News Item:
Xmas trees removed from Sea-Tac
Just last week we noted a story about Santa being replaced by Frosty the Snowman in a school program in New York state.  Now the Christmas trees have been removed from Seattle’s Sea-Tac airport, because of a protest by a local rabbi.  The rabbi wanted an 8 foot tall menorah […]

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I came across an interesting story about how a store detective at Target caught a group of traveling credit card fraudsters in Washington.
The store detective noted suspicious behavior - customers purchasing large amount of gift cards and did a little checking. When he did, he discovered that the cards being used were counterfeits.
When the merry […]

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The new identity theft protection and recovery service by Truston is live. The service is unique because it doesn’t require you to give up your personal information, which could be stored in a database, and used to commit identity theft if it falls into the wrong hands.
In case you’ve missed the weekly stories, databases are […]

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Fresh perspectives on today’s news by: Whymrhymer
It comes to light now (thanks to yet another White House staffer who leaked yet another classified document to the New York Times) that two days before resigning as Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld sent a memo to the President urging a change in the United States’ Iraq policy. […]

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Fresh perspectives on today’s news by: Whymrhymer
The Inspector General of the The United States Department of Justice, Glenn A. Fine, has informed the leaders of the House Judiciary Committee that his department has already conducted “initial inquiries” into the NSA’s (National Security Agency’s) electronic surveillance program (officially the “Terrorist Surveillance Program”) and is about to […]

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First gypsies impersonate Dr. Phil and now someone is selling tickets to the Oprah show that smell a little “phishy.”
Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan warned the public in a official statement:
In this case, e-mail recipients are asked to submit personal information and told they will receive tickets to The Oprah Winfrey Show after verification of […]

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Cops in Seattle are taking their fight to a whole new medium: ads on craigslist. Craig’s List is a popular no frills website service that allows users to post free classified ads, millions of users browse the site daily. Most of them are looking for general services, products or employment from other users but there […]

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Fresh perspectives on today’s news by: Whymrhymer
“With the resignation of Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman, President Bush intends to fill the post with Florida’s Mel Martinez, a Hispanic who led the battle in the U.S. Senate for amnesty for illegal aliens.”
That quote is the opening salvo in Pat Buchanan’s column this morning at […]

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by Craig Dimitri  
One of the final pieces of Election 2006 fell into place in the Pacific Northwest, late Monday night.  As of the weekend, several U.S. House campaigns were still not officially resolved, but the Wash. St/8th CD, in suburban Seattle, is no longer one of them.  The AP has officially declared freshman incumbent Rep. Dave Reichert (R) the winner […]

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I’ve had the opportunity to look at a lot of identity theft services, but until now - I’ve never run into one I considered “victim friendly.”
I’ve written off most of the services I’ve seen — either because they were financial services products (created by those who had compromised victims themselves) — or they were selling […]

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by Craig Dimitri
Along with the 8th CD (see separate story, below), blue Washington State could provide some early-Wednesday-AM solace to DC Republicans.  Two freshman Republicans could pull out their races.  Rep. Cathy McMorris - in former Democratic Speaker Tom Foley’s seat - even has a statistically significant, albeit narrow, lead over her challenger, Peter Goldmark (D).
McMorris […]

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by Craig Dimitri  
In light of the national political environment, and metropolitan Seattle’s Democratic leanings, it’s amazing that freshman Rep. Dave Reichert (R) has a fighting chance of quenching the challenge from former Microsoft executive Darcy Burner (D).  Reichert was elected in 2004 with just 51.5% of the vote, in a district carried narrowly by John F. […]

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According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse — which tracks data breaches where personal and financial information was compromised — 97,148,596 million people have had their personal information exposed since February 2005.
Now Starbucks has joined their list by compromising their “own.” Four laptops have mysteriously “gone missing” from their corporate headquarters - two of them contained […]

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Afghanistan’s primary industry, its main export and the chief prop holding up its shaky economy is opium cultivation. For tens of thousands of Afghani opium farmers and their families growing the opium poppy that supplies Europe with an estimated 92% of its heroin is their only means of livlihood. The US supports the government of Afghanistan with billions […]

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Daily news and commentary by: Whymrhymer
With the 2006 election only two weeks away, the news media has already predicted a winner: the Democratic Party. They base their predictions partly on polls results from professional polling organizations and partly on a burning desire to see President Bush loose control of the House and Senate . . […]

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September 6, 2006 was a day like any other for most of us, but for Jeffrey Alan Ingram it was the day he lost his memory.
It was not until September 10 that Jeffrey, a 40 year old man from Washington, turned up at a Denver Colorado police station. In the days that followed an obviously […]

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A couple of weeks ago, I updated an earlier post about counterfeit American Express Gift Cheques and asked my readers to help me discover exactly how these items were surfacing.
Prior to this, I knew they were showing up over a wide geographical area, but no one was “sharing” how they happened to get them.
One reader […]

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