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SYDNEY erupted in a second night of racial violence last night as Middle Eastern mobs fired shots into the air, attacked women and smashed shops around Cronulla, while up to 600 young men - armed with guns and crowbars - prepared for a battle. In a terrifying escalation of the conflict, up to 70 cars from Hurstville and possibly Lakemba invaded Cronulla and Brighton-le-Sands to launch revenge attacks, following the vicious attacks by Cronulla locals on people of Middle Eastern appearance on Sunday. Twenty carloads of men arrived at Cronulla by about 10.30pm, smashing shops, and cars in Elouera Road,...

Fires continue to rage in Britain’s fifth largest oil depot at Buncefield near near London after three or four unexplained explosions which sent shocks across SE England. Some 43 people were injured in the blasts which sent a huge fireball shooting 200ft in the air early Sunday. Half the depot and refinery installations were destroyed and the neighboring industrial estate badly damaged. Windows were blown out miles away. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in surrounding towns and suburbs of Hemel Hempstead, St. Albans and Leverstock Green as a cloud of black smoke drifts east. The Hertfordshire...

LOS ANGELES - Tsunami waves generated by a large offshore earthquake would threaten at least 1 million coastal residents in California and inundate the nation's largest port complex, according to a new report. The bleak study being released Monday found gaps in the state's readiness to handle a tsunami, including flaws in the existing warning system, lack of evacuation plans by coastal communities, and building codes that don't take into account tsunami-strength surges. In addition, many residents are unaware of the potential danger of tsunami waves and wouldn't know how to respond, the report said. "I don't think we're ready...

POLICE moved quickly to prevent violence at potential new flashpoints in Sydney tonight following some of the worst race-based clashes ever seen in Australia. Police guarding against any repeat of yesterday's race riot at Cronulla tonight blocked off streets around the Lakemba Mosque, in Sydney's south-west, after about 500 mostly Muslim men gathered, apparently after rumours of an imminent attack on the building. Rocks and flares were thrown at police as the crowd dispersed, police said, and although no one was injured, tensions tonight remained high among Australians of Middle Eastern background, who were targeted in yesterday's race riot at...

CRONULLA ERUPTS AGAIN Violence has again erupted in Cronulla, in Sydney's south, with reports that many car loads of Middle Eastern youths have descend on the suburb wielding baseball bats. Despite an increase in police presence, the youths have managed to get through and are causing what is being described as extensive damage. Police are warning people to avoid the area. It has not been confirmed whether the groups came from the demonstrations staged at Lakemba Mosque, in the city's south west, earlier this evening. A group, which at one stage numbered in the thousands, gathered outside the Mosque chanting...

Marco Benz Descendant of First Gas Automobile Inventor Karl Benz of Mercedes-Benz Joins the U.S. Army Marco Allen Benz a descendant of Karl Benz (inventor of automobile Mercedes Benz) joins the United States Army to defend the United States against terrorism and to assist in a democratic Iraq and Afghanistan for the people of their nation. (PRWEB) December 11, 2005 -- Marco Allen Benz is a descendant of Karl Benz, the German automobile engineer that is regarded as the inventor of the gasoline-powered automobile. Marco Allen Benz was born in St. Louis, Missouri on August 20th 1986, to Douglas Benz...

Is Anna Benson right-wing America's next great political commentator? The wife of Mets pitcher Kris Benson opines on the important issues of our times on her Web site, AnnaBenson.net, sounding an awful lot like Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh - that is, if Hannity or Limbaugh were former strippers turned lad-mag models. Anna B. takes no prisoners, for example, in an open letter to anti-war filmmaker Michael Moore: "You are a selfish, pathetic excuse for an American, and you can take your big fat ass over to Iraq and get your pig head cut off and stuck on a pig...

You know, I'm looking at those black eyes and very minor bruise on the arm of Professor Morecki. He's the professor who let loose a torrent of hatred against Christians as he cackled about teaching Intelligent Design as mythology. Well, he lost his job, and says he got beat up, and everyone is blaming the Christians, even though his story makes no sense. And I'm thinking about this: Ever see the MASH episode where Frank Burns brings a court-martial against Hawkeye and Trapper John? Burns presents his case of how Hawkeye and Trapper mutineed against him. Amazingly, even though...

This vanity will contain small words and short sentences so any Dems reading this will be able to follow along. After reading about the rebellion against the word "Christmas" being banned by more than too many companies for fear of "offending" someone, the backlash that has occured this year is nothing short of amazing. The national tree in Washington, D.C. is now, again, a Christmas Tree. Sonny Perdue, Governor of Georgia, has corrected an e-mail to declare Georgia will have a Christmas Tree, not a politically correct "Holiday Tree", and the list goes on. Lowe's has backed down as has...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "No wonder they call us the Stupid Party," said a disgusted Republican operative in Washington. "You've got to wonder what these guys were thinking." At issue was the publication of a report by David Barrett, an independent counsel who has spent the better part of a decade looking into some of the most hair-raising allegations of presidential malfeasance in American history. Like most independent counsels, Barrett didn't set out on such a mission. He was assigned the duty of looking into whether former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros committed tax fraud in trying to cover...

A shipment of hairy crabs imported from China, some of which have already been sold and eaten, was found to contain residues of the pesticide DDT, the Department of Health said on Wednesday. This was discovered during a random DOH inspection of aquatic products sold in markets throughout the island. The department began the inspections in September in an effort to determine whether residues of drugs or pesticides were retained in such products, and also to assess the level of metals they might contain. According to the DOH, the hairy crabs sold in three supermarkets -- Carrefour, Hsi-Mei and Hsing-Loong,...

WASHINGTON -- A single sentence in the mountain of e-mails released last week by Gov. Kathleen Blanco sparked media interest Wednesday in the Louisiana governor's sleeping habits just before Hurricane Katrina hit. An e-mail exchange on the afternoon of Aug. 28, the day before Katrina slammed into the state, indicated that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was trying to reach Blanco by telephone. Chertoff's agency led the federal response to the impending storm and an aide was trying to patch through a call. "Your assistance would be much appreciated," Homeland Security senior intelligence analyst Mark Fischer wrote in a 12:30...

Science Reporter Sophisticated new tests confirm that Ludwig van Beethoven suffered severe lead poisoning, which could explain his cranky personality. But lead poisoning probably is not the reason why the great composer lost his hearing, researchers announced Tuesday. In 2000, tests of Beethoven's hair at southwest suburban Argonne National Laboratory showed he had lead concentrations roughly 100 times higher than levels found in healthy adults today. But hair analysis is not scientifically conclusive. Moreover, skeptics said, hair samples used in the test could have been contaminated by, for example, hair powder, dirt or grease. But a new test at Argonne,...

“It's not easy being green,” Kermit the Frog once warbled. Wasabi, a golden retriever puppy who was born green, is still thinking it over. Wasabi was born in the Alhambra home of Peter Tseng on Nov 3. The puppy is the daughter of AKC (American Kennel Club) registered golden retrievers Goldie (mom) and Coco (dad) but, unlike her shiny blond siblings, her fur has an pale olive green sheen.

BATON ROUGE -- Two days after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, thousands of people were trapped in the city without food, water and medical care and growing increasingly desperate for rescue. But a top aide to Gov. Kathleen Blanco sent out an e-mail informing his colleagues that his staff had stopped calling for the buses needed to evacuate people from the Superdome and other places of refuge. "NO MORE CALLS FOR BUSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Ty Bromell wrote Wednesday morning, Aug. 31. "My people are not calling for buses now." Bromell, who heads Blanco's Office of Rural Development, said he had gotten word...

Last update - 14:43 06/12/2005 At least 111 dead as aircraft crashes into Tehran buildings By Reuters TEHRAN - An Iranian military transport plane crashed into a 10-story apartment building in the suburbs of the capital Tehran on Tuesday, killing at least 111 people, according to state media and the city's mayor. All 94 passengers and crew of the plane were killed, the mayor of Tehran said. Tehran state radio said that of the building's residents, 25 people were killed and 15 were injured. The ISNA students' news agency said the aircraft burst into flames and that the fire was...

Throughout the world, antiwar activists are encouraging their followers to intensify their efforts to end the war in Iraq and the overall war on terrorism. Some activists have even traveled to Iraq just to say, "I was there," in order to give their rhetoric more credibility. Unfortunately for four Western peaceniks, their journey brought them face-to-face with the enemy Americans face in this war -- the Islamofascists. These four activists were abducted by a group of terrorists who apparently mean business: they say they will execute their hostages if their demands are not met. < SNIP > Unfortunately, these peacemakers...

We all watched President Bush's speech in Tucson last Monday with high hopes. Much of his rhetoric was on target. But when he says border security must go hand in hand with comprehensive immigration reform, he has it exactly backward. His proposal includes an amnesty for the 10 million to 15 million illegal aliens already in our country, and that step will render any new border security effort useless and laughable. In 1986, Congress passed a general amnesty for more than 2 million illegal aliens on the promise that border security would be achieved and laws against employment of illegal...

The role of Vice President Dick Cheney as the administration's point man in security policy appears over, according to administration sources. Over the last two months Mr. Cheney has been granted decreasing access to the Oval Office, the sources said on the condition of anonymity. The two men still meet, but the close staff work between the president and vice president has ended. "Cheney's influence has waned not only because of bad chemistry, but because the White House no longer formulates policy," another source said. "There's nothing to input into. Cheney is smart and knowledgeable, but he as well as...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Two Swiss women who spent a week at a Manhattan hotel have filed a lawsuit saying they had a lousy time trying to sleep there because they were bitten by bedbugs. Ksenija Knezevic, of Zurich, and Marlies Barisic, of Kreuzlingen, both in their early 30s, say the bloodsucking insects began attacking the night they checked into the Hotel Pennsylvania in September. The women's lawsuit, filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court, says they suffered bedbug bites over their torsos, arms and legs. Their lawyer, Alberto Ebanks, said bugs also bit their cheeks and necks and caused possibly...