Iran Revolutionary Guards Predict Imminent Destruction of Israel
Irans Revolutionary Guards leader has predicted the imminent destruction of Israel by fighters from the Lebanese movement Hezbollah.
“We will soon witness the destruction of the cancerous scum of Israel at the strong, capable hands of Hezbollah,” Maj-Gen Mohammad Jafari wrote.
He was writing to the groups leader Hassan Nasrallah following the killing of senior commander Imad Mughniyeh.
Iran and Hezbollah blamed Israel for the death, something Israel has denied.
Fars News Agency said Maj-Gen Jafari was writing to Mr Nasrallah to extend “congratulations and condolences for the martyrdom” of Mughniyeh, who died in a car bomb in Damascus last week.
The Hezbollah veteran was high on US and Israeli wanted lists, accused of involvement in a string of militant attacks since the 1980s.
Israeli officials declined to comment on the specific remarks.
“We are not harbouring any illusions about the Tehran regimes true intentions nor its extremist agenda,” said foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has often predicted the imminent demise of Israel, drawing sharp criticism from its allies in the west.
The Revolutionary Guards were set up after the 1979 Islamic revolution with a separate command structure to the regular military to protect Irans Islamic system.
Hezbollah forces battled the Israeli army in the July 2006 war, which the Lebanese militia claims as a “divine victory”.
Syria Vows To Retaliate and Strike Israel
Syrian officials fanned out among Arab broadcasting stations with a warning: Damascus will attack Israel shortly following a decision by Syrian leaders to end its policy of restraint against its territorial violations.
Israeli land, sea, air and homeland defense units were earlier ordered to prepare to defend the country’s northern borders against attacks by Hizballah, including rocket strikes, and Syria. Reinforcements were rushed to the north.
Israel has received a stream of intelligence confirmations that Iran, Syria and Hizballah have determined not to let Mughniyeh’s death pass without an immediate response. They are working together to mount a revenge operation.
Western sources watching the funeral of the Hizballah commander Imad Mughniyeh earlier Thursday noted the absence of Hizballah’s entire command echelon and the Revolutionary Guards officers serving at Iran’s Beirut embassy. They were assumed to have gone to ground to plan a combined offensive against Israel whom they accuse of the Mughniyeh killing. Hassan Nasrallah’s threats (‘If Israel wants open war, so bit.”) were broadcast by video
DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources note that the way Iran’s foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki stood at Thursday’s Beirut funeral between Hizballah’s Dep. Sec. Gen Naim Qassem and the slain terrorist’s father and accepted condolences, confirmed Mughniyeh’s high-value role in Tehran’s foreign terror system. It also informed the thousands of Shiite mourners that Iran will be part of prospective retaliation for his death against Israel.
Iran and Syria have also linked their probes to find out how a hit-team penetrated the heavy security surrounding Imad Mughniyeh in an upscale Damascus neighborhood, planted a bomb in his SUV and detonated it by remote control.
Since Wednesday night, according to our sources, a visiting Iranian team of investigators has been hard at work in the Syrian capital to identify the Mughniyeh’s killers. It is headed by Gen. Ghassem Soleimani, commander of the al Qods Brigades, the Revolutionary Guards foreign terror arm.
Its other members are Adm. Mohammad Fadavi, Dep. Commander of the IRGC Navy, who set up the near-clash between Iranian speedboats and US warships in the Strait of Hormuz in January; and Gen. Morteza Rezai, former chief of the IRGC intelligence branch.
They are working with the Syrian team led by acting interior minister Gen. Bassam Abdul Majid.
Top Psychiatrist Concludes Liberals Are Suffering From Mental Disorder
February 16, 2008 by admin
Filed under Moral Decay
Just when liberals thought it was safe to start identifying themselves as such, an acclaimed, veteran psychiatrist is making the case that the ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder.
“Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded,” says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, “The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness.” “Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave.”
While political activists on the other side of the spectrum have made similar observations, Rossiter boasts professional credentials and a life virtually free of activism and links to “the vast right-wing conspiracy.”
For more than 35 years he has diagnosed and treated more than 1,500 patients as a board-certified clinical psychiatrist and examined more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago.
Rossiter says the kind of liberalism being displayed by the two major candidates for the Democratic Party presidential nomination can only be understood as a psychological disorder.
Total Lunar Eclipse February 20th – Moon To Appear Blood Red
On the evening of Feb. 20 there will be a fascinating total eclipse of the moon.
The moon enters the penumbra (the lighter part of the Earth’s shadow) at 6:05 p.m. and starts entering the umbra (darker part of the Earth’s shadow) at 6:43 p.m. Totality begins at 8 p.m. when the moon turns a blood red color. Totality lasts until 8:52 p.m., at which time the moon starts to leave the umbra and the entire eclipse is officially complete at 10:45 p.m.
Can The US Protect Taiwan If China Attacks
China is preparing for an eventual cross-strait showdown with Taiwan and may be prepared to use tactics that could stop the United States from getting involved, according to an analysis of publicly available information on China’s military by the RAND Corporation.
According RAND, China’s defenses, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), has identified the U.S. military’s reliance on information systems as “a significant vulnerability that, if successfully exploited, could paralyze or degrade U.S. forces to such an extent that victory could be achieved” against Taiwan.
The writings RAND analyzed were not official war plans but the opinions, analysis, and recommendations of the Chinese military community.
The Chinese leadership believes that the key to victory over the U.S. is achieving tactical surprise, according to RAND.
The report quotes one Chinese military expert as saying that taking the U.S. by surprise would “cause confusion within and huge psychological pressure on the enemy and help [China] win relatively large victories at relatively small costs.”
In such an attack, the Chinese would blockade critical sea lanes in the Taiwan region and strike American logistics facilities, command-and-control centers, ports, airfields, and aircraft carrier battle groups in the area.
China could also launch cyber-attacks against American computer networks, physically destroy orbiting spy satellites, and launch an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strike to deaden U.S. electronics systems in the region.
Based on the U.S. experience in Somalia, the Chinese experts cited by RAND think the United States has “a limited capacity to withstand personnel casualties.”
America’s perspective
The U.S. military apparently is well aware and not surprised by the RAND findings. At the core of China’s overall strategy, analysts say, rests the desire to maintain the continuous rule of the Chinese Communist Party.
“A deep-rooted fear of losing political power shapes the leadership’s strategic outlook and drives many of its choices,” the U.S. Defense Department reported to Congress in its 2007 assessment, “The Military Power of the People’s Republic of China.”
Smaller Version of the Solar System Is Discovered
Astronomers said Wednesday that they had found a miniature version of our own solar system 5,000 light-years across the galaxy the first planetary system that really looks like our own, with outer giant planets and room for smaller inner planets.
“It looks like a scale model of our solar system,” said Scott Gaudi, an assistant professor of astronomy at Ohio State University. Dr. Gaudi led an international team of 69 professional and amateur astronomers who announced the discovery in a news conference with reporters.
Their results are being published Friday in the journal Science. The discovery, they said, means that our solar system may be more typical of planetary systems across the universe than had been thought.
In the newly discovered system, a planet about two-thirds of the mass of Jupiter and another about 90 percent of the mass of Saturn are orbiting a reddish star at about half the distances that Jupiter and Saturn circle our own Sun. The star is about half the mass of the Sun.
Neither of the two giant planets is a likely abode for life as we know it. But, Dr. Gaudi said, warm rocky planets — suitable for life — could exist undetected in the inner parts of the system.
“This could be a true solar system analogue,” he said.
Vladimir Putin’s Nuclear Threat To The West
Vladimir Putin has delivered perhaps his most menacing tirade against the West yet, repeating threats to train nuclear missiles on Europe and warning of unspecified retaliation if Kosovo declared independence.
Addressing his last press conference as Russian president, Mr Putin mounted a defiant display that demonstrated more emphatically than ever the widening gulf between Moscow and its former Cold War rivals.
Vladimir Putin delivered his most menacing tirade against the West yet
Vladimir Putin used the language of the Russian street in his tirade
In a vintage performance, the former KGB spy laced almost five hours of invective with crude insults, threats and admonitions often expressed in the argot of the Russian street.
Reserving his greatest ire for the United States, which he accused of harbouring a colonial mentality towards Russia, Mr Putin again said that Europe would pay the consequences for a Washington-backed plan to erect a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
“Our generals, our security council, consider these moves a threat to our national security,” he said. “We asked our partners to stop but no one listened to us. So if they continue we will have to react appropriately by retargeting our missiles.” Mr Putin also made similar threats against Ukraine if it joined Nato.
The Russian leader – often accused of returning his country to a state of autocracy – portrayed his nuclear threat as an act of democratic generosity, saying he was acting in the interests of Europeans who opposed American military expansionism.
Billy Graham Recovering After Surgery
February 15, 2008 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
Evangelist Billy Graham was recovering Thursday from a surgery to update a shunt that controls excess fluid in his brain, a family spokesman said.
The 89-year-old Southern Baptist minister was expected to spend some of the day walking the halls of Asheville’s Mission Hospital and to return to his usual diet later Thursday, said Graham spokesman Larry Ross.
“He rested well overnight and is in high spirits,” Ross said.
White House spokeswoman Jeanie Mamo said President Bush placed a call to Graham on Thursday morning.
“He wished Rev. Graham a speedy recovery and said that he’d keep him in his prayers,” Mamo said.
Graham underwent the elective surgery Wednesday to replace a shunt first installed in 2000. The shunt drains fluid from his brain through a small tube that runs down his head and neck and into the abdominal cavity, where the fluid is absorbed by his body.
Doctors determined the old shunt was not adequately controlling the brain fluid. A buildup of fluid, known as hydrocephalus, can cause symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease.
Graham has also suffered from prostate cancer and macular degeneration. He was hospitalized last year for nearly two weeks after experiencing intestinal bleeding.
Those conditions, combined with his age, have left Graham mostly confined to his mountainside home in Montreat for the past several years.
The charismatic minister once led a worldwide crusade-based ministry that packed stadiums with believers and put him on the pulpit in front of millions. He also gained the confidence of every U.S. president since Harry Truman.
Graham’s wife, Ruth Bell Graham, died in June following a lengthy illness.
Choking Game Has Killed At Least 82 Children
February 15, 2008 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
The “choking game,” a type of asphyxiation practiced by children and adolescents seeking a euphoric rush, has killed at least 82 children since 1995, according to the first U.S. government study to quantify the deaths.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scoured news reports to tally deaths from the game — also known as the “pass-out game” or “space monkey” — because no official, nationwide records exist. The first report came in 1995, with three or fewer deaths annually until 2004. There were 22 deaths in 2005, 35 in 2006 and nine in 2007, with victims ranging in age from 6 to 19, the agency said Thursday.
“The choking game involves intentionally trying to choke oneself or someone else with one’s hand or a noose to obtain a brief euphoric state, or a high,” said Robin L. Toblin of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. “If the strangulation is prolonged . . . death or serious injury can result.”
Public health officials are calling attention to the practice because most parents were unaware of it until their children died. Nearly 90% of those who died were boys playing alone. Signs of the game include bloodshot eyes, marks on the neck, severe headaches, and ropes, scarves or belts tied to bedroom furniture, according to a CDC report.
The activity cuts off the blood supply to the brain, which deprives it of oxygen and can kill brain cells. Children typically lose consciousness, followed by a floating and tingling feeling as they revive and oxygen-rich blood rushes back to the brain.
Permanent disability can develop. The practice also puts children at risk of concussions, fractures, hemorrhaging in the eyes and coma.
The game has been played for decades but has become more deadly as children use ligatures that allow them to play alone. In the study, 67 of 70 deaths that were detailed in news reports occurred when children were by themselves.
It is also widespread, with deaths reported in 31 states. The number of choking-game fatalities is probably underreported, Toblin said, and there is no way to get an accurate national total since they aren’t regularly reported to the government or listed on death certificates.
Hezbollah Chief Warns Israel of Wide War
Hezbollah’s leader threatened Thursday to strike Israel anywhere in the world in retaliation for what he said was its role in assassinating Imad Mughniyah, a Hezbollah commander blamed by the United States and Israel for killing hundreds in bombings, kidnappings and hijackings over a quarter-century.
In a video speech broadcast to thousands of mourners in a spare but sprawling tent in southern Beirut, Hasan Nasrallah said that because Israel had struck beyond what he called the “traditional battlefield” of Lebanon and Israel, it risked a borderless war with the Shiite Muslim group. Israel has denied involvement in the car bombing Tuesday that killed the 45-year-old Mughniyah in a tony neighborhood of Damascus, the Syrian capital.
“You have crossed the borders,” he said in the speech, which was vehement even by Nasrallah’s fiery standards. “Zionists, if you want this type of open war, then let it be, and let the whole world hear: We, like all other people, have a sacred right to defend ourselves, and everything we can do to defend ourselves, we will do.”
“At your service, Nasrallah!” the crowd shouted to the cadence of fists in the air.
Israel put its embassies and other interests abroad on alert Thursday, reinforced its troops on the Lebanese border and warned its citizens of the prospect of kidnapping. Hezbollah was last accused of attacking Israeli interests abroad in the 1990s, when Argentina implicated the group and its Iranian backers in fatal bombings of the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Many Lebanese believe the attacks were in retaliation for Israel’s 1992 assassination of Abbas Musawi, Nasrallah’s predecessor.
Russian Bombers Buzzed US Aircraft Carrier
US Navy fighter jets were scrambled to shadow and intercept a Russian bomber which buzzed and circled over an American aircraft carrier over the weekend in a Top Gun-style incident in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
One Russian Tupolev 95 buzzed the USS Nimitz twice on Saturday, the Associated Press has reported an anonymous source as saying.
The plane flew over the carrier at an altitude of just 600m, similar to the “fly-bys” depicted in the Tom Cruise film. A second Russian bomber circled nearby.
The Russians had been tracked since they took off from Ukrainka and were monitored as they broke off from the rest of their formation and flew into Japanese air space.
The two Tupolevs continued on a course towards the Nimitz and a US guided missile cruiser, USS Princeton.
Four F/A-18 fighter planes were sent to intercept them when they breached an 800km perimeter. Two stayed with the Tupolev circling at altitude about 80km from the Nimitz while two followed the other bomber as it approached the carrier.
The US fighters trailed the Tuoplev as it buzzed the Nimitz. No words were exchanged between the US and Russian pilots throughout the entire incident.
Third Moderate Quake In Swarm Since Friday Shakes San Diego & Baja
A 5.0 magnitude earthquake rattled Southern California and Northern Mexico Monday night.
It was the third moderate quake to shake the region since Friday night.
The most recent quake was at 8:32 p.m. Monday. The US Geological Survey says it was center 16 miles SE of Mexicali. Callers to FOX6 News reported feeling the quake as far away as Mission Beach.
Another earthquake shook the area earlier Friday with a magnitude 5.1. A wall collapsed at a Mexicali school and caused a gas leak at another school.
Mexican authorities evacuated schools, but there were no reports of major damage or injuries.
The quake was centered near the U.S. border, about 20 miles southeast of Mexicali, an industrial city with a population of about 750,000.
Friday night’s 5.4 magnitude quake shut down factories and left 400,000 people without power. The U.S. Geological Survey says it was felt in California and Arizona.
Nearly 100 small aftershocks have been reported in the area since Friday.
Post Reports On Secret Talks To Divide Jerusalem
Politicians on the Right called upon Shas to leave the government immediately on Sunday after The Jerusalem Post revealed that secret talks were taking place with the Palestinians in which Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had made concessions on Jerusalem.
As reported in Sundays Post, a senior Palestinian Authority official in Ramallah said that the Palestinian negotiating team headed by former PA prime minister Ahmed Qurei had been holding “secret talks” with Livni and other government officials over the past few weeks.
“There are public meetings and there are secret ones,” the PA official explained. “The main progress has been achieved during the secret talks, particularly on the issue of Jerusalem. Today we can say that Israel is prepared to withdraw from almost all the Arab neighborhoods and villages in Jerusalem. Israel is prepared to redivide Jerusalem, and this is a positive development.”
Livnis associates declined to comment on the story, saying that the Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams had decided not to respond to reports about what was taking place behind closed doors during the negotiations.
8-year-old Boy Returning To Class As A Girl – School Making Preparations
February 9, 2008 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
An 8-year-old boy is preparing to return to his home school district in Colorado as a girl, so school officials are designating two school restrooms as unisex facilities, and preparing to counsel other students on the issue of transgenderism.
The report comes from KUSA-Television in Denver, which did not identify the third-grade student or his family in the Castle Rock suburban district.
But the report said the student had attended his home district several years ago, as a boy, and then had taken classes in another district for a time.
One parent, identified by the television station as Dave M., said children in the elementary school are going to wonder what’s going on.
“I see this as being a very difficult situation to explain to my daughter, to explain why someone would not want to be the gender they were born with,” he told the station.
His daughter will share a classroom with the boy dressing as a girl.
“I do think that there’s going to be an acknowledgment that ‘Why are you in a dress this year when you were in pants last year?’” he said.
A spokeswoman for the Douglas County School District in Castle Rock, said the district’s calling “is to educate all kids no matter where they come from, what their background is, beliefs, values, it doesn’t matter.”
Whei Wong, the district spokeswoman, said the school is preparing two “unisex” restrooms for the student to use and teachers have been instructed to address the student by name, instead of using a “he” or “she” pronoun.
She also told the television station the school is handing out packets of information to other students and their parents containing “information” about transgender people, and officials will answer questions from other students about the boy-seeking-to-be-girl “in order to protect the child as much as possible.
