© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

A trading company led by the cousin of Syria's dictator, Bashar Assad, smuggled millions of dollars worth of sophisticated arms and equipment to Saddam Hussein for three years prior to the Iraqi leader's overthrow, reports the Los Angeles Times.

At least one shipment of arms was completed with the help of the Syrian government in violation of a U.N. arms embargo.

Just prior to the U.S.-led effort to oust Hussein, SES International Corp. signed at least 50 contracts to supply weapons and gear to Iraq, the paper reports, saying the arms transfers included 1,000 heavy machine guns and up to 20 million bullets for assault rifles.

Among the Times' findings:

A Polish company shipped up to 380 surface-to-air missile engines to Baghdad through Syria;

A South Korean firm shipped $8 million in telecommunications equipment for "air defense";

A Slovenian firm shipped 20 battle tank barrels to the Syrian firm early in 2002;

Two North Korean officials went to Damascus to discuss an Iraqi payment of $10 million for components for ballistic missiles.
In March, the Bush administration accused Syria of supplying Iraq with night-vision goggles, but the Times reports the White House was unaware of how extensive the smuggling was.

The reports says another company, Al Bashair Trading Co., a Baghdad firm, also was involved in the smuggling, with executives of the firm meeting with North Korean firms before the war began.

The Los Angeles daily's three-month investigation included the translation of 800 signed contracts found in the Al Bashair Trading Co. office shortly before U.S. troops entered Baghdad.

Not all the weapons were delivered, but some may still be in use by terrorists battling the U.S. occupation forces, the newspaper said.

SES International Corp. denied any wrongdoing, while Syria's foreign ministry refused to comment to the Times.

As WorldNetDaily reported, a Russian company, Moscow-based Aviaconversiya Ltd., supplied a portable GPS-jamming device to Iraq prior to the war and helped personnel there operate the technology, according to U.S. intelligence reports.

The owner of the firm denied any wrongdoing but suggested a third party – such as Syria – could have passed along the equipment to Iraq.

60 bombers ready to strike: Taliban
From correspondents in Kabul
29dec03

WHAT?

SIX people were killed when a suspected suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body after being arrested by intelligence agents near Kabul international airport, Afghan officials said today.

A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the blast, which he said was aimed at International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) peacekeeping troops based at the airport.

He warned that dozens more suicide bombers were in the capital.

Kabul police chief Baba Jan told reporters at the blast scene: "Chairman (Abdul) Jalal along with four bodyguards were killed while trying to arrest a terrorist who had explosive devices with him."

Jalal was the head of the 21st intelligence directorate, a department of the Afghan intelligence service.

"In total six people, including the terrorist, were killed."

The police chief said the suspect was carrying an explosive device which was taken from him, but he then detonated other explosives strapped to his body.

The intelligence officers' white Toyota Surf jeep was left a mangled wreck by the explosion.

"A terrorist carrying explosives in a pressure cooker was chased and arrested," one security source, who would not be named, said.

"After he was arrested he was put in the car and then the bomb exploded."

Police chief Jan said the bomber was a foreigner, but gave no other details on his identity.

The Taliban spokesman said the attack had been carried out by a man named Abdullah, a 35-year-old from Chechnya.

"We claim the responsibility for the suicide attack today in Kabul," the spokesman, who called himself Abdul Samad, told news agency AFP by satellite phone.

"He was walking toward the ISAF base in Kabul airport to carry out a suicide attack. The second option was if he could not reach the base he would target ISAF patrols or other coalition vehicles driving on that road, but he was arrested by Afghan security and he carried out the suicide attack and killed himself and five others."

The Taliban spokesman said other suicide bombers would attack ISAF troops, coalition forces and people working for the United Nations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

"A group of 60 suicide bombers have entered Kabul city. Their target will be ISAF, the coalition, UN, and other NGOs or people working for foreigners.

"We are more organised now; we will focus our attacks on cities now rather than the borders," he said, referring to a wave of violence along the eastern border blamed on Taliban militants.

Hundreds of ISAF peacekeeping troops are based at the airport, their main supply route.

The bombing is the worst to hit the Afghan capital since a suicide car bomber on June 7 killed himself and four German ISAF soldiers in an attack blamed on Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network.

The latest blast in northern Kabul did not interfere with a historic convention meeting several kilometres to the west where delegates were preparing to vote on Afghanistan's new constitution.

At least seven rockets have hit Kabul since the loya jirga or grand assembly opened on December 14, causing some damage but no casualties.

A bomb blast on Thursday destroyed the wall of a United Nations guesthouse but no-one was injured.

Afghan and ISAF troops on Friday arrested seven men suspected of carrying out the rocket attacks, Kabul garrison commander General Muhammad Ayoob said.

The men were arrested during a search in Deh Sabz 30km northeast of Kabul. They were not armed but posters of bin Laden and other documents were found which linked them to "terrorist" organisations, he said.

Two years after the fall of the Taliban regime, militants continue to launch regular attacks on troops and aid workers.

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.

Steinbeck, John


1902–68, American writer, b. Salinas, Calif., studied at Stanford. He is probably best remembered for his strong sociological novel The Grapes of Wrath, considered one of the great American novels of the 20th cent. Steinbeck’s early novels—Cup of Gold (1929), The Pastures of Heaven (1932), and To a God Unknown (1933)—attracted little critical attention, but Tortilla Flat (1935), an affectionate yet realistic novel about the lovable, exotic, Spanish-speaking poor of Monterey, was enthusiastically received. A compassionate understanding of the world’s disinherited was to be Steinbeck’s hallmark. The novel In Dubious Battle (1936) defends striking migrant agricultural workers in the California fields. In the novella Of Mice and Men (1937; later made into a play), Steinbeck again presents migrant workers, but this time in terms of human worth and integrity—a theme he also used in The Moon Is Down (1942; later made into a play), about Norwegian resistance to the Nazis. The Grapes of Wrath (1939; Pulitzer Prize), while treating the plight of dispossessed Dust Bowl farmers during the 1930s, presents a universal picture of victims of disaster. Steinbeck’s depiction of the westward migration of the Joad family, and their subsequent struggles in the exploitative agricultural industry of California, is realistic and moving, and he endows his humble characters with nobility. Steinbeck’s other works are diverse, ranging from the literal account of a voyage, The Sea of Cortez (1941; written with the marine biologist E. F. Ricketts); to a parable, The Pearl (1948); to a playful French folk piece, The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957). Love of his native land shines through the exquisitely nostalgic story “The Red Pony” in The Long Valley (1938). The somewhat sentimental attitude of Tortilla Flat appears again in Cannery Row (1945), The Wayward Bus (1947), and Sweet Thursday (1954). More ambitious are the novels East of Eden (1952), a family chronicle with the Cain and Abel theme, and Winter of Our Discontent (1961), about a suburbanite’s moral conflict. Steinbeck also wrote notable nonfiction, particularly The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951) and A Russian Journal (1948), and the screenplays for the motion pictures The Forgotten Village (1941) and Viva Zapata! (1952). Travels with Charley in Search of America appeared in 1962 and America and Americans in 1966. Steinbeck was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature. 1
See his letters, ed. by E. Steinbeck and R. Wallsten (1975); biographies by J. Benson (1984) and J. Parini (1995); study by J. H. Timmerman (1986).,

3 lbs Mixed Beans
Small Red
Kidney
Black
Pinto
Navy

Meat
2 lbs. Ground Sirloin Browned
2 1/2 lbs Ground Sausage Browned

Onions
1 Lg. Red (cut in to eight pieces)
1 Lg. White (cut in to eight pieces)
1 Lg. Yellow (cut in to eight pieces)

Tomatoes & Salsa
3 (29oz) Cans Tomato Sauce
2 (28oz) Cans Crushed Tomatoes
2 (28oz) Cans Whole Tomatoes
2 (10oz) Cans Rotel
1 Sm. Jar Med. Salsa Red
1 Sm. Jar Mild Salsa Green

Alcohol
1 cup Red Wine
2 Shots Tequila (Agave)

Peppers Dried
3 Chipotle
3 Chile De Arbol
3 Chili Ancho
3 Chili New Mexico
7 Pequin Chili Pods

Peppers Fresh
3 Poblano (Seeded & Chopped)
2 Banana (Seeded & Chopped)
1 Orange Bell (Seeded & Chopped)
12 Seranos (Whole)
8 Japaleno (Whole)
2 Habanero (Seeded, Devained & Chopped)
6 Red Chili (Seeded & Chopped)
1 Lg. Anahiem (Seeded & Chopped)
12 Small Yellow Chili (Seeded & Chopped)

Peppers Canned
2 (10oz ) cans Whole Green Chilies

Herbs & Spices
⅔ tsp. Achiote
⅔ tsp. Chili Arbol Molido
⅔ tsp. Menudo Mix
⅔ tsp. Chile Para Narania
⅔ tsp. Chile Pequin Molido
1 tsp. Ground Cumin
4 Tbsp. Garlic

Soak beans over-night, drain, rinse, cover with water and bring to a roaring boil. Cover, remove from heat and set aside.
In large pot add Salsa, Tomato Sauce, Rotel, Whole Green Chilies, Whole Tomatoes, Onions, Red Wine, Peppers.
Brown Ground Sirloin & Sausage drain and add to the pot.
Drain and add Beans
Add Herbs & Spices
And 2 shots of Tequila
Bring to Boil, reduce heat and cook for 4 to 6 hours, stirring frequently.

Serve with Guacamole, Fritos, & Cheese

1. America is the greatest force for good on the planet. America, with the support of Britain and some other countries, and against the rest of “world opinion,” liberated Iraq from evil. If it were up to the U.N. or the EU, or the editorial boards of most major American newspapers, Saddam would still be happily making palaces for himself and torture dungeons for his people.

2. The positive effect on humanity of good vanquishing evil cannot be overstated. When evil people get away with what they have done, it has a dispiriting effect. Even those of us who believe that a just God dispenses justice after this life ache to see justice done here and now. In this regard, it is not only good that Saddam was captured; it is good that he lived in holes, and aware that his sadistic sons had been killed. It is nice to know that he has been suffering.

3. No Muslim or Arab country lifted a finger to help the Iraqi people. This is because the Muslim and Arab worlds do not divide the world between good and evil, but between Muslim and non-Muslim and Arab and non-Arab. Since Saddam was a fellow Muslim and Arab, the fact that he tortured and murdered so many was as irrelevant to the Muslim and Arab worlds as the Islamic regime’s genocide in Sudan and the subjugation of women in Taliban Afghanistan.

4. Not everyone is happy about Saddam’s capture. Palestinians, for example, are weeping. Saddam was their hero. Iraqis were forced to march with his posters, but Palestinians did so voluntarily. Many on the Left are also not particularly happy. Saddam’s capture is a victory for American force and for George W. Bush, and the Left hates both more than it hates Saddam.

5. The Left seeks power, but is incapable of leading because leadership and wanting to be loved are mutually exclusive. Leftists, including liberal politicians, want to be loved and want America to be loved. That was President Clinton’s great desire, and that is why, with all his abundant talents, he could never lead. Much of the Left’s criticism of Mr. Bush revolves around this issue: “Look at how popular we were right after 9/11 and how unpopular we are now.”

6. Most of the Left does not hate evil; hatred of evil is primarily found on the Right. With exceptions such as Tony Blair and Joseph Lieberman, virtually the entire Left finds evil far less disturbing than global warming, smoking, economic inequality, and drug prices. And with the exceptions of “paleoconservatives” such as Pat Buchanan, most of the Right regards the use of American power to vanquish evil as the greatest good the U.S. can engage in.

7. In the Arab world, power is venerated. For years leading up to 9/11, Islamists were respected for their increasing power and America was losing respect as it suffered blows at the hands of Islamic terror. Now America is seen as the powerful one, and is earning the respect once accorded Saddam and Osama. The importance of this cannot be overstated.

8. There are many who respect goodness above all else. But humanity as a whole has far more respect for power, and takes powerful societies more seriously than good ones. That is why China is respected despite its being a dictatorship and its brutal crushing of Tibet. China is powerful. The stronger America is, the more people will take it and its values seriously. As an unprecedented combination of power and goodness, America could reshape the world.

9. The Marxist belief that forces, not individuals, shape history is wrong. George W. Bush is living proof.

10. The reason the president is shaping history is that he has as strong a set of beliefs – in America’s moral mission and in Judeo-Christian religious values – as those he is fighting. Those who hold bad beliefs can only be defeated by those have equally strong good beliefs.

Mr. Prager, a radio talk show host, is author of “Why the Jews?” (Touchstone, 2003).

EAST ORANGE, NJ-December 17, 2003 — The FBI has arrested a city political figure in New Jersey on charges she sold crack cocaine for a street gang.

A cooperating federal witness bought 169 vials of crack from Sophia Merritt two weeks after she was elected to the Democratic committee in June 2002, according to a court document filed by the FBI. She was 18 at the time.

Several weeks later, Merritt was seen in a car with more than a pound of cocaine, the filing said.

"She was a full-time narcotics dealer," Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Agnifilo told The Star-Ledger of Newark.

Merritt sold drugs for the Double ii Bloods, authorities said.

She and her running mate, DeWayne Ellison, are among over 100 unsalaried Essex County or local party committee members. Two represent each of the 55 districts in East Orange.

They were on a slate with Rep. Donald Payne of Newark and Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo.

DiVincenzo's campaign committee paid for Merritt's election literature. He told the newspaper, "I do not even know this woman. No comment." Payne also said he had never met Merritt.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

By LAURIE COPANS - Associated Press

SHOHAM FIRING RANGE, Israel (AP) -- Veterans of Israeli anti-terror units on Monday demonstrated a new gun that can fire at a target from around the corner, making it particularly effective in urban combat.

Israel plans to start using the weapon next week, U.S. forces have already begun training with it and U.S. SWAT and police teams have expressed interest in purchasing it, Amos Golan, the device's developer, said at a demonstration Monday at a firing range near Tel Aviv.

"The Americans are very interested in this," Golan said. "I believe from what I have seen and heard that it can be a big success in Iraq because the Americans are dealing with an urban area there."

The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv had no immediate comment.

Golan thought of the idea for the weapon after years of pondering a failed Israeli army operation in the West Bank during the first Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s. Several Israeli soldiers were wounded when they stormed a house through the door and were hit by automatic fire shot from inside, Golan said.

An Israeli-American company, Coral Gables, Fla.-based Corner Shot Holdings, showed how it can be fired through an exploded doorway around the corner into a house, or from a hall into a room. A soldier sees the target on a small TV screen mounted on the barrel of the gun.

Armies from 15 countries are testing the system, said Golan, a former deputy commander of Israel's anti-terror unit.

The system is the only weapon that allows the user to stay safe around a corner and away from a target, Golan said.

The device swivels at the middle, 63 degrees to the left or right, with the stock, trigger and the small screen at the hand-held end. The entire firing mechanism, fitted with a pistol that sits over a mini-camera with a zoom lens, is located at the front end.

A lever positioned under the stock allows the user to quickly move the firing end to another position to better focus on the target.

The development of the idea took three years, and sales began three months ago. The weapon system costs between $3,000 and $5,000, depending on the components.

The device can be fitted with different kinds of pistols, including the Baretta 92, which is used by the American army, the Glock and the Colt. It can also be adapted to fit an M-16 rifle or tear gas launcher.

The camera can view between 200 and 400 yards, depending on the model. Accessories include an infrared laser illuminator, rubber bullet launcher, various lenses and a silencer. A video-out socket allows the shooter to film action in a room around the corner and transmit the images to commanders far away.

The mechanism has been patented in the United States and will be sold only to official government agencies, Golan said.

Saddam: Speicher, Drugs & Questions
John LeBoutillier
Monday, Dec. 15, 2003
Yes, it is a great, great day. The capture of Saddam is a Big Day for us all.
Now, before Saddam is turned over to Iraqi control, here is what U.S. forces need to do:

1) Saddam needs to be interrogated – thoroughly – preferably under the use of the best 'truth-inducing' drugs we now have. (This is being done on other captured combatants – Iraqis, al-Qaeda and Taliban.)

No one needs to know – including Saddam himself – that these drugs were administered to him. The last thing we need from the Left is a 'human rights' debate over the human rights of this murderous bastard.

Let's get on with it. The truth is more important than a legal debate in the World Court or The Hague.

2) Key Questions: First, we must get to the bottom of the Scott Speicher mystery – now! Presumably, we have thoroughly interrogated all other captured Iraqis about our only missing POW from the first Gulf War.

Maybe it is true that Speicher was held under the personal control of Saddam and his oldest son, Uday. If so, when Uday went to meet Allah and receive his 72 black-eyed virgins, he took invaluable knowledge with him. We need to get Saddam to answer each and every unanswered question about Speicher – now!

Speicher is our first priority. Our government has bragged that "we never leave anyone behind." OK, then let's recover Scott Speicher – hopefully alive, or at least his remains so that his family can rest in peace.

3) Next, of course, is everything to do with WMD – the justification for our pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. Included in this line of questioning should be everything to do with the acquisition of nuclear material: What did he buy, from which country, and where is it?

4) Next is Iraqi connections – if any – to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Let us find out once and for all if this link truly existed. Was there an Iraqi role in 9/11 and the 1993 WTC bombing?

5) Also, what role did the Russians – especially their military – play in re-arming Iraq in the 12 years since the first Gulf War? Did Moscow help in WMD acquisition?

6) Let's also put to rest once and for all the role behind the scenes of the French government. Were they 'on the take' from Saddam? Was that the reason they were opposed to the war?

What may happen next in Iraq

With Saddam in captivity, American media talking-head pundits are speculating that this will improve the situation 'on the ground' in Iraq. Prediction: It won't. Here is why:

1) With Saddam under Iraqi control, the Resistance's anger will focus ever more at the Provisional Government Authority. The bad guys will furiously try to free their hero or to kill new Iraqi leaders. (In fact, this has already been going on for several weeks.) Look for it to increase now.

3) The Shiite community – the majority of the Iraqi people – are now going to say, "America, thank you for freeing us from Saddam and for capturing him. Now that he is in captivity, please leave Iraq and let us run our own country."

The Shiites have suffrered decades of brutal oppression under Saddam. Thus, they have tempered their religious fanaticism during the months since the fall of Baghdad last April. But they have been chafing at the bit and increasingly desirous of the U.S. leaving Iraq.

Saddam's capture will now precipitate even more anxiety among the Shiites that the American 'occupation' must end before elections are held that would again favor the minority Sunni Muslims.

The Shiites have always been the wild card in the postwar Iraq political equation. The nightmare scenario is that they will take to the streets in an Iran-style religious uprising. If they do, all bets are off for peace and democracy in Iraq.

Like Yugoslavia under Tito, Iraq's three distinct peoples were held together by their common fear of the jackbooted dictator. With him now out of the equation, Iraq may go the route of Yugoslavia: civil wars, lawlessness, paybacks, ethnic cleansings and a totally unmanageable situation – all leading to the formation of independent new nations.

Yes, it is a great, great day. Saddam's capture is a victory for our wonderful troops. But it may be the beginning of an ever worse situation on the ground in Iraq.

Via Fox News

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidates sought new grounds for criticism of White House foreign policies Monday as President Bush basked in the capture of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

And who suspected anything else?

Anti-war candidates Howard Dean and Wesley Clark prepared broad foreign affairs addresses while Sen. John Edwards, who supported the Iraq war resolution, zeroed in on what he said is a greater threat than any posed by Saddam Hussein: The spread of weapons of mass destruction.

The threat is one and the same, IDIOT.

"It was great news for the Iraqi people, the world, and the United States that Saddam Hussein was captured. But that alone is no substitute for a comprehensive strategy to deal with the world's most dangerous weapons, no matter how welcome the news," Edwards said in a text of his address in Iowa, site of the Jan. 19 caucuses.

Bullshit, and he knows it. He doesn't have a chance, and he knows it. Why is he still wasting our time? Does he want run in the Dopefull ribbon cutter slot? The last time we had a ribbon cutter, it was Gore.

Titled "Strategy of prevention, not pre-emption," the address urges Bush to reverse plans to try Saddam through the U.S.-selected Iraqi Governing Council. "Yes, Iraqis should take the lead in coming to terms with their own past. But they should do so with the assistance and the involvement of the international community, including the United Nations," the North Carolina senator said. He also urged Bush to reverse an order denying lucrative reconstruction contracts to nations that did not back the war.

He's a traitor, period.

On nuclear proliferation, Edwards said he would convene a world summit to create a Global Nuclear Compact that reinforces the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nations that opt out of the pact or violate its anti-proliferation rules would be subject to strong, immediate penalties aimed at their military capabilities.

(immediate penalties aimed at their military capabilities) Just how are we going enforce that without an army?

"To win the global war on terror, America does not need a new doctrine of pre-emption; we need a new strategy of prevention," he said, criticizing Bush's approach to the proliferation crisis.

This guy HAS NO CLUE.

Edwards promised to triple the amount of U.S. money spent to secure Russia's nuclear arsenal, and said he would appoint a proliferation czar to oversee the issue.

Yeah, right.

"This Administration's approach to protecting America from weapons of mass destruction can be summed up simply: wait until our enemies gather strength, and then use force to stop them," he said. "We should be exercising every option we have to stop the spread of deadly weapons before war becomes our only option."

What in the hell do you think we're doing? What are those options?

In addition to Edwards, Clark and Dean, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., was giving a foreign policy address Monday.

I feel better now, Hillary is getting involved.

Democrats have been hammering Bush for failing to capture Saddam and Usama bin Laden, despite months of manhunt. The arrest of Saddam took away one symbol of Bush's failings, but several of the Democrats argued the goal could have been met in less time if a different president were in office.

Al Gore? Thank our lucky stars we didn't have to test that statement.

"I congratulate our troops on capturing Saddam Hussein," Dean, front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Sunday night. "He's a bad person and we're all better off with him in captivity, but you should know that my views on Iraq have not changed one bit."

What else can you say? Damn, I'm done now. Hehe. Why not the usual backpedaling?

Saddam's capture Saturday also underscored a wedge issue dividing several fellow candidates from Dean, who has based much of his campaign on opposition to the war in Iraq.

Good!

"The fact is that if Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power today, not in prison," said Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a leading Democratic backer of the war.

I agree, and we would have also suffered more major attacks.

Saddam's capture was the second major event in a week that has shaken up the Democratic race. On Tuesday, former Vice President Al Gore endorsed Dean, citing his opposition to the Iraq war. Dean's rivals sought to use news of the former Iraqi leader's arrest to deflate his case.

Al Gore should move to France.

Those Democrats who supported the congressional resolution authorizing the war basked in Saddam's capture. Their vote has not been popular with some peace activists in their party, who occasionally booed them for supporting the war and cheered on Dean, the former governor of Vermont.

Great, maybe they'll defect.

"I supported this effort in Iraq without regard for the political consequences because it was the right thing to do," Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt said in a statement. Clark also said he hasn't changed his view that going to war in Iraq was unnecessary.

Dick, you weren't named that for nothing. Wesley, didn't know you made it to Deep Space Nine. You are out there.

"It seems to me that all of the concerns that I have voiced about Iraq remain. I stand by every concern," Clark said in a conference call from The Hague, where he was preparing to testify in the U.N. war crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

The last photo I saw of you two together, ya'll were wearing each others hats.

The Democrats are giving credit for the capture to American troops, not the president. Most of the Democrats say the United States still needs a new leader who would unite the world in the aftermath of victory.

Well, it if wasn't for the President there would be no troops. Hypocrites

Via DEBKAfile

1. The length and state of his hair indicated he had not seen a barber or even had a shampoo for several weeks.

2. The wild state of his beard indicated he had not shaved for the same period

3. The hole dug in the floor of a cellar in a farm compound near Tikrit was primitive indeed – 6ft across and 8ft across with minimal sanitary arrangements - a far cry from his opulent palaces.

4. Saddam looked beaten and hungry.

5. Detained trying to escape were two unidentified men. Left with him were two AK-47 assault guns and a pistol, none of which were used.

6. The hole had only one opening. It was not only camouflaged with mud and bricks – it was blocked. He could not have climbed out without someone on the outside removing the covering.

7. And most important, $750,000 in 100-dollar notes were found with him (a pittance for his captors who expected a $25m reward)– but no communications equipment of any kind, whether cell phone or even a carrier pigeon for contacting the outside world.

According to DEBKAfile analysts, these seven anomalies point to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein was not in hiding; he was a prisoner.

After his last audiotaped message was delivered and aired over al Arabiya TV on Sunday November 16, on the occasion of Ramadan, Saddam was seized, possibly with the connivance of his own men, and held in that hole in Adwar for three weeks or more, which would have accounted for his appearance and condition. Meanwhile, his captors bargained for the $25 m prize the Americans promised for information leading to his capture alive or dead. The negotiations were mediated by Jalal Talabani’s Kurdish PUK militia.

These circumstances would explain the ex-ruler’s docility – described by Lt.Gen. Ricardo Sanchez as “resignation” – in the face of his capture by US forces. He must have regarded them as his rescuers and would have greeted them with relief.

From Gen. Sanchez’s evasive answers to questions on the $25m bounty, it may be inferred that the Americans and Kurds took advantage of the negotiations with Saddam’s abductors to move in close and capture him on their own account, for three reasons:

A. His capture had become a matter of national pride for the Americans. No kudos would have been attached to his handover by a local gang of bounty-seekers or criminals. The country would have been swept anew with rumors that the big hero Saddam was again betrayed by the people he trusted, just as in the war.

B. It was vital to catch his kidnappers unawares so as to make sure Saddam was taken alive. They might well have killed him and demanded the prize for his body. But they made sure he had no means of taking his own life and may have kept him sedated.

C. During the weeks he is presumed to have been in captivity, guerrilla activity declined markedly – especially in the Sunni Triangle towns of Falluja, Ramadi and Balad - while surging outside this flashpoint region – in Mosul in the north and Najef, Nasseriya and Hilla in the south. It was important for the coalition to lay hands on him before the epicenter of the violence turned back towards Baghdad and the center of the Sunni Triangle.

The next thing to watch now is not just where and when Saddam is brought to justice for countless crimes against his people and humanity - Sanchez said his interrogation will take “as long as it takes – but what happens to the insurgency. Will it escalate or gradually die down?

An answer to this, according to DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources, was received in Washington nine days before Saddam reached US custody.

It came in the form of a disturbing piece of intelligence that the notorious Lebanese terrorist and hostage-taker Imad Mughniyeh, who figures on the most wanted list of 22 men published by the FBI after 9/11, had arrived in southern Iraq and was organizing a new anti-US terror campaign to be launched in March-April 2004, marking the first year of the American invasion.

For the past 21 years, Mughniyeh has waged a war of terror against Americans, whether on behalf of the Hizballah, the Iranian Shiite fundamentalists, al Qaeda or for himself. The Lebanese arch-terrorist represents for the anti-American forces in Iraq an ultimate weapon.

Saddam’s capture will not turn this offensive aside; it may even bring it forward.

For Israel, there are three lessons to be drawn from the dramatic turn of events in Iraq:

First, An enemy must be pursued to the end and if necessary taken captive. The Sharon government’s conduct of an uncertain, wavering war against the Palestinian terror chief Yasser Arafat stands in stark contrast to the way the Americans have fought Saddam and his cohorts in Iraq and which has brought them impressive gains.

Second, Israel must join the US in bracing for the decisive round of violence under preparation by Mughniyeh, an old common enemy from the days of Beirut in the 1980s. Only three weeks ago, DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal, the terrorist mastermind himself was seen in south Lebanon in surveillance of northern Israel in the company of Iranian military officers. With this peril still to be fought, it is meaningless for Israelis to dicker over the Geneva Accord, unilateral steps around the Middle East road map, or even the defensive barrier.

Third, Certain Israeli pundits and even politicians, influenced by opinion in Europe, declared frequently in recent weeks that the Americans had no hope of capturing Saddam Hussein and were therefore bogged down irretrievably in Iraq. The inference was that the Americans erred in embarking on an unwinnable war in Iraq.

This was wide of the mark even before Saddam was brought in. The Americans are in firm control - even though they face a tough new adversary – and the whole purpose of the defeatist argument heard in Israel was to persuade the Sharon government that its position in relation to the Palestinians and Yasser Arafat is as hopeless as that of the Americans in Iraq. Israel’s only choice, according to this argument, is to knuckle under to Palestinian demands and give them what they want. Now that the Iraqi ruler is in American custody, they will have to think again.

I can't believe this. I'm crying here. I feel that we now don't have a chance in this election.

Posted by Carrie B at December 14, 2003 10:03 AM

GG - Lieberman's an idiot. Saddam had been contained for a decade and al Qaeda didn't have a strong foothold in Iraq until Bush launched this war.

Posted by Demetrius at December 14, 2003 10:05 AM

I am feeling pretty upset as well. I think our chances are dropping fast.

Posted by gg at December 14, 2003 10:06 AM

I never doubted the strength and quality of our military. I do, however, doubt the morality and diplomatic tact of our President.

Posted by Jake at December 14, 2003 10:08 AM

I'm glad Saddam has been captured.

However, this does not in any way mitigate the heinousness of the lies that Bush and his henchmen used to get us to go to war. Nor does it suddenly "sanctify" an illegal and immoral war.

We should make this VERY CLEAR.

Also, Dean should call for Saddam's trial before a truly international war crimes tribunal, perhaps in some place like the Hague.

This way, perhaps Saddam's embarrasing revelations about the Bush mafia clowns with whom he did business during the 1980s will come out.

Posted by Phillip G. at December 14, 2003 10:10 AM

Of course we're glad Saddam is captured, and I hope it brings an end to violence. But we can't forget that their reasons for going in were because of WMD's and its clear he didn't have them.

Don't lose hope Carrie B.

Posted by lazyeyemurphy at December 14, 2003 10:13 AM

This is still a classic bait and switch--Hussein did not attack us on 9-11, Bin Laden is still at large, the Taliban is regrouping in Afghanistan, and there are terrorists in Iraq when they weren't there before. How does this make us any safer? I can't wait to hear the spin that will be coming out of the White House.

Posted by Joby in MD at December 14, 2003 10:18 AM

The capture of Saddam Hussein, in and of itself, is insignificant in the bungled war against terrorism. Let us not forget that the first mission of the GOP Senate, when it resumes in January, is to CUT FUNDING to homeland security via the Omnibus bill. We cannot beat around the Bush on the central topic anymore - that this administration is responsible, through inaction or complicitness, for the actions of 9/11. Every action that they have taken since this date proves this to be true - withholding information, coddling the Saudis, and numerous actions/inactions related to that awful day. WE CANNOT LET THEM TAKE THIS AS A VICTORY AGAINST TERRORISM, SINCE THIS IS ONLY A VICTORY FOR BUSH'S FASCIST FOREIGN POLICY.

Posted by Todd Mattson at December 14, 2003 10:19 AM

Go here if you want more.

Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... ....

the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty. ....

over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens. ....

nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning. ....

the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent. ....

on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts --

exceeding the prewar average. ....

all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools. ....

by October 1, Coalition forces had rehab-ed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than scheduled. ....

teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries. ....

all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open. ....

doctors salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam. ....

pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons. ....

the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq's children. ....

a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women. ....

we have restored over three-quarters of prewar telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production. ....

there are 4,900 full-service telephone connections. We expect 50,000 by year-end. ....

the wheels of commerce are turning. From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.
....

95 percent of all prewar bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily. ....

Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses. ....

the central bank is fully independent. ....

Iraq has among the worlds most growth-oriented investment and banking laws. ....

Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years. ....

satellite TV dishes are legal and everywhere. ....

foreign journalists aren't on 10-day visas paying mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for minders and other government spies. ....

there is no Ministry of Information. ....

there are more than 170 newspapers. ....

you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner. ....

foreign journalists (and everyone else) are free to come and go. ....

a nation that had not one single element -- legislative, judicial or executive -- of a representative government, now does. ....

in Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils. Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when the city council elected its new chairman. .... today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.....

25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government. ....

the Iraqi government regularly participates in international events. Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in over two dozen international meetings, including those of the UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank, IMF and the Islamic Conference Summit. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it is reopening over
30 Iraqi embassies around the world. ....

Shia religious festivals that were all but banned, aren't. ....

for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam. ....

the Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq. ....

Uday and Queasy are dead -- and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to the zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or murdering critics. ....

children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government. .... political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam. ....

millions of long-suffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror. ....

Saudis will hold municipal elections. ....

Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents. ....

Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms. ....

the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an Iranian -- a Muslim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights, for democracy and for peace. ....

Saddam is gone. ....

Iraq is free.

Iraq under U.S.-led control has come further in six months than Germany did in seven years or Japan did in nine years following WWII. Military deaths from fanatic Nazi's and Japanese numbered in the thousands and continued for over three years after the WWII victory was declared. Taking everything into consideration, even the terrible loss of our sons and daughters in this conflict, no one else in the world could have accomplished as much as the United States in so short a period of time. It isn't over yet, but it's better than what you are hearing. You can be proud of the work you are accomplishing, often under hardships and against odds others may never understand

WASHINGTON -- Howard Dean is no fool. He is, however, not much of a thinker. His talk flows as rapidly as a mountain brook, but is no deeper than one of those.

He is the candidate of America's professorate and others whose strongest passion is as much aesthetic as political -- intellectual contempt for George W. Bush. But Dean's bantam-rooster pugnacity is not unlike Bush's shoulders-squared jauntiness that critics consider an enraging swagger. Bush's imperturbable certitude infuriates Dean's supporters because they believe it arises not from reflection but from reflex. Actually, Dean really resembles his supporters' idea of Bush.

Appearing on ``Hardball'' with the human Gatling gun, Chris Matthews, Dean said that in terms of legal rights there is no practical difference between same-sex civil unions and marriages. Matthews: ``So why are we quibbling over a name?'' Dean: ``Because marriage is very important to a lot of people who are pretty religious.''

So, the argument about the public meaning of marriage is merely a semantic quibble important only to the ``pretty religious''? Dean has said of his faith that ``I don't think it informs my politics,'' and that he became a Congregationalist ``because I had a big fight with a local Episcopal church about 25 years ago over a bike path.'' Fine. His faith, whatever it is, is his business and no disqualification for the presidency. But his qualifications supposedly include a searching intellect. Where is the evidence?

Asked by Matthews whether he supports state right-to-work laws protecting the right of workers not to join a union, Dean said no. But he also said ``I very much believe that states ought to have the right to recognize -- to organize their own laws. So I'm not likely as president ... to order states to change them.'''

Order states? Imagine the media derision if Bush ever suggested such an understanding of federalism.

In his next breath, Dean said that if Congress sends to his presidential desk legislation denying states that right that he ``very much'' believes they ought to have -- the right to have right-to-work laws -- ``I'd sign it in an instant.'' This is the intellectuals' candidate?

If Osama bin Laden is captured, Dean says ``it doesn't make a lot of difference'' whether he is tried in America or the International Criminal Court. After all, ``we are allowing the Bosnian war criminals to be tried'' in the Hague. Question: Is it relevant that the Bosnians' crimes were not committed in America?

Dean promises ``to break up giant media enterprises'' -- General Electric, News Corporation, etc. -- because there is ``information control'' that ``is not compatible with democracy.'' Question: Given the Internet and other new media, and the consequently declining importance of broadcast networks and other traditional filters of information, has there ever been less reason to use ``information control'' as an excuse for expanding government regulation of information media?

Asked to name his favorite philosopher, Dean named Lao-Tse because ``my favorite saying is, `The longest journey begins with a single step.''' That might make a better bumper sticker than anything David Hume said, but if that measures the depths of Dean, he and his supporters should take a sabbatical from deriding Bush's supposed shallowness.

America needs what Dean seems intellectually and temperamentally ill-equipped to provide -- truly thoughtful opposition in an election that should turn on two huge issues. One is: How do we guarantee economic growth sufficient to generate tax revenues to finance a welfare state whose entitlement menu is being substantially expanded just as 77 million baby boomers are about to retire? The second is: Can America's security be attained without adopting foreign policy goals of unattainable grandiosity -- nation-building, regional transformations?

Dean has provided no reason to expect from him especially elevated reasoning about these things. He seems to be an Everett Wharton. ``The Prime Minister,'' one of Anthony Trollope's parliamentary novels, introduces Wharton, who was, Trollope wrote, ``no fool'':

``(He) had read much, and although he generally forgot what he read, there were left with him from his reading certain nebulous lights, begotten by other men's thinking, which enabled him to talk on most subjects. It cannot be said of him that he did much thinking for himself -- but he thought that he thought.''

Dean seems like that, which is not surprising or disqualifying: Most political leaders are not people of reflection, but of ambition-dictated action, living off borrowed intellectual capital. Given the accumulating evidence, the professors' pin-up should dismount his intellectual high horse.

By GARDINER HARRIS

Published: December 7, 2003

Days after her daughter's engagement a year ago, Sheree Reese went to her doctor and said that she would do almost anything to wear stilettos again.

Really?

"I was not going to walk down the aisle in sneakers," said Dr. Reese, a 60-year-old professor of speech pathology at Kean University in Union, N.J. She had been forced to give up wearing her collection of high-end, high-heeled shoes because they caused searing pain.

So Dr. Reese, like a growing number of American women, put her foot under the knife. The objective was to remove a bunion, a swelling of the big-toe joint, but the results were disastrous. "The pain spread to my other toes and never went away," she said. "Suddenly, I couldn't walk in anything. My foot, metaphorically, died."

You got what you asked for. You are F_____g STUPID!

With vanity always in fashion and shoes reaching iconic cultural status, women are having parts of their toes lopped off to fit into the latest Manolo Blahniks or Jimmy Choos. Cheerful how-to stories about these operations have appeared in women's magazines and major newspapers and on television news programs.

"Parts of their toes lopped off"? What? I mean really, what?

But the stories rarely note the perils of the procedures. For the sake of better "toe cleavage," as it is known to the fashion-conscious, women are risking permanent disability, according to many orthopedists and podiatrists.

"It's a scary trend," said Dr. Rock Positano, director of the nonoperative foot and ankle service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. Dr. Positano said that his waiting room is increasingly filled with women hobbled by failed cosmetic foot procedures, those done solely to improve the appearance of the foot or help patients fit into fashionable shoes.

More than half of the 175 members of the American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society who responded to a recent survey by the group said that they had treated patients with problems resulting from cosmetic foot surgery. The society will soon issue a statement condemning the procedures, said Rich Cantrall, its executive director.

The American Podiatric Medical Association is also likely to formally discourage medically unnecessary foot operations, said Dr. Glenn Gastwirth, executive director of the group.

"I think it's reprehensible for a physician to correct someone's feet so they can get into Jimmy Choo shoes," said Dr. Sharon Dreeben, an orthopedic surgeon in La Jolla, Calif., who is chairwoman of the foot and ankle society's public education committee.

Jimmy Choo can Chew on one as far as I'm concerned.

But advocates for the procedures say that critics simply do not understand the importance of high heels. "Some of these women invest more in their shoes than they do in the stock market," said Dr. Suzanne M. Levine, an Upper East Side podiatrist who is widely quoted in women's magazines and has appeared on network television promoting the procedures.

"do not understand the importance of high heels" - I'm really missing something!

"Take your average woman and give her heels instead of flats, and she'll suddenly get whistles on the street," Dr. Levine said. "I do everything I can to get them back into their shoes."

He should be a target - what a bastard!

Foot fashion and function have, of course, long been in conflict. Chinese girls' feet were bound to shorten them by bending the toes backward. High heels have been fashionable in the United States for decades, even though they can cause not only serious foot problems but knee, pelvic, back, shoulder and even jaw pain.

It is not just the height of shoes that can lead to damage. A 1991 study found that almost 90 percent of women routinely wear shoes that are one to two sizes too narrow. A 1993 study found that women have more than 80 percent of all foot surgeries, primarily because their shoes are too tight.

Interesting!

Narrow shoes can cause the big toe to bend outward, permanently changing the shape of the bone and causing a bunion, or swollen big-toe joint. Women have more than 94 percent of bunion surgeries, the 1993 study found. By scrunching up the smaller toes, fashionable shoes can also cause or worsen claw or hammer toes, a condition in which the smaller toes are permanently bent downward. Painful and unsightly corns or calluses often form on the tops of such toes.

Having studied the Clintons up-close and personal, I have long since concluded that their politics are not the ideals of Liberals, nor are they the dreams of the naive. Instead, they matured from the radical New Left into the hateful “Hard-Left.”

Nothing I have discovered has discouraged me from concluding that Hillary Clinton and her sometimes brilliant, sometimes useful-dupe husband are less than dedicated Marxists. Her mentor was Saul D. Alinsky, long-time Communist Party, U.S.A. member, and author of the Hard-Left’s playbook, “Rules for Radicals – A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals.”

If you ever read this book, readily available in any book store and most college campus libraries, you will instantly recognize Bill and Hillary Clinton’s pattern of political conduct. Not only that, but once you read this book, you can predict every political move Hillary Clinton will ever make.

I’d be surprised to learn that the Republican National Committee does not have this book as required reading for every staff member. If they don’t, they would be well-advised to order some copies.

Let others hint and imply, I worked in “the nest,” and I know. I was there, met their friends and saw their backgrounds. I heard them talk and express a visceral hatred toward Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and anyone who ever worked for them.

They are hard-hearted, Hard-Left and very hateful people. Which brings me to my point.

I saw what the Clintons did to our White House, to employees who worked there, to the military officers unlucky enough to serve there – and I was myself subjected to one of the most hateful smear campaigns ever launched against a Clinton truth-teller. I didn’t hate them then, and I don’t hate them now.

To give in to that emotion would be to admit that I am powerless in the face of their power, which is not true then, now, or ever.

I never hated them, no matter what they did – anymore than I hated the Mafia crook, the kidnapper or the drug dealers I put in prison. I never hated these people, because they only represent human failure, which I do hate. I hate Communism, Socialism and National Socialism (Nazi), because these ideologies represent the worst character flaws in humans. They feed on human failure.

All these collectivist political movements have the same thing in common. In order for them to get and keep power, people must fail – or enough of them must fail to be ready to turn their lives over to people like Hillary on the basis of a lie, on the promise that somehow life will become better.

Except that it never does; it only gets worse. Millions of corpses in thousands of mass graves are silent testimony to the most deadly time on our planet – the last 100 years – when at least 100,000,000 died at the hands of their own governments, all of them Communist or Socialist.

That’s why I truly hate the sickness called Communism – because it is deadly.

That people can be born and raised in this country and grow up to hate America, hate Christians because of their beliefs, hate Capitalism because some do better than others – hate President George Bush because no matter what, he continues to do the right thing and his popularity with the American people continues to grow – that there are actually those who hate George Bush enough to fly to Iraq and make a political speech criticizing the Commander-in-Chief on Thanksgiving Day is truly appalling!

I hate the sickness that takes over a woman’s mind, allowing her to snatch every opportunity to misuse her moment in time, to keep that kind of hate alive.

But I cannot hate the persons of Hillary or Bill Clinton. I feel sorry for them. They have been especially privileged and lucky, and now they are especially rich, having sold books they did not write – and I would posit, never could write.

And yet they remain unhappy. They want to tear down this country. They support an ideology that will eventually destroy Democracy and Capitalism, if not stopped now.

And they will do anything they have to do to get their power back. They will lie, cheat and destroy others to get what they want. But they are no worse than others I met as an FBI agent. Except, in every profession but politics, you can be put in prison for lying, fraud, stealing, and trying to falsely imprison innocents – like Billy Dale, of the White House Travel Office, for example.

But in politics, you can reach high office, and then lie about the Commander-in-Chief during a time of war, in a foreign land, on Thanksgiving Day. You can bad-mouth President Bush to his own troops who are there and prepared to die for this country. You can do all that, and more, and not fear any consequence for your actions.

What Hillary just did is the perfect way to define hate.

1. Nationhood and Jerusalem - Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., two thousand years before the rise of Islam.

2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C.E. the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

4. Arabs have only had control of Israel twice - from 634 until the Crusader invasion in June 1099, and from 1292 until the year 1517 when they were dispelled by the Turks in their conquest.

5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.

6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran. There are vague references to Jerusalem in the Hadiths - stories about Mohammed - that he stopped his night journey at ''the edge'' - at the edge of the Temple mount.

7. King David established the city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.

8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Some Muslims (i.e. those between Israel and Saudi Arabia) pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.

9. Arab and Jewish Refugees - In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.

10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.

11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.

12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.

13. The Arab - Israeli Conflict - The Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.

14. The P.L.O.'s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them with weapons.

15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.

16. The U.N. Record on Israel and the Arabs - Of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.

17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.
18. The U.N was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.

19. The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

20. The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

via Middle East Facts

AP

"We'd like to have one of our operating systems in every car on Earth," said Dick Brass, vice-president of Microsoft's automotive business unit. "It's a lofty goal."

Cars with the Microsoft software will speak up when it's time for an oil change. They'll warn drivers about wrecks on the road ahead and scout alternative routes. They'll pay freeway tolls automatically. The software running their brakes will upgrade itself wirelessly.

The Microsoft platform already is in 23 different car models, including the BMW 7 series, Citroen, Daimler, Fiat, Volvo, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Toyota.

Brass made his remarks last week at a technology, tolls and transportation conference held at Microsoft and sponsored by the Discovery Institute's Cascadia Project.

Globally, there are 650 million cars, and 50 million new vehicles are produced every year, Brass said — comparable to the market for desktop computers.

Microprocessors already control major vehicle functions. And for years, Microsoft has been making inroads in automotive telematics, a combination of computers and telecommunications.

Brass said drivers spend millions of hours commuting and are distracted by myriad gadgets, including hand-held viewers that offer traffic reports from the state Department of Transportation.

Microsoft's "TBox," which he said will be available in 12 to 36 months, can connect them all and make them hands-free.

"The idea is to make it easy to bring phones and laptops into the car ... and connect to networks around it," Brass said.

The device has a processor, memory and a hard drive with no moving parts, said Peter Wengert, marketing manager for Microsoft's automotive unit.

At the conference, Brass showed on-the-street interviews asking what gadgets future cars should carry.

"I don't want Ford making PDAs, and I don't want Microsoft making cars," one man said.

But bringing the two together seems inevitable.

Brass said drivers could use the system to create 21st century vanpools and help reduce congestion.

"It's possible to imagine setting a system in place with 5,000 to 10,000 vans and have a dramatic reduction in traffic," he said. "With GPS and TBox, we have the tools we would need to put this all together."

Doug Klunder, director of the Privacy Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites), asked Brass how Microsoft plans to protect individual information.

"We really, really, really understand the need for security and privacy," Brass said, suggesting that encrypting and not storing the information are two ways to address some concerns.

DOUGLAS DC-3

MSNBC:

Claim to fame: Defined commercial aviation.

It wasn’t fast and it wasn’t glamorous, but the durable DC-3 set the template for commercial aviation as we know it. Its origins were pragmatic, all the way back to the day in 1935 when American Airlines convinced Donald Douglas to build an aircraft that could accommodate sleeping berths and more passengers. Other airline executives quickly appreciated the plane’s flexibility and affordability and filled out their fleets with DC-3s.

Customers clamored for seats and executives willingly paid for its fold-down sleeper beds and luxury service. But as the Depression deepened, the Douglas Sleeper Transport model was reconfigured to pack in 28 passengers. The DC-3’s affordable tickets and proven safety record convinced Americans who had never flown before to take to the air. And with the DC-3 priced at about $120,000, half the cost of other transports, airlines could buy more planes and add new routes. Soon the airlines were showing some of their first profits ever — proof that flying could in fact make money.

The DC-3 first flew on Dec. 17, 1935. It was valued for its ability to make air travel comfortable to passengers and profitable to airlines. Thousands of C-47s (the military version of the DC-3) went into service during World War II; they ferried supplies and troops around the globe and even entered combat. Many Allied soldiers got their first plane ride in a C-47, a memory that would linger as they returned to civilian life after the war. The Axis powers even built knockoff versions of the trusty Gooney Bird.

After the war, the airlines built up their fleets again with DC-3s and surplus C-47s, sometimes buying them for just a few thousand dollars. As the airlines developed hub systems, DC-3s remained mainstays of commercial fleets and survived in mainline service well into the jet era. Dozens remain in service today.

With its remarkable flying record and comfortable ride, the DC-3 demonstrated that air travel could be for everyone. History has largely borne that out.