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A mysterious light display appearing over Norway last night has left thousands of residents in the north of the country baffled. Witnesses from Trøndelag to Finnmark compared the amazing sight to anything from a Russian rocket to a meteor or a shock wave - although no one appears to have mentioned UFOs yet. The phenomenon began when what appeared to be a blue light seemed to soar up from behind a mountain. It stopped mid-air, then began to circulate.

CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez said he met privately with actor Sean Penn on Wednesday, and that the Oscar-winning celebrity may film a movie in Venezuela. Penn may shoot a film based on a novel by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, which is set largely in the jungle along Venezuela's southern Orinoco river, Chavez said. He appeared to be referring to Carpentier's 1953 novel, "The Lost Steps," about an American anthropologist and composer's journey into the jungle region. Penn's publicist could not immediately be reached for comment. Chavez added that he discussed politics with Penn, who said he would soon...

Shirley Jones, best known as lovable mom Shirley Partridge on TV's The Partridge Family, may soon be shedding that wholesome image. According to the New York Post, the actress is considering posing nude for Playboy -- at the age of 75! "She's still drop-dead gorgeous, and at the age of 75, a natural beauty," says her husband/manager, Marty Ingels. "I'm her husband, and I think it would be sensational. Mature women are relevant." The Post points out that Jones wouldn't be the only old-timer to doff her duds. Nancy Sinatra was 54 when she posed in 1995; Vikki LaMotta --...

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Abraham didn't exist? The Exodus didn't happen? The Bible's Buried Secrets, a new PBS documentary, is likely to cause a furor. "It challenges the Bible's stories if you want to read them literally, and that will disturb many people," says archaeologist William Dever, who specializes in Israel's history. "But it explains how and why these stories ever came to be told in the first place, and how and why they were written down." The Nova program will premiere Nov. 18. PBS presented a clip and a panel discussion at the summer tour of the Television Critics...

Investigators from the Ohio Inspector General’s office descended on Attorney General Marc Dann’s office shortly after 11 this morning, defying Dann’s legal arguments that they had no right to investigate his office. A state trooper was seen hauling video equipment from the attorney general’s office in the Rhodes Tower shortly after noon today. Authorities also reportedly locked down computers operated by Dann and about a dozen of his top assistants.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I am calling an operational pause in Operation Chaos. We have a week to figure out now what's best to do. If your state still allows voter registration, keep that up, continue to register as a Democrat in upcoming Operation Chaos primaries. I think it's too late in Indiana and North Carolina. Oregon, last day is today. There are other states coming down the pike, and Puerto Rico. But I'm calling an operational pause, and I will tell you why. My first gut reaction, my instinct, in listening to the audio sound bites of...

Imagine: One day you're frolicking in the open air on a large compound, doing your daily chores and feasting on hearty homegrown fare; the next you're gagging on a diet of T&A courtesy of MTV and fast-food compliments of your fat foster mom. As the makeshift mom hollers at you to swallow your zombifying meds – the Texas foster care system is notorious for pumping its charges full of psychotropic drugs – her flaccid live-in lover eyes you lustily. As I write, many of the kids kidnapped by Texas rangers from the Yearning for Zion ranch are being scattered across...

"This isn't conjecture. Its happening now" A doctor at the renowned Children's Hospital Boston has launched a new program to drug children to delay puberty so they can decide whether they want a male or a female body, according to a report today in the Boston Globe.

Earlier, describing “Winter Soldier II Off To A Lying Start,” I concluded by noting that “Bloggers today see the Associated Press and Washington Post in the audience. Let’s see whether the American press has learned anything since 1971.” Apparently not. Unless some editor culled out all critical thought, there’s no excuse for the Washington Post’s coverage today. The bald assertions by Iraq Veterans Against the War of atrocities are parroted, without scrutiny.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, fresh off a campaign saving comeback, hinted Wednesday at the possibility of sharing the Democratic presidential ticket with Barack Obama — with her at the top. Obama played down his losses, stressing that he still holds the lead in number of delegates. On a night that failed to clarify the Democratic race, John McCain Tuesday clinched the Republican nomination. Clinton won primaries in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, halting Obama's winning streak. Obama won in Vermont. Both Democrats insisted on Wednesday they had the best credentials to go head to head — or as Clinton put it...

no link yet, just a headline

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military is eliminating Al Qaida's chain of command in Iraq. Officials said several leading aides to Al Qaida network chief Abu Ayoub Al Masri have been killed by the U.S.-led coalition. They said two out of the four foreign aides of Al Masri remain alive. On Sept. 25, the U.S. military killed an Al Qaida chief deemed responsible for transporting foreign operatives to Iraq. The Al Qaida commander, identified as Abu Osama Al Tunisi, was killed in a U.S. air strike as he met his colleagues in Musayib, about 60 kilometers south of Baghdad. Shortly before...

The three suspected terrorists seized Tuesday were planning huge bomb attacks on targets in Germany. The bombs they were planning to make would have had more explosive power than those used in the Madrid and London terror attacks. The scenarios which the highest representatives of the German security forces were describing on Wednesday morning were horrific: "Massive bomb attacks," simultaneous attacks using several car bombs and huge numbers of people killed right in the middle of Germany. Only a bold raid foiled the plans of the Islamist terrorists, according to statements made in Karlsruhe by German Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms...

A terrible crash occured at the Radom air show in Poland. Two aircraft from the air group "Zelazny" collided while performing a dangerous maneuver, where three aircraft separate, then turn around to fly at each other, and pass each other with hardly any space between them. Two pilots died in this terrible crash: Lech Marchelewski and Piotr Banachowicz. May God give them peace. Here is a video of the terrible incident: http://kubus172007.wrzuta.pl/film/5eqSwZnPZX/air_show_radom_2007_-_ku_pamieci_pilotow_ktorzy_zgineli

SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. -- Dalton Carriker couldn't feel his legs as he rounded the bases. His home run in the bottom of the eighth had just given Warner Robins, Ga., a thrilling 3-2 victory over Tokyo to win the Little League World Series title. "I felt like I was flying, like Peter Pan," Carriker said. "I didn't know what I was doing." Adrenaline took over from there, said the 12-year-old slugger with braces. His dramatic home run over the right-field wall off a 2-1 pitch from Japan's Junsho Kiuchi gave the United States three straight Little League championships. "USA! USA!"...

LONDON (Reuters) - An Iraqi photographer and driver working for Reuters in Iraq were killed in Baghdad on Thursday in what witnesses said was a U.S. helicopter attack but which the military described as a firefight with insurgents. Iraqi police blamed American military action for the deaths. Photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, were killed in eastern Baghdad, the international news and information company said. The U.S. military said the pair died after a clash between its troops and insurgents. The incident was under investigation, it said in a statement. U.S. and Iraqi forces engaged "a hostile...

Rod Beck, an All-Star relief pitcher who wore a bushy mustache while earning 286 career saves, has died. He was 38. Beck was found Saturday by police officers responding to a call to his home in suburban Phoenix, police department spokesman Andy Hill said Sunday. Foul play is not suspected, though the cause of death might not be known for several days. Otto Greule Jr./Getty Images Rod Beck was second all-time on the Giants' career saves list. With unruly hair framing a menacing stare and an aggressive arm swing before delivering a pitch, the outgoing right-hander was a colorful baseball...

EDINBURG, Texas (AP) -- Firefighters who spent half an hour fighting a blaze in which 2,000 pounds of marijuana went up in smoke breathed so much of it that they would have failed a drug test, a fire chief said. It took more than 35 firefighters, 1,000 gallons of water and five gallons of chemical suppressant to extinguish the warehouse blaze on Wednesday, Fire Chief Shawn Snider said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were investigating the origin of the drugs. -snip- Snider said Thursday the firefighters were exposed to so much marijuana smoke that they would not be able...

June 20, 2007, 12:30PM Angry crowd kills man riding in car that struck child By LIZ AUSTIN PETERSON Associated Press AUSTIN — A crowd attacked and killed a passenger in a vehicle that had struck and injured a child, police said today. The man who was killed Tuesday night had been trying to stop the group from attacking the vehicle's driver when the crowd turned on him, authorities said. The Austin Police Department identified the victim as David Rivas Morales, 40, of Austin. The child was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The beating began after the car...

This is becoming epidemic in this country, and he has a major lawsuit against his former employer that will be based on his constitutional rights. The man was fired because he owns a shotgun.

She 'Was Severely Depressed and Felt as If I Was in a Cage,' but now Has 'New Chance' On Sunday at 3 p.m., Paris Hilton phoned me collect from jail. Prisoners must call collect. The unusual conversation came about because Kathy Hilton, Paris' mother, had phoned me, and while we were talking, Paris called on the other line. When she heard I was talking to her mother, she said she'd like to talk to me herself. She sounded tired but totally aware of what she was saying. "How are you?" I asked. Paris answered, "I'm hanging in there." But she...

As already noted on NewsBusters, former CBS anchor Dan Rather appeared on Monday’s edition of "Morning Joe" and lobbied for a "a strategic withdrawal from Iraq." He also found time to twice bash his "Evening News" successor Katie Couric for dumbing down and "tarting up" the news. After giving the standard caveat that Couric is a "nice person," he went in for kill. Speculating on the program’s declining ratings, Rather complained to MSNBC host Joe Scarborough that "the mistake was to try to bring the ‘Today’ ethos to the evening news and to dumb it down, tart it up in...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Washington's failure to change its immigration laws is a blow to pro-U.S. Mexican President Felipe Calderon as he faces his toughest challenges since taking office in December... Winning a relaxation of U.S. immigration laws has been the main foreign policy goal of Mexico for years and would earn credit for Calderon, a conservative with a Harvard degree who only won last July's election by under a percentage point. "Resolution, or at least some progress in addressing the immigration issue, would have been a big boost to the government of Mexico," said Peter Hakim, head of the...

Yahoo! News Back to Story - Help Anti-crime teams sent to 4 more cities By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago A violent crime spike in four cities led the Justice Department on Friday to dispatch additional teams of federal agents to combat guns, gangs or surging murder rates in Mesa, Ariz.; Orlando, Fla.; San Bernardino, Calif., and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The four-city push comes as the FBI is expected to report a 1.3 percent rise in violent crime nationwide in 2006 — an increase for the second straight year. At the same time, a new...

Leadership: After being told over and over by President Jimmy Carter that America's ability to influence world events was "very limited," the Soviet Union believed him and invaded Afghanistan. And al-Qaida was born. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Profile In Incompetence: Third In A Series More on this series-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carter had the perfect "anti-slogan" for a post-Watergate presidential campaign: "I will never lie to you." Unfortunately, Carter based America's relationship with the Soviet Union on the delusion that the Russians would never lie to him. He infamously expressed shock that Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev lied to him during a "hot line" phone call following...

...Mike Henry had penned a strategy document advising the New York Senator to skip the Iowa caucuses ... The Clinton campaign has confirmed its authenticity but insists the candidate has no intention of skipping the caucuses.... In a feat of fortuitous timing, Obama's campaign is moving a memo of its own around Iowa that makes the electability argument -- citing two recent independent polls. ... "While our campaign's focus will be continuing to build on our strong grassroots organization, the early polls indicate that Barack is emerging as the most 'electable' candidate in the eyes of Iowa Democrats." The first...

LONG-STANDING rumours that the former French president Jacques Chirac holds a secret multi-million-euro bank account in Japan appear to have been confirmed by files seized from the home of a senior spy. Papers seized by two investigating magistrates from General Philippe Rondot, a former head of the DGSE, France's intelligence service, show Mr Chirac opened an account in the mid-1990s at Tokyo Sowa Bank, credited with the equivalent of £30 million. It is not known where the money came from, nor whether it is connected to various kick-back scandals to which Mr Chirac's name has been linked over the past...

Bush Declassifies Al-Qaida Intelligence By DEB RIECHMANN Associated Press Writer May 22, 2007 WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush, trying to defend his war strategy, declassified intelligence Tuesday asserting that Osama bin Laden ordered a top lieutenant in early 2005 to form a terrorist cell that would conduct attacks outside Iraq - and that the United States should be the top target. The information mirrored a classified bulletin from the Homeland Security Department in March 2005, reporting that bin Laden had enlisted Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, his senior operative in Iraq, to plan potential strikes in the U.S. The warning was described...

And look at what just climbed out of its coffin—the Second Amendment, the orphan child of the Bill of Rights. The U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia threw out a law in the nation’s capital that made outlaws of those keeping a gun, even in their own homes. Until this ruling, many had relegated the Second Amendment to a place next to the Third, a truly obsolete, Amendment: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed...

Seeking to boost the movement to reinstitute a military draft, Rep. John Murtha is arguing that the U.S. should have a "citizen's army" in addition to a "volunteer, professional army." However, a critic of the Pennsylvania Democrat on Monday called his statement "ridiculous" and "without merit." "I voted against the volunteer army because I felt if we ever had a war, we wouldn't be able to sustain [it]," Murtha said during the March 29 edition of CNN's "The Situation Room." "This is one of the smallest armies we've had since before World War II, right before the Korean War," added...

The current Republican field is like a smorgasbord at Denny's ? lots of OK choices, but nothing to get the heart racing. That's why the potential candidacy of former Sen. Fred Thompson is creating a palpable stir. Rudy Giuliani ? now riding the crest of a popularity wave ? is appealing for many reasons. He is the only candidate who can really be said to have accomplished a political miracle. When he took over as mayor of New York City, the murder rate was sky-high, confiscatory taxes were driving businesses from the city, and many considered the place unlivable. Few,...

The house stands alone in the middle of a building site A Chinese woman remains defiant after a court deadline for her to allow the demolition of her house expired.Wu Ping said she would continue to fight against any attempts by the authorities to pull down her home. Her battle has held up a major property development in the south-western city of Chongqing. Striking images of the modest building in the middle of a huge construction were spread on the internet - and have made her a national cause celebre. Ms Wu was the only one of 281 families...

When it comes to crime, it pays to be good looking. Researchers at Bath Spa University in England came to that conclusion after conducting a courtroom experiment that asked jurors to pass judgment on a fake mugging case. Half of the 96 participants were given a picture of an attractive suspect, the others received one of a supposedly ugly defendant. The case report was the same in either case. The volunteer "jurors" then were asked to decide whether the suspect was innocent or guilty. In the latter case they also had to decide on a sentence. Analysis of the results...

BAGHDAD (AP) - 0321dv-iraq-child-attacks Some 1,600 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers pushed into a dangerous Sunni Arab area of west Baghdad on Wednesday, searching houses in the expanding security crackdown, while at least 33 apparent victims of sectarian killings were found dumped across the capital. The U.S. military said the armor-backed force that swept into the Ghazaliyah and Amariyah neighborhoods detained 31 people and found two weapons caches that included containers of nitric acid and chlorine, a toxic material used recently by Sunni insurgents in bomb attacks. No casualties were reported during the first day of the operation, which included about...

Valerie Plame is appearing before House committee.

A controversial national Islamic civil liberties organization has revived its Minnesota chapter after a series of highly publicized incidents involving Muslim taxi drivers, store clerks and airline passengers. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has 32 chapters in the United States and Canada, will open a St. Paul office this weekend, leaders said Thursday. CAIR Minnesota's resurrection, months in the making, comes as the state's Muslim community is being scrutinized as never before. This week, six imams (prayer leaders) who were removed from a US Airways flight in Minneapolis in November sued the airline and the Metropolitan Airports Commission...

Don't Knuckle Under to the Enviro-Luddites By David Limbaugh Tuesday, March 6, 2007 In spiritually weak moments, I sometimes envy the blind faith of the environ-zealots, even if the object of their faith is hardly sacred. For all their self-congratulation over their allegiance to science and the scientific method, they flatly violate the spirit of scientific inquiry in their approach to environmental issues. Of course they cloak all of their claims with the cover of science. They accompany their manifestos with endorsements from hundreds or thousands of scientists, who serve as the functional equivalent of human shields to insulate their...

ADMIN MOD: THIS SHOULD SATISFY REQUIREMENTS prayers needed for arizonan PRIVATE FIRST CLASS JASON OKON SPENT A YEAR IN IRAQ AND WAS STABBED IN HIS FRONT YARD BY AN ILLEGAL ALIEN. HE IS CURRENTLY IN CRITICAL CONDITION IN A DRUG-INDUCED COMA. HE HAS A WIFE, 2 CHILDREN, AND ONE ON-THE-WAY. THE ONLY STATION IN TOWN THAT HAS ACCURATELY DESCRIBED THIS AS AN ATTACK BY AN ILLEGAL ALIEN, WAS FOX 10. THIS IS HOPEFULLY GOING TO BE CLASSIFIED AS A HATE CRIME. APPARENTLY JASON ASKED THIS INDIVIDUAL IF HE NEEDED HELP AND THIS MAN STABBED HIM. APPARENTLY HE WAS TARGETED DUE...

KABUL, Afghanistan - A NATO airstrike destroyed a Taliban command post in southern Afghanistan, killing a suspected senior militant leader, the alliance said Friday. Separately, an assailant gunned down an Afghan lawmaker who, under the former Taliban regime, oversaw the destruction of two Buddha statues carved into a cliff. Maulavi Mohammed Islam Mohammadi, who was the Taliban's governor of Bamiyan province when the fifth-century Buddha statues were blown up with dynamite and artillery in March 2001, was killed on his way to Friday prayers in Kabul, said Zulmai Khan, Kabul's deputy police chief. Mohammadi was elected in 2005 to represent...

Beat John Kerry? Are the Massachusetts Republicans crazy? Oh sure, it was a heady moment on Wednesday afternoon, when Liveshot pulled a Finneran on the Senate floor and started blubbering - and he hasn’t even been convicted of a felony. And then there were all the jokes on TV Wednesday night, like Dennis Miller on Fox saying that now Kerry can go back to his old job as a statue on Easter Island. But then the local GOP got carried away. The headline yesterday said the Republicans are “ready to pounce.” Pounce? That rhymes with bounce, as in out of...

In an announcement weighted with history and moment, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who less than three years ago was serving in the Illinois Senate, declared today his intention to run for president. "As many of you know, over the last few months I have been thinking hard about my plans for 2008," Obama said in a statement on his presidential exploratory committee Web site. "Running for the presidency is a profound decision—a decision no one should make on the basis of media hype or personal ambition alone—and so before I committed myself and my family to this race, I wanted...

The "runaway bride," who took off days before her lavish wedding in 2005, is suing her former fiance for $500,000, claiming he defrauded her out of her share of their assets, including a ladder, a gold sofa and gifts. read more at foxnews.com http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,219125,00.html

Since we can't post from that website you can read the article here Springsteen's Marriage Over?

'City Slickers' actor Bruno Kirby dies By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ, Associated Press Writer Wed Aug 16, 2:27 AM ET LOS ANGELES - Bruno Kirby, a veteran character actor known for playing the best friend in two of Billy Crystal's biggest comedies "When Harry Met Sally" and "City Slickers," has died. He was 57. Kirby died Monday in Los Angeles from complications related to leukemia, his wife Lynn Sellers said in a statement Tuesday. He had been recently diagnosed with the disease. "We are incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support we have received from Bruno's fans and colleagues who have admired...

From the (Vermont) Burlington Free Press: Peace activist Cindy Sheehan cancels Vermont visitJuly 28, 20Peace activist Cindy Sheehan has canceled her visit to Vermont because she plans a trip to Jordan for peace talks there, organizers announced today.Sheehan was to have attended a rally Sunday at Montpelier's Unitarian Church.The rally will still be held, with Vermont organizers planning to address renewed efforts to end the war in Iraq and pursue impeachment of the Bush administration.The event is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. and is free and public. It’s sort of like Ike saying he would go to Korea.Only different.

Invoking a scene from the film Schindler's List, one of Norway's largest newspapers recently published a political cartoon comparing Prime Minster Ehud Olmert to the infamous commander of a Nazi death camp who indiscriminately murdered Jews by firing at them at random from his balcony. The caricature by political cartoonist Finn Graff appeared on July 10 in the Oslo daily Dagbladet. It has prompted outrage among the country's small Jewish community and led the Simon Weisenthal Center to submit a protest to the Norwegian government. In the cartoon, Olmert is likened to SS Major Amon Goeth, the infamous commandant of...

It is said that free societies are stronger than oppressive societies. This is probably true. However, in the West at the beginning of the 21st century, formal and informal censorship of important issues has become rampant. Without freedom of speech, democracy cannot function. The West is weak because it is no longer free. ... This “swirl of speech-law charges, lawsuits, and investigations” is now sustained by an “antiracism” industry. “Europe’s speech laws are written and applied in ways that leave activists on the political left free to whitewash crimes of leftist regimes, incite hatred against their domestic bogeymen of the...

When I was growing up in Bellflower, Ca., I never, as a child with a good imagination, could have ever imagined that my life would take the peculiar turn that it has. I could not have foreseen giving birth to a child that would eventually be wrongfully and devastatingly killed in war or that I would be meeting with world leaders or be nominated for the Noble Peace Prize. Along with the Vice President of Spain, Foreign Minister of Ireland, Attorney General of Australia and countless parliamentarians from all over the globe, one of the world leaders that I have...

A career that began in a burrow of controversy ended quietly Tuesday when Wiarton Willie, one of Canada's best known weather forecasters, passed away at the ripe old age of about eight years. The albino groundhog, who had been ill for more than a month, died from a stubborn infection after his vet took him off life support, his handler Holly Morrow said from the southwestern Ontario town of Wiarton. "Age was not on our side," said Morrow, who fed and cared for Willie and estimated his age to be around eight. "He had a good life." Morrow, who runs...

VILLUPURAM: A minor Muslim girl was tonsured by a group of people on June 11 for falling in love with a Hindu boy at Kallakurichi in this district. According to a delayed report, the girl's father did not object to it and indeed favoured their marriage after the 16-year-old turned 18. The family of the boy, also 16, too agreed to the marriage. But a group of local Muslims chided her and advised to sever her relations with the boy. This was despite her father advising a section of the group not to interfere as it was their family matter....