| EU-AU conference betrays the people of Zimbabwe
"The Portuguese government should instruct its police to arrest President Mugabe on charges of torture when he arrives in Lisbon this weekend for the EU-African Union summit," urged human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. "To allow Mugabe to attend the summit unimpeded would be a tragic betrayal of the long suffering people of Zimbabwe. Torture is a crime under international law and President Mugabe should be prosecuted "Mugabe has massacred more black Africans than even the murderous apartheid regime in South Africa. His tyrannical government is guilty of detention without trial, torture, rape, extra-judicial killings, media censorship, financial corruption, election fraud, mass starvation and the violent suppression of strikes and protests. "Portugal has a duty to enforce the UN Convention Against Torture 1984, which it has ratified and pledged to uphold.
Nov 29, 8:04 AM EST
TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- Two televangelists have resigned their posts as regents at Oral Roberts University, as the debt-ridden school tries to regroup following a spending scandal involving its former president. The university on Thursday also settled with one of three professors who filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the school. Benny Hinn and I.V. Hilliard resigned as regents, where they were involved in making major school decisions, university spokesman Jeremy Burton said Thursday. Burton declined to say why the two resigned, but said both wrote the board to express their support for the school's mission. The resignations come a month after the resignations from the board of regents of two other televangelists, Jesse Duplantis and Creflo Dollar. Hinn and Dollar are among six televangelists being investigated by Iowa Sen.
Jim Paxon's wildfire blog
There is blessed stuff of a White Christmas on the ground in Show Low and even fire ravaged California has finally gotten some rains along with the cessation of Santa Anna winds. Wildland Fire Season 07 is virtually over. Even though this was an unusually mild fire season in Arizona, it was another record breaker in the West and Southeast. Nationwide, there were almost 80,000 fires that burned nine million acres at a cost of 1.5 billion dollars. Thousands of homes and many lives were lost. Contrast that with the last mild fire season prior to this extended drought (1995) which only burned 1.84 million acres with approximately 82,000 fires. This years damage is five times the acreage with approximately the same number of fires. What is going on, we ask? Can we blame it all on global warming? Hardly! We know that fires are burning hotter and are much harder to stop than ever before.
With friends like these ...
Doesn't it rather disconnect us, since instead of doing something enjoyable such as talking and eating and dancing and drinking with my friends, I am merely sending them little ungrammatical notes and amusing photos in cyberspace, while chained to my desk? A friend of mine recently told me that he had spent a Saturday night at home alone on Facebook, drinking at his desk. What a gloomy image. Far from connecting us, Facebook actually isolates us at our workstations. Facebook appeals to a kind of vanity and self-importance in us, too. If I put up a flattering picture of myself with a list of my favourite things, I can construct an artificial representation of who I am in order to get sex or approval. ("I like Facebook," said another friend. "I got a shag out of it.") It also encourages a disturbing competitivness around friendship: it seems that with friends today, quality counts for nothing and quantity is king.
Spineless Democrats
Rob Kall: The DCC Just Hung Up On Me (55 comments) I won't tolerate being in an abusive relationship... and that's what it seems to be turning into between me and the Democratic congress. Shame on them. Allen L Roland: *GEORGE W BUSH / TORTURER IN CHIEF WITH NO EFFECTIVE OPPOSITION (2 comments) George W Bush will get his payback for his flagrant transgressions of justice as well as the preemptive death and destruction wrought by his administration. It will be devastating and humiliating and this enormous karmic debt will be called before the end of this decade. But it will not be called by the current Congress for there is no Opposition Party representing the vast majority of Americans who are fed up with Bush. Sunday, October 14: Randy LoBasso: To Change the Subject: Smear (3 comments) Right wing spin has no boundaries.
Austin Lawyer Indicted On Forgery Charges
The indictment said that after Garrison got Howard out of jail with a judge's forged signature, he threatened the family of a police officer. Howard is indicted on three counts of obstruction or retaliation. Garrison already faced drug and theft charges before he got in trouble with the law again, after forging judges' signatures on bonds to get his clients out of jail. According to arrest warrants filed Monday morning, Garrison forged the signatures of at least three judges late last year on bonds for his clients. Included in the warrants is a statement from a witness who went to Garrison for help bailing a friend out of jail. The witness said he watched Garrison forge a judge's signature, saying "I have one more ace up my sleeve." Garrison is a well-known criminal defense lawyer in Austin.
The CNN Wire: Thursday, Oct. 18
House Dems fail to override president's veto on children's health care bill WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Failing to garner a two-thirds majority, the Democrat-led House Thursday was unable to override President Bush's veto of a plan to expand the state-run Children's Health Insurance Program. The vote was 273-156, 13 short of the two-thirds majority needed, even though 44 Republicans sided with the Democrats for the measure. House Democratic leaders have vowed to continue the fight to get some kind of legislation passed on the issue. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was adamant the plan -- which would provide $35 billion for children's health care and which supporters say will cover 10 million children -- would not be scaled back. (Posted 1:37 p.m.) Tornado damages Pensacola church (CNN) -- A tornado accompanied by heavy thunderstorms and gusty winds touched down in Pensacola, Fla., Thursday, damaging a church with an attached day care center, and snapping power lines and trees in the Gulf Coast community.
|
