News of Note
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Bombers kills 26 in Iraq
Italian Carabinieri Training Iraqi National Police
3-1 Cav. Regt., Concerned Local Citizens Open Headquarters
Anbar Agricultural College Returned to Province, GOI
Gates: Iraq On Right Track
Petraeus: Violence in Iraq Down
Army Air Power Boosts Surge in Iraq
East Baghdad Murders at 2-Year Low

Homeland Security / War on Terror / Hamas-Hezbollah Happenings
Syria Blocks Facebook Over Israeli 'Infiltration'
Senator Calls for Probe of Destroyed CIA Tapes - VIDEO

Supporting Our Heroes....Or Not...
Group: NBC Refuses to Air Ads Thanking Troops - VIDEO (No, the media's not biased...)

Other Military News
VIDEO: Pearl Harbor, as It Was Told 66 Years Ago
Back cluster bomb ban or face stigma: activists (GASP! Stigma?! Oh, no.....)

Worldwide Wackos
Cuba apologizes for police raid on Catholic church
Pentagon plans unchanged by Iran report

Homegrown Moonbats
Eva Mendes Stars in 'Fur? I'd Rather Go Naked' Ad for PETA
San Francisco Radio Host Bernie Ward Indicted on Child Porn Charges
More News: Gore calls for climate pact

Politics / Government
Russia Gives RiceThe Silent Treatment - Moscow ignores calls for new Iran sanctions
Gennifer Flowers Among Undecided Voters Considering Voting for Hillary Clinton
Kosovo report says sides didn't cede on sovereignty
Pakistani opposition disagree on election demands
Putin party to name presidential candidate December 17
Senate blocks vote on House energy bill
Ex-Weldon aide pleads guilty to fraud
Huckabee keeps faith views to himself
Democrats cry uncle on taxes, spending
Huckabee rises to 2nd in GOP race

Illegal Immigration / Border Control
Feds Delay Deportation of Immigrant Couple in Marriage Flap
Craigslist Ad: '$300 a Month for Green Card Marriage'

In the Courts / Crime and Punishment / Law and Order
Mall Shooting 911 Calls: 'A Lot of Blood' - VIDEO - PHOTOS
Police release images of mall gunman
Drew Peterson Whack-a-Mole?
Barry Bonds Pleads Not Guilty - VIDEO
Hamster Horror: Boy Tortured Pet to Death (Guess he wants to be a serial killer when he grows up...sickening)
911 Tapes Illustrate Fear in Nebraska Mall During Gunman's Rampage
Iowa Mom Gets Probation for Attempting to Sell 4-Year-Old Son to Pay for Wedding Dress
Wife of Back-From-Dead Canoeist Begs for Forgiveness
Drew Peterson Complains After Face Appears on Pinata
Natalee Holloway Suspect Released by Judge in Aruba
Omaha massacre unlikely to alter gun laws - Video
Shots fired in Pa. mall parking lot
Ray Liotta pleads no contest in crash

U.N. News
U.N. report raises death toll in Myanmar crackdown
CO2 caps for poor unlikely at U.N. talks

Media in the Media / Bloggers in the News / Watching the Web
'MySpace' Mom Shunned
MySpace Mom Tied to Teen Suicide Being Bullied Herself

Science / Medicine and Health / Technology
German Clinic Mixes Up Newborns, Gives Babies to Wrong Parents
Green tea may protect against colon cancer
Senators ask Bush for greater food safety funding
Nobel winners say science must transcend borders
NASA working to launch shuttle despite problem
JetBlue, Yahoo, Rim plan free in-flight Wi-Fi - Video
New Apple store highlights "geniuses," services
Minn. slaughterhouse workers fall ill

Mother Nature
Evacuations Ordered in Flood, Mudslide Risk Areas of Southern Calif. Ahead of Powerful Pacific Storm
2008 Forecast: Seven Hurricanes, Three 'Major'
Tanker Collision Spills 10,000 Tons of Oil - PHOTOS
U.S. open to all options in climate deal
China: US should take lead on climate (Hey China, you first.)

Oddities
Cremator dumps half-burned bodies to save fuel
Neglect of parents a criminal offence
Suburban sex parties draw complaints

Fox News
FOXBusiness: U.S. Added 94,000 Jobs Last Month
Pop Tarts: Did Scary Make Moves on Her Fellow Spice Girls? (More importantly, why the heck should we care?)
Miss California USA Pageant Officials Crown New Beauty Queen
Britney Spears: No One Wants a 'Piece' of Her

Reuters
Recalling Oscar's past brush with strike
Farmers want Jolie to visit Philippines
Kicking the seat rudest travel behavior
Chinese grannies take to hip-hop
Debunking Christmas - bright stars, donkeys and all
Tate Modern uses cash injection for glass extension
Recalling Oscar's past brush with strike
"Batman" sequel gets an Imax preview
Jobs added but consumers gloomy
Market flat after modest jobs growth data
Oil falls 3 percent to below $88
Papa John's soars after 2008 view
Macrovision to buy Gemstar for $2.8 bln, shares fall
Reuters India Investment Summit
Times changing for women executives
Audio Blog: Summit Notebook
Not betting on a level playing field
Video: Vibrant debt market needed
James Murdoch steps up as News Corp heir apparent
Ex-printing plant worker pleads guilty in trading case
Subprime plan seen reaching 340,000
UAL to give shareholders $250 million special payout
Morgan Stanley to form China broker JV
Billionaire Lewis raises stake in Bear Stearns

AP World News
Stocks waver after latest jobs report
Jobs report sends oil futures lower
Smith says film not yet OK'd in China
No quick fix for subprime mortgages
Backup leads Redskins past Bears 24-16
Signs points to more Chrysler job cuts

CENTCOM: News Releases
COALITION FORCES CAPTURE TERRORISTS INVOLVED IN BAGHDAD CAR-BOMBING OPERATIONS
ANA, ISAF LAUNCH OPERATION MUSA QALA
RECONCILIATION TAKES CENTER STAGE ACROSS MULTI-NATIONAL DIVISION - CENTER
AL-QAEDA NETWORKS DISRUPTED; THREE TERRORISTS KILLED, 19 DETAINED

USJFCOM
Newsmaker Profile: SOCJFCOM Commander Army Col. Wesley Rehorn - podcast
More about SOCJFCOM
Capability development leadership to change
More about Capability Development
USJFCOM readies for Joint Task Force Senior Medical Leadership Seminar - podcast
USJFCOM garners cutting edge technology award - podcast

Multi-National Force-Iraq
Top Marine Explains Cut in Purchase of Mine-Resistant Vehicles
Coalition forces capture terrorists involved in Baghdad car-bombing operations
Iraqi Security Forces kill one terrorist, detain 55 suspects in operations against al-Qaeda
Coalition forces capture Special Groups weapons trainer; two killed, five detained (Baghdad)
Coalition forces detain two suspects, disrupt criminal network (Baghdad)
Anbar Agricultural College returned to province, GOI (Ramadi)
Reconciliation takes center stage across Multi-National Division - Center

DefenseLink
TOP NEWS
Defense Secretary to Seek More Cooperation at Summit
Gates Tours USS Vicksburg in Bahrain

IRAQ NEWS
Iraq Improving From Local Level Up
Army, Civil Affairs Team Hand Out Grants
Coalition Focuses on Sustaining Police
Coalition Forces Detain Dozens of Terrorists

AFGHANISTAN NEWS
Afghan Forces Learn De-Mining Procedures
Coalition, Afghan Forces Defeat Taliban

MILITARY NEWS
Department Works to Keep Homeland Secure
Foreign Area Officers Bridge Cultural Divides
Defense Department Honors Heroic Employees
Sailors, Marines Build Friendships in Cambodia

FACE OF DEFENSE
Nigerian Serves With Pride

AMERICA SUPPORTS YOU
Vets Move to Civilian Life

WHY WE SERVE
Desert Changes Marine

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

Today in History
36 BC - Earliest known Mayan inscription, Stela 2 at Chiapa de Corzo.
43 BC - Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman writer, gets his head and right hand chopped off by Mark Antony's soldiers.
0185 - Emperor Lo-Yang of China sees a supernova (MSH15-52?).
1741 - Elisabeth Petrovna becomes tsarina of Russia.
1783 - William Pitt, Jr. (24) becomes British premier.
1787 - Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the Constitution.
1808 - James Madison is elected as U.S. President
1836 - Martin Van Buren is elected as the 8th U.S. President.
1842 - The New York Philharmonic gives its first concert.
1862 - Battle of Hartsville, TN; Battle of Prairie Grove, AR.
1864 - Skirmish at Ebenezer Creek/Cypress Swamp, GA.
1868 - The Jesse James gang robs a bank in Gallatin MO, killing 1.
1872 - HMS Challenger sets sail on a 3½-year world oceanographic cruise.
1877 - Thomas A. Edison demonstrates the gramophone.
1885 - The 49th U.S. Congress (1885-87) convenes.
1891 - The 52nd U.S. Congress (the first to appropriate $1 billion) holds its first session.
1895 - In the Battle at Amba Alagi, the Abyssinians beat the Italian armies.
1907 - Eugene Corri becomes the first referee in a boxing ring.
1912 - A bust of Queen Nefertiti found in El-Amarna, Egypt
1916 - David Lloyd George replaces resigning H.H. Asquith as British PM.
1917 - The U.S. becomes the 13th country to declare war on Austria (WWI)
1924 - In the German election, the Social Democrats win defeat the Nazis and Communists.
1925 - In NYC, the Biltmore Theater opens at 261 W. 47th ST.
1926 - The gas refrigerator is patented.
1932 - The first gyro-stabilized vessel to cross the Atlantic arrives in New York.
1934 - Wiley Post discovers the jet stream.
1937 - Dutch Minister Romme proclaims married women are forbidden to work.
1940 - In North Africa, General O'Connor leads a British counter offensive.
1941 - The Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; the USS Ward becomes the first U.S. ship to sink a Japanese submarine; Australian bombers land on Timor/Ambon; the German siege of Tobruk ends after 8 months; Nacht and Nebel Erlass, resistance fighters, are sent to German concentration camps.
1944 - The Convention on International Civil Aviation is drawn up in Chicago; General Radescu forms the Romanian government.
1945 - The microwave oven is patented.
1946 - A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, kills 119.
1949 - Chiang Kai-shek flees to Taiwan.
1953 - Israel's PM Ben-Gureon retires.
1954 - The Japanese government of Joshida resigns.
1955 - Clement Attlee resigns as chairman of England's Labour Party.
1958 - Rómulo Bétancourt is elected President of Venezuela.
1960 - The Ivory Coast claims independence from France.
1965 - Pope Paul VI and Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously lift the mutual excommunications that led to the split of the two churches in 1054.
1968 - The Orbiting Astronomical Observatory-2 is launched into Earth orbit; Richard Dodd returns a library book his great grandfather borrowed in 1823 to the University of Cincinatti; the $22,646 fine goes unpaid.
1970 - West Germany and Poland normalize relations.
1972 - Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos is stabbed and wounded by an assailant; Apollo-17, the final U.S. manned lunar landing mission (last of the Apollo Moon series) is launched.
1976 - The U.N. Security Council endorses Kurt Waldheim, Secretary-General, for a second five-year term.
1981 - Spain becomes a member of the NATO.
1983 - At the Madrid Airport, two jets collide, killing 93.
1985 - Atlantis returns to Kennedy Space Center via Kelly AFB.
1986 - President Jean-Claude Duvalier flees Haïti.
1987 - 43 die in Pa acific Southwest Airline crash in California, after a man shoots the pilots.
1988 - At the U.N., Mikhail Gorbachev announces 10% unilateral Soviet troop reductions; Yasser Arafat recognizes the existence of Israel; a 6.9 earthquake in Armenia kills more than 100,000, and leaves 5,000,000 homeless.
1990 - The Iraqi parliament endorses Saddam's decision to free hostages.
1992 - The Galileo spacecraft passes the North Pole of Moon (Peary Crater).
1993 - Henri Konan Bédié names himself President of the Ivory Coast.
1994 - Radio personality Howard Stern talks a man out of attempting suicide.
1995 - The U.S. space probe Galileo begins orbiting Jupiter.
1996 - The Space Shuttle STS-80 (Columbia 21) lands.

Birthdays
0967 - Abu Sa'id ibn Aboa al-Chair, Persian mystic
1542 - Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (1560-1587)
1754 - Jack Jouett, American patriot
1761 - Madame (Marie Grosholtz) Tussaud, created wax museum
1808 - Hugh McCulloch, U.S. Secretary of Treasury
1810 - Theodor Schwann, German co-originator of cell theory
1847 - Solomon Schechter, American Talmudic scholar / Jewish leader
1888 - Matthew Heywood Campbell Broun, first president of the American Newspaper Guild; Hamilton Fish, U.S. Congressional leader / isolationist
1901 - A.F. (Tony) Pugsley, British rear-admiral (Walcheren attack - 1944)
1905 - Gerard Kuiper Dutch/US astronomer (discovered moons of Uranus, Neptune)
1915 - Eli Wallach, actor (Magnificent 7, Misfits, People Next Door)
1924 - Mário Soares (Socialist), premier of Portugal (1976-78, 1983- )
1926 - Victor Kermit Kiam II, CEO (Remington shavers) / NFL owner (Patriots)
1928 - Noam Chomsky, linguist (founded transformational grammar)
1936 - Martha Layne Collins, (Governor-KY)
1937 - Thad Cochran (Senator-MS)
1942 - Harry Chapin, folk/rock singer / songwriter (Taxi, Cat's in the Craddle)
1956 - Larry Bird, basketball star (Boston Celtics)

Passings
0983 - Otto II, the Red German king/emperor (973-83)
1254 - Innocent IV (Sinibaldo dei Fieschi), Pope (1243-54)
1383 - Wenceslaus, duke of Brabant
1815 - Michel Ney, French marshal (Waterloo), murdered
1817 - William Bligh, British naval officer of "Bounty" fame
1862 - Sylvester Churchill, Union Brigadier-General
1894 - Ferdinand de Lesseps, French engineer/diplomat/earl
1902 - Thomas Nast, political cartoonist
1912 - George Darwin, theorized Moon was pulled out of Pacific Ocean
1941 - Iida, Japanese pilot/lieutenant, in battle
1970 - Rube Goldberg, American cartoonist (Mike & Ike, Pulitzer 1948)
1979 - Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, first woman full professor at Harvard University; Prince Chahryar Shafik Shah of Iran's nephew, murdered in Paris
1982 - Charlie Brooks, Jr., convicted murderer, first U.S. prisoner to be executed by lethal injection
1983 - Edgar Graham, member of Northern Ireland Assembly, shot dead by the IRA
1985 - Potter Stewart, 94th Supreme Court Justice (1958-81)
1988 - Andrei P. Ershov, Russian computer pioneer
1993 - Félix Houphouet-Boigny, President of the Ivory Coast (1960-93)

Reported Missing in Action
1965
Dunn, John Howard, USMC (MT); F4B shot down (pilot, w/Frederick), released by DRV February, 1973 - deceased, January 1998

Frederick, John William, Jr., USMC (IL); F4B shot down (w/Dunn) - remains returned March, 1974

1966
Carlson, John Werner, USAF (IL); F5C shot down, KIA, body not recovered

Labels: Headlines, History