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Today in Rabbis Say the Darndest Things, Ari Schvat ruled that female Mossad agents may engage in “honey-pot sex”—I had never heard the phrase before either—as part of their missions. Which is to say, they can sleep with men as part of their espionage. Among other things, Schvat cited Biblical precedent: Esther slept with the Persian king to save the Jews (though weren’t they married anyway?), and apparently Yael slept with the enemy of her husband in order to tire him out so that his head could be more easily chopped off (Book of Judges, yo).

INTERNAL REVENUE AGENT GS-0512-GS-5/7/9/11

Wouldn't it be nice if a comment on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) would attract a lot of attention (for my blog, I'm thinking)? Thousands of people googling 'SOA' come right to my site and find out more about HLL. I can't expect that, because I'm provoked on this occasion to comment in response to a discussion that started in January of last year. VP and Research Director of The Burton Group, Anne Thomas Manes wrote an article entitled, SOA is Dead; Long Live Services. Burton Group surveys IT R&D and provides business consulting services. They have a particular interest...

IntroductionAn application programmer spends six months perfecting a set of components commonly needed in the large company that employs him. Some of the components were particularly tricky and key pieces required very high quality, reliable and complex exception handling. It has all been tuned to run quickly and efficiently. Thorough testing has demonstrated his success. Part of his idea of “perfection” was to build in a way that the software, even many of the individual components, could easily be reused. But it is surprisingly likely that no one outside of a small group within the project will ever hear of...

Four (4) North Koreans attempted to sneak into the USA from Mexico our southern border, but were apprehended. The four necessarily are intelligence operatives, for NO North Korean citizens travel freely or without the sanction and close watch and instruction of the Korean Workers Party and the intelligence apparatus of North Korea; only diplomats and those under control of the KWP are allowed overseas travel, passports (in this case to get to Mexico), etc..North Korean refugees fleeing Kimilsungist Communism are processed through normal diplomatic and refugee channels.Why has this not been a top issue? What were they attempting to...

I’ve been trying to figure this out … The 14th Amendment declares that anyone born in the US and under its jurisdiction is a citizen. But what about the children of the Russian spies, are they citizens? Those that claim that they are citizens say that the 14th Amendment declares it so and that the only exceptions to U.S. jurisdiction are the children of ambassadors and children of enemies. But these children’s parents did not fall under those exceptions. They were not ambassadors [or have diplomatic immunity], nor is Russia a declared enemy of the U.S. They just did not...

(CNSNews.com) - Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman said at the National Press Club on Monday that the IRS cannot say how many new agents it will need to enforce the new health care law signed by President Barack Obama last month. The IRS will play a key role in the new national health care system created by the law because it will be responsible for monitoring whether people buy health insurance, as the law mandates, and for collecting a fine from those who fail to buy insurance.

Before President Barack Obama took over the White House, no United States citizen had ever been forced by the federal government to buy a product against their will. But now, thanks to the passage of Obamacare, Americans, by dint of their mere existence, are now required to purchase Obama administration approved health insurance or face a penalty assessed through the Internal Revenue Code. This is simply unprecedented. The income tax doesn’t kick in until an American earns income. Auto liability insurance doesn’t become mandated until an American chooses to drive (and even then it’s only by the state). And farmers...

Top IRS officials have been working with Democrats on Capitol Hill to determine how the agency will enforce President Obama’s new health care law. Republican lawmakers estimate the legislation will require the hiring of many thousands of new tax enforcement agents. While it’s still not known exactly how many will be hired, here’s what’s clear: Under the new law, the IRS is required to fine taxpayers thousands of dollars if they do not purchase health insurance. In order for the government to enforce compliance, tax authorities will need information, for the first time, about people’s health care. Collecting that data...

A personal report. Last night (Wednesday, 11/4/2009) I attended a discussion with former senator Tom Daschle, now advisor on health care to President Obama. The event was held at the Reagan Library in California. What was unique about this event was that the audience was largely comprised of insurance agents who market and service health insurance in California. Also represented at the event were the major insurance companies selling health insurance to Californians, Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Humana, Health Net and others. I am sure that a transcript of the event will be made public, but in general...

Former Secret Service agent opens window into private lives of presidents October 14th, 2009 Jamie Weinstein In his In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents they Protect, journalist Ronald Kessler gives us a peek inside the intimate lives of our presidents. Through interviews with over 100 secret service agents from the past and present—dating all the way back to John F. Kennedy—Kessler paints a picture of what our presidents are like when no one is looking. They're always watching. We learn from the agents Kessler interviews that John F....

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL * AUGUST 29, 2009, 5:04 A.M. ET Interrogating the CIA By REUEL MARC GERECHT A clever, streetwise classmate of mine at the Central Intelligence Agency's junior officer training program—a former Delta Force officer—quickly and rudely discovered that counterterrorism in the much-vaunted Reagan years wasn't a serious endeavor at Langley. He had original and provocative ideas on using physical force to scare the bejesus out of terrorist suspects who had American blood on their hands. Although the CIA was then filling up with operatives pretending to be engaged against a growing terrorist menace, Langley's counterterrorist data bank...

Posted: 11:44 am EDT August 3, 2009 Updated: 11:56 am EDT August 3, 2009 ORLANDO, Fla. -- Eyewitness News learned that federal agents are raiding a Colonial Bank building on Pine Street late Monday morning. The agents are taking out boxes of documents from the building in downtown Orlando. WFTV.com will update the story as it develops

Fresno, Calif. (AP) -- Federal and state agents have arrested 83 people for growing more than $1.2 billion worth of marijuana in an ongoing crackdown on illegal pot gardens in California's Sierra Nevada range. Local officials said several Mexican marijuana-growing cartels helped set up the grow sites scattered throughout rocky mountainsides of eastern Fresno County, and warned more arrests were likely as the sweep continues. More than 318,000 marijuana plants were destroyed in the operation, which also netted nearly $41,000 in cash, 25 weapons and two vehicles, Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said Thursday.

<p>MEXICO CITY – Mexico has extradited two former U.S. Border Patrol agents accused of taking bribes from migrant smugglers.</p> <p>The U.S. Embassy says Raul Villarreal and Fidel Villarreal allegedly fled to Mexico after they learned U.S. authorities were investigating them in 2006. The brothers were veteran agents in the San Diego area.</p>

Ruben Navarrette Jr.: Border agents' release will not wipe away their crime By Ruben Navarrette Jr. Posted: 01/25/2009 12:00:00 AM PST I was glad to see that George W. Bush commuted the prison sentences of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. And frankly, I was a bit surprised I was glad. I never had much sympathy for Ramos or Compean, disgraced law enforcement officers who were convicted of shooting a Mexican drug smuggler and then lying about it. From studying the facts, hearing the arguments of the agents' supporters, and interviewing U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, whose...

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, made a final plea this week to President George Bush to commute the sentences of jailed U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. “Because of the excesses of the prosecution against them, they will continue to sit alone in those cells for another decade,” Cornyn wrote, according to a report in the WorldNetDaily. “That is unless President Bush commutes their unjust sentences. In his remaining days as president, I ask President Bush to show mercy and use his clemency power to give back Agents Ramos and Compean the next 10 years of their lives.”

DANA POINT, Calif. (AP) — Looking ahead to an Obama administration, some baseball agents already are thinking about trying to beat a possible tax increase for their well-paid clients. President-elect Barack Obama has proposed increasing the top federal income tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, where it was under the Clinton administration. If signing bonuses are paid before Jan. 1, they likely would be taxed at the current rate and would not be subject to any tax increase. "It's something we'll consider," agent Craig Landis said Tuesday at the general managers' meetings. "Besides the federal issue, we have...

Two former Border Patrol agents were arrested in Mexico after more than two years on the run and were charged in the U.S. with taking bribes to help illegal immigrants cross the border, authorities said Monday. A federal indictment unsealed Monday in San Diego accuses brothers Raul and Fidel Villarreal of taking bribes, smuggling illegal immigrants, tampering with witnesses and conspiring to launder money. The brothers were captured by Mexican authorities Saturday at a gated apartment complex near the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, said Mike Unzueta, special agent in charge of investigations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San...

Defense Department counterintelligence investigators suspected that Iranian exiles who provided dubious intelligence on Iraq and Iran to a small group of Pentagon officials might have "been used as agents of a foreign intelligence service ... to reach into and influence the highest levels of the U.S. government," a Senate Intelligence Committee report said Thursday. A top aide to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, shut down the 2003 investigation into the Pentagon officials' activities after only a month, and the Defense Department's top brass never followed up on the investigators' recommendation for a more thorough investigation, the Senate report...