Boyfriend led way to safety, but pilot's daughter didn't escape high-rise blaze
Witnesses reported hearing loud noises coming from the apartment prior to the fire, according to investigators who said they will examine whether an argument preceded the blaze.
article
sounds like somebody had to get silenced...
The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating...
If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences could be severe. A slide toward chaos could trigger the collapse of Iraq's government and a humanitarian catastrophe...
Our recommended course has shortcomings, but we firmly believe that it includes the best strategies and tactics to positively influence the outcome in Iraq and the region.
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*Yawn*
From the Earth to the moon and beyond. NASA announced plans to establish a base on the moon and make it into a permanent city by 2024. Crews of four astronauts are expected to work on the base, a week at a time, beginning around 2020.
To cover the costs, NASA is planning to keep its current budget of $17 billion and use the money saved by scrapping the space shuttle program. The space agency plans to coordinate commercial and international assistance with the program. It consulted 13 space agencies from different countries while formulating the initial plan.
One of the main goals of the project is to establish a stepping-off point for human exploration and colonization of Mars.
An artist's illustration shows one of the first structures landing on the moon.
CNET
Al-Hashemi, the vice president due to visit the White House next month, said he did not see the point of categorizing the violence raging in Iraq _ the U.N. says an average of 100 Iraqis are killed every day at present _ as a civil war.
"But I want to say in all honesty that Iraq is undergoing a very huge calamity," he said in an interview aired Tuesday on Baghdad, the television station of his Iraqi Islamic Party.
"All this suffering has placed Iraq way beyond what happened in Lebanon's civil war," he said.
The analogy between Iraq's violence and Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war was used by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan this week, who also told the British Broadcasting Corp., that Iraqis may have reason to think their life now is worse than it was under ousted leader Saddam Hussein.
"The situation is difficult. Iraq is going through an unprecedented predicament," said al-Hashemi.
ARTICLE
"The risk of giving up something that has been one of the mainstays of our security since the [Second World] War, and moreover doing so when the one certain thing about our world today is its uncertainty, is not a risk I feel we can responsibly take. Our independent nuclear deterrent is the ultimate insurance," Blair told an occasionally skeptical Parliament, which will vote on the program in March.
"Proliferation remains a real problem," he said. "The notion of unstable, usually deeply repressive and anti-democratic states, in some cases profoundly inimical to our way of life, having a nuclear capability, is a distinct and novel reason for Britain not to give up its capacity to deter."
LA times
Overwhelmingly, the public is unwilling to trust Government promises not to misuse personal information and fears the national ID database will contain inaccurate and unreliable information about them.
Although half of those questioned said they still support the idea of national identity cards, this represents a big fall from the 80 per cent backing claimed by ministers a few years ago.
Many still do not associate the card with the national ID database that will accompany it. When pressed, a majority were unhappy that their personal details were to be recorded and worried that inaccurate information could cause them harm, denying access to services or jobs.
Most worrying for the Government is that a large proportion of those interviewed would accept a penalty rather than be registered. Half those opposed to the ID scheme would pay a fine or risk prison by refusing to hand over their details. Fifteen per cent said they would go to prison.
Even if a large proportion of these "refuseniks" eventually fell into line, the potential exists for a huge popular backlash. If just two in every 100 person over 16 refused to sign up, the Goverment would be pursuing one million people.
The ID Card Act deliberately did not make refusal to register a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment because ministers wanted to avoid the creation of "ID martyrs". The main penalties are a £2,500 fine for not registering and a £1,000 fine for failing to inform the authorities of a change of address. However, if people decline to pay their fines, the prospect then arises of going to prison.
London telegraph
The product’s prescribing guidelines now indicate that taking the drug can lead to strange behaviours, including hallucinations, delirium and self-injury.
Among those taking the drug who have exhibited dangerous behaviour, there have been 25 reported deaths around the world in the most recent one-year period.
article
BBC report entitled Inside the mind of a Terrorist discussing the importance of Mind-Control.
"We should focus on a better understanding of the mind-control tactics and strategies that might make even good people engage in evil deeds."
Several guards in camouflage and riot gear approached cell No. 103. They unlocked a rectangular panel at the bottom of the door and Mr. Padilla’s bare feet slid through, eerily disembodied. As one guard held down a foot with his black boot, the others shackled Mr. Padilla’s legs. Next, his hands emerged through another hole to be manacled.
Wordlessly, the guards, pushing into the cell, chained Mr. Padilla’s cuffed hands to a metal belt. Briefly, his expressionless eyes met the camera before he lowered his head submissively in expectation of what came next: noise-blocking headphones over his ears and blacked-out goggles over his eyes. Then the guards, whose faces were hidden behind plastic visors, marched their masked, clanking prisoner down the hall to his root canal.
new york times
The US government has warned of an al-Qaeda call to attack US online stock market and banking services.
The threat, seen on an al-Qaeda website, applied to the whole of December.
It was said to be in revenge for the continued detention of suspects at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay.
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, Russ Knocke, said there was no evidence to corroborate the threat.
He said the US Computer Emergency Readiness team had issued a "situational awareness report to industry stakeholders".
However, he said it had been issued out of what he called "an abundance of caution".
The warning said the threat called for attacks to begin Friday and run through the month of December.
It is described as an "aspirational threat" and the nature of the warning is particularly vague, the BBC's Guto Harri in New York says.
BBC ARTICLE
NEW YORK--If you are a hard-core player of virtual worlds like World of Warcraft, Second Life, EverQuest or There, IRS form 1099 may someday soon take on a new meaning for you.
That's because game publishers may well in the not-too-distant future have to send the forms--which individuals receive when earning nonemployee income from companies or institutions--to virtual world players engaging in transactions for valuable items like Ultima Online castles, EverQuest weapons or Second Life currency, even when those players don't convert the assets into cash.
Most governments are only beginning to become aware of the substantial economic activity in online games, but the games' rapid growth and the substantial value of the many virtual assets changing hands in them is almost certain to bring them into the popular consciousness.
CNET article
Ahmadinejad went on to say that, "Today scores of Western politicians are in doubt as to the future of this illegitimate regime and its existence has come under question.
"There is no doubt the Palestinian nation and Muslims as a whole will emerge victorious," the Iranian president told Haniyeh.
"The continued commission of crimes by the Zionist regime will speed up the collapse of this fictitious regime," said Ahmadinejad.
Jerusalem post
The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.
The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.
Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia.
cnet article
WASHINGTON (AP) - Without notifying the public, federal agents for the past four years have assigned millions of international travelers, including Americans, computer-generated scores rating the risk they pose of being terrorists or criminals.
The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years.
The scores are assigned to people entering and leaving the United States after computers assess their travel records, including where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered.
The program's existence was quietly disclosed earlier in November when the government put an announcement detailing the Automated Targeting System, or ATS, for the first time in the Federal Register, a fine-print compendium of federal rules. Privacy and civil liberties lawyers, congressional aides and even law enforcement officers said they thought this system had been applied only to cargo.
apnews
An endemic crackdown on peaceful protest and dissent has continued with President Bush signing the 'Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act,'. Under the guise of protecting researchers, scientists and their staff who conduct experiments and tests on animals, the latest terror bill seeks to class as "terrorists" those who seek to protest against such activities.
article
As the dollar goes into free fall and the housing market accelerates in sales yet plunges in price, the quickening of an agenda of economic catastrophe allied to the "solution" of predatory globalism and the creation of a North American Union is afoot, and it spells potential disaster for the livelihood of all Americans.
ARTICLE
Council on Foreign Relations: Traitors, Erasing US Borders
North American Union Orwellian Brave New World
Cheney and Bush work for the CFR/Rockefeller Elite types. So do Bill and Hillary Clinton. Who are both members of the triliateral commision as well as other Rockefeller organizations. The CFR plan to bring about a one world government, but dont take my word for it.
"We shall have world government whether or not you like it, by conquest or consent." Statement by Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member James Warburg to The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 17th, l950
"The Council on Foreign Relations is "the establishment." Not only does it have influence and power in key decision-making positions at the highest levels of government to apply pressure from above, but it also announces and uses individuals and groups to bring pressure from below, to justify the high level decisions for converting the U.S. from a sovereign Constitutional Republic into a servile member state of a one-world dictatorship." Former Congressman John Rarick 1971
"The New World Order will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down...but in the end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece will accomplish much more than the old fashioned frontal assault." CFR member Richard Gardner, writing in the April l974 issue of the CFR's journal, Foreign Affairs.
If you thought you could avoid the lines at the DMV and renew by mail -- think again.
A new federal law will force you to renew the license in person.
Beginning in 2008, every driver will have to get a new license -- even if their old one hasn't expired.
Right now states have different requirements to get a license.
But Congress, driven by Homeland Security concerns, recently passed the Real ID act. That means Texas will have the same standards as California, New York and all the other states.
KVUE article + video
