IT WAS front-page news this week when Newsweek retracted a report claiming that a US interrogator in Guantanamo had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet. Everywhere it was noted that Newsweek's story had sparked widespread Muslim rioting, in which at least 17 people were killed. But there was no mention of deadly protests triggered in recent years by comparable acts of desecration against other religions. ADVERTISEMENT No one recalled, for example, that American Catholics lashed...

WASHINGTON May 19, 2005 — The number of new people signing up for jobless benefits dropped sharply last week, offering an encouraging sign for the health of the labor market. The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for unemployment insurance declined by a seasonally adjusted 20,000 to 321,000 for the week ending May 14. The decline, larger than expected, pleased economists. The four-week moving average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week fluctuations, ...

Debunking more of col's bs. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. retail sales turned in their strongest showing in seven months in April, rising 1.4 percent in a broad-based gain that doubled expectations and may further dispel fears of an economic soft spot. ADVERTISEMENT The Commerce Department said on Thursday the increase -- which topped economists' expectations for a 0.7 percent climb -- was the largest since September. Link

Maybe if they put this much effort into condeming terrorism instead of defending it, the group wouldn't be "controversial". The Canadian branch of the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling for censure of an Israeli diplomat who said most terrorists today are Muslims and the majority of Muslims support extremism. The Canadian group, CAIR-CAN, wants Candian Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew to censure Israeli Consul General Ya'acov Brosh for his commen...

The conviction of a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) state operative is but the latest apparent link between that Islamist organization and Islamist terrorism. On April 13, 2005, Ghassan Elashi, founder of the group's Texas chapter (CAIR-Texas) – as well as longtime associate of CAIR's top leadership and beneficiary of CAIR fundraising and support – was convicted of laundering money for Islamic terrorist organizations from November 1995 through April 2001. Dating back to the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. trade deficit narrowed unexpectedly to $55.0 billion in March in the largest monthly drop in over three years, as exports rose to a new record and clothing and other imports from China declined, a U.S. government report showed on Wednesday. The 9.2 percent plunge in the deficit defied Wall Street forecasts. Analysts had expected high oil prices and a flood of clothing from China to push the monthly trade gap to around $61.5 billion, which would have been ...

I am downloading now, it looks interesting. Yahoo's online music strategy has finally taken shape after a year of development with the launch of the Yahoo! Music Engine, the company's challenger to iTunes and subscription services such as Napster. While it may be late to the party, Yahoo threatens to shake up the industry with prices 60 percent less than its rivals. Betanews link. Link

They have updated Firefox to fix some security issues. Link

I find it interesting the people that were writing articles about Delay totally ignore this. Media: The criminal trial of David Rosen, a former staffer of Sen. Hillary Clinton, began Tuesday, but who'd know? Not a public that's been swamped with news of Rep. Tom DeLay (news, bio, voting record)'s troubles. ADVERTISEMENT But what laws has DeLay broken? And what laws has he been accused of breaking? While it's not possible to answer the former with any degree of certainty, the answe...

Here is something else the media is avoiding. LOS ANGELES -- The federal trial of David Rosen promises to be one that political insiders will watch with interest. Jury selection was scheduled to begin Tuesday in the case against Rosen, a former finance director for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. The case could provide ammunition to Republicans seeking to derail her re-election next year and potential 2008 bid for the White House. Link

PHOENIX (AP) Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed a bill Monday that would have made English the state’s official language and required that government business be conducted in English. Supporters said the measure was needed to encourage assimilation of immigrants, but opponents said it was an attack on illegal immigrants. In her veto letter, Napolitano said non-English speakers should be encouraged to learn the language, but that the bill did not do anything to achieve that. Lawmakers ha...

Winamp 5.12 released. http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Winamp_5_Full/1066336873/1

WASHINGTON, May 1, 2005 – Rubar S. Sandi, an Iraqi businessman, wants the American public to know U.S. troops killed in Iraq have not died in vain. "Your sons, your husband," he said to the wife of Army Capt. Bill Jacobsen, who died in a suicide-bomb attack in Mosul, Iraq, "I don't call them dead; they live in every one of us. "You all need to be proud of your sons and daughters," he said. "They are doing a terrific job. Their lives have definitely not been wasted. They are there because...

Released: April 26, 2005 Red/Blue Divide Still Evident: Red States Give Bush 50% Job Approval, 42% in Blues; War on Terror Bush’s Strength—Low Marks on Other Facets of Job; Handling of Social Security Nets Lowest Score; Bush Would Still Beat Kerry Today (46% to 41%), New Zogby Poll Reveals President George W. Bush, despite low marks on most facets of his job, would still beat Democrat John Kerry (46% to 41%)—and would still win handily in the Red States that handed him his re-election vi...

Most Americans think press coverage is biased and negative, but say they respect journalists and trust what they read and hear. A national survey conducted by the Missouri School of Journalism's Center for Advanced Social Research found that 62 percent consider journalism credible, and more than half rated newspapers and television news as trustworthy. But 85 percent say they detect a bias in reporting. Of those, 48 percent identified the bias as liberal, 30 percent as conservative, 1...