WASHINGTON (Reuters): The Secret Service is investigating how an uninvited couple was admitted to US President Barack Obama’s White House state dinner, penetrating layers of security and mingling with VIP guests. The couple from northern Virginia was not invited to the dinner, not included on the official guest list, and were never seated at a table in the South Lawn tent where the dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was held, The Washington Post reported, citing a White House official it did not identify. A Secret Service spokesman told the Post that no one was under any risk or threat and that the agency was looking into a report that uninvited guests were admitted to the White House. The couple, aspiring reality-TV stars and socialites Tareq and Michaele Salahi, were seen arriving at the White House and later posted on Facebook what appears to be photos of themselves at the gathering on Tuesday night, the report said. The uninvited guests were in the same room as the Obamas and Prime Minister Singh, but it is not known if they met, according to the Post.

November 27th, 2009

[Daily Times]

MEXICO CITY: Forbes Magazine named drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman — a fugitive reputed to be hiding in the mountains of northern Mexico — to its list of the 67 “World’s Most Powerful People” on Wednesday.

At No. 41 on the list, Guzman is ahead of presidents like Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

Forbes noted Guzman’s profession as “drug trafficker” on the list published Wednesday on its Web site.

“This ranking is intended to be the beginning of a conversation, not the final word,” the magazine said in accompanying article. “Do despicable criminals like billionaire Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman … belong on this list at all?”

Last March, Mexican officials decried Forbes’ decision to include Guzman on its list of the world’s billionaires, saying that wrongly compared him to legitimate businessmen. At the time, Forbes’ estimated Guzman’s fortune at $1 billion.

The office of the presidency said it had no immediate reaction to his inclusion on Wednesday’s list.

Some Mexicans did not appear surprised by Forbes’ decision. “The drug traffickers have always been powerful,” a reader who identified himself only as Julio commented in a discussion of the Forbes article on the Web site of the Mexico City newspaper El Universal.

Guzman reputedly heads one of Mexico’s most powerful drug gangs and is considered one of Mexico’s most wanted fugitives. The government has offered a reward of 30 million pesos ($2.3 million) for information leading to his capture.

As head of the Sinaloa cartel, Guzman purportedly has legions of hit-men and enforcers at his command. Violence associated with Mexico’s drug war has cost more than 13,800 lives since late 2006, when President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against the cartels.

Calderon’s administration has said the violence is a sign not of the cartels’ strength, but rather of their desperation and disorganization in the face of the government crackdown.

[Read more...]

AP
12 November 2009

“In The Rear With the Beer” not only keeps beverage companies open in these hard economic times so that our troops may enjoy a frosty cold pint when they return from war, but now it is saving lives. Yet another example that God “has a hard-on for Marines”.

Teetotallers more likely to have heart attack than drinkers, study shows

Drinking a bottle of wine a day, or half a dozen beers, cuts the risk of heart disease by more than half in men, it has been shown.

In one of the largest studies of the link between alcohol and heart disease, researchers have found that the protective effects of a daily tipple are not limited to those who drink moderately but also extend to those who consume at what are conventionally considered to be dangerously high levels.

The researchers, who are from the public health department of the Basque government in San Sebastian, a region with one of the highest drinking rates in Europe, warned that alcohol caused millions of deaths a year around the world from other causes and their findings should not be taken as a licence to drink to oblivion. British scientists said the study, published in the journal Heart, was “flawed”.

The research was conducted among 15,000 men and 26,000 women aged from 29 to 69 who were followed for 10 years.

The results showed that those who drank a little – a glass of wine or a bottle of beer every other day – had a 35 per cent lower risk of a heart attack than those who never drank. Moderate drinkers, consuming up to a couple of glasses of wine a day or a couple of pints of ordinary bitter, had a 54 per cent lower risk.

The surprise was that heavy drinkers consuming up to a bottle of wine or six pints of ordinary bitter had a similar 50 per cent reduction in risk of a heart attack to moderate drinkers. Those drinking at even higher levels were still half as likely to suffer a heart attack as the teetotallers.

Larraitz Arriola, who led the study, said alcohol caused 1.8 million deaths a year around the world and 55,000 deaths among young people under 30 in Europe alone. “The first thing to say about our research is that alcohol is very harmful. If you drink heavily, you should drink moderately. The more you drink, the worse off you will be.” The researchers only looked at the effect of alcohol on the heart and confirmed what 30 years of studies have shown – that it is protective. The effect was independent of the form in which the alcohol was taken, as beer, wine or spirits. However, people who only drank wine had slightly less protection.

[Read more...]

By Jeremy Laurance, The Independent – Health Editor
November 19th, 2009

British troops have been given new rules about what they can and cannot post on the internet – after being warned that careless Tweets cost lives.

Military chiefs have issued 13 pages of guidelines about the use of websites such as Facebook and Twitter – where messages are known as Tweets – amid fears that service personnel could accidentally reveal sensitive operational secrets online.

The Ministry of Defence also fears they could be embarrassed by troops posting racist or other offensive opinions on such websites.

The new guidelines relax earlier rules that banned troops from posting anything related to their job on the internet without permission.

Now they can use social networking sites to stay in touch with friends and family but are warned never to disclose details of military operations, use official titles or refer to comrades without their explicit permission.

The rules also cover online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia, which troops are allowed to edit – as long as they do not alter entries relating to their work.

According to a military source: ‘There is always a risk with anyone talking about anything online. The MoD can’t, and wouldn’t want to, ban certain sites because it would encroach on soldiers’ lives, but they accept there’s a risk.

‘Those who breach these rules, particularly in posting racist material, will face robust disciplinary action.’

The new guidelines state: ‘Staff must follow the same standards of conduct and behaviour as would be expected elsewhere; maintain security and be careful about what they share; and get permission when appropriate.’

Last week a private in the Light Dragoons who was also a BNP member was revealed to have posted pictures of himself giving a Nazi-style salute on his Facebook page.

[Read more...]

By Helen Dowd
1st November 2009

SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean government was the source of high-profile cyber attacks in July that caused Web outages in South Korea and the United States, news reports said Friday.

The IP address — the Web equivalent of a street address or phone number — that triggered the Web attacks was traced back to North Korea’s Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, the chief of South Korean’s main spy agency reportedly told lawmakers.

The ministry leased the IP address from China, Won Sei-hoon of the National Intelligence Service told lawmakers Thursday, according to JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency carried a similar report.

The spy agency declined to confirm the reports. Two lawmakers on parliament’s intelligence committee contacted Friday also refused to confirm the reports. The Unification Ministry, which monitors North Korea, said it cannot comment on intelligence matters.

The July attacks, in which floods of computers tried to connect to a single Web site at the same time to overwhelm the server, caused outages on prominent government-run sites in the U.S. and South Korea. Affected sites include those of the White House and the South’s presidential Blue House.

North Korea immediately was suspected of involvement in the attacks but there has been little concrete evidence.

South Korean media reported at the time that North Korea runs an Internet warfare unit that tries to hack into U.S. and South Korean military networks to gather confidential information and disrupt service, and that the regime has between 500 and 1,000 hacking specialists.

Computer experts say the Web attacks like those waged in July are not difficult to launch.

“Many different parties could pull this off. This was not a particularly complex … attack to launch,” Rod Beckstrom, former head of the National Cybersecurity Center in the U.S., said Friday during a visit to Seoul.

“It’s definitely credible that anyone who had $50 million or a quarter-million dollars or a fairly limited amount of funding could hire hackers to go and perpetrate such an attack,” Beckstrom said.

Beckstrom was in the South Korean capital for a meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization overseeing Internet addresses that he heads.

[Read more...]

JAE-SOON CHANG – The Associated Press
October 30th, 2009

(Oct. 29) — While children, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems wait in hours-long lines for H1N1 vaccines, some of their counterparts behind bars have no such hassle.

Prisoners who fall into high-risk categories for swine flu will get the shots even while some members of the general public who are not high risk must wait until more of the precious doses are available.

And that has some people hopping mad.

“I have twin 2-year-olds that were three months premature and a 2-month baby, and I cannot get the vaccine for them,” wrote one commenter on the Web site of The Beaumont Enterprise, a Texas newspaper. “It’s ridiculous that inmates would get it before people who are at high risk for it.”

Another added, “There is something very wrong with a government who would care for convicted criminals before hard-working taxpayers.”

Similar responses were reported in local news outlets in Texas from Austin to Amarillo.

Massachusetts state Sen. Mark Montigny, D-New Bedford, vice chairman of the Public Health Committee, was not surprised at the response at all. “If you want to get people angry,” he said, “tell them someone in prison for a very violent felony is going to get it before their grandmother in a nursing home.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines to states listing categories of people who are highest priority for receiving vaccinations against the virulent influenza strain known as swine flu. Christopher Cox, spokesman for the CDC, said the high priority guidance applies to higher-risk people whether they are in a prison, a homeless shelter, a school or a nursing home.

“What we’re looking at is vulnerability to getting sick and dying of H1N1. That’s what we’re trying to prevent,” he said.

That has raised eyebrows in states like Massachusetts and Texas, because criminals with health issues may end up getting the shot before the general public.

“Hopefully once the supplies start rolling in in greater numbers, they will be able to expand that to the general public,” Cox said.

But Montigny is angry that the vaccine isn’t already available to the general public as the peak of the flu season bears down. He said he’s not opposed to vulnerable prisoners getting the shot, but if pharmaceutical companies had done a better job, states wouldn’t have to choose between the high-risk criminals and the general public for the first doses.

The vaccine supply has been unable to meet demand because of production problems. Cox said 252 million doses will be available this flu season. But only 23.2 million are available so far.

In Texas, for instance, prison officials requested 157,000 doses to cover all inmates, including the 45,000 who are at the front of the line because they fall in that high-priority group of pregnant women, children and those with underlying health issues. They also asked for doses to cover 41,000 staff and medical workers.

Getting juveniles, pregnant inmates and those with compromised immune systems covered first is important because prisons house many people in close proximity, said Jason Clark, spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. “So something like this can spread quickly,” he said.

[Read more...]

By Tamara Lytle
October 29th, 2009

A gunshot was fired at the New Jersey home of CNN’s Lou Dobbs after a series of threatening phone calls earlier this month, the host told listeners on his nationally syndicated radio show.

Dobbs, a fervent proponent of U.S. border enforcement, told listeners of “The Lou Dobbs Show” on Monday that the incident is part of an ongoing assault against anyone who opposes amnesty or leniency toward illegal immigrants.

“They’ve created an atmosphere and they’ve been unrelenting in their propaganda,” Dobbs said in reference to pro-immigration groups like the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the National Council of La Raza and America’s Voice. “Three weeks ago this morning, a shot was fired at my house where I live. My wife was standing out and that followed weeks and weeks of threatening phone calls.”

Dobbs continued, “But this shot was fired with my wife not, I don’t know, 15 feet away, and we had threatening phone calls that I decided not to report because I get threatening phone calls.”

Reached early Thursday at her home, Dobbs’ wife, Debi Lee Segura, told Foxnews.com that she was outside the house when the shot was fired in her direction. She declined to elaborate, referring calls to Dobbs, who could not be immediately reached for comment.

A spokeswoman for CNN declined to comment Thursday.

New Jersey State Police Sgt. Steve Jones said troopers were called to the Dobbs’ estate in rural Wantage, N.J., at about 10:30 a.m. on Oct. 5. The investigators who responded to the call were told that Dobbs and his wife were outside their home when they heard a gunshot, and a bullet struck their attic.

“It struck the siding and then fell to the ground,” Jones said.

A search of the vicinity was unsuccessful; the bullet was taken for analysis.

“It’s a shot fired that struck the house,” Jones continued. “We’re not sure what the intended target was. It’s still under investigation.”

No injuries were reported.

William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC), said it’s very likely Dobbs’ outspokenness on illegal immigration led to the shooting.

“That shot, that attack on the Dobbs family is an attack on every American that values First Amendment rights,” Gheen told Foxnews.com. “The chances are greatest that it was political, because pro-amnesty groups have tried to dehumanize Lou Dobbs and lie about him.”

Dobbs, who claimed the “national liberal media” has in part created a hostile environment regarding immigration, said enduring such incidents has become a “way of life” for him.

[Read more...]

New information is coming out that Rep Alan Grayson (D-FL) spent time in a mental institution.

In addition, Kipling stated that Grayson’s campaign had a glaring omission. During 1988, when Grayson had just turned thirty and while working for the Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson law firm, he spent four days in the Psychiatric Institute of Washington. What the cause of this stay was is yet unclear, although testimony from co-workers suggests that Grayson was extremely combative with fellow employees, including slapping a female intern in the face. Grayson was released after PIW doctors declared him “not to be a threat to the public.”

Asked why the Keller campaign did not release this information, Kipling stated that it was the decision of Keller himself. Keller was a four-term Congressman before the insurgent Grayson captured 52% of the vote last year.

RightHandPitcher

Grayson goes too far for colleagues

By JAKE SHERMAN & JONATHAN ALLEN

Republicans and Democrats slammed Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) for calling Linda Robertson, an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, a “K Street whore” in a month-old radio interview that circulated on Capitol Hill Monday night.

“There’s no call for that language. No call for it. That’s absurd. If he was standing here now, I’d say that to him,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.)

“He’s out of control,” added Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who is vice chairwoman of the House Republican Conference.

The remarks are the latest to surface in a string of controversial statements by Grayson, who said on the Alex Jones radio show that he believes Robertson, a former Enron lobbyist, is not qualified to pass judgment on intricate financial matters.

It’s clear that his colleagues’ opinion of him has suffered.

“Is this news to you that this guy’s one fry short of a Happy Meal?” asked Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer defended Robertson, whom he said he knows.

“I think it’s inappropriate and unfair,” the Maryland Democrat said. He decried the “heated rhetoric” that he said interferes with the ability solve problems.

Late last month, Grayson said Republicans’ health care plans were for Americans to “die quickly.”

Grayson, who is Jewish, later earned reproach from the Anti-Defamation League for referring to the health care system as a “holocaust in America.”

More recently, Republicans complained that a Website he created and promoted on the House floor – www.namesofthedead.com – had links to both his official House Web site and his campaign site. He later removed the link to his campaign site.

Grayson, who did not vote on Monday, has shown no sign of backing down.

From the Politico

[Read more...]

PREVIOUS: Alan Grayson Has Got To Go: Calls Fed Adviser A “K Street Whore”

BANGALORE/MUMBAI: A senior American space scientist arrested by the FBI in the US for allegedly spying for Israel was one of the main investigators of a Nasa scientific instrument Mini-Sar that flew aboard India’s lunar craft Chandrayaan-1. The scientist had visited Bangalore twice and met up with Isro scientists. ( Watch Video )

The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday filed a criminal complaint against Nasa scientist Steward David Nozette, 52, for attempted espionage. He is believed to be working for Israeli intelligence.

Isro has said Nozette visited Bangalore and interacted with scientists but had no access to critical Isro establishments during the visits and there was no concern about loss of data.

Isro chief spokesperson S Satish told TOI: “Isro has strict security protocols for foreign scientists. Accordingly, Nozette had not been allowed access to critical establishments. We ensured complete compliance to the protocol. Like any other foreign national, Nozette had no access to critical facilities.”

Nozette, a PhD in planetary sciences, was contacted by an FBI undercover employee last month posing as a Mossad officer and invited for lunch at a hotel in Connecticut Avenue in Washington DC to part with details about sensitive US satellite data for a sum. Nozette quoted a price which went into several thousand dollars.

On Monday, during a sting operation which was video-taped by the undercover FBI officer, Nozette was trapped and arrested.

Nozette’s bio on Nasa’s Mini-RF (Miniature Radio Frequency) project page describes him as the instrument’s principal investigator on the American Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and co-investigator on Mini-Sar on Chandrayaan-1.

Satish confirmed Nozette had visited Isro Bangalore at least twice. “He did have some interactions. Isro officials were constantly accompanying him and ensured security compliance.”

Said a scientist who didn’t want to be identified: “We have interacted with him and we never got an impression of him being a spy. We were not aware of his complete background because the system is such at the moment that we only rely on the passport details of the visiting foreign scientists. What has happened is very very bad and embarrassing and most of us are shocked.”

[Read more...]

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US authorities arrested a leading American scientist who had worked for the White House and NASA and charged him with attempted spying for Israel.

Stewart Nozette, 52, was apprehended after a sting operation involving an undercover FBI agent, the Department of Justice said, adding that there was no wrongdoing by Israel.

He is charged with “attempted espionage for knowingly and willfully attempting to communicate, deliver, and transmit classified information relating to the national defense of the United States to an individual that Nozette believed to be an Israeli intelligence officer.”

Nozette, who was arrested in the Washington suburb of Chevy Chase, Maryland and taken into custody, could make his first court appearance Tuesday on the charge, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

“The conduct alleged in this complaint is serious and should serve as a warning to anyone who would consider compromising our nation’s secrets for profit,” said David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security.

Nozette developed an experiment that fueled the discovery of water on the south pole of the moon, and previously held special security clearance at the Department of Energy on atomic materials.

In addition to stints at the US space agency NASA and the Department of Energy, Nozette worked at the White House on the National Space Council under then-president George H.W. Bush in 1989 and 1990.

“From 1989 through 2006, Nozette held security clearances as high as top secret and had regular, frequent access to classified information and documents related to the US national defense,” the Justice Department said.

In early September, Nozette received a phone call from a person “purporting to be an Israeli intelligence officer, but who was in fact an undercover employee of the FBI,” it said.

“Nozette met with the UCE (undercover employee) that day and discussed his willingness to work for Israeli intelligence,” informing the agent that “he had, in the past, held top security clearances and had access to US satellite information.”

The scientist offered to “answer questions about this information in exchange for money,” the Justice Department said.

“In addition, Nozette allegedly offered to reveal additional classified information that directly concerned nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft or satellites, and other major weapons systems.”

Over the next several weeks, Nozette and the undercover agent exchanged envelopes of money for answers to lists of questions about US satellite technology.

First, Nozette answered questions for a 2,000 cash payment, including one answer that “contained information classified as Secret,” the Justice Department said.

Later in September, the suspect picked up a payment of 9,000 dollars in cash and more questions, answers to which he returned to a drop-spot in a manila envelope this month.

FBI agents retrieved the envelope and found “the answers contained information classified as both Top Secret and Secret that concerned US satellites, early warning systems, means of defense or retaliation against large-scale attack, communications intelligence information, and major elements of defense strategy.”

[Read more...]

DAMASCUS, Syria, (AP) – Archaeologists have discovered two Crusader-era murals depicting heaven and hell in a medieval church on Syria’s coast — a rare find that could reveal new information about the Christian knights who battled Muslims for control of the Holy Land hundreds of years ago.

Experts are now renovating the 12th century paintings, which were discovered last year by a joint Syrian-Hungarian team excavating an old Crusader fortress on a hilltop overlooking the Mediterranean in the eastern city of Tartous.

The murals, which measure about 8 feet (2.5 meters) high and 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) wide, were hanging on either side of the altar of a 12th century chapel inside the al-Marqab Citadel and had accumulated thick layers of dust and dirt, archaeologists said.

The panel depicting hell shows people being tortured inside a wheel covered with knives and others being hanged and burnt, said Marwan Hassan, head of the Department of Antiquities in Tartous. The one portraying heaven includes saints surrounded by light colors.

Hassan said the Crusader murals were important because they were the first ones found in the Middle East depicting heaven and hell.

Authorities have restricted access to the paintings while archaeologists finish their excavation

“Crusaders did not stay in one place for a long time, and so it very rare to find such paintings left behind by them,” Michel Makdisi, head of excavations at Syria’s Directorate General of Antiquities, told The Associated Press.

Bassam Jamous, the country’s director-general of ruins and museums, told the state-run Al-Thawra newspaper last week that the paintings could provide information about the traditions and beliefs of the Crusaders.

Pope Urban II ordered the First Crusade in 1095 to establish Christian control of the Holy Land. European Crusaders soon took Jerusalem, but they lost it in 1187 to the famed Muslim leader Saladin.

The al-Marqab Citadel in Tartous, located some 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of the Syrian capital of Damascus, is believed to be the place where Richard the Lionheart, the former king of England, landed at the beginning of the Third Crusade, which was prompted by Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem.

[Read more...]

Oct 17 07:19 PM US/Eastern

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) – Police in this northern Mexican border city found a man’s nude, mutilated body hung by the neck from an expressway overpass Saturday, the second such grisly discovery in nine days.

The prosecutor’s office of Baja California state said the victim “showed multiple blows” and “cuts on several parts of the body.” Local news media said the man’s tongue was cut out, a kind of mutilation often inflicted by gangs on suspected informants.

Prosecutors had not determined a motive in the killing. The unidentified victim was believed to be between 55 and 60 years old, the office said in a statement.

The body was discovered by police early Saturday and quickly removed.

On Oct. 9, the mutilated body of a state official who authorities said was suspected of giving fake driver’s licenses to drug gang members was found hanging from another bridge in Tijuana, which lies along the California border near San Diego, California.

Also Saturday, prosecutors said that police reported finding the mutilated body of a woman in a reservoir in another part of Tijuana. The woman’s hands and head were missing.

In other violence in the city, a shootout between gunmen and police killed one officer and a gunman and wounded two policemen. Officials said investigators found five assault rifles and vests with federal prosecutors’ insignia in three vehicles thought used by the attackers.

More than 13,800 people have died in drug violence in Mexico since late 2006, when President Felipe Calderon ordered a crackdown on traffickers.

via Tijuana police find 2nd body hanging from bridge.

The “Baghdad bubble” for private security firms may have burst long ago, but a company based in Russia still wants a piece of the action.

That, at least, is how satellite channel Russia Today presents the Oryol anti-terror center, a group of former Russian soldiers who want to give Blackwater Xe a run for their money in Iraq. Has anyone mentioned to these guys that Blackwater is on the way out? It’s always worth watching Russia Today for laughs — and to remind ourselves how Al-Hurra probably looks like to Arab audiences.

Plenty of Russians, in fact, are already “on the circuit” in Iraq. Back in 2005, I even spent time on the road in Baghdad with a team of ex-soldiers from the former Soviet Union. They were employed by Erinys, a British private security firm. The team leader was French; the management was British and South African; the drivers and shooters were from post-Soviet militaries. They were all experienced soldiers, although the country manager noted one slight problem: “On contact, everyone reverts to their native language.”

Russia Today describes the Oryol anti-terror center as a kinder, more culturally sensitive alternative to other security firms.

[Read more...]

The Marines Motorcycle Club in Berkeley continue to be very active in seeking and closing with the enemies of United States Marines, and America, wherever they show their nasty faces in Northern California.

These Marines stood up against the Code Pink and World Can’t Wait communists and have succeeded in running them out of town. As many of you know, Code Pink had a fire sale of all of its office equipment and moved out of its offices in Albany, the group responsible for the protesting in front of the Marines Recruiting offices in Downtown Berkeley, CA.

World Can’t Wait repeatedly protested in front of the same Marine Recruiting office burning American flags and performing mock torture scenes. One video on Youtube shows a World Can’t Wait member threatening to burn the American flag patch on the vest of a Marine.

The announcement from the Marines MC comes on the heels of the vandalizing of an Army Recruiting Station on 14th & L streets in Washington D.C. two nights ago. The group most likely involved in the vandalizing have a history of it. The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) threw red paint and rocks at the same recruiting station last year. SDS has even ransacked the same Army Recruiting office in the past.

SDS announced that they would be “…dancing through downtown DC to raise a ruckus…”.

Memorials and recruiting stations across the nation have been vandalized over the last year to two years and a reoccurring theme seems to be the red paint. Red paint was also used on the Marine Recruiting office in Berkeley on March of last year.

If you have any information that will lead to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the vandalism of the Marine Recruiting office in Berkeley, you can earn $3000! Now that is what this Marine calls ‘a stimulus bill’!! Semper Fi!

That’ll shut him up!

A foul-mouthed punk looking for a fight not only messed with the wrong man and got his bell rung, he became an Internet laughingtock.

A video on U.K.’s Sun Web site shows a cool-headed man on his doorstep -- hands calmly clasped in front of him -- enduring face-to-face taunts from a thug in a muscle tee. The hooligan grabs the man by the back of the neck, and the man stays calm. The jerk shoves the man, three times, and even chest bumps him, but the man is undisturbed, maintaining a steely glare.

But in a clear example of don’t come between a man and his garbage, when the lowlife knocks over a trash bin, the man, who’s dressed in a black shirt and slacks, channels Bruce Lee and assumes a martial arts stance. A couple of swipes that draw air are exchanged, but then the homeowner delivers a swift jab to the face of the blockhead, knocking him on his arse.

The thug then scampers away to the sound of neighbors’ laughter, with his tail between his legs.

NYDailyNews

After complaints about American dominance of the internet and growing disquiet in some parts of the world, Washington has said it will relinquish some control over the way the network is run and allow foreign governments more of a say in the future of the system.

Icann – the official body that ultimately controls the development of the internet thanks to its oversight of web addresses such as .com, .net and .org – said today that it was ending its agreement with the US government.

The deal, part of a contract negotiated with the US department of commerce, effectively pushes California-based Icann towards a new status as an international body with greater representation from companies and governments around the globe.

Icann had previously been operating under the auspices of the American government, which had control of the net thanks to its initial role in developing the underlying technologies used for connecting computers together.

But the fresh focus will give other countries a more prominent role in determining what takes place online, and even the way in which it happens – opening the door for a virtual United Nations, where many officials gather to discuss potential changes to the internet.

via US relinquishes control of the internet | Technology | guardian.co.uk.

All set for hurricanes? Check. Pandemics? Check. Living dead? Check.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The University of Florida’s response plans for a zombie apocalypse are no longer available for public consumption.

University spokesman Steve Orlando said Friday the university removed a link to a disaster recovery exercise, which detailed how the school could respond to an outbreak of the undead. The link was taken down late Thursday afternoon.

Orlando says officials felt the joke “didn’t really belong” on the site, which also included plans for dealing with hurricanes and pandemics.

The exercise lays out the university’s response to attacks by “flesh-eating, apparently life impaired individuals.” It notes that a zombie outbreak might include “documentation of lots of strange moaning.”Orlando says the employee who wrote the gag wasn’t punished, saying that it was written by an employee to “add a little bit of levity” to disaster preparation discussions.

[Read more...]

NEW YORK — New York’s iconic Empire State Building will light up red and yellow Wednesday in honor of the 60th anniversary of communist China.

The Chinese consul, Peng Keyu, and other officials will take part in the lighting ceremony which will bathe the skyscraper in the colors of the People’s Republic until Thursday, Empire State Building representatives said in a statement.

The upper sections of the building are regularly illuminated to mark special occasions, ranging from all blue to mark “Old Blue Eyes” Frank Sinatra’s death in 1998 to green for the annual Saint Patrick’s Day.

Just last week the tower turned bright red.

However, that was not to mark some other communist achievement, but the 70th anniversary of the film “The Wizard of Oz” in which Dorothy wears ruby slippers rather than the silver of the original L. Frank Baum novel.

[Read more...]

Ah, welcome to socialism. You are no longer able to raise your children the way you see fit. God knows that you…ha, you…are not really capable. I mean, those government bureaucrat types, they…they are really the only ones smart enough to really handle the job, aren’t they?

Now I agree that letting your child eat, or cramming food down their throat until they get to this point, is just plain dumb. Then again, stupidity isn’t against the law now is it? I can see putting a lock on the families refrigerator. But to separate a family? That is what the liberals cry every chance they get when it comes to illegals in this country, isn’t it? “your separating families!” And by the way, those illegals broke the law to get here. Look it up.

So why would the liberal (UK/Scotland are infested and totally run by them) give the illegal (law breaker) a pass, and separate a families because the kids (and parents) have to self-control, or self-discipline? It makes me wonder if liberals are intolerant of fat people.

The kids, aged three and four, have been taken from their parents because of concerns over their weight.

A Dundee family has had two of their children taken into care for being overweight.

Social workers last week removed the youngest of the six children, aged three and four, and placed them with foster carers after a visit to the family home.

The development comes after the parents, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were warned last year that that they had to bring their children’s weight under control.

The parents, who are expecting their seventh child, have now been told that their unborn baby has been placed on an at-risk register and could be taken away at birth.

The family’s lawyer has warned there is a “real threat” that child protection teams could enter the hospital and remove the infant minutes after he or she is born.

The mother and father have also been told “active steps” are being taken to remove the remaining children from their care.

It emerged last year that the couple, from Dundee, had been threatened by social workers that they risked losing all of their six children, aged from three to 13, unless their eldest son and two of his sisters slimmed down. Since then, the 13-year-old’s weight has soared to more than 16 stone and the youngest has been labelled “overweight”.

The couple’s lawyer, Kathleen Price, described Dundee City Council’s handling of the case as “scandalous” and has launched an appeal to have the children returned to the family. She said: “This whole case has been dreadful. Neither of these parents takes drink or drugs. They have a big, happy, noisy family, which is prone to being overweight.

“To remove their children for that reason is scandalous. They had their children taken from them a week past Thursday and have no idea where they are. I have also had to warn them I believe social workers will enter the labour suite when their new baby arrives next month. They feel they are being victimised and are a complete mess.”

The couple, who live in a semi-detached house in the city, had been ordered to send their children to dance and football lessons to curb their obesity. The local authority also spent more than £100,000 for supervisors to monitor the family and try to help them retrain their children’s appalling eating and lifestyle habits.

The couple originally contacted social workers seeking help with managing their children – one of whom has developmental problems. Officials responded by expressing concern about their weight.

At the time, the emotional mother said: “They keep making an issue about the kids’ weight. I don’t even own a deep-fat fryer. All my food is home-cooked and the kids are not fed junk food. Children can carry a bit of puppy fat, but they tend to lose is as they get older. Ours are not being given that chance.”

You can watch the video of the news story here.

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Biblical patriarch ID’d in hieroglyphs, depiction of cow linked to pharoah’s dream

Egyptian coins carrying the name of Joseph, the biblical patriarch whose arrival in Egypt as a slave eventually provided salvation for his family during decades of drought across the Middle East, have been discovered in a cache of antique items shelved in boxes in a museum, according to a new report.

The report from the Middle East Media Research Institute said the coins with Joseph’s name and image were found in a pile of unsorted artifacts that had been stored at the Museum of Egypt.

MEMRI, which monitors and translates reports from Middle East publications and broadcasters, said the original report was in Egypt’s Al Ahram newspaper in Cairo.

The newspaper said the discovery countered claims by some historians that coins were not used for trade in Egypt at the time the Bible records Joseph and the Jews migrated there.

September 26, 2009

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