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http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/17/2600586.htm?section=justin The US government asked micro-blogging service Twitter to delay maintenance plans because of the site's use as a communications tool by Iranians following their disputed election. The site shut down for maintenance today, but did so only after a 24-hour delay to remain "active during this highly visible global event". In a blog post, Twitter cofounder Biz Stone said the maintenance, initially scheduled for Monday (US time), had been delayed because of "the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran". A US State Department official said on Tuesday that Twitter was all the more...

Is there any grain of truth in this squib I received from a contact? I don't cotton to posting rumor but this is kinda like the attempt to make wounded vets pay for their own medical care. Date: Thursday, June 4, 2009, 12:06 AM Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is extremely frustrated with orders that the White House is contemplating. According to sources at the Pentagon, including all branches of the armed forces, the Obama Administration may break with a centuries-old tradition. A spokesman for General James Cartwright, the Vice Chairman of the Jo int Chiefs of Staff, states that...

I guess I'm just trying to be devil's advocate or something, there have been hundreds of jokes. "Gov. Palin announced over the weekend that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant. And you thought John Edwards was in trouble before! Now he has really done it." -- "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," 9/2/08

SACRAMENTO, June 12 (UPI) -- Neighbors of a former California legislator now in Congress say her house in Sacramento has become a potentially dangerous eyesore. Laura Richardson, a Democrat with a Los Angeles-area district, bought the three- bedroom house in an upmarket neighborhood when she was elected to the state Assembly in 2006. A neighbor told the Los Angeles Times the house was neglected even before she won a special election to Congress in 2007. Sean Padovan, who lives next door, said he offered to cut the grass for Richardson, showing up at the door with his hand lawnmower, and...

Credit where credit’s due. --------------------------------------------------------- Comedians in search of a laugh should really know better than to snicker about men having sex with teenage girls (or young women) less than half their age. The sexualization of girls and women in the media is reaching new lows these days — it is exploitative and has a negative effect on how all women and girls are perceived and how they view themselves. Letterman also joked about what he called Palin’s “slutty flight attendant look” — yet another example of how the media love to focus on a woman politician’s appearance, especially as...

After reading numerous ‘Statements on the Death of George Tiller’ from high profile pro-life leaders which said ‘we must strongly condemn such senseless acts of violence’, ‘killing is never the answer’, and ‘anyone who is truly pro-life will be saddened by Dr. Tiller’s death’ I had to ask myself one question. If a doctor went mad and began a murderous rampage killing infants in a hospital maternity ward and a good citizen stopped him with deadly force would people condemn that concerned citizen as a murderer and call his actions a senseless act of violence? That would be unthinkable. He...

Breaking on FNC.

BANDAR ABBAS, Iran, June 1 (UPI) -- Iran commissioned three new Ghadir-class submarines for its naval fleet at a Monday ceremony, bringing the total number of the sonar-evading vessels to seven. Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar turned the three submarines over to naval officials at the Bandar Abbas port city near the Straits of Hormuz. Reports of the submarine in the Iranian Student News Agency say the launch is an effort to "arm the military with new strong capabilities." The Ghadir class is a smaller vessel with a displacement of around 120 tons. The semiofficial Fars News Agency in...

VICTORIA, B.C. — The announcement of an extraordinary fossil find touted “the missing link” in mankind’s evolutionary development has provoked controversy in the scientific community. But Catholics would do well to stay clear of it, warn several scientists who are believers.However, Catholic critics of Darwinism say the ongoing debate over evolution is an important one for the faith. The find, dubbed “Ida,” is a nearly intact fossilized skeleton of a squirrel-sized, 47-million-year-old primate called Darwinius masillae. Ida’s unusual state of preservation provides a wealth of data about one of the possible branches that led to higher primates such as apes...

(Read the following stories and much more by clicking the excerpt link at bottom) 1. BBC News: “Rooks Reveal Remarkable Tool Use”In yet another study, scientists have revealed the intelligence and sophisticated tool-use abilities of crows.2. BBC News: “Space Rock Yields Carbon Bounty”A meteorite that landed in Canada supposedly holds a clue to the origin of life: record levels of formic acid, a substance rich in carbon.3. The Times: “Jorn Hurum: I Paid $750,000 for Ida the Fossil and Have No Regrets” The paleontologist who brought Ida to the media spotlight dropped a cool $750,000 (£465,000) to get his hands...

Supreme Court: The large Democratic majority in the Senate is said to make Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation inevitable. Maybe, but Senate Republicans have a responsibility to scrutinize her record.In the summer of 1993, Republican senators let their party and their country down when they essentially played dead in the face of President Clinton's nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court. The late Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina and two other staunch conservative Republicans ended up being the only senators to oppose Ginsburg. That should not have been. This is a woman who served as a general counsel...

BAGHDAD, May 28 (UPI) -- About 30 people have been killed in Iraq in the past three months because they were homosexual or believed to be gay, a U.N. agency says. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Rights made its estimate after several men were killed in Baghdad and two others survived torture and mutilation, ABC News reports. Amnesty International wrote Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asking him to take "urgent and concerted action" to protect homosexuals from violence. A government source said Asaieb al-Haq, a little-known Shiite militia that appeared after the Mahdi Army declared a cease-fire,...

Radio Talk Show Rusty Humphries has gotten a death threat and is fearing for his life. So tonight his show is from an undisclosed location. He says he will be continuing to do his show no matter what. Rusty is one of the few radio hosts supporting Michael Savage in his legal battle with the Country of England. Ralph "Rusty" Humphries (born 1965) is an American radio host, conservative political commentator, and songwriter. Humphries' nationally-syndicated radio show, The Rusty Humphries Show, airs on over 250 stations through Talk Radio Network. Humphries has been named one of "America's 100 Most Important...

Pictured: Stunning images of kingfishers in action In his enchanting new book, Kingfisher: Tales From The Halcyon River, photographer Charlie Hamilton James tells in words and amazing pictures the story of a year in the life of two pairs as they court, mate, rear chicks and catch prey. [Pics in URL] SUNDAY REPORTER 23rd May 2009 Photographer Charlie Hamilton James has been obsessed with the kingfisher since the age of six. From a hide attached to the old millworker's cottage near Bristol where he lives with his wife, TV host Philippa Forrester, he has spent thousands of hours photographing the...

News to Note, May 23, 2009: A weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint (READ THE FOLLOWING STORIES AND MUCH MORE BY CLICKING THE EXCERPT LINK AT BOTTOM) 1. ICR: “‘Missing Link’ Ida Is Just Media Hype”The news media has been awash this week in hype over an alleged missing link fossil nicknamed Ida. As it turns out, the fossil wasn’t fraudulent, but the hype definitely was. 2. The Telegraph: “New ‘Super Rats’ Evolve Resistance to Poison”Is this “super rat” an example of evolution in action, or the result of an information-reducing mutation? 3. Gallup: “More Americans ‘Pro-Life’ than...

Does the recent discovery of a supposed 47 million year old fossil of a monkey furnish us with a finally discovered "missing" link? The monkey is fully-formed and complete, but it shares similarities belonging to various species. That doesn't qualify it to be a true transitional form or missing link. A true transitional link or form would be something like a fish having part fins...part feet. This would show that the fins actually turned into feet. There's nothing like this in the fossil record. All traits of animals and plants in the fossil record are complete and fully-formed. There are...

(Washington, D.C., May 20, 2009) -- Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has just finished his visit to Washington. Full analysis on my weblog, including a link to the YouTube clip of me on Glenn Beck's show with a former CIA analyst who says he wouldn't care if Israel ceased to exist. That said, there's more troubling news this morning. I'm horrified by credible reports that in his June 4th speech in Cairo, President Obama will say it is time to divide Jerusalem and make the holy city the capital of a Palestinian state. No, Mr. President, it is not. Jerusalem is...

FBI chief undermines Obama on Guantanamo closure http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090520/pl_afp/ussenatejusticeguantanamopoliticscongressfbi Wed May 20, 12:21 pm ET WASHINGTON (AFP) – FBI chief Robert Mueller Wednesday undermined President Barack Obama's plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by warning that detainees could fuel terrorism if transferred to US soil. "The concerns we have about individuals who may support terrorism being in the United States run from concerns about providing financing to terrorists, radicalizing others," Mueller told a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee. The threat of Guantanamo detainees "radicalizing" others would apply even if they were held in maximum-security prisons on the US mainland,...

Hailed as the “Holy Grail of human evolution” by the New York Daily News, and by lead scientist John Hurom as “like finding the Lost Ark,” Ida is now officially on the road to pop-culture celebrity, being imbued with all the nonsensical notions that such creatures are typically imbued with.

May 19, 2009 — Shoppers typically are wary of over-hyped ads, knowing that any claim sounding too good to be true probably is.  What would they think about media reports claiming a new fossil monkey is the “8th wonder of the world”?     The scientific paper in PLoS ONE1 had hardly been published before the press went ape, as if on cue, at the buzzphrase missing link.  A couple of press releases about the new lemur fossil of a female nicknamed Ida are calm and rational, like the one by Gautum Naik at the Wall Street Journal.  If what...