Fire Hydrant of Freedom

I recall watching a cable show on chimps (animal planet, nat geo, or discovery - I don't rmember which one) and they show how chimps from one clan I think literally butchered a baby chimp from another.  It was rather brutul and not the charming portrait we usually see of Tarzan and Cheetah.  I think it was a territorial issue like noted below:

****Health & ScienceAdd Time News
Why the Stamford Chimp Attacked
By Bryan Walsh
Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009
In this Oct. 20, 2003 photo, Travis, then a 10-year-old chimpanzee, sits in the corner of his playroom at the home of Sandy and
The 200-lb. chimp named Travis, whose owner, Sandra Herold, 70, raised him as part of her own family, had no history of violence — aside from one incident in 2003, when he escaped and stopped traffic in Stamford for hours. But when Charla Nash, 55, a friend of Herold's, visited on Monday afternoon, Travis suddenly lashed out at her. The 14-year-old chimpanzee latched onto Nash's face and tore it apart. (See pictures of animals facing extinction.)

The victim's injuries were reportedly gruesome; the head paramedic who treated Nash on the scene told the New York Times that he had "never seen anything this dramatic on a living patient." Nash remains in extremely critical condition. The chimp was shot dead by a police officer, who was also attacked.

But even as investigators try to figure out exactly what triggered Travis's attack (he had been suffering from Lyme disease, which in rare cases is linked to psychotic behavior), the reality is that a chimpanzee living among people is simply a ticking time bomb. No matter how many years it has lived peacefully as a pet, a chimpanzee is not a domesticated animal and can snap without warning. "They are wild animals, and all wild animals are potentially dangerous," says Colleen McCann, a primatologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and New York's Bronx Zoo. "They are not pets. This is tragic, but it's not surprising." (See pictures of animals in space.)

It might be hard to imagine that a chimpanzee — familiar from zoos, animal shows and slapstick comedies like Cannonball Run — could be capable of the kind of savage violence inflicted on Nash. Travis himself was reportedly a beloved figure around Stamford; he was recognizable from television commercials, could bathe and dress himself and use a computer — qualities that made him seem dangerously close to human.

But adult chimpanzees might be better described as superhuman — a 200-lb. chimpanzee is five to seven times stronger than a person of the same size, especially in the upper body. "They are incredibly powerful, and people underestimate that," says McCann. "An adult male chimpanzee is a formidable animal. I would not want to be standing next to one." (See pictures of animals with prosthetic limbs.)

Nor are wild chimpanzees the docile, childlike creatures portrayed on TV. Highly territorial, chimpanzees will attack and kill other chimps. Though mostly vegetarian, they will also hunt and kill other animals for food; young male chimpanzees in Africa have been known to fashion crude weapons and use them to hunt bushbabies for meat. Attacks on human beings are rare, but they do happen — and the results are often catastrophic. The former NASCAR driver St. James Davis, who raised a chimpanzee as a pet, was attacked by escaped chimps at an animal sanctuary in 2005; he was left with injuries and disfigurement so severe that doctors kept him in a medically induced coma for three months. (See pictures of the 50th running of the Daytona 500.)

Pet chimpanzees are also reservoirs of disease and can pass along infections like yellow fever, monkey pox and the Marburg virus to their human keepers.

Despite the potential threat chimpanzees pose, many U.S. states, including Connecticut, legally allow people to raise them as pets. Primatologists like McCann argue that chimpanzees should never be kept privately, and the WCS supports the Captive Primate Safety Act, a bill pending in Congress that would ban the private selling of primates as pets. The bill has stalled since it was introduced in 2005, but the Stamford assault may well renew its debate. "This is a tragedy for the families involved, for the animal and for the community — but it's not a unique story," says McCann. "When humans keep wild animals as pets, they pose a danger, and more times than not it will end in tragedy."

In Travis's case, his owner was forced to call 911, then attack and repeatedly stab him — a cherished pet she had reared for years — with a butcher knife in a desperate attempt to save her friend.****

I agree with some of the following though not all.  I think he is right on target at the Republican party's banckrupcy in ideas and inability to adapt.  Falling to the position that the reason for the failure of the party is due to its diverting from its core principles is hopefully not going to win out the minds of what is left of the  leadership and dircection of the party and dooming it to further defeat.  If Shawn Hannity and Rush are going to lead this party than they party follows them the way of the pied piper.
If anyone questions the barren thoughtfulness of the party just witness that some in the party think that putting Palin at the forefront and labelling her a leader of the party is a good idea.  Anyone who now thinks this woman can attract anyone new to the right is dreaming.  She is turning into a total mindless cad inmo.  I am surely dissappointed and becoming quite embarassed by her.
I was wrong to think she has her own wisdom or ability to engage in real insightful conversation.

***Ship of fools
Nov 13th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Political parties die from the head down

Illustration by KAL
JOHN STUART MILL once dismissed the British Conservative Party as the stupid party. Today the Conservative Party is run by Oxford-educated high-fliers who have been busy reinventing conservatism for a new era. As Lexington sees it, the title of the “stupid party” now belongs to the Tories’ transatlantic cousins, the Republicans.

There are any number of reasons for the Republican Party’s defeat on November 4th. But high on the list is the fact that the party lost the battle for brains. Barack Obama won college graduates by two points, a group that George Bush won by six points four years ago. He won voters with postgraduate degrees by 18 points. And he won voters with a household income of more than $200,000—many of whom will get thumped by his tax increases—by six points. John McCain did best among uneducated voters in Appalachia and the South.

 The Republicans lost the battle of ideas even more comprehensively than they lost the battle for educated votes, marching into the election armed with nothing more than slogans. Energy? Just drill, baby, drill. Global warming? Crack a joke about Ozone Al. Immigration? Send the bums home. Torture and Guantánamo? Wear a T-shirt saying you would rather be water-boarding. Ha ha. During the primary debates, three out of ten Republican candidates admitted that they did not believe in evolution.

The Republican Party’s divorce from the intelligentsia has been a while in the making. The born-again Mr Bush preferred listening to his “heart” rather than his “head”. He also filled the government with incompetent toadies like Michael “heck-of-a-job” Brown, who bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina. Mr McCain, once the chattering classes’ favourite Republican, refused to grapple with the intricacies of the financial meltdown, preferring instead to look for cartoonish villains. And in a desperate attempt to serve boob bait to Bubba, he appointed Sarah Palin to his ticket, a woman who took five years to get a degree in journalism, and who was apparently unaware of some of the most rudimentary facts about international politics.

Republicanism’s anti-intellectual turn is devastating for its future. The party’s electoral success from 1980 onwards was driven by its ability to link brains with brawn. The conservative intelligentsia not only helped to craft a message that resonated with working-class Democrats, a message that emphasised entrepreneurialism, law and order, and American pride. It also provided the party with a sweeping policy agenda. The party’s loss of brains leaves it rudderless, without a compelling agenda.

This is happening at a time when the American population is becoming more educated. More than a quarter of Americans now have university degrees. Twenty per cent of households earn more than $100,000 a year, up from 16% in 1996. Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster, notes that 69% call themselves “professionals”. McKinsey, a management consultancy, argues that the number of jobs requiring “tacit” intellectual skills has increased three times as fast as employment in general. The Republican Party’s current “redneck strategy” will leave it appealing to a shrinking and backward-looking portion of the electorate.

Why is this happening? One reason is that conservative brawn has lost patience with brains of all kinds, conservative or liberal. Many conservatives—particularly lower-income ones—are consumed with elemental fury about everything from immigration to liberal do-gooders. They take their opinions from talk-radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and the deeply unsubtle Sean Hannity. And they regard Mrs Palin’s apparent ignorance not as a problem but as a badge of honour.

Another reason is the degeneracy of the conservative intelligentsia itself, a modern-day version of the 1970s liberals it arose to do battle with: trapped in an ideological cocoon, defined by its outer fringes, ruled by dynasties and incapable of adjusting to a changed world. The movement has little to say about today’s pressing problems, such as global warming and the debacle in Iraq, and expends too much of its energy on xenophobia, homophobia and opposing stem-cell research.

Conservative intellectuals are also engaged in their own version of what Julian Benda dubbed la trahison des clercs, the treason of the learned. They have fallen into constructing cartoon images of “real Americans”, with their “volkish” wisdom and charming habit of dropping their “g”s. Mrs Palin was invented as a national political force by Beltway journalists from the Weekly Standard and the National Review who met her when they were on luxury cruises around Alaska, and then noisily championed her cause.

Time for reflection
How likely is it that the Republican Party will come to its senses? There are glimmers of hope. Business conservatives worry that the party has lost the business vote. Moderates complain that the Republicans are becoming the party of “white-trash pride”. Anonymous McCain aides complain that Mrs Palin was a campaign-destroying “whack job”. One of the most encouraging signs is the support for giving the chairmanship of the Republican Party to John Sununu, a sensible and clever man who has the added advantage of coming from the north-east (he lost his New Hampshire Senate seat on November 4th).

But the odds in favour of an imminent renaissance look long. Many conservatives continue to think they lost because they were not conservative or populist enough—Mr McCain, after all, was an amnesty-loving green who refused to make an issue out of Mr Obama’s associations with Jeremiah Wright. Richard Weaver, one of the founders of modern conservatism, once wrote a book entitled “Ideas have Consequences”; unfortunately, too many Republicans are still refusing to acknowledge that idiocy has consequences, too.***

Isn't this a bit odd? 

Would it not be major headlines if Exxon leased space from the State Department?  Is there going to be a 60 minutes segment at this?

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ap/20080605/tbs-google-expansion-f8250da.html

From Gertz,

Shut down GPS and the US military is stymied.

http://www.gertzfile.com/gertzfile/InsidetheRing.html

Article:

***
Return to
The Gertz File

March 28, 2008
Notes from the Pentagon


Denial and deception
China's military is using "denial" and "deception" to mislead the United States and other governments about its military strategy and buildup, according to Pentagon officials.

The topic is discussed in the latest Pentagon report on China's military power, which defines Chinese disinformation as "[luring] the other side into developing misperceptions ... and [establishing for oneself] a strategically advantageous position by producing various kinds of false phenomena in an organized and planned manner with the smallest cost in manpower and materials."

A Pentagon official, elaborating on the report, said "denial" by the Chinese is excessive secrecy "surrounding almost every part of the PLA," or People's Liberation Army, as the military is known.

Evidence of denial is difficult to pinpoint because, the official said, "we don't know what we don't know."

Deception often is discussed in Chinese military writings, including those based on ancient writings that discuss its use in helping weaker powers defeat stronger ones. The analogy is used by China to discuss how it would defeat the United States in a conflict.

Strategic deception is "producing or portraying something that is false as being true in an effort to confuse the adversary or set the conditions for surprise," the official said.

"Denial and secrecy is used to prevent outside observers from gaining real insights into investment priorities, capabilities and intentions which can serve to hide either weakness or strength," the official said.

China's tactical denial and deception include using electronic decoys, infrared decoys, false-target generators and angle reflectors during electronic warfare. They also include the use of traditional concealment, camouflage and deception by military forces.

Some senior U.S. intelligence officials dispute the Pentagon's assertion that China employs strategic and tactical denial and deception, arguing that Chinese communist-style disinformation is no different from what non-communist governments use. The issue is being debated internally.

GPS threat
U.S. military and intelligence officials say one reason China's anti-satellite missile test of January 2007 was so alarming is that it highlighted a major strategic vulnerability: the reliance of the U.S. military on Global Position System satellites.

If China used its ground-based mobile ASAT missiles to destroy GPS satellites, it would cripple the ability of the U.S. military to use some of its most important weapons, like satellite-guided precision missiles. Additionally, navigation of ground-, air- and sea-based forces would be almost completely halted.

"Shut down GPS and we're basically left with throwing rocks," said one U.S. military official.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Hamel, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center, told reporters earlier this month that GPS also is vulnerable to electronic jamming.

"The Global Positioning System is literally ubiquitous," Gen. Hamel said. "I would argue that precise positioning and timing is the fundamental enabler of the information age. Being able to synchronize everything around the globe from timing and positioning is absolutely critical. Yet the only way that really functions is for user receivers to be able to collect the signal. Well, it is a very, very weak signal and it's very, it's relatively easy for commercial kind of devices and uses to be able to get disrupted."

Gen. Hamel said the military is considering how to protect GPS users. "We both want to improve the signals from the satellite, but you also have to improve the user equipment to be less susceptible and vulnerable," he said.

"Literally Radio Shack parts, together with a modicum of electrical engineering education, you can actually generate jamming and disruptive wave forms to particular types of GPS signals and user equipment," Gen. Hamel said.

Gen. Hamel said his command is building equipment for military users "that has greater protection and anti-jam capability to be able to deal with some of those kinds of threats," noting that it is not only satellites that need protection but user equipment as well.

Correction
A February 29 item entitled "Fight Over China" erroneously reported that Lonnie Henley, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia, indirectly supported the unauthorized disclosure of intelligence to China by writing a letter to the sentencing judge in the criminal case of former DIA analyst Ron Montaperto. Mr. Henley sent a letter to the court attesting to Mr. Montaperto's character during the sentencing phase of the proceeding, a common procedure in criminal cases that does not suggest support for the underlying crime. Additionally, Mr. Montaperto pleaded guilty to a charge of mishandling classified documents -- not espionage.

# Bill Gertz covers national security affairs. He can be reached at 202-636-3274, or at InsidetheRing@washingtontimes.com.

I would imagine readers have seen this.  I was wondering if wikipedia had an entry on Dogbrother arts and found this:  enjoy and happy holidays to all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Brothers

I found this story about how Kerik took tens of thousands in bribes from a construction company with ties to organized crime in the form of renovations to his Bronx home personally.   Katherine and I have seen the same pattern in the neighborhood we moved into.  Four houses were sold (three within a few months of our moving in) to people who seemed to have numerous contractors and obvious union types fixing up their places like there was no tommorow.  New roofs, driveways, windows, doors, landscaping, siding, and more.  It was so obvious that this was at least one form of their payoffs.  Now their homes were all fixed up and with improved values.  In return, all these people had to do is to blend into the community all the while they are staking us out.  When we used to leave the house they would call/notify someone who would get in with copied keys (Or they were skilled locksmiths).  They wonderful neighbors of ours would keep a lookout on the streets around the house while the burglar would be in the house tampering with our computers, planting listening devices, searching for cpies of songs.  Only when they know they got all our evidence do you then here the "star" singing the lyrics.  Then we go around searching the house looking for the evidence that is of course long gone.  They are very patient.  They will not do any music if they are not sure if they haven't stolen all the copies.  If we later here a song and Katherine would make  the mistake of saying she has a CD of it we never hear the song again and eventually the CD seems to  disappear.  Or if on the computer, the computer crashes.

Additionally they sit in their houses and try to hack into our computers.  All devices have wireless components today.  I don't care what any supposed know it all tells me that if the networking button is turned off and we are not on the internet someone can't get in.  I know that computers can be hacked into if one is close enough.  I also know that the software and probably hardware makers have built in ways that computers can be tapped into.  There excuse is that it would be for law enforcement purposes.  We try to order non wireless devices on line and of course when the package comes it is always 2 or 3 days late.  And it is always tampered with so that the device is no longer wireless, it doesn't work, or it crashes.  Our neighbors see to it that the mail delivery is covered to.  They get it on our porch.  The UPS guy is bribed to simply drop it at their house.  Or someone in the Post Office is bribed to open our letters to look inside.  And always with just a little tear to bend gently bend back the page so it looks like an innocent bit of damage from handling. We also had a neighbor in Florida who bribed the garbage man to leave our garbage at his house which was just down the street from our route.  We witnessed it.  Of course we confronted the garbage man about it and he of course simply pretended he didn't know what we were talking about.

Our crime that we deserve this is nothing more than Katherine happens to be a genius at writing music lyrics and in form and ready to be used.  So many in the music industry have made so much robbing us it has become a fun sport for them.  Don't think they care our lives have been ruined or my wife is legally blind.  As always - it is about the money.
So when I read that this guy Kerik had tens of thousands of dollars in renovations done to his home I can only hope he goes to jail where he belongs.  I wonder if the guys who bribed him will too.  Probably not.

Ex-NYC Top Cop Kerik Pleads Not Guilty

Nov 9, 3:57 PM (ET)

By JIM FITZGERALD

(AP) In a file photo former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik exits Bronx supreme court,...
Full Image

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WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) - Bernard Kerik, a protege of Rudy Giuliani who once led the nation's largest police department, pleaded not guilty Friday to a wide-ranging indictment charging him with "selling his office" and lying to cover up the scheme.

Kerik's case could prove to be an ongoing embarrassment for Giuliani, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president.

The indictment accuses Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, of conspiring while a public official with a mob-connected construction firm to accept tens of thousands of dollars in renovations to his Bronx apartment, and then lying to cover up the scheme. It also claims he made false statements during his failed bid to head the nation's homeland security department.

"This is a battle," Kerik said, fighting through a media crush as he left court. "I'm going to fight."

(AP) In a file photo former Mayor of New York City Rudolph Giuliani and former NYC Police Chief Bernard...
Full Image
Kerik surrendered earlier Friday to the FBI in suburban White Plains, where he was fingerprinted and processed before his court appearance.

Standing before the judge, Kerik appeared calm and spoke only to say, "Not guilty, your honor," and answer a few personal questions. He was ordered to surrender his passport and any firearms, and to have no contact with potential witnesses. He was to be released on $500,000 bond, secured by his home in New Jersey.

Giuliani appointed Kerik police commissioner in 2000 and endorsed his 2004 nomination to head the Department of Homeland Security. Days after President Bush introduced Kerik as his nominee, however, Kerik announced he was withdrawing his name because of tax issues involving his former nanny.

Prosecutors had been presenting evidence to a federal grand jury for several months.

The investigation of Kerik, 52, arose from allegations that, while a city official, he accepted $165,000 in renovations to his Bronx apartment, paid for by a mob-connected construction company that sought his help in winning city contracts.

(AP) Kenneth Breen, right, attorney representing Bernard Kerik, reaches for Kerik as they get ready to...
Full Image
U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia said some of the payments detailed in the indictment took place after Kerik became police commissioner.

"During the time that Kerik secretly accepted these payments, he lobbied city officials on behalf of his benefactors - in effect selling his office in violation of his duty to the people of this city," Garcia said.

David A. Cardona, head of the criminal division of the New York FBI office, noted that the public considers "a beat cop accepting a free cup of coffee" improper.

"If a free cup of coffee is wrong, Kerik's long list of alleged crimes is repugnant," he said.

If convicted, Kerik could face up to 142 years in prison and $4.75 million in penalties.

(AP) Bernard Kerik walks towards microphones at the federal court i n White Plains, N.Y. Friday, Nov. 9,...
Full Image
Kerik pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor charge in state court, admitting that the renovations constituted an illegal gift from the construction firm. The plea spared him jail time and preserved his career as a security consultant, but his troubles resurfaced when federal authorities convened their own grand jury to investigate allegations that he failed to report as income tens of thousands of dollars in services from his friends and supporters.

Kerik's efforts in response to the Sept. 11 attacks helped burnish a career that came close to a Cabinet post.

Giuliani frequently says he made a mistake in recommending Kerik to be Homeland Security chief, but that might not be enough to avoid the political damage of a drawn-out criminal case involving his one-time protege.

During a campaign stop Thursday in Dubuque, Iowa, Giuliani was asked whether he still stood by Kerik. He sidestepped that question and said the issue had to be decided by the courts.

"A lot of public comment about it is inconsistent with its getting resolved in the right way in the courts," Giuliani said.

---

Associated Press Writers Tom Hays and Pat Milton in New York City contributed to this report.

Perhaps Watts Water Technologies is a good long term investment as ground water in China is drying up:

http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=7660278

As a kid who grew up with a fascination for dinosaurs I find this theory of the cause of their extinction 65 million years ago incredible:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070905/sc_nm/asteroid_dinosaurs_dc

It boggles my mind the ways scientists are able now able solve the mysteries of the past.

 

Every day people go to prison.  They teach us in medical school going to prison is one of the worst stresses a person can go through.   This is a perfect example what money can do.  If one can afford to pay for the best lawyers the justice system can be and is skewed.  Why am I not entitled to world class legal care like all of us are entiltled to world class medical care?  Food for thought.  Not a dig against attorneys at all but just a complaint at the lack of accessiblity to great attorneys because of costs.

I don't usually agree with Reverend Sharpton but he is clearly right on this:

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash5.htm

Not too long ago having colon cancer metasize to the liver usually meant one had less than six months to live.  Now however treatments have improved so a person can live a few years or so with this condition.  From what I have seen Tony has done a good job for the White House.  Let's hope there will be even more and better treatments that come out the next few years for the treatment of metastatic colon cancer. Hang in there Tony:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070429/ap_on_go_pr_wh/tony_snow_cancer

The Kent State professor who advocates Jihad:

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/living/education/16808652.htm

I got to love the part of his rants about the West's treatment of woman as sexual commodities.   How can any objective person believe the position of women in the Muslim world as better than in the Wests?

If I was a lawyer I would find some way to bring him up on criminal charges.  What about assault?  What about inciting a riot?

This guy advocates murder and the nuts on the left protect him with the mantra *free speech*.   Give me a goddamn break.   Right. Our brave men and women troops are fighting for the right of free speech including the right to kill all the people they are risking their lives for!

What the h... is wrong with this country?   Why can't we stand up as a unified block and defend ourselves?  This guy belongs in jail for inciting terrorism.   I believe it really is all about politics.   The demcrats vs. the recans.  How we are going to distribute wealth?   Who is paying the taxes, the health care, retirement, etc.?   If a crat led us into Iraq the two sides would still be fighting like mad but just have the opposite positions.  If a crat are in power the cans neutriliize 'em so they can't fight for the defense of our country.  If the cans are in power the crats do the same.

I'm fed up with these stories.  Does this crap from a professor at a (State funded no less) school outrage anyone else?   Anyone here going to argue the ACLU position?  Comin let me have it.  Let me here how this freedom is exactly what makes our country great.  IMO it is exactly this that is going to make our country eventually fall apart.

I am not sure this simple question has not been discussed here before. 

We here from some that the mission of the USA is to spread "Democracy".   But exactly what is it we are spreading?  It may not be an *American brand* of democracy with separation of Church and State or rights that also protect the minority, freedom of speech, free capatilist markets, and more.

To see how this can backfire just look at places where Hamas, Hezballah, Ahmadinijan (sp.?) have won elections.

I like the two contrasting maps of nations declaring themselves democracies and the *defacto* map of countries that are more truly democratic.   It is comical to look at some of the countries on the map that claim they are democracies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy

Can lead to brain swelling, seizures, supression of respiratory drive, and death:

This link describes what happened to a military recruit:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3912/is_199903/ai_n8829718

This is what happened to a woman during a radio show contest.

*****
Sunday January 14, 01:48 PM
US woman dies of water intoxication

A 28-year-old woman has died of water intoxication after taking part in a Californian radio station's water drinking contest.

She was in the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" competition trying to win a Nintendo Wii video game system.
ADVERTISEMENT

Assistant Sacramento County Coroner Ed Smith said a preliminary investigation found evidence "consistent with a water intoxication death".

Jennifer Strange's mother found her daughter's body at her home on Friday in the Sacramento suburb of Rancho Cordova, California, after Strange called her supervisor at her job to say she was heading home in terrible pain.

"She said to one of our supervisors that she was on her way home and her head was hurting her real bad," said Laura Rios, one of Strange's co-workers at Radiological Associates of Sacramento.

"She was crying and that was the last that anyone had heard from her."

Earlier Friday, Strange took part in a contest at radio station KDND 107.9 in which participants competed to see how much water they could drink without going to the toilet.

Initially, contestants were handed 220mL bottles of water to drink every 15 minutes.

"They were small little half-pint bottles, so we thought it was going to be easy," said fellow contestant James Ybarra of Woodland, California.

"They told us if you don't feel like you can do this, don't put your health at risk."

Ybarra said he quit after drinking five bottles.

"My bladder couldn't handle it anymore," he added.

After he quit, he said, the remaining contestants, including Strange, were given even bigger bottles to drink.

"I was talking to her and she was a nice lady," Ybarra said. "She was telling me about her family and her three kids and how she was doing it for kids."

John Geary, vice president and marketing manager for Entercom Sacramento, the station's owner, said station personnel were stunned when they heard of Strange's death.

"We are awaiting information that will help explain how this tragic event occurred," he said***

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/human/human_evolution/ice_people1.shtml

Our coins are not worth the metal they're made with:

http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/mint-nickels/2006/12/23/

I looked up the Iraq study group.  One can download the entire 160 page "study" from here if one wants.  What in tarnation is Vernon Jordan doing here?  Leon Panatta?  (oh sure he is nonpartisan).  OConnor?  She is an expert on Middle East affairs?    IMHO as a Jew I cannot trust James Baker who clearly does not like Jews.

http://search.netcenter.netscape.com/nctr/boomframe.jsp?query=google&page=1&offset=0&result_url=redir%3Fsrc%3Dwebsearch%26requestId%3D59a7f18c25a30538%26clickedItemRank%3D1%26userQuery%3Dgoogle%26clickedItemURN%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252F%26invocationType%3D-%26fromPage%3DNS8BrowserRoll%26amp%3BampTest%3D1&remove_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F