"Give us money or we'll call you an Islamophobe"

Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, responded yesterday to attempts by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) to discredit a panel on State Department outreach to Islamic groups that appear moderate but which seem likely to be anything but (including MPAC itself). He declared:

"This hearing will go on. We need to make sure that the State Department is not giving U.S. tax dollars to those on the other side in the war on terrorism." He added "The Muslim Public Affairs Council should apologize for the statements of its executive director on September 11, 2001."

MPAC, ISNA and a constellation of other radical groups and individuals have been supported by the State Department. Perhaps Thursday's testimony will signal a turning point, seeing the State Department implement stricter guidelines to avoid past mistakes and embarrassments, which have damaged America's national security.

It is encouraging to see someone in Sherman's position take the issue on so fearlessly and directly.

"I think one of the greatest fears of people in the United States is somebody may call you a racist...they may call you an Islamophobe," he said in the hearing. "And what we've seen with some of these organizations is their message is clear: ‘Give us money or we'll call you an Islamophobe'...that's what they say to the State Department. What they say to us in Congress is ‘Don't question the fact that we're getting money or we'll call you an Islamophobe.'"

Bravo, Sherman! Read it all: "Emerson Exposes Radical Ties of State Department Outreach Partners," from IPT News, July 31 (thanks to Andrew Bostom).

Making Black Magic

The world of illusion isn’t only for stage acts—old tricks can also make for dangerous new threats in the nation’s airports and beyond.

---

One night in the summer of 2005, I was having drinks with prestidigitator Harry Anderson at his club, Oswald’s, in New Orleans, discussing the finer points of sleights of hand and, more broadly, the legerdemain of magic. ...

I explained that counterterror intelligence analysts had examined information indicating Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations had studied the discipline of his craft at some point—techniques like classic misdirection, sleights, illusions and gaffed tricks. These counterterrorists were concerned that some terrorists had experimented with using parlor tricks to do things like sneak explosives on board an aircraft.

Given his long career in the arcane art of conjuring, I asked Harry if he thought it was possible that a highly motivated individual like a terrorist could train well enough to successfully employ some of these gimmicks for nefarious purposes. ...

The concept of terrorists as magicians was rekindled this past February when the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis issued an intelligence advisory warning about the possibility that Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations might try to use women jihadists hiding explosives inside “pregnancy prosthetics … that mimic the look of a pregnant woman.” ...

Earlier this year, terrorists began to use a crude form of deception in their dispatching of female jihadists. In Iraq, Al Qaeda used Muslim women wearing suicide vests to carry out bombings after increased security and protective concrete walls made car bombings more difficult.

But as security authorities wise up to terrorists’ new ruses, the more astute among counterterrror intelligence authorities are pondering truly frightening scenarios terrorists are believed to have studied to hide explosives—like lining pregnancy prosthetics with sheet plastic explosives. They warn that the wearer may be able to get through airports that have no effective trace explosives sniffers or whole body imagers.

“This suddenly has become a very viable possibility,” said a veteran counterterrorist HSToday regularly talks to on background.

Combined with well-rehearsed misdirection and deception to cause momentary confusion and diversion, terrorists might be able to whisk any prosthetic-wearing jihadist past some airports’ security, the counterterrorist mused—“it would only take one.” ...

“Terrorists are getting exponentially smarter,” Kushner said. And according to counterterror experts, they’re coming up with more and more ways to slip past our first lines of defense. To do so, they’ve been experimenting with some really off the wall methods of deception to disguise their suicidal methodologies, like hiding upwards of three pounds of C-4, Semtex or some other plastic bonded explosive (PBX) rectally, vaginally and even surgically. The explosive could be remotely detonated while the bomb is inside terrorists’ bodies. ...

Philip Mudd, a high-ranking FBI counterterrorism official, told CBS news that European citizens of Pakistani descent and a few Americans were discovered to have been recruited as jihadists.

“They’ve realized that if they want to operate successfully they need to have people who look like us, act like us and are very difficult to find,” Mudd said.

“Whether it’s Americans or whether it’s people who can launch from Europe, because they have visas or passports that allow them to travel to the United States, [Al Qaeda is now] looking for people who can operate in the West.”

“…Or be recruited from the West,” another senior federal counterterror official told HSToday. ...

NOTE: This goes on, and on. Please go to the original source and read the entire article.

Barack Obama and Homeland Security

Who has the candidate’s ear on homeland security issues? A look at the roster of names and faces surrounding the senator from Illinois.

Over the past two years, as presidential campaign 2008 has ground on, the public has been constantly exposed to seemingly nanosecond-by-nanosecond saturation coverage. We’ve been subjected to nearly all aspects of political effluvia and arcana, from analyses of personality quirks and conflicts, image crafting, election tactics, opinion polls, fundraising, advertising spots and fine points of debating style and lapel pins.

Largely lost from view is the fact that political campaigns are primary vehicles for the creation of “brain trusts” which, in the case of winning campaigns, will generate many of the chief advisory posts of a new administration. ...

“Nonetheless,” he added, “if you look not so far beneath the surface, all of these issues are integrally connected to homeland security. So you can say that homeland security is an important subtext. ...

“One key thing that distinguishes Senator Obama’s approach as a candidate both from his Democratic rival[s] and, even more so from Senator McCain,” Michael Ortiz, Senator Obama’s communications director, told HSToday, “is his insistence on a pragmatic, analytical method in defining funding needs based on risk. In theory, everyone is in favor of prioritizing funding according to risk, but in practice homeland security funding has been politicized in a very counter-productive way so that every location, whether it warranted it or not, could get a piece of the pie.”

Obama sought to translate his rhetoric into legislation by co-sponsoring the Risk-Based Homeland Security Grants Act of 2007 (S. 608). Citing the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission that “homeland security assistance should not remain a program for general sharing,” Obama’s amendment to the bill called for decreasing the current minimum funding each state received under the state homeland security grant program to .25 percent, with an increase to .45 percent for border states. ...

One outspoken supporter whom Obama and his policy team have enlisted as a national and homeland security guru is Lee Hamilton, former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees and vice-chairman of the 9/11 Commission. ...

Hamilton’s perspectives on the challenges ahead for homeland security can be seen in a commentary—titled “Reckoning with Radical Islam”—published last summer by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

“Our current counter-terror strategy is inadequate,” Hamilton wrote. ...

Another formal senior advisor to Obama and subject of speculation as an Obama vice-presidential running mate, Sam Nunn, former Democratic Georgia senator, has in public addresses and publications over the past year been laying out an agenda that places an emphasis on US diplomatic initiatives and leadership in multilateral projects to stem the global proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. ...

Former Colorado senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart, an Obama supporter frequently mentioned as a likely high-level Cabinet member in an Obama administration, has described Obama as an ideal leader to forge the kind of multilateral security alliances critical to a truly international counterterror strategy. ...

In a book titled Under the Eagle’s Wing: A National Security Strategy of the United States for 2009 published in April, Hart outlined his current thinking on national and homeland security and on the priorities of a new administration. ...

Richard Clarke, an informal advisor on homeland security and related matters to the Obama campaign, has said he believes Obama “offers a comprehensive, sophisticated approach to terrorism, recognizing the importance of stopping repressive police and intelligence activities in countries threatened by Al Qaeda,” while also acknowledging, “that we are not at war with Islam but partners with Muslims threatened by Al Qaeda.” ...

Taken in tandem, these positions signal potentially large differences in policy priorities between the candidates.

The National Emergency Communications Plan

On July 31, 2008, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the National Emergency Communications Plan. This plan comes out of DHS’s Office of Emergency Communications (OEC) and gives long and short term recommendations to address the problems with national emergency communication. Title XVII of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 requires that such a plan be developed, especially in light of recent terrorist attacks and significant natural disasters.

The press release reports that the ultimate goal of the NECP is to ensure that communications during emergency situations is efficient among all levels of government and private industry. Perhaps the best part of NECP is that it isn’t another “well this a list of the thing we want.” NECP gives a list of goals as well as a strategic look on how to accomplish those goals. To ensure smooth communications during disasters, the NECP gives the following three goals: ...

You can find the press release here. You can find the actual communication plan at this location. It will be intersting to see how the different levels of government and industry react to The National Emergency Communications Plan. It will be intersting to see if the NECP conflicts with existing plans and strategic goals. Please leave comments below if you can shed some light on the subject.

Obama's 'emergency' economic plan

(Compiler's note: By what authority? Better look into the detail on this one people. This is socialism at its best.)

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Friday announced an “Emergency Economic Plan” that would give families a stimulus check of $1,000 each, funded in part by what his presidential campaign calls “windfall profits from Big Oil.”

Details are in this six-page policy paper.

The first part of Obama’s plan is an emergency energy rebate ($500 to individual workers, $1,000 to families) as soon as this fall. ...

Drill, Drill, Drill

Source: A friend

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I just sent the below missive to my elected representatives. Unfortunately, I don’t expect any action. They are busy as I write, changing into their ‘vacation’ attire. As you may discern from my tone, I think they are a bunch of dunderheads who are more interested in themselves than the needs of the Nation. I got the idea to do this from a retired soldier friend of mine, Bill XXXX. Thanks, Bill—I borrowed some of your words and added a few of my own. I am not so naive as to think that my e-mail will result in any action, but maybe someone else is expressing the same view.

Here is what I sent to each of them:

Dear Senator/Representative,

When can we out here in the hinter-lands expect the Congress to lift the ban on Off Shore Drilling? You have done nothing, but you are going to take a vacation?

It does not take a rocket scientist to realize increasing domestic supply will reduce the massive outflow of wealth, and, as evidenced by the market’s reaction to the President’s recent action in lifting the executive ban on offshore drilling, will reduce costs of fossil fuels while this nation gets moving on alternative energy sources.

I agree with a starting point recommended by Mr T. Boone Pickens. "Natural gas and wind generated electricity.” A friend of mine suggested to me the other day and I feel it merits passing along to you, maybe a good starting place for the wind generators might be in a close proximity to Capitol Hill, at least some of the ineffective rhetoric (hot air) coming out of that facility might be put to good use!

When will some meaningful business be conducted for the people of this Republic in that facility instead of the constant bipartisan bickering and profiling for reelection.

Bottom line is simple; do we need a massive changing of faces in the Congress to get anything accomplished? I am tired of hearing the old platitudes about having a ‘comprehensive plan’ before we do anything. That is just the traditional Washington cop-out.

One T-d off voter, (slight modification to this last sentence by this compiler)

Signed

Al-Arian defenders try to put his prosecutor on trial

It's not that Al-Arian has admitted to aiding Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and has clearly been deeply involved in jihadist activity in the U.S. It's that his prosecutor is "anti-Muslim." This is another variation of the phenomenon I discussed here: if you tell the truth about jihad and Islamic supremacism, it must be because you "hate Muslims." The focus shifts from defendant to prosecutor -- which is just what the jihadists want to accomplish.

"A Prosecutor Is Called 'Relentless,'" by Josh Gerstein for the New York Sun, July 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A federal prosecutor who has led a series of investigations into Islamic militants and Muslim groups based in Virginia, Gordon Kromberg, may soon be facing a trial of sorts himself, if defense lawyers get their way.

Attorneys for a former Florida college professor who pleaded guilty two years ago to aiding Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami Al-Arian, are asking a federal judge to hold a hearing on whether anti-Muslim bias led to the government's decision to obtain a new indictment of Al-Arian in June for contempt for refusing to testify before grand juries pursuing the Virginia organizations.

While the motion claims Muslim terrorism suspects are generally treated unfairly by the Justice Department, Al-Arian's lawyers argue that Mr. Kromberg, 51, has a particularly egregious record of intemperate statements and actions in a series of terrorism-related cases and investigations.

"Defense attorneys have objected for years that Mr. Kromberg, the lead counsel in many of these cases, has been using the Eastern District of Virginia to mete out his own brand of justice for Muslim terrorism subjects, often openly displaying his personal animus," Al-Arian's lead counsel, Jonathan Turley, wrote. "This long and controversial record forms the backdrop for the allegation of selective and malicious prosecution in this case." ...

Moonbats Threaten To Decapitate 11 Year-Old For Shooting Massive Hog

He killed a fat hog... Now he must die.

In this photo released by Melynne Stone, Jamison Stone, 11, poses with a wild pig he killed near Delta, Ala., May 3, 2007. Stone's father says the hog weighed a staggering 1,051 pounds and measured 9-feet-4 from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail. The animal was larger than ``Hogzilla,'' the huge hog killed in Georgia in 2004. (Flickr)

Animal rights moonbats have threatened to decapitate a 11 year-old hunter for shooting a massive wild boar in Alabama.
FOX News and Power Line Forum reported: ...

Global Security Brief

By Professor Joseph B. Varner

American intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan’s powerful spy service helped plan the deadly July 7 bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to United States government officials.

The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region. The American officials also said there was new information showing that members of the Pakistani intelligence service were increasingly providing militants with details about the American campaign against them, in some cases allowing militants to avoid American missile strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas. ...

Administration Asserts No Fourth Amendment for Domestic Military Operations

by Michael Ostrolenk

Posted by Kurt Opsahl (EFF Blog)

Today’s Washington Post reports on a newly released memo, “Memorandum for William J. Haynes II, General Counsel of the Department of Defense Re: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States” (March 14, 2003) , which which was declassified and released publicly yesterday. Balkinization has commentary on the very troubling opinion.

While the newly released memo focuses on “asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators,” it contains a footnote referencing another Administration memo that caught our eye:

… our Office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations. See Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President, and William J. Haynes, II, General Counsel, Department of Defense, from John C. Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Robert J. Delahunty, Special Counsel, Re: Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States at 25 (Oct 23, 2001). (emphasis added)

Full Story

What's the Coast Guard Doing in Africa?

Two months ago the Coast Guard cutter Dallas (pictured) sailed from Charleston, South Carolina. Rather than heading south to intercept drug runners and migrants -- two of the biggest Coastie missions -- the 40-year-old ship veered east ... and headed across the Atlantic to the West African coast.

Dallas' recently-wrapped deployment, though unusual for a quasi-military law enforcement agency, continues an accelerating trend in the U.S. sea services. The Navy and Coast Guard are shifting away from traditional missions in favor of "soft power" exercises in the the world's neglected shallow-water zones (aka "littorals"). Navy amphibious and hospital ships carry trainers, doctors, aid workers and scientists to Africa and South America, with the goal of alleviating environmental and humanitarian problems that could bloom into crises. Coast Guard cutters, Dallas included, bring law-enforcement training teams to developing countries in order to improve the countries' ability to police themselves.

Dallas skipper Captain Robert Wagner said the Coast Guard is perfect for the African mission. Dallas paid visits to Cape Verde, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, among other nations. ...

Obama and McCain and Iran

(Compiler's note: The article below the introduction needs to be read by all Americans. I have not seen it put so simply. Thomas Sowell has hit the nail on the head. A Must Read Article!!! rca)

By Thomas Sowell

Now that the two parties have finally selected their presidential candidates, it is time for a sober-- if not grim-- assessment of where we are.

Not since 1972 have we been presented with two such painfully inadequate candidates. When election day came that year, I could not bring myself to vote for either George McGovern or Richard Nixon. I stayed home.

This year, none of us has that luxury. While all sorts of gushing is going on in the media, and posturing is going on in politics, the biggest national sponsor of terrorism in the world-- Iran-- is moving step by step toward building a nuclear bomb.

The point when they get that bomb will be the point of no return. Iran's nuclear bomb will be the terrorists' nuclear bomb-- and they can make 9/11 look like child's play.

All the options that are on the table right now will be swept off the table forever. Our choices will be to give in to whatever the terrorists demand-- however outrageous those demands might be-- or to risk seeing American cities start disappearing in radioactive mushroom clouds.

All the things we are preoccupied with today, from the price of gasoline to health care to global warming, will suddenly no longer matter.

Just as the Nazis did not find it enough to simply kill people in their concentration camps, but had to humiliate and dehumanize them first, so we can expect terrorists with nuclear weapons to both humiliate us and force us to humiliate ourselves, before they finally start killing us.

They have already telegraphed their punches with their sadistic beheadings of innocent civilians, and with the popularity of videotapes of those beheadings in the Middle East.

They have already telegraphed their intention to dictate to us with such things as Osama bin Laden's threats to target those places in America that did not vote the way he prescribed in the 2004 elections. He could not back up those threats then but he may be able to in a very few years.

The terrorists have given us as clear a picture of what they are all about as Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did during the 1930s-- and our "leaders" and intelligentsia have ignored the warning signs as resolutely as the "leaders" and intelligentsia of the 1930s downplayed the dangers of Hitler.

We are much like people drifting down the Niagara River, oblivious to the waterfalls up ahead. Once we go over those falls, we cannot come back up again.

What does this have to do with today's presidential candidates? It has everything to do with them.

One of these candidates will determine what we are going to do to stop Iran from going nuclear-- or whether we are going to do anything other than talk, as Western leaders talked in the 1930s.

There is one big difference between now and the 1930s. Although the West's lack of military preparedness and its political irresolution led to three solid years of devastating losses to Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, nevertheless when all the West's industrial and military forces were finally mobilized, the democracies were able to turn the tide and win decisively.

But you cannot lose a nuclear war for three years and then come back. You cannot even sustain the will to resist for three years when you are first broken down morally by threats and then devastated by nuclear bombs.

Our one window of opportunity to prevent this will occur within the term of whoever becomes President of the United States next January.

At a time like this, we do not have the luxury of waiting for our ideal candidate or of indulging our emotions by voting for some third party candidate to show our displeasure-- at the cost of putting someone in the White House who is not up to the job.

Senator John McCain has been criticized in this column many times. But, when all is said and done, Senator McCain has not spent decades aiding and abetting people who hate America.

On the contrary, he has paid a huge price for resisting our enemies, even when they held him prisoner and tortured him. The choice between him and Barack Obama should be a no-brainer.

Change ....

Source: A friend -- and yes it does have national security implications

This has to make you think a little bit, if not then keep your blinders on!

George Bush has been in office for 7 1/2 years. The first six the economy was fine. A little over one year ago:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) the unemployment rate was 4.5%;
4) the DOW JONES hit a record high--14,000 +
5) American's were buying new cars, taking cruises, vacations o'seas, living large!...

But American's wanted 'CHANGE'! So, in 2006 they voted in a Democratic Congress & yep--we got 'CHANGE' all right. In the PAST YEAR:
1) Consumer confidence has plummeted ;
2) Gasoline is now over $4 a gallon & climbing!;
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);
4) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $12 TRILLION
DOLLARS & prices still dropping;
5) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.
6) As I write, THE DOW is down to about~~11,300--
$2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS HAS EVAPORATED FROM American’s
STOCKS, BONDS & MUTUAL FUNDS INVESTMENT
PORTFOLIOS!

YEP , IN 2006 AMERICA VOTED FOR CHANGE!...AND WE SURE AS X?!#*& GOT IT!!!....NOW OBAMA, the DEM'S CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT--AND THE POLLS SAY HE'S GONNA BE 'THE MAN'--CLAIMS HE'S GONNA REALLY GIVE US CHANGE!!....JUST HOW MUCH MORE 'CHANGE' DO YA THINK YOU CAN STAND???.....

It's Mea Culpa Week

By Michael Reagan

Like altar boys who used to strike their breasts and mutter "mea culpa" ("through my fault") during the beginning of the Latin mass while confessing that they had sinned, Democrats are in full confessional mode, apologizing for every real or imagined sin against a particular group they believe their country once offended.

In the latest example of sheer looniness that has marked the current Democrat-controlled Congress, surely the worst if not the craziest Congress in all U.S. history, the House officially sought forgiveness from Native Americans and the victims of Jim Crow-ism.

They did that in our name, laying upon our shoulders the alleged sins of long-dead Americans and having us cringe at the feet of today's casino-rich Native Americans, and our black brothers and sisters whose votes they lust after.

Just a minute here. Neither I nor any of my immediate ancestors ever lifted a finger against a single American Indian or black American. I have no apologies to make to people I have not offended. If offenses were committed they weren't my fault, or for that matter yours or that of any living Americans.

How dare these congressional demagogues associate us with alleged sins of the distant past committed by people who have long been gone from this world. ...

War of ideas

James K. Glassman, the new undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, has launched a more aggressive program to counter Islamist extremism through a war of ideas.

"The war of ideas is a very important aspect of the non-kinetic part of the war on terror," Mr. Glassman said in an interview this week. "In fact, it may be the most important aspect of the war on terror."

Mr. Glassman's office is the lead federal agency in organizing both policy and programs designed to "push back against violent extremist ideology." Most of the focus is on al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups.

The war of ideas is supposed to be one of three equal components of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, after military operations and law enforcement and intelligence counterterrorism.

However, it is by far the least developed aspect, according to U.S. officials.

Mr. Glassman said the specific mission of the new programs is to "create an environment that is hostile to violent extremism." ...

One key aspect of the new campaign is to encourage credible voices from the Muslim world to speak out against extremism. ...

A second U.S. government effort involves ... educational and other programs to "divert" Muslims, especially young people, away from extremism. ...

Another U.S.-backed program is a Farsi-language social-networking site called Parsloop.com in which Farsi speakers in Iran and outside the country can discuss issues of importance to Iranians. A second "dot-gov" Farsi site directly promotes American messages and ideas. ...

NOTE: Be sure and read the rest of this report!!

The Greatest Swindle Ever!

Source: A friend

This is worth watching and thinking about. Maybe, just maybe, this will snowball enough to get changed back to what we once had.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MApnr5026M

Please distribute this far and wide to see if we can keep this up and running on Youtube. (The more that visit the site, the longer it stays up.) Please spread the word! It's the story of the broken promise made for a life time of healthcare to military retirees.

So many have completed their end of the deal and now they are without the promised healthcare.

Semper Fidelis,

XXXX Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired

Busting the Anthrax Myth

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart -- STRATFOR

Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge, chief medical officer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told a congressional subcommittee on July 22 that the risk of a large-scale biological attack on the nation is significant and that the U.S. government knows its terrorist enemies have sought to use biological agents as instruments of warfare. Runge also said that the United States believes that capability is within the terrorists’ reach.

Runge gave his testimony before a subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology that was holding a field hearing in Providence, R.I., to discuss the topic of “Emerging Biological Threats and Public Health Preparedness.”

During his testimony, Runge specifically pointed to al Qaeda as the most significant threat and testified that the United States had determined that the terrorist organization is seeking to develop and use a biological weapon to cause mass casualties in an attack. According to Runge, U.S. analysis indicates that anthrax is the most likely choice, and a successful single-city attack on an unprepared population could kill hundreds of thousands of citizens.

Later in his testimony, Runge remarked that many do not perceive the threat of bioterrorism to be as significant as that of a nuclear or conventional strike, even though such an attack could kill as many people as a nuclear detonation and have its own long-term environmental effects.

We must admit to being among those who do not perceive the threat of bioterrorism to be as significant as that posed by a nuclear strike. To be fair, it must be noted that we also do not see strikes using chemical or radiological weapons rising to the threshold of a true weapon of mass destruction either. The successful detonation of a nuclear weapon in an American city would be far more devastating than any of these other forms of attack.

In fact, based on the past history of nonstate actors conducting attacks using biological weapons, we remain skeptical that a nonstate actor could conduct a biological weapons strike capable of creating as many casualties as a large strike using conventional explosives — such as the October 2002 Bali bombings that resulted in 202 deaths or the March 2004 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191.

We do not disagree with Runge’s statements that actors such as al Qaeda have demonstrated an interest in biological weapons. There is ample evidence that al Qaeda has a rudimentary biological weapons capability. However, there is a huge chasm of capability that separates intent and a rudimentary biological weapons program from a biological weapons program that is capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people. ...

NOTE: Please read the balance of this report.

Secret Nuclear Reactor Under Construction in Iran

By Cary Wesberry

They sure are busy in Iran. Full speed ahead to nuclear armament regardless of sanctions. Imagine that, sanctions failing against a regime comprised of Islamic fascist fanatics. I would have never guessed. It is true regardless. The peace-loving Iranians destroyed the homes of thousands of their own people and began construction starting between 2000 and 2003. The report below from MEMRI gives details:

On July 29, 2008, the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa reported that, according to “highly reliable sources,” Iranian authorities had begun construction of a secret nuclear reactor in the Al-Zarqan region close to the city of Ahwaz in southwest Iran, on the Iran-Iraq border.

The paper said that according to sources, Iran was working to distance its nuclear installations from international oversight. The English version of the report, published in the Kuwaiti Arab Times, said, “Disclosing [that] Tehran directed international A-bomb inspectors to other places, sources warned [that] the project poses a very serious threat to international security.”

Also according to the sources, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) did not know about this site at all, since it was not included in negotiations with Iran in Geneva held in early July.

According to the report, the sources said that during 2000-2003, Iran expropriated the lands and homes of thousands of Arab citizens from the Al-Zarqan region, destroying homes of thousands of Arab citizens from the Al-Zarqan region.

Destroyed homes, fields, orchards, and wells, and built a three-meter-high wall around the project site, which allegedly measures hundreds of kilometers.

The report also said that “the construction of the reactor began with the laying of a pipeline for fresh water from the [nearby] Karoun River to the site, and the expansion of the Al-Zarqan power station.”

Also, the sources said that “the construction works seem to be routine and do not arouse attention, but the tight security around the region is what arouses suspicions regarding the nature of the work.” They added that the site is guarded by Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) personnel, reflecting its importance and sensitivity.

Continue reading the entire report by following the link above to Front Page Magazine. No rest for the wicked, truly a way of life for the Iranian regime in Tehran. Sanctions from the UN or the so-called “responsible nations of the world” in Europe have not and will not have any effect on Iran’s progress towards weaponizing their nuclear programs. It is vitally important to remember that Iran is not doing this for money like North Korea. When Iran executes their underground nuclear bomb tests the leaders in the Western world had better wake-up.

New Terrorist Weapon: Suicide Underwear?

Just when you thought you'd seen it all. Talk about "death from below." From Pakistan's Daily Times:

RAWALPINDI: Would-be suicide bombers could be using explosives “underwear briefs” rather than explosives jackets to evade “conservative” body searches, sources said on Wednesday.

Sihala Police College forensic lab sources told Daily Times that the study of recent suicide attacks showed that suicide bombers used “explosives-laden” under-garments, briefs in particular, to carry out the attacks.

The sources said that the explosives could weigh between five kilogrammes to seven kilogrammes, made deadly by adding glass splinters, metal ball bearings and bullets. The law enforcers normally search upper body parts sparing the “privates”, the sources said, hence assailants are increasingly using the lower body parts to dodge the searches...

Talk about sacrifice. But hey, no one said the path to jihad and global domination was going to be pretty, right, fellas?

Bush Unveils Spy Guidelines, Angering House Overseers

The Bush administration unveiled new operating guidelines for the nation's intelligence community yesterday in a move that boosted the authority of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) while triggering protests from lawmakers who complained that they weren't properly consulted.

... The changes were part of a long-awaited overhaul of Executive Order 12333, a Reagan-era document that establishes the powers and responsibilities of U.S. intelligence services. Most of the revisions merely reflect changes already in place since the DNI was established by Congress three years ago, partly as a response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Although the revamped order had been in the works for a year, its formal unveiling prompted a rare revolt from congressional Republicans, some of whom walked out on Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell during a morning briefing. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, led several GOP colleagues to the exit after complaining that the administration had made the changes secretly without consulting with congressional overseers -- part of a pattern dating to the beginning of the Bush presidency, Hoekstra said.

"Given the impact that this order will have on America's intelligence community, and this committee's responsibility to oversee intelligence activities, this cannot be seen as anything other than an attempt to undercut congressional oversight," Hoekstra said in a statement afterward. ...

Army scientist commits suicide; Brothers say scientist was pursued on anthrax attacks

WASHINGTON (AP) _ A top U.S. biodefense researcher whose brother says was being aggressively pursued by the FBI in connection with a series of anthrax mailings after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks apparently committed suicide.

Criminal charges were about to be filed against Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland of an apparent overdose of prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine, the Los Angeles Times reported in Friday's editions.

Ivins, who had worked for the past 18 years at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., had been told about the impending prosecution, the newspaper said.

The Maryland laboratory has been at the center of the FBI's investigation of the anthrax attacks, which killed five people. ...

Indoctrination in Public Schools Leads to Rise in Home Schooling

Renee Taylor

Can we expect the next generation to be competent leaders of our nation if they're learning less about fact and more about feeling in public schools? ...

This year in our home school, our child will learn from the example of Capt. John Smith, who took the failed communal system of the Pilgrims and turned it around into a flourishing capitalist system, while scores of future “comrades” will continue to bussed to their government indoctrination centers, identical pencils and notebooks in hand, to be fed a failed Marxist theology of equality and redistribution of wealth for all. While government indoctrination center children will be passing around the “talking stick” to explore the feelings of others, our home school child will be learning how to tune up his own car, how to read and write proficiently in English and other life skills necessary to be a responsible adult. While the ‘60s liberal hippies now instructing your child will be reliving their “free love” days at Woodstock, promoting homosexuality to elementary age children and teen sexual behavior responsible for out of wedlock births and reliance on Federal and state welfare, our home school child will learn the Ten Commandments, Biblical principles regarding relationships and responsibility.

While American parents submerged themselves into two income families in order to pay increasing tax burdens and to acquire more “stuff” they “deserve,” their children became potential members of the potential Communist future of the United States of Amerika. However, tens of thousands of parents have refused – choosing like us to make the sacrifices necessary for a one-income household and home school, providing their children with a real education with real life principles that will be the saving grace of the United States of America.

Ignorance about the Enemy's Ideology Is the Problem

by Jeffrey Imm

In fighting Jihad, America's greatest challenge remains understanding and confronting the ideology that provides the basis for Jihadist terrorism. Efforts to clearly define this enemy ideology recently have been undermined by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and the State Department in promoting a "terror lexicon" that recommends federal government employees avoid terms such as "jihad," "jihadist," "Islamist," "mujahideen," and "caliphate" when addressing issues involving terrorism. The argument made by the DHS, NCTC, and others is that the use of such terms will aid in the "recruitment" of Muslims to join terrorist organizations, or will alternatively provide "legitimacy" to religious aspects of terrorist efforts.

However, this tactical approach to create a "terror lexicon" to ban such terms used in federal government terrorism reports and the 9/11 Commission report undermines the strategic efforts to identify, understand, and confront the ideology that is the root challenge in a war of ideas against Jihad. And, as Bill West points out, it can also open the door to some unintended consequences for law enforcement.

....to address this strategic war of ideas, America needs to be willing to recognize that we should not grant special treatment to those hostile to our values. In facing the challenge of Jihadist terrorism, we need to be able to name and discuss the enemy's ideology.

Click here to see the full vote on Hoekstra's amendment.

Another Threat to Average Investors: Securities Lawsuits

... In order to better understand this growing threat, the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) initiated a new, comprehensive analysis of securities litigation in America. The recently issued report, “Securities Class Action Litigation: The Problem, Its Impact, and The Path to Reform,” which builds on the work of previous capital markets commissions and academic research, lays out substantial evidence that securities class action lawsuits are endangering the health of U.S. businesses, the prosperity of American families and the strength of our nation’s global competitiveness.

If that weren’t bad enough, the analysis also reveals that the system is often subject to extortion and abuse – as we’ve seen in the indictments and jailing of some of America’s most prominent securities plaintiffs’ lawyers.

In short: America’s securities class action system is broken, and now is the time for Congress to fix it. ...

Britain's Silence Ammo For A Sharia-Run Future

Strange, the apparent lack of public alarm in Britain over an extensive new poll showing that significant minorities of Muslim students at some of Britain's better colleges and universities embrace the most threatening aspects of Islam. These include the conviction that killing in the name of religion can be justified (32 percent), belief that men and women shouldn't mix freely (40 percent), support for Sharia (Islamic law) in Britain (40 percent), and support for a global caliphate (33 percent) based in Sharia, among other repressive tenets. ...

Charles Krauthammer :: Townhall.com Columnist

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposes lifting the moratorium on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on the Outer Continental Shelf. She won't even allow it to come to a vote. With $4 gas having massively shifted public opinion in favor of domestic production, she wants to protect her Democratic members from having to cast an anti-drilling election-year vote. Moreover, given the public mood, she might even lose. This cannot be permitted. Why? Because as she explained to Politico: "I'm trying to save the planet; I'm trying to save the planet."

A lovely sentiment. But has Pelosi actually thought through the moratorium's actual effects on the planet?

Consider: 25 years ago, nearly 60 percent of U.S. petroleum was produced domestically. Today it's 25 percent. From its peak in 1970, U.S. production has declined a staggering 47 percent. The world consumes 86 million barrels a day; the United States, roughly 20 million. We need the stuff to run our cars and planes and economy. Where does it come from? ...

The United States has the highest technology to ensure the safest drilling. ... Does Pelosi imagine that with so much of America declared off-limits, the planet is less injured as drilling shifts to Kazakhstan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea? That Russia will be more environmentally scrupulous than we in drilling in its Arctic? ...

The net environmental effect of Pelosi's no-drilling willfulness is negative. Outsourcing U.S. oil production does nothing to lessen worldwide environmental despoliation. It simply exports it to more corrupt, less efficient, more unstable parts of the world -- thereby increasing net planetary damage. ...

Democrats want no oil from the American OCS or ANWR. But of course they do want more oil. From OPEC. From where Americans don't vote. From places Democratic legislators can't see.

The other panacea, yesterday's rage, is biofuels: We can't drill our way out of the crisis, it seems, but we can greenly grow our way out. ...It has led to the rape of "lungs of the world" rainforests in Indonesia and Brazil as huge tracts have been destroyed to make room for palm oil and sugar plantations. ...

Here in the U.S., one out of every three ears of corn is stuffed into a gas tank (by way of ethanol), causing not just food shortages abroad and high prices at home, but intensive increases in farming with all of the attendant environmental problems (soil erosion, insecticide pollution, water consumption, etc.).

This to prevent drilling on an area in the Arctic one-sixth the size of Dulles Airport that leaves untouched a refuge one-third the size of Britain. ...

There are a dizzying number of economic and national security arguments for drilling at home: a $700 billion oil balance-of-payment deficit, a gas tax (equivalent) levied on the paychecks of American workers and poured into the treasuries of enemy and terror-supporting regimes, growing dependence on unstable states of the Persian Gulf and Caspian basin. Pelosi and the Democrats stand athwart shouting: We don't care. We come to save the planet!

They seem blissfully unaware that the argument for their drill-there-not-here policy collapses on its own environmental terms.

Feds turn over plutonium to 'untrained' researchers

A glass bottle of plutonium powder that probably cracked when a federal employee tapped it up against a piece of marble later fell apart, releasing the radioactive material into a Boulder, Colo., lab, according to a new federal report on the June 9 spill.

The report on the accident at the National Institute of Standards and Technology campus also confirmed the substance that makes up a key component of a nuclear bomb trigger was obtained without managers' approval, and the worker on the project when the powder spilled then washed his hands at a sink connected to the municipal sewer system and left the lab, spreading the contamination.

Plutonium, which is produced in reactors from the absorption of neutrons by uranium, has 15 isotopes – all radioactive. It poses the most significant hazards in research settings from internal contamination by inhalation or ingestion, the report said, because the alpha particles from the radioactive decay inside the body are in direct contact with human tissue. In short, it causes cancer. ...

Judge: Court in 'vanguard' of changing law

One Wisconsin Supreme Court justice says members of the judiciary should expect to be challenged for their impartiality on social issues these days.

"A court that is in the vanguard of making and changing law in a way that greatly benefits some interest groups and seriously damages others is a court that is actively, if inadvertently, promoting the politicization of its own elections," Justice David Prosser wrote in an concurring opinion yesterday. ...

Al-Qaeda in Iraq Leader May Be in Afghanistan

The leader of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq and several of his top lieutenants have recently left Iraq for Afghanistan, according to group leaders and Iraqi intelligence officials, a possible further sign of what Iraqi and U.S. officials call growing disarray and weakness in the organization.

Police arrest man regarding passport theft

LONDON - British police say they've arrested a delivery man over the theft of thousands of blank British passports and visa stickers.

...Britain's Identity and Passport Service said Thursday that computer chips embedded in the passports to store personal and biometric data have not been activated. The service says that means the documents, which are still missing, can't be used as passports.

Cheap way to 'split water' could lead to abundant clean fuel

Scientists have found an inexpensive way to produce hydrogen from water, a discovery that could lead to a plentiful source of environmentally friendly fuel to power homes and cars.

The technique, which mimics the way photosynthesis works in plants, also provides a highly efficient way to store energy, potentially paving the way to making solar power more economically viable.

Hydrogen is a clean, energy-rich fuel that many experts believe could become important as nations attempt to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The gas can be produced by splitting water but current techniques are expensive, use harsh chemicals and need carefully controlled environments in which to operate.

Daniel Nocera, a chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has developed a catalyst made from cobalt and phosphorus that can split water at room temperature, a technique he describes in the journal Science. "I'm using cheap, Earth-abundant materials that you can mass-manufacture. As long as you can charge the surface, you can create the catalyst and it doesn't get any cheaper than that."

He said the discovery could have major implications for the uptake of solar photovoltaic technology. One of the reasons, he said, why solar panels have not penetrated the consumer market properly is that no one has found a way to store energy in a way that, when the Sun is not shining, people still have electricity. "You can't think about an energy economy or a global energy system only when the sun is out."

Batteries could do the job but they cannot store anywhere near as much energy per unit mass as chemical fuels. ...

Obama-backed ally forged pact with radical Muslims

Barack Obama directly intervened in last December's presidential election in Kenya, supporting fellow Luo tribesman Raila Odinga's candidacy, despite an agreement Odinga signed to back radical Muslims, according to an explosive new book written by WND senior staff reporter Jerome R. Corsi.

In "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," Corsi footnotes and discusses two television news videos that fully document his charges.

The first video shows Obama's direct involvement in Kenyan politics to support Odinga, and the second video shows a press conference held by the Muslims who signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Odinga.

"There is nothing on the record to indicate Obama ever withdrew his support from Odinga," Corsi told WND, "even after Odinga signed the agreement with the Muslims in Kenya."

Corsi said that to the contrary, Obama "appears even today to be a direct and active supporter of Odinga, as Odinga himself frequently boasts." ...