Inspired by the Top 10 Best Places To Live in America- Can You Tell Me About Where You Live? (was difficult to categorize this question) This Money list of Best Places To Live 2007 inspired me to want to ask you about where you live. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2007/ Obviously, many places did not make the top 10- and that is why I think this question & answers would be interesting. Can you tell me about where you live and why you think it may be deserving of being listed as one of the "Best Places To Live"? OK- no responses yet. If you are worried about publicly listing where you live- feel free to send me a private email :)

Recent report that Ft. Collins is best place to live. Will it be for long? I just read a report that came out that Fort Collins, CO was rated the best place to live by CNN Money. This was one of the places we were thinking of moving. Do you think since the report came out, the population will sky rocket, or do people not pay attention to those reports?

Is Seven Oaks, South Carolina, a good place to live? Cost of living? Suggestions? I am pondering different options, a new city to live. In the CNN's site, 100 Best Places in America, I found Seven Oaks, S. Carolina. What do you think? Any suggestions?

Has your city/town ever been on the Top 100 list...? of best places to live in the US? http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2005/top100/top100_1.html You can look in the other years, too. My city was number 75 in 2005.

Why does Houston, TX have "n/a" for Air Quality Index...Continued? Why does Houston, TX have "n/a" for Air Quality Index in the Money Magazine review of the "Best places to live"? Is the air quality so bad that they don't even want people to know what it is? Check it out here -> http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2007/snapshots/PL4835000.html If the air quality is pretty bad they should let people know it for the sake of their health!

By experience, truthfully? for my family with a 12 and 8 year old, boys, I need to know where the best place to live is, best schools, low crime, recreational, etc. We are looking to relocate in a couple of years, maybe to CO, Utah or NM and anyone with info by experience would be great. I already googled the info and I got a list from CNN, worthless info. please help. thanks

Socialism/Liberalism, how many opponents of "free" healthcare have actually experienced it.? I just asked the question on why many people hate liberals and socialists here, many felt obligated to attack the free healthcare policy which is perfectly fine cause it got me thinking. I am Canadian so my experiences do differ. First of all I do read current news, and no not only Canadian, but from Associated Press, CNN, BBC and other random news outlets. On the issue of taxes in Canada, the highest tax rate is 16% for purchases and 7% is the lowest, The property and income taxes in Canada are comparable or either lower than many US locations. It just happens to have a different distribution of cash flow, comparatively to US, Canada doesn't spend on military. Yet because of its socialist and liberal propaganda, it and scandanavian countries have been listed as the best places in the world to live along with having longer lifespans

I have just seen on CNN that Israel have given 5000 permits to the Palestinians to live in the West Bank.? How kind of them, until you realise that the West Bank belongs to the Palestinians in the first place.!!! And that makes it alright, Franco ?

Why does the media like to continue to impose damage on Detroits rep? This morning, CNN listed Detroit as the least desirable place to live in the U.S. amongst that was Cleveland, and kansas city. Why couldn't they just stick with the most desirable places? Does the media enjoy rubbing it in peoples faces, and insulting people who don't deserve to be insulted? It's like a down syndrom child. If you continue to bash them down, they will never improve no matter how hard they try. or for that matter, no matter how much they improve.

Why is CNN showing a made up fake bin ladden tape? It so obvious, is fake. Bush conviniently gets the CNN support by showing this fake tape. The fake Bin Ladden says mention Iraq, why dems do not stop the illegal invasion of Iraq, and Bush replies that, thats what al qaida wants , to make Iraq a place for extremists. America, Bush and all those fake tapes of Bin ladden are just a worthless sh###@t misinformation to give and put fear in all of us. CNN, is a tool of misinformation as well as fox news, and as for the dems , they do not care to stop the war, wake up America, we are living the American dream, all lies and deception.

My american government current event? WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (CNN) -- For Doug Pegram, it is on the one hand simple math: His medical bills cost roughly $300 a month and a health insurance policy would cost $550. "Two or three hundred dollars goes a long way," Pegram said. Especially when you are living on unemployment benefits. Simple math, and a huge gamble: Pegram has a rare disorder, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, that in some patients can be life-threatening. "If anything happens, that's another story," Pegram told us. "But you have to do what you have to do sometimes, and you just hope for the best. And do it." Video Watch Pegram describe his tough choices » Life on the edge started in November, when Pegram lost his job at Hanesbrands Inc., the clothing manufacturer where he had worked for three years. Ironically, Pegram's job as a senior analyst included writing reports for Hanes management on sales and economic trends. "Every couple months, it [layoffs] went through the company and a few people here and there and it got worse and worse," he said. "I knew it was in the future somewhere." Now, he is looking for a job and keeping his fingers crossed his condition doesn't worsen. Ehlers-Danlos is a group of inherited disorders that affect connective tissues. In Pegram's case, it means constant pain in his legs and some other joints. "One type is you can have heart failure if you don't get checked out, so it's pretty serious that you actually go to the doctor," Pegram said. His monthly visit costs $150 -- and patients like Pegram who are without insurance are asked to pay up front. His medications run about $126 at a discount pharmacy. Pegram has old bills showing that when he was at Hanes and insured, the same medication cost the insurance company $68 because of its discount. His doctor also accepted a lower negotiated rate from the insurer. "So everything is inflated," he said of his medical costs now. Don't Miss * Green jobs grow slowly in Philadelphia * Fence represents divide over illegal immigration * Indiana mayor says he'd put stimulus money to good use * Lansing struggles with restructured GM He could have signed up for the COBRA health coverage available to workers as they lose their jobs. It was that policy Pegram said would have cost him $550 or "almost half of what you get every month" in jobless benefits and leave him "not able to pay for a place to live, and food, and all that." Video Watch President Obama's summit on health care » In an interview at his condo, we asked Pegram: "Should you be doing more? If you had insurance, would you be doing more, seeing more doctors?" "Yes, I would be." "And what's the risk of not doing that?" "I could go downhill quicker. It's a debilitating condition, so eventually I could, I don't know." Yet he is remarkably upbeat about his health and about the prospects of finding a job before his benefits run out in a few months. "I think I will find something before then," Pegram said, while conceding he might be forced soon to lower his sights and look for work that pays less than his Hanes position as long as it provides health care coverage. The jobless rate in the Winston-Salem metropolitan area was 7.6 percent in December 2008, up from 4.4 percent one year earlier. With the higher unemployment comes increases in the number of residents without health insurance. Dr. Bruce Wham has been a practicing dentist for 26 years and an amateur economist for the past year or so. "Most people feel like it is going to get worse before it gets better," Wham said when we visited his practice. "Talking to patients, talking about automobile purchases, any kind of renovations of houses, even education -- sending their kids to college, there is a lot of concern about purchasing those things or how they are going to do those things and dentistry is sometimes considered more of a luxury than a necessity and we get pushed to the back lot." One way Wham can tell if a longtime patient is about to lose his or her job is if they suddenly schedule treatments and repairs they had been putting off. It is a sign they are about to lose their insurance coverage. "Especially if there is something that they need to get done or have been 'treatment-planned' for and they have been told by the dentist, the hygienist, to replace this, yes, they are more likely to want to come in and get that done as soon as they can," Wham said. The flip side: A patient who needs major work who instead endures the pain, or asks Wham if there is a cheaper, though perhaps temporary, solution. "If there is anything that can be delayed or pushed back, that is what they are doing. They are asking us, 'Is there any way that we can hold off? Is there anything less involved, less costly until I get my job, until I know my insurance is going to be back?' in effect. "And so we do a lot of that, not necessarily temporary restorations, but things that might not last why does this pertain to government? what are the major points? and why do we care? and whats ur thought provoking question about this article?

If you live in Southern California, how are the fires affecting you, friends, and places like hospitals? This is so terrible. I know some of the fires are accidental but can you imagine that some of these are actually arson? These arsonists are probably basking in glory watching the news as thousands of homes are destoryed. I hope these people are caught and sent to prison for life. What about the wildlife and all the pets especially like horses that couldn't be moved? CNN is reporting that it is like "Armagedon". That's very frightening. I just hope everyone is safe and we owe so much to these brave firefighters and anyone else stepping into help. I heard a jail had to be evacuated! Are places like the San Diego zoo in jepordy? What kind of upsets me is that the celebritiy homes are getting more attention. A $15 million dollar home is just like a $100,000 home, it's a place where you built so many memories and have lost irreplaceable belongings like photos of family and family heirloms. No one has died, correct? My prayers are with those affected.

Is nuclear war about to take place? I just saw on cnn live at 6:05 that isreal wants to attack iran's nuclear facility and that isreal compares iran to nazi germany. And iran said if they attack they will take measure's to cease their existence or something along those lines. And cnn said they may or could do this within days or hours when they get a green light to go. Sorry if I misinterpreted or heard wrong. But does this mean we may have nuclear war soon?

Do you believe that neighbours have to learn to live together? If civilians from either side can be so sensible, why can't those who make the decisions learn from them? Someone has to stop the madness...regardless of who started it in the first place. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/04/civilian.crossfire/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Why can ILLEGAL immigrants can get financial aid to go to college, and middle-class families don’t? I recently seen part of a CNN show that showed how an illegal family from Mexico, who originally came with Visa’s to go to Disneyland 4 years ago, are still in this country. To my surprise, the son stated that he had gotten financial aid to go to college. He also stated that on the application, I’m assuming FAFSA, that he claimed he was not a citizen. Now stating that, I think everyone has the right to an education and that immigrants are what make this country a wonderful and diverse place to live. What I have a problem with is that he is able to get financial aid, yet so many American citizens are denied or get very little. How is this possible? On another note, the family pays taxes and the husband is employed. With this being said, please tell me how they are getting away with not being deported. Thanks. p.s. I'm not white or a Conservative. I also gladly did not have to face this hazard, but know friends who were A/B students who didn't get any help with tuition.

Obama inauguration live online? Anyone know where I can watch the Obama inauguration live online. I will be stuck in a class with a professor who is very strict on attendance. I will have a computer in front of me though and I am more than willing to ignore him in order to watch. So if anyone knows a place that will have a live web stream let me know. I heard cnn might do it but was not sure I was also wanting to know if anyone could confirm anywhere else to watch it as well. For the guy who said ron paul 08 I am glad you are proud that you are dumb enough to be openly lied to. I think it's awesome that you support a guy who wants to shrink government yet for some reason needs a "massive amount of tax dollars from the legalization of drugs." Of course I'm a silly liberal and am not intelligent enough to understand why an psuedo-anarchist state needs would need a populace addicted to taxation.

What do you think of those forgotten people? You will never see them on CNN!? When I see this video, many questions come to my mind, if you have an answer to any, please reply me? Why we never see these people on CNN, FOX or ABC? Why no one cares to them? How can we help them? Till when they have to live like that? Do you think this situation can affect your own life, oneday? If you were in their place, what would you do? Who they are? see it here: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1380469430

Excuse me. How much do you agree with this article? Suffering and Smiling….. Africa is hot. Why? …..So we can save it? .... Western views of the continent. A few years ago, I was sitting on a plane when one of those ads came on. You know the type: some Sally Struthers wannabe standing next to a mud hut with sad folks huddled in the doorway. We’ve seen them a million times, and these days every celebrity seems to want to jump on the Save Africa bandwagon. (See Ricky Gervais’s take.) Because that is how most people in the West see Africa: A problem to be solved. By us. My problem with this scenario is that, during several years living in and traveling through East and West Africa, I never saw anyone (without some deformity) who looked as miserable as the people on those charity shoots. As I walked past my neighbors’ huts, people yelled greetings, smiled, waved, laughed, asked what my news was, asked me for money and laughed when I said no. Then they invited me in for tea, killed a chicken, made me stay for three hours, eating till I was stuffed. But this warmth and generosity and humor are nowhere to be seen in those ads. They flatten the place I knew into a caricature of misery. In Vanity Fair’s new Africa Issue, Binyavanga Wainaina, a great writer who broke out with a Caine Prize-winning travel story, (and who I interviewed last year for Tin House) makes much the same point in his article, Generation Kenya. “As I sit here in Upstate New York, and read the New York Times, or watch CNN,” he writes as current writer-in-residence at Union College, “Africa feels like a fevered and infectious place....This habit—of trying to turn the second largest continent in the world, which has 53 countries and nearly a billion people of every variety and situation, into one giant crisis—is now one of the biggest problems Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Ghana face.” Not to mention the other 49 countries. Wainaina’s piece is easily the best in the magazine, chronicling the story of Kenya in the 1990s, a time of protest and reform and economic rebirth and technological advance. Mostly his country was (and is) a place with hope, not because aid was pouring in, but because initiative took root. “We have learned to ignore the shrill screams coming from the peddlers of hopelessness,” he writes. “We motor on in faith and enterprise, with small steps. On hope, without hysteria.……” I forgot to add that the article can be found on http://www.worldhum.com/speakers_corner/item/suffering_and_smiling_vanity_fair_does_africa_20070626 Thanks snaffle. You know what? I really hold the opnion that happiness is not only for some and can be found if one looks/searches in the right places. Shut the fuck up DEE. You heard me!! I don't know you so you better save your attacks for some body else. You are not gonig to patronise me. I hope you understand that. Thanks for posting my statements a second time. I hope they sank in well while you were doing it. DEE you are the fool. Not me. Thanks Jethro but I honestly think it's about them wanting people to help us BUT not only that, there's more.

Place to watch new years countdown online? Is there a website somewhere where I can watch the new years countdown in ny times square (dick clark's rockin', cnn's ac, etc.)? Doesn't have to be live since I live on the West Coast. On new year's eve, I will be at a place without tv and will only have my computer with me! Thanks.

Would the NHL players rather live in Arizona or Florida? Sorry Homes, but even though Florida has more people than AZ, Arizona is growing faster than your state. http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/22/real_estate/fastest_growing_states/index.htm Note: Then can live where ever they want to but I think most would rather live here if giving a choice between the two states. I would have to write a book to make this arugument but I'll highling some of my main points instead. 1. Home prises are not an issue for rich and famous people but the property taxes are, in AZ the Taxes are between $500-1500 last I checked. 2. AZ has alot of nice looking golf courses like Florida. 3. Most people would rather deal with 110+ temps with no humidity than 90 + with humidity. 4. Unlike Florida, people here can drive to the places that snow and return to nicer weather. Flagstaff Mt Lemmon AZ get snow. Questions: 1. Would you rather live in AZ or Fl and why? 2. Which state AZ or FL will see an NHL team in the playoffs next year? Sorry Homes, had to defend my state. http://www.famousazhomes.com/ Arizona has become popular over the years for the rich and famous. Donivan McNabb David Spade Bo Jackson Lynda Carter Leslie Nelson Mike Tyson LOL Alice Cooper Billy Grahme Jeff Hornacek Jenna Jameson Sorry but I didn't want my state to be underminded by Homes!! BSBG You say it's pointless and stupid yet you responded to Homes question just like this and didn't give the same response. Oh are you going to remove your answer now. that I called you out. So what If there are other who don't care but I do!! Thank you answering nicely in advance. Hardcore, I respect your opinion. Thanks Heavy Also There are lot of Midwestern people that moved here too. Mostly from the Chicago Area and Detroit and picking up with some from Ohio. Jenny You can always find me anytime you like! LOL Hurricanes are nasty but the Monsoons out here can be deadly too. Chris only 50% of Arizona is desert Arizona is home to the southern most ski resort in the USA. Mt Lemmon AZ at 9500 ft. Mt Lemmon is 30 mins from Tucson. Tucson is 40 minutes from the USA Mexico border. Flagstaff, Show Low, White mountains, Grand Caynon and Norther Arizona get snow and lot of it. Note; San Francisco Mountains in the Flagstaff area are over 13,000 ft in elevation.

Is the USA a victim of a propaganda war from the media to promote anti-Americanism which helps terrorists? media outlets which only bring one side of the story to peoples around the world. such as "documentaries", "news", "sympathetic stories to our enemies", etc... i thought "freedom of the press" was to protect the government from spreading propaganda and lies...but if the media is doing it...who stops them... I am an American and live outside of the US for my job. Everytime I watch the International news from the US it makes me feel that America is a terrible place to live because of so much accepted violence, everyone is against the war, the government can't do anything right, etc... However, when I visit my family what I watched on the "International news" is not the same thing I watch inside of America. The news from inside of america doesn't sound so bad for America. where i live i can get CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, and BBC.

why do we ask cnn.........how muslim women feel??? Let’s not ask Barbra Walters how muslim women feel; let’s not ask tom brokaw,cnn,abc,fox, the London times or Australian times.let’s not ask nonMuslims how muslim women feel, how they live, what their challenges are etc. if you want to be fair.ask a muslim woman that knows her religion who has a relationship with the Creator who is stable in her society, understanding her responsibilities; ask her. The problem is: no one really wants to ask muslim women . We want to take pics of women in Afghanistan, Palestine and Pakistan and pics of women over here and we want to listen to what people say about female circumcision as if muslims have 30-40,000 muslim women all over the world being circumcised; some crazy steven Spielberg stuff..let me give you a statistic: most of every muslim women will be or is a college graduate, or is very intelligent & very much socially endowed and within her family structure you find women control the wealth more so than the men. Now what does that say to you?? Now where you find women among muslims being exploited and oppressed, that is because those muslims themselves aren’t representing the principles of religion and in every religion you got black sheep. But then you can’t tell me the 148,000 prostitututes that walk the streets in the U.K or the 76,000 prostitutes that walk the streets of Holland that have licenses to do so you can’t tell me that all these young naked little girls walking around Australia with no clothes on…you can’t tell me they represent liberation. You can’t tell me that the 2350 abortions murders that take place with these young women represents sophistication and liberation you can’t tell me that a naked woman sitting on a choclate bar ,a naked woman selling everything;toothpaste etc everything you can't tell me that doesn't represent exploitation.so lets put things in context . Lets talk about things correctly. lets be fair and objective. I can go on until dawn but for now just one more statistic, just one more; prostitution venereal disease, abortion & pedophilia & the horrendous # of children that are kidnapped and raped. That exist in the western world it is almost unheard of in the muslim world. So I think that the statistics speak for themselves plz ppl. stop turning to politics.We're talking about Islam and again as i've mentioned quote "Now where you find women among muslims being exploited and oppressed, that is because those muslims themselves aren’t representing the principles of religion and in every religion you got black sheep."

Why did the US crew return the pirate? "Second Mate Ken Quinn told CNN in a live interview Wednesday that the crew also had held a hostage. "We had a pirate, we took him for 12 hours," Quinn said. "We returned him, but they didn't return the captain." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30103371/ Of course I don't know the circumstances, but this sounds strange. Why would anyone want to return the only bargaining point, and not make sure the proper exchange takes place? Maybe someone has more details?

newer horizon demanded in usa politicking. can non natural born + nonbinding resolution senate run pres U S ?

Where can I watch the Oscar Nominations announcement Live online FREE tomorrow? I'm in Ireland and I don't have CBS/CNN/ABC/FOX or any of the AMerican News Channels or Entertainment Chanells, or Sky. But I was wondering if any of these websites will be broadcastong the Nominations Live? The most important thing, above all else, is the word "FREE" - I dont want to have to face Credit Card Subscription Forms. Also, preferable non-torrent sites if possible as I've found 99% of them are utter **** and stop and start and are so full of viruses, its a miracle the site operates in the first place! Thanks, Blue

association of committee to elect the rev dr kamal karna roy v. homeland security dept us issue birth obama?

Who would vote for Mitt Romney on his record? I have one prescription that costs more than the insurance cost in Mass.

Why do environmentalists cause more harm than good?

How do you insure that the TRUTH will never be placed in the mainstream media? CNN begins working with ARMY "PSYOPS" march 2001. http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17437 By making them incriminate themselves if they do so. The majority of people who saw a plane crash in to the towers were Major Mass Media News Producers, or there wives!!! A few other witnesses have been identified as washed up actors. One guy was in a Salvation Army commercial!!! Remember when you were watching the coverage live and people said "The nose of the airplane came out the other side" ? There was no hole in the oppicite side of the building! but yet it was recorded on thousands of Americans VHS recorders. THIS VIDEO HAS SOLVED THAT DILEMA IN SHOCKING DETAIL. http://www.livevideo.com/video/6F393F4DE41C4CF798CBB438E6378129/september-clues-part1.aspx

What do you think about this soldiers letter? From: J.D. Englehart, (Former) SPC. 1st Infantry Division Sent: January 14, 2006 People often ask me, "If you are so against the war and couldn't stand the army, why did you ever join in the first place?" I have answered the same every time, that perhaps I was naïve, that I wanted a chance to see the world and earn college money. Or that I felt trapped in a dead-end town and needed a chance to escape, or that I was curious to live life as a soldier and gain military knowledge. These answers are never enough for some people, yet so many young Americans end up in the military the same exact way. I understand that I joined just prior to September 11, 2001. Indeed, I was naïve then to think that we lived in a somewhat peaceful world. Soldiers at that time joined for other reasons. Maybe soldiers who join now are ones who want to fight in a war. After much personal debate, I have learned that my resistance to war and empire was forged by the army itself. Since the very beginning of my four year military experience, I was simply a very different soldier. In basic training, instead of attending church service with the rest of the privates for two hours of relaxation, I was in the barracks mopping the floors and cleaning toilets. I would not fake a belief in god for petty rewards. While other soldiers were marching in rank and file to eat chow, I was off to the side, being smoked by a drill sergeant--doing pushups and flutter-kicks--for refusing to yell out cadence like a dopey high school cheerleader. As time went by, it never got any easier. I had a very hard time with the concept of conformity. While other soldiers in the barracks were watching porno's and hitting the beer bong with their frat-buddies, I was sitting on my bunk in a dark corner of a room reading Noam Chomsky. Instead of spending endless hours spit-shining my boots or ironing my BDU's, I was playing punk riffs on my guitar or perhaps writing poetry. I would routinely skip out on company "mandatory fun days" and go back to my room and sleep. Beetle Bailey was my hero. Instead of spending every weekend going to the same mundane hip-hop clubs and discos, starting fights and trying to get laid, I was backpacking across Europe with other like-minded friends. We traveled way beyond the limits that a mileage pass would allow. We were openly learning about other cultures, exploring a great unknown, and living life to the fullest while we had it. Instead of hating Iraqis for their strange ways and resentful behavior, I was trying to imagine the world in which they lived, even before an unwelcome US occupation forced them to live in a war zone. While other soldiers were bragging about how many hajis they had waxed in the last engagement, I was carefully pondering what the longtime ramifications would be for such inane bloodshed. Instead of coming back from missions and going straight to the PlayStation, I was writing what I saw and how I felt on this blog. It is true that I was a very different breed in the army. However, there were others like me. We were far and few between, we were misfits in an olive-drab green hell. We solidified, became friends, and became brothers. Most of the soldiers in my platoon were this way, outcasts. We opposed the war, sometimes openly. We were never persecuted for our beliefs because, although we were angry, we were a whole. We were a group of covert-subverts and our chain of command hated it. I came home from Iraq and was awarded combat spurs, a glorious achievement for a cavalry scout. I contemplated the true meaning of these spurs, this icon of war. Spurs that were worn by soldiers on horses; who rode with General Custer and decimated the American Indian population. Spurs painted with the blood of five major wars of the 20th century, some wars to fight empire and others to promote it. What would I do with these spurs? I decided to hold on to them. They meant much more than archaic tradition and a turbulent history. Somehow they meant comradery and friendship. My brothers-in-arms and I had earned them together, and they symbolize a token of deep understanding of a past we will share together, until the day we die. Today's public thinks that every American soldier fighting in Iraq supports the war and that his/her morale and trust in command is very high. However, in my experience, this was simply not true. I encountered dissent on many levels (For one example, see post below: Free Speech for Soldiers, Sept.21, 2004). Even soldiers who supported the army and loved their job hated being in a conflict they could not understand. Some soldiers did understand, and were resentful for it. The morale for the majority of our brigade was relatively low. I rarely met anyone who wanted to fight in Iraq, and the only ones who truly wanted to stay were the high echelon officers who seemed more concerned about their careers than the overall mission. Some may wonder where these disgruntled soldiers are. I believe that they are a part of every social fabric of our country. I've certainly met more angry veterans than I have boastful ones. Some missing limbs, some missing friends, others missing innocence. Angry and confused. Cannot find the healthcare they need. Cannot find jobs. Can no longer find a place to fit in our society. Some of these soldiers are still in the military and fear repercussions of speaking out. Soldiers who served several missions in Iraq and want no more. Soldiers tied to the war machine with no hope of escape. They wait for their day of freedom, hoping to avoid another stop-loss. They want out before death takes them first. So many silent voices and whispered stories. I know one veteran who refuses to talk about his experience because he thinks no one will understand and it won't change anything anyways. Another veteran I know candy-coats his experience so he won't disappoint his conservative family members. These soldiers are everywhere, but choose to remain silent because they fear ostracism from a war crazed, jingoistic public. The media plays with everyone's mind, convincing everyone that everything is okay as long as you trust in the government's overall plans for victory in Iraq. But when one asks a veteran for the truth, this optimistic fairy tale of ultimate victory seems a hard pill to swallow. I am not trying to speak for every soldier and veteran. I know that there are those out there who support the war effort and feel good about being in Iraq. However, in my experience, I have not met too many who feel this way. There is a rising tide of antiwar sentiments growing in this country. Fifty-two percent of America now feels it was not worth going to war with Iraq, while fifty-eight percent disapprove of Bush's handling of the war, and now a whopping fifty-three percent actually support a Bush impeachment. (CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll/Zogby Poll. Jan. 6-8, 2006). One would have to wonder how these polls might look if more and more soldier accounts were brought to the public's attention. There is a truth that lies buried under the Pentagon propaganda machine and the misinformation provided by corporate media and a dishonest administration, and that truth lies in the experience of combat soldiers. In the end I know that my experience may have been different, or that maybe I was a very different kind of soldier. But it was the army that molded my contempt for authority and distrust of a feudalistic government that pulls the strings. Through my army involvement I met others like me who felt much of the same way. We were dissidents, but never un-American. On the contrary, we knew the difference between following orders and thinking for ourselves. Ultimately, there is no difference between love for one's country and the willingness to oppose a government that institutes war, fear and oppression on any level. There are many soldiers and veterans who share the same feelings as me and others I met along the way. Some are even in the ranks of the military. Someday all the soldiers will come home and when they do, their stories and sentiments will follow. Only then will a better understanding of the truth be known. -- J.D. Englehart

New KKK issue? I was watching CNN the other day and saw this report on the KKK. If im not mistaken it was said there are an additional 800 more members joining the Klu Klux Klan. They went on to say that certain places are really racist and even showed people saying they hate blacks and jews and that they dont belong here. This one 'white' said that blacks and jews need to get out because we were not the ones who built this land so therefore we should not live in it. I was ok with the newsreport until i saw them showing footage of a KKK 'ceremony' where they were actually praying to god and chanting 'white power' i was extremely appalled and didnt think that they should have went that far. I wanna know you guy's opinion. Thanx A Lot

I am being observed by t.v. (cable) channels, local people. But I do not see any camera at anywhere.? I am being observed by t.v. (cable) channels, local people. But I do not see any camera in my house or anywhere. They are observing all my daily activities (going somewhere, working in computer, talking with someone). They also can check little details such as whether I am sweating or not. Some T.V. channels CNN (America), Zee tv (India), Star Plus (India), Star World, DW-TV (Germany), BBC (news channel), they know where are those/that camera. Can anyone contact to these channels and then answer me where are those cameras? My e-mail address is faisal_nsu01@yahoo.com. My name is Faisal Hasan Khan, I am a computer science graduate from north south university in Bangladesh (country name). City name is Dhaka. Tallabag is the name of the place where I live.

What do you know about the Media and Abu Ghraib??

Does any one know if this is true or a hoax? A Soldier's last words, 22 Oct 2007 8:52 pm SGT. Edmund John Jeffer's last few words were some of the most touching, inspiring and most truthful words spoken since the tragedy of 9/11 - and since our nation went to war. SGT. Jeffers was a strong soldier and talented writer. He died in Iraq on September 19, 2007. He was a loving husband, brother and son. His service was more than this country could ever grasp - but the least you can do for the man who sacrificed his life for you ... is listen to what he had to say. Compare his observations two the cynicism of the Cindy Sheehans and Al Frankens, Chris Mathews, Keith Olberman, MSNBC, CNN, NBC and CBS who presume to call themselves 'patriots'..... Hope Rides Alone By Eddie Jeffers I stare out into the darkness from my post, and I watch the city burn to the ground. I smell the familiar smells, I walk through the familiar rubble, and I look at the frightened faces that watch me pass down the streets of their neighborhoods. My nerves hardly rest; my hands are steady on a device that has been given to me from my government for the purpose of taking the lives of others. I sweat, and I am tired. My back aches from the loads I carry. Young American boys look to me to direct them in a manner that will someday allow them to see their families again...and yet, I too, am just a boy....my age not but a few years more than that of the ones I lead. I am stressed, I am scared, and I am paranoid...because death is everywhere. It waits for me, it calls to me from around street corners and windows, and it is always there. There are the demons that follow me, and tempt me into thoughts and actions that are not my own...but that are necessary for survival. I've made compromises with my humanity. And I am not alone in this. Miles from me are my brethren in this world, who walk in the same streets...who feel the same things, whether they admit to it or not. And to think, I volunteered for this... And I am ignorant to the rest of the world...or so I thought. But even thousands of miles away, in Ramadi , Iraq, the cries and screams and complaints of the ungrateful reach me. In a year, I will be thrust back into society from a life and mentality that doesn't fit your average man. And then, I will be alone. And then, I will walk down the streets of America , and see the yellow ribbon stickers on the cars of the same people who compare our President to Hitler. I will watch the television and watch the Cindy Sheehans, and the Al Frankens, and the rest of the ignorant sheep of America spout off their mouths about a subject they know nothing about. It is their right, however, and it is a right that is defended by hundreds of thousands of boys and girls scattered across the world, far from home. I use the word boys and girls, because that's what they are. In the Army, the average age of the infantryman is nineteen years old. The average rank of soldiers killed in action is Private First Class. People like Cindy Sheehan are ignorant. Not just to this war, but to the results of their idiotic ramblings, or at least I hope they are. They don't realize its effects on this war. In this war, there are no Geneva Conventions, no cease fires. Medics and Chaplains are not spared from the enemy's brutality because it's against the rules. I can only imagine the horrors a military Chaplain would experience at the hands of the enemy. The enemy slinks in the shadows and fights a coward's war against us. It is effective though, as many men and women have died since the start of this war. And the memory of their service to America is tainted by the inconsiderate remarks on our nation's news outlets. And every day, the enemy changes...only now, the enemy is becoming something new. The enemy is transitioning from the Muslim extremists t o Americans. The enemy is becoming the very people whom we defend with our lives. And they do not realize it. But in denouncing our actions, denouncing our leaders, denouncing the war we live and fight, they are isolating the military from society...and they are becoming our enemy. Democrats and peace activists like to toss the word "quagmire" around and compare this war to Vietnam . In a way they are right, this war is becoming like Vietnam . Not the actual war, but in the isolation of country and military. America is not a nation at war; they are a nation with its military at war. Like it or not, we are here, some of us for our second, or third times; some even for their fourth and so on. Americans are so concerned now with politics, that it is interfering with our war. Terrorists cut the heads off of American citizens on the Internet...and there is no outrage, but an American soldier kills an Iraqi in the midst of battle, and there are investigations, and sometimes soldiers are even jailed...for doing their job. It is absolutely sickening to me to think our country has come to this. Why are we so obsessed with the bad news? Why will people stop at nothing to be against this war, no matter how much evidence of the good we've done is thrown in their face? When is the last time CNN or MSNBC or CBS reported the opening of schools and hospitals in Iraq ? Or the leaders of terror cells being detained or killed? It's all happening, but people will not let up their hatred of Bush. They will ignore the good news, because it just might show people that Bush was right. America has lost its will to fight. It has lost its will to defend what is right and just in the world. The crazy thing of it all is that the American people have not even been asked to sacrifice a single thing. It's not like World War Two, where people rationed food, and turned in cars to be made into metal for tanks. The American people have not been asked to sacrifice anything. Unless you are in the military or the family member of a service member, its life as usual...the war doesn't affect you. But it affects us. And when it is over, and the troops come home, and they try to piece together what's left of them after their service...where will the detractors be then? Where will the Cindy Sheehans be to comfort and talk to soldiers and help them sort out the last couple years of their lives, most of which have been spent dodging death and wading through the deaths of their friends? They will be where they always are, somewhere far away, where the horrors of the world can't touch them. Somewhere where they can complain about things they will never experience in their lifetime; things that the young men and women of America have willingly taken upon their shoulders. We are the hope of the Iraqi people. They want what everyone else wants in life: safety, security, somewhere to call home. They want a country that is safe to raise their children in. Not a place where their children will be abducted, raped, and murdered if they do not comply with the terrorists demands. They want to live on, rebuild and prosper. And America has given them the opportunity, but only if we stay true to the cause, and see it to its end. But the country must unite in this endeavor...we cannot place the burden on our military alone. We must all stand up and fight, whether in uniform or not. And supporting us is more than sticking yellow ribbon stickers on your cars. It's supporting our President, our troops and our cause. Right now, the burden is all on the American soldiers. Right now, hope rides alone. But it can change, it must change. Because there is only failure and darkness ahead for us as a country, as a people, if it doesn't. Let's stop all the political nonsense, let's stop all the bickering, let's stop all the bad news, and let's stand and fight! Eddie's father, David Jeffers, writes: I'm not sure how many letters or articles you've ever read from the genre of "News from the Front," but this is one of the best I've ever read, including all of America's wars. As I was reading this, I forgot that it was my son who had written it. My emotions range from great pride to great sorrow, knowing that my little boy (22 years old) has become this man. He is my hero. Thank all of you for your prayers for him; he needs them now more than ever. God bless. Though Eddie is no longer with us, you can help to let his voice be heard. God Bless and have a good day!

How can I be less afraid? I'm sixteen and seem to be more afraid than I use to. Under circumstances (a recent move), it seems fairly reasonable but I want to be less afraid. I live in possibley one of the safest places in the USA- or so I thought until a recent kidnapping about eight months ago that was less than a block from my house. I was one of the kidnappings that made headlines and was on CNN for about two weeks. I got over that somewhat until New Years Eve, when somebody tried to break into my house (fortunately my dad was home and they saw him right as they broke down the door). Now I get afraid to be home alone. I'm afraid of night. Every unusual noise I hear frightens me. I hate being afraid, knowing that many of these fears are unreasonable. Are there anyways of getting rid of these fears? It's actually about the safest place ever. The girl who was kidnapped was a huge surprise to everyone. And it turns out that the door was broken down by some of my sister's friends/ aquaintences- she is just unwilling to fess up to my dad who it was. But I can't get any kind of satisfaction out of that. I feel too uncomfortable. And my dad has since gotten some heavy duty locks and is planning on getting a nice security system.

Could you please take 5 minutes to read my short story?? I wrote this on thursday? it was my first attempt to write anything. i read alot and wanted to try it. I know there are typos and gramatical errors, but this is a rough draft before submission. wondering if it makes sense and if you like it? ONLY ME by Monte Lee "What have i done?" Thought Col Bridesmore. "What have I done?" He noticed how slowly, the body of of a man would spin in the vacuum of space. That body used to contain his freind Nicholas Merchant Lt Commander in the USN. Now its over , Paul thought, finally over. Lt Col paul Bridemore had been waiting for this moment all his life. The moment whre he became, not the little brother of a war vertran. Most decorated. purple heart and all. Not the son of one of the richest men in all of southern Alabama. Whose corn crops are still one of the richest in the south. No, this moment had been for Paul. The moment he got the email confirming his appointment as Commander of the first manned mission to Mars. This was Lt Col. Paul Bridesmore 's moment. But Paul, being the southern gentleman he was ,could always share the moment with a beautiful young lady. at this moment that lady happend to be be his wife Nena. Nena with the long black hair. Nena with the beautiful smile. Nena who at the tender age of 20, had said, I do. And even, Paul thought with a laugh , the Nena who had insisted on making the reservations for tonights dinner at Parloza's. "I'll seem like a simple housewife if I dont!" She would pout. He remembered her saying more than once. But, he could see her point. He was gone alot these days, and now with" The Long Haul" as it was being called around shop, he could really see her jumping to help in however she can. In the end i know she loves only me. Yes, Paul, and that Nena, were going out tonight to celibrate the news ,and the launch of the first mars mission. By 6:45 they were about ready to go. But,.last minutes phone calls from freinds and well wishers, kept both Nena and Paul tied up just that little bit. Paul studied himself in the mirror. "Hmm,still got the baby fat" he thought. Although Colonel Bridesmore was aproaching his middle forties,he could have easily pased for his middle 30's. With a lean jaw and blue eyes that seemed to shimmer back at him through the mirror. His years of Navy training and excercise kept him lean. He could owe that to Uncle Sam. He could owe his full head of brown , trim cut hair, to his father. Owen Bridesmore. And his father before him. the Bridemores maintained envialbe hair lines. He was not egoststical. He mused. Just very lucky. Tonight was his nite . the toast of the town. he and Lt com Nickolaus" Nicky" merchant were going to be the first men to the planet mars and this was part of their send off. it was going to be a nite to remember....... As it turns out, it was a nite Paul didint remeber very well at all. He had drank too much wine. He had attempted to taste the wine only. He was just returning a small taster with a bit of chardonney in it to the table when his wingman, Nicky, leaned over and said in a conspirital whisper "Live it up buddy, last nite before we go bye bye." Paul could see the gleam in NIckys eyes from the light and the wine but only nodded. He didnt get it then. They had gone to the Parloza restraunt in the upside of New York where they were heralded as kings. He and Nicky had lived it up that nite. friends since graduating college and comming up the ranks in the academy. Nicky had been his wingman in the war. he and his wingman had saved each other from enemy fire so many times, they owed each other their lives time and time again. Paul could think of no one he trusted more. And no one broken trust would hurt more from, than Lt Commander Nicky Merchant. Unlike Nena, Amy was born of a more humble stock. And although a beautiful ,thoughtful woman ,lacked the grace of his Nena. latley of such though he had seen Nicky regariding his wife Nena in what paul considered ,a less than causl way. Nicky was handsome in his way.with broad shoulders and a quick grin to go with it. "do i feel threatened?" Paul often thought . but then he would come to his senses. Nena loved him and only him. He gave her everything she could possible want a nice house. a new car and all the social prestige of being an astronauts wife could bring. no Nena loves me. and only me.he thought that nite. only me. Amy Merchant was aproxamatly thirty five years old. She had four children whom she loved with all her heart. Three girls and one boy. She also was a very unhappy woman. She loved her husband Nicky with all her heart. She also knew her husband very well. knew his habits. knew his weakneses. She also knew that ,her husband Nicky, Father of four. Married for 22 years. best freind and co-pilot to Col. Paul Bridesmore. First men to Mars, Lt. Commander in the USN was sleeping with Mrs Nena Bridesmore.... The chef had served Pauls faovrite. Lasagna with meatballs. "cant have that in space," thought Paul with a chuckle. The restaurant was one of the most popular that nite, and Everyone was there. When Paul walked in with Nena by his side, Nicky and Amy just behind them all dressed in tuxedos and gowns for the ladies. The energy in the small restaruant seemed to get more festive. The colors were brighter ,the music was a bit louder and the general feeling from the thirtysomething, crowd was high hopes and expectations for thier new hero's. After all of the formal introductions, Nicky and Paul were seated with their wifes as the honored guests. "After all" quiped Helen March from CNN " What what you eat if you were going to space for an eighteen months?" " A Cup of noodles?" That offhanded remark ,got Helen March on the map. She has her own show on CNN now. "It was the wine" thought Paul. It was the wine that made Amy talk. As Bridesmore could recall, the Lasagna was excellent. Served piping hot with the steam rising ofF the mound of golden crusted cheese like slowly twisting clouds, rising, then being broken like paper shreds to the decorative fans ,turning lazily from above. The cheese was making chessy blurps as they served us. The smell was so spicy and wonderful! The noodles were soft and pliable and the sauce was amazing! The chef used garlic with a italian spice that was intense! it was the best! I wish you could have been their with us. I knew she would pick the right place. Because she loves me. Only me. Although Paul was not a big fan of wine( he prefered a good stout beer) he did consume his share. as did nicky,Amy and Nina. "It was the wine" Thought Paul. It was the wine that made Amy talk. Col. Bridesmore, staring out the window of his shuttle. Staring at the slowly twisting body of his freind Nicky. The comm system light activated to interupt his thoughts. Flashing its urgent yellow light on the board. The mellow beep of its signal snatched Paul out his memories of last nite. Paul hit the recieve button. a burst of static then "Col Bridemore?, Central Comm, do you read vector six point five ,five nine? "over" ? Paul glanced to his immedite left where vector and navigtion controls were located. with a qucik fick of his eyes at the seat where his partner normaly sat. would have sat, if Paul had'nt have killed him. wrenching his eyes from the empty seat ,Paul studied the navigtion controls briefly. Of course, all pilots are trained in every aspect of thier craft. Although Paul had not the navigational talents of his copilot Nicky, he could asess and navigate better than most. thats part of the reason he was chosen for this mission. "Central command?" He said in a clear vocie. He was still a Colonel after all. And he still had a job to do. " Colonel Bridesmore here." ,( redundant,he thought grimly) " reading six point five, five seven with a point two varience," "Correcting now" he said, as he adjusted one of the hundeeds of knobs and switches that made space flight possibe. He felt a slight shift in trajectory. more from his looking out the window where the body of his copilot, arched slighty to the right, and then to the top of his viewscreen. The body looked more like that of a rag doll in a bulky space suit than a man. the suit hed been weaing when he left the airlock. the suit he thought would save his life. the same lifeless suit that was turning, almost in slow motion outside his windowscreen. Soon , He thought, " I wont have to see him anymore" "CC to Bridesmore?" "Correction confirmed. Continue to heading six point five ,five niner!? Splash down at 1530 hours confirmed" the calm, professional voice on the radio crackled. He could hear it was the voice of his once Captain Pitman, now Adimiral Pitman "And Paul?" Pitman gruffed into the mike. "Im sorry". Bridemore could almost see the tight lipped, silver haired general, gritting his cigar. He knew he meant it, but what did it mean now? He was going home. "Thanks Cap'n" Paul managed. "I am, too" . "See you in Houston" Lt.Colonel Paul Bridesmore cut the channel ,and leaned back to see the Earth grow larger in the window screen to the left and body of Nena's lover, spin slowly off to the right. The End i forgot to add this is supposed to be like a Alfred Hitchcock short. its more like his murder mysteries

Do pro illegals support Hezbollah? According to BOTH CNN & FOX news, the number of illegals in the US has been grossly underestimated. Currently, it is believed that there are between 20 and 30 MILLION illegal aliens here. Hezbollah illegals crossing the Mexican border have been captured and detained. Should we now give amnesty to illegals? If you say "yes", then you are a supporter of Hezbollah. Get a grip pro illegals. And if there is violence as a result of the Hezbollah, will the illegals then flee to yet ANOTHER country "for a better place to live"? GO AHEAD AN REPORT ME. THE TRUTH REALLY HURTS, DOESN'T IT? A Person The operative word in your response is "most" not "all". I'm not willing to take the chance with "most".

What is the relationship between 911 and Saddam?

do you really know WHATS going ann in PALESTINE??? i was born and raised there -in Palestine- and never had a life where truth is shown...you see that Israel is the poor country fighting terrorism ..well THAT IS TOTALY WRONG i lived there for more than 17 years. and saw everything that happens there i saw our house being shot at by Israel soldier knowing that me and my sis and 3 baby brothers were there only...saw my friend coming to school crying cause her dad was killed by a bomb i saw blood all over the streets in "ramallah"and lots of places i saw who has rocks and who has guns i saw an Israel soldier killing boy 12 years old because he was throwing ROCKS i know and we all know that more than 8000 are in Israel jails and no Israel soldier in Palestinians jails except one, only one so who is killing who i wrote this to see what u really think? Maybe i could show u what my eyes saw alive not what bbc and cnn and abc news lied to me. remember 80 Palestinians KILLED and 200 INJURED only in SIX DAYS http://www.ifamericansknew.com/

Are agree with this? 80% of whites are racist? (CNN) -- Most Americans, white and black, see racism as a lingering problem in the United States, and many say they know people who are racist, according to a new poll. But few Americans of either race -- about one out of eight -- consider themselves racist. And experts say racism has evolved from the days of Jim Crow to the point that people may not even recognize it in themselves. (Watch how many blacks are still afraid to stop in a Texas town Video) A poll conducted last week by Opinion Research Corp. for CNN indicates that whites and blacks disagree on how serious a problem racial bias is in the United States. Almost half of black respondents -- 49 percent -- said racism is a "very serious" problem, while 18 percent of whites shared that view. Forty-eight percent of whites and 35 percent of blacks chose the description "somewhat serious." (See the poll results) Asked if they know someone they consider racist, 43 percent of whites and 48 percent of blacks said yes. But just 13 percent of whites and 12 percent of blacks consider themselves racially biased. The poll was based on phone interviews conducted December 5 through Thursday with 1,207 Americans, including 328 blacks and 703 non-Hispanic whites. Blind to bias? University of Connecticut professor Jack Dovidio, who has researched racism for more than 30 years, estimates up to 80 percent of white Americans have racist feelings they may not even recognize. "We've reached a point that racism is like a virus that has mutated into a new form that we don't recognize," Dovidio said. He added that 21st-century racism is different from that of the past. "Contemporary racism is not conscious, and it is not accompanied by dislike, so it gets expressed in indirect, subtle ways," he said. That "stealth" discrimination reveals itself in many different situations. A three-year undercover investigation by the National Fair Housing Alliance found that real estate agents steered whites away from integrated neighborhoods and steered blacks toward predominantly black neighborhoods. "Racism here is quite subtle," e-mailed CNN.com reader Blair William, originally from Trinidad, who now lives in Lexington, South Carolina. "I think that the issue is twofold. I believe that white America's perception of blacks is still generally negative based on their limited interaction with blacks, whether this is via the media or in person. ... "On the other hand, black Americans need to stop devaluing themselves and their people," he added. "Another race can only respect you if you respect yourself and currently, I find that blacks still devalue and disgrace each other and themselves." Applicants' names may sway employers Racism also can be a factor in getting a job. (Watch how poll respondents feel about race and the top job in the U.S. Video) Candidates named Emily O'Brien or Neil McCarthy were much more likely to get calls back from potential employers than applicants named Tamika Williams and Jamal Jackson, even though they had the same credentials, according to a study by the University of Chicago. Racial bias may even determine whether you can flag a cab. New York Times writer Calvin Sims recently wrote about his experiences in the city. "If a cab passes you by, obviously it is frustrating, it's degrading and it's just really confusing, because this is akin to being in the South and being refused service at a lunch counter, which is what happened in the '60s and '70s," he said. 'Differences ... make this world exciting' The Opinion Research poll shows that blacks and whites disagree on how each race feels about the other. Asked how many whites dislike blacks, 40 percent of black respondents said "all" or "many." Twenty-six percent of whites chose one of those replies. On the question of how many blacks dislike whites, 33 percent of blacks said "all" or "many," while 38 percent of whites agreed -- not a significant difference statistically because of the poll's 5 percent margin of error. About half of black respondents said they had been a victim of discrimination because of their race. A little more than a quarter of whites said they had been victims of racial discrimination. "I am a firm believer that racism is rampant in the United States," wrote another CNN.com reader, Mark Boyle, of Muncie, Indiana. "The concept of 'race' is flawed," he added. "Our differences as human beings are what make this world exciting and interesting. If we were all of the same culture, how boring would that be? The world needs to take a page from the atmosphere in Hawaii -- the most racially diverse place in which I have lived." http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/12/racism.poll/index.html C729: University of Connecticut professor Jack Dovidio, who has researched racism for more than 30 years, estimates up to 80 percent of white Americans have racist feelings they may not even recognize. training day: I think you are insane WooleyBooley again: another lazy bastard, you are so retarded that you can´t read a simple poll.

Do all liberals who go to Islamic countries to "help" deserve to be killed like the 5 Bulgarian nurses? Five nurses and one doctor will be executed for discovering that Islamic children have AIDS. The comedic charge is, that these woman, and a Palastinian doctor, purposely injected the children with AIDS, all 400 of them. Despite the fact the scientific evidence proved the kids had AIDS before the workers came to Libya. Muslims were cheering the verdict. After 7 years of prison, these woman now face death. I was watching a PBS special about do-gooders going to Morrocco and helping the children. I wondered why, with all the poverty in non-muslim countries, they went to a place where western culture is despised. Stupidity. "convicted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor Tuesday of deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV and sentenced them to death, despite scientific evidence the youngsters had the virus before the medical workers came to Libya...."God is great! Long live the Libyan judiciary!" http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/12/19/libya.aids.ap/

Bush administration arranged support for militants attacking Lebanon? In an interview on CNN International's Your World Today, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh explains that the current violence in Lebanon is the result of an attempt by the Lebanese government to crack down on a militant Sunni group, Fatah al-Islam, that it formerly supported. Last March, Hersh reported that American policy in the Middle East had shifted to opposing Iran, Syria, and their Shia allies at any cost, even if it meant backing hardline Sunni jihadists. A key element of this policy shift was an agreement among Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser, whereby the Saudis would covertly fund the Sunni Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon as a counterweight to the Shia Hezbollah. Hersh points out that the current situation is much like that during the conflict in Afghanistan in the 1980's – which gave rise to al Qaeda – with the same people involved in both the US and Saudi Arabia and the "same pattern" of the US using jihadists that the Saudis assure us they can control. When asked why the administration would be acting in a way that appears to run counter to US interests, Hersh says that, since the Israelis lost to them last summer, "the fear of Hezbollah in Washington, particularly in the White House, is acute." As a result, Hersh implies, the Bush administration is no longer acting rationally in its policy. "We're in the business of supporting the Sunnis anywhere we can against the Shia. ... "We're in the business of creating ... sectarian violence." And he describes the scheme of funding Fatah al-Islam as "a covert program we joined in with the Saudis as part of a bigger, broader program of doing everything we could to stop the spread of the Shia world, and it just simply -- it bit us in the rear." A RUSH TRANSCRIPT For THE INTERVIEW HALA GORANI: Well, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported back in March that in order to defeate Hezbollah, the Lebanese government supported a Sunni militant group, the same ones they're fighting today. Seymour joins us live from Washington. Thanks for being with us. What is the source of the financing according to your reporting on these groups, such as Fatah al-Islam in these camps of Nahr el Bared, for instance? Where are they getting the money and where are they getting the arms? SEYMOUR HERSH: The key player is the Saudis. What I was writing about was sort of a private agreement that was made between the White House, we're talking about Richard -- Dick -- Cheney and Elliott Abrams, one of the key aides in the White House, with Bandar. And the idea was to get support, covert support from the Saudis, to support various hard-line jihadists, Sunni groups, particularly in Lebanon, who would be seen in case of an actual confrontation with Hezbollah -- the Shia group in the southern Lebanon -- would be seen as an asset, as simple as that. GORANI: The Senora government, in order to counter the influence of Hezbollah in Lebanon would be covertly according to your reporting funding groups like Fatah al-Islam that they're having issues with right now? HERSH: Unintended consequences once again, yes. GORANI: And so if Saudi Arabia and the Senora government are doing this, whether it's unintended or not, therefore it has the United States must have something to say about it or not? HERSH: Well, the United States was deeply involved. This was a covert operation that Bandar ran with us. Don't forget, if you remember, you know, we got into the war in Afghanistan with supporting Osama bin Laden, the mujahadin back in the late 1980s with Bandar and with people like Elliott Abrams around, the idea being that the Saudis promised us they could control -- they could control the jihadists so we spent a lot of money and time, the United States in the late 1980s using and supporting the jihadists to help us beat the Russians in Afghanistan and they turned on us. And we have the same pattern, not as if there's any lessons learned. It's the same pattern, using the Saudis again to support jihadists, Saudis assuring us they can control these various group, the groups like the one that is in contact right now in Tripoli with the government. GORANI: Sure, but the mujahadin in the '80s was one era. Why would it be in the best interest of the United States of America right now to indirectly even if it is indirect empower these jihadi movements that are extremists that fight to the death in these Palestinian camps? Doesn't it go against the interests not only of the Senora government but also of America and Lebanon now? HERSH: The enemy of our enemy is our friend, much as the jihadist groups in Lebanon were also there to go after Nasrullah. Hezbollah, if you remember, last year defeated Israel, whether the Israelis want to acknowledge it, so you have in Hezbollah, a major threat to the American -- look, the American role is very simple. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, has been very articulate about it. We're in the business now of supporting the Sunnis anywhere we can against the Shia, against the Shia in Iran, against the Shia in Lebanon, that is Nasrullah. Civil war. We're in a business of creating in some places, Lebanon in particular, a sectarian violence. GORANI: The Bush administration, of course, officials would disagree with that, so would the Senora government, openly pointing the finger at Syria, saying this is an offshoot of a Syrian group, Fatah al-Islam is, where else would it get its arms from if not Syria. HERSH: You have to answer this question. If that's true, Syria which is close -- and criticized greatly by the Bush administration for being very close -- to Hezbollah would also be supporting groups, Salafist groups -- the logic breaks down. What it is simply is a covert program we joined in with the Saudis as part of a bigger broader program of doing everything we could to stop the spread of the Shia, the Shia world, and it bit us in the rear, as it's happened before. GORANI: Sure, but if it doesn't make any sense for the Syrians to support them, why would it make any sense for the U.S. to indirectly, of course, to support, according to your reporting, by giving a billion dollars in aid, part of it military, to the Senora government -- and if that is dispensed in a way that that government and the U.S. is not controlling extremist groups, then indirectly the United States, according to the article you wrote, would be supporting them. So why would it be in their best interest and what should it do according to the people you've spoken to? HERSH: You're assuming logic by the United States government. That's okay. We'll forget that one right now. Basically it's very simple. These groups are seeing -- when I was in Beirut doing interviews, I talked to officials who acknowledged the reason they were tolerating the radical jihadist groups was because they were seen as a protection against Hezbollah. The fear of Hezbollah in Washington, particularly in the White House, is acute. They just simply believe that Hassan Nasrallah is intent on waging war in America. Whether it's true or not is another question. There is a supreme overwhelming fear of Hezbollah and we do not want Hezbollah to play an active role in the government in Lebanon and that's been our policy, basically, which is support the Senora government, despite its weakness against the coalition. Not only Senora but Mr. Ahun, former military leader of Lebanon. There in a coalition that we absolutely abhor. GORANI: All right, Seymour Hersh of "The New Yorker" magazine, thanks for joining us there and hopefully we'll be able to speak a little bit in a few months' time when those developments take shape in Lebanon and we know more. Thanks very much. HERSH: glad to talk to you. Your thoughts please?

Why do all the US media like CNN trash China? LIke how they keep on broadcasting "Free Tibet" bullshit when in reality the Chinese freed Tibet from being a slave state where people got mutilated and a free Tibet would be worse for everybody. And they call for a boycott of the Olympics when in reality the world would be devastated by an Olympic boycott. Oh, and most people who think China is a hell that tortures its own citizens have never lived in China for a long time like I did (It's a great place). And when all these people do trash China for human rights violations, they forget all the things the US does (Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay). The list goes on and on... And don't forget the Chinese toy recall when in reality the US toymakers are REALLY to blame for dictating these high amounts of lead CHINA IS NOT REALLY THAT BAD!!! IT'S JUST THE MEDIA THAT TRIES TO SKEW OUR MINDS INTO BELIEVING THIS BULL!!! CHINESE AMERICANS AND CHINESE SUPPORTERS PLEASE REPLY!!!!!

Why do you believe what the Muslim nation is telling the world today? I've lived in the provinces of Iraq and I have to tell the truth. 1. Islam preaches world domination and intolerance of all but Islam, but wait that is what the US is doing (?). 2. Islam preaches no use of alcohol, yet it's all over Baghdad. 3. Islam preaches no pornography, yet there are satellite dishes on every house and 80% of the channels are pornographic The western world, especially its media, is suckered enough to believe that the Muslim world is so innocent and pure. I say go to a home in Iraq turn on the TV and have a Carlsberg Beer or better yet a glass of Johnny Walker Black on the rocks (they sell the cutest little pint bottles of it in the stores and restaurants. And if you get bored you can always wait until the festival hits where the Koran says you can go to your local brothel and have sex with any woman you want and it's OK even if you're married. For all of you who have never been there, (NOT IN THE IZ for all you journalist who are afraid to get outside the wire), you really need to take a better look at what you are defending. For the rest of you who don't like what the US is doing, (and I don't totally agree with everything that is going on), pack your bags and leave-it is a free country. You can always go live in France where the population is slowly turning Muslim so you won't feel like you're being pushed too fast into a life of alcoholism, porn and female domination, (and to think the media is slamming rappers, when I have yet to see one of them circumcise a female child). And why kill a bunch of innocent people, grab an AK put it to your own head and pull the trigger, you're going to get the same amount of virgins in heaven anyway. It's a waste of money we are spending in Iraq where we give them fresh water and they go bust a hole in the pipe so bacteria gets in to the fresh water supply we produced. Then the child mortality rate continues to climb then CNN bashes the US efforts saying we're not doing our job there. Better yet, how about CNN reporting that the construction effort produced 80% of the facilities they were supposed to, correctly and then stating "...It's nice that the American public can say that 'some' of its money is being used correctly." Well, I guess when that reporter's child comes home from school with "80%-F" written at the top of his/her test she can be glad that the child only got "some" of the answers correct. I say pull out of Iraq and let them all kill themselves. Then the human rights folks will complain about us leaving and being responsible for the genocide that will take place. Then we can close our borders and keep the radicals out because they will be upset that we left without finishing. Well, that won't work either because someone else will complain about that too. So what do we do? Leave them all alone, clean up our borders with Mexico, clean up Louisiana, and work on our own crime, unemployment and poverty issues and to hell with the rest of the world. And the next time someone says we aren't doing anything about the problems another country is having we can look at them, with a straight face, and say "Sorry, we don't do that anymore." Then we need to stop buying goods from China, Japan and Europe because we need to keep our money at home and horde it. We will then become exactly what the extremist say we are and all of you will be happy then eh? Haven’t you all figured out that those who keep writing pro Muslim on these websites are the extremists? It’s a shame they are so much smarter than you, and most of you live in America-and you're supposed to be so smart.

Why does the press misrepresent the Latino vote as being pro-Hilary? The truth is that it was a Latino woman who asked Obama: "Latinos in Iowa want to know what we can do to convince you to run for president?" The event took place at Senator Harkin's annual steak-fry before Obama declared his candidacy. I believe that was November 2006. I remember seeing it on CNN and later on Larry King Live during an Obama interview. And of course Obama won the Iowa primary. Anyone else see the CNN piece or the Larry King interview? Do you have a copy or know where to get it?

"U.S. forces have begun arming nationalist guerrillas and former Saddam Hussein loyalists"? That's the current CNN headline. Um... Isn't that half the problem? Whenever U.S. interests get attacked it seems to be by their own weapons. Besides the common sense, where also is the morality in this? Isn't it convenient that the people who support this kind of action tend to not live in the places that get attacked?

Do Americans ever question the credibility of their media? From what I've seen up here in Canada from watching Fox News and CNN, these media outlets have a bias view of other countries and blame them for all of America's problems. For example, when SARS was happening in Toronto in 2003, CNN was making it sound like everybody in Toronto was infected with it. The truth is it was quarantined only to the hospitals and only a couple of hundred were only affected by it (Sympathies to those affected by the SARS outbreak). People living in the states would naturally think there was a major outbreak on the streets and people were sick all over the place. As a result, tourism was down and people stopped coming (understandable to a point). But the point here is, the American media makes things sound worse than what they really are. There's a few more examples I can think of as well. But please my neighbours to the south, have more of an open mind when watching the news when it comes to other countries.

Be honest. Do you really hate The USA and why.? Don't just base your answer on what you know through the ultra liberal media IE cnn. Consider: Have you lived here?, do you have friends here?, Have you visited here? I've traveled all over the world while in the military. Seen some beautiful places. Seen some messed up governments out there too. Lets keep the answers intelligent...if we can.

Dallas Suburb bans apartment rentals for illegal immigrants? http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/23/texas.law/index.html So the local government decided to enforce a law checking a persons legal status inside of the country before a rental can be made. This makes sense to me, if you are here illegaly why should you be given a place to live right? Well apparently there is a debate, and as seen in the picture and mentioned in the article, controversy over it. Given that illegal immigration is a hot topic that doesnt surprise me, but... What possible argument could you have AGAINST such a law? An illegal immigrant is not supposed to be in this country anyways so how could you possibly defend them saying they should have the right to rent property, thats just ignorant and stupid. I just dont see who could possibly have an issue with this...

Will the USA make Youssif and his family return to Iraq? Have you heard the story of the child that was burned and now sent to the USA for surgery? http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/16/youssif.spiderman/index.html The deal was that an organization would pay for the child and his family to come to the USA to get treatment and when complete they would return to Iraq. But after going to Disney land, Universal, living the American life...how are they going to return to Iraq??? I don't think they will leave. They should be allowed to stay, but I don't think they will be allowed. Hopefully something happens and they are able to stay, it would be horrible to see such a nice place and then have to return to such crap.... What do you think?

What is Hillary hiding? In 2004, Hillary claimed that all of the records at the Clinton Library would be opened. She said on CNN's Larry King Live, "That's one of the things the library really stands for. It physically stands for openness with all the glass and the light. But he wants it to be a place where people come and really study. And everything's going to be available." Nearly three years after the opening of the Clinton Presidential Library and the ensuing Freedom of Information Act Requests, less than half of one percent of the library's documents are open for review. ABC News reported on November 6, 2007 that another Arkansas library containing documents related to Clinton won't be available until after the 2008 election.

Do you think that China is going capitalism? I have read many topics about China here, so I want to say something. I have lived in China for about 15 years, and I can see that changes take place every day in this country. I think some of the people (I mean non-Chinese, including me), misunderstood this country just because it is led by a communist party. But in fact, after Deng Xiaoping, Chinese people seem to have given up what they called "pure communism" (the unitarianism which you could see in the Soviet Union in the past days). Although the Chinese government states that they are communists, yet they do things in a capitalist way. BTW, I can read all the newspapers and watch TV programs from all over the world in China, such as Times, Reader's Digest, CNN, CNBC, etc. Even though they will be censored sometimes, but you can't say that it is a big progress: at least they allow their people to watch and read them. What do you think? Many Chinese people say that pure communism will bring their country to death, while the situation in China now can help them get a better life.

the carbonphobia virus and is spread through a combination of circumstances.? the carbonphobia virus and is spread through a combination of circumstances. Symptoms Those prone to infection will have one or more of the following symptoms: •They are poorly educated in and generally ignorant about general science and find math difficult or even confusing. •They have no knowledge of the science of climate or climate change. •They tune in to NPR, PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC, or CNN. •They believe without question what they read in Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc., etc.. •They have watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and find it convincing. •They attend a school or college with liberal teachers/professors who sing the praises of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). •They tend to believe they are liberals or find liberal views enticing. The more symptoms a particular individual possesses, the more likely that individual will become infected with the virus. Unfortunately, many victims of the carbonphobia virus do not realize they are infected. They continue to lead their daily lives in complete ignorance of their infection. They are perfectly content to believe they have been properly informed by others who are also infected. Victims may not realize they are manifesting an infection by the virus. Manifestations Revealing manifestations of the carbonphobia virus include: •A belief that burning fossil fuels will destroy earth by making it too hot to sustain life. •A belief that human activity can change climate. •A belief that if humans just stop burning fossil fuels, all will be restored to "normal." •A belief that we must "do something" to avert a climate "crisis." •A belief that we can manufacture a system of government mandates to force people to use less carbon fuel by creating a system of carbon credits tied to an illusive carbon footprint scheme. •A belief that carbon dioxide is an evil pollutant and we must regulate its production. The more manifestations of this virus one exhibits, the worse the infection and the more difficult the treatment. If you find you have any of the symptoms or manifestations of the carbonphobia virus and you are interested in a cure, then read on. Treating the Carbonphobia Virus Fortunately, there is a treatment for the carbonphobia virus, but it requires massive doses of common sense, elementary knowledge of climate and climate change history, and a willingness to value truth. Education It may be necessary for infected individuals to purge massive amounts of misinformation about climate science that has been instilled in them by false prophets, undeducated teachers, and misinformed media. The best place to start is with some fundamental facts about the greenhouse effect and climate change. Facts About The Greenhouse Effect and Climate Change •The greenhouse effect is not a significant climate change force. It is a process for retaining heat from the sun. •The greenhouse effect does not create heat, it merely retains heat produced by the sun. •Carbon dioxide is a minor contributor to greenhouse heat retention. Water vapor (and clouds of water vapor) are responsible for up to 95% of greenhouse heat retention; all other greenhouse gases account for the remainder (carbon dioxide is the most potent of the remainder of greenhouse gases after water vapor). •Carbon dioxide is always being created and absorbed by natural processes. The decay of plant and animal life produces, among other things, carbon dioxide. Animals and insects produce carbon dioxide as a byproduct of digestion and respiration. Plants absorb carbon dioxide, giving off oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis. •The properties of carbon dioxide limit its greenhouse heat retention to less than 3.0°C (5.4°F), regardless of the amount put into the atmosphere. •The first 20 ppm of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere (from zero base) provides more greenhouse heat retention than the next 380 ppm combined. •Carbon dioxide's impact on heat retention declines logarithmically as more is added to the atmosphere. Chart from "Climate Outlook to 2030" by David C. Archibald •At current levels of about 380 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide, more than 2.7°C of carbon dioxide's heat retention capablility has already been achieved. Adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will have little impact on greenhouse heat retention. •Climate is always changing. The natural state of climate is change. •Historically (in the paleoclimate record), carbon dioxide exhibits a short term (100s of years) response to climate change; it does not produce climate change! Over time frames of tens or hundreds of millions of years, there is no relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide and climate. •Humans have never experienced Earth's "typical" climate (the climate that has prevailed during more than 90% of the existence of living organisms). Earth's typical climate is between 15°F and 25°F warmer than anything humans have ever experienced. •Earth has experienced four ice eras over the past 540 million years. Ice eras last tens of millions of years and contain embedded colder climate regimes called ice epochs that last hundreds of thousands of years (up to a few million years). Ice eras and ice epochs feature climate much colder than Earth's typical climate when there is no surface ice at sea level anywhere on the planet and sea levels are much higher than anything experienced by humans. •During Earth's coldest ice era (the "snowball Earth" era that peaked about 450 million years ago), when almost the entire planet was covered in ice, atmospheric carbon dioxide was 5600 ppm, about 15 times higher than today! •Ice ages are relatively brief periods lasting tens of thousands of years. Warmer climate periods between ice age cycles are known as interglacials. We are experiencing an interglacial that began about 18,000 years ago. Interglacials typically last about 20,000 years. •Within ice age and interglacial cycles, there are shorter term climate episodes known as warm and cold periods lasting hundreds of years. Recent (within the past 5000 years) known regimes of this nature include The Minoan Warm Period, The Roman Warm Period, The Medieval Warm Period, and, most recently, The Little Ice Age that peaked in the 17th century. If recent history is representative, warm periods are more common than cold periods. Remember, these are all within the interglacial of an ice age cycle. •During the 20th century, global temperatures cooled, warmed, cooled again, and then warmed again. The end of the 1990s featured a particularly warm period of several years that coincided with a particularly active solar sunspot cycle. A high correlation between solar cycles and climate exists in the climate and solar record. •The unusually active solar cycle experienced over the past decade is passing and many solar scientists believe an unusually minimal period of solar activity will be experienced during the next 20 years. This could lead to dramatic cooling, based on the paleoclimate and solar cycle record. •If humans were confronted with an imminent cold period (e.g., the recent Little Ice Age), there is nothing that could be done to prevent it. •Carbon-based fossil fuels are produced from decayed ancient plant and animal life. That ancient life obtained its carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and digestion. Consequently, the use of fossil fuels is nothing more than an exercise in long term recycling of carbon dioxide back to the atmosphere from which it originated. It is a natural life cycle process. If you have been infected with the carbonphobia virus and you study the above facts, you will find that a cure is likely to emerge. By absorbing this knowledge, you will shed your infection and become a cured individual, capable of resisting future attempts at reinfection. However, be warned that cured individuals must be wary of the tremendous pressure that the infected population may bring upon them to shed their knowledge and become reinfected. Particular pressure will come from politicians, a particularly susceptible group due to their general abysmal comprehension of things scientific. Infected politicians will cause extreme pain to all others through the folly of imposing regulatory burdens and insisting on such energy inefficient non-solutions such as costly ethanol-based fuels. The danger of reinfection is always present, particularly among those who continue to subject themselves to some of the symptoms noted above. Action without knowledge is pure folly. Avoid becoming infected with the carbonphobia virus by seeking truth (see references below for a selection of good material).

I ask Democrates, are we going to stand for the Left wing doing what the are doing?Glenn Greenwald?

How many receipt-less voting machines are used nation-wide?

Will you translate a letter from English to French, 10 points!? Hi, I have to write a friendly french letter for a class. I have been working all day and I need to study for an exam. Any help would be appreciated. I give my points out! What is up? I hope you all are doing all right. I would like you all get acquainted with me better, since I am quiet in our class. My name is Maire and I am a sophomore in college. Most people I first meet have a lot of difficulty remembering my name. When I waitressed at a restaurant many of my coworkers could never remember my name. Until my chef told me that my name sounds like Calamari, which I say all the time now. Sometimes people tell me I have the appearance of Renee Zellweger, but I don’t believe them. I love to laugh and it has gotten me in a lot of trouble during high school. I have traveled all over Europe and the furthest country, I visited was Turkey. The country with the nicest countryside and beauty was Greece. I enjoyed Italy the most, because I was in awe of translating the ancient Latin text. I took over nine years of Latin in my life and it was my best subject, so it was a real achievement reading it. I am very lucky because I am a dual citizen of Ireland. Therefore, if I ever study abroad, I will be able to work in Europe. Some day I plan to take advantage of it. I love to stay in shape and I must do so, for my job. Every Saturday and Sunday, I coach and privately instruct children to adults on how to swim at Asphalt Green fitness. The pool is one of only two Olympic size pools in New York City. I am very lucky because I make great pay for a student, and have fun teaching others. I have seen Anderson Cooper from CNN swim and his freestyle was very sloppy. Also, Jon Stewart from the Daily Show and Cynthia Nixon from Sex and the City, drop their kids their for pool partiest, but I have yet to teach their children; I am working on it. When I originally came here, I was a music performance major for violin. The program was not how I wanted it to be, so I transferred out to education. I have been playing the violin for almost eleven years. Music is still my life and I still play in the University Orchestra. I enjoy seeing performances at the Metropolitan Opera and have gone back stage many times, because my teacher from home works there. If I had a million dollars, I think I would travel the world on a cruise ship; eating all the Sushi and Thai food money could buy. I hope this letter has allowed you to better understand me. I think I live an interesting and exciting life. My favorite place to hang out is Thunder Jackson on Bleeker. So keep a look out for me. Take Care.

Are people gettinng tired of Obama? Obama Addresses UNITY as Convention Draws to a Close Sunday, July 27, 2008 By Gerrick Lewis The UNITY News Online Sen. Barack Obama addressed thousands of journalists at a live forum on the final day of the UNITY convention in his first appearance since returning to the U.S. after a spending a week overseas. The senator was greeted with a standing ovation when he walked onto the stage. He addressed issues such as immigration, the economy and race and gave a recap of his trip. “When you think about the big problems we face at home, they are connected to the problems abroad,” Obama said. Hundreds of empty seats in the back of the Skyline Ballroom at the McCormick Place convention center were noticeable as CNN broadcasted the event. Many attendees had already departed the convention by the time Obama spoke. If people not using spell check gets you upset, maybe you should avoid the internet

If the World was so Safe before Bush took Office,How do you Explain this List??????? American Victims of Mideast Terrorist Attacks -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following is a listing of incidents in which Americans are known to have been killed by Middle East-based terrorists. The list will be updated as more information becomes available. The exact number of American casualties is difficult to calculate because of incomplete news reports regarding numbers and nationalities of those injured. The toll from the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center is also uncertain, but current figures place the number of dead above 3,000. The number of dead at the Pentagon and on the hijacked airliners numbered approximately 385. Since Yasser Arafat "renounced" violence in the Oslo Peace Accords on September 13, 1993, at least 53 Americans have been murdered and at least another 83 Americans have been injured by Palestinian terrorism. Excluding the September 11 attacks, approximately 700 Americans have been killed and 1,600 wounded in terrorist attacks since 1970. This list also includes injured Americans since Oslo 1993. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- February 23, 1970, Halhoul, West Bank. Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorists open fire on a busload of pilgrims killing Barbara Ertle of Michigan and wounding two other Americans. March 28-29, 1970, Beirut, Lebanon. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) fired seven rockets at the U.S. Embassy, the American Insurance Company, Bank of America and the John F. Kennedy library. September 14, 1970, En route to Amman, Jordan. The PFLP hijacked a TWA flight from Zurich, Switzerland and forced it to land in Amman. Four American citizens were injured. May 30, 1972, Ben Gurion Airport, Israel. Three members of the Japanese Red Army, acting on the PFLP's bbehalf, carried out a machine-gun and grenade attack at Israel's main airport, killing 26 and wounding 78 people. Many of the casualties were American citizens, mostly from Puerto Rico. September 5, 1972, Munich, Germany. During the Olympic Games in Munich, Black September, a front for Fatah, took hostage 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. Nine athletes were killed including weightlifter David Berger, an American-Israeli from Cleveland, Ohio. March 2, 1973, Khartoum, Sudan. Cleo A. Noel, Jr., U.S. ambassador to Sudan, and George C. Moore, also a U.S. diplomat, were held hostage and then killed by terrorists at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum. It seems likely that Fatah was responsible for the attack. September 8, 1974, Athens, Greece. TWA Flight 841, flying from Tel Aviv to New York, made a scheduled stop in Athens. Shortly after takeoff, it crashed into the Ionian Sea and all 88 passengers were killed, including 32-year-old Steven R. Lowe, husband Jeremiah Michel and wife, Kathrine Hadley Michel of Poughkeepsie, NY, Frederick and Margaret Hare of Bernardsville, NJ, Ralph H. Bosh of Madison, CT, Seldon and Etan Bard of Tuckahoe, NY, Dr. and Mrs. Frederick Stohlman of Newton, MA, Don H. Holiday of Mahwah, NJ, and Jon L. Chesire of Old Lyme, Ct; all of which were Almerican citizens. An investigation of the crash conclusively established that it was caused by explosives set in the rear cargo department of the plane. June 29, 1975, Beirut, Lebanon. The PFLP kidnapped the U.S. military attaché to Lebanon, Ernest Morgan, and demanded food, clothing and building materials for indigent residents living near Beirut harbor. The American diplomat was released after an anonymous benefactor provided food to the neighborhood. November 14, 1975, Jerusalem, Israel. Lola Nunberg, 53, of New York, was injured during a bombing attack in downtown Jerusalem. Fatah claimed responsibility for the bombing, which killed six people and wounded 38. November 21, 1975, Ramat Hamagshimim, Israel. Michael Nadler, an American-Israeli from Miami Beach, Florida, was killed when axe-wielding terrorists from the Democrat Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a PLO faction, attacked students in the Golan Heights. August 11, 1976, Istanbul, Turkey. The PFLP launched an attack on the terminal of Israel's major airline, El Al, at the Istanbul airport. Four civilians, including Harold Rosenthal of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were killed and 20 injured. January 1, 1977, Beirut, Lebanon. Frances E. Meloy, U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, and Robert O.Waring, the U.S. economic counselor, were kidnapped by PFLP members as they crossed a militia checkpoint separating the Christian from the Muslim parts of Beirut. They were later shot to death. March 11, 1978, Tel Aviv, Israel. Gail Rubin, niece of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff, was among 38 people shot to death by PLO terrorists on an Israeli beach. June 2, 1978, Jerusalem, Israel. Richard Fishman, a medical student from Maryland, was among six killed in a PLO bus bombing in Jerusalem. Chava Sprecher, another American citizen from Seattle, Washington, was injured. May 4, 1979, Tiberias, Israel. Haim Mark and his wife, Haya, of New Haven, Connecticut were injured in a PLO bombing attack in northern Israel. November 4, 1979, Teheran, Iran. After President Carter agreed to admit the Shah of Iran into the U.S., Iranian radicals seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 66 American diplomats hostage. Thirteen hostages were soon freed, but the remaining 53 were held until their release on January 20, 1981. May 2, 1980, Hebron, West Bank. Eli Haze'ev, an American-Israeli from Alexandria, Virginia, was killed in a PLO attack on Jewish worshippers walking home from a synagogue in Hebron. July 19, 1982, Beirut, Lebanon. Hizballah members kidnapped David Dodge, acting president of the American University in Beirut. After a year in captivity, Dodge was released. Rifat Assad, head of Syrian Intelligence, helped in the negotiation with the terrorists. August 19, 1982, Paris, France. Two American citizens, Anne Van Zanten and Grace Cutler, were killed when the PLO bombed a Jewish restaurant in Paris. March 16, 1983, Beirut, Lebanon. Five American Marines were wounded in a hand grenade attack while on patrol north of Beirut International Airport. The Islamic Jihad and Al-Amal, a Shi'ite militia, claimed responsibility for the attack. April 18, 1983, Beirut, Lebanon. A truck-bomb detonated by a remote control exploded in front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 employees, including the CIA's Middle East director, and wounding 120. Hizballah, with financial backing from Iran, was responsible for the attack. July 1, 1983, Hebron, Israel. Aharon Gross, 19, an American-Israeli from New York, was stabbed to death by PLO terrorists in the Hebron marketplace. September 29, 1983, Beirut, Lebanon. Two American marines were kidnapped by Amal members. They were released after intervention by a Lebanese army officer. October 23, 1983, Beirut, Lebanon. A truck loaded with a bomb crashed into the lobby of the U.S. Marines headquarters in Beirut, killing 241 soldiers and wounding 81. The attack was carried out by Hizballah with the help of Syrian intelligence and financed by Iran. December 19, 1983, Jerusalem, Israel. Serena Sussman, a 60-year-old tourist from Anderson, South Carolina, died from injuries from the PLO bombing of a bus in Jerusalem 13 days earlier. January 18, 1984, Beirut, Lebanon. Malcolm Kerr, a Lebanese born American who was president of the American University of Beirut, was killed by two gunmen outside his office. Hizballah said the assassination was part of the organization's plan to "drive all Americans out from Lebanon." March 7, 1984, Beirut, Lebanon. Hizballah members kidnapped Jeremy Levin, Beirut bureau chief of Cable News Network (CNN). Levin managed to escape and reach Syrian army barracks. He was later transferred to American hands. March 8, 1984, Beirut, Lebanon. Three Hizballah members kidnapped Reverend Benjamin T. Weir, while he was walking with his wife in Beirut's Manara neighborhood. Weir was released after 16 months of captivity with Syrian and Iranian assistance. March 16, 1984, Beirut, Lebanon. Hizballah kidnapped William Buckley, a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Buckley was supposed to be exchanged for prisoners. However when the transaction failed to take place, he was reportedly transported to Iran. Although his body was never found, the U.S. administration declared the American diplomat dead. April 12, 1984, Torrejon, Spain. Hizballah bombed a restaurant near an U.S. Air Force base in Torrejon, Spain, wounding 83 people. September 20, 1984, Beirut, Lebanon. A suicide bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in East Beirut killed 23 people and injured 21. The American and British ambassadors were slightly injured in the attack, attributed to the Iranian backed Hizballah group. September 20, 1984, Aukar, Lebanon. Islamic Jihad detonate a van full of explosives 30 feet in front of the U.S. Embassy annex severely damaging the building, killing two U.S. servicemen and seven Lebanese employees, as well as 5 to 15 non-employees. Twenty Americans were injured, including U.S. Ambassador Reginald Bartholomew and visiting British Ambassador David Miers. An estimated 40 to 50 Lebanese were hurt. The attack came in response to the U.S. veto September 6 of a U.N. Security Council resolution. December 4, 1984, Tehran, Iran. Hizballah terrorists hijacked a Kuwait Airlines plane en route from Dubai, United Emirates, to Karachi, Pakistan. They demanded the release from Kuwaiti jails of members of Da'Wa, a group of Shiite extremists serving sentences for attacks on French and American targets on Kuwaiti territory. The terrorists forced the pilot to fly to Tehran where the terrorists murdered two passengers--American Agency for International Development employees, Charles Hegna and William Stanford. Although an Iranian special unit ended the incident by storming the plane and arresting the terrorists, the Iranian government might also have been involved in the hijacking. June 14, 1985, Between Athens and Rome. Two Hizballah members hijacked a TWA flight en route to Rome from Athens and forced the pilot to fly to Beirut. The terrorists, believed to belong to Hizballah, asked for the release of members of the group Kuwait 17 and 700 Shi'ite prisoners held in Israeli and South Lebanese prisons. The eight crewmembers and 145 passengers were held for 17 days during which one of the hostages, Robert Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver, was murdered. After being flown twice to Algiers, the aircraft returned to Beirut and the hostages were released. Later on, four Hizballah members were secretly indicted. One of them, the Hizballah senior officer Imad Mughniyah, was indicted in absentia. October 7, 1985, Between Alexandria, Egypt and Haifa, Israel. A four-member PFLP squad took over the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, as it was sailing from Alexandria, Egypt, to Israel. The squad murdered a disabled U.S. citizen, Leon Klinghoffer, by throwing him in the ocean. The rest of the passengers were held hostage for two days and later released after the terrorists turned themselves in to Egyptian authorities in return for safe passage. But U.S. Navy fighters intercepted the Egyptian aircraft flying the terrorists to Tunis and forced it to land at the NATO airbase in Italy, where the terrorists were arrested. Two of the terrorists were tried in Italy and sentenced to prison. The Italian authorities however let the two others escape on diplomatic passports. Abu Abbas, who masterminded the hijacking, was later convicted to life imprisonment in absentia. December 27, 1985, Rome, Italy. Four terrorists from Abu Nidal's organization attacked El Al offices at the Leonardo di Vinci Airport in Rome. Thirteen people, including five Americans, were killed and 74 wounded, among them two Americans. The terrorists had come from Damascus and were supported by the Syrian regime. March 30, 1986, Athens, Greece. A bomb exploded on a TWA flight from Rome as it approached Athens airport. The attack killed four U.S. citizens who were sucked through a hole made by the blast, although the plane safely landed. The bombing was attributed to the Fatah Special Operations Group's intelligence and security apparatus, headed by Abdullah Abd al-Hamid Labib, alias Colonel Hawari. April 5, 1986, West Berlin, Germany. An explosion at the "La Belle" nightclub in Berlin, frequented by American soldiers, killed three--2 U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman-and wounded 191 including 41 U.S. soldiers. Given evidence of Libyan involvement, the U.S. Air Force made a retaliatory attack against Libyan targets on April 17. Libya refused to hand over to Germany five suspects believed to be there. Others, however, were tried including Yassir Shraidi and Musbah Eter, arrested in Rome in August 1997 and extradited; and also Ali Chanaa, his wife, Verena Chanaa, and her sister, Andrea Haeusler. Shraidi, accused of masterminding the attack, was sentenced to 14 years in jail. The Libyan diplomat Musbah Eter and Ali Chanaa were both sentenced to 12 years in jail. Verena Chanaa was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Andrea Haeusler was acquitted. September 5, 1986, Karachi, Pakistan. Abu Nidal members hijacked a Pan Am flight leaving Karachi, Pakistan bound for Frankfurt, Germany and New York with 379 passengers, including 89 Americans. The terrorists forced the plane to land in Larnaca, Cyprus, where they demanded the release of two Palestinians and a Briton jailed for the murder of three Israelis there in 1985. The terrorists killed 22 of the passengers, including two American citizens and wounded many others. They were caught and indicted by a Washington grand jury in 1991. September 9, 1986, Beirut, Lebanon. Continuing its anti-American attacks, Hizballah kidnapped Frank Reed, director of the American University in Beirut, whom they accused of being "a CIA agent." He was released 44 months later. September 12, 1986, Beirut, Lebanon. Hizballah kidnapped Joseph Cicippio, the acting comptroller at the American University in Beirut. Cicippio was released five years later on December 1991. October 15, 1986, Jerusalem, Israel. Gali Klein, an American citizen, was killed in a grenade attack by Fatah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. October 21, 1986, Beirut, Lebanon. Hizballah kidnapped Edward A. Tracy, an American citizen in Beirut. He was released five years later, on August 1991. February 17, 1988, Ras-Al-Ein Tyre, Lebanon. Col. William Higgins, the American chief of the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization, was abducted by Hizballah while driving from Tyre to Nakura. The hostages demanded the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon and the release of all Palestinian and Lebanese held prisoners in Israel. The U.S. government refused to answer the request. Hizballah later claimed they killed Higgins. December 21, 1988, Lockerbie, Scotland. Pan Am Flight 103 departing from Frankfurt to New York was blown up in midair, killing all 259 passengers and another 11 people on the ground in Scotland. Two Libyan agents were found responsible for planting a sophisticated suitcase bomb onboard the plane. On 14 November 1991, arrest warrants were issued for Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima and Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi. After Libya refused to extradite the suspects to stand trial, the United Nations leveled sanctions against the country in April 1992, including the freezing of Libyan assets abroad. In 1999, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi agreed to hand over the two suspects, but only if their trial was held in a neutral country and presided over by a Scottish judge. With the help of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah, Al-Megrahi and Fahima were finally extradited and tried in Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. Megrahi was found guilty and jailed for life, while Fahima was acquitted due to a "lack of evidence" of his involvement. After the extradition, UN sanctions against Libya were automatically lifted. January 27, 1989, Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey. Three simultaneous bombings were carried out against U.S. business targets--the Turkish American Businessmen Association and the Economic Development Foundation in Istanbul, and the Metal Employees Union in Ankara. The Dev Sol (Revolutionary Left) was held responsible for the attacks. March 6, 1989, Cairo, Egypt. Two explosive devices were safely removed from the grounds of the American and British Cultural centers in Cairo. Three organizations were believed to be responsible for the attack: The January 15 organization, which had sent a letter bomb to the Israeli ambassador to London in January; the Egyptian Revolutionary Organization that from out 1984-1986 carried out attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets; and the Nasserite Organization, which had attacked British and American targets in 1988. June 12, 1989, Bosphorus Straits, Turkey. A bomb exploded aboard an unoccupied boat used by U.S. consular staff. The explosion caused extensive damage but no casualties. An organization previously unknown, the Warriors of the June 16th Movement, claimed responsibility for the attack. October 11, 1989, Izmir, Turkey. An explosive charge went off outside a U.S. military PX. Dev Sol was held responsible for the attack. February 7, 1991, Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. Dev Sol members shot and killed a U.S. civilian contractor as he was getting into his car at the Incirlik Air Base in Adana, Turkey. February 28, 1991, Izmir, Turkey. Two Dev Sol gunmen shot and wounded a U.S. Air Force officer as he entered his residence in Izmir. March 28, 1991, Jubial, Saudi Arabia. Three U.S. marines were shot at and injured by an unknown terrorist while driving near Camp Three, Jubial. No organization claimed responsibility for the attack. October 28, 1991, Ankara, Turkey. Victor Marwick, an American soldier serving at the Turkish-American base, Tuslog, was killed and his wife wounded in a car bomb attack. The Turkish Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. October 28, 1991, Istanbul, Turkey. Two car bombings killed a U.S. Air Force sergeant and severely wounded an Egyptian diplomat in Istanbul. Turkish Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. November 8, 1991, Beirut, Lebanon. A 100-kg car bomb destroyed the administration building of the American University in Beirut, killing one person and wounding at least a dozen. October 12, 1992, Umm Qasr, Iraq. A U.S. soldier serving with the United Nations was stabbed and wounded near the port of Umm Qasr. No organization claimed responsibility for the attack. January 25, 1993, Virginia, United States. A Pakistani gunman opened fire on Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employees standing outside of the building. Two agents, Frank Darling and Bennett Lansing, were killed and three others wounded. The assailant was never caught and reportedly fled to Pakistan. February 26, 1993, Cairo, Egypt. A bomb exploded inside a café in downtown Cairo killing three. Among the 18 wounded were two U.S. citizens. No one claimed responsibility for the attack. February 26, 1993, New York, United States. A massive van bomb exploded in an underground parking garage below the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six and wounding 1,042. Four Islamist activists were responsible for the attack. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the operation's alleged mastermind, escaped but was later arrested in Pakistan and extradited to the United States. Abd al-Hakim Murad, another suspected conspirator, was arrested by local authorities in the Philippines and handed over to the United States. The two, along with two other terrorists, were tried in the U.S. and sentenced to 240 years. April 14, 1993, Kuwait. The Iraqi intelligence service attempted to assassinate former U.S. President George Bush during a visit to Kuwait. In retaliation, the U.S. launched a cruise missile attack two months later on the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. July 5, 1993, Southeast Turkey. In eight separate incidents, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) kidnapped a total of 19 Western tourists traveling in southeastern Turkey. The hostages, including U.S. citizen Colin Patrick Starger, were released unharmed after spending several weeks in captivity. December 1, 1993, north of Jerusalem, West Bank. Yitzhak Weinstock, 19, whose family came from Los Angeles, CA, was killed in a drive-by shooting. Hamas took responsibility for the attack Sometime in 1994: near Atzmona, Gaza. U.S. citizen Mrs. Sheila Deutsch of Brooklyn, NY injured in a shooting attack. October 9, 1994. Nachshon Wachsman, 19, whose family came from New York, was kidnapped and then murdered by Hamas. October 9, 1994: Jerusalem, Israel. Shooting attack on cafe-goers in Jerusalem. U.S. citizens Scot Doberstein and Eric Goldberg were injured. March 8, 1995, Karachi, Pakistan. Two unidentified gunmen armed with AK-47 assault rifles opened fire on a U.S. Consulate van in Karachi, killing two U.S. diplomats, Jacqueline Keys Van Landingham and Gary C. Durell, and wounding a third, Mark McCloy. April 9, 1995, Kfar Darom and Netzarim, Gaza Strip. Two suicide attacks were carried out within a few hours of each other in Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. In the first attack a suicide bomber crashed an explosive-rigged van into an Israeli bus in Netzarim, killing eight including U.S. citizen Alisa Flatow, 20, of West Orange, NJ. More than 30 others were injured. In the second attack, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb in the midst of a convoy of cars in Kfar Darom, injuring 12. The Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) Shaqaqi Faction claimed responsibility for the attacks. U.S. citizens Chava Levine and Seth Klein were injured. June 15, 1995: Jerusalem, Israel. U.S. citizen Howard Tavens of Cleveland, OH was injured in a stabbing attack. July 4, 1995, Kashmir, India. In Kashmir, a previously unknown militant group, Al-Faran, with suspected links to a Kashmiri separatist group in Pakistan, took hostage six tourists, including two U.S. citizens. They demanded the release of Muslim militants held in Indian prisons. One of the U.S. citizens escaped on July 8, while on August 13 the decapitated body of the Norwegian hostage was found along with a note stating that the other hostages also would be killed if the group's demands were not met. The Indian Government refused. Both Indian and American authorities believe the rest of the hostages were most likely killed in 1996 by their jailers. August 1995, Istanbul, Turkey. A bombing of Istanbul's popular Taksim Square injured two U.S. citizens. This attack was part of a three-year-old attempt by the PKK to drive foreign tourists away from Turkey by striking at tourist sites. August 21, 1995, Jerusalem, Israel. A bus bombing in Jerusalem by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) killed four, including American Joan Davenny of New Haven, CT, and wounded more than 100. U.S. citizens injured: Chanoch Bleier, Judith Shulewitz, Bernard Batta. September 9, 1995. Ma'ale Michmash. American killed: Unborn child of Mrs. Mara Frey of Chicago. Mara Frey was injured. November 9, 1995, Algiers, Algeria. Islamic extremists set fire to a warehouse belonging to the U.S. Embassy, threatened the Algerian security guard because he was working for the United States, and demanded to know whether any U.S. citizens were present. The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) probably carried out the attacks. The group had threatened to strike other foreign targets and especially U.S. objectives in Algeria, and the attack's style was similar to past GIA operations against foreign facilities. November 13, 1995, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A car bomb exploded in the parking lot outside of the Riyadh headquarters of the Office of the Program Manager/Saudi Arabian National Guard, killing seven persons, five of them U.S. citizens, and wounding 42. The blast severely damaged the three-story building, which houses a U.S. military advisory group, and several neighboring office buildings. Three groups -- the Islamic Movement for Change, the Tigers of the Gulf, and the Combatant Partisans of God -- claimed responsibility for the attack. February 25, 1996, Jerusalem, Israel. A suicide bomber blew up a commuter bus in Jerusalem, killing 26, including three U.S. citizens, and injuring 80 others, among them three other U.S. citizens. Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing. U. S. citizens killed: Sara Duker, of Teaneck, NJ, Matthew Eisenfeld of West Hartford, CT, Ira Weinstein of Bronx, NY. U.S. citizens injured: Beatrice Kramer, Steven Lapides, and Leah Stein Mousa. March 4, 1996, Tel Aviv, Israel. A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device outside the Dizengoff Center, Tel Aviv's largest shopping mall, killing 20 persons and injuring 75 others, including two U.S. citizens. Both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing. U.S. citizens injured included Julie K. Negrin of Seattle, WA. May 13, 1996, Beit-El, West Bank. Arab gunmen opened fire on a hitchhiking stand near Beit El, wounding three Israelis and killing David Boim, 17, an American-Israeli from New York. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, although either the Islamic Jihad or Hamas are suspected. U.S. citizens injured: Moshe Greenbaum, 17. June 9, 1996, outside Zekharya. Yaron Ungar, an American-Israeli, and his Israeli wife were killed in a drive-by shooting near their West Bank home. The PFLP is suspected. June 25, 1996, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. A fuel truck carrying a bomb exploded outside the U.S. military's Khobar Towers housing facility in Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. military personnel and wounding 515 persons, including 240 U.S. personnel. Several groups claimed responsibility for the attack. In June 2001, a U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, identified Saudi Hizballah as the party responsible for the attack. The court indicated that the members of the organization, banned from Saudi Arabia, "frequently met and were trained in Lebanon, Syria, or Iran" with Libyan help. August 17, 1996, Mapourdit, Sudan. Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) rebels kidnapped six missionaries in Mapourdit, including a U.S citizen. The SPLA released the hostages on August 28. November 1, 1996, Sudan. A breakaway group of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) kidnapped three workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), including one U.S citizen. The rebels released the hostages on December 9 in exchange for ICRC supplies and a health survey of their camp. December 3, 1996, Paris, France. A bomb exploded aboard a Paris subway train, killing four and injuring 86 persons, including a U.S. citizen. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Algerian extremists are suspected. January 2, 1997, Major cities worldwide, United States. A series of letter bombs with Alexandria, Egypt postmarks were discovered at Al-Hayat newspaper bureaus in Washington, DC, New York, London, and Riyadh. Three similar devices, also postmarked in Egypt, were found at a prison facility in Leavenworth, Kansas. Bomb disposal experts defused all the devices, but one detonated at the Al-Hayat newspaper office in London, injuring two security guards and causing minor damage. February 23, 1997, New York, United States. A Palestinian gunman opened fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State building in New York, killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from the United States, Argentina, Switzerland and France before turning the gun on himself. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claimed this was a punishment attack against the "enemies of Palestine." July 30, 1997, Jerusalem, Israel. Two bombs detonated in Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market, killing 15 persons, including a U.S. citizen and wounding 168 others, among them two U.S. citizens. The Izz-el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, claimed responsibility for the attack. U.S. citizens killed: Mrs. Leah Stern of Passaic, NJ. U.S. citizens injured: Dov Dalin. September 4, 1997: Jerusalem, Israel. Bombing on Ben-Yehuda Street, Jerusalem. U.S. citizens killed: Yael Botwin, 14, of Los Angeles and Jerusalem. U.S. citizens injured: Diana Campuzano of New York, Abraham Mendelson of Los Angeles, CA, Greg Salzman of New Jersey, Stuart E. Hersh of Kiryat Arba, Israel, Michael Alzer, Abraham Elias, David Keinan, Daniel Miller of Boca Raton, FL, Noam Rozenman of Jerusalem, Jenny (Yocheved) Rubin of Los Angeles, CA. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. October 30, 1997, Sanaa, Yemen. Al-Sha'if tribesmen kidnapped a U.S. businessman near Sanaa. The tribesmen sought the release of two fellow tribesmen who were arrested on smuggling charges and several public works projects they claim the government promised them. The hostage was released on November 27. November 12, 1997, Karachi, Pakistan. Two unidentified gunmen shot to death four U.S. auditors from Union Texas Petroleum and their Pakistani driver as they drove away from the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi. Two groups claimed responsibility -- the Islamic Inqilabi Council, or Islamic Revolutionary Council and the Aimal Secret Committee, also known as the Aimal Khufia Action Committee. November 25, 1997, Aden, Yemen. Yemenite tribesmen kidnapped a U.S citizen, two Italians, and two unspecified Westerners near Aden to protest the eviction of a tribe member from his home. The kidnappers released the five hostages on November 27. February 6, 1998, Jerusalem, Israel. Stabbing in Jerusalem. U.S. Citizen Yosef Lepon, 17 injured. April 19, 1998, Maon, Israel. Dov Driben, a 28-year-old American-Israeli farmer was killed by terrorists near the West Bank town of Maon. One of his assailants, Issa Debavseh, a member of Fatah Tanzim, was killed on November 7, 2001, by the IDF after being on their wanted list for the murder. June 21, 1998, Beirut, Lebanon. Two hand-grenades were thrown at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. No casualties were reported. June 21, 1998, Beirut, Lebanon. Three rocket-propelled grenades attached to a crude detonator exploded near the U.S. Embassy compound in Beirut, causing no casualties and little damage. August 7, 1998, Nairobi, Kenya. A car bomb exploded at the rear entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. The attack killed a total of 292, including 12 U.S. citizens, and injured over 5,000, among them six Americans. The perpetrators belonged to al-Qaida, Usama bin Ladin's network. August 7, 1998, Dar es Sala'am, Tanzania. A car bomb exploded outside the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Sala'am, killing 11 and injuring 86. Osama bin Laden's organization al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack. Two suspects were arrested. November 21, 1998, Teheran, Iran. Members of Fedayeen Islam, shouting anti-American slogans and wielding stones and iron rods, attacked a group of American tourists in Tehran. Some of the tourists suffered minor injuries from flying glass. December 28, 1998, Mawdiyah, Yemen. Sixteen tourists--12 Britons, two Americans and two Australians--were taken hostage in the largest kidnapping in Yemen's recent history. The tourists were seized in the Abyan province (some 175 miles south of Sanaa the capital). One Briton and a Yemeni guide escaped, while the rest were taken to city of Mawdiyah. Four hostages were killed when troops closed in and two were wounded, including an American woman. The kidnappers, members of the Islamic Army of Aden-Abyan, an offshoot of Al-Jihad, had demanded the release from jail of their leader, Saleh Haidara al-Atwi. October 31, 1999, Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States. EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed off the U.S. coast killing all 217 people on board, including 100 Americans. Although it is not precisely clear what happened, evidence indicated that an Egyptian pilot crashed the plane for personal or political reasons. November 4, 1999, Athens, Greece. A group protesting President Clinton's visit to Greece hid a gas bomb at an American car dealership in Athens. Two cars were destroyed and several others damaged. Anti-State Action claimed responsibility for the attack, but the November 17 group was also suspected. November 12, 1999, Islamabad, Pakistan. Six rockets were fired at the U.S. Information Services cultural center and United Nations offices in Islamabad, injuring a Pakistani guard. September 29, 2000. near Jerusalem Israel. Attack on motorists. U.S. citizens injured: Avi Herman of Teaneck, NJ, Naomi Herman of Teaneck, NJ. September 29, 2000, Jerusalem, Israel. Attack on taxi passengers. U.S. citizens injured: Tuvia Grossman of Chicago, Todd Pollack of Norfolk, VA, Andrew Feibusch of New York. October 4, 2000, near Bethlehem, West Bank. U.S. citizens injured: An unidentified American tourist. October 5, 2000: near Jerusalem, Israel. Attack on a motorist. U.S. citizens injured: Rabbi Chaim Brovender of Brooklyn. October 8, 2000, Nablus, West Bank. The bullet-ridden body of Rabbi Hillel Lieberman, a U.S. citizen from Brooklyn living in the Jewish settlement of Elon Moreh, was found at the entrance to the West Bank town of Nablus. Lieberman had headed there after hearing that Palestinians had desecrated the religious site, Joseph's Tomb. No organization claimed responsibility for the murder. October 12, 2000, Aden Harbor, Yemen. A suicide squad rammed the warship the U.S.S. Cole with an explosives-laden boat killing 13 American sailors and injuring 33. The attack was likely by Osama bin Ladin's al-Qaida organization. October 30, 2000, Jerusalem, Israel. Gunmen killed Eish Kodesh Gilmor, a 25-year-old American-Israeli on duty as a security guard at the National Insurance Institute in Jerusalem. The "Martyrs of the Al-Aqsa Intifada," a group linked to Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack. Gilmor's family filed a suit in the U.S. District Court in Washington against the Palestinian Authority, the PLO, Chairman Yasser Arafat and members of Force 17, as being responsible for the attack. December 31, 2000, Ofra, Israel. Rabbi Binyamin Kahane, 34, and his wife, Talia Hertzlich Kahane, both formerly of Brooklyn, NY were killed in a drive-by shooting. Their children, Yehudit Leah Kahane, Bitya Kahane, Tzivya Kahane, Rivka Kahane, and Shlomtsion Kahane, were injured in the attack. March 28, 2001, Neve Yamin. Bombing at bus stop. U.S. citizens injured: Netanel Herskovitz, 15, formerly of Hempstead, NY. May 9, 2001, Tekoa, West Bank. Kobi Mandell, 13, of Silver Spring, MD, an American-Israeli, was found stoned to death along with a friend in a cave near the Jewish settlement of Tekoa. Two organizations, the Islamic Jihad and Hizballah-Palestine, claimed responsibility for the attack. May 29, 2001, Gush Etzion, West Bank. The Fatah Tanzim claimed responsibility for a drive-by shooting of six in the West Bank that killed two American-Israeli citizens, Samuel Berg, and his mother, Sarah Blaustein. U.S. citizens injured: Norman Blaustein of Lawrence, NY. July 19, 2001, Hebron, West Bank. Shooting attack. U.S. citizens injured: An unidentified woman from Brooklyn, NY. August 9, 2001, Jerusalem, Israel. A suicide bombing at Sbarro's, a pizzeria situated in one of the busiest areas of downtown Jerusalem, killed 15 people and wounded more than 90. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. U.S. citizens killed: Judith L. Greenbaum, 31, of New Jersey and California, Malka Roth, 15, whose family was from New York. U.S. citizens injured: David Danzig, 21, of Wynnewood, PA, Matthew P. Gordon, 25, of New York, Joanne (Chana) Nachenberg, 31, Sara Shifra Nachenberg, 2. August 18, 2001, Jerusalem, Israel. Shooting at a bus. U.S. citizen injured: Andrew Feibusch of New York. August 27, 2001, near Roglit, Israel. Shooting attack. U.S. citizen injured: Ben Dansker. September 11, 2001, New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania, United States. During a carefully coordinated attack, 19 Islamist extremists hijacked four U.S. jetliners and forced them to crash into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In all, 266 people perished in the four planes, and more than 3,000 people were killed on the ground. U.S. investigators determined on the basis of extensive evidence that Usama bin Ladin's al-Qaida group was responsible for the attack. The first plane, American Airlines Flight 11 en route from Boston to Los Angeles, crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower at 8:48 a.m. Eighteen minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175, also headed from Boston to Los Angeles, smashed into the World Trade Center's south tower. At 9:40 a.m. a third airplane, an American Airlines Boeing 757 that left Washington's Dulles International Airport for Los Angeles, crashed into the western part of the Pentagon where 24,000 people worked. The fourth plane, a United Airlines Flight 93 flying from Newark to San Francisco, crashed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, most likely before it could hit its target. Hundreds of firefighters, police officers and other rescue workers who arrived in the site after the first plane crash were killed or injured. November 4, 2001, Jerusalem, Israel. Shoshana Ben-Yishai, 16, of Queens, NY was killed in a shooting at a bus station. U.S. citizen injured: Shlomo Kaye. December 2, 2001, Jerusalem, Israel. Bombing on Ben-Yehuda Street, Jerusalem. U.S. citizens injured: Ziv Brill, 17, of West Hempstead, Long Island, NY, Temima Spetner, 19, of St. Louis, MI, Jason Kirshenbaum of New Rochelle, NY, Israel Hirschfield, 18, Joseph Leifer, 29, of Borough Park (Brooklyn), NY. December 18, 2001, shooting on the Jerusalem-Shilo road. U.S. citizens injured: David Rubin, 44, of Brooklyn, NY, Asher "Ruby" Rubin, 3. January 15, 2002, Bethlehem, West Bank. Avraham Boaz, 71, of New York, a dual Israeli-American citizen, was kidnapped at a PA security checkpoint in Beit Jala and murdered. January 18, 2002: Shooting in Hadera. U.S. citizen killed: Aaron Elis, 32, son of Chicago family. January 22, 2002: Shooting in Jerusalem, Israel. U.S. citizen injured: Shayna Gould, 19, of Chicago, IL January 27, 2002, Jerusalem, Israel. A Palestinian woman triggered a massive explosion in downtown Jerusalem killing one elderly Israeli and injuring more than 150, including American Mark Sokolow, his wife, and 16 and 12-year-old daughters. Sokolow had earlier survived the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, escaping from his law office on the 38th floor of the South Tower before it collapsed. February 8, 2002, Jerusalem, Israel. Stabbing in Abu Tor Peace Forest Jerusalem. U.S. citizen killed: Moranne Amit, 25 February 15, 2002, near Ramallah, West Bank. Lee Akunis was shot to death. February 16, 2002: Bombing in Karnei Shomron. U.S. citizens killed: Keren Shatsky, 14, of Brooklyn, NY and Maine, Rachel Thaler, 16, of Baltimore, MD. U.S. citizens injured: Lior Thaler, 14, of Baltimore, MD, Hillel Trattner of Chicago, IL, Ronit Yucht Trattner of Chicago, IL, Chani Friedman of New York. February 19, 2002: Shooting near Neve Dekalim. U.S. citizens injured: Moshe Saperstein of New York. February 25, 2002, Jerusalem, Israel. Moran Amit, 25, was stabbed to death in Abu Tor Peace Forest in Jerusalem. March 7, 2002, Eshel Hashomron Hotel, Ariel, Israel. A Christian tourist from Arkansas lost her right eye in an attack by a suicide bomber. March 21, 2002, Jerusalem, Israel. Bombing on a Jerusalem street. U.S. citizens injured: Alan Joseph Bauer, 37, of Chicago, Yonathon Bauer, 7 (dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship). March 24, 2002, Ofra, Israel. Shooting near Ofra. U.S. citizens killed: Esther Kleinman, 23, formerly of Chicago, IL. March 27, 2002, Netanya, Israel. U.S. citizen Hannah Rogen, 90, was killed in a suicide attack at a Passover Seder. March 31, 2002, Efrat, Israel. Bombing in Efrat. U.S. citizens injured: An unidentified American citizen. June 18, 2002, Jerusalem, Israel. Moshe Gottlieb, 70, of Los Angeles, CA was killed in a bus bombing in Jerusalem. June 19, 2002, Jerusalem, Israel. Gila Sara Kessler, 19, whose family came from New York, was killed in a bombing at a bus stop. July 31, 2002, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Nine people were killed when a bomb exploded in the main cafeteria at the Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus in Jerusalem. Five were U.S. citizens: Janis Ruth Coulter, 36, of MA; Marla Bennet, 24, of San Diego, CA; David Gritz (also a French citizen), 24, of Peru, MA; Benjamin Blutstein, 25, of Susquehanna Township, PA; and Dina Carter, 37, of NC. Israelis David Ladovsky, 29, and Levina Shapira, 53 also died in the bombing. U.S. citizens injured: Spencer Dew, 26, of Owensboro, Kentucky; Zeev Spencer; Harris Gershon; Jamie Harris. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. March 5, 2003: Bus bombing in Haifa. U.S. citizens killed: Abigail Leitel, 14, who was born in Lebanon, New Hampshire. March 7, 2003: Shooting in the victims’ home. U.S. citizens killed: Rabbi Eli Horowitz, 52, who grew up in Chicago; Dina Horowitz, 50, who grew up in Florida April 30, 2003: Bombing at a Tel Aviv pub. U.S. citizens injured: Jack Baxter, 50, of New York City. June 11, 2003: Bus bombing in Jerusalem. U.S. citizens killed: Alan Beer, 47, who grew up in Cleveland. U.S. citizens injured: Sarri Singer, 27, daughter of New Jersey State Senator Robert Singer. June 20, 2003: Shooting attack on a car driving through the West Bank. U.S. citizens killed: Tzvi Goldstein, 47, who grew up in New York; U.S. citizens injured: Eugene Goldstein, Tzvi’s father, of Long Island, New York; Lorraine Goldstein, Tzvi’s mother, of Long Island, New York; Michal Goldstein, Tzvi’s wife, who grew up in New York. August 19, 2003: Homicide bombing on a bus in Jerusalem. U.S. citizens killed: Goldie Taubenfeld, 43, of New Square, New York; Shmuel Taubenfeld, 3 months, of New Square, New York; Mordechai Reinitz, 49; Yitzhak Reinitz, 9. Tehilla Nathanson, 3, of Monsey, New York; U.S. citizens injured: Mendel Reinitz, 11. September 9, 2003: Homicide bombing at a cafe in Jerusalem. David Applebaum, 51, and his daughter Nava, 20, originally of Cleveland were killed. October 15, 2003: Bombing of American convoy in the Gaza Strip: John Branchizio, 37, Mark Parson, 31, and John Martin Linde, 30, were on contract to the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv through the defense contracting company Dyncorp.U.S. citizens injured: One as-yet-unnamed U.S. citizen (reportedly a diplomat). September 24, 2004: Mortar strike on a housing community: Tiferet Tratner, 24, (dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship). April 17, 2006: Homicide bombing at the Rosh Ha'ir restaurant in Tel Aviv: Daniel Wultz, 16, of Weston, Florida, died one month after receiving his wounds in this bombing. Compiled by Caroline Taillandier, a research assistant at the GLORIA center and student at Tel Aviv University, Dr. Mitchell Bard, and Alden Oreck, Avi Hein, and Elihai Braun, research assistants at the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, and Paul Teller, Deputy Director, House Republican Study Committee. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sources: Chronology on Terrorist Incidents 1961-2001, State Department; "Patterns of Terrorism" reports 1995-2000; State Department Institute for Counter-Terrorism Database; Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya; Peacewatch, The Washington Institute for New East Policy; AIPAC; Ha'aretz, Republican Study Committee

How Many Times Has BUSH LIED ? Bush & Al Qaeda – By The Numbers 0 – Number of meetings held by Vice President Cheney’s counterterrorism task force (which was created in May 2001) 0 – References to Al Qaeda in Dr. Rice’s 2000 Foreign Affairs article listing Bush’s top foreign affairs priorities 0 – References to Al Qaeda in Secretary Rumsfeld 2001 memo outlining national security priorities 0 – References to terrorism is Justice Department's top seven goals for 2001 0 – Number of National Security Council meetings held by Bush administration before invasion of Iraq was discussed (i.e., it was discussed at the very first meeting) 1 – Number of times the Bush administration mentioned al Qaeda prior to 9-11. This was in a notice continuing an executive order issued by President Clinton. 1 – Number of hours President Bush and Vice President Cheney agreed to allow in their joint meeting with the 9-11 panel. 2 – Number of National Security Council meetings Facts From Fiction STICK AROUND FOR MORE BUSH FACTS, NOT FOX NEWS FICTION

$210 million severance package...the cost of monopolization? http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/03/news/companies/home_depot/index.htm?postversion=2007010309 And why NOT quit if someone is handing you 1/5th of a BILLION dollars. Maybe he can live in 10 houses...at once... or drive 10 Ferrari's/Porsches...at once... or visit the buffet, like maybe 10 places at once...oh wait...looking at the guys girth, he has had his collective snout already deep in that trough. Yes, leave, and take choke on your ill-gotten gains, for you have reaped where OTHERS have sowed.

I am being observed by t.v. (cable) channels, local people. But I do not see any camera at anywhere? I am being observed by t.v. (cable) channels, local people. But I do not see any camera in my house or anywhere. They are observing all my daily activities (going somewhere, working in computer, talking with someone). They also can check little details such as whether I am sweating or not. Some T.V. channels CNN (America), Zee tv (India), Star Plus (India), Star World, DW-TV (Germany), BBC (news channel), they know where are those/that camera. Can anyone contact to these channels and then answer me where are those cameras? My e-mail address is faisal_nsu01@yahoo.com. My name is Faisal Hasan Khan, I am a computer science graduate from north south university in Bangladesh (country name). City name is Dhaka. Tallabag is the name of the place where I live. This same question I asked some days ago. But I think those who are answering my question they are not taking it seriously. This is why I am again asking the same question. Tell me specifically about that camera and it's location.

How many receipt-less voting machines are used nation-wide?

can you take 5 mins to read my short story and rate it? I just wrote a short story? im going to post it. ONLY ME by Monte Lee "What have i done?" Thought Col Bridesmore. "What have I done?" He noticed how slowly, the body of of a man would spin in the vacuum of space. That body used to contain his freind Nicholas Merchant Lt Commander in the USN. Now its over , Paul thought, finally over. Lt Col paul Bridemore had been waiting for this moment all his life. The moment whre he became, not the little brother of a war vertran. Most decorated. purple heart and all. Not the son of one of the richest men in all of southern Alabama. Whose corn crops are still one of the richest in the south. No, this moment had been for Paul. The moment he got the email confirming his appointment as Commander of the first manned mission to Mars. This was Lt Col. Paul Bridesmore 's moment. But Paul, being the southern gentleman he was ,could always share the moment with a beautiful young lady. at this moment that lady happend to be be his wife Nena. Nena with the long black hair. Nena with the beautiful smile. Nena who at the tender age of 20, had said, I do. And even, Paul thought with a laugh , the Nena who had insisted on making the reservations for tonights dinner at Parloza's. "I'll seem like a simple housewife if I dont!" She would pout. He remembered her saying more than once. But, he could see her point. He was gone alot these days, and now with" The Long Haul" as it was being called around shop, he could really see her jumping to help in however she can. In the end i know she loves only me. Yes, Paul, and that Nena, were going out tonight to celibrate the news ,and the launch of the first mars mission. By 6:45 they were about ready to go. But,.last minutes phone calls from freinds and well wishers, kept both Nena and Paul tied up just that little bit. Paul studied himself in the mirror. "Hmm,still got the baby fat" he thought. Although Colonel Bridesmore was aproaching his middle forties,he could have easily pased for his middle 30's. With a lean jaw and blue eyes that seemed to shimmer back at him through the mirror. His years of Navy training and excercise kept him lean. He could owe that to Uncle Sam. He could owe his full head of brown , trim cut hair, to his father. Owen Bridmore. And his father before him. the Bridemores maintianed envialbe hair lines. He was not egoststical. He mused. Just very lucky. Tonight was his nite . the toast of the town. he and Lt com Nickolaus" Nicky" merchant were going to be the first men to the planet mars and this was part of their send off. it was going to be a nite to remember....... As it turns out, it was a nite Paul didint remeber very well at all. He had drank too much wine. He had attempted to taste the wine only. He was just returning a small taster with a bit of chardonney in it to the table when his wingman, Nicky, leaned over and said in a conspirital whisper "Live it up buddy, last nite before we go bye bye." Paul could see the gleam in NIckys eyes from the light and the wine but only nodded. He didnt get it then. They had gone to the Parloza restraunt in the upside of New York where they were heralded as kings. He and Nicky had lived it up that nite. friends since graduating college and comming up the ranks in the academy Nicky had been his wingman in the war. he and his wingman had saved each other from enemy fire so many times, they owed each other their lives time and time again. Paul could think of no one he trusted more. And no one broken trust would hurt more from, than Lt Commander Nicky Merchant. Unlike Nena, Amy was born of a more humble stock. And although a beautiful ,thoughtful woman ,lacked the grace of his Nena. latley of such though he had seen Nicky regariding his wife Nena in what paul considered ,a less than causl way. Nicky was handsome in his way.with broad shoulders and a quick grin to go with it. "do i feel threatened?" paul often thought . but then he would come to his senses. Nena loved him and only him. He gave her everything she could possible want. a nice house. a new car and all the social prestige of being an astronauts wife could bring. no Nena loves me. and only me.he thought that nite. only me. Amy Merchant was aproxamatly thirty five years old. She had four children whom she loved with all her heart. Three girls and one boy. Sh also was a very unhappy woman. She loved her husband Nicky with all her heart. She also knew her husband very well. knew his habits. knew his weakneses. She also knew that ,her husband Nicky, Father of four. Married for 22 years. best freind and co-pilot to Col. Paul Bridesmore. First men to Mars, Lt. Commander in the USN was sleeping with Mrs Nena Bridesmore.... The chef had served Pauls faovrite. Lasagna with meatballs. Cant have that in space, thought Paul. The restaurant was one of the most popular that nite, and everyone was there. When Paul walked in with Nena by his side, Nicky and Amy just behind them all dressed in tuxedos and gowns for the ladies. The energy in the small restaruant seemed to get more festive. The colors were brighter ,the music was a bit louder and the general feeling from the thirtysomething, crowd was high hopes and expectations for thier new hero's. After all of the formal introductions, Nicky and paul were seated with their wifes as the honored guests. "After all" quiped the Helen March from CNN " what what you eat if you were going to space for an eighteen month round trip?" " A Cup of noodles?" that remark got Helen March on the map. she has her own show now. "It was the wine" thought Paul. It was the wine that made Amy talk. As Bridesmore could recall, the Lasagna was excellent. Served piping hot with the steam rising ofF the mound of golden crusted cheese like slowly twisting clouds, rising, then being broken like paper shreds to the decorative fans ,turning lazily from above. The cheese was making chessy blurps as they served us. The smell was so spicy and wonderful! The noodles were soft and pliable and the sauce was amazing! The chef used garlic with a italian spice that was intense! it was the best! I wish you could have been their with us. I knew she would pick the right place. Because she loves me. Only me. Although Paul was not a big fan of wine( he prefered a good stout beer) he did consume his share. as did nicky,Amy and Nina. "It was the wine" Thought Paul. It was the wine that made Amy talk. Col. Bridesmore, staring out the window of his shuttle. Staring at the slowly twisting body of his freind Nicky. The comm system light activated to interupt his thoughts. Flashing its urgent yellow light on the board. The mellow beep of its signal snatched Paul out his memories of last nite. Paul hit the recieve button. a burst of static then "Col Bridemore?, Central Comm, do you read vector six point five ,five nine? "over" ? Paul glanced to his immedite left where vector and navigtion controls were located. with a qucik fick of his eyes at the seat where his partner normaly sat. would have sat, if Paul had'nt have killed him. wrenching his eyes from the empty seat ,Paul studied the navigtion controls briefly. Of course, all pilots are trained in every aspect of thier craft. Although Paul had not the navigational talents of his copilot Nicky, he could asess and navigate better than most. thats part of the reason he was chosen for this mission. "Central command?" He said in a clear vocie. He was still a Colonel after all. And he still had a job to do. " Colonel Bridesmore here." ,( redundant,he thought grimly) " reading six point five, five seven with a point two varience," "Correcting now" he said, as he adjusted one of the hundeeds of knobs and switches that made space flight possibe. He felt a slight shift in trajectory. more from his looking out the window where the body of his copilot, arched slighty to the right, and then to the top of his viewscreen. The body looked more like that of a rag doll in a bulky space suit than a man. the suit hed been weaing when he left the airlock. the suit he thought would save his life. the same lifeless suit that was turning, almost in slow motion outside his windowscreen. Soon , He thought, " I wont have to see him anymore" "CC to Bridesmore?" "Correction confirmed. Continue to heading six point five ,five niner!? Splash down at 1530 hours confirmed" the calm, professional voice on the radio crackled. He could hear it was the voice of his once Captain Pitman, now Adimiral Pitman "And Paul?" Pitman gruffed into the mike. "Im sorry". Bridemore could almost see the tight lipped, silver haired general, gritting his cigar. He knew he meant it, but what did it mean now? He was going home. "Thanks Cap'n" Paul managed. "I am, too" . "See you in Houston" Lt.Colonel Paul Bridesmore cut the channel ,and leaned back to see the Earth grow larger in the window screen to the left and body of Nena's lover, spin slowly off to the right. The End Additional Details 16 hours ago oh what do you think.? that is my qusetion?? Any tips? its my first time trying to write something. i read alot and wanted to try. thanks for taking the time to read it. thanks for the compliments so far!! I really expected to get hammered!! please excuse the typos..its just a rough draft created quickly It still nees work obviously but its good to get the sweet reviews...its supposed to be more like a Alfred Hitchcok short murder mystery..thank you all! o and i mean quickly like in 4 hours yesterday with the corrections. so very quickly.

How many receipt-less voting machines are used nation-wide?

How many receipt-less voting machines are used nation-wide?

Republicans and Democrats /// Torture of Terrorists /// Abu Ghraib?

2pac is alive!? Tupac Shakur's life supposedly ended in September of 1996, a gangster who died a gangster's death, the victim of a drive-by shooting. But in the years since, fans and friends of the rapper/actor have kept rumors alive that the star might not have died at the hands of an anonymous gunman that warm September night. It's here, at the supposed end of Shakur's life, where our journey begins. The first album after Tupac's "death" was released in November of 1996: Makaveli: Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory. The title aroused some curious glances from those who knew Shakur. The first part of the title refers to Niccol Machiavelli, an old-school Italian philosopher who believed the faking one's own death was a sure way to foil his enemies. Machiavelli's two most famous books, Discorsi dopra la prima deca di Tito Livio (Life With Tito) and Il Principe (Ill Communication) were both written well after his death. Some wonder if Tupac's reference wasn't a signal to the world that things were not as they seemed. This is perhaps mere paranoia, as this album was obviously recorded while Tupac was "still" alive. But then, one year later, R U Still Down? is released in stores (November of '97). This was a full 14 months after the performer's death, and Tupac appeared in three videos in support of the album. When questioned about this, Tupac's manager Robert Bloomenstein said, "Tupac was a forward-thinking man. His performances in those videos were shot more than two months before his unfortunate 'death,' and in no way should indicate that Tupac is still alive." Mr. Bloomenstein's words weren't enough to keep the rumors from spreading, however, especially after November of 1998. That's when Tupac released 2pac's Greatest, a greatest hits compilation that included six new tracks. Record company executives claimed that these tracks were also recorded years before; yet this is contradicted by the timeliness of the lyrics. Tupac makes references to the film Armageddon in one track and in another he congratulates the Denver Broncos on winning the Super Bowl - both events taking place well after Shakur was supposedly in the grave. Again, rumors of a massive hoax emerged. Bloomenstein again dismissed the talk as nothing more than rumor mongering. "This is nothing more than rumor mongering," said Bloomberg. "Tupac was a hard-working, busy musician and the continued release of new material should in no way indicate that Tupac is actually alive and living in South America under the assumed name of Jamal Millwood." The next few years turned out to be the most prolithic of Tupac's recording career. Still I Rise (with Outlawz) hit the scene in December of 1999. The "Lost" Tapes: Circa 1989 appeared in April of 2000 and The Rose that Grew from Concrete came in November of that same year. Tupac recorded tracks for Suge Knight Represents: Chronic 2000, a compilation of all of the artists Suge Knight claimed to have killed. He also performed live for an album called Funkmaster Flex & Big Kap: The Tunnel. New Tupac tracks then turned up ..block Compilation: Face Off II and Too Gangsta for Radio, before an album of all-new Tupac tracks, Until the End of Time, appeared in 2001. "I simply wish the public could let Mr. Shakur rest in peace," said Bloomenstein. "Mr. Shakur has actively denied all accusations about still being alive, and he will continue to do so until the day of his, uh... nevermind." When the album Better Dayz appeared in November of 2002, many music critics noted that Tupac had released more albums since his death (seven) than many of the nation's top living artists. When that fact is coupled with the references to the World Trade Center attack in one track of Better Dayz plus the curious title of the B-side single Empty Coffin, rumors again were rampant. Is it merely the product of a rabid fan base that cannot let go of their beloved hero? One player in this drama who is not speaking out is Tupac himself. Rumors insist that Tupac will be headlining shows in Chicago, Milwaukee and Indianapolis in the next few weeks. Shakur can also be seen starring in the new thriller Streets on Fire with Keanu Reeves this summer and will allegedly host Saturday Night Live in October of this year. Add that to the CNN story in Spring of 2005 which clearly stated Tupac was alive... ...and the fact that Tupac's name is misspelled on his tombstone... ...and the case becomes more than a curiosity. Will we ever know the answer? I doubt it. In six weeks Tupac Shakur is releasing his eighth posthumous album, titled Death Faker. Some fans say the title contains a hidden message which could be taken to mean that Tupac didn't really die on that September night nine years ago. Some also claim that certain tracks, such as Still Breathin' and I'm not dead, motherfuckers contain hints about the star's supposed passing. What can it mean? But even if Tupac's life is over, our search for the truth cannot be. And there are millions of fans who will not stop until they have it. To ilona c.It was 12 bullets and Suge Night was in the car with him.How can twelve bullets all go to one man and only one graze Suge Night?I think they both planned it just to make more money.2pac talked about getting out of the spotlight,and what better way than to fake your death?

Is this the most intelligent soldier in the USA Military? Sent: January 14, 2006 People often ask me, "If you are so against the war and couldn't stand the army, why did you ever join in the first place?" I have answered the same every time, that perhaps I was naïve, that I wanted a chance to see the world and earn college money. Or that I felt trapped in a dead-end town and needed a chance to escape, or that I was curious to live life as a soldier and gain military knowledge. These answers are never enough for some people, yet so many young Americans end up in the military the same exact way. I understand that I joined just prior to September 11, 2001. Indeed, I was naïve then to think that we lived in a somewhat peaceful world. Soldiers at that time joined for other reasons. Maybe soldiers who join now are ones who want to fight in a war. After much personal debate, I have learned that my resistance to war and empire was forged by the army itself. Since the very beginning of my four year military experience, I was simply a very different soldier. In basic training, instead of attending church service with the rest of the privates for two hours of relaxation, I was in the barracks mopping the floors and cleaning toilets. I would not fake a belief in god for petty rewards. While other soldiers were marching in rank and file to eat chow, I was off to the side, being smoked by a drill sergeant--doing pushups and flutter-kicks--for refusing to yell out cadence like a dopey high school cheerleader. As time went by, it never got any easier. I had a very hard time with the concept of conformity. While other soldiers in the barracks were watching porno's and hitting the beer bong with their frat-buddies, I was sitting on my bunk in a dark corner of a room reading Noam Chomsky. Instead of spending endless hours spit-shining my boots or ironing my BDU's, I was playing punk riffs on my guitar or perhaps writing poetry. I would routinely skip out on company "mandatory fun days" and go back to my room and sleep. Beetle Bailey was my hero. Instead of spending every weekend going to the same mundane hip-hop clubs and discos, starting fights and trying to get laid, I was backpacking across Europe with other like-minded friends. We traveled way beyond the limits that a mileage pass would allow. We were openly learning about other cultures, exploring a great unknown, and living life to the fullest while we had it. Instead of hating Iraqis for their strange ways and resentful behavior, I was trying to imagine the world in which they lived, even before an unwelcome US occupation forced them to live in a war zone. While other soldiers were bragging about how many hajis they had waxed in the last engagement, I was carefully pondering what the longtime ramifications would be for such inane bloodshed. Instead of coming back from missions and going straight to the PlayStation, I was writing what I saw and how I felt on this blog. It is true that I was a very different breed in the army. However, there were others like me. We were far and few between, we were misfits in an olive-drab green hell. We solidified, became friends, and became brothers. Most of the soldiers in my platoon were this way, outcasts. We opposed the war, sometimes openly. We were never persecuted for our beliefs because, although we were angry, we were a whole. We were a group of covert-subverts and our chain of command hated it. I came home from Iraq and was awarded combat spurs, a glorious achievement for a cavalry scout. I contemplated the true meaning of these spurs, this icon of war. Spurs that were worn by soldiers on horses; who rode with General Custer and decimated the American Indian population. Spurs painted with the blood of five major wars of the 20th century, some wars to fight empire and others to promote it. What would I do with these spurs? I decided to hold on to them. They meant much more than archaic tradition and a turbulent history. Somehow they meant comradery and friendship. My brothers-in-arms and I had earned them together, and they symbolize a token of deep understanding of a past we will share together, until the day we die. Today's public thinks that every American soldier fighting in Iraq supports the war and that his/her morale and trust in command is very high. However, in my experience, this was simply not true. I encountered dissent on many levels (For one example, see post below: Free Speech for Soldiers, Sept.21, 2004). Even soldiers who supported the army and loved their job hated being in a conflict they could not understand. Some soldiers did understand, and were resentful for it. The morale for the majority of our brigade was relatively low. I rarely met anyone who wanted to fight in Iraq, and the only ones who truly wanted to stay were the high echelon officers who seemed more concerned about their careers than the overall mission. Some may wonder where these disgruntled soldiers are. I believe that they are a part of every social fabric of our country. I've certainly met more angry veterans than I have boastful ones. Some missing limbs, some missing friends, others missing innocence. Angry and confused. Cannot find the healthcare they need. Cannot find jobs. Can no longer find a place to fit in our society. Some of these soldiers are still in the military and fear repercussions of speaking out. Soldiers who served several missions in Iraq and want no more. Soldiers tied to the war machine with no hope of escape. They wait for their day of freedom, hoping to avoid another stop-loss. They want out before death takes them first. So many silent voices and whispered stories. I know one veteran who refuses to talk about his experience because he thinks no one will understand and it won't change anything anyways. Another veteran I know candy-coats his experience so he won't disappoint his conservative family members. These soldiers are everywhere, but choose to remain silent because they fear ostracism from a war crazed, jingoistic public. The media plays with everyone's mind, convincing everyone that everything is okay as long as you trust in the government's overall plans for victory in Iraq. But when one asks a veteran for the truth, this optimistic fairy tale of ultimate victory seems a hard pill to swallow. I am not trying to speak for every soldier and veteran. I know that there are those out there who support the war effort and feel good about being in Iraq. However, in my experience, I have not met too many who feel this way. There is a rising tide of antiwar sentiments growing in this country. Fifty-two percent of America now feels it was not worth going to war with Iraq, while fifty-eight percent disapprove of Bush's handling of the war, and now a whopping fifty-three percent actually support a Bush impeachment. (CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll/Zogby Poll. Jan. 6-8, 2006). One would have to wonder how these polls might look if more and more soldier accounts were brought to the public's attention. There is a truth that lies buried under the Pentagon propaganda machine and the misinformation provided by corporate media and a dishonest administration, and that truth lies in the experience of combat soldiers. In the end I know that my experience may have been different, or that maybe I was a very different kind of soldier. But it was the army that molded my contempt for authority and distrust of a feudalistic government that pulls the strings. Through my army involvement I met others like me who felt much of the same way. We were dissidents, but never un-American. On the contrary, we knew the difference between following orders and thinking for ourselves. Ultimately, there is no difference between love for one's country and the willingness to oppose a government that institutes war, fear and oppression on any level. There are many soldiers and veterans who share the same feelings as me and others I met along the way. Some are even in the ranks of the military. Someday all the soldiers will come home and when they do, their stories and sentiments will follow. Only then will a better understanding of the truth be known. -- J.D. Englehart

Does any1 know where i can stream tv? I am now sent to a place with no tv, only an internet connection. I would like to know a site that streams live tv such as CBS, NBC, FOX, COMEDY CENTRAL, DISNEY, CARTOON NETWORK, CNN, etc etc

What steps have missionary organizations done to repay the US government for rescue? Tourists pay taxes and generally pay income tax, but professional clergy generally live tax free. When the US government pays to rescue a missionary from a place with a travel ban or warning at the time of their capture, what does the church pay the US government to reimburse the moneys lost by voluntarily violating the travel ban or disregarding the warning? http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2006-10-17-haiti-america_x.htm (travel warning issued July 7, 2006) http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/03/16/iraq.main/index.html (travel warnings and bans since the mid 1990s) For a list of travel warnings and bans, consult http://travel.state.gov/ Cruise lines, for example, can be found criminally liable if they carry US citizens into a travel advisory place without taking "all due precautions" So, if the US rescues a cruise ship, the liability settlement pays the funds. Mountain climbers are billed. Missionaries are not. Victor- you're very lucky. I posted links to the billed people last question. Posted links to people the US government paid to resuce abroad and got accused of lying about the travel bans, post the travel bans and there's not enough about rescues.... I guess it's true those things Barnum said... Oh, and yes, I am offended by how little we pay healthcare workers of all religions.

we cannot beat terrorism.period. we better find another way.? bush policy of the mideast road is crap. http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/08/17/uk.prescott/index.html today it is enough for any old azzhole to make a prank call to the airport or railway station or underground or any place like a bank or schools etc and every thing is going to freeze, the public gets fcuked, for what? because we are all nervous wrecks thanks to 911. the london bomb and many other stuff like that. bushes way is not working, the terrorists have won, the terrorists want to cause terror and that is what is happening, without them lifting a finger, they just make the prank call. so who has won? we are all screwed because of mr bush. we might as well start talking to the terrorists and see what is it they want? why not give them an island to live on to be happy and blow themselves up or eachother. please let us peace loving ppl live our lives ffs (for fcuks sake)

kamal; k k roy aka joseph who ?

when did we forget ALL THIS??OR ITS JUST......??? i was born and raised there -in Palestine- and never had a life where truth is shown...you see that Israel is the poor country fighting terrorism ..well THAT IS TOTALY WRONG i lived there for more than 17 years. and saw everything that happens there i saw our house being shot at by Israel soldier knowing that me and my sis and 3 baby brothers were there only...saw my friend coming to school crying cause her dad was killed by a bomb i saw blood all over the streets in "ramallah"and lots of places i saw who has rocks and who has guns i saw an Israel soldier killing boy 12 years old because he was throwing ROCKS i know and we all know that more than 8000 are in Israel jails and no Israel soldier in Palestinians jails except one, only one so who is killing who i wrote this to see what u really think? Maybe i could show u what my eyes saw alive not what bbc and cnn and abc news lied to me. remember 80 Palestinians KILLED and 200 INJURED only in SIX DAYS http://www.ifamericansknew.com/ the question is :when well usa and Israel show who destruction they are causing all over the world in minutes? when well usa stop saying" Israel is defending her self" ?maybe from rocks!!!!

What is it about America that makes it 100 times better than every other country?

Iranian inventions! Did you know this? Now you know? http://www.pitt.edu/AFShome/s/o/sorc/public/html/iranian/BeingIranian.htm

question about fox news? why is it that when an accident happens in America, that fox news will say an "illegal alien" caused an accident today (and more or less say he should get death penalty there and then) but if an American citizen causes the crash they have more sympathy for both the driver and the victim. but cnn and other news stations (networks) just say there was a serious accident today, but not highlight that it's an illegal alien that shouldn't be there in the first place. Is that not a bit cruel how fox news reports it. He/She has a mother too. I don't live in America and I definitely not favouring illegal aliens that enter that country. I was just wondering. thanks

the TRUTH about us...about PALESTINE??? i was born and raised there -in Palestine- and never had a life where truth is shown...you see that Israel is the poor country fighting terrorism ..well THAT IS TOTALY WRONG i lived there for more than 17 years. and saw everything that happens there i saw our house being shot at by Israel soldier knowing that me and my sis and 3 baby brothers were there only...saw my friend coming to school crying cause her dad was killed by a bomb i saw blood all over the streets in "ramallah"and lots of places i saw who has rocks and who has guns i saw an Israel soldier killing boy 12 years old because he was throwing ROCKS i know and we all know that more than 8000 are in Israel jails and no Israel soldier in Palestinians jails except one, only one so who is killing who i wrote this to see what u really think? Maybe i could show u what my eyes saw alive not what bbc and cnn and abc news lied to me.remember 80 palestinians KILLED and 200 INJURED only in SIX DAYS

Why do people who have never served in the military try to say what is going on in Iraq? So often on here, on the news, just listening to other people in general, someone always has to try to say how service members and Iraqi civilians feel about the war. Yet most of these people have never stepped foot passed the safety of their living room. Let me help you out 1"They all hate us over there" or "They all want to kill us" No they dont, on either accord. If that were the case we would still be in all encompassing war, not helping rebuild. Stop basing your opinions off of FoxNews and CNN. If I were to base my opinion of the US off of the news than I could say that all Americans want to go to into public places and shoot people, because that is all you see on the news. 2"Most service members are against the war" Really? Try saying that in front of a Battalion of our countries fines and see how far it gets you. 3"Nothing is going right in Iraq" No, the news just doesnt report the countless schools and other successful humanitarian projects. Thank you for your time.

what do you TRULY know about PALESTINE??? i was born and raised there -in Palestine- and never had a life where truth is shown...you see that Israel is the poor country fighting terrorism ..well THAT IS TOTALY WRONG i lived there for more than 17 years. and saw everything that happens there i saw our house being shot at by Israel soldier knowing that me and my sis and 3 baby brothers were there only...saw my friend coming to school crying cause her dad was killed by a bomb i saw blood all over the streets in "ramallah"and lots of places i saw who has rocks and who has guns i saw an Israel soldier killing boy 12 years old because he was throwing ROCKS i know and we all know that more than 8000 are in Israel jails and no Israel soldier in Palestinians jails except one, only one so who is killing who i wrote this to see what u really think? Maybe i could show u what my eyes saw alive not what bbc and cnn and abc news lied to me.remember 80 palestinians KILLED and 200 INJURED only in SIX DAYS

the TRUTH about PALESTINE???? i was born and raised there -in Palestine- and never had a life where truth is shown...you see that Israel is the poor country fighting terrorism ..well THAT IS TOTALY WRONG i lived there for more than 17 years. and saw everything that happens there i saw our house being shot at by Israel soldier knowing that me and my sis and 3 baby brothers were there only...saw my friend coming to school crying cause her dad was killed by a bomb i saw blood all over the streets in "ramallah"and lots of places i saw who has rocks and who has guns i saw an Israel soldier killing boy 12 years old because he was throwing ROCKS i know and we all know that more than 8000 are in Israel jails and no Israel soldier in Palestinians jails except one, only one so who is killing who i wrote this to see what u really think? Maybe i could show u what my eyes saw alive not what bbc and cnn and abc news lied to me. remember 80 Palestinians KILLED and 200 INJURED only in SIX DAYS http://www.ifamericansknew.com/

About muslims and pakistan? This firstly is not a question..perhaps its a plea or sort of a last wish that a dying patient gives at his hospital bed For sake of anything you people worship stop this propaganda..stop this hate..stop targetting and bullying and stop calling as terriorist who blow them up by bombs. let me start my sketching some real picture. i'm a normal guy and live in karachi...i'm in a university enrolled in a computer engg course...and i play music..and sing..and study and time to time go for snooker and sit out with friends late night and have tea. and more then that i've got a girl .. this is by no means a indication that some might be thinkin i am giving that i'm a rouge muslim off the straight path. i pray to Lord too..i know without HIM...i'm nothing then i smoke. ...now to everyone out there..just fucking beleiving what CNN has to say..and what the websites say..is that by any manner intelligence?...I swear over here..you guys come to this place..and see..see what it is. perhaps..everyone knows a country is a mother for us ..and every human gets depressive when you call his mother names. there is no fucking disfunction and misprogramming inside the brains of a muslims..and by a lot of ways they are better humans..who know everything so for a second...if you get your eyes off the television...and come to see what the truth is..that will be what i'll salute you for..and if you can't do that then atleast dont call us with what you do ..because..you are ill known. ..where was i wrong? sir moe..there you go talking about websites you did'nt read my passage with heart then ..and please dont talk about the internet.. just in the next ten seconds..i can upload a vdo like that...

Why wont the media stand up for what is right,are they part of the dark & evil cloud hanging over us?--------- Many times people pretend that the field is level. I've experienced it at work & social gatherings .But in this arena it does little good to manifest your observations of favoritism.I like to think of this scripture when i experience this"answer a fool according to his folly""dont answer a fool according to his folly". This is found in the old testament book of proverbs,written by the wisest man of all time then and now,Soloman.To me it means you cant reason with some people especially a fool.Moments like this require you be a wise as a serpent & harmless as a dove.Jesus advised his apostles to do this in the book of Matthew.I think of that this way"be prepared by doing what you can to be ready for your opportunity because you will get that opportunity if you are prepared.Look at it this way you cant retire with much if you havent worked,the longer you work the better the retirement.We can't have a free country with a fair goverment unless we pay attention & prepare either. Its that simple.I hope each person who recieves this will weigh its warning signs for our country.Remember all the camel has to do is get his nose in the tent & hes got your tent Barack Obama's Racist Church If Sen. Obama rejects the Rev. Wright’s warped view of this country, why does he continue to attend his church? Monday, January 7, 2008 10:16 AM By: Ronald Kessler Imagine if Mitt Romney’s church proclaimed on its website that it is “unashamedly white.” The media would pounce, and Romney’s presidential candidacy would be over. Yet that is exactly what Barack Obama’s church says on its web site — except in reverse. “We are a congregation which is unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian,” says the Trinity United Church of Christ’s website in Chicago. “We are an African people and remain true to our native land, the mother continent, the cradle of civilization.” That’s just the beginning. The church has a “non-negotiable commitment to Africa,” according to its website, and its pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. subscribes to what is called the Black Value System. While the Black Value System includes such items as commitment to God, education, and self-discipline, it refers to “our racist competitive society” and includes the disavowal of the pursuit of “middle-classness” and a pledge of allegiance to “all black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System.” It defines “middle-classness” as a way for American society to “snare” blacks rather than “killing them off directly” or “placing them in concentration camps,” just as the country structures “an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.” In sermons and interviews, Dr. Wright has equated Zionism with racism and Israel with South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid. On the Sunday after 9/11, Wright said the attacks were a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later, Wright suggested that the attacks were retribution for America’s racism. “In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” Wright wrote in a church-affiliated magazine. “White America and the western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.” In one of his sermons, Wright said, “Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!...We [in the U.S.] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.” As for Israel, “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now,” Wright has said. “Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.” Obama says he found religion and Jesus Christ through Wright, whom he met in the mid-1980s. He has been attending Wright’s church regularly since 1988. The church occupies a tan building on West 95th Street near a public housing project and railroad tracks. Since becoming pastor in 1972, Wright has seen the church’s membership grow to more than 8,500. The church is the largest congregation in the United Church of Christ, a predominantly white denomination known for its liberal politics. In 1991, Obama joined the church and walked down the aisle in a formal commitment of faith. Wright later married Obama and Michelle Robinson and baptized their two daughters. The title of Obama’s bestseller “The Audacity of Hope” comes from one of Wright’s sermons. Wright is one of the first people Obama thanked after his election to the Senate in 2004. But Obama’s life does not exactly support Wright’s thesis that blacks in America are oppressed. A Harvard Law School graduate, Obama married a black Princeton graduate who also has a degree from Harvard Law School. Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois; his wife is a vice president of the University of Chicago Hospitals. With his wife, Obama has been making more than $1 million a year. On a few points, Obama has sought to distance himself from Wright’s teachings or explain them away. While Wright is his pastor and friend, Obama has said, they do not see eye to eye on everything. In particular, Obama has said he “strongly disagrees with any portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that advocates divestment from Israel or expresses anything less than strong support for Israel’s security.” As for Wright’s repeated comments blaming America for the 9/11 attacks, Obama has said it sounds as if the minister was trying to be “provocative.” Just before Obama’s nationally televised campaign kickoff rally last Feb. 10, the candidate disinvited Wright from giving the public invocation. Wright explained: “When [Obama’s] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli” to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, “a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.” According to Wright, Obama then told him, “'You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.'” But privately, Obama and his family prayed with Wright just before the presidential announcement. To his credit, Obama so far has avoided race-specific appeals as part of his candidacy, accounting in part for his widespread appeal. Obama “has taught the black community you don’t have to act like Jesse Jackson, you don’t have to act like Al Sharpton,” conservative commentator Bill Bennett said on CNN on Jan. 3. “You can talk about the issues. [Obama has] great dignity.” But if Obama rejects Wright’s warped view of this country, why does he continue to attend his church, raising the question of whether Obama secretly agrees with his friend and mentor? At the least, Obama’s membership in Wright’s church suggests a lack of judgment and an insensitivity to views that are repugnant to the vast majority of white Americans who are not bigots. That same lack of judgment has shown up in Obama’s gaffes—threatening to invade Pakistan and offering prompt negotiations with anti-American despots. More frightening, Obama voted last August to give Osama bin Laden and other terrorists the same rights as Americans when it comes to intercepting their overseas calls in order to pick up clues needed to stop another attack. Jen Psaki, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign, has tried to paper over the candidate’s support of the Black Value System by saying that Obama “believes its basic tenets of commitment to God, to community, to self-discipline and self-reliance continue to have applicability not only to the African-American community but to all people.” But that is not what the Black Value System says. One can only imagine the outrage that would erupt if a white presidential candidate like Romney subscribed to something called the White Value System. Yet while Obama has been referred to in the media tens of thousands of times in the past month, only one story in the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire offhandedly mentioned Obama’s church’s “unashamedly black” slogan. In contrast, in an exquisite example of the double standard they apply to Democrats versus Republicans, the media love to focus on Romney’s religion, which is not relevant to how he would perform as president. Close to half the media references to Romney refer to the fact that he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Very few of them mention that he is both a Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School graduate, credentials that are relevant to how he would perform as president. When Romney’s father ran for president, his religion was not an issue simply because the media rightly recognized that it was not pertinent to his candidacy. Today, as part of their coverage of Romney, the media run denigrating quotes about Mormonism that they would never dare to run about any other religion. At the same time, the media have largely ignored or downplayed the clearly racist slogan of Obama’s church and the anti-American and anti-Israel stances of its pastor. In two exceptions to the media blackout, Tucker Carlson of MSNBC described Trinity as having a “racially exclusive theology” that “contradicts the basic tenets of Christianity.” Sean Hannity of Fox News confronted Wright on TV and asked how a black value system is any more acceptable than a white value system. If a white presidential candidate’s church had a similar statement and “you substitute the word black for white, there would be an outrage in this country,” Hannity said. “There would be cries of racism in this country.'” “If your spiritual advisor makes outrageous statements, it’s incumbent on you as a leader to denounce those statements,” says Brad Blakeman, a former Bush White House aide who heads the conservative Freedom’s Watch. “Silence is an admission that you agree with what your spiritual advisor pronounces.” If his church membership calls into question Obama’s judgment, the dichotomy in the coverage of his and Romney’s religious affiliations spotlights the media’s double standard and how its skewed reporting influences who will become president. But media bias or not, if Obama is his party’s nominee, his Republican opponent will rightly be able to make use of Rev. Wright and his radical teachings as effectively as supporters of George H.W. Bush used Willie Horton’s furlough to help Bush win the presidency. Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. View his previous dispatches and have them sent to you free via e-mail. Go here now. © 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Can you come up an answer for this?--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Barack Obama's Racist Church If Sen. Obama rejects the Rev. Wright’s warped view of this country, why does he continue to attend his church? Monday, January 7, 2008 10:16 AM By: Ronald Kessler Imagine if Mitt Romney’s church proclaimed on its website that it is “unashamedly white.” The media would pounce, and Romney’s presidential candidacy would be over. Yet that is exactly what Barack Obama’s church says on its web site — except in reverse. “We are a congregation which is unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian,” says the Trinity United Church of Christ’s website in Chicago. “We are an African people and remain true to our native land, the mother continent, the cradle of civilization.” That’s just the beginning. The church has a “non-negotiable commitment to Africa,” according to its website, and its pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. subscribes to what is called the Black Value System. While the Black Value System includes such items as commitment to God, education, and self-discipline, it refers to “our racist competitive society” and includes the disavowal of the pursuit of “middle-classness” and a pledge of allegiance to “all black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System.” It defines “middle-classness” as a way for American society to “snare” blacks rather than “killing them off directly” or “placing them in concentration camps,” just as the country structures “an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.” In sermons and interviews, Dr. Wright has equated Zionism with racism and Israel with South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid. On the Sunday after 9/11, Wright said the attacks were a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later, Wright suggested that the attacks were retribution for America’s racism. “In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” Wright wrote in a church-affiliated magazine. “White America and the western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.” In one of his sermons, Wright said, “Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!...We [in the U.S.] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.” As for Israel, “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now,” Wright has said. “Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.” Obama says he found religion and Jesus Christ through Wright, whom he met in the mid-1980s. He has been attending Wright’s church regularly since 1988. The church occupies a tan building on West 95th Street near a public housing project and railroad tracks. Since becoming pastor in 1972, Wright has seen the church’s membership grow to more than 8,500. The church is the largest congregation in the United Church of Christ, a predominantly white denomination known for its liberal politics. In 1991, Obama joined the church and walked down the aisle in a formal commitment of faith. Wright later married Obama and Michelle Robinson and baptized their two daughters. The title of Obama’s bestseller “The Audacity of Hope” comes from one of Wright’s sermons. Wright is one of the first people Obama thanked after his election to the Senate in 2004. But Obama’s life does not exactly support Wright’s thesis that blacks in America are oppressed. A Harvard Law School graduate, Obama married a black Princeton graduate who also has a degree from Harvard Law School. Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois; his wife is a vice president of the University of Chicago Hospitals. With his wife, Obama has been making more than $1 million a year. On a few points, Obama has sought to distance himself from Wright’s teachings or explain them away. While Wright is his pastor and friend, Obama has said, they do not see eye to eye on everything. In particular, Obama has said he “strongly disagrees with any portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that advocates divestment from Israel or expresses anything less than strong support for Israel’s security.” As for Wright’s repeated comments blaming America for the 9/11 attacks, Obama has said it sounds as if the minister was trying to be “provocative.” Just before Obama’s nationally televised campaign kickoff rally last Feb. 10, the candidate disinvited Wright from giving the public invocation. Wright explained: “When [Obama’s] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli” to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, “a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.” According to Wright, Obama then told him, “'You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.'” But privately, Obama and his family prayed with Wright just before the presidential announcement. To his credit, Obama so far has avoided race-specific appeals as part of his candidacy, accounting in part for his widespread appeal. Obama “has taught the black community you don’t have to act like Jesse Jackson, you don’t have to act like Al Sharpton,” conservative commentator Bill Bennett said on CNN on Jan. 3. “You can talk about the issues. [Obama has] great dignity.” But if Obama rejects Wright’s warped view of this country, why does he continue to attend his church, raising the question of whether Obama secretly agrees with his friend and mentor? At the least, Obama’s membership in Wright’s church suggests a lack of judgment and an insensitivity to views that are repugnant to the vast majority of white Americans who are not bigots. That same lack of judgment has shown up in Obama’s gaffes—threatening to invade Pakistan and offering prompt negotiations with anti-American despots. More frightening, Obama voted last August to give Osama bin Laden and other terrorists the same rights as Americans when it comes to intercepting their overseas calls in order to pick up clues needed to stop another attack. Jen Psaki, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign, has tried to paper over the candidate’s support of the Black Value System by saying that Obama “believes its basic tenets of commitment to God, to community, to self-discipline and self-reliance continue to have applicability not only to the African-American community but to all people.” But that is not what the Black Value System says. One can only imagine the outrage that would erupt if a white presidential candidate like Romney subscribed to something called the White Value System. Yet while Obama has been referred to in the media tens of thousands of times in the past month, only one story in the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire offhandedly mentioned Obama’s church’s “unashamedly black” slogan. In contrast, in an exquisite example of the double standard they apply to Democrats versus Republicans, the media love to focus on Romney’s religion, which is not relevant to how he would perform as president. Close to half the media references to Romney refer to the fact that he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Very few of them mention that he is both a Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School graduate, credentials that are relevant to how he would perform as president. When Romney’s father ran for president, his religion was not an issue simply because the media rightly recognized that it was not pertinent to his candidacy. Today, as part of their coverage of Romney, the media run denigrating quotes about Mormonism that they would never dare to run about any other religion. At the same time, the media have largely ignored or downplayed the clearly racist slogan of Obama’s church and the anti-American and anti-Israel stances of its pastor. In two exceptions to the media blackout, Tucker Carlson of MSNBC described Trinity as having a “racially exclusive theology” that “contradicts the basic tenets of Christianity.” Sean Hannity of Fox News confronted Wright on TV and asked how a black value system is any more acceptable than a white value system. If a white presidential candidate’s church had a similar statement and “you substitute the word black for white, there would be an outrage in this country,” Hannity said. “There would be cries of racism in this country.'” “If your spiritual advisor makes outrageous statements, it’s incumbent on you as a leader to denounce those statements,” says Brad Blakeman, a former Bush White House aide who heads the conservative Freedom’s Watch. “Silence is an admission that you agree with what your spiritual advisor pronounces.” If his church membership calls into question Obama’s judgment, the dichotomy in the coverage of his and Romney’s religious affiliations spotlights the media’s double standard and how its skewed reporting influences who will become president. But media bias or not, if Obama is his party’s nominee, his Republican opponent will rightly be able to make use of Rev. Wright and his radical teachings as effectively as supporters of George H.W. Bush used Willie Horton’s furlough to help Bush win the presidency. Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. View his previous dispatches and have them sent to you free via e-mail. Go here now. © 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved. Print Page | Forward Page | E-mail Us Related Links: These 4 Supplements Will Stop Your Migraines. Dick Morris Reveals Hillary's Big Secret — Read More --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What do you think about this? The dog carcasses always appeared late on Wednesday nights, wrapped in black trash bags and stuffed in the Dumpster behind the Piggly Wiggly supermarket. Over a period of three weeks in the summer of 2005, police officers in the small town of Ahoskie, N.C., pulled the bodies of 80 animals from the trash bin. Some were puppies, some were full-grown. Most were mutts. On the fourth week, officers set up a stakeout, and when a white van pulled up to the dumpster, they pounced. If the van's cargo — 10 dead dogs and three dead cats in black bags — was to be expected, its occupants were not. The driver and the passenger were employees of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the vehicle was registered to the organization. The workers, Adria Hinkle, 28, and Andrew Cook, 25, were arrested and later indicted on 24 felony charges, including 21 counts of animal cruelty, for injecting lethal doses of an anesthetic into strays they had just collected from county shelters and a veterinarian's office. For PETA, the largest animal rights organization in the world, it was a public relations nightmare. The group, whose many celebrity supporters include Pamela Anderson and Alec Baldwin, made its name by obtaining and publicizing disturbing images of torturous lab experiments, blood-soaked fur farms and shocking abuse of circus animals. Now it was confronted with photos of a graphic scene of its own employees' making: a lifeless cream-colored puppy being lifted out off a pile of trash. A dead Dalmatian sprawled on its back. A jet-black cat and her two kittens cinched in a trash bag. "It's hideous," the president of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, acknowledged two days after the arrests. "I think this is so shocking it's bound to hurt our work. " Despite this assessment, Newkirk and PETA stood by Hinkle and Cook in the coming months, consistently advocating for their innocence and hiring the legal team that will represent them at the trial that begins Jan. 22 in Hertford County Superior Court. "As the trial is about to start, we remind all interested parties that there was absolutely no cruelty involved in this case, that PETA has only ever helped animals in dire straits in North Carolina, and that if justice is served these facts will be made clear," a spokeswoman, Erin Edwards, wrote in an e-mail Thursday. Although only Hinkle and Cook, two low-level staffers, are facing charges, the policies of the entire organization are on trial. Critics have charged that many of the group's loyal supporters will be shocked when details of PETA's euthanasia policy emerge. The Virginian-Pilot reported that the group euthanized more than 6,000 animals between 2001 and 2003, about 83 percent of those it collected. Officials with the group maintain that while Hinkle and Cook may have exercised poor discretion in dumping the animals behind the supermarket, they and other employees who did similar work were acting humanely when they euthanized animals removed from shelters. Those who say otherwise, PETA claims, are not realistic about the future of the estimated 6 to 8 million dogs and cats left at U.S. shelters annually. Statistics compiled by the national Humane Society indicate that only about half of the strays will be adopted. The rest will be put to death. PETA insists that in the case of the "unadoptable" — the old, sick, antisocial or not housebroken — it is more compassionate to euthanize them immediately than to let them live in shelters, where they may be mistreated. "Critics may condemn PETA for supporting euthanasia, but we are not ashamed of providing a merciful exit from an uncaring world to broken beings," Daphna Nachminovitch, PETA's director of domestic animal issues, wrote in an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle shortly after the arrests. That stance is controversial in the animal rights community. "The responsibility we have to animals doesn't mean giving them a painless death. It means coping with their challenges like we would a family member or a child," said Rich Avanzino, the president of Maddie's Fund. His organization, endowed with $300 million by PeopleSoft founder David Duffield, advocates making the United States a "no-kill nation," where animals are only euthanized if they are dangerous or suffering from an incurable condition. The trial, which is scheduled to last a week, will focus on PETA's involvement with three rural counties in the northeast part of the state. According to PETA, the group first became involved with North Carolina strays several years ago when they received a phone call from a police officer outraged at the conditions in county shelters. "Some of the counties were euthanizing animals by shooting them in the head with an old rifle. Others were using a leaky and ineffective gas chamber," Cook's lawyer, Mark Edwards, said. PETA agreed to collect animals several times a week and take them to their headquarters in Norfolk, Va., about 50 miles away. What was supposed to occur there is disputed. County officials say they were under the impression that the group would try to find loving homes for the animals. One veterinarian, Patrick Proctor, said that when he handed the black cat and her kittens to Hinkle and Cook, they cooed over the animals and said they would be easy to place. "They were saying, 'My, what beautiful animals. We will have absolutely no trouble finding homes for these,'" the veterinarian told CNN. PETA officials contend that everyone involved knew that the animals would be euthanized, and its role was to provide a less painful death at their lab in Norfolk than they would have experienced by a gun or gas chamber death in the shelter. "These animals were going to be euthanized, either by PETA or the state of North Carolina," Edwards said. Newkirk has said that Hinkle and Cook deviated from PETA policy by disposing of the bodies in the Dumpster rather than cremating them. Hinkle, who was more senior than Cook, normally assigned to the group's Web site, was suspended for 90 days, but both defendants continue to work for the group. More trial and crime news from Court TV Email Story IM Story Printable View (What happened to the "Discuss" option?) RECOMMEND THIS STORY Recommend It: Average (8 votes) » Recommended Stories U.S. News Co. pledges millions for scholarships AP Search continues for Indiana mom, 4 kids AP Ex-church official guilty in porn case AP Rare snow storm surprises Arizona AP Kidnap suspect's lawyers criticize jail AP Most Viewed - U.S. AIDS

GUESS what so SAD??that people are not FAIR anymore??? i was born and raised there -in Palestine- and never had a life where truth is shown...you see that Israel is the poor country fighting terrorism ..well THAT IS TOTALY WRONG i lived there for more than 17 years. and saw everything that happens there i saw our house being shot at by Israel soldier knowing that me and my sis and 3 baby brothers were there only...saw my friend coming to school crying cause her dad was killed by a bomb i saw blood all over the streets in "ramallah"and lots of places i saw who has rocks and who has guns i saw an Israel soldier killing boy 12 years old because he was throwing ROCKS i know and we all know that more than 8000 are in Israel jails and no Israel soldier in Palestinians jails except one, only one so who is killing who i wrote this to see what u really think? Maybe i could show u what my eyes saw alive not what bbc and cnn and abc news lied to me. remember 80 Palestinians KILLED and 200 INJURED only in SIX DAYS http://www.ifamericansknew.com/ the question is :when well usa and Israel show who destruction they are causing all over the world in minutes? when well usa stop saying" Israel is defending her self" ?maybe from rocks!!!!

Is this one reason why people have lost respect for the media & it angers them? Barack Obama's Racist Church If Sen. Obama rejects the Rev. Wright’s warped view of this country, why does he continue to attend his church? Monday, January 7, 2008 10:16 AM By: Ronald Kessler Imagine if Mitt Romney’s church proclaimed on its website that it is “unashamedly white.” The media would pounce, and Romney’s presidential candidacy would be over. Yet that is exactly what Barack Obama’s church says on its web site — except in reverse. “We are a congregation which is unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian,” says the Trinity United Church of Christ’s website in Chicago. “We are an African people and remain true to our native land, the mother continent, the cradle of civilization.” That’s just the beginning. The church has a “non-negotiable commitment to Africa,” according to its website, and its pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. subscribes to what is called the Black Value System. While the Black Value System includes such items as commitment to God, education, and self-discipline, it refers to “our racist competitive society” and includes the disavowal of the pursuit of “middle-classness” and a pledge of allegiance to “all black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System.” It defines “middle-classness” as a way for American society to “snare” blacks rather than “killing them off directly” or “placing them in concentration camps,” just as the country structures “an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.” In sermons and interviews, Dr. Wright has equated Zionism with racism and Israel with South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid. On the Sunday after 9/11, Wright said the attacks were a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later, Wright suggested that the attacks were retribution for America’s racism. “In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” Wright wrote in a church-affiliated magazine. “White America and the western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.” In one of his sermons, Wright said, “Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!...We [in the U.S.] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.” As for Israel, “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now,” Wright has said. “Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.” Obama says he found religion and Jesus Christ through Wright, whom he met in the mid-1980s. He has been attending Wright’s church regularly since 1988. The church occupies a tan building on West 95th Street near a public housing project and railroad tracks. Since becoming pastor in 1972, Wright has seen the church’s membership grow to more than 8,500. The church is the largest congregation in the United Church of Christ, a predominantly white denomination known for its liberal politics. In 1991, Obama joined the church and walked down the aisle in a formal commitment of faith. Wright later married Obama and Michelle Robinson and baptized their two daughters. The title of Obama’s bestseller “The Audacity of Hope” comes from one of Wright’s sermons. Wright is one of the first people Obama thanked after his election to the Senate in 2004. But Obama’s life does not exactly support Wright’s thesis that blacks in America are oppressed. A Harvard Law School graduate, Obama married a black Princeton graduate who also has a degree from Harvard Law School. Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois; his wife is a vice president of the University of Chicago Hospitals. With his wife, Obama has been making more than $1 million a year. On a few points, Obama has sought to distance himself from Wright’s teachings or explain them away. While Wright is his pastor and friend, Obama has said, they do not see eye to eye on everything. In particular, Obama has said he “strongly disagrees with any portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that advocates divestment from Israel or expresses anything less than strong support for Israel’s security.” As for Wright’s repeated comments blaming America for the 9/11 attacks, Obama has said it sounds as if the minister was trying to be “provocative.” Just before Obama’s nationally televised campaign kickoff rally last Feb. 10, the candidate disinvited Wright from giving the public invocation. Wright explained: “When [Obama’s] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli” to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, “a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.” According to Wright, Obama then told him, “'You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.'” But privately, Obama and his family prayed with Wright just before the presidential announcement. To his credit, Obama so far has avoided race-specific appeals as part of his candidacy, accounting in part for his widespread appeal. Obama “has taught the black community you don’t have to act like Jesse Jackson, you don’t have to act like Al Sharpton,” conservative commentator Bill Bennett said on CNN on Jan. 3. “You can talk about the issues. [Obama has] great dignity.” But if Obama rejects Wright’s warped view of this country, why does he continue to attend his church, raising the question of whether Obama secretly agrees with his friend and mentor? At the least, Obama’s membership in Wright’s church suggests a lack of judgment and an insensitivity to views that are repugnant to the vast majority of white Americans who are not bigots. That same lack of judgment has shown up in Obama’s gaffes—threatening to invade Pakistan and offering prompt negotiations with anti-American despots. More frightening, Obama voted last August to give Osama bin Laden and other terrorists the same rights as Americans when it comes to intercepting their overseas calls in order to pick up clues needed to stop another attack. Jen Psaki, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign, has tried to paper over the candidate’s support of the Black Value System by saying that Obama “believes its basic tenets of commitment to God, to community, to self-discipline and self-reliance continue to have applicability not only to the African-American community but to all people.” But that is not what the Black Value System says. One can only imagine the outrage that would erupt if a white presidential candidate like Romney subscribed to something called the White Value System. Yet while Obama has been referred to in the media tens of thousands of times in the past month, only one story in the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire offhandedly mentioned Obama’s church’s “unashamedly black” slogan. In contrast, in an exquisite example of the double standard they apply to Democrats versus Republicans, the media love to focus on Romney’s religion, which is not relevant to how he would perform as president. Close to half the media references to Romney refer to the fact that he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Very few of them mention that he is both a Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School graduate, credentials that are relevant to how he would perform as president. When Romney’s father ran for president, his religion was not an issue simply because the media rightly recognized that it was not pertinent to his candidacy. Today, as part of their coverage of Romney, the media run denigrating quotes about Mormonism that they would never dare to run about any other religion. At the same time, the media have largely ignored or downplayed the clearly racist slogan of Obama’s church and the anti-American and anti-Israel stances of its pastor. In two exceptions to the media blackout, Tucker Carlson of MSNBC described Trinity as having a “racially exclusive theology” that “contradicts the basic tenets of Christianity.” Sean Hannity of Fox News confronted Wright on TV and asked how a black value system is any more acceptable than a white value system. If a white presidential candidate’s church had a similar statement and “you substitute the word black for white, there would be an outrage in this country,” Hannity said. “There would be cries of racism in this country.'” “If your spiritual advisor makes outrageous statements, it’s incumbent on you as a leader to denounce those statements,” says Brad Blakeman, a former Bush White House aide who heads the conservative Freedom’s Watch. “Silence is an admission that you agree with what your spiritual advisor pronounces.” If his church membership calls into question Obama’s judgment, the dichotomy in the coverage of his and Romney’s religious affiliations spotlights the media’s double standard and how its skewed reporting influences who will become president. But media bias or not, if Obama is his party’s nominee, his Republican opponent will rightly be able to make use of Rev. Wright and his radical teachings as effectively as supporters of George H.W. Bush used Willie Horton’s furlough to help Bush win the presidency. Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. View his previous dispatches and have them sent to you free via e-mail. Go here now. © 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved. Print Page | Forward Page | E-mail Us Related Links: These 4 Supplements Will Stop Your Migraines. Dick Morris Reveals Hillary's Big Secret — Read More --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

so.....let ALL forget killed people there?? i was born and raised there -in Palestine- and never had a life where truth is shown...you see that Israel is the poor country fighting terrorism ..well THAT IS TOTALY WRONG i lived there for more than 17 years. and saw everything that happens there i saw our house being shot at by Israel soldier knowing that me and my sis and 3 baby brothers were there only...saw my friend coming to school crying cause her dad was killed by a bomb i saw blood all over the streets in "ramallah"and lots of places i saw who has rocks and who has guns i saw an Israel soldier killing boy 12 years old because he was throwing ROCKS i know and we all know that more than 8000 are in Israel jails and no Israel soldier in Palestinians jails except one, only one so who is killing who i wrote this to see what u really think? Maybe i could show u what my eyes saw alive not what bbc and cnn and abc news lied to me. remember 80 Palestinians KILLED and 200 INJURED only in SIX DAYS http://www.ifamericansknew.com/ the question is :when well usa and Israel show who destruction they are causing all over the world in minutes? when well usa stop saying" Israel is defending her self" ?maybe from rocks!!!!

what do u REALLY know about us....PALESTINE???? i was born and raised there -in Palestine- and never had a life where truth is shown...you see that Israel is the poor country fighting terrorism ..well THAT IS TOTALY WRONG i lived there for more than 17 years. and saw everything that happens there i saw our house being shot at by Israel soldier knowing that me and my sis and 3 baby brothers were there only...saw my friend coming to school crying cause her dad was killed by a bomb i saw blood all over the streets in "ramallah"and lots of places i saw who has rocks and who has guns i saw an Israel soldier killing boy 12 years old because he was throwing ROCKS i know and we all know that more than 8000 are in Israel jails and no Israel soldier in Palestinians jails except one, only one so who is killing who i wrote this to see what u really think? Maybe i could show u what my eyes saw alive not what bbc and cnn and abc news lied to me.remember 80 palestinians KILLED and 200 INJURED only in SIX DAYS