Microsoft has announced this week that it will continue to offer downgrade options to both volume licensing customers and end-users when Windows 7 ships. Customers who purchase a system from a qualifying OEM with a version of Windows 7 that they don't want will be able to fall back to equivalent versions of Vista or XP. This latest extension to XP's availability has, inevitably, made the headlines, as if Microsoft's decision to allow users to fall back to the venerable system is a judgment of Windows 7 before it even ships.

Ehud Olmert's nightmare is at hand. Not only does the former Israeli prime minister now really have to fight those corruption charges. He also faces the realization of his fears that the Palestinians might give up on a two-state solution in favor of a struggle for equal rights that would mean, as he put it, the "end of the Jewish state."

Map relationships among people and organizations:

A central Florida woman who fatally shot her son then killed herself at a shooting range said she was the anti-Christ and that she needed to save her son.

The newspaper seller was manhandled by an officer 15 minutes before a colleague was videoed striking him with his baton before shoving him to the ground, it was alleged.

Photographer Anna Branthwaite claimed Mr Tomlinson was pushed to the ground and struck twice with a baton by another officer.

He was then dragged to his feet by the policeman who continued to push him along the street, she claimed.

Minutes later, a passer-by captured footage of Mr Tomlinson being felled by a police officer's baton. It is not clear if the same officer was involved in both incidents.

Channel 4 News releases tape recovered from damaged camera showing officer hitting out at Tomlinson with baton

Advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has warned that the Obama administration is seeking to expand the government’s authority to carry out wiretapping under the auspices of national security.

The EFF points to the dismissal of its own litigation against the National Security Agency for the warrantless wiretapping, warning that arguments made in defense of wiretapping by Obama’s Department of Justice are worse than Bush’s.

The U.S. military dumped some 2,500 tons of weapons containing lethal mustard, cyanide, lewisite, cyanogens and chloride at three deep-sea sites several miles off Oahu. More than 16,000 individual bombs were dumped there.

The missive reads like a rant by a paranoid conspiracy nut. In fact, the so-called “Prevention Awareness Bulletin” is a weekly product of the North Central Texas Fusion System, a terrorism and crime-prevention intelligence center run by the Collin County Department of Homeland Security. The system gathers and shares information for a 16-county area that includes Dallas and Forth Worth. The bulletin is written by the architect and operator of the fusion system, Bob Johnson, a former chief scientist for defense contractor Raytheon Co. Johnson has a background in data mining, the controversial, computer-aided practice of trolling massive quantities of data in pursuit of patterns and links.

Consider a toxic asset held by Citibank with a face value of $1 million, but with zero probability of any payout and therefore with a zero market value. An outside bidder would not pay anything for such an asset. All of the previous articles consider the case of true outside bidders.

Suppose, however, that Citibank itself sets up a Citibank Public-Private Investment Fund (CPPIF) under the Geithner-Summers plan. The CPPIF will bid the full face value of $1 million for the worthless asset, because it can borrow $850K from the FDIC, and get $75K from the Treasury, to make the purchase! Citibank will only have to put in $75K of the total.

You are a slave. When you live under a government that takes your wealth and your children and lies to you to keep you docile and scares you to keep you obedient, how can it be otherwise?

You are a slave. You can stay that way, or not. It’s that simple. Nobody is coming to save you. There are no heroes, no cavalry riding to the rescue. Whether you and your children will live as slaves or as free human beings is entirely up to you.

According to Politico.com, at his March 27 White House meeting with the nation's top bankers, President Obama heard similar arguments and interrupted, saying, "Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn't buying that... My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."

Stand aside, Mr. President, and let us prod with our pitchforks to get at the facts.

Academics and specialists from Iran, the United States and Europe have been meeting regularly in the Swiss city of Geneva for high level but informal talks.

The federal government will soon send more than $300 million in stimulus funds to 61 housing agencies that have been repeatedly faulted by auditors for mishandling government aid, a USA TODAY review has found.

Chimpanzees enter into "deals" whereby they exchange meat for sex, according to researchers.

The heavy coverage of mass shootings in Binghamton, N.Y., North Carolina and Washington state and the cop killings in Pittsburgh has had little apparent effect on the nation's appetite for new gun laws.

Another US official told Amnesty International that the US authorities are reviewing Israel's use of US weapons during the Gaza conflict to see if Israel complied with US law, but no conclusion has yet been reached.

It was confirming their eligibility under the 700-billion-dollar Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) following a report that life insurers have been added as a third industry, along with banks and auto companies, eligible for government bailout money.

Seventeen Palestinians have fallen victim to the latest Israeli abduction operations launched in the various parts of the West Bank.

It's bad news for shippers, but an opportunity for Blackwater Worldwide, the North Carolina-based private military contractor. Last week, the company announced plans to dispatch the MV MacArthur, a 183-foot vessel with a crew of 14 and a helicopter pad, to the Gulf of Aden to provide escort services for ships in need of security.

An estimated 10,000 protesters break through police lines and ransack the building, as well as the offices of President Vladimir Voronin. They say recent elections were rigged.

"What we are having here now is a spontaneous, unorganized revolution," Anatoly Tseranu, an independent liberal legislator, said of the estimated 10,000 demonstrators.

The Pope and the Vatican have an "entrenched attitude" towards homosexuality which is less tolerant than the views of ordinary Catholics, Tony Blair says in comments published today.

Eyewitnesses said as many as a hundred settler terrorists descended on the small village of Safa, 10 kilometers north west of al-Khalil, with the purpose of carrying out a pogrom against local inhabitants.

The terrorists were escorted by several Israeli army soldiers who reportedly made no effort to stop the terrorists who were shouting “death to the Arabs.”

That very same Torah teaches the Jew not to hate…. where is the uproar when that is violated? When an extreme rightwing member of the Knesset utters anti Arab remarks…. one representing a so-called religious party, what is done? He is provided with extra protection! (I was distressed to learn that this bastard lives very close to my home).

In 2001, Portugal began a remarkable policy experiment, decriminalizing all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. Some predicted disastrous results—that drug addiction rates would soar and the country would become a haven for "drug tourists." Now that several years have passed, policy experts can study the results. In a new paper for the Cato Institute, attorney and author Glenn Greenwald closely examines the Portugal experiment and concludes that the doomsayers were wrong. There is now a widespread consensus in Portugal that decriminalization has been a success.

In 2003, Stephen Harper and Australian Prime Minister John Howard deliver largely identical speeches urging their nations to join George W. Bush's Coalition of the Willing to go to war with Iraq.

The medical workers, thought to be doctors and psychologists, monitored prisoners while they were mistreated at CIA prisons and advised interrogators whether to continue, adjust or halt the abuse, the ICRC said in a report based on interviews with 14 prisoners in 2007.

One prisoner alleged that medical personnel monitored his blood oxygen levels while he was subjected to waterboarding, a simulated drowning designed to induce panic and widely considered to be torture, the ICRC said.

If I had five bucks for every time I have witnessed the unbelievable moron of the moment utter the phrase, "kill them all and let God sort them out" I would be able to put my begging career on hold until at least next month. From the glaring inside job of 9/11 to the ultimate scam of organized religion, I am in total awe of the invisible chains of what people believe to transform their personalities. Though there have been some great scams throughout history, (including the current Federal Reserve World Wide Ponzi Scheme) I have to tip my hat to whom ever coined the catch all phrase "It is Gods Will".

Sir Allen Stanford and Ezra Merkin are among those accused of dubious schemes involving their clients' billions, writes JAMES DORAN in New York

Pakistan's president has called on America to provide his country with an arsenal of drones and missiles to target militants blamed for a wave of violence rather than carrying out independent operations that violate the nation's sovereignty.

A top Iranian oil official says the country is open to US investment in its oil and gas sector if Washington accepts Tehran's terms.

"It was not us who deprived US companies from taking part in Iran's oil and gas projects," Iran's Deputy Oil Minister for International Affairs, Hossein Noqrekar-Shirazi told reporters on Wednesday.

"They know they have lost many opportunities for investment in Iran's energy sector."

The Israeli military attacked civilians and medics and delayed - sometimes for hours - the evacuation of the injured during the January war in Gaza, according to an independent fact-finding mission commissioned by Israeli and Palestinian medical human rights groups.

The Israeli military has said it does not target civilians and is conducting its own investigations into some cases arising from the war.

As the new Netanyahu government gets rolling, the early signs are that there will be significant changes in foreign policy. The Likud leader has strongly signaled that he intends to be more proactive in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat and has withdrawn his predecessor's commitments to a two-state solution with the Palestinians and a pullback from the Golan Heights in return for peace with Syria.

He sees a nuclear bomb in the hands of radical Islamists dedicated to Israel's destruction as an existential threat and speaks in terms of preventing a second Holocaust.

Obviously, Netanyahu would prefer the Americans to do the job themselves.

“If a hand has truly been extended with sincerity, based on justice and respect, Iran will welcome it,” Ahmadinejad said today during a speech in the central city of Isfahan. “If it’s a hand that is sincere in appearance and deep down dishonest, Iran’s answer will be the same as the one given to Mr. Bush.”

“In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again).

But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.”
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Americans who did not live through the Second World War cannot imagine the pervasive atmosphere of hatred against Germans that began in 1933. More than eight years before the Old Pearl Harbor, the American people were emotionally conditioned to wage war and spare nothing in their effort to kill Germans.

US military officers pressured Army medical personnel not to diagnose soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder in an apparent effort to save money and reduce benefits, according to an investigation published Wednesday.