&hearts The Cedar Revolution had now become the Cedar Firestorm: Lebanese opposition protesters blocked main roads in Beirut and other parts of the country with burned tires on Tuesday, the first day of a general strike called by Hezbollah-led opposition, in a bid to escalate their anti-government campaign.
The local ANB TV's footage showed that blazing tires were erected on major highways north and south of the city as well as the only road leading to Beirut's International Airport, setting black clouds of smoke into the air.
The road to Syrian capital city of Damascus and the highway slinking Beirut with the eastern mountain area were also blocked by burned tires, the report added.
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&hearts More mercenaries die as yet another helicopter is shot down by Iraqis (um, Col. X is upping the ante big time): A helicopter owned by the private security firm Blackwater USA crashed Tuesday in central Baghdad, and five civilians were killed, a U.S. military official said. A senior Iraqi defense official said the aircraft was shot down over a predominantly Sunni neighborhood.
The Iraqi official, who would not allow use of his name because the information had not been made public, said a gunman with a PKC machine gun downed the small helicopter of a private security firm Tuesday afternoon over the heavily Sunni Fadhil neighborhood in north-central Baghdad, where witnesses reported clashes between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi forces.
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&hearts Many Americans will die fighting Sadr who is someone Col. or General X wants out of the way before he makes a deal with us: Iraqi and US forces have captured more than 600 fighters loyal to firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the US military said, while violence across the country claimed another 31 lives.
The arrest of Sadr's militiamen came after a day of carnage that left 100 people dead in a string of bombings in and around Baghdad.
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&hearts Al Qaeda uses You Tube to send us valentines: Al Qaeda’s deputy leader on Monday mocked President Bush’s plan to send more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq, challenging him to send the “entire army” and vowing that insurgents would defeat them, according to a new videotape released by an American group that tracks messages from Al Qaeda.
The group, the Washington-based SITE Institute, said it had intercepted the video from Ayman al-Zawahri, which had not yet been posted on militant Islamist Web sites, where his messages usually appear. SITE, which assesses and analyzes intelligence related to terrorism, did not elaborate on how it had received the message.
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&hearts Iran throws out UN spies/weapons inspectors since they are merely working for the USA to see if we can attack another oil pumping nation: Iran has barred 38 nuclear inspectors on a United Nations list from entering the country, the foreign minister said Monday in what appeared to be retaliation for the U.N. sanctions imposed last month.
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&hearts The lessons of Iraq are well learned as more and more Muslims pick up the bomb or the missile and go after us: A bomber blew himself up amid a crowd of workers outside a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing 10 and wounding at least 14 others in the deadliest suicide attack in four months, officials said.
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&hearts This news means Libya is at the Hubbert Oil Peak and is now going to slide into chaos: The Libyan government is to lay off 400,000 people - more than a third of its workforce - to ease public spending and stimulate the private sector.
Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi told parliament the number of civil servants had become excessive.
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&hearts Debasing the currency and raiding Iraq hasn't saved our empire so it is back to trying to figure out how to get a free lunch without anyone noticing the pile of IOUs building up: Shocking tourists into counting every penny, and getting Americans back home to spend less on costly imports, is part of what a weaker dollar is supposed to do to help pare America’s outsize trade deficit, according to economic textbooks.
But, so far, the dollar’s slide has not helped enough. Although the dollar has lost a lot of ground against many of the world’s major currencies — including the euro, the British pound and the Canadian dollar — the nation’s trade imbalance with the world has continued to rise, reaching $702 billion in the first 11 months of 2006, on track to easily outstrip the $717 billion of 2005 and set another record.
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&hearts I've actually seen ball lightning in Tucson during a very fierce thunderstorm, it happened when there was no wind at all: Brazilian scientists may have solved a shocking scientific mystery by creating ball lightning in the lab.
Physicist Antonio Pavão and doctoral student Gerson Paiva of the Federal University of Pernambuco have created orbs of electricity about the size of golf balls that mimic natural ball lightning.
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&hearts Um, people hated Carter when he asked us to cut back on energy use, I believe this will push the last 30% of his supporters into demanding he be impeached: In his first State of the Union address to a Democratic-controlled Congress, President Bush will urge that gasoline consumption be slashed by 20 percent, the White House said, and press lawmakers not to resist his Iraq war buildup.
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&hearts Something my children would never had done (I took care of more than one child for other people who acted like this kid): AirTran Airways on Tuesday defended its decision to remove a Massachusetts couple from a flight after their crying 3-year-old daughter refused to take her seat before takeoff.
She was removed because "she was climbing under the seat and hitting the parents and wouldn't get in her seat" during boarding, Graham-Weaver said.
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&hearts Oh, oh---blowing a fuse is dangerous, note to self: Researchers found that women who tended to outwardly express their anger had a higher risk of artery blockages if they also had one of several other heart risk factors: older age, diabetes or high cholesterol. Other measures of hostility, like suppressed anger and hostile temperament in general, were unrelated to the risk of coronary artery disease.
It's possible that expressed anger was the most "toxic" aspect of a hostile temperament, according to the study authors, led by Dr. David S. Krantz of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science in Bethesda, Maryland.
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&hearts Bush is now deep in Nixonian impeachment land, he is terribly unpopular and with the new gas cuts, profoundly unpopular with the race-car SUV driving wankers: When the leak investigation was launched, White House officials cleared Rove of wrongdoing but stopped short of doing so for Libby. Libby, who had been asked to counter Wilson's criticisms, felt betrayed and sought out his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, Wells said. (Watch why jurists were asked about Vice President Cheney )
"They're trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb," attorney Theodore Wells said, recalling Libby's end of the conversation. "I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected."
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