O'Reilly wished that hurricane had flooded U.N. building, added that he 'wouldn't have rescued them'On his September 14 radio show, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly publicly wished that Hurricane Katrina had flooded the United Nations building in New York. O'Reilly then added: "And I wouldn't have rescued them."
From the September 14 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:
O'REILLY: Bush to address the U.N., says we must be steadfast in battling terrorism. I'm sure all the U.N. people fell asleep. They don't really care about anything over ... (more)
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Poll Shows Americans Want Troops Brought Home; Top Dems Ignore the Publicby David Sirota
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll tells us what we already know: a strong majority of Americans favor bringing troops home from Iraq. Specifically, 55% support a withdrawal, while just 36% back Bush's position that current troop levels should be maintained.
This latest poll is consistent with other polls that show Americans oppose the war, want an exit strategy, believe the conflict is damaging U.S. national security, and think the war is hurting t... (more)
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Bush Katrina Ratings Fall After SpeechThirty-five percent (35%) of Americans now say that President Bush has done a good or excellent job responding to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. That's down from 39% before his speech from New Orleans.
The latest Rasmussen Reports survey shows that 41% give the President poor marks for handling the crisis, that's up 37% before the speech.
Fifty percent (50%) of Americans favor the main proposal from that speech--a federal commitment of $200 billion to help reb... (more)
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Camera spies in million cars to trap toll cheatsCARS will spy on each other to catch drivers trying to evade road tolls under a scheme being proposed to enforce nationwide congestion charging. More than a million vehicles would be fitted with cameras to photograph the numberplates of those who failed to pay.
The Government is planning a “pay-as-you-drive” system under which fuel duty and road tax could be replaced by tolls for each mile travelled.
The rates would vary according to the level of congest... (more)
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New book promotes sex with childrenPh.D. 'expert' claims pederasty good for 'nurturing,' 'mentoring' young boys
A new book published by Haworth Press features multiple Ph.D. "experts" claiming that sex with children "can benefit" boys and even serve a "mentoring function."
"Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West" features "scholarly" treatises by a raft of mostly-PhD academics, all praising earlier civilizations – particularly Greece and Rom... (more)
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Police Fortify Numbers for War ProtestsBy Del Quentin Wilber
D.C. police have canceled days off and are planning to deploy several hundred officers during an antiwar demonstration next weekend that will include a march near the White House, but officials said they expect no trouble.
Saturday's rally, part of a weekend of protests and counter-protests, will be the first demonstration allowed to surround the White House in more than a decade. It is the first major rally to occur since a D.C. law that requi... (more)
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FBI joins drills on nuke terrorMilitary, U.S. law enforcement step up weapons-of-mass-destruction exercises
WASHINGTON – On the heels of numerous reports suggesting al-Qaida has already infiltrated the U.S. with nuclear weapons and operatives, the FBI has joined the Pentagon in simulation exercises dealing with the threat of nuclear terror.
The FBI conducted a drill in North Carolina last month in which the Joint Terrorism Task Force, based in Fayetteville and Charlotte, dealt with a scenar... (more)
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Do blacks believe levee was blown?Washington Post columnist 'stunned' by 'reasonable' people suggesting plot
Was the levee break that precipitated the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina the result of some government conspiracy against blacks?
A Washington Post columnist says he's amazed by the large number who believe such a notion.
"I was stunned in New Orleans at how many black New Orleanians would tell me with real conviction that somehow the levee breaks had been engi... (more)
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Threatened with eviction at gunpoint, the Big Easy holdouts are now hailed as heroesJust days since they were being urged, sometimes at gunpoint, to leave their homes, the hardy band of residents who sat tight in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina are now being encouraged to stay put and help to restart the city.
In a remarkable U-turn, the authorities - who had previously reviled, goaded and even threatened force against the few hundred remaining "holdouts" - are hailing them as examples of the indomitable spirit needed to rebuild the "Big Easy".
... (more)
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Boat Owners Subjected to 'Nazi Style' Armed Searches by Homeland SecurityBy VIRGINIA HENNESSEY
Two of the Moss Landing Harbor residents who were the subjects of random boat searches during Labor Day Weekend say their experiences were closer to armed invasions than the friendly "safety inspections" characterized by U.S. Coast Guard officials.
Both residents said search crews entered the harbor in inflatable boats with machine guns mounted on their bows. Then, carrying M-16 rifles, they approached residents and boarded and searched their b... (more)
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Former Officer Behind 1999 Apartment Bombings Probe in Custody AgainFormer FSB officer, Mikhail Trepashkin, was taken in custody Sunday after a Russian court overturned his early release. Trepashkin had won support of human rights activist for his efforts to investigate alleged government complicity in the country’s 1999 apartment bombings that claimed over 200 lives.
Former FSB officer, Mikhail Trepashkin, was taken in custody Sunday after a Russian court overturned his early release, his wife informed the Interfax news agency.
... (more)
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Alarm as prescriptions of Ritalin to children reach a record highThe number of children being prescribed drugs for so-called behavioural disorders has soared to a record high, causing alarm that children are being unnecessarily "drugged into submission".
Prescriptions of Methylphenidate - most commonly sold as Ritalin - rose to 359,100 last year, a rise of 344,400 since 1995. Figures from the Prescriptions Pricing Authority reveal that there has been a 180-fold increase in prescriptions since 1991 when only 2,000 were issued in England.
... (more)
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Will Big Brother ride in your car?This week’s edition of The Economist (subscription required) describes a number of technology initiatives around the world that aim to have your car tell your government what you’re doing.
In the United Arab Emirates, IBM has a $125 million government contract to design and develop a real-time telematics service for the UAE’s accident-plagued motorists that, among other things, uses GPS to monitor a car’s speed and compare it to the posted speed limit, send... (more)
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Video camera system gives State Patrol eyes in the sky They're helpful, mute little eyes in the sky, and soon there will be more of them.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation continues to install video cameras throughout Duluth and parts of the North Shore. New high-resolution cameras also have sprung up along the Interstate 35 corridor to the Twin Cities and soon will appear on the Blatnik and Bong bridges.
A State Patrol dispatcher monitors the cameras from MnDOT's Duluth district headquarters off Mesaba Avenue... (more)
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UWGB students answer chancellor’s stamp act: T-shirt protest staged after art is pulled from school exhibitA decision to pull a piece of art from a University of Wisconsin-Green Bay exhibit has spurred activism on the part of students and discussion about First Amendment issues across the campus and in the community.
The art in question is a sheet of mock postage stamps by artist Al Brandtner showing President Bush with a gun pointed at his head, captioned “Patriot Act.”
Some say it advocates assassination. Others say it’s free expression.
... (more)
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Increased Number of Hunger Strikers at GuantánamoWashington, September 17 (RHC)-- The number of hunger strikers at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo has increased, as 11 more detainees have now joined the protest action. The strike began over one month ago and currently involves 131 detainees, according to Major Jeff Weir, a spokesman of the prison camp.
Twenty-one protesters were hospitalized at the prison's clinic due to their deteriorated health and, according to the spokesman, 20 of them are being administered saline ... (more)
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Rove Off The Record On Katrina: The Only Mistake We Made Was Not Overriding The Local Government... Karl Rove, President Bush's top political advisor and deputy White House chief of staff, spoke at businessman Teddy Forstmann's annual off the record gathering in Aspen, Colorado this weekend. Here is what Rove had to say that the press wasn't allowed to report on.
On Katrina: The only mistake we made with Katrina was not overriding the local government...
On The Anti-War Movement: Cindy Sheehan is a clown. There is no real anti-war movement. No serious politician,... (more)
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U.S. Seeks Donations... For IraqWASHINGTON - (KRT) - From the Indian Ocean tsunami to the church around the corner, Americans have shown time and again they are willing to open their pocketbooks for charity, for a total of about $250 billion last year alone.
But now, amid pleas for aid after Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration has launched an unusual effort to raise charitable contributions for another cause: the government's attempt to rebuild Iraq.
Although more than $30 billion in taxpay... (more)
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The Coming Category 5 Financial HurricaneBefore the US House of Representatives, September 15, 2005
The tragic scenes of abject poverty in New Orleans revealed on national TV by Katrina’s destruction were real eye-openers for many. These scenes prompted two emotional reactions. One side claims Katrina proved there was not enough government welfare, and its distribution was based on race. The other side claims we need to pump billions of new dollars into the very federal agency that failed (FEMA), while givin... (more)
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Mayor Ray Nagin: Troops are "decontaminating themselves as they would if they were operating in a toxic environment"BATON ROUGE, La. -- A weakened levee system and a lack of drinkable tap water will make it "extremely problematic" to follow the New Orleans mayor's timeline for allowing residents to return to the evacuated city, the head of the federal disaster relief effort said Saturday.
Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen said federal officials have worked with Mayor Ray Nagin and support his vision for repopulating the city, but he called Nagin's idea to return up to 180,000 people to New Orlea... (more)
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NOLA Mayor Says Forget The Feds & Come On BackFeds try to stop Mayor Ray Nagin from bringing people back to New Orleans.
Federal and local authorities on Sunday clashed over whether New Orleans was ready for residents to return, putting in doubt efforts to quickly resettle the devastated city.
Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, head of the federal recovery efforts in New Orleans, said the city lacked most of the basic services -- such as drinkable wa... (more)
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Wading into an E. coli stewMy memory is muddy, what's this river I'm in
New Orleans is sinking and I don't want to swim.
— "New Orleans is Sinking," The Tragically Hip
They swam, they dogpaddled, they floated, they waded.
Up to the knees, the waist, the chest and above the head.
In abyssal New Orleans, there was no escape from water. It deluged homes, lapped at rooftops, turned streets into channels, fire escapes into cataracts and ent... (more)
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Blair gave Murdoch 'veto' over EU, says PM's ex-aide
Tony Blair promised Rupert Murdoch that he would be consulted on any change to Britain's policy towards Europe, according to a diary kept by a former Downing Street press officer.
But the original entry in The Spin Doctor's Diary was toned down on the orders of the Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus McDonald. The original entry, published in today's Mail on Sunday, described the atmosphere in No 10 as "very edgy" after pro-euro comments by the then Secretary of State for Tr... (more)
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Blair attacks BBC for 'anti-US bias'Tony Blair has denounced the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina as 'full of hatred of America' and 'gloating' at the country's plight, it was reported yesterday.
Blair allegedly made the remarks privately to Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, which owns the rival Sky News.
The comments threatened a new rift between the government and the BBC following the Andrew Gilligan affair over events leading to the Iraq war and recent criticisms of mini... (more)
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Child STD cases prompt sex abuse investigationsUp to 70 cases of possible abuse are being investigated by police in Western Australia's north after reports of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) among children.
Six of the cases involve children aged under five.
Under a new system, health authorities are obliged to report cases of STDs among children to police and social workers.
Detective Senior Sergeant Martin Voyez says as a result, there have been three convictions of child abuse in the north-w... (more)
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Indonesia reports bird flu deathAn Indonesian woman who died last week had the H5N1 bird flu virus and was the fourth Indonesian to die of the disease, the health ministry has said.
It was not clear how the 37-year-old woman, who lived in south Jakarta, caught the virus, the ministry said.
More than 60 people have died in four Asian countries since late 2003, and millions of birds have been culled to try to stop the virus spreading.
Scientists fear it could combine with human flu to... (more)
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