Daily Kos: State of the Nation The United States got itself in to a strange situation with Musharraf, in which the structure of its aid to the Pakistan government essentially incented the government not to find Bin Laden because if they found him they had reason to fear that the US would end this flow of more than $10 billion that it was providing directly to the army. The democratic government came to power arguing to Washington that constitutional democracy was a better counterterrorism strategy than reliance on an authoritarian military leader. So, I think they understand, if they can…
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I can hardly wait to get my hands on the beautiful new coins of the realm on our next trip to Britain! The New Designs Revealed Via mediatinker
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Wow! A friend of mine has a connection with this story, which I had scanned briefly via RSS/newsfeed a few days ago. Thus when she mentioned it, I recognized the painting immediately. Just as an aside, I love the hat. Every naked lady should wear one. A Painting With a Nazi Past Britain’s National Gallery announced Thursday that new research has disclosed that a painting in its collection, “Cupid Complaining to Venus,” by the German Renaissance artist Lucas Cranach the Elder, was once part of Hitler’s private collection. “We’ve never had anything like this before,” said museum spokesman Thomas Almeroth-Williams.…
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Evidence Supports Earlier Date for People in North America – New York Times Exploring Paisley Caves in the Cascade Range of Oregon, archaeologists have found a scattering of human coprolites, or fossil feces. The specimens preserved 14,000-year-old human protein and DNA, which the discoverers said was the strongest evidence yet of the earliest people living in North America. Other archaeologists agreed that the findings established more firmly than before the presence of people on the continent at least 1,000 years before the well-known Clovis people, previously thought to be the first Americans. Recent research at sites in Florida and Wisconsin…
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Such a platitude: “The suspense is killing me.” In Zimbabwe, the suspense is killing democracy: the Zimbabwe Election Commission has been slowly announcing results in a piecemeal fashion, with suspiciously neck-and-neck results when the numbers posted outside every polling station previously seemed to presage a much bigger majority for the opposition party (or parties, as there’s a split). Mugabe must go someday. But when? Now it appears that he’s started a “crackdown.” The suspense could be killing people for real, very soon. This is Zimbabwe
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Just wondering. Would ex-Bishop Kunonga give back his farm, which was a “gift” from Mugabe? Probabl not. VOA News – Would White Farmers Return to a Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe? On the whole, those big commercial farms that were run by white Zimbabweans and owned by white Zimbabweans are now in the hands of Mugabe’s cronies,†she says.
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Okay, this is both funny and desperately sad. Also, I really, really think the UT-SAT students really need to take a look at the fine print: U. of Texas honor code apparently plagiarized from BYU’s code – Salt Lake Tribune SAN ANTONIO – University of Texas at San Antonio students wanted to draft an honor code that discouraged cheating and plagiarizing. Unfortunately, it appears they copied Brigham Young University’s code without proper attribution. The student in charge of drafting the code said it was an oversight, but cheating experts say it illustrates a sloppiness among Internet-era students who don’t know…
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I already noticed how having iPhones turns conversations with my husband David into The Search for Truth. We’ll have to watch this trend carefully. Maybe there’s a webapp to track it? The risk for iPhone users: They know too much
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Cops: Teen tried to steal cruiser’s gas – Yahoo! News LAMBERTVILLE, Mich. – A Monroe County sheriff’s detective on a stakeout to catch an arsonist arrested the suspect as he tried to steal gas from the officer’s cruiser. Officers were placed around homes currently under construction after police had gotten two arson complaints within the past week.
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Why blog? Some people have fun and go to big conferences. Many people simply enjoy putting their words up on the net. Others get the word out about specific topics or interests. And for a few people, blogging is a moral imperative, a matter of life and death, because the truth must be told from within the borders of a country gone mad. This is Zimbabwe is such a life-and-death blog. Mostly it chronicles the difficulties of life in a poor country inflicted with government corruption, hyper-inflation, and the uncertainty of how to get through day-to-day life when you never…