The story of Jesus is extensive and begins far before his birth. There are documents other than the “Gospel of Judas” excavated from the past the ‘church’ never incorporated into it’s foundation. The documents about Mary, the mother of Jesus, were said to be unverifiable to the ‘author’ and therefore considered questionable in their authenticity. Regardless, just as the Gospel of Judas exists so do the others and they tell a story that makes a great deal of ‘sense’ to the circumstances of the people of the time and their beliefs surrounding God. Their religion is what bound the communities, or tribes if you will, dictating the essence of life or culture.
A clear understanding of Mary, the mother of Jesus and the social significance of her birth and life is paramount to understand the life of her son, Jesus of Nazareth. She was born to an older, childless couple. This couple was esteemed among the people of the community and with years of childless status they were becoming a concern by the ‘elders.’ It was felt children were a gift of God and where there was a childless status the question arose as to the validity of the status of a couple. The elder council was concerned this status reflected an inequality of the couple’s right to stay as a part of the community. Mary’s parents were considered wealthy. That definition of wealth included many servants that lived with the household that worked the land and cared for the house and it’s management.
Mary’s father left the household to travel in reflection of his status. It was some time before his wife sent word to his lonely place of reflection or religious contemplation that she was expecting a child. The conception of Jesus’ mother was considered ‘immaculate’ in that she was conceived ‘virginally’ by an act of God. Upon his return home he was greeted with great fanfare and the child was considered the most obvious proof of their diligence profession of faith.
After Mary was born she was treated as royalty. She had servants that never allowed her feet to touch the ground. Her every need was attended to with complete care and reverence to the faith. It was at the age of three she was allowed to walk unattended. Her feet were placed on the temple steps by her father where she immediately ran inside. She lived there and did not emerge until the age of twelve. It was said she was fed ‘manna’ by the Angels of God.
At the time she emerged, which in Hebrew culture/religion is considered the time of “Mitzvah” she was betrothed to Joseph, whom would become the human surrogate father of Jesus. Joseph was an elderly man. When Mary conceived it was again considered a virgin or ‘immaculate’ conception. The ‘special’ status of Mary and her birth of Jesus has a royal implication regardless the impoverishment or enslavement of the Jews. The culture/religion of the people is what separated them from Rome and the ‘heathen practices.
Much of the definition of culture of society today is defined by the very dividing line of the societies thousands of years ago. The ruling class of Romans dominated the entire Mediterranean. It wasn’t until the Romans tried to expand their empire into Europe and met with it's lose of stability. The empire became too large for the Roman armies to enforce. It fell to the armies of the north and not the armies of the Middle East. The so called tribes of the Middle East remained intact for the most part and Roman rule simply stopped dominating their governance. The most persecuted by Rome were the Christians. They became outcasts to most of the societies there simply because Jesus was able to supply a new covenant to ‘his’ people and that covenant set up social mores’ that set them arrogantly apart from their heritage. It was the ‘special’ status of miracles through Christ’s work as a man and more than likely a Rabbi that maintained the significance of his teachings.
Jesus Christ within his community was considered ‘special’ all his life. He was born to a woman conceived of a virgin birth of which conceived him by a virgin birth. At the time of his Mitzvah he was council to the elders of the community. A ‘special’ significance noted in the Bible of Christian faith. They don’t call it a Mitzvah, but, more a counseling of elders at the age of thirteen. A young profit of God was his status from that time forward. It is a well established truth that Jesus was a Jew by birth.
As his following grew over the years of his preaching and ‘acts’ of miracles to prove his teachings he developed a new covenant with people on behalf of them to God. The ‘counter culture’ of Jesus Christ at the time rejected many of the values Rome reflected as acceptable and became more sexually sterile; hence, no Gay relationships, no polygamy and the like simply because Jesus grew to identify the Jewish plight under Rome as a needed cleansing of morality. Those were among the dividing lines of difference between the culture accepted in the tribe by the Romans and those that were not. I believe as time went on Jesus reflected and saw his ‘special place/status’ in authority and demanded different social mores’ to relieve the people of poverty and enslavement through the ‘GRACE’ of God, a rather passive and safe venue of change. As his status grew through his acts as a Rabbi or teacher if you will the demands for a pinnacle, a turning point, grew to an extreme and he finally confronted Rome.
The act of Judas is pivotal to the end of Jesus' teachings ‘in the flesh.’ Judas according to most Christian teachings betrayed Jesus which brought ‘special’ information to Rome and then the charges of blasphemy and the social trial of him resulting in this crucifixion. It was a rare occassion slaves would cooperate or even ask for Roman intervention. The Romans acted on 'The Ceasars' orders.
It is no surprise to me but only delightful revealing that Judas was actually a best and trusted friend to Jesus. It is no surprise the betrayal was a chosen ‘status’ of the handling of this ‘out of place’ Rabbi/teacher in the community. Rome normally did not intervene in societies. They held control with the understanding there would be ‘tribute’ paid to Rome. They did not dominate the society’s culture but did intervene to ‘maintain’ the status quo. In doing so that enforced the understanding as to the ‘status’ of Rome and it’s power over people, hence the regular payment of ‘tribute.’ Rome ultimately did turn the disposition of Jesus back to the community but did expect him to be ‘handled’ and not dismissed to continue his ‘disruptive’ teachings. Rome did not like social descent. It saw ‘it’s place’ within it’s empire as a ‘keeper of the peace’ which maintained it’s authority.
The difference between Judas as a traitor or a friend is huge. Judas' act against Jesus created ‘the christ’ he became. Knowing Judas martyred his friend is a much different and more human understanding of the events leading to Jesus’ death. The rest of the miracles of Jesus life cannot be removed or changed due to the change of the friendliness of Judas. However, it does change the ‘miraculous’ event of the events leading to the death of Jesus. That is hugely significant. It makes Jesus actively involved in his demise which in my opinion changes ‘the map’ of status of the event markedly.
This is more a side note to the debate but a good deal of the ‘suffering’ of people as seen in today’s society and I make example of Gay Men, resulted in this desperate attempt to raise Christians above the status of slave by a single man determined and anointed as ‘special’ by his own birth. Realizing Jesus martyred himself to solidify a different belief system among the Jews is to realize the prejudice held by today’s religions was that of manly and not godly intent. It is wrong.
Much debate will follow this discovery and it is only expected the Christian Churches will dilute it’s authority by calling it fiction, but, in my opinion this is a new pivotal event that lends itself credence to those of faiths accepting ‘lack of authority’ over gender issues of teaching the faith and those considered to have different sexual identity than heterosexual. It dilutes any religious authority in areas of social mores without diluting the ‘special’ status of God’s will.
Saturday, April 08, 2006
The Gospel of Judas
Judas is pivotal to the precepts of Christianity. His gospel is not fiction. If the Christian faith calls him a traitor, betrayor and perhaps inspired by a force outside himself to lead to Jesus's crucifixtion, then the church cannot defame or rewrite the personal text of the man who delivered their savior to his destiny.
There were two defining events this week. One will change the face of the world forever.
Don Miller: More Gnostic secrets revealed in 'Judas'
The news Thursday that scholars unveiled a document at least 1,700 years old that purports to make Judas Iscariot a good guy might be considered one of those "aha" moments we of the modern world like to seize upon.
Kind of like the missing-link fish also introduced this week that suddenly explains human existence and upholds the scientific dogma of evolution.
The Judas document gives a whole new retelling to the relationship between Jesus of Nazareth and his wavering disciple, Judas.
In this "secret" relationship, Jesus tells Judas that the man long seen as a betrayer "will exceed" the other disciples. "You will be cursed by the other generations, and you will come to rule over them," Judas is told.
In another passage, Jesus reveals to Judas that to him only will be revealed the "mysteries of the kingdom."
Jesus asks Judas to help him shed his mortal flesh: "You will sacrifice the man that clothes me," he tells him, indicating that Judas is only doing what Jesus wanted him to do: get rid of Jesus' cumbersome, illusory, earthly body.
The story of how this so-called "gospel" — the word means "good news" — came to be declared this week reads like a chapter from a modern-day piece of Gnosticism, the best-seller, soon-to-be-a-a-smash movie, "The Da Vinci Code."
The papyrus was discovered in 1970, later kept in a safe-deposit box, and began rapidly deteriorating, before scholars intervened and began to assemble more than 1,000 pieces. The 26-page Coptic-language text is believed to be a copy of a Greek Gnostic document that was referred to by a Christian church father, Irenaeus, more than a century before.
"They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas," wrote Irenaeus in 180 A.D.
The name comes from the Greek word "gnosis," which means "knowledge."
The most famous Gnostic "gospel""'-- there are many — is the "Gospel of Thomas," discovered in Egypt in 1945, and the subject of best-selling books by Elaine Pagels, a Princeton University professor.
Pagels has argued that the Gnostic gospels show early Christianity was hardly monolithic, and that although the movement was quickly tagged as heresy, "the people who loved, circulated and wrote down these gospels did not think they were heretics."
Gnostics believed humans were fundamentally spiritual beings imprisoned in physical bodies and that salvation was attained through mystical, "secret" knowledge, rather than through Jesus' death and resurrection.
Unlike the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the Bible, all written in the first century, the Gnostic documents were written in the second century and afterward.
Some scholars were saying this week that the Gospel of Judas will be talked about for years to come and that it might reveal some long-hidden truth about the historical Jesus.
The Judas document sheds more light on the Gnostic version of God, that this evil world was the product of a bloodthirsty, foolish lower God, as revealed in the Old Testament, rather than the higher, true God who sent Jesus Christ, who, in turn, was not human, but a divine agent sent to rescue humanity from the tyrant God. There was no need for him to die and be raised up, since the need for redemption, or rescue, was inconceivable.
This, obviously, isn't the place to delve into the history of heresies in the early Church — there were many — but to note that Gnosticism is still with us.
Gnosticism was around in other forms before Jesus, even in the Garden of Eden; many believe it later surfaced in Islam, where the Prophet Muhammad was given new knowledge, that included the startling "revelation" that Jesus did not die on the cross; instead it was, guess who?, Judas who took the ... fall.
Gnosticism is around today in much New Age thinking, including books such as "The Celestine Prophecy" and "Course in Miracles." Conspiracy theories that depend on secret knowledge, such as "The Da Vinci Code," show how pervasive Gnosticism truly is.
Modern-day scholars love the Gnostic gospels because it gives them another weapon with which to attack the Church and the Bible.
Many "Christians" fall under its sway, causing dissension in churches and among weaker believers with their whispers of so-called divine secrets that cannot be revealed publicly.
The Apostle Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, dealt with Gnosticism — "a hollow and deceptive philosophy" — in the book of Colossians, where he taught that in Christ, "all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form" Col. 2:9. John in his first letter insists that this Jesus " ... was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands." 1 John 1:1.
And here's the main problem: Gnostics believe that knowledge is necessary for salvation. The New Testament, which many Christians believe is inspired, teaches that grace — God's undeserved favor given through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ — is not only the means of deliverance the word means the same as salvation but the beginning of true healing.
Or, as Paul wrote, "Knowledge gnosis puffs up, but love builds up." 1 Corinthians 8:1
Don Miller is the Sentinel's managing editor. He can be reached at
dmiller@santacruzsentinel.com. Please keep responses to 150 words or less, and include a full name and address.
The news Thursday that scholars unveiled a document at least 1,700 years old that purports to make Judas Iscariot a good guy might be considered one of those "aha" moments we of the modern world like to seize upon.
Kind of like the missing-link fish also introduced this week that suddenly explains human existence and upholds the scientific dogma of evolution.
The Judas document gives a whole new retelling to the relationship between Jesus of Nazareth and his wavering disciple, Judas.
In this "secret" relationship, Jesus tells Judas that the man long seen as a betrayer "will exceed" the other disciples. "You will be cursed by the other generations, and you will come to rule over them," Judas is told.
In another passage, Jesus reveals to Judas that to him only will be revealed the "mysteries of the kingdom."
Jesus asks Judas to help him shed his mortal flesh: "You will sacrifice the man that clothes me," he tells him, indicating that Judas is only doing what Jesus wanted him to do: get rid of Jesus' cumbersome, illusory, earthly body.
The story of how this so-called "gospel" — the word means "good news" — came to be declared this week reads like a chapter from a modern-day piece of Gnosticism, the best-seller, soon-to-be-a-a-smash movie, "The Da Vinci Code."
The papyrus was discovered in 1970, later kept in a safe-deposit box, and began rapidly deteriorating, before scholars intervened and began to assemble more than 1,000 pieces. The 26-page Coptic-language text is believed to be a copy of a Greek Gnostic document that was referred to by a Christian church father, Irenaeus, more than a century before.
"They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas," wrote Irenaeus in 180 A.D.
The name comes from the Greek word "gnosis," which means "knowledge."
The most famous Gnostic "gospel""'-- there are many — is the "Gospel of Thomas," discovered in Egypt in 1945, and the subject of best-selling books by Elaine Pagels, a Princeton University professor.
Pagels has argued that the Gnostic gospels show early Christianity was hardly monolithic, and that although the movement was quickly tagged as heresy, "the people who loved, circulated and wrote down these gospels did not think they were heretics."
Gnostics believed humans were fundamentally spiritual beings imprisoned in physical bodies and that salvation was attained through mystical, "secret" knowledge, rather than through Jesus' death and resurrection.
Unlike the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the Bible, all written in the first century, the Gnostic documents were written in the second century and afterward.
Some scholars were saying this week that the Gospel of Judas will be talked about for years to come and that it might reveal some long-hidden truth about the historical Jesus.
The Judas document sheds more light on the Gnostic version of God, that this evil world was the product of a bloodthirsty, foolish lower God, as revealed in the Old Testament, rather than the higher, true God who sent Jesus Christ, who, in turn, was not human, but a divine agent sent to rescue humanity from the tyrant God. There was no need for him to die and be raised up, since the need for redemption, or rescue, was inconceivable.
This, obviously, isn't the place to delve into the history of heresies in the early Church — there were many — but to note that Gnosticism is still with us.
Gnosticism was around in other forms before Jesus, even in the Garden of Eden; many believe it later surfaced in Islam, where the Prophet Muhammad was given new knowledge, that included the startling "revelation" that Jesus did not die on the cross; instead it was, guess who?, Judas who took the ... fall.
Gnosticism is around today in much New Age thinking, including books such as "The Celestine Prophecy" and "Course in Miracles." Conspiracy theories that depend on secret knowledge, such as "The Da Vinci Code," show how pervasive Gnosticism truly is.
Modern-day scholars love the Gnostic gospels because it gives them another weapon with which to attack the Church and the Bible.
Many "Christians" fall under its sway, causing dissension in churches and among weaker believers with their whispers of so-called divine secrets that cannot be revealed publicly.
The Apostle Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, dealt with Gnosticism — "a hollow and deceptive philosophy" — in the book of Colossians, where he taught that in Christ, "all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form" Col. 2:9. John in his first letter insists that this Jesus " ... was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands." 1 John 1:1.
And here's the main problem: Gnostics believe that knowledge is necessary for salvation. The New Testament, which many Christians believe is inspired, teaches that grace — God's undeserved favor given through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ — is not only the means of deliverance the word means the same as salvation but the beginning of true healing.
Or, as Paul wrote, "Knowledge gnosis puffs up, but love builds up." 1 Corinthians 8:1
Don Miller is the Sentinel's managing editor. He can be reached at
dmiller@santacruzsentinel.com. Please keep responses to 150 words or less, and include a full name and address.
"The Martyr" performed by Cursive
And so it's begun
This is year one
The birth of a child in the form of a man
Wrapped in towel
Passed out on the floor
These drunken hours -- graces deflowered
Cast down by an angel
She used to kiss his weeping eyes
Depressed in her bosom
Tears roll off her nipple
Sweet baby, don't cry...
Your tears are only alibis
To prove you still feel --
You only feel sorry for yourself
Well, get on that cross
That's all you're good for...
And thusly it ends
Depression seeps in on a lonely messiah
Now he drinks with the lepers
Losing a limb, his better half
A glass once half full
A head hung half-mast
He claims he's the victim
Strangled by the nine-to-five
And a pattern of stillness
That haunted this still life
Your tears are only alibis
To prove you still feel
You only feel sorry for yourself
And that's how you thrive
Your sorrow's your goldmine
So write some sad song about me
Screaming your agonies, playing the saint
The Martyr...
The Martyr...
The Martyr...
The Martyr...
The Martyr...
Oh....
This is year one
The birth of a child in the form of a man
Wrapped in towel
Passed out on the floor
These drunken hours -- graces deflowered
Cast down by an angel
She used to kiss his weeping eyes
Depressed in her bosom
Tears roll off her nipple
Sweet baby, don't cry...
Your tears are only alibis
To prove you still feel --
You only feel sorry for yourself
Well, get on that cross
That's all you're good for...
And thusly it ends
Depression seeps in on a lonely messiah
Now he drinks with the lepers
Losing a limb, his better half
A glass once half full
A head hung half-mast
He claims he's the victim
Strangled by the nine-to-five
And a pattern of stillness
That haunted this still life
Your tears are only alibis
To prove you still feel
You only feel sorry for yourself
And that's how you thrive
Your sorrow's your goldmine
So write some sad song about me
Screaming your agonies, playing the saint
The Martyr...
The Martyr...
The Martyr...
The Martyr...
The Martyr...
Oh....
Friday, April 07, 2006
Morning Papers - It's Origins
The Rooster
"Cock-A-Doodle-Do"
"Okey-doke"
Kindly remember, the storms carrying down blasts and tornadoes are traveling far faster than before. Normally, tornadoes travel about 35 mph, but, these storms and tornadoes are traveling at 50 mph. It is becoming very, very difficult to out run them with a car. There is every reason to believe most people can no longer do that as the speed of these tornadoes are unpredictable at this point and could accelerate beyond 50 mph.
Please stay safe. Listening to 'Breaking Weather' is vital to safety. Watching the weather is no longer a casual activity. Being 'up' on the weather is a survival tool.
...But it took a few seconds for him to realize it was a tornado...
The Tennessean
5:45 p.m. Update:
Tornadoes sweeping across the region have killed at least seven people, as well as tearing off roofs, knocking down power lines, flipping cars and causing an unknown number of injuries, authorities said.
Fire Chief Joe Womack told the Associated Press that three bodies were pulled from the wreckage of homes in the Woodhaven subdivision of Gallatin, about 24 miles northeast of Nashville.
The three bodies were loaded into an ambulance in the neighborhood where hundreds of homes were heavily damaged and many destroyed. State officials previously reported two deaths in the same county, but it was unknown whether those two were included in the three deaths reported by local officials.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage
Tornadoes hit Middle Tennessee; seven people dead
"More trailing behind the initial one," official says
By KATE HOWARD
Staff Writer
5:45 p.m. Update:
Tornadoes sweeping across the region have killed at least seven people, as well as tearing off roofs, knocking down power lines, flipping cars and causing an unknown number of injuries, authorities said.
Fire Chief Joe Womack told the Associated Press that three bodies were pulled from the wreckage of homes in the Woodhaven subdivision of Gallatin, about 24 miles northeast of Nashville.
The three bodies were loaded into an ambulance in the neighborhood where hundreds of homes were heavily damaged and many destroyed. State officials previously reported two deaths in the same county, but it was unknown whether those two were included in the three deaths reported by local officials.
All seven deaths were reported in Gallatin, according to Eddie Boatwright, spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.
And the storms keep coming.
http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/NEWS01/60407021
ONLY three days ago, deadly storms struck the same state. Does lightning strike twice? Definitely in a Global Warming environment. As a matter of fact, count on it. The same pattern was seen in November in Evansville.
Storms kill 24, injure dozens
An unidentified woman from the area of Griiffin Chapel Road in Gibson Co. is brought to the Bradford "command center", the Bradford Elementary School Gym, Sunday evening around 10:30pm Sunday night.
Katie Morgan/The Jackson Sun
http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=DN&Dato=20060403&Kategori=NEWS&Lopenr=604030801&Ref=PH
Powerful legislators choosing not to run
Almost 20 seats will become open
By TRENT SEIBERT
Staff Writer
A seismic shift of policy and culture on Tennessee's Capitol Hill may be in the works, as nearly 20 legislators are giving up their seats in the state legislature.
As the deadline passed yesterday for lawmakers to qualify to run for re-election in the August primaries, a picture emerged of a legislature that will be evolving over the next several months — into just what, voters will have to decide later this year.
Key figures who have shaped Tennessee law and the workings of the legislature are stepping down from their posts, including the ranking Democrat in the House and both of her predecessors in that job, as well as the man who is tied for the record of longest consecutively serving legislator in state history, state Sen. Curtis Person, 71.
Their departures are coming when the winds are shifting on the Hill: 11 months ago, four of their colleagues were arrested and charged in the Tennessee Waltz bribery scandal. Ethics legislation passed a couple of months ago in the Waltz's wake has made life different for lawmakers, too.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/NEWS0201/604070399
Many candidates join races for open House seats
Associated Press
The lineup of candidates to replace U.S. House members Harold Ford Jr., a Democrat from Memphis, and Bill Jenkins, a Republican from upper East Tennessee, topped 30 when qualifying ended yesterday.
The 1st and 9th Districts are the state's only congressional seats without an incumbent in the race.
Candidates had until noon yesterday to file petitions, and state elections officials said it would be today before they have an official list of those qualifying.
According to local election officials, 14 candidates, including 10 Republicans and four Democrats, filed to run for Jenkins' 1st District U.S. House seat.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/NEWS0206/604070374/1001
Saving pre-K dominates pleas for Metro schools
Board, facing difficult cuts, hears ideas from public
By CLAUDETTE RILEY
Staff Writer
Kindergartner Akolbia Biggers, held up to a podium microphone last night by a teacher, tried to persuade the Metro school board to keep a Montessori pre-kindergarten program for 3-year-olds.
"I started school here when I was 3 years old … I learned to count in Spanish and French. I learned to prepare my own snacks. I learned to read and write," said Akolbia, 5, who still attends Stanford Montessori. "If I did not go to this school, I would be upset."
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/NEWS04/604070398
NASA perplexed by worker accidents
By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/SCOTT AUDETTE
More Science Video
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- Over the past three months, workers at the Kennedy Space Center have tripped, dropped things, banged into sensitive equipment and started fires in a baffling string of accidents that have left one person dead.
NASA is investigating three of the accidents - the death of a worker who fell off a roof, the bumping of space shuttle Discovery's robotic arm by a platform, and damage last week to an instrument that supplies power to the orbiters.
But since the beginning of the year, there have been 20 other incidents in which a worker was injured or equipment was damaged in excess of $25,000. There were 14 incidents during the same period last year.
"There's enough going on that we're very, very concerned," said Bill Parsons, deputy director of the Kennedy Space Center.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NASA_MISHAPS?SITE=TNNAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Immigration overhaul obstacle may be fatal
By DAVID ESPO
AP Special Correspondent
AP Photo/DENNIS COOK
AP VIDEO
Senate Shelves Immigration Bill
Other U.S. Video
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Landmark legislation offering eventual citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants suffered a potentially fatal blow Friday in the Senate, the latest in a series of election-year setbacks for President Bush and the Republicans who control Congress.
"Politics got ahead of policy on this," lamented Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. an evenhanded assessment that belied the partisan recriminations from all sides.
Hailed as a bipartisan breakthrough less than 24 hours earlier, the bill fell victim to internal disputes in both parties as well as to bewildering political maneuvering. On the key vote, only 38 senators, all Democrats, lined up in support. That was 22 short of the 60 needed, and left the legislation in limbo as lawmakers left the Capitol for a two-week break.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IMMIGRATION?SITE=TNNAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Nissan shutdown extended
Assembly lines to be idle for extra day at 2 plants
By BUSH BERNARD
Staff Writer
Slow cars sales have prompted Nissan North America to shut down its Smyrna and Canton, Miss., assembly plants for an extra day during the upcoming Easter holiday.
The plants were already scheduled to be closed on April 14 for Good Friday and on April 15, but they'll also be idled Easter Sunday night on April 16 and all day April 17, officials said. Employees were to be told of the plan yesterday.
"We have too many '06 models out," Nissan spokeswoman Vicki Smith said.
Nissan's U.S. sales were down 2.6% last month, its fifth sales decline in the past six months.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/BUSINESS01/604070389/1003
Love takes time that singles say they don't have
By LAURA SESSIONS STEPP
The Washington Post
Think romance is alive and well among young singles? That 20-somethings are checking each other out in the office and cruising the bars at night, looking for someone to love? Think again.
The major love story these days is this: Maybe later.
It's not that they take relationships lightly, or that they don't want to become attached — eventually. It's just, who has the time? They're working hard at college or in jobs that barely cover the rent and feel obligated to find fulfilling, well-paid careers. It will be easier to make their marks, they think, unfettered by relationships that, let's face it, can be so distracting.
This came as something of a surprise to researchers Lee Rainie and Mary Madden at the Pew Research Center when, in going over data in a larger dating survey, they found that among 18- to 29-year-olds, only slightly more than a third said they were in committed relationships. Among the remaining, more were not looking than looking.
The numbers do not astonish Pouya Dianat, 20, or Montana Wojczuk, 26, however.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/FEATURES01/604070343/1004
Sydney Morning Herald
Obese children: TV's role weighed up
By Mark Metherell
April 8, 2006
STATE health ministers have defied their federal counterpart, Tony Abbott, and are pressing for action on food advertising to combat the rise in child obesity.
At the health ministers' meeting yesterday, Mr Abbott rejected calls for action, arguing that more research was needed to make the link between TV advertising and obesity.
But state ministers, including NSW's John Hatzistergos, decided to take action without Federal Government support and develop "options for action" to be considered at the next health ministers' meeting in July.
In an unusual move, the ministers have agreed to ask representatives of the advertising and food industries to speak at that meeting. The issue has been examined by the ministers' obesity taskforce for three years, but failed to rate a mention in a "national action agenda" released yesterday.
Mr Hatzistergos said the food industry would not be paying for advertisements in children's television time slots if it did not think it was getting results.
It is believed the states do not expect action would necessarily involve bans on television advertising, but want to see changes to the code of conduct concerning advertising to children.
Mr Abbott said after the meeting of Australasian ministers in Wellington that "we agreed to disagree on TV advertising because there is not enough evidence, and more research is needed to determine its effectiveness". But the executive officer of the Australasian Society for the Study of Obesity, Dr Tim Gill, said recent studies in Britain and the US found that advertising influenced eating behaviour, particularly of younger children.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/obese-children-tvs-role-weighed-up/2006/04/07/1143916722777.html
Environment pays hefty price for waste of water
AUSTRALIA has a major problem with water. Market economics offer the obvious solution. But in the hands of our politicians, the solution's becoming hugely expensive.
Which explains why it's taking so long and why we'll probably never spend enough to halt and repair the damage we're doing to our environment.
The economics of water is outlined by three Treasury officers - Rowan Roberts, Nicole Mitchell and Justin Douglas - in an article in the latest issue of Treasury's Economic Roundup. But I'll be filling in the political gaps they leave.
Water is not only essential to human life, it's an important input to almost every industry. But even before you allow for the possible effects of climate change, Australia suffers from extremely variable weather as well as the lowest average rainfall of any inhabited continent.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/environment-pays-hefty-price-for-waste-of-water/2006/04/07/1143916718751.html
Scientists confirm: no pain, no gain
By Deborah Smith Science Editor
April 8, 2006
A WORLD without punishment sounds like paradise and, given a choice, most people opt for this live and let live approach. But as freeloading inevitably becomes rife, they quickly flee to join a group where selfish members are made to pay, new research shows.
The study fills a gap in the puzzle of why humans are the only animals to have evolved societies where large numbers of strangers co-operate for the common good, even at a cost to themselves.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/scientists-confirm-no-pain-no-gain/2006/04/07/1143916722780.html
Decades later, a familiar syndrome of complicity
THIRTY years ago I met a Papuan man called Imser in a place called Valley X, high in the mountainous spine of the Indonesian half of New Guinea.
First contact with the outside world had come only a few years earlier, when the French documentary filmmaker Pierre Dominique Gaisseau parachuted into an open patch of grassland, escorted by some Indonesian special forces troops under a young captain named Faisal Tanjung. Gaisseau had traversed Western New Guinea by land and river in 1958, when it was still held by the Dutch.
After pressure from the US, the Dutch had reluctantly transferred the territory to Indonesian control in 1963, after a brief United Nations interregnum, and a manipulated "act of free choice" in 1969 had resulted in a decision to stay with Indonesia.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/familiar-syndrome-of-complicity/2006/04/07/1143916718087.html
Critics line up to accuse Bush of hypocrisy
President Bush delivers a speech on the global war on terror at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, N.C.
Photo: Gerald Herbert
By Michael Gawenda, Herald Correspondent in Washington
April 8, 2006
SENIOR Democrats have described as "breathtaking" testimony that President George Bush personally authorised the leaking of classified pre-Iraq war intelligence to a reporter.
Democrats lined up to accuse Mr Bush of hypocrisy - and worse - after the revelation that the Vice-President, Dick Cheney's former chief-of-staff, Lewis Libby, told a grand jury that he was authorised by the President, through Mr Cheney, in July 2003 to disclose key portions of a sensitive assessment in a bid to discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson, a persistent critic of Mr Bush and the Iraq war.
"If the disclosure is true, it's breathtaking," said Jane Harman, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. "The President is revealed as the leaker-in-chief."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/critics-line-up-to-accuse-bush-of-hypocrisy/2006/04/07/1143916718075.html
Terrorism films to open old wounds
UNIVERSAL Studios is to go ahead with plans to show an adrenaline-pumping trailer for United 93, its forthcoming thriller about the passenger revolt on one of the planes hijacked on September 11, 2001, despite qualms from some moviegoers and families of the victims.
Adam Fogelson, the company's president of marketing, said the trailer, which was pulled from a Manhattan cinema last weekend after complaints from patrons, would be shown only before R-rated movies or "grown-up" PG-13 ones. He said the trailer was created to give a candid sense of the film itself, which opens in the US at the end of the month and in Australia in August.
"The film is not sanitised or softened, it's an honest and real look [at the events on United Airlines flight 93]," Fogelson said.
"If I sanitised the trailer beyond what's there, am I suggesting that the experience will be less real than what the movie itself is? We as a company feel comfortable that it is a responsible and fair way to show what's coming."
...Tom Roger, whose 24-year-old daughter, Jean, was a flight attendant on American Airlines flight 11, which flew into the north tower, said he wished the studio had somehow notified other families of the victims about the trailer. "It's not the first time someone is trying to exploit the history of this event," he said. "I don't have a problem with it. But there's a warning that ought to be put in advance of the trailer. I don't know how these things can be treated in a more sensitive manner. But that's the issue."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/terrorism-films-to-open-old-wounds/2006/04/05/1143916591606.html
Hamas hints at moderation in bid for funding
By Ed O'Loughlin Herald Correspondent in Gaza
April 8, 2006
IN GAZA these days it is considered bad form to acknowledge the bombardment. The explosions come at odd hours of the day or night - the jarring thud of aerial bombs dropped from US-made jets, the insistent tap-tap of artillery shells stalking the outlying farmlands.
Unless the explosion is very large or very close, or followed by the sound of ambulances, no one seems to notice. Occasionally there comes a different sound, the wuthering noise of an outgoing Palestinian rocket, and then the people shake their heads, or smile.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/hamas-hints-at-moderation-in-bid-for-funding/2006/04/07/1143916718099.html
Mean girls - the rise of the violent femmes
Sugar and spice no longer. Girls are becoming increasingly violent, writes Paola Totaro.
IT'S been dubbed the phenomenon of the violent femmes, an ugly social trend identified in the US and Britain. Now, it is being documented in Australia - and the numbers suggest this is not a mere statistical blip.
According to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics, violence among young girls has grown at almost four times the rate of its rise among young boys - and has doubled over the past 10 years.
Upward trends have also been noted in charges for offensive language, offensive behaviour and exceeding the prescribed limit of alcohol, suggesting that when it comes to risk-taking and crimes traditionally dominated by teenage boys, girl power has developed a darker side.
In 1995 for example, the rate per 100,000 head of population of 10- to 14-year-old girls involved in assault was 175. By 2005, this had nearly tripled, to 487.
Among 15- to 17-year-old girls, the rate has almost doubled from 567 to 1046. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, the rise is a little lower, from 351 to 561.
Now, the very youngest group of girls represents nearly 13 per cent of all females who have been involved in an assault - a jump from 8.9 per cent 10 years ago.
According to Professor James Garbarino, an American psychologist and expert in juvenile violence, "girl power" has indeed been a shaping force, one which has motivated them, encouraged their entry into contact sports and to enjoy and be proud of their physicality. Slowly but surely, it has overtaken and replaced the old notion that little girls are just "sugar and spice and all things nice".
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/mean-girls/2006/04/07/1143916722751.html
Bunny battle: farmers take carrot and stick approach
A LOT of bunnies down Boorowa way will not live to see Easter this year.
Eleven years after the deadly calicivirus escaped from a remote research facility in South Australia, the disease has had a change of name, and the go-ahead has finally been given to coat it on a rabbit's favourite food: carrots.
With the new delivery system approved by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, farmers are hopeful that rabbit hemorrhagic disease will hit hard along the NSW tablelands. The approval process took more than four years because of strong opposition and extensive testing.
A week or so ago rangers from the Young Rural Lands Protection Board, armed with vials of the virus, started visiting farms around Boorowa to lace carrots. The baits must be put out within 24 hours to be effective, and death can come within 48 hours.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/bunny-battle-farmers-take-carrot-and-stick-approach/2006/04/07/1143916722810.html
Health system close to bottom of the class
AUSTRALIA'S health system performs below average compared with five other Western nations, an international survey of patient attitudes has found.
Despite routine claims by Australian political leaders that this country is the best place in the world to fall ill, the survey by the influential American health research body, the Commonwealth Fund, ranked Australia fourth out of six.
Disturbingly, the survey also ranked Australia's patient safety fourth, and on other measures including efficiency and effectiveness the system ranked indifferently.
The New Zealand and British health systems, often looked down on by Australian health leaders, rated ahead of Australia's even though both spend significantly less per head of population on health than Australia does.
The survey ranked patients' views and experiences of their country's health schemes, such as access to care, patient choice, problems with medicines and treatment and the extent to which low-income patients were able to access care compared with those on higher incomes.
The surveys of thousands of patients were undertaken in 2004 and 2005. German patients' ratings of their system scored highest in three of six categories.
The results showed that national expenditure was no indicator of performance in patients' views. The United States, which spends by far the most per head on health - $US5635 ($7826) - was the wooden spooner on the patient scores, managing to win only one category, "effectiveness" - basically quality of care.
Australia spends much less - about $4030 - but failed to top any of the six categories, which were largely dominated by Germany. It spends only slightly more than Australia on its health system.
Australia's highest rating - second - was on equity, which gauged the extent to which patients' income affected their ability to get care. Britain ranked first on this measure, with patients saying they experienced no or negligible differences.
The US, with large numbers of people uninsured, came last, and even among Americans on above-average incomes the US lagged considerably.
The findings will provide fresh ammunition for critics of the Federal Government's backing for private health insurance and the failure of the $3 billion health insurance rebate to reduce pressures on public hospitals.
But on the issue of "patient-centredness", Australia was described as performing relatively well on the responsiveness to patient preference.
Britain rated slightly ahead of Australia in the "efficiency" stakes, a finding that will surprise the many critics in this country of the lumbering British National Health Scheme. The authors of the Commonwealth Fund survey acknowledge that patients' assessments might be affected by their experiences and expectations "which could differ by country and culture".
They say internationally developed indicators to measure clinical effectiveness found that none of five English-speaking countries was systematically the best or worst on clinical effectiveness measures, "confirming the mixed story reported by patients".
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/health-system-close-to-bottom-of-the-class/2006/04/07/1143916722813.html
Offbeat shows turn web into world wide TV network
April 7, 2006 - 5:03PM
AdvertisementAdvertisement
The widely hyped merging of the PC and TV is finally taking shape in a way that only a few people imagined in the late 1990s internet boom.
From independent producers like Mondo Media to big media companies like MTV, and even kids who post videos on community sites like YouTube.com, the World Wide Web is becoming a sort of worldwide TV network for audiences seeking offbeat entertainment not shown on mainstream television.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/offbeat-shows-turn-web-into-tv-network/2006/04/07/1143916709822.html
New breed of online games have sex appeal
April 7, 2006 - 7:00AM
Page 1 of 3 Single page
Online games have so far mainly revolved around the killing of fantasy monsters. The occasional fight with a Stormtrooper provides some variety.
Companies are now developing a handful of games - though calling them that is a stretch - designed to give players a very different option: making love, not war.
In "Naughty America: The Game," set to launch early this summer, players will assume the forms of alluring but cartoonish people who meet, flirt and have sex with other player characters.
Characters will have their own apartment, but the world will have also have "public sex zones" and themed rooms, said Tina Courtney, the game's producer.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/new-breed-of-online-games-have-sex-appeal/2006/04/07/1143916680947.html
The princess and the little scallywag
Her Serenity … the official portrait of Princess Mary painted by Ralph Heimans; inset, one of the early drawings he gave to his former babysitter Marjorie Green.
AdvertisementAdvertisement
By Sunanda Creagh
April 8, 2006
WITH three works in the National Portrait Gallery, Ralph Heimans is one of Australia's premier portrait artists. So it was no great surprise when he was selected to paint the first official royal portrait of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark.
But in a little unit in Cammeray, Marjorie Green, 88, proudly displays some rare early Heimans works - childhood drawings by the artist as a bub.
"I have known him all his life and babysat him since he was born," Miss Green said yesterday. "The royal couple love him, and he certainly is brilliant. I have lots of drawings and paintings that he did when he was a little boy.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/04/07/1143916723245.html?from=top5
Washington Post
In Argentina, They've Got a Beef
Many Incredulous at Call to Eat Less Meat in Bid to Curb Inflation
By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 20, 2006; Page A08
BUENOS AIRES -- Guillermo Ugartemendia has nothing against making sacrifices for his country, but like millions of Argentines, he drew the line when the president asked everyone to stop eating so much beef.
"Unthinkable," said Ugartemendia, 35, after polishing off a rack of ribs at a steakhouse Thursday night. "It's not a viable option."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/19/AR2006031900996.html?sub=AR
Why a Hairstyle Made Headlines
By Robin Givhan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2006; Page C01
When Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) summoned the media to Howard University last week to tell her side of the story in an altercation with a Capitol Police officer, she assumed the traditional news conference position behind a podium and a bank of microphones.
She stood there wearing a coral-colored jacket and dangling earrings and raising the serious issue of racial injustice. But it was impossible not to stare at her hair. As your plainspoken mother might say, it appeared to be standing all over her head.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/06/AR2006040602341.html
Immigration Bill Stalls in Senate
Republicans Insist on Amending Measure
By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2006; 12:27 PM
A Senate compromise on a major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws hit a roadblock today, as majority Republicans insisted on being allowed to amend the measure and balked over cutting off debate on it.
Most Senate Democrats had resisted efforts to amend the compromise bill, fearing that GOP opponents of provisions to legalize the status of millions of illegal immigrants would push through fundamental changes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/07/AR2006040700182.html
Judge Rules in Favor of 'Da Vinci Code' Author
By Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2006; 11:30 AM
A British judge today rejected a closely watched copyright infringement claim against the author and publisher of "The Da Vinci Code," who were accused of appropriating the central theme of the blockbuster novel from the central theme of a work of non-fiction.
High Court Justice Peter Smith dismissed the claim brought by the authors of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" as virtually devoid of merit.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/07/AR2006040700601.html
Passover Cooking
Gil Marks
Jewish cooking expert
Friday, April 7, 2006; 12:00 PM
The Jewish holiday of Passover begins Wednesday, April 12, at sundown. This eight-day holiday commemorates the exodus of Israelite slaves from Egypt during the reign of the Pharoah. The first two nights are celebrated with seder feasts, which include many culinary symbols and traditions connected to the story of the Hebrew flight from slavery.
Jewish cooking expert Gil Marks will field your questions and comments about Passover and its many food traditions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/04/04/DI2006040400702.html?nav=nsc
Blasts at Baghdad Shiite Mosque Kill Scores
By Omar Fekeiki and Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 7, 2006; 11:30 AM
BAGHDAD, April 7 -- Explosions tore through at least one Shiite Muslim mosque in Baghdad Friday as hundreds of worshipers were at prayer. Police reports of the death toll in the first hours after the blast ranged from 40 to more than 60.
A Post reporter was near the scene as three explosions ripped through central Baghdad's Baratha mosque, which is closely associated with the biggest Shiite Muslim religious party leading Iraq's government.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/07/AR2006040700548.html
A Post-College Path to Somewhere
By Laura Sessions Stepp
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2006; Page H01
Timothy Ziese, a 22-year-old college senior poised to join the adult ranks, thinks frequently these days about a 6-year-old named Calvin.
Calvin and Hobbes was a comic strip that assumed cult status when he and his friends were in elementary and middle school. Ziese recalls the last strip, on Dec. 31, 1995: the precocious Calvin, standing alongside his sardonic stuffed tiger, Hobbes, near the top of a snow-covered hill, a toboggan nearby.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/06/AR2006040600039.html
Newly Translated Gospel Offers More Positive Portrayal of Judas
By Guy Gugliotta and Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 7, 2006; Page A01
The National Geographic Society released yesterday the first modern translation of the ancient Gospel of Judas, which depicts the most reviled villain in Christian history as a devoted follower who was simply doing Jesus's bidding when he betrayed him.
The text's existence has been known since it was denounced as heresy by the bishop of Lyon in A.D. 180, but its contents had remained an almost total mystery. Unlike the four gospels of the New Testament, it describes conversations between Jesus and Judas Iscariot during the week before Passover in which Jesus tells Judas "secrets no other person has ever seen."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/06/AR2006040600921.html
Ancient 'Gospel of Judas' Translation Sheds New Light on Disciple
Discussion About the National Geographic Project
Marvin Meyer
Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies and Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute at Chapman University, Orange, Calif.
Friday, April 7, 2006; 2:30 PM
The National Geographic Society is displaying the first modern translation of the ancient "Gospel of Judas," which says that the most reviled villain in Christian history was simply doing his master's bidding when he betrayed Jesus.
Marvin Meyer, who is on the nine-person Codex Advisory Panel assembled by the National Geographic Society, will be online Friday, April 7, at 2:30 p.m. ET to field questions and comments about the first modern translation of the ancient "Gospel of Judas" released Thursday by the organization.
Meyer is Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies and director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute at Chapman University, Orange, California. He is one of the foremost scholars on Gnosticism, the Nag 'Hammadi library, and texts about Jesus outside the New Testament. He is one of the translators of the codex.
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/04/06/DI2006040601589.html?nav=nsc
continued ...
5:45 p.m. Update:
Tornadoes sweeping across the region have killed at least seven people, as well as tearing off roofs, knocking down power lines, flipping cars and causing an unknown number of injuries, authorities said.
Fire Chief Joe Womack told the Associated Press that three bodies were pulled from the wreckage of homes in the Woodhaven subdivision of Gallatin, about 24 miles northeast of Nashville.
The three bodies were loaded into an ambulance in the neighborhood where hundreds of homes were heavily damaged and many destroyed. State officials previously reported two deaths in the same county, but it was unknown whether those two were included in the three deaths reported by local officials.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage
Tornadoes hit Middle Tennessee; seven people dead
"More trailing behind the initial one," official says
By KATE HOWARD
Staff Writer
5:45 p.m. Update:
Tornadoes sweeping across the region have killed at least seven people, as well as tearing off roofs, knocking down power lines, flipping cars and causing an unknown number of injuries, authorities said.
Fire Chief Joe Womack told the Associated Press that three bodies were pulled from the wreckage of homes in the Woodhaven subdivision of Gallatin, about 24 miles northeast of Nashville.
The three bodies were loaded into an ambulance in the neighborhood where hundreds of homes were heavily damaged and many destroyed. State officials previously reported two deaths in the same county, but it was unknown whether those two were included in the three deaths reported by local officials.
All seven deaths were reported in Gallatin, according to Eddie Boatwright, spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.
And the storms keep coming.
http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/NEWS01/60407021
ONLY three days ago, deadly storms struck the same state. Does lightning strike twice? Definitely in a Global Warming environment. As a matter of fact, count on it. The same pattern was seen in November in Evansville.
Storms kill 24, injure dozens
An unidentified woman from the area of Griiffin Chapel Road in Gibson Co. is brought to the Bradford "command center", the Bradford Elementary School Gym, Sunday evening around 10:30pm Sunday night.
Katie Morgan/The Jackson Sun
http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=DN&Dato=20060403&Kategori=NEWS&Lopenr=604030801&Ref=PH
Powerful legislators choosing not to run
Almost 20 seats will become open
By TRENT SEIBERT
Staff Writer
A seismic shift of policy and culture on Tennessee's Capitol Hill may be in the works, as nearly 20 legislators are giving up their seats in the state legislature.
As the deadline passed yesterday for lawmakers to qualify to run for re-election in the August primaries, a picture emerged of a legislature that will be evolving over the next several months — into just what, voters will have to decide later this year.
Key figures who have shaped Tennessee law and the workings of the legislature are stepping down from their posts, including the ranking Democrat in the House and both of her predecessors in that job, as well as the man who is tied for the record of longest consecutively serving legislator in state history, state Sen. Curtis Person, 71.
Their departures are coming when the winds are shifting on the Hill: 11 months ago, four of their colleagues were arrested and charged in the Tennessee Waltz bribery scandal. Ethics legislation passed a couple of months ago in the Waltz's wake has made life different for lawmakers, too.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/NEWS0201/604070399
Many candidates join races for open House seats
Associated Press
The lineup of candidates to replace U.S. House members Harold Ford Jr., a Democrat from Memphis, and Bill Jenkins, a Republican from upper East Tennessee, topped 30 when qualifying ended yesterday.
The 1st and 9th Districts are the state's only congressional seats without an incumbent in the race.
Candidates had until noon yesterday to file petitions, and state elections officials said it would be today before they have an official list of those qualifying.
According to local election officials, 14 candidates, including 10 Republicans and four Democrats, filed to run for Jenkins' 1st District U.S. House seat.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/NEWS0206/604070374/1001
Saving pre-K dominates pleas for Metro schools
Board, facing difficult cuts, hears ideas from public
By CLAUDETTE RILEY
Staff Writer
Kindergartner Akolbia Biggers, held up to a podium microphone last night by a teacher, tried to persuade the Metro school board to keep a Montessori pre-kindergarten program for 3-year-olds.
"I started school here when I was 3 years old … I learned to count in Spanish and French. I learned to prepare my own snacks. I learned to read and write," said Akolbia, 5, who still attends Stanford Montessori. "If I did not go to this school, I would be upset."
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/NEWS04/604070398
NASA perplexed by worker accidents
By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/SCOTT AUDETTE
More Science Video
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- Over the past three months, workers at the Kennedy Space Center have tripped, dropped things, banged into sensitive equipment and started fires in a baffling string of accidents that have left one person dead.
NASA is investigating three of the accidents - the death of a worker who fell off a roof, the bumping of space shuttle Discovery's robotic arm by a platform, and damage last week to an instrument that supplies power to the orbiters.
But since the beginning of the year, there have been 20 other incidents in which a worker was injured or equipment was damaged in excess of $25,000. There were 14 incidents during the same period last year.
"There's enough going on that we're very, very concerned," said Bill Parsons, deputy director of the Kennedy Space Center.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NASA_MISHAPS?SITE=TNNAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Immigration overhaul obstacle may be fatal
By DAVID ESPO
AP Special Correspondent
AP Photo/DENNIS COOK
AP VIDEO
Senate Shelves Immigration Bill
Other U.S. Video
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Landmark legislation offering eventual citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants suffered a potentially fatal blow Friday in the Senate, the latest in a series of election-year setbacks for President Bush and the Republicans who control Congress.
"Politics got ahead of policy on this," lamented Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. an evenhanded assessment that belied the partisan recriminations from all sides.
Hailed as a bipartisan breakthrough less than 24 hours earlier, the bill fell victim to internal disputes in both parties as well as to bewildering political maneuvering. On the key vote, only 38 senators, all Democrats, lined up in support. That was 22 short of the 60 needed, and left the legislation in limbo as lawmakers left the Capitol for a two-week break.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IMMIGRATION?SITE=TNNAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Nissan shutdown extended
Assembly lines to be idle for extra day at 2 plants
By BUSH BERNARD
Staff Writer
Slow cars sales have prompted Nissan North America to shut down its Smyrna and Canton, Miss., assembly plants for an extra day during the upcoming Easter holiday.
The plants were already scheduled to be closed on April 14 for Good Friday and on April 15, but they'll also be idled Easter Sunday night on April 16 and all day April 17, officials said. Employees were to be told of the plan yesterday.
"We have too many '06 models out," Nissan spokeswoman Vicki Smith said.
Nissan's U.S. sales were down 2.6% last month, its fifth sales decline in the past six months.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/BUSINESS01/604070389/1003
Love takes time that singles say they don't have
By LAURA SESSIONS STEPP
The Washington Post
Think romance is alive and well among young singles? That 20-somethings are checking each other out in the office and cruising the bars at night, looking for someone to love? Think again.
The major love story these days is this: Maybe later.
It's not that they take relationships lightly, or that they don't want to become attached — eventually. It's just, who has the time? They're working hard at college or in jobs that barely cover the rent and feel obligated to find fulfilling, well-paid careers. It will be easier to make their marks, they think, unfettered by relationships that, let's face it, can be so distracting.
This came as something of a surprise to researchers Lee Rainie and Mary Madden at the Pew Research Center when, in going over data in a larger dating survey, they found that among 18- to 29-year-olds, only slightly more than a third said they were in committed relationships. Among the remaining, more were not looking than looking.
The numbers do not astonish Pouya Dianat, 20, or Montana Wojczuk, 26, however.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/FEATURES01/604070343/1004
Sydney Morning Herald
Obese children: TV's role weighed up
By Mark Metherell
April 8, 2006
STATE health ministers have defied their federal counterpart, Tony Abbott, and are pressing for action on food advertising to combat the rise in child obesity.
At the health ministers' meeting yesterday, Mr Abbott rejected calls for action, arguing that more research was needed to make the link between TV advertising and obesity.
But state ministers, including NSW's John Hatzistergos, decided to take action without Federal Government support and develop "options for action" to be considered at the next health ministers' meeting in July.
In an unusual move, the ministers have agreed to ask representatives of the advertising and food industries to speak at that meeting. The issue has been examined by the ministers' obesity taskforce for three years, but failed to rate a mention in a "national action agenda" released yesterday.
Mr Hatzistergos said the food industry would not be paying for advertisements in children's television time slots if it did not think it was getting results.
It is believed the states do not expect action would necessarily involve bans on television advertising, but want to see changes to the code of conduct concerning advertising to children.
Mr Abbott said after the meeting of Australasian ministers in Wellington that "we agreed to disagree on TV advertising because there is not enough evidence, and more research is needed to determine its effectiveness". But the executive officer of the Australasian Society for the Study of Obesity, Dr Tim Gill, said recent studies in Britain and the US found that advertising influenced eating behaviour, particularly of younger children.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/obese-children-tvs-role-weighed-up/2006/04/07/1143916722777.html
Environment pays hefty price for waste of water
AUSTRALIA has a major problem with water. Market economics offer the obvious solution. But in the hands of our politicians, the solution's becoming hugely expensive.
Which explains why it's taking so long and why we'll probably never spend enough to halt and repair the damage we're doing to our environment.
The economics of water is outlined by three Treasury officers - Rowan Roberts, Nicole Mitchell and Justin Douglas - in an article in the latest issue of Treasury's Economic Roundup. But I'll be filling in the political gaps they leave.
Water is not only essential to human life, it's an important input to almost every industry. But even before you allow for the possible effects of climate change, Australia suffers from extremely variable weather as well as the lowest average rainfall of any inhabited continent.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/environment-pays-hefty-price-for-waste-of-water/2006/04/07/1143916718751.html
Scientists confirm: no pain, no gain
By Deborah Smith Science Editor
April 8, 2006
A WORLD without punishment sounds like paradise and, given a choice, most people opt for this live and let live approach. But as freeloading inevitably becomes rife, they quickly flee to join a group where selfish members are made to pay, new research shows.
The study fills a gap in the puzzle of why humans are the only animals to have evolved societies where large numbers of strangers co-operate for the common good, even at a cost to themselves.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/scientists-confirm-no-pain-no-gain/2006/04/07/1143916722780.html
Decades later, a familiar syndrome of complicity
THIRTY years ago I met a Papuan man called Imser in a place called Valley X, high in the mountainous spine of the Indonesian half of New Guinea.
First contact with the outside world had come only a few years earlier, when the French documentary filmmaker Pierre Dominique Gaisseau parachuted into an open patch of grassland, escorted by some Indonesian special forces troops under a young captain named Faisal Tanjung. Gaisseau had traversed Western New Guinea by land and river in 1958, when it was still held by the Dutch.
After pressure from the US, the Dutch had reluctantly transferred the territory to Indonesian control in 1963, after a brief United Nations interregnum, and a manipulated "act of free choice" in 1969 had resulted in a decision to stay with Indonesia.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/familiar-syndrome-of-complicity/2006/04/07/1143916718087.html
Critics line up to accuse Bush of hypocrisy
President Bush delivers a speech on the global war on terror at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, N.C.
Photo: Gerald Herbert
By Michael Gawenda, Herald Correspondent in Washington
April 8, 2006
SENIOR Democrats have described as "breathtaking" testimony that President George Bush personally authorised the leaking of classified pre-Iraq war intelligence to a reporter.
Democrats lined up to accuse Mr Bush of hypocrisy - and worse - after the revelation that the Vice-President, Dick Cheney's former chief-of-staff, Lewis Libby, told a grand jury that he was authorised by the President, through Mr Cheney, in July 2003 to disclose key portions of a sensitive assessment in a bid to discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson, a persistent critic of Mr Bush and the Iraq war.
"If the disclosure is true, it's breathtaking," said Jane Harman, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. "The President is revealed as the leaker-in-chief."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/critics-line-up-to-accuse-bush-of-hypocrisy/2006/04/07/1143916718075.html
Terrorism films to open old wounds
UNIVERSAL Studios is to go ahead with plans to show an adrenaline-pumping trailer for United 93, its forthcoming thriller about the passenger revolt on one of the planes hijacked on September 11, 2001, despite qualms from some moviegoers and families of the victims.
Adam Fogelson, the company's president of marketing, said the trailer, which was pulled from a Manhattan cinema last weekend after complaints from patrons, would be shown only before R-rated movies or "grown-up" PG-13 ones. He said the trailer was created to give a candid sense of the film itself, which opens in the US at the end of the month and in Australia in August.
"The film is not sanitised or softened, it's an honest and real look [at the events on United Airlines flight 93]," Fogelson said.
"If I sanitised the trailer beyond what's there, am I suggesting that the experience will be less real than what the movie itself is? We as a company feel comfortable that it is a responsible and fair way to show what's coming."
...Tom Roger, whose 24-year-old daughter, Jean, was a flight attendant on American Airlines flight 11, which flew into the north tower, said he wished the studio had somehow notified other families of the victims about the trailer. "It's not the first time someone is trying to exploit the history of this event," he said. "I don't have a problem with it. But there's a warning that ought to be put in advance of the trailer. I don't know how these things can be treated in a more sensitive manner. But that's the issue."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/terrorism-films-to-open-old-wounds/2006/04/05/1143916591606.html
Hamas hints at moderation in bid for funding
By Ed O'Loughlin Herald Correspondent in Gaza
April 8, 2006
IN GAZA these days it is considered bad form to acknowledge the bombardment. The explosions come at odd hours of the day or night - the jarring thud of aerial bombs dropped from US-made jets, the insistent tap-tap of artillery shells stalking the outlying farmlands.
Unless the explosion is very large or very close, or followed by the sound of ambulances, no one seems to notice. Occasionally there comes a different sound, the wuthering noise of an outgoing Palestinian rocket, and then the people shake their heads, or smile.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/hamas-hints-at-moderation-in-bid-for-funding/2006/04/07/1143916718099.html
Mean girls - the rise of the violent femmes
Sugar and spice no longer. Girls are becoming increasingly violent, writes Paola Totaro.
IT'S been dubbed the phenomenon of the violent femmes, an ugly social trend identified in the US and Britain. Now, it is being documented in Australia - and the numbers suggest this is not a mere statistical blip.
According to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics, violence among young girls has grown at almost four times the rate of its rise among young boys - and has doubled over the past 10 years.
Upward trends have also been noted in charges for offensive language, offensive behaviour and exceeding the prescribed limit of alcohol, suggesting that when it comes to risk-taking and crimes traditionally dominated by teenage boys, girl power has developed a darker side.
In 1995 for example, the rate per 100,000 head of population of 10- to 14-year-old girls involved in assault was 175. By 2005, this had nearly tripled, to 487.
Among 15- to 17-year-old girls, the rate has almost doubled from 567 to 1046. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, the rise is a little lower, from 351 to 561.
Now, the very youngest group of girls represents nearly 13 per cent of all females who have been involved in an assault - a jump from 8.9 per cent 10 years ago.
According to Professor James Garbarino, an American psychologist and expert in juvenile violence, "girl power" has indeed been a shaping force, one which has motivated them, encouraged their entry into contact sports and to enjoy and be proud of their physicality. Slowly but surely, it has overtaken and replaced the old notion that little girls are just "sugar and spice and all things nice".
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/mean-girls/2006/04/07/1143916722751.html
Bunny battle: farmers take carrot and stick approach
A LOT of bunnies down Boorowa way will not live to see Easter this year.
Eleven years after the deadly calicivirus escaped from a remote research facility in South Australia, the disease has had a change of name, and the go-ahead has finally been given to coat it on a rabbit's favourite food: carrots.
With the new delivery system approved by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, farmers are hopeful that rabbit hemorrhagic disease will hit hard along the NSW tablelands. The approval process took more than four years because of strong opposition and extensive testing.
A week or so ago rangers from the Young Rural Lands Protection Board, armed with vials of the virus, started visiting farms around Boorowa to lace carrots. The baits must be put out within 24 hours to be effective, and death can come within 48 hours.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/bunny-battle-farmers-take-carrot-and-stick-approach/2006/04/07/1143916722810.html
Health system close to bottom of the class
AUSTRALIA'S health system performs below average compared with five other Western nations, an international survey of patient attitudes has found.
Despite routine claims by Australian political leaders that this country is the best place in the world to fall ill, the survey by the influential American health research body, the Commonwealth Fund, ranked Australia fourth out of six.
Disturbingly, the survey also ranked Australia's patient safety fourth, and on other measures including efficiency and effectiveness the system ranked indifferently.
The New Zealand and British health systems, often looked down on by Australian health leaders, rated ahead of Australia's even though both spend significantly less per head of population on health than Australia does.
The survey ranked patients' views and experiences of their country's health schemes, such as access to care, patient choice, problems with medicines and treatment and the extent to which low-income patients were able to access care compared with those on higher incomes.
The surveys of thousands of patients were undertaken in 2004 and 2005. German patients' ratings of their system scored highest in three of six categories.
The results showed that national expenditure was no indicator of performance in patients' views. The United States, which spends by far the most per head on health - $US5635 ($7826) - was the wooden spooner on the patient scores, managing to win only one category, "effectiveness" - basically quality of care.
Australia spends much less - about $4030 - but failed to top any of the six categories, which were largely dominated by Germany. It spends only slightly more than Australia on its health system.
Australia's highest rating - second - was on equity, which gauged the extent to which patients' income affected their ability to get care. Britain ranked first on this measure, with patients saying they experienced no or negligible differences.
The US, with large numbers of people uninsured, came last, and even among Americans on above-average incomes the US lagged considerably.
The findings will provide fresh ammunition for critics of the Federal Government's backing for private health insurance and the failure of the $3 billion health insurance rebate to reduce pressures on public hospitals.
But on the issue of "patient-centredness", Australia was described as performing relatively well on the responsiveness to patient preference.
Britain rated slightly ahead of Australia in the "efficiency" stakes, a finding that will surprise the many critics in this country of the lumbering British National Health Scheme. The authors of the Commonwealth Fund survey acknowledge that patients' assessments might be affected by their experiences and expectations "which could differ by country and culture".
They say internationally developed indicators to measure clinical effectiveness found that none of five English-speaking countries was systematically the best or worst on clinical effectiveness measures, "confirming the mixed story reported by patients".
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/health-system-close-to-bottom-of-the-class/2006/04/07/1143916722813.html
Offbeat shows turn web into world wide TV network
April 7, 2006 - 5:03PM
AdvertisementAdvertisement
The widely hyped merging of the PC and TV is finally taking shape in a way that only a few people imagined in the late 1990s internet boom.
From independent producers like Mondo Media to big media companies like MTV, and even kids who post videos on community sites like YouTube.com, the World Wide Web is becoming a sort of worldwide TV network for audiences seeking offbeat entertainment not shown on mainstream television.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/offbeat-shows-turn-web-into-tv-network/2006/04/07/1143916709822.html
New breed of online games have sex appeal
April 7, 2006 - 7:00AM
Page 1 of 3 Single page
Online games have so far mainly revolved around the killing of fantasy monsters. The occasional fight with a Stormtrooper provides some variety.
Companies are now developing a handful of games - though calling them that is a stretch - designed to give players a very different option: making love, not war.
In "Naughty America: The Game," set to launch early this summer, players will assume the forms of alluring but cartoonish people who meet, flirt and have sex with other player characters.
Characters will have their own apartment, but the world will have also have "public sex zones" and themed rooms, said Tina Courtney, the game's producer.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/new-breed-of-online-games-have-sex-appeal/2006/04/07/1143916680947.html
The princess and the little scallywag
Her Serenity … the official portrait of Princess Mary painted by Ralph Heimans; inset, one of the early drawings he gave to his former babysitter Marjorie Green.
AdvertisementAdvertisement
By Sunanda Creagh
April 8, 2006
WITH three works in the National Portrait Gallery, Ralph Heimans is one of Australia's premier portrait artists. So it was no great surprise when he was selected to paint the first official royal portrait of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark.
But in a little unit in Cammeray, Marjorie Green, 88, proudly displays some rare early Heimans works - childhood drawings by the artist as a bub.
"I have known him all his life and babysat him since he was born," Miss Green said yesterday. "The royal couple love him, and he certainly is brilliant. I have lots of drawings and paintings that he did when he was a little boy.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/04/07/1143916723245.html?from=top5
Washington Post
In Argentina, They've Got a Beef
Many Incredulous at Call to Eat Less Meat in Bid to Curb Inflation
By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 20, 2006; Page A08
BUENOS AIRES -- Guillermo Ugartemendia has nothing against making sacrifices for his country, but like millions of Argentines, he drew the line when the president asked everyone to stop eating so much beef.
"Unthinkable," said Ugartemendia, 35, after polishing off a rack of ribs at a steakhouse Thursday night. "It's not a viable option."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/19/AR2006031900996.html?sub=AR
Why a Hairstyle Made Headlines
By Robin Givhan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2006; Page C01
When Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) summoned the media to Howard University last week to tell her side of the story in an altercation with a Capitol Police officer, she assumed the traditional news conference position behind a podium and a bank of microphones.
She stood there wearing a coral-colored jacket and dangling earrings and raising the serious issue of racial injustice. But it was impossible not to stare at her hair. As your plainspoken mother might say, it appeared to be standing all over her head.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/06/AR2006040602341.html
Immigration Bill Stalls in Senate
Republicans Insist on Amending Measure
By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2006; 12:27 PM
A Senate compromise on a major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws hit a roadblock today, as majority Republicans insisted on being allowed to amend the measure and balked over cutting off debate on it.
Most Senate Democrats had resisted efforts to amend the compromise bill, fearing that GOP opponents of provisions to legalize the status of millions of illegal immigrants would push through fundamental changes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/07/AR2006040700182.html
Judge Rules in Favor of 'Da Vinci Code' Author
By Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2006; 11:30 AM
A British judge today rejected a closely watched copyright infringement claim against the author and publisher of "The Da Vinci Code," who were accused of appropriating the central theme of the blockbuster novel from the central theme of a work of non-fiction.
High Court Justice Peter Smith dismissed the claim brought by the authors of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" as virtually devoid of merit.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/07/AR2006040700601.html
Passover Cooking
Gil Marks
Jewish cooking expert
Friday, April 7, 2006; 12:00 PM
The Jewish holiday of Passover begins Wednesday, April 12, at sundown. This eight-day holiday commemorates the exodus of Israelite slaves from Egypt during the reign of the Pharoah. The first two nights are celebrated with seder feasts, which include many culinary symbols and traditions connected to the story of the Hebrew flight from slavery.
Jewish cooking expert Gil Marks will field your questions and comments about Passover and its many food traditions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/04/04/DI2006040400702.html?nav=nsc
Blasts at Baghdad Shiite Mosque Kill Scores
By Omar Fekeiki and Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 7, 2006; 11:30 AM
BAGHDAD, April 7 -- Explosions tore through at least one Shiite Muslim mosque in Baghdad Friday as hundreds of worshipers were at prayer. Police reports of the death toll in the first hours after the blast ranged from 40 to more than 60.
A Post reporter was near the scene as three explosions ripped through central Baghdad's Baratha mosque, which is closely associated with the biggest Shiite Muslim religious party leading Iraq's government.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/07/AR2006040700548.html
A Post-College Path to Somewhere
By Laura Sessions Stepp
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2006; Page H01
Timothy Ziese, a 22-year-old college senior poised to join the adult ranks, thinks frequently these days about a 6-year-old named Calvin.
Calvin and Hobbes was a comic strip that assumed cult status when he and his friends were in elementary and middle school. Ziese recalls the last strip, on Dec. 31, 1995: the precocious Calvin, standing alongside his sardonic stuffed tiger, Hobbes, near the top of a snow-covered hill, a toboggan nearby.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/06/AR2006040600039.html
Newly Translated Gospel Offers More Positive Portrayal of Judas
By Guy Gugliotta and Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 7, 2006; Page A01
The National Geographic Society released yesterday the first modern translation of the ancient Gospel of Judas, which depicts the most reviled villain in Christian history as a devoted follower who was simply doing Jesus's bidding when he betrayed him.
The text's existence has been known since it was denounced as heresy by the bishop of Lyon in A.D. 180, but its contents had remained an almost total mystery. Unlike the four gospels of the New Testament, it describes conversations between Jesus and Judas Iscariot during the week before Passover in which Jesus tells Judas "secrets no other person has ever seen."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/06/AR2006040600921.html
Ancient 'Gospel of Judas' Translation Sheds New Light on Disciple
Discussion About the National Geographic Project
Marvin Meyer
Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies and Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute at Chapman University, Orange, Calif.
Friday, April 7, 2006; 2:30 PM
The National Geographic Society is displaying the first modern translation of the ancient "Gospel of Judas," which says that the most reviled villain in Christian history was simply doing his master's bidding when he betrayed Jesus.
Marvin Meyer, who is on the nine-person Codex Advisory Panel assembled by the National Geographic Society, will be online Friday, April 7, at 2:30 p.m. ET to field questions and comments about the first modern translation of the ancient "Gospel of Judas" released Thursday by the organization.
Meyer is Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies and director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute at Chapman University, Orange, California. He is one of the foremost scholars on Gnosticism, the Nag 'Hammadi library, and texts about Jesus outside the New Testament. He is one of the translators of the codex.
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/04/06/DI2006040601589.html?nav=nsc
continued ...
The World failed to stop this insanity. We are failing in Sudan as well.
Rwanda's genocide began on the night of April 6, 1994, after the shooting down of a plane carrying the Rwandan and Burundian presidents, who both died in the crash near Kigali.
Morning Papers -continued
Twelve years ago today, the Rwandan genocide began.
Special Event
"Through My Eyes"
A Documentary About Rwandan Youth
Special benefit screening in NYC on April 7th
http://www.globalyouthconnect.org/rwanda_film
Keepers Of Memory (2005)
Film Festival Favorite
Be the first person to review this film!
Directed by: Eric Kabera
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Length: 58 minutes
Country: USA
Description: Through eyewitness accounts and gripping footage, acclaimed director Eric Kabera takes the viewer on an emotional journey into the 1994 Rwandan genocide, its survivors, and the memorials created in the victims‚ honor. The film focuses on the personal accounts of men and women who watch over the sacred burial sites keeping the memories alive for future generations. Includes Photo Gallery, Director's Commentary, Guidebook/Lesson Plan
http://www.buyindies.com/listings/1/1/1134149435375.html
"Keepers of Memory" Film Screening
Director Eric Kabera presents his touching account of the men and women who watch over sacred burial sites in Rwanda, ensuring no one forgets the 1994 genocide.
Friday, January 27, 2006
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Room 100
Moore Hall
UCLA campus
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Keepers of Memory - Survivors' Accounts of the Rwandan Genocide - 60 minutes
Eric Kabera will introduce the film and conduct a question and answer session immediately after the conclusion of the film.
Synopsis:
Through eyewitness accounts and gripping footage, acclaimed director Eric Kabera takes the viewer on an emotional journey into the 1994 Rwandan genocide, its survivors, and the memorials created in the victims' honor. The film focuses on the personal accounts of men and women who watch over the sacred burial sites keeping the memories alive for future generations.
http://www.international.ucla.edu/showevent.asp?eventid=4079
Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
"If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is."
-- George W. Bush, September 30, 2003
April 6th, 2006 2:53 pm
Libby: Bush OK'd Secret Intel Leak
(CBS/AP) Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors that President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.
Before his indictment, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on information — and that it was Mr. Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say.
According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
In the past, Mr. Bush has denounced leaking to the media. For instance, in September 2003 during a speech in Chicago, Mr. Bush said of the Libby investigation, "Let me just say something about leaks in Washington. There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch; there's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6447
Libby: Bush Authorized Plamegate Leak
http://www.thesmokinggun.com//archive/0406061libby1.html
Q Will the President move aggressively to see if such a transgression has occurred in the White House? Will he ask top White House officials to sign statements saying that they did not give the information?
MR. McCLELLAN: Bill, if someone leaked classified information of this nature, the appropriate agency to look into it would be the Department of Justice. So the Department of Justice is the one that would look in matters like this.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030929-7.html
Gonzales: Bush Could Order Domestic Wiretaps
By Dan Eggen / Washington Post
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales left open the possibility yesterday that President Bush could order warrantless wiretaps on telephone calls occurring solely within the United States -- a move that would dramatically expand the reach of a controversial National Security Agency surveillance program.
In response to a question from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) during an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Gonzales suggested that the administration could decide it was legal to listen in on a domestic call without supervision if it were related to al-Qaeda.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6449
Bush Defends Iraq Strategy but Admits Mistakes
By John O'Neil / New York Times
President Bush told a town-hall meeting in Charlotte, N.C., today that he was "constantly looking back to see if things could have been done differently or better" in Iraq.
Mr. Bush gave a forthright defense of what he called "the strategic objective" in Iraq and his decision to order an invasion, saying "knowing what I know today, I'd have made the same decision."
But he acknowledged that there had been problems with the "tactics" used in Iraq, citing flaws in the initial approach to reconstruction and the training of the Iraqi army and police force.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6448
Study: Katrina Aid From Abroad Was Lost
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Federal auditors laid out a scenario of omissions, missteps and bureaucratic nightmares that caused the loss of money and other donations sent from abroad to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The Government Accountability Office attributed the errors, which involved as many as eight government agencies, to the United States' lack of experience as a recipient of huge amounts of aid from others.
"Given that the U.S. government had never before received such substantial amounts of international disaster assistance, ad hoc procedures were developed to manage the acceptance and distribution of the cash and in-kind assistance," the GAO said in remarks prepared for delivery to a House committee Thursday.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6443
Bush Defends Surveillance Policy
By Nedra Pickler / Associated Press
President Bush, told by a critic he should be ashamed of his policies, defended the government's secret eavesdropping program Thursday and said he would not apologize for listening in on the phone and e-mail conversations of Americans talking to people with suspected al-Qaida links.
A man who identified himself as Harry Taylor rose at a forum here to tell Bush that he's never felt more ashamed of the leadership of his country. He said Bush has asserted his right to tap phone calls without a warrant, to arrest people and hold them without charges and to revoke a woman's right to an abortion, among other things.
He was booed by the audience, but Bush interrupted and urged the audience to let Taylor finish.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6445
Teen Detainee Boycotts His War Crimes Trial
At a Guantanamo tribunal, the Canadian demands to be returned to a less restrictive cell. Now 19, he has been held for four years.
By Carol J. Williams / Los Angles Times
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Canadian teenager Omar Khadr refused Wednesday to participate in the war crimes case against him, in protest of being moved to what was described as solitary confinement.
The military tribunal's presiding officer, Col. Robert S. Chester, put off a defense motion seeking Khadr's return to the least restrictive holding facility, but he did agree to consider hearing testimony on the highly secretive detention procedures.
Khadr and nine other detainees being charged in a military tribunal at the U.S. naval base were reportedly transferred to the facility's maximum-security camp.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6442
Vendetta’ a powerhouse
Examining the thin line between terrorist and hero.
David Koon / Arkansas Times
Though it’s not very popular to say so in America these days, it’s as true as it ever was: One man’s “terrorist” is another man’s “freedom fighter” — it all depends on who is wearing the jackboots.
A superb new film that explores the hair-thin line between hero and villain — especially when it comes to blowing things up for political aims — is “V for Vendetta.” A stunningly original and even profound movie from the Wachowski brothers (creators of “The Matrix” series), it’s both a modern-day swashbuckling tale and a none-too-subtle commentary on Bush-era governance by fear, one sure to spur debate among both comic book freaks and political science professors.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6298
Peace House Work Days Set April 11-12
Lone Star Iconoclast
CRAWFORD — To prepare for Cindy Sheehan’s Easter visit to Camp Casey, the Crawford Peace House will be hold two work days on April 11-12.
“Come be part of the team and the fun,” said Rena Guay Communications Coordinator Crawford Peace House. “We need help with cleaning, fixing, building, moving, sorting, planting, painting, chucking and more! So much to do — so little time!”
The preparations will start Saturday morning. Coffee and pastry will be served, along with pizza later in the day. Participants are encouraged to bring tools and work gloves.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=613
Camp Casey Easter
Once again the President will be home for the holidays. We as Gold Star Families for Peace have had our holidays forever tarnished by George Bush's' reckless policy of occupying Iraq. We will be returning to Camp Casey for our Easter holiday and we invite you to join us. Everyone is welcomed.
It is important that we let George Bush know that his war and policies are unacceptable. Because of his free speech zones this is about as close as anyone who disagrees with him can get. Imagine thousands of us at his backdoor showing him the error of his ways.
Also joining us at Camp will be Hurricane Katrina survivors through the Common Ground Collective. Many of whom are still displaced from their homes due to the incompetence and indifference of the Bush administration.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=621
Easter in Crawford
Submitted by admin on Tue, 03/07/2006 - 8:31pm. Events
Attend this event Volunteer for this event Donate in support
With President Bush planning to take his usual Easter vacation at his ranch, the peace activists from around the country, including Cindy Sheehan and other Gold Star Families for Peace, will return to Camp Casey for four days of rallies, performances, teach-ins and more. Also at the heart of this event: Vets for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Code Pink and more.
http://crawfordpeace.nfshost.com/easter
End the war in Iraq -- Bring all our troops home now!
SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2006
NEW YORK CITY
Unite for change -- let's turn our country around!
The times are urgent and we must act.
Too much is too wrong in this country. We have a foreign policy that is foreign to our core values, and domestic policies wreaking havoc at home. It's time for a change.
No more never-ending oil wars!
Protect our civil liberties & immigrant rights. End illegal spying, government corruption and the subversion of our democracy.
Rebuild our communities, starting with the Gulf Coast. Stop corporate subsidies and tax cuts for the wealthy while ignoring our basic needs.
Act quickly to address the climate crisis and the accelerating destruction of our environment.
Our message to the White House and to Congress is clear: Either stand with us or stand aside!
We are coming together to march, to vote, to speak out and to turn our country around!
http://www.april29.org/
The Anti-War Movement?
By Cindy Sheehan
Being a so-called anti-war movement leader (at least to the MSM), brings much responsibility and so much love for the people and the groups who are working hard to end this insane occupation, but is this enough?
Recently, a blog written by an acquaintance, Scott Ritter, on AlterNet was called to my attention, where Scott, who is a self-proclaimed Republican, conservative who courageously opposed this war from the beginning, is predicting the eminent demise of the anti-war movement.
At first, I was highly offended and defensive at what I thought was Scott's arrogant attack on the movement that I am so intimately and overwhelmingly involved in. But then after my knee-jerk reaction, I realized that for all of the wrong reasons, Scott was partially correct.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=624
Guardian
70 killed in Iraq mosque attack
Agencies
Friday April 7, 2006
The aftermath of the bombing of a Shia mosque in Baghdad. Photograph: Asaad Muhsin/AP
Three suicide bombers killed at least 70 people in an attack on a Shia mosque in Baghdad today, Iraqi police said.
Around 158 people were wounded in the attack, which was the biggest single suicide bombing since November last year.
Two bombers blew themselves up inside the Buratha mosque, in the north of the capital, and another detonated explosives outside, Reuters reported.
The bombers were dressed in traditional Shia women's black robes when they struck. Some police sources said the attackers had been women, while others said there had been one woman and two men dressed as women.
A health ministry official, Dr Riyadh Abdul Ameer, said 77 people had been killed.
The violence came as the US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, warned that Iraq faced the threat of civil war if efforts to build a national unity government proved unsuccessful.
The mosque belongs to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the most powerful party in the country's ruling Shia Alliance.
The SCIRI leader, Jalal al-Deen, who was at the mosque when the explosion happened, told Reuters the attack was "a sectarian act".
"The Shia are the target," he said, adding that he had counted 65 bodies in the aftermath of the blasts. "There is nothing to justify this act but black sectarian hatred."
Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, the preacher at the mosque and one of the country's leading politicians, accused Sunni politicians and clerics of waging "a campaign of distortions and lies against the Buratha mosque".
He said they had made false claims that it held Sunni prisoners and the mass graves of Sunnis.
"Shia are the ones who are targeted as part of this dirty sectarian war waged against them as the world watches silently," he told al-Arabiya television.
Earlier, officials said shrapnel found at the scene suggested the blasts could have been caused by explosive vests. However, some reports said the attack could have been a combination of mortar fire and a stationary bomb.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1749341,00.html
US admits to talks with Iraqi insurgents
Staff and agencies
Friday April 7, 2006
The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. Photograph: Ali Haider/EPA
The US ambassador in Iraq today admitted that US officials had held meetings with some insurgent groups, and claimed the tactic had led to a decline in attacks.
Zalmay Khalilzad, who was appointed US ambassador last June, would not specify which groups had been engaged in the talks.
But he ruled out any discussions with Saddamists or terrorists seeking a "war on civilisation", taken to mean Ba'ath loyalists or extremists linked to al-Qaida.
"We are talking to people who are willing to accept this new Iraq, to lay down their arms, to cooperate in the fight against terrorists," Mr Khalilzad told the BBC.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1749288,00.html
Brown wins Da Vinci Code case
Staff and agencies
Friday April 7, 2006
A high court judge today rejected claims that Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code breached the copyright of an earlier book.
Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh had sued publishers Random House claiming that Mr Brown's book "appropriated the architecture" of their book, The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail, which was published in 1982 by the same publishing house.
The claimants said Mr Brown - whose book has made him the highest-paid author in history - had "hijacked" and "exploited" their book, which took them five years to create.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/danbrown/story/0,,1749361,00.html
The Plame game
By Guardian Unlimited / USA 04:20pm
The latest revelation about George W Bush's involvement in the Valerie Plame scandal is unlikely to be the smoking gun that finishes off his administration, writes David Fickling.
But it is the most damaging allegation yet to emerge about Bush's involvement in the campaign to discredit a high-ranking critic of his Iraq policy.
So far, Bush has been more or less insulated from the Plame scandal. Despite nearly three years of inquiries and investigations into the affair, the buck has always stopped at the door of Washington's political advisers, rather than their masters.
Now there is the suggestion that Bush and Cheney may have respectively given their subordinates permission and encouragement in the campaign against Valerie Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2006/04/07/the_plame_game.html
New bird flu tests prove negative
Matt Weaver and agencies
Friday April 7, 2006
The goverment's chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir David King. Photograph: PA
Tests on nine birds checked for bird flu in the wake of the first UK case of the deadly H5N1 virus proved negative, the Scottish Executive announced today.
It followed reassurances that bird flu still posed minimal risk to the British public despite confirmation that a dead swan found in the coastal village of Cellardyke, in Fife, had tested positive for H5N1.
The Scottish Executive yesterday said the remains of another 14 birds found in Scotland were being tested for the disease.
Article continues
Today, a spokeswoman said she could not confirm how many birds were still being tested and whether the number had risen or fallen since yesterday.
"No further positive results have been received," she said. "Nine negative results have come back, but we are unable to provide a running commentary on every test result."
The Scottish Executive has set up a 2,500km sq wild bird risk area in which farmers have been told to keep poultry indoors. Bird gatherings such as pigeon races have been banned, and the surveillance of wild birds will be stepped up.
The area encompasses 175 registered poultry farms containing more than 3m birds, including 260,000 free range poultry.
The swan infected with H5N1 was discovered more eight days ago in Cellardyke, which is around nine miles from St Andrews.
Local poultry farmers and the Scottish National party criticised the time it had taken to confirm the swan had died of the virulent strain of avian influenza.
The Cabinet Office's civil contingencies committee, Cobra, held a second meeting with Scottish Executive officials to discuss the situation today.
Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture and Rural Development also announced that tests on six dead swans found in the province had proved negative.
Four carcasses recovered in Portglenone, Co Antrim, and two found in Moira, Co Down, were checked for H5N1 and given the all-clear.
"So far this year, DARD has tested 23 swans, all of which have been negative for highly pathogenic avian influenza," the chief veterinary officer for Northern Ireland, Bert Houston, said. "We will continue to undertake such testing as necessary."
Earlier today, the government's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, insisted that Britain was better prepared than any other country to cope with bird flu.
He told BBC Radio Four's Today programme that one case of a bird with the H5N1 strain - which can pass to humans - did not constitute a crisis.
The current outbreaks of pathogenic avian flu began in south-east Asia in mid-2003. There have been 191 confirmed human cases of the H5N1 strain of bird flu reported to the World Health Organisation to date, and 108 human deaths.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,1749268,00.html
Cygnet of the times
Its gleaming plumage is now tarred by being a harbinger of pestilence but let us remember the swan's long and noble heritage, says Mark Cocker
Friday April 7, 2006
I don't think that we should be surprised that the only bird they've found to date bearing the H5N1 virus is a mute swan. It's one of the biggest birds in this country and its entire plumage is pure, gleaming white. A dead one in the middle of the fields stands out like a snowman in summer. It's probably the only dead bird that the public will spot and it makes one wonder how many examples of smaller, inconspicuous wildfowl could have died from exactly the same cause but will never be discovered.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,1749372,00.html
Gossip columnist under FBI investigation
Stephen Brook, press correspondent
Friday April 7, 2006
The New York Post has suspended a writer on its Page Six gossip column after the FBI investigated suspicions that the man had demanded money from a billionaire in return for protecting him from unflattering gossip stories.
Billionaire Ronald Burkle allegedly told the FBI that Jared Paul Stern, described as a "fixture on the city's gossip scene" demanded $100,000, plus $10,000 monthly payments in return for stopping negative stories running in the New York tabloid, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, according to US media reports.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1749466,00.html
Newsdesk notes for Friday April 7
By Jon Dennis 12:00pm
Today I speak to Sir Menzies Campbell, the Lib Dem leader. The bird flu outbreak happened in his constituency. The Guardian's Gerard Seenan's describes the reaction from local people. And Peter Singer, the moral philosopher, gives us his view of bird flu, and talks about ethical eating.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/podcasts/2006/04/newsdesk_notes_for_friday_apri.html
continued ...
Special Event
"Through My Eyes"
A Documentary About Rwandan Youth
Special benefit screening in NYC on April 7th
http://www.globalyouthconnect.org/rwanda_film
Keepers Of Memory (2005)
Film Festival Favorite
Be the first person to review this film!
Directed by: Eric Kabera
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Length: 58 minutes
Country: USA
Description: Through eyewitness accounts and gripping footage, acclaimed director Eric Kabera takes the viewer on an emotional journey into the 1994 Rwandan genocide, its survivors, and the memorials created in the victims‚ honor. The film focuses on the personal accounts of men and women who watch over the sacred burial sites keeping the memories alive for future generations. Includes Photo Gallery, Director's Commentary, Guidebook/Lesson Plan
http://www.buyindies.com/listings/1/1/1134149435375.html
"Keepers of Memory" Film Screening
Director Eric Kabera presents his touching account of the men and women who watch over sacred burial sites in Rwanda, ensuring no one forgets the 1994 genocide.
Friday, January 27, 2006
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Room 100
Moore Hall
UCLA campus
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Keepers of Memory - Survivors' Accounts of the Rwandan Genocide - 60 minutes
Eric Kabera will introduce the film and conduct a question and answer session immediately after the conclusion of the film.
Synopsis:
Through eyewitness accounts and gripping footage, acclaimed director Eric Kabera takes the viewer on an emotional journey into the 1994 Rwandan genocide, its survivors, and the memorials created in the victims' honor. The film focuses on the personal accounts of men and women who watch over the sacred burial sites keeping the memories alive for future generations.
http://www.international.ucla.edu/showevent.asp?eventid=4079
Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
"If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is."
-- George W. Bush, September 30, 2003
April 6th, 2006 2:53 pm
Libby: Bush OK'd Secret Intel Leak
(CBS/AP) Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors that President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.
Before his indictment, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on information — and that it was Mr. Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say.
According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
In the past, Mr. Bush has denounced leaking to the media. For instance, in September 2003 during a speech in Chicago, Mr. Bush said of the Libby investigation, "Let me just say something about leaks in Washington. There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch; there's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6447
Libby: Bush Authorized Plamegate Leak
http://www.thesmokinggun.com//archive/0406061libby1.html
Q Will the President move aggressively to see if such a transgression has occurred in the White House? Will he ask top White House officials to sign statements saying that they did not give the information?
MR. McCLELLAN: Bill, if someone leaked classified information of this nature, the appropriate agency to look into it would be the Department of Justice. So the Department of Justice is the one that would look in matters like this.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030929-7.html
Gonzales: Bush Could Order Domestic Wiretaps
By Dan Eggen / Washington Post
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales left open the possibility yesterday that President Bush could order warrantless wiretaps on telephone calls occurring solely within the United States -- a move that would dramatically expand the reach of a controversial National Security Agency surveillance program.
In response to a question from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) during an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Gonzales suggested that the administration could decide it was legal to listen in on a domestic call without supervision if it were related to al-Qaeda.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6449
Bush Defends Iraq Strategy but Admits Mistakes
By John O'Neil / New York Times
President Bush told a town-hall meeting in Charlotte, N.C., today that he was "constantly looking back to see if things could have been done differently or better" in Iraq.
Mr. Bush gave a forthright defense of what he called "the strategic objective" in Iraq and his decision to order an invasion, saying "knowing what I know today, I'd have made the same decision."
But he acknowledged that there had been problems with the "tactics" used in Iraq, citing flaws in the initial approach to reconstruction and the training of the Iraqi army and police force.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6448
Study: Katrina Aid From Abroad Was Lost
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Federal auditors laid out a scenario of omissions, missteps and bureaucratic nightmares that caused the loss of money and other donations sent from abroad to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The Government Accountability Office attributed the errors, which involved as many as eight government agencies, to the United States' lack of experience as a recipient of huge amounts of aid from others.
"Given that the U.S. government had never before received such substantial amounts of international disaster assistance, ad hoc procedures were developed to manage the acceptance and distribution of the cash and in-kind assistance," the GAO said in remarks prepared for delivery to a House committee Thursday.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6443
Bush Defends Surveillance Policy
By Nedra Pickler / Associated Press
President Bush, told by a critic he should be ashamed of his policies, defended the government's secret eavesdropping program Thursday and said he would not apologize for listening in on the phone and e-mail conversations of Americans talking to people with suspected al-Qaida links.
A man who identified himself as Harry Taylor rose at a forum here to tell Bush that he's never felt more ashamed of the leadership of his country. He said Bush has asserted his right to tap phone calls without a warrant, to arrest people and hold them without charges and to revoke a woman's right to an abortion, among other things.
He was booed by the audience, but Bush interrupted and urged the audience to let Taylor finish.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6445
Teen Detainee Boycotts His War Crimes Trial
At a Guantanamo tribunal, the Canadian demands to be returned to a less restrictive cell. Now 19, he has been held for four years.
By Carol J. Williams / Los Angles Times
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Canadian teenager Omar Khadr refused Wednesday to participate in the war crimes case against him, in protest of being moved to what was described as solitary confinement.
The military tribunal's presiding officer, Col. Robert S. Chester, put off a defense motion seeking Khadr's return to the least restrictive holding facility, but he did agree to consider hearing testimony on the highly secretive detention procedures.
Khadr and nine other detainees being charged in a military tribunal at the U.S. naval base were reportedly transferred to the facility's maximum-security camp.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6442
Vendetta’ a powerhouse
Examining the thin line between terrorist and hero.
David Koon / Arkansas Times
Though it’s not very popular to say so in America these days, it’s as true as it ever was: One man’s “terrorist” is another man’s “freedom fighter” — it all depends on who is wearing the jackboots.
A superb new film that explores the hair-thin line between hero and villain — especially when it comes to blowing things up for political aims — is “V for Vendetta.” A stunningly original and even profound movie from the Wachowski brothers (creators of “The Matrix” series), it’s both a modern-day swashbuckling tale and a none-too-subtle commentary on Bush-era governance by fear, one sure to spur debate among both comic book freaks and political science professors.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6298
Peace House Work Days Set April 11-12
Lone Star Iconoclast
CRAWFORD — To prepare for Cindy Sheehan’s Easter visit to Camp Casey, the Crawford Peace House will be hold two work days on April 11-12.
“Come be part of the team and the fun,” said Rena Guay Communications Coordinator Crawford Peace House. “We need help with cleaning, fixing, building, moving, sorting, planting, painting, chucking and more! So much to do — so little time!”
The preparations will start Saturday morning. Coffee and pastry will be served, along with pizza later in the day. Participants are encouraged to bring tools and work gloves.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=613
Camp Casey Easter
Once again the President will be home for the holidays. We as Gold Star Families for Peace have had our holidays forever tarnished by George Bush's' reckless policy of occupying Iraq. We will be returning to Camp Casey for our Easter holiday and we invite you to join us. Everyone is welcomed.
It is important that we let George Bush know that his war and policies are unacceptable. Because of his free speech zones this is about as close as anyone who disagrees with him can get. Imagine thousands of us at his backdoor showing him the error of his ways.
Also joining us at Camp will be Hurricane Katrina survivors through the Common Ground Collective. Many of whom are still displaced from their homes due to the incompetence and indifference of the Bush administration.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=621
Easter in Crawford
Submitted by admin on Tue, 03/07/2006 - 8:31pm. Events
Attend this event Volunteer for this event Donate in support
With President Bush planning to take his usual Easter vacation at his ranch, the peace activists from around the country, including Cindy Sheehan and other Gold Star Families for Peace, will return to Camp Casey for four days of rallies, performances, teach-ins and more. Also at the heart of this event: Vets for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Code Pink and more.
http://crawfordpeace.nfshost.com/easter
End the war in Iraq -- Bring all our troops home now!
SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2006
NEW YORK CITY
Unite for change -- let's turn our country around!
The times are urgent and we must act.
Too much is too wrong in this country. We have a foreign policy that is foreign to our core values, and domestic policies wreaking havoc at home. It's time for a change.
No more never-ending oil wars!
Protect our civil liberties & immigrant rights. End illegal spying, government corruption and the subversion of our democracy.
Rebuild our communities, starting with the Gulf Coast. Stop corporate subsidies and tax cuts for the wealthy while ignoring our basic needs.
Act quickly to address the climate crisis and the accelerating destruction of our environment.
Our message to the White House and to Congress is clear: Either stand with us or stand aside!
We are coming together to march, to vote, to speak out and to turn our country around!
http://www.april29.org/
The Anti-War Movement?
By Cindy Sheehan
Being a so-called anti-war movement leader (at least to the MSM), brings much responsibility and so much love for the people and the groups who are working hard to end this insane occupation, but is this enough?
Recently, a blog written by an acquaintance, Scott Ritter, on AlterNet was called to my attention, where Scott, who is a self-proclaimed Republican, conservative who courageously opposed this war from the beginning, is predicting the eminent demise of the anti-war movement.
At first, I was highly offended and defensive at what I thought was Scott's arrogant attack on the movement that I am so intimately and overwhelmingly involved in. But then after my knee-jerk reaction, I realized that for all of the wrong reasons, Scott was partially correct.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=624
Guardian
70 killed in Iraq mosque attack
Agencies
Friday April 7, 2006
The aftermath of the bombing of a Shia mosque in Baghdad. Photograph: Asaad Muhsin/AP
Three suicide bombers killed at least 70 people in an attack on a Shia mosque in Baghdad today, Iraqi police said.
Around 158 people were wounded in the attack, which was the biggest single suicide bombing since November last year.
Two bombers blew themselves up inside the Buratha mosque, in the north of the capital, and another detonated explosives outside, Reuters reported.
The bombers were dressed in traditional Shia women's black robes when they struck. Some police sources said the attackers had been women, while others said there had been one woman and two men dressed as women.
A health ministry official, Dr Riyadh Abdul Ameer, said 77 people had been killed.
The violence came as the US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, warned that Iraq faced the threat of civil war if efforts to build a national unity government proved unsuccessful.
The mosque belongs to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the most powerful party in the country's ruling Shia Alliance.
The SCIRI leader, Jalal al-Deen, who was at the mosque when the explosion happened, told Reuters the attack was "a sectarian act".
"The Shia are the target," he said, adding that he had counted 65 bodies in the aftermath of the blasts. "There is nothing to justify this act but black sectarian hatred."
Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, the preacher at the mosque and one of the country's leading politicians, accused Sunni politicians and clerics of waging "a campaign of distortions and lies against the Buratha mosque".
He said they had made false claims that it held Sunni prisoners and the mass graves of Sunnis.
"Shia are the ones who are targeted as part of this dirty sectarian war waged against them as the world watches silently," he told al-Arabiya television.
Earlier, officials said shrapnel found at the scene suggested the blasts could have been caused by explosive vests. However, some reports said the attack could have been a combination of mortar fire and a stationary bomb.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1749341,00.html
US admits to talks with Iraqi insurgents
Staff and agencies
Friday April 7, 2006
The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. Photograph: Ali Haider/EPA
The US ambassador in Iraq today admitted that US officials had held meetings with some insurgent groups, and claimed the tactic had led to a decline in attacks.
Zalmay Khalilzad, who was appointed US ambassador last June, would not specify which groups had been engaged in the talks.
But he ruled out any discussions with Saddamists or terrorists seeking a "war on civilisation", taken to mean Ba'ath loyalists or extremists linked to al-Qaida.
"We are talking to people who are willing to accept this new Iraq, to lay down their arms, to cooperate in the fight against terrorists," Mr Khalilzad told the BBC.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1749288,00.html
Brown wins Da Vinci Code case
Staff and agencies
Friday April 7, 2006
A high court judge today rejected claims that Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code breached the copyright of an earlier book.
Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh had sued publishers Random House claiming that Mr Brown's book "appropriated the architecture" of their book, The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail, which was published in 1982 by the same publishing house.
The claimants said Mr Brown - whose book has made him the highest-paid author in history - had "hijacked" and "exploited" their book, which took them five years to create.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/danbrown/story/0,,1749361,00.html
The Plame game
By Guardian Unlimited / USA 04:20pm
The latest revelation about George W Bush's involvement in the Valerie Plame scandal is unlikely to be the smoking gun that finishes off his administration, writes David Fickling.
But it is the most damaging allegation yet to emerge about Bush's involvement in the campaign to discredit a high-ranking critic of his Iraq policy.
So far, Bush has been more or less insulated from the Plame scandal. Despite nearly three years of inquiries and investigations into the affair, the buck has always stopped at the door of Washington's political advisers, rather than their masters.
Now there is the suggestion that Bush and Cheney may have respectively given their subordinates permission and encouragement in the campaign against Valerie Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2006/04/07/the_plame_game.html
New bird flu tests prove negative
Matt Weaver and agencies
Friday April 7, 2006
The goverment's chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir David King. Photograph: PA
Tests on nine birds checked for bird flu in the wake of the first UK case of the deadly H5N1 virus proved negative, the Scottish Executive announced today.
It followed reassurances that bird flu still posed minimal risk to the British public despite confirmation that a dead swan found in the coastal village of Cellardyke, in Fife, had tested positive for H5N1.
The Scottish Executive yesterday said the remains of another 14 birds found in Scotland were being tested for the disease.
Article continues
Today, a spokeswoman said she could not confirm how many birds were still being tested and whether the number had risen or fallen since yesterday.
"No further positive results have been received," she said. "Nine negative results have come back, but we are unable to provide a running commentary on every test result."
The Scottish Executive has set up a 2,500km sq wild bird risk area in which farmers have been told to keep poultry indoors. Bird gatherings such as pigeon races have been banned, and the surveillance of wild birds will be stepped up.
The area encompasses 175 registered poultry farms containing more than 3m birds, including 260,000 free range poultry.
The swan infected with H5N1 was discovered more eight days ago in Cellardyke, which is around nine miles from St Andrews.
Local poultry farmers and the Scottish National party criticised the time it had taken to confirm the swan had died of the virulent strain of avian influenza.
The Cabinet Office's civil contingencies committee, Cobra, held a second meeting with Scottish Executive officials to discuss the situation today.
Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture and Rural Development also announced that tests on six dead swans found in the province had proved negative.
Four carcasses recovered in Portglenone, Co Antrim, and two found in Moira, Co Down, were checked for H5N1 and given the all-clear.
"So far this year, DARD has tested 23 swans, all of which have been negative for highly pathogenic avian influenza," the chief veterinary officer for Northern Ireland, Bert Houston, said. "We will continue to undertake such testing as necessary."
Earlier today, the government's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, insisted that Britain was better prepared than any other country to cope with bird flu.
He told BBC Radio Four's Today programme that one case of a bird with the H5N1 strain - which can pass to humans - did not constitute a crisis.
The current outbreaks of pathogenic avian flu began in south-east Asia in mid-2003. There have been 191 confirmed human cases of the H5N1 strain of bird flu reported to the World Health Organisation to date, and 108 human deaths.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,1749268,00.html
Cygnet of the times
Its gleaming plumage is now tarred by being a harbinger of pestilence but let us remember the swan's long and noble heritage, says Mark Cocker
Friday April 7, 2006
I don't think that we should be surprised that the only bird they've found to date bearing the H5N1 virus is a mute swan. It's one of the biggest birds in this country and its entire plumage is pure, gleaming white. A dead one in the middle of the fields stands out like a snowman in summer. It's probably the only dead bird that the public will spot and it makes one wonder how many examples of smaller, inconspicuous wildfowl could have died from exactly the same cause but will never be discovered.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,1749372,00.html
Gossip columnist under FBI investigation
Stephen Brook, press correspondent
Friday April 7, 2006
The New York Post has suspended a writer on its Page Six gossip column after the FBI investigated suspicions that the man had demanded money from a billionaire in return for protecting him from unflattering gossip stories.
Billionaire Ronald Burkle allegedly told the FBI that Jared Paul Stern, described as a "fixture on the city's gossip scene" demanded $100,000, plus $10,000 monthly payments in return for stopping negative stories running in the New York tabloid, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, according to US media reports.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1749466,00.html
Newsdesk notes for Friday April 7
By Jon Dennis 12:00pm
Today I speak to Sir Menzies Campbell, the Lib Dem leader. The bird flu outbreak happened in his constituency. The Guardian's Gerard Seenan's describes the reaction from local people. And Peter Singer, the moral philosopher, gives us his view of bird flu, and talks about ethical eating.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/podcasts/2006/04/newsdesk_notes_for_friday_apri.html
continued ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)