Iowahawk, of course. The man's a genius.
Charges of racism, sexism, and religious discrimination filled the air this afternoon outside the just-completed Cordoba House, the gleaming new $100 million 15 story mosque and Islamic cultural center near the ruins of New York's World Trade Center, following a tense 5-hour standoff prompted by the mosque's refusal to host a wedding between a lesbian African-American woman and her blind white transgendered partner.
Over 200 NYPD officers and multicultural crisis counselors were bused to the site to quell the simmering 17-way tensions between Muslim, Black, LGBT, immigrant, disabled, and lawsuit community activists. The scene was punctuated by outbursts of pushing and shoving, including a brief confused intramural scuffle among members of Reverend Louis Farrakan's Nation of Islam, but the only serious injuries reported was a hernia suffered by a legal aide distributing plaintiff's briefs. The incident resulted in one arrest, a 7-year old girl who was seen operating a lemonade stand without a permit.
According to witnesses, the standoff began at 11 AM EDT when Eleanor Davis, 38, and her partner Mary Markowicz, 43, entered Cordoba House and requested the use of the mosque for a wedding ceremony. They were escorted from the building, but quickly returned with a 9th District Court of Appeals injunction ordering the mosque's Imam to perform the ceremony, citing the US Supreme Court's Kelo and Proposition 8 decisions. They were barred at the door by security guards who countered with their own injunction citing First Amendment religious protections.
Following the incident, Davis, who is African-American, called a press conference on the sidewalk in front of the Cordoba House to complain of racial and gender discrimination. She was eventually shoved from the podium by Abdul Mohammed-Haq, the Mosque's controversial Yemeni Imam who is currently battling a federal deportation case against the ICE, who countered with complaints of profiling discrimination by Davis and Markowicz. Within minutes the streets in front of the center were filled with chanting protesters from the Gay, Muslim, Black and handicapped communities. A disaster was narrowly averted when the Reverend Al Sharpton's limousine rammed a parked EMS ambulance before it could careen through the crowd.
Amid the growing crisis, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered a SWAT team of negotiators from the city's Multicultural Affairs Office parachuted to the scene. A brief truce was reached when negotiators pointed out to the Imam Markowicz's status as a pre-op transexual, obviating his religious objections to performing a same-sex marriage. But tensions erupted again after Markowicz - who is legally blind - tried to enter the mosque with a seeing-eye guide dog.
Multicultural Paratroopers eventually persuaded Markowicz to leave his/her dog outside the mosque during the ceremony. Cordoba House officials reluctantly agreed to allow the couple inside for continued negotiations, but a brief melee ensued after Markowicz lit a marijuana cigarette in the lobby. Mohammed-Haq angrily demanded that police arrest him/her for violating New York's anti-smoking ordinance, but Markowicz quickly produced a prescription for medical marijuana for his/her glaucoma condition. In turn, he/she demanded police arrest Mohammed-Haq for violating the National Health Care Access Act, and for failure to post braille No Smoking signs. The angry Imam was restrained by police before he could unsheathe his scimitar, and lodged a complaint against Davis and Markowicz for violating New York's official Immigration Sanctuary Act.
As the center lobby filled with police, community leaders and lawyers, filing charges and counter-charges, a near-riot erupted outside when wedding reception catering trucks began arriving from Porky's 34th Street Barbecue and Midtown Liquors.
By late afternoon, federal, state, city, and borough courts reported over 1400 lawsuits filed related to the incident. Mayoral Spokesperson Karen Sternthal said that Bloomberg would be seeking emergency federal funding for an Appelate Judge troop surge to cope with the load, but expressed hopes that a "peaceful, mutually agreeable, transfat-free resolution" could be worked out between all parties.
"The good news is that this will be all worked out right here in New York," noted Sternthal. "And there's no other place this open minded.
Brown is the Democratic nominee for governor on the November ballot and he previously called the ban unconstitutional.
Schwarzenegger has been more circumspect on his Proposition 8 position and his motion to immediately resume gay marriage was his boldest pronouncement on the issue. Looks like the idea of being behind doesn't appeal to him.
"The administration believes the public interest is best served by permitting the court's judgment to go into effect, thereby restoring the right of same-sex couples to marry in California," lawyers for Schwarzenegger said in the legal filing. "Doing so is consistent with California's long history of treating all people and their relationships with equal dignity and respect." ... and occasionally forming vigilance councils to try and repair the damage...
#1
"all people and their relationships with equal dignity"
Here comes polygamy - using the same specious reasoning, and destroying any semblance of meaning the word "marriage" has as anything other than a civil contract for tax and legal purposes.
#3
Part of the big problem with the iteration of feudal socialism we've implemented in this society is that noone is actually really _paid a unit of money for a unit of work_. Instead you get some money, plus about half of it in "benefits." Of course whose benefits are good and whose aren't, whether you can get an MRI or not, or your pension fund is backed up by the Feds or not... that's where the whole inequality before the law and in payment for work comes in, in ways it's difficult for a peon to prove. Marriage, and now Gay Marriage, is just another way to game the system now.
#8
I'd be okay with this if he actually meant it, but he's simply making yet another calculated statement. Back when he was running, he said it should be up to the voters to decide, and now he's taken the exact opposite position. Of course, I'm sure his first statement was as insincere as the last one.
In the most significant changes to Britain's defences since the post-Suez review of 1957, ministers and officials plan to scrap large parts of the Armed Forces.
The Services will lose up to 16,000 personnel, hundreds of tanks, scores of fighter jets and half a dozen ships, under detailed proposals passed to The Daily Telegraph.
But the RAF will bear the brunt of the planned cuts. The Air Force will lose 7,000 airmen -- almost one sixth of its total staff -- and 295 aircraft. The cuts will leave the Force with fewer than 200 fighter planes for the first time since 1914. In addition, the Navy will lose two submarines, three amphibious ships and more than 100 senior officers, along with 2,000 sailors and marines.
The Army faces a 40 per cent cut to its fleet of 9,700 armoured vehicles and the loss of a 5,000-strong brigade of troops.
The Telegraph has also learnt that the "black hole" in MoD finances, caused by orders which have been made but cannot be paid for, is approaching £72 billion over the next decade -- double the amount previously suggested.
While the Strategic Defence and Security Review is yet to be finalised, officials have drawn up a series of likely options to meet cuts of 10 to 20 per cent demanded by the Treasury.
By the end of this month the Defence Strategy Group, comprising ministers and military chiefs, will be presented with a number of recommendations that they will refine and pass to the National Security Council, chaired by the Prime Minister, in September.
In October, after agreement with the Treasury, an announcement will be made in Parliament on precisely what cuts the Forces face as part of the comprehensive spending review of Whitehall budgets.
If implemented, the cuts will mean that Britain will almost certainly depart the world stage as a major military power and become what military chiefs call defenseless a "medium-scale player".
So long, Britain, nice knowing you. Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat, there's only one place to find the pocket change needed to run the NHS. Take a close look, America, this is headed our way.
BEIJING -- "They're all millionaires. They've made it," said Mikael Charette of the thousands of wealthy Chinese -- his clients -- who apply to emigrate to Canada every year on that country's investment immigration program.
While most immigrants are admitted on the basis of sought-after skills or to reunite families, investment immigration, in which applicants make a minimum financial investment or create jobs in their destination, is also booming. So much so that Canada, excluding Quebec, temporarily halted its program in June in order to double the amount that would-be immigrants must invest to qualify.
Joy Xi emigrated to Canada nearly a decade ago. When I asked why people leave, despite rising prosperity in China, her answer was swift: "Sanlu," the company notorious for producing melamine-laced milk powder that killed six babies and sickened hundreds of thousands more in 2008. Few believe the problem is over.
Also, said Ms. Xi, China is growing richer, but it's also growing more unequal, and that makes the rich feel unsafe.
Summing up how many Chinese think, she cited a widespread saying: "Life in China is too risky. Consider carefully where you want to be reborn in your next life." No dummies, they.
#2
Joy Xi emigrated to Canada nearly a decade ago. When I asked why people leave, despite rising prosperity in China, her answer was swift: "Sanlu," the company notorious for producing melamine-laced milk powder that killed six babies and sickened hundreds of thousands more in 2008. Few believe the problem is over.
The opportunity evades us to export thousands of bureaucrats, who instead of shutting down a 7 year old's lemonade stand, can be effectively employed in real pure food regulation someplace in China.
#3
An even deeper understanding comes of the Chinese belief that there is a natural cycle to China. First, building up from scratch, then maintaining, then allowing to decay, then to wipe the plate clean. The last Emperor was a "decadent" cycle Emperor, and Mao acted just like a "destroyer" Emperor, just as if he had been an Emperor.
And China right now is either approaching a decadent or destructive phase, so it makes a great deal of sense to bug out.
#1
MSM will continue to try to figure out a way to demonize black conservatives. Must frustrate the hell out of the left wing MSM. Maybe some of the MSM will implode.
#1
The MSM may yawn, but Homeland Sec better take close notice. With AQ threats to use nukes on America, joined with the Alliance of Caribbean and Latin Weasels, this may not be an idle threat. Russians outnumber Cubans is some parts of south Florida. Spetznaz-trained Cubans and Venezuelans, Russians, FL-raised AQ (Shukrijumah) and Hezbollah throughout the region plus the southern coasts and ports are impossible to secure. A couple of hours by sea, with a shuttle of fishing trawlers, personal yachts, especially those well-equipped mega-yachts with Wi-Fi, helicopters and submersibles owned by Russian billionaires, and miles and miles of secluded coastline for drop-offs besides the illicit cargo packed alongside ethnic groceries, and they could have a quite an arsenal already in place. You can spend days at sea without ever seeing a customs official or even the Coast Guard so focusing all the $$$$ on the Mexican border is somewhat moot.
#2
Castro is smarter than to actualy USE a nuke against the USA, his (Barren) Island would glow for centuries, AND HE KNOWS IT.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/07/2010 14:34 Comments ||
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#3
Castro does know we'd retaliate and said so in '92 but he's also old, suicidal for the greater cause, and the damage done before any blame could be ascertained among the many possible co-conspirators.
From the Breitbart article:
The cataclysm he craved in Oct. 1962 will erupt, he warned on Cuban TV, when the Israelis and their Yankee vassals provoke Iran in the straits of Hormuz.
Thats not a typo above. Castro, who co-sponsored the famous 1975 UN resolution equating Zionism with Racism, says the Israeli tail wags the Yankee dog. Those Yankees are certainly powerful, Castro explained, but also a bit naïve and docile. The main instigators, the ones carefully setting the trap to ignite nuclear war are those crafty Israelis. The control that Israel has over the United States is enormous, he revealed last week.
Fidel Castro, that sentimental old fool, has excellent reason to bask in the fond memory of imminent nuclear war. Of course I knew the missiles were nuclear- armed, responded Fidel Castro to Robert McNamara during a meeting in 1992. Thats precisely why I urged Khrushchev to launch them. And of course Cuba would have been utterly destroyed in the exchange.
#4
Castro is predicting Armageddon is about to commence; obligatory Islamic warning to the in-Fidels? AP excerpt on Castro's appearance:
Recently, however, the former Cuban leader has been making near-daily appearances in and around Havana: He has addressed groups of Cuban intellectuals and Communist Youth meetings, and even made a trip to the Havana aquarium for a dolphin show.
Castro, who has written on the topic of nuclear war for months, maintains that the United States and Israel will attack Iran and that Washington could also target North Korea. He has suggested the conflict could have Armageddon-like consequences for the whole world, even predicting in several opinion columns that fighting was to already have begun by now.
Experts believe the US government is under-reporting the amount of crude left in the Gulf of Mexico after the disastrous BP oil spill for "political gains."
On Wednesday, soon after the completion of the static kill process of the BP ruptured well in the Gulf, the administration of President Barack Obama announced that only about 26 percent of the leaked oil was unaccounted for.
This is while according to the media reports up to 75 percent of the leaked oil is still in the sea.
Speaking to Press TV on Thursday, Allen Roland, the California-based online columnist, said that the US government is conducting "a massive cover-up" firstly, "for political reasons" and secondly, for saving the London-based energy giant BP.
"The thing is they don't care, because they want to get through the election," Roland said, adding that "it is a big bailout."
"BP is too big to fail as part of the Obama Administration, and a wonderful source of money coming in to them."
Roland said that the US government was not to let BP "go under", as the company "was another one conservative for President Obama in the last election.
He added that London-based the energy giant "provides 40 percent of the oil for the Pentagon."
Scientists believe that the distorted data provided by the Obama administration highly relies on assumptions and estimates with a significant margin of error to make the Gulf look as good as possible.
"There's a lot of . . . smoke and mirrors in this report," said Ian MacDonald, a professor of biological oceanography at Florida State University, according to a Washington Post report on Thursday.
"It seems very reassuring, but the data aren't there to actually bear out the assurances that were made."
Of the 4.9 million barrels (205.8 million gallons) that spewed out of the well into the gulf, only 827,000 barrels were siphoned to vessels on the surface.
The BP oil disaster, kicked off after an April explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11 workers, has caused the worst environmental accident in the US and oil history.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2010 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11129 views]
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#1
"Experts"......Speaking to Press TV on Thursday, Allen Roland, the California-based online columnist, said that the US government is conducting "a massive cover-up" firstly, "for political reasons" and secondly, for saving the London-based energy giant BP.
#5
Why does anyone pay attention to anything our government prints or says? They deliberately put out false information that casts them in a good light and then 1 to 8 months later (when people don't care about the issue) they "correct" the numbers. This is a deliberate and subtle form of thought control and all the MSM news programs are helping Obummer do this to our detriment. They do this continuously on unemployment,the budget and now on their performance (hinderance) of the oil clean up. This lie will be used for electioneering in November just like all the other lies and then after the election the real figures will be released. Obummer's news (propaganda) programs are so detached from the truth the only reason I ocasionally tune in is to see the commercials. That way I know what companies are financially helping Obummer to destroy our country by buying advertising. Then they are added to my list of consumer products to boycott. I can remember when Obummer was a Christian.
Posted by: David ||
08/07/2010 15:40 Comments ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Stormy weather grounded helicopters carrying emergency supplies to Pakistan's flood-ravaged northwest Friday as authorities said 12 million people had been effected and 650,000 houses destroyed in the disaster.
U.S. military personnel waiting to fly Chinooks to stranded communities in the upper reaches of the hard-hit Swat Valley were frustrated by the storms, which dumped more rain on a region where many thousands are living in tents or crammed into public buildings.
Over the last week, floods triggered by monsoon rains have spread from the northwest down Pakistan, killing around 1,500 people.
Some 30,000 Pakistani soldiers are rebuilding bridges, delivering food and setting up relief camps in the northwest, which is the main battleground in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Foreign countries and the United Nations have donated millions of dollars.
Nadim Ahmed, the head of the National Disaster Management Authority, said 12 million people had so far been affected by the floods and 650,000 houses destroyed over some 132,000 square kilometers (50,965 square miles), making it a bigger -- but far less deadly -- disaster than the 2005 Kashmir earthquake.
Relief effort
Ahmed did not say what he meant by affected, though the figure presumably includes those who may have experiencing only minor floods.
The United Nations earlier said that more than 4 million people had been affected, but normally bases its figures on government data. Officials from the world body were not immediately available for comment on the updated estimate Friday.
Also helping out in the relief effort are Islamist charities, including the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, which Western officials believe is linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Foundation head Hafiz Abdur Rauf said the assistance of the U.S. Army was welcome.
"This is a difficult situation for us. Every helping hand and donation is welcome," he said, adding that his group is running 12 medical facilities and providing cooked food for 100,000 people every day. The foundation helped out after the Kashmir earthquake under a different name.
The government has come under criticism for not doing enough, especially since President Asif Ali Zardari chose to go ahead with a trip to Europe at the height of the crisis.
In the Sukkur area of Sindh in southern Pakistan, 70 villages had been flooded over the last 24 hours, the navy said.
"Floods killed our people, they have ruined our homes and even washed away the graves of our loved ones. Yet we are here without help from the government," said Mai Sahat, a 35-year-old women looking over a flooded landscape where her village used to be.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2010 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11125 views]
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#1
ION NEWS KERALA > CLIMATE CHANGE MAY WIPE OUT 80% OF [World]RAIN FORESTS BY 2100, hence ditto the majority or bulk of Plant + Animal specias dependent on same.
plus
* TOPIX > WHY HAVE THE NORHERN LIGHTS MOVED SOUTH? + NORHERN LIGHTS EXPECTED IN SOUTH AGAIN.
Posted by: Frank G on the road ||
08/07/2010 9:55 Comments ||
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#3
Are these millions of people still at war with us, despite the billions of dollars we've given them and the aid we gave them from the last catastrophe they suffered?
#4
TFSM, what is unmentioned is that the billions of dollars we've given the Paks could have been used to help the Pak people. Then they could have managed this problem better.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/07/2010 13:06 Comments ||
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#5
They don't have to manage their money well, we'll _always_ help even as they make war upon us.
#1
Someone actually spent money developing this thing?
Posted by: john frum ||
08/07/2010 10:34 Comments ||
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#2
yeah i believe they where called the Wright brothers,
Posted by: chris ||
08/07/2010 12:16 Comments ||
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#3
MKy Father (Civil Engineer, Highway dept BIGwig) Said the FAA has nightmares about "Jetson" type flying cars, they have more than enough trouble with ONE dimension of travel.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/07/2010 14:30 Comments ||
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#4
Sheesh fat fingers MY Father.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/07/2010 14:31 Comments ||
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#5
Jim, my thoughts exactly. Seeing how these idiots drive in one dimension (plus a lane change), I am seriously afraid of how they would drive in three dimensions.
Besides, when your car runs out of gas, or develops engine trouble, it is annoying but rarely fatal. If your flying car's engine fails, it could be fatal to you and the people below.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/07/2010 15:15 Comments ||
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#6
If your flying car's engine fails, it could be fatal to you and the people below
Thats not a bug, thats a feature!!! Cleansing the gene pool of teh stupid!!
If we can get over the risk-adverse attitudes of our betters in D.C., Flying cars would have a cultural learning curve like automobiles. A lot of fatalities at first, then things would improve.
In mid-May Albuquerque ordered every person arrested to be fingerprinted & screened to see if the person is in the country legally. At the new prisoner transport center in downtown Albuquerque, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been fingerprinting and scanning suspects. Police Chief Ray Schultz said the processing facility is believed to be the first of its kind in the country. According to ICE officials, already 150 illegal immigrants have been arrested. White said because everyone arrested is fingerprinted, it takes racial profiling out of the equation and still gets illegal immigrants out of the country.
2) "new and unbroken glass pipes are believed to prevent lip cuts and the spread of hepatitis strains. Rubber tips and new filters ward off mouth burns. Ascorbic acid helps prevent users from using lemon juice to dissolve cocaine rocks into an injectable liquid -- a common practice that can lead to fungal infections."
In what educators are calling the fastest growing study-abroad program, American college students are increasingly choosing to spend their traditional junior year abroad in places like Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. "These are not the same kids who go bike touring in France," said Ms. Anderson, who joined the faculty two years ago from Columbia University. "Many are contemplating careers in the Middle East, perhaps with the Foreign Service or an N.G.O" or even the Big Leagues, with al-Qaeda.
"They are very serious about this region of the world."
Alex Thompson, 21, a Princeton senior this academic year who spent last year at the American University in Cairo, is typical of the student Ms. Anderson described. His interest in the Middle East stemmed from a summer spent at Seeds of Peace, a camp based in Maine with a mission to empower high school students from America, Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories, as well as other war-torn areas, to work for a better future. Yup, some of these kids will go on to make their mark in the world, as jihadis or as faces on FBI wanted posters. You read it here first. I hope all their biomarkers are on file.
Now now, it would be helpful for Foggy Bottom to have a sprinkling of foreign service officers who understand the Middle East ...
#3
You think study in France is easy? Hah. Required classes in rioting and snail ranching, nothing to eat but cheese and drink but wine, the use of perfumes instead of bathing, unshaven women who speak in grunts and Sartre, and mandatory Jerry Lewis movies.
#4
Having been to Paris and outlying areas within the last decade, truthfully most women and men I encountered were properly groomed and quite well dressed. Many spoke excellent English. And I ate cuisines there of varied sorts. Some of the unwashed perfumey women may live in far corners of France, but for the most part, those stereotypes are outworn.
#6
Princeton? Yeah just what me need, more snotty Ivy Leaguers at State. I think we ought to make State hire nothing but State Ag & Tech university grads for a decade.
Christmas arrived early this year for this brave, young ex-Muslim convert to Christianity. Judge Mary Goodrich in Columbus, Ohio, has just decided that Rifqa, who will turn eighteen in five days, does not have to return to her family (all of whom are here illegally from Sri Lanka).
Goodrich also said its not in the girls best interest to return her to her native Sri Lanka. Bary is (also) an illegal immigrant. The ruling allows her attorneys to file for a special immigration status to allow her to stay in the U.S. while she continues medical treatment following recent surgery for uterine cancer.
Without going into details, allow me to note that this decision is a triumph of committed pro bono lawyering. Rifqa is both young and poor; nevertheless, she found a legal team able and willing to represent her for no money indeed, to go up against a legal team funded (and/or morally supported) by CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations.
Rifqa, like our earliest founding ancestors, will now be able to freely practice her chosen religion. She converted from Islam to Christianity. This is a capital crime among Muslims and could lead to her death, either at the hands of her own family or at the hands of any righteous Muslim. Rifqas lawyers have defended her right to convert to Christianity without having to die for her choice.
#1
This girl ought to be protected from a criminal and terrorist conspiracy (islam). Her life is in danger. Put her in the witness protection program. We put all sorts of others such as drug dealers, snitches, gang members, etc. in the protection program.
Thought this girl was diagnosed with cancer awhile back?
With the district in a financial crisis and hundreds of its members facing layoffs, the Milwaukee teachers union is taking a peculiar stand: fighting to get its taxpayer-funded Viagra back.
The union has asked a judge to order the school board to again include Pfizer Inc.'s erectile dysfunction drug and similar pills in its health insurance plans.
The filing is the latest in a two-year legal campaign in which the union has argued, so far unsuccessfully, that the board's policy of excluding erectile dysfunction drugs discriminates against male employees. The union says Viagra, Cialis, Levitra and others are necessary treatment for "an exclusively gender-related condition."
Continued on Page 49
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Brown is the Democratic nominee for governor on the November ballot and he previously called the ban unconstitutional. 
[Al Arabiya Latest] Stormy weather grounded helicopters carrying emergency supplies to Pakistan's flood-ravaged northwest Friday as authorities said 12 million people had been effected and 650,000 houses destroyed in the disaster.
With the district in a financial crisis and hundreds of its members facing layoffs, the Milwaukee teachers union is taking a peculiar stand: fighting to get its taxpayer-funded Viagra back.
