US casts doubt on al-Qaeda claimThe U.S. military said on Sunday it had no reason to believe a militant group’s claim to have seized two Marines during fighting in Iraq, but said it was doing an inventory of personnel all the same.
“There are no indications that al Qaeda claims of having kidnapped two Marines in western Iraq are true,” Marines spokesman Major Neil Murphy said in a statement.
“Multi-National Force West is conducting checks to verify all Marines are accounted... (more)
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Bush’s admin weighs actions against SyriaPresident Bush's national security team held a meeting Saturday to review the U.S. policy toward Syria, U.S. officials involved in Middle East policy said on condition of anonymity, adding that options discussed during the meeting ranged from imposing tough economic sanctions to military action against the Arab state, Knight Rider News reported Sunday.
However, one of the officials who attended the meeting ruled out the military option for the time being.
One option... (more)
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Striking Iran would shoot up oil prices to 400 dollarsA senior Revolutionary Guards commander warns if Iran was attacked by Israel or the United states, oil prices on the international markets could reach $400 a barrel, , according to Persian-language news websites.
So far negotiation between the Islamic Republic and the West over its nuclear program are carried out in the framework of one of three doctrines; “Carrot and Stick”, “Good Cop, Bad Cop”, and “Trigger Mechanism”, said Brigadier General H... (more)
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Neo-Cons for a Here is a little scoop for TPMCafé: Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan, Gary Schmitt and other members of PNAC (the Project for a New American Century) are launching a new club called “Committee for a Strong Europe.” They just began inviting politicians and pundits from both side of the Atlantic to join. The honorary chairmen will be the former Spanish prime minister José Maria Aznar and Senator John McCain.
By “Strong Europe”, of course, they don&rsq... (more)
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Study: Sun's Changes to Blame for Part of Global WarmingIncreased output from the Sun might be to blame for 10 to 30 percent of global warming that has been measured in the past 20 years, according to a new report.
Increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases still play a role, the scientists say.
But climate models of global warming should be corrected to better account for changes in solar activity, according to Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West of Duke University.
The findings were p... (more)
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Shooting of reporter in Iraq was justified, U.S. report saysBAGHDAD, Iraq - (KRT) - A U.S. military investigation of the June 24 shooting death of Yasser Salihee, a Knight Ridder Iraqi correspondent, confirmed that he was killed by an American soldier and then left dead in his car, splattered with blood and shattered glass in the middle of the street.
The 3rd Infantry Division's report concluded the shooting was justified because the soldiers thought Salihee could have been a suicide bomber or attempting to run them over as he approached a... (more)
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Chip gives broadband from the mainsELECTRIC outfit Matsushita has released a chip that will allow you to set up broadband connections using the power supply in your house.
The big idea is that instead of messing around with wireless connections, you can link using the wires that run the lecky
Apparently there are all sorts of products that are being developed to run the chip. And, theoretically, it will mean that some of these appliances can talk to each other, share data, and build philosophies on t... (more)
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Bill Would Give Cover to Pentagon Spies in U.S.: In an effort to thwart domestic terror, some privacy protections would be rolled back.WASHINGTON — Pentagon intelligence operatives would be allowed to collect information from U.S. citizens without revealing their status as government spies under legislation approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee and publicly released this week.
The bill would end a long-standing requirement that military intelligence officers disclose their government ties when approaching an American citizen in the United States — a law designed to protect Americans from domes... (more)
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Seattle Statue Controversy: “A Thinly Veiled Homage To Pedophilia”SEATTLE — Stuart Smailes was a jolly, potbellied man, proudly gay, with a walrus mustache and a passion for Broadway shows, merry-go-rounds and calliopes, his friends say.
But most of all, he was an art buff — so much of a buff that he left a $1-million bequest for a fountain sculpture to the city of Seattle, with an unusual stipulation: It had to include a naked man.
"He was adamant that he wanted the nude figure," said one of his best friends, Tom Luh... (more)
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Russian Alcoholism Treatment Hypnotizes Patients To Think “You Drink, You DieMOSCOW -- Svetlana, a 32-year-old self-described alcoholic, had managed to stay off the booze, but one day two years ago she just had to have a drink. This time she sat down by the phone so she could call an ambulance, then took a sip from a bottle of beer.
"I was very afraid," said Svetlana, who fully expected to asphyxiate when just one swig of alcohol hit her bloodstream. She only hoped that she would have time to make the call and that the ambulance crew would be able to reviv... (more)
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Stumbling Storm-Aid Effort Put Tons of Ice on Trips to NowhereWASHINGTON, Oct. 1 - When the definitive story of the confrontation between Hurricane Katrina and the United States government is finally told, one long and tragicomic chapter will have to be reserved for the odyssey of the ice.
Ninety-one thousand tons of ice cubes, that is, intended to cool food, medicine and sweltering victims of the storm. It would cost taxpayers more than $100 million, and most of it would never be delivered.
The somewhat befuddled heroes of th... (more)
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Housing Promises Made to Evacuees Have Fallen ShortTwo weeks before President Bush's mid-October goal for moving Hurricane Katrina victims out of shelters, more than 100,000 people still reside in such makeshift housing, and 400,000 more are in hotel rooms costing up to $100 a night.
Housing options promised by the federal government a month ago have largely failed to materialize. Cruise ships and trailer parks have so far proved in large part to be unworkable, while an American Red Cross program -- paid for by the federal governm... (more)
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Source to Stephanopoulos: President Bush Directly Involved In Leak ScandalNear the end of a round table discussion on ABC’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos dropped this bomb:
Definitely a political problem but I wonder, George Will, do you think it’s a manageable one for the White House especially if we don’t know whether Fitzgerald is going to write a report or have indictments but if he is able to show as a source close to this told me this week, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of the... (more)
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Sporadic Meteor Lights Up South Florida SkiesSOUTH FLORIDA - Residents from Kendall to Boca Raton reported bright lights in the sky Wednesday evening.
An expert at the Museum of Science Planetarium said the flash was a sporadic meteor, or a fireball that fell from west to east into the Atlantic Ocean.
"You see the movies and they have the little shooting stars and things going above. This was nothing like that. This was like a big thing coming in fast and burning up fast," said Bob Cooper, who saw the meteor. ... (more)
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Courthouse evacuated after attorney tries to enter firecracker as evidenceBERRYVILLE, Ark. -- A county courthouse was evacuated Thursday after officials said they found a possible explosive device -- one brought in by an attorney.
Officials said the item brought into the Carroll County Courthouse in Berryville was an undetonated firecracker that Cindy Baker intended to enter as evidence in a trial.
Sheriff Chuck Medford said a member of the Springdale bomb squad happened to be in the courtroom. The officer viewed the device and ordered an... (more)
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$500,000 grant from federal funding pays for custom paint job on company's passenger jetSo, you landed a big king salmon this summer? It can't compare to the colossal king Alaska Airlines plans to land this morning in Anchorage.
The Seattle-based carrier has painted nearly the full length of a Boeing 737-400 passenger jet as a wild Alaska king, or chinook, salmon. The airline has dubbed its flying fish the "Salmon-Thirty-Salmon."
It's a bold promotional move to celebrate wild Alaska seafood and also the carrier's role in hauling millions of pounds of f... (more)
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Drunken prank led to armed siegeIT SOUNDS like a storyline from an episode of Shameless.
In a series of mishaps which TV's mad Mancunian Frank Gallagher would be proud of, what started out as fun in an all-day drinking 'bender' on a deprived council estate ended in a 12-hour armed siege and someone shot in the groin by a rubber bullet.
This week 39-year-old Dominic Peck, from North Walk in Barry, was beginning a two-year prison sentence after admitting false imprisonment and making threats to kill... (more)
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I saw Nazis test A-bomb, says author, rewriting historyA book published in Italy is set to reignite a smouldering controversy over how close the Nazis came to manufacturing a nuclear device in the closing stages of World War II.
The author, Luigi Romersa, 88, is the last known witness to what he and some historians believe was the experimental detonation of a rudimentary weapon on an island in the Baltic in 1944.
Hitler's nuclear program has become a subject of intense dispute in recent months, particularly in Germany. ... (more)
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Bali Bombed Again, Intel Op Jemaah Islamiah SuspectedOnce again, an explosion has ripped through the Indonesian resort island of Bali, killing at least 23 people. “We think it’s almost certainly a terrorist attack, I doubt that there’s any other explanation for it, you could assume it’s an attack by an organization like Jemiaah Islamiah speaking from experience, but of course at this stage no one’s claimed responsibility for the attack and we have no evidence,” Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downe... (more)
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US prepares to Launch War on IranThe recent Resolution of the IAEA is preparation for War. The voting pattern on the Resolution against Iran is significant. But what is even more significant - that people all over the world including in the anti-war movement in the United States are against the sanctions and war against Iran, as it is no longer possible to camouflage the real reasons for the war against countries which possess significant oil and gas reserves.
No words on the issue can be more authoritative than ... (more)
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Big Brother is watching youA few months ago Bill Gates let slip an interesting thought about Google in an interview. It reminded him, he said, of Microsoft in its honeymoon period - ie. the decade 1985-95. This is the first time in recorded history that Gates has dignified a competitor by actually naming it in public: generally, he speaks only in paranoid generalities. But the Microsoft chairman knows trouble when he sees it, and Google does indeed pose a long-term threat to his profitable monopoly.
That's ... (more)
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Curb on check-cashing fingerprints soughtIt was only a $98 check - his pay for delivering pizzas for a relative's restaurant - so state Sen. Jon Erpenbach was confused and then angry when told he would have to put his thumbprint on the check to cash it.
"I've never been fingerprinted before," the Middleton Democrat said, explaining why he declined the ink blotter the U.S. Bank teller pushed his way after Erpenbach showed a photo ID.
"That's going way beyond what I think is not only a right, but just a huge... (more)
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Britain recruited terrorists, Meacher claimsAN astonishing claim that M16 recruited Muslim extremists in Britain for terror training abroad has been made by Oldham MP and former cabinet minister Michael Meacher.
Mr Meacher also suggest that a British Muslim held under sentenced of death in Pakistan for beheading a US journalist is being kept alive because he was a British double agent.
The Oldham West and Royton MP makes these sensational claims in an article for Asian News' sister paper, The Guardian.
... (more)
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Colonel blames Blair over Iraq 'catastrophe'Lack of political leadership from Tony Blair is putting British troops at risk in Iraq, according to a former commander of the British invasion force. Britain could lose the war against Iraqi insurgents and risks being driven into neighbouring Iran.
Colonel Tim Collins - famed for the speech he delivered to his men in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment hours before they went into action in March 2003 - described the situation in Iraq now as "a right rollicking cock-up".... (more)
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Volunteers begin border watchThe third group of anti-illegal-immigration activists to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border locally since July launched a monthlong vigil yesterday in hopes of prodding Washington into securing the nation's borders.
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers gathered by a brown metal post-and-rail border fence south of Jacumba to watch for illegal border crossers and report them to the Border Patrol.
The group invited the media so it could transmit its message to Washi... (more)
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Ministers 'shocked' at MI5's lack of informationMinisters, senior police officers and top civil servants were shocked at MI5's lack of intelligence after the 7 July terrorist attacks, according to a senior Whitehall source present at meetings of Cobra, the government's crisis command group convened to react to the London bombings.
The Whitehall official who attended the emergency meetings in the aftermath of the attacks has told The Observer there was general 'shock' at the absence of information coming from the intelligence se... (more)
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