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January 20, 2005 -- PHILADELPHIA — It did not take any prompting for Donovan McNabb yesterday to mention an aspect of Sunday's NFC Championship game that makes him swell with pride. Tucked within the Eagles-Falcons matchup is a meeting of two African-American quarterbacks, McNabb and Michael Vick. "It's a special weekend for myself and for him because this is an opportunity for an African-American quarterback to represent in the Super Bowl," McNabb said. "It hasn't happened since Steve McNair [in 2000]. We're looking forward to this challenge and can't wait for it to happen." Asked about the significance of this...

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans filing initial claims (search) for jobless aid unexpectedly plunged 48,000 last week, the largest drop in more than three years, according to a government report on Wednesday that suggested job market conditions may be improving. Just 319,000 first-time claims for state unemployment benefits (search) were filed in the week ended January 15, the Labor Department (search) said. Wall Street economists had expected claims to move down to 345,000 from the 367,000 reported for the prior week. A Labor Department analyst said there were no

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Vice President Dick Cheney told an audience at The Catholic University of America in Washington Jan. 13 that the administration's plan to change Social Security could yield greater retirement benefits for those who invest in the stock market. Two days after President George W. Bush launched a campaign to fundamentally change the Social Security program with the claim that the system is headed toward bankruptcy, Cheney reiterated many of the president's points and disputed critics of the proposals. For example, Cheney said the answer to concerns about the financial risks posed by workers withdrawing from Social Security...

This lawyer is absolutely sickening

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (AP) — A prostitute turned in a customer after seeing child pornography, including a video of an apparent toddler rape, on the man's home computer, police said. Detective Carlos Negron said police were contacted by the woman on Tuesday, saying that while working at the man's apartment as a prostitute she saw numerous pictures of children who appeared to be between ages 3 and 16 performing sex. The woman told police that it was a disturbing video that showed the rape of a younger child, perhaps no older than 2, that caused her to make the call after...

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan flew over the tsunami-ravaged landscape of Indonesia's Aceh province on Friday and asked "Where are the people?" as Jakarta raised its death toll by thousands. Secretary of State Colin Powell also expressed shock at the scale of the disaster as he toured another devastated Indian Ocean country, Sri Lanka. As aid workers strove to reach hundreds of thousands of people thought to be stranded in isolated parts of Indonesia's Sumatra island, Jakarta added more than 7,000 deaths to its tsunami toll. It now stands at 101,318, out of a total...

1/7/2005 - 12:12 AM PST By Matt Abbott Op/Ed A January 4 story in the Washington Post said that more adult women are choosing not to use contraception. Interestingly, this story comes almost at the heels of a report criticizing abstinence-only education, which proponents of Planned Parenthood-style comprehensive sex education deem deficient. According to the story, written by Ceci Connolly, the results of the study, which found that “women who had sex in the previous three months but did not use birth control rose from 5.2 percent in 1995 to 7.4 percent in 2002,” came “from one-on-one interviews with 12,500...

Because Gannet suckshere is the link http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-01-05-tsunami_x.htm

HARRISBURG, Pa. (CNS) -- Just before being deployed to Iraq, 19-year-old Pfc. Nate Smith received the sacrament of confirmation from Harrisburg Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades in a small, private Mass in the chapel at the bishop's residence Dec. 27. Smith, a member of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Lancaster, completed his Army training Dec. 17 at Fort Stewart in Georgia, and spent a Christmas holiday with his parents, Luis and Lil La Boy, before his early January deployment. "This confirmation means a lot to me," he said as he sat with his parents and Father Michael Grab, pastor of...

Interview With Neonatologist Carlo Bellieni SIENA, Italy, DEC. 23, 2004 (Zenit) - Far from offering or requesting prenatal diagnosis as a routine examination, people should use it with great care, warns a neonatologist. Dr. Carlo Bellieni of the Santa Maria alle Scotte Polyclinic explains in this interview the risks of using -- or abusing -- prenatal diagnosis. Q: What is prenatal diagnosis? Bellieni: It is the way of knowing the fetus' health conditions. It can be done in an invasive way -- by extracting fetal material: blood, chorionic villi, amniotic fluid -- or in a non-invasive way. In the latter...

BALTIMORE — A priest scheduled to go on trial next month for allegedly molesting a former alter boy who later shot him has been defrocked by Pope John Paul II (search), The Associated Press has learned. Maurice Blackwell (search), 58, is scheduled to go on trial Jan. 3 on four counts of child sexual abuse against Dontee Stokes (search). Blackwell was shot by Stokes in May 2002, in the midst of the national scandal involving Catholic priests. In the aftermath, Baltimore prosecutors reviewed Stokes' allegations and charged the priest with molesting Stokes. The pope decided in October to dismiss Blackwell,...

NEW YORK — Sold-out Christmas tree lots and packed parking garages at malls during peak hours at first glance may suggest a merrier Christmas for retailers, but they are actually signs the holiday season may be a mixed one for U.S. retailers, analysts said. While not as scientific as retail sales or inventory data, the sale of live Christmas trees and the number of cars searching for parking in shopping malls provide a window into consumer confidence and the prospects of retail activity for the crucial holiday shopping season. Sales of apparel, electronics and toys have been lackluster for many...

10:35AM: Market gets a boost following better than expected weekly oil inventories data... Crude supplies rose 2.1 mln barrels (consensus -800K) while distillate stockpiles came in at +600K (consensus -1.13 mln)... Stocks had been trading with a tinge of caution ahead of the data as broad-based gains that pushed every major indice to new highs yesterday had stalled early momentum... Showing some resilience have been homebuilding, materials, financial, airline, networking, retail and utility while sectors under early selling pressure have been disk drive and energy...NYSE Adv/Dec 1612/1226, Nasdaq Adv/Dec 1442/1264

U.S. blue chips rise; J&J higher, Goldman falls Thu Dec 16, 2004 12:42 PM ET (Updates to late morning) By Anupama Chandrasekaran NEW YORK, Dec 16 (Reuters) - U.S. blue chips moved higher on Thursday, getting a lift from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) following its acquisition of medical device maker Guidant Corp. (GDT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , but broader market gains were capped after investment bank Goldman Sachs posted disappointing quarterly revenues. Deutsche Bank also upgraded Johnson & Johnson to "buy" from "hold." The health-care products company sealed its $25.4 billion deal to buy Guidant late on...

By RACHEL KONRAD, Associated Press Writer As the Electoral College (news - web sites) prepares to certify President Bush (news - web sites)'s re-election on Monday, concerns persist about the integrity of the nation's voting system — particularly in Ohio, where details continue to emerge of technology failures, voter confusion and overcrowded polling stations in minority and poor neighborhoods. Photo AP Photo Few mainstream politicians dispute Bush's victory, and the incumbent's 3.5 million-vote margin nationwide was wider than any of the reported problems, which included insufficient or incomplete provisional ballots and, in some places, brazen partisan shenanigans.

Man shoots Unicorn That's what getting a unicorn deer can do for a guy.

For the last week of his life, the scuttlebutt about the Palestinian movement's centrifugal force concerned whether his impending demise was driven by AIDS, likely contracted, according to leaked foreign-intelligence reports, by his omnivorous, orgiastic sexual appetite. This as if, after three quarters of a century's worth of megalo-sadism, additional indicia of Yasser Arafat's throbbing depravity were somehow necessary. And so, evidently, they were. Thus is reflection on his life, a signal emblem of the late 20th century's triumph of terror and fraud over security and reason, as instructive about our times as it is about him.

MIAMI (AFP) - Shocked supporters of defeated US presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) are seeking help from psychologists, who refer to their condition as "post-election selection trauma." The Boca Raton News reported Tuesday that Palm Beach, Florida trauma specialist Douglas Schooler alone has already treated 15 clients and friends with intense hypnotherapy since the Democratic candidate conceded on November 3.

I entered the semifinal results in the spreadsheet, so it is now available in both Excel and .csv formats. Here is a county-by-county map of the U.S. showing who won where. From looking at the map, you wouldn't know that almost half the population voted for Kerry. It shows very clearly how Kerry's base is in highly-populated urban areas and Bush's base is more in suburban and rural areas.

News from the Votemaster Well, it's all over. The people have spoken. Winston Churchill once said: "In a Democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve." So be it. I am working now to clean up some odds and ends. The main new thing today is an improved pollster comparison. If you click on Compare the pollsters, you come to an expanded page comparing more pollsters in more states. The individual pollster pages have also been expanded, showing not only a map of the states the pollster surveyed, but also graphs of some of the data.