WASHINGTON - Iranian boats harassed and provoked three American Navy ships in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, threatening to blow up the vessels, U.S. officials said Monday.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Monday the confrontation was “something normal” and was resolved, suggesting the Iranian boats had not recognized the U.S. vessels. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the Bush administration urges Iranians “to refrain from such provocative actions that could lead to a dangerous incident in the future.”
Military officials told NBC News that two U.S. Navy destroyers and one frigate were heading into the Persian Gulf through the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz when five armed "fast boats" of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard approached at high speed, darting in and out of the formation.
At one point a radio message from one of the Iranian boats warned, "You are going to blow up within minutes."
The Navy warships went into defensive mode, radioed the usual warnings to steer clear, and in the end no shots were fired. U.S. military warships believe the Revolutionary Guard boats were "testing our defenses," the officials said.
Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman called it a “serious incident.” Another U.S. official, speaking on ...   more »

The Russian and Libyan navies have resumed contacts after a long hiatus when a Russian Navy vessel made a port call at Tripoli, an aide to the Russian Navy commander said on Saturday.
The Ivan Bubnov tanker will stay at the Libyan capital until January 7. It is participating in a two-month patrol mission in the northeast Atlantic and the Mediterranean, Russia's first in the past three years, which began on December 5.
"The visit by the Russian vessel to Libya could be seen as a revival of contacts with the country's navy in the interest of strengthening mutual understanding and building trust in the Mediterranean region," Capt. 1st Rank Igor Dygalo said.
Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said previously that a total of four warships and seven other vessels of Russia's Northern, Black Sea and Baltic Fleets, as well as 47 airplanes and 10 helicopters, would take part in the 12,000-mile cruise.
"The mission is aimed at ensuring a naval presence and establishing conditions for secure Russian navigation," Serdyukov told the Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting in the Kremlin.
Libya's leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on December 24 in Tripoli to discuss ...   more »

By Bill Gertz
Stephen Coughlin, the Pentagon specialist on Islamic law and Islamist extremism, has been fired from his position on the military's Joint Staff. The action followed a report in this space last week revealing opposition to his work for the military by pro-Muslim officials within the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England.
Mr. Coughlin was notified this week that his contract with the Joint Staff will end in March, effectively halting the career of one of the U.S. government's most important figures in analyzing the nature of extremism and ultimately preparing to wage ideological war against it.
He had run afoul of a key aide to Mr. England, Hasham Islam, who confronted Mr. Coughlin during a meeting several weeks ago when Mr. Islam sought to have Mr. Coughlin soften his views on Islamist extremism.
Mr. Coughlin was accused directly by Mr. Islam of being a Christian zealot or extremist "with a pen," according to defense officials. Mr. Coughlin appears to have become one of the first casualties in the war of ideas with Islamism.
The officials said Mr. Coughlin was let go because he had become "too hot" or controversial within the Pentagon.
Misguided Pentagon officials, including ...   more »

Before she lets them shoot her little pink stun gun, Dana Shafman ushers her new friends to the living room sofa for a serious chat about the fears she believes they all share.
"The worst nightmare for me is, while I'm sleeping, someone coming in my home," Shafman says, drawing a few solemn nods from the gathered women.
Shafman, 34, of Phoenix, says she knows how they feel. She says she used to stash knives under her pillow for protection.
Welcome, she says, to the Taser party.
On the coffee table, Shafman spreads out Taser's C2 "personal protector" weapons that the company is marketing to the public. It doesn't take long before the women are lined up in the hallway, whooping as they take turns blasting at a metallic target.
"C'mon!" she says. "Give it a shot."
Shafman isn't an employee for Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Taser International. She's an independent entrepreneur who's been selling Tasers the way her mother's generation sold plastic food storage containers.
As a single woman who lives alone, Shafman says she's the perfect pitchwoman for Taser as it makes a renewed push to sell weapons to families.
The company agrees. Taser officials like Shafman's homespun sales tactics ...   more »

Posted by Elinor Mills
According to a new international privacy report, governments around the world are increasingly invading the privacy of citizens with surveillance, identification systems, and archiving of private data.
Driven by concern over immigration and border control, countries have been quick to implement database, identity, and fingerprinting systems, according to the 2007 International Privacy Ranking report. 
There was also an increase in the trend of governments archiving data on the geographic, communications, and financial records of citizens, as well as enacting legislation intended to increase the reach into individuals' private lives, the report found.
"At the same time, technological advances, technology standards, interoperability between information systems, and the globalization of information have placed extraordinary pressure on the few remaining privacy safeguards," the report says. "The effect of these developments has been to create surveillance societies that nurture hostile environments for privacy."
Specifically, governments have implemented or proposed use of fingerprint and iris-scanning biometrics, real-time tracking and monitoring through communications channels, geographic vehicle and mobile phone tracing, national DNA databases, global information-sharing agreements, and the elimination of anonymity in cyberspace.
The lowest-ranking countries in terms of privacy protections continue to be Malaysia, Russia, and China, with Greece, Romania, and ...   more »

In a recent analysis, "Was Barack Obama a Muslim?" I surveyed available evidence and found it suggests "Obama was born a Muslim to a non-practicing Muslim father and for some years had a reasonably Muslim upbringing under the auspices of his Indonesian step-father." In response, David Brock's organization, Media Matters for America (MMfA), which calls itself a "progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media," has criticized one of my sources of information.
MMfA contends in "Daniel Pipes relied on disputed LA Times article to revive Obama-Muslim falsehood," that "key aspects" of a March 16, 2007, Los Angeles Times article I quoted were later challenged by another newspaper account, "History of schooling distorted," by Kim Barker in the Chicago Tribune on March 25.
Falsehood? That's a strong word.
To assess MMfA's claim, let's review its preferred article and examine what Barker has to say on four topics related to Obama's Indonesian years, 1967-71:
His attendance at a Catholic school;
His attendance at a public school;
His step-father, Lolo Soetoro; and
His friend, Zulfan Adi.
To start with, about the Catholic school, Fransiskus Strada Asisia, which Obama attended 1967-70 (words in ...   more »

Police demand boy go to doctor because of fall during horseplay
By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com
Nearly a dozen members of a police SWAT team in western Colorado punched a hole in the front door and invaded a family's home with guns drawn, demanding that an 11-year-old boy who had had an accidental fall accompany them to the hospital, on the order of Garfield County Magistrate Lain Leoniak.
The boy's parents and siblings were thrown to the floor at gunpoint and the parents were handcuffed in the weekend assault, and the boy's father told WND it was all because a paramedic was upset the family preferred to care for their son themselves.
Someone, apparently the unidentified paramedic, called police, the sheriff's office and social services, eventually providing Leoniak with a report that generated the magistrate's court order to the sheriff's office for the SWAT team assault on the family's home in a mobile home development outside of Glenwood Springs, the father, Tom Shiflett, told WND. 
WND calls and e-mails to Garfield County Social Services were not returned, and Leoniak, who earlier served as a water court clerk/referee, also was not available.
Sheriff Lou Vallario, however, did call back, and ...   more »

Editor's note: Michael Ackley's column was written before the Iowa caucuses were completed and Joe Biden and Chris Dodd dropped out of the presidential race. Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.
"Man! It stinks in here!"
"I don't smell anything," replied Howard Bashford, the amiable chief aide of California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Aztlan.
"You're joking," we said. "You're office has the aroma of week-old road kill. What's that behind your desk?"
"Nothing," he said, rolling in his chair to hide the object, which seemed to be the source of the stench.
"Looks like a file folder," we said, stepping quickly to the left to get a better view.
Bashford's chair skidded off its floor guard and got hung up in the heavy pile of his office carpet, so he couldn't obscure the title on the folder.
"Scaring Californians into a Tax Increase," we read. "Come on, Howard, what's in it?"
"I really couldn't say," he answered huffily, as he tried to hoist his chair back onto the hard surface. "But it's evident to everybody in the ...   more »

By Tom DeWeese
When Congress passed the energy bill in December, it did everything necessary to please a horde of special interests and very little to actually help Americans with their energy problems. Truth is, America still has no energy policy – just a lot of pork for those feeding at the tax-paid trough.
Political correctness comes from special interest groups who lay down the law with politicians (read: we won't give you any more money unless you say and do things our way). In such an atmosphere there is little room for reasoned thought on the consequences of the legislation Congress enforces on the rest of us. The energy bill is the prime example of law by sound bite.
The new law mandates that auto makers must boost mileage by 40 percent – to 35 miles per gallon – by 2020. The reason given by the politicians is that this move will help make America less dependent on foreign oil. Funny though, there isn't a word in the bill about drilling for American oil in Alaska or increasing drilling off shore. Both areas have proven to have near unlimited reserves that could easily free the nation from the Middle ...   more »