When Pope John Paul II visited Damascus in May 2001, Bashar used his welcoming speech to denounce the Jews, saying, “They tried to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad.”   read more

Federal agencies counted Lockheed Martin and its subsidiaries as "small" on 207 contracts worth $143 million. Dell Computer, a Fortune 500 company, was listed as a small business on $89 million in contracts.The Navy claimed that $60 million in wor...   read more

John McCain, Sarah Palin and their supporters have lashed out at Barack Obama for his association with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). However, in a press release, ACORN pointed out that McCa...   read more

Few places in India absorb and imitate American culture as much as call centers, where ambitious young Indians with fake American accents and American noms de phone spend hours calling people in Indiana or Maine to help navigate software glitches,...   read more

Puntland is an unrecognized independent nation inside the borders of Somalia. The Pirates of Puntland are social bandits in the tradition of Robin Hood, not buccaneers. They steal from the rich and share the cash with extremely poor communities. T...   read more

West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him. Mahoney was elected two years ago fo...   read more

The War on Illegal Immigration is yielding more federal arrests than the War on Drugs, according to new figures from the Department of Justice. Twenty-seven percent (27%) of all arrests by the U.S. Marshals service were for immigration offenses in...   read more

Police counted fewer than 200 fights and assaults at Des Moines' five high schools in the 2005-06 school year, compared with the 415 that Des Moines school officials reported on an application for a $250,000 grant that helped pay for security came...   read more

“The contractors are making a killing,” Mr. Cantrell recalled thinking at the meeting, in 2000. “The lobbyists are getting their fees, and the contractors and lobbyists are writing out campaign checks to the politicians. Everybody is making money ...   read more

The Department of Homeland Security will proceed with the first phase of a controversial satellite-surveillance program, even though an independent review found the department hasn't yet ensured the program will comply with privacy laws. The progr...   read more

The rule issued requires large ships to slow to 10 knots (11.5 mph) during parts of the year when they come within 20 nautical miles of several East Coast ports in areas where the whales feed, reproduce and migrate. In July 2006, NOAA scientists p...   read more

The US government's debts have ballooned so badly the National Debt Clock in New York has run out of digits to record the spiraling figure.   US Debt Clock Runs Out of Digits (BBC News)     read more

Less than a week after the federal government offered an $85 billion bailout to insurance giant AIG, the company held a week-long retreat for its executives at the luxury St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif., running up a tab of $440,000. The...   read more

Don’t ask The Question (Did you kill anybody?). “Support the Troops” magnets mean nothing to them. And military culture is not big on touching: the main things civilians want to do to soldiers — hug them and get them drunk — are generally not welc...   read more

According to a study by the Government Accountabilty Office, one hog farm, Smithfield Farms in Virginia, produces far more sanitary waste than the 1.5 million residents of Philadelphia.   Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: EPA Needs More In...   read more

One of the biggest winners in the financial bailout plan was the investment banking firm of Goldman Sachs. This is not surprising considering that since George Bush became president, Goldman Sachs and its employees have contributed $19.3 million t...   read more

The revised bailout proposal extends or creates tax breaks for rum in the Virgin Islands, corporations doing business in American Samoa, auto racetrack owners and employers whose employees bike to the work.   read more