Theodore's World

LONDON, England (CNN) — Nearly five years have passed since the September 11 terrorist attacks, yet Osama bin Laden — the world’s most-wanted terrorist — remains a dangerous fugitive, his words and actions inspiring jihadists across the globe.
Bin Laden has been given permission by a young cleric in Saudi Arabia authorizing al Qaeda to “use nuclear weapons against the United States … capping the casualties at 10 million.”

Wild Thing’s comment……
What makes the cleric so special? He’s the one who can count to 10 million.

Rome

Italian authorities seized a container full of weapons including Kalashnikov assault rifles and plastic explosives bound for the US from Saudi Arabia in May, Press reports said.
Il Mattino newspaper reported that the ‘arsenal’ was discovered during a search of a ship registered to an unnamed ex-Soviet republic which was travelling from Saudi Arabia to the US east coast.
In addition to 70 AK-47 assault rifles and plastics used in explosives, the shipment also contained launch pads for rockets, it said.
An inquiry is under way with the participation of US secret services, said an AFP report.
The report could not be confirmed.

BUT this is weird…….. I remembered something like this from a long time ago, so is it the same story re-rerleased or a new one. weird.
AK-47s headed to U.S. had legal permits
By CURT ANDERSON
The Associated Press
4/28/2004, 3:13 p.m. CT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S.-bound shipment of thousands of AK-47 assault rifles and other combat-type weapons, seized by Italian authorities who suspected they were being smuggled, actually have legal permits to be imported, American officials said Wednesday.
About 7,500 AK-47s, AKM rifles and other weapons worth an estimated $6 million were seized April 20 aboard a Turkish-flagged ship in the port of Gioia Tauro. They were bound for New York from Romania.
At the time, Italian authorities said the guns were hidden aboard the ship.
But Andrew Lluberes, spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the weapons actually were cleared by U.S. authorities. “The permits are valid,” he said.

Wild Thing’s comment…..
When it absolutely, positively needs to get there…..
Sorry I could not resist!
Wouldn’t you love to know who was going to pick them up here in the USA? And I wonder how many shipments they’ve missed.

On August 14, 2006 two journalists working for FOX News were kidnapped in Gaza City near the Palestinian security services headquarters. Abducted were Steve Centanni, 60, national correspondent for FOX News and cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, of New Zealand.
Questions are arising over the blackout of information regarding the investigation of the missing FOX journalists. The FOX News Network itself has been virtually silent concerning the story. There is little or no mention of the incident by FOX’s hard news division, including FOX’s lineup of primetime political talk shows.
The mainstream media, including other cable news networks, have also seemingly ignored the kidnappings. In the past, when journalists were abducted by Islamic extremists in the Middle East their stories were widely covered, bringing daily headlines about the status and condition of the abductees.
Some are speculating the silence over the disappearance of Centanni and Wiig is due to the fact negotiations may be underway regarding the release of the two men and the media may not want to antagonize those who perpetrated the crime by heavily reporting on the search for the FOX News journalists. However, it is not clear who would be negotiating with who–if there are indeed negotiations taking place.
FOX News has been a harsh critic of what some are calling Islamic fascism, leading many to believe its journalists were targeted for this reason. However, critics feel this strategy may be setting a dangerous precedent concerning the safety of other journalists working in the Middle East and whether such a strategy might influence how the war against terrorism is covered in the United States.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
I have not mentioned the kidnapping of Fox News reporter Steve Centanni and his free-lance cameraman, Olaf Wiig, because it was my understanding that Fox was working hard to negotiate a release of these men.
I am not a patient person and so in war I know I have to go into the patient mode and I can handle that. But this is different and I have thought about these men every day since they were kidnapped. Not saying one word on my blog about them trying to be supportive of the negotiations. I still am supportive but I am no longer going to keep silent.
I am not the only one that has decided to speak out about this, Michelle Malkin, Ace of Spades . Riehl World, and others are speaking out about it as well.
For their families you are in my prayers.
I hope and pray Steve Centanni and his cameraman Olaf Wiig may be recovered safely.
I think that the terrorists were pissed off at Fox for telling the truth. For the human pieces of flesh that have kidnapped these men there is a special place in hell for you and I hope you get there soon.

Nick wanted to vote early, so we voted yesterday. It was my first time to vote ahead of time and it wasn’t that bad. Now we just have to wait till the real live voting day to get the results. That is the only hard thing about this early stuff. hahaha

A Czech Television (ČTV) documentary is threatening to raise tensions within the country’s Muslim population to a level not seen here during weeks of recent global unrest over the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
Czech Muslim community say they are outraged by a documentary aired on ČTV last fall that used hidden camera footage of conversations in a Prague mosque and spliced it — they say unfairly — with images of terrorism.

“The reaction is usually immediate, while in this case it took a month for any reaction to appear and two months for it to grow,” says Jiří Ovečka, the documentary’s producer. “It was the same with the Muhammad cartoons.”

You can watch it HERE It is 28 minutes long, in Czech with English subtitles.
Here is a quote from the video:
“Apparently, the Muslims consider Germany and not only Germany, to be their own, Islamic country.”

Thank you Jack at Conservative Insurgent for telling me about this and the link.

Yair Goldwasser brother of Ehud Goldwesser
War Isn’t Over for the Goldweisser Family
Aug. 20, 2006 0:30
By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Yair Goldwasser’s last contacts with his brother Ehud were so normal it seems bizarre in retrospect. He ate dinner with Ehud and his wife, Karnit, in their Haifa apartment. Then there was an ordinary phone conversation a few days before Ehud left for the final leg of his reserve duty on the northern border.
His family has not seen him since, because on July 12, Hizbullah gunmen kidnapped him and fellow reservist Eldad Regev, 26. The word normal has become a stranger for Yair and his family.
For more than five weeks they have subsisted on a diet of hope and anxiety, with no word on the fate of the tall environmental engineering student. Their belief that he was wounded only makes matters worse. While fellow Nahariya residents are breathing in relief at the cessation of the Hizbullah rocket fire, the war is not over for Yair Goldwasser, 26, and his younger brother Gadi, 23.
“This is where our battle begins,” said Gadi as he sat with Yair in their childhood home. On wooden shelves behind them were clay pieces sculpted by their mother. The guitar that Ehud – known in the family as “Udi” – loved to play lay on a dining room chair. The warning sirens have fallen silent and the rockets have stopped since Monday’s cease-fire. But the two young men, who have been pleading with officials from around the world for some word about their older brother, are hardly at peace. They believe he is alive, but they would like to bolster that faith with concrete evidence.
Yair Goldwasser dismissed encouraging words from Vice Premier Shimon Peres, who said Wednesday that Ehud was alive. There isn’t sufficient evidence behind those words, he said. Gadi and Yair told The Jerusalem Post this week they feared that as people returned to their normal routines they would forget about “Udi” and Regev.
“We know this. We are not blind,” said Gadi. He and the family are doing everything in their power to keep the two men’s fate on the top of the national agenda.

…. Yair was home in Nahariya watching television when his world was turned upside down. Gadi was traveling in India with his girlfriend and a friend. Their parents were in South Africa, where the family has lived on and off since 1987 due to father Shlomo’s work as a cargo ship skipper.

Yair said he been about to start working on his car when he suddenly had a premonition telling him to stay put. “Four minutes later officers knocked on my door and gave me the news that my brother was missing in action,” Yair said. He was the first in the family to know that Ehud was gone. He e-mailed brother Gadi and sent a text message asking father Shlomo to break the news to their mother.
The IDF officer stopped Yair from calling Ehud’s wife, Karnit, suggesting it was better handled by a professional team.

….Unlike many of their neighbors who fled Nahariya during the war, the Goldwassers stayed put.

“We don’t believe in leaving our home. It’s ridiculous to even think about it,” said Yair. The rockets falling around them paled in comparison to the pain caused by the sudden absence of their big brother. They didn’t head to a protected room or a bomb shelter. Yair said he was more likely to head to the roof to see where the rockets had hit.
Two rockets exploded at a nearby elementary school, one landed 50 meters down the road and another dropped 100 meters further away, he said.

….. Yair said he understood from the start that they were in for a long haul. “We have to be patient, strong and have a lot of hope,” he said. “We are not in grief. We are not in mourning. He [Ehud] is not dead. We can feel that. By standing strong we help him and send him all of our strength.”

The brothers said they were neither diplomats nor government officials. They were simply two young men who wanted their brother back, they said. “I would turn the world upside down to do that,” Gadi said.

Ehud Gladwasser

Wild Things’ comment…..
Prayers for Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev and Gilad Shalit and their families and loved ones.

This week’s Blogburst was written by Heidi of Euphoric Reality blog.

***A podcast of this week’s Blogburst is now available.***
By Heidi at Euphoric Reality
There are only a few hours left to have some impact on the case of two Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, who are being sentenced tomorrow for attempting to apprehend a drug smuggler who was fleeing across the border illegally. The charges against the Border Patrol agents were serious bodily injury; assault with a deadly weapon; discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence; and a civil rights violation. Compean and Ramos also were convicted of four counts and two counts, respectively, of obstruction of justice for not reporting that their weapons had been fired. The Texas jury acquitted both men of assault with intent to commit murder, but found them guilty on all other charges. The recommended sentencing is 20 years in prison.
You can read the entire account of the case in this Daily Bulletin article written by Sara Carter, but there are a few things you need to know up front:

Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof, who prosecuted this travesty of justice against the two BP agents, has successfully contended that BP agents are NOT SUPPOSED to apprehend or pursue illegals.

“It is a violation of Border Patrol regulations to go after someone who is fleeing,” she said. “The Border Patrol pursuit policy prohibits the pursuit of someone.”

Two weeks after the incident, a Homeland Security agent tracked down the drug smuggler in Mexico and offered him immunity to testify against the two Texas Border Patrol agents. They found the drug smuggler based upon a tip from another BP agent in Arizona! The connection between the Arizona BP agent and the drug smuggler is murky, though the prosecutor gets upset at any one who dares to question the unsavory connection.

The drug smuggler was treated to free tax-payer funded medical care in El Paso in addition to his full immunity to testify against the BP agents.

The drug smuggler changed his story, but the fact that he lied was never disclosed to the jury.

According to the memo, Aldrete-Davila told investigators the agents shot him in the buttocks when he was trying to enter the country illegally from Mexico. But according to Aldrete-Davila’s later testimony and that of the agents, he was shot after trying to evade the agents upon his re-entry into Mexico.
The memo never was disclosed to the jury.

The drug smuggler is now suing the Border Patrol for $5 million for violating his civil rights.

Also, Ramos’ extensive training and accomplishments in drug interdiction, which would be directly relevant to the actions he took during the incident with the drug smuggler, was deemed not admissible during his trial.

As a Border Patrol agent, Ramos has been involved in the capture of nearly 100 drug smugglers and the seizure of untold thousands of pounds of narcotics. He also was nominated for Border Patrol Agent of the Year in March 2005, though the nomination was withdrawn after details of the Aldrete-Davila incident came out.
Ramos also had drug interdiction training from the Drug Enforcement Agency and qualified as a Task Force Officer with the Border Patrol. But Ramos’ training in narcotics — as well as the numerous credentials he had received for taking Border Patrol field training classes — was not admissible during the trial, he said.

TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, just addressed the Congressional hearings here in Houston on August 16th, where this case was of great concern among all the law enforcement officials.

He said the Border Patrol’s official pursuit policy handcuffs agents in the field. He also sees the prosecution of Ramos and Compean as part of a larger effort by the federal government.
“The pursuit policy has negatively affected the Border Patrol’s mission as well as public safety. Part of that mission is to stop terrorists and drug smugglers,” Bonner said. “They could be smuggling Osama bin Laden, drugs, illegal aliens, or it could have been just some drunk teenager out on a joyride. You don’t know until you stop them.”
“The administration is trying to intimidate front-line agents from doing their job,” he added. “If they can’t do it administratively, they’ll do it with trumped-up criminal charges.
“Moreover, the specter of improprieties in the prosecution of this case raises serious concerns that demand an immediate, thorough and impartial investigation.”

Ramos and Compean and their young families have been living under threats of retaliation from criminals in the drug underworld.

The El Paso Sheriff’s Department has met with the Ramos family to discuss continued threats against them from people they believe to be associated with Aldrete-Davila. The sheriff’s department also has increased patrols around the family’s home.
The only other organization that has responded to the Ramoses thus far, Monica Ramos said, is the Chino-based nonprofit group Friends of the Border Patrol, chaired by Andy Ramirez.
“This is the greatest miscarriage of justice I have ever seen,” Ramirez said. “This drug smuggler has fully contributed to the destruction of two brave agents and their families and has sent a very loud message to the other Border Patrol agents: If you confront a smuggler, this is what will happen to you.”

This case has been virtually ignored by the press, which is why the American public only found out about it after the conviction of the two BP agents. But now that we know, we must take action. If, as TJ Bonner has said, this case is a dirty attempt by our government to intimidate law enforcement officers into leaving the borders wide open and unguarded, then the American people must speak out immediately.
You can do so by signing a petition that will be delivered to the President – but you must do so TODAY, it’s the last day. The men will be sentenced tomorrow.
The goal is to collect 100,000 signatures asking President Bush to pardon these two men. So far, 97,589 people have signed the petition and there is no doubt in my mind that Guard the Borders readers can fill in the remaining numbers needed. The petition, to which you may add your own comment reads as follows:

To: President George W. Bush,
As a citizen of the United States I am outraged to learn that two U.S. Border Agents are facing twenty-year prison terms for doing their jobs– pursuing illegal aliens who cross our border, and I’m calling on you to officially pardon them for their actions.
I am even more outraged to learn that this illegal alien (who was attempting to smuggle about 800 pounds of marijuana into our country), was tracked down by a Department of Homeland Security Investigator and granted immunity for his testimony against these two agents!
This is a terrible injustice, and I urge you to use your considerable authority and power to pardon these two agents and right this obvious wrong!

In addition to rallying your friends and family to take action with you, I would also ask that you call the White House Comments line, and leave a message on behalf of these agents. White House Comments line: 202-456-6213
Please do not hesitate to take this small action on behalf of men whose lives have been destroyed by a drug smuggler and corrupt government agents and prosecutors. It’s the very least we can do for them – I wish there was more.
What if this was you? What will happen to these two men? What will be the fallout from such a miscarriage of justice?

“My husband is a good man, a loving father, and his devotion to his country and his job is undeniable,” Monica Ramos said. “Prosecutors treated the drug smuggler like an innocent victim, refusing to allow testimony that would have helped my husband. The smuggler was given immunity. My husband is facing a life in prison.
“It’s so frightening, it doesn’t seem real.”
COUNTING THE DAYS
About a week ago, feeling little hope, Joe Loya, Monica Ramos’ father, took the family on what will be Ignacio Ramos’ last fishing trip with his sons before he is sentenced.
“What kind of justice is this?” Loya asked. “What kind of nation do we live in when the word of a smuggler means more than the word of a just man?”
Monica Ramos says her hardest day is yet to come — the day the authorities take her husband away.
“We just guard (our children’s) hearts right now,” Monica Ramos said. “I think about the last time he’ll hug them as children, and maybe not get the chance to hug them again until they are grown men.”
The sons are between 6 and 13 years old.
Ignacio Ramos was, if anything, even more emotional.
“Less than a month left with my family,” he said, his voice choking, as though the air had been pulled from his lungs. “My sons,” he whispered. Then silence.
It took several minutes for Ramos to summon more words. “All I think about at night is the day I have to leave my family. I can’t sleep. I’ve always been with them.”
Then he talked about the memories he would never have, “their first dates, high school graduation, sports,” and the tears falling from his eyes were mirrored only by those of his wife, who took his hand into hers.

Families destroyed. A drug smuggler on the loose to threaten the lives of others and on the scam for $5 million dollars. And a government who won’t do anything about either – unless we force it to.
The only ones left who can help are the American people themselves. That means you.

This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It is syndicated by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we’re going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration in our country, join the Blogburst! Send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.

Soldiers seize weapons, munitions
Multi-National Division – Baghdad PAO
BAGHDAD —

Soldiers from 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Multi-National Division – Baghdad, detained two suspected terrorists and seized a large weapons cache in a warehouse during a search of Nur and Ghazalyia Friday in support of Operation Together Forward.
The weapons and munitions seized included more than 580 mortar rounds, about 39,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition, more than 100 rocket-propelled grenades, more than 270 rockets, two landmines, a shape charge, a crater charge, 11 fragmentation grenades, several machine guns, ammunition drums, 5,000 feet of detonation cord, mortar tubes and bipods, land mines, more than 50 rocket motors and various other bomb-making materials and ordnance.
Five hundred buildings were searched during the operation.
Operations have taken place in Doura, Shula, Ghazaliyah and Ameriyah from Aug. 7-16. During this time, Iraqi Army, Iraqi Police and MND-B Soldiers have cleared more than 23,000 buildings, 21 mosques, detained 54 suspected terrorists, seized 326 weapons, registered 341 weapons, found 10 weapons and munitions caches and removed 900 tons of trash.

Fun quiz to take….HERE

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 95% Conservative, 5% Liberal

Social Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Ethics: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

Wild Thing’s comment….
I love tests that a person just has to answer their gut feeling and not a lot of math. hahahahaha I hate math!