KABUL, March 26 (Reuters) - A would-be suicide bomber accidentally blew himself up on Thursday, killing six other militants as he was bidding them farewell to leave for his intended target, the Interior Ministry said.

"The terrorist was on his way to his destination and saying good-bye to his associates and then his suicide vest exploded," a statement from the ministry said.

A misguided victim of capitalist imperialism prematurely detonated his only viable weapon against tyranny on Thursday, mistakenly extinguishing the future hopes of freedom of six other misunderstood indigenous personnel that were singing "Kumbaya" to celebrate his departure...

I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.

"Recently, in a LtGen [John] Bergman, USMC, statement for the 25 March
[congressional] hearing, OMB required that the following change be made before going to the Hill," Dave Riedel, of the Office of Security Review, wrote in an e-mail. "OMB says: 'This Administration prefers to avoid using the term "Long War" or "Global War on Terror" [GWOT]. Please use "Overseas Contingency Operation.'"

On March 5, 2009 Congressman John Murtha was awarded the Department of the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award by the Secretary of the Navy, Donald C. Winter. From the press release: It is the highest form of public service recognition bestowed by the Department of the Navy for a non-employee. According to the Department, nominations for this award will be limited to those extraordinary cases where individuals have demonstrated exceptionally outstanding service of substantial and long term benefit to the Navy, Marine Corps, or as Department of the Navy as a whole.

John Murtha deserves no such award. He has routinely and deliberately undermined the United States military, slandered servicemen serving in combat, and caused irreparable damage to our international reputation. While serving as a Representative from Pennsylvania, Murtha called Marines from 3d Battalion, 1st Marines "cold blooded killers" who "murdered innocent civilians." Before an investigation into the Haditha incident was even conducted, Murtha went on numerous television news programs and announced that the Marines "went into houses and killed women and children." He said, "There's no question in my mind about what happened here. There was no gunfire, they killed four people in a taxi...24 people were killed." When asked specifically if he claimed that innocent civilians were intentionally executed by Marines, he said, "That's exactly what happened." Not content to slander those Marines directly involved, he went on to claim that if these Marines were not punished, "other Marines would say well I'll do the same thing." Murtha then continued to use this incident to lobby for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, citing it as evidence that our military was incapable of winning the war.

Eight Marines were originally charged. As of March 17th, 2009 all charges were dropped against six Marines, one was found not guilty on all counts in courts martial. The prosecution has delayed the court martial of the final defendant indefinitely. The original allegations of a massacre and the statements of Congressman Murtha have been thoroughly discredited. Despite the facts, John Murtha refuses to apologize to those he slandered.

The Obama administration on Wednesday abandoned a controversial plan to make veterans use private insurance to pay for costly treatments of combat-related injuries.

Stung by the angry reaction to the proposal, the administration made the decision after a meeting between officials from 11 veterans advocacy groups and top White House officials.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the intent of the plan had been to "maximize the resources available for veterans."

He said, however, that President Barack Obama, who met with the veterans groups on Monday in their first trip to the White House, recognized their concern that it could "under certain circumstances, affect veterans and their families' ability to access health care."

The fact this never should have been a consideration in the first place, it was only pulled because they knew they'd be hammered over it and the idiotic explanation all notwithstanding: score one for the good guys.

The head of an anti-sealing group says it’s “extremely alarming” that Halifax regional police have decided not to press charges again a Metro Transit driver who stopped his bus, ran into their protest and attacked a mock seal with an extendable baton.

I'm sure they're alarmed...I'm sure they're equally alarmed when animal rights protesters display worse sorts of behavior and get arrested. The problem here is these retarded hippies have had their way unopposed for too long...when somebody stages a counter-protest by, say, smacking their baby seal puppet around a little, they get shocked. "Wait, he can't do that...only we can do that sort of thing!"

The weird attack happened around 12:40 p.m. Saturday in front of the main entrance to the Halifax Public Gardens. The driver, who was in uniform, stopped his bus near the corner of Spring Garden Road and South Park Street and ran toward the group of about 25 protestors brandishing a baton, said Bridget Curran, director of the Atlantic Canadian Anti-Sealing Coalition.

“It was a black retractable baton, which is a weapon, I saw it quite clearly,” Ms. Curran said Monday.

After the odd incident, “he ran back across the street, got back on his bus and drove away,” Ms. Curran said. “We were all quite shocked. Because we were there to demonstrate against violence against animals and, in this particular case, the seal hunt, violence against seals. But he obviously thought that it was quite funny to simulate an act of violence against a seal.”

The bus number was 1036 driving east on the 1 Spring Garden Road route. The middle aged driver was “medium build and medium height, and he had a bit of a belly on him,” Ms. Curran said.

Here is a summary of the benefits available to many landowners who donate conservation easements:

- They can deduct up to 50 percent of their adjusted gross income in
any year (up from 30 percent);

- They can deduct up to 100 percent of their adjusted gross income if
the majority of that income came from farming, ranching or forestry; and

- They can continue to carry over unused portions of deductions for as
long as 15 years (up from 5 years) after the initial year in which the deduction
was claimed.

Income Taxes: As with other charitable contributions, the donation of a conservation easement under certain circumstances may allow the landowner to claim a federal income tax deduction for the value of the easement.

Estate taxes: A gift of a conservation easement may also reduce federal estate taxes, making this an effective way to transfer land to the next generation with its natural features intact.

Property Taxes: An easement that reduces the value of the land may result in lowered annual property taxes.

After the end of military rule in 1999, 12 of Nigeria's 36 states chose to adopt Sharia. Radical clerics arrived from the Middle East to spread their draconian interpretation of Islam. Religious militias such as the Hisbah of Kano state patrolled the streets, attacking those who shirked prayers, disobeyed religious dress codes or drank alcohol. Several women accused of adultery were sentenced to death by stoning. In 2002 The Weekly Standard decried "the Talibanization of West Africa" and worried that Nigeria, a "giant of sub-Saharan Africa," could become "a haven for Islamism, linked to foreign extremists."

But when The New York Times sent a reporter to Kano state in late 2007, she found an entirely different picture from the one that had been fretted over by State Department policy analysts. "The Islamic revolution that seemed so destined to transform northern Nigeria in recent years appears to have come and gone," the reporter, Lydia Polgreen, concluded. The Hisbah had become "little more than glorified crossing guards" and were "largely confined to their barracks and assigned anodyne tasks like directing traffic and helping fans to their seats at soccer games." The widely publicized sentences of mutilation and stoning rarely came to pass (although floggings were common). Other news reports have confirmed this basic
picture.

Residents hadn't become less religious; mosques still overflowed with the devout during prayer time, and virtually all Muslim women went veiled. But the government had helped push Sharia in a tamer direction by outlawing religious militias; the regular police had no interest in enforcing the law's strictest tenets. In addition, over time some of the loudest proponents of Sharia had been exposed as hypocrites. Some were under investigation for embezzling millions.

China is aggressively accelerating the pace of its manned space program by developing a 17,000 lb. man-tended military space laboratory planned for launch by late 2010. The mission will coincide with a halt in U.S. manned flight with phase-out of the shuttle.

The project is being led by the General Armaments Department of the People's Liberation Army, and gives the Chinese two separate station development programs.

Shenzhou 8, the first mission to the outpost in early 2011 will be flown unmanned to test robotic docking systems. Subsequent missions will be manned to utilize the new pressurized module capabilities of the Tiangong outpost.

Importantly, China is openly acknowledging that the new Tiangong outpost will involve military space operations and technology development.

Also the fact it has been given a No. 1 numerical designation indicates that China may build more than one such military space laboratory in the coming years.

"The People's Liberation Army's General Armament Department aims to finish systems for the Tiangong-1 mission this year," says an official Chinese government statement on the new project. Work on a ground prototype is nearly finished.