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I recently tried green tea for the first time and immediately became addicted to it. I must be drinking 10 cups a day and would probably drink more if I didn't care about sleeping at night. Being new to green tea I know little of the different types, quality, preparation, etc.. and was hoping some knowledgeable Freepers could point me in the right direction by recommending some of the better teas and/or links to any good web resources. Currently I've only tried two- both bought in regular Supermarkets so I'm guessing they are not higher quality teas. One of the...

KUALA LUMPUR - A Malaysian court jailed on Monday a woman follower of a bizarre cult centred around a giant teapot for declaring herself an apostate while still a Muslim. Apostasy -- deserting one's religion -- is a criminal offence in mainly Muslim Malaysia, whose state religion is Islam but which tolerates other major religions. An Islamic court in the northeastern state of Terengganu sentenced Kamariah Ali, a 57-year-old former teacher, to two years in jail after she was found guilty of apostasy and refused to repent. "What she did was not within the concept of freedom of religion," the...

Highlights of final N.C. House budget 8/10/2005 8:43 AM By: Associated Press & News 14 Carolina Web Staff The figures reflect reductions or increases to base budget expenses, some of them based on projected rises in recurring spending. Salaries and benefits: • Salary increase of two percent or $850, whichever is greater, and one week extra vacation for most state workers; average 2.24 percent raise for public school teachers. Community college faculty and professional staff also would receive an additional 2 percent raise: $237.3 million. • Ensure all employees under State Personnel Act receive a minimum salary of $20,112: $750,000....

2 August, 2005 MALAYSIA Indignant imams flatten teapot deity's commune They were adoring a giant teapot. They believed their founder was the incarnation of all deities.Armed with bulldozers, police and an Imam razed the buildings of this sect. They had many proselytes even among Muslims. Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews/Scmp) - Worshipping a giant teapot and claiming to be god in the unforgiving heartland of fundamentalist Islam is like waving a red banner at a bull. For nearly 25 years, Ariffin Mohammed, 65, a Muslim Malay better known as Ayah Pin or Father Pin, has been harassed, arrested and even jailed...

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A mob fire-bombed the headquarters of a bizarre Malaysian cult built around a giant teapot Monday, police and a fireman said, two weeks after the sect was raided by religious officials. About 30-35 assailants armed with Molotov cocktails attacked the commune in the early morning, torching a car and the roof of a building and scorching the giant teapot itself, emergency services officials, local media and a lawyer for the sect said. The sect, which believes the teapot has healing properties, is in Malaysia's northeast, a strongly Muslim area that has suddenly lost patience with the...

KUALA TERENGGANU: A mob of about 30 people went on a rampage, torching structures and smashing vehicles and house windows within Ayah Pin's Sky Kingdom commune in Jerteh at 5am today. The mob also set fire to Ayah Pin's Pajero and smashed four other vehicles parked inside the area. The sect leader Ariffin Mohamad, 65, better known as Ayah Pin, left the commune last night. According to witnesses members of the mob were armed with parangs, sticks and plastic bags believed to contain petrol. "They smashed our house windows but the people were not harmed. "They told us not to...

Oh, the horror! Will the apostates stop at nothing? Would singing "I'm a little teapot, short and stout" get you arrested for apostasy? A giant teapot built by apostates in Malaysia will be demolished for the offense it presents to Islam. "Sect leader will not resist action," from the StarOnline, with thanks to Nicolei: JERTEH: The leader of the “Sky Kingdom” deviationist religious sect said he would not stop the authorities from demolishing the giant structures, including a teapot, on its commune near here. “But the action will seriously tarnish the image of the Government internationally,” said Ariffin Mohamad, 65,...

Government Begins Work on CO2 Storage Project at Teapot Dome By Sarah Cooke, Associated Press Writer Published: Jan 28, 2004 CASPER, Wyo. (AP) - The government is trying to bury something at its Teapot Dome oil field again. Not secret oil leases, as it did during an infamous scandal of the 1920s, but carbon dioxide - lots of it. In hopes of developing a process that could slow global warming, the Energy Department wants to inject the greenhouse gas underground into depleted oil reservoirs after converting it into a liquid form. The Teapot Dome project, now in the planning stages,...

Stained teapot reveals an ancient love of chocolate By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 18/07/2002) A teapot has provided evidence that our love affair with chocolate began 1,000 years earlier than previously thought. Archaeologists have shown that cocoa was cultivated in the land between the Americas - including what today is Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize - for thousands of years. Now a study of brown stains on 2,600-year-old Mayan pottery from Belize has identified cocoa residues thought to have been left by ancient drinking chocolate. The discovery, reported today in Nature, pushes back the earliest chemical evidence of cocoa use...