TV News LIES

The US embassy to Iraq says the United States has delivered 100 Hellfire missiles, along with assault rifles and ammunition, as part of its anti-terrorism assistance to the country.

In a statement issued on Sunday, the embassy said the delivery was made earlier this month in order to help bolster Iraq forces fighting a breakaway al-Qaida group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

... or, you could carry moonbeams home in a jar.  You could go shopping for a snack.  And, you know, nibble on a Pitt?

So much for musical whimsy.  Down to business:  How about some Angelina chops? Some Brad burgers or Pitt pits?  No, we're not talking about acting abilities or World War Z cuisine.  Not really.

We're talking Soylent Sausages here.  Or, as a buddy chimed in,  The Other White Meat.  Yes:  It's what for barter, if the dollar fails.  Or, as another one emailed:  Is this Soylent Bling?

Yes, it's all of those things. And more.  Too much more.

The U.S. government's “massive” watchlist database risks stigmatizing hundreds of thousands of people as known or suspected terrorists – including some its own citizens, a leading civil liberties group has warned.

Around 875,000 names are believed to be on the list, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said. Many are included "based on information that is often stale, poorly reviewed, or of questionable reliability," it added in a report published Friday. Moreover people are being put onto the watch list based on secret evidence and secret standards, with no meaningful process to challenge mistakes, the ACLU warned.

Once upon a time, life in America made sense, at least in everyday comings and goings.  There were unspoken bargains of reasonableness in effect.  These were the handshakes and nods of fairness in play.  When it came to some sort of public issue, there were more tipped hats than launched birds-of-a-middle-finger flocking together.

Of course, back then, we were a hat-obsessed nation, with head coverings of all sorts trickling their way into the language.  When we weren't hanging around, hats in hand, we were taking our hats off to this or that person or idea.  We even had feathers that others gave us, to put into our caps, thinking or otherwise.  You could actually wear a Pork Pie, right on your head.

The US came under sharp criticism at the UN human rights committee in Geneva on Thursday for a long list of human rights abuses that included everything from detention without charge at Guantánamo, drone strikes and NSA surveillance, to the death penalty, rampant gun violence and endemic racial inequality.

At the start of a two-day grilling of the US delegation, the committee’s 18 experts made clear their deep concerns about the US record across a raft of human rights issues. Many related to faultlines as old as America itself, such as guns and race.

Sperm whales do it. Dolphins do it. Orcas do it. And now, researchers have unveiled the fossilized skull of a 28-million-year-old marine mammal that did it too – used sound to find its next meal or swim safely through turbid waters.

The creature, Cotylocara macei, is the earliest known cetacean to show skeletal evidence for a natural form of sonar, according to a research team reporting the results in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

The contractor that evaluated greenhouse gas emissions for the State Department's Keystone XL report is the latest company to come under fire for its ties to TransCanada, the prospective builder of the controversial pipeline.

A conflict-of-interest statement from the consulting firm ICF International, submitted to the State Department in 2012, reveals that the company had done other work for TransCanada.

Thanks to a series of shady deals with former subsidiaries—and massive cuts in royalties to unsuspecting landowners—the controversial shale gas firm is now awash in cash.

At the end of 2011, Chesapeake Energy, one of the nation’s biggest oil and gas companies, was teetering on the brink of failure.  Its legendary chief executive officer, Aubrey McClendon, was being pilloried for questionable deals, its stock price was getting hammered and the company needed to raise billions of dollars quickly.

The money could be borrowed, but only on onerous terms. Chesapeake, which had burned money on a lavish steel-and-glass office complex in Oklahoma City even while the selling price for its gas plummeted, already had too much debt.