Outstanding Statement by Congressman Mike Rogers

Israel: U.S. Consulate Car Tried to Run Over Checkpoint Guard

by: FoxNews

An American diplomatic vehicle allegedly tried to run over an Israeli security guard at a border checkpoint in Israel last month, setting off a diplomatic scuffle that is straining relations between the two nations, the Jerusalem Post reported.

In an episode that was reportedly caught on tape, a five-car U.S. convoy was stopped at the Gilboa border crossing in the northern West Bank on Nov. 13 but refused to identify themselves or open any windows or doors for inspection by Israeli security.

What followed, according to the Post, was recorded in an official report that has kicked up a diplomatic dust storm in Israel.

Drivers in the American convoy blocked the crossing, the report says, tried running over a Defense Ministry security guard and made indecent gestures at female guards, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The incident led to a testy meeting five days later, when U.S. and Israeli officials met in Jerusalem to discuss the case and at least one other involving a Palestinian woman who was found in a U.S. diplomatic car without appropriate documentation.

The U.S. response, the Post norted, further angered Israeli officials: the chief regional security officer reportedly told his Israeli counterparts that "simple guards" had no authority to inspect senior diplomats.

The alleged incident apparently occurred just two days after the border crossing was opened to vehicular traffic, according to information from the Israeli Defense Ministry.

Actress Brittany Murphy Dies At Age 32

LOS ANGELES - Brittany Murphy, the actress who got her start in the sleeper hit "Clueless" and rose to stardom in "8 Mile" before her movie roles declined in recent years, died Sunday in Los Angeles of what appeared to be natural causes, a Los Angeles County coroner's official said. She was 32.

Murphy was pronounced dead at 10:04 a.m. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Sally Stewart said.

Murphy was transported to the hospital after the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a call at 8 a.m. at the home she shared with her husband, British screenwriter Simon Monjack, in the Hollywood Hills.

Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said Murphy apparently collapsed in the bathroom, and authorities were looking into her medical history.

An official cause of death may not be determined for some time, since toxicology tests will be required, but "it appears to be natural," Winter said. He said an autopsy was planned for Monday or Tuesday.

Winter said Murphy's family was cooperating with the coroner's investigation. Funeral arrangements have not been announced, he said.

Los Angeles police have opened an investigation into Murphy's death, Officer Norma Eisenman said. Detectives and coroner's officials were at Murphy and Monjack's home Sunday afternoon but did not talk to reporters. Paparazzi were camped outside the multistory home, located above the Sunset Strip.

Messages left for Murphy's manager and agent by The Associated Press were not immediately returned.

Neighbor Clare Staples said she saw firefighters working to resuscitate the actress Sunday morning. She said Murphy was on a stretcher and "looked as though she was dead at the scene."

Murphy's husband, wearing pajama bottoms and no shoes, appeared "dazed" as firefighters tried to save her, Staples said. "It's just tragic," she added.

TMZ.com first reported Murphy's death Sunday morning.

Murphy's father, Angelo Bertolotti, said he learned of her death from his son, the actress's brother, and was stunned.

"She was just an absolute doll since she was born," Bertolotti said from his Branford, Fla., home. "Her personality was always outward. Everybody loved her — people that made movies with her, people on a cruise — they all loved her. She was just a regular gal."

He said he hadn't heard much about the circumstances of Murphy's death. Bertolotti divorced her mother when Murphy was young and hadn't seen Murphy in the past few years. He said he used to be in the mob and served prison time on federal drug charges.

"She was just talented," Bertolotti said. "And I loved her very much."

Meanwhile, Murphy's publicist, Nicole Perna, said in a statement: "In this time of sadness, the family thanks you for your love and support. It is their wish that you respect their privacy."

Born Nov. 10, 1977, in Atlanta, Murphy grew up in New Jersey and later moved with her mother to Los Angeles to pursue acting.

Her career started in the early 1990s with small roles in television series, commercials and movies. She is best known for parts in "Girl, Interrupted," "Clueless" and "8 Mile."

Her on-screen work had lessened of late, but Murphy's voice gave life to numerous animated characters, including Luanne Platter on more than 200 episodes of Fox's "King of the Hill" and Gloria the penguin in the 2006 feature "Happy Feet."

She is due to appear in Sylvester Stallone's upcoming film, "The Expendables," set for release next year.

Her role in "8 Mile" led to more recognition, Murphy told AP in 2003. "That changed a lot," she said. "That was the difference between people knowing my first and last name as opposed to not."

Murphy credited her mother, Sharon, with being a key to her success.

"When I asked my mom to move to California, she sold everything and moved out here for me," Murphy said. "I was really grateful to have grown up in an environment that was conducive to creating and didn't stifle any of that. She always believed in me."

She dated Ashton Kutcher, who costarred with Murphy in 2003's romantic comedy "Just Married."

Kutcher sent a message on Twitter Sunday morning about Murphy's death: "2day the world lost a little piece of sunshine," Kutcher wrote. "My deepest condolences go out 2 Brittany's family, her husband, & her amazing mother Sharon."

Source: http://omg.yahoo.com/news/actress-brittany-murphy-dies-in-la-at-age-32/32971?nc

Pregnant Soldiers Could Face Court-Martial

(12-18) 14:27 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --


A U.S. Army general in northern Iraq has added pregnancy to the list of reasons a soldier under his command could be court-martialed.

The new policy, outlined last month by Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo and released Friday by the Army, would apply to both female soldiers who become pregnant on the battlefield and the male soldiers who impregnate them.

Civilians reporting to Cucolo also could face criminal prosecution under the new guidelines.

Army spokesman George Wright said the service typically sends home from the battlefield soldiers who become pregnant. But it is not an Army-wide policy to punish them under the military's legal code, he said.

However, division commanders like Cucolo have the authority to impose these type of restrictions to personnel operating under their command, Wright said.

Cucolo oversees forces in northern Iraq, an area that includes the cities of Kirkuk, Tikrit and Mosul. His Nov. 4 order was first reported by the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

Cucolo's order outlines some 20 barred activities. Most of them are aimed at keeping order and preventing criminal activity, such as selling a weapon or taking drugs.

But other restrictions seemed aimed at preventing soldiers from leaving their unit short-handed, including becoming pregnant or undergoing elective surgery that would prevent their deployment.

Under Cucolo's order, troops also are prohibited from "sexual contact of any kind" with Iraqi nationals. And, they cannot spend the night with a member of the opposite sex, unless married or expressly permitted to do so.

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/18/national/w142710S58.DTL&tsp=1

I Served My Country- and Ended Up Living In My Car

by: Jennifer Crane, as told to Lynn Harris

I woke up around 7:00 A.M. to the sound of someone knocking on the window of my Volkswagen. It was the police. They asked if I was OK, then asked me to move on. I'd spent the night parked outside a shopping center—not because I'd been too sleepy to drive home, as I'd told the officers, but because I was home. I was living in my car.

When the police left, I sat for a minute, watching churchgoers walk into a nearby restaurant for breakfast. Sweating in the Sunday-morning sun, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw someone I hardly recognized. I didn't see a 22-year-old war veteran; I saw a piece of garbage.

I thought back to how it had all started, five years earlier, with a blue-eyed female Army recruiter who had come to my small-town high school in Downingtown, PA, when I was 17. I looked at her and thought, If she can do it, so can I. My first day of basic training came on September 11, 2001, the day the World Trade Center fell.

On that day, I was sitting in the Army reception office at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, when suddenly the drill sergeants started running around like crazy. Soon after, they put me into formation with the other new recruits, called attention, and said, "America has been attacked, and the Twin Towers have fallen. We're going to war." Then they said, "Left face," and we marched. We were instructed to call home to let our families know we were not in harm's way. During that call, my mom told me a little about what had happened on 9/11, but over the next three months, we weren't allowed to watch television or read any newspapers or magazines, so I didn't see the footage from that terrible day until I went home for Christmas break. I was shocked when I did.

I arrived in Afghanistan in March 2003. When our plane landed, the hot sun hit us hard in our full gear—boots, flak jackets, long-sleeve shirts, Kevlar helmets, rucksacks. I looked around and saw...nothing. We were in the middle of the desert; it was 122 degrees.

My unit got attacked two weeks later. It was 2:00 in the morning when the first explosion rocked the base. I ran out of my tent and saw a huge flash of light—a mortar that had been launched from the mountains surrounding us, likely by the Taliban. Over the next few weeks, these attacks became a regular occurrence.

I saw so many gruesome sights. Wooden wagons would roll by carrying wounded civilians—some with brain matter hanging out of their heads—to the hospital on our base. After about a month-and-a-half, the stress started to take its toll. I fell into a deep depression and stopped eating. I became profoundly dehydrated. One day I fainted, hit my head on the bathroom floor, and wound up in the hospital. I had gone from 180 pounds to 106. My heart rate lying down was over 150, meaning my heart was working way too hard. The doctors said I could die of a heart attack by age 20. As I lay on my cot, I looked over at the young boy next to me; he had no arms or legs, and blood poured through his bandages as he screamed. Beyond his bed lay rows of children with missing limbs.

The doctors sent me to a medical center in Germany. On the flight, I watched my colonel, who was also on his way to the center for treatment, go into cardiac arrest and die right beside me.

After two weeks in Germany, in mid-October, I got shipped off to Washington, D.C., and then to Fort Dix in New Jersey, where I received an honorable discharge, on December 20, 2003.

That's when my problems really began.
When you come home from war, you don't know where you fit in. My friends and family in Downingtown didn't understand what I'd gone through, so I slowly began distancing myself from them. If nobody's going to understand what you're saying, why say it?

Nighttime was another issue. I would relive my war experiences the second I closed my eyes—I'd have visions of that first attack on my base, those screaming children, my dying colonel.

In January 2004, someone offered me cocaine at a party. The coke kept me awake all night. Suddenly, I saw a solution to my nightmares: I would simply stop sleeping. I quickly drifted into the life of a druggie, living with a boyfriend in a rented room, bartending, dealing. I didn't tell my family what was going on.

A year-and-a-half later, in August 2005, my friend Steve, a Marine who'd fought in the Gulf War, died in a motorcycle accident. His death devastated me. He had been the only person who could understand me as a soldier. I attended his funeral in my military uniform, high as a kite.

"The cocaine kept me awake all night. I saw a solution to my nightmares: I would stop sleeping."

Then one afternoon, I ran into an old friend while buying a McDonald's Dollar Meal, the only thing I could afford. I admitted that I was in a bad way, and she said, "You're a vet—contact the VA!" I knew there was a Veterans Affairs office just 10 minutes away; I'd been there briefly when I'd first come home, but I didn't know about the VA substance-abuse programs. I thought about what Steve would want me to do and about how far I'd fallen. And I decided to make the leap. So, more than two years after becoming an addict, I admitted my problem to my mom and checked myself into a VA drug-treatment center. First, though, I finished a bag of cocaine in the parking lot. The idea, of course, was that it would be my last.

I completed two weeks of rehab, and then went to a three-month VA program for people with post-traumatic stress disorder. But after only one month there, the doctors, unbelievably, asked me to leave. They said the treatment wasn't really helping me—although I disagreed—and that as one of only two women in the group, I was distracting the male patients, who apparently found me attractive. I begged them, literally on my hands and knees, to let me stay; I knew I wasn't ready to go back into society. I knew what would happen if I tried. Incredibly, they said no.

I left the VA Medical Center and went straight to my drug dealer's house. I told him I needed something strong to get rid of my pain. That day, I started smoking crack. I hit bottom so fast, it was amazing. I went from being happy with my progress to having no hope at all. I used all day, every day. I tried to hold down jobs—bartender, waitress, receptionist—but I was so strung out that I couldn't get out of bed to go to work. When I was at work, I was high. I got fired from every job. At one point, I just quit trying.

I couldn't afford rent, I couldn't go to my mom's house unless I was clean, and I couldn't stop fighting with my boyfriend long enough to stay with him. That's how I wound up living in my car.

For several months, in exchange for drugs, I ran errands for my dealer and cleaned his home. He also asked me to be a "dancer"—in other words, dance privately for his friends and customers. Clinging to my last shred of dignity, I said no. But not long after, I had sex with him for drugs. I felt so disgusted afterward, I took out a lighter and burned the clothes I'd worn that night.

Then, in August 2006, as I was driving away from my dealer's house, seven police cars suddenly surrounded me. I was handcuffed and arrested for possession of the crack cocaine I had with me. But when I wouldn't give them the name of my dealer (which would be suicide), they eventually gave up and let me go.

The very next day, my old friends held a reunion on the anniversary of Steve's death. When I showed up, everyone stared. I was emaciated, with my eyes darting around and contusions all over my face from picking my skin, out of anxiety. When I spotted one of my oldest and dearest friends, Jason, he gently whispered, "What's wrong?" With his Timberlands, tattoos, and crew cut, he made me smile, and his simple question moved me. I told him, "I have to change my life, and I don't know how to do it."

Jason sat up with me all night. I didn't get high. I cried and I shook, and he held me, saying, "I'm not letting you leave." That night—those words—changed everything. I finally felt ready to let someone help me. I began to imagine getting clean.

Turns out, the court actually helped me in my mission. I happened to learn that the police had a warrant for my arrest, and I ended up entering a court-ordered drug program to avoid jail time. The program required me to stay gainfully employed, do random drug screenings, undergo counseling, and keep in touch with a judge. I felt determined to make it work this time. I got a job waitressing and bartending at a local restaurant, and, for the first time in years, managed to stay clean.

Six months later, I ran into Jason again, and we started seeing each other regularly. But then my drug-counseling program ended, and I couldn't afford the fees to extend it. So my counselor told me about a program she was working with in Bethesda, MD, called Give an Hour, which provides free mental-health services to military personnel. I started seeing her through the program, at no cost. I honestly don't think I would've survived without her help.

Today, I'm a spokeswoman for Give an Hour, speaking publicly about soldiers and mental-health issues. I'm married to Jason, who owns a race-car body shop, and we have an 8-month-old daughter, Hailey Marie. Yes, I still have nightmares. And if a helicopter flies overhead when I'm sitting on my porch, my mind flashes right back to those attacks on my base. It's like an out-of-body experience. The only way to control it is to breathe deeply and remind myself that I'm safe at home, which I really am. I'm back to my old self—and I'm also a new person.

Without my experiences, I wouldn't be able to reach out to troubled war veterans, especially women, and say, "If I can turn my life around, so can you." I hope that when soldiers meet me—not your typical war-veteran poster child—they will see that there is life after war, and after more personal battles, too.

Source: Marie Claire Magazine January 2010 P. 84

UN Security Stops Journalist’s Questions About ClimateGate

By: Mike Flynn

A Stanford Professor has used United Nation security officers to silence a journalist asking him “inconvenient questions” during a press briefing at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Professor Stephen Schneider’s assistant requested armed UN security officers who held film maker Phelim McAleer, ordered him to stop filming and prevented further questioning after the press conference where the Stanford academic was launching a book.



McAleer, a veteran journalist and film maker, has recently made a documentary “Not Evil Just Wrong’ which takes a sceptical look at the science and politics behind Global Warming concerns.


He asked Professor Schneider about his opinions on Climategate – where leaked emails have revealed that a senior British professor deleted data and encouraged colleagues to do likewise if it contradicted their belief in Global Warming.

Professor Phil Jones, the head of Britain’s Climate Research Unit, has temporarily stood down pending an investigation into the scandal.

Professor Schneider, who is a senior member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said he would not comment on emails that may have been incomplete or edited.

During some testy exchanges with McAleer, UN officials and Professor Schneider’s assistants twice tried to cut short McAleer’s question.

However as the press conference drew to a close Professor Schneider’s assistant called armed UN security guards to the room. They held McAleer and aggressively ordered cameraman Ian Foster to stop filming. The guard threatened to take away the camera and expel the film crew from the conference if they did not obey his instructions to stop filming Professor Schneider.

The guard demanded to look at the film crews press credentials and refused to allow them to film until Professor Schneider left the room.
McAleer said he was disappointed by Professor Schneider’s behaviour.

“It was a press conference. Climategate is a major story – it goes to the heart of the Global Warming debate by calling into question the scientific data and the integrity of many scientists involved.”

“These questions should be answered. The attempts by UN officials and Professor Schneider’s assistant to remove my microphone were hamfisted but events took a more sinister turn when they called an armed UN security officer to silence a journalist.”

Two officers corralled the film crew and one officer can be seen on tape threatening the cameraman. The Guard can also be heard warning that if the crew did not stop filming their would seize the equipment and the journalists expelled from the conference.

McAleer says he has made an official complaint tabout the incident.

“I have met Mr Christopher Ankerson the UN’s head of security for the conference and he has confirmed it was Professor Schneider’s staff who asked the security guards to come corral us at the press conference. Mr Ankerson could not say what grounds the security guard had for ordering us to stop filming.”

“This is a blatant attempt to stop journalists doing journalism and asking hard questions. It is not the job of armed UN security officers to stop legitimate journalists asking legitimate questions of senior members of the UN’s IPCC.”

Professor Schneider was interviewed for McAleer’s “Not Evil Just Wrong” documentary but lawyers later wrote to McAleer saying he was withdrawing permission for the interview to be used.

McAleer, who is from Ireland, has gained quite a reputation for asking difficult questions of those who have been promoting the idea of man-made Global Warming.

His microphone was cut off after he asked former vice-president Al Gore about the British court case which found that An Inconvenient Truth had a nine significant errors and exaggerations. Almost 500,000 people have watched the incident on youtube.

Mystery Spiral Blue Light Hovers Above Norway

What's blue and white, squiggly and suddenly appears in the sky?

If you know the answer, pop it on a postcard and send it to the people of Norway, where this mysterious light display baffled residents yesterday.

Curiously, it appears to be unconnected with the aurora borealis, or northern lights, the natural magnetic phenomena that can often be viewed in that part of the world.


The mystery began when a blue light seemed to soar up from behind a mountain in the north of the country. It stopped mid-air, then began to move in circles. Within seconds a giant spiral had covered the entire sky. Then a green-blue beam of light shot out from its centre - lasting for ten to 12 minutes before disappearing completely.

Onlookers describing it as 'like a big fireball that went around, with a great light around it' and 'a shooting star that spun around and around'.

The Norwegian Meteorological Institute was flooded with telephone calls after the light storm.


Totto Eriksen, from Tromsø, told VG Nett: 'It spun and exploded in the sky,'
He spotted the lights as he walked his daughter Amalie to school.

He said: 'We saw it from the Inner Harbor in Tromsø. It was absolutely fantastic.
'It almost looked like a rocket that spun around and around and then went diagonally down the heavens.

'It looked like the moon was coming over the mountain, but then came something completely different.'

Celebrity astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard said he had never seen anything like the lights.

He said: 'My first thought was that it was a fireball meteor, but it has lasted far too long.
'It may have been a missile in Russia, but I can not guarantee that it is the answer.




Air traffic control in Tromsō claimed the light show lasted 'far too long to be an astronomical phenomenon'.

Norwegian defence spokesman Jon Espen Lien also said the lights were probably from a Russian missile test claiming it was normal for Russia to use the White Sea and the Barents Sea as a testing ground.

Tromsō Geophysical Observatory researcher Truls Lynne Hansen agreed, saying the missile had likely veered out of control and exploded, and the spiral was light reflecting on the leaking fuel.

But the mystery deepened last night as Russia denied it had been conducting missile tests in the area.

A Moscow news outlet quoted the Russian Navy as denying any rocket launches from the White Sea area.

Norway should be informed of such launches under international agreements, it was stressed.
The Russian Defence Ministry was unavailable for comment.



By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 12:53 AM on 10th December 2009

Virgin Galactic Unveils Commercial Spaceship

Associated Press

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, slung beneath White Knight Two, the twin-fuselage mothership that will carry SpaceShipTwo to launch altitude. Richard Branson unveiled his Virgin Galactic spaceliner for tourists willing to pay 200,000 dollars a ticket Monday for a trip into the weightlessness of space in a craft designed to make the perilous return home.
(AFP/File/Robyn Beck)

By ALICIA CHANG,
AP Science Writer

MOJAVE, Calif. – The sleek, bullet-shaped spacecraft is about the size of a large business jet — with wide windows and seats for six well-heeled passengers to take a ride into space.

It's billed as the world's first commercial spaceship, designed to be carried aloft by an exotic jet before firing its rocket engine to climb beyond the Earth's atmosphere.

On Monday, Virgin Galactic took the cloak off SpaceShipTwo, which had been under secret development for two years. The company plans to sell suborbital space rides for $200,000 a ticket, offering passengers 2 1/2-hour flights that include about five minutes of weightlessness.

"We want this program to be a whole new beginning in a commercial era of space travel," said Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson, who partnered with famed aviation designer Burt Rutan on the venture.

The British billionaire hopes to begin passenger flights out of New Mexico sometime in 2011 after a series of rigorous safety tests. Branson said he, his family and Rutan will be the first to fly on SpaceShipTwo.

SpaceShipTwo's debut marks the first public appearance of a commercial passenger spacecraft. The white, stubby-winged spaceship sat in a Mojave Desert hangar, where it had been attached to the jet that will carry it to launch altitude.

An official rollout for potential space tourists, dignitaries and other VIPs was slated for later Monday. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson were expected to christen the ship "Enterprise."

SpaceShipTwo is based on Rutan's design of a prototype called SpaceShipOne. In 2004, SpaceShipOne captured the $10 million Ansari X Prize by becoming the first privately manned craft to reach space.

Since that historic feat, engineers from Rutan's Scaled Composites LLC have been laboring in the Mojave Desert on a larger design suitable for commercial use.

Some 300 clients have paid the $200,000 ticket or placed a deposit, according to Virgin Galactic.

"NASA spent billions upon billions of dollars on space travel and has only managed to send 480 people," Branson said. "We're literally hoping to send thousands of people into space over the next couple of years. We want to make sure that we build a spaceship that is 100 percent safe."

The last time there was this level of hoopla in the high desert was a little more than a year ago when Branson and Rutan trotted out to great fanfare the twin-fuselage mothership, White Knight Two, that will carry SpaceShipTwo.

Despite the hype, hard work lies ahead before space journeys could become as routine as air travel.

Flight testing of White Knight Two has been ongoing for the past year. The first SpaceShipTwo test flights are expected to start next year, with full-fledged space launches to its maximum altitude in 2011.

SpaceShipTwo, built from lightweight composite materials and powered by a rocket engine, is similar to its prototype cousin with three exceptions. It's twice as large, measuring 60 feet long with a roomy cabin about the size of a Falcon 900 executive jet. It also has more windows including overhead portholes. And while SpaceShipOne was designed for three people, SpaceShipTwo can carry six passengers and two pilots.

"It's a big and beautiful vehicle," said X Prize founder Peter Diamandis, who has seen SpaceShipTwo during various stages of development.

Space travel has been limited so far to astronauts and a handful of wealthy people who have shelled out millions to ride Russian rockets to the International Space Station.

The debut of Branson's craft could not come sooner for the scores of wannabe astronauts eager to pay big money to experience zero gravity.

After SpaceShipOne's history-making flights, many space advocates believed private companies would offer suborbital space joyrides before the end of this decade. Virgin Galactic once predicted passengers could fly into space by 2007.

George Washington University space policy scholar John Logsdon called the milestones "measured progress." He was not surprised the commercial space industry is still in its infancy.

"Their business will collapse if they had an accident in one of the early flights. I'm sure they're being cautious," he said.

Tragedy struck in 2007 when an explosion killed three of Rutan's engineers during a routine test of SpaceShipTwo's propellant system. The accident delayed the engine's development.

Virgin Galactic plans to operate commercial space flights out of a taxpayer-funded spaceport under construction in New Mexico.

SpaceShipTwo will be carried aloft by White Knight Two and released at 50,000 feet. The craft's rocket engine then burns a combination of nitrous oxide and a rubber-based solid fuel to climb more than 65 miles above the Earth's surface.

After reaching the top of its trajectory, the craft will fall back into the atmosphere and glide to a landing like an airplane. Its descent is controlled by "feathering" its wings to maximize aerodynamic drag.

Virgin Galactic expects to spend more than $400 million for a fleet of five commercial spaceships and launch vehicles.

It's not the only player in the commercial space race. A handful of entrepreneurs including Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, computer game programmer John Carmack and rocketeer Jeff Greason are building their own suborbital rockets.

Associated Press video journalist John Mone contributed to this report.

Jarrett Jack or the Raptors Ties Shoes During Game

Jack ties shoelace during live play; Bulls watch, twiddle thumbs
By J.E. Skeets

Oh, this is gold.

Nearing the end of Saturday night's Raptors-Bulls' third quarter action, Raptors point guard Jarrett Jack(notes) held the ball at the top of the key. Noticing his shoelace was undone — Velcro, kids! Wear Velcro! — Jack tucked the rock under his arm while the clock continued to run, bent over and tied it back up.

Not a single Bulls player tried to steal or knock the ball away.

Guess which team lost by 32 points.

Not surprisingly, the Bulls' lack of effort (and wins, and scoring, and coaching ...) has pushed some diehard fans to the proverbial edge.

Sham of ShamSports.com:

"That [play] basically summed up the whole game. The Bulls played worse than any team has ever played in any game at any standard in any season of any decade in any league in any country of any sport ever. They were listless, talentless and overmatched, with the playbook of a Corleggy cheese [...]

It's the only time I've ever turned a game because I couldn't stand to watch it. Bad, bad, bad times. If you happen to own or run an NBA team and are looking to hire someone to work 80 hour weeks as a professional nerd, hire me. Because then I can stop supporting the Bulls."

To which I say: Try and look on the bright side of things, Sham; at least none of the Bulls players offered to tie Jack's laces for him.