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Celebrated Winchester rifle may have fired last shot WASHINGTON (AFP) - The famous Winchester rifle glorified in American Westerns may have fired its last shot as a plant where it had been manufactured since 1866 closed its doors last week. One hundred eighty-six employees of the US Repeating Arms Company plant located in New Haven, Connecticut, were thanked for their work Friday, two days after the facility stopped all manufacturing activity, said Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo, a spokeswoman for the city government. She told AFP that the mayor's office has been searching for an investor, who would take over the plant, but...

Their most effective weapon: ingenuity? On an eerie, battle-scarred street in this blown-out urban war zone, a mannequin with painted black hair stares silently at U.S. Marines hunkered down in sandbagged observation posts atop buildings a few blocks away.It's the latest insurgent ruse in an evolving war pitting the world's most powerful military against guerrilla fighters using their most effective weapon: ingenuity.Insurgents in Ramadi recently have flown kites over U.S. troops to align mortar-fire, released pigeons to give away U.S. troop movements and staged attacks at fake funeral processions complete with rocket-stuffed coffins, U.S. forces deployed here say."They're crafty, I'll...

Same-sex couples from states where gay marriage is banned cannot legally marry in Massachusetts, the state's highest court ruled Thursday. The Supreme Judicial Court, which three years ago made Massachusetts the first state to legalize gay marriage, upheld a 1913 state law that forbids nonresidents from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriage would not be recognized in their home state. "The laws of this commonwealth have not endowed non-residents with an unfettered right to marry," the court wrote in its 38-page opinion. "Only non-resident couples who come to Massachusetts to marry and intend to reside in this commonwealth thereafter can...

Boxer claims he was partying at governor's mansionALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Former IBF junior bantamweight champion Danny Romero, who has fought just once in the past three years, told police officers that Gov. Bill Richardson would "take care of" his arrest on aggravated drunken driving charges, according to a police report. Romero, 31, was arrested late Monday after failing field sobriety tests and blowing above 0.16 percent in a breath-alcohol test -- twice New Mexico's legal limit for presumed intoxication. Police found Romero vomiting near his 1999 Cadillac, which was parked in the middle of a street. Officers said Romero's eyes...

A video grab from CNN shows reporter Wolf Blitzer reporting on Israel's largest shipping line endorsing the takeover of six major U.S. ports by Dubai Ports World March 2, 2006. Dubai Ports World $6.85 billion acquisition of Britain's P&O will close on Friday or Monday, despite an additional 45-day review by the U.S. Government in response to security concerns, a U.S Treasury Department official said on Thursday.

Bush: Ports Deal Collapse May Hurt U.S.YOU CAN THANK THE DEMORATS FOR THAT, A YES MANY REPUBLICANS TOO. (My quote) President Bush said Friday the collapse of the Dubai ports deal could hurt U.S. efforts to recruit Mideast governments as partners in the worldwide war on terror.Separately, in what may have been an aftershock to the failed transaction, a new round of trade talks between the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates was postponed.On Thursday, Dubai-based DP World backed away in the face of unrelenting criticism and announced it would transfer its management of port terminals in major U.S. cities...

Court Upholds Campus Military Recruiting The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that colleges that accept federal money must allow military recruiters on campus, despite university objections to the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays.Justices rejected a free-speech challenge from law schools and their professors who claimed they should not be forced to associate with military recruiters or promote their campus appearances.Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said that the campus visits are an effective military recruiting tool."A military recruiter's mere presence on campus does not violate a law school's right to associate, regardless of how repugnant...

Money doesn't really make us very happy. Not only do we want what we don't have, we really don't know what we want, and we think the things that we want will make us happy, which they tend not to do. That's the conclusion of an ever-gushing hydrant of research from academics, psychologists, economists and social scientists from places like the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Illinois, the University of Southern California, Princeton University, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Virginia. To researchers, the pursuit of happiness--the decision to buy a Jeep Cherokee over a Chevy station wagon, a...

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Voting Early--and Often Maryland swims against the election-reform current. (Enough reason to get you to rip their heads off) John Fund writes in the Opinion Journal, “It should normally be difficult to pick the worst state legislature in America, but Maryland’s is way out in front.” Democratic legislators there have “passed three election-related bills and again mustered the necessary three-fifths votes to overturn his vetoes. Together the election laws would so weaken safeguards against voter fraud as to make Maryland the nation’s prime example of Election Day irresponsibility…When voters are disenfranchised by the counting of improperly cast ballots or outright...

The debate over controlling access to the Internet took center stage in the U.S. Senate this week during a hearing that focused on "network neutrality" and possible new legislation that advocates say would protect the Internet from being fractured by special interests. The crux of the issue is a growing interest among telecom and cable companies, including AT&T and Comcast, which are the primary broadband service providers in the U.S., to charge content and service providers, such as Google, Yahoo, and Vonage, for use of those high-speed networks. At a hearing held Tuesday by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science,...

It is past time that the president insist that his subordinates get the facts out about Iraq's terror connection. by William Kristol 01/16/2006, Volume 011, Issue 17 THE WEEKLY STANDARD IT'S CONVENTIONAL WISDOM. In fact, it's more than conventional wisdom. It's an article of faith among the enlightened: There was no connection, at least no significant connection, between Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.Senate minority leader Harry Reid put it this way: "There was [sic] no terrorists in Iraq." His colleague, Carl Levin, member of both the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee, says Iraq's...

Cartoon blasphemy gets hot really hot... An international row over newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad gathered pace on Thursday as more European dailies printed controversial Danish caricatures and Muslims increased pressure to stop them. A dozen Palestinian gunmen surrounded European Union offices in the Gaza Strip demanding an apology for the cartoons, one of which shows Islam's founder wearing a bomb-shaped turban. Muslims consider any images of Mohammad to be blasphemous.Palestinian gunmen kidnapped and later released a German from a hotel in the West Bank city of Nablus, witnesses said.Earlier, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades threatened at a news conference to...

IS CHARLES LOGAN A DEMOCRAT OR A REPUBLICAN?....A few days ago a reader threatened to report me to Glenn Reynolds unless I cleared up an important issue that I brought up last Sunday: Is Charles Logan a Republican?Logan, of course, is the hapless president of the United States currently on offer from the producers of 24. As we all know, he was formerly vice president Charles Logan until the untimely destruction of Air Force One in Season 4, so the question of his party affiliation boils down to this: Was John Keeler a Republican?The basic argument goes like this. The...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela's vice president derided Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) for suggesting that "wackos" run the South American country, saying Monday that the United States should focus on its own problems. Jose Vicente Rangel was responding to McCain's statement on Sunday that America must explore alternative energy sources to avoid depending onIran or "wackos" in Venezuela — apparently a reference to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. "It looks like they have nothing else to do in the United States," Rangel said, adding that the Americans have "so many problems, 40 million poor people, 30 million drug users,...

or can it be kept alive.... Hillary Treasurer Grossman Admits Filing False FEC Reports Hiding Paul's $1.2 Million ContributionPeter Paul ^ | 1-4-06 | Peter Paul Posted on 01/05/2006 9:38:55 AM PST by doug from upland January 04, 2006 Hillary Treasurer Grossman Admits Filing False FEC Reports Hiding Peter Paul's $1.2 Million Contribution The FEC has formally determined that Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign treasurer, Andrew Grossman is legally responsible for the three false FEC reports that Hillary's finance director, David Rosen, was criminally charged and tried for in mid-2005. Mr. Grossman signed a "Conciliation Agreement" with the FEC on December...

Dog Deaths Surpass 100 Despite Toxic Pet Food Recall At least 100 dogs in the United States have been killed in recent weeks by toxic pet food despite a recall of the products, scientists said today.Some 19 brands of Diamond, Country Value and Professional dog foods have been recalled. But many pet owners are not aware of the recall, researchers at Cornell University said Friday.Dogs have refused to eat the food and, in some cases, their owners have enticed them with gravy and other lures without knowing they were killing the animals."Entire kennels have been wiped out, and because of...

Look at the main stream media and how they portray VP Cheney and others... Reuters and the main stream media do their best to make them look mean & bad...       and son on... Very few pictures like this one...

Has your Health Insurance been cancelled? If yes, why?

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 requires police to give clear warnings before arresting demonstrators took effect. Passed in response to the much-criticized mass arrests of protesters at a downtown park in...