NYC Terror Threat A Hoax & 42,000 Dead In Aftermath of Quake in Today's Details 10/11/05

- Information that led to heightened security for the New York City transit system was a hoax, government sources said Tuesday. The sources said an informant in Iraq who provided the tip had told investigators about a terrorist plot involving New York's subway system. That informant admitted he gave false information, the sources said. (Well now, this is certainly a surprise. NOT! The only part of this story that's a surprise is that an Iraqi gave false information. I don't buy it. I believe this was a politically motivated hoax perpetuated on the public. This was done weekly in the fall of 2004 whenever the polls favored Kerry. Only difference now is they use terror as a distraction. To keep the public focused on fear rather than facts. Why shouldn't they do it - it's worked for them before.)

- Rain, wind and cold were hindering relief efforts Tuesday, three days after a 7.6 magnitude earthquake killed an estimated 41,000 people and left millions homeless in the Himalayan regions of India and Pakistan.

- Focus on the Family founder James Dobson will take to the airwaves Wednesday and Thursday to clarify what information he got from the White House or other sources about U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. Dobson has faced a barrage of media attention in recent days because he has tentatively endorsed Miers just as other conservatives or evangelical Christian leaders have expressed doubts about her qualifications and concern about the lack of a paper trail outlining her views. (Why is the White House consulting with James Dobson? Why is this unelected person in the 'inner circle' of the WH? Why is he privy to information that members on the Judiciary Committee aren't? Put him under oath before the Judiciary Committee and make him tell what he knows.)

- Insurgents determined to wreck Iraq's constitutional referendum killed more than 40 people and wounded dozens in a series of attacks Tuesday, including a suicide car bomb that ripped apart a crowded market in a town near the Syrian border, police said.

- Long before his criminal case gets a hearing in a court o f law, Rep. Tom DeLay is fighting in the court of public opinion. With his trademark zeal, he assails the prosecutor in one sentence and portrays himself as a victim in the next. And the media - often distrusted by fellow conservatives - is his bullhorn. (Guess he hopes we'll all just forget he was reprimanded not once, not twice - but THREE TIMES buy the Ethics Committee. A 50/50 Bipartisian Ethics Committee. Where there's smoke, there's fire!)

- Venturing into foreign policy, Governor Mitt Romney yesterday told a largely Republican
audience that Islamic terrorists ''want to bring down our government" and ''want to put in place a huge theocracy." ''We're under attack, as you know, militarily," Romney told about 150 people gathered at an exclusive Raleigh country club. ''They're not just intent on blowing up a little bomb here and there at a shopping mall, awful as that would be. They want to bring down our government, bring down our entire economy. They want to put in place a huge theocracy." (Hmmmmmmmmm if you take out the words "Islamic Terroists" and replace them with "Ultra Christian Right of the Republican Party"......he could be describing the Dobson wing of the Repulican Party!)

- U.S. Ambassador John Bolton blocked a U.N. envoy on Monday from briefing the Security Council on grave human rights violations in Sudan's Darfur region, saying the council had to act against atrocities and not just talk about them. (It should be mentioned that Mr Bolton had no suggestions.)

- Straining to find ground troops to maintain its force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan ,the Pentagon has begun deploying thousands of Air Force personnel to combat zones in new jobs as interrogators, prison sentries and gunners on supply trucks. (The AF as ground support?!?? So happy I am no longer in the AF.)