by April Blackmon
April 20, 2006
Vice President Richard B. Cheney speaks to Soldiers at Fort Riley, Kan., during his visit Apr. 18. "You have protected [the Iraqi people] and your fellow Americans by directing lethal power against the enemy,” he told the 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division troops. Click here for more details.

The Patriot Guard Riders have one-up on Phelps....

Protesters duck out on GI's funeral

Excerpts from the article at the Chicago Sun-Times:

An hour before the body of Lance Cpl. Philip Martini arrived at Holy Ghost
Catholic Church in South Holland, hundreds more flags danced proudly
in the hands of leather-clad bikers...

...Clarke's eyes narrowed at the small clutch of five protesters from
Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church across the street. Their signs --
blaring "God Hates America" -- were a sickening intrusion into a somber
day, he said...

...About 300 bikers, veterans and others from around the state respectfully
waved flags before Martini's funeral to draw attention away from
the Westboro protesters. Many of them were affiliated with the Patriot
Guard Riders, a national group of 25,000 that serves as a human buffer
between the Westboro protesters and grieving military families.

But they didn't have to do much Wednesday. The media-savvy Westboro
protesters left half an hour before the Martini family showed and shortly
after they spoke to the media.

Read the rest

HOOOAAAH to all those who stand between grieving families and these nutjobs.

TRAINING — Iraqi Army soldiers of the 4th Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 5th Iraqi Army Division, learn how to check the oil on a Humvee as part of preventative maintenance checks and services training, April 14, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Mark Wojciechowski

News of Note
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Stepping Aside?
Al-Jaafari asks for confirmation
Al-Jaafari Clears Way to Be Replaced
American Human Shield in Iraq Wants to Avoid U.S. Fines
Rice: No Sudden End to Iraqi Violence in Sight
Iraq parliament to meet, US patience wears thin
Report: Iraq war costs continue to escalate
Iraq inches toward government
Hussein's death order signature confirmed
Feud dividing 2 Shi'ite clerics clouds dispute over Iraqi leader

Operation Enduring Freedom
Blast Near U.S. Embassy in Kabul Injures One
Afghan villagers greet US hunt for insurgents with polite silence

Homeland Security / War on Terror
Pentagon Releases Names of Gitmo Inmates
Victims' Kin Testify for Moussaoui's Life
7 Pakistani Soldiers Killed in Ambush
Novak: Feds know who outed CIA agent

Troops on Trial
Soldier Pleads Guilty to Attempted Murder

Other Military News
Bay of Pigs vets have put their loss in perspective

Immigration
May 1 boycott by immigrants triggers a rift in movement

Hamas Rising
Arab funds to give Palestinians $50 million aid

Worldwide Wackos
North Korea says it has "shocking evidence" of US plot
"New urgency" to curb Iran: US
Ahmadinejad: Oil Price Is Lower Than Value
On Iran, consensus proves elusive

Politics
Police: McKinney Struck Cop With Closed Fist
Rove's job pared, Bush press secretary quits
Bush and Hu set for talks

Supreme Court
High court begins review of insanity-defense case

Oddities
Mexican Cops: Priest Killed Pregnant Lover
US comedian called world's 'unsexiest' man
Global sex survey: guess who's satisfied

Other News of Note
Bubonic Plague Case in L.A.
Six Waco Branch Davidians Due for Release
China, Iran, Saudi, US main executioners: Amnesty

Fox News
Chinese Leader Visits Boeing
Oil Over $72, Sets New Record
Gov't: Gas May Top $3 (May? We've already got over $3 here)
N.O. Police Returning Guns Taken Post-Katrina
Officials: U.S. Deaths See Largest Drop in 60 Years
No Link to Natalee?
Winning Mega Millions Ticket Sold in Cincinnati
Cop Finds $1M Scratch Ticket
Two-Legged Fossil Indicates Snakes Evolved on Land
NEW! Small Business Page
NEW! Cybersecurity Center

Reuters: Top News
Nepali police fire rubber bullets at protesters
Three Mile Island shows US nuclear risks, rewards
VIDEO: Bangladesh activists injured
VIDEO: Prodi's election win confirmed
PICTURES: Chinese President Hu Jintao In The US
Finance: Tax form autopsy
Hu visits Boeing plant
Next shuttle crew to inspect for debris damage
Central America eyes sweet alternative to oil
Apple iPod prices to decline: CFO
Consumer agency repeats DVD player recall
Effort to photograph dying children helps families
Global warming hits Canada's remotest Arctic lands
US mumps cases top 1,100
Hiccups a possible sign of cancer: study
Nokia Q1 earnings beat all forecasts, shares rise
Yahoo Japan net rises 25.9 pct
Oil hits new high above $74 as supply fears persist
Prudential Q1 sales up 27 pct, beat forecasts
Danone Q1 sales rise 14.9 pct, keeps 2006 goals
Vivendi Q1 sales beat forecasts, up 5.7 pct
UK Lottery group Chariot up as reveals new game
Nikkei ends down as oil weighs, Hoya drops
Stocks gain; Intel and Apple up after bell
EBay net dips, outlook drags on stock
Intel, Apple shares up after results
The Yahoo message
DeMartino: Motorola's surprising selloff

AP World News
Bus Accident in India Kills at Least 47
Experts Find Evidence of Bosnia Pyramid
Intel Slashes Spending Plans

The Seattle Times
Preparers of key guide linked to drug firms
$10 million slot jackpot: That's a lotta nickels
Venezuela is building a civilian militia
As Queen Elizabeth turns 80, facts we should know
Deaths, power loss blamed on storm
Leader sworn in; Australian troops patrol riot areas

Chicago Sun-Times
Defense challenged 8 jurors (Ryan trial)
Gas experts predict $4 a gallon by summer
Cleaner-burning 'summer blend' drives up price
Rice offers defense of Rumsfeld
State says firm used fraud to get cell records
No end in sight to mumps outbreak
House OKs tougher rules for seizing private property
Waukegan Harbor set for 'final' cleanup
Now we can visit Trump -- The Forest
Illinois joins states in suing tobacco industry
Duke player's lawyer: No chance of guilty plea
Outcry over cops' verdicts won't end
Child-killings probe in Atlanta at standstill

Boston Globe: World
In its global rise, China learns how to network in the US
Pope marks his first year with a plea for prayers
As clashes ease, global refugee figures dip to 25-year low, UN says
Tempest over several islets adds to turbulence in Japan-South Korea ties

Military.com
Bush: Failure not an Option
Rice Says no 'V-E Day' on Horizon
DoD Broadens Energy Efficiency Focus

CENTCOM: News Releases
AFGHAN OFFICIALS VISIT VICTIMS OF SCHOOL ATTACK

TRIPARTITE COMMISSION 16TH MEETING

SPARTANS, KUNAR GOVERNOR CONFER ON SECURITY, RECONSTRUCTION

IRAQI CITIZEN'S TIP LEADS TO MND-B SOLDIERS CAPTURING WEAPONS CACHES

BLAST DESTROYS IRAQI POLICE STATION IN YUSAFIYAH

TRAINEES GRADUATE BASIC TRAINING, BECOME AFGHAN ACADEMY CADETS

AFGHANS, COALITION FORCES THWART TERRORIST ATTACKS

Department of Defense
Bush: U.S. Won't Stop Short of Victory - Story
Governors Praise Troops Following Middle East Visit
Cheney Praises Soldiers, Accomplishments - Story
Center Coordinates Central Command Efforts - Story
Blast Destroys New Iraqi Police Station - Story
Roadside Bomb Kills Soldier; DoD Identifies Casualties

IRAQIS TAKE THE LEAD
Iraqi Army Assumes Control in Salah al Din - Story

REBUILDING IRAQ
Iraqi Village Gets Clean, Fresh Water - Story

ON THE GROUND
Meeting Cites Afghan, Pakistani Cooperation - Story

IN IRAQ
Air Force F-15s Save Army Ground Troops
Company C Aid Station Soldiers On Call 24/7

IN AFGHANISTAN
Afghan-Led Forces Detain Insurgents
Aviators Make Historic Return to Bagram
Construction Program Improves Afghan Lives

FACE OF DEFENSE
Recruiting Efforts Attract Soldier - Story

AMERICA SUPPORTS YOU
Michigan Police Help Iraqi Police - Story
Kids' Sacrifices Not Forgotten - Story - Letter

TOP NEWS
IRAQ
Iraq, Coalition Foil Terror Attacks
Marines Killed in Anbar Province
Operation Cowpens Concludes
Rice: Early Departure a Mistake
Fact Sheet: Progress and Work Ahead
Report: Strategy for Victory in Iraq
Iraq Daily Update
This Week in Iraq (PDF)
Multinational Force Iraq
State Dept. Weekly Iraq Report (PDF)
'Boots on the Ground' Audio Archive
Iraq Reconstruction
Maps

AFGHANISTAN
Coalition Responds to Casualties
Hospital Delivers Improved Care
Coalition Launches 'Mountain Lion'
Afghanistan Update
Maps

WAR ON TERRORISM
Central Command Shows Progress
Americans Use New Weapon in War
Cheney Thanks Airmen for Support
War on Terror Stakes Are High
Critical Views Not Widespread
'Faces of the Fallen' Extends Date
Ops Target Terrorists, Insurgents
Fact Sheet: Budget Request
Fact Sheet: War on Terror
Fact Sheet: Terror Plots Disrupted
Waging and Winning the War on Terror
Terrorism Timeline
Terrorism Knowledge Base

MILITARY NEWS
Rumsfeld Praises America’s Spirit
Doolittle Raid Web Special
Pace: Collaboration is Critical
Reports of Attack Are Wrong
Web Site Offers Help for Stress
Interrogation Battalion Activates
National Guard, Reserve Update

Today in History
0295 - 8th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
1505 - Jews are expelled from Orange Burgundy by Philibert of Luxembourg
1551 - John Dudley becomes English Earl Marshal
1653 - Cromwell routes English parliament to house
1657 - Battle in Santa Cruz Bay, Tenerife English fleet under Robert Blake sinks Spanish silver fleet
1702 - Comet C/1702 H1 approaches within 0.0437 astronomical units (AUs) of Earth
1770 - Captain Cook arrives in New South Wales
1775 - British begin siege of Boston
1777 - New York adopts new constitution as an independent state
1792 - France declares war on Austria, Prussia & Sardinia
1799 - Napoleon issues a decree calling for establishing Jerusalem for Jews
1809 - Napoleon I defeats Austria at Battle of Abensberg, Bavaria
1836 - Territory of Wisconsin created
1841 - 1st detective story (Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue") published
1853 - Harriet Tubman starts Underground Railroad
1861 - Battle of Norfolk, VA; Colonel Robert E Lee resigns from Union army
1871 - 3rd Enforcement Act (President can suspend writ of habeas corpus)
1879 - 1st mobile home (horse drawn) used in a journey from London & Cyprus
1902 - Marie & Pierre Curie isolate radioactive element radium
1910 - Halley's Comet passes 29th recorded perihelion at 87.9 million km
1916 - German-British sea battle off Belgian coast
1917 - Pravda (Lenin names Russia "Free land of world")
1919 - Polish Army captures Vilno, Lithuania from Soviet Army
1920 - Tornadoes kill 219 in Alabama & Mississippi; Balfour Declaration recognized, makes Palestine a British Mandate
1926 - 1st check sent by radio facsimile transmission across the Atlantic
1931 - British House of Commons agrees for sports play on Sunday
1934 - Heinrich Himmler becomes inspector for the Prussian secret state police
1936 - Jews repel an Arab attack in Petach Tikvah, Palestine
1939 - New York World's Fair opens
1940 - 1st electron microscope demonstrated (RCA), Philadelphia PA
1941 - 100 German bombers attack Athens
1942 - German occupiers forbid Dutch access to their beach; Heavy German assault on Malta
1944 - Dutch Communist Party-resistance fighter John Postma sentence to death
1945 - Soviet troops enter Berlin; US 7th Army & allies forces capture Nuremberg & Stuttgart in Germany; German occupiers flood Beemster & Fencer; US forces conquer Motobu peninsula on Okinawa
1947 - Frederik IX becomes King of Denmark
1948 - UAW president Walter P. Reuther shot & wounded at his home in Detroit
1951 - Velsen city council demands investigation of police collaborators
1958 - Morocco demands departure of Spanish troops
1962 - NASA pilot Neil A. Armstrong takes X-15 to an altitude of 63,250 meters
1962 - OAS-leader ex-General Salan arrested in Algiers
1965 - People's Republic China offers North Vietnam military aid
1967 - US planes bomb Haiphong for 1st time during the Vietnam War; US Surveyor 3 lands on Moon
1968 - Pierre Elliott Trudeau sworn-in as Canada's PM; South African Airways Boeing 707 crashes at Windhoek, 122 killed
1970 - Bruno Kreisky becomes 1st socialist chancellor of Austria
1971 - US Supreme Court upholds use of busing to achieve racial desegregation
1972 - Apollo 16's Young & Duke land on Moon with Boeing Lunar Rover #2
1973 - Canadian ANIK A2 becomes 1st commercial satellite in orbit
1977 - Supreme Court rules "Live Free or Die" may be covered on New Hampshire licenses
1981 - Final performance of TV show "Soap" airs
1983 - Soyuz T-8 launched; mission aborted when capsule fails to dock; President Ronald Reagan signs a $165 billion bail-out for Social Security
1984 - Russian offensive in Panshirvallei, Afghánistán
1987 - Sri Lanka Tamils shoot 122 Singalezen dead; US deports Karl Linnas, charged with Nazi war crimes, to USSR
1988 - US accuses Renamo of killing 100,000 Mozambiquians
1993 - Uranus passes Neptune (occurs once every 171 years)
1994 - Serbian army bombs hospital in Goradze, Bosnia - 47 killed
1994 - Space shuttle STS-59 (Endeavour 6), lands
1999 - Deadliest school shooting in US history at Columbine High School, Littleton CO -- 13 killed, 23 wounded

Birthdays
0121 - Marcus Aurelius, 16th Roman emperor (161-80), philosopher
1442 - Edward IV, King of England (1461-83)
1494 - John Agricola [Schneider], German theologist/prime minister
1592 - John Eliot St. Germans Cornwall, English MP/author
1726 - Jozef de Ferraris, French/Austrian earl/General/cartographer
1745 - Philippe Pinel, physician, founder of psychiatry
1808 - Louis-Napoleon [Napoleon III], Emperor of France (1852-71)
1809 - John Smith Preston, Confederate Brigadier General
1824 - Alfred Holt Colquitt, Confederate Brigadier General
1827 - John Gibbon, Union Major General
1839 - Carol I, King of Romania (1881-1914)
1860 - Charles Gordon Curtis, US attorney/inventor (Curtis Turbine); Pieter Jelles Troelstra, Dutch MP (SDAP)
1889 - Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany (1936-45)
1890 - Adolf Schärf, President of Austria (1957-65)
1912 - Ed Jones (Representative-TN)
1920 - John Paul Stevens, 103rd Supreme Court Justice
1926 - Harriett Elizabeth Byrd, politician (Wyoming House of Representatives)
1927 - Karl Müller Switzerland, superconductivity physicist (Nobel 1987)
1931 - Lee H. Hamilton, (Representative-IN)
1936 - Pat Roberts (Representative-KS)
1938 - Johnny Tillotson Jacksonville FL, singer (Gidget, Poetry in Motion)
1939 - Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norwegian Premier (1981-82, 86-89, 90- )
1950 - Itumeleng J. Mosala, South Africa President (Azanian People's Organization)
1955 - Donald R. Pettit, PhD/astronaut

Passings
1164 - Victor IV [Ottaviano Montecello], Italian antipope (1159-64)
1314 - Clement V [Bertrand Got], pope (1305-14)
1317 - Agnes van Montepulciano, Italian mystic/saint
1534 - Elizabeth Barton [Nun of Kent], British prophet, executed
1632 - Nicolas Antione, converted to Judiasm, burned at the stake
1812 - George Clinton, 4th US Vice President, dies at 73 - 1st Vice President to die in office
1821 - Franz K. Achard, German physicist/chemist, dies at 67
1836 - Johan I Jozef, monarch of Liechtenstein/fieldmarshal, dies at 75
1906 Australian wombat, oldest known marsupial, dies in London Zoo at 26
1941 - Barend ter Haar Dutch lawyer, dies in Buchenwald at 49
1947 - Christian X King of Denmark (1912-47), dies at 76
1962 - Jesse G Vincent engineer designed 1st V-12 engine, dies at 82
1974 - Mohammed Ayub Khan premier/President (Pakistan)
1990 - Horst Sinderman RDA 1st minister (1973-76)
1991 - Yumzhagin Tsendenbal, PM of Mongolia (1952-74)
1995 - Milovan Djilas, Yugoslavian politician (1945-54)
1996 - Tran Van Tra, North Vietnamese general, dies at 77

Reported Missing in Action
1965
Butler, Phillip N., USN (OK); A4C shot down, released by DRV February, 1973 - retired as a Commander - alive as of 1998

Shea, James Patrick, USN (CA); A1H shot down, KIA / BNR

1966
Abbott, John, USN (CA); A4C shot down, DIC, DRV returned remains March, 1974

1968
The following USMC personnel reported MIA when their UH1E was shot down (all KIA / BNR):
Cestare, Joseph Angelo (NY)

Walker, William J. (CA)

Zutterman, Joseph A., Jr. (KS)

1970
Mahan, Douglas F., USAF (MO); F105D shot down - remains recovered July, 1972

1972
Amos, Thomas H., USAF (MO); AC130 shot down (w/Burnham) - remains ID'd November, 1999

Burnham, Mason I., USAF (OR); AC130 shot down (w/Amos) - remains ID'd November, 1999

Elias, Edward K., USAF ; RF4C shot down - released in Hanoi September, 1972