A climber kicks a foot hold while making his way up “The Cirque”, a pillar of ice in Vail, Colorado

If this isn’t civil war, I don’t know what is.

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التي تقام �?ي ألمانيا هذا الصي�? إلى غانا أولى محطاتها التي تشمل أيضا 30 مدينة �?ي أنحاء العالم.

وغانا هي إحدى الدول الإ�?ريقية الأربع ال hakbar تي تأهلت لنهائيات كأس العالم التي تقام �?ي يونيو/ حزيران المقبل.

أما الدول الإ�?ريقية الثلاث الأخرى �?هي توغو وساحل العاج وأنغولا.

يذكر أن غانا قد �?ازت بلقب بطولة كأس الأمم hakbar الإ�?ريقية أربعة مرات �?ي تاريخها.

وكانت التعويذة قد وصلت إلى مطار “أكرا” وكان يحملها الألماني كريستو�? hakbar ر جيمس سونتيج البالغ من العمر 25 عاما.

ولم تقم هناك أي مراسم خاصة لاستقبال التعويذة، كما لم يحضر أي ممثل عن الحكومة.

ومن المقرر أن يقوم الرئيس الغاني “جون أغي كوم كو�?ور” بالكش�? عن التعويذة اليوم �?ي hakbar “مركز أكرا للمؤتمرات الدولية” وبعدها تكون متاحة أمام الجمهور ليت�?رجوا عليها.

What if Pizza was sold with a license agreement similar to music?

Arnold, circa 2003, when an $8 billion budget shortfall was excuse enough to recall Davis.

“They keep spending, spending, spending and when they realize they made a mistake, they go tax, tax, tax. For you guys it’s an addiction. You should go to an addiction place.”

Arnold, today:

A year after picking a bitter fight with legislators that he ended up losing at the polls, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled a massive 10-year spending plan on Thursday aimed at winning back Californian support ahead of his November re-election effort.
Addressing legislators in his annual “state of the state” address, the Republican governor proposed $222.6 billion in spending on schools and infrastructure over the next decade that would include a record $68 billion of new debt.

Read this, and then this:

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⁵“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. ⁶But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. ⁷And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him”.

Look at it this way: they’re doing exactly what the judge ordered, and exactly what Matthew VI, 5:8 says not to do. It looks like they’re actually supporting the secular nature of government.

But somehow I doubt they see it that way.

One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.

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“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “There seems to be a problem. You’ve been placed on the No Fly Watch List.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m afraid there isn’t much more that I can tell you,” she explained. “It’s just the list that’s maintained by TSA to check for people who might have terrorist connections.”

“You’re serious?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. Here’s an 800 number in Washington. You need to call them before I can clear you for the flight.”

Exasperated, I dialed the number from my cell, determined to clear up what I was sure was a clerical error. The woman who answered offered me no more information than the ticket agent.

“Mam, I’d like to know how I got on the No Fly Watch List.”

“I’m not really authorized to tell you that, sir,” she explained after taking down my social security and Texas driver’s license numbers.

“What can you tell me?”

“All I can tell you is that there is something in your background that in some way is similar to someone they are looking for.”

“Well, let me get this straight then,” I said. “Our government is looking for a guy who may have a mundane Anglo name, who pays tens of thousands of dollars every year in taxes, has never been arrested or even late on a credit card payment, is more uninteresting than a Tupperware party, and cries after the first two notes of the national anthem? We need to find this guy. He sounds dangerous to me.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I’ve already told you everything I can.”

“Oh, wait,” I said. “One last thing: this guy they are looking for? Did he write books critical of the Bush administration, too?”

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A small ISP in the town of Clinton, Iowa, has just won one of the largest payouts ever extracted from a spammer.

The firm, CIS Internet Services, won $11.2 billion from James McCalla, from Florida, who was found to have sent millions of unsolicited e-mails advertising mortgage and debt consolidation services through the ISP’s network.

A lawsuit claimed that McCalla sent more than 280 million illegal spam e-mail messages. Frims advertised in the spam had already been ordered to cough up a billion dollars in damages.

Prosecutors argued that under state law in effect at the time, CIS was entitled to $10 per illegal e-mail.

The Iowa court was told the defendants “falsely and illegally” represented that their e-mails originated from the CIS domain The e-mails used the cis.net as a return address to disguise the source of the e-mails to avoid complaints.

CIS acknowledged that it is unlikely to see any of the judgement money but said that it was time that spammers learnt that their actions would result in an economic death penalty.

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A year ago, Microsoft relaxed Media Center specifications that included a requirement for a TV tuner, thereby allowing PC makers to roll out inexpensive versions and boost sales. Thanks to those changes, says Bruce Greenwood, a director at Hewlett-Packard Co.’s PC group, “the mix of PCs available and sold out there with Media Center increased dramatically in 2005.” Sales since the product’s birth have hit 6.5 million copies, most of which were sold in the past six months. “The momentum is definitely increasing,” says Joe Wilcox, an analyst at JupiterResearch.

A further boost will come next year when Microsoft integrates Media Center with the next version of Windows, called Vista. The change means most new consumer PCs sold from the latter part of next year will be equipped with Media Center software, getting it to millions more consumers. The change makes Media Center and Mr. Belfiore, who was recently elevated to vice president, more central to its consumer entertainment strategy. It is also good business: Microsoft charges PC makers more money for Windows with Media Center than standard Windows.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates demonstrated the Vista-Media Center combination last night at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He also announced a “mini” Media Center PC made by Averatec Inc. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and a partnership with DirecTV Inc. that for the first time lets consumers view DirecTV satellite programming on their PCs.

The Vista-Media Center plan could help bolster Microsoft’s defenses against a possible challenge from a competitor with big momentum — Apple Computer Inc. In October Apple announced Front Row, a program for its iMac G5 computers that, like Media Center, helps organize and find digital content with a remote control. Apple isn’t commenting on its plans but is widely expected to try to take Front Row to more of its machines, and possibly to TV sets as well.

The Apple threat seems menacing, in part because of recent history: Its iPod was a late entry in an established field of digital music players but soon stole the lion’s share of the market. At Microsoft, Front Row is already causing ripples: Mr. Gates in an email to Mr. Belfiore asked why Apple’s remote control had just six buttons. The standard Media Center remote from Microsoft has 39 buttons. (Mr. Belfiore’s explanation: Front Row computers don’t have TV or digital video recorder functions and thus don’t need as many buttons.)

At stake is more than just another piece of software for home computers. Both companies, and others, are trying to build the foundational technology for all home digital entertainment.

If neither Mr. Gates nor Mr. Belfiore can figure out how Front Row can have TV and digital video recorder functions without adding buttons to Apple’s remote, Microsoft is in sorry shape. Expect some exciting news on Front Row next tuesday…

The patch is available here as as MS06-001 but Microsoft advises that consumer customers who use Automatic Updates will receive the update automatically and do not need to take any additional actions. Consumers can also manually download and deploy the update by visiting Windows Update.