The State Department is quietly forming a small army to protect diplomatic personnel in Iraq after U.S. military forces leave the country at the end of 2011, taking its firepower with them.
Department officials are asking the Pentagon to provide heavy military gear, including Black Hawk helicopters, and say they also will need substantial support from private contractors.
State Department creating mini-army in Iraq
Electronic Armageddon: the EMP Bomb
An electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, bomb is a bomb that’s designed to go above the atmosphere and release huge amounts of energy. In less than a billionth of a second, the electrical intensity on Earth’s surface would become so hot that microchips would fry, power lines would overload and the electric grid would collapse.
Everything with microelectronics in it would stop: your car, your computer, the subway. There would be no electricity.
Israel announces plan to ease Gaza siege, but no such decision made
The Prime Minister's Office announced on Thursday that the security cabinet had agreed to relax Israel's blockade on the Gaza Strip, but as it turns out, no binding decision was ever made during the cabinet meeting.
The Prime Minister's Office issued a press release in English following the meeting, which was also sent to foreign diplomats, was substantially different than the Hebrew announcement – according to the English text, a decision was made to ease the blockade, but in the Hebrew text there was no mention of any such decision.
San Francisco Approves Cell Phone Radiation Disclosure Law
San Francisco is close to becoming the first city in the nation to require retailers to post next to cell phones the amount of radiation emitted by the devices.
The city's Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 Tuesday to give preliminary approval to the proposal. The board is expected to give final approval next week, and Mayor Gavin Newsom, an early proponent, is expected to sign the proposal into law.
Is the BP Gusher Unstoppable?
"All the actions and few tid bits of information all lead to one inescapable conclusion. The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking. Now you have some real data of how BP's actions are evidence of that, as well as some murky statement from "BP officials" confirming the same.
"To those of us outside the real inside loop, yet still fairly knowledgeable, [the failure of Top Kill] was a major confirmation of what many feared. That the system below the sea floor has serious failures of varying magnitude in the complicated chain, and it is breaking down and it will continue to. "What does this mean?
A Gay Veteran Seeks the Freedoms She Defended
I wrote this five years ago during my service, as I felt the need to express my feelings, secretly, about being gay and in the military:
As a citizen of a democratic society, with freedom as its foundation and core, I stand, proud to serve my country and defend all this nation stands for. I am prepared to fight for and protect freedom in our homeland. I am also prepared to fight for others, so that those who do not understand or feel the slightest bit of freedom may share and know the freedoms that we have been blessed with as Americans. Yet in that alone, there is a world of irony: I am not free, we are not free.
'Security consideration' barred top Palestinian journalist from Jerusalem
The latest gimmick of the Israeli occupation under the guise of "security considerations" has emerged. The test subject: Nasser Laham, a Palestinian journalist from Bethlehem who is close with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and who advocates peace with Israel.
Some two weeks ago, Laham sought to join Abbas on his visit to Europe and the United States, where he met with President Barack Obama.
ICC makes waging war a crime
For the first time in the war stricken story of mankind, waging aggressive wars has become a prosecutable crime in international law and given precise meaning and teeth before the ICC - this on the strength of an unexpected consensus reached between member states of the Court (or in ICC terminology 'states parties').
The conference in Kampala concluded with the adoption of a resolution that at last defined the crime of aggression listed in Article 5 of the Rome Statute - the Court's founding treaty - using the UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 (XXIX) as a guide.
CONFIRMED: Destruction of 9-11 Options Trading Documents
Just prior to 9-11, someone (or group of people) bought large amounts of put options on various airline stocks. Put options gain in value when a stock goes down. The airline stocks went down after 9-11.
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