Laissez-faire

“I’ll tell you what it’s like to be No. 1. I compare it to climbing Mount Everest. It’s very difficult. Lives are lost along the way. You struggle and struggle and finally you get up there. And guess what there is once you get up there? Snow and ice.”

– David Merrick

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Source: http://www.twincities.com//ci_7655973

Minnesota / Early snow cover has depth, staying power

BY RICHARD CHIN
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 12/06/2007 11:37:24 PM CST

We’re covered.

Minnesota has been coated by the most complete and early blanket of snow in more than 10 years, Department of Natural Resources climatologist Greg Spoden said Thursday.

A foot or more of snow smothers much of central and northern Minnesota, according to a snow depth map released Thursday by the DNR. The entire state has at least 3 inches or more of snow.

The last time the state had such early and complete snow coverage was in 1996, Spoden said.

Snow depths currently range from about 3 to 4 inches in southwestern Minnesota up to 18 inches on the ridges just inland from the North Shore.

Temperatures have been above average in the past nine out of 10 winters in the state, Spoden said. But so far, the end of November and beginning of December this year have been colder than normal.

A white Christmas seems likely. The National Weather Service one-month outlook calls for below-normal temperatures.

Spoden said the early snow is likely to be a boost for businesses related to winter recreation in the state including resorts, downhill and cross country ski areas, and retailers selling skis, ice-fishing gear and snowmobiles.

It’s especially helpful for winter recreation in the state that the metropolitan area is well covered early in the season. The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has received about 8 inches of snow, almost up to the 10 inches it gets on average for the entire month of December.

“In December, we sort of set the emotional tone for winter,” Spoden said.

Although snowmobilers and skiers may be rejoicing, an early winter produces some losers. Heating bills will be higher. The construction season is curtailed. Traffic snarls and accidents rise. State and municipal snow removal budgets take a hit. The snow covering inhibits ice formation, requiring extra caution before venturing out on lakes.

And after the winter of 1996-97, the last time we saw such early snow, there was disastrous flooding in the Red River basin when all that snow melted in the spring.

Richard Chin can be reached at rchin@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5560.

Fyi

Heading out to enjoy winter? Here’s some information.

Ice fishing: Lake of the Woods had 7 to 10 inches of ice, and resorts were expected to begin ice-fishing operations Saturday.

On Upper Red Lake, there were 8 to 10 inches of ice, and anglers were driving on the lake with snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles.

Snowmobiling: Northeast Minnesota snowmobile clubs and the DNR were actively packing and grooming trails.

Cross country skiing: Trail grooming has been under way across the state including the metro area.

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Smitty, 12-11-07

The first case of mad cow disease has been discovered in Israel. Gee, I hope this doesn’t make any people in the Middle East go crazy!

– Jay Leno

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Wait a minute ………. what if some extremists within the Jewish faith are offended by this (below) ?? Shouldn’t they take to the streets and demand the beheading of the organizers ?? Isn’t that the proper response ???

– Smitty, 12-4-07

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22080072/

Giant menorah made of Legos in St. Louis Park will mark Hanukkah

By / StarTribune
startribune.com
updated 9:30 a.m. CT, Mon., Dec. 3, 2007

A menorah made entirely of Lego pieces will rise 8 feet high as part of this year’s Hanukkah celebration in the Twin Cities.

Organizers are saying it will be the largest menorah that the state has every seen. It will be on display starting Tuesday at the Byerly’s grocery store in St. Louis Park. It will remain there all through the holiday, which begins Tuesday at sundown and lasts eight days.

Children are also being invited to enter a Lego menorah competition and enter their most creative Lego menorahs. Then, the public can vote on the entries at the store or online.

See www.livinglegacymn.com for details.

The Lego menorah events are sponsored by the Minneapolis Chabad Lubavitch worship house in Minnetonka.

Hanukkah, known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day celebration of the Jews’ victory over the Syrian-Greek oppressors nearly 2,200 years ago. When the victors arrived in Jerusalem, only a smidgen of oil remained to light the Temple’s menorah. Somehow, the tiny flame burned for eight days, until messengers showed up with more oil. Jews light candles for eight days to commemorate the miracle.

PAUL WALSH

I once had dinner in a German-Chinese restaurant. The food was delicious, but an hour later, I was hungry for power.

– Anonymous

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Come on you culturally-insensitive SOB’s ………. instead of giving your local MN food shelf things like macaroni & cheese mixes, pasta and soup, YOU instead need to start donating things such as meat that is halal (certified for the Muslim community), Fufu (an African porridge) and plantains !!

What’s the matter with you ?? Get with the program !!!
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Source: http://www.twincities.com/news/ci_6117161

Same hunger, different diets
From fish sauce to fufu, Minnesota food shelves need more donations for recent immigrants. They’re encouraging contributors to think beyond the basics while homesick taste buds adjust

BY MARY BAUER
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 10/26/2007 05:23:40 PM CDT

Move over, mac and cheese. The local food shelf could use a little fufu.

Twin Cities’ food banks and food shelves are racing to stock more ethnic foods to keep up with the area’s growing number of new immigrants.

“Not all rice is created equal,” said Renae Oswald-Anderson, vice president of community building at Neighborhood House, a community center on St. Paul’s West Side that includes a food shelf.

“The vast majority of our participants do not speak English as a first language,” she said. “They’re immigrants and refugees.”

But getting enough fufu, an African porridge, to go around is proving no easy task. Although the Midwest is growing more culturally diverse - 11.8 percent of Minnesotans say they’re from a nonwhite ethnic group - food donations are not.

Food shelf organizers say they don’t have enough ethnic items to go around, which means they have to buy them. They’re launching a variety of efforts to diversify donations and to teach newcomers how to love Spam and Cheerios.

Providing culturally specific food is essential to feeding recent immigrants for nutritional and emotional reasons, food shelf organizers say.

Over time, newcomers assimilate and learn to incorporate new foods into their diet. But in the beginning, people can go hungry despite a cupboard full of items from a food shelf, said Mustafa Sundiata, food shelf coordinator for NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center Inc. in North Minneapolis.

They don’t know how to prepare the foods or eat them, he said.

“For the average person, mac and cheese is not a problem - unless you just came from Laos and you’re used to cooking in a pot over an open fire,” Sundiata said.

And don’t underestimate the power of comfort food. Many of their clients have endured suffering and loss to come to the United States, food shelf workers said. When you’re homesick, you want food just the way Mom made it, with basmati rice.

“It’s what you are used to in your diet,” said Annette Bauer, public relations director for the northern division of the Salvation Army, which operates five food shelves in the Twin Cities. “And at the beginning, when they first get here, it’s what we can do to make them comfortable.”

The glitch lies in how the food chain filters down to the needy. About 70 percent of the food for Second Harvest Heartland, the largest food bank in the Midwest, comes from donations, said Heidi Stennes, director of communications for the bank. The organization distributes food to 950 agencies and food shelves.

Shelves at its Maplewood warehouse are packed with misprinted labels, product line overruns and flavors that didn’t pan out. Those foods come through established relationships with large food manufacturers like Hormel and Nestle, Stennes said.

While they’re making inroads, banks have fewer partnerships with ethnic food manufacturers and specialty grocery stores, she said.

“Here in the Midwest, there aren’t large producers of ethnic foods,” Stennes said. “Most of the ethnic food, we have to buy.”

A lot of ethnic foods are imports. Specialty importers are often small family businesses that can’t afford to give away food on the same scale as Kraft, said Oswald-Anderson.

“African-style foods like plantain or fufu are not hard to find,” said Sundiata, who manages the largest standalone food shelf in Minnesota. “We have importers who import that kind of thing. But it’s difficult getting them to donate to the food bank because these foods are very, very expensive.”

On the small-donor side, people give what they eat, Bauer said. And food shelves are not well connected in ethnic populations.

“We’re beginning to ask, ‘How do we reach out to donors who are diverse?’ ” she said.

Neighborhood House recently organized a workshop on culturally sound food shelf practices and produced a workbook for donors that lists ethnic items found at any large chain grocery. The reception has been positive, she said.

“You can go to Cub Foods and Rainbow and find fish sauce on the shelves,” Oswald-Anderson said. “So we can encourage donors to purchase those things for families.”

Sundiata said he believes that eventually, the supply side will catch up. Meanwhile, food banks and food shelves must buy ethnic foods themselves. Second Harvest Heartland is applying for grants to buy ethnic foods. The Salvation Army gives out food vouchers its clients can use at neighborhood groceries. Neighborhood House buys in bulk, repackaging 100-pound bags of specialty rice into 2-pound bags.

The long-term solution is education, Sundiata and others said. The larger food shelves have education programs designed to teach nutrition, menu planning and food preparation. Neighborhood House offers recipes that incorporate typical food-shelf fare into ethnic dishes.

“We need to take what we have and teach everybody how to use it,” Sundiata said. “If we’d spend our money that way, we’d come out better than trying to import these culturally specific expensive foods.”

Mary Bauer can be reached at mbauer@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5311.

OLD STANDBYS

Food items on the typical food bank want list:

# Macaroni and cheese mixes
# Pasta
# Soup
# Peanut butter
# Fresh fruits and vegetables
# Cereal
# Bread
# 100 percent fruit juices

NEW FAVORITES

Culturally specific items sought at food banks and food shelves:

# Different kinds of rice: basmati, jasmine, saffron and brown rice
# Beans of all kinds
# Meat that is halal, certified for the Muslim community
# Fufu, an African porridge
# Plantains
# Fresh fruits and vegetables
# Guilin rice noodles
# Bean thread
# Soy milk or beverages
# White gourd juice
# Corn meal, corn flour and corn oil
# Fish sauce

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

By John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

“Murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with cries of distress, the soil soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes. Where is the heart that can contemplate such a scene without shivering with horror?”

– New England Courant newspaper (1801), on the election of Thomas Jefferson

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Such vigilantism (see story below) is an unfortunate side effect of a city (with a bleeding-heart liberal mayor, council and judicial system) that continues to coddle gangs and other criminal elements. Protecting the public from lawlessness and anarchy is supposed to be the #1 reason that government was created 10,000 years ago. Everything else is so far down the list that it’s off the charts.

Cutting the heart and guts out of gangs should be the life’s mission of the mayor in St. Paul. Double the size of the police force if necessary. Appoint and support judges who pity victims instead of criminals. All necessary resources should be thrown in the mix (even if it means dramatically cutting back on “free stuff” that you want to give to your favored constituencies to buy votes).

The creation of the RICO act all but destroyed the mafia on the east coast. Why the hell can’t a gaggle of fed, state or local lawyers come up with a “RICO” act targeted at gangs? Do we have a shortage of lawyers in this country ???? Are they all too “busy” doing good deeds more important than this ????

Methinks you’re going to see more and more and more of this. If the powers that be aren’t going to take gang violence seriously then it’s hard to condemn someone who was so fed up and frightened that he took the law in his own hands. Now he’s facing a second-degree murder rap. I’ll bet that no resources will be spared to put this “criminal” away. That will sure keep our streets safer !! In the meantime, the gang members all scattered and presumably headed back to their 9-5 at Wal Mart.

P.S. Good thing that it was an Asian killing an Asian. That at least keeps the racist nonsense out of the picture that the bleeding hearts would be screaming about. It’s just too bad that no one is screaming about the real issue here.

– Smitty, 10-30-07

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Reference: http://www.twincities.com/newsletter-morning/ci_7316499

Gang gathers; father shoots

Man charged in teen’s death told police his son, 19, was threatened

BY EMILY GURNON
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 10/30/2007 12:04:02 AM CDT

He had been shot by gang members before. So when a group of Bloods threatened his son in a dispute over a girl, Nai Vang grabbed the rifle he used for hunting squirrels and pulled the trigger.

Police said that’s what Vang told them after a Friday night incident in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood left one teen dead and one injured.

Vang, 37, of St. Paul, was charged Monday by the Ramsey County attorney’s office with killing 18-year-old Chia Neng Yang of Brooklyn Park, who was found dead in a nearby alley after the shooting.

The medical examiner provisionally determined that Yang died of a gunshot wound to the chest, complicated by injuries “from pedestrian vs. motor vehicle,” according to police. Yang had a severe head injury after he was run over by a car shortly after being shot. Investigators were initially unsure what had killed him.

Vang was at home with his children and some friends about 7 p.m. Friday when a group of Bloods drove up to his house at 837 E. Jessamine Ave., according to the complaint.

The complaint describes events this way:

An argument erupted between the Bloods and Vang’s son, who is dating an ex-girlfriend of a Bloods gang member. The son, Gary Vang, 19, and his friends are Asian Crips members, one witness told police.

Investigators later searched the home on a warrant and found photos of Asian men and women flashing gang signs, as well as gang wear and a notebook with “crips vs. bloods” written on the back.

Confronted by the other gang, Gary Vang said, “If they want to fight, let’s fight,” and he, two brothers and friends started to gather up sticks and knives.

Nai Vang then walked out of the house and told the other group of about 20 to leave, but they approached his three boys, he told police. When a fight seemed imminent, he went into the house and got his gun.

Witnesses saw him raise the rifle to his shoulder shoot into the crowd. The Bloods began to scatter. Two, including Yang, were hit. A friend saw Yang lying in the alley and yelled at him to get up, but he didn’t move.

Seconds later, a car roared through the alley, running over Yang, witnesses said.

A 15-year-old boy was treated at Regions Hospital for gunshot wounds to his arms.

Nai Vang told police that gang members shot him when he lived in the 600 block of Wells Street a few months ago. He believed the gang members were “coming back to finish him off,” the complaint said. On Friday, he said, he first shot in the air, then lowered his gun but did not shoot directly into the other group. He thought he was the only person to shoot. After the incident, he put his gun back in the bedroom.

Police that evening ordered at least a dozen people out of the house after the shooting, including several young children.
Nai Vang was charged with second-degree murder and two counts of assault.

St. Paul police arrested Gary Vang on suspicion of homicide Saturday. The investigation into the younger Vang continues, said officer Pete Crum, a police spokesman.

Mara H. Gottfried contributed to this story. Emily Gurnon can be reached at egurnon@pioneer press.com or 651-228-5522.

“I do not believe people are born evil. You have to work at it. You have to make many bad choices, turning again and again toward the dark until finally, you can see nothing and no one beyond yourself.”

– Mark Hare, Rochester (NY) Democrat & Chronicle

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Reference: http://news.aol.com/story/ar/_a/america-tortures-prisoners-carter-says/20071010165209990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
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Dear Former President Carter: You continue to prove over and over what a despicable person you are. Of all ex-Presidents in the 20th Century, you are the least qualified to criticize the performance of others.

Obviously, you must think the electorate are a bunch of idiots with a short memory ……… too short to recall what an absolute disaster your tenure as President was.

Well I remember …..

- I remember the nice “hat trick” your economic incompetence gave us: Double digit-inflation, double-digit unemployment, AND double-digit interest rates. A hell of an accomplishment. You must be so %$#@ proud.

- I remember being ecstatic that I was able to secure a “low” 13% home mortgage interest rate for my first home in 1980.

- I remember Islamic-fascism being born under your incompetent watch. The savages were emboldened once they knew that the US had a complete hamster for a President, so they kept our Iran Embassy staff hostages for 444 days knowing that they had nothing to fear from you. To this day, countless civilian and military lives (US and foreign) have been lost directly or indirectly due to your absolute inability to deal with evil, which has immeasurably strengthened these savages to this day.

- I remember you giving America-hating Michael Moore an honored seat next to you at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Why don’t you just save some time and spit on the US flag ??

I still have nightmares imaging you as our President on 9/11. That would have been a disaster beyond the pale. Your “endorsement” of John Edwards was the kiss of death for his campaign. Hillary and Barock fared far better ………… they were only endorsed by Castro.

Based on the nonsense you’ve spouted over the years, I’m formulated the “Jimmy Carter 180 Rule”: Whenever you say the US should do something, in reality we should do the exact opposite as rapidly as possible if we truly love our country.

Please keep your filthy, slimy, misguided, anti-semitic, American-hating terrorist-enabling, dictator-loving “opinions” away from those of us who actually care about this country and where it’s headed.

– Smitty, 10-14-07

“Counter-terrorism experts say that Osama bin Laden may be hiding secret messages on pornographic websites. You know what that means, Clinton could find this guy before Bush.”

—Jay Leno

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………. for continuing to do triple-backslips in your efforts to enable terrorism. It’s bad enough that we have to fight Islamofascists; with you as their defacto ally it’s far worse ………

– Smitty, 10-7-07

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Source: http://www.newsmax.com/kessler/FISA_act/2007/10/05/38477.html?s=al&promo_code=3AF5-1

Do We Want Another 9/11?

Friday, October 5, 2007 11:29 AM
By: Ronald Kessler

In their efforts to demonize the American intelligence community, Democrats and the media are playing with our safety.

The latest example is the way these critics are minimizing and distorting warnings from Mike McConnell, director of National Intelligence, about how defenseless America would become if warrants were required to intercept terrorists’ calls and e-mails even when those communications are in foreign countries.

The issue should not be controversial. Going back to the founding of the National Security Agency in 1952, the government could intercept calls and e-mails of targets situated in foreign countries without a warrant. But because most such communications now pass through U.S. switching systems in fiber optic cables, a Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA) court judge ruled on May 31 that intercepting such communications requires a court order.

Obtaining a FISA court order requires an average of 200 man hours of preparation. Often, people who speak Arabic, Farsi, or Urdu have to be pulled off tracking leads to possible plots to help prepare the applications. Moreover, by the time an order is obtained for a new targeted phone number, the call is finished.

Because of the ruling, tens of thousands of calls and e-mails were not being examined. Any one of them could have contained clues to an al-Qaida plot to detonate nuclear devices in Manhattan and Washington. As FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III has told me, these are al-Qaida’s twin goals.

In August, Congress — over the objections of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi — voted to continue to allow intercepts of calls based in foreign countries without the need for a warrant. But already, Pelosi and other Democrats have vowed to gut that law, called the Protect America Act, before it expires on Feb. 5.

To illustrate the need for an extension of the revision, Director of National Intelligence McConnell recently cited a delay “in the neighborhood of 12 hours” to obtain a warrant under the emergency provision of FISA. The warrant was to listen to calls made last May by insurgents who captured American soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division. The bodies of some of those captured have since been found; the other soldiers are presumed dead.

That example should have been enough to put the issue to rest. What could be more absurd than having to obtain a warrant to listen to conversations of foreign insurgents? But Rep. Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat, accused McConnell of trying to “politicize the debate” over electronic surveillance by citing the soldiers’ case.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat who heads the House Intelligence Committee, blamed government officials, not the law. Reyes claimed an emergency request under FISA should take “only a few minutes” and “one call.”

When McConnell subsequently released a time line showing that the delay in obtaining a warrant was nine and a half hours, the press pounced. The Washington Post ran a story focusing on the difference between McConnell’s initial rough estimate of the delay to obtain an emergency warrant and the more precise time line he later released.

“Iraq Wiretap Delay Not Quite As Presented,” the headline over the story said. “Lag Is Attributed to Internal Disputes and Time to Reach Gonzales, Not FISA Constraints.”

The story claimed that the delay of nine and a half hours was caused “primarily by legal wrangling between the Justice Department and intelligence officials over whether authorities had probable cause to begin the surveillance.”

The delay included “nearly two hours” spent trying to reach then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was speaking to U.S. attorneys in Texas, to obtain authorization of the emergency application, the story said.

In what has become standard practice in the mainstream media, the Post buried the Justice Department’s response that the case “presented novel and complex issues that we had to resolve” in the 11th paragraph of the story.

In fact, based on the original intent of FISA, since the communications were in a foreign country, no warrant should have been required in the first place. The point of revising FISA was to make that clear so that such calls could be intercepted instantly. But since the revision had not been passed last May and the communications happened to be routed through the U.S., authorities were obliged to carefully line up the facts and examine all the legalities before applying for an emergency authorization.

If, as Reyes claimed, that process normally took only a few minutes and one phone call, it would be a sham exercise. Moreover, the time required to obtain authorization from officials like Gonzales under emergency conditions only underscores why tolerating such onerous legal procedures when Americans’ rights are not at stake is foolhardy.

Rep. Holt’s claim that McConnell was politicizing the issue by presenting a case history has become a standard tactic of many Democrats. If intelligence officials like Mike McConnell or military officers like Gen. David Petraeus cite evidence to back up their case, they are accused of either being pawns of the White House or of using scare tactics.

The Washington Post’s story illustrates how the media undermine the war on terror by obscuring the truth. In highlighting a difference of two and a half hours between McConnell’s rough estimate of the delay compared with the actual duration of the delay, the paper sought to undermine McConnell’s credibility.

The problem was not “legal wrangling,” the term the Post chose to apply to legal deliberations. The problem was that FISA had not kept up with technological changes and needed to be revised to make it conform to its original intent.

If al-Qaida succeeds at its goals, it could literally wipe out millions of Americans and institute a nuclear winter. Yet between the Democrats’ efforts to handcuff those who are trying to protect us and the mainstream media’s efforts to malign those officials and distort the truth about the issues we face, we as Americans are at the mercy of people bent on committing suicide.

Osama bin Laden, known to follow the media closely, has to be laughing.

Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of NewsMax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via e-mail

You don’t stop laughing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop laughing.

– Anonymous

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A future voter reacts as the Democratic Party’s plan to protect the US from Islamic Fascism is explained to him point-by-point…………

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P6UU6m3cqk

– Smitty, 9-16-07

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Boy, I’m sure glad that our “leaders” have decided NOT to deploy this weapon ………. or all the Iraqis and everyone else in the Mideast would no longer love us like they do now !!

– Smitty, 9-9-07

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Source: http://news.aol.com/story/ar/_a/pentagon-rejects-ray-gun-weapon-in-iraq/20070829173209990001

Pentagon Rejects Ray Gun Weapon in Iraq

By RICHARD LARDNER,AP
Posted: 2007-08-30 15:24:12
Filed Under: Iraq News, Nation News

WASHINGTON (Aug. 29) - Saddam Hussein had been gone just a few weeks, and U.S. forces in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, were already being called unwelcome invaders. One of the first big anti-American protests of the war escalated into shootouts that left 18 Iraqis dead and 78 wounded.

It would be a familiar scene in Iraq ’s next few years: Crowds gather, insurgents mingle with civilians. Troops open fire, and innocents die.

All the while, according to internal military correspondence obtained by The Associated Press, U.S. commanders were telling Washington that many civilian casualties could be avoided by using a new non-lethal weapon developed over the past decade.

Military leaders repeatedly and urgently requested — and were denied — the device, which uses energy beams instead of bullets and lets soldiers break up unruly crowds without firing a shot.

It’s a ray gun that neither kills nor maims, but the Pentagon has refused to deploy it out of concern that the weapon itself might be seen as a torture device.

Perched on a Humvee or a flatbed truck, the Active Denial System gives people hit by the invisible beam the sense that their skin is on fire. They move out of the way quickly and without injury.

On April 30, 2003, two days after the first Fallujah incident, Gene McCall, then the top scientist at Air Force Space Command in Colorado, typed out a two-sentence e-mail to Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I am convinced that the tragedy at Fallujah would not have occurred if an Active Denial System had been there,” McCall told Myers, according to the e-mail obtained by AP. The system should become “an immediate priority,” McCall said.

Myers referred McCall’s message to his staff, according to the e-mail chain.

McCall, who retired from government in November 2003, remains convinced the system would have saved lives in Iraq.

“How this has been handled is kind of a national scandal,” McCall said by telephone from his home in Florida.

A few months after McCall’s message, in August 2003, Richard Natonski, a Marine Corps brigadier general who had just returned from Iraq, filed an “urgent” request with officials in Washington for the energy-beam device.

The device would minimize what Natonski described as the “CNN Effect” — the instantaneous relay of images depicting U.S. troops as aggressors.

A year later, Natonski, by then promoted to major general, again asked for the system, saying a compact and mobile version was “urgently needed,” particularly in urban settings.

Natonski, now a three-star general, is the Marine Corps’ deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations. He did not respond to an interview request.

In October 2004, the commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force “enthusiastically” endorsed Natonski’s request. Lt. Gen. James Amos said it was “critical” for Marines in Iraq to have the system.

Senior officers in Iraq have continued to make the case. One December 2006 request noted that as U.S. forces are drawn down, the non-lethal weapon “will provide excellent means for economy of force.”

The main reason the tool has been missing in action is public perception. With memories of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal still fresh, the Pentagon is reluctant to give troops a space-age device that could be misconstrued as a torture machine.

“We want to just make sure that all the conditions are right, so when it is able to be deployed the system performs as predicted — that there isn’t any negative fallout,” said Col. Kirk Hymes, head of the Defense Department’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate.

Reviews by military lawyers concluded it is a lawful weapon under current rules governing the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan , according to a Nov. 15 document prepared by Marine Corps officials in western Iraq.

Private organizations remain concerned, however, because documentation that supports the testing and legal reviews is classified. There’s no way to independently verify the Pentagon’s claims, said Stephen Goose of Human Rights Watch in Washington.

“We think that any time you have an emerging technology that’s based on novel physical principles, that this deserves the highest level of scrutiny,” Goose said. “And we really haven’t had that.”

Another issue for the weapon is cost.

The Pentagon has spent $62 million developing and testing the system over the past decade, a scant amount compared to other high-profile, multibillion-dollar military programs.

Still, officials say the technology is too expensive, although they won’t say what it costs to build. They cite engineering challenges as another obstacle, although one U.S. defense contractor says it has a model ready for production.

For now, there’s no firm schedule for when the system might be made and delivered to troops.

Commanders in Iraq say the go-slow approach has had devastating consequences.

There’s no way to calculate how many civilian deaths could have been avoided had the energy beam been available in Iraq. The bulk of the civilian casualties are due to sectarian warfare.

According to AP statistics, more than 27,400 Iraqi civilians have been killed and more than 31,000 wounded in war-related violence just since the new government took office in April 2005.

The Active Denial System is a directed-energy device, although it is not a laser or a microwave. It uses a large, dish-shaped antenna and a long, V-shaped arm to send an invisible beam of waves to a target as far away as 500 yards.

With the unit mounted on the back of a vehicle, U.S. troops can operate a safe distance from rocks, Molotov cocktails and small-arms fire.

The beam penetrates the skin slightly, just enough to cause intense pain. The beam goes through clothing as well as windows, but can be blocked by thicker materials, such as metal or concrete.

The system was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico. During more than 12 years of testing, only two injuries requiring medical attention have been reported; both were second-degree burns, according to the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate Web site.

Prototype units have been assembled by the military, the most promising being a larger model that sits on the back of a flatbed truck. This single unit, known as System 2, could be sent to Iraq as early as next year, according to Hymes of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate.

Hymes’ office, which nurtures promising technologies that can be used by the military branches, plans to spend $9 million over the next two years on the effort.

Money for additional systems isn’t likely to be available until 2010, when an Air Force command in Massachusetts is expected to take control of the program, he said.

Recognizing the potential market, defense contractor Raytheon has invested its own money to build a version that the company calls “Silent Guardian.” Although Hymes said the Raytheon product “is not ready yet,” company representatives say it is.

Mike Booen, Raytheon’s vice president for directed energy programs, said the company has produced one system that’s immediately available.

“We have the capacity to build additional systems as needed,” he said.

Raytheon has not sold any Silent Guardians to U.S. or foreign customers, and Booen would not discuss the product’s price.

American commanders in Iraq already have asked to buy Raytheon’s device.

A Dec. 1, 2006, urgent request signed by Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Robert Neller sought eight Silent Guardians.

Neller, then the deputy commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, called the lack of such a non-lethal weapon a “chronic deficiency” that “will continue to harm” efforts to resolve showdowns with as little firepower as possible.

Other requests from officers in Iraq asked for the system as part of a broader weapons package on wheels, one that could shoot bullets as well as the non-lethal beam.

Such a versatile system would let troops deal with “increasingly complex operational environments where combatants are routinely intermixed with noncombatants,” Army Brig. Gen. James Huggins said in an April 2005 memo to Pentagon officials.

Huggins, then chief of staff of the Multi-National Force in Iraq and now deputy commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, wanted 14 vehicles for missions ranging from raids to convoy escorts.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in Iraq from its base in Tampa, Fla., backed the request, saying it was “critical to build upon our success in the counterinsurgency battle,” according to its memo to the Pentagon.

The vehicles were not delivered, however. Robert Buhrkuhl, a senior Pentagon acquisition official, said during congressional testimony in January that combining the various fixtures on a single vehicle presented major technical challenges.

In an interview, Franz Gayl, who was Neller’s science adviser until the unit returned in February, blamed an entrenched, “risk-averse” military acquisition system for moving too slowly.

Gayl calls the system a “disruptive innovation” — an unconventional piece of equipment that breaks new ground and therefore is viewed skeptically by the offices that buy combat gear.

If the energy-beam weapon had been fielded when U.S. forces invaded Iraq, “many innocent Iraqi lives would have been spared,” Gayl said.

I have a bumper sticker that says, “Don’t honk if you can’t read this.” Everywhere I drive, I leave confused people in my wake !!

– Anonymous

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What’s the big deal ?? ………. “geo-political expert” John Edwards said it’s all just a bumper sticker. Not to worry ………

– Smitty, 8-26-07

Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RegulatoryPost/message/2348

Chemical plants warned about fake surveys

Chemical plants are being warned not to divulge security and safety procedures to a caller who claims to be conducting a survey for an industry trade group. The caller gave a false phone number and the group is not conducting a survey. At least three such calls were made this month to plants in the Midwest, but no information was divulged, according to the Center for Chemical Process Safety, an industry group based in New York that sent an alert. “There is concern, in light of recent terrorist activity, that this may be an attempt to determine security vulnerabilities in the chemical process,” said the letter sent Tuesday to 31,000 members of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the parent group of CCPS.

The calls raised concern in New Jersey, which has many plants, said Elvin Montero, a spokesman for the Chemistry Council of New Jersey. “It’s taken seriously. Companies know the procedures to take,” Montero said Friday. “Companies do not discuss their process safety or security measures over the phone, especially to someone they don’t know.” Montero declined to speculate on why such calls were made, but said the FBI and the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness had been informed. FBI spokesman Richard Kolko in Washington said the agency was aware of the report and is looking into it. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Russ Knocke, said the matter had not yet been brought to his agency.

Thanks to Safetng.net