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• In the News

• FBI Uses Aircraft to Track Terror Suspects

• Mark Pryor Rides Fence on Abortion Issue

• US Places Aircraft Carrier in Korean Waters

• Marines Use Pigeons to Detect Chemical Attack

• “The Falcon” Released From Prison

• Investigation of Pulaski County Sheriff’s Deputies Falsifying Records

• Prominent Attorney May Face Contempt Charges

• Legislature Makes Grab for Mail Order and Internet Sales Taxes

• Tyson Foods Cleared of Alien Smuggling Charges

• Alliance to Focus On Little Rock Race Relations

• House wants Social Security digits off driver’s licenses

• Slick’s Pastor Preaches “Character”

• LA Times Hypocrisy on Sexual Predation in Military

• Letters, including my “What the protests mean”

• Senate majority leader Bill Frist became the first member of Congress to receive a smallpox shot.
• Tom Ridge, the Homeland Security secretary, warned that suicide bombings in the U.S. “are inevitable in the United States.”
• David Filipov of the Boston Globe was expelled from Iraq for reporting that the Iraqi drone was “held together by duct tape.”
• U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, RFla, asked Pentagon to “please explain why media products will not be subject to security review or censorship.”
• Warren Langley, former president of the Pacific Stock Exchange in San Francisco, participated in a demonstration intended to shut down the exchange.
• U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, DVa., resigned as whip of the mid-Atlantic region due to the furor over his remark that Jews were the reason for the Iraq operation.

• An excellent example of leadership by example.

• This is frightending.

• Representative Stearns is obviously unfamiliar with the television history of the Vietnam war.

• An another example of “business leadership.”

•  See Hsu, Spencer S. “Moran Said Jews Are Pushing War: Apology Denies Anti-Semitism.” The Washington Post. March 11, 2003.

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ArkDemocrat

WASHINGTON — The FBI has a fleet of aircraft, some equipped with night surveillance and eavesdropping equipment, flying America’s skies to track and collect intelligence from suspected terrorists.

The FBI will not provide exact figures on the planes and helicopters, but more than 80 are in the skies. There are several planes, known as Nightstalkers, equipped with infrared devices that allow agents to track people and vehicles in the dark.

WASHINGTON — Sounding like he did in last year’s campaign, Arkansas’ Sen. Mark Pryor still refuses to wear either the "pro-choice" or the "pro-life" label when it comes to abortion.

But after his first round of abortion-related votes in the Senate this week, it was the pro-life, or anti-abortion, forces who found themselves mildly encouraged by his voting record. Supporters of abortion rights, on the other hand, called themselves brokenhearted.

"I’m not in either of those camps," Pryor said after he voted to support a ban on partial birth abortion, a controversial procedure in which part of the fetus is extracted from a woman’s body before it is killed. Fellow Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln also voted for the ban.

SEOUL, South Korea — The USS Carl Vinson cruised outside a South Korean port today, preparing to join a major joint military exercise despite objections by North Korea.

The carrier was deployed off Busan on South Korea’s southeast coast as Washington sought to show its military commitment to the Korean Peninsula, embroiled in a crisis over the communist North’s reluctance to give up its nuclear ambitions.

The Japanese government, meanwhile, said it was considering strengthening its missile defenses amid reports that North Korea is preparing to test a medium-range missile capable of reaching Japan.

"The government is investigating and considering both legal and budgetary issues regarding missile defense," Defense Agency spokesman Ichiro Imaizumi said in Tokyo. He declined to be more specific.

The announcement came a day after Japan’s Defense Agency said it had deployed an Aegisequipped destroyer — which includes top-of-the-line surveillance systems and ship-to-air missiles — in the waters between Japan and North Korea.

The North Korean provocations are having the predictable result of focusing the attention of the Japanese on military matters.

LIVING SUPPORT AREA 7, Kuwait — Nearly a month ago, the Marines of the 7th Regiment were given 43 chickens to raise and nurture, chickens that were to repay them by helping detect a possible Iraqi chemical or biological attack.

Within a week and a half, 42 were dead, although no one suspects foul play.

On Friday, the Marines got a new avian force — a company of pigeons.

The birds are meant to be the military equivalent of a canary in a coal mine. During a possible invasion of Iraq, they are to ride with a caretaker in armored vehicles. If they start to get sick, it could indicate a chemical attack and give the Marines a chance to put on their gas masks.

The United States says Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has several chemical and biological weapons at his disposal for use against U.S. troops. President Bush has threatened to invade Iraq to force it to give up those weapons.

U.S. troops have prepared for the worst.

SAN FRANCISCO — Christopher Boyce, whose Cold War spying was immortalized on film in The Falcon and the Snowman, was released Friday after about a quarter-century in prison.

Boyce was released from a halfway house about 4 a.m., according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. He will be on parole until 2046, his original release date.

Boyce was 22 when his father, a former FBI agent, helped him land a summer job as a clerk at TRW Inc. in Redondo Beach, where he had access to classified communications with CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

He smuggled some of the documents home and sold them to the Russian Embassy in Mexico City, taking in about $77,000 before he and childhood friend Andrew Daulton Lee, his courier, were caught.

Boyce was tried and convicted of espionage in 1977. Lee, who was tried separately, was also convicted of espionage and paroled in 1998.

"Sometimes I think when you’re young, you crave danger or are willing to put yourself in dangerous positions," Boyce told the Los Angeles Times earlier this month. "But I had never gotten into any trouble in my life that I couldn’t get out of. My father was in a position that could keep me out of a whole lot of trouble."

Boyce was “The Falcon.”

 IMDB entry for The Falcon and the Snowman.

Amazon.com entry for Robert Lindsey’s The Falcon and the Snowman.

Lee was “The Snowman.”

Apparently Boyce’s FBI daddy’s enabling behavior led him to become a traitor.

The Pulaski County sheriff ’s office is investigating whether some of its deputies falsified records for paid hours they never worked at security jobs at outside companies, a sheriff ’s office spokesman says.

"We are looking at some potential problems with off-duty jobs, but that could change pending the investigation," sheriff ’s spokesman John Rehrauer said.

The internal investigation, which began more than two months ago, may involve as many as 28 sheriff’s deputies, said a county employee who wished to remain anonymous. The employee said one deputy has been suspended for 15 days without pay.

Rehrauer would not confirm the suspension or the number of deputies being investigated, other than to say the number is "more than a handful."

Chief Deputy Skipper Polk said he has contacted Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley, who will determine whether charges should be filed once the investigation is complete.

Prominent Little Rock defense attorney Sam Perroni literally was scheduled to be in two places at once one day last month.

One of his clients had a jury trial beginning in Pulaski County Circuit Court. The other was to face a jury in federal court.

On Friday, Perroni ended up in the defendant’s chair in Circuit Judge Tim Fox’s courtroom to explain why he shouldn’t be held in criminal contempt of court for choosing to appear Feb. 11 in federal court instead of state court.

If held in contempt, Perroni could face a fine, up to six months in jail or both.

The big question is whether the contempt investigation is due to Perroni’s misconduct or because he has offended a powerful interest.

A legislative committee endorsed a bill Friday to allow the state to participate with other states to collect more sales and use taxes on purchases made on the Internet and through mail-order catalogs.

Under Senate Bill 483 by Sen. Jim Hill, D-Nashville, a tax agreement would become effective if at least 10 states possessing at least 20 percent of the population in states imposing a sales tax agree to participate and are in compliance with the agreement.

More legislative greed for tax revenues.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — U.S. District Judge R. Allan Edgar on Friday dismissed 15 charges of smuggling and transporting illegal aliens against Tyson Foods Inc., and three of its managers but refused to dismiss key conspiracy counts.

"I just think, on this proof, no reasonable jury could find that the defendants caused these people to be brought into this country illegally or caused them to be transported illegally," Judge Edgar said.

The judge said he would rule later on motions to dismiss the remaining 12 counts in the case, including charges that Tyson officials conspired to violate immigration laws and conspired to obstruct justice.

Was this a reasonable judgment or protecting a powerful business?

Pledging to improve race relations in Arkansas’ capital city, Little Rock leaders unveiled a new alliance among religious leaders Friday.

A standing committee introduced by the city’s Racial and Cultural Diversity Commission will begin working in the coming months on a series of programs and meetings throughout the city, commission representatives said Friday.

The alliance was announced at a breakfast discussion by members of Little Rock’s faith based community hosted by the Cultural Diversity Commission at St. Mark Baptist Church.

Unreported is whether Little Rock’s Racial and Cultural Diversity Commission and the “religious groups” that support it are imposing politically correct race relations.

One wonders if “cultural diversity” includes “antisocial behavior as a authentic expression of black culture.”

It’s about time, since the Social Security numbers could be used for identity theft. My recollection is that the Department of Finance and Administration started using Social Security numbers as driver’s license numbers without the Legislature’s authorization.

Outrageous hypocrisy from the Clintonite Baptist branch of the Religious Left. After Slick lost the gubernatorial election of 1980 he and Hill started attending church. Slick chose Rex Horne’s Immanuel Baptist Church, presumably because it was one of Little Rock’s largest and had its main Sunday morning service on television.

Those who remember Slick’s presidential campaign know that Slick’s advocates were saying “character doesn’t count.”

The Arkansas Coalition for Peace and Justice and the Women’s Action for New Directions will lead a peace march today to protest a U.S. war against Iraq.

Real progress, of course, would be eliminating sexual predation from the military. …

Blatant California Leftist hypocrisy. California voted twice for a commander-in-chief who was a sexual predator.

• “What the protests mean.” William Woodford, Little Rock
• “Teen sex can be deadly.” Venantius Preske, Horseshoe Bend.

• “Backing Wesley Clark.” Walt Meyer, Little Rock.

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