U.S., Poland Reach Agreement on Missile Defense (Update2)

By Katya Andrusz

Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and Poland signed a preliminary accord today that will allow for 10 U.S. interceptor missiles to be based in the eastern European country, completing a defense system that Russia opposes.

The U.S. has agreed to Polish requests including modernization of its armed forces in exchange for the location of the missiles, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in an interview with private broadcaster TVN24 this evening.

``We are now harvesting the fruit of many months of hard work,'' said Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski at a joint press conference with U.S. Undersecretary of State John Rood in Warsaw. ``Only people of ill intent should fear this agreement.'' ....

Gunmaker to feds: Give me my firearm!

A licensed gunmaker who has reported retaliatory attacks on his work by federal agents upset over his testimony on behalf of a man sent to prison for having a broken gun has ordered the government to return one of his projects.

"You have seized company property without any cause or court order to date. The company firmly demands the return of the firearm in question," Len Savage told John Spencer and other officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in a letter, a copy of which was sent to WND and also later posted online at the War on Guns blog run by David Codrea.

"Therefore please return the property of the company [the firearm in question] immediately," he wrote. ....

Consequences for Energy-Rich Russia Look Doubtful

(CNSNews.com) – President Bush has hinted that Moscow’s invasion of Georgia may have consequences for Russia’s interaction with the international community, but a unified European position in support of that stand appears unlikely.

Europe has been split over ushering Georgia and Ukraine into NATO over Russian objections. Those divisions were clearly visible again when European Union (E.U.) foreign ministers held emergency talks in Brussels Wednesday.

Germany has led the opposition to beginning the NATO membership process for the two former Soviet states, and it was Germany again that again took a cautious line Wednesday on how the E.U. should react to the crisis in the Caucasus. ....

Missiles Over Georgia; Interceptors in Poland?

Has Russia sent ballistic missile launchers into Georgia? According Deputy National Security Advisor Jim Jeffrey, the answer is yes.

"The President was informed immediately on Friday, when we received news of the first two SS-21 Russian missile launchers into Georgian territory," Jeffrey said at a recent news briefing. ....

What Next for Fusion Centers?

by Federal Computer Week

Wednesday, 13 August 2008

The Homeland Security Department has made great strides in three years in developing relationships with state and local law enforcement authorities, said Robert Riegle, director of DHS’ state and local programs. But as the department prepares to continue under a new presidential administration — its first transition — many questions remain open. Riegle touted the progress his office has made in information sharing and building relationships with the nation’s 800,000-officer state and local law enforcement community in an article he published in the July issue of the Homeland Defense Journal. Riegle singled out the network of more than 50 state and local intelligence fusion centers that nonfederal authorities have created around the country.

Laws Still Making it Difficult to Fight War Against Terror

NaperSun.com

Editor's note: Naperville Police Chief David Dial's column, which normally is published every other Monday, was inadvertently omitted this Monday. It is being published here now, and will return to its normal position Aug. 25 on Page 2.

In 1996, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Detective Larry Richards helped to create the Los Angeles County Terrorism Early Warning Group. The TEW Group was designed to integrate a multi-disciplinary (police, fire and health) network made up of local, state and federal agencies for sharing intelligence about terrorist threats. The former Director of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, has since recognized the TEW Group as a national model for fusion centers.

The terrorist attacks of 2001 represented exactly the kind of action the TEW Group was created to prevent. The 9/11 Commission attributed our failure to prevent the attacks to a breakdown in the sharing of intelligence, resulting from a failure of management, a failure of policy, a failure of capability and a failure of imagination.

Now, we are finding that national level documents and executive orders stating the need to share, collaborate and coordinate homeland security intelligence within the national, state and local context have become juxtaposed with some of the realities of actually doing it.

This became evident in 2006 when it was learned that a Marine gunnery sergeant gave classified military information to Detective Richards who, in addition to being a detective on the sheriff's department, was also a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve.

The gunnery sergeant stated that he was recruited by Detective Richards to collect the classified documents and pass them on to the TEW Group.

During a court-martial hearing, the gunnery sergeant admitted releasing the classified documents to two Los Angeles law enforcement officials, including Detective Richards. Although he received no personal gain for the release of the documents and said he did so out of patriotism, he was given a 26-month prison sentence for his conduct.

Last month it was announced that, because of a widening probe of this matter, two additional Marine Corps reservists were called back to Camp Pendleton for allegedly sharing secret files with the TEW Group. Both of them are being charged with dereliction of duty and several orders violations.

Additionally, internal investigations are ongoing in both the police and sheriff's departments in Los Angeles.

This entire situation has turned into an intelligence-sharing nightmare. It is clear that laws were broken. It is also clear that we need to find a way to enable information exchange between first responders and our military in matters of national security.

Marine Colonel and a long-time TEW Group participant G. I. Wilson has described this incident as "a huge indictment of the stove-piped systems we continue to propagate after wasting billions of dollars (in intelligence). It kind of makes you wonder who the bad guys are."

The public should not be shocked after the terrorist attack on America to learn that critical information was not shared.

New rules to say FBI can collect intelligence within U.S.

By MARISA TAYLOR • McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Michael Mukasey confirmed plans today to loosen post-Watergate restrictions on the FBI’s national security and criminal investigations, saying the changes were necessary to improve the bureau’s ability to detect terrorists.

Mukasey said he expected criticism of the new rules because “they expressly authorize the FBI to engage in intelligence collection inside the United States.” However, he said the criticism would be misplaced because the bureau has long had authority to do so.

Mukasey said the new rules “remove unnecessary barriers” to cooperation between law enforcement agencies and “eliminate the artificial distinctions” in the way agents conduct surveillance in criminal and national security investigations.

“There was clear-eyed and bipartisan recognition after the attacks that we needed to be able — and allowed — to collect intelligence in the United States,” he said in a speech prepared for an anti-terrorism conference in Portland, Ore. “Indeed, there was a loud demand for it.”

Noting one area that needs to change, he said agents currently can rely on informants to gather information in ordinary criminal investigations, but are more limited in national security cases. The new rules, he said, will do away with those differences. ....

TSA Screener Testing Labeled ‘A Waste’

By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY

A government program to find gaps in airport screening is "a waste of money" because it doesn't follow up on why screeners failed to spot guns, knives and bombs on undercover agents, the head of the House Homeland Security Committee says.

A Government Accountability Office report obtained by USA TODAY says Transportation Security Administration inspectors posing as passengers do not record why individual screeners failed to spot weapons. The TSA ran 20,000 covert tests at the USA's 450 commercial airports from 2002 to 2007, and the results ought to be used to improve screening, the report says.

The TSA disputed the report and said it has adopted many new screening practices and technologies to close holes revealed by testing.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., plans a hearing next month to press the TSA on making better use of covert tests. ....

Hair Samples in Anthrax Case Don’t Match

By Carrie Johnson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Federal investigators probing the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks recovered samples of human hair from a mailbox in Princeton, N.J., but the strands did not match the lead suspect in the case, according to sources briefed on the probe.

....Authorities released sworn statements and search warrants last week at a news conference in which they asserted that Ivins was their sole suspect. But the materials have not dampened speculation about the merits of the investigative findings and the government's aggressive pursuit of Ivins, a 62-year-old anthrax vaccine researcher. Conspiracy theories have flourished since the 2001 attacks, which killed five people and sickened 17 others. ....

Al Qaeda, Taliban Ties to Pakistan Intelligence Worrisome

The number of Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) members who believe in the Islamist jihad of Al Qaeda and the Taliban is growing exponentially, US and Western intelligence authorities say. For its part, the ISI historically has supported the Taliban.

As a result of this burgeoning sympathy within ISI for Taliban and Al Qaeda jihadists, including protecting these terrorist organizations' training safe havens along the Afghanistan border, Al Qaeda has become much more capable of attacking the US on its own soil than it’s been able to do since 9/11, Ted Gistaro, National Intelligence Officer for Transnational Threats in the Office of Director of National Intelligence, said Tuesday. ....

Court: Saudi Arabia not liable in 9/11 attacks

By Chris Mondics

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

A federal appeals court today rejected lawsuits by victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against Saudi Arabia and senior members of the Saudi royal family, alleging that they helped foster al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, ruling in Manhattan, said Saudi Arabia and members of its royal family were protected from being sued because the State Department had not officially designated the desert kingdom as a supporter of terrorism.

....In their lawsuits, the victims alleged that over a period of a decade or more, officials of the government of Saudi Arabia had financed Islamic charities that, in turn, had become the sources of funding for Islamic terrorists, first in Afghanistan and then later in Bosnia Herzegovina and, ultimately, in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The victims offered as evidence testimony by senior U.S. Treasury and State Department officials and other U.S. government findings that the charities had become conduits for terrorist financing, beginning in the mid-1990s. U.S. officials have said that although the Saudis have taken some steps to crack down on the charities, they remained concerned that some charities continue to be sources of funding for al-Qaeda.

Chicago-area pol in hot water for forwarding email saying Muslims who want Sharia should leave the U.S.

From Jihad Watch ... rca

It was "hate," you see. It was "anti-Muslim."

Now, I haven't seen the email in question, but if all it does is say that Muslims who want Islamic law should leave the country, then the reaction to it from Muslim leaders is very telling. On the one hand we are supposed to believe that every Muslim in the United States completely accepts American pluralism and Constitutional rule, and has no intention of imposing Sharia here at any time in the future. If you don't believe that, you're a venomous "Islamophobe."

And yet if that were true, wouldn't Khalid Mozaffer of the American Islamic Association be standing up and saying that Yes, he agreed with this email, and that he would aggressively resist any agitation to replace American Constitutional government with Sharia? By labeling this email "hate," isn't he admitting that many, if not most, American Muslims do want Sharia here? And isn't the presence of a large group that wants to destroy the ideas of the equality of all people before the law and the freedom of speech, and replace them with a legal system that institutionalizes discrimination against women and non-Muslims, something that Americans should be concerned about?

Is it really "hate" to want to defend republican pluralism and resist a totalitarian and draconian system that establishes an elite class and relegates others to permanent inferior status?....

For additional information click here and here.

Boxer Bullies Senate's Baby Doctor

(Compiler's note: When are "we the people" ever going to learn? Why do we keep electing these clowns to any public office?)

In July, federal authorities indicted Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, on corruption charges on the grounds that Alaska's Prince of Earmarks concealed hundreds of thousands of dollars of gifts and improvements to his Alaska home provided by a powerful oil services company. Also this summer, amid the mortgage meltdown, newspapers reported that a number of senators -- including Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.; Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; and Barack Obama, D.-Ill. -- were the beneficiaries of sweetheart home loans.

In June, the Senate Ethics Committee began an initial look into Dodd's and Conrad's discounted Countrywide Financial VIP loans, as is fitting. Meanwhile, with all of the ethics stink bombs lurking in Washington, the committee, chaired by California Democrat Barbara Boxer, is aiming its guns at Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., for "a serious violation of Senate rules."

Coburn's bad? An obstetrician by profession, Coburn won't heed the committee's threat to reprimand him for delivering babies back home in Oklahoma -- for free.

"On my own time, I'm taking care of women who have a need, and I'm going to continue to deliver babies," Coburn told Politico.com.

And, bully for him: "I'm not going to stop." When a member of the House, Coburn delivered 400 babies under an agreement with ethics meisters that allowed him to do so -- if he charged only enough to cover his expenses.

....What's really going on here? The senator -- who prefers to be called Dr. Coburn -- has been a thorn in the side of both big-spending Republicans and Democrats. He calls earmarks "the gateway drug" to Washington's spending addiction. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote back in 2006 when the GOP ran the Senate, "Tom Coburn is like an imam at a pig roast: He sees pork everywhere, and he doesn't like it."

Coburn bucked party leaders as he tried to block Stevens' $229 million earmark, largely for a bridge between Anchorage and an island with 50 residents, infamously dubbed the "Bridge to Nowhere."

When Democrats took over the Senate, Coburn challenged their pork-barrel projects as well.

....The savvy observer has to conclude that because Coburn has challenged Senate pork, the Ethics Committee essentially is willing to stick it to poor pregnant women, who might benefit from a free delivery.

....As Coburn spokesman John Hart noted, there have been many stories about lawmakers, their friends and families profiting from earmarks, but "no one has ever chosen to have Dr. Coburn deliver her baby in order to sway his vote."

With Democrats in charge, the Senate Select Committee on Ethics is no more ethical than it was under the GOP. In going after Coburn, its mandate is clear: Forget Ethics, It's Payback Time.

Brave Old World

By Victor Davis Hanson

Russia invades Georgia. China jails dissidents. China and India pollute at levels previously unimaginable. Gulf monarchies make trillions from jacked-up oil prices. Islamic terrorists keep car bombing. Meanwhile, Europe offers moral lectures, while Japan and South Korea shrug and watch — all in a globalized world that tunes into the Olympics each night from Beijing.

“Citizens of the world” were supposed to share, in relative harmony, our new “Planet Earth,” which was to have followed from an interconnected system of free trade, instantaneous electronic communications, civilized diplomacy, and shared consumer capitalism.

But was that ever quite true?

First, the U.S. economy would keep importing goods from abroad to drive international economic growth.

Second, the U.S. military would keep the sea-lanes open, and trade and travel protected. After the past destruction of fascism and global communism, the Americans, as global sheriff, would continue to deal with the occasional menace like a Moammar Gaddafi, Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-il, or the Taliban.

Third, America would ignore ankle-biting allies and remain engaged with the world — like a good, nurturing mom who at times must put up with the petulance of dependent teenagers.

But there have been a number of indications recently that globalization may soon lose its American parent, ....

....Meanwhile, the hypocrisy becomes harder to take. After all, it is easy for self-appointed global moralists to complain that terrorists don’t enjoy Miranda rights at Guantánamo, but it would be hard to do much about the Russian military invading Georgia’s democracy and bombing its cities.

Al Gore crisscrosses the country, pontificating about Americans’ carbon footprints. But he could do far better to fly to China to convince them not to open 500 new coal-burning power plants.

ISM, Peace Group or Terrorist Front

Is the International Solidarity Movement [ISM] a peace movement? Or is it a front for rejectionist Palestinian terrorists? The answer is the latter. The ISM is the propaganda wing for Palestinian terrorism. It recruits western leftist fanatics to act as human shields to Palestinian terrorists, who are dedicated to Israel's destruction. Another name for the ISM is the Palestinian Solidarity Movement [PSM]. ....

The Connection between Illegal Immigration and Organized Crime

....While most immigrants arrive here with a strong work ethic, there are large numbers of those who are career criminals, or who have received previous training in guerilla fighting tactics, money-laundering techniques, unbounded criminal conspiracies and murder, as well as operating clandestine drug laboratories, prostitution rings, theft rings, drug distribution networks, etc. Continuing to allow them to have unfettered opportunity to enter the United States would pose continued, unacceptable threat to our security.

Furthermore, as has been witnessed several times since the 9/11 “Attacks on America,” illegal aliens have had unrestricted ability to enter/access various secure facilities such as airports and maritime ports, highly technical industries (including some defense contractors), etc. The fact is, with our current disorganized and uncontrolled immigration, we in the law enforcement community have no idea who these people are until they are well established here. Add the factors that they generally cross multiple jurisdictions, and utilize the internet to establish a worldwide range of collaborative criminal relationships. ....

Incredulous UN Bans Criticism of Islam

Leslie Sacks
The Human Rights Council at the United Nations has now banned any criticism regarding Sharia Law and human rights in the Islamic World. According to President Doru Romulus Costea - and following the efforts of delegates from Egypt, Pakistan and Iran - the Council will no longer tolerate criticism of either Sharia or specific fatwas in the name of human rights. ....

Because Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and all other religions are imperfect, they are fair game for any and all attacks. Since Israel, Zionism, America and the Western World were created and developed outside the Islamic World and its divine perfection, they are likewise subject to criticism.

Now, not only has the Islamic God forbidden outside criticism of the Sharia Law, but the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) is its enjoined messenger on earth. ...

.... Due to this resolution the Council - and thus, perversely, the UN - is endorsing a worldview in which human interpretation and understanding has been placed beyond the pale of critical thinking and investigation as long as it’s part of Sharia Law or the Islamic tradition. Perhaps we should rename the United Nations and call it the “Nations of Islam - United in Unique and Ineffable Perfection.” Sounds appropriate.

Gulf govts ‘increasing grip on Islamic finance’

DUBAI: Gulf Arab governments may take bigger stakes in Islamic financial companies to gain more control over the industry as demand soars for investments and financial services complying with Islamic law during an oil boom, Moody’s Investors Service said yesterday.

Governments in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have set up new Islamic banks to company with Islamic law, or Shariah, to ensure they retain an ethical image, the credit rating agency said.
The $700bn Islamic finance industry has the potential to surge to as big as $4tn, it said.

“It is as if governments do not want to see the Islamic banking industry over-dominated by the private sector, in order to keep the whole thing under control,” the ratings agency said in a research report yesterday.
“If governments have an increasing share of ownership in IFIs, the risk of consumers perceiving an IFI as insufficiently compliant with Shariah is somewhat mitigated,” it said. ....

Homeland Security, Hawaiian Style

Government officials head for the beach. You pay the bill.

Al Qaeda is regrouping in northwest Pakistan. The FBI is worried about terror attacks during the fall election season. So how are senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security reacting to these potential threats? By going to Hawaii, of course.

In early October, around a dozen top Homeland officials, including the undersecretary for science, retired Admiral Jay M. Cohen, will be doing their part to protect the country by attending what they say is a critical trade show and convention—on Waikiki Beach.

Homeland officials have been criticized in the past for junkets like this one. So it's no surprise that dismay about the upcoming Honolulu excursion is already surfacing on Capitol Hill. ....

Power providers worried about looming blackouts

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) | Five years after the worst blackout in North American history, the country's largest power providers say the problems that turned out the lights on 50 million people have largely been resolved, but they fear that larger, systemic issues could soon lead to even bigger and more damaging outages.

Excess capacity in the system is shrinking and construction, as well as plans for new plants, has slowed as costs to build and operate them have soared.

Michael Morris, chairman, president and chief executive officer of American Electric Power, answers questions during an interview Monday, Aug. 11, 2008, in Columbus, Ohio. Five years after the worst blackout in U.S. history, the country's largest power providers fear massive and rolling outages to come, and say they will not caused by the same mishaps that cut power to as many as 50 million people in 2003. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)

At the same time, it is estimated that electricity use will increase 29 percent between 2006 to 2030 - much of it driven by residential growth, according to a government report issued in June. ....

Six members of Mexico attorney general's organized crime unit placed under house arrest

The attorney generals office has placed under house arrest six members of its own organized crime unit, which is responsible for battling drug traffickers, kidnappers and human smugglers, the agency said. The six include the technical coordinator of the office for specialized investigation in organized crime and five members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation assigned to the agency. ....

FBI chief: Drugs fuel crime

Top U.S. law enforcement officials on Monday described drug cartels that are increasingly mobile, tech savvy, diverse and transnational, factors that are challenging efforts to curb border violence fueled by big profits. Modern organized crime organizations are "borderless," said FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, who added that the FBI is "deeply concerned about high levels of drug trafficking, human smuggling and gang activity," as well as with the surge in violent crimes linked to the drug trade such as homicides, kidnappings and extortion. ....

Russian Cyber Attacks Shut Down Georgian Websites

Following just six days after the initiation of the Georgia-Russian conflict, the Georgian Internet became the target of a coordinated cyber attack, which compromised several government Websites with defacement and Denial of Service attacks, crippling the nation's ability to disseminate information. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's site was defaced, integrating his image with those of Hitler. The sabotage was followed by a DDoS attack that left the presidential site inaccessible. ....

Web Threats increase in the Middle East

Regional Authorities Taking Commendable Steps Towards Making More Web Sites Accessible, And Increased Web Attacks May Result. .... (Compiler's note: Where and against whom?) The UAE’s Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA), under its ‘internet access management’ policy, is making available a thousand websites previously deemed potentially offensive. ....

Looking for the brains behind terror cells:

KUALA LUMPUR: Indian intelligence agencies have uncovered 800 terrorist cells operating with “external support,” and are looking for the brains behind them within the country, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan has said. “We are concerned that there is a great deal of external inspiration and support, we are also concerned and are looking at a mastermind within the country,” he told The Straits Times here. ....

Murtha: Matthews would be a worthy Senate candidate

(Compiler's note: This suggestion just might lead you to question the reasoning power of Congressman John Murtha of PA)

By Dan Hirschhorn

U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Westmont) said Tuesday that MSNBC newscaster Chris Matthews would be a worthy candidate for U.S. Senate because of his extensive experience in the political world, The Post-Gazette reports.

....Speculation has been rampant for months that Matthews might run against U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) in 2010, and a recent poll indicated that Matthews just might be able to give the incumbent a run for his money.

...."Chris has a real talent for public-media type service," Murtha said.

Click here for additional information.

CIA documents detailing WWII-era spy ring released

By Brett J. Blackledge and Randy Herschaft

WASHINGTON — Famed chef Julia Child shared a secret with Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and Chicago White Sox catcher Moe Berg at a time when the Nazis threatened the world.

They served in an international spy ring managed by the Office of Strategic Services, an early version of the CIA created in World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt.

The secret comes out today, all of the names and previously classified files identifying nearly 24,000 spies who formed the first centralized intelligence effort by the United States. The National Archives, which this week released a list of the names found in the records, will make available for the first time all 750,000 pages identifying the vast spy network of military and civilian operatives.

....The files will offer new information even for those most familiar with the agency. Charles Pinck, president of the OSS Society created by former OSS agents and their relatives, said the nearly 24,000 employees included in the archives far exceeds previous estimates of 13,000.

Muslim father burns Christian daughter alive

A Muslim father cut out his daughter's tongue and lit her on fire upon learning that she had become a Christian.

The child became curious about Jesus Christ after she read Christian material online, the Gulf News reported.

Her father read her Internet conversation, detached her tongue and burned her to death "following a heated debate on religion," according to an International Christian Concern report.

The Muslim man lives in Saudi Arabia and is employed by the muwateen, or Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The muwateen are police tasked by the government with enforcing religious purity.

....According to the report, Saudi Arabia's school curriculums and teachers deliberately instill hatred toward Christians and followers of non-Muslim religions.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a press release stating that textbooks at the Saudi Arabian government school in Northern Virginia teach, "It is permissible for a Muslim to kill an apostate (a convert from Islam)."

The ICC claims Saudi Arabian authorities have begun exporting Wahabbism – a version of Islam that is said to be least tolerant toward non-Muslims – to other nations including the U.S. ....

U.S. green lights 'anything into oil'

(Compiler's note: Watch this one people .... this could well make us free again from foreign oil.. rca)

By Joe Kovacs
A Georgia company looking to solve America's energy problem has finally teamed up with the federal government, hoping to make millions of barrels of oil every day from virtually anything that grows out of the Earth.

Bell Bio-Energy, Inc. says it has reached an agreement with the U.S. Defense Department to build seven test production plants, mostly on military bases, to quickly turn naturally grown material into fuel.

"What this means is that with the seven pilot plants – the military likes to refer to them as demonstrations – with those being built … it gives us the real-time engineering data that we need to finish the designs for a full-scale production facility," J.C. Bell, the man behind the project, told WND today.

"In 18 months or so, we will start manufacturing oil directly from waste and we will build up to about 500,000 barrels a day within two years. In another six months, we'll reach a million barrels a day."

As the United States now imports about 13 million barrels of oil a day, the only obstacle then to total energy independence from foreign sources will be the money needed to develop the processing plants, he said.

"Working with the USDA we've identified enough waste material around the country, we truly believe we can make the United States totally energy independent of foreign countries in about five years," he said. ....

"We should have all of the plants running within 60 days," he said. "This is a big step in our growth, from the engineering that we develop with these plants, we will be able to build our full-scale production facilities and be in full production in the next 12 to 18 months.

The process previously had been verified, said Dr. Art Robinson, a research professor of chemistry at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine who publishes the Access to Energy newsletter. "These other ways [of producing energy] work; the only question is if they're competitive in price. Any hydrocarbon under pressure and temperature can turn into oil."

How big does Bell believe the process eventually could be?

"With minor changes in the agricultural and forestry products, we could create two to two and a half billion tons of biomass a year, and you're looking at five billion barrels of oil per year," he said.

Somali Muslim found dead in Denver hotel room with a pound of cyanide -- FBI says it's not terrorism

from Jihad Watch

The cyanide could have killed hundreds. But the FBI hastens to say that there is no apparent connection to terrorism. At this stage, with the time they've had to investigate, what can that mean? Not much more than that they didn't find an Al-Qaeda membership card in Dirie's wallet, or a poster of Osama bin Laden in his luggage. But the possibility that he could be a freelance jihadist, motivated by what he reads in the Qur'an -- as was Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar -- doesn't enter into their calculations. That possibility doesn't even seem to be on their radar screen.

"Police: Pound Of Cyanide Found In Denver Hotel: Canadian Man Had Been Dead For Days Inside Burnsley," from the Denver Post, August 13 (thanks to Michelle Malkin):

DENVER -- Police confirmed Wednesday that they found about a pound of sodium cyanide in a Denver hotel room where the body of a Canadian man was discovered earlier this week.

Police spokesman John White identified the white powder as sodium cyanide, the crystal form of cyanide. Fire officials say they found a bottle containing about a pound of the white powder, or between a pint and a quart by volume.

An expert told the Denver Post that the amount of cyanide is enough to kill hundreds of people.

The medical examiner's office said it is awaiting test results to determine whether cyanide killed 29-year-old Saleman Abdirahman Dirie, of Ottawa, Canada.

His body was found Monday inside Room 408 at The Burnsley Hotel, which is about four blocks from the state Capitol. White said Dirie had been dead for several days. Friends told The Ottawa Sun that he was dead six days before he was discovered.

Foul play is not suspected and his death appears to be an isolated incident, White said.

The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force is assisting in the investigation but FBI spokeswoman Kathy Wright said the incident has no apparent connection to terrorism.

"You have a suspicious substance that was found in a hotel room in conjunction with person being a foreign national, and we have a lot of questions and that is why we are assisting," Wright told the Post....

Time To Get Serious With Russia

WASHINGTON -- The Russia-Georgia cease-fire brokered by France's president is less than meets the eye. Its terms keep moving as the Russian army keeps moving. Russia has since occupied Gori (appropriately, Stalin's birthplace), effectively cutting Georgia in two. The road to the capital, Tbilisi, is open, but apparently Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has temporarily chosen to seek his objectives through military pressure and Western acquiescence rather than by naked occupation.

His objectives are clear. ....