Saturday, August 16, 2008

North Texas school district will let teachers carry guns

HARROLD, Texas — A tiny Texas school district may be the first in the nation to allow teachers and staff to pack guns for protection when classes begin later this month, a newspaper reported.

Trustees at the Harrold Independent School District approved a district policy change last October so employees can carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings, provided the gun-toting teachers follow certain requirements.

In order for teachers and staff to carry a pistol, they must have a Texas license to carry a concealed handgun; must be authorized to carry by the district; must receive training in crisis management and hostile situations and have to use ammunition that is designed to minimize the risk of ricochet in school halls.

Superintendent David Thweatt said the small community is a 30-minute drive from the sheriff's office, leaving students and teachers without protection. He said the district's lone campus sits 500 feet from heavily trafficked U.S. 287, which could make it a target.

"When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started. Why would you put it out there that a group of people can't defend themselves? That's like saying 'sic 'em' to a dog," Thweatt said in Friday's online edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Thweatt said officials researched the policy and considered other options for about a year before approving the policy change. He said the district also has various other security measures in place to prevent a school shooting.

"The naysayers think (a shooting) won't happen here. If something were to happen here, I'd much rather be calling a parent to tell them that their child is OK because we were able to protect them," Thweatt said.

Texas law outlaws firearms on school campuses "unless pursuant to the written regulations or written authorization of the institution."

It was unclear how many of the 50 or so teachers and staff members will be armed this fall because Thweatt did not disclose that information, to keep it from students or potential attackers. Wilbarger County Sheriff Larry Lee was out of the office Thursday and did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment, the newspaper said.

Barbara Williams, a spokeswoman for the Texas Association of School Boards, said her organization did not know of another district with such a policy. Ken Trump, a Cleveland-based school security expert who advises districts nationwide, including in Texas, said Harrold is the first district with such a policy.

The 110-student district is 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth on the eastern end of Wilbarger County, near the Oklahoma border.

"Minorities" by Maxine

(Compiler's note: Maxine has my vote. She always gets to the root issue. rca)

We need to show more sympathy for these people.

* They travel miles in the heat.

* They risk their lives crossing a border.

* They don't get paid enough wages.

* They do jobs that others won't do or are afraid to do.

* They live in crowded conditions among a people who
speak a different language.

*They rarely see their families, and they face adversity
all day every day.

I'm not talkin' about illegal Mexicans,

I'M TALKIN' ABOUT OUR TROOPS!!

Doesn't it seem strange that many Democrats and Republicans are willing to lavish all kinds of social benefits on illegals, but don't support our troops and are now threatening to defund them?
It's a darn shame!!

Al Qaeda on the Run?

CBNNews.com - As we approach the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a debate is raging among counterterrorism experts: what is the current state of al Qaeda?

Have the group's serious losses in Iraq left it fatally weakened? Or do one safe haven and several new fronts make it as dangerous as ever?

Let's begin this discussion by examining the state of al Qaeda in what the Bush administration considers the central front in the War on Terror: Iraq. ....

Ignoring ‘The Perfect Storm’ at Our Own Peril

(Compiler's note: This is an absolute "must read" article -- in fact it needs to be read and considered very carefully. rca)

By Frank Salvato, 8/15/2008 12:01:30 AM


The mainstream media and the presumptive nominee from the Democrat Party have done a pretty good job of steering the electorate’s attention to issues of a domestic nature. It wasn’t hard to do. With gasoline prices hovering around four dollars a gallon, combined with the self-induced but limited financial crisis created by proprietary lenders and a healthcare system that’s being raped by grifting lawyers and robber-baron insurance companies, it is easy to understand why voters would fall prey to diversionary tactics of the political power seekers. But we do so at the expense of the well being of our nation. We do so ignoring “the perfect storm.”

French Nobel prize winner and reformed communist Andre Gide once said, “The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.” We in the United States, especially those who are politically aware, can identify with this phrase because our political parties have taken to questing for political power rather than the execution of good government. While there are some elected officials who sincerely strive to serve our nation and its people, the great majority of those who inhabit the halls of government – whether at the local, state or national levels – do so to move their political agendas forward and to institute their party’s special interests. In doing so they abdicate the duty of their positions in that they are not representing the will of their constituents.

Examples of elected officials placing politics before government are abundant. An overwhelming majority of the American public have expressed, in no uncertain terms, that they want their elected officials to, among other things:

? Utilize our nation’s natural resources to break from the chains of foreign energy dependence.

? Secure the borders.

? Simplify and make more equitable the tax codes.

? Balance the budget by maintaining fiscal responsibility (read, don’t spend what you don’t have, keep your checkbook balanced and stop raising taxes to institute new programs of entitlement).

? Institute an effective and practical solution for the looming Social Security crisis.

? Eliminate foreign aid to countries that consistently oppose the United States on the world stage.

The list could go on and on but the point is clear; politicians consistently put politics, power and financial special interests before the issues most important to the American people: A small, elite group of Progressives, beholden to the environmental lobby, uses their governmental powers to usurp the will of the people by refusing to allow drilling in places we know there are oil deposits; politicians on both sides of the aisle pander to an illegitimate voting demographic in the illegal alien population for fear that if they stand up for America’s sovereignty they may be voted out of office by those who shouldn’t be voting in the first place; politicians of both major political parties refuse to banish the earmark and reserve the right to raid the government treasury to provide bribes to their constituencies in an effort to garner re-election; the tax code continues to overburden the middle class and penalize the family while expanding entitlement increases the number of those feeding from the public trough and the mega-rich evolve into an elitist class; etc, etc, etc...

But perhaps the most devious, the most troublesome example of elected officials putting political opportunism before good government comes in the form of “the perfect storm.”

Our nation faces two enormous threats, one externally and one from within, and we do so without a proper understanding of why we should be fighting them both with every fiber of our collective being.

The mainstream media and the progressive, anti-war left feverishly contend that Iraq and Afghanistan are two separate conflicts – one illegitimate and one poorly managed. They continue to deny – adamantly – that Western Civilization is at odds with the aggressive ideology that is fundamentalist Islam. They do so insisting that dialogue is always the answer and believing that the actions of the United States in the Middle East justify the violence of the jihadi movement.

“The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.”

Facts are stubborn things and the facts surrounding this third major attempt to establish a global Caliphate are no different.

Wahhabists and Salafists like al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah and Yusuf al Qaradawi, perhaps the most influential voice within the Muslim Brotherhood, have stated in no uncertain terms that the catalyst for their violent jihadi movement transcends the actions of the United States.

While bin Laden and al Zawahiri used the excuse of US forces in Saudi Arabia as a catalyst to launch their aggression, the rhetoric that surrounds their every action exposes the totalitarian tenets of their religious beliefs. Their Wahhabist beliefs call for the conversion or extermination of the infidel and the institution of Sharia law world wide; the establishment of a global Caliphate.

Hassan Nasrallah – the figurehead of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and mouthpiece for Hezbollah’s creators, the Iranian mullahs – pursues the extinction of Israel and, like his ideological master, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, yearns for the return of the Twelfth Imam, the Mahdi, who can only come when the world is in chaos at the “end of days.”

Al Qaradawi and his Sunni Muslim Brotherhood – perhaps the most dangerous of them all – promotes the proselytization of Wahhabi Islam throughout the world. It should be noted that Wahhabi Islam is the brand of radical, violent Islam practiced by Osama bin Laden and all of the 9/11 hijackers.

Understanding that those who believe in Wahhabism and/or Salafism and those who practice the brand of Shi’ite Islam practiced by Ahmadinejad, hold their beliefs as strict religious dogma, understanding that ingenuous dialogue – but for capitulation – with anyone who embraces the strict tenets of radical Islam is then impossible, why would any elected official, true to good government, deny the enormity of the threat posed to the United States and the West by radical Islamist elements?

The second serious threat is less immediate and less violent, but caustic and lethal to the American philosophy and the continued existence of our country just the same. This threat comes from the American Fifth Column; the threat from within.

Emanating from the failed ideologies of Maxist-Leninst socialism and communism, the American Fifth Column dedicates itself to the transformation of the United States from a representative republic to a system of democratic socialism. This movement is personified by the progressive-left that has effectively hijacked the Democrat party.

Those leading the American Fifth Column have instituted a shadow government by instituting a shadow set of laws known as political correctness. They strive to legislate acceptable thought (no hate speech, the Fairness Doctrine) while Balkanizing the country employing the false notion that diversity makes us a stronger nation. Using the simple science of etymology it is clear that diversity is based on division, not unity. This diversity is anchored in the failed ideology of multiculturalism. Examples of how devastating the institution of multiculturalism is to a society can be witnessed in the incremental disappearance of the national identities of all the nations of Europe. Europe is now abandoning multiculturalism in favor of nationalism.

By promoting moral relativism the American Fifth Column strives to move away from the doctrines of Judeo-Christianity and Natural Law; the ideologies our Founders and Framers understood to be essential for a nation that championed individual rights.

Through unconstitutional entitlement programs and the legislation of inequitable tax burden on those who have successfully employed the capitalist system to their benefit, those leading the American Fifth Column strive to artificially create economic equality through the redistribution of wealth. Ironically, those who lead the American Fifth Column have established an elitist class for themselves, as most of them are millionaires (like Nancy Pelosi) and even billionaires (like Peter Lewis and George Soros). They do so to reduce the “influential footprint” of the United States on the world in a quest for a one-world order administered by the elite.

Interestingly, the progressive-leftists of the American Fifth Column are playing the roll – either unwittingly or recklessly – of the useful idiot to radical Islam’s quest for a global Caliphate.

So, the people of the United States face these two incredibly potent threats – each which could affect the end of the great American experiment – yet we are apathetic to the threat. Why? Because we face these challenges constitutionally illiterate.

We in the United States – but for those who have served to protect our liberty – stand apathetic to the threats because we do not understand the worth of our liberty, the worth of our freedoms and therefore we cannot adequately value them. Because we do not value our liberty, because we do not understand the worth of our freedoms, it is easier to incrementally abdicate them and to abdicate the responsibility to protect them. In doing so we invite the nefarious – those with ulterior motives, totalitarian quests and special interests – to take on the façade of public servant while they institute ideological agendas that literally kill out nation.

Our educational system has been hijacked by progressive-left ideologues. They rewrite our school’s textbooks to place more emphasis on the notion that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, that Benjamin Franklin had a tendency to philander or any number of human frailties possessed by our Founders and Framers rather than exploring the incredible intellect of these men, rather than examining the philosophies that so affected these men that they would create the genius of the Charters of Freedom – the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In today’s classrooms the American Fifth Column provides a curriculum short on Hobbes, Locke, Aristotle and Cicero and heavy on tolerance, diversity and the proper use of condoms.

It is time that parents from all over the country – all over the world – embrace the idea that we have to take charge of educating our children. In the long run we have to run for school boards and take an interest in our schools’ curriculum development. In the short run we have to engage and support organizations that are sounding the alarm about not only the indoctrination being perpetrated on our children through “special interest education” but the threats we face from dangers internally and externally; the perfect storm.

Edmund Burke is quoted to have said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” It is time, patriots, to ask ourselves, are we supporting those fighting the good fight? Or are we doing nothing.

Frank Salvato is the Executive Director and Director of Terrorism Research for BasicsProject.org a non-profit, non-partisan, 501(c)(3) research and education initiative. His writing has been recognized by the US House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention. His organization, BasicsProject.org, partnered in producing the original national symposium series addressing the root causes of radical Islamist terrorism. He also serves as the managing editor for The New Media Journal. Mr. Salvato has appeared on The O'Reilly Factor on FOX News Channel and is a regular guest on talk radio including on The Right Balance with Greg Allen on the Accent Radio Network and on The Captain's America Radio Show catering to the US Armed Forces around the world. His opinion-editorials have been published by The American Enterprise Institute, The Washington Times & Human Events and are syndicated nationally.

Government as "Competitor": The Latest Prescription for Government Control of Health Care

WebMemo #2024

Certain recent proposals to ostensibly expand health care "choice" and "competition" would have exactly the opposite effect. One such recent proposal is to create a national health care "market" through a congressionally designed "national health insurance exchange" where a government health plan would compete directly with private health plans.[1]

The declared purpose of this arrangement is to give those Americans who were not enrolled in employment-based health insurance coverage, or those with insecure coverage, the opportunity to get stable, affordable health insurance that would have a guaranteed set of government standardized benefits (such as Medicare or a version of Medicare) calibrated for a younger population. Usually, this kind of proposal is accompanied by an employer mandate, whereby employers who do not offer private coverage are required to pay a tax that would, in turn, help to finance coverage in the competing public program.

Government as Player and Umpire ....

Congressional Commission Should Recommend "Damage Limitation" Strategy

(Compiler's note: Long, but a "must read" article. rca)

by Baker Spring

Section 1062 of the National Defense Authoriza­tion Act for Fiscal Year 2008 created a congressionally appointed commission to review the strategic posture of the United States.[1] The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States is charged with assessing the entire strategic posture of the U.S., including offensive and defensive forces and conven­tional and nuclear forces. It is chaired by former Sec­retary of Defense William Perry and co-chaired by former Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Energy James Schlesinger. The commission's initial report is due later this year.

The commission's review comes at a perilous time for U.S. strategic forces. The U.S. nuclear arsenal and stockpile have been atrophying since the end of the Cold War. Strategic defenses, which were all but aban­doned during the Cold War, continue to lag behind the threat resulting from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and their delivery sys­tems. Congress has been reluctant to pursue conven­tional strategic strike programs, which are also referred to as prompt global strike systems.

However, the commission's most pressing problem is adapting the U.S. strategic posture to maintaining national security and stability in the multipolar world that has replaced what commentator Charles Krau­thammer has called the "unipolar moment" that immediately followed the end of the Cold War.[2] This multipolar world has resulted from the post-Cold War proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particu­larly nuclear weapons and related delivery systems.

In this multipolar environment, the commission should recommend to Congress that the U.S. adopt a damage limitation strategy to replace the retaliatory deterrence strategy that dominated U.S. policy during the Cold War. A damage limitation strategy would seek to protect the peoples, territories, institutions, and infrastructure of the United States and its allies against attacks by defeating such attacks and, bar­ring the outright defeat of such attacks, limiting their attendant damage to the greatest extent possible. ....

Islamic Lender's Ex-Chief Is Held

DUBAI -- The former chief executive of Dubai-based Islamic mortgage lender Tamweel is being held by police here as part of a financial probe, a law-enforcement official said.

The former executive, Adel Al Shirawi, was arrested after a case was filed on Aug. 5, according to the police official, who declined to be identified. Mr. Shirawi hasn't been charged, the official said.

According to Dubai Public Prosecution records seen by Zawya Dow Jones, Mr. Shirawi and Feras Kalthoum, a former head of investments at Tamweel, are being probed as part of an alleged "embezzlement and mistrust" investigation. Dubai Public Prosecution officials declined to comment on the details of the probe. Mr. Kalthoum was arrested earlier this month, but hasn't been charged, a Dubai Public Prosecution official confirmed to Zawya Dow Jones. ....

Up to 1-in-50 Troops Seriously Injured... By Vaccines?

US Department of Defense: 1-2% of individuals may experience severe vaccine effects that "could result in disability or death."


American Academy of Pediatrics: 2+ % of children have "defects" that cause vaccine "risks" ....

U.S. May Ease Police Spy Rules

Washington Post Staff Writers

The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.

The proposed changes would revise the federal government's rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation's 18,000 state and local police agencies that receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants.

Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months. They include a recent executive order that guides the reorganization of federal spy agencies and a pending Justice Department overhaul of FBI procedures for gathering intelligence and investigating terrorism cases within U.S. borders.

Think of EMP Before Problem Arises

The Wall Street Journal

....The fact is that you don't need a nuclear warhead. An EMP generator can be constructed that would fit inside a briefcase. If someone had a mind to use such a device, you could merely walk past an unprotected facility such as a server farm or communications center and disrupt the electronics.

Another benefit of EMP hardening, which is considerably more practical, is that it can protect electronic equipment against the effects of lightning and everyday power-line surges.

I strenuously urge Washington to consider re-establishing FEMA's EMP protection program. Electronic devices have permeated our lives so deeply that any disruption of these systems on which we so dearly depend could prove disastrous.

Al-Qaida inmates plot beheading

LONDON -- Specialists for Britain's MI5 intelligence service, responsible for monitoring Britain's eight maximum security prisons where convicted al-Qaida terrorists are held, have unearthed a plan to kidnap a prison officer and behead him, then transmit the images onto the Internet, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

The discovery was described by MI6 director-general, Jonathan Evans, in a report this week to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith as "a real live threat."

The plot is centered on Whitemoor prison in Cambridgeshire and Frankland jail in County Durham. Between them, they house more than a dozen convicted terrorists.

"In all eight prisons, there is mounting racial tension, but the specific threat to execute an officer and film it on mobile phones is new," states the MI5 report. ....

Friday, August 15, 2008

Murtha goes to bat for firm that broke export law

Rep. John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat known for delivering federal money to defense contractors in his district, is now going to bat for a constituent's company that was convicted last year of illegally exporting components of military equipment.

Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, wrote State Department officials in late June urging them to meet with the president of Electro-Glass Products, a 50-employee company that was convicted in April 2007 of illegally exporting components of night-vision goggles to a company in India. The Mammoth, Pa., firm has been sanctioned by the State Department, and Murtha argues that the action threatens to put the firm out of business. ....

New Nightmare Census Projections Reveal CHAIN MIGRATION Still Choking Our Future

By Roy Beck,

Well, more bad news from the Census Bureau.

Looking at today's trends in immigration and in immigrant fertility, the Bureau now says that its previous projection of 420 million people in the U.S. in 2050 is too low.

Instead, it now looks like we are headed to 439 million in 2050 -- if Congress doesn't finally start correcting the collossal immigration mistakes set in motion in 1965, accelerated in 1990 and snowballing because of the effects of Chain Migration.

At least four-fifths of the additional 135 million people crammed on top of the 304 million already in our communities will be the result of new immigrants and births to immigrants, according to Census data.

ELIMINATE CHAIN MIGRATION FOR A BETTER FUTURE

The good news is that we don't have to ruin the future quality of life of our children and grandchildren.

If Congress adopts the plan of action advocated by NumbersUSA, U.S. population in 2050 won't have to be anywhere near 400 million.

The key is to eliminate the Chain Migration categories that create endless chains of relatives of immigrants coming to America, without regard to their skills, education or their ability to serve the national interest. (Please continue to use our free faxing system to press your Members of Congress to co-sponsor bills to end Chain Migration and to carry out the other solutions to our immigration problems.) ....

Russia accused of dropping cluster bombs on Georgian civilians

Russian military aircraft have deployed controversial and indiscriminately deadly cluster bombs on civilian areas of Georgia according to an international rights group.

Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York, said today that it has obtained evidence proving that the weapons, which were banned by more than 100 countries in May, have killed at least 11 people so far during the conflict in the Caucasus.

Cluster bomb systems scatter small “bomblets” across a wide area and can prove deadly to civilians - particularly children - who pick up munitions which have failed to detonate on impact. The bombs effectively leave behind a trail of landmines. ....

Taliban wages war on aid groups

By Anand Gopal/CSM

* Not only that they blow up schools along with students and teachers, nothing is what they want:

Nineteen aid workers have been killed this year, ....

Iran training Iraqi hit squads: US military

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Iraqi assassination squads are being trained in Iran by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force and Lebanese Hezbollah for attacks in Iraq, a US military official said Friday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Shiite "special groups" were being trained in Qom, Tehran, Mashad and Ahvaz in assassination and bombing techniques to target specific Iraqis as well as US troops and Iraqi security forces.

"We have intelligence reports confirming Iranian-sponsored groups are planning to return back to Iraq and are targeting specific coalition forces, ISF (Iraqi Security Forces) and Iraqi citizens," the official said.

The intelligence, if it proves out, raises the prospect of a deadly new security challenge at a time when the US military is hoping to make further cuts in its forces.

The official, who spoke from Iraq, said the information has been turned over to the Iraqi government "and they are taking the lead in handling the situation."

The groups were being trained in "reconnaissance, small arms, small unit tactics, cellular operations, EFPs and other IEDs, RPGs and assassination techniques," the official said. ....

Click here for additional information on this topic.

Hezbollah ‘Five-Times’ Stronger Than It Was During Israeli War

In terms of weaponry, strategic and political positioning, and its ever-expanding international reach; Hezbollah is “five times more capable today,” than it was at the beginning of the July 2006 war with Israel: A fact, according to experts, that prompted Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to tell his troops during a Tuesday morning tour of positions along the Golan Heights, "It's not for nothing that we're training here." ....

The West's Islamist Infiltrators

By Daniel Pipes

Siddiqui, 36, is a Pakistani mother of three, an alumna of MIT, and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Brandeis University. She is also accused of working for Al-Qaeda and was charged last week in New York City with attempting to kill American soldiers.

Her arrest serves to remind how invisibly most Islamist infiltration proceeds. In particular, an estimated forty Al-Qaeda sympathizers or operatives have sought to penetrate U.S. intelligence agencies.

Such a well-placed infiltrator can wreck great damage explains a former CIA chief of counterintelligence, Michael Sulick: "In the war on terrorism, intelligence has replaced the Cold War's tanks and fighter planes as the primary weapon against an unseen enemy." Islamist moles, he argues, "could inflict far more damage to national security than Soviet spies," for the U.S. and Soviet Union never actually fought each other, whereas now, "our nation is at war."

Aafia Siddiqui is accused of working for Al-Qaeda.

Here are some American cases of attempted infiltration since 2001 that have been made public:

  • The Air Force discharged Sadeq Naji Ahmed, a Yemeni immigrant, when his superiors learned of his pro-Al-Qaeda statements. Ahmed subsequently became a baggage screener at Detroit's Metro Airport, which terminated him for hiding his earlier discharge from the Air Force. He was convicted of making false statements and sentenced to eighteen months in jail.

  • The Chicago Police Department fired Patricia Eng-Hussain just three days into her training on learning that her husband, Mohammad Azam Hussain, was arrested for being an active member of Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi (MQM-H), a Pakistani terrorist group.

  • The Chicago Police Department also fired Arif Sulejmanovski, a supervising janitor at its 25th District station after it learned his name was on a federal terrorist watch list of international terrorism suspects.

  • Mohammad Alavi, an engineer at the Palo Verde nuclear power plant, was arrested as he arrived on a flight from Iran, accused of taking computer access codes and software to Iran that provide details on the plant's control rooms and plant layout. He subsequently pleaded guilty to transporting stolen property.

  • Nada Nadim Prouty pleaded guilty to multiple charges.

    Nada Nadim Prouty, a Lebanese immigrant who worked for both the FBI and CIA, pleaded guilty to charges of: fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship; accessing a federal computer system to unlawfully query information about her relatives and the terrorist organization Hizballah; and engaging in conspiracy to defraud the United States.

  • Waheeda Tehseen, a Pakistani immigrant who filled a sensitive toxicologist position with the Environmental Protection Agency, pleaded guilty to fraud and was deported. World Net Daily explains that "investigators suspect espionage is probable, as she produced highly sensitive health-hazard documents for toxic compounds and chemical pesticides. Tehseen also was an expert in parasitology as it relates to public water systems."

  • Weiss Rasool, 31, a Fairfax County police sergeant and Afghan immigrant, pleaded guilty for checking police databases without authorization, thereby jeopardizing at least one federal terrorism investigation.

  • Nadire P. Zenelaj, 32, a 911 emergency operator of Albanian origins, was charged with 232 felony counts of computer trespass for illegally searching New York State databases, including at least one person on the FBI's terrorist watch list.

Three other cases are less clear. The Transportation Security Administration fired Bassam Khalaf, 21, a Texan of Christian Palestinian origins, as an airport baggage screener because lyrics on his music CD, Terror Alert, applaud the 9/11 attacks. FBI Special Agent Gamal Abdel-Hafiz "showed a pattern of pro-Islamist behavior," according to author Paul Sperry, that may have helped acquit Sami Al-Arian of terrorism charges. The Pentagon cleared Hesham Islam, an Egyptian immigrant, former U.S. Navy commander, and special assistant to the deputy secretary of defense, but major questions remain about his biography and his outlook.

Other Western countries too - Australia, Canada, Israel, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom - have been subject to infiltration efforts. (For details, see my weblog entry, "Islamists Penetrate Western Security.")

This record prompts one to wonder what catastrophe must occur before government agencies, some of which have banished the words "Islam" and "jihad," seriously confront their internal threat?

Westerners are indebted to Muslim agents like Fred Ghussin and "Kamil Pasha" who have been critical to fighting terrorism. That said, I stand by my 2003 statement that "There is no escaping the unfortunate fact that Muslim government employees in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps need to be watched for connections to terrorism."

20 Muslim nations ban U.S. religious workers

A new congressional study has found that more than 20 Muslim nations deny entry to American and other foreign religious workers, WND has learned, even as the U.S. State Department grants entry to hundreds of clerics from their countries each year.

The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and most other Middle Eastern countries still refuse to offer religious visas, and deny entry to U.S. clergy as official policy, according to a report by the Law Library of Congress, the foreign legal research arm of the U.S. Congress. In a shocker, U.S. allies Afghanistan and Iraq also made the list of religious refuseniks.

"Of this group, the vast majority constitute Arab or Muslim states," said Wendy Zeldin, senior legal research analyst for the Library of Congress.

"Since Islam prohibits proselytism by other religions, foreign religious workers will in effect be denied entry to conduct religious work," Zeldin wrote in the three-page report, a copy of which was obtained by WND.

At the same time, Washington routinely issues R-1 religious visas to clerics from the Middle East, including jihadi hotbeds Saudi Arabia and Egypt, even though an alarming number of foreign imams have been suspects in terrorism investigations since 9/11.

The Department of Homeland Security, in fact, considers visiting imams as nonthreatening as Buddhist monks. Screening procedures call for both visitors to be treated as the same level of security risk at the border.

Also, R-2 visas are routinely granted to relatives of foreign imams. ....

Thursday, August 14, 2008

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

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

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

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. ....

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The Jihadist Threat and Grassroots Defense

A source in Beijing says that the murder in Beijing of American Todd Bachman and the wounding of his wife Barbara and their Chinese tour guide were committed by someone other than the individual identified in China’s state-run press.

The three were attacked on August 9 while visiting the Drum Tower, a popular Beijing tourist site. The next day, Xinhua reported that they had been murdered by a 47-year-old factory worker named Tang Yongming who had recently been thrown out of work. Tang was said to have committed the murder out of hopelessness and rage at society, and then to have committed suicide by jumping 150 feet to the concrete below.

According to the Epoch Times’ source, however, a local store clerk saw something different.

Immediately after the murder a witness came out of one of the stores nearby where she works, shaken at what she had seen. According to this store clerk, the murderer was a very tall Chinese man between 30 and 40 years old in a business suit. The killer was said to be very agile and quick and used a double-bladed military knife to commit the murder.

The clerk says that there were security guards within 20 feet of the murder who did nothing to stop or apprehend the killer. While she and other witnesses were too shocked to react, the killer quickly ran away.

The source pointed out “There was a tight security check there with many public security officers. No one could pass the security check with a weapon.”....

"Rules of Jihad" book called for bombings, assassinations

from Jihad Watch


Clearly Belal Khazaal is a Misunderstander of Islam. Watch for the Vast Majority of Moderate, Peaceful Muslims to take to the streets to protest his defamation of their religion.

More on this story. "Terror suspect Belal Khazaal compiled book, court told," by Natalie O'Brien in The Australian, August 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A SYDNEY man allegedly compiled a book advocating terrorist attacks including bombings, shooting down planes and assassinations of key US officials including George W Bush, a Supreme Court jury has been told.

The book, entitled Provision on the Rules of Jihad, contained sections that canvassed various methods of murder and terrorist attack including letterbombs, boobytrapping cars, kidnappings and poisonings, according to crown prosecutor Peter Neil SC. ....

Homeland Security sets up counterintelligence unit because of foreign threats

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Concerns about foreign spies and terrorists have prompted the Homeland Security Department to set up its own counterintelligence division and require strict reporting from employees about foreign travel, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The new directive comes as the federal government increases its counterspy efforts across all agencies and raises the awareness of intelligence vulnerabilities in the private industry as well as in protecting government secrets.

The Homeland Security Department "is vulnerable to adversaries who seek information about our nation's homeland defense programs, classified or unclassified," ....

Al Qaeda calls for jihad in Mauritania after coup

Al Qaeda's North Africa wing has called for a holy war in Mauritania to establish Islamic rule after a military junta toppled the country's elected president. "Raise the banner of jihad and let us bleed and have our limbs severed until we bring back a caliphate styled along the lines of The Prophet's way," the leader of the al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, Abu Mus'ab Abd el-Wadoud, said in a statement posted on the Internet on Tuesday.

White House imposes sanctions on 5 Iranian firms

The Bush administration has imposed economic sanctions on five Iranian companies that it has accused of helping the country pursue its ambitions to develop a nuclear weapon. The Treasury Department announced Tuesday that it was freezing any assets the five companies might have in the United States and prohibiting American individuals and companies from having dealings with the firms. ....

ICE, Local Officers Arrest 119 Illegal Aliens in Penn. and Del.

A 10-day ICE operation in Pennsylvania and Delaware netted 75 fugitive aliens and 44 other immigration violators, according to an ICE press release. Of these, 38 had criminal histories that included offensive touching and assault of a child, forgery, criminal conspiracy, receiving stolen property, and narcotics violations. The arrestees came from countries around the globe including El Salvador, Indonesia, Mauritania (Islamic Republic) and Mexico. ....

FCC Commissioner: Return of Fairness Doctrine Could Control Web Content

There’s a huge concern among conservative talk radio hosts that reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine would all-but destroy the industry due to equal time constraints. But speech limits might not stop at radio. They could even be extended to include the Internet and “government dictating content policy.”

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell raised that as a possibility after talking with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. McDowell spoke about a recent FCC vote to bar Comcast from engaging in certain Internet practices – expanding the federal agency’s oversight of Internet networks. ...