News of Note
Superbowl XLI
Colts Win Super Bowl XLI - Indianapolis beats Chicago Bears 29-17
Super Colts (Photo Essay)
Super Sunday at War
Battle of Thunderous Proportions - PHOTOS
Super Bowl parties: Flesh and flash

Operation Iraqi Freedom
GOP Senators Vow to Stop 'No Confidence' Measure
U.S. Military: Four Crashed Copters in Iraq Were Shot Down
Baghdad offensive set to begin - U.S. officers
U.S. adjusts Iraq tactics after copters downed
Mortars kill 15 in Baghdad after deadly truck bomb - Video
Reuters Video: Grim search after Baghdad blast

Operation Enduring Freedom
Top Taliban Leader Killed in Afghan Airstrike
Taliban warn of bloody spring as U.S. takes NATO reins - Video
U.S. gen. leads NATO in Afghanistan
Reuters Video: NATO handover

Homeland Security / War on Terror / Hamas-Hezbollah Happenings
Gaza rivals pull back, free some hostages - Video
Reuters Video: Playtime protest

Troops on Trial
Court-Martial for Army Officer Who Refused to Go to Iraq

Other Military News
Britain: 15 Underage Soldiers May Have Gone to Iraq (My great-great grandfather was underage when he fought in the Civil War)

Worldwide Wackos
Look Out! A Dictator on Parade
Report: Iranian Nuke Scientist 'Assassinated'
Iran official says no plans to halt atomic work
Analysis: Bush's Iran stance echoes Iraq

Politics / Government
Edwards' Health Plan Requires Tax Hikes (Democrats using a tax hike for some socialist benefit program? Naaaaah...)
Bush budget makes military, Iraq its centerpiece
Nader leaves '08 door open, slams Hillary

In the Courts / Crime and Punishment / Law and Order
Missing Pa. Toddler Found Dead

U.N. News
U.N. bird flu chief: Expect more cases

Media in the Media / Bloggers in the News / Watching the Web
European Giants Planning Google Rival?

Science / Medicine / Nature
Florida Picks Up After Tornadoes - PHOTOS
Whooping crane survives Florida storms
Tornado victims attend wrecked church
Astronauts on Second of Three Spacewalks
Spacewalkers upgrade station's coolant system
Astronaut sets women's spacewalk record
Dangerous Cold Snap Grips Midwest
Lab disaster may lead to new cancer drug
Indonesia floods kill 20, nearly 200,000 homeless - Video
Harsh cold expected to linger in Midwest

News from My Neck of the Woods
Dem Clerks Punished in GOP Desk Sifting

Oddities
$19M Found Buried Under Colombian House
Indiana Man Killed While Feeding Meter
Historic Kentucky Bridge Free for the Taking (And if you believe that, I've got a - oh, nevermind)
Rent-a-womb in India fuels surrogate motherhood debate

Other News of Note
Body parts found in Acapulco as killings continue
States challenge nat'l driver's license
Substandard levees reported in 27 states
Russians hope to probe spy case in U.K.

Fox News
Survey: Consumers Still Worried on E. Coli
Wisconsin Wonder Spot Set to Disappear
Temporary Obesity Band-Aid?

Reuters: Top News
Will Pope Benedict become a Mormon after he dies?
Britain culls turkeys to quell bird flu outbreak
"Messengers" wins box office on Super Bowl weekend
Scorsese wins top Directors Guild award
Stocks eye earnings and services data
Dow eases as jobs data suggest no Fed cut yet
Seattle Genetics grabs investor notice
Oil jumps 3 percent on political tensions, U.S. cold
Transports' new high could be market's bull signal
Canada's Brookfield bids for Australia's Multiplex
TPG mulls rival bid for Sainsbury
NBC Universal chooses new CEO for digital age-paper
Michael Dell set to remain CEO for "several years"
Apollo targeting Countrywide: source
Tata wants more profit from Corus UK

AP World News
Child stomach surgeries more popular
Ryan O'Neal accused of assaulting son
N.Y. Fashion Week lowdown: Short skirts
340,000 flee flooded Indonesia capital
Murder trial puts focus on land rights
Ready for 'High School Musical 2'?
Tiger Woods falls short at Dubai Classic

Military.com
Def Tech: Iraq's Re-arm
Op-ed: War and the People
Blog: Tantrum Town
Advisors: Adoption and the Military
Podcast: A Real MNF Brief

CENTCOM: News Releases
BATAAN TRANSITS SUEZ CANAL, ENTERS U.S. 5TH FLEET
IRAQI POLICEMEN RECOGNIZED FOR SACRIFICE, DEDICATION
EMERGENCY RESPONSE UNIT COMPOUND IN RAMADI ATTACKED BY SVBIED
MORTAR ATTACK ON WESTERN BAGHDAD SCHOOL

USJFCOM
President meets with troops - See photos from the meeting
USJFCOM symposium looks to further improve intelligence support for warfighter - podcast
Learn more about JTC-I
USJFCOM sends second rotation to support CENTCOM - podcast

Department of Defense
Iraq Situation 'Winnable," Multi-National Force Official Says - Story
Rear Adm. Mark I. Fox biography
Transcript: Conference Call (pdf)

NEWS UPDATES
Iraqi Police Respond To Blasts - Story
Stability & Security in Iraq Report (pdf)
For Top News Visit DefenseLink

ON THE GROUND
Aspen Road to Connect Southern Iraq with Kuwait - Story
Aspen Road to Connect Southern Iraq with Kuwait - Story
Corpsmen, Marines Save Lives in Al Anbar - Story
U.S. and Iraqi Officials Work To Reopen Factories - Story
Corps Sergeant Major Thanks Troops at Q-West - Story
Soldier Earns Silver Star For Combat Actions - Story
U.S. Soldiers Work With Iraqis To Stop Corruption - Story
Soldiers Travel Iraq's Most Dangerous Routes - Story

IN IRAQ
Sergeants Show Iraqis How to Run the 'Yard'
Former Small-town Doc Treats Troops in Iraq
Rugged Terrain No Challenge for Riggers
'Instincts Over Feelings' Neutralize Enemy
Army Destroys Insurgent Stronghold in Diyala
Iraqi, Coalition Soldiers Destroy Training Site
Iraqi Village Builds Women’s Center

IN AFGHANISTAN
Female Medics Earn Respect from Afghan Army

BACKGROUND
IRAQ
Renewal In Iraq
Iraq: Security, Stability
Fact Sheet: Progress and Work Ahead
Report: Strategy for Victory in Iraq
Iraq Daily Update
This Week in Iraq
Multinational Force Iraq
State Dept. Weekly Iraq Report
'Boots on the Ground' Audio Archive
Weekly Reconstruction Report (PDF)
Iraq Reconstruction
Maps

AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan Update
Maps

WAR ON TERRORISM
Fact Sheet: Budget Request
Fact Sheet: Terror Plots Disrupted
Waging and Winning the War on Terror
Terrorism Timeline
Terrorism Knowledge Base

Weather
Afghanistan
Bost/Laskar Ghurian Herat Kabul Qandahar

Germany
Ansbach Aschaffenburg Berlin Berlin-Tempelhof Berlin/Schonefeld Bremerhaven
Darmstadt Frankfurt Frankfurt/Main Freiburg/Breisgau Garmisch
Garmisch-Partenkirchen Geilenkirchen Gelnhausen Giessen Kitzingen
Hanau Am Main Heidelberg Mainz Mannheim Nurnberg Stuttgart Trier
Wiesbaden Wurzburg

Gitmo

Guam
Agana Agana Heights Agat Andersen AFB Asan Barrigada

Iraq
Al Azamiyah Al Basrah Al Hillah Al Karkh Al Kazimiyah Al Kut
An Nasiriyah Baghdad Baqubah Mosul Najaf Nineveh Tall Kayf

Japan
Kadena Air Base Okinawa Tokyo Yokohama

Philippines
Baler Radar Site Catanduanes Radar Site Manila

South Korea
Cheju Upper/Radar Chonju Chunchon Inch'on Kunsan Masan Mokp'o
Osan Pusan Seoul Suwon Taegu Taejon Tonghae Radar Site Ulsan Yosu

* If you're deployed, and want to see your location's weather listed here, please email me!

Today in History
0816 - Frankish emperor Louis grants archbishop Salzburg immunity
1428 - King Alfonso V, orders Sicily's Jews to attend conversion sermons
1488 - Roman catholic German emperor Maximilian I caught in Belgium
1512 - French troops under Gaston de Foix rescues Bologna
1556 - Kings Henri I & Philip II sign Treaty of Vaucelles
1572 - Beggars assault Oisterwijk Netherlands, drive nuns out
1576 - Henry of Navarre abjures Catholicism at Tours
1631 - Rhode Island, founder, Roger Williams arrives in Boston from England
1644 - 1st US livestock branding law passed, by Connecticut
1649 - Prince of Wales becomes king Charles II
1663 - Earthquake in Canada
1679 - German emperor Leopold I signs peace with France
1777 - Georgia becomes 1st US state to abolish both entail & primogeniture
1778 - Articles of Confederation ratified by 1st state, South Carolina
1782 - Spanish take Minorca (western Mediterranean) from the English
1783 - Sweden recognizes US independence; Earthquakes ravage Calabria, killing 30,000
1795 - Zealand Netherlands surrenders to French General Michaud
1817 - 1st US gas company incorporated, Baltimore (coal gas for street lights)
1825 - Hannah Lord Montague of New York creates 1st detachable shirt collar
1831 - Jan van Speijk blows up his gunboat in Antwerp, killing about 30
1846 - "Oregon Spectator" is 1st newspaper to be published on the West Coast
1850 - Adding machine employing depressible keys patented, New Paltz NY
1855 - British government of Palmerston forms
1861 - Kinematoscope patented by Coleman Sellers, Philadelphia, PA; Louisiana delegation except Mr Bouligny withdraws from Congress; 1st moving picture peep show machine is patented by Samuel Goodale of Cincinnati
1864 - Federals occupy Jackson, MS
1865 - Battle of Hatcher's Run, VA (Armstrong's Mill, Dabney's Mill)
1900 - British troops under General Buller occupy Vaal Krantz, Natal
1901 - Loop-the-loop centrifugal RR (roller coaster) patented by Ed Prescot; Pierpont Morgan forms US Steel Corp
1904 - American occupation of Cuba ends
1917 - Congress overrides Wilson's veto, curtailing Asian immigration; Present Mexican constitution adopted
1918 - 1st US pilot to down an enemy airplane, Stephen W. Thompson; Separation of church & state begins in USSR
1922 - Reader's Digest magazine 1st published
1923 - Mass arrests of socialists & communists in Italy
1930 - 5th Aliyah to Israel begins
1931 - Maxine Dunlap becomes 1st US women to earn a glider pilot license
1937 - FDR proposes enlarging Supreme Court, "court packing" plan failed; 1st Charlie Chaplin talkie, "Modern Times", is released
1940 - General Winckelman replaces General Reijnders as Dutch supreme commander
1941 - Dutch Premier De Geer returns from Lisbon to Netherlands
1943 - Clandestine Radio Atlantiksender, Germany, 1st transmission; Amsterdam resistance group CS-6 shoots Nazi General Seyffardt
1944 - 358 RAF-bombers attack Stettin
1945 - British premier Churchill arrives in Yalta, the Krim; US troops under General Douglas MacArthur enter Manilla
1947 - Bolewet Beirut becomes President of Poland
1958 - Clifton R. Wharton confirmed as 1st US Black foreign minister (Romania); Gamel Abdel Nasser nominated 1st President of United Arab Republic
1958 - Vanguard TV-3 back-up launches into Earth orbit; reaches 6 km
1962 - French President de Gaulle calls for Algeria's independence; Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter & Saturn within 16º
1963 - Maarten Schmidt discovers enormous red shifts in quasars; Soviet lunar probe failure
1967 - "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" premieres on CBS (later ABC, NBC)
1971 - Apollo 14, 3rd US manned Moon expedition, lands near Fra Mauro; Alan Shepard & Edward Mitchell (Apollo 14) walk on Moon for 4 hours
1972 - US airlines begin mandatory inspection of passengers & baggage
1973 - Funeral for LC William Nolde, last US soldier killed in Vietnam War; Juan Corona sentenced to 25 consecutive life terms for 25 murders; Comic strip "Hagar The Horrible" debuts
1974 - US Mariner 10 returns 1st close-up photos of Venus' cloud structure
1980 - Egyptian parliament votes to end boycott of Israel
1981 - Military jury in North Carolina convicts Robert Garwood of collaborating with enemy; Largest Jell-O made (9,246 gallons of watermelon-flavor) in Brisbane
1982 - DEA announces seizure of 3,192 tons of marijuana, 495 people
1983 - Former Nazi Gestapo official Klaus Barbie brought to trial
1988 - Arizona House of Representatives vote to impeach Republican Governor Evan Mecham
1991 - A Michigan court bars Dr Jack Kevorkian from assisting in suicides
1992 - Jury selection begins in the Los Angeles cops beating Rodney King case
1993 - Grenade explodes in Sarajevo, killing 63 & injuring 160; R. James Woolsey, becomes 16th director of CIA
1995 - Japan's Shinshinto Party win local elections
1997 - 3 Swiss banks create $70 million Holocaust fund

Birthdays
1723 - John Witherspoon, clergyman/signed Declaration of Independence
1788 - Sir Robert "Bobbie" Peel, British PM (1834-46), founded Tories
1840 - Hiram Stevens Maxim inventor (automatic single-barrel rifle); John Boyd Dunlop, developer (pneumatic rubber tire)
1866 - Henri [Hendrik J] Hall Dutch MP/comic (Put a Lid on it)
1867 - Casper A. Lingbeek vicar/Dutch MP
1900 - Adlai E. Stevenson, (Governor-IL), presidential candidate (D) (1952, 1956)
1907 - Jan Klaasesz Dutch governor Suriname (1949-56; Pierre E.J. Pflimlin, premier France
1910 - Martha van Och-Scholl, German/Dutch resistance fighter (WWII)
1914 - Alan Hodgkin British physicist (Nobel 1963)
1915 - Robert Hofstadter, US atomic physicist
1919 - Andrea George Papandreou, Greek premier
1919 - Red Buttons [Aaron Chwatt], Bronx New York NY, comedian/actor (Sayonara, Poseidon Adventure)
1929 - Fred Sinowatz (SPÖ) Neufeld an der Leitha, chancellor of Austria (1983-86)
1935 - John J. "Jannie" Geldenhuys, supreme commander South Africa army
1948 - Elco [LC] Brinkman, Dutch minister WVC (CDA)
1949 - Maidarjabyn Ganzorig, cosmonaut (Soyuz 39 backup)

Passings
45 BC - Cato Roman patriot & philosopher, commits suicide
1721 - James Stanhope, 1st earl of Stanhope English General, dies at 47
1911 - Petrus A Cronjé, Transvaal Boer General, dies
1922 - Christiaan R. de Wet, South African Boer General, dies at 67
1943 - Wim Gertenbach, Dutch resistance fighter (Slogan), shot by Nazis
1947 - Ganzefles, Dutch Nazi spy/Jew hunter, executed
1948 - Johann Blaskowitz, German General (surrendered at Wageningen), dies at 64
1971 - Mátyás Rákosi, Hungarian premier (1952-56), dies at 78
1982 - Neil Aggett, South African worker's union leader, commits suicide; Wies [Aloisius CA] Moens, Flemish writer/Nazi, dies at 84
1983 - Derk Roemers, Dutch union leader/politician (Social Democrat), dies at 67
1997 - Pamela Harriman, US Ambassador (to France), dies of stroke at 76

Reported Missing in Action
1966
The following USN personnel reported MIA when their SH3A was shot down, all presumed KIA:
Asmussen, Glenn Edward (DC)

McConnaughhay, Dan Daily (CA)

Sparenberg, Bernard John (MD)

1968
The following USAF personnel reported MIA when their EC47 crashed; all presumed Killed:
Burke, Walter F. (NY)

Clever, Louis J. (PA)

Dorsey, James V., (DC)

Gott, Rodney H. (FL)

Hatton, Wilton N. (TX)

Lynn, Homer M. (IL)

McNeill, Clarence L. (NC)

Niggle, Harry T. (IN)

Olson, Robert E., (MN)

Sherburn, Hugh Leslie "Buzz" (OR)

Also reported MIA this day in 1968:
Edgar, Robert J., USAF (FL); RF4C crashed (w/Potter)

Godwin, Solomon H., USMC (AR); DIC February, 1968

Lasiter, Carl W., USAF (IN); F105 shot down, released March, 1973 - retired as a Lt. Colonel - alive as of 1998

Potter, William T., USAF (ND); RF4C crashed (w/Edgar)

Rollins, James U., Civilian; released by PRG February, 1973 - injured

1969
Swigart, Paul E., Jr., USN (CA); F8H crashed offshore, presumed Killed

1970
The following USN personnel reported MIA when captured in a single incident:
DeLuca, Anthony J. ; tunnel rat, released February, 1970 - alive and well as of 1998

Glenn, Thomas Paul; released February, 1970

Hunsucker, James; released February, 1970

Lehnen, Gary Robert; released February, 1970

Walker, Michael James; released February, 1970

The following US Army personnel reported MIA when their UH1H was shot down:
Hefel, Daniel (IA); released by PRG - alive as of 1998

Kobashigawa, Tom Y. (HI); released by PRG March, 1973 - alive as of 1998

Lyon, James M. (IN); KIC February, 1970

Parsels, John W. (FL); released by PRG March, 1973 - alive as of 1998

Also reported MIA this day in 1970:
Stephenson, Richard C., USN (OH); A7B shot down, KIA, body not recovered

1971
Paul, James L., US Army (MI); AH1G crashed, Killed, body not recovered

The following USAF personnel reported MIA when their EC47Q was shot down:
Berhnardt, Robert E. (VA); remains recovered/ID'd February, 1973

Bollinger, Arthur R., (IL); KIA

Brandenberg, Dale (MD)

Cressman, Peter R. (NJ); systems operator

Matejov, Joseph A. (NY)

Melton, Todd M. (WI); systems operation

Primm, Servero J. III (LA); co-pilot, KIA

Spitz, George R., (HI); pilot

Labels: Headlines, History