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With each passing day, last week's visit by Julie Bishop, Aussie Foreign Minister, to the offices of Charlie Hebdo seems more and more like some strange dream - or glimpse of an alternative universe where the inheritors of western civilization are not a bunch of spineless grovelers frantically trading core liberties for multiculti delusions. Six days on, Miss Bishop is the exception that proves the rule: Canadian author Michael Ondaatje is among a group of at least six writers who have withdrawn from next month's PEN American Center gala, citing objections to the literary and human rights organization's honouring the...

Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Former US president Jimmy Carter on Saturday urged Palestinians to hold elections to end the de facto division of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Islamist-run Gaza Strip. He was speaking at a joint news conference with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the Palestinian political capital Ramallah in the West Bank. "We hope that sometime we'll see elections all over the Palestinian area and east Jerusalem and Gaza and also in the West Bank," said Carter, a member of the independent Elders Group of global leaders. No election has been held in the occupied territories...

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A Russian spacecraft delivering supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) is out of control and will fall back to Earth, officials say. The unmanned cargo ship was launched from Kazakhstan on Tuesday, but contact was lost with it soon afterwards. Russia's space agency says Progress M-27M is now orbiting in an uncontrolled spin. It cannot reach the ISS and is likely to break up on re-entering Earth's atmosphere. The craft carried on to a higher orbit after contact was lost. Igor Komarov, the head of Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, said: "The craft's continued flight and its docking with the...

Dear Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, As Chair and Vice Chair of the Sonoma County Community and Local Law Enforcement Task Force (CALLE), ... The California Supreme (Court Copley Press v. Superior Court 2006) effectively changed California Penal Code, so that all independent oversight agencies, such as civilian review boards, oversight panels, and civil service commissions, must now cloak all officer records and findings of misconduct in strict confidentiality..., any independent investigation that would yield specific information about officer misconduct and patterns is stifled, and must come through an internal law enforcement investigation, or motions approved by a judge. Even...

With Russia pushing hard to monopolize the remembrance of the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, activists in Ukraine have decided to push back. The Information Resistance group, with assistance from the Ukrainian military and the National Military History Museum, has produced two emotionally charged public-service advertisements that emphasize Ukraine's tremendous sacrifices and contributions to victory in 1945. The Kremlin considers the current government of Ukraine to be fascists that revere controversial World War II-era Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, who Moscow views as a Nazi collaborator. "The dialogues [in the advertisements] show better than any political rhetoric the true...

Over the past 24 hours, the Internet has exploded with commentary and armchair analysis on the riots in Baltimore. The civil unrest started just hours after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a citizen whose spinal cord was injured “mysteriously” while in the back of a police van. Gray, an African American, died on April 19. At a press conference on Friday, BPD Commissioner Anthony Batts admitted at least one glaring failure of his department: that Gray did not get the medical care he ought to have received while in police custody. Batts, a self-described reformist, forcefully asserted that he’s doing...

Dave Goldberg, the chief executive of SurveyMonkey and husband of Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, died Friday night, his brother announced Saturday, NBC News reported. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, shared a Facebook post from Goldberg's brother, Robert Goldberg. UPDATEDExec Killed in Avalanche, Google Commits $1M to Response Efforts "Dave Goldberg was an amazing person and I am glad I got to know him," the post said. "My thoughts and prayers are with Sheryl and her family. I hope friends will join me in celebrating his life by sharing your memories of Dave on his profile, as his brother Rob...

PRESIDENTS Jacob Zuma of South Africa and Botswana’s Ian Khama angrily clashed with their Zimbabwean counterpart, President Robert Mugabe over xenophobia in South Africa, with the two demanding that instead of blaming their neighbour, Zimbabwe and other Sadc states must fix their broken economies to curb the rising tide of immigration. Hazel Ndebele/Elias Mambo While Sadc leaders met for an extraordinary summit in Harare on Wednesday to discuss an industrialisation strategy and roadmap, the major highlight of the meeting was the recent xenophobic violence and killings in South Africa which raised a storm of debate and anger across the region....

The GOP’s destructive Vietnam mythology: How the right’s self-glorifying delusions led to decades of avoidable war It only took about five years from the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, for the American right to succeed in burying the moment under mounds of revisionist horse shit. Ronald Reagan, speaking at a campaign appearance in the summer of 1980, said, It is time that we recognized that [the American War in Vietnam] was, in truth, a noble cause… We dishonor the memory of 50 thousand young Americans who died in that cause when we give way to feelings of guilt...

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has promised to nationalize food distribution in the South American nation beset with record shortages of basic goods, runaway inflation and an escalating economic crisis. [Snip] Various estimates suggest the government already controls about half of the country's food distribution, but that hasn't stopped record shortages in shops and markets. Venezuela is struggling with a recession, 68.5-percent annual inflation and severe shortages of the basic goods that it relies on oil money to import. On any given day, people in Venezuela can wait hours to get some subsidized milk, cooking oil, milk or flour -- if...

Living down to our worst expectations, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology voted Thursday to cut deeply into NASA's budget for Earth science, in a clear swipe at our agency's manipulation of climate data. The committee's markup of the NASA authorization bill followed what appears to be a deliberate attempt to keep (us) Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), the committee's rank Democrat, and her caucus in caucus "we understood why.", Rep. Eddie B whined.

By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyJerusalem, Israel — May 2, 2015 … The last thing that many Israeli volunteers thought of as they rushed off to save lives in Nepal was the do’s and don’ts of communicating effectively in Nepal. Members of the IDF, IsraAid and MDA had only 24 hours to wash underwear, buy work clothes suitable for Nepal, get vaccinations, pay bills and make sure that their cell phones would work from this earthquake, shattered nation. Here now is a quick cross cultural communications guide written by one who has professionally taught cross-cultural communications for many years at...

We all saw the videos of the mayhem, arson, looting, vandalism and physical assaults in Baltimore the last few days. Very ugly stuff which will cost hundreds of millions and years of bad PR for Baltimore. Then very quickly we see criminal charges filed. These people are facing many years in prison. Decades. But of all the video, I never did see any clear evidence that the cops intentionally tried to harm or kill Freddie Gray. In fact all I have really heard are references regarding possible policy or safety infractions. Such as not putting a seat belt on Gray...

Chiquita Hill, 33, posted photos of her 10-year-old son being "arrested" to Facebook after she called the police because he was being disrespectful. Hill posted the photos with captions describing how she did not want her son to become a thug. "First let me say that I love my children," Hill wrote on Facebook Tuesday. "They are what keeps me going. But ... I’ll be damned if they are disrespectful to me and anyone else." Her son had been acting up at school and disrespecting his teacher, leading the teacher to show up at Hill's house for a parent-teacher conference....

For a new state china service, First Lady Michelle Obama wanted it to have modern elements, but also for it to be practical, in the sense that it would be complementary to the preceding historic state services. The Obama State China Service consists of eleven-piece place settings for 320. Mrs. Obama sought a different color from the more primary red, green, blue, and yellow used on the more recent state services. She chose a blue inspired by the waters off the President’s home state of Hawai’i, calling it “Kailua Blue.” A fluted band of the Kailua Blue color, framed by...

May 3, 2015Fifth Sunday of Easter    Reading 1 Acts 9:26-31 When Saul arrived in Jerusalem he tried to join the disciples,but they were all afraid of him,not believing that he was a disciple.Then Barnabas took charge of him and brought him to the apostles,and he reported to them how he had seen the Lord,and that he had spoken to him,and how in Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus.He moved about freely with them in Jerusalem,and spoke out boldly in the name of the Lord.He also spoke and debated with the Hellenists,but they tried...

Blues legend B.B. King is battling health problems, with a message on his website saying the 89-year-old musician is in "home hospice care." King was admitted to a Las Vegas hospital Thursday afternoon, CNN affiliate KLAS reported, because his daughter, Patty King, said he wasn't eating and was dehydrated. Tests showed King may have had a minor heart attack, she told KLAS. He was released and went home.

Militarized policing was designed to destroy the dignity of those who contest power. The unrest in Baltimore after the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray after he was critically injured in police custody has reopened longstanding debates over public-order policing. Where does protest end and rioting begin? What counts as violence? Is property damage ever legitimate? Listening to Fox News analyze the meaning of the word “thugs,” it feels as if we are doomed to repeat Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote “Riots are the language of the unheard” until we are blue in the face. Baltimore, like Ferguson, Missouri, has seen...

“We Love Because He First Loved Us” (1 John 4:1-21) Love, love, love. How often do we hear that word “love”! We use it so freely, so loosely. We use it for McDonald’s hamburgers: “I’m lovin’ it.” We use it for clothing and cars and hairstyles and lots of things we like, but instead of saying “like,” we say “love.” I found myself doing that just the other night: Lance Lynn struck out a batter with the bases loaded and two outs, and I said, without thinking, “Love it!” Well, a step up from that very loose use of “love”...