Source: Dallas News

By LAURA ISENSEE / The Dallas Morning News
lisensee@dallasnews.com

The United Methodist Church's highest court has cleared the way for the George W. Bush policy center at Southern Methodist University, but some critics say they will continue their fight to keep it off campus.

The church's Judicial Council ruled at its spring meeting last week that the lease agreement between SMU and the library complex and affiliated policy institute did not violate any church laws.

Leon Bennett, who helped argue the school's case before the court, said he was optimistic the victory was final.

"We've prevailed at every level as we've moved through the church process," he said.

Critics say the center will promote policies that the church officially opposed, such as the Iraq war, and argue that the lease violated the school's articles of incorporation.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...

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"George W Bush Policy Center" - now that's an oxymoron. What are they going to do in this so-called "policy center?" Play ping pong and choke on pretzels? Or maybe this is another attempt by the motherfucker to, in his words, "replenish the 'ol coffers."

A poem by Rahman Baba:

SOW FLOWERS

Sow flowers so your surroundings become a garden
Don’t sow thorns; for they will prick your feet

If you shoot arrows at others,
Know that the same arrow will come back to hit you.

Don’t dig a well in another’s path,
In case you come to the well’s edge

You look at everyone with hungry eyes
But you will be first to become mere dirt.

Humans are all one body,
Whoever tortures another, wounds himself.

Obviously, such a man must never be left in peace.

Edit: Translation from http://rahmanbaba-poetry.com/rahmanbaba-sa...

This topic has been moved by the moderator of this forum.
It can be found at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

You know - Cheney, Perle, Rove, Rumsfeld - they all got away.

But for America's own good, and the world's, let's hope the fascists in pin stripes never manage to pull off another coup like this again. Because the next time, it won't be a dolt in charge like GWB. It would be someone much smarter. And that could mean serious trouble.

Source: BBC

Zimbabwean soldiers are being given elephant meat for their rations, a wildlife campaigner has told the BBC.

Jonny Rodrigues from the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said that several soldiers had complained to him that was the only meat they were given.

Zimbabwe is believed to have some 100,000 elephants - more than its parks can sustainably hold and its economy is in freefall.

The defence ministry has not yet commented on the reports.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7820885....

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Boy. That country is in such a mess.

Source: BBC

Rare footage of one of the world's most strange and elusive mammals has been captured by scientists.

Large, and with a long, thin snout, the Hispaniolan solenodon resembles an overgrown shrew; it can inject passing prey with a venom-loaded bite.

Little is known about the creature, which is found in the Caribbean, but it is under threat from deforestation, hunting and introduced species.

Researchers say conservation efforts are now needed.

The mammal was filmed in the summer of 2008 during a month-long expedition to the Dominican Republic - one of only two countries where this nocturnal, insect-eating animal (Solenodon paradoxus) can be found (the other is Haiti).

/snip/


Dr Sam Turvey, a ZSL researcher involved with the programme, told BBC News: "It is an amazing creature - it is one of the most evolutionary distinct mammals in the world.

"Along with the other species of solenodon, which is found in Cuba (Solenodon cubanus), it is the only living mammal that can actually inject venom into their prey through specialised teeth.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/...

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There's a video of the little thing at the link above. It's cute and fuzzy looking. Certainly not as venomous as this mammal:

Just an observation on peace between India and Pakistan...

This story was published in Dawn newspaper of Karachi, Pakistan. Such stories will only help bring the people of India and Pakistan closer. Check out the symbolism in the name of the Indian soldier who died.

Indian soldier died rescuing passengers
http://www.dawn.com/2007/02/21/top14.htm

NEW DELHI, Feb 20: An Indian soldier onboard the fire-bombed train to Pakistan died while rescuing trapped passengers from blazing carriages, officials said on Tuesday.

Kashmir Singh was part of a rail security team on the cross-border train. The midnight attack in the northern Indian city of Panipat killed 68 people and injured more than a dozen with severe burns.

“After the twin blasts, Singh smashed through a steel door and an emergency hatch of one of the two blazing carriages and helped five or six passengers get out,” Police Inspector-General Sharad Kumar said. “He kept pushing out people from the coach despite being on fire himself ... and finally flames overwhelmed him.”

Police officer Ranjan Sharma, citing witness accounts, said Singh ignored the risk to his life in the “fire-storm” which engulfed the carriages.—AFP

More propaganda from the office of the President of Vice Dick Cheney, through official media channels, and into your head. he wants that war, and is gambling that people are still as stupid as they were back in 2002.
==========================================

New Fears: The Return of a Superterrorist
Newsweek
Feb. 5, 2007 issue

Before Osama bin Laden, there was Imad Mughniyeh. The Lebanese terrorist from Hizbullah was considered the most dangerous in the world. Now the White House worries that he's back, after years of lying low. Four serving U.S. intel and counterterrorism officials, anonymous when discussing sensitive material, said Mughniyeh is prominent in recent reporting from the field about Hizbullah activity. Bruce Riedel, a veteran Mideast expert recently retired from the CIA, told NEWSWEEK there is "no question he is heavily involved in terrorist contingency plans in case of a U.S.-Iran confrontation."

Mughniyeh has the résumé to be a potent threat. He was the alleged organizer of a series of devastating bombings and kidnappings against U.S. targets in Lebanon during the 1980s, including two bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. But Hizbullah later made a strategic decision to abandon attacks on American targets. Even now, U.S. intel officials stress that they don't believe Hizbullah will actually hit U.S. interests unless Washington strikes first—against either the movement or its key patron, Tehran.

So what is Mughniyeh up to? Two of the U.S. officials interviewed by NEWSWEEK said field reports indicate that he travels between Beirut, Damascus and Tehran.

CONTINUED AT: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16841987/site/... /

he comes up with one more vexing grammatical gynmastic move.

=====
<SNIP>
Bush said he had expressed his displeasure about the way Saddam's execution was handled to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The president announced what he called a new strategy for the war last week, with much of it hinging on his trust in al-Maliki's government to make radical changes.

"It basically says to people, `Look, you conducted a trial and gave Saddam justice that he didn't give to others. But then, when it came to execute him, it looked like it was kind of a revenge killing,'" the president said.

"It makes it harder for me to make the case to the American people that this is a government that does want to unify the country and move forward," Bush said. "And it just goes to show that this is a government that has still got some maturation to do."
</SNIP>

FULL STORY AND DISCUSSION
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

That's what the chimp said in his speech. So the obvious follow up question should be - "How would you like to be penalized for those mistakes, mr. responsibility?"

Who's gonna ask him that question? More entertainingly, how will the chimp answer that?

no longer exists. it's present only in hearts, like yours and mine. i long for the 80s, when we but one tv station and consequently so much more time to read and play, when delightful 'soviet book fairs' would present us with a world of awesomely cool books where beautiful vasilisa would be tormented by baba yaga, when a family scooter meant you have arrived in life, when life was slow, contemplative, and had a dollop of insouciance about it.

these days, insouciance is a ride in the escalator of the newest mall (ONE KILOMETRE OF SHOPPING ON EVERY FLOOR!!! INDIA'S LARGEST MALL!! and so on), crowded with addicts who would not think twice before shelling out 10 grand for an elephant made of fucking CRYSTAL by savorski!

on the other hand, i believe indophile is a word.

they do separate the american public from the chimpanzee. but, and i dont mean to be rude here, most people i interact with consider the american public 'dumb' to have twice elected the chimpanzee.
of course, that opinion might change if the corporate media there and in india start following up on kennedy's excellent expose of vote theft in rolling stone.

right now, nobody would BELIEVE that shit like vote theft can happen in "THE GREATEST DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD."

but that's never gonna happen coz this country's middle class and youth have been digitally chained by a fancy-shmancy cultural colonialism that seduces with conspicuous consumption rather than beating us into submission with military power, as the brits used to do in the good old days. the old style colonialists ruled us by depriving us of basic needs. this new-age colonialism rules by depriving us of intelligent thought and reason. in short. we are turning into a country of headphone wearing dumbasses who only want to consume, consume, consume.

we continue to drink the poison, and either through whips or through material greed, we continue to suffer.


EDIT: i'm really sorry. i seem to have deviated from the topic.

HP had outsourced most of its accounting ops into the centre, from all over the world. the place was bursting at the seams with young accountants. When i joined the unit, as a internal communications pro, and out of sheer desperation coz back in 2001 the only jobs available in india were call center or tech jobs, there were 300 accountants in there. When i quit two and a half years later, there were close to 1000. Carly F, who was HP CEO that time, came visiting and waxed eloquent about how important the center was for HP's bottomline and how great the workers there were (of course, no one with half a brain could miss the colonial condescension in the tone of her voice).
whatever, the center has now moved on and is apparently taking up accountancy services for other multinational companies looking to outsource. nestle is one of their clients i believe.

as for me, i got out. i now work as an independent filmmaker and writer. and i'm BLOODY relieved about it. i dont feel guilty when i come to DU any more.

i refuse to believe conservatives are more generous than those with liberal, inclusive views. so how is this author dude claiming otherwise?

==========
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...
<SNIP>
One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring. It is liberals who advocate "forgiveness" of loans to Third World countries, a "living wage" for the poor and a "safety net" for all.

But these are all government policies -- not individual acts of compassion -- and the actual empirical consequences of such policies are of remarkably little interest to those who advocate them. Depending on what those consequences are, there may be good reasons to oppose them, so being for or against these policies may tell us nothing about who is compassionate or caring and who is not.

A new book, titled "Who Really Cares" by Arthur C. Brooks examines the actual behavior of liberals and conservatives when it comes to donating their own time, money, or blood for the benefit of others. It is remarkable that beliefs on this subject should have become conventional, if not set in concrete, for decades before anyone bothered to check these beliefs against facts.

What are those facts?

People who identify themselves as conservatives donate money to charity more often than people who identify themselves as liberals. They donate more money and a higher percentage of their incomes.

<SNIP>
more at link above...

Chandigarh: Thirty-five decomposed foetuses have been recovered from a well near a hospital in Punjab, where girls are routinely aborted despite a ban on sex-determination tests, officials said on Thursday.

"A nurse has made a statement saying she has been working at the hospital for one-and-a-half months, and during this period 12 or 13 female foetuses have been destroyed," Varinder Singh Mohi, a senior government doctor said.

The couple who run the hospital in Patran, 115 km (70 miles) south of the state capital Chandigarh, had been arrested, he said. The remains had been sent for tests to determine the sex of the foetuses.

Girls are commonly aborted or killed shortly after birth in many regions of India. One recent study suggested half-a-million unborn girls may be aborted each year across the country.

Many families view boys as a better asset than girls. A handful of doctors have recently been suspended or prosecuted for carrying out selection tests.

Punjab has one of the worst female-male ratios in the country with some estimates putting it as low as 500 or 600 females to 1,000 males.

CONTINUED: http://www.ibnlive.com/news/35-female-foet...

============
This is such a disgrace. No amount of print and television campaigning is going to change the historically fucked mindset of (especially) North Indian families. so much for "world power status". fucking EXTERMINATING foetuses just because they don't sport dicks. That's the ultimate indicator of a rotten society.

on a related note, what's the stem cell lovin' chimpanzee gonna do about this?