News – The No Name News
Middle East
The same Green Zone checkpoint that got hit yesterdaygets hit again. 12 civilians wounded, give seriously at current report, though some of the wounded spoke of others blown to pieces.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari wants Saddam to stand trial after the Iraq elections. Not a bad idea, though circumstances could change depending on how well the elections go.
The bodies of six young men, all shot in the head execution style, were found in Mosul today, bringing the number of bodies found like this to fourteen in two days.
Egypt, Israel and the US have signed a partial free trade agreement, under opens the US market to Egyptian goods with Israeli inputs and promises Egypt jobs.
Israel is stepping up it’s action in Gaza, with raids and home destruction.
A member of Hamas survives an assassination attempt when his car blew up in Damascus.
Israeli settlement construction continues, grabbing more land annexed by their security barrier.
On the good side, Kuwait and the PLO are burying the hatchet, Kuwait promising to provide financial aid to the Palestinians.
The Burj Dubai tower in Dubai will be the tallest tower ever built, just shy of a half mile in height. But the construction will be a serious endeavor. Looks like, if this project is successful, the Freedom Tower will be cut off as the tallest building in the world before it’s even built. Personally, I’d prefer les phallic monoliths and more sensible, productive building.
Asia
Author Yu Jie, veteran democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo and Zhang Zuhua, who quit the Communist Youth League after the army crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy protests were freed today after being taken during raids on their homes and being held overnight. It’s unclear if they’ll be charged, but Yu believes the police are trying to mount a case against him.
Western Europe
Seems that opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned now, explaining his sudden fit of ill health and the scaring to his face that’s the lingering result of it. Ukraine’s parliament speaker has called for the scandal to be kept out of the presidential campaign. I would agree.. if an investigation shows that no authority involved in the election had a hand in it.
Dioxin was the poison that disfigured him, and explainer details just what dioxin is.
Eastern Europe
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero(I still think he looks a little like the Joker), current PM of Spain, says that former PM José María Aznar wiped the computer files the government had on the March 11 train bombing. He has the bill for it to prove, the job apparently costing several thousand dollars.
South America
Augusto Pinochet has been formally charges with murder in one of the many cases pending against him, but remains free as his lawyers have filed an immediate injunction at the Santiago Appeals Court against the charges and against the house arrest order.
North America
In a break to news I rarely cover, death has been recommended as the sentence for Scott Peterson. Since I haven’t followed the case, I have little opinion on it.
Environmental Protection Agency chief Michael Leavitt has been nominated to take over the open post at the head of the department of Health and Human Services.
A picture of Bush made with images of monkeys has gotten a New York art exhibition closed. “We had tons of people, like more than 2,000 people show up for the opening on Thursday night,” said show organizer Bucky Turco. “Then this manager saw the piece and the guy just kind of flipped out. ‘The show is over. Get this work down or I’m gonna arrest you,’ he said. It’s been kind of wild.” Looks like a good old fashioned case of censorship. Gotta love it.
Tariq Ramadan has sent his letter of resignation to Notre Dame University in Indiana, unable to take up a post there for lack of a Visa. The one he was issued last May was revoked in August, just before he was to move to the US to take his tenured post as professor of religion.
Sean O’Keefe, NASA’s top administrator, has resigned his post, going for a meaty $500k a year job at Louisiana State Univeristy to make sure his kids can be safely college bound.
How much effect does the DNC really have on the Democratic Party?
General
Now Linux aficionados have stats to back up their brag that open-source development makes better code than commercial.
Researchers are studying the spinal cord of the eel-like sea lamprey in the hopes that a machine based on its structure could enable the paralyzed to walk again.
<A HREF="http://wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66018,00.html”>There could be a fix for real broken hearts on the horizon, researchers already having used rat cells to create a beating slice of cardiac tissue the size of a dime.
Today’s Papers has a correction to the danger to Guard troops(the Guard spokesman gave bad numbers), an air corgo company connected to arms smugglers allowed to work in Iraq despite the CIA expressing concern over a year ago, the next appropriation for Iraq and Afghanistan likely to be $80 billion, ten billion more than was expected and more in the one page news.
Amusements
Officer friendly hands out 2005 Satanic sex calendar at junior high school
This time of year sucks when your last name is Christmas
Truck carrying tapioca overturns, then is attacked by wild elephants, who apparently love tapioca
The most hideous holiday LPs of all time
Apparently John Edwards was up for the presidency too, receives an Electoral Vote from Minnesota
Japanese men resting their heads on laps of mini-skirted foam-rubber women this Christmas. “Single men find this soothing”
Fark Photoshop Challenge: Merry freakin’ Christmas: Photoshop your own updated nativity scene
Fark Photoshop Challenge: Theme: Photoshop the unofficial space-shuttle repair kit
Fark Photoshop Challenge: Today’s photoshop secret ingredient: Sesame Street characters