PHOTO SEQUENCE PROVES CORE OF THE WORLD TRADE TOWERS FAILED FIRST...

VA’s Suicide Hot Line Begins Operations...

The good folks in Greensboro are fortunate enough to have a newspaper editorial writer who connects the dots: "It's like one of those Parade Magazine brain teasers. What do these have in common? Hurricane Katrina. Flight delays nationwide. A blast of steam in New York. A traffic-stopping sinkhole on Wendover Avenue. The answer is actually a no-brainer. Aging infrastructure. And far from being a secret, the nation's civil engineers have been warning about it for years to little response."

Yesterday, Sowood sent out a letter to investors indicating that heavy losses in the credit market had caused the fund to lose more than half its value, prompting it to sell its portfolio to another hedge fund and return the remaining $1.5 billion to investors.

Trading in the shares of a large mortgage company was suspended yesterday, and the nation’s largest insurer of home loans said its stake in a business that underwrites and invests in mortgage securities may be worthless. Earlier, a German bank acknowledged that its investments in American loans have deteriorated.

The owner of a car dealership has been accused of killing two employees because they kept asking for pay raises.

Some laser printers emit as much fine-particle pollution as cigarette smoke, which can lodge deep in people's lungs to pose a significant health threat, Australian researchers have found.

Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo promised a package of gifts, including an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington and a tour of the Capitol, to anyone who brought 25 people to the GOP straw poll in Iowa on Aug. 11.

Two youths originally arrested during what was being billed as Canada’s largest antiterrorism bust are no longer facing charges.

Pelosi rattled off a quick, "No, no, no" to the idea of a new 9/11 investigation before changing the subject to claim that she "worked closely with the victims' families" and that they supposedly wanted the recent legislation.

The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem.

Survivors have long claimed that European countries treat them far better than Israel, where many elderly survivors live in poverty. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's announcement of the new allowance did nothing to change that impression. One survivor called the offer "absurd and insulting."

Iraq war veteran and experienced demolitions expert blows the cover on 9/11 inside job...

Sudan's defense minister, Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, has accused "24 Jewish organizations" of "fueling the conflict in Darfur" last week in an interview with a Saudi newspaper.

American Home Mortgage Investment Corp (AHM.N), a large U.S. mortgage provider, said on Tuesday it can no longer fund home loans and may liquidate assets, putting its survival in doubt.

Uncovered archive video showing CBS News reporting that United Airlines Flight 93 had crashed at Camp David, 90 miles away from its supposed final resting place at Somerset County PA, has led to more charges that the media were reading off a de facto script as the events of 9/11 unfolded.

On Wall Street, Bear Stearns Cos., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., are as good as junk.

Bush nominee: Al Qaeda seems to have ‘unlimited pool’...

On Friday Obama gave a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Chicago. It had been much anticipated in American Jewish political circles which buzzed about his intensive efforts to woo wealthy pro-Israel campaign donors who up to now have generally leaned towards his main rival Senator Hillary Clinton.

Reviewing the speech, Ha'aretz Washington correspondent Shmuel Rosner concluded that Obama "sounded as strong as Clinton, as supportive as Bush, as friendly as Giuliani. At least rhetorically, Obama passed any test anyone might have wanted him to pass. So, he is pro-Israel. Period."

DOW HEADS DOWN AGAIN!...

A week before Endeavour's planned liftoff, NASA was analyzing a cabin leak in the space shuttle Tuesday.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey updates her web site...

Stevens said in a statement that his attorneys were advised of the impending search yesterday morning.

Vice Chairman James Derba, who has served on the committee for the past decade, said Monday the "investment defies common sense" because the area is "the most strife torn" and "tumultuous" in the world.

"Investments are not made based on emotion, social mores, form of government or political consideration," he wrote in a letter sent to the county. "The suggestion to purchase the bonds in question is not in the best interest of the county. If a decision is made to purchase them I resign."

During the legislative session, state lawmakers approved a bill that allows local governments to invest in Israeli bonds, regardless of their rating.

In a curious coincidence, the day that this site published an article on the string of steps that this government has taken to put in place the legal niceties to Prepare for a Potential Declaration of Martial Law, including a sidebar on the possibility of an assassination of Pat Tillman, my site suddenly ceased allowing me to access it for any further editorial changes.

Keep in mind that Pollack has also been associated with the AIPAC espionage case as well:

Mullen Calls For ‘Eventual Drawdown’ Of U.S. Forces In Iraq, Concedes Little ‘Political Progress’...

In 56 of Ohio's 88 counties, ballots and election records from 2004 have been "accidentally" destroyed, despite a federal order to preserve them -- it was crucial evidence which would have revealed whether the election was stolen.

Despicable: Abe Foxman slams only Muslim Congressman...

Pentagon announces 20K troops will rotate into Iraq...

The number of Americans admitted to Canada last year reached a 30-year high, with a 20 per cent increase over the previous year and nearly double the number that arrived in 2000.

Then Trippi decides to level with me: "I'll tell you what, Marc. Someone in the shop that day saw you reading something, and thought it looked suspicious enough to call us about.

Then it occurs to me: I was reading. It was an article my dad had printed off the Web.

The Democrats HAVE been showing a REMARKABLE amount of spine - it's just that they are directing their strong backs AGAINST the will of the people.

Senators to abandon '08 e-voting paper trail mandate...

If'n they's not Christian, ain't we's supposed to be a killin' 'em?...

UN inspectors visit key Iran site...

On November 2000, Saddam made a fateful decision to convert 10 billion U.S. dollars to euros. This was a radical move for an OPEC country. This single decision may have sealed his fate.

Tucked into an affidavit filed by an FBI agent last month was the first hard evidence that federal agents are equipped with more than automatic pistols and handcuffs: The agency was asking a federal judge to let it infect a PC with spyware so they could finger its owner.

"We find it strange that the big strategists of the U.S. military have actually failed in finding solutions on the ground and are now back to air raids that kill more civilians than militants," former Iraqi army brigadier-general Ahmed Issa told IPS.

"On the other hand, they are giving away the land to local forces that they know are incapable of facing the militants, who will grab the first chance of U.S. withdrawal to bases to hit back and hold the ground again."

From NBC's Mike Viqueira A group of House Democrats will introduce a resolution calling on the Judiciary Committee to begin impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

C3B researchers are working pertinaciously to develop an implantable biosensor for monitoring lactate and glucose levels. Funded by the Department of Defense, the goal of this platform project is to develop a temporary implantable biosensor with wireless transmission capabilities. Packaging a dual sensing element biochip into the biosensor poses significant engineering challenges. Experiments are being conducted to investigate the amperometric response of the biochip to glucose and lactate, the biocompatibility of hydrogels used for coating the biochip, and the biochip’s performance in laboratory animals.

As the Israeli state increasingly invokes new outrages and atrocities against the Palestinians, in both the name of world Jewry and "democracy," and as the United States wields now the guiding Zionist hammer against the Muslim and Arab world, the specter of "anti-Semitism" is rising again across the planet. So it is decreed by "anti-Semitic" monitoring organizations across the globe. Media pundits everywhere are standing up, as if on defensive cue, to condemn this increasing "plague" of anti-Jewish hostility. A few of the more courageous public commentators, however, delicately maneuver across nails and egg shells to declare an emphatic separation between rising "anti-Jewish" foment (the declared provenance of Nazis, the KKK, Muslim terrorists, and others virtually insane) and an "anti-Israel" outrage (this realm is considered to be -- for a few special critics willing to stick their neck out at all -- kosher, if handled very, very carefully).

If there were any doubt in your mind that some People of Influence in Washington think that a U.S. military attack on Iran is a reasonable proposition, consider this: the Heritage Foundation has just published a paper attempting to reassure policymakers that the economic fallout from a U.S. attack on Iran - specifically a major disruption in the supply of oil from the Middle East - could be easily managed.

The number of U.S. homes facing foreclosure surged 58 percent in the first six months of the year, the latest sign of mounting problems in the mortgage industry, a data firm said Monday.

In all, 573,397 properties across the nation reported some sort of foreclosure activity in the first half of this year, including receiving notices of default, auction sale notices or being repossessed by lenders, Irvine-based RealtyTrac Inc. said.

Gordon Brown has paved the way for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq by telling George Bush he would not delay their exit in order to show unity with the United States.

He said that Britain's decision in the Basra region would be based on the military advice from its commanders on the ground. Later, British officials insisted that the departure timetable was not being accelerated and said it was too soon to speculate on the plans that would be set out in October. Initially, they would mean handing military control to the Iraqis and moving to "overwatch".

A North Carolina couple who were terrorized by a police officer who had recently returned from Iraq are now fighting back, after sheriff's deputy Brian Scarborough broke into their house, assaulted them and then arrested the Kuhns for the crime of flying an upside down U.S. flag.

Just 25 months after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denounced 60 years of U.S. support for authoritarian governments in Arab world, she and Pentagon chief Robert Gates are on their way to the Middle East bearing arms and an uncannily familiar strategic vision to the same regimes.

The proposed arms sales and aid to the "moderate" Arab states mark yet another step toward its renewed embrace of the Sunni Arab authoritarian regimes that the Bush administration and its neoconservative backers had tried to distance themselves from in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001, and particularly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Iran asked Japanese refiners to switch to the yen to pay for all crude oil purchases, after Iran's central bank said it is reducing holdings of the U.S. dollar.

Dying Under the Summer Sky and International Eye: Gazans Continue to Be Targeted by IOF and Border Closures

While Bush may be calling for peace conferences, the US policy of unequivocal bias towards Israel and attacking all that defend Arab and Palestinian rights is as firm as ever.

The best scene so far was the Gaza "separation". Contrary to Wolfensohn's belief, it was merely a performance, melodrama at its best, directed by Sharon and the chiefs of the settlers, the army and the police. Many tears, many embraces, many sham battles. This week the performance was again in the media, with a huge propaganda machine trying to show how immense was the pain, how the poor evacuees have remained without villas, how many more billions will still be needed. The intended conclusion: it is impossible to dismantle the settlements in the West Bank.

I'm ready at last to support gun control. I believe every police agency in the United States – local, state and federal – should be disarmed.

Yet the authors – and the New York Times – failed to tell readers the full story about these supposed skeptics: far from grizzled peaceniks, O’Hanlon and Pollack have been longtime cheerleaders for a larger U.S. military occupying force in Iraq.

Indeed, Pollack, a former CIA analyst, was a leading advocate for invading Iraq in the first place. He published The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq in September 2002, just as the Bush administration was gearing up its marketing push for going to war.

British journalist Robert Fisk called Pollack’s book the “most meretricious contribution to this utterly fraudulent [war] ‘debate’ in the United States.” (Meretricious, by the way, refers to something that is based on pretense, deception or insincerity.)

The permit exempts the BP plant at Whiting, Ind., 3 miles southeast of Chicago, from a 1995 federal regulation limiting mercury discharges into the Great Lakes to 1.3 ounces per year.

The permit was issued July 21 in connection with the plant's $3.8 billion expansion, but only late last week began to generate public controversy. It gives the company until at least 2012 to meet the federal standard.

The Pentagon is expected to announce this morning that 20,000 troops will be rotated into Iraq at the end of this year to extend President Bush's troop "surge" through next spring, CNN reported Tuesday.

"They may have to reach down into the National Guard or Army reserve" to maintain the surge, CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr said, and may extend tours of duty to maintain the surge past the spring of 2008 in what was described as a "worst case scenario."

Gordon Brown has paved the way for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq by telling George Bush he would not delay their exit in order to show unity with the United States.

For better or worse, the religious texts often give men more than they need to create a powerful, but false, and misguided belief system that then replicates itself and brings great ego pumping to the man who weaves the tale his way. They look into the Bible, both Old and New Testament, and what do they see? THEMSELVES! They see that, sure enough, just what Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are alleged to have said, is what I, am say as well. These misguided and often dangerous pastor types, and the danger is to one's finances and freedom of thought, often anoint themselves with various titles such as Evangelist, Apostle, Prophet, Watchman (watch out for this one as it's not what they watch that is so dangerous, but how they interpret what they watch to the faithful), and worse sometimes.

Pollack and O’Hanlon have lept into the open arms of the mainstream media and have been given a forum to present their views largely without opposition. Together, they appeared on at least nine major mainstream media outlets in the past 24 hours.

Tillman's Diary was destroyed...

U.S. stocks had a tough week with the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffering its worst one-week point drop in five years, but a group of meditators promise their good vibrations will send the index past 17,000 within a year.

The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters' phone records in leak investigations.

"It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration," said a senior federal official.

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

FLASHBACK: NSA spying on journalists?...

Specter aides released a statement late Monday that suggested a bombshell to come on Tuesday afternoon.

While Iran's nuclear program has become a major focus of the international media, there are many who strongly believe that the program is only a cover for the U.S. government's true motive in a possible attack against Iran.

FreedomWorks 2007 Presidential Straw Poll...

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was rushed to a hospital here Monday afternoon after suffering a seizure at his summer island home, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said.

Now imagine that it is seven years later and you have just grown into adulthood, and you gradually realize that in a frighteningly short a time your entire world has become unraveled. In just seven years, everything good that once was there is gone, and your country has come apart at the seams before your very eyes.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Monday said the United States may be unable to pay its bills this fall unless Congress raises the government's borrowing authority, now capped at $8.965 trillion.

Paulson, in a letter to lawmakers, estimated the government is likely to bump into the statutory debt limit in early October.

"Accordingly, I am writing to request that Congress raise the statutory debt limit as soon as possible," Paulson wrote. He did not say how much more borrowing authority the Bush administration needs.

The Internal Revenue Service has lost a lawyer's challenge in front of a jury to prove a constitutional foundation for the nation's income tax, and the victorious attorney now is setting his sights higher.

Federal investigators and a grand jury looking into public corruption in Alaska have been asking questions about a 2000 remodeling project that more than doubled the size of Stevens' home -- particularly the involvment of the oil field services firm Veco. Three contractors who worked on the project told the Daily News that their records had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, and others connected with the work and with Stevens had been interviewed.

One of the contractors who worked on the job said he was hired by Veco CEO Bill Allen for the job, and while his bills were paid by Stevens and his wife, Catherine, invoices were reviewed first by Veco.

Allen and a Veco vice president pleaded guilty in May to bribery, extortion and other charges connected with paying off state legislators.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Monday said the United States may be unable to pay its bills this fall unless Congress raises the government's borrowing authority, now capped at $8.965 trillion.

While Hannity bragged on Hannity & Colmes that it was a benefit for Freedom Alliance's Scholarship Fund, only $4 of every ticket purchased (prices ranged from $38-78) went to the Fund. According to KFMB's news report, only hundreds attended.

Exclusive: For Alberto Gonzales, a Decade of Scandals, with a Child Molestation Cover-Up to Boot...

Robert Fisk is one of the greatest reporters of all time. He has written some of the most insightful, biting criticisms about U.S./Israeli/British foreign policy and provided readers, in vivid detail, a vision of of the plight of people living in war torn areas of the Middle East. I have nothing but sincere gratitude to him for putting his life on the line to give us these excellent stories. But, having said this, I think he is doing a disservice to his readers by claiming his contempt for the Internet and also by his refusal to look critically into the events of 9/11.

Members of Congress were stunned after Edelman briefed them on plans calling for U.S. Special Forces to help Turkey eliminate PKK leaders they have targeted for years, Novak reports. Edelman told the lawmakers that he was "sure of success," according to Novak, and assured them the U.S. role would be concealed and denied.

"I don't believe Israel should give up any piece of their land. I think they've given up too much of their land," said Michelle Stephens, one of 50 million Evangelicals who are said to be "waking up" to the idea that Israel's existence is integrally tied to their own religious outlook.

California City to Transform Red Light Cameras Into Spy Cameras...

Who do you favor for the Republican nomination for President?...

Fred Thompson plans to announce Tuesday that his committee to test the waters for a Republican presidential campaign raised slightly more than $3 million in June, substantially less than some backers had hoped, according to Republican sources.

Attorney Tom Cryer Speaks on his Acquittal...

NASA Contractors Censoring Saturn V Info...

Seems like pretty good motivation to obey any order you're given, right? Nope. These articles require the obedience of LAWFUL orders. An order which is unlawful not only does not need to be obeyed, but obeying such an order can result in criminal prosecution of the one who obeys it. Military courts have long held that military members are accountable for their actions even while following orders -- if the order was illegal.

Iran says U.S. is too stretched to attack it...

Iraq is facing a hidden healthcare and social crisis over the soaring number of amputations, largely of lower limbs, necessitated by the daily explosions and violence gripping the country.

Israel is looking into reports that Russia plans to sell 250 advanced long-range Sukhoi-30 fighter jets to Iran in an unprecedented billion-dollar deal.

As American troop levels are peaking in Baghdad, British force levels are heading in the opposite direction as the troops prepare to withdraw completely from the city center of Basra, 300 miles to the south.

FROM MSNBC - PROOF WHO RUNS THE UNITED STATES...

The Army is now offering a $20,000 "QS" – or “Quick Shipper” -- bonus to new and prior service recruits joining, selecting any job and shipping out for training within 30 days.

Scientists may have proven one of Americans' worst fears: that electronic voting machines can be easily manipulated.

Hillary tells Olbermann she would sit down and talk with the Syrians and Iranians. What??? Isn’t this what she has been scolding Obama about the past 2 weeks?

Skyrocketing numbers of kids are prescribed powerful antipsychotic drugs. Is it safe? Nobody knows.

Third of Iraqis 'need urgent aid'...

We hate to say we told you so, but....we told you so: Those terrorist "dry runs" at airports that bumped a slew of bad news for President Bush off the front page and scared a lot of summer vacationers in the process, were, as CNN itself confessed in a different report, "bogus".

According to a report in the Jewish Chronicle, Gordon Brown has agreed to become a patron of the British arm of the Jewish National Fund (JNF UK) ?following an invitation from JNF UK President Gail Seal, who wrote conveying her good wishes the day after he took office?.

An elaborate narrative was conjured by administration spinmeisters in the wake of his death, valorizing him as an example to be followed.

There was just one problem: Tillman wasn't a gung-ho warmonger.

I cannot say that he has not reported the truth before. I have no means of checking this. What I can say is that he has put himself solidly on the side of untruth with his name-calling dismissal of Dr. Steven Jones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Jones -a world renowned physicist. Is Greg Palast a physicist? I don’t think so and if I’m wrong about that I’m waiting for correction. For some reason, Greg Palast thinks that Dr. Steven Jones is a fruitcake for questioning the official 9/11 story and for subjecting the official explanation of how and why the 3 WTC Towers fell to the disciplines of the science in which he is widely considered to be an expert.

President Bush's recent Executive Order "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq," effectively criminalizes humanitarian work in the war torn country, the ACLU warned today.

In an alarming exposure of the acceleration and urgency of the American war party's push towards catastrophic war with Iran, Philip Giraldi, former CIA counter terrorism officer, in an interview [1] on 24th July with Anti War Radio debunked the NeoCons' repeated myth of Iran's support for AlQaeda as a pretext for war. Whilst acknowledging Iran's helpfulness in trying to establish security in both Afghanistan and Iraq, Giraldi spoke of the United States' hypocritical and illegal support for terrorist separatists groups inside Iran, and various plans and scenarios which have been drawn up to destroy Iran's military and economic infrastructure by massive bombardment, with the use of nuclear bombs a real and stated possibility.

Nearly a third of the population of Iraq is in need of immediate emergency aid, according to a new report from Oxfam and a coalition of Iraqi NGOs.

The report said the government was failing to provide basics such as food and shelter for eight million people.

The Otsego County Democratic Committee voted last week to urge two area members of Congress to support an impeachment study focused on President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Hillary Clinton is the only Democratic Candidate who accepted donations linked to the Abramoff Scandal, sweatshops and human trafficking. Worse, her Campaign knows about this tainted $10,000. They’ve been repeatedly informed, the problem has been acknowledged, but no action is ever taken.

9/11 Coincidences (Part Thirteen)...

U.S. generals expect to need a large contingent of troops in Iraq until the middle of 2009, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said on Monday.

Such a timeline would hand President George W. Bush's successor the task of bringing U.S. forces home from Iraq, more than six years after Bush dispatched them to topple Saddam Hussein.

Asked about media reports that Washington envisioned a substantial American force remaining in Iraq through mid-2009, General David Petraeus told ABC News: "Sustainable security is, in fact, what we hope to achieve.

9-11: Who Benefitted?...

US/E.U. plan to database airline passengers' personal information raises deep privacy concerns...

Trust us, the DOW drop means nothing!...

Alberto Gonzales's difficult relationship with the truth has led to calls for a special prosecutor to investigate claims that the attorney general perjured himself during Senate testimony. But as the Washington Post points out Monday, Gonzales and honesty have had a shaky relationship stretching back more than a decade.

Gonzales's apparent willingness to dissemble in order to protect himself or President Bush stretches back to at least 1996, when he intervened to prevent then-Gov. Bush from serving jury duty in Texas, the Post notes. Not until its second-to-last paragraph, however, does the Post article remind readers that by not serving jury duty in the drunken driving case Bush was able to keep his own drunken driving conviction a secret for several more years.

ABC crowing about 71 pct favor surveillance cams.......

Most of the 6,000 Palestinians stranded in the desert in Egypt, waiting to cross the Rafah border, had travelled to Egypt for medical treatment. At least ten have died from lack of medical care at the border. Most of those stranded at the border are simply waiting, some for weeks and months, in extreme desert heat with no shade, for the next brief opening of the Rafah border crossing.

American Home Mortgage Investment Corp., (AHM.N: Quote, Profile , Research) a mortgage lender, said it has significantly written down the value of its loan and security portfolios, which has triggered margin calls on its credit facilities.

Fox Attacks Bloggers...

There’ll certainly be no prospect of peace so long as US troops are occupying Iraq. Ask Iraqis, whom we can safely assume have a clearer grasp than Burns of what might improve the awful conditions of their lives. Outside Kurdistan, continued American occupation is not a popular view. Over 80 per cent of Iraqis tell pollsters they want the Americans out.

Will things get worse if Americans leave? Probably so, at least for a while. In 2005 the US said there would be a bloodbath if they left. So they stayed and there’s been a worsening bloodbath.

Residents said at least three districts were now completely cut off, leading to shortages of food and vegetables.

Cars are not allowed to enter or leave these areas making it difficult for patients to visit hospitals and shop owners to replenish supplies.

"These measures have caused a lot of problems for us. We are under fire now from all sides. Mortars and bombs by rebels and terrorists continue falling over our heads while U.S. troops have turned our areas into a big prison," said Abu Saif.

Last week, the Israeli Knesset passed, on first reading, the Jewish National Fund bill which allows the JNF to refuse to lease land to Arab citizens. The JNF is a quasi-public charity established to raise funds to purchase land for Jewish settlement within Israel. In 1961, the Israeli government transferred 13% of Israeli land to the JNF. Included in this were one million dunams expropriated from Arab residents who fled Israel in 1948.

If Bush and the neocons have their way, your cell phone will be an official government surveillance device. Of course, your cell phone and computer connected to the internet are already surveillance devices, it is just that Bush and the neocons want to enshrine this fact in law.

Our rulers are determined to reduce America to slave plantation based on the China model. In order to make that process more efficient, a Stasi- or KGB-like snoop state apparatus is mandatory.

Palestinian medical sources have announced that one of the stranded Palestinian citizens at Rafah terminal died Sunday after helplessly waiting for almost two months to be allowed into his hometown in the Gaza Strip.

PA chief Mahmoud Abbas was and still is insisting that the Rafah terminal, which is a Palestinian-Egyptian crossing point, must remain closed as a punishment to the 1.5 million Palestinian citizens in Gaza Strip in clear harmony with Israel’s policy against the Strip.

As I found out later, these men thought they had signed up to work in Dubai hotels. One fellow I met told me in broken English that he was excited to start his new job as a telephone repair man.

They had no idea they were being sent to do construction work on the U.S. Embassy.

"They realized they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad. Let me spell it out clearly. I believe these men were kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work on the U.S. Embassy."

O'Neal said Tillman, a corporal, threw a smoke grenade to identify themselves to fellow soldiers who were firing at them. Tillman was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" again and again when he was killed, O'Neal said.

UN inspectors to visit Iran in August for framework talks...

On the one hand, the administration commissions its boys to come up with a report stating that 73 percent of the detainees were a "demonstrated threat," and 95 percent were a "potential threat," and on the other hand the administration itself has released, or cleared for release, 75 percent of the detainees because they were "not or no longer a threat" (and that's not counting the 201 detainees who were released before the tribunal process began). How are we supposed to take these clowns seriously?

Former Army Specialist Rodriguez started getting bills for $700 for lost or damaged government property this summer. Although he was discharged some four years ago, bills recently arrived demanding payment, but giving no details on what or why -- nor do they offer a way to dispute the charges.

For doing my job you're going to bill me?" Rodriguez said.

And he's not alone. A 2006 government report found more than 1,000 soldiers being billed a total of $1.5 million. And while fighting overseas put their lives on the line, this battle on paper could cost them their future by ruining their credit. Rodriguez will be reported to credit agencies next month.

World Net Daily today sought to dismiss clear evidence that Pat Tillman was murdered by attempting to marginalize the issue as a leftist conspiracy theory and by suggesting Wesley Clark and Keith Olbermann didn't lend credence to the murder angle - when they clearly did.

Evidence of gang culture and gang activity in the military is increasing so much an FBI report calls it "a threat to law enforcement and national security." The signs are chilling: Marines in gang attire on Parris Island; paratroopers flashing gang hand signs at a nightclub near Ft. Bragg; infantrymen showing-off gang tattoos at Ft. Hood.

Gang activity clues are appearing in Iraq and Afghanistan, too. Gang graffiti is sprayed on blast walls – even on Humvees. Kilroy – the doodle made famous by U.S. soldiers in World War II – is here, but so is the star emblem of the Gangster Disciples.

The rise in gang activity coincides with the increase in recruits with records. Since 2003, 125,000 recruits with criminal histories have been granted what are known as "moral waivers" for felonies including robbery and assault.

Iraq is facing a hidden healthcare and social crisis over the soaring number of amputations, largely of lower limbs, necessitated by the daily explosions and violence gripping the country.

In a remarkable interview for The Observer, British resident Bisher al-Rawi has told how he was betrayed by the security service despite having helped keep track of Abu Qatada, the Muslim cleric accused of being Osama bin Laden's 'ambassador in Europe'. He was abducted and stripped naked by US agents, clad in nappies, a tracksuit and shackles, blindfolded and forced to wear ear mufflers, then strapped to a stretcher on board a plane bound for a CIA 'black site' jail near Kabul in Afghanistan.

He was taken on to the jail at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba before being released last March and returned to Britain after four years' detention without charge.

A Republican political appointee with close White House ties has blocked a 2006 report by the US surgeon general that called for action to tackle global health problems because the document did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Citing current and former public health officials, the newspaper said the report described the link between poverty and poor health and urged the US government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy.

Presidential candidates typically wait until they’re elected before they begin selling out American citizens.

Not Rudolph Giuliani.

Bush noted in his radio address Saturday that terrorists now use disposable cell phones and the Internet to communicate, recruit operatives and plan attacks.

A SENIOR Downing Street aide has sounded out Washington on the possibility of an early British military withdrawal from Iraq.

Simon McDonald, the prime minister’s chief foreign policy adviser, left the impression that he was “doing the groundwork” for Gordon Brown, according to one of those he consulted.

However, the reports of shots or a law enforcement presence are unfounded.

As far as we can tell, there are three possible explanations for Mr. Gonzales’s talk about a dispute over other — unspecified — intelligence activities. One, he lied to Congress. Two, he used a bureaucratic dodge to mislead lawmakers and the public: the spying program was modified after Mr. Ashcroft refused to endorse it, which made it “different” from the one Mr. Bush has acknowledged. The third is that there was more wiretapping than has been disclosed, perhaps even purely domestic wiretapping, and Mr. Gonzales is helping Mr. Bush cover it up.

Democratic lawmakers are asking for a special prosecutor to look into Mr. Gonzales’s words and deeds. Solicitor General Paul Clement has a last chance to show that the Justice Department is still minimally functional by fulfilling that request.

If that does not happen, Congress should impeach Mr. Gonzales.

Israel could not have wished for a better 'Peace Partner' then they found in Mahmoud Abbas. He has proven to be a more loyal zionist than most Knesset members.

Common sense would tell us the Israeli secret services clearly had infiltrated the PFLP and could use that construct up to their will. This seems to be a common pattern for ALL secret agencies as by doing so their "masters and commanders" have it in their hands to let some more 'error happen or to crush it right in it's tracks.

Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques that Peterson objected to, and say that all records of them have been destroyed.

Olmert welcomes 'significant' boost in U.S. military aid...

It is to enter the realm in which Israeli Jewish men wearing skullcaps and particularly long prayer fringes smash trees, and the next day stand on a hill and mocked the ruin of the farmers who can no longer earn their daily bread. They just stand there and laugh. The film shows their laughter in a lengthy shot; a terrible hyena-like laughter. This laughter is one of the most caustic insults Judaism has had to take in all its history - and didn't come from any enemy.

'We blocked US plans' - Hezbollah...

The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation.

Bush had hoped to pull off a quick victory cheap. But nothing worked out as hoped or planned. The American people are stuck with the tab, paying for the war with high hidden taxes, higher prices and American lives. The cost of Bush's war crime has tripled since Bush declared the end of major combat operations. The American people are not safer for having sacrificed the lives of loved ones. The war on terrorism is either a criminal fraud or a miserable failure and I challenge my critics at the Heritage Foundation to debate me on that issue.

Poland's president said Sunday that the government has not yet decided on whether to extend the country's military mission in Iraq beyond the end of the year.

A key aide says Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s relations with U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus are so poor the Iraqi leader may ask Washington the withdraw the well-regarded U.S. military leader from duty here.

Ron Paul : Don't tread on me...

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has confirmed that the United States is planning a significant increase in military and defence aid to Israel.

On Fox News Sunday this morning, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) refused to defend Attorney General Alberto Gonzales against accusations that he may have perjured himself before Congress. “It’s very damaging…we badly need an attorney general who is above any question,” said Gingrich.

Palestinian security personnel loyal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas have put up dozens of roadblocks throughout Ramallah in recent days. Their orders: arrest Hamas activists.

30 to 40 rounds fired behind the house noise heard in the woods every one is at battle stations this in not a drill I repeat this in not a drill

Relations between the top United States general in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, the country's prime minister, are so bad that the Iraqi leader made a direct appeal for his removal to President George W Bush.

Although the call was rejected, aides to both men admit that Mr Maliki and Gen David Petraeus engage in frequent stand-up shouting matches, differing particularly over the US general's moves to arm Sunni tribesmen to fight al-Qa'eda.

In a candid admission of churning that is taking place inside Israel, Dr Shlomo Ben Ami, foreign minister in Prime Minister Ehud Barak cabinet in 2000-2001, said Israel should not take on the burden of global war on terror waged by the United States and the West. He said the threat of Hamas and the Hezbollah was smaller compared to the challenges posed by the "world-wide export of terrorism" by Pakistan.

SENATE TO EXAMINE BORDER GUARDS' CASE...

Ted Terbolizard...

Dictatorship Watch...

Thaneah...

While researching my next article about the Lockerbie bombing, I witnessed an incident that made me wonder whether intelligence agents had infiltrated Wikipedia.

State-sanctioned teams of computer hackers were able to break through the security of virtually every model of California's voting machines and change results or take control of some of the systems' electronic functions, according to a University of California study released Friday.

The researchers "were able to bypass physical and software security in every machine they tested,'' said Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who authorized the "top to bottom review" of every voting system certified by the state.

At NASA, once again, the problem is its culture—a habit of dismissing the concerns of knowledgeable underlings.

A type of glycol ether is frequently found in popular cleaning products such as Windex Aerosol, Formula 409, Lemon Fresh Pine-Sol and Simple Green All Purpose Cleaner, says the report released today by Women's Voices for the Earth, a Montana-based nonprofit working to eliminate or reduce toxic chemicals in the home.

The chemical, called ethylene glycol butyl ether or EGBE, is on California's list of toxic air contaminants. Some animal studies indicate that it produces reproductive problems, such as testicular damage, reduced fertility, death of embryos and birth defects. People exposed to high levels of EGBE for several hours have reported nose and eye irritation, headaches, vomiting and a metallic taste in their mouths, studies show.

The United States plans a series of arms deals worth at least 20 billion dollars (14.6 billion euros) with Saudi Arabia and five other oil-rich Persian Gulf states, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

The plan also includes new 10-year military aid packages to Israel and Egypt, said the Post, citing unnamed US officials.

Baghdad - Iraq is in the throes of its worst political crisis since the fall of Saddam Hussein with the new democratic system, based on national consensus among its ethnic and sectarian groups, appearing dangerously close to collapsing, say several politicians and analysts.

This has brought paralysis to governmental institutions and has left parliament unable to make headway on 18 benchmarks Washington is using to measure progress in Iraq, including legislation on oil revenue sharing and reforming security forces.