Officials say the Malaysian government has freed three alleged Islamic militants held without trial since 2002, including a former army captain accused of helping the Sept. 11 hijackers.
Human rights activist Nalini Elumalai says the three men were released separately from a northern prison camp between Nov. 24 and Dec. 2.
The most prominent among them is Yazid Sufaat, an ex-army captain who allegedly let several senior al-Qaida operatives, including two eventual Sept. 11 hijackers, use an apartment he owned for meetings in Malaysia in January 2000.
Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar confirmed the release and said Wednesday that the men were no "longer a threat."
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Search of 32 graves ordered at Florida reform school
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has ordered an investigation to determine whether the remains of 32 students were buried decades ago in shallow graves on the grounds of a former reform school for boys. 
Authorities are investigating whether boys were beaten decades ago in this building, known as the White House.
The governor's action came at the urging of four former residents of what was known as the Florida School for Boys. The four alleged that students were abused and killed by guards decades ago at the school in Marianna, Florida, just south of the Georgia border.
In a letter Crist asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the graves and determine whether any crimes were committed.
Read the rest at here.
Trampled Wal-Mart Employee's Family Sues Company
The family of 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour is suing Wal-Mart for creating the unsafe atmosphere in which he was trampled to death by a crowd of shoppers on Black Friday.
Police arrest man on 'mission' in bathroom ceiling
Yes ... it's in Arkansas. Surprised?
Bare footprints on a toilet seat led sheriff's deputies to find a man hidden away inside a Baxter County gas station ceiling, apparently "on a mission" to steal, officials said Tuesday.
Jeremy J. Fleming, 34, of Midway, initially refused to offer his name to sheriff's deputies after his arrest early Tuesday morning, Sgt. Bob Bushbacher said. Fleming later told deputies his name was "Jason Solo," though fingerprints later gave his identity away, Bushbacher said.
Fleming entered the Triangle Citgo Mini-Mart in Midway barefoot around 1:30 a.m. and walked into the women's bathroom, Bushbacher said. After 20 minutes, Fleming walked into the employee's bathroom and later returned to the women's.
An hour passed and an employee decided to check on Fleming. The bathroom was empty, but the employee found footprints on the toilet seat and a ceiling tile torn down, Bushbacher said. The employee called police after hearing rustling into the gas station's ceiling.
A sheriff's deputy arrived and called out to Fleming, asking him to come down from the ceiling. Fleming initially refused, but crawled out of the ceiling in the men's room 30 minutes later, Bushbacher said.
When asked what he was doing, Fleming told the deputy he was "on a mission" to steal, Bushbacher said. Though he acted irrational, Fleming did not have an odor of alcohol about him at the time of his arrest, the sergeant said.
"The officer this morning said that the guy was somewhat irrational," Bushbacher said. "Well, yeah. The guy comes into a business at 1:30 in the morning with no shoes on and is going from bathroom to bathroom crawling around in the ceiling. I can see how you could classify that as irrational or somewhat unusual behavior."
Fleming faces criminal mischief and criminal trespassing charges. He was being held Tuesday at the Baxter County Jail on $710 bond.
Panthers-Giants game moved to Sunday night on NBC
The Panthers' game on Dec. 21 against the New York Giants has been moved to the NFL's Sunday night time slot on NBC. The league considers the Sunday night game its premiere matchup each week -- even ahead of Monday Night Football on ESPN (where the Panthers just beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 38-23).
The game, with an 8:15PM kickoff at Giants Stadium, will feature the teams with currently the NFC's two best records -- the defending Super Bowl champ Giants at 11-2 and the Panthers at 10-3 -- and will likely have huge ramifications for home-field advantage in the playoffs.
The game was originally scheduled for 1 p.m., but the league has the flexibility to change attractive late-season games with playoff implications to more optimum TV times.
The Panthers' home game this Sunday against the Denver Broncos has already been changed from 1PM to 4:15PM.North Carolina to lose 96,000 jobs
For the first time in five years, North Carolina will see a loss in total jobs this year – more than 58,000, according to an economic forecast released today.
The state will lose almost 38,000 more jobs in 2009, the forecast said, with the biggest employment declines coming in construction, manufacturing and the finance, insurance and real estate industries.
John Connaughton, a UNC Charlotte economist, presented the forecast to business leaders in uptown Charlotte. After several years of growth – including 2.4 percent in 2007 – the N.C. economy will decline by 0.2 percent this year, Connaughton said.
The economy should start to recover in the late spring, he said, making the current recession longer than recessions that started in 1990 and 2001. But Connaughton said he didn't think this recession would be as devastating as the one in 1981-82.
N.C. unemployment likely will hit 7.1 percent this month, he said, and peak at 7.6 percent next December, even though the recovery is expected to start about six months earlier.
“Jobs and job growth don't come back right away,” Connaughton said.
Canadians being screwed
From breadwithcircus.com
All hell, or at least a little part of it, has broken loose in Ottawa and Canadians are all riled up. We’re hearing our Prime Minister go into full attack mode, manufacturing a unity crisis where there need not be one. There is a lot of noise and bluster, but I think that we’ve lost sight of the issue that put us here.
Ignore the red herrings. The issue is that the Conservative Party has lost its mandate to govern.
A little reminder now about the way things are supposed to work. When Canadians vote, they vote to elect a local MP, not the broader government. Add all 308 MP’s together and you’ve got a House of Commons. Whichever political party or collection of political parties has the support of the majority of MP’s in the House makes up the government, because in order to pass legislation, you have to win votes. The issue at hand is that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have lost the confidence of the House of Commons. They can’t win a vote, which means that they can’t pass legislation, which means that they can’t be the government.
The Prime Minister’s rhetoric is designed to get you all worked up emotionally. By talking about treason and sedition, invoking the image of evil separatists legislating the breakup of the country, or evil socialists running the treasury, Harper is obfuscating the real issue and playing the fear card. This is cynical, divisive, and shameful.
In order to survive, Harper needs to make a deal with one of the other parties. This has worked for him in the past. In the previous session of parliament, Harper passed legislation with the support of the same separatist bloc that he is now demonizing. Harper is going to need their support again if he is to govern, but given the way that he has burned all his bridges, that seems very unlikely to happen. In the last election, just eight weeks or so ago, Canadians elected a minority parliament. A minority parliament is dependent upon a coalition (at least informally) among different parties in order to function. What we need is a block of MP’s capable of getting 155 votes on any given issue. They can “prorogue” or delay parliament from taking any votes but that is a measure designed solely to buy time for the Conservative propaganda machine to try to scare the hell out of you. Don’t forget what the real issue is here. The Conservatives are incapable of governing. We really ought to see if any other combination of elected MP’s is up to the task.
Wonder how our brothers to the north are feeling about that stinging sensation in their anal cavities about now?! Because they are feeling the hot poker up the arse we have had for the last eight years
We do not need any more of this crap
We do not need any more of this crap in politics. Especially after the last eight years!
He should join his predecessor, the former Illinois governor Ryan in prison. They could have adjoining cells!
Illinois govenor Rod Blagojevich was roused from bed and arrested Tuesday after prosecutors said he was caught on wiretaps audaciously scheming to
"I've got this thing and it's (expletive) golden," the 51-year-old said of his authority to appoint Obama's replacement, "and I'm just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing. I'm not gonna do it."
He should join his predecessor, the former Illinois governor Ryan in prison. They could have adjoining cells!
SEIU wants to unionize workers at bailed-out banks
The powerful and innovative Service Employees International Union is trying to unionize bank workers, saying that if the banks are going to get a public bailout, workers should have a seat at the table.
"We believe there is special responsibility for companies who receive taxpayer dollars to ensure their workers have a voice on the job," SEIU's Lynda Tran said. "And those workers should have a seat at the table at the companies where decisions that impact the future of their families and the companies that employ them" are made.
Carolina sets record in win
By running over, around and through one of the league's top defenses, the Carolina Panthers staked their claim as one of the NFL's top teams.
They also set a NFL league record of two running backs having over 100yds each and two rushing touchdowns each for the first time ever in the same game.
DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart proved a dominating tandem, and the Panthers seized control of the competitive NFC South with a 38-23 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night.
Williams rushed for a career-high 186 yards and two touchdowns, Stewart added 115 yards and two more scores and the Panthers set a team record for yards rushing for the second time in a month.
Carolina finished with 299 yards rushing, surpassing the team-record 264 it had last month against Detroit.They also set a NFL league record of two running backs having over 100yds each and two rushing touchdowns each for the first time ever in the same game.
Hajj makes Muslims more tolerant
The pilgrimage that brings more than 2 million Muslims to Mecca every year tends to make them more religiously observant and also more tolerant, a huge study of Pakistani pilgrims suggests.
Muslims who undertake the hajj "return with more positive views towards people from other countries," are more likely to say "that people of different religions are equal," and are twice as likely as other religious Muslims to condemn Osama bin Laden, a study has found.
"People become more orthodox yet more tolerant," one of the study's authors, Asim Ijaz Khwaja of Harvard University, said of hajjis -- those who make the pilgrimage.
He described the study's findings yesterday (Monday December 8, 2008), as this year's annual pilgrimage reached its climax, the symbolic stoning of the devil on the festival of Eid al-Adha, an Islamic holiday that traditionally marks the end of the hajj.
This year's hajj ends today.
Habib Allah, a 24-year-old Pakistani who never left his home country before undertaking this year's hajj, echoed sentiments expressed by many people in the study, which surveyed pilgrims from 2006. The Pakistani said he felt like he had seen "the whole world" in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
"I felt like we are all brothers," he said. "I never thought about this before. The hajj has changed my thoughts about other Muslims from other countries. The hajj has united us as Muslims and as brothers."
And that feeling extended to non-Muslims as well, he said.
"After I performed the hajj, I felt that the world is small and we all sharing one place ... the earth. We should all live in peace with each other, whether with Muslims or non- Muslims," he said
Hamoud al-Massri, a 29-year-old teacher from Cairo, Egypt, expressed similar thoughts about his hajj journey this year.
"The hajj taught me that at the end we are all human beings [who] need each other. From now on I will start reading more about other cultures, and not only Muslim cultures but all others," al-Massri said.
Thinking Makes You Hungry
A study in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine contends that intellectual work—that’s right, I’m calling writing this stuff, ya know, intellectual—induces a big increase in caloric intake. The research had 14 Canadian students do three things at different times: sit and relax; complete a series of memory and attention tests; and read and summarize a text. (It was that last activity that disqualified rodents and U.S. students as study subjects.) After 45 minutes at each task, the kids were treated to an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch. Because Canada has a truly advanced code of human-subject research ethics.
Read more from Science of Snacks: Thinking Makes You Hungry
Getting high on HIV drugs in South Africa
Anti-retroviral drugs used to treat HIV/Aids are being bought and smoked by teenagers in South Africa to get high.Reports suggest that the drugs are being sold by patients and even healthcare staff for money.
Schoolchildren have been spotted smoking the drugs, which are ground into powder and sometimes mixed with painkillers or marijuana.
Aids patients themselves have been found smoking the drugs instead of taking them as prescribed.
Phlox on you ...
Police in Great Britain kicked in the front door of this house and ransacked it because they smelled marijuana growing. Turns out the sharp-nosed officers mistook phlox flowers in the garden for marijuana. The 77-year-old homeowner doesn't want any more trouble, so he dug up his phlox.Drug raid over smelly flowers
The cities with the biggest jump in poverty
The poverty rate increased in 70 percent of the nation's cities and towns with populations of at least 20,000, from 1999 to 2005-2007.
| Kinston, N.C. 23.0 to 36.6 |
| Milledgeville, Ga. 24.0 to 35.0 |
| Kannapolis, N.C. 10.5 to 21.5 |
| Asheboro, N.C. 15.8 to 26.7 |
| Muskegon, Mich. 20.5 to 31.2 |
| Chester, Pa. 27.2 to 37.8 |
| Portsmouth, Ohio 23.6 to 33.9 |
| Emporia, Kan. 17.9 to 8.1 |
| McMinnville, Ore. 12.9 to 23.0 |
| Dolton village, Ill. 8.4 to 18.3 |
| Myrtle Beach, S.C. 12.0 to 21.9 |
| Charleston, Ill. 30.1 to 40.0 |
The 10 cities with the largest drops in income,
| Median household income dropped in 79 percent of the nation's cities and towns with populations of at least 20,000, from 1999 to 2005-2007. |
| Charleston, Ill. 20,811 -31% |
| Milledgeville, Ga. 26,448 -30% |
| Oxford, Ohio 21,930 -30% |
| Canton, Ga. 35,617 -29% |
| Passaic, N.J. 29,697 -29% |
| Hamtramck, Mich. 23,689 -28% |
| Auburn Hills, Mich. 46,080 -28% |
| Bensenville,Ill. 49,080 -28% |
| Portsmouth, Ohio 20,740 -28% |
| Asheboro, N.C. 28,927 -27% |
A blond goes fishing
A blond decides she wants to go ice fishing.
So she goes to the library and reads and researches ice fishing.
Then she goes to the sporting goods store and buys everything she needs.
Then she finally thinks she is ready so she goes out to the ice and starts drilling a hole.
Suddenly she hears a voice from up above.
It says: "There are no fish under the ice."
So she decides to go farther down on the ice.
She starts drilling and she hears the voice again.
"There are no fish under the ice."
So she packs up her things and moves down the ice again.
She starts drilling and she hears the voice again.
"There are no fish under the ice."
"Is that you Lord?" she says.
"No," says the voice, "I'm the manager of the ice hockey rink."
So she goes to the library and reads and researches ice fishing.
Then she goes to the sporting goods store and buys everything she needs.
Then she finally thinks she is ready so she goes out to the ice and starts drilling a hole.
Suddenly she hears a voice from up above.
It says: "There are no fish under the ice."
So she decides to go farther down on the ice.
She starts drilling and she hears the voice again.
"There are no fish under the ice."
So she packs up her things and moves down the ice again.
She starts drilling and she hears the voice again.
"There are no fish under the ice."
"Is that you Lord?" she says.
"No," says the voice, "I'm the manager of the ice hockey rink."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
