 It's always difficult for US servicemen and women to be away from home, serving overseas, and especially so during the holiday season, and especially during wartime. But one Virginia woman is making an extraordinary effort to give them a little taste of home. As CBS News correspondent Joie Chen reports, even that woman admits it started as a sort of half-baked idea! Germaine Broussard admits she's no Betty Crocker. "I got a 'B,' in home ec," she concedes. But more than 30,000 American servicemen and women have eaten the chocolate chips (to which Broussard adds baking powder, to keep them fluffy), sugar cookies, oatmeal raisins, and all the other kinds she makes in her home in McLean, in northern Virginia. No doubt, Chen observes, they're the best those military members have ever tasted. Broussard tells Chen she doesn't ever want to stick her finger in and taste the dough, "not after that many. In three years, I've baked over 53,000 homemade cookies." And that may be a low-ball estimate...
http://www.cbsnews.com
censor News |
Editor - 11:22:00 12-20-06
|
 U.S. Scraps $877M Anthrax Vaccine Contract |
The government has canceled an $877 million contract for a new anthrax vaccine, after the struggling manufacturer missed a key deadline to begin human tests of the shots. VaxGen Inc.'s "failure to perform is not excusable," said a terse letter the Department of Health and Human Services sent to the California-based company late Tuesday. The agency concluded the failure put VaxGen in default of the company's federal contract — meaning that for now, the government has no clear plan to find a next-generation anthrax vaccine. The decision had been expected since November but still was bad news, both for VaxGen and the government. The VaxGen contract was supposed to be the crown jewel of Project BioShield, a $5.6 billion government program to build national drug stockpiles in case of a bioterror attack — by guaranteeing sales if a company took the risk of developing such a drug. ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/20/health/main2283452.shtml?source=RSSattr=U.S._2283452
full News |
Editor - 11:15:00 12-20-06
|
| Refinancing demand plunges as mortgage rates rise |
Mortgage applications slumped last week, weighed down by a plunge in demand for home refinancing loans, as interest rates climbed from recent lows, an industry trade group said Wednesday.The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and purchasing loans, for the week ended Dec. 15 decreased 10.2% to 647.6 from the previous week's 721.2, which was its highest level in more than a year.Borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, excluding fees, averaged 6.10%, up from 6.02% the previous week. Two weeks prior, 30-year mortgage rates fell to 5.98%, the lowest level since October 2005.Interest rates were below year-ago levels of 6.22%.The MBA's seasonally adjusted purchase index fell 5.9% to 436.5. The index was also below its year-ago level of 453.1.The purchase index is considered a timely gauge of U.S. home sales. ...
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/housing/2006-12-20-mortgage-apps_x.htm?csp=34
full News |
Editor - 11:03:00 12-20-06
|
| Memo ties Saddam to gas attacks, say prosecutors |
Prosecutors at Saddam's genocide trial produced documents on Wednesday they said showed he ordered his intelligence services to study launching chemical attacks against ethnic Kurds and Iran. Saddam and six others are on trial for the Anfal (Spoils of War) campaign against ethnic Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980s in which prosecutors say up to 180,000 people were killed in gas attacks and mass executions. "Mr. President ordered our office to study with experts launching a sudden strike on bases of (Ayatollah) Khomeini's guards and Barzani saboteurs using special ammunition," chief prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon read from what he said was a March 1987 internal memo by Saddam's military intelligence. They don’t mention that the US supplied the Gas and supplied the American experts and the weather info that helped Saddam do this. Then our Government killed a UN resolution condemning Saddam for this. However, we don’t want to be reminded of our governments complicity in this do we...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061220/ts_nm/iraq_saddam_dc
full News |
Editor - 10:58:00 12-20-06
|
| Blair: Iran Is Main Obstacle To Peace. Sounds ok if you forget just who are doing all the invading of other countries |
British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrapped up a Middle East tour Wednesday with a blunt speech warning that the world faces a monumental struggle between moderates and extremists — and labeling Iran the main obstacle to hopes for peace. In an address to business leaders and journalists in Dubai, Blair said combating extremism and the violence it foments was the greatest challenge of the 21st century. He said the lesson he had drawn from his five-day Mideast trip was "startlingly real, clear and menacing." "There is a monumental struggle going on worldwide between those who believe in democracy and moderation, and forces of reaction and extremism," Blair said. And just which so-called peace loving democratic countries have been attacking and invading other countries? But he says Iran is the problem??? Just who are these forces of reaction and extremism? Hmmm...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/20/world/main2284507.shtml?source=RSSattr=World_2284507
full News |
Editor - 10:47:00 12-20-06
|
| Turks acquitted over Chomsky book |
Four Turks have been acquitted of insulting "Turkishness" in their translation of a book by prominent American writer Noam Chomsky. Publisher Fatih Tas was found not guilty, along with a translator and two editors, of contravening article 301 of the penal code. The European Union has pressed Turkey to reform the code, which it views as a bar on freedom of expression. It followed the acquittal of another author, Ipek Calislar, on Tuesday. Ms Calislar had been accused of insulting modern Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, by writing that he had once fled disguised as a woman. The law has also been used against dozens of writers and journalists, including acclaimed novelists Orhan Pamuk - this year's Nobel laureate for literature - and Elif Shafak. Most have been acquitted. Fatih Tas had published a Turkish version of Chomsky's book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6198021.stm
full News |
Editor - 10:31:00 12-20-06
|
|
| post The Good, The Bad and The Ugly |
|
|
