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World Population To Pass 6,666,666,666 today
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Posted By: JWSmythe
2008-05-09 15:50:21 (6 hours ago)
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The estimated population of the world will pass 6,666,666,666 today.
No doubt an interesting number for people everywhere (not referring to
any religion connotations). 5,555,555,555 was passed about 14 years
ago.
You may not realize that only a 80 years ago, the population of
the Earth was only around 2 billion.
This shows how the population of the world has increased at an alarming
rate in recent times. Although the growth rate is almost half what it
was at its peak in 1963, when it was 2.2%.
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Federal Judge Plans To Review Opinion On CIA Interrogation Tactics
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 13:25:02 (8 hours ago)
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A federal judge in New York intends next week to review one of the Bush
administration's most controversial legal opinions related to detainee
interrogations, to decide if it has appropriately been withheld from
public view.
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, of the Southern District of
New York, said in an order yesterday that on Monday he intends to review
an Aug. 1, 2002, memo on specific CIA interrogation techniques, marking an unusual review outside the executive branch.
The 2002 memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel
accompanied a broader document on the definition of torture that has
already been released publicly and disavowed by the administration.
The second, still-classified memo focuses on the specific
interrogation techniques that were deemed legally permissible at the
CIA, according to court documents and intelligence officials. The memo
was authored by then-OLC deputy John C. Yoo and includes discussion of waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning that the CIA has acknowledged using on three al-Qaeda suspects in its custody, officials have said.
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U.S. Trade Deficit Narrowed In March, But Exports Declined
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 13:24:08 (8 hours ago)
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Domestic demand for imports fell in March by the most since 2001,
the latest indication that the economic slowdown has forced Americans
to rein in their spending habits, the government reported on Friday.
Americans shied away from buying imported automobiles, which fell
9.3 percent in March, and oil, which dropped 8.9 percent. It was the
second consecutive month that crude oil imports had declined. Declines
were reported in a variety of other consumer goods ranging from
clothing to toys and furniture.
At the same time, exports decreased for the first time in 12 months,
a troubling sign for American businesses struggling with a pullback
among domestic consumers. Foreign purchases have helped prop up the
American economy amid the current slowdown.
For the month, the Commerce Department reported, the trade deficit
narrowed to $58.2 billion from a downwardly revised $61.7 billion in
February. The 5.7 percent decrease was more than economists had
expected.
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McCain Pushed Land Swap That Benefits Backer
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 03:44:46 (18 hours ago)
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Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote
grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable
federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap
that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential
campaign fundraisers.
Initially reluctant to support the swap,
the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through
Congress after the rancher and his partners hired lobbyists that
included McCain's 1992 Senate campaign manager, two of his former
Senate staff members (one of whom has returned as his chief of staff),
and an Arizona insider who was a major McCain donor and is now bundling
campaign checks.
When McCain's legislation passed in November
2005, the ranch owner gave the job of building as many as 12,000 homes
to SunCor Development, a firm in Tempe, Arizona, run by Steven A. Betts,
a longtime McCain supporter who has raised more than $100,000 for the
presumptive Republican nominee. Betts said he and McCain never
discussed the deal.
The Audubon Society described the exchange as the largest in Arizona history. The swap
involved more than 55,000 acres of land in all, including rare expanses
of desert woodland and pronghorn antelope habitat. The deal had support
from many local officials and the Arizona Republic newspaper for its
expansion of the Prescott National Forest; but it brought an outcry
from some Arizona environmentalists when it was proposed in 2002,
partly because it went through Congress rather than a process that
allowed more citizen input.
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FBI Says U.S. Military Had Bogus Computer Gear
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 03:44:14 (18 hours ago)
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Counterfeit products are a routine threat for the electronics
industry. However, the more sinister specter of an electronic Trojan
horse, lurking in the circuitry of a computer or a network router and
allowing attackers clandestine access or control, was raised again
recently by the F.B.I. and the Pentagon.
The new law enforcement and national security concerns were prompted by Operation Cisco Raider, which has led to 15 criminal cases involving counterfeit
products bought in part by military agencies, military contractors and
electric power companies in the United States. Over the two-year operation, 36 search warrants have been executed, resulting in the discovery of
3,500 counterfeit Cisco network components with an estimated retail
value of more than $3.5 million, the F.B.I. said in a statement.
The
F.B.I. is still not certain whether the ring’s actions were for profit
or part of a state-sponsored intelligence effort. The potential threat,
according to the F.B.I. agents who gave a briefing at the Office of Management and Budget on Jan. 11, includes the remote jamming of supposedly secure computer
networks and gaining access to supposedly highly secure systems.
Contents of the briefing were contained in a PowerPoint presentation leaked to a Web site, Above Top Secret.
A
Cisco spokesman said that the company had investigated the counterfeit
gear seized by law enforcement agencies and had not found any secret
back door.
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77 New Cases Of Hepatitis C Identified In Las Vegas
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 03:43:37 (18 hours ago)
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Nevada health officials said Thursday that they had identified 77
new cases of hepatitis C among patients treated at a Las Vegas
endoscopy practice, in one of the country’s largest outbreaks of the
liver disease.
The
officials had previously identified seven cases of the disease linked
to the gastroenterology practice, one of the largest in southern
Nevada, and a single case in one of the practice’s sister clinics. The
infections were caused, they said, by the reuse of anesthesia syringes among multiple patients.
The
practice had not received a full inspection since 2001, although state
policies dictate that ambulatory surgical centers be reviewed every
three years. The licensing agency has blamed the delay on insufficient
financing for inspectors.
“This is a very large outbreak and a
very serious illness,” said Brian Labus, the senior epidemiologist for
the Southern Nevada Health District.
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Pentagon Drops Post In Pakistan For Former Guantanamo Commander
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 03:42:26 (18 hours ago)
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When the Pentagon announced in March that Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood
would become the senior American officer based in Pakistan, it
reflected the military’s aim to put a crisis-tested veteran in a
critical job at a pivotal time in the fight against al-Qaeda and the
Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Nearly two months later, the military has quietly canceled the
assignment of General Hood, a 33-year Army veteran who was excoriated
in the Pakistani news media for one of his previous jobs: commander of
the United States prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
During
General Hood’s command from 2004 to 2006, military authorities
force-fed with tubes detainees who were engaging in hunger strikes at
the Guantanamo prison, a step they justified as necessary to prevent
the prisoners from committing suicide to protest their indefinite
confinement. Also during General Hood’s tenure, reports that an
American guard may have desecrated a Koran stirred wide protests in the
Islamic world.
The decision to withdraw General Hood’s assignment
has not been announced, but it appears to reflect the widening shadow
that the military prison at Guantanamo is casting over American foreign
policy. While the United States considers Pakistan a close ally in its
counterterrorism efforts, the accounts by Pakistanis who have returned
to Pakistan after being held at Guantanamo Bay have added to
anti-American sentiment in the country.
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Oil Hits Record High (Yes, Another One) Of $124.70 Per Barrel
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 03:41:38 (18 hours ago)
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Oil rose to a fresh record near $125 a
barrel on Friday, as a strong performance over the last week
and a surge in heating oil futures convinced investment funds
to push prices higher.
Funds were keen to shift their money into the oil market
after seeing U.S. crude rise about 13 percent since the start
of the month.
U.S. crude for June delivery rose as far as $124.70,
surpassing the previous record of $124.61 hit on Thursday.
By 1:25 a.m. EDT (0525 GMT), the June crude contract was
$124.55 a barrel on the Globex electronic trading platform, up
86 cents, or 0.7 percent.
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McCain's Vote In 2000 Revived In A Ruckus
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 03:38:53 (18 hours ago)
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Did Senator John McCain not vote for George W. Bush in 2000?
That question has kicked up a minor ruckus in political circles this week as Arianna Huffington and the McCain campaign have traded he-said, she-said barbs.
On
her Huffington Post Web site on Monday, Ms. Huffington, the liberal
blogger, said she had heard McCain say at a Los Angeles dinner
party shortly after the 2000 election that he had not voted for the
president he has now publicly embraced in his own quest for the White
House. The McCain campaign swiftly quashed the account and said Ms.
Huffington had a book to promote and would make anything up.
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Top Clinton Aide Says Race Will End In June
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-08 17:32:19 (1 days ago)
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As talk swirled this morning over when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
should end her quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, her
campaign chairman predicted the party would have a presumptive nominee
in June and, if it's not Clinton, she would campaign for Sen. Barack
Obama.
The comments by Terry McAuliffe seemed aimed at persuading
superdelegates and Democratic Party leaders that Clinton would not hurt
party unity by pressing her campaign through the final June 3 primaries
in Montana and South Dakota.
"She can win the states we need to win in the general election,"
McAuliffe said on NBC's "Today" show. "Until there is a nominee with
the number of necessary delegates, why should she get out?"
Here in Charleston, West Virginia, Clinton told several hundred
supporters in the
marble-lined dome of the state Capitol that pressure is growing from
party leaders and pundits for her to drop out of the race.
"Some folks say, 'You've got end this before you get to West
Virginia'," she said. "I think we want to keep this going so the
people of West Virginia's voices are heard."
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Spilling Government Secrets
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-08 17:31:45 (1 days ago)
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Stoned on speed, Elvis Presley arrived at the White House wearing a
purple velvet suit and bearing gifts for President Richard Nixon - a
Colt .45 pistol and some silver bullets.
It was Dec. 21, 1970, and Elvis had a mission: He wanted Nixon to give him a federal narcotics agent's badge so he could carry dope
and guns wherever he went. Nixon didn't give Elvis the badge, but he
did pose for pictures with the King of Rock-and-Roll.
Nineteen
years later, newspapers reported that the Elvis-Nixon photos were the
most requested pictures in the federal government's vast photo
collection, and Tom Blanton responded the same way he responds to so
many other interesting news stories: He filed a Freedom of Information
Act request.
"When the president meets with anybody, there's a
whole paper trail, so we filed a FOIA request and got the entire file
released," says Blanton, who is the director of the National Security
Archive, a private research group devoted to prying documents out of
the federal government's files and making them public.
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Ahmadinejad Criticized By Iran Clerics
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-08 17:31:06 (1 days ago)
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Several leading Iranian clerics criticized President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad on Wednesday for saying that the last imam of Shiite Islam,
a messianic
figure who Shiites believe was hidden by God 1,140 years ago, leads
modern-day Iran.
"We see his hand directing all the affairs of the country,"
Ahmadinejad told theological students in the city of Mashad during a
speech that appears to have been given last month but was not broadcast
until Tuesday. "A movement has started for us to occupy ourselves with
our global responsibilities. God willing, Iran will be the axis of the
leadership of this movement," said Ahmadinejad.
Several clerics in the Iranian parliament accused Ahmadinejad of
implying that Imam Mahdi or Imam Zaman (Imam of the Age), as the Shiite
messiah is also called, supports his government. Since the 1979
revolution, Iran's government has been overseen by Shiite clerics, but
religious leaders here have resisted Ahmadinejad's frequent hints that
his government's actions are guided by the Mahdi.
Clerics said in interviews published Wednesday that the president
should not use the imam to his political advantage or to silence
critics of the government.
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Russia's Duma Confirms Putin As Prime Minister
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-08 17:30:02 (1 days ago)
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Russia's Duma, the lower house of the national parliament, overwhelming approved Vladimir Putin as the
country's new prime minister Thursday, completing a choreographed
two-step that began a day earlier when Putin's political partner and
protege, Dmitry Medvedev, was inaugurated as president.
"I think no one doubts that our tandem will grow strong," Medvedev said
in a short speech presenting his nominee to the lower house of
parliament, called the State Duma. "Today, the most important task is
to maintain our present course."
Lawmakers voted 392 to 56 to approve Putin's appointment, with only
Communist Party deputies opposing his candidacy. Medvedev later signed
a decree formalizing the appointment. Putin's United Russia party holds
315 of the 450 seats in the Duma, and two of the other three parties
also support him.
Barred by the constitution from seeking a third term as president,
Putin's assumption of the ostensibly subordinate position of prime
minister has fueled speculation about how this novel power-sharing
arrangement with Medvedev will work and whether it is, in fact, a
mechanism to propel Putin back into the Kremlin.
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Toyota Reports 27 Percent Plunge In Profit
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-08 17:29:24 (1 days ago)
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Toyota said the strong yen and weaker U.S. sales took a bite out of
January-March earnings and projected worse was to come - a 27 percent
plunge in its full-year profit.
It would be the first drop in full-year profit in seven years for the automaker.
The
results and outlook released Thursday highlight how the tough North
American auto market is hammering profits. Meanwhile, unfavorable
currency swings added to a growing list of problems for Toyota Motor Corp., including soaring material and energy costs and a stagnant auto market in its home market of Japan.
"There is no mistake that things are seriously tough - even for
Toyota," said Tsuyoshi Mochimaru, auto analyst at Lehman Brothers in Tokyo.
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FBI Backs Off From Secret Data Request After Lawsuit Filed
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-08 03:40:14 (2 days ago)
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The FBI has withdrawn a secret administrative order seeking the name, address
and online activity of a patron of the Internet Archive after the San
Francisco-based digital library filed suit to block the action.
It
is one of only three known instances in which the FBI has backed off
from such a data demand, known as a "national security letter," or NSL,
which is not subject to judicial approval and whose recipient is barred
from disclosing the order's existence.
NSLs are served on phone
companies, Internet service providers and other electronic
communications service providers, but because of the gag order
provision, the public has little way to know about them. Their use
soared after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, when Congress
relaxed the standard for their issuance. FBI officials now issue about
50,000 such orders a year.
The order against the Internet Archive
was served Nov. 26, and the nonprofit challenged it based on a
provision of the reauthorized USA Patriot Act, which protects libraries
from such requests. The privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation represented the archive in the suit, which was joined by the American Civil Liberties Union.
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Hezbollah Gunmen Seize Control Of Beirut
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 13:25:18 (8 hours ago)
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The Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah handily took over much of the
Lebanese capital today in a dramatic escalation of the movement's
months-long confrontation with the government and its supporters,
said security officials.
Lebanon's security forces, which received more than $270 million in
U.S. aid last year, mostly stood by as Hezbollah swept through West
Beirut and pushed back fighters from a pro-government Sunni militia.
The troops protected government buildings but avoided the clashes.
At least 10 people had been killed, according to Lebanese security officials.
The clashes followed days of intense fighting between Hezbollah and
Sunni fighters loyal to the pro-government Future movement. The combat
was sparked by a government decision Tuesday to outlaw Hezbollah's
fiber-optic communications network and remove an ally as head of
security at the country's sole international airport.
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After Dispute With Junta, U.N. Resuming Aid To Myanmar
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 13:24:32 (8 hours ago)
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The United Nations suspended relief supplies to Myanmar on Friday after the military government seized the food and equipment
it had already sent into the country and turned away two aid workers
but said it would resume the aid flights on Saturday.
“All the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated,” said Paul Risley, of the U.N.'s World Food Program, in Bangkok.
The program said it would send in two relief flights as planned on
Saturday, while negotiations continued with the government about the
distribution of supplies.
Myanmar has only allowed a handful of flights in the last two days
after blocking most international aid - including necessities like
food, water, medicine and blankets and tents.
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U.S., Russia Each Order Expulsion Of Diplomats, Military Attaches
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 13:23:49 (8 hours ago)
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The United States and Russia have expelled five diplomats and military
attaches from each other's countries in moves reminiscent of the
tit-for-tat exchanges of the Cold War, U.S. officials said Thursday.
The most recent expulsions, ordered by Russia on April 28, were of two American military
attaches at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. They were preceded by the
expulsion of a Russian diplomat from Washington on April 22, the
expulsion of a U.S. diplomat from Moscow on April 14 and the expulsion
of a New York-based Russian diplomat on Nov. 6.
The U.S. State Department said Russia's most recent action was "not justified" but that it would comply with the order. Spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States was treating them as separate incidents and that Washington considered the matter closed.
"We're not making any particular connection between the expulsion of
these two individuals and any previous steps that we might have taken,"
said McCormack. "As far as we're concerned, we don't intend to take any
further actions."
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U.S. Senator Criticized For Ties To Mortgage And Real Estate Industries
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 03:44:30 (18 hours ago)
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He has made millions as a title insurance executive, landlord and
real
estate developer in this college town, where the economy, despite
trouble nationwide, is still growing nicely. Now, as a United States
senator, with the mortgage mess fueling a national economic slowdown,
Richard C. Shelby has more say over the revamping of housing finance
laws than almost anyone else in Congress.
Shelby, 74, does not run a key Congressional committee. Instead, as
the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, he is using his
clout and the Democrats’ slim majority in the Senate to help determine
what gets in, or almost as important, what is left out, of legislation.
He will soon play a major role in deciding the fate of one such
bill, to help struggling homeowners, that the House passed, 266 to 154,
on Thursday.
Over the years, his critics say, Shelby’s ties to the mortgage industry and the Alabama real estate market, and the generous campaign donations he receives
from financial services companies, have distorted his perspective and
led him to delay critical legislative remedies.
Indeed, Shelby’s legislative and business worlds have often
intersected. For instance, while on the Banking Committee, he financed
an apartment complex he owns in Tuscaloosa with a $5 million loan from
Freddie Mac, the same government-sponsored mortgage company whose
regulation his committee is reshaping.
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Bad Investments And A $7.8 Billion Loss At A.I.G.
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 03:43:53 (18 hours ago)
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The fortunes of American International Group (A.I.G.), one of the world’s biggest insurance companies, rise and fall on
precise calculations of risk. Last quarter, those calculations went
seriously awry.
In the worst three months of the company’s 89-year history, A.I.G.
lost $7.81 billion, primarily from bad investments in complex financial
instruments. The loss of $3.09 a share, reported after the market’s
close Thursday, was four times worse than Wall Street analysts had
expected.
The venerable insurer now joins the ranks of other
industry giants that have suffered huge losses because of the recent
tumult in the financial markets. This is the first time A.I.G. has lost
money in two consecutive quarters.
To shore up its finances, the
company will seek to raise $12.5 billion by selling new stock and
fixed-income securities. Despite the painful quarter, the company plans
to raise its dividend by 10 percent - half its usual increase - which
will cost an additional $202 million on an annualized basis.
Shares
of the company closed at $44.15, down 93 cents, or 2 percent. In
after-hours trading, A.I.G. shares fell another 7 percent, and the
ratings agencies Standard & Poor’s and Fitch lowered the company’s
credit ratings.
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Salmon Gone, Fishermen Try To Adapt On A Changing Coast
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 03:42:54 (18 hours ago)
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So long, salmon. Steve Wilson is refitting his 51-foot troller to fish for the future.
No longer will he cast for the conflicted symbol of Northwest abundance
and bitterness. No more fishing for a myth.
His new pursuit?
“Prawns,” said Wilson, nearly bursting out laughing because,
here in Salmon Nation, he could not quite believe things had come to
this. “It’s what you call a ‘developmental fishery.’ We don’t know if
we’ll make any money in it, but we figured we could either go broke
sitting still or we could go broke working.”
With most of Oregon and California's commercial salmon fishery
shut down because of sharp declines in the
number of the fish returning to the Sacramento River to spawn, Wilson
and many other fishermen are looking for almost any alternative,
trying to diversify along with the rest of the regional economy. In
some cases, they are investing money they received from the federal
government because of a partial shutdown of salmon fishing in 2006.
This year, the governors of the three West Coast states, citing what
they say will be a $290 million economic loss, have asked Congress to
again provide disaster relief.
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Big Oil Starts Ad Campaign Aimed At Consumers Upset Over Rising Gasoline Prices
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 03:42:01 (18 hours ago)
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Faced with a national outcry over the high price of gasoline and
soaring profits for energy companies, the oil and gas industry is
waging an unusually pricey campaign to burnish its image.
The American Petroleum Institute (API), the industry's main lobby, has embarked on a multiyear, multimedia,
multimillion-dollar campaign, which includes advertising in the
nation's largest newspapers, news conferences in many state capitals
and trips for bloggers out to drilling platforms at sea.
The intended audience is elected officials and the public, with an
emphasis on the latter. The industry is trying to convince voters -
who, in turn, will make the case to their members of Congress - that
rising energy prices are not the producers' fault and that government
efforts to punish the industry, especially with higher taxes, would
only make pricing problems worse.
"We decided that if we didn't do something to help people understand
the basics of our industry, we'd be on the losing end as far as the eye
could see," said Red Cavaney, the institute's president.
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Commentary: Republicans Vote Against Moms
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-09 03:40:43 (18 hours ago)
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Intellpuke: This commentary was written by Washington Post
columnist Dana Milbank and appeared in the Washington Post edition for
Friday, May 9, 2008.
It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional
Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority
of the House Republicans have voted against motherhood.
On
Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H.
Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and
supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kansas), rose in protest.
"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.
Rep.
Kathy Castor (D-Florida), who has two young daughters, moved to table
Tiahrt's request, setting up a re-vote. This time, 178 Republicans cast
their votes against mothers.
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The Failure Of Data Mining In Law Enforcement
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Posted By: JWSmythe
2008-05-08 22:39:57 (23 hours ago)
[Read 137 times || 0 comments]
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Who can forget the classic line uttered by Commodore Perry during the War of 1812's Battle of Lake Erie: "We have met the enemy and they are ours!" Perry, then age 28, kicked serious British naval butt in that decisive victory.
Nearly two centuries later, the famed comic strip creator Walt Kelly
twisted that line for the benefit of his seminal character, the possum
Pogo. On an Earth Day poster in 1971,
Pogo, looking at a polluted stream proclaimed, "We have met the enemy
and he is us!" The same line was also used in a cartoon to lampoon the
Nixon Administration, so the creator's use was to point a critical
finger at things government, in Kelly's opinion, was doing wrong.
You, dear Reader, are probably asking, Why are we going through this lesson?
Because of headlines like the ones found in many IT publications this week: Feds look to local law enforcement to help stop terrorists.
Gee, what a revelation! Let me tell you a story about what happened
here in Florida that had direct bearing on 9/11, could have even
stopped 9/11, and still is not taken as seriously as it should.
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Fighting Between Sunnis And Shiias Rages In Beirut
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-08 17:32:03 (1 days ago)
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The leader of Hezbollah said Thursday that the pro-West government
had
declared war on his Shiite group by outlawing the militants'
telecommunications network as a second day of fighting erupted between
Sunni and Shiite gunmen in religiously mixed areas of the country.
Explosions and ferocious bursts of gunfire shook central Beirut as
rival groups fired weapons at each other after the televised speech by
Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah chief. There were no confirmed reports
of casualties in the capital, though one woman injured in an overnight
clash west of the capital died.
Panicked civilians scurried for cover or stocked up on basic supplies.
Opposition gunmen blocked roads to the country's sole international
airport while government supporters blocked the main highway to
Damascus, the capital of Syria.
Nasrallah, head of Lebanon's Iranian and Syrian-backed opposition,
warned that the Lebanese cabinet's decision to declare the group's
secret fiber-optic network illegal put the government squarely in the
camp of Hezbollah's enemies, Israel and the United States, which
consider the Shiite militia and political party a terrorist
organization.
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Mexico's Federal Police Chief Gunned Down
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-08 17:31:26 (1 days ago)
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Gunmen killed the head of Mexico's federal police force early Thursday in a brazen hit against the man who
had become the public face of the country's war on drug cartels.
Edgar Eusebio Millan Gomez was shot as he was entering his apartment
building in the Colonia Guerrero neighborhood, a poor section of Mexico
City that associates say he chose because it was close to law
enforcement offices. The killing of such a high-ranking official in
Mexico's capital - a veteran officer protected round-the-clock by
bodyguards - seemed to suggest that almost no one is immune from the
violence that has swept Mexico in recent months.
Millan Gomez was hit by at least nine bullets and died at the
hospital, said a police spokesman. One suspect was arrested and was
being questioned by police.
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Myanmar's Biggest City Still Paralyzed After 5 Days
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-08 17:30:17 (1 days ago)
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Five days after the powerful cyclone struck, this city, Myanmar’s commercial capital and until Saturday a
verdant oasis of wide avenues, is far from back to normal.
Thousands of trees lie where they fell, jetties on the Yangon River
have collapsed into the water and only a few traffic lights are working
across the city of five million people.
Most of Yangon remains without electricity and even the local branch of the Ministry of Energy has no power.
The death toll in Yangon has been small compared with the
devastation in the delta of the Irrawaddy River. The government counts
fewer than 400 people killed here compared with the more than 22,000,
and by some unofficial estimates possibly tens of thousands more, dead
over all in Myanmar since the huge cyclone hit on Saturday.
The inability of the government to clear debris and restore
basic utilities like water and power in what is the country’s
wealthiest city are a measure of how difficult Myanmar’s overall
disaster recovery could be.
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U.S. Rep. Fossella Admits To Extramarital Affair
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-08 17:29:44 (1 days ago)
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Representative Vito J. Fossella, a Staten Island Republican who was
arrested on May 1 in Alexandria, Virginia, and charged with drunken
driving, issued a
statement on Thursday acknowledging that he had had an extramarital
affair with Laura Fay, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, and that
the two of them have a 3-year-old daughter together.
The prospect that Fossella could face a mandatory jail sentence if convicted had already threatened to bring to an end his decade-long career in the U.S. House, where Fossella is the only
Republican representing New York City. The Daily News has reported that Fossella called Fay for help after his arrest and told officers that he was on his way to Grimm Street, where Fay lives, to visit a sick daughter. As speculation swirled over Fossella’s relationship with Fay in
recent days, his aides said only that they were good friends.
On Capitol Hill, the Fossella story was just more bad news for House
Republicans, who are struggling to get off the defensive in the
upcoming elections having already lost two special elections in two
districts long held by Republicans, with another one at risk in
Mississippi next Tuesday.
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Country Singer Eddy Arnold Is Dead At 89
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-08 17:28:36 (1 days ago)
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Eddy Arnold, the gentleman crooner who took country music uptown and
sold more than 85 million recordings over seven decades, died Thursday.
He was 89.
His death, at a care facility near Nashville, was confirmed by the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum.
From
his debonair attire to the savvy with which he adapted his sound to
popular trends, Mr. Arnold personified the evolution of country music
in the years after World War II, from a rural vernacular to an idiom
with broad mainstream appeal.
“I’ve never thought of myself as a
country and western singer,” he told a reporter for The Charlotte
Observer in 1968. “With the type material I do, I’m really a pop music
artist.” He added, “I want my songs to be accepted by everyone.”
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Republican Rep. Davis Urges Bloch To Resign From Prosecutor's Office
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2008-05-08 03:40:00 (2 days ago)
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A veteran Republican lawmaker called on Office of Special Counsel (OSC) chief Scott J. Bloch to resign Wednesday, one day after nearly two dozen FBI agents raided OSC headquarters and carted off boxes of documents and equipment
that officials said were related to a probe of Bloch's activities.
"In light of the various investigations into Mr. Bloch's conduct,
including the FBI probe revealed yesterday, it's hard to believe he can
continue to operate effectively," U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Virginia), the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a statement. "It's time the OSC put this turbulent period behind it."
Bloch, appointed by President Bush
in 2003 to protect government whistle-blowers and to enforce
prohibitions on political activity in the federal workplace, is facing
allegations of political bias, obstruction of justice and
mismanagement. The inspector general at the Off ice of Personnel Management has investigated Bloch since 2005 over alleged mistreatment of
employees and his handling of whistle-blower cases, but Tuesday's raid
was a significant escalation.
Bloch and more than a dozen current and former OSC employees have
been served with subpoenas to appear before a grand jury, which will
probably begin hearing testimony the week of May 19, sources familiar
with the investigation said. The lead prosecutor is Assistant U.S.
Attorney James Mitzelfeld, who works on public corruption cases.
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