[Quote:]

E mangel, mata icono di nos turismo, cual a wordo corta algun dia pasa, y cu tabata ser yama Divi Divi, Watapana y� Fofoti, a wordo opera ayera.

E trabao di salba e mata aki a ser haci pa e conocido Reggie Lacle, experto (LOCAL)den cuido y recuperacion di matanan. Un forklifter tabata presente tambe pa trabao di hisa e mata si tabata necesario. E operacion aki tabata tin interes di varios turista tambe ayera.

Riba e combinacion di potret por mira Sr. Lacle na momento di tabata cumpliendo ayera cu su trabaonan y cu a corta parti di e mata pa hinca plaatchi di aluminium den dje pa su fortificacion..

E deseo grandi rond di Aruba ta pa e mata aki wordo salba y sigui ta un di nos orguyonan di naturaleza y icono di turismo.

Photographer F. Pierce Williams (lower R) lies by the front wheel of driver Blake Freese’s (94) Chevrolet after crashing into the pits during a caution at the running of the ARCA Advance Auto Parts 200 in Daytona, Florida on February 12, 2005. Photographer Steve Rose (C) was transported to the hospital and Reuters photographer Fernando Medina (r-near car) was also injured and released with minor injuries. REUTERS/Duffin McGee REUTERS

[Quote:]

For 20 years, Sarah Scantlin has been mostly oblivious to the world around her � the victim of a drunken driver who struck her down as she walked to her car. Today, after a remarkable recovery, she can talk again.

Scantlin’s father knows she will never fully recover, but her newfound ability to speak and her returning memories have given him his daughter back. For years, she could only blink her eyes � one blink for “no,” two blinks for “yes” � to respond to questions that no one knew for sure she understood.

“I am astonished how primal communication is. It is a key element of humanity,” Jim Scantlin said, blinking back tears.

Chess

[Quote:]

Some of the MSN Search advertising banners and transit signs around the main Microsoft campus in Redmond are tailored to the area, including this one, above, that shows a search for “Pizza in Redmond.”

After seeing that sign, I couldn’t resist plugging that phrase into the MSN Search engine and a few other big search sites, just as an experiment to see how the results would compare. Looking at each of them, it’s pretty easy to conclude that the other three provide more useful results than MSN Search does for someone looking for pizza in Redmond. Click through these links to see for yourself:

• Google
• Yahoo Search
• MSN Search
• Ask Jeeves

But then I looked more closely and realized that the advertising sign was promoting the “search near me” feature in MSN Search. So I readjusted my settings to put my location in Redmond, and did a simple search for “pizza” under that geographic constraint. The first non-sponsored result? Janitorial supplies.

Not wanting to rush to judgment, I also tried a search for the full phrase, Pizza in Redmond, under the Redmond geographic constraint, even though that would seem redundant. The first non-sponsored result was the resume of an aspiring computer programmer whose past experience included a stint as a delivery driver for Papa John’s Pizza in Redmond. Just to be complete, I also tried the search under the Redmond geographic constraint with quotes around the phrase. Not much better.

Of course, the real kicker is to try the “pizza in redmond” search in Google’s new Google Maps beta site, which is specifically tailored for geographic searches. Click here for the result.

[Quote:]

The objective was revealed — yet again — in a recent Washington appearance by Iraqi Finance Minister Adil Abdel-Mahdi. Standing alongside a top State Department official, Abdel-Mahdi announced that Iraq’s government wants to open the nation’s oil fields to foreign investment — not only the pumped product flowing through the pipes, but the very oil in the ground, the common patrimony of the Iraqi people. The minister said plainly that this sweet deal — placing the world’s second-largest oil reserves in a few private hands — would be “very promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies,” InterPress reports. These are the spoils for which George W. Bush has killed more than 100,000 human beings.

The American media completely ignored Abdel-Mahdi’s declaration, but this is not surprising. After all, it occurred in the most obscure venue imaginable: an appearance before oil barons and journalists at the, er, National Press Club. Where better to hide open confessions of war crimes than in the very midst of the Washington hack pack? Yet here was a story of immense importance. For Abdel-Mahdi is not only a functionary in the discredited collaborationist government now in its last days. He is also one of the leading figures in the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the Shiite faction that has been swept to somewhat more legitimate power by the national election that was forced on George W. Bush by Islamic fundamentalist Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. In fact, Abdel-Mahdi is frequently mentioned as a leading choice for prime minister in the new government; whatever happens, he will certainly play a primary role.

So we have a top official — perhaps the top official — in the incoming government offering American oilmen ownership rights in Iraqi oil. We have top American officials — such as Cheney and Rumsfeld this week — taking a benign view of the UIA’s demand that the new Iraqi state be based solely on Islamic law, with crippling restrictions on women’s rights, free expression, free association, plus, if Sistani has his way, Talibanic bans on music, dancing and even playing chess, Newsweek reports.

What we have, in other words, is the making of a monstrous, Cyclopean deal: not just “Blood for Oil,” as the anti-war critics have said all along, but also “God for Oil.” The Shiite clerics — who eschew direct control but whose precepts can be translated into state power by secular representatives like Abdel-Mahdi — seem willing to trade a goodly portion of Iraq’s oil wealth in exchange for establishing a de facto “Islamic Republic” in the conquered land, with tacit American approval.