Free Republic

Interesting Before and After Video on Iran.

FORT BLISS, Texas (Army News Service, June 5, 2006) – The first-ever Afghan soldier to attend the Sergeants Major Academy has graduated as a member of SMA Class 56, at Fort Bliss, Texas, May 19. Sgt. Maj. Roshan Safi was selected to attend the U.S. SMA on recommendations from his commanders and U.S. Army mentors in Afghanistan because of his consistent leadership potential as a career-soldier, which began with the post-Taliban controlled Afghan military. “We have officer and enlisted training in Afghanistan,” says Safi. “But in the future we want to establish more non commissioned officer enlisted and officer schools.”...

Jefferson's CurseThe Nation Thu May 25, 11:58 AM ET AP - Mon May 15, 5:25 PM ET U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, speaks to the media at a news conference in New Orleans on Monday May 15, 2006. Congressman Jefferson declared his innocence in light of a federal bribery probe. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) The Nation -- As John wrote a few days back, William Jefferson was one of the worst Democrats in the House even before he started hiding bribes in the freezer. Now he's a drag on his party and a disgrace to his district--which happens to represent...

Scientists use quantum gravity to describe the universe before the Big Bang.Scientists may finally have an answer to a "big" question: If the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe, what could have caused it to happen? Using a theory called "loop quantum gravity," a group led by Penn State professor Abhay Ashtekar has shown that just before the Big Bang occurred, another universe very similar to ours may have been contracting. According to the group's findings, this previous universe eventually became so dense that a normally negligible repulsive component of the gravitational force overpowered the attractive component, causing...

Is it possible that there were Muslims in the Americas before Columbus? Some claim that Muslims came to America hundreds of years before Columbus arrived in the New World. Are the claims true? Every elementary school student knows the story of Christopher Columbus; that he set sail from Spain and mistakenly discovered America in 1492, landing on an island in the Caribbean. Columbus encountered native inhabitants of this new world, and thinking that he had landed in India, he called them Indians. While many of the details have been mythologized or fabricated over the ensuing 500 years, Columbus’s expedition represents...

5/1/2006 - HUNT, Texas (AFPN) -- On the banks of the Guadalupe River, a veterans group hosts a retreat that helps couples reconnect so they can better cope with life after deployments. Six couples attended the retreat hosted by the Military, Veteran and Family Assistance Foundation at the Heart of the Hills Camp here from April 20 to 27. “I thought this was going to be very structured -- a mandatory fun kind of thing,” said Senior Airman Aaron Childs, who attended with his wife, Mellissa. “But it’s nothing like that. It’s laid back. Everyone is here to help you.”...

3/31/2006 - KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. (AFPN) -- “Service Before Self,” one of the Air Force’s core values, is on the minds of 135 U.S. Air Force Academy cadets who are working during their alternative spring break in areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The project is part of the Cadet Service Learning program which centers on community involvement. “CSL takes this core value from theoretical concepts of the classroom and a training environment,” said Maj. Eric Ecklund, of the academy’s Center for Character Development. “It allows cadets to put it to the test in real situations, meeting the needs...

Before Scandinavia: These could be the first skiers By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor BEIJING – Move over Bode. You may have competition you don't know about - among a sturdy skiing clan in northwest China. They are central Asians, Mongols, and Kazaks, living in the remote Altay mountains of Xinjiang province, where some claim skiing was first conceived. Using curved planks whose design dates back 2,000 years, the Altaic peoples are formidable skiers. They might not win a medal on perfectly groomed Olympic trails. But they can break their own paths, track elk for...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (Jan. 20, 2006) -- Marines from Camp Pendleton enjoyed a day of rest and relaxation during an afternoon, lakeside barbecue here Jan. 20 as an impending deployment to Iraq creeps up on them in the coming weeks. With so much focus on training and preparing for combat operations in Iraq, the Marines from Brigade Service Support Group 1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, took time out of their busy schedules to play hard after working hard for so long. "(The barbecue) gives single Marines and families a chance to interact and have some social time...

'Only a matter of time before terrorists use weapons of mass destruction' By Con Coughlin (Filed: 17/01/2006) Biological weapons pose a far more serious long-term terrorist threat to the West than nuclear weapons, according to Washington's leading counter-terrorism expert. And Henry "Hank" Crumpton, the newly-appointed head of counter-terrorism at the US State Department, believes that it is simply a matter of time before international terrorist groups such as al-Qa'eda acquire weapons of mass destruction and use them in attacks. Henry Crumpton refuses to rule out the military option to tame Iran's nuclear amitions In an exclusive interview with The Daily...

Ballance to hold another fundraiser before prison term starts Dec 26, 2005 : 3:37 pm ET RALEIGH, N.C. -- Former Rep. Frank Ballance is holding one last fundraiser before he begins serving a four-year prison term at the end of this week. Ballance, a Democrat from Warrenton who represented the First District of North Carolina, resigned in June 2004 for health reasons before completing his first term. He was sentenced to prison in October after pleading guilty to funneling tax dollars into his foundation and using $100,000 for himself and his family. He will be honored Wednesday at the Roanoke...

SIERRA VISTA — A man robbed, kidnapped and threatened to kill the owner of a local eatery Saturday morning before fleeing into Mexico, Sierra Vista police said. The man was able to get away when he forced the store owner to give him a ride to the Naco Port of Entry. Police said the incident began at about 4 a.m. when the store owner heard a strange noise while working in the Bread Basket Bakery, 355 W. Wilcox Drive. After going outside, he was robbed by a man with a black-colored, semi-automatic pistol. The robber also took an undisclosed amount...

WANTED SAMUEL "MACHINE GUN SAMMY" ALITO is WANTED for: -Voting to strike down the 1986 federal machine gun ban. In the 1996 case U.S. v. Rybar, Judge Alito was the lone dissenter in the decision upholding the conviction of a gun dealer who sold illegal machine guns at a Pennsylvania gun show. Possession of an unusual and extremely restrictive view of Congressional regulatory power. Alito (also called "Scalito" by his associates because of his similarity to conservative Judge Antonin Scalia) is known to possess views that could imperil virtually every federal law that regulates firearms, ammunitions, and explosives. Known consortion...

Early Humans Settled India Before Europe, Study Suggests Brian Vastag for National Geographic News November 14, 2005 Modern humans migrated out of Africa and into India much earlier than once believed, driving older hominids in present-day India to extinction and creating some of the earliest art and architecture, a new study suggests. The research places modern humans in India tens of thousands of years before their arrival in Europe. University of Cambridge researchers Michael Petraglia and Hannah James developed the new theory after analyzing decades' worth of existing fieldwork in India. They outline their research in the journal Current Anthropology....

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5, 2005 – U.S. and Iraqi police and military personnel stopped a car bomb from reaching its intended target Oct. 4 in Baghdad's fortified International Zone, U.S. military officials in Iraq said. The car bomber still managed to wound 12 U.S. and Iraqi personnel. Officials said the probable target was either an Iraqi Ministry of Interior official or a Transitional National Assembly delegate. Initial reports indicate four Iraqi police officers, three Iraqi army soldiers and three civilians were wounded during the explosion. Two U.S. Task Force Baghdad soldiers were also slightly wounded. Baghdad emergency workers and firefighters quickly...

http://www.geocities.com/alpomega@sbcglobal.net/TimesPicayune_Aug27_29_2005b.html Here is a cached web page with of a bunch of news briefs from BEFORE Katrina reached New Orleans. It is interesting and a bit unsetteling to read it knowing the end result. However, it does provide insight into the planning and mindset before the hurricane struck. I have to admit that I had thought the planning at the time seemed well done. Here are some quotes made before the hurricane hit: Saturday, August 27, 2005 * The mayor said he would stick with the state's evacuation plan and not officially call for residents to leave until 30 hours...

Clinton speaks before Hispanic civil rights conference From The Morning Call -- July 18, 2005 Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, gestures while giving an address on the challenges of education for the nation's growing Hispanic community, Monday, July 18, 2005, at the annual meeting of the National Council of La Raza, in Philadelphia. (PA Photo/Joseph Kaczmarek) The Morning Call Speaking to the nations' largest Hispanic civil rights organization, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., received a standing ovation Monday when she vowed her support for legislation that would allow illegal immigrant high school students to attend college. Clinton made her remarks...

CLINTON: 'FIX IT, DON'T NIX IT' 2 hours, 53 minutes ago President Bush hit the road for his Social Security overhaul in New Jersey yesterday — while in New York, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton painted Bush as a threat to the retirement program. "I'm going to keep telling people we've got a problem until it sinks in, because we've got one," Bush said in Westfield. "The safety net has got a hole in it." At Pace University, Clinton ran a "fix it, don't nix it" rally where Schumer told of a time before Social Security when seniors...

JERUSALEM (AP) - The new Palestinian leadership has embraced nonviolence, deployed police to keep the peace in Gaza and won pledges from militants to halt attacks on Israel. Israel has promised to release hundreds of prisoners, stop offensive military operations and gradually pull out of five West Bank towns. While still characterized by great distrust, Israeli-Palestinian relations are improving dramatically ahead of Tuesday's historic summit between Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas' landslide election last month as Palestinian Authority president, Sharon's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, growing fatigue on both sides, and - perhaps most important of all -...

(sorry if this is a duplicate. I did a search and didn't find a hit).These pictures show satellite images of the land before and after the tsunami hits. Click on the link to view 11 pairs of satellite photos. Each pair consists of a "before" and "after" image. Be sure to click on the before and after picture. Then click "NEXT" to see the next picture before and after.See URL for pictures.