Pain Ray vs. Snipers

When your entire purpose in life is to hurt people, you're bound to be misunderstood. That's the situation with the Pentagon's pain ray – even though it might save lives as a counter-sniper tool.

For years, combat units have been begging for the Active Denial System, which uses millimeter waves to heat the very top layer of the skin. If it was lethal it would probably have been fielded years ago. But ADS is a non-lethal weapon. And in the field of non-lethal weapons, politics -- and perceptions -- rule. ...

Attack outside US consulate in Turkey, 6 dead

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - Men armed with pistols and shotguns attacked a police guard post outside the U.S. consulate in Istanbul on Wednesday, sparking a gunbattle that left three attackers and three officers dead.

Turkish and U.S. officials called the shooting a terrorist attack. The U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Turkey's foreign ministry said security around all American diplomatic missions in Turkey had been increased. ...

Houston public employee salaries in 2007

(Compiler's note: Now this is "public service" -- Newspaper posts database with salary of EVERY city of Houston employee -- by name...)


• Click on the name for details, including base salary, bonus and car allowance.
• Sort any column by clicking on the header.
• See something in the database that we should investigate further? ...

Babies for jihad

Two thousand Pakistani women vow to raise up children for the interior spiritual struggle. "Women at Pakistan's Red Mosque vow babies for jihad," by Zeeshan Haider for Reuters, July 9 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - About 2,000 Islamist women gathered at the radical Red Mosque in the Pakistani capital on Wednesday and vowed to raise their children for holy war, days after a suicide bomber killed 18 people after a similar rally.

Chanting slogans of "jihad is our way", burqa-clad women, some with babies, listened to fiery speeches from the daughter of the mosque's jailed cleric on the eve of the anniversary of a commando raid on the complex in which more than 100 people died. ...

Iran Test-Fires Missile Capable of Hitting Israel, U.S. Bases

... Wednesday's war games were being conducted at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which about 40 percent of the world's oil passes. Iran has threatened to shut down traffic in the strait if attacked.

The report showed footage of at least three missiles firing simultaneously, and said the barrage included a new version of the Shahab-3 missile, which officials have said has a range of 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) and is armed with a 1-ton conventional warhead.

That would put Israel, Turkey, the Arabian peninsula, Afghanistan and Pakistan within striking distance. ...

Why are Bosnian Muslims practicing with AK-47's in Fort Wayne?

Ann Corcoran has a post on Refugee Resettlement Watch with an implied question. Why are Bosnian Muslims resettled in Fort Wayne, Indiana practicing with AK-47's. Do they really expect a hit on their growing community in Fort Wayne by Serbs?

The police in Fort Wayne think that the Bosnian Muslim kids are forming gangs engaged in gun running, but to do what? Go on Jihad against their Kafir neighbors? Or sell weapons to the local drug dealers? We note that a local Fort Wayne drug deader was wasted in late June with an Ak-47.

But, Bosnian Muslim teenagers engaging in Jihad, here? It's happened before. ...

It's the Constitution, stupid!

Americans need to ask themselves the following question: Do I want the courts to decide cases on the basis of good public policy, or do I want them to decide them on the basis of what the Constitution says?

Nearly every ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, including the recent overturn of the Washington, D.C., gun ban confronts us with this dilemma.

Naturally, most Americans want their own opinions to prevail in court cases, just as they would like their opinions to prevail in legislative debates or in elections.

However, the courts were never established for this purpose. Courts were established to uphold the existing laws, and, in the case of the U.S. Supreme Court, to uphold the U.S. Constitution.

While I'm gratified that the Constitution was upheld in the D.C. case, I am alarmed it came in a 5-4 ruling. That means we are just one Supreme Court justice away from a ruling that proclaims the Constitution unconstitutional! ...

Iran to "hit Tel Aviv, U.S. ships" if attacked

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran will hit Tel Aviv, U.S. shipping in the Gulf and American interests around the world if it is attacked over its disputed nuclear activities, an aide to Iran's Supreme Leader was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

"The first bullet fired by America at Iran will be followed by Iran burning down its vital interests around the globe," the students news agency ISNA quoted Ali Shirazi as saying in a speech to Revolutionary Guards. ...

Senate's FISA debate to focus on immunity for telecoms

SBy Chris Strohm, CongressDaily -- Senators will battle today over a bill giving telecommunications companies legal protections for helping the Bush administration conduct warrantless electronic surveillance on U.S. citizens, with opponents of the measure emboldened by a recent federal court ruling they say favors their position.

Comment on this article in The Forum.The companies face about 40 lawsuits for participating in the National Security Agency's warrantless electronic surveillance program, all of which have been consolidated before Vaughn Walker, chief judge of the Northern District of California.

Critics argued Monday that the Senate should not pre-empt the lawsuits in light of a ruling by Walker on Wednesday. Walker held that the government could not prevent plaintiffs from presenting unclassified evidence to support their claims against the firms.

Senate Judiciary ranking member Arlen Specter called Walker's ruling "a major development," adding that it would be "very unseemly" for Congress to effectively kill the lawsuits by giving the companies retroactive immunity.

Specter said the ruling gives plaintiffs a "path forward" to establish standing before the court.

"We don't know what it is that we're asking to grant retroactive immunity for," he said.

"I submit that we have really come to a very serious situation," Specter added. "In the future, historians are going to look back on the period from 9/11 to the present time as the greatest expansion of executive power in American history."

The Senate plans to debate three amendments today to the revision to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The administration-backed bill was approved by the House last month.

All three amendments target a provision in the bill that would grant the telecoms retroactive legal immunity if they can show a federal district court they received written directives that warrantless wiretaps were authorized by President Bush and determined to be lawful.

Critics say the companies received such directives, essentially ensuring that the lawsuits would be dismissed if the bill becomes law.

Votes on the amendments and on final passage of the bill will be postponed until Wednesday to allow some senators to attend the funeral of former Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C.

Walker's ruling emboldened groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has filed one of the lawsuits and is an outspoken critic of the bill's immunity provision.

"Certainly we don't think immunity is justified at all," said Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney with the group.

Bankston said the district court should be able to determine whether the directives comply with federal wiretap laws.

Bankston asserted that directives violated the law at least one time period because a determination that the program was lawful was made by Alberto Gonzales when he was White House counsel. By law, Gonzales was not authorized to make that determination.

Supporters of the bill say that even if the measure passes, lawsuits can be brought against the government, rather than the telecom firms.

"I think it is ridiculous to claim that suits against the government are an adequate replacement for suits against the [telecoms]," Bankston said.

One of the amendments to be debated would delay giving the companies legal protections until Congress could review the findings of a comprehensive inspectors general report on the warrantless surveillance program.

The amendment, offered by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., Specter and Sen. Robert Casey Jr., D-Pa., would need 60 votes to pass.

Under the bill, a panel of inspectors general would have one year to complete the investigation.

On Monday, Attorney General Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell sent Senate leaders a letter saying they would recommend Bush veto the bill if the amendment becomes part of the bill.

Another amendment, offered by Sens. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., would strip the immunity provision from the bill. It would need 50 votes to pass; a similar amendment in the Senate garnered 37 votes in February.

Specter is expected to offer an amendment that would require the federal district court to determine if the warrantless electronic surveillance program was constitutional before granting immunity to the companies. It would need 60 votes to pass.

Mukasey and McConnell already have warned that if either amendment becomes part of the bill, they will recommend a veto.

The weapons of World War III

Did the Chinese military cause the largest blackout in the history of North America?

That is the assertion of Tim Bennett, the former president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, who says U.S. intelligence officials confirmed to him the People's Liberation Army gained access to a network that controlled electric power systems serving the northeastern U.S. in 2003, according to a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Some 50 million people were affected by the 9,300-square-mile blackout that hit parts of New York, Canada, Michigan and Ohio. ...

Obama birth certificate faked?

Questions over a birth certificate for Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama – the document that could prove his constitutional qualifications to run for the presidency – have been revived by a report from Israel Insider. ...

...The report said the Ahphorgerie image and comments later were deleted from the discussion thread, "something that could only have been done by a site administrator or Kos himself."

The Insider report said the one assumption that is valid is that the controversy "should cause the Obama campaign to reassess its reliance on the image of the birth certificate published by the Daily Kos."

"If the birth certificate endorsed by his campaign turns out to be a fraud – and the overwhelming evidence assembled points to it being precisely that – what would that say about the credentials and judgment of the presidential candidate it purports to represent? Let alone his Constitutional eligibility to serve," the report said. ...