This is not from some nutty leftwing conspiracy site. It's from a nutty rightwing conspiracy site WorldNetDaily, written by Swiftboater Jerome Corsi.Houston-based KBR, formerly the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co., has a contingency contract in place with the Department of Homeland Security to construct detention facilities in the event of a national emergency.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback confirmed yesterday in a telephone interview that the KBR contract for $385 million was awarded initially in January 2006 for a one-year base period with four one-year options. It has been extended into 2007. KBR held a previous emergency detention contract with ICE from 2000 to 2005.
In this photo released by Japanese mountain guide Hiroyuki Kuraoka, 71-year-old Japanese mountain climber Katsusuke Yanagisawa, foreground, climbs towards the summit of Mount Everest to become the oldest person to scale it, on Tuesday, May 22, 2007. Yanagisawa, a retired junior high school teacher from central Japan, was 71 years, 2 months and 2 days old when he reached the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) peak on May 22, becoming the oldest Everest climber and beating the previous record set last year by another Japanese climber, Takao Arayama, who was aged 70 years, 7 months and 13 days. Image Credit: AP Photo/Hiroyuki Kuraoka, HO
Baber called from 29,035 feet/8848 metres on the highest peak of Mount Everest. For the call, Baber will use a Moto Z8 phone, a consumer-grade GSM phone that Motorola announced earlier this week and will ship in Europe and Asia in June. No plans for shipping the phone in the U.S. have been made, although Motorola has many GSM phones sold by U.S.-based carriers. Pricing has not been announced. Image Credit: Motorola
Three courageous women climbers Noelle Wenceslao, Carina Dayndon and Janet Belarmino reached the summit in the morning of May 16 and arrived in Everest Base Camp in Nepal side in the afternoon on May 18. Upon arrival at EBC, the Philippine Support group of PAL Mountaineering Club headed by its chairman John Fortes greeted the climbers. - "I met some climbers reaching the summit from Nepal side and saw some mountain peaks below me. It was snowing heavily as we were climbing up," said Noelle Wenceslao, who was the first among the three to reach the summit. Image Credit: Pinays On The Summit
Carina Dayondon on the summit. Image Credit: Pinays On The Summit
Noelle with Philippine flag. Image Credit: Pinays On The Summit
In January, 2002, she was working for the agency “as an operations officer” in the Directorate of Operations’s Counterproliferation Division (CPD) and serving as “chief” of a unit with responsibility for weapons proliferation issues related to Iraq. In that capacity, he added, she traveled overseas in an undercover capacity.
“She traveled at least seven times to more than 10 countries,” the document states. “When traveling overseas, Ms. Wilson always traveled under a cover identity….At the time of the initial unauthorized disclosure in the media of Ms. Wilson’s employment relationship with the CIA on 14 July 2003, Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employe for whom the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States.”
In short, the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force—any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938.John Bolton: We must attack Iran before it gets the bomb
It now remains to be seen whether this President, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.
A nuclear Iran would be as dangerous as “Hitler marching into the Rhineland” in 1936 and should be prevented by Western military strikes if necessary, according to a leading hawk who recently left the Bush administration.
Disguised as "missile defense" the Pentagon's Star Wars program is all about offense and global control and domination. The planned deployments in Europe are just one more piece in the military space architecture that would give the U.S. "full spectrum dominance."
In a recent article Conn Hallinan, an analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus, writes "Anti-ballistic missile systems (ABM) have a dark secret: They are not supposed to stop all-out missile attacks, just mop up the few retaliatory enemy missiles that manage to survive a first strike. First strikes - called 'counterpoint' attacks in bloodless vocabulary of nuclear war - are a central component in U.S. nuclear doctrine."
The Milky Way in infrared as it is seen today. In 3 trillion years, physicist Lawrence Krauss and Robert J. Scherrer predict that only "an island universe" made from the Milky Way and its nearby galactic Local Group neighbors will be perceivable in an overwhelmingly dark void. Image Credit: E. L. Wright (UCLA), The COBE Project, DIRBE, NASA
Muqtada al Sadre appears publicly in Iraq, denouncing the United States and insisting we leave.
Mexico will undoubtedly share the results of this surveilance with the United States, including communications between people in Mexico and in this country.Mexico is expanding its ability to tap telephone calls and e-mail using money from the U.S. government, a move that underlines how the country's conservative government is increasingly willing to cooperate with U.S. on law enforcement.
The expansion comes as President Felipe Calderon is pushing to amend Mexico's constitution to allow officials to tap phones without a judge's approval in some cases.
Mexican authorities have been able to wiretap most telephone conversations and tap into e-mail for years, but the new $3 million Communications Intercept System being installed by Mexico's Federal Investigative Agency would expand its reach.
The system will allow authorities to track cellphone users as they travel, according to the contract specifications. It would include extensive storage capacity and allow authorities to identify callers by voice. The system, scheduled to begin operation within the next month, was paid for by the U.S. State Department and sold by Verint Systems, a politically connected company based in Melville, N.Y., that specializes in electronic surveillance.
Verint helps national security agencies generate actionable intelligence via a unified platform for the mass interception, filtering, and analysis of voice and data.
Sophisticated Probe and Filter Technology for Mass Interception
Verint’s sophisticated probing technology is designed to collect maximum communications pertaining to specific areas of interest.
Verint’s real-time filtering mechanisms extract essential information from the large volumes of intercepted data.
Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.
This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.
The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).
On Tuesday evening, i spoke with a former top national intelligence official in this Bush administration who told me that what I was investigating and planned to report on regarding Cheney and the commentary of his aide was "potentially criminal insubordination" against the President.
1. Even Koko the Gorilla loved him
Most people have heard of Koko, the Stanford-educated gorilla who could speak about 1000 words in American Sign Language, and understand about 2000 in English. What most people don’t know, however, is that Koko was an avid Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fan. As Esquire magazine reported, when Fred Rogers took a trip out to meet Koko for his show, not only did she immediately wrap her arms around him and embrace him, she did what she’d always seen him do onscreen: she proceeded to take his shoes off!
2. He Made Thieves Think Twice
According to a TV Guide piece on him, Fred Rogers drove a plain old Impala for years. One day, however, the car was stolen from the street near the TV station. When
3. He Watched His Figure to the Pound!
In covering Rogers’ daily routine (waking up at 5; praying for a few hours for all of his friends and family; studying; writing, making calls and reaching out to every fan who took the time to write him; going for a morning swim; getting on a scale; then really starting his day), writer Tom Junod explained that Mr. Rogers weighed in at exactly 143 pounds every day for the last 30 years of his life. He didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t eat the flesh of any animals, and was extremely disciplined in his daily routine. And while I’m not sure if any of that was because he’d mostly grown up a chubby, single child, Junod points out that
4. He Saved Both Public Television and the VCR
Strange but true. When the government wanted to cut Public Television funds in 1969, the relatively unknown Mister Rogers went to
5. He Might Have Been the Most Tolerant American Ever
Mister Rogers seems to have been almost exactly the same off-screen as he was onscreen. Despite being an ordained Presbyterian minister, and a man of tremendous faith, Mister Rogers preached tolerance first. Whenever he was asked to castigate non-Christians or gays for their differing beliefs, he would instead reply, with sincerity to them, “God loves you just the way you are.” Often this provoked ire from fundamentalists.
6. He Was Genuinely Curious about Others
Mister Rogers was known as one of the toughest interviews because he’d often befriend reporters, asking them tons of questions, taking pictures of them, compiling an album for them at the end of their time together, and calling them after to sincerely check in on them and hear about their families. He wasn’t concerned with himself, and genuinely loved hearing the life stories of others. Amazingly, it wasn’t just with reporters. Once, on a fancy trip up to a PBS exec’s house, he heard the limo driver was going to wait outside for 2 hours, so he insisted the driver come in and join them (which flustered the host). On the way back,
7. He was Color-blind
Literally. He couldn’t see the color blue. Of course, he was also figuratively color-blind, as you probably guessed, as were his parents who took in a black foster child when
8. He Could Make a Subway Car full of Strangers Sing
Once while rushing to a
A few other things:
9. He got into TV because he hated TV. The first time he turned one on, he saw people angrily throwing pies in each other’s faces, and immediately he vowed to use the medium for better than that. Over the years he covered topics as varied as why kids shouldn’t be scared of a haircut, or the bathroom drain (because you won’t fit!), to divorce and war.
10. He was an Ivy League Dropout.
11. He composed all the songs on the show, and over 200 tunes.
12. He was a perfectionist, and disliked ad libbing. He felt he owed it to children to make sure every word on his show was thought out.
13. Michael Keaton got his start on the show as an assistant– helping puppeteer and operate the trolley.
14. Several characters on the show are named for his family. Queen Sara is named after Rogers’ wife, and the postman Mr. McFeely is named for his maternal grandfather who always talked to him like an adult, and reminded young Fred that he made every day special just by being himself. Sound familiar? It was the same way Mister Rogers closed every show.
15. The sweaters. Every one of the cardigans he wore on the show had been hand-knit by his mother.
(Sorry the editing of the post is so funky--don't know what happened to the format. Oh, well, at least it can be read--it just looks crappy! :))
A former Federal Emergency Management Agency videographer accused of killing his wife in Denver is seeking political asylum in Argentina, claiming the U.S. government wants him silenced for what he saw in the smoldering ruins of the Twin Towers after 9/11.
In other interviews with Argentine media, Sonnenfeld is quoted as saying, "What I saw (at 9/11) leads me to the terrible conclusion that there was foreknowledge of what was going to happen - the precautions that were taken to save certain things that the authorities there considered irreplaceable or invaluable.
"For example, certain things were missing that could only have been removed with a truck. Yet after the first plane hit one of the towers, everything in Manhattan collapsed and no one could have gotten near the towers to do that."
Sonnenfeld is quoted as saying documentation was removed from U.S. intelligence agencies in the World Trade Center, including the CIA, prior to the attacks. He did not specify how he could have known that.
My case has been known to a certain degree because of the activities that I have been engaging in, in terms of going to courts, going to Congress, etc. There are similar cases we are not hearing about. For example, the Larry Franklin case, with the espionage case that they pursued with AIPAC. And what the American public doesn’t know is the fact that there were other counter-intelligence operations within the FBI that obtained far more information not only limited to Mr. Franklin. Other operations were shut down in 2000 and 2001 because they ended up going to higher levels and involving way too many people. I’m talking about individuals who are breaking the law, misusing the trust and abusing their power, and in some cases I would even say engaging in treason.Sibel tells us what motivates her. When she became a citizen some 18 years ago she took an oath, as do all new citizens, to "support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic". It seems she takes that oath seriously. The people who have gagged her have taken similar oaths, which they have betrayed.
"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces," a senior US official in Baghdad warned.
Any US decision to retaliate against Iran on its own territory could be taken only at the highest political level in Washington, the official said. But he indicated that American patience was wearing thin.
A male and female pair of Devils Hole Pupfish swim together in Devils Hole, Nevada is this undated US Fish and Wildlife handout photo received 18 May 2007. For 60,000 years, they have withstood the bone-chilling extremes of the Ice Age, the blistering temperatures of the desert and an ever-shrinking habitat. Image Credit: AFP/US Fish and Wildlife-HO
A Menominee County landlord faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine for evicting the wife of a U.S. serviceman. It happened back in December of 2004, but it's just reached the federal court system.
Randall McLeod, Sr. pled guilty to a charge of unlawful eviction of a service member's dependents.
Federal prosecutors say the wife went into labor in late November of 2004 and, as a result, did not make her rent payment on time. The next month, authorities say, McLeod removed the family's belongings from the mobile home and changed the locks.
The soldier was away from home, training at the time.
McLeod will be sentenced on August 28. He'll also be required to pay restitution to the family.
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According to the former prison guard at Corcoran, Sirhan Sihan, did something in the months before 9/11 he had not done at any other time during his decades of incarceration – he ordered a television set for his cell. Interestingly, he showed no interest in watching television, only to occasionally check to make sure that the TV worked.
Then, on September 10, 2001, Sirhan Sirhan did something else he had not done before – he shaved his head. Although he was always a “clean cut” inmate according to this prison guard, he had never shaved his head. According to the prison guard, inmates in California often shave their heads immediately before their gangs go to war against other factions to show their solidarity and support.
Then, on the morning of 9/11 Sirhan was up early in his cell watching his TV for the first time when the news broke about the planes hitting the World Trade Center. In some manner, it is obvious that Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, 33 years after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and a guest of the California prison system, had advance knowledge of the events of September 11, 2001.
Vicious rumors about George W
A controversy is raging in Israel, in evangelical circles in the U.S. and on kabbalah web forums worldwide following the posthumous release of what a revered Sephardic rabbi claimed to be the name of the Messiah.
When Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri died in February 2006, somewhere between the age of 106 and 117, 300,000 attended his funeral in Jerusalem.
The Baghdad-born kabbalist had gained notoriety around the world for issuing apocalyptic warnings and for saying he personally met the long-awaited Jewish Messiah in November 2003.
Before Kaduri died, he reportedly wrote the name of the Messiah on a small note, requesting it remained sealed for one year after his death. The note revealed the name of the Messiah as "Yehoshua" or "Yeshua" – or the Hebrew name Jesus.
In 1990, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson told Kaduri that he would live to see the coming of the Messiah.
Also in September 2005, Kaduri said: "The Messiah is already in Israel. Whatever people are sure will not happen is liable to happen, and whatever we are certain will happen may disappoint us. But in the end, there will be peace throughout the world."
A few months before his death, Kaduri gave a Yom Kippur address in which he gave clues as to how to recognize the Messiah. He told those gathered for the Day of Atonement in his synagogue the Messiah would not come until former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dies.
In a collision of 21st-century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
The "evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed," concludes a new article in the Annals of Applied Statistics written by former FBI lab metallurgist William A. Tobin and Texas A&M University researchers Cliff Spiegelman and William D. James.
Second: Thomas Holmstrom
Third: Dan Cleary
I picked Cleary because he seemed to be playing with all he's got, in this game and every game I see him in.
Fallon's refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch".
Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, "You know what choices I have. I'm a professional." Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."
