OBAMA WAS REITERATING THAT ILLEGALS WOULD NOT BE COVERED IN THE PLAN and, apparently, Wilson had enough and shouted out that the statement was a lie. What did Obama say? - "There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally." Wilson's response? "YOU LIE." Obama's reaction? "That's not true."

I have the full copy of HR3200 (America's Affordable Health Choices Act 2009) at home on my dining room table – all 1,017 pages of it. I've read it all. THERE'S NOTHING IN IT THAT SCREENS OUT NON-RESIDENTS, MUCH LESS ILLEGAL ALIENS. Indeed, two congressional committee attempts to pass legislation to specifically require proof of legality were twice voted down by Democrats. That speaks volumes; they do not want illegal aliens screened out from receiving benefits. How else do you interpret those votes?

There are verses in the Quran that say it's permissible to lie to your enemies to get what you want. PERHAPS THE PRESIDENT REMEMBERS THOSE LESSONS FROM HIS SCHOOLING IN INDONESIA DURING HIS FORMATIVE YEARS. Or perhaps he remembers the teachings of Marx and Lenin, reinforced by Saul Alinsky and supported by his Left-leaning friends from his youth who surround him today. Or perhaps he's forgotten one of the Ten Commandments.

Regardless, we can see Obama's tactics and Representative Joe Wilson called national attention to them. Apparently he's speaking words Americans want to hear. In just a few days, donations to his re-campaign reached nearly $1 million.

A Durban IT company pitted an 11-month-old bird armed with a 4GB memory stick against the ADSL service from the country's biggest web firm, Telkom. Winston the pigeon took two hours to carry the data 60 miles - in the same time the ADSL had sent 4% of the data. Telkom said it was not responsible for the firm's slow internet speeds.

The idea for the race came when a member of staff at Unlimited IT complained about the speed of data transmission on ADSL. He said it would be faster by carrier pigeon. "We renown ourselves on being innovative, so we decided to test that statement," Unlimited's Kevin Rolfe told the Beeld newspaper.

The firm said WINSTON TOOK ONE HOUR AND EIGHT MINUTES to fly between the offices, and THE DATA TOOK ANOTHER HOUR TO UPLOAD on to their system. Mr Rolfe said the ADSL transmission of the same data size was about 4% complete in the same time.

Creation, starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin's "struggle between faith and reason" as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It depicts him as a man who loses faith in God following the death of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie. The film was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival and has its British premiere on Sunday. It has been sold in almost every territory around the world, from Australia to Scandinavia. However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, ONLY 39 PER CENT OF AMERICANS BELIEVE IN THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION.

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, DESCRIBED DARWIN AS THE FATHER OF EUGENICS and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "A SILLY THEORY WITH A SERIOUS LACK OF EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT IT DESPITE OVER A CENTURY OF TRYING".

Al-Qaeda's As-Sahab media released a video featuring a still image of bin Laden and an audio statement, said IntelCenter. In the tape bin Laden reportedly said Barack Obama was "powerless" to stop the war in Afghanistan. SITE Intelligence Group, a terrorist-monitoring firm that translated the address, said bin Laden blamed the war on the "pro-Israel lobby" and corporate interests.

In the tape, bin Laden directly addressed the American public. "The time has come for you to liberate yourselves from fear and the ideological terrorism of neo-conservatives and the Israeli lobby," he said. "The reason for our dispute with you is your support for your ally Israel, occupying our land in Palestine." The purpose of the address was "to remind you of the causes" of September 11, he said.

The last audiotape by bin Laden was released June 3. In that missive he scorned US President Barack Obama's overture to the Islamic world and warned of decades of conflict ahead.

Borlaug began the work that led to his Nobel in Mexico at the end of World War II. There he developed disease-resistant varieties of wheat that produced much more grain than traditional strains. He and others later took those varieties and similarly improved strains of rice and corn to Asia, the Middle East, South America and Africa. In Pakistan and India, two of the nations that benefited most from THE NEW CROP VARIETIES, GRAIN YIELDS MORE THAN QUADRUPLED.

He was known as the father of the 'green revolution,' which transformed agriculture through high-yield crop varieties and other innovations, helping to more than double world food production between 1960 and 1990. Many experts credit the green revolution with averting global famine during the second half of the 20th century and saving perhaps one billion lives.

After a brief stint with the US Forest Service, Norman Borlaug returned to the University of Minnesota for a doctoral degree in plant pathology. He then worked as a microbiologist for DuPont, but soon left for A JOB WITH THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION. Between 1944 and 1960, Borlaug dedicated himself to increasing Mexico's wheat production. He received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor given by Congress, in 2007.

ATTEMPTS TO 'EMPOWER' CHILDREN AND A LACK OF DISCIPLINE in the classroom have also fostered rising levels of violence, at home, at school and in the street. Dr Sigman, a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, said nursery-age children are becoming increasingly violent and disrespectful towards their teachers, 'parent battering' is on the rise and the number of policemen attacked by children is soaring.

Dr Sigman said: 'Authority is a basic health requirement in children's lives. Children of the spoilt generation are used to having their demands met by their parents and others in authority, and that in turn makes them unprepared for the realities of adult life. This has consequences in every area of society, from the classroom to the workplace, the streets to the criminal courts and rehabilitation clinics. Being spoilt is now classless - from aristocracy to underclass, children are now spoilt in ways that go far beyond materialism.'

'This is partly the result of an inability to distinguish between being authoritative versus authoritarian, leaving concepts such as authority and boundaries blurred. And the consequences are measurable - BRITAIN NOW HAS THE HIGHEST RATES OF CHILD DEPRESSION, CHILD-ON-CHILD MURDER, UNDERAGE PREGNANCY, OBESITY, VIOLENT AND ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR AND PRE-TEEN ALCOHOLISM SINCE RECORDS BEGAN.'

For his report, The Spoilt Generation, he drew on 150 studies and reports, including official figures on crime and data on parenting strategies. Taken together, they showed many of the problems blighting 'broken Britain' are linked to lack of discipline. THIS IS BEING EXACERBATED BY MISGUIDED ATTEMPTS TO GIVE CHILDREN MORE CONTROL OVER THEIR LIVES.

"In the US and many other countries, THE TOO-BIG-TO-FAIL BANKS have become even bigger," Stiglitz said in an interview today in Paris. "THE PROBLEMS ARE WORSE THAN THEY WERE IN 2007 BEFORE THE CRISIS."

While Obama wants to name some banks as "systemically important" and subject them to stricter oversight, his plan wouldn't force them to shrink or simplify their structure. Stiglitz said THE US GOVERNMENT IS WARY OF CHALLENGING THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY because it is politically difficult, and that he hopes the Group of 20 leaders will cajole the US into tougher action.

Speaking ahead of the TUC Congress in Liverpool, Mr Barber said the OUTLOOK WAS "VERY PRECARIOUS". But Gordon Brown says the economy is "on the road to recovery". The TUC's congress, which starts in Liverpool on Monday, will be the last one before the next general election and it comes at a time of strained relations between the unions and the government.

Unions are alarmed at suggestions that this could mean slashing some areas of spending, possibly resulting in large-scale redundancies. Mr Barber, TUC general secretary since 2003, said: "Cut the stimulus off and the economy would go into decline again. PUBLIC SPENDING CUTS WILL PROVOKE A DOUBLE-QUICK, DOUBLE-DIP RECESSION."

"Unemployment could well exceed four million and it would take many years before there was any chance of returning to anything like full employment. That would scar for life a whole generation of young people."

Known depictions of the Menorah from Second Temple times include the famous relief of Titus's Arch in Rome, which shows Roman soldiers taking it away after destroying the Temple, and depictions on contemporary coins as well as graffiti etched into stone in Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter. However, the new find is said to be the first which includes a relief etched by an artist contemporary with the Temple.

The synagogue has been dated to the years 50 BCE – 100 CE. The rectangular stone bearing the Menorah relief stands inside its central chamber. The chamber is about 120 square meters in size and stone benches line its sides. The decorated stone depicts amphorae (earthenware vessels) on both sides of the Menorah and bears additional decorative motifs on its four sides and its top.

According to Gorni (leader of the dig), the find is "unique and exciting. This is the first time that a Menorah decoration is discovered from the days in which the Temple still stood," she said. "It is the first Menorah that is discovered in a Jewish context, which is dated to Second Temple times – the early Roman period."

Here, on a sleepy stretch of shoreline at the far end of Asia, is surely THE BIGGEST AND MOST SECRETIVE GATHERING OF SHIPS IN MARITIME HISTORY. Their numbers are equivalent to the entire British and American navies combined; their tonnage is far greater. Container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers - all should be steaming fully laden between China, Britain, Europe and the US, stocking camera shops, PC Worlds and Argos depots ahead of the retail pandemonium of 2009. But their water has been stolen.

They are a powerful and tangible representation of the hurricanes that have been wrought by the global economic crisis; an iron curtain drawn along the coastline of the southern edge of Malaysia's rural Johor state, 50 miles east of Singapore harbour. It is so far off the beaten track that nobody ever really comes close, which is why these ships are here. The world's ship owners and GOVERNMENT ECONOMISTS WOULD PREFER YOU NOT TO SEE THIS SYMBOL OF THE DEPTHS OF THE PLAGUE STILL CRIPPLING THE WORLD'S ECONOMIES.

The knock-on effect of so many ships sitting idle rather than moving consumer goods between Asia and Europe could become apparent in Britain in the months ahead. 'We will find out at Christmas whether there are enough PlayStations in the shops or not. There will certainly be fewer goods coming in to Britain during the run-up to Christmas.'

It's the New York 2009 feeling: A MIXTURE OF DOUBT, WORRY, AND FEAR. Fear that it won't be worth all the investment, the effort, the constant battles. Fear of drugs in schools, of playgrounds becoming crime scenes again, of broken windows, of decline. Fear of a future that feels like the past. Why is this? Because since September 2008 New York has been the epicenter of the global financial crisis. This is where it all began, and this is where the effects were first seen. And felt.

The potholes are getting bigger. And could it be there are more rats since the collapse of Lehman Brothers? Garbage sacks pile up because restaurants and hotels have to pay for them to be taken away, but would rather save their money. Homeless people wander the streets, apartments remain empty, landlords offer discounts - unthinkable circumstances just a short time ago, at least here in Manhattan and over in Brooklyn.

It's a chain reaction. Wall Street was the city's engine, and since 1990 New York has been a monothematic metropolis. If a bankrupt Lehman Brothers puts 25,000 people out of work, it robs the city of millions in taxes, revenues that are desperately needed for education, the police force and road repairs. Children are taken out of private schools, cleaners and gardeners are let go. This affects the real estate market and all consumer activity, and taxis drive around empty save for the driver, desperately hunting for the few tourists who still have money to spend. And then AIG and Merrill Lynch cut thousands more jobs.

So could New York's current woes beset Berlin and the rest of the world tomorrow? As so often, New York could become a standard, a model, only this time of fear; a new weltschmerz in the true sense of the word?

NB: 'weltschmerz' is German for 'world-weariness: sadness on thinking about the evils of the world'

"THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS WILL CONTINUE, even if Germany and France had some good figures in the second quarter," Strauss-Kahn was quoted as saying in an advance copy of an article to be published in Der Spiegel on Sunday. Strauss-Kahn said he wanted to see more action from nations to curb bankers' pay and tighten capital requirements in the banking sector.

"It is right to say that not enough has happened. I hope the Group of 20 meeting in Pittsburgh will bring new momentum," he said. Leaders of the G20 meet later this month to try to agree on measures to help stop a repeat of the financial crisis. Strauss-Kahn said the lesson of the financial crisis was that the market economy needed rules to function.

"WITHOUT NEW RULES, THERE WILL BE A RETURN TO THE OLD BEHAVIOR," he said. Governments needed to develop 'exit strategies' from the stimulus packages introduced to boost economies, said Strauss-Kahn, adding, however, that IT WAS DANGEROUS TO THINK THE CRISIS WAS ALREADY OVER.

The firings came less than 24 hours after another pair of ACORN officials from the group's Baltimore office were canned for instructing the "pimp" and "prostitute" how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 "very young" girls from El Salvador that pair said they wanted to import to work as child prostitutes.

Both of the encounters were videotaped on a hidden camera wielded by 25-year-old independent filmmaker James O'Keefe, posing as the pimp — tapes that have ignited calls for investigations of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The United States Census Director has sent a letter to the National Headquarters of ACORN NOTIFYING THE GROUP THAT IT WILL NO LONGER HELP WORK ON THE 2010 CENSUS.

The group's leaders said Friday they were "appalled and angry" at what their staffers had done, but insisted the videos were part of a political "smear" campaign and not representative of the institution as a whole. "Taxpayers should be outraged that their money has gone to an organization that, in addition to facing charges of voter fraud and tax violations, is willing to facilitate prostitution," said Representative Steve King, Republican for Iowa. "AS THIS VIDEO CONFIRMS, ACORN CONTINUES TO OPERATE AS A CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE."

The first videotape, made in the Baltimore offices of ACORN, was made public Thursday on the political blog BigGovernment.com. That night, after portions of the video were aired throughout the day on FOX News, the group fired the two women who assisted O'Keefe and Giles in Baltimore.

The decision is intended to bolster the ailing US tire industry, in which more than 5,000 jobs have been lost over the past five years as the volume of Chinese tires in the market has tripled. It comes at a sensitive time, however. Leaders from the world's largest economies are preparing to gather in Pittsburgh in less than two weeks to discuss more cooperation amid tensions over trade. The tire tariff will amount to 35 percent the first year, 30 percent the second and 25 percent the third.

Although a federal trade panel had recommended higher levies - of 55, 45 and 35 percent, respectively - the decision is considered a victory for the United Steelworkers union, which filed the trade complaint. "The president sent the message that we expect others to live by the rules, just as we do," Leo W Gerard, president of the union, said Friday night. China decried a US decision to impose added duty on Chinese-made tires, saying the move sent A DANGEROUS PROTECTIONIST SIGNAL before a G20 summit and could stoke reactions impeding global recovery.

But the White House played down the dispute, saying it was simply "enforcing the rules of the road" and did not expect the matter to escalate into a trade war. "We're simply enforcing those rules and we expect the Chinese to understand those rules," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters on Saturday.

The crowd - loud, animated and sprawling - gathered at the West Front of the Capitol after a march along Pennsylvania Avenue NW from Freedom Plaza. Invocations of God and former President Ronald Reagan by an array of speakers drew loud cheers that echoed across the Mall. On a windy, overcast afternoon, hundreds of yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flags flapped in the breeze.

"Hell hath no fury like a taxpayer ignored," declared Andrew Moylan, head of government affairs for the National Taxpayers Union, urging protesters to call their representatives. The demonstrators roared their approval. "We own the dome!" they chanted, pointing at the Capitol. The demonstrators are part of A LOOSE-KNIT MOVEMENT THAT IS GALVANIZING ANTI-OBAMA SENTIMENT ACROSS THE COUNTRY, stoking a populist dimension to the Republican Party, which has struggled to find its voice since the 2008 elections.

With Democrats in control of Congress, battling the President legislatively has been difficult. But after a spring of anti-tax rallies and summer health-care protests proved to be effective, a growing number of GOP leaders are dropping their wariness and seeing the political possibilities of latching onto this freewheeling coalition. OTHERS ARE CAUTIOUS ABOUT EMBRACING VIEWS THAT CAN BE SEEN AS EXTREMIST. The protests in recent months come as Obama is trying to regain control of the health-care debate and bolster public confidence in his leadership.