| SUNDAY • AUGUST 9, 2009 |
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A FIFTH OF EUROPEAN UNION WILL BE MUSLIM BY 2050: Last year, five per cent of the total population of the 27 EU countries was Muslim. But rising levels of immigration from Muslim countries and low birth rates among Europe’s indigenous population mean that, by 2050, the figure will be 20 per cent, according to forecasts. Data gathered from various sources indicate that Britain, Spain and Holland will have an even higher proportion of Muslims in a shorter amount of time.
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CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION INTO CIA TREATMENT OF DETAINEES EXPECTED: U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. is poised to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA abuses committed during the interrogation of terrorism suspects, current and former U.S. government officials said. A senior Justice Department official said that Holder envisioned an inquiry that would be narrow in scope, focusing on “whether people went beyond the techniques that were authorized” in Bush administration memos that liberally interpreted anti-torture laws.
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GEITHNER ASKS CONGRESS TO INCREASE FEDERAL DEBT LIMIT: U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asked Congress to increase the $12.1 trillion debt limit on Friday, saying it is “critically important” that they act in the next two months.
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CLIMATE CHANGE SEEN AS THREAT TO U.S. SECURITY: The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.
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LBN-NOTICED: ***Music legend Stevie Wonder having dinner at Mr. Chow’s. ***Robert Downey Jr. and wife Susan Levin power-walking at 10 a.m. on Bluff Road in Amagansett, deep in conversation. ***Glamour editor-in- chief Cindi Leive, authors Nathan Englander and Carole Radziwill, and actress Sarah Jones at Michael’s in NYC, giggling over the naked illustrations in Laurie Sandell’s memoir, “The Impostor’s Daughter”. ***Pamela Anderson and her kids buying five bags of Gummi Worms and lolli pops at Sugar Factory in Las Vegas. ***BE AN LBN CORRESPONDENT Send your celebrity sightings to LBNElert@TimeWire.net.
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 LBN-SEE IT:….Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president is isolated and distrusted, and even if he is re-elected this month, thats not likely to change.
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IRAN CHARGES FRENCH WOMAN, EMBASSY WORKERS WITH PLOT: An Iranian court on Saturday charged a French woman, two Iranians working for the British and French embassies in Tehran and dozens of others with spying and aiding a Western plot to overthrow the system of clerical rule. The European Union, France and Britain all condemned the trial. The Swedish EU presidency said in a statement “action against one EU country, citizen or embassy staff, is considered an action against all of the EU.”
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NINE DEAD: A small plane carrying a family and a sightseeing helicopter packed with Italian tourists collided over the Hudson River yesterday in a horrifying spectacle that left nine people dead.
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LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER: ***Cerberus Capital Management had high hopes for Chrysler. But by this spring, a $7.4 billion stake had dwindled to $1.4 billion.
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 LBN NOW IN IRAN: A small but enthusiastic group of 66 people in Iran are now reading the LBN E-Lert daily. Iran becomes the 24 foreign country with daily LBN E-Lert readers.
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LIFE AND SLIMES OF BERNIE THE BORN HUSTLER: Long before Bernard Madoff became the king of Ponzi schemes, he was scamming his way through the streets of Queens and Long Island, tricking suburban moms into buying overpriced sprinkler systems, inflating his golf score and taking the easy way…
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—–LBN E-Lert: Charity Link of the Week—–
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LBN-HEALTH WATCH: ***After an extensive assessment of 87 peer-reviewed studies, the American Psychological Association (APA) has concluded that there is little evidence supporting the effectiveness of efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. In fact, they say, these treatments may cause harm by inducing depression, anxiety, and suicidal tendencies. The APA has since passed a resolution urging mental health professionals to refrain from recommending therapies or treatments purported to change sexual orientation. Homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder in the US until 1975, when it was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
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LBN-MUSIC INSIDER: ***Hundreds of Beatles fans swarmed Abbey Road on Saturday, singing songs and snarling traffic to mark 40 years since John, Paul, George and Ringo strode across the leafy north London street and into the history books on iconic pop photos. The famous photo graced the cover of the Fab Four’s “Abbey Road,” the last album recorded together, and shows the band mates walking purposefully across the zebra-striped asphalt.
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 SMART PEOPLE READ THE LBN E-LERT: Dr. Randal Haworth along with approximately 300,000 other “influencers” understand that information is power and the LBN E-Lert is a power-tool.
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LBN-COMMENTARY By MAUREEN DOWD: Sometimes the people we write about drive us crazy. During the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, I used to wake up in the middle of the night, trying to separate truth from lies. The same thing happened during the imbroglio between Sgt. James Crowley and Henry Louis Gates Jr. In the days before the beer summit (Beer makes me bloat, Gates told me) I woke up in the middle of the night, puzzling over how the policeman and the professor could have such irreconcilable stories. The Cambridge officer wrote in his report that Gates had yelled at him, Ya, Ill speak with your mama outside. The Harvard professor denied it.
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LBN-COMMENTARY By FRANK RICH: While its unlikely that the chorus of President Obamas most strident doomsayers will be proven right, there is growing cause for concern that the president is not the reformer he promised to be.
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LBN-COMMENTARY By MICHAEL LEVINE (Media Expert and Author): The President’s central communications message is to convince people who played by the rules that they aren’t going to have to pay the price of those who didn’t. Tough job.
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LBN-COMMENTARY By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: Ever since the collapse of the Oslo peace accords in 2000, and the horror-show violence that followed, there has been only one thing to say about the West Bank: Nothing ever changes here, except for the worst. That is just not the case anymore much to my surprise. For Palestinians, long trapped between burgeoning Israeli settlements and an Israeli occupation army, subject to lawlessness in their own cities and the fecklessness of their own political leadership, life has clearly started to improve a bit, thanks to a new virtuous cycle: improved Palestinian policing that has led to more Palestinian investment and trade that has led to the Israeli Army dismantling more checkpoints in the West Bank that has led to more Palestinian travel and commerce.
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LBN-COMMENTARY By BARBARA EHRENREICH: It’s too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when its almost illegal to be poor. You wont be arrested for shopping in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, youre well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering. City officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about the ordinances that afflict the destitute, most of which go back to the dawn of gentrification in the 80s and 90s. If youre lying on a sidewalk, whether youre homeless or a millionaire, youre in violation of the ordinance, a city attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., said in June, echoing Anatole Frances immortal observation that the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.
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LBN-COMMENTARY By PATRICIA ANDERSON (Operations Manager of Levine Communications Office): Has the justice system failed us in the incidence of Lily Burk? I definitely feel that the justice system has failed us in the tragic case of Lily Burk. A convicted criminal released into a court-ordered drug treatment program, should not have the ability to freely come and go. The only option should have been a locked treatment facility. But I suppose in todays economy, we would be told that it isnt financially feasible. What a price to paythe end of a life that was just getting started.
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 LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:…Comedian Chelsea Handler…..
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 LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By THEODORE ROOSEVELT: Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. (1899)
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LBN-OVERHEARD: ***The job offers keep coming for Paula Abdul. ABC entertainment president Stephen McPherson on Saturday said he would like to have the former “American Idol” judge on the network’s top-rated reality hit “Dancing with the Stars.”
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LBN-QUOTE: “We will pay for this one way or another. We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and well have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives.”- GEN. ANTHONY C. ZINNI, former head of the Central Command, on climate change.
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LBN-HISTORY: On Aug. 9, 1945, the United States exploded a nuclear device over Nagasaki, Japan, instantly killing an estimated 39,000 people. The explosion came three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
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 LBN-FACESPACE:
1. Name: Gil Parris
2. Occupation: Guitarist/Composer
3. Best thing about your job: Speaking thru the instrument to touch others and meeting new people every single week !
4. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Being sequestered in any way
5. If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be and why? A comedian…because laughter is the key and they don’t have any equipment to carry.
6. What is your most marked characteristic? Compassion
7. Who are your heroes in real life? David Sanborn…because he’s a bright musician and person who has been able to basically do his own thing his own way for 30 plus years!
8. Any New Year Resolution’s for 2009? To continue to reach more people
9. What is your motto? If you have a god given talent recognize your responsibility to develop it.
10. E-mail and website: gilparris@msn.com
www.gilparris.com
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