Life, Nature, Society

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(This is a rush transcript from "Your World with Neil Cavuto," June 10, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.)

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Well, the Republican National Convention just got some competition, not from the Democrats, but from another Republican — Ron Paul just announcing he's holding a convention of his own. It will be the same day and in the same city as the RNC Convention.

Presidential candidate Ron Paul joins me now.

What are you — what are you up to, Congressman?

REP. RON PAUL (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I don't know whether we'll call it a convention. We're certainly going to have a meeting.

But we're sort of following up on what happened early in the presidential primary races. As you recall, early on, I was excluded from a forum out in Iowa. It happened to be a tax group. And I have no idea why I was singled out and excluded. But we went and had a rally next door. We didn't crash the party. We didn't try to cause any problems. We just went next door. And our rally was a lot bigger than the presidential forum was.

So, at the national convention, we believe, since we won't have very much of a role to play there, that we will see what kind of numbers that we have, where Republicans could come together to remind the party of its promises for limited government.

That's the roots of the Republican Party, and I still think there are still a lot of Republicans that believe that government ought to be small and balanced budgets and free markets and all these principles that, for so long now, we have been neglecting.  read more »

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A father leans out of a smoke-choked second-floor window. Just released from his grasp, his infant son hurtles backward through the air, pudgy arms flung wide. On the sidewalk below, a throng of men stare up at the baby. One holds his arms up, fingers splayed, ready to make the catch.

The dramatic moment, captured in a black-and-white photo taken by an amateur, has been retold countless times to William Sheridan Jr. since that morning 30 years ago yesterday, when his father, William Sr., dropped him into the arms of neighbor Tom Connally. Just moments before that, his father had dropped his twin sister, Nichole, who was snagged by another neighbor, Jimmy Madden. Minutes later, firefighters used a ladder to save his father and mother, Kathy Sheridan, from the raging blaze that tore through their home on East 2d Street in South Boston on May 28, 1978.

"I just remember my husband saying: 'Get up! Get up! Get up!" said Kathy Sheridan, who was 24 at the time. "And as soon as I opened my eyes, the whole apartment was full of smoke." Her husband, who was 25, grabbed the twins, but thick, black smoke blocked the stairway to the street. He broke open a window, and the couple saw neighbors on the street below, screaming, "Throw the babies!" "I just couldn't do it," Kathy Sheridan said. "All I could see was concrete." Her husband took the infants, leaned out, and dropped them. "It was just one of those crazy things," he said yesterday. "And for the most part I don't think about it."

The photo was taken by David G. Mugar, who was then a new owner of Boston's Channel 7 with a hobby of amateur news photography. He was parked in Dorchester when he heard the fire call on a scanner in his car, raced over, captured the shot, and later gave the $5,000 in proceeds from his photos to the Sheridans, whose belongings were destroyed in the fire. The photo won Mugar a number of awards, including second place in a World Press Photo Awards competition in Holland.

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Photos courtesy of David G. Mugar and Globe Staff / Dina Rudick

Original Source: Boston Globe

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Spanish lorry drivers blocked the border with France to all goods traffic yesterday as fuel-price protests in Spain, France and Portugal raised fears of food and petrol shortages. Spanish and Portuguese hauliers began indefinite strikes, and queues of lorries up to five miles long formed on the French side of the border after Spanish picketers smashed the windscreens of foreign goods drivers who tried to enter Spain. French and Spanish hauliers also staged go-slow protests, causing 20-mile tailbacks in Bordeaux, France, and 15 miles or more around Madrid and Barcelona. The hauliers were all demanding action to offset the effect of oil prices, now at record highs of over $139 per barrel.  read more »

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Police in Indian-administered Kashmir have used water canons and batons to disperse hundreds of government employees upset over fuel price rises. Dozens of people were detained after protesters gathered outside the office of the state's chief minister in the centre of the summer capital, Srinagar. "Roll back price of petrol, diesel and cooking gas," the protesters shouted before they were dispersed. Similar protests have also taken place in the north-eastern state of Assam.

The state was brought to a standstill on Monday by opposition parties unhappy about the fuel price rises. They have accused the central government of "inept handling" of oil prices. Offices, banks, shops and schools were closed and traffic stayed off the road. "The government has no concern for the common people," the coalition of tribal groups from Assam's hill areas said in a statement. "This will force tribals into starvation."

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No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.
- George Bernard Shaw

ebook Quotable Wit and Wisdom - Collection 1 available via Amazon Kindle eBooks and Apple iBookstore

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They will always remember it as the most terrifying 48 hours of their lives. Five divers who were missing for two days off Indonesia, have described how they were plunged from one life-threatening crisis into another after being swept away by strong currents. The rescued group hugged and wept tears of joy on Saturday after first surviving for nine hours in treacherous, shark-infested seas and then fighting off the world's largest and most deadly lizards on a remote island. The divers, who had clung to a log in the sea to prevent them from drowning, were found by national park rangers on an island inhabited by Komodo dragons, carnivores capable of killing humans. The exhausted, dehydrated, sun-burnt and hungry group had to throw rocks to repel the most persistent reptile as it repeatedly tried to attack them. Komodo dragons grow up to 10ft long and can kill animals more than twice their size, including water buffalo.

The five vanished, and were feared dead, after a dive off Tawa Besar island inside the Komodo National Park on Thursday. They were swept 25 miles away from their original position by fierce currents. The three rescued Britons are Charlotte Allin, 24, and her boyfriend Jim Manning, 30, both from Devon, and Kathleen Mitchinson, who was living in Indonesia. The other divers, Helena Naradainen who is Swedish, and Laurent Pinel, who is French, are also safe.  read more »