Senator Trent Lott resigned from US Senate abruptly. Shortly the Governor of Mississippi will announce Lott's replacement. The focus is on Mississippi Rep. Chip Pickering. He is a religious nut who showed his true colors in the Movie "Borat."Catch the story and a clip from the movie which featured Rep. Chip Pickering from HuffingtonPost.com. Notice in the clip, the Mississippi State Chief Justice declaring that America "will always be a Christian nation until the good lord returns." You expect justice to be served from these zealots?
Scary, isn't it?
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( 3 / 32 )
Statue of Liberty is the symbol of free world. If there is a 'statue of discrimination,' it would be synonymous with GOP. Case in point, a story about LEGAL immigration in Today's Washington Post.
Historically immigrants who are naturalized citizens of America have voted for the Democrats. George Bush scored the highest percentage of Hispanic votes ever registered by a Republican President: 40%. The anti-immigrant sentiment among Republicans have turned the Hispanic vote decidedly democratic. It looks certain that most immigrants will vote in lock-step for the Democratic candidates in 2008 elections. To add fule to the fire, the Washington Post reports that there is a massive influx of applications for citizenship. Uh oh! The GOP candidates would be in trouble, won't they?
What would you do if you were the Republican President and can help it?
The Department of Homeland Security failed to prepare for a massive influx of applications for U.S. citizenship and other immigration benefits this summer, prompting complaints from Hispanic leaders and voter-mobilization groups that several hundred thousand people likely will not be granted citizenship in time to cast ballots in the 2008 presidential election.
That's not all.
"I really want to target the elections," USCIS Director Emilio T. Gonzalez told the Associated Press in an interview published Tuesday. "I really want to get as many people out there to vote as possible."
Aides, however, contradicted him. "We are going to process these cases as responsibly and as quickly as we can, but we're not focused on any of the election cycle," Aytes said. USCIS spokesman Bill Wright emphasized that political calculations played no role in agency decisions. "Any implication of that is ludicrous," he said.
[snip]
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who chairs a House immigration subcommittee, said prospective citizens' ability to vote could be delayed, even though USCIS justified what she called its "outrageous" fee increases by saying they would pay to improve efficiency and speed processing. Citizenship applicants by rule must have lived in the United States at least three to five years and established stable lives. Roughly 85 percent of applicants are approved.
Citizenship application fees -- including electronic fingerprinting fees -- rose from $410 to $675 on July 30.
Citizenship Delayed
"These are people who want to be Americans . . . and to not allow them to participate in one of the fundamental [rights] of a democracy, which is voting, is a real problem," Lofgren said.
The immigration agency breakdown comes at a sensitive time. President Bush's immigration overhaul legislation failed in the Senate this summer, intensifying a heated national debate in which most Republican presidential candidates are using get-tough rhetoric on border security to mobilize voters agitated over immigration. Democratic contenders are supporting more comprehensive measures, seeking to attract support from Hispanic voters who may be put off by the harder GOP line.
Read the rest of the story from Washington Post.com
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( 3 / 12 )
It is irrelevant if you believe whether Lord Rama existed, or if Jesus is the Son of God, or Mohammad is the real representative of God. What is important is that in a secular society, there should be an impenetrable wall between the Church and the State. We should not let any one religious doctrine to be taught as a science. When you let that happen, the religion of the majority is what they will end up teaching in schools. there will be no protection for the rights of the minorities. A State that allows religious texts to be taught as a part of the MANDATORY curriculum is no longer a democracy. It is a theocracy!Against the wishes of the founding fathers of this great country, the so called "base" of the Republican party and the hardcore supporters of Bush want to establish this country as a Christian Nation. The proponents of Biblical "Creationism" at the Dover, PA school board are the quintessential representatives of this over jealous religious nuts. They wanted to provide 'creationism' an equal time with the Darwin's theory of evolution in the science classes.
PBS has a fascinating documentary on this subject. I highly recommend that you watch it. [JUDGMENT DAY - Intelligent Design on Trial via PBS.org]
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( 3 / 30 )
Financial companies' losses due to the US sub-prime crisis could be as much as $400bn (£190bn), US investment bank Goldman Sachs has said.The estimate by Goldman's chief economist Jan Hatzius is higher than that of the Federal Reserve but in line with some recent independent forecasts.
Mr Hatzius predicts leveraged investors may have to reduce their lending by $2 trillion as a result.
"The macroeconomic consequences could be quite dramatic," Mr Hatzius said.
He said the development could lead to a "substantial recession" if it happened over a year, or to a prolonged period of weak economic growth if it occurred over up to four years.
[More from BBC.com]
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( 2.9 / 22 )
Mittal Tops Table of India's Rich [Via BBC.com]London-based steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal has been ranked as India's wealthiest person for a fourth year by Forbes Asia magazine.
It put Mr Mittal's fortune at $51bn (£25bn), double last year's level.
The net worth of India's 40 richest people now totals $351bn, with the top three alone worth more than China's top 40, who have a net worth of $120bn.
India now has 54 billionaires, 18 more than last year, and they were helped by stock market gains and a strong rupee.
The stock market has roared 53% higher in the past year, and a rupee has appreciated 12% during the same period, Forbes Asia said.
Table positions
Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries is snapping at Mr Mittal's heels in second place.
His net worth grew at a faster pace than Mr Mittal's last year to a total of $49bn.
Mr Ambani's estranged brother, Anil, ranks third, with his net worth rising by $30.2bn to $45bn.
Kushal Pal Singh is fourth on list with a net worth of $35bn, making him the world's richest real-estate developer.
Mr Singh's wealth has more than tripled from the $10bn he had last year after his company, DLF, listed on the stock market in June this year and its stock surged 60% in value.
Dropping one place to fifth position is Azim Premji, the head of technology giant Wipro who is currently valued at $14.8bn, up from $14bn last year.
Forbes began compiling the list in 2004.
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( 2.8 / 32 )November 19, 2007 is the 30th anniversary of a devastating cyclone that killed more than 20,000 people in Andhra Pradesh. Most of the dead were from Diviseema area of Krishna District. Guntur and Prakasam districts were also hit very hard. The storm touched at the coast near Chirala in Prakasam Dt., moved east via Repalle. As it crossed Krishna river, six-feet tidal waves surged along the mouth of the river and soaked Diviseema, which is located to the east of the river. Thirty years later, the horror is still fresh in my memory.
The following is a short clip form a Nov 23rd, 1977 newspaper article in the US (Galveston Daily News)
"... tidal wave that followed washed away 21 villages and left 10,000 persons dead along India's battered southeast coast, officials reported Tuesday. Another 100,000 persons were reported left homeless by the weekend storm the worst to hit eastern India in more than a century. ANDHRA Pradesh State Revenue Minister P. Narasa Reddy said 10,000 bodies had been counted and at least 21 villages were completely washed away in the tidal wave that followed the cyclone. Reddy said the storm dumped upto 10 inches of rain in eight hours in some areas...."
A woman crying next to the bodies of her five children in Bhavadepalli village, Andhra Pradesh (Nov 1977).
Relief workers clearing up a road in the cyclone-hit Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh (NOv 1977)
Photos: TimesReliefFund.com
[More at TimesReliefFund.com]
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( 3.2 / 20 )
Australians named worst emitters
A study of the world's power stations has shown the extent to which developed countries produce more carbon dioxide per head than emerging economies.
Australians were found to be the world's worst polluters per capita, producing five times as much CO2 from generating power as China.
The US came second with eight tonnes of the greenhouse gas per head - 16 times more than that produced by India.
The US also produced the most CO2 in total, followed by China.
The Carbon Monitoring for Action (Carma) website is the first global inventory of emissions and looks at 50,000 power stations.
Its data was compiled by the Center for Global Development, a US think-tank.
------------------------------------------------
TOP 10 EMITTERS
National power sector emissions (in tonnes of CO2)
* US - 2,530 million
* China - 2,430 million
* Russia - 600 million
* India - 529 million
* Japan - 363 million
* Germany - 323 million
* Australia - 205 million
* South Africa - 201 million
* UK - 192 million
* South Korea - 168 million
(Source: Carma/CGD)
[More from bbc.com]
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( 3 / 34 )Photo: Tortured Sri Lankan maid (file pic from BBC.com)
Since I was in college I heard horror stories about workers in the Gulf being abused by the employers. In many instances, the governments are either complicit or turned the other way. The following is a BBC report on abuses faced by workers from Sri Lanka in the Gulf countries. The story is not much different for workers from other countries in the Indian subcontinent. Sri Lanka abuse 'rampant' in Gulf
Tales of torture and abuse have emerged from the Gulf
Gulf states are failing to curb serious abuses of Sri Lankan migrant workers employed as maids in their countries, a Human Rights Watch report has said.
The US-based group says abuse of maids is rampant in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Lebanon.
Employers routinely confiscate domestic workers' passports and confine them to the workplace, the rights group says.
The UAE has denied the charges, saying Human Rights Watch has ignored its efforts to improve workers' conditions.
More than 660,000 Sri Lankan women work abroad as maids, nearly 90% of them in the Gulf countries.
Abusive employers
The 131-page report - called Exported and Exposed - documents the serious abuses that domestic workers face at every step of the migration process.
Sri Lankan maids at Colombo airport (file pic)
Thousands of Sri Lankans head overseas for work each year
"Governments in the Gulf expose Sri Lankan domestic workers to abuse by refusing to guarantee a weekly rest day, limits to the workday freedom of movement and other rights that most workers take for granted," said Jennifer Turner, a women's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.
"Too many abusive employers and unscrupulous labour agents get away with exploiting these workers without any real punishment."
The report is based on 170 interviews with domestic workers, government officials, and labour recruiters conducted in Sri Lanka and in the Middle East.
[More from BBC.com]
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( 3.2 / 11 )
Monkey injures several people during rampageNEW DELHI - A wild monkey went on a rampage in a low-income neighborhood in the Indian capital, injuring several people, most of them children, police said Monday.
Police sub-inspector Gaje Singh told The Associated Press that the attacks started late Saturday in the Shastri Park area of New Delhi, adding that it was not immediately possible to give an exact tally of the injured. Local news reports said as many as 25 people were injured.
Singh said officers were patrolling the neighborhood in search of the rogue animal.
"But the monkey hasn't been spotted yet," Singh said.
People in Shastri Park often sleep outside their homes or on open roofs to escape the heat.
Neighborhood resident Naseema, who goes by one name, carried her 1-year-old daughter into her house in attempts to escape the animal. "The monkey followed me in and buried its teeth in my baby's leg," she told the Times of India newspaper.
As New Delhi's forest cover shrinks, rhesus macaque monkeys have overrun its government buildings, temples and residential areas, occasionally biting passers-by or snatching food from them. A government official died last month when he fell from his balcony during an attack by wild monkeys.
Part of the problem is that devout Hindus believe monkeys are manifestations of the god Hanuman and feed them bananas and peanuts, encouraging them to frequent public places.
Last year, the Delhi High Court reprimanded city authorities for not doing enough to stop the animals from terrifying residents.
City authorities have experimented with using langurs — a larger and fiercer kind of monkey — to scare or catch the macaques, but the problem persists.
---------------------------
[story is from MSNBC.com]
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( 3 / 31 )Fire at Olympic site covers London in smoke
Courtesy: MSNBC News ServicesLONDON - A fire at an east London warehouse on the 2012 Olympics site sent a towering column of black smoke over the British capital Monday, authorities said. There were no reports of injuries.
The blaze broke out shortly after noon on the western boundary of the Olympic Park site in Stratford, the Olympic Delivery Authority said.
Police said there was nothing to suggest a suspicious cause. “We only know it’s a fire,” a Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said. “There’s nothing to suggest anything else at the moment.”
[More from MSNB.com]
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( 3.3 / 10 )India's industrial growth slowed sharply in September due to higher interest rates and a stronger rupee.
Factory output grew 6.4% compared with 12% a year earlier and 10.7% in August.
Experts fear five interest rate rises from mid-2006 to March, and a more than 12% increase in the value of the rupee this year are now hurting the economy.
"If the October numbers come out similar to September, that will be a cause for serious concern," said economist DK Joshi at Crisil in Mumbai.
The industrial growth numbers are provisional and are often revised significantly.
Growth hopes
Sonal Varma, economist at Lehman Brothers, said that capital goods output, such are machinery and tools, remains buoyant despite tight monetary policy influencing interest rate sensitive consumer goods.
India's Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram thinks that "both industry and services could record growth rates close to 10%" this year.
[More from BBC.com]
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( 2.9 / 26 )This is hilarious. The following is a list of most absurd laws in UK and elsewhere.[via the Telegraph.com]
Ten stupidest laws are named
Last Updated: 2:53am GMT 07/11/2007
These are the stupidest laws, according to percentage share of public vote.
Most ridiculous British laws:
1. It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament (27%)
2. It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside-down (7%)
3. In Liverpool, it is illegal for a woman to be topless except as a clerk in a tropical fish store (6%)
4. Mince pies cannot be eaten on Christmas Day (5%)
5. In Scotland, if someone knocks on your door and requires the use of your toilet, you must let them enter (4%)
6. In the UK a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants, including in a policeman's helmet (4%)
7. The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the King, and the tail of the Queen (3.5%)
8. It is illegal not to tell the tax man anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing (3%)
9. It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament in a suit of armour
10. In the city of York it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow (2%)
Most ridiculous foreign laws:
1. In Ohio, it is illegal to get a fish drunk (9%)
2. In Indonesia, the penalty for masturbation is decapitation (8%)
3. In Bahrain, a male doctor can only examine the genitals of a woman in the reflection of a mirror (7%)
4. In Switzerland, a man may not relieve himself standing up after 10pm (6%)
5. In Alabama, it is illegal to be blindfolded while driving a vehicle (6%)
6. In Florida, unmarried women who parachute on a Sunday could be jailed (6%)
7. In Vermont, women must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth (6%)
8. In Milan, it is a legal requirement to smile at all times, except funerals or hospital visits (5%)
9. In Japan, there is no age of consent (5%)
10. In France, it is illegal to name a pig Napoleon (4%)
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( 2.8 / 13 )
[Photo and article excerpts: Courtesy of BBC.com]1. Spine cut from the front to remove extra limbs
2. Wide gap between pelvic bones closed using bone grafts
3. More operations may be needed to correct club feet and rebuild pelvic floor muscles
Apparently the surgery is successful! Hope this little girl will have a normal life.
Girl separation surgery a success
Separation surgery on a two-year-old Indian girl who was born with four arms and four legs has been successful, doctors say.
Lakshmi Tatma was joined at the pelvis to what was, in effect, a headless, undeveloped twin.
A team of surgeons in the southern city of Bangalore operated on Lakshmi for 27 hours to separate her spinal column and kidney from that of her twin.
It is hoped the procedure will allow her to survive beyond adolescence.
"Lakshmi is stable and sound," the doctor leading the operation, Sharan Patil, told a news conference which was shown live on television channels across India.
'Optimistic'
"She has withstood the operation, she is safe and doing well," he said.
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( 2.8 / 6 )Father-in-law charged for Al-Qaeda slur
Published: 2nd November 2007 12:13 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/8981/
A man in southern Sweden has been charged with slander after informing American authorities that his son-in-law had links with Al-Qaeda.
The unsuspecting Lund man was given a terrorist's welcome when he landed at Orlanda International Airport in August last year. A computer technician by trade, he had traveled to the US to participate in a conference.
But no sooner had he arrived at the US airport than he was hauled aside by armed security guards and taken in for questioning where he was grilled about his religious and political beliefs. When the interrogation was over he was thrown into a cell that he claimed was smeared with blood and excrement.
Some eleven hours after the start of his ordeal, the hapless traveler was put on a plane back to Sweden.
When setting out for Orlando, he had clearly not reckoned with the machinations of his scheming father-in-law.
Angered by his daughter's imminent divorce and his son-in-law's decision to attend the conference rather than look after his children, the irate in-law sat down at his computer and wrote an-email to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He gave the FBI his son-in-law's flight details and told them to be on the look-out.
"He has probable connections to the Swedish branch of the Islamic terrorist network Al-Qaeda and is well known for statements encouraging the Muslim world to take revenge for American terror," he wrote, according to local media.
He also informed the FBI that the supposed computer conference was just a cover and that his son-in-law had in fact flown to the US to meet his "contacts".
When the 40-year-old returned to Sweden, he immediately got in touch with the police and set about clearing his name. The Swedish Security Service acquired a copy of the e-mil from the FBI and were able to trace the IP address to the man's father-in-law.
Although he at first denied having set a trap for his son-in-law, he eventually admitted that he had wanted to "give him a good dressing-down".
He also told police that he never really expected the FBI to take his correspondence seriously.
"Surely the authorities aren't that bloody stupid that they believe absolutely everything," he said.
On Thursday the public prosecutor presented the father-in-law with the charges against him.
My comment:
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So you want to ruin the vacation of that guy you hate the most? Looks like it is enough to send FBI an e-mail alert saying that 'he is a terrorist.' The FBI will ruin his vacation for you. If it weren't true it would be even more funny. Morons!
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( 3 / 23 )
A friend of mine recently visited Dubai and was appalled at the working and living conditions for the labor force in that country. Twelve hour workdays are the norm. There are hardly any breaks to drink water. Many laborers who come from poor countries live with nine other people in a 8' x 10' room. A lot of these laborers are from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.An article on BBC.com sheds some light on these workers. Excerpts:
A strike over pay and conditions by thousands of foreign construction workers in the Gulf state of Dubai has been resolved, authorities say.
Work on the site of the world's tallest building, the Burj Dubai, had been disrupted after the largely Indian workforce stayed away.
But they have returned following visits from the labour ministry, police and an Indian consulate representative.
Dubai's rapid development has depended heavily on foreign workers.
Minimum wage call
Strike action and trade unions are illegal in Dubai.
But despite this, late last month a string of strikes spread to several building sites in the area.
In March 2006, about 2,500 labourers at the Burj Dubai site rioted over conditions which led to Human Rights Watch calling on the United Arab Emirates' government to "end abusive labour practices".
Subsequently, Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum ordered measures to improve conditions for workers.
And in ending the latest strike, the chief of Dubai's police pledged to prosecute any employers not meeting health and safety standards.
About 700,000 Asians work in Dubai's construction industry.
But the emirate has been hit by a labour shortage recently as India's own economic boom has offered an alternative source of jobs.
[More... from BBC.com]
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( 2.9 / 21 )
Calendar
