...Wen Mengjie, former head of the technology division under the Beijing branch of the Agricultural Bank of China, raked 10.73 million yuan (about 1.34 million U.S. dollars) from equipment and software providers and illicitly seized 4.32 million yuan (540,000 U.S. dollars) of public money.
He was sentenced to death in July, 2006, and the ruling is now undergoing a routine review at the Supreme Court. ...
...These two sequences illustrate the extent to which photographers on the scene are prepared to ensure that the "shock value" is maximised. ...
After McLennan County Commission passed a resolution in May condemning lynching, it appears that resolution is still a hot debate.
Tuesday several county commissioners walked out of the meeting.
In protest, three commissioners walked out of court today after commissioner Lester Gibson asked them if the resolution can't be posted on the courthouse wall, then why are there unapproved items hanging on almost every floor.
...
The Pentagon on Friday reveal a plan to sell military hardware and service worth up to 4.6 billion U.S. dollars to several Arab countries.
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Scout snipers from 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment killed an enemy sniper and recovered a Marine sniper rifle lost nearly two years ago during a mission near Habbaniyah June 16.
The rifle was the one formerly used by four Marines of 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment who were killed on a rooftop in Ramadi June 21, 2004. ...
The enemy sniper died with the gun in his lap...
In January of this year, Democratic State Senator Margarita Prentice introduced legislation...Before it was passed out of the Senate for consideration from the Washington House of Representatives with no one voting against the bill on February 14th, the bill was amended to move the punishment for engaging in online wagering up from a gross misdemeanor to a Class C Felony, which outlines a punishment of up to ten years in prison and is usually reserved for prosecution of sex offenders who fail to register with the state under their “Megan’s Law” guidelines...
...the bill became law in the state of Washington and will take effect on June 7th.
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Security "pat-downs" of fans at Tampa Bay Buccaneers games are unconstitutional and unreasonable, a federal judge ruled Friday, throwing into question the practice at NFL games nationwide...
In a bid to safeguard the marine environment, Dubai Marina Motor Yacht Club, a subsidiary of Emaar Properties, has decided to ban all two-stroke outboard engine powered boats on its waterways. The ban will be enforced with immediate effect...
A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist was dismissed from the U.S. Army under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, though he says he never admitted being gay and his accuser was never identified.
...
...Consistent with the predictions of the model, we find that the relationship between earnings and absenteeism is more negative for males than for females. Furthermore, this difference declines with seniority, as employers learn more about their workers' true productivity. Finally, we calculate the earnings cost for women associated with menstruation. We find that higher absenteeism induced by the 28-day cycle explains 11.8 percent of the earnings gender differential...
Carl M. Brashear, the first black U.S. Navy diver, who was portrayed by Cuba Gooding Jr. in the 2000 film "Men of Honor," died yesterday. of respiratory and heart failure. He was 75 ...
This is a pic of some French artillery dating back to WWI. The curious thing about this particular field piece is what it was made out of......paper. Yep, its phony as a $3 bill.
As a freshly minted young whelp engineer right out of college I was given a rare opportunity to work on something most could only dream of -- the space shuttle's flight computer systems. The space shuttle was originally a Rockwell International project. Saddly, Rockwell Intl no longer exists in the form it did when I worked there. The company has been sold off in bits and pieces and only minor parts still bear the the name of the company. Boeing has the space shuttle business now.A Congressional hearing tomorrow will feature findings from a widely reported Government Accountability Office report on security risks posed by Department of Defense sales...
A MAN who cut off his own penis in a drunken bet had it stitched back on by Latvian doctors, the first such operation in the country's history.
While strongly under the influence of alcohol, the 30-year-old made a bet with his friend for 1000 lats ($A2600) that he would cut off his penis, according to a Latvian public television report...
Cheaper to "Give Away" Free Cellphone Services in Rural Areas
U.S. taxpayers are getting stuck with the tab for up to US$13,345 per telephone line per year for federally subsidized phone service under the US$7-billion "Universal Service Fund" tax on long-distance service, according to a new study conducted for The Seniors Coalition by George Mason University Professor of Law and Economics Thomas Hazlett.
The "gold-plated" waste and inefficiency under USF is so out of control that taxpayers actually could save at least US$1 billion or more each year by simply giving away at full retail cost satellite or cellular phone service to the few remaining Americans who do not currently have access to wireline phone service, according to the study.
The Hazlett study notes that, rather than providing phone-service to low-income consumers in need, the bulk of USF taxpayer dollars are now part of a $3.7 billon wealth-transfer subsidy known as the "High-Cost Fund" that goes from unwary U.S. taxpayers to small, uneconomical private rural telephone companies that often have only a few hundred customers and are so engorged with tax dollars that they can afford to pay out more in dividends to shareholders than they actually charge for phone service.
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...Saudi Arabia has been forced to come out of its diplomatic routine and indirectly hold Hezbollah responsible for what is happening Lebanon...
The Kingdom has also said “these elements must take responsibility for their irresponsible actions and they alone should end the crisis created by them.”...
Unfortunately we must admit that in such a war the only way to get rid of “these irregular phenomena” is what Israel is doing. The operations of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon are in the interest of people of Arab countries and the international community.
Strange. Seen a lot of things. Never seen that before. 
How the evil Bushco and neocons managed to create this massive climate change 10,000 years ago as yet remains a mystery and object of vigorous investigationThe pharaohs of ancient Egypt owed their existence to prehistoric climate change in the eastern Sahara, according to an exhaustive study of archaeological data that bolsters this theory.
Starting at about 8500 B.C., researchers say, broad swaths of what are now Egypt, Chad, Libya, and Sudan experienced a "sudden onset of humid conditions." ...
Without rain, rivers, or the ephemeral desert streams known as waddis, vegetation became sparse, and people had to leave the desert or die, Kröpelin says.
Members of this skilled human population settled near the Nile River, giving rise to the first pharaonic cultures in Egypt...
Lets face it, when you're dumb you're dumb. The Pali's as a people have supported the losing side of every major conflict in the mid-east for the past 50+ years, so their judgment is obviously suspect. Damn, 50 years of collective stupid is a long time....showed that 77% of respondents supported an operation two weeks ago in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was snatched by three militant groups - including the armed wing of the governing Hamas party.
Only 21% said they opposed it.
Furthermore, two thirds of respondents supported a repeat of such action "as a suitable response within the current political conditions", compared with 30% who rejected it as harmful to Palestinian interests...
Sixty percent of those questioned also supported the continuation of firing rockets from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, with 36% rejecting it.
The poll indicated a slight, three-percent-rise in support for the Hamas party to 33%.
The poll was based on a representative sampling of 1 197 people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and carried a three-percent margin of error.
Well, they're geologists, so that makes it "science". What's next? PETR - People for the Ethical Treatment of Rocks? The construction industry will have fits over this as protesters flock to concrete plants and stone quaries demanding "rights for rocks". After all - "rocks are people too".French geologists Arnold Rheshar and Pierre Escollet...Moreover, the French claim stones can breathe, to a certain extent. Taking one “breath” takes them from three days to two weeks. And each of their “heartbeats” lasts about three days. The scientists say they gathered photographic evidence clearly indicating that stones could move...One of the stones is reported to have moved for 2.5 centimeters in two weeks’ time. The geologists stubbornly maintain that stones are living organisms...H/T Across Difficult Country
A growing number of Minuteman Civil Defense Corps leaders and volunteers are questioning the whereabouts of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars in donations collected in the past 15 months, challenging the organization's leadership over financial accountability.
Many of the group's most active members say they have no idea how much money has been collected as part of its effort to stop illegal entry -- primarily along the U.S.-Mexico border, what it has been spent on or why it has been funneled through a Virginia-based charity headed by conservative Alan Keyes.
Several of the group's top lieutenants have either quit or are threatening to do so, saying requests to Minuteman President Chris Simcox for a financial accounting have been ignored...
It would seem eBay has a problem with sellers pictures of their items. You see, people at home seem to be taking pictures of their items while naked or scantily clad and their reflection off shiny surfaces of the items is making it into their pictures.An anonymous Merseyside man who had an implant to "help with erection problems" has found he becomes uncontrollably aroused every time his neighbour pulls up in his 4X4, the Scottish Daily Record reports.
The spontaneous hardening is due not to a Liverpudlian all-terrain fetish, but rather to the car owner's garage door remote which, well, here's a transcript of the conversation the poor chap had with BBC Radio Merseyside host Roger Phillips when he rather splendidly chose to share his woes with the world...
Simply put, the Redwing product rocks. At the end of a day my legs and feet no longer feel like they've been worked over by an irate loan shark looking to motivate a slow payer.
[Dean]"...How can you be tough on defense if five years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still at large, the Iranians are about to get nuclear weapons, North Korea's quadrupled their nuclear weapons stash..."
That ugly thing sticking out of an engine is part of the turbine. Airplanes aren't quite like cars -- where if the engine fails, you're still on the ground and coast to a stop. Jet engines, when they fail, can and often do shed scrap flying in all directions -- like a bomb going off. High speed metal scrap. Scrap that can slice through the cabin like it wasn't even there. Scrap that can take your head clean off, as in D.E.A.D....What they found was a hydraulic actuator for the aircraft rudder that had sheared off completely from the hydraulic line.
...In my mind I can see that there are 300 familes of passengers and about 7 flight crew families who are not planning funerals this weekend. The fact that the alternative to this disaster was a small unplanned overnight stop in Denver, just doesnt measure up as something to complain about.
So I say "Thank You" to United Airlines for delaying my flight. I'm alive today because of the professionalism of your flight crews and your airline and I want to thank you for the work you and your crews and staff do on a daily basis.
2006/07/11
On Saturday, a race on high-heels took place in Moscow near GUM shopping centre.
The first prize in the 80 metre sprint was obtained by a 25-year-old Muscovite who covered the distance in 13.52 seconds. In her words, she “only bought the high-heels the day before”...The prize received by the winner consisted of a shopping voucher worth 100,000 roubles (about 3,500 dollars) to be spent in GUM.
But now, in a rare display of limited permissiveness, Wal-Mart is letting thieves off the hook — at least in cases involving $25 or less.
According to internal documents, the company, the nation’s largest retailer and leading destination for shoplifting, will no longer prosecute first-time thieves unless they are between 18 and 65 and steal merchandise worth at least $25, putting the chain in line with the policies of many other retailers...
“I had one guy tied up at Wal-Mart every day,” said Don Zofchak, chief of police in South Strabane Township, Pa., which has 9,000 residents and 16 officers. He said the higher threshold for prosecution “would help every community to deal with this.”
Recent Arrests in Terror Plots Yield Debate on Pre-emptive Action by GovernmentH/T Villainous Company
In Miami last month and now in New York, terror cases have unfolded in which suspects have been apprehended before they lined up the intended weapons and the necessary financing or figured out other central details necessary to carry out their plots...
But the Miami and New York cases are inspiring a new round of skepticism from some lawyers who are openly questioning whether the government, in its zeal to stop terrorism, is forgetting an element central to any case: the actual intent to commit a crime...
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a Justice Department tally, 261 defendants have been convicted or have pleaded guilty in terrorism or terrorism-related cases. But many of those cases have only remote connections to actual terrorism plots, like the case involving six men from Lackawanna, N.Y., who pleaded guilty to attending a terrorist training camp, but never actually took part in a terror plot...
...Shutting down the Bin Laden unit squandered 10 years of expertise in the war on terror, said Michael Scheuer, who founded the unit in 1995 and arguably knows more about Bin Laden than any other western intelligence official. He believes the unit was dismantled because of bureaucratic jealousies within the CIA, and that the closure delivers a further setback to a pursuit that has been squeezed for resources for the past two years...
CIA officials disclosed this week that the Alec unit - named after Mr Scheuer's now teenage son - had been disbanded, and its agents reassigned...
By examining DNA extracted from a mammoth bone frozen in Siberian permafrost and comparing it with sequences from other mammoth remains, researchers have concluded that the wooly creatures probably carried two versions of Mc1r, a gene whose protein product helps determine hair color in several mammals, including humans, mice, horses and dogs...
If the mammoth gene works the same way that it does for humans and other mammals, the lighter animals might have had yellow or reddish hair, while the dark ones might have been black or brown.
Memo to Boston Globe [my note: owned by the NYT] gay and lesbian Guild employees: Get married or lose your domestic partner benefits...Benefits for domestic partners were originally offered to gay employees because they couldn’t legally marry,...Now that gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts companies that offer benefits to gay employees’ partners risk hearing cries of discrimination from unmarried straight couples...Such concerns played a role in the policy change at the Globe, said Steve Behenna, the newspaper’s compensation and benefits director...The Globe does not extend benefits to live-in partners of its heterosexual employees...
...What is the cause of this phenomenon of Democrats persecuting Republican Blacks? What is it that the Democrats don't want Black folks to understand about Republicans? What is it that the Democrats don't want American Blacks to know about Democrats? There seems to be so sort of cover up going on.
Even homeless people are punished for their political persuasion to Republicanism.
Case in point! I happen to be the founder and director of the most unique, progressive and innovative homeless facility in the United States known as the Dome Village located in downtown Los Angeles, only 2 blocks from the World renown Staples Center.
The Dome Village with its 35 residents of homeless men, women, children and American Veterans along with their animal pets are being "evicted" from the privately owned property.
Apparently, the reason for the sudden eviction by the landlord is due to my political beliefs and activities.
You see, though I am America's leading homeless activist, roles that usually have been reserved for liberals, I am "a conservative" Republican and an avid member of the GOP and strong supporter of President Bush, particularly his foreign and middle east policies (Afghanistan / Iraq).
Recently, I was invited to address the Bel Air Republican Women's Club. After the landlord read an article in the Los Angeles Times about my visit with these wonderful ladies, he immediately raised the rent from $2,500 to $18,330 a month. In essence an eviction notice.
I called the landlord asking about the seriousness of his notice, his reply was shocking. In his blind rage, he blurted that the cause of the "eviction" was that I am a Republican.
Along with several other nasty remarks about my political affiliation, he said that as a Democrat, he was tired of helping the Dome Village, and went on to say that if I was such a Republican and the Republicans care so much about me, let them help the homeless.
He is punishing homeless peoples simply for my expressed political beliefs. We have all been preached to by Democrats that theirs is the political party of compassion and tolerance. Right!
I have no contention with the landlord over his need for the land to sell or develop, or not. That is no concern of mine. It is my emphatic belief that the rights of private property owners are to be protected. I will defend and support him on that matter without question.
I will not seek to divest him of his property. In fact, though I could tie him up in court, I will not do such a dishonorable thing.
Had he simply said to me that he wanted his property back for whatever reason, of course, I would have said "absolutely" without hesitation, because that was our agreement 12 years ago.
However, he foolishly allowed his political prejudice and disdain for Republicans to drive him to enough madness to say the unspeakable, "Because you are Republican."
It appears to me these Republican hating Democrats have a special disgust for Blacks who choose be Republican. This phenomenon of Republican hating Democrats having a special disgust for Black Republicans is growing throughout the Democratic Party and needs to be stopped, it is un-American. They are condoning interracial philosophical prejudice – blacks hating blacks because of ideas. It's almost as bad as the current scourge of interracial lynching where blacks are killing blacks in the gang wars...
An invasion of crickets in Boise, Idaho, has covered roads...Mormon crickets have overwhelmed miles of U.S. Highway 95...the sea of crickets looked like something out of a horror movie...the whole road was just completely covered...vehicles begin to slide. "It's like a sheet of ice,"...
A Scottish shop is selling dead midges toThis is a midge:moronstourists. Steven Gibson Ltd charges £5 for a 50ml bottle of "busted midges" at its outlet in Dunoon, Argyll.
...Economic transformation is a key goal for the government this term with a focus going on export innovation and the commercialisation of science...
...HortResearch head, Paul McGilvary, agrees saying a lot of work is going in to trying to make basic food exports likes apples more attractive to consumers. He believes New Zealand has the chance to become the silicon valley of the world when it comes to innovative foods...
I kinda knew that I wouldn't get around to studying economics...
I don't do shit all day except smoke weed and sit at my computer. Wasting time is what I'm best at. I got some laundry done and went to krystal for lunch. That was seven dollars. But man, it was good. Too much ice in the coke...
I need to examine my weed usage. Seems like it's all I do now. I get high and sit in front of my computer looking...
Claim: The mayor of New Orleans turned down an offer for the city to make $5 million on the removal of vehicles wrecked by Hurricane Katrina and instead opted for plan that would have cost the city $23 million.H/T Digital Brownshirt
Status: True.
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Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa is hoping to stamp out the sex trade by taxing pimps and prostitutes, then jailing them when they don't pay.
The Senate Finance Committee is expected to vote Wednesday morning on the pimp tax. The bill also calls for more jail time for sex workers.
If passed, the provision will authorize at least $2 million toward the establishment of an office in the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation unit to prosecute unlawful sex workers for violations of tax laws.
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On Tuesday, Maturino Resendiz, 45, is to be executed for the rape-murder of Claudia Benton...
After his first brush with U.S. law in 1976, Maturino Resendiz, a Mexican national, was deported 17 times and sentenced to prison or jail seven times.
He has been linked, through confessions and other evidence, to the deaths of 13 people, dating to at least March 1997...Dozens of other law enforcement agencies across the nation have scrutinized him as a possible suspect in unsolved homicides.
The true death toll of Maturino Resendiz's years on the rails may never be known..."
There was a big argument going back and forth over his sanity," said juror Kristin Roland. "We must have gone over that 19 times. If he was insane and didn't think he was doing anything wrong, he wouldn't have been trying to elude authorities."...
On May 22, 2000, the jurors deliberated one hour and 45 minutes before sentencing Maturino Resendiz to death.
The teenage ringleader of a prank that killed a school bus driver will serve six months of house arrest.
Robert Stanley, 75, was killed on June 1, 2002, when a boulder the size of a basketball was dropped from a bridge over Edmonton's Whitemud Freeway.
The rock crashed through Stanley's school bus windshield, striking him in the chest...
BY LOUIS J. FREEH
Sunday, June 25, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
Ten years ago today, acting under direct orders from senior Iranian government leaders, the Saudi Hezbollah detonated a 25,000-pound TNT bomb that killed 19 U.S. airmen in their dormitory at Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia...
...The shell of the building is complete but it has not been certified as safe for occupancy. There are no windows, fixtures, or fittings. The extremely poor quality concrete used in its construction has left the building sagging to such a great degree that the structure can never be finished without a massive overhaul...
