April 2010 Archives

http://www.homeland1.com/transportation-border-security/articles/813216-Boy-to-be-sentenced-in-Border-Patrol-agents-death/

A 17-year-old Mexican faces a maximum penalty of life in prison when he is sentenced for killing a Border Patrol agent who was shot eight times in the head, neck and torso in a remote mountainous area.

Christian Daniel Castro Alvarez pleaded guilty in November to murdering a federal officer near Campo, about 60 miles east of San Diego. He told authorities that he and others were attempting to rob the agent, Robert Rosas.

Prosecutors have recommended that U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz commit Castro to 40 years in prison on Thursday, while a probation officer has urged a life sentence. Federal guidelines call for a minimum sentence of 30 years.

Rosas, 30, was the first Border Patrol agent to be killed by gunfire since 1998, according to The Officer Down Memorial Page, a website that tracks death of law enforcement officers.

Rosas was shot repeatedly from behind and then while he was lying on the ground, according to prosecutors.

While the White House and the Justice Department are telling Congress that everything is fine, they are also quietly releasing a report which tells the opposite story. Even their lies are too stupid to hide!

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64910

Three Border Patrol agents are assaulted on the average day at or near the U.S. border. Someone is kidnapped every 35 hours in Phoenix, Ariz., often by agents of alien smuggling organizations. And one-in-five American teenagers last year used some type of illegal drug, many of which were imported across the unsecured U.S.-Mexico border.

These facts are reported in the recently released National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010, published by the National Drug Intelligence Center, a division of the U.S. Justice Department. They ought to add some perspective to the national debate raging over Arizona's new law that requires local law enforcement officers to make a "reasonable attempt" to determine the immigration status of persons they legally come into contact with and whom they reasonably suspect of being in the country illegally

Assaults on Border Patrol agents have massively escalated in recent years, according to the Justice Department threat assessment, which was released on March 25. "Assaults against U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) agents increased 46 percent from 752 incidents in FY2006 to 1,097 incidents in FY 2008," says the assessment. Given that there are 365 days in the year, 1,097 assaults equals 3 per day.

Time to ban the knives! Why aren't these dangerous weapons banned around the world?

I need to find an old anti-gun tirade and cut out 'gun' and replace it with 'knife'. Can anyone help me?

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/28/china-man-stabs-students-teacher-south/?test=latestnews

A knife-wielding man wounded 28 children -- most just 4 years old -- and three adults Thursday at a kindergarten in eastern China, the second such violent assault at a Chinese school in as many days.

Five of the students were in critical condition in the hospital in Jiangsu province, said Zhu Guiming, an official with the propaganda department in Taixing city. Zhu said two teachers and a security guard also were hurt in the attack that happened early in the school day.

The attacker was a 47-year-old local man, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It said many of the victims were 4 years old and in the same class at the Zhongxin Kindergarten.

The violence was the latest in a string of attacks on young children at Chinese schools. On Wednesday, a man broke into a primary school in Guangdong province in southern China and wounded 15 students and a teacher in a knife attack.

The rampage Wednesday in Leizhou city came on the same day as another assailant was executed for killing eight children last month in stabbings that shocked China.

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100421_dirty_bombs_revisited_combating_hype

Fighting Panic

Analytically, based upon the ease of manufacture and the historical interest by militants in dirty bombs -- which ironically may in part be due to the way the RDD threat has been hyped -- it is only a matter of time before militants successfully employ one. Since the contamination created by such a device can be long-lasting, more rational international actors probably would prefer to detonate such a device against a target outside their own country. In other words, they would lean toward attacking a target within the United States or United Kingdom rather than the U.S. or British embassies in their home country.

And since it is not likely to produce mass casualties, a dirty bomb attack would likely be directed against a highly symbolic target -- such as one representing the economy or government -- and designed to cause the maximum amount of disruption at the target site. Therefore, it is not out of the question to imagine such an attack aimed at a target such as Wall Street or the Pentagon. The device would not destroy these sites, but would limit access to them for as long as it took to decontaminate them.

As noted above, we believe it is possible that the panic caused by a dirty bomb attack could well kill more people than the device itself. People who understand the capabilities and limitations of dirty bombs are less likely to panic than those who do not, which is the reason for this analysis. Another important way to help avoid panic is to carefully think about such an incident in advance and to put in place a carefully crafted contingency plan for your family and business. Contingency plans are especially important for those who work in proximity to a potential dirty bomb target. But they are useful in any disaster, whether natural or man-made, and something that should be practiced by all families and businesses. Such knowledge and planning provide people with the ability to conduct an orderly and methodical evacuation of the affected area. This allows them to minimize their exposure to radioactivity while also minimizing their risk of injury or death due to mass hysteria. For while a dirty bomb attack could well be messy and disruptive, it does not have to be deadly.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2010/04/28/press-corps-increasingly-aggravated-thin-skinned-aggressive-white-ho

Is President Obama incapable of dealing with journalists who question his policies? The White House press corps is becoming increasingly agitated with an administration that reacts particularly strongly to criticism, and even skepticism.

The White House has adopted a pugilistic attitude towards the press, lashing out at journalists who criticize the president, shutting others out, and adopting a deferential attitude towards the press corps that has some journalists reminiscing about the openness of -- gasp -- the George W. Bush presidency.

The Obama administration "came in with every reporter giving them the benefit of the doubt," one journalist told Politico's Josh Gersten and Patrick Gavin. "They've lost all that goodwill." It seems that the press corps's offense is questioning the administration's positions.

CNBC's Dennis Kneale weighed in on the channel's website today, where he called Obama a "bully." The president "gets pouty whenever anyone dares to disagree with him" Kneale claimed. "He seems to view dissension not as healthy public debate but as a suspicious, pernicious challenge to his omnipotence and popularity."

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/04/indonesia-thousands-of-enraged-muslims-attack-christian-center-destroy-cars-burn-buildings.html

The joy of living with the Religion on Peace and Tolerance.

-No religious freedom, unless you pay for it and hide your beliefs.

Qur'an (5:51) - "O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people."

Qur'an (3:28) - "Let not the believers Take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah..."

And this is just a Start! I could find and paste many more if I wanted.

http://stkarnick.com/culture/2010/04/28/a-troubling-precedent-nj-court-says-bloggers-are-not-journalists/

The Garden State has a shield law for journalists, meaning the government cannot force reporters or opinion writers to reveal their sources. There is nothing more vigorously defended among journalists than the right to keep secret one's anonymous sources in service of "the public's right to know." The decades-long secret identity of "Deep Throat" in The Washington Post's Watergate exposés is the standard of that journalistic principle. (And there is going to be reason to snicker at that example later. Be patient.)

But a New Jersey state appellate court last week ruled that a woman named Shellee Hale is not a"real" journalist, but just a blogger, so is not protected by the state's shield law.

In the words of New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Judge Anthony J. Parrillo:

"Simply put, new media should not be confused with news media."

http://bigjournalism.com/bthor/2010/04/28/what-the-new-york-times-wont-tell-you-about-the-cia-and-what-the-washington-times-will/

On Wednesday, April 14, the CIA's Deputy Director, Stephen Kappes announced his retirement. The New York Times ran a softball piece on him the next day, but it was Kenneth R. Timmerman of the Washington Times on Sunday, April 18 who drove home many of the real problems surrounding Kappes.

The CIA quietly announced the "resignation" of its deputy director on Wednesday, accompanied by all the accolades normally reserved for a top government official forced to resign in disgrace.

There were many reasons why Stephen R. Kappes needed to resign at age 60, five years before the agency's mandatory retirement age. Even the CIA's Greek chorus at The Washington Post and the New York Times have acknowledged that this mandarin had no clothes.

In his piece, Timmerman cited Kappes's "long record of failure as an operations chief," how he "played politics with intelligence," and how he had taken the CIA out of the spy business and transformed it into a "liaison service" by outsourcing the recruitment of agents and clandestine intelligence sources (once the Agency's bread and butter) to other "friendly" intelligence services. One can't help but ask - what good is a spy agency that doesn't even do its own spying?

http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2010/04/26/dirty-bomb-test-for-terror-may-assist-cancer-research/

With a few drops of blood, scientists are creating a way to tell who has absorbed dangerous radiation levels, part of the government's preparations against a terror attack, and advance research that just might point toward new cancer care, too.

Duke University's work aims to allow rapid triage in the aftermath of a dirty bomb explosion or other radiological emergency, to sort out who among potentially thousands of panicked people need treatment for radioactive fallout and who can go home.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8620249.stm

The Pew Research Center has just released one of the biggest ever studies on attitudes to religion and morality in Africa, which has revealed a host of interesting facts.

Here are 10 things we have learnt from the study, which surveyed 25,000 people in 19 countries...

http://www.nga.mil/MSISiteContent/StaticFiles/MISC/wwtts/wwtts_20100421100000.txt

Thanks to http://www.eaglespeak.us/ for the link

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/202111.php

Our correspondent inside the Ohio Department of Homeland Security brings even more troubling news. Last Friday they informed us about the department's destruction of thousands of taxpayer-funded brochures because the author, multicultural affairs director Omar Alomari, had promoted a whole laundry list of Islamic groups identified by the DOJ and FBI as groups that had supported terrorism. Alomari described these terror-tied groups in the brochure as "organizations we [Ohio homeland security] are working with".

Then on Monday we were informed that just last week, Ohio homeland security director William Vedra defended his organization's continued association with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), despite a nationwide ban by the DOJ and FBI on any formal association with the group. And yesterday our correspondent had provided us information that Vedra's right-hand man Alomari had been fired from a local college for violating their sexual harassment policy by sleeping with infidel coeds taking his classes. This would be of no one's concern except Mrs. Alomari, except Vedra has invoked Alomari's academic credentials to defend Alomari (and himself) from their critics.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/16/news/companies/ge_7000_tax_returns/index.htm

GE had plenty of earnings last year -- just not in the United States. For tax purposes, the company's U.S. operations lost $408 million, while its international businesses netted a $10.8 billion profit.

That left GE (GE, Fortune 500) with no U.S. profit left for Uncle Sam to tax. Corporations typically face a 35% federal income tax on their earnings. Thanks to its deductions and adjustments, GE reported an actual U.S. federal income tax rate of negative 10.5%. It got to add a "tax benefit" of $1.1 billion back into its reported earnings.

"This is the first time in at least decades that GE has reported negative U.S. pretax income and it reflects the worst economy since the Great Depression," Anne Eisele, GE's director of financial communications, said via e-mail.

This is an obvious attempt by AlGore and his Green Movement to disrupt the World's economy. If his control of the weather.... Wait, that is Bush!! Bush controls the weather! Bush is trying to destroy the world's economy!

I wonder if this volcano might have something to do with the polar ice cap not growing too much the last couple of years? Nah, AlGore's jet probably had a larger effect.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100417/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_iceland_volcano;_ylt=Au0iCvQlrKdGMP1DEluMgjVvaA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTJqNGVrMDlpBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNDE3L2V1X2ljZWxhbmRfdm9sY2FubwRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzMEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDZnVsbG5ic3BzdG9y<br/>
Thick drifts of volcanic ash blanketed parts of rural Iceland on Friday as a vast, invisible plume of grit drifted over Europe, emptying the skies of planes and sending hundreds of thousands in search of hotel rooms, train tickets or rental cars.

Polish officials worried that the ash cloud could threaten the arrival of world leaders for Sunday's state funeral for President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria in the southern city of Krakow.

So far, President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are among those coming and no one has canceled. Kaczynski's family insisted Friday they wanted the funeral to go forward as planned but there was no denying the ash cloud was moving south and east.

The air traffic agency Eurocontrol said almost two-thirds of Europe's flights were canceled Friday, as air space remained largely closed in Britain and across large chunks of north and central Europe.

http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/Instant-Gunships-4-14-2010.asp

U.S. SOCOM (Special Operations Command) has adopted a U.S. Marine Corps idea to provide an "instant gunship" system, which enables weapons and sensors to be quickly rolled into a C-130 transport and hooked up. This takes a few hours, and turns the C-130 into a gunship (similar in capabilities existing AC-130 gunships). The SOCOM version is called the Â"Precision Strike Package,Â" and it contains the sensor package (day/night vidcams with magnification capability) and a 30mm autocannon. In addition, there are launchers for Viper Strike and Griffin guided missiles. Viper Strike is a 90cm (36 inch) long unpowered glider. The 130mm diameter (with the wings folded) weapon weighs 20 kg (44 pounds). Because the Viper Strike comes straight down, it is better suited for urban warfare. Its warhead weighs only 1.8 kg (four pounds), and less than half of that is explosives. This means less damage to nearby civilians, but still powerful and accurate enough to destroy its target. A laser designator makes the Viper Strike accurate enough to hit an automobile, or a foxhole. The Griffin is a 15.6 kg (34.5 pound) guided missile with a 5.9 kg (13 pound) warhead which is larger than that carried by the larger (47 kg) Hellfire missile. To achieve this, Griffin has a shorter range (4 kilometers), which is adequate for a gunship, which is designed to go after targets just below it, not far away.

It was only last year that SOCOM checked out the new marine system (Harvest Hawk), which enables marine KC-130J tankers to be transformed into gunship with the addition of the portable weapons and sensors. Like the marines, SOCOM wanted more gunships, and liked the idea of being able to get them as needed, without buying specially modified C-130s (AC-130s).

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20100415.aspx

In northern Iraq, near the city of Kirkuk, farmers are being driven off their land by wild pigs. Rather, farmers have abandoned fields where the pigs are active, because the swine eat all the crops. This is a new development. For a long time, the wild pig population was kept in check by Christians in the area, who would hunt the pigs for food. Moslems cannot eat pork, as it is forbidden by the Koran.

Since 2003, there has been so much fighting in the area that the hunters were afraid to go out, as their shots would often bring return fire from someone else in the area who mistook the hunters for terrorists. Worse yet, the Islamic terrorists have driven many Christian Iraqis out of the country. The farmers are desperate.

The Left and their Muslim friends have been hiting the poppy fields and "herding" the goats again! Any plan to keep Muslims from killing people is an evil plot. :)

This is too funny!

http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/neocon-plans-for-pakistan-exposed/

Operation Enduring Turmoil is the Neocons plan to disassemble Pakistan, give northern Pakistan to Afghanistan, Southwest Pakistan to the Balochs... all this in an effort to restrict Chinese access to energy and herd energy resources towards Israel, the Mediterranean and Europe. Whatever happening in NWFP and Baluchistan is part of this BIG game!

Until the US disavows the Neocon plan to achieve "benevolent global hegemony" --the benevolence of which has already caused the deaths of maybe a million people-- I don't see how anyone in their right mind can expect Pakistan or any of the other proposed PNAC(Wiki) victims to cooperate in their own destruction. But unfortunately in Pakistan, some ignorant, selfish traitors have decided to facilitate this plan!

http://www.examiner.com/x-37620-Conservative-Examiner~y2010m4d13-Special-army-unit-ready-to-be-deployed-on-American-soil-just-before-Nov-elections

Note: An update has been posted at the end of the article.

In October of this year, one month prior to the November midterm elections, a special army unit known as 'Consequence Management Response Force' will be ready for deployment on American soil if so ordered by the President.

The special force, which is the new name being given to the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry, has been training at Fort Stewart, Georgia and is composed of 80,000 troops.

According to the Army Times,

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.

The key phrase is 'may be called upon to help with civil unrest.'

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201973.php

Five people suffering serious burns were hospitalized in West New Delhi this week from contact with radioactive material in a Delhi scrap market identified as Cobalt-60 which may be used for making a dirty bomb. Indian police cordoned off the 200 market stores and sealed nearby establishments up to a one-kilometer radius.

Scrap dealer Deepak Jain and his helpers lost consciousness when they cut a piece of scrap metal. A white fluid oozed out causing the burns, Jain's hair fell out and within minutes his skin turned black.

http://bigjournalism.com/bthor/2010/04/12/dysfunctional-cia-ny-times-channel-ugly-stepsisters-in-effort-to-smash-defense-departments-glass-slipper/

Of late, the left is full of brilliant ideas on how we should fight terrorism, er whoops, I mean "man caused disasters" or do we refer to it as countering violent extremism this week? (I can't seem to keep it straight.)

From Matthew Modine, who believes we should simply sit down and talk with terrorists to Barack Obama who hopes to defeat Islamic radicalism by not mentioning Islamic radicalism, there doesn't seem to be any issue liberals can't solve by simply waving a magic wand and applying their considerable genius.

Would that this dangerous method of thinking existed only in the realm of politics and Hollywood liberalism. Unfortunately, an even deadlier mindset exists at the Central Intelligence Agency.

As I have chronicled over the past several weeks, an impotent CIA, which better resembles a pack of jilted, jealous teen-aged girls has been waging a despicable proxy war against the Department of Defense for hiring former military and intelligence personnel to do the job the CIA is incapable of doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the process, there have been terrible character assassinations and the leaking of classified information.

Leading the charge on behalf of the CIA is the "venerable" New York Times, which seems ever-ready to broadcast sensitive operational details to our enemies that put American lives at risk. In fact, the New York Times appears to be the "paper of record" anytime "patriots" at the Central Intelligence Agency want to leak material which is damaging to America and helpful to those bent on destroying her.

And it doesn't stop there. If the Times needs to ratchet up the outrage, it will even fabricate information as was done on March 14, 2010 when in an article entitled, Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants, it claimed that "It is generally considered illegal for the military to hire contractors to act as covert spies."

This claim was made despite the fact that the Department of Defense openly and legally solicits private firms to gather and help analyze data on its behalf. Of course, if the CIA were capable of doing its job, DOD wouldn't need to hire outside help. But the sad fact is that the CIA is a bloated, dysfunctional bureaucracy whose usefulness to America has long since passed.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/04/12/member-unit-linked-dirty-dozen-dies-pennsylvania/?test=latestnews

John "Jack" Agnew, one of the original members of a U.S. Army unit that operated behind enemy lines in World War II and is often credited with having loosely inspired the movie "The Dirty Dozen," has died at age 88.

Agnew belonged to the Filthy Thirteen, an unofficial unit within the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. He was pronounced dead Thursday at Abington Memorial Hospital after becoming ill at his home in the Maple Village retirement community in Hatboro, where he and his wife moved about a year ago, his daughter Barbara Agnew Maloney said.

On D-Day, the Filthy Thirteen parachuted into France to take a bridge over the Douve River. It was "a mission that would cost most of the men their lives," according to an article in the winter 2008-09 edition of American Valour Quarterly, a publication of the nonprofit American Veterans Center.

Before the Battle of the Bulge, Agnew and other members of the unit were requested for pathfinder duty and parachuted into Bastogne, which was besieged by German forces. Agnew operated a beacon to help guide in planes carrying badly needed supplies.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/04/02/army-report-gis-outgunned-in-afghanistan/

American troops are often outgunned by Afghan insurgents because they lack the precision weapons, deadly rounds, and training needed to kill the enemy in the long-distance firefights common in Afghanistan's rugged terrain, according to an internal Army study.

Unlike in Iraq, where most shooting took place at relatively short range in urban neighborhoods, U.S. troops in Afghanistan are more often attacked from high ground with light machine guns and mortars from well beyond 300 meters (327 yards, or just over three football field lengths). The average range for a small-arms firefight in Afghanistan is about 500 meters, according to the study.

Unless U.S. troops under attack call in artillery or air strikes and risk civilian casualties, the only way they can fight back is with long-distance precision shooting -- a capability currently in short supply among infantry units, according to a study done at the Army's School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., by Maj. Thomas P. Ehrhart.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/04/10/law-murky-mom-returned-adopted-russian-boy/?test=latestnews

The family was told the boy, whose Russian name is Artyom Savelyev, was healthy in September when he was brought from the town of Partizansk in Russia's Far East to his new home in the heart of Tennessee horse country. The skinny boy seemed happy, but the behavioral problems began soon after, Hansen said.

"The Russian orphanage officials completely lied to her because they wanted to get rid of him," she said.

Hansen chronicled a list of problems: hitting, screaming and spitting at his mother and threatening to kill family members. Hansen said his eruptions were often sparked when he was denied something he wanted, like toys or video games.

"He drew a picture of our house burning down and he'll tell anybody that he's going to burn our house down with us in it," she said. "It got to be where you feared for your safety. It was terrible."

Hansen said she thought that with their love, they could help him. "I was wrong," she said.

Adoption experts say many families are blinded by their desire to adopt and don't always understand what the orphans have sometimes endured -- especially older children who may have been neglected or abandoned.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/04/britain-superbug-related-safeguards-for-muslim-staff-relaxed-days-after-christian-nurse-is-banned-fr.html

Muslim doctors and nurses are to be allowed for religious reasons to opt out of strict NHS dress codes introduced to prevent the spread of deadly hospital superbugs.

The Department of Health has announced that female Muslim staff will be permitted to cover their arms on hospital wards to preserve their modesty.

This is despite earlier guidance that all staff should be 'bare below the elbow' after long sleeves were blamed for spreading bacteria, leading to superbug deaths.

The Department has also relaxed its 'no jewellery' rule by making it clear that Sikhs can wear bangles, as long as they can be pushed up the arm during direct patient care.

The move contrasts with the case of nurse Shirley Chaplin, who last week lost her discrimination battle against Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital Trust, which said the cross she has worn since she was 16 was a 'hazard' because it could scratch patients.

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100410_brief_polish_president_killed_plane_crash

Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and 87 other people aboard the presidential jet were killed April 10 after the plane crashed on the approach to the Smolensk airport in western Russia. Some reports have put the death toll as high as 130, though that number has not been officially confirmed. The weather conditions around Smolensk are reported to have been foggy and the plane is believed to have missed the runway on the pilot's fourth attempt at landing, crashing into nearby trees. According to the Polish Foreign Ministry, also on the plane were Army Chief of Staff Gen. Franciszek Gagor, National Bank President Slawomir Skrzypek and Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Kremer. The presidential Tu-154 jet was around 20 years old, and there had been discussions in Poland on replacing it, but no replacement had been purchased due to insufficient funding. Kaczynski was on his way to Smolensk to mark the 70-year anniversary of the Katyn massacre, during which Soviet soldiers executed Polish officers. He had refused to attend an earlier Katyn ceremony organized by the Russian government that his prime minister -- and domestic rival -- Donald Tusk attended with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin only a few days earlier. The purpose of the Russian ceremony was to reset relations between Warsaw and Moscow, but also to drive a wedge between anti-Russian forces in Polish politics -- led by Kaczynski -- and those open to an accommodation with Russia, led by Tusk. Because of Kaczynski's outspoken criticism of Russia, his death will undoubtedly spin Warsaw into a frenzy of conspiracy theories ahead of the upcoming presidential elections. Kaczynski was going to face a stiff challenge from Tusk's ally and the current speaker of the parliament, Bronislaw Komorowski, who will take over the presidency according to the Polish constitution. It is highly likely that Kaczynski's right-wing nationalist supporters will see the accident as more than just related to foggy conditions, further dividing nationalists and centrists in Poland.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=122742§ionid=351020104

Amid a US-led push for tougher sanctions against Iran, former US envoy to the UN John Bolton says the proposed new embargos aimed at stopping the Iranian nuclear program will not work.

"It is too late," Bolton said in a speech at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

"We are beyond the point of sanctions working," Bloomberg quoted Bolton as saying.

Last week, Bolton accused US President Barack Obama of being "naive and inexperienced" in thinking that new sanctions will stop Iran's nuclear program.

Bolton's comments come as key world powers plan to hold fresh talks about Iran's nuclear issue in New York on Thursday.

http://www.cmt.com/videos/darryl-worley/26304/have-you-forgotten.jhtml

http://www.cmt.com/videos/darryl-worley/26304/have-you-forgotten.jhtml

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/04/muslim-tries-to-light-a-bomb-on-dc-to-denver-aircraft.html<br/>
Air Marshals Reportedly Stop Attempted 'Shoe Bomb' Attack

An airline passenger reportedly tried to light his shoes on fire on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Denver but was subdued by air marshals.

Authorities think it was an attempted "shoe bomb" attack, according to ABC News, which first reported the story, but details couldn't immediately confirmed.

ABC News identified the suspect as a diplomat from the Qatar embassy in Washington.

The Associated Press cited unnamed sources saying the FBI is investigating the incident.

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201911.php

From the Investigative Project: "The MSU Plot to Silence Israel's Ambassador"

Despite claims to the contrary, internal emails from the University of California, Irvine's Muslim Student Union (MSU) show that the group orchestrated the repeated disruptions of a speech given on campus by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren February 8.

A copy of the email exchanges was sent anonymously to school and local law enforcement officials, who are investigating whether students violated conduct codes or criminal laws, respectively, in deliberately disrupting an invited guest speaker at the school. The emails include a "game plan," which details the disruption plan down to where the student disruptors would sit, how they would communicate with each other via text messaging, and how to act if campus police began to arrest students.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism also received a copy of the packet sent to UCI officials.

During his speech, Oren was interrupted more than a dozen times by students who stood up and shouted that he was a murderer and a war criminal. He left the stage for about 20 minutes before order was restored and he was able to continue his remarks.

Prior to the speech, MSU officials told UCI administrators that they were not planning any disruptions before the speech. Police arrested 11 students during the event, eight from UC Irvine and three from UC Riverside.

Afterward, numerous press accounts included MSU denials that the disruptions were orchestrated...

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100331_hutarees_exposure_and_vulnerability

On March 29, an indictment accusing nine individuals of planning attacks against police officers was unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Those named in the indictment had been arrested by a joint anti-terrorism task force consisting of the FBI, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and state and local police. Raids took place from March 27 to 29, with most of the arrests occurring in the Lenawee/Washtenaw County area in southeastern Michigan, near the border with Ohio. Other arrests took place in Ohio and Indiana. Photos and video of the raids showed special operations police staging outside targeted properties with armored personnel carriers, assault rifles and helicopter support -- unusually overwhelming measures, likely taken because of suspicion that the group was plotting to kill police officers.

The individuals referred to themselves as "Hutarees," a name meaning "Christian Soldiers" according to the group's Web site, although it is unclear what language the word might come from. The federal indictment indicated that the apparent leader of the group, David Brian Stone, was known to make up names for tactical operations and maneuvers, so it is likely he coined the name of the group as well. The meaning given the term reflects the group's extremist Christian beliefs and its claims that it was preparing to defend itself and others in the name of Christianity. According to the Hutaree Web site:

Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment ... We, the Hutaree, are prepared to defend all those who belong to Christ and save those who aren't. We will still spread the word, and fight to keep it, up to the time of the great coming.

All the task force raids transpired and ended peacefully, with one of the members, Joshua Matthew Stone, David's son, holding out the longest. All nine individuals were charged Monday with seditious conspiracy; attempts to use weapons of mass destruction; teaching and demonstrating the use of explosive materials; and carrying a firearm for criminal violence. According to the indictment, the nine individuals trained in small-unit paramilitary tactics and acquired and trained with firearms, live ammunition, explosives, uniforms, communication equipment and medical supplies. It consisted of two units, one led by David Stone and the other led by his son Joshua, and the two units met and trained together roughly once a month. Another son, David Brian Stone Jr., served as the militia's explosives instructor and demonstrator.

The most incriminating act the group committed was plotting to kill police officers by luring them into a trap. The group was planning to cause a police traffic stop or fake a 911 call and attack the responding officers, then follow up with more attacks during the official funerals that would follow. The indictment also accuses the elder David Brian Stone of instructing the group to kill anyone who happened upon and did not acquiesce to the group during an exercise set to take place in April 2010. This overt and imminent threat likely precipitated the raid that led to the arrests in late March. The group allegedly intended to trigger a larger uprising against the U.S. government in response to Hutaree activities, a charge that carries connotations of terrorism.