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Words To Live By

Republicans were aghast at Clinton’s behavior, with many saying it showed he had lied and abused his power. “It’s vile,” said Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach. “It’s more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction.”

Mark Foley’s resignation came just hours after ABC News questioned the congressman about a series of sexually explicit instant messages involving congressional pages, high school students who are under 18 years of age … [He] was part of the Republican leadership and the chairman of the House caucus on missing and exploited children. He crusaded for tough laws against those who used the Internet for sexual exploitation of children. “They’re sick people; they need mental health counseling,” Foley said … [Foley] used the screen name Maf54.

Maf54 (7:46:33 PM): did any girl give you a haand job this weekend
Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:38 PM): lol no
Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:40 PM): im single right now
Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:57 PM): my last gf and i broke up a few weeks agi
Maf54 (7:47:11 PM): are you
Maf54 (7:47:11 PM): good so your getting horny
Xxxxxxxxx (7:47:29 PM): lol…a bit
Maf54 (7:48:00 PM): did you spank it this weekend yourself
Xxxxxxxxx (7:48:04 PM): no
Xxxxxxxxx (7:48:16 PM): been too tired and too busy
Maf54 (7:48:33 PM): wow…
Maf54 (7:48:34 PM): i am never to busy haha
Xxxxxxxxx (7:48:51 PM): haha
Maf54 (7:50:02 PM): or tired..helps me sleep

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Bye Bye Habeas Corpus, We Hardly Knew Ye

The [US] Senate on Thursday approved President Bush’s plan to question and try foreign terrorism suspects before military judges — without oversight by the federal courts … some lawmakers, Republicans as well as Democrats, called the move to suspend habeas corpus — the demand for legal justification of one’s imprisonment — a historic mistake, and one that could cause the entire bill to be struck down … The privilege of habeas corpus holds a venerated place in English and U.S. law. The U.S. Constitution says, “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”

Unique rules … allow prosecutors … to use evidence collected through hearsay or coercion to seek criminal convictions. The bill rejects the right to a speedy trial and limits the traditional right to self-representation by requiring that defendants accept military defense attorneys. Panels of military officers need not reach unanimous agreement to win convictions … the bill immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees.

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I For One Welcome Our New Tardigrade Overlords

Tardigrade Electronmicrograph

Tardigrades can survive being frozen solid, being boiled, being poisoned, being irradiated, and floating in the vacuum of space. They are obviously the toughest animal on the planet. We should send a whole ship full of these little guys to Mars and Europa.

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Bringing Up The Rear

GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS INDEX RANKINGS 2006 (2005)
1: Switzerland (4)
2: Finland: (2)
3: Sweden (7)
4: Denmark (3)
5: Singapore (5)
6: United States (1)
7: Japan (10)
8: Germany (6)
9: Netherlands (11)
10: United Kingdom (9)

Source: WEF

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No Pain Lots Of Gain

For an aggressive trader betting other people’s money, swinging for fences entails little risk: “Eighty percent chance I make another $100 million; 20 percent chance we bomb and I get another job.” It’s no wonder, therefore, that [Brian] Hunter threw [other people's] billions at chancy bets. He had a fortune to gain and little to lose.

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Up and Down

Brian Hunter, 32, raked in an estimated US$75-million to US$100-million in 2005, good for a share of 29th spot in Trader Monthly’s annual ranking. Mr. Hunter generated US$800-million in profit for his employer, Amaranth Group Inc., making him one of the world’s top natural-gas traders.

Of all the traders gambling big sums on energy, a 32-year-old Canadian named Brian Hunter made some of the brashest bets and the fastest money. Last week, he fell hard … Mr. Hunter headed the energy desk for a Connecticut hedge fund called Amaranth Advisors. At the end of August, trading natural gas, he was up approximately $2 billion for the year. Then Mr. Hunter lost roughly $5 billion, in about a week.

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Oisíns, Wōdens, and Eshus, Oh My!

A team from Oxford University has discovered that the Celts, Britain’s indigenous people, are descended from a tribe of Iberian fishermen who crossed the Bay of Biscay 6,000 years ago. DNA analysis reveals they have an almost identical genetic “fingerprint” to the inhabitants of coastal regions of Spain, whose own ancestors migrated north between 4,000 and 5,000BC … The majority of people in the British Hibernian Isles are actually descended from the Spanish.

In Irish mythology Míl Espáine (Latin Miles Hispaniae, “Soldier of Hispania”; later pseudo-Latinised as Milesius) is the ancestor of the final inhabitants of Ireland, the “sons of Míl” or Milesians, who represent the Goidelic Celts. His given name was Golam or Galamh. He served as a soldier in Scythia and Egypt, before remembering a prophesy that his descendants would rule Ireland. He set off to the west, getting as far as Iberia (the Roman Hispania) where he fought several battles before dying, never seeing Ireland himself. His wife Scota and his uncle Íth, who had spied Ireland from a tower, sailed to Ireland where Íth was killed by the Tuatha Dé Danann. When his body was brought back to Iberia, Míl’s eight sons and Íth’s nine brothers invaded Ireland and defeated the Tuatha Dé Danann.

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How Does It Feel?

New Order got $200,000 for raping Blue Monday to produce “Sunkist is the one”. It also says Blur got £500,000 ($940,533.13) from Intel for Song 2.

How does it feel
When a new day has begun
When you’re drinking in the sunshine
Sunkist is the one.
When you need a taste for living
Sunkist is the one.

I did find this wonderful bit of New Order performing Regret on Baywatch. Classic.

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A War That Keeps On Giving

The war in Lebanon has not ended. Every day, some of the million bomblets which were fired by Israeli artillery during the last three days of the conflict kill four people in southern Lebanon and wound many more.

During the final days of the war, when it became clear that the Israel Defense Forces had no solution to the ongoing launchings of Katyusha rockets, a decision was made to “flood” the area with cluster bombs … A soldier who fired 155mm artillery shells delivering cluster bombs told Haaretz that he was ordered to “flood” the area with these bombs, without having a specific target. A commander of a Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) told Haaretz that his order was to “saturate the area.”

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) … puts it more forcefully: “The dropping of cluster bombs in built-up areas, in complete disregard for the danger they pose to the lives of innocent civilians, seems to meet the basic mental requirement for committing a crime that involves deliberate killing or deliberate harming of civilians”.

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I Saw A Great Need…

I came across a term, “Sumata“, but when I looked it up in Wikipedia, there were no hits. A shameful state of affairs that has now been rectified. Apparently, the Nepalese also use the term SUMATA, but for something entirely different that involves maternal and neonatal health care.

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