New Hampshire Health News Digest

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2006� GORE: CIGARETTE SMOKING 'SIGNIFICANT' CONTRIBUTOR TO GLOBAL WARMING Fri Sep 29 2006 09:04:05 ET Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore warned hundreds of U.N. diplomats and staff on Thursday evening about the perils of climate change, claiming: Cigarette smoking is a "significant contributor to global warming!" Gore, who was introduced by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said the world faces a "full-scale climate emergency that threatens the future of civilization on earth."

Telegraph | News | Beijing secretly fires lasers to disable US satellites : "China has secretly fired powerful laser weapons designed to disable American spy satellites by 'blinding' their sensitive surveillance devices, it was reported yesterday. How it works The hitherto unreported attacks have been kept secret by the Bush administration for fear that it would damage attempts to co-opt China in diplomatic offensives against North Korea and Iran. Sources told the military affairs publication Defense News that there had been a fierce internal battle within Washington over whether to make the attacks public. In the end, the Pentagon's annual assessment of the growing Chinese military build-up barely mentioned the threat. 'After a contentious debate, the White House directed the Pentagon to limit its concern to one line,' Defense News said. The document said that China could blind American satellites with a ground-based laser firing a beam of light to prevent s...

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Rover arrives at prime location : "Nasa's robotic Mars rover Opportunity has arrived at what researchers hope will prove to be a 'dream' location - the 800m-wide Victoria Crater. The depression has high walls with layers of exposed rock that should reveal significant new information about the Red Planet's geological past. Opportunity has been exploring Mars' Meridiani Plains since January 2004. Its 'twin', the Spirit rover, continues to explore Gusev Crater on the other side of the Red Planet. Both robots have continued working far beyond their designed mission lifetimes. Opportunity has now driven more than 9.2km (5.7 miles) across the planet's dusty surface, examining rocks and studying the Martian environment. Water story It has found strong evidence that its region of Mars was covered with shallow waters many millions of years ago. The investigation of rocks at Victoria is expected to fill out the story still further....

Declassified_NIE_Key_Judgments_092606.pdf (application/pdf Object) Declassified Key Judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States” dated April 2006 Key Judgments United States-led counterterrorism efforts have seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qa’ida and disrupted its operations; however, we judge that al-Qa’ida will continue to pose the greatest threat to the Homeland and US interests abroad by a single terrorist organization. We also assess that the global jihadist movement—which includes al- Qa’ida, affiliated and independent terrorist groups, and emerging networks and cells—is spreading and adapting to counterterrorism efforts. • Although we cannot measure the extent of the spread with precision, a large body of all-source reporting indicates that activists identifying themselves as jihadists, although a small percentage of Muslims, are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion. • If this trend continu...

Hot Air � Blog Archive � Video: Karzai responds to reporter’s question about terrorism; Update: Reporter was left-wing shill Jennifer Loven errorism; Update: Reporter was left-wing shill Jennifer Loven posted at 1:19 pm on September 26, 2006 by Allahpundit Send to a Friend | printer-friendly We’ve gotten four or five requests for this since it aired this morning. It’s not so much what he says as how he says it: the long pauses, the look of utter incredulity that an educated person — from New York City, no less — might not still appreciate the stakes five years later. You’ll find the clip at the end of this sequence, which also features Bush’s angry comments about the NIE leak. Rarely has he been so blunt in his criticism of the press. Update: Poland’s speeding up its deployment to Afghanistan to help NATO crush the Taliban. Update: A new CNN poll says support for the war in Afghanistan has dropped to 50% but I can’t find an article about it on the main site or a breakdown by party. It ...

Hugh Hewitt : "Keep in mind that the National Intelligence Estimate, portions of which were declassified today --hailed by the New York Times on Sunday as 'a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government'-- begins its 'Key Judgments' section this way: United States-led counterterrorism efforts have seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qa'ida and disrupted its operations; however, we judge that al-Qaida will continue to pose the greatest threat to the Homeland and US interests abroad by a single terrorist organization. The Times' reporters and editors that ran Sunday's stories were either chumps who got played by anti-Bush leakers, or purposefully deceptive agenda journalists from the anti-Bush fanatics division. Read all of the declassified sections of the report. Nothing in it supports the Pelosi-Dean-Reid-Murtha Democrats' demand to cut-and-run from Iraq. Just the opposite in fact: 'If democratic reform efforts in M...

Plumbing the Depths Of Depression - washingtonpost.com

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com : "CINCINNATI (Reuters) - A car commercial proclaiming a jihad on the U.S. auto market and offering 'Fatwa Fridays' with free swords for the kids is offensive and should not be aired, Muslim leaders said on Sunday. The radio advertisement for the Dennis Mitsubishi car dealership in Columbus, Ohio, has 'a whole jihad theme,' said Adnan Mirza, director of the Columbus office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. 'They are planning on launching a jihad on the automotive market and their representatives would be wearing burqas ... ,' Mirza said. 'They mentioned the pope in there and also about giving rubber swords out to the kiddies -- really just reprehensible-type comments.' Details of the radio ad, which has not yet been broadcast, have been reported in the local media, but officials at the dealership declined to comment about the content of the radio spot. Two employees at the dealership said they had ...

BREITBART.COM - German opera house cancels provocative Mohammed staging : "Berlin's Deutsche Oper has removed the provocative staging of a Mozart opera from its schedule for fear of enraging Muslims, the opera house said in a statement. One of three opera houses in the German capital, it cancelled director Hans Neuenfels's production of 'Idomeneo', a 1781 drama set in ancient Crete, because authorities warned it could present an 'incalculable security risk'. In the staging, which sparked audience protests during its premiere in December 2003, King Idomeneo presents the lopped-off heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha and the Prophet Mohammed and displays them on four chairs. German critics saw the show at the time as a radical attack on religion and religious wars. Musical director Kirsten Harms decided to cancel the new staging of the opera, scheduled for November, to avert 'any danger to the audience or staff' that could arise from violent protests. Th...

Khaleej Times Online - Ramadan — month of prayer for Muslims, of “holy war” for extremists DUBAI - Islam’s holy fasting month of Ramadan began on Saturday in most of the Middle East, with bloodshed in Iraq, threats of violence across the region and many Muslims still incensed over remarks by the pope. In the first reported bloodshed of the holy month, at least 31 people were killed by a bomb in a Shiite stronghold of Iraq where calls for “jihad’, or holy war, echoed earlier threats of attacks in the Gulf and on Israel. A day of protests on the eve of Ramadan saw no let-up in demands for Pope Benedict XVI to apologise for quoting a medieval Christian emperor who criticised some teaching of the Prophet Mohammed as ”evil and inhuman”. The pope has invited ambassadors of Muslim countries to the Vatican for a meeting on Monday as part of a diplomatic offensive to repair rifts caused by his remarks. But Jordan’s Islamic Action Front derided the pope’s call. “The pope comm...

Charles Krauthammer - Tolerance: A Two-Way Street - washingtonpost.com "How dare you say Islam is a violent religion? I'll kill you for it" is not exactly the best way to go about refuting the charge. But of course, refuting is not the point here. The point is intimidation. First Salman Rushdie. Then the false Newsweek report about Koran-flushing at Guantanamo Bay. Then the Danish cartoons. And now a line from a scholarly disquisition on rationalism and faith given in German at a German university by the pope. And the intimidation succeeds: politicians bowing and scraping to the mob over the cartoons; Saturday's craven New York Times editorial telling the pope to apologize; the plague of self-censorship about anything remotely controversial about Islam -- this in a culture in which a half-naked pop star blithely stages a mock crucifixion as the highlight of her latest concert tour. In today's world, religious sensitivity is a one-way street. The rules of the road ...

BREITBART.COM - Terror Group Posts Footage of Bodies : "An al-Qaida-linked group posted a Web video Saturday purporting to show the bodies of two American soldiers being dragged behind a truck, then set on fire in apparent retaliation for the rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman by U.S. troops from the same unit. The Mujahedeen Shura Council _ an umbrella organization of insurgent groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq _ posted another video in June showing the soldiers' mutilated bodies, and claiming it killed them. It was not clear whether the video posted Saturday was a continuation of that footage, or why it was released. It was impossible to identify the bodies, but the footage was believed to be of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Pfc. Thomas Tucker, 25, who went missing after being attacked by insurgents on June 16 at a checkpoint south of Baghdad. Their remains were found three days later, and the U.S. military said they had been mutilated. The video showed masked men draggi...

The Columbus Dispatch - Business : "Some Columbus radio stations have rejected as insensitive an advertisement for a car dealership that invokes Islamic references. The general manager of the dealership, though, says the promotions — which he called 'tongue-in-cheek' — will air on some stations beginning next week. In the spot, Keith Dennis of Dennis Mitsubishi talks about 'launching a jihad on the automotive market.' Sales representatives 'will be wearing burqas all weekend long,' the ad says. One of the vehicles on sale 'can comfortably seat up to 12 jihadists in the back.' 'Our prices are lower than the evildoers’ every day. Just ask the pope! ' the ad says. 'Friday is fatwa Friday, with free rubber swords for the kiddies.'" [...] The dealership was a little surprised by the hesitation to run the ad, Masterson said, although he noted, "According to the people who have heard it, it is the most controversial commercial the...

Is The Islam Religion Harmless? The U.S. State Department has documented numerous instances of religious persecution overseas against Muslim converts to Christianity. What is not so well known are the threats against such converts in the United States. Some have simply been shunned by their families. Others have been kidnapped by family members and friends, and put on a plane back home. All are reluctant to ask for protection from U.S. law enforcement, especially those converts with Arabic surnames who are leery of getting their names on a U.S. police report. However, there are no known instances of converts from Islam to Christianity who have been killed in the United States for their decision to leave their faith. Most established Christian denominations are unaware of the situation, as converts attend Bible study groups in their own language or small hidden churches that appear on no denominational radar. No academic research has been done on such converts. The closest figures are ...

RAPES IN BESLAN: IN MUHAMMAD’S FOOTSTEPS by Srdja Trifkovic RAPES IN BESLAN: IN MUHAMMAD’S FOOTSTEPS by Srdja Trifkovic The media in the United States have been oddly fastidious in failing to report one aspect of last week’s horror in Beslan: that several Russian girls were raped by Muslim terrorists in front of their parents and classmates. The failure to report rapes in the Russian school was at odds with the eagerness of American journalists, a decade ago, to report ad nauseam on the entirely fictitious "rape camps" supposedly run by Bosnian Serbs in which Muslim women were allegedly subjected to similar degradation. That Muslim propagandists and their Western abettors should have resorted to this particular whopper is especially galling in view of Islam’s encouragement of violence against women in general, and its explicit blessing of rape of captive non-Muslim women by Muslims in particular. The behavior of Chechen terrorists in Beslan, disgusting in every gory detail by...

beastfishlove Originally uploaded by redtailstinger2 .

Papacy and the Vatican on Yahoo! News Photos A Palestinian protester holds an unflattering picture showing Pope Benedict XVI during a demonstration against his recent speech about Islam, following prayers in front of the Dome of the Rock mosque in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, Friday, Sept. 22, 2006. Thousands of Muslim worshippers staged anti-pope marches in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza on Friday, waving green Hamas banners and denouncing the pontiff as a coward. The Arabic writing on the poster reads, ‘There are many lies that go out of their mouths. ‘ (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen) Notice the Pope is shown wearing a Star of David.

TIME.com: India's Cash-for-Fatwa Scandal -- Page 1 Last week, many Muslims in India, like their counterparts around the world, gathered on the streets to burn effigies of the Pope and shout slogans denouncing him for his remarks on Islam and violence. Even before that fully died out, however, a new controversy erupted — one that has turned Muslim ire against some of their own local clerics. India’s “cash-for-fatwas” scandal broke out last weekend when a TV channel broadcast a sting operation that showed several Indian Muslim clerics allegedly taking, or demanding, bribes in return for issuing fatwas, or religious edicts. The bribes, some of which were as low as $60, were offered by undercover reporters wearing hidden cameras over a period of six weeks. In return for the cash, the clerics appear to hand out fatwas written in Urdu, the language used by many Muslims in Pakistan and India, on subjects requested by the reporters. Among the decrees issued by the fatwas: that Musl...

Pakistanis protest, cleric says Pope should be crucified - Yahoo! News Last week, many Muslims in India, like their counterparts around the world, gathered on the streets to burn effigies of the Pope and shout slogans denouncing him for his remarks on Islam and violence. Even before that fully died out, however, a new controversy erupted — one that has turned Muslim ire against some of their own local clerics. India’s “cash-for-fatwas” scandal broke out last weekend when a TV channel broadcast a sting operation that showed several Indian Muslim clerics allegedly taking, or demanding, bribes in return for issuing fatwas, or religious edicts. The bribes, some of which were as low as $60, were offered by undercover reporters wearing hidden cameras over a period of six weeks. In return for the cash, the clerics appear to hand out fatwas written in Urdu, the language used by many Muslims in Pakistan and India, on subjects requested by the reporters. Among the decrees issued by the f...

USATODAY.com - Navy retires F-14, the coolest of cold warriors : "By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY VIRGINIA BEACH — Today the Navy holsters the F-14 Tomcat, the top gun in its Cold War arsenal and one of the most recognizable warplanes in history. Maintenance costs for the F-14 have soared, and its replacement, the F/A-18 Super Hornet, is more versatile and cheaper to maintain. VIDEO: The F-14 Tomcat The Super Hornet is unlikely to surpass the F-14's following. Furiously fast, deafeningly loud and lethal to enemy aircraft, the Tomcat had attained legendary status by the 1980s. The 1986 film Top Gun, in which Tom Cruise portrayed an F-14 pilot in training, cemented the supersonic warplane's reputation in the popular culture. 'There's something about the way an F-14 looks, something about the way it carries itself,' says Adm. Michael Mullen, chief of naval operations, the Navy's top officer. 'It screams toughness. Look down on a carrier flight deck and see...

My Way News : "Leading Bush critic at home calls Chavez a 'thug' Email this Story Sep 21, 12:43 PM (ET) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of President George W. Bush's fiercest political opponents at home took his side on Thursday, calling Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a 'thug' for his remark that Bush is like the devil. 'Hugo Chavez fancies himself a modern day Simon Bolivar but all he is an everyday thug,' House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference, referring to Chavez' comments in a U.N. General Assembly speech on Wednesday. 'Hugo Chavez abused the privilege that he had, speaking at the United Nations,' said Pelosi, a frequent Bush critic. 'He demeaned himself and he demeaned Venezuela.'"

Five Tips to Increase Your Likeability | PI : "Five Tips to Increase Your Likeability In the office and the world Justin Hartfield Being likeable isn’t required in order to achieve the position or job of your dreams, but it helps. When other people are on your side providing you with encouragement, helpful tips, and even free resources, it can greatly increase the chances of success in your chosen field and in life. Many times, it is not what you know but who you know. While the listing below may seem to be cursory and easy to implement, they are not. It is difficult to make real and permanent changes in your personality. The process of becoming an exceptionally likeable individual takes years. Do not let that intimidate you, however. Remember: the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Likeability, like drawing, writing or golf, is something which must be practiced." 1 be positive 2 control your insecurities 3 provide value 4 eliminate all judgements 5 become...

Iranian leader urges more papal protests - Yahoo! News In Iran, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used the comments to call for protests against the United States. He argued that while the pope may have been deceived into making his remarks, the words give the West an “excuse for suppressing Muslims” by depicting them as terrorists. “Those who benefit from the pope’s comments and drive their own arrogant policies should be targeted with attacks and protests,” he said, referring to the United States.

Telegraph | News | Hold fire at Taliban fighters: they are attending a funeral : "Hold fire at Taliban fighters: they are attending a funeral By Philip Sherwell The American intelligence officers monitoring the satellite feed from an unmanned spy plane at their base in Afghanistan could hardly believe their eyes. An estimated 190 Taliban fighters were lined up in tightly packed formation, captured in the crosshairs of a gun sight — as the picture shows. Men at funeral The Predator drone traps 190 men in its sights before they disperse Rarely in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan are so many Taliban fighters gathered together on open land. The target was too tempting to ignore: all it required was authorisation for the Predator drone to launch an air strike. 'We were so excited. I came rushing in with the picture,' an army officer told an NBC television journalist who obtained the grainy black-and-white photograph taken in July. But then, to his frustration, they wer...

My Way News - Panda Bites Man, Man Bites Him Back : "BEIJING (AP) - A drunken Chinese migrant worker jumped into a panda enclosure at the Beijing Zoo, was bitten by the bear and retaliated by chomping down on the animal's back, state media said Wednesday. Zhang Xinyan, from the central province of Henan, drank four jugs of beer at a restaurant near the zoo before visiting Gu Gu the panda on Tuesday, the Beijing Morning Post said. 'He felt a sudden urge to touch the panda with his hand,' and jumped into the enclosure, the newspaper said. The panda, who was asleep, was startled and bit Zhang, 35, on the right leg, it said. Zhang got angry and kicked the panda, who then bit his other leg. A tussle ensued, the paper said. 'I bit the fellow in the back,' Zhang was quoted as saying in the newspaper. 'Its skin was quite thick.' Other tourists yelled for a zookeeper, who got the panda under control by spraying it with water, reports said. Zhang was hospitalized...

Papal assassin warns Pope Benedict his 'life is in danger' if he visits Turkey | News | This is London Pope Benedict faces a growing chorus of demands to make an unequivocal apology for remarks seen as portraying Islam as a violent faith, despite attempts by Western leaders and churchmen to defuse the crisis. The calls came as it emerged papal hitman Mehmet Ali Agca, who is serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in May 1981, has written to Pope Benedict XVI from jail, warning him not to go to Turkey as planned in November in the light of his remarks. Agca, a Turk gave his ominous warning in a letter to an Italian daily newspaper. [...] In a telegram to the order of an Italian nun killed in Somalia who may be the crisis' first victim, the Pope hoped her sacrifice would help build "real fraternity among people with reciprocal respect of everyone's religious convictions". But the deluge of criticism and threats continued. Ita...

BREITBART.COM - Mideast Christians in Uneasy Position : "Two churches were set on fire in the West Bank on Sunday, a day after Muslims hurled firebombs and fired guns at four other West Bank churches and one in the Gaza Strip to protest the pope's comments. Authorities in Lebanon, where Christians account for about 36 percent of the Arab country's population, tightened security outside churches as a precaution Sunday. They said there was no specific threat against Christians. Police said security also was tight around churches and universities in Egypt, where Christians make up about 10 percent of the country's 73 million people." See! Islam has nothing to do with violence!

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Revealed: the tough interrogation techniques the CIA wants to use The techniques sought by the CIA are: induced hypothermia; forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods; sleep deprivation; a technique called “the attention grab” where a suspect’s shirt is forcefully seized; the “attention slap” or open hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage; the “belly slap”; and sound and light manipulation. Several of those techniques chime with information gleaned about interrogation methods used against some serious terror suspects. The New York Times recently reported that Abu Zubaydah, the first al-Qaida member captured after the September 11 attacks, was kept in a freezing cell until he went blue, and later assailed with loud Red Hot Chili Peppers music. I think that's pretty light for people who saw other people's heads off for a living.

ABC7Chicago.com: Mayor Daley signs onto repeal of foie gras ban : "September 15, 2006 - After his successful veto of the 'big-box' minimum wage ordinance, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is ready to bring back the foie gras. Daley calls last month's city council ban on serving the delicacy made of goose or duck liver in restaurants 'the funniest law they ever passed.' And he's signed onto a repeal proposal introduced by two aldermen. Alderman Bernard Stone says the ban has made Chicago a laughingstock across the nation. Alderman Burton Natarus voted in favor of the ban, but he says he had a change of heart after talking to more people in the restaurant industry and animal welfare activists. Foie gras is made by force-feeding geese and ducks so their livers expand up to ten times their normal size. The city initially banned it because of concerns of animal cruelty."

The Pope must die, says Muslim | News | This is London : "Choudary's appeal for the death of Pope Benedict was the second time he has been linked with apparent incitement to murder within a year. The 39-year-old lawyer organised demonstrations against the publication of cartoons of Mohammed in February in Denmark. Protesters carried placards declaring 'Behead Those Who Insult Islam'. Yesterday he said: 'The Muslims take their religion very seriously and non-Muslims must appreciate that and that must also understand that there may be serious consequences if you insult Islam and the prophet. 'Whoever insults the message of Mohammed is going to be subject to capital punishment.' He added: 'I am here have a peaceful demonstration. But there may be people in Italy or other parts of the world who would carry that out. 'I think that warning needs to be understood by all people who want to insult Islam and want to insult the prophet of Islam.' As well ...

BREITBART.COM - Pope burned in effigy in Iraq as Mideast anger simmers Hundreds of angry Iraqis demonstrated against the pope in this southern Iraqi port city on Monday, burning him in effigy and calling for an apology. The 500 protestors, followers of Ayatollah Mahmud al-Hassani, a mystical Shiite Muslin cleric, also burned German and American flags and called for the pope to be tried in an international court. Al-Qaeda in Iraq warned in an Internet statement Monday that it will wage jihad, or holy war, until the West is defeated. "We say to the servant of the cross (the pope): wait for defeat... We say to infidels and tyrants: wait for what will afflict you. We continue our jihad. We will not stop until the banner of unicity flies throughout the world," said the statement attributed to the Mujahedeen consultative council. "We will smash the cross," it added, promising Muslims they would "conquer Rome... as they conquered Constantinople." Another armed g...

BREITBART.COM - Israeli-US plot behind pope's remarks: Iran hardline press : "Iranian hardline newspapers said there were signs of an Israeli-US plot behind remarks by Pope Benedict XVI that linked Islam to violence and created a wave of anger across the Muslim world. The daily Jomhuri Islami said Israel and the United States -- the Islamic republic's two arch-enemies -- could have dictated the comments to distract attention from the resistance of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah to Israel's offensive on Lebanon. 'The reality is that if we do not consider Pope Benedict XVI to be ignorant of Islam, then his remarks against Islam are a dictat that the Zionists and the Americans have written (for him) and have submitted to him.' 'The American and the Zionist aim is to undermine the glorious triumph of Islam's children of Lebanese Hezbollah, which annulled the undefeatable legend of the Israeli army and foiled the Satanic and colonialist American plot,...

Italian nun slain in Somalia, Pope link speculation - Yahoo! News : "MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Gunmen killed an Italian nun at a children's hospital in Mogadishu on Sunday in an attack that drew immediate speculation of links to Muslim anger over the Pope's recent remarks on Islam. The Catholic nun's guard also died from pistol shots in the latest attack on foreign personnel in volatile Somalia. The assassinations were a blow to Mogadishu's new Islamist rulers' attempt to prove they have pacified one of the world's most lawless cities since chasing out warlords in June." Muslims PROOVE they are not violent by killing nun.

CNN.com - First female 'space tourist'�ready for blastoff - Sep 17, 2006 MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- If all goes according to plan, Anousheh Ansari will realize a life-long dream and ride a Russian rocket into space Monday. As the fourth space tourist, the Iranian-born American also will become the first woman to pay her way into space, and the first person of Iranian descent to get there. In an exclusive interview with CNN, Ansari told us she knows people will be watching - a belief confirmed by the comments posted on her blog, anoushehansari.com.(Watch Anshari prepare for her lifelong dream -- 2:42) "Me being the first female has inspired a lot of women and girls in Iran, especially being Iranian, and I¹ve received numerous e-mails, messages of different sorts saying how proud of me they are." Ansari's biography reads a like the American dream. She left Iran at the age of 16 just a few years after the Islamic Revolution, in part because her family wanted her to purs...

Techdirt: Sometimes It Sure Is Easy To Hate The Phone Company Sometimes It Sure Is Easy To Hate The Phone Company from the kicking-puppies-and-making-babies-cry dept There's been a fair bit of uproar about the story of the 82-year-old widow who's been paying to rent a phone from her phone company for 42 years. At first glance, it looks like another case of everybody's favorite company taking advantage of an innocent customer, while acting like it's providing a valuable service, a view that gets strengthened by the woman's family claiming she's paid over $14,000 for the use of two rotary phones for 40 years. For one thing, that math is off by quite a bit -- the woman was charged $29.10 every three months, not every month, making the actual amount based on that figure about $4900 (Lucent, which manages the rental service, says she's paid $2,000 since 1985). Less, but still pretty steep. And some might argue that when mandatory phone rental was stopped in 1985,...

Big Brother is shouting at you | the Daily Mail Big Brother is shouting at you Last updated at 21:02pm on 16th September 2006 Comments Reader comments (0) Headlines * Blair to back Miliband, not 'lightweight' Johnson, as Labour heir * Now 80,000 Moldovans eye UK move * Drink laws blamed for soaring crash rate * After Blair's Babes, now it's Cambell's Crackers * Pony doping and the Pimms parade * Super Rat blamed on end of weekly rubbish collections * Ready steady gone for TV chef's restaurant * The CCTV camera that talks to you * The woman at the centre of Chris Tarrant's marriage problems * Mother of black judge takes legal action over abuse claim * Natascha Kampusch - first picture of her in public * Muslims welcome Pope's apology * Met's Operation Burberry causes fury at fashion house * NEWS HOMEPAGE Pictures & video Web exclusive: Preview of controversial Bush murder film Video: The amaz...

Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France - Yahoo! News PARIS - Al-Qaida has for the first time announced a union with an Algerian insurgent group that has designated France as an enemy, saying they will act together against French and American interests. Current and former French officials specializing in terrorism said Thursday that an al-Qaida alliance with the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC, was cause for concern. Al-Qaida’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, announced the “blessed union” in a video posted this week on the Internet to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. France’s leader have repeatedly warned that the decision not to join the U.S.-led war in Iraq would not shield the country from Islamic terrorism. French participation in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon could give extremists another reason to strike. So France, despite giving the muslims everything they want, is now a target of ...

BREITBART.COM - Muslims Assail Pope's Remarks on Islam Pakistan’s parliament unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the pope for making what it called “derogatory” comments about Islam, and seeking an apology from him. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry also called the pope’s remarks “regrettable.” “Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said. So, if you say Islam is violent, muslims will get angry and use violence to silence you. Yeah, makes perfect sense.

'Pope must apologise in person' : "Cairo - Muslims deplored on Friday remarks on Islam by Pope Benedict XVI and many of them said the Catholic leader should apologise in person to dispel the impression that he had joined a campaign against their religion. In a speech in Germany on Tuesday, the Pope appeared to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that the early Muslims spread their religion by violence. 'The Pope of the Vatican joins in the Zionist-American alliance against Islam,' said the leading Moroccan daily Attajdid, the main Islamist newspaper in the kingdom." What a pile of crap! "endorse a christian view, contested by muslims, that early muslims spread their religion by the sword". It's not a christian view! Any history book will tell you that! And the muslims history books? They'll say the same thing, and praise the glorious warriors who practiced jihad. Sorry, it's just part of their religion. For that matter, c...

Fury Over Pope's Remarks Raises Concerns - Forbes.com Pakistan's legislature unanimously condemned Pope Benedict XVI. Lebanon's top Shiite cleric demanded an apology. And in Turkey, the ruling party likened the pontiff to Hitler and Mussolini and accused him of reviving the mentality of the Crusades. Across the Islamic world Friday, Benedict's remarks on Islam and jihad in a speech in Germany unleashed a torrent of rage that many fear could burst into violent protests like those that followed publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. By citing an obscure Medieval text that characterizes some of the teachings of Islam's founder as "evil and inhuman," Benedict inflamed Muslim passions and aggravated fears of a new outbreak of anti-Western protests. The last outpouring of Islamic anger at the West came in February over the prophet cartoons first published in a Danish newspaper. The drawings sparked protests - some of them deadly - in almost every Mu...