Israel - Hezbollah War: The Boots Of Israel Are Moving

The tip of the spear has begun its thrust in earnest. The time of traction is in play.

Excerpts from AP via Yahoo! News -

Israeli troops battle Hezbollah guerrillas
By HUSSEIN DAKROUB, Associated Press Writer (with contributions from AP correspondent Sam F. Ghattas and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Lebanon, and Ravi Nessman in Jerusalem) - 8 minutes ago

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israeli troops clashed with Hezbollah guerrillas on the Lebanese side of the border Wednesday, while warplanes flattened 20 buildings and killed at least 19 people, officials said, as fighting between the two sides entered its second week.

Hundreds of Americans boarded a luxury ship at Beirut's port that was to carry them from the country, with many complaining about the slow pace of the U.S. evacuation effort. Europeans and Lebanese with foreign passports already have fled by the thousands.

Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV, meanwhile, reported that the Islamic militant group struck an Israeli air base 30 miles from the Lebanese border. It gave no details and Israeli officials would not comment on the record, but that distance would make it the deepest strike by Hezbollah into northern Israel in more than a week of fighting.

Israeli bombers, which had been focusing on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut, also hit a Christian suburb on the eastern side of the capital for the first time. The target was a truck-mounted machine that was used to drill for water but could have been mistaken for a missile launcher. The vehicle was destroyed, but nobody was hurt in that attack.

Military officials said Israeli troops crossed the border in search of tunnels and weapons. Hezbollah claimed to have "repelled" Israeli forces near the coastal border town of Naqoura. Casualties were reported on both sides.

The Israeli army confirmed there were clashes with Hezbollah in the border area and that some Israelis had suffered casualties. The army would not elaborate. Hezbollah's Al-Manar television channel reported that two Israeli soldiers had been killed and three wounded, but that could not be confirmed.

Israel, which has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, had been reluctant to send in ground troops because Hezbollah is far more familiar with the terrain and because of memories of Israel's ill-fated 18-year occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 2000.
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Israel declared Tuesday it was ready to fight Hezbollah guerrillas for several more weeks, raising doubts about international efforts to broker an immediate cease-fire. The fighting has killed nearly 300 people and displaced 500,000.

"It will take us time to destroy what is left," Brig. Gen. Alon Friedman, a senior army commander, told Israeli Army Radio on Wednesday.

Israel stressed it did not plan to target Hezbollah's main sponsors, Iran and Syria, during the current fighting.
"We will leave Iran to the world community, and Syria as well," Vice Premier Shimon Peres told Army Radio. "It's very important to understand that we are not instilling world order."
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Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, said the incursion was not large scale.

"This is an operation which is very measured, very local," Gillerman told CNN. "This is no way an invasion of Lebanon. This is no way the beginning of any kind of occupation of Lebanon."

Last week, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vowed to defeat any Israeli invasion, saying his guerrillas were "longing" to engage their opponents in ground battles.

"Any ground invasion will be good news for the resistance because it will bring us closer to victory and humiliating the Israeli enemy," Nasrallah said.
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Israel - Hezbollah War, Cease Fire Talk & Demands

Rescue workers help a seriously wounded man from a building which took a directly hit by a rocket fired from Lebanon in the northern Israeli city of Haifa yesterday. Image Credit: AP

MidEast War: XV - UPDATE from Pajamas Media

Excerpts from The Washington Times -

Israel signals its cease-fire demands
By Joshua Mitnick - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - July 18, 2006

TEL AVIV -- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spelled out Israel's terms for ending its six-day siege of Lebanon yesterday, demanding the return of two kidnapped soldiers, an end to rocket attacks on Israel and the deployment of the Lebanese army to keep Hezbollah away from the common border.

The remarks were backed with Israeli air strikes on gas stations, factories and the homes of Hezbollah members across Lebanon which left 48 dead, according to a Reuters news agency count. The Iranian-backed guerrilla group lobbed fresh volleys of Katyusha rockets into northern Israeli towns and cities, including the port city of Haifa.

Blasts rocked Beirut through the day and smoke rose from a blazing fuel depot. In Haifa, a Katyusha strike collapsed the facade of the top two floors of a three-story building, leaving at least two injured. The death toll after nearly a week of fighting stood at 210 Lebanese and 24 Israelis.

As the United States and European countries scrambled to evacuate their nationals from Beirut, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin arrived in the Lebanese capital hoping to spur cease-fire talks. But Israeli leaders said they were determined to continue their offensive as long as necessary.

"There are moments in the life of any nation where it stares reality in the face and says 'enough,' " said Mr. Olmert in his first address to parliament since the fighting began. "So I say to everyone: 'Enough.' Israel will not be held hostage to a terrorist gang, nor a terrorist authority."
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At least 100 members of the North Carolina-based 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit are in the region aboard amphibious landing ships, the AP said, but only 64 Americans so far have been evacuated. Others have left overland through Syria, which has offered to facilitate them.

France yesterday removed about 700 people aboard a chartered cruise ship, and Italy evacuated 350, most of them Europeans.

The Lebanese buffer zone proposed by Israel would extend for less than a mile and be enforced from the air and by armored divisions at the border rather than ground forces stationed inside Lebanon, a Defense Ministry spokeswoman said.

She described the zone as an "initial" measure and said Israel wouldn't force an evacuation of Lebanese civilians from the region.

"No one on the Israeli side wants to return to the status quo ante, where you go to the northern border and you see Hezbollah flags instead of Lebanese flags and Hezbollah soldiers instead of Lebanese soldiers," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.

Israel used infantry units to maintain a 13-mile-wide buffer strip in southern Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s to protect its cities from Hezbollah rocket and mortar attacks. The zone was dismantled when Israel unilaterally withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000.
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This is the LAST threshold before other countries get thrown into the "popcorn popper". Agree or Syria and Iran are going to get some serious heat to deal with.

The Israel-Hezbollah War - Linked Update - PJM 6

Police stands in guard at the site of a rocket attack by Hezbollah guerrillas at the train station in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, Sunday July 16, 2006. Lebanese guerrillas fired a relentless barrage of rockets into Haifa on Sunday, killing eight people at a train station and wounding seven others, police said. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed that there would be 'far-reaching consequences' for the attack. In the background the hole left on the roof by the incoming rocket. Image Credit: AP Photo/Oded Balilty

This is a developing linked post; click here for more stories - July 16, 2006

Note: The best current resource for updates from Lebanese and Israeli bloggers covering the conflict can be found @ Truth Laid Bear. An excellent map of the war theatre can be found there.

Excerpts from AP via Yahoo! News -

Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa, killing 8
By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press Writer

HAIFA, Israel - Lebanese guerillas fired a relentless barrage of rockets into the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Sunday, killing eight people at a train station and wounding seven others in a dramatic escalation of a five-day-old conflict that has shattered Mideast peace.

Soon after the Haifa attack, Israeli airstrikes reduced entire apartment buildings to rubble and knocked out electricity in swaths of the Lebanese capital Sunday.

Israel had already bombarded southern Beirut, a teeming Shiite districts where Hezbollah has its headquarters, prior to the Haifa bombing. A series of 18 explosions rocked Beirut before sunrise.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed that there would be "far-reaching consequences" for the rocket attack — the worst since Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000 after an 18-year occupation. Smoke rose over Haifa and air raid sirens wailed as the dead and wounded were evacuated. Other rockets hit the city's major oil refinery, gas storage tanks and a major street during the busy morning rush hour.
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Israeli officials blamed Syria and Iran for providing the weaponry that hit Haifa — raising the specter of a wider regional confrontation.

The airstrikes in Beirut reduced an entire apartment building to rubble and knocked out electricity in swaths of the capital. Hezbollah's Al-Manar television station briefly went off the air

The Israeli air force dropped leaflets over south Lebanon telling residents to leave immediately before an imminent attack.

"In two or three hours we are going to attack the south of Lebanon heavily," said Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, the head of Israel's northern command,

It was the sharpest escalation since fighting began last Wednesday after Hezbollah guerillas penetrated Israel in brazen raid, killing eight soldiers and capturing another two. The fighting opened a second front for Israel, which had already been fighting Hamas-linked militants in the
Gaza Strip following the capture of another Israeli soldier on June 25.
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Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets at Haifa at 9 a.m.

"After the enemy continued all night their destructive shelling of (Beirut's) southern suburb and other areas ... the resistance movement fired dozens of rockets on Haifa," the Hezbollah statement said.

Rockets fired by Lebanese militants also hit Acco, Nahariya and several other northern towns, and residents of the region were told to head to bomb shelters. Israeli rescue teams said 20 people were injured in Haifa and Acco, four of them seriously.

"The attacks were meant to harm citizens, and this is an evil war of Hezbollah against the state of Israel and its residents," Olmert said.

Adam, the head of Israel's Northern Command, said Iranian troops were helping Hezbollah fire Iranian-made missiles at Israel. Hamid Reza Asefi, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, denied claims that his country had troops in Lebanon or had given missiles to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah guerillas hit Haifa with a rocket for the first time ever Thursday. Israel responded by stepping up its airstrikes in Lebanon.

Olmert said that Israel's offensive did not intend to harm Lebanese civilians.

"We want to live our lives in peace and in good neighborly relations," he said. "Unfortunately, there are those who misinterpret our wishes for peace in the wrong way. We have to no intention of bending in the face of these threats."

"Our enemies are trying to disrupt the lifestyle in Israel. They will fail," he said.
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The Israel-Hezbollah War - Linked Update - PJM 4

Arab Foreign Ministers attend a foreign ministers emergency meeting in Cairo July 15, 2006. Arab governments convened an emergency meeting of their foreign ministers in Cairo on Saturday to discuss ways to bring an end to Israeli attacks on Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Image Credit: REUTERS/Suhaib Salem (EGYPT)

The link below is a developing post at Pajamas Media; once launched, scroll down for more stories - Posted 6:00 AM PST July 15, 2006

The Israel-Hezbollah War Part Four

Note: The best currrent resource for updates from Lebanese and Israeli bloggers covering the conflict can be found @ Truth Laid Bear.

Excerpts from AP via Yahoo! News -

Israel targets Hezbollah in south Beirut
By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 9 minutes ago

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israeli warplanes pounded Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold and roads around the country, killing at least 15 Lebanese as they fled the onslaught. Hezbollah expanded its rocket fire, hitting another of Israel's main cities, and Israel warned that the guerrillas could strike Tel Aviv.

A senior Israeli intelligence official said Iranian troops helped Hezbollah fire a missile that damaged an Israeli warship off the Lebanese coast Friday night.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information, said about 100 Iranian soldiers are in Lebanon and helped fire the Iranian-made, radar-guided C-102 at the ship that killed one and left three missing.

The Lebanese guerrilla force has shown an increasing sophistication since snatching two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, sparking Israel's largest assault against Lebanon in 24 years.

Five Hezbollah rockets hit Tiberias in northern Israeli on Saturday, causing no injuries — the first rocket attack on Tiberias, about 22 miles south of the border, since the 1973 Mideast War. An Israeli intelligence official said Hezbollah has rockets with ranges of 60 to 120 miles that could reach Tel Aviv, Israel's largest metropolitan area.

At least 88 people have died in Lebanon, most of the them civilians, in the four-day Israeli offensive, sparked by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. On the Israeli side, at least 15 have been killed — four civilians and 11 soldiers.
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As the fighting continued unabated, Lebanon sought support from fellow Arabs whose foreign ministers were meeting at an emergency session in Cairo on Saturday to discuss the the worst Israeli attack since the 1982 invasion of the country.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh presented his fellow Arab League members with a draft resolution condemning Israel's military offensive and supporting Lebanon's "right to resist occupation by all legitimate means."

President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin also discussed the worsening situation, but the two appeared divided on how to restore calm.

Bush blamed Hezbollah and Syria for the escalating violence in the Middle East. "In my judgment, the best way to stop the violence is to understand why the violence occurred in the first place," Bush said. "And that's because Hezbollah has been launching rocket attacks out of Lebanon into Israel and because Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers."

Putin said it was unacceptable to try to reach political goals through abductions and strikes against an independent state. "In this context we consider Israel's concerns to be justified," he said. At the same time, he said, "the use of force should be balanced."
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Israel launched its offensive after Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the Israel-Lebanon border on Wednesday and captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel has bombarded Lebanon's airport and main roads in the most intensive offensive against the country in 24 years, while Hezbollah has launched hundreds of rockets into Israel.
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When A Vote To Approve Isn't A Vote Of Approval

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), said that if his colleagues were serious about building the fence that they promised, they would find the funding. Image Credit: Rod A. Lamkey Jr. - THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Senate, yesterday, voted 100 to 0 to pass a $32 billion-plus Homeland Security bill that included 2.2 billion dollars for border security and control.

This would sound like progress except for the fact that the bill does not provide funding for the fencing that was previously approved in a vote back in May.

I guess the Senate is just not serious enough about this country's sovereignty and security in this post 9/11 world.

Excerpts from The Washington Times -

Senate denies funds for new border fence
By Charles Hurt - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - July 14, 2006

Less than two months after voting overwhelmingly to build 370 miles of new fencing along the border with Mexico, the Senate yesterday voted against providing funds to build it.

"We do a lot of talking. We do a lot of legislating," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican whose amendment to fund the fence was killed on a 71-29 vote. "The things we do often sound very good, but we never quite get there."

Mr. Sessions offered his amendment to authorize $1.8 billion to pay for the fencing that the Senate voted 83-16 to build along high-traffic areas of the border with Mexico. In the same vote on May 17, the Senate also directed 500 miles of vehicle barriers to be built along the border.

But the May vote simply authorized the fencing and vehicle barriers, which on Capitol Hill is a different matter from approving the federal expenditures needed to build it.

"If we never appropriate the money needed to construct these miles of fencing and vehicle barriers, those miles of fencing and vehicle barriers will never actually be constructed," Mr. Sessions told his colleagues yesterday before the vote.

Virtually all Democrats were joined by the chamber's lone independent and 28 Republicans in opposing Mr. Session's amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Act. Only two Democrats -- Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Thomas R. Carper of Delaware -- supported funding the fence.

All told, 34 senators -- including most of the Republican leadership -- voted in May to build the fence but yesterday opposed funding it.
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Sen. Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who historically has fought to increase border security and enforcement of federal immigration laws, was among those who opposed Mr. Session's amendment.

"We should build these walls; there's no question about it," he said. "But the real issue here is the offset that's being used, and the offset creates a Hobson's choice for almost everyone here."

Mr. Session's amendment would have required across-the-board cuts to the rest of the Homeland Security appropriations bill, Mr. Gregg said, which would mean cutting 750 new border-patrol agents and 1,200 new detention beds for illegal aliens that he included in the bill.
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Mr. Sessions said, "We will rightly be accused of not being serious about the commitments we've made to the American people with regard to actually enforcing the laws of immigration in America, which many Americans already believe we're not serious about.

They don't respect what we've done in the past, and they should not. We have failed, and it's time for us to try to fix it and do better."

Kris Kobach, who was a counsel to the attorney general under John Ashcroft, told a House subcommittee last week that one of the most unusual aspects of the Senate bill is a provision -- slipped into the more-than-800-page bill moments before the final vote -- that would require the United States to consult with the Mexican government before constructing the fencing.
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"Now, from my experience as a Justice Department official, when we had consultation requirements with the State Department, just getting two agencies in the executive branch to consult took months or years," said Mr. Kobach, now a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. "If you add this, three levels of government and a foreign power, your delay" will never end.
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You know, the more I read about what the Senate did yesterday - No money for a border fence and a requirement to consult with Mexico, a foreign government, before we construct a fence on our side of the border - it is getting me a little crazy.

What ARE these 100 publicly elected ladies and gentlemen thinking? Do they really represent the interests of the United States when they knowingly place in a bill that got approved, language that usurps the authority of our own government to act?

A vote to approve isn't an approval when one does not fund and, FURTHER, when one requires the counsel of a foreign power before one may proceed. This is not good.

When Wage Stratification Is A GOOD Idea!

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez testifies on Capitol Hill yesterday before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration reform. Photo Credit: Associated Press

Hey, vote for this bill. Honestly, we should vote for this bill so that we can finally stratify our labor force.

If we can not enforce our immigration laws, then we will have illegals lining up to claim alien status to receive higher wages. This "law" may have the self-regulating affect of employers wanting to hire the more "cost effective" native/citizen laborer.

Excerpts from The Washington Times -

Senate bill seeks more pay for aliens
By Charles Hurt (with contributions from Jeffrey Sparshott) - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - July 13, 2006

The Senate immigration bill would require that foreign construction laborers here under the guest-worker program be paid well above the minimum wage, even as American workers at the same work site could earn less.

The bill "would guarantee wages to some foreign workers that could be higher than those paid to American workers at the same work site," says a policy paper released this week by the Senate's Republican Policy Committee. "This is unfair to U.S. workers, inappropriate, and unnecessary."
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"Two-thirds of the people who voted for that bill coming out of the Senate were Senate Democrats, led by Harry Reid and Senator Kennedy. So, it's the Reid-Kennedy bill," House Majority Leader John A. Boehner said yesterday when asked why he refuses to credit any of the Republicans who were instrumental in drafting the bill or any of the 23 Senate Republicans who voted for it.

For their part, Democrats have begun calling it the "Frist-McCain" bill, a reference to Mr. Frist and Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has been one of the chief architects of the Senate bill.
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A recent article he read about immigration in Time magazine, he said during a hearing on immigration, "was right on target in identifying the underlying racism and xenophobia which really grips us despite our denial of it."

But provisions of the Senate bill such as the wage guarantee for foreign workers raise concerns among more than just racists and xenophobes. “That certainly is negotiable to me," Mr. McCain said yesterday.

The Davis Bacon Act of 1931 (DBA) requires that the local prevailing wage be paid to all workers employed in federally contracted construction or projects done for the District of Columbia. Those wages -- up to four or five times higher in some fields than the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour -- are set by the Department of Labor.

The Senate's immigration bill would require that the higher wages be paid to foreign temporary workers in all construction occupations, even if the project isn't federally funded and doesn't otherwise fall under DBA.

"In other words, foreign workers employed in a construction job for which a DBA wage rate has been determined could be guaranteed wages higher than those paid to American workers doing the same job on the same private construction project for the same employer," the policy paper reports.
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When the construction business finally gets hip to this process, aliens will not get hired because they are too expensive ... or the Government could just heavily fine companies that hire the illegally documented/undocumented laborers which IS A LAW already on the books.

Of course, there would need to be an effort placed on muzzling groups like the ACLU and La Raza from the inherent discrimination that this law would set up ... not the discrimination of the wage stratification, but the discrimination brought about by a company wanting to save money by hiring the lowest cost labor.

Isn't this why we have an immigration problem in the first place!?

Creationism Breakthrough: Of Mice & Men Revisited

“For the first time we have created life using artificial sperm” - Professor Karim Nayernia. Image Credit: Kamir/BBC

This guy looks too happy ...

He should, I guess, he just proved that man can make sperm cells in a lab environment.

Through the isolation of embryonic stem cells, scientists in the lab, have created sperm cells, then implanted these cells into the females of the species of mice that were used in the experiment and created offspring.

So when do you think we begin to enter "the slippery slope", and who decides when we may have slipped a little too much?

This breakthrough offers a whole new spin on "Knockout Mouse Ranching" - Atrificial mouse brothels?

Excerpts from a report published in the journal 'Developmental Cell' via BBC Health -

'Lab-made sperm' fertility hope
By BBC - Last Updated: Sunday, 9 July 2006, 23:01 GMT 00:01 UK

Scientists have proved for the first time that sperm grown from embryonic stem cells can be used to produce offspring.

The discovery in mice could ultimately help couples affected by male fertility problems to conceive.

And by understanding embryo developmental processes better, a host of other diseases might be treated using stem cells, they say.
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The experiment was carried out using mice and produced seven babies, six of which lived to adulthood.

However, the mice showed abnormal patterns of growth, and other problems, such as difficulty breathing.

As well as the safety concerns, using stem cells to create sperm also raises ethical questions.

For the first time we have created life using artificial sperm

Stem cells are special because they have the potential to develop into any tissue in the body.
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They encouraged these early-stage sperm cells, known as spermatogonial stem cells, to grow into adult sperm cells and then injected some of these into female mouse eggs.

The fertilised eggs grew and were successfully transplanted into female mice and produced seven babies.
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In the future, men with fertility problems might be able to have their own stem cells harvested using a simple testicular biopsy, matured in the lab and then transplanted back.

It is estimated that one in seven UK couples have difficulty conceiving - about 3.5 million people. In about a third of all couples having IVF, male fertility is a contributory factor.

It is more difficult to say whether artificial sperm produced this way could ultimately be used as a new treatment for male infertility.
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Professor Harry Moore, professor of reproductive biology at the University of Sheffield, said: "These processes in the test-tube are far from perfect as the mice that were born by this process were abnormal.
"We therefore have to be very cautious about using such techniques in therapies to treat men or women who are infertile due to a lack of germ stem cells until all safety aspects are resolved. This may take many years."

Anna Smajdor, a researcher in medical ethics at Imperial College London, said: "The creation of viable sperm outside the body is a hugely significant breakthrough and offers great potential for stem cell research and fertility treatments.

"However, sperm and eggs play a unique role in our understanding of kinship and parenthood, and being able to create these cells in the laboratory will pose a serious conceptual challenge for our society."

Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, agreed.

She said the use of adult stem cells from sources such as umbilical cord blood had consistently produced more promising results than the use of embryonic stem cells.
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When Hatred (not disagreement) Trumps Public Safety

Alert and not-so-alert readers of NYTimes.com will notice a little something different this morning: a major redesign of the site’s look and feel, from top to bottom (almost). The home page, that hugely symbolic focal point of any site, went live at 11:33p Eastern Standard Time Sunday, April 2, 2006. Image Credit: Khoi Vinh/Subtraction 7.0

It is amazing as to what lengths the "4th Estate" would go to make certain that it destroys those who wish to lead in a different manner than it (the 4th Estate) believes leadership should be done.

I can agree with disagreement ... I cannot agree with the putting of public safety in jeopardy because of a disagreement. The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times will never know the damage they have done with the disclosure of government information gathering programs, but the people who know the people murdered on trains in the city of Bombay (Mumbai), India have an idea.

This from Hugh Hewitt -

From testimony of Stuart Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, U.S. Department of the Treasury before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations:

In short, the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program has been powerful and successful, grounded in law and bounded by safeguards. It represents exactly what I believe our citizens expect and hope we are doing to prosecute the war on terror.

Much has been said and written about the newspapers’ decision to publish information about this program. As a government official, I must first point out that the newspapers almost certainly would not have known about this program if someone had not violated his or her duty to protect this secret.

At the same time, I do very much regret the newspapers’ decision to publish what they knew. Secretary Snow and I, as well as others both inside and outside the government, made repeated, painstaking efforts to convince them otherwise. We urged that the story be held for one reason only: revealing it would undermine one of our most valuable tools for tracking terrorists’ money trails. We were authorized to set these arguments out for the relevant reporters and editors in an effort to convince them not to publish. In a series of sober and detailed meetings over several weeks, we carefully explained the program’s importance as well as its legal basis and controls. We strongly urged them not to reveal the source of our information and explained that disclosure would unavoidably compromise this vital program.

These were not attempts to keep an embarrassing secret from emerging. As should be clear from my testimony above, I am extremely proud of this program. I am proud of the officials and lawyers in our government whose labors ensured that the program was constructed and maintained in the most careful way possible. And I am proud of the intelligence analysts across our government who have used this information responsibly to advance investigations of terrorist groups and to make our country safer. I asked the press to withhold the story because I believed – and continue to believe – that the public interest would have been best served had this program remained secret and therefore effective.

Some observers have argued that the disclosure of the program did little damage because terrorist facilitators are smart and already knew to avoid the banking system. They correctly point out that there has been an overall trend among terrorists towards cash couriers and other informal mechanisms of money transfer – a trend that I have testified about. They also hold up as public warnings the repeated assertions by government officials that we are actively following the terrorists’ money.

Of Immigration, Assimilation, Americanism, Service

General Peter Pace, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, chokes up at the hearing. Photo Credit: By Joe Raedle -- Getty Images

Few of us who were born here in the United States really understand the struggle to become free.

The one thing though, that we do understand, is the gratefulness one has once freedom is achieved.

This is why many of us become confused when we see hundreds of thousands of people, carrying foreign country flags as we did in May, demanding immigrant rights similar to those who have attained citizenship. We are confused by the push for rights for and by immigrants without assimilation, Americanism, and service to this country.

General Pace's witness in front of members of Congress yesterday, served as stark contrast backdrop in the changes of attitude by immigrants, and those who support them, in the immigration debate.

Excerpts from The Washington Post -

General Speaks of Immigrant Father
Congressional Hearing Turns Personal
By Glenn Frankel and Daniela Deane - Washington Post Staff Writers - Tuesday, July 11, 2006; Page A03

MIAMI, July 10 -- A congressional hearing on immigration came to a dramatic pause Monday when Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, choked up as he talked about his Italian immigrant father and the opportunities that America had given to his family.

A hush fell over the auditorium at Miami Dade College as Pace, a Marine who was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and grew up in Teaneck, N.J., was overcome with emotion and struggled to continue reading from his statement as the opening witness at the field hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
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After he composed himself, Pace described his older sister, who went to law school, and his older brother, who, like himself, attended the Naval Academy and was a Marine.

"There is no other country on the planet that affords that kind of opportunity to those who come here," Pace concluded. The audience burst into applause.

Pace's father was born in Italy in 1914, immigrated to the United States and became an electrician in New York City, raising four children there. The first Marine to be named chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Pace has been chairman since September 2005 after serving as vice chairman for four years.

Pace, whose last name means "peace" in Italian, is a 1967 graduate of the Naval Academy and has served in Thailand, Korea and Japan.
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Field hearings are being held around the country on the separate House and Senate immigration bills currently before Congress. The subject of the Miami hearing, chaired by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.), was the contributions immigrants have made to the armed forces.

The House bill calls for tighter border controls, 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border and funding for local law enforcement agencies along the border. It also calls for tougher deportation standards and stringent enforcement of rules governing employers who hire undocumented workers.

The Senate's immigration bill, co-sponsored by Kennedy and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), includes similar provisions. But it also outlines a method for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens and calls for a guest-worker program that would provide legal residency status for as long as six years.
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Let's end the confusion now - PUT UP THE FENCE ... deport found illegals ... deeply fine companies hiring known illegals.

California Dreamin' - "Chat Room Bomber" Visit Disclosed / UPDATE - Burnin' Down The House

Port Authority Police Lt. John Ryan walks into the PATH train tunnel under the World Trade Center disaster site in this April 16, 2002 file photo in New York. Authorities thwarted an alleged terrorist plot to use suicide bombers in the PATH tunnels which extend under the Hudson River and link New Jersey with lower Manhattan. The terrorists believed that by bombing the train tunnels, they could unleash a flood on Lower Manhattan, including Wall Street, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. Photo Credit: AP Photo/Beth A. Keiser, File

Upon deeper review of the "Chat Room Bomber's" possessions, it was discovered that the terrorist arrested in Libya last week, had visited California in recent years.

Five other suspects are still at large.

Excerpts from AP via Yahoo! News -

Suspect in tunnel plot said to visit U.S.
By PAT MILTON, Associated Press Writer - with contributions from Hussein Dakroub/Beirut, Lebanon. - 1 hour, 31 minutes ago

Lebanese authorities found maps and bombing plans on the personal computer of an al-Qaida loyalist accused of plotting to attack New York train tunnels, and a U.S. official disclosed that he had visited the country at least once.

Acting Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat described the information found on 31-year-old Assem Hammoud's computer as "very important."

"It contained maps and bombing plans that were being prepared," Fatfat said in a local television interview.

In the U.S., a federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said Hammoud had visited the United States at least once — a trip to California six years ago.

The official said Hammoud had a legitimate visa for a brief stay, and was believed to have been visiting either family or friends. The visit occurred long before authorities say the tunnel plot began to unfold.
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Lebanese security officials told The Associated Press that they obtained "important information" from Hammoud's computer and CDs seized from his office at the Lebanese International University, where he taught economics.

"This information helped the investigators make Hammoud confess to his role in plotting a terror act in America," one Lebanese official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
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Other suspects still at large include a Saudi, a Yemeni, a Jordanian, a Palestinian, and an Iranian Kurd, As-Safir said.

The suspect's family denied that he had any al-Qaida links. His mother, Nabila Qotob, said Hammoud was an outdoorsy person who drank alcohol, had girlfriends and bore none of the hallmarks of an Islamic extremist.

Hammoud studied at Concordia University in Montreal for seven years beginning in 1995, university spokeswoman Chris Mota said Sunday. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in commerce in 2002.
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UPDATE:

Excerpts from AP via Yahoo! News -

Official: Tunnel plot suspect mulled arson
By PAT MILTON, Associated Press Writer - Mon Jul 10, 4:16 PM ET

NEW YORK - The Lebanese man accused of plotting to destroy and flood Hudson River train tunnels also discussed the possibility of setting wildfires in California to inflict harm on the U.S., a federal official said Monday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said wildfires were "only part of their planning discussions. No steps were taken to carry it out."
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The possible fire plot and backpacks — first reported by Newsday and the Los Angeles Times — were among several new allegations to emerge in recent days about the 31-year-old Hammoud, who was arrested in Lebanon in April.
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Hammoud's family denied that he had any al-Qaida links. His mother, Nabila Qotob, said Hammoud was an outdoorsy person who drank alcohol and had girlfriends — none of the hallmarks of an Islamic extremist.
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Pinch Me - 3 In-A-Row For AJ Allmendinger!

One happy dude. Beyond fairytale endings to destiny. Image Credit: LAT Photographic

Like the lyric in the song made famous by Canada's Bare Naked Ladies - pinch me, I must be asleep.

AJ Allmendinger becomes the first driver to capture three in-a-row wins in races in twelve years when Al Unser Jr. did it back in 1994!

AJ's team-mate, Paul Tracy, muscles his way past Bourdais to take and keep second place for a Forsythe Championship Racing One-Two finish.

The win moves AJ up from 3ird in points for the season to 2nd (168), 23 points behind Newman/Haas Racing's Sebastian Bourdais (191) with eight races to go.

Photo by Paul Webb, USA LAT Photographic - Copyright © 2006 Champ Car World Series, LLC.

Excerpts from AP via Yahoo! Sports -

Allmendinger wins third straight Champ Car race
By MIKE HARRIS, AP Auto Racing Writer - July 9, 2006

TORONTO (AP) -- The whole scene felt just a little too familiar to A.J. Allmendinger. Fortunately for the only American-born driver in the Champ Car World Series, it didn't turn out that way -- and he captured his third race win in a row.

Headed for an easy victory Sunday at the Molson Grand Prix of Toronto, a late caution flag bunched the leaders and gave teammate Paul Tracy and series leader Sebastien Bourdais one last shot at Allmendinger

Almost exactly a year ago, in Edmonton, Allmendinger was on his way to a win when a late caution waved. Then-teammate Justin Wilson, right behind Allmendinger, crashed on the restart, but Allmendinger also made a mistake on the slick track and hit the wall with eight laps to go, giving Bourdais an unlikely win.

Asked what was going through his mind when Nelson Philippe and Oriol Servia crashed with 10 laps to go on Sunday, bringing out the third yellow flag of the race, Allmendinger gritted his teeth and replied: ``Edmonton, last year.''
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"It's a lot of confidence and it's nice to be in this car,'' said the 2004 rookie of the year, who didn't win until the third year -- and 32nd race -- of his Champ Car career.

"I love Champ Car racing and I'm starting to love winning,'' Allmendinger said.

It took getting fired by RuSport last month after a fourth-place finish at Milwaukee and being hired a few days later by Gerald Forsythe's team to get the 24-year-old Californian to the victory podium.

Since he replaced Mario Dominguez in the No. 7 Lola, Allmendinger has been unbeatable.

"If somebody had asked me heading to Portland for my first race with Forsythe if I could win three in a row, I'd have said no,'' Allmendinger said. "But, after the first practice, feeling the energy of the team, seeing how well they work together and knowing how comfortable I felt in the car right away, it's no surprise.

"The team and my whole engineering staff has been absolutely awesome,'' he added. "They seem to hit the car perfect when it counts.''
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Tracy, a former series champion who has struggled this year, had a shot at winning his third Toronto race after the Philippe-Servia crash late in the 86-lap event on the 1.755-mile temporary street circuit.

The local favorite -- from suburban Toronto -- was behind Allmendinger on the restart on lap 83, but couldn't get close enough at the end to make it a race. The winningest driver in the series -- with 30 victories -- wound up a distant 1.851 seconds -- nearly the entire final straightaway -- behind his new teammate.

The Champ Car series gives the drivers a limited amount of extra turbocharger power, called push-to-pass, for each race. Tracy said he had used up the extra boost in getting past the other contenders, while Allmendinger was able to conserve his.

"Obviously, coming home 1-2 was the best we could do,'' said Tracy, who had only his second podium finish in the first seven races this season. "When it came down to the end, he had more push-to-pass and I couldn't really make it competitive. But my state of mind and spirits are up, and I can build on this.''
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