Don't Worry America, Israel Is Behind You

More Dead Birds. This time in Louisiana.

More dead birds fall from the sky, loud noise blamed for first set of deaths  

Loud Noise???? *cough* bullshit! *clears throat*

dead birds keep falling from the sky (SOURCE)

The apocalypse-implying event on New Year’s Eve where thousands of birds fell from the sky after having spontaneously died mid-flight in Arkansas was slightly more alarming when considered alongside the fact that thousands more fish seemingly died en masse not too far from the bird holocaust.

However, neither of these two events were isolated- another group similar birds also dropped dead from the sky around the same time, hundreds of miles away in Louisiana. Discussing the second “occurrence” (does that put anyone else in mind of an M. Night Shyamalan-type film?) in Pointe Coupee Parish, State Wildlife Veterinarian Jim LaCour said the happenstance of birds dropping from skies en masse hundreds miles away from one another was (although creepy as a motherbitch) documented:

“Underlying disease, starvation and cold fronts where birds can’t get their body heat up” have caused similar occurrences “in various species over the years,” he said.

A “loud noise,” possibly from holiday fireworks, was initially blamed for the mass deaths, but it is unclear if such an event would affect the second set of birds as well as the estimated 80-100,000 dead fish. Necropsies performed on the first set of dead birds indicated at least some died of “deadly blood clots.”

Drugs disguised as bath salts send users to ERs

Some have attacked family members, committed suicide after using MDVP

 By JANET McCONNAUGHEY

The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Dangerous new drugs are being sold as fake bath salts, fake fertilizer or fake insect repellent — and sending drug abusers to emergency rooms around the country after snorting or smoking them, poison center officials say.

At least 84 people around Louisiana have been hospitalized because of paranoia, fighting, hallucinations, suicidal thoughts and physical effects such as hypertension and rapid heartbeat — most for a day or two but at least three of them for weeks, Mark Ryan, head of the Louisiana Poison Center, said Wednesday.

Although they're labeled as bath products or even poison, always including the warning "Not for human consumption," word on the street and the Internet is that they can be sniffed as "legal cocaine" or "legal speed," Henry A. Spiller, director of the Kentucky Regional Poison Center in Louisville, said Wednesday.

Employees in workplace shooting still reeling over 'senseless act'

Now is NOT the time to be terminating people in person. They should have called this guy at home and let him go. Then they should have had security on alert with instructions not to let him in should he decide to show up. People are losing their minds because of the economy and a high unemployment rate. How tragic.

Click the "read more" link below to read the story. It's a little long, but try to read it all if you can. It's......veeeeeery interesting.

Desmond Tutu Retires

After more than 30 years serving as the conscience of the nation, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has announced that he will retire after his 79th birthday in October. If you click on this link you can watch a video on some of the highlights of his career.

MURDOCH DEFENDS FOX NEWS

Everybody knows how I feel about Fox News . *insert sarcasm here* "Uh yeah waiter....I'll have the Fox News well done with a side of mashed spin doctor & gravy...some propaganda with lemon peper sauce....and a diet coke. Oh and can I super size that?

Here's the article....

Rupert Murdoch may own 20th Century Fox, the Fox TV Network, MySpace, the London Times, and the New York Post, among other media properties, but it is his ownership of Fox News that has brought him the most public recognition, he suggests in an interview with Esquire magazine. "I can go into restaurants and a whole table will get up and clap if they recognize me because they love Fox News," he said. He called the cable news channel "a core asset in every sense, in terms of its popularity and in terms of its profit."

He turned aside claims that the channel is a mouthpiece of conservatives. "The thing that I am proudest of is that it is very, very fair," he said. He praised conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly for booking guests on both sides of controversies. "[MSNBC's] Keith Olbermann is trying to make a business out of destroying Bill O'Reilly. He's done certain things to Bill O'Reilly that I believe were way over the line. I think that's bad behavior. But it's okay for him to criticize Bill. And Bill shouldn't be so sensitive. He should ignore that."

This Chick Right Here...

How many of you saw the interview Charlie Gibson had with Sara Palin last night? It's clear that this chick didn't know what the Bush Doctrine was and she tried to fake it on national TV as if she wouldn't be called on it. How can you call yourself a candidate for VP and not know what the Bush Doctrine is??? To bad her camp forgot to brief her on that ESPECIALLY since this was her first interview since it was announced that she was running for VP. If she didn't know she should have just asked Charlie to explain it to her, she couldn't have looked any crazier than she did by trying to fake it.....Lawd, some people. lol


Sarah Palin stumbles in TV interview

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, in her first interview since becoming the Republican vice-presidential candidate, has not been able to respond to a question about the Bush Doctrine.

Speaking at length with ABC interviewer, Charles Gibson, Palin was visibly stumped when she was asked by Gibson if she agreed with the Bush Doctrine.

Palin did not seem to know what Gibson was talking about.

Palin was clearly caught off guard when Gibson asked, "Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?”

Seeking direction, and perhaps time to formulate her answer, Palin asked, "In what respect, Charlie?"

Initially unwilling to define the doctrine, Gibson said, "What do you interpret it to be?"

Palin asked, "His world view?"

Gibson said, "No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war."

Gibson finally informed her that it meant the right of "anticipatory self-defence."

The Bush Doctrine is a term used to describe several foreign policy principles of president George Bush, including the controversial policy of preventive war and the overthrowing of foreign regimes that represent a threat to the United States.

The Bush Doctrine was used to justify the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Separately, Palin used the interview to reinforce the foreign policy of McCain, warning Russia away from aggression against its neighbours and generally supporting President Bush's approach to combating terrorism.

But she also put some distance between the Bush Administration and the McCain team. "There have been blunders along the way," she said.

Palin said the United States could not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.

"As Americans, we do not have to stand for that," she said.

Big Bang experiment marred by suicide

WOW! .......That's all I can say....wow.

New Delhi - An Indian teenage girl killed herself because she feared that a massive experiment to re-create the birth of the Universe would herald the end of the world, reports said on Thursday.

Chayya Lal, 16, from the central state of Madhya Pradesh, committed suicide after watching television reports on how the particle-smashing test in Geneva could bring about doomsday, Indian newspapers reported.

She swallowed unidentified tablets on Tuesday and was rushed to hospital, but doctors were unable to save her.

Chayya's parents said she had spoken of her fears about the "Big Bang" experiment.

"Chayya had asked me a number of times whether the world would end as they were saying on television," her father Bihari told the Hindustan Times.

"We tried to divert her attention and told her not to worry about any great disaster," the Mail Today quoted him as saying.

The Mail said the local police inspector had raised doubts about the reasons for Chayya's death and had vowed to investigate.

The start of the underground test on Wednesday was hailed a success after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) designed to expose the secrets of the cosmos swung into action.

Scientists behind the project had earlier dismissed fears that it could create either a "black hole" whose super-gravity would swallow the Earth, or a theoretical particle called a strangelet that would turn the planet to goo.

When the machine is fully operational, scientists hope to fleetingly replicate conditions at the "Big Bang" that created the Universe 13.7-billion years ago. - Sapa-AFP

Seasonal firefighters laid off just before fires

Shorthanded, California recalls some crews to battle wildfires

Outgunned firefighters prepare to battle wildfires burning in Malibu, Calif. View related photos

Sean Masterson / EPA By Bill Dedman Investigative reporter MSNBC Updated: 7:56 p.m. ET Oct 23, 2007 Every fall, the state of California declares the official end of the fire season. Sometimes the fires don't get the message. Joe Mackey, a seasonal firefighter for CalFire, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, got a call Oct. 12 telling him he wouldn't be needed any more this year. "They told me I'm getting laid off. Turn my gear in the next day," Mackey said. "They didn't really give me any notice." On Tuesday, with fires threatening thousands of homes, the state backtracked, declaring the obvious: The fire season is back on. "They have rescinded the fire season throughout California, and they are able to hire back all fire personnel," Patti Roberts, spokeswoman for the Governor's Office of Emergency Services, told msnbc.com Tuesday afternoon. "I can't say that they have all been rehired, but they can be rehired." CalFire has about 1,400 seasonal employees in addition to 3,800 permanent staff, according to its Web site. It was not immediately clear whether all of the seasonal firefighters had been terminated before the Southern California fires broke out, or how many would actually be brought back. An official at one fire station said callbacks were happening unit by unit. Mackey, 31, has been with the department since 1998, moving from station to station as needed. He was most recently stationed in the Chico area of Northern California, north of Sacramento, but said he would be fighting the fires in Southern California if he hadn't been laid off. ‘People don't understand’ "People don't understand that some fire departments are just summertime fire departments," he said. "We work from May to October or November. People ask, 'Why aren't you down there?' They hear on the news that they're shorthanded. I tell them I got laid off." It's not the first time that a huge fire has happened after the firefighters are sent home. The Paradise Fire, which killed two people and destroyed 221 homes, was in October 2003. The Cedar Fire, which killed 14 people and destroyed more than 250 houses and commercial buildings, started the same month and burned into November. "Every year, there's a possibility with the Santa Ana winds," Mackey said. "Some years they get lucky and there's only a few fires. The summer has preheated all this vegetation and there's drought, and then you get this spark and it's out of control." Wife writes of frustration Mackey’s wife, Laine, who sent an e-mail to msnbc.com on the layoffs, is beside herself over the situation. "This happens every year," she said. "The Santa Ana winds help fuel huge fires that cause evacuations and millions in damage, all at the same time that the state cuts the budget and lays off thousands of firefighters, while Southern California is burning. "We are struggling to find work and struggling to find a medical insurance company who will cover a recovering cancer patient like myself before our last 30 days is up. Yet now the state of California is in emergency and it's their own damn fault, as it is every year. Firefighters who could be helping fight the fires and providing for their own families at the same time." © 2007 MSNBC Interactive

UPDATE 1-U.S. Sept existing home sales hit record low pace

(Adds background, details, quote, market reaction)

WASHINGTON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - U.S. sales of previously owned homes fell 8.0 percent in September to a record low 5.04 million unit pace amid troubles in the subprime mortgage and credit markets, the National Association of Realtors said on Wednesday.

It was the lowest sales pace since the group began tracking both single-family and condo sales jointly in 1999.

Total existing home sales, which include condominiums, fell in September from a downwardly revised pace of 5.48 million in August. Economists polled by Reuters were expecting home sales to fall to a 5.25 million-unit sales pace.

"Home sales fell in September, but it was certainly due to the August credit crunch," said NAR economist Lawrence Yun.

U.S. Treasury debt prices extended gains slightly. For details see [ID:nN24472615]

The dollar slipped against the yen to session lows after the unexpectedly weak report. [ID:nNYH000578].

"The housing data ... tells us that we are not out of the woods yet. It increases the uncertainty regarding the U.S. economic outlook and reinforces the view the Fed may have to cut rates at its meeting next week," said Matthew Strauss, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets in Toronto.

The slower pace of sales helped drive up the inventory of homes available for sale by 0.4 percent at the end of September to 4.40 million, which represents a 10.5-month supply at the current sales pace. That supply was the highest for both single-family and condos combined since 1999. Continued...

Sources: Police look into sexual assault claim against Copperfield

(CNN) -- Authorities are investigating a Seattle woman's allegation that she was sexually assaulted by illusionist David Copperfield, two law enforcement sources told CNN on Friday.

David Copperfield's Las Vegas warehouse was raided by FBI agents earlier this week.

An attorney for the magician "categorically denied" the accusation.

But the probe led FBI agents Wednesday to raid a warehouse Copperfield owns in Las Vegas and to search the Las Vegas hotel where he frequently performs.

Attorney David Chesnoff said Seattle police have not given him the name of the woman making the accusation, but he told CNN that the name "wouldn't matter really ... because it's categorically denied as a false accusation, an impossible kind of claim."

"Mr. Copperfield's reputation precedes him as an impeccable gentleman," Chesnoff said.

"So we're obviously disturbed that those kind of allegations are being made, but we believe that that's a common event now, unfortunately, for celebrated people to be to be falsely accused," he said.

"Certainly no one he's ever had a relationship with could ever say that about him," he said. Watch a report on the raid and investigation »

Earlier Friday, Seattle police said the FBI raid on the warehouse stemmed from an accusation in a police report filed by a Seattle woman over the summer concerning an incident that allegedly took place in the Bahamas.

They did not specify the type of allegation made against Copperfield.

Glenn Miller, chief superintendent in charge of the detective unit of the Royal Bahamas Police force, told CNN he had no official reports of any incident involving Copperfield.

Agents were investigating a case based in Seattle when they entered the warehouse Wednesday night, an FBI spokesman said.

No other information could be made public about the probe, FBI Special Agent Robbie Burroughs said.

A dozen FBI agents stormed the warehouse and took a computer hard drive and a memory chip from a digital camera system, as well as $2 million in cash that was inside a safe, reported CNN affiliate KLAS in Las Vegas, citing a source close to the investigation.

CNN could not immediately confirm these details.

FBI agents also searched the Hollywood Theater at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, where Copperfield performs, said Yvette Monet, a spokeswoman for the hotel's parent company, MGM Mirage.

"We are fully cooperating with the investigation as best we can," she said.

Copperfield earned $57 million in 2005 and the same amount the year before, according to Forbes magazine.

The 51-year-old performs in Las Vegas and around the world, has starred in TV specials, and was named a "living legend" by the Library of Congress.

He was once engaged to model Claudia Schiffer.

According to his Web site, Copperfield began performing professionally at age 12 "and became the youngest person ever to be admitted to the Society of American Magicians. By 16, he was teaching a course in magic at New York University."