Providing How-Do's, News, and Media

UPDATE Mac Computer Crash Tutorial

2008-01-18T23:21:00.000-08:00

The only problem is this *virus has to be made on a mac. [any mac - not just the one you are crashing]

To start open up Automator and make a custom Automator.

Click record

Press apple + shift + A [applications hotkey]

Press apple + A [It will select every application]

Exit the applications folder.

Stop recording and you will see a New watch me do [it will say what you just did]

Press record again and press apple + O [the letter not the number]

Stop recording.

Drag the Apple + O into the first "watch me do"

Close the second one.

Click file>Save As

Use these settings [name it whatever you want]

DO NOT OPEN THIS, EVEN THOUGH IT WILL NOT DAMAGE YOUR MAC ITS FUCKING ANNOYING AND YOU WILL BE FORCED TO SHITDOWN YOUR COMPUTER

The second part [optional]
To change the icon on this right click on the application, click on get info.

Now right click whatever you want the icon from[e.g. jpg,png,ipod icon...]

Click on the the icon then press Apple + C [copy]

Now click on the automator icon and click Apple + v [paste]

Mascots Beat Up Two Guys!

2007-10-24T10:52:00.000-07:00

WARNING: Somewhat of an adult video

2007-10-17T18:23:00.001-07:00

How to open a XBOX 360

2007-10-17T18:16:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the late update, but I have been very busy lately. Anyways, enjoy this guide!

Warning: removing any stickers on the Xbox 360 console will void your warrantee. I am not responsible for anything you screw up. Continue at your own risk.

Tools

1. A flat head screw driver

2. T-10 and a T-8 screwdriver

3. Ice pick or something close

So then, we will start out with an Xbox 360 core. (There’s no difference between core and the standard, its just the HDD is missing)

Ok, now take off the faceplate, if you don’t know how to take this off then you probably shouldn\\’t be opening your 360.

Moving on. If you look at the side of your 360, you will see the side vents (all the little holes) if you look there are 5 V\\’s. In the middle of them are gray plastic pieces.

Use the ice pick or what ever to push the gray piece. You will need to do the same for both sides of the 360, and also you will need to remove the little gray feet.

Once you have pushed the gray pieces through the holes with the pick, remove the gray top and bottom vents.

Ok now flip the Xbox around and look at the back. You will need to push the \\"tabs\\" in with your flat head screwdriver.

Now flip the Xbox to the front. If you look there are 4 clips that you undo with your flat head screwdriver.

Now pull the top off, and you will see a lot of screws.

Now use your T-10 screwdriver on all of the SILVER screws. Do not unscrew the black screws. Those are only for taking off the Heatsinks.

The final step

Pull off the top.

To remove the DVD drive, just remove the cables from it and pull it out. There is a sticker on it you will have to cut. The fan duct just pulls out.

Portable Applications for USB's

2007-08-05T00:41:00.000-07:00

Priest Gets In Fight With Skaters

2007-08-02T00:45:00.000-07:00

Making a Homemade Hacky Sack

2007-07-26T16:39:00.001-07:00

You will need

1.an old sock

2.rice

3.scissors

4.a sewing needle

5.thread to sew with

Instructions

1.Take an old sock and cut it about 4 -6 inches from the bottom.

2.Grab a handful of rice, and place it in the half of the sock you cut out. (more rice will make the hackie sac harder to keep it up, less will make it easier.)

3.fold off the top of the hackie sac where rice can come out and begin to sew it close.

the final project will look like so.

Microsoft Shaves $20 Off Xbox HD DVD Price

2007-07-26T16:27:00.001-07:00

The opposing camps in the high-definition DVD wars were in the midst of a fresh round of fire Thursday, when Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft announced a US$20 price drop and free bundled movies on its Xbox 360 Latest News about Xbox 360 HD DVD Player.

Starting Aug. 1, the price of the Xbox 360 add-on will fall from $199 to $179, the company announced at Comic-Con International. In addition, in an extension of Toshiba's Latest News about Toshiba "Perfect Offer" of five free HD DVD discs -- previously exclusive to Toshiba HD DVD Players -- consumers who purchase the Xbox 360 HD DVD player between Aug. 1 and Sept. 30 will be able to choose five free movies from a list of 15 through a mail-in offer, providing a $140 retail value at no extra charge.

"With the price reduction to $179, the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player continues to be the most affordable Manage remotely with one interface -- the HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server. way to enjoy high definition," said Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of global marketing for the entertainment and devices division's interactive entertainment business at Microsoft.

"From the beginning, we set out to offer Xbox 360 owners an unrivaled high-definition experience, with a choice of optical discs on the HD DVD format and digital downloads through Xbox Live Marketplace -- both of which have a selection of the best content Hollywood has to offer," Bell said.
A Targeted Coup
On the Blu-ray Disc side, meanwhile, Sony (NYSE: SNE) Latest News about Sony announced Thursday that Target has chosen to carry exclusively Sony Blu-ray Disc players in its stores beginning this fall and extending at least through the holiday season.

The Sony BDP-S300 Blu-ray Disc player will arrive in Target stores in October as part of a holiday feature endcap highlighting the consumer benefits of Blu-ray Disc technology. The endcap will also feature an expanded list of movie titles from a variety of Hollywood studios, Sony said.

Target's decision comes just weeks after Blockbuster also announced that it was committing to Blu-ray as the format for the movies it will carry in its stores.

"Target's decision to promote Blu-ray Disc players in the fourth quarter sends an important message to those who may still be sitting the high-definition fence," said David Bishop, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. "This promotion from Target and Sony will lend further credibility to the benefits associated with Blu-ray Disc technology."
All-Out War

The Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats are vying to become the next-generation standard that will replace today's DVDs. The HD DVD format is backed by a consortium headed by Toshiba, while Blu-ray is backed by a group led by Sony.

Until the dust settles, consumers face a difficult choice as to which format they invest in. To tip the scales in their favor, both sides have been announcing price cuts and bundling offers to sway consumer preference. Sony, for example, recently dropped prices by $100 on its PlayStation 3 Latest News about PlayStation 3, which includes a Blu-ray player.

Content availability has also been a differentiating point. In a move to ramp up HD DVD content offerings, for example, Microsoft on Thursday also unveiled exclusive content for its Xbox Live Marketplace. Starting Aug. 14, Xbox Live will offer Warner Bros. Latest News about Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group's "300" on-demand in HD.

For a limited time, Xbox Live members will also be able to download for free the pilot episode of Universal Studios' "Heroes: Season 1" in high definition in advance of the street release date, as well as trailers, teaser scenes and other promotional materials, the company announced.

"We have definitely seen some heated battles between the HD DVD and Blu-ray camps," Michael Cai, director of broadband and gaming with Parks Associates Latest News about Parks Associates, told TechNewsWorld.

"If Microsoft did not drop its price and start bundling movies, this Xbox add-on player could be more expensive than a stand-alone Toshiba player -- there wouldn't be any market for it," he said.
Blu-ray in the Lead?

"Price drops are always good," agreed Adrienne Downey, senior analyst with Semico Research.

"Both Blu-ray and HD DVD still have a ways to go before they become a mass-market thing, and this will certainly help HD DVD out," Downey told TechNewsWorld.

The support of Blockbuster and Target may indicate that Blu-ray is gaining ground, particularly when combined with the fact that Blu-ray has gained the support of every major Hollywood movie studio except Universal Pictures, which has committed to HD DVD exclusively. In addition, Toshiba lowered its sales Email Marketing Software - Free Demo target for high-definition DVD players and recorders last month because of disappointing sales figures in the United States.
Muddy Waters

"The momentum is shifting toward Blu-ray, so Microsoft had to respond," Jim Nail, chief strategy and marketing officer with Cymfony, told TechNewsWorld.

Will Microsoft's move be enough to sway a significant number of consumers?

"When it comes to Xbox and PS3, what we've seen is that the primary driver of the buying decision is the gaming aspect, not the movie aspect," Nail said. "People will make that decision based on the strength of the game system."

Ultimately, how the battle plays out is difficult to predict, Cai concluded: "There are a lot of factors here making the water very muddy."

How to Create A Web Browser Using Visual Basic 6

2007-07-24T15:04:00.000-07:00

Once you start it up, you should get a screen like this:

Choose "Standard EXE" and you should get a screen like this:

Here is when we must enable the internet features (For web browsing). Press the Shortcut "CTRL+T", and you will get this:

This is the component box, where you disable and enable components. If your box is empty, and shows no components, uncheck the "Selected Items Only" box. The components you are going to have to enable for a web browser are "Microsoft Internet Controls" and "Microsoft Internet Transfer Control 6.0". They should be right beside each other. Check mark both of them and click ok. Once you clicked ok, you should notice two (2) new buttons on your General Sidebar. They should look like this: (Yes, I used Paint. Shut up)

Ok, now that we have the internet part set up, we must make the Size correct. On the bottom right hand corner, you should see a little box, called "Form Layout". Move the little window around, and that is where it will start. Also, in the main window, select the bottom right corner of the "Form 1" box, and drag it to the correct size, then go to the "Form Layout" box again, and select where you want it to start-up.

Ok, when you have you size as you want it, click on the little globe in the general sidebar.

Now, with that tool selected, click a place on "Form1" where you want you web browser to start, and drag it to where you want it to stop. Once you’re done, click on the bottom right hand corner of the new white box, and drag it to perfection. The new white box should be called "WebBrowser1". To check, click on it (once) and look on the right side of your screen.

Congratulations! You have your browser!.....But no buttons.....

What were going to do now, is create a "Back", "Forward", "Home", and an address bar. It should be pretty easy. First, open up a space on your "Form1" box, so you have room to enter the buttons. (Make sure the WebBrowser1 isn’t taking up all of the space). First, lets create an address bar. Select the "Combo Box" button, and drag a text box on an open space (The right size for an address bar):

Name the new text box "Text1" in the properties section on the right hand of the screen (Like I showed you for WebBrowser1).

Now, right click on "Text1", and click "View Code". A blank text (Notepad Like) screen should come up. Click on the little arrow at the box that says "general", and select "Text1" or whatever you named your address bar ComboBox.

You should get some text like this:

Now, that is good. Very Good. *CLAP* *CLAP*. I’m proud. But oh noes! We don’t have a "Go" button! So, what were going to do, is one space under the

Quote:

Private Sub Text1_Change()

End Sub

We are going to paste this code right here:

Quote:

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()

WebBrowser1.Navigate Text1.Text

End Sub

It should now look like this, with a little separator in between:

I know what your thinking: "What? There is no CommandButton1". I know, I just did this to make it faster and easier. Now, get out of the "View Code" section by pressing the little "X" in the right hand corner. NO! Not the big "X", the small one. Now your screen should look like this again:

You need to add the "Go" button! Select the "CommandButton" in your General Sidebar, and go to "Form1" and create a button!(PS: I know my address bar is a textbox, not combobox, but you still need a combobox.)

Now you have your button! Click on the button (once), and go to the properties (Right Hand Side). You SHOULD notice the name is "CommandButton1". If not, change it to "CommandButton1". You might also notice when you look at the button, it doesn’t say go! So, look at the caption section in properties, and change it to "Go", or whatever you want your Go button to say.

Perfect! Now, test it out by pressing F5! Also, with the "Text1" bar, it might say "Text1" on it when you test it. To get rid of that, go to properties, and scroll to the bottom, and delete everything in the "Text" section (Which should only be "Text1")

Now, we will create a "Back", "Forward", "Stop", and "Home" button. To create those buttons, just do it the exact same way you did for the "Go" button, but don’t insert the code. Use this tool:

Ok, now it has the buttons. Change the Names to this:

BACK - cmdback

FORWARD - cmdforward

STOP - cmdstop

HOME - cmdHome

Now, right click on ONE of the buttons, and click view code. You will notice that their is no new code! Oh noes! Their is no new code! What do we do! We call Atl! That’s what! Sorry...His name just popped into my head....What we do, is paste this in the code section:

Quote:

Private Sub cmdBack_Click()

WebBrowser1.GoBack

End Sub

Private Sub cmdForward_Click()

WebBrowser1.GoForward

End Sub

Private Sub cmdStop_Click()

WebBrowser1.GoStop

End Sub

Private Sub cmdHome_Click()

WebBrowser1.GoHome

End Sub

Their. All the buttons work. Tada! j00 have a Web Browser!.....But wouldn’t it be much, much more simple to press the return key (enter) instead of pressing "Go!" everytime? Yesh!!!!!111!!1!! That’s why I made this:

Quote:

Private Sub Text1_KeyDown(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)

If KeyCode = vbKeyReturn Then

WebBrowser1.Navigate Text1.Text

End If

End Sub

Place that at the end of your code! (Right-Click, View Code)

In the end, if you want your code to look like this:

Quote:

Private Sub cmdBack_Click()

WebBrowser1.GoBack

End Sub

Private Sub cmdForward_Click()

WebBrowser1.GoForward

End Sub

Private Sub cmdStop_Click()

WebBrowser1.Stop

End Sub

Private Sub cmdHome_Click()

WebBrowser1.GoHome

End Sub

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()

WebBrowser1.Navigate Text1.Text

End Sub

Private Sub Text1_KeyDown(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)

If KeyCode = vbKeyReturn Then

WebBrowser1.Navigate Text1.Text

End If

End Sub

Tada! Thanks for reading!

Now I will tell you an error, you might get if you use Internet Explorer 7.0.

That error will ONLY COME UP WHEN IN VISUAL BASIC. ONCE COMPILED TO AN EXE FILE (Enough with the caps), then it won’t come up. Also, you might get this error:

Well, to turn that off is a whole new thing. First, go into your control panel, or through internet Explorer, and click "Internet Options". You will get a screen like:

Now, change to the "Advanced" Tab, and look under the browsing section. Look at these three boxes, and make sure they are exactly like in the picture:

Near Fatal Bridge Dive Video

2007-07-23T17:49:00.000-07:00

Spain's Most Wanted Robber Arrested

2007-07-23T13:09:00.001-07:00

LISBON (Reuters) - Spain's most wanted robber, accused of killing three policemen and holding up more than 30 banks disguised in a false beard and a wig, was arrested on Monday in Portugal, Spanish and Portuguese police said.

The man known until now only by his nickname "The Loner" was in disguise and armed with a submachinegun in preparation for another bank robbery when he was arrested in Figueira da Foz, a coastal city 200 km north of Lisbon, police said.

"We're very pleased. He's the most wanted criminal in Spain, a very cruel criminal," Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Rubalcaba told reporters in Lisbon.

Police named The Loner as 51-year-old Jaime Jimenez Arbe. Rubalcaba said police had trailed him for weeks and Spain would request his extradition.

The Loner, whose heavily disguised face has graced Spanish news bulletins for years thanks to footage from security cameras, would enter banks with a metal crutch and a submachinegun hidden under a bulky jacket.

Despite a varying wardrobe of long, dark wigs, police had suspected that the man probably in his 40s, was bald and really lightly built underneath layers of clothing and a flak jacket.

Israel Marks Blair Visit With Pledge to Renew Talks

2007-07-23T13:05:00.001-07:00

ERUSALEM (Reuters) - Tony Blair began his first visit to the Middle East as international envoy on Monday, meeting Israeli leaders who promised to try to revive the long-stalled peace process with the Palestinians.

"It is time to renew the process and I'm sure that the (Israeli) prime minister will do that in the nearest future," Haim Ramon, a senior Israeli cabinet minister and vice premier, told the newly retired British prime minister in Jerusalem.

Blair hopes to help bring an end to 60 years of peacemaking failure since Britain handed Palestine to Jews and Arabs who are still fighting over it.

"Mission Impossible", as sceptics have dubbed Blair's task for the Quartet powers, began quietly in what his spokesman called "listening mode".

"This is a critical point in time to create a turning point," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Blair.

She said the prospects for a Palestinian state depended on a serious crackdown on militants and on the Palestinian government controlling all its territory and recognising Israel's right to exist.

Blair, who earlier in the day met Jordan's foreign minister, said nothing in public.

On Tuesday, Blair will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Ramallah before talks in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

"This is a preliminary visit to hear the views of key Israelis and Palestinians about the issues that have to be addressed in order to fulfil the demanding mandate Mr. Blair has taken on," the spokesman for the new envoy said.

"Mr. Blair will also have the chance to hear from a number of important Arab leaders their views on the situation and consider with them how best we can jointly make progress."

Ahead of Tuesday's meeting, Israeli officials said Olmert was prepared to discuss "in general terms" core issues, including borders, with Abbas after insisting for months that they not be included.

Olmert still believes that talk of relaunching final status negotiations remained premature for now despite mounting U.S. pressure, the officials said.

BLAIR'S ROLE

The Quartet -- the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia -- has asked Blair to present by September an initial plan for building ruling institutions needed to establish a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel.

But that limited mandate could expand later into a more direct peacemaking role between the parties, diplomats say.

That might unsettle Israel. Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, made clear Israel saw Blair's role as supporting Palestinian institutions: "Seeing their capacity to rule grow will definitely help the bilateral track," she told reporters.

Blair faces serious obstacles to success in a role that has doomed his predecessors' efforts. A Palestinian state seems more remote than ever, with their territories divided between Hamas Islamists in the coastal Gaza Strip and Abbas's secular Fatah faction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank inland.

Israel's government may be too weak to deliver concessions such as the withdrawal of Jewish settlements. Many Arabs resent Blair's role in invading Iraq, and the Quartet remains divided over whether he should have a broader negotiating mandate.

In his favour may be eagerness among leaders on both sides to raise their stock at home by showing progress towards peace.

A close relationship with U.S. President George W. Bush may give added clout to Blair, a relatively youthful 54-year-old successful in peacemaking in his Northern Irish backyard.

Abbas wants Blair to pressure Israel to ease its military grip on the West Bank and take steps to accelerate negotiations.

For Hamas in Gaza, spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Blair must deal with the Islamist movement and avoid "double standards".

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Adam Entous in Jerusalem)

No cancer found in polyps removed during Bush's medical exam

2007-07-23T13:03:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON, July 23 (Xinhua) -- No cancer was found in the five polyps removed from U.S. President George W. Bush during a routine colon exam last Saturday, the White House said Monday.

"The president is in good health," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. "There's no reason for alarm."

Despite no cancer was found, doctors recommended that Bush undergo colonoscopy in every three years because polyps were discovered, he said.

"When you have the growth of polyps you want to just be very careful to keep your eye on what develops so that the patient, in fact, does not get into a position when you have to worry about it," Snow said.

Bush, 61, underwent the colonoscopy at the presidential retreat of Camp David, Maryland on Saturday, during which he temporarily handed over power to Vice President Dick Cheney, the third time in U.S. history that a president has handed presidential powers temporarily to his vice president.

This was the second time that Bush has ceded power to Cheney due to a colonoscopy. In June 2002, Bush handed over his power to Cheney for more than two hours during a routine colon screening.

In 1998 and 1999, two polyps were discovered during medical checks when Bush was governor of Texas, and he has been undergoing regular exams since.

Polyps are extra pieces of growths inside the large intestine. Most polyps are not dangerous, but over time, they can turn cancerous.

American Support for War Inches Up

2007-07-23T13:01:00.001-07:00

American support for the war in Iraq has risen somewhat as the White House has continued to ask the public to reserve judgment about the war until General David Petraeus files his report in the fall.

In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted over the weekend, 42 percent of Americans said taking military action in Iraq was the right thing to do, while 51 percent said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq.

Support had been at all time low in May, when only 35 percent of Americans said the United States’ involvement in Iraq was the right thing and 61 percent said the United States should have stayed out.

Still, the latest poll made clear that a two-thirds majority of Americans continue to say the war is going badly. However, the number of people who say the war is going “very badly” has fallen from 45 percent earlier in July to a current reading of 35 percent, and of those who say it is going well, 29 percent now describe it as “somewhat well” compared to 23 percent just last week.

At the end of a week that included a contentious Senate debate leading to an all-night session, Americans have a low opinion of Congress. Six in 10 Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing in general. When asked specifically about their opinions of how the Democrats and Republicans in Congress are handling the war, disapproval ratings are similar — 65 percent disapprove of the way the Republicans have handled it, and 59 percent disapprove of the Democrats.

The nationwide telephone poll was conducted Friday through Sunday with 889 adults. The margin of sampling error for all adults is plus or minus 3 percentage points and larger for subgroups.

The modest gains in support for the war in Iraq come at a time when there are new warnings from the Bush Administration about heightened terrorist activity. A majority of Americans say that in the long run, the United States will be safer from terrorism if it stays out of the affairs of countries in the Middle East. But there is a sharp party divide on the issue — 73 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of independents and 28 percent of Republicans agree.

Americans are divided over whether the Bush administration’s discussion of terrorism is out of a genuine concern or if it is a political tool. Half of those polled say members of the Bush Administration talk about the threat of terrorism to gain a political advantage, while 39 percent consider the threat a genuine issue.

News about Iraq has captured Americans’ attention recently with two-thirds of the poll’s respondents reporting that they have paid “a lot” or “some” attention to news about the war in Iraq over the last few weeks. Democrats are paying more attention to Iraq news than are Republicans and independents.

US Marine escapes jail for Iraqi civilian murder plot

2007-07-20T13:07:00.000-07:00

A US Marine convicted of plotting to murder and kidnap an Iraqi civilian outside Baghdad last year on Friday escaped a prison sentence for his crimes, the military said.

Trent Thomas, who was found guilty of conspiracy to kidnap and murder Hashim Ibrahim Awad in Hamdania on April 26 last year, received a reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge at a sentencing hearing.

The 25-year-old former lance corporal, who has been held in detention since the allegations first surfaced last year, could have faced a life prison sentence for his role in the killing.

On Thursday prosecutors had recommended Thomas be jailed for 15 years during a hearing at the Marines' Camp Pendleton base outside San Diego.

Awad, a 52-year-old father of 11, was taken from his home in a late-night raid by eight US servicemen and killed before the Marines involved covered up the incident to make it look as if Awad was an insurgent planting a bomb.

The killing is one of a series of incidents that have tarnished the reputation of US forces in Iraq.

In closing arguments, military prosecutor lieutenant colonel John Baker had told the jury that the evidence presented had "proven to you that Corporal Trent D. Thomas is a murderer."

"Corporal Thomas failed when he contracted to take part in this conspiracy and to cover up and lie," Baker said.

"This is a plan to kill somebody in cold blood. They (the squad members) were a mob. Vigilante justice is against the law. He (Thomas) might as well have put a signature on a death warrant."

However, defense lawyers said Thomas's judgment had so been impaired by post traumatic stress disorder and brain damage following three tours of duty in Iraq that he went along with the plot.

Five other servicemen had already pleaded guilty at earlier hearings to lesser charges in connection with the incident.

Thomas had previously pleaded guilty to premeditated murder, kidnapping and other charges, only to change his plea to not guilty.

Two other soldiers, including the alleged ringleader of the plot sergeant Lawrence Hutchins, face courts-martial next week.

Witnesses have testified Awad was killed after the squad of soldiers failed to locate a suspected insurgent operating in the area west of Baghdad.

Awad was allegedly dragged from his home and frog-marched to a hole, which marines had dug to look like a roadside bomb crater.

He was then bound before being shot three times in the head. An AK-47 rifle and a shovel were left beside his body to create the impression he had been an insurgent laying a roadside bomb.

Con Edison Confirms Asbestos In 41st Street Blast Debris; No Airborne Asbestos Found

2007-07-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

7/19/2007 2:09:11 PM Thursday, utility services provider, Consolidated Edison, Inc. (ED) and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection said subsequent to the steam-main rupture at Lexington Avenue and 41st Street Wednesday evening, no airborne asbestos were found following air-quality tests. However, a communiqué by the company said numerous samples of muddy debris collected from the area were found to be asbestos contaminated. The blast, according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is attributed to a 24-inch steam pipe built in 1924, possibly due to cold water from rain earlier in the day that may have made contact with the hot steam pipe or unknown water main break.

The New York based Consolidated Edison said several of its specially trained employees and certified contractors in coordination with the NYC Department of Environmental Protection or DEP were involved in testing the muddy debris and monitoring the air. Together with the DEP, the company said a comprehensive plan was devised to remove muddy debris from buildings, streets and vehicles.

At about 6 p.m. Wednesday evening, the steam-pipe ruptured a block from Grand Central shocking Manhattan at rush hour, spewing debris and dust up, sending panicky people fleeing for safety. It was also reported the blast involved an underground electric transformer that shook nearby buildings with tremendous power. The incident left one person dead while 16 others were injured with at least two of them indicated to be in critical condition. An estimated 170 firefighters were at the site of explosion to tackle the situation. Authorities also made efforts at evacuating people in the area in case hazardous materials were being emitted.

A similar steam-pipe rupture occurred in 1989 around Manhattan's Gramercy Park that killed three people, sending huge amounts of mud and debris into the air. Another steam pipe explosion in 2000, close to Bobst Library of New York University on Washington Square, left a 15-foot crater into the street on Washington Square South that had similarly spewed debris and traces of asbestos into the air. Manhattan is indicated to have the largest district steam system in the world.

In the aftermath of the explosion, the 41st Street was marked with a huge crater indicated at about 25 feet in diameter with a tow truck in the center. For a block around the blast site, the scene was indicated with bricks, glass, asphalt and dirt covered cars and bicycles with debris and high-heeled shoes, flip-flops strewn across the sidewalk. Most of the injured were covered in brown wet dust and treated for minor injuries at the scene, and abandoned.

Firefighters are believed to have conducted checks on basements around the blast site and city Buildings Department engineers inspecting at least four nearby structures, finding water in basements. Six nearby buildings sustained minor damage to windows on lower levels.

Con Edison said its crew cleaned muddy debris from Third Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets and efforts were underway to restore service to electric feeder cables, and is running temporary cables. The gas system was also excavated and inspected by its personnel for possible damage, while Fire trucks involved at the site were decontaminated.

ED is gaining $0.02 or 0.4% and currently trades at $45.74, on a volume of 1.64 million shares on the NYSE.

Body found in nose of United Airlines plane at SFO

2007-07-19T12:17:00.000-07:00

(07-19) 11:09 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco International Airport personnel this morning discovered the body of a man in the wheel well of a 747 recently arrived from Shanghai, an airport official said.

Airport spokesman Mike McCarron said the body was found during a post-flight inspection of United Airlines flight 858, which landed at 7:42 a.m. after an 11-hour flight.

San Mateo County Sheriff's and Coroner's investigators, along with immigration officials, are investigating the discovery, McCarron said.

Bodies are periodically found in the wheel wells of airplanes, usually after people seek covert entry into the United States or Europe. Such stowaways usually die during the flight.

"There's no air to breathe," McCarron said. "And the cold temperature is probably minus 30, 40 degrees at altitude, so you freeze to death."

That appeared to be the cause of death of a man found in the wheel well of a US Airways flight that landed in San Francisco in 2001. The dead man, later identified as the son of a Zairean general, had fled to Britain before apparently trying to stow away to the United States.

Other stowaways have narrowly survived the flight, including a man who survived a flight from Tahiti to Los Angeles in 2000, arriving with a body temperature of 79 degrees. He was later repatriated to Tahiti, though a Cuban man who rode the wheel of a DC-10 to Montreal in 2002 was granted asylum.

The identity and specific cause of death of the man found in San Francisco this morning has not yet been released.

Planets Go 'Splat' on Stars

2007-07-17T00:36:00.001-07:00

Debris spots found on stars reveal planets that went splat like bugs on a windshield.
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The result: metal smears on the surface of parent stars, said European Southern Observatory astronomer Luca Pasquini, who offered up another analogy:

"It is a little bit like a tiramisu or a cappuccino," Pasquini said. "There is cocoa powder only on the top."

The finding could help unravel mysteries of planet formation.

As scientists began discovering exoplanets, or worlds orbiting distant stars, in the past decade, they found these planets were most often found around stars rich in iron. Stars that host planets are on average nearly twice as rich in metals than counterparts without worlds.

But are these stars rich in metals because planetary debris polluted them? Or do metal-loaded stars naturally spawn worlds? It's a classic chicken-or-egg problem.

If these metals were planetary debris, they would only be found in the outer layers of stars. On the other hand, if these metals were inherently part of the stars, they would be found to their cores. Unfortunately, the only light that astronomers can see from stars comes just from their outermost layers, which means there is no direct way to peer into their hearts.

Instead, scientists looked at stars whose innards churn far more than our sun does. The ingredients of the interiors of these stars roil to their surfaces for astronomers to analyze.

Specifically, researchers focused on red giants, stars that-as will the sun in several billion years- have puffed up and become much larger and cooler after they have exhausted the hydrogen in their cores. Compared with sun-like stars, these giants have much larger convective zones, or regions where all the gas is completely mixed. The sun's convective zone comprises only 2 percent of the star's mass, but in red giants the convective zone is 35 times more massive.

After inspecting 14 planet-hosting red giants, Pasquini and his colleagues found these were not rich in metals as is typically the case for planet-hosting sun-like stars. The simplest explanation is that metals seen in planet-hosting stars are pollution from planetary debris, findings that will be detailed in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The debris might come from "planets themselves or small planetoids," researcher Artie Hatzes, director of the Thuringia State Observatory in Tautenburg, Germany, told SPACE.com.

Pasquini said their results might favor the controversial and relatively new "disk instability" theory. This concept states that large planets emerge from clumps of dust and gas whose hearts coalesce into cores that grow relatively quickly.

MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager, who did not participate in this study, noted "the findings are an intriguing piece of the puzzle in trying to understand planet formation."

Resolving the mysteries concerning how planets form will require a much larger study of metal-rich and metal-poor planet-hosting stars, she added.

Nebraska Has Highest Gas Prices In U.S.

2007-07-16T18:42:00.001-07:00

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Nebraska edged Michigan to take the dubious honor of having the most expensive gas in the nation, according to a nationwide AAA gas price survey released Sunday.

At $3.34, the average price for a gallon of gas in Nebraska was down a little less than a cent from Saturday, but Michigan was down more than a cent and slightly lower than Nebraska.

That puts Nebraska at 29 cents above the national average -- $3.05 -- and the pain at the pump has some people cringing.

"I don't fill it up," said Susan Heitmann of Omaha, who was pumping gas into her older pickup at a west Omaha gas station. "I just go up to a certain dollar amount."

The truck has two tanks, she said, so she's used to watching the numbers on the pump spin higher and higher.

"I don't care which one it is -- I pick the cheapest," Heitmann said.

Prices in Norfolk are were few cents lower Sunday -- averaging $3.32 -- but in North Platte, the average price was $3.40, according to AAA.

Wisconsin, Illinois and Hawaii join Nebraska and Michigan to round out the top five most expensive places to buy gas, all with prices between $3.28 and $3.34, according to AAA. The national average was down just one-hundredths of a cent from Saturday.

AAA gives South Carolina the cheapest gas ranking, at $2.83, followed by New Jersey, Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, all between $2.83 and $2.89.

U.S. gas prices on average rose about six cents in the past three weeks, according to the national survey.

Regular gas prices averaged $3.06 a gallon, mid-grade was $3.17 and premium was $3.29, said oil industry analyst Trilby Lundberg.

The lowest price was in Tucson, Ariz., where a gallon of regular cost $2.80. The highest was in Chicago at $3.46, according to the Lundberg Survey of thousands of stations nationwide.

Industry officials have said short supplies due to refinery problems are driving up prices in the Midwest.

"(There are) outages in South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas. Everyone's struggling," said Mike Rud, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Marketer's Association.

But the high prices didn't have Sue Gordon of Omaha sweating. She owns a Lexus hybrid SUV, and said she gets between 27 and 30 miles per gallon in the city.

"It seems like I fill up my tank every third week," Gordon said as she pumped gas at an Omaha station.

The Disappearing Car Door!

2007-07-16T17:29:00.001-07:00

Potter books to help search for missing British girl

2007-07-16T16:30:00.000-07:00

BOOKSTORES selling the eagerly anticipated seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series will be asked to display posters of a missing British girl, and the books will come with appeals to help search for her.
Fans of the bespectacled boy wizard will likely be waiting in line in bookstores around the globe to receive their copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow, which is expected to break records and become an instant best-seller when it is released on Saturday.

Author J.K. Rowling has requested that bookstores in more than 200 countries where the Potter book will go on sale be given posters of four-year-old Madeleine McCann who has not been seen since she went missing from her family's holiday apartment in a Portuguese resort on May 3.

"I fervently hope that posters displayed prominently in shops all over the world when the new book comes out will help find Madeleine McCann and will help raise the profile of the many other missing children in different countries," said the author, who has also pledged money towards a reward fund.

Madeleine's father Gerry McCann meanwhile told reporters in southern Portugal on Monday that he and his family were grateful to Rowling for her support, adding that all the new Potter books themselves would be accompanied with a picture of his daughter and a yellow ribbon bearing a message of appeal for help to find her.

Potter Premieres With $77.1 Million

2007-07-16T16:25:00.001-07:00

LOS ANGELES -

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" enchanted moviegoers with a $77.1 million opening weekend, raising its total since debuting last Wednesday to $139.7 million.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Media By Numbers LLC are:

1. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," Warner Bros., $77,108,414, 4,285 locations, $17,995 average, $139,715,157, one week.

2. "Transformers," Paramount, $37,027,901, 4,050 locations, $9,143 average, $224,009,583, two weeks.

3. "Ratatouille," Disney, $18,012,196, 3,625 locations, $4,969 average, $142,997,082, three weeks.

4. "Live Free or Die Hard," Fox, $11,279,135, 3,201 locations, $3,524 average, $103,322,580, three weeks.

5. "License to Wed," Warner Bros., $7,311,297, 2,715 locations, $2,693 average, $30,379,749, two weeks.

6. "1408," MGM, $4,934,516, 2,206 locations, $2,237 average, $62,127,222, four weeks.

7. "Evan Almighty," Universal, $4,895,055, 2,697 locations, $1,815 average, $87,790,505, four weeks.

8. "Knocked Up," Universal, $3,676,500, 1,710 locations, $2,150 average, $138,217,270, seven weeks.

9. "Sicko," Lionsgate, $2,604,139, 756 locations, $3,445 average, $15,830,046, four weeks.

10. "Ocean's Thirteen," Warner Bros., $1,984,323, 1,244 locations, $1,595 average, $112,506,702, six weeks.

11. "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," Fox, $1,633,612, 1,312 locations, $1,245 average, $127,192,730, five weeks.

12. "Captivity," Lionsgate-After Dark, $1,429,100, 1,061 locations, $1,347 average, $1,429,100, one week.

13. "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," Disney, $1,396,749, 928 locations, $1,505 average, $304,454,423, eight weeks.

14. "Evening," Focus, $1,156,407, 760 locations, $1,522 average, $10,842,501, three weeks.

15. "Shrek the Third," Paramount, $662,041, 644 locations, $1,028 average, $318,079,835, nine weeks.

16. "You Kill Me," IFC, $589,368, 247 locations, $2,386 average, $1,514,156, four weeks.

17. "La Vie En Rose," Picturehouse, $543,470, 174 locations, $3,123 average, $6,882,728, six weeks.

18. "Spider-Man 3," Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ), $512,393, 447 locations, $1,146 average, $335,002,361, 11 weeks.

19. "Talk to Me," Focus, $402,000, 33 locations, $12,182 average, $402,000, one week.

20. "Nancy Drew," Warner Bros., $390,766, 425 locations, $919 average, $24,183,030, five weeks.

Japan Quake Victims Take Shelter

2007-07-16T16:22:00.000-07:00

KASHIWAZAKI, Japan (Reuters) - More than 10,000 people sheltered in evacuation centers on Tuesday in Japan's northwest after a strong earthquake flattened hundreds of houses, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 900.

As aftershocks continued, rain began to fall, and forecasts for two days of wet weather raised fears of mudslides that could add to the devastation.

Houses collapsed and water, gas and electricity supplies were cut by the 6.8 magnitude quake in Niigata prefecture on Monday, which also caused a small radiation leak and fire at the world's biggest nuclear plant.

Nine elderly people were killed by the tremor, which hit at 10:13 a.m. (0113 GMT) on Monday, police said.

"I am worried about the aftershocks," said 80-year-old Toshiko Kojima, who said she had spent a mostly sleepless night in a crowded elementary school gymnasium in Kashiwazaki.

The quake halted gas service to about 35,000 homes and disrupted the water supply to all of Kashiwazaki, a city with a population of around 95,000 that was hardest hit by the quake.

About 25,000 homes in Niigata prefecture were without electricity, local officials and media said.

The country was rattled late on Monday evening by a deep tremor under the Sea of Japan estimated at magnitude 6.6 to 6.8 that caused buildings in Tokyo to sway, but there were no immediate reports of further damage.

RADIATION LEAK

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said 1.5 liters of water containing radioactive materials had leaked from a unit at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant -- the world's largest.

A similar amount of contaminated water had been released into the ocean and had had no effect on the environment, the company said in a statement, adding that the quake was stronger than its reactors had been designed to cope with.
A fire in an electrical transformer at the plant was quickly extinguished but it was unclear when TEPCO could restart three power units there.

Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, with a tremor occurring at least every five minutes.

Houses, many wooden with traditional heavy tile roofs, collapsed and roads cracked in Monday's quake, centered in the same northwestern area as a tremor three years ago.

RAIN

Troops and extra emergency teams helped with rescue and relief efforts, including distributing water and rice. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cut short campaigning for parliamentary elections to inspect damage.

"We need to take every step to take lives. It's supposed to rain tomorrow (Tuesday) in the area so we have to take every step to save lives, secure lifelines and reassure people," Abe told reporters.

The government set up an emergency office to deal with the quake, which officials said had damaged about 500 buildings.

"I was sitting on the balcony and was scared to death," said Kiyono Fujisawa, a 70-year-old farmer, who lives with five others including her daughter and grandchildren in a house that was partly destroyed.

"Look at my house. I'm too scared to go back in."

Bullet trains stopped services in northern Japan for a time after the quake and a local train toppled from the rails, but media said no one was injured.

Niigata was hit in October 2004 by a quake with a matching magnitude of 6.8 that killed 65 people and injured more than 3,000. It was the deadliest quake in Japan since a magnitude 7.3 tremor hit Kobe city in 1995, killing more than 6,400.

Bush calls for Mideast Peace Conference

2007-07-16T16:20:00.001-07:00

US President George W. Bush called Monday for an international conference to revive Middle East peace talks and warned Palestinians that backing Hamas would "crush" their hopes for their own state.

Later, Bush telephoned beleaguered Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to reaffirm his support and called leaders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt to seek their backing for the initiative, said spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

"Now comes a moment of choice. The alternatives before the Palestinian people are stark," Bush said in a speech at the White House aimed at bolstering Abbas and undercutting Hamas, which Washington brands a terrorist group.

Bush warned that support for Hamas, which seized Gaza from Abbas backers on June 15, would be a victory for the militant group's "foreign sponsors" in Syria and Iran and "would crush the possibility of a Palestinian state."

The US president said Israel and the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors can do more to help revive Middle East peace prospects and called for an international conference within months.

"The world can do more to build the conditions for peace," he said, adding that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will chair the gathering and that attendance will be limited to states that back the creation of a Palestinian state, reject violence, and recognize Israel.

The plan won instant backing from Israel and Abbas, but swift condemnation from Hamas, with spokesman Ismail Radwan telling AFP: "We condemn this American conference which aims to serve the interests of the Zionist enemy."

"The conference will lead to increased pressure on Mahmud Abbas and separate the Gaza Strip more deeply from the West Bank while sowing division among Palestinians," Radwan added.

Bush also urged Arab nations to end "the fiction that Israel does not exist," curb anti-Israel rhetoric in their media and send cabinet-level officials to the Jewish state.

And Bush pushed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to continue to release Palestinian tax revenue to Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad; halt Israeli settlement expansion and dismantle unauthorized outposts.

Israelis "should be confident that the United States will never abandon its commitment to the security of Israel as a Jewish state and homeland for Jewish people," said the embattled US president.

Bush also hailed talks earlier in the day between Olmert and Abbas, as a senior Israeli official said the prime minister had pledged to free 250 Palestinian prisoners in a goodwill gesture to the Palestinian leader.

But while welcoming the release, the Palestinians said the freeing of 250 prisoners out of the more than 11,000 currently held in Israeli jails was not enough.

Bush also announced a direct US contribution of 80 million dollars to help Abbas reform his security services. Two US officials said the money was being shifted from Gaza to Fayyad's government.

More US aid will come when former British prime minister Tony Blair, now the envoy for the Middle East "quartet" of the United States, United Nations, European Union, and Russia, reports success in building a plan for bolstering Palestinian security and political institutions.

"With the proper foundation, we can soon begin serious negotiations toward the creation of a Palestinian state," said Bush.

But "we're not going to announce a dollar amount for a plan that has yet to be elaborated or announced," a senior US official said on condition of anonymity.

The members of the diplomatic quartet are to meet in the Portuguese capital Lisbon on Thursday to take stock after Abbas appointed a new government following the abrupt takeover of Gaza by Hamas.

It is to be the first meeting between the quartet's chief diplomats, including Rice, and Blair, who was named to the envoy post shortly after stepping down as British leader on June 27.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana will travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories Wednesday to prepare for the meeting, his spokeswoman said Monday.

Solana will meet Tuesday with Blair in Brussels before flying out to the region, where he is scheduled to hold talks with officials in Jerusalem and Ramallah, said spokeswoman Cristina Gallach.

Solana is due to meet Abbas and Fayyad, ahead of talks with Olmert and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Los Angeles Catholic Church in record abuse deal

2007-07-14T22:47:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $660 million to 500 victims of sexual abuse dating back as far as the 1940s in the largest compensation deal of its kind, the plaintiffs' lawyers said on Saturday.

The settlement, which means victims will receive more than $1 million each, is the largest from the Catholic Church in recent years following many cases in which victims sought financial compensation for suffering abuse from priests.

Ray Boucher, lead plaintiff attorney in the case, said he would issue a joint announcement with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on Sunday of the settlement.

The case was scheduled to go to trial on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, focusing on 12 plaintiffs who accused former priest Clinton Hagenbach of molesting them. Hagenbach died two decades ago.

Had the case gone to trial, lawyers had sought to put Cardinal Roger Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles, in the uncomfortable position of testifying about the Church's response to abuses dating from the 1940s to the 1990s.

Because the criminal statute of limitations has expired, victims in California and elsewhere have brought lawsuits against the Church over the issue.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles Diocese, speaking a few hours before lawyers for the victims announced the deal, would only say that church officials planned to be in court on Monday morning.

The judge hearing the case would have to approve the settlement, which a party of the case who did not want to be named put at $660 million.

A lawyer for the Church did not return calls to his office and home.

David Clohessy, national director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the deal was by far the largest group settlement with the Catholic Church, although a handful of plaintiffs have received greater amounts on an individual basis than each is to receive from this settlement.

"It is never about the money," Clohessy said in an interview. "Victims want healing, prevention, closing, accountability."

The diocese is expected to sell property to raise the settlement funds.

The Los Angeles Times newspaper has estimated that the Los Angeles Archdiocese has real estate holdings worth more than $4 billion. Several U.S. Catholic diocese with less substantial holdings have filed for bankruptcy protection in wake of the abuse scandal.

"Though it has always been the position of the Archdiocese that the insurance companies must honor their responsibility to fund a major share of future settlements, the Archdiocese must also be prepared to fund its share of these coming settlements," Mahony said in a May statement.

"This will require the Archdiocese to begin to dispose of nonessential real estate properties in order to raise funds for coming settlements, and to reevaluate some of the services and ministries it provides to parishes," he said.

The Archdiocese also settled 46 cases in December for $60 million.

Boucher said settlement negotiations nearly collapsed on Friday, but then continued until a deal was reached on Saturday. He said a few religious orders named in the case declined to participate in the settlement.

`Red ring of death': What's wrong with Microsoft's Xbox?

2007-07-14T22:43:00.000-07:00

THE GUARDIAN, LONDON
Sunday, Jul 15, 2007, Page 12

There are seven stages of grief: shock, denial, anger, bargaining depression, testing and acceptance. But with the Xbox 360, which has been giving a significant number of its owners grief, Microsoft last week moved directly from the first stages to the last -- from denying any problems with it to admitting a US$1 billion problem that potentially affects all 11.6 million consoles sold so far.

Three weeks ago Todd Holmdahl, vice president of the gaming and Xbox products group, said repeated problems where people had to take back up to 11 consoles came from "a vocal minority" (tinyurl.com/yqtm4w) and dismissed suggestion of endemic problems.

Then last week Microsoft abruptly announced that it would set aside between US$1.05 billion and US$1.15 billion, charged against the just-finished 2007 fiscal year, to cover the costs of extending the warranty for every machine from one to three years, and to fix the many which show the "red ring of death" -- three red lights on the front panel control ring, indicating a general hardware failure.

How many? Unfortunately, Microsoft still isn't ready to deal with that issue.

PS3 surge

"When you look at the financial implication, obviously it's not a small number," said Robbie Bach, president of its entertainment and devices unit.

Sony, which last week had denied it would cut the price of its struggling PlayStation 3, saw an opening and snipped US$100 off the US retail price, prompting a surge in sales there.

Microsoft repeatedly declined to talk to me about precisely what problems the failed consoles suffer from. However, Peter Moore, head of the Xbox division, told Gamesindustry.biz: "There are a lot of different issues that eventually could all combine to create the three flashing red rings that appear on the power button on the console; no [one] specific issue."

He was repeatedly evasive in interviews, leaving the impression that the problems were either profound -- or embarrassingly simple.

The financial problems, though, are stark. The sum being set aside amounts to between US$90 and US$99 for every console sold -- extra loss on machines that are already sold at a loss. On its launch, analysts reckoned that each Xbox contained US$525 worth of components; but the machine sold for, at most, US$499, and more price cuts are rumored to be on the way to keep ahead of Sony. On average, Microsoft took a US$126 loss on each console sold at its starting price -- US$1.4 billion so far.

The billion-dollar figure also indicates that Microsoft's repeated insistence that the failure rate was about average for such hardware -- that is, between 3 percent and 5 percent -- cannot have been true. The real failure rate is probably about five times greater than the company has admitted, which would put repair costs at between US$330 and US$660 per console. At that upper limit, it would be cheaper for Microsoft simply to send a cheque for a brand new console. So what are the causes?

overheating

Owners and analysts have made their own investigations. The most obvious suggestion is that parts overheat; the Xbox 360 draws 160 watts, which has to be dissipated via two large heatsinks and two fans. One suggestion is that when the machine gets hot, the motherboard warps and pushes the graphics processing unit (GPU) off its board. Another is that some of the soldering is imperfect and so cracks at high temperature. A Microsoft support document (tinyurl.com/2qnefa) also suggests, improbably, that surge protectors and extension strips contribute to the problem by preventing the current surge needed for the fans to turn on; this seems unlikely, since that surge would be too small to trip them.

In desperation, some owners have turned to home-grown cures, including wrapping a towel around the machine, blocking the fan vents. This may -- depending who you believe -- either cause the solder to reflow or the GPU to reseat. (Microsoft has not commented.) The fixes sometimes work, at least temporarily.

We can deduce some of the reasons from the fact that Microsoft is declaring that the problems are sorted out -- just as it is moving from 90-nanometer to 65nm chips, which should reduce its power consumption significantly, and using a two-part heat sink in the new designs.

The key question though is whether these flaws will put off future customers, and how badly they have annoyed existing ones. The principal problem for the latter is that any content bought online must be re-enabled for a replacement console.

dream over?

Does the admission mean that Microsoft's dream that the Xbox will form the centerpiece of a strategy to put Microsoft software and hardware into everyone's living room has been permanently sunk?

A report this week from Jupiter Research suggests that there is now everything to play for.

"Jupiter Research anticipates the competitive field will be much closer than in the past; at the end of the current [console] cycle in 2012, the range in market shares is projected to be just under 10 percent compared with the 33 percent range in market shares at the end of the last cycle in 2005. Then, the PS2 dominated, and Nintendo was nowhere. Now, Nintendo's Wii is rocketing towards the Xbox 360 total; sales data suggests it is selling nearly three times faster than the Xbox 360 or PS3," the report said.

The optimistic forecast -- written before the Xbox's problems were admitted -- suggests that the Xbox will continue to sell. Moore repeated his insistence that the Xbox division will move into profit next year; having shovelled the billion-dollar faults back into the last fiscal year, it can look for profits from its online service, peripherals and games. The strategy remains untouched. All that has changed is the time it will take to pay back. But Microsoft is prepared to play the longest of games -- even when it has no chance of winning.

Gilmore drops out of GOP contest

2007-07-14T22:40:00.001-07:00

By TYLER WHITLEY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore pulled out of the Republican presidential race yesterday, citing money woes.

Gilmore said he plans to stay active in politics in Virginia and will form a political-action committee to help Republican candidates in General Assembly races this fall.

Gilmore said he felt he had influenced the debate over Iraq and immigration in the Republican nominating contest but did not have the "financial infrastructure" to contest for the nomination.

While Gilmore has raised in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the leading contenders have raised millions. His long-shot bid for president had hardly registered in the national polls. Gilmore, 57, was Virginia's governor from 1998 to 2002.

Mark Rozell, a political scientist at George Mason University, said the lack of fundraising reflected the candidate's inability to be taken seriously.

"This is a campaign that people everywhere, except possibly Jim Gilmore, wondered why he thought he could run for president," Rozell said.

But in a conference call with reporters, Gilmore said he felt he was making headway and had done well in the debates.

"The combination of my late start and the front-loaded nature of the primary schedule have made it impractical to continue to pursue this path towards further public service," he said.

While he said he has a "Rolodex" full of potential donors, "I believe that it takes years of preparation to put in place both the political and financial infrastructure to contest what now amounts to a one-day national primary in February."

Many states, including such large states as California and New York, have moved up their primaries to Feb. 5, requiring a substantial investment in television advertising and on-the-ground staff.

Gilmore, seeing a potential opening for a consistently conservative candidate in the crowded Republican field, entered the race in January.

Two weeks ago Gilmore had to leave the campaign trail after sudden surgery for a detached retina. Gilmore said his eye is now fine and that did not play a role in his decision.

Second-quarter financial reports are due from candidates today. Dick Leggitt, a spokesman for Gilmore, said Gilmore would have reported about $211,000 in new contributions, better than in the first quarter, but still not nearly enough.

The GOP front-runner, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, raised $15 million in the second quarter.

While Gilmore made little impact in the national polls, Leggitt said "our numbers are very good in Virginia." The decision to pull out of the race was made Friday night, he said.

Gilmore said he has been asked to run for the U.S. Senate if Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., retires next year, and for governor in 2009. He is keeping his options open, he said.

Gilmore, a former Henrico County commonwealth's attorney, lives in western Henrico County. He works for a Washington law firm.

Gilmore is the last of three potential Virginia presidential candidates to get out of the presidential race. Former Gov. Mark R. Warner, a Democrat, cited family considerations last year when he withdrew. Former Republican Gov. and Sen. George Allen was eliminated when he lost re-election to the Senate last year.

Suicide Bombing Kills 24 Pakistani Soldiers

2007-07-14T22:35:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 14 -- A suicide blast killed 24 Pakistani troops in North Waziristan on Saturday, dealing a potentially critical blow to a controversial peace deal between the government and tribal elders in a region where al-Qaeda has been rapidly reorganizing.

The attack, in which an explosives-laden car rammed into a military convoy, injured an additional 29 troops, was considered one of the most devastating strikes against the Pakistani military in recent years.

Pakistani activists of Islamic parties alliance hold a rally against government to condemn killings of militants who were holding Islamabad's Red Mosque, Friday, July 13, 2007 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Protests were staged in all of Pakistan's major cities Friday over a government assault that left more than 100 dead at a mosque in the capital as security was tightened to foil possible revenge attacks, official said. The placard in center reading oppressor should account for the bloodshed (AP Photo / Anjum Naveed)
Pakistani activists of Islamic parties alliance hold a rally against government to condemn killings of militants who were holding Islamabad's Red Mosque, Friday, July 13, 2007 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Protests were staged in all of Pakistan's major cities Friday over a government assault that left more than 100 dead at a mosque in the capital as security was tightened to foil possible revenge attacks, official said. The placard in center reading oppressor should account for the bloodshed

The violence came amid heightened tension in northwestern Pakistan after the government raided the besieged Red Mosque in Islamabad last week and killed at least 75 militants. Since then, radical clerics have called for revenge. At least 53 people have died in a spate of attacks over the past two weeks, with Pakistani security forces taking heavy losses.

Saturday's attack occurred in an area where security forces and pro-Taliban fighters have technically agreed to a cease-fire. But the viability of that agreement was in question Saturday, and there were indications that both sides were girding for more violence. Thousands of troops rumbled into the border region, though the military said it had no specific plans to attack.

A purported spokesman for the Taliban in Pakistan said in an interview that the government should prepare to fight a full-scale guerrilla war unless it immediately withdraws troops from North Waziristan. The government had recently set up checkpoints in the area, which the Taliban considers a violation of the peace deal.

"We give the government a deadline till [Sunday] for closing all checkpoints and withdrawing its forces," Abdullah Farhad, the purported spokesman, said in a telephone interview. "Otherwise, the peace agreement will collapse and we will start our war against the government troops."

The government said that the checkpoints were necessary because the other side was not abiding by the terms of the agreement but that overall the deal remained operative.

"The deal is very much in place and will stay in place," said Tariq Azim Khan, the state minister for information. "These threats are only made to destabilize the area. The vast majority of people there are still supporting the peace deal."

Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president who is considered a crucial U.S. counterterrorism ally, has consistently defended the agreement. His government has boasted that local tribesmen were aggressive this spring in ousting foreign fighters.

Khan said on Saturday that the North Waziristan deal should be a model for dealing with militancy in other parts of Pakistan. "There should be more deals like this," he said.

But as Khan spoke, the military appeared to be preparing for battle. Over the past several days, the army has been moving troops, vehicles and supplies into areas near Waziristan as part of a campaign Musharraf announced late last week to stamp out extremism. More than 20,000 soldiers have been brought into various trouble spots.

Musharraf is under intense U.S. pressure to do more to oust militants; he also faces stiff domestic challenges, both from hard-line religious leaders who consider him a pawn of Washington and from moderate forces that want a return to democratic, civilian rule in Pakistan.

The remote, semiautonomous tribal areas that line Pakistan's western border have been hotbeds of radicalism in recent years and major command centers for cross-border attacks on U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

Waziristan in particular has become the suspected base for al-Qaeda operations in the region. Just last week, a senior U.S. intelligence official warned Congress that al-Qaeda appears "to be fairly well settled into the safe haven in the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan." Recently, senior U.S. officials have also said they believe the North Waziristan deal is not working.

Pakistani activists of Islamic parties alliance hold a rally against government to condemn killings of militants who were holding Islamabad's Red Mosque, Friday, July 13, 2007 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Protests were staged in all of Pakistan's major cities Friday over a government assault that left more than 100 dead at a mosque in the capital as security was tightened to foil possible revenge attacks, official said.

The deal signed in September between the Pakistani government and North Waziristan's tribal leaders -- a group that included some Taliban fighters -- was intended to compel local tribal forces to police the area and expel foreign fighters on their own. In exchange, the Pakistani military agreed to return to its bases after five years of unrest in the region that claimed the lives of hundreds of soldiers.

But the deal has come under widespread scrutiny, with security analysts arguing it amounted to a capitulation to extremists. Since it was signed, violence has surged in Afghanistan, and the Taliban has instituted a severe version of Islamic law in many areas on the Pakistani side of the border.

"Today, the result is very much clear. The Taliban have established their own state," said Latif Afridi, a tribal elder and former legislator from the western city of Peshawar. "The east of Afghanistan has become a problem for the United States and NATO forces, and the west of Pakistan has become a problem for the Pakistani forces. Both have emerged as big quagmires."

The violence Saturday came as Qazi Hussain Ahmad, leader of a coalition of hard-line religious parties, announced he would resign from Parliament in protest over the Red Mosque raid. Ahmad has alleged that casualties in the mosque were much higher than the government has admitted.

Ali reported from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Strong typhoon hits Kyushu; two dead

2007-07-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

Powerful Typhoon Man-yi, which has left at least two people dead, two missing and 59 injured, made landfall in Kyushu on Saturday afternoon, forcing thousands to evacuate and causing power outages and transportation disruptions.

The season's fourth typhoon was expected to continue to lash the Japanese archipelago, traveling along the southern coast of Honshu through the Kanto region over the long weekend, according to the Meteorological Agency, which warned of heavy rains, floods and strong winds.

The typhoon made landfall on the Osumi Peninsula in Kagoshima Prefecture around 2 p.m. after hitting Okinawa Prefecture and part of the Amami island group the day before, the agency said. Okinawa came out of the typhoon's heavy storm zone after 20 hours, it said.

The agency recorded an atmospheric pressure of 945 hectopascals near the center of the storm when it struck the peninsula, making it the most powerful typhoon to hit Japan in the month of July since the agency began compiling statistics in 1951.

Landslide warnings were issued for southern Kyushu.

Keita Kamimura, an 11-year-old boy, died after trying to retrieve a ball from a river in the city of Kagoshima and was washed away. His body was found two hours later.

A 76-year-old man died after falling into an irrigation ditch in Kimotsuki, Kagoshima Prefecture.

In Yoshinogawa, Tokushima Prefecture, a 79-year-old man was reported missing, while another man in Nagoya also went missing after being swept away in a river.

Most of the injuries were caused by the typhoon's strong winds, according to local police.

A 60-year-old man fell and broke his hip while trying to reinforce his roof in Asakura, Fukuoka Prefecture. In Kitakyushu, an 80-year-old woman fell in the morning and broke her right leg.

As of 8 p.m., nearly 20,000 people from about 8,500 households in seven prefectures had been ordered or advised to evacuate, officials said. Many people in other areas also evacuated voluntarily.

Power blackouts continued for about 34,000 households in Kagoshima, mainly in the Amami region, and in Miyazaki, according to Kyushu Electric Power Co.

JR Kyushu Railway Co. said all of its services, including bullet trains, were suspended in Kagoshima and Miyazaki.

A landslide continued to block traffic on the Higashikyushu Expressway between the Miyazaki-Nishi and Saito interchanges in Kyushu. The Miyazaki Expressway was also closed.

All Nippon Airways, Japan Airlines and other airlines said they canceled more than 643 flights Saturday, mainly those departing or arriving at airports in Kyushu, Shikoku and Okinawa, affecting more than 58,000 passengers.

The storm forced candidates in Kyushu running in the July 29 House of Councilors election to change their schedules, including canceling street speeches and switching to telephone canvassing, on the first weekend of the campaign that officially began Thursday.

The typhoon was forecast to come to within a radius of 310 km east of the Kanto region by 9 a.m. Monday.

In Miyazaki Prefecture, total rainfall topped 500 millimeters in some areas, hitting record local highs for July.

Up to 450 mm of rainfall was projected to fall in the Tokai region in central Japan over the 24 hours to Sunday evening, while 400 mm of rainfall was expected in the southern part of the Kinki region and on the Pacific side of Shikoku, according to the agency.

Bush Leans On Petraeus as War Dissent Deepens

2007-07-14T20:03:00.000-07:00

Almost every time President Bush has defended his new strategy in Iraq this year, he has invoked the name of the top commander, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus.

Speaking in Cleveland on Tuesday, Bush called Petraeus his "main man" -- a "smart, capable man who gives me his candid advice." And on Thursday, as the president sought to stave off a revolt among congressional Republicans, he said he wanted "to wait to see what David has to say. I trust David Petraeus, his judgment."

With opposition to Bush's Iraq strategy escalating on Capitol Hill, the president has sought, at least rhetorically, to transfer some of the burden of an unpopular war to his top general in Baghdad, wielding Petraeus as a shield against a growing number of congressional doubters. In speeches and meetings, the president has implored his critics to wait until September, when Petraeus is scheduled to deliver a much-anticipated assessment of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

Petraeus, a marathon runner with a doctorate from Princeton, is the fourth general to command U.S. military operations in Iraq, but he is the first with whom Bush has forged such a close relationship. Every Monday, the two men confer via a secure video link without the standard retinue of deputies and aides.

Some of Petraeus's military comrades worry that the general is being set up by the Bush administration as a scapegoat if conditions in Iraq fail to improve. "The danger is that Petraeus will now be painted as failing to live up to expectations and become the fall guy for the administration," one retired four-star officer said.

Bush has mentioned Petraeus at least 150 times this year in his speeches, interviews and news conferences, often setting him up in opposition to members of Congress.

"It seems to me almost an act of desperation, the administration turning to the one most prominent official who cannot act politically and whose credibility is so far unsullied, someone who is or should be purely driven by the facts of the situation," said Richard Kohn, a specialist in U.S. military history at the University of North Carolina. "What it tells me, given the hemorrhaging of support in Congress, is that we're entering some new phase of the end game."

In his public comments, Bush has not leaned nearly as heavily on the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, Petraeus's political counterpart in Baghdad. At his news conference Thursday, the president mentioned Petraeus 12 times but Crocker only twice, both times in his prepared statement.

Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson, a skilled strategist, concluded that the president is sending the message that Iraq is "a purely military problem." The lesson, he said, may be that "the military action and the political objectives are parting company." That is, he explained, the United States may make some progress by fighting insurgents and training Iraqis, but that won't affect the Iraqi leaders' ability to achieve reconciliation.

But there was general agreement that the president's reliance on Petraeus puts the general in a vulnerable position, both with the administration and with Congress.

When Bush and his aides shift military strategy, they seem to turn on the generals on whom they once relied publicly, said Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon official. During the run-up to the war, when Gen. Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, told Congress that more troops were needed to secure Iraq, he was publicly rebuked by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz.

More recently, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., Petraeus's predecessor, was blamed for not doing more to improve security for Iraqi civilians, and Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was effectively fired last month by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

"This is an administration that wants to blame the generals," Korb said.

It is not unusual for presidents to duck behind generals when wars go bad, Kohn said. Previous examples, he said, include President Harry S. Truman relying on Gen. Omar Bradley and the other members of the Joint Chiefs to counter the impact of his split with Gen. Douglas MacArthur over the Korean War, and President Lyndon B. Johnson bringing Gen. William Westmoreland back to address Congress in 1967 to respond to the growing antiwar movement.

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Petraeus, however, was not always Bush's main man. As commander of the Army's 101st Airborne Division during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the first year of the U.S.-led occupation of the country, the general clashed with Bush's viceroy, L. Paul Bremer, over several issues, including a decision to bar many former Baathists from government jobs.

Bush's current deference to Petraeus may buy both men a couple of months of relief from intensifying political pressure to set a timeline for withdrawal, but it also propels Petraeus into the political arena. Petraeus, who was confirmed by the Senate with an 81 to 0 vote in February, got a taste of the political battlefield last month when Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said Petraeus "isn't in touch with what's going on in Baghdad."

Reid also questioned the candor Petraeus had shown in his testimony to Congress. Noting that the general, who is on his third tour of duty in Iraq, oversaw the training of Iraqi troops during his second stint there, the Senate majority leader said, "He told us it was going great; as we've looked back, it didn't go so well."

Petraeus has not recoiled from the administration's effort to use him to promote the decision to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq this year. Shortly before he left for Baghdad in February, he held meetings with members of Congress in the offices of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to tout the plan.

For Petraeus, the pivotal moment may come in just two months, when he and Crocker return to Washington to testify on the state of the war. A senior officer in Iraq said Petraeus will point toward several kinds of progress, such as improving security in Baghdad and the shift of tribal alliances in Anbar province away from the insurgency.

But others note that those points were made in the interim report released by the White House on Thursday, without much effect on the political debate. "I am sure in September he will report some progress, but probably not enough to stop the tide to get out now," predicted Brian Linn, a military historian at Texas A&M University.

Research director Lucy Shackelford and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

How to make Cold Sores (Inner/Outer) Painless!

2007-07-14T13:24:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wake up in the morning to find that when you yawn, you suddenly feel a sharp pain on your tongue/lips? Or it may be during supper time, when you accidentally bite down on it because it\\’s sticking out from your inner lip?

Well i have a solution, but please know...

YOU NEED A HIGH PAIN THRESHOLD FOR THIS!

But your end result will be pleasing.

Well first off your going to need...

.A normal napkin/hand towel (Soft cotton would be best)

.Hydrogen peroxide (You can find this at any walgreens or convenience store)

.Rubbing alcohol (You can get this at the same places as the Hydrogen peroxide)

.Tweezers

[imghttp://www.prettyrock.com/php/images/gem-tweezers/nc-tw226-slide-lock-precision-tweezers-0.jpg[/img]

.Q-tips (Otherwise known as Ear Cleaners)

1.Now that you have your materials, Go to the bathroom and hang your head over the sink to prevent leakage of saliva and other liquids. (Your going to have to do this because the pain will make your salvitory glands leek like bad plumbing)

2.Now take your tweezers and firmly pinch the base of the cold sore. (You must do this to lessen the pain AND expose more of the core)

3.Now here comes this first painful part. Take your Napkin and rub the sore and the surrounding area dry.

3.Now take your Hydrogen peroxide and take about a cap full and pour it onto the sore, it should bubble up, meaning it is eliminating infection and other bacterial thing\\’s.

4.Now pat it back dry with the napkin and take a cap full of rubbing alcohol and rub it around with the Q-tip. Repeat this step four more time to ensure that most of the exposed nerve endings are temporarily destroyed.

5.Pat dry with napkin

Now you have completely numbed the sore. The sore will heal at normal speed, but it wont bother you that much at all.

FDA Confirms Salmonella in Snacks

2007-07-14T13:18:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON, AP) _ Tests have confirmed that a strain of salmonella found in Veggie Booty snack food was responsible for an outbreak of the disease last spring that sickened 61 people, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday.

The agency's findings supported earlier testing by the Minnesota Agricultural Lab, the FDA said in a statement.

Veggie Booty is marketed by Robert's American Gourmet Inc. of Sea Cliff, N.Y. The company says that seasoning, believed made with Chinese ingredients, contained the salmonella and that it had purchased the seasoning from Atlantic Quality Spice & Seasonings of Edison, N.J.

The FDA advised consumers not to eat any Veggie Booty and Super Veggie Tings Crunchy Corn Sticks because of concerns of contamination. A recall was ordered by Robert's American Gourmet on June 28.

People in 19 states, nearly all of them children 3 and younger, became sick after eating the tainted snacks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Six children were hospitalized, and at least one lawsuit has been filed in connection with the outbreak.

The CDC said states reporting cases of illness were California, seven; Colorado, five; Connecticut, two; Georgia, one; Illinois, two; Indiana, one; Massachusetts, four; Minnesota, two; New Hampshire, two; New Jersey, two; New York, 15; Oregon, one; Pennsylvania, four; Tennessee, one; Texas, two; Virginia, one; Vermont, three; Washington, four; and Wisconsin, two.

Symptoms of salmonella include fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. The bacteria can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections, especially in young children, frail or elderly people and others with weakened immune systems.

Safety alert shuts 14 Tesco stores

2007-07-14T13:11:00.001-07:00

A TESCO store in Suffolk was one of a string across England, Scotland and Wales to be closed today “as a precaution for public safety”.

The store at the St Saviours interchange at Bury St Edmunds was closed early this afternoon due to the safety alert.

The supermarket chain and police forces in the districts involved refused to give details, with authorities saying the stores were closed as “a precaution”.

A Suffolk police spokesman said officers were called to assist staff at the Bury store at 12.45pm.

He said Tesco had issued the following statement via police: “Police are investigating a series of incidents in a number of locations across the country involving Tesco stores.

“These stores have been temporarily closed as a precaution for public safety.”

Officers remained at the Bury store this evening.

Suffolk police said Tesco was handling the closure operation and its officers were simply assisting. The force said no-one had been injured.

There were reports that approach roads to the Bury store were blocked by police and signs had been placed on the road alerting customers to the closure.

Other stores affected by the closures were in Lancashire, Dyfed Powys in Wales, Fife in Scotland, Leicestershire, Humberside, West Mercia, West Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Strathclyde and London.

A Tesco spokeswoman said: “Tesco is working with the police following a series of incidents.

“Police are investigating and so we are unable to comment further.”

She added: “As always, at all times customer welfare is our priority.”

Staff at a Tesco store in Barrhead, East Renfrewshire, were escorted outside the store at about 12.30pm today and sent home for the day.

The manager of one store told The Press Association that the closure was down to a “power failure”.

Other reports suggested the stores had been subject to a bomb threat.

N.Korea Nuclear Reactor Shut Down

2007-07-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) -- North Korea told the United States it shut down its nuclear reactor, the State Department said Saturday, hours after a ship cruised into port loaded with oil promised in return for the country's pledge to disarm.
art.nkorea.fuel.gi.jpg

If confirmed by a U.N. inspection team headed to the Yongbyon reactor, the shutdown would be the North's first step in nearly five years toward de-nuclearization.

"We welcome this development and look forward to the verification and monitoring of this shutdown by the International Atomic Energy Agency team," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.

An initial shipment of oil aid arrived hours earlier Saturday, in return for Pyongyang's pledge to close down its main nuclear reactor. The move would be the North's first step in nearly five years toward the de-nuclearization of the peninsula.

The 10-member team from the International Atomic Energy Agency was heading directly to Yongbyon, about 60 miles northeast of the capital, to begin monitoring the shutdown.

"We are going directly to the nuclear site at Yongbyon," IAEA team chief Adel Tolba told broadcaster APTN outside the Pyongyang airport. Footage showed dozens of cardboard boxes being loaded onto the back of two trucks.

Tolba said the team would stay in North Korea as long as needed to complete its work.

After years of tortuous negotiations and delays -- during which the North argued its nuclear program was needed for self-defense -- the reclusive communist regime said earlier this month that once it received the oil shipment, it would consider halting its reactor.

Chief U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill said he expected the North to submit a list of its nuclear facilities within months, as was agreed to in February's round of talks.

"We expect the comprehensive list in a matter of several weeks, possibly several months," Hill said.

After the IAEA team installs monitoring equipment, personnel will remain at Yongbyon to ensure the reactor remains shut down, said a diplomat familiar with North Korea's file at the IAEA.

"The IAEA plans to have a permanent presence there, with some experts remaining at the site continuously," said the diplomat, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

North Korea agreed earlier this year to shut down its reactor and take other steps toward disarmament in exchange for the oil and other financial and political concessions in a deal with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

The agreement eased a standoff that began in October 2002, when the U.S. said North Korean officials had admitted during meetings in Pyongyang to having a secret uranium enrichment program. Washington said that violated a 1994 agreement for the North's disarmament, and a month later halted oil shipments under that deal.

The North reacted by expelling IAEA monitors on New Year's Eve, withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and restarting the reactor.

Since then, North Korea has occasionally shut down the reactor to remove fuel rods and extract plutonium -- and is believed to have harvested enough to construct at least a dozen atomic bombs.

The North set off an underground test explosion in October, leading to intensified international efforts to negotiate an end to Pyongyang's arms program.

Hill said Friday that Washington hoped to quickly move beyond the mere freeze of the reactor and dismantle the program by year's end.

"Where we would like to be at the end of the year is with the Yongbyon facility disabled," he said after meeting with his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo to prepare for another round of the six-nation nuclear talks next week in Beijing.

"As I've said before, we lost a lot of time in the early part of this year and now we have to do a lot in the second part if we are to achieve our objectives," Hill said.

The U.S. was forced to back down on a separate banking dispute in which Washington blacklisted a Macau bank for dealing with the North, saying it was helping the regime launder money. The bank remains banned from doing business with U.S. institutions, but the North Korean funds were freed earlier this year with U.S. approval.

White House disappointed by Russian arms treaty move

2007-07-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

Washington - The White House expressed disappointment Saturday at Russia's decision to suspend the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). The US government would press ahead with talks with Russia in the coming months in spite of its disappointment, according to a statement by US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe published in Washington.

The talks were needed in order to find the best way to proceed in the area of missile defence in the interests of all sides and to guarantee Europe's security, Johndroe's statement said.

The CFE, signed in 1991 and updated in 1999, regulates the number of armed forces and combat vehicles, aircraft or tanks between NATO and the former Warsaw Pact states by a system of mutual information and inspection.

Moscow's step comes amid the ongoing dispute with Washington over US plans to establish missile defence facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Can Sony Revitalize Its Games? Yes, Maybe

2007-07-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

SANTA MONICA, Calif., July 13 — Sony is back. Maybe.

As succinctly as possible, that is the message from this year’s E3, the video game industry’s top annual conference, which wrapped up here today. Having attended nearly three dozen meetings, presentations and parties since Tuesday and seeing at least 100 new games, it appears to me that after more than a year of gobsmacking miscalculations, missteps and plain old mistakes, Sony’s game group is possibly getting its act back together. After being kicked around by its main competitors, Microsoft and Nintendo, Sony is taking the first real steps to generate momentum behind its troubled PlayStation 3 game console, a critical component of the company’s overall future and a contender for the attention of hundreds of millions of gamers around the world.

Make no mistake: in its arrogance Sony has dug itself into a huge hole. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii have each outsold the PlayStation 3 by millions of units. Even after a price cut announced earlier this week, the least expensive version of the PS3 still costs a hefty $499. (While supplies last; late yesterday Sony said the $499 version was no longer being made, leaving only the $599 model in production.) So Sony has a very long way to go before the PlayStation 3 can be considered a strategic success. But here this week, the company demonstrated that it has begun to understand the error of its ways and started to unveil compelling new games and services that players will not find on any other system.

The problem is that it may be too late. Microsoft’s strategy is clearly to establish such dominance in the high end of the game market this coming holiday season that Sony will not be able to catch up. Halo 3, which is exclusive to the 360 console, will certainly sell millions of copies within hours of hitting store shelves in late September, and the underwater shooter Bioshock, a 360 exclusive from Take-Two, looks so creepily fascinating that it could also help make the holiday an especially happy one for Microsoft. (The other sure blockbuster of the fall, Grand Theft Auto IV, will be released simultaneously in October for both the Microsoft and Sony machines.)

Meanwhile, Nintendo continues to chart its own course away from the narrow focus on quick-fingered young men that has defined game culture over the last two decades, in favor of a larger goal of bringing interactive entertainment to the masses. Wii Fit, an exercise and fitness package that Nintendo demonstrated this week, seems set to continue the drive toward the cultural mainstream that Nintendo began with family-friendly fare like Nintendogs, Brain Age and the Wii itself.

But the top story here has been the first signs of Sony’s making the PlayStation 3 a true competitor to the Xbox 360 in appealing to enthusiasts.

Over the years, Sony’s E3 presentations have become known for featuring a lot of multimedia flash and bombastic proclamations instead of substantive detail. Not this year. Jack Tretton, the new president of Sony’s computer entertainment division, is a subdued, even slightly clumsy speaker. That made him refreshingly effective in front of an audience. First the Sony team announced a new version of their hand-held PSP game machine, scheduled to be in stores this fall. I tried it briefly, and it is so much lighter and thinner than the current PSP that it felt like a mock-up, not a working unit. (That’s high praise.)

Moving on to the PlayStation 3, its new Home online service, also set to make its debut this fall, is shaping up as a suitably innovative competitor to Microsoft’s Xbox Live service. In Home, PS3 users will be able to build and furnish their own virtual 3-D penthouse (or chateau, if you prefer) and invite their friends over to share real-world media. For example, during Sony’s presentation Phil Harrison, president of Sony’s global game studios, took a picture of the crowd on his cellphone. Minutes later, that photo was hanging on the “wall” of his virtual apartment.

Glock Full Automatic

2007-07-14T12:44:00.001-07:00

How to make a call with weak battery

2007-07-14T12:23:00.001-07:00

Russia Suspends Arms Pact, Citing U.S. Missile Plan

2007-07-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

MOSCOW, July 14 — President Vladimir V. Putin formally notified NATO governments on Saturday that Russia will suspend its obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, a key Cold War-era arms limitation agreement, in response to American plans to deploy a missile shield in Eastern Europe.

The decision ratcheted up tensions over United States plans for a missile shield, which Russia opposes, but also reflected an escalating trend of anti-Americanism and deep suspicion toward the West in Russia’s domestic politics ahead of presidential elections here next March.

Russia’s suspension will take effect in 150 days, according to a copy of the president’s decree posted on a Kremlin Web site. That delay leaves open the possibility of further negotiation on the 1990 treaty, which resulted in a huge wave of disarmament along the former East-West divide in Europe.

Despite a Foreign Ministry statement that from now on Russia would reject any limitations on redeploying heavy weaponry on its Western border, the Kremlin’s move is not expected to radically transform the security situation on the continent. But the decision is a strong indicator that the smiles and warm embraces between Presidents Bush and Putin just a few weekends ago at the so-called “lobster summit” in Maine did little to soften the Kremlin, in particular its pique over proposals to build two American missile defense bases in former Soviet satellite states, Poland and the Czech Republic.

So on Saturday, Mr. Putin reached for a powerful diplomatic tool to fend off what he has described as American bullying and NATO and European encirclement, both economic and military, that the Kremlin believes encroaches into a Russian sphere of influence.

White House officials expressed immediate disappointment after the announcement from Moscow, but pledged to continue to meet with their Russian counterparts to resolve the dispute.

“We’re disappointed Russia has suspended its participation for now, but we’ll continue to have discussions with them in the coming months on the best way to proceed in this area, that is in the interest of all parties involved and provides for security in Europe,” said Gordon D. Johndroe, the National Security Council spokesman.

Critics of the United States’ handling of relations with Russia have warned that the Bush administration was creating an environment in which the Putin government, emboldened by a flood of oil dollars and seeking to re-establish its status in the world, could pick and choose among its treaty obligations. After all, the Bush administration has put less stock in official treaty relations than many predecessors. And under Mr. Bush, the United States pulled out of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty so it could pursue the goal of a global antimissile shield, the exact effort that has so angered Mr. Putin and his inner circle.

Indeed, the Saturday announcement from Moscow was not much of a surprise, given Mr. Putin’s earlier warnings. And Bush administration officials routinely point to other significant areas of cooperation — on halting nuclear proliferation, on battling terrorism and combating drug traffic — so White House officials reject assessments that relations with Russia are on the point of rupturing.

But while the Saturday announcement was, at least, unsettling to officials in Washington and in NATO capitals, senior policy analysts said the Kremlin decision on the conventional forces treaty is likely to only further strengthen the position of Mr. Putin’s leadership clique among Russian voters, who are scheduled to go to the polls next spring to choose a new president.

Mr. Putin’s decree explained the decision to indefinitely suspend Russia’s treaty obligations as caused by “extraordinary circumstances” that “affect the security of the Russian Federation and require immediate measures.”

A separate statement by the Foreign Ministry identified these circumstances as unrelated to the missile shield plans — though Mr. Putin has linked the issues in previous speeches.

The statement said NATO plans to open bases and deploy troops in former East Bloc nations prompted the suspension, because this left NATO itself in violation of the C.F.E. treaty by exceeding force limits in Eastern Europe, a charge the alliance denies. The ministry also cited the unwillingness of NATO governments to ratify amendments to the treaty that allowed Russia a larger force deployment in the south during the war in Chechnya, in exchange for withdrawing troops from Georgia and Moldova.

E3: David Reeves Talks PS3

2007-07-13T23:41:00.000-07:00

At a special E3 event this evening, SCEE president David Reeves announced a new PS3 bundle for Europe. Comprised of a console, two games and a second sixaxis controller, it will cost GBP 425 / EUR 599 - the same price as the standalone machine previously retailed for.

Following the announcement, GamesIndustry.biz sat down with Reeves to find out more about the decision not to do what SCEA did and introduce a straight price cut - plus the new PSP, future plans and who's going to win the next-gen console battle.

GamesIndustry.biz: Now you've made the announcement about the PS3 bundle for Europe, what kind of reaction are you expecting?

David Reeves: I think people will say to us, 'This is really good for the summer, what are you going to do in October?'. We think that we've offered a lot of value to keep the momentum going until the big titles come out. Then we'll look at doing something else, but for moment I think it's the right move for us.

How concerned are you about possible criticisms that you should have given European consumers what SCEA has given US consumers, i.e. the option to pay a lower price?

Well, they're not really are they, because what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD 599 version with one game. All they're doing is taking their stock in trade that they've got at the moment of the 60GB model, marking the price down and it will all be gone by the end of July.

So once the 60GB is gone, that will be the end of the 60GB then?

In America, yes.

Why not offer the 80GB model in Europe?

The difference between 60GB and 80GB is not really necessary. The difference in cost between a 60 and 80 is just Euro cents; it's nothing, because the cost of memory is so small.

Probably we could have gone for 80GB, but does it really make any difference? We just know that we get a better supply on the 60GB than we will on the 80GB. So we chose to continue with the 60GB until we find that we can get something better, maybe lower cost. It just didn't seem necessary to us.

But if as you say there's no difference between the 60GB and 80GB, is SCEA making the right decision in offering the 80GB?

The difference is that the 60GB we have now has about 88 per cent backwards compatibility. The 60GB they had had 100 per cent backwards compatibility. They felt that by going down for 100 to 88, for example, that they'd have to add something in - and that's what they did.

That was their decision. We just felt that we didn't want to complicate things; wewanted to have one model, and we've had one model, we've done very well with it, now we'll add value and we'll think about what we'll do closer to Christmas.

But you're still asking people to commit GBP 425 to a games console. Isn't there a problem with the perception that that's an awful lot of money to shell out?

It is, but surprisingly, people are paying that amount of money for it. Now they'll get two games and an extra controller as well. It's not just a games machine as you know - you can play Blu-ray movies, you can download games from the network, you can browse the Internet and you can play music on it.

What about the PSP? You've made it smaller and lighter, but isn't the real problem that there aren't the games for it?

Yes. It's setting itself up. It needed to be lighter and slimmer to make it portable. To solve the problem, if there is a problem with PSP, is to have better and more original games.

Not only third parties but internally, Phil's studios are working not only on PSP purposed games, but we're thinking of moving some of the stuff we have on the Network on to PSP - things like Calling All Cars. We may repurpose it for PSP.

Why not add some of the other things gamers have been asking for, like a built-in hard drive?

We looked at them and they were too expensive. It might be we can look at a hard drive later, because hard drive prices now are relatively inexpensive. But by putting in a hard drive now you add weight as well. But I think it's definitely possible later, yes.

What did you think of Sony's E3 press conference this year?

I wasn't here; I arrived this afternoon and I'm leaving tomorrow. I've heard reports that it was a bit humbler, with more humility than last year, which I think was needed, that it was quite slick, that it was focusing on games... So it seems to have been fairly well received. But it's not for me to judge, is it?

Was that humbler approach taken because you think Sony has appeared arrogant in the past?

I think they have. Not deliberately, but at E3 last year and maybe the year before, the presentations they did to a European and a Japanese perspective - yes. To an American perspective - no, because the difference in cultures is you have to go, 'Ra-ra, I'm the best.'

We in Europe, and especially the Japanese, don't necessarily accept that. You have to say, 'We're doing our best, but we're not the best.'

So you'll have missed the Microsoft conference as well... Peter Moore seemed to be saying they're in a tight race with the Wii, while PS3 is lagging behind. What's your perspective on that?

Globally, I can't really comment. I would say that in the UK, Xbox 360 is doing okay. I would say in Continental Europe it's about dead. In Japan it's dead. I think it's doing very well in the US.

Wii is doing very well. Hats off to them; not only have they done well, they've got back in stock. They're marketing the console and the games extremely well. Two years ago the industry was writing them off, but they've come back. We owe a debt to Nintendo for keeping the industry going in the last couple of years; they're the ones who have kept it going.

Would you agree that Sony is no longer the market leader?

I don't think it's to do with market leadership, it's to do with growth. If we are to look back in five years' time, what we have to say is we have to double this industry in five years. It's not necessarily who's the market leader.

I think it will be cyclical. It's the same with Adidas and Converse and Puma and Nike; they all bring out new models, but in the end they have such store presence and so much marketing they have trebled that industry in the last eight years. That's what we have to do...

We've now got to appeal to families and to older people; that's where the growth is going to come, broader franchises. They're not going to be all Killzones, they're not going to be all God of Wars or Metal Gear Solids. They're going to be LittleBigPlanets, Calling All Cars, localised SingStar versions. We're doing a Bollywood version of SingStar; we'll probably do one in Russian as well.

Microsoft placed a big emphasis at this year's E3 on titles that are out this year, whereas yours featured more about titles due out in the longer term future, and Peter Moore said it's about winning this holiday. How are you going to compete?

I honestly don't think that just having the games on Xbox 360 is enough. I know it's nice to focus on one year, but he said the same last year - 'We're going to win the holiday season.' But they didn't; they missed that opportunity.

I don't want to criticise them, but they can't say the same again. PlayStation 3, you will see, will be far and away the winner when you look at it by March '08. They really, really will. It's something that is going to be a slow burner, and suddenly it's like a tsunami; it will just overtake you.

What will cause that tipping point?

You can't take a scattergun approach of putting all the games out. The Metal Gear Solids and the GT franchises - you don't have to put them out in November and December. You can put them out in January, March, April, whenever you like. A big game will move the platform.

In fact having a window of silence sometimes in those months is very good - that's what we've found. Metal Gear Solid always does well in March.

As you say you've got Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo, and then Microsoft's got the likes of Halo. Then there's this murkiness around titles like GTA IV, where extra content is coming out on 360, and Microsoft is saying 360 is the only place where you can get the full GTA IV experience. Why didn't you get that content?

It's just a question of money. If Microsoft wants to pay USD 50 million just for that... Then I would say they're quite desperate. But as Jack Tretton said, we're really not in the business any more of buying exclusivity. We're more in the business of developing, from Phil Harrison's area, new IPs. We want to move on.

It's too easy to look at and say, 'We must get the GTA franchise.' By the time you've got it the world's moved on, and they'll be talking about some other game. I've got children who are 11 to 15 years old, and those kids are looking forward and not necessarily looking back.

They're the kids who are going to be buying it - the new franchises, but not necessarily the old ones that we signed up to E3 four or five years ago. They're not going to drive the market in the future; it's going to be the new ones.

Where do you see PlayStation, and the industry in general, in five years' time?

It's going to be a lot more network based, to start with. I have absolutely no doubt about that. That will bring in people who are more PC-oriented, people who are more music-oriented and downloading through iPod.

I think there will be much more focus on shorter games, episodic games, instant gratification; less emphasis on a hard console or a hard laptop. The concept of a console eventually will disappear.

Are you still looking at PlayStation 3 as a ten year machine?

Yes, we are. We think with the capacity in the hard drive to update the firmware, that's certainly possible. We're in year eight of PlayStation 2 and I think we can still get to ten years on PlayStation 3.

That doesn't mean to say that something else might come out. I don't think it will be a PlayStation 4; it will be something completely different. But something will come out before we get to ten years on PlayStation 3.

So let's say it's not a physical machine, that physical media goes away - where will that leave retailers?

Retail, as they have in the music industry, will be left with something - but not everything they want... I think eventually they will struggle. Some countries like France are adjusting. Certainly in Japan they are adjusting. Unless UK retailers move in that direction, they are going to struggle.

David Reeves is president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. Interview by Ellie Gibson.

Terrorism fight 'will last for decades'

2007-07-13T23:31:00.001-07:00

Mr Howard said the threat posed by the “menace of Islamic fanaticism” was real, constant and insidious."

He warned the nation to wake-up to the reality such “borderless assault” was a global threat to society and the carefree lifestyle that Australians cherish.

“Make no mistake, Islamic fanaticism hates the way of life we have, it is dedicated to the destruction not only of freedom of religion, but freedom of the way of life we believe in so strongly," Mr Howard said in Tasmania this morning.

“Their enemy is the free way of life we hold dear, their weapons are unprecedented, they involve a borderless assault on the way of life and the beliefs we hold dear."

The Prime Minister said he understood that most people would rather not think about terrorism and just get on with their lives.

He agreed this resistance was an important way to fight terrorism.

But he said that Australia could not pick and choose when or where to fight terrorism.

In an apparent reference to the charging yesterday of Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef on charges of providing support to a terrorism organisation, the Prime Minister warned Australians never to relax.

“Just as we seemed to be taking our mind off the issue and seemed to be relaxing into a new and different era, we are reminded of the ever-present threat,’’ Mr Howard said.

“It is insidious; it is based on principles of religious fanaticism which should have no place in our society and no echo in any part of the Australian nation.’’

Mr Howard also hit back at civil rights critics who have questioned the time that Dr Haneef was held in a Brisbane jail without charge

Without specifically mentioning the Dr Haneef case, the Prime Minister told the Tasmanian Liberal Party conference in Launceston that the new anti-terrorism laws, which allow terrorism suspects to be held for longer periods of time without charge, were necessary to fight the “new and ever-threatening menace” of terrorism.

“(It) requires western society, while observing at all times the law which is a cornerstone of our society, to adopt new and more effective methods such as we have done in Australia with our anti-terror laws," Mr Howard said.

Mr Howard later refused to discuss specifically the charges brought against Dr Haneef.

But he reminded Australians that the Indian doctor was entitled to the presumption of innocence.

He complimented Australian Federal Police on their work, and said the allegations made against Dr Haneef were a reminder that terrorism was a global threat and that Australia’s strong anti-terror laws were both needed and justified.

Mr Howard said he was prepared the strengthen the anti-terror laws if necessary in the future.

Haneef Applies For Bail

2007-07-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

Melbourne, July 14 (PTI): Detained Indian doctor Mohammed Haneef today applied for bail after being charged with supporting a terrorist organisation in connection with the failed UK terror plot.

Haneef faced the Brisbane Magistrates court in this connection. But, following an hour-long hearing the court was adjourned and would resume proceedings again at 3pm (local time).

The Indian doctor faced the court charged with providing support to a terrorist organisation by allegedly "recklessly" providing his SIM card to UK terror suspects Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed when he left the UK for Australia last year.

The charge carries a maximum penalty of 15 years.

His lawyer Peter Russo said: "We have just got to take one step at a time and try and work our way through it."

High there! A meeting of extremes

2007-07-13T18:47:00.001-07:00

High there! A meeting of extremes

Standing more than five feet shy of his new friend, the world's smallest man shook the hand of the world's tallest yesterday.

The tallest man, Bao Xishun, meets the shortest man, He Pingping
The tallest man, Bao Xishun, meets the shortest man, He Pingping

He Pingping, 2ft 4in tall, said it was his long-cherished dream to meet Bao Xishun, 7ft 7in tall.

Mr He, 19, is applying to be entered in the Guinness World Records as the world's shortest adult. Mr Bao, 56, a herdsman from Inner Mongolia, meanwhile, is adjusting to life with his 5ft 6in tall bride, Xia Shujian, whom he married earlier this week.

Mr Bao was of normal height until 16 but then shot up, reaching his full height in seven years.

Baby survives eight-story plunge

2007-07-13T18:44:00.001-07:00

SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- A drunken man tossed his 10-month-old baby out a window in China's commercial hub of Shanghai, but the girl survived the eight-story plunge, newspapers reported Friday.

The girl's fall apparently was slowed by tree branches and she landed on soft soil, only breaking her leg, the Shanghai Daily said.

Her father, 26-year-old security guard Yu Dongrui, was in police custody and said the girl had slipped from his arms while playing, the paper said.

Police said the father had been drinking alcohol and had been arguing with his mother-in-law, the newspaper reported. Yu was estranged from his wife, who had asked for a divorce earlier this year and moved to another city, the paper said.

Prior to the fall, the woman's mother had placed the girl in Yu's arms, saying she would no longer take care of her, and told him he was no longer welcome in her home, the paper said.

"Yu took sleeping pills in the morning and started drinking in the afternoon," police officer Zong Yuan was quoted as saying. "The argument with his mother-in-law started when she asked him to leave her house," Zong said.

The child was listed as out of danger after being treated in a local hospital in Shanghai's suburban Jiading district.

SKY DIVING FROM 102,800 FEET, WORLD RECORD

2007-07-13T17:48:00.000-07:00

Soccer Star David Beckham Receives Rousing Welcome in Los Angeles

2007-07-13T17:45:00.001-07:00

English soccer star David Beckham has arrived in Los Angeles to join the city's Major League Soccer team, the Galaxy. Mike O'Sullivan reports, Beckham was welcomed Friday to his new home arena in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson.

The former captain of the English national team called his move to Los Angeles one of the biggest challenges of his career, a move to a different country on the other side of the world, but he says it a challenge that he welcomes. "My family have now moved to Los Angeles, something we are looking forward to, something we are very proud of. And in our life, everything is perfect," he said.

Beckham's wife, Victoria, also got an excited welcome. Known as Posh, she was once part of the pop group the Spice Girls. The couple and their three children will live in a sprawling Beverly Hills mansion.

Beckham's five-year contract with the Galaxy will pay him more than five million dollars a year, plus tens of millions more in commercial endorsements. The Galaxy hope their star mid-fielder will help popularize soccer in the United States. Beckham has played for England's Manchester United and Spain's Real Madrid, and he says soccer can potentially be as big in the United States as it is in other countries.

In the audience to greet the new Galaxy star was Michael Wadley, a visitor from Alabama in the southeastern United States. His son is taking part in a summer soccer camp, and he says the sport is getting popular in his state. "Soccer is probably a bigger sport now than (American) football used to be back about 20 years ago," he said.

Beckham is expected to draw a sellout crowd for his first Major League Soccer match in Los Angeles July 21, when the Galaxy will face the visiting English football league's Chelsea club.

PS3 Price Drop

2007-07-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

Well maybe it is not so simple, but it is bewildering why North America gets a straightforward US$100 price reduction on the PlayStation 3, whilst the PAL territories seem too sophisticated for such a natural remedy.

Instead of a price drop, both Europe and Australasia will receive the revised bundling of the PS3. For the current price you get an extra couple of SIX AXIS controllers as well as the must have games MotorStorm and Resistance: Fall of Man.

Is it just marketing? Does Sony see the PAL territories as a completely different market to North America and for that matter South Korea?

Both these markets will see the 80GB model, with a recent interview with David Reeves (CEO Sony Entertainment Europe) on gamespot gave the confused indication that North America was only getting the 80GB SKU because the 60GB was not being produced anymore and is being phased out by introducing the price reduction.

This claim was later refuted by Sony as an incorrect ; "Those quotes from David Reeves are not accurate. He said that if they had lowered the price in Europe, that territory would have run out of their current inventory by the end of July... As announced this week, SCEA's product offering in North America consists of a 80GB PS3 available in August at US$599 and a 60GB PS3 available now for US$499. We have will have ample supplies of both models to meet the needs of our consumers for the foreseeable future."

So is this another example - along with the removal of the Emotion Engine hardware (the PS2 and PSone backwards compatibility mechnasim) in limiting the PAL region PS3 experience? Already the range of SKU's available is limited, and the price incompatibilities between our US gaming brethren make the import option increasingly attractive.

I am not saying the bundle is not a good idea, in fact there is value to be had, my complaint is the limited options.

This is not a fan-boy comment, but just simple economics. If I look at the Xbox 360, I see a choice of modular components that allow the entertainment machine to fit my circumstances.

If I don't want the High Definition Disc option, then just don't purchase the connectible HD-DVD drive.

WI-FI connection is important, so add in an access point.

Select the games I, or my family wish to play. Though MotorStorm and Resistance: Fall of Man are great games, they may not be suitable for the destined household.

With gaming titles being released cross platform, with less exclusive must have titles to distinguish game consoles, it more often to not comes down to value for the consumer. A big part of that perceived value is in the choice and options available.

By limiting PAL territories to one SKU and price, the bad blood may continue. In this connected world, consumers do not only compare local store options for electronic goods, comparisons will be made worldwide. Sales of the PS3 have gone nuts in the U.S. following the price reduction, why does Sony not believe the same could happen elsewhere?

Run Your Car on Saltwater

2007-07-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

Canadians Discover A Cure For Cancer?

2007-07-13T13:52:00.001-07:00

First Person Motorcycle Accident

2007-07-13T13:47:00.000-07:00

U.S. House votes to bring most troops home by April 1

2007-07-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

BEIJING, July 13 (Xinhuanet) -- The U.S. House of Representatives voted 223-201 Thursday to bring most troops home from Iraq by April 1, 2008, but Republican allies in the House of President Bush said the new measure will not pass.

Bush vetoed a war-spending bill with a similar withdrawal date in May and has threatened to do the same to any new attempt to set a timetable for a U.S. troop withdrawal.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said Thursday's mixed report on the progress of the war shows it's time for American troops to come home.

"President Bush continues to urge patience, but what is needed -- and what the American people are demanding -- is a new direction," she said.

The president said it is not up to Congress job to make decisions regarding the war.

But before the House vote, Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "We're the people who decide when to go to war, whether the war should be funded.

"Now, when [the Bush administration] keeps making mistakes as they have made, we have to intercede. The public spoke in the last election and said clearly we want the troops redeployed."

Earlier Thursday, Bush said a report on U.S.-set benchmarks for Iraq shows "satisfactory progress" in eight areas. He admitted that there is "more work to be done."

"This is an ugly war. It's a war in which an enemy will kill innocent men, women and children in order to achieve a political objective," Bush said. "It doesn't surprise me that there is deep concern amongst our people."

Homer Simpson a True Hometown Hero

2007-07-13T13:38:00.001-07:00

THE Simpsons hardly need any introduction.

There isn't a television show that has had the same impact on popular culture nor is there a character that matches the appeal of the show's main protagonist, Homer Simpson.

Which is why, after 20 years, the The Simpsons Movie is one of the most anticipated films of the past two decades and a long-awaited reprieve for the hardcore fans who have, literally, been counting down the days to July 26.

Internet forums have been buzzing about the film's plot for years but the show's creator, Matt Groening, who once said that there would never be a Simpsons movie, insists the plot is by the by.

"I can't imagine people look in the TV section of the newspaper and think, 'I'll watch this week's Simpsons because I like the plot'," he said in an interview recently.

"You just tune in and see what happens."

Towns named Springfield throughout the US recently spent thousands of dollars competing for the right to host the movie's American premiere.

Springfield, Vermont, took the honour.

The town has a nuclear power plant, bowling alley, tavern and prison - just like the fictional Springfield.

The vice-president of the town's chamber of commerce credited the win to the final scene in their video submission that showed a fat bald guy chasing a giant pink donut down the street while being chased by 300 locals in full Simpsons character.

In California, 7-Eleven has rebranded 14 of their stores as Kwik E Marts complete with Indian clerks behind the counter who chirp "thank you, come again" to customers as they leave - just like the fictional Simpson's clerk Apu Nahasapeemapetilon.

The stores have reportedly doubled their revenue since the rebrand last week.

Admittedly, there is a general consensus that the standard of The Simpsons has been in decline over the past few years, with critics accusing the show's writers of getting lazy and relying more and more on far-fetched, ridiculous story lines.

But for contribution to modern culture and its entertainment industry legacy, The Simpsons is unrivalled.

The biggest celebrities in the world have fallen over themselves to snare cameos.

Before his star fell in a blaze of child molestation controversy, Michael Jackson once voiced the role of an overweight, white mental patient while the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty and Elvis Costello dropped by to help Homer tap into his inner rock god at a Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy camp in season 14.

Award-winning comedian Ricky Gervais who, despite having written two top-rating comedy series and winning two Golden Globes, described his chance to write and appear in an episode as evidence he had truly "made it".

But when the series finally comes to an end (which could be some way off considering Groening once described the show's 400th episode as a "halfway point"), it will forever be remembered for introducing Homer Simpson into our collective conscience.

Is there a person, real or fictional, that we know more about than Homer Simpson?

A mix of even the most casual Simpsons watchers can tell you that Homer works at a nuclear power plant, drinks Duff beer, likes doughnuts, hates his sisters-in-law, also hates his evangelical neighbour Ned Flanders, has a drinking problem, is an over-eater and says "D'oh" when upset (and "mmm" when tempted).

Dig a bit deeper and you will be told he once travelled into space, had a triple-bypass, has a best friend named Barney, once ran a bootleg beer business after alcohol was outlawed in Springfield and wields a "whacking day" club with the accuracy and skill of a Japanese samurai.

Psychologists, academics and religious experts have all weighed in at one time or another to explain Homer's epic appeal and why his mix of self-indulgence and human failure resonates so much with people.

But the episode that sums up the attraction of Homer best (and the one which Groening credits as his favourite), is his encounter with the hard-working, power-plant employee Frank Grimes in season eight.

Grimes takes an instant dislike to Homer and is appalled by his lackadaisical attitude and oafish behaviour - so much so he is pushed to the brink of insanity and ultimately electrocutes himself.

But rather than sympathise with Grimes (who of us hasn't been infuriated by an incompetent co-worker?), we find ourselves barracking for slack, lazy Homer.

Sure, he is a bad father, a drunk, an overeater, an inattentive husband and a useless employee. He represents all of our worst human qualities and yet manages to maintain a relatively happy life with friends and family.

He gives even the worst of us hope - at the unfortunate expense of "Grimey", the nickname Homer gave Grimes (which he hated) which also appears on his tombstone.

"I love that episode because Homer is just being himself and it drives Grimes crazy," Groening told Entertainment Weekly.

A US academic once wrote that by "being himself", Homer lowers the bar to such a level that he sets the rest of humanity free.

Free to be what, exactly, who knows. But his status in history is sealed - father, husband, slob, alcoholic, saviour of humanity and now, movie star.

An Oscar statuette surely can't be too far away.

Harry Potter's Not Enough

2007-07-13T13:28:00.001-07:00

Of all the magical powers wielded by Harry Potter, perhaps none has cast a stronger spell than his supposed ability to transform the reading habits of young people. In what has become near mythology about the wildly popular series by J K Rowling, many parents, teachers, librarians and booksellers have credited it with inspiring a generation of kids to read for pleasure in a world dominated by instant messaging and
music downloads.

And so it has, for many children. But in keeping with the intricately plotted novels themselves, the truth about Harry Potter and reading is not quite so straightforward a success story. Indeed, as the series draws to a much-lamented close, statistics show that the percentage of youngsters who read for fun continues to drop significantly as children get older, at almost exactly the same rate as before Harry Potter came along.

There is no doubt that the books have been a publishing sensation. In the 10 years since the first one, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, was published, the series has sold 325 million copies worldwide, with 121.5 million in print in the US alone. Before Harry Potter, it was virtually unheard of for kids to queue up for a mere book. Children who had previously read short chapter books were suddenly ploughing through more than 700 pages in a matter of days. Scholastic, the series's US publisher, plans a record-setting print run of 12 million copies for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the eagerly awaited seventh and final instalment due out at 12.01 a.m. on July 21.

But some researchers and educators say that the series, in the end, has not permanently tempted children to put down their Game Boys and curl up with a book instead. Some kids have found themselves daunted by the growing size of the books (Sorcerer's Stone was 309 pages; Deathly Hallows will be 784). Others say that Harry Potter does not have as much resonance as titles that more realistically reflect their daily lives. Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts in the US, said, "It got millions of kids to read a long and reasonably complex series of books. The trouble is that one Harry Potter novel every few years is not enough to reverse the decline in reading".

Young people are less inclined to read for pleasure as they move into their teenage years for a variety of reasons, educators say. Some of these are trends of long standing (older children inevitably become more socially active, spend more time on reading-for-school or simply find other sources of entertainment other than books), and some are of more recent vintage (the multiplying menagerie of high-tech gizmos that compete for their attention, from iPods to Wii consoles). What parents and others hoped was that the phenomenal success of the Potter books would blunt these trends, perhaps even creating a generation of lifelong readers in their wake. Many thousands of children have gone from the Potter books to other pleasure reading. But others have dropped away.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress in the US, a series of federal tests administered every few years to a sample of students in grades 4, 8 and 12, the percentage of kids who said they read for fun almost every day dropped from 43 per cent in fourth grade to 19 per cent in eighth grade in 1998, the year Sorcerer's Stone was published. In 2005, when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book, was published, the results were identical.

Many parents, educators and librarians say that despite such statistics, they have seen enough evidence to convince them that Harry Potter is a bona fide hero. In a study commissioned last year by Scholastic, Yankelovich, a market research firm, reported that 51 per cent of the 500 kids aged 5 to 17 polled said they did not read books for fun before they started reading the series. A little over three-quarters of them said Harry Potter had made them interested in reading other books.

In a way that was previously rare for books, Harry Potter entered the pop-culture conscious-ness. The movies (the film version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth in the series, just opened) heightened the fervour, spawning video games and collectible figurines. That made it easier for kids who thought reading was for geeks to pick up a book.

But creating a habit of reading is a continuous battle with kids who are saturated with other options. Still, there is something about seeing the passion that a novel can inspire that excites those who want to perpetuate a culture of reading. Even as the Harry Potter series draws to a close, there are signs that other books are coming up to take its place.

On a recent afternoon at a public school in New York, a group of boys shouted with enthusiasm for the Cirque du Freak series about a boy who becomes entangled with a vampire. "I like the books so much that even when the teacher is teaching a lesson, i still want to read the books", said 11-year-old Vincent Eng. His classmate Thejas Alex said he had stopped reading a Harry Potter book to jump into Cirque du Freak. "While i was reading them", Thejas said, referring to the Cirque books, "I was like, addicted".

www.timesofindia.com

Wait Until You Hear Who’s Comparing the Bush Administration to Nazi Germany

2007-07-13T13:25:00.001-07:00

Nazi Comparison

Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison — the first Muslim member of Congress — says Bush administration actions following 9/11 remind him of the way Adolf Hitler's government expanded its power after the burning of Berlin’s Reichstag parliament building in 1933.

Ellison told a gathering of atheists recently — "It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that. After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the communists for it and it put the leader of that country [Hitler] in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted. The fact is that I'm not saying [September 11] was a [U.S.] plan, or anything like that because, you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box — dismiss you."

Ellison later told a writer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune that examples of Bush administration actions fitting his Nazi parallel include the Iraq war, certain provisions of the Patriot Act, and the commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence.

Behind the Numbers

NATO and the government of Afghanistan say civilian casualty figures that follow coalition action are often exaggerated or fabricated.

The BBC reports officials say this is done by insurgents trying to put public pressure on the U.S. and its allies. They say coalition operations are often followed by false reports of as many as 200 civilian deaths.

One Afghan general says the Taliban regularly forces villagers to phone media outlets with inflated figures — under threat of beheading if they do not comply.

Weighty Issue

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says filmmaker Michael Moore — whose most recent movie criticizes the U.S. health care system — is himself a poster child for inflated medical costs.

Huckabee — who has lost 110 pounds himself — says — "Michael Moore is an example of why the health care system costs so much in this country. He is clearly one of the reasons that we have a very expensive system ... I know how much more my health care cost when I didn't take care of myself than when I do take care of myself."

Moore hasn't commented yet — but the woman who produced his movie "Sicko" — says "Looks like Mike Huckabee is auditioning for some insurance company dough."

Northern Exposure

North Korea is often depicted as a dark and colorless place. But it turns out North Korea has some karaoke bars and Internet cafes.

But now the government is shutting them down — saying they are a threat to society. Refugees say such places are mostly located in the northern region near the Chinese border — and are frequented by merchants that do business in both countries.

Pulling the Plug

Meanwhile, a British man living in China who has spent years trying to convince the west that the Chinese government is not nearly as oppressive as it is often portrayed — is now being muzzled by — you guessed it — the Chinese government.

Nick Young writes a newsletter reporting on social, civil and environmental development in the communist country. But now the government is accusing him of "conducting unauthorized surveys" and has ordered him to stop publication or be deported.

—FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.

Another Apple rumor: New iPods will be like iPhones

2007-07-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

This week has already seen the spectacular rise and flameout of one Apple rumor -- JP Morgan Taiwan analyst Kevin Chang's idea that Apple would soon release a smaller, cheaper iPhone based on the iPod Nano. Though Chang's sources were anonymous and vague, Wall Street sent Apple's shares soaring on the analyst's news -- and all seemed merry until Chang's own colleagues at Morgan issued a note calling his idea pretty much bogus.

At the same time, another more plausible rumor has also been shimmering in the tech-Web hall of mirrors. This one says that Apple will soon release an iPod that looks substantially like the iPhone -- i.e., it'll feature a touch screen and run a version of Mac OS. The supporting data points, as compiled by Apple Insider, are these:

* The Taiwan publication DigiTimes, citing "sources at the upstream suppliers," claims that Apple has selected a company called Wintek to provide touch-screen displays for the new iPods, which DigiTimes says will be released in August.
* At an employee town hall meeting a couple weeks ago, Steve Jobs reportedly thanked the Mac OS developer team for its work on the iPhone and "some iPods we're working on."
* There's a stock-analyst seconding the idea: Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, offering no sources or evidence of his own, told investors in a note that "the iPhone reveals much of what the iPod will soon be.... Specifically, we expect Apple to release high capacity iPods based on OS X sometime during or before Macworld '08 in January."
* It's long overdue, too. The last significant change to the iPod lineup occurred almost two years ago, when Apple put out the video pod. Isn't it time they rejiggered it?

I'll say it's a better case than Chang's Nano Phone supposition. Plus, the device sounds nifty. A touch-screen iPod that runs Mac OS -- if they throw in Wi-Fi and price it under $400, could be killer. Come August, we'll see.

www.machinist.salon.com

U.S. Troops Raid Baghdad Shiite District

2007-07-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

BAGHDAD - U.S. troops raided a Shiite area of Baghdad on Thursday, capturing two militants believed linked to Iran and sparking a battle that Iraqi officials said killed 19 people. Two employees of the Reuters news agency were among the dead.

Angry residents of the Amin district — many of them Shiites who fled to Baghdad from Baqouba, where U.S. troops are waging an offensive against insurgents — accused U.S. helicopters of striking buildings during the fight with gunmen and killing civilians. The U.S. military did not immediately comment on the fighting.

Among the dead were at least one woman and two children, and some of the men slain appeared to have been armed and firing on the Americans, Iraqi police and hospital officials said.

AP Television News footage showed buildings riddled with holes from heavy machine gun and rocket fire, and a minibus with its front seat blasted away.

U.S. forces have been waging an intensified security crackdown against Shiite and Sunni militants in and around Baghdad for nearly a month, as the Iraqi government struggles to make political progress. Disputes among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders have severely weakened Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki even as the United States presses him to enact reforms.

One of Iraq's most powerful Shiite politicians, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, underlined his support of al-Maliki in comments to The Associated Press on Thursday. Al-Hakim said his party — the biggest in parliament — was working with al-Maliki on a government reshuffle that would strengthen the prime minister.

The violence in the Amin district in eastern Baghdad began with a pre-dawn raid by U.S. forces, who captured two militants involved in kidnappings and planting roadside bombs against American and Iraqi troops, the military said in a statement. Militants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the troops, hitting a nearby building, according to the military.

The militants belonged to Iranian-backed "special groups" linked to the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the military said. The U.S. has accused Iran's Revolutionary Guards of organizing and arming a network of the special groups to carry out attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces as well as kidnappings.

After the initial raid, U.S. troops surrounded the neighborhood for several hours, announcing with loudspeakers to residents that they were seeking militants and that they should stay inside, said an Iraqi police official who was at the scene.

As the Americans withdrew about 11 a.m., they came under fire, the official said. That prompted troops to move back into the district, assaulting several buildings. A U.S. attack helicopter struck targets on the ground, he said.

The result was a battle with militants that included mortars and rockets, the official said. Several explosions hit residential buildings, killing eight people, including a woman and two children, said the official and another police officer involved in counting the casualties. They could not say whether the blasts came from the helicopter or from militants.

Eleven others — mostly men, including some suspected gunmen — were killed on the street near buildings, shops and a Shiite religious building, the police officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give information to reporters.

Officials from the three hospitals where the victims were taken put the toll at 19 dead and 20 wounded. Among the dead were an Iraqi photographer for Reuters, Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, the London-based news agency said. "The cause of their deaths was unclear, although witnesses spoke of an explosion in the area," Reuters reported. "Iraqi police said either a U.S. airstrike or a mortar attack had occurred."

The U.S. military reported on the initial raid but not on the later fighting. The Associated Press asked the U.S. by e-mail for comment but was told only that reports were still coming in.

Residents blamed the Americans for the destruction.

"We are refugees, we were displaced from our homes by militant attacks," said one woman, who like others had come to the neighborhood from Baqouba. "And now we have to deal with attacks from Americans."

"They hit the building and destroyed it completely. My mother is dead, my sister is dead. I don't know where my father is," said the woman, who refused to identify herself, speaking in front of a residential building where the ground floor of shops was gutted.

U.S. strikes in Shiite districts are highly sensitive for al-Maliki, whose bedrock support is from the majority Shiite community. Shiites have complained of casualties in U.S. raids launched in retaliation for the frequent mortar attacks on Baghdad's government district, the Green Zone. Those mortar attacks are often blamed on the Mahdi Army. The U.S. military says it tries to avoid civilian casualties but that militants hide in populated areas.

Earlier this month, al-Maliki scolded the U.S. for a raid in the Baghdad Shiite stronghold of Sadr City. But he has not moved to rein in American operations as he has in the past — having promised Washington to allow troops to go after both Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents.

In southern Iraq, clashes erupted between Shiite militants and the Iraqi army, killing a soldier and a civilian in the city of Diwaniyah, police said. The U.S. military said Thursday that American-Iraqi sweeps in the city over the previous two days had killed eight suspected insurgents.

A suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt by a wedding party in Tal Afar, a city 260 miles northwest of Baghdad that has seen frequent attacks by Sunni insurgents. A police officer in Tal Afar said five people were killed and five wounded, though the bride and groom escaped injury. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to the press.

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Hot Ice: Video on making Ice the cool way!

2007-07-12T12:54:00.001-07:00

Apollos Chariot at Busch Garden

2007-07-11T13:26:00.000-07:00

Ransoms Fuel Surge in Nigeria Kidnapping

2007-07-11T13:24:00.001-07:00

LAGOS, Nigeria - Foreign oil workers are known in Nigeria's oil-rich south as "white gold" among the gangs that kidnap them.
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They have seized more than 150 foreigners this year, including a just freed 3-year-old British girl. That's nearly as many abductions as all of 2006, a kidnapping epidemic that has helped cut output in Africa's largest oil nation by a quarter, driving up prices worldwide.

"Ah, the whites are coming," one young gang member — sipping beer in a ramshackle, roadside bar — told a reporter with a chuckle as a heavily guarded oil company convoy sped through the oil city of Port Harcourt, sirens blaring. "It's like the vans for ice creams in your country."

ASI Global Response now rates Nigeria as second only to Iraq as the country with the greatest risk of kidnapping for foreign workers.

The desire for ransom fuels the kidnappings, gang members and oil industry officials say. They claim a cut goes to the government officials who shuttle between the charm-bedecked, rifle-toting gunmen in the swamps and professional negotiators flown in from Paris or London.

"Absolutely not true," Rivers state government spokesman Emmanuel Okah said this week.

But an official with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, a militant group behind a number of high-profile kidnappings, said all sides pocket a portion of ransoms.

"Practically everyone involved in hostage negotiations has had his hands soiled," the militant said by e-mail. "Officials merely up the demands of the abductors and keep the rest to themselves, most times unknown to the abductors."

One oil worker told The Associated Press how his captors and visiting officials argued over his ransom: The kidnappers insisted they asked for more than twice the offered amount; the officials said it had been stolen when they left the cash unattended. He said he remained in captivity while they were sent back for more.

In another case, Nigerian security forces threatened to kill a hostage if he revealed the discrepancy between what his company paid and what his kidnappers received, a security expert said.

"In many cases, the proportion of released funds that ends up in the hands of the kidnappers is unknown," another security professional said. "State or local government officials are keen to act as the intermediaries in kidnap negotiations."

It's a delicate subject. Company officials refuse to discuss ransoms for fear of alienating powerful local interests or becoming targets themselves. Released hostages fear retribution from former captors or losing their job if they talk to the journalists.

Even gang members fear their collaborators in the government, even though they often serve as hired muscle during elections and frequently engage in violent clashes between themselves.

Because of the those worries, the former hostage, the security professionals and the gang member asked that no further details be published to protect their identities. Most of those who talked to the AP about government collusion in kidnappings asked for anonymity for similar reasons.

Few companies have a direct line to the kidnappers. When four employees of the Italian oil company Agip were kidnapped late last year, the militant group holding them announced the company had spent $1.5 million trying to secure their release through various middlemen.

"Agip has so far lost more than 200 million naira ($1.5 million) to various con artists," the militants said in an e-mail before announcing that the ransom — allegedly unsolicited — had been "confiscated."

Agip's parent company, Eni SpA, denied paying any ransom, and no oil company has ever publicly admitted doing so.

The militants, who claim to kidnap as part of a campaign to coerce the government into making political concessions and funneling more oil revenue to the poverty-stricken south, appeared to be trying to distance themselves from criminal gangs that kidnap for money.

Yet the web of connections among militants, criminals and government is more tangled than the roots of the steamy mangrove swamps where the hostages are held.

The militant group balked when pressed for more details on government involvement in ransom payments. "I never wish to seem like a snitch," said a spokesman, who denied soliciting ransoms.

But one state official admitted to AP that he took cash during the Agip kidnapping. He also insisted on not being quoted by name.

Other government officials indignantly denied the accusation.

Okah, the Rivers state spokesman, said no ransom was paid to secure the freedom Sunday of Margaret Hill, a 3-year-old British citizen who was the first foreign child snatched in the region.

Okah also said the state government no longer doles out cash from shadowy slush funds following a federal order last year prohibiting ransom payments.

In 2006, the Rivers state government allocated nearly $40 million as a "security vote," up from $27 million the year before. No records are available on how the money has been spent or how much has been allocated this year.

"In the early stage, the state government facilitated releases," Okah acknowledged. "Now, it's individuals" who pay ransoms.

Kidnappings are escalating. Two foreigners were grabbed Sunday, five were seized July 4 and held for a week, and an abduction attempt was repulsed Tuesday, police reported Wednesday.

Foreign oil workers aren't the only targets, though. Two senior Nigerian employees of Royal Dutch Shell PLC were abducted Saturday and released Wednesday, colleagues said, and two Nigerian toddlers were taken captive in the past six weeks.

The root causes behind the kidnappings — poverty, corruption and lawlessness — must be tackled before the region degenerates into a Colombia-style situation in which any wealthy person is a potential victim, regardless of employer or nationality, said Dimieari von Kemedi, a human rights lawyer working in the Niger Delta.

"A time may come when anyone wearing a tie is a target," he warned.

www.yahoo.com

2005 Would-Be London Bombers Get Life

2007-07-11T13:21:00.001-07:00

LONDON - A British judge sentenced four al-Qaida-inspired bomb plotters to life in prison Wednesday for their "very nearly successful attempt at mass murder" on London's transit system in 2005, two weeks after suicide bombers killed 52 commuters in the city.
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Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29; Yassin Omar, 26; Ramzi Mohammed, 25; and Hussain Osman, 28, must spend at least 40 years in jail before becoming eligible for parole, Judge Adrian Fulford said. On Monday, a jury convicted the men of conspiracy to murder for trying to detonate explosives-filled knapsacks on three subway trains and a bus.

Two other suspects, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 34, and Adel Yahya, 24, will be retried; the jury failed to reach a verdict on the charges against them.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was investigating why Ibrahim, the group's leader, was allowed to travel to Pakistan — where prosecutors believe he underwent terrorist training — even though he was due in court on a charge of using threatening and abusive behavior while distributing extremist literature.

No one was injured in the failed bombings on July 21, 2005. But the judge said that if the bombs had gone off, "at least 50 people would have died, hundreds of people would have been wounded, thousands would have had their lives permanently damaged, disfigured or otherwise, whether they were Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, agnostic or atheist."

"This was a viable, indeed a very nearly successful, attempt at mass murder," he said.

Prosecutors said that although the planning started long before, the July 21 attempt was a deliberate echo of the July 7 attack in which four suicide bombers killed 52 people in London. Police suspect, but could not prove, that there were links between the two groups of bombers.

Fulford said the events of July 7 meant the July 21 plotters knew how deadly their bombs could be.

"The family and friends of the dead and the injured, the hundreds, indeed thousands, captured underground in terrifying circumstances, the smoke, the screams of the wounded and the dying — this each defendant knew," the judge said. "They planned this, they prepared for it."

All six defendants denied the charges, saying the bombs were meant to be duds and their actions a protest against the Iraq war. But police and prosecutors said scientific tests proved the bombs were all viable. They do not know why they did not work.

Sue Hemming, the chief anti-terrorism prosecutor, said the men "tried to cause the same level of death and destruction" as the July 7 suicide bombers.

Unlike three of the four July 7 bombers, who were British-born, the July 21 plotters came to Britain as youths from countries in the Horn of Africa. Some are British citizens, while others have refugee status.

Police believe planning for the attack started after Ibrahim returned from Pakistan in March 2005. He was in Pakistan at the same time as two of the July 7 bombers, but officials do not know if they ever met.

Fulford said he believes the groups were linked. The judge said the second group of plotters was "a parallel but separate team ... acting under the overall control of al-Qaida."

In both cases, the bombers targeted three subway trains and a bus, and the main ingredient in the bombs was the same — hydrogen peroxide, a common chemical.

Police believe the transit system was not the July 21 group's original target, but was chosen after the deadly attack two weeks earlier. The original target is unknown.

The failed attack sparked a police manhunt, and the suspects were rounded up within days.

After the arrests, police acknowledged they had video showing several of the suspects at a training camp in northern England a year before the attacks, but had failed to investigate them further.

Ibrahim, who became a British citizen in 2004, had been arrested and charged in October of that year over a disturbance while he was distributing extremist Islamic pamphlets, but was still allowed to travel to Pakistan in two months later.

He and two other men were questioned at Heathrow Airport before they left. Even though they had a large amount of cash and a first-aid manual describing how to treat gunshot wounds, they were allowed to board a flight to Islamabad.

Brown said Ibrahim's visit to Pakistan was being investigated. He said that under laws now in effect, Ibrahim would have been deported to his native Eritrea because of convictions for sexual assault and robbery in the 1990s.

The prime minister said Ibrahim "applied for a passport, he applied for citizenship of this country, and received citizenship because all his offenses as a juvenile had been wiped off. That would not happen now and he would not get citizenship of this country."

www.yahoo.com

China Bans Toxic Syrup in Toothpaste

2007-07-11T13:19:00.001-07:00

BEIJING - China banned diethylene glycol — a thickening agent in antifreeze — from use in toothpaste Wednesday, one of its most significant concessions yet as it struggles to regain international confidence in the country's beleaguered exports.
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Chinese-made toothpaste containing the toxic substance, which can cause kidney failure, paralysis and death, has been yanked from sale in North and South America, Europe and Asia in recent weeks.

Diethylene glycol is used as a low-cost substitute for glycerin, a sweetener commonly found in drugs, food, toothpaste and other products. Although there have been no reports of health problems stemming from the toothpaste, dozens of people in Panama died last year after taking medicine contaminated with the chemical imported from China. It was passed off as harmless glycerin.

"From today onwards, toothpaste manufacturers are not allowed to use diethylene glycol as an ingredient," the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a notice posted late Wednesday on its Web site.

While China has never had guidelines banning diethylene glycol, or DEG, in toothpaste, the statement said the vast majority of Chinese toothpaste manufacturers have already stopped using it in order to reassure consumers and "to avoid unnecessary losses incurred by exporting manufacturers."

But, it said, the ban also extends to imported products and reiterated China's official stance that diethylene glycol in small quantities is safe, based on tests carried out by Chinese health experts in 2000.

"Long-term use of toothpaste containing DEG in amounts less than 15.6 percent will not have a negative health impact on humans," the administration said. "Currently there's no evidence to show that the use of DEG in toothpaste directly causes cases of poisoning in people. ... Consumers should not be concerned."

The announcement is the latest in a string of moves by China to clarify murky regulations, tighten enforcement and clean up graft — factors underpinning its poor food safety record — as it fights to prove it is not a danger to the global supply chain.

In recent weeks, importers of Chinese goods, especially the United States, have grown extremely wary as the list of products tainted with deadly toxins and dangerously high levels of chemicals grows daily, from frozen fish to juice to toys.

Also Wednesday, the government ordered small, loosely regulated food producers to clean up their act and announced stricter rules for approving new drugs, a day after the former head of its food and drug agency was executed for accepting bribes in exchange for letting fake medicine into the domestic market.

China's small-scale food producers have been accused of unsanitary production conditions, using tainted or substandard ingredients and failing to register with authorities. While their products generally are sold only in local areas, their continued existence helps explain why China is facing a food crisis.

In a separate statement on its Web site, the quality watchdog warned that small-scale producers will be shut down unless they renovate their operations to meet hygiene standards.

Those manufacturers must also avoid using recycled ingredients, unapproved additives and banned substances, the administration said.

By 2009, their numbers are expected to be halved, with all properly certified by 2012, it said.

Additionally, all food exported from China will have an inspection and quarantine symbol to guarantee safety starting in September, it said.

China has repeatedly asked exporters to ensure the quality of their products, a Commerce Ministry spokesman said Wednesday.

"After the recent spate of product quality or safety problems, the Chinese government has attached great importance to this issue," Wang Xinpei said, according to a transcript posted online. However, he added, "problems in individual products should not be extended to the overall quality of China's exported products."

The quality administration did not specify how it defines small-scale producers in its crackdown, or give other details. But it has said that about 350,000, or 78 percent, of China's food processing operations employ 10 people or less.

The agency also said about half — or 223,297 — of the factories it inspected nationwide were not completely certified. Another 164,149 had no certificate at all, it said.

Most manufactured commonly consumed food like rice, wheat powder, soybeans, wine and cooking oil.

Last month, Chinese authorities said that they had closed 180 food factories since December after inspectors found formaldehyde, illegal dyes and industrial wax being used to make candy, pickles, crackers and seafood. All had fewer than 10 employees.

Another regulating agency said it shut 152,000 unlicensed food producers and retailers last year for making and selling fake and low-quality products.

Meanwhile, the State Food and Drug Administration said the 2008 Beijing Olympics — a source of national pride — would give China a chance to prove to the world that it was capable of setting a new standard for food safety and raise awareness domestically about the issue.

The Beijing Games would serve as a "model for food safety work in China" and for future Olympic events, director Shao Mingli was quoted Wednesday as saying in a news conference broadcast on the Internet.

Amid such concerns, the execution of Zheng Xiaoyu, who headed the State Food and Drug Administration from 1997 to 2005, was another strong indication of Beijing's determination to improve product safety.

In a commentary, the Communist Party's mouthpiece People's Daily newspaper said Zheng's execution was warranted because of the serious consequences of approving untested medicine in return for millions of dollars in cash and gifts.

"He damaged the interests of the country and the people to a large extent," the newspaper said Wednesday.

Bogus drugs approved by Zheng included an antibiotic blamed in the deaths of at least 10 people.

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California Heat-Wave Deaths Undercounted

2007-07-11T13:15:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The heat wave that scorched California a year ago may have contributed to hundreds more deaths than the state has officially reported, an Associated Press investigation suggests.
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As recently as last month, state officials reported that the two-week ordeal of triple-digit temperatures that began on July 14, 2006, killed 143 people.

But statistics compiled by the AP from each of California's 58 counties show the number of deaths last July was 466 higher than the average over the previous six years — a spike many health officials attribute to the broiling heat.

Dr. Kevin Reilly, the state Health Department's deputy director for prevention services, said that without examining each case individually, he cannot say for certain whether the 300 or so additional deaths identified by the AP were heat-related. But he admitted the state's count is probably too low.

"Is this underreported? Almost certainly," he said.

Frank McCarton, chief deputy director of the Governor's Office of Emergency Services, said state and county health officials alike clearly need to track heat-related deaths more accurately if they hope to save more lives.

"This is something we're going to really try to tighten up," he said.

That could be especially important because many scientists predict California will experience prolonged heat waves for years to come.

There is no evidence of a deliberate undercount of fatalities by California authorities.

Instead, local health officials say they often have difficulty determining whether a death was caused by heat instead of old age or a pre-existing condition, such as heart or respiratory disease — illnesses that can be aggravated by extreme temperatures. Coroners commonly attribute a death to one of these underlying conditions without noting whether heat was a factor.

California coroners typically list deaths as heat-related when there are obvious connections, such as an elderly or disabled person found dead in a stifling room or farmworkers who collapsed in the fields. Beyond that, settling on a cause of death is largely a judgment call.

Other states and cities have had similar disagreements over heat-wave death tolls, in part because there is no fixed, nationwide standard for deciding whether a death was heat-related.

For example, a 1995 heat wave in Chicago was blamed by the Cook County medical examiner's office for more than 700 deaths. Mayor Richard Daley criticized the count as too high, but the numbers ultimately were backed up by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

California's McCarton said officials need to do a better job of investigating deaths that may be heat-related. Also, he said the state should do more to track early warning signs — a spike in ambulance calls, hospital admissions or livestock deaths — and then warn medical examiners to look more closely at whether human deaths were caused by the heat.

He and other public health officials said authorities need an accurate accounting of how many victims died, how and where in order to form an effective plan for saving people from extreme heat.

During scorching heat, California, like other states and cities, opens air-conditioned cooling centers and urges local governments to check on shut-ins and the elderly. A state emergency plan developed after last year's heat wave says social workers and National Guardsmen should take people to cooling centers.

The AP analysis found that the average number of deaths statewide for July between 2000 and 2005 was 18,639. Last July, it was 19,105, according to the AP data.

Deaths were above average in 37 of California's 58 counties. Many of the 37 were the same counties where temperatures rose into the triple digits.

In Sacramento County alone, the July 2006 death toll was more than 100 over the average for the previous six years.

"I cannot account for any event that could have caused that, other than the heat wave," county Health Officer Glennah Trochet said.

Outside experts who reviewed the data said that while some of the increase was due to California's population gain, the official toll significantly underestimated the deaths attributable to the heat.

"Those are gross under-exaggerations of what is really happening," said Laurence Kalkstein, who heads a climatology laboratory at the University of Miami and tracks heat wave deaths. "I would be quite confident that 143 is well below the actual number of heat-related deaths. In general, we see underestimates by a factor of two or three."

This summer, the National Weather Service is forecasting a 40 percent chance for hotter-than-normal temperatures in California's Central Valley.

"The pattern over the western United States is going to be very favorable for a very long, hot summer," said forecaster Jeff Barlow.

___

Associated Press writers Solvej Schou in Los Angeles, Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco and Juliet Williams in Sacramento contributed to this report.

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Ichiro Suzuki Named All-Star MVP

2007-07-10T21:46:00.001-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- On a night of tricky hops, Ichiro Suzuki and the American League also bounced back to win.

Instead of a Barry Bonds splash shot, the defining hit at Tuesday's All-Star game was Suzuki's inside-the-park home run, the first in the game's history.

Suzuki lined a go-ahead, two-run drive off the right-field wall in the fifth inning, Carl Crawford and Victor Martinez later hit conventional shots and the Americans made it 10 straight over Nationals, holding on for a 5-4 victory.

"When I first hit it, I thought I hit it out of here," Suzuki said through a translator, "but it was still an inside-the-park home run."

That wasn't the only drama.

After Alfonso Soriano's two-out, two-run homer in the ninth, the NL loaded the bases on three walks before Angels closer Francisco Rodriguez retired Aaron Rowand on a routine fly to right for a save.

Willie Mays, Bonds' godfather, was honored with a touching tribute before the game. In the Say Hey Kid's day, the NL ruled All-Star games but not anymore. The AL closed to 40-36-2 and improved to 5-0 since the All-Star winner received homefield advantage in the World Series.

In a decade of dominance, the notorious 2002 tie at Milwaukee was all that interrupted the AL's run. The only longer streak was when the NL took 11 in a row from 1972-82.

Soriano made it close with his homer off Seattle closer J.J. Putz, who then walked J.J. Hardy. Rodriguez relieved and walked Derrek Lee on a full count -- AL manager Jim Leyland screamed at first-base umpire Charlie Reliford about a check swing. A walk to Orlando Hudson loaded the bases before Rowand's fly ended it.

Suzuki, on the verge of a large contract extension from the Mariners, got three hits and was the game's MVP. After the ceremony, a recording of Yankee Stadium public address announcer Bob Sheppard invited fans to next year's game at Yankee Stadium.

Fans had waited in kayaks out in McCovey Cove beyond right field in vain for some shots into the water -- no souvenirs found their way into the chilly bay.

Bonds, the center of attention in the days before the game, had a quiet night. He flied to right field in the first, hit an opposite-field shot to the left-field warning track in the third, then departed at the top of the fourth.

He received a huge ovation after he came out on the red carpet during the pregame introductions and bowed three times to his adoring hometown fans. Hitting in the No. 2 spot -- his last regular-season appearance in that slot was 20 years ago -- he even faked a bunt on the first pitch of his second at-bat.

"There's too many emotions to be able to explain it," he said. "This is my family who I grew up for a lot of years. All I can do is say thank you."

American League manager Jim Leyland, of the Detroit Tigers, is introduced at the start of the All-Star baseball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, July 10, 2007.
AP - Jul 10, 11:58 pm EDT
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His chase for Hank Aaron's home-run record resumes later this week, and the scrutiny will return. But for a night, the swirl of steroids speculation lifted along with the San Francisco fog.

Ken Griffey Jr., perhaps the closest to a latter-day Mays baseball has seen, drove in two runs for the NL with a first-inning single and a sixth-inning sacrifice fly.

AT&T Park, which opened in 2000, is the most picturesque park in the majors. With asymmetrical dimensions, uneven walls and sometimes difficult winds, it can be a difficult place to play. On this night, there was even an infield double by the Mets' Jose Reyes, a ball that hit the lip of the grass and veered away from Alex Rodriguez at third.

Boston's Josh Beckett got the win, and San Diego's Chris Young -- who gave up Suzuki's homer -- was the loser.

Young entered to start the fifth and walked his first batter, Brian Roberts. One out later, Suzuki reached down and golfed a ball to right-center field. It hit off an All-Star ad in an area known as the arcade and instead of bouncing straight back, it kicked toward right field.

Suzuki was at third by the time Griffey got to the ball and easily sped home for the first inside-the-park homer of his major league career -- since joining the majors in 2001, he had never hit one in the regular season or playoffs. An All-Star every season he's played in the majors, his homer put the AL ahead 2-1.

"Man, that was fun," Cleveland pitcher C.C. Sabathia said.

Before a ballpark record crowd of 43,965 on an overcast evening, Mays was honored for being perhaps the greatest five-tool player in the sport's history. After the All-Stars were introduced, he walked in from center field, flanked by Bonds and Derek Jeter, between two rows of the assembled players.

The tribute was similar -- but less emotional -- than 1999's ceremony honoring Ted Williams at Boston's Fenway Park.

With a picture of his famous 1954 World Series catch projected behind him on the center-field "batter's eye," Mays acknowledged the cheers and threw a ceremonial first pitch to Reyes. Mays got in a pink 1958 Cadillac Eldorado convertible near second base, then did a loop past first base, behind the plate and on to third base, throwing baseballs into the stands. Mays, now 76, appeared in a record-tying 24 All-Star games and bridged the move of the Giants franchise from New York to the West Coast.

Reyes, whose 46 steals lead the majors, opened the bottom of the first with a single up the middle, stole second on Dan Haren's second pitch to Bonds and came around when Griffey lined a two-out pitch high off the mound and into center.

Junior was the star again in the fourth, after Alex Rodriguez singled and stole second. Ivan Rodriguez hit a two-out single to right and Griffey threw a one-hop strike to the plate.

National League's Chris Young, of the San Diego Padres, reacts after giving up a two-run, inside the park home run to American League's Ichiro Suzuki, of the Seattle Mariners, in the fifth inning of the All-Star baseball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, July 10, 2007.
AP - Jul 10, 11:56 pm EDT
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While Pete Rose may have bowled over Ray Fosse to win the 1970 game in Cincinnati, it's a different era these days. A-Rod, knowing he was out by 10 feet, pulled up as catcher Russell Martin tagged him out.

Crawford connected with two outs in the sixth against Francisco Cordero. The drive was a little to the center-field side of Suzuki's shot, about 20 feet from the sign that totals Bonds' homers, currently 751. A fan appeared to reach over the 19-foot brick wall and gather up the ball.

Griffey drove in the NL's second run with a sacrifice fly in the bottom half against Justin Verlander after Carlos Beltran nearly duplicated Suzuki's shot off the wall but was held to a triple by Vladimir Guerrero.

Martinez hit the 18th pinch homer in All-Star history, an eighth-inning drive to left off Mets closer Billy Wagner.

Notes

The AL and NL began the night tied with 326 runs each in All-Star play. ... There have been two inside-the-parkers in the ballpark: by Fernando Vina on May 9, 2000, and Dustan Mohr on Aug. 4, 2004. ... Young pitched the fifth inning and made pickoff throws to Cubs 1B Lee. The pair were suspended for brawling at Wrigley Field on June 16 after Young hit Lee with a pitch. ... Jeter was 1-for-3, leaving him at 8-for-16 in All-Star play.

www.yahoo.com

Taliban Trying To Launch Rocket

2007-07-10T21:41:00.001-07:00

Breathtaking Wingsuit Base Jump Video!

2007-07-10T18:50:00.000-07:00

Bush Says No Iraq Shift; Criticism Rises

2007-07-10T15:47:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON - President Bush threatened to veto legislation setting a date for a troop withdrawal from Iraq on Tuesday despite growing bipartisan calls in Congress for an end to U.S. participation in the war and sharp criticism of the Iraqi government.
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As the Senate opened a new debate on the conflict, one of the president's staunchest supporters bluntly said the administration had pursued the wrong policy for years after toppling Saddam Hussein. "The strategy we had before was not the right strategy," said Christopher Bond, R-Mo. "We should have had a counterinsurgency strategy."

Asked later who bore responsibility for the error, Bond said, "Ultimately, obviously, the president."

Democrats said Bush's newest strategy was hardly a success, either.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that since Bush ordered thousands more troops to Iraq last winter, "we've lost more than 600 troops, costing the American taxpayers more than $60 billion. The escalation has done nothing to bring the Iraqi government together. It's done absolutely nothing to lessen the violence in Iraq."

Two Democrats, Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, back legislation to require a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days, to be completed by the end of April 2008.

A vote is expected next week, and Reid said nearly all Democrats support the proposal. Republican Gordon Smith of Oregon is a supporter, as well, and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, told reporters she may switch her position and vote for it, too.

The proposal appears to be short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster. Bush's veto threat applied to any legislation that sets an arbitrary date for withdrawal "without regard to conditions on the ground or the recommendations of commanders."

"Setting a date for withdrawal is equivalent to setting a date for failure," he said in a written statement that employed terms similar to those he used earlier in the year when he vetoed legislation that set a target date for a withdrawal.

Also expected to come to a vote in the next two weeks is a plan to place into law recommendations from last winter's report from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. The group called for removing all combat brigades not needed for training, force protection and counterterrorism by March 31, 2008. In an ominous sign for the White House, six Republicans have signaled support for the proposal, along with six Democrats.

Despite a steady procession of Republicans calling for a change in course, several GOP lawmakers warned against a precipitous withdrawal.

"I believe that our military in cooperation with our Iraqi security forces are making progress in a number of areas," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who recently returned from his sixth trip to the region. The GOP presidential candidate said he noted a dramatic drop in attacks in Ramadi in the western Anbar province.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who accompanied McCain to Iraq, also cited progress since Gen. David Petraeus took command several months ago and the additional troops began arriving.

The Iraqis are "rejecting al-Qaida at every turn. I don't want the Congress to be the cavalry for al-Qaida," he said.

Graham was also part of a group of senators who met privately during the day with Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, and Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, a top adviser on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The senator said afterward the White House is looking at new ways to hasten progress in two primary areas: destroying al-Qaida in Iraq and forcing the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad to make political progress.

But he quoted Bush's aides as saying the administration would oppose calls for a troop withdrawal.

Bush, who was in Cleveland, said issues related to troop strength "will be decided by our commanders on the ground, not by political figures in Washington, D.C."

He added, "I call upon the United States Congress to give General David Petraeus a chance to come back and tell us whether his strategy is working, and then we can work together on a way forward."

Petraeus is expected to make his report in September, but Bush also must give Congress an evaluation by July 15 on the progress made by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in several areas of political and economic change.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined to list any benchmarks that have been met. But he conceded that the most prominent goals had not — enactment of legislation to allocate oil and gas revenue among the Iraqis or a law to address consequences of the mass firings of Baath Party members.

The report is also expected to say that the Iraqi government has made progress in other areas, including tamping down violence in Anbar province.

Bush's allies made clear their unhappiness with the government in Iraq.

"The central government's dysfunction is real. I'm not here to say that it's not," said Graham. "I am in many ways more depressed than I've ever been about political reconciliation in the short term."

McCain, Graham, Bond and others took turns on the Senate floor to warn of grave consequences if Democrats get their wish for a quick troop withdrawal.

At an afternoon news conference, Bond also brought up the question of overall strategy.

"Late last winter we confirmed General Petraeus unanimously to bring a new strategy. Republicans and Democrats said we needed a new strategy, and there's no question we did.

"The strategy we had before was not the right strategy. We should have had a counterinsurgency strategy. Unfortunately, General Garner lost that argument several years ago," he said a reference to the general who was installed as the first postwar governor of Iraq. Garner arrived in Iraq in April 2003 and was replaced the following month.

Asked, in retrospect, how long the House and Senate should have permitted an inadequate strategy to continue, Bond replied, "Congress was not running the war."

www.yahoo.com

Megadeth Plan Next Album?

2007-07-10T12:22:00.001-07:00

Megadeth mainman Dave Mustaine has posted the following message in the "Forums" section of the band's official web site:

"What a great day to get up and write to you all. I know that I have been very busy, and that there were a lot of times over the last few months that you may have seen me darting in or out of a building, and I was unable to stay and chit-chat. Well, I am relatively sorry for that, althought there are sometimes, and we all have them, when you are with someone you can talk to for hours and never want to leave . . . or then there's conversations for mere seconds, where the dead fish smell that permeates every conversation like that at the 'are you just about finished yet?' moment.

"It was great seeing all of the bands that we saw on the last tour, and I for one am ecstatic about the reviews that you have given us. The press has been really kind too (which makes me tremble), and I have to say that I have just experienced one of the best trips around the world so far with 'United Abominations' that I have had with damn near any previous record.

"Seeing people that I really respect too has made it fantastic! Stars on the stage and the stars behind them too were everywhere I turned. I didn't go one day without seeing someone that I loved, or liked and that I had worked with or toured with in the past.

"I got to see how many people around the world know and love James Lomenzo, which just continues to solidify his place in Megadeth, and I also got to spend time with him myself when I was having the 'rough times' that we all go over whilst on tour.

"And the relentless comedy the Drover brothers provide is priceless (although the intellect of the jokes are worthless), and we laughed probably 50% of the trip around the world. I was semi-concerned because they are fans of so many of the bands that we have played with, some I influenced, some I even know, and there was one incident where they got snubbed by a band they were huge fans of, and I told them, 'that is why we never treat the fans like that.'

"Sadly, there is still that backstage poseur shit going on.

"I doubt the band they went to say hello to knew who they were, but still, it was bad form and I laughed because it only served to piss them off and they said before they went on stage, ' . . . gonna kill those guys . . . pricks . . . etc.' And we had fun!!!

"There were only a few shows with technical difficulties, and there were a few shows that we wished we played at different time slots, or lengths, or stages, but most importantly we got to see you, to show you that we are back and we are serious, and that we are coming to see you as soon as we can.

"We have dozens of offers for dates in the USA, Canada, the UK and Europe again, South America, Japan, Australia, and several new countries in the Pac Rim on our schedule. We are trying to go into China, South Korea, and some southern countries like Indonesia again.

"My hope is to one day go to South Africa, but for now, for this split second of divinity, I am happy just being in my teensy office at home.

"I would like to say thank you to the crew personnel that we have worked with so far this tour, there have been many great professionals and we wish you well. Some we have had to part ways with as paths cross and then un-cross again; and some were only temporary employees, too. I hope that we all will always remain friends for what we accomplished these last two years restocking my 'warchest.'

"Last but not least, I started writing some stuff whilst in Germany, as I am sure the others have too, so we are going to try to get back into the studio before 2009.

"We are still making a lot of great improvements around here at all-things-mega, and now that we are back home, a lot of the neat stuff we picked up along the way will be sent to the official Megadeth eBay store, and I even think that Glen Drover is going to have one of his axes for auction soon.

"I hope everyone has a great day — this special day - seven - seven – seven."

Thanks for the report to Blabbermouth.net.

Google Easter Eggs

2007-07-10T12:04:00.001-07:00

Kid allows friends to force him to pass out just to use an iPhone!

2007-07-09T22:59:00.001-07:00

Stress Tip

2007-07-09T22:53:00.000-07:00

Horses Run Alongside Tour De France Bikers!

2007-07-09T22:46:00.000-07:00

Students Jump Out of Library Window!

2007-07-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

Rally Car Takes Out Spectators! Unbelievable!

2007-07-09T15:44:00.000-07:00

Choosing the Right Browser for You

2007-07-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

Contents:
1.0 - Table of Contents & Intro
------------------------------------------
2.0 - Browsers
------------------------------------------
2.1 - Firefox
2.2 - Internet Explorer
2.3 - Opera
2.4 - Avant
------------------------------------------
3.0 - Pros
------------------------------------------
3.1 - Firefox
3.2 - Internet Explorer
3.3 - Opera
3.4 - Avant
------------------------------------------
4.0 - Cons
------------------------------------------
4.1 - Firefox
4.2 - Internet Explorer
4.3 - Opera
4.4 - Avant
------------------------------------------
5.0 - Features
------------------------------------------
5.0.1 - Tabs
5.1 - Firefox
5.1.1 - Add-Ons
5.1.2 - Themes
5.2 - Internet Explorer
5.3 - Opera
5.4 - Avant
------------------------------------------
6.0 - Screenshots
------------------------------------------
6.1 - Firefox
6.2 - Internet Explorer
6.3 - Opera
6.4 - Avant
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VERSIONS:
Firefox: 2.0
Internet Explorer: 7
Opera: 9
Avant: 11
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.0 Browsers

2.1Firefox
Firefox is a fully customizable, and fast, web browser with constant updates, and hundreds of add-ons to make it feel exactly how you want it. With an easy to use interface, including tabs, you can get used to Firefox in no time.

2.2Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer is the most commonly used web browser. Not necessarily because it is the best, but because it is the default browser it todays most commonly used Operating Systems, The "Windows" family. It has a very easy to use bookmarking system, and also has constant updates. It also has tabs.

2.3Opera
Opera, is second to least used out of Firefox, IE (Internet Explorer), Avant, and itself, but it actually a very nice browser. With new functions suck as "Speed Dial" it is becoming very popular, very fast. It ALSO has the tab functionality, and a beautifully designed interface.

2.4Avant
Avant, is probably the least popular out of the four listed here, although it is a fairly good browser, it doesn’t have the greatest interface. It does also have tab functionality. It is more for the people who are interested in the performance, not exactly appearance. I’m not saying it’s bad. just not as good as Firefox, or Internet Explorer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.0 Pros

3.1Firefox
- 1000’s of add-ons.
- Easy to use Interface
- Constantly Updated
- Built in Spell Checker
- Tabs
- Built in Search (No Toolbar)

3.2Internet Explorer
- Tabs
- Easy to Use Interface
- Easy to Update Windows (OS)
- Built in Search
- Easy Bookmarking System

3.3Opera
- Speed Dial (Explained in 5.0)
- "Widgets" (Add-ons)
- Beautiful Interface
- "Start from last"
- "Wand" Tool

3.4Avant
- Expert Setting Tweaking
- Very Fast
- Very Compact
- Easy to use AutoFill
- Easy to Clear Traces
- Tabs on top or bottom
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.0 Cons

4.1Firefox
- Scroll Tabs (If you use more than 12 tabs)
- Longer Start Time then most
- A lot of sites only IE compatible
- Spell Checker can get very annoying

4.2Internet Explorer
- Only legally Available to Genuine Windows Customers
- Not Very Compact
- Hardly any Add-Ons
- Settings not for Beginner Web Users

4.3Opera
- Videos take longer to load (In most cases)
- Harder to delete history than Firefox

4.4Avant
- Not the Greatest interface
- Not for Beginner Web Users
- Small text & Buttons
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.0Features

5.0.1Tabs
Tabs allow you to have more than one web page up at one, without having all the clutter of multiple browsers open. They are very handy, and are included in almost all of todays browsers. Here are some screenshots of tabs in each different browser.

Firefox

Firefox even has a drop down list!

Internet Explorer

Opera

Avant

5.1Firefox
5.1.1 ADD-ONS
One of Firefox’s best features comes from the users themselves, who create things called Add-Ons. Add-Ons can be very helpful and can make you browsing experience a better one. Here are the extensions I use & the description.

For more Add-Ons just like these & better go here

5.1.2 THEMES
Another one of Firefox’s best features comes again from the users themselves, who create things called Themes. Themes are downloaded to make your browsing experience way better. Here are my themes.

5.2Internet Explorer
A great feature for Windows users in Internet Explorer is Windows Update. You can update your Windows Operating System straight from your browser!

5.3Opera
Speed Dial
Speed Dial is an awesome little tool built in to Opera to allow you to quickly access website with the click of a mouse!

5.4Avant
Settings
One thing that is very good about Avant is the Settings. It’s more for the Experienced Web User, and is very helpful.

by remotecontrol. Originally posted on rotteneggs.com

Easy Homemade Step-by-Step Guide for Getting Rid of Acne

2007-07-09T12:39:00.000-07:00

This is a 10-step method of home treatment for acne. This is most effective if done right before your shower, but can be done at other times in the day too (i will explain later). I used it with OTC acne medicine, and the two worked very well.

First off, i said treatment, not cure there is no cure for acne that works 100% of the time on 100% of the patients. Don’t expect this to be a miracle which gives you a perfectly clear face. It won’t. But it will help reduce the size of your outbreaks once they have occured.

This treatment requires that you have the following:
1. Baking Soda (not powder)
2. Water
3. Vinegar

To the people that will say "baking soda and vinegar make bubbles retard"- Putting baking soda on a pimple draws out the infection from it, which will reduce the swelling and size, and prevent more from growing at the same time. The vinegar is there to 1. make sure all the baking soda is gone, and 2. feel good and refreshing.

Steps to do this:
1. Measure 1 teaspoon of baking soda

2. Dump into container

3. Measure 20 ml of water

4. Pour into container with baking soda

5. Mix with your fingers until "pasty". You may have to add more water or baking soda to make it how you like.

6. Apply to face in areas with pimples.

7. Let sit for 30 seconds.

8. Re-apply another layer on top of old one.

9. Let sit for 1 minute.

10. Dip your fingers in vinegar and wash off baking soda. After that either get in the shower or thoroughly wash your face off.

Theres my 10-Step method to reducing facial acne. Give it 3-7 days of treatment to show its full effects though.

Some very effective types of OTC acne medicine are:

Benzoyl Peroxide (2.5%-5%)
and
Salicylic Acid

Note: These are the active ingredients, not the brand names.

The Birth Control of Yesteryear - damninteresting.com

2007-07-09T12:32:00.000-07:00

Approximately 2,600 years ago– around 630 BCE– the Greek island of Thera was plagued by drought and overpopulation. According to legend, an assortment of settlers were selected to sail south to establish a colony in more hospitable climes. The men and women apprehensively put to sea, and the gaggle of enterprising Greeks eventually erected the city of Cyrene on Africa's northern tip. There, the settlers encountered a local herb which would ultimately bring them and their progeny fantastic wealth.

The prized plant became such a key pillar of the Cyrenean economy that its likeness was stamped upon many of the city's gold and silver coins. The images often depicted a regal-looking woman sitting in a chair, with one hand touching the herb and her other hand pointing at her genitals. The plant was known as silphium or laserwort, and its heart-shaped fruit brought the ancient world a highly sought-after freedom: the opportunity to enjoy sex with very little risk of pregnancy.

The silphium plants were giant fennels which grew wild along the dry hillsides of the Mediterranean coast. It didn't take long for the Greek settlers to discover its value as a food source, and the vegetable flesh came to be prized as a delicious garnish, while pleasant perfumes were coaxed from its yellow blossoms. Over time further uses for the wild fennel were found, such as the resin extracted from its stalks and roots which was used to treat cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, snake bite, "warts in the seat," epilepsy, and a host of other disagreeable ailments. But of all of the plant's virtues, the silphium was certainly most prized for its pregnancy-preventing properties.

As word of the birth-control wonder-herb spread through ancient Europe, Africa, and Asia, a market for the versatile fennel developed rapidly. The seeds became widely used among the world's wealthier nations, including the citizens of ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and India. By some accounts the silphium seed was also a potent aphrodisiac, a property which considerably compounded its perceived value. The Roman bard Catullus famously alluded to its sexual properties in one of his love poems, where he declared that he and his lover would share as many kisses as there were grains of sand on Cyrene's silphium shores. More plainly, "We can make love so long as we have silphium."

A Cyrene coin bearing the image of a silphium seedA Cyrene coin bearing the image of a silphium seedDespite the efforts of the Cyreneans and their would-be competitors, the silphium industry stubbornly resisted expansion. Men worked long and hard to propagate the plant, but the notoriously cantankerous laserwort mocked all efforts at cultivation. It refused to sprout anywhere outside of its narrow swath of wild growth along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Though this limitation necessitated strict guidelines to prevent over-harvesting, the natural scarcity served to maintain the herb's high value. Occasional silphium smugglers penetrated the supply chain, but aside from these rare exceptions the royalty of Cyrene maintained a comfortable monopoly on civilization's contraceptives.

For centuries the north African city thrived on its laserwort bounty. The seeds of the fickle fennel came into such high demand that they were eventually worth their weight in silver. The Roman government went so far as to store a cache of the herb in the official treasury. Most of the primitive silver and gold coins from Cyrene were stamped with images of the silphium, some depicting just a single heart-shaped seed. It is thought by many historians that this ancient icon of unfettered lovemaking is the origin of today's ubiquitous "I love you" heart symbol.

Unlike many other medicines of its time, silphium was not thought of as a mere folk remedy; Scholars and doctors of the day openly praised the plant's effectiveness as a contraceptive. Ancient Rome's foremost gynecologist– a physician named Soranus– wrote that women should drink the silphium juice with water once a month since "it not only prevents conception but also destroys anything existing." Alternatively, a tuft of wool could be soaked in the juice and inserted into the vagina as a pessary. The herb's effectiveness and widespread use is evidenced by the observation that Rome's birth rate decreased during laserwort's heyday, despite increasing life expectancy, plentiful food, and relatively few wars or epidemics.

Unfortunately, modern science will probably never determine whether the fennel's extract was an effective form of parenthood prevention, nor will it measure laserwort's merit as a medicine. By the end of the first century AD, following a fifty year decline in silphium numbers, the Roman historian Pliny the Elder recorded the plant's lamentable extinction. The last remaining stalk of the laserwort was snipped and sent to Emperor Nero as a "curiosity," and thus ended six hundred years of reliable birth control.

A typical fennel plantA typical fennel plantThe cause of the herb's eradication is uncertain, however the most widely accepted theory is that over-harvesting coupled with livestock grazing caused the silphium population to decline beyond recovery. This trend may have started around 74 BCE when the region was absorbed into a Roman senatorial province. This change gave control of the laserwort crop to a long series of one-year-term governors who were largely motivated by short-term profits. It is also possible that the natural desertification of the region shrank the plant's already diminutive habitat. As an alternative explanation, some botanists have suggested that the ancient giant fennel never truly became extinct, and that the modern Ferula tingitana is the same plant; though this explanation is unlikely considering that tingitana has long grown naturally in many areas where laserwort was unable to germinate.

Science has since examined many of the less-effective herbal contraceptives which were employed in subsequent centuries, such as Queen Anne's Lace and Pennyroyal. Both demonstrated a significant degree of success in preventing or terminating pregnancies in rats. Some relatives of silphium were also subjected to modern laboratory testing, such as the asafetida, which indicated about 40-50% anti-fertility effectiveness; and Ferula jaeschikaena, which was found to be nearly 100% effective when administered within three days of copulation.

The extinction of silphium is now considered to be among humanity's earliest environmental blunders. If laserwort was indeed more effective than the alternatives, then the bygone birth control is certainly deserving of its glowing reputation. Evidence suggests that the natural world allowed women in antiquity to govern their reproductive lives with far more control than commonly realized, and without the need to resort to senseless abstinence. But as mankind is wont to do, the custodians of this scarce commodity eventually surrendered to greed and short-sightedness, overtaxing the renewable resource until it was hopelessly exhausted.

Sepultura - Roots Bloody Roots

2007-07-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

Dream Theater - The Dark Eternal Night (In Studio)

2007-07-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

Beginners Sniping Guide

2007-07-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

Prone Position
(For Right-Handed Shooter’s)

Lay down flat on your stomach.
Extend your left arm straight out, infront of you with your palm faceing upward.
Your right elbow is placed on the ground so your shoulders are level.
(Make sure that your body weight is well behind the rifle.)
Your left leg needs to be fully extended behind you (vertical with the spinal column)
With your right leg, make a 45 degree angle.
Both feet should rest naturally on the ground
Your cheek needs to be pressed against rifle stock or "butt" of the rifle to make what we like to call the "chipmunk cheek".

The 3 Elements of a Good Shooting Position

Bone Support- Your body’s skeletal structure will provide a stable foundation to support the rifle’s weight, but only if in the correct position. A week shooting position will not withstand the repeated recoil of a rifle, therefore causing the shooter’s rifle to become much heavier. The bones of your body must support as much of the rifles weight as possible, to relieve the strain on your musles holding the rifle in one position for a long perriod of time.

Muscular Relaxation- Muscular is a very important part of shooting. Muscular relaxation helps you the shooter to hold steady and increase the accuracy of aiming. This also allows you to the use of maximum bone support to build a resistance to recoil.

Natural Point of Aim- The NPA (or Natural Point of Aim) is the point at witch the rifle sights settle when bone support and muscular relaxation are achieved.

Breathing

Breath Control- Breath control is interrupting the breathing cycle just before the shot is fired to cause minimum movement of the scope while firing.

Breathing Cycle- This is the inhaling and exhaling of witch lasts about 4 to 5 seconds. Between breathing cycles, there is a natural pause on the exhale of 2 to 3 seconds. This is the natural repertory pause. During the respiratory pause, breathing muscles are relaxed and your scope should settle at the natural point of aim. The shot must be fired at this exact point!

Trigger Control

Trigger Control- is the skillful manipulation of the trigger that causes the rifle to fire without moving the crosshairs. (I no shit had to shoot 1000’s of rounds to master this skill)

Uninterrupted Trigger Control- This is after the initial slack of the trigger is taken up (the pulling on the trigger before it fires), the trigger is pulled with single, smooth motion straight to the rear with no interruption.

Interrupted Trigger Control- After the initial slack is taken up, the trigger is moved to the rear unless an error is detected in the aiming process. When this occurs, reward motion is stopped until sight picture is achieved. Then the rearward motion continues until the shot breaks.

How to Find the Wind Velocity

(This requires you to set up a small, lightweight flag or peice of cloth near the target. Or you can look around the target for something that you can improvise with)
If you don’t know, the wind velocity determin’s the bullets trajectory (or path of the bullet)and also how many "clicks" you move left, right, up or down in your scope to adjust for the wind.
To find the wind velocity, here is the formula; The appromixate angle of the flag divided by 4= And you will find the MPH (Miles per hour)

How to Find the Wind Strength

0 to 3 MPH- The wind can hardly be felt on the face.

3 to 5 MPH- Wind can be felt lightly on the face.

5 to 8 MPH- Wind keeps tree leaves in constant motion.

8 to 12 MPH- Wind will raise dust and loose paper.

12 to 15 MPH- Wind will cause small trees to sway.

15 to 25 MPH- Wind will cause large trees to sway.

Determining the Correct Windage Adjustments

(This is hard to do at first so be patiant. And believe me when I say I tried to simplify this as much as possible!)
1. Guess the best you can to the distance to target and multiply that by wind velocity (MPH)
2. Divide by the range of the wind direction
3. The total you come up with equals the clicks you need to put into your scope.
4. For ½ value wind, divide total number of clicks by two.

iPod Slurping: Using a Portable Data Storage device to download data from a computer.

2007-07-08T17:38:00.000-07:00

Simple. If you want to create your own Pod Slurping batch file, all you need is notepad, which is included in Windows for free...

First, lets create the autrun script. Copy and paste the text below into Notepad, then save the file as "autorun.inf" (without the quotations)

[autorun]
open=SLURP.bat
action=Press "OK" to get SLURPED
shell\\open\\command=SLURP.bat

Now let’s make the actual batch file. Copy and paste the text below into Notepad, and save the file as "SLURP.bat" (without the quotations)

@echo.
@echo.Slurping in progress...
@echo.
@mkdir %~d0\\%computername%
xcopy "C:\\Documents and Settings\\%username%\\My Documents\\*.doc " %~d0\\%computername% /s/k/c/f/h/y
@echo.
@echo.Slurping Completed.
@echo.
@pause

Copy and paste these two files to a portable drive, such as a flash drive, Ipod, (hence the name Pod Slurping) or other portable media device.

The autorun file causes a window to pop up:

After pressing ok, cmd.exe opens up, and starts copying all .doc files from the computer’s my documents folder to the portable drive:

If you want to change the types of files that are copied to your drive, change the extension in this line:

xcopy "C:\\Documents and Settings\\%username%\\My Documents\\*.doc " %~d0\\%computername% /s/k/c/f/h/y

If you want to copy more than one type of file to your drive, just copy the line above. It should look like this:

@echo.
@echo.Slurping in progress...
@echo.
@mkdir %~d0\\%computername%
xcopy "C:\\Documents and Settings\\%username%\\My Documents\\*.doc" %~d0\\%computername% /s/k/c/f/h/y
xcopy "C:\\Documents and Settings\\%username%\\My Documents\\*.jpg" %~d0\\%computername% /s/k/c/f/h/y
@echo.
@echo.Slurping Completed.
@echo.
@pause

If you would like the batch file to search for files on the WHOLE HARD DRIVE, it will look like this, unless the main drive isn’t c:\\ - to search for additional files, follow the process above, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.

@echo.
@echo.Slurping in progress...
@echo.
@mkdir %~d0\\%computername%
xcopy "C:\\*.doc" %~d0\\%computername% /s/k/c/f/h/y
@echo.
@echo.Slurping Completed.
@echo.
@pause

Free Skyy Vodka Posters

2007-07-08T15:36:00.001-07:00

If you follow the steps of this egg and you live in the USA you can get some pretty cool Skyy Vodka posters for free. You always win no matter what. Skyy vodka gives out 50 posters a day.

First off start out by going to

Skyyvodka.com

If that doesn’t work type it into your browser

You will arrive to this page just put in a age above 21.

A new window will open. At the bottom right corner click skip introduction.

You will then be taken to a page with a few tabs go to the last one on the right (Skyy informant) and then click on email services.

Click on Poster giveaway

Click on the second part (not a registered member? sign up now...)

Fill in your correct info and make sure you have the correct shipping address or you wont get your poster.

After your done it will send a confirmation email just go to your email and confirm that your a real person and then log in.

Pick the poster you want

Repeat the process over and over by creating numerous yahoo accounts and you can get all the posters. There were more posters before. I got all of the old ones. It takes a lot of effort but once you get the tubes its worth it.

Transformers Dominates Box Office

2007-07-08T15:34:00.001-07:00

The robots demolished the competition last week at the box office. But how far can their metallic legs take them?

"Transformers" opened to $152.6 million in its first week, Paramount Pictures estimated today. That was the best opening week ever for a non-sequel.

For the weekend, the film took in $67.6 million, well ahead of No. 2-ranked "Ratatouille."

Now the question is how well the sci-fi battle epic will hold up in today's high-turnover marketplace.

"The big robots are bringing in big business," said spokesman Marvin Levy from DreamWorks Studios, which co-produced the epic with parent Paramount. "We're as high as Optimus Prime," he said, referring the chief of the good-guy Autobots.

Levy said the biggest surprise was how well the film was playing to all demographics.

Grosses have been strong in heavily Latino and African American markets, and females age 25 and up have been the most enthusiastic in their exit surveys, with about 85% saying they would "definitely recommend" the movie.

Many of this summer's top-grossing movies, however, such as "Spider-Man 3" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," have done much of their domestic business early on and slowed quickly, which is one reason industry results in the U.S. so far have been disappointing.

Latin Mass Receives Pope's Blessing

2007-07-07T19:32:00.000-07:00

Pope Benedict XVI, in a decree issued Saturday, authorized wider use of the old Latin Mass and told the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics that his nod to church traditionalists was nothing to be afraid of.
art.mass.gi.jpg

Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro Carambula celebrates the Latin Tridentine Mass in St.Giuseppe a Capo le Case church in central Rome.

The decree met with mixed reaction from Catholics, ranging from concern among liberal lay groups to a wary welcome from schismatic traditionalists. Two cardinals who had warned about restoring the old rite supported the way the pope did it.

One prominent Jewish leader criticized the revival of a prayer for the conversion of Jews, saying the old text was "insensitive ... insulting" and said it could set back the progress of reconciliation between Catholics and Jews.

In a letter to bishops, Benedict rejected criticism within the church that his long-awaited move could split Catholics and turn back the clock on reforms introduced in the 1960s, which are opposed by many traditionalists.

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) replaced Latin with local languages in the liturgy, reached out to other religions and struck out texts that Jews found particularly offensive.

"This fear is unfounded," the pope wrote. "What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful."

Catholics around the world will have the pope's blessing to ask priests to celebrate Mass in Latin or get baptized or married according to the old rite. However, the new rites will continue to be the norm, and few are expected to want to return to the formal old rite in a language they do not speak.
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Benedict said he wanted reconciliation with traditionalists, some of whom were so angered by the 1960s reforms that they broke with Rome, causing the first schism of modern times. Video Watch how Catholics are divided over the Latin Mass »

Traditionalists thanked Benedict for the decree, but their further reaction differed according to whether they were still loyal to Rome or in the schismatic group led by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was excommunicated in 1988.

"The traditional Mass is a true a gem of the church's heritage, and the Holy Father has taken the most important step toward making it available to many more of the faithful," said Michael Dunnigan, chairman of Una Voce America.

The Rev. John Zuhlsdorf, columnist for The Wanderer, a U.S. Catholic weekly, said: "People who want to avail of this extraordinary use are not second-rate citizens. They may not be treated any longer like the nutty aunt in the attic."

The schismatic Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), based in Switzerland, stressed it had to iron out doctrinal differences with the Vatican before a reconciliation could take place.

The decree made no change in the 1962 missal -- the main prayer book for the old rite -- which includes prayers on Good Friday for the conversion of the Jews.

"The language is insensitive. The language is insulting," said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, a U.S.-based Jewish civil rights group.
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The Second Vatican Council repudiated the idea of collective Jewish guilt for Christ's death. Relations improved markedly under Benedict's predecessor, the late Pope John Paul II.

French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard said the Good Friday prayer could be changed if it caused difficulties with Jews. Church sources said it would rarely be prayed because the old rite was an exception and the new rite -- which drops this text -- would be used in most churches around the world on that day.

Want free points on mycokerewards.com?

2007-06-08T16:17:00.000-07:00

As some of you may heard coke is doing a promotional deal to get people to drink more coke in which you take the codes off bottle caps, enter them online, and trade the points you get for free stuff. Well i have found that there is an easy way to get free coke products like 20oz bottles and 12-packs in just a few minutes time. With this method you can get 1 free 12-pack or 3 free 20oz drinks for each account you make, and making an account is fast and easy and you can make as many accounts as you want. You have the potential to get a shit load of free coke.

First, go to mycokerewards.com and create as many accounts as you want, your email address and street address have to be legit. The only problem that i see is that you need to have as many email accounts as you want to have coke reward accounts, so just make some free yahoo or gmail accounts.

Then, on each account you make, put in the following codes. These will give you enough points to get the cokes. Site navigation is simple and you will easily be able to tell where to put the codes and how to redeem the drinks, and its not limited to just coke, you can get other coke products such as power-aid, minute-maid, etc. Again, you can get 1 free 12-pack or 3 free 20oz drinks for each account. The codes below will give you 85 points, 12 packs cost 80 points and 20oz drinks cost 24 points each.

These are promo codes and each will work only once on each account. You would have to drink 122 cans of coke to get this many points regularly.

100084148441474 25 Points
100084056688357 25 Points
100083969675326 10 Points
100082622438433 10 Points
100082211832616 10 Points
100082157763657 5 Points

note: some things might be slightly different on the site for you guys in europe but the basics are the same.

Satellite TV for PC!

2007-06-07T17:13:00.000-07:00

Over 3000 STATIONS on your PC or Laptop for free!!

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World of Warcraft Gold Making Guide

2007-06-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

The Most Hated Player in World of Warcraft Blows the Lid Off the Corrupt Gold-Farming Industry and Reveals the Secret Tactics You Can Use to Legally Make up to 100 Gold an Hour or More Without Using Hacks and Without Getting Banned...So You Never Have to Buy Gold Again!

Click Here to get started!

Search Engine Weapon

2007-06-07T16:46:00.000-07:00

Imagine a 'secret weapon' at your fingertips that allows you to easily and automatically...

Get onto page 1 of Google
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Reverse Cell Phone Lookup

2007-06-07T16:44:00.000-07:00

ReverseMobile.com, a recognized and trusted online records information provider, lets you utilize a network of multiple data sources to find the exact records you are looking for. Get the data from thousands of sources, public and private, quickly and conveniently right to your screen - we have records for more than 70% of all cellular numbers and over 95% of unlisted phone numbers in the US.

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