Free Republic

TONY EASTLEY: There are fears Israel may be preparing to bomb Iran's nuclear sites. Israel's Defence Minister has already speculated about a strike on Iran's underground atomic facilities, saying Israel would try to minimise civilian casualties. Now the United States Congress is about to approve the sale of 100 guided bunker-buster bombs to the Israeli military. The bombs can destroy targets 30 metres underground. But one of the Israeli pilots who bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981 has told AM that knocking out Iran's atomic program could prove beyond even Israel's capabilities. Middle East Correspondent Mark Willacy reports from Jerusalem....

Israel And Freedom For Jonathan Pollard By Caroline Glick The Jerusalem Post - With INA Publisher's Note Below Jerusalem ---- April 28......Jonathan Pollard is one of the most polarizing figures of our times. Pollard, a former intelligence analyst in US naval intelligence, has now served 20 years of a life imprisonment sentence following his conviction for transferring classified US intelligence materials relating to Arab ballistic missile and nonconventional weapons programs to Israel from May 1984 until his arrest in November 1985. For his contribution to Israel's security and for his long suffering in prison, Israel considers Pollard a national hero....

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A British engineer has collected a $10,000 (5,200 pounds) bounty for turning in his near-mint copy of a famous forty-year-old electronics magazine, but not before irking university librarians who rushed to secure their copies from thieves. Intel this month posted a reward for a copy of the April 1965 issue of Electronics, in which company co-founder Gordon Moore accurately forecast years of exponential improvements in computer chip performance. Later dubbed Moore's Law, the forecast has become gospel for $200 billion chip industry. News of the reward reached Surrey, England, where an engineer named David Clark found...

Wed 13 Apr 2005 9:47am (UK) Naval Security Reviewed over Ship Intruder By Ben Mitchell, PA A review of security at a major UK naval base has been carried out after an alleged intruder was found on board a visiting US aircraft carrier, the Royal Navy said today. The alleged trespasser was discovered on board the USS Harry S Truman, anchored off Stokes Bay, Gosport, Hants, on Saturday night during a week-long visit to Portsmouth Naval Base. A navy spokesman said the man had allegedly passed through both Royal Navy security and US Navy security to get on board passenger...

Dell will love AMD If its customers really really want them By: Friday 08 April 2005, 07:41 DELL SAYS that if its customers really, really demand AMD chips, the company will provide them. The promise comes from none other than CEO Kevin Rollins, and is probably just another indication that Dell is twisting and turning like a twisty turny thing with the mighty Intel or is hanging out for a better deal with AMD. Rollins comments were made at a press conference that took place at the conclusion of Dell's annual analysts' meeting for Wall Street and the news media....

The conclusions of last week's report by the U.S. presidential commission assessing the intelligence failures of the Iraq war make clear that the United States dramatically overestimated Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction capabilities. American intelligence, said the commission, led by Judge Laurence Silberman and former Sen. Chuck Robb, was "dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." Critics of Bush administration's foreign policy at home and abroad may hope that this extraordinary verdict will limit future U.S. military operations against other rogue regimes, given the risk of a similar, costly mistake. In...

Reporting now on FOX. Italian sources are suspecting a bomb on board. Story coming in fast.

For Immediate ReleaseApril 2, 2005 President's Radio Address      Audio THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Before I begin today, I would like to say a word about Pope John Paul II. His Holiness is a faithful servant of God and a champion of human dignity and freedom. He is an inspiration to us all. Laura and I join millions of Americans and so many around the world who are praying for the Holy Father. This week, the members of the independent commission looking into America's intelligence capabilities presented their report. I asked these men and women to give an unvarnished look...

The president of Intel, Paul S. Otellini, warned a federal panel addressing tax issues that because of high tax rates in the United States, his company may build its next $3 billion semiconductor factory overseas. Otellini, who will become Intel's chief executive in May, testified Thursday at a hearing of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform that over the 10-year life of a modern chip factory, the company would save $1 billion by placing the factory in Asia or Europe rather than in the United States. He said Intel, the world's largest chip maker, would make its decision...

Revenue Expected to be Between $9.2 Billion and $9.4 Billion SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 10, 2005 -- Intel Corporation expects revenue for the first quarter to be between $9.2 billion and $9.4 billion, as compared to the previous range of $8.8 billion to $9.4 billion. The first-quarter gross margin percentage is expected to be approximately 57 percent, plus or minus a point, as compared to the previous expectation of 55 percent, plus or minus a couple of points, primarily due to lower than expected 65nm start-up costs and microprocessor unit costs. All other expectations are unchanged. This Business Update is...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news), the world's largest chip maker, is offering U.S. states the promise of dollars of capital investment in exchange for an overhaul of their tax laws, which it says are making the United States less competitive than other regions of the world. The Santa Clara, California-based company is now heavily lobbying officials in Arizona and Oregon for tax cuts that could save the company tens of millions of dollars a year in property and income taxes. At the same time, executives have begun speaking out more forcefully about the lure of China,...

SAN FRANCISCO--Intel on Wednesday showed off its living room PC of the future--and it looks a lot like the Mac Mini. As part of a speech at the Intel Developer Forum here, Vice President Don MacDonald demonstrated several concept PCs, including the Sleek Concept Entertainment PC--a square, metallic-colored device that was immediately reminiscent of the desktop computer Apple Computer introduced earlier this year. It's unlikely that Intel itself would build such a device. The chipmaker often uses its twice-yearly developer events to try to spur creativity among computer makers. Past efforts have seen PCs twisted into all sorts of shapes...

AMD Challenges Intel to a Dual By Michael Singer AMD has challenged Intel to a dual ... as in dual-core processor. The No. 2 chipmaker drew first blood earlier this week at the company's Sunnyvale, Calif., facilities with a demonstration of a new dual-core AMD Athlon 64 processor, manufactured on 90-nanometer technology. The presentation follows last week's display of AMD's multi-core Opteron server and workstation chips at LinuxWorld. Intel's (Quote, Chart) chance to shine won't come till next week's Intel Developers Forum, where it is expected to demonstrate its dual-core Pentium 4, code-named Smithfield, and its Pentium M dual-core...

PRESIDENT Bush just made a very promising choice for our first national intelligence director: Ambassador John Negroponte. Thinking creatively, Bush picked someone who has had to rely upon intelligence, rather than an insider who can't see beyond the system's self-satisfied, mammoth bureaucracy. Normally, a diplomat would be a terrible choice to drive intel reform. Too many diplos just don't have the punch to make things happen. Negroponte's different. He's a hitter. With experience in Honduras during Central America's years of crisis, as well as in Mexico, the Philippines, the United Nations and now Iraq, this guy knows what it means...

The Bush administration has been flying surveillance drones over Iran for nearly a year to seek evidence of nuclear weapons programs and detect weaknesses in air defenses, according to three U.S. officials with detailed knowledge of the secret effort. The small, pilotless planes, penetrating Iranian airspace from U.S. military facilities in Iraq, use radar, video, still photography and air filters designed to pick up traces of nuclear activity to gather information that is not accessible by satellites, the officials said. The aerial espionage is standard in military preparations for an eventual air attack and is also employed as a tool...

Code word compromise The Joint Staff at the Pentagon last week ordered an investigation into the compromise of several programs that were revealed in a book by author William Arkin. According to a Jan. 25 cable from the Joint Staff to 14 military units, most of them involved in special operations, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has asked for an "opsec" or operational security assessment of possible national security damage to special access programs and other "operational compromises" in the book, "Code Names." The U.S. Special Operations Command will be the lead...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the advisory National Intelligence Council says he is not optimistic the United States and its allies can change Iran's intention of building a nuclear capacity. "I am somewhat more optimistic - somewhat, I emphasize - that we can, through diplomacy and a combination of pressure and inducements, keep them on track," council Chairman Robert Hutchings said in an interview Monday, his last day on the job. Senior U.S. officials suspect that Iran is continuing work on a covert program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful, energy-generation...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Recent trademark filings from Intel Corp. (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research) are raising speculation that the world's largest chip maker may be preparing to create a new global brand. The question is, what does VIIV mean? "Intel Inside VIIV" and "Intel VIIV" were filed as U.S. trademarks last month by the Santa Clara, California-based chip maker, known for its Pentium and Centrino brands. A square graphic, resembling an inkblot or a starfield, was also filed around the same time. Intel watchers have a few hypotheses on the meaning of VIIV. One is that the letters are Roman...

Notwithstanding former President Jimmy Carter's recent statement to the contrary, Undersecretary of State John Bolton's remarks about Cuba's biological weapons capabilities underscore lingering concerns with the rogue island only 90 miles from the United States. Bolton, on May 6, told an audience at the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation that the U.S. is suspicious about Cuban biomedical laboratories and their ability to transfer biological weapons technology to Iraq, Syria and Libya, all countries that Cuban President Fidel Castro visited last year. Bolton also made remarks, which may be interpreted as a clear signal of hardening State Department policy toward Cuba, faulting...

Chicago (IL) - Intel's upcoming dual-core processors once again will test the limits of power consumption. According to documents seen by Tom's Hardware Guide, the Smithfield CPUs are rated at a thermal design power of 130 watts, an increase of 13 percent from today's Prescott processors. Dual-core and multicore chips promise to be one of the most important advances in processor development history. Intel and AMD claim to be able to achieve new performance levels by integrating two processor cores into one package. This apparently will be possible even with processor frequencies significantly below today's fastest processors. We were...