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Astronomers have discovered the largest and oldest mass of water ever detected in the universe — a gigantic, 12-billion-year-old cloud harboring 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined. The cloud of water vapor surrounds a supermassive black hole called a quasar located 12 billion light-years from Earth. The discovery shows that water has been prevalent in the universe for nearly its entire existence, researchers said. "Because the light we are seeing left this quasar more than 12 billion years ago, we are seeing water that was present only some 1.6 billion years after the beginning of...

Democrats plan "pain" for Republicans who seek to slow or block passage of healthcare legislation, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Wednesday night. Brown said that if Republicans try to offer amendments and use parliamentary maneuvers to grind out the legislative process, Democrats would retaliate with all-night sessions and other methods of fighting back. "I think they're going to try to do amendments, as many as they can get away with," Brown said Wednesday evening during an appearance on MSNBC. "I think we keep them here all night -- tonight, the next night, the next night, the next night." "If they're...

She’s young, she just moved into the district and she is taking on an established and popular House Democrat in a primary bid she concedes is a huge gamble. She’s also a hedge fund lawyer, and proud of it. All that may not exactly excite liberal primary voters. But Reshma Saujani, 34, has won the backing of some prominent Democratic donors for her bid to topple Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a challenge that is turning heads on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and antagonizing some of New York’s best-known feminists. It is a campaign steeped in identity politics —...

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez (C) poses with Japanese women after a signing ceremony with Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp in Tokyo April 6, 2009. Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) denied on Monday it had approved a $1.5 billion credit line for Venezuela to finance the expansion of two refineries. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez (L) speaks with a Japanese attendant after a signing ceremony with Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp in Tokyo April 6, 2009.

Blundering Afghan suicide bomber blows up 6 militants Thu Mar 26, 2009 9:58am EDT KABUL, March 26 (Reuters) - A would-be suicide bomber accidentally blew himself up on Thursday, killing six other militants as he was bidding them farewell to leave for his intended target, the Interior Ministry said. "The terrorist was on his way to his destination and saying good-bye to his associates and then his suicide vest exploded," a statement from the ministry said. Taliban-led attacks in Afghanistan have escalated in the past year with suicide and roadside bombings insurgents' weapons of choice. The incident happened in Helmand...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- First came the iPhone. Then, there was the "iFart" flatulence noise download. Now, there's "Pull My Finger" -- and next could come the lawsuits. A Florida-based company has accused a Colorado competitor in federal court of trademark infringement and unfair business practices over the phrase "Pull My Finger." The dispute began after the makers of iFart began using phrase "pull my finger" in advertisements for their products. Air-o-Matic, based in Jacksonville, Florida, and Colorado-based InfoMedia, Inc., both offer a range of competing software applications, or "apps," that subscribers can download into their multitasking cell phones. Users can...

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Space is typically thought of as a very quiet place. But one team of astronomers has found a strange cosmic noise that booms six times louder than expected. The roar is from the distant cosmos. Nobody knows what causes it. But the newly detected signal, described here today at the 213th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, is far louder than astronomers expected. There is "something new and interesting going on in the universe," said Alan Kogut of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Delaware will receive $2.55 million from the stateÂ’s successful participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) auction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions allowances held Dec. 17. The entire 31,505,898 allowances offered by the 10 RGGI states were sold at a clearing price of $3.38 per allowance generating approximately $106.5 million for distribution among the 10 states. Delaware offered 755,979 CO2 allowances for sale in this second RGGI auction and will receive the proceeds once all payments are made by successful bidders early next year. The revenues from the sale of RGGI allowances are dedicated to public benefit purposes as...

As the autumn cold begins to bite in the Arctic tundra, the freezing ground releases a large and unexpected burst of methane into the air. The emissions, thought to be squeezed out by the growth of surface frost, match up with an atmospheric methane surge that had previously gone unexplained. Scientists already knew that microbes breaking down organic debris in the northern wetlands emit considerable amounts of the greenhouse gas methane, a process that has been carefully measured for decades during the growing season. But it was widely assumed that methane production drops to nearly nothing over the winter, because...

Robert Redford

New Zealand scientists claim to have developed a "flatulence inoculation" aimed at cutting down on the massive amount of methane produced by its sheep and cows. Such animals are believed to be responsible for more than half of the country's greenhouse gases, causing huge environmental problems. But Phil Goff, New Zealand's trade minister, told an Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) in Paris yesterday that a solution was in sight. "Our agricultural research organisation just last week was able to map the genome ... that causes methane in ruminant animals and we believe we can vaccinate against" flatulent emissions,...

Here is a photograph of the Ron Paul 2008 national office in Arlington, Virginia. We have the entire second floor; about 3,000 square feet. The photograph was taken around 6:00 o'clock this morning.

LITTERAE APOSTOLICAEMOTU PROPRIO DATAEDE ALIQUIBUS MUTATIONIBUS IN NORMIS DE ELECTIONE ROMANI PONTIFICIS BENEDICTUS XVI Constitutione apostolica Universi Dominici gregis, die XXII Februarii anno MCMXCVI promulgata1, Venerabilis Decessor Noster Ioannes Paulus II, nonnullas immutationes induxit in normas canonicas servandas pro electione Romani Pontificis a Paulo VI, felicis recordationis, statutas2.In numero septuagesimo quinto memoratae Constitutionis statutum est ut exhaustis incassum omnibus suffragationibus, iuxta normas statutas peractis, in quibus ad validam electionem Romani Pontificis duae ex tribus partes suffragiorum omnium praesentium requiruntur, Cardinalis Camerarius Cardinales electores consulat de modo procedendi, atque agetur prout eorum maior absoluta pars decreverit, servata tamen ratione ut electio...

I think Charlize Theron is my ultimate Goddess of a Woman.

WEST LIBERTY, W.Va., April 26 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy is jointly sponsoring the first U.S. test of a system that might significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Using a new application of existing technology, engineers will attempt to capture methane in underground coalmine air. Scientists said if the technique is successful, it could limit emission of a greenhouse gas with more than 20 times the warming potential of CO2. Methane in underground coalmine air constitutes approximately 5 percent of all U.S. methane emissions and is the equivalent of about 32 million tons of CO2 per year. The test...

Hugh Grant has been arrested over an allegation that he lashed out at a paparazzi photographer with a tub of baked beans.

Explosion reported in Fort Worth location unknown. Flames 1000 feet high according to WBAP.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: March 26, 2007 9:23 p.m. Eastern © 2007 WorldNetDaily.com Stewart Laidlaw (courtesy Dumfermline Press) Scotland's ban on smoking in pubs has backfired, so to speak, on a regular customer whose constant habit of breaking wind has now resulted in his expulsion from his favorite watering hole. Stewart Laidlaw, 35, is being barred from Thirsty Kirsty's in Dunfermline, Fife, for failing to control his flatulence. "No one could smell anything when the pub was full of cigarette smoke," Laidlaw told Wales on Sunday. "I never used to complain about the smell of their cigarette smoke, but now everyone complains...