By WILLIAM J. BROAD
The puzzling site in Syria that Israeli jets bombed in September grew more curious on Friday with the release of a satellite photograph showing new construction there that resembles the site’s former main building.
Israel’s air attack was directed against what Israeli and American intelligence analysts had judged to be a partly constructed nuclear reactor. The Syrians vigorously denied the atomic claim.
Before the attack, satellite imagery showed a tall, square building there measuring about 150 feet long per side.
After the attack, the Syrians wiped the area clean, with some analysis calling the speed of the cleanup a tacit admission of guilt. The barren site is on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, 90 miles north of the Iraqi border.
The image released Friday came from a private company, DigitalGlobe, in Longmont, Colo. It shows a tall, square building under construction that appears to closely resemble the original structure, with the exception that the roof is vaulted instead of flat. The photo was taken from space on Wednesday.
Given the international uproar that unfolded after the bombing, “we can assume it’s not a reactor,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International ...   more »

President George W. Bush gave Israel the nod for its long-delayed military operation against Hamas in the Gaza before he ended his 50-hour visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah on Friday, Jan. 11 – except that his provisos stop the Israeli military short of its objectives, namely stamping out the Palestinian missile campaign, halting smuggling and eradicating Hamas military stockpiles, as reported here by DEBKAfile’s military sources:
1. Israeli forces must limit their invasion to two or three strips abutting the Gaza-Israeli border of the 365 sq. km square Hamas-ruled territory on Israel’s southwestern border. Those sources identify those strips as the northern pocket of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and the fringes of the Jebalya camp; the southern areas east of Khan Younes up to the Sufa and Kerem Shalom crossings; and sections of the Philadelphi border strip with Egypt, up to and excluding the Mediterranean coast.
Operationally, this means the Israeli army may push back the Qassam missile launching sites from the border and distance this harassment from the Israeli population, but may not destroy terrorist arms and missile caches and their means of production.
Israel is also enabled to deal only partially with the smuggling system for the weapons, ...   more »

Many answer Bush's call to end illegal settlements by expanding them
By Jonathan Finer
SHVUT AMI, West Bank - With a pellet gun in his jeans pocket and a hammer in his hand, Dani Landesberg and a crew of teenage Jewish settlers began adding a second story to what has become their new home. They stole occasional glances down the winding access road in case the police came by to evict them, again.
Last Sept. 30, a dozen settlers moved into the small stone house at the base of a gentle hill in the northern West Bank and turned what was once a barn for donkeys into a synagogue. Two weeks later, Israeli security forces banished them for the first of eight times from land that a Palestinian family says is its property, a claim backed by legal documents and an Israeli human rights group.
The settlers returned the next day, so police sealed the windows and doors with metal siding and plowed a berm across the driveway, all to no avail.
"They can drag us away a hundred times and we'll come back," said Landesberg, 18, who like many religious Jews wears a yarmulke and long, curled sideburns. "And ...   more »

By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United States has agreed in principle to provide Israel with better "smart bombs" than those it plans to sell Saudi Arabia under a regional defense package, senior Israeli security sources said on Sunday.
Keen to bolster Middle East allies against an ascendant Iran, the Bush administration last year proposed supplying Gulf Arab states with some $20 billion in new weapons, including Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb kits for the Saudis.
The plan has angered Israel's backers in Washington, who say the JDAMs, which give satellite guidance for bombs, may one day be used against the Jewish state or at least blunt its power to deter potential foes. Israel has had JDAMs since 1990 and has used them extensively in a 2006 offensive in Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government dropped its objections to the proposed Saudi deal in July after securing U.S. military aid grants worth $30 billion over the next decade.
Two Israeli security sources said the United States further mollified the Olmert government with an "understanding in principle" that future JDAM sales to Israel would include advanced technologies not on offer to Saudi Arabia.
"We are checking which of ...   more »

By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer
President Bush said Sunday that Iran is threatening the security of the world, and that the United States and Arab allies must join together to confront the danger "before it's too late."
Bush said Iran funds terrorist extremists, undermines peace in Lebanon, sends arms to the Taliban, seeks to intimidate its neighbors with alarming rhetoric, defies the United Nations and destabilizes the entire region by refusing to be open about its nuclear program.
"Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terror," Bush said in a speech he delivered about mid-way through his eight-day Mideast trip that began with a renewed push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace pact — an accord he said whose "time has come."
"Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere," Bush said. "So the United States is strengthening our long-standing security commitments with our friends in the Gulf, and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late."
Bush lauded democratic reforms in Gulf nations ruled by authoritarian leaders. He said the Iranian government in Tehran needs to make itself accountable to its people. And he called on the Palestinians to reject extremists, although he ...   more »

I was surfing through the Washington Times Website and came across an article by Bill Gertz, about the sacking of Stephen Coughlin, the “Pentagon specialist on Islamic Law and Islamist extremism.” The article gave me chills....chills of fear.
I think that I could more deal with the "in your face" attacks of 9/11, rather than with the insidious fungus/mold that is spreading throughout all levels of our society. Ask the folks who experience mold in their homes. It silently and amorphously spreads, inch by inch, until the homeowner flees.  
By the time the mold of “Islamist extremism,” finishes the process, we will not be able to flee the US. The other countries will have already been “molded.”
No, I am not bashing folks of the Muslim faith. I would definitely like to bash, and not just figuratively, those folks who, with their and their “aiders” and abettors, want us to convert or die, and are determined to take us back to the 7th century or earlier. They are using, as their very effective weapons, our system of government, our laws, our freedoms, our marketing systems, our First Amendment Rights, our currency (well, maybe now the Euro), our everything...and we ...   more »

I note Congress is beginning an investigation into television preachers who promise wealth to those who give to their "ministries."
It seems Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has launched an investigation of those preaching this "prosperity gospel."
Grassley is asking the ministries for financial records on salaries, spending practices, private jets and other perks, according to a story in the Associated Press.
To tell you the truth, I probably despise these charlatans more than any member of Congress. I think they give Christianity a bad name.
But, isn't a wee bit hypocritical for the government to investigate those practicing their own racket?
Substantively, what is the difference between a spiritual con artist promising instant prosperity for a "sacrificial contribution" and politicians who promise you free health care and all kinds of other goodies if you send them money and cast your vote for them?
Worse yet, these politicians, if successful, then use the coercive power of government to seize your wealth and redistribute it as if they were gods.
It's really a case of the pot calling the kettle a kitchen utensil.
Government now believes it has the authority to meddle in any ...   more »

By DEVLIN BARRETT 
Identity Cards - Photo ID - id lanyard, Employee ID Badges, ID Biometric ID, Fundraising Cards
bravoid.com 
Avoid airport pat downs - Get through Security faster! Look stylish
WASHINGTON (AP) - Millions of air travelers may find going through airport security much more complicated this spring, as the Bush administration heads toward a showdown with state governments over post-Sept. 11 rules for new driver's licenses.
By May, the dispute could leave millions of people unable to use their licenses to board planes, but privacy advocates called that a hollow threat by federal officials.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who was unveiling final details of the REAL ID Act's rules on Friday, said that if states want their licenses to remain valid for air travel after May 2008, those states must seek a waiver indicating they want more time to comply with the legislation.
Chertoff said that for any state which doesn't seek such a waiver by May, residents of that state will have to use a passport or certain types of federal border-crossing cards if they want to avoid a vigorous secondary screening at airport security. 
"The last thing I want to do is punish citizens of ...   more »

Sheriff defends capture
of boy by SWAT team   
Says father challenged officers
to bring 'army' upon their return
--WND

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59654
Says father challenged officers to bring 'army' upon their return
By Bob Unruh
The Colorado sheriff who dispatched a SWAT team to break into a family's home, hold them at gunpoint and take custody of an 11-year-old boy for a medical exam sought by Social Services is defending the actions, saying the boy's father told officers to "bring an army" if they returned.
The 11-year-old, Jonathan Shiflett, had suffered bruises while horsing around in a mobile home park near New Castle where the family lives. But his father, Tom Shiflett, refused to allow paramedics who arrived after a neighbor apparently called 911 to treat his son, and refused to allow the ambulance crew to take Jonathan to a hospital.
Multiple visits by police officers and sheriff's deputies brought the same response, as did a visit from Social Services employees, who reported to court authorities: "Thomas Shiflett shouted at this worker and advised this worker that if he obtained a court order, he better 'bring an army,'" according to an affidavit filed by Matthew McGaugh, a caseworker for the Garfield ...   more »

Hi-tech 'satellite' tagging planned in order to create more space in jails
Civil rights groups and probation officers furious at 'degrading' scheme
By Brian Brady, Whitehall Editor
Ministers are planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails.
Amid concerns about the security of existing tagging systems and prison overcrowding, the Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals.
But, instead of being contained in bracelets worn around the ankle, the tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews. The radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, as long as two grains of rice, are able to carry scanable personal information about individuals, including their identities, address and offending record.
The tags, labelled "spychips" by privacy campaigners, are already used around the world to keep track of dogs, cats, cattle and airport luggage, but there is no record of the technology being used to monitor offenders in the community. The chips are also being considered as a method of helping to keep order ...   more »

By Felicity Barringer
Friday, January 11, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO: The conceit in the 1960s show "The Outer Limits" was that outside forces had taken control of your television set.
Next year in California, state regulators are likely to have the emergency power to control individual thermostats, sending temperatures up or down through a radio-controlled device that will be required in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages.
The proposed rules are contained in a document circulated by the California Energy Commission, which for more than three decades has set state energy efficiency standards for home appliances, like water heaters, air conditioners and refrigerators.
The changes would allow utilities to adjust customers' preset temperatures when the price of electricity is soaring. Customers could override the utilities' suggested temperatures. But in emergencies, the utilities could override customers' wishes.
Final approval is expected next month.
"You realize there are times - very rarely, once every few years - when you would be subject to a rotating outage and everything would crash including your computer and traffic lights, and you don't want to do that," said Arthur Rosenfeld, a member of the energy commission.
Reducing individual customers' electrical use - ...   more »

Coast Guard forces vaccine derived from aborted child
Catholic officer sues to prevent injection – top brass disputes theology, demands jab
A U.S. Coast Guard officer and devout Catholic has filed suit to prevent being forced to receive a vaccination derived from the lung of an aborted child after a higher ranking officer disputed his understanding of Church theology.
The Alliance Defense Fund filed a complaint last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Healy, charging the government with using its own arbitrary judgment of what constitutes Catholic theology while permitting religious exemptions to others, effectively discriminating against Healy's sincerely held religious beliefs.
Healy's request for religious exemption cited a 2005 letter from the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life which condemned the use of cell lines from abortions in vaccines and supported Catholics' right to refuse them while not requiring them to reject the medicines.
In May, 2007, Capt. Brent Pennington rejected Healy's request, saying Catholic teaching "does not state that these immunizations are against the religious tenets of the Catholic Church."
"Please note that the refusal to be vaccinated or failure to comply with a lawful order to be ...   more »