Have a wonderful New Year! Drive safely…..

I don’t know who the author is, but hope you enjoy this.

I thought that you and others may like to see this. One detail that is
not mentioned, in DC, there can never be a building of greater height than
the Washington Monument. With all the uproar about removing the Ten
Commandments, etc… This is worth a moment or two of your time. I was not aware of this historical information.

On the aluminum cap, atop the Washington Monument in Washington, DC,
are displayed two words: Laus Deo. No one can see these words. In fact,
most visitors to the monument are totally unaware they are even there and
for that matter, probably couldn’t care less.

Once you know Laus Deo’s history, you will want to share this with
everyone you know. But these words have been there for many years; they are 555
feet, 5.125 inches high, perched atop the monument, facing skyward to the
Father of our nation, overlooking the 69 square miles which comprise the District
of Columbia, capital of the United States of America.

Laus Deo! Two seemingly insignificant, unnoticed words. Out of sight
and, one might think, out of mind, but very meaningfully placed at the highest
point over what is the most powerful city in the most successful nation in
the world.

So, what do those two words, in Latin, composed of just four syllables
and only seven letters, possibly mean? Very simply, they say “Praise be to
God!”

Though construction of this giant obelisk began in 1848, when James
Polk was President of the United States, it was not until 1888 that the monument
was inaugurated and opened to the public. It took twenty-five years to
finally cap the memorial with a tribute to the Father of our nation, Laus Deo
……………..”Praise be to God!”

From atop this magnificent granite and marble structure, visitors may
take in the beautiful panoramic view of the city with its division into four
major segments. From that vantage point, one can also easily see the
original plan of the designer, Pierre Charles l’Enfant…a perfect cross imposed upon
the landscape, with the White House to the North. The Jefferson Memorial
is to the south, the Capitol to the east and the Lincoln Memorial to the
West.

A cross you ask? Why a cross? What about separation of church and
state? Yes, a cross; separation of church and state was not, is not in the
Constitution. So, read on. How interesting and, no doubt, intended to
carry a profound meaning for those who bother to notice.

Within the monument itself are 898 steps and 50 landings. As one
climbs the steps and pauses at the landings the memorial stones share a message.
On the 12th Landing is a prayer offered by the City of Baltimore; on the 20th
is a memorial presented by some Chinese Christians; on the 24th a
presentation made by Sunday School children from New York and Philadelphia quoting
Proverbs

10:7, Luke 18:16 and Proverbs 22:6.

When the cornerstone of the Washington Monument was laid on July 4th,
1848 deposited within it were many items including the Holy Bible presented
by the Bible Society. Such was the discipline, the moral direction, and the
spiritual mood given by the founder and first President of our unique
democracy …”One Nation, Under God.”

I am awed by Washington’s prayer for America. H! ave you never read it?
Well, now is your unique opportunity, so read on!

“Almighty God; We make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the
United States in Thy holy protection; that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the
citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to
government; and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for
their fellow citizens of the United States at large. And finally that Thou
wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love
mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of
mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed
religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can
never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” Laus Deo!

When one stops to observe the inscriptions found in public places all
over our nation’s capitol, he or she will easily find the signature of God, as
it is unmistakably inscribed everywhere you look.

You may forget the width and height of “Laus Deo”, it’s location, or
the architects but no one who reads this will be able to forget it’s
meaning, or these words: “Unless the Lord builds the house its builders labor in
vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in
vain.”

(Psalm 127: 1)

It is hoped you will send this to every child you know; to every
sister, brother, father, mother or friend. They will not find offense, because
you have given them a lesson in history that they probably never learned in
school. With that, be not ashamed, or afraid, but have pity on those
who will never see.

I read an article in Readers Digest discussing the failure of the american educational system to get our best and brightest interested in the fields of math and science, and how this failure would cost us dearly in the future as other countries, as opposed to America, would soon break the discoveries that makes a country great. I am so saddened by this, as I find science a very fascinating subject, and would be a scientist if only I was better in math. But at least as a writer I can help popularize science, perhaps by sharing my own sense of wonder. Think of this, when you look up in the sky, you are looking back in time. Why? Because light has a finite speed, you see the star as it was as the light left the surface of the star. So if you see a star 100 millionlight years away, you see it 100 million light years ago. Thus, if you look back far enough, you see the beginning of time….
interested? Well here are 13 other things for you to think about…..

13 things that do not make sense
by Michael Brooks at NewScientist.com

1 The placebo effect
DON’T try this at home. Several times a day, for several days, you induce pain in someone. You control the pain with morphine until the final day of the experiment, when you replace the morphine with saline solution. Guess what? The saline takes the pain away.

This is the placebo effect: somehow, sometimes, a whole lot of nothing can be very powerful. Except it’s not quite nothing. When Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin in Italy carried out the above experiment, he added a final twist by adding naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of morphine, to the saline. The shocking result? The pain-relieving power of saline solution disappeared.

So what is going on? Doctors have known about the placebo effect for decades, and the naloxone result seems to show that the placebo effect is somehow biochemical. But apart from that, we simply don’t know.

Benedetti has since shown that a saline placebo can also reduce tremors and muscle stiffness in people with Parkinson’s disease (Nature Neuroscience, vol 7, p 587). He and his team measured the activity of neurons in the patients’ brains as they administered the saline. They found that individual neurons in the subthalamic nucleus (a common target for surgical attempts to relieve Parkinson’s symptoms) began to fire less often when the saline was given, and with fewer “bursts” of firing – another feature associated with Parkinson’s. The neuron activity decreased at the same time as the symptoms improved: the saline was definitely doing something.

We have a lot to learn about what is happening here, Benedetti says, but one thing is clear: the mind can affect the body’s biochemistry. “The relationship between expectation and therapeutic outcome is a wonderful model to understand mind-body interaction,” he says. Researchers now need to identify when and where placebo works. There may be diseases in which it has no effect. There may be a common mechanism in different illnesses.

2 The horizon problem
OUR universe appears to be unfathomably uniform. Look across space from one edge of the visible universe to the other, and you’ll see that the microwave background radiation filling the cosmos is at the same temperature everywhere. That may not seem surprising until you consider that the two edges are nearly 28 billion light years apart and our universe is only 14 billion years old.

Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, so there is no way heat radiation could have travelled between the two horizons to even out the hot and cold spots created in the big bang and leave the thermal equilibrium we see now.

This “horizon problem” is a big headache for cosmologists, so big that they have come up with some pretty wild solutions. “Inflation”, for example.

You can solve the horizon problem by having the universe expand ultra-fast for a time, just after the big bang, blowing up by a factor of 1050 in 10-33 seconds. But is that just wishful thinking? “Inflation would be an explanation if it occurred,” says University of Cambridge astronomer Martin Rees. The trouble is that no one knows what could have made that happen.

So, in effect, inflation solves one mystery only to invoke another. A variation in the speed of light could also solve the horizon problem – but this too is impotent in the face of the question “why?” In scientific terms, the uniform temperature of the background radiation remains an anomaly.

3 Ultra-energetic cosmic rays
FOR more than a decade, physicists in Japan have been seeing cosmic rays that should not exist. Cosmic rays are particles – mostly protons but sometimes heavy atomic nuclei – that travel through the universe at close to the speed of light. Some cosmic rays detected on Earth are produced in violent events such as supernovae, but we still don’t know the origins of the highest-energy particles, which are the most energetic particles ever seen in nature. But that’s not the real mystery.

As cosmic-ray particles travel through space, they lose energy in collisions with the low-energy photons that pervade the universe, such as those of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Einstein’s special theory of relativity dictates that any cosmic rays reaching Earth from a source outside our galaxy will have suffered so many energy-shedding collisions that their maximum possible energy is 5 × 1019 electronvolts. This is known as the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin limit.

Over the past decade, however, the University of Tokyo’s Akeno Giant Air Shower Array – 111 particle detectors spread out over 100 square kilometres – has detected several cosmic rays above the GZK limit. In theory, they can only have come from within our galaxy, avoiding an energy-sapping journey across the cosmos. However, astronomers can find no source for these cosmic rays in our galaxy. So what is going on?

One possibility is that there is something wrong with the Akeno results. Another is that Einstein was wrong. His special theory of relativity says that space is the same in all directions, but what if particles found it easier to move in certain directions? Then the cosmic rays could retain more of their energy, allowing them to beat the GZK limit.

Physicists at the Pierre Auger experiment in Mendoza, Argentina, are now working on this problem. Using 1600 detectors spread over 3000 square kilometres, Auger should be able to determine the energies of incoming cosmic rays and shed more light on the Akeno results.

Alan Watson, an astronomer at the University of Leeds, UK, and spokesman for the Pierre Auger project, is already convinced there is something worth following up here. “I have no doubts that events above 1020 electronvolts exist. There are sufficient examples to convince me,” he says. The question now is, what are they? How many of these particles are coming in, and what direction are they coming from? Until we get that information, there’s no telling how exotic the true explanation could be.

“One possibility is that there is something wrong with the Akeno results. Another is that Einstein was wrong”

4 Belfast homeopathy results
MADELEINE Ennis, a pharmacologist at Queen’s University, Belfast, was the scourge of homeopathy. She railed against its claims that a chemical remedy could be diluted to the point where a sample was unlikely to contain a single molecule of anything but water, and yet still have a healing effect. Until, that is, she set out to prove once and for all that homeopathy was bunkum.

In her most recent paper, Ennis describes how her team looked at the effects of ultra-dilute solutions of histamine on human white blood cells involved in inflammation. These “basophils” release histamine when the cells are under attack. Once released, the histamine stops them releasing any more. The study, replicated in four different labs, found that homeopathic solutions – so dilute that they probably didn’t contain a single histamine molecule – worked just like histamine. Ennis might not be happy with the homeopaths’ claims, but she admits that an effect cannot be ruled out.

So how could it happen? Homeopaths prepare their remedies by dissolving things like charcoal, deadly nightshade or spider venom in ethanol, and then diluting this “mother tincture” in water again and again. No matter what the level of dilution, homeopaths claim, the original remedy leaves some kind of imprint on the water molecules. Thus, however dilute the solution becomes, it is still imbued with the properties of the remedy.

You can understand why Ennis remains sceptical. And it remains true that no homeopathic remedy has ever been shown to work in a large randomised placebo-controlled clinical trial. But the Belfast study (Inflammation Research, vol 53, p 181) suggests that something is going on. “We are,” Ennis says in her paper, “unable to explain our findings and are reporting them to encourage others to investigate this phenomenon.” If the results turn out to be real, she says, the implications are profound: we may have to rewrite physics and chemistry.

5 Dark matter
TAKE our best understanding of gravity, apply it to the way galaxies spin, and you’ll quickly see the problem: the galaxies should be falling apart. Galactic matter orbits around a central point because its mutual gravitational attraction creates centripetal forces. But there is not enough mass in the galaxies to produce the observed spin.

Vera Rubin, an astronomer working at the Carnegie Institution’s department of terrestrial magnetism in Washington DC, spotted this anomaly in the late 1970s. The best response from physicists was to suggest there is more stuff out there than we can see. The trouble was, nobody could explain what this “dark matter” was.

And they still can’t. Although researchers have made many suggestions about what kind of particles might make up dark matter, there is no consensus. It’s an embarrassing hole in our understanding. Astronomical observations suggest that dark matter must make up about 90 per cent of the mass in the universe, yet we are astonishingly ignorant what that 90 per cent is.

Maybe we can’t work out what dark matter is because it doesn’t actually exist. That’s certainly the way Rubin would like it to turn out. “If I could have my pick, I would like to learn that Newton’s laws must be modified in order to correctly describe gravitational interactions at large distances,” she says. “That’s more appealing than a universe filled with a new kind of sub-nuclear particle.”

“If the results turn out to be real, the implications are profound. We may have to rewrite physics and chemistry”

6 Viking’s methane
JULY 20, 1976. Gilbert Levin is on the edge of his seat. Millions of kilometres away on Mars, the Viking landers have scooped up some soil and mixed it with carbon-14-labelled nutrients. The mission’s scientists have all agreed that if Levin’s instruments on board the landers detect emissions of carbon-14-containing methane from the soil, then there must be life on Mars.

Viking reports a positive result. Something is ingesting the nutrients, metabolising them, and then belching out gas laced with carbon-14.

So why no party?
Because another instrument, designed to identify organic molecules considered essential signs of life, found nothing. Almost all the mission scientists erred on the side of caution and declared Viking’s discovery a false positive. But was it?

The arguments continue to rage, but results from NASA’s latest rovers show that the surface of Mars was almost certainly wet in the past and therefore hospitable to life. And there is plenty more evidence where that came from, Levin says. “Every mission to Mars has produced evidence supporting my conclusion. None has contradicted it.”

Levin stands by his claim, and he is no longer alone. Joe Miller, a cell biologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, has re-analysed the data and he thinks that the emissions show evidence of a circadian cycle. That is highly suggestive of life.

Levin is petitioning ESA and NASA to fly a modified version of his mission to look for “chiral” molecules. These come in left or right-handed versions: they are mirror images of each other. While biological processes tend to produce molecules that favour one chirality over the other, non-living processes create left and right-handed versions in equal numbers. If a future mission to Mars were to find that Martian “metabolism” also prefers one chiral form of a molecule to the other, that would be the best indication yet of life on Mars.

“Something on Mars is ingesting nutrients, metabolising them and then belching out radioactive methane”

7 Tetraneutrons
FOUR years ago, a particle accelerator in France detected six particles that should not exist. They are called tetraneutrons: four neutrons that are bound together in a way that defies the laws of physics.

Francisco Miguel Marquès and colleagues at the Ganil accelerator in Caen are now gearing up to do it again. If they succeed, these clusters may oblige us to rethink the forces that hold atomic nuclei together.

The team fired beryllium nuclei at a small carbon target and analysed the debris that shot into surrounding particle detectors. They expected to see evidence for four separate neutrons hitting their detectors. Instead the Ganil team found just one flash of light in one detector. And the energy of this flash suggested that four neutrons were arriving together at the detector. Of course, their finding could have been an accident: four neutrons might just have arrived in the same place at the same time by coincidence. But that’s ridiculously improbable.

Not as improbable as tetraneutrons, some might say, because in the standard model of particle physics tetraneutrons simply can’t exist. According to the Pauli exclusion principle, not even two protons or neutrons in the same system can have identical quantum properties. In fact, the strong nuclear force that would hold them together is tuned in such a way that it can’t even hold two lone neutrons together, let alone four. Marquès and his team were so bemused by their result that they buried the data in a research paper that was ostensibly about the possibility of finding tetraneutrons in the future (Physical Review C, vol 65, p 44006).

And there are still more compelling reasons to doubt the existence of tetraneutrons. If you tweak the laws of physics to allow four neutrons to bind together, all kinds of chaos ensues (Journal of Physics G, vol 29, L9). It would mean that the mix of elements formed after the big bang was inconsistent with what we now observe and, even worse, the elements formed would have quickly become far too heavy for the cosmos to cope. “Maybe the universe would have collapsed before it had any chance to expand,” says Natalia Timofeyuk, a theorist at the University of Surrey in Guildford, UK.

There are, however, a couple of holes in this reasoning. Established theory does allow the tetraneutron to exist – though only as a ridiculously short-lived particle. “This could be a reason for four neutrons hitting the Ganil detectors simultaneously,” Timofeyuk says. And there is other evidence that supports the idea of matter composed of multiple neutrons: neutron stars. These bodies, which contain an enormous number of bound neutrons, suggest that as yet unexplained forces come into play when neutrons gather en masse.

8 The Pioneer anomaly
THIS is a tale of two spacecraft. Pioneer 10 was launched in 1972; Pioneer 11 a year later. By now both craft should be drifting off into deep space with no one watching. However, their trajectories have proved far too fascinating to ignore.

That’s because something has been pulling – or pushing – on them, causing them to speed up. The resulting acceleration is tiny, less than a nanometre per second per second. That’s equivalent to just one ten-billionth of the gravity at Earth’s surface, but it is enough to have shifted Pioneer 10 some 400,000 kilometres off track. NASA lost touch with Pioneer 11 in 1995, but up to that point it was experiencing exactly the same deviation as its sister probe. So what is causing it?

Nobody knows. Some possible explanations have already been ruled out, including software errors, the solar wind or a fuel leak. If the cause is some gravitational effect, it is not one we know anything about. In fact, physicists are so completely at a loss that some have resorted to linking this mystery with other inexplicable phenomena.

Bruce Bassett of the University of Portsmouth, UK, has suggested that the Pioneer conundrum might have something to do with variations in alpha, the fine structure constant (see “Not so constant constants”, page 37). Others have talked about it as arising from dark matter – but since we don’t know what dark matter is, that doesn’t help much either. “This is all so maddeningly intriguing,” says Michael Martin Nieto of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. “We only have proposals, none of which has been demonstrated.”

Nieto has called for a new analysis of the early trajectory data from the craft, which he says might yield fresh clues. But to get to the bottom of the problem what scientists really need is a mission designed specifically to test unusual gravitational effects in the outer reaches of the solar system. Such a probe would cost between $300 million and $500 million and could piggyback on a future mission to the outer reaches of the solar system (www.arxiv.org/gr-qc/0411077).

“An explanation will be found eventually,” Nieto says. “Of course I hope it is due to new physics – how stupendous that would be. But once a physicist starts working on the basis of hope he is heading for a fall.” Disappointing as it may seem, Nieto thinks the explanation for the Pioneer anomaly will eventually be found in some mundane effect, such as an unnoticed source of heat on board the craft.

9 Dark energy
IT IS one of the most famous, and most embarrassing, problems in physics. In 1998, astronomers discovered that the universe is expanding at ever faster speeds. It’s an effect still searching for a cause – until then, everyone thought the universe’s expansion was slowing down after the big bang. “Theorists are still floundering around, looking for a sensible explanation,” says cosmologist Katherine Freese of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “We’re all hoping that upcoming observations of supernovae, of clusters of galaxies and so on will give us more clues.”

One suggestion is that some property of empty space is responsible – cosmologists call it dark energy. But all attempts to pin it down have fallen woefully short. It’s also possible that Einstein’s theory of general relativity may need to be tweaked when applied to the very largest scales of the universe. “The field is still wide open,” Freese says.

10 The Kuiper cliff
IF YOU travel out to the far edge of the solar system, into the frigid wastes beyond Pluto, you’ll see something strange. Suddenly, after passing through the Kuiper belt, a region of space teeming with icy rocks, there’s nothing.

Astronomers call this boundary the Kuiper cliff, because the density of space rocks drops off so steeply. What caused it? The only answer seems to be a 10th planet. We’re not talking about Quaoar or Sedna: this is a massive object, as big as Earth or Mars, that has swept the area clean of debris.

The evidence for the existence of “Planet X” is compelling, says Alan Stern, an astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. But although calculations show that such a body could account for the Kuiper cliff (Icarus, vol 160, p 32), no one has ever seen this fabled 10th planet.

There’s a good reason for that. The Kuiper belt is just too far away for us to get a decent view. We need to get out there and have a look before we can say anything about the region. And that won’t be possible for another decade, at least. NASA’s New Horizons probe, which will head out to Pluto and the Kuiper belt, is scheduled for launch in January 2006. It won’t reach Pluto until 2015, so if you are looking for an explanation of the vast, empty gulf of the Kuiper cliff, watch this space.

11 The Wow signal
IT WAS 37 seconds long and came from outer space. On 15 August 1977 it caused astronomer Jerry Ehman, then of Ohio State University in Columbus, to scrawl “Wow!” on the printout from Big Ear, Ohio State’s radio telescope in Delaware. And 28 years later no one knows what created the signal. “I am still waiting for a definitive explanation that makes sense,” Ehman says.

Coming from the direction of Sagittarius, the pulse of radiation was confined to a narrow range of radio frequencies around 1420 megahertz. This frequency is in a part of the radio spectrum in which all transmissions are prohibited by international agreement. Natural sources of radiation, such as the thermal emissions from planets, usually cover a much broader sweep of frequencies. So what caused it?

The nearest star in that direction is 220 light years away. If that is where is came from, it would have had to be a pretty powerful astronomical event – or an advanced alien civilisation using an astonishingly large and powerful transmitter.

The fact that hundreds of sweeps over the same patch of sky have found nothing like the Wow signal doesn’t mean it’s not aliens. When you consider the fact that the Big Ear telescope covers only one-millionth of the sky at any time, and an alien transmitter would also likely beam out over the same fraction of sky, the chances of spotting the signal again are remote, to say the least.

Others think there must be a mundane explanation. Dan Wertheimer, chief scientist for the SETI@home project, says the Wow signal was almost certainly pollution: radio-frequency interference from Earth-based transmissions. “We’ve seen many signals like this, and these sorts of signals have always turned out to be interference,” he says. The debate continues.

“It was either a powerful astronomical event – or an advanced alien civilisation beaming out a signal”

12 Not-so-constant constants
IN 1997 astronomer John Webb and his team at the University of New South Wales in Sydney analysed the light reaching Earth from distant quasars. On its 12-billion-year journey, the light had passed through interstellar clouds of metals such as iron, nickel and chromium, and the researchers found these atoms had absorbed some of the photons of quasar light – but not the ones they were expecting.

If the observations are correct, the only vaguely reasonable explanation is that a constant of physics called the fine structure constant, or alpha, had a different value at the time the light passed through the clouds.

But that’s heresy. Alpha is an extremely important constant that determines how light interacts with matter – and it shouldn’t be able to change. Its value depends on, among other things, the charge on the electron, the speed of light and Planck’s constant. Could one of these really have changed?

No one in physics wanted to believe the measurements. Webb and his team have been trying for years to find an error in their results. But so far they have failed.

Webb’s are not the only results that suggest something is missing from our understanding of alpha. A recent analysis of the only known natural nuclear reactor, which was active nearly 2 billion years ago at what is now Oklo in Gabon, also suggests something about light’s interaction with matter has changed.

The ratio of certain radioactive isotopes produced within such a reactor depends on alpha, and so looking at the fission products left behind in the ground at Oklo provides a way to work out the value of the constant at the time of their formation. Using this method, Steve Lamoreaux and his colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico suggest that alpha may have decreased by more than 4 per cent since Oklo started up (Physical Review D, vol 69, p 121701).

There are gainsayers who still dispute any change in alpha. Patrick Petitjean, an astronomer at the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris, led a team that analysed quasar light picked up by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile and found no evidence that alpha has changed. But Webb, who is now looking at the VLT measurements, says that they require a more complex analysis than Petitjean’s team has carried out. Webb’s group is working on that now, and may be in a position to declare the anomaly resolved – or not – later this year.

“It’s difficult to say how long it’s going to take,” says team member Michael Murphy of the University of Cambridge. “The more we look at these new data, the more difficulties we see.” But whatever the answer, the work will still be valuable. An analysis of the way light passes through distant molecular clouds will reveal more about how the elements were produced early in the universe’s history.

13 Cold fusion
AFTER 16 years, it’s back. In fact, cold fusion never really went away. Over a 10-year period from 1989, US navy labs ran more than 200 experiments to investigate whether nuclear reactions generating more energy than they consume – supposedly only possible inside stars – can occur at room temperature. Numerous researchers have since pronounced themselves believers.

With controllable cold fusion, many of the world’s energy problems would melt away: no wonder the US Department of Energy is interested. In December, after a lengthy review of the evidence, it said it was open to receiving proposals for new cold fusion experiments.

That’s quite a turnaround. The DoE’s first report on the subject, published 15 years ago, concluded that the original cold fusion results, produced by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and unveiled at a press conference in 1989, were impossible to reproduce, and thus probably false.

The basic claim of cold fusion is that dunking palladium electrodes into heavy water – in which oxygen is combined with the hydrogen isotope deuterium – can release a large amount of energy. Placing a voltage across the electrodes supposedly allows deuterium nuclei to move into palladium’s molecular lattice, enabling them to overcome their natural repulsion and fuse together, releasing a blast of energy. The snag is that fusion at room temperature is deemed impossible by every accepted scientific theory.
from the New Scientist.

It is smart to be very skeptical when one talks of overturning the laws of science, but in a world of warped space, time dilatation, and super strings, the universe is not only stranger then we imagine, it is stranger then we can imagine.

…just something to think about….

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department is investigating who disclosed a secret domestic eavesdropping operation approved by President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks, officials said on Friday.

“We are opening an investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified materials related to the NSA,” a Justice Department official said on condition of anonymity.

Earlier this month, Bush acknowledged the program and called its disclosure to The New York Times “a shameful act.” He said he presumed the Justice Department would investigate who leaked the National Security Agency eavesdropping operation to the newspaper.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy told reporters that Bush was informed on Friday about the Justice Department probe. He said the decision to conduct the investigation was made by the department — it was not requested by the White House.

News of the covert domestic spying program sparked outcry by Democrats and Republicans, with many lawmakers and rights groups questioning whether it violates the U.S. Constitution.

Several lawmakers have backed a planned hearing on the issue by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania.

Bush and senior administration officials have argued that the policy of authorizing — without court orders — eavesdropping on international phone calls and e-mails by Americans suspected of links to terrorism was legal and necessary to help defend the country after September 11.
from Yahoo News.

Curt at Floppping Aces has a number of updates:

Who do you want to win?

Bloggers give it to you straight!

Are you tired of the Sun’s bias? Can you write well?

Understand that it is the Main Stream Media (the Sun and local TV networks) that keep this state a blue state. How the news is presented affects the mindset of everybody in it. Don’t allow the media to continue to demonize you and your beliefs. Interested?

knowing HTML is a help…..

drop me a line at the email on this webpage in the upper left corner…..

HOUSTON (Reuters) – The Washington couple at the heart of the CIA leak investigation had their cover blown by their small son as they tried to sneak away on vacation on Thursday.

“My daddy’s famous, my mommy’s a secret spy,” declared the 5-year-old of his parents, former diplomat Joe Wilson and retired CIA operative Valerie Plame.

The former spy, who just retired from the agency, and the diplomat have been at the center of a CIA leak scandal that has reached into the White House.

They said they were headed to an undisclosed vacation location with their twins but stopped for a brief interview inside the airport terminal.

A special prosecutor has indicted Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, for lying in the investigation and has opened a second grand jury.

Plame’s cover at the CIA was blown after her husband accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to support military action against Iraq. Wilson said it was deliberately intended to undercut his credibility.

Wilson said he does not know how the current investigation was progressing and has only spoken to the special prosecutor twice, most recently in late September.

Plame would not be interviewed and stood out of hearing distance with the other twin.

Wilson said his wife’s retirement allows her to spend more time with the soon to be 6-year-olds. “She enjoyed her career there,” Wilson said of the CIA.
The link is here!.>

The Democrats have already hired a special prosecuter to investigate the 5 year old.

from Dave at the HedgeHog.

Many conservative websites have linked to this Rasmussen Reports poll to indicate that somehow the the wiretapping issue is backfiring on Democrats. I’m not saying it won’t eventually backfire, as the Washington Times reports some “centrist” Democrats are worrying about and I would be agree that it will backfire. Obviously, the recent “cut-and-run” strategy the Democratic leadership put forward for Iraq has actually boosted President Bush’ job approval ratings across the board. However the question Scott Rasmussen asked conerning the NSA wiretaps that so many conservative websites are touting, according to his website, was this:

Should the National Security Agency be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States?
With that question, 64% of Americans said YES while 23% said NO. Now that, on its face, would imply Americans support President Bush and even I would be in the YES camp. But the real question that should have been asked is whether the National Security Agencybe allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States WITHOUT A WARRANT? My guess is if you add those three words at the end of the question, the results of the poll would be somewhat different.

I usually trust Rasmussen’s polls, but I think he was being a little misleading with this poll.

And that is the key, isn’t it, how things are phrased? Very few Americans would not want us spying on terrorists in a time of war. But that is not how it is phrased, and that is why I no longer trust the media.

from Haider Ajina

The following is his translation of a headline and news published by “Shams-Alhorreya” on December 29th.

“Noticeable decline in recent terrorist activity in Iraq”

“In an interview the commander of operations in the Iraqi defense ministry Brigadier General Abdul Azizi Mohamed Jasem said; ‘Recent armed terror incidences in Iraq have declined quite noticeably, specially before and after the parliamentary elections on December 15th.’

“Brigadier Jasem added; ‘Iraqi military forces have increased its units (or formations) and is now capable of carrying out its duties (in its area of responsibility) on its own initiative and with no assistance from the multi national forces. This improvement in the Iraqi military came about due to an increase in the number of volunteers joining the military. As well as huge losses dealt the terrorists from military and police operations and a decrease of support from outside Iraq to terrorists, has substantially weakened these terrorists. There are a number of security plans being implemented by the Iraqi military in Baghdad to wipe out the armed terrorists committing criminal acts. We have further supplied these units with the latest weaponry and equipment as well as armored personnel carriers and hummers to combat armed activities. These were bought by contract from the U.S.A’.”

His comments:

These are encouraging times for Iraqis and their battle for democratic rule & freedom from tyranny. Sunnis have joined the political process, terrorist activities are on the decline, Iraqi military is feeling confident (thanks to our training and supplies) volunteers are joining the only all volunteers army in the Arab world and middle east, rule of law is prevailing, infra structure is being built, jobs are being created, health care and education is being improved, industry is being developed, security is improving, wages are climbing, real estate prices are increasing, commerce is booming and the list goes on and on and on. All this is possible because we have our men and women on the ground in Iraq working hard with Iraqis making sacrifices and strongly dedicated to their mission. Let us not forget Iraqis are willing learners, hungry for what we offer them and are taking ownership of their country and lives. Iraqis are enduring hardships so their children can have a free safe society to live in and contribute to.

I will be off until December 30th!

And a Happy New Year!

keep up the good fight…..

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. officials have secretly monitored radiation levels at Muslim sites, including mosques and private homes, since September 11, 2001 as part of a top secret program searching for nuclear bombs, U.S. News and World Report said on Friday.

The news magazine said in its online edition that the far-reaching program covered more than a hundred sites in the Washington, D.C., area and at least five other cities.

“In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program,” the magazine said.

The report comes a week after revelations that the Bush administration had authorized eavesdropping on people in the United States. U.S. President George W. Bush has defended that covert program and vowed to continue the practice, saying it was vital to protect the country.

Senior U.S. officials, including FBI Director Robert Mueller, have repeatedly said Islamic militants appeared intent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction for an attack against the United States.

Mueller said in February he was “very concerned with the growing body of sensitive reporting that continues to show al Qaeda’s clear intention to obtain and ultimately use some form of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-energy explosives material in its attacks against America.”

An FBI spokesman declined to confirm or deny the U.S. News and World Report article and said, “We can’t talk about a classified program.”

“The FBI’s overriding priority is to prevent, disrupt and defeat terrorist operations in the U.S. All investigations and operations conducted by the FBI are intelligence driven and predicated on specific information about potential criminal acts or terrorist threats, and are conducted in strict conformance with federal law,” he added.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group said the report, coupled with news of the domestic eavesdropping, “could lead to the perception that we are no longer a nation ruled by law, but instead one in which fear trumps constitutional rights.”

from Yahoo News.

Just a reminder, LGF reports that Mainstream US Muslim organizations are heavily influenced by Saudi-funded extremists, according to Yehudit Barsky, an expert on terrorism at the American Jewish Committee.

Worse still, Barsky told The Jerusalem Post last week, these “extremist organizations continue to claim the mantle of leadership” over American Islam.

The power of the extremist Wahhabi form of Islam in the United States was created with generous Saudi financing of American Muslim communities over the past few decades. Over 80 percent of the mosques in the United States “have been radicalized by Saudi money and influence,” Barsky said. Barsky, who heads the AJC’s Division on Middle East and International Terrorism and is the executive editor of Counterterrorism Watch, said this means that “the people now in control of teaching religion [to American Muslims] are extremists. Who teaches the mainstream moderate non-Saudi Islam that people used to have? It’s in the homes, but there’s no infrastructure. Eighty percent of the infrastructure is controlled by these extremists.”

The same is true, Barsky said, of many of the mainstream Muslim organizations in America. Many of them are “pro-Saudi and pro-Muslim Brotherhood organizations.” As examples, she listed three important groups: the Islamic Society of North America (lgf: search), which “supports the Muslim Brotherhood (lgf: search) and the Saudi regime;” the Islamic Circle of North America (lgf: search), which “is composed of members of Jamaat e-Islami, a Pakistani Islamic radical organization similar to the Muslim Brotherhood that helped to establish the Taliban;” and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) (lgf: search), “founded in the 1980s by pro-Hamas activists.”

So, I am not terribly concerned about CAIR’s opinion.

But also, consider the number of leaks to the public by the media recently. We have the not-so-secret-anymore search for bomb making material, the NSA electronic intercept program, the CIA leaks, etc. How does this not help the enemy? How is this not treason?

Gaza Settlements to Become No-Man’s Land?

Three months after Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, they’re forced to use air strikes and artillery to stop Palestinians from attacking: Israel threatens Gaza strikes to clear rocket zone.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel threatened on Friday to stop Palestinian militants firing rockets from the Gaza Strip by using airstrikes and shelling to enforce a buffer zone inside the territory it abandoned three months ago.

The makeshift rockets rarely cause casualties, but could have big political fallout as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon campaigns for re-election on the strength of a pullout from Gaza that he said would boost Israel’s security.

Despite the withdrawal, the rocket firing has not stopped [Go figure! —ed.], and Israel has mounted air and artillery strikes on Gaza.

Have you ever seen people more ready for their own state?
written bt LGF.

Here is a great article from Powerline.

It has been widely suggested that the NSA electronic intercept program that has been carried out by the Bush administration for the last three years is, or may be, illegal. The New York Times and other media outlets have implied, without saying outright, that the program is unconstitutional or otherwise improper. The Democrats have picked the ball up and run with it; the Democratic National Committee sent out an email yesterday that characterized the program as “illegal surveillance” constituting an “explosive scandal.”

In fact, though, if one reviews the controlling legal authorities, it is hard to see what the fuss is about. For purposes of this analysis, I have assumed that the NSA intercepts electronic messages (phone calls and emails); that when the agency learns of a foreign cell phone or email address that is being used by a terrorist, it inputs that phone number or address into its surveillance system and is then able to intercept all incoming and outgoing communications; that the intent of the program is to intercept only international communications, i.e., those where at least one of the parties is located outside the United States; but on relatively rare occasions, communications between two people who are both located in the U.S. are intercepted. Under the governing legal principles, however, the precise details of the program shouldn’t make any difference.

The starting point, of course, is the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution sets out the powers and duties of the President. Some people do not seem to realize that the executive branch is coequal with the legislative and judicial branches. The President has certain powers under the Constitution, and they cannot be taken away or limited by Congressional legislation any more than the President can limit the powers of Congress by executive order.

Article II makes the President Commander in Chief of the armed forces. As such he is preeminent in foreign policy, and especially in military affairs. This was no accident; as Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 74, “Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand.” The federal courts have long recognized that when it comes to waging war, the President, not Congress or the courts, is the supreme authority. In Fleming v. Page, 9 How. 603, 615 (1850), the Supreme Court wrote that the President has the Constitutional power to “employ [the Nation's armed forces] in the manner he may deem most effectual to harass and conquer and subdue the enemy.”

No one questions this basic principle. If our soldiers or intelligence agencies discover a terrorist in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere, the President or his designees can order an air strike or other attack to kill him. It would be very odd if the President has the authority to kill a terrorist, but not to intercept his telephone calls or search his cave.

There is one relevant constitutional provision that acts as a restraint on the President’s inherent power as Commander in Chief. That is the Fourth Amendment, which states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
So all searches and seizures of Americans or their property (including, as the courts have appropriately ruled, interceptions of telephonic and electronic communications) must be reasonable. Note, however, that this requirement does not apply to terrorists overseas. A Special Forces soldier can pick a cave arbitrarily and search it. He isn’t trying to prosecute terrorists, he is trying to kill them. He doesn’t need probable cause.

The Fourth Amendment includes requirements for the issuance of search warrants, and many critics of the NSA program seem to assume that this means that all searches must be executed pursuant to a warrant. This assumption is wrong. There are dozens of situations where warrantless searches have been approved by the courts. The overriding principle is that searches of Americans (defined to include resident aliens) must be reasonable.

One of the many situations where warrantless searches have been approved is when the government is seeking foreign intelligence information, such as information relating to potential terrorist threats. Next to the Constitution itself, of course, the highest authority is the United States Supreme Court. At least three Supreme Court cases have discussed this subject.

In 1967, the Court decided Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347. Katz involved the warrantless interception of a conversation held by a criminal defendant in a phone booth. The Court held that the Fourth Amendment applies to such conversations, and that in an ordinary criminal prosecution (subject to many exceptions, as noted above) a warrant is required for wiretap information to be admissible in court. The Court specifically noted, however, that its decision did not apply to situations involving national security:

Whether safeguards other than prior authorization by a magistrate would satisfy the Fourth Amendment in a situation involving the national security is a question not presented by this case.
Five years later, the Court decided United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972). This case arose out of a criminal prosecution for conspiracy to destroy government property. (One of the defendants was charged with dynamiting a Michigan office of the C.I.A.) The Court’s majority opinion framed the issue as follows:

[This case] involves the delicate question of the President’s power, acting through the Attorney General, to authorize electronic surveillance in internal security matters without prior judicial approval.
[Emphasis added.] While acknowledging that American governments had conducted warrantless surveillance in internal security cases “for more than one-quarter of a century,” the Court held such surveillance unconstitutional under the circumstances presented.

For the present purpose, the relevant portions of the opinion are those that distinguish the case before the Court from cases involving foreign intelligence gathering:

[T]he instant case requires no judgment on the scope of the President’s surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign powers, within or without this country.
And again:

We emphasize, before concluding this opinion, the scope of our decision. As stated at the outset, this case involves only the domestic aspects of national security. We have not addressed, and express no opinion as to, the issues which may be involved with respect to activities of foreign powers or their agents.
It should be noted, too, that the Court did not hold that in domestic security cases, warrants are always required; it merely rejected the government’s assertion of a blanket exemption for all such surveillance.

The third relevant Supreme Court case is Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004). Hamdi was an American citizen who was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and sued the Defense Department, claiming that his indefinite detention as an enemy combatant was unconstitutional. The Court upheld Hamdi’s detention, while also ruling that he was entitled to a limited hearing regarding the facts of his detention. The government offered alternative theories in support of Hamdi’s detention; the Court’s plurality opinion describes them as follows:

The Government maintains that no explicit congressional authorization is required, because the Executive possesses plenary authority to detain pursuant to Article II of the Constitution. We do not reach the question whether Article II provides such authority, however, because we agree with the Government’s alternative position, that Congress has in fact authorized Hamdi’s detention through the AUMF [the post-September 11 Authorization for the Use of Military Force].
The Court noted that apprehending military combatants is a necessary incident of the use of military force:

We conclude that detention of individuals falling into the limited category we are considering, for the duration of the particular conflict in which they were captured, is so fundamental and accepted an incident to war as to be an exercise of the “necessary and appropriate force” Congress has authorized the President to use.
Thus, neither the language of the Constitution nor the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence can justify a claim that the NSA program is illegal. While the Court has never specifically ruled on the issue, its decisions are entirely consistent with the administration’s view that the President has the inherent constitutional authority to obtain foreign intelligence information through warrantless searches. We turn now to the decisions of the federal Courts of Appeal.

This specific question was first addressed by the Fifth Circuit in United States v. [Cassius] Clay, 430 F.2d 165 (5th Cir. 1970). In the course of its opinion rejecting defendant’s claim that his conviction was based on information obtained from illegal wiretaps, the court wrote:

The fifth wiretap was not disclosed to defendant because the District Court found that the surveillance was lawful, having been authorized by the Attorney General, for the purpose of obtaining foreign intelligence information. The Supreme Court has not yet decided whether electronic surveillance for the purpose of obtaining foreign intelligence information is constitutionally permissible [citation omitted], though Mr. Justice White has expressed the view that such surveillance does not violate the Fourth Amendment. [citation omitted]
We…discern no constitutional prohibition against the fifth wiretap. Section 605 of Title 47, U.S.C., is a general prohibition against publication or use of communications obtained by wiretapping, but we do not read the section as forbidding the President, or his representative, from ordering wiretap surveillance to obtain foreign intelligence in the national interest.

In 1974, the Third Circuit decided United States v. Butenko, 494 F.2d 593 (3rd Cir. 1974), where the defendant was convicted of espionage. The court wrote:

In sum, we hold that, in the circumstances of this case, prior judicial authorization was not required since the district court found that the surveillances of Ivanov were “conducted and maintained solely for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence information.”
Three years later, the Ninth Circuit decided United States v. Buck, 548 F.2d 871 (9th Cir. 1977), a firearms prosecution. The court said:

Foreign security wiretaps are a recognized exception to the general warrant requirement….
In 1980, the Fourth Circuit decided United States v. Truong, another criminal prosecution that arose out of the defendant’s spying on behalf of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The case squarely presented the issue of the executive branch’s inherent power to conduct warrantless surveillance for national security purposes:

The defendants raise a substantial challenge to their convictions by arguing that the surveillance conducted by the FBI violated the Fourth Amendment and that all the evidence uncovered through that surveillance must consequently be suppressed. As has been stated, the government did not seek a warrant for the eavesdropping on Truong’s phone conversations or the bugging of his apartment. Instead, it relied upon a “foreign intelligence” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. In the area of foreign intelligence, the government contends, the President may authorize surveillance without seeking a judicial warrant because of his constitutional prerogatives in the area of foreign affairs.
The court agreed with the government’s position:

For several reasons, the needs of the executive are so compelling in the area of foreign intelligence, unlike the area of domestic security, that a uniform warrant requirement would, following [United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972)], “unduly frustrate” the President in carrying out his foreign affairs responsibilities. First of all, attempts to counter foreign threats to the national security require the utmost stealth, speed and secrecy. A warrant requirement would add a procedural hurdle that would reduce the flexibility of executive foreign intelligence activities, in some cases delay executive response to foreign intelligence threats, and increase the chance of leaks regarding sensitive executive operations.
The court held that warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes are constitutional, as long as the “object of the search or the surveillance is a foreign power, its agent or collaborators,” and the search is conducted “primarily” for foreign intelligence reasons.

The state of the law was summed up by the Second Circuit in United States v. Duggan, 743 F.2d 59 (1984), a terrorism case in which the court, among other rulings, upheld the constitutionality of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was adopted in 1981. The court wrote:

Prior to the enactment of FISA, virtually every court that had addressed the issue had concluded that the President had the inherent power to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence information, and that such surveillances constituted an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment.
Finally, in 2002, the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review decided Sealed Case No. 02-001. This case arose out of a provision of the Patriot Act that was intended to break down the “wall” between law enforcement and intelligence gathering. The Patriot Act modified Truong’s “primary purpose” test by providing that surveillance under FISA was proper if intelligence gathering was one “significant” purpose of the intercept. In the course of discussing the constitutional underpinnings (or lack thereof) of the Truong test, the court wrote:

The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. It was incumbent upon the court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority in the case before it. We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power. The question before us is the reverse, does FISA amplify the President’s power by providing a mechanism that at least approaches a classic warrant and which therefore supports the government’s contention that FISA searches are constitutionally reasonable.
That is the current state of the law. The federal appellate courts have unanimously held that the President has the inherent constitutional authority to order warrantless searches for purposes of gathering foreign intelligence information, which includes information about terrorist threats. Furthermore, since this power is derived from Article II of the Constitution, the FISA Review Court has specifically recognized that it cannot be taken away or limited by Congressional action.

That being the case, the NSA intercept program, which consists of warrantless electronic intercepts for purposes of foreign intelligence gathering, is legal.

It’s worth noting that all of the cases cited above involved warrantless searches inside the United States. The NSA program, in contrast, involves international communications only, and the intercepts take place at least in part, and perhaps wholly, outside the United States. Thus, the NSA case is even clearer than the cases that have already upheld Presidential power.

I’m tempted to stop there, since action by Congress can neither add to, nor detract from, the constitutional powers of the executive branch. Because others on both sides have introduced various statutes into the debate, however, I will deal with them briefly.

First, the administration has argued that in addition to its inherent powers, the NSA program is legal because it was authorized by Congress in the post-September 11 Authorization for the Use of Military Force. It is easy to see why the administration wants to employ this argument, since this is the rationale that was adopted by the Supreme Court in Hamdi. And one can certainly argue that the authorization, which says the administration can “use all necessary and appropriate force,” covers intercepting communications, since intelligence gathering is just as much a “fundamental and accepted incident of war” as detaining enemy combatants.

Nevertheless, I don’t think that the statutory argument adds anything to the administration’s position. The response from the other side would be, “Certainly we authorized the executive to collect intelligence, but we didn’t authorize it to break the law or violate the Constitution.” I think that point is well taken. The AUMF would not be interpreted to authorize the President to take actions that are otherwise illegal, just as, in Hamdi, the Court upheld the detention of enemy combatants but also imposed a procedure that it viewed as constitutionally required. So the argument quickly becomes circular: the AUMF did authorize the administration to engage in intelligence gathering, but only where such intelligence gathering is already proper by virtue of the President’s inherent constitutional powers, or other authority. So, in my view, the statutory argument adds nothing to the already clearly-established proposition that the NSA program is legal.

The other statute that has been discussed in connection with the legality of the NSA intercept program is FISA. It has been argued that FISA explicitly or implicitly requires the administration to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance only pursuant to the procedures set up under that statute.

As an initial matter, this argument has already been rejected by the very appellate court that is charged with interpreting and applying FISA, in Sealed Case No. 02-001. So, from the standpoint of critics of the administration’s program, the argument is a non-starter.

It’s interesting, nevertheless, to examine the provisions of FISA with a view toward answering this question: Given that the administration used the FISA warrant procedure for the vast majority of its anti-terror electronic intercepts, why did it bypass the FISA procedure in the relative handful of instances represented by the NSA program? One good answer to this question, of course, is speed. Obtaining a FISA warrant would require a matter of days, at least, and perhaps much longer. But when our forces overseas capture a terrorist and take possession of his laptop or cell phone, time is of the essence. Those phone numbers and email addresses will be useful only until the terrorist’s associates realize that he has been captured or killed. So the first days, hours or even minutes after the numbers and addresses fall into our possession are likely to be critical.

But there may be a second explanation that relates to the jurisdiction of the FISA court. The courts of the United States have jurisdiction within the United States and its possessions; they have no jurisdiction in, say, France or Afghanistan. In the U.S., a court can issue a warrant that requires a telephone company, for example, to cooperate with a government wiretap. It can make no such order in a foreign country. The jurisdictional limits of American courts are reflected, I think, in the scope of the FISA court’s authority as set out in Title 50, Section 1801 of the U.S. Code, the first section of the FISA statute. That section defines the “electronic surveillance” over which the FISA court has jurisdiction:

(f) “Electronic surveillance” means— (1) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire or radio communication sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person who is in the United States, if the contents are acquired by intentionally targeting that United States person, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes;
(2) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire communication to or from a person in the United States, without the consent of any party thereto, if such acquisition occurs in the United States, but does not include the acquisition of those communications of computer trespassers that would be permissible under section 2511 (2)(i) of title 18;

(3) the intentional acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes, and if both the sender and all intended recipients are located within the United States; or

(4) the installation or use of an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device in the United States for monitoring to acquire information, other than from a wire or radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes.

Under this definition, FISA applies to four categories of electronic surveillance. The first—“ wire or radio communication[s] sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person who is in the United States, if the contents are acquired by intentionally targeting that United States person, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes…”—does not apply, as I understand the NSA program. The NSA intercepts target foreign terrorists overseas and sweep in all of their communications. To my knowledge, they do not “target” “particular, known United States person[s]” who are in the U.S.

The third category likewise has no application. It relates to interception of communications where both the sender and all intended recipients are located inside the United States. The NSA intercepts were authorized only for international communications.

That leaves the second and fourth categories. Note that the applicability of both sections turns on whether the surveillance activity in question takes place inside the United States. In subsection (2), the “acquisition” must occur in the United States. In subsection (4), the surveillance device must be “installed” or “used” inside the United States.

This is the one point where it would be helpful to know more about the details of the NSA operation. Based on what has been publicly disclosed, it seems likely that the NSA intercepts are picked up overseas, not inside the U.S. If that is the case, FISA simply has no application to the program. The answer to the question, “Why didn’t you obtain FISA orders authorizing these surveillances?” may be, “Because we couldn’t.” If the surveillance was outside the jurisdiction of the FISA court, no such orders could be issued. The administration could conclusively answer this question by disclosing where the surveillance equipment is located. But that is, of course, precisely the kind of secret information that the administration doesn’t want the terrorists to know.

In any event, as noted above, FISA might expand, but could not impinge on, the President’s inherent powers under the Constitution, which are more than sufficient to support the electronic intercepts at issue here, wherever they occurred.

One more statute is worth mentioning in the context of the above discussion of FISA: Chapter 19 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. This is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, the basic federal statute that prohibits you and me from wiretapping.

Section 2511 (2) (f) states:

(f) Nothing contained in this chapter or chapter 121 or 206 of this title, or section 705 of the Communications Act of 1934, shall be deemed to affect the acquisition by the United States Government of foreign intelligence information from international or foreign communications, or foreign intelligence activities conducted in accordance with otherwise applicable Federal law involving a foreign electronic communications system, utilizing a means other than electronic surveillance as defined in section 101 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and procedures in this chapter or chapter 121 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance, as defined in section 101 of such Act, and the interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may be conducted. [Emphasis added.]
Thus, Congress has made explicit the fact that no federal statute is intended to affect or limit any foreign intelligence gathering that is conducted outside the scope of “electronic surveillance, as defined in [FISA].” In other words, Congress has made no effort to address electronic surveillance that is carried out outside the United States, and does not target specifically identified American persons. This is consistent with Section 2511 (2)(f)’s statement that FISA and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act are the exclusive means by which the government may intercept domestic communications. Except to the very limited extent encompassed by FISA’s definition of “electronic surveillance,” Congress has never purported to address in any way the interception of foreign or international communications.

There is no mystery about the legality of the NSA intercept program. It is intended to capture foreign intelligence information, including information about potential terrorist threats, and as such, every federal court that has addressed the issue has held that it is within the inherent constitutional power of the President as Commander in Chief. Everything else is immaterial.

This brings us back where we started, i.e., the Constitution. The only constitutional limitation on the President’s power to intercept communications by Americans for national security purposes is that such intercepts be “reasonable.” Is it reasonable for the administration to do all it can to identify the people who are communicating with known terrorists overseas, via the terrorists’ cell phones and computers, and to learn what terrorist plots are being hatched by those persons? Is it reasonable to do so even when—rather, especially when–some portion of those communications come from people inside the United States? I don’t find it difficult to answer those questions; nor, if called upon to do so, would the Supreme Court.

There are, of course, liberal law professors who would like the law to be different from what it is. They are free to develop theories according to which the Supreme Court, should it someday address this issue directly, would rule as they wish. But the administration is entitled to rely on the law as it currently exists. And there is simply no question about the fact that under the Constitution and all controlling precedents, the NSA intercept program is legal.

What bothers me the most is just how poorly the MSM is covering this issue. Their one sided coverage just emphasizes why their circulation is dropping and why the blogosphere is growing. They just refuse to cover most of the stories with even an effort of fairness. Let me give you an example without even bothering to look.

After tough year, White House cites only successes
Thu Dec 22, 8:00 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – But according to a White House fact sheet, 2005 was a year full of “accomplishments” — six, single-spaced pages worth distributed to reporters as Bush left town for his holiday break.

Note the ” ” around accomplishments. It appears multiple free elections for people who had never had them before is not an accomplishment. Few since Roosevelt have ever accomplished so much.

Here is more crap.

But several of the “accomplishments” touted in the White House fact sheet are anything but accomplished, top among them the Patriot Act, the first item listed under the headline “A week of accomplishments.”

So strengthening our our country against the terrorists threat is not an accomplishment either.

Today’s journalists: as ethical as used car salesman and just as fair. Make sure you wash your hands when you are done reading the paper. You don’t know where that crap came from….

I saw this one coming. After taking him into custody for a day, Lebanon has freed Mohammad Ali Hammadi, the creature who tortured and murdered US Navy diver Robert Stethem on a hijacked airplane: Lebanon questions US demand to hand over hijacker.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon criticized on Wednesday U.S. demands that it hand over a Hizbollah hijacker released by Germany after nearly 19 years in jail for murdering an American.

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Lebanon’s judicial authorities were looking at the legal status of Mohammad Ali Hammadi, who was freed quietly last week and immediately returned to Lebanon despite objections from Washington, which has vowed to bring him from Lebanon to face a U.S. judge.

“Originally they (the U.S. government) could have requested that Germany hand him over. Why are they asking us?” Siniora told reporters. “He served his sentence in Germany and there are measures that will be completed in Lebanon … Why are they asking us now?”
by LGF.

Sfter hearing this, don’t let anybody question Europe’s commitment to fighting terrorism.

And these are the people the Democrats admire…..

Sad news from the HedgeHog.

Elrod Hendricks, who spent more than four decades as a player and coach with the Baltimore Orioles, died Wednesday at a local hospital, a spokeswoman said. He was 64.
….
Hendricks broke into professional baseball in 1959 and made his major-league debut with the Orioles in 1968. He played in 711 games — including 658 with the Orioles — before retiring in 1979.
….
He was made the bullpen coach following the 1977 season and was a player-coach in 1978-79. Hendricks became a fixture in Baltimore by holding the position as bullpen coach for 28 years, the longest coaching tenure in Orioles history.
Unless you are an Orioles fan, you probably have no idea who Elrod Hendricks is. But I have heard the name Elrod Hendricks ever since I was going to Orioles games as a little kid at the old Memorial Stadium. In fact, I heard his name before I even knew who Cal Ripken was. The guy is an institution in Baltimore and after this past season, the Orioles inexplicably removed him from his position as coach, which ticked off myself and many other Orioles’ fans I know. How good a coach was he? The number of Orioles managers since 1979 is probably close to ten, if not more (I didn’t count). In all that time of changing managers, Elrod Hendricks was never replaced as bullpen coach by a single one them.

Hopefully the Orioles will corect the error of removing from his position and honor Hendricks by retiring his #44.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Democrats succeeded on Wednesday in blocking, for now, a Republican plan to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as part of a massive $453 billion wartime military spending bill.

The vast ANWR refuge is the size of South Carolina and may hold 10 billion barrels of oil. It has been the focus of bitter wrangling in the U.S. Congress for more than two decades and drilling supporters said they would not give up the fight.

Most Senate Democrats and some moderate Republicans said the frigid wilderness and its assortment of wildlife, ranging from polar bears to peregrine falcons, should be protected. Other Republicans said ANWR must be unlocked for drilling to stop a steady slide in U.S. crude oil production.

Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska attached the measure to a $453 billion defense spending bill that pays for U.S. troops and Pentagon weapons programs in the coming year. Furious Democrats conducted a procedural move called a filibuster.

Although lawmakers were anxious to wrap up work for the year, Republicans failed to get the 60 votes needed to cut off debate on the bill. The vote was 56-44.

Republicans hold 55 seats in the Senate while Democrats have 44 seats. There is one independent.

“It took a lot of guts for people to stand up for ANWR,” said Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. Drilling opponents were “fighting one of the most powerful senators” and open to criticism from political opponents accusing them of blocking funds for U.S. troops in Iraq, he said.
Here is the link

The White House, which sees ANWR drilling as crucial to the U.S. oil supply, said it was not giving up. “We’ll continue to push to get that provision passed,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. Republican Pete Domenici of New Mexico said he would try again to unlock ANWR in spring legislation. “Gasoline prices will begin climbing again next year,” he said.

U.S. business groups criticized the vote, saying Democrats ignored the need for stable oil prices. “The failure to act means more American jobs will move overseas,” said John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. While ANWR covers nearly 20 million acres, the Republican plan would limit oil exploration to 1.5 million acres, with roads and infrastructure not exceeding 2,000 acres. Oil companies say advanced drilling technology would allow them to find and pump oil without hurting the environment. The oil platforms already operate on Alaska’s North Slope in an environmentally sensitive way. “They look like little outhouses,” he said. “You won’t be able to even see or locate what has transpired (with drilling equipment).”

Stupid, just stupid.

Do you like gas at $3 a gallon? Do you enjoy having countries that hate us be able to control our economy? When was the last time we built a refinery? I really like the environment, but believe we do not have to pick between a strong economy or the environment. It is this simple, if you really think that we can overtax and overregulate our economy and it will continue to grow, you are a fool. (And why don’t you explain Europe’s crappy economy to me while you are at it..) Like our defence and our culture, liberals will destroy our economy.

I do care about the environment, but it is not one or the other. These liberals take a good idea and go to such an extremes that I can no longer support them.

by Curt at Flopping Aces

I’m sure you’ve heard by now about the FISA judge resigning his seat in supposed protest of the wiretaps:

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush’s secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.

Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court’s work.

Robertson, who was appointed to the federal bench in Washington by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and was later selected by then-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to serve on the FISA court, declined to comment when reached at his office late yesterday.

[…]Robertson is considered a liberal judge who has often ruled against the Bush administration’s assertions of broad powers in the terrorism fight, most notably in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld . Robertson held in that case that the Pentagon’s military commissions for prosecuting terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were illegal and stacked against the detainees.

Always good news to hear that a ultra liberal piece of dung is gone from any court, but this is even better. Now his excuse:

[…]Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned that information gained from warrantless NSA surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised the same concern in 2004 and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing that it was not occurring.

“They just don’t know if the product of wiretaps were used for FISA warrants — to kind of cleanse the information,” said one source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the FISA warrants. “What I’ve heard some of the judges say is they feel they’ve participated in a Potemkin court.”

Which makes little sense. The NSA info was used only when time was of the essence. Once more information is gathered from the NSA taps why is it wrong to use that information to get longer term taps?

But the timing of this whole thing is suspect, as AJStrata notices:

I now suspect Judge Robertson resigned for leaking information to the press regarding the NSA process – which he would know all too well if FISA was reviewing the NSA surveillance in a post action, verification role.

Actually the timing of the leak, the Rockefeller letter, and now this resignation is suspect. The leak and story was obviously released to jettison the Patriot Act and to counter any good news from Iraq. The letter was released because his name was used in the original article by the NYT, and now this judge resigning. Is Judge Robertson the leak?

In other news Drudge is reporting:

FLASHBACK: CLINTON, CARTER SEARCH ‘N SURVEILLANCE WITHOUT COURT ORDER

Bill Clinton Signed Executive Order that allowed Attorney General to do searches without court approval

Clinton, February 9, 1995: “The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order”

WASH POST, July 15, 1994, “Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches”: Extend not only to searches of the homes of U.S. citizens but also — in the delicate words of a Justice Department official — to “places where you wouldn’t find or would be unlikely to find information involving a U.S. citizen… would allow the government to use classified electronic surveillance techniques, such as infrared sensors to observe people inside their homes, without a court order.”

Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, the Clinton administration believes the president “has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes.”

Secret searches and wiretaps of Aldrich Ames’s office and home in June and October 1993, both without a federal warrant.

Government officials decided in the Ames case that no warrant was required because the searches were conducted for “foreign intelligence purposes.”

Government lawyers have used this principle to justify other secret searches by U.S. authorities.

“The number of such secret searches conducted each year is classified…”

Jimmy Carter Signed Executive Order on May 23, 1979: “Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order.”

MacRanger gives some more details:

I was a law enforcement officer in the 90s, and I will tell you that it is unequivicolly wrong that this order precluded searches on American Citizens. IN fact, in actual practice it when way beyond it’s original scope as this article produced in 1997 from the CATO Institute details, citing what would appear to be massive and questionable applications of Clinton’s order, to the point of Deriliction of Duty.

[…]Do read the rest of the CATO article as much of what it covers makes the so-called “Scandal” of the present Adminstration pale in comparison. In fact to the contrary, President Bush is showned to have gon of his way to insure both the Country and the privacy of it’s citizens were protected in the difficult process of defending this country against further attack. Nothing in the CATO article remotely comes to that kind of motivation.

I’m sure your amazed that the left isn’t bringing Clinton’s nor Carter’s “illegal” wiretaps up huh? Don’t be, this is just more par for the course. No one was screaming for hearings when these past wiretaps were announced but now suddenly they want the hearings.

from Conservative Alert

Time and again, our President has correctly stated that “Freedom is not America’s gift to the world, it is the almighty God’s gift to every man and woman in this world.” The recent elections in Iraq visibly demonstrated the wonders of liberty.

Unfortunately, there is a threat to freedom within the United States that is surprising to the average observer and gravely disappointing to those closer to the situation. It has come to our attention that many chaplains in the military, specifically the Air Force and Navy, are being prohibited from faithfully practicing the faith of their civilian sponsor in accordance with the doctrinal and practical standards of the same. While US Code Title 10 Section 6031 directly permits chaplains to preach and practice their particular faith, various rulings by military superiors have stripped this law of its effectiveness.

One example in particular is that of an Evangelical Episcopal chaplain with status as a Catholic lay-reader. This chaplain has been cited negatively by his superiors for, among other things, praying in the name of Jesus, seeking to procure kosher foods for a Jewish sailor, and opposition to quota-induced attendance at a homosexual-led service during fleet week.

According to the First Amendment and US Code Title 10 Section 6031, this chaplain has perfect freedom to minister according to the dictates of his faith, but currently his job is on the line for these activities due to reckless disregard of his freedoms. This is OUTRAGEOUS, and must be fixed.

President Bush has the power to fix it — and we need to ask him to do so.

TAKE ACTION: This week, a letter signed by many conservative leaders, representing millions of members nationwide, is being sent to the President, asking him to sign an Executive Order to enforce the law that’s been written since 1860. RightMarch.com is one of the signers of that letter — but to be really effective, President Bush needs to hear from YOU.

Join with millions of Americans committed to the freedoms that have made this country great. At this time of year, Christians, Jews, and Muslims all enjoy the freedom of religion that was seminal at the settling and founding of this beacon of freedom called the United States. Click below NOW to urge President Bush to sign an Executive Order to enforce US Code Title 10 Section 6031, which says “An officer in the Chaplain Corps may conduct public worship according to the manner and forms of the church of which he is a member”:

Click here to make a difference!

NOTE: President Bush’s commitment to freedom, his commitment to the military, and his commitment to faith all are obvious and admired. Let’s all ask him to act on each of these commitments simultaneously by signing this Executive Order. Be sure to forward this Alert to EVERYONE you know who wants to help enforce true religious freedom for our military chaplains. Thank you!

and they are just misunderstood….

Hollywood is showing a new side of terrorism. And it’s a human one.

To the dismay of some critics, several films are offering humanizing portraits of extremists, including suicide bombers:

•Paradise Now tells the story of two men recruited for a suicide bombing mission in Tel Aviv. The film, which opened in October, received a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign picture and has taken in about $1 million domestically.

•Syriana, the George Clooney political drama that opened Nov. 23, paints a sympathetic portrait of a young man recruited into a radical Islamic group planning an attack on a U.S. oil firm. The movie has taken in about $23 million and earned two Golden Globe nominations.

•Sleeper Cell, a 10-hour Showtime miniseries that began Dec. 4, is about an al-Qaeda-like group planning an attack in Los Angeles.

•Munich, which opens Friday, is Steven Spielberg’s examination of the 1972 Olympics massacre and offers the perspective of both Israeli soldiers and members of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Clooney, who produced Syriana, says the trend stems largely from growing American displeasure with the Iraq war.

“I’ve been called a traitor for questioning the war,” he says. “But more people are beginning to look critically at what our government is doing, who we’re fighting. And that’s the most patriotic thing you can do.”

Syriana, for example, “simply doesn’t want to paint things in black and white, because the world isn’t that way,” Clooney says. “The world is complicated, and good movies try to show that.”

But some film observers, including critic Michael Medved, say the films are less concerned with artistic integrity than with demonstrating Hollywood liberalism.

“The entertainment industry very clearly tilts to the left,” he says. “And the left has been skeptical of the current war on terror.”
Here is the link

It is difficult to imagine anyone more stupid. The most immoral of our society are siding with the groups who are least likely to tolerate their twisted morals. Won’t they be suprised with the world they get if they win.

Senators agree to extend Patriot Act provisions

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate neared passage of a six-month extension of the USA Patriot Act Wednesday night, hoping to avoid the expiration of law enforcement powers deemed vital to the war on terror. It is unclear when the House would act on the bill.

The agreement capped several days of back-room negotiation conducted against the backdrop of presidential attacks on critics of the legislation. The Patriot Act provisions will expire Dec. 31 if the House and Senate do not act.
Here is the link>

This is just a chance for the two sides to hammer out an agreement. However, if an agreement is reached, I think it will be because the Democrats are starting to get nervous about their image on security with the American public. I still would not trust a Democrat to defend my dog.