Queen Elizabeth flashed a bit of royal wit at...
Queen Elizabeth flashes wit at dinner with Bush

1 hour, 57 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Britain's Queen Elizabeth flashed a bit of royal wit at
President George W. Bush on Tuesday, getting back at him for a faux pas a day earlier that nearly placed her in the 18th century.

With a playful grin, the queen opened a dinner toast to the president saying: "I wondered whether I should start this toast by saying, 'When I was here in 1776..."'

The 104 guests invited to the black-tie gathering at the home of British ambassador David Manning erupted in laughter. Bush laughed along and the queen smiled broadly before continuing with her text.

"Your Majesty, I can't top that one," Bush reciprocated, at the beginning of his toast.

The president, no stranger to the occasional verbal gaffe, just barely stopped himself on Monday before dating the queen to 1776.

"You've helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 -- in 1976," Bush said at a White House ceremony as he noted the queen's long history of dealing with successive U.S. governments.

Tuesday's dinner was the last formal event on the final day of a six-day State visit for the queen and Prince Phillip, that included ceremonies marking the 400th anniversary of the British settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, the Kentucky Derby.

For the event, the queen wore a gold lace cocktail dress and a Brazilian aquamarine and diamond necklace with matching earrings. She said she enjoyed the chance to dwell on the history and friendship between the United States and Britain and thanked Americans for a warm welcome.

"I would also like to take this opportunity, on the day that has seen the formal transfer of power to the devolved Northern Ireland government, to thank you and your predecessors for your contribution to bringing peace in Northern Ireland," she said, noting the U.S. role in bringing about the historic peace agreement.

Iran stalls, why?
Iran asks for time on nuclear compromise

By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer Mon May 7, 10:40 AM ET

VIENNA, Austria - A 130-nation nuclear meeting stalled for its sixth straight day Monday after
Iran refused to commit itself to a compromise meant to break a deadlock caused by Tehran's opposition to language of the gathering's agenda.

Diplomats at the conference — meant to work on strengthening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — told The Associated Press that the decision by the chairman of the meeting to skirt the issue at least until Tuesday came after Iran asked for an extra day of consultations with its capital.

But the diplomats, who demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss confidential issues, suggested that Iran's request was nothing more than a delaying tactic, noting it had already had three days since the meeting was adjourned on Friday to come up with a decision.

"The Iranians seem chiefly interested in seeing this meeting fail," said one of the delegates, suggesting Tehran's main focus was preventing any debate on its defiance of a
U.N. Security Council demand that it stop all aspects of its uranium enrichment program.

Another delegate, from a nonaligned country — a group that normally backs Iran on nuclear issues — said that even among nonaligned nations "the mood was bad" because of Tehran's unyielding stance.

In acknowledging that "more time is needed to address this issue again," the chairman, Yukiya Amano of Japan, expressed "full understanding of the frustration of the delegations" with the lack of even minimum progress on substantive issues because of bickering over the agenda.

He designated a scheduled afternoon session to deal with agreeing on a time and place for the next NPT preparatory conference — a move delegates said was meant to avoid further bickering over the agenda and give Tehran the extra time it had requested.

The meeting, originally planned to end May 11, adjourned on Friday to give the Iranian delegation time to decide on whether to accept a South African compromise proposal. That suggestion would have the conference decide whether to accept an appended statement specifying that "all provisions" of the treaty must be fully observed — including the need for the United States and other nuclear weapons states to disarm.

With meetings like this one usually making decisions by consensus, Iran's opposition would be enough to doom the South African proposal. That, in turn, could lead to a decision to end the conference.

Or it could force a highly irregular vote, further hardening the fronts and possibly dooming future yearly nonproliferation meetings leading up to the 2010 treaty Review Conference because of insistence by many delegations that consensus decisions are key.

Iran argues it is entitled to enrich under the treaty provision giving all pact members the right to develop peaceful programs. But suspicions sparked by nearly two decades of clandestine nuclear activities, including questionable black market acquisitions of equipment and blueprints that appear linked to weapons plans, have led the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions because of Tehran's refusal to mothball its enrichment program — which can generate both energy and produce the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

Diplomats last week told the AP that Tehran had recently set up more centrifuges at its underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, bringing the number of machines ready to spin uranium gas into enriched form to more than 1,600.

An
International Atomic Energy Agency document obtained last month said the Islamic regime was running more than 1,300 centrifuge machines to enrich uranium at Natanz.

Its ultimate goal is to have 50,000 centrifuges. That would be enough to supply fuel for what Tehran says is a planned network of atomic reactors to generate electricity. Or it could produce material for a full-scale nuclear weapons program.

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty calls on nations to pledge not to pursue nuclear weapons in exchange for a commitment by five nuclear powers — the U.S., Russia, Britain, France and China — to move toward nuclear disarmament. India and Pakistan, known nuclear weapons states, remain outside the treaty, as does
Israel, which is considered to have such arms but has not acknowledged it.

The allies provided distraction while Russia defeated Hitler, don't forget it!
Russia warns against rewriting history

By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer Mon May 7, 4:42 PM ET

MOSCOW - Russia accused the
European Union and
NATO on Monday of conniving with nations that disrespect the memory of Soviet soldiers and seek to rewrite history, the latest angry words in a dispute deepened by Estonia's relocation of a World War II monument.

Estonian authorities last month removed a monument to Soviet soldiers who died in the war from a central square in the Baltic nation's capital, prompting riots by members of the Russian-speaking minority and heated criticism from Russian officials and politicians.

Russians regard the monument as a tribute to the millions of Soviet soldiers who died fighting the Nazis — and, in Russia's view, liberating nations such as Estonia. Many Estonians regard it as a symbol of Soviet repression and a half-century of occupation.

The heightened tension comes as Russia prepares to celebrate Wednesday's anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany. The costly triumph is one of the proudest moments in Russian history, and Russian officials have repeatedly stressed that their view of the past is indisputable.

"Attempts to make a mockery of history are becoming an element and an instrument of the foreign policy of certain countries," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in televised comments at a ceremony honoring Russian diplomats who died during the war. "Unfortunately certain organizations such as NATO and the EU connive with these attempts."

"The memory of the victors does not fade, this memory is sacred to us, and attempts to relate to this memory blasphemously, to commit outrages against it, to rewrite history, cannot fail to anger us," Lavrov said, according to a Foreign Ministry transcript.

NATO and the EU sharply criticized the sometimes raucous protests by pro-Kremlin youth groups whose members picketed the Estonian Embassy in Moscow for a week, disrupting its operations. Along with the United States, they urged Russia to ensure security for the embassy and diplomats.

The dispute has tested relations between Russia and the West, already strained by disagreement on an array of issues ranging from human rights and democracy to arms control. The West is wary of President
Vladimir Putin's increasingly assertive Kremlin, while Putin has accused Western forces of seeking to weaken Russia.

Putin stressed Russia's losses in the war but said that on Victory Day, Russia honors the memory of victims of fascism worldwide.

"Unfortunately, not everybody in the world understands that Russia lost more people in this war than the whole rest of the world," the RIA-Novosti news agency quoted him as saying. "That's the way it is, but we pay tribute to the memory of all victims of Nazism. This includes antifascists in Germany itself. It includes our allies in the second world war."

The newspaper Kommersant, meanwhile, reported Monday that Putin is to sign a decree this month creating a system of seven representative offices abroad — mostly in central Europe, including in Poland, Hungary and the Baltics — that would be responsible for the inventory and preservation of war graves.

Poland, meanwhile, said it was preparing a law that would give local authorities a free hand to remove monuments that show "praise for the Communist dictatorship," but allow for preservation of those that honor Soviet soldiers.

Polish Culture Minister Kazimierz Michal Ujazdowski said the legislation was not inspired by the dispute in Estonia and was conceived months before it began.

"The point of the law is to give the right to local governors to remove those objects that in a drastic manner commemorate the Communist dictatorship," Ujazdowski said on TVN24 television.

He said the law would not target monuments honoring the bravery of Red Army soldiers. "Under no circumstance can we be accused of a lack of respect for the ordinary soldiers," he said.

Poland broke away from Soviet domination in 1989. During the four decades of Communist rule after Soviet troops overran Poland at the end of World War II, thousands of monuments were put up and streets were named to honor Red Army soldiers who liberated Poland from the Nazis — but many were built to honor communist authorities.

___

Associated Press Writer Monika Scislowska contributed to this story from Warsaw, Poland.

Herod's Tomb Found!

AP
Archaeologist finds tomb of King Herod

By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer 29 minutes ago

JERUSALEM - An Israeli archaeologist has found the tomb of King Herod, the legendary builder of ancient Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Hebrew University said late Monday.

The tomb is at a site called Herodium, a flattened hilltop in the Judean Desert, clearly visible from southern Jerusalem. Herod built a palace on the hill, and researchers discovered his burial site there, the university said.

The university had hoped to keep the find a secret until Tuesday, when it planned a news conference to disclose the find in detail, but the Haaretz newspaper found out about the discovery and published an article on its Web site.

Herod became the ruler of the Holy Land under the Romans around 40 B.C. The wall he built around the Old City of Jerusalem still stands, and he also ordered big construction projects in Caesaria, Jericho, the hilltop fortress of Massada and other sites.

It has long been assumed Herod was buried at Herodium, but decades of excavations had failed to turn up the site. The 1st century historian Josephus Flavius described the tomb and Herod's funeral procession.

Haaretz said the tomb was found by archaeologist Ehud Netzer, a Hebrew University professor who has been working at Herodium since 1972. The paper said the tomb was in a previously unexplored area between the two palaces Herod built on the site. Herod died in 4 B.C. in Jericho.

Herodium was one of the last strong points held by Jewish rebels fighting against the Romans, and it was conquered and destroyed by Roman troops in A.D. 71, a year after they destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

Pentagon puts reputations above lives, as usual! Clueless EMs side with their useres!
[UPDATED] US Army: American news media are a threat to the nation
by smintheus
Fri May 04, 2007 at 12:59:50 PM PDT

The Army now classifies the media as a threat in parallel to al-Qaeda and drug cartels. I kid you not.

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Update: Meanwhile, in a document dump on Friday evening, the Pentagon released a disturbing Mental Health Assessment of troops serving in Iraq. This report is particularly embarrassing to the military because the investigators also surveyed the troops about their attitudes and practices in areas of their lives that had little to do with mental health. In an update toward the end of the diary, I'll summarize some of the findings from this Assessment that the military might like to paper over.

* smintheus's diary :: ::
*

The above slide occurs at page 5 of a new Operational Security Training Program briefing from the U.S. Army 1st Information Operations Command (h/t Noah Shachtman at Wired). The briefing, entitled "OPSEC in the Blogosphere," exists to warn military personnel against posting sensitive information on the internet. (Ironically, this OPSEC briefing marked "for official use only" was posted on-line by the Army.)

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Some background: The briefing is part of a major effort by the Pentagon to clamp down on the release of information through unofficial channels. Last month saw the publication of aggressive new OPSEC regulations. This directive, perhaps justifiably, reflects concern about the nature of some information being posted at military blogs.

However the scope of the new regulations has drawn complaints that the Pentagon is over-reaching, specifically that it wants to silence voices who challenge the official versions of events in Iraq

As I read this OPSEC directive, the Army is moving beyond its own realm of responsibility and going into, as put, "big brother mode", to control any information it doesn't want published, or republished.

Indeed, the military proposes to scrub public websites of information it deems inappropriate. At page 20 of the new OPSEC directive (section 2-21) we read:

The Commander of Army Web Risk Assessment Cell (AWRAC) ...will...

c. Conduct routine checks of web sites on the World Wide Web for disclosure of critical and/or sensitive information that is deemed a potential OPSEC compromise...

d. Recommend actions to remove inappropriate security and personal information from publicly accessible web sites on the World Wide Web.

Even more significantly, however, the new OPSEC regulations also criminalize the very act of investigating any information considered "sensitive", as Steve Aftergood remarks.

The regulation also encourages Army personnel to view attempts by unauthorized persons to gather restricted information as an act of subversion against the United States.

"All Department of the Army personnel and DoD contractors will... consider handling attempts by unauthorized personnel to solicit critical information or sensitive information as a Subversion and Espionage Directed Against the U.S. Army (SAEDA) incident," the regulation states (at section 2-1).

"Sensitive" information is defined here (at section 1-5(c)(3)(e)) to include not just vital details of military operations and technologies but also documents marked "For Official Use Only" (FOUO) that may be exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

It follows that inquisitive members of the press or the public who actively pursue such FOUO records may be deemed enemies of the United States.

Paul McLeary comments at the Columbia Journalism Review blog:

Under these guidelines, reporters digging for information about military projects, funding requests, new acquisition strategies, or other military-related stories could be blown in by an antsy DoD worker or soldier who doesn't like the tone of questioning. That's a pretty dangerous road to begin to travel for any country, and for the U.S. it's simply unacceptable. We have no problem with the Army, or the Pentagon, keeping various things secret. In fact, we expect them to. But a reporter's job is to dig for truth, and when the military begins throwing up roadblocks like these, everyone loses.

As a creepy little addendum to this whole sorry affair, we'll quote what Major Ray Ceralde, the author of the new rules, told [Noah] Shachtman in an interview yesterday: "A person doesn't have to be in the military or government to support OPSEC...As a Nation, we are in this fight together, and all Americans are encouraged to practice OPSEC."

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And thus back to the OPSEC briefing slide presentation, which takes what is merely implicit in the new OPSEC regulations and makes it explicit: The news media in the U.S. is a "non traditional" threat. Paul McLeary again:

Just to put that into some perspective, the foreign "non-traditional threats" are listed as warlords, and Al Qaeda. In other words, the Army has figuratively and literally put the media in the same box as Al Qaeda, warlords, and drug cartels.

While snake oil salesmen like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would surely rank the American press up there with Bin Laden and his homicidal ilk, for the Army to do so is shocking, displaying a deep ignorance on the part of at least some segments of the uniformed military over just what the media's role in a democracy is, while sending the unambiguous message to soldiers and DoD employees that reporters are to be treated as enemies.

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The utter disdain for journalists and journalism demonstrated by Rumsfeld's Pentagon is notorious. You cannot read Daniel Schulman's analysis of the "weaponization of information" without appreciating that the news media has become both a tool and a target in this campaign. Scott Horton asks:

Is it hyperbole to say that the Bush Administration has gone to war against journalists? Increasingly, this claim is a literal truth. Those who would dismiss the claim should contemplate some hard facts from the real battlefields of the “war on terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, over a hundred journalists have been killed – a multiple of the number who died in World War II – and a large part of that number fell to American arms. I don’t suggest that the U.S. soldiers intentionally targeted them; but it does appear that historical rules that shielded journalists on the battlefield have disappeared, and that this has led to deaths. And with respect to certain foreign press organizations, like al-Jazeera, intentional targeting is now documented.

Thousands of journalists have been arrested by U.S. forces, and a few hundred held for significant periods. Reports of beatings and abuse are fairly routine. Journalists who take pictures or shoot film that the Pentagon and White House don’t want seen on U.S. televisions suffer the worst – consider CBS cameraman Abdul Amir, held in prison for a year, or AP Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Bilal Hussein, now held for over a year – without charges.

In both Afghanistan and Iraq, journalists have had their photographs and film seized and destroyed by U.S. forces, acting on formal orders to interdict the transmission of film footage which would undermine the White House’s message...

While working in Iraq last year, I was warned repeatedly that journalists were targeted and that documents existed establishing this. I was also warned that by defending journalists, I would myself become a target.

Even more chilling: in a series of speeches given across the country, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has assailed journalists and suggested that Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations are successfully infiltrating media organizations and controlling their message.

As indeed Rumsfeld did. See for example this report

Rumsfeld often complains about what he calls the terrorists' success in persuading Westerners that the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are part of a crusade against Islam. In his remarks at Fallon he did not offer any new examples of media manipulation; he put unusual emphasis, however, on the negative impact it is having on Americans in an era of 24-hour news.

More outrageously still, Rumsfeld claims media are receiving terror tip-offs:

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says journalists have received tip-offs from terrorists of impending attacks in Iraq, singling out Al-Jazeera television as "Johnny-on-the-spot a little too often for my taste"...

His comments came just two days after a journalist, Mazen al-Tomaisi, who worked for Saudi television and the Arabic news channel Al Arabiya was killed when a US helicopter fired on a crowd that had gathered around a bomb-struck US armoured vehicle in Baghdad.

Referring to suicide attacks and roadside bombings, Mr Rumsfeld said "it is striking that from time to time at least there is a journalist, quote-unquote, standing around taking pictures of it."

The killing of journalists in Iraq has been an epidemic, and US forces have come in for their share of the blame. In fact, in 2005 Reuters complained to Congress that the American military was "out of control".

Reuters has told the US government that American forces' conduct towards journalists in Iraq is "spiralling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war reaching the public.

The detention and accidental shootings of journalists is limiting how journalists can operate, wrote David Schlesinger, the Reuters global managing editor, in a letter to Senator John Warner, head of the armed services committee.

The Reuters news service chief referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by US forces in Iraq"...

"The worsening situation for professional journalists in Iraq directly limits journalists' abilities to do their jobs and, more importantly, creates a serious chilling effect on the media overall," Mr. Schlesinger wrote.

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It's a legitimate question, then, whether the US military is aiming still, under Defense Secretary Robert Gates, to chill reporting on the disastrous war in Iraq. The new OPSEC regulations are troubling enough on their own; the briefing slides practically shout contempt for journalists. I'll give the last word to Scott Horton:

The attitude that appears in these frames reflects the theory of total war. It’s a mindset I have come across many times in my career, in the former Soviet Union and in Communist China, for instance. And now: in training slides for the U.S. Army.

crossposted from Unbossed

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Update [2007-5-4 23:1:47 by smintheus]: Though the foregoing is not closely related to what follows, I think this evening's document dump by the Pentagon merits discussion and this may be a good place to draw attention to it. The Guardian deserves credit for catching this.

The 4th Mental Health Advisory Team survey for Iraq is available here (multiple PDFs). There are some obvious and unsurprising conclusions. The MHAT found that the length and frequency of deployments in Iraq is affecting the mental health of the troops, with the level of combat they see being the primary factor in mental strain. The survey also found that just under two-thirds of the troops knew somebody who had been killed or seriously injured in theater. By contrast, only 5% of those surveyed ever took R&R in theater while deployed. And now 20% of deployed troops have marital problems, up by a third over last year's survey.

The Pentagon news release on the survey has this to say:

The MHAT was composed of behavioral health professionals who deployed to Iraq and surveyed soldiers, Marines, health care providers, and chaplains...

The team recommended behavioral outreach efforts that focus on units that are in theater longer than six months and determined that shorter deployments or longer intervals between deployments would allow soldiers and Marines better opportunities to reset mentally before returning to combat.

Pollock said these findings contributed to the Army’s decision to extend combat deployments to 15 months, because it gave the units waiting to deploy more time at their home stations.

Just pause for a moment to take that logic in. Extended deployments are a major mental health issue; for that reason, the Pentagon decided to extend rotations even longer. Incidentally, the report was delivered to the military last November, but only released today.

Here is where the spin really starts to spin out of control, however:

For the first time since the MHAT program was started in 2003, this assessment included questions about battlefield ethics, Pollock said. Of those surveyed, 10 percent of soldiers and Marines reported mistreating noncombatants or damaging property when it was not necessary, she said.

The survey also found that only 47 percent of soldiers and 38 percent of Marines agreed that noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect. More than one-third of all soldiers and Marines reported that torture should be allowed to save the life of a fellow soldier or Marine, and less than half of soldiers or Marines said they would report a team member for unethical behavior.

In the report, mistreating noncombatants was defined as either stealing from a noncombatant, destroying or damaging property when it wasn’t necessary, or hitting or kicking a noncombatant.

These findings may seem alarming, [Acting Army surgeon general, Maj. Gen. Gale] Pollock said, but it is important to keep them in perspective. These troops have been seeing their friends killed and injured, and anger is a normal reaction, she said. However, what’s important to note is that the troops who had these thoughts did not act on them and actually mistreat any noncombatants.

“What it speaks to is the leadership that the military is providing, because they're not acting on those thoughts,” she said. “They're not torturing the people. And I think it speaks very well to the level of training that we have in the military today.”

The most disturbing numbers are 47 and 38; fewer than half the troops surveyed believe that noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect. There is the story of our occupation of Iraq. Those numbers should be at the top of the front page of every newspaper in America tomorrow morning.

The WaPo has it on page A01.

Update [2007-5-4 23:43:22 by smintheus]: There's a diary on the MHAT survey by dyrrachium.

Tags: national security, information, Iraq, Pentagon, media, MHAT, Recommended (all tags)

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Lynde and Harry Bradley's Foundation serve Imperialism...apparently believing they serve the highest GOOD.
John Bolton, Receiving Award, Thanks Rogue Nations and Liberals
By Kevin Mooney
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
May 04, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Thank you, Sen. Lincoln Chafee, Sen. Chris Dodd, North Korea, Syria and Iran. You all helped make it possible.

That was the message delivered by former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton Thursday night as he accepted the 2007 Bradley Prize at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Bolton was honored for his dedication to the principles of the America's founding, including freedom and human liberty. The award carries a stipend of $250,000.

The Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation praised Bolton's articulate and unapologetic defense of American interests during his recess appointment as ambassador to the United Nations. "Steadfast in his defense of American interests, he represented this country with extraordinary principle, clarity, and patriotism," the foundation said.

Bolton, who is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, represented U.S. interests at the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006. His tenure was dominated by the crises over Iran's and North Korea's nuclear programs, and Bolton's firm, no-nonsense stance stirred passions on both sides of the political spectrum.

Those on the right who scorn the U.N. nevertheless appreciated Bolton's strong leadership, while those on the left who hold the U.N. in high esteem were generally critical. Bolton did manage to win over a few converts, including Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), who initially opposed his nomination.

Bolton resigned last year, when it became evident that he did not have enough support in Congress to continue in the position.

Sen. Chafee, who lost his bid for re-election, and Sen. Dodd, now a Democratic presidential candidate, were pivotal in blocking Bolton's confirmation.

"I should note Senators Lincoln Chafee and Senator Dodd who did so much to help make me eligible for this award, and the prominent citizens of Pyongyang, Damascus and Tehran, who also pitched in simply by being themselves."

Bolton also took the opportunity to discuss the challenges associated with the "permanent bureaucracy" in Washington, D.C. Instead of advancing the policy directives of Republican presidents, political appointees often "adopt the attitude of where they work" and ultimately leave their positions without "making the slightest imprint," he said.

Some willingly succumb, while others are "seduced" into believing there are carrying out the president's policy, Bolton added.

"The political appointees go native," he said.

To remedy the situation, Bolton called for a "basic training" of all political appointees so they would be prepared for the next Republican administration.

"I had my battles with the bureaucracy, which probably explains why I'm here tonight," he said. "So let me make a confession -- on many occasions, during this and prior administrations, I have knowingly and willingly committed acts of conservatism. It gets worse -- I enjoyed every minute of it."

Other 2007 Bradley Prize recipients who "knowingly and willingly committed acts of conservatism" included Martin S. Feldstein, an economics professor at Harvard University; Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, senior fellows at the Manhattan Institute; and James Q. Wilson, professor of public policy at Pepperdine University.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation is dedicated to preserving and defending the tradition of free representative government and private enterprise. Its programs are aimed at improving education, promoting economic growth, defending and advancing freedom, and revitalizing civil society.

See Earlier Stories:
If Others Won't be Persuaded on Iran and N Korea, 'Too Damn Bad'
American Tax Dollars Used to Undermine US at UN, Bolton Says
Take Ahmadinejad Seriously, Bolton Urges
Bolton's Resignation Reverberates, Unsettles Conservatives

Make media inquiries or request an interview about this article.

Subscribe to the free CNSNews.com daily E-Brief.

E-mail a comment or news tip to Kevin Mooney.

Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.

As though we care, but never-the-less...
Profiles of the French candidates

By The Associated Press Sat May 5, 2:11 PM ET

A look at the two rivals fighting for France's presidency in Sunday's runoff election:

NICOLAS SARKOZY

Sarkozy says he is destined to become France's president. His many enemies deeply fear that fate.

The conservative front-runner's rigorous language, pledge of "rupture" with the past and pro-American posture have captivated fans hungry for decisive change. But his invective against delinquents and uncompromising attitude have incensed opponents.

Sarkozy's rise marks the first time a child of an immigrant has made it this close to the French presidency — his father fled Hungary's encroaching communists after World War II — yet some of Sarkozy's fiercest critics are immigrant minorities.

The 52-year-old ex-interior minister is despised by many black and Arab youth in dreary housing projects that exploded in riots in 2005, and that he has pledged to clean up with a power hose. The anger over discrimination, joblessness and alienation that drove those riots will be a key challenge for the next president.

Critics question how the often hotheaded Sarkozy would lead a country proud of its cool-headed diplomacy. Dubbed "Sarko the American" by critics, he says France and the United States share democratic kinship — but insists his nuclear nation is "nobody's vassal."

___

SEGOLENE ROYAL

Segolene Royal has already proven her military officer father wrong: He assumed his three daughters would amount to less than his five sons, yet she's the one who is one step from the presidency.

The Socialist candidate's campaign is lagging behind Sarkozy's, but Royal has long played the underdog, surprising rivals who underestimate her.

Royal, 53, says she's had a tougher time in this campaign as a woman, but also says voters should choose a mother as president to prove they want change.

As the final vote neared, Royal's leftist policies and persona played a larger role in voters' decision than her gender.

Early in the race Royal spoke admiringly of British Prime Minister
Tony Blair's third-way economic policies, then came out with a traditional Socialist platform, pledging to raise the minimum wage and create 500,000 subsidized youth jobs.

Foreign affairs are a weak spot, and it's still unclear exactly how she wants to change France's 35-hour workweek, an important question.

Dithering canbe creative! Keeping the scene can beeven more creative for those who come after. Tearing it all down is denial.
Opinions vary on fate of Va. Tech hall

By SUE LINDSEY, Associated Press Writer Sat May 5, 7:04 PM ET

BLACKSBURG, Va. - Like the people of New York, Oklahoma City and Littleton, Colo., the Virginia Tech community faces a difficult decision on what it will do with the scene of a tragedy.

The classrooms and hallways of the school's Norris Hall were littered with the bodies of 25 students and five professors on April 16, plus the body of gunman Seung-Hui Cho.

Student Brian Skipper wonders how anyone can ever be expected to learn in Norris Hall again.

"I won't go back in that building," says the 21-year-old junior from Yorktown, who lost five friends in Norris, including his faculty adviser, G.V. Longanathan. "I couldn't see people returning in there and just going back to normal."

Two other students were slain in a campus dormitory.

The university has made no plans beyond cleaning and repairing the flat-roofed, oblong stone structure, which has remained under police guard since the killing spree.

However, faculty, students and alumni have already weighed in with suggestions for Norris' future, one of more than 100 buildings on Virginia Tech's 2,600-acre campus. Built in the early 1960s, it houses the department of engineering science and mechanics.

Ideas for the building's future range from returning it to use as classrooms to making it a memorial or even knocking it down.

There are examples around the nation of how others have dealt with sites of overnight infamy.

Every evening, the University of Texas at Austin illuminates the clock tower where sniper Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th floor and killed 16 and wounded 31 on Aug. 1, 1966.

Before the attack, the 307-foot tower had been a symbol of the school for three decades. Its observation deck reopened a year after Whitman's attack, but it was closed again in 1974 after four people jumped to their deaths. Tours are now available by reservation only.

Most of the killings in the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., occurred in the library. Officials built an atrium on the site and placed a new library that includes a memorial to the 12 students and one teacher killed by two student shooters.

The bombed-out Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was razed after
Timothy McVeigh set off explosives that killed 168 people on April 19, 1995. The 3-acre site was turned over to a museum and memorial.

In Dallas, the first five floors of the Texas School Book Depository hold government offices, but there is a museum on the sixth floor — where Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that killed President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963.

At ground zero in lower Manhattan, New York City is building new office towers and a memorial to the 2,749 victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers.

At Virginia Tech, Norris Hall is still surrounded by chain-link fencing topped by yellow police tape, distinguishing it from the other buildings made from the same locally quarried rusty gray "Hokie" limestone. Several second-floor windows are open, their glass shattered by Cho's bullets and by students who jumped to escape the gunfire.

The decision on Norris Hall's fate is ultimately up to Virginia Tech President Charles Steger, said university spokesman Mark Owczarski.

An online petition has received more than 20,000 signatures in support of renaming Norris for engineering professor Liviu Librescu, who enabled students to jump to safety by blocking his classroom door with his body until Cho shot him. Librescu, 76, was a Holocaust survivor who had taught at the school for 20 years.

"I felt that something needed to be done to commemorate this brave man," Justin Kozuch, a web designer in Toronto who started the petition, said in an e-mail.

The building now is named for Earle Bertram Norris, who was engineering dean from 1928 to 1952.

Russell Harris, a sophomore engineering major, said in a letter to the student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, that the building should become a memorial.

"To demolish it would let our fears win and give evil more power," he wrote.

___

Associated Press writers Kristen Gelineau and Allen G. Breed contributed to this report.

Israeli human rights groups report prisoner abuses
Report: Shin Bet uses torture

Sun May 6, 3:24 AM ET

JERUSALEM -
Israel's Shin Bet security service uses torture in its interrogation of Palestinian prisoners, violating a 1999 court ruling outlawing such practices, two Israeli human rights groups charged in a report Sunday.

The physical abuse includes "beating, painful binding, back bending, body stretching and prolonged sleep deprivation," according to the report. These methods constitute torture under international law, according to the report by B'Tselem and The Center for the Defense of the Individual.

Israel's Supreme Court in 1999 outlawed what the Shin Bet called "moderate physical pressure," such as sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures and tying up detainees in painful positions.

Despite the ruling, prisoners are shackled to chairs in painful positions for protracted periods of time and subjected to humiliation, swearing and threats by the interrogators, the report said.

"Their purpose is to break the interrogees' spirit and as such, they contradict the Supreme Court ruling and constitute prohibited ill-treatment under international law," the report said.

Routinely the prisoners are held in appalling conditions, which include isolation and sensory deprivation.

No criminal investigations have been opened against the Shin Bet even though 500 complaints have been filed since 2001, the groups said.

Israel's Justice Ministry, which oversees investigations of security services, said in response to the report that the Shin Bet investigations are "performed in accordance with the law." The report is "fraught with mistakes, groundless claims and inaccuracies," the ministry said.

If, during detention by the army, prisoners complain that they have been beaten or signs of violence are found on their bodies, the details are transferred to the military police for investigation, the ministry said.

Shin Bet interrogations can provide valuable information about militant activities that prevent further attacks, the ministry said.

BACK STORY:

| Intelligence | World Agencies | Israel ||||| Search |

Shabak
Shin Bet
Israel Security Service
Sherut ha-Bitachon ha-Klali (Shabak)

Shabak, or Shin Bet, the Israeli counter-intelligence and internal security service, is believed to have three operational departments and five support departments. The current director (2003) is Avi Dichter.

* Arab Affairs Department is responsibile for antiterrorist operations, political subversion, and maintenance of an index on Arab terrorists. Shabak detachments worked with Aman undercover detachments [known as Mist'aravim] to counter the uprising. This Department has also been active in countering the military wing of Hamas.
* Non-Arab Affairs Department, formerly divided into communist and noncommunist sections, concerned itself with all other countries, including penetrating foreign intelligence services and diplomatic missions in Israel and interrogating immigrants from the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
* Protective Security Department is responsibile for protecting Israeli government buildings and embassies, defense industries, scientific installations, industrial plants, and the El Al national airline.

Shabak monitors the activities of and personalities in domestic right-wing fringe groups and subversive leftist movements. It is believed to have infiltrated agents into the ranks of the parties of the far left and had uncovered a number of foreign technicians spying for neighboring Arab countries or the Soviet Union. All foreigners, regardless of religion or nationality, are liable to come under surveillance through an extensive network of informants who regularly came into contact with visitors to Israel. Shabak's network of agents and informers in the occupied territories destroyed the PLO's effectiveness there after 1967, forcing the PLO to withdraw to bases in Jordan.

Shabak's reputation as a highly proficient internal security agency was tarnished severely by two public scandals in the mid-1980s. In April 1984, Israeli troops stormed a bus hijacked by four Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Although two of the hijackers survived, they were later beaten to death by Shabak agents. It appeared that the agents were acting under orders of Avraham Shalom, the head of Shabak. Shalom falsified evidence and instructed Shabak witnesses to lie to investigators to cover up Shabak's role. In the ensuing controversy, the attorney general was removed from his post for refusing to abandon his investigation. The president granted pardons to Shalom, his deputies who had joined in the cover-up (but who aided its exposure), and the agents implicated in the killings.

In 1987 Izat Nafsu, a former IDF army lieutenant and member of the Circassian minority, was released after his 1980 conviction for treason (espionage on behalf of Syria) was overturned by the Supreme Court. The court ruled that Shabak had used unethical interrogation methods to obtain Nafsu's confession and that Shabak officers had presented false testimony to the military tribunal that had convicted him. A judicial commission set up to report on the methods and practices of Shabak found that for the previous seventeen years it had been the accepted norm for Shabak interrogators to lie to the courts about their interrogation.

In 1987 the Israeli government-appointed Landau Judicial Commission condemned torture but allowed for the use of "moderate physical and psychological pressure" to secure confessions and obtain information. In addition, although the Israeli Penal Code prohibits the use of force or violence by a public official to obtain information, the GSS chief is permitted by law to allow interrogators to employ "special measures" that exceed the use of "moderate physical and psychological pressure" when it is deemed necessary to obtain information that could potentially save Israeli lives in certain "ticking bomb" cases. The GSS first permitted interrogators "greater flexibility" in applying the guidelines shortly after a bus bombing in Tel Aviv in October 1994 that killed 22 Israelis. The Government has not defined the meaning of "greater flexibility" or what might constitute a "ticking bomb" case. At roughly quarterly intervals, the Government has approved the continued use of "special measures." On August 22, Israel's ministerial committee on GSS interrogations authorized the continued use of "special measures," including shaking.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) declared in 1992 that such practices violate the Geneva Convention. Human rights groups and attorneys challenged the use of "special measures," especially shaking, before the Israeli High Court a number of times. Israeli authorities maintain that torture is not condoned but acknowledge that abuses sometimes occur and are investigated. However, the Government does not generally make public the results of such investigations. Israel conducted two official investigations into the 35 complaints received in 1997. In 2000, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled against the use of torture by the Shabak, although the use of informants as proxies is rumored to serve as a loophole.

Shabak's reputation was further compromised by the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995 by a right-wing Israeli extremist.

Shabak was known as the General Security Service until 2002, when it was renamed the Israel Security Service.

Sources and Resources

* Shabak official web site (Hebrew)

* Shabak (unofficial)
* "Inside Israel's secret organisations" JANE'S INTELLIGENCE REVIEW October 1996

Turkey struggles to fend off it's own versions of Robertson and Fawell...!
Turkey faces early polls, PM looks to end crisis

By Hidir Goktas 32 minutes ago

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey turned its attention to the prospect of early elections on Wednesday after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said he would seek national polls within two months to end a stand-off with the country's secular elite.

Erdogan's move opens the way for his Islamist-rooted party to do battle at the polls with the secularists after a row over a presidential vote that pitted his government against the army, which sees itself as the guardian of Turkey's secular system.

The prime minister said he would seek national elections on either June 24 or July 1 and officials said the date was likely to be decided on Wednesday. The polls were due to be held by November.

The decision could provide some relief for Turkey's financial markets which have suffered their biggest sell-off in a year over the last two days on fears of instability.

The opposition had been demanding early elections but Erdogan's ruling AK Party is widely expected to win after five years of strong economic growth since it came to power in 2002.

"The people will speak," said a headline in the Sabah daily, which drew on Erdogan's call for the public to elect the president rather than the parliament.

His government vowed to press on with a presidential vote in parliament after the Constitutional Court annulled the first round on Tuesday. It is unlikely to win the necessary two-thirds majority.

An opposition boycott of the presidential vote prompted the move for early general elections because it left the AKP short of the quorum needed for the election of its candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

"The parliamentary system has been blocked ... We are urgently going to the people. Our people will make the best decisions," Erdogan told a news conference on Tuesday.

In remarks apparently aimed at the military, he said: "In democracies there is no better way of making warnings (to the government) than by ballot boxes."

The army has ousted four governments since 1960, the last in 1997 when it acted against a cabinet in which Gul served.

Secularists suspect Erdogan and Gul, former Islamists whose wives wear the Muslim headscarf banned from state institutions, of wanting to break the separation of state and religion. They reject the allegation and point to their pro-Western record in office.

Sometimes Satire writes itself!
Bush buys 100,000acres in Paraguay?
Submitted by WhitesCreek on Thu, 2006/10/19 - 2:53pm.

This one is way too weird! It's cropping up in way too many places to be ignored. And is Little Drunken Jenna now an operative like Condi? Why are 500 American Troops in Paraguay? Why did Reverend Moon buy even more land next to Bushes new ranch?

WTF???

Mr. Bush, could you please tell us what your intentions are and whether these intentions are hostile toward the people of the United States, or do you just intend on retiring to Paraguay?

The story is popping up in the loveliest places:

Wonkette mentions Nazis and Bush...But in the nicest possible way

I mean they retired to South America, too, didn't they?
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This is the weirdest story
Submitted by Bbeanster on Fri, 2006/10/20 - 7:49am.

This is the weirdest story I've seen in awhile. Jenna Bush?? LOL! Maybe there's a career in the diplomatic corps in Julia Coker's future. Paris Hilton could head up the new division.
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Jenna and Paris do Paris!
R. Neal's picture
Submitted by R. Neal on Fri, 2006/10/20 - 7:53am.

Jenna and Paris do Paris! Love it.

I remember back during the 04 election when Jenna and Not Jenna did that stupid testimonial, and I think Jenna said something about how she'd like to go into diplomacy and something about Colin Powell's job. I joked that Powell just got fired on live national TV by Bush's daughter. And look what happened shortly after that. Maybe Condi is mentoring Jenna?

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Hey, now...Let's not be
WhitesCreek's picture
Submitted by WhitesCreek on Fri, 2006/10/20 - 8:11am.

Hey, now...Let's not be dissin' Paris. That girl pulls in between 20 and 30 million a year in hard earned cash. Jenna? Not so much.

This story is being reported in Spanish language papers but not in the English press. I'm wondering if there is a connection between a new law allowing Bush to take over the State Militia's (national Guard) and the C5 A landing in Paraguay near the new Bush Ranch. I'm no conspiracy buff but this has got me wondering.

Too Weird...The cover story for Jenna? Unicef! Huh? Jenna was trick or treating for Unicef in Paraguay? (Could I get a shot of the costume for my hard drive?..ok, sorry...caffein O.D.)

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This one keeps getting more
WhitesCreek's picture
Submitted by WhitesCreek on Fri, 2006/10/20 - 8:22am.

This one keeps getting more interesting:

Oh, and both the Moonie and Bush land is located at what Paraguay’s drug czar called an “enormously strategic point in both the narcotics and arms trades.” And it sits atop the one of the world’s largest fresh-water aquifers.

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100K acre compound in
redmondkr's picture
Submitted by redmondkr on Fri, 2006/10/20 - 11:08am.

100K acre compound in Paraguay for a man called by God for service? Has anybody noticed a run on grape Kool Aid?

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Retire! We hear there is good land available in Paragua...
Senior party member calls on Olmert to quit

1 hour, 3 minutes ago

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A senior member of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's party called on him to resign on Wednesday to make way for a new government following an official report criticizing his handling of the Lebanon war.

"A leader can only lead a public where he has, firstly, legitimacy and its confidence. The prime minister should act responsibly and resign to allow a new coalition to be formed by Kadima," the centrist Kadima party's parliamentary faction head, Avigdor Yitzhaki, told
Israel Radio.

The fallout against Olmert began with the resignation of a cabinet minister of his main governing partner, the Labour Party, on Tuesday.

It later engulfed Olmert's Kadima party whose parliament deputies drafted a letter urging him to quit.

On Monday a government-appointed commission on last year's Lebanon war issued findings accusing the prime minister of "serious" failures in decision-making.

Olmert suffered his toughest blow when Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a close associate with Kadima, was quoted as telling aides "he must go."

Olmert will convene a special cabinet meeting on Wednesday to try to get its members to adopt a plan to implement the changes proposed by so-called Winograd commission, which blamed political and military leaders for the war's failings.

Bush refuses to support his own Troops!
Bush vetoes war spending bill

By Richard Cowan and Caren Bohan Tue May 1, 7:17 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
President George W. Bush vetoed a bill on Tuesday that would force him to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from
Iraq this year as a condition of funding the war, angering Democrats who vowed to fight on.

"Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a deadline for failure, and that would be irresponsible," Bush said in a nationally televised speech shortly after issuing only the second veto of his presidency.

Bush's rejection of the legislation came on the four-year anniversary of his 2003 speech announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq beneath a "Mission Accomplished" banner, an event roundly condemned by war critics.

"Stop the war now," shouted a handful of protesters outside the White House gate.

In vetoing a $124 billion bill to fund wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, Bush said he was stopping legislation that "substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgment of our military commanders."

Under the legislation, which won the support of only four Republicans in Congress, American troop withdrawals would begin as early as July 1 and no later than October 1, with the nonbinding goal of removing all combat troops by March 31.

Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives planned to hold a veto override vote on Wednesday, and while they did not have the votes to override his veto, they vowed to keep fighting for a change in course.

"The president wants a blank check. The Congress is not going to give it to him," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) of California.

Bush invited congressional leaders to the White House to discuss next steps, saying, "I'm confident that with good will on both sides, we can agree on a bill that gets our troops the money and flexibility they need as soon as possible."

"GREAT DISTANCE"

Pelosi promised to work with Bush to find common ground, "but there is a great distance between us right now."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) of Nevada added, "If the president thinks that by vetoing this bill, he will stop us from working to change the direction of this war, he is mistaken."

Nearly $100 billion of the $124 billion bill would fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. The rest would fund domestic projects Bush claims are either wasteful or not urgent, ranging from health care for poor children and farm aid to rebuilding southern states hit by 2005 hurricanes and increasing the minimum wage.

Anticipating that they will not be able to override the veto, congressional leaders are negotiating over new approaches for getting the war funds into the pipeline with conditions that Bush would accept.

Among ideas circulating on Capitol Hill are including "benchmarks" for measuring the Iraqi government's progress in stabilizing the country, where violence has been particularly gruesome recently.

It is unclear whether that progress would be tied to aid to Iraq or some sort of language on U.S. troop levels.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland)

Last of the Steve Allen Man On The Street interviewees and star of Zotz, ...dies...alas!
'Newhart' sidekick Tom Poston dies at 85

By BOB THOMAS, Associated Press Writer Tue May 1, 10:01 PM ET

LOS ANGELES -
Tom Poston, the tall, pasty-faced comic who found fame and fortune playing a clueless everyman on such hit television shows as "Newhart" and "Mork and Mindy," has died. He was 85.

Poston, who was married to
Suzanne Pleshette of "The
Bob Newhart Show," died Monday night at home after a brief illness, a family representative, Tanner Gibson, said Tuesday. The nature of his illness was not disclosed.

Bob Newhart remembered Poston as a "versatile and veteran performer and a kindhearted individual."

"Tom was always the `go-to guy' on `Newhart' in addition to being a good and longtime friend," Newhart said in a statement Tuesday.

Billy Crystal, who starred in the 1978 film "Rabbit Test" in which Poston also appeared, was another admirer.

"How rare that a gentle, sweet person could be so incredibly funny," Crystal said in a statement. "I grew up watching Tom on 'The Steve Allen Show' as a kid. What an incredible gift to become friends with him and to learn about comedy from a true professional. He was a combination of Stan Laurel and Jack Benny. We will all miss him."

Poston's run as a comic bumbler began in the mid-1950s with "The Steve Allen Show" after Allen plucked the character actor from the Broadway stage to join an ensemble of eccentrics he would conduct "man in the street" interviews with.

Don Knotts was the shaky Mr. Morrison,
Louis Nye was the suave, overconfident Gordon Hathaway and Poston's character was so unnerved by the television cameras that he couldn't remember who he was. He won an Emmy playing "The Man Who Can't Remember His Name."

But when Allen moved the show from New York to Los Angeles in 1959, Poston stayed behind.

"Hollywood's not for me right now; I'm a Broadway cat," he told a reporter at the time.

When he did finally move west, he quickly began appearing in variety shows, sitcoms and films.

His movie credits included "Cold Turkey," "The Happy Hooker," "Rabbit Test" and, more recently, "Christmas With the Kranks," "Beethoven's 5th" and "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement."

On "Mork and Mindy," which starred
Robin Williams as a space alien, Poston was Franklin Delano Bickley, the mindless boozer with the annoying dog. On "Newhart," he was George Utley, the handyman who couldn't fix anything at the New England inn run by Newhart's character. And on Newhart's show "Bob," he was the star's dim-bulb former college roommate.

"These guys are about a half-step behind life's parade," Poston commented in a 1983 interview. "The ink on their instruction sheets is beginning to fade. But they can function and cope and don't realize they are driving people up the walls.

"In ways I don't like to admit, I'm a goof-up myself," Poston continued. "It's an essential part of my character. When these guys screw up it reminds me of my own incompetence with the small frustrations of life."

Goof-up or not, Poston was a versatile actor who made his Broadway debut in 1947 playing five roles in Jose Ferrer's "Cyrano de Bergerac."

One role called for him to engage in a duel, fall 10 feet, roll across the stage and vanish into the orchestra pit. Other actors had auditioned and failed but Poston, who in his youth had been an acrobat with the Flying Zepleys, did the stunt perfectly.

He went on to play secondary roles in Broadway comedies and starred at regional theaters in such shows as "Romanoff and Juliet" and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." For 10 years he was also a panelist on the popular TV quiz show "To Tell the Truth."

He made guest appearances on scores of television shows, including "Studio One," "The Phil Silvers Show," "The Defenders," "Get Smart," "The Bob Newhart Show," "The Love Boat," "St. Elsewhere," "The Simpsons," "Coach," "Murphy Brown," "Home Improvement," "Touched by an Angel," "Will & Grace," "Dream On," "Just Shoot Me!" and "That '70s Show."

Poston and his first wife, Jean Sullivan, had a daughter, Francesca, before their marriage ended in divorce. He married his second wife, Kay Hudson, after they met while appearing in the St. Louis Light Opera, and they had a son, Jason, and daughter, Hudson.

Poston and Pleshette, who had appeared together in the 1959 Broadway play "The Golden Fleecing," had had a brief fling before marrying other people. Both now widowed, they reunited in 2000 and married the following year.

Their paths had crossed on "The Bob Newhart Show" in the 1970s. Poston made several guest appearances on the sitcom in which Pleshette played Newhart's wife.

In 2006, Pleshette underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer that her agent said was caught at an early stage.

Born in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 17, 1921, Thomas Poston moved from city to city as a child as his father hunted for work during the Depression. As a teenager, he made money as a boxer.

Following two years at Bethany College he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and flew troops to the European war zone during World War II.

Hunting for a postwar occupation, Poston read an interview with Charles Jehlinger, creative head of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and was inspired to sign up for a two-year course at the Academy.

Besides Pleshette, 70, Poston is survived by his children, Francesca Poston of Nashville, Tenn., Jason Poston of Los Angeles and Hudson Poston of Portland, Ore.

A private service was planned for immediate family. Details of a public memorial service were to be announced later.

___

Associated Press Television Writer Lynn Elber contributed to this story.

Halt the bidding already, close the deal, and get on with the disclosure! Gossip hungry minds want to know!
Sunday, April 29, 2007 - Page updated at 02:03 AM

Escort-service scandal set to ignite D.C. explosion

By Sue Anne Pressley Montes

The Washington Post

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Deborah Jeane Palfrey is at the center of a Washington, D.C., sex scandal that forced Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias to resign. Palfrey threatens to reveal more on ABC's "20/20."



Randall Tobias was deputy secretary of state.



Harlan Ullman coined "shock and awe."

WASHINGTON — "Miz Julia" doled out a steady stream of advice, practical and philosophical.

From her California home, she e-mailed tips to the 132 women who worked throughout the Washington, D.C., area for the firm Pamela Martin & Associates. Her newsletters, excerpted in court records, were a virtual how-to manual for avoiding all kinds of trouble in a business said to specialize in erotic fantasies.

"One never quite knows where evil, i.e., the vice squad is lurking in this business," read one entry from 1995. "The misogynists get a real kick out of surprising (shocking) you girls, when you give them the opportunity!!! ... Therefore, you are to lock, double lock, triple lock all doors!!! ... Figure it out, before they 'get cha'!!!"

Miz Julia was the pseudonym for Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the woman at the center of a sex scandal that has caused a deputy secretary of state to resign and has lawyers calling around town trying to keep their clients' names out of public view.

Palfrey, a one-time law student, ran for 13 years what she insists was a legal escort service. Federal prosecutors allege she was providing $300-an-hour prostitutes, and a grand jury indicted her in February on federal racketeering charges.

Palfrey piqued fascination, and anxiety, by first threatening to sell phone records that could unveil thousands of clients, and then handing them, apparently for free, to ABC News. She is scheduled to appear Monday in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.

On Friday, Randall Tobias resigned as deputy secretary of state one day after confirming to Brian Ross of ABC that he had patronized the Pamela Martin firm.

Saturday on "Good Morning America," Ross said Tobias told him Tobias' number was on Palfrey's phone records because he had called "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage." There had been "no sex," Ross quoted Tobias as saying, and that recently he has used another service, "with Central American gals," for massages.

Tobias, 65 and married, was director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. He previously held a top job in the Bush administration overseeing AIDS relief, in which he promoted abstinence and a policy requiring grant recipients to swear they oppose prostitution.

Palfrey's attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, said Friday that he has been contacted by five lawyers recently, asking whether their clients' names are on Palfrey's list of 10,000 to 15,000 phone numbers.
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Some, Sibley said, have asked if accommodations could be made to keep their identities private. ABC is expected to air a report on Palfrey and her clients on Friday night's "20/20."

"Very prominent people"

More revelations are in the offing. Ross said the list includes the names of some "very prominent people," and a number of women with "important and serious jobs" who had worked as escorts for the firm.

The disclosures have been made sparely and artfully. Two weeks ago, in court documents about calling former clients to testify on her behalf, Palfrey named Harlan Ullman, an academic whose main claim to fame was a scholarly paper he wrote more than a decade ago on the military strategy known as "shock and awe."

Responded Ullman: "It doesn't deserve the dignity of a response."

Sibley also filed notice that he intends to depose political consultant Dick Morris in a separate civil proceeding. Morris would not comment.

Palfrey declined to comment on either Tobias' resignation or other names that could arise.

"As the old saying goes, 'I need to dance with the guy who brung me,' " she wrote in an e-mail to a reporter. "I have promised ABC News that the '20/20' interview will be an exclusive one. I am sure you can understand my situation."

For all the attention she is attracting, Palfrey retains an air of mystery. She has dropped intriguing hints about herself over the years but demurs when asked for an interview about her life.

"I am not a quitter," Palfrey wrote in another e-mail. "Additionally, I abhor injustice, on any level and in any forum. I frankly persist despite life's barriers. It is no more complicated than this."

She sees herself as an entrepreneur being railroaded by an all-powerful government, in a "David and Goliath scenario."

Prosecutors have made much of her history: In 1992, she pleaded guilty to attempted felony pimping. She started her Washington, D.C., business while on probation in California.

Indecipherable

The little that is known about Palfrey comes from court records in California and Washington, D.C., interviews with acquaintances and a series of e-mails.

Through her writing — facile, self-assured, with triple exclamation points for emphasis — she shows contradictions and gumption, a woman who says she lives by "the Golden Rule," who describes herself as sophisticated, a perfectionist and "a cat person" who will not go away without a fight.

Old friends can't decipher the contrasting images.

"I thought I was a pretty good friend in high school," said Debbie Blozik, who now lives in Birmingham, Ala. "But I'm thinking now how many things I really didn't know about her."

Home was Charleroi, Pa., population 5,000, which sits on a hillside overlooking the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh, its older homes clustered on steep streets.

The elder of two girls, Palfrey was born in 1956 to Frank Palfrey, who worked for a grocery company and died in 2002, and Blanche, a homemaker now living in Florida. The family resided for awhile in Orlando but returned to Charleroi when Palfrey was 10, to a modest house with striped awnings on Shady Avenue.

Palfrey graduated with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., attended a year at what is now Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego and completed a nine-month paralegal course.

Appalled, disgusted

She got into the escort business in San Diego, she said, because she was "appalled and disgusted" by how "seedy, lazy and incompetent" other escort agencies were, she wrote in court papers. An avowed teetotaler, she said she did not like the drug-related atmosphere.

"I decided to branch out, so to speak, from my solo state and began working with one or two (maybe three at the most) other women," she said in her California legal pleadings.

She told Thomas Czech, a career Marine who said he dated Palfrey for about two months, that she was an interior designer. Things ended badly, and Czech took out a restraining order against her in San Diego County in 1989.

Palfrey's business crashed when she was arrested in 1990; an employee's angry mother apparently tipped off police. She employed about a dozen women and would have made $100,000 that year, she said.

She said her employees were "independent agents" and allowed that she should have "done something to police/eliminate such conduct from occurring."

Palfrey was a no-show at her scheduled trial in August 1991. She was captured that October in Montana. She explained to the court that the stress from the criminal proceedings had caused her to flee.

Her mother, she said, was so upset that she developed a life-threatening aneurysm and required surgery. She said her parents "just can't comprehend how my offense could be viewed so harshly." Once free, she said, she planned to go into business exporting "authentic American Western and Indian art to the United Kingdom."

"Best adult agency"

Instead, after 18 months in state prison, Palfrey started Pamela Martin. The firm recruited escorts through the University of Maryland student newspaper and Washington City Paper. It advertised in the Yellow Pages and on Web sites, touting itself as "undoubtedly the best adult agency around."

Prosecutors say she made about $2 million running Pamela Martin over 13 years, on average, less than $160,000 a year. Her Escondido home was valued at about $480,000 last year and a Vallejo house at about $495,000, according to court papers related to their seizure by the federal government.

Recently, Palfrey returned, quietly, to Charleroi to visit her parents.

In late 2002, she launched a Charleroi Area High School alumni association Web site. On it, she expressed interest in the National Innocence Project for prison inmates: "Never could stomach injustice, social or otherwise," she wrote, adding a photograph of herself as a young girl with shiny bangs by a Christmas tree.

In 2004, the IRS and the U.S. Postal Service began a joint investigation of Pamela Martin & Associates. Palfrey, who conducted most of her business by e-mail and phone, allegedly instructed her "subcontractors" to convert her share of fees into money orders and mail them to her California post-office box.

Palfrey's legal strategy is to aver she had no idea that the women working for her engaged in prostitution.

In papers filed in U.S District Court, Palfrey alleged that a former escort identified as Paula Neble and 15 "Jane Does" breached their contracts by engaging in illegal sex. Neble's attorney, Kathy Voelker, said she has "no comment at all."

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