Friday - June 17, 2005

Boom-Boom, Out Go The Lights

The Army is rooting out insurgents close to the Syrian border and the flyboys are dropping the lightweight stuff on Al-Qaeda’s head ....

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. F-16 fighter planes dropped a series of 500 lb (220 kg) bombs on insurgent targets in western Iraq overnight as the U.S. military launched a heavy offensive against rebels near the Syrian border.

Nine of the powerful bombs were dropped, the U.S. military said, two of them targeting suspected rebel safe houses near the town of Qaim, an insurgent stronghold on the Euphrates river about 20 km (12 miles) east of Iraq’s border with Syria.

Four more were aimed at rebels as they fired mortars and assault rifles at U.S. ground forces near Qaim, and a further three were used to hit suspected weapons caches in the area.

The air power was in support of Operation Spear, the third major offensive U.S. forces have launched in western Iraq in the past six weeks with the aim of crushing insurgent activity in the Euphrates valley which stretches northwest to Syria.

“Operation Spear ... began in the early morning hours with the objectives of rooting out insurgents and foreign fighters and disrupting insurgent support systems in and around Karabila,” Captain Jeffrey Pool of the U.S. Marines said in a statement from Ramadi, capital of the surrounding Anbar region.

Iraqi troops and U.S. tank and amphibious assault units were involved, he added. About 1,000 troops were taking part in all.

Residents in Karabila, a suburb of Qaim where the suspected weapons caches were targeted, said fierce gunbattles broke out overnight and continued. U.S. forces said air strikes killed about 40 rebels near there on June 11.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/17/2005 at 08:30 AM   
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Biting The Hand That Feeds You

Remember all that money donated to aid countries in Southeast Asia for tsunami relief? Well, Sri Lanka is now imposing import duties on some of it ....

British charity Oxfam has had to pay the Sri Lankan government $1m in import duty for vehicles used in tsunami reconstruction work.

Paperwork had kept the 25 four-wheel drive vehicles idle in the capital, Colombo, for a month.

The Sri Lankan government told the BBC News website the aid had been duty-free until the end of April but was now needed to prevent “market distortions”.

Nearly 31,000 people died in Sri Lanka when the tsunami struck on 26 December. Half a million were made homeless. Oxfam told BBC News the 25 Indian-made Mahindra vehicles were essential in ensuring it could reach the poorest communities over rough terrain and bad roads.

Sri Lanka does not manufacture any automobiles so it was not possible to buy them locally. A spokesman said: “Clearly Oxfam would have preferred not to pay this tax on the vehicles and we did everything we could to have the tax waived.

“However the government has turned down our request and the laws of the country dictate that we must now pay the normal import tax.”

The spokesman said the incident would not affect the way Oxfam worked in Sri Lanka.

Britain’s Daily Telegraph said Sri Lankan customs had charged $5,000 a day while the vehicles were processed.

Oxfam was given the choice of handing over the vehicles to the government, re-exporting them or paying the 300% import tax.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/17/2005 at 08:16 AM   
Filed Under: • International •  
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On This Day In History

1775 - The Battle of Bunker Hill

During the American Revolution, British General William Howe lands his troops on the Charlestown peninsula overlooking Boston and leads them against Breed’s Hill, a fortified American position just below Bunker Hill. As the British advanced in columns against the Americans, Patriot General William Prescott reportedly told his men, “Don’t one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” When the Redcoats were within 40 yards, the Americans let loose with a lethal barrage of musket fire, cutting down nearly 100 enemy troops and throwing the British into retreat. After reforming his lines, Howe attacked again, with much the same result. However, Prescott’s men were now low on ammunition, and when Howe led his men up the hill for a third time, they reached the redoubts and engaged the Americans in hand-to-hand combat. The outnumbered Americans were forced to retreat.

With Paris fallen and the German conquest of France reaching its conclusion, Marshal Henri Pýtain replaces Paul Reynaud as prime minister and announces his intention to sign an armistice with the Nazis. The next day, French General Charles de Gaulle, not very well known even to the French, made a broadcast to France from England, urging his countrymen to continue the fight against Germany.

In the early morning of June 17, 1972, five men are arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate, an office-hotel-apartment complex in Washington, D.C. In their possession were burglary tools, cameras and film, and three pen-size tear gas guns. At the scene of the crime, and in rooms the men rented at the Watergate, sophisticated electronic bugging equipment was found. Three of the men were Cuban exiles, one was a Cuban American, and the fifth was James W. McCord, Jr., a former CIA agent. That day, the suspects, who said they were “anti-communists,” were charged with felonious burglary and possession of implements of crime.

On June 18, however, it was revealed that James McCord was the salaried security coordinator for President Richard Nixon’s reelection committee. The next day, E. Howard Hunt, Jr., a former White House aide, was linked to the five suspects. In July, G. Gordon Liddy, finance counsel for the Committee for the Re-election of the President, was also implicated as an accomplice. In August, President Nixon announced that a White House investigation of the Watergate break-in had concluded that administration officials were not involved. In September, Liddy, Hunt, McCord, and the four Cubans were indicted by a federal grand jury on eight counts of breaking into and illegally bugging the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

In September and October, reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of The Washington Post uncovered evidence of illegal political espionage carried out by the White House and the Committee for the Re-election of the President, including the existence of a secret fund kept for the purpose and the existence of political spies hired by the committee. Despite these reports, and a growing call for a Watergate investigation on Capitol Hill, Richard Nixon was reelected president in November 1972 in a landslide victory.

In January 1973, five of the Watergate burglars pleaded guilty, and two others, Liddy and McCord, were convicted. At their sentencing on March 23, U.S. District Court Judge John J. Sirica read a letter from McCord charging that the White House had conducted an extensive “cover-up” to conceal its connection with the break-in. In April, Attorney General Richard Kleindienst and two top White House advisers, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, resigned, and White House counsel John Dean was fired.

On May 17, 1973, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, headed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, began televised proceedings on the rapidly escalating Watergate affair. One week later, Harvard Law professor Archibald Cox was sworn in as special Watergate prosecutor. During the Senate hearings, former White House legal counsel John Dean testified that the Watergate break-in had been approved by former Attorney General John Mitchell with the knowledge of White House advisers Ehrlichman and Haldeman, and that President Nixon had been aware of the cover-up. Meanwhile, Watergate prosecutor Cox and his staff began to uncover widespread evidence of political espionage by the Nixon re-election committee, illegal wiretapping of thousands of citizens by the administration, and contributions to the Republican Party in return for political favors.

In July, the existence of what were to be called the Watergate tapes--official recordings of White House conversations between Nixon and his staff--was revealed during the Senate hearings. Cox subpoenaed these tapes, and after three months of delay President Nixon agreed to send summaries of the recordings. Cox rejected the summaries, and Nixon fired him. His successor as special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, leveled indictments against several high-ranking administration officials, including Mitchell and Dean, who were duly convicted.

Public confidence in the president rapidly waned, and by the end of July 1974 the House Judiciary Committee had adopted three articles of impeachment against President Nixon: obstruction of justice, abuse of presidential powers, and hindrance of the impeachment process. On July 30, under coercion from the Supreme Court, Nixon finally released the Watergate tapes. On August 5, transcripts of the recordings were released, including a segment in which the president was heard instructing Haldeman to order the FBI to halt the Watergate investigation. Four days later, Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to resign. On September 8, his successor, President Gerald Ford, pardoned him from any criminal charges.

_{—Courtesy of The History Channel}

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/17/2005 at 07:54 AM   
Filed Under: • History •  
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Back To The Future

_{R.J. Matson, NY, The New York Observer and Roll Call}

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/17/2005 at 07:49 AM   
Filed Under: • Social-Security •  
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   Thursday - June 16, 2005

Lost & Found Dept

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/16/2005 at 09:45 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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Female Sgt Wins Silver Star

First Woman Gets Silver Star Since WW II

WASHINGTON (AP) - A 23-year-old sergeant with the Kentucky National Guard on Thursday became the first female soldier to receive the Silver Star - the nation’s third-highest medal for valor - since World War II.

Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, who is from Nashville, Tenn., but serves in a Kentucky unit, received the award for gallantry during a March 20 insurgent ambush on a convoy in Iraq. Two men from her unit, the 617th Military Police Company of Richmond, Ky., also received the Silver Star for their roles in the same action.

According to military accounts of the firefight, insurgents attacked the convoy as it traveled south of Baghdad, launching their assault from trenches alongside the road using rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Hester and her unit moved through enemy fire to the trenches, attacking them with grenades before entering and clearing them.

She killed at least three insurgents with her M4 rifle, according to her award citation. In the entire battle, 26 or 27 insurgents were killed and several more were captured, according to various accounts. Several Americans were also wounded in the firefight.

“Her actions saved the lives of numerous convoy members. Sgt. Hester’s bravery is in keeping with the finest traditions of military heroism,” her award citation reads.

“I’m honored to even be considered, much less awarded, the medal,” Hester told the American Forces Press Service, a military-run information service. “It really doesn’t have anything to do with being a female. It’s about the duties I performed that day as a soldier.”

Hester, a native of Bowling Green, Ky., joined the Kentucky Army National Guard in April 2001 and moved to Nashville in 2003, according to a biography provided by the Army. She works as a retail store manager. Her unit deployed to Iraq in November 2004 and remains in the Baghdad area, escorting convoys and assisting the Iraqi Highway Patrol.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/16/2005 at 09:10 PM   
Filed Under: • Military • War-Stories •  
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Treason!

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House and Senate Republicans on Thursday assailed a Democrat for comparing American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis, Soviet gulags and Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

It is ``beyond belief’’ that Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin would compare the treatment of dangerous enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay to the death of millions of innocent people by oppressive governments, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

``I think the senator’s remarks are reprehensible. It’s a real disservice to our men and women in uniform who adhere to high standards and uphold our values and our laws,’’ he said.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., criticized Durbin for spouting ``loose comments’’ and comparisons that ``have no basis of fact or history.’’ Durbin’s remarks in a speech Tuesday in the Senate were ``a most egregious misjudgment,’’ Warner said.

Defending himself, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat said Thursday it was ``just plain wrong’’ to say he was diminishing past horrors.

He said he was comparing interrogation techniques that the FBI report said were used at Guantanamo with those in foreign detainee camps.

``This is the type of thing you would expect from a repressive regime. This is not the type of thing you would expect from the United States,’’ Durbin said.

Durbin made the comparison after reading an FBI agent’s report describing detainees at the Naval base in Guantanamo Bay as being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures.

``If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings,’’ Durbin said Tuesday.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/16/2005 at 08:39 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
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Child Molesters In England

If you think we have problems with child molesters and sexual predators here in the US, you ain’t heard nothing yet. Our friends across the pond in Jolly Ol’ England are contending with a current rash of children being used as “human sacrifices” ....

Children are being trafficked into the UK from Africa and used for human sacrifices, a confidential report for the Metropolitan Police suggests.

Children are being beaten and even murdered after being labelled as witches by pastors, the report leaked to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme said.

Police face a “wall of silence” in investigations because of fear and mistrust among the groups involved.

It follows the case of a girl tortured by her guardians for being a witch.

Three people, including the girl’s aunt, were convicted of trying to “beat the devil out of” the un-named 10-year-old - originally from Angola.

The report was commissioned by the Met after the death of Victoria Climbie in February 2000 and because of concerns over so-called faith crimes.

The 10-month probe was also intended to be part of efforts to “open a dialogue” with Asian and African communities to prevent child abuse in the London boroughs of Hackney and Newham.

Information was gathered with the help of social workers, human rights lawyers and race relations experts from within these ethnic minority groups.

Today programme reporter Angus Stickler, who obtained the police report due to be published later this month, described it as “absolutely chilling”.

“The most gruesome details come from the African communities,” he said.

“This report talks of rituals, of witchcraft, being practised in churches in London. It is described as big business.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/16/2005 at 01:59 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime • International •  
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It’s All About The Money, Part II

Well, hell! I want my cut, dangit! Joining the “Runaway Bride” in the “book/movie deal club” is Deep Throat and his family ....

Deep Throat Family Cuts Publishing, Film Pacts
Tom Hanks to Develop Movie About Secret Watergate Source
By Bob Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 16, 2005

Deep Throat has a book deal and a movie deal, and he could end up being played by Tom Hanks.

The family of 91-year-old W. Mark Felt, who revealed his role as The Washington Post’s key Watergate source two weeks ago, has chosen PublicAffairs Books to publish a combination of autobiography and biography, publisher and CEO Peter Osnos said last night. Osnos said that Universal Pictures has optioned Felt’s life story and the book for a movie to be developed by Hanks’s production company, Playtone.

He said the book will blend Felt’s own writing about his life, including his out-of-print 1979 memoir, “The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside,” and some unpublished material, with contributions from Felt’s family and from lawyer John D. O’Connor, who has been advising the Felts. O’Connor wrote the Vanity Fair article that named Felt as Deep Throat after the secret had been kept for 33 years.

The additional material from Felt, Osnos said, includes discussion of how he decided to provide guidance to Post reporter Bob Woodward, and why.

The book is to be published next spring. Its working title is “A G-Man’s Life: The FBI, Being ‘Deep Throat’ and the Struggle for Honor in Washington.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/16/2005 at 01:49 PM   
Filed Under: • Hollywood • Stoopid-People •  
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New Fashion Look

Whew! N.Z.Bear has dressed up the TTLB Ecosystem blog site in the new summer fashion. Totally re-designed wardrobe with plunging cleavages and short skirts .... just kidding. Bear’s done a great job on the site. Go take a look. I give it the BMEWS Seal Of Approval - ARF!

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/16/2005 at 11:45 AM   
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Congress Votes To Protect Libraries From Evil FBI Intrusion

Our wonderful CongressCritters just voted to dop a provision in the Patriot Act that allows the FBI to search library records without a court-ordered search warrant. The FBI has only used this provision of the Act 35 times over the last four years. What’s going on here? Are we tying the hands of the FBI again so they will miss key informtaion like what happened prior to 9/11? Where do we draw the line ....?

The House handed President Bush the first defeat in his effort to preserve the broad powers of the USA Patriot Act, voting yesterday to curtail the FBI’s ability to seize library and bookstore records for terrorism investigations.

Bush has threatened to veto any measure that weakens those powers. The surprise 238 to 187 rebuke to the White House was produced when a handful of conservative Republicans, worried about government intrusion, joined with Democrats who are concerned about personal privacy.

One provision of the Patriot Act makes it possible for the FBI to obtain a wide variety of personal records about a suspected terrorist—including library transactions—with an order from a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, where the government must meet a lower threshold of proof than in criminal courts.

Under the House change, officials would have to get search warrants from a judge or subpoenas from a grand jury to seize records about a suspect’s reading habits.

Some libraries have said they are disposing of patrons’ records more quickly because of the provision, which opponents view as a license for fishing expeditions.

House Administration Committee Chairman Robert W. Ney (Ohio), one of three House Republicans who opposed the Patriot Act when it was enacted in 2001, voted yesterday to curtail agents’ power to seize the records.

“Everybody’s against terrorism, but there has to be reason in the way that we fight it,” Ney said. “The government doesn’t need to be sifting through library records. I talked to my libraries, and they felt very strongly about this.”

The Justice Department said in a letter to Congress this week that the provision has been used only 35 times and has never been used to obtain bookstore, library, medical or gun-sale records. It has been used to obtain records of hotel stays, driver’s licenses, apartment leases and credit cards, the letter said.

“Bookstores and libraries should not be carved out as safe havens for terrorists and spies, who have, in fact, used public libraries to do research and communicate with their co-conspirators,” Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella said in the letter.

Note: Did you know the Patriot Act has nothing to do with patriots or patriotism? The name is actually an acronym and the full name of the USA Patriot Act is: ”Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.” I’d like to shoot the dumb sonofabitch who dreamed that name up. Carry on ....

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/16/2005 at 11:18 AM   
Filed Under: • Homeland-Security •  
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It’s All About The Money

Jennifer Wilbanks will have her movie deal after all, it looks like. Alert the media ....

‘Runaway bride’ inks deal with firm pitching movie
Officials who searched for her aren’t amused
Thursday, June 16, 2005 Posted: 5:33 AM EDT (0933 GMT)

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP)—“Runaway bride” Jennifer Wilbanks made a deal with a company that is pitching a movie about her life to networks—annoying officials who spent thousands of dollars searching for her.

ReganMedia, a New York multimedia company, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for a story in Thursday’s papers it has acquired all media rights to the “life stories” of Wilbanks and her fiance, John Mason.

The company did not say whether any money had changed hands.

“I am looking forward to developing the scripted project with Wilbanks and Mason,” company president Judith Regan said in a statement. “Theirs is an unexpected and compelling story of love and forgiveness that has certainly taught me a thing or two.

Duluth spent nearly $43,000 to search for her. Wilbanks has repaid $13,249.

“It’s disturbing to me on a personal basis that she’s willing to profit from this, but there’s nothing I can do about it legally,” said Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter, who pursued charges against Wilbanks.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/16/2005 at 06:08 AM   
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On This Day In History

1966 - The Miranda Rights Are Established

The Supreme Court hands down its decision in Miranda v. Arizona, establishing the principle that all criminal suspects must be advised of their rights before interrogation. Now considered standard police procedure, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you,” has been heard so many times in television and film dramas that it has become almost cliché.

The roots of the Miranda decision go back to March 2, 1963, when an 18-year-old Phoenix woman told police that she had been abducted, driven to the desert, and raped. Detectives questioning her story gave her a polygraph test, but the results were inconclusive. However, tracking the license plate number of a car that resembled that of her attacker’s brought police to Ernesto Miranda (pictured in mug shots above), who had a prior record as a peeping tom. Although the victim did not identify Miranda in a line-up, he was brought into police custody and interrogated. What happened next is disputed, but officers left the interrogation with a confession that Miranda later recanted, unaware that he didn’t have to say anything at all.

The confession was extremely brief and differed in certain respects from the victim’s account of the crime. However, Miranda’s appointed defense attorney (who was paid a grand total of $100) didn’t call any witnesses, and Miranda was convicted after a short trial. While Miranda was in Arizona state prison, the American Civil Liberties Union took up his appeal, claiming that the confession was false and coerced.

The Supreme Court overturned his conviction, but Miranda was retried and convicted in October 1966 anyway, despite the relative lack of evidence against him. Remaining in prison until 1972, Ernesto Miranda was later stabbed to death in the men’s room of a seedy bar after a poker game in January 1976.

As a result of the case against Miranda, each and every person must be informed of his or her rights when arrested.

In 1999, the Supreme Court agreed to re-examine the Miranda requirements in the face of persistent complaints that confessions should not be barred from evidence simply because a police officer failed to read the suspect his or her rights.

_{Courtesy Of The History Channel}

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/16/2005 at 05:56 AM   
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Dear Diary

_{John Trever, New Mexico, The Albuquerque Journal}

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/16/2005 at 05:52 AM   
Filed Under: • Terrorists •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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