Poor Mojo's Newswire

MSNBC's Keith Olbermmann bestowed his "worst person" honors on Wednesday's show to Dunkin' Donuts of Canton, Massachusetts, for pulling an advertisement featuring Rachel Ray because of the "xenophobic paranoia" created by the scarf worn around the celebrity cook's neck.... Olbermann suggested that the donut franchise might not be "worth the trip" since it caved into "fascists" like Malkin.

According to journalist Jason Leopold, sources at former Cheney company Halliburton allege that, as recently as January of 2005, Halliburton sold key components for a nuclear reactor to an Iranian oil development company. Leopold says his Halliburton sources have intimate knowledge of the business dealings of both Halliburton and Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies.

Additionally, throughout 2004 and 2005, Halliburton worked closely with Cyrus Nasseri, the vice chairman of the board of directors of Iran-based Oriental Oil Kish, to develop oil projects in Iran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iran’s nuclear development team. Nasseri was interrogated by Iranian authorities in late July 2005 for allegedly providing Halliburton with Iran’s nuclear secrets. Iranian government officials charged Nasseri with accepting as much as $1 million in bribes from Halliburton for this information.

Oriental Oil Kish dealings with Halliburton first became public knowledge in January 2005 when the company announced that it had subcontracted parts of the South Pars gas-drilling project to Halliburton Products and Services, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Halliburton that is registered to the Cayman Islands. Following the announcement, Halliburton claimed that the South Pars gas field project in Tehran would be its last project in Iran. According to a BBC report, Halliburton, which took thirty to forty million dollars from its Iranian operations in 2003, “was winding down its work due to a poor business environment.”

PORT ST. LUCIE - Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class. After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo said they were going to take a vote, Barton said. By a 14 to 2 margin, the students voted Alex -- who is in the process of being diagnosed with autism -- out of the class.... Barton said her son is in the process of being diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a type of high-functioning autism. Alex began the testing process in February at the suggestion of Morningside Principal Marcia Cully. Children diagnosed with Asperger's often exhibit social isolation and eccentric behavior..... Barton said after the vote, Portillo asked Alex how he felt. "He said, 'I feel sad,' " Barton said. Alex left the classroom and spent the rest of the day in the nurse's office, she said. Barton said when she came to pick up her son at the school Wednesday, he was leaving the nurse's office. "He was shaken up," she said. Barton said the nurse told her to talk with Portillo, who told her what happened. Alex hasn't been back to school since then, and Barton said he won't be returning. He starts screaming when she brings him with her to drop off his sibling at school. Thursday night, his mother heard him saying "I'm not special" over and over.

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Britain is considering a massive government database to store the e-mails, Internet information, phone-calls and text messages of all residents to help security forces in the fight against crime and terrorism. At the moment, records of phone-calls and text messages are kept up to 12 months by telecoms companies in compliance with an EU anti-terrorism directive. But a new Home Office (Interior Ministry) proposal would see Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms companies handing over records containing billions of e-mails as well as Internet usage and voice-over-Internet calls, media reports said on Tuesday.