[kiyote23]
 dorky.radiofreepirate.org

life on the dork farm

Tuesday, November 29, 2005 :::
 

Lawmaker Quits After He Pleads Guilty to Bribes - New York Times: "Mr. Cunningham, a highly decorated Navy fighter pilot in Vietnam, tearfully acknowledged his guilt in a statement read outside the federal courthouse in San Diego.

'The truth is, I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office,' he said. 'I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions and, most importantly, the trust of my friends and family.'

Mr. Cunningham, 63, pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery, tax evasion, wire fraud and mail fraud. He faces up to 10 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and forfeitures.

Prosecutors said he received cash, cars, rugs, antiques, furniture, yacht club fees, moving expenses and vacations from four unnamed co-conspirators in exchange for aid in winning military contracts. None of this income was reported to the Internal Revenue Service or on the congressman's financial disclosure forms, the government said.

Mr. Cunningham, who is known as Duke, lived while in Washington on a 42-foot yacht, named the Duke-Stir, owned by one of the military contractors that received tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts that prosecutors said Mr. Cunningham helped steer its way.

Mr. Cunningham, who is known for his combative conservatism and his emotional outbursts, served on the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee and as chairman of the House Intelligence subcommittee on terrorism and human intelligence.

'He did the worst thing an elected official can do,' Carol C. Lam, the United States attorney, said in a statement. 'He enriched himself through his position and violated the trust of those who put him there.'

Mr. Cunningham's plea adds to the ethics cloud over the Republican-controlled Congress and the Bush White House."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/29/2005 02:00:00 PM
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Monday, November 28, 2005 :::
 

Dating Without Kundera: "The problem, though, is that the Unbearable Lightness of Being is a really bad book. Milan Kundera is the Dave Matthews of Slavic letters, a talented hack, certainly a hack who's paid his dues, but a hack nonetheless. And by his own admission, this is his worst book. If you strip off the exoticism of Brezhnev-era Czechoslovakia (this rinses off easily in soapy water), you are left with a book full of vapid characters bouncing against each other like little perfectly elastic balls of condensed ego. And every twenty pages the story steps outside for a cigarette so that the author can deliver a short philosophical homily. Kundera has a sterile, cleanroom writing style meant to suggest that he is a surgeon expertly dissecting the human condition before your eyes, but if you look a little more closely, you see he's just performing an autopsy on a mannequin. Or more accurately, a RealDoll."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/28/2005 04:29:00 PM
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mimi smartypants:

"Boy: I like your scarf.

Me: Thanks, I made it myself.

Boy: Really? Cool.

Me: No, I can't even knit. I really gotta quit lying all the time.

[silence]"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/28/2005 04:26:00 PM
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Found on craigslist: Wanted: Macintosh Computer items:

Hello,

I am working on a huge project this winter, want my home, to be done via voice reconizition, a female's voice to greet me at the door, among other things. This will all be done by computers. The computers dont need to be working as I can figure anything out. I have gotten 2 computers so far, need about 100 of them.

I can personally pick them up no matter the distance.

Thank you.



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/28/2005 10:56:00 AM
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CNN.com - The Democrats get a face - Nov 28, 2005: "I predicted that the speech he was about give to would have the same impact on the debate over Iraq that former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite had on February 27, 1968, when he spoke of the near-certainty that 'the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.' President Lyndon Johnson said: 'That's it. If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America.' Murtha did not believe me."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/28/2005 10:47:00 AM
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Church of the Holy Sepulchre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "As noted above, both Eusebius and Socrates Scholasticus record that the tomb of Jesus was originally a site of veneration for the Christian community in Jerusalem and its location remembered by that community even when the site was covered by Hadrian's temple. From the time of its original construction in 335, and despite numerous renovations, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been venerated as the authentic site of Jesus's crucifixion and burial.

In the nineteenth century, a number of scholars disputed the identification of the Church with the actual site of Jesus's crucifixion and burial. They reasoned that the Church was inside the city walls, while early accounts (e.g., Hebrews 13:12) described these events as outside the walls. On the morning after his arrival in Jerusalem, General Gordon selected a rock-cut tomb in a cultivated area outside the walls as a more likely site for the burial of Jesus. This site is usually referred to as the Garden Tomb to distinguish it from the Holy Sepulchre, and it is still a popular pilgrimage site for those (usually Protestants) who doubt the authenticity of the Anastasis and/or do not have permission to hold services in the Church itself.

However, the central objection of the nineteenth century scholars evaporates when one realizes that the Jerusalem city walls were expanded by Herod Agrippa in 41--44 and only then enclosed the site of the Holy Sepulchre, at which time the surrounding garden mentioned in the Bible would have been built up as well. To quote the Israeli scholar Dan Bahat, former City Archaeologist of Jerusalem:

'We may not be absolutely certain that the site of the Holy Sepulchre Church is the site of Jesus' burial, but we have no other site that can lay a claim nearly as weighty, and we really have no reason to reject the authenticity of the site. (Bahat, 1986)"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/28/2005 10:40:00 AM
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press-citizen.com | Local News: "The last play, 'Woyzeck,' written in 1936 by German activist Georg Buechner, is often considered the first 'modern' play.

'Woyzeck' tells the story of a solider forced to work a series of never-ending odd jobs and endure daily humiliations to support his child and common-law wife. After learning his wife has betrayed him, Woyzeck descends into a nightmare of rage and insanity."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/28/2005 10:15:00 AM
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Teens leave their mark on world through blogs-But adults say students unwittingly reveal too much information to potential cyberpredators.: "Last week, Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta, N.J., banned students from posting on MySpace.com or similar sites, citing concerns that students were unwittingly revealing too much information about themselves to potential cyberpredators."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/28/2005 12:27:00 AM
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Xinhua - English: "The delegation, including taikonauts Fei Junlong, Nie Haishengand leading engineers for the Shenzhou-6 manned space mission, arrived in Hong Kong on Sunday for a three-day visit. Enditem"



Astronaut - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Taikonaut is sometimes used in English for astronauts from China by Western news media. The term was coined in May 1998 by Chiew Lee Yih (赵里昱) from Malaysia, who used it first in newsgroups. Almost simultaneously, Chen Lan coined it for use in the Western media based on the term tàikōng (太空), Chinese for space. In Chinese itself, however, a single term yǔháng yuán (宇航員, "universe navigator") has long been used for astronauts and cosmonauts. The closest term using taikong is a colloquialism tàikōng rén (太空人, "space human") which refers to people who have actually been in space. Official English text issued by the Chinese government uses astronaut (Chinese: 航天员; pinyin: hángtiān yuán)."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/28/2005 12:25:00 AM
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A simple plan needed to end involvement in Iraq - Sunday, 11/27/05: "Shouting will accomplish nothing. What the nation needs is a blueprint for success and a clear agenda for getting troops out of Iraq. The withdrawal should not be immediate, as some have suggested. It should not even include a rigid timetable, because deadlines can have their own pitfalls. And the plan will not be perfect: Any plan that is written to extract the U.S. from this dangerous situation will, in itself, be dangerous."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/28/2005 12:20:00 AM
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Aljazeera.Net - US Congressmen in Iraq road accident: "The politicians were riding on Sunday in a box-like vehicle in a convoy. The convoy was taking up the middle of the road, a common practice used by the military to deter oncoming motorists. Shortly after dark, an oncoming truck refused to yield, Marshall said.

'Then all of a sudden brakes get slammed on. Then we hit something and go off the side of the road and tip over,' Marshall added.

He said that as the vehicle toppled over, he held onto Skelton, who has limited use of his arms due to childhood polio."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/28/2005 12:14:00 AM
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Former U.S. Attorney General Comes to Saddam's Defense - Los Angeles Times: "The team is expected to mount a dual defense -- challenging the authority of the tribunal while also justifying Saddam's deeds as the legitimate acts of a sovereign president seeking to maintain Iraq's stability and national unity.

If convicted, Saddam and his co-defendants could face the death penalty. But several other trials could follow for incidents ranging from the Halabja gassings to the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent 1991 suppression of Kurdish and Shiite uprisings.

That process could take years, but several prominent Iraqi politicians have suggested dropping the remaining charges in favor of a quick execution on the Dujail charges, if the defendants are found guilty."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/28/2005 12:12:00 AM
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Chinese decry toxic coverup | csmonitor.com: "'We are in the midst of a growing gap between official and unofficial views Chinese hold,' says one Chinese scholar. 'Every Chinese knows what they must think officially. But between that, and what they do think, is a wider gap. This partly explains [cases of local] instability.'"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/28/2005 12:09:00 AM
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Sunday, November 27, 2005 :::
 

The Australian: A life of fear, after the war [November 28, 2005]: "AFTER surviving two ferocious wars that claimed the lives of 18 relatives, Dzhambulat Dushayev hoped that yesterday's parliamentary election in Chechnya, the first in eight years, would herald peace.

The 35-year-old builder from the village of Staraya Sunzha believed the Kremlin's claim that the election signified a return to democracy, stability and security and even served on the electoral commission supervising the polling. But his faith proved to be tragically misplaced.

Ten days ago, he went to get his car washed at a garage on the outskirts of Grozny, the capital, and invited his cousin Ruslan to come along for the ride. Darkness was falling as he left his bungalow. He called out to his wife Raziat, 30, who is eight months pregnant, to lay the table for dinner. His children Deni, 3, and Amina, 14 months, waved as he left.

On the journey home, Dushayev and his cousin came across 10 heavily armed Russian soldiers who had spent most of the day drinking vodka in a wood, apparently to celebrate the end of their tour of duty in Chechnya.

The soldiers had just flagged down three scrap-metal dealers in a small truck. They had dragged two of them from the vehicle and ordered them to lie on the ground.

As Dushayev drove up, they were beating the men with their rifle butts. Some of the soldiers ran towards his car, brandishing Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles.

'They were shooting in the air,' Ruslan Dushayev said. 'They dragged us out of the car, threatened us and shouted abuse. They were very aggressive. Dzhambulat was calm. He thought it was an ID check.'

Sure enough, one of the soldiers demanded Ruslan's papers. He checked them, then ordered Ruslan to run away. As he fled, another soldier fired at him but missed.

Dzhambulat Dushayev was ordered to lie on the ground next to the two scrap-metal dealers who were being kicked and beaten.

What happened next was witnessed by the third scrap-metal dealer, Movsar Munayev, who had been held at gunpoint in the truck by a soldier so drunk that he could barely hold his weapon straight.

'He kept shouting that I had killed his brother and that now he would kill me,' Munayev, 23, said. 'He wanted money and I gave him all I had as well as my watch.'

The soldier shot out the lights of the truck and reached for a large hunting knife strapped to his chest, shouting that he was going to cut off Munayev's head. His commander intervened but the soldier shot Munayev in the leg and he fell out of the truck screaming.

'I turned my head to the side and saw the other three men on the ground,' Munayev said. 'They were beating them severely and one soldier kept yelling that they had killed his brother.

'One of the men on the ground was pleading for his life. 'Don't kill me', he kept saying. Then the Russians executed them.'

Dushayev, whose young family was waiting for him to join them for their evening meal, died first, shot in the forehead at point-blank range with a heavy machinegun. The bullets blew a gaping hole between his eyes and obliterated the back of his head. The other two men, Yusup Usmanov and Husain Ahmadov, both also married with children, were shot several times.

The Russians then repeatedly stabbed the bodies with a large hunting knife that was found later at the scene. Dushayev's family said he had nine stab wounds. His cousin Ruslan escaped by crawling into a roadside ditch."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/27/2005 10:52:00 AM
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The Australian: Gaza joy as 'gate of hope' open [November 28, 2005]: "Late in the week, X-ray machines from the nearby Gaza international airport, which has been closed by Israel for four years, were rushed to the crossing to help with security screening.

A small number of the 500 people a day who still turn up for work at the airport, despite not having dealt with a passenger since 2001, are expected to transfer to the crossing to help."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/27/2005 10:45:00 AM
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press-citizen.com | Local News: "The trip came together in the past two weeks, said Andy Kampman, who does college and world outreach work for Parkview Church in Iowa City. He said the group would spend two weeks in northern Pakistan helping build shelters for the victims of a powerful earthquake that struck the region last month. But, beyond that, he did not know much about the mission, including exactly where they were going.

'We don't know a lot of the details,' said Kampman, 28, of Iowa City, 'so we're going a lot by faith here.'"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/27/2005 10:42:00 AM
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Wednesday, November 23, 2005 :::
 

FT.com / World / Middle East & Africa - Qatar shock at al-Jazeera bombing report: "Qataris, including senior officials, reacted with shock on Wednesday to newspaper reports in Britain suggesting that George W Bush, the US president, had discussed bombing the Doha headquarters of the Arabic satellite TV channel al-Jazeera.

The report, in Tuesday's edition of the British Daily Mirror, was based on what the newspaper reported were leaked minutes of a conversation between Mr Bush and Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, on April 16 2004. On Tuesday the British government threatened newspapers with the Official Secrets Act if they revealed contents of the document, a move that reinforced suspicions in Qatar that the report might be genuine.

'I thought this was just a rumour, but now the UK has used the [threat of the] secrecy act to stop it, it raises more questions. It makes this high profile and we would be really interested to know what is going on,' a senior member of the ruling Al-Thani family said."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/23/2005 03:25:00 PM
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Thursday, November 17, 2005 :::
 

Quad-Cities Online: "Radish also supports the relationship between consumers and the local growers and producers involved in sustainable agriculture. The inaugural issue features the New Pioneer Co-op in Iowa City; natural gift-giving ideas; the revival by Midwest farmers of the American chestnut, and ways to recreate the first Thanksgiving -- naturally.

'Radish offers the information you need -- whether you already make healthy lifestyle choices or you want to learn about the healthy and environmentally responsible resources in this area,' said editor Joe Payne.

Radish is available at food stores, farmers' markets, fitness clubs, health-care facilities and other locations in the Quad-Cities, Iowa City, Fairfield, Dubuque, Galena, Sterling, Rock Falls and other cities in western Illinois and eastern Iowa. Copies also are available at the offices of The Dispatch and The Rock Island Argus."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/17/2005 02:13:00 PM
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Tuesday, November 15, 2005 :::
 

BBC NEWS | Americas | US high school teen elected mayor: "Peter Beck, principal of Hillsdale High, is quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying: 'I told him that if he wins, he'll still need to finish his homework... I'd hate to have to suspend a city official.'"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/15/2005 10:48:00 AM
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Sunday, November 13, 2005 :::
 

Boing Boing: Sony's rootkit infringes on software copyrights: "Close examination of the rootkit that Sony's audio CDs attack their customers' PCs with has revealed that their malicious software is built on code that infringes on copyright. Indications are that Sony has included the LAME music encoder, which is licensed under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL), which requires that those who use it attribute the original software and publish some of the code they write to use the library. Sony has done none of this."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/13/2005 01:35:00 PM
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Saturday, November 12, 2005 :::
 

mimi smartypants: "LT: What would you do with a bunch of tiny plastic fetuses?
Me: I'm not sure, but I'd think of something. Maybe I would drop them into coffee and surprise people. 'Oh man! Looks like someone aborted into your Starbucks!'
LT: There is performance art in here somewhere, I just know it.
Me: Decaf grande products-of-conception mocha!"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/12/2005 07:23:00 AM
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Thursday, November 10, 2005 :::
 

iDoom - News: "iDoom is a port of the classic id game Doom to the iPodlinux platform. It is based on the sourcecode from the original doom released by John Carmac in 1997.

iDoom currently supports all iPod-versions that can run iPodlinux."



And if Doom on your iPod isn't enough, you can always go over to It Plays Doom.


::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/10/2005 10:07:00 AM
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Wednesday, November 09, 2005 :::
 

Iowa Underground :: View topic - Are you on the List?: "Rove started the list while Bush served as governor of Texas, compiling information on various political enemies in the state and leaking damaging information on opponents to friends in the press. The list grew during Bush's first run for President in 2000 but the names multiplied rapidly after the terrorist attacks of 2001 and passage of the USA Patriot Act. Using the powers under the act, Rove expanded the list to more than 10,000 names, utilizing the FBI's 'national security letters' to gather private and intimate details on American citizens.

National security letters, which can be issued by an FBI supervisor without a judge's review or approval, allows the bureau to sweep up the records of virtually any American citizen, examining their telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans.

The FBI issues some 30,000 national security letters a year to employers, credit bureaus, banks, travel agencies and other sources of information on American citizens. The Patriot Act also forbids anyone receiving such a letter to reveal they have passed on information to the federal government.

'Those letters helped us build files quickly on those we needed to know more about,' says a former White House aide."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/09/2005 02:19:00 AM
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Tuesday, November 08, 2005 :::
 

mimi smartypants: "'Can I help you cook? Can I be your helper? You give me a big knife, the biggest knife I've ever seen! And I will chop and chop and chop and if the onion feeling goes in my eyes I will say AHHHHHH! Go away, onion! And onion says NO! And I say TIME OUT ONION!'"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/08/2005 08:27:00 PM
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The Escapist - Console Clones: "A society that has the strength of will to resist sparkling new consoles until the manufacturer concedes to providing a strong enough games library to support it is, in my opinion, not at the back of the sophistication scale, but a guiding light to those of us buried in the future and unable to find our way toward video game paradise. The current manufacturer of Brazil's line of Sega licensed clones, which contain up to 100 built-in games as well as the cartridge slot for all your eBay purchases, is apparently drowning in requests from all corners of the globe as to the availability of these magnificent machines. People do want hardware, just not in a way that is palatable to the seventh generation giants.

It's a remarkable notion that Sega, who pulled out of the hardware market due to their inability to compete with the original Playstation, may quite seriously pose a threat to the PS3 and Xbox 360 with a fifteen year old games system - hardware that is affordable in a second world country which has spent the last three decades being ignored by the industry. Maybe we should all heed the wise Brazilian player who has been shouting above the white noise of insipid video game exploitation since the early '80s: 'Who cares what new hardware is coming out? There's nothing left to play.'"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/08/2005 12:59:00 PM
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Monday, November 07, 2005 :::
 

JengaJam.com >> 600 Lb. Woman's Skin Grown Into Couch: "Emergency workers had to remove some sliding glass doors and lift the couch, with Grinds still on it, to a trailer behind a pickup truck. Removing her from the couch would be too painful, since her body was grafted to the fabric. After years of staying put, her skin had literally become one with the sofa and had to be surgically removed.

She died at Martin Memorial Hospital South, still attached to the couch."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/07/2005 09:49:00 PM
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Evolution in the bible, says Vatican - The Other Side - Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au: "'The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim,' he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that 'the universe didn't make itself and had a creator'.

This idea was part of theology, Cardinal Poupard emphasised, while the precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm - science. Cardinal Poupard said that it was important for Catholic believers to know how science saw things so as to 'understand things better'."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/07/2005 09:45:00 PM
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KRT Wire | 11/07/2005 | Carolina Panthers' cheerleaders arrested: "TAMPA, Fla. - Two Carolina Panthers cheerleaders were arrested just 11 hours before Sunday's game, the Tampa Tribune reported, for an incident after they had sex in a bathroom stall. One was charged with battery and another with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Sunday night, the Tribune reported on its Web site that officials were checking into whether one of the cheerleaders gave false identification - namely, the name of another cheerleader.

Witnesses say the incident began around 2:10 a.m. Sunday when the two were having sex in a bathroom stall at Banana Joe's in downtown Tampa. The report said some patrons got angry they were taking so long in the bathroom. The report also said that when they left the stall, one of the cheerleaders and another person began arguing and the cheerleader punched that person in the face."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/07/2005 06:48:00 PM
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Reuters AlertNet - Bush vows "we do not torture" terror suspects: "'We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice,' Bush said at a joint news conference with Panamanian President Martin Torrijos. 'We are gathering information about where the terrorists might be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do ... to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law.'"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/07/2005 10:16:00 AM
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Random Chaos: It Takes a Village to Raise a Word: "And he went on to post another paragraph about why these people are wrong. But he's missing the point. It doesn't matter what you want a word to mean, or even what a word should mean. A word means whatever it can successfully communicate. If half the internet thinks 'WiFi' means 'wireless fidelity' then that's what it means. Cory can post updates for months, but the meaning of the word will still be found in its actual use. Because that's how communication works.

'Quibble' is a good word, because that's what Cory has done here. That's all anyone can do when they see a good word go bad. However much we might like to, we simply can't force the world to adopt our own definitions. I'm amazed that Cory, a professional writer, doesn't realize this."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/07/2005 09:52:00 AM
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Sunday, November 06, 2005 :::
 

Little-known text plays key role in intelligent design trial - The Boston Globe: "The national publicity has boosted sales, which have jumped from an average of 125 a month to more than 300, said Dean Anderson, a spokesman for the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, a publisher of Christian books in Richardson, Texas.

''It definitely shows quite a significant increase around the country,' Anderson said.

''Obviously, controversial news gets people's attention, and this is something that really hits home with a lot of people. There's just no neutrality on this issue. It's very pro or very against. That's what makes sales, isn't it?' he said.

The 170-page book offers an alternative, some say religious-based, theory about the origins of life and presents what it says are gaps and problems with Darwin's theory of evolution. Intelligent design, the book says, holds that ''life was formed according to an intelligent plan by an intelligent designer.'

Written by Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon, ''Pandas' was published in 1989 and revised in 1993, eliminating any mention of creationism or creation science after the Supreme Court deemed it illegal to teach in government-funded schools.

For a small, arcane work, the book has succeeded in its struggle to survive.

The $24.95 book has sold 25,000 copies and is about to get a sixth printing of 5,000, according to the publisher. Those figures could not be confirmed by an independent publishing source. The book is sold mostly to homeschoolers through Christian book distributors."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/06/2005 11:03:00 PM
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10 Officers Shot as Riots Worsen in French Cities - New York Times: "'This is just the beginning,' said Moussa Diallo, 22, a tall, unemployed French-African man in Clichy-sous-Bois, the working-class Parisian suburb where the violence started Oct. 27. 'It's not going to end until there are two policemen dead.'

He was referring to the two teenage boys, one of Mauritanian origin and the other of Tunisian origin, whose accidental deaths while hiding from the police touched off the unrest, reflecting longstanding anger among many immigrant families here over joblessness and other hardships. Mr. Diallo did not say whether he had taken part in the vandalism.

On Saturday night alone, the tally in the rioting reached a peak of 1,300 vehicles burned, stretching into the heart of Paris, where 35 vehicles were destroyed, and touching a dozen other cities across the country.

Fires were burning in several places on Sunday night and hundreds of youths were reported to have clashed with the police in Grigny, a southern suburb of Paris where the shooting took place. On Saturday night, a car was rammed into the front of a McDonald's restaurant in the town."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/06/2005 10:57:00 PM
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BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US death row escapee recaptured: "Death row inmate Charles Victor Thompson fooled at least four prison employees to flee a Texas prison.

He was captured on Sunday in Shreveport in the neighbouring state of Louisiana, the US Marshals Service said.

The incident was a major embarrassment for the Houston authorities, who admitted the double murderer's escape was down to '100% human error'.

A reward of $10,000 had been offered for Thompson's recapture, but police have not so far explained how he was arrested."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/06/2005 10:54:00 PM
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Dorky Dancing
Originally uploaded by Kiyote23.
Sunday Night, 10:15 pm: The Dork Farm discovers that Madonna.com plays a continuous stream of Madonna music. The cats watch with mild amusement as chaos ensues.


::: Dorky Dancing posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/06/2005 10:38:00 PM
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USATODAY.com - Snap on, snap off celebrity choppers: "Think of the snap-on smile as the white-enameled cousin to the press-on nail. Think of it as yet more evidence of a public firmly sinking its incisors into celebrity culture. Only with this device, attaining Julia Roberts' million-dollar grin doesn't set someone back nearly that much. The resin appliance, which fits snugly over existing teeth, goes for $1,000 to $3,000.

The teeth also are more proof of dentistry's changing focus. 'It's not just for health,' says Jeff Golub-Evans, a Manhattan cosmetic dentist. 'More and more patients go to dentists to look better rather than to feel better.'

His Red Carpet Smile comes in several Oscar-winning models, based on pictures of the stars. You can pick the 'square, sexy' Gwyneth or the 'sophisticated' -- and most requested -- Halle, and you can choose from a range of shades. Business has grown every month since he started selling the custom-molded pieces two years ago.

A typical customer might be a teen with limited funds and, say, crooked teeth who is having her senior picture shot next week, says Lawrence Addleson, president of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/06/2005 10:09:00 PM
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Saturday, November 05, 2005 :::
 

AM - Pakistan President calls bias over inadequate relief assistance: "There it was spread to many countries. It affected many people from many countries of the world, especially the West, who were tourists in various areas. Here, unfortunately, this is a remote area, poor people affected. I would appeal to the world to see reality that it is these people who deserve aid much more because they are poor and they are facing much harsher conditions than tsunami."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/05/2005 06:19:00 PM
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CBS News | Search for Escaped Inmate Goes Nationwide: "Thompson, 35, of the Houston suburb of Tomball, was condemned in 1999 for the shooting deaths a year earlier of his ex-girlfriend, Dennise Hayslip, 39, of Tomball, and her new boyfriend, Darren Keith Cain, 30, of nearby Spring.

Thompson had been brought from death row to Houston after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered him resentenced. A new jury sentenced Thompson to death Oct. 28. He was in the county jail until he could be transferred back to prison in Livingston, about 75 miles to the northeast.

Thursday afternoon Thompson was taken to a room in the jail for a meeting with his attorney. The visitor, however, was not Thompson's attorney of record, Terrence Gaiser.

Martin said investigators have determined the other person was an attorney. But his name was not released because he is considered a witness.

'We are not necessarily suggesting he was involved with the escape, but we will be speaking with everybody who had contact with Thompson,' Martin said.

After the attorney left, Thompson was alone in the room and he managed to remove his handcuffs and slip off his bright orange prison jumpsuit.

He left the room wearing a dark blue shirt, khaki pants and white tennis shoes, which authorities believe were the clothes Thompson wore during his sentencing. Martin said Thompson somehow smuggled them back to his cell.

Thompson then left the prisoner's booth in the visiting room. Officials don't know if the booth was locked or not.

Once out of the room, Thompson waved a fake ID badge that wasn't scrutinized and said he worked for the Texas Attorney General's office as he passed at least four jail employees at work stations. Thompson was eventually let into the jail's visitor's lobby and from there he walked out of the building and into the street.

Martin said investigators on Friday found the clothing Thompson wore when he left the building. It was located behind one of the sheriff's department's other downtown jail buildings and some effort had been made to hide it, he said.

'It's pretty clear at this point there was somebody helping him,' Martin said."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/05/2005 06:13:00 PM
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CNN.com - Americas summit protest turns violent - Nov 5, 2005: "After marching through the streets, thousands of protesters headed to Mundialista Stadium, where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez led a rally against Bush's policies.

'Peoples of the Americas are rising once again, saying no to imperialism, saying no to fascism, saying no to intervention -- and saying no to death,' Chavez yelled to the cheering crowd.

Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona also participated in the protest, wearing a T-shirt accusing Bush of war crimes.

Chavez, a left-leaning populist, routinely denounces Bush as 'Mr. Danger' and refers to the United States as 'the Empire.' U.S. officials consider him to be a source of instability in the hemisphere."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/05/2005 06:07:00 PM
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Friday, November 04, 2005 :::
 

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog: Filmography: Swing, You Sinners: "ASIFA-Hollywood, in association with the UCLA Film & Television Archives, sponsors the 'Adopt-A-Cartoon' program to fully restore cartoons in danger of being lost forever to film deterioration. Under the supervision of Gere Gulden, the Director of the ASIFA-Hollywood Film Preservation Program, we have rescued dozens of important films, including significant titles by Walter Lantz, George Pal and the Fleischer Brothers.

One of the films preserved with the assistance of ASIFA-Hollywood was the classic Fleischer Talkartoon, Swing, You Sinners. Animated by Ted Sears and Willard Bowsky, with an eye-popping surreal ending by Grim Natwick and Bowsky, this film was the first of many Fleischer cartoons that mixed surrealism, cartoony ghosts & goblins, and hot jazz. While other studios built their cartoons around fairy tale stories or topical gags, the Fleischers constructed cartoons in the same way jazz music was constructed... statement of the theme, a series of variations and a big finish."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/04/2005 04:17:00 PM
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Thursday, November 03, 2005 :::
 

ABC News: Brown Discussed Wardrobe During Katrina: "The e-mails show that Brown, who had been planning to step down from his post when the storm hit, was preoccupied with his image on television even as one of the first FEMA officials to arrive in New Orleans, Marty Bahamonde, was reporting a crisis situation of increasing chaos to FEMA officials.

'My eyes must certainly be deceiving me. You look fabulous and I'm not talking the makeup,' writes Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs to Brown on 7:10 a.m. local time on Aug. 29.

'I got it at Nordstroms,' Brown writes back. 'Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?' An hour later, Brown adds: 'If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god.'

A week later, Brown's aide, Sharon Worthy, reminds him to pay heed to his image on TV. 'In this crises and on TV you just need to look more hardworking ' ROLL UP THE SLEEVES!' Worthy wrote, noting that even President Bush 'rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow.'"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/03/2005 05:33:00 PM
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Boing Boing: Florida DUI convictions tossed due to proprietary firmware: "The accused were demanding an audit of the breathalyzer's firmware as part of a defense that they breathalyzer is defective and the Judge agreed that this was reasonable. The breathalyzer manufacturer is refusing to supply the source, which may result in all the DUI convictions being thrown out."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/03/2005 11:18:00 AM
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Qaeda Operative in Southeast Asia Has Fled U.S. Jail in Afghanistan - New York Times: "WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 - Omar al-Faruq, a confidant of Osama bin Laden who was one of Al Qaeda's senior operatives in Southeast Asia, escaped from an American military prison in Afghanistan in July, a Pentagon official said Wednesday.

Military authorities acknowledged in July that four suspected Qaeda terrorists had escaped from the heavily fortified prison at Bagram Air Base, apparently by picking the locks of their cells and slipping past a careless Afghan guard. They remain at large."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/03/2005 10:59:00 AM
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Changing the Subject -- Back: "Charles Babington and Dafna Linzer write in The Washington Post: 'Democrats forced the Senate into a rare closed-door session yesterday, infuriating Republicans but extracting from them a promise to speed up an inquiry into the Bush administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's weapons in the run-up to the war. . . .

'Beneath the political pyrotechnics was an issue that has infuriated liberals but flummoxed many of the Democratic lawmakers who voted three years ago to approve the war: allegations that administration officials exaggerated Iraq's weapons capabilities and terrorism ties and then resisted inquiries into the intelligence failures. Friday's indictment of top White House aide I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby on perjury and obstruction charges gave Democrats a new opening to demand that more light be shed on these issues, including administration efforts to discredit a key critic of the prewar claims of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

'Democrats were dismayed that President Bush made no apologies after the indictment and that his naming of a new Supreme Court nominee Monday knocked the Libby story off many front pages. As he stood on the Senate floor to demand the closed session -- a motion not subject to a vote under the rule -- [Minority Leader Harry M.] Reid said Libby's grand jury indictment 'asserts this administration engaged in actions that both harmed our national security and are morally repugnant.' '"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/03/2005 10:48:00 AM
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BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraqi Muslims are split over Eid: "The run-up to the holiday witnessed a series of deadly and provocative car bomb attacks on crowded Shia areas.

They often took place just before iftar, the breaking of the daily fast at dusk when streets are busy with last-minute shoppers.

But so far the feast itself has been largely peaceful. In many areas families wearing their new holiday clothes have been out enjoying the autumn sunshine, paying family visits or taking their children to funfairs.

But not all Iraq's Muslims are taking part.

The Sunnis are, but the top Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, declared that the feast should not start until Friday.

That is the date also adopted by neighbouring Iran, where Shia Islam predominates.

But the strand of Shia represented by the maverick young cleric Moqtada Sadr decided to go along with Thursday as the day for the Eid to start.

So celebrations are already under way in parts of Baghdad and the south, where the Sadrs have a strong following, as well as in the Sunni areas.

But other Shia neighbourhoods will not be joining in until Friday.
"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/03/2005 10:45:00 AM
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Libby Pleads Not Guilty in CIA Leak Case: "Cheney's top aide signaled his determination to fight the charges after Friday's grand jury indictment, which has provided more fuel to the political debate over the White House's possible misuse of prewar intelligence on Iraq. Libby bolstered his defense team this week with two well-known criminal trial lawyers, Ted Wells and William Jeffress.

Wells won acquittals for former Agriculture Secretary Michael Espy and former Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan. He is a partner at the New York-based firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

Jeffress is from the firm Baker Botts, where Bush family friend and former Secretary of State James A. Baker is a senior partner. Jeffress has won acquittals for public officials accused of extortion, perjury, money laundering, and vote-buying, his firm's Web site says."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/03/2005 10:44:00 AM
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Welcome to GoIowaCity!: "The University of Iowa's Maia String Quartet, in its first full performance on campus since changing first and second violinists over the summer, will play a newly revised work by composer Dan Coleman in a free concert at 8 p.m. tonight in Clapp Recital Hall."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/03/2005 10:39:00 AM
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Welcome to GoIowaCity!: "Actor Joniece Abbott-Pratt portrays Hester, the play's central character and a homeless mother of five. She said she was introduced to a woman in the shelter who was grappling with the same challenge.

'The relationship I developed with the family I met at the homeless shelter has been unforgettable,' she said.

'I appreciate them so much for letting me ask questions and be a part of their lives. Without knowing much about me or the project, they were immediately supportive and encouraging, as were many others from the shelter.'"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/03/2005 10:38:00 AM
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press-citizen.com | Local News: "Carl Orgren, a University Heights resident and former director of the University of Iowa School of Library and Information Sciences, is distressed at the thought of losing library service in his town.

'We're in an intellectual center, and we're threatened with no library service,' he said. 'It is a service, like schools, roads, police service, that ought to be covered.'

Orgren worked to draft the library levy proposal that voters will see on their ballots Tuesday. It asks if residents are willing to pay 27 cents per $1,000 taxable value of their homes. Orgren said if passed, the levy would raise about $12,000 a year.

He said the libraries suggested the city will need to pay about $30,000 a year for service, based on what other communities of a similar size in Iowa pay for library service. The city would pay the difference between what the levy raises and what the libraries need.

Van Dusseldorp said a price for library service had not been set in stone and the libraries are willing to negotiate costs with the city.

He said he hoped residents don't feel the libraries don't want their patronage.

'We're very interested in continuing to provide library services to the people that live in University Heights,' he said. 'All we're asking them to do is share in the expense of those institutions.'

Orgren said he saw the levy vote as a way for the city to determine if it should look for the additional money.

'My contention is if we can't get this library levy passed, why should they bother? If we can, they should bother because it's politically apparent the citizens want the service,' he said. 'We all have to deal with priorities, and I happen to believe library services are a priority.'"



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/03/2005 10:35:00 AM
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press-citizen.com | Local News: "A group of West High students walked out of class Wednesday morning to protest the Bush Administration's handling of the war in Iraq.

The number of students who participated was between 30 and 70, with organizers opting for the higher number. Junior Matt Kazinka said the students walked out of the school about 10 a.m. after hearing about the national movement WorldCant Wait.org, an anti-Bush group. He said the students mainly protested the war in Iraq outside on the school's lawn.

Kazinka said he hoped to create a network of protesters with students at other high schools.

Assistant principal Molly Abraham said the students did not disrupt class, though she expected some to be punished for skipping class."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/03/2005 10:32:00 AM
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Tuesday, November 01, 2005 :::
 

Day of the Dead - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The festival which was to become Día de Muertos fell on the ninth month of the Aztec Solar Calendar, near the start of August, and was celebrated for the entire month. Festivities were presided over by the goddess Mictecacihuatl, known as the "Lady of the Dead". The festivities were dedicated to the celebration of children and the lives of dead relatives.

When the Spanish Conquistadors arrived in America in the 15th century they were appalled at the indigenous pagan practices, and in an attempt to convert the locals to Roman Catholicism moved the popular festival to the beginning of November to coincide with the Catholic All Saints and All Souls days. All Saints' Day is the day after Halloween, which was in turn based on the earlier pagan ritual of Samhain, the Celtic day and feast of the dead. The Spanish combined their custom of Halloween with the similar Mesoamerican festival, creating Dia de los Muertos, The Day of the Dead. This is an example of syncretism or the blending of a significant event from two different cultural traditions. Indigenous people of the Americas often would outwardly adopt the European rituals, while maintaining their original native beliefs."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/01/2005 04:47:00 PM
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::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/01/2005 04:45:00 PM
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mimi smartypants: "Nora: This corn is not on the cob.
Me: No, it's not.
Nora: Who, who, who, who loosened it?
Me: Um, I'm not really sure.
Nora: I think it was somebody at the factory who loosened it. That is the somebody's work. He goes to his work job and he says, 'Okay, now I will loosen the corn!' And then he does. And then I eat it. The end."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/01/2005 12:29:00 PM
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People's Daily Online -- US release 500 Iraqi detainees from Abu Ghraib prison: "The US military released about 500 Iraqi detainees from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison on Tuesday, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.

'The US side informed us that they decided to release 500 prisoners from the US-run jail,' the source said.

The Interior Ministry sent several buses to Abu Ghraib prison, known for US soldiers' abuse of Iraqi prisoners, to bring the detainees to the Baghdad International Fair in the center of the capital, the source added.

Iraqi security forces tightened security around the area of the exhibition, where dozens of Iraqis waited for their loved kin to arrive.

Early last month, the US military freed some 1,000 Iraqi detainees from Abu Ghraib prison in honor of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.

The US military did not confirm the ministry's information."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/01/2005 09:14:00 AM
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Pak-based ultras deny involvement in Delhi blasts - Deccan Herald - Internet Edition: "A spokesman for Jaish-e-Mohammed, a group blamed for numerous terrorist attacks in the past, accused India of using the attacks 'for political purposes.' 'There are other armed and trained insurgent groups in India. They can carry out such attacks against India,' Hassan Burki told AP by telephone. 'The Indian army is setting up more bases in Kashmir. This is just a ruse,' he claimed.

A spokesman for another banned militant group, Jamiat-ul Ansar, said its Islamic fighters do not operate in India.

'They have never carried out any attack in India. They are busy in Kashmir,' said Asim Farooq, the Ansar spokesman.

A little-known Kashmiri group, Islamic Inquilab Mahaz, has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but analysts doubt its ability to carry out such a mission. Instead, some have blamed Lashkar-e-Toiba, which has been declared a terrorist group by the US.

The denials came a day after the head of the largest Islamic militant group Hizb-ul Mujahedeen, claimed that no 'recognised jihadis' -- or Islamic fighters -- could be involved in the New Delhi bombings.

Hiz chief Syed Salahuddin said an alliance of militant organizations that he leads does not target civilians."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/01/2005 09:13:00 AM
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World news from The Times and the Sunday Times - Times Online: "Supporters of the main opposition party, Civic United Front (CUF), have claimed a historic victory in the presidential election. But the Zanzibar Electoral Commission said this afternoon that the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) had once more retained control of the province.

The electoral commission said that President Amani Abeid Karume of the CCM, which has governed Zanzibar for 41 years, had won 53.2 percent of the vote, versus 46.1 percent for the CUF's candidate, Seif Sharif Hamad. Mr Hamad has accused the government of widespread vote-rigging.

The commission also announced that the CCM has retained control of Zanzibar's parliament, winning 30 of the 50 seats in the House of Representatives. The CUF won 18 seats and one seat was undecided.

It is unclear how opposition supporters in the archipelago, which is a semi-autonomous region of Tanzania and a popular tourist destination, will react.

This morning the CUF claimed victory in the election and promised "mass action" if their candidate, Mr Hamad, was not made president.

Later the CUF asked for international intervention as violence spread to the streets of Stone Town, the main city on Zanzibar, and to Pemba, a stronghold of the party.

"Police are going house to house beating our people up," a CUF spokesman told Reuters. "We have confirmed one person killed in Wete and four more in Konde (on Pemba). The situation is very bad. We need urgent international mediation.""



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/01/2005 09:11:00 AM
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The Australian: Foreign ministers' warning for Syria [November 02, 2005]: "The binding resolution demands that Syria detain and make available for questioning any Syrian officials named as suspects by the UN inquiry into the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Although no Syrian officials have yet been named as suspects, a UN inquiry has implicated President Bashar Assad's brother and brother-in-law, as well as a former head of Syrian military intelligence and a former head of Syrian internal security.

Mr Assad, a former London opthalmologist who inherited power from his father, is likely to find it hard to comply with the terms of the resolution.

Western diplomats say Mr Assad is only the second or third most powerful person in Syria, after Assef Shawkat, his brother-in-law and head of military intelligence, and his younger brother, Maher, who runs the Republican Guard.

The two men were implicated by the UN inquiry into the Valentine's Day bomb blast that killed Harari, Hassan Khalil, then head of military intelligence, Bahjat Suleiman, a friend of Mr Assad, and 20 others."



::: posted by kiyote23
::: at 11/01/2005 09:09:00 AM
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