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We now resume our regularly scheduled programming.

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America Supports You: Organization Honors Fallen Heroes’ Children

FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas, – When Marine Sgt. Aaron N. Cepeda Sr. lost his life in combat in Iraq his family also lost a son, husband and father.

In honor of the sacrifice they were not asked to make, but had to make, Cepeda’s children received a Gold Medal of Remembrance at the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.

The Cepedas were among five families to be honored with the medal, which is presented to children of fallen servicemembers from operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

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USAT Notices Low October Iraq Troop Deaths, But Obscures Overall WOT Improvement

[HT:PK]
USA Today carried a slightly inaccurate Page 1A tease ("Iraq is safer for US troops; October is on track to tie July for the month with fewest combat deaths"). It went to a top of Page 7A story that noticed that there have been no hostile US troop deaths in Baghdad during the entire month.

But Levinson missed the opportunity to notice even better longer-term results in Iraq or that coalition troop deaths in Afghanistan are less than half of that seen in previous months. Finally, he didn't catch this remarakable fact, given the gloom that seems to abound over the supposedly intractable situation in Afghanistan -- Combined theater troop deaths in October have been the lowest in over four years.

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International effort in Afghanistan falling short: Gates

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The international effort in Afghanistan is falling short, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Wednesday, stressing the need for a better integrated approach to stabilizing the country

"To be successful, the entirety of the NATO alliance, the European Union, NGOs, and other groups -- the full panoply of military and civilian elements -- must better integrate and coordinate with one another and also with the Afghan government,"

But Gates complained that allied nations were unable to provide "the quantity and types of forces needed for this kind of fighting."

NATO forces are hamstrung by caveats that nations have placed on the use of the military forces that they have provided, he said

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Guantanamo Revelation

According to the six-year narrative of the press and political class, the Bush Administration's counterterrorism policies fall somewhere between the Spanish Inquisition and the Ministry of Love in "1984." So it was something of a shock to read a remarkable front-page story in the New York Times yesterday, the abridged version being: Never mind. [snip]

In their 1,600-word dispatch "Next President Will Face Test on Detainees," reporters William Glaberson and Margot Williams 'discover' that many of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay really are dangerous terrorists. The Times reviewed "thousands of pages" of evidence that the government has so far made public and concludes that perhaps the reality is more complicated than the critics claim.

Lo and behold, detainees are implicated in such terror attacks as the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. Those with "serious terrorism credentials" include al Qaeda operatives Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and the so-called "Dirty 30," Osama bin Laden's cadre of bodyguards. The Times didn't mention Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, though he's awaiting a war-crimes tribunal at Gitmo too.

Both Barack Obama and John McCain have pledged to put Guantanamo out of business, but, as the Times explains, "the review of the government's public files underscores the challenges of fulfilling that promise. The next president will have to contend with sobering intelligence claims against many of the remaining detainees."

Now they tell us.

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6 found guilty of terrorism charges in Australia

Melbourne -- A jury convicted a Muslim cleric and five of his followers of forming a terrorist group in Australia that allegedly considered assassinating the prime minister and attacking major sporting events.

[GWOT]

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My sons were right to kill, says bombers' mum

Tenggulun, Indonesia - The mother of two of the Bali bombers on death row says her sons were right to ''kill infidels'', as they prepare to face firing squads over the attacks which killed 202 people. Seventy-year-old Tariem spoke today in her house in the village of Tenggulun, East Java, after working all day in her fields and visiting the mosque. (Snip) ''I feel that killing infidels isn't a mistake because they don't pray''

[GWOT]

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Medvedev Confronts U.S. on Missile Shield

Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev said he would deploy new missiles in Europe, confronting the U.S. on the day Barack Obama was declared the winner in America's presidential election.

Medvedev said he would place a short-range missile system designed to carry conventional warheads in Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad, wedged between Poland and Lithuania.

``An Iskander rocket system will be deployed in the Kaliningrad region to neutralize the missile-defense system if necessary,'' Medvedev said, referring to U.S. plans to place elements of a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Medvedev also chose the day when the eyes of the world were concentrated on the U.S. to propose extending the president's term in office to six years from four.

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N Korea 'to launch 10 missiles'

North Korea is preparing 10 short-range missiles for a mass test-launch, South Korean news reports say, adding that the South Korean military is on alert. North Korea is thought to have fired at least one missile two days ago.

The Chosun Ilbo newspaper and Yonhap news agency quoted intelligence reports that the new launches were imminent. A South Korean government source said a US satellite had detected preparations of up to 10 short-range missiles...

[missile defense - get it?]

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Iran interfering in U.S.-Iraq pact, general says

Baghdad - The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said Sunday that American intelligence reports suggest Iran has attempted to bribe Iraqi lawmakers in an effort to derail a bilateral agreement that would allow U.S. troops to remain in Iraq after the end of this year. (Snip) Odierno said he had no definitive proof of the bribes, but added, ''there are many intelligence reports'' that suggest Iranians are ''coming in to pay off people to vote against it.''

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World Government to Reign in "Fascist" America?

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Richard Falk, who justly earned his way into David Horowitz’s book The Professors as one of the “101 Most Dangerous Academics in America,” now lectures more august audiences at the United Nations. Appointed as the United Nations Human Rights Council special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories.

Falk has accused the United States of imperialism, Nazi-like tendencies, and possibly manufacturing the official story-line for what happened on 9/11. He has referred to the nation in recent years as slipping toward “fascism.” Falk views the democratically elected governments of the United States as no better than the world’s most notorious dictatorships.

He has a plan to make sure Nazism never breaks out again: allowing foreigners to veto the American voter. He has recommended consideration of

“allowing persons outside the United States to challenge policy affecting their wellbeing by way of binding referenda or even by casting votes in national elections held within the United States.”

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Enter UDN Site

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Sunspot-hurricane link proposed

[HT:GR]
A new study suggests that more sunspots mean less intense hurricanes on Earth. James Elsner, a climatologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, has analyzed hurricane data going back more than a century. He says he has identified a 10- to 12-year cycle in hurricane records that corresponds to the solar cycle, in which the Sun's magnetic activity rises and falls.
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REGULATING GLOBAL WARMING: EXPANDING THE AUTHORITY OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

In May 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that greenhouse gases met the definition of an air pollutant in the Clean Air Act. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) responded in 2008 by issuing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) that explains how the Clean Air Act applies to regulating emissions of greenhouse gases thought to contribute to global warming.

Unfortunately, such regulations would significantly increase energy prices, but would not affect the global level of greenhouse gases, says Amanda Berg, legislative assistant for the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Human activities are only responsible for about one-quarter of one percent of the total greenhouse effect, which is the moderation of the Earth's temperature due to the absorption of the sun's radiation by atmospheric gases.

Human activities contribute 0.28 percent to the greenhouse effect.

Natural greenhouse gas emissions -- including ocean biologic activity and decaying plants -- contribute 4.72 percent.

Water vapor accounts for 95 percent of the greenhouse effect.

Attempting to reduce such a small fraction of the factors that contribute to the overall greenhouse effect will be extremely costly and ineffective.

Furthermore, the proposed EPA rule would result in an unprecedented expansion of the EPA's power, giving them the authority to regulate nearly every sector of the economy and personal decisions about housing and transportation.

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Md. earns $16.4 million in carbon emission allowances

Maryland earned nearly $16.4 million last week in the nation's first mandatory auction of rights for power plants to release climate-changing pollution, state officials reported today.

Most of the proceeds will go toward promoting energy efficiency among the state's electricity consumers and for providing some relief from soaring power bills.

[nice: raise the cost by 16.4M$, then use some of it to 'provide relief' to the costs you just increased. And the difference? It's called profit.]

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Should Madison ban the drive-through?

First it was a proposed ban on plastic bags. Now, a member of the influential Madison Plan Commission wants to ban the restaurant drive-through -- or at least restrict the ubiquitous symbol of America's auto-centric lifestyle. "Given the concern about all the carbon going into the atmosphere, I'm not sure we should be building more places for people to sit idling in their cars," says Eric Sundquist, .....
[every aspect]
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Universal preschool hasn't delivered results

Early education advocates want you to believe that the case for universal preschool is so airtight that raising any questions about it is an act of heresy. But there is a strong and growing body of literature showing that preschool produces virtually no lasting benefits. Proponents of universal preschool claim that when kids attend quality preschools, but this is a fairy tale not based on research.
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A Long Term Strategy for a Free Market Bailout

Let's be frank. This bailout legislation is the first step in an effort to socialize debt -- while it attempts to keep profits private.[i]

The potential for further (and far more extensive) corruption in the credit markets under the legislation is almost too vast to conceive. The possibility for graft is both short and long term.[ii][hence the support for it within government]

This quasi-socialist economics cannot and will not work. When a government nationalizes its country's debt, it makes rational assessments of risks in the private market all but impossible. Is it risky to invest in "The Fiduciary Bank of Loans to Unqualified Borrowers?" [snip]

The time has come for a free market strategy to insure long-term capital growth in America:

1. Privatize Fannie and Freddie ... [snip]
2. Repeal the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) ... [snip]
3. Repeal the capital gains tax ... [snip]
4. Reduce the corporate tax rate ... [snip]
5. Fix the mark-to-market ("fair value") rule ... [snip]
6. Repeal the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act ... [snip]
7. Repeal Sarbanes/Oxely ... [snip]
8. Drill. Drill. Drill. ... [snip]
9. Privatize Social Security ... [snip]

With the exception of the "study" of the mark-to-market rule, none of these free market proposals are on the table. We are told that we face an economic disaster of titanic proportions and then, in the next breath, we are told that only a massive influx of taxpayer dollars can save us.

People with sound economic sense know that this is not true.

It is time we started looking to the market place for solutions to our economic crisis. If we continue to look to the federal government to fix the problem, we will eventually corrupt and destroy America's free market system ... and lose ever more economic freedom.

[details of each point within, Highly Recommended > ]

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Court to decide if illegal immigrants'use of social security numbers is ID theft

WASHINGTON— The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether people picked up on immigration violations also can face charges of identity theft if they use Social Security and other identification numbers that belong to others. Federal appeals courts have split over whether the defendant must know that the phony ID numbers belong to a real person and the court said it will resolve the question.

[we need the supremes for this?]

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Whose Afraid to Say ''Honor Killing''?

The FBI removed all mention of the controversial term “honor killing” from the wanted poster of a double-murder suspect after FoxNews.com ran a story announcing the use of the term.

Yasser Abdel Said, wanted for the murder of his two daughters, has eluded authorities for almost a year. The bodies of the young women — Sarah Said, 17, and Amina Said, 18 — were discovered in the back of a taxicab in Irving, Texas, on New Year's Day.

[how will we defeat the {minority} enemy among us if we persist in refusing to recognize it?]

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NEW EVIDENCE ON TAXES AND INCOME

People in this country have long moved up the income ladder over time, and this income mobility continues to be true. While some people do remain in the lowest income group, they are the exception. Laffer and Moore compared the returns of tax filers in the lowest tax rate bracket (zero) in 1987 with their returns in 1996:

• Only one third of the tax filers were still in the zero tax bracket.
• But 25 percent were now in the 10 percent bracket, 32 percent had moved up to the 15 percent bracket and 9 percent were in the 25 percent, 28 percent, 33 percent or 35 percent brackets; and that was following them for a decade, not a generation.

What is also striking about the data is that the poor today are, in general, not the same people who were poor even a few years ago, say Laffer and Moore.

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KILLER EXCUSE TO SKIP JURY DUTY

Being dead is an acceptable excuse for getting off jury duty - unless you come back to life.

A woman being interviewed in Bronx Supreme Court as a potential juror in the cop-slay trial of Steven Armento - the alleged accomplice of "Sopranos" star Lillo Brancato - tried to get out of serving by saying she'd once been a murder victim.

When asked if there was any reason she couldn't serve, she said that her husband stabbed her so severely last year that she died and came back to life.

"I expired, but the doctors revived me in the operating room," said the woman, who also took the opportunity to complain that her husband wasn't charged with murder.

Prosecutor Terry Gottlieb told her, "To bring an indictment for murder, you have to - fortunately for you - stay dead."

Although her near-death experience was not enough to get her off jury duty, Justice Martin Marcus let her go for another reason - she said she was so traumatized by her husband's attack that she had memory problems

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