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Man Robs Stores With Klingon Sword

Have the Klingons fallen on hard times?

A surveillance picture released by police shows a man armed with what appears to be a small Klingon sword, holding up a 7-Eleven convenience store.

That same man robbed another 7-Eleven store store a half-hour later, and remains at large, Colorado Springs police Lt. David Whitlock said. The first robbery was reported at 1:50 a.m.

The clerk told police a white man in his 20s, wearing a black mask, black jacket, and blue jeans, entered the store with a weapon the clerk recognized from the Star Trek TV series. More

War vet pulls 13 of his teeth out

A BRITISH Gulf War veteran pulled out 13 of his teeth with pliers when he could not find an NHS dentist. TA soldier Ian Boynton could not afford to go private for treatment after suffering with excruciating toothache since 2006.

So instead he took drastic action and removed them himself. The 42-year-old, from Beverley, East Yorks, had not had his teeth looked at since seeing the army dentist in 2003.

And he has not registered with a dentist of his own since 2001. He said: “I’ve tried to get in at 30 dentists over the last eight years but have never been able to find one to take on NHS patients. More

Would You Pay $103,000 for This Arizona Fixer-Upper?

AVONDALE, Ariz. -- The little blue house rests on a few pieces of wood and concrete block. The exterior walls, ravaged by dry rot, bend to the touch. At some point, someone jabbed a kitchen knife into the siding. The condemnation notice stapled to the wall says: "Unfit for human occupancy."

The story of the two-bedroom, one-bath shack on West Hopi Street, is the story of this year's financial panic, told in 576 square feet. It helps explain how a series of bad decisions can add up to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Less than two years ago, Integrity Funding LLC, a local lender, gave a $103,000 mortgage to the owner, Marvene Halterman, an unemployed woman with a long list of creditors and, by her own account, a long history of drug and alcohol abuse. More

PTSD pushed Marine to abandon family and service

CAMP PENDLETON ---- Marine Lance Cpl. Lance Hering says the war in Iraq pushed him to abandon his family and his service. On Friday, two years after he faked his own death and deserted his unit, the 23-year-old Hering stood in a Camp Pendleton courtroom.

By the end of an emotional court-martial, Hering emerged with a sentence of time served behind bars since his Nov. 16 arrest, a fine of $1,166 and an administrative discharge from the service. Marine Corps officials refused to characterize the nature of the discharge, saying it was subject to privacy regulations.

Hering's case was different from others in that authorities acknowledged he had not been treated for post-traumatic stress syndrome before leaving Iraq in the summer of 2006, even though he sought counseling, according to unchallenged testimony heard Friday. More

Teenager dies after being tased by Martinsville Police

State Police are investigating the death of a 17-year-old after Martinsville Police used a stun device on a teenager Thursday night.

It happened at 307 Rives Road. When 10 On Your side came to the apartment on Friday afternoon, the door was already open, but nobody was inside. What appears empty now, was swarming with police and investigators Thursday night.

Justin Gregory, 15, says his friend, 17-year-old Derick, died after a Martinsville officer used a taser on him. Gregory told us Derick and Derick’s mother had only lived in the home for about a week; however, the boys were alone on Thursday night. Although friends say the victim’s name was Derick, police have not released the victim’s name; therefore, Ten On Your Side has decided not to release the victim’s full name, yet. More

Bailed out banks sought foreign workers for high-paying jobs

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Major U.S. banks sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country for high-paying jobs even as the system was melting down last year and Americans were getting laid off, according to a review of visa applications.

The dozen banks now receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for positions that included senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists.

The average annual salary for those jobs was $90,721, nearly twice the median income for all American households. More

Laws to Track Sex Offenders Encouraging Homelessness

LOS ANGELES -- Upon release from state custody, Ross Wollschlager began an intensive search for a home, one that abided by the restrictions imposed on convicted sex offenders in California -- and, in various versions, by about 30 other states. Obliged by law to return to Ventura County, the convicted rapist was forbidden to sleep within 2,000 feet of a school or a park. He ended up in a tent on the dry bed of the Ventura River.

Strict new laws aimed at keeping track of sex offenders after they leave prison appear to be having the opposite effect, encouraging homelessness in a population believed more likely to re-offend if cast into the streets without structure or family support, say prosecutors, police, parole officials and experts on managing sex offenders. More

HARRISON BROWN, an 18-year-old freshman majoring in mathematics at M.I.T., didn’t need to do complex calculations to figure out he liked this deal: in exchange for letting researchers track his every move, he receives a free smartphone.

Now, when he dials another student, researchers know. When he sends an e-mail or text message, they also know. When he listens to music, they know the song. Every moment he has his Windows Mobile smartphone with him, they know where he is, and who’s nearby.

Mr. Brown and about 100 other students living in Random Hall at M.I.T. have agreed to swap their privacy for smartphones that generate digital trails to be beamed to a central computer. Beyond individual actions, the devices capture a moving picture of the dorm’s social network. More

Suit claims Halliburton, KBR sickened base

A Georgia man has filed a lawsuit against contractor KBR and its former parent company, Halliburton, saying the companies exposed everyone at Joint Base Balad in Iraq to unsafe water, food and hazardous fumes from the burn pit there.

Joshua Eller, who worked as a civilian computer-aided drafting technician with the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, said military personnel, contractors and third-country nationals may have been sickened by contamination at the largest U.S. installation in Iraq, home to more than 30,000 service members, Defense Department civilians and contractors.

“Defendants promised the United States government that they would supply safe water for hygienic and recreational uses, safe food supplies and properly operate base incinerators to dispose of medical waste safely,” according to the lawsuit, filed Nov. 26 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. “Defendants utterly failed to perform their promised duties.” More

Barky: A Luo tribesman in the White House?

As he reminded us again after losing narrowly to Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, Barack Obama likes to evoke Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech.

We must all hope that, like King's, Mr. Obama's dream is "deeply rooted in the American dream." But before giving him the keys to the White House, Americans might like to know a little more about the content of Mr. Obama's dream.

Let me propose an unlikely place to start looking: Kenya. Even in the midst of the primaries, the horrific scenes from that country since the disputed election on December 27 will not have escaped most people. In particular, the burning of a church with up to 50 men, women, and children inside, while machete-armed mobs slaughter up to 600 more people, have evoked memories of the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

The opposition leader, Raila Odinga, has had a good press in the West, after he accused the president, Mwai Kibaki, of rigging the election. But the victims of the recent violence have mostly been members of Mr. Kibaki's tribe, the Kikuyu, while those who have gone berserk are supporters of Mr. Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement, which is dominated by the rival Luo tribe. More

Big Brother is watching, but seniors don't mind

Sensors keep track of just about everything Shirley Player does in her apartment, but she's not worried that Big Brother is watching. Far from it. "I feel very safe with it," Player said. "It's nice to know you're being watched."

Player is one of 68 residents of the Masonicare retirement community participating in a study that aims to determine whether keeping a technological eye on seniors can help them live longer independently in their own homes.

Player's place has a motion detector in the corner of each room, a sensor on her refrigerator that keeps track of her eating habits, a sensor on the medicine cabinet to see if she's taking her medications on time, and a pressure sensor underneath the mattress of her bed to track her sleeping. More

Blue Pills Help CIA Wins Friends in Afghanistan

The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.

Four blue pills. Viagra.

"Take one of these. You'll love it," the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes -- followed by a request for more pills. More

Anti-terror powers used to spy on paperboys

Cambridgeshire County Council sent undercover officers to monitor whether eight children delivering papers in Melbourn, Cambs, were doing their rounds without the correct paperwork.

Campaigners accused the council of acting like a "jumped up version of the A-Team" by using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to target the former postmistress Rashmi Solanki and her husband Dips, who run the local shop. It is the latest in a series of incidents where local authorities have used surveillance powers to investigate minor matters from dog fouling to underage smoking. More

Troop Surge for President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural

The latest U.S. troop surge will be much closer to home - in the nation's capital to secure Barack Obama's Inauguration Day.

Government officials are set to deploy an additional 3,000 troops - for a total of 7,000 - and an extra 2,000 cops, bringing the tally to 10,000 police, sources said.

The joint security and transportation plan disclosed yesterday by authorities included this understatement: "Access into Washington, D.C. will be limited" on Jan. 20.

All four bridges over the Potomac River from Virginia into D.C. will be closed to traffic, except for buses and authorized vehicles, and boat traffic on the river will be banned. More

Former 'Yuppies' struggle for cash

Nearly half of people who were dubbed Yuppies in the 1980s say they now struggling financially, according to a report.

So-called Yuppies or Young Urban Professionals epitomised 1980s success, and were infamous for their high spending, Filofaxes, having the latest gadgets and splashing out on expensive dining.

But 20 years on, 45% of former Yuppies claim they are struggling financially or failing to live within their means, according to Liverpool Victoria friendly society.

At the same time, seven out of 10 former Yuppies, now aged between 45 and 55, say they should have saved more money earlier in their career and 32% worry about how they would cope if their regular income stopped. More

The Cold War's Missing Atom Bombs

It was a little early to be swimming in the Mediterranean that year. But in early March 1966, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, the Spanish information minister at the time, and Biddle Duke, the American ambassador in Madrid, together with their respective families, plunged into the chilly waters off the Costa Cálida.

Journalists from around the world had gathered on the beach of the small village of Palomares to report on the two families' spring bathing outing. Their interest would have been surprising, if it hadn't been for the hydrogen bomb lying on the ocean floor only a few kilometers away, a bomb with more than 1,000 times the explosive force of the one that flattened Hiroshima.

Only a few weeks earlier, on Jan. 17, 1966, the worst nuclear weapons incident of the entire Cold War had taken place off Spain's southeastern coast. During an aerial tanking maneuver, an American B-52 bomber and a KC-135 tanking aircraft collided in mid-air at 9,000 meters (29,000 feet), and both planes exploded in a giant fireball over Palomares. There were four hydrogen bombs in the hold of the B-52. One landed, unharmed, in tomato fields near the village. The non-nuclear fuse detonated in two others causing bomb fragments and plutonium dust to rain down on the impact site. More

Girl sues police over assault, wrongful arrest

A 12-year-old girl wrongfully arrested as a suspected prostitute, beaten by police and then arrested for assaulting a public servant has launched a lawsuit against the officers, the Houston Press reports.

Dymond Milburn, from Galveston, Texas, was grabbed by three plain-clothed police officers out the front of her house and told, “You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me”, according to the lawsuit.

After struggling with the men and screaming, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy”, the girl had her mouth covered and was struck in the face and throat, leaving her with black eyes and throat and ear drum injuries, her lawyer said. More

$1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs

Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals. The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue.

Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, a review of federal securities documents found. The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars. More

German Parliament Passes Anti-Terror Law

For months, a large number of Germans have fretted over whether federal lawmakers would grant federal police aggressive evidence-gathering abilities to combat terrorism. They feared they could be similar to the highly developed -- and criticized -- ones enjoyed by the FBI or those portrayed in "The Lives of Others," the Oscar-winning film about an eavesdropper working for the Stasi, the secret police of the former East Germany.

Recently, a partial answer finally came, when the lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag, approved anti-terrorism legislation that will vastly expand the cyber-spying powers of the federal police to gather information from the computers, telephone lines and homes of suspected terrorists. More

All that money you've lost — where did it go?

Trillions in stock market value — gone. Trillions in retirement savings — gone. A huge chunk of the money you paid for your house, the money you're saving for college, the money your boss needs to make payroll — gone, gone, gone.

Whether you're a stock broker or Joe Six-pack, if you have a 401(k), a mutual fund or a college savings plan, tumbling stock markets and sagging home prices mean you've lost a whole lot of the money that was right there on your account statements just a few months ago.

But if you no longer have that money, who does? The fat cats on Wall Street? Some oil baron in Saudi Arabia? The government of China? More

al-Qaida has funds despite economic woes

Al-Qaida, which gets its money from the drug trade in Afghanistan and sympathizers in the oil-rich Gulf states, is likely to escape the effects of the global financial crisis.

One reason is that al-Qaida and other Islamic terrorists have been forced to avoid using banks, relying instead on less-efficient ways to move their cash around the world, analysts said.

Those methods include hand-carrying money and using informal transfer networks called hawalas.

While escaping official scrutiny, those networks also are slower and less efficient — and thus could hamper efforts to finance attacks. More

First sight of the ID cards that will soon be compulsory

The Government was accused yesterday of cynically targeting immigrants to boost support for its controversial £4.7bn compulsory identity cards scheme as the Home Office unveiled the documents it plans will eventually be held by every adult in Britain.

A coalition of opposition parties, trade unions and civil liberties campaigners condemned the symbolic release of the pink and blue cards, which will be introduced for foreign nationals living in Britain from next month. The plastic permits, containing the personal details, fingerprints and immigration status of foreign nationals, offer the first glimpse of what ID cards for British citizens will look like.

Critics attacked the project as a dangerous waste of money that would undermine hundreds of years of civil rights and warned that targeting foreign residents could lead to discrimination and abuse.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said the scheme would protect against identity fraud, illegal working and cut organised crime and terrorism. More

China: 1,500 raccoon dogs die from tainted feed

BEIJING - Some 1,500 raccoon dogs bred for their fur have died after eating feed tainted with melamine, a veterinarian said Monday, raising questions about how widespread the industrial chemical is in China's food chain.

The revelation comes amid a crisis over dairy products tainted with melamine that has caused kidney stones in tens of thousands of Chinese children and has been linked to the deaths of four infants.

The raccoon dogs — a breed native to east Asia whose fur is used to trim coats and other clothing — died of kidney failure after eating the tainted feed, said Zhang Wenkui, a veterinary professor at Shenyang Agriculture University. More

Economic Tough Times Hit Nevada Brothel

A woman who had just scored a precious high-paying job in the midst of a disastrous economy was willing to fly in from out of town to take it.

Her new boss, Susan Austin, had spared no expense and the woman was quickly whisked into a waiting limo at the Reno, Nev., airport.

For the sake of privacy, we're calling the woman "Kimberly," and the coveted job she got was as a prostitute at one of the few places in America where it's legal -- the self-proclaimed "world famous" Mustang Ranch.

"I'm nervous, you know," said Kimberly, who would be working as a prostitute for the first time. "I've got a little shake. I'm more nervous than I think I've ever been in my life." More

Judge: Blackwater guards must report to DC court

WASHINGTON -- Wild, unprovoked gunfire and grenades killed 14 innocent Iraqis and hurt dozens more in a 2007 Baghdad attack, prosecutors said Monday in announcing charges with mandatory 30-year prison terms against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards.

The Justice Department called the shooting a shocking and devastating violation of human rights. The harsh words echoed the outrage of Iraqis, who have waited more than a year to see how the U.S. would respond to the shooting on a busy street in the Iraqi capital.

The five security guards surrendered in federal court in Utah, where one of them lives. The five guards walked wordlessly through a phalanx of reporters. A judge ordered the guards to report to a Washington courthouse Jan. 6, where they were expected to plead not guilty. More

Democrats' victory leads to boom in gun sales

In the weeks since the presidential election, Justin Mundy, who owns Wolverine Shooting Sports Inc. in Brownstown Township, has held four classes for those seeking concealed weapons permits instead of the usual once-a-month course.

And Mark Cortis, who conducts concealed weapons license training and sits on the Oakland County gun board, has had people from as far away as Iron Mountain and Traverse City call about classes.

Both Cortis and Mundy say the prospective students fear President-elect Barack Obama will try to take away gun owners' rights. And people also are afraid that as the economy worsens, crime will increase. The permits allow people to legally carry a loaded firearm in most places. More

Vice president, former AG, state senator indicted

McALLEN, Texas — A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on state charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County's federal detention centers.

The indictment, which had not yet been signed by the presiding judge, was one of seven released Tuesday in a county that has been a source of bizarre legal and political battles in recent years. Another of the indictments named a state senator on charges of profiting from his position.

Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra himself had been under indictment for more than a year and half before a judge dismissed the indictments last month. This flurry of charges came in the twilight of Guerra's tenure, which ends this year after nearly two decades in office. He lost convincingly in a Democratic primary in March. More

IRS computer systems faulted

WASHINGTON - Two new IRS computer systems that will eventually cost taxpayers almost $2 billion are being put into service despite known security and privacy vulnerabilities, a Treasury watchdog said in a report yesterday.

The office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said Internal Revenue Service officials failed to ensure that identified weaknesses had been addressed before putting the new systems into use.

Inspector General J. Russell George said it was "very troublesome" that the IRS "was aware of, and even self-identified, these weaknesses." More

Blackwater Sees Treasure in Pirates

VIRGINIA BEACH -- Blackbeard, meet Blackwater. Worldwide.

The Moyock, N.C., company has a ship in Hampton Roads ready to begin patrolling the Gulf of Aden to protect merchant vessels against pirates. The company has spoken to about 10 shipping firms but as yet has no takers, said Bill Mathews, Blackwater Worldwide executive vice president.

"There's definitely a need and a desire," Mathews said during a tour of the 183-foot vessel, named McArthur, on Friday. It's moored at a commercial pier at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.

Somali pirates in late September seized a Ukrainian ship loaded with military vehicles in the Gulf of Aden and still hold the ship while demanding a multimillion-dollar ransom. The standoff is being monitored by the U.S. Navy. More

Grizzlies on the prowl in urban Alaska

As winter creeps down the Chugach Mountains and the grizzly bears start the move toward their dens, wildlife biologists and others have begun to contemplate whether the city's summer of bears was an aberration or the face of what is to come.

Some now wonder if an environmental success story -- the restoration of salmon runs in Anchorage streams -- has set the stage for an unfolding community crisis. They are wondering whether a mandate to maintain salmon runs at maximum sustainable levels will make the growing bear-human problems in the city even worse.

What garbage is to black bears, salmon are to grizzlies. Salmon lure bears into the city. The attendant problems became painfully clear this summer. More

'Constitution-Free Zone' 100 miles from border

This past summer, Craig Johnson joined dozens of other activists in a San Diego-area park to protest the expansion of a fence along the US-Mexico border.

An associate professor at Point Loma Nazarene University, Johnson says he took his two children, aged 8 and 10, to Border Field State Park in Imperial Beach in June. Scores of border patrol agents were on the scene, Johnson said, and some were recording license plate numbers from protesters' cars parked a more than a mile away from the border.

It seems that Johnson's participation in the anti-fence demonstration may have landed him on a government watch list that has inhibited his ability to travel freely between the US and Mexico. A professor of Music, Johnson said he traveled to Tijuana about a week after the protest; upon returning to the US, Johnson says he was handcuffed and arrested by customs agents after a listing associated with his name pegged him as armed and dangerous. "I was thoroughly and aggressively searched. ... Every inch and crack and crevice of my body was poked and prodded," Johnson said. "I was in complete bewilderment of what was going on; I felt violated and frankly was embarrassed." More

Researchers warn of 'clickjacking' threat

Researchers have begun publishing details of a new type of attack called 'clickjacking', which can lead users to malicious websites by tricking them into clicking on unseen elements in a web browser.

Jeremiah Grossman, chief technology officer of White Hat Security, and SecTheory chief executive Robert Hansen, began publicly discussing their research into what they call clickjacking, following the public release of a proof-of-concept exploit by another researcher.

Clickjacking is a set of different techniques for disguising elements such as dialogue boxes and links, so that the user can be fooled into changing security settings or visiting malicious websites, Grossman and Hansen said. More

Air Force pirates software, court says okay

American expect the Air Force to be part of the team that protects them from those who would harm them, but it turns out that Americans have no protection from an Air Force that would prey on them.

Last week, a US Court of Appeals upheld a ruling on software piracy. The organization doing the piracy, however, happened to be a branch of the US government, and the decision highlights the significant limits to the application of copyright law to the government charged with enforcing it. Most significantly, perhaps, the court found that because the DMCA is written in a way that targets individual infringers, the government cannot be liable for claims made under the statute.

The backstory on the case involved, Blueport v. United States, borders on the absurd. It started when Sergeant Mark Davenport went to work in the group within the US Air Force that ran its manpower database. Finding the existing system inefficient, Davenport requested training in computer programming so that he could improve it; the request was denied. Showing the sort of personal initiative that only gets people into trouble, Davenport then taught himself the needed skills and went to work redesigning the system. More

Army Brigade to patrol Homeland

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys. Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks. It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home.

In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas. But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts. After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one. More

Woman Handcuffed and Booked Over Overdue Library Books

A young Wisconsin woman was cuffed by cops, perp-walked down her parents' suburban driveway and hustled into a waiting cruiser - all because she hadn't returned two library books or paid the library's $38 fine.

Heidi Dalibor, 20, a cosmetology student and beloved neighborhood baby sitter in Grafton, was arrested, fingerprinted and booked earlier this month for violating an "overdue library materials" ordinance, authorities said.

The Grafton Public Library sicced the law on Dalibor after she failed to return Dan Brown's "Angels & Demons" and Janet Fitch's best-selling "White Oleander." More

Credit Card Debt: This Popping Bubble Is Going to Hurt

Let me try a few words out on you: "Charge It," "Swipe It" and "Priceless."

You know exactly what I am talking about. We all have credit and debit cards. We all use them, and many of us keep our lives going because of them.

That is, until the bill becomes due.

The sad truth is that we are all complicit in our own economic servitude even if, at bottom, it's not our fault because we live in a consumption society, and don't feel we could live without them.

While many eyes are focusing on the housing meltdown and its hugely negative effect on an economy clearly moving into recession, few are paying attention to the next bubble expected to burst: credit cards. You would never know it by watching those slick VISA card ads on the Olympic TV broadcasts.

Combined with the subprime losses, such a credit card nightmare has the potential, experts say, of bringing down the entire financial system and global economy. More

Over 1,000 laws will let the state into your home

UK — The march of the Big Brother state under Labour was highlighted last night as it was revealed that there are now 1,043 laws that give the authorities the power to enter a home or business.

Nearly half have been introduced since Labour came to power 11 years ago. They include the right to:

• Invade your home to see if your pot plants have pests or do not have a 'plant passport' (Plant Health England Order 2005).

• Survey your home and garden to see if your hedge is too high (Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003).

• Seize fridges without the correct energy rating (Energy Information Household Refrigerators and Freezers Regulations 2004).

The rise in clipboard-wielding state inspectors flies in the face of repeated pledges by Ministers to curb the power of bureaucrats. More

Feeble dollar sends Americans to European hostels

The tumbling U.S. dollar is forcing a new experience on many Americans traveling through Europe: a stay in a youth hostel.

With prices as low as $31 in some of Europe's most expensive cities — and luxury options such as digital camera chargers for hire — hostels are shedding their image of bedbug-ridden dorm rooms and mildewed showers.

Annie Worth, a 21-year-old from Orinda, Calif., said she and her friends were used to staying in nice hotels with their parents on vacation, but had chosen to stay in no-frill hostels during an 11-country backpacking trip through Europe.

"Especially with the euro being so strong and the U.S. dollar being so weak, I think a lot of younger people who had initially avoided them are staying there because they are hearing so many great things about them and money is tight," she said. More

Journalist Censored by Military

Zoriah Miller is a photo journalist who was embedded withe the military in Iraq. When he took photographs of the aftermath of a recent suicide bombing, he was asked to delete these photographs. He also got booted by the military and got asked to remove the photographs from his web blog. The suicide bombing that Zoriah photographed happened in Anbar Province a few, one of the last few days of June and more than 20 people lost their lives including a few marines.

According to what Zoriah wrote on his blog about the situation the photographer was contacted by a high ranking Public Affairs Officer who notified him about the governments request to remove any and every photograph from the Zoriah blog. The journalist claimed that in the grizzly photos of the carnage no person was recognizable and the killed soldiers could be portrayed in images as long as their name tags and identifiable features are not shown. Furthermore, Zoriah claimed that he made sure the images he published followed every single guideline. See the blog (warning: graphic images)

Apple sued for slavery

A LAWSUIT filed Monday in California seeks class action status alleging that Apple denied technical staffers required overtime pay and meal compensation in violation of state law.

Filed in the US District Court for Southern California, the complaint claims that many Apple employees are routinely subjected to working conditions resembling indentured servitude.

Lead plaintiff David Walsh was employed by Apple as a network engineer from 1995 until 2007. His complaint says he was often required to work more than 40 hours per week, miss meals, and spend his evenings and even entire weekends on call without any overtime pay or meal compensation. He fielded technical support calls that often came after 11 pm. More

Lone accountant takes on IRS and wins

It took seven years, but Charles Ulrich did something many people dream about, but few succeed at: He beat the IRS in a tax dispute. Not only that, but tax experts say potentially millions of other taxpayers could benefit from his victory.

The accountant from Baxter, Minn., challenged the method the IRS has used for more than 20 years to tax shares and cash distributed by mutual life insurance firms to their policyholders when they reorganize as public companies. A federal court recently agreed with his interpretation.

"There's a tremendous amount of money at stake," said Robert Willens, a New York City-based tax analyst at Robert Willens LLC. "Tens of thousands of people could be in line for a refund." More

U.S. tightens security along Great Lakes border

The United States will unveil new border surveillance measures Friday in a move that has one New Democratic MP decrying what he sees as the "weaponization" of the Canada-U.S. frontier.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is slated to open an air and marine border-monitoring outpost just north of the Detroit-Windsor border at Selfridge Air National Guard Base on Lake St. Clair in Michigan.

The $17-million Great Lakes Air and Marine Branch will help fight human and drug smuggling, U.S. officials said. The post will use 11 aircraft, including a Black Hawk helicopter, and five boats to patrol the Great Lakes waterways daily, said Eric Rembold, director of aviation operations at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Windsor West MP and NDP border critic Brian Masse voiced his concern Thursday about the implications of the new surveillance measures.

"If we're going to continue to see weaponization that is used in conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq put on the Canada-U.S. border, saying that it's required for safety and security, it really changes the nature of our relationship," he said. More

Mexican soldiers enter US, hold border agent at gunpoint

Four Mexican army soldiers entered southern Arizona and pointed their rifles at a U.S. Border Patrol agent early this week, the Border Patrol said.

The incident Sunday was the Mexican military's 43rd incursion across the U.S. border since October, the agency said. However, it was unusual because firearms were involved. The Border Patrol and the Mexican government are investigating, Border Patrol spokesman Mike Scioli said.

Details remain sketchy, but the incident occurred at 2 a.m. on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation about 50 miles southeast of Ajo. The incident took place just north of the border in sight of the new border fence.

The soldiers held their weapons on the agent for several minutes until he identified himself in Spanish, whereupon they lowered their guns and walked back across a gap in the fence, Scioli said. More

America goes to the Dark Side - torture for fun and profit

In a series of gripping articles, Jane Mayer has chronicled the Bush Administration’s grim and furtive dealings with torture and has exposed both the individuals within the administration who “made it happen” (a group that starts with Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, David Addington), the team of psychologists who put together the palette of techniques, and the Fox television program “24,” which was developed to help sell it to the American public.

In a new book, The Dark Side, Mayer puts together the major conclusions from her articles and fills in a number of important gaps. Most significantly, we learn the details on the torture techniques and the drama behind the fierce and lingering struggle within the administration over torture, and we learn that many within the administration recognized the potential criminal accountability they faced over these torture tactics and moved frantically to protect themselves from possible future prosecution. More

Feds to snoop your eBay, Amazon transactions

The U.S. Congress puts on a big show about "doing something" to solve your many problems, but they really contrive ways to monitor, control and feed off of your life energy.

Hidden deep in Senator Christopher Dodd's 630-page Senate housing legislation is a sweeping provision that affects the privacy and operation of nearly all of America's small businesses. The provision, which was added by the bill's managers without debate this week, would require the nation's payment systems to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government.

FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey commented: "This is a provision with astonishing reach, and it was slipped into the bill just this week. Not only does it affect nearly every credit card transaction in America, such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express, but the bill specifically targets payment systems like eBay's PayPal, Amazon, and Google Checkout that are used by many small online businesses. The privacy implications for America's small businesses are breathtaking." More

Navy prosecutor claims flight 93 shootdown in trial

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — The Pentagon opened its first war crimes prosecution Tuesday with words purportedly from the mouth of Osama bin Laden, overheard by his driver in the aftermath of 9-11:

"If they hadn’t shot down the fourth plane, it would’ve hit the dome," the al Qaeda leader supposedly told his deputy, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahari, referring to the U.S. Capitol.

With his first words to a military jury, a Pentagon prosecutor, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Stone, evoked a conversation — a conspiracy theory, actually — that defendant Salim Hamdan had revealed to the Americans after his arrest.

Bin Laden told his No. 2 that U.S. forces, not heroic passengers, stopped the hijackers from slamming United Airlines Flight 93 into the Capitol. It crashed into a Pennsylvania field instead. More

Drug smugglers bribing U.S. agents on Mexico border

U.S. Border Patrol agent Reynaldo Zuniga was arrested last month lugging a bag of cocaine up from the Rio Grande, one of a growing number of law enforcement officers accused of taking bribes from drug gangs.

Former colleagues say Zuniga used to wait until agents in the south Texas town of Harlingen were distracted with paperwork, then slip down to the river and help smuggle in drugs from Mexico.

The increasing use of bribes by Mexican drug cartels to corrupt U.S. agents comes as Washington is sending $400 million to help Mexico's army-led war on the trafficking gangs, whose brutal murders have surged to unprecedented levels.

"Zuniga was a good agent and a hard worker. I can't understand why he would do this. We're supposed to be protecting our borders," said Border Patrol agent Daniel Doty, a former colleague. More

Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At Them to Provoke War

Speaking at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month, Seymour Hersh — a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker — revealed that Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran.

In Hersh’s most recent article, he reports that this meeting occurred in the wake of the overblown incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when a U.S. carrier almost shot at a few small Iranian speedboats. The “meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office. ‘The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,’” according to one of Hersh’s sources.

According to Hersh, "There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up." More

O'Reilly, Savage, Hannity on accused church shooter's reading list

Police found right-wing political books, brass knuckles, empty shotgun shell boxes and a handgun in the Powell home of a man who said he attacked a church in order to kill liberals "who are ruining the country," court records show.

Knoxville police Sunday evening searched the Levy Drive home of Jim David Adkisson after he allegedly entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and killed two people and wounded six others during the presentation of a children's musical.

Adkisson told officers he left the house unlocked for them because "he expected to be killed during the assault."

Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly. More

Overzealous drug war claims another casualty

The question isn't whether a Pembroke Pines police officer was justified in fatally shooting Vincent Hodgkiss in his home early Thursday morning, or whether illegal drug activity was taking place there. The real question is this: Was a paramilitary-style dawn raid the best way to go about serving a drug-related search warrant?

Deputy Police Chief David Golt defended the use of the Special Response Team, Pembroke Pines' version of SWAT, to carry out the 6:30 a.m. raid that left Hodgkiss, 46, dead.

"We use SRT to serve all narcotics warrants," Golt said Friday. "You never know what you're going to encounter."

In addition to providing a special court review of lawsuits against telecommunication companies, the bill would increase oversight of U.S. intelligence activities and bolster privacy protection -- but not as much as civil liberties groups and a number of lawmakers want. More

Barky woos Germans, gets cheered

In a stirring speech in Germany on Thursday, U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama called on the world to look to Berlin as a symbol of strength and hope that persevered against the threat of communism.

He started off his speech with a blatant lie. He denies being a presidential candidate, as if he were giving his delegates over to Hillary Clinton.

“I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before,” Obama said, confronting the delicate issue of campaigning abroad. “Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen — a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.”

His speech went downhill from there. He mentioned the "burdens of global citizenship" and that "Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more" as if Americans and Europeans had voted to do more, which they had not. The public has no choice as it will be forced on them. This requirement comes from his own personal desires, and those of his hidden backers. They desire to put a burden on the public. You have been warned!

“Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe,” Obama said. “No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more — not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.” More

Hear a dictator in the making.

Dick Cheney denies veterans a pot to piss in

WASHINGTON - Vice President Cheney's invitation to address wounded combat veterans next month has been yanked because the group felt his security demands were Draconian and unreasonable.

The veep had planned to speak to the Disabled American Veterans at 8:30 a.m. at its August convention in Las Vegas.

His staff insisted the sick vets be sequestered for two hours before Cheney's arrival and couldn't leave until he'd finished talking, officials confirmed.

"Word got back to us ... that this would be a prerequisite," said the veterans executive director, David Gorman, who noted the meeting hall doesn't have any rest rooms. "We told them it just wasn't acceptable." More

Fake Government set up in India

In Uttar Pradesh, new-age fraudsters are redefining trickery. Authorities here have unearthed a fully functional "branch" office of a "Nagar Nigam" in Jhansi.

The office, run by an employee of Jhansi Nagar Nigam, not only employed over 20 people, but was also performing civic works and collecting taxes and even issuing birth and death certificates. It was only after the authorities got a whiff that the person running it, Shyam Valmiki alias Shyam Netaji, was caught.

Jhansi district magistrate (DM) Rajeev Agarwal, shocked by the manner in which the entire racket was operating, says: "It would've been difficult for me to believe that a racket like this could exist, had we not actually stumbled upon this."

Police believe the racket was initially confined to fake appointment of sweepers. Valmiki's idea, according to the police, would have primarily been to pocket Rs 40 lakh in the name of ensuring their appointment and then disappear. "But he later seems to have decided to carry on with the office as it didn't appear to be a loss-making proposition. And when he tried to change his decision, things went out of hand," said a police officer. More

Congressmen's Plane Makes Emergency Landing

Houston, TX — The Federal Aviation Administration has started investigating the emergency landing in New Orleans of a Continental Airlines Boeing 737 carrying former presidential candidate Ron Paul and six other members of Congress, officials said.

Les Dorr, an FAA spokesman, said the plane, from Houston enroute to Washington D.C., was being inspected in New Orleans, where Continental Flight 458 landed late Tuesday. After a loss in cabin pressure, the pilot declared a mid-air emergency and oxygen masks dropped from overhead compartments.

He said the agency routinely reviews such incidents and that it made no difference that seven national lawmakers were aboard. The aircraft and its maintenance records are being reviewed to see "if there was any kind of possible correlation," Dorr said. He said that there could have been a number of reasons why the plane made the emergency landing.

The seven congressmen, all from Texas, were trying to get back in time for a Tuesday night vote on an aviation safety bill when the flight landed without incident, a spokesman for one of the representatives said. No injuries were reported among the 128 crew and passengers. More

Police, Firefighters, Utility Workers Trained as “Terrorism Liaison Officers”

Hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and even utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as "Terrorism Liaison Officers" in Colorado and a handful of other states to hunt for "suspicious activity" — and are reporting their findings into secret government databases.

It's a tactic intended to feed better data into terrorism early-warning systems and uncover intelligence that could help fight anti-U.S. forces. But the vague nature of the TLOs' mission, and their focus on reporting both legal and illegal activity, has generated objections from privacy advocates and civil libertarians.

"Suspicious activity" is broadly defined in TLO training as behavior that could lead to terrorism: taking photos of no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements or notes, espousing extremist beliefs or conversing in code. More

San Diego Comes Under Mock Bio-Terror Attack

A four-day training exercise stretching from the U.S.-Mexico border to East County puts more than 70 agencies to the test during a fake anthrax attack.

"Operation Golden Phoenix 2008" began Monday and will put physicians, nurses, Marines, Border Patrol agents and city and county officials to the test, with cameras recording every move.

Its all part of a mock bio-terrorism attack on San Diego, in which the city comes under a fake anthrax contamination. Officials said the drill involves the simulation of terrorists sneaking in anthrax at the border.

Temporary houses made of foil covered with foam and tape were setup for victims along with a reunification center for families affected by the mock drill. More

McCain, Obama address racial supremist group

Republican nominee John McCain and Democratic nominee Barack Obama spoke at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, which in English is translated as "The Race", and is an extreme Hispanic lobby group that advocates a militant "reconquista" of the Southwestern United States.

“Obama spoke to all the important issues to our community. It was a very good speech that helped connect him to the Latino community,” said Raul Yzaguirre, who served as NCLR’s president from 1974 to 2005.

“Incredibly, McCain did not even address the issues of the war in Iraq or his policy on health care. On immigration it was more of the same: secure the borders and no stop to the raids,” said Angela Sambrano, an NCLR board member and director of the National Alliance of Latin-American and Caribbean Communities. More

War on Photography: No freedom on July 4th

As millions of Americans celebrated a holiday that marks their freedom, an Oklahoma man got a real look at what it is like to have that freedom taken away by thugs and bullies.

Chris Owens said he was handcuffed, thrown into the back of a police car and harassed for taking pictures of a car crash scene Monday evening.

He said he witnessed the end of a high-speed chase while riding his scooter down N Classen Blvd. Monday.

"That black SUV passed me doing about 120," Owens said. "I stopped, pulled off on the median, had my camera and just walked around and shot a few pictures."

Much to Owens' surprise, when police saw him taking the pictures, they demanded he hand them over or go to jail. Owens said three troopers and an Oklahoma City police officer were present during the incident.

Troopers told Owens he was inside a crime scene and had no right taking pictures. Owens said he was outside the tape, but deleted the pictures fearing he would be thrown in jail.

"Where's the checks and balances? Who lets them run like unleashed dogs," Owens said. More

Monopoly money increases in value relative to Dollar

The popular board game Monopoly was introduced by Parker Brothers company in 1934 and sold for five cents.

In 2008 the game sells for a typical price of $20 and still includes the same amouint of game money as in 1934.

Even is the game currency is only a fraction of the value of the game, this represents an astonishing plummet in value of the dollar, relative to a cheaply printed pretend currency.

The US Treasury and Federal Reserve offered no explanation as to why their policies would cause this steep devaluation to occur to the dollar.

“Strike teams” invade Iowa flood victims’ homes

So far the federal government has done little to respond to the historic floods in eastern Iowa which are among the worst in recorded history. In order to maintain tyranny in the flooded areas, local governments have had to step up to meet the challenge.

Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff said that he was pleased with the federal government’s virtually invisible response to the Midwest flooding, which in some areas exceeded 500-year plan levels and has destroyed millions of acres of crops across six states and displaced tens of thousands of people.

In Cedar Rapids, where the Cedar River crested at 31.1 feet, flooding nine square miles and displacing over 24,000 people, police have cordoned off large areas of the town and have sent in so-called “strike teams” to “inspect” houses as floodwaters begin to recede.

Police chief Greg Graham said that while firefighters would enter homes through unlocked doors and windows, law enforcement would not enter homes. Yet video evidence has surfaced that police officers were not only entering homes, but breaking down locked doors and windows to do so. More

Chinese Olympics clean-up: death camp for cats

Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned by their owners and sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games.

Hundreds of cats a day are being rounded and crammed into cages so small they cannot even turn around.

Then they are trucked to what animal welfare groups describe as death camps on the edges of the city.

The cull comes in the wake of a government campaign warning of the diseases cats carry and ordering residents to help clear the streets of them. More

"Goatse" Congress gives it up for Bush

WASHINGTON - A White House-backed spy bill to protect telecommunication companies from billions of dollars in possible privacy lawsuits passed a Senate test vote and headed toward final congressional approval.

On a vote of 80-15, mostly Republican supporters of the bipartisan measure, which would also implement the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. spy laws in decades, easily mustered the 60 needed to clear a Democratic procedural roadblock.

Overwhelmingly approved by the House of Representatives on Friday, the bill may win needed Senate concurrence before Congress begins a holiday break the end of this week.

President Bush has promised to sign the measure, which would replace a temporary surveillance law that had expired in February.

In addition to providing a special court review of lawsuits against telecommunication companies, the bill would increase oversight of U.S. intelligence activities and bolster privacy protection -- but not as much as civil liberties groups and a number of lawmakers want. More

Irish voters say no to Fourth Reich

Substantial vote tallies across Ireland show the European Union Lisbon reform treaty has been rejected, Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern has said.

European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso said all indications were that Ireland had indeed rejected the treaty.

He called for other states to continue their ratification processes and said a solution should be sought.

The treaty must be ratified by all 27 members. Only Ireland has held a public vote on it. More

Michael Reagan advocates sexual assault of children

Michael Reagan, son of former president Ronald Reagan, advocated sexually abusing Arab children by anally assaulting them with a foreign object. He made the comments on his publicly aired radio program.

Speaking of Arab babies, Mr. Reagan said, "You know what I'd get them for their first birthday? I'd put a grenade up their butts and light it. Happy birthday baby, bye-bye."

Later in his program, Reagan stated that we will achieve peace "when everybody in the Middle East is dead."

Reagan wrote an autobiography in which he claims he was sexually abused as a child. Being well paid to catapult neocon propaganda, he apparent draws on his unresolved emotional anguish to do his job.

Watch the video

Raped by lookalike foods: The Tomato Caper

The source of the Salmonella that has sickened hundreds of people through tainted tomatoes may be in Mexico and South and Central Florida, according to U.S. investigators.

Health officials said all indications pointed to a single geographic region as the source of the outbreak, which has sickened 228 people in 23 states.

David Acheson, associate commissioner for foods at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on a conference call that nine people who became ill with Salmonella had eaten at two different outlets of the same restaurant chain. He declined to name the chain or the location of the restaurants. "That represents a small cluster within this outbreak," he said.

The outbreak has been disastrous for the U.S. tomato industry, which produced $1.28 billion of the fruit last year. More

Clinton ends campaign charade

Hillary Clinton has finally ended her pretend campaign against Barak Obama and has conceded to his effort to be elected president of the United States.

Ms. Clinton, shown here with a supporter, also told her supporters they should join her in the fight to help Obama win the White House.

Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been,'' Clinton, 60, told a crowd of more than 1,000 supporters gathered at the National Building Museum in Washington.

``We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next president.''

This news did not find acceptance from Harriet Christian, an alleged Clinton supporter, who ranted angrily about how inadequate Obama is and how she was now going to vote for McCain.

Council snoopers use terror powers to scour people's phone records

Council snoopers using terror powers have delved into almost 1,000 peoples' phone records in a bid to probe anything from a bogus faith healer to dog smuggling.

Other bizarre investigations carried out under surveillance powers designed to track terrorists include a rogue pharmacist and unburied animal carcasses.

A survey of Big Brother spying Town Halls revealed that one council used the powers almost 100 times to monitor private phone calls and emails.

It comes just a month after it was revealed Poole Council in Dorset had spied on a family because it wrongly suspected the parents of abusing rules on school catchment areas.

In total councils looked into 936 people's private communications data - who they phoned and emailed - under the Regulation Of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) in the 2006/2007 financial year. More

States make room for DNA samples

At last fall's groundbreaking ceremony for North Dakota's 7,300-square-foot crime laboratory, state Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said space at the existing facility was so "desperately" short, some staffers had resorted to "cutting mouse pads in half to make them fit."

When the $5.3 million Bismarck facility is completed in October, the spacious quarters will easily accommodate the current staff, who soon will be asked to process and maintain an increasing amount of DNA.

A rapid expansion of DNA sampling is corresponding with a building and hiring boom in North Dakota and other states to accommodate the collection of hundreds of thousands of new genetic profiles.

Five states are slated to begin new sampling of suspects arrested for felony offenses between July and January 2009. Of those, North Dakota, California, Maryland and Kansas are spending millions of dollars to prepare for the additional testing. South Dakota, which will begin additional sampling in July, built a new lab in 2006. More

Unsafe Deposit Boxes Thanks to States Greed

The 50 U.S. states are holding more than $32 billion worth of unclaimed property that they're supposed to safeguard for their citizens. But a "Good Morning America" investigation found some states aggressively seize property that isn't really unclaimed and then use the money -- your money -- to balance their budgets.

Unclaimed property consists of things like forgotten apartment security deposits, uncashed dividend checks and safe-deposit boxes abandoned when an elderly relative dies. Banks and other businesses are required to turn that property over to the state for safekeeping. The problem is that the states return less than a quarter of unclaimed property to the rightful owners. More

Aboriginal stolen children 'were used in leprosy tests'

The Australian government has launched an investigation into claims that aboriginal children seized from their parents during the 1920s and 1930s were secretly used as guinea pigs for leprosy treatments.

The allegations surfaced at a Senate inquiry this week into plans to compensate the "stolen generation" of aboriginal Australians who were taken from their families as part of a government programme.

"As well as being taken away, they were used... There are a lot of things that Australia does not know about," Kathleen Mills, a member of the Stolen Generations Alliance and an indigenous elder, told the hearing.

Ms Mills said children held at a compound in Darwin were injected with serums designed to be used in the treatment of leprosy – a practice which seriously damaged their health. Her uncle, who worked there as a medical orderly, had told her about the sinister goings-on.

"He said it made our people very, very ill. The treatment almost killed them," she told reporters outside the hearing. "It was a common experience and a common practice." More

Food Rationing begins in US

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy. More

Vancouver transit riders tasered for not paying fares

VANCOUVER, Canada — The country's only armed transit police have been tasering passengers who try to avoid paying fares.

According to documents provided in response to a Freedom of Information request, police patrolling public transit in the Metro Vancouver area have used tasers 10 times in the past 18 months, including five occasions when victims had been accosted for riding free.

In one incident, a non-paying passenger was tasered after he held onto a railing on the SkyTrain platform and refused to let go.

"After several warnings to the subject to stop resisting arrest and the subject failing to comply with the officers' commands, the taser was deployed and the subject was taken into control," said the report provided by TransLink, the region's transit authority.

An internal review of the incident concluded that the action taken by transit police officers complied with the force's policy and was within guidelines "set out in the National Use of Force Model," the report said. More

Experts dubious about 3rd-graders’ plot

WAYCROSS, Ga. - Allegations that third-graders hatched an elaborate plot to knock out, handcuff and stab their teacher were met with shock by neighbors and with doubt by psychiatry experts who said it is unlikely that children that young seriously intended to hurt anyone.

Police say the plot at Center Elementary School began because the children, ages 8 to 10, were apparently angry after the teacher disciplined one of the students for standing on a chair.

Students brought a crystal paperweight, a steak knife with a broken handle, steel handcuffs and other items as part of last week's plot, police said Tuesday. They said nine students were involved, but prosecutors are seeking juvenile charges against only three of them. More

Absolut vodka pulls ad showing California in Mexico

The contours of the billboard map of Mexico and its neighbors may have been familiar, but not its political boundaries: California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas were shaded in the green of a Mexico that stretched from close to Canada to the jungles of Guatemala. "In an Absolut World!" the billboard proclaimed, alongside the image of a bottle of Absolut vodka.

Ruminating over the loss to the U.S. of what had been Mexican territories before the Mexican-American war of 1846-1848 may have been an ad maker's idea of a good way to sell hard liquor and get a chuckle south of the Rio Grande, but some up north didn't find it so funny. After a barrage of complaints on its Internet site and threats to boycott the Swedish-made brand in the U.S., Absolut announced it was withdrawing the advert. "In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues," wrote Absolut spokeswoman Paula Eriksson on the company website. "Instead, it hearkens to a time which the population of Mexico may feel was more ideal." More

Possible Japan Ban For Chinese Torch 'Thugs'

LONDON - The mysterious Chinese guardians of the Olympic flame, whose charming blue tracksuits do not make them seem any less sinister, may have to hang up their fanny-packs when they return to the Pacific.

Japan is the latest country to consider banning the boys in blue from protecting the Olympic torch, according to Japan's Kyodo News Agency. National police chief Shinya Izumi told the agency that security would be firmly maintained by Japanese police, adding: "We do not know what position the people who escorted the relay are in…If they are for the consideration of security, it is our role."

The comments mirror the position of Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, who was adamant that security should be the preserve of the country hosting the torch relay. "We will not be having Chinese security forces, or the security services, providing security for the torch when it's in Australia," Rudd told reporters on Wednesday. "We in Australia will be providing that security." More

TSA nipple ring nightmare

LOS ANGELES, CA - The Transportation Security Administration said Friday its officers at a Texas airport appear to have properly followed procedures when they allegedly forced a woman to remove her nipple rings -- one with pliers -- but acknowledged the procedures should be changed.

The woman involved -- Mandi Hamlin -- told reporters earlier Friday she was humiliated by last month's incident, in which she was forced to painfully remove the piercings behind a curtain as she heard snickers from male TSA officers nearby. The incident occurred at the Lubbock, Texas, airport.

The officers "rightly insisted that the alarm that was raised be resolved," the TSA said in a statement posted on its Web site Friday afternoon. "TSA supports the thoroughness of the officers involved as they were acting to protect the passengers and crews of the flights departing Lubbock that day.".

However, "TSA has reviewed the procedures themselves and agrees that they need to be changed," the statement said. "In the future, TSA will inform passengers that they have the option to resolve the alarm through a visual inspection of the article in lieu of removing the item in question." More

Police insert fingers into woman's vagina to search for drugs

ALBANY, NY - The cops in the marked patrol car had circled through West Hill a couple times keeping an eye on their female target.

They were part of the Street Drug Unit, an aggressive squad assigned to help rid Albany's neighborhoods of drug dealers and addicts blamed for much of the city's problems.

It was early evening and already dark when the patrol car's emergency lights flashed in the rearview mirror of Lisa Shutter's Mitsubishi sedan on Quail Street, just off Central Avenue. Police records show the officers called out a "Signal 38" to alert a dispatcher they were onto something suspicious and about to pull someone over.

They would later write in a report that they had pulled her over for "failure to signal," although no ticket was issued, according to police records shared with the Times Union. The actions of police in the minutes that followed would end in controversy rather than with an arrest. They would also leave Shutter, a 28-year-old single mother from Ravena, shaken and angry after one of the officers allegedly inserted his finger into Shutter's vagina on a public street during an apparent search for drugs.

When it was over, "I pulled off down the road and I just cried for probably a half hour," Shutter said. "I called my dad. ... I felt like I had been basically raped." More

FBI spawns 'shoot-to-kill' citizens

An alliance dubbed the 'InfraGard', which reportedly consists of over 23,000 representatives of the US' private sector in addition to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, is engaged in secret activities to maintain elements of 'critical national infrastructure'.

According to an article published in the Progressive magazine, these businessmen impart vital information to the FBI in return for secret intelligence about 'terrorist threats' prior to informing the public and perhaps even government officials.

"One business owner in the United States tells me that InfraGard members are being advised on how to prepare for a martial law situation-and what their role might be," author Matthew Rothschild quoted a whistleblower as saying. More

Canadians with disabilities to pay single fare - including the obese

GATINEAU, Que. - Canadian airline passengers with disabilities, including passengers in wheelchairs and the severely obese, will no longer have to pay double fares for an extra seat on domestic flights, the Canadian Transportation Agency has ruled.

The agency has ordered Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz and WestJet to adopt a one-person, one-fare policy to allow persons with severe disabilities to travel on flights within Canada without having to pay twice.

One of the Canadians who launched the case, a B.C. woman who is confined to a wheelchair, was thrilled with the decision.

"It means we have the same rights as everyone else," said Joanne Neubauer from her home in Victoria. "I've always wanted to go to the Maritimes," she said. "I've seen pictures but I've never been because I haven't been able to afford (two seats.)" More

80-year-old Texan puts attacker in hospital

Investigators say they were definitely going to rob him - possibly even kill him. But an 80-year-old North Texan wasn't about to let that happen, so he took action.

One of the suspects is in the hospital and both are facing charges.

Two men obviously thought James Pickett, 80, was an easy target when they showed up at his home on Saturday with a knife.

"He just came through that door, stabbing and beating," said Pickett.

Captain Clint Pullin said it looked as though the men wanted to kill him. More

It's the immigration theme park

Ever wonder what it's like to be an illegal border crosser? Mexico's Parque EcoAlberto offers tourists the chance to find out with caminata nocturna - a staged adventure that simulates illegally crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into the United States.

The Parque EcoAlberto is a 3,000 acre eco-park owned by the Hñahñu Indians in Hidalgo, Mexico. It does not border the United States but is in central Mexico, about 700 miles south of the actual crossing.

The park opened in 2004 with funding from the Mexican government and created the caminata nocturna - nighttime hike - in July of the same year. It costs 200 pesos (about $18 USD) to become "illegal" for about four hours. More

I hear voices: highly directional sound advertising

Advertising:- They’re determined to get into your head by one means or another, and a US company has found yet another way of invading your privacy in the name of forcing you to pay attention to advertisements.

You’re walking down a street in New York when all of a sudden, “Who’s that?” - whispers a woman’s voice. “Who’s There?”

No. You weren’t having a schizoid episode.

And, “There’s more going on here,” says a spooky voice with heart-beats in the background.

This time, it’s an online ad for Paranormal State, “a ghost-themed series premiering on A&E this week”.

The voice you heard in New York meant you were being subjected, without your permission, to an “audio spotlight” from a rooftop speaker. More

Sean Hannity Lies 3 Times in Rapid Succession

Sean Hannity gets paid very generously to catapult propaganda, and he is very enthuthiastic about what he does, In this clip, from his program in which he is speaking with former California governor, Jerry Brown, Hannity credits Ronald Reagan with creating 21 million new jobs, doubling income to federal government, and the longest peacetime period of econimic growth in history.

The problem is that these are outright lies. It is unclear whether he made up these lies on the spot, or he carefully scripts his lies, but here are the facts.

The number of jobs created when Reagan presided was 16 million. Adjusted for inflation, revenue increased under Reagan by only 15%. The unadjusted figure is 50%, not anything like the manufactured figure of doubling. Finally, economic growth lasted 92 months under Reagan, while it lasted 120 months under Bill Clinton.

The lesson is clear. When something comes out of the mouth of a paid propagandist, you can be sure it is a blatant lie!

Evil Canadian seeks to jail political opponents

David Suzuki has called for political leaders to be thrown in jail for ignoring the science behind climate change.

At a Montreal conference last Thursday, the prominent scientist, broadcaster and Order of Canada recipient exhorted a packed house of 600 to hold politicians legally accountable for what he called an intergenerational crime. Though a spokesman said yesterday the call for imprisonment was not meant to be taken literally, Dr. Suzuki reportedly made similar remarks in an address at the University of Toronto last month.

Addressing the McGill Business Conference on Sustainability, hosted by the Faculty of Management, Dr. Suzuki's wide-ranging speech warned against favouring the economy to the detriment of the ecology -- the tarsands in Northern Alberta being his prime example.

Toward the end of his speech, Dr. Suzuki said that "we can no longer tolerate what's going on in Ottawa and Edmonton" and then encouraged attendees to hold politicians to a greater green standard.

"What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there's a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they're doing is a criminal act," said Dr. Suzuki, a former board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. More

Lakota group secedes from U.S.

Political activist Russell Means, a founder of the American Indian Movement, says he and other members of Lakota tribes have renounced treaties and are withdrawing from the United States.

"We are now a free country and independent of the United States of America," Means said in a telephone interview. "This is all completely legal."

Means said a Lakota delegation on Monday delivered a statement of "unilateral withdrawal" from the United States to the U.S. State Department in Washington.

The State Department did not respond. "That'll take some time," Means said.

Meanwhile, the delegation has delivered copies of the letter to the embassies of Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile and South Africa. "We're asking for recognition," Means said, adding that Ireland and East Timor are "very interested" in the declaration.. More

Blackwater: Above the Law

San Diego, California - This is a Blackwater vehicle parked out front of the cigar shop on 7094 Miramar Road in a handicapped spot, although there is no apparent handicapped placard hanging from their rearview mirror.

Tent city in suburbs is cost of US home crisis

ONTARIO, California--Between railroad tracks and beneath the roar of departing planes sits "tent city," a terminus for homeless people. It is not, as might be expected, in a blighted city center, but in the once-booming suburbia of Southern California.

The noisy, dusty camp sprang up in July with 20 residents and now numbers 200 people, including several children, growing as this region east of Los Angeles has been hit by the US housing crisis.

The unraveling of the Inland Empire region reads like a 21st century version of "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck's novel about families driven from their lands by the Great Depression. More

Maine steals unused gift card funds

Having a ravenous apetite for funing sources, the state of Maine has contrived a way to take funds set aside to cover unused gift cards.

Ever wonder what will happen if someone sticks a gift card from Circuit City, Target, Barnes & Noble or another retail chain into your stocking this holiday season and you lose it, forget about it or can't find anything you want to buy with it?

If you don't use it within two years, the card will become dormant. Once that happens, you'll inadvertently do your small part to fuel a face-off between the state and dozens of out-of-state retailers over who should get that $25, $50 or $100 that you misplaced or tossed aside.

It's a high-stakes game involving dueling claims of ownership and unresolved legal issues. And for state government, it represents more - a multimillion-dollar hole in the budget. More

What New Yorkers know about Rudy Giuliani

When Rudolph Giuliani awoke on the morning of September 11, 2001, his political career was in the toilet. Nearing the end of his second term as mayor of New York City, a tenure marred by conflict and personal scandal, his approval rating was in the dismal 30th percentile, and he was term-limited from running again.

He dropped out of a 2000 Senate race against Hillary Rodham Clinton after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Besides, no New York City mayor had gone on to higher office since 1868. Newsweek referred to pre-9/11 Rudy as “unpopular” and “irrelevant.”

What a difference a day can make.

Later that day, the American public was introduced to Giuliani, covered in soot, addressing his city with a strength and poise not lacking the emotional weight of the tragedy. He was on the scene, not holed up in a bunker, and he commanded from the streets, just as at-risk as the people he was charged to serve. Holding impromptu press conferences amongst falling buildings and chaos, he displayed the valor of a true leader. That day, even New Yorkers who had long called their mayor a “fascist” and “Adolph Giuliani” loved Rudy. More

TSA Kicks Off New Year With Battery Restrictions

Battery enthusiasts who enjoy lining their checked baggage with excess power supplies are out of luck in 2008 under new government travel regulations, but it looks as though the average traveler with a laptop, cell phone or digital camera will not encounter nearly as much hassle as they might should they be holding more than 3 ounces of moisturizer.

Starting January 1, passengers will not be able to put loose, lithium-based batteries in their checked bags due to the possibility of fire, according to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Batteries that are attached to their designated devices, however, are permitted. Batteries rolling around with your clothes? Denied. Batteries installed in that extra digital camera? Good to go. Spare batteries must be packed with carry-on luggage.. More

The 10 most dangerous toys of all time

Lawn Darts, Clackers, Sky Dancer, are all dangerous toys that serve the purpose of weeding the gene pool and must be taken away.

Recently, Target recalled 10 of its Kool Toyz-brand play sets, citing hazards like "lead paint," "sharp points," and "puncture wound potential." The toys, which included plastic aircraft carriers, dinosaurs, and tanks, all appeared harmless enough. But according to the killjoys at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, children—at least those prone to eating plastic objects as big as their head—were at serious risk.

Not to be outdone, Mattel recalled 4.4 million Polly Pocket dolls and accessories because kids were swallowing the toy's magnets. The Associated Press reported, "If more than one magnet is swallowed, they can attach to each other and cause intestinal perforation, infection or blockage." Three children required surgery.

In recognition of these wonderful toys, Radar presents the 10 most dangerous toys of all time, those treasured playthings that drew blood, chewed digits, took out eyes, and, in one case, actually irradiated. To keep things interesting, they excluded BB guns, slingshots, throwing stars, and anything else actually intended to inflict harm. Visit the toy box from hell

Can cyborg moths bring down terrorists?

At some point in the not too distant future, a moth will take flight in the hills of northern Pakistan, and flap towards a suspected terrorist training camp.

But this will be no ordinary moth.

Inside it will be a computer chip that was implanted when the creature was still a pupa, in the cocoon, meaning that the moth’s entire nervous system can be controlled remotely.

The moth will thus be capable of landing in the camp without arousing suspicion, all the while beaming video and other information back to its masters via what its developers refer to as a “reliable tissue-machine interface.” More

Terrorsmack: Scuba Terrorism

In the 1960's Lloyd Bridges starred in a television program called Sea Hunt. As Mike Nelson, he would encounter terrorists almost every week while he was diving underwater investigating things.

These terrorists would hide behind rocks and then spring out at the unsuspecting Nelson. There would usually be a struggle which resulted in someone getting their air hose cut. Strangely, Mike Nelson would go right back each week and swim again in terrorist infested waters as if nothing had happened.

Now the FBI has warned dive shops about would be SCUBA terrorists that might seek training.

Warning signs of possible terrorism include requests for specialty training, including odd inquiries that are inconsistent with recreational diving. These may include: Requests to dive in murky water or sewer pipes. Inquires about procedures such as diver towing. More

A Haircut in the two Americas

In one America, a haircut costs $5-10 and consumes ten minutes of electricity.

In the other America, a haircut can cost as much as $1200 and emit tons of carbon emissions as the barber jets around to the location.

That is the America of John Edwards.

Joe Torrenueva, a Democrat, said he began cutting Edwards' hair for free but wound up charging him $300 to $500 per haircut, plus the cost of airfare and hotel stays. That's because Torrenueva was often forced to meet Edwards on the campaign trail to shear his locks. More

New laws are equating environmentalists with Al Qaeda

Rodney Coronado is caught up in a prosecution he never could have foreseen and which has the environmentalist community, in particular, digging in for a long fight with the federal government.

That's because his alleged crime doesn't involve something he actually did. Rather, it only involves something he said.

In 2003, Coronado gave a public speech about animal rights in Hillcrest attended by about 100 people and hosted by a vegetarian group. It was, he says, his "standard" speech at the time, talking about his own extreme efforts to protect wildlife, including a 1991-92 arson campaign against fur farms as an agent of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), for which he served 57 months in prison. During a Q&A period after the speech, someone asked him how he once made his incendiary devices. Having long retired from that kind of action, and having paid for it with prison time, he answered the question.

U.S. attorneys now say Coronado's brief response—the actual words themselves—is a federal crime. Not only that, it's terrorism.

And that word—"terrorism"—is new to the environmental movement when it comes to punishment for crimes. The word "eco-terrorist" was coined in 1982 by Ron Arnold, a prime mover in the anti-environmentalist "Wise Use Movement," but only recent laws make ecologically motivated speech a terrorist crime. The attorneys aren't even totally certain how it works. More

Canada to launch no-fly list in June

OTTAWA–A Canadian "no-fly" list of people to be barred from boarding domestic and international airline flights is set to take effect June 18, just as the busy summer flying season gets underway.

The move, nearly six years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, amounts to a flight blacklist of people "reasonably suspected" by federal officials as immediate threats to the safety of commercial aircraft, passengers or crew.

Under the rules, as passengers check in for flights, whether at kiosks or counters, their names will be automatically screened against the government's list, known as the "Passenger Protect" program.

The no-fly list will be drawn up by Transport Canada, with input from the RCMP and CSIS.

If a name is red-flagged as a possible match with a name on the no-fly list, the traveller will be directed to a flight agent, who will contact Transport Canada for a decision on whether to allow boarding. Airlines are responsible for protecting the passenger's confidentiality.

People denied access to a flight will be able to challenge their inclusion on the list, but in the short haul, they will be grounded. And the airport or local police will be notified.

Critics say the plan will not make air travel safer, and will likely lead to the kinds of "false positive" identification of people that has plagued a similar list in the United States. The most celebrated example involved Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, who was barred from boarding a flight when he was wrongly identified as being on the list. Infants have also been banned. More

Accounting Rules 'hiding' trillions in debt

Are you an American? Then you owe over $500,000 in debt. Pay up now!

The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion loss last year — far more than the official $248 billion deficit — when corporate-style accounting standards are used.

The loss reflects a continued deterioration in the finances of Social Security and government retirement programs for civil servants and military personnel. The loss — equal to $11,434 per household — is more than Americans paid in income taxes in 2006.

Modern accounting requires that corporations, state governments and local governments count expenses immediately when a transaction occurs, even if the payment will be made later.

The federal government does not follow the rule, so promises for Social Security and Medicare don't show up when the government reports its financial condition.

Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined. More

Why are there so many Girly Men?

Parents become rightly upset when they read news accounts of federal inspectors finding insect bits, pesticides, and other contaminants lacing foods that their children will eat. A new Japanese study now suggests that the plastic tableware and containers from which we often serve foods may contribute adulterants of their own—hormone-mimicking building blocks of a plastic.

Roughly 95 percent of all baby bottles currently on the market are made of polycarbonate. As the poly in polycarbonate implies, this plastic is a polymer—a chainlike molecule constructed by linking up individual units of a common chemical. In this case, each link is a molecule of bisphenol A.

Toxicologist Koji Arizono of the Prefectural University of Kumamoto, Japan, and his colleagues tested 10 different brands of polycarbonate baby bottles—purchased in the United States, Germany, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines—along with other types of clear-plastic tableware. When heated, all leached bisphenol A, a chemical that mimics the hormone estrogen, into the liquids they held. More

Remains of 9/11 Victims May Fill NYC Potholes

The pulverized remains of bodies from the World Trade Center disaster site were used by city workers to fill ruts and potholes, a city contractor says in a sworn affidavit filed yesterday in Manhattan Federal Court.

Eric Beck says debris powders - known as fines - were put in a pothole-fill mixture by crews at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, where more than 1.65 million tons of World Trade Center debris were deposited after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I observed the New York City Department of Sanitation taking these fines from the conveyor belts of our machines, loading it onto tractors and using it to pave roads and fill in potholes, dips and ruts," Eric Beck said.

In his first few months on the job, Beck said mechanical sifters found 2,000 bones per day. He recalled finding "bones, fingers, skulls, feet and hands" as well as a man's chest and "the full body of a man dressed in a suit." The remains were catalogued and turned over to the city, he said. But Beck said he was pushed to sift the debris quickly, and that remains may have been missed. More

Cicada Brood XIII: Prepare to be invaded!

The bees may have gone AWOL, but the cicadas have arrived!

It's been 17 long years, but they're coming back again. Cicada Brood XIII is on the verge of emerging from the ground, and swarming all over parts of the American Midwest. Based on the warmth of the ground, which should be a temperature of at least 64 degrees, together with rain moisture content, experts are predicting that the first cicadas will be emerging around May 21 or 22. Then the pesky little flying critters will be flitting about for a couple of weeks after that.

This current crop of Periodical Cicadas, going by the genus term Magicicada, are the same ones that tunneled into the ground in 1990. But these teenagers will soon be back, and they'll be looking for mates. The males will be doing it noisily, making that shrill, "screeeee"-ing sound for days and days. The females will be quiet, more or less.

The cicadas usually have demonic-looking little red eyes, although a small percentage may have white, pale blue, orange, or even chocolate brown eyes. They grow to a length of 1 to 1.5 inches, and have a black "W" near the tips of their forewings. More

Feds go gunning for endangered species

Most people think the the US federal government is responsible for protecting endangered species of plants and animals. Their assumption is wrong.

Fortunately, most Americans realize that killing endangered critters isn't just ethically heinous; it's also a big legal no-no. Which raises this question: Why is a federal agency using taxpayer dollars to kill such animals, and then playing hide-and-seek with the facts?

Welcome to the world of Wildlife Services. Southern Arizona residents will recall this U.S. Department of Agriculture division for its shooting spree last year in the San Rafael Valley near Sonoita. Invited by several area ranchers, airborne federal gunners ultimately sniped 200 coyotes.

But coyotes are just the beginning. The most recent stats available (finally, and perhaps grudgingly, posted on the agency's Web site) present a grim tally. In 2005, Wildlife Services killed 1.7 million animals. And a sizable slice of those were endangered, threatened or otherwise specially protected animals. More

Where's the Bees?

MISSOULA, MT - The disappearance and deaths of millions of honeybees in nearly half of the nation's states is a mystery seemingly befitting an episode of "CSI" and is threatening an estimated $14 billion in crops that rely on pollination.

In an inconspicuous office suite here -- the home of Bee Alert Technology Inc. -- scientists are feverishly working to solve an entomological mystery: What happened to tens of thousands of honeybee colonies in at least 24 states?

These are crime scenes without bodies. Beekeepers have been opening hives and instead of finding thriving colonies with as many as 60,000 bees, they find an apian ghost town.

"It's called Colony Collapse Disorder," said Jerry Bromenshenk, a University of Montana professor and head of Bee Alert who has studied honeybees for more than three decades. "We don't know that it's a disease, we don't know if it's due to management practices by beekeepers. There are so many variables. We can't yet find a common denominator." More

War on Drugs becomes War on Soap

The so called War on Drugs has been raised to a new height of absurdity, or perhaps descended to a new low of effectivness.

It was just another average day in the flamboyantly messy life of Don Bolles, once the drummer for the legendarily messy, flamboyant Los Angeles punk band, the Germs. On April 4, Bolles had picked up his girlfriend, the 21-year-old drummer for a band called Civet who goes by the name Cat Scandal, from a Newport Beach rehab, where she had, as he put it, “a day off.” They had just had coffee and were on their way to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

Cat Scandal was riding in the passenger seat of Bolles’s 1968 Dodge Van and they had just crossed out of Newport Beach into Costa Mesa when they were pulled over by police, who told Bolles that he allegedly had a broken brake light.

But what he really had was a crazy old van, a wild Russian fur cap, long hair, and a gorgeous young girlfriend. Bolles called it a classic case of profiling: driving while weird. And then they found the soap.

“It’s hilarious. A Germ arrested for soap,” says Bolles, 50, talking Monday via cell phone as he ran errands for a Friday court appearance. “It’s just ridiculous. I’ve already been in jail almost four days over this, and it’s completely wrong. It’s soap. It’s peppermint Dr. Bronner’s soap.” More

Support the Iraq War - Pay Your Taxes!

Millions of Americans who claim they oppose the war in Iraq recetly paid to keep it going.

Defunding the war in Iraq begins at home if you're John Schwiebert, a 68-year-old pastor at Metanoia Peace Community United Methodist Church in Northeast Portland.

This week, while the rest of us scrape together money to feed insatiable Uncle Sam, Schwiebert and his 62-year-old wife, Pat, one "seriously pissed-off granny" (see "Surge Protection Brigade," WW, Feb. 21, 2007), won't be filing federal taxes at all.

Instead, in an effort to prevent their money from paying for bloodshed overseas, they're redirecting the $3,500 they figure they owe the Internal Revenue Service to a government without a standing army—in this case, Multnomah County. (Although they say they oppose filing federal taxes, the Schwieberts don't object to paying state and local ones.) More

1944 Miss America Defends Farm With Gun

She's 82 years old and today says she's not afraid to use a gun to protect her community. This comes after she did just that shooting at a man's car she says was trying to steal metal near her home in Pulaski County.

Venus Ramey knows it would be easy for someone to take advantage of her. She's 82 and needs a walker to get around.

"I'm an old woman. They figure they can get away with a lot," Ramey said.

Last Friday, she says some people tried to get away with some of her scrap metal. They were caught in the act and police say Curtis Parish was the ringleader.

"And he said if you get out of my way, we'll leave. And I said oh no you won't and I shot 2 shots in one of their tires," Ramey said. More

CIA Thief Gets 3-Year Term for Treasure Hunt

A CIA employee who broke into McLean homes, stealing valuables and 1,074 pairs of women's undergarments, suffered from several mental health disorders, a forensic psychologist testified yesterday. Among other compulsions, he kept his fingernail clippings for 20 years and carefully inspected his pens for fear that they were bugged.

Anita Boss, testifying at the sentencing hearing for George C. Dalmas III, said the 48-year-old father of two had a "transvestic fetishism," which involved wearing women's clothes not for erotic reasons but to comfort himself. She said he also had a schizotypal personality disorder, making it difficult for him to form long-term relationships. The combination of the disorders "can be very disabling," Boss said. More

Army Bills Combat Soldiers for Missing Gear

Two years and 7,000 miles separate Spc. Ryan Preston of Gresham from his service in Iraq.

Yet Preston now faces a fresh battle—with his superiors in the Oregon Army National Guard.

Preston, whose six-year commitment to the Guard ends in October, learned in February that the Guard was planning to charge him $4,000 for military equipment it now considers missing from the year-plus he spent fighting in Iraq.

That list of personal equipment includes two canteens Preston says he had to leave on the battlefield under enemy fire. It also includes several other items—from Kevlar vests to body armor breast plates—that Preston says he left in military custody when he departed the Middle East.

This was not an isolated incident. Thousands of soldiers have been billed, including a West Virginia soldier who was seriously wounded by a roadside bomb was required to pay up for missing gear. More

Circuit City fires thousands for earning too much money

Los Angeles, CA - Circuit City fired 3,400 employees in stores across the country yesterday, saying they were making too much money and would be replaced by new hires willing to work for less.

The company said the dismissals had nothing to do with performance but were part of a larger effort to improve the bottom line. The firings represent about 9 percent of the company's in-store workforce of 40,000.

"Retail is very competitive and store operations just have to contain their costs," said Jim Babb, a Circuit City spokesman. "We deeply regret the negative impact that was had on these folks. It was no fault of theirs."

However, this SEC filing shows that there has been no effort to contain costs of CEO and executive compensation over the last three years, with Chairman W. Alan McCollough raking in over $2 million in salary and bonus. More

Bananas and Terrorism: The Chiquita Connection

Banana company Chiquita Brands International said Wednesday it has agreed to a $25 million fine after admitting it paid terrorists for protection in a volatile farming region of Colombia.

The settlement resolves a lengthy Justice Department investigation into the company’s financial dealings with right-wing paramilitaries and leftist rebels the U.S. government deems terrorist groups.

In court documents filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors said the Cincinnati-based company and several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers paid about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC for its Spanish initials.

The AUC has been responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia’s civil conflict and for a sizable percentage of the country’s cocaine exports. The U.S. government designated the right-wing militia a terrorist organization in September 2001.. More

National Guard Troops Attacked by Armed Mexicans

Tucson, AZ - President George Bush had ineptly handled the military mission in Iraq, while his efforts to safegaurd the homeland have also proven to be a dismal failure.

In a story that should have rang alarm bells in very newsroom across the nation, armed Mexicans entered the United States and attacked unarmed National Guard troops working at a border patrol post near the US-Mexican border. The troops had to retreat to safety.

According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region on January 3rd. The guardsmen were forced to retreat.

Unfortunately, President Bush and his Administration did not even comment on this vicious attack on unarmed US troops as well as the unbridled assault on American sovereignty. During a press conference held on Friday afternoon by Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, there was not one word about this unprovoked attack on soldiers. More

Saddam Hussein Lynched

Baghdad, Iraq - Saddam Hussein, the man who was president of Iraq for three times longer than George Bush has been president of the US, was taken to the gallows and lynched on Saturday.

Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court were also lynched.

The lynching came 56 days after a court convicted Saddam and sentenced him to death for his role in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from a town where assassins tried to kill the dictator in 1982.

"Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence," said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Saddam was removed from office by an invasion force that has caused nearly 3000 American soldiers to be sent to their deaths, as well as an estimated half million Iraqis.

Disguised duo get new licenses at Virginia DMV

Richmond, VA - A video is making rounds on the Internet with men donning disguises for a DMV photo. Posted last week, the nearly two-minute clip has already prompted the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles to revisit policies regarding how the state agency reissues driver's licenses and how photographs appear on IDs.

The video was made by Will Carsola and Dave Stewart. Carsola and Stewart said that they knew they were crossing the line, but did it solely for comedic value.

"Honestly, I think DMV is a little at fault for letting us get away with it, with terrorists and stuff going on now," Stewart added.

The filmmakers' actions were not illegal, Foy said, though it is against DMV policy to obscure faces with objects such as hats or sunglasses, which none of them did. They had beards and heavy brows, but there are no laws against facial hair. Headgear is allowed in an ID photo so long as it is for medical or religious purposes.

"Clearly these individuals abused the system," Foy said. More

Dead Ducks Found in Idaho

Oakley, ID- Ten dead ducks were reported by hunters on Friday, Dec. 8. By Dec. 10, the number climbed to 500. Several Idaho and federal agencies concluded an investigation this week and counted around 2,500 carcasses when cleanup was complete Thursday. Most were found along the banks of Land Springs Creek, 14 miles south of Burley.

Officials have determined that some 2,500 ducks that died near here over the last week were the victims of a fungus often found in moldy grain, among other things, according to an Idaho Fish and Game press release issued late Friday.

The respiratory tract infection, officially termed acute aspergillosis, is found in soil, dead leaves, moldy grain, compost piles or other decaying vegetation, the release said. “They ruled out Avian flu,” said Cassia County Sheriff Jim Higens early Friday. More

Border Fence Contractor Eyed for Hiring Illegal Labor

Washington DC – A California company under investigation on suspicion of hiring undocumented workers won a contract in the late 1990s to help build the San Diego border fence with Mexico to thwart illegal immigration, federal records show.

Federal authorities said there is no indication that the company, Golden State Fence Co., which has an office in Oceanside, hired undocumented workers on the fence project.

Over the past year, Golden State has been the focus of an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security for allegedly hiring undocumented workers on several projects, including those at military bases. No charges have been filed. More

Nazi Laws Alive and Well in Germany

Under a law enacted by Hitler in 1938 to enable the Reich to indoctrinate children, if you practice home schooling in Germany youcan get police forcing their way through your door, with you taken away and imprisoned in an undisclosed location.

In 1937, the Hitler said, "The Youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled. This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing."

In 2006, his legacy still lives on in Germany. More

Florida Diebold machines help pick the right candidate

Diebold's easily hacked voting machines have made voting to be an unpredictable endeavor. Down in the Sunshine State, during a week of early voting before next week's nationwide midterm election, certain Diebold machines have been registering some votes for Democrats as selections for the Republican candidate.

For instance, Gary Rudolf, a voter at a polling site near Ft. Lauderdale, tried to vote for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis (D); however, when the Diebold machine gave him the final review screen, it showed his vote was about to be cast for Charlie Crist (R). The problem took three tries to get resolved with the help of a local poll worker. More

Al-Qaeda Wants Republicans to Win

George W. Bush’s blunt assertion that a Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 elections means “the terrorists win and America loses” misses the point that Osama bin Laden stands to advance his strategic goals much faster with a Republican victory.

Last April, a National Intelligence Estimate, representing the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community, concluded that Bush’s Iraq War had become the “cause celebre” that had helped spread Islamic extremism around the globe.

In June, U.S. intelligence also learned from an intercepted al-Qaeda communiqué that bin Laden’s terrorist band wants to keep U.S. soldiers bogged down in Iraq as the best way to maintain and expand al-Qaeda’s influence.

“Prolonging the war is in our interest,” wrote “Atiyah,” one of bin Laden’s top lieutenants. More

Papers, Please: Travel Only if Permitted by Our Leader

Should you have to ask for permission from the government before you are allowed to get on a plane or cruise ship? ("Mother, may I?")

The USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed that airlines cruise lines, and operators of all other ships and planes -- including charter flights, air taxis, fishing vessels, etc. -- be required to get individual permission (”clearance”) from the DHS for each passenger on all flights or ocean voyages to, from, or via the USA. Unless the answer is “Yes” -- if the answer is “no” or “maybe”, or if the DHS doesn’t answer at all -- the airline wouldn’t be allowed to give you a boarding pass, or let you or your luggage on the plane.. More

US Army headed downhill

Military recruiting in 2006 has been marked by upbeat pronouncements from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, claims of success by the White House, propaganda releases by the Pentagon, and a spate of recent press reports touting the way the military has made its wo/manpower goals.

Last year, despite NASCAR, professional bull-riding, and Arena Football sponsorships; popular video games that doubled as recruiting tools; TV commercials dripping with seductive scenes of military glory; a "joint marketing communications and market research and studies" program actively engaged in measures to target for military service Hispanics, drop outs, and those with criminal records; and at least $16,000 in promotional costs for each soldier it managed to sign up, the U.S. military failed to meet its recruiting goals.

Brad Knickerbocker of the Christian Science Monitor noted, "The Army has had to recruit more soldiers from the ‘lowest acceptable' category based on test scores, education levels, personal background, and other indicators of ability." Even Undersecretary of Defense Chu admitted in July that almost 40% of all military recruits scored in the bottom half of the Armed Forces' own aptitude test. More

Bill Clinton is Homicidal

For years Bill Clinton has been dogged by persistent rumors about killing or having killed sevearal of his various enemies. Many of these are listed in a document called the Clinton Body Count, and they include several Arkansas enemies, as well as Vincent Foster. Foster allegedly commited suicide during the Clinton administration, but a cloud of suspicion remains concerning details of his death.

Recently, in a combative interview on "Fox News Sunday," former President Clinton defended his handling of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden, saying he tried to have bin Laden killed and was attacked for his efforts by the same people who now criticize him for not doing enough.

Clinton said he "worked hard" to try to kill bin Laden.

"We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody's gotten since," he said, in an animated manner that was menacing to host Chris Wallace.

Clinton's insistence of his obsession to kill bin Laden gives new life to the Clinton Body Count document, since he forcefully admits his desire to commit homicide.

Bush administration seeks amnesty for any war crimes

An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.

Senior officials have responded by drafting legislation that would grant U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment. More

U.S. Citizens Watched by Rifle Toting Guards in Airports

Growing lines of irritated travelers snaked through U.S. airports Thursday as people waited hours to reach security checkpoints, then had to dump their water bottles, suntan lotion and even toothpaste following the discovery of a terror plot in Britain.

Guards armed with rifles stood watch in several airports, and the governors of California, New York and Massachusetts said they were sending National Guard troops to bolster security.

The "War on Terror", which President Bush has demonstrably faked up, is being turned inward against U.S. citizens. Many of them voted for Mr. Bush, and believed he was going to protect them from an enemy, but get treated like suspects instead. More

Southwest Co-pilot suspected of intoxication

Salt Lake City, UT - A Southwest Airlines co-pilot was arrested minutes before takeoff Sunday, after a security screener reported that his breath smelled of alcohol, authorities said.

Carl Fulton, 41, of Fort Worth, Texas, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on suspicion of operating a common carrier while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, a federal offense.

Federal Aviation Administration officials will conduct an investigation. More

Hooters Offers to Reimburse FEMA $200 for Champagne

Atlanta, GA - Hooters of America announced that it is prepared to reimburse FEMA for the cost of a $200 bottle of Dom Perignon Champagne that was purchased with government funds at a San Antonio Hooters during the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts conducted by the Federal Agency.

The purchase was discovered as part of an investigation by the GAO into improper spending of over a billion dollars by supposed victims and has been highly publicized in various news stories about the investigation following recent Congressional hearing on the matter. More

Homeland Security accepts fake ID

A man using a fake identification card was able to enter the Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington, even though the type of Mexican-issued "matricula consular" card he used is not recognized as valid by the United States government.

Retired New York City policeman Bruce DeCell, who had arranged to meet with DHS officials to lobby for document security, purposely used a forged version of identification that Mexican consulates in the United States issue to their nationals living here illegally.

Undocumented Mexicans can use the cards at banks and other institutions that accept them. The cards are not valid for entry into federal government buildings. More

FEMA hurricane funds spent on sex change, divorce

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The government doled out as much as $1.4 billion in bogus assistance to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, getting hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and even a divorce lawyer, congressional investigators have found.

Prison inmates, a supposed victim who used a New Orleans cemetery for a home address, and a person who spent 70 days at a Hawaiian hotel all were able to wrongly get taxpayer help, according to evidence that gives a new black eye to the nation's disaster relief agency.

To demonstrate how easy it was to fool FEMA, the GAO told of an individual who used 13 different Social Security numbers, including the person's own, to receive $139,000 in payments on 13 separate registrations for aid. The payments were sent to one address. More

Database Nation: Ordering Pizza in 2010

With the proliferation of government and private databases, which are often linked together, a simple transaction could take on a new character in the near future.

Data that has been traditionally unavailable to the government because of constitutional issues can now be purchased from private firms such as Choicepoint. This circumvention of the law allows government databases to be more comprehensive.

For a humorous and cautionary look at what this could mean, follow this link. Order your pizza

'Get More' info on RFID

RFID tags are becoming more common, and will one day replace the Universal Product Code we have all been familiar with for over 30 years.

These microchips each contain a unique ID number that can be linked to a database and accesed over a network.

The database can contain anything, including the product manufacture date, lot number, shipping route and dates, vendor, price, buyer ID, and location in real time each time it passes by a chip reader that is connected to the network.

This lovely lady is going to demonstrate how RFID tagging works with technology that is already implemented today. More

How is the Drug War going?

The War on Drugs was started to rid society of illicit drugs by arresting suppliers, traffickers and users. After more than 40 years of effort, and hundreds of billions of dollars spent eradicating illicit drugs, the drug business is doing quite well. It would not be difficult to conclude that the drug wars have cause the drug trade to prosper.

Now it seems even the Teletubbies, stars of the popular television show bearing their name, have gotten involved in the drug trade. A recent bust uncovered millions of dollars worth of cocaine that was branded with the Teletubbies images. Perhaps alarmed pundits should quit sniping at Tinky Winky for carrying a purse, and take a closer look at what the allegedly gay character is carrying in the purse. More

Domestic spying, Bush style

There has been an ongoing story of the NSA listening to phone calls of Americans who are talking to people in other countries. President Bush has authorized this spying on Americans without warrants and has told the American people it is okay to do this because he is president and therefore he can do whatever he wants to do.

More recently it has come to light that a large database is being built by the NSA that contains records of phone calls made by customers of AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, despite previous denials by Bush of scrutinizing domestic only calls.

If you ever wanted to hear what an NSA analyst would listen to, now you have a chance. StaggerOn.org has obtained some exclusive SIGINT (signal intelligence) intercepts of American citizens who thought their phone calls were private, even as they were being eavesdropped on. More

Mexican flags burned on May 1

Oceanside, Alta California - A video was submitted to StaggerOn.org that shows Mexican flags and a sign the says "La Raza" (The Race) being consumed in fire.

The video clip was submitted by an Oceanside student who did not identify him/her self, but made a brief statement.

"My father was born in Mexico and came here before I was born," the source said. "I have gone back with him to his home, and I can see why he left. No human would want to live there."

"I think it's a joke that many of the activists of immigration scream about their opponents being rascist, while they call theselves La Raza. That means The Race in English. So I burned these flags and made a video to show how stupid that is." Watch the Video

Shell has higher profits, watered down gas

PATERSON, NJ - Darnell Greene had a bone to pick today with this Delta gas station attendant in Paterson, all due to yesterday's ten-dollar fill-up.

The problem? Watered down gasoline, part of a bad shipment. A big shipment - totaling tens-of-thousands of gallons of fuel supplied by the Shell Oil Company and distributed out a Newark refinery.

Darnell told us as soon as he "pulled out of the lot, the car started sputtering, and backfiring." More

Bush warns children - jobs to go to India

Washington, DC - President George W Bush has warned the country's schoolchildren that if they did not have the skills needed to compete with their counterparts from India and China, new jobs would go to those countries.

The President was addressing a magnet school in Rockville, Maryland, on Tuesday, stressing among other things, the criticality of such subjects as Mathematics and Science.

"It's important to understand, if children don't have those skill sets needed to compete with a child from India or a child from China, the new jobs will be going there," Bush told the students.

"And so, in order to make sure we remain the leader of the world, we have got to continue our focus in education on high standards, accountability, and a new focus and intense focus on math and science, just like as what's happening in this school," he said.

The most important factor in jobs going abroad, and left unmentioned by Bush, is that none of the training in math and science prepare a student in the skills they really need to compete. The skills they really need is to learn how to live on a wage of a dollar an hour, because that is what they are really competing with, and why those jobs are sent elsewhere. More

Where your gas money went

Each trip to the gas pump digs a little deeper into your pocket. As you pay more and more for the fuel to run your transportation needs, you have less to spend on your other needs in your life. This cuts your standard of living to a lower level.

Oil companies pay people to explain why you must pay them more for the same amount of fuel. The story is usually some variation on higher costs to them being passed along to you at the pump. It could be higher crude oil prices one week, a refinery explosion the next week, and reduced capacity on another week, creating costs that must be passed on.

Somehow, in spite of all these hardships suffered by the oil companies, one of them did quite well. Exxon did so well, in fact, that it had record profits of $36 billion.

Exxon's retiring chairman was able to get the company to share the wealth with him.The company is giving Lee Raymond one of the most generous retirement packages in history, nearly $400 million, including pension, stock options and other perks, such as a $1 million consulting deal, two years of home security, personal security, a car and driver, and use of a corporate jet for professional purposes.

That kind of compensation should keep Mr. Raymond stocked with plenty of groceries in his larder. The company car will insulate him from paying the escalating fuel prices the rest of us a stuck with. Perhaps the windfall will motivate him to replace his poorly crafted hairpiece with expertly done hairplugs. Next time you are getting fuel in your vehicle, it would be interesting to do a calculation of how much you are contribution to the Lee Raymond retirement package. More

US Government caught in a lie about Iraq occupation

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Claims by the Bush administration or the Pentagon of completing the mission in Iraq and ordering troop withdrawal have been shown to be a lie.

A new U.S. Embassy the size of Vatican City, is being constructed beside the Tigris River. Having the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, the fortresslike compound is a monument to an occupation force that plans to dig in and stay a long while, perhaps permanently.

The embassy complex - 21 buildings on 104 acres, according to a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report - is taking shape on riverside parkland in the fortified ''Green Zone,'' just east of al-Samoud, a former palace of Saddam Hussein's, and across the road from the building where the ex-dictator is now on trial. More

Evil Texan wants to kill most humans

Austin, Texas - Perhaps Homeland Security agents might want to take a break from cruising the net for young teen poon and take a look at Eric R. Pianka.

The University of Texas Professor has grand schemes for wholesale liquidation of human populations that would dwarf the grandest ambitions of Stalin, Hilter and Mao combined, by using the Ebola virus.

"Every one of you who gets to survive has to bury nine," Eric Pianka cautioned students and guests at St. Edward's University on Friday. Pianka's words are part of what he calls his "doomsday talk" - a 45-minute presentation outlining humanity's ecological misdeeds and Pianka's predictions about how nature, or perhaps humans themselves, will exterminate all but a fraction of civilization.

Professor Pianka said the Earth as we know it will not survive without drastic measures. Then, and without presenting any data to justify this number, he asserted that the only feasible solution to saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10 percent of the present number.

In an account by Forrest M. Mims III, (known for authoring those Radio Shack technical booklets instructing in the use of logic chips) Pianka advocated for the extermination of 90 percent of the human species in a most horrible and painful manner. Apparently at the speaker's direction, the speech was not video taped by the Academy and so Forrest's may be the only record of what was said. More

Homeland Security official arrested in online sex sting

Miami, Florida - One Homeland Security official got tired of connecting dots leading to terrorists and botching emergency aid, so he decided to whet his appetite for sexual encounters with young teen girls.

Unfortunately, his intelligence gathering abilities did not include watching recent news reports about undercover officers setting up stings to catch adult men trying to seduce underage girls, and he got caught sending pornographic movie clips and having sexually explicit conversations via the internet with someone he was tricked into thinking was a 14 year old girl.

Brian J. Doyle, 55, was arrested at his residence in Maryland on charges of use of a computer to seduce a child and transmission of harmful material to a minor. The charges were issued out of Polk County, Fla.

On several occasions, Doyle instructed the girl to perform a sexual act while thinking of him and described explicit activities he wanted to have with her, investigators said. More

Reconquest of "Aztlan" march in "Alta California"

Los Angeles, California - A crowd of pro-immigration demonstrators estimated at over 500,000 marched on downtown Los Angeles on Monday.

The size of the march and rally surprised the world and the nation. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department made a statement on Thursday, to the local media, that they expected between 10,000 to 15,000 to participate in the march. The LAPD is now reporting that over 500,000 participated.

In their account of the march, pro-reconquest site La Voz de Aztlan reports:

"What does the immense success of "La Gran Marcha" mean to Mexicanos and other Latinos? It simply means that we now have the numbers, the political will and the organizational skills to direct our own destinies and not be subservient to the White and Jewish power structures."

La Voz de Aztlan also stated their goal to eventually "elect our own governors" of all the states within "Aztlan." More

Federal lawyers tell doctors how to practice medicine

Wheelchairbound multiple sclerosis patient Richard Paey is serving 25 years in a Florida prison for “trafficking” 1/2 gram of OxyContin, even though the prosecutor concedes that Paey never sold any of his medications. In prison, he now receives more pain-killing drugs than he was convicted of having.

Dr. William Hurwitz, a pioneering pain physician, was tried and convicted of violating the Controlled Substances Act -- which is intended to curb the illicit use of drugs -- and is serving a 25-year term in federal prison. He was also fined $2 million.

These are but two of hundreds of cases in which, in its zeal to stamp out the illegal drug use, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is cracking down on doctors who prescribe medications to relieve chronic pain, and the patients who depend on these drugs to live normal lives.

The DEA’s dilemma is separating legitimate prescribers and users from drug dealers. And the DEA’s task is made more difficult, not only by its zeal, but by the fact that those investigating and prosecuting are not doctors but lawyers and law enforcement agents. More

Fort Hood Soldier Charged In Child Injury Case

KILLEEN, Texas -- The "special training" that a soldier gets to complete missions like say, guarding Iraqi prisoners, is often useful at home.

One of Bush's shock troops used his skills to get his 3-year-old daughter to fight a 5-year-old boy his wife was babysitting.

Dennis Michael Bittinger, 22, a Fort Hood soldier, was arrested and charged with injury to a child in connection with a videotaped attack on a 5-year-old boy, Killeen police said. He was ordered held in lieu of $100,000 bond. More

More lessons from Katrina: Help is NOT on the way

The historic 2005 storm Katrina taught some very important lessons to those who will learn from them.

The most important lesson is that you are on your own. There is no state, local, or federal agency that have any legal obligation to look after your safety and well being. Some agency might help, or they might make it worse for you. It is unwise to include help from any agency in your emergency plans. Any assistance you receive will be an added unplanned bonus. So you must take stock of your needs and plan ahead.

Another important lesson is that many people in your same situation will share resources and abilities to get you through the crisis. Even while the authorities who are chartered to help you turn against you, there are individuals who will pitch in and do their part to help in survival.

One other lesson is that there are people who will prey on you, and you must plan for this. Whether your plan involves hiding and avoidance, or self defense, you must consider this as a possibility. In New Orleans, the authorities were the perpetrators. While a third of the police force was on a self appointed junket in places like Las Vegas, some of the remaining police, along with National Guard, were forcibly removing some people, and stripping others of firearms, leaving them defenseless against the looters that they refused to protect them from. Video

These are lessons that are best to never be forgotten. If you live somewhere that will have storms, fires, flooding, quakes or infrastructure breakdown, these lessons may some day be very relevant to you.

Brokeback Presidency: The Bush-Fox legacy

It is curious that George W. Bush appears to be administering a border policy that is dictated to him by the Mexican president, Vicente Fox.

Mexico has very strict enforcement of crossing it's southern border with Guatemala, with armed troops turning back would be immigrants from the south.

However, if the U.S. were to have the same policy towards it's southern neighbor, Mexico would find that unacceptable. Mexico prefers for it's nationals to have unrestricted access to the U.S. with an open border.

Vicente Fox has been able to convince Bush to adopt the Mexican policy, in spite of Bush's insistence that there is a war on terror that requires some control of who immigrates. One view is that Fox is able to keep Bush in line on this policy because he posesses something incriminating, such as a video of sexual improprieties.

It is likely to be a much simpler issue than that.

Bush is in love with Fox.

.He has strong romantic feelings that Fox is willing to exploit for his own national interests. Since Fox is the alpha male or "top" in the relationship, he rations out affection. This maintains Bush in a state of desire to win the adoration from Fox, even at the expense of U.S. interests.

Observe their body language when they are together. Who stands ramrod straight in one position, and who moves about, fawning over the other? Watch a video, or view pictures and see for yourself. This gives an important indication of who is the dominant male in the relationship, and who is taking a submissive role. This star crossed, forbidden relationship between these two men has an impact on the destiny of millions of people in both nations.

Click on each photo to see a larger version compliments of www.whitehouse.gov

No Child Left Unmolested

One of the little goodies hidden in the Bush Administration "No Child Left Behind" program is that it gives military recruiters closer access to children in school.

Section 9528 grants the Pentagon access to directories with students names, addresses and phone numbers so that they may be more easily contacted and recruited for military service. Prior to this provision, one-third of the nation’s high schools refused recruiters’ requests for students’ names or access to campus because they believed it was inappropriate for educational institutions to promote military service.

And you thought NCLB was implemented to create better readers, testers and homework-doers.

One of the consequences of this program was to give adult men close access to underage teen girls. The result of this, which could be argued was unavoidable, is that many of these recruiters have been "recruiting" for more than just military "service".

One intrepid recuiter, Indiana National Guard Sgt. Eric P. Vetesy, has been accused of sexually assaulting six female recruits he met during his 18 months as a full-time recruiter. Hamilton County investigators said Monday he is accused of raping at least one recruit. More

In another case two women have said two U.S. Marine Corps recruiters forced them to have sex after they expressed interest in joining the force while they were 17 year old students. They have sued in a complaint alleging that one of them was raped on three separate occasions in, each time telling her that she had to have sex with him if she wanted to join the Marines." More

These cases, and the other like them, may not be all that unusual. It may be part of a training program for running prisons in Iraq and other locations in the alleged war on terror.

Another Patriot Act Gotcha: paying off your credit card

You may have been listening to the financial gurus who admonish you about carrying a large amount of debt, so you decide to pull your resources together and pay off your credit card.

That bit of financial responsibility could get you snared as a possible terrorist by the Patriot Act.

Walter Soehnge and his wife, Deana, of Rhode Island found out about this recently. The Soehnges decided to do the kind of thing that just about anyone would say makes good, solid financial sense. They paid down some debt.

The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522. And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable.

And all they did was pay down their debt. They didn't call a suspected terrorist on their cell phone. They didn't try to sneak a machine gun through customs.

They just paid a hefty chunk of their credit card balance. After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn't changed.

They both learned the same astounding piece of information about the little things that can set the threat sensors to beeping and blinking. They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted. More

Patriot Act passed, used to lock up US citizens, not terrorists

Despite reassurances from Bush aministration paid propagandists, the Patriot Act is used to harass and annoy Americans, with almost no prosecution of terrorists being done.

The latest incarnation of the Patriot Act includes provisions sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jim Talent, R-Mo., which would require a would-be purchaser to show identification to buy cold and allergy medication.

The purported reason for this law is to halt the production of methamphetamine, an illegal drug that cannot be made without a key ingredient of everyday cold and allergy medicines.

Besides providing more evidence that the War on Drugs is another administration miserable failure, this provision of the Patriot Act could have a perverse effect, to drive methamphetamine production away from American soil, making it an imported product. This adds a new layer of profits for those who will traffic in the drug, including terrorists. More

Catapulting the Propaganda, for a price

With the Bush administation being synonymous with "miserable failure" it is increasingly difficult to find supporters who defend any of the policies that have strip mined American assets and squandered so many lives.

However, there are still staunch defenders of Bush, who are able to put aside the facts, squelch any internal doubts, and attack any critics of their Fearless Leader. But you have to pay someone rather well to hold their nose and surrender their soul to this thankless duty.

Rush Limbaugh leads the pack at a healthy $31 million. These numbers get a bit fuzzy, because in addition to base salary there are speaking fees, and reimbursed expenses. Sean Hannity commands a $100,000 speaking fee, plus expenses. If money is his motive, he chose the right side. Michael Moore gets about half of that for a speaking engagement. Al Franken gets paid, for his oratory at Air America, a paltry $1.7 million.

The important point here, is that for most Americans it would be difficult to get in front of a microphone, or in front of a camera, and lie to their fellow citizens. It would be hard to keep a straight face while insisting black is white, up is down, and war is peace. It would cause many sleepless nights knowing that those lies were causing people to live with more hardships, and could even die from the consequences of them. There is a saying, "Drag a few million dollars through a cesspool and you are sure to get a few bites."

Katrina: They Knew!

In the week that Hurricane Katrina was bearing down on the southeast U.S. coast in August 2005, Bush administration officials knew what to expect, and reassured others that they would have the assets in place needed to deal with the disaster.

The AP had started promoting a videotape that shows a presidential videoconference briefing, made on Aug. 28, 2005.

The tape showed former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown issuing stark warnings. "We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event," said Brown.

Brown told colleagues on the tape that one of his top concerns was whether evacuees who went to New Orleans' Superdome would be safe and have adequate medical care.

But his concerns were disregarded by Bush, who didn't ask any questions. He reassured state officials that the federal government was prepared to handle the storm and its aftermath.

"I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm," he said.

History would prove otherwise. More

Attorney General Gonzales still sniffing around in panties

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is on a mission from God. In between solving cases of terrorism, or some cynics would insist instead of solving terrorism cases, Gonzales is on a crusade to eradicate pornography. He may be acting on behalf of certain elements of the Bush administation's religious supporters who get apoplectic at the sight of a Victoria's Secret catalog. He could learn a lot from past investigations of this sort.

The FBI put their agents in trench coats and sent them into porn theaters throughout the U.S. in 1972-73 for a sticky investigation of Deep Throat.

The movie, not the Watergate leaker.

This time, instead of nasty dives in the seedy parts of town, agents can remain in their offices with a computer and broadband net connection. They might want to get some pointers from the old report, preserved here by the Memory Hole, so as not to reinvent the wheel.

Gonzales might keep in mind, while he is busy sniffing those panties, he might overlook the next terror attack. On September 11, 2001, FBI agents were busy listening to wiretaps of a brothel in New Orleans - a much more important job than say, investigating soon to be terrorists attending flight school.

There is no information if Gonzales' stepson Jared Freeze, who used to work for Larry Flynt, is helping Pops with the investigation.

Rumsfeld wanted to hit Iraq after 9/11

Hours after a commercial plane struck the Pentagon on September 11 2001 the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was issuing rapid orders to his aides to look for evidence of Iraqi involvement, according to notes taken by one of them.

"Hard to get good case. Need to move swiftly," the notes say. "Near term target needs - go massive - sweep it all up, things related and not."

The handwritten notes, with some parts blanked out, were declassified this month in response to a request by a law student and blogger, Thad Anderson, under the US Freedom of Information Act. Anderson has posted them on his blog at outragedmoderates.org. More

KBR awarded Homeland Security contract worth up to $385M

SAN FRANCISCO - KBR, the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co., said Tuesday it has been awarded a contingency contract from the Department of Homeland Security to supports its Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in the event of an emergency. The maximum total value of the contract is $385 million and consists of a 1-year base period with four 1-year options. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 to 2005. More

That is the official story. Haliburton may be getting $385 million, but they are not going to be building detention camps for illegal aliens. That is an outright lie, propped up by disinformation. So the fact is that we do not know what service, if any, Haliburton is going to perform to get that money from the American taxpayers. The official Bush policy, whether it gets put into law or not, is that illegal aliens are no longer considered "illegal". They are to be given amnesty and mainstreamed into the economy. Despite another Bush lie, they are not just doing the "jobs that Americans will not do". You are not able to afford to buy a house with money earned from picking lettuce. See this article. More

Hurricane relief funds spent on porn

While U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales squanders law enforcement resources to broaden his panty sniffing campaign to root out porn, FEMA was spending millions of taxpayer dollars that help put more porn in the hands of Americans.

Tens of millions of dollars of relief money for Hurricane Katrina was squandered in scams and poorly thought out projects, US government auditors reported yesterday.

As many as 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who received aid under an emergency cash assistance program - which included giving $2,000 debit cards to evacuees - based their requests on duplicate or invalid social security numbers, or false addresses and names. More

Identity theft problem was created by the government

For many years states have required the collection of Social Security numbers in order to issue a drivers license. Many people may not recall why this is.

It was a 1996 federal law that makes the availability of federal welfare funds contingent upon states collecting SSNs to assist in the enforcement of child support laws. This was passed by the Congress presided over by Newt Gingrich, and signed off by Bill Clinton. Most stated complied with this law instead of jumping through the hoops set up if a state wanted to opt out. It was questionable if it ever was effective at collecting any more child support, but one gift that it gave us to merge the drivers license and Social Security number was the rampant identity theft we have enjoyed since then. It is so bad that new legislation has been passed ordering states to not display the SSN, though they must still collect it. Unfortunately, communication has been botched between state and federal governments in many states, so many licenses are still issued with the number and others are recalled.

Thanks Newt and Bill. More

Iraq veteran gets hit with "friendly fire" in USA

CHINO, Calif. - Elio Carrion is an Air Force policeman who spent six months deployed in Iraq. He was to have rejoined his unit Tuesday.

Unfortunately, he was shot in California by a San Bernadino sheriffs deputy.

The incident began Sunday night, officials said, when Carrion was a passenger in a blue Corvette that was speeding about 100 mph near the Chino Hills, California, area, east of Los Angeles. The driver, whom authorities didn't identify, failed to pull the car over after police signaled to do so, leading to a five-minute chase that ended abruptly when the vehicle crashed into a brick wall, said Cindy Beavers, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

The incident was taped by a witness. On the tape, it sounds like one of the deputies tells Carrion to get off the ground. He does and that`s followed by a number of shots. Police say Carrion was hit four times. The driver of the vehicle was eventually arrested. More

Bush calls for less dependence on Mideast oil

WASHINGTON - Although 5 years of policy and action do not support his suggestion, President George W Bush called for a cut of U.S. dependence on Mideast oil by 75 percent.

"America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world," Bush said as he sought to drive the election-year agenda in his annual State of the Union address.

"Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years," the president said. "Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.

By targeting only Mideast oil, Bush was ignoring the largest sources of American oil consumption, such as Mexico and Canada.

Imports of oil and refined product from the Persian Gulf make up less than a fifth of all imports and 11 percent of total consumption, according to Energy Department statistics. More

Drug smugglers and invaders in Mexican military uniforms

U.S. and Mexican officials on Tuesday were investigating a bizarre encounter between Texas lawmen and heavily armed intruders who were wearing Mexican military uniforms while evidently escorting a caravan of sport utility vehicles that was smuggling marijuana into the United States.

The smugglers, spotted on the U.S. side of the border in remote western Texas on Monday afternoon, hastily fled back into Mexico, leaving behind nearly a half ton of marijuana and setting one of their vehicles ablaze. More

The disturbing unanswered question for the Bush administration is: How can you tell the people you are fighting a war on terror abroad when you can not effectively secure your own border? This is one incident, there are many others More

FBI questions student over doodle

Elk Grove, California - The FBI and local school officials are under fire after a high school student was interviewed by federal agents while on campus. The FBI interview and resulting controversy was prompted by a tip.

Munir Rashed is a 16-year-old high school student from Elk Grove and a fourth generation American. Two years ago, while attending Elk Grove High, a teacher confronted him.

Munir Rashed, Palestinian American student: "I had PLO on my folder as a doodle." More

Weapons for the Terror War, energy beams and stun guns

Is Captain Kirk to be employed in the War on Terror?

Like the phasers on "Star Trek', which' could be set to kill or merely stun, the U.S. military has desired a new kind of firepower that is instantaneous, precise and virtually inexhaustible: beams of electromagnetic energy.

The hallmark of all directed-energy weapons is that the target -- whether a human or a mechanical object -- has no chance to avoid the shot because it moves at the speed of light. At some frequencies, it can penetrate walls.

Once this technology becomes commonplace, and relatively inexpensive, how will it be deployed at home against civilians by the military and police departments? More

Alien invasion we want to see

Dorismar -- aka Dora Noemi Kerchen -- has been many things: Playboy Playmate, calendar pinup, performer at a Democratic National Convention party and purveyor of sophisticated soft-core videos inspired by Girls Gone Wild.

Now, she qualifies as an ''Alien of Extraordinary Ability'' -- but that legal designation may not be enough to get her back into the United States.

The 29-year-old Argentine sexpot -- blessed with copious curves and a seemingly boundless capacity to promote them -- was deported with her husband/manager Alejandro Schiff on Jan. 5, after five years in Miami as an illegal immigrant and Hispanic media star. More

When Cops trade donuts and coffee for alcohol...

Public safety goes in the tank when this happens. Then we are all in danger. More

Military researched "Gay Bomb"

The US military investigated building a "gay bomb", which would make enemy soldiers "sexually irresistible" to each other, government papers say.

The plan for a so-called "love bomb" envisaged an aphrodisiac chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing what the military called a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale.

Considering the law of unintended consequences, this may have been a bad idea. Instead of facing adversaries preoccupied with decorating the mess tent, or playing with Barbies, U.S. forces may have ended up facing some leather clad bears willing to rip their arms out of their sockets. More

US Border Patrol uniforms made in Mexico

Demonstrating once again that the Bush administration is out of touch with the concerns of the American people, the latest example of this disconnect concerns the uniform of the Border patrol, which has the duty of securing U.S. borders, including a border with Mexico.

For more than a year, the shirts and pants worn by agents and inspectors with U.S. Customs and Border Protection have been made in Mexico. The uniforms are supplied by VF Solutions of Nashville, Tenn., which subcontracts its work to plants in the United States, Mexico, Canada and the Dominican Republic.

"It's embarrassing to be protecting the U.S.-Mexico border and be wearing a uniform made in Mexico," says T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a 6,500-member union.

The illegal flow of immigrants across the border also include gang members and fugitives from Mexican justice who might welcome a chance to get their hands on a Border Patrol uniform. There is also the possibility that unscrupulous gang members might help sneak terrorists into the country if the price is right.

"Who's going to miss a few dozen uniforms?" said Bonner, "That could be very dangerous to the agents. You see a uniform, and you assume that's one of the good guys.". More

Screw up your job really badly? Be a consultant instead

That is the career strategy of former FEMA director Michael Brown. He is starting a new disaster preparedness firm.

“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 said.

The problem is, he does not know much about preparedness, except preparing a jacked up resume that makes him look like he is capable of doing something worthwhile.

Whether it is horse shows, or his recent dog and pony show, the old adage comes to mind when thinking about anyone contracting for his "sevices".

You get what you pay for. The miserable failure principle is at work here. More

Sneaking across the border in style, with new sneakers

Argentine artist Judi Werthein gave away 50 pairs of expensive high top sneakers in Tijuana at a migrant shelter. These sneakers are unique, with a compass and flashlight dangling from one shoelace. The pocket in the tongue is for money or pain relievers. A rough map of the border region is printed on a removable insole.Werthein waved the insole and pointed to Interstate 8, the main road between San Diego and Phoenix.

"This blue line is where you want to go," Werthein, 38, said in Spanish. More

US Attorney General Gonzales on a panty sniffing crusade

With the terrorists at large, as well as public corruption, narcotics and other menaces to the nation, it would seem that the US Attorney General would be judicious in how he allocates resources to protect public safety. Not so. It appears he has a fascination with the affairs of what consenting adults do in private. His panty sniffing mission is the latest development in the Bush War on Porn. Agents are not so eager to join his crusade, sharing such comments as, "I already gave at home", and "Honestly, most of the guys would have to recuse themselves." The largest resistance comes from the very large, and very mainstream porn industry, which includes many very well known corporations. More

A Homeland toy story

Homeland security agents work tirelessly to protect us from terrorists and disasters. Right? Well, not exactly. Showing us a textbook case of "mission creep", homeland security agents in Portland terrorize a toy store owner in an effort to purge America of the menace of lookalike toys. More

Bush Decision Making Process

George ponders a pressing matter.	He turns to a good friend for guidance.
He turns to a better friend for guidance.	He turns to his best friend for guidance.
His people cover for him.	George announces his new policy.

Bush to lead Katrina emergency response failures

U.S. President George Bush wants to get to the bottom of what went wrong with the response to Hurricane Katrina. He announced Tuesday that he will oversee an investigation.

Whether it is the misdeeds of his good pal Brownie, or FEMA personnel blocking private aid to victims, Bush will investigate and take corrective measures to prevent future disasters.

So he says. More

‘We’re not like New Orleans’ says China

South-eastern China braced itself as tropical storm Damrey was upgraded on Saturday to a typhoon, though officials insisted the country’s experience dealing with cyclones would prevent a New Orleans-style disaster. More

Bush Presidents seen fishing in New Orleans flood water

Presidents George H., and George W. Bush were seen fishing in the New Orleans flood water on Tuesday. Both men were aboard a fishing boat, motoring down the flooded streets and trolling for freshwater fish.

At one point George W. was observed poking at a human corpse with a stick. "Yes, I was poking at that stiff," George W. said, "poor fellah was taking a real dirt nap. Or I should say, water nap. Hehehehe. Heheehee."

George H. pointed out the benefits that were brought by the hurricane and flood. "This area has been blighted for a long time, with the economy thing. Now we have a unique opportunity to bring forth a new economic order" "With all those useless eaters flushed away, we can now develop this area for business and for recreation." the elder Bush noted.

Mr. Bill knew, Mr. Bush didn't

Hello. My name is Mr. Bill. I knew that New Orleans was in danger from a hurricane and flooding for many years. I even made a video of it with my friends. See what I knew and the president did not know. More

Someone better give FEMA a map and compass

Could FEMA find you in a disaster? Would they know where to take you to safety? Probably not. They took one planeload of, uh, evacuees to the wrong state. Perhaps their motto is "any port in a storm". More

Getting rescued: better than beads

Flashing your breasts in New Orleans can get you something better than beads. You might even get authorities to rescue you from flood water.

"At one point, there were a load of girls on the roof of the hotel saying 'Can you help us?' and the policemen said 'Show us what you've got' and made signs for them to lift their T-shirts. When the girls refused, they said 'Fine' and motored off down the road in their boat." More

Babies seen as terrorist threat: Could your child be a potential hijacker? Homeland Security says yes!

You hurry to get to the airport early. You make sure you are not carrying any Forbidded Items. You also wear shoes that are easy to slip off for inspection. All this in order to get through the Transportation Security gauntlet and board the plane easily. But wait! You overlooked something. You brought your baby and your govenment thinks the cute little tyke is a terrorist. Oops! More

Lance Armstrong wants to focus on a war against Americans' true enemy, cancer

Tour de France winner and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong on Sunday said the United States, which is embroiled in a costly war in Iraq, should focus more effort on a war facing many Americans — the one against cancer. More

A Homeland toy story

Homeland security agents work tirelessly to protect us from terrorists and disasters. Right? Well, not exactly. Showing us a textbook case of "mission creep", homeland security agents in Portland terrorize a toy store owner in an effort to purge America of the menace of lookalike toys. More

Terrorists beware: American women are watching you!

Banks give home loans to illegal aliens, ignore security concerns to grasp at another stream of profits

"This is a huge untapped market with people that live and work in this country and are capable of buying homes to realize the American dream," said Chan Peterson, executive vice president and head of community banking at Banco Popular, one of the earliest banks to enter this field.

"It's institutionalizing illegality," said Marti Dinerstein, president of Immigration Matters, a New York-based think tank. "Now there's no distinction being made between the people that follow all the rules and those who break our laws by entering the country or overstaying their visas." Dinerstein also worried that lack of knowledge on the part of illegal immigrants could pave the way for abuse in the form of predatory lending. More

Port Security Flawed

Latest detection machines are not doing the job, and YOU pay for it. More

Mexican flag placed higher than American flag in Oregon state office

Mexican flag gets hoisted above the Stars and Stripes on the back wall of Oregon state-run employment office.

Despite this being a violation of federal and state law, office staff is indifferent to complaints. More

DHS Fraud and Waste to be Investigated

Inspector General to investigate IT contracts, and other Homeland Security programs,
including airport security, mass transit security procedures. More

Airport Security Won't Thwart Jihadists

Think those airport patdowns you endure make you safe? Think again! More

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