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MIDI - HOPELESSLY DEVOTED TO YOU (left column near the bottom) In public I will disavow him...the truth the voters cannot see Charity will get all the money he gave me I have a quest for power...there's nothing that I will not do Even though he'll hear all my public lies, I'm still Hopelessly devoted to Hsu I will be asking for more...I'm politically a whore The dreaded right wing won't stop me from that place where I'm going to Hopelessly devoted to Hsu...and all my other Chinese donors Hopelessly devoted to Hsu Soon I'll have my depositon...the options...

Sen. Larry Craig's case has opened a window on a small but thriving subculture. The founder of a popular cruising Web site discusses what makes a hotspot, the etiquette and trends in the online quest for gay sex—and his concern that mere foot-tapping could trigger an arrest. The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is enjoying a rather awkward moment in the sun, as reporters descend on the men’s room where Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig was arrested for disorderly conduct owing to the foot taps heard round the world. But the Twin Cities flight hub was flashing red in a smaller...

The boys are part of a loose-knit colony of scavengers, nearly 250 people who scramble over fetid hills of other people’s trash to eke out a living for their families and themselves. Most are younger than 16; some sleep here during the week to maximize the hours they can hunt for goods to sell. Many are related, from a few large clans, and they have a kind of organization, with a 23-year-old bulldozer driver who settles disputes, and a code of conduct, so that every digger’s finds are respected. For all the agonizing about nearby Hebron — how far Israel...

Millions of pilgrims on foot towards the Lourdes of the EastEach year, over 5 million faithful visit the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Vailankanni. Over 3 million of these undertake the journey between August 29th and September 8th to celebrate the Blessed Virgin, despite the searing heat and distance. Chennai (AsiaNews/Ucan) – As the end of August approached, groups of Marian devotees dressed in saffron dotted highways leaving Chennai. They walked a slow but steady pace in the sultry weather. While many walked barefoot, some carried flags and a few pulled small cars decorated with images of the Blessed Mother. Every...

So you think your boss is inept, arrogant or just plain lazy? You're not alone. A recent Gallup Poll found that a bad relationship with the boss was the No. 1 reason people gave for leaving their jobs. But if you want to keep moving up the corporate rungs, you better make nice. Having an antagonistic relationship with your supervisor is a career killer, says Cynthia Shapiro, author of the book "Corporate Confidential." "No matter how skilled you are, if you don't have a good relationship with your boss, your job is not secure," warns Shapiro... ...So how can you...

Health district takes the wrong enforcement approach So this 105-pound Southern Nevada Health District clerk walks into a bar and tells a tired, 265-pound, tattooed construction worker, 'You can't smoke in here. I'm citing you. That'll cost you $100 ...' " It's not a joke. The Southern Nevada Health District is preparing to turn office staff into the Puff Patrol, a crack law enforcement squad charged with sniffing out violators of the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act. The new law, approved by voters in November, prohibits smoking inside most businesses, including bars that serve food. Because a Clark County district...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A burglar visited Graeme Glass' home in New Zealand twice in one day — first to steal some goods and later to return them, along with a heartfelt apology note. The thief struck while Glass was at work in the southern resort of Queenstown on Tuesday. The burglar smashed a window to gain entry and made off with a laptop computer, a camera, and Glass' wallet with an American Express credit card.

The hourly rates of the country's top lawyers are increasingly coming with something new -- a comma. A few attorneys crossed into $1,000-per-hour billing before this year, but recent moves to the four-figure mark in New York, which sets trends for legal markets around the country, are seen as a significant turning point. On Sept. 1, New York's Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP will raise its top rate to more than $1,000 from $950. Firm partner Barry Ostrager, a litigator, says he will be one of the firm's thousand-dollar billers, along with private-equity specialist Richard Beattie and antitrust lawyer Kevin...

South Korea paid the Taliban $950,000 -- or $50,000 a head -- to secure the release of 19 church workers abducted in southeastern Afghanistan, Afghan officials who took part in the negotiations told ABC News. The negotiations took on urgency, the Afghan officials said, after two female hostages who were released last month reported being repeatedly raped by their Taliban captors. The kidnappers also killed two of the male hostages, who were abducted six weeks ago riding by bus through southeastern Ghazni province. "We have reports the various Taliban commanders were fighting over the women hostages," said Mirajuddin Pathan, the...

<p>KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Malaysia marked 50 years of independence Friday with dances and parades, in a colorful show of ethnic unity that belied worsening race relations and growing fears about eroding minority rights.</p> <p>Smartly dressed Malays, Chinese and Indians danced in a parade at the Merdeka Square, or Freedom Square, where Malaysia's first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman announced independence from Britain on Aug. 31, 1957.</p>

CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) — A powerhouse Republican lobbying firm with close ties to the White House has begun a public campaign to undermine the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, CNN has confirmed. .................. A senior Bush administration official told CNN the White House is aware of the lobbying campaign by Barbour Griffith & Rogers because the firm is "blasting e-mails all over town" criticizing al-Maliki and promoting the firm's client, former interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, as an alternative to the current Iraqi leader. ................ The lobbying firm boasts the services of two onetime foreign policy hands...

Benedict XVI urges the 300,000 people who gathered in the Plains of Montorso not “to fear” difficulties, failure, insecurity or “God’s silence,” encouraging them instead to discover Christ in creation, the liturgy, in friendship with fellow Christians. He invites them to bear witness to their faith in our society. Among those present, Fr Giancarlo Bossi greeted everyone and gave his thanks. Loreto (AsiaNews) – As the moving voice of tenor Andrea Bocelli singing Gounod’s Ave Maria drifted across the Plains of Monsorto, the dark statue of Our Lady of Loreto slowly made its way through a huge crowd of almost...

The Baltimore pundit H.L. Mencken once opined that for every complex problem, there's a solution that is simple, neat and wrong. We have no better example of that dictum than the energy bills passed this summer by the U.S. House and Senate that will go to conference committee when Congress reconvenes in September. Our legislators want to raise taxes on oil and gas companies; repeal most of the incentives enacted in 2005 to encourage offshore exploration and production; require utilities to generate at least 15 percent of their power from renewables; and subsidize ethanol and other biofuels like crazy. In...

Is there no point at which decent people on the left draw the line against the extremists in their ranks? As noted below and in today's Web Briefing, our friends at The Weekly Standard have posted two brief pieces that suggest not. Bill Kristol writes about the grotesque and offensive “die-in” being led by such far left groups as ANSWER and appropriating the names of American soldiers and Marines killed in action. It’s here. Meanwhile, Hollywood is going to war – against American troops. Eight new movies are coming out over the next few months. Perhaps the most offensive of...

Mr Brown will find it hard to regain the commanding heights on health FOR a chancellor of the exchequer turned prime minister, the irony must be galling. The National Health Service has dominated voters' concerns during the decade that Labour has been in power. Responding to these worries when he was at the Treasury, Gordon Brown sanctioned budget-busting increases in spending on health. Yet as the public became increasingly disenchanted with the government's handling of the NHS and more pessimistic about its prospects, Labour squandered its huge historic lead as the party most trusted to run the health service. The...

This month, a jury may decide if the 54-year-old founder of the Galveston Ornithological Society was acting within his rights when he impeded the progress of a bird-stalking predator by means of a bullet. Mr. Stevenson is due to stand trial for felony cat murder. "There are people with the wrong perception of this," he said in his Chevy compact on a stormy morning, driving along a wide beach at Galveston Island's western tip, where curlews, egrets, stilts and herons strut in the tide pools. He stopped at the pilings beneath the San Luis Pass bridge: the scene of the...

The former Iraqi prime minister speaks out on how he hired a well-connected Washington lobbying firm to help pave his attempt to oust the current government. Who’s footing the bill? Aug. 29, 2007 - The powerhouse Washington lobbying firm hired by former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi is talking to the Justice Department about how to amend its foreign-agent filings after department lawyers questioned whether the firm had adequately disclosed who was paying the firm’s tab. The talks came as Allawi told NEWSWEEK that two Iraqi supporters of his were footing the $300,000 bill for the contract he recently signed...

THERE is only one way to see Mumbai. That is by helicopter: whirring low over the rust-brown slums, godowns and Victorian Gothic monuments of India's city of commerce, its historic gateway; then soaring high over the hazy Arabian Sea beyond. It is exhilarating. Moreover, only by helicopter can one cross log-jammed central Mumbai—a distance of around 20km (12.5 miles)—in under two hours. Mumbai is South Asia's biggest city. By 2015 the UN says it will be the world's second-biggest after Tokyo, with nearly 25m people. Yet already it is choking. Around half the population—of 14m, at a modest estimate—live in...

ETA suspects arrested at "bomb factory" Police arrested four suspected Basque separatist guerrillas in southern France in what they have described as a "bomb factory" where a car bomb was apparently being prepared. At least two of those detained - three men and a woman - are said to be leading ETA militants. Special forces raided the house near the French town of Cahors after a joint intelligence operation between Paris and Madrid. Police say all four people arrested were armed but surrendered immediately. The Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said one of the group was one of ETA's...

History, as Marx famously said (by way of paraphrasing Hegel), repeats itself -- "the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." A catchy concept, to say the least. And while there's definitely something to it, it's also true that sometimes history does not repeat itself. Take American wars in Japan, the Koreas, Vietnam and Iraq. President Bush, addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars, recently made a case -- a flawed case -- for a kind of core continuity linking these disparate conflicts. It's not that he didn't admit there are many differences among them ("There are many differences" among...