http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/11/moore.perry.candidate/index.html

Editor's note: James Moore is a Texas-based Emmy award-winning former national TV news correspondent and co-author of the best-seller, "Bush's Brain."

Austin, Texas (CNN) -- As a resident of Texas for 36 years, I keep wondering why the rest of the nation pays any attention to our political and cultural absurdities and yet still chooses Texans as presidents. Our most revered historical moment, the Alamo, was arguably a mass suicide. The slaughter in San Antonio was followed by a massacre at Goliad, the fall of the Confederacy to Union forces, and later by the Houston Astros. Texas has a legacy of losing.

None of this apparently matters, though, because America is beginning the process of electing another Texan to be president. Gigantic tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, a trumped up war and a ruined economy from the last Texan seem incapable of dissuading supporters of Rick Perry.

His Saturday speech in South Carolina will make clear that he is entering the race for the White House and will spawn the ugliest and most expensive presidential race in U.S. history, and he will win. A C and D student, who hates to govern, loves to campaign, and barely has a sixth grader's understanding of economics, will lead our nation into oblivion.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Politics: Rick Perry surges in poll

The big brains gathered east of the Hudson and Potomac Rivers believe that Mitt Romney is the candidate to beat. But they are unable to hear what Rick Perry is saying. The Christian prayer rally in Houston was a very loud proclamation to fundamentalists and Teavangelicals, which said, "I am not a Mormon." The far right and Christian fundamentalists have an inordinate amount of influence in the GOP primary process and, regardless of messages of inclusion, very few of them will vote for a Mormon.

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US secretary of state urges world leaders supporting Assad and sending him weapons "to get on the right side of history."

WASHINGTON - The United States on Friday called on countries to stop buying Syrian oil and gas as it sought to build pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to end a brutal crackdown against protesters who oppose his rule.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has said the best way to influence Syria was to sanction its energy industry, said "stay tuned" when asked what progress the United States had made in persuading Europe, India or China to curtail their energy ties with Damascus.

Speaking at a news conference with Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store, Clinton stopped short of explicitly calling for Assad's departure.

"We urge those countries still buying Syrian oil and gas, those countries still sending Assad weapons, those countries whose political and economic support give him comfort in his brutality, to get on the right side of history," she told reporters after meeting Store.

"President Assad has lost the legitimacy to lead and it is clear that Syria would be better off without him," she added, echoing previous comments by the Obama administration.

Syrian forces fired live ammunition at protesters coming out of a main mosque after Friday prayers in the besieged city of Deir al-Zor, witnesses said, as demonstrations against the Assad family's 41-year rule resumed elsewhere in the country.

Activists say more than 1,700 civilians in all have been killed in the military crackdown on protests against Assad which broke out in March. Syria blames the violence on armed groups, who it says have killed 500 soldiers and police.

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A Toronto judge has blasted police tactics during last year's G20 summit.

Lawyers defending some of the people charged with offences in connection with last year's summit say a Toronto judge's ruling this week is going to have "an enormous impact" on their cases.

The case in question involved Michael Puddy, who took part in a demonstration on Saturday June 26, at the corner of Spadina Avenue and Queen Street West.

Puddy was on his way to a concert when he decided to join the peaceful protest.

Minutes later he had been pushed to the ground and cuffed with plastic restraints. He was held in custody for two days.

Police testified Puddy had a 15-centimetre knife attached to his belt.

Puddy, 32, from London, Ont., was eventually charged with obstructing police, concealing a weapon and possession of a prohibited weapon.

The first two charges were dismissed three months ago. On Thursday Puddy was found not guilty on the third charge.

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KOLKATA: A man and his son committed suicide by hanging themselves at their residence in Chirantani Park near Bansdroni. They left behind a suicide note in which they held the family's nursecum-maid responsible for their death. The initial probe revealed that they were subjected to immense mental torture by the woman who has been engaged in their house since 2001.

Abhijit Mitra, 65, who retired from West State Electricity Board (WBSEB), and his son Abhrajyoti, a private company employee, lived in a two-storied house they owned. On Saturday morning, locals raised an alarm after they found the doors to the Mitra home shut for a long time.

Once the police visited the scene and discovered the note, they arrested the household help Leena Ghosh. Leena apparently claimed innocence and said that the allegations were baseless.

The suicide note said, "Poricharikar otyachare jorjorito hoye amra siddhanta nite badhyo holam" (We are forced to take the decision of ending our lives because of prolonged mental torture by our maid).

The note also revealed that Leena was putting pressure on the father-son duo to donate one floor of the house to her.

Probe revealed that Leena was hired to look after Abhijit's ailing mother after his wife's sudden demise. Leena also cooked for them. Even after the death of Abhijit's mother Indrani, Leena continued to work.

Police said that they are interrogating Leena to know the truth. They are also waiting for the postmortem report. Apparently, Abhijit's body was found on the floor with a noose around his neck, while Abharajyoti's body hung from the ceiling.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Father-son-duo-commits-suicide/articleshow/9678778.cms

Students Working for Hershey Exploited

A 12-year-old girl in Gothenburg was struck by lightning twice while taking a shower during a thunderstorm on Wednesday evening.

After dinner 12-year-old Alice went downstairs in the basement to take a shower when her parents heard her scream.

Seconds prior to the child’s outburst two loud claps of thunder had suddenly cracked outside and the rain began to pour.

Alice had been struck by lightning in the arm but her parents did not immediately understand what had happened.

The child’s mother, Cecilia Svensson, immediately went downstairs and began to help wash her daughter’s hair when Alice screamed for the second timed.

“She screamed again. She was holding the metal shower hose while rinsing off,” Svensson, who at this point still did not understand what was happening, told local newspaper Göteborgstidningen (GT).

A phone call to an expert on the radio provided clarity.

Although nothing else was damaged in the house, the flash lightening must have struck and travelled, live, through the pipes.

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The townhouse of Ann Curry, "The Today Show" co-anchor who is on assignment in Africa, is occupied by a homeless squatter, The New York Post reported Sunday.

Curry, 54, and husband Brian Ross bought the 3,700-square-foot Upper West Side townhouse for $2.9 million in 2003 and over the past eight years, embarked on extensive renovations. However, neighbors sued the couple over the ongoing noise, and building stopped five years ago due to Buildings Department violations.

Eight police officers removed the homeless squatter from the building Saturday, after the plaintiffs reported his presence.

An NYPD spokesman said the man was not arrested because he was found in the vestibule and not the property itself. He was taken to a homeless shelter. He is the second vagrant this year to be removed from the property.

"Ann Curry means crap to me!" the vagrant, who wouldn't give his name, told the newspaper. "The reason I lived there was because they chased me out of Central Park. I'll go back if someone says, 'Here's the key. Maintain the building.'"

The Post couldn't reach Curry for comment.

"She's surrounded by dying children, heavily armed warlords and pirates," a "Today" co-worker told the newspaper. "The townhouse is not exactly something she's focusing on."
http://www.thirdage.com/news/ann-currys-townhouse-occupied-by-homeless-squatter_08-16-2011

DETROIT -- Move over, smog. When it comes to stuff in the air over Detroit, a team of researchers has found that in winter, it's bacteria from dog poop that hovers over the city.

A team of researchers studied 100 air samples collected in four Midwestern cities, including Detroit, looking for bacteria, and found that the most dominant type in winter is the same one found in canine feces.

Cleveland also had high counts of doggy-doo bacteria, while Chicago had less and tiny Mayville, Wis., surrounded by cornfields, had little.

What does it mean? Maybe not much. The researchers said that although the idea of airborne fecal bacteria sounds icky, it's possible that metropolitan areas across America all have it and there may be no health effects at all.

"What it really says is how little we know about the bacteria we breathe in every day," said Noah Fierer, an ecology professor at the University of Colorado and one of the authors of the study.

Detroit just happened to be one of the first places studied for aerial bacteria because air sampling data for it and the three other cities were already available, Fierer said.

"It may be that this is just as common in other cities like New York or San Francisco, we just don't know," he said. They hope to study more cities and map the airborne bacteria across the continent.

Rob Knight, also a professor at the university, said the scientists didn't know the health effects of the fecal bacteria on humans, since their findings were unexpected and the study wasn't designed to look at health effects.

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Yesterday, Russia's stealthy new fifth-generation jet fighter, the Sukhoi T-50, made its public debut at an air show near Moscow. The T-50 is billed as being more agile than the F-22, which is slightly worrisome for America's new fighters. Or, it would be worrisome, if every last F-22 hadn't been grounded since May due to mechanical problems. USA!

The T-50 is also known as the PAK FA, which stands for "Prospective Airborne Complex of Frontline Aviation." Despite the ugliness of this acronym, the aircraft itself is very advanced. It's noticeably similar in construction to the F-22, relying heavily on composites for stealth, although it does sacrifice a little bit of this sneakiness for extra maneuverability. There's also some mention of a kind of "artificial intellect" in the PAK FA's radar system that does something unspecified, but I'm thinking it's like a Clint Eastwood in Firefox type of thing.

The PAK FA had its first test flight in December of 2009, and two prototypes were on display at the MAKS-2011 air show near Moscow this week. Russia is shooting for full deployment between 2014 and 2015, and in partnership with India, they're planning on producing about 1,000 PAK FAs over the next 40 years. With a project unit cost of only about $50 million, you could buy three PAK FAs for the price of a single F-22, and overall program cost for the PAK FA is less than a sixth of what it cost to deploy the F-22, which, in case you hadn't heard, has been out of service for so long that every F-22 pilot we have is at risk of becoming de-certified in their aircraft.

Below, we've got a video of the PAK FA straight from the air show, along with a gallery. If you like things that are fast and dangerous, it's a must-see.
http://dvice.com/archives/2011/08/russia-shows-of.php
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http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20110816/NJNEWS/308160034/Edison-India-Day-Parade-rescheduled-for-Sunday

EDISON — The Oaktree Indian Business Association has rescheduled its inaugural Grand India Day Parade for Sunday, Aug. 21, along Oak Tree Road.

The parade was rained out on Sunday, Aug. 14, after stirring controversy for using a doctored image of the U.S. Marine World War II flag-raising at Iwo Jima. The superimposition of the Indian flag over the American flag insulted many Marines and their families.

At the demand of Mayor Antonia Ricigliano, an apology about the graphic usage was issued by the group, which previously stirred controversy with a tangled permit process that led to a lawsuit with a rival organization based in the Iselin section of Woodbridge.

The apology read: “On behalf of Oaktree Indian Business Association, we would like to offer our sincerest apologies for any offense taken by the usage of the edited picture of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima. The picture was not created by our graphic designer. It was taken from the Internet and was used as is.

“It was not meant to be offensive in any way to the American service men and women who fought so bravely for the American people. Again, please accept our apology.”

The questionable image was taken from AmazingIndia.net, said Hitesh Shah, the parade’s graphic designer. The website did not return an email seeking comment about the image.

Bimal Joshi, executive vice president of the Oaktree Indian Business Association, said he didn’t realize the image was of U.S. Marines at Iwo Jima.

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Canada imposed new sanctions on North Korea over its attack on a South Korean warship, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

The measures, which include a ban on trade, investment and financial services, were imposed Aug 11. but announced Monday. They were to “reinforce the message to the North Korean government that its aggressive actions such as the sinking of the Cheonan, are unacceptable,” according to a statement from the Foreign Affairs and International Trade quoted by Newswires.

The Cheonan sinking last year killed 46 South Korean sailors. Canada is also barring North Korean ships and aircraft from docking or landing in the country.

The new measures are in addition to existing sanctions under the United Nations Act, the Newswires report said.
http://blogs.wsj.com/corruption-currents/2011/08/15/canada-imposes-sanctions-on-north-korea/