A car on fire hits Glasgow Airport

Earlier today a car that burst into flames hit the Terminal at Glasgow Airport.  Two people have been arrested. 
I guess John Edwards can’t put this on a bumpersticker.

Flaming Car Rams U.K. Airport; 2 Arrests

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) – Two men rammed a flaming sport utility vehicle
into the main terminal of Glasgow airport Saturday, crashing into the
glass doors at the entrance and sparking a fire, witnesses said. Police
said two suspects were arrested.

The airport – Scotland’s largest – was evacuated and all flights
suspended, a day after British police thwarted a plot to bomb central
London, discovering two cars abandoned with loads of gasoline, gas
canisters and nails.

"One has to conclude … these are linked," Dame Pauline Neville-Jones,
former head of Britain’s joint intelligence committee, told Sky News.
"This is a very young government, and we may yet see further attacks."

Britain’s prime minister, Gordon Brown, who took office only Wednesday,
was being briefed on developments by his officials, Downing Street said.

In Glasgow, the green SUV barreled toward the building at full speed
shortly after 3 p.m., hitting security barriers before crashing into
the glass doors and exploding, witnesses said. Two men jumped out of
the burning vehicle, one of them engulfed in flames, they said.

"The car came speeding past at about 30 mph. It was approaching the
building quickly," said Scott Leeson, who was nearby at the time. "Then
the driver swerved the car around so he could ram straight in to the
door. He must have been trying to smash straight through."

Two men were arrested, Strathclyde Police spokeswoman Lisa O’Neil said.

Passengers fled running and screaming from the busy terminal, Margaret
Hughes told the British Broadcasting Corp. "There was black smoke
gushing out where the car had obviously been driven into the airport,"
she said.

Flames and black smoke rose from the vehicle outside the main entrance.
Police said it was unclear if anyone was injured. Other passengers were
stranded, with at least one airplane grounded on the runway, the BBC
said.

The incident also comes exactly one week before the second anniversary of the July 7 bombings that killed 52 people.

Leeson said bollards – security posts outside the entrance – stopped
the driver from barreling into the bustling terminal at Glasgow’s
airport.

"He’s trying to get through the main door frame but the bollards have
stopped him from going through. If he’d got through, he’d have killed
hundreds, obviously," he said.

Leeson said only the nose of the vehicle made it inside the building.
Richard Grey told the BBC that the vehicle was lodged into the center
of the terminal’s main entrance.

"The jeep is completely on fire and it exploded not long after. It
exploded at the entrance to the terminal," witness Stephen Clarkson
told the BBC. "It may have been an explosion of petrol in the tank
because it was not a massive explosion."

Two men – one of them engulfed in flames – were in the SUV, witnesses
told BBC News executive Helen Boaden, who was at the airport at time.
She described the men as South Asian.

Clarkson described him as a large South Asian man. "His whole body was
on fire…. He was just talking gibberish," he told the BBC.

"An Asian guy had been pulled out of the car by two police officers he
was trying to fight off and they’d got him on the floor," Grey told the
BBC.

Boaden said police "wrestled him to the ground – the fire was burning
through his clothes – and finally put him out with a fire extinguisher."

Lesson said an airport officials did not think the incident was an accident.

"He said the men in the car got out and started throwing petrol about – that must be how it caught fire," he said.

Another witness, Fiona Tracey, described a "bang" coming from the SUV.
The vehicle was on fire and "every now and again there was a bang
coming off it. … There was definitely a bang," she told Sky News
television.

Grey said the car did not explode. "There were a few pops and bangs that seemed to be the tires and the petrol."

My Way News

Check for more news at BBC and Sky News

Image of the Day

Moving in Stereo

The Mars Express spacecraft has provided remarkable three-dimensional images of the Aeolis Mensae region on the red planet.

The region, imaged in March 2007, during Mars Express orbit number 4136 and 4247, is located at approximately 6° south and 145° east. This area is well-known for its features shaped by wind on the arid planet, and it lies on a tectonic transition zone with incised valleys and unexplained linear features.

Deep valleys carve into the highlands in the northern part of the image, showing linear features on the valley floor.

This perspective view was created using information from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), an instrument designed to permit 3D imaging which will reveal the topography of Mars in full color.

Mars Express was launched in June 2007 by the European Space Agency, and arrived at Mars in December of that year.

Space.com

Trackback Weekend

It is Friday and that means it is time for the Open Trackback Weekend

The LooneyLeft is at it again this time Pelosi, Murtha, Reid and the rest of the Defeatocrats are planning on bringing up bills to force our troops home.  The Defeatocrats want to stick their head in the sand and wait for the Islamists to come to us and blow up a city or two before they will defend our country.  They are already saying the "Surge" isn’t working, even though it just started and is looking like it is doing the job overin Iraq. 

PLease for the Love of God and Country, vote the Defeatocrats out in 2008.  I know that many Republicans and Conservatives were upset with the way the Republican Congresscritters turned out to be Democrats in Republican clothes, but at least they know that we need to defend our country and not run home with our tails between our legs.  And all the hulabalu about the Illegal Immigration Bill is non-sense, don’t let the Defeatocrats take over the Presidency and keep the House and Senate in 2008, vote for more conservatives people in the primaries to ge the Rinos out if you must, but don’t let the Defeatocxrats bring our country down.

Pelosi, Reid to announce new push to end Iraq war

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) are expected tomorrow to  announce a new coordinated effort to force votes in July to end the Iraq war, according to Democratic insiders.

Reid has already publicly declared that Senate Democrats will offer four Iraq-related amendments to the upcoming 2008 Defense authorization bill, including a proposal by Reid and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) to set a firm timetable to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by next spring.

Pelosi is planning to announce that the House will also vote on a bill setting a new withdrawal timetable of April 1, 2008, although the details of the proposal were still up in the air at press time, according to Democratic sources. The House will consider this proposal as a freestanding bill, said the sources.

Pelosi is also planning to force a vote on a proposal by Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, to repeal the 2002 use-of-force resolution for Iraq. This "deauthorization" proposal may be offered as an amendment to the 2008 Defense spending bill, which the House is scheduled to take up following the week-long July 4th recess.

In addition, House Democrats will push proposals to prohibit the creation of permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, as well as a "readiness" initiative similar to that authored by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.). The Webb proposal would limit deployments of U.S. soldiers and marines in Iraq by requiring the Pentagon to keep military units from being sent back to Iraq until they have been stateside as long as they were in the combat zone.

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the powerful Defense subcommittee on the House Appropriations Committee and a leader of the anti-war movement, is planning to offer his own new measures as part of the Defense spending bill.

Pelosi has been quietly meeting with various factions within the Democratic Caucus this week on the Iraq initiative, including Blue Dog conservatives skittish about being seen as anti-military, and the Out of Iraq Caucus, whose members have pushed hard for an end to the U.S. military involvement in Iraq.

Both Pelosi and Reid have come to the conclusion that President Bush’s plan for a "surge" in the number of U.S. troops inside Iraq, has failed and that Democrats, despite losing their showdown with Bush and the Republicans over the recent Iraq supplemental funding bill, must continue to force votes to end the war. Gen. David Petraeus is supposed to report back to Congress in September on the state of the "surge," but Democrats have decided not to wait for his report.

"The surge is a failure, it isn’t working," said a Democratic aide familiar with the new initiative. "We just can’t leave American soldiers out there dying and not do anything."

Reps. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the leaders of the Out of Iraq Caucus attended a meeting with Pelosi, other Democratic leaders and the Blue Dog lawmakers today.

After the meeting, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Democratic leaders "are working to build a consensus" within the Caucus on the Iraq proposals, but promised votes all next month on the issue. Hoyer said no date had been scheduled at this time for any of these votes, although the Defense spending bill is set to reach the House floor in mid-July.

Politico

Car Bomb attacked foiled in London

Thanks to alert people and a alert cop, a disaster was avoided.

Hero Cop May Have Saved Scores Of Lives

Updated: 17:57, Friday June 29, 2007

Sky News sources say one of the first police officers on the scene of the London West End car bomb may have saved dozens of lives by defusing the explosives before the bomb squad arrived.

It is believed the quick-thinking cop recognised that the car was wired to blow up, jumped in and disconnected the trigger device, thought to be a mobile phone.

This backs up an eye-witness account of a police officer briefly entering the metallic green Mercedes before running for cover.

People are being warned to stay vigilant after the discovery of the "massive" car bomb, which could have killed hundreds of nightclub revellers.

The device, which contained 60 litres of petrol, a large amount of nails and several gas canisters, was found in the Mercedes early this morning.

Park Lane has also been closed to traffic due to a suspect vehicle in an underground car park that police believe is connected to the attempted bombing in Haymarket.

Sky News crime correspondent said: "It might be the escape vehicle of the Mercedes driver, or it might be the vehicle of an accomplice, but it is turning into something very significant."

Fleet Street was also briefly closed after the discovery of another suspect vehicle, but has now reopened.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the UK is "currently facing the most serious and sustained threat" and authorities are doing everything they can to protect the public.

Police believe they have foiled a major terror attack and said if the bomb had gone off it could have caused "significant injury or loss of life".

Police received reports of a suspicious vehicle close to the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Piccadilly shortly before 2am.–Sky News

BBC and Sky News have got the coverage

9,000 Year Old Beer

I need to get me some of this.

H/T to Absinthe & Cookies

9,000-Year-Old Beer Tastes Great

By Liu Enming Delaware 26 June 2007

A Delaware brewery known for its specialty beers has created a new one based on a 9,000-year-old recipe.  VOA’s Liu Enming recently traveled to Dogfish Head Craft Brewery to taste Chateau Jiahu beer.  Jim Bertel narrates.

Of the more than 1300 breweries in the U.S., Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Delaware stands out for its uniqueness.

Owner Sam Calagione says the 26 kinds of beer brewed at his microbrewery cater to different people’s tastes, but have one thing in common. 

"Our motto since the day we’ve opened has been ‘off-centered ales for off-centered people’,” says Calagione.  “Just by virtue of that definition it’s obvious that we are not planning on brewing light lagers, boring beers. The ideas for beers that come out of our brewery Dogfish Head either usually come from my own inspiration; a feeling for a style that doesn’t exist yet that I think it would work well."

Calagione’s latest concoction, Chateau Jiahu, made headlines in the National Geographic News and other media.  But more importantly, it is a hit with many of the brewer’s customers.

"It was very tasty, the honey-suckle almost flavor to it, tastes of a little bit of white grape in the background; very smooth, very mellow, very tasty," said a customer.

"It was good; it was, like, buttery but also sweet, honey, a little bit (of) crispness to it going down.  It was good," says another.

"I am glad that they found the recipe; this is the type of beer I can drink," says a third customer.

The ancient brew was rediscovered in pottery dating back thousands of years at an excavation site in the Neolithic village of Jia Hu in Northern China

Dr. Patrick McGovern, an archaeochemist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, derived the recipe from residue found in pottery jars.  Careful research shows the ancient brew included rice, honey, grapes and hawthorn fruit. 

"If you have pottery vessels, they are very useful in making a beverage and also storing and serving and drinking it,” says Dr. McGovern.  “Often the beverage will be absorbed into the pottery and it will be held in the pottery by the clay matrix, the pores. The Jia Hu mixed beverage is so far the earliest chemically attested alcoholic beverage or wine from anywhere in the world.  I think it’s really quite remarkable that it doesn’t come from Middle East.  People often assume the first wine and first beer has to be from the Middle East, but it comes from China."—VOA

Image of the Day

Insane in the Methane

The Cassini spacecraft produced this view of methane clouds on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.

Bright mid-latitude clouds near the bottom of the image suggest the ongoing cycling of methane on Titan. These cloud streaks are near the same latitude as similar clouds observed above different longitudes on Titan.

This view focuses on Titan’s trailing hemisphere, over a bright region known as Adiri with a width of 1,700 kilometers (1,050 miles).

North on Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) is 15 degrees to the right of the 12 o’clock position on this image.

The multiple images used for this view were taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera at a distance of approximately 104,000 kilometers (65,000 miles) from Titan.

Space.com

Immigration Bills dies

Well, it looks like the comprehensive Immigration (Shamnesty to some) Bill has gone down to defeat.  Enough people called and let their minds be heard to the Congress that they had to reject this bill.  I think one poll had over %70 of the people against this bill.  Hopefully know Congress will see that the people want to stop the mass infusion of Illegal Aliens every year fist.  After that then we can talk about giving people amnesty.  Just the other day a gorgery expert in Mexico said he could make 3 million more illegals able to get amnesty with the rules that were in this bill.  I think the first thing that needs to be done is to actually enforce the laws that are already in the books and get a handle on the  border first.  I doubt it will happen because Congress is too out of touch with the average citizen, but stranger things have happened.

46-53, immigration bill goes down in defeat

By Klaus Marre

June 28, 2007

The comprehensive immigration reform bill that has dodged attacks from the left and right for weeks, survived “poison pill” amendments, and was once pulled from the Senate schedule failed its most important test Thursday. Passage of the legislation now appears unlikely.

The bipartisan coalition that had shepherded the measure through so many obstacles failed to get the 60 votes necessary to end debate. The final vote was 46-53

Until Thursday morning, it was unclear whether the bill would survive the cloture vote. But in the end, opponents of the measure from both sides of the political spectrum gained enough support to derail the legislation. Liberals felt it did not go far enough in protecting illegal immigrants, while conservatives rejected the bill because they felt it would grant amnesty to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country.

Republican foes of the measure argued that the American public was broadly united in opposition to the bill and had made its views known by flooding Congress with phone calls and e-mails.

“What part of ‘no’ don’t we understand?,” asked Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who said the immigration fight had “reengaged the American people.”

But Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the key members of the coalition that crafted the bill, warned is Republican colleagues ahead of the vote.

“Remember this day if you vote ‘no,’” Graham said, adding that this bill would not come back in its current form and it is “as good as it gets.”

President Bush has taken a hands-on approach to the legislation, which he views as an important part of his domestic legacy. Leading up to the vote, called senators to urge them to support the bill.

The Hill

Let the games begin

President Bush has invoked the executive privilege to Congress over documents that should stay within the executive branches realm.  This is going to bring a firestorm from the Left about how the President is keeping things from them.  Well, that is why we have the Separations of Powers.  The executive, Judicial and Legislative Branches of government are co-equal.  All of this crap was instigated because of proscuters being fired for political reasons.  Well, again they are all hired and fired for political reasons, every president has the power to fire all of the prosecuting attorneys or keep them on.  This is just a fishing excpedition by the Defeatocrats to get at Bush because nothing else has stuck to him.

White House Asserts Executive Privilege

Jun 28 09:29 AM US/Eastern
By TERENCE HUNT
AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) – The White House, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers’ demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors.

President Bush’s attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents for former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor.

"With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by finding grounds for mutual accommodation," White House counsel Fred Fielding said in a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. "We had hoped this matter could conclude with your committees receiving information in lieu of having to invoke executive privilege. Instead, we are at this conclusion."

Thursday was the deadline for surrendering the documents. The White House also made clear that Miers and Taylor would not testify next month, as directed by the subpoenas, which were issued June 13. The stalemate could end up with House and Senate contempt citations and a battle in federal court over separation of powers.

In his letter, Fielding said Bush had "attempted to chart a course of cooperation" by releasing more than 8,500 pages of documents and sending Gonzales and other senior officials to testify before Congress. The White House also had offered a compromise in which Miers, Taylor, White House political strategist Karl Rove and their deputies would be interviewed by Judiciary Committee aides in closed- door sessions, without transcripts. Democrats Patrick Leahy of Vermont and John Conyers of Michigan, the chairs of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, have rejected that offer.

On the other hand, Fielding said Bush "was not willing to provide your committees with documents revealing internal White House communications or to accede to your desire for senior advisors to testify at public hearings.

"The reason for these distinctions rests upon a bedrock presidential prerogative: for the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch," Fielding said.

"The doctrine of executive privilege exists, at least in part, to protect such communications from compelled disclosure to Congress, especially where, as here, the president’s interests in maintaining confidentiality far outweigh Congress’s interests in obtaining deliberative White House communications," Fielding said.

"Further, it remains unclear precisely how and why your committees are unable to fulfill your legislative and oversight interests without the unfettered requests you have made in your subpoenas," Fielding said. "Put differently, there is no demonstration that the documents and information you seek by subpoena are critically important to any legislative initiatives that you may be pursuing or intending to pursue."

It was the second time in his administration that Bush has exerted executive privilege, said White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto. The first instance was in December, 2001, to rebuff Congress’ demands for Clinton administration documents. in federal court over separation of powers.

Tensions between the administration and the Democratic-run Congress have been building for months as the House and Senate Judiciary panels have sought to probe the firings of eight federal prosecutors and the administration’s program of warrantless eavesdropping. The investigations are part of the Democrats’ efforts to hold the administration to account for the way it has conducted the war on terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Democrats say the firings of the prosecutors over the winter was an example of improper political influence. The White House says U.S. attorneys are political appointees who can be hired and fired for almost any reason.

Democrats and even some key Republicans have said that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign over the U.S. attorney dismissals, but he has steadfastly held his ground and Bush has backed him.

Just Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, demanding documents pertaining to terrorism-era warrant-free eavesdropping.

Separately, that panel also is summoning Gonzales to discuss the program and an array of other matters—including the prosecutor firings—that have cost a half-dozen top Justice Department officials their jobs.

Leahy, D-Vt., the committee’s chairman, raised questions Wednesday about previous testimony by one of Bush’s appeals court nominees and said he wouldn’t let such matters pass.

"If there have been lies told to us, we’ll refer it to the Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney for whatever legal action they think is appropriate," Leahy told reporters. He did just that Wednesday, referring questions about testimony by former White House aide Brett Kavanaugh, who now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

BREITBART.com

Chuck Asay

Chuck Asay

Dick Locher

Dick Locher