Phyrfight Intel

Some think it prudent to reinstate this for a time:

Sedition Act

Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully make or convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States, or to promote the success of its enemies, or shall willfully make or convey false reports or false statements, or say or do anything except by way of bona fide and not disloyal advice to an investor or investors, with intent to obstruct the sale by the United States of bonds or other securities of the United States or the making of loans by or to the United States, and whoever when the United States is at war, shall willfully cause or attempt to cause, or incite or attempt to incite, insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, (more…)

Check out the squid in attack mode.

More info here

Reporter

From an unverified source: Please verify if you can.
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Earlier this week, in a press conference on evacuation plans for New Orleans in the event Hurricane Rita moves north, Mayor Ray Nagin was displaced at the podium by Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who took over when reporters started to badger Nagin. Here are a few excerpts from Gen. Honoré’s remarks:

Honoré: Mr. Mayor, let’s go back, because I can see right now, they’re setting this up… There are buses [at the convention center]. Is that clear to you? Buses parked. There are 4,000 troops there. People come, they get on a bus, they get on a truck, they move on. Is that clear?

Female reporter: Where do they move on…

Honoré: That’s not your business.

Male reporter: But General, that didn’t work the first time…

Honoré: Wait a minute. It didn’t work the first time? This ain’t the first time. Okay?… Let’s get a little trust here, because you’re starting to act like this is your problem. You are carrying the message, okay?

Male reporter: We were told that Berman Stadium…would be another staging area…

Honoré: Again, the current place, I just told you one time, is the convention center… Let’s not confuse the questions with the answers… You’re asking last storm questions for people who are concerned about the future storm. Don’t get stuck on stupid, reporters. We are moving forward. And don’t confuse the people please. You are part of the public message. So help us get the message straight.

Male reporter: Why [will the convention center work] this time, though, not last time…

Honoré: You are stuck on stupid. I’m not going to answer that question. We are going to deal with Rita. Rita is happening now… We can have a conversation on the side about the past, in a couple of months.

From the NRA
NRA-ILA Grassroots Alert Vol. 12, No. 38 9/23/05

On Thursday, NRA filed a motion in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana seeking a temporary restraining order to block authorities from confiscating law-abiding citizens’ firearms in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Today, we are happy to report, the Court sided with NRA and issued a restraining order to bar further gun confiscations from peaceable, law-abiding victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

(more…)

Iraqi Constitution

NEW YORK (AFP) – British Prime Minister Tony Blair has complained privately to media tycoon Rupert Murdoch that the BBC’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina carried an anti-American bias, Murdoch said at a conference here.

Blair Calls BBC Coverage ‘Full of Hate of America’: Murdoch | MediaChannel.org

From the NRA:

If you have personally had a gun confiscated in Louisiana since Hurricane Katrina hit, please call (888) 414-6333. Be prepared to leave only your name and immediate contact information so we can get back to you. Once again, we are seeking contact information from actual victims of gun confiscation in Louisiana only.

For additional information, please visit www.NRAILA.org, or e-mail ila-contact@nrahq.org.”

The other day I heard a really good explination of the two different views taken by Liberals and Conservatives. The simile was that different political views are seen as if looking at two different sides of a ketchup bottle, both sides see something different and yet both are right. This was so simple and so right. The person from whom this quote came went on to state the nessessity of people to see both sides of an issue. I was glad to have heard this because I realized that I had already taken this approach. The reason I did this was so that I could strengthen my arguments against people of the other view point during the election, but I have since found that it gives me greater wisdom to know the whole issue instead of only one side. If everyone applied this to their own views this world would be much wiser and therefore relieve me of a lot of headaches. There are two issues, however, that I simply can not understand no matter how hard I try.

The other day, my roomate was playing a videogame involving a certain spy by the name of Sam Fisher. I’ll assume that everyone knows what I’m talking about and move on. Well, we had a guest in the room, a girl who claims to take a moderate politcal view point. While playing, my roomate got himself into a sticky situation and was forced to shoot one of the terrorists in the head. I didn’t think anything of this, but the girl who was watching said, “That’s terrible.” My roomate turned around and said, “He’s a terrorist!” and then turned around and proceeded to stealthily take out one guy after another. The girl continued to mumble under her breath every time another terrorist was killed. What I fail to understand is this… Why are there people in this country that simpithize with terrorists? I can understand why people don’t like the war in Iraq. I can understand why people don’t like George W. Bush. And, although I don’t agree with either of these two view points, I do respect them. I can not, however, respect the view point that says that ridding this world of terrorists is “terrible”.

The other view point that I just can’t seem to grasp is how President Bush can be blamed for Hurricane Katrina. The last time I checked, man can not conjure up a hurricane and direct it where they want. How can anyone in their right mind blame a single person for a hurricane? How can anyone in their right mind stay put when they have a weeks warning that a massive hurricane is on a collisioin course, for that matter? I told my roommate the other day that was like someone telling all the students here that a scud missle had been launched from Russia and would impact College Station in a week. I told him I might hang around for one or two days, but when that missle hit, I’d be in Kansas. Maybe it’s just me, and I’m “to far to the right” to understand. But if someone could explain these two things to me I’d sure like to hear it.

“On Saturday, U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops caught 20 militants laying explosives along Kajaki Dam in southern Helmand province, a Defense Ministry spokesman, Gen. Mohammed Saher Azimi, said. Thousands of people live downriver from the dam.

Mashal said two of the other thwarted bomb attacks were planned car bombings in Ghazni and Paktika, two volatile provinces. The fourth was near the border with Pakistan, where two Pakistanis, suspected to be Taliban members, were found with explosives.”

AP
Election workers unload ballot papers and other materials from a helicopter at a remote location in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.
AOL News – U.N. Urges Afhans to Vote as 12 Killed

The Federal government keeps chipping away at freedoms we have taken for granted for decades. In the post 9/11 hysteria bureaucrats everywhere are pushing for more government control over the most innocuous parts of everyday life. Probably because that’s all they know how to do, make rules and punish those that don’t follow them. The biggest problem with that is that the Jihadists are rarely around to punish after the fact.

It’s the minorities that have to give up their freedoms first because there is no one to fight for them. I’m not talking just race here, I mean any minority. I’m a general aviation pilot and our freedoms have been under constant attack since 9/11. If you are not a pilot you wont understand and you don’t care, but you should care because each bit of freedom belongs to everyone and once its gone you wont get it back. Think of every little encroachment on someone else’s freedoms as setting a precedent for the day that the government wants to take away your freedoms.

This is from the AOPA. ADIZ stands for Air Defense Identification Zone.

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NO ADIZ IN YOUR BACKYARD? DON’T BET ON IT…
Imagine this: Every time you want to fly, you have to file a flight
plan. Before you can take off, you have to get a transponder code,
but the landline you call to get it is busy most of the time. If
there is an RCO (remote communications outlet) frequency for your
airport, you can rarely get a timely response from an overworked
controller. Services are falling off at your local FBO because
business is down drastically. In fact, some of your favorite places
on the field have already closed. Welcome to life in an air defense
identification zone (ADIZ). Can’t happen in your area? Don’t bet on
it. At this moment, New York City has a “temporary” ADIZ. Chicago’s
Mayor Richard Daley keeps pushing for one of his own. Any of the
other Class B airspace areas across the country could become an ADIZ
at a moment’s notice. That’s what happened in Washington, D.C.–where
the “temporary” ADIZ was created on a weekend in response to a
heightened national threat level. But after the threat level was
reduced, the ADIZ remained. Now the FAA wants to make it permanent,
and the same thing could happen anywhere. “That’s why AOPA continues
to fight so hard against the Washington ADIZ,” said AOPA President
Phil Boyer. “And why–very soon–we will be asking all AOPA members
to join the fight. We must work together to prevent an ADIZ in your
backyard.” Stay tuned. See AOPA Online

In case you don’t follow gaming news religiouly, as I do, I’m going to bring you up to speed on how Nintendo has been pushing their next-gen platform, codenamed “Revolution.” They say that they don’t want to be part of the console war that Sony and Microsoft are in. They want to be unique and have innovative gameplay. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Innovation is great. However, one thing that Nintendo claimed to be their show-stopper at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) in May, is the controller for the new system. They wouldn’t say how, nor show anyone what the controller looked like.

Well, the Tokyo Game Show is happening as this is being written and Nintendo has just revealed their “amazing” new controller.

Ta Dah!!

I’m sorry if you disagree, but I think that is the dumbest thing that I have ever seen!! Nintendo wanted a revolution, but I think they got stuck half way around and ended up going backwards. The company has successfully ruled out ANY third-party support for their console because it is just going to be too damn hard to control the games. It’s just a glorified, wireless NES controller for God’s sake!

Now to their credit, it does have certain functionality in which the player can point the controller at the screen and the game responds accordingly. In one demo the player actually turned the controller sideways and held it like a model plane, using the tilt of the controller to steer a plane on screen. But can a franchise be built off of a novelty item?

As far as I am concerned, Nintendo got what they wanted. They are nowhere near Sony and Microsoft. They’ve gone the way of Apple and created a perfectly impracticle yet expensive device that their niche consumers will eat up with a spoon while most people pass without a second thought. One IGN editor put it best when he simply stated, “I’m not playing Legend of Zelda on that.”

Xbox 360 Launch Dates Announced – Xbox

The first simultanious 3-region launch in console history will happen this holiday season.

“Microsoft announced today that Xbox 360 will arrive on store shelves Tuesday, November 22 in North America, Friday, December 2 in Europe, and Saturday, December 10 in Japan.”

I am personally going to buy a PS3 for the sole purpose of playing Blu-ray discs. If you want to have a Blu-ray player one should consider this option. The first players are going to be around $1,500 while the PS3 is going to be around $350. Sounds like a good deal to me. By the way, I’m an XBOX person. I don’t like PS games, but I do admire Sony as an electronics maker and I believe Blu-ray will succeed as the HD video format. Here is a little something I found on Blu-ray.

Blu-ray.com

LTC Erik Kurilla of 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment (better known as “Deuce Four”) comments about how news from Iraq is presented here in the states.

From Michael Yon http://www.michaelyon.blogspot.com/

“As the Deuce Four heads home this week, they leave behind a Mosul that, while not yet in the clear, is much closer to security and prosperity than anyone would have considered possible eight months ago. In between the daily secret reports Kurilla has brought to his hospital room so he can track his battalion, the Commander watches television news, increasingly frustrated by what he sees as a clear, and inaccurate, negative bias. ‘When you get the news back here in the states, it’s all doom and body counts. I only wish the American public could see the incredible progress that is being made every day in Iraq, particularly in places like Mosul.’ “

” “The evidence in this case indicates that the conspirators were on the verge of launching their attack,”

“Had these four defendants succeeded in their alleged plots, their attacks would have taken an untold number of Americans,” U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a separate news briefing in Washington.

…declined to elaborate on the timing or nature of the attack but said it could have included “shooting up military facilities” or bombing a synagogue and may have been planned to coincide with the Jewish holidays in October.”

Top News Article | Reuters.com

“More people have had their rights violated at my shows than at Annette’s show,” Elliot said, referring to colleague Annette Gelles, who owns the Showmasters Gun Show, which was the target of another ATF Task Force operation last month.

“They’ve been pulled over when they left the building and had their guns taken away from them,” Elliot continued. “In one case, we had a guy with a valid concealed-carry permit who had his gun confiscated. He had to go to ATF headquarters the next day to pick that gun back up.”

Gun Show Owner, Patrons May File Civil Rights Suit —
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
09/12/2005

United Airlines Flight 93: September 11, 2001

A group of average Americans, who had never met, organized themselves and took a vote.

“During his 15-minute call to his wife, Jeremy Glick told her that they had taken a vote and they were going after the terrorists. After telling her he loved her, Jer­emy said, “Hold the phone, and I’ll be back.”

FLIGHT 93 NATIONAL MEMORIAL

“September 11 was a great day when we made America weep and rubbed America’s face in the dirt,” the 50-year-old bearded militant, his legs chained, shouted from inside the caged dock of the court.

Jordanian militants hail September 11 attacks at trial – Yahoo! News

I was watching TV today and saw some poll about how 55% of Americans don’t trust the president to handle another disaster. First of all I have no idea how the question or questions was structured. Second, 55% percent is a slight majority. If the margin of error is 6% then it could be that less than half the country thinks that. Third, when polls are shown on TV it has an effect on the people who see those polls and could cause them to change their opinion just because they think that they are in the minority when that may not be the case.

Kanye West was booed at the opening game of the NFL on Thursday night, and that tells me alot more about those people and their mindset than any poll.