Fire Dept. Chaplain Resigns After Remarks About 9/11Even before he was sworn in, the Fire Department's new Muslim chaplain resigned yesterday after remarks that he made about 9/11 in a newspaper article threatened to cause a furor.
The chaplain, Imam Intikab Habib, was quoted in Newsday yesterday saying he doubted that hijackers were responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center, which killed 343 firefighters. He said that a broader conspiracy might have been necessary to bring the buildings down so quickly.
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The new pornography of war Nowthatsfuckedup.com is the most horror-filled website I have ever seen; and if you are reading this at breakfast, or anywhere near a child, you should stop right now. It is a site for trophy pictures, originally a place where men could trade pornographic pictures of women they knew. But in wartime the definition of trophy changes, so when you look at the forum now you are likely to see something such as this:
A burnt and crumpled Ara... (more)
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Met chief wanted Army rules for policeSir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, asked the Home Office to draw up "rules of engagement", similar to those issued to the military, for use by armed officers confronting suspected suicide bombers, it was disclosed yesterday.
He also pressed Tony Blair to give officers the maximum legal protection against prosecution.
The requests emerged with the publication under the Freedom of Information Act of letters written immediately after the shooting of a... (more)
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Posse Comitatus: Remembering WhyPresident Bush, showing in full bloom the instincts that make it clear that whatever he is politically he is not a conservative of the traditional limited-government or Constitutionalist variety, has lofted a trial balloon to promote the idea of having the military play a more extensive, earlier and perhaps even primary role in handling future disasters. The fact that he has mentioned it more than once, and that press secretary Scott McClellan has discussed both that idea and the idea of bypassi... (more)
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Bush Is Cooking Up Two More WarsMired in interminable conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration is moving toward initiating two more wars, one with Iran and one with North Korea. With no US troops available, the Bush administration is revamping US war doctrine to allow for "preventative nuclear attack." In short, the Bush administration is planning to make the US the first country in history to initiate war with nuclear weapons. The Pentagon document, "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations," calls for the use o... (more)
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EU wins the power to jail British citizens even if Government and Parliament are opposedBRUSSELS has been given the power to compel British courts to fine or imprison people for breaking EU laws, even if the Government and Parliament are opposed.
An unprecedented ruling yesterday by the supreme court in Europe gives Brussels the power to introduce harmonised criminal law across the EU, creating for the first time a body of European criminal law that all member states must adopt. The judgment by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg was bitterly fought by 11 EU ... (more)
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Met chief in 'cover up' attempt over shootingMetropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair suggested a change in the law in the wake of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes so that he would not have to provide information to an independent inquiry.
On the day the Brazilian electrician was shot dead by police, Sir Ian wrote to Home Office Permanent Secretary Sir John Gieve saying he should be able to suspend as he saw fit a legal requirement to give material to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Sir Ian ... (more)
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Police Took Part In New Orleans Looting, Witnesses SayIn the hours and days after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and floodwaters overwhelmed 80 percent of the city, reports of widespread looting, violence and heavily armed gangs roaming the streets were rampant.
Now, as police investigators unravel the tales and find that many of them — such as stories about multiple rapes and murders of women and children at the Superdome — were false, officers are also faced with the difficult task of investigating their own. On Thur... (more)
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GOP Senators Look to Shift Spy Management From CIARepublicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence want to strip from the CIA its primary role as manager of overseas collection of human intelligence, suggesting that Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte take over that responsibility.
The CIA's Directorate of Operations, the agency's clandestine arm, which now coordinates spying overseas by all U.S. intelligence agencies, in the past "did not effectively exercise the authorities of the national HUMINT [hum... (more)
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Cheney's aide revealed as source of CIA leakAn investigation into a White House intelligence leak was nearing its conclusion yesterday after a New York Times reporter, jailed in July for refusing to testify, identified Vice-President Dick Cheney's leading aide as her main source.
Judith Miller was released from a prison in Virginia, where she had spent 12 weeks, and appeared in a federal court in Washington yesterday to give her account of a scandal that has been hanging over the administration for two years.
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Reporter is freed for CIA scandal hearingA journalist imprisoned for shielding a White House source testified before a grand jury yesterday, bringing to a climax a two-year investigation involving some of America's most powerful officials.
Judith Miller of the New York Times was released after 12 weeks in prison. Her source, identified elsewhere as Lewis Libby, chief of staff for the vice-president Dick Cheney, had said he had no objection to her testifying.
After three hours giving evidence, Miss Miller s... (more)
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Smile, you're on transit cameraThis Monday, the Toronto Transit Commission is rolling out 20 buses mounted with security cameras to take snapshots of riders. The test route for the pilot project is the No. 35 Jane Street bus -- the same route on which two passengers, one of them 11-year-old Tamara Carter, were wounded in a shooting last November.
According to TTC officials, if the project is successful, all 1,750 of its buses and streetcars could be equipped at a cost of up to $19-million, with an additional $1... (more)
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EU outlines future net governanceAn oversight body of international governments will decide the top-level of the internet from now on, pulling it away from the US government and enshrining the revolutionary medium in international law.
That is the position taken by the EU, which is currently cutting a deal with other nations including Brazil, Canada and China, to end two weeks of argument at the PrepCom3 conference in Geneva.
The UK/EU representative, David Hendon told us that a new co-operative mo... (more)
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Government May Track Cars Through Number PlatesNumber plates that contain microchips enabling cars to be tracked on the roads are to be tested by the Government and could soon be in use in the UK.
The high-tech plates transmit information such as Vehicle Identification Numbers to data readers placed alongside roads, which can be picked up at any speed and up to 300 feet away.
Making use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology, the tagged plate scheme is said to be a massive improvement over cameras t... (more)
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General backs off on US troop cuts in IraqAs fresh violence claimed dozens more Iraqi and US lives yesterday, the top US military commander in Iraq backed off previous predictions that a substantial number of US troops would be withdrawn next year, and he warned that a growing political divide over a new constitution could fuel worse bloodshed in the months ahead.
Army General George W. Casey said prospects for reducing US troops depend heavily on the readiness and willingness of the new Iraqi government to take more resp... (more)
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They Forced My Son to Kill: Why I MarchedWhen I was a little girl and again as a young woman dreaming about having children I never, ever, even for a heartbeat imagined that I would ever be the mother of someone who had killed somebody. But I am. There in Iraq in the dusty, sun-baked rubble that was once the City of Mosques, Ar Ramadi, Iraq, my son repeatedly engaged an enemy, sighted down the barrel of his weapon, opened fire and ended lives.
John, now a corporal in the Marine Corp, returned from his second tour in Iraq... (more)
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There Is No Such Thing As a Just TaxThere is no such thing as a just tax. This is a prime libertarian proposition, another way of saying that all taxes are theft. We may also say that there is no such thing as an equitable tax. Being bold, these statements invite dissent.
Some think that whatever the State’s laws say is just, but this concept pollutes the meaning of justice because there is no standard in it. Whatever a group of lawmakers proclaims is just – this can’t be justice because they can p... (more)
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The Iraqi military has only one battalion - about 500-600 soldiers - capable of fighting on its own, U.S. commanders sayThe Iraqi military has only one battalion - about 500-600 soldiers - capable of fighting on its own, U.S. commanders told lawmakers Thursday.
Many Iraqi police are not being paid, and insurgents are infiltrating Iraqi police and military forces, the commanders acknowledged. Even so, Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. general in Iraq, said U.S. troops could start leaving next year if Iraqi voters back a proposed constitution and form a government.
"I do believe that the... (more)
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Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled IllegalWASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.
In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda... (more)
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Posada Carriles to stay in US: Washington shields CIA terrorist from prosecutionAn immigration judge in El Paso, Texas ruled on Tuesday that the CIA-trained anti-Castro Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles cannot be deported to Venezuela, where he is a citizen and is wanted for mass murder, on the grounds that he could face torture there.
The ruling is the latest chapter in the decades-long US government protection of Posada and fellow Cuban exile terrorists. In this case, Washington is shielding him from prosecution for masterminding the 1976 terrorist bombi... (more)
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Meteor `like a fireball' flies across skyFoooosh!
That's how fast witnesses said a glowing meteor streaked across Florida skies Thursday before disappearing. From Fort Lauderdale to Cape Canaveral people called the National Weather Service reporting the bright orange orb.
"We think it was a meteor that was falling through the sky and burning up," said Barry Baxter, a weather service meteorologist.
"We don't know if it was over the ocean or land. [People] just said it was over the sky, like ... (more)
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Army Sees Uphill Recruiting BattleWASHINGTON Sep 30, 2005 — The Army closed the books Friday on one of the leanest recruiting years since it became an all-volunteer service, missing its enlistment target by the widest margin since 1979 and raising questions about its plans for growth.
Many in Congress believe the Army needs to get bigger perhaps by 50,000 soldiers over its current 1 million in order to meet its overseas commitments, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army is on a path to add 30,... (more)
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UK backs Afghan troop expansionNato troops should be sent to volatile south Afghanistan to boost security and counter the drugs trade, Defence Minister John Reid has said.
Mr Reid, who is visiting Afghanistan, said differences within Nato on whether its troops should take an offensive role would have to be "worked through".
France, Germany and Spain believe Nato troops should keep to peacekeeping.
Nato has 12,000 peacekeepers mainly in the more stable north and west. The UK takes c... (more)
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WHO tries to play down expert warning of 150 million deaths from flu pandemic
The World Health Organisation has moved to play down a cataclysmic warning by one of its own officials that a pandemic caused by the bird flu virus ravaging poultry flocks in the Far East could kill as many as 150 million people.
The prediction came from David Nabarro, a senior WHO expert on infectious diseases, who was appointed on Thursday as UN co-ordinator for avian and human influenza. He said the next pandemic could claim from five million up to 150 million lives.... (more)
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New Flu Vaccine is Loaded With MercuryGlaxoSmithKline's new flu vaccine Fluarix was approved Wednesday for sale in the USA this fall under an accelerated FDA approval process. Another flu vaccine manufacturer, Chiron, moved closer to getting their license back; it was suspended when their flu vaccine was found to be contaminated with bacteria.
Chiron's license was suspended by British regulators in October, and the FDA barred U.S. distribution of the vaccine, cutting the nation's expected supply of flu vaccine in half... (more)
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Mighty Mice Regrow OrgansMice discovered accidentally at the Wistar Institute in Pennsylvania have the seemingly miraculous ability to regenerate like a salamander, and even regrow vital organs.
Researchers systematically amputated digits and damaged various organs of the mice, including the heart, liver and brain, most of which grew back.
The results stunned scientists because if such regeneration is possible in this mammal, it might also be possible in humans.
The research... (more)
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