Free Republic

Amoebas may vomit E. coli on your greens 13:59 02 May 2008 NewScientist.com news service Ewen Callaway Harmless protozoa that live on grocery store greens can shelter deadly food pathogens like E. coli and Salmonella. A laboratory study has found that food pathogens survive being eaten by protozoa living on spinach and lettuce. The temporary asylum might help bacteria stick onto leafy greens or resist efforts to kill them before packaging. Whether the shelter the protozoa provide contributes to pathogen outbreaks, however, remains to be seen. A team led by microbiologist Sharon Berk, of Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, fed...

An Australian criminal who was so nervous during a hold-up that he was physically sick has been incriminated by his own vomit. Police took DNA from the pool of sick and matched it to Ahmed Habib Jalloul, 20. He was found guilty of the aggravated robbery of a post office in Adelaide, South Australia. An Adelaide court was told that Jalloul vomited "out of fear" during the raid on the post office last April. He fled the scene in a stolen car with two accomplices and £1,730 in cash. Police conducted forensic analysis of the vomit and matched it with...

Winning hearts and minds -- the Bush administration, foreign policy wonks, even the U.S. military agree that this is the key to any victory over global terrorism. Yet our public diplomacy program has made little progress on improving America's image. Few seem to recognize that American ignorance of Islam and Muslims has been the fatal flaw. How much do Americans know about the views and beliefs of Muslims around the world? According to polls, not much. Perhaps not surprising, the majority of Americans (66%) admit to having at least some prejudice against Muslims; one in five say they have "a...

A tiny Alaska village eroding into the Arctic Ocean sued two dozen oil, power and coal companies Tuesday, claiming that the large amounts of greenhouse gases they emit contribute to global warming that threatens the community's existence. ADVERTISEMENT The city of Kivalina and a federally recognized tribe, the Alaska Native village of Kivalina, sued Exxon Mobil Corp., eight other oil companies, 14 power companies and one coal company in a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco. Kivalina is a traditional Inupiat Eskimo village of about 390 people about 625 miles northwest of Anchorage. It's built on an 8-mile...

GLENN: Now, I got into this story about San Francisco. San Francisco has, you know, has Alcatraz and some of the residents in San Francisco wanted to tear Alcatraz down because, you know, it was a prison. The last thing you'd like is a prison, you know. That's not nice. And they wanted to erect a global peace center. Now, I can't go on this story unless I know for sure that this is accurate. It says here 78% of the precincts reporting. About 72% of San Francisco voters opposed the tearing down of Alcatraz. STU: We do have an...

Former President Bill Clinton was in Denver, Colorado, stumping for his wife yesterday. In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren."

Poll is on website. A phone-in poll is available for the newspaper. Call 412-333-9192 to say no to McCain.

COMING OUT: Parents learn true meaning of family after both son and daughter announce they are gay -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photo by Shawn Lynch/staff photographer Tom and Carole Allen, the parents of a gay son and a gay daughter, at their home in Arlington on Saturday, June 30, 2007. By Patricia Bertuccio GateHouse News Service Thu Jul 05, 2007, 10:18 AM EDT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Story Tools: Email This | Print This Arlington, Mass. - “Imagine that, one day, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court sees what you could not — that your children are entitled to the right and privilege to marry the person...

Negotiations on long-term ceasefire with Hamas should be considered Dror Zeevi Published: 07.05.07, 00:15 / Israel Opinion Hamas is evidently in distress and its leaders are signaling that they would be prepared for a compromise in exchange for opening crossings and transferring supplies. Sources close to Hamas insist that there is a willingness among Hamas leaders to advance a long-term ceasefire. Israel is currently enjoying clear tactical superiority and it appears that it is holding the entire deck of cards. The easy solution is to lead the area to almost total collapse, or alternately, as army officers and Knesset members...

McGreevey mulling Episcopal priesthood Posted by The Star-Ledger May 02, 2007 12:08PM Categories: News Patti Sapone/The Star-Ledger Former Gov. James E. McGreevey appears during custody proceedings in the Union County Courthouse last week.Former Gov. James E. McGreevey has started the process to become a priest in his newly adopted Episcopal faith and hopes to begin a three-year seminary program in the fall. McGreevey, who often described himself as a devout Catholic while in public office, was officially received into the Episcopal religion on Sunday, at St. Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan, and is now part of the church's "discernment" phase that...

Why Name-Calling Won't Hurt Hillary March 12, 2007 SUSAN ESTRICH Newt says she's nasty. Geffen says she's ambitious. The name-calling part of the presidential campaign is clearly in full swing. Next thing you know, someone will tell us she's not pretty enough to be president, and maybe that will be "news," too. After ambitious and nasty, could ugly be far behind? Is this really the best the Clinton critics can do? If Hillary Clinton were running for Miss Congeniality, she'd have reason to fear the latest rounds of criticism being lobbed at her and her campaign. "Miss United States" may...

There is a wave of progressive change sweeping Latin America and the Caribbean after the many lonely years in which Cuba held high the torch, with free universal health care and education, and world-class cultural, sports and scientific achievements. Although you won’t find a Cuban today who says things are perfect — far from it — probably all would agree that compared with prerevolutionary Cuba, there is a world of improvement. George Bush, the antithesis of this process, is now in Latin America at the start of a mission to lure five countries away from regional economic integration. However, the...

St. Patrick was a Baptist Rev. John Summerfield Wimbish, D.D. The source for this record is a 1952 tract, published by the Calvary Radio Ministry, New York City, New York. It was part of the library of the late Elder Jarrel E. Huffman, pastor of the Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, Duncan, Oklahoma from 1978 until 1997. Every attempt has been made to preserve the style and structure of the original tract, although some formatting concessions were made to facilitate this medium. ~ August, 1997 A word about the message: The sermon, "St. Patrick was a Baptist," was delivered to a...

Fit to be president? Mag runs Obama pic: 'Stop looking at it'BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Columnist Some pecs that Obama has. Now stop looking. That's an order from himself. Sen. Barack Obama is sensitive about getting kidded for his ears. Now, courtesy of paparazzi staking him out on his recent Hawaii vacation, some of the rest of him is available for public inspection. The new issue of People -- the one with Oprah on the cover -- includes Obama in a spread of celebs in the surf. A barechested Obama, poised to announce a 2008 presidential run, is wearing black...

CRAIG WANTS GAY BOND SCENE DANIEL CRAIG is urging movie bosses to revolutionise the JAMES BOND franchise by including a gay scene involving the superspy in the follow-up to CASINO ROYALE. The heart-throb actor has also reportedly told studio chiefs he is prepared to film a full frontal nude scene to please both his male and female admirers. He says, "Why not? I think in this day and age, fans would have accepted it." "I mean, look at (British TV series) DOCTOR WHO - that has had gay scenes in it and no one blinks an eye." 29/11/2006 07:42

Penguins, dog vomit and human sexuality -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: November 21, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Gary DeMar "And Tango Makes Three" is an illustrated children's book about two male penguins that raise a baby penguin. It's based on a true story of two male penguins in New York City's Central Park Zoo that "adopt" a fertilized egg and raise the chick as their own. Some concerned parents see the book as a homosexual propaganda piece and want it removed from the library's regular shelves. A parent would have to consent before his or her child could check out the book....

[url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20061114/pl_usnw/dnc_statement_on_giuliani_s_potential_presidential_bid331_xml]Rudy Giuliani[/url] draws large poll numbers across the country and across the board. Although their combined RINO quotient is high and could spawn a third-party revolt if they got nominated, John McCain and Giuliani would be a dream team. That is, if one of these two egomaniacs could be persuaded to take the VP slot on the 2008 Republican ticket! Despite his frankly left-wing takes on many social issues, I like his support of school vouchers as this product of parochial schools does the right thing to enable kids to escape dead-end public education, over-funded and under-delivering because of huge...

Former President Bill Clinton, in South Florida to campaign for Democratic candidates, made a surprise appearance Saturday night at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's 10th annual Recognition Dinner in South Beach. Clinton arrived at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel about 8 p.m. and greeted NAACP Board Chairman Julian Bond, who received the evening's National Leadership award. Local honorees: philanthropist Bob Cole (The Miami Herald Humanitarian Award) and TWN (The Weekly News), South Florida's gay newspaper that closed in March after 29 years.

NEW YORK -- It takes an anniversary, and a lot of sales, to inspire a new edition. Hillary Rodham Clinton's "It Takes a Village" is being reissued in December, with a new foreword by the senator, to mark the book's 10th year since publication. "When we published `It Takes a Village' 10 years ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton brought to the fore her long-standing concerns about how public policy affects our children — in ways both large and small," Carolyn Reidy, president of Simon & Schuster, said in a statement released Tuesday. "Though new readers continually discover this influential and important...

Prime Minister Tony Blair says he wants to devote his last year as Britain's leader to advancing an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. This is not the first time Blair has made clear his view that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a major destabilizing influence in a region the UK has always considered vital to its interests. Blair is known to have strong feelings of affection for Israel. He is also committed to the creation of a Palestinian state he believes essential to restoring some semblance of calm in the Mideast. So his pledge to work on the issue is not especially surprising. For...

The Barack Obama for president bandwagon has hit Illinois, but voters are split on when the freshman U.S. senator should get in the driver's seat. A quarter of voters want the South Side Democrat to seek the White House in 2008, and another 38 percent think he should wait until a later presidential year, according to a Chicago Sun-Times/NBC5 Poll. That means a combined three out of five voters see him as presidential timber.

Cipel: McGreevey assaulted me The onetime aide said he wanted to clear the record: The former governor made an advance he rejected. By John Shiffman Inquirer Staff Writer In his new book, Jim McGreevey vividly recalls his first, magical kiss with Golan Cipel. Cipel does not remember the 2001 encounter so fondly. The former aide calls it a failed sexual assault that followed shots of Jagermeister. After he pushed New Jersey's governor away, Cipel said, he asked McGreevey why he assumed he was gay. "And McGreevey said, 'Everybody is a little gay,' " Cipel recalled yesterday in his first extended...

HAVANA -- Iran, Syria, North Korea and more than 100 other nations are pushing to broaden the world's definition of "terrorism" to include the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Converging on Fidel Castro's communist Cuba for a summit this week, members of the Nonaligned Movement complain of a double standard: powerful nations like the United States and Israel decide for the world who the terrorists are, but face no punishment for their own acts of aggression. A draft of the group's joint declaration condemns "terrorism in all its forms," especially violence that targets civilians. Terrorism...

NEW YORK - Wearing just a small white towel and a smile, Bob prowls the dark halls of the East Side Club, looking into dozens of its closet-sized rooms and hoping eye contact with another man will lead to sex.

A man has admitted assaulting a woman by pouring a basin of vomit over her head in Aberdeen. Father-of-three James Russell, 40, carried out the attack following an alcohol-fuelled argument at a house. The victim was holding the basin when Russell took it from her and tipped its contents over her head, Aberdeen Sheriff Court was told. Sheriff Kenneth Stewart deferred sentence on Russell for six months to allow him to be of good behaviour. Senior fiscal depute Jim Craigen said: "Before this incident took place a fair amount of alcohol had been taken." Russell claimed it was in the...

(AP) INDIANAPOLIS -- The mayor of New Orleans blames racism and government bureaucracy for hampering the city's ability to both weather Hurricane Katrina and recover from it. Ray Nagin is convinced things would've been different had the storm hit Orange County, California, or Miami Beach. And he's telling the National Association of Black Journalists that the storm exposed what he calls "the soft underbelly of America as it relates to dealing with race and class." In his speech, Nagin also suggested that state and federal officials would prefer New Orleans remain a smaller city. It now has just over half...

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - A "Presidential Bust" of U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton was unveiled on Wednesday at New York's Museum of Sex, where sculptor Daniel Edwards hopes it will spark discussion about sex, politics and celebrity. Edwards, the artist who also created a life-size nude of Britney Spears giving birth on a bear-skin rug, said he wanted to capture Clinton's age and femininity in the sculpture."

(KUTV) SALT LAKE CITY Its' something just about every woman carries with them. While we may know what's inside our purses, do you have any idea what's on the outside? Shauna Lake put purses to the test – for bacteria – with surprising results. You may think twice about where you put your purse. Women carry purses everywhere from the office to public restrooms to the floor of the car. Most women won't be caught without their purses, but did you ever stop to think about where your purse goes during the day? “I drive a school bus, so my...

World-renowned intellectuals publish open letter to make it clear that world is not ignoring what is happening in the Middle East. Surprisingly, it's us they blame When the war began in northern Israel and the Gaza operation was expanded, Palestinian director and actor Juilano Mar Hamis sent out an e-mail asking who would paint the “Guernica” of Lebanon. Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica,” which shows the results of the Nazi bombing of Guernica in Spain, is still considered a symbol of the destruction and devastation that war leaves in its wake. According to Mar Hamis, his e-mail was intended to awaken the...

by Mark Finkelstein July 19, 2006 - 06:41 Remember as a kid trying to build the tallest building you could with Legos, or whatever it was in your day? Derrick Jackson doesn't. Judging by his column - High and Mighty - in today's Boston Globe, young Derrick built one-story affordable units, maybe even buried them underground in his backyard - just to be safe. Jackson's op-ed is a condemnation of proposals to build or rebuild towers in major cities, including his own Boston. Jackson's anti-tower argument is four-fold: Tall buildings taunt terrorists. Towers are a cruel reminder of class differences....

Every neighborhood has one, a loudmouth bully who shouldn't be provoked into anger. He's insulted? He'll pull out a knife. Spat in the face? He'll draw a gun. Hit? He'll pull out a machine gun. Not that the bully's not right - someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction! It's not that he's not feared, but nobody really appreciates him. The real appreciation is for the strong who don't immediately use their strength. Regrettably, the Israel Defense Forces once again looks like the neighborhood bully. A soldier was abducted in Gaza? All of Gaza will pay. Eight...

Police: Hackett told co-worker she feared she was pregnant ST. ALBANS CITY –– Police learned about the alleged sexual relationship between a Missisquoi Valley Union High School (MVU) teacher’s aide and a 13-year-old male student after the defendant told a friend she might be pregnant with the young teen’s child, according to court records. Melanie Hackett, 24, of Swanton, pleaded not guilty Monday to two counts of sexual assault during a brief arraignment that garnered the attention of numerous state media organizations. As reporters scribbled notes and photographers captured her image, Hackett – dressed in a black shirt and blue...

GAZA, Palestine -- As Americans commemorated their annual celebration of independence from colonial occupation, rejoicing in their democratic institutions, we Palestinians were yet again besieged by our occupiers, who destroy our roads and buildings, our power stations and water plants, and who attack our very means of civil administration. Our homes and government offices are shelled, our parliamentarians taken prisoner and threatened with prosecution. The current Gaza invasion is only the latest effort to destroy the results of fair and free elections held early this year. It is the explosive follow-up to a five-month campaign of economic and diplomatic warfare...

With Rudy Giuliani crisscrossing the country in support of Republican candidates and raising money for his new political action committee, it is beginning to look inevitable that he will seek the presidency in 2008. Despite his lead in many early polls, skeptics still dismiss his chances of winning the Republican nomination given his personal background and liberal views on social issues. There is no doubt that these will be obstacles for Giuliani, but compared to the forces that will propel him into the White House, they are small potatoes. "History is in motion, and those moving with it are so...

June 10, 2006 was the date for the World Naked Bike Ride, which -- as its name suggests -- is an international political event at which protesters take off all their clothes and ride bicycles through various cities around the globe. The focus of the protest is theoretically to encourage people to give up their "dependence on fossil fuel" -- but in practice the messages (which the organizers tell participants to paint directly on their bodies) are more scattered, ranging from "free speech" to presidential politics. I attended the San Francisco version of the event, which started at noon in...

Following are excerpts from an interview with the American linguist Noam Chomsky, which aired on LBC TV on May 23, 2006. Interviewer: Do you consider Hizbullah to be a terrorist organization? Chomsky: The United States considers Hizbullah a terrorist organization, but the term terrorism is used by the great powers simply to refer to forms of violence of which they disapprove. So the U.S. was of course supporting the Israeli invasions and occupation of southern Lebanon. Hizbullah was instrumental in driving them out, so for that reason they are a terrorist organization. [...] It's an interesting dilemma. Personally I'm very...

Monday, May 15 marks the 58th anniversary of the creation of the apartheid state of Israel. Why preface it with the ugly “A” word? Because I believe that the state of Israel, with its racist policies against the Palestinians and illegal occupation of their land, is an apartheid state. Since 1906, when the Zionist congress decided to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, Zionist forces, first underground terrorist militias like the Haganah and Igron and then Israel’s Occupational Forces, have attempted to systematically annihilate Palestinians, and drive them out of their land by oppression, torture and humiliation. The Palestinians have...

Palestinian Authority marks 'Disaster Day' for State of Israel's establishment. Gaza residents seem worn out, not eager to demonstrate; 'how could people be expected to go out and protest with no salaries?' Fatah activist explains Gaza residents on Monday marked the 58th Nakba Day – the "disaster" that struck the Palestinian people following the establishment of the State of Israel, which caused millions of Palestinians to become refugees all over the Arab world. This year, however, the day was different than before and stood in the shadow of what Gazans refer to as "the current Nakba" – the economic and...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s message to our president ought to give all the leaders of our country as well as the rest of us pause. He is absolutely right to suggest that President Bush, and the rest of our nation, “do some soul-searching and atone for past U.S. transgressions.” While many proclaim that we are a “Christian nation,” we are not. We are not even a moral nation. If we were, our economic policies, both domestic and foreign, would reflect a deep, abiding care and compassion for our brothers and sisters around the globe. We would care for the Earth....

MOUNT PLEASANT, Iowa — Sheriff's deputies in Henry County are stuck in the middle of a less than appetizing investigation. Investigators are trying to find the person who has dumped bags of what appears to be human vomit in ditches in a 1 1/2-mile area northeast of the city. Deputy Dan Wesley said as many as 50 garbage and trash bags containing regurgitated food has been dumped over the past three years. Bags, ranging in size from small white trash bags to large black lawn bags, have been found with only a couple of inches of the substance in them,...

Our older son recently got married, an occasion that puts me in mind of family matters. Nick's American cousins were all at the wedding but none of the Israelis, not when the wedding was just a few days before Pessah. The Israeli cousins (there are about a dozen) are very religious and there is no way they would have travelled to the States right before the holiday. The Israeli cousins and American cousins all know and like each other, more than is common among young people whose primary connection is that they share a set of great-grandparents. But all the...

Machsom Watch women struggle to show what's happening on stolen land There once was a nation in whose name the country's hallowed army and security forces, both secret and less secret, committed the most barbaric of crimes. The country claimed "we didn't know," even as the army looted homes and attacked foreign lands. Government PR/ propaganda was very helpful for people who didn't know. "Our actions are an existential need," they claimed. "The enemy is dangerous," "Our army is the most moral in the world," "Our country needs us, and we are patriots. Therefore, we must be understanding of everything,...

It makes the headlines nearly every day, and the tone is usually resentful: Beware of those soon-to-retire baby boomers, all 80 million of them, who are about to place a huge burden on the rest of us. The first of this whiny, entitled generation are turning 60 this year, and they’ll be demanding even more special treatment in old age than they’ve gotten the rest of their lives. But imagine if the generation getting ready to retire wasn’t the baby boomers, but the World War II generation — or the Greatest Generation, as it’s popularly lionized. No one would be...

SYDNEY - A family on the south Australian coast found a piece of whale vomit on the beach that is tipped to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, national radio reported. The chunk of ambergris, which is sought after by perfume manufacturers, weighed 14.75 kilograms and is worth about 20 US dollars per gram, ABC radio said — making a total of 295,000 dollars. Fisherman Leon Wright and his wife Loralee found the ambergris, which sperm whales are believed to vomit to rid their intestines of hard objects such as squid beaks, on a remote beach near Streaky Bay....

To his backers, Joseph C. Wilson IV is a brave whistle-blower wronged by the Bush administration. To his critics, he is a partisan who spouts unreliable information. But nobody disputes this: Possessed of a flamboyant style and a love for the camera lens, Wilson helped propel the unmasking of his wife's identity as a CIA operative into a sprawling, two-year legal probe that climaxes this week with the possible indictment of key White House officials. He also turned an arcane matter involving the Intelligence Identities Protection Act into a proxy fight over the administration's credibility and its case for war...

In town for a concert, U2 rock star Bono was invited to lunch today with the president of the USA. White House president secretary Scott McClellan said the meeting at the executive residence would be a follow-up on talks Bono had with President George Bush in July at the G8 summit in Scotland. “They had a very good discussion about some of our common priorities,” McClellan said. “Both share a deep commitment to combating aids, preventing malaria and expanding trade to lift people out of poverty.” McClellan said Bono also planned to meet with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley later...

Linda McQuaig says right may have met its match in hurricane crisis When terrorists struck the World Trade Center, George W. Bush and his handlers quickly adopted a muscular approach to the crisis. Not so with Katrina. While 9/11 prompted the administration to unleash the full resources of America in response, the deadly Katrina crisis had trouble catching Bush's attention. But then 9/11 was quickly spotted as the perfect justification for what Republicans wanted to do anyway: mobilize the U.S. for war and enhance the power of the military-industrial complex. The Katrina disaster offers no such opportunities. On the contrary,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Iraqi insurgency is in its last throes. The economy is booming. Anybody who leaks a CIA agent's identity will be fired. Add another piece of White House rhetoric that doesn't match the public's view of reality: Help is on the way, Gulf Coast. As New Orleans descended into anarchy, top Bush administration officials congratulated each other for jobs well done and spoke of water, food and troops pouring into the ravaged city. Television pictures told a different story. "What it reminded me of the other day is 'Baghdad Bob' saying there are no Americans at the...