Air Force Chief of Staff Brig-Gen. Amir Eshel said the building that Israel struck with missiles collapsed about seven hours after it was struck by Israeli jets. Eshel said something in the building might have caused the explosion.

But the accumulating evidence suggests another explanation for what happened at Kana. The scenario would be a setup in which the time between the initial Israeli bombing near the building and morning reports of its collapse would have been used to "plant" bodies killed in previous fighting -- reports in previous days indicated that nearby Tyre was used as a temporary morgue -- place them in the basement, and then engineer a "controlled demolition" to fake another Israeli attack.

Overlooked in some of the media coverage was the fact that another 150 rockets were launched at Israel's civilian population on Sunday.

[...]

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman called Qana a "hub of Hizballah" and expressed Israel's regrets for the deaths of so many civilians and children. Sunday, he said, was a "horrible, sad and bloody" day.

Nevertheless, Gillerman noted that although the civilians were killed by an Israeli shell, it was Hizballah who was using the women and children as human shields.

So here's the ethical question of the day. Someone is firing hundreds of missiles at your citizens each day, and launching them from civilians areas because think they think you won't hit back (or hope you do, and thus kill civilians, causing a storm of bad publicity). As for the civilians, it's an open question whether they are helping harbor the guys with the missiles or not, i.e., whether or not they have a say in telling Hezbollah to take a hike (and if they do have a say, would that change your answer)?

So the question is this, under those circumstances, what do YOU do as the leader of country that's receiving 100 rockets a day raining down on your cities?

Second question, which I've posed before. At what point does a local citizenry become responsible for the crimes it supports? When Israel is on the receiving end of bombs, I hear a lot of talk about how every Israeli is a legitimate target because they all support the government. So does the same apply to every Arab, every Muslim, every southern Lebanese, and every American?

[W]hat do YOU do as the leader of country that's receiving 100 rockets a day raining down on your cities?

At what point does a local citizenry become responsible for the crimes it supports?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as "pizzas" which will now be known as "elastic loaves," state media reported Saturday.

The presidential decree, issued earlier this week, orders all governmental agencies, newspapers and publications to use words deemed more appropriate by the official language watchdog, the Farhangestan Zaban e Farsi, or Persian Academy, the Irna official news agency reported.

The Muslim community of Greater Seattle area watched in horror as news broke of a shooting at the Jewish Federation building ... We categorically condemn this and any similar acts of violence ... We pray for the safety and health of those injured and offer our heartfelt condolences to the family of the victims of this attack. We also hope that the perpetrator of this crime is brought to justice.

Disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, whose team became an international laughingstock after they faked their entirety of their embryonic stem cell research, appeared in court on Monday in a trial about charges that he embezzled public and private research funds. Hwang admitted he spent more than one million in attempting to clone a mammoth.

Hwang was indicted in May by South Korean government prosecutors who say that Hwang misspent public and private dollars intended for research.

On Monday, Hwang admitted he spent part of the money, some $1.05 million in failed attempts to clone mammoths, extinct members of the elephant family.

"We secured mammoth tissues from glaciers and tried cloning three times, but failed," Hwang said.

Hwang indicated South Korea's powerful SK Group gave his research team the money and that it was intended for "peripheral activities related to the research."

I think if a Democarat would be in office right now we would probbaly lose more freedoms then we already have because they would have abrought the troops home. Everyone has to realize that freedom is not free. The only reason we went to war with the Taliban is because they were hovering Al Qaida which was the terrorist organization that planeded and carried out the 9/11 attacks and killed over 3,000 Amerciacans.

In my new book, "Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age," I offer a controversial proposal designed to stimulate debate about this difficult issue. Under my proposal, no torture would be permitted without a "torture warrant" being issued by a judge.

The news is filled these days with reports of civilian casualties, comparative civilian body counts and criticism of Israel, along with Hezbollah, for causing the deaths, injuries and "collective punishment" of civilians. But just who is a "civilian" in the age of terrorism, when militants don't wear uniforms, don't belong to regular armies and easily blend into civilian populations?

We need a new vocabulary to reflect the realities of modern warfare. A new phrase should be introduced into the reporting and analysis of current events in the Middle East: "the continuum of civilianality."

There is a vast difference — both moral and legal — between a 2-year-old who is killed by an enemy rocket and a 30-year-old civilian who has allowed his house to be used to store Katyusha rockets. Both are technically civilians, but the former is far more innocent than the latter. There is also a difference between a civilian who merely favors or even votes for a terrorist group and one who provides financial or other material support for terrorism.

[...]

But the recognition that "civilianality" is often a matter of degree, rather than a bright line, should still inform the assessment of casualty figures in wars involving terrorists, paramilitary groups and others who fight without uniforms — or help those who fight without uniforms.

[...]

Hezbollah and Hamas militants... are difficult to distinguish from those "civilians" who recruit, finance, harbor and facilitate their terrorism. Nor can women and children always be counted as civilians, as some organizations do. Terrorists increasingly use women and teenagers to play important roles in their attacks.

The Israeli army has given well-publicized notice to civilians to leave those areas of southern Lebanon that have been turned into war zones. Those who voluntarily remain behind have become complicit. Some — those who cannot leave on their own — should be counted among the innocent victims.

If the media were to adopt this "continuum," it would be informative to learn how many of the "civilian casualties" fall closer to the line of complicity and how many fall closer to the line of innocence.

Every civilian death is a tragedy, but some are more tragic than others.

Most scientists unfortunately, those that certainly are advocating for this [embryonic stem cell research], and many others feel very little moral compulsion. It's a utilitarian, materialistic view of doing whatever they can do to pursue their desired goals.

• First, make no effort to develop historical research and interpretation sensibilities apart from your particular ideological project. Jump right in.
  
• Evaluate the reliability of any source according to whether it corroborates your opinions.
  
• Make no distinction between facts and interpretation. In any case, remember that the truth of the latter determines the truth of the former.
  
• Assume that ulterior motives lie behind the work of any scholars who disagree with you.
  
• Project today's political battles onto your ancestors' lives.
  
• Use nice round numbers. Then round them again. With enough rounding, any number will support your position.
  
• Either adopt a position of total relativism or ignore context altogether. Switch sides as appropriate.
  
• Blame historical figures for failing to take into account what you know but they did not.
  
• Remember that a lack of acceptance or publicity is always evidence of a conspiracy.
  
• When characterizing your opponents' work, employ the term "revisionist" a lot. At the same time, obsess over how wrong the conventional understanding is.
  
• Remember that "left," "right," and other sweeping political labels always provide accurate insight into individual opinions. Everyone within the Left or the Right thinks and acts alike, for all practical historical purposes.
  
• Always think of yourself as politically incorrect. At the same time, always think of your detractors as fringe radicals.
  
• If you must read the things your opponents write, read only the stuff that uses the most pejorative language. This will provide inspiration and spice up your prose, as well.
  
• Never, ever consider the remote possibility that your detractors are intelligent people speaking in good faith.

In humans, reduced activity of the Mc1r gene causes red hair, while in dogs, mice and horses it results in yellow hair.

Using ancient DNA extracted from the excavated mammoth bone, the international team of researchers were able to look at the variations in copies of the Mc1r gene.

Dr Michael Hofreiter, an author on the paper and an evolutionary biologist from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany, said analysis revealed two different versions of the gene were present - a fully active and a partially active version.

The researchers propose that hair coloration in mammoths is likely to have been determined in the same way as in present-day mammals.

This means that mammoths with one copy of the active gene and one of the partially active gene would have had dark coats - most likely dark brown or black.

While mammoths with two copies of the inactive gene would have had paler coats - possibly blond or ginger.

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially....

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Earlier this year, a group of students in Fairbanks invited the Alaskan wild man to speak about the GOP's "Contract with America." Young expounded on a number of his favorite topics, including the need to slash federal funding of the arts. The government, Young said, has funded "photographs of people doing offensive things" and "things that are absolutely ridiculous." One student asked Young what sort of things he had in mind. "Buttfucking," the Congressman replied....

Representative Don Young set off a leghold trap on his own hand and stated he would leave the trap on for the duration of his testimony. He proceeded to describe his own trapline of 500 leghold traps. He set out so many traps, it was days before he would return to kill any trapped animals who had somehow survived. To the horror of those present, he described seeing a lynx who survived 6 weeks in a leghold trap because other lynx came to feed him. In the midst of his testimony, the Subcommittee Chairman noted, "I am concerned about your fingers. They are blue now." To which Representative Young replied, "Yes, they are." Shortly thereafter he removed the trap from his hand.