O Departamento de Defesa dos Estados Unidos anunciou que está à procura de “pais virtuais” que possam dar suporte emocional às crianças cujos pais estão servindo no Afeganistão ou no Iraque.

O governo solicita propostas para um programa de computador que permita a interação entre a criança e uma versão virtual de seus pais. Oficiais esperam que a máquina supra a carência e as conversas, quando o contato por telefone ou internet é impossível.

A ideia é que o aplicativo de vídeo seja desenvolvido em alta resolução e tecnologia 3D, e que a criança obtenha respostas quando diz “eu amo você”, “sinto sua falta”, ou “boa noite, mamãe/papai”.

In the middle of the news conference with Mr Maliki, a reporter stood up and shouted “this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog,” before hurtling his shoes at Mr Bush, narrowly missing him.

video on link. was Bush drunk?

The Greek cargo ship Centauri was hijacked by pirates off the Somali coast and released
Nov. 27 after more than two months in captivity.

December 09, 2008 11:26 AM
by Christopher Coats
Over the last year, pirates off the coast of Africa have caused a media frenzy and captured international curiosity.

By John Cheves

Under state law, God is Kentucky’s first line of defense against terrorism.

The 2006 law organizing the state Office of Homeland Security lists its initial duty as “stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth.”

Specifically, Homeland Security is ordered to publicize God’s benevolent protection in its reports, and it must post a plaque at the entrance to the state Emergency Operations Center with an 88-word statement that begins, “The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.”

State Rep. Tom Riner, a Southern Baptist minister, tucked the God provision into Homeland Security legislation as a floor amendment that lawmakers overwhelmingly approved two years ago.

As amended, Homeland Security’s religious duties now come before all else, including its distribution of millions of dollars in federal grants and its analysis of possible threats.

The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of “palling around with terrorists”, citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.

The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling “terrorist” and “kill him” until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.

But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.

By Marisol Bello, USA TODAY

The white-power movement is changing its marketing strategy to broaden its appeal.

The USA’s largest neo-Nazi group is ditching its trademark brown Nazi uniform with swastika armband for a more muted look in black fatigues.

In Pennsylvania, the Keystone State Skinheads is changing its name to Keystone United to attract members.

The nation’s largest white-power website, Stormfront, has a new feature that lets members create social-networking pages. The site has had as many as 42,700 unique visitors in a 24-hour period this month, a steady rise since it started in 1995.

Supremacist groups are on the rise as they market themselves to middle America, according to leaders of the groups and organizations that monitor them. They are fueled by the debate over illegal immigration and a struggling economy.

“Many white supremacist groups are going more mainstream,” says Jack Levin, a Northeastern University criminologist who studies hate crime. “They are eliminating the sheets and armbands. … The groups realize if they want to be attractive to middle-class types, they need to look middle-class.“

Four employees hired by a temporary staffing agency to encourage absentee voting for Sen. John McCain in Wisconsin say they were instructed to tell people they were Republican volunteers.

The employees told The Associated Press in interviews on Monday they were hired by Allstaff Labor Group to go door-to-door in the Milwaukee suburbs locating McCain supporters and distributing absentee ballot request forms.

Allstaff recruited the workers under a contract with a consulting firm hired by the Republican Party of Wisconsin to run its absentee ballot program.

If recent polls are to be believed, white voters favor John McCain over Barack Obama by nearly ten percentage points, but the McCain and Obama camps probably haven’t factored in the following fact: In an informal Esquire survey, three out of four white supremacists prefer Obama, while McCain is the clear favorite among black nationalists. (Sure, our methodology suffered from an extraordinarily low sample size — limited to four white supremacists and one black nationalist — but just because it wouldn’t fly with Gallup doesn’t mean there ain’t a kernel of truth in there.) This is just one of many surprising views that emerged after we talked to extremists about this historic electoral showdown between a 46-year-old black man and a 71-year-old white man.

O brasileiro Joel Lemos, de 38 anos, foi sentenciado ontem a 40 anos de prisão por um atentado à bomba em 2005, em Somerville, nos Estados Unidos. A vítima foi outro brasileiro, José Fernando, que escapou com vida, mas ficou com seqüelas nos olhos. Lemos também recebeu duas condenações (20 anos) de “probation”, na qual ficará sob observação do governo americano. A família vai recorrer.

Saturday 25 October 2008
by: Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times

John McCain isn’t boasting about a new endorsement, one of the very, very few he has received from overseas. It came a few days ago:

“Al Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” read a commentary on a password-protected Islamist Web site that is closely linked to Al Qaeda and often disseminates the group’s propaganda.

The endorsement left the McCain campaign sputtering, and noting helplessly that Hamas appears to prefer Barack Obama. Al Qaeda’s apparent enthusiasm for Mr. McCain is manifestly not reciprocated.

“The transcendent challenge of our time [is] the threat of radical Islamic terrorism,” Senator McCain said in a major foreign policy speech this year, adding, “Any president who does not regard this threat as transcending all others does not deserve to sit in the White House.”