clipped from www.declawing.com

First, you should know that declawing is pretty much an American thing, it's something people do for their own convenience without realizing what actually happens to their beloved cat. In England declawing is termed "inhumane" and "unnecessary mutilation." I agree. In many European countries it is illegal. I applaud their attitude.

Declawing is actually an amputation of the last joint of your cat's "toes". When you envision that, it becomes clear why declawing is not a humane act.

This is not a surgery to be taken lightly.

Your cat's body is perfectly designed to give it the grace, agility and beauty that is unique to felines. Its claws are an important part of this design.

Amputating the important part of their anatomy that contains the claws drastically alters the conformation of their feet.

I have also had people tell me that their cat's personality changed after being declawed.

declawing is too drastic a solution

Is there an acceptable solution?

Happily, the answer is yes.

clipped from www.military.com

The words "war on terror" will no longer be used by the British government to describe attacks on the public, the country's chief prosecutor said Dec. 27.

Sir Ken Macdonald said terrorist fanatics were not soldiers fighting a war but simply members of an aimless "death cult."

The Director of Public Prosecutions said: 'We resist the language of warfare, and I think the government has moved on this. It no longer uses this sort of language."

London is not a battlefield, he said.

His remarks signal a change in emphasis across Whitehall, where the "war on terror" language has officially been ditched.

Officials were concerned it could act as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda, which is determined to manufacture a battle between Islam and the West.

The term "Islamic terrorist" will also no longer be used. Officials believe it is unhelpful because it appears to directly link the religion to terrorist atrocities.

clipped from www.tnr.com

The story is simple: That it's well-established scientific fact that being "overweight"--that is, having a body mass index figure of between 25 and 30--is, in the words of Harvard professors Walter Willett and Meir Stampfer, "a major contributor to morbidity and mortality."

According to this line of argument, there's simply no real scientific dispute about the "fact" that average-height women who weigh between 146 and a 174 pounds, and average-height men who weigh between 175 and 209 pounds, are putting their lives and health at risk.

t's difficult to exaggerate the extent to which the actual scientific evidence fails to support any of this. In fact, the current evidence suggests that what the Harvard crew is saying is not merely false, but closer to the precise opposite of the truth. For the most part, the so-called "overweight" BMI range doesn't even correlate with overall increased health risk. Indeed "overweight," so-called, often correlates with the lowest mortality rates.

clipped from www.abc.net.au

British archaeologists believe they have found the remains of a 1,000-year-old Viking longship underneath a pub near Liverpool.

The ship is thought to lie beneath two metres of clay, under the car park of the Railway Inn pub on the Wirral peninsula in Merseyside.

The Vikings are known to have settled in the area.

An archaeologist from the University of Nottingham used ground-penetrating radar to pinpoint the location of the remains.

He says they are of a Nordic-style vessel from a time when Vikings came to the area.

clipped from www.youtube.com

Dear Mr. President

Watch Video

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com

GEIST:  And the flowers bloom on his birthday, I believe.  It‘s amazing how things work there.  Good for Congressman Royce. 

Well, Tucker, the first of four of those giant cardboard checks handed out in the 330 million dollar mega million jackpot today.  A guy from Maryland named Bunky Bartlett got his 82.5 million buck today.  Make no mistake, he didn‘t win the money because of luck, he won it because of Wiccan magic. 

Bunky is an accountant who also teaches Wicca, which is a nature based religion.  He and his wife were on their way it a mystical bookstore when he stopped to buy the winning ticket.  Bunky says, quote, the universe was working its magic.  He now plans to quit his job and concentrate on teaching Wicca. 

Boy you could teach a lot of Wicca with that kind of cash. 

CARLSON:  You‘re saying basically the U.S. government is subsidizing some kind of devil worshiper, Satanism. 

GEIST:  That‘s exactly what I am getting at. 

CARLSON:  That‘s perfect. 

clipped from www.godweb.org

The Top Dozen Religions of the World

What are the largest religions of the world? What are their membership statistics, relative size, locations, rankings? Find out now simply by looking at the table and map below:

Religion:	Members:
Christianity	2 Billion
Islam	1.2 Billion
Hinduism	785 Million
Buddhism	360 Million
Judaism	17 Million
Sikhism	16 Million
Baha'i	5 Million
Confucianism	5 Million
Jainism	4 Million
Shintoism	3 Million
Wicca	.7 Million
Zoroastrianism	.2 Million

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk

The annual Perseid meteor shower will reach its peak during the early hours of Monday, but it will be visible from Saturday night until Tuesday morning.

The celestial show will be most apparent in the north-eastern part of the sky near the Perseus constellation.

If the skies remain clear, it will offer stargazers the best opportunity for a few years to see the Perseids.

The shower this year coincides with a new Moon, providing sky watchers with the dark skies necessary for excellent observing conditions.

The best viewing conditions will be where the sky is clearest and darkest. However, meteors should be visible, to a lesser degree, in cities despite light pollution and smog.

Both hemispheres will receive good views but the prime locations will be Western Europe and North America.

As an added bonus, watchers should be able to see Mars, which will be in view as a bright red dot in the eastern sky after midnight.

clipped from machinist.salon.com

But if you were at home listening to the show on the Webcast being provided by AT&T, you would have missed those lines. As the band writes on its site, the Web transmission cut out the protest lines. AT&T says its monitor did so by mistake -- what a strangely precise and politically convenient mistake!

In a press release, Gigi Sohn, the president of the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, says:

How can we trust a company that promises not to interfere with content on the Internet when it has its corporate finger on the button to cut off political criticisms it doesn't like? The admitted censoring of a Pearl Jam performance is just one more reason why content should be protected against the actions of a company looking out for itself, rather than for consumers and the free flow of information over the Internet.... We hope the FCC and Congress take note.