The Situation Room ...KitchComm

I have had many people e-mail me and ask me to take a gander at "KitchComn" my home-based communications center where I monitor the world via the airwaves and the digital waves. It all flows in through many electric pipes and its recorded, sifted and then distributed to various news (local and national) agencies.

Via my computer-controlled monitoring post I listen in to local and international police, public safety, military, satellite, aviation and emergency frequencies and send out "bots" over the Internet also searching for breaking news.

But for a better description- visit the link below.

LINK


-Steve Douglass

Wedgetail Downunder

Wedgetail Downunder: "

Following Boeing’s recent revelation that it had completed tests of the counter measures dispenser system (CMDS) for the Australian 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft for Project Wedgetail, it seems the first aircraft has already been delivered. According to my information the first 737, callsign ‘Boeing 201’ departed a gloomy Seattle on Nov 6 – bound for sunnier climes in Australia via Honolulu and Pago Pago. The second Boeing-converted aircraft is also set to follow by the end of the month, confirms the company. Separately Boeing is also expected to announce in the next day or so that the first Australian-completed Wedgetail is due to fly to the United Arab Emirates to participate in the upcoming international show in Dubai. The aircraft, one of four converted and completed at RAAF Amberley, is likely to be the third Wedgetail which first flew in modified form in late January 2008.

An earlier shot of the first Wedgetail departing Boeing Field on a test flight. (Photo Joe Walker)

"

(Via Ares.)

Heroes Both

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Military divers have found the body of a U.S. paratrooper who went missing last week in a river in western Afghanistan.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said the soldier was found close to where he disappeared on November 4. Officials are continuing their search for a second paratrooper lost at the same time.

Both men -- from the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division -- disappeared in the Morghab River near Afghanistan's border with Turkmenistan. The men were on a routine resupply mission, ISAF said.
Family members identified the recovered body as that of Benjamin Sherman, 21, of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

They said he jumped into the river when he saw a fellow soldier struggling in the water.
"I know that day he jumped into the river to try to save his comrade was because he didn't just see another soldier in the water, he saw his brother," said Sherman's sister, Meredith, in a statement to CNN affiliate WCVB in Boston, Massachusetts.

"He didn't jump in because he was trained to, but because that's what his heart told him to do."
Sherman's mother, Denise, said the family called him "the unstoppable one."
"I raised him with the understanding that when you choose to do something, you do it to the best of your ability," she said in a statement to WCVB. "He was powerful, ingenuous and determined."

Los Alamos Physicist's Property Seized By FBI

Federal agents have seized six computers, two cameras, two cell phones and hundreds of files from a Los Alamos, N.M., physicist who for two decades has criticized the government's nuclear agenda as misguided.

An FBI spokesman in Albuquerque, Darrin E. Jones, said that the action Monday was part of "an ongoing federal investigation" and that he could provide no details.

The physicist, P. Leonardo Mascheroni, said he was told that the seizures were part of a criminal investigation into possible nuclear espionage. Mascheroni also declared his innocence.

If I were a real spy," he said Tuesday in a telephone interview, "I would have left the country a long time ago."

Mascheroni was laid off from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1988 and has ever since championed an innovative type of laser fusion, which seeks to harness the energy that powers the sun, the stars and hydrogen bombs.

In recent years, he has repeatedly gone to Congress to question the management of the nation's nuclear laboratories and arsenal, saying his laser was needed to ensure weapon reliability. In theory, its tiny blasts could test arms dependability, eliminating the need for underground explosions.

The secrets of hydrogen bombs and laser fusion can be similar, and the federal investigation appears to center on whether Mascheroni broke federal rules in discussing his proposed laser with a man who called himself a representative of the Venezuelan government.

Venezuela has begun exploring for uranium, but President Hugo Chavez has denied any interest in developing nuclear arms.

Federal and laboratory authorities have previously investigated him twice for security violations, Mascheroni said, adding that each time he was exonerated. He said he saw the disruptive episodes as harassment for his outspoken views.

A jihadist code of ethics?

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- From within Libya's most secure jail a new challenge to al Qaeda is emerging.

Leaders of one of the world's most effective jihadist organizations, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), have written a new "code" for jihad. The LIFG says it now views the armed struggle it waged against Col. Moammar Gadhafi's regime for two decades as illegal under Islamic law.

The new code, a 417-page religious document entitled "Corrective Studies" is the result of more than two years of intense and secret talks between the leaders of the LIFG and Libyan security officials.

The code's most direct challenge to al Qaeda is this: "Jihad has ethics and morals because it is for God. That means it is forbidden to kill women, children, elderly people, priests, messengers, traders and the like. Betrayal is prohibited and it is vital to keep promises and treat prisoners of war in a good way. Standing by those ethics is what distinguishes Muslims' jihad from the wars of other nations."

The code has been circulated among some of the most respected religious scholars in the Middle East and has been given widespread backing. It is being debated by politicians in the U.S. and studied by western intelligence agencies.

In essence the new code for jihad is exactly what the West has been waiting for: a credible challenge from within jihadist ranks to al Qaeda's ideology.
While the code states that jihad is permissible if Muslim lands are invaded -- citing the cases of Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine -- the guidelines it sets down for when and how jihad should be fought, and its insistence that civilians should not be targeted are a clear rebuke to the goals and tactics of bin Laden's terrorist network.

CNN was given exclusive access to the Abu Salim jail where the code was written to talk to the LIFG prisoners. The jail has a bloody reputation; in 1996 prison guards put down a revolt by allegedly killing more than 1,200 prisoners in less than 24 hours.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE AT CNN