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Muslim leaders in Arizona have drawn increased scrutiny from federal officials in the past year because of a string of suspicious incidents, officials say. Although no one in the state has been accused of supporting terrorists, one Mesa, Ariz., man was charged with lying to the FBI during the terror financing investigation into a Muslim charity accused of funneling money to the Palestinian group Hamas, The Arizona Republic reported Sunday.Also drawing attention to Arizona Muslims was a target-shooting episode in Phoenix that involved a large group of Muslim men and boys firing hundreds of rounds from AK-47s and other guns....

The end seems to have finally come for NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander mission at the planet's north pole, scientists said Monday. "At this time we're pretty convinced that the vehicle is no longer available for us to use," said Phoenix project manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Traditional media outlets are dying and savvy conservative politicians have taken to ignoring them -- or hastening their demise. Instead of subjecting themselves to heavy-handed interviews and biased coverage, Republicans are finding other ways to reach the public with their campaign messages. It's an approach the McCain-Palin ticket may have adopted too late. McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis asked, "Why would we want to throw Sarah Palin into a cycle of piranhas called the news media that have nothing better to ask questions about than her personal life and her children?" In McCain's Arizona, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio recently...

Race #35 of 36 aka Race #9 of 10 in the Chase for the Cup. Prayers for our nation and our troops in this time of turmoil and "Change".

Publisher does not allow.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - NASA extended the mission of the busy Phoenix lander Monday, saying it will operate the lander until it dies in the cold and dark of the Martian winter. It is already snowing there, above the equivalent of the Arctic circle on Mars, the researchers said. The explorer found evidence that the dust on the surface of Mars resembles seawater in its chemical makeup, adding to evidence that liquid water that once may have supported life flowed on the planet's surface. The Phoenix lander already has operated far longer than expected when it was dropped onto the Martian...

PHOENIX (September 4, 2008) The Bishops of the Catholic Conference of Arizona, in a pastoral statement released today, are encouraging voters to vote yes this November 4 on Proposition 102, which would amend the Arizona Constitution by providing a legal definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman. The Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix and Apostolic Administrator of Gallup, and the Most Rev. Gerald F. Kicanas, Bishop of Tucson, support Proposition 102 and are asking the support of Catholics in their respective dioceses. The proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution that is promoted in...

PHOENIX -- The fastest-growing gang in the world is coming to Arizona -- a trend that makes federal agents along the U.S.-Mexico border uncomfortable. Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, is known for its violence and guerilla warfare training, experts said. "From Oct. 1 until the end of July we've seen over 50 different people involved in not only MS-13, but a number of different gangs affiliated with them," Scioli said. "Just in the past week we've had five." According to law enforcement personnel, MS-13 members come to Arizona because its position on the border makes it a hot spot for drugs...

Score another victory for the stealth jihad: Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport, where the janitorial firm GCA Services recently instituted a new uniform that featured pants. But thirty Somali Muslim women who work for GSA Services protested: up to that point they had been allowed to wear skirts, and they thought that pants offended against the modesty Islam mandates for women. With help from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, this week they won permission to forgo the new uniform and wear skirts on the job.

Judge: Valley mom starved daughter to death, gets lifetime probation Reported by: Trevor Ravenscraft Last Update: 8/13 11:20 am PHOENIX -- A judge sentenced a west Phoenix woman to lifetime probation Tuesday after she admitted to starving her 2-year-old daughter to death. Eboni Perri, 26, had earlier pleaded guilty to charges of attempted child abuse. Her daughter, Nakeisha Walker, was pronounced dead at a Phoenix hospital on March 5th, 2005. She weighed only 14 pounds at the time. After Nakeisha's death, police searched Perri's apartment near 27th Avenue and Indian School Road. Officers found no baby formula, cups, plates or...

Phoenix police on Thursday formally presented the Maricopa County Attorney’s office with the investigation into the death seven years ago of an Ahwatukee Foothills man whose girlfriend, they believe, called a national talk radio show and bragged that she got away with murder. Phoenix police Sgt. Joel Tranter also officially named the girlfriend, Megan Suzanne Vice of El Mirage, as the suspect in the case. He said while police won’t arrest the 30-year-old Vice, they are seeking charges of first-degree murder and obstructing a criminal investigation for filing a false police report. Two years ago, a woman claiming to be...

August 7, 2008 CHANDLER — Deacon Will Schmid stood at the ambo in St. Mary Parish July 29 and preached.It was the feast of St. Martha. She was a friend of Jesus who had Him over for a visit with her sister Mary.While Martha busied herself preparing the home, Mary sat at Christ’s feet and listened to Him. Martha complained to Jesus, who said that Mary had chosen better in spending quiet and untroubled time with her Lord.“As Americans, it’s really easy for us to identify with Martha,� Deacon Schmid said. “But there are times when we just need to...

I don't recall the names our Secret Service have given the two main political candidates.Ronald Reagan was "Rawhide". John Edwards was the "Breck Girl"Who are the 2008 Candidates?(suggestions accepted)

July 4, 2008 The City Attorney's Office for Phoenix has banned City Employees from signing the recall petition. A clear violation of a person's Constitutional Rights. Please be sure to let the mayor and the attorney, Gary Verburg know what you think. http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2008/07/04/20080704phx-cityhall0705.html http://seeingredaz.wordpress.com/2008/07/05/phoenix-mayor-and-city-attorney-bend-the-constitution/

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a low-power microchip which uses 30,000 times less power in sleep mode and 10 times less in active mode than similar chips now on the market. Named the Phoenix Processor, it is intended for use in cutting-edge sensor-based devices such as medical implants, environment monitors, and surveillance equipment. � Professor David Blaauw (Credit: University of Michigan) In the future, sensors may be implanted in our bodies to measure blood-glucose levels of diabetics or retinal pressure in glaucoma patients. In practical terms, the chips would have to both be very small and...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Scientists with the US Phoenix lander will make their first analysis of Martian ice fragments in coming days but it could be the last done in one of the probe's small ovens, NASA said on its website Friday. ADVERTISEMENT A team of engineers and scientists were trying to get to the bottom of what caused a short-circuit on the TEGA (Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer) which has four small ovens able to heat samples of Martian soil up to 1,000 degrees Celsius. "Since there is no way to assess the probability of another short circuit occurring, we are...

Six men in police tactical clothing are suspected of shooting a man to death, firing more than 100 rounds into his Phoenix home in what some are calling a Mexican drug cartel hit. Special Assignments Units heard shots coming from a nearby neighborhood and began to drive toward the noise Sunday. Detectives said once police gained entry into the home, they found the body of Andrew Williams, 30, shot numerous times, according to Arizona Daily News. "We have seen an increasing amount of these type of violent crimes in the past five months," Phoenix Police Sgt. Joel Tranter said. "We...

TUCSON, Ariz. – Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it. "It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that." The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench...

The robotic shovel aboard the Phoenix Mars Lander has dug into some white material just below the surface of the Red Planet. NASA scientists aren't exactly sure what it is--their best guess right now is that it's ice. Meanwhile, the first Martian soil samples are heating up in one of eight tiny ovens aboard the Phoenix. The Phoenix will "sniff" the gases released to identify them.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University Here's a closer look at the white material in the trench now called "Dodo-Goldilocks" that was uncovered by the robotic arm aboard the Phoenix. The white material was first...

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Surface Stereo Imager took this image on Sol 14 (June 8, 2008), the 14th Martian day after landing. NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has filled its first oven with Martian soil. "We have an oven full," Phoenix co-investigator Bill Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said today. "It took 10 seconds to fill the oven. The ground moved." Boynton leads the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer instrument, or TEGA, for Phoenix. The instrument has eight separate tiny ovens to bake and sniff the soil to assess its volatile ingredients, such as water. The lander's Robotic Arm...

This image, one of the first captured by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, shows the vast plains of the northern polar region of Mars. The flat landscape is strewn with tiny pebbles and shows polygonal cracking, a pattern seen widely in Martian high latitudes and also observed in permafrost terrains on Earth. The polygonal cracking is believed to have resulted from seasonal contraction and expansion of surface ice. Phoenix touched down on the Red Planet at 4:53 p.m. Pacific Time (7:53 Eastern Time), May 25, 2008, in an arctic region called Vastitas Borealis, at 68 degrees north latitude, 234 degrees east...

Scientists ran into a snag when trying to deliver a sample of Martian arctic soil to one of the instruments on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, mission controllers said on Saturday. The lander's robotic arm released a handful of clumpy Martian soil onto a screened opening of the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) on Friday, but the instrument did not confirm that any of the sample passed through the screen. Images taken on Friday show soil resting on the screen over an open sample-delivery door of TEGA, which is designed to heat up soil samples and analyze the vapors they give...

Scientists have discovered what may be ice that was exposed when soil was blown away as NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed on Mars last Sunday, May 25. The possible ice appears in an image the robotic arm camera took underneath the lander, near a footpad. "We could very well be seeing rock, or we could be seeing exposed ice in the retrorocket blast zone," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., co-investigator for the robotic arm. "We'll test the two ideas by getting more data, including color data, from the robotic arm camera. We think that if the hard...

Mars mission delayed by Phoenix lander's radio and robotic arm glitches By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles Last Updated: 1:10AM BST 28/05/2008 Nasa's ambitious mission to discover if Mars was ever habitable suffered a delay when a radio glitch prevented the agency's Phoenix lander from receiving its daily to-do list from Earth. Nasa said the glitch was due to a 'transient event' Mission controllers said the radio on one of the orbiters communicating with the probe switched off and failed to send the craft a command list for its second Maritan sol, or day. Scientists were working to discover what...

Camera On Mars Orbiter Snaps Phoenix During LandingNASA's Mars Phoenix Lander can be seen parachuting down to Mars, in this image captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona) ScienceDaily (May 27, 2008) — A telescopic camera in orbit around Mars caught a view of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suspended from its parachute during the lander's successful arrival at Mars Sunday evening, May 25. The image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter marks the first time ever one spacecraft has photographed another one...

The Mars Phoenix Lander parachutes down to Mars on Sunday, in this image captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona ) The first images from the Phoenix Mars Lander have confirmed that the solar panels needed for its energy supply unfolded as planned and that masts for its camera and weather station are in position. A successful touchdown late Sunday was followed by the first pictures about two hours later. More images are expected Monday evening. This is one of the first images captured by the Phoenix lander, showing the vast plains of the northern polar region of...

05.25.08 Brent Shockley 4:53 pm Touchdown detected!! We're on the surface of Mars and there is celebration in Mission Control!! 4:50 pm Parachute deploy detected! Heat shield deploy detected! Radar ground lock detected! 4:48 pm Odyssey has maintained a signal from Phoenix through the period of peak heating when we might have experienced a loss of communications due to plasma blackout. 4:45 pm Phoenix has now entered the atmosphere. We expect possible plasma blackout in about a minute. Phoenix is less than three minutes to parachute deploy and less than seven minutes to touchdown. 4:39 pm We have now verified...

This will be the official thread for the Phoenix Mars Lander..

Mission controllers for NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander decided Saturday afternoon, May 24, to forgo the second-to-last opportunity for adjusting the spacecraft's flight path. Phoenix is so well on course for its Sunday-evening landing on an arctic Martian plain that the team decided it was not necessary to do a trajectory correction 21 hours before landing. However, the team left open the option of a correction maneuver eight hours before landing, if warranted by updated navigational information expected in the intervening hours. Sunday at 4:53 p.m. Pacific Time is the first possible time for confirmation that Phoenix has landed. The landing...

PASADENA, Calif. - After a nearly 10-month journey, a NASA spacecraft will land softly Sunday on the northern polar region of Mars, if all goes as planned. The Phoenix Mars Lander is set to touch down in a broad, shallow valley in the Martian arctic plains believed to hold a vast supply of underground ice. Phoenix's job during the 90-day mission is to excavate the soil and ice to study whether the site could have supported microbial life. The stakes are especially high: Fewer than half of the world's attempts to land on the Red Planet have succeeded. "I'm getting...

So far, so good for Martian gig NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is looking good for a Sunday touch-down on the Red Planet, with all systems "nominal and stable", according to the agency.

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2008 – The National Guard's 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team based in New York is part of a task force sent to Afghanistan to train and mentor the Afghan national security forces, a military official said yesterday. “Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix 12 consists of active, Guard, reserve, all services, components, coalition partners -- for a total of 8,500-plus soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen,” Army Col. Brian Balfe, commander of the U.S. Army National Guard’s 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, told online journalists and “bloggers.” While Task Force Phoenix is only on a nine-month tour as opposed...

Phoenix set to land on Mars 05.13.2008 May 13, 2008: NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is preparing to end its long journey and begin a three-month mission to taste and sniff fistfuls of Martian soil and buried ice. The lander is scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet on Sunday, May 25th.Phoenix will enter the top of the Martian atmosphere at almost 13,000 mph. In seven minutes, the spacecraft must complete a challenging sequence of events to slow to about 5 mph before its three legs reach the ground. Confirmation of the landing could come as early as 7:53 p.m....

A burglar, looking for loot inside a home near 8th and Northern avenues in Phoenix, instead found himself in the back of a police car, headed to jail. Neighbors who live in the area claim they have an undercover block watch system that helps keep criminals out of their community. "We know exactly who to call," one neighbor told ABC15. Police accuse Jesse Parra of breaking into Bill Marshall's home near 8th Avenue and Royal Palm Road. Marshall said the bad guy used a porch ornament to shatter his front window and break into his home. Though Marshall was not...

On Monday evening, April 21, mysterious lights were seen over Phoenix, Arizona. At just after eight, hundreds of residents called police and local news media to report four bright red lights hovering silently over the city. They changed shape after a while, moving from a triangular to rectangular configuration, then disappeared one by one.

*** WELCOME NASCAR FANS - THIS WEEK WE ARE AT PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY SATURDAY NIGHT RACING ~ WOOHOO ~ April 12, 2008 ~ FOX 8:00pm/et ROLL IN THE HAULERS STRAP THOSE SHOES ON TIGHT DON'T SHOOT THE CAR Qualifying: Thursday, April 10 at 8:00pm/et, TV-SPEED [MAKE YOUR FANTASY PICKS WEDNESDAY NIGHT] Practices: Thursday, April 10, 4:15 - 5:45pm/et, TV-SPEED; Friday, April 11, 6:45 - 7:30pm/et, TV-SPEED Happy Hour Practice: Friday, April 11, 8:00 - 9:00pm/et on TV-SPEED

Sophistry from the Superior Court : Ruling on CityNorth amends the state Constitution Without A Vote by the People Robert Robb, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, April 08, 2008 The Superior Court decision upholding the massive subsidy Phoenix gave CityNorth is an exercise in legal sophistry. Judge Robert Miles held that there were considerable public benefits from the building of the shopping center, and so there wasn't a violation of the state Constitution's gift clause. There is not, however, a public purpose or benefits exception to the gift clause ban. It states that no Arizona government "shall ever give or loan...

KJ Come Home! : Kevin Johnson turns on the heat for school choice Matthew Ladner, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, April 03, 2008 Former Phoenix Suns point guard Kevin Johnson didn’t consider himself benched when he retired from the game. Johnson, an NBA all-star who in 1993 helped bring the Suns as close to an NBA championship as they’ve ever been, is now jumping through hoops to bring school choice to the nation’s kids. Johnson grew up in Sacramento, California. After retirement he returned and founded a system of high-quality charter schools known as the St. Hope Academies. Johnson turned a...

When he came outside around 7:30 p.m., his truck was missing. Inside the truck, police said, were two .40-caliber Glock pistols with 100 rounds of ammunition, an AR-15 assault rifle with five fully loaded magazines, a ballistic vest, police uniforms and IDs, flat badges and wallet badges.

McCain's pastor a sharp contrast to Obama's By Ed Stoddard Sat Mar 22, 7:05 PM ET HOUSTON (Reuters) - John McCain's Phoenix pastor, Dan Yeary, is a folksy patriotic Southern Baptist who opposes abortion and believes homosexuality to be a biblical sin, but says Christians have an obligation to love such sinners. That puts Yeary, who heads the church attended for the past 15 years by the Republican presidential candidate firmly in the U.S. Southern Baptist mainstream, and in line with the Republican Party. He offers a sharp contrast to Democratic contender Barack Obama's former preacher Jeremiah Wright, who has...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

In his first major public address since recovering from complications due to cancer, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said Sunday that presidential candidate Barack Obama is the "hope of the entire world" that the U.S. will change for the better. Farrakhan and his family have a farm in New Buffalo Township in southwestern Michigan's Berrien County. Farrakhan, addressing an estimated crowd of 20,000 people at the annual Saviours' Day celebration, never outrightly endorsed Obama but spent the majority of the nearly two-hour speech praising the Illinois senator. "This young man is the hope of the entire world that America...

A distraught Tempe man was within sight of the Super Bowl on Sunday with an assault rifle, but a change of heart kept him from unloading 200 rounds of ammunition on the crowd, court records show. Kurt William Havelock, 35, turned himself in Sunday to Tempe police and the FBI at the urging of family and confessed his plan, which he hatched in retaliation for the Tempe City Council rejecting a liquor license application for a restaurant and bar he owns. According to court records, Havelock is charged with mailing threatening communications in the mailing of eight copies of a...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2008 – Operation Phantom Phoenix is succeeding in cracking down on Iraq's enemies, largely because of the Iraqi security forces’ professionalism and the cooperation of the Iraqi people, a senior U.S. military officer said in Baghdad today. Army Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner, spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, told reporters the joint offensive launched earlier this month continues to make headway in corralling remaining al-Qaeda-aligned terrorists and other insurgents in the country. “One of the reasons progress has been made and continues to be made in Iraq is the increasing courage of the Iraqi people as they reject...

PHOENIX -- Football fans struggling to find a place to stay for the Super Bowl may not be entirely out of luck: there are still beds available at the local monastery.The Benedictine nuns of Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery in Phoenix are renting out rooms during Super Bowl week for $250 a night, plus $50 extra for each additional person. That's not an unreasonable fee, considering a nearby Super 8 Motel is charging $500 a night."It's a different twist for us in the sense that we've never opened the monastery for an event like the Super Bowl," said Sister Linda...

Threat Assessment Points Out Vulnerabilities of High-profile Events WASHINGTON, DC, JANUARY 21, 2008 – Security for Super Bowl XLII, to be played at the University of Phoenix Stadium Feb. 3, is being described as “unprecedented,” and will include both covert and overt measures like ATF bomb-sniffing dogs trained to ferret out liquid explosives. But the federal government’s terrorism threat assessment of the upcoming game between the New England Patriots and New York Giants outlines concerns about stolen official law enforcement credentials, uniforms, weapons, and other equipment that could be used to “infiltrate” the stadium complex to carry out an attack.

MUQDADIYAH, Iraq, Jan. 16, 2008 – Diyala's provincial governor visited local representatives of qada, or county, governments in the Muqdadiyah area at Forward Operating Base Normandy here Jan. 14. The meeting brought Gov. Raad Rasheed Hameed al-Mullah together with the provincial directors general for essential services, including water, electricity, health, education, municipalities and oil, and their municipal counterparts. Army Maj. Nicholas Difiore, reconciliations engagement officer for the 2nd Infantry Division’s 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, said the meeting gave local leaders a critical forum to voice the needs of their village to the governor. In the past, the security situation...

The Daily Courier/Matt Hinshaw Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio talks during the Yavapai Republican Men’s Forum Monday afternoon at Hotel St. Michael in Prescott. Arpaio was the guest speaker at the forum. PRESCOTT - "I'm one politician who knows where the border is," commented Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio as he spoke at the Yavapai Republican Men's Forum at the Hotel St. Michael in Prescott Monday. Arpaio was here to talk about the new immigration law that went into effect on Jan. 1. "We have a new employer sanction law to address the illegal immigration problem," he said. "I am...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14, 2008 – Multinational Corps Iraq soldiers and Iraqi forces have discovered scores of weapons and explosives, detained six suspects, and destroyed booby-trapped homes in Iraq this month in coordinated offensives. Operation Phantom Phoenix, a series of coordinated assaults focused on pursuing al Qaeda and clearing terrorist safe havens, is the latest in a series of combat operations. A division-level operation in support of Operation Phantom Phoenix -- known as Operation Iron Harvest -- continues to pursue al Qaeda across four provinces of northern Iraq, military officials reported today. Within the first week of the operation, coalition and...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8, 2008 – U.S. and Iraqi forces today launched Operation Phantom Phoenix, a joint offensive designed to corral remaining al Qaeda-aligned terrorists and other insurgents in Iraq, according to a senior military official. Iraqi and coalition division- and brigade-level security forces will work in tandem to pursue and neutralize remaining al Qaeda in Iraq operatives and other extremists, said Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of Multinational Corps Iraq. Phantom Phoenix will employ lethal and nonlethal tactics to exploit recent security gains and disrupt terrorist support zones and their command and control systems, he said. “Working closely...