joyfulchristian

Wow. Now there's a hero!

FOXNews.com - Illinois Father Dies After Shielding Daughter When Car Jumps Curb - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

CHICAGO — Chicago police say a man died as he tried to shield his four-year-old daughter from an auto allegedly driven by a man under the influence of a controlled substance.

Joseph Richardson was walking his daughter Kaniyah to a McDonald's for burgers late Monday when a car jumped the curb. Police say the 39-year-old Richardson grabbed his daughter just before the car slammed the two into a fence.

Kinda speaks for itself

WEIRD BUT TRUE

Derrick Kosch, 25, accidentally shot himself in the testicle as he robbed a convenience store in Kokomo, Ind., cops said.

The gun went off as Kosch placed it in his waistband and reached for the bag of cash the clerk handed to him.

Police found Kosch at home nursing the wound. He was charged with armed robbery.

"You little stinker"

Man sends Christmas cards from beyond the grave.

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Hmmm

I love Australia, so I don't intend to bash them.

Still:

AUSTRALIA will build the world's most lethal conventional submarine fleet, capable of carrying long-range cruise missiles and futuristic midget-subs, to combat an expected arms race in the region.

As I understand it, "conventional" generally is synonymous with "non-nuclear". Given that a non-nuclear sub can stay underwater for extended periods of time while a conventional sub cannot, isn't saying you have deadliest conventional sub a little like saying you have the finest horse calvary in the world of tanks and mechanized infantry?

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She's got his spot

FOXNews.com - Wife Enlists in Army to Take Place of Husband Wounded in Iraq - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

SAN ANTONIO — More than a year after Spc. Alejandro Albarran lost part of his right leg in an explosion in Iraq, he still hasn't decided whether he'll stay in the Army.

"Right now, I'm leaning against it," said the 20-year-old infantryman, looking ahead with distaste to a possible desk job.

Whatever he decides, he won't be leaving Army life behind — because his wife has enlisted to take his place in uniform.

Read the whole thing.

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Yeah, I don't have a category that covers this.

Ahem

MONROE, La. - A man was sentenced to more than four years in prison for bilking friends and family out of more than $800,000 by convincing them that his wife was a government agent who could arrange to have their medical problems diagnosed by satellite imaging.

It gets better:

The Finley's convinced their victims that, if any medical problems were found, secret agents would administer medicine to them as they slept in exchange for payment, according to a bill of information filed when the Finleys were charged in May.

"These audacious criminals should remind all of us that scam artists will go to great lengths to take our life's savings," Washington said.

All it tells me is that Barnum was right. (If he actually said it.)

What's remarkable to me is that anyone would testify against them. Personally if I'd fallen for this, I'd insist that I get to wear a bag over my head in court.

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Well, we know Brian Williams isn't a serious person

Person of the Year - TIME

My nominee for 2007 Person of the Year is a woman--a woman with a history of abuse, a woman who has never run for elective office, someone we all know, someone who makes her presence known on a daily basis in all our lives and, for my money, is better than any male alternative. That woman is Mother Earth. I think the environment is the compelling issue of our time.

Hardly a surprise, I suppose.

Note just above this bit who Aretha Franklin suggests. I think she's got a great point.

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Yeah, not taking that bet

Stephen Green:

UPDATED AGAIN: Something tells me we haven't exactly heard the last of Chavez. Anyone want to bet he won't steal a play from the EU handbook, and keep holding elections until the voters get it right?

I wouldn't bet against him on that one.

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I'm shocked

Chavez finally stopped

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Humbled by his first electoral defeat, President Hugo Chavez said Monday he may have been too ambitious in asking voters to let him stand indefinitely for re-election and endorse a huge leap to a socialist state. "I understand and accept that the proposal I made was quite profound and intense," he said after voters narrowly rejected the sweeping constitutional reform by 51 percent to 49 percent. Opposition activists were ecstatic as the results were announced shortly after midnight - with 88 percent of the vote counted, the trend was declared irreversible by elections council chief Tibisay Lucena. Some shed tears. Others began chanting: "And now he's going away!"

We can only hope.

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Ouch

Aparrently Hulk Hogan found out his wife filed for divorce from a reporter who called to get his reaction.

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And if you'll buy that ...

... I've got some ocean front property in AZ for you.

Sure, this makes sense:

A Michigan man says he shot his neighbor's pregnant cow after mistaking it for a coyote.

Authorities are skeptical, however.

"I don't know how he hit a several-thousand-pound cow mistaking it for a coyote," said Colfax Township Undersheriff Rory Heckman.

Making things even more suspicious, the gunman tried to drag the beefy corpse home.

Sure, it was a coyote ... yeah, that's the ticket.

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Apparently there's a market for this

Now that cigarettes have been banned in British pubs, apparently some people are finding that there are other scents hanging around they'd rather not know about. The solution?

For those Britons who drink in pubs but miss the atmosphere as it was before smoking bans (for example, who may be disoriented by “new” smells that are no longer masked by cigarette smoke), the company Dale Air has introduced, in aerosol cans, a fragrance that it says mimics the musty, ashtray-based scent so familiar to veteran pub-goers.

Apparently someone asked for it.

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I wonder if my in-laws will rethink their plans for January

Antarctic cruise liner hits iceberg, ships rescue 150 - Yahoo! News

SANTIAGO (AFP) - A cruise ship said to be dogged by maintenance woes slammed into an iceberg off Antarctica Friday, and other ships rushed to rescue more than 150 people, all of whom were doing well, officials said. ADVERTISEMENT "They are in good condition. There is no hypothermia, they all have food and clothes. Everything is OK," the captain of the Norwegian ship that carried out the rescue operation, Arnvid Hansen, told AFP by phone.

My father-in-law retired last January. They've been travelling a lot and have a Antarctic cruise planned. I hope they have a better ship.

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One more thing to be thankful for

NYC toddler survives 20-foot fall - Yahoo! News

NEW YORK - A toddler who crawled out a third-floor window during his family's Thanksgiving festivities and fell onto a store roof not only survived — he didn't even break a bone.

Apparently everyone thought the window was closed. Wow!

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What is it Glenn Reynolds says

A pack, not a herd.

A BOY has been saved from possible abduction after his friends pulled him out of a car he had been dragged into by a man.

A man drove up to the group of friends at Midland train station in Perth and called them over yesterday evening, police said today.

When the boys refused, the man demanded the 13-year-old boy approach the car, saying he was a family friend.

When the boy went to the vehicle the man tried to pull the boy inside.

The boy broke free with the help of his friends and they called security guards.

It's clearly good to have friends.

What do you do when you rip a Picasso?

Something like this.

Typically, I find very little useful on Slate, but their Explainer column is generally pretty good.

I can't fathom this

So what should be the punishment for this?

Police say they are still trying to find a man who is alleged to have put a lit cigarette into a child's eye at Dulwich Hill in Sydney's inner-west.

The 18-month-old boy was taken to hospital for treatment.

I've got some thoughts. I hope they catch this guy.

Of course those of us in the know

... undestand that this is just part of a clever subterfuge to hide this.

Really, that many?

I actually found this surprising:

Only 4 percent of Massachusetts adults would feel "very" safe driving through the tunnels of the Big Dig, according to a poll taken in the aftermath of a collapse that killed a motorist.

I find it shocking that it's this high.

 

Chutzpah

You've got to admit that these guys think big:

Fraudsters faked title deeds to a 13-storey Sydney building - headquarters of the Australian Rugby Union - and nearly got away with $14 million in gold bullion.

Using the fake title deeds to claim ownership of Australian Rugby House in North Sydney, the conmen secured a cheque for $14.4 million from a Uniting Church lending fund, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

They went on to use the fraudulently obtained loan proceeds to order $14 million in gold bullion.

Of course, thinking big turned out to be their downfall too:

You don't get $14 million bullion orders every day," Mr Moffatt said. "We've been doing this for a long time and we know when something doesn't smell right.

Oh, those Baldwin boys

You've got to love them. Or something.

I'm often in a hurry to get off the plane

... but this is ridiculous.

SEATTLE -- A woman was arrested Wednesday for attempting to open an airplane exit door while the plane was still in the air, police said.

The 52-year-old woman from Dania Beach, Fla., left her seat and tried to open the door as the United Airlines flight was descending into Seattle to land, police said. The plane was at an altitude of about 4,000 feet at the time.

She was arrrested for "malicious mischief" which sounds like an understatement.

Talk about a nasty shock

A famous Australian architect recently found out, much to his surprise, that his citizenship had been revoked nearly 20 years ago.  Thanks for the heads-up guys!

Contributions are good

... but use your brain please. 

Apparently Sri Lanka has gotten a lot of contributions for tsunami relief that are simply useless.  In fact, they've gotten enough of it that they're going to start taxing it:

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Tropical Sri Lanka is grateful for a deluge of tsunami aid but said on Friday it drew the line at used winter jackets, blankets and other second-hand clothes and would tax unsuitable aid to discourage it.

Practical items for tsunami survivors, such as new clothes, tents, building materials and water purification equipment would not be taxed, the Ministry of Finance and Planning said in a statement.

"We want to discourage the importation and donation of used clothes. Some of the stuff cannot be used," said a senior finance ministry official who asked not to be identified.

"I think they have been sent with good intention. Maybe  they thought Sri Lanka was on the South Pole," he told Reuters.

This may sound a little harsh until you think about it.  All the time and resources that ends up getting burned transporting items that cannot be used by recipients takes away from resources needed to get them stuff they can actually use.  Contributing items that are worthless does more harm than good.

 

Won't see that happen here

Poland's Constitutional Tribunal has thrown out an income tax increase on the grounds that taxpayers were given insufficient time to prepare for the new tax.  Somehow, I doubt the people who argue that the US Constitution needs to be interpreted in light of foreign court opinions will be jumping on this one.

Bravo

Let's hear it for PWC: (registration required)

AP WorldStream English (all) via NewsEdge Corporation : UNITED NATIONS_In an unusual move, the United Nations said it will use an outside firm of accountants to help track the billions of dollars pledged to help the victims of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

Price-Waterhouse-Coopers has offered its services on a pro bono, or no fee, basis to the United Nations to help create a financial tracking system, Kevin Kennedy, a senior official in the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said Monday.

On a related note, there's an accompanying statement from the same UN spokesman that this has nothing to do with the lately revealed financial incompetence and thievery at the UN.  Nothing to see here; move along.

I've got to give it up for PWC though.  With them providing free services to monitor the money, there's at least a chance the funds may actually be used to help the victims.

Kids accidentally hit your vehicle with a golf ball. What should you do?

Not this:

Isiah Grayer, 14, and his 16-year-old twin stepbrothers, Justin and Jamel Marshman, were bouncing the golf ball in a shopping center parking lot Sunday afternoon when it went astray and struck a sport utility vehicle driven by Kathy Feaganes Allen, 47, St. Johns County sheriff's Deputy Greg Suchy said.

Suchy said no damage was done, and the boys apologized and began to walk away. Allen started to drive away, but suddenly made a U-turn, ran over a median and struck Grayer, causing severe injuries, and Justin Marshman before knocking over a light pole, Suchy said.

She then drove after Jamel Marshman, crossing two medians and striking a utility box before her SUV stopped in a ditch, Suchy said. The boy ran away and was not struck.

Witness Russell McPhee said Allen accelerated to hit the boys.

"She charged them," he said. "This was the most deliberate act."

As far as I'm concerned, she should spend the rest of her natural life in prison. Courts sometimes talk of events that "shock the conscience." This certainly seems to fall into that category.

Of course, this isn't the first story to say so

... but Arafat is dead again.

Granted, I'm no expert

But when someone claims that the flu is going to kill a billion people in the next 6 months, my BS meter goes off.

The world is on the brink of a major flu epidemic — one that could claim more than a billion lives, the head of the Russian Virology Institute, Academician Dmitry Lvov said at a press conference organized by the RIA-Novosti news agency on Thursday.

“Up to one billion people could die around the whole world in six months,” Lvov said. The expert did not give a timeframe for the epidemic, but said that it is highly probable that it will start this year. “We are half a step away from a worldwide pandemic catastrophe,” the academic said.

The last I heard, the population of the earth is estimated somewhere between 5.5 and 6 billion people. If 1 billion died that would be between 16 and 18 % of the entire population of the planet. According to the BBC, between 30 to 45% of the general population was killed by the black death outbreak of 1348 to 1360.

I find it very hard to believe that we're going to have a flu epidemic that will kill of about half the number percentage that were killed over a 12 year span by the black death in only 6 months. Especially given the advanced state of medical knowledge and sanitation. Even most backwater places today have far superior practices than were maintained in medieval Europe.

I could be wrong, but this just doesn't make sense to me.

This is not good

There's no indication of how serious this is, but:

WASHINGTON - Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the second-oldest man to preside over the nation's highest court and its premier conservative figure, is undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer.

Hopefully the surgery will take care of this.

Halloween Disrespectful to Witches

You can't make this stuff up folks.

A letter sent home to parents Wednesday said there will be no observance of Halloween in any of the district's schools.

"We really want to make sure we're using all of our time in the best interest of our students," Puyallup School District spokeswoman Karen Hansen said.

The superintendent made the decision for three primary reasons, Hansen said. First, Halloween parties and parades waste valuable classroom time. Second, some families can't afford costumes and the celebrations thus can create embarrassment for children.

Both of those reasons seemed sensible to the parents who spoke to ABC News affiliate KOMO-TV in Seattle. But the district's third reason left some Puyallup parents shaking their heads.

The district said Halloween celebrations and children dressed in Halloween costumes might be offensive to real witches.

"Witches with pointy noses and things like that are not respective symbols of the Wiccan religion and so we want to be respectful of that," Hansen said.

I guess they'll be banning Macbeth as well.

My cousin and his wife are both deaf

... so I find this report very interesting.

Wow

Some Palestinians actually oppose suicide bombings:

According to the poll, more than 43 percent of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem support ending suicide attacks in Israel, while 42.8% believe the bombings should continue.

But less we think this is a trend:

The poll did not include residents of the Gaza Strip, a fact that explains the drop in the number of Palestinians who favor suicide attacks.

Now here's a curious part:

Asked how they would vote in the elections for the PA, 44.9% said they would choose Arafat. Imprisoned West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti came in second with 15.6%. Former PA prime minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) received 12.1%, while his successor, Ahmed Qurei, came in fourth with 11.3%.

And how many years over-due are these elections? 7 I think. Does this mean people actually expect elections some time soon? That would be a change.

CBS still doesn't get it

Michael Goodwin on the goings-on at CBS:

Rathergate be damned, CBS News still doesn't get it. A month after it embarrassed itself with the discredited story about President Bush's National Guard service, the network continues to send mixed signals about the mess it created. Most shocking, top brass apparently are allowing the same team that screwed up the initial report to keep working on the story.

Note to CBS: The first rule of holes is, when you find yourself in one, stop digging. Step away from the shovel!

But noooo. Having learned nothing the first time, CBS seems doomed and determined to repeat history. Mary Mapes, the producer who masterminded the disaster and tainted her colleagues by putting her source in touch with the Kerry campaign, could be among those working on the story even now.

Read the rest.

Frightening

Here's a story of a troubled child:

The girl and the sitter had gotten into an argument over feeding a dog, and the girl began to beat and choke the animal, Hubbard said. The sitter tried to pry the girl off the dog.

The scuffle moved to the front yard, where the girl grabbed a shovel and then a baseball bat in an attempt to attack the woman, Hubbard said. The girl next found a BB gun, but the woman got it away from her, he said.

The altercation continued until the girl found the machete lying in the yard and began to chase the woman, who took refuge in the bathroom, Hubbard said.

Two points here. The first is that this kid is clearly out of control and I hope they're able to find help for her. The second is what on earth was a machete doing laying in the yard.

My prediction about Mary Mapes in one word

Toast.

I'm not the only one that's noticed that the ongoing CBS line is that everything that went wrong with the Ra^thergate fiasco was somehow Mary Mapes fault. The most damaging charge to date is that she was colluding with the John Kerry campaign prior to the story being released.

Based on what I've seen so far, it does seem that Mapes was guilty of, at a minimum, gross incompetence. However, it seems highly unlikely that it's ALL her fault.

We need more fire and brimstone

It's for the economy!

Researchers at the regional Federal Reserve bank acknowledged the importance of productivity and investment in the economic process but looked at some recent unconventional efforts to explain differences in national prosperity.

The St Louis Fed drew on work by outside economists who studied 35 countries, including the United States, European nations, Japan, India and Turkey and found that religion shed some useful light.

"In countries where large percentages of the population believe in hell, there seems to be less corruption and a higher standard of living," the St. Louis Fed said in its July quarterly review.

Make of it what you will.

I'm sure you're all shocked to hear this

China is going to start censoring and monitoring text messaging:

SHANGHAI, China - Chinese authorities plan to use new technology to improve surveillance of mobile phone messages amid efforts to intensify policing of private communications, reports said Friday.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the campaign was aimed at cleaning up "pornographic, obscene and fraudulent" phone messages that have "infiltrated short messaging content."

According to the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders, the campaign also aims to widen surveillance of political dissent.

China? Target political dissent? Say it ain't so!

Reporters Without Borders issued a statement protesting news that a Chinese company, Venus Info Tech Ltd., was authorized by Beijing to sell a "realtime surveillance system" for SMS messages.

The technology uses filtering algorithms created by the government-run Chinese Academy of Sciences to identify key words and combinations of words that might be associated with political rumors and "reactionary remarks," the group said.

The new surveillance systems can automatically alert police and keep records of suspect messages, it said.

The Xinhua report did not directly mention politically unacceptable messages but noted that violent text messages or those that could "harm economic interests" were also cause for concern.

"Harm economic interest"? I'm sure economics is all they're interested in. Surlely.

I'm hoping somebody gets fired for this

How exactly do you land your plane at the wrong airport? More specifically, how do you accidentally land your plane at an Air Force Base on accident.

Kudos to the Boston Herald

... for covering this:

Leaders of the Nine-Eleven commission say their differences with the White House over al-Qaida's relationship with Saddam Hussein isn't a major point of contention. The Bush administration used Saddam's alleged link with terrorists as a justification to go to war. A commission staff report says there were contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq, but they didn't produce a collaborative relationship. Vice President Cheney has said Iraq did respond to some of Osama bin Laden's requests for Assistance.

With so many in the press trying to say that the Commission's report is a sharp refutation of administration claims, it's nice to see some outlets actually report that the Commission itself says that their report is no such thing.

Why not?

So far the Israeli security fence seems to be working fairly well. It's unsurprising, therefore, that they're looking for other ideas along the same lines:

The Israeli military is seeking bids for building an 80-foot-deep trench along part of Gaza's border with Egypt that would be intended to block the digging of tunnels used for smuggling arms to Palestinian militants.

Military officials who disclosed the plan on Thursday, after the request for bids was published in newspapers, cautioned that the decision to build the trench was not final and would depend on the financial and engineering details proposed by contractors. But the tentative design suggests that it could be a major undertaking costing millions of dollars.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Ain't this cool?

I want my transporter!

Well, not yet, but they're getting better. (Via the Daily Briefing)

Oh, this is rich

Arafat's been talking again:

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat urged Europeans to expend extra effort so that the Middle East "Road Map" peace plan could become a reality.

In a statement to the German magazine Stern, Arafat said: "The Europeans must make extra effort in order for the Middle East peace plan to be applied. Europe presently has a great responsibility to realize the plan. This is an important opportunity for the European Union (EU). The efforts undertaken within the next six months are especially important."

Why exactly is it that Europe (or anyone else) has such a "great responsibility" to bring peace to the middle east? It seems to me that if what Arafat really wanted was peace he could, I don'g know, stop Palestinians from blowing up pizza parlors and bat mitzvahs. That'd be a start.

Loooooveeeely!

Ladies and gentleman, Bluetooth is vulnerable:

Security experts have discovered what is believed to be the world's first computer "worm" aimed at mobile phones. The worm does not appear to pose an immediate threat to cellphone users, but it suggests that mobile phones are much more vulnerable to virus-writers and hackers than previously thought.

[...]

The malicious code, dubbed "cabir", is a worm that replicates on the Symbian operating system used in several brands of mobile phones, such as Nokia, Siemens and Panasonic.

The worm was anonymously sent to experts in various countries, but has not been detected circulating among cellphone users. It propagates through the "Bluetooth" wireless technology, repeatedly sending itself to any Bluetooth-enabled device that it can find, regardless of the type. The worm will not damage a phone or its software but shortens the device's battery life by constantly scanning for other Bluetooth-enabled devices.

Cheers!

This is the most bizarre story I've seen in a long time

This is just incomprehensible:

GRANBY, Colo., June 5 -- An angry citizen with a grudge against City Hall and the local newspaper was found dead Saturday morning in his home-made armored tank after a destructive rampage that turned parts of downtown Granby into rubble heaps Friday -- but injured no one except the perpetrator.

[...]

Working for months in a closed garage, Heemeyer equipped an old bulldozer with three television cameras and monitors so he could see to steer. He cut portholes for his guns, then welded a tight enclosure around them so police bullets could not penetrate. For armor, he poured 12 inches of concrete between metal plates welded to the vehicle. Police found two semiautomatic machine guns, a .223-caliber rifle and two handguns in the vehicle. All those weapons are legal in Colorado.

Heemeyer started down his road to revenge Friday afternoon. He bashed in the cement plant, then rumbled through town to the combination City Hall and library. Librarian Cathy Pritchard said she said she hustled a group of children attending story hour out the back door just before the building fell.

He apparently knocked down several buildings and damaged several others beyond repair. Then he killed himself. The story mentions that he was an angry guy nursing several grudges, but I have trouble understanding how anything could drive someone to this.

Some things can even make Scott Ott be serious

Can't argue with this:

(2004-06-05) -- Former U.S. President Ronald Wilson Reagan died at home this afternoon at the age of 93, after a decade-long journey with Alzheimer's disease.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy, three children and several hundred million men, women and children in the former Soviet Union, and around the world, who were set free from the hopeless terror of communist tyranny through his steadfast courage and unwavering faith.

He sure was an example to me.

Well, I knew the day would come

... but that doesn't make it any easier. Ronald Reagan, the man who saved the world from the Soviet Union, has died. It is a sad, sad day.

Don't know what to make of this

A Secret Service employee has been charged with perjury in the Martha Stewart trial.

If this pans out

... I have no idea what we'd do about it.

Syrian technicians accompanying unknown equipment were killed in the train explosion in North Korea on April 22, according to a report in a Japanese newspaper.

A military specialist on Korean affairs revealed that the Syrian technicians were killed in the explosion in Ryongchon in the northwestern part of the country, according to the Sankei Shimbun. The specialist said the Syrians were accompanying "large equipment" and that the damage from the explosion was greatest in the portion of the train they occupied.

The source said North Korean military personnel with protective suits responded to the scene soon after the explosion and removed material only from the Syrians' section of the train.

I have no idea what to make of this. It's not encouraging though.

Those of you who think we're living in a fascist state

... remind me again how many foreign reporters have been expelled for insulting the President?

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva came under criticism Wednesday for deciding to expel a New York Times correspondent who had written a story saying the Brazilian leader was a heavy drinker.

The newspaper protested the order against correspondent Larry Rohter and said it ``would take appropriate action to defend his rights.''

Rohter's visa was canceled and he was given eight days to leave the country - the first expulsion of a journalist since the 20-year military dictatorship ended in 1984. The last time a foreign journalist was expelled was in the 1970s.

``It's a political mistake. The government managed to transform a victory into a defeat - it went from victim to villain. There is no precedent for this during democracy,'' said Sen. Jefferson Peres of the left-leaning Democratic Labor Party.

Oh, that's right. The correct answer is none.

And no, I don't consider Brazil a fascist state either, no where close. But this isn't exactly encouraging.