1) Giant 'Sea Monster' Skull Found in England... Science/Nature
2) Son of Radical Islam Leader Killed in FBI Shootout Caught in Canada... Terrorism
3) The Most Epic Treehouse Ever Constructed... Interesting/Culture
4) Michigan Man Sues for Right to Put Back Family's Nativity Scene on Public Median... Anti-Christianity/Liberals
5) Musician Taylor Mitchell Dies After Being Attacked by Coyotes... Interest/Nature
6) So-Called 'Death Panel' Measure Survives in House Health Bill... Socialized Health Care/Democrats
7) Passports Linked to 9/11 Found in Pakistan... Terrorism/Pakistan
8) Believe it...abortion funding is in healthcare bill... Socialized Health Care/Abortion
9) Hate crimes law - ungodly, unconstitutional, unnecessary... Thought Crimes/Homsexuality/Religious Freedom


1) Giant 'Sea Monster' Skull Found in England... Science/Nature
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,569778,00.html?test=faces

October 27, 2009


Dinosaur experts in Dorset, England, are examining the fossilized skull of a sea monster so large they say it could have eaten a Tyrannosaurus rex for breakfast.

The fossil head is 8 feet long, suggesting that the beast measured up to 54 feet from the tip of its massive, crocodile-like snout to the end of its muscular tail, making it one of the largest specimens ever found.

The skull belongs to a pliosaur, one of a group of giant aquatic reptiles which roamed the warm seas over what is now southern Britain 150 million years ago.

It was spotted protruding from an unstable patch of cliff by Kevan Sheehan, a local fossil hunter, after being exposed by a rockfall. He spent four years going back day after day and painstakingly managed to uncover it.

Experts hope that the rest of the pliosaur's body may lie hidden in the cliff, equally well preserved. The exact spot, in the 95 mile stretch of coastline dubbed the Jurassic Coast, is being kept secret to deter amateur hunters.

"Pliosaur skulls are very big, but not that robust, in general, and you tend to find them crushed flat — completely pancaked," Richard Forrest, an expert on plesiosaurs told the BBC.

"What is fantastic about this new skull, not only is it absolutely enormous, but it is pretty much in 3D and not much distorted.














2) Son of Radical Islam Leader Killed in FBI Shootout Caught in Canada... Terrorism
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,570146,00.html

October 29, 2009


One of three people sought by the FBI was captured in Canada Thursday and two were still on the loose after a federal raid and deadly shooting of a radical Islam leader whose goal authorities say was to take down the U.S. government.

Federal authorities in Detroit said the son of 53-year-old Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who was killed in Wednesday night's shootout with FBI agents, was arrested across the border in Windsor, Ontario.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police took 30-year-old Mujahid Carswell, who was considered armed and dangerous, into custody Thursday. No other details were released.

Carswell was among 11 people charged Wednesday in a criminal complaint in federal court in Detroit.

Andrew Arena, the head of the FBI office in Detroit, says the men follow "a very hybrid radical ideology" that mainstream Muslims "would not recognize."

Two were still at large: 30-year-old Yassir Ali Khan of Warren and Ontario, and 33-year-old Mohammad Philistine of Ontario.

Abdullah was killed in a gunbattle in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn as federal agents tried to arrest him on a number of charges including conspiracy to sell stolen goods and the illegal possession and sale of firearms.

Abdullah repeatedly told followers that the U.S. government was their enemy and they should be willing to fight the FBI, even if it meant death, according to the criminal complaint against him.

"You cannot have a nonviolent revolution," Luqman Ameen Abdullah said, according to a 2008 conversation secretly recorded by a confidential FBI source.

Abdullah was killed Wednesday at a warehouse in Dearborn, where agents were attempting to arrest him. FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said Abdullah refused to surrender, fired a weapon and was killed by gunfire from agents.

He was one of 11 people named in a criminal complaint after a two-year investigation.

Among the others charged with Abdullah and in custody were a state prison inmate, the U.S. attorney's office said.

Another man not named in the complaint also was arrested.

The 43-page complaint described Abdullah as an extremist who believed the FBI bombed New York's World Trade Center in 1993 and the Oklahoma City federal building two years later.

Abdullah beat children with sticks at his Detroit mosque, the complaint claimed, and was trained with his followers in the use of firearms, martial arts and swords.

Neither Abdullah nor his co-defendants were charged with terrorism. But he was "advocating and encouraging his followers to commit violent acts against the United States," FBI agent Gary Leone wrote in an affidavit filed with the complaint.

The FBI said Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, was an imam, or prayer leader, of a radical group named Ummah whose primary mission is to establish an Islamic state within the U.S.

Abdullah told followers that it was their "duty to oppose the FBI and the government and it does not matter if they die" and to "simply shoot a cop in the head" if they wanted the officer's bulletproof vest, Leon wrote.

The affidavit also said bombs, guns and even the recipe for TNT were among Abdullah's regular topics with his allies. Group members and former members said they were "willing to do anything Abdullah instructs and/or preaches, even including criminal conduct and acts of violence," the FBI agent wrote.

He and his followers were American born, mostly African-American converts to Islam.

But that description doesn't match what Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Michigan chapter, said he knew of Abdullah.

"He would open up the mosque to homeless people. He used to run a soup kitchen and feed indigent people," Walid said. "I knew nothing of him that was related to any nefarious or criminal behavior."

Walid said Abdullah had a wife and children. A phone number for the family had been disconnected.

Ummah believes that a separate Islamic state in the U.S. would be controlled by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, who is serving a life sentence in a federal prison in Colorado for shooting two police officers in Georgia in 2000, Leone said.

Al-Amin, a veteran of the black power movement, started the group after he converted to Islam in prison.

"They're not taking their cues from overseas," said Jimmy Jones, a professor of world religions at Manhattanville College and a longtime Muslim prison chaplain. "This group is very much American born and bred."

Abdullah's mosque is in a brick duplex on a residential street in Detroit. A sign on the door in English and Arabic reads, in part, "There is no God but Allah." The mosque was located elsewhere in the city until the property was lost in January because of unpaid taxes.

When the eviction took place, a search turned up empty shell casings and large holes in the concrete wall of a "shooting range," Leone said.

The FBI built its case over two years with the help of confidential sources close to Abdullah who recorded conversations and participated in undercover operations involving the sale of furs, laptop computers, televisions, energy drinks and power tools.

Abdullah received at least 20 percent of any profit and claimed the "Prophet Muhammad said that it is okay to participate in theft; as long as that person prays, they are in a good state," Leone wrote in the affidavit.

Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Dearborn, said the FBI briefed him about the arrests.

"We know that this is not something to be projected as something against Muslims," Hamad said.













3) The Most Epic Treehouse Ever Constructed... Interesting/Culture
http://gizmodo.com/5391777/the-most-epic-treehouse-ever-constructed



My childhood self just passed out from excitement. This thing is 11 stories and 90 feet tall, and it's growing ever-larger. Seriously, I want to live here so badly.









4) Michigan Man Sues for Right to Put Back Family's Nativity Scene on Public Median... Anti-Christianity/Liberals
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,570308,00.html

October 29, 2009




A Michigan man has filed a federal lawsuit claiming his constitutional rights were violated when he was ordered to remove a Nativity scene from the median of a public road — a creche that his family has displayed at the location for 63 years.

John Satawa, of Warren, Mich., filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Friday in an attempt to be allowed to put back the 8- by 8-foot Nativity scene his late father built in 1945.

After receiving a complaint by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation last December, the Road Commission of Macomb County told Satawa to remove the holiday display, citing incomplete permits. Satawa's permit application was later denied because it "clearly displays a religious message" and violated "separation of church and state," Macomb County Highway Engineer Robert Hoepfner wrote.

Satawa says he simply wants to restore the "tradition" on the median between Mound and Chicago Roads outside of St. Anne's Parish Church.

"The Nativity display has been a tradition not just for my family, but for the whole community for 63 years," Satawa told Foxnews.com in a statement. "I am disappointed the Road Commission would not stand up for our community and our Constitution and that is why I was compelled to file this lawsuit."

According to Satawa's lawsuit, St. Anne's Parish received a donation of Christmas statues in March 1945 that were too large to house inside the church — so they were moved to the public median outside. Jack Eckstein, president of the village of Warren at the time, granted permission for the move.

"As a result, a Christmas tradition was born," the lawsuit reads.

The Nativity display has been there every Christmas season since, except for one — 1996 — when there was road construction. The creche returned the following year, according to the lawsuit.

But last year, just 14 days before Christmas, Satawa received a letter from the Macomb County Road Commission instructing him to "immediately remove" the Nativity scene within 30 days. Satawa removed the structure and was denied a permit when he reapplied in January. In March, he received a formal denial of his petition to erect the nativity scene because, according to county officials, it would be a violation of the First Amendment, which prohibits government from making laws "respecting an establishment of religion."

"It boils down to maintaining a tradition that's been going on for six decades and one letter received from an out-of-state radical organization," attorney Brian Rooney of the Thomas More Law Center told Foxnews.com. "We believe this shows hostility towards Christianity."

The Thomas More Law Center filed the lawsuit on Satawa's behalf, alleging the Road Commission's restriction violates his First Amendment rights and equal protection guarantee under the Fourteenth Amendment.

"We're very confident," Rooney said. "We believe the law of the Constitution is on our side."

But Ben Aloia, an attorney representing the Macomb County Road Commission, disagreed, citing Allegheny v. ACLU of Pittsburgh, in which the Supreme Court held in 1989 that a county government's Nativity scene displayed at a courthouse was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

"We believe that our decision is in line with that rule of law," Aloia said. "The fact is, he's never acquired a formal permit to install this Nativity scene."

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said the creche is also a traffic hazard.

"You can’t see around it," she told Foxnews.com. "We are a nation of rules and laws, and that law even applies to St. Anne's Parish. I can't understand why they can't put the scene on their church grounds. They're trying to take over public property for their religious purposes, and that's not allowed."

Rooney said an emergency injunction will be filed within the next two weeks in an attempt to make sure the Nativity scene returns in time for the upcoming holiday season.

Satawa, meanwhile, says he has received support from hundreds of neighbors.

"This response is the USA I like," he said, "people that are not afraid to stand up for what is right."













5) Musician Taylor Mitchell Dies After Being Attacked by Coyotes... Interest/Nature
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,570400,00.html

October 30, 2009


Fans are mourning a 19-year-old folk musician who died this week after being attacked by two coyotes in her native Canada.

Taylor Mitchell of Toronto reportedly was hiking by herself Tuesday in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia when the animals attacked.

Another hiker called for help after hearing Mitchell's screams, the Ottawa Citizen reported. Police responded and had the singer flown to a local hospital, where she died from her injuries Wednesday.

Park officials killed one of the coyotes in question and sent its body for testing to try to determine what caused the animals to attack, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The incident is very out of character for the normally shy animals, but the park had received some reports of aggressive animals in the past, the Times of London reported.

Mitchell was nominated this year for a Canadian Folk Music Award in the "young performer of the year" category and was seen as an up-and-coming artist.

Fans showed an outpouring of support on her MySpace and Facebook pages after hearing of her death.

"Your voice is angelic. You were just beginning to spread your wings and fly. Will see you up there sometime. Play on..." one fan wrote.

"Taylor I wish I discovered you sooner. Your music is beautiful. I suspect your soul is also," someone said in another post.

Mitchell was playing on a tour of eastern Canada at the time, the Times of London reported.

"Taylor was a brilliant and beautiful light that people were naturally drawn to," Michael Johnston, who produced her debut CD, "For Your Consideration," told the paper. "She was so young and talented — her big dreams were a perfect match with her big, kind heart."












6) So-Called 'Death Panel' Measure Survives in House Health Bill... Socialized Health Care/Democrats
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/29/called-death-panel-measure-survives-house-health/

October 29, 2009
The provision allows Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling to help beneficiaries deal with the complex and painful decisions families face when a loved one is approaching death.

WASHINGTON -- It's alive.

The Medicare end-of-life planning provision that 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said was tantamount to "death panels" for seniors is staying in the latest Democratic health care bill unveiled Thursday.

The provision allows Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling to help beneficiaries deal with the complex and painful decisions families face when a loved one is approaching death.

For years, federal laws and policies have encouraged Americans to think ahead about end-of-life decisions, and make their wishes known in advance through living wills and similar legal documents. But when House Democrats proposed this summer to pay doctors for end-of-life counseling, it touched off a wave of suspicion and anger. Prominent Republicans singled it out as a glaring example of government overreach.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, at the time a lead negotiator on health care legislation, told constituents at a town hall meeting they had good reason to question the proposal.

"I don't have any problem with things like living wills, but they ought to be done within the family," he said. "We should not have a government program that determines you're going to pull the plug on grandma."

Thursday, the sponsor of the provision said the barrage of criticism may have actually helped.

"There is nothing more basic than giving someone the option of speaking with their doctor about how they want to be treated in the case of an emergency," said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore. "I think the outrageous and vindictive attacks may have backfired to help raise awareness about this problem, which is why it's been kept in the bill."

The legislation would allow Medicare to pay for a counseling session with a doctor or clinical professional once every five years. The bill calls for such sessions to be "completely" voluntary, and prohibits the encouragement or promotion of suicide or assisted suicide.

The counseling provision is supported by doctors' groups and AARP, the seniors' lobby. It was not included in health care bills passed by two Senate committees.













7) Passports Linked to 9/11 Found in Pakistan... Terrorism/Pakistan
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,570428,00.html

October 30, 2009




SHERWANGAI, Pakistan — Pakistani soldiers battling their way into a Taliban stronghold along the Afghan border have seized passports that may be linked to 9/11 suspects, as they confront an enemy skilled in operating in a mountainous terrain with endless ways to wage a guerrilla war.

The military on Thursday took foreign and local journalists for a first look inside the largely lawless territory since it launched a ground offensive here in mid-October. The U.S.-backed operation is focused on a section of the tribal region where the Pakistani Taliban are based and are believed to shelter Al Qaeda.

Soldiers displayed passports seized in the operation, among them a German document belonging to a man named Said Bahaji. That matches the name of a man thought to have been a member of the Hamburg cell that conceived the 9/11 attacks. Bahaji is believed to have fled Germany shortly before the attacks in New York and Washington.

The passport included a tourist visa for Pakistan and a stamp indicating he'd arrived in the southern city of Karachi on Sept. 4, 2001.

Another passport, from Spain, bears the name of Raquel Burgos Garcia. Spanish media have reported that a woman with the same name is married to Amer Azizi, an alleged Al Qaeda member from Morocco suspected in both the 9/11 attacks and the Madrid train bombings in 2004.

Her family in Madrid has had no news of her since 2001, according to Spanish media. Her passport included visas to India and Iran, and the army displayed a Moroccan document with Burgos Garcia's photo and other information.

It was impossible to determine whether the passports are genuine, and German and Spanish officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the army's chief spokesman, said he had not realized the passports matched any prominent names, and declined further comment other than to say European militants were sprinkled throughout the area.

The U.S. has maintained for years that South Waziristan and other parts of the rugged frontier have sheltered Osama bin Laden and his senior lieutenants.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, visiting this country on Thursday, said Pakistan squandered opportunities over the years to kill or capture Al Qaeda leaders responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to," Clinton said in an interview with Pakistani journalists in Lahore. "Maybe that's the case. Maybe they're not gettable. I don't know."

Although the military spent months using airstrikes to soften up targets in South Waziristan, nearly two weeks into the ground offensive it has captured only a few areas, none with significant strategic value. The army has seized weapons but is still trying to secure the main roads and regularly comes under rocket fire.

"It's a long-drawn haul," Abbas said. "They are offering resistance, and we are also striking them hard."

Pakistan's tribal belt, a semiautonomous stretch of land where the government has long had little influence, is usually off-limits to foreigners. In recent years, as the militants' influence has spread, even many Pakistanis dare not venture here.

The tribal regions are some of the poorest, most underdeveloped areas in the world and have long been guided by traditional codes and councils. The Taliban have slaughtered hundreds of tribal elders in their rise to power.

In Sherwangai, a sparsely populated district along one of the offensive's three major fronts, army commanders said they had killed 82 insurgents and lost six soldiers in their attempt to secure the area, where the hills are covered in brush, rocks and dust and strong winds whip high ridges. Many battle-hardened Uzbek militants are believed to have taken shelter here.

The military is slowly capturing isolated hamlets as it encircles the small town of Kaniguram, its next target in the push forward. But even where the army has taken control, much of the area remains dangerous, filled with land mines and roadside bombs.

After an initial surge of resistance, many militants have been fleeing. Because the army has sealed off the main passes, "they will not be able to go out in a major way," said Maj. Gen. Khalid Rabbani, a top battlefield commander.

Yet, he added, "If somebody chooses even to cross Mount Everest, he will be able to do it. So there are going to be a few, changing their disguise — taking care of their beards and long hair — they will be able to get out."

In addition to the passports, the military displayed papers and dozens of weapons and large amounts of ammunition it said it had recovered from Sherwangai.

Civilians were nowhere to be seen during Thursday's trip — some 155,000 have left the region in the past few months. South Waziristan normally has about 500,000 people.

At one military outpost, in a large mud compound in Sherwangai, smoke could be seen rising in the distance from villages under army fire. Officials assured reporters the civilians had left those areas.

The military previously estimated that the South Waziristan offensive would take at least two to three months, and officials were hesitant Thursday to give a deadline. They also declined to give a time frame for how long troops would have to stay to prevent militants from returning.

It also is unclear whether Islamabad has any plans for how to govern the territory effectively and prevent the insurgency from again taking root.

The army has deployed three divisions — about 30,000 troops — to take on some 5,000 to 8,000 militants, Abbas said, lowering a previous estimate of 10,000 militants. His estimate included up to 1,500 foreign fighters, most of them Uzbeks. Afghan fighters are also reportedly filtering in from across the border.

This is the fourth major offensive the Pakistani army has launched in South Waziristan since 2004, and this time the military has promised a fight to the finish. The previous operations ended in setbacks or peace deals that left the militant groups even stronger.












8) Believe it...abortion funding is in healthcare bill... Socialized Health Care/Abortion
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=745436

10/30/2009
A national pro-life group is warning members of Congress that a vote in favor of the 1,990-page House healthcare bill is a vote to establish a federal government program that would directly fund abortion-on-demand with taxpayer dollars.



Page 110 of H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, authorizes a new government health insurance program to pay for all elective abortions. Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, explains.

"This is a federal agency, a federal program, [and] of course it's going to spend federal funds -- that's the only kind of funds it's got," he notes. "So all of these assurances that some prominent Democrats, including President Obama, have given that there won't be federal funding for abortions, that's not what's in the bill."

Johnson warns that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) wants to ram the bill through without representatives having a chance to vote on a single amendment. However, in order to use that "closed rule" procedure, a majority of House members have to agree to the move. The pro-life spokesman is urging members to vote "no" on a closed rule.

"We want to vote on an amendment that would take abortion out of this bill, which is the [Bart] Stupak amendment," Johnson clarifies, referring to the Michigan Democrat. "We believe if we could get a vote in the full House on that amendment, it would pass."

Congressman Stupak has vowed that if he does not get a vote on his amendment barring federal funding of abortion, he and 40 pro-life Democrats will block a full House vote on the healthcare bill.
















9) Hate crimes law - ungodly, unconstitutional, unnecessary... Thought Crimes/Homsexuality/Religious Freedom
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=744446

10/29/2009
A Christian evangelist who was once arrested, jailed, and charged under Pennsylvania's hate crimes law says the federal hate crimes bill signed into law by President Obama is one of the most dangerous laws in the history of the United States.

With the stroke of President Obama's pen yesterday, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act became law. It creates additional penalties for violent crimes motivated by the victim's "actual or perceived" gender, "gender identity," sexual orientation, or disability.

Michael Marcavage, director of Philadelphia-based Repent America, was one of 11 Christians who were jailed and charged with a hate crime for carrying Bible verse banners and preaching at a 2004 homosexual pride event in Philadelphia. The charges were later dismissed -- and in 2008, the state's Supreme Court ruled the law had been passed illegally by the Pennsylvania legislature.

Marcavage says the new federal hate crimes law is yet another move by the federal government to "silence Christians."

"What this bill does is [seek] to shut down those who dare to speak against the sin of homosexuality with the hope and freedom that is found in Jesus Christ," says the Christian activist.

"Having been charged under a hate crime, I'm definitely moved with compassion on those who the government is trying to silence us from reaching out to," he continues, "but we're going to continue to do as we have been doing, and ministering to those trapped in the bondage of this lifestyle."

Marcavage offers three reasons why he opposes the new law. He says it is ungodly because it "seeks to shut down the gospel of Jesus Christ"; unconstitutional because it violates the equal protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment; and also unnecessary because there are already laws on the books that punish violent crimes.