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The United States is poised to announce a significant donation of food aid to North Korea this week, the first definite accomplishment after months of diplomatic contacts behind the scenes. An agreement by North Korea to suspend its uranium enrichment programme will most likely follow within days. Discussions have been taking place since summer in New York, Geneva and Beijing. They have already yielded agreements by North Korea to suspend nuclear and ballistic missile testing, readmit international nuclear inspectors expelled in 2009, and resume a dialogue between North and South Korea, according to US diplomats.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Kim Jong Il, North Korea's mercurial and enigmatic leader, has died. He was 69. Kim's death was announced Monday by state television from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008 but appeared relatively vigorous in photos and video from recent trips to China and Russia and in numerous trips around the country carefully documented by state media. The leader, reputed to have had a taste for cigars, cognac and gourmet cuisine, was believed to have had diabetes and heart disease.

Two polls conducted by reputable Democratic pollsters show Republican Rep. Rick Berg to be in serious trouble in the North Dakota Senate race, especially now that former state Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp (D) has entered the race. The first survey, conducted in mid-August well before Heitkamp jumped into the contest, was conducted by Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group. It found voters preferring Berg over a Democrat by a mere 4 points — 44 percent to 40 percent — in a generic Senate ballot test. Only 33 percent of respondents rated Berg’s job performance as good or excellent, while 55 percent termed it...

White House reporters have tried all their sneakiest reporter tricks to find out what is really going on behind the green construction wall on the North Lawn. The 44 blog recently witnessed one journalist trying to extract details from a utility worker, to no avail. Trucks come and go from the White House construction site, their company logos covered for security. There is jackhammering, and digging. The cement truck tires get washed off before they leave the site -- no one wants a messy White House driveway.

As much as half of North Korea's army is starving as food shortages that were previously affecting only the civilian population worsen and begin to affect institutions tasked with protecting Kim Jong-Il's regime. Disaffected North Koreans working secretly as journalists within the country for the Japan-based Asiapress International news agency have smuggled out video footage of interviews with soldiers in different parts of the isolated country, with many complaining of malnutrition.

Three days after leaving China—where he pledged to work for peace—Kim Jong Il threatened to wage war against South Korea (Yonhap News Agency, May 30). The highly provocative comments from the North Korean regime at the end of May were interpreted as a sign of Chairman Kim’s defiance of Beijing, after a week-long visit that Korea watchers termed “disastrous.” Indeed, there are moments when Beijing and Pyongyang do not see eye to eye—such as this May during Kim Jong Il’s trip—but in essence the North Koreans know that the Chinese have to support them. That is why Kim felt confident...

'North Dakota is amending its constitution because of a long-standing technical omission that some claim makes its statehood invalid. So does that mean it's really just a US territory and not a state at all? Every American child is taught there are 50 states in the US. But an 82-year-old care home resident in Grand Forks, North Dakota, is throwing the truth of that universally held statement into some doubt. While reading the state constitution, which is 40 years older than he is, John Rolczynski noticed it omitted to mention the executive branch when explaining which new officers need to...

North Dakota earned its star on the American flag on Nov. 2, 1889, becoming the 39th or 40th state as it was admitted to the union along with South Dakota — or maybe not. Grand Forks resident John Rolczynski, 82, said he has discovered a flaw in North Dakota’s Constitution that he believes means the state is technically still a territory more than a century after its statehood was approved by Congress and authorized by the president. He noticed the flaw on Jan. 31, 1995, and soon set out to notify judges, lawmakers and federal authorities, even sending a letter...

A century and a half after the opening shots of the U.S. Civil War, nearly four in 10 Southerners say they still sympathize with the Confederacy.

Obama's social experiment would have devastating effects on the finest military force the world has ever known. At issue is a pending vote in the Senate on repealing Section 654 of Title X of the U.S. Code. This law, on the books since 1993, states: "The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability." The authors acknowledge that 67 percent of all Marines, more than...

With its ruthless dictator, network of forced labour camps and iron grip of its ruling party, North Korea is the last country one might expect to see a middle-aged woman berating a policeman for demanding a bribe. But extraordinary video images smuggled out of North Korea, combined with reports of graffiti and posters critical of the regime, indicate a growing willingness among a previously cowed public to speak out and demand change. Such dissent would once have been unthinkable in the reclusive state, but now hunger and plummeting living standards are now triggering demands for freedom - something that no...

Wherever there is a tyrannical government in trouble, you’ll find Jimmy Carter there to defend them. Case in point, his op-ed on behalf of North Korea, published Wednesday in the Post. It begins: No one can completely understand the motivations of the North Koreans, but it is entirely possible that their recent revelation of their uranium enrichment centrifuges and Pyongyang’s shelling of a South Korean island Tuesday are designed to remind the world that they deserve respect in negotiations that will shape their future. Every word of this paragraph is false, willfully ignorant or humiliatingly stupid. Take your pick. For...

A frustrated North Korea is lashing out again, this time with a deadly volley of artillery aimed at reminding rival South Korea — and the world — that it will not be ignored. The barrage of shots fired Tuesday at a South Korean island lying within sight of its shores did not come out of nowhere. For weeks, North Korea has been angling for credit for reaching out to the U.S. and South Korea, and has warned that the cool response would come at a cost. The destruction that set homes ablaze, sent civilians fleeing for underground shelters and killed...

The Leftwing extremist group called 'The Southern Poverty Law Center' of Montgomery, Alabama has with one stroke of the pen smeared conservatives and Patriots in its new, infamous 'blacklist' it entitles, 'Meet the Patriots.' Among those it includes in the blacklist are some of the most reputable conservative Patriots in America today, such as U.S. Representative Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), federal judge and Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano, U.S. Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), Gun Owners of America (GOA) chief Larry Pratt, Fox News personality Glenn Beck, and U.S. Representative Paul Broun (R-GA), among others.

What chance do you think this would have of becoming the Republican ticket? Would you vote for it?

The American flag, which Robert E. Lee had defended as a soldier, flew at half mast in Lexington, Virginia.

Seoul, South Korea - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il may have traveled to China in what would be his second visit to the country this year. The Yonhap news agency cites a high-ranking Seoul official as saying there are signs Kim went to China early Thursday. YTN television in Seoul is also reporting a possible Kim trip to China. A National Intelligence Service spokesman tells the AP the reports "appear to be true" but gave no further details. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy. China's Foreign Ministry did not comment.

I usually post this to the Science forum, but I brainlocked and didn't. So I'm reposting the link to the thread in the Science forum. Geology Picture of the Week, August 6, 2010: Four from the Faroes At least I didn't forget to ping the ping list.

A high school student from California is dead after falling 30 metres from a viewing platform into a rocky canyon at the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver. The teenage boy reportedly fell from a viewing platform on the west side of the canyon at around 7 p.m. Sunday. Rescue crews were able to reach the boy quickly, but he was not alive by the time they arrived, according to RCMP Inspector Davis Wendell. "Emergency responders attended the scene and undertook a very difficult high-angle rescue attempt. Unfortunately the male in question had fallen to his death," said Wendell. It...

South Korea deploys troops in border zone to ‘punish’ North Friday, May 28, 2010 By Iftikhar Gilani PANMUNJEOM: An eerie tension is building up on the border between South and North Koreas as the South is amassing troops to take punitive action against the communist North. The tension is also threatening future of Kaeseong, a joint industrial zone, which has often been touted as a model for Pakistan and India to build cooperative relationship along the Line of Control (LoC). The tension runs high after a North Korean submarine torpedoed a 1,200-tonne South Korean ship, killing over 50 sailors. It...

What Richard Blumenthal has been doing through much of his public career is to walk on the backs of those who really did serve in Vietnam – and falsely build affinity with those who serve today. A hero is a person who puts him or herself at risk for the benefit of others. That certainly characterizes anyone who donned a uniform and went to war, voluntarily put themselves in harm’s way in our armed forces and those who serve or served far from home in difficult or dangerous circumstances. That’s an apt description of those with whom I served in...

A New Jersey judge-cum-filmmaker has chosen to step down from the bench rather than abide by a dictum from state judicial authorities that he not publicize his satirical movie painting President Obama as a modern-day Faust. Kenneth Del Vecchio quit his North Arlington municipal court judgeship on May 3, the day the New Jersey Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on Extrajudicial Affairs directed that he should not be interviewed or participate in any press or publicity that may accompany the film, "O.B.A.M. Nude," which was to be released the next day. It was a letdown for Del Vecchio, who has been...

At a United Nations nuclear nonproliferation conference this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laid out our nuclear cards, expecting Iran and North Korea to have a “come to Jesus” moment and start playing nice. In reality, this naive and delusional approach to dealing with members of the Axis of Evil simply reaffirms North Korea and Iran’s target concerning the number of nuclear warheads they need to cause political, economic and cultural instability throughout the world.

Claudia Rosett has a must read description of North Korean logging camps in the Russian wilderness: In 1994 I was working as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal in Moscow when a story turned up in the Russian press, saying that North Korea was running lumber camps in remote areas of Russia. In Moscow, Russian officials confirmed to me that they had two big logging operations manned and policed by North Koreans. Both were in the Russian Far East, in areas once part of Stalin’s old gulag. One was based in a place called Tynda. The other was headquartered...

South Korea's Foreign Minister, Yu Myung-hwan, confirmed on Wednesday that North Korea actually initiated its secret nuclear weapons program as early as 1994. This would mean it began violating its agreement just after Democrats started appeasing the regime with food, oil, money and nuclear technology...

BISMARCK, N.D.—North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said he expects the state to file a lawsuit against Minnesota over its plan to tax carbon dioxide created by electrical generation. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission wants to add a fee of $4 to $34 per ton of carbon dioxide to the cost of electrical generation starting in 2012. The majority of electricity in North Dakota is generated by coal-fired power plants, which emit carbon dioxide. North Dakota officials consider it an unfair tax on electricity produced in the state and say it would discourage its use by Minnesota utilities.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 2 minutes and 44 seconds. Pretitle Sequence “This Never Happened to the other Fellar” Maurice Binder’s Title Sequence The Real James Bond, George Lazenby (Born 09-05-1939) Diana Rigg (born 07-30-1938) as the Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo Telly Savalas (01-21-1922 – 01-22-1994) as Ernst Starvo Blofeld Rest of the Cast Gabriele Ferzetti as Marc-Ange Draco - Head of the Union Corse, a major crime syndicate and Tracy's father Ilse Steppat as Irma Bunt - Blofeld's henchwoman who takes part in his quest to try and eliminate Bond. Bernard Lee as M - Head of...

North quotes one brave Marine: "That's what we do, we're Americans!" A must see video clip from Ollie North.

Oliver L. North, host of FOX News Channel’s documentary series "War Stories," is temporarily off the air while he undergoes treatment for prostate cancer, POLITICO has learned. North’s prognosis is excellent, according to sources. North, the Iran-contra figure, became a popular conservative radio host and U.S. Senate candidate in Virginia in 1994. “War Stories” bills itself as profiling “the wars and warriors that shaped American military history.” When he visits military bases, soldiers and Marines scramble for the autograph of the man they call “Colonel North” but who introduces himself with a breezy, “Ollie North.” From North’s biography on FoxNews.com:...

What I think about secession basically is that it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, but a dangerous pursuit to advocate publicly. Janet Napolitano and the alphabet soup guys do not take kindly to the notion of freedom in any way, and for the precise reason that Abraham Lincoln did not. When asked why he didn’t just let the South go, Lincoln exploded in a rage, “Let the South go? LET THE SOUTH GO? How, then, should I fill my coffers?” Documented historical fact. Look it up for yourselves. Winners write history and the North/Leftists have had nearly 160...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Starry-eyed children writing letters to the jolly man at the North Pole this holiday season likely won't get a response from Santa Claus or his helpers. The U.S. Postal Service is dropping a popular national program begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers open and respond to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole postmarks. Last year, a postal worker in Maryland recognized an Operation Santa volunteer there as a registered sex offender.

Lt. Gen. Gary North was to assume command Wednesday of Pacific Air Forces at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. Before the ceremony, he was to be promoted to the rank of general, according to a news release. North succeeds Gen. Howie Chandler, who took command in November 2007. Chandler is heading to the Pentagon to be the vice chief of staff of the Air Force. North commanded the 9th Air Force and U.S. Air Forces Central, at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C. There, he ran air campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the release said.

PHUKET, Thailand | So much for diplomacy with North Korea. The Pyongyang government and the Obama administration's chief diplomat Thursday escalated a war of words, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton telling Pyongyang it has "no friends" and North Korea calling her "vulgar" and criticizing her appearance. Representatives of both nations were at an annual Asian security summit that the countries have used in the past to engineer high-level encounters. This year, the two traded insults and even found themselves competing for the same stage to address the media. The back-and-forth further diminished hopes that the Obama administration will...

BOGOTA — He calls himself "Cesar," but his real name is Gerardo Aguilar Ramirez. As "comandante" of the 1st Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — and one of the top 10 leaders of the hyper-violent FARC — he has well-earned credentials as a drug-dealing terrorist with a penchant for trading in hostages. This Thursday, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents put Ramirez, aka Cesar, in shackles, marched him aboard an aircraft here in Bogota, and took him to the U.S. to stand trial for his crimes. Our Fox News' "War Stories" team was here to record the event...

Community Standards Your problem is a theological one. But you did address a real problem. The problem you addressed is the problem you would not admit. The problem is that the American community agrees with the Supreme Court of the United States. The general American public agrees that abortion should be legal. Maybe it does not agree that the third-trimester abortions should be legal, but it is not going to throw out of office the civil magistrates who enforce the Supreme Court's ruling. In fact, the Supreme Court has authorized third-trimester abortion and any other kind of abortion, but the...

Our Goal and Solution:We are seeking a long-term and sustainable peace with North Korea. We can't be afraid of them just because they have nuclear weapons, and we should make that point clear. But we should offer them our markets to compete in. The Situation:There are supposedly two more missiles in the works one from each coast with a 4000 mile range. Seattle is 4,700 miles away, which makes it not far-fetched to consider North Korea a nuclear threat. Let’s look at the blast that they set off last week. Some called it a fizzle, but the blast itself was...

It's been a week since this happened (on May 25, 2009 Beijing Time), and strangely enough, this is story is not in the mainstream media in the United States. There are only a few American outlets such as the Wall Street Journal that have reported on this. The others seem to want to only focus on the missile firing instead of the actual nuclear testing that is the size of the one that once destroyed Hiroshima. This is huge. It means that NORTH KOREA ACTUALLY HAS THE BOMB. From Guardian UK: Country risks further international isolation as underground nuclear explosion...

According to the media script, Dick Cheney delivered a 5,000-word rebuttal to President Obama’s speech last Thursday. The fact that Cheney’s speech was scheduled, and penned, weeks before Obama’s staff loaded the president’s teleprompter, won’t persuade the media that Cheney wasn’t “rebutting” Obama, any more than 10 years of planetary cooling will persuade Gorebots that the Earth isn’t erupting into flame. (We’re following that piper to the pier: hold the life preservers…) Cheney delivered his speech to the American Enterprise Institute, and, as usual, acted like he was in a race to conclude his remarks before the bug up-his-butt reached...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea announced Monday that it successfully carried out a second underground nuclear test, less than two months after launching a rocket widely believed to be a test of its long-range missile technology. North Korea, incensed by U.N. Security Council condemnation of its April 5 rocket launch, had warned last month that it would restart it rogue nuclear program, conduct a second atomic test as a follow-up to its first one in 2006, and carry out long-range missile tests. On Monday, the country's official Korean Central News Agency said the regime "successfully conducted one more...

The failure so far of the U.N. Security Council or other international organization to respond to a weekend rocket launch by North Korea does not signal a "win" for the rogue nation, the State Department said Monday.

President Bush is pursuing a globalist agenda to create a North American Union, effectively erasing our borders with both Mexico and Canada. This was the hidden agenda behind the Bush administration's true open borders policy. Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada. President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union, a new economic and political...

The Hershey Co.'s Reading operation is closing and 252 workers are losing their jobs A bitter taste Reading never claimed to be the sweetest place on earth. But since 1986, this self-appointed "home of the pretzel" has been the proud host of a Hershey Co. plant that cranked out somewhat glitzier snacks such as York Peppermint Patties, 5th Avenue and Zagnut candy bars and Jolly Rancher hard candies. It all ends today. The last Peppermint Pattie line will come to a halt after the final swing shift, workers interviewed this week said. Unlike with much of the grim economic news,...

Al Qaeda terrorists have been left fearing the Black Death plague after it wiped out at least 40 insurgents at an Algerian training camp, it was reported today. The horror disease, which killed 25 million people in medieval Europe, is understood to have been found in a militant’s body dumped at a roadside. Terror group AQLIM (al Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb) was forced to turn its shelter in the Yakouren forests into mass graves and flee, it has been claimed. Now al Qaeda chiefs are said to fear the plague has been passed into other cells...

Researcher: North Korea has 'weaponized' plutonium Updated Sat. Jan. 17 2009 8:23 AM ET The Associated Press BEIJING -- North Korea has hardened its stance on disarmament, saying it has "weaponized" plutonium into warheads, but hopes for better ties with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, a U.S. researcher who visited the North said Saturday. Officials say the weapons cannot be inspected and Pyongyang might keep them even if it normalizes relations with Washington, said Selig Harrison, director of the Washington-based Center for International Policy's Asia program. Harrison said he met this week with the North's nuclear envoy, Ri Gun, and other...

AP's headline is "Cousins plead guilty in plot to kill US soldiers." But of course they didn't get involved in this plot because they were cousins. The Department of Homeland Security doesn't need to begin a Global War On Cousins. They did this because they wanted to wage jihad. They met the jihad recruiter at a Muslim convention. They were clearly inspired by Islamic teachings regarding the necessity to wage war against unbelievers. But since none of that is suitable for an AP headline, we get...cousins. An update on this story. "Cousins plead guilty in plot to kill US soldiers,"...

I recall reading that a Union soldier, observing his comrades fleeing in wide-eyed panic from the "rebel yell" at Chancellorsville said his former unit resembled "close-packed ranks rushing like legions of the damned."

There are very few positive things one can say about the North Korean communist regime. For years they have lashed out at their neighbors, openly defied any request made of them, and worst of all they basically imprisoned all of their people with the fear of death. shindonghyuk In North Korea,The Punishment is Always Death picture Shin Dong Hyuk, who grew up in one of North Korea’s worst prison camps, is one of the few have have broken North Korean law and lived to tell of it. The interview Shin Dong Hyuk gave upon successfully escaping the prison camp is...

During financial disaster week, Barack Obama took the lead over John McCain in national polls, by 2.3 percent in the Real Clear Politics average. But the reshuffling of the political deck seems to have opened up more states for McCain and have closed off some states for Obama, specifically, in the northern tier of the country: call it the Frozen North. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Washington seem to be in play now. Preconvention polls showed Obama well ahead in each; postconvention polls show him leading by only a few points. That's 31 electoral votes on the table. And North Dakota, Montana,...

North Korea says it has stopped disabling its nuclear facilities, accusing the US of reneging on a six-party disarmament deal.Work was suspended on 14 August, a foreign ministry spokesman told the state news agency KCNA. North Korea says it took the step because the US failed to remove it from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Have you ever noticed that herds of grazing animals all face the same way?Images from Google Earth have confirmed that cattle tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction. Wild deer also display this behaviour - a phenomenon that has apparently gone unnoticed by herdsmen and hunters for thousands of years.