Bill is pissed!

Rev. Jeremiah Wright: No apologies for “God Damn America”

Don’t worry, I’m sure this has been taken out of context…

Moon Meets Mercury

(click for high res)

Straight from Astronomy Picture of the Day: “Explanation: On Tuesday, May 6, while standing on planet Earth and sweeping your binoculars along the western horizon just after sunset, you might have encountered this arresting skyscape. The view features a slender crescent Moon and bright planet Mercury separated on the sky by only about 2 degrees. Cradled in the sunlit lunar crescent, the night side of the Moon is faintly illuminated by earthshine — sunlight reflected from planet Earth. Of course, the clouds in silhouette and fading twilight colors are common elements in pictures of the sky after sunset, but much less often seen is inner planet Mercury, usually hiding close to the Sun in Earth’s sky. Still, the coming week will be a good time to spot Mercury near the western horizon about 30 minutes after sunset. As for the Moon, tonight and tomorrow night the crescent Moon will wander close to Mars in the early evening sky.”

Father’s last act protected 4-year-old from crash

Straight from the Chicago Sun Times: “With an out-of-control car bearing down, Joseph Richardson grabbed his 4-year-old daughter and held her up out of harm’s way.

It was his last act — and one that apparently saved his daughter’s life.

Richardson, a 39-year-old father of three, was killed Monday evening by the car, driven by a man who police say was drunk.

The car pinned Richardson and his daughter Kaniyah against a wrought iron fence at 95th Street and Wentworth, police said.

Kaniyah survived and was listed in critical but stable condition Tuesday evening at Comer Children’s Hospital, where a spokeswoman said she was doing well.

“He held the baby up to keep the car from destroying the baby, but it totally destroyed him,” said Richardson’s father, the Rev. L.V. Richardson.

Richardson was walking his daughter to a McDonald’s for burgers at 6:40 p.m. Monday when a 1990 Chevy Cavalier jumped a curb and careened towards them, police said, citing witness accounts.

He grabbed his daughter just before the car slammed the two into the fence, police said.

Richardson was pronounced dead shortly after the crash — a loss his twin, Timothy, said he felt before he was told.

“All day I just had a real bad gut feeling that something tragic was gonna happen,” the hospital maintenance worker said. “And then when I was at home I could feel him and see, visualize what happened. . . . Right before they called me I could see him being in an accident. I knew he was gone.

“We had a very special connection and I just felt it.”

The driver of the car, Angelo Thomas, 32, of the 200 block of West 95th Street, was charged with two felony counts of aggravated driving under the influence, police said. He was also cited with driving without a valid license or insurance.

Joseph Richardson, the father of two girls and a boy, all under the age of 11, was described as a devoted father. His other love was music. He was a gifted pianist and organist and performed in choirs at Cottage Grove Baptist Church and Greater Revelation Missionary Baptist Church, where his father ministers. His idols were Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, his family said.

He wanted to go back to school for a degree in music or theology and become a practicing minister, his brother said.

One of four tight-knit siblings who grew up in the Roseland neighborhood, Joseph Richardson was adept at keeping those close to him safe.

“We looked out for one another,” said Timothy Richardson. But Joseph, the larger twin, did most of the looking out, Timothy admitted.

“We used to go to St. Willibrord Catholic High School, and a guy was picking on me a little bit one time and [Joseph] stepped in,” said Timothy. “I tried to talk him out of fighting, but him and the guy fought and went through a window together.”

On Tuesday, Timothy wanted to remember the good times.

“I am five minutes older than Joseph. But he used to always tease me that even though I’m older, he figured he was better-looking. He always got me with that one.”"

CBS’ Butler says he isn’t sure who kidnapped him in Iraq

Straight from AP News: “CBS News journalist Richard Butler said he believes he was kidnapped in Iraq by policemen with sympathies toward the Hezbollah but isn’t entirely sure who held him captive for two months or why. Butler, a British journalist kidnapped with his interpreter on Feb. 10, was rescued by Iraqi troops on April 14 when he was found with a sack over his head in a house in Basra.”

…

“Butler said he felt it was better to be kidnapped in Iraq then taken into custody by Americans in Afghanistan. “I was pleased I wasn’t being mortarboarded in Guantanamo or being held for six and a half years like an Al-Jazeera cameraman, for instance,” he said.”

William Ayers still desecrating the flag

Iraqi TV Station Shows US Presidents As Murderers

Straight from LGF: “Nice. This is running as filler material on Iraq’s Al-Rafidein TV, showing a procession of US presidents—yes, even Jimmy Carter—portrayed as smiling murderers, ending on an image of the Presidential Seal with a death’s head splashed in blood. (Courtesy of MEMRI TV.)

Masters of the White House - Presidents of the United States of America

Andrew Jackson 1829-1837, AKA “The Slaughterer of Indians ” – Annihilation of hundreds of Indian tribes.

Pierce Franklin [sic] 1853-1857 – Threatening the Japanese empire with the American fleet.

Abraham Lincoln 1861-1865 – The American Civil War. Thousands of dead and wounded.

Woodrow Wilson 1913-1921 – World War I. Thousands of dead and wounded.

Harry Truman 1945-1953 – 1940 - The 1945 destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by means of two nuclear bombs.

Dwight Eisenhower 1953-1961 – The American intervention in Lebanon on July 15, 1958.

Lyndon Johnson 1963-1969 – The beginning of the air bombardment of North Vietnam on February 9, 1956 [sic].

Richard Nixon 1969-1974 – Sending 540,000 American soldiers to invade Vietnam.

Jimmy Carter 1977-1981 – Sponsor of the Camp David Accords with the Zionist entity.

Ronald Reagan 1981-1989 – Supporting the 1982 Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear plant.

George Bush (Father) 1989-1993 - Leading the coalition of thirty countries that invaded Iraq in 1991.

Bill Clinton 1993-2001 – An intensive missile attack on Iraq in 1998.

George W. Bush 2001 till now – Thousands of dead and wounded in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, since 2001 to this day.”

Hamas TV: Jewish Leaders Planned the Holocaust

Straight from LGF: “Jewish leaders planned the Holocaust to kill “disabled and handicapped” Jews to avoid having to care for them, according to a Hamas TV educational program. As much of the world prepared to commemorate Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Hamas TV presented its latest sinister twist on Holocaust denial.

The Hamas TV educational program, broadcast last week, taught that the murder of Jews in the Holocaust was a Zionist plot with two goals:

1- To eliminate “disabled and handicapped” Jews by sending them to death camps, so they would not be a burden on the future state of Israel.
2- At the same time, the Holocaust served to make “the Jews seem persecuted” so they could “benefit from international sympathy.”

Amin Dabur, head of the Palestinian “Center for Strategic Research” explained that “the Israeli Holocaust - the whole thing was a joke, and part of the perfect show that [Zionist leader and future Israeli prime minister] Ben Gurion put on.” The “young energetic and able” were sent to Israel, while the handicapped were sent “so there would be a Holocaust.””

Daily Kos Diary: “Uncle Tom” Obama

Straight from Kaos237’s diary:

“I have been a huge supporter of Barack.  He is the guy I’ve been behind for quite awhile now.  Check my older diaries if you wonder about that.  And while I’ve been steeling myself for a Barack loss in November, because I think the Repug machine is too good for him to beat, I had resigned myself to still working hard for him and for the Progressive cause!

But today something changed for me…

Today, the scales fell from my eyes and I saw Barack Obama for what he truly is: a weak man and a standard politician.  I really never thought I would say this…

But I am disgusted with him!

This has been a strange year.  From fighting against our staying in Iraq, to trying to find a way to get Al Gore to run for President, to despairing of the “inevitability” of Hillary, to finding Barack and feeling very invigorated by his message.

To today.

I just watched Barack throw someone who has been a huge part of his life overboard because a bunch of white-bread advisors told him he had to.

And why?  Because white America was freaked out by a black preacher!

I thought Barack was going to lead us past that.  I thought he was bigger than that.  I thought he was different.

But NNNOOOOOOO!  Now he is engaged in the worst kind of pandering.  He has told us, in no uncertain terms, that he is no different than the Clintons: anyone who interferes with what you are doing gets thrown to the wolves.

And Barack didn’t stop there.  He threw every black man, woman and child overboard too!  What Rev Wright has to say is what every black American believes:  that racism is alive and well and living in white middle class America.

…

Really? Every black American believes what Wright has to say? Do all black Americans believe that “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color?” Do they believe that Louis Farrakhan with his goons and loons is “one of the most important voices of the last century?” Do they agree when he states: ““The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people.” Or how about: “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.” Do they also believe that they should refer to the United States as the “U.S. KKK of A” as he does?

Kaos237 continues…

“Unfortunately, Barack has decided that he doesn’t need black votes to win.  I’m sure he was told by his white advisors that “black folk” will support him anyway.  So why not come out and disrespect the whole community.  Barack didn’t transcend black-white politics; rather he chose to become white!

All because some white folks on CNN were appalled that Rev Wright didn’t shuffle in and say “yes massa”.

…

Wow, so now even Barack Obama is racist against blacks…

Kaos237 continues…

I cannot believe we Progressives have found ourselves here…and I am sure I will represent a minority view of these events.  There is still a lot of hope for Barack among my friends in the local party. These younglings are great to work with, but they also don’t have the same battle scars I do…and which Barack just ripped open.

I’ve been saying for awhile that I thought Barack would likely lose in November.  Now I am wondering if I don’t HOPE he loses!

I am just so heartbroken over this whole situation…I really thought we had found someone special. Turns out we’ve just found another politician.

Pretty sad…”

How Water Forms in Interstellar Space at 10K

Straight from Slashdot: “Water is the most abundant solid material in space. But although astronomers see it on planets, moons, in comets and in interstellar clouds, nobody has been able to show how it forms. In theory, it should form easily when oxygen and atomic hydrogen meet. The problem is that there is not enough of it floating around as gas in interstellar dust clouds. So instead, the thinking is that water must form when atomic hydrogen interacts with frozen solid oxygen on the surface of dust grains in these clouds. Now Japanese astronomers have demonstrated this process for the first time in the lab in conditions that simulate interstellar space. That’s cool because all the water in the solar system, including almost every drop you drink on Earth today, must have formed in exactly this way more than 5 billion years ago in a pre-solar dustcloud (abstract).”

An Inside Look At Iran’s Nuclear Program

Straight from Slashdot: “On April 8, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited his country’s secretive nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz for a photo op. What came out of this visit is a series of photos which have caused a fair amount of interest among western scientists. Shown in the photos are not only some of the inner workings of the plant and current generation of enrichment centrifuges, but also key components to newer generations of more effective centrifuges. Analysts are ‘intrigued’ not only by the technical revelations in the pictures, but also because Iran’s Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar accompanied Ahmadinejad through the facility.”

Photos of Hiroshima from the Robert L. Capp Collection

“The Robert L. Capp collection at the Hoover Institution Archives contains ten never-before-published photographs illustrating the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing. These photographs, taken by an unknown Japanese photographer, were found in 1945 among rolls of undeveloped film in a cave outside Hiroshima by U.S. serviceman Robert L. Capp, who was attached to the occupation forces. Unlike most photos of the Hiroshima bombing, these dramatically convey the human as well as material destruction unleashed by the atomic bomb. Mr. Capp donated them to the Hoover Archives in 1998 with the provision that they not be reproduced until 2008. Three of these photographs are reproduced in Atomic Tragedy with the permission of the Capp family. Now that the restriction is no longer in force, the entire set is available below. Please contact Sean L. Malloy (smalloy@ucmerced.edu) if you have any information that might help identify the original photographer.”

Access the entire photo set here.

F-117A Stealth Fighter Retired

Straight from Slashdot: “Nearly 30 years ago Lockheed Martin’s elite Skunk Works team developed what would become the F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter. A few of their earlier projects include the SR-71 Blackbird and U2 Dragon Lady spy planes. Today [April 21th, 2008] is the last for the Stealth Fighter, which is being replaced by the F-22 Raptor (another Skunk Works project).”

EMI Says Online File Storage Is Illegal

Straight from Slashdot: “MP3tunes CEO Michael Robertson sent out an email to all users of the online music backup and place-shifting service MP3tunes.com, asking them to help publicize EMI’s ridiculous and ignorant lawsuit against the company. EMI believes that consumers aren’t allowed to store their music files online, and that MP3tunes is violating copyright law by providing a backup service.”

Soldier Awarded Service Cross for Saving Wounded Colleague

Straight from Fox News: “FORT BRAGG, N.C. — A Special Forces soldier who crawled 200 feet while being fired upon to save a wounded colleague, then led a group of besieged soldiers to safety, received the Army’s second-highest award for valor Wednesday.

Master Sgt. Brendan O’Connor received the Distinguished Service Cross in a ceremony Wednesday at Fort Bragg for his actions in Afghanistan. The award is second in achievement only to the Medal of Honor.

“He made a conscious decision to do whatever it took to get to our wounded soldiers,” said Maj. Sheffield Ford, the team’s commander during the June 2006 battle in southern Afghanistan.

O’Connor, 47, doesn’t believe he is a hero. He said that police officers and firefighters are courageous every day and that he was only completing his mission.

“I am being recognized for a moment of courage,” said O’Connor, whose wife and four children attended the ceremony. “I firmly believe other soldiers in my place would have done the same thing.”

With his Special Forces team surrounded by Taliban fighters, O’Connor volunteered to lead a relief force to rescue two wounded colleagues. He got to the edge of a field, but intense Taliban machine-gun fire made him turn back. After shedding his body armor so he could press himself flat in a ditch, he crawled the last 200 feet to the wounded soldiers.

Taliban fire was so close that it sheared off the blades of tall grass around the ditch as he crawled.

Finally reaching the two wounded soldiers, he stabilized them and led the relief force back to safety.

Admiral Eric T. Olson, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, and Lt. Gen. Robert W. Wagner, commanding general of the Army Special Operations Command, presented the award to O’Connor.

Olson, who recounted the battle in his speech, described O’Connor’s actions as legendary.

“Master Sgt. O’Connor exemplifies the spirit and ethos of these warriors,” Olson said. “We stand in quiet awe and in the deepest admiration.”

Wednesday’s ceremony marked only the second time the award has been presented to a soldier for actions in Afghanistan.

O’Connor is assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group. The unit is based at Fort Bragg, home to the Army’s Special Operations Command and the 82nd Airborne Division.”

Attack Wing: Glider Makes Waves With Stealth and Speed

Straight from Fox News: “It weighs only 30 pounds and can be fully weaponized for assault and rescue. It has a 6-foot jet-wing that is steered with handheld rotary controls connected to its rudder. And it can hide more than 100 pounds of combat gear in a built-in compartment.

The Gryphon attack glider, designed to penetrate combat zones at 135 miles per hour, could revolutionize the art of parachuting. It has got to be at the top of James Bond’s Christmas list this year.

A vision straight out of “Batman,” the carbon-fiber stealth glider quadruples the speed of similar craft — and there are quite a few special forces soldiers who would like to jump out of a plane at 30,000 feet and give it a whirl.

Its helmet has a heads-up display and provides on-board oxygen for the jump. To land, a soldier separates the wing from his pack and releases his parachute to slow his descent. The wing remains attached to the soldier by a cord and lands before him.

You might wonder who would volunteer to test-pilot a glider traveling at such high speeds. At ISNR London, a security conference, I had the opportunity to meet Erich Jelitko, who not only conceived the ultimate boy toy but also enthusiastically test-pilots the glider.

A former special forces operator and German army paratrooper instructor, Jelitko has made more than 50 jumps with the glider.

He took me through a test flight of a simulation of Paris. He demonstrated the glider’s agility by flying through the legs of the Eiffel Tower — not an easy feat at high speed. Soldiers also can opt to train on other city simulations from New York to London.

Currently, planes and pilots are put at risk because soldiers need to jump close to combat areas. Typical high altitude, high-opening, or HAHO, jumps from around 27,000 feet allow soldiers to travel only about 30 miles after exiting the aircraft.

The Gryphon could increase that range fourfold, creating an attack corridor of nearly 125 miles. Unaffected by headwinds or crosswinds because of its favorable lift-to-drag ratio, the glider would allow elite units to reach targets with increased speed, precision and stealth.

The Gryphon’s built-in oxygen supply system allows soldiers to jump from up to 30,000 feet. And with temperatures at that altitude sometimes reaching minus 64 degrees Fahrenheit, every second counts. Even in upwind conditions, the Gryphon could reduce HAHO jump duration to a third, from an average of 45 minutes to just 15, vastly reducing the risk of exposure to extreme cold.

The Gryphon’s designers, SPELCO GbR, are even planning to affix a relatively cheap and small turbo jet, which is used for unmanned military drones. Harnessing that jet, the glider would allow soldiers to jump lower, maintain altitude and travel farther than is currently possible.

With its stealth technology and high speed, the Gryphon will provide maximum surprise and safer entry into target areas. And with the Gryphon virtually invisible to ground and airborne radar, enemy forces would struggle even to detect it.

The stealth and speed capabilities also could be handy for agile hostage rescue operations and rapid reaction to moving targets. SPELCO is developing an electronic system to automate some of the steering to make it easier to fly, more like an airplane. If it succeeds, the average bungee jumper — and not just elite forces with specialized training — can have a go, too.

And those commercially available Gryphons could mean that friendly neighborhood Batmen might be just around the corner.”

Al Qaeda Leader, 10 Others Killed in U.S. Airstrike On Somalia

Straight from Fox News: “MOGADISHU, Somalia — U.S. missiles destroyed the house of the man believed to be the top Al Qaeda commander in Somalia, killing him and 10 others Thursday in a pre-dawn attack that analysts warned could torpedo peace talks but have little impact on the Islamic insurgency.

The killing of Aden Hashi Ayro comes amid escalating fighting and a spiraling humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa nation.

Islamist fighters have staged a series of attacks on towns in the months leading up to the U.N.-sponsored talks, scheduled to start May 10. They typically hold the towns for a few hours, free people from jails, then withdraw with captured weapons.

The talks offered a slim hope of bringing together the disparate groups in the armed opposition. But Thursday’s attack damages the negotiations before they begin, said Rashid Abdi, an analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank.

It may also undermine the new prime minister, who wished to include more extreme fighters in the talks despite opposition from the president.

“However much the Americans claim the war on terror is one thing and the peace process is another thing, it’s not that clear-cut,” Abdi said. “This will definitely have political repercussions.”

The U.S. missiles left a smoldering hole where Ayro’s home had stood in the central Somali town of Dusamareeb.

“The bodies were beyond recognition, some of them cut into pieces, and those wounded have been severely burnt,” town resident Nur Farah told The Associated Press.

Palestinians: Carter Achieved Nothing

Straight from Fox News: “Recent talks between former president Jimmy Carter and a militant leader failed to make much of a difference in Gaza, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said Wednesday.

Carter’s meeting with exiled Hamas militant leader Khaled Meshaal, which drew anger from both the U.S. and Israel, did not produce a cease fire or prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel, al-Malki told Agence France-Presse.

“The only thing he achieved was permission on the part of Khaled Meshaal of Hamas to deliver a letter from a detained Israeli soldier to his family. Nothing else,” al-Malki told AFP.

Also on Wednesday, Carter stopped just short of saying that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was lying about warning him not to meet last week with Hamas leaders in Syria.

“President Carter has the greatest respect for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and believes her to be a truthful person,” read a statement issued by the Carter Center in Atlanta. “However, perhaps inadvertently, she is continuing to make a statement that is not true.”

Carter has said that he met with Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, and that Welch told him it was not advisable to meet with Hamas. The former president maintains he was never told not to go.”

More of the same for BCS; playoff proposal rejected

“The BCS format, like it or not, will remain the same until at least the 2014 season.”

Straight from Yahoo News: “As it turns out, the Big Ten and the Pac-10 weren’t the only conferences standing in the way of a major college football playoff.

The Big East and Big 12 also made it known Wednesday that they were against moving the Bowl Championship Series in that direction, so the BCS rejected a plan to turn the much-criticized system for deciding a national champ into a four-team playoff, starting in the 2010 season.

The league commissioners opposed to the seeded plus-one plan presented by Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive during five hours of meetings all said they were concerned a shift to that model would lead the BCS down a slippery slope.

“Even though we could construct barriers at this time, we felt like … there could be easily an errosion of that; more pressure to add more teams with an ability to get to the national championship game as we went over time,” Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe told reporters. “The system is under a lot of scrutiny that can result in pressure to add games. Our league is not favorable to a playoff system as a whole, and viewed this as the first step in that direction.””

Mofaz: Israel will not accept a nuclear-armed Iran, all means of prevention legitimate

Straight from the Debka File: “The Israeli transport minister Shaul Mofaz, speaking at Yale University Tuesday night, April 30, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, warned Iran may attain command of enrichment technology before the end of this year. He said: “Israel will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. This time, the Jewish people won’t let it happen. I would like to believe the world will not let it happen. To prevent this, all means are legitimate.”

Israel’s annual Holocaust remembrance ceremonies focused this year on the theme of courage displayed by Warsaw Ghetto Uprising leaders 65 years ago, knowing they were doomed. Israeli’s president and prime minister laid wreaths in their honor at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Institute in Jerusalem.

Israelis stood in silence as sirens wailed for two minutes in remembrance of the victims of Nazi World War II genocide, two-thirds of Europe’s nine million Jews. Cafes and places of entertainment were closed and TV and radio broadcast special programs.

In Sderot, memorial ceremonies took place in a new, fortified social center under relentless Palestinian missile fire from Gaza - nine by midday Thursday.

And in Poland, Israel’s chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi led the March of Life from the gates of the former Auschwitz concentration camp to Birkenau. He was joined by 12,000 people from 52 countries. In a short speech, the general noted that the world had stood aside when the Nazis murdered the Jews of Europe.

Avram Grant, the British Chelsea football team’s Israeli coach, whose mother was a Holocaust survivor, joined the procession.”