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The Canadian Press Updated: Mon. Jun. 29 2009 4:55 PM ET MONTREAL — A man is in critical condition in Montreal after falling off the roof of a moving SUV while performing what may have been a dangerous stunt known as car surfing. The man's head struck the pavement when he lost his balance. Police say they are attempting to identify the man, who is believed to be in his 20s. Car surfing is a daredevil-style of acrobatics during which passengers perform stunts while riding on top of a moving vehicle.

CLEVELAND -- Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora on Monday accused the U.S. Department of Justice of launching its local public corruption probe two years ago in a conspiracy with Republicans to undermine the Democratic turnout for Barack Obama. • Earlier version of story.Dimora said he and his lawyers will ask the Justice Department and Congress to investigate the motives behind the corruption probe, which became public last July when FBI agents raided the commissioner's home and office and the home and office of political ally Frank Russo, the county auditor. "This is a Republican-driven prosecution," Dimora said during a late-afternoon...

(edit) I couldn't help wondering how many of those on the streets proclaiming their sadness at the death of Saint Michael would have been banging on the side of the prison van if he'd been convicted of child-molesting (edit)On one level, Michael Jackson was Gary Glitter with money, which enabled him to buy off the parents of his alleged victim Jordie Chandler with $22million. If he'd tried that in Britain, the same self-appointed mourners singing 'Beat It' out of tune this weekend would have been standing outside his front door, throwing petrol bombs and chanting 'Kill the Paediatrician!  That's...

JUNE 30, 2009 Firefighter Justice The Supremes, Sotomayor, and racial jurisprudence. The Supreme Court closed an otherwise unremarkable term on a high note yesterday, rejecting the notion that one kind of racial bias can be remedied by another. On the last day of opinions before the Court is potentially joined by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the Justices overturned one of her most closely scrutinized cases on workplace discrimination. The effect was to take an important step away from the practice of divvying up jobs by race. Writing for a 5-4 majority in Ricci v. deStefano, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that the...

ANN ARBOR, Michigan, June 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Researchers at the University of Michigan have concluded that the love stories told in classic Disney and other G-rated children's films - such as the Little Mermaid - are partially to blame for the pervasiveness of what they label "heteronormativity." "Despite the assumption that children's media are free of sexual content, our analyses suggest that these media depict a rich and pervasive heterosexual landscape," wrote researchers Emily Kazyak and Karin Martin, in a report published in the latest issue of the Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) publication Gender & Society. Kazyak...

WASHINGTON: Noting that the Indo-US relationship has developed "exponentially" in the last few years, Indian ambassador to the US has said the ties with America is important to meet the development aspirations of India, as well as enhancing global peace and security. "The India-US relationship, in the last few years, has developed exponentially. It is a very important relationship for India certainly, which we feel is essential for meeting our development aspirations, as well as for enhancing global peace and security, and meeting some of the common global challenges that we face," ambassador Meera Shankar said. The Indian ambassador made...

A top Republican senator has ordered an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency’s alleged suppression of a report that questioned the science behind global warming. The 98-page report, co-authored by EPA analyst Alan Carlin, pushed back on the prospect of regulating gases like carbon dioxide as a way to reduce global warming. Carlin’s report argued that the information the EPA was using was out of date, and that even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased, global temperatures have declined. “He came out with the truth. They don’t want the truth at the EPA,” Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, a global...

Monday June 29, 2009 Operation Rescue Office Security System Attacked - Group Complains of Police Apathy By Kathleen GilbertWICHITA, Kansas, June 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An unidentified man has been caught on video attacking Operation Rescue's headquarters Friday afternoon. The man allegedly disabled one of the building's security cameras and attempted to assault Operation Rescue president Troy Newman before fleeing the scene. (Watch security camera footage of the attack here) Operation Rescue reports that Newman heard a suspicious noise outside his office and observed the suspect through the security cameras attempting to gain access to the roof. Newman rushed outside and...

Poll question: "The media coverage of Michael Jackson's death and funeral is..." A Daily Poll

Most political and media discussions of medical care have an air of unreality reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. There is an abundance of catch-phrases but remarkably few coherent arguments. Let's start at square one. Why is there alarm about American medical care? The most usual reason given is because its cost is high and rising. That is certainly true. We were not spending nearly as much on high-tech medical procedures in the past because there were not nearly as many of them, and we were not spending anything at all on some of the new pharmaceutical drugs because they didn't...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: You've gotta hear this sound bite from Henry Waxman this afternoon with Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, on MSNBC.  She said, "Republican leader John Boehner, in explaining why he was reading the bill on the floor," meaning the cap-and-trade fiasco, "told The Hill newspaper, 'People deserve to know what's in this pile of [expletive.]'  Does that indicate what kind of relationship has now developed between the Democrat majority and the Republican opposition right now?" WAXMAN:  Since Obama has become president, the Republicans have said no to an economic stimulus bill, are saying no to the global warming...

Gee, now why does Obama think that the Honduran military dispatching a shadily-elected, oppressive Leftist government sets a “terrible precedent”. Like the situation in Iran, it cuts too close to home, it is his worst personal nightmare. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday the coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and would set a “terrible precedent” of transition by military force unless it was reversed. “We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there,” Obama told reporters after an Oval...

Repair of Tissues by Adult Stem/Progenitor Cells (MSCs): Controversies, Myths, and Changing Paradigms Abstract Research on stem cells has progressed at a rapid pace and, as might be anticipated, the results have generated several controversies, a few myths and a change in a major paradigm. Some of these issues will be reviewed in this study with special emphasis on how they can be applied to the adult stem/progenitor cells from bone marrow, referred to as MSCs. The field of the adult stem/progenitor cells, referred to as MSCs, has progressed so rapidly and covered so many disciplines of basic research and...

About 6:30 p.m. Friday, police were called to investigate the report of threats in a block of 23rd Avenue Northeast. A woman in her early 40s told police her cocker spaniel got away while being walked and was in a skirmish with her neighbor's pit bull. The neighbor told an officer the woman's children were walking her cocker spaniel when the dog got off the leash, ran into his home and attacked his pit bull. The woman said the pit bull owner swore at her and threatened to shoot her dog. The man admitted he swore at her but said...

NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd speculates that President Obama is using golf as just an excuse to sneak out and enjoy a few cigarettes. Truth is he's a better smoker than golfer.

The more one sees President Obama in action the more you realize that the leader of the free world is not a big fan of democracy. Take a look at his foreign policy, with few exceptions he has positioned the United States against the force of democracy in the world. He has insulted out close allies in Great Britain by dissing their Prime Minister when he came to visit; no state dinner, no press conference and to top it all off President Obama gave the Prime Minister a crappy take-home gift, old DVDs. Then he insulted France when he refused...

TEHRAN: Iran said on Monday it has freed five of the local British embassy staff it arrested on accusations of stoking post-election unrest, a move that further threatened tense ties with London. "Eight people were arrested. Five were freed and three are still being interrogated," ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said at a press conference in Tehran. Earlier English-language state television Press TV had spoken of a total of nine arrests. Ghashghavi also said that Iran, which has accused Western nations particularly Britain and the United States of "meddling," has no current plans to close embassies or downgrade diplomatic ties with...

Congressman Kirk has released a statement explaining why he voted for cap and trade. For 2009, our top goal should be energy independence. I support exploring for energy off our coasts, expanding nuclear power and building a natural gas pipeline across Canada to lower heating costs in the Midwest – an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy. As a Navy veteran, I think is time to set America’s policy towards defunding Middle Eastern dictatorships by cutting our foreign oil bill, giving our troops less to worry about. That is why during the debate on the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) bill, I...

It took two weeks of intensified government repression against protesters in Iran before Barack Obama, the US president, moved from cautious commentary to describing the crackdown as "violent and unjust". The acknowledged elephant in the room preventing a more robust US response to the Iranian crisis is the Anglo-American-organised coup in 1953, which overthrew Mohammed Mossadeqh, the nationalist prime minister, and brought the 33-year-old Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, back to the country as unchallenged ruler. The coup was motivated by Mossadeqh's and the Iranian parliament's decision to nationalise the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951, and by the fear that...

President Obama, who has come under harsh criticism from gay rights advocates for not yet acting on many campaign promises on gay issues, Monday afternoon said that his administration has made some progress on behalf of gay Americans and plans to do more. "I know that many in this room don't believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that," Mr. Obama said at a reception for LGBT Pride Month at the White House. "It's not for me to tell you to be patient anymore than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning...