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Florida Keys evacuated in preparation for Rita Hurricane Rita has prompted local Florida Keys officials to evacuate the area. Evacuation ended as remaining people have since sought shelter from the storm. Surge is projected to be as high as 8 feet, and has recently become a Category 5 hurricane. Iran determined to continue with nuclear program The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced Saturday the resolve of his country to proceed with the development of nuclear energy. He stated that Iran would not pursue nuclear weapons.

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Results of 2005 German federal election According to the preliminary result, the alliance consisting of chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social democrats and the Greens has lost its majority but the future government is still uncertain.

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Hurricane Rita reaches Category 5 intensity. The current path tracks landfall at Galveston, Texas on Saturday. The inbound causeway to the Island has been closed and mandatory evacuation has been ordered. Residents on the Gulf Coast south of Galveston are urged to evacuate. At least 50 people die following a series of storms and floods hit the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh and India, many more are missing and officials fear for the safety of over a hundred fishermen.

Tennessee closes down Christian ex-gay camp for treating mental illness without a license

The Tennessee state Department of Mental Health has ordered the closing of two Ex-gay ministries operated by Love In Action International Inc., a controversial Christian group that counsels gays to give up homosexuality.

The state deemed that Love in Action was "providing housing, meals and personal care for mentally ill patients without a license". In particular, the state found that Love in Action was dispensing medication to patients without the required license.

Love in Action has repeatedly drawn fire from gay rights groups who view it as preying upon the fears of religious parents in order to make Christian ministers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson seem more acceptable to the uniformed public. Gay rights advocates view such bootcamp style Ex-Gay camps as "tantamount to child abuse".

Love In Action is viewed as the first modern Ex-Gay group. Its co-founder John Evans, who abandoned the ministry, feels that it has led to "nothing but shattered lives, depression, and even suicide" and suggests that "The Church has been wrong in the past regarding moral issues and I’m sure there will be more before Christ returns."

The American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association strongly afirm that "homosexuality is not an illness", "does not require treatment" and "is not changeable." They feel that "gay men and lesbians who have accepted their sexual orientation positively are better adjusted than those who have not done so," and warn that people seeking conversion therapy may be doing so under pressure from religious groups. The American public is evenly divided on the question of whether homosexual orientation can be changed, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

Florida Keys evacuated in preparation for Rita

Hurricane Rita prompted local Florida Keys officials to evacuate the area. Evacuation ended as remaining people sought shelter. The storm is threatening to cause a 16+ foot storm surge, and has become a Category 5 hurricane.[4]

The storm may hit Southern Florida, then the US Gulf Coast; preliminary maps suggest landfall in Texas. Fear has caused crude oil prices to rise by $4 per barrel on Monday, in anticipation that Rita would cause more damage to the oil refineries around the Gulf of Mexico. This was the largest single day price increase for crude oil in history. Prices dropped by $1 to $66 per barrel on Tuesday, eased partly by news that OPEC would supply 2 million barrels of oil per day in extra capacity to ease supply shortages.

Phil Flynn, an analyst, stated that "We really can't afford to lose more production," as Katrina left many oil facilities inoperable.

40,000 residents are affected by the evacuation plans, which include everyone in the southern portions of the Keys. Voluntary evacuations were issued to 134,000 coastal residents. Five Cuban provinces were set on alert, as well as certain areas in the Bahamas and the remainder of Florida.

Rita could affect New Orleans and other places recovering from Hurricane Katrina — it may cause a great deal of water to be dumped on the region — worrying officials. Daniel Brown, a hurricane meteorologist, said "This is something everyone should be paying attention to." President Bush adds: "There is deep concern about this storm causing more flooding in New Orleans."

From a Sunday, September 11 broadcast of MSNBC's Meet The Press, Mr. Russert received the following answer to a question about the vulnerability of New Orleans to flooding. Dr. Ivor van Heerden is the deputy director of Louisiana State University Hurricane Center:

MR. RUSSERT: ...Doctor, you're an expert on this. We're still in the hurricane season. What are the chances, the likelihood that a tropical storm or, God forbid, another hurricane could hit this same area?

DR. VAN HEERDEN: You know, there is a high probability it could happen. The unfortunate thing is, because the levee system is so weakened, just a tropical storm could reflood New Orleans. So it's a very, very vulnerable situation right now. We don't need another Katrina to flood New Orleans. A tropical storm that puts maybe five feet or six feet of water in Lake Pontchartrain, which is not rare, would reflood the city.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you think the local, state and federal governments are prepared for an event like that in the coming weeks?

DR. VAN HEERDEN: I don't think so, because right now they're really battling just to try and shore up the levees. You know, there were seven major levee breaks and it's going to take quite a lot of time to repair those, to have them engineeringly sound so they won't give way again.

The hurricane season is in full swing, ending on November 30.

Arizona appellate court rules ban against autodialers applies to text messages

On Tuesday an Arizona appellate court ruled that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 also applies to text messages sent to mobile phones. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 is a federal law that bans using autodialers to call mobile phones or pagers.

The three-judge Court of Appeals panel upheld the trial judge’s ruling in favour of Rodney L. Joffe. He sued Acacia Mortgage Corp. in 2001, for $55,000 in damages for harassment.

Acacia used a web-based system to send the text messages, which translates the users phone number into an e-mail address. Acacia argued that that the company was not making calls to mobile phones, but rather sending e-mails. "Even though Acacia used an attenuated method to dial a cell phone telephone number, it nevertheless did so," wrote Judge Patricia K. Norris.

FDA to incinerate foreign aid meant for victims of Hurricane Katrina

The American Food and Drug Administration has recalled operational rations (MREs) donated by Britain to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The majority of the 400,000 rations donated by Britian, at a cost of millions of pounds, are set to be destroyed at a plant in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The move has infuriated aid workers who hasten to point out that "Under Nato, American soldiers are also entitled to eat such rations, yet the starving of the American South will see them go up in smoke because of FDA red tape madness." One aid worker was quoted as saying:

There will be a cloud of smoke above Little Rock soon - of burned food, of anger and of shame that the world's richest nation couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery and lets Americans starve while they arrogantly observe petty regulations.

Everyone is revolted by the chaotic shambles the US is making of this crisis. Guys from Unicef are walking around spitting blood.

An FDA spokesman said the rations had not been inspected but were automatically deemed "unfit for human consumption" due to Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or colloquially "mad cow disease") fears. He observed that 70 pallets of vegetarian MREs were inspected and approved on September 13th. Aid workers claim that, today, BSE is much more of a problem in the U.S. than in Britain.

Food donations from Spain and Italy are also being held by the FDA due to similar concern, as well as thousands of gallons of pear juice from Israel.

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Today in History
1776 - Captain Nathan Hale, a spy from the Continental Army, was hanged by British forces.

1862 - History of slavery in the United States: President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in Confederate territory by January 1, 1863.

1869 - Das Rheingold, the first of four operas in Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner (pictured right), debuted in Munich.

1961 - The Peace Corps was founded. Within two years, over 7,300 Peace Corps volunteers were serving in 44 countries.

1980 - Iraq launched an invasion of Iran, starting the Iran-Iraq War.

September 22 is Autumnal equinox (22:23 UTC) in the Northern Hemisphere; Independence Day in Bulgaria (1908) and Mali (1960); Car Free Day in Europe & Canada.

Quote of the Day

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." ~ George Eliot

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