News is getting better and better every day

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"now when you talk about New York take a breath there"

how much more scripted can you get !
How can they even show themselves in public....this is hilarious and I almost can't believe they think someone out here in wonderland would not be laughing their asses off at this bozo... <_<

Remember Soviet Russia ...scripted...

video:
http://dailydissent.org/video/olbermann101305.rm

speaking of "good news"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto.../International/

mar sokszor jobb kise nyitni az ujsagot :angry:

Par percre van tolem a park ahol a kigyot fogtak .

Girl May Lose Arm After School Snake Bite
By Associated Press
Sun Oct 23, 12:52 AM

POTTSTOWN, Pa. - A 14-year-old girl may lose her arm after being bitten by a poisonous copperhead snake at school, authorities said.

The snake was caught in Valley Forge by a 17-year-old male student, who took it in a shoebox to a drama club gathering at St. Pius X High School on Friday, Lower Pottsgrove Police Chief Ray Bechtel said. No regular classes were held that day, which was designated for staff development.

The boy was showing the reptile to other students when it bit the girl's finger, Bechtel said.

The girl, whose name was not released by police, apparently threw the snake across the room and the boy threw it outside. The snake was not found, but authorities were able to identify it because the boy photographed it with his camera cellphone, said Bechtel.

The victim was treated at Pottstown Memorial Medical Center about 45 minutes after being bitten, he said.

"The doctors said if it had been a half-hour longer she would likely have been dead," said Bechtel.

However, police said she could still lose her arm.

Police did not have an update on the girl's condition Sunday. She had been in very serious condition at Hershey Medical Center.

No charges were filed but police said they were investigating.

Copperhead snake bites are typically not fatal but are extremely painful and may cause extensive scarring and loss of limb use, according to the North Carolina Cooperative Extension of North Carolina State University.

___

The Harriet debacle shows Bush to be incredibly weak. That doesn't help him at all, in anything. It will only further the public perception of him as a failing president of a failing presidency. And the weaker Bush is, the less trouble he can stir up.
The religious right and "conservatives" in the GOP have shown their cards. They're nasty, vindictive, extremists who want the entire pie or nothing, and they're willing to destroy their own president if he doesn't give them 110% of everything they want. They've burned their bridges with this president, and this president is going to be around for 3 years. This should be fun


Bush was defeated on the Miers nomination by his own people. That makes the loss more devastating. And, it verifies that there is no room for compromise with the theocrats.


Bush's statement from AP:
"It is clear that senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House -- disclosures that would undermine a president's ability to receive candid counsel," Bush said. "Harriet Miers' decision demonstrates her deep respect for this essential aspect of the constitutional separation of powers -- and confirms my deep respect and admiration for her."


He is the lamest of lame ducks now.

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Via Associated Press:
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald huddled with his legal team Thursday as two key White House aides awaited their fate in the CIA leak probe.

A spokesman for the prosecutor said there would be no public announcements Thursday. The term of the grand jury that could bring indictments expires Friday.

The White House braced for the possibility that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, could become a criminal defendant by week's end. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, remained in jeopardy of being charged with false statements.

Libby and Rove arrived for work at the White House Thursday as usual. Rove attended the daily meeting of the senior staff, but Libby did not and was said to be in a security briefing. Libby misses senior staff about half the time because of intelligence briefings and other issues on Cheney's schedule, an official said.

Separately, Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, said there would be no announcements in the probe on Thursday.

Rove's legal team made contingency plans, consulting with former Justice Department official Mark Corallo about what defenses could be mounted in court and in public.

Text of indictments are online here :

http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/04ms407-I.pdf

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lili @ Oct 14 2005, 10:14 AM) [post=250275]Quoted post[/post]</div><div class='quotemain'>
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"now when you talk about New York take a breath there"

how much more scripted can you get !
How can they even show themselves in public....this is hilarious and I almost can't believe they think someone out here in wonderland would not be laughing their asses off at this bozo...

Remember Soviet Russia ...scripted...
[/b][/quote]

Most people don't give a damn so they have a free ride. Free world ? Joke !

Richard Foot, The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Sunday, June 18, 2006 Article tools


MONCTON, N.B. - One man dominated yesterday's second Liberal leadership debate, yet he wasn't anywhere near the event, nor is he even a Liberal.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper -- attacked repeatedly by the 11 candidates vying to lead the federal Liberals -- loomed like a bogeyman over the two-hour discussions in a stiflingly hot University of Moncton gymnasium.
"We know who we are, and we know who Stephen Harper is," said Liberal MP Maurizio Bevilacqua, opening the gang assault on Mr. Harper, whom he condemned for a list of alleged sins, from raising taxes on the poor to ignoring native people, to picking fights with the Ottawa press gallery.
"He spreads democracy abroad while shutting out the press at home," said Mr. Bevilacqua.
Toronto-area MP Michael Ignatieff, fast becoming the high-profile front-runner in the leadership race, said the choice facing the party comes down to "who among us has the best chance of defeating Stephen Harper?
"Beating Mr. Harper means defeating his narrative. The storyline: He loves power, but he dislikes government. He wants to make it impossible for future Liberal governments to do what they have done since Wilfrid Laurier: building the infrastructure, the health services, the income security, the transfers and equalization payments, the environmental policies that hold us together as Canadians.
"Mr. Harper's narrative is a bad story for Canada."
MP Scott Brison, the only Atlantic Canadian in the race, resurrected Mr. Harper's old and infamous comments about the "defeatist" economic culture of the East Coast.
"I want to say this to Stephen Harper: We are not defeatist," Mr. Brison said to wild cheers from the crowd of 500.
All the candidates, including Ken Dryden, Carolyn Bennett, Stephane Dion, Hedy Fry, Joe Volpe, Gerard Kennedy and Bob Rae took swipes at the Conservatives in front of the partisan audience.
Yesterday's event was hampered by a string of technical glitches. Candidates frequently couldn't be heard when their microphones failed. And at one point, Mr. Dryden was left standing in the dark, when an overhead spotlight cut out during his speech.
Leadership hopeful Martha Hall Findlay, a Toronto lawyer and businesswoman, summed up the mood of many when she declared to the room: "The Liberal leadership debate needs a little more pizzazz."

Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press

Published: Thursday, June 29, 2006 Article toolOTTAWA -- Canada's chief electoral officer wants the federal Conservative party to open its books following a revelation by the Harper government's accountability quarterback that the party failed to report delegate fees to its 2005 convention.

Liberal and NDP MPs say the omission, which came to light when Treasury Board President John Baird was speaking to a Senate committee, means the Tories broke political financing laws and potentially collected millions of dollars in unreported donations.
"The public has a right to know exactly what happened in this case,'' chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley said in a release late Thursday.
"The chief electoral officer requests the Conservative Party of Canada to provide him with the necessary documents and supporting information to allow the public to know the law has been respected.''
The Conservatives, who rode to power on a wave of outrage against perceived Liberal corruption, initially reacted with fury to questions about the apparent fee omission.
After Kingsley's statement, a spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper would only say they were "puzzled'' by the Elections Canada statement.
Baird told a Senate committee examining the Federal Accountability Act that the Conservatives had not counted $600 fees from the 2,900 delegates to their 2005 policy convention as political donations, nor had the party issued tax receipts.
Political opponents said that appeared to contravene Canada's political financing laws.
The Tories said there is no such rule and claimed that Elections Canada had already audited the 2005 convention in Montreal.
"Elections Canada has not audited the books of the Conservative Party regarding this convention,'' said the release from Kingsley, adding Elections Canada has no legal authority to compel such an audit.
On the critical point of whether failure to report convention fees breaches any law, Kingsley was ambiguous.
"The rules respecting the determination of contributions in the context of political events are clear and have been applied consistently,'' he wrote, without further clarification.
But an Elections Canada spokeswoman told The Canadian Press earlier this month that the law stipulates that a fee paid to attend a political convention does constitute a donation "to the extent that the person paying the fee is not receiving a good or service that has any commercial value beyond its political value.''
Valerie Hache said that any portion of a convention fee that covers lodging, meals or travel does not count as a contribution.

Stewart Bell, National Post

Published: Friday, June 30, 2006 Article tools


His name used to be Daniel Sonier, but that was when he was a troubled Scarborough teenager with dreams of becoming a rap star.
Now he is Shaheed.
In Arabic, it means martyr. It is the name the 22-year-old of Acadian and aboriginal ancestry adopted when he became a Muslim five years ago.
Since his conversion, he has shed his baggy hip hop garb for a white turban and gown, married a woman from Djibouti and fathered two children.
"Those who were around me, who knew me from the past, they see me now, they don't even recognize me," he said.
"They call me Daniel, but really, in my heart, I'm Shaheed."
An estimated 3,000 people are, like Shaheed, converting to Islam each year in Canada, according to a Canadian Security Intelligence Service report.
From a security perspective, that is not a concern. What troubles counterterrorism officials is the "small number" of converts who are being recruited into the Islam faith's radical fringe.
At least two of the 17 suspects arrested in Toronto on terror charges on June 2 were converts, and Canadian intelligence reports declassified under the Access to Information Act reveal links between conversion and terrorism.
Conversion to the extremist brand of Islam is "a phenomenon of increasing concern to Western governments," one CSIS intelligence study says.
"In the 19th and 20th centuries, disillusioned individuals were known to have channelled their grievances and energies through various ideological movements," says another Canadian intelligence report. "Today, some individuals of this nature have chosen extreme Islam."
Richard Reid the shoe bomber, the American Taliban John Walker Lindh, the Australian Taliban David Hicks, Andrew Rowe of Britain and Christophe Caze of France are cited in reports as examples of converts run amok.
One of the four suicide bombers who killed more than 50 people in London last July 7, Germaine Lindsay, was a Jamaican-born British citizen who had converted to Islam.
Recruiters are deliberately seeking converts, who are sometimes referred to as "white skins," because of their strategic value, intelligence reports say.
"The attraction of converts for extremist Islamic groups is clear," CSIS says in a "secret" report titled Canadian Converts to Radical Islam.
"These individuals have a solid knowledge of Western society, can move with relative ease internationally because of their countries of birth, and exhibit a religious zeal typical of new adherents."
Shaheed was once one of them.
"The first time I saw an al-Qaeda video, I was ready to go," he said in a recent interview. "I wanted to kill the disbelievers."
His long-time friend Chris Jakubowski, a convert who has adopted the Muslim name Yacub, said Shaheed was so extreme he once said he would go to war against his own father. Friends started calling him Osama bin Daniel.
"He was definitely really hardcore," Yacub said.
Shaheed often spoke about going overseas to fight those he considered the enemies of Islam, said Yacub, who has known him since the third grade.

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Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press

Published: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 Pull out the bug spray: West Nile virus is beginning its summertime assault.

Infected mosquitoes are known to be buzzing in 16 states so far, and five people nationwide are already battling the illness' most severe form. Scientists fear the rubble-strewn Gulf Coast in particular is ripe for a bad outbreak.
How bad this year will be depends on the weather. Anywhere that's especially hot and dry should watch out.

Back to Body & Health
It also depends on birds — robins and house sparrows, to be exact. Forget the dying crows that became notorious in West Nile's early days. How mosquitoes feed on these smaller backyard birds seems more important in determining how much virus circulates in communities — especially in July and August, the disease's worst months.
West Nile has infected a surprising 1.2 million to 1.3 million people in the United States in just the seven years since it first struck the nation, estimates Dr. Lyle Petersen of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the country's leading West Nile specialist.
Most people didn't know it: About one in five people develop symptoms, and fewer get the life-threatening disease. Still, West Nile has killed almost 800 people in the U.S. in that brief period, and caused severe neurologic illness, meningitis or encephalitis, in more than 8,300. Others are left with polio-like paralysis.
Even the less severe West Nile fever is "really quite a horrible kind of illness," says Petersen. He caught the disease himself in 2003 — spending a week in bed and a month afterward battling bone-deep fatigue — and he worries that people don't take the threat seriously enough.
"I guarantee it'll ruin your summer."
Scientists can't predict where the virus will strike each year, but recent research shows:
_West Nile virus grows faster and more plentifully inside a mosquito's body when it's really hot.

_Just about any mosquito can carry West Nile, but the biggest carrier, the Culex breed, thrives in small amounts of nutrient-rich water, like the muddy puddles left when ponds dry out in a hot, dry summer. Even drops left under dense leaves in irrigated fields or in the bottoms of flower pots can be enough.
_Hurricanes don't spur West Nile. Instead, heavy rains temporarily flush out the tiny pools where mosquitoes have laid eggs. Yet the CDC fears that New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are ripe for a surge in West Nile this summer because of the rubble left by Hurricane Katrina last year, full of water-collecting crevices that make perfect mosquito breeding grounds.
_Birds are the incubators key to West Nile's spread. Some, like crows, die quickly when bitten by an infected mosquito. Others, particularly robins and house sparrows, build up high levels of the virus without dying off, able to then infect more mosquitoes. When it's hot and dry, those birds compete with mosquitoes for the same scarce water supplies — close contact that spurs more bug bites.
_And scientists who checked the stomach contents of live mosquitoes found that one big West Nile carrier tends to mostly bite robins until June, when those birds finish nesting and start migrating. Then, rather than filling the gap with just other birds, the bugs bite more people in late summer.
Since it emerged in New York City in 1999, West Nile virus has spread from coast to coast. Only Maine and Washington have diagnosed no ill people yet, despite finding the virus in mosquitoes and other animals in summers past.
Already this year, doctors are reporting the neurologic form of West Nile in five people in California, Colorado, Mississippi and Texas. All donated blood is tested for West Nile, to prevent transfusions from symptom-free but infected people, and the CDC hopes those tests will also act as an early warning signal of impending outbreaks — in addition to mosquito testing that has uncovered infection in 16 states and counting.
Older people and organ transplant recipients are most at risk of life-threatening disease, while, mysteriously, the polio-like muscle weakness tends to strike people in their 30s, 40s and 50s.
But the sad truth is that West Nile can strike anyone, and there's no vaccine yet. Hence the CDC wants people to use mosquito repellents as routinely as they do seat belts, so they'll be covered wherever and whenever the virus pops up. The best advice:
_Spray on a good repellent whenever you go outdoors, either that old standby DEET or two recently proven alternatives, picaridin or oil of lemon eucalyptus.
_Make it harder for mosquitoes to breed in your neighborhood. Don't let water collect in flower pots, buckets, old tires or wading pools. Clean out birdbaths weekly, and clean clogged gutters.
_Make sure window screens have no holes.
_And consult a doctor for such symptoms as high fever, severe headache, confusion or difficulty thinking, stiff neck, severe muscle weakness or tremors.

Grania Litwin, Times Colonist

Published: Sunday, July 02, 2006 In the case of the brain, however, it isn't money that needs to be put into the account, but high-value fats.

"The brain is 60 per cent fat and come retirement age or sooner, if you haven't deposited enough, there is a greater risk of mental disease," says the New York-based naturopath, who visited Victoria recently to give a talk and promote his new book The Brain Diet.
He explains North Americans are consuming far too many saturated fats, trans fats and omega-6 rich oils such as corn and safflower. "These oils are changing our brain chemistry -- and not for the better."

Back to Body & Health
Gallery: Nuggets from the Brain Diet
A diet rich in brain-enhancing fats consumed over many years can help people avoid Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, MS, fibromyalgia, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder -- and can even help alleviate depression and anxiety.
"We have a mental health crisis on our hands because too little attention has been given to the brain nutrition," he says, adding one in every two Americans will be diagnosed with a mental health condition sometime in their life, and more than 1.5 million adults now take drugs for ADHD.
Logan became interested in nutrition at age 26, after being referred to a New York naturopath for treatment of migraines. "The guy worked wonders for me, and opened my eyes to the profession," said the Belfast-born expert, who then decided to study naturopathy at the Canadian College of Natural Medicine in Toronto.
Now 39-years-old and on the faculty of Harvard Medical School's Mind-Body Institute, Logan is also nutrition editor of the International Journal of Naturopathic Medicine, and has had papers published in the American Journal of Hypertension and in Nutrition, Arthritis and Rheymatology.
He says the average person's brain is starved for the omega-3 fats found in fish and seafood, fibre-rich whole grains and grass-fed beef, flax seeds, walnut oils, and dark greens.
"Of the average person's total cereal intake today, only 3.5 per cent is in the form of whole grains."
Even our vegetable intake is pathetic, he says.
Recent research shows only five veggies -- canned tomatoes, fresh and frozen potatoes, iceberg lettuce and onion -- account for 50 per cent of our total vegetable consumption.
"This is no joke. We're talking about the trimmings on a burger and a side of fries."
While it's possible to change brain function through diet, he stresses it won't happen overnight. The turnaround can take up to 12 months and sadly, a lifetime of fat abuse cannot be undone.
The key is to start early, or at the very least -- now.
Logan adds that intensely coloured fruits and veggies, particularly purple ones such as grapes, plums, blueberries, eggplant -- "They're the gold standard" -- are excellent health choices. But his core message focuses on omega-3s in lowing the risk of long term cognitive decline.
He is quick to add that people require both omega-6 and omega-3, but in a ratio of about 2 to 1, respectively. The problem is today's "skewed" ratio is as high as 10 or 20 to one, and that's leading to severe neural and psychiatric consequences.

John Kennedy, canada.com

Published: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 The single biggest issue facing the music industry these days is downloading and file-sharing. But consumers – armed with MP3 players, iPods and computers that can copy CDs in a matter of minutes – are being left to make moral decisions because of mixed messages from the people who make and market music.

According to the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), music sales fell four per cent between 2004 and 2005, a drop it attributes directly to the practice of file-sharing. The CRIA estimates the Canadian music industry has lost in excess of $250 million since 2003.

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The problem, according to the major record companies, is that it’s not against the law to download music for free in Canada. Over the last two years, courts here have ruled that downloading a song for personal use or sharing music with other computer users is not illegal.

A Liberal bill that would have updated and toughened copyright laws died when the government was defeated in the last federal election, although the country’s new Heritage Minister, Beverley Oda, has said she favours copyright reforms.

During Canadian Music Week earlier this year, the head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry called on the government to create tougher copyright laws.

London-based John Kennedy pointed out that in Germany and the UK, where new copyright laws are in place, more people are buying music online legally than downloading for free.

At the same time the so-called “suits” rage against consumers who aren’t paying for music, artists continue to weigh the pros and cons of letting fans steal their songs.

Earlier this year, a number of them – including Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Sum 41, Billy Talent and the Barenaked Ladies – banded together to create the Canadian Music Creators Coalition. The group is opposed to suing fans for stealing digital music and using piracy protection software.

More on the Canadian Music Creators Coalition

“I don’t agree with taking your fans to court,” singer/songwriter Ron Sexsmith told canada.com in May. “I mean, that’s just ridiculous.”

Sexsmith admits he’s not sure how he feels about the theft of his music.

“Well, it’s kind of troubling. I think with the new generation it’s an educational problem. I don’t think they realize what goes in to making the music and how much it costs and everything like that,” he says.

But Sexsmith is not sure there’s anything wrong with fans sharing his music with their friends if it brings new fans.

“I think there’s some good that comes out of it,” he says.

Like many, Sexsmith recalls making mixed cassette tapes from vinyl records and passing them on to friends, “which is kind of like file-sharing.”

More on Ron Sexsmith

Other performers questioned about the issue over the last few years offered similarly mixed feelings.

Scottish singer KT Tunstall, whose debut CD Eye to the Telescope is currently on the charts, insists she’s not worried about file-sharing.

“No, not at all,” she says. “I have to be totally honest… when I heard about all the downloading problems and when I really thought about it, the only people who suffer ultimately – you know, if everything falls to its knees – are people who can’t sing or perform.”

“It’s the people who actually can’t do their job who suffer because if you can’t make your money from record sales… I mean, I just know now that no matter what happens – if I lose all my friends and family and the record company spontaneously combusts – I can go out there and take my guitar out and make enough money to have dinner. It’s something you feel really grateful to be able to do.”

More on KT Tunstall

Damhnait Doyle of the Canadian pop group Shaye explains most artists don’t make money from record sales but from live performances and merchandise.

“I can see how artists like Metallica and Bryan Adams are resentful because they are literally being stolen from but new and kind of beginning artists who don’t have that wide of a fan base can only benefit,” says Doyle. “I personally don’t download music that I won’t go out and buy. I don’t think it’s anything to get up in arms about.”

John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls believes since music stores like iTunes came online, people are more willing to pay for songs they download.

“More and more people actually spend a buck. I do it every day,” he says. “It’s a buck. Please, just give us a buck!”

Rzeznik is firmly against swapping music. “It’s wrong. I did this work and I deserve to get paid for it. What people have got to remember is it’s really fun to take down The Man but The Man will always be there. It’s the artists that are the last ones to get paid and we get paid the least of anybody in the chain.

“Our last record sold maybe 800,000 copies – we didn’t make any money. None. Not one penny from record sales. Imagine if we weren’t able to go out and tour and make money on tour. What would we have done? We would have had a gold record and go out and get jobs.”

Rzeznik admits he toyed with putting copy-protection software on the band’s latest CD, Let Love In.

Goo Goo Dolls guitarist Robby Takac is more sympathetic to fans. “I think I can look at the situation and say I can’t blame the f--king kids,” he says. “I have to blame the industry for looking at a wall full of writing for many, many years and just going, ‘Meh! The government will work it out.’ You know what, they don’t do that anymore.”

More on Goo Goo Dolls

Longineu Parsons of rock group Yellowcard also feels for the fans.

“The typical college kid is not going to have $20 to spend on a record, especially a record that he or she hasn't heard yet,” he says.

Band mate Sean Mackin says file-sharing hurts record sales but breeds loyalty and helps sells concert tickets and merchandise. “I think eventually for the more hard-working bands – the more sort of grassroots bands – it comes around in the back end. We're not really stressed out about it because we feel our true fans will come and support us.”

“I think we wouldn't be here if kids didn't stumble across our songs on the Internet,” Mackin adds. “We feel that any fan that would download our music is (doing so) to get it to attain how accessible it is and to familiarize themselves with the songs and to kind of take it on a test drive like you would with a car.”

More on Yellowcard

New Zealand-born Daniel Bedingfield, who topped the charts with “Gotta Get Thru This,” understands the concerns of his fellow songwriters – but he’s singing a different tune.

“I want to make music and I want people to get it. I don’t friggin’ care how they get it,” admits Bedingfield. “The likelihood is that I’ll be able to make money somehow, even if it’s Starbucks, but as long as people get my music I’m fine."

But, he adds, “songwriters who do this for a living are in terrible trouble. They may write a hit song and not even be able to pay for the food on their table. So they’re in big trouble.”

Bedingfield says the public shouldn’t feel pity for the record labels. “Music companies are always going to find a way to make money,” he says. “I don’t think the record industry is in trouble at all. They’ll just adapt like they always do.”

Singer Rob Thomas, who has enjoyed global success both as a solo artist and with the band matchbox twenty, concedes it’s hard to take a firm stand against downloading.

“You’re talking about kids here. You’re talking about your fans. They want to download your music which means they’re fans so you can’t come out and go, ‘You’re a friggin’ thief.’ What, are you going to sue the kids?”

Thomas says artists and record companies need to work together to make music more accessible and affordable. Offering free streaming songs online, for example, allows consumers to listen to songs before buying them.

Still, the Grammy-winning songwriter believes it’s important the public understands the effects of file-sharing.

“Think about your favourite new bands,” says Thomas. “People like Rhett Miller – great artist, great singer/songwriter. Maybe a million people download his record but 300,000 people buy his record. The label’s only going to look at those 300,000 copies and go, ‘Sorry you can’t make another record.’ So all these people who want to support Rhett Miller, all of a sudden he doesn’t have another record now. You need to put your vote in for your favourite artists.”

Thomas says up-and-coming artists and bands are the biggest victims. “Labels have a bottom line and it’s harder and harder to hold bands if they’re not selling records,” he explains. “As much as bands like us can support ourselves touring – we make a really good living and we have our fan base – it’s a scary thing for these newer bands and for these bands that are just trying to get a leg up. I think for them, most of all, there needs to be awareness.”

Just ask People in Planes, a band from Wales with plenty of buzz that hasn’t really taken off.

“I think it definitely causes concern for bands,” singer Gareth Jones says of file-sharing.

Adds guitarist Peter Roberts: “We’re pretty worried. I hope the bigwigs get around the table and sort it out somehow and invent some way of stopping it.”

More on People in Planes

Thomas says fans need to think about the kind of music they want to hear.

“The quality of music is going to be affected,” he says. “The music that you’re going to wind up getting is all going to be whatever formula worked until it stops working and then they’re going to find a new formula and you’re going to miss the Wilcos of the world, the Jayhawks of the world and you’re not going to find these new bands because they didn’t have time to grow.”

Adam Gaynor, bassist for matchbox twenty, echoes Thomas.

“I mean, I’m not going to cry because 50,000 kids have downloaded our album because we are fortunate,” he says, “but there are people who aren’t as fortunate. And then you have legal issues which you really need to define and you really need to decipher.”

Gaynor points out that music is no different than other forms of art.

“If you’re a painter and you painted this beautiful image and you left it on your porch and somebody took it – ok, he can paint another one. He can paint five of them,” says Gaynor. “But this guy is pouring his heart and soul into something that might have cost him money for paint and for canvas. People have to understand that this is a business. It costs money to go and record.”

Adam Duritz, lead singer of Counting Crows, blames the file-sharing problem on record companies.

“They want the public to understand that they’re ripping us off but no one sympathizes with them because (the record labels) keep trying to rip off the artists too, and it’s so public,” he says. “The artists were the only people the fans were ever going to possibly sympathize with and when the artists hate the record companies, you know the public’s not going to sympathize with them.

“So we’re all going to go online and we’re going to take it even though the fact is when you do that you’re just saying art has no value. Tires have value, TVs have value, rubber bands have value and Pop Tarts have value – but art has no value. And I think that’s wrong.”

Robert Russo, The Canadian Press

Published: Friday, July 07, 2006 OTTAWA -- Authorities believe a Canadian co-conspirator was involved in the alleged plot to blow up New York tunnels and submerge lower Manhattan under a torrent of flood waters. The Canadian Press has learned that Canadian police questioned a man they suspect of active involvement in the conspiracy, but he was released because there wasn't enough evidence to hold him beyond the period of interrogation.
The questioning took place in Canada.
Canadian police are involved in a six-country investigation into the alleged plot and are actively pursuing leads, sources with knowledge of the investigation said Friday. Other suspects were scattered over three continents.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day refused to comment on any police work being done in Canada on the case.
"At this point ... I'll refrain from comment on that not to impair any of the investigation,'' Day said in Toronto, where he was announcing Canada's role in stopping terrorism financing and money laundering.
Day said the suspects could be from anywhere because terrorists don't respect borders.
"One thing that we know is that people who plan these despicable deeds, they know no boundaries,'' he said. "They can come from any part of the globe.''
Al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden has put Canada on a list of countries marked for terrorist attack.
Canada was recently thrust into the counterterrorism spotlight when 12 men and five youths, all from the Toronto area, were charged last month in an alleged plot to attack targets in southern Ontario.
The arrests have been billed as Canada's largest counterterrorism operation since 9-11.
The Associated Press reported that an unidentified U.S. law enforcement official said one of the suspects is believed to be Canadian, but had no apparent links to the 17 people arrested last month.
New Yorkers were steadying themselves to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks when word of the alleged tunnel plot was made public by the New York Daily News.
The FBI took action after monitoring Internet chat rooms frequented by extremists. Lebanese authorities were asked by the FBI to arrest Assem Hammoud, 31, as part of their investigation.
FBI assistant director Mark Mershon said Hammoud had sworn allegiance to al-Qaida. Mershon said there were eight key figures in the plot and that two others were taken into custody outside the United States, but added that none had yet been charged.
Mershon refused to say if one of those key figures was in Canada.
"We're not prepared without charges to discuss the level of co-operation or identify those countries,'' he said at a news conference in New York.
The FBI said the alleged conspirators planned to use tunnels connecting Manhattan to New Jersey as giant funnels that would cascade water from the Hudson River into New York's financial district. Investigators believe such an attack on certain tunnels could have achieved that goal.
"This is a plot that involved martyrdom and explosives'' and focused on the "tubes that connect Jersey and lower Manhattan,'' Mershon said.
He said the scheme was discovered before any of the alleged plotters had a chance to buy explosives or begin the surveillance leading to more detailed planning.
"The plot had matured to the point where the individuals were about to go to a phase where they would attempt to surveil targets, establish a regimen of attacks and acquisition of the resources needed to effectuate the attacks,'' Mershon said.
The Daily News said the terrorists wanted to turn lower Manhattan into a mirror image of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The newspaper reported that dialogue from the chat rooms suggested the plotters spoke of swamping the U.S. economy.
The Holland Tunnel is protected not just by bedrock, but also by concrete and cast-iron steel.
U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said the uncovering of the alleged plot is a testimony to the level of international intelligence-sharing in the face of the threat from al-Qaida and its allies.
"As we get better intelligence coverage, we are able to detect more things that are going on. And it is true that we try to intervene as early as possible,'' Chertoff said.
"Once there's a basis to determine that someone has violated the law and poses a potential threat, we don't wait until they actually get to the final stages of a plan; we move very quickly.''

Hezbollah cripples Israeli missile ship with unmanned aircraft

Leader threatens "open war" with Israel
Israeli soldiers stand on the bridge of the Israeli Navy ship Keshet as it patrols off the southern Lebanese coast next to the Lebanese town of Necore, in Lebanese territorial waters, Friday. Israel tightened its seal on Lebanon, blasting its air and road links to the outside world and bringing its offensive to the capital for the first time Friday in order to punish Hezbollah, and with it, the country, for the capture of two Israeli soldiers.
Photograph by : AP Photo/Baz Ratner


Published: Friday, July 14, 2006 Article tools


BEIRUT -- Hezbollah rammed an Israeli missile ship with an unmanned aircraft rigged with explosives Friday, setting it ablaze after Israeli planes smashed Lebanon's links to the world one by one and destroyed the headquarters of the Islamic guerrilla group's leader.
The attack on the ship off Beirut's Mediterranean coast was the most dramatic incident on a violent day in the conflict that erupted suddenly Wednesday and appeared to be out of control, despite pleas from world leaders for restraint on both sides.
Israel again bombarded Lebanon's airport and main roads in the most intensive offensive against the country in 24 years. For the first time, it struck the crowded Shiite Muslim neighbourhood of South Beirut around Hezbollah's headquarters, toppling overpasses and sheering facades off apartment buildings. Concrete from balconies smashed into parked cars and car alarms set off by the blasts blared for hours.
The toll in three days of clashes rose to 73 killed in Lebanon and at least 12 Israelis, as international alarm grew over the fighting and oil prices rose to above $78 US a barrel. The UN Security Council held an emergency session on the violence, and Lebanon accused Israel of launching "a widespread barbaric aggression.''
In addition to the fighting in Lebanon, Israel pressed ahead with its offensive in the Gaza Strip against Hamas, striking the Palestinian Economy Ministry offices early Saturday.
The ramming of the Israeli ship indicated Hezbollah has added a new weapon to the arsenal of rockets and mortars it has used against Israel. The Israeli army said the ship suffered severe damage and was on fire hours later as it headed home. There were no details on the ship's crew, though Al-Jazeera TV said the Israeli military was searching for four missing sailors.
"You wanted an open war and we are ready for an open war,'' Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in a taped statement.
He threatened to strike even deeper into Israel with rockets.
Despite fears the assault could bring down the western-backed, anti-Syrian government of Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the campaign would continue until Hezbollah guerrillas, who are backed by Syria and Iran, lose their near-control of southern Lebanon bordering Israel.
Olmert agreed in a phone call with UN chief Kofi Annan to allow UN mediation for a ceasefire -- but only if the terms include the disarming of Hezbollah and the return of two Israeli soldiers whose capture by the Muslim guerrillas Wednesday triggered the fighting.
Hezbollah rained dozens of rockets on towns in northern Israel. One rocket hit a home in Meron, killing a woman and her grandson. Some 220,000 people in northern towns hunkered down in bomb shelters.
Nasrallah was not hurt after the Israeli missiles demolished his headquarters among two buildings in Beirut's southern neighbourhoods, the militant group said. Three people died in the air strikes.
"If they kill us all, we will still not give them back the prisoners,'' said one resident, Nasser Ali Nasser, as palls of smoke rose from fuel depots hit farther south.
"We have nothing left to lose except our dignity. We sacrifice ourselves for Sheik Nasrallah,'' he said.
President George W. Bush, who has backed Israel's right to defend itself, spoke by phone with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora from a G8 summit in Russia and "reiterated his position'' the Israeli attacks should limit any impact on civilians, White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
But the promise fell short of the Lebanese leader's request for pressure for a ceasefire.
Israel's campaign appeared to have a two-pronged goal. One was to batter Hezbollah and end its near control of the south on Israel's borders.
"We know it's going to be a long and continuous campaign and operation, but it's very clear. We need to put Hezbollah out of business,'' Brig.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan said.
Israel's army chief, Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, said Hezbollah has rockets that can reach as far as 70 kilometres or more, which would bring more Israeli cities, such as Hadera, within range.
The other goal is to seal off Lebanon by repeatedly striking its airport and main roads -- including the coastal highway from north to south and the Beirut-Damascus highway, Lebanon's main land link to the outside world. At the same time, Israel is gradually escalating the damage to the country's infrastructure, painstakingly rebuilt since the civil war ended in 1990.
Israel holds Lebanon responsible for the capture of its two soldiers in a surprise Hezbollah raid; the Lebanese government insists it had nothing to do with the attack. However, Israel wants it to rein in the guerrillas, a move Lebanon has long resisted.
Throughout the morning, Israeli fighter-bombers pounded runways at Beirut's airport for a second day, apparently trying to ensure its closure after the Lebanese national carrier, Middle East Airlines, managed to evacuate its last five planes to Jordan. One bomb hit close to the terminal building.
Civilian casualties were mounting faster than during Israel's last major offensive in Lebanon, in 1996, an assault also sparked by Hezbollah attacks. In that campaign, 165 people were killed over 17 days, including 100 in the shelling of a UN base.
"We are on the right and we shall avenge every attack we endure,'' said Fadi Haidar, a Lebanese-American who swept up the shattered glass outside his store in South Beirut.
"I have huge debts and now my store is damaged...But as time goes by, they will all realize that Sayyed Nasrallah is right and is working in the interest of Muslims.''
There was some resentment that Hezbollah had dragged the Lebanese into another bloody fight with Israel.
"As long as Hezbollah has its weapons and acts according to its leader's whims, there is pretext for Israel to keep on destroying Lebanon,'' said Ibrahim al-Hajj, a Christian shop owner in the southern village Qleia.
Foreign Affairs spokesperson Amber Dickey said in Ottawa about 10,000 Canadians in Lebanon are registered with the embassy in Beirut.
The department is urging them to stay indoors until further notice.

Associated Press

Published: Thursday, July 13, 2006 VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican posted a surplus of $12.4 million US in 2005, its best financial showing in eight years despite heavy costs for the funeral of Pope John Paul II and the election of his successor.

Earlier this week, Cardinal Sergio Sebastiani, who heads the Vatican's office for economic affairs, hailed "the good news" as he presented the Holy See's annual financial statement.



The Vatican has been struggling to contain spending for years, with much of its money going for labor costs and diplomatic missions worldwide.
Sebastiani disclosed that the costs of the transition period following the death of John Paul in April 2005 and the election of Pope Benedict XVI amounted to $8.9 million.
However, much of the expense was covered by the huge influx into the Vatican museums when millions of pilgrims came to Rome for the ceremonies, Vatican officials said.
The Vatican also confirmed that Roman Catholic dioceses and individuals in the United States remain the No. 1 donors to the Holy See, providing a third of Peter's Pence, as donations to the pope are known. Next come Italy and Germany.

Sam F. Ghattas, Associated Press

Published: Saturday, July 15, 2006 BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora called for a cease-fire under U.N. auspices Saturday, as Israeli warplanes hit central Beirut for the first time and smashed the Hezbollah leadership's main strongholds. Strikes killed at least 18 Lebanese fleeing the onslaught, and Hezbollah rockets continued to pour into Israel, where officials warned citizens that Tel Aviv could be hit. The deadly barrages came as Israel charged that Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have 100 troops in Lebanon providing Hezbollah key support -- including helping fire a missile Friday that badly damaged an Israeli warship. Hezbollah denied it.
Neither side showed signs of backing down from the conflict, which erupted Wednesday when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. As civilian deaths mounted, diplomatic efforts to end the crisis had yet to get off the ground.
President Bush, on a trip to Russia, said it was up to Hezbollah "to lay down its arms and to stop attacking." Arab foreign ministers gathered in Cairo but fell into squabbling after moderate states, led by Saudi Arabia, denounced Hezbollah for starting the fight.
In a sign the West expects a drawn-out battle, the U.S. Embassy said it was looking into ways to get Americans in Lebanon to Cyprus. France said it had already decided to send a ferry from Cyprus to evacuate thousands of its nationals.
Police said a 106 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Lebanon in the four-day Israeli offensive. On the Israeli side, at least 15 have been killed, four civilians and 11 soldiers.
Israeli warplanes demolished the last bridge on the main Beirut-Damascus highway -- over the Litani River, six miles from the Syrian border -- trying to complete their seal on Lebanon. The strike killed three civilians driving on the bridge.
In the afternoon, Israeli forces hit central Beirut, striking the port and a lighthouse on a posh seafront boulevard, where people stroll in the evening or jog in the early mornings. It is a few hundred yards from the campus of the American University of Beirut. The seaport is adjacent to downtown Beirut, a disctrict rebuilt at a cost of billions of dollars after the 1975-1990 civil war.
But the brunt of the onslaught focused more and more on Hezbollah's top leadership in south Beirut and the eastern city of Baalbek. Ambulances raced to a Baalbak residential neighborhood where black smoke rose from airstrikes.
Hezbollah in turn has unleashed rockets on northern Israel with increasing sophistication. Rockets hit Tiberias twice on Saturday, the first such attack on the Israeli city, 22 miles south of the border, since the 1973 Mideast War. The rockets caused no injuries.
An Israeli intelligence official said Hezbollah has missiles with ranges of 60 to 120 miles that could reach Tel Aviv, Israel's largest metropolitan area. The Israeli officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
The strike on the warship off Beirut's coast Friday night was the first direct Hezbollah hit on Israel's military since Wednesday's raid. Israel said the strike was carried out with an Iranian-made, radar-guided C-102, missile. Earlier, the military said the ship was hit by an unmanned, remote-controlled aircraft loaded with explosives. One Israeli soldier was killed and three were missing from the attack, which set the ship ablaze.
An Egyptian merchant ship carrying concrete to Syria was also hit by a Hezbollah rocket at about the same time, injuring a crew member, Egyptian officials said.
Iran is one of Hezbollah's principle backers along with Syria; many believe they are fueling the battle to show their strength in the region. There has been no sign in Lebanon of Iranian Revolutionary Guards -- a force that answers directly to Iran's supreme clerical leader -- for 15 years, since the end of the country's civil war.
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, warned Israel on Friday against retaliating against Syria and taunted that Iran itself could not be hit, though both countries deny any involvement.
At a G-8 summit in St. Petersburg, Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the worsening situation but appeared divided on how to restore calm.
Bush blamed Hezbollah and Syria for the escalating violence in the Middle East.
"In my judgment, the best way to stop the violence is to understand why the violence occurred in the first place," Bush said. "And that's because Hezbollah has been launching rocket attacks out of Lebanon into Israel and because Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers."
Putin said it was unacceptable to try to reach political goals through abductions and strikes against an independent state. "In this context we consider Israel's concerns to be justified," he said. At the same time, he said, "the use of force should be balanced."
In successive early morning raids Saturday that continued through the afternoon, Israeli warplanes pounded gas stations, fuel tanks and roads, destroying one bridge after another, splitting large parts of the country.
Fleeing refugees, including women and children, were hit on a road adjacent to the Lebanese-Israeli border in an apparent Israeli airstrike as they left the village of Marwaheen, which abuts the border. Two cars were aflame, and bodies were blown into an adjacent ravine.
Police said 15 were killed in the afternoon attack. An Associated Press photographer counted 12 bodies in the vehicles.
"They're peaceful people who were displaced. They were just fleeing the shelling. They were hit on the road, in their cars," Abdel-Mohsen Hussein, the local mayor, told Al-Arabiya television.
Israel also targeted the headquarters compound of Hezbollah's leadership in a crowded Shiite neighborhood of south Beirut for the second straight day. Strikes Friday night hit the home and residence of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah inside the compound, though Nasrallah was not hurt.
Smoke billowed from the Haret Hreik neighborhood after four loud impacts reverberated in the latest hits. Witnesses said the planes were attacking the same compound, where Hezbollah's Shura Council political decision-making body is located. Black-clad Hezbollah fighters carrying assault rifles blocked journalists from the area and questioned civilians.
In the southern village of Kfar Sir, the empty house of a local guerrilla official was destroyed by a missile.
In Jerusalem, an Israeli army spokesman said Saturday that it attacked 44 Hezbollah targets in the past 24 hours, including its headquarters, its Al-Manar television's broadcasting offices and several bridges in Lebanon, including on the Beirut-Damascus road.
Meanwhile, Lebanon sought support from fellow Arabs at an emergency session of foreign ministers in Cairo on Saturday. But sharp rifts erupted over as moderate Arab states denounced Hezbollah for starting the conflict.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal called the group's actions "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible," telling his counterparts: "These acts will pull the whole region back to years ago, and we cannot simply accept them."
Supporting his stance were representatives of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, delegates said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.
Another camp, led by Syria, defended Hezbollah as carrying out "legitimate acts in line with international resolutions and the U.N. charter, as acts of resistance," delegates said.

CanWest News Service

Published: Sunday, July 16, 2006 OTTAWA -- Eight Canadians, including several children, are dead after an Israeli air raid on a Lebanese town near the Israel border, CanWest News Service has confirmed. Six others are said to be in critical condition.

Juliet O'Neill and Aileen McCabe, CanWest News Service

Published: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 LARNACA, Cyprus — Only 261 of about 2,000 Canadians who were supposed to have escaped Lebanon on Wednesday appeared to have made it out as the first wave of a government organized mass evacuation plan got off to a slow, chaotic start.

The situation left hundreds of disappointed Canadians, who had been summoned by the Canadian Embassy to the port of Beirut, expressing frustration, anger and worry as they waited from dawn to late night for boats that never showed up. Eight Canadians in Lebanon have been killed in the conflict so far.
Some of those at the scene said they were told by diplomats the one vessel that had collected 261 Canadians and taken them to Cyprus — where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was to take about half of them home on his official aircraft — would return early today to collect some more of them.
None of the six other vessels chartered by Canada in Turkey managed to collect any Canadians.
The single ship was due to arrive in Larnaca, Cyprus, early this morning local time, about six or seven hours after Harper arrived on the island on the Canadian Forces jet. An official in the Prime Minister's Office said Harper decided to stay on the Airbus 310 rather than go to the port to greet the passengers.
The decision was made to reinforce a message Harper made earlier in the day in Paris when he unveiled his surprise plan to travel to Cyprus instead of going back to Canada at the end of a foreign trip. He said the reason he was going was simply to provide passage aboard the plane, not a photo opportunity for political gain.
In Paris, Harper said it was "more than a symbolic trip," attempting to undercut suggestions it was designed to shore up support in the face of heavy criticism that his government did not do enough initially to help the 40,000 Canadians trapped in Lebanon since last week’s Israeli attacks began.
"There is a need … for air support in Cyprus. We will have a significant number of seats to help the situation. I think criticism in this kind of situation, given all the complexities, is inevitable," Harper said before leaving for Cyprus.
"We believe it’s the right thing to do, and that’s why we’re going to do it."
To date, five ships carrying more than 3,000 foreigners fleeing from the fighting have landed in Cyprus.
After a two-hour drive and four hours waiting outside in the blazing sun, Nicole Khoury and her two young children of Beaconsfield, Que., were turned away Wednesday from an evacuation centre in Beirut.
"It was a shame, a disaster and a disgrace, how the Canadian government treated their citizens. It was very badly organized," Khoury, 39, said in an e-mail written from her parents’ house in Bentael, a village 50 kilometres north of Beirut.
"We were treated like sheep — no proper information given, no responsibility taken whatsoever. They did not even give priority to the elderly, the sick and the children. It was total chaos."
Among hundreds of Canadian families crammed in a hall at the port, awaiting transport, were relatives of Nina Adamo, an assistant to Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis, a Toronto MP, who called the government's plan a total failure.
"They should have everybody evacuated by the time Lebanon is no longer in existence (because of bombing by Israel)," Adamo said in an interview after contact from her sister. "There are about 2,000 waiting to go to Canada in the holding room at the port and outside, all over the place."
Karygiannis and Raymonde Folco, the Liberals’ citizenship and immigration critic, accused the government of splitting up families by giving priority to Canadian citizens over permanent residents. Foreign Affairs says it will evacuate permanent residents who have an immediate family member who is a Canadian citizen but those without will have to wait until all citizens who want to return have departed.

"It was a shame, a disaster and a disgrace, how the Canadian government treated their citizens. It was very badly organized," Khoury, 39, said in an e-mail written from her parents’ house in Bentael, a village 50 kilometres north of Beirut.
"We were treated like sheep — no proper information given, no responsibility taken whatsoever. They did not even give priority to the elderly, the sick and the children. It was total chaos."

Kattints a kibontásához...

Mar nagyon televan a hocipom ezeknek a nyavajgasaval.
Egy 70 dollaros kanadai utlevel nem jon 911 szolgaltatasal.
40000 embert a vilag masik oldalarol, csak ugy hip-hop kihozni nem egy egyszeru dolog meg ha bekes alapot is lenne abban az orszagban.
Arrol nem is beszelve, hogy van egy olyan erzesem, hogy ez a 40000 ember nem mint turistak voltak ott.
Neztem a hirekben egy fazont aki azert hoborgott, hogy milyen kenyelmetlen korulmenyek voltak a hajon amivel kimentettek otet.
Mit vart ez a szerencsetlen, hogy a Queen Mary-t kuldik erte?
Kesz rohely.