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GAIA AND HOMOSAPIENS

New Video Of Haiti Earthquake From Inside A Collapsing Home
Real Clear Politics - January 18, 2010
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NoteThe symbol ^ denotes that that article can be read in full at the link. Articles with titles in italics are from recent issue.

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CBC Hourly News
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CBC World at Six News - "What's Going On Out There?"
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Haiti Earthquake | Minute By Minute Updated News
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Double Your Donation for Haiti Earthquake Relief - Make a Matching Donation.
Click link for a list of officially approved?registered charities in Canada from which you may shoose. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar by the government.
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US | IRS Rules on Foreign Disasters Contributions
Earthquake in Haiti Aid can Generate a Charitable Tax Deduction - US taxpayers wishing to provide contributions for Foreign Natural Disasters may be able to contribute more due to a tax break provided by the Internal Revenue Service. Info at
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Get Google Rolling Updates on Haiti Catastrophe at link.
To get the historical background rolling articles, change the search phrase to 'haiti history'.
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Haiti on the Edge As It Grapples by Its Fingertips

Icelandic Rescue Squad Arrives in Haiti
Grapevine [ Iceland ] - By Paul Nikolov - January 14, 2010
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30 volunteers carrying 14 tons of equipment flew to Haiti yesterday, making a brief stop in Boston before moving on. Guðjón Arngrímmsson, a spokesman for Icelandair, told reporters that these volunteers have previously assisted efforts in Turkey, Algeria and Pakistan. "We are kind of prepared for the worst," he told the Boston Herald. The plane arrived in Port-au-Prince at around 9:00 PM Icelandic time. The volunteers will work alongside UN relief workers, and are reported to have enough equipment and water to work independently for ten days.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Össur Skarphéðinsson told Vísir that he was "incredibly proud" of how well the organization and execution of the relief effort went, despite Iceland having economic difficulties.

Video | The Geology of the Haiti Quake
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Tens of thousands neglected at quake epicentre
abc.net.au - By North America correspondent Lisa Millar and wires - January 17, 2010
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The immense scale of the earthquake devastation outside Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, is becoming clearer. People in Leogane, at the quake's epicentre, have so far been left to fend for themselves in ad hoc squatter camps. Great concrete slabs, once roofs or second floors, have concertinaed down crushing people who had no chance of survival. Almost every concrete structure in the town is flattened, and the town is said to be more devastated than the capital, with dead bodies still littering the streets.

"It's the very epicentre of the earthquake, and many, many thousands are dead," said World Food Program (WFP) spokesman David Orr. "Nearly every house was destroyed here. The military are talking about 20,000 to 30,000 dead," he said. People have fled to the surrounding sugar cane fields or into mangrove swamps to get away from the nightmare.

Hunger and hope, thirst and frenzy grip Haiti
Washington Jsnuary 17, 2010
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Precious water, food and early glimmers of hope began reaching parched and hungry earthquake survivors Saturday on the streets of this shattered city, where despair at times turned into a frenzy among the ruins. "People are so desperate for food that they are going crazy," said accountant Henry Ounche, in a crowd of hundreds who fought one another as U.S. military helicopters clattered overhead carrying aid.

When other Navy choppers dropped rations and Gatorade into a soccer stadium thronged with refugees, 200 youths began brawling, throwing stones, to get at the supplies. Across the hilly, steamy city, where people choked on the stench of death, hope faded by the hour for finding many more victims alive in the rubble, four days after Tuesday's catastrophic earthquake.

Haiti Medics Operating Without Anaesthetic
Yahoo.com - January 18, 2010
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Medical staff in Haiti have been forced to carry out operations without anaesthetic as they waited for assistance in treating those injured in the earthquake. The desperation in the town of Leogane should not be under-estimated.

To the west of Port-au-Prince, it was at the epicentre of the earthquake. Incredible as it may seem 90% of the buildings collapsed in just seven seconds. Medicine Sans Frontiers has just arrived. They are trying to treat last Tuesday's injuries today. Until now nobody has made it to the town.

Haitian solidarity, despite chaotic aid effort
RFI - January 17, 2010
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Hundreds of tonnes of aid are reportedly blocked at Port-au-Prince airport, failing to get through to the thousands left homeless and hungry after this week's devastating earthquake in Haiti. But predicted violence has failed to materialise, according to our reporter in the capital.

"International aid continues to arrive at the airport in Port-au-Prince," reports Daniel Vallot of RFI's French service. "But it is still very difficult to get this aid into the devastated areas of the capital." There has been some improvement, he says, with medicine starting to arrive in hospitals and some food and water being distributed by the UN's World Food Programme and the US army. The Paris-based charity Médécins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Sunday that disruption at the airport has seriously hampered its work.

Haiti Aftershocks Hit As Aid Trickles Through
Sky News Online - By James Jordan - Sunday January 17, 2010
Aftershocks measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale hit Haiti as rescue teams continued their desperate search for survivors trapped in rubble and pulled more bodies out.
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Big-hearted Scots give £1m to Haiti earthquake appeal
Cash being pledged in Scotland as aid starts to arrive in devastated Caribbean country.
STV - January 17, 2010
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The Disasters Emergency Committee has said more than £1million has been donated to its appeal by the people of Scotland to help earthquake-hit Haiti. The money will be used to help food, shelter and medical assistance reach the most devastated areas. The Scottish Government has also pledged £250,000 of aid to help the Caribbean country deal with the disaster.

Haiti Earthquake Update: Day Six
CBS News - Posted by David S Morgan - January 17, 2010
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Survivors fight for food and water while logistical logjams complicate relief efforts
Buenos Aires Herald
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Hungry, haggard survivors clamour — and sometimes fight — for food and water as donors squabble over how to get aid into Haiti and rescuers wage an increasingly improbable battle to free the dying before they become the dead. Four days after a massive quake killed up to 200,000 people and wrecked most of the capital Port-au-Prince, hundreds of thousands of Haitians were still desperately waiting for assistance as scavengers and looters preyed on shattered buildings in the widespread absence of authority and order.

Even as aid poured into Port-au-Prince airport yesterday, thousands of Haitians streamed out on foot with suitcases on their heads or jammed in cars to find food, water and shelter in the countryside and flee aftershocks as well as violence. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said an estimated 300,000 people are living on the streets in Port-au-Prince.

Wave of outbreaks feared in Haiti
CBC - January 18, 2010
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Health workers who've arrived from other countries are now struggling to make a dent in treating Haitians who are injured, sick, thirsty, hungry and exhausted.

"These people haven't seen a doctor for four or five days," said Rene Steinhauer, a volunteer medic from the United States who is treating wounds and broken bones. "They've already gotten infected." The injured are at high risk for tetanus infections, as well as complications such as gangrene that may require amputations. But there is a shortage of surgeons, clean water, alcohol for disinfecting purposes and medical equipment.

Outbreaks of bacterial and viral infections associated with unsafe food and water are to be expected, particularly with the crowded conditions, said Dr. Pierre Plourde, an infectious disease specialist in Winnipeg who regularly works in Haiti and is getting ready to return. "Diarrheal diseases are going to be a big issue," Plourde said. "Typhoid fever has been a problem lately. That can only go up."

The immediate concern for health workers is to try to alleviate the pain and suffering, but they are hampered by a lack of equipment and medicine.

Startling Video | Security concerns amid looting in Haiti
Violence and looting has broken out in parts of Port-au-Prince, almost a week after the earthquake hit Haiti.
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Video | Haitians scramble for aid as helicopter drops supplies
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Imaging Life

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. — Patrick Henry

US | The Makings of a Police State
Boiling Frogs Post = December 13, 2009
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As stated by Patrick Henry with conviction and passion, a democratic government will not last if its operations and policies are not visible to its public. The foundation of our democratic republic is supposed to be based on an open and accountable government. Transparency is what enables accountability.

Never heard of 'Boiling Frogs"?
Help Wake up the American public before the water gets too hot to climb out of the pot.
Dandelion Salad - November 3, 2009
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Breaking News

Haiti | Doctors Without Borders Cargo Plane With Full Hospital and Staff Blocked From Landing in Port-au-Prince
Demands Deployment of Lifesaving Medical Equipment Given Priority
Doctors Without Borders - January 18, 2010
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US military now controls all landing rights ai Port-au-Prince airport.
The Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) plane filled with supplies needed to establish an inflatable tent field hospital landed at approximately 11 am local time, Sunday, January 17, in Port-au-Prince.

However, another MSF cargo plane carrying vital medical supplies to replenish stocks for Choscal hospital, where an MSF team is working on a backlog of patients needing surgery, was not allowed to land in Port-au-Prince on Sunday, January 17, and was forced to re-route to the Dominican Republic, where it landed. Choscal hospital will run out of medical supplies in less than 24 hours and its cold chain system for preserving medicines and vaccines at the proper temperatures could be compromised if this cargo plane is not able to fly into Port-au-Prince immediately.

Related Article - Haiti è di nuovo "americana" Haiti is once again "American"
Grapevine [ Iceland ] - By Rony Sheridan - January 16, 2010
Scroll down at this link for background to this article
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Impoverished DR Congo offers aid to Haiti
BBC News - Jsnuary 18, 2010
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The Democratic Republic of Congo has announced it is sending $2.5m (£1.5m) in emergency aid to Haiti, to help it cope with last week's earthquake. Some Congolese have criticised the offer. After years of conflict, which is still raging in the east, millions of people live in poverty. The country depends on foreign aid and civil servants frequently go unpaid. But Information Minister Lambert Mende told the BBC that DR Congo would contribute within its means. "Congo isn't bankrupt, our own problems shouldn't prevent us from helping a brother country," he said.

Thousands Flee Wrecked Haitian Capital
The New York Times - By Simon Romero and Damien Cave - January 18, 2010
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Thousands of Haitians crammed onto rickety school buses and the backs of trucks to flee the ravaged capital on Monday in an uncertain quest for shelter, fresh water and stability in the countryside.

US | Kootenay BC Students rescued in Haiti arrive in Canada
A group of Mount Sentinel students that were stranded in Haiti have been flown to Canada aboard a military aircraft.
Nelson Star - January 18, 2010
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Senegal offers land to Haitians that want to come
Washington Post | AP - By Rukmini - Saturday, January 16, 2010
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DAKAR, Senegal -- Senegal is offering free land to Haitians wishing to "return to their origins" following this week's devastating earthquake, which has destroyed the capital and buried thousands of people beneath rubble. Senegal's octogenarian President Abdoulaye Wade told a meeting of his advisers that Haitians are the sons and daughters of Africa, because the country was founded by slaves, including some believed to have come from Senegal.

US | Video - Olbermann: Limbaugh Discourages Americans From Giving
Real Clear Politics - Jantary 16, 2010
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National Issues

Haiti | Commentary | The Right Testicle of Hell - History of a Haitian Holocaust
Blackwater before drinking water
OpEd News - By Greg Palast - Sunday, January 17, 2010
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Complete here
1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost immediately. That was President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland. On Wednesday, the AP reported that the President of the United States promised, "The initial contingent of 2,000 Marines could be deployed to the quake-ravaged country within the next few days." "In a few days," Mr. Obama?

2. There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. 200,000 Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF "austerity" plans.

3. A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who could get medicine to her father? And she added, trying to hold her voice together, "My sister, she's under the rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?" Should I tell her, "Obama will have Marines there in 'a few days'"?

4. China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48 hours. China, Mr. President.China: 8,000 miles distant. Miami: 700 miles close. US bases in Puerto Rico: right there.

5. Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I don't know how this government could have responded faster or more comprehensively than it has." We know Gates doesn't know.

6. From my own work in the field, I know that FEMA has access to ready-to-go potable water, generators, mobile medical equipment and more for hurricane relief on the Gulf Coast. It's all still there. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who served as the task force commander for emergency response after Hurricane Katrina, told the Christian Science Monitor, "I thought we had learned that from Katrina, take food and water and start evacuating people." Maybe we learned but, apparently, Gates and the Defense Department missed school that day.

7. Send in the Marines. That's America's response. That's what we're good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed — without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.

8. But don't worry, the International Search and Rescue Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field, deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water purifying capability. They're from Iceland.

9. Gates wouldn't send in food and water because, he said, there was no "structure ... to provide security." For Gates, appointed by Bush and allowed to hang around by Obama, it's security first. That was his lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking water.

10. Previous US presidents have acted far more swiftly in getting troops on the ground on that island. Haiti is the right half of the island of Hispaniola. It's treated like the right testicle of Hell. The Dominican Republic the left. In 1965, when Dominicans demanded the return of Juan Bosch, their elected President, deposed by a junta, Lyndon Johnson reacted to this crisis rapidly, landing 45,000 US Marines on the beaches to prevent the return of the elected president.

11. How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or non-existent - there are two fire stations in the entire nation - and infrastructure so frail that the nation was simply waiting for "nature" to finish it off?

Don't blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction. That dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc, the Duvalier dictatorship, which looted the nation for 28 years. Papa and his Baby put an estimated 80% of world aid into their own pockets - with the complicity of the US government happy to have the Duvaliers and their voodoo militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War. (The war was easily won: the Duvaliers' death squads murdered as many as 60,000 opponents of the regime.)

12. What Papa and Baby didn't run off with, the IMF finished off through its "austerity" plans. An austerity plan is a form of voodoo orchestrated by economists zomby-fied by an irrational belief that cutting government services will somehow help a nation prosper.

13. In 1991, five years after the murderous Baby fled, Haitians elected a priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who resisted the IMF's austerity diktats. Within months, the military, to the applause of Papa George HW Bush, deposed him. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. The farce was George W. Bush. In 2004, after the priest Aristide was re-elected President, he was kidnapped and removed again, to the applause of Baby Bush.

14. Haiti was once a wealthy nation, the wealthiest in the hemisphere, worth more, wrote Voltaire in the 18th century, than that rocky, cold colony known as New England. Haiti's wealth was in black gold: slaves. But then the slaves rebelled - and have been paying for it ever since.
From 1825 to 1947, France forced Haiti to pay an annual fee to reimburse the profits lost by French slaveholders caused by their slaves' successful uprising. Rather than enslave individual Haitians, France thought it more efficient to simply enslave the entire nation.

15. Secretary Gates tells us, "There are just some certain facts of life that affect how quickly you can do some of these things." The Navy's hospital boat will be there in, oh, a week or so. Heckuva job, Brownie!

16. Alert | A Note just received from my friend. Her sister was found, dead; and her other sister had to bury her. Her father needs his anti-seizure medicines. That's a fact of life too, Mr. President.

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Through our journalism network, we are trying to get my friend's medicines to her father. If any reader does have someone getting into or near Port-au-Prince, please contact 3Haiti@GregPalast.com immediately.

Urgently recommended reading - The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, the history of the successful slave uprising in Hispaniola by the brilliant CLR James.

Haiti | Commentary | Haiti è di nuovo "americana" Haiti is once again "American"
Grapevine [ Iceland ] - By Rony Sheridan - January 16, 2010
Scroll down at - LINK ^

Also, omplete here.
Haiti è di nuovo "americana" Haiti is once again "American" in the words of Il Manifesto writer Maurizio Matteuzzi. The Haitians have had their fair share of intervention by the US. In fact only recently the US supported coup removed Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991 after a short term in office, during the Clinton Administration, only to be reinstated on the terms of the then American administration in 1994.

Aristide had promised his impoverished people prosperity and dignity prior to 1991. On this premise he was elected. It is a double tragedy that is being endured by the Haitians who have not only lost their loved ones and their livelihoods but also their sovereignty and independence for good.

The OBAMA administration has promised aid. On the fourth day of the earthquake, ordinary Haitians still sleep beside those who have perished but have not been given the dignity of being covered, removed and buried. The Obama government is busy making plans about this newly arisen opportunity to invade Haiti and install thousands of US marines on Haitian soil. They have not ventured into the city due to security concerns. It appears That the US has to fully occupy and secure Haiti before it can safely put out its men to deliver aid.

The hope of finding survivors is anything but lost, the injured remain untreated, the dead unburied, the children hungry and thirsty in the baking sun. US aid is still on the tarmac of the airport. Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state is arriving today, presumably she will now extract more compromises from the broken president of Haiti before finally allowing the US men and women out there.

Iceland Air was one of the first airlines to land in Puerto-au-Prince with tons of aid. The Icelandic team was out helping the Haitians in no time with their experience in dealing with such difficult conditions. The Chinese did not waste time either.

Now that the US has control of the airport, it can decide who lands and who does not? This is worrying because, the US is bound to abuse this newly gained authority to abuse the aid process to get back at Latin American leaders like Chavez and Evo Morales. This state of affairs is abhorrent to say the least when millions of people are homeless, psychologically scarred for life and desperate.

The television pictures show a dignified and patient people who have gone through the most devastating tragedy to befall them. They are not a security threat, they are ordinary human beings with pride and dignity- and must be treated with dignity. Their pride and dignity are warranted not least because they are the first black republic in the world but also because their brave defiance of slavery-despite the French oppression and the compensation running into millions of dollars to the French Slave owners. This compensation for their freedom was paid by the most impoverished people just to be free and independent.

Their freedom, human rights and independence must be respected by the US government and its first black president.

Editor - What a travesty if it does not. It would represent a further deterioration of American democratic leadership before the world.

In Ukraine, the Death of the Orange Revolution
Time Magazine - January 16, 2010
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Leftist Leaders Say U.S. Is Using Relief Mission As Pretext to Occupy Haiti
Cybercast Newscast News Service - By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor - Monday, January 18, 2010
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The United States is using the humanitarian crisis in Haiti as an excuse to occupy the earthquake-hit island nation, two of Washington’s most vocal leftist critics in Latin America implied at the weekend.

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Topical News

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Activism at the Ground Level

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."
-- Mark Twain

US | Petition to President Obama on Abolition of Nuclear Weapons
Democracy in Action
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Arts & Culture

Music to accompany you on the cyber-highway
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Lhasa De Sela Concert - Haunting. Chilling.
The late singer Lhasa, performing La Frontera in a concert recorded in October 2004, as part of the Routes Montreal series in CBC Studio 12.)
Canada Live - Posted by Li Robbins = January 15, 2010
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Economy and Finance

Bloomberg Economic News
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Bloomberg Current Worldwide Financial News
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Legal and Constitutional Issues

Bloomberg Index of Current Legal News
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Civil Rights | US - Let's honor the sacrifice of Dr. King and the brave men and women who have made progress possible
And let's rededicate ourselves to ensuring that every eligible American -- regardless of class, color, or creed -- can cast a ballot and have it counted."
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Politcal Issues

Real cleat Politics Daily Rundown
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center>Science & Technology

Bloomberg Index of Current Science News
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Social Netwurks and the web offer a lifeline in Haiti
The collapse of traditional channels of communication in Haiti has again highlighted the role of social media and the internet in disasters.
BBC News - By Jason Palmer, Acience and Fecgnilogy Reporter - January 15, 2010
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France joins Germany warning against Microsoft Internet Explorer
Cliff Evans of Microsoft says IE8 is more secure than other browsers.
BBC News - By Jonathan Fuldes - January 18, 2010
France has echoed calls by the German government for web users to find an alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) to protect security
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Species and Communities

Audio | Quirks and Quarks - The Humans Who Went Extinct
Dr. Clive Finlayson, an evolutionary ecologist, at the University of Toronto has a new book, The Humans Who Went Extinct - Why Neanderthals died out and we survived, suggesting luck played a big role.
CBC - Jsnuary 10, 2010
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Sound and Fury

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Sound off at Carrumpah-Lobo - The Homosapiens.ki Blog
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