Wednesday 12-21-11

U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree Pays Homage to Obama—But Not Jesus

The 63-foot Sierra White Fir lighted at the U.S. Capitol Grounds on Dec. 6 as the official 2011 Capitol Christmas Tree includes a prominently displayed ornament paying homage to President Barack Obama, but includes no ornament readily visible to a person standing near the tree's base that uses the word “Christmas,” or includes an image of the Nativity, or bears the name or image of Jesus Christ.

On the north side of the tree--at a height of about 4 feet and easily visible to people standing near it---there is an ornament that says: “I ♥ President Obama.”

When asked whether the tree included any ornaments that mention or depict Christmas or the birth of Jesus, the office of the Architect of the Capitol, which is responsible for the tree, told CNSNews.com that it “does not have a policy nor any restrictions concerning the themes for the ornaments” that go on the tree. The office could not say, however, whether or not this year’s Christmas tree does in fact include even a single ornament that directly references or depicts Christmas or Christ.


The 2011 Capitol Christmas Tree (CNSNews.com/Terence P. Jeffrey)
The office of the Architect of the Capitol also did not directly respond to the question of whether any other elected official—in addition to President Obama—is mentioned on any ornament hung on the tree.

“There may be ornaments like those you describe near the top of the tree, or they could have been obscured or moved due to wind or weather,” the architect’s office said in a written statement to CNSNews.com.

Each year since 1964, Congress has been decorating a Christmas tree on the Capitol Grounds. Until 1968, the decorated tree was a live tree planted on the Grounds. Since then, the tree has been cut down—usually in a National Forest--and brought to the Capitol from somewhere in the United States. Since 1970, the U.S. Forest Service has been responsible for providing the tree.

Over the years, the Capitol Christmas Tree has come from an irregular rotation of states—including, not exclusively, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, Vermont, and California. The state that sends the tree in any given year, according to the Architect of the Capitol, chooses the theme for the ornaments it will bear. People from that state create the ornaments and donate them to the government.

This year’s tree came from the Stanislaus National Forest in Tuolumne County, Calif., which sits on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, due East of San Francisco.


The view looking past the Capitol Christmas Tree toward the Washington Monument. (CNSNews.com/Terence P. Jeffrey)
The theme for this year’s ornaments was “California Shines.”

“Ornaments should be designed to reflect our theme ‘California Shines’ by showing how the rich cultural and ecological diversity of this state make it shine,” says the tree’s official website, which was funded by corporate sponsors. ”From the Pacific Ocean to the sparkling deserts, from the high mountain peaks to its forests, rivers and abundant Central Valley, the diversity of nature and the people who live here are what make the great state of California shine.”

While the website said that all Californians were invited to submit ornaments, it put a special emphasis on getting students to participate.

“We invite participation from all Californians,” said the website. “From individuals, artists, crafters, young and old alike, any and all are invited to create and send in an ornament.”

But a flyer distributed by the website said: “Although anyone can participate, a special invitation goes out to school classes, after-school programs, home school groups, scout troops and all other interested youth groups to create the ornaments for the outdoor tree.”

In keeping with this special invitation to students, the official website also produced some environmental “lesson plans” that teachers could use in helping their students create ornaments.

“We ask that all ornaments for the Capitol Christmas Tree be made out of natural or recycled materials,” said the introduction to the lesson plans. “Please share the thoughts in our mini-lesson ‘There is No Away’ with your students when they create an ornament for the Tree.”


This ornament shows gold miner, backed by a Bible, circled by a quote from Psalm 19. (CNSNews.com/Terence P. Jeffrey)
“Ask students where they think that trash goes when they throw it away,” said this introduction. “Work with them until they understand that trash eventually ends up in a landfill. Show students the image of a landfill.”

Although the Capitol Christmas Tree, as it stood on the morning of Dec. 19, included no readily visible ornament that mentioned or depicted Christmas or Jesus, it did include one ornament that pointed to the Bible and Psalm 19. This ornament, made from an aluminum pie tin, shows a miner panning for gold with a Bible behind him. There is a gold cross on the cover of the Bible. Around the interior wall of the pie tin, these words are written with what appears to be a blue marker: “More precious than Gold” and “Psalm 19.”


This lonely religious ornament cites Psalm 19 with what appears to be a blue marker. (CNSNews.com/Terence P. Jeffrey)
Psalm 19 says in part: “The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. They are more precious than gold.”

The tree also includes an ornament that from a distance looks like it could be a cross--but closer up turns out to be a road sign, pointing the direction not to California—but 4837 miles to Hawaii.

Other prominent ornaments on the tree tout Disneyland, Hollywood, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The tree also includes a number of ornaments representing Christmas gift packages. The ribbons on these packages are arranged in a cross pattern--but all of them have "Happy Holidays" ensribed on them.

The official website of the Capitol Christmas Tree has posted 87 photos of Californians making ornaments or posing with ornaments they have made. One of these photos shows a young girl holding an ornament that depicts one of the missions founded in California in the 18th century by Spanish Franciscan missionaries. It is unclear whether this ornament was placed somewhere on the 63-foot tree.


From a distance, this ornament appears as if it could be a cross, but turns out to be a a mile marker pointing toward Hawaii. (CNSNews.com/Terence P. Jeffrey)
CNSNews.com sent a series of question about the ornaments to the U.S. Forest Service office in Tuolumne County, Calif., that was responsible for securing the tree and collecting the ornaments and sending them to Washington, D.C. These questions asked if any ornaments had been excluded because of their content and if there were any ornaments actually hung on the tree that expressly mentioned or depicted Christmas, or the birth of Jesus, or any Christian cultural site in California, such as the California missions.

Along with these questions, CNSNews.com sent the Forest Service a photograph of the ornaments that said “I ♥ President Obama” and that quoted Psalm 19, and asked if there were any other ornaments on the tree that mentioned an incumbent elected official or that cited a biblical passage from either the Old or New Testament.


A number of ornaments depict Christmas packages tied with ribbons in a cross pattern--but all say: "Happy Holidays." (CNSNews.com/Terence P. Jeffrey)
The Forest Service said that it had simply sent all ornaments that had been donated by Californians--along with the 63-foot White Sierra Fir--to Ted Bechtol, who works under the Architect of the Capitol as the Superintendent of the Capitol Ground. The Forest Service also said it had forwarded CNSnews.com’s questions to Bechtol.

Separately, CNSNews.com sent the questions and photos directly to Bechtol and Eva Malecki, communications officer for the Architect of the Capitol. Malecki responded with this statement:


An ornamental star celebrating Hollywood on the Capitol Christmas Tree. (CNSNews.com/Terence P. Jeffrey)
“Thank you for your inquiry. The Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) does not have a policy nor any restrictions concerning the themes for the ornaments donated for the Capitol Christmas Tree. Each state determines its own theme each year, and the U.S. Forest Service collects the ornaments from communities throughout the state from which the tree is donated. (For more information about the types of ornaments collected and collection process, I recommend you speak with the U.S. Forest Service.) Thousands of ornaments are delivered by the U.S. Forest Service to the U.S. Capitol in large boxes along with the Capitol Christmas Tree. There is no selection process to determine which ornaments were to be placed on the Capitol Christmas Tree and which were not based on theme or content. Rather, the Capitol Grounds crew has to decorate a 65-foot tree in a matter of days, therefore they place ornaments on the Capitol Christmas Tree until it is fully decorated. Their only concern is that the ornaments stand up to the weather (durable and waterproof). We cannot provide you with the information you requested as to the location of specific ornaments on the Capitol Christmas Tree. As I noted earlier, the Capitol Grounds crew placed thousands of the hand-crafted ornaments on the 65-foot tall Capitol Christmas Tree. There may be ornaments like those you describe near the top of the tree, or they could have been obscured or moved due to wind or weather. The Capitol Christmas Tree has been a wonderful tradition on Capitol Hill for more than 45 years, and it is not the AOC’s policy or practice to exclude the display of donated ornaments on the Capitol Christmas Tree because of any viewpoint of those individuals who created them.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/us-capitol-christmas-tree-pays-homage-obama-not-jesus

Monday 11-21-11

Foreign hackers targeted U.S. water plant in apparent malicious cyber attack, expert says
By Ellen Nakashima

Foreign hackers caused a pump at an Illinois water plant to fail last week, according to a preliminary state report. Experts said the cyber-attack, if confirmed, would be the first known to have damaged one of the systems that supply Americans with water, electricity and other essentials of modern life.

Companies and government agencies that rely on the Internet have for years been routine targets of hackers, but most incidents have resulted from attempts to steal information or interrupt the functioning of Web sites. The incident in Springfield, Ill., would mark a departure because it apparently caused physical destruction.

Federal officials confirmed that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security were investigating damage to the water plant but cautioned against concluding that it was necessarily a cyber-attack before all the facts could be learned. “At this time there is no credible corroborated data that indicates a risk to critical infrastructure entities or a threat to public safety,” said DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard.

News of the incident became public after Joe Weiss, an industry security expert, obtained a report dated Nov. 10 and collected by an Illinois state intelligence center that monitors security threats. The original source of the information was unknown and impossible to immediately verify.

The report, which Weiss read to The Washington Post, describes how a series of minor glitches with a water pump gradually escalated to the point where the pump motor was being turned on and off frequently. It soon burned out, according to the report.

The report blamed the damage on the actions of somebody using a computer registered to an Internet address in Russia. “It is believed that hackers had acquired unauthorized access to the software company’s database” and used this information to penetrate the control system for the water pump.

Experts cautioned that it is difficult to trace the origin of a cyber-attack, and that false addresses often are used to confuse investigations. Yet they also agreed that the incident was a major new development in cyber-security.

“This is a big deal,” said Weiss. “It was tracked to Russia. It has been in the system for at least two to three months. It has caused damage. We don’t know how many other utilities are currently compromised.”

Dave Marcus, director of security research for McAfee Labs, said that the computers that control critical systems in the United States are vulnerable to attacks that come through the Internet, and few operators of these systems know how to detect or defeat these threats. “So many are ill-prepared for cyber-attacks,” Marcus said.

The Illinois report said that hackers broke into a software company’s database and retrieved user names and passwords of control systems that run water plant computer equipment. Using that data, they were able to hack into the plant in Illinois, Weiss said.

Senior U.S. officials have recently raised warnings about the risk of destructive cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure. One of the few documented cases of such an attack resulted from a virus, Stuxnet, that caused centrifuges in an Iranian uranium enrichment facility to spin out of control last year. Many computer security experts have speculated that Stuxnet was created by Israel — perhaps with U.S. help — as a way to check Iran’s nuclear program.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/foreign-hackers-broke-into-illinois-water-plant-control-system-industry-expert-says/2011/11/18/gIQAgmTZYN_blog.html

Police: 2 Georgia Caregivers Waterboard 89-Year-Old Woman

JONESBORO, Ga. (CBS Atlanta) – Police charge two caregivers at a Jonesboro facility with waterboarding an 89-year-old woman.

Clayton County police said Jermeller Steed and Cicely Reed held down Anna Foley after an argument that started over ice cream.

They’re said to have allegedly held down Foley in a locked shower room, flooding her face with the hand-hold shower nozzle in 2008.

According to WGCL-TV, Foley was undergoing treatment at the facility for dementia. A co-worker witnessed the event and blew the whistle.

The technique slowly drowns subjects by blocking the air passages with flowing water while the subject is immobilized.

The Obama administration banned waterboarding suspected terrorists in January 2009, classifying it as torture.

Neither Steed nor Reed currently work at the elderly care facility.

http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2011/11/18/police-2-georgia-caregivers-waterboard-89-year-old-woman/

Police: Fake doc injected cement in woman's rear

MIAMI (AP) - A woman who wanted to work at a nightclub started searching for someone who could perform plastic surgery at a cheap price to give her a curvier body. Police say what she found was a woman posing as a doctor who filled her buttocks with cement, mineral oil and flat-tire sealant.

The suspect _ who police say was born a man and identifies as a woman _ apparently performed the surgery on herself, and investigators say she may have victimized others. Oneal Ron Morris, 30, was arrested Friday after a year on the lam and has been charged with practicing medicine without a license with serious bodily injury.

Police photos show Morris as a small-framed woman with bee-stung pouty lips, arched eyebrows, oversized hoop earrings _ and a large backside. She was released from jail on bond. A phone listing for Morris could not be found, and it's unclear if she has an attorney.

Miami Gardens Police Sgt. Bill Bamford said Sunday that Morris bounced from house to house for a year, driving a black Mercedes and staying out of investigators' sight "like a ghost." An officer drove by one of those possible houses nearly every day on his way to work and saw the car outside on Friday, and he arrested Morris soon after.

The victim, who is not being named due to medical privacy laws, paid $700 for a series of injections in May 2010. She was referred to Morris by a friend.

Morris injected some type of tube in several sites around her bottom, pumping it full of a toxic concoction. Morris reassured the woman when the pain became too intense, police said.

Bamford said Morris told the woman, "`Oh don't worry, you'll be fine. We just keep injecting you with the stuff and it all works itself out.'"

Bamford said the victim was reluctant to come forward. She quickly went to two South Florida hospitals due to severe abdominal pain and infected sores on her buttocks accompanied by flu-like symptoms. But she left each time, too embarrassed to tell doctors what she'd done.

Her mother eventually took her to a hospital on Florida's west coast, where alarmed doctors pressed her for information. They alerted the Department of Health.

"The doctors knew no licensed physician in his right mind would ever do this," Bamford said.

The victim is still recovering from the surgery and says it's too painful to work. She also has racked up numerous medical bills.

Authorities believe there are other victims who may be too embarrassed to come forward.

"(Morris) was readily introduced to our victim as someone who could help improve her shape, so we believe (she's) done this to other people," Bamford said.

http://wtop.com/?nid=209&sid=2640560