Sept. 19) - The nation's murder rate rose 1.8% last year after hitting a two-decade low in 2004, the FBI said Monday in a report that raised questions about whether violent crime rates will continue to head up after years of decline.

The overall rate for violent crimes - murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault - rose 1.3% in 2005 but remained far below the high set in 1991, when homicide rates in many cities soared amid a sluggish economy and gang wars. Last year, in fact, the rate for rapes alone fell 2.2% and was the lowest it had been in more than 20 years.

The jump in the overall rate for violent crimes, however, gave ammunition to several police officials who have complained that the U.S. government has allowed anti-crime initiatives to languish as it has focused on anti-terrorism efforts here and abroad.

"This report should serve as a strong wake-up call," said Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske in Seattle, which recorded a 25% increase in gun-related crime last year. "We better realign our focus to the war going on in some of our cities."

Edward Flynn, police commissioner in Springfield, Mass., said local police agencies have yet to recover from the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which led the federal government to redirect tens of millions of dollars in grants away from policing projects and toward homeland security programs.

"Police can't be good homeland security partners if they cannot do their core missions," said Flynn, whose city of 155,000 had 18 homicides last year, double the number from 2000. "People need to see this as a sign for concern."

Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said Monday that it was "too soon" to determine whether the FBI report represented a significant departure from the annual declines in crime recorded during much of the past decade.

During a briefing at the Justice Department, McNulty said anecdotal evidence from the first part of this year suggests there "might be a rise in violent crime in some jurisdictions." However, he noted that the overall crime rate - for violent and property offenses - remained low compared with the past 30 years.

McNulty said the recent increases in violent offenses could reflect a convergence of factors: a rise in gang membership, the spread of highly addictive methamphetamine and the increasing numbers of young people who are 18 to 24, the age group that generally commits the most crimes.

"The terrorism mission," he said, "has not cost us anything" in fighting crime domestically.

Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a national association of law enforcement officials, said the FBI report was "not all gloom and doom." He cited declines in reported property crimes.

However, Wexler said members of his group are concerned about increasing violence across the nation. "We believe we're on the front end of a tipping point on violent crime."

i have been strictly playing pick 4 for nearly half a year now.couldn't really make what i wanted playing pick 3 compared to pick 4.those thousands won easily made my mind up.thinking of the new north carolina pick 3 and if i should play pick 3 again.got a couple more weeks until it starts so i should know by then.....

Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975). At age 69, he was the oldest person elected President. Before entering politics, Reagan was a popular motion picture actor, as well as head of the Screen Actors Guild, and a motivational speaker. He was a Democrat in the 1940s, becoming a Republican in the 1960s and a leading backer of Barry Goldwater's ill-fated presidential campaign in 1964. For two terms, he served as governor of California. His persuasive speaking style earned Reagan the accolade "The Great Communicator." His economic and foreign policies have formed the base of the conservative movement since 1980. He was an anti-communist who negotiated arms reductions with the Soviets; his policies are sometimes credited with accelerating the demise of the Soviet Union. The most prominent scandal of his administration was the Iran-Contra Affair, where members of his administration exchanged arms with Iran for hostages and used the proceeds to fund the Contras, a para-military, anti-leftist group in Nicaragua. Reagan defeated incumbent President Jimmy Carter to win the election of 1980; his landslide carried in the first Republican-controlled U.S. Senate in 26 years, and reduced the Democratic majority in the House. His economic policy of supply-side economics, commonly referred to as "Reaganomics," is noted for a 25% cut in the income tax, reduction in interest rates, increased military spending, increased deficits and national debt, increases in domestic inequality, a shift of the relative tax burden from the very rich to the middle and working classes, and continued deregulation of business. A recession took place in 1981-1982 followed by the then longest economic expansion in American history commencing in 1982. In other domestic issues he did not succeed in significantly changing social policies such as welfare and abortion during his presidency, but he did create a more conservative federal judiciary through appointments to the United States Supreme Court and other federal courts. He emphasized his skepticism concerning the ability of the federal government to remedy problems, particularly economic ones. His solution was to withdraw government involvement in planning and control by reducing taxation and regulation in order to allow the alleged self-correcting mechanism of the free market to assert itself. He said on his day of inauguration, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Many credit him for restoring psychological optimism to an America that was in deep malaise in 1980 and for advocacy of a freer hand for the private sector rather than governmental control. In foreign policy his Administration is noted for the vast buildup of the military. Reagan was committed to the ideologies of democratic capitalism and anti-communism. His ability to survive economic downturns, reverses in Congress, foreign crises and even scandals involving Executive Branch employees with relatively high approval numbers earned him the sobriquet "The Teflon President" (a term coined by Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder). The Berlin Wall, and with it ultimately the Soviet Bloc, collapsed in November of 1989, shortly after he left office. Many credit Reagan with being instrumental in the 1991 downfall of the Soviet Union. Historians have not yet formed a consensus, with some considering Reagan to be a leading figure in orchestrating the collapse of Soviet Communism in 1991 [1]; other historians believe the demise of the Soviet Union was inevitable, and that Reagan hastened the day. [2] In 1988, Reagan's Vice President, George H.W. Bush was elected President, marking the first election in 60 years where the outgoing and incoming presidents were from the same party. Reagan's presidency influenced the culture of the 1980s and the modern Republican party. He was the only U.S. President to be shot by an assassin (on March 30, 1981) while in office and survive. He received a state funeral after his death in Bel-Air, California, in 2004 at age 93, after suffering from Alzheimer's disease for a decade.

well its a rainy day today.watching pro football on television.how the mighty have fallen.the tennessee titans are on the verge of having three straight losing seasons.my how i miss steve mcnair,eddie george,jevon kearse,etc....

Every summer Chevy Chase takes his family on a little trip. This year he went too far.....

 

The Griswold family, father Clark W., wife Ellen, daughter Audrey and son Rusty, set out in high spirit to spend their vacation driving cross-country from Chicago to a glorious climax in Walley World on the West Coast. The trip which Clark planned down to the minute, slowly loses its smoothness from the moment the first grain of sand gets in. A meeting with constantly-in-debt, simple-minded cousin Eddie results in the Griswold family giving cantankerous aunt Edna a lift to Phoenix. Of course, the Griswolds receive one strike of bad luck after another, and when they finally arrive at Walley World, they have to find out that the park is closed for maintenance. But Clark promised his beloved family the best vacation ever...

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is trying use a bill authorizing U.S. military operations, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, to prohibit people from using credit cards to settle Internet gambling debts.

Frist, R-Tenn., and his aides have been meeting with other lawmakers and officials in both the House and Senate to get the measure attached to a compromise Defense Department authorization bill, according to a Senate GOP leadership aide.

The House passed a version of the Internet gambling measure in July, but the Senate has taken no action on similar legislation. Neither of the defense bills passed by the House and Senate mention it.

Frist is pushing for an approach that isn’t quite as sweeping as the House measure, said the leadership aide and lobbyists following the issue. All spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing negotiations.

Frist, eyeing a 2008 presidential bid, recently discussed the online gambling measure in the politically important state of Iowa. He also called it a legislative priority in a recent speech on the Senate floor.

The measure’s supporters include the National Football League as well as conservative and antigambling groups. Some banking groups are lobbying against it.

Federal officials have made recent arrests involving offshore companies operating Internet gambling sites. The Internet gambling industry is headquartered almost entirely outside the United States although many of its customers live in the U.S.

The bills authorizing defense programs are: S.2507 and H.R.5122

 

What is this guy's deal?  He is really on the rampage as far as internet gambling is concerned.He is looking for any way possible to shut it down completely.

well i'm glad the summer is over.the record scorching heat did a number on me this season.miserable was the mainstay of my existence the whole way through.it has been cool at night the past couple weeks and nice during the day.fall is my favorite time of year.the cool air,the leaves falling football season and my children both have birthdays.one on november 1st and another on november 2nd.......

Here's the latest as far as the Senate agenda:

 this week the Senate will take up a package of bills on port security. There may be a lot of pushing and shoving between Republicans and Democrats on cargo screening, port security funding, 9/11 Commission recommendations, and those sort of things. The bill might take all week, or it might be done by Wednesday.

The Senate is also going to take a bit of time to commemorate the five-year anniversary of 9/11, which wil likely mean less legislative action today and tomorrow than on a usual mon/tues.

Other items on the near-term agenda,are an additional appropriations bill for military facilities, and some legislation dealing with military tribunals for terrorist detainees. This is apparently something the White House is pushing very hard for at this point, particularly in light of the Supreme Court decision invalidating the current rules for tribunals.

Looking at the last three weeks of the Senate session (adjournment could be Sept 28 or 29), other issues still in the running for floor time include terrorist surveillance; the Bolton nomination for UN Ambassador, other security-related nominations, circuit court judge nominations; bioterrorism response; and a bill kicking the hell out of Iran re: sanctions and its weapons programs.

Also, it looks like the Senate may act on bills that garner U.C.s that limit floor time and amendments -- this is the class of bills the Internet gambling bill would fall into. The main bills under consideration in this area are a bill on Amtrak, a trade bill, and conference reports on Homeland Security and Defense appropriations. If time is available, leadership might move to the "trifecta" bill that blew up in early August (minimum wage, estate taxes, and some other stuff all rolled into one), a bill on oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, an abortion bill, and any bills needed to keep the government funded and running past the end of the end of the current fiscal year (which is September 30, 2006).

Long story short: the Internet gambling bill is nowhere to be seen on the list of items under consideration at this point. The threat of movement via UC remains, and it now seems clear that a single, well motivated hold on the bill will be enough to ensure its defeat this year.

                       where were you on september 11 2001?

 where were you on september 11,2001.at this time i was working at the same post i'm at now doing security.i didn't wake up until late afternoon because i work nights.i knew something was different right before i left when all television stations carried news broadcasts.i got in the car and turned the radio on and kept hearing about this attack and the words pearl harbor.it really scared me at first because i thought an actual country attacked us.i later learned that it was terrorists while making the drive to work.i have never been the same since this day.all americans knew things would never be the same and it hasn't.my best friend ended up in iraq for a long time when that war started in 2003.i thanked him for defending our country.i think a moment of silence would be appropriate today in rememberance of all who last their lives on this day.....

Al Gore Says He Hasn't Ruled Out Second Run

SYDNEY, Australia (Sept. 10) - Former Vice President Al Gore said Sunday he hadn't rule out making a second bid for the White House, though he said it was unlikely.

Gore spoke to reporters in Sydney, where he was promoting the local premiere of his documentary on global warming.

"I haven't completely ruled out running for president again in the future but I don't expect to," Gore said before the Sunday night premiere of "An Inconvenient Truth."

"I offer the explanation not as an effort to be coy or clever. It's just the internal shifting of gears after being in politics almost 30 years. I hate to grind the gears," he added.

Gore, who lost the presidency to President Bush in 2000 in disputed circumstances, said there was no doubt the impact of global warming would be best addressed through the power of the presidency, but making a documentary was second best.

Gore's renewed popularity and movie tours across the United States have spurred speculation of a White House run in 2008. He has previously repeatedly denied such intentions.

The documentary, which Gore narrates, is critical of the United States and Australia for refusing to adopt the Kyoto Protocol for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Prime Minister John Howard, a friend and ally of Bush, said he would not meet Gore during his Australian visit and would not heed his advice to sign up to Kyoto.

"I don't take policy advice from films," Howard told reporters.

Is it fair to compare terror to cold war?

Bush likens the conflict to previous struggles, but analysts say the analogies can go only so far.

WASHINGTON – As the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches, President Bush is reemphasizing his focus on the war on terror as the defining struggle of the age. With historical analogies his constant tool, the president compares Osama bin Laden to the ideological foes the United States faced in the 20th century - Lenin and Hitler, for example - and likens the struggle against Islamic radicalism to the cold war.

Such comparisons can help Americans understand the foe the US is up against, analysts agree, and can help put the challenge ahead into perspective. For example, the cold war was an ideological battle spanning more than four decades, and the fight against terrorism is not likely to reach a decisive denouement anytime soon, experts say.

But such analogies go only so far and can actually hinder understanding if they obscure the differences in the current situation or act to cover up missteps in current policy.

"The cold war is a good template to begin to think about how to deal with the challenge of radical Islam," says Andrew Bacevich, a former Army colonel and now professor of international relations at Boston University. "The problem is that whatever the president is saying now, his administration's policies have not mirrored the policies of the cold war - starting with the fact that US strategy in the cold war was not primarily oriented towards an aggressive use of force."

Mr. Bush himself has said that the war on terror is not just a military battle, but the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are nevertheless seen as the signature acts of the president's war on terror.

At the same time, Bush continues to draw comparisons between this war and 20th-century conflicts. "Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them," he said in Washington Tuesday in a speech to the Military Officers Association of America.

Such references are both useful and problematic, some experts say. "It's helpful to have things to point to that people can understand. But it's also true that historical analogies are rarely 100 percent accurate, and that can lead to misunderstandings," says Thomas Henriksen, a historian focusing on US foreign policy at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif. "It's true that this will be a long conflict, and when the president says this is more than a military conflict, that's also true."

But Mr. Henriksen says other factors weaken such analogies: For example, World War II and the cold war were fought against "state actors" - Germany, Japan, and then the Soviet Union - while the foes in the war on terror are stateless, dispersed organizations and the ideology that feeds them.

Another problem with such analogies is that they suggest that the answers to the current challenge can also be found in history. Some experts say that can be a costly mistake.

"Superficially, the comparison [to the cold war] is credible, in that this is an ideological challenge, but it starts breaking down when you compare the enemies we were and are [now] up against," says Geoffrey Kemp, a national-security expert at the Nixon Center in Washington.

In the cold war, the ideological foe the US faced was backed by "serious countries with serious capabilities," says Mr. Kemp, who served in the National Security Council of the Reagan White House. While radical Islam may be fed by a common ideology favoring a global caliphate, "when you get into the details, you find a disparate constellation of differing factions and agendas."

The result, he says, is that the current foe "has to be dealt with in a very different way. The traditional ways are less relevant now."

Where many experts differ most ardently with the Bush administration's strategy is in the use of force - and specifically in the characterization of the Iraq war as the central front in the war on terror.

Bush continues to insist on that point. "Iraq is not a distraction in [the radical Islamists'] war against America," he said Tuesday, but rather "the central battlefield where this war will be decided."

Professor Bacevich disagrees, saying that "if the Bush approach had been applied in the cold war, our response would have been to invade Poland." Adds Kemp, "Where Iraq is the central front is in an intensifying battle between Shiites and Sunnis. It doesn't serve our purposes [in the battle with terrorism] to be caught in the middle of that."

Some experts say battling Islamic radicalism is so different from previous wars - and so little a military fight - that the word "war" should not be used at all. "The message the rhetoric about Iraq sends is that we still think we can win this conflict with military force, and that's simply not the case," says Charles Pena, a national security-expert with the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy in Washington. He is so adamant about this point that he titled a new book "Winning the Un-War."

Aside from de-emphasizing the military response, Mr. Pena says the US has to change a "hypocritical" policy toward the Middle East that talks democracy but supports authoritarian regimes. He says, "If we don't reassess our foreign policy and deal with the root causes of what attracts so many Muslims to the radical message, it's a losing battle."

(CNN) -- Republicans favor former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, while Democrats are looking toward Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York for their nominee, according to a CNN poll released Thursday.

Thirty-one percent of the 432 poll respondents who identified themselves as Republicans chose Giuliani from a list of potential 2008 nominees, according to the survey conducted by Opinion Research Corp. on behalf of CNN.

The next closest choices were Sen. John McCain of Arizona, with 20 percent, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, with 12 percent. (View the complete poll results for all potential GOP and Democratic candidates -- PDF)

No other Republican broke out of the single digits, and 14 percent of respondents said they were unsure about their choice.

Among the 517 identifying themselves as Democrats, 37 percent chose Clinton, and 20 percent favored former Vice President Al Gore.

The 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, and Kerry's running mate, former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, trailed with 11 percent each.

All other Democrats fielded 3 percent or less in the survey, while 8 percent of the respondents said they were unsure about their choice.

Asked if they would only vote for a candidate who opposed the Iraq war at its inception in 2003, 56 percent of Democrats said no, and 41 percent said yes.

In a separate survey conducted of 1,004 adult Americans, 86 percent said they favor Congress passing legislation that would raise the minimum wage.

The surveys were conducted by telephone August 30 to September 2.

The overall margin of error was plus or minus 5 percentage points, except for the minimum wage question, where the margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

well we could've been killed yesterday.my nerves are still on the edge.there was an inmate who escaped from a prison in alabama and made his way into memphis and stole three cars and lead police on a high speed chase that sent three people to the hospital.the crash ended right near where i pick up my pay check every thursday.look on the internet at wmc-tv 5 in memphis to see the chase on video.this is it.between home invasions,car jackings and robberies i think i'm going to be moving soon to the country.there has even been a police officer vanish without a trace this week.this place is very dangerous.certainly don't want to raise my kids in this environment.pretty sad when you have to leave the place you've lived most of your life but the criminal element has completely taken over.this is it for me.only bad thing is i would've have an hour or longer commute after working all night plus the gas prices are high.

Crackdown on Internet Gambling continues with Sportingbet and bill

Only a couple of months ago, arguably the largest crackdown against online gambling began with the arrest of the CEO of BetonSports.  Apparently, we haven't seen the end of this nightmare for those who enjoy Internet gambling.

And now today,Online bookmaker Sportingbet said its chairman, Peter Dicks, had been detained by U.S. authorities, causing shares across the sector to dive as investors feared a crackdown on online gaming.

Analysts said the detention mirrored the detention in July of the CEO of another company that took online sports bets from the United States, Costa Rica-based BETonSPORTS.

BETonSPORTS former Chief Executive David Carruthers and seven others pleaded not guilty to racketeering and other charges. The company has since said it is closing its U.S. business.

Sportingbet said it had sought immediate temporary suspension of its shares pending clarification of the situation. Shares in the company were down 1.8 percent at 238-1/2 pence at the time of the suspension.

The news hit other shares across the sector, with PartyGaming down 10.5 percent, 888 plc  down 15.2 percent and Playtech down 11.65 percent.

Sportingbet said earlier on Thursday it was in preliminary talks about making a possible all share offer for World Gaming Plc The two groups said that based on Sportingbet's closing price of 244 pence on Wednesday, the offer would value each World Gaming share at an implied price of 104 pence, valuing World Gaming at 107 million pounds.

"We have a long history with World Gaming," Sportingbet Finance Director Andy McIver told Reuters prior to the announcement that the group's chairman had been detained. "The servers that take our bets sit in a bunker in Antigua that is owned and maintained by World Gaming."

"This is about tidying up that relationship and taking control of key suppliers," he added.

With little more than 20 working days left before the November mid-term elections, the Senate faces a crowded agenda including 13 different funding bills to keep the government functioning when its new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have a tentative Oct. 9 adjournment date.

In its first session Tuesday since the August recess, Frist prioritized the appropriation bills, judicial nominee confirmations and halting Internet gambling as his top issues.

"Internet gambling threatens our families by bringing addictive behavior right into our living rooms," Frist said in floor remarks.

The House of Representatives approved legislation in July updating the 1961 Wire Act that bans sports wagering over the telephone to include all forms of online gambling.

The bill would also force banks and credit card companies to refuse payments to the estimated 2,300 offshore gambling sites located outside of U.S. jurisdiction.

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (H.R. 4411) specifically exempts online horse racing and state lotteries from the legislation.

"We tried to get it done [Senate passage of the bill] before the recess but were unable to get unanimous consent to bring the bill up," Karen Weyforth, a spokesperson for Frist's office, told internetnews.com.

To make room on the jammed Senate calendar, Weyforth said Frist hopes to bring up the bill for a vote "with very little debate" by limiting the time available for floor discussion of the legislation.

Throughout both the Clinton and Bush administrations, the Department of Justice (DoJ) has contended the Wire Act already covers Internet gambling.

Previous congressional efforts to clarify the law have failed.

Momentum for a new Internet gambling ban gained traction in January when former lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials.

Proponents of the ban contend Abramoff used his influence to kill previous anti-gambling bills, pointing to allegations in court documents that he made payments of $50,000 to the wife of a unnamed Capitol Hill staffer for help in stopping at least one Internet gambling bill.

Department of Justice (DoJ) moved aggressively against London-based BetonSports, which maintains operations in Costa Rica and Antigua aimed at U.S. gamblers and now it appears they are doing the same exact thing with Sportingbet

In July, a St. Louis grand jury issued a 22-count indictment against the gambling firm and its top officers, charging them with racketeering, conspiracy and fraud, including failing to pay federal wagering excise taxes on more than $3.3 billion in wagers taken from U.S. bettors.

Former BetonSports CEO David Carruthers remains under house arrest in St. Louis while company founder Gary Kaplan remains a fugitive at large.

Peter Dicks most likely awaits the same fate.

I hardly think that the timing of these arrests is a coincidence.  It's very scary to think that our government could and possibly will ban online gambling in the next few weeks.

If you don't think Austin Powers is one of the funniest movies of the 1990s, maybe you should be packed into a cryogenic time-chamber and sent back to the decade whence you came. Perhaps it was the 1960s--the shag-a-delic decade when London hipster Austin Powers scored with gorgeous chicks as a fashion photographer by day, crime-fighting international man of mystery by night. Yeah, baby, yeah! But when Powers's arch nemesis, Dr. Evil, puts himself into a deep-freeze and travels via time-machine to the late 1990s, Powers must follow him and foil Evil's nefarious scheme of global domination. Mike Myers plays dual roles as Powers and Dr. Evil, with Elizabeth Hurley as his present-day sidekick and karate- kicking paramour. A hilarious spoof of '60s spy movies, this colorful comedy actually gets funnier with successive viewings, making it a perfect home video for gloomy days and randy nights. Oh, behave!