THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS

"Lazy hacks at the Labour supporting Daily Mirror have made some very strange claims concerning TB (Tuberculosis)!

Apparently, despite all the reports from various health agencies and trusts, TB has little to do with immigration and everything to do with poverty! That's why, presumably, it is at sky-high levels in places such as Leicester, Slough, Bradford, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Hackney - but not in Liverpool, Newcastle, Swansea and Plymouth!

Daily Mirror claim: "Half of all TB diagnosed is in British People that were born in the UK!" and "It's a disease of the poor rather than a disease of immigrants"

Government's Health Protection Agency says: "As in previous years the London region accounted for a substantial proportion of cases in 2005 (43%) and had the highest rate of disease (46.3 per 100,000). Most tuberculosis cases continue to occur in young adults (61% were aged 15-44 years) and in the non-UK born population (72%)."

Daily Mirror claim: "Most immigrants with TB tend to have already lived here for two years and contract it due to stress and poor living conditions".

NHS says: "It is true that over half of the people diagnosed with TB in this country were born abroad but immigration alone does not explain the recent rise in TB cases. Around 40% of people born overseas who develop TB in this country have lived here for more than 10 years (but - presumably - have maintained physical contact with their home countries and with people from those countries - Ed.)

Chinese regulators shifted into damage control, denying rumors of plans for a 20 percent capital gains tax on stock investments as share prices recovered modestly Wednesday following their worst plunge in a decade.

About an hour after trading began, the Shanghai Composite Index was up 1.2 percent to 2,804.28 after opening down 1.3 percent. On Tuesday, it tumbled 8.8 percent, its largest decline since Feb. 18, 1997.

Concerns about slowdowns in the Chinese and U.S. economies sparked Wall Street's worst drop since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 3.3 percent.

Prince Charles today said banning McDonald's fast food was the key to a healthy lifestyle.

His comments came as he attended the launch of a public health awareness campaign. Charles, a strong advocate of organic food, was touring the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre in Abu Dhabi with the Duchess of Cornwall.

He asked nutritionist Nadine Tayara: "Have you got anywhere with McDonald's, have you tried getting it banned? That's the key."

At the beginning of the meeting, Lavrov said Russia favored the Mecca agreement between Hamas and Fatah because it showed "wisdom, reason and responsibility before the Palestinian people."

"We are pushing for all members of the international community to support this process and make it irreversible, including efforts to lift the blockade," Lavrov added.

"The motto of all environmentalists should be 'Thank goodness for the internal combustion engine.'"

" Today, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, Ohio, unanimously ruled that a three-hour police detention of law-abiding, pro-life demonstrators presented valid constitutional claims under the First and Fourth Amendments. The Court reversed a lower court's decision in favor of the law enforcement officers.

Robert Muise, the Thomas More Law Center Trial Counsel handling the case, successfully argued that the lengthy detention - so that the FBI could "gather intelligence" on the pro-life demonstrators - violated the demonstrators' Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable police searches and seizures. He further succeeded in showing that the police violated the demonstrators' First Amendment rights by targeting them for disfavored treatment because they were "anti-abortion."

Source

"A new federal court decision in the case of the Philadelphia Eleven could send Christians' free speech rights another step towards extinction, according to group members who have been told police officers had a right to silence their biblical messages at a public homosexual festival.

The decision came in a civil rights lawsuit brought by members of that team, including Repent America director Michael Marcavage, who sued the city and a homosexual-festival sponsor after group members were cleared of criminal charges for their actions at the 2004 "Gay Pride" public street festival in the downtown area.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel dismissed their civil rights claim, concluding that a "permit" granted by the city to the homosexuals allowed police to silence the Christian activists' message on public streets.

Source

On the morning of November 14, 1965, Major Crandall's unit was transporting a battalion of soldiers to a remote spot in the Ia Drang Valley, to a landing zone called X-Ray. After several routine lifts into the area, the men on the ground came under a massive attack from the North Vietnamese army. On Major Crandall's next flight, three soldiers on his helicopter were killed, three more were wounded. But instead of lifting off to safety, Major Crandall kept his chopper on the ground — in the direct line of enemy fire — so that four wounded soldiers could be loaded aboard.

Major Crandall flew the men back to base, where the injuries could be treated. At that point, he had fulfilled his mission. But he knew that soldiers on the ground were outnumbered and low on ammunition. So Major Crandall decided to fly back into X-Ray. He asked for a volunteer to join him. Captain Ed Freeman stepped forward. In their unarmed choppers, they flew through a cloud of smoke and a wave of bullets. They delivered desperately needed supplies. They carried out more of the wounded, even though medical evacuation was really not their mission.

Police said Sunday they had arrested Israeli staff at two Tel Aviv companies, suspected of helping channel funds to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad Palestinian militant groups. Authorities raided offices of Shintrako Ltd. and Mayan Customs Brokers and International Forwarding Sunday in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan, the police said in a statement. Police arrested the general manager of Shintrako and other workers of the two companies, the statement said.

Mayan accountant Tzvika Koren denied that anyone from the company was arrested and said police had only questioned several employees, including himself. The company was not involved in any illegal activity, since it only relayed Shintrako imports through customs, Koren said.

Shintrako did not immediately return a call requesting comment.

The companies are suspected of funding Hamas and Islamic Jihad through a company they did business with in the Gaza Strip, the statement said. Shintrako had been warned not to work with the company but found ways to help it get around trade restrictions imposed by Israel, the release said. Police report an increase during the past year in the flow of clandestine finance to Palestinian militant groups squeezed by a financial blockade imposed by international aid donors since Hamas last year won parliamentary elections and control of the Palestinian government.

"These funds are used as fuel to ignite terror and they allow these organizations to preserve and expand their organized infrastructure," the police statement said.

Dozens of Israeli jeeps and armored vehicles poured into Nablus overnight Sunday, placing large areas of the city under curfew and conducting house-to-house arrest raids in one of the largest West Bank military operations in months. The army also took over local television and radio stations, ordering people to remain indoors and warning residents that the clampdown would remain in effect for several days, Palestinian residents said. Two soldiers and several Palestinians were lightly wounded in clashes, officials said.

An Israeli military spokesman said the operation was aimed at countering "terrorist threats" in Nablus. The raid came a day after Israeli troops discovered an explosives laboratory in the city. Nablus, the West Bank's largest city and commercial center, is known as a stronghold of Palestinian militants. [...] The Israeli forces began moving into Nablus about 3 a.m. and continued to move in for several hours, Palestinian witnesses said. They said about 80 military vehicles, along with several bulldozers, were in the city.

The bulldozers erected huge piles of rubble to block movement on main roads, witnesses said. The main entrance to the city also was closed.

Evidence from adoption and twin studies and from animal models suggests that vulnerability to addiction has a moderate to high heritable component. The gene variants underlying increased vulnerability to addiction are unknown, but new advances in science and technology will facilitate the identification and characterization of these gene variants.

In any case we know that the genetic factor is an important component. Why doesn’t the NIDA trumpet this? Well it hardly helps the drug war to think of it as a scheme for genetic discrimination and persecuting the tormented.

There is now considerable evidence that breast-fed children have higher intelligence. For a long time it was impossible to be certain this was not merely because the more intelligent mothers (whose children received good genetic and environmental backgrounds) were those who could breast feed, or chose to do so. However, research by Lucas et al. (1992) with premature babies fed through a tube and the type of milk randomly selected has shown that those given human milk do indeed have a higher intelligence when tested as children. The effect was an amazing 10 IQ points.

A season lost. Three players indicted for rape. Nearly a year of criticism for everyone associated with Duke lacrosse. On this day, for a few hours, it didn't seem to matter as much.

Playing their first game in 11 months, the Blue Devils opened the 2007 season Saturday with a 17-11 victory over Dartmouth in front of a big crowd cheering their every move.

It was a triumphant return for the Blue Devils, whose season was canceled last spring amid the rape allegations that touched off a debate on sports, race, class and privilege at the elite university. And it was clear this game was more than a game, from the steady stream of students who poured into Koskinen Stadium on a sunny February afternoon to the throng of reporters covering the event.

"It feels right to be back," said Madolin Archer, mother of senior defenseman Breck Archer. "They've been working toward it for so long and the interruptions certainly have prolonged things. But it's where they should be."

The crowd of 6,485 fans - a few hundred shy of the school record - rivaled that typically drawn by Duke's woeful football team. The fans packed the bleachers to support a team that until last year was lost in the shadows of Mike Krzyzewski's storied basketball team.

"It really makes me proud to see them come out and give this team support," athletic director Joe Alleva said. "It's what I hoped for, for sure."

Venezuela’s arms spending has climbed to more than $4 billion in the past two years, transforming the nation into Latin America’s largest weapons buyer and placing it ahead of other major purchasers in international arms markets like Pakistan and Iran.

Venezuelan military and government officials here say the arms acquisitions, which include dozens of fighter jets and attack helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles, are needed to circumvent a ban by the United States on sales of American weapons to the country.

"We gave the president that power to destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and, if necessary, to depose Saddam Hussein," Biden said of the 2002 resolution in a speech last week before the Brookings Institution. "The WMD was not there. Saddam Hussein is no longer there. The 2002 authorization is no longer relevant to the situation in Iraq."

Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;

Another Times reporter has gone onto PBS's Charlie Rose show and suggested that putting more U.S. troops in Iraq may have a "good effect."

Let's just hope she doesn't get into trouble like Michael Gordon did on the Rose show in January for saying that Bush's "surge" was worth trying.

Furthermore, Sabrina Tavernise says an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would be an "unmitigated disaster." Charlie Rose: "Is there a sense that the surge will work or not work? Or that whatever happens will simply be temporary?"

Tavernise: "When you say work -- I think that the surge could definitely have an effect, a good effect, in the neighborhoods for bringing violence down. I think it could. I mean, I studied a number of different neighborhoods where the mere presence of American troops actually did bring down the murder rate. In one particular example, by about a third, which is significant, you know, significant. It's a lot of bodies that aren't turning up in sewers every morning. So that's not small.

"At the same time, I don't think that more American troops on the ground in Iraq is going to stop, you know, what is essentially kind of an historical process that has begun. I don't think that, you know, people are all of a sudden going to embrace each other and say, now we're brothers. It's just, you know, it's gone so far. And people, over the course of two years, essentially, having from saying, we are all brothers, how dare you even bring up the sect of my child and my wife, to we don't trust those people, they're Sunni. The Sunnis are responsible for all of these bombings. I mean, it's changed so much.

"That, I don't think, is something you can, you know, really have much effect on with setting up a roadblock or doing a sweep or -- you know, that –- that's going to be –- that's going to have to burn itself out. It really will.

"I think that American soldiers have a very important function in Iraq right now. I think that -- that if everyone left immediately, it would be an unmitigated disaster. Now, you know, there is some semblance of normal life that goes on."

Please join fellow Patriots and sign this petition to Stop Albert Gore and Reject the UN's Global Warming Treaty (see text below). Gore is reenergizing the movement advocating Kyoto compliance. We urge you to sign this petition today, and reject Gore's advocacy for UN control of the U.S. economy.

In order to encourage serious consideration of this issue by the Bush administration and Congress, we must collect over 100,000 signatures. Please sign and then forward this invitation to all of your family members, friends and associates.

To sign this petition online, go here.

If you don't have Web access, you can sign this petition by sending a blank e-mail to: sign-stopgore@PatriotPetitions.US

Petition Text:

To President George Bush, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Republican Leader John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:

We urge the United States Senate to reject the 1997 United Nations Kyoto Protocols Treaty purporting to address global warming by constraining economic growth in the United States while allowing unmitigated growth in 129 other nations, included two of the largest world economies in China and India.

The Senate overwhelmingly rejected this Treaty (95-0) by way of the Byrd-Hagel Senate resolution in 1997, which objected to the lack of any "specific scheduled commitments" in regard to the CO2 output of "developing" countries."

We reject the Orwellian solutions proposed by Albert Arnold Gore and others who claim that the Kyoto Protocols must be adopted to stop global warming. The science of climate change is very imprecise, and current trends in climate change may have little or nothing to do with production of so-called "greenhouse gasses" such as carbon dioxide.

Albert Gore's solutions will only impede the advancement of scientific and technological innovation, and would impoverish hundreds of millions of people around the world.

"We reject the idea that Wal-Mart destroys communities and adds to urban sprawl. Downtowns were declining long before Wal-Mart became an important retailmg force, and the big-box retail revolution is but one additional factor in thc demise of retailing in central business districts where parking is typicaLl relatively scarce. While it is true that some stores go out of business when Wal-Mart enters a community, the opening and closing of stores in response to changing tastes and technology has been part of the retail landscape literally for centuries. Wal-Mart does not force stores out of business. Customers do, by voting with their feet and going to Wal-Mart with its lower prices and greater choices than the local alternatives. People prefer Wal-Mart and, in exercising their preferences, they are enhancing their own welfare, and thus that of the communities the stores serve.

Wal-Mart serves customers at all income levels and walks of life, as do Target, Home Depot, Best Buy and other big-box stores. They appeal to consumers at all income levels -- but Wal-Mart disproportionately serves the poor. Wal-Mart stores are more often located in areas with below-average incomes, and surveys show that a larger proportion of lower-income people shop at Wal-Mart than people from affluent families. So the store's consumer welfare benefits particularly aid the poor -- and consequently, attempts to keep it out of communities hurt the poor far more than the rich....

Wal-Mart has not been particularly adroit in handling criticism. It has mounted a campaign to appease organized labor and environmental groups, tinkering with health care plans and entering the organic fish business, among other things. It strikes us that it may be abandoning its principles of everyday low prices to pander to its opponents, many of whom probably do not represent mainstream American thinking. We wonder whether Wal-Mart is trying to "appease the unappeasable".

Genteel, old-fashioned Wimbledon is steeped in tradition. There's one custom, however, that has finally been discarded. Women, at last, will be paid as much as the men.

After years of holding out against equal pay, the All England Club yielded to 21st century realities Thursday and agreed to offer the same prize money to both sexes at the world's most prestigious tennis tournament.

After decades of defending their prerogative to reward men with a bigger paycheck than women, Wimbledon officials reversed course and announced today they will award equal prize money beginning with this year's tournament.

The policy change, which had been advocated by the Women's Tennis Association, a host of former champions and even British Prime Minister Tony Blair, brings the sport's most tradition-laden tournament in line with the other majors that comprise the Grand Slam.

The U.S. and Australian opens have offered equal prize money to men and women through all rounds for years, while the French Open pays only its champions equal prize money. On the heels of today's announcement by officials of the All England Club, owner and host of Wimbledon, French Open officials said they would follow suit and equalize prize money during every round of their clay-court event.

German Tommy Haas has criticised Wimbledon's decision to award equal prize money for men and women this year. The All England Club broke with tradition to join the U.S. and Australian Opens in paying equal prize money across the board in all events and in all stages of competition.

Haas, however, said Wimbledon should be putting more cash into the men's event. "I don't think it's really fair," the second seed told reporters after reaching the quarter-finals of the Memphis International with a 7-6 7-6 win over American Amer Delic.

"I think the depth of men's tennis is much tougher than the women's, plus we play best of five sets." [UMPH ADDED.]

A laser developed for military use is a few steps away from hitting a power threshold thought necessary to turn it into a battlefield weapon. The Solid State Heat Capacity Laser (SSHCL) has achieved 67 kilowatts (kW) of average power in the laboratory.

It could take only a further six to eight months to break the "magic" 100kW mark required for the battlefield, the project's chief scientist told the BBC. Potentially, lasers could destroy rockets, mortars or roadside bombs.

Life expectancy for a Russian man is 15 to 20 years lower than in Japan, the United States or the richest European countries.

While a Russian woman lives, on average, seven to 13 years longer than a Russian man, her life expectancy is also poor by international comparison. The demographic crisis is an extremely sensitive matter politically. Leading medical specialists accuse the authorities of chronic inaction, even of being in denial about the extent of the crisis, our analyst says. They point out that much of Russia's health crisis is the result of unhealthy life-styles, especially very high rates of smoking and alcohol abuse. Yet there is still no concerted effort to persuade, or force, people to adopt healthier ways, our analyst adds.

There are also environmental issues - last year, a survey by an American research centre said that half of the world's most polluted places were in the former Soviet Union.

London's socialist mayor signed an agreement Tuesday with Venezuela's state-owned oil company to provide discounted oil for the city's iconic red buses, praising the idea as the brainstorm of the country's leftist leader, Hugo Chavez.

Ken Livingstone -- a committed socialist known locally as "Red Ken" -- met with Chavez last year at City Hall to discuss the deal to provide cheap oil to London in exchange for advice on urban planning in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.

ROME - Premier Romano Prodi resigned Wednesday after nine months in office following an embarrassing loss by his center-left government in the Senate on foreign policy, including Italy's military mission in Afghanistan. [...] The loss, by two votes in the Senate, came on a bid by Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema to rally the often bickering partners in the coalition, which range from Christian Democrats to Communists. He was hoping to the allies would close ranks in the vote on foreign policy, including Italy's military mission in Afghanistan, but his bid backfired.

"Foreign police involves the role and image of Italy in the world and the life of our soldiers committed to international peace mission," said conservative opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi, whom Prodi had defeated in elections in April. The loss meant Prodi had the "obligation" to resign, Berlusconi insisted. Italy has 1,800 troops in Afghanistan, which were sent in by Berlusconi. The current government has agreed to keep the troops there, sparking opposition from its own Communist allies. [...] A centrist opposition leader, Pier Ferdinando Casini, said it would be tough for Prodi to try to put together a new government.

"He pretends not to see" his problems in mustering a majority, Casini said in an interview on state TV. "If he wants to go ahead, good luck" in trying to form a new government, but "the country is paying the price, Casini said. While Prodi's forces had a razor-thin majority on paper in the Senate, which failed to come through for him in Wednesday's vote, his coalition partners have a more comfortable margin in the lower Chamber of Deputies.

Nearly a century after it was founded, Israel's first and most famous kibbutz has voted to give up its early socialist ideals and to privatise itself.

The changes at Degania, which was founded where the Sea of Galilee meets the river Jordan, were agreed by a vote and come after a one-year trial in which residents for the first time received private salaries. In the past the 320 members of the kibbutz saw their salaries paid into a communal account and then received free services and an allowance based on need, usually determined by the size of their families. In future they will be paid varied salaries based on ability not need and, most importantly, they will be allowed to keep them. In return they will have to pay for services such as electricity and water and they will have to pay a progressive income tax into the kibbutz which will be used to support the least well off.

Although some have objected to the changes, the vote was carried by 85% and represents a trend throughout Israel's kibbutz movement. Around two-thirds of the country's 230 or so kibbutzim have adopted similar privatisation plans in recent years, an attempt to hold on to their community lifestyle in the face of the influence of the outside world.

our casualties are low; Saddam is DEAD; the Iraqis have a democratic government and a constitution.

LONDON: Sophisticated rifles supplied to Iran by an Austrian arms company are finding their way into the hands of Iraqi insurgents, a British newspaper reported Tuesday. American troops have recovered more than 100 "Steyr .50 HS" rifles in Iraq, part of an Austrian consignment of 800 such weapons delivered to Iran over American protests that they could be given to insurgents, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The Austrian government approved the sale of the rifles, made by precision weapons maker Steyr Mannlicher GmbH, after it concluded in 2004 that they would be used to fight narcotics smugglers.

"We checked the proposal very thoroughly," Austrian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Astrid Harz said, noting that the situation in Iraq and the region in 2003-2004 was very different then than it is today.

"Gun crime is being exported from the inner cities to the shires, the senior officer in charge of the national firearms policing strategy has told The Times. Keith Bristow, lead officer on firearms crime for the Association of Chief Police Officers, was speaking as Scotland Yard battled to contain the violence in London, where one man was shot dead and another injured over the weekend.... But as the death toll mounted in the capital, Mr Bristow gave warning that the gun problem was moving to the shires.

The proportion of gun crime occurring outside the hotspots of London, Birmingham and Manchester has risen sharply from 36 per cent in 2002-03 to 45 per cent in 2004-05. The spread of gangs and guns to smaller cities and provincial towns went “hand in hand” with the expanding market for crack cocaine, said Mr Bristow, who attributed the displacement in part to a tough police response in the big cities.... The typical pattern is that a crack dealer establishes a trade in an area but, when that becomes saturated, it generates competition and violence between drug dealers and more robust policing.

These factors force some of the dealers to go elsewhere in search of new markets. They bring their guns with them.” He cautioned against the view that firearms were only a problem for the black community. “It is much more about where you went to school and whom you hang out with than about ethnicity.”

"The Libertarian Alliance, the radical free market and civil liberties policy institute, today calls on the British Government to take firm action over the shootings of young men in South London. It believes the best action would be to relegalise guns and let ordinary people fight back with lethal force against the violent criminals who presently rule the streets of our cities.

Libertarian Alliance Director, Dr Sean Gabb, says: "The Libertarian Alliance believes in a return to the wise laws of our ancestors, under which a person could walk into a gun shop and, without showing a licence or any form of identification, buy as many guns and as much ammunition as he pleased, and could keep these at home, or carry them about in public, for the defence of his life or property. "We have the most restrictive laws in Europe on gun ownership. These have plainly not worked. In 1968, in 1988, and twice in 1997, we were promised a safer country if only we gave up our guns. We were cheated. "In fact, the only people who have no guns are the respectable.

Those who do commit assaults are no more likely to obey the gun ban than they are to stop listening to horrid music or to wash their hands after using the toilet. "Even turning the country into a police state, with powers of random stop and search and scanners in public places, will do nothing to disarm these creatures."

Watching too much television as a child may trigger serious health problems such as autism and obesity, and in girls the early onset of puberty, a scientist has claimed. So great are the dangers, says Aric Sigman, that watching television should be banned for children under three years old and severely restricted as they grow older. Writing in the journal Biologist, Dr Sigman says that the average six-year-old child in Britain will have already spent a year watching television, and claims that the simple act of staring at a bright television screen, regardless of a programme's content, can damage a child's health.

Dr Sigman identified 15 negative effects that, he says, television can have on youngsters, ranging from short-sightedness and diabetes to premature puberty and autism. "We may ultimately be responsible for the greatest health scandal of our time," he writes. "Given the evidence, it would be prudent to cordon off the early years of child development as a time when screen media is excluded and then introduced judiciously as the child matures. "To allow children to continue to watch this much screen media is an abdication of parental responsibility. Truly hands-off parenting."

Dr Sigman's report, which is based on his analysis of 35 scientific studies, claims that television viewing affects levels of melatonin, a hormone linked to when puberty occurs in girls. Melatonin levels increase in the evening, at the onset of darkness, but staring into a bright screen during this period hinders its production.

Research has shown that melatonin affects puberty in females more than males. "Animal studies have shown that low melatonin levels have an important role in promoting an early onset of puberty and linked to reproductive function in several sexually mature animals," Dr Sigman says. Girls have been reaching puberty earlier since the 1950s, which previous research had blamed on an average increase in female weight, but he claims that lower melatonin levels may be another cause.

Dr Sigman, a member of the Institute of Biology and associate fellow of the British Psychological Society, says that watching television also damages sleep patterns, causes over-eating and increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. "Television may induce us to eat more [by] causing our brain to monitor external non-food cues - the television screen - as opposed to internal food cues telling us that we have stuffed ourselves and can stop eating." Low attention spans and poor educational achievement could also be linked to television viewing habits.

The Democrats evidently believe that November's election was a mandate for them to lose in Iraq, but that's not how most Americans see it...

At least 23 bombs exploded Sunday in apparently coordinated attacks in parts of southern Thailand plagued by a Muslim insurgency, killing three people and wounding more than 50, the military said.

The bombings targeted electricity transmitters, hotels, karaoke bars and markets in the country's southernmost provinces, the only parts of predominantly Buddhist Thailand with Muslim majorities. Two schools were torched.

Violence in the south has been escalating in recent months despite a major policy shift by the military-imposed government, which is trying to replace an earlier, iron-fisted approach in dealing with the rebels with a "hearts and minds" campaign. [Umph added]

In modern Western countries, the political spectrum is usually described along left-right lines, based on the seating of the liberal and conservative members of the Legislative Assembly of France in 1791, where liberal and conservative were partly defined by attitudes towards the ancien regime. (See section Historical origin of the terms.) This traditional political spectrum has come to be defined along an axis with socialism and communism, ("the Left") on one end, and nationalism and Fascism ("the Right") on the other. [Umph added.]

This will be a long and serious effort, but it starts now. We have established a team within the site that will focus on identifying strong candidates -- veterans, ideally --- as well as teams devoted to identifying White Flag Republicans and their antimatter opposites, the Blue Dog Democrats. These three groups will be at the forefront of our efforts to identify the districts where we can do the most good: whether that is to replace a defeatist Democrat with a new Republican victory candidate --- or to help a Blue Dog Democrat who is strong on the war take down a White Flag Republican. Here, party comes second: victory --- and country --- come first.

Until now, it was thought that planners would rubber-stamp the proposed mosque, which was agreed in principle in a 2001 deal between Newham Council and Anjuman-e-Islahul Muslimeen. The London Thames Gateway Unitary Development Corporation, the quango with planning powers over the site, is understood to support the plans. So is the London Development Agency, which reports to Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London.

Obama's South Carolina Debut — FEELING THE LOVE IN COLUMBIA. — Columbia, S.C.—"Are you here for the wedding or Obama?" the security guard asked me Friday night at the Metropolitan Convention Center in Columbia, S.C. A traditional Indian wedding was being performed down the hall from the Obama rally.

USA TODAY:Presidential hopeful Barack Obama told thousands of cheering supporters Friday night that seeing such a racially diverse crowd in the shadow of the South Carolina statehouse would have surprised people a generation ago. "Twenty years ago, nobody would have believed this crowd in South Carolina," he said of the racially mixed group.

GATEWAY:

Twenty years ago... Jesse Jackson won the South Carolina democratic primary ... along with 10 other states. Barak then proceeded to give a history lessen to the crowd.

"Nurses and other health care professionals should avoid using the terms `mom' and `dad' to refer to family relationships since the terms could be offensive to homosexual couples with children, a new directive published by Scotland's National Health Service recommends.

Issued in conjunction with the country's leading homosexual activist organization Stonewall Scotland, the publication is entitled Fair For All - The Wider Challenge: Good LGBT Practice in the NHS. Americans for Truth reported Feb.11 on the publication's release.

The booklet calls for a "zero-tolerance policy to discriminatory language" among Scotland's health care system. Included in discriminatory language is the use of terms that assume a traditional family structure of mother, father and children, according to the NHS directive....

Along the same lines, the directive points out, use of the terms `husband', `wife' and `marriage' is not acceptable since such terms exclude lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Instead, health care workers should use the terms `partners' and `next of kin'. Since `next of kin' is often understood to mean nearest blood relative, however, the booklet recommends that it may be preferable to use `partner, close friend or close relative' to avoid confusion.

MIDDLE EASTERN countries secretly armed and supported suspected Al-Qaeda recruits in the failed state of Somalia in a direct challenge to western interests in east Africa, according to a United Nations report.

Hundreds of Islamist fighters were flown, with Eritrean assistance, from Somalia to Syria and Libya for military training. Others were taken to Lebanon to fight with Hezbollah, the report to the UN security council has revealed.

UN investigators also detailed military aid given to the Islamists by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Arab states friendly to the West. Iran also supplied 125 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, 80 of which arrived by sea in dhows and the rest by air.

PARIS (AP) — Maurice Papon, who was convicted of crimes against humanity for his role in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II, has died, his lawyer said Saturday. He was 96.

Papon, who became France's budget minister after the war, was taken to a clinic east of Paris on Thursday for heart problems and was to undergo surgery involving his pacemaker. Lawyer Francis Vuillemin told LCI television that Papon "died peacefully in his sleep."

1) violent Jihad against the Infidels
2) stoning of apostates, adulterers and gays
3) the subjugation of women and the burqa

Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma!
Tu pure, o Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza
guardi le stelle che tremano
d'amore e di speranza!
Ma il mio mistero
A chiuso in me,
il nome mio nessun sapra!
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dira,
quando la luce splendera!
Ed il mio bacio scogliera
il silenzio che ti fa mia!

Il nome suo nessun sapra...
E noi dovrem ahima, morir, morir...!

Dilegua, o notte! tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle! All'alba vincera!
Vincera! Vincera!

TERROR suspects could be given taxpayer-funded counselling for being angry or having low self-esteem. Under the proposal, the Federal Government would provide psychological counselling and anger management support to terror suspects and those subject to control orders. But secrecy surrounds the initiative because the Australian Federal Police has refused to reveal the specifics of its proposal.

Scant details were released through a Federal Government question on notice. "Some of the options considered include religious education, psychological support and assistance with issues such as anger management, low self-esteem, social identity and family separation," the AFP said, responding to a question on voluntary education programs for terrorists. "The AFP continues to examine how education and counselling may be used within the context of control orders. "Programs developed overseas in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia are also being examined as part of broader AFP considerations." The AFP refused to say how much the program would cost....

Ségolène Royal is hoping her appearance on a prime-time TV show on Monday night will win over a sceptical French public after a week of campaign traumas including an economic adviser's resignation, lacklustre poll ratings and children booing her at a sports ground.

"Maman Ségo," the first woman with a chance of becoming president of France, was supposed to have spent this week basking in glory after setting out her socialist programme to protect the nation's poor and vulnerable in the face of her rightwing opponent Nicolas Sarkozy's plans for tax cuts and free market economic reform. But Ms Royal, a mother of four who has styled herself as the mother of the nation, instead faced polls showing Mr Sarkozy stretching his 6-8% lead. The French left as a whole is now at its lowest popularity rating since 1969...

US senator Joe Lieberman forecast that the US Congress would enact a law on cutting emissions by the end of next year, possibly this year. And presidential candidate John McCain, who is co-sponsoring climate legislation with Mr Lieberman, was emphatic on the need for new initiatives. "I am convinced that we have reached the tipping point and that the Congress of the United States will act, with the agreement of the administration," he told the forum.

At the House of Commons, in just under a week's time, Margaret Thatcher — who so significantly transformed the fortunes of this country and the world — will come face to face with herself in the form of a 7ft 6in statue in the Members' Lobby. For this extraordinary woman, who still remains the butt of the sniggering classes after leading the country for 11-and-a-half years, the unveiling will be 'a 2 proud and moving moment'...

"The momentum for a change in the national policy on abortion is going to come in the not-too-distant future," said Rep. Roger W. Hunt, a Republican who sponsored the bill. To his delight, abortion opponents succeeded in defeating all amendments designed to mitigate the ban, including exceptions in the case of rape or incest or the health of the woman. Hunt said that such "special circumstances" would have diluted the bill and its impact on the national scene.

South Dakota is the first but not the only state to consider new abortion restrictions this year. Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky have introduced similar measures.

Venezuela President Hugo Chavez said he will shortly decree a law giving the government the authority to expropriate supermarkets, stores and other businesses caught hoarding food or speculating on prices.

Chavez said Thursday the law will be used to severely punish businesses in food production and distribution that violate price controls set by the government.

England could suffer worryingly high levels of infertility and HIV infection unless NHS trusts stop misspending money meant to tackle the country's sexual health crisis, health experts warned today.

Cash-strapped trusts have used much of the £300m government funding meant to combat the country's sexual health crisis to balance their books, according to the Terrence Higgins Trust (THT).

The shaky campaign of Ségolène Royal for the French presidency took a fresh hit today after her senior economic adviser resigned amid growing Socialist dismay over her failure to revive her run for the Elysée Palace.

Ms Royal’s team was locked in a “spiral of depression” after the latest embarrassment hit her once once-flawless campaign, said Le Monde. Adding to the Socialist woes in advance of the April 22 first-round vote, Ms Royal, 53, was booed by schoolchildren on a visit to a sports ground on Tuesday and is being deserted by stars of the intellectual world, a traditional bastion of the Left.

As Nicolas Sarkozy, 52, candidate for the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement, retained a clear lead over Ms Royal in opinion polls, the Socialists sought to play down the departure of Eric Besson, the party’s chief of economic policy.

The MP walked out on Tuesday in a feud with François Hollande, the party chief and Ms Royal’s domestic partner, over the 100-point manifesto that Ms Royal unveiled on Sunday.

Ms Royal ordered her team to focus on promoting the generous financial measures that she was promising without being pinned down on their funding.

A new draft bill proposing that land owners who take physical action to defend against intruders on their property not be subjectable to prosecution self-defense passed a first reading in the Knesset on Wednesday. Inspired by the ordeal of a southern farmer who shot and killed Bedouin criminals he caught on his farm last month, former Agriculture Minister and Likud MK Yisrael Katz described his draft bill as "revolutionary."

"This is one of the most significant civil revolutions in years," Katz said of his bill which was passed by a 37-19 vote. The bill needs to pass second and third votes to become law. Shai Dromi fired at Khaled al-Atrash and Ayoub al-Hawashleh who broke into his Negev farm in late January. Dromi was charged with manslaughter for the killing of al-Atrash. Al-Hawashleh was injured and was indicted for attempted burglary upon recovering from his injuries.