The Observer reports Human rights abuses in Iraq are now as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein and are even in danger of eclipsing his record, according to the country's first Prime Minister after the fall of Saddam's regime. 'People are doing the same as [in] Saddam's time and worse,' Ayad Allawi told The Observer. 'It is an appropriate comparison. People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.' In a damning and wide-ranging indictment of Iraq's escalating human rights catastrophe, Allawi accused fellow Shias in the government of being responsible for death squads and secret torture centres. The brutality of elements in the new security forces rivals that of Saddam's secret police, he said.
But WaPo reports The leader of Iraq's most powerful political party has called on the United States to let Iraqi fighters take a more aggressive role against insurgents, saying his country will only be able to defeat the insurgency when the United States lets Iraqis get tough. "The more freedom given to Iraqis, the more chance for further progress there would be, particularly in fighting terror," said Abdul Aziz Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Shiite Muslim religious party that leads the transitional government and whose armed wing is the most feared of Iraq's many factional forces.
Which is it? Are the Americans holding the Iraqis back, and not letting them get tough with the insurgents, or are things worse than under Saddam? I suspect we are being a moderating influence, but that some times they are reverting to the old ways. I can't really blame the Shias, because the insurgents are killing innocent civilians, trying to start a civil war. They are not reacting in kind, and killing innocent Sunnis, but they are taking some Sunnis prisoner and mistreating them in secret torture centers, or targeting them with death squads. But what is worse, killing the insurgents with death squads, or setting off car bombs and killing innocent worshipers at a mosque, or killing policemen at a police office.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
You can't have it both ways
USB Slippers
I could not believe it when I saw it: USB foot-warming slippers. Your laptop battery does its best to keep your laptop powered up, and now people want to drain power from it to keep their feet warm.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Saddam hangman still loyal to toppled leader
Reuters reported Saddam Hussein may be fighting for his life in court but he still mesmerises Abu Hussein, a former torturer and hangman for the toppled leader who executed hundreds of Iraqis with the noose or the bullet.
I suspect the Iraqi government will be able to find a new hangman when Saddam's trial is over."I cry every time I think that he is on trial. I pray for his strength and freedom. Saddam must come back to rule Iraq," he told Reuters in an interview on Friday. "I am ready to return to my job if Saddam comes back."
Don't hold your breath.Saddam will face prosecutors again on Monday in a trial that Iraqi officials hope will help bury Iraq's violent past and demoralise his supporters waging a Sunni Arab insurgency. He could face the death sentence for crimes against humanity. But one of the men who carried out his summary executions still believes in Saddam's form of justice imposed in a country where he was a cult figure. Recalling his time as a hangman at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad in the 1980s, Abu Hussein said a new batch of political prisoners was brought in without charge every week.
It must have been more efficient to hang them without bothering about a charge or a trial.Deserters from Iraq's war with Iran faced the firing squad. Prisoners who had insulted Saddam were hanged because it was crueller, said Abu Hussein, who declined to give his full name.
Was Saddam not insulted by deserters?"A firing squad is more compassionate because people usually died immediately. But hanging is cruel because it can take time to die. If they don't die, we started over again," he said.
It sounds like you were not a very good hangman..... "One of the worst things was putting 10 people in a one-square-metre room for weeks. They had a brief break every day and were allowed the toilet every three days," he said.
It must have been a messy room..... Abu Hussein, a father of three, said watching men writhe in agony as they died sometimes made him cry. But he said nobody could afford to defy orders in Saddam's Iraq. "We would have been killed on the spot. One time this executioner was one hour late in hanging someone and he was himself hanged. What could we do? All of this had a toll on us," he said.
Open Letter to George Bush
Cindy Sheehan posted an open letter to George Bush on Daily Kos My family is spending our 2nd Thanksgiving without Casey thanks to you and your lies.
When did Bush lie? Was Bush telling a lie when he said "He'll (Saddam Hussein) use those weapons of mass destruction again as he has 10 times since 1983"? Oh wait, that was said by Sandy Berger (Feb 18, 1998). Was Bush telling a lie when he said "Saddam has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."? Oh wait, that was said by Madeleine Albright (Nov 10, 1999). Was Bush telling a lie when he said "Iraq's search for WMDs has proven impossible to deter... it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power"? Oh wait, that was said by Al Gore (Sept 23, 2002). Was Bush telling a lie when he said "We know that he (Saddam) has stored nuclear supplies, secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons"? Oh wait, that was said by Al Gore (Sept 23, 2002). Was Bush telling a lie when he said "Saddam Hussein has engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mo ckery of the weapons inspection process"? Oh wait, that was said by Nancy Pelosi (Dec 16, 1998). Was Bush telling a lie when he said "If Saddam rejects peace, and we have to use force, or purpose is clear: We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program"? Oh wait, that was said by Bill Clinton (Feb 17, 1998). Was Bush telling a lie when he said "We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with WMDs"? Oh wait, that was said by Madeleine Albright (Feb 1, 1998). (Thanks to Joe Baumgartner, Broken Arrow, for the above quotes, printed in the Tulsa World Nov 23, 2005.)I am spending the day crying on a plane on my way to come to Crawford to again ask you for a meeting
You have already had a meeting with the President. Are you so brain damaged that you don't remember it, or do you think that you are entitled to a second one, when many of the other families have not yet had a first meeting with the President...... I don't know why you like Crawford so much,
Maybe it is because it is HOME.but I love it because of the Camp Casey Peace Community that arose during August this year when you wouldn't meet with me..... Since August, when I wanted to ask you the question: For what noble cause did you kill Casey and the others, over 200 more of our brave young men and women have been killed in the charade of Iraq
I believe the number is over 2000, but President Bush did not kill any of them. There were 405399 American casualties in World War II. Did people blame President Roosevelt for killing them? People compare Iraq with Vietnam. 58,226 were killed in action or classified as missing in action in Vietnam; that is a LOT more than 2,000, and we abandoned the South Vietnamese to domination by the North. They did not have an election to elect an interim government, have another vote to approve a constitution, and they are not about to have another election to elect a government with 4 year terms..... Also, since August we have discovered that American forces are using chemical weapons in Iraq. The Army admitted that white phosphorous was used as an offensive weapon against "enemy combatants."
According to this news item in a Pakastan newspaper "White phosphorus is a conventional munition. It is not a chemical weapon. They are not outlawed or illegal,” Lt-Col Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, told the BBC in an interview. “We use them primarily as obscurants, for smokescreens or target marking in some cases. However, it is an incendiary weapon and may be used against enemy combatants."... Robert Tuttle, US ambassador to Britain, wrote in a letter published by The Independent newspaper on Tuesday that “US forces do not use napalm or white phosphorus as weapons”. But Venable said white phosphorous was useful to shift insurgents from positions that could not be targeted by normal artillery. “It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants,” he told the BBC. “When you have enemy forces that are in covered positions that your high explosive artillery rounds are not having an impact on one technique is to fire a white phosphorus round into the position,” he said. “The combined effects of the fire and smoke - and in some case the terror brought about by the explosion on the ground - will drive them out of the holes so that you can kill them with high explosives.”Oh really, George, since when did a weapon fired from a distance distinguish between enemies and innocents?.... By the way, George, isn't the use of chemical weapons prohibited? Don't you always say that "Saddam is a bad man" for using chemical weapons on his own people? So is it okay for you to use chemical weapons in Iraq because the citizens of Iraq are not "your people?"
Saddam used them on Iran as well, but in both cases to kill people, not to make smoke to drive people out of holes..... George, for the sake of the Iraqi people, don't you think it is time to bring our military forces home from Iraq?
And abandon them to a Taliban style government the insurgents want? We are staying for the sake of the Iraqi people who are on the verge of democracy, where they will select their own government..... George, also for the sake of our wonderful, brave, and very young people who proudly wear the uniform of the USA: it is time to bring them home. They have done everything you have asked of them. They have also done things that make at least one quarter of them very sick in their hearts and souls....
All I have heard the soldiers say is that they believe they are doing very good things for the Iraqi people. If they felt as you say, then why are reinlistment numbers so high?
Michael Jackson going Muslim?
Ynetnews reported American pop icon announces intention to convert to Islam, according to sources in Bahrain. Does this explain the anti-Semitic comments?
It may explain his anti-Jewish statements, but a semite is "someone whose ancestry can be traced back to Shem, Noah's eldest son. the group includes Arabs, Aramaeans, Jews, and many Ethiopians." So both Jews and Arabs are semites, so if someone makes an anti-semitic comment they are blasting both Jews AND arabs.American pop star Michael Jackson has officially announced that he has been following the five tenets of Islam and intends to convert to Islam, according to a report on the website of Arab-Israeli newspaper Panorama. The report is based on information elicited from sources in Bahrain. According to the report, Jackson’s announcement noted he is moving to Bahrain and has purchased some real-estate on an artificial island there. The singer said he decided to convert to Islam because he is convinced it is the closest religion to his personal beliefs.
Which of the Five Pillars of Islam says a grown man should sleep with children?Jackson also noted he intends to soon move all his assets and his studio from the U.S. to Bahrain, and expressed his hope to be rid of various legal troubles and enjoy the kind of freedom he says he does not have in America.
Is he really certain that the people in Bahrain will let him sleep with their children? Muslims hate homosexuality and other perversions even more than most Christians, and they deal with perverts much more harshly.Marc blogged Now, tell me again, how old was Muhammad's wife, Aisha?
Muhammad was 52 and Aisha was 9 when they married and sexually consummated their marriage. Muhammad followed an Arab custom in marrying a child who had her first menstrual cycle.You can see why Waco Jaco finds this appealing.
But I thought Wacco Jaco preferred little boys to little girls. Did Muhammad have a little boy as a "wife"
Holographic-memory discs may put DVDs to shame
New Scientist reported A computer disc about the size of a DVD that can hold 60 times more data is set to go on sale in 2006. The disc stores information through the interference of light – a technique known as holographic memory.
Wow!. And I thought DVDs were a big improvement on CDs.The discs, developed by InPhase Technologies, based in Colorado, US, hold 300 gigabytes of data and can be used to read and write data 10 times faster than a normal DVD. The company, along with Japanese partner Hitachi Maxell announced earlier in November that they would start selling the discs and compatible drives from the end of 2006.
I wonder how many years it will take before reasonably priced recorders are available. DVD recorder prices only dropped recently."Unlike other technologies, that record one data bit at a time, holography allows a million bits of data to be written and read in parallel with a single flash of light," says Liz Murphy, of InPhase Technologies. "This enables transfer rates significantly higher than current optical storage devices."
Israel's story is the story of the West?
Charles Moore wrote in Telegraph .... As a boy, I loved this narrative. I cheered as Israeli courage swept away the outnumbering Arabs who tried to destroy it again and again. I bought books about the Six-Day War, many of which carried pictures of glamorous female Israeli soldiers.
But then a different narrative supervened. People called "the Palestinians" began to be mentioned. Once upon a time, the word "Palestinian" had no national meaning; it was simply the description on any passport of a person living in British-mandated Palestine. During the 19 years to 1967 when Jordan governed the West Bank, the people there had no self-rule, and no real name.
And although they had no self rule, there were no demands for a separate Palestinian state. The people were ruled by Jordan, and they had no problem being Jordanians (although Jordan really did not want them). Jordan and other Arab countries attacked Israel(unprevoked_, and Israel fought back and took all of their land, plus the Suez Canal and some of Egyptian land. Israel traded the Suez and the Egyptian land back to Egypt for a peace treaty. Egypt could have had the Gaza Strip, which it owned before the war, but it did not want it. And Jordan was willing to make peace with Israel, but they did not want the land west of the Jordan river. Both Egypt and Jordan recognized that the people there were trouble, and they did not want them in their countries. Now these unwanted Arab troublemakers want a country of their own. They don't know what a country is. Those in Gaza should become part of Egypt, those in the West Bank should become part of Jordan, and if there are any that cant live with that, Egypt and Jordan should deal with them.UN Resolution 242, which calls for Israel to leave territories it occupied in 1967, does not mention Palestinians; it speaks only of "Arab refugees". Palestinian nationality came along, as it were, after the fact, a nationality largely based on grievance.
Since then, the story has grown and grown. Israel, which was attacked, has come to be seen as the aggressor. Israel, which has elections that throw governments out and independent commissions that investigate people like Sharon and condemn him, became regarded as the oppressive monster. In a rhetoric that tried to play back upon Jews their own experience of suffering, supporters of the Palestinian cause began to call Israelis Nazis. Holocaust Memorial Day is disapproved of by many Muslims because it ignores the supposedly comparable "genocide" of the Palestinians.
There is no comparable "genocide" of the "Palestinians". Genocide is not a solution, but if there had been a genocide, then Israel's problems would have been solved, because it would have cleaned out the Arabs from Gaza and the West Bank, and Israel could have all of that land, which is very defensable.Western children of the Sixties like this sort of talk. They look for a narrative based on the American civil rights movement or the struggle against apartheid. They care little for economic achievement or political pluralism. They are suspicious of any society with a Western appearance, and in any contest between people with differing skin colours, they prefer the darker. They buy into the idea, now promoted by all Arab regimes and by Muslim firebrands with a permanent interest in deflecting attention from their own societies' problems, that Israel is the greatest problem of all. Well, some will say, that is the way it is: Israel has abused power, and is reaping the whirlwind. I don't want to argue today about the rights and wrongs of Israel's actions, though I think, given its difficulties, it stands up better than most before the bar of history.
I believe the worst thing Israell has done is probably better than just about anything the Arabs have done.All I want to ask my fellow Europeans is this: are you happy to help direct the world's fury at the only country in the Middle East whose civilisation even remotely resembles yours? And are you sure that the fate of Israel has no bearing on your own? In Iran, the new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes the link. The battle over Palestine, he says, is "the prelude of the battle of Islam with the world of arrogance", the world of the West. He is busy building his country's nuclear bomb.
Friday, November 25, 2005
Muslims Ransack Oakland Stores
Because Muslims dont like alcohol. And whether we are talking about Islamofascists or The Nation of Islam, they see no problem with using violence to get their point across.“I don’t know why they tried to destroy my life,” said Saleh, who has owned San Pablo Market and Liquor in West Oakland since 1986. “We came here for a better living, not to make war with anybody.”
Muslims are willing to make war with anyone, not just people seeking to make war with them.About a dozen African-American men wearing suits, white-collared shirts and bow ties — a trademark of the Nation of Islam — entered the store on San Pablo Avenue and West Street about 11:30 p.m. One went behind the counter and swept dozens of shelved liquor bottles to the floor. Others smashed glass refrigerator doors with long, slim metal pipes, breaking beer and wine bottles inside the cases. The whole incident from start to finish was caught on surveillance tape.
Hopefully there will be many arrests as a result.The men warned the store clerks to stop selling alcohol to African Americans, but they also knocked over display racks containing bread and other food items. Then, almost as quickly as they arrived, they all filed out and headed to another West Oakland liquor store, New York Market at Market and 35th streets, where they did the same thing.
The rise of the bland old party
Jonah Goldberg wrote in the Los Angeles Times All the noise out of Washington covers up the fact that the GOP and the Democrats are galloping toward the center. BEHOLD: We have entered the Age When Dinos and Rinos Rule the Earth. See them battle each other for absolute dominion! Though this might sound like a cool monster mash of the "Mechagodzilla versus Godzilla" variety, it's a good deal less exciting and more depressing, like a taste test between 2% milk and soy milk. What we are witnessing is the dawn of the boring phase of the Great Republican Realignment, and it promises to have liberals and conservatives alike going bonkers.
It certainly has that effect on me.I should back up. Dinos, of course, are "Democrats in Name Only." Rinos are their GOP counterparts. Nobody actually ever admits to being a Republican in name only. Rather, these are epithets used to describe politicians of insufficient ideological purity or partisan backbone. Think David Gergen without the smoldering sexual intensity. Or, if you can't, think moderates, squishes, apostates, New York Times-pleasing "mavericks," centrists and all the others who want to "get beyond labels" or get a standing ovation from the Brookings Institution. Galloping toward the center is nothing new in American politics. The parties have always regressed to the mean. The center of gravity is in the, uh, center. What's changed is that the center has — finally — been moving an eensy bit to the right.
Well that is at least better than moving to the left.But not too much. People forget now, but President Bush's compassionate conservatism was never intended to be radical, it was meant to be the Republican version of feel-your-pain Clintonism. If Bush's domestic spending were a Broadway musical, reviewers would call it "Lavish!" and "Spectacular!" His big first-term domestic initiatives — aside from tax cuts — were an education bill cosponsored by Ted Kennedy, campaign finance "reform" favored by the sensible-shoes types and the biggest expansion in entitlements (prescription drug benefits) since the Great Society.
That is true.Now, you wouldn't know any of this from listening to Democrats and vast swaths of the mainstream media. If you went by this crowd, you might imagine George W. Bush and Dick Cheney swaddled in ermine robes, drinking blood-red wine from golden goblets as they pored over maps of the world plotting new conquests and singling out whistle-blowing CIA agents for the lash and the gibbet. And the congressional GOP, we've been told, is little better than a horde of Cotton Mathers determined to burn down the nation under the twin banners of Terri Schiavo and creationism. This anti-Bush huffing and puffing has been caused in part by an overreaction to the Iraq war and liberal terror over losing the courts.
Combined with extreme anger about not controlling the White House OR the Senate OR the HouseBut much of the rage can also be traced to an overcompensating bitterness over small differences. In much the same way the Marxist English professor is suddenly deeply troubled by the slightly less Marxist ideology of the colleague who unfairly got a better office, many liberals are more angered by the fact Republicans are running the government than they are about Republican policy. It just seems wrong! Republicans don't even like government!
ROF, LMAOThis isn't to say there haven't been some big victories for the conservative wing of the GOP over the last five years. Tax cuts, judges, John Bolton, the blocking of the Kyoto Protocol and watching Dan Rather dismantle himself like a robot ordered to put himself back in the box: good times, good times. But you know, when tectonic plates smash into each other, there are earthquakes and, after that, it's slow inexorable grinding, with little chunks breaking off of one side and then the other now and then. That's where conservatives are now: the slow, grinding phase.
Growth of Islam in Russia Brings Soviet Response
NYT reported Security officials here in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, a restive republic on Russia's mountainous southern border, have a secret list of people who are kept under scrutiny. Those on it have committed no crimes, but are considered suspect because they are Muslims who practice Islam outside of the state's sanctioned mosques.
Russia may be going a bit far by having state sanctioning of mosques, but I support their need to keep an eye on mosques to make sure they are not places to spread terrorism.Ovod Golayev is on that list. He lives in Karachayevsk, a city nestled in the foothills of the Caucasus, where he works for a tourism company that organizes skiing and hiking excursions. He wears his hair and beard long. He prays five times a day. He fasts during Ramadan, which is unusual here. In recent weeks, he said, the police have detained him four times, twice in one day.
Mr. Golayev, 36, said the Islam he observes is opposed to violence, but he warned that the mistreatment of believers was driving men like him to desperation. "They will pressure me enough," he said, "and then I will blow somebody's head off."
That does not exactly sound like someone opposed to violence.Here in the northern Caucasus, and across all of Russia, Islamic faith is on the rise. So is Islamic militancy, and fear of such militancy, leading to tensions like those felt in Europe, where a flow of immigrants from the Muslim world is straining relations with liberal, secular societies.
Russia is probably holding the reins too tight, but they should certainly keep an eye on radical Islam.
Europeans Rebuke Israeli Jerusalem Policy
NYT reports The European Union's diplomatic representatives in East Jerusalem and Ramallah have sharply criticized Israel's policies in East Jerusalem, saying they "are reducing the possibility of reaching a final-status agreement on Jerusalem that any Palestinian could accept."
The Palestinians were offerred East Jerusalem, and they responded with the Intifada and many Israelis were killed in bombing attacks. There must be some payment for that, and that payment is now they don't get any of Jerusalem in their Palestinian state.In an unpublished report presented to European Union foreign ministers, the representatives recommend a more aggressive European stance toward Israeli policies in East Jerusalem, whose annexation by Israel has not been recognized by the European Union or the United States.
Maybe the United States should recognize it.The report, a copy of which was sought by The New York Times and obtained from someone who wanted to publicize it, accuses Israel of increasing illegal settlement activity in and around East Jerusalem and of using the route of its separation barrier "to seal off most of East Jerusalem, with its 230,000 Palestinian residents, from the West Bank" and to create a "de facto annexation of Palestinian land."
Arabs Ask Jews For Help
Arutz Sheva reports Arab leaders in Hevron have contacted the city’s Jewish leaders for help in getting rid of self-proclaimed anarchist volunteers who, they complain, are destroying their traditional way of life.
This is good news. It shows how Arabs and Jews can work together to the benefit of both.The anarchists, many of whom are members of the International Solidarity Movement, flock to flashpoints throughout Judea and Samaria, ostensibly to help PA Arabs contend with IDF closures and protect them from harassment. In actuality, many of the volunteers seek confrontations with IDF soldiers and local Jewish residents, taking advantage of their Western passports to cause havoc – knowing that, at worst, they will be deported, not jailed.
Maybe a few of them should be thrown in jail fo r a few years, and then deported. It would not take too many before the news spread.The local Arabs in the Hevron region whom the activists claim to be helping are now complaining that the American and European students behave in a provocative and offensive manner in Hevron’s public areas. The Arabs say the activists disrespect the moral norms and standards of the local population. Several local Arab residents told the Kol Ha’Ir newspaper that the activists have been exposing the local youths to drug use and sexual promiscuity.
Both the Arabs and the Jews have been living a certain way for a long time, and they resent these outsiders bring in too many of the vices of the west and exposing their people to them.One interviewee told Kol Ha’Ir that the volunteers show a disregard for the religious norms of the local villages and teach the local youth to reject and disrespect the traditions of their forefathers. "These anarchists come here and undermine the education we give our children. At first we took them in with hospitality - after all, they claimed they wanted to help us, so why kick them out? But very quickly they infuriated me with their lewd behavior."
The Islamofascists make the same claims, that they don't like the lewd nature of western ways, and yet they fly planes into buildings in New York and Washington, and leave Hollywood untouched.In a bid to rid the region of the anarchists, local Arab leaders approached representatives of the Jewish community in Hevron – a rare, but not unheard of occurrence – in order to find a solution. The two sides agreed to have Arabic-speaking Jewish observers along Hevron’s main thoroughfares to replace the anarchists in ensuring calm between the city’s Jewish and Arab populations. The left-wing activists would then be informed by the local Arab population that they appreciate their offer to help, but that they are no longer needed.
Disaster Planning Firm
Yahoo! News reports Former FEMA Director Michael Brown, heavily criticized for his agency's slow response to Hurricane Katrina, is starting a disaster preparedness consulting firm to help clients avoid the sort of errors that cost him his job.
Good luck. But he should consider that New Orleans had a plan here, and the State of Louisiana had plans here and here. They just ignored them, and sat back expecting the Feds to provide everything, but let them control everything. He should show his clients what Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama did that Louisiana did not do, and how that meant that they did not have near as many problems as Louisiana,"If I can help people focus on preparedness, how to be better prepared in their homes and better prepared in their businesses — because that goes straight to the bottom line — then I hope I can help the country in some way," Brown told the Rocky Mountain News for its Thursday editions.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Bacterial photographs
This is interesting.The work is published in this week’s issue of Nature (Nov. 24, 2005), devoted entirely to the emerging field of synthetic biology. The new field focuses on identifying genes that control key traits and then engineering microbes to activate the genes in novel combinations to create useful tools for medicine and technology. The students produced the innovative bacterial images and a bacterial camera as part of MIT's intercollegiate Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. The project won "best part" for the genetically engineered light receptor developed by UCSF graduate students working with Chris Voigt, PhD, assistant professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at UCSF and a leader in synthetic biology.
FBI warns of fake e-mail worm
Techworld reports The FBI has put out an official warning about a new variant of the Sober worm spreading through e-mails that purport to come from the US investigation agency.
The FBI never sends unsolicited emails to peopleThe FBI advised computer users that the agency never sends unsolicited e-mails and that they should not open the attachments, which contains Sober.x - a variant that has now be given a "high risk" rating by security experts Secunia. The scam e-mail tells recipients that their Internet use has been monitored by the FBI and that they have accessed illegal Web sites, according to the FBI.
The FBI may be monitoring people that access some terrorist websites, but they don't contact people about it.The e-mails appear to come from e-mail addresses including mail@fbi.gov, post@fbi.gov and admin@fbi.gov, then direct recipients to open an attachment and answer questions. The text of the fake e-mail says: "We have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal Websites.
Most ISPs dynamically change your IP either each time you call (for dial up access) or once a day (for broadband access) so you can't run a server on your connection, so it takes a lot of work in their logs (it is possible, but difficult) to associate an IP address with a customer.Important: Please answer our questions! The list of questions are attached." The messages then include a fake name of an FBI official and the real address and phone number of the agency. Catherine Milhoan, an FBI spokeswoman, said that recipients of the hoax e-mails began calling the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center yesterday to ask if they were legitimate. About 4,000 calls were received by last night, with some callers saying they had already clicked on the attachment. Others were cautious and wanted to check with the FBI before opening the attachment. An investigation into the incident is continuing.
Priests Citing New Problem in Gay Policy
NYT reported A day after the disclosure of a new Vatican directive that deters most gay men from joining the priesthood, some priests say they are shocked by one easily overlooked clause. It says that spiritual directors and confessors in seminaries "have the duty to dissuade" any candidates "who show deep-seated homosexual tendencies" from joining the priesthood. These priests said this would turn the confessional and spiritual counseling sessions, which seminarians previously regarded as private and supportive meetings, into a tool for weeding gay men out of seminaries.
Perhaps, but it would help them weed out priests that might abuse young alterboys. And if it did that, it would be a good thing."The relationship between a seminarian and his confessor or his spiritual director should not be about enforcing church documents, but to serve as spiritual guides,"
It would still serve that purpose. It would help them guide these gay men to the door, and keep them from raping young boys in their role as priests.said the Rev. Michael Herman, a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago who has recently publicly identified himself as gay in order to speak out against the Vatican's action.
Then he should be defrocked."They've gone so far as to say your confessor's and spiritual adviser's role is to talk you out of" becoming a priest, Father Herman said.
If you are a gay, engaged in homosexual sex, that is right.His reaction to the document was echoed by other priests and Roman Catholic organizations, who said that the church's decree was discriminatory and hurtful to faithful chaste gay priests and would only exacerbate an already dire shortage of Catholic clergymen.
Jose Padilla
NYT reported The Bush administration decided to charge Jose Padilla with less serious crimes because it was unwilling to allow testimony from two senior members of Al Qaeda who had been subjected to harsh questioning, current and former government officials said Wednesday.
I suspect it was really more a matter of not wanting to expose top secret information, including sources and methods, in open court, than the fact that senior members of Al Qaeda had been subjected to "harsh questioning". Were they placed in a burning building and given the choice of burning to death, or leaping out of the building, to die when they hit the concrete below? That was the choice given to the innocent workers in the Twin Towers on 9/11.The two senior members were the main sources linking Mr. Padilla to a plot to bomb targets in the United States, the officials said. The Qaeda members were Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and Abu Zubaydah, a top recruiter, who gave their accounts to American questioners in 2002 and 2003. The two continue to be held in secret prisons by the Central Intelligence Agency, whose internal reviews have raised questions about their treatment and credibility, the officials said. One review, completed in spring 2004 by the C.I.A. inspector general, found that Mr. Mohammed had been subjected to excessive use of a technique involving near drowning in the first months after his capture
After seeing the picture of him, I suspect they were just giving him a very needed bath., American intelligence officials said. Another review, completed in April 2003 by American intelligence agencies shortly after Mr. Mohammed's capture, assessed the quality of his information from initial questioning as "Precious Truths, Surrounded by a Bodyguard of Lies."
I hope they gave him a few more baths to determine the difference.Accusations about plots to set off a "dirty bomb" and use natural gas lines to bomb American apartment buildings had featured prominently in past administration statements about Mr. Padilla, an American who had been held in military custody for more than three years after his arrest in May 2002. But they were not mentioned in his criminal indictment on lesser charges of support to terrorism that were made public on Tuesday. The decision not to charge him criminally in connection with the more far-ranging bomb plots was prompted by the conclusion that Mr. Mohammed and Mr. Zubaydah could almost certainly not be used as witnesses, because that could expose classified information and could open up charges from defense lawyers that their earlier statements were a result of torture,
To heck with whether some bleeding heart lawyer could claim they were tortured; we did not want to expose classified information, and allow them to tell the world everything they told their interrogaters.officials said.
How a Town Became a Terror Hub
WaPo reported Maaseik, Belgium -- The phones at city hall began ringing nonstop one morning last year when several masked figures were spotted walking through the cobbled streets of this pastoral town. A small panic erupted when one of the figures, covered head to ankle in black fabric, appeared at a school and scared children to tears. It turned out the people were not hooded criminals, but six female residents of Maaseik who were displaying their Muslim piety by wearing burqas, garments that veiled their faces, including their eyes. After calm was restored, a displeased Mayor Jan Creemers summoned the women to his office. "I said, 'Ladies, you can be dressed all in Armani black for all I care, but please do not cover your faces,' " Creemers recalled. "I tried to talk to them about it, but it was impossible. They said, 'We are the only true believers of the Koran.' "
Then you should move to one of the many Arab countries where your dress is acceptable.What the city elders did not know at the time was that the women came from households in which several men had embraced radical Islam and joined a terrorist network that was setting up sleeper cells across Europe, according to Belgian federal prosecutors and court documents from Italy, Spain and France.
These sleeper cells need to be uncovered and removed, unless Belgium wants to see attacks like Britain saw on 7/7.Over the next nine months, Belgian federal police arrested five men in Maaseik, a town of 24,000 people tucked in the northeast corner of Belgium. Each was charged with membership in a terrorist organization, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, a fast-growing network known by its French initials, GICM.
With each arrest, investigators uncovered fresh evidence that placed small-town Maaseik at the center of a terrorist network stretching across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The town had served as a haven for suspects in the Madrid train explosions that killed 191 people in March 2004, for instance, as well as an important meeting place for the GICM's European leadership. The Belgian investigation underscores the challenges that authorities in Europe face in tracking down sleeper cells and in sorting vaguely suspicious behavior from imminent danger. Police have made scores of arrests in Berlin, Paris, Rome, Stockholm and Amsterdam in the past two years to disrupt what were described as terrorist plots, although in many cases it remains unclear whether the threats were overstated or false alarms.
I would urge the Belgium authorities to consider the threat as real.The problem has become more acute since the attacks in Madrid and the July 7 subway and bus bombings in London, with many intelligence officials predicting that Islamic radicals will inevitably strike again on the continent.
UN condems Hizbullah
Jerusalem Post reported Following intense US pressure, the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday issued an unprecedented condemnation of Monday's Hizbullah attacks on northern Israel.
It's abpit to,e/This condemnation - slamming Hizbullah by name for "acts of hatred" - marked the first time the Security Council has ever reprimanded Hizbullah for cross-border attacks on Israel. The condemnation followed by two days a failed attempt to get a condemnation issued on Monday, the day of the attack, when Algeria came out against any mention of Hizbullah in the statement. When asked what changed from Monday to Wednesday, one diplomatic official replied: "John Bolton," a reference to the US ambassador to the UN. Bolton lobbied vigorously for the passage of the statement.
Good for John Bolton. If the Senate still refuses to confirm him after the reconvene in 2006, Bush needs to do another recess appointment the first time the Senate is not in session.The condemnation expressed "deep concern" over the attack, and called on Lebanon to exercise its sovereignty and authority in the south according to relevant Security Council resolutions. Security Council Resolution 1559, which led to the withdrawal earlier this year of Syrian troops from Lebanon, also calls for the dismantling of the militias in the country, as well as a call to the Lebanese government to extend its control over the entire country, including the Hizbullah dominated south. Israeli officials expressed satisfaction that the statement did not include any attempt to "balance it," referring to Israel's response to the Hizbullah attack, and that for the first time ever it placed full responsibility for the violence on Hizbullah's shoulders.
Companies Ban 'Christmas
American Family Association reports that Several retailers have joined in the push to ban the use of "Christmas" in their in-store promotions and retail advertising. The new push to eliminate "Christmas" and replace it with "Happy Holidays," "Season's Greetings," etc. is gaining ground with several retailers participating.
Not wanting to offend a handful of complainers, these companies are willing to offend the vast majority who hold Christmas as a time to celebrate the birth of Christ. Their attitude is that those who identify themselves as Christians don't care if they eliminate "Christmas."
They are very wrong, and I do not want to do business with a company that feels that way. If they want to post Hanukkah signs on December 26-Jan 2, or Ramadan signs Oct. 5-Nov. 4 that is perfectly ok with me, but December 25 is the day that Christians celebrate the birth of Christ, and I would like to see nativity scenes in addition to Santa and the reindeer, and next year on April 16 I would like to see more than bunnies and eggs, I would like to see some indication that they know the true meaning of Easter.While it is too late to make changes this year, we have already sent letters to several major retailers we have identified as participating in banning "Christmas," asking them to put Christmas back into their in-store promotions and retail advertising next year. We have sent letters to the chairmen of Target, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Kmart/Sears, Costco, Kohl's and Lowe's about their practice. (Lowe's even refuses to promote their trees as Christmas trees, but calls them "Holiday Trees." Their toll-free number is 1-800-445-6937.)
Also today is Thanksgiving. It is a day we should be giving Thanks to God for all that He has given us. We are not giving thanks to the turkey, or to the one who provided the money that was used to buy the turkey, or the one who cooked the turkey, but to The One that created the turkey (although thanks to the latter two is appropriate as well)
Please sign our petition letting these companies know that banning "Christmas" in their promotions and advertising next year will result in a loss of business. As we identify other companies participating in this practice, we will contact them.
We need your support to be effective. That is why we need your petition. Please help us get the word out by forwarding this to your friends and family. Many of them will want to participate. We will keep you informed on which companies make changes and which ones refuse.
Click this link to sign the petition now!
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