Happy New Year Digital Graffiti!

Wishing you a very Happy New Year with abundance and good fortune!

Saddam Hussein's Final Statement

December 29, 2006

In the past, I was, as you all know, in the battlefield of jihad and struggle.

God, exalted by He, wished that I face the same again in the same manner and the same spirit in which we were before the revolution but with a problem that is greater and harsher.

Oh beloved, this harsh situation, which we and our great Iraq are facing, is a new lesson and a new trial for the people by which to be judged, each depending on their intention, so that it becomes an identifier before God and the people in the present and after our current situation becomes a glorious history.

It is, above all, the foundation upon which the success of the future phases of history can be built.

In this situation and in no other, the veritable are the honest and faithful and the opposing are the false.

When the insignificant people use the power given to them by the foreigners to oppress their own people, they are but worthless and lowly. In our country only good must result from what we are experiencing.

To the great nation, to the people of our country, and humanity: Many of you have known the writer of this letter to be faithful, honest, caring for others, wise, of sound judgment, just, decisive, careful with the wealth of the people and the state… and that his heart is big enough to embrace all without discrimination.

His heart aches for the poor and he does not rest until he helps in improving their condition and attends to their needs.

His heart contains all his people and his nation, and he craves to be honest and faithful without differentiating between his people except on the basis of their efforts, efficiency, and patriotism.

'Sacrifice'

Here I am speaking today in your name and for your eyes and the eyes of our nation and the eyes of the just, the people of the truth, wherever their banner is hoisted.

You have known your brother and leader very well and he never bowed to the despots and, in accordance with the wishes of those who loved him, remained a sword and a banner.

This is how you want your brother, son or leader to be… and those who will lead you (in the future) should have the same qualifications.

Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if He wants, He will send it to heaven with the martyrs, or, He will postpone that… so let us be patient and depend on Him against the unjust nations.

In spite of all the difficulties and the storms which we and Iraq had to face, before and after the revolution, God the Almighty did not want death for Saddam Hussein.

But if He wants it this time, it (Saddam’s life) is His creation. He created it and He protected it until now.

Thus, by its martyrdom, He will be bringing glory to a faithful soul, for there were souls that were younger than Saddam Hussein that had departed and had taken this path before him. If He wants it martyred, we thank Him and offer Him gratitude, before and after.

'The enemies'

The enemies of your country, the invaders and the Persians, found that your unity stands as a barrier between them and your enslavement.

They planted and grounded their hateful old and new wedge between you.

The strangers who are carrying the Iraqi citizenship, whose hearts are empty or filled with the hatred that was planted in them by Iran, responded to it, but how wrong they were to think that they could divide the noble among our people, weaken your determination, and fill the hearts of the sons of the nation with hatred against each other, instead of against their true enemies that will lead them in one direction to fight under the banner of God is great: The great flag of the people and the nation.

Remember that God has enabled you to become an example of love, forgiveness and brotherly co-existence…

I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave a space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking and keeps away one from balanced thinking and making the right choice …

I also call on you not to hate the peoples of the other countries that attacked us and differentiate between the decision-makers and peoples…

'Forgiveness'

Anyone who repents - whether in Iraq or abroad - you must forgive him…

You should know that among the aggressors, there are people who support your struggle against the invaders, and some of them volunteered for the legal defence of prisoners, including Saddam Hussein…

Some of these people wept profusely when they said goodbye to me…

Dear faithful people, I say goodbye to you, but I will be with the merciful God who helps those who take refuge in him and who will never disappoint any faithful, honest believer… God is Great… God is great… Long live our nation… Long live our great struggling people…

Long live Iraq, long live Iraq… Long live Palestine… Long live jihad and the mujahideen.

[signed]
Saddam Hussein
President and Commander in Chief of the Iraqi Mujahid Armed Forces

[Additional note:]

I have written this letter because the lawyers told me that the so-called criminal court - established and named by the invaders - will allow the so-called defendants the chance for a last word.

But that court and its chief judge did not give us the chance to say a word, and issued its verdict without explanation and read out the sentence - dictated by the invaders - without presenting the evidence.

I wanted the people to know this.

Read My Lips: No Nation Building

George W. Bush, Oct. 3, 2000:

"If we don't have a clear vision of the military, if we don't stop extending our troops all around the world and nation building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road, and I'm going to prevent that."

"The vice president (Al Gore) and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place."

George W. Bush, Oct. 11, 2000:

"I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building."

"I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not."

"I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say this is the way it's got to be. I want to help people help themselves, not have government tell people what to do. I just don't think it's the role of the United States to walk into a country and say, we do it this way, so should you."

Bush's Time Table Flip Flop

In 1999, George W. Bush criticized President Clinton for not setting a timetable for exiting Kosovo:

George W. Bush, 4/9/99:

"Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is."

George W. Bush, 6/5/99:

"I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn."

Yet, more recently...

George W. Bush, 6/24/05:

"It doesn’t make any sense to have a timetable. You know, if you give a timetable, you’re — you’re conceding too much to the enemy."

James Brown 1933-2006

Reuters
December 25, 2006

Singer James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul," who billed himself as the hardest working man in show business, died on Monday at age 73, his manager said. James Brown died at 1:45 a.m. (0645 GMT) at Emory Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta after being admitted there on Saturday for treatment of severe pneumonia, his manager, Frank Copsidas, said. Charles Bobbit, Brown's longtime friend and personal manager, was at his side, he said.

James Brown was born on May 3, 1933 in Macon, Georgia and was raised in Augusta. The singer, also known as "Mr. Dynamite," is credited with bringing the word "funk" into mainstream musical vernacular and influencing a new generation of black music. Rap and hip hop artists revered him for the grooves he was able to produce as a band leader and used his beats extensively as the backdrop to their own songs. He had more than 119 charting singles and recorded over 50 albums, was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and received a lifetime achievement award from the Grammys in 1992. He even played the role of a manic preacher in the hit 1980 movie "The Blues Brothers."

His first Top 40 hit was "Think" which entered the charts on May 30, 1960 and was released on the now legendary Federal label. It was to be his last single to chart on the Federal label though, as he was moved over to Federal's sister label King, where he continued to chart until 1971 before moving to Polydor Records.

Every record he made during 1960-77 reached the top 100. Big hits included "Please, Please, Please," "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," "I Got You (I Feel Good)" "Get Up (I feel like being a Sex Machine)" and "It's a Man's World." His 1985 monster hit "Living in America," which was featured in the movie "Rocky IV," brought him a whole new generation of fans and his first Grammy.

He combined his soul-rending music with a theatrical delivery. He also developed a trademark routine in which he would keep coming back on stage after a show and sing a few lines of "Please, Please, Please" with the sweat pouring from his bare-chested body. This routine was copied in tribute by Micky Dolenz of the Monkees during the group's 1967 tours. His stage crew would throw a cape over his back and he would leave, only to reappear seconds later on his knees, moaning the song into the microphone. The routine would sometimes go on for 30-40 minutes and send his fans delirious.

"Ninety percent of the stuff you see on television is all sex, and they kill 30 people in a 30 minute show, almost before you see the title of the show. They worried about me? I was trying to make people happy."

Dick Cheney To Testify In CIA Leak Trial

Reuters
December 19, 2006

Vice President Dick Cheney will be called to testify as a defense witness at the trial of his former top aide who is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case, a defense lawyer said on Tuesday. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, is accused of lying to investigators as they sought to find out who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2003 after her diplomat husband accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence to build its case for invading Iraq.

"We're calling the vice president," defense lawyer Theodore Wells said at a hearing ahead of the trial, which is scheduled to start on January 16. Wells disclosed the defense plan after special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald told U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton that the prosecution did not intend to call Cheney.

"We've cooperated fully in this matter and we'll continue to do so," said Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for the vice president, declining further comment on the proceedings. Cheney would be the most eagerly anticipated witness of the trial, which is expected to last up to six weeks with testimony likely from a number of other current or former top administration officials. Both Cheney and President George W. Bush were interviewed by prosecutors as part of the investigation by Fitzgerald into who in the Bush administration leaked Plame's identity to the news media. In May, Fitzgerald said in court papers that Cheney could be called to testify because his hand-written notes appeared on a July 6, 2003, article written by Plame's husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson, that accused the administration of twisting intelligence before the war in Iraq.

Fitzgerald gave no explanation at the hearing of why he had decided not to call Cheney as a prosecution witness. According to the indictment, Libby learned from Cheney himself on June 12, 2003, that Wilson's wife worked in the counterproliferation division of the CIA. Libby has pleaded not guilty to the five counts that accuse him of obstructing justice, perjury and lying. His main defense is that he was so busy in Cheney's office working on important national security issues that he simply did not remember all details of his conversations with reporters about Plame.

Woman Beaten By Israelis On Jerusalem Bus

Haaretz.com
December 18th, 2006

A woman who reported a vicious attack by an ad-hoc "modesty patrol" on a Jerusalem bus last month is now lining up support for her case and may be included in a petition to the High Court of Justice over the legality of sex-segregated buses.

Miriam Shear says she was traveling to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City early on November 24 when a group of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the Egged No. 2 bus. She is now in touch with several legal advocacy and women's organizations, and at the same time, waiting for the police to apprehend her attackers.

In her first interview since the incident, Shear says that on the bus three weeks ago, she was slapped, kicked, punched and pushed by a group of men who demanded that she sit in the back of the bus with the other women. The bus driver, in response to a media inquiry, denied that violence was used against her, but Shear's account has been substantiated by an unrelated eyewitness on the bus who confirmed that she sustained an unprovoked "severe beating."

Shear, an American-Israeli woman who currently lives in Canada, says that on a recent five-week vacation to Israel, she rode the bus daily to the Old City to pray at sunrise. Though not defined by Egged as a sex-segregated "mehadrin" bus, women usually sit in the back, while men sit in the front, as a matter of custom.

"Every two or three days, someone would tell me to sit in the back, sometimes politely and sometimes not," she recalled this week in a telephone interview. "I was always polite and said 'No. This is not a synagogue. I am not going to sit in the back.'"

But Shear, a 50-year-old religious woman, says that on the morning of the 24th, a man got onto the bus and demanded her seat - even though there were a number of other seats available in the front of the bus.

"I said, I'm not moving and he said, 'I'm not asking you, I'm telling you.' Then he spat in my face and at that point, I was in high adrenaline mode and called him a son-of-a-bitch, which I am not proud of. Then I spat back. At that point, he pushed me down and people on the bus were screaming that I was crazy. Four men surrounded me and slapped my face, punched me in the chest, pulled at my clothes, beat me, kicked me. My snood [hair covering] came off. I was fighting back and kicked one of the men in his privates. I will never forget the look on his face."

Shear says that when she bent down in the aisle to retrieve her hair covering, "one of the men kicked me in the face. Thank God he missed my eye. I got up and punched him. I said, 'I want my hair covering back' but he wouldn't give it to me, so I took his black hat and threw it in the aisle."

'Stupid American'

Throughout the encounter, Shear says the bus driver "did nothing." The other passengers, she says, blamed her for not moving to the back of the bus and called her a "stupid American with no sechel [common sense.] People blamed me for not knowing my place and not going to the back of the bus where I belong."

According to Yehoshua Meyer, the eyewitness to the incident, Shear's account is entirely accurate. "I saw everything," he said. "Someone got on the bus and demanded that she go to the back, but she didn't agree. She was badly beaten and her whole body sustained hits and kicks. She tried to fight back and no one would help her. I tried to help, but someone was stopping me from getting up. My phone's battery was dead, so I couldn't call the police. I yelled for the bus driver to stop. He stopped once, but he didn't do anything. When we finally got to the Kotel [Western Wall], she was beaten badly and I helped her go to the police."

Shear says that when she first started riding the No. 2 line, she did not even know that it was sometimes sex-segregated. She also says that sitting in the front is simply more comfortable. "I'm a 50-year-old woman and I don't like to sit in the back. I'm dressed appropriately and I was on a public bus."

"It is very dangerous for a group of people to take control over a public entity and enforce their will without going through due process," she said. "Even if they [Haredim who want a segregated bus] are a majority - and I don't think they are - they have options available. They can petition Egged or hire their own private line. But as long as it's a public bus, I don't care if there are 500 people telling me where to sit. I can sit wherever I want and so can anyone else."

Meyer says that throughout the incident, the other passengers blamed Shear for not sitting in the back. "They'll probably claim that she attacked them first, but that's totally untrue. She was abused terribly, and I've never seen anything like it."

Word of Shear's story traveled quickly after she forwarded an e-mail detailing her experience. She has been contacted by a number of groups, including Shatil, the New Israel Fund's Empowerment and Training Center for Social Change; Kolech, a religious women's forum; the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the legal advocacy arm of the local Reform movement; and the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA).

In the coming month, IRAC will be submitting a petition to the High Court of Justice against the Transportation Ministry over the issue of segregated Egged buses. IRAC attorney Orly Erez-Likhovski is in touch with Shear and is considering including her in the petition.

Although the No. 2 Jerusalem bus where the incident occurred is not actually defined as a mehadrin line, Erez-Likhovski says that Shear's story is further proof that the issue requires legal clarification. About 30 Egged buses are designated as mehadrin, mostly on inter-city lines, but they are not marked to indicate this. "There's no way to identify a mehadrin bus, which in itself is a problem," she said.

"Theoretically, a person can sit wherever they want, even on a mehadrin line, but we're seeing that people are enforcing [the gender segregation] even on non-mehadrin lines and that's the part of the danger," she said.

On a mehadrin bus, women enter and exit through the rear door, and the seats from the rear door back are generally considered the "women's section." A child is usually sent forward to pay the driver.

A spokesperson for the Jerusalem police said the case is still under investigation.

Bigfoot Sasquatch Yeti Photographed

Rumors of a human-chimpanzee hybrid have abounded for centuries. Chimps and humans are so genetically similar as to be nearly indistinguishable, appearances aside. Science estimates that about 95-99% of our genetic code is identical to that of a chimpanzee. The similarity is roughly equivalent to the difference between donkeys and horses.

The most widely discussed "humanzee" sighting was a critter named "Oliver." Oliver was a sideshow star, but he wasn't like the other chimps in the traveling circus circuit. He was said to have come from somewhere in the Congo, although that claim is somewhat shrouded in mystery at this late date. Oliver didn't like hanging out with his own alleged species and preferred the company of humans. He walked upright, he sat in chairs. He helped around the house with chores, and eventually he began hitting on the circus owner's wife, which led to his sale in 1976 to a New York lawyer named Michael Miller.

According to Miller, blood tests revealed Oliver had 47 chromosomes — one more than a human and one less than a chimp. The odd number of chromosomes would also strongly suggest hybridization of some sort. (The claim was later disproved.)

Fortunately, perhaps due to a surplus of cute little bunnies, Oliver was never required to test the effects of eating eyeliner or having suntan lotion intravenously injected. Oliver probably didn't see the bright side of this, as he was confined for seven years in a 5-by-7 cage until his muscles atrophied for lack of ability to move.

Oliver was retired from the lab in 1996 and sent to a chimp retirement home. He was finally called in for credible scientific testing, which insisted that he was really just a "normal chimp" with 48 chromosomes, an explanation which satisfied absolutely no one except a bunch of killjoy skeptics. Other scientists have continued to push for more research.

In a related story, a sasquatch was hit by a car...

TURNER, Maine -- In this photo provided by Michelle O'Donnell, a creature that was found dead after apparently being hit by a car in Turner, Maine, is shown. For the past 15 years, residents across Androscoggin County have reported seeing and hearing a mysterious animal with chilling monstrous cries and eyes that glow in the night. Now, residents are wondering if the animal found dead over the weekend may be the mysterious creature that has mauled dogs, frightened residents and been the subject of local legend for half a generation. (08/21/06 AP Photo/Courtesy of Michelle O'Donnell via The Sun Journal)

Ahmet Ertegun 1923-2006

Reuters
December 14, 2006

Ahmet Ertegun, whose passion for America's black music inspired him to launch Atlantic Records and the careers of acts ranging from Ray Charles to Aretha Franklin, died in New York on Thursday, the record label said. He was born in Istanbul, Turkey, on July 31, 1923. His father, a lawyer, served as Turkish ambassador in Switzerland, France, England and the United States.

With his older brother Nesuhi, he explored black neighborhoods in Washington and they amassed more than 20,000 78 rpm records. Realizing that he knew more about music than most label owners, he co-founded Atlantic in 1947 with blues expert Herb Abramson and a $10,000 loan from a Turkish dentist. Its first smash was a 1948 rerecording by bluesman Stick McGhee of the novelty ditty "Drinking Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee." Nesuhi came aboard in 1956, and established the jazz division, producing the likes of John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, and the Modern Jazz Quartet.

Ertegun and his second wife, Romanian-born interior designer Mica had no children. The avid collectors had homes in Manhattan, the Hamptons, Paris and Turkey. He will be buried during a private ceremony in Turkey, and a memorial service will be held in New York next year. Atlantic said the tireless socialite and deal-maker had been in a coma at Weill Cornell Medical Center since October, when he slipped backstage at a New York concert by the Rolling Stones, who recorded for the label during the 1970s.

One key to Atlantic's early success was its artist-friendly nature. When Ray Charles, who signed to Atlantic in 1953, was on the road and felt inspired to record, Ertegun and producer Jerry Wexler would fly out to him. Thus were born such gems as "I've Got A Woman" and "What'd I Say." Atlantic solidified its status as the dominant label of its time when it partnered in the 1960s with Memphis-based Stax Records to bring southern soul musicians such as Redding, Sam & Dave, Isaac Hayes and Booker T. & the MGs to worldwide fame.Atlantic's roster included huge stars: Professor Longhair, the Drifters, Led Zeppelin, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Cream, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Dusty Springfield, Genesis, AC/DC, the Bee Gees, Bette Midler, the Allman Brothers Band, the Three Tenors and Hootie and the Blowfish.

One night he would hobnob with high-powered friends like Henry Kissinger and David Geffen and speak in his aristocratic accent. The next, he would relate unprintable anecdotes to impressionable young rock stars he was trying to sign to the label, outdrinking them in the process. He was one of the first recording executives to sell music by black artists to white youngsters looking for something exciting in the conformist Eisenhower era of the 1950s, and in so doing, he helped pioneer rock 'n' roll.

"From gospel, blues and jazz emerged R&B and rock & roll, the most popular music of all time," Ertegun wrote in 1997. "No music of any other country travels worldwide. Thanks to Black America for our great art form."

Rabbi Demands Christmas Trees Removed

KING5.com
December 10, 2006

All of the Christmas trees inside the terminal at Seattle-Tacoma Airport have been removed in response to a complaint by a Jewish Rabbi.

The trees became an issue after Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky, affiliated with the Central Organization for Jewish Education Lubavitch, asked the airport to display an 8-foot tall menorah in the arrival hall beside the holiday tree and to allow a ceremony for the lighting of the menorah. Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky (with the Central Organization for Jewish Learning) hired an attorney and threatened to sue if the airport did not erect an eight-foot menorah wasn't put up, and gave a two-day deadline to remove the trees.

For more than 25 years, the airport has celebrated the holidays with Christmas trees over its entrances. But overnight, the Port of Seattle ordered all 15 trees removed. The Port of Seattle says it had little choice, given the threat of legal action. According to airport spokeswoman the two sides could not reach an agreement before the lawsuit was to be filed, so the trees were removed instead.

"You know, our focus is on customer service, getting our passengers through the airport, and we thought if we could take the trees down and avoid litigation because we don't want to litigate with this individual," Sea-Tac public affairs manager Terri-Ann Betancourt said.

Four-Year-Old Improperly Touches Teacher

KXXV-TV News
December 9, 2006

A four-year-old hugged his teachers aide and was put into in-school suspension, according to the father. But La Vega school administrators have a different story. Damarcus Blackwell's four-year-old son was lining-up to get on the bus after school last month, when he was accused of rubbing his face in the chest of a female employee.

The prinicipal of La Vega Primary School sent a letter to the Blackwells that said the pre-kindergartener demonstrated "inappropriate physical behavior interpreted as sexual contact and/or sexual harassment."

Blackwell says it's ridiculous that the aide would misread a hug from a four-year-old. Blackwell wrote to administrators demanding that the whole incident be expunged from his son's academic file because his son is too young to know what it means to act sexually.

David Davis, the executive director of the Advocacy Center in Waco tends to agree with Blackwell. He says assuming the boy has not had sexual encounters, or been inappropriately exposed to pornography, most four-year-olds are sexually innocent.

Blackwell got a response from the La Vega administration. The sexual references on the discipline referral were removed. But the thing that makes Blackwell most upset is they told him "your request for an apology by the aide and removal of all paperwork regarding this incident is denied." Now the young student's file will refer to the incident as "inappropriate physical contact" and Blackwell says he will continue to fight the district.

Congress To Work 5 Days a Week

Washington Post
December 6, 2006

Forget the minimum wage. Or outsourcing jobs overseas. The labor issue most on the minds of members of Congress yesterday was their own: They will have to work five days a week starting in January. The horror!

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat who will become House majority leader and is writing the schedule for the next Congress, said members should expect longer hours than the brief week they have grown accustomed to. Next year, members of the House will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 6:30 p.m. Monday and will finish their business about 2 p.m. Friday, Hoyer said.

"I have bad news for you," Hoyer told reporters. "Those trips you had planned in January, forget 'em. We will be working almost every day in January, starting with the 4th." The reporters groaned. "I know, it's awful, isn't it?" Hoyer empathized.

"It's long overdue," said Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), who lives in Napa Valley and will have to leave his home at 3 a.m. on Sundays to catch a flight to Washington in time for work Mondays. "I didn't come here to turn around and go back home."

"Keeping us up here eats away at families," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays. "Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families -- that's what this says."

Iraq Study Group Report

Guardian Unlimited
December 6, 2006

Skip all the commentary & spin; read the actual Iraq Study Group Report.

GOP Official Arrested For Child Rape

Seattle Times
December 1, 2006

Fifty four year old Larry Corrigan, who was the Director of Operations and Budget of the King County Prosecutor's Office for 25 years and a close friend and the driver of Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng, allegedly used internet chat rooms to solicit sex from an officer posing as a 13-year-old girl.

Larry Corrigan was arrested Wednesday and booked into King County Jail for investigation of attempted child rape and communicating with a minor for immoral purposes. Seattle police said Corrigan used two America Online screen names to chat with an undercover officer in the Internet Crimes Against Children Unit who was posing as a 13-year-old girl. Police said Corrigan asked the girl to meet him and perform a particular sex act and bragged that he'd had sex with another teen.

Police also allege that Corrigan sent the fictitious girl pornography and arranged to meet her at a video store on Capitol Hill Wednesday, where police arrested him. Court documents say Corrigan bragged he'd already "had sex with a 14-year-old girl from Kansas."

Corrigan was active in the election campaigns of numerous local Republican officials including Norm Maleng, U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, former City Attorney Mark Sidran and judges Mary Yu, Bobbe Bridge and Faith Ireland. Larry Corrigan also was the Deputy Treasurer in Dave Reichert's 1997 and 2001 runs for King County sheriff. He was also a supporter without an official role in Reichert's congressional campaigns. Neither Corrigan nor Norm Maleng could not be reached for comment.

Larry Corrigan was released on his own recognizance; it helps to be friends with Dave Reichert.

Child Molestor Blames Bingo For Crimes

Associated Press
December 4, 2006

A man who pleaded guilty to molesting two girls told a judge he did it because of his wife's excessive bingo playing. "My wife was never home," Floyd Kinney Jr. said during his plea hearing Friday. Kinney's explanation did not sit well with Northampton County Judge F.P. Kimberly McFadden.

"Some people, when their wives are not home, decide to do other things, like clean their living rooms," McFadden said. "Your behavior is beyond the pale." Kinney, 49, said his wife would sometimes argue with him over money and that he was angry she was spending too much on bingo.

"She would be going to bingo three, four times a week. I told her to stop going to bingo, and she said, 'If they had bingo every day, I'd go every day,'" he said.

Records say Kinney molested one of the girls, now 26, from 1992-97. He sexually assaulted the second girl, now 17, for a year beginning in January 2005, records show. Kinney pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated indecent assault. The felony charges carry a combined maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.

Defense attorney Richard Yetter said his client was not articulate and may not have been doing a good job of conveying his rationale to the judge. But McFadden said she found Kinney capable of explaining himself. "I think he is telling me exactly what was going on," the judge said. "His wife was not home so he was going to perpetrate on someone and he picked these two children."

AIPAC Case Update

Washington Times
November 30, 2006

The judge has set a high bar for conviction in the AIPAC secrets case, telling prosecutors that they must show the two lobbyists charged under espionage laws knew that the U.S. would be hurt by disclosure of the material that they are accused of passing to reporters and Israeli officials.

The defendants, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, two lobbyists for the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, are charged with conspiring with a Department of Defense intelligence analyst to leak U.S. secrets in an apparent effort to influence U.S. policy toward Iran.

In a transcript of a recent pretrial hearing, made available Tuesday, the judge in the case makes it clear that prosecutors must prove intention, or what lawyers call "mens rea" -- Latin for "a guilty mind" -- for every element of the conspiracy.

"The Court imposed the requirement that the government prove that the defendant knew the information ... would harm the United States," Judge Thomas Ellis told the Nov. 16 hearing.

That matters, explains government transparency advocate Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, because it "distinguishes the activities with which they are charged from the routine activities of reporters and advocates who may made trade in classified information," but don't do so with the intention of harming U.S. security.

In a statement announcing the indictment, prosecutors charged that since at least April 1999, Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman had "use• their contacts within the U.S. government ... to gather sensitive U.S. government information, including classified information ... for subsequent unlawful communication, delivery, and transmission to persons not entitled to receive it."

The case has raised the hackles of civil liberties advocates who charge that overzealous prosecutors are abusing an overbroad statute designed to punish spies to criminalize the everyday behavior of reporters, lobbyists and researchers, all of whom occasionally trade in secrets -- the stock in trade of Washington's backroom policy process.

Jonathan Turley, professor of law at George Washington University, said the prosecution had "radically expanded the practical scope of national security law." He said it had always been understood that government employees who leaked were in criminal jeopardy, but not the reporters -- or in this case, lobbyists -- to whom they were leaking. He said the case was an effort to "criminalize the act of simply receiving classified information." [Read More]

Good Ole Fashioned American Terrorism

Jackson Sun

Demetrius "Van" Crocker of McKenzie, convicted in April of attempting to obtain a chemical weapon and possession of stolen explosives, was sentenced to 30 years in prison Tuesday by U.S. District Judge James Todd in Jackson. Crocker, who told undercover FBI agents of his desire to explode a briefcase bomb while Congress was in session, was found guilty by a jury in about 90 minutes in April.

The 40-year-old farmhand and father of two was convicted of accepting what he thought were ingredients to make Sarin nerve gas and a block of C-4 explosive from undercover agents in October 2004. The maximum penalty Crocker could have faced for the convictions would have been a life sentence. Todd did order lifetime supervised release for Crocker once he gets out of prison.

In all, Crocker was convicted on five charges: one count of attempted possession of a chemical weapon, one count of inducing another person to acquire a chemical weapon, one count of possession of stolen explosives, one count of possession of explosive material with intent to harm an individual or damage or destroy a building, and one count of possession of an unregistered destructive device.

During the trial, prosecutors introduced video- and audio-taped conversations that Crocker had with undercover agents, laced with profanity, racial slurs and Crocker's open hatred of all things to do with the government.

If you want to learn more, the Memphis Flyer and the Bluelight have excellent coverage of the case.

Online Database of Informants & Agents

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FBI Taps Cell Phone In Eavesdropping

CNET News.com
December 1, 2006

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations. The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone. Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.

The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without having physical access to the phone." Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone--all without the owner knowing it happened.

The FBI declined to comment. [Read More]