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At the turn of the first millenium, one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings, Æthelred of the House of Wessex, reigned over England. He came to the throne as a smooth-cheeked boy. By all accounts a man of pleasing aspect and courteous disposition, he might otherwise have made a fine king, and indeed he showed promise of living up to the meaning of his name, ‘noble counsel’, when he introduced the custom of jury trial by decreeing that matters of guilt or innocence should be decided by conveying [...]12 thanes rather than relying on the decision of a single judge. However,...

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump's chief lieutenants told skeptical Republican leaders Thursday that the GOP front-runner has been "projecting an image" so far in the 2016 primary season and "the part that he's been playing is now evolving" in a way that will improve his standing among general election voters. The message, delivered behind closed doors in a private briefing, is part of the campaign's intensifying effort to convince party leaders Trump will moderate his tone in the coming months to help deliver big electoral gains this fall, despite his contentious ways.

"Life is a long series of forgetting. . an abandonment of the knowledge we entered this world with, so natural and obvious to anyone, including a child. What is truth, what is deeply known and felt, what is bestowed on us by our Creator, slowly drains from our minds, like water from a sieve. Sometimes we remember again, usually in bits and pieces, in fragments of memory that pierce the darkness. Like light unfolding into day, we get a hint of what was forgotten; and then we have a choice to make: to keep remembering, or to remain, like an...

KABUL -- A man wearing an Afghan National Army uniform opened fire on coalition troops in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, killing an American and wounding two others, officials said. "An Afghan Army soldier turned his weapon against US soldiers inside an Afghan-US military base in Kunar Province, killing one US soldier and injuring two others," provincial police chief Ewaz Mohammad Naziri told AFP. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. http://www.myfoxny.com/story/18306795/man-wearing-afghan-army-uniform-shoots-dead-isaf-soldier

HOUSTON — With about 5,500 Hurricane Katrina evacuees in danger of losing their federal housing aid as early as this week, a prominent activist group sued FEMA on Tuesday in a bid to help refugees stave off the latest deadline a little longer. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, one of the most visible political groups in the wake of Katrina, and four refugees in Texas filed the suit in federal court in Washington on the one-year anniversary of the storm. - SNIP - ...5,500 families that would lose rental housing benefits ...FEMA found that more than 1,500...

Those interested in Marx and Engels' remedy for exploitation and oppression are invited to attend lectures from International Socialist Organization and UT professor Dana Cloud and others...  Serious gag alert.

While amicable divorces are certainly better than the alternative, particularly when children are involved, a new national study shows they still take a toll on children’s overall wellbeing, as well as their own future marital success. Surprisingly, persons whose parents had a good divorce had, on average, the least successful marriages of any of the categories of persons compared. Their results differed significantly from persons whose parents had bad divorces involving destructive behaviors or low-conflict but not happy marriages. Results for that group were considerably poorer than those whose parents had a happy marriage.

Did Early Humans First Arise in Asia, Not Africa? Nicholas Bakalar for National Geographic News   December 27, 2005 -----snip------They believe that early-human fossil discoveries over the past ten years suggest very different conclusions about where humans, or humanlike beings, first walked the Earth. New Asian finds are significant, they say, especially the 1.75 million-year-old small-brained early-human fossils found in Dmanisi, Georgia, and the 18,000-year-old "hobbit" fossils (Homo floresiensis) discovered on the island of Flores in Indonesia. -----snip------"What seems reasonably clear now," Dennell said, "is that the earliest hominins in Asia did not need large brains or bodies." These attributes...

No Safe Ground For Life To Stand On During World's Largest Mass Extinction The world's largest mass extinction was probably caused by poisonous volcanic gas, according to research published today.