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The U.S. has long prided itself on being a cleanliness-first nation. All throughout my childhood, I heard about "dirty" Europeans and "smelly" French folk. My school friends, and sometimes even their parents, would joke about how women in other countries didn't shave legs or armpits and how glad they were that kind of behavior didn't fly in America — unless one was a "dirty" hippie, that is. We have been through the toxic wringer and back in attempting to keep our homes not only sparkling clean, but germ-free (which very well might be contributing to supergerms and auto-immune diseases per...

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White flight 'increasing segregation' By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor Last Updated: 2:01am GMT 28/11/2006 The flight of the middle classes from the inner cities is threatening to undo 30 years of progress that has made Britain the best place in Europe for ethnic minorities, the country's race equality chief said yesterday. Trevor Phillips, the outgoing chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), said increased polarisation and segregation in areas deserted by the better-off was "the great threat" to the development of a diverse and harmonious society. Trevor Phillips: warnings Speaking at a conference in London to mark the...

LOS ANGELES, CA – When Clif Bar & Co. was devising its new organic energy bar for kids in early 2004, product developers at the Berkeley, Calif.-based health food manufacturer turned to California Senate Bill 19 for direction. The “Z-Bar,” launched in June 2004, was fashioned to meet the 2001 state law’s recommended limits on calories from fat and sugar for snack food sold outside meals at schools. Clif Bar stamped an “SB19 compliant” logo on the bar’s wrapper and declared it the first snack to conform to the legislation, among the first state laws to address the childhood obesity...

FBI Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday called on Internet service providers to record their customers' online activities, a move that anticipates a fierce debate over privacy and law enforcement in Washington next year. "Terrorists coordinate their plans cloaked in the anonymity of the Internet, as do violent sexual predators prowling chat rooms," Mueller said in a speech at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Boston. "All too often, we find that before we can catch these offenders, Internet service providers have unwittingly deleted the very records that would help us identify these offenders and protect future victims,"...

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico warned Thursday that the U.S. proposal to build miles of border fence will damage relations between the two countries. The Foreign Relations Department said it was "deeply worried" about the proposal, which is working its way through the Senate, adding it will "increase tension in border communities." "These measures will harm the bilateral relationship. They are against the spirit of co-operation that is needed to guarantee security on the common border," the department said in a statement. The House of Representatives and Senate are maneuvering to speed construction of a 700-mile fence along the United...

LOS ANGELES - Former President Bill Clinton praised President Bush on Saturday for supporting reforms that would allow millions of illegal immigrants to seek citizenship but said the debate in Congress is being fomented by Republicans who want to divide America. "I'm proud of him for doing it and I thanked him for doing it," he said of Bush during a "Cafe con Clinton" breakfast speech to the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights advocacy group. Clinton said Bush's roots in Texas — which has one of the nation's largest Hispanic...

Bush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway By Jerome R. Corsi Human Events 6-14-6 Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn. Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman's Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive...

Top conservative leaders have written President Bush telling him to drop his insistence on a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for illegal aliens and instead support the 85 percent of congressional Republicans who want to tighten law enforcement first. Signers include William J. Bennett, Robert H. Bork, Ward Connerly, David A. Keene, Phyllis Schlafly and a number of think-tank academics and pundits. The immigration debate is the first major issue on which Mr. Bush finds himself opposing a majority of Republicans in Congress and depending on Democrats to deliver a victory. In their letter, the conservatives tell Mr....