A Taylor attorney who was aboard a terrorist-targeted Christmas Day flight to Detroit says he was not surprised to hear al-Qaida claim responsibility for the attempted bombing Monday because he does not believe the man now in federal custody acted alone. Kurt Haskell said he and his wife, Lori, were playing cards near the boarding gate in Amsterdam when he saw a well-dressed man who appeared to be of Indian descent come to the assistance of the man he later learned was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The 23-year-old Nigerian was having trouble boarding the plane he is accused of trying to blow up because he had no passport, Haskell said. "I think what I saw was his handler ... getting him on the plane," said Haskell, who was returning from a safari in Uganda.

Just as the CLG has asserted from the get-go. Wait until Blackwater gets hold of one of Pakistan's nukes, detonates it, blames 'al-Qaeda' and plunges the US into WWIII. I am thinking the lucrative contract for Xe to 'clean up' in the aftermath of the nuclear explosion has already been drafted. Blackwater needs to be eliminated before they become as big as Goldman Sachs and Citi - 'too big' to destroy.

Six Republican congressmen from Georgia have signed onto an Atlanta-based organization's legal challenge of a federal announcement that could lead to government regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. The Southeastern Legal Foundation filed a petition last week calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider its Dec. 7 "endangerment finding" declaring carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming a threat to public health and the environment. The petition argues that news of a conspiracy within the scientific community to hide evidence that calls into question manmade impacts on global warming has emerged since the closing of public comment on the EPA filing. CFP: Time to Revisit Falsified Science of CO2. Science Daily: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds.

Earlier I wrote about the Arctic Oscillation Index going strongly negative in December and what new cold to expect in January. From NASA’s Earth observatory, we have a high resolution temperature anomaly map that provides visualization of the effects. This image was taken while the Copenhagen Climate Conference was in progress.

Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 6
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 4
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 3
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 2
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 1

Eighty percent of the American population now believe that man is responsible for global warming. Emerging science, however, is providing important new understanding of this issue. Yet, this information is not getting out to people, especially to our school children. It has not been proven that man is responsible for global warming or cooling. Rock Creek Free Press: Climategate: Science Scandal of the Century -The World’s Most Influential Climate Scientists Get Caught “Fudging” the Data. AWIP: Copenhagen climate change conference: 'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'

For the second time in just over a year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper temporarily shut down Parliament on Wednesday, evoking accusations from opposition politicians that he was abusing parliamentary tradition for political gain. The move to end the current session of Parliament before starting a new one in March is not routine. Normally, governments take such a step only after several years in power to reset Parliament’s legislative agenda, often as a prelude to an election. The shutdown killed all legislation making its way through the parliamentary process, including bills championed by Mr. Harper’s Conservative government.

There's a question we Israelis won't ask ourselves about the Palestinians, especially not about Gaza. The question is taboo. Not only won't anyone ask it out loud, but very, very few people will dare ask it in the privacy of their own minds. However, I think it's time we start asking it, privately and in public. If we don't, I think there's going to be Operation Cast Lead II, then Operation Cast Lead III, and each one is going to be worse than the last, and the consequences for Palestinians and Israelis are going to be unimaginable. The question we have to ask ourselves is this: If anybody treated us like we're treating the people in Gaza, what would we do?

American-led troops were accused yesterday of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead. Afghan government investigators said that eight schoolchildren were killed, all but one of them from the same family. Locals said that some victims were handcuffed before being killed. PressTV: Afghan civilian death prompts anti-US rallies. + Karzai calls for US troops in Afghan custody.

CNN: Attacks kill 8 purported CIA employees agents, 5 Canadians in Afghanistan. An attack by a suicide bomber at a military base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday killed eight Americans believed to be CIA employees, a senior U.S. official told CNN. Also Wednesday, four Canadian soldiers and a Canadian journalist were killed when a roadside bomb hit their armored vehicle in southern Afghanistan, Canada's defense ministry said. CBC: 5 Canadians killed in Afghanistan. In both of these news items we can observe the not-so-subtle journalistic device of choosing a photo and an angle. In this case, an attractive young female (an embedded journalist that is part and parcel of war psyops) is supposed to make us think that "we" are the victims and that "they" are the bad guys. We're supposed to forget that we went over there to kill & main their men and to occupy their country. We are supposed to fall for this and say: baaad terrorists! We're not supposed to even consider the sheer number of people we kill over there (in the thousands), or to see them as human beings, much less are we supposed to consider the real reason why we're there. Belfast Telegraph: Eight Americans killed by Afghanistan bomb 'were CIA agents'. BBC: US CIA officers agents killed in Afghanistan bomb attack.

You’ve heard by now the Haskell story right? In case you haven’t let’s start there. Kurt Haskell is an attorney. He and his wife were in Amsterdam that day after a safari and Kurt witnessed the underwear bomber (Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab) before the flight being aided by what Haskell described to be an older Indian gentleman who was well dressed. Many news organizations have interviewed Mr. Haskell and he has told his story in it’s entirety but there is one thing all of these news organizations have left out in reporting it.

US intelligence sources have confirmed Iran's assertions that a document published by a British daily about Tehran's nuclear program is a fabrication. According to a former CIA official, US intelligence agents have found that the document, which was published by the Times of London on December 14, was fabricated by Israel or Britain, the Inter Press Service (IPS) reported on Monday. The IPS report was penned by renowned investigative journalist Gareth Porter. CounterPunch: The Iranian Nuke Forgeries: CIA Determines Documents Were Fabricated.

Gallup’s annual, open-ended poll of the “most admired” Americans finds President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on top. Obama, whom 30 percent of respondents named first, easily wins out among men, but Clinton, at 16 percent, is only one point ahead of Sarah Palin. USA Today: Glenn Beck, the Pope, Rev. Billy Graham all tied for 4th in 'most admired man' poll.

If we can't catch a Nigerian with explosives in feminine underpants, whose father alerted the U.S. embassy, whose ticket was bought in cash, who didn’t check bags, whose visa was denied by the UK, who studied in Yemen, whose name was on a watch list, who can we catch? We can always go catch some dark-skinned man from somewhere or some Arab, whatever, or if we're not happy with that, we can go bomb yet another country to smithereens...

Korea and China 1950-53,

Guatemala 1954

Indonesia 1958

Cuba 1959-1961

Guatemala 1960

Congo 1964

Laos 1964-73

Vietnam 1961-73

Cambodia 1969-70

Guatemala 1967-69

Grenada 1983

Lebanon 1983, 1984

Libya 1986

El Salvador 1980s

Nicaragua 1980s

Iran 1987

Panama 1989

Iraq 1991 (Persian Gulf War)

Kuwait 1991

Somalia 1993

Bosnia 1994, 1995

Sudan 1998

Afghanistan 1998

Yugoslavia 1999

Yemen 2002

Iraq 1991-2003

Iraq 2003-present

Afghanistan 2001-present

Pakistan 2007-present

Somalia in the 2000s

AntiWar: US Set for Fresh Yemen Attacks, but Where? Officials Say Talks With Yemeni Govt Aimed at Picking New Targets: The problem, officials say, is picking where to lob the missiles. Officials say American special forces are working with the Yemeni government to try to figure out which would be a good place to attack next. The ideal, they say, would be if they were able to link some site to the lap bomber.

Right now, according to the latest DOD census, there's about 250 to 260,000 uniformed members of the United States military operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and in support of those operations. However, there's a statistic that almost never goes mentioned, and that is that there is an equal number of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan right now, meaning that the U.S. military is of equal size to the contractor force in both of those wars.

Mordechai Vanunu, who served 18 years in prison after he revealed Israel's secret nuclear programme, has been placed under house arrest pending criminal charges for allegedly breaching the terms of his 2004 release, which includes a ban on contacts with "foreigners". TPV: Israeli nukes: police arrest whistleblower Vanunu.

According to activist group The Yes Men, the government of Canada has shut down two parody websites criticizing Canada's poor environmental policy. The article goes on to claim that 'In response to Environment Canada's request, Serverloft immediately turned off a whole block of IP addresses, knocking out more than 4500 websites that had nothing to do with the parody sites or the activists who created them. Serverloft was shown no warrant, and never called the web hosting company about the shutdown.'"

Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children. Asked if the people were shot outside their homes, the President’s spokesman Waheed Omar said: “That is our understanding.” Local elders confirmed that ten people were killed, but their accounts of raid differed. “Three of the children were killed in their bedroom,” said a local elder Jan Mohammed. “The other five had their hands bound, then they were killed." PressTV: US troops kill civilians.

Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 6
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 5
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 3
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 2
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 1

Eighty percent of the American population now believe that man is responsible for global warming. Emerging science, however, is providing important new understanding of this issue. Yet, this information is not getting out to people, especially to our school children. It has not been proven that man is responsible for global warming or cooling. Rock Creek Free Press: Climategate: Science Scandal of the Century -The World’s Most Influential Climate Scientists Get Caught “Fudging” the Data. AWIP: Copenhagen climate change conference: 'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'

Stunning footage has emerged of protesters in the Iranian city of Sirjan rescuing two men from being hanged by the regime. The video, uploaded to YouTube on Saturday, shows a brutal clash between Iranian authorities and protesters that was largely overlooked until Gateway Pundit found video footage of it. "When you see footage such as this, with anti-regime Iranian protesters losing any concern about their own safety, it's hard to imagine the current leadership hanging on," writes Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider.

Israeli police on Tuesday arrested nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu for violating "a ban on speaking to foreigners", a police statement said. Vanunu was jailed as a traitor [Vanunu is a hero] in 1986 and served an 18-year sentence after discussing his work as a technician at Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor with a British newspaper, an interview that led experts to conclude the facility had produced fissile material for as many as 200 atomic warheads. WaPo: Israeli police arrest nuclear whistleblower Vanunu. BBC: Israeli police have arrested Mordechai Vanunu, a technician who spent 18 years in prison for revealing details of Israel's clandestine nuclear programme. AWIP: What Americans Need to Know about Mordechai Vanunu.

Following a military operation in Yemen targeting suspected al Qa'eda militants, a local official said on Sunday that 49 civilians, among them 23 children and 17 women, were killed in air strikes which he said were carried out "indiscriminately," Agence France Presse reported. Earlier it had been reported by ABC News that on orders from the US President Barack Obama, the US military had launched cruise missiles in the attacks. "According to local sources, about 3,000 people in Dhal'e province and hundreds in Lahj and Abyan provinces condemned the military operation. Angry protesters shouted anti-government slogans and demanded an investigation into the attack."

Security theater consists of security countermeasures intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to actually improve security. Taking off shoes at the airport. Bloated no-fly lists. Random screenings & searches. Plastic bags full of 3 ounces of liquid. All of these are reactionary responses to terrorism. They cost us time, money, and privacy, but none of it works. And it won't until we address the causes of terrorism. Gizmodo: President Obama, It's Time To Fire the TSA.

Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 6
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 5
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 4
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 2
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 1

Eighty percent of the American population now believe that man is responsible for global warming. Emerging science, however, is providing important new understanding of this issue. Yet, this information is not getting out to people, especially to our school children. It has not been proven that man is responsible for global warming or cooling. Rock Creek Free Press: Climategate: Science Scandal of the Century -The World’s Most Influential Climate Scientists Get Caught “Fudging” the Data. AWIP: Copenhagen climate change conference: 'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'

Israeli planes have been dropping thousands of leaflets across Gaza, warning Palestinians against cooperating with the resistance fighters based in the coastal sliver. The leaflets also threaten Gazans with a new attack just ahead of the first anniversary of Israel's 22-day onslaught against the Palestinian territory. Gaza, 2008: Marco Villa: An Attack By An Israeli Drone.

Once upon a time there was a black woman; her name was Rosa Parks. There were racially discriminating laws in the United States, but she continued to sit on the bus even when she was told to vacate her seat for a white person. She was arrested, which set off a process whose end saw the abolishment of racial segregation on American buses. How is it possible that one little black woman, a dressmaker by profession, could change history simply because she remained sitting? Her protest was stronger than any demonstration, op-ed piece or Knesset vote. She opted for the natural choice; that is why she was triumphant.

Hedy Epstein, the 85 year old Holocaust survivor and peace activist, announced that she will begin a hunger strike today as a response to the Egyptian government’s refusal to allow the Gaza Freedom March participants into Gaza. Ms. Epstein was part of a delegation with participants from 43 countries that were to join Palestinians in a non-violent march from Northern Gaza towards the Erez border with Israel calling for the end of the illegal siege. Egypt is preventing the marchers from leaving Cairo, forcing them to search for alternative ways to make their voices heard.

Colombia is preparing to attack Venezuela in an operation that will be made to look like its objective is a base of Colombian guerrillas, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said.

It is a fact that a woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped, than learning how to read.

Gordon Brown and other senior British politicians have angrily condemned China for executing a British man said to have had mental problems. Akmal Shaikh, 53, was killed early this morning by lethal injection after being convicted of drug smuggling.

A German computer engineer said Monday that he had deciphered and published the secret code used to encrypt most of the world’s digital mobile phone calls, saying it was his attempt to expose weaknesses in the security of global wireless systems.

Montage documenting the genocide commited by Isreal in "Operation Cast Lead". Desert Peace: GAZA ~~ RELIVING THE HORRORS OF THE WAR DAILY

ICTS is the main security vendor for the European operations of Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines. We are also the sole provider of security services at all of American Airlines’ and US Airways European stations. [Note: As WRH assesses the terrorist plot at Amsteram Airport this is what it had to say: People are already asking how Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was able to get onto an airplane in Amsterdam bound for Detroit with a bomb strapped to his leg when the Amsterdam airport uses the full-body "see your naked butt" scanners. As it turns out, security at the Amsterdam airport is run by ICTS, THE VERY SAME ISRAELI-OWNED COMPANY THAT RAN SECURITY AT EVERY SINGLE AIRPORT FROM WHICH THE 9-11 TERRORISTS DEPARTED, APPARENTLY ALSO BYPASSING SECURITY CHECKS!]

Write a book critical of the CIA -- you cannot fly. Carry explosives (allegedly from Yemen) on board when the US is trolling for an excuse to invade and occupy Yemen for its oil -- yes you can! The US needs false flags to provide cover for illegal invasions and occupations. The 9/11 terrorist attacks (aka inside job, six ways to Sunday) worked well for the US government; the security-industrial complex made billions and US corporaterrorists were able to negotiate the wholesale theft of Iraq's oil. NWO Report: Confirmed? "Sharp dressed man" aided Northwest flight "Christmas Bomber" Umar Mutallab onto plane without passport. Who was involved, why don't we know about this other suspect?

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Senator Joeseph Lieberman (I-CT), who leads the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has a vision of "tomorrow's war." "Somebody in our government said to me in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, Iraq was yesterday’s war," Lieberman explained. "Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war. That’s the danger we face." Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA), also appearing on the program, seemed to agree, calling an attack against Yemen "something we should consider." Yemen has crude oil and natural gas...and a strategic position in terms of free passage for oil tankers and United States Navy ships. -This has nothing to do with "Al Qaeda" (CIA).PressTV: CIA present in Yemen since 2008: Report.

OMAHA, Neb. — Native American tribes tired of waiting for the U.S. government to honor centuries-old treaties are buying back land where their ancestors lived and putting it in federal trust. Native Americans say the purchases will help protect their culture and way of life by preserving burial grounds and areas where sacred rituals are held. They also provide land for farming, timber and other efforts to make the tribes self-sustaining. Tribes put more than 840,000 acres – or roughly the equivalent of the state of Rhode Island – into trust from 1998 to 2007, according to information The Associated Press obtained from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs under the Freedom of Information Act.

Only two things have made flying safer since 9/11: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers.

At least eight anti-government protesters, including a nephew of Mir Hossein Mousavi, Iran’s opposition leader, were shot dead yesterday as the smouldering confrontation between the regime and the so-called Green Movement finally erupted. Early reports put the number of dead at five, but as clashes continued late into the night, Iranian state television reported that the number of dead had risen. A report on the website of state television put the number of dead as high as 15 and quoted the Ministry of Intelligence that more than 10 were members of "anti-revolutionary terrorist" groups. BBC: Iran opposition figures arrested after protests.

Khan Younis massacre:" The men of the town were told to line up in the main square and were then systematically shot so their bodies lay in a long row. Some who stayed in their homes were killed there." It is not only Israeli leaders who did not show empathy: it is entire Israeli public". PressTV: New Yorkers march against Israeli crimes in Gaza.

Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 6
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 5
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 4
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 3
Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 1

Eighty percent of the American population now believe that man is responsible for global warming. Emerging science, however, is providing important new understanding of this issue. Yet, this information is not getting out to people, especially to our school children. It has not been proven that man is responsible for global warming or cooling. Rock Creek Free Press: Climategate: Science Scandal of the Century -The World’s Most Influential Climate Scientists Get Caught “Fudging” the Data. AWIP: Copenhagen climate change conference: 'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'

Air travellers face tough restrictions after a passenger came within seconds of destroying a transatlantic plane and killing all 289 people on board. President Obama interrupted his Christmas holiday to order two anti-terrorism reviews as aviation chiefs acted to close loopholes that let Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a known Nigerian extremist, take explosive materials on to an aircraft flying from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day. The foiled attack came four days after a video was posted on extremist websites showing an al-Qaeda militant in Yemen warning: “We are carrying a bomb to hit the enemies of God.”

Phoenix and federal authorities detained two Middle Eastern men accused by a passenger of acting suspiciously aboard a Phoenix-bound plane Saturday evening. The passenger told authorities the two men, described as being Middle Eastern, were speaking "loudly" in their native language. The passenger then saw a suicide bomber on the DVD version of the movie "The Kingdom," and one of the men reportedly got up to use the lavatory when the fasten-seatbelt sign was lit. "The totality" of those three occurrences led this passenger to believe this was suspicious, Johnson said. An investigation by the FBI found no evidence of a terroristic threat and the men were later released without charges. Reuters: Second Detroit plane scare draws tough response: As the Airbus 330 approached Detroit after a nine-hour flight from Amsterdam, a Nigerian who was sitting in the plane's last row locked himself in the bathroom and refused to come out even when the flight crew ordered him to do so. The Nigerian man on Sunday's flight, who was not identified, was released after FBI agents determined he was genuinely sick and not involved in any plot against the plane.

On the first anniversary of Israel's war on Gaza, shocking revelations are appearing on the methods and reasoning behind the war. Mahmoud Hussein tries to hold back his tears as he looks at his 30-year-old brother Ahmed who suffers from colon cancer. The family is impatiently waiting for the Gaza border to open so Ahmed can travel abroad for treatment, since in light of the Israeli imposed siege, medical facilities in Gaza cannot treat his condition. Ahmed, who lives in Gabalya, north of Gaza, is not the only Palestinian who developed cancer at a relatively young age...

TMZ has obtained a never-before published photograph which appears to show John F. Kennedy on a boat filled with naked women -- it's a photo that could have altered world events.

The call for over 30,000 more troops to be sent to Afghanistan is a travesty for the people of that country who have already suffered eight brutal years of occupation. It is also a harsh blow to the US soldiers facing imminent deployment. As Barack Obama, the US president, gears up for a further escalation that will bring the total number of troops in Afghanistan to over 100,000, he faces a military force that has been exhausted and overextended by fighting two wars.

At least five people were killed Saturday when missiles from an unmanned US aircraft hit a suspected militant compound in Pakistan's northwest tribal belt, security officials said. The missiles struck a house in Saidgi village of North Waziristan tribal district, which borders Afghanistan, "officials" said. Two missiles hit a house, five "militants" were killed, an "intelligence official" told AFP alleged.

An investigation into an overnight Israel Defense Forces operation in the West Bank city of Nablus early Saturday suggests that Israeli soldiers may have executed two of the three Palestinian militants who were killed, the left wing rights group B'Tselem said Saturday.

According to B'Tselem, in two of the three cases the troops behaved as if they were preparing for an execution, not an arrest. Relatives and eyewitnesses told B'Tselem that the two were unarmed and did not attempt to flee, and that the soldiers weren't trying to stop them, but rather shot them from close range once their identity was revealed. There were no witnesses to the shooting of the third man.

Details continue to trickle in about 23 year old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s would-be attack on a Detroit-bound airplane, Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam. Abdulmutallab apparently kept the small explosive device on his lap, and detonated it from there while sitting in his seat. Passengers say “it sounded like a firecracker in a pillowcase,” and yesterday officials said Abdulmutallab’s injuries were consistent with a firecracker size explosion. Officials now say the device may have been a condom containing a small amount of PETN. AWIP: Suspected plane bomber was in U.S. intelligence reports as having KNOWN ties to "al-Qaida" [CIA].

'The pain and suffering of the peoples of Afghanistan has a long history before and since the United States intervened in their political lives in 1979. Many outside powers share responsibility for their plight. But today’s situation directly relates to the covert war the United States encouraged and funded from the summer of 1979...'

British lawmaker and anti-war activist George Galloway says Egypt is using bureaucracy as a pretext to impede humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Galloway and 449 other human rights activists who are part of the Viva Palestina aid convoy are currently stuck in Jordan, since Cairo has denied them permission to Egypt via the Red Sea. Galloway said "it does not seem sensible to allow hundreds of tons of medicine to go off and to be spoiled and vital equipment for ill and injured people in Gaza to be stopped just because of a bureaucratic and technical difference." The Egyptian authorities have barred the convoy from taking the most direct route into Egypt by entering the country via the Red Sea, directing the activists towards the el-Arish port on the Mediterranean coast — which is hardly accessible for the group. Viva Palestina (Homepage)