Feds: Men got terror ideas from underground novel (AP)

GAINESVILLE, Ga. ? In the violent underground novel "Absolved," right-wing militia members upset about gun control make war against the U.S. government. This week, federal prosecutors accused four elderly Georgia men of plotting to use the book as a script for a real-life wave of terror and assassination involving explosives and the highly lethal poison ricin.

The four suspected militia members allegedly boasted of a "bucket list" of government officials who needed to be "taken out"; talked about scattering ricin from a plane or a car speeding down a highway past major U.S. cities; and scouted IRS and ATF offices, with one man saying, "We'd have to blow the whole building like Timothy McVeigh."

Federal investigators said they had them under surveillance for at least seven months, infiltrating their meetings at a Waffle House, homes and other places, before finally arresting them Tuesday, just days after discovering evidence they were trying to extract ricin from castor beans.

"While many are focused on the threat posed by international violent extremists, this case demonstrates that we must also remain vigilant in protecting our country from citizens within our own borders who threaten our safety and security," said U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates.

The four gray-haired men ? Frederick Thomas, 73; Dan Roberts, 67; Ray Adams, 65; and Samuel Crump, 68 ? appeared in federal court Wednesday without entering a plea and were jailed for a bail hearing next week. They apparently had trouble hearing the judge, some of them cupping their ears.

Thomas and Roberts were charged with conspiring to buy an explosive device and an illegal silencer. Prosecutors would not say whether the men actually obtained the items. Adams and Crump were charged with conspiring to make a biological toxin.

Relatives of two of the men said the charges were baseless. The public defender assigned to the case had no comment.

Prosecutors said that Thomas was the ringleader and that he talked of carrying out the sort of actions described in "Absolved," an online novel written by former Alabama militia leader Mike Vanderboegh. In the book, the militia members build rifle grenades and drop explosives from crop dusters.

In the book's introduction, Vanderboegh calls it a "cautionary tale for the out-of-control gun cops of the ATF."

"For that warning to be credible, I must also present what amounts to a combination field manual, technical manual and call to arms for my beloved gunnies of the armed citizenry," he writes. "They need to know how powerful they could truly be if they were pushed into a corner."

In an interview, Vanderboegh said he didn't know the four men and bears no responsibility for the alleged plot.

"I'm glad that the FBI has apparently short-circuited some weak-minded individuals from misinterpreting my novel," he said.

Last year, Vanderboegh was denounced for calling on citizens to throw bricks through the windows of local Democratic headquarters across the country to protest President Barack Obama's health care plan. Several such incidents occurred. Vanderboegh has also appeared as a commentator on Fox News Channel.

Vanderboegh wrote on his blog Wednesday that his book was fiction and that he was skeptical a "pretty geriatric" militia could carry out the attacks the men were accused of planning.

But Kent Alexander, a former U.S. attorney in Atlanta, said he wouldn't write off the men as harmless just because of their age: "Crime doesn't have a retirement age. These guys are older than one usually sees, but criminals come in all ages."

Donnie Dixon, another former U.S. attorney, said: "I would find it extremely difficult to think they could carry out a plot of such grandiose design, which doesn't mean they should not have been nipped in the bud just like they were." He said it would not have required anything grandiose "to cause a lot of problems or hurt a lot of people."

Thomas' wife, Charlotte, told The Associated Press the charges were "baloney."

"He spent 30 years in the U.S. Navy. He would not do anything against his country," she said. "He loves his country."

Roberts' wife, Margaret, said her husband retired from the sign business and lives on a pension. "He's never been in trouble with the law. He's not anti-government," she said. "He would never hurt anybody."

Ricin is a castor-bean extract whose potential as a deadly biological weapon has long been known. In 1978, Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov was assassinated in London with a ricin pellet believed to have been fired from the tip of an umbrella.

Prosecutors wouldn't comment outside court Wednesday on exactly what steps the men took to get their hands on ricin. But they pointed out in court records that the two men allegedly assigned to obtain or make the ricin had useful backgrounds: Adams used to be a lab technician for a U.S. Department of Agriculture agency, and Crump once worked for a contractor who did maintenance at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Also, Roberts claimed to know a former U.S. soldier who was a "loose cannon" and might be able to help them make ricin, according to court papers.

An informant saw lab equipment and a glass beaker at Adams' home in October, and a bean obtained by the informant tested positive for ricin, prosecutors said.

Thomas is also accused of driving to Atlanta with an informant to case buildings that house the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the IRS and other agencies. During the trip, Thomas allegedly said: "There's two schools of thought on this: Go for the feds or go for the locals. And I'm inclined to consider both. We'd have to blow the whole building like Timothy McVeigh."

Thomas also allegedly boasted of making a "bucket list" of government employees, politicians, businessmen and media members. Court records quoted him as saying: "There is no way for us, as militiamen, to save this country, to save Georgia, without doing something that's highly, highly illegal: Murder."

He also allegedly told an informant: "I could shoot ATF and IRS all day long. All the judges and the DOJ (Department of Justice) and the attorneys and prosecutors."

Court documents accused Crump of suggesting ricin could be dropped from the air or blown out of a car to attack people in Washington; Newark, N.J.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Atlanta and New Orleans.

___

Associated Press writers Dorie Turner, Jeff Martin and Leonard Pallats in Atlanta; Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga.; and Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Ala., contributed to this story.

___

Follow Bluestein on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/bluestein.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111103/ap_on_re_us/us_militia_plot_georgia

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BearExtender PC Long Range 802.11n USB WiFi Booster

Networking Options

802.11n (2.4 GHz only)

Device Type

WiFi Extender

More

Editor's Note: Product not yet tested. The following description is from the manufacturer.

One of the biggest complaints of wireless router users is signal drop off. Your wi-fi connection works fine when you are close to it. Move to the upstairs bedroom and the signal drops to two bars or goes dead completely.

One answer to solving signal loss at distance is a wireless extender like BearExtender PC.

It's a small piece of hardware with an antenna that can attach to an available USB port on a laptop or netbook.

BearExtender PC can provide up to four times the range of a wireless network, enabling user to connect and download at higher speeds. It supports 802.11b/g/n as well as WEP, WPA, WPA2 Personal, WPA-Enterprise and WPS encryption. The device currently only supports the 2.4 GHz band.? It works with Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 both 32- and 64- bit versions of the operating system. A version for Mac is also available.

BearExtender PC does not require an internal Wi-Fi card because it contains both a transmitter and receiver. It's available for $44.97 from BearExtender's website.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/D1VgmHwXXxY/0,2817,2395356,00.asp

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'Occupy Supply' And Demand: FireDogLake Organizes To Keep Occupiers Warm Through Winter

WASHINGTON -- As temperatures drop and snow begins to fall, thousands of Occupy protesters are beginning to fear the approaching winter while many of their supporters worry the occupations will thin out.

In an effort to combat both dwindling temperatures and participation, collaborative news blog FireDogLake has launched Occupy Supply, an initiative to provide the protests nationwide with enough supplies to survive the winter.

"It's clear from what's happening around the country [that officials] are trying to freeze out the cold weather occupations and trying to shut down the warm weather ones," said Jane Hamsher, founder of FireDogLake. "Keeping people warm through the winter is going to be really key to the success of the movement."

Occupations that have already been blanketed with snow, such as those in Bangor, Maine, and Denver, have begun to accept donated winter wear and supplies, even taking advice from the local homeless who endure frigid conditions annually. The FireDogLake fund hopes to centralize the donation initiatives and provide truly useful, American-made supplies where needed.

Occupy Supply began accepting contributions through its website on Oct. 21, but the unexpectedly large amount donated -- $50,000 in just a few hours -- encouraged Hamsher to slow promotion until Thursday so that she could figure out the best way to disburse the growing funds.

Channeling the Occupy movement's central demands -- to reduce the role of corporations in politics and to create much-needed jobs -- Hamsher decided that the Occupy Supply goods must be made solely by unionized manufacturers in the United States.

"What we're shipping is way better than what you can find at any Target. A lot of it is industrial stuff so it's made for people who work in cold weather," she said. "It's really, really good quality."

While each Occupy Supply item is 100 percent American-union-made, Hamsher admitted that finding such suppliers was no easy task. Socks, jackets and hats are just some of the goods available. The fund is hoping to add tents and sleeping bags, but so far Hamsher has been unable to locate manufacturers that fit the criteria.

"The saddest part of all of this was looking up union suppliers, and half of the [websites] were dead. All these companies have gone under," she said. "That's why people are out there on Occupy Wall Street because all of these jobs are gone."

Hamsher said there is great demand for the winter apparel -- and not just from occupiers.

"The biggest problem we're having is that everyone wants the Occupy Supply items, but we're not selling them," she said, noting that 100 percent of the money raised goes to supplies for the occupations.

Where shipments of supplies will end up is heavily based upon FireDogLake members' interaction with the program. When an occupation reaches out to Occupy Supply, a local FireDogLake member acts as a liaison to the particular protest and listens to what its specific needs are, Hamsher said, describing the program as a "very organic effort" to help the movement.

"We don't want to just ship stuff out to them," she said. "We really want to have an ongoing relationship with them."

The first Occupy Supply shipments will contain 5,000 jackets, vests, hats and socks for more than 10 locations, including occupations in New York; Boston; Des Moines, Iowa; Memphis, Tenn.; and Washington, D.C.

"We always welcome donations and supplies, but it's incredible the response that we've gotten so far," said Marisa Holmes, an Occupy Wall Street media, facilitation and structure representative. She called Occupy Supply's forthcoming shipment "probably the largest [the occupation has] received for infrastructure."

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/03/occupy-wall-street-winter-firedoglake-occupy-supply_n_1073977.html

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French weekly firebombed after it portrays Mohammad (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) ? A firebomb attack gutted the headquarters of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday after it put an image of the Prophet Mohammad on its cover.

This week's edition shows a cartoon of Mohammad and a speech bubble with the words: "100 lashes if you don't die of laughter." It has the headline "Charia Hebdo," in a reference to Muslim sharia law, and says Mohammad guest-edited the issue.

Charlie Hebdo's website on Wednesday appeared to have been hacked and briefly showed images of a mosque with the message "no God but Allah," after which the site was blanked.

Many Muslims object to any representation of Allah or Mohammad, or to irreverent treatment of the Koran, and such incidents have inflamed protests in the past, sometimes violent.

Danish cartoons of Mohammad in 2005 sparked unrest in the Muslim world in which at least 50 people were killed. An American pastor's burning of a copy of the Koran led to protests in Afghanistan in April in which several died.

Police said nobody was injured in the fire that broke out at about 1 a.m. (midnight GMT) in the office building that houses Charlie Hebdo. Windows were broken on the ground floor and first floor and fire damage was visible inside. The Paris prosecutor's office told Reuters that two molotov cocktails had been thrown into the magazine's offices.

"The building is still standing. The problem is there's nothing left inside," Stephane Charbonnier, editor of Charlie Hebdo, told Europe 1 radio.

MUSLIM LEADERS CALL FOR CALM

The main representative body of the Muslim faith in France, the French Muslim Council (CFCM), denounced the attack while also faulting the satirical publication.

"The CFCM deplores the deeply mocking tone of the newspaper toward Islam and its prophet, but reaffirms with force its total opposition to any act or form of violence," it said in statement.

About 5 million Muslims live in France, a country of about 65 million people.

Tareq Oubrou, head of the Association of Imams of France, also condemned the attack. "This is an inadmissible act," he told French TV station i>tele.

"Freedom is very important. It is nonetheless important to underline the sensitivity of the situation we face today.

"I call on Muslims to treat this lucidly and not succumb to what they consider as provocations regarding their religion ... I personally call on Muslims to keep an open mind and not take this too seriously."

In Dubai, the world's largest international Muslim body condemned Charlie Hebdo for publishing the image and a "highly provocative" editorial, but urged restraint among Muslims.

"The publication of the Prophet Muhammad's cartoon, once again substantiated the OIC's concern of the alarming rise of Islamophobia in Europe," Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, said in a statement.

Charlie Hebdo has got into deep water on similar issues in the past. Former editor Philippe Val was pursued in the French courts on charges of racial injury after its publication of three of the Danish cartoons in 2006. He was acquitted.

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

"Freedom of expression is an inalienable value of democracy and any incursion against press freedom must be condemned with the utmost force. No cause justified violent action," French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in a statement.

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant told reporters at the scene of the blaze that everything would be done to find the perpetrators of the attack.

"You like or you don't like Charlie Hebdo but it's a newspaper. Press freedom is sacrosanct for the French," he said.

The far-right National Front, which campaigns on an anti-immigrant agenda, said the firebombing was an attack on press freedom and on secularism.

"Like religious practice, criticism of religions is free, as long as it does not call for public disturbance or violence," the Front said on its website.

The editor of the left-wing daily Liberation opened his newspaper's office to Charlie Hebdo staff. Writers from Liberation and cartoonists from Charlie Hebdo were working on what they said would be a four-page supplement in Thursday's Liberation, with commentary and drawings about the controversy.

Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Jean Cabut told Reuters that at the time of the Danish controversy, several Charlie Hebdo staff were put under police protection but that it was not yet sure how wide protection would be this time. He added he expected there would at least be protection for editor Charbonnier.

Charbonnier said he plans to maintain the magazine's weekly schedule, with another issue due in the middle of next week.

"In any case, giving ground to the Islamists is out of the question. We will continue," he said.

(Additional reporting by Matthias Blamont, Chine Labbe, Anna Maria Jakubek, Thierry Leveque, Abdoul-Karim Cisse and Mahmoud Habboush; Editing by Geert De Clercq, Andrew Roche and Roger Atwood)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/enindustry/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111102/media_nm/us_france_fire_magazine

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The Cancer Drug Dark Ages Are Coming to an End | Xconomy

Luke Timmerman 10/31/11

Only a couple stories in the past decade have given advocates of personalized cancer medicines much to brag about. There was Genentech?s Herceptin for a form of breast cancer in 1998, and Novartis? Gleevec for chronic myeloid leukemia in 2001.

But just a few short weeks ago, in August, we saw a flurry of FDA approvals that I believe will go down as a turning point in the history of personalized medicine. Industry has paid lip service to this idea for years, but I?m starting to believe that many in pharma and biotech are getting real about changing their ways, and making drugs that are superbly effective in small niches of patients, rather than settling for mediocre advances for the masses.

Even with an explosion of knowledge in biology over the past 40 years, most of the new cancer drugs produce humbling results. Many drugs shrink tumors for one-fourth or one-third of patients, and nobody knows (or at least not enough have seriously bankrolled efforts to find out) how to pick which patients would fall into the lucky few. These drugs might extend lifespan a couple months, but there?s so much variability it can look like a roll of the dice?sometimes the drug could provide zippo benefit for you, or, it might extend your life a few years.

Two things, though, were certain. Patients would endure some significant side effects, and insurance companies would get some extremely high drug bills.

That?s why this past August was so important, and why people in biotech are still buzzing about what happened. Consider this string of FDA approvals, which the agency granted ahead of its usual legal deadlines, so it could get these life-saving therapies to patients sooner.

?On August 17, Roche?s and Daiichi Sankyo/Plexxikon?s vemurafenib (Zelboraf) was cleared for sale as a new treatment for a deadly form of melanoma that has spread through the body. This drug is tailored to treat about half of melanoma patients with a mutated form of a protein called BRAF. Clinical trials showed this treatment reduced the risk of death by 63 percent in this distinct genetic population, when compared to standard chemo. Researchers are still following patients to see how much longer people can expect to live with the new drug. Importantly, the treatment was approved with a companion diagnostic test that will help doctors determine whether patients should get the drug or not. The diagnostic test costs $150, and the drug will go for the premium price of $56,400 for a six-month course of therapy.

?On August 19, Seattle Genetics (NASDAQ: SGEN) won FDA approval for brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) for patients with a couple of rare lymphomas?Hodgkin?s disease and anaplastic large cell lymphoma. This is a targeted drug that acts like a ?smart bomb? by delivering a potent dose of chemotherapy directly to cancer cells that carry a signature marker known as CD30, while mostly avoiding healthy cells. The treatment was able to significantly shrink tumors for about 75 percent of patients with Hodgkin?s disease that had relapsed, and it produced an even better 86 percent response rate for very sick patients with anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Researchers are still following patients to see how long they are living, beyond the 2-3 year life expectancies they were given at the outset of the trial. Doctors can easily figure out which patients should get this drug based on their CD30 status, before they prescribe a product that is expected to cost about $108,000 per patient on average.

?On August 26, Pfizer showed that even though it made its fortune on mass-marketed blockbuster drugs like Viagra and Lipitor, a significant part of its future will depend on a so-called ?nichebuster? in cancer. This one is called crizotinib (Xalkori), which is designed to treat about 3-5 percent of patients with non-small cell lung cancer that overexpresses a protein called ALK. The drug showed it was able to shrink tumors in a majority of patients?50 to 61 percent?and the spread of tumors was halted for close to a year. The responses have been so encouraging for this specific group of lung cancer patients that researchers, again, will have to follow patients for an extended time to get an accurate read on how long it will help patients live. Abbott Laboratories has agreed to sell the companion diagnostic test to determine a patient?s ALK status, so doctors can see which patients should get this $9,600-a-month treatment.

There?s a pattern here. These drugs are going after ?Next Page ?

Luke Timmerman is the National Biotech Editor of Xconomy, and the Editor of Xconomy Seattle. E-mail him at ltimmerman@xconomy.com or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ldtimmerman.

Source: http://www.xconomy.com/national/2011/10/31/the-cancer-drug-dark-ages-are-coming-to-an-end/

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Google+ Tip: How to manage what notifications you receive on your device

Google+ is a great way to interact real time with a large crowd of people, gathering many different opinions and thoughts all in one single thread of comments. Being able to read, respond and interact with everyone while on the go is great, but one downside to this is that unless managed properly your poor device could become easily flooded with notifications. So, to prevent the assault of Google+ notifications on your device, let's take a look at how you can easily manage them.

1. Launch the Google+ Application
2. Press menu then settings
3. Scroll to Notification Settings
4. Disable any notifications that you do not want / need

For me things like people adding me to a circle, or anything related to photo tagging and comments I don't need to have a push notification for. This will of course be different for each user, so be sure to set up your notifications the way you want!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/iN8XdDr4wUI/google-tip-how-manage-what-notifications-you-receive-your-device

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Obama, House Democrats meet Tuesday on jobs, economy (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama will meet top Democrats from the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday to plot strategy on how to advance his jobs proposals that are stalled in Congress amid Republican resistance.

The White House talks follow a series of unilateral steps by Obama over the past week aimed at seizing the initiative from his Republican foes and showing voters he is serious about tackling high unemployment and a sluggish economy, efforts considered crucial to his 2012 re-election hopes.

But Obama's aides acknowledge that any steps he can take on his own still fall far short of his $447 billion jobs package that Republicans have blocked as a whole in Congress and which he now hopes to push through piece by piece.

Senior Democrats from the Republican-controlled House, a delegation expected to be headed by Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, is due to meet Obama at 3:15 p.m. ET Tuesday.

Topping the agenda will be how to boost the economy and reduce a 9.1 unemployment rate, a senior Obama administration official said.

Obama Wednesday plans to deliver remarks at the Key Bridge in Washington as part of his effort to get Congress to pass billions of dollars in infrastructure spending to put thousands of construction workers back to work nationwide.

Though polls show strong public support for much of Obama's jobs plan, Republicans argue that financing the new spending by raising taxes on the wealthy, as the president and his Democrats have proposed, would actually kill jobs.

With his approval ratings languishing in the 40-percent range due mostly to public discontent with his economic stewardship, Obama is trying to paint Republicans as obstructing his efforts to spur economic recovery.

Obama's meeting with House Democrats also comes at a time when members of a U.S. congressional debt reduction "super committee" are trying to come up with a plan to slash America's huge deficits before a November 23 deadline.

It was not immediately clear whether deliberations by the panel, which remains deeply divided, would figure into Obama's meeting with the Democratic leadership.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Paul Simao)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/democrats/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111101/pl_nm/us_usa_jobs_obama

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