BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Killed for the family's honour

I have never been able to comprehend a culture that takes such offence and in many cases with sufficient proof kills their daughters, sisters and wives. I see no way to justify these horrid crimes.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Killed for the family's honour: "Less than two hours later, she was dead - her skull crushed - reportedly by blows from an iron bar.

Her name was Faten. She was 22-years-old, a Palestinian Christian from the West Bank city of Ramallah.

After her lifeless body was found, her father and an aunt were taken into custody.

Death sentence

Faten had fallen in love with a young man called Samer, a Muslim, from Jericho. Her family disapproved of her choice.


Faten decided to use an ancient formula for resolving disputes, known in Arabic as 'Tanebeh'
In the last desperate weeks of her life, Faten knew a death sentence was hanging over her head, and she tried hard to escape it.

She attempted to elope, but did not get far and was sent home, to face the wrath of her relatives."

Absent husband returns home ... as a eunuch - Yahoo! News

Absent husband returns home ... as a eunuch - Yahoo! News: "NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An Indian man who left his wife and two young children two years ago shocked his family when he returned home as an eunuch, wearing garish red lipstick, the Asian Age newspaper said Thursday.
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After a fight with his wife, the jobless Nabiullah left his family in Hathipur town in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh in the summer of 2003 to look for work, the paper reported.

During his absence, he got himself castrated and became a eunuch, earning money by singing and dancing, a common form of employment among India's ostracized community of eunuchs.

'I was always fond of singing and dancing, but felt suffocated in my body as a man,' Nabiullah was quoted as saying.

His wife, Shama Parveen, fainted when he returned home late last month and now wants a divorce.

'I cannot live with this eunuch and subject myself and my children to social ridicule,' she was quoted as saying"

FarShores.org ParaDimension News: Theft Victims Blame Hypnotizing Gypsies

You are getting very very sleepy... but keep reading. It could help your chess game and do not forget to give me all your money.

FarShores.org ParaDimension News: Theft Victims Blame Hypnotizing Gypsies: "Hypnosis hype
Czarina Alexandra fell famously under the influence of the allegedly hypnotic powers of the 'mad monk,' Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin, in the early 20th century. The late Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had a personal psychic healer. Former President Boris Yeltsin's staff included a security consultant hired to protect the former chief executive from 'external psychophysical influence' after a mysterious antenna was found in his private office.

In 2001, President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill making it illegal to employ 'electromagnetic, infrasound ... radiators' and other weapons of 'psychotronic influence' with intent to cause harm.

For years, famous Russian chess masters have suggested that their games were impaired by hypnotists planted in the audience. Garry Kasparov has long credited Azerbaijani psychic Tofik Dadashev with helping him win the world chess championship in 1985 against fellow Russian Anatoly Karpov (who had his own psychologist trained in hypnotic techniques on hand).

The attraction to mysticism has intensified in recent years, Russian sociologists say, because of the tough economic climate and pent-up interest released with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its long-standing prohibitions against dabbling in the occult practices."

BBC NEWS | Europe | Who won World War II?

BBC NEWS | Europe | Who won World War II?: "The Nazi regime collapsed in May 1945, squeezed ever more tightly between two fronts - the Soviet Union on one side and the Western Allies on the other.

But which of these fronts was the most important?

Allied aid to the Soviet Union, from food to lorries, played a vital role
Throughout the Cold War, and ever since, each side has tended to see its own contribution as decisive.

'In the West, for some time... public opinion has taken the view that the Soviet Union played a secondary role,' says the Russian historian Valentin Falin.

On the other hand, opinion polls show that two-thirds of Russians think the Soviet Union could have defeated Hitler without the Allies' help, and half think the West underestimates the Soviet contribution."

BBC NEWS | Americas | Fireman's recovery stuns doctors

BBC NEWS | Americas | Fireman's recovery stuns doctors: "US doctors are trying to find out why a severely brain-damaged man has suddenly started to speak after nearly 10 years.

Donald Herbert, 43, a firefighter, was badly injured in a house fire in 1995 and was deprived of oxygen for several minutes before being rescued.

He was in a coma for more than two months, and since then he has been blind, barely able to speak and unable to recognise family and friends.

But at the weekend he spoke lucidly with his wife and family for 14 hours."

Comics: Calvin and Hobbes

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Today's Calvin and Hobbes

Comics: Calvin and Hobbes: ""

Cost of War

What is the real cost of the war in Iraq? How could your dollars have been spent otherwise?

The War in Iraq Costs

$167,198,134,815

Instead, we could have hired
2,897,563
additional public school teachers for one year.

See how else it could have been spent. Click below.

Cost of War

National Priorities Project: Income Tax Chart

Where does your money go? The largest chunk, almost 33 percent, goes to the military. See how your tax dollars are spent. Click below.

National Priorities Project: Income Tax Chart

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: From 'Gook' to 'Raghead'

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: From 'Gook' to 'Raghead': "He said: 'Guys in my unit, particularly the younger guys, would drive by in their Humvee and shatter bottles over the heads of Iraqi civilians passing by. They'd keep a bunch of empty Coke bottles in the Humvee to break over people's heads.'

He said he had confronted guys who were his friends about this practice. 'I said to them: 'What the hell are you doing? Like, what does this accomplish?' And they responded just completely openly. They said: 'Look, I hate being in Iraq. I hate being stuck here. And I hate being surrounded by hajis.' '

'Haji' is the troops' term of choice for an Iraqi. It's used the way 'gook' or 'Charlie' was used in Vietnam."

Think You Know What Patriotism Is?

Cable news programs will exhibit our weaponry, they will explain the ingenious capability with which it can kill... but they will not show us the dead. They will not show us the blood-spattered marketplace, the chunks of flesh, the severed head, the liquefied remains. Those images are reserved for the rest of the world.

Think You Know What Patriotism Is?: " "