Impostor Speaker Dupes La. Officials

Impostor Speaker Dupes La. Officials
Impostor Speaker Dupes Officials at Katrina Conference
The Associated Press




NEW ORLEANS Aug 28, 2006 (AP)— A man claiming to be a high-ranking federal housing official addressed a conference Monday on public housing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, claiming the government was reversing its policy.

Following speeches by Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Mayor Ray Nagin, a man who said he was the "deputy assistant secretary" of the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced a total reversal in the government's policy on public housing in New Orleans, claiming HUD would halt plans to demolish thousands of public housing units.

William Loiry, president of Equity International, which organized the conference in Kenner, La., said "everything seemed legitimate" about the man who made the speech until he suggested that people leave the conference, board buses and attend a ribbon-cutting at a public housing development.

When Loiry and security officers went to find the speaker, he was gone.

The man left a phone number on a flier handed out at the conference. A man who answered at the number and identified himself as Andy Bichlbauer said he and his loosely affiliated band of "Yes Men" have pulled off similar pranks, including several involving the World Trade Organization.

HUD spokeswoman Donna White said the government's plans remain unchanged. Demolition and redevelopment of several major projects will go ahead as planned, she said. She called the speech "cruel."

The agency's inspector general's office is investigating the matter, said Jerry Brown, a HUD spokesman.

About 1,000 people had registered for the conference.


The Yes Men: http://www.theyesmen.org


Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.







Copyright © 2006 ABCNews Internet Ventures

New virus attacks AMD processors

New virus attacks AMD processors
By Tom Sanders,
29 August 2006 09:59 AEST




Security researchers at Symantec have discovered a new proof of concept virus that targets processors rather than operating systems.

The worm comes in two versions, targeting 32-bit and 64-bit processors from AMD. Symantec refers to the online pests as w32.bounds and w64.bounds. Because it involves proof of concept code, both viruses are rated as low level threats.

Although at this point it concerns harmless proof of concept code, the virus could be used as a starting point to create malware that affects computers with disparate operating systems, cautioned Vincent Weafer, senior director of Symantec's Security Response Group.

"If I can get to the processor level, potentially I can really start tying myself into the core hardware. I can potentially evade some of the kernel protection and user protection. There is an attraction to virus writers to get to the lowest level possible," Weafer told vnunet.com.

"Once it runs, I've got pretty low level access to that system and I could do pretty well anything that I would want to do."

But there is a big down side because different processors speak what could be seen as different Operating Code (opcode) languages.

"Typically, going down to the opcode level in not effective, because there are too many variants out there and you end up working on not too many machines," said Weafer.

The logical next step would therefore be to combine the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the malware to create a single virus that can target both chip families. Weafer added that this is easier to do for AMD processors than for 32- and 64-bit Intel chips because the two AMD families are more similar than the Intel ones.

Symantec found the code in an online meeting place for virus writers, such as underground websites and IRC chat channels.

"The author's intent is really proof of concept, to show that his virus can work and be difficult to detect across multiple processor families. He's showing his technical competence. But you would not use this technique if you wanted to get a pandemic. You would not use this technique unless it was for a very targeted attack or an academic attack."

The w32.bounds and w64.bounds viruses infect systems by tying themselves to Windows executable files, which disqualifies them as so-called chip level threats. They do however employ elements of such attacks by showing an ability to executive chip level assembly code.

The last large scale outbreak of a chip level threat dates back to 1998. The CIH/Chernobyl then embedded itself into the flash-BIOS of several million computers and on the 13th anniversary of the nuclear disaster in the city destroyed all data. Chernobyl originated in South Korea, where it was estimated to cause US$250m in damages.

Chip level threats are rare today. Viruses targeting operating systems are easier to design and the market dominance of the Windows operating system provides virus writers with rich hunting grounds.


Copyright © 2006 vnunet.com




Copyright © 2006

Boeing may end C-17 cargo plane production in 2009

Boeing may end C-17 cargo plane production in 2009
Fri Aug 18, 3:08 PM ET





Boeing Co. said on Friday it would end production of its C-17 military cargo plane in mid-2009 if it did not receive any further orders from the U.S. armed forces.

Boeing said in a widely expected announcement that it told suppliers to stop work on four planes for which there is no firm funding, which it said was the first step in the long process of shutting down its supply chain.

Boeing, which has been lobbying the U.S. Congress to continue production of the plane, said the last C-17 would roll off its Long Beach, California production line in mid-2009 unless it won new Department of Defense orders.

The Chicago-based company said shutting the production line could ultimately cost 5,500 Boeing jobs in California, Missouri, Georgia, and Arizona.

The aircraft, with a list price of about $200 million, is designed to carry large equipment and troops to hard-to-reach airfields. It has been in service since the 1990s.

It is one of Boeing's most significant projects, bringing in about $3 billion in annual revenue. Boeing's defense unit is on track to post about $30 billion in revenue this year.

The company said it is evaluating the financial impact of closing production and may incur costs which are not recoverable from the U.S. government.

Its stock fell $1.07 to $77.52 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Executives said a letter was sent to all 700 supplier companies on the aircraft, directing them to stop work on planes that lack funding.

Boeing said it made the decision to begin winding down its supply chain now because some components on the aircraft must be ordered 34 months before assembly of the plane.

"No one questions its (the C-17's) operational value," said Ron Marcotte, general manager of Boeing's Global Mobility Systems unit, in a statement. "But we can't continue carrying the program without additional orders from the U.S. government."

Boeing has orders on its books to build 44 more of the aircraft. Twenty-six are being built for the U.S. Air Force, rounding off its order for 180 of the planes.

A further 18 are to be built mostly for international customers, including Australia, Canada, Britain and NATO.








Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.


Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Urgent Fundraiser? Bush Wanted Carpool Lanes Closed

Urgent Fundraiser? Bush Wanted Carpool Lanes Closed
President Ends Up Taking Helicopter
POSTED: 7:40 am EDT August 25, 2006






WASHINGTON -- Talk about political gridlock.

Secret Service officials confirm to The Washington Post they tried to get the Virginia Department of Transportation to close down the carpool lanes on a highway leading out of Washington Wednesday so President George W. Bush could easily get to and from a fundraiser for Republican Sen. George Allen.

State experts who monitor traffic predicted a commuting nightmare, because they would have had to close down the lanes for much of the day for logistical reasons, so they denied the request.

Vehicles using Virginia's high occupancy vehicle lanes must have three or more riders from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Some hybrid vehicles and motorcycles are exempt.

The president traveled to the fundraiser by helicopter.

Allen has been under fire for a racist remark he made. He was caught on tape calling an American-born college student of Indian descent a "macaca," and saying, "Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia."

The White House said the president had no qualms about Wednesday night's fundraiser. However, a Democratic campaign spokesman said attending made it look like Bush was rewarding Allen's behavior.





Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.



© 2006, WSOC.

Teen victimized in Web attack

Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Teen victimized in Web attack
Man, 33, accused of extorting nude images of Rochester Hills girl to be extradited from Indiana.
Mike Martindale / The Detroit News






ROCHESTER HILLS -- A 33-year-old man was arrested Monday, accused of extorting nude photographs and videos from a Rochester Hills teenager by convincing her he had hacked into her computer and could ruin her parents' credit rating, authorities say.

Barbar Majid Chaudhry was arrested in Fort Wayne, Ind., where he and his wife and child were visiting his brother. In a case that Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said Monday could have national and possibly international implications, Chaudhry--a Pakistani national-- is to be extradited here to face charges of extortion, child sexually abusive activity, and use of a computer to commit a crime, all felonies punishable by up to 20 years in prison. He will also face charges of communicating with another to commit a crime, a felony that carries a 15-year prison penalty.

"This is scary and disgusting on several levels," Bouchard said. "It underscores what we have been saying for some time: Parents have to know what their children are doing on the Internet and their children have to be comfortable enough with their parents to let them know of anything unusual that they encounter when going on the computer."

Bouchard said police know about dozens of other possible victims found on Chaudhry's computer.

"We think there are going to be a lot of victims across America and they've just scratched the surface."

Bouchard said the scheme involved computer transmissions made in Dubai and Germany and "literally there could be victims around the world."

Bouchard said in March, when the girl was 15 years old, she received an Automatic Instant Message over the computer by an unknown person -- "martinisback001" -- who informed her he had hacked into her computer and gained access to not only her personal files but also her parents' credit card information.

"He said he had done this as a hobby," Bouchard said

That man, believed to be Chaudhry, was transmitting e-mails from his home 7,000 miles away in Dubai, Bouchard said.

The man demanded the girl e-mail nude photographs of herself to him or he would ruin her credit and that of her family, according to investigators. After she sent the photographs, police say the man then demanded nude videos of her and threatened to send the nude photographs he already had to her friends and also post them on the Web.

The girl then complied with the second demand as well, investigators said. The man allegedly also said he wanted to meet her for sex and gave her a specific date and location for their meeting.

Members of the Oakland County Sheriff's Office Internet Crimes Unit posed as the girl online as he attempted to hack into her computer earlier this month. The computer probe led back to a Fort Wayne, Ind., address where the suspect was found with several relatives, including his wife, brother and sister-in-law, and several children.

During an interview with Fort Wayne police, authorities said the suspect admitted he had been communicating by computer with a 16-year-old Michigan girl who had supplied him with nude photographs and videos. He also admitted attempting to hack into the girl's computer but denied ever forcing her to take the photos or video, they said.

Bouchard said investigators are still going over Chaudhry's computer, seized in Indiana, and suspect he operated under several different "screen" names.

At one point Chaudhry allegedly instructed the girl to do specific things on the video and told the girl he intended to have sex with her at a hotel and was exploring several locations where the meeting would take place.

The girl told her family and the sheriff's office became involved last month, Bouchard said.

"This is how a blackmailer works," Bouchard said. "Once they get you on the hook they can easily move on to the next phase."

Anyone who may have been similarly contacted on the Internet is asked to call the Oakland County Sheriff's Office at (248) 858-4954.

You can reach Mike Martindale at (248) 647-7226 or mmartindale@detnews.com.







© Copyright 2006 The Detroit News. All rights reserved.

Top GOP leaders sending message to Big 3: Drop dead

Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Daniel Howes
Top GOP leaders sending message to Big 3: Drop dead





Big-name Republicans are tramping around Michigan -- Karl Rove is expected at a fundraiser today in Grosse Pointe, Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman is campaigning for Senate hopeful Mike Bouchard and President Bush is rumored to be planning a campaign swing next month.

But meet with Detroit's automakers? Nah, why should the president care whether U.S.-owned automakers, burdened by fierce foreign competition and cumulative decisions that threaten to swamp them, are fighting for their collective lives? Instead, key Republicans and the White House are reprising President Ford's message to New York back in the mid-'70s: "Drop dead."

Such cynicism toward a bedrock industry -- let the Blue-Staters wither -- would be comical if it wasn't so misguided, even dumb.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., told the Washington Post that "there's a new definition of the American auto industry. Twenty-five years ago, it was the Big Three companies in Detroit. Now (it's) any company that makes a substantial number of cars and trucks in the U.S. and has a big payroll here, pays big taxes here and buys supplies here."

Nissan equals GM?

Meaning, evidently, that the Nissan operations in Tennessee and the new Hyundai plant in Alabama are indistinguishable from GM and Ford. Politically, perhaps, but not economically.

Added Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama: "The way (Detroit automakers) do business has to change or they won't be around. The competition has been brought to our shores. There is a lot that our automobile manufacturers can learn in the world."

There's also a lot that Red State Republicans could learn about the Detroit automakers and their legacy commitments to retirees and active employees, namely that they're not easily shed this side of bankruptcy.

But it's easier to ignore context, demonize unions, embrace the new guys from overseas who don't carry the same baggage and then give Detroit a condescending geography lesson -- as if the No. 1 player in China, GM, doesn't know the business is global.

Different set of rules

In any other major auto-producing nation, politicians don't ignore the concerns of their auto industry. Not in France and Germany, where nationalism infuses economic policy. And not in Japan or South Korea, where manipulating currencies and erecting trade barriers is acceptable to help the home team -- and Detroit isn't asking for either one.

Here? The president won't meet with the bosses of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and the Chrysler Group. But he'll sit astride a Harley, visit a Nissan truck plant, herald the Toyota engine that won the Indy 500, campaign for Republicans and then have his press secretary swear there's no snub of Detroit.

Rep. John Dingell ain't buying it. "Manufacturing is going to hell in this country, and the president just sits there fiddling while Rome burns," the Dearborn Democrat told me.

That's debatable (as Sens. Alexander and Shelby would attest). What isn't is that however the recapitalization of Detroit ends, no credit will be due to the Washington GOP power crowd.

Daniel Howes' column runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He can be reached at dchowes@detnews.com.







© Copyright 2006 The Detroit News. All rights reserved.

Bush's New Iraq Argument: It Could Be Worse

Bush's New Iraq Argument: It Could Be Worse
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 24, 2006; A01






Of all the words that President Bush used at his news conference this week to defend his policies in Iraq, the one that did not pass his lips was "progress."

For three years, the president tried to reassure Americans that more progress was being made in Iraq than they realized. But with Iraq either in civil war or on the brink of it, Bush dropped the unseen-progress argument in favor of the contention that things could be even worse.

The shifting rhetoric reflected a broader pessimism that has reached into even some of the most optimistic corners of the administration -- a sense that the Iraq venture has taken a dark turn and will not be resolved anytime soon. Bush advisers once believed that if they met certain benchmarks, such as building a constitutional democracy and training a new Iraqi army, the war would be won. Now they believe they have more or less met those goals, yet the war rages on.

While still committed to the venture, officials have privately told friends and associates outside government that they have grown discouraged in recent months. Even the death of al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq proved not to be the turning point they expected, they have told associates, and other developments have been relentlessly dispiriting, with fewer signs of hope.

Bush acknowledged this week that he has been discouraged as well. "Frustrated?" he asked. "Sometimes I'm frustrated. Rarely surprised. Sometimes I'm happy. This is -- but war is not a time of joy. These aren't joyous times. These are challenging times and they're difficult times and they're straining the psyche of our country."

Presidential counselor Dan Bartlett said Bush and his advisers still believe progress is being made and the war will be won. "No question about it, the last three months have been much more challenging," he said. "Are we always going to be pleased with the pace? No. There are days that are frustrating. But is the overall direction going the right way? . . . The answer to that is yes."

The tone represents a striking change from what critics considered an overly rosy portrayal of Iraq, and the latest stage in a year-long evolution in message.

With sectarian violence flaring into some of the worst bloodshed since the March 2003 invasion, the White House felt the need to connect with the anxiety in the American public. "Most of the people rightly are concerned about the security situation, as is the president," Bartlett said.

But with crucial midterm elections just 2 1/2 months away, Bush and his team are trying to turn the public debate away from whether the Iraq invasion has worked out to what would happen if U.S. troops were withdrawn, as some Democrats advocate. The necessity of not failing, Bush advisers believe, is now a more compelling argument than the likelihood of success.

Using such terms as "havoc" at Monday's news conference, Bush made no effort to suggest the situation in Iraq is improving. Instead, he argued: "If you think it's bad now, imagine what Iraq would look like if the United States leaves before this government can defend itself."

Christopher F. Gelpi, a Duke University scholar whose research on public opinion in wartime has been influential in the White House, said Bush has little choice.

"He looks foolish and not credible if he says, 'We're making progress in Iraq,' " Gelpi said. "I think he probably would like to make that argument, but because that's not credible given the facts on the ground, this is the fallback. . . . If the only thing you can say is 'Yes, it's bad, but it could be worse,' that really is a last-ditch argument."

As recently as two weeks ago, Bush was still making the case that things in Iraq are better than they seem. The new Iraqi government "has shown remarkable progress on the political front," he said on Aug. 7, calling its mere existence "quite a remarkable achievement."

The White House and the Republican National Committee regularly send e-mails to supporters and journalists highlighting positive developments. In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, an article by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad argued that a shift in security operations in Baghdad has shown "positive results" and said that "this initial progress should give Iraqis, as well as Americans, hope about the future."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said on a radio show this week that violence is largely limited to four of 18 provinces and that "the government now is starting to get its legs under it."

But Bush has been ruminating on the different nature of Iraq and the battle with Islamic radicals and how hard it is to define victory. "Veterans of World War II and Korea will tell you we were able to measure progress based upon miles gained or based upon tanks destroyed, or however people measured war in those days," he said in a speech last week. "This is different . . . and it's hard on the American people, and I understand that."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a strong supporter of the war, suggested this week that the Bush team has only itself to blame for setting unrealistic expectations.

"One of the biggest mistakes we made was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices that would be required," McCain said. " 'Stuff happens,' 'mission accomplished,' 'last throes,' 'a few dead-enders.' I'm just more familiar with those statements than anyone else because it grieves me so much that we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be."

Such statements, he said, have "contributed enormously to the frustration that Americans feel today because they were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach." Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) offered a similar assessment. "I think we undersold how hard the war would be," he told reporters this week. "I think we oversold how easy it would be to create democracy. I think we missed by a mile how much it would cost to rebuild Iraq."

Through much of the war, Bush and his advisers focused on meeting benchmarks laid out for rebuilding Iraq -- writing a new constitution, electing a new parliament, bringing disaffected Sunnis into the government and training Iraqi troops. As long as those benchmarks were met, the president had tangible events to point to as evidence of progress.

But the last step in that original timetable, election of a permanent parliament last December, has come and gone with no end to the violence. When Bush mentioned that election at his news conference, he depicted it not as progress but a sign that Iraqis want progress. "It's an indication about the desire for people to live in a free society," he said.

Bush used to mention the number of Iraqi troops trained as another barometer to watch, suggesting that once a new army is in place, it could defend its country. Yet 294,000 Iraqi troops have been trained, just shy of the goal of 325,000, and no U.S. official expects to turn over the war entirely to them anytime soon.

Instead, Bush has publicly emphasized how much his administration is changing tactics to deal with the evolving threats in Iraq, and he has privately reached out for advice about further steps to take. He had lunch at the Pentagon last week with four Middle East experts to solicit ideas about how to stabilize Iraq.

"I would say he was deeply concerned about how many lives are being lost, both American and Iraqi, and how much this is costing the American taxpayer," said Eric Davis, a Rutgers University professor who was among those invited, who urged Bush to launch a New Deal-style economic program in Iraq. "He would like to see progress sooner rather than later."



© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Giant nests perplex experts

August 22, 2006
Giant nests perplex experts
By Garry Mitchell
The Associated Press




MOBILE -- To the bafflement of insect experts, gigantic yellow jacket nests have started turning up in old barns, unoccupied houses, cars and underground cavities across the southern two-thirds of Alabama.

Specialists say it could be the result of a mild winter and drought conditions, or multiple queens forcing worker yellow jackets to enlarge their quarters so the queens will be in separate areas. But experts haven't determined exactly what's behind the surprisingly large nests.

Auburn University entomologists, who say they've never seen the nests so large, have been fielding calls about the huge nests from property owners from Dothan up to Sylacauga and over into west-central Alabama's Black Belt.

At one site in Barbour County, the nest was as large as a Volkswagen Beetle, said Andy McLean, an Orkin pesticide service manager in Dothan who helped remove it from an abandoned barn about a month ago.

"It was one of the largest ones we've seen," McLean said.

Attached to two walls and under the slab, the nest had to be removed in sections, McLean said.

Entomologist Dr. Charles Ray at the Alabama Cooperative Extension System in Auburn said he's aware of about 16 of what he described as "super-sized" nests in south Alabama.

Ray said he's seen 10 of them and cautioned people about going near them because of the yellow jacket's painful sting.

The largest nest Ray has inspected this year filled the interior of a weathered 1955 Chevrolet parked in a rural Elmore County barn. That nest was about the size of a tire in the rear floor seven weeks ago, but quickly spread to fill the entire vehicle, the property owner, Harry Coker, said. Four satellite nests around it have gotten into the eaves of the barn, about 300 yards from his home.

"I'm kind of afraid for the grandkids. I had to sneak down there at dark and get my tractor out of the barn," Coker said. "It's been a disruption."

Coker said he may wait until a winter freeze to try to remove the nest.

In previous years, a yellow jacket nest was no larger than a basketball, Ray said. It would contain about 3,000 workers and one queen. These gigantic nests may have as many as 100,000 workers and multiple queens.

Without a cold winter to kill them this year, the yellow jackets continued feeding in January and February -- and layering their nests made of paper, not wax. They typically are built in shallow underground cavities.

Yellow jackets, often confused with bees, may visit flowers for sugar, but unlike bees, yellow jackets are carnivorous, eating insects, carrion and picnic food, according to scientists.
"They were able to find food to colony through the winter," Ray said in a telephone interview.

He investigated a nest near Pineapple, measuring about 5 feet by 4 feet, that was coming out of the ground on a roadside. A southwest Pike County house in Goshen had a giant nest spreading into its roof.

Goshen Mayor G. Malon Johnson said he consulted Ray in removing it because he was concerned that children playing nearby could be attacked.

A colony has a maximum size in early July and August. The hot, dry conditions could force the yellow jackets out of ground nests.

"Normally it starts declining in the fall," Ray said.

He said the "super colonies" appear to have many queens.

"We're not really sure how this multiple queen thing works," Ray said. "It could be that the daughters of the original queen don't leave the nest or that the queens have developed some way to cooperate."

Ray examined a collected nest from Macon County to count the queens in it.

"We found 12 queens so far, so that's definitely a factor," Ray said Thursday.

Dr. Michael D. Goodisman, a biologist at Georgia Tech who has studied large nests in Australia, said he's heard of some large ones in Georgia and Florida, but not as big as those in Alabama.A 6-foot by 3-foot nest on a pond stump in Bulloch County, Ga., was featured July 12 on CNN.

"I'm not sure people know what triggers it," he said.

U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologist James H. Cane said he's familiar with a nest in Florida 10 or 15 years ago that engulfed a big easy chair. Cane said the monster nests reported in Alabama are intriguing and agreed with Ray that they could be the product of multiple queens in a single nest.

The nest usually dies out each year. "All that overwinters is the future queen," he said.

Given a queen's egg-laying rate, he said, there's no way a nest with a single queen could get that big in a growing season.

But in a multiple-queen colony, Cane said, there must be space where queens can't get at each other.





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Bush Argues Democrats Don’t Understand Threat to U.S.

August 21, 2006
Bush Argues Democrats Don’t Understand Threat to U.S.
By JIM RUTENBERG





WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 — President Bush seized today on Democratic calls for withdrawal from Iraq to make an election-year case that his political rivals did not properly understand the threats to the nation and would create a more dangerous world.

It was the most direct attack Mr. Bush has made yet against the Democrats from a White House lectern this election year, and it effectively marked the beginning of a more outright political season for the president and his aides as they work to help Republicans maintain control of Congress this fall.

The appearance marked an early, pre-Labor Day start to the official campaign season, but it comes as Mr. Bush and his party face the most daunting electoral challenge of his presidency, with continued voter dissatisfaction over the course of the Iraq war, the high price of gasoline and the president’s overall job performance.

Democrats have pointed to polls showing public support for the war is continuing to wane, and the president acknowledged as much today. “These are challenging times, and they’re difficult times, and they’re straining the psyche of our country,” Mr. Bush said during an hour-long news conference. “Nobody wants to turn on their TV on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists.”

Analysts from both parties have described the war as the biggest political liability facing the Republicans this year. Mr. Bush’s political aides have urged fellow Republicans to embrace the conflict, and Mr. Bush seemed to go a step further, by suggesting that he hoped the midterm elections would be fought over rival approaches on Iraq.

“What matters is that in this campaign that we clarify the different points of view,” Mr. Bush said from the press secretary’s podium in the White House conference center up the street from the Oval Office. “And there are a lot of people in the Democrat Party who believe that the best course of action is to leave Iraq before the job is done — period — and they’re wrong.”

In calling the opposition the “Democrat Party” Mr. Bush was repeating a truncated, ungrammatical version of the party’s name that some Democrats have called a slight, an assertion the White House dismissed as ridiculous.

Either way it was the president as political strategist that television viewers got a glimpse today, with Mr. Bush laying out what he believed his party members should focus on this election year and rehearsing an argument that uses Iraq as a foil, by contending that the early withdrawal advocated by some Democrats would embolden terrorists everywhere.

Democrats have sought to stoke public displeasure with the war, and they seized on Mr. Bush’s remarks about Iraq as evidence that he was choosing to stay with a failed policy.

“The president’s promise to keep American forces in Iraq as long as he is in office is no substitute for an effective plan to complete the mission,” Representative Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House of Representatives, said in a statement. “Democrats believe its time for a new direction in Iraq, with responsible redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq that begins this year.”

The dissatisfaction over the war now extends even to Republican officeholders, with some who supported the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 expressing displeasure with the execution of the war.

Mr. Bush acknowledged that “sometimes I’m frustrated” about the continuing violence in Iraq, even though that impression is one that some people around the president have sought to play down in recent days. But Mr. Bush also said he was sometimes “happy” over progress in Iraq, and that while “concerned” about the prospect of civil war, he believed the Iraqis would work for unity.

Mr. Bush appeared generally upbeat, occasionally rocking back and forth behind the lectern as he fielded questions from reporters. The White House announced the 10 a.m. news conference less than two hours before it began, acting after a weekend in which some of Mr. Bush’s own conservative supporters have argued that his Iraq campaign may need adjustment.

Among them was the conservative columnist George Will, who wrote in a column last week that the arrests in the London bombing plot seemed to have vindicated Senator John Kerry’s position during the 2004 presidential race that terrorism required joint law enforcement operations between nations.

“Law enforcement means kind of a simple, singular response to the problem,’’ Mr. Bush said. “This is a global war on terror.”

The Iraq war and the buildup to it helped fuel Republican victories in 2002 and 2004, but polls now show that a majority of Americans now have doubts about progress in Iraq.

The White House has argued that the Iraq war remains potent politically for Republicans when they cast it part of the broader war on terror, although the administration has found it at times difficult to make that case.

When Mr. Bush referred to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in reference to a question about Iraq today, a reporter pressed him, asking, “What did Iraq have to do with that?” Mr. Bush responded somewhat testily, “Nothing,” and added, “Nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack.”

In the run-up to the invasion in March 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney did call attention to the theory, since discredited, that one of the Sept. 11 hijackers might have met in Prague before the attacks with an Iraqi intelligence officer.

In general, however, Mr. Bush struck a different tone than the vice president has used in recent weeks, including Mr. Cheney’s suggestion two weeks ago that implied that Ned Lamont’s victory in the Connecticut primary against Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut would embolden “Al Qaeda types.”

In response to a question today. Mr. Bush said he agreed with that analysis, but added: “We’ll continue to speak out in a respectful way, never challenging somebody’s love for America when you criticize their strategies or their point of view.”

White House officials said the president would use the fall to further elaborate a view of the war, a task that Mr. Bush said would be intended to “explain as best I can why it’s important for us to succeed.”

Strategists on both sides have pointed to Iraq as a major drag on the president’s popularity, which in turn has been a drag on the Republican Party. Just two weeks ago, a close White House ally, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, had said in an interview on Fox News, “I wish the president’s approval rating were better than it is, and that’s not a plus for us.”

In a follow-up interview today, Mr. McConnell played down that remark and said he believed the Republicans would ultimately succeed in maintaining control of Congress because “we’re going to make sure voters know what having Democrats in control means.”

Mr. Bush said Republican Party could also score points on tax cuts and the economy. As for flagging support for the war in Iraq, Mr. Bush said, “Presidents care about whether people support their policies,” and acknowledged, “Of course I care.”

But, he added, “I’m going to do what I think is right and if people don’t like me for it, that’s just the way it is.”




Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Gov't fulfills few Katrina promises

Gov't fulfills few Katrina promises
By MATT CRENSON, AP National Writer
Sat Aug 19, 5:16 PM ET




Nearly half of New Orleans was still under water when President Bush stood in the Crescent City's historic Jackson Square and swore he would "do what it takes" to rebuild the communities and lives that had been laid to waste two weeks before by Hurricane Katrina.

"Our goal is to get the work done quickly," the president said.

He promised to spend federal money wisely and accountably. And he vowed to address the poverty exposed by the government's inadequate Katrina response "with bold action."

A year after the storm, the federal government has proven slow and unreliable in keeping the president's promises.

"This is not something that is going to be able to be accomplished in 365 days," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "The president has set the federal government on the course to fulfill its obligations."

The job of clearing debris left by the storm remains unfinished, and has been plagued by accusations of fraud and price gouging. Tens of thousands of families still live in trailers or mobile homes, with no indication of when or how they will be able to obtain permanent housing. Important decisions about rebuilding and improving flood defenses have been delayed. And little if anything has been done to ensure the welfare of the poor in a rebuilt New Orleans.

How has the government performed in the most critical areas of the recovery and reconstruction effort?

EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE: A June report by the Government Accountability Office concluded that FEMA wasted between $600 million and $1.4 billion on "improper and potentially fraudulent individual assistance payments."

Government auditors found that debit cards distributed to Katrina victims were used to pay for things like Dom Perignon champagne, New Orleans Saints season tickets and adult-oriented entertainment. The audit also found that people used fictional addresses, fake Social Security numbers and the identities of dead people to fraudulently register for assistance. FEMA also double-deposited funds in the accounts of 5,000 out of the nearly 11,000 debit card holders.

CLEANUP: The job still isn't done. More than 100 million cubic yards of debris have been cleared from the region affected by Katrina. So far the government has spent $3.6 billion, a figure that might have been considerably smaller had the contracts for debris removal been subject to competitive bidding.

Working through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA gave each of four companies contracts worth up to $500 million to clear hurricane debris. This spring government inspectors reported that the companies — AshBritt Inc. of Pompano Beach, Fla., Phillips and Jordan Inc. of Knoxville, Tenn., Ceres Environmental Services Inc. of Brooklyn Park, Minn. and ECC Operating Services Inc. of Burlingame, Calif. — charged the government as much as four to six times what they paid their subcontractors who actually did the work.

HOUSING: In his Jackson Square speech, Bush said his goal was to "get people out of shelters by the middle of October."

By and large that goal was met, with all but a few thousand of 270,000 Katrina evacuees out of shelters by mid-October.

But that didn't solve the monumental housing problem created by Katrina. Most of the people who had been in shelters went to hotel rooms, with FEMA picking up the bill. About 50,000 families who had evacuated to other cities were promised a year of rent assistance, though in April FEMA began cutting off some who the agency said did not qualify for the program. More than 100,000 families moved into trailers or mobile homes parked either in the yards of their damaged houses or in makeshift compounds.

Meanwhile, FEMA flailed and flip-flopped on its contracting policies for trailers, mobile homes and other temporary shelter. The first big contracts were handed out non-competitively to four well-connected companies — Shaw Group, Bechtel Corp., CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Corp. Then in October FEMA director R. David Paulison promised to rebid the contracts after Congress complained that smaller companies, especially local and minority-owned firms, should have a chance to compete for the work.

A month after that, FEMA said the new contracts would not be awarded until February. That deadline came and went, and then in March a FEMA official announced that the contracts weren't going to be rebid after all.

A week later FEMA reversed itself again, giving up to $3.6 billion in business to small and minority-owned firms.

"I promised Congress I was going to bid them out, and that's what I'm doing," Paulison said.

REBUILDING: Despite Bush's Jackson Square promise to "undertake a close partnership with the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, the city of New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities," state and local officials had a hard time reaching a deal for federal aid to help residents rebuild their ruined homes.

In January the administration rejected a $30 billion plan for Louisiana as too expensive. The White House also balked at subsidizing the reconstruction of homes in flood plains, a policy that would have excluded all but a small fraction of Louisiana homeowners whose houses were significantly damaged.

The state finally won funding in July for the $9 billion 'Road Home' program, which pays homeowners up to $150,000 either to repair their damaged property or rebuild elsewhere in the state. People who leave the state are eligible for a 60 percent buyout. The money, which is being distributed through escrow accounts to prevent fraud, is just becoming available a year after the hurricane.

LEVEES: The federal government hasn't broken any promises with regard to flood protection — mostly because it has assiduously avoided making any.

White House Katrina recovery czar Donald Powell has said that the administration intends to wait for the completion of a $20 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study, due in December 2007, before it decides whether to enhance the flood protection system in southern Louisiana enough to resist a Category 5 hurricane.

A preliminary draft of the study released in July was widely criticized because it omitted five projects that state officials say should be started right away. At the same time, it focused on a massive levee that would stretch hundreds of miles along the Louisiana coast while paying only lip service to the critical task of shoring up the state's vanishing wetlands, which provide a natural barrier to hurricane flooding.

"We're wasting our time and money and attention contemplating large-scale levees across the entire state," said Tim Searchinger, an attorney with the advocacy group Environmental Defense.

The federal government has committed about $6 billion since Katrina to repair and improve the Big Easy's existing levee system. The first goal was to bring the levee system back to "pre-Katrina" levels by the beginning of the 2006 hurricane season on June 1. That goal was largely achieved. The next step will be to make improvements that will bring the system up to what is variously called Category 3 or 100-year protection by 2010.

But planners and state and local officials say that the levees need to be brought up to Category 5 protection, a level that would cost up to $30 billion, if people are to have confidence moving back to areas destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

POVERTY: Bush offered three proposals in Jackson Square to help combat poverty around the Gulf Coast region. Two of them never went anywhere — the creation of "worker recovery accounts" that would help evacuees find work by paying for school, job training or child care while they looked for employment, and an Urban Homesteading Act that would give poor people building sites for new homes that they would either finance themselves or obtain through programs such as Habitat for Humanity.

A third proposal, the creation of a Gulf Opportunity zone, did come to pass. Signed by President Bush in December, the legislation gives $8.7 billion in tax breaks to developers of low-income housing projects, small businesses and individuals affected not just by Katrina but by hurricanes Rita and Wilma as well. The law also provides debt restructuring for financially troubled local governments in the area.







Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


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That's No Spider Bite: Antibiotic Resistant Staph Infections Now Very Common

That's No Spider Bite: Antibiotic Resistant Staph Infections Now Very Common
Staph Infections Are Often Frustrating, Painful and Hard to Treat
By JOY VICTORY, ABCNEWS.com Health Producer




Aug. 16, 2006 — - Their stories are numerous -- the people who know, firsthand, how common antibiotic-resistant skin staph infections have become.

Take Jessica Knowles of San Antonio whose entire family -- even her dogs -- have been battling on-again, off-again staph infections for several years.

"I've had it probably four to five times now. It's embarrassing, very embarrassing especially when it starts getting on my face," Knowles said. "It starts out feeling like you got bit by something, and you see a red spot like a pimple. It oozes. It doesn't stop."

Or Brandon Kafka of Seattle, who has battled several severe skin infections, including one that broke out across his face after he'd shaved.

"[It] hurt worse than anything I have ever felt," he said.


Now the Most Common Skin Infection in Many ERs

Their infections were caused by a bacterium called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. Once confined mostly to hospitals and prisons, MRSA has branched out into the general population. It often infects people without warning, and is commonly mistaken as a spider bite.

A study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine shows just how widespread the bug has become. Researchers took hundreds of skin samples from patients who'd visited 11 emergency rooms in the United States with skin or tissue infections. Laboratory analysis showed that 59 percent of the time the culprit was MRSA, meaning the bug has reached broadly into the general community -- and that's bad news in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

"This underscores the need to avoid overuse of antibiotics in general so as to avoid the development of antibiotic resistance," said Dr. Greg Anderson, at the Mayo Clinic.

The new findings come of no surprise to people who have dealt with a staph infection. It is often a frustrating and ongoing ordeal: Since staph is a notoriously adept and common bacteria, the infection doesn't go away easily. It lives naturally in most people's noses, and for unknown reasons, it can suddenly turn against its host and start infecting the skin.

Once it takes hold, it is easily transmitted among family members, co-workers or schoolmates. And because doctors often unwittingly prescribe an ineffective antibiotic -- which occurred 57 percent of the time in the study -- it often lingers.


A 'Major Problem' for Kids

"MRSA has blossomed over the last few years," said Dr. John J. Messmer, an associate professor of family and community medicine at Penn State College of Medicine. "As the study discussed, staph organisms transfer the genetic ability to resist antibiotics to one another."

While the infection can hit anyone, it is a "major problem" among kids, said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.

"About six years ago, Vanderbilt investigators cultured the noses of many healthy Nashville children -- only 1 percent carried MRSA," Schaffner said. "When the study was repeated in 2004, 9 percent were carriers. You can see that the problem has exploded."

Solid numbers on MRSA are hard to come by. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn't require that doctors report community-acquired MRSA infections the way they're required to with most communicable diseases.

This infuriates Joy Smith of Stevenson, Ala., whose grandson has MRSA in both of his ears, which came from having tubes placed in his ears.

"This is something that the public needs to be more aware of, and the medical community needs to take a more proactive approach," she said.



'I Was in Excruciating Pain'

To determine if an infection is indeed MRSA, a skin culture must be taken. While this shows exactly which type of bacteria has infected the skin and which antibiotics can still kill it, it can take several days before laboratory results are conclusive.

"Many docs still are treating soft tissue infections using antibiotics that used to work very well," Schaffner said, noting that the new study does give a detailed description of which antibiotics do seem to still be effective in treating MRSA. "It is a matter of re-educating the profession."

In the meantime, many people in the United States, like Marcia Ferguson of Annapolis, Md., have had or will have antibiotic resistant skin infections.

"I am just now recovering from a skin infection caused by the staph bacteria. It has been a horrific ordeal," Ferguson said.

What started as red bump on the back of her leg quickly turned into widespread open sores on her legs and trunk. She went to her doctor and got some antibiotics. But her fever and her sores persisted, and she had to go to the ER.

"I was in excruciating pain. There were more red bumps, more blisters, and pus was leaking from most of them," said Ferguson, who has now mostly recovered but is still changing the dressing on her sores and taking Tylenol for the pain.

And, like so many people, she said, "I still have no idea how I caught it."


Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

Hatch says Demo win could help terrorists

Article Last Updated: 08/17/2006 09:49:44 AM MDT
Hatch says Demo win could help terrorists
By Matt Canham
The Salt Lake Tribune





Sen. Orrin Hatch, who continuously decries the bitter partisanship in Washington, implied this week that Democratic success in November's election could result in terrorist attacks on America.

Hatch was quoted in Tuesday's Tooele Transcript Bulletin as saying Middle East terrorists are "waiting for the Democrats here to take control, let things cool off and then strike again."

Democrats are criticizing Hatch for what they see as "ridiculous" partisan hyperbole.

"There they go again trying to use smear and fear to win in November," said Stacie Paxton, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee.

While Hatch now says he does not recall making the reported statement to the Tooele newspaper, it would not be the first time he tied terrorist action to Democrats seeking office.

During the 2004 presidential election, Hatch suggested al-Qaida members wanted Democratic challenger John Kerry to defeat President Bush.

Terrorists "are going to throw everything they can between now and the election to try and elect Kerry," Hatch said in a Washington Post story printed in September 2004.

Welcome to the politics of fear.

"Fear is a very powerful emotion," said Brigham Young University political scientist Kelly Patterson. "It is a powerful motivator. It is something that people understand and therefore politicians use it."

Earlier this week, Vice President Dick Cheney suggested that Connecticut Democrat Ned Lamont's primary victory over pro-Iraq War Sen. Joe Lieberman may encourage "the al-Qaida types."

Patterson said Republicans like Hatch and Cheney know they have an advantage when elections hinge on national security and defense issues. And despite polls showing a growing frustration with the Iraq war, Republicans appear to be sticking to the same methods that secured their power in the past election.

Patterson said Democrats would use similar tactics if the country were suffering from widespread disease or environmental disasters.

Hatch's challenger Democrat Pete Ashdown said the senator continuously goes too far.

The comment "is a further example of the demonization and the divisiveness Senator Hatch uses to win campaigns."

But Hatch said Wednesday he was only trying to reiterate a long-held position about Iraq. He clarified the statement through a spokesman, although he does not recall saying it.

"I don't believe terrorists favor Democrats or Republicans," Hatch said. "What they are waiting for is the United States to prematurely pull out of Iraq. There are appeasers in both parties but most are leading liberal Democrats."

While some Democrats, like Lamont, have called for a withdrawal, Ashdown said he wants the Iraqi people to decide if U.S. troops are still needed through a countrywide referendum.

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy regularly jousts with Hatch on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Leahy's spokesman, David Carle, combated the perception that Republicans have kept America safe through their actions in Iraq.

"The gross mismanagement of the war in Iraq has handed the terrorists the biggest recruiting and training ground they have ever had, making us less secure than before," he said.
mcanham@sltrib.com




© Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. All material found on Utah Online is copyrighted The Salt Lake Tribune and associated news services. No material may be reproduced or reused without explicit permission from The Salt Lake Tribune.

NASA can't find original tape of moon landing

NASA can't find original tape of moon landing
Mon Aug 14, 5:48 PM ET



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has misplaced the original recording of the first moon landing, including astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," a NASA spokesman said on Monday.

Armstrong's famous space walk, seen by millions of viewers on July 20, 1969, is among transmissions that NASA has failed to turn up in a year of searching, spokesman Grey Hautaloma said.

"We haven't seen them for quite a while. We've been looking for over a year and they haven't turned up," Hautaloma said.

The tapes also contain data about the health of the astronauts and the condition of the spacecraft. In all, some 700 boxes of transmissions from the Apollo lunar missions are missing, he said.

"I wouldn't say we're worried -- we've got all the data. Everything on the tapes we have in one form or another," Hautaloma said.

NASA has retained copies of the television broadcasts and offers several clips on its Web site.

But those images are of lower quality than the originals stored on the missing magnetic tapes.

Because NASA's equipment was not compatible with TV technology of the day, the original transmissions had to be displayed on a monitor and re-shot by a TV camera for broadcast.

Hautaloma said it is possible the tapes will be unplayable even if they are found, because they have degraded significantly over the years -- a problem common to magnetic tape and other types of recordable media.

The material was held by the National Archives but returned to NASA sometime in the late 1970s, he said.

"We're looking for paperwork to see where they last were," he said.





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Mo. Army base leader in gays discharged

Aug. 14, 2006, 5:41AM
Mo. Army base leader in gays discharged
By NANCY ZUCKERBROD Associated Press Writer





WASHINGTON — An Army base in Missouri used the "don't ask, don't tell" policy to kick out more soldiers than any other military installation last year, followed by an Army base on the Kentucky-Tennessee border and a naval base in Virginia.

Sixty people were dismissed last year from Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., according to Defense Department documents shared with The Associated Press by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. That was up from 40 discharges under the policy from the training facility in 2004.

The advocacy group, which advises military personnel on the gay policy, obtained the information through a Freedom of Information Act request. Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke confirmed that the Defense Department provided the information to the advocacy group.

The second-highest number of discharges were at Fort Campbell, a sprawling Army base on the Kentucky-Tennessee line. But the 49 people dismissed there, up from 19 in 2004, also represented the single-biggest increase in discharges anywhere.

It was at Fort Campbell where a soldier, Pfc. Barry Winchell, was bludgeoned to death in 1999 by a fellow soldier who believed Winchell was gay. Gay discharges from the base went up sharply on the heels of that murder but later subsided.

"The numbers at Fort Campbell remain disturbing because of the history there," said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. "The discharge numbers had gone significantly down. This seems to be a rebound. It's not clear why."

A spokeswoman for the base declined to comment on the statistics.

The Pentagon has said there were 726 military members discharged under the policy last year _ up 11 percent from the year before _ but did not publicly release base-specific information.

The data provided to the legal advocacy group showed the Norfolk, Va., naval base had the third highest number of gay dismissals in 2005, with 35 people leaving under the policy. The Fort Benning Army base in Georgia was next with 31 discharges.

The Pentagon policy, which went into effect in 1994 following passage of congressional legislation, prohibits the military from inquiring about the sex lives of service members but requires those who openly acknowledge being gay to be discharged.

Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has given any indication of dropping their long-standing support for the policy.

Krenke, the Pentagon spokeswoman, said it is the Defense Department's view that congressional action would be needed to change the policy.

A bill to repeal the policy and allow gays to serve openly has been introduced in the House, but no such measure has been introduced in the Senate.

Dr. Elizabeth Recupero, an internist and pediatrician discharged under the policy last year, said she is confident it will eventually be repealed.

"It's going to be overturned because people are needed, and it's not going to matter who they're sleeping with," she said. "We're in a situation of high alert and war."

Recupero was discharged last year after an investigation that lasted about five years. She was to be stationed at Fort Drum, N.Y., after doing her medical training but never served there, having been put on leave during the inquiry.

Recupero says she regrets the way things turned out. "I'm an honorable person," she said. "I made a commitment to fulfill my duty, and I never got to do that, and I kind of feel lousy about this."

___

On the Net:

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network: http://www.sldn.org/

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil/





HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com
© 2006 The Associated Press

Some parts of military still hostile to gays

Some parts of military still hostile to gays
Sun Aug 6, 2006 9:47 AM ET
By Kristin Roberts





WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Gays in the U.S. military face regular hostility on some bases and ships where commanders fail to prohibit harassment more than a decade after the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law was enacted, although seeds of greater tolerance may be taking root, advocates and witnesses report.

While some leaders have created environments where harassment is not tolerated, others have not and the evidence, according to witnesses, is both verbal and visual.

On the Navy's USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, for example, anti-gay statements and jokes are on display and have been incorporated into a video about the F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft, recently shown to reporters on the carrier.

Pilots on the Roosevelt sported T-shirts, also shown to reporters including this Reuters correspondent, that said, "I'm a Tomcat guy and you're a homo." The commander of the fighter squadron, in fact, wore the shirt.

"The line between that and threats and violence can be quite thin," said Aaron Belkin, director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California-Santa Barbara.

Openly gay people are prohibited from serving in the U.S. military under a 1993 law known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." The military can't ask if a service member is gay, but those who say they are gay are discharged.

The U.S. military argues that banning gays from the military is critical to maintaining a unit's "cohesion," the trust among service members crucial to combat effectiveness.

Harassment of gays, however, is prohibited. The Pentagon, in a 2000 memo to the armed services and commanders, said "mistreatment, harassment and inappropriate comments or gestures" based on sexual orientation were not acceptable.

That followed a report from the Defense Department's inspector general that found 80 percent of service members surveyed had heard anti-gay comments and 37 percent had witnessed harassment against people thought to be homosexual.

CHANGING ENVIRONMENT?

The anti-gay displays aboard the Roosevelt should be seen as harassment, said Steve Ralls, communications director for the Service members Legal Defense Network, a group working to see the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law repealed.

"That type of behavior has real consequences," Ralls said, pointing to the anti-gay graffiti allowed at Fort Campbell in Kentucky before the 1999 murder of Pfc. Barry Winchell, thought to be a gay soldier.

In response to questions from Reuters, Navy Rear Admiral Denby Starling, commander of the Naval Air Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, said the anti-gay messages witnessed on the Roosevelt were "contrary to Navy policy and core values and have no place within Naval Aviation or the Navy."

"Immediately upon notification of your observations, Naval Aviation leadership engaged to take corrective action," he said in an e-mail. "Steps have been taken to ensure that the offending messages have been removed. Squadron and air wing leadership have been counseled regarding the inappropriate tone set by such messages and poor judgment demonstrated in allowing their display."

Starling said other steps would be taken and the incident would be used to reinforce policy across the force.

The University of California's Belkin said his research shows attitudes against allowing openly gay people to serve may be changing, especially among younger service members.

But he said pressure to conform in an organization that places heavy value on tradition could inhibit change, noting servicemen may be "socialized to act anti-gay."

The military has dismissed more than 11,000 people for Don't Ask, Don't Tell violations, Ralls said. According to the Pentagon's latest data, 726 people were dismissed in fiscal 2005, representing 0.3 percent of all discharges that year.

Derek Sparks was discharged in 2002 after 14 years in the Navy when he admitted he was gay amid an investigation into alleged homosexual activity. He denied committing the acts.

The former sailor, part of a group of plaintiffs in a suit against the Defense Department, said anti-gay remarks were tolerated in the Navy throughout his career. He hid his homosexuality because he wanted to serve, he said.

"I loved serving and I loved being in the military so much that it was a sacrifice I was willing to make," Sparks said.




© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.







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Computer hackers get lesson on cloning passport, cash card tags

Computer hackers get lesson on cloning passport, cash card tags
by Glenn Chapman
Sun Aug 6, 9:54 AM ET



LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AFP) - High-tech passports touted as advances in national security can be spied on remotely and their identifying radio signals cloned, computers hackers were shown at a conference.

Radio frequency identification technology, referred to as RFID, used in cash cards and passports, can be copied, blocked or imitated, said Melanie Rieback, a privacy researcher at Vrije University in the Netherlands.

Rieback demonstrated a device she and colleagues at Vrije built to hijack the RFID signals that manufacturers have touted as unreadable by anything other than proprietary scanners.

"I spend most of my time making the RFID industry's life miserable," the doctorate student told AFP. "I am not anti-RFID. It has the potential to make people's lives easier, but it needs to be used responsibly."

Rieback and university compatriots expected to have a reliable portable version of their device, RFID Guardian, finished in six months and "had no plans to immediately mass-produce these things."

A cheer rose from the legion of hackers in the conference room when Rieback announced that the schematics and the computer codes for the device would be made public.

"The industry and government needs to not be scared of us," Rieback said. "They need to talk with us and to work with us. Hopefully, together we can come up with some kind of reasonable compromise."

RFID tags consist of a computer chips wrapped with tiny radio antennae. The chips store financial, identity, or other data that can then be sent to scanners by radio signals.

Retail behemoth Wal-Mart about two years ago embarked on a campaign to use RFID to track inventories and shipments from suppliers, and the devices are used on cargo shipped overseas in containers.

RFID tags have been used for decades to track cattle or wild animals.

It has become common in the United States for pet owners to have chips encased in glass, about the size of grains of rice, implanted under the skin of their dogs or cats so they can be identified and returned if they run away.

The European Central Bank has talked of putting RFID technology in euro currency, and such tags were used in World Cup Soccer tickets, according to the researcher.

Smart chips have been crafted into German passports and are being put into US passports. Stores have experimented with using the tags not only to track inventory, but to bill shoppers for purchases invisibly as they leave.

"It has been getting new life, and creating quite a stir," Rieback said of RFID use.

RFID equipment makers would be wise to ramp up encryption and other security while technology is catching on, according to Rieback. Rieback was not the only speaker at the gathering who claimed to have found RFID vulnerabilities.

"If you are using RFID on cows, who cares?" Rieback asked rhetorically. "But, with a passport, it only takes one breach at the wrong time and it could wreck it for the RFID industry."

The potential exists for unauthorized reading of cards, cloning, and tracking people who carry them, Rieback said.

Hacked chips could even be used to launch attacks on software in computers linked to scanning devices, according to the researcher.

RFID Guardian was designed to also block any selected tag from being read by scanners, legitimate or illicit.

"We are being foisted into this world where these tags are all around but we don't know when and how they are there," Rieback said. "The Guardian puts the control back in your hands."






Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.


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Bushisms: Stupidest George W. Bush Quotes

Bushisms: Stupidest George W. Bush Quotes
OddPeak.com - Because the world is an odd place




On Economy

«[B]y the way, we rank 10th amongst the industrialized world in broadband technology and its availability. That's not good enough for America. Tenth is 10 spots too low as far as I'm concerned.»
Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 26, 2004


«The march to war affected the people's confidence. It's hard to make investment. See, if you're a small business owner or a large business owner and you're thinking about investing, you've got to be optimistic when you invest. Except when you're marching to war, it's not a very optimistic thought, is it? In other words, it's the opposite of optimistic when you're thinking you're going to war.»
Springfield, Missouri, Feb. 9, 2004


«Let me tell you my thoughts about tax relief. When your economy is kind of ooching along, it's important to let people have more of their own money.»
Boston, Oct. 4, 2002


«See, without the tax relief package, there would have been a deficit, but there wouldn't have been the commiserate—not 'commiserate'—the kick to our economy that occurred as a result of the tax relief.»


«You're working hard to put food on your family.»



On Education


«We expect the states to show us whether or not we're achieving simple objectives—like literacy, literacy in math, the ability to read and write.»
on federal education requirements, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005


«[T]he illiteracy level of our children are appalling.»
Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004


«Rarely is the question asked, is . . . our children learning?»
2001 Washington TV/Radio Correspondents dinner



On Foreign Policy



«This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table.»
Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 22, 2005


«Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat.»
Washington, D.C., Sept. 17, 2004


«I didn't join the International Criminal Court because I don't want to put our troops in the hands of prosecutors from other nations. Look, if somebody has done some wrong in our military, we'll take care of it. We got plenty of capability of dealing with justice.»
Niceville, Fla., Aug. 10, 2004


«Secondly, the tactics of our—as you know, we don't have relationships with Iran. I mean, that's—ever since the late '70s, we have no contacts with them, and we've totally sanctioned them. In other words, there's no sanctions—you can't—we're out of sanctions.»
Annandale, Va., Aug. 9, 2004


«King Abdullah of Jordan, the King of Morocco, I mean, there's a series of places—Qatar, Oman—I mean, places that are developing—Bahrain—they're all developing the habits of free societies.»
Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2004


«See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.»
Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 3, 2003


«I think war is a dangerous place.»
Washington, D.C., May 7, 2003


«You forgot Poland»


«In my judgment, when the United States says there will be serious consequences, and if there isn't serious consequences, it creates adverse consequences.»


«Border relations between Canada and Mexico have never been better» September 24, 2001



On Health Care


«Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country.»
Sept. 6, 2004, Poplar Bluff, Mo.


«My pro-life position is I believe there's life. It's not necessarily based in religion. I think there's a life there, therefore the notion of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.»
Quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 23, 2001



On Human Right


«It seemed like Amnesty International based some of their decisions on the word and allegations by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people had been trained in some instances to disassemble – that means not tell the truth.»
Washington, D.C., 31 May, 2005


«More Muslims have died at the hands of killers than—I say more Muslims—a lot of Muslims have died—I don't know the exact count—at Istanbul. Look at these different places around the world where there's been tremendous death and destruction because killers kill.»
Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2004


«My views are one that speaks to freedom.»
Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2004


«I was a prisoner too, but for bad reasons.»
To Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, on being told that all but one of the Argentine delegates to a summit meeting were imprisoned during the military dictatorship, Monterrey, Mexico, Jan. 13, 2004



On Iraq





«But Iraq has—have got people there that are willing to kill, and they're hard-nosed killers. And we will work with the Iraqis to secure their future.»
Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005


«I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein.»
Washington, D.C., May 25, 2004


«The ambassador and the general were briefing me on the—the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice.»
Washington, D.C., Oct. 27, 2003


«My answer is bring them on.»
On Iraqi militants attacking U.S. forces, Washington, D.C., July 3, 2003


«We ended the rule of one of history's worst tyrants, and in so doing, we not only freed the American people, we made our own people more secure.»
Crawford, Texas, May 3, 2003


«We've got hundreds of sites to exploit, looking for the chemical and biological weapons that we know Saddam Hussein had prior to our entrance into Iraq.»
Santa Clara, Calif., May 2, 2003


«You're free. And freedom is beautiful. And, you know, it'll take time to restore chaos and order—order out of chaos. But we will.»
Washington, D.C., April 13, 2003


«The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself.»
Grand Rapids, Mich., Jan. 29, 2003


«There is no such thing necessarily in a dictatorial regime of iron-clad absolutely solid evidence. The evidence I had was the best possible evidence that he had a weapon.»



On National Security and War on Terror




«It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way.»
Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005


«After standing on the stage, after the debates, I made it very plain, we will not have an all-volunteer army. And yet, this week—we will have an all-volunteer army. Let me restate that.»
Daytona Beach, Fla., Oct. 16, 2004


«Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.»
Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004


«The law I sign today directs new funds and new focus to the task of collecting vital intelligence on terrorist threats and on weapons of mass production.»
Washington, D.C., Nov. 27, 2002


«I was proud the other day when both Republicans and Democrats stood with me in the Rose Garden to announce their support for a clear statement of purpose: you disarm, or we will.»
Speaking about Saddam Hussein, Manchester, N.H., Oct. 5, 2002


«There's no doubt in my mind that we should allow the world worst leaders to hold America hostage, to threaten our peace, to threaten our friends and allies with the world's worst weapons.»
South Bend, Ind., Sept. 5, 2002


«I'm not gonna fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt.»
September 20, 2001.


«[T]he best way to find these terrorists who hide in holes is to get people coming forth to describe the location of the hole, is to give clues and data.»


Reporter: Is the tide turning in Iraq? -- Bush: «I think - tide turning - see, as I remember, I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of, it's easy to see a tide turn - did I say those words?» June 14, 2006



On Social Security






«In terms of timetables, as quickly as possible—whatever that means.»
On the president's time frame for shoring up Social Security, Washington D.C., March 16, 2005


«If you're a younger person, you ought to be asking members of Congress and the United States Senate and the president what you intend to do about it. If you see a train wreck coming, you ought to be saying, what are you going to do about it, Mr. Congressman, or Madam Congressman?»
Detroit, Feb. 8, 2005


«Now, we talked to Joan Hanover. She and her husband, George, were visiting with us. They are near retirement—retiring—in the process of retiring, meaning they're very smart, active, capable people who are retirement age and are retiring.»
Alexandria, Va., Feb. 12, 2003



Logic


«The future will be better tomorrow.»


«I believe we are called to do the hard work to make our communities and quality of life a better place.»
Collinsville, Ill., 5 Jan., 2005


«It's a time of sorrow and sadness when we lose a loss of life.»
Washington, D.C., Dec. 21, 2004


«I'm so pleased to be able to say hello to Bill Scranton. He's one of the great Pennsylvania political families.»
Drexel Hill, Penn., Sept. 15, 2003


«Our country puts $1 billion a year up to help feed the hungry. And we're by far the most generous nation in the world when it comes to that, and I'm proud to report that. This isn't a contest of who's the most generous. I'm just telling you as an aside. We're generous. We shouldn't be bragging about it. But we are. We're very generous.»
Washington, D.C., July 16, 2003


«There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again.»
Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002


«I'm also mindful that man should never try to put words in God's mouth. I mean, we should never ascribe natural disasters or anything else, to God. We are in no way, shape, or form should a human being, play God.»
Appearing on ABC's 20/20, Washington D.C., Jan. 14, 2005


«I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.»
Interview with the Associated Press, Jan. 18, 2001


«The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants.»
Interview with the New York Times, Jan. 14, 2001



Misc



«I always jest to people, the Oval Office is the kind of place where people stand outside, they're getting ready to come in and tell me what for, and they walk in and get overwhelmed by the atmosphere. And they say 'man, you're looking pretty.' »
Washington, D.C., Nov. 4, 2004


«Tribal sovereignty means that, it's sovereign. You're a—you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And, therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities.»
Washington, D.C., Aug. 6, 2004


«I want to thank my friend, Sen. Bill Frist, for joining us today. … He married a Texas girl, I want you to know. (Laughter.) Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me. (More laughter.)»
Nashville, Tenn., May 27, 2004


«One of the most meaningful things that's happened to me since I've been the governor—the president—governor—president. Oops. Ex-governor. I went to Bethesda Naval Hospital to give a fellow a Purple Heart, and at the same moment I watched him—get a Purple Heart for action in Iraq—and at that same—right after I gave him the Purple Heart, he was sworn in as a citizen of the United States—a Mexican citizen, now a United States citizen.»
Washington, D.C., Jan. 9, 2004


«I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves.»
Washington, D.C., Sept. 21, 2003


«Iran would be dangerous if they have a nuclear weapon.»
Washington, D.C., June 18, 2003


«Now, there are some who would like to rewrite history—revisionist historians is what I like to call them.»
Elizabeth, N.J., June 16, 2003


«I'm the master of low expectations.»
Aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003


«I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things.»
Aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003


«I recently met with the finance minister of the Palestinian Authority, was very impressed by his grasp of finances.»
Washington, D.C., May 29, 2003


«And, most importantly, Alma Powell, secretary of Colin Powell, is with us.»
Washington, D.C., Jan. 30, 2003


«I think the American people—I hope the American–I don't think, let me—I hope the American people trust me.»
Washington, D.C., Dec. 18, 2002


«I know something about being a government. And you've got a good one.»
Stumping for Gov. Mike Huckabee, Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 4, 2002


«I'm plowed of the leadership of Chuck Grassley and Greg Ganske and Jim Leach.»
Davenport, Iowa, Sept. 16, 2002


«They misunderestimated me»


«Truth Teller»

Corporate Giants Get Millions in Federal Small-Business Loans

Corporate Giants Get Millions in Federal Small-Business Loans
Why Are Microsoft, AT&T and Northrop Grumman Getting Government Money?
July 26, 2006





Some of the biggest and richest companies in the world, including Microsoft, AT&T Corp. and Rolls Royce, have qualified for what could add up to as much as $12 billion worth of small-business contracts from the federal government.

Democratic congressional investigators are asking why in a report they're releasing today.

The legislators allege a myriad corporate giants were wrongly awarded millions.

"They didn't have any right to accept any contract that was supposed to go to a small business, and that is the reality here," said Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y.

Microsoft won eight small-business contracts from the federal government, worth $1.5 million; Rolls Royce won $2.2 million in contracts; AT&T, $5 million.

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman was granted a whopping $90 million in small-business contracts from Uncle Sam.

In a statement, Northrop Grumman -- the only corporation to respond so far to the report -- said, "We do not seek any dollars intended for small businesses."

Meanwhile, Republicans on the small-business committee call the investigation a "purely political exercise."

They contend that small businesses often outgrow their small-business status after receiving federal money.

That doesn't fly with Susan Hughes, who runs a company out of her Virginia home. She applied for a federal contract, which she says went to a larger business.

"I would tell a small business that wants to stay in business to stay away from the federal government and its programs," Hughes said.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures




External links are provided for reference purposes. ABC News is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Copyright © 2006 ABCNews Internet Ventures

Food Companies Use Web Games to Lure Kids

Food Companies Use Web Games to Lure Kids
Online Video Games Attract Children to Company Web Sites
By LISA STARK




July 26, 2006 — - Mira and Aaron Dalal enjoy playing games online. But the places they're finding games may surprise you -- on food company Web sites.

The games range from the Great Cocoa Chase to McNugget Moonbounce to the Hershey's Syrup Shoot. As the children play the games, right in front, big and bold, is the product the company is trying to sell.

It's not just games and contests, though. Kids who vist the Web sites are encouraged to watch product cartoons -- or e-mail friends and invite them to visit the sites, too.

Authors of a new study said this could be a more powerful marketing tool than television.

"It can involve the child for longer, it's fun for the kids, the child is interacting with the brand on a one-on-one basis for a longer period of time," said Vicki Rideout at the Kaiser Family Foundation

On television there are regulations on marketing to kids -- a limit on the amount of ad time on a children's show, for example. But online, it's wide open..

"The Wild West of food advertising to children," Rideout said. "There are pretty much no rules out there."

Kraft, whose Postopia site has attracted more than a million kids since April, said the industry can regulate itself.

"We think it is possible to be a responsible marketer and to provide some fun online for kids," Kraft Foods vice president Nancy Daigler said.

But some parents say that's not good enough.

"Who needs one more place, one more front that you have to compete with to tell your kid, 'No, that's, you know, I really didn't want you to have Lucky Charms for breakfast today,'" said Susan Wertheim, Mira and Aaron's mother.

It's only likely to get worse as the number of company Web sites offering games increase and more kids discover them.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures






External links are provided for reference purposes. ABC News is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Copyright © 2006 ABCNews Internet Ventures

List of Religious Holidays Permitting Pupil Absence From School

List of Religious Holidays Permitting Pupil Absence From School





WHEREAS, the district board of education has the right to add any bona fide religious holiday to the list for its own schools; now therefore be it,

RESOLVED that the State Board of Education adopts the following list of religious holidays for the 2006-2007 school year:

September 1
Day of Ascension (Isra and Miraj) (Islamic)First Consecration of the Guru Granth Sahib ji, the Sikh Scripture

September 7
His Holiness Sakya Trizin’s birth date (Buddhist)

September 7
Ganesha Chaturthi (Hindu)

September 14
The Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Eastern, Greek, Russian Orthodox)

September 19
The Night of Power 9 (Laylatul Qadr) (Islamic)

September 23
Feast of Trumpets (World Wide Church of God, United Church of God and Global Church of God)

September 23 - 24
Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year)

September 24
Ramadan begins

September 24
Eid-ul-Fitr (Islamic)

September 30 Dussera (Hindu)
October 2
Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) (Jewish)

October 2
Day of Atonement (World Wide Church of God, United Church of God and Global Church of God)

October 7 – 8
Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) (Jewish)

October 7 -13
First Day through Seventh Day Feast of Tabernacles (World Wide Church of God, United Church of God and Global Church of God)

October 14
Last Great Day (World Wide Church of God, United Church of God and Global Church of God)

October 14
Shemini Atzeret (Eighth Day of Sukkot) (Jewish)

October 15
Simchat Torah (Rejoicing of the Law) (Jewish)

October 20
Birth of the Bab (Baha’i)

October 20
Joint-Sovereignty of Guru Granth and Guru Panth declared to Guide the Sikh people

October 20
Guruship of Guru Granth Sahib ji declared by 10th Guru (Sikh)

October 20 - 23
Deepavali (Hindu)

October 31
Reformation Day (Protestant, Lutheran)

November 1
All Saints Day (Roman Catholic, Protestant & Lutheran)

November 2
All Souls Day (Roman Catholic)

November 12
Birth of the Baha’u’llah (Baha’i)

November 15
Guru Nanak Dev ji’s birth date (Sikh)

November 24
Guru Tegh Bahadur dev ji’s Martyrdom (Sikh)

December 8
Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Roman Catholic)

December 8
Bodhi Day (Buddhist)

December 15
First Day of Hanukkah (Jewish)

December 25
Christmas (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Eastern, Greek and Russian Orthodox)

December 26
Kwanzaa

December 31
Eid-ul-Adha (Day of Sacrifice) (Islamic)

January 1
New Year’s Day

January 5
Guru Gobind Singh ji’s birth date (Sikh)

January 6
Feast of the Epiphany (Roman Catholic, Eastern, Greek and Russian Orthodox)

January 6
Christmas (Armenian)

January 14
Makara Sankranti (Hindu)

January 21
Muharram (New Year) (Islamic)

January 29
Day of Ashurah (10th Day) (Islamic)

February 16
Maha Shivaratri (Hindu)

February 18
New Year (Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese)

February 19
Bright Monday (Eastern, Greek and Russian Orthodox)

February 20
Shrove Tuesday

February 21
Ash Wednesday (Roman Catholic, Protestant)

February 25
Lent (Eastern Orthodox)

March 4
Holi (Hindu)

March 4
Purim (Jewish)

March 14
Sikh New Year/Holla Mohalla

March 19
Chandramana Yugadi

March 21
Feast of Naw-Ruz (Baha’i and Iranian New Year, also Persian New Year and Heritage Day)

March 27
Rama Navami (Hindu)

March 30
Chandramana Yugardi (Hindu)

April 2
Passover (World Wide Church of God, United Church of God and Global Church of God)

[April 12] April 2
Lord’s Evening Meal

April 3
First Day of Feast of Unleavened Bread or Passover (World Wide Church of God, United Church of God and Global Church of God)

April 3 - 4
First Two Days of Pesach (Passover) (Jewish)

April 5
Holy Thursday (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Lutheran, Eastern, Greek and Russian Orthodox)

April 6
Good Friday (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Lutheran, Eastern, Greek and Russian Orthodox))

April 9
Rama Navami (Hindu)

April 9 - 10
Last Two Days of Pesach (Passover) (Jewish)

April 11 or 12
Birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (Islamic)

April 14
Souramana Yugadi (Hindu)

April 14
Khalsa formation day and Vaisakhi

April 21
First Day of Ridvan (Baha’i)

April 24
Memorial Day (Armenian)

April 25
The 11th Panchen Lama’s birthday (Buddhist)

May 2 The 12th Day of Ridvan (Baha’i)
May 2
Buddha’s birthday (Buddhist)

May 23
Declaration of the Bab (Baha’i)

May 23 – 24
Shavuot (Feast of Weeks) 2 days (Jewish)

May 25
Ascension Day (Eastern Orthodox, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Roman Catholic & Protestant)

May 27
Day of Pentecost (World Wide Church of God, United Church of God and Global Church of God)

May 29
Ascension of Baha’u’llah (Baha’i)

June 16
Guru Arjun Dev ji’s Martyrdom (Sikh)

June 26
His Holiness the 17th Gyalawa Karmapa’s (Ugyen Trinley Dorje) birth date (Buddhist)


____________________________________ ________________________
Lucille E. Davy, Acting Commissioner
Acting Secretary, NJ State Board of Education Arnold G. Hyndman, Ph.D., President
NJ State Board of Education