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Daemon |
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Advanced Member |
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Inside Farlex computers |
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Saturday, March 07, 2009 |
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Friday, March 27, 2009 2:05:40 PM |
1,484
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 Drug-Laden Salad Killed Iran Whistleblower
A young prison doctor who exposed the torture of jailed protestors in Iran has died under suspicious circumstances, fueling fears that he was killed because of his intimate knowledge of what went on at Kahrizak, a prison on the outskirts of Tehran.. Though officials initially told Ramin Pourandarjani’s family that he had been injured in a car accident on November 10, he had actually died after eating a salad laced with an overdose of blood pressure medication. Iran’s police chief insists the doctor committed suicide, perhaps because he was facing charges of failing to fulfill his duties to treat the detainees, but relatives and opposition groups find this explanation suspect. More...
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infinitesimal
(adjective) Infinitely or immeasurably small.
Synonyms: minute
Usage: Thus, he could avoid the leap of another dog, or the drive of its fangs, and at the same moment could seize the infinitesimal fraction of time in which to deliver his own attack.
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 Potatoes Save the USS O'Bannon
The USS O'Bannon was a US Navy destroyer deployed to the Southwest Pacific during World War II. On patrol on April 5, 1943, the O'Bannon sighted a Japanese submarine on the ocean's surface and fired upon it, but the submarine soon moved too close to be attacked with the main guns. When the Japanese crew came topside, the US sailors pelted them with potatoes. Believing they were being assaulted with grenades, the Japanese panicked and threw their guns overboard. What happened next? More...
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 World's Worst Industrial Disaster Occurs in India (1984)
The accidental release of methyl isocyanate gas from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, immediately killed an estimated 3,000 people and ultimately resulted in the deaths of some 15,000 people. Another 500,000 survivors suffer from ailments related to the disaster. Documents that recently came to light during a lawsuit against the company reveal that Carbide had exported "untested, unproven technology" to India. What did a 2004 BBC investigation find at the disaster site? More...
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 Jean-Luc Godard (1930)
Godard was one of the founders of the French New Wave movement in cinema in the 1960s. The movement rejected the classic narrative style of filmmaking. Instead, Godard used radical stylistic tools, including jump cuts, character asides, and documentary-style techniques, to blur the boundary between fact and fiction. Godard's many works include Breathless; Weekend; and Masculin, féminin. Which of his films was condemned by the Catholic Church for alleged heresy? More...
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 The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
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 Loneliness Spreads Like Contagion
According to a recently published article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, loneliness, like the flu, is contagious. Using data from the Framingham Heart Study, which was designed to study the risks of cardiovascular disease in individuals over time, researchers determined that if one person reported feeling lonely at one evaluation, his closest friends and relatives were 52% more likely to also report feeling lonely two years later. This phenomenon compounds the problem for lonely people by further isolating them from society. More...
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unquiet
(adjective) Causing or fraught with or showing anxiety.
Synonyms: anxious, nervous, queasy, uneasy
Usage: His countenance expressed uneasiness, and the occasional unquiet glances that he had thrown around him during the service plainly indicated some unusual causes for unhappiness.
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 The Inscription of Behistun
Carved about 328 ft (100 m) up the face of a cliff in Iran's Kermanshah Province, the Behistun Inscription recounts the reign of Darius I of Persia in 3 cuneiform languages: Old Persian, Susian, and Assyrian. The decipherment of these 6th century BCE inscriptions provided scholars with the key to cuneiform script, becoming to cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone is to Egyptian hieroglyphs. How was the bas-relief that accompanies the inscriptions misinterpreted before the texts were fully deciphered? More...
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 Fidel Castro Announces Cuba Will Adopt Communism (1961)
In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro announced that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that, under his leadership, Cuba would become a Communist state. His announcement came nearly eight months after the disastrous, US-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion. Cuba's adoption of Communism, coupled with the country's proximity to the US, was a key element in the Cold War and continues to affect international relations. How many attempts have been made on Castro's life? More...
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