90's. Two years ago, Vance went to work fo... (more)
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Target IranFormer UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter and Investigative Journalist Seymour Hersh on White House Plans for Regime Change
The aircraft carrier Eisenhower and its strike group entered the Persian Gulf on Dec. 11. Another aircraft carrier, the Stennis, is expected to depart for the Gulf within the next month. The military said it is also taking steps to prevent Iran from blocking oil shipments from the Gulf. ... (more)
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Flashback: Iraqi Girl tells of US Attack in HadithaTen-year-old Iman Walid witnessed the killing of seven members of her family in an attack by American marines last November. The interview with Iman was filmed exclusively for ITV News by Ali Hamdani, our Iraqi video diarist.
... (more)
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Juicing the BrainPhysicians have long tinkered with ways to "improve" the human brain, but as our understanding of that organ's inner workings quickly grows, artificial enhancement is becoming more feasible. Military research is at the forefront of this work, much of it focused on drugs. The goal is to produce a better soldier, but the emerging techniques could just as easily be applied to any individual.
The military wants to juice up personnel's brains because the human being is the weakest inst... (more)
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City under terror watchUNMANNED closed-circuit television camera spy planes and trucks with hidden cameras are among options canvassed in a top secret report into security coverage in Adelaide.
The report, considered by a top-level State Government and Adelaide City Council committee, is part of Premier Mike Rann's post-London bombing plan to improve CCTV coverage in the city centre. One Capital City Committee member, who wished to remain anonymous, said the report included options... (more)
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Global economy faces a dangerous yearRising inflation and falling home prices are likely to push the US economy into recession by the second half of 2007. Gathering economic weakness, combined with negative real yields on US Treasury securities and growing political pressure to weaken the dollar will lead to significant dollar depreciation against most currencies.
Economic growth in Asia, Europe and Latin America will also weaken in 2007. Slowing global economic growth will be very bad news for equity markets around ... (more)
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9/11's Trainer in Terrorism Was an FBI InformantIf I had an hour, I would talk to you about how the 9/11 Report failed to reconcile Dick Cheney's conflicting accounts, which cannot all be true, of what he did on the morning of 9/11 in the bunker beneath the White House. But that story takes two whole chapters of my forthcoming book, The Road to 9/11. So instead I will expand on what I spoke about a month ago in Berkeley, concerning Ali Mohamed, Washington's double agent inside al-Qaeda, and also a chief 9/11 pl... (more)
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School Bans HuggingA junior high school in Iowa City has banned hugging on campus, according to a Local 6 News report.
School officials at Southeast Junior High School banned the popular act of affection because girls would hug in groups and stop the flow of traffic during passing periods.
Principal Deb Wretman said they have now instituted a strict hands-off or handshake policy at the Iowa City school. She said it's safe and efficient.
"The reason that we have the hand... (more)
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