Due to travel and other commitments, disgrunt has not been updated for the past three weeks. I intend to return to my daily update schedule in the upcoming week, but I am planning a format change. This format change will come in the form of fewer news updates and more editorial content. It is to give me some breathing room so that when work and family related commitments conflict with disgrunt updates, I will still have enough hours in the day to contribute to disgrunt in a meaningful way (if you can call it that). So instead of 20-30 news stories from around the world, I may only select 5-10 stories that I feel are important and then offer a more indepth take on them.

I also have plans to setup a forum here at disgrunt, so that disgrunt readers can discuss the numerous topics covered here, as well as anything else you have on your mind. More on that later.

That being said, I am still looking for others interested in contributing to disgrunt. So if you’re at all interested, let me know. I would also be interested in hearing any thoughts or ideas you might have in regards to disgrunt.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll check out Jason Miller’s thought-provoking editorial, Man Fuel: Is it in you? Be sure to let him know what you think by leaving a comment.

CHICAGO — Federal officials say it was probably just some weird weather phenomenon, but a group of United Airlines employees swear they saw a mysterious, saucer-shaped craft hovering over O’Hare Airport last fall.

The workers, some of them pilots, said the object didn’t have lights and hovered over an airport terminal before shooting up through the clouds, according to a report in Monday’s Chicago Tribune.

The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged that a United supervisor had called the control tower at O’Hare, asking if anyone had spotted a spinning disc-shaped object. But the controllers didn’t see anything, and a preliminary check of radar found nothing out of the ordinary, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.

“Our theory on this is that it was a weather phenomenon,” Cory said. “That night was a perfect atmospheric condition in terms of low (cloud) ceiling and a lot of airport lights. When the lights shine up into the clouds, sometimes you can see funny things.”

The FAA is not investigating, Cory said.

Why is this news? (more…)

WASHINGTON — Another terrorist attack, a warmer planet, death and destruction from a natural disaster. These are among Americans’ grim predictions for the United States in 2007.

Only a minority of people think the U.S. will go to war with Iran or North Korea over those countries’ nuclear ambitions. An overwhelming majority of those surveyed think Congress will raise the federal minimum wage. One-third see hope for a cure to cancer.

These are among the findings of an Associated Press-AOL News poll that asked people in the U.S. to contemplate what 2007 holds for the country.

Six in 10 people think the U.S. will be the victim of a terrorist attack. An identical percentage thinks it likely that a biological or nuclear weapon will be unleashed somewhere else in the world.

Seventy percent of people in the U.S. predict a major natural disaster in the country and an equal percentage expects worsening global warming. Also, 29 percent think it likely that the U.S. will withdraw its troops from Iraq. (more…)

Decided to take the day off, here’s the last post of 2006.

Due to travel and other time consuming nonsense (bah, humbug) I am going to have to take a break from disgrunt updates for a few days. The timing couldn’t be better, as I’ve only taken one day off since I started doing daily updates six months ago and I could use the rest. I’ll be back to my usual update schedule on the 26th.

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

LEARNY, N.J. — Before David Paszkiewicz got to teach his accelerated 11th-grade history class about the United States Constitution this fall, he was accused of violating it.

Shortly after school began in September, the teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven, according to audio recordings made by a student whose family is now considering a lawsuit claiming Mr. Paszkiewicz broke the church-state boundary.

“If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong,” Mr. Paszkiewicz was recorded saying of Jesus. “He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he’s saying, ‘Please, accept me, believe.’ If you reject that, you belong in hell.”

Not much history being taught in this history class. And this isn’t in the Bible Belt either, this is 10 miles outside of Manhattan.

• Listen here

(more…)

At a Pentagon townhall meeting today, outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he began reading books about the U.S. Civil War, but “turned away from that” because he “there were so many people killed and wounded, and they were all Americans.” Rumsfeld said he began reading books about World War II instead.

Rumsfeld appears to be in denial about civil wars, refusing to read books on the U.S.’s history and failing to recognize there is one going on currently in Iraq.

Full transcript: (more…)

President Bush spoke Saturday about parts of the Iraq Study Group report that mirror his policies - but he ignored the sections that criticize his administration’s handling of the war.

In his weekly radio broadcast, Bush said the bipartisan group’s report presented a straightforward picture of the “grave situation we face in Iraq.'’ He said he was pleased the panel supported his goal of an Iraq that can govern, sustain and defend itself, even though that will take time. And he said he was glad the bipartisan panel did not suggest a hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

“The group declared that such a withdrawal would `almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence’ and lead to `a significant power vacuum, greater human suffering, regional destabilization and a threat to the global economy,”’ Bush said, quoting the report, which was issued Thursday. (more…)

A New Mexico man is drawing the ire of neighbors–and his homeowners association–after putting up a politically-charged, lighted sign on his house to go with his holiday decorations.

Roberto Vasquez of Albuquerque said his sign, showing George Bush’s name crossed over by a red bar as though banning it, has caused people to shoot at the projector, try to pull out its bulb, and even threaten to “blow up the house,” he tells local TV station KOAT.

Vasquez says he’s “proud” of his message and defends the sign as “tasteful.” His neighborhood HOA, on the other hand, says it’s against the rules and wants it to come down. A KOAT reporter says that it “may take a court of law to decide which way to flip the switch.”

Source: Raw Story / Mike Sheehan and David Edwards

These photos of condemned Iraqi ex-strongman Saddam Hussein amid exotic weapons of mass destruction, taken just before the liberation of Iraq, were released Saturday by the White House.

Proclaiming that the long-awaited evidence of Saddam’s deadly weaponry was now irrefutable, Presidential spokesman Tony Snow displayed the picture of Saddam with bow and arrows [read the original NY Times article] at a special briefing for the Washington press corp. (more…)

A former Russian security service officer said in a letter from prison released Friday that he had warned former spy Alexander Litvinenko years ago that the KGB’s main successor agency had formed a death squadron to kill him and other Kremlin foes, The Associated Press reports.

Mikhail Trepashkin said that an officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, known by its Russian acronym FSB, met with him in August 2002 and offered him the chance to join a group targeting Boris Berezovsky, a self-exiled Russian tycoon living in London, and Litvinenko. He said he refused to cooperate with the team, whose task was to “mop up” Berezovsky, Litvinenko and their accomplices.

“Back in 2002, I warned Alexander Litvinenko that they set up a special team to kill him,” Trepashkin wrote in a letter dated Nov. 23, which was released Friday by rights activists in Yekaterinburg, the center of the Ural Mountains province where he is serving his four-year sentence. (more…)

The US government has warned of an al-Qaeda call to attack US online stock market and banking services.
The threat, seen on an al-Qaeda website, applied to the whole of December.

It was said to be in revenge for the continued detention of suspects at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, Russ Knocke, said there was no evidence to corroborate the threat. (more…)

Alexander Litvinenko, the poisoned former Russian agent, told the Italian academic he met on the day he fell ill that he had organised the smuggling of nuclear material out of Russia for his security service employers.

Mario Scaramella, who flew into London yesterday to be interviewed by Scotland Yard officers investigating Mr Litvinenko’s death, said Mr Litvinenko told him about the operation for the FSB security service, the successor to the KGB.

Police said that Mr Scaramella, who met Mr Litvinenko at a sushi bar in London on 1 November to discuss a death threat aimed at both of them, was a potential witness. He was being interviewed at a “secure location” in London but was not in custody. (more…)

The Lincoln Memorial was shut down today for over three hours after “suspicious items” were found, including a note which referred to anthrax and two bottles with “mysterious liquid” found in the women’s restroom.

“A suspicious packing envelope, along with a note mentioning anthrax, was found Nov. 27 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, and a suspicious liquid resembling a sports drink was found in the ladies’ restroom,” Stratfor reports. “Authorities said they are looking for a male in his mid-30s, wearing green, who was seen in the vicinity.”

“U.S. Park Police were called to the memorial just after noon for the report of a letter and two bottles with some liquid in the ladies’ room,” NBC News 4 also reported. “Federal sources told News4 that the substance did not appear to be a threat, but tests are being run as a precaution.” (more…)

MADRID — Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the mistreatment of detainees at
Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prison’s former U.S. commander said in an interview on Saturday.

Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain’s El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.

Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods. (more…)