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Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned Thursday that military action against Iran would be "a real disaster" and said the Middle East could explode if the international community doesn't handle the many conflicts in the region very carefully. He also said there was "quite a bit of hypocrisy on all sides" in trying to resolve the five-year conflict in Sudan's Darfur region — especially in encouraging the African Union to take on peacekeeping when it didn't have the resources. At a wide-ranging round-table with journalists, Annan said he didn't have enough information to comment on the justification for the U.N....

TEL AVIV (AFP)--Israel and Russia signed an agreement Thursday abolishing mutual visa requirements for citizens of both countries in a move set to boost tourism to the Holy Land. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and visiting Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov signed the deal in Tel Aviv. The agreement will take effect 90 days after the two governments approve it. According to the Israeli tourism ministry, the new policy could almost triple the annual number of Russian tourists who visit Israel and the occupied West Bank from an average of 80,000 to nearly 300,000. The two ministers also signed an agreement on...

"Vandals dumped red paint on a downtown veterans memorial Wednesday morning in what police suspect was a symbolic act of protest on the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "

By Jonathan Weisman CHARLESTON, W.V. -- Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama, visiting the potentially critical state of West Virginia today, pivoted his campaign from the difficult issues of race and war back to pocketbook issues, making an economic case for ending the conflict in Iraq. His address, at the University of Charleston in the state's capital, took far more shots at Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, than his rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as he continued a two-front war with an eye on the general election. "We know what this war has cost...

A battle over Hillary Rodham Clinton's record as first lady broke out on two fronts Thursday, as a federal judge stepped into a dispute over the handling of still-unreleased Clinton phone logs and Barack Obama's campaign challenged her record on trade. The latest twist in the debate over her time in the White House came in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge James Robertson, who forced the National Archives to undergo questioning about why it won't release 20,000 pages of Clinton's old phone logs. Not enough resources, a lawyer representing the National Archives told the judge. The archives deals with...

Read Roy Spencer's Fabulous New Book March 20, 2008 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: As you know, the official climatologist of this program is Dr. Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, and he has just completed a book. The book is now orderable at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It's called Climate Confusion. I'm holding it right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. There it is for those of you watching on the Dittocam: Climate Confusion, How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians, and Misguided Policies That Hurt the Poor. It's not a large book,...

If you have ever wondered what they have built at the space station...have a look .... This is a great animation showing all the segments of the Space Station, the modules and the international partners that have helped create it. This is what we've been hauling in Shuttle flights for the past several years! This is far more complex and larger than most people know about...

WASHINGTON - Federal energy regulators on Thursday approved a $700 million liquefied natural gas terminal proposed for Long Island Sound, a facility opposed by the state of Connecticut and other critics who say it would damage the environment and be vulnerable to a terrorist attack. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted 5-0 to approve the terminal, which would be located 9 miles from Long Island and 10 miles from Connecticut. FERC says it would be the first floating terminal in the U.S. for storage and delivery of natural gas. The 1,200-foot-long, 82-foot-high terminal would be built by Broadwater Energy, a...

ZHONGDIAN, China - China blanketed restive Tibetan areas Thursday with a huge buildup of troops, turning small towns across a wide swath of western China into armed encampments. Beijing acknowledged that last week's anti-government protests had spread far beyond Tibet's borders and that police opened fire on protesters. It warned foreign tourists and journalists to stay away from a huge expanse of territory across four provinces. In an overture of peace, the Dalai Lama offered to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao and other leaders, reiterating that he was not asking for Tibetan independence. China has repeatedly ignored calls for...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Several dozen members of Congress, all abortion advocates, have signed a letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey asking him to cut all funds for abstinence education. They don't want any money spent in the FY 2009 Health and Human Services appropriations bill spent on abstinence. Congressman Jim Moran, a pro-abortion Virginia Democrat, led the letter campaign and gathered the signatures of 76 of his Congressional colleagues. "We urge you to reconsider funding for the [abstinence programs] and to devote those dollars to other more effective programs," the letter reads. They want the money axed...

I need some advice. I have a 20 fixed rate mortgage at 5.625%. The balance on the loan is $109,000. Does it make sense to refinance at 4.75% with a 10 year fixed? The closing costs would be $3000. Also, I currently add $500 to the principle payment every month, so I will have my existing loan paid off in 8 years.

Although the world’s climate is on a warming trend, there is zero evidence that the rise in carbon dioxide levels has anthropogenic origins. For daring to say this I have been treated as if I have committed intellectual blasphemy. In magazine articles and essays I have described in fairly considerable detail, with input from the scientist Martin Hertzberg, that you can account for the current warming by a number of well-known factors having to do with the elliptical course of the Earth in its relationship to the sun, the axis of the Earth in the current period, and possibly the...

Cause Of Death Of Russian Baby Mammoth Discovered ScienceDaily (Mar. 20, 2008) — On September 27, 2004, the front part of a baby mammoth’s body was found in Olchan mine in the Oimyakon Region of Yakutia. Specialists of the Museum of Mammoth of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North, Academy of Sciences of Sakha Republic (Yakutia), have been thoroughly studying the finding and they have published the first outcomes. There remained only the head, part of the proboscis, the neck area and part of the breast of the baby mammoth’s body. The body is practically cut off behind...

Maybe it’s a vast right-wing conspiracy, or maybe people really want a choice. Either way, it’s making work for the Lackawanna County Voter Registration Office. In the three weeks since it became clear Pennsylvanians would have a meaningful role in selecting the Democratic presidential nominee, 832 county voters — Republicans, independents or third-party members — have switched their registration to the Democratic Party. The number who have gone the other way, from Democrat, independent or third party to the Republican camp, is just 27. That’s a ratio of more than 30 to 1 in favor of the Democrats. “There’s obviously...

I was just as shocked as some of you when I heard this. How can a man who has attacked family members who support the war be honored for supporting military families? Defenselink: To recognize his continuous support and recognition of sailors, Marines and their families throughout his 17 years on television, the Navy presented its Superior Public Service Award to Montel Williams yesterday in New York during the taping of his long-running program’s final show. Navy Capt. Kenneth J. Braithwaite II, a rear admiral selectee and director of Joint Public Affairs Support Element Reserve, presented the award to Williams...

Of all the wisecracks heard in the marble halls of New York's Capitol after Gov. Eliot Spitzer's downfall in a call-girl scandal, one jest enlightened as much as it stung: Spitzer's got to be the only guy in Albany who PAYS for sex. It is an open secret that there is a lot of fooling around going on at the statehouse. And at other statehouses, too. In fact, Gov. David Paterson, in an extraordinary news conference on Tuesday, his first full day on the job after taking over from Spitzer, acknowledged he had had extramarital affairs with a number of...

Several hundred years ago, the coral reefs of the Caribbean had up to six times more fish than they have today, according to a study published Wednesday. The estimate is made by US scientists poring over the fate of the Caribbean monk seal, a fish-loving mammal driven to extinction in 1952. Historical records from the 17th and 18th century show there were huge numbers of monk seals, distributed among 13 colonies across the Caribbean. They were so plentiful that some ships' maps of the West Indies even noted particularly dense locations of seals. Alas for Monachus tropicalis, colonisation of the...

Vandals Trash Bucknell's Conservative Newspaper A student-run newspaper at Bucknell University was the target of vandals last month as over half of the copies in the paper's first press run were destroyed and/or removed from campus. The attack came as The Counterweight, Bucknell's conservative newspaper, highlighted criticism of the university's sponsorship of "Focus the Nation," a high-tech discussion on climate change. "This vandalism is unacceptable," said Sarah Schubert, the paper's editor. Ms. Schubert believes the act "amounts to censorship. "On a college campus, the free and vigorous exchange of ideas should be wholeheartedly defended by everyone," argued Ms. Schubert. On...

"White House documents reveal that Hillary Clinton lied to voters..."

Updated, 5:55 p.m. | A Buildings Department inspector, Edward J. Marquette, has been arrested and charged with lying to New York City authorities about inspecting the crane that collapsed on Saturday afternoon, killing seven people, injuring dozens of others and causing widespread property damage. Officials issued a stern warning that corrupt workers will be punished, but said the failure to inspect the crane on March 4 was almost certainly not a factor in the deadly collapse, which officials think may have been caused by the failure of a nylon strap, which led to a large steel collar coming loose. Rose...