Remember the mammoths, say the clean-cut organisers at the youth camp’s mass wedding. ‘They became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia’. Obediently, couples move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland. With its relentlessly upbeat tone, bizarre ideas and tight control, it sounds like a weird indoctrination session for a phoney religious cult. But this organisation – known as ‘Nashi’, meaning ‘Ours’ – is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life. Putin’s kids Sinister: Millions of young Russians at a youth camp discerningly similar to the Hitler Youth. Nashi’s annual camp, 200 miles outside Moscow, is attended by 10,000 uniformed youngsters and involves two weeks of lectures and physical fitness. Attendance is monitored via compulsory electronic badges and anyone who misses three events is expelled. So are drinkers; alcohol is banned. But sex is encouraged, and condoms are nowhere on sale. Bizarrely, young women are encouraged to hand in thongs and other skimpy underwear – supposedly a […]
Crime-fighting beats privacy in public places: Americans, by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, support the increased use of surveillance cameras a measure decried by some civil libertarians, but credited in London with helping to catch a variety of perpetrators since the early 1990s. Given the chief arguments, pro and con a way to help solve crimes vs. too much of a government intrusion on privacy it isn’t close: 71 percent of Americans favor the increased use of surveillance cameras, while 25 percent oppose it. London’s surveillance network, known as the ‘Ring of Steel,’ is said to have aided in the capture of suspects, including those accused of a pair of attempted car bombings in June. A similar system is coming to New York City, which plans 100 new surveillance cameras in downtown Manhattan by year’s end and 3,000 public and private by 2010. Chicago and Baltimore plan expanded surveillance systems as well. Critics, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, have opposed such systems, arguing that they invade privacy, and could be used to track innocent people. Nonetheless, majority support for surveillance cameras crosses political, ideological […]
DALLAS — Drug Enforcement Administration officials discovered a large number of marijuana plants growing in a wooded area near the Trinity River in Dallas Thursday afternoon. The secret pot farm was practically right under their noses. In fact, if you could walk in a straight line from the riverbank through the marshy underbrush and tangled wilderness, you’d walk just 200 yards before you hit the DEA’s office building. Right now, agents have no idea who planted and carefully tended to the elaborate farm, it appears whoever it was spent a lot of time and money on the project. From the air, four agents could be seen pulling up huge plants — some up to four or five feet tall — and confiscated them. Officials say they found more than 300 plants, worth at least $300,000 on the street. The raid comes just two days after Richardson police discovered more than 1,100 marijuana plants growing in a house on La Mesa Drive. They arrested 25-year-old Brett Lachance, who is listed as the house’s owner.
LONDON — While millions of readers digest and reflect on the last instalment of the Harry Potter series, the company behind the publishing phenomenon is hoping to benefit from years of planning for a post-wizard future. None the less Nigel Newton, founder and chief executive of Bloomsbury, is allowing the company to bask momentarily in the success of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It sold 2.7m copies in its first 24 hours to become the fastest-selling book in British history, meaning that in the week ending July 21 Bloomsbury accounted for nearly nine out 10 books sold in the UK. ‘It’s because the Deathly Hallows is the best book JK Rowling has ever written,’ says Newton. ‘That’s what all the children are saying and it’s true.’ There will be a Potter annuity for decades to come – a boxed set of the seven titles is out in October – but the company must prove that its successive Potter windfalls have been invested wisely. The stock market’s ambivalent view on Bloomsbury’s preparations frustrates Newton, who has seen the company’s shares drift down to 166p, far from the 374p they reached when the sixth Potter was published two years […]
WASHINGTON — Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released the most comprehensive matrix available to date detailing all offers of assistance from around the world in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. CREW’s matrix is based on 25,000 Department of State (DOS) documents it received as a result of a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act in December 2005 for records relating to the federal government’s handling and acceptance of international offers of aid after Hurricane Katrina. The matrix includes all international offers, whether they were rejected or accepted and the reasons why, if available. The documents reveal a number of disturbing responses to offers from 145 countries and 12 international organizations from around the world. For example, an email from Jeffrey Goldstein, a U.S. Embassy official in Estonia, to several DOS officials, states: It is getting downright embarrassing here not to have a response to the Estonians on flood relief. And now I see from the staff meeting notes that the task force may disband soon. We know that what the Estonians can offer is small potatoes and everyone at FEMA is swamped, but at this point even ‘thanks […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
