911 intelligence: 3 suspected car bomb attack in New York

In commemoration of the nation's tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the eve of the 8th U.S. officials issued a new warning that terrorists may use car carrying a bomb, another attack in the United States, possibly in New York City or Washington, the goal is to bridge tunnel.Officials stressed that the intelligence "to be credible but uncertain"; Obama have heard the morning of the 8th national security briefing, ordered to strengthen counter-terrorism measures.
Nine hundred and eleven terrorist attacks in New York City where, in all major traffic points and tourist attractions to enhance the alert, "all unknown towing vehicle."Mayor Bloomberg (Michael Bloomburg), New York City Police Director General Kelly (Ray Kelly) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation New York Secretary Janice.Fei Deke (Janice Fedarcyk) 8 night held an emergency press conference, stressed that the threat of terrorist attack "credible" (credible).Currently, the Federation has mobilized efforts to trace the intelligence.
U.S. officials requested anonymity, said that according to intelligence, there are three terrorists sneak into the United States in August, ready to use truck or car load of explosives, launched terrorist attacks.But officials did not elaborate.
Part of the anti-terrorism officials said the Wall Street Journal, the September 11 terrorist attack is a special tenth anniversary of the day, Al-Qaeda militants from Pakistan, probably in Washington and New York plans to launch a series of car bomb attacks.He said that although Al Qaeda "has been defeated, but they will strive to use every possible way to attack the United States."

New York City and Washington have increased vigilance, increased patrols, "some visible, some in the dark."New York City Police, Commissioner Raymond Kelly said police would also strengthen the tunnels, bridges, ferries, landmark building inspection, and actively towing illegal parked vehicles and check suspicious backpack on the subway train.He said police have deployed heavy weapons proficiency police stationed outside in Manhattan, for the timely response.
Some officials privately asked to remain anonymous since it dealt with threat intelligence, then using stronger warning, one officer even said: "The incident is still forming." Threat seems that Washington and New York City on, but not in other cities excluded.
American Broadcasting Company (ABC) television reported, according to senior U.S. officials, the three terror suspects one of whom is a U.S. citizen, they began to travel from Afghanistan, and finally arrived in the United States.
New York Times reports, they disappeared in Kansas City, Missouri, the anti-terrorist officers have found their rented two trucks.

Rick Santorum

At Thursday's GOP presidential debate, Rick Santorum attacked Texas Governor Rick Perry, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and Texas Rep. Ron Paul's views on gay marriage.
The candidates for the Republican nomination were asked whether they believed New York had the right to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said he wanted a federal mandate because “people move.”
Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, said he believed marriage should remain a heterosexual union but added that he supports civil unions “because I believe our country can do a better job on equality.”
“Marriage should be between a single man and a single woman,” Texas Rep. Ron Paul said. “But, I don't think the government should be involved. I mean, why should we have a license to be married? Less government would be better. If we have to have regulations, let the state government do it.”
Perry, who is expected to jump into the race on Saturday, has previously echoed Bachmann's position that the 10^thAmendment gives states the right to decide social issues but a federal amendment would trump such laws and is preferred.

In answering an unrelated question, Santorum rounded back to gay marriage to pounce on Bachmann and Paul.
“This is the 10^th Amendment run amok. Michele Bachmann says that she would go in and fight health care being imposed by states – mandatory health [care] – but she wouldn't fight marriage being imposed by the states. That would be OK. We have Ron Paul saying, 'What the states want to do. Whatever the states want to do under the 10^th Amendment is fine.' So, if the state's want to pass polygamy, that's fine. If the state's want to impose sterilization, that's fine. No, our country is based on morals laws, ladies and gentlemen. There are things the states can't do. Abraham Lincoln said the states do not have the right to do wrong. I respect the 10^th Amendment. But we are a nation that has values. We are a nation that was built on a moral enterprise. And states don't have a right to tramp over those because of the 10^th Amendment,” he said to thunderous applause.
“You have to fight in each state, and that is where I disagree with Rick Perry; I disagree with Michele Bachmann,” he later stated.

Perseid Meteor Shower 2011

Go outside before dawn, and if the Perseid meteor shower of 2011 is good to you, you will be able to see the sky falling.
Every year at this time, the Earth passes through the orbit of a comet called Swift-Tuttle, and the result is a meteor shower -- shooting stars, up to 50 or 60 per hour -- streaking across the night sky as debris from the comet enters the earth's atmosphere and burns up.
Even though the comet is far away now, in an elliptical orbit that brings it close to the sun just once every 133 years, rock and ice from it have spread out in a ring all along its path. The comet itself will probably be pretty good to see if you can hang on until July 2126, but in the meantime, like clockwork, it gives us an annual meteor shower in mid-August.
Sadly, this is not the best year to see the Perseid. A full moon will brighten the sky on Friday night and Saturday morning, just as the shower peaks. But don't give up.
"The best time to look is during the hours before dawn especially on Saturday morning, August 13th," writes Tony Phillips, an astronomer who manages the Science News page at NASA's website. "The full Moon will be relatively low, and the meteor rate should be peaking at that time."
There's an added bonus if you're willing to give up some sleep. The International Space Station -- visible as a bright star moving steadily across the sky -- will pass over North America several times each morning this week, and can be seen at different times in almost every part of the U.S. For specific times and directions where you live, take a look atNASA's Human Spaceflight site, which now includes a "SkyWatch 2.0" applet.
Be alert; most meteors streak by in a second or less, sometimes in clusters. Most of the shooting stars are created by small cometary fragments, some as small as grains of sand, completely vaporized as they plunge into our protective blanket of air.

The best way to see them is to find a nice, dark place with no street lights and as few trees as possible, and look up. You may be happiest in a lawn chair or a sleeping bag. The streaks could appear anywhere in the sky, though they'll all appear to come from the constellation Perseus, in the northeastern sky, after midnight.
You're best off if you park yourself so that the moon, setting in the west, is behind you, and you let your eyes get used to the darkness. It may help if the moon is blocked by trees or a building, but then part of the sky will be blocked too.
In general, there are more shooting stars in the morning hours because that's the side of the Earth that faces forward as we orbit the Sun, so it's less shielded. While the shower actually peaks early Saturday morning, Perseid meteors are often spotted several nights before and after.
At their best, the Perseids usually let you see one or two shooting stars a minute -- but only if you're far from cities, have clear skies, and happen to be looking in the right direction. (Go to our weather page for conditions near you.) Astronomers will tell you that meteor showers are best if you regard them as something to be savored, rather than awed by.
"If you want fireworks, go find a video of fireworks on YouTube. This isn't like that. This is about being part of nature and the wider cosmos," said Alan MacRobert, a senior editor of Sky & Telescope magazine in an e-mail to ABC News.
"Most people never look up. They go about their busy little lives wrapped up in their busy little concerns here on the ground like ants in an anthill," he said. "Amateur astronomers -- and nature people in general -- are people who sometimes stop to look up, and to take the time to find out about what they see."
If you're lucky, it will be a nice show. And you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that Chicken Little was half-right: The sky will indeed be falling...harmlessly.

Gop Debate

While the pointed sparring between Minnesotans Michele Bachmann and former Governor Tim Pawlenty drew the most headlines after the GOP debate, there's was just one of many disagreements among the eight Republican candidates on stage in Ames, Iowa.
Debt Ceiling
Rep. Michele Bachmann’s chief argument of the night was that her opposition to raising the debt ceiling deal has proven by the markets to be the appropriate stand.
“What we saw last week is the markets unfortunately agreed with me. Because the markets saw what happened in Washington when Obama got a $2.4 trillion check. And one thing you learned is you can't fool the markets,” Bachmann said, drawing a conclusion that was widely disputed by debate factcheckers.
Former Massachusetts Governor Romney dodged the question about whether he would have vetoed the debt ceiling deal if he’d been president.
“Look, I’m not going to eat Barack Obama’s dog food, all right?” he said, offering up the most memorable metaphor of the night. “What he served up was not what I would have done if I’d had been president of the United States.”
Trying to get a word in edgewise, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum dismissed the debt ceiling opposition as theatrics. While noting that necessity of a balanced budget, he said, "of course we have to raise the debt ceiling at some point."
Gay Marriage, Civil Unions and the States
Romney said that while it’s preferable to have legislators, rather than judges, legalize gay marriage at the state level, he said it really shouldn’t start at the states. “I believe the issue of marriage should be decided at the federal level.”
“People move from state to state,” he said. “Marriage is a status. It’s not an activity that goes on between the walls of a state.
“I believe we should have a federal amendment of the constitution that defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, because I believe the ideal place to raise is a child is in a home with a mom and a dad.”
Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman was very clear that he supports civil unions, and that it’s appropriate for these definitions and decisions to be made at the state level.
“I believe in traditional marriage first and foremost,” he said, “but I also believe in civil unions, because I this nation can do a better job when it comes equality
And I believe this is something that ought to be discussed among the various states,” he said. “This is ought to be an issue that takes place at the local level of government. That’s  where these decisions ought to be made.”
Health Care Mandates

Pawlenty passed on an opportunity to criticize frontrunner Mitt Romney about health care in a previous debate. This time around, he went straight at it. “ObamaCare was patterned after Mitt’s plan in Massachusetts,” he said. “That’s why I called it Obamneycare, and I think that’s a fair label.”
Romney laughed off this attack, noting he liked Pawlenty’s earlier answer better. But then he tried to draw a distinction between the health insurance mandate at the state level versus the federal level. “We put together a plan that was right for Massachusetts. The president took the power of the people and the states away from them and put in place a one-size-fits-all plan.
Military Intervention
“It’s time we quit this,” Ron Paul said in one of the many times he called for reduced military spending. “It’s time — it’s trillions of dollars we’re spending on these wars.” He also questioned the effectiveness of sanctions against Iran.
“It’s time we quit this,” Paul said. “It’s time — it’s trillions of dollars we’re spending on these wars.”
"Iran is not Iceland, Ron," he said. "Iran is a country that has been at war with us since 1979.”
“You’ve heard the war propaganda that is liable to lead us into the sixth war, and I worry about that position," Paul answered in a sharp retort.
What Leadership Means
For Romney, it means having experience outside the political realm. He pointed out that out of the eight on stage, only he and former Godfather’s Pizza CEO had business experience.
“I led against increasing the debt ceiling in the last two months,” Rep. Michele Bachmann said, nothing that other candidates disappeared from the debate. Here, she is referring to her rhetorical leadership in the debate, as opposed to negotiations between the House leadership and the White House.
Pawlenty argued that opposition only matters if gets you results, and pushed back on Bachmann's no-compromise objections by arguing that everything she’s opposed has come to pass under Obama.
“She has done wonderful things in her life, absolutely wonderful things, but it is an undisputable fact that in Congress her record of accomplishment and results is nonexistent,” Pawlenty said. Later, he ticked off policies she’s opposed, including the comprehensive health care legislation and the bank bailout, that later became law. “If that’s your view of effective leadership with results, please stop, because you’re killing us.”
After noting that he sympathized with Michele Bachmann’s calls to stand firm and avoid compromise, Santorum said what’s really necessary is “leadership, not showmanship.”
“You need to stand firm on these things,” he said. “But you can’t say you give me everything I want or I’ll vote no.”
And as all the under candidates took care to establish as much distance as possible between themselves and President Obama, Jon Huntsman defined leadership a little differently. Though he was largely subdued during his debut debate performance, he was clear that he’s proud to have worked under President Obama as his ambassador to China because it was an opportunity to serve his country.
“The presidential election is 15 months away. We are in a crisis now,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said as he called again for lawmakers to return to Washington from their August recess in his closing remarks. “This summer start saving American families from the pain they’re in."

Mitt Romney

During a campaign stop at the Iowa State Fair yesterday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) vociferously defended tax breaks for corporations by declaring that “corporations are people.” Though Romney’s assertion was widely mocked– corporations cannot vote, cannot be sent to prison, and clearly lack all human anatomy – the former Massachusetts governor has not backed down in the face of withering criticism.

Now, another GOPer says Romney was actually spot on: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
ThinkProgress asked Paul about Romney’s comments prior to the Republican presidential debate in Ames. Paul rushed to the former governor’s defense, arguing that Romney was correct in his equivalency between man and mega-company. “I think we’re all corporations,” Paul said. “All of us are corporations.” The Tea Party senator later went on to blur the lines further between corporations and people by declaring, “They’re us. They’re the middle class”:

KEYES: What did you make of Mitt Romney’s statement today that “corporations are people”?
PAUL: Corporations are collections of people. I think we’re all corporations. To say we’re going to punish corporations like they’re someone else. All of us are corporations.
KEYES: Do you think that was basically in line with what he was saying?

PAUL: You think about, if you own a retirement fund, you have a 401k, everybody who has a 401k has parts of corporations, so in a sense we are.
KEYES: I think people might argue that corporations can’t be sent to jail.
PAUL: I think those arguments can be made, but I think the fact that a lot of times people want to vilify corporations, saying they’re someone else, that they’re these other rich people. They’re us. They’re the middle class. We all own parts of corporations.

It’s unsurprising that Paul would side with corporations. In the past, Paul has expressedhis affection for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was quick to defend BP during its high-profile act of corporate irresponsibility, and during the 2010 campaign, complained that disabilities laws are unfair to the business owner.
A quick glance at Paul’s campaign fundraising finds major contributions from corporations like Koch Industries, AT&T, and Exxon Mobil. Still, as one of the original Tea Party senators, Paul’s defense of corporations flies in the face of the populist movement he purports to represent.
Corporate lobbyists have also played a major role in Romney’s presidential campaign. Indeed, a Huffington Post investigation found that thus far in 2011, Romney has received more campaign cash from lobbyists than the rest of the Republican field combined. As Romney barnstorms the country with his message that “corporations are people,” Paul’s busy watching out for Romney’s flank and making sure people understand that people “are corporations” as well.

Republican Debate

Michele Bachmann cast her opinion as a settled fact when she told the Republican presidential debate Thursday that a key element of President Barack Obama's health care law is unconstitutional. And Mitt Romney danced around an attempt to learn why he stayed largely mum on the epic debt limit standoff between Obama and Congress.
The first big GOP debate of the primary season brought viewers a flurry of claims and counterclaims, not all built on solid ground.
A look at some of those claims and how they compare with the facts:
BACHMANN: Spoke of "the unconstitutional individual mandate" several times, a reference to a requirement for people to carry health insurance, a central element of the 2010 federal health care law.
THE FACTS: Nothing is unconstitutional until courts declare it to be so. The constitutionality of the individual mandate has been challenged in lawsuits in a number of states, and federal judges have found in favor and against. The Supreme Court will probably have the final word. But for now, the individual mandate is ahead in the count. And the first ruling by a federal appeals court on the issue, by the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals in June, upheld the individual mandate.
TIM PAWLENTY: "To correct you, I have not questioned Congresswoman Bachmann's headaches."
THE FACTS: Pawlenty was hardly dismissive when news came out about Bachmann's history of severe headaches, even if he did not go after her directly on the matter. "All of the candidates, I think, are going to have to be able to demonstrate they can do all of the job all of the time," the former governor said when first asked about the migraines suffered by the congresswoman. "There's no real time off in that job."

There was no mistaking that Pawlenty was leaving open the question of whether Bachmann's health history made her fit to serve as president. But he later tried to clarify his remark, saying he was not challenging her on that front and the flap was merely a "sideshow." Bachmann says her symptoms are controlled with prescription medication and have not gotten in the way of her campaign or impaired her service in Congress.

ROMNEY (on the last-minute deal to avert a national debt default): "I'm not going to eat Barack Obama's dog food, all right? What he served up was not what I would have done if I'd had been president of the United States."
THE FACTS: Romney was defending himself against criticism that he took a pass when political leadership was most needed in the mighty struggle to negotiate an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. In fact, he was largely missing in the crux of the debate.
Romney consistently backed a Republican "cut, cap and balance" proposal that would have combined deep spending cuts with a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. But that proposal had no chance of becoming law and settling the crisis, and leaders in both parties knew it. It was one of several initiatives brought forward by both Republicans and Democrats for show before both sides got down to the authentic bipartisan negotiations.
During that process, Romney did not lay out a prescription that was achievable in a time of divided government. Supporting the earlier GOP bill was a far cry from stating whether he would have signed or vetoed the final debt limit legislation, because rejecting it risked an unprecedented federal default with potentially disastrous consequences for the economy.
When he faced questions at his campaign stops, he said he wasn't privy to the behind-the-scene negotiations, and his campaign aides refused to elaborate on his thinking about the proposals in serious play.
RICK SANTORUM: "The problem is that we have spending that has exploded. The government's averaged 18 percent of GDP as the percentage of the overall economy. ... And we're now at almost 25 percent. Revenues are down about 2 or 3 percent. So if you look at where the problem is, the problem is in spending, not taxes."
THE FACTS: The former Pennsylvania senator might have been mixing statistics on federal spending with federal revenue. The White House budget office has estimated that federal spending this year will equal about 25 percent of the country's $15 trillion economy — the highest proportion since World War II. But federal spending has averaged nearly 22 percent since 1970. In fact, federal spending has not been as low as 18 percent since 1966. Since the 1970s, federal revenues have averaged nearly 19 percent of the U.S. economy. This year's revenues are expected to equal just over 14 percent of the economy, the lowest level since 1950.
BACHMANN to PAWLENTY: "You said the era of small government was over. That sounds an awful lot like Barack Obama if you ask me."
THE FACTS: Pawlenty did not declare the era of small government over. (Neither has Obama.) Bachmann's jab was drawn from a Minnesota newspaper interview in which Pawlenty referred to a New York Times column on the subject, as part of his argument that "there are certain circumstances where you've got to have government put up the guardrails or bust up entrenched interests before they become too powerful." At the time, Pawlenty's office pushed for and received a clarification from the newspaper that he was relaying another writer's thoughts.

Ron Paul

Texas Congressman Ron Paul has won the first-ever online Iowa straw poll, capturing a commanding 44% of the over 6,000 votes cast in an online poll sponsored by Iowa Congressman Tom Latham's campaign.  The results of the two-week online poll (located at: onlineiowastrawpoll.com) were announced one day before Saturday's Ames Straw Poll, which is considered by most as the first real test of a presidential candidate's organizational strength in Iowa.

The results of the online poll promoting Saturday's big event for the Republican Party of Iowa were:
1st - Ron Paul with 44% of the unique online votes
2nd - Herman Cain 16%
3rd - Michele Bachmann 10%
4th - Rick Perry 8%
5th - (TIE) Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney 5%
7th - Sarah Palin 4%
8th - "Someone Else" 3%
9th - Rick Santorum 2%
10th - (Tie) Jon Huntsman and Newt Gingrich with 1% of the unique online votes

It should be noted that Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin are not yet officially announced candidates for the GOP nomination and will not appear as options on Saturday's actual straw poll ballot in Ames.

"I congratulate Ron Paul and his campaign on this victory," said Iowa Congressman Tom Latham whose campaign for Iowa's new Third Congressional District sponsored the poll. "Regardless of the results, the most important message of this online poll is that Iowans are united in their motivation to bring common sense back to Washington.  And it's clear why.  Americans are tired of paying for Washington's failed and costly policies.  They are ready to fight for leaders who will put people before politics and progress before partisanship to change the way Washington works and the work that Washington does to restore the confidence in the American Dream."

The Iowa Republican Straw Poll will take place Saturday in Ames, Iowa on the campus of Iowa State University.

Wisconsin News

National labor groups spent millions of dollars to retake control of the Wisconsin state Senate Tuesday but came up a seat short.
Some within the labor movement cast the recall elections in the Badger State as a victory — Democrats knocked off two sitting Republican senators — and insisted that a message had been sent.
“While disappointed about not taking back the Senate, there are still two fewer anti-worker state senators in Wisconsin than last week,” said Kristen Crowell, field director for “We are Wisconsin”, a Democratic group leading efforts in the state. “New senators Shilling and King will stand strong with working families against Governor Walker’s extreme right wing agenda.”
But even the most loyal labor defenders acknowledged that the goal from the moment that Walker pushed a bill stripping public sector unions of their collective bargaining rights in March until yesterday’s election was to take back the state Senate. And, close doesn’t count in politics.
It’s the second major electoral setback for organized labor in the last two years; unions spent millions to knock off Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln in a 2010 Democratic primary but came up short.
“The unmistakable lesson is that every time labor makes it about labor, they lose,” said one senior Democratic strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It’s a messenger problem.”
There’s little debate that labor’s share of the electorate has dipped in recent elections.
In 2010, just 17 percent of the electorate said they were a member of a union household. Two years earlier — in a presidential race that elected a Democratic president — the union household number stood at 21 percent, the lowest it had been in any presidential election dating back to 1972. (The peak of labor’s share of the electorate was in 1976 when 34 percent of voters were members of a union household.)

And, the last two Democratic presidents have not been of and for labor.Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) during his presidency and many unions leaders have expressed frustration about President Obama’s willingness to stick his neck out further on labor priorities like the Employee Free Choice Act.
AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that he and the president had a “frank, open discussion” last week, adding: “We told him exactly how we feel about the economy.”
Within the labor movement, there was a significant effort to look on the bright side after Tuesday’s results.
One Democratic strategist involved in the Wiconsin campaign insisted that Democrats’ competitiveness in all six seats, which were won by Republican state senators in 2008 despite Obama sweeping the Badger State, was a testament to the power of the labor movement.
“Winning it all is always better and there would be real celebrations if we had managed to take back the Senate,” said the source. “But this was a tough uphill battle from the beginning.”
There is an active debate about the generic nature of the six state Senate seats in question. All were won by Obama in 2008 and then by Walker in 2010. Nate Silver, numbers guru extraordinaire for the New York Times, notes that “all of these seats can be classified as being in swing districts” but adds that “most are a couple of points more Republican than Wisconsin as a whole.”
Whether the state Senate seats in question are pure toss-ups or tilting Republican, however, Democrats knew the underlying numbers and still insisted that the majority was very much in play right up until all of the votes were counted.
And as the great philosopher Omar Little — of “The Wire” fame — once said: “If you come at the king, you best not miss.” It’s hard to see what happened in Wisconsin as anything short of a miss for an organized labor movement that had hoped the recall elections would be read as a sign that unions still carried significant political power in the country.
To be sure, they do — and still will. Labor is very well funded and has a grassroots army than no one in the party — perhaps not even President Obama — can match.
But, losing the two biggest political fights you pick in consecutive years is a tough blow for a movement working to prove it remains the biggest player in Democratic politics.

Guy Fawkes

Anonymous could be planning a Nov. 5 cyber attack agianst the world's largest social networking site, Facebook.
A single video was published to a YouTube account called FacebookOp, claiming to be from Anonymous that said the group would be hacking into Facebook and taking the site down.
"We wish to get your attention, hoping you heed the warnings as follows: Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed," reads a written statement posted in the YouTube description of the video. "If you are a willing hacktivist or a guy who just wants to protect the freedom of information then join the cause and kill facebook for the sake of your own privacy."

Whoever posted the video -- whether actually from members of Anonymous or someone claiming to be affiliated with the group -- said the reasoning behind the planned attack was allegations of Facebook selling its users' personal information to government agencies "so that they can spy on people from all around the world. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria. "
Facebook officials were unavailable for comment on the video or the allegedly planned attack.
The video was shared on Twitter on July 16, the day the video first hit YouTube, by a user going by the name of Op_Facebook. The tweet to share the video has been the only message sent from that account so far and no other videos have been uploaded to YouTube.

"You cannot hide from the reality in which you, the people of the internet, live in," the statement paired with the video reads. "Facebook is the opposite of the Antisec cause. You are not safe from them nor from any government. One day you will look back on this and realise what we have done here is right, you will thank the rulers of the internet, we are not harming you but saving you.

"The riots are underway. It is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It is a battle for choice and informed consent. It's unfolding because people are being raped, tickled, molested, and confused into doing things where they don't understand the consequences. Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is completely false. It gives users the illusion of and hides the details away from them "for their own good" while they then make millions off of you. When a service is 'free,' it really means they're making money off of you and your information."
Anonymous has about a dozen Twitter and YouTube accounts and has a loose structure with no one leader or spokesperson representing the group, which has in the past claimed hacks into the Iranian government, PayPal, Visa and tech companies working for the FBI and other government agencies. The group also used its YouTube and Twitter pages to post video created by those in Tunisia who revolted against their government in January.
It's clear the group's philosophy is one that isn't big on governments or police agencies as they currently exist.
But given the largely undefined barriers as to what Anonymous is or isn't, it's difficult to gauge how much weight is or isn't behind this seemingly ignored threat made against Facebook.
One piece of the puzzle that is, however, easy to decipher is the Nov. 5 date on which the cyber attack could take place. Nov. 5 is Guy Fawkes Night, the night in 1605 in which Guy Fawkes was arrested while guarding explosives beneath London's House of Lords in an attempt to kill numerous politicians and King James I.
Members and supporters of Anonymous adopted the Guy Fawkes mask, as depicted in the comic book and film "V for Vendetta," as a symbol for the group.
Lately, however, Anonymous members have been more active as members of AntiSec, a mash-up of Anonymous and members of LulzSec, a hacking group that has said it hacked more for entertainment than over political philosophy.

UK News

Not even three days of rioting in London can dispel the market's perception of the U.K. as one of the safest of safe havens right now. On the very day that Prime Minister David Cameron was forced to cut short his holiday to deal with the spread of looting across the country, the yield on 10-year U.K. government bonds hit record lows and the cost of insuring gilts fell below that of German sovereign debt. In a world of dysfunctional politics, investors see the U.K. as a beacon of stability.

The markets are betting the violence, while shocking, won't shake the government from its fiscal program. The riots seem to have less to do with the government's spending cuts than long-brewing social tensions in some London boroughs. The economic impact, while devastating for some local businesses that have seen shops destroyed, should be small overall. The British Retail Consortium estimates the damage caused could cost "tens of millions of pounds." The government may have to provide compensation to insurers for this, but that is a small price relative to its overall debt.
Meanwhile, the U.K. stands out relative to major economy peers in having a credible deficit reduction plan: The Treasury expects public sector net debt to fall below 70% of gross domestic product in fiscal year 2015-16. Ministers in the U.K.'s coalition government, its first for 70 years, remain committed to that plan, despite other disagreements. By contrast, successive European governments, and now the U.S. itself, have failed to convince markets and ratings agencies their debts are under control.
Still, the riots add to political strains in the U.K. Prominent institutions, including parliament, the media and police, have each suffered major scandals in the last 18 months. Opposition politicians may use the riots to strengthen their argument that spending cuts should be relaxed. Keeping the coalition together is already a challenge, with the junior Liberal Democrats sliding in opinion polls. The deficit reduction plan may be hard to stick to if U.K. growth continues to stall.
The riots are a warning that the U.K.'s apparent stability is not all that it seems.

Vanguard

It took a few years and a whole lot of dead ends to get the Vanguard Synfuels biodiesel plant in Pollock restarted. Those involved in the project, though, never stopped believing it would get off the ground.
"I never doubted it," said Darrell Dubroc, chief executive officer of Vanguard's parent company, Consolidated Energy Holdings, LLC. "I wish the road could have been a little smoother, but I knew it would happen."
"This is a big day for Pollock," said Mayor Jerome Scott. "To bring 25 good jobs here is great not only for Pollock but Grant Parish and the surrounding parishes. I always felt like this was going to be a successful venture, and you can see today that it will be."
A grand reopening was held Monday for the Vanguard plant, which began producing biodiesel again a couple of weeks ago. Vanguard employs about 25 people.
It was the latest chapter in an up-and-down history of the facility, which Dubroc compared to the biblical figure Lazarus because "it has died and come back a few times."
The plant started in the 1970s producing ammonia before it stopped production about a decade ago. Vanguard -- a group led by local forestry professionals -- bought it in 2003, sold the ammonia-producing assets and repackaged it as a renewable-energy facility.
Vanguard began producing biodiesel with soybean oil because, Dubroc said, "that's how everyone was doing it at the time." Prodcution halted again in 2007 due to the rising cost of the commodity.
When Vanguard officials looked for funding to get the plant producing again, they found mostly frustration. "After beating our heads against the wall seeing everyone we could see about financing," Dubroc said, they finally found a willing partner in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development.
With USDA Rural Development's aid, Vanguard was able to secure a $10.4 million financing package -- some of it grant money, most of it loans from Union Bank.

"This is part of our mission -- improving quality of life and rural development," said Clarence Hawkins, state director of USDA Rural Development. "Energy is a vital part of that."
"These are quality jobs being created that will have a very important effect on the local economy in a rural area," said John Broussard, business and cooperative program director with USDA Rural Development. "And they're taking waste that otherwise who knows where it would get disposed of and making fuel. They're not taking a food chain item and making fuel from it."
The plant is equipped to produce biodiesel from a variety of waste sources, including used oils, grease and animal tallows. Biodiesel burns much cleaner than petroleum diesel. It is often blended with petro diesel (Environmental Protection Agency regulations require refiners to blend a certain percentage of renewables into their petroleum fuels).
Vanguard will sell mostly wholesale but will also supply some local distributors.
Now that the plant is back in production, Consolidated Energy Holdings will move forward putting finishing touches on its facility at the Port of Alexandria.

Nagasaki

The United States sent a representative for the first time Tuesday to the annual memorial service for victims of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, one of two nuclear attacks that led Japan to surrender in World War II.
The U.S. bombing of Nagasaki 66 years ago killed some 80,000 people. Three days earlier, the U.S. had dropped another atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing up to 140,000.
U.S. Charge d'Affaires James P. Zumwalt, the first American representative to attend the Nagasaki memorial service, said in a statement that President Barack Obama hoped to work with Japan toward his goal "of realizing a world without nuclear weapons" — a commitment Japan has made repeatedly since the war.
Obama last year sent Ambassador John Roos to the 65th anniversary of the bombing in Hiroshima, and Roos visited Nagasaki twice last year on other dates, according to the U.S. Embassy in Japan.
Zumwalt joined Nagasaki's residents and mayor on Tuesday in observing a moment of silence at 11:02 a.m. — the moment the bomb dropped on the city on Aug. 9, 1945, in the closing days of the war. Six days later Japan surrendered.
As in past years, a bell rang out in a prayer for peace, and bomb victims who were children during the attack sang a song called "Never Again."

Mayor Tomihisa Taue called on Japan to change its nuclear policy and reject not just atomic weapons but also nuclear power — as decades-old fears of radiation sickness were renewed in March by a nuclear power plant disaster following a massive earthquake and tsunami.
"Why must this nation that has so long fought for bomb victims once again live in fear of radiation?" Taue said. "The time has come to thoroughly talk about what kind of society we want and make a choice."
He called for a shift from nuclear reactors — Japan has 54 along its coast — to renewable energy sources.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan promised that Japan would work to become less dependent on nuclear energy with the aim of "becoming a society free of dependence on nuclear power."
"We must never forget," he said of Nagasaki, "and it must never be repeated."

Wisconsin Recall

Polling stations opened Tuesday morning in Wisconsin as voters cast ballots to decide whether to remove six Republican state senators, the latest chapter in what has been one of the most polarized, vitriolic political years in the state in memory.
Republicans hold a 19-to-14 advantage in the State Senate, so the election could tip the balance in favor of Democrats in the upper chamber, but the vote is being more widely seen as a referendum on the policies of the state’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, and as a potential preview of the 2012 presidential election in Wisconsin, which is expected to be a crucial swing state.
The recall campaigns — against six Republicans on Tuesday and against two Democratic state senators next week — have drawn frenetic get-out-the-vote efforts by local and national groups that have set up camp in affected cities and towns, filled radio and television airwaves across the state (and even into Minnesota) and led to what is expected to be some $30 million in spending by campaigns and outside groups, placing some of these among the costliest state legislative races ever to take place here.
“This is off the charts for Wisconsin, wildly off the charts,” said Mike McCabe, the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which has tracked the spending and says it has come from numerous sources, including union groups that want to see the Republicans removed and, on the other side, conservative groups like the Club for Growth Wisconsin and Americans for Prosperity. “This gives whole new meaning to the word ‘unprecedented.’ ”
These elections, oddly timed during the state’s sleepy vacation season, were fueled by the anger that has split the state since Mr. Walker and Republican lawmakers took over control of the government this year, and pursued an aggressive agenda — in particular, cutting collective-bargaining rights for public workers as a way, they said, to solve the state’s budget gap. At stake on Tuesday is dominance of the State Senate; Democrats would need to win three seats to grab the majority and slow Mr. Walker’s ability to set the state’s direction.
Within Wisconsin, where the recall efforts took root during a fierce standoff in the Legislature over the collective-bargaining cuts, the signs of anger are everywhere. Complaints of stolen campaign signs have cropped up in many Senate districts. Claims of dirty tricks (including reports of misleading campaign literature and gift-card offers in exchange for votes) are rampant. And Mr. Walker, who has become a focus of this state’s division and who may himself face recall next year, has been greeted with dueling contingents of protesters and supporters in even the most traditionally polite setting, the opening festivities last week in West Allis for the State Fair.
More surprising, though, is the level of interest beyond the state’s borders. These state legislative races (which might, in a normal year, go mostly ignored outside the state capital) are being seen by some as an early measure of what is ahead for both political parties in 2012 and one gauge of public opinion of the set of states, including this one, where Republicans scored sweeping victories in statehouses in 2010.
Here, state officials and other experts are reluctant to make predictions about the recall outcomes given little history to use as a model, a peculiar array of variables and a confusing, staggered set of election dates that included primaries with Republican-leaning candidates who ran as Democrats as a strategy to help Republican incumbents.

Since the state began allowing recalls of state-level politicians in 1926, only four such elections — which allow a new challenger to oppose an incumbent before a term’s end — were held before this year, and only two of the incumbents were ultimately thrown out.
Still, leaders in both political parties are professing optimism. “Enthusiasm and momentum are on our side,” said Mark Miller, the Democratic minority leader in the State Senate, who suggested that Democrats had the ability to capture all six of the Republican seats in question.
Scott Fitzgerald, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, said he had confidence that Republicans would maintain their majority in the chamber. “No question about it,” Mr. Fitzgerald said.
In a way, the senators facing recall, after residents gathered thousands of signatures on petitions, were picked less for individual acts than for fitting one of two categories.
The six Republicans voted in favor of the cuts to collective-bargaining rights earlier this year, have served in office for at least a year (a technical requirement of the state’s recall provision) and were, in some cases, viewed as coming from districts where Democratic voters had gained in numbers of late.
The two Democrats (a third Democrat already survived a recall effort last month) fled Wisconsin along with the rest of the Senate’s Democrats in a maneuver to try to block a vote on the collective bargaining measure, served for at least a year and were, in some cases, viewed as coming from districts where Republicans had gained in numbers.
Senator Dan Kapanke, from a district in the La Crosse area that President Obama won in 2008, is viewed as one of the most vulnerable of the Republicans, in part because his district includes lots of public workers who would presumably be most affected by Republicans’ cuts to benefits and collective bargaining rights. Mr. Kapanke seemed not to help himself when he told a Republican group this spring (in an address that was secretly recorded and described in local newspaper accounts) that Republicans had to hope government workers “kind of are sleeping” on Election Day.
“We’re competing against every left-wing group you’ve heard of — and everyone you haven’t,” Mr. Kapanke’s campaign manager, Jennifer Harrington, said the other day.
Even once Tuesday’s votes are counted, however, control of the Senate might not be known. Unless one party or the other wins most of the races, all eyes will turn to the recall elections of Senate Democrats next week. Senator Jim Holperin, a Democrat who represents towns like this one, Sayner, in the state’s far Northwoods, is seen as the most vulnerable Democrat.
The outcomes of the recall elections seem likely to help decide the future of another, larger recall effort. Democrats have pledged to remove Mr. Walker, but signatures cannot be gathered for such an effort until at least next January, when he will have served a year in office. A victory by Republicans in the Senate would most likely temper such talk, while victories for the Democrats would encourage more of it.
Even beyond the elections, this state’s partisan gulf seems to have seeped into nearly every layer of government. Law enforcement authorities have investigated reports that a dispute between justices on the State Supreme Court turned physical during discussions over the state’s cuts to collective bargaining, and a lawsuit has been filed to stop those cuts from taking effect. And last week, a state facilities worker was charged with a misdemeanor after being accused of popping a protester’s balloon with a knife at the State Capitol, a place that has seen regular, continuing protests since the collective bargaining cuts were first announced.

Samacheer Kalvi

Honouring the Supreme Court verdict on the uniform education system, Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday said it would implement it from the current academic year itself.
Soon after the apex court gave its verdict, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa announced in the state assembly that her government would implement the Uniform System of Education (Samacheer Kalvi).
The AIADMK, after assuming office in May last, had decided to defer the implementation of the system brought in by the previous DMK regime on the plea that textbooks prepared for the system needed a thorough change.
Some parents and educationists moved the Madras High Court seeking a direction from the court for the implementation of the system from the current academic year. The court accepted the plea of the petitioners and directed the state government to implement the system from this year itself.
A division bench of the court also upheld the decision following which the Jayalalithaa government appealed to the Supreme Court.
Karunanidhi welcomes verdict

Welcoming the verdict, DMK chief M. Karunanidhi said the apex court had taught a “fitting lesson” to the AIADMK government.
“If such a verdict had come during the DMK regime, Ms. Jayalalithaa would have demanded my resignation. But I do not want to make such a demand. At least hereafter Ms. Jayalalithaa should give up adamant attitude in issues like this and change her attitude”, he said.
Mr. Karunanidhi urged the people to celebrate wholeheartedly the Supreme Court verdict.
The Supreme Court has dismissed the state’s plea that the Uniform System of School Education (Amendment) Act brought into force by the DMK government was sub-standard, lacked quality and was politically motivated.

Futures

We're in for another rocky day on Wall Street. Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit ratings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other agencies linked to long-term U.S. debt.

The agency also lowered the ratings for: farm lenders; long-term U.S. government-backed debt issued by 32 banks and credit unions; and three major clearinghouses, which are used to execute trades of stocks, bonds and options.
Meantime, U.S. stocks tumbled amid a rout in global markets after S&P downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time.
At the opening of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 192, or 1.7 percent, to 11,252. The S&P 500 was down 23, or 2 percent to 1,176. The Nasdaq was down 64, or 2.5 percent, to 2,468.
It's really a perfect storm. There's the European debt crisis, the U.S. credit downgrade and general anxiety about the global economy. All of that making for a very bumpy ride for investors.
Many investors have been turning to precious metals. The price of gold Monday morning topped $1,700 for the first time in response to the downgrade.
Markets in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea all dropped sharply on Monday. European markets shed their early momentum, even with the Central Bank promising to buy up Italian and Spanish bonds to help the two countries avoid devastating defaults.
Hoping to avert panic, the G-7 announced this weekend that they were committed to taking all necessary measures to support financial stability and growth.

But many analysts think that the international efforts may not be enough to calm jittery markets, and they've seen that anxiety reflected in both Europe and Asia.
"What we saw this morning at the opening of the Asian markets is that the reaction to the U.S. debt downgrade was really negative and we expect that the same will occur in Europe," said economist Oscar Bernarl. "Now there have been some declarations from the authorities both in the United States and in Europe that have tried to calm down the markets, but we don't know at this point if this will be sufficient."
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, along with Federal Chairman Ben Bernanke were part of the G-7 pledge, but it's too little too late for critics. Some of them are calling for either to step down.
Despite rumors of his resignation, the White House confirms Geithner will not be leaving his post. And he and the White House remain critical of S&P's decision to downgrade the nation's credit rating.
Some argue it is difficult to trust S&P's judgment after its failure to catch problems with the mortgage bond market a few years back.
David Beers, who heads the government debt rating unit for S&P, says the right call was made and he has no regrets.
"The track record of those government ratings in terms of the job that they're designed to do is capture relative default risk of 126 sovereign governments that we rate around the world, the many local and regional governments that we rate around the world," said Beers. "That track record remains very strong and I expect it will go on remaining strong."
Experts say what happened on Wall Street was be the knee-jerk reaction, a lot of emotional trading. And what sets all this activity apart is the fact that the credit downgrade is unprecedented. This is all uncharted territory, so the waiting game continues.
Most analysts think anxiety will rule the start of the day, but that their will be stability by the afternoon.
And, as far as S&P is concerned, they told Good Morning America on Monday that they will not take the blame for this, that the markets were already turbulent by the time they made their downgrade decision.

Stephen Hawking

Physicist Stephen Hawking has given religion a cosmic thumbs-down, calling the idea of heaven "a fairy story" in a recent interview. But researchers say faith can have measurable psychological benefits.
Case in point: A paper published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology indicates that people who believe in a benevolent God are less bothered by the vagaries of life than those who believe in a deity that is indifferent or punitive.
The paper was based on two recent studies. The first, which involved 332 Christians and Jews, showed that those who trusted in God to look out for them worry less and are more tolerant of uncertainty than those who mistrusted God.

The second study involved 125 Jews who participated in a two-week audio-video program aimed at increasing their trust in God. It showed that those who participated reported significant decreases in worry and psychological stress.
"We found that the positive beliefs of trust in God were associated with less worry and that this relationship was partially mediated by lower levels of intolerance of uncertainty," the authors of the study - including Harvard-affiliated psychologist Dr. David Rosmarin - said in a written statement. "Conversely, the negative beliefs of mistrust in God correlated with higher worry and intolerance."
The paper noted that studies have shown that 93 percent of people believe in God or a higher power and that 50 percent say that religion is important to them. Hawking, whose long battle with a deadly neurological disease has left him withered and wheelchair-bound, certainly isn't one of them.
"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years," he told the Guardian, adding, "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

Seal Team 6

Comparisons have always been made between the US military debacle in Vietnam and the ongoingAfghanistan military action. The Afghan operations have gone on for a decade now, and there is no end in sight. Every time the NATO believed it had crippled the head of insurgency, the Taliban has been able to bounce back and deal a heavy blow.

In the deadliest blow to the U.S. military in Afghanistanon a single day, 31 U.S. troops, including 22 from the elite Navy SEAL Team 6 were killed on Saturday as the Taliban launched a daring attack on the Chinook helicopter they were traveling in.
It's quite difficult to deal with insurgency of this kind, which indeed has legs. The adversaries lie low for months or years, and launch crippling strikes at the US and NATO forces. It's impossible, nor is it the strategy, to kill everyone or suspect everyone of Taliban allegiance. Guerilla forces have the ability to recoup manpower losses by recurring larger numbers of zealots, and ramp up operations with the help of a sympathetic general public.

Rick Perry

Ready or not America, here comes Rick Perry into the presidential race -- the Republican party's new God-talking rock star.
He's not yet officially announced, but when Perry addressed a crowd estimated at 30,000 at Houston's Reliant Stadium at The Response, a Christian prayer event that was his brainchild, the Texas governor positioned himself as a Presidential candidate.
An official announcement at this point seems anti-climactic.
In a 13-minute speech beamed to the audience filling almost half of the stadium seats via three 18-by-24-foot projection screens, Perry frequently invoked God. He spoke of and prayed for challenges facing the nation, including the safety of President Barack Obama and his family, and he talked of the nation more than he zeroed in on Texas, his home state.
Perry is expected to officially announce his campaign for the Republican party's presidential nomination as early as this week. But it was clear as Gov. Perry beamed upon the stage to the adoration of thousands, many who stood and reached out to him as he approached the stage and spoke, that the event in Houston was his true national political coming out party.
America, meet Rick Perry, Christian political rock star, ready to rally evangelicals, liberal loathers, and fragmented Republican party members through conservative talk that doesn't apologize for melding God and politics or taking on Democratic PresidentBarack Obama and other Washington politicians he feels have gone astray from the real needs of the nation.
The 61-year-old even seems to understand that he can only push God so far. In speaking Saturday, Perry gave his view of a "personal God" and said his God has an "agenda" that is "not a political agenda. His agenda is a salvation agenda."
"He is a wise, wise God," Perry said, "and he's wise enough to not be afiliated with any political party."
Perry also prayed for the safety of President Barack Obama, undoubtedly the one he considers to be his biggest obstacle to overcome in the Presidential race.
"Father," Perry said, "we pray for our president, that you would impart your wisdom upon him, that you would guard his family. You call us to repent, Lord, and this day is our resopnse."
Perry said he called The Response prayer event in Houston at the city's largest public venue to pray "for a nation in crisis." America had just emerged from more than a week of difficult political negotiations to life the nation's debt ceiling. And the night before the rally, the ratings agency S&P had downgraded the U.S.'s credit rating one notch.

Observers say many of the more than 30,000 that filled the football stadium Saturday moved in the beat of religious spirit, waving hands, swaying to music, singing and crying out, and sometimes approaching "near-frenzied dance and trance" according to a journalist with the Austin Statesman.
"We see discord at home," Perry said. "We see fear in the market place. We see anger in the halls of government. As a nation, we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us, and for that we cry out for your forgiveness."
Christianity has been a nagging theme surrounding President Obama, though he has professed publicly multiple times that he's a Christian since running for election and winning three years ago, but some Americans simply do not believe him. The accuse him of being a true Muslim parading in a Christian sheep's clothing.
Perry has the support of the conservative American Family Association of Tupelo, Miss. and other evangelical conservative groups, something that raises the pulse of many liberals, but he has been careful to proclaim that he doesn't think God is only on his side.
Perry had invited President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other Congressional and Senate leaders, as well as all of the country's governors to attend the event. But only Sam Browback, a Republican governor from Kansas, showed. Also, a taped message was played during the event fromFlorida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican.
Pery closed the event by offering his blessing to attendees, as is his custom, but instead of saying "Texas" as usual, he said "nation."
"God bless you and, through you, may God continue to bless this great nation we love," said Perry.
With that, it was evident that while it may not yet be official, Texas Governor Rick Perry has now joined the race to become America's next president.

Rick Perry

Thousands of worshipers converged on Houston's Reliant Stadium on Saturday for Gov. Rick Perry's day of prayer and fasting, filling the cavernous sports venue with an uplifting revival-like atmosphere and calls for miraculous intervention from God to help heal the nation's critical problems.
Spiritual music ranging from solemn choral arrangements to old-fashioned gospel and up-tempo Christian rock set the tone for the seven-hour gathering as participants began arriving well before the official 10 a.m. start. Perry planned to stay for the duration and addressed the crowd at about 11:25 a.m.
"Like all of you, I love this country deeply ... Indeed, the only thing you love more is the living Christ," Perry said as he opened his remarks.
Added Perry: "His agenda is not a political agenda. It is a salvation agenda."
Called The Response, the gathering attracted national media because of Perry's emergence as a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination. But organizers and participants alike declared that they were leaving politics outside in a day of spiritualism devoted strictly to prayer, Scripture reading and Holy worship.
"This is going to be a good day," declared Luis Cataldo of the International House of Prayer of Kansas City. "We're here all day to worship Jesus."
Response spokesman Eric Bearse said he believed that attendance had already exceeded the expected 8,000 in advance of the 10 a.m. opening and said that the arena was configured to hold as many as 50,000. The stadium, which has a capacity of 71,000, is the home of the Houston Texans football team, which was conducting a training camp across the street while the Response was underway.
Protesters outside
More than 50 protesters, including a group from Fort Worth, gathered at an intersection at the edge of the to denounce the American Family Association and other program sponsors for what they said were exclusionary religious views and extremist positions toward non-Christians and gays.

Some of the demonstrators also assailed Perry's participation in the religious event as a blatant political display while he is moving toward a potential presidential bid.
"Pastor Perry must resign," one sign read. "Keep church and state separate," said another.
At least 15 members of the Fort Worth's First Congregational United Church of Christ made the trip to join the protest. "Our view is that the Gospel is one of inclusion - not exclusion," said pastor Katherine Godby. "We came because we want people to know that that there is an alternative to what the American Family Association's view of The Gospel is"
Praying for America
Undaunted by scorching Texas heat, participants continued to converge on the arena throughout the morning, causing massive traffic tie-ups. The event was simulcast in more than 1,000 churches in all 50 states, said organizers.
Rita Baird, 55, and her daughter Angie, 29, flew in from their hometown of Manly, Iowa, and were among the first arrivals, reading from the Bible's Book of Joel as they waited for the program to begin.
"I came down to pray for our country," said Rita Baird, saying that she was not focused on the presidential race and did not know if she would support Perry if he enters the race. "We came mostly to worship Jesus," said her daughter.
Other participants also stressed the apolitical nature of the event.
"I just want to seek God," said Sarah Munyu, a graduate student at Texas Southern University. "I don't have a political agenda." She wore a black T-shirt that declared: "Love God. Love People."

Hiroshima

Faced with secular activists’ furor over the separation of church and state, the Air Force recently shelved a mandatory ethics training for nuclear missile officers following a report that the session employed Christian theology and Bible verses.

But for those who believe that religious values have a place in our public life--such as the Geneva and Hague Conventions that Christian ethics inspired--the profound outrage is that our tradition would be distorted and misrepresented to justify the use of weapons of mass destruction. The Air Force shouldn’t be bullied into shelving its theologically-grounded ethics training. But it should fix it.
I write these words from Hiroshima, which I am visiting on the eve of the 66th anniversary of the first wartime use of the atomic bomb. The city is a stark reminder of what happens when we abandon moral standards that have guided us for centuries.
The Air Force presentation cited in the report claims that the Christian “Just War” tradition morally authorizes the use of nuclear weapons. This is categorically untrue. And if we ask military officers, many of whom are Christians, to serve in good conscience, it cannot be on the basis of false teaching.
Over the centuries, the Just War tradition has wrestled with when and how force may be morally applied, in a fallen world, toward the purpose of the greater good of peace.
Unfortunately, the Air Force slideshow fatally amputates half of Just War by only mentioning the jus ad bellum criteria, which concern when and why war may be waged.
It entirely omits Just War’s jus in bello criteria-the standards governing how war is waged-chief among which is the absolute prohibition of intentionally harming noncombatants.

Given that the slideshow later admits that a U.S. nuclear launch “would kill thousands of non-combatants,” the omission may be unsurprising. But it is theologically unconscionable, and it has profound real-world effects.
The “Just” in Just War is not about justification, but justice-it is not there to salve our moral conscience, but to ensure that we do not forget the unrelenting standards of God even in the prosecution of war.
The Air Force slideshow demonstrates the consequences of getting this moral teaching wrong. After showing a collage of Hiroshima dead that includes babies and the elderly, the presentation proposes mitigating factors, including post-war testimony by Germans and Japanese that they would have used the atomic bomb if they had developed it first.
But it is appalling to hold up the wartime authors of the Holocaust and the Bataan Death March as benchmarks for relativistic ethics.
To justify Hiroshima with the assertion that Germany or Japan would have acted similarly is to betray the Just War tradition entirely. It means basing our moral standards on the fickle depravity of our earthly enemy, rather than the North Star of God’s goodness. And this is precisely what happened in World War II, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki forming a tragic coda to the escalating practice of civilian bombing initiated by the Nazis.
As Admiral Leahy, President Truman’s military chief of staff, later wrote of the bombing: “In being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was taught not to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”
Those who bear the responsibility of waging armed conflict are often its most thoughtful and sober philosophers, given their intimate knowledge of war’s physical and moral costs. It would be a disservice to deny our military the teaching of this biblically-grounded tradition in relation to nuclear doctrine-whether by omission or misrepresentation. We reject moral absolutes at our peril.
The Air Force shouldn’t shy away from holding nuclear warfare up to Christian moral standards. But we should ask what the consequences would be if we actually told the truth about them.