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Many of you have talked about the need to pay down our national debt. I listened, and I agree.

(APPLAUSE)

We owe it to our children and grandchildren to act now, and I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years.

(APPLAUSE)

At the end of those 10 years, we will have paid down all the debt that is available to retire.

(APPLAUSE)

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Last week a court ruled that Israel’s largest ISPs should block access to HttpShare, a BitTorrent and http hyperlink site. Thanks to what the owners call “IFPI advertising”, the site is now so busy they’ve had to upgrade their hardware.

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The first national study of four common sexually transmitted diseases among girls and young women has found that one in four are infected with at least one of the diseases, federal health officials reported Tuesday.

Nearly half the African-Americans in the study of teenagers ages 14 to 19 were infected with at least one of the diseases monitored in the study — human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, genital herpes and trichomoniasis, a common parasite.

The 50 percent figure compared with 20 percent of white teenagers, health officials and researchers said at a news conference at a scientific meeting in Chicago.

[..]

“The national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure,” Ms. Richards said, “and teenage girls are paying the real price.”

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A motorist has been fined £35 for displaying her parking ticket upside down.

Stirling Council said that although the £3.50 ticket was displayed, wardens could not read it.

They claim Marie McGrath was fined because she broke the car park conditions.

most wardens probably can’t even read things right-side up..

title shamelessly stolen from fark

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Reports in India of a miraculous image of the Virgin Mary in the sky have led about 50 people to blind themselves by staring at the sun.

The visions are said to appear over the former home of a hotel owner in the Kottayam area in southeast India, The Daily Telegraph reported. One hospital in the district reported 48 patients had been admitted with burned retinas since last week, the British newspaper reported.

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The Texas Secretary of State is set to certify the official election results for the Democratic primary. As predicted, Barack Obama has beaten Hillary Clinton. While Clinton won the state’s popular vote, Obama racked up more caucus support, so that, now that the final tally is in, the Lone Star state’s delegate total reads:

Obama: 61 delegates from the popular vote + 38 delegates from caucuses = 99 delegates.

Clinton: 65 delegates from the popular vote + 30 delegates from Caucuses = 95 delegates.

[Quote:]

The iPhone Dev Team published a a screenshot of what is reported to be a jailbroken iPhone 2.0 installation. According to ModMyiFone’s sources, the Dev team has already jailbroken the beta 2.0 iPhone firmware that Apple has only released to a limited number of testers. The jailbroken iPhone freely allows installation of iPhone applications, bypassing Apple’s $99/year developer program which includes an official developer certificate.

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The Met’s latest poster campaign urges Londoners who spot “unusual” activity to ring the police and let them know. Examples include someone taking pictures of CCTV cameras or acting out of the ordinary. After all, these are dangerous times, and we all must be vigilant.

Contrast this for a moment with an earlier dangerous time: the Blitz. Bombs rained down upon London on a near-daily basis, killing, maiming and laying waste to whole neighbourhoods (one American friend recently described a trip around east London where his hosts pointed to every car park and said, “Of course, that was bombed in the Blitz” – and came away with the impression that Hitler had dropped car parks on Hackney).

Back then, the government’s message to the people wasn’t “Take your shoes off” or “place your liquids in this bag”. Instead, King George’s printer stuck up millions of royal red posters bearing the legend “KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON.”

The approaches are markedly different – eternal (even fearful) vigilance, versus a reassured, Zen-like calm. Which one makes us more secure?

[Quote:]

The phone rings. Hillary Rodham Clinton picks it up.

“Yes?”

“Hillary, it’s Silda Wall Spitzer. Sorry to call so late. Eliot’s still not home. Based on your experience, what should I do?”

[Quote:]

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

Orwell, 1984

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For years, backpacks crammed with cash have slipped north into Canada, followed closely by hockey bags packed with premium marijuana skating south into Montana.

A favorable exchange rate (not long ago, one American dollar bought one and a half Canadian dollars) made the smuggling profitable, and thus popular.

But last month, for the first time in more than 30 years, the two currencies were at par, matched in value, and Sunday a Canadian dollar bought $1.06 U.S.

The financial tables have turned, and global economics have done what U.S. law enforcement could not: Capitalism has stopped the smugglers in their tracks.

Call it Marijuanomics 101.

[Quote:]

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This video shows what must be the world’s largest shotgun shell: the 120mm canister round designed for the cannon of an M1 Abrams tank. The 50 pound shell contains 1150 .40 caliber tungsten pellets launched at 4500 fps, with an effective range of 500 yards.

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Nonetheless, Obama has a signal accomplishment to his credit, a substantial one, which may change the shape of politics. If elected he will be the first to enter the office without financial backing from the major business, industrial or professional groups with their PACs, their contribution bundlers and lobbyists. That first day, which Hillary Clinton has made famous, will find Obama not owing a thing to the big money pressure groups. You would have to go back a century and a half to name an incoming president with so few debts to repay.

[Quote:]

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A new web service that lets users rate and comment on the uniformed police officers in their community is scrambling to restore service Tuesday, after hosting company GoDaddy unceremonious pulled-the-plug on the site in the wake of outrage from criticism-leery cops.

Visitors to RateMyCop.com on Tuesday were redirected to a GoDaddy page reading, “Oops!!!”, which urged the site owner to contact GoDaddy to find out why the company pulled the plug.

RateMyCop founder Gino Sesto says he was given no notice of the suspension. When he called GoDaddy, the company told him that he’d been shut down for “suspicious activity.”

If you’re still a godaddy customer, get your domains the fuck out of there! (and while you’re at it, avoid all US based registrars if you can…)

[Quote:]

With pressure mounting on Gov. Eliot Spitzer to resign over a call-girl scandal, investigators said Tuesday he was clearly a repeat customer who spent tens of thousands of dollars — perhaps as much as $80,000 — with the high-priced prostitution service over an extended period of time.

Spitzer and his family, meanwhile, remained secluded in their Fifth Avenue apartment, while Republicans began talking impeachment, and few if any fellow Democrats came forward to defend him.

I knew the USA was insane, but this really proves it. After all that has happened with the Bush administration, suddenly THIS is impeachment-worthy?

Oh, wait, of course… this is about SEX.

Could somebody please give Bush a blow-job?

I wonder, would this work?

[Quote:]

Democratic Party officials here are close to completing a draft plan for a new mail-in primary that would take place by early June, a proposal that seeks to give Florida delegates a role in the party’s presidential contest, several people involved in the discussions said Tuesday.

What would be the ultimate irony is a Clinton concession speech before the end of may..