Random News Stories

[Cain]

Um, your school teachers obviously don't "do" the observation thing...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/02022007/356/sex-offender-posed-boy.html

[B_M_W]

Um, your school teachers obviously don't "do" the observation thing...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/02022007/356/sex-offender-posed-boy.html

For some states, we wonder if their brains are even less developed than their student's.

[Thurnez Isa]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/international_iraq_dc

"Egypt charges four with spying for Israel

Egypt has charged an Egyptian who holds Canadian citizenship and three Israelis with spying for Israel, a state prosecutor said on Saturday.

High State Security Prosecutor Hisham Badawi said the Egyptian, Mohamed Essam Ghoneim el-Attar, 31, had been arrested and charged. The rest of the suspected spy ring, who are in Turkey and Canada, were charged in absentia.

Badawi said the Israelis had recruited Attar while he was living in Turkey in August 2001. Intelligence agents assisted him in obtaining a residency permit in Canada under a fake name and found him work in a bank.

Attar was paid to spy on Egyptians and Arabs during his time in Turkey and Canada, and used his position in the bank to obtain information on specific accounts, Badawi added.

He was also expected to scout and approach potential recruits, according to Badawi, who said Attar was paid $56,000 between August 2001 and January 1 2007, when he was arrested at Cairo airport as he entered Egypt for a family visit.

Badawi said Attar had been under investigation since January 2002 and would stand trial before a High State Security Emergency Court.

"We only know what we have heard in the media. I am not aware of anything other than what has been reported," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev told Reuters in Jerusalem.

In 1996, Egypt detained Azzam Azzam, an Israeli Arab textile worker, and sentenced him to 15 years in jail for spying for Israel. Egypt said Azzam passed messages in women's underwear using invisible ink.

Both Azzam and Israel denied the charges. He was released after serving eight years, as part of a deal which included the release of six Egyptian students in Israel."

[Thurnez Isa]

from my Christian Coalition of America newsleter

"Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, Who Was About to be Kicked Out of United States Navy -- After His Fight to be Allowed to Pray in the Name of Jesus at All Times -- Gets Reprieve Thursday From 3-Judge Federal Panel

On Thursday, a three-judge panel (on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia,) temporarily blocked the United States Navy from kicking out of the Navy an evangelical chaplain, Chaplain (Lt) Gordon J. Klingenschmitt, an Air Force Academy graduate, who has been fighting to overturn restrictions on prayer in the military, specifically allowing military chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus at all times."

With the federal court of appeals' ruling, Chaplain Klingenschmitt will be allowed to stay on active duty at least another week.  The court meanwhile will decide whether it should grant a longer term injunction that would keep Chaplain Klingenschmitt in the Navy, at least until his lawsuit against Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter is heard.  Chaplain Klingenschmitt's attorney, William Farley, said:  "We will get to the bottom of this.  We will find out why everything started to fall apart after he began praying in the name of Jesus." 

Chaplain Klingenschmitt said regarding the decision by the three-judge panel, "I consider this a small miracle at the eleventh hour, but my career still dangles by a thread since this stay will probably only last a week.  Next week, I pray the court of appeals makes a more permanent decision.  But for now, God has answered our prayers."

During the past two years, the Christian Coalition of America played a major role in forcing the Navy and the Air Force to repeal regulations the two services had adopted early last year which forbade military chaplains from praying in the name of Jesus during military functions other than worship services.  The provision agreed to last September 25th by the House and Senate conferees debating the final Defense Authorization bill rolls back the current Air Force and Navy regulations which had overturned 200+ years of tradition allowing military chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus and according to their faith requirements. 


At the time, Christian Coalition of America President Roberta Combs said, "The decision by Congress to force the Air Force and Navy to rescind their unconstitutional restrictions on religious freedom for military chaplains is a victory for free speech.  I urge the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to conduct oversight hearings early next year to ensure that military chaplains can pray as they have been able to pray for the past 200+ years of American history.  Congress cannot allow the Air Force and the Navy or any other service to adopt politically-correct guidelines restricting the religious freedom of chaplains ever again.


The Air Force had adopted restrictive guidelines on February 9, 2006 and the Navy had adopted similar restrictive guidelines on February 21, 2006. The Air Force and Navy had surrendered to atheist activists and left-wing Members of Congress in adopting these ill-advised regulations.  According to the September 25th agreement signed by the House and Senate conferees, the Secretary of the Air Force must reinstate the policy that was set forth in Air Force Directive 52-1 dated 1 July 1999 and the Secretary of the Navy must reinstate the policy set forth in Secretary of Navy Instruction 1730.7B dated October 12, 2000."

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Denmark's secret to happiness: low expectations
By Benedict Carey
Published: January 8, 2007

NEW YORK: Sweden has more blonde beauties per capita, Italy and France have far better cuisine, and most of the free world can boast of better weather.

But over the last 30 years, the citizens of Denmark have scored higher than any other Western country on measures of life satisfaction, and scientists think they know why.

In the Dec. 23 issue of the medical journal BMJ, researchers review six possible explanations, and conclude that the country's secret is a culture of low expectations.

"It's a David and Goliath thing," said the lead author, Kaare Christensen, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense.

"If you're a big guy, you expect to be on the top all the time and you're disappointed when things don't go well," Christensen said. "But when you're down at the bottom like us, you hang on, you don't expect much, and once in a while you win, and it's that much better."

The researchers arrived at their findings by a process of elimination and humor. Blonds may have more fun, they argue, but Sweden has a higher prevalence of them. As for climate, Danes "bask in a somewhat colder and cloudier version of the balmy English weather."

They also eat fatty foods, drink a lot; genetically, are not significantly different from their gloomier Scandinavian neighbors.

But on surveys, Danes continually report lower expectations for the year to come, compared with most other nations. And "year after year, they are pleasantly surprised to find that not everything is getting more rotten in the state of Denmark," the paper concludes.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/08/news/danes.php

[Starship, take me]

http://english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/07-02-2007/87167-alien_monster-0

Village residents from the Rostov region of Russia caught a weird creature two weeks ago after a strong storm in the Sea of Azov. The shark-looking creature was producing strange squeaky sounds. The fishermen originally believed that they had caught an alien and decided to film the monster with the help of a cell phone camera. The footage clearly shows the creatures,Äô head, body and long tail. The bizarre catch was weighing almost 100 kilograms, the Komsomolskaya Pravda reports.
   
However, ufologists and scientists were greatly disappointed when they found out that the fishermen had eaten the monster. They said that they were not scared of the creature so they decided to use it as food. One of the men said that it was the most delicious dish he had ever eaten.

Chairman of the Anomalous Phenomena Service, Andrei Gorodovoi, stated that the creature, which he could see on the short video, was an anomalous being. However, it could hardly be described as an extraterrestrial form of life, he added. Gorodovoi rejected the version about mermaids too. ,ÄúThere are many legends about mermaids living in the Sea of Azov. Nevertheless, specialists of the Service for Anomalous Phenomena have never confirmed those fairytales. On the other hand, we do not deny the possibility of other forms of life in the Sea of Azov,,Äù the ufologist sad.

A spokesman for the Rostov-based zoo, Alexander Lipkovich, contacted local ichthyologists and asked their opinion about the Azov alien. ,ÄúThey said that the fish bears resemblance to a sturgeon. It was an extremely interesting individual. I have never seen anything like this before in my whole life,,Äù the specialist said.

Credo Mutwa, thou art avenged!
\

[Cain]

Cryptids are awesome.

[Starship, take me]

"Ploetzlich regnete es Kuehe vom Himmel,Äù (Cows Raining from the Sky)

In the Ochotskische sea near the Sachalin island a cow fell from the sky and sank a Japanese fishing boat on impact. This was stated in a confidential report from the German embassy in Moscow to the "Auswaertiges Amt" (German State Department). This event was given as one of many examples of the desolate state of security in Russian air traffic. According to this report, Russian soldiers had stolen a herd of cattle and wanted to remove them in a transport aircraft - a kind of theft not uncommon in Siberia. However, the soldiers failed to tie up the animals. When the cows got nervous and began to move, the plane became unstable as well. The Iljuschin was so hard to control that the pilot feared to crash and ordered the crew to open the tailboard and to chase the cattle (25 to 30 animals) out of the plane from an altitude of about 8000 meters. Accidentally, one of the cows fell onto a wooden Japanese fishing boat that could not bear the impact and sunk. Though the fishers were rescued some hours later by a Russian patrol boat, they were arrested because their story was not believed. Russian authorities then checked their statements and found that they were true. The pilot was able to make an emergency landing with open tailboard."

This happened back in April of '97.  Mark your calender for the ten-year anniversary.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I think I'll eat a well marbled ribeye with chopsticks to celebrate this absurdity.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Gorbachev to Gates: "Have Mercy!"
In an open letter to the former Microsoft CEO, the former Soviet Leader asks Gates to intercede on behalf of a Russian teacher accused of software piracy.

By Tom LaSusa, Network Computing

In 1987, President Reagan stood in front of the Berlin Wall and made his impassioned request to then Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, "Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Nearly two decades later, it's Gorbachev's turn to reach out to a powerful world figure -- Bill Gates -- with his own emotional plea. The request: to intercede on behalf of a Russian teacher accused of using pirated software in his classroom.


Prosecutors have accused Alexander Ponosov, headmaster of a middle school a remote Russian village, of violating Microsoft's intellectual property rules by using unlicensed copies of Microsoft software on his school's computers. Russia has been cracking down on piracy as part of its efforts to join the World Trade Organization. The punishment for this crime could be life in a Siberian prison.


In an open letter posted on the Internet site of Gorbachev's charitable foundation (www.gorby.ru), Gorbachev says that the teacher was totally unaware he was committing a crime, and therefore should be shown compassion. While recognizing the importance of punishing intentional piracy, Gorbachev pleads with the Microsoft mogul to show mercy and have the company withdraw its complaint against the teacher.


"This noble step will be enthusiastically received by all those in Russia who use Microsoft products." Gorbachev contends.

Is there any minor offence in russia that doesn't carry 'life in a siberian prison' as punishment?

"Ivan - stop picking your nose,  remember what happened to your uncle Aleksei"

[Cain]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6349287.stm

Too....much....irony.....on.....every....side...ribs...cracking....from....

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

 

[Cain]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6352785.stm

Little Johnny Howard not only shows he has some semblance of a backbone, but he also has no compunction about interfering in US internal politics.

[P3nT4gR4m]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6352785.stm

Little Johnny Howard not only shows he has some semblance of a backbone, but he also has no compunction about interfering in US internal politics.

Well somebody has to. The US are quite obviously incapable of doing it themselves. 

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

Obama is pretty fuckin slick...