Spyware Alarms

WASHINGTON – A Marine Corps whistleblower says military officials are trying to force him from his job for exposing failures to deliver lifesaving equipment to troops in Iraq.
Franz Gayl, a senior civilian employee, alleges a series of punitive actions that underscore the challenges President Barack Obama faces in fulfilling a campaign pledge to treat federal whistleblowers as patriots instead of pariahs.
Public interest groups cheered Obama's promise. But Gayl's case points to the difficulty of transforming a culture, particularly within the military, where whistleblowers often are viewed with contempt.
"That is going to be hard to change," said Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org. "But the reality is, whistleblowers will have an improved situation over what they've had for the last eight years."
Gayl, 52, is the target of a Naval Criminal Investigative Service inquiry for allegedly mishandling secret information, according to Tom Devine, his lawyer. Gayl had accused the Marine Corps of "gross mismanagement" for failing to answer the call in 2005 for heavy-duty trucks that could withstand roadside bombs in Iraq.
Devine calls the military probe an "illegal bluff" aimed at punishing Gayl for ignoring his supervisors warnings and giving then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and other lawmakers copies of an unclassified study he wrote. Gayl's 2008 action in providing Biden with the study prompted the Navy investigation, Devine says.
The January 2008 study, which soon after became public, harshly criticized the Marine Corps for refusing an urgent request from commanders in Iraq for the blast-resistant vehicles.
Months before turning over the study to Biden, Gayl had been telling Biden's office and other lawmakers, including Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., about what he said were serious flaws in the acquisition system that kept needed gear from getting to the troops.
As a leading Senate Democrat, Biden had used Gayl's disclosures to hammer the Bush administration for "unconscionable bureaucratic delays." Biden had called Gayl a hero and urged Gen. James Conway, the Marine Corps commandant, to make sure Gayl wasn't punished.
But now that he's vice president, Biden hasn't intervened. Biden's press secretary, Elizabeth Alexander, said it is administration policy that the president and vice president "generally do not intervene in or comment on ongoing criminal investigations, personnel actions, and other investigations."
Maj. Carl Redding, a Marine Corps spokesman, denied Gayl is a victim of retaliation.
"We don't do that," Redding said. "Taking time to retaliate against anyone is against the core beliefs of the Marine Corps."
Besides the criminal investigation, Devine says Gayl, a retired Marine officer, has been branded a coward in his Pentagon office where he works as a science and technology adviser.
According to Devine, Gayl has received poor performance evaluations that rank him in the bottom 3 percent of employees at his grade. He's been hit with a letter of reprimand, had his job description rewritten and been pressured to resign. Before his whistleblowing, Devine says Gayl had a sterling record.
"What they are doing to him is shameful," said Devine, legal director at the Government Accountability Project in Washington. "His supervisors might as well be drill sergeants at boot camp trying to break a recruit's spirit."
Ed Buice, a spokesman for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said the NCIS does not discuss the details of investigations.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has stepped in. This month, the committee asked the Defense Department's inspector general to determine if Gayl's supervisors are using the criminal inquiry as retaliation.
Gayl testified under oath before the committee in May, saying that his professional life had become a nightmare since he first came forward.

In a statement to The Associated Press, the committee chairman, Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., said the committee takes reprisal allegations made by witnesses "very seriously."

The Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency that reviews reprisal complaints filed by civilian government employees, is also examining Gayl's case.

Devine says Gayl learned in late September he was being investigated by the NCIS. If Gayl is found to have mishandled classified material, he could lose his top-secret security clearance and face criminal charges.

According to an Oct. 14 e-mail that Devine and his associates received from the NCIS, investigators don't dispute that Gayl's 2008 armored vehicle study is unclassified.

Instead, they're zeroing in on two documents he referred to in the study. The documents detail needs for battlefield equipment. Both were written by Gayl while he was in Iraq in 2006 and 2007 serving as a science adviser to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

Gayl recommended both documents be unclassified, and Devine, his lawyer, says senior officers in Iraq agreed. But the NCIS e-mail says the two documents should have been stamped secret because each contained "classified paragraphs." Investigators want to know where the documents are, according to the e-mail, and whether they're being stored in an "unclassified medium."

But Devine says the investigators are trying to classify material "after-the-fact" that by law was unclassified at the time. He also notes that Gayl's access to classified information has been unimpeded while the investigation proceeds, undercutting any suggestion he did anything improper.

"Either the Marines have been letting someone who betrayed the nation continue to have access to secret material, or they're punishing him for speaking out," Devine said. "We think it's the latter."

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On the Net:

Government Accountability Project: http://www.whistleblower.org/template/index.cfm

Naval Criminal Investigative Service: http://www.ncis.navy.mil/

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee: http://oversight.house.gov/

NEW YORK – A report says the oldest sibling of pop group the Jonas Brothers and a former hairdresser have married at a French-style chateau in suburban New York.
People magazine reported a heavy snowstorm bore down on Saturday's wedding between 22-year-old Kevin Jonas and 23-year-old Danielle Delesea at Oheka Castle, a 109,000-square-foot estate in Cold Spring Harbor.
The couple told People that the wedding went on as planned. About 400 relatives and friends attended.
Celebrity event planner Michael Russo created a fairy-tale forest theme that included heated white tents with 14-foot trees and crystals made to look like icicles.
Jonas' brothers Joe and Nick served as his best men.
A message left Saturday night for a representative of Jonas was not immediately returned.

KABUL (Reuters) –
Afghan President Hamid Karzai promised on Sunday his new cabinet would be held to account following mounting criticism over graft in his government.

Karzai's nominations for 23 ministerial positions were presented to parliament for approval on Saturday, a month after his re-election was confirmed following an August 20 poll which was marred by rampant fraud.

The cabinet nominations are seen as the president's first test since his re-election to show he is serious about clamping down on corruption after coming under intense pressure from Western countries whose funds and troops support his government.

Washington is sending 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan to try to quell a strengthening Taliban insurgency but U.S. officials acknowledge more troops can only be effective if the Afghan government has the trust of its own people.

Some Western leaders hailed the new line-up that has kept most of the technocrats favored by the West in top positions. But some Afghan lawmakers hoping to see more new faces said the nominations amounted to a list of recycled figures.

Speaking at a news conference alongside Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme in Kabul on Sunday, Karzai defended his choice, saying nearly half of the nominees were new and that all ministers would be held to account for any corruption.

"I can assure that all the newly introduced ministers, and those who have been with me in the past, will be held accountable on any issue related to corruption," Karzai told reporters.

"And I will be accountable before the nation of Afghanistan for preventing it (corruption) and for solving this problem."

Karzai said he had done his best to come up with professional ministers in the cabinet, which he said reflected Afghanistan's diverse make-up and promised to include more women.

Out of the 23 nominations, only one woman was put forward, to head the Ministry for Women's Affairs. Karzai said he was looking at forming a new ministry to tackle illiteracy which would be run by a woman and some deputy posts would also be given to women.

Parliament has been debating Karzai's nominations and all nominees must receive a vote of confidence before they can take up their post.

(Editing by Jonathon Burch and Alison Williams)

WASHINGTON – Outnumbered Republicans are pledging to delay passage of historic health care legislation as long as possible after jubilant Democrats locked in Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson as the 60th and decisive vote.
Nelson's backing puts President Barack Obama's signature issue firmly on a path for Christmas Eve passage. Democrats will need to show 60 votes on two additional occasions, with the next — and most critical — test vote set for about 1 a.m. Monday.
"This bill is a legislative train wreck of historic proportions," the Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said at a Saturday news conference. He pointed to cuts to Medicare that the Congressional Budget Office said totaled more than $470 billion over a decade, with reductions in planned payments to home health care agencies and hospices. He also said the bill includes "massive tax increases" at a time of double-digit unemployment.
With senators set to resume debate Sunday afternoon, Republicans note the CBO concluded that under the bill, "federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-2019 period, as would the federal budgetary commitment to health care."
To get Nelson's vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., agreed to a series of concessions on abortion and other issues demanded by Nelson, a Democrat, and then informed Obama of the agreement as the president flew home from climate talks in Copenhagen.
Obama welcomed the breakthrough, saying in a statement at the White House, "After a nearly centurylong struggle, we are on the cusp of making health care reform a reality in the United States of America."
The CBO said the Senate bill would extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who lack it. It also imposes new regulations to curb abuses of the insurance industry, and the president noted one last-minute addition would impose penalties on companies that "arbitrarily jack up prices" in advance of the legislation taking effect.
CBO analysts also said the legislation would cut federal deficits by $132 billion over 10 years and possibly much more in the subsequent decade.
At its core, the legislation would create a new insurance exchange where consumers could shop for affordable coverage that complied with new federal guidelines. Most Americans would be required to purchase insurance, with federal subsidies available to help defray the cost for lower and middle income individuals and families.
In a concession to Nelson and other moderates, the bill lacks a government-run insurance option of the type that House Democrats inserted into theirs. In a final defeat for liberals, a proposed Medicare expansion was also jettisoned in the past several days as Reid and the White House maneuvered for 60 votes.

DALLAS – The United States may soon see its prison population drop for the first time in almost four decades, a milestone in a nation that locks up more people than any other.
The inmate population has risen steadily since the early 1970s as states adopted get-tough policies that sent more people to prison and kept them there longer. But tight budgets now have states rethinking these policies and the costs that come with them.
"It's a reversal of a trend that's been going on for more than a generation," said David Greenberg, a sociology professor at New York University. "In some ways, it's overdue."
The U.S. prison population dropped steadily during most of the 1960s, and there were a few small dips in 1970 and 1972. But it has risen every year since, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
About 739,000 prisoners were admitted to state and federal facilities last year, about 3,500 more than were released, according to new figures from the bureau. The 0.8 percent growth in the prison population is the smallest annual increase this decade and significantly less than the 6.5 percent average annual growth of the 1990s.
Overall, there were 1.6 million prisoners in state and federal prisons at the end of 2008.
In the past, prison populations have been lower when drafts were enacted, including during World War II and the wars in Korea and Vietnam.
"People who go to war are young men, and young men are the most likely to get arrested or prosecuted," said James Austin, president of the JFA Institute, a research organization that advises states on prison issues.
The ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan haven't involved in a draft.
Instead, the economic crisis forced states to reconsider who they put behind bars and how long they kept them there, said Kim English, research director for the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice.
In Texas, parole rates were once among the lowest in the nation, with as few as 15 percent of inmates being granted release as recently as five years ago. Now, the parole rate is more than 30 percent after Texas began identifying low-risk candidates for parole.
In Mississippi, a truth-in-sentencing law required drug offenders to serve 85 percent of their sentences. That's been reduced to less than 25 percent.
California's budget problems are expected to result in the release of 37,000 inmates in the next two years. The state also is under a federal court order to shed 40,000 inmates because its prisons are so overcrowded that they are no longer constitutional, Austin said.
States also are looking at ways to keep people from ever entering prison. A nationwide system of drug courts takes first-time felony offenders caught with less than a gram of illegal drugs and sets up a monitoring team to help with case management and therapy.
Studies have touted significant savings with drug courts, saying they cost 10 percent to 30 percent less than it costs to send someone to prison.
"I don't think they work. I know so," said Judge John Creuzot, a state district judge in Dallas.
The reforms in many state prisons and courts come even as crime rates continue to drop nationwide.
"It's economically driven, but the science is there to support it," Austin said. "They are saving money, but not doing it in a way that jeopardizes public safety."

One exception to the trend is Florida, which has enacted a law requiring all convicts to serve a high percentage of their sentences. The law is straining the state's prison resources.

"They know that they are stuck in a time bomb they can't get out of," Austin said.

The heart is a muscular organ in all vertebrates responsible for pumping blood through the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions, or a similar structure in annelids, mollusks, and arthropods. The term cardiac (as in cardiology) means "related to the heart" and comes from the Greek καρδιά, kardia, for "heart."

The structure of the heart varies among the different branches of the animal kingdom. (See Circulatory system.) Cephalopods have two "gill hearts" and one "systemic heart". Fish have a two-chambered heart that pumps the blood to the gills and from there it goes on to the rest of the body. In amphibians and most reptiles, a double circulatory system is used, but the heart is not always completely separated into two pumps. Amphibians have a three-chambered heart.

Cardiology Equipment

Parents around the nation breathed a sigh of relief with the news that Zhu Zhu Pets, those adorable robot hamsters, are not contaminated with antimony, a metallic element that can cause heart and lung problems. Zhu Zhu Pets are the "it" toy of the 2009 holiday season; more than 6 million of the fuzzy cuties have been sold so far, meaning that there would have been a lot of very disappointed kids on Christmas morning if the toys had indeed been tainted.

GoodGuide, a website that ranks the safety and sustainability of toys and household products, had reported over the weekend that Mr. Squiggles, one of the Zhu Zhu Pets, contained antimony at levels of 93 to 106 parts per million, in excess of the federal standard of 60 parts per million. Cephia LLC, the manufacturer of Zhu Zhu Pets, quickly posted its own toxicology report on Mr. Squiggles. The CPSC examined the report and gave the little guy a clean bill of health. It turns out that GoodGuide had conducted its test with a hand-held X-ray fluorescence analyzer, which is considered less accurate than the methods required of manufacturers, which test the levels of soluble contaminants in a toy. Good for Mr. Squiggles, but what about all the other toys destined to be under the tree?

Toy manufacturers are required to test toys for lead and other contaminants as a result of a much-needed upgrade of toy safety laws last year. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 effectively banned lead, a toxic metal that causes brain damage, and phthalates, plastic softeners suspected of disrupting the body's hormonal system, in toys. The legislation also called for the CPSC to create a searchable database of recalled toys. That database hasn't yet been built, and there are still plenty of toys being sold with lead and other contaminants; just look at the long list posted at the CPSC toy recalls website. Here are three steps to find out if the toys you buy for your children are safe:

-- Check the list of CPSC toy recalls for any toys you're considering. The site includes photos, which helps sort out which toy is which.

-- Buy from big retailers, which do their own safety testing of toys and closely monitor recalls. Be extra cautious when buying from thrift shops and small retailers, which don't always have the staff to keep up on safety recalls.

-- When seeking general consumer advice on toys, go with big-name consumer sites like Consumer Reports, U.S. PIRG, and Safe Kids USA, rather than smaller efforts like GoodGuide. ''While we accurately reported the chemical levels in the toys that we measured using our testing method, we should not have compared our results to federal standards,'' GoodGuide said in a written release on the Zhu Zhu Pets flap. ''We regret this error.''

And when shopping, keep in mind that some types of toys have historically been repeat offenders when it comes to safety problems. Last year I wrote about five ways parents can protect children from unsafe toys while waiting for the new toy safety law to kick in. That advice is still useful, since despite the new law toys continue to be recalled for lead contamination and other problems. Beware of:

-- Cheap metal jewelry and charms, notorious for being contaminated with lead.

-- Toys that contain rare-earth magnets, which have caused dozens of injuries and at least one death. If the magnets come loose and young children swallow them, they can cause potentially fatal intestinal blockages.

-- Brightly painted toys; adding lead to paint is a cheap way to make red, yellow, and other bright colors that appeal to children.

-- Plastic, because some still contain phthalates. Choose wooden toys instead or look for phthalate-free toys if you are concerned about potential exposure to endocrine disruptors.

Turntables techniques, such as beat mixing/matching, scratching (seemingly invented by Grand Wizard Theodore) and beat juggling eventually developed along with the breaks, creating a base that could be rapped over. This same techniques contributed to the popularization of remixes. Such looping, sampling and remixing of another's music, sometimes without the original artist's knowledge or consent, can be seen as an evolution of Jamaican dub music, and would become a hallmark of the hip hop style.

Although there were many early MCs that recorded solo projects of note, such as DJ Hollywood, Kurtis Blow and Spoonie Gee, the frequency of solo artists didn't increase until later with the rise of soloists with really big stage presence and drama, such as LL Cool J. Most early hip hop was dominated by groups where collaboration between the members was integral to the show.

NYC Hip Hop Classes

Creators Syndicate –
Talk about an inconvenient truth. In ever-increasing numbers, Americans are becoming skeptical about the scientific argument that there's a man-made global-warming crisis that requires immediate and drastic government action. The media's enablers of the radical environmental left have a response: Maybe America just isn't smart or curious enough to save the planet. In fact, they say our growing denial is making us nationally irrational.

On Monday, National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" ran a story by science correspondent Richard Harris. He worried aloud about a new Harris Poll showing that 51 percent of the American public believes that the carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere could warm up our planet. That's down from 71 percent just two years ago. That's a free-fall.

Harris found an expert from Yale to explain this decline is based on our poor economy. People are too worried about their jobs to care about the fate of the entire globe. In a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, that's why climate came in dead last of 20 issues of concern.

But that's a dodge. It doesn't explain why a number of recent polls show that people are less and less likely to accept the "science" of global warming. Another possibility was lurking out there.

NPR brought on sociologist Kari Marie Norgaard of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., to explain why, as scientists grow ever more confident of global warming, public opinion is moving the other way. "This seems irrational," she said. "And in that sense, it's challenging the basic premise that we have of an enlightened, democratic, modern society."

Harris said Norgaard studied the shift in public opinion and found that people are not too bright and easily overwhelmed: "As people start to feel overwhelmed by the scope of the problem, they simply turn away from the topic. It's denial, plain and simple," Harris suggested. Norgaard added: "We just don't want to know about it, and so we are actively distancing ourselves from it or trying to protect ourselves from it."

Her scientific theory: Anyone immersed in global warming theory embraces it. To know it is to love it. Anyone opposed to that theory has his nose in a corner with his fingers in his ears, trying not to hear a discouraging word.

The arrogance of liberals never ceases to amaze. Lazy people are the most likely people to go with the media flow on global doom and gloom. But get intellectually involved, analyze the evidence, listen to the discussions on talk radio, read the hot websites skeptical of the global-warming lobby — and you're bizarrely analyzed as someone who's "distancing themselves" from reality.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post dove into the shallow end of this debate with a psychoanalysis of its own. Their headline was "It's natural to behave irrationally: Climate change is just the latest problem that people acknowledge but ignore." Reporter David Fahrenthold began: "To a psychologist, climate change looks as if it was designed to be ignored."

The Post's expert was Duke professor Dan Ariely: "We are collectively irrational, in the sense that we should really care about the long-term well-being of the planet, but when we get up in the morning, it's very hard to motivate ourselves." Failing to support Al Gore & Company, Ariely surmised, is just like "why we don't exercise, and we overeat, and we bite our fingernails ... It's not something where we're going to overcome human nature."

The elitists at NPR and The Washington Post didn't stop to consider that while journalists love to scare people about global warming, they've seriously neglected to explain what the proposed command-and-control government "solutions" are. In October, the Pew Research Center found that when they asked how much people had heard about a policy called "cap and trade," a majority had not. Fourteen percent said they had heard "a lot" about it, 30 percent said they'd heard "a little" — and 55 percent said they'd heard "nothing."

The networks have barely covered the global-warming legislation debate in Congress this year, preferring to cover health care — which is exactly what Team Obama wanted. Every piece of trivia from Tiger Woods to White House party-crashers has received more attention, at least until the Left gathered in Copenhagen. There was zero coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC of the "cap and trade" bill in the House — until after it passed. And then it vanished again.

If Americans are growing skeptical of global warming, it's not due to Al Gore's army in the newsrooms of the Old Media. It's the impact of the New Media, daring to expose how "science" is being manipulated and exaggerated to bring about a massive socialist intervention in our economy.

L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM

OCOEE, Fla. – Tiger Woods' mother-in-law collapsed at his home and was rushed to a hospital early Tuesday, touching off the second media frenzy in two weeks surrounding the pro golfer's carefully guarded private life.
Barbro Holmberg was taken by ambulance to Health Central Hospital with stomach pains after a 911 call from Woods' house. Holmberg, a Swedish politician, was released about 11 hours later and returned to Woods' mansion, hospital spokesman Dan Yates said.
"She was wheeled out in a wheelchair just like everyone else," Yates said.
In a recording of the 911 call obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, a panicking woman tells the dispatcher that her mother has collapsed.
"Hurry up," the woman says as a child can be heard crying in the background. "She collapsed in the bathroom. What do I do?"
A few seconds later the woman said her mother was breathing normally, talking and didn't appear to be hurt from her fall.
The caller wasn't identified. Woods' wife, Elin Nordegren, has a twin sister, but it wasn't clear whether she was at the house.
Health Central is the same hospital where Woods was treated after he crashed his sport utility vehicle outside his home in a gated community in nearby Windermere last month.
Holmberg, 57, arrived in the U.S. a few days ago, Yates said, just as her daughter grappled with fallout from the crash and the ensuing statement from Woods that he had extramarital "transgressions."
Woods and his wife have a 2-year-old daughter and an infant son.
Family members visited Holmberg in the hospital, Yates said, but he did not specify whether Woods or his wife came. The family hired additional security to keep the media away.
Yates would not speculate on what caused Holmberg's stomach problems or whether she had suffered previously with that type of distress. Holmberg's spokeswoman, Eva Malmborg, said she wasn't aware that Holmberg suffered from any disease.
Holmberg was expected back at her job as Gavleborg county governor in central-east Sweden next week, said her deputy, Olov Rydberg.
Intense media scrutiny has followed the world's No. 1 golfer since he hit a hydrant and a tree Nov. 27 about 2:25 a.m. Woods was cited for careless driving and fined $164.
The attention didn't let up Tuesday, when dozens of live trucks, camera crews and reporters camped out on the hospital's lawn, awaiting word of Holmberg's condition.
"I think she understands," Yates said of Holmberg.
The accident — and Woods' refusal to answer questions about it — fueled speculation about a possible dispute between him and Elin.
Just days before the crash, a National Enquirer story alleged Woods had been seeing a New York nightclub hostess, Rachel Uchitel, who has denied it. After the crash, Us Weekly reported that a Los Angeles cocktail waitress named Jaimee Grubbs claims she had a 31-month affair with Woods.

Last week, Woods issued a statement saying he had let his family down with unspecified "transgressions" that he regrets with "all of my heart." He did not elaborate.

A police report released Monday showed that a Florida trooper who suspected Woods was driving under the influence sought a subpoena for the golfer's blood test results from the hospital, but prosecutors rejected the petition for insufficient information.

A witness, who wasn't identified in the report, told trooper Joshua Evans that Woods had been drinking alcohol earlier. The same witness also said Woods had been prescribed two drugs, the sleep aid Ambien and the painkiller Vicodin.

The report did not say who the witness was but added it was the same person who pulled Woods from the vehicle after the accident. Woods' wife has told police that she used a golf club to smash the back windows of the Cadillac Escalade to help her husband out.

Although Woods' injuries were minor, his agent, Mark Steinberg, used them as an excuse to cancel an interview with investigators the day after the accident, according to a call log released Tuesday by the Florida Highway Patrol.

"Tiger wants to reschedule meeting set for 3 p.m.," the log entry said. "He's still too sore from the accident."

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Associated Press writers Mike Schneider in Orlando, Antonio Gonzalez in Windermere and Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm contributed to this report.

KABUL – Afghan President Hamid Kara and President Barack Obama discussed the new U.S. policy for Afghanistan during an hourlong videoconference call Tuesday morning, a spokesman for the presidential palace said.
The videoconference came ahead of Obama's planned speech Tuesday night at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he will outline a new U.S. war plan and dispatch between 30,000 and 35,000 more American troops to Afghanistan. Karzai's office said the two leaders discussed in detail the security, political, military and economic aspects of the strategy.
The call was one of several Obama was making to world leaders, including Asif Ali Zardari, the president of neighboring Pakistan.
Obama's war escalation includes sending more American forces into Afghanistan in a graduated deployment over the next year. They will join the 71,000 U.S. troops already on the ground. Obama's new war strategy also includes renewed focus on training Afghan forces to take over the fight and allow the Americans to leave.
Obama also is expected to explain why he believes the U.S. must continue to fight more than eight years after the war was started following the Sept. 11 attacks by al-Qaida terrorists based in Afghanistan.
This has been the deadliest year of the conflict for U.S. forces, with nearly 300 killed. Casualties started climbing soon after Obama decided to deploy an additional 21,000 U.S. troops as part of his plan to refocus on the Afghan war.
NATO forces have also posted a higher death toll in 2009 than in any previous year, with more than 500 killed. In the latest casualty, a British service member was killed by a bomb Monday, the international military coalition said in a statement.
Obama will emphasize that Afghan security forces need more time, more schooling and more U.S. combat backup to be up to the job on their own, and he will make tougher demands on the governments of Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.
In the capital of Kabul, some Afghans said they were worried that the troop increase was too much like an occupation — a scenario particularly worrisome to Afghans who still remember living through an oppressive Soviet regime.
"Afghans do not like any interference of foreigners into their affairs, especially in military affairs," said Bershna Nadery, a woman in a black head scarf who works for the Afghan Finance Ministry.
Nadery said she was worried that more troops would make life more dangerous for Afghans.
"When they increase the troops, the Taliban will respond by increasing their attacks on the foreigners. But that will not only be against the foreigners, it will be against Afghan civilians who live in the same area," Nadery said.
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Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann contributed to this report from Kabul.

DUBAI (Reuters) –
The Dubai government said on Monday it was not responsible for the debts of Dubai World, dealing a blow to creditors' assumptions that the Arab emirate would guarantee the conglomerate's liabilities.

"Creditors need to take part of the responsibility for their decision to lend to the companies," said Abdulrahman al-Saleh, director general of Dubai's Department of Finance. "They think Dubai World is part of the government, which is not correct."

In its first statement since the crisis began, Dubai World, the government-controlled holding company at the heart of the storm, said a restructuring would involve $26 billion in debt and mostly affect its property firms, Nakheel and Limitless.

Other firms, such as DP World, Jebel Ali Free Zone and Istithmar World would not be included in the restructuring because they were financially stable, it said in a statement released by e-mail late on Monday night.

The previously unreleased figure of $26 billion may help markets to grapple with the scope of the crisis following estimates that the restructuring could affect $59 billion or more in liabilities.

United Arab Emirates stocks plunged on Monday as investors waited for clarity on Dubai's request for a delay until May 2010 on repaying billions of dollars in debt issued by Dubai World and its Nakheel unit, developer of three distinctive palm-shaped islands in the emirate.

European shares fell as investors worried about sovereign financial crises, with the FTSEurofirst 300 off 1.4 percent. But the U.S. dollar fell against the euro after the United Arab Emirates promised liquidity, easing worries about default.

Saleh's remarks in an interview to Dubai TV, a station owned by the ruler of Dubai, came after UAE markets closed.

"They have confirmed there is going to be a restructuring and are doing what they can to differentiate between the government and companies," said Mohieddine Kronfol, managing director at Algebra Capital.

"It doesn't take away from the fact that you have a major potential event that is unraveling. People's expectations aren't going to be met with this announcement."

The UAE's central bank pledged financial support, helping to steady global markets.

The central bank promised additional liquidity to local banks and an official in Dubai's oil-exporting neighbor, Abu Dhabi, said on Sunday it would offer selective support to Dubai firms.

Without referring directly to the Dubai World debt problems, the UAE's central bank governor said on Monday there was no cause for concern about local banks, which he said had proven themselves able to weather the global crisis.

"I have advice for foreign investors. They should study available investment opportunities and conduct realistic feasibility studies to make sure they are real opportunities with no risk," the state news agency WAM quoted Sultan Nasser al-Suweidi as saying.

Michael Ganske, head of emerging market research at Commerzbank in London, said a default, which could ultimately benefit the region, "is becoming more likely.

"At the end of the day it should be positive for Dubai, Dubai's sovereign risk should go down," he said.

Dubai World -- which had $59 billion of liabilities as of August -- shocked investors last week with news of the standstill request while it restructures, along with its property developer Nakheel. The agreement would affect about $5.7 billion of debt due to mature before the end of May.

Nakheel earlier on Monday asked for three of its Islamic bonds, worth a total of $5.25 billion, to be suspended on Nasdaq Dubai until it was in a position to "fully inform the market.

STANDALONE ENTITY

Saleh made clear on Monday that while the government owned Dubai World, the conglomerate had long operated as a stand-alone entity and was never guaranteed by the emirate's government.

"It deals with all parties on this basis and it borrows based on ... its projects and not the guarantee of the government," Saleh said.

When contacted by Reuters and asked whether Dubai could still repay its Nakheel bond, Saleh declined to comment.

The head of a Dubai budget committee said the government's own debt was $10 billion. "Dubai government's debts have been declared. They are only 10 billions. There should be no confusion between (the government) and any company," Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, also Dubai's police chief, told Al Arabiya television.

Dubai World Chairman Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem also declined to comment on Monday. Other Dubai World officials could not immediately be reached.

John Sfakianakis, chief economist at Banque Saudi Fransi-Credit Agricole Group, said the distinction between the Dubai government and the flagship company appeared minimal.

"What role does the sovereign play? This continues to create uncertainty," he said from Riyadh. "Their motivation is to make a distinction between the two, but the difference ... is nebulous."

Saleh said he believed the market reaction to last Wednesday's announcement by Dubai World, which initially shook global financial confidence, was exaggerated.

"The restructuring is a wise decision that is in the interest of all parties in the long-term but might bother creditors in the short term," he declared.

(Additional reporting by Raissa Kasolowsky, John Irish in Dubai and Carolyn Cohn in London; Writing by Amran Abocar and Firouz Sedarat; Editing by Alistair Lyon, John Stonestreet, Kenneth Barry and Dan Grebler)

SEATTLE – Authorities believe the man sought in the slaying of four police officers is still alive and has been aided by a network of friends and family, a police spokesman said Monday night.
Officers believe Maurice Clemmons was shot in the abdomen during the attack on the officers at a Parkland coffee shop, and had speculated he might have died.
But Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff, said investigators have questioned several people who had provided assistance to Clemmons since the Sunday morning shootings.
"We think his network of people helping him is running out." Troyer said. "He's probably on his own."
Police are also certain Clemmons, 37, was in a Seattle house on Sunday night, but was able to flee before police could contain the area. Police staked out the house overnight before SWAT team members determined early Monday that Clemmons wasn't there.
Clemmons has had access to handguns, rifles and shotguns, Troyer said.
"It's unfortunate he's been a step or two ahead of us."
Monday morning's realization that the suspect had not been cornered after all prompted police to fan out across the city, looking for any sign of Clemmons. Authorities posted a $125,000 reward for information leading to his arrest in the Sunday morning shooting rampage.
The manhunt came as authorities in two states took heat for the fact that Clemmons was allowed to walk the streets despite a teenage crime spree in Arkansas that landed him a 95-year prison sentence. He was released early after then-Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted his sentence.
"This guy should have never been on the street," said Brian D. Wurts, president of the police union in Lakewood, where all four slain officers worked. "Our elected officials need to find out why these people are out."
Police said they are not sure what prompted Clemmons to assassinate the officers as they worked on their laptop computers at the beginning of their shifts. He was described as increasingly erratic in the past few months and had been arrested earlier this year on charges that he punched a sheriff's deputy in the face.
Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer told the Tacoma News-Tribune that Clemmons indicated the night before the shooting "that he was going to shoot police and watch the news."
Authorities said the gunman singled out the officers and spared employees and other customers at the coffee shop in a suburb about 35 miles south of Seattle. He then fled, but not before he was apparently shot in the torso by one of the dying officers.
Police later learned he may have been holed up at the house in Seattle. After an all-night siege in which they tried to get him out using loudspeakers, explosions and a robot sent into the house, a SWAT team stormed the place and discovered he was not there.
Police spent the rest of the day frantically chasing leads, visiting hundreds of locations as they followed up on tips, at one point cordoning off a park where people thought they saw Clemmons. They also alerted hospitals to be on the lookout for a man seeking treatment for gunshot wounds.
University of Washington officials alerted students by e-mail and text messages to an unconfirmed report that Clemmons might have gotten off a bus on or near the campus.
Investigators also examined the coffee shop for clues. Sheriff's spokesman Lt. Dave McDonald said that authorities found a handgun carried by the killer, along with a pickup truck belonging to the suspect with blood stains inside.
Killed were Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39, and Officers Ronald Owens, 37, Tina Griswold, 40, and Greg Richards, 42.

Clemmons has an extensive violent criminal history from Arkansas.

On Sunday, Huckabee issued this statement on his Web site: "Should he be found to be responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington state."

In seeking leniency from Huckabee, Clemmons wrote the parole board that he was a "misguided fool" when he committed the crimes and "learned through the school of hard knocks to appreciate and respect the rights of others."

Huckabee cited Clemmons' youth in granting the request. But Clemmons quickly reverted to his criminal past, violated his parole and was returned to prison. He was released again in 2004.

Clemmons was charged in Washington state earlier this year with assaulting a police officer and raping a child, and investigators in the sex case said he was motivated by visions that he was Jesus Christ and that the world was on the verge of the apocalypse. But he was released from jail after posting bail with the assistance of Jail Sucks Bail Bonds.

Documents related to those charges indicate a volatile personality. In one instance, he is accused of punching a sheriff's deputy in the face. In another, he is accused of gathering his wife and young relatives and forcing them to undress.

"The whole time Clemmons kept saying things like trust him, the world is going to end soon, and that he was Jesus," a Pierce County sheriff's report said.

Neighbors said Clemmons had surveillance cameras installed along the bushes in front of his house, and had mostly kept his blinds shut since he was accused of throwing rocks through the windows of his neighbors' cars and houses earlier this year.

Neighbor Ken Dietiker said he initially thought Clemmons' cameras were there to prevent crime. "But now I'm starting to think he's just paranoid," he said.

Dietiker said he was frustrated to learn about Clemmons' record and releases from custody.

"There were all these indicators. Who didn't see them?" he asked. "That's what I want to know."

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Manuel Valdes in Seattle, Rachel La Corte in Tacoma, George Tibbits in Seattle, Andrew DeMillo and Jill Zeman Bleed in Little Rock, Ark., and photographers Elaine Thompson in Seattle and Ted S. Warren in Parkland, Wash.

A folding bicycle is a type of bicycle that incorporates hinges or joints in the frame that permit it to be broken down into a more compact size. Most 'folders' have 20 inch (51 cm) diameter wheels, or less. Folding bikes can be taken on public transport and into apartment buildings or workplaces where conventional bicycles are not allowed. This facilitates mixed-mode commuting, because a folding bike can be carried on any available transport, and ridden when there is none. Folding bikes are also easier to transport in a car.

Folding bicycles typically cost more than non-folding bicycles of comparable quality, because they have more parts to allow folding. This results in a more complicated design, which is more complex to manufacture. There is also a smaller market for this type of bike. As an alternative to folding, some models achieve similar results by separating into two or more parts. These are sometimes grouped in the same category as folding bicycles but are also referred to as break-away, disassemblable, or separable bicycles.

Tandem Bikes

NEW YORK – Jeremy Abbott was a total slob when he lived at home, clothes strewn all over his bedroom back in Colorado.
"It was a disaster," the reigning U.S. figure skating champion said. "But since I've been on my own, I've been making sure to keep my apartment immaculate. It's very clean, and I'm very surprised at myself.
"I didn't think I could do that."
It's exactly the sort of self-discovery and personal responsibility Abbott sought when he left his coach of a decade and moved across the country less than a year before the Olympics. The judges aren't going to award any style points based on the cleanliness of his bedroom, but little signs like this assure him he made the right choice — and that he's on track to compete for a medal at February's Vancouver Games.
The next major test is this week's Grand Prix final in Tokyo, where Abbott is the defending champ.
Abbott won his first U.S. title in January under Tom Zakrajsek, with whom he had trained at the Colorado Springs World Arena in his home state since 1999. A few months later, he decided to switch to former world champ Yuka Sato at the Detroit Skating Club in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
"I felt really deep down that I needed a change," Abbott said while visiting New York in August. "It was time. Now or never. This is the Olympic year, and I wanted to give myself the best opportunity. And I feel this is my best opportunity."
He felt he needed to be more independent, more in control. On and off the ice.
Abbott was 23 years old and had never lived by himself. His mother, Allison Scott, laughs as she talks about the big move.
"I love my son, but there is a time at which it's good to get out," she said.
"I'll be the first to admit it," she added. "When you have a kid living at home and they're that focused, as a parent sometimes you do too much."
Sure, her son could have gotten his own apartment in Colorado Springs. But he truly needed to be on his own.
"To make a change in a certain environment when everything's so the same — I think it's really hard," said Abbott, who turned 24 in June. "I've tried that before, tried to make the change, and you just fall back into old habits when you don't have something or somewhere or someone to keep you on that other path."
Before the move, Abbott and Zakrajsek agree, he often was looking outside himself for motivation. The coach believes Abbott could have achieved all his goals if he stayed in Colorado. But as Zakrajsek told his wife, "it's like having a child go off to college — they have to go spread their wings and become their own person."
So Abbott made the big decision, changed coaches, told Sato exactly what he thought he wanted and needed. Now when he goes to the rink each day, he thinks, "OK, I'm going to get on this ice and I'm going to work hard for me."
In Colorado, Abbott trained with Brandon Mroz and Ryan Bradley, who both placed in the top four at nationals in January, and Rachael Flatt, who was second on the women's side. He said he sometimes found himself distracted by working with so many other elite skaters.
In Detroit, he trains with reigning U.S. women's champion Alissa Czisny, so "I didn't have to give all of that up," Abbott said. "But it's just toned down."
"The whole vibe is a little more relaxed," he said. "I loved being on the ice with Ryan and Brandon and Rachael. I loved having that competition. But I kind of like being able to just focus on myself and not have to worry about what everyone else is doing every day."

He got a small apartment about five minutes from the rink and furnished it with a bunch of stuff from Ikea. Photos of family and friends and posters from events he's competed at hang from the walls. There's an enormous black and white picture of Amsterdam, which he visited on his first trip out of the U.S.

He's been trying to cook, making dishes like gnocchi from scratch or risotto.

It's also the little signs that assure his mother he made the right decision. Sometimes it's just a Facebook status update describing that day's practice that lets her know her son is happy.

Sato has watched Abbott find a nice equilibrium in his new home as he developed a tight-knit group of friends. She sees a needed consistency from him in practice — a consistency that has at times eluded him in competition.

Abbott finished a disappointing 11th at the world championships in Los Angeles in March before the coaching change. He tumbled from second to fifth after falling three times during his free skate at the NHK Trophy in Nagano, Japan, in early November. But he bounced back three weeks later to win Skate Canada and qualify for the Grand Prix final.

Sato believes Abbott now has the foundation in place to have more days like the one in Cleveland in January when he was crowned America's best.

"You may think those things don't matter, that it has nothing to do with skating and performance," she said. "I think it really does affect it. He takes responsibility for his own actions, and eventually that starts to affect in a very positive way on his skating."

SYDNEY (AFP) –
A leading climate-change sceptic seized control of Australia's opposition on Tuesday, vowing to kill carbon trading legislation ahead of key UN talks.

Right-wing maverick Tony Abbott ousted Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull by just one vote, 42-41, in a result that should doom marathon attempts to pass emissions laws.

A second defeat of the government bill -- aiming to cut carbon pollution by between five and 25 percent of 2000 levels by 2020 -- would give the government powers to call a snap election.

"We will oppose the legislation in the Senate -- that is the right thing to do," Abbott told reporters, adding that he was "not frightened of an election on this issue".

Turnbull had sparked a party revolt by supporting the government's carbon legislation, and warned that the centre-right Liberals faced electoral disaster if an early election were called.

"I think climate change is real," Abbot said, brushing off earlier comments that global warming was a "load of crap" as "a bit of hyperbole", and drawing sarcastic laughs from journalists.

"I think man does make a contribution. There's an argument as to how great that contribution is, and second what should be done about it.

"The last thing we should be doing is rushing through a great big new tax just so (prime minister) Kevin Rudd can take a trophy to Copenhagen," he added.

Failure to pass the cuts ahead of the UN summit would be deeply embarrassing for Labor leader Rudd, who has said it would jeopardise Australia's ability to be "fully active in the negotiations".

"A failure to vote, or shall I say a vote to delay on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, is a vote to deny the climate-change science," he told reporters in Washington.

"A vote to delay this bipartisan Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is also to deny Australia's ability to act on climate change."

Australia, the developed world's worst per capita polluter, is responsible for about 1.5 percent of global emissions.

The Copenhagen talks, under the 192-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, aim to craft a new pact for curbing gases that drive global warming.

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
President Barack Obama has given fateful orders likely to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan in a political gamble meant to forge an eventual US exit from a costly and gruelling war.

"The commander in chief has issued the orders," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday, as Obama briefed world leaders of his new Afghan strategy, a day before making a major televised address to the American people.

The plan emerged from an exhaustive policy review amid extreme weariness of the war among Americans, and as supporters warned Obama could be risking his presidency by deploying thousands more men to a Vietnam-style quagmire.

Obama is expected to order between 30,000 and 35,000 more troops to bolster the US effort to repel a resurgent Taliban, secure major cities and fast-track training for Afghan security forces, alongside a separate civilian aid surge.

The president will also assure Americans and regional leaders he will not underwrite an indefinite and costly stay in Afghanistan for US troops.

"This is not an open-ended commitment," Gibbs said, painting the plan as an eventual pathway for US troops to come home.

"We are there to partner with the Afghans, to train the Afghan national security forces, the army and the police, so that they can provide security for their country and wage a battle against an unpopular insurgency."

The White House said Obama delivered orders marking the most crucial leadership test of his presidency in the Oval Office so far, on Sunday, after telling top aides of his final decision.

He met generals and top security aides in the Oval Office.

He then spoke directly by secure video-link to Afghan war commander General Stanley McChrystal, who warned earlier this year the conflict would be lost without more troops -- and US ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry.

Obama will address Americans in a major televised speech to cadets at the US Military Academy at West Point at 8:00 pm Tuesday (0100 GMT Wednesday).

He will tell a nation weary of years of conflict and humbled by the worst economic crisis in generations, why it must risk yet more lives and wealth in a war launched after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

His message will be compelling listening for voters, lawmakers and soldiers, US allies, leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents battling Washington in a bloody eight-year war.

Many of Obama's core political supporters, and key Democrats worried about ballooning budget deficits, are wary of more troop deployments. Republicans have however demanded the president answer the generals' calls for more help.

As he launched a public relations offensive to market the new strategy, Obama called French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday.

A secure video link-up with Gordon Brown was also planned, after the British prime minister announced he would increase British regular troop numbers by 500 to 9,500 in December.

Obama will also talk to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who both will be key players in the new strategy.

Asked why Obama was informing world leaders of his plans before telling the American people, Gibbs said that the president would not go into specifics on troop numbers but needed to consult valued US foreign partners.

Intense consultations with key players in Congress, where some majority Democrats have expressed skepticism about new troop deployments, were taking place on Monday and Tuesday, Gibbs said.

Some 35,000 American soldiers were fighting the Taliban-led insurgency when Obama took office. After an initial boost in February there are now about 68,000.

More than 900 American soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan and October was the deadliest month since the start of the war in 2001 with 74 US soldiers killed.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost 768.8 billion dollars and by the end of this fiscal year (October 2010) the price tag will approach one trillion.

Obama Sunday spoke to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by telephone, then met Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff; General James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the joint chiefs; White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and General David Petraeus, head of US central command.