The Nightowl Newswrap

The reality of "pro-life" religious rule. "Islamists in southern Somalia have stoned a man to death for adultery but spared his pregnant girlfriend until she gives birth. Abas Hussein Abdirahman, 33, was killed in front of a crowd of some 300 people in the port town of Merka. An official from the al-Shabab group said the woman would be killed after she has had her baby."

Let's hope the violence takes the weekend off.  "Police in the US city of Orlando say they have arrested a gunman who opened fire in an office building, killing one person and injuring five others. Jason Rodriguez, a 40-year-old engineer who once worked in the building, surrendered to police at his mother's house, police chief Val Demings said. The attack took place at the offices of an engineering firm at the Gateway Center building at 1130 (1630 GMT). It comes one day after a gunman killed 13 people at an army base in Texas."

Too many ways to die over there. "Two US soldiers missing in western Afghanistan after failing to return from a routine resupply mission are thought to have drowned, officials say. Afghan officials say the men died two days ago in what appears to have been an accident. They died trying to recover supplies dropped by Nato aircraft which had fallen into a river, police said. A Taliban spokesman told Reuters news agency that they recovered the bodies in Badghis province. Provincial police chief Abdul Jabar said that the two servicemen were Americans who drowned after arriving in the area during a gun battle on Wednesday."

In civil wars, the horror never hits bottom. "The Democratic Republic of Congo army has used vaccination clinics as "bait" to attack civilians, says aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). Thousands of Hutu civilians were targeted when they visited sites set up to combat a measles epidemic, in areas controlled by the rebels, MSF said. It denounced the attacks in North Kivu as "an abuse of humanitarian action". On Monday the UN withdrew its support for a government army unit, accusing soldiers of killing 62 civilians. MSF said the clinics were targeted despite security guarantees from all parties to enable the mass immunisation scheme to be carried out in the Maisisi district north-west of the city of Goma."

Just stop Glenn Beck from buying it and donating it for the Obama Presidential Library. "The sale of Adolf Hitler's family home in the Austrian town of Braunau am Inn has triggered concern that it could become a shrine for Nazi sympathisers. The unassuming house where Hitler was born in 1889 has been put on the market priced at 2.2m euros (?1.9m; $3.3m). Residents and local politicians fear that the property could fall into the hands of far-right extremists. Braunau's mayor Gerhard Skiba wants to prevent that happening, but the council does not have the funds to buy it. The building is currently used by an organisation helping the disabled and has at various times in its history housed a library, bank and technical institute. Some historians have suggested turning the building into a museum. However Mr Skiba vigorously opposes the idea, saying it would encourage people from all over the world to visit the site."

Why do we think there's something more behind the objections to this? "Plans to give millions of cohabiting couples better inheritance rights are being criticised by lawyers, the BBC has learned. The Law Commission for England and Wales wants unmarried partners to be able to inherit each other's wealth, even if they haven't written a will. But some lawyers argue unmarried people may prefer that their wealth to go to parents or siblings, not their partner. The Law Commission insists public opinion clearly supports change."

Closer to 17.5% counting the underemployed. "As bad as Friday's jobs report was, showing October's unemployment rate jumping sharply to 10.2 percent, the outlook is likely to worsen for American workers well into next year. Economists expect the jobless rate to keep climbing, perhaps above 11 percent, as employers produce more with fewer workers and shy away from hiring. The nation's unemployment rate leapt by a larger-than-expected four-tenths of a percentage point in October to its highest level since April 1983, even as the pace of job losses slowed sharply, the Labor Department said Friday."

The obese, the stupid, the criminal - but no gays! "The biggest long-term threat to U.S. national security might not be terrorists or weapons of mass destruction. According to a group of military leaders, it's homegrown obesity, ignorance and criminality, which together make seven of 10 target-age recruits ineligible to serve in the American armed forces."

Big Coal: We Never Stop Finding New Ways To Kill People  "Maximiliano Calcano is 2 and was born with no arms. "When I was pregnant, I was dizzy, vomiting and could barely walk,'' said Maximiliano's mother, Anajai Calca?o, 20. ``My tooth cracked and fell out. Then my baby was born like that, without arms. Nothing like that had ever happened here before.'' By "before,'' Calca?o means before a U.S. power company's coal ash arrived at a nearby port, sitting there for more than two years. She lives in a small wooden house with no indoor plumbing in a rural village in northern Dominican Republic, not far from where coal ash generated by Virginia-based AES Corp. wound up at the edge of the sea. More than 50,000 tons of coal ash laden with heavy metals was left at a port abutting local homes for years while the company, politicians, prosecutors, environmental activists and bureaucrats argued -- and residents got sick."

AfPak: Lose-Lose-Lose "Taliban-led insurgents in Afghanistan have devised ways to cripple and even destroy the expensive armored vehicles that offer U.S. forces the best protection against roadside bombs by using increasingly large explosive charges and rocket-propelled grenades, according to U.S. soldiers and defense officials. At least eight American troops have been killed this year in attacks on so-called Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, and 40 more have been wounded, said a senior U.S. military official who, like others interviewed on the issue, declined to be further identified because of the issue's sensitivity."

Why do these studies never seek middle-aged participants? 'At Duke University, a school that likes to tout its cutting-edge research, a sex toy study being conducted by a behavioral economist and student health workers has roused criticism.For much of October, researchers recruited female Duke students to take part in a "sexually explicit" study on Tupperware-style parties in which sex toys, not kitchenware, are the draw.The ads, which were posted around campus and on a research study Web site, sought female students at least 18 years old to "view sex toys and engage in sexually explicit conversation with other female Duke students."'

It was students who affected change 30 years ago The Islamic Revolution of 1979 was Student powered. Now a quiet and unassuming Math student who wasn't even born yet when revolution swept the country, overthrew the Shah and installed the mullahs has deigned to criticize the Supreme Leader to his face and in public.

120th bank failure this year "UCBH Holdings Inc.'s?United Commercial Bank, a San Francisco-based lender with $11.2 billion in assets, was seized by regulators today, becoming the 120th?U.S. bank to fail?this year...United Commercial was bought by?East West Bancorp?of Pasadena, California, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said today. United Commercial was the fifth U.S. lender to be seized by regulators today as banks fail at the fastest rate since 1992."

Humiliated by Markos Moulitsas. Tom Tancredo storms off the set of the Ed Show Pushing the "socialism sucks" meme on the Ed Show tonight, Tancredo attempted to speak for veterans who supposedly hate the VA health system. Kos reminded Mr. Tancredo that he IS a veteran, that he didn't get a deferment to avoid fighting in a war that he supported because he was depressed like Tancredo did. Tancredo didn't like being confronted with his cowardice, and he demanded Markos apologize. When Kos refused, Tancredo flounced off the set in a huff over being called out for a pussy.

You just know the irony is lost on those idiots, tho One of Michele Bachmann's anti-healthcare reform minions had a heart attack yesterday during the rally. EMS workers who are employed by the federal government responded to his emergency, treated him, saved his life and transported him to a public hospital.

And finally -

It is fall fundraiser time, and I am happy to say that we are past the  halfway point on our way to a goal of $500. What we really need are subscribers. Subscriptions are five bucks a month - that is a mere seventeen cents a day - and they cover the day-to-day stuff, the subscriptions to journals and publications so we have full access to websites, and other minor costs that are associated with blogging. But in a sign of the times, subscriptions are off by 2/3 what they were this time last year. We are doing well on donations. So if you are inclined to give, can we interest you in a subscription?  


Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheyGaveUsARepublic-FrontPage/~3/C_AAXq6ZT84/the-n
ightowl-newswrap

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!