Let's just hope they didn't use furlongs and slugs and things should be alright.
In the wake of the wildly successful Spirit and Opportunity rover missions, you would think NASA would approach the landing of the next Martian probe with high confidence. But the truth is sometimes not what you would think.
"I do not feel confident. But in my heart I'm an optimist, and I think this is going to be a very successful mission," said principal investigator Peter Smith, an optical scientist with the University of Arizona. "The thrill of victory is so much more exciting than the agony of defeat."
Indeed, the truth is that the planetary scientists and engineers who make up the Mars Phoenix Lander team will be biting their nails Sunday evening as they cluster around computer monitors in mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. That's when their spacecraft, which launched to Mars last August, will finally arrive on the Red Planet.
Everyone on the team is primed and ready to get down to business, putting the suite of scientific instruments aboard Phoenix to work analyzing the soils and permafrost of Mars' arctic tundra for signatures of life, either past or present.
But first, they have to get the lander on the ground, and that's where the worry comes in. In fact, they have a name for it in the Mars exploration community -- "seven minutes of terror."
Seven minutes is all it takes for a spacecraft travelling neary 13 thousand miles per hour to hit the Martian atmosphere, slam on the brakes, and reach the ground. During that time, onboard computers will be working at a manic pace as the spacecraft deploys its parachute, jettisons its heat shield, extends its three legs, releases the parachute, and finally fires its thrusters to bring it down for a soft landing. Hopefully.
"Everything has to go right," said NASA Associate Administrator Ed Weiler. "You can't afford any failures."
It's risky business. Historically, 55 percent of all Mars missions have ended in failure. And tensions will be particularly high with the Phoenix spacecraft.
From an overall design standpoint, it is twin to the Mars Polar Lander spacecraft, and was supposed to travel to Mars in 2001 as the Mars Surveyor spacecraft. They were originally part of the "better, faster, cheaper" program, formulated by then-NASA Administrator Dan Goldin to beef up planetary exploration on a lean budget.
But disaster struck.
Mars Polar Lander malfunctioned during its entry and descent into Mars' atmosphere in 1999 and crashed. Technical investigations later concluded that as many as a dozen design flaws or malfunctions doomed the spacecraft.
The failure of that mission, as well as another spacecraft called the Mars Climate Orbiter the same year, led to some soul searching at NASA. The agency put future missions on hold to rethink the "better, faster, cheaper" approach. And Mars Surveyor went to the warehouse.
"The trouble is somebody forgot the 'better' part," said Weiler. "By pushing the faster and cheaper part so hard, engineers were forced to make decisions that weren't necessarily the best and right decisions. And that led to both the failures of the Mars Climate Orbiter and ultimately the Mars Polar Lander and eventually the entire Mars program."
But all was not lost. In 2003, Peter Smith proposed a plan to reengineer that mothballed spacecraft and fly it on a mission to look for signatures of life in the ice and dirt of Mars far North. Mars Phoenix, literally and figuratively, rose from the ashes of Surveyor.
Engineers set to work, testing and re-testing the onboard system to ferret out and fix all the flaws they could find. But even the lead engineer admits he worries they might have missed something. "We always have to be scared to death," said project manager Barry Goldstein. "The minute we lose fear is the minute that we stop looking for the next problem."
Another aspect of the Phoenix landing that has the team worried is the landing system itself. NASA has not successfully landed a probe on Mars using landing legs and stabilizing thrusters since the Viking missions in the late 1970's.
The other three successful Mars landings -- Pathfinder in 1997 and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in 2004 - used massive airbags that inflated around the landing craft just before landing to cushion the impact. "I love airbags," said Weiler. "We got three success stories with airbags, but you don't invent science by continuing to do what you know how to do."
Engineers did not use airbags on Phoenix because the lander is simply too big and heavy for them to work properly. And NASA will have to figure out how to land reliably with thrusters and landing legs in order to fly even larger spacecraft in the future. "We landed on Mars with rockets and legs twice with Viking. It's not impossible by definition, we have proof of it," said Weiler. "Humans will have to land on landing legs. Eventually we want to send humans there, obviously."
Assuming the landing is successful, the researchers will quickly begin science operations. The Phoenix landing site is targeted for the far Northern plains of the Mars, near the northern polar ice cap. Data from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft indicate large quantities of ice in the area, likely in the form of permafrost, either on the surface or just barely underground.
Phoenix is equipped with a robotic arm that can dig down and scoop up some of that ice and dirt, to look for organic chemical evidence that life once existed there, or even still exists now.
"We are not going to be able to answer the final question of 'is there life on Mars,' " said Smith. "We will take the next important step. We'll find out if there's organic material associated with this ice in the polar regions. Ice is a preserver and if there ever were organics on Mars and they got into that ice they will still be there today."
Indeed, "follow the water" has become the unifying theme of NASA's Mars exploration strategy. In 2004, the rover Opportunity found evidence that a salty sea once lapped the shores of an area near Mars' equator called Meridiani Planum. Astrobiologists, scientists who study life on other planets, generally agree that wet places are the best places to look for life.
"There is no life on earth where there isn't water," said Weiler. "However where there's water you find life especially if you have organics, organic material and energy."
Whether or not Phoenix will find smoking gun evidence of life on Mars is impossible to predict. But Peter Smith thinks success is within reach. "Well my gut tells me that life is common in the universe and probably somewhere on Mars there is organic material and perhaps even living material.
"Whether it's in the northern plains I have no idea. But the universe is an immense place. In our Milky Way we find hundreds of planets and those are just in the nearby stars. So there must be huge astronomical numbers of planets in the universe."
One sailor was treated for first-degree burns and 23 others for heat stress after a fire on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier burned for hours, the Navy said Friday. There were no fatalities on the ship.
Thursday's fire on the USS George Washington in the Pacific Ocean off South America was classified as "serious," Navy spokesman Cmdr. Jeff Davis said.
Smoke initially was detected in air-conditioning and refrigeration spaces before spreading to other areas, causing "extreme heat" in the ship, according to Davis. He said it took several hours to contain and then extinguish the blaze.
The ship's nuclear propulsion system was not damaged, and the George Washington is continuing toward a scheduled port call in San Diego, California.
FM SECNAV WASHINGTON DC
TO ALNAV
BT
UNCLAS
ALNAV 043/08
MSGID/GENADMIN/SECNAV WASHINGTON DC/-/MAY// SUBJ/SECNAV MEMORIAL DAY MESSAGE TO THE FLEET// RMKS/1. SINCE MAY 30, 1868, WHEN FLOWERS WERE PLACED ON THE GRAVES OF UNION AND CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS AT ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, AMERICANS HAVE SET ASIDE A DAY IN MAY TO REMEMBER THOSE WHO HAVE DIED IN OUR NATIONS SERVICE. THOSE WHO HAVE PAID THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE IN DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE EARNED OUR GRATITUDE, AND A DAY OF HONOR IN THEIR REMEMBRANCE.
2. OUR LIBERTIES WERE HARD-WON ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE. THE SIGNERS OF OUR DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE PLEDGED TO EACH OTHER THEIR LIVES, THEIR FORTUNES, AND THEIR SACRED HONOR. THEY UNDERSTOOD THAT NATIONS MUST FIGHT FOR THEIR FREEDOM - AND THAT FREEDOM, ONCE ACHIEVED, MUST BE DEFENDED. ON THIS DAY OF SOLEMN TRIBUTE TO THOSE WHO HAVE TAKEN THEIR ETERNAL REWARD WHILE DEFENDING THEIR FELLOW CITIZENS, LET US RESOLVE TO BE WORTHY OF THEIR SACRIFICE, AND LET US HONOR THOSE WHO HAVE SACRIFICED SO MUCH TO PRESERVE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY THAT WE CLAIM AS OUR BIRTHRIGHT.
3. RELEASED BY THE HONORABLE DONALD C. WINTER, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY.
Lest we forget; Happy Memorial Day fellow patriots.
Semper Fidelis
#2
When I first saw this posting, I thought JosephMendiola went jihad (text-wise anyway) on us.
The message is a nice reminder of what the holiday is about. We enjoy our freedoms because our military believes in these freedoms enough to make the many sacrifices they make. Thanks BH6.
While I agree, I know also that it can't be done. There are no words to express strong patriotism, love of country, and reverence to the Constitution in the liberalese language.
President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has expressed displeasure with the recent leapfrogging of Nigeria by Angola which assumed Nigeria's position as number one oil producing nation in Africa, a position Nigeria has maintained since 1978.
A senior official in the presidency told LEADERSHIP recently that the presidency is highly disturbed by the development, saying that "it is unfortunate that Angola a new entrant into the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has over taken the country in crude oil production as a result of avoidable circumstances".
Angola overtook Nigeria as Africa's largest oil producing nation in April, according to a platts survey. The swift change in position has been attributed to the continued unrest and insecurity in the Niger Delta region that houses the oil wealth of the nation. The region has over the years witnessed untold militant attacks over neglect and underdevelopment of the area, while successive governments have made efforts at tackling the problem, situation continues to take new dimensions.
So it isn't because Angola has been all that more productive ...
According to OPEC statistics in April, Angola reached a production rate of 1.92 million barrels per day (bpd), slightly below its potential of 1.93 million bpd, according to the OPEC. Nigeria produced 1.88 million bpd in April, three-quarters of what OPEC estimates to Nigeria's production capacity of 2.5 million bpd, Angola, one of OPEC's newest members, has gradually increased its production with new offshore oilfields, while Nigeria has been plagued by persistent supply disruptions.
Angola's new position has been for long anticipated by analysts in the oil sector and they sited the unrest in the Niger Delta region and the recent long strike action by oil workers at Exxon Mobil under the auspices of PENGASSAN as potential factors.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/23/2008 00:00 ||
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Nigeria has enough of a headache with the muzzies in the north of their country. AFAICT, there isn't a large muzzie population in Angola - yet. From what I've been reading in various sources, there's growing optimism in developing offshore oil reserves all along the Atlantic coast of Africa from Nigeria to Namibia, so Nigeria may never regain its previous number one position.
Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said that he would return home on Saturday despite reported plots to assassinate him ahead of a runoff election next month.
Mr. Tsvangirai has been traveling in the region since early April to build up international support for his party. He defeated President Robert Mugabe in the March presidential elections, but did not secure enough votes to avoid a run-off, which has been scheduled for June 27.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2008 00:00 ||
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A royal spokesman says Britain's Prince Charles has had a small non-cancerous growth removed from his face.
A spokesman at Charles' official residence, Clarence House, said Friday that the operation was a minor and routine procedure. Charles had the growth removed from the side of his nose late Thursday afternoon.
He had covered up the scar with small white bandage on the bridge of his nose during a tree-planting ceremony Friday at his country home in Highgrove.
China's government has appealed for more than 2 million tents to shelter the estimated 5 million people made homeless by the huge earthquake as the death toll continued to rise.
More than 55,740 people are known to have died in the 7.9-magnitude quake, centered in Sichuan province, with another 24,960 missing and 292,481 injured, authorities said.
As of midday Friday, domestic and international donations to China's earthquake zone had reached $3.6 billion, or 24.6 billion yuan, according to State Council officials.
So far, $273 million has been forwarded to the earthquake-affected areas, the office said.
In the midst of the devastation caused by last week's quake, China's central government has announced it will allocate $10 billion to the country's reconstruction fund, according to state media. iReport: Send photos, videos of relief effort
About 400,000 tents have been sent to quake-hit areas but many more are needed, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
The central government has said it needs about three million tents to provide shelter for everyone who needs one.
President Hu Jintao urged manufacturers to produce tents as quickly as possible on a visit to factories in eastern China's Zhejiang Province on Thursday, state-media reported.
"I just came back from Sichuan and tents are extremely needed there," he said. "Every tent you produce can help several townsmen of yours."
"We still face the arduous task of rescue and relief and we especially need lots of tents to accommodate homeless people," Hu Jintao said, according to Xinhua. "To produce more tents will be the greatest care shown to survivors and the greatest contribution to the rescue and relief."
Premier Wen Jiabao said government spending will be cut by five percent this year to pay for rebuilding, China's Xinhua news agency reported.
China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development called on local authorities to build 1 million temporary homes by early August to accommodate many of those left homeless, according to Xinhua.
China's response has been praised by a top United Nations official, who said the government's willingness to seek international help highlighted the magnitude of the crisis.
Earthquake relief efforts have prompted Chinese officials to postpone the penultimate leg of the Olympic torch relay to Beijing, organizers said.
The two-day relay through Sichuan province, still reeling from the May 12 quake, will start August 3 -- less than a week before the torch enters the opening ceremony in Beijing, according to a statement from the city's Olympic organizing committee. The relay had been scheduled for June 15.
Thursday ended an official three-day mourning period, which had temporarily halted the Olympic torch relay.
ITN's John Sparks reported from China that the mourning period had appeared to unofficially mark the end of the search and rescue phase of the operations.
Medical staff are now seeking to identify the bodies being found and reduce the risk of disease spreading from the rotting corpses, he said.
However, massive problems remain trying to cope with the homeless, many of whom are concentrated in Sichuan's mountainous regions.
Meanwhile on Friday, astonishing images were released showing the moment when a post-wedding photocall was interrupted by the quake.
And a newspaper reported that another survivor lived through a far worse disaster more than 30 years ago.
Alatanbagen Taoqi, 60, from China's ethnic Daur minority, was in an office building when it collapsed during the May 12 quake, The Nanjing Morning Post said. He was the only person in the building to survive, the report said.
In 1976, he survived an earthquake in Tangshan city in northeast China that killed almost a quarter of a million people. He was trapped under a pile of bricks for 10 days before being rescued, the paper reported. Possibly one of the luckiest men on Earth!
#1
When I saw UCS in the title, I had to read it, as UCS typically bitch about all the bad things done by the Great Satan:
The region has long been rumored to house nuclear missiles and some details have emerged in recent years, but the new analysis reveals a significantly larger deployment area than previously known to the public, different types of launch pads, command and control facilities, and missile deployment equipment at a large facility in downtown Delingha, stated Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists.
#4
INTERFAX > HACKERS ATTACK RUSSIAN NUCLEAR PLANT OPERATOR. Add this to ISLAMIST IRAN being very PR about its ongoing new economic ventures wid SCO + Central Asia, and new Islamist factions manifesting in INDIA - convinces me more that no matter what happens btwn Israel-Hizbollah, etc. IRAN, OSAMA, + RADICAL ISLAM'S REAL FOCII IS COVERTLY AGZ RUSSIA, CENTRAL ASIA, + "NEAR-ABROAD" PERIPHERAL AREAS.
Also, TOPIX/BIGNEWSNETWORK > NORTH KOREA has put out another WAR WARNING.
Two Iraqis convicted of crimes in Denmark have been deported, despite the protests of human rights advocates
Two Iraqi refugees ordered deported from Denmark after committing crimes arrived in the unstable central Iraq area on Thursday. The two, one of whom had had been convicted of murder, were reportedly arrested by Iraqi police immediately upon their arrival in Baghdad.
One committed murder and they sent him back to Iraq? What, the prisons in Denmark were full?
They are the first of nearly a dozen Iraqi refugees who had been seeking asylum but were convicted of crimes in Denmark are being sent back to Iraq. Denmark had previously sent six Iraqi criminals back to more peaceful southern area, but this is the first time it has deported refugees to the region surrounding Baghdad.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has condemned the practice of sending refugees back to Iraq, regardless of whether they are criminals or not, and regardless of which region they are returned to. Amnesty International has also criticised the practice.
Of course they did. That's how you know it's okay to do it.
The Immigration Ministry has publicly acknowledged its disagreement with the UNHCR over the issue, but Birthe Rønn Hornbech, the integration minister, said the deportations were not in violation of any international conventions. "This ... is ... DENMARK!"
A majority of the 11 refugees have lived in Denmark for over 10 years, but the National Police pointed out that the crimes for which they were convicted were 'serious'.
Princess Victoria's court marshal and right-hand Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg has quit her services to the Royal Swedish family after 32 years. She is due to start a new life as an international relations consultant to a Qatar oil emir. Nice pic at the link. One of the things that make one say "hmmm...."
57-year old Tarras-Wahlberg's new job is based in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where she will consult for Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Her contract starts after the summer and is initially set for two years.
Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg's presence at Crown Princess Victoria's side has been ubiquitous in recent years. Many credit her with helping the Princess to carve out her role as Sweden's Crown Princess and future Queen.
The decision to quit working for Princess Victoria is not due to any conflict. Tarras-Wahlberg would simply like to try something new. "The Crown Princess is a generous person and she has congratulated me. I hope we will continue to be in touch. I do not see this as a `divorce'," Tarras-Wahlberg told the Dagens Industri newspaper.
Tarras-Wahlberg started out as a press assistant for the King's office in 1976. Between 1995-2004 she was the Court's head of information. So Sweden is sending more troops to Afghanistan; a pro-Muslim advisor to the royal court is "moving on" to Qatar; more articles are appearing devoted to Muslims in Sweden claiming job discrimination ...
#1
I suspect that this woman is making the switch because European royalty are notoriously chintzy with the pay and bennies to subordinates, but the Emir has offered her an eight figure plus paycheck.
#5
She was always naturaly homely, and a year ago, some drunken diplo told her that she would look better with a bag over her head. She thought about it and lightbulb went on--Islam! She may be even able to marry if she wears the gown with slit-for-eyes only.
On March 2-4, more than 100 scientists, many of considerable renown, attended a conference in New York, sponsored by the Heartland Institute, called the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change. Also in attendance were over 300 other delegates, including Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic.
Though he is not a climatologist or physicist, he was a featured speaker at the event for two reasons. First, he recognizes in the mannerisms and proposed public-policy recommendations of those trying to reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions the same noble-sounding goals and the same repressive political mechanisms as of the communists who so recently ruled his country with an iron fist. Second, he is a notable economist, formerly holding a position in the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, and he can speak with authority about how the global-warming alarmists are misusing data to justify their claims.
THE NEW AMERICAN interviewed President Klaus at the climate conference.
Continued on Page 49
#3
Maxine was on the upside for once in her life - when they did the IQ bell curve test. She's a bitter, stupid, racist bitch with small thoughts and big conspiracies
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/23/2008 19:26 Comments ||
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#4
Cause we all know how well that worked out for the average Jose right next door in Mexico.
#6
It does make it easier to price things that aren't available, except on the black market.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/23/2008 19:44 Comments ||
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#7
Maxine you ignroant bitch, go live with Hooogo in Venezuela. WIht any luck when they get sick of his dictatorial crap they's hang him - and get you in the proess.
#8
I support nationalizing the demonrat party and using them for organ donations. They can also be used as one-use mine detectors. They can also be parachuted into Iran and other places with dictators to explain to them how evil they are and how they should just be nice. All such personnel will have the word "US SPY" tattooed on their forehead.
China and Russia sharply condemned U.S. missile defense plans Friday, taking a harder common line that reinforces an already strong strategic partnership during Dmitry Medvedev's first foreign trip as Russian president.
Pushing forward their robust energy cooperation, Russia also signed a $1 billion deal to build a uranium enrichment facility in China and supply low-enriched uranium for use in China's nuclear power industry over the next decade.
Rivals throughout much of the Cold War, Moscow and Beijing have forged close political and military ties since the Soviet collapse, seeking to counter the perceived U.S. global domination. They have spoken against the U.S. missile defense plans in the past, but Friday's declaration by Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao sounded tougher than before.
Without naming the United States, the two leaders said that "the creation of global missile defense systems and their deployment in some regions of the world ... does not help to maintain strategic balance and stability and hampers international efforts in arms control and nuclear nonproliferation." Like either one of them don't have enough missiles to swamp such a system. Oh well. They must have some ulterior motive.
They also warned against the deployment of arms in space another clear reference to the United States. "The parties stand for the peaceful use of space and against the deployment of weapons in space and arms race in space," Medvedev and Hu said in the statement released after an afternoon of talks.
The joint position appears to raise the stakes for Washington, which has been trying to persuade Beijing and Moscow not to see the missile shields as threatening. At the same time, the cooperation on diplomatic issues masks deep Russian unease at China's growing power and differences over military and energy sales.
The White House said Friday that it is not disappointed that Medvedev has not changed the stance taken by his predecessor, Vladimir Putin. "We're going to work with them to work through these concerns, and we think we can resolve any concerns that anyone has about this and the true nature of the program," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. It won't work. Something else is driving the Russians. Something very short-sighted, I'm sure.
Beijing has criticized U.S. plans for anti-missile defenses with Japan and Taiwan in the past, fearing that it would blunt China's large arsenal of missiles. But Beijing has mostly been content to let Russia take the lead publicly, knowing the planned deployment of missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic touch a core Russian interest.
"I think that now Russia has convinced China that it needs to speak out more clearly and take a position," said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs magazine. "And Russia has gotten what it wanted I think Medvedev can be satisfied."
The declaration also reflected strong opposition to NATO's expansion to incorporate ex-Soviet states Georgia and Ukraine. "Security of nations can't be ensured at the expense of other countries through the expansion of military-political alliances," the two leaders said.
After signing the declaration with Medvedev, Hu praised the countries' commitment to tackling security issues. "The two sides have always agreed to take the development of strategic cooperation and partnership as a priority," Hu told reporters. He also thanked Medvedev and Putin, now Russia's prime minister, for the mobile hospital and rescue teams Moscow sent after the deadly May 12 earthquake in central China.
"Between friends, there can be no other kind of relations," Medvedev said, offering more assistance.
After a slow warming in the 1990s, Beijing and Moscow have in recent years joined in opposing Kosovo's independence and agreed on how to manage the crisis over Iran's nuclear program. The two have held joint military maneuvers on each other's territory and created a regional security grouping to keep the West out of energy-rich Central Asia.
Statements of cooperation and support aside, there is friction and uncertainty over energy and the nations' shifting economic and diplomatic fortunes.
"China still sees Russia as an equal partner, but that view may change as China keep gaining economic and political weight," Lukyanov said. "In five or seven years, Russia may struggle to maintain parity in political relations with China." Yeah. But don't tell the Russians that. They aren't listening. And just wait and see what happens if Russia tries turning off the flow of oil to the Chinese then. The Chinese aren't the Europeans. And Russia in a few years won't look like Russia today.
But while Moscow and Beijing have pooled efforts in keeping the West out of Central Asia, they are rivals for control of the region's energy riches.
Medvedev's stop in Kazakhstan on his way to China was apparently intended to send a message to both Beijing and the West that Moscow continues to see the former Soviet Central Asia as its home turf.
Moscow and Beijing also have bickered over the price of Russian energy exports. Disagreements over pricing have slowed construction of an oil pipeline from Siberia and blocked plans for a natural gas pipeline. A separate pipeline to Russia's Pacific coast will force China to compete for Siberian crude with Japan.
China was a major customer for Russian weapons industries, buying billions of dollars worth of jets, missiles, submarines and destroyers. But the arms trade has slumped recently as China wanted more advanced weapons, which Moscow was reluctant to sell. Media reports said Russian officials were concerned about China copying the Russian Su-27 fighter after producing them under license. It's just the beginning. Get used to it.
Investigations show ties to radicals who shaped him, helped launch his political career
Barack Obama had extensive ties with extreme anti-American elements, including agents of the Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA, in Hawaii and Chicago, according to two new reports released yesterday in Washington, D.C., by two experienced internal security investigators.
Investigative journalist Cliff Kincaid and Herbert Romerstein, a former investigator with the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities, presented evidence Obama was mentored, while attending high school in Hawaii, by Frank Marshall Davis, an African-American poet and journalist who was also a CPUSA member.
The authors, in a separate report, document Obama's ties to radicals in Chicago who helped launch his career.
In a paper entitled "Communism in Hawaii and the Obama Connection," the authors document that in 1948, Davis decided to move from Chicago to Honolulu at the suggestion of what they describe as two "secret CPUSA members," actor Paul Robeson and Harry Bridges, the head of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen Union, or ILWU.
In Chicago, Davis had worked for the Chicago Star newspaper; in Honolulu, he was hired as a reporter for the Honolulu Record, both identified by Kincaid and Romerstein as "communist front newspapers."
n his autobiography, "Dreams from My Father," Obama discusses the influence a mentor identified in the book only as "Frank" had on his intellectual development.
Obama described Frank as a drinking companion of his grandfather, who had boasted of his association with African-American authors Richard Wright and Langston Hughes during the time Frank was a journalist in Chicago.
Romerstein, in addition to having served as investigator with the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities, served in the same capacity with the House Committee on Internal Security and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He was the head of the Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation for the U.S. Information Agency. Romerstein is also co-author of the influential book "The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors," which included extensive documentation of the communist activities of Roosevelt administration staffer Alger Hiss.
Kincaid is the founder and president of America's Survival Inc., an independent watchdog group that monitors the U.N. and international terrorism. He is also editor of Accuracy in Media's AIM Report.
Are you a member of the Communist Party?
Kincaid and Romerstein quote Kathryn Takara of the University of Hawaii, who wrote a dissertation on the life of Frank Marshall Davis, confirming Davis was a significant influence on Obama when the senator attended Punahou prep school in Hawaii from 1975 to 1979
A transcript of a 1956 hearing before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee discovered by internal security affairs researcher and writer Max Friedman showed Davis took the Fifth Amendment when asked by the subcommittee if he was or had ever been a member of the Communist Party.
In the second report, "Communism in Chicago and the Obama Connection," Kincaid and Romerstein present evidence supporting their contention the SDS organization from which the Weather Underground organization and radicals Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dorhn came, received financial contributions from the CPUSA, which in turn receive its funding from Moscow.
Obama's run for the Illinois state Senate was launched by a fundraiser organized at Ayers' and Dorhn's Chicago home by Alice Palmer. Palmer had named Obama to succeed her in the state Senate in 1995, when she decided to run for a U.S. congressional seat.
Nine years before Palmer picked Obama to be her successor, she was the only African-American journalist to travel to the Soviet Union to attend the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, according to an article Palmer wrote in the CPUSA newspaper, People's Daily World, June 19, 1986.
"There has been no explanation of why Ayers et al. played a role in launching Obama's political career," Kincaid wrote.
Kincaid and Romerstein present documentation that Tom Hayden, another major figure in the SDS, is today one of four principal initiators of the "Progressives for Obama" movement, which calls for ending the war in Iraq "as quickly as possible, not in five years."
According to Kincaid and Romerstein, U.S. Peace Council executive committee member Frank Chapman "blew the whistle on communist support for Obama's presidential bid and his real agenda" in a letter to the People's Weekly World after Obama's win in the Iowa Democratic Party caucuses.
"Obama's victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle," Chapman wrote. "Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface.
Kincaid and Romerstein wrote, "The clear implication of Chapman's letter is that Obama himself, or some of his Marxist supporters, are acting like moles in the political process. The suggestion is that something is being hidden from the public."
Posted by: ed ||
05/23/2008 13:50 Comments ||
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#4
This reads like one of them 50's film noir anti commie movies. I expect Alan Ladd to show up, whip out a gat and blast Paul Robeson off a bar stool.
Karl Rove, who had been one of President George W. Bush's top aides, was subpoenaed on Thursday to testify before a congressional panel investigating the administration's firing of nine federal prosecutors.
House of Representatives Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers issued the subpoena after months of failed efforts to get Rove to voluntarily testify under oath.
The Judiciary Committee, like its Senate counterpart, has been investigating for more than a year the administration's dismissal of nine of the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys in 2006. Despite White House claims to the contrary, critics charge the firings were politically motivated, perhaps in retaliation for the targeted prosecutors being too soft on Democratic lawmakers or too tough on Republican ones.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The interrogation should prove highly amusing for those not suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, and salutory for the rest.
#2
Given that the firings were executive branch business, I believe the proper response to Conyers's supoena would be "...and the horse you rode in on."
Republican U.S. presidential candidate John McCain opened a new line of attack against Democratic front-runner Barack Obama on Thursday, taking aim at Obama's lack of military service.
McCain, a former Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam, struck back after Obama criticized McCain on the U.S. Senate floor in Washington for opposing legislation that would give expanded benefits to military veterans. "It is typical, but no less offensive, that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of," said McCain, who was not present for the Senate vote because he was campaigning in California.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
McCain's sons have served in Iraq. I believe one is there now, but am not sure because he is not emphasizing it. I cannot believe Obama went after him in this way. That dude is getting a free ride in the media but maybe, just maybe, he'll piss off McCain enough for him to really lay it on.
The McCain campaign responded by issuing a sharply worded and lengthy statement in the senator's name. McCain notes his support for an alternative to the Webb measure, but points out his own military service and points out Obama's lack thereof.
"It is typical, but no less offensive that Sen. Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of," McCain said in the statement. "Let me say first in response to Sen. Obama, running for president is different than serving as president. The office comes with responsibilities so serious that the occupant can't always take the politically easy route without hurting the country he is sworn to defend. Unlike Sen. Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America's veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge. I think I have earned the right to make that claim."
"When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house in New London, Connecticut, and a Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. My father immediately left for the submarine base where he was stationed. I rarely saw him again for four years. My grandfather, who commanded the fast carrier task force under Admiral Halsey, came home from the war exhausted from the burdens he had borne, and died the next day. I grew up in the Navy; served for twenty-two years as a naval officer; and, like Senator Webb, personally experienced the terrible costs war imposes on the veteran. The friendships I formed in war remain among the closest relationships in my life. The Navy is still the world I know best and love most. In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home to the country they loved so well.
"But I am running for the office of Commander-in-Chief. That is the highest privilege in this country, and it imposes the greatest responsibilities. It would be easier politically for me to have joined Senator Webb in offering his legislation. More importantly, I feel just as he does, that we owe veterans the respect and generosity of a great nation because no matter how generously we show our gratitude it will never compensate them fully for all the sacrifices they have borne on our behalf.
"Senators Graham, Burr and I have offered legislation that would provide veterans with a substantial increase in educational benefits. The bill we have sponsored would increase monthly education benefits to $1500; eliminate the $1200 enrollment fee; and offer a $1000 annually for books and supplies. Importantly, we would allow veterans to transfer those benefits to their spouses or dependent children or use a part of them to pay down existing student loans. We also increase benefits to the Guard and Reserve, and even more generously to those who serve in the Selected Reserve.
"I know that my friend and fellow veteran, Senator Jim Webb, an honorable man who takes his responsibility to veterans very seriously, has offered legislation with very generous benefits. I respect and admire his position, and I would never suggest that he has anything other than the best of intentions to honor the service of deserving veterans. Both Senator Webb and I are united in our deep appreciation for the men and women who risk their lives so that the rest of us may be secure in our freedom. And I take a backseat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans. And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did.
"The most important difference between our two approaches is that Senator Webb offers veterans who served one enlistment the same benefits as those offered veterans who have re-enlisted several times. Our bill has a sliding scale that offers generous benefits to all veterans, but increases those benefits according to the veteran's length of service. I think it is important to do that because, otherwise, we will encourage more people to leave the military after they have completed one enlistment. At a time when the United States military is fighting in two wars, and as we finally are beginning the long overdue and very urgent necessity of increasing the size of the Army and Marine Corps, one study estimates that Senator Webb's bill will reduce retention rates by 16%.
"Most worrying to me, is that by hurting retention we will reduce the numbers of men and women who we train to become the backbone of all the services, the noncommissioned officer. In my life, I have learned more from noncommissioned officers I have known and served with than anyone else outside my family. And in combat, no one is more important to their soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen, and to the officers who command them, than the sergeant and petty officer. They are very hard to replace. Encouraging people not to choose to become noncommissioned officers would hurt the military and our country very badly. As I said, the office of President, which I am seeking, is a great honor, indeed, but it imposes serious responsibilities. How faithfully the President discharges those responsibilities will determine whether he or she deserves the honor. I can only tell you I intend to deserve the honor if I am fo rtunate to receive it, even if it means I must take politically unpopular positions at times and disagree with people for whom I have the highest respect and affection.
"Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as President, the country would regret his election."
#6
The stupid ass Hussein steps into deep, deep dogshit again. After all his other f**kups, all he needs is to piss off the vets around the country on Memorial Day. This a walking, talking fool. Anybody with a small bit of sense would know better than to challenge McCain on anything related to the military. Krauthammer also slaps him upside the face pretty good in his editorial today. Look for a lot more to come. And yet the Dummocrats can't get enough of the Messiah.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Because who else would fill in for kennedy who fancies themselves royalty in choosing succession into public office than the freshman senator who advocates change and a new way of politics.
Democratic officials say Barack Obama has begun a top-secret search for a running mate.
But it's top secret, so don't tell nobody.
Democratic officials said Thursday the party's likely nominee has asked former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson to begin vetting potential vice presidential picks. Johnson did the same job for Democratic nominees John Kerry in 2004 and Walter Mondale in 1984.
Worked well then, too ...
"Ahh, ya doesn't has to call me Johnson! You can call me James, or you can call me Jim, or you can call me Sonny, or you can call me Jay, or you can call me JJ... but ya doesn't hafta call me Johnson"
The Democratic officials spoke on a condition of anonymity about a process that the campaign wants to keep quiet.
Vice presidential searches are usually closely held secrets, but Obama campaign officials say the effort is being handled by a particularly tight circle of advisers.
Plus they're sending a message to the Hildebeast ...
The campaign also does not want to discuss the effort because they are still engaged in a fading primary campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama has repeatedly declined to discuss possible running mates while the primary is ongoing.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2008 00:00 ||
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#3
There is acting like the nominee before it is official, then there is being a total ass and openly running the considerations while the race is not officially determined.
That said, there is talk about sebelius with good points - governor of Kansas ('red state' and bo's roots), woman, distinguished record, ambitious (will be running for us senate next chance) greensburg stage, honorary dissenting opinion last state of union address.
#4
Fannie Mae. If you guys want a source of the mortgage crisis, that's it. Not banker greed, but government unaccountability and incompetence. Johnson's a good guy for getting some outside the Beltway perspective on who to have a heartbeat away from pushing the button on Iran.
#5
Thanks to our Federal Gummit, a lender saying "NO" to a loan applicant had become another form "discrimination" and a gateway to ligigation, fines, and penalties.
#9
Well, he could offer it to Hillary...in the interest of party unity, you understand. I heard that Bill is pushing hard for that. But I feel nauseous just thinking about it and he'd have to spend most of his time watching is back if he did.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/23/2008 12:25 Comments ||
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#10
I also heard that WJC is lobbying hard for Hillary as VEEP. Some of the donks would still be pi$$ed. As McCcain said on SNL why not make it really exciting and not pick a candidate until after the convention.
#11
Rush's closer today was that Hillary had offered to drop out of the race this afternoon, if bHo would offer her the VP slot. She promised to decline. bHo didn't believe her so he pulled the offer.
President Pervez Musharraf will resign rather than becoming a toothless president like Chaudhry Fazal Elahi or Rafiq Tarar, Dawn News quoted Musharraf as telling PML-Q leaders on Thursday. Musharraf told Shujaat Hussain and Hamid Nasir Chattha in a meeting on Wednesday that the removal of Article 58 (2b) would pave way for military intervention.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
I'm surprised there are no comments here. This, if true, is perhaps the most dangerous development in the WOT since 9/11.
Posted by: Ike ||
05/23/2008 11:03 Comments ||
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#2
One wonders if that's exactly what he said, and who amongst those there decided the Dawn News needed to know about what was clearly a private meeting. 24-hour rule, I think, for this.
I guess enough people have died needlessly that it's OK now.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, on a mission to open Myanmar to international disaster assistance, said the ruling junta agreed Friday to allow "all aid workers" into the country to help cyclone survivors.
Ban's comments came after a crucial two-hour meeting Friday with the junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, the country's most powerful figure. Myanmar's junta has until now refused to allow an influx of foreign aid and experts to reach survivors of the May 2-3 Cyclone Nargis.
The United Nations chief did not say whether Than Shwe had acceded to the most urgent request by international aid agencies to allow their foreign experts into the hardest-hit region, the Irrawaddy delta. However, when asked if he thought the agreement was a breakthrough, Ban told reporters: "I think so."
Myanmar's military regime has been eager to show it has the relief effort under control despite spurning the help of foreign disaster experts and has trotted out officials to give statistics-laden lectures to make the point. At least 78,000 people were killed and another 56,000 are missing while some 2.5 million survivors are at risk from disease, starvation and exposure to monsoon rains.
"I had a very good meeting with Senior General Than Shwe and particularly on the aid workers. He has agreed to allow all the aid workers, regardless of nationality" into the country, Ban said.
Although the regime has been granting an increasing number of visas for foreign aid workers to enter the country, all but a handful have been confined to Yangon, the country's largest city.
"I urged him that it would be crucially important for him to allow aid workers as swiftly as possible and all these aid relief items also be delivered to the needy people as soon as possible," Ban said. Than Shwe also agreed to make Yangon the logistics hub of the aid operation, which Ban called "an important development," Ban said.
Ban arrived at the remote capital of Naypyitaw earlier Friday after a flight from Yangon, 250 miles to the south. He witnessed some of the cyclone's devastation during a carefully choreographed tour Thursday.
It was not known whether Ban discussed the fate of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose latest period of detention expires Monday. A string of U.N. envoys have in the past failed to spring the democracy icon from house arrest, confronting a junta that has proved virtually impervious to outside pressure.
The 76-year-old Than Shwe reclusive, superstitious and known as "the bulldog" for his stubbornness had refused to answer Ban's calls from New York or answer two letters sent to him by the secretary-general.
As Ban's visit proceeded, the regime appeared to ease some of its restrictions on foreigners. France-based Doctors Without Borders said it now had some foreign staffers working in four areas of the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta, which had previously been virtually off limits to non-Myanmar relief workers.
A second French cargo plane loaded with 40 tons of relief supplies was due to land Friday in Yangon, while Canada said it would lend its biggest military aircraft, a C-17 cargo lifter, to deliver U.N. World Food Program helicopters to Myanmar. The regime had earlier allowed the U.N. agency to bring in 10 helicopters to fly emergency aid to stranded victims.
Ban's firsthand look at the devastation wrought by the storm left the secretary-general shaken Thursday, even though the areas to which he was taken were far from the worst-hit. "I'm very upset by what I've seen," Ban told reporters after a walk through a makeshift relief camp where 500 people huddled in blue tents at Kyondah village in Dedaye township, about 45 miles southwest of Yangon, Myanmar's largest city. I guess Ban threatened to tell Myanmar's citizens about what the generalissimos were up to at the expense of the citizens' existances?
#2
"I guess Ban threatened to tell Myanmar's citizens about what the generalissimos were up to at the expense of the citizens' existances?"
I doubt it, Ban wouldn't shay sh!t if he had a mouthful, besides soemthing about 'birds of a feather..." he probably worked out a deal where his cut was OK.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has expressed displeasure with the recent leapfrogging of Nigeria by Angola which assumed Nigeria's position as number one oil producing nation in Africa, a position Nigeria has maintained since 1978.
A royal spokesman says Britain's Prince Charles has had a small non-cancerous growth removed from his face.
Two Iraqis convicted of crimes in Denmark have been deported, despite the protests of human rights advocates
China and Russia sharply condemned U.S. missile defense plans Friday, taking a harder common line that reinforces an already strong strategic partnership during Dmitry Medvedev's first foreign trip as Russian president. 
Karl Rove, who had been one of President George W. Bush's top aides, was subpoenaed on Thursday to testify before a congressional panel investigating the administration's firing of nine federal prosecutors.
Republican U.S. presidential candidate John McCain opened a new line of attack against Democratic front-runner Barack Obama on Thursday, taking aim at Obama's lack of military service.
Democratic officials say Barack Obama has begun a top-secret search for a running mate.
