colt

by: Michelle Nichols    25 September 2008

Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmental crusader Al Gore urged young people on Wednesday to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants without the ability to store carbon.

The former U.S. vice president, whose climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Academy Award, told a philanthropic meeting in New York City that "the world has lost ground to the climate crisis."

"If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration," Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative gathering to loud applause.

"I believe for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that the risk from the global climate crisis is not that great represents a form of stock fraud because they are misrepresenting a material fact," he said. "I hope these state attorney generals around the country will take some action on that."

The government says about 28 coal plants are under construction in the United States. Another 20 projects have permits or are near the start of construction.

Scientists say carbon gases from burning fossil fuel for power and transport are a key factor in global warming.

Carbon capture and storage could give coal power an extended lease on life by keeping power plants' greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere and easing climate change.

But no commercial-scale project exists anywhere to demonstrate the technology, partly because it is expected to increase up-front capital costs by an additional 50 percent.

So-called geo-sequestration of carbon sees carbon dioxide liquefied and pumped into underground rock layers for long term storage.

I have seen more nonsense from these leftist and i ever thought was possible

SYDNEY (AFP) - An offbeat suggestion that Australians should eat kangaroos instead of cattle and sheep has been given a scientific stamp of approval by the government's top climate change adviser.

The belching and farting of millions of farm animals is a major contributor to Australia's greenhouse gas emissions, Professor Ross Garnaut noted in a major report to the government on global warming.

Kangaroos, on the other hand, emit negligible amounts of methane gas.

If farmers were included in a system requiring industry to buy permits for the gas they produce, the cost of meat would rise and could lead to a change in eating habits, Garnaut said in the 600 page report released Wednesday.

ie global tax

"For most of Australia's human history -- around 60,000 years -- kangaroo was the main source of meat," he said.

"It could again become important. However, there are some significant barriers to this change, including livestock and farm management issues, consumer resistance and the gradual nature of change in food tastes."

Garnaut cited a study looking at the potential for kangaroos to replace sheep and cattle for meat production in Australia's rangelands, where kangaroos are already harvested.

The study concludes that by 2020, beef cattle and sheep numbers could be reduced by seven million and 36 million respectively, allowing for an increase in kangaroo numbers from 34 million now to 240 million by 2020.

This would be more than enough to replace the lost lamb and beef production, and kangaroo meat would become more profitable than cattle and sheep as the price of emissions permits increased.

Garnaut's report said livestock, mainly cattle and sheep, are responsible for some 67 percent of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite being the national animal and appearing on the Australian coat of arms, millions of kangaroos are slaughtered in the wild each year to control their numbers and much of the meat is used for pet food.

The idea of farming them for human consumption is controversial, but many health-conscious Australians already eat kangaroo meat.

"It's low in fat, it's got high protein levels, it's very clean in the sense that basically it's the ultimate free range animal," says Peter Ampt of the University of New South Wales's institute of environmental studies.

hummmmm more truth is found

watch it for your self

By Aaron Klein
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Former Weathermen member Mark Rudd JERUSALEM – One of the main founders of the Weathermen terrorist organization is a signatory to an independent organization acting to ensure the election of Sen. Barack Obama, WND has learned.

The group in question, Progressives for Obama, also includes among its ranks many former members of the 1960s radical organization Students for a Democratic Society, from which the Weathermen splintered, as well as current and former members of other radical organizations, such as the Communist Party USA and the Black Radical Congress.

In its creed, first published in March in the Nation magazine, the Progressives for Obama founders state their organization descended from the "proud tradition of independent social movements that have made America a more just and democratic country."

Progressives for Obama stated it can help the Illinois senator's ascent to highest office by contributing funds, using the Internet to reach "millions of swing voters;" defending Obama against negative attacks and making its agenda known at the Democratic National Convention.

"Progressives can make a difference in close primary races like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oregon and Puerto Rico, and in the November general election," the founders state.

The founders stress it is crucial to form a grassroots leftist movement to ensure Obama does not stray too far to the center, claiming other grassroots liberal movements have successfully pressured U.S. presidents into creating new policy:

Among the signatories and endorsers to Progressives for Obama is Mark Rudd, one of the main founders of the Weathermen terrorist organization. Rudd worked closely for years with Weathermen terrorist William Ayers, whose association with Obama has generated controversy for the presidential candidate.

Rudd originally was a top member of the Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS, leading the famed 1968 Columbia University strikes in which hundreds of students seized several university buildings. He also served as spokesman for the strikes, attracting international media attention.

In 1968, Rudd traveled with the SDS to Cuba, defying U.S. travel bans, where he says he was heavily influenced by the legacy of Che Guevara and by Cuban-style revolution. When he returned to the U.S., Rudd advocated for Columbia's chapter of the SDS to carry out militant, aggressive action, but he was turned down.

A bio published on his own website explains Rudd worked to form the Weathermen as a radical alternative to the SDS and for white Americans to eject their "white skin privilege" and begin "armed struggle" against the U.S. government.

The Weathermen took responsibility for bombing U.S. governmental buildings in the 1970s.

Rudd went underground in 1970, when a bomb exploded in a townhouse in Greenwich Village in New York City, killing three of his comrades. He lived for seven and a half years in hiding as a fugitive, finally surrendering in 1977, facing only low-level state charges after federal charges against Weathermen leaders had been dropped. He resurfaced as a teacher in New Mexico.

As late as 2005, Rudd wrote an editorial in the Los Angeles Times lamenting the state of the antiwar movement in the U.S.

"What's hard to understand – given the revelations about the rush to war, the use of torture and the loss of more than 2,000 soldiers – is why the antiwar movement isn't further along than it is. Given that President Bush is now talking about Iraq as only one skirmish in an unlimited struggle against a global Islamic enemy, a struggle comparable to the titanic, 40-year Cold War against communism, shouldn't a massive critique of the global war on terrorism already be underway?" he wrote.

Rudd condemned the Weathermen's decision to embark on an "armed-struggle," calling it "stupid" since the violent acts led to the group's demise.

Rudd didn't condemn the terrorism itself, only its contribution to the downfall of the Weathermen.

Rudd declined to speak on the record to WND, explaining an interview may spark more Weathermen controversy for Obama.

Rudd is just one of scores of radicals involved with Progressives for Obama.

The group was founded by four individuals with ties to extremist groups:

• Tom Hayden, a former state senator who was a founder and principal organizer of the SDS. Discover the Networks notes Hayden, previously married to actress Jane Fonda, traveled many times to North Vietnam, Czechoslovakia and Paris to strategize with communist North Vietnamese and Viet Cong leaders on how to defeat America's anti-communist efforts.
  
  
• Bill Fletcher, a former Maoist and current leader of Democratic Socialists of America or DSA. The New Zeal blog notes Fletcher was also a founder of the Black Radical Congress, closely linked to the Communist Party USA, which advocated for "progressive social justice, racial equality and economic justice goals within the U.S.
  
  
• Barbara Ehenreich, an honorary chairman of DSA who was formerly active in antiwar movements in which some notorious radicals took part.
  
  
• Actor Danny Glover, a member of the Black Students Union, who has visited Venezuela, making guest appearances on President Hugo Chavez's television and radio talk show. He reportedly has accepted loans of about $20 million from the Venezuelan government to make a movie about a Haitian revolutionary leader.

The Progressives for Obama webmaster is Carl Davidson, a former vice president of the Students for a Democratic Society, who has traveled to Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro.

The signatories and endorsers of the Obama activist group, listed on the Progressives website, include scores of well known communist, socialist and anarchist activists and former SDS members.

The Obama campaign was not prepared to comment on the links to Rudd and other extremists in the allied organization

I have only been home about 3 weeks all summer long due to work. I have traveled from Ohio, Indiana and other parts west and what I have seen outside Michigan and the Detroit area has been an eye opener.

1) when our govt tells us there are only 12 million illegals I am finding that to be total bs. In all my travels this summer i have seen more Hispanics than I ever have. Most fly their beloved Mexican flag and have festivals to celebrate their nations holidays, as what i have seen take place in Minnesota over the past week. These new immigrants do not want to become American and refuse to even speak our language.

2) In many areas I have seen the intergration of all races into some pretty nice middle class areas. I did not see one ' mixed' neighbor hood that was full of blight or young men with their pants down around their knees.

 Last night i was in Romulus and stopped at the McDonalds for a burger and I just had to look on in sadness. Here is a mixed community and they show the same culture that you can find on most streets of Detroit. Pants down to the knees, the f word being toss about while families were present and this even coming from the employees behind the counter.

3) Everywhere I went Detroit was only back on the map as some have said in this blog due to the Mayor and his legal battles. People see Detroit as a joke everywhere I have been.

Ken says this is the new era of hope. I hardly think so. As long as the culture of Detroit goes unchanged there is no "hope".

Look at the attacks on this blog site alone of those who wanted Kwamie to stay and those that did not.

Look at those who say people in the burbs have no right to say anything. How they do not seem to graps the fact that Detroit needs them and we need Detroit. I live in Wayne County which means my tax dollars that could have been used for other projects were suck away by a Mayor who refused to be a man. I have a right to voice my thoughts just as any other person in this area has. Be you from Detroit or Wayandotte to Redford to Rochester we all live and pay taxes and higher insurance because of what happens in Detroit.

                                                HOPE

Hope died for Detroit in 1967 and again when Coleman Young was elected Mayor it ushered in the era of a Detroit that lost it's values,morals and respect for it's self, that the rest of us will continue to pay for.

How can there be hope when its governent is full of corruption?

How can there be hope when the graduation rate in the Detroit Public Schools has been so low and for so long?

How can there be hope, when an elected offical is caught and the people blame the outsiders and stand behind a man that has cost the city more than we even know yet, both in the way others view us and the money that has been taken from the people?

Detroit will be hopeless until the people of the Detroit stand together and demand better from those they elect and stop blaming the people outside Detroit

UNTIL THEN THERE IS NO HOPE TO BE HAD.

Thats my views I am sure i will get various responses from agreement to all out hate, but have at it show the rest of us and the world how ignorant you are with your hate filled spews.

Colt

This doctored photograph put Sarah Palin's head on the body of a 23-year-old woman photographed outside Athens, Ga.

A CNN reporter this week didn’t seem to know or care that a fake photo showing a bikini-clad, rifle-toting Sarah Palin had been widely debunked days earlier as a fraud, the latest in series of incidents involving apparent misstatements or inaccurate reporting by the news network.

“(John) McCain has been really good about painting (Barack) Obama as this lightweight … They don’t want that to come back on Sarah Palin, and people say, yes, she looks good in a bikini clutching an AK-47, but is she equipped to run the country?” CNN’s Lola Ogunnaike said in response to a question on the network’s “Reliable Sources” show, which aired Sunday.

Ogunnaike’s remarks, which came in response to a question by host Howard Kurtz about whether Palin’s status as a political celebrity might undercut Republican efforts to portray the vice presidential nominee as a serious, reform-minded governor, were posted on CNN’s Web site and have since been reported and discussed on numerous other independent sites.

CNN correspondents and analysts have also recently misrepresented Palin’s stance on incorporating creationism into Alaska’s school curriculum and falsely reported that she cut funds for people with special needs in the state budget.

Regarding the doctored “bikini” photo, neither Kurtz, a “Washington Post” columnist, nor anyone else on the “Sources” discussion panel ever corrected Ogunnaike by pointing out that the picture was a fake.

Speaking about Ogunnaike and the doctored photo, Kurtz told FOXNews.com on Wednesday that he figured everyone knew the photo was a fake.

“I thought that Lola was joking around since the bikini was so obviously fake,” Kurtz said. “I thought she was making a lighthearted reference to it.

“Lola is a very sharp former New York Times reporter so I seriously doubt that she bought into the notion that the governor of Alaska had in fact posed in a bathing suit carrying an assault rifle,” he added.

“Lola’s comments were made in the context of the tabloid rumors that have emerged since Sarah Palin’s nomination to the ticket,” a CNN spokeswoman said. “She regrets that she didn’t make it more clear that the photo was not only a rumor but a hoax.”

The infamous fake bikini shot first appeared during the early days of the Republican convention. But it was widely debunked within 24 hours, with bloggers and others quickly exposing the fraud by finding the original shot, reportedly taken in 2004 in Athens, Ga., by an amateur photographer of his then-girlfriend.

FOXNews.com was among the news outlets to report the fake.

During the show, Ogunnaike went on to compliment Us Weekly’s coverage of Palin, which has been widely attacked as unfair by critics and reportedly thousands of Us Weekly readers.

“I have to say,” Ogunnaike said, “I read the ‘Us Weekly’ story, and they were actually pretty good. They actually did some pretty good journalism there. … And this is a bigger story here. … They can’t afford to ignore this story because this story drives magazine sales. And that’s the bottom line, that’s what they care about. So if you throw Palin on the cover and you have the words ‘Baby Scandal,’ they know that’s going to sell magazines.”

Ogunnaike’s remarks are among several apparent misstatements made recently by CNN reporters.

On Monday night, senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Palin wants “to have creationism taught in public schools.” But numerous stories –- including CNN’s own reporting from last week — have noted that Palin has made no effort to try and include creationism in the state school curriculum.

“I don’t think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class,” Palin has said. “It doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.”

The morning after Toobin’s remarks on creationism, CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin reported that Palin vetoed funds not only for so-called “earmarks,” but “even for people with disabilities.” This was an apparent reference to a charge discussed during a Sept. 4 interview, in which CNN’s Soledad O’Brien pressed a McCain spokeswoman on another accusation brought by Palin critics.

O’Brien twice referred to the charge that while governor, Palin cut the state’s special needs budget by 62 percent.

“Those advocates have said, as a woman who is now a mother of a special-needs child, she’s not fighting — she’s cut the budget by 62 percent since she came into office, and doesn’t that show a contradiction?” O’Brien asked McCain spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace, according to transcript available on CNN’s Web site.

But Factcheck.org, a non-partisan group affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, is among those that have reported that Palin “did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent.”

In fact, the group said in a posting published on Newsweek’s Web site, “She didn’t cut it at all. She tripled per-pupil funding over just three years.”

By Aaron Klein
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Image posted on Democratic National Committee website

The official website of the Democratic Party has a blog posting entitled, "McCain's Selection of Palin is Lipstick on a Pig," illustrated by an altered photograph of a pig with makeup, designer glasses and pearls.

"Palin is a red herring, lipstick on the Republican pig to distract Americans from the real issue that under the leadership of the Republicans the last 8 years, our country is falling apart," writes the blogger, Elizabeth Berry, a self-described 49-year-old "progressive" from Texas.

The posting was published 11 days ago, well before Sen. Barack Obama drew sharp criticism yesterday when he jabbed at Palin and Sen. John McCain's idea of "change" by stating, 'You can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig.'"

Obama was speaking at a campaign event in Virginia.

Like Obama's official campaign site, the official Democratic Party website allows registered members to post user blogs. The Democratic site, paid for by the Democratic National Committee, features tens of thousands of user blog postings. It wasn't clear whether the website staff monitors the large volume of content posted daily. It is doubtful Obama's staff was aware of the pig posting.

At a campaign appearance in Norfolk, Va., this morning, Obama took time from his prepared remarks to respond to the controversy, insisting it was an "innocent comment." The Democratic candidate alluded to a McCain campaign ad today that suggested the comment was sexist, calling it "lies and phony outrage and swift-boat politics."

In her Aug. 30 posting on the Democratic Party website, registered user Berry lashes out at Palin:

"Palin does not change one single thing of what the Republicans are offering which is four more years of George Bush. All that McCain did was to put lipstick on the Pig.

"The same people who do not like the Bush Administration for what it has done to this nation are not going to be fooled by the lipstick on the pig. And it they think that the American public are so stupid that they will rush over now and kiss their pig of a platform because it is wearing a fresh touch of lipstick, well I think they will be surprised."

Talk radio host John Batchelor, who first noticed Berry's blog posting, commented, "This blog on the official Democratic site may or may not demonstrate that Obama's colorful anecdote in Lebanon, Virginia, was scripted by a staffer who was impressed by Elizabeth Berry's enthusiastic sarcasm. It does establish that at least one Democrat interpreted right from the first, even before Palin's speech, that Sarah Palin was a threat."

The complete statement from Obama yesterday was: "John McCain says he's about change, too, and so I guess his whole angle is 'Watch out, George Bush, except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics – we're really going to shake things up in Washington!' That's not change ... you know, you can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig."

OBAMA WANTS TO STOP OUR MISSLE DEFENCE RIGHT AFTER IRAN LAUNCHES NEW LONG RANG MISSLE.

 HE WANT STO CUT OUR MILITARY.

HE WILL NOT ALLOW NEW OIL DRILLING AS IT WILL TAKE TOO LONG

THE DEMOCRATS SAID IN THE 90'S IT WOULD TAKE 10 YEARS TO GET OIL OUT OF ALASKA AND STOPPED ALL EFFORTS TO DRILL. 10 YEARS LATER WHEN WE CAN USE THE OIL THE COST IS OVER 4 BUCKS.

THEY KEEP KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD.

IF THEY WOULD GET OUT OF THE WAY WE WOULD HAVE OUR OWN OIL TO PRODUCE!!!!!

DO NOT LET OBAMA DO THE THE MILITARY WHAT CARTER DID. IT IS THE WRONG TIME AND HE IS THE WRONG MAN

As fears grow over Iran secretly developing nuclear weapons, U.S. counterintelligence officials are keeping a close eye on scientists from Iran and other Muslim nations working at the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories, WND has learned.

The Energy Department recently revoked the security clearance of an Egyptian-born nuclear physicist because he was suspected of "conflicting allegiances."

Last year, DOE and FBI agents began questioning Moniem El-Ganayni, who worked on the side as a Muslim prison chaplain.

Prison authorities in Pennsylvania alleged he advocated suicide bombing of Americans and jihad against the U.S. while ministering to inmates, charges El-Ganayni denies.

Even so, SCI-Forest prison in Marienville, Pa., terminated his contract. DOE contractor Bettis Laboratory also fired him.

Until May, El-Ganayni had access to classified nuclear secrets.

Last year, federal authorities accused a Muslim engineer at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station of illegally smuggling software codes into Iran and downloading details of control rooms, reactors and designs of the nation's largest nuclear plant. Arizona Public Service Co. operates Palo Verde.

Mohammed Alavi, 49, was arrested as he stepped off a plane in Los Angeles and later jailed. He was released, however, after Iran's foreign minister sent a letter to U.S. officials demanding his immediate release.

Los Alamos National Laboratories

Under the Clinton administration, the Energy Department welcomed scientists and students from sensitive Muslim nations, including Iran, at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and other nuclear weapons research labs as part of its "open-door policy."

No Iranian nationals were employed at Los Alamos when Clinton took office in 1993, according to an internal lab report. By 1997, three Iranians were employed there.

Iranians were assigned to other labs as well. Although the labs have cut back on the number of visitors from sensitive countries since 9/11, many of the foreign workers are still assigned there.

And U.S. officials say concerns have been raised specifically about the high number of Iranian students assigned to the labs.

"They let a lot of Iranians in on post-doctoral fellowships," an Energy official said. Such assignments typically last up to a year, but can extend much longer.

Another official who works in security at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California says a number of warnings have been issued regarding possible Iranian espionage at the labs.

"There is a great deal of concern about Iranians throughout the national lab complex," he said. "A lot of directives have been issued concerning this issue."

A former senior Energy intelligence official says that in terms of developing deployable nuclear weapons, "the Iranians are years ahead of where the Iraqis ever were."

He says Los Alamos, which has been the target of an alarming number of security breaches over the past several years, is particularly vulnerable to penetration by Iranian spies.

"The opportunities they have to collect intelligence from the lab is pretty damn frightening given how leaky that place is," the former official said.

"They can do a lot of harm."

In December, Tehran sent a formal protest note to Washington for "spying" on Iran's nuclear activities. Iranian officials accused the U.S. of carrying out espionage activities.

Tehran last year stopped UN inspectors from visiting an underground bunker where it is building an industrial-scale plant to make enriched uranium.

Iran insists its nuclear program is a peaceful effort to generate electricity.

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

"Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq," said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called "dirty bomb" — a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material — it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.

The Iraqi government sold the yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer, Cameco Corp., in a transaction the official described as worth "tens of millions of dollars." A Cameco spokesman, Lyle Krahn, declined to discuss the price, but said the yellowcake will be processed at facilities in Ontario for use in energy-producing reactors.

"We are pleased ... that we have taken (the yellowcake) from a volatile region into a stable area to produce clean electricity," he said.

The deal culminated more than a year of intense diplomatic and military initiatives — kept hushed in fear of ambushes or attacks once the convoys were under way: first carrying 3,500 barrels by road to Baghdad, then on 37 military flights to the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia and finally aboard a U.S.-flagged ship for a 8,500-mile trip to Montreal.

And, in a symbolic way, the mission linked the current attempts to stabilize Iraq with some of the high-profile claims about Saddam's weapons capabilities in the buildup to the 2003 invasion.

Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the African nation of Niger — and an article by a former U.S. ambassador refuting the claims — led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks that reached high into the Bush administration.

Tuwaitha and an adjacent research facility were well known for decades as the centerpiece of Saddam's nuclear efforts.

Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site — surrounded by huge sand berms — following a wave of looting after Saddam's fall that included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns.

Yellowcake is obtained by using various solutions to leach out uranium from raw ore and can have a corn meal-like color and consistency. It poses no severe risk if stored and sealed properly. But exposure carries well-documented health concerns associated with heavy metals such as damage to internal organs, experts say.

"The big problem comes with any inhalation of any of the yellowcake dust," said Doug Brugge, a professor of public health issues at the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Moving the yellowcake faced numerous hurdles.

Diplomats and military leaders first weighed the idea of shipping the yellowcake overland to Kuwait's port on the Persian Gulf. Such a route, however, would pass through Iraq's Shiite heartland and within easy range of extremist factions, including some that Washington claims are aided by Iran. The ship also would need to clear the narrow Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, where U.S. and Iranian ships often come in close contact.

Kuwaiti authorities, too, were reluctant to open their borders to the shipment despite top-level lobbying from Washington.

An alternative plan took shape: shipping out the yellowcake on cargo planes.

But the yellowcake still needed a final destination. Iraqi government officials sought buyers on the commercial market, where uranium prices spiked at about $120 per pound last year. It's currently selling for about half that. The Cameco deal was reached earlier this year, the official said.

At that point, U.S.-led crews began removing the yellowcake from the Saddam-era containers — some leaking or weakened by corrosion — and reloading the material into about 3,500 secure barrels.

In April, truck convoys started moving the yellowcake from Tuwaitha to Baghdad's international airport, the official said. Then, for two weeks in May, it was ferried in 37 flights to Diego Garcia, a speck of British territory in the Indian Ocean where the U.S. military maintains a base.

On June 3, an American ship left the island for Montreal, said the official, who declined to give further details about the operation.

The yellowcake wasn't the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.

Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a weapon, according to the official. Their Ottawa-based manufacturer, MDS Nordion, took them back for free, the official said.

The yellowcake was the last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts, but years of final cleanup is ahead for Tuwaitha and other smaller sites.

The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency plans to offer technical expertise.

Last month, a team of Iraqi nuclear experts completed training in the Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat, which once housed the Chernobyl workers before the deadly meltdown in 1986, said an IAEA official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decontamination plan has not yet been publicly announced.

But the job ahead is enormous, complicated by digging out radioactive "hot zones" entombed in concrete during Saddam's rule, said the IAEA official. Last year, an IAEA safety expert, Dennis Reisenweaver, predicted the cleanup could take "many years."

The yellowcake issue also is one of the many troubling footnotes of the war for Washington.

A CIA officer, Valerie Plame, claimed her identity was leaked to journalists to retaliate against her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who wrote that he had found no evidence to support assertions that Iraq tried to buy additional yellowcake from Niger.

A federal investigation led to the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

In a Monday June 9, 2003 file photo, UN inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) work at the nuclear facility in Tuwaitha, Iraq, 50 kms east of Baghdad. The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program _ a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium _ reached a Canadian port Saturday, July 5, 2008, to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das, file)

Diana Palmer, 1st vice chair of the Durham Co. Democratic Party turns herself in. (courtesy WRAL-TV)

The North Carolina case of an alleged satanic torture involving a Democratic Party official and her husband has now expanded to include a third suspect, an even higher-ranking Democrat.

Diana Palmer, the first vice-chairwoman of the Durham County Democratic Party, joins her political colleague Joy Johnson, the third vice-chairwoman of the party, and Johnson's spouse, Joseph Craig, in facing charges.

Palmer, 44, surrendered to police in Durham, N.C., this afternoon and was charged with being an accessory after the fact of assault with a deadly weapon. She's being held at the Durham County Jail under $95,000 bail.

Additional charges were also filed today against Johnson and Craig.

Craig, 25, is now charged with second-degree rape, second-degree forcible sexual offense, three counts of second-degree kidnapping and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon for incidents in January and May. Johnson, 30, is charged with four counts of aiding and abetting, as she's accused of watching and encouraging her husband commit the alleged abuse of another couple who reportedly shared an interest in Satan worship.

Joseph Craig

Joy Johnson

According to broadcast and published reports, that couple was reportedly caged to learn more about satanic practices, but did not consent to physical abuse.

Craig allegedly shackled his victims to beds, kept them in dog cages and starved them inside his home. Police say he beat the man with a cane and a cord, and raped the woman.

Prosecutors today asked for higher bail for Craig and Johnson, but Judge Nancy Gordon refused, leaving Craig's bond at $500,000 and Johnson's at $270,000.

Also today, Durham County's Democratic Party disabled its website, but a cached version of its "Who We Are" page lists both Palmer and Johnson as top officials

Someone claiming to be a friend of Palmer wrote on a messageboard of the Raleigh News & Observer:

Along with their interest in the Democratic Party, Johnson and Palmer were part of a New Age website called "Indigo Dawn," a name which, according to the site, was given to Johnson during a meditation vision.

"She decided to explore the New Age community more, and after taking a course in Reiki healing, experiencing past-life regression along with direct guidance from her spirit guides, she confirmed that her destiny was to help bring about the New Age on Earth," Johnson's online biography states. "Joy shared her vision with her husband, Joe; as a result the Indigo Dawn was founded to raise the vibration of energy on Earth."

Among the services she offers online are "intuitive guidance, past-life regression, spirit guide communication and healing and cleansing."

"I was absolutely shocked and flabbergasted," State Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, told the Raleigh paper. "You never would have suspected allegations that she would have had any participation in these rituals."

State officials have offered a lung cancer patient the option of having the Oregon Health Plan, set up in 1994 to ration health care, pay for an assisted suicide but not for the chemotherapy prescribed by her physician.

The story appears to be a happy ending for Barbara Wagner, who has been notified by a drug manufacturer that it will provide the expensive medication, estimated to cost $4,000 a month, for the first year and then allow her to apply for further treatment, according to a report in the Eugene Register-Guard.

But the word from the state was coverage for palliative care, which would include the state's assisted suicide program, would be allowed but not coverage for the cancer treatment drugs.

"To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel," Wagner told the newspaper. "I get angry. Who do they think they are?"

She said she was devastated when the state health program refused coverage for Tarceva, the drug her doctor ordered for treatment of her lung cancer.

The refusal came in an unsigned letter from LIPA, the company that runs the state program in that part of Oregon.

"We had no intent to upset her, but we do need to point out the options available to her under the Oregon Health Plan," Dr. John Sattenspiel, senior medical director for LIPA, told the newspaper.

"I understand the way it was interpreted. I'm not sure how we can lift that. The reality is, at some level (doctor-assisted suicide) could be considered as a palliative or comfort care measure."

The 64-year-old Wagner lives in a low-income apartment in Springfield with her dog, the newspaper said.

State officials say the Oregon Health Plan prioritizes treatments, with diagnoses and ailments deemed the most important, such as pregnancy, childbirth and preventive care for children at the top of the list. Other treatments rank below, officials said.

"We can't cover everything for everyone," Dr. Walter Shaffer, a spokesman for the state Division of Medical Assistance Programs, told the paper. "Taxpayer dollars are limited for publicly funded programs. We try to come up with policies that provide the most good for the most people."

He said many cancer treatments are a high priority, but others reflect the "desire on the part of the framers of this list to not cover treatments that are futile."

Wagner, however, is ending up with the treatment needed when her lung cancer, in remission for two years, returned.

She reported a representative for the pharmaceutical company called and notified her the drug would be provided for at least the first year.

"We have been warning for years that this was a possibility in Oregon," said the "Bioethics Pundit" on the Bioethics blog. "Medicaid is rationed, meaning that some treatments are not covered. But assisted suicide is always covered."

"This isn't the first time this has happened either," the blogger wrote. "A few years ago a patient who needed a double organ transplant was denied the treatment but would have been eligible for state-financed assisted suicide. But not to worry. Just keep repeating the mantra: There are no abuses with Oregon's assisted suicide law. There are no abuses. There are no abuses!