Via The Editors of Family Security Matters

But don’t take our word for it. In an unearthed copy of Bill Ayers’ and the FBI’s former Ten Most Wanted Weather Underground member Bernardine Dorhn’s book, Prairie Fire, The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism, it was revealed that the book is dedicated to, among others, the Palestinian murderer of Senator Robert Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan.

Not only the Democrats, but how could any American justify this?

The complicated relationship between Syria and al Qaeda.

By David Schenker

When it comes to al Qaeda, Syria gets it coming and going. This past Sunday, U.S. helicopters targeted an al Qaeda operative on Syrian territory who shuttled terrorists into Iraq. Syria condemned the strike as a violation of its sovereignty and a "serious aggression." Earlier in October, a massive car bomb detonated in Damascus, killing 17. Even before the smoke cleared, Syria’s Assad regime accused Sunni Muslim fundamentalists from abroad–i.e., al Qaeda–of perpetrating the attack. Meanwhile, regime spokesmen described Syria as a "victim" of international terrorism.

The characterization of Syria as "victim" was ironic not only because Damascus has been a proactive member of the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1979–sponsoring Hamas and Hezbollah, among others–but because just one day before the attack, the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia levied a mammoth civil judgment against Syria for "providing material support and resources to Zarqawi and Al Qaeda in Iraq."

The verdict awarded $414 million to the families of two U.S. contractors–Jack Armstrong and Jack Hensley–beheaded in Iraq in September 2004.

Due to the opaque nature of the authoritarian Assad regime, it will likely never be clear who was actually responsible for the bombing. Syria routinely engages in conspiracies, so it’s no surprise that conspiracy theories have proliferated regarding the culprit, with explanations alternately implicating the Iranians, the Israelis, and even the Assad regime itself. Adding to the uncertainty, some Western-based al Qaeda analysts say the assault lacked many of the organization’s signature traits.

Notwithstanding the speculation, let’s assume for the moment that al Qaeda did sponsor the attack. If so, it should have come as no surprise to Damascus: As the experiences of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan demonstrate, al Qaeda has a track record of attacking its sponsors.

Since 2002, the Assad regime has facilitated the movement through its territory of al Qaeda fighters bound for Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. It has allowed these insurgents to train in Syria and has provided sanctuary to al Qaeda-affiliated killers of Americans. By and large, this policy purchased Syria immunity from attacks. Along the way, however, these terrorists appear to have planted local roots.

In the lead up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, when it became clear that Syria was helping shuttle Islamist insurgents to Iraq, Washington warned Damascus of the folly of this policy. U.S. diplomats in Damascus repeatedly told the Syrian government that Islamists posed a threat to the secular nationalist regime.

Damascus’s logic was based on its opposition to the establishment of a pro-Western government in Baghdad. As then Foreign Minister Farouq Shara said in 2003, "Syria’s interest is to see the invaders defeated in Iraq." But the Assad regime failed to take into account the dynamic of the al Qaeda’s relations with its "friends." In Pakistan, for example, the intelligence service long supported al Qaeda, but the state nonetheless remained a high value target of the organization.

In al Qaeda’s evolving strategy, targeting is not contingent on a state’s political orientation or on the assistance it receives from governments. Basically, the organization has no qualms about biting the hand that feeds it, whether the patron is Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or Syria. In this regard, if the Syrians are telling the truth about who perpetrated the attack, it is a clear case of the chickens coming home to roost.

Ultimately, Damascus’s newfound problem with al Qaeda may change the Assad regime’s permissive attitude toward the group, but it’s unlikely to have any impact on Syrian support for Hezbollah and Hamas. These longstanding relationships with Islamist terrorist organizations are closely linked to the 30-year strategic alliance between Damascus and Tehran.

For the next U.S. administration, Syrian support for al Qaeda should prove a cautionary tale about the limits of diplomatic engagement in curtailing Syrian support for terrorism. The Assad regime has trucked with Islamist terrorists for decades, and provides no indication that it would be willing to sever these relationships. Senior Israeli officials–including likely incoming prime minister Tzipi Livni–have stated that a peace deal is contingent on Syria’s abandoning Tehran, forsaking terror, and joining the Western camp. Syria has responded emphatically and repeatedly that this kind of strategic reorientation is not in the cards.

During the presidential debates, there were sharp disagreements as to how Washington should best treat rogue states. Regardless of whether the next administration is led by Barack Obama or John McCain, however, many observers believe that Washington will look to reengage in high-level diplomacy with Damascus and perhaps even consent to mediate Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations. Indeed, there are some indications that the Bush administration is already pursuing this tack.

Changing Syria’s orientation would be of great benefit, but experience suggests it’s not a realistic hope. While many excuse Syrian ties to Hamas and Hezbollah as "cards" that will someday be traded during negotiations, the revelations about the ties to al Qaeda highlight just how inimical the Assad regime’s worldview is to U.S. interests. Support for terrorism appears to be intrinsic to the regime. Given this dynamic, U.S. diplomacy with Damascus stands little chance of success.

By David Jones In Chicago

The Great Black Hope is coming and his victory parties have already been planned.

In baseball parks and school gyms all across America, giant TV screens have been erected and Stars and Stripes bunting strung up.

Thousands of invitations have been distributed, gallons of affordable Californian ‘champagne’ placed on ice, and huge buckets filled with tickertape coloured in Democrat blue.

Obama: His 30-minute TV ad made him look like the new president but should he beware the lessons of history?

But the biggest celebration of them all will be a glitzy extravaganza in Barack Obama’s adopted hometown of Chicago, to be addressed  -  no doubt with emotion-stirring rhetoric  -  by the Man himself.

At his insistence it will be staged in a huge lakeside expanse named after the great Union general and anti-slavery crusader, Ulysses S. Grant. After all, there could hardly be a more appropriate setting for the first black president of the United States to assume his place in history.

More than one million devotees  -  one-third of the city’s population  -  are expected to brave the bitter November chill next Tuesday night to hail the new president elect.

To raised eyebrows among some Obama supporters  -  many of whom are firmly in the sub-prime bracket  -  the Democratic Party has even agreed to pick up the £1 million tab. ‘Win or lose’, someone in the Obama team added, raising broad smiles.

For with just five days to go before the election, and every opinion poll showing Obama with a clear lead, no one seems to think it remotely possible that Republican rival John McCain can catch him on the home straight.

Not least, it would seem, Barack Obama himself.

Still deciding? Possible voters watch Obama’s 30-minute TV ad in a pub in Washington DC

At his triumphal mass rallies, he preaches caution, of course, perhaps remembering the so-called Bradley Effect, a phenomenon named after an African-American candidate who lost the 1982 Californian governor’s race despite being well ahead in the polls  -  presumably because those questioned did not wish to appear racist.

Judging by the hubristic, and excruciatingly cheesy, 30-minute TV ‘infomercial’ which was screened coast to coast on seven major networks on Wednesday night, however, he appears utterly sure that a date with destiny awaits him.

In his latest and longest propaganda film, Obama left us in little doubt that he believes the Oval Office door is wide open and all he has to do is saunter through it. Or that, as one TV reporter preferred, he is ‘already measuring the drapes’.

Gone was the studied, cool rock-star image he presents on the hustings  -  the black, open-necked shirt and bomber jacket, and battered brown loafers.

Gone, too, were the down-home asides, which so appeal to his trailer-park audiences.

Instead Obama and his team of image-makers decided it was high time that we
saw him as he intends to look, if  -  or rather when  -  he becomes
Commander-in-Chief.

Don’t count your pumpkins yet: Barack Obama visiting a Pumpkin Patch in Florida on Thursday

A grey suit hung from his rake-thin frame, offset by a crisp white shirt and burgundy tie. But more revealing still was the backdrop for his solemnly delivered pledges.

In a thinly-disguised message to those who accuse him of lacking the necessary patriotism to be president, he stood stiffly beside the Star Spangled Banner and spoke from behind a White House-style plinth.

It was also noticeable how often he began sentences with the words ‘when I’m President’.

When he is President, he assured us, he will restore propriety on Wall Street and help struggling families with tax-breaks and universal healthcare.

When he is President, he will get the troops out of Iraq and take on the Taliban in an effective manner. When he is President, he will revive the American Dream.

All this would start to happen in six days time, he said. He made it all sound so easy.

The film featured heart-rending personal stories of struggling families (almost all of them conveniently white) in the Middle American heartland of Ohio and New Mexico  -  key swing-states he needs to win to secure victory.

They were shot in soft focus and played out to the lifting strains of sentimental music.

Inevitably, Obama harped on about his personal trials: a crucial part of what the pundits call his ‘presidential narrative’. We were reminded of his mother’s premature death from cancer, and her fear that the insurance company might find a loophole to avoid paying her medical bills.

And there was his wife, Michelle, telling America  -  the fabled land of picket fences and family suppers  -  that in addition to being a great President, her man would find time for his beloved daughters, too.

‘These girls are the only things that can break him down,’ she cooed, as Malia, aged ten, and Sasha, seven, played cutesy-pie beside her.

‘He doesn’t forget to call them every night, and he talks for as long as they need to talk. He just always has time for them.’

Backing: Bill Clinton campaigns with Barack Obama in Florida on Wednesday

Directed by Davis Guggenheim, whose father made the powerful campaign documentaries for assassinated Robert F. Kennedy (one of the political figures Obama most admires), the film cost around £2.5million to make.

How McCain must wish that he could afford to respond in kind. But American big business likes to back a winner, and the outsider has been outspent by almost four to one. His war-chest is now almost empty.

Obama, by contrast, has dollars to burn  -  hence Wednesday night’s TV blitz.

‘It is evidence, if you need any, that Obama has more money than there is ad time left to buy,’ explains leading campaign media analyst Evan Tracey. ‘This is flexing the muscles.

‘The strategic brilliance of this for Obama is that he has consumed about 24 hours of the news cycle. It boxes McCain in; takes the oxygen out of the room.’

Maybe so. Yet among some onlookers last night, there was a sneaking suspicion that Obama’s grand production might do him more harm than good.

His sweeping promises  -  to change not merely America but the world  -  were delivered with a liberal helping of arrogance (an often-made criticism) and his ‘When I am President’ mantra seems altogether too presumptuous.

Fighting: Can John McCain defy the polls and still win the election?

An interview published in the latest edition of Rolling Stone, in which he discloses his plans to install a basketball court in the White House  -  so that he can wind down by ’shooting hoops’  -  only adds to the impression that he is taking victory for granted.

His attitude could be as perilous as it is premature. For according to a new opinion poll published in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, McCain is at last fighting back in at least two crucial states, Ohio and Florida.

In the latter, Obama’s lead has been slashed to two points. Less than a week ago it was five.

It remains to be seen whether the endorsement of Bill Clinton, who exchanged mutual appreciation with Obama at a rally in Florida on Wednesday night, will restore his advantage or further dilute it.

Watching Obama in presidential mode, however, one couldn’t help but remember the fate that befell another Left-wing icon at the climax of a not dissimilar ideological struggle in Britain, 16 years ago.

Neil Kinnock was way ahead of John Major when he took the stage in the Sheffield Arena on that April night, one week before the 1992 election. All he had to do was mutter a few platitudes, and the keys to Number 10 were his.

Astonishingly, however, Kinnock appeared to be overtaken by gross egotism and launched into a victorious rallying-cry, in the style of some firebrand Evangelical preacher.

‘We’re all right! We’re all right!’ he bellowed insanely, as his full Shadow Cabinet shuffled around in embarrassment behind him.

I was among the 10,000 crowd who gazed in disbelief at this triumphal spectacle, which at a stroke cost Kinnock the election. Perhaps someone should warn Barack Obama to read up on his British political history.

For if he continues to behave as if he has already won, it is not impossible that the Vietnam War hero John McCain, who is nothing if not a fighter, might just sneak up  -  and knock him out in the final round.

By Marinka Peschmann

Less than a week before American’s go to the polls to elect the 44th President, excerpts from declassified FBI files documenting unrepentant terrorist William Ayers and his Weather Underground Organization’s mission to end the Vietnam war, and bring about a Marxist-Leninist revolution inside America, may offer comparables into Senator Barack Obama’s remarkable youth movement and grass roots organization that outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton and is propelling him into the White House. Obama’s political career was launched in Ayer’s home.

According to the 1976 FBI reports, Ayers, and his future wife Bernadine Dohrn traveled to Fidel Castro’s Cuba before the October 1969 Days of Rage riots as part of the Venceremos Brigades.

The Venceremo Brigades was a Cuban spy operation tasked to recruit “individuals who are politically oriented and who someday may obtain a position, elective or appointive, somewhere in the U.S. Government, which would provide the Cuban Government with access to political, economic and military intelligence.” (Story here)

“The ideological mating between the American radical left and the Vietnamese Communist, with Fidel Castro playing matchmaker, exploded in…the streets of Chicago,” the FBI report discloses. “It is love that feeds the inextinguishable hate against the United States.”

While brave warriors fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan against radical jihadists bent on the destruction of Western Civilization, and because Obama has been elusively sketchy about his relationship with Ayers, his education co-chair on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge that radicalized students and showed no academic achievement; it seemed fitting to see how Obama’s Marxist co-chair built up his movement.

Tapping into the frustrations and discontent over the Vietnam war, according to the FBI report, in a speech entitled “A Strategy to Win” Ayers said, “We’re not just saying… bring the U.S. troops home and deploy them some place some other time, we’re saying bring the war home…”

How did Ayers propose to achieve his objectives? By quickly setting up a “National Action Staff,” because “people have to get confident about this– that we can build a revolutionary youth movement…”

Next the FBI report refers to passages from the New Left Notes, the Students for Democratic Society newspaper, dated August 23, 1969.

“The National Action is building fast. All over the country, from Detroit to Houston, from Miami through cities in Ohio and out to Denver, Colorado, people are digging on the action… for the past two months, the National Officers, the National Action staff, and the National Office staff have been busting to get out propaganda, develop a scenario with other organizations for the action itself, build contacts throughout the country, get people in motion, and develop an overall strategy for building the action… we want to fill people in on what’s been going on—and talk about what should be going on—in cities, chapter and regions…

One of the most important reasons for calling the National Action lies with the decision that it was possible and necessary to build an anti-imperialist, working class youth movement in the mother country…

And what became clear to people—through the struggles at Columbia and Chicago, at San Francisco State and at Kent State—was that putting forward our politics in an aggressive way was the ONLY way to organize the masses of people in this country. That only by dealing with the issues of white supremacy, the black liberation struggle, Third World struggles, and the fight against imperialism, only by challenging the consciousness of the people could we ever develop a movement capable of helping topple the imperialist state…

We say clearly that this is an action not to register a complaint or up the percentage points in public opinion polls, but to make a difference, to create the solution.

The National Action is one of the key ways of talking to young people in this country about a building a class conscious revolutionary youth movement…

Chicago is the site…We are coming back to turn pig city into the people’s city.”

After Ayers’ Days of Rage, a four-day declaration of “war on the Chicago police” where 287 people were arrested and 59 police officers “sustained personal injury,” on October 21, 1969, the New Left Notes reported a WUO update: “We did what we set out to do, and in the process turned a corner. From here on it’s one battle after another with White Youth joining in the fight and taking the necessary risks. Pig Amerika–Beware: There’s an army growing right in your guts, and it’s going to help bring you down.”

Ayer’s, who dodged prison because of a prosecutorial misconduct, has reinvented himself as a “distinguished scholar” who holds court in the antechambers of Chicago’s radicals. Why he chose to associate and work with the then unknown Barack Obama remains a mystery. 

Perhaps, the FBI report offers an answer, “Good revolutionaries are never deterred by odds.” If so, maybe Ayers’ gamble and investment in Obama’s political career might pay off.

EL PASO — A man who jumped 60 feet to his death from the Spaghetti Bowl on Thursday left a note with a message for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

A note to "Obama" was found in the man’s car, which was parked on the top ramp of the Spaghetti Bowl.

Officials offered no further explanation nor interpreted the note’s meaning.

About 7:45 a.m., police responded to a report that the 52-year-old El Paso man had jumped off the uppermost ramp of the Spaghetti Bowl. His body was found on I-10 west just before the Copia Street exit. His name was not released.

Police spokesman Darrel Petry said Crimes Against Persons investigators were investigating the death as a suicide.

Two notes on large pieces of paper were found on the dashboard and another part of the car, police said.

The investigation into the death caused traffic to back up near Hawkins Boulevard for at least an hour as the man’s body lay in the far right lane of the interstate. His white tennis shoes, which had fallen off during or after the fall, lay just a few feet from his body.

Police were also seen on Ramp F, the top ramp of the Spaghetti Bowl, next to the white four-door sedan, which was parked unattended. The ramp connects I-10 west to the Bridge of the Americas and Paisano Drive.

Police confirmed that the man left behind a note that read, "Obama take care of my family."

Petry said that the incident was a public safety matter because of its location, and that it required the services of three police units, specialized crime-scene units and detectives. At least three Texas Department of Transportation workers were there, as were members of the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office.

"Three units were tied up for three hours (and) four lanes of I-10 were turned into two lanes during rush hour," Petry said. "When something like that happens in that location, we have to ensure the public’s safety so they can continue to navigate the roads safely."

The previous time a person apparently committed suicide by leaping from the Spaghetti Bowl, according to El Paso Times archives, was in February 2007.

Texas Transportation Department spokeswoman Blanca Del Valle said there were no plans to install fencing along any of the Spaghetti Bowl ramps because the ramps weren’t meant to accommodate pedestrians.

"There’s funding issues involved, and it may mean replacing what we have now," Del Valle said. "There are tubes in the barriers along the ramps, and studies would have to be done to determine if the tubes could hold the fencing."

Del Valle said department engineers would also have to consider whether the numbers of suicides and apparent suicides merited more barriers.

Source

By Bill Roggio

A US military map of Iran’s operations inside southern Iraq. This 2007 map formed the basis of The Ramazan Corps and the ratlines into Iraq. Click to view full size.

Iraqi troops uncovered a massive weapons cache and factory inside the northeastern neighborhood of Sadr City. The cache contained 34 of the deadly explosively-formed penetrators, the weapons that are the hallmark of the Iranian-backed Shia militias. This is the third large cache found in Sadr City since Oct. 20.

The raid was conducted in the northern area of Sadr City, the former stronghold of Muqtada al Sadr’s Iranian-backed Mahdi Army. Iraqi troops from the 44th Brigade of the 11th Iraqi Army Division conducted the operation after receiving tips from residents in Sadr City.

The find is "significant as it included the machines used by the enemy to manufacture explosively-formed penetrators – the number one killer of our US soldiers," said Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover, the chief Public Affairs Officer for Multinational Division Baghdad.

EFPs, EFP cones and other materials siezed int he Oct. 28 raid. Image from Multinational Division Baghdad. Click to view.

The soldiers found 34 EFPs, 53 copper plates and 40 shaped plates, which are used for the EFP’s shaped warhead, 160 blocks of C4 explosives, and 14 107 mm rockets and launch rails. Also found were three presses and a punch, machinery that is thought to be used to mill the copper plates into the cone-shaped warhead.

Since Oct. 20, Iraqi troops found two other large caches in Sadr City. A raid by troops from the 3rd Battalion, 42nd Brigade of the 11th Iraq Army Division on Oct. 20 resulted in the discovery of 61 rockets, 368 mortar rounds, 263 mortar tubes, shape charges, an IED, 32,000 rounds of ammunition, seven DSHKA machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades launchers and grenades, and other equipment.

The same Iraqi Army unit also found a large cache in Sadr City the day prior. The troops found 15 EFPs, an IED, two 72.5 mm rockets, two 64 mm rockets, numerous RPG launchers and warheads and hand grenades, and other equipment.

In all, 49 of the deadly EFPs have been found by Iraqi troops since Oct. 20.

Iraqi and Coalition forces have maintained the pressure on the Iranian-backed terror groups operating inside Iraq during the month of October. Seven Iranian-trained Special Groups fighters have been killed and 118 have been confirmed captured during raids since Oct. 1, according to numbers compiled by The Long War Journal. Iraqi forces also detained 180 “suspects” in Basrah during a sweep on Oct. 28, but it is unclear how many are considered Special Groups fighters. One of the men detained was a Pakistani.

Twenty-eight of the Iranian-backed Shia terrorists captured since Oct. 1 are members of the Hezbollah Brigades. The Hezbollah Brigades is an Iranian-backed terror group that has been behind multiple roadside bombings and rocket attacks against US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad. This group uploads videos of attacks onto the Internet.

Coalition forces have captured 16 Hezbollah Brigades operatives since Oct 21. A raid in Amarah netted an "Iranian-backed financer" and four associates. More than $50,000 and almost 12 million Iraqi Dinar (approximately $10,000) was found during the raid. On Oct. 28, four operatives, including an "administrator," were captured during an operation in Abd ar Rahman, about 4 miles east of Sadr City. Another three Hezbollah Brigades were captured in Baghdad on Oct. 21.

Taking on Qods Force

Iraqi security forces are also zeroing in on Iran’s network inside Iraq. Iraqi forces have captured nine Iranian Qods Force agents and killed one since Oct. 18. Iraqi soldiers captured an Iranian "infiltrator" during a sweep in Basrah on Oct. 28. Iraqi troops killed one Iranian agent captured another during a clash in Al Kut in Wasit province on Oct. 24. Iraqi police captured three armed Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps officers in Al Kut on Oct. 20. Border guards captured four more in Mandali in Diyala province.

US military officers believe Iran is ramping up its operations inside Iraq after its surrogates suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Iraqi military during the spring and summer of 2008. Iraqi troops went of the offensive against the Mahdi Army and other Iranian-backed terror groups in Baghdad and central and southern Iraq. More than 2,000 Mahdi Army were killed and thousands more were wounded. The operation forced Muqtada al Sadr to agree to a cease-fire and disband the Mahdi Army.

Qods Force may also be looking to take a more active role in directing operations at the tactical level inside Iraq, A US military officer told The Long War Journal. Prior to this week, only a handful of Iranian operatives, along with a Lebanese Hezbollah leader, have been reported captured inside Iraq. The more than 3,000 Mahdi Army leaders and operatives that are said to have fled to Iran to regroup and rearm are believed to be infiltrating back into Iraq.

Background on Iran’s backing of the Shia terror groups

Iran established the Ramazan Corps immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime to direct operations inside Iraq. The US military says Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah have helped establish, fund, train, and arm, and have provided operational support for Shia terror groups such as the Hezbollah Brigades and the League of the Righteous. The US military refers to these groups as well as the Iranian-backed elements of the Mahdi Army as the "Special Groups." These groups train in camps inside Iran.

US and Iraqi forces have captured several high-level Qods Force officers inside Iraq since late 2006. Among those captured are Mahmud Farhadi, one of the three Iranian regional commanders in the Ramazan Corps; Ali Mussa Daqduq, a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative; Qais Qazali, the leader of the Qazali Network; and Azhar al Dulaimi, one of Qazali’s senior tactical commanders. The US has imposed sanctions on Major General Ahmad Foruzandeh, the former Qods Force commander, and Abdul Reza Shahlai, a deputy commander in Iran’s Qods Force, for backing Shia terror groups inside Iraq.

Via The Washington Times: 

The nation’s gun owners have the presidential election in their sights.

Some are up at arms about the prospect of future gun legislation should Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama win the White House. Others are beefing up their personal arsenals, skittish that firearms could become scarce or too expensive in the near future.

"If the economy is down, and gun sales are up, it shows you just how deep-seated the concern is out there about the situation," said Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association.

"Most gun owners at least until recently have been misled by Senator Obama. Though he claims to be an advocate for the Second Amendment, his voting record in the Illinois Senate says otherwise. He voted for a bill that would ban nearly every hunting rifle, shotgun and target rifle owned by Illinois citizens," Mr. Pearson continued.

"His campaign has done a good job burying his take on firearms," he added.

Hal Goldstein, owner of the Armory gun shop in Annapolis, said, "People should be scared."

"Sales are definitely up," he said. "I’ve got people with Obama stickers on their cars coming in to buy. We’re looking at possible a super- Democratic majority [in Congress], and a president who’s going to do what’s best for the collective. I don’t want to sound paranoid, but the prices could go way out of sight."

Mr. Obama’s campaign Web site cites "the great conservation legacy" of American hunters, including Theodore Roosevelt.

"Barack Obama believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right, and he respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms. He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport and use guns," the site states.

Not all gun owners are leery of Mr. Obama. He has the endorsement of the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA), a Maryland-based group that describes itself as mainstream hunters without "a radical agenda."

Mr. Pearson, however, buys none of it.

"This is all just a propaganda mill. And the American Hunters and Shooters Association is a leftist, elitist group." he said. "They’re a front for the Brady Campaign [to Prevent] Gun Violence." The Brady Campaign also has endorsed Sen. Obama’s candidacy.

AHSA President Ray Schoenke said his group is "not a front for anybody."

"The issue that Senator Obama - or Senator [John] McCain, for that matter - is going to take America’s guns away has been hyped up," Mr. Schoenke said. "If people are looking for an excuse not to vote for Senator Obama, then it shouldn’t be on the gun issue.

"If people are nervous, they need to remember the Supreme Court decision this summer, which says the government cannot confiscate or ban guns," he said.

Mr. Obama has not made any points with the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), a Connecticut-based nonprofit group of 4,000 gun makers, retailers, sportsmen and publishers.

The NSSF claims that on Sept. 27, the Obama campaign "unlawfully obtained and made unauthorized use of a proprietary media list" belonging to the group and has since sent a cease-and-desist letter to campaign officials.

Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has launched get-out-the vote drives, including lawn signs that read "I’m a ‘bitter’ gun owner and I vote."

"We’re arming gun owners, who are a very loyal voting bloc, with the facts. And it’s a fact that gun control has become a political liability. Senator Obama is spending millions trying to camouflage his take on the issue," said NRA spokesman Chris Cox.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Two men have been arrested for hanging a Barack Obama effigy from a tree on the University of Kentucky campus.

University police say 22-year-old student Joe Fischer and 21-year-old Hunter Bush turned themselves in Thursday afternoon. Both men were jailed Thursday on charges of disorderly conduct, burglary and theft.

Jail officials did not know who the men’s attorneys were.

UK Police Interim Chief Joe Monroe says university police interviewed the men, who described the incident as a "stunt that had gotten out of hand." The effigy was found hanging from a tree with a noose around its neck Wednesday morning.

Monroe says the men told police they decided to do it after seeing reports about a Sarah Palin effigy.

By Priya Ganapati

By Lisa M. Novak, Stars and Stripes

Sears’ Heroes At Home Wish Registry is back online following changes the company made to ensure the program no longer violated ethics standards for military personnel.

The company was notified two weeks ago by the Department of Defense that signing up for the registry would constitute "an improper solicitation" on the part of military servicemembers.

"As Sears characterized the re-structured program to us, we did not find that it violated the standards of conduct," said a DOD legal official.

When servicemembers initially signed up for the registry, they provided information that Sears used to create personal profiles for customers to view. Customers would donate money, which the store would use to purchase Sears gift cards for those individuals.

This was problematic because it equated to "military personnel improperly soliciting gifts in violation of the applicable Government ethics regulations," according to a letter sent to Sears Oct. 14 by DOD’s Office of General Counsel.

Under the new guidelines, approved by the Defense Department last week, servicemembers’ personal information, though still collected by Sears, is no longer posted on the registry.

Donors now give to the registry as a whole, not to individuals. Since standards of conduct apply to individuals, the revised program does not "create an improper solicitation or result in an improper acceptance of gifts for servicemembers," according to the general counsel’s office.

Still, personal information such as names and photos provided by servicemembers to participate in the program can be used by Sears for promotional or advertising campaigns under the terms and conditions of the program. The registration phase for the registry is open until Oct. 31.

The company also dropped rank restrictions that initially limited participation to personnel E6 and below. Sears officials said they wanted to make the promotion available to all military members. This was also one of the steps needed to comply with ethics guidelines, DOD said.

The registry can be accessed Here

MADRID, Spain (CNN) — A car bomb exploded Thursday in an open-air parking lot at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, slightly injuring at least four people, authorities told CNN+, CNN’s sister network in Spain.

The car was parked in a lot near the university’s library and detonated shortly after 11 a.m. local time (6 a.m. ET).

A spokeswoman for Clinica Universitaria de Navarra — one of three hospitals treating the injured — said that the 17 patients there were suffering from glass cuts and hearing problems. She did not identify the nationalities of the patients.

The explosion affected the campus’ Central Building where about 400 students and staff were at the time of the blast, university spokesman Jesus Diaz told CNN+. The Central Building has been shut down, but the rest of the campus is open, Diaz said. 

Video from the scene showed fire engulfing part of the building and thick clouds of black smoke billowing over the campus.

The bombing also struck near the university’s top-rated journalism school.

The blast could be heard across the campus of the private school, which has 12,000 students — including more than 1,000 scholars from countries outside Spain.

Authorities in Spain’s Basque province of Alava received a warning call in the name of the Basque separatist group ETA alerting them of a car bomb on a university campus, but without specifying which one, CNN+ reported.

The University of Navarra, however, is located in neighboring Navarra Province, also in Spain’s Basque region.

Thursday’s blast came just days after Spanish police arrested four suspected members of the Basque separatist group ETA early Tuesday. Authorities accused them of forming a terrorist cell that was ready to attack, the Spanish Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Three of the suspects were arrested in or near the city of Pamplona, in Spain’s northern Navarra region, which has Basque roots and was to be the base for the alleged cell, the statement said.

The fourth suspect was arrested in the city of Valencia, on Spain’s eastern coast.

Police seized two revolvers and ammunition; various timers that might be used for bombs; detonating cord; items that might be used to make a bomb attached to the underside of vehicles; various substances that might be used to make explosives; and computer documentation, the ministry said.

All four suspects — three men and a woman — were born in Pamplona and range in age from 26 to 29, the ministry said.

ETA is blamed for more than 800 killings in its four-decade-long fight for Basque independence. The European Union and the United States list ETA as a terrorist group.

Via the communist  InsideBayArea:

ALBANY — CodePink is shuttering its East Bay office on Solano Avenue, but the anti-war anti-U.S. military group’s leaders say the fight to boot the U.S. Marine recruiting center from downtown Berkeley is far from over.

"(The office) is very hard to maintain in this economic climate," said CodePink’s Zanne Sam Joi. "Also, I had a 10-year lease, and the lease is over and I’m not renewing it. It’s too much of a financial strain."

Joi ran an antique business from the site at 1248 Solano Ave., until about a year after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when she converted it to a CodePink storefront office.

For more than a year, women from CodePink have been picketing weekly in front of the U.S. Marine recruiting center at 64 Shattuck Square in downtown Berkeley. They say the Marines are not welcome in liberal, anti-war Berkeley and that the office should shut its doors.

In January, the Berkeley City Council got involved when they called the U.S. Marines "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" and granted CodePink a permit waiver and a free parking space in front of the Marine center for the weekly protests. The move angered people across the country, who flooded City Hall with about 25,000 letters and e-mails.

To counter the CodePink protests, Move America Forward, the nation’s largest pro-troop organization; members of the Marines; and motorcycle clubs came to Berkeley from across the nation to back the Marines.

CodePink’s weekly Wednesday protests, which drew dozens at the height of the controversy, have dwindled to just a few people lately, and critics now believe that shutting the doors of the Solano Avenue office will be the end to the group’s Marine center protests.

"The fact of the matter is they are out of money. CodePink is running red," said Melanie Morgan, head of Move America Forward. "They can’t generate the excitement because the election is far more interesting. It really is amusing that they said they would sit there every day until they ran the Marines out of town, and yet they are the ones closing their doors."

U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Pauline Franklin said the Marines have no plans to leave the Berkeley office. The center’s lease runs through December 2009, subject to termination if the government cannot provide funding, Franklin has said.

Even without the Albany office, CodePink officials said they will continue to protest the Marines and their recruiting of young people.

"We’ve been there, and we intend to be there until they leave," Joi said. "We would like to relocate our offices where they are."

CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin said the organization will have a better idea of their strategy after next week’s election.

"We’ve been putting energy into the election and getting peaceful candidates that have the fortitude to promote peace," she said.

CodePink is having a going-out-of-business sale from noon until 7 p.m. today and Thursday at the storefront in Albany. The group is selling office furniture, display cabinets, tchotchkes, outdoor furniture and CodePink memorabilia and merchandise.

POS communist Code Pink skank Zanne Sam Joi

Francisco Villegas-Villegas (Courtesy Butler County Sheriff’s Office)

Rueben Jimenez-Mancera (Courtesy Butler County Sheriff’s Office)

Jose Sanchez-Herrera (Courtesy Butler County Sheriff’s Office)

FAIRFIELD, OH (FOX19) - The Butler County Sheriff’s Office has completed an undercover investigation that resulted in the arrest of three individuals.

On Tuesday, Oct. 28, Francisco Villegas-Villegas, 18, Jose Sanchez-Herrera, 28, and Rueben Jimenez-Mancera, 22, delivered the documents to an undercover officer at a Fairfield restaurant and were immediately arrested.

Deputies located 21 other forged documents at the time of the arrests that were ready for sell. Deputies also located $295.00.

The identification cards included California, Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Mexican driver’s licenses, and Permanent Residence Cards, and social security cards. During the investigation, it was learned that at least three other individuals were involved in the document ring.

All three arrested individuals have admitted to being illegal aliens from Mexico. They face charges of forgery.

The trio is currently being held in the Butler County Sheriff’s Office Correctional Complex. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed a "holder" on all the subjects for possible deportation procedures, after they answer to their state charges.

Further arrests may be forthcoming.

Source

Heads_Up IND

By John Lillpop  

- Analysis -
While Barack Obama harasses working class Americans like Joe the Plumber about the Marxist need to “spread the wealth,” the Messiah conveniently ignores a hideous wealth schism within the Obama clan itself. 

Barack and Michelle Obama, for example, while away the hours in elitist comfort in their lovely Mansion, the purchase of which involved corrupt thug Tony Rizzo, reportedly working in concert with that other world renowned Hussein, Saddam the
late!

Meanwhile, Obama’s younger brother lives in Kenya in a run down shack that would not be suitable as a servant’s bathroom in Michelle’s palatial digs in Illinois.

Say, Barack, why not lead by example when it comes to redistribution? You and Michelle move to Kenya into your brother’s digs, and let him move into your Illinois mansion?

That would be fair and balanced, and would prove your genuine commitment to equality and family!

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) ― A Nigerian villager who was wounded when he was shot by Nigerian soldiers at the end of a takeover of a Chevron oil platform 10 years ago told a federal jury in San Francisco on Wednesday the protest was intended to be peaceful.

Larry Bowoto, 45, testified that elders of his Ilaje tribe instructed tribal members who were sent to the offshore platform that "the protest shall be a peaceful one and there shall be no fighting."

Bowoto said the more than 100 villagers were unarmed and spent time singing, praying and talking to workers during their first three days on a Chevron Corp. oil-drilling platform, construction barge and tugboat nine miles off the Nigerian coast in May 1998.

The protesters say they were demonstrating against environmental harm caused by the oil drilling and seeking jobs.

The demonstration came to a violent end on the fourth day when Nigerian military forces summoned by Chevron’s Nigerian subsidiary arrived by helicopter and killed two protesters and wounded several others.

Bowoto, who was shot several times, testified on the second day of a trial of a human rights lawsuit filed by 19 protesters or surviving relatives against San Ramon-based Chevron Corp. for alleged wrongful death, injury and torture.

In addition to Bowoto, the plaintiffs include another man who was allegedly wounded and the widows and children of two deceased protesters, including one killed on the barge and another who died three years later and was allegedly tortured in a Nigerian prison after the incident.

Chevron has contended that the takeover was a "hostile, illegal invasion," that workers were threatened and that the company had a duty to summon the Nigerian navy to protect the workers.

The oil company has also maintained it didn’t expect or want the incident to end violently and that it is not responsible for the actions of Nigerian soldiers and jailers.

Bowoto’s testimony Wednesday afternoon didn’t reach the moment of the arrival of Nigerian security forces on May 28, 1998, but he is expected to begin with that when the trial resumes in the court of U.S. District Judge Susan Illston on Thursday morning.

Bowoto, a former fisherman who now sells spare parts for outboard motors, was dressed in clothing of Nigerian fabric and spoke through an Ilaje interpreter. He said he speaks pidgin English.

Bowoto broke briefly into English as he sang to the nine-member civil jury a song that he said the demonstrators chanted as they approached the platform and during the three-day takeover. The song was based on the Beatles’ "Give Peace a Chance."

Bowoto sang to the jurors, "All we are saying is give us our rights. All we are saying is give us our jobs."

Earlier on Wednesday, a worker on the construction barge testified that the floor of the barge was "full of blood" after the Nigerian security forces landed and began shooting.

Johnson Boyo, a helipad landing technician, testified that after three or four helicopters carrying the soldiers landed, he ran to his cabin while hearing gunshots. He said that after the shooting ended, he came out and saw two protesters lying dead on a floor "full of blood."

Boyo also said he also saw a wounded youth with "blood gushing out" and saw soldiers beating another youth with the butts of their guns.

He said he did not see any guns or knives on the dead bodies and did not see any weapons on the protesters earlier in the takeover.

Chevron will present its evidence in the second half of the trial, which is expected to last five weeks.

 Via Daily Mail:

They’re those baffling questions that pop into the brain when you’ve nothing better to think about, and only the appliance of a large helping of science can answer. Now a new book by the experts at New Scientist magazine solves some of the most intriguing queries sent in by readers…

Why does bottled water from a 3,000-year-old source - such as a spring, mountain or glacier - carry a ‘best before’ date only two years in the future?

The water has passed through layers of rock that have different effects on it. Some minerals dissolve in the water, supposedly improving both its taste and health-giving properties.

The minute pores in the rocks that the water passes through also act as a filtration system, improving purity by removing larger molecules such as biological contaminants. As soon as the pure water emerges from the aquifer it has filtered through, however, it is vulnerable to contamination again.

The ‘best before’ dates on bottles are based on the amount of time the manufacturer believes the water will remain without measurable levels of contamination due to the lack of completely sterile conditions in their bottling plants.

If the water is stored in a plastic bottle, the date will also relate to contamination from the constituents of the plastic, which may change the taste of the water.

In films, the hero often evades bullets by jumping into a river. How far below the surface would he need to dive?

Any object moving through any medium such as air or water experiences a drag force which tends to slow it down. But in a denser medium such as water, the drag force is much larger than it is in air, because water is 700 times more dense than air.

First we need to find the drag force on the bullet (a very complicated mathematical formula which is the square of its velocity proportional to its surface area).

Then, using another formula involving the velocity, size of bullet, density of the water and the drag force, we can work out how far the bullet would have to travel before it slows down.

For a typical bullet with a velocity of 300 metres per second, it takes just a few metres travelling through water for it to be slowed down. So to escape the bullet, a three-metre dive below the surface would be more than adequate.

Why are fizzy drinks more tasty than the same liquid once it has gone flat?

Most fizzy drinks are made by injecting carbon dioxide into the liquid at high pressure. This results in the formation of carbonic acid, which is what gives the drinks their appealing ‘fizzy’ taste - not the bubbles, as many people believe.

When the drink goes flat, most of the dissolved carbon dioxide has escaped back into the atmosphere in the form of gas bubbles - taking with it the carbonic acid. So the fizzy drink is more appealing than the flat one because that essential ingredient in its flavour, the carbonic acid, has disappeared along with the bubbles.

How do they get the smooth, round coating on Maltesers?

The centres of the sweet are tumbled in a device resembling a cement mixer that gives them repeated alternate coatings of a sweet starchy liquid and powdered sugar, which are blow-dried after each coat. The finished product is then polished by tumbling the sweets in powdered beeswax.

Could hamsters be the answer to the energy crisis? How many hamsters running on wheels would it take to provide enough power for a house?

Let’s assume a hamster weighing 50 grams can run up a 30-degree slope at two metres per second. This corresponds to a power output of half a watt. If it delivers the same power when running on a hamster wheel, you would need 120 hamsters working flat out to keep a 60-watt bulb lit.

But the average hamster probably doesn’t spend more than 5 per cent of its life running on its wheel, so already we would need a rotating brigade of 2,400 hamsters just to light our bulb.

It gets worse. The average UK household needs a constant power consumption of about 2.5 kilowatts, some 2,500 watts. Each house would need 100,000 hamsters to keep it powered. Multiply this by the number of households in the UK and we would have an environmental and economic disaster. Lucky we don’t rely on hamsters, then.

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How long would it take a coconut to float from the Caribbean to Scotland?

Surface currents determine the rate of travel of drifting objects.

Bottles released in the northern part of the West Indies take about 14 months on average to reach European beaches.

The quickest recorded passage was 337 days from Hispaniola to south-west Ireland, a rate of 20 kilometres per day.

It would take a little longer for an object to float from the Caribbean to Scotland, taking the total journey to at least 15 months, as it is farther away.

When wading into a cold sea, why does the water always seem coldest when it reaches the midriff?

Two factors come into play when we enter the sea.

First, our skin temperature is cooler than our core temperature - that of our organs, heart, liver and stomach.

Secondly, our limbs are typically cooler than our bodies because the arteries that supply a limb run close to the veins returning from this limb.

Warm arterial blood flowing to the limbs is cooled by blood returning from them. This means that our feet and hands are almost always cooler than the skin of our torsos.

The combination of these factors means that the difference between skin temperature and water temperature becomes greater the deeper you immerse yourself in the sea. The bigger the difference, the greater the discomfort.

How do toothpaste makers get the gel stripes in toothpaste?

We have to go back almost 50 years to find U.S. patent number 2,789,731 and UK patent 813,514, both in the name of Leonard Lawrence Marraffino. He licensed his invention of striped toothpaste to the company Unilever, which marketed the first commercial version called Signal.

Behind the tube’s nozzle was a hollow pipe that extended a little way back into the toothpaste tube. The white paste travels through this pipe.

Around this pipe was the funnelshaped neck of the tube and the pipe had tiny holes that opened into the funnel. When filling the tube, red paste was first squirted into the funnel.

When you squeezed the tube, the white paste flowed out through the pipe, but it also compressed the red paste, forcing it through the tiny holes into the pipe to form the stripes.

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Why do we get ‘pins and needles’?

The commonest cause of ‘ paraesthesia’, as pins and needles is more properly called, is compression of a sensory nerve. This inhibits the nerve’s ability to send information to the brain.

This often occurs where a nerve runs close to the body’s surface and on top of a bone. For example, compression of the ulnar nerve as it crosses the elbow causes pins and needles in the hand.

This is why people sometimes wake up with pins and needles: they have compressed a peripheral nerve by lying on it while asleep.

Do polar bears get lonely?

Having a solitary nature - as opposed to a gregarious one - is a strategy adopted by many species to survive.

Big predatory mammals such as polar bears, grizzlies and tigers isolate themselves in order to avoid competition with other members of their own species. By spreading out, they also expand their feeding grounds and breeding territories.

The same is true with many solitary species of bird, such as eagles and condors.

These animals and birds usually pair up during the breeding season to reproduce, and separate soon after successful mating or when they have raised their young ones.

Since such behaviour is in their genetic code, we can reasonably assume that polar bears are happiest when they are on their own.

Via Times OnLineUK:

Barack Obama has lived one version of the American Dream that has taken him to the steps of the White House. But a few miles from where the Democratic presidential candidate studied at Harvard, his Kenyan aunt and uncle, immigrants living in modest circumstances in Boston, have a contrasting American story.

Zeituni Onyango, the aunt so affectionately described in Mr Obama’s best-selling memoir Dreams from My Father, lives in a disabled-access flat on a rundown public housing estate in South Boston.

A second relative believed to be the long-lost “Uncle Omar” described in the book was beaten by armed robbers with a “sawed-off rifle” while working in a corner shop in the Dorchester area of the city. He was later evicted from his one-bedroom flat for failing to pay $2,324.20 (£1,488) arrears, according to the Boston Housing Court.

The US press has repeatedly rehearsed Mr Obama’s extraordinary odyssey, but the other side of the family’s American experience has only been revealed in parts. Just across town from where Mr Obama made history as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, some of his closest blood relatives have confronted the harshness of immigrant life in America.

In his book Mr Obama writes that “Uncle Omar” had gone missing after moving to Boston in the 1960s – a quarter-century before Mr Obama first visited his family in Kenya. Aunt Zeituni is now also living in Boston, and recently made a $260 campaign contribution to her nephew’s presidential bid from a work address in the city.

Speaking outside her home in Flaherty Way, South Boston, on Tuesday, Ms Onyango, 56, confirmed she was the “Auntie Zeituni” in Mr Obama’s memoir. She declined to answer most other questions about her relationship with the presidential contender until after the November 4 election. “I can’t talk about it, I just pray for him, that’s all,” she said, adding: “After the 4th, I can talk to anyone.”

A photograph of Ms Onyango was later shown to George Hussein Onyango, Barack Obama’s half-brother in Nairobi, who confirmed that it was their aunt. George Onyango, 26, the youngest child of Barack Obama Sr, said that he had spent weekends with his Aunt Zeituni when he was growing up, and instantly recognised her.

George Onyango said that his aunt had left for the US about eight years ago but sent him e-mails. “She left to find work and I suppose she thought her life would be better there,” he said. “She was kind and caring.”

In his memoir Mr Obama describes the joy of meeting his father’s family during his first visit to Kenya in 1988. Aunt Zeituni, then a computer programmer at Kenya Breweries in Nairobi, is portrayed as a feisty woman who proclaims herself “the champion dancer”. Uncle Omar, by contrast, remains a mysterious figure who left for America and never came back. At one point in the book a half-sister tells Mr Obama that people “like our Uncle Omar, in Boston” move to the West.

“They promise to return after completing school. They say they’ll send for the family once they get settled. At first they write once a week. Then it’s just a month. Then they stop writing completely. No one sees them again.”

Aunt Zeituni and Uncle Omar are the children of Mr Obama’s grandfather Hussein Onyango Obama, by his third wife – the woman Mr Obama calls “Granny” because she raised his father. Mr Obama’s father, Barack Sr, was Onyango Obama’s son by his second wife, Akumu. That makes Zeituni and Omar a half-sister and half-brother of Mr Obama’s father, or Mr Obama’s half-aunt and half-uncle.

While Mr Obama was on his voyage of personal discovery in Africa, his aunt and uncle were engaged in their own journey in his homeland.

The Times could not determine their immigration status and an official at Boston City Hall said that Ms Onyango was a resident of Flaherty Way but not registered to vote on the electoral roll. However, that Ms Onyango made a contribution to the Obama campaign would indicate that she is a US citizen. Records at the Boston City Hall confirmed Zeituni Onyango’s birthdate as May 29, 1952.

It is not clear when Ms Onyango first came to the US. She said: “I have been coming to America ever since 1975. I always come and go.”

She is a frail woman who walks with the aid of a metal stick. Neighbours said that she lived alone in a ground-floor flat normally set aside for people facing physical hardship.

An Associated Press story about poor people buying lottery tickets at cheque-cashing shops, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 25, 2003, quotes a Zeituni Onyango whom it describes as out of work and without much money. “It’s like when I feel luck might fall I do that, like manna might come from Heaven. That’s when I buy it,” she told AP.

A staff member at the Boston Housing Authority office, 50 yards from her house, said Ms Onynango had been a volunteer resident health advocate between December 2007 and August this year. She worked six hours a week for a small stipend. Records show she used the housing authority’s address to make her campaign contribution.

Ms Onyango is also listed on the internet as a volunteer with Experience Corps, a programme in which adults over 55 mentor children in their communities. The “former computer systems co-ordinator” tells the group’s online newsletter: “I felt that I should help the children in my community. I love people and enjoy interacting with them . . . Also, I was idle, and this was a chance to get involved.”

A public record search lists an “O. Onyango Obama”, born on June 3, 1944, at 24 Colgate Road whose name matches that of the “Uncle Omar” in Dreams from My Father.

Nelson Ochieng, a cousin of Mr Obama who lives in the Kenyan city of Kisumu, near the family village of Kogelo, said that Omar had changed his first name after moving to the US. “Before he went to America we all knew him as Omar, but he dropped that bit, changing it to Obama Onyango, because he said he preferred his African name,” he said. Gail Greenberger, the landlady who bought the four-storey brick block of flats at a foreclosure sale in 1994, knew her tenant, however, by the name Obama Onyango. “We used to call him ‘Oh-bummer!’. That is how I pronounced Obama in 2000,” she said.

Ms Greenberger said she inherited him with the building but was forced to evict him in 2000 for nonpayment of his rent of about $500 a month. “I remember him being decent but I thi