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The pictures from Jerusalem were horrifying: Dead and injured students being wheeled out of a Jewish religious school after an Arab gunman went on a rampage. Other images were disturbing in a different way: These were the pictures of Palestinians celebrating the massacre. They shouted jubilantly from cars and danced in the streets of Gaza. Men fired bursts of automatic weapons skyward. Some kneeled on the ground to pray. In Lebanon, crowds of Palestinians also rejoiced, with a Reuters photo showing a man holding a startled looking child in one hand and a pistol in the other. We have gotten...

Hunting monsters We're great at catching child-porn criminals -- and terrible at punishing them By Linda Williamson Child pornography is, by definition, a world of dirty little secrets. The vilest of worlds, the most horrifying of secrets. Most of us will never have to glimpse this world, unlike the iron-willed police officers we dispatch to plumb its depths. But every one of us is in on the most distasteful secret of all -- the open secret of a Canadian justice system that treats the pornmongers' crime like, pardon the expression, child's play. Last week's astonishing announcement of the breakup of...

MOSCOW (AP) -- Military prosecutors and top officers on Thursday pledged a thorough inquiry into one of the most brutal hazing incidents in the Russian military in years - an 18-year-old soldier whose legs and genitals had to be amputated because of beatings and torture by fellow servicemen. Human rights groups assailed military officials for condoning rampant bullying and warned such crimes would persist until the nation abolishes the draft in favor of an all-volunteer army. Doctors said Pvt. Andrei Sychev's legs and genitals were amputated after the New Year's Eve incident at the Chelyabinsk Tank Academy, in which older...

THREE men have been arrested in northern Britain following the discovery of a dead cat in a microwave, police said today. The gruesome find was made at a house in the Blue Hall Estate, Stockton, Teesside, on Boxing Day, following a party. Cleveland Police took the female cat and the microwave away for examination and announced that three men had been arrested and bailed in connection with the incident. More arrests were expected. The cat's five kittens would be found new homes in the New Year.

Stalin's mutant ape army Evil science ... Josef Stalin       By JEROME STARKEY SOVIET dictator Josef Stalin ordered his scientists to cross humans with APES to create an invincible breed of Red Army soldiers, secret documents show.  Archive papers say the Kremlin chief demanded his Planet of the Apes warriors be “resilient and resistant to hunger”.He said they should be of “immense strength but with an underdeveloped brain”. He also wanted them to work on railway construction.Labs and ape skeletons have been found in the Black Sea town of Suchumi in Georgia by workmen building a kids’ playground.It...

HONG KONG: Some 350 people from Hong Kong's gay community gathered on Monday in the city's first parade to raise public awareness about homophobia and promote gay rights and sexual diversity. Waving flags of rainbow colours, 16 gay and gay-friendly organisations rallied through one of the busiest streets in Hong Kong to mark the first International Day Against Homophobia. Some people wore coloured masks during the rally, symbolising sexual minorities which live under the shadow of homophobia. One group was waving a banner saying: "Make Love, Not War", another asked "Should the Law Protect Everyone Equally?", while a third simply...

Valentine's Day Rally in Annapolis Featuring Maya Marcel-Keyes, daughter of Alan Keyes and a self-described young queer anarchist who grew up in Darnestown, MD. Maya is speaking publicly for the first time about LGBT issues. Don’t miss this important rally at 5 p.m. in front of the state house on February 14, also featuring Judy Shepard and other community leaders.

The House of Delegates is expected to vote on the "Gay Insurance" bill on Tuesday. If you haven't contacted your Delegate about this critical bill, you've got one more chance. Use the ACTION ITEM near the end of this email BEFORE noon Tuesday. Homosexuals gaining marriage benefits despite Marriage Amendment success? (Richmond) - The same Virginia legislature that voted to preserve the definition of one-man, one-woman marriage has rejected a ban on gay adoptions and is now poised to give insurance benefits previously reserved for married spouses and dependants to homosexual "couples” and anyone else who wants them. On February...

Washington -- Twenty-two gay and lesbian rights groups, smarting in the aftermath of the November election and bracing for President Bush's second inaugural, issued a unity statement Wednesday insisting they are not backing off marriage equality but will simultaneously push for other "common priorities." These include hate crimes legislation, employment protection, immigration rights for gays and lesbian partners, overturning the ban on gays in the military and continuing battle against constitutional bans on same-sex marriage in states and Congress.

Islam stands for universal peace Human dignity has been proclaimed in the Holy Quran : "And surely we have honoured the children of Adam...." (17:70) Fraternity and unity of mankind has also been proclaimed : "Mankind was one single nation....."(2:213) "Verily this brotherhood of yours is a single brotherhood..." (21:92) "Mankind was but one nation, but differed (later)." (10:19) There are other verses in the Quran on unity, integrity and solidarity of humanity. The Holy Quran marks the friends of division and conflict in the human race, which lead to human disaster and destruction : "But people have cut off...

(WASHINGTON, D.C., CAIR) – CAIR today called on American Muslims and other people of conscience to contact the MSNBC cable television network to demand an apology for comments made on its “Imus in the Morning” program that referred to Palestinians as “filthy animals” and suggested that they all be killed. The Council on American-Islamic Relations also asked that the program’s host, Don Imus, be reprimanded for failing to challenge his colleagues’ inflammatory remarks. CAIR, which says it received numerous complaints about the comments, quoted a transcript of Imus’ November 12th program in which he and his on-air colleagues engaged in...

All true Muslims were saddened and angered on Tuesday after they heard the unconfirmed news reports saying that Margaret Hassan had been killed in Iraq. Many reacted by saying, “This is not Islam.” Mrs. Hassan, who was the director of the Baghdad office of the relief organization Care International, was kidnapped on October 19 in Baghdad. She was born in Ireland, but moved to Iraq over 30 years ago after marrying an Iraqi citizen. No group has claimed responsibility for the act and the killers never accused her of any crime. Resistance to occupation is legitimate and acceptable according to...

Wake up America: Dutch Filmmaker Theo Van Gogh is Murdered. By Ali Sina Today, November 2, 2004, the Americans are voting to elect their president. Osama bin Laden has already issued his threat that those states that vote for Bush will be targeted for terrorist attacks. Also today, the Dutch are mourning the murder of one of their freethinkers. Theo Van Gogh, a filmmaker who was the great-grandnephew of the painter Vincent van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death on an Amsterdam street after receiving death threats over a movie he made criticizing the treatment of women under Islam....

Imagine going for a night out to the theatre in Germany during the 1930s. It would have been quite normal – with not one eyebrow raised in the audience – to be watching a production which showed film footage of Jews being beaten up. This would not be shown to elicit any sympathy, but purely to work up the crowd’s bilious hatred even more. Then a short while later in the same production the clever actors would prompt the audience to start singing songs that encouraged even more visceral hatred for the Jews. Lyrics such as “Those Jews are all...

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle said Sunday that his Democratic colleague, Sen. Ted Kennedy, didn't mean to use racially offensive language when he called President Bush's judicial nominees - including two minority candidates - "Neanderthals." Asked about Kennedy's racially charged outburst, Daschle insisted to "Fox News Sunday" he was talking about politics and not ethnicity. "I think that there are a lot of nominees who are on the far, far right of the political and philosophical spectrum," he told FNS host Tony Snow. "I think that's what Sen. Kennedy was referring to." But when Snow pressed, "Then why did...

Help Hold Ted Kennedy Accountable for His Racially Insensitive RemarksOnce again, the press is giving a Democrat Senator a "pass" on racially insensitive conduct.  If you are unfamiliar with the controversy, click here.  We, the people, must not let Senator Kennedy skate.  Please help out by taking the following easy steps to get the story out:1)  Click here to open an email to CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality).  It is time for them to prove they can be effective, and writing to Republicans in Congress is not the answer to this issue.  Of course, please feel free to send...

Inside Nasiriya's looted orphanages By Jonathan Duffy BBC News Online, in Nasiriya All three of the orphanages in Nasiriya were trashed by looters as soon as the fighting stopped. Now a British aid agency is helping to re-open one of them. With its bedrooms emptied of furniture, the kitchen bare and the bathrooms stripped of everything including the piping, it looks more like one of Saddam's notorious torture complexes. Only the brightly coloured murals pertain to the building's true purpose. But order is slowly returning to this sanctuary for abandoned children. The young residents, scattered by the effects of...

Vili Fualaau, 18, who fathered two daughters with his sixth-grade teacher, Mary Kay Letourneau, watches court proceedings following opening arguments in a $1 million lawsuit filed by his mother, Soona Vili, Thursday, March 21, 2002, in Kent, Wash. The suit accuses the Highline School District and Des Moines police for failing to protect the boy from sexual exploitation. Letourneau is in prison for child rape. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) "I'z a victim..."   Mom's making some dough too...Convicted Teacher Profits From Sex With StudentJudge Rules Mary Kay Letourneau Can Get Royalties April 18, 2000 SEATTLE (AP) -- Mary Kay Letourneau, convicted...