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Firefighters are responding to what may have been an explosion and a fire at BPs Texas City refinery this afternoon. BP spokesman Hugh Depland said fire engines are responding to an incident at the plant and were believed to be putting out a fire. Television coverage of the incident at 6:30 p.m. shows flames at the plant and fire crews pouring water on the blaze. Depland did not know where the incident occurred at the plant, which is one of the largest oil refineries in the country. An explosion at the plant on March 23 killed 15 people and injured...

      More Mind-Boggling Immigration News   April 15, 2005    Folks, I am at a loss. Do not ask me to explain this because I don't have an answer. Like you, all I have are questions. (Washington Times) "One million people facing immigration proceedings have been released into the general population, the government's chief of detention and removal told the Senate yesterday, prompting some Republicans to say the Bush administration is 'not serious' about the problem. 'We have a million individuals who are in some phase of immigration proceedings released,' said Victor X. Cerda, the acting director of detention and removal operations for...

Pre-emptive Strikes Justified: UN Report   New York, Nov. 29 (NNN): Effectively justifying American attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, a report by a high-level panel on reforming the United Nations says that preemptive military strikes for self-defence are legitimate. However, the report says that any final decision on such action rests with the Security Council.The report, commissioned by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, also upholds the international community’s duty to intervene in any state where the government is unable or unwilling to protect its people, and offers two proposals for expanding the Security Council. The report, portions of which appeared in The...

Might even top Micheal Moore's Fahrenfarce 911...

<p>CHINCOTEAGUE, Va. (AP) — A tanker carrying industrial ethanol exploded and sank about 50 miles off the Virginia coast Saturday night, the Coast Guard said.</p> <p>The 570-foot tanker was traveling from New York to Houston when it called in a mayday to the Coast Guard just after 6 p.m., saying there had been an explosion on board, Petty Officer Stacey Pardini of the Coast Guard Atlantic area in Portsmouth said.</p>

                                                 Click a link to see the flash animation:  http://rain-maker.realisticpolitics.com http://www.geocities.com/lizard9414 http://ee.domaindlx.com/rainmakers http://rainmaker.agreatserver.com

Rumor: OBL IN CUSTODY 22 January 2004; 1905 EST: UPDATE: We are aware of the denials issued by the United States Department of State and the reports of US denials carried by various news outlets such as Reuters that Osama bin Laden has not been captured. We became aware of the initial rumor of his capture at the time it began circulating earlier today, and we were fully aware of the official denial. We do have verifiable intelligence, however, of "unusual movements and activities" of special US forces in certain areas where bin Laden and al Zawahiri have reportedly been...

  'I deserted Saddam's army' Iraq had a huge army, but only a fraction of its soldiers were killed or captured during the war. Hamed Nissam was one of those who took off his uniform and simply melted away. Hamed Nissam: "I held up a white flag and ran home" I was a tank driver defending Basra. It was a very old Russian tank, made in 1969.Because of the Americans' technological advantage, we were sure that we could not survive the war. We were horrified by the prospect of meeting them in battle. I was very afraid of being...

  Protest against the Charles Goyette Show from 4-7pm at KFYI for his leftist subervsive Bush-bashing rants.   Turn off KFYI radio for the Charles Goyette Show ! No liberal scum talk shows on KFYI !   http://www.kfyi.com/contactus.html

Ukraine's Defense Minister Volodymyr Shkidchenko, top, speaks on the telephone during the parliament session in Kiev, Ukraine, Thursday March 20, 2003. The parliament approved Thursday Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma's request to send the country's anti-chemical weapons force to Kuwait.   Ukraine sends 500-man anti-chemical weapons force to Kuwait   KIEV, Ukraine, Mar 25, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- The first contingent of Ukraine's anti-chemical weapons force headed to Kuwait on Tuesday to help neutralize the effects of potential Iraqi attacks. An IL-76 military transport aircraft departed from the western city of Lviv with about 20 members of the...

http://www.dmband.com/news/news_popup_iraq.asp ...I fear that our true motivation is about oil and our own flailing economy; about the failure to destroy Al Qaeda and about revenge. It is criminal to put our servicemen and women in harm's way and to put the lives of so many civilians on the line for the misguided frustrations of the Bush administration.   Bottom line: this war is wrong and this war is un-American.   Peacefully submitted,Dave Matthews

Columbia Investigation Enters New Phase, Air Force Picture Adds IntrigueBy Jim BankeSenior Producer, Cape Canaveral Bureauposted: 07:30 pm ET07 February 2003 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Nearly one week after the space shuttle Columbia and crew was lost over Texas the investigation is moving on to a phase where officials say they will have little more that's new to offer, and instead will be looking at what they already think they know again and again."Early in the week we received bursts of data and information, but now there is not a lot of new information for me to report to...

Military developing 'loitering' and 'sleeping' weapons By JIM KRANEThe Associated Press2/7/03 1:59 PM NEW YORK (AP) -- They sleep. They hide. And when an enemy sticks his neck out, they kill. The Defense Department is preparing new weapons that can loiter over a battlefield or sneak into enemy territory and "sleep" until an appropriate military target blunders into their sights. Some weapons envisioned are mere concepts and may never be produced. Others, like Lockheed Martin's 5-foot-long Loitering Attack Missile, are already being tested. The idea, developers and contractors say, is that the best way to hit an elusive target...

ABC, NBC to Air Dueling Michael Jackson Specials By Steve GormanLOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A tantalizing choice for television viewers during the February rating "sweeps" -- dangling babies or dwindling noses. Reuters Photo Weeks after NBC announced plans for a special "Dateline" edition on singer Michael Jackson (news)'s famously altered face, ABC said it will air a Jackson documentary from a British journalist who was with the Gloved One when he held his infant son outside an open hotel window in Berlin. ABC's documentary, "Living with Michael Jackson," will be telecast Feb. 7 as a two-hour edition of news magazine...

France urges Ivory Coast pull-out French nationals have been leaving since Wednesday France has told its nationals to leave Ivory Coast, as hundreds of stone-throwing youths block the airport in the commercial capital, Abidjan. Hundreds of French nationals are trapped in the airport and planes are unable to leave. We advise those French nationals whose presence in Ivory Coast is not essential to leave the country French foreign ministry French troops have intervened and one soldier was injured in the face by a stone. Supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo accuse former colonial power France of forcing him to share...

Tornado strikes near Limassol port in Cyprus; injuries reported Mon Jan 27, 6:03 AM ET By PHILIP MARK, Associated Press WriterLIMASSOL, Cyprus - A tornado touched down Monday near the port area of Limassol, extensively damaging shops and property, and littering the streets with trees, broken glass, water tanks ripped from rooftops. Twenty-eight people were injured, most of them slightly, police said. Most of the injured sustained cuts and bruises, and all but 10 were either treated at the scene or treated in hospitals and soon released, police said. None of the injuries was life-threatening. The tornado, unusually powerful for...

North Korea Denies Admitting Secret Nuke Program SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea denied Sunday admitting to U.S. officials that it had a secret nuclear weapons program and said it would unleash a "sea of fire" if the United States challenges the communist country. The warning came in a commentary from North Korea's state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun and was reported by South Korea's Yonhap news agency. "The claim that we admitted developing nuclear weapons is an invention fabricated by the U.S. with sinister intentions," the paper said. The issue is a crux of the current global standoff surrounding...

Solar cells aiming for full spectrum efficiency10:15 08 December 02 Solar power is set for a boost with the help of a material that can soak up energy from almost all of the Sun's spectrum. It should allow solar cells to jump in efficiency from today's best of 30 percent to 50 percent or higher.Solar cells use layers of semiconductors to absorb photons of sunlight and convert them into electric current. But each different semiconductor can only use photons at a specific energy - its "bandgap".Today's best cells have layers of two different semiconductors stacked together to absorb light at different energies but they...

The incident looks set to raise tension over North Korea's recently revealed nuclear program, which has prompted a US-led campaign to persuade the communist North to abandon its nuclear ambitions   South Korean warship fire shots 7.27AM GMT, 20 Nov 2002 A South Korean warship has fired warning shots at a North Korean navy vessel that crossed a disputed maritime border, according to a South Korean defense official.The North Korean boat quickly retreated.A spokesman for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that shots were fired, and said a statement would be issued.The incident looks set to raise tension...

&nbsp;&nbsp; COBE Finds Sol's Ring Of Planetary Wealth Traces of the disc surrounding our Solar System are visible in this image taken by COBE. The blue band curving across this image is created by the dust disc surrounding our Solar System. Viewed from afar this would show up as a bright ring surrounding the Sun. The bright band running across the centre of the image is from dust in our Galaxy. This image, taken by the COBE satellite, is a composite of three far-infrared wavelengths (60, 100, and 240 microns). Paris (ESA) Feb 19, 2002Markus Landgraf of the European ...