Hidden Nook

"Initial findings of American assessment teams on the ground indicate that the need for financial and other assistance will steadily increase in the days and weeks ahead."

"Our contributions will continue to be revised as the full effects of this terrible tragedy become clearer," Bush said.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this epic disaster."

AP/Fox News

Dec. 29: Two men on a scooter pass by mud-encrusted vehicles that were washed up by tsunami waves in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

AP/Fox News

Dec. 29: A woman from Banda Aceh who lost her entire family cries as she is greeted by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Medan, Indones

AP/Fox News

Dec. 30: Men gather near the ruins of a home that was destroyed by tsunami waves in southern Sri Lanka.

AP/Fox News

Dec. 29: An aerial photo shows twisted train tracks and scattered vehicles that were destroyed by tsunami waves in Galle, Sri Lanka.

AP/Fox News

Dec. 30: A villager returns to a fishing colony that was hit by tsunami waves in India's southern Tamil Nadu state.

Sunday's massive quake of 9.0 magnitude off the Indonesian island of Sumatra sent 500-mph waves surging across the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal in the deadliest known tsunami since the one that devastated the Portuguese capital of Lisbon in 1755 and killed an estimated 60,000 people.

A large proportion of southern Asia's dead were children — as many as half the victims in Sri Lanka, according to officials there. A bulldozer dug a mass grave in southern India for 150 young boys and girls, as their weeping parents looked on.

AP

Dec. 27: A man carries his son as relatives and others grieve at the site of a mass burial in Cuddalore, India.

AP

Dec. 26: A street is littered with damaged vehicles and debris after the area was hit by tidal waves at Patong beach in Phuket, Thailand.

AP

Dec. 26: A damaged car that was swept by the tidal wave that hit Kata beach in Phuket, Thailand.

AP

Dec. 26: A view of the Marina Beach littered with debris after tidal waves hit the coast in Madras, India.

Listing his priorities, Abbas told supporters of the ruling Fatah party that he was determined to provide security to his people and continue the struggle against Israel's partially completed West Bank barrier.

Abbas also pledged to resolve the problem of millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Abbas, a refugee himself from what is today the northern Israeli city of Safed, called the refugee issue "very important and very dangerous."

Photo by US Army/Spc. Blair Larson via Reuters

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld eats breakfast with soldiers during a visit to a military base in Mosul, Iraq, Dec. 24, 2004. Rumsfeld paid U.S. troops a surprise Christmas Eve visit after weeks of controversy over his handling of the war and perceived lack of sensitivity to U.S. forces and their families.

"I don't want to in any way paint a picture that it's pretty because it isn't. This is a tough country...This is a tough situation here in Iraq. It's dangerous, people are being wounded, people are being killed ... The great sweep of human history is for freedom and you are on the right side of that."

Scientists also warn that cloned animals suffer from more health problems than their traditionally bred peers and that cloning is still a very inexact science. It takes many gruesome failures to produce just a single clone.

Genetic Savings and Clone said its new cloning technique, developed by animal cloning pioneer James Robl has improved survival rates, health and appearance. The new technique seeks to condense and transfer only the donor's genetic material to a surrogate's egg instead of an entire cell nucleus.

Between 15 percent and 45 percent of cloned cats born alive die within the first 30 days, Hawthorne said. But he said that range is consistent with natural births, depending on the breed of cat.

"Sometimes, perhaps his demeanor is rough and gruff. But below that rough and gruff, no-nonsense demeanor is a good human being who cares deeply about the military and deeply about the grief that war causes," Bush said.

"We hope our customers join us in donating what they can to benefit an organization that does so much in our communities to serve families in need," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Betsy Reithemeyer said in a news release. "The Salvation Army red kettles and the bell ringers are truly a holiday tradition worth keeping."

The Salvation Army said the kettle donations are spent locally and said the Wal-Mart match will extend local donations.

"Under this new law, our vast intelligence enterprise will become more unified, coordinated and effective," Bush said at a ceremony that included members of Congress and Sept. 11 victims' families. "It will enable us to better do our duty, which is to protect the American people."

This type of savage behavior is beyond description. I will spare you the grisly details, but authorities found the baby alive in the hands of the suspect (man and a woman) and are investigating them for further information. If convicted, the death penalty would sure be useful in this case.

AP

Dec. 16: Nodaway County Sheriff Ben Espey speaks to reporters about a woman who was murdered and her fetus stolen in Skidmore, Mo.

My Opinion

Despite the announcement of the trial of "Chemical Ali" many suspect that this annoucement was "timed" in order to give Iraq an appearance of "civilized government" as well as bolster Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Whether this is true or not does not matter in my opinion. Even if it is a "publicity scene" it is another milestone in the war of terror, a sign showing a turning point in the Iraqi criminal justice system.

This trial should be very quick according to Hazim al-Shaalan.

Shaalan said Majid was the only one of Saddam's former lieutenants so far earmarked to appeared before a judge. He said he did not expect the process to take long, adding that all the evidence and witnesses were in place.

Another good sign for Iraq. Another good sign for President Bush and a very grievous sign for those opposing the war in Iraq. Selah.

More Pictures

Photo by Jean-Philippe Arles/Reuters

French President Jacques Chirac delivers a speech during the inauguration ceremony of the Millau Viaduct December 14,2004. The structure is the world's highest bridge, a creation taller than the Eiffel Tower, longer than the Champs Elysees and designed to end a traffic bottleneck in southern France.

REUTERS/Jean-Philippe Arles

Pillars from the Millau Viaduct, designed by the English architect Lord Norman Foster, rise above the cloud-covered valley of the river Tarn December 9, 2004. The Millau Viaduct with seven slender soaring pillars is the highest bridge in the world at 343 meters, now creates a direct route between Paris and the Mediterranean coast. The bridge will be inaugurated by French President Chirac.

REUTERS/Jean-Philippe Arles

Pillars from the Millau Viaduct, designed by the English architect Lord Norman Foster, rise above the cloud-covered valley of the river Tarn December 9, 2004. The Millau Viaduct with seven slender soaring pillars is the highest bridge in the world at 343 meters, now creates a direct route between Paris and the Mediterranean coast. The bridge will be inaugurated by French President Chirac at a ceremony December 14.

REUTERS/Jean-Philippe Arles

My Opinion

Photo by Kimberly White/Reuters

People read the San Francisco Examiner with the headline 'Death' over pictures of Scott Peterson and his wife Laci at superior courts in Redwood City, California, December 13, 2004. A California jury recommended the death sentence for Scott Peterson for killing his wife and unborn son after a sensational trial that riveted much of the country.

Photo by Pool/Reuters

Jackie Peterson, the mother of Scott Peterson (R) observes a crowd while being escorted by a police officer as she arrives for the reading of the verdict of her son outside the courthouse in Redwood City, California December 13, 2004. Peterson was sentenced to death by the jury after being convicted of two counts of murder in the deaths of his wife Laci Peterson and their unborn child.

"We did not overlook some of the challenges that we are all facing in the region and uppermost in that list of challenges is the situation between the Israelis and the Palestinians."

"But we cannot ignore the fact that reform has to go on ... A child who is in need of an education and will not be a contributing member of society without that education, needs that education now," he said.

"Now is not the time to argue about the pace of democratic reform or whether economic reform must precede political reform," Powell told delegates from nearly 30 countries.

"All of us confront the daily threat of terrorism. To defeat the murderous extremists in our midst we must work together to address the causes of despair and frustration that extremists exploit for their own ends," he said.

Photo by Abed Omar Qusini/Reuters

Secretary of State Colin Powell on December 11, 2004 said Middle Eastern economic and political reform would help defeat terrorism but many Arabs dismissed his call and demanded an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. With continued violence in U.S.-occupied Iraq and the Palestinian question unresolved, the one-day 'Forum for the Future' conference in Morocco was viewed by many in the Middle East as U.S. meddling even though American officials insist change must come from within the region. A Palestinian boy holds an election poster of jailed presidential candidate Marwan Barghouthi near the West Bank city of Nablus, December 10.

"We suspect involvement of an external party, but we cannot answer as to who cooked what or who was with him while he ate," Zimpfer said, adding that tests showed the dioxin was taken orally.

Zimpfer said Yushchenko's blood and tissue registered concentrations of dioxin --one of the most toxic chemicals-- that were 1,000 times above normal levels.

"It would be quite easy to administer this amount in a soup," Zimpfer said.

But the UN ordered serving staff - including experienced lawyers from the Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal - not to take part because of concerns about the fairness of the proposed trial procedure and the tribunal's willingness to impose the death penalty.

Britain and other European countries are reluctant to help openly for the same reasons.

"Several centuries ago, it would have been understood that marriage be available only to opposite-sex couples."

"The recognition of same-sex marriage in several Canadian jurisdictions as well as two European countries belies the assertion that the same is true today."

Same-sex marriage could become legal across the country next year if the minority Liberals win enough support in the divided House of Commons. It's expected a vote on legalizing gay weddings would narrowly pass even without the support of several Liberals and the Conservatives.

Judges in six provinces and one territory have already struck down the traditional marriage definition, saying it violates equality rights. Thousands of same-sex couples have already tied the knot. Should the legislation pass, Canada would join Belgium and the Netherlands in allowing gays to wed.

The coalition, called the United Iraqi Alliance, includes two major Shiite political parties the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Dawa Party and the Iraqi National Congress, led by former exile and one-time Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi, Dawa party official Ali al-Adeeb told a news conference.

Also on the list were independent Sunni Muslims and Kurds.

Al-Sistani, an Iranian-born cleric, has been working to unite Iraq's majority Shiites ahead of the vote to ensure victory, as well as include representatives from Iraq's other diverse communities.

According to Michael Ventre of MSNBC (see source link above) the reason has to do with the way Mel Gibson refuses to promote the film as is traditionally done by the movie industry when a movie has the potential to be nominated.

First off, we live in highly commercial times. Rare is the motion picture that is plucked out of obscurity and embraced by Academy voters without being accompanied by a good, old-fashioned marketing onslaught. In this case, Gibson has already declared he will not spend money to promote the film. Turning his back on the increasingly distasteful practice of trumpeting a movie for Oscar contention is a noble gesture.

A noble gesture indeed. Ironically a movie that has polarized many people within the country as well as angered those who regard themselves as "elitist" within the American society will probably be remembered for years to come (if not decades). If this movie ever is recognized for the glory it deserves, it will like the story itself be a miracle. Selah.

...report about the government having "sexed up" evidence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (which forced the resignation of Thompson's predecessor Greg Dyke and Chairman Gavyn Davies) as well as them being duped into airing an interview with a fake Dow Chemical spokesman over India's Bhopal disaster.

REUTERS/Toby Melville

The BBC, facing a government review of its charter, is set to unveil a major shake-up including substantial job cuts and shifting some TV and radio production out of London. A file photograph shows the BBC Television Centre in west London.

These blunders have brought them into the scopes of the British Government which is reviewing the BBC's 10 year charter as this determines how much money BBC will receive from the license fee.

It seems that BBC is going through a major "accountability" phase as it's own editorial credibility is now more than ever coming into question in regards to it's programming. If other news networks/programs like BBC (CNN, CBS, etc.) continue to promote opinion over objectivity, they will find themselves continually in second place (behind other networks like Fox News) and on the road towards extinction along with the dinosaurs. Selah!

None of the volunteers reported abnormal physical reactions.

The vaccine has passed the first phase of testing and proven to be safe, said Yin Weidong, director of the research program.

The research team has already established standards for manufacturing the vaccine, he said, although it still has to go through two phases of testing.

More than a 100 researchers have been working on finding a vaccine for more than a year in China.

President Bush has refused to say whether Annan should resign, but neither used the opportunities to back him. Bush demanded instead that "a full and fair and open accounting" of the oil-for-food program in order for the U.S. to validate spending taxpayer money towards supporting the United Nations (of which 25% of their budget comes from).

Despite the demand by congress (specifically U.S. Senator Coleman, a republican from Minnesota) their has been little outrage over the incident which in itself is outrageous. If the United Nations keeps failing to maintain the standard set before them it will become nothing less than an international bureaucratic organization with lots of ideals but no power (more like a large discussion board of possibilities instead of responsibility).

The United nations has failed to uphold it's standard in Sudan when genocide (at least the extermination of one ethnic/religious group by another) when it refused to recognize it as the fact. They failed again during the Ukraine elections when they refused to recognize the fraud (even when Canada and Europe did). If the United Nations does not want to stick out it's head and accomplish the job it was suppose to, it will become nothing more than a bunch of United Numbskulls. Selah!

Therefore, Blogger gives you freedom to express yourself while leaving the rights of the content to you. In addition, MSN practically owns the content and can modify it at will? Is that even blogging? I am not sure.

This is one good enough reason to move on to some other blogging service. Blogging is supposed to be about expressing oneself. And it should be as open as one wants it to be. Even worse is that they also reportedly apply censorship on the MSN Spaces. Not a good beginning…

AP

Dec. 3: Supreme Court Presiding Judge Anatoly Yarema declares the presidential vote invalid in Kiev.

AP

Dec. 3: Thousands of opposition supporters wait to hear the Ukraine Supreme Court's verdict on the disputed election in downtown Kiev.

Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press

Ukrainian opposition supporters celebrated in parliament after the government of Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich was dismissed.