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JERUSALEM – Marking the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, about a thousand Jewish protesters today read the biblical book of Lamentations in front of the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem to protest against the Obama administration's demand to freeze Jewish construction in eastern sections of the city. Tonight marks the fasting day of Tisha B'Av, or the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av. It commemorates a series of tragedies that befell the Jewish people all on the same day, most significantly the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, which occurred about 656 years apart on...

Barack Hussein Obama’s long-form birth certificate no longer exists! It was destroyed in 2001 when Hawaii went paperless. This startling revelation was reported by Joseph Farah, founder, editor and CEO of Worldnetdaily.com in his article questioning whether or not the story regarding Obama’s eligibility is still relevant. Farah reports that CNN researchers contacted the Hawaii Public Health Department about the missing long-form birth certificate and they were told that the original no longer exists. According to Farah Hawaiian authorities’ story to CNN was that it was destroyed in 2001 when Hawaii went paperless. (see story)

Did dark matter destroy the universe? You might be looking around at the way things "exist" and thinking "No", but we're talking about ancient history. Three hundred million years after the start of the universe, things had finally cooled down enough to form hydrogen atoms out of all the protons and electrons that were zipping around - only to have them all ripped up again around the one billion year mark. Why? Most believe that the first quasars, active galaxies whose central black holes are the cosmic-ray equivalent of a firehose, provided the breakup energy, but some Fermilab scientists have...

The U.S. military is confirming that it has destroyed some Bibles belonging to an American soldier serving in Afghanistan. Reuters News says the Bibles were confiscated and destroyed after Qatar-based Al Jazeer television showed soldiers at a Bible class on a base with a stack of Bibles translated into the local Pashto and Dari languages. The U.S. military forbids its members on active duty -- including those based in places like Afghanistan -- from trying to convert people to another religion. Reuters quotes Maj. Jennifer Willis at the Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, who said "I can now confirm...

An Iranian vessel en route to Sudan in order to deliver weapons to Hamas in the Gaza Strip was attacked by an Israeli or American ship and destroyed, according to a report Sunday in the Egyptian weekly Al-Usbua.

As Jupiter reached opposition earlier this week, it put on a spectacular show of cannibalism for anyone viewing with modest telescopes. Planetary specialists around the world have been watching with bated breath as a cataclysmic encounter between Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS), Oval BA (Red, Jr.), and the newly discovered Little Red Spot (LRS) unfolded at the beginning of July. Though encounters such as this are relatively common on the gas giant, this event was greatly anticipated because the LRS was strong enough to dredge up material from deeper within Jupiter's atmosphere, imbuing it with the same reddish color as...

[snip] On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, "I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to change it forever, be the end of it!" This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

Peggy Noonan aims her considerable cannon at George Bush this morning in the Wall Street Journal in the middle of her analysis of the primaries. She fingers him as the main culprit in the destruction of the Republican Party, discounting other and perhaps better causes and engaging in just a little hyperbole: On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, "I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to change it forever, be the end...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU — U.S. troops uncovered and destroyed a weapons cache containing seven pressure plates Nov. 16 and 17 in the area of Mahdiryia. The plates are used to detonate a form of improvised explosive device (IED) that is specifically targeted against Coalition and Iraqi troops on foot patrol. The cache find was the first indication of these “dismounted” IEDs being used in the area of Mahdiryia. They are already heavily used by al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) the communities of Hawr Rajab and Arab Jabour to the north. Soldiers from Battery B, 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery (FA)...

Despite repeated requests by Pakistani archeologists to the local authorities to protect the seated Buddha and other sites, especially after the first attack, no action was taken. In fact, militants were able to carry out their work in broad daylight The world watched in horror when Taliban forces destroyed the monumental Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan in 2001. Political and cultural leaders from around the globe condemned the attacks. Offers of help poured in. Everyone asked: will the world be ready next time? Alas, the answer is a resounding “no.” In northwest Pakistan’s Swat valley, armed Islamist militants recently attacked...

HAWR RAJAB - Coalition Forces destroyed a suspected improvised explosive device factory in Hawr Ratab, south of Baghdad, Aug. 9. Paratroopers of Troop C, 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, made the discovery while conducting searches of two buildings in the area. The search was based on intelligence from a suspected insurgent detained the day before.      The searches uncovered about 1,000 pounds of white powder in bags, a blue barrel full of the white powder, pressure plate initiators and switches.      All of these materials are known components of homemade explosives used to...

WASHINGTON, April 30, 2007 – Coalition forces nabbed about 94 suspects and discovered several weapons caches during raids across Iraq in the past three days. Coalition forces detained 11 suspected al Qaeda in Iraq members today, nabbing 10 suspects in Samarra and another in Baghdad. Intelligence reports indicate the suspect detained in the Iraqi capital was part of a local operation to acquire bomb-making materials, military officials said. “Almost every day, … al Qaeda in Iraq uses explosives to kill and maim innocent Iraqis and the security forces striving to protect them,” said Army Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20, 2007 – In operations throughout Afghanistan in the past two days, coalition forces destroyed the wreckage from a helicopter crash, Afghan and coalition forces conducted an air strike against the Taliban, and a suicide bomber injured seven NATO troops. Coalition forces completed crash site inspections and recovery and have destroyed the remnants of a helicopter that crashed Feb. 18 in northern Zabul province, near the border with neighboring Ghazni province in eastern Afghanistan, military officials said. The U.S. Army Chinook helicopter was damaged beyond repair and could not be moved from the crash site, near Highway...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16, 2007 – Coalition forces destroyed a munitions factory, detained two suspects and found scores of weapons in operations around Iraq over the past three days. Coalition forces cordoned off an area in Salman Pak, Iraq, and conducted a controlled detonation of an improvised-explosive-device factory. U.S. Army photo  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Coalition forces destroyed an al Qaeda in Iraq improvised explosive device factory yesterday during a controlled detonation in Salman Pak. While searching the factory, coalition forces found a large amount of IED-making material, including 1,000 pounds of various types of explosives. An explosive...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8, 2006 -- Coalition forces killed 20 terrorists this morning while targeting al Qaeda terrorists in the Thar Thar area, military officials reported. Coalition forces targeted the location based on intelligence reports that indicated associates with links to multiple al Qaeda in Iraq networks were operating in the area. Ground forces were searching buildings at the targeted location when they began receiving heavy machine-gun fire from one of the buildings. The ground forces returned fire, killing two armed terrorists. Despite efforts to subdue the remaining armed terrorists, officials said, coalition forces continued to be threatened by enemy...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A fire that destroyed a cottage near Bonn and injured a 77-year-old man was probably caused by a meteor and witnesses saw an arc of blazing light in the sky, German police said on Friday. Burkhard Rick, a spokesman for the police in Siegburg east of Bonn, said the fire gutted the cottage and badly burned the man's hands and face in the incident on October 10. "We sought assistance from Bochum observatory and they noted that at that particular moment the earth was near a field of meteoroid splinter and it could be assumed that particles...

HAVANA - North Korea's No. 2 leader blamed the lack of world peace on the United States Saturday at the Nonaligned Summit, saying that because of its failure to respect the sovereignty of other nations, "the international order is destroyed." Parliament leader Kim Yong Nam said desires for peace by the 118 countries in the Nonaligned Movement were "confronted with grave challenges owing to the high-handed acts and unilateralism of the superpower, which denies countries and nations the independent choice of development." The resulting imbalance in global politics constitutes "grave threats to world peace and security," he said. It was...

02 September 2006 NO EMBRYOS were harmed in making these stem cells - that was the message of a press release issued by Nature on 21 August, and reported in New Scientist (26 August, p 10) and elsewhere. Bob Lanza and his colleagues at Advanced Cell Technology had derived human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) "while leaving the embryo intact", Nature explained. That could answer those who object to the destruction of human embryos for ESC research. However, when scientists read the paper in detail they found that whereas in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) a single cell is taken without harming...

JERUSALEM - An Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on Monday destroyed at least one long-range Iranian missile capable of hitting Tel Aviv, military officials said. Israeli aircraft targeted a truck carrying the weapons before they could be launched, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of military regulations. The force of the blast sent at least one missile flying into the air, but it fell nearby. During nearly a week of fighting, Hezbollah militants have fired missiles up to 25 miles into Israel. But officials have raised concerns the guerrilla group could strike Tel Aviv, about 80 miles south...

Massive earthquake destroyed ancient city of Anamurium, say scientists Saturday, July 8, 2006 ANKARA - Turkish Daily News The ancient city of Anamurium, located west of Mersin's Anamur district, was destroyed by a massive earthquake in the sixth century, scientists working at the site announced on Wednesday. Professor Selim Ýnan of Mersin University said in a written statement that four fault lines in the triangle formed by the Mut, Ermenek and Anamur districts had been identified during studies conducted over the last two years with Professor Nurdan Ýnan. Ýnan said the research revealed strong evidence that the ancient city was...