By Deborah Charles
A picturesque waterfront city, once the capital of the United States, has a chance of making Middle East history this month when Israelis and Palestinians meet to talk peace.
"We wonder 'Why here?"' said a Main Street shop employee in Annapolis, a city of 36,000 people best known as home to the 162-year-old U.S. Naval Academy. "I think it's security -- they can lock the gates at the academy."
All over town, people said they were bracing for the tight security likely to accompany Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the U.S.-brokered meeting in the city.
"It's going to close everything up," said the employee of the upscale boutique, who asked not to be identified, as she contemplated the potential damage to the start of the Christmas shopping season. "This is our best season of the year and they're going to take it away from us."
"Parking is always hard and it will get even worse," said a woman who wanted to be identified only as Patty. As she stood in her antiques and housewares shop on brick-lined Main Street, she said business already seemed unusually slow this year in the historic ...   more »

By Will Dunham,Reuters
WASHINGTON (Nov. 15) - A new and virulent strain of adenovirus, which frequently causes the common cold, has spread in parts of the United States, killing 10 people and putting dozens into hospitals, U.S. health officials said on Thursday.
A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report detailed cases of people ill since May 2006 with a strain of the virus called adenovirus 14 in New York, Oregon, Washington state and Texas.
"Whether you're a healthy young adult, an infant or an elderly person, this virus can cause severe respiratory disease at any age," said John Su, who investigates infectious diseases for the CDC and contributed to the report.
Two of the 10 people who have died from the new strain were infants, Su said. The CDC report said about 140 people have been sickened by the virus and more than 50 hospitalized, including 24 admitted to intensive care units.
Adenoviruses frequently cause acute upper respiratory tract infections like the common cold, but also can cause other illnesses including inflammation of the stomach and intestines, pink eye, bladder infection and rashes.
Colds caused by adenoviruses can be very severe in the very young and the very ...   more »

Used condoms are being recycled into hair bands in southern China, threatening to spread sexually-transmittable diseases they were originally meant to prevent, state media reported Tuesday.
In the latest example of potentially harmful Chinese-made products, rubber hair bands have been found in local markets and beauty salons in Dongguan and Guangzhou cities in southern Guangdong province, China Daily newspaper said.
"These cheap and colourful rubber bands and hair ties sell well ... threatening the health of local people," it said.
Despite being recycled, the hair bands could still contain bacteria and viruses, it said.
"People could be infected with AIDS, (genital) warts or other diseases if they hold the rubber bands or strings in their mouths while waving their hair into plaits or buns," the paper quoted a local dermatologist who gave only his surname, Dong, as saying.
A bag of ten of the recycled bands sells for just 25 fen (three cents), much cheaper than others on the market, accounting for their popularity, the paper said.
A government official was quoted as saying recycling condoms was illegal.
China's manufacturing industry has been repeatedly tarnished this year by a string of scandals involving shoddy or dangerous goods made for both ...   more »

For every removal of public prayer or a Ten Commandments display it is easy to despair in the face of what appears "inevitable" – to chalk it up as yet another "unavoidable" win for the secularists and ACLU-types. These atheistic organizations have systematically eliminated one public acknowledgment of God after another, even convincing federal courts and various government agencies to participate in their agenda.
The religious shield of the First Amendment has been hammered into a sword of religious oppression for decades. Some have even come to expect them to get their way. But as several recent news stories suggest, the tide may be turning back in favor of religious freedom after all. We have seen that the ACLU & Co. do not always win.
Just two weeks ago, a federal appeals court reversed a ban on prayers offered in the name of Jesus at the Indiana House of Representatives. The ACLU had again persuaded the lower court that such prayers were unconstitutional, but the higher court dismissed the case, stating that the ACLU's clients did not even have legal standing to bring the suit. Instead of just giving up, as so many have done in the past, the Indiana ...   more »

Santas in Australia's largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas's traditional "ho ho ho" greeting because it may be offensive to women, it was reported Thursday.
Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say "ha ha ha" instead, the Daily Telegraph reported.
One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use "ho ho ho" because it could frighten children and was too close to "ho", a US slang term for prostitute.
"Gimme a break," said Julie Gale, who runs the campaign against sexualising children called Kids Free 2B Kids.
"We are talking about little kids who do not understand that "ho, ho, ho" has any other connotation and nor should they," she told the Telegraph.
"Leave Santa alone."
A local spokesman for the US-based Westaff recruitment firm said it was "misleading" to say the company had banned Santa's traditional greeting and it was being left up to the discretion of the individual Santa himself.
Original Source

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Hamas: Hillary ticket to Palestinian victory
Top terror group adviser: Clinton would end 'unlimited military, political support' for Israel
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., speaking during recent Democratic presidential candidate debate in Philadelphia
Hamas believes Sen. Hillary Clinton, if elected president in 2008, will end President Bush's "unlimited military and diplomatic support for Israel" and adapt a more "evenhanded" approach toward the Palestinians, says the group's top political adviser.
Speaking yesterday with WND Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein, Ahmed Yousuf, the top aide to Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader in Gaza and deposed prime minister of the Hamas-led Palestinian government, said in recorded comments the group heard from "many Americans" that if the Democrats take the White House next year they will implement "drastic changes" to U.S. foreign policy and relations with the Palestinians.
"I do believe Miss Clinton will have a more balanced policy when it comes to how to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict," Yousuf told Klein. "And I don't think she is going to give to the Israelis this unlimited military and diplomatic support that they are actually enjoying now; so … the future politics in the region will [see] a very drastic change when it comes to how ...   more »

The) foreign policy advisers he has signed up make the Vulcans of Bush look like Howard Zinn and Ramsey Clark."
That's conservative commentator and former Republican presidential contender Pat Buchanan talking about the team that is telling current Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani how to think about international affairs in general and the war on terror in particular.
And here's the interesting part: Buchanan is suggesting that historian Zinn and former Attorney General Clark, as much men of the left as the former adviser to Presidents Nixon and Reagan is a man of the right, are a good deal more rational in their world views than the people advising Giuliani.
The neoconservative "Vulcans" -- as the circle around Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refer to themselves -- got Bush and the U.S. into the military misadventure that is Iraq. Now, an even more dangerous crew of Giuliani advisers looks to war with Iran.
Buchanan notes that the "team leader" of the group counseling the former mayor of New York on how to deal with global threats is Charles Hill, who the conservative columnist recalls is "a co-signer of the Sept. 20, 2001, neocon ultimatum to Bush, ...   more »

Statute allows people to 'choose a gender'
By Bob Unruh
The Montgomery County Council, left to right, bottom row: George L. Leventhal, Marilyn J. Praisner (president), Phil Andrews. Top row: Marc Elrich, Valerie Ervin, Roger Berliner, Duchy Trachtenberg, Nancy Floreen, and Mike Knapp (vice president)
Coed locker rooms could be a reality now that a new statute to allow people to "choose a gender" has been approved in Maryland.
But the measure, given the green light by elected officials in Montgomery County will soon be the subject of a court challenge, according to a spokesman for a non-profit public interest law firm.
"The definition for 'gender identity' is so vague that no individual of ordinary intelligence can possibly know when they are violating Chapter 27," Robert Tyler, general counsel for the Advocates for Faith & Freedom, told county officials in a letter.
"Pursuant to the definition of 'gender identity,' an individual can choose a gender without limitation whatsoever," he said.
Tyler's comments referred to the newly approved county law 27-03, which creates a protected class of citizenry for those individuals who claim a "gender identity" issue.
As WND reported, the proposal generated a groundswell of opposition when it became known. ...   more »