Right now I am sitting on the sidewalk outside a mobbed Starbucks in Times Square, having walked uptown from powerless Greenwich Village, where I live, in search of connectivity.

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"I am quite uncomfortable going outside the Helsinki framework without the requisite analysis on a subject of such major strategic importance, " said Admiral Jay Johnson, Chief of Naval Operations, at a May 23 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

CNN: Bush's missile defense plans may be indistinct from Clinton-Gore's

In many cases fellow inmates are instructed by their jailors to keep a watch on such prisoners, I am told, and guards are posted outside the cell, which may also be under CCTV coverage.

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Two other members of the polar party, Welshman Edgar Evans from Rhossili on Gower, and Captain Lawrence "Titus" Oates - he of the renowned phrase "I am going outside and I may be some time" - had earlier lost their lives.

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