2007 New Years celebrations around the world~HAPPY NEW TO ALL FROM THE USA

WISHING YOU AND YOURS A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR !



The Australian city of Sydney provided a huge fireworks display for its New Years celebration as countries around the world began to usher in 2007.

As many as 1 million Sydneysiders braved wind to welcome 2007, but predicted rain stayed away. And, as usual, the Harbour Bridge was the hub of the extravaganza.

The midnight (1100 GMT) fireworks show, billed the biggest and best to date, lasted 13 minutes and featured pyrotechnics displays off CBD buildings, the bridge and harbourside locations.

The 4-million-Australia-dollar (3.2-million-US-dollar) festivities were dubbed "a Diamond Night in the Emerald City."

In her New Year's Eve message, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the city could make a shared commitment to strengthening the community and extending goodwill and optimism into 2007.

SAIGON NEW YEAR 2007 FESTIVAL


Jan. 1: Fireworks explode over the London Eye on New Year's Day celebrations by the river Thames in London.

About New Years
Ever wonder about the traditions of New Year? How did they start? Why is celebrating the New Year such a big deal? Where did new year resolutions come from?

New Year's Day is the first day of the calendar year. It is celebrated as a holiday in almost every country in the world. It is a time of gaiety, sharing with friends, remembering the past, and hoping for good things in the future. In the United States, thousands of people jam Times Square in New York City to welcome the New Year at midnight. The transition between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day is an exciting one. In Times Square, people countdown the seconds to welcome the new day as the New Year ball slowly descends and lights up the area.

Not all countries or cultures celebrate New Year on January 1st. The Chinese, Egyptian, Jewish, Roman, and Mohammedan years all have different start dates. Chinese New Year starts on a different day each year. Thousands of years ago, the Egyptians celebrated their New Year about the middle of June. That was the time when the Nile River usually overflowed. January 1 is became recognized as New Year's Day in the 1500's when the Gregorian Calendar was introduced. The Julian Calendar places the New Year on January 14. The Jewish New Year, a feast day, is celebrated about the time of the fall equinox, in late September.

In ancient Rome, the first day of the New Year honored Janus - the god of gates and doors and beginnings and endings. The month of January was named after this god. Janus had two faces. One looked ahead to see what the new year will bring and the other looked backward to see what happened during the past year. So this is how the Romans celebrated. They also gave their friends gifts. Often gifts were given to Senators in exchange for favors.

In England, Druid priests celebrated their New Years on March 10. They gave branches of mistletoe to people for charms. Later, English people followed the custom of cleaning their chimneys on New Year's Day. The English believed this brought good luck to the household for the coming year. The expression "cleaning the slate" came from this custom. It means making resolutions to correct faults and bad habits. People resolve to make themselves better in the New Year. It is still custom today to make a list of resolutions.

U.S. President Gerald Ford is placed in the U.S. Capitol rotunda

The casket containing the body of former U.S. President Gerald Ford is placed in the U.S. Capitol rotunda where it will lie in state in Washington.


WASHINGTON - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney hailed former U.S. President Gerald Ford at a state funeral on Saturday for pardoning Richard Nixon, his disgraced predecessor, and helping to heal the nation after the Watergate scandal.

Ford, the 38th president who died on Tuesday at age 93, steered the United States through "a crisis that could have turned to catastrophe," said Cheney, chief of staff in Ford's White House 30 years ago and an honorary pallbearer at the ceremony in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.

Ford held office for 2-1/2 years after Richard Nixon became the only president to resign. Nixon did so on August 9, 1974.

"In politics it can take a generation or more for a matter to settle, for tempers to cool," Cheney said. "We will never know what further unravelling, what greater malevolence might have come in that time of furies turned loose and hearts turned cold. But we do know this: America was spared the worst and this was the doing of an American president."

Ford's flag-draped casket was borne to the Capitol by motorcade after arriving at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. The casket was flown from California aboard a Boeing 747 from the presidential fleet.

A limousine bearing Ford's widow, Betty, 88, paused briefly en route to the Capitol at the World War Two memorial to mark his war-time service in the U.S. Navy.

He will lie in state until Tuesday, when Bush will eulogise him at another memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral. Burial is to be on Wednesday on a hillside at Ford's presidential library in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Absent were Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and incoming House of Representatives' Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as Bill & Hillary Clinton and Jimmy & Rosalyn Carter, Ted Kennedy and others.

The Washington Post said about 500 of the 535 members of the next Congress skipped it as did six of the nine Supreme Court justices and all but one member of Bush's cabinet, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

Many were travelling during the holiday week.

Former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who also served as Pentagon chief under Ford and was to have been another honorary pallbearer, missed it because he was snowed in New Mexico. A Rumsfeld spokesman said he would probably be able to get to the funeral on Tuesday at the National Cathedral.

People walk past the casket containing the body of former U.S. President Gerald Ford, placed in the U.S. Capitol rotunda where it will lie in state, in Washington til Tuesday.
Members of the public file past the casket of former U.S. President Gerald Ford in the rotunda at the U.S. Capitol as it lies in state in Washington.

The casket containing the body of former U.S. President Gerald Ford is placed in the U.S. Capitol rotunda where it will lie in state in Washington

Former first lady Betty Ford and her sons Steven (L-Rear) and Michael (L-front) pause at her late husband's casket as they leave with Vice President Dick Cheney (R-Rear) after ceremonies in which former U.S. President Gerald Ford's remains were brought to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol rotunda in Washington.

Former President Gerald Ford's casket is carried up the steps into the U.S. Capitol l in Washington, December 30, 2006. Ford, who died on Tuesday at the age of 93, will lie in State in the Capitol Rotunda.

Former first lady Bety Ford (L) holds hands with U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney during the State Funeral service for former U.S. President Gerald Ford in the rotunda at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.



April 28, 1975: President Ford chats with Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld and Rumsfelds assistant Richard Cheney in the Oval Office.

Dec. 27, 2006: Flags at the Washington Monument fly at half staff in honor of former President Gerald Ford in Washington

Former President Ford's Body Arrives At California Church, Marking Beginning of Public Mourning

President Ford at work in the Oval Office. January 27, 1976

Former President Ford's Body Arrives At California Church, Marking Beginning of Public Mourning

PALM DESERT, Calif. — Borne by eight U.S. servicemen in crisp dress uniforms, Gerald R. Ford's flag-draped casket was carried past his widow into their hometown church Friday for a public viewing that marked the start of six days of mourning for the former president.

Former first lady Betty Ford, 88, stood atop the broad steps of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church to receive the casket. A Marine Corps band struck up "Hail to the Chief" as the coffin of the Navy veteran of World War II was removed from a hearse, then played the hymn "O God Our Help in Ages Past" as the military pallbearers, moving in lockstep, made the slow climb to the doors of the white-columned church.

"We receive the body of our brother, Gerald, for burial," said the church rector, the Rev. Robert Certain.

Mrs. Ford, clutching the arm of an Army general, stood in silence for a few moments after the casket was laid before a blond-wood altar and three wreaths of white flowers. Then she led other family members to the Presidents Pew, where she and her husband sat nearly every Sunday after leaving the White House in 1977.

A private family service was followed by a visitation for invited friends, including former Secretary of State George Shultz and former Rep. Jack Kemp. When it ended, Mrs. Ford left in a motorcade to return to the Ford home in the neighboring city of Rancho Mirage.

A public viewing of Ford's closed casket was expected to draw thousands to the resort community 110 miles east of Los Angeles late Friday afternoon.

Earlier, a Boeing 747 from the presidential fleet descended in the distance toward Palm Springs airport as a motorcade brought Ford's casket and family to the church. As the procession passed, police saluted and residents of the desert resort community watched silently.

Mrs. Ford planned to accompany her husband's body across the country Saturday to Washington, where the nation's 38th president will lie in state at the Capitol. A funeral will be held on Tuesday at the National Cathedral. Ford will be buried on Wednesday in Grand Rapids, Mich., where he grew up.

Security was tight at St. Margaret's, with helicopters hovering overhead. The Secret Service swept the area, and surrounding residential streets were blocked off.

A solemn crowd watched from well beyond the parking lot of the church, not far from the former president's Rancho Mirage home.

Among the spectators was Evelyn Tidholm, 80, a visitor from Oklahoma who said she voted for Ford in 1976. "I just have never seen anything like this. I thought that at my age it's something that I should see," she said.

Ford, who assumed the presidency when Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal, died Tuesday at 93.

Mourners were to be shuttled to the church from a tennis center five miles away. Some arrived early, including a father and son from Irvine who showed up before dawn.

"I want to be president one day so anything presidential, I'm here" said Aaron Magness, a freshman at the University of Oklahoma.

He and his father, Jay Magness, arrived at 5 a.m. expecting the kind of turnout that occurred for former President Ronald Reagan's funeral in 2004. By midafternoon about 100 people were waiting.

Harvey Soldan, 51, of Riverside wore a Ford-Dole sticker on his shirt from his days as a 1976 campaign worker. He also had expected huge crowds.

"I sat and waited for Nixon, so this time I wanted to beat the crowds," he said.

The major stock markets will be closed on Tuesday as part of a national day of mourning. The Wall Street tradition dates to the 1885 burial of President Grant and was last observed after President Reagan's death in 2004.

Some of the most regal touches of a full state funeral are being bypassed, by request of his family and, most likely, according to Ford's own wishes. In Washington, a hearse rather than a horse-drawn caisson will take Ford's casket to the Capitol.

Fighter jets will do a flyover with a "missing man" formation only in Grand Rapids, where Ford will be buried on a hillside near his presidential museum. He spent most of his childhood in Grand Rapids, practiced law there and represented the area in Congress for 25 years.


President Ford confers with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft in the Oval Office. October 8, 1974.




President Ford and his golden retriever, Liberty, in the Oval Office. November 7, 1974


President Ford relaxes with Liberty while working on a Sunday afternoon in the Oval Office. February 2, 1975


Gerald R. Ford Museum

Gerald R. Ford Library

President Ford at work in the Oval Office. August 12, 1976

An excellent site to review the Presidency of Gerald R. Ford
CLICK BELOW.

http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/default.asp

Saddam Hussein hung today for his crimes against humanity

Al Arabiya TV Reports Saddam Hussein Has Been Executed

















BAGHDAD, Iraq — Saddam Hussein, the shotgun-waving dictator who ruled Iraq with a remorseless brutality for a quarter-century, was taken to the gallows and executed Saturday, Iraqi state-run television reported.

It was a grim end for the 69-year-old leader who had vexed three U.S. presidents. Despite his ouster, Washington, its allies and the new Iraqi leaders remain mired in a fight to quell a stubborn insurgency by Saddam loyalists and a vicious sectarian conflict.

Also hanged were Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court.

State-run Iraqiya television news announcer said "criminal Saddam was hanged to death and the execution started with criminal Saddam then Barzan then Awad al-Bandar."

The station earlier was airing national songs after the first announcement and had a tag on the screen that read "with Saddam's execution marks the end of a dark period of Iraq's history."

A U.S. judge on Friday refused to stop Saddam's execution, rejecting a last-minute court challenge.

The execution came 56 days after a court convicted Saddam and sentenced him to death for his role in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from a town where assassins tried to kill the dictator in 1982. Iraq's highest court rejected Saddam's appeal Monday and ordered him executed within 30 days.

Final Hours
U.S. official: execution 'within a matter of hours'
Statement echoes report Iraqi official says execution to happen by 10 p.m. ET as witnesses gather in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Saddam Hussein's date with death appears to be just hours away. The former president of Iraq will be hanged "within a matter of hours," a Bush administration official told FOX News on Friday.

"The final meetings have taken places," the official said, adding in Iraqis have requested Saddam be turned over to them. "The process is now in the final stage."

Earlier, the Associated Press reported via a top Iraqi official that Saddam would be hanged before 10 p.m. ET Friday night (6 a.m. Saturday in Baghdad).

The official witnesses to the impending execution gathered Friday in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone in final preparation for his hanging, and state television broadcast footage of his regime's atrocities.

Saddam's chief lawyer said the U.S. had turned over custody of the mass murderer to Iraqi officials, one of the last steps necessary before the execution. An Iraqi parliamentarian, Methal Al Aloser, backed up the lawyer's claims. Al Aloser said not only had Saddam been handed over, but all papers and documents were finalized and the execution will be soon.

But Bush administration sources, apprised of Al Aloser's remarks, reaffirmed that Saddam Hussein remains in U.S. custody.

Two State Department officials also told FOX News Saddam was still being held by Americans. "We are absolutely certain he has not been handed over," one official said. The official said the handover might not happen for a few more hours — or possibly even for a few more days.

"There is no reason for delays," said Munir Haddad, an Iraqi judge on the appeals court that reviewed Saddam's case. He also said the execution will occur by Saturday.

An unnamed Iraqi government official in Baghdad told the Associated Press that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had signed the Butcher of Baghdad's death warrant.

Al-Maliki said "our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence."

Meanwhile, Saddam's attorneys asked a U.S. judge to block his transfer to the custody of Iraqi officials poised to carry out his execution.

Hussein's lawyers asked for an emergency restraining order aimed at stopping the U.S. government from relinquishing custody of the condemned former Iraqi leader to Iraqi officials, a spokeswoman for a federal court in Washington D.C. said.

A similar request by the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, Awad Hamed al-Bandar, was denied Thursday and is under appeal. Al-Bandar also faces execution. The Justice Department argued in that case that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction to interfere with the judicial process of another country.

A U.S. source in Baghdad said Al-Maliki wanted to carry out the execution as early as Thursday night, but that it was delayed for logistical reasons, and because of confusion over the Iraqi constitution and the law that governs the tribunal that convicted him of murder.

The Iraqi prime minister said those who oppose the execution of Saddam were insulting the honor of his victims. His office said he made the remarks in a meeting with families of people who died during Saddam's rule.

"Nothing and nobody can abrogate the ruling" upholding Saddam's sentence, al-Maliki said.

Najeed al-Nauimi, a member of Saddam's defense team, told FOX News that while sentence hasn't yet been carried out, "we're at a stage where we're requesting his body be handed over to his family."

Al-Nauimi also predicted Saddam will be defiant until the end, and go the gallows "smiling, and saying verses of the Koran."

Saddam was notified Thursday that his death sentence had been upheld. "His reaction was 'I was expecting that,' " al-Nauimi quoted Saddam as saying. Saddam then met with his half brothers and said goodbye to them.

Iraqi General Abdl Kareem Khalaf told FOX News that emergency procedures have been implemented in the former dictator's Salahadin province, where Saddam's hometown of Tikrit is, as well as Diyala and Mosul provinces, which have Sunni majorities. The emergency measures include more Iraqi army and police forces and more checkpoints.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said U.S. forces were on high alert.

"They'll obviously take into account social dimensions that could potentially led to an increase in violence which certainly would include carrying out the sentence of Saddam Hussein," Whitman said.

A video of the execution is expected to be released.

In his Friday sermon, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf called Saddam's execution "God's gift to Iraqis."

"Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves. Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam," said Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as SCIRI, the dominant party in al-Maliki's coalition.

One Bush administration official downplayed the possibility of a "Goering scenario" occurring, a reference to the high-ranking Nazi official Hermann Goering, who cheated the hangman at Nuremberg by swallowing a cyanide capsule slipped to him. "[Saddam]'s not going to have any friends in the room," the official said, referring to Saddam at the moment of his execution.

Iraq's highest court on Tuesday rejected Saddam's appeal against his conviction and death sentence for the killing of 148 Shiites in the northern city of Dujail in 1982. The court said the former dictator should be hanged within 30 days.

While Saddam's death for the Dujail massacre appears imminent, he's still facing trial for other atrocities. Saddam faces genocide charges related to a coordinated campaign that killed up to 100,000 Kurds, according to Human Rights Watch. During that campaign, Saddam used chemical weapons, which killed some 30,000 Iraqis and Iranians.

Al-Nauimi said the timing of Saddam's imminent execution is "political revenge being carried out by the present government," adding the trial process was biased.

Some international legal observers and human rights groups have called Saddam's trial unfair because of alleged interference by the Shiite-dominated government. There has also been internal debate among Iraqis about legal procedures surrounding the timeframe and whether the presidency is required to approve the execution.

"The law does not say within 30 days, it says after the lapse of 30 days," said Busho Ibrahim, deputy justice minister. There was no immediate explanation for the conflicting claims.

Chronicle of the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein:

Hussein's regime killed, tortured, raped and terrorized the Iraqi people and its neighbors for over two decades.

Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of Saddam's actions.

Saddam had approximately 40 of his own relatives murdered.

1980-88: Iran-Iraq war left 150,000 to 340,000 Iraqis and 450,000 to 730,000 Iranians dead.

1983-1988: Documented chemical attacks by Iraqi regime caused some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths.

1988: Chemical attack on Kurdish village of Halabja killed approximately 5,000 people.

1987-1988: Iraqi regime used chemical agents in attacks against at least 40 Kurdish villages.

1990-91: 1,000 Kuwaitis were killed in Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

1991: Bloody suppression of Kurdish and Shi'a uprisings in northern and southern Iraq killed at least 30,000 to 60,000. At least 2,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed during the campaign of terror.

2001: Amnesty International report: "Victims of torture in Iraq are subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the gouging out of eyes, severe beatings and electric shocks... some victims have died as a result and many have been left with permanent physical and psychological damage."

Human Rights Watch: Saddam's 1987-1988 campaign of terror against the Kurds killed at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 Kurds.

Refugees International: "Oppressive government policies have led to the internal displacement of 900,000 Iraqis."

Iraq's 13 million Shiite Muslims, the majority of Iraq's population of approximately 22 million, faced severe restrictions on their religious practice.

FBI: Iraqi government was involved in a plot to assassinate former President George Bush during his April 14-16, 1993, visit to Kuwait.

The Iraqi regime has repeatedly refused visits by human rights monitors.

From 1992 until 2002, Saddam prevented the U.N. Special Rapporteur from visiting Iraq.

(Sources: Office of the White House Press Secretary: Life Under Saddam Hussein: Past Repression and Atrocities by Saddam Hussein's Regime; April 4, 2003, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/04/iraq/20030404-1.html; "Iraq: Crimes Against Humanity," State Department, May 7, 2002, http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/crimes; "Iraq: U.S. Alleges Role in Bush Death Plot," Facts on File May 20, 1993; http: http://www.2facts.com/; http://www.2facts.com/stories/temp/10882temp1993053677.asp)
Timeline of Saddam Hussein's Life and Career:

April 28, 1937: Born in village of Uja near desert town of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, Iraq.

1957: Joins underground Baath Socialist Party.

1958: Arrested for killing brother-in-law, a communist; spends six months in prison.

Oct. 7, 1959: Participates in Baath team that ambushes Iraqi strongman Abdel-Karim Kassem in Baghdad, wounding him. Saddam wounded in leg, flees country.

Feb. 8, 1963: Returns from Egypt after Baath takes part in coup that overthrows and kills Kassem.

July 30, 1968: Takes charge of internal security after Baath seizes power and authority passes to council headed by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, Saddam's cousin.

July 16, 1979: Takes over as president of Iraq from al-Bakr; launches purge of Baath.

Sept. 22, 1980: Sends army into Iran, setting off eight-year war.

July 8, 1982: Survives assassination attempt in Dujail, a mainly Shiite Muslim town 25 miles north of Baghdad. In retaliation, Saddam's security forces attack the town. (The events in Dujail were the subject of the criminal charges in Saddam's initial trial.)

March 28, 1988: Uses chemical weapons against Kurdish town of Halabja, killing an estimated 5,000 civilians.

Aug. 2, 1990: Invades Kuwait, leading to war with U.S.-led coalition that liberates Kuwait the following February.

March 1991: Crushes Shiite Muslim revolt in the south and Kurdish revolt in the north.

March 20, 2003: Missed by bombing attack as U.S.-led forces try force his ouster.

July 22, 2003: Sons Qusai and Odai killed in gunbattle with U.S. troops.

Dec. 13, 2003: Captured by U.S. soldiers in Tikrit.

June 30, 2004: Transferred into Iraqi custody.

July 1, 2004: Arraigned before judge and defiantly rejects charges of war crimes and genocide.

Dec.17, 2004: Sees Iraqi lawyer for the first time since his capture.

June 13, 2005: Shown in video being questioned about 1982 massacre in Dujail.

July 13, 2005: Faces first charges against him as tribunal chief judge says investigation into Dujail killings complete.

Aug. 23, 2005: Fires legal team.

Oct. 19, 2005: Pleads innocent as trial opens in Dujail case. It is immediately adjourned.

Oct. 20, 2005: Ohne of his defense attorneys is kidnapped and killed.

Nov. 8, 2005: Another defense attorney is killed in an ambush.

Dec 5, 2005: Denounces trial as public relations exercise after witnesses tell of horrors committed during his rule.

Dec 7, 2005: Refuses to enter court after telling tribunal to "go to hell" the night before. Judge eventually decides to press on without him.

Dec 21, 2005: Seventh session of trial begins. The next day the trial is adjourned until Jan. 24 after another turbulent session.

Dec 25, 2005: Saddam’s lawyers say they have asked the court for independent inquiry into claims his American captors tortured him.

Dec 29, 2005: Saddam's chief lawyer sends a letter to Bush saying he should be freed if the U.S. wants to end its problems in Iraq and earn the friendship of Arabs.

(Sources: AP: Events in the life of Saddam Hussein; 11/28/05; Key events in life of Saddam Hussein, Associated Press, 10/18/05; NPR, 10/18/2005 -
Timeline: Saddam's Violent Road to Trial -
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4961744; Reuters: Chronology of Saddam Hussein's trial; 15 Jan 2006; http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/GEO531614.htm)
~~~~~~
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Within days of taking power, Saddam Hussein summoned about 400 top officials and announced he had uncovered a plot against the ruling party. The conspirators, he said, were in that very room.

As the 42-year-old Saddam coolly puffed on a cigar, names of the plotters were read out. As each name was called, secret police led them away. Some of the bewildered men cried out "long live Saddam Hussein" in a futile display of loyalty.

Twenty-two of them were executed. To make sure Iraqis got the word, Saddam videotaped the entire proceeding and distributed copies across the country.

The plot claim was a lie. But in a few terrifying minutes on July 22, 1979, Saddam eliminated his potential rivals, consolidating the power he wielded until the Americans and their allies drove him from office a generation later.

Saddam, who was hanged Saturday at age 69, ruled Iraq with singular ruthlessness. No one was safe. His two sons-in-law were killed on Saddam's orders after they defected to Jordan but returned in 1996 after receiving guarantees of safety.

Such brutality kept him in power through war with Iran, defeat in Kuwait, rebellions by northern Kurds and southern Shiite Muslims, international sanctions, plots and conspiracies.

In the end, however, brutality was his undoing. Trusting few except kin, Saddam surrounded himself with sycophants, selected for loyalty rather than intellect and ability.

And when he was forced out in April 2003, he left a country impoverished — despite vast oil wealth — and roiling with long suppressed ethnic and sectarian hatred.

On his rare public appearances, crowds would greet him with chants of "we sacrifice our blood and souls for you Saddam." But gradually, he became isolated from the Iraqi people, within a diminished circle of trusted advisers drawn mostly from his close family or his clan.

He ended up dragged from a hole by American soldiers in December 2001, bearded, disheveled and with his arms in the air. The pistol he kept to fight to the end was never fired.

Image and illusion were important tools for Saddam.

He sought to build an image as an all-wise, all-powerful champion of the Arab nation. His model was the great 12th century warrior Saladin, who captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders and, coincidentally, was born like Saddam in the Tikrit area of northern Iraq.

Yet his style was closer to an Iraqi clan chief, doling out favors in return for absolute loyalty while dealing harshly with anyone who questioned his authority.

He promoted the illusion of a powerful Iraq — with the world's fourth largest army and weapons of terrible destruction.

Yet it was all hollow. His army crumbled in weeks when confronted by the Americans and their allies in Kuwait in 1991.

And in 2003, his capital — the vaunted regime fortress supposedly ringed by steel with inhabitants eager to sacrifice themselves in its defense — fell to a single U.S. brigade task force.

Saddam's weapons of mass destruction proved a bluff to keep the Iranians, the Syrians, the Israelis — and the Americans — at bay. His own scientists didn't have the nerve to tell him that his dreams of weaponry were beyond the country's industrial capability.

Instead, Saddam squandered vast sums on opulent palaces with marble hallways, plush carpeting, expensive antique furniture.

All of that was a universe from the harsh poverty into which Saddam was born on April 28, 1937, in the village of Ouja near Tikrit. His father, a landless shepherd, died or disappeared before he was born. His stepfather, Ibrahim al-Hassan, treated Saddam harshly.

The young Saddam ran away as a boy and lived with his maternal uncle, Khairallah Talfah, a stridently anti-British, anti-Semitic man whose daughter, Sajida, would become Saddam's wife years later.

Under his uncle's influence, Saddam joined the Baath Party, a radical, secular Arab nationalist organization, at age 20. A year later, he fled to Egypt after taking part in an attempt to assassinate the country's ruler, Gen. Abdul-Karim Qassim, and was sentenced to death in absentia.

Saddam returned four years later after Qassim was overthrown by the Baath. But the Baath leadership was itself ousted within eight months and Saddam was imprisoned. He escaped in 1967 and took charge of the underground Baath party's secret internal security organization.

He swore he would never tolerate the internal dissent that he blamed for the party losing power.

In July 1968, Baath returned to power under the leadership of Gen. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who appointed Saddam, his cousin, as his deputy. Saddam systematically purged key party figures, deported thousands of Shiites of Iranian origin, supervised the state takeover of Iraq's oil industry, land reform and modernization — becoming the real power behind al-Bakr.

Al-Bakr decided in 1979 to seek unity with neighboring Syria, which was also under Baath party rule. Syria's president would become al-Bakr's deputy, and Saddam would be marginalized. Saddam forced his cousin to resign — and then purged his rivals in a party meeting six days later. Hundreds of others in the party and army were executed in the months that followed.

Saddam then turned his attention to the country's Shiite majority, whose clerical leaders had long opposed his secular policies. Saddam's fears of a Shiite challenge rose after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power in Shiite-dominated Iran in 1979.

On Sept. 22, 1980, Iraqi troops crossed the Iranian border, launching a war that would last eight years, cost hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides and devastated Saddam's plans to transform Iraq into a developed, prosperous country.

In the longest conventional war of the 20th century, the two countries fired missiles at each other's cities, Iran sent waves of youngsters to death on the front lines, and Iraqi warplanes bombed Iranian schools and even a jetliner unloading passengers at an Iranian airport.

In launching his war, Saddam evoked the memory of the 7th century Battle of Qadisiyyah, when Arab armies decisively defeated the Persians, opening what is now Iran to the Muslim faith. The 1980s war became known as "Saddam's Qadisiyyah," and for years after the conflict ended in stalemate, Iraqi currency still carried scenes from the ancient battle — along with Saddam's image.

After the Iranians counterattacked, Saddam turned to the United States, France and Britain for weapons, which those countries gladly sold him to prevent an outright Iranian victory. They turned a blind eye when Saddam ruthlessly struck against Iraqi Kurds, who lived in the border area and were dealing secretly with the Iranians.

An estimated 5,000 Kurds died in a chemical weapons attack on the town of Halabja in March 1988. The United States suggested at the time that the Iranians may have been responsible.

Only two years after making peace with Iran, Saddam invaded Kuwait, whose rulers had refused to forgive Iraq's war debt and opposed increases in oil prices that Iraq desperately needed to recover from the conflict with Iran.

Iraqi nationalists had never accepted the existence of an independent Kuwait, which they believed was established by British imperialism. Kuwait was annexed as the 19th province of Iraq.

The United Nations imposed economic sanctions on Iraq and a U.S.-led coalition attacked. "The great duel, the mother of all battles, has begun. The dawn of victory nears as this great showdown begins," Saddam said on Iraqi radio on Jan. 17, 1991.

But the Iraqis were driven out of Kuwait. The 1991 war triggered uprisings among Iraq's Shiites, brutally crushed by Saddam, and the Kurds, who carved out a self-ruled area under U.S. and British air cover.

Saddam boasted his survival was proof Iraq had won its war against America, a message that won him stature among many Arabs. But the sanctions were not lifted because the United States accused Saddam of retaining weapons of mass destruction.

His brutality was starkly illustrated when the defecting sons-in-law were killed. Their widows, however, forgave him. "He was a very good father, loving, has a big heart," Raghad Saddam Hussein told CNN in August 2003 while Saddam was on the run from U.S. forces. "He had so many feelings and he was very tender with all of us," Rana Hussein said in the same interview.

Saddam also sought to be a force in the Arab-Israeli conflict. In April 1990, hinting he had secret super-weapons, he declared: "By God, we will make the fire eat up half of Israel." During the Gulf War he fired Scud missiles into Israel, and during the Palestinian uprising a decade later he paid cash grants to families of suicide bombers.

Complete coverage is available in FOXNews.com's Iraq Center.

The U.N. sanctions remained in effect until his regime collapsed in 2003, devastating Iraq's economy and impoverishing a people who had been among the most prosperous in the Middle East. They also set the stage for the collapse of the regime itself.

The Sept. 11 terror attack on the U.S. focused attention on Saddam as a sponsor of terrorism. His refusal to meet U.N. demands for full disclosure of his illegal weapons program provided a justification for war.

As U.S.-led forces massed, Saddam claimed America's "devastating brutal instinct" had been harnessed by Zionism.

"Halt your evil doings against the mother of civilization ... the cradle and the birthplace of prophets and messengers," he warned the United States. "The entire nation will rise up in defense of its right to life, of its role and of anything it holds sacred ... Their arrows will be on the wrong track or will recoil to their breasts, God willing ... The martyrs of the nation will turn into green birds in paradise as the Merciful has promised."

An American-led force invaded on March 20, 2003. Within three weeks, Iraq's army had collapsed and Baghdad had fallen. U.S. Marines tore down Saddam's statue in the center of Baghdad and the dictator fled to his northern homeland.

His sons, Odai and Qusai, and a grandson were killed in a gunbattle with the Americans in Mosul in July 2003. When Saddam himself was captured the following December, Iraqis cheered and fired shots in the air. "The former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions," President Bush said.

But as he went on trial in October 2005 before an Iraqi judge, his country was engulfed in an anti-American insurgency.

For Saddam, the trial was a pulpit to rail against the U.S. presence in Iraq in hopes of winning the approval of history if not an acquittal. In the early sessions, he strutted into court, grasping a Quran in one arm while waving the other at his fellow defendants.

"How can a judge like yourself accept a situation like this?" Saddam barked. "This game must not continue. If you want Saddam Hussein's neck, you can have it."

But the trial dragged on, the chief judge was replaced, and Saddam's manner calmed as he realized the inevitability of conviction and the death sentence that followed.

Former President Gerald Ford Dies at age 93

Former President Gerald Ford Dies 1913-2006


Gerald Rudolph Ford, the 38th president of the United States, died Tuesday. He was 93 years old.

"My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," Ford's wife, Betty Ford, said in a brief statement issued from her husband's office in Rancho Mirage. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."

The statement did not say where Ford died or list a cause of death. Ford had battled pneumonia in January 2006 and underwent two heart treatments — including an angioplasty — in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

A respected and beloved elder statesman in his post-White House years, Ford ascended to the presidency in the wake of the Nixon administration scandals. Ford was the first and only president to reach the Oval Office having never been elected vice president or president.

Gerald R. Ford, the 38th and only unelected president in America's history, has died. He was 93.

President George W. Bush walks with Former President Gerald Ford and Betty Ford after arriving for a visit in Rancho Mirage, California, Sunday, April 23, 2006.

President George W. Bush, Former President Gerald Ford and Betty Ford greet the media at the end of his visit in Rancho Mirage, California, Sunday, April 23, 2006

While his most controversial move as president was his quick pardoning of Richard Nixon, Ford always maintained he did so to hasten the nation's healing. He pardoned Vietnam draft resisters a week later.

Ford served in the U.S. Navy during the World War II, was a long-time congressman from Michigan, survived two assassination attempts during his presidency, and, at the time of his death, was the oldest living member of the Warren Commission that investigated the death of John F. Kennedy.

Though he was often parodied as physically clumsy, Ford was actually a gifted athlete who turned down a professional football career to pursue a law degree and worked as a coach and physical education teacher throughout his early career, even after he began practicing law and during his military service.

The Early Years

Gerald R. Ford was born July 14, 1913, in Omaha, Neb., to Leslie Lynch King and Dorothy Ayer Gardner King. He was originally named Leslie Lynch King Jr., after his father, but his parents separated when he was just two weeks old. In 1916, Dorothy married Gerald R. Ford, a paint salesman, and began calling her son Gerald R. Ford Jr.

Dorothy and Ford Sr. had three more sons, Thomas, Richard and James, and Ford was raised the oldest boy in a close and loving family. But, he did not know his mother's husband was not his biological father until 1930, and did not legally change his name until 1935.

After his high school graduation in 1931, Ford received a scholarship to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Majoring in economics and political science, Ford was a star athlete. He played on the university's national championship football teams in 1931 and 1933 and was voted the Wolverines' most valuable player in 1934.

Ford passed up a professional football career to take a job as a boxing coach and assistant football coach at Yale, where he attended law school. He graduated in 1941 in the top 25 percent of his class. It was during his law school years that Ford was introduced to politics, when he worked on Wendell Willkie's 1940 presidential campaign.

After graduating from Yale, Ford returned to Michigan and established a law firm in Grand Rapids and taught a course in business law at the University of Grand Rapids. He also served as line coach for the school's football team until World War II.

In April 1942, Ford joined the U.S. Naval Reserve as an ensign and the next year was stationed aboard the USS Monterey, a light aircraft carrier that participated in most of the major operations in the South Pacific. In December 1944, a typhoon pounded the Monterey, which caught fire. Ford was nearly swept overboard, the closest he came to death during the entire war.

After his discharge in 1946 as a lieutenant commander, Ford returned to Grand Rapids and became a partner in a law firm. He found himself in new ideological terrain — an isolationist before the war, Ford was now a committed internationalist.

Ford decided to challenge incumbent Rep. Bartel Jonkman, an isolationist, for the Republican nomination in the 1948 election. Ford beat Jonkman and went on to win the seat with 61 percent of the vote.

The voters of Michigan would re-elect him 12 times, each time giving him more than 60 percent of the vote.

It was during his House campaign that Ford married Elizabeth Ann Bloomer Warren, a department store fashion consultant — legendarily campaigning on his wedding day. Gerald and Betty Ford had four children between 1950 and 1957: Michael Gerald, John Gardner, Steven Meigs, and Susan Elizabeth.

A Distinguished Legislative Career

Ford served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Jan. 3, 1949, to Dec. 6, 1973. He described himself as "a moderate in domestic affairs, an internationalist in foreign affairs, and a conservative in fiscal policy."

The Republican Party tapped Ford as a rising star early in his career. Throughout the 1950s, he was encouraged to run for both the Senate and for governor of Michigan, but Ford declined these offers. His true ambition was to become Speaker of the House, a post Ford would never achieve due to the Democrat's hold on the House throughout his tenure.

Ford was a member of a group of younger, more progressive House Republicans who believed the party's old guard had grown stagnant. In 1961, in a revolt of the "Young Turks," Ford became chairman of the House Republican Conference — the number three leadership position in the party — and later rose to become House minority leader.

In 1963 President Johnson appointed Ford to the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Ford never wavered in his belief that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. In 1965 Ford co-authored, with John R. Stiles, a book about the findings of the commission, "Portrait of the Assassin."

In the 1968 and 1972 elections, Ford supported his good friend, Richard Nixon. On good terms with both the conservative and liberal wings of the Republican Party, he made the short list of possible vice presidential candidates in 1968.

In late 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned his office after pleading no contest to a charge of income tax evasion. Nixon chose Ford as Agnew's replacement. In Ford, the tarnished Nixon administration found a candidate of impeccable character and reputation.

Ford was confirmed and sworn in on Dec. 6, 1973. But he would serve only nine months as vice president, his entire term overshadowed by the unraveling of the Nixon administration.

By the summer of 1974, the public outrage over the Watergate scandal — the 1972 break-in of the Democratic headquarters during the 1972 campaign and the cover-up of the incident by Nixon officials — reached full pitch. Facing impeachment, Nixon resigned from office, the first president in U.S. history ever to do so. On Aug. 9, 1974, Ford took the presidential oath of office, saying that "the long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works."

A month after taking office, on Sept. 6, 1974, Ford granted Richard Nixon a "full, free and absolute pardon" for all federal crimes Nixon committed, or may have committed, during his presidency. The decision was the most difficult and controversial of his presidency, and resulted in a public distrust of him that persisted throughout his tenure.

Ford claimed at the time, and has always maintained, that he pardoned Nixon to dispatch of the matter quickly so that the nation, and the American people, could move on. The pardon was a major factor in Ford losing the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter.

Years later, former President Bill Clinton praised Ford for keeping the big picture in mind and not getting swept away as Clinton had done.

"You didn't get caught up in the moment and you were right. You were right for the controversial decisions you made to keep the country together and I thank you for that," Clinton said in 1999 when Ford received the Congressional Gold Medal. The medal represents Congress' highest expression of appreciation and is inscribed "Lives of Service, Examples of Integrity.

The Ford Presidency

Beyond the problems created by the Nixon pardon, Ford also had to confront other difficulties when he took office — the United States was embroiled in a controversial war in Southeast Asia and plagued by rising inflation and threats of energy shortages.

Ford's philosophy on domestic policy was best summed up by a line from one of his favorite speeches: "A government big enough to give us everything we want is a government big enough to take from us everything we have."

Ford pursued modest tax and spending cuts as well as industry deregulation and decontrolling energy prices to stimulate production. He believed these strategies would contain both inflation and unemployment while reducing the size of the federal government and helping the nation overcome the energy crisis.

The 94th Congress, however, was controlled by the Democrats, who had won huge gains in the 1974 elections. Congress pushed through legislation with little regard for Ford's views; the president responded by using the veto — 36 times in total — his only means of combating Congress.

As Ford took office, the Nixon administration's policy of detente — increased diplomatic, commercial and cultural contact between the United States and the Soviet Union — was beginning to disintegrate and Soviet relations gradually got worse.

Still, the Ford administration was able to reach two important agreements with the Soviets. The first, the Vladivostok Accords of November 1974, was an arms control agreement designed to strengthen the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) of 1972. The second was the Helsinki Agreements of 1975, which aimed to observe universal standards of human rights in exchange for Western nations' recognition of Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe.

In January 1973, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger signed the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, intending to assist South Vietnam in fending off the North. But that same year, Congress banned the use of appropriated funds in the region, halting American involvement in Vietnam. In April 1975, when the North Vietnamese communists began conquering the South and overwhelmed what was left of the South Vietnamese government, Ford and Kissinger were unable to persuade Congress to provide military aid to South Vietnam.

Ford believed America should have seen Vietnam through to the end.

"It has been said that the United States is overextended, that we have too many commitments far from home, that we must re-examine what our truly vital interests are and shape our strategy to conform to them," Ford said. "I find no fault with this as a theory, but in the real world such a course must be pursued carefully. We cannot, in the meantime, abandon our friends while our adversaries support and encourage theirs."

But on April 30, 1975, the last Americans were evacuated by helicopter from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon as the North Vietnamese took control of the South.

There would be one more chapter to the U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia when, two weeks after the fall of Saigon, on May 12, 1975, Cambodian forces led by a new communist government captured an American freighter, the Mayaguez, in the Gulf of Siam, taking its crew hostage. Kissinger persuaded Ford not to negotiate for the hostages but to instead demonstrate to the world that the United Stated could still assert its power. On May 14, 1975, as the 39 hostages were being safely released, the U.S. attacked Cambodian naval bases. Forty-one Americans were killed in the action.

As 1975 wound down, Congress and the president struggled repeatedly over presidential war powers, oversight of the CIA and covert operations, military aid appropriations, and the stationing of military personnel. Then, in September 1975, on two separate trips to California, Ford was the target of assassination attempts. Both of the assailants were women — Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a former follower of Charles Manson, and Sara Jane Moore.

As Ford headed into the 1976 election, the biggest threat to his presidency came from fellow Republican Ronald Reagan. The fight with Reagan was long and bitter, but Ford won the nomination, selecting Kansas Sen. Robert Dole as his running mate. Ford lost the general election to Jimmy Carter in one of the closest elections in history.

Return to Private Life

After leaving the White House, the now former president and his wife chose to make California their home, building a new house in Rancho Mirage. After a nearly lifelong career in public office, Ford was finally free to pursue financial and business opportunities. He hired an agent from the William Morris Agency and negotiated a television deal with NBC, and both he and his wife received lucrative advances to write their memoirs.

Ford also joined the boards of several companies, among them American Express and Amex and Travelers Group, and he became popular on the lecture circuit.

Since leaving office, Ford voiced concern about political partisanship, civility in politics, and the policies of affirmative action. In 1998 he authored two opinion pieces, one with former President Jimmy Carter, regarding the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.

In 1999, Ford received the Medal of Freedom. This honor, the nation's highest civilian award, was presented by Clinton in recognition of Ford's role in guiding the nation through the turbulent times of Watergate, the Nixon resignation and the end of the Vietnam War.

As Ford entered his 80s, his athletic life began to catch up with him. In 1990, Ford underwent surgery to have cartilage inserted into his left knee. The procedure was repeated in 1992 on his right knee. In 1995, Ford had surgery on his shoulder to repair an injury that dated back to his college football career. Two months later, Ford re-injured the shoulder while golfing with former President Clinton and former President George H.W. Bush, and underwent a second surgery.

In 2000, Ford suffered a mild stroke while attending the Republican convention in Philadelphia. Ford made a full recovery, resuming his golf game. In 2006, he was hospitalized in January for 12 days with pneumonia, and again with shortness of breath in July.

• Timeline: President Gerald R. Ford
Following are key events in the life of Gerald R. Ford, the United States' 38th president:

Born: July 14, 1913, Omaha, Neb.

1931: Graduates South High School, Grand Rapids, Mich.

1931 until 1935: Attends University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; plays linebacker and center on UM's national championship football teams

June 17, 1935: Graduated University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

1935 until 1940: Boxing coach and assistant varsity football coach at Yale University

1938: Admitted to Yale Law School

June 7, 1941: Admitted to Michigan bar.

June 18, 1941: Graduated Yale Law School, LL.B. degree

Apr. 20, 1942: Enlisted as ensign in U.S. Naval Reserve

June 1944 until December 1944: Director of physical education, gunnery division officer and assistant navigator aboard light aircraft carrier, USS Monterey, Pacific theater

January 1946: Discharged with reserve rank of lieutenant commander, with 47 months of active service and 10 battle stars

1946 through 1949: Practiced law with firm of Butterfield, Keeney & Amberg in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Sep. 14, 1948: Won Republican nomination for U.S. House of Representatives, defeating four- term incumbent in primary

Nov. 2, 1948: Elected to Congress

Jan. 3, 1949, until Dec. 6, 1973: Served in U.S. House of Representatives (Fifth District, Michigan)

1963 through 1964: Member of Warren Commission investigating Kennedy assassination

Jan. 4, 1965: Elected House minority leader

1965: Co-author of "Portrait of the Assassin (Lee Harvey Oswald)," with John R. Stiles

1969: Ford attempted to bring about the impeachment of Associate Justice William O. Douglas, a civil libertarian

1968, 1972: Permanent Chairman, Republican National Convention

Dec. 6, 1973: Confirmed as vice president (nominated by President Richard Nixon under provisions of the 25th Amendment, after resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew)

Aug. 9, 1974: Sworn in as president of the United States following the resignation of President Nixon

Aug. 9, 1974, until Jan. 20, 1977: Serves as president of the United States

Sept. 8, 1974: Pardons Nixon

Sept. 16, 1974: Ford offers amnesty to military deserters and draft dodgers of the Vietnam era

November 1974: Signs the Vladivostok Accords, an arms control agreement, with the Soviet Union

April 30, 1975: The last Americans are evacuated from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon

May 14, 1975: Orders the attack of Cambodian naval bases in retaliation for Cambodia's capture of an American freighter, the Mayaguez; the 30 hostages are safely released, but 41 Americans die in the rescue operation

Summer 1975: The Soviet Union signs the Helsinki Agreements on human rights with the United States and 33 other nations

Sept. 5, 1975: First assassination attempt, by Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, during visit to California

Sept. 22, 1975: Second assassination attempt, by Sara Jane Moore, happens during separate trip to California

Aug. 18, 1976: Nominated for president at Republican National Convention in Kansas City

Nov. 2, 1976: Defeated by Jimmy Carter

1979: Publishes his memoirs, "A Time to Heal"

Apr. 27, 1981: Gerald R. Ford library in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Mich., dedicated

1982: Established the American Enterprise Institute's World Forum, an international gathering of former and current world leaders and business executives, which he hosts annually in Vail/Beaver Creek, Colo.

August 1999: Receives the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award

October 1999: President and Mrs. Ford awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for "dedicated public service and outstanding humanitarian contributions"

August 2000: Suffers mild stroke while attending Republican convention in Philadelphia

May 2003: Hospitalized for dizziness experienced while golfing in California

Dec. 13, 2005: Ford, suffering from "a horrible cold," is hospitalized for what his chief of staff calls routine medical tests.

• Quotations: President Gerald R. Ford
Following are selected quotes from Gerald R. Ford:

On how he would like history to remember him:

"I hope and trust that people and historians 50 years from now will write that the Ford administration took over in a very turbulent, controversial period, and we healed the wounds and that we restored public trust in the White House and the presidency. I hope that's how it will be written."

On his work on the Warren Commission and the Kennedy assassination:

"No. 1, Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin. And two, the commission found no evidence of a conspiracy, foreign or domestic. And in my judgment, there has been no new evidence that would undercut those two conclusions, Oliver Stone notwithstanding."

On pardoning Richard Nixon:

"We needed to get the matter off my desk in the Oval Office so I could concentrate on the problems of 260 million Americans and not have to worry about the problems of one man."

From his inauguration speech:

"Our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men."

On his views on domestic policy:

"A government big enough to give us everything we want is a government big enough to take from us everything we have."

Accepting his John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage Award:

"To know John Kennedy, as I did, was to understand the true meaning of the word. He understood that courage is not something to be gauged in a poll or located in a focus group. No adviser can spin it. No historian can backdate it. For, in the age old contest between popularity and principle, only those willing to lose for their convictions are deserving of posterity's approval."

Comment during U.S. House committee hearing, 1973:

Truth is the glue that holds government together. Compromise is the oil that makes governments go.

On Americans who avoided conscription during the Vietnam War, to Veterans of Foreign Wars:

"As I rejected amnesty, so I reject revenge. I ask all Americans who ever asked for goodness and mercy in their lives, who ever sought forgiveness for their trespasses, to join in rehabilitating all the casualties of the tragic conflict of the past."

On stepping into the presidency vacated by the resignation of Richard Nixon:

"I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots, so I ask you to confirm me with your prayers."

His pardoning of Richard Nixon:

"There are no historic or legal precedents to which I can turn in this matter, none that precisely fit the circumstances of a private citizen who has resigned the presidency of the United States. ... Many months and perhaps more years will have to pass before Richard Nixon could hope to obtain a fair trial by jury ... But it is not the ultimate fate of Richard Nixon that most concerns me ... but the immediate future of this great country. ... Now, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, president of the United States ... have granted and do grant a full, free and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he ... has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from Jan. 20, 1969, through Aug. 9, 1974."

Repeating his truth in government philosophy, 1974:

"I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our government but civilization itself. That bond, though strained, is unbroken at home and abroad. In all my public and private acts as your president, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end."

On his pardon of Richard Nixon for Watergate:

"It can go on and on, or someone must write 'The End' to it. I have concluded that only I can do that. And if I can, I must."

1974:

"Our inflation, our public enemy number one, will, unless whipped, destroy our country, our homes, our liberties, our property and finally our national pride as surely as will a well-armed wartime enemy."

"When I talk about energy, I am talking about jobs. Our American economy runs on energy. No energy — no jobs."

On becoming vice president, December 1973:

"I am a Ford, not a Lincoln."

On Ronald Reagan:

"He was one of the few political leaders I have ever met whose public speeches revealed more than his private conversations."

Following the two assassination attempts on him:

"The American people want a dialogue between them and their president ... And if we can’t have that opportunity of talking with one another, seeing one another, shaking hands with one another, something has gone wrong in our society."

Other Quotes:

"The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?"

"All of us who served in one war or another know very well that all wars are the glory and the agony of the young."

"I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators."

"All my children have spoken for themselves since they first learned to speak, and not always with my advance approval, and I expect that to continue in the future."

"It's the quality of the ordinary, the straight, the square, that accounts for the great stability and success of our nation. It's a quality to be proud of. But it's a quality that many people seem to have neglected."

"We ... declared our independence 200 years ago, and we are not about to lose it now to paper shufflers and computers."

“Things are more like today than they have ever been before.”

"I watch a lot of baseball on the radio."

"Teddy Roosevelt ... once said, 'Speak softly and carry a big stick.' Jimmy Carter wants to speak loudly and carry a fly swatter."

"When I became president, I did not want to have a powerful chief of staff. Wilson had his Colonel House, Eisenhower his Sherman Adams, Nixon his Halderman, and I was aware of the trouble those top assistants had caused my predecessors."

"If the government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have."

"The Constitution is the bedrock of all our freedoms; guard and cherish it; keep honor and order in your own house; and the republic will endure."

Happy KWANZAA to all !

KWANZAA is derived from the Kiswahili phrase "matunda ya kwanza", which means "first fruits of the harvest" which is a depiction of the celebration of harvesting the first crops in traditional Africa.

Kwanzaa is an Afrocentric centered institution that is celebrated by people of African descent in North America, the Caribbean and other parts of the African Diaspora. It was created in 1966 by M. Ron Karenga. The celebration of Kwanzaa is a means for Black people to reaffirm their commitment to themselves, their families, their community, and the black struggle for equality.

There are seven days of Kwanzaa (The Black Cultural Celebration of the holiday season) December 26th thru Jan 1st.

Each day focuses on a specific principle, so there are seven principles.
The Seven Principles
December 26th Unity (Umoja)

27th Self-Determination (Kujichagulia)

28th Collective Work & Responsibility (Ujima)

29th Cooperative Economics (Ujamaa)

30th Purpose (Nia) 31st Creativity (Kuumba)

January 1st Faith (Imani)
The seven principles are collectively referred to as the Nguzo Saba, and are intended to serve as guideposts for meditation and daily living.

The greeting for each day of Kwanzaa is Habari Gani and the reply is Habari Gani followed by the Principle of the day. Kwanzaa also incorporates seven symbols from African Culture that have a significant ritualistic meaning.

The seven symbols are mazao (fruits, vegetables, and nuts), mkeba (place mat, representing as our foundation, our ancestors and our cultural history as a people), kinara (candleholder), vibunzi or muhindi (ears of corn, one for each child in the family), zawadi (gifts, usually made or selected to represent the principle of the day), Kikombe cha umoja (communal cup of unity), and mishumaa saba (seven candles, one lit each day starting with the black in the center on Unity Day, the first red (which are all located to the left) and rotating to the first green on the third day (which are all located on the right) red, green, red, green.

The candles are incrementally lighted, so on the day of Imani all seven candles are burning uniformly.

To see a description of a Model Kwanzaa Ceremony click HERE. Also to read about the Kwanzaa Symbols click HERE . At the time of Kwanzaa, we come together and commit ourselves to work and study for the World liberation of African people now and forever.

Umoja (Unity) To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.
Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.
Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.
Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.
Nia (Purpose) To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
Kuumba (Creativity) To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
Imani (Faith) To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

James Brown, Godfather of Soul dies at age 73

James Brown Dead at 73
Pneumonia claims 'Godfather of Soul'

ATLANTA — James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured "Godfather of Soul," whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a giant of R&B and an inspiration for rap, funk and disco, died early Christmas morning. He was 73.
Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music.
Copsidas said the cause of death was uncertain. "We really don't know at this point what he died of," he said.
Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him. His rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowie's "Fame," Prince's "Kiss," George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" and Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" were clearly based on Brown's rhythms and vocal style.
"He was an innovator, he was an emancipator, he was an originator. Rap music, all that stuff came from James Brown," entertainer Little Richard, a longtime friend of Brown's, told MSNBC. "A great treasure is gone."

Dec. 6, 2003: James Brown and his wife, Tomi Rae, arrive at the State Department for a reception.

If Brown's claim to the invention of soul can be challenged by fans of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, then his rights to the genres of rap, disco and funk are beyond question. He was to rhythm and dance music what Dylan was to lyrics: the unchallenged popular innovator.
"James presented obviously the best grooves," rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy once told The Associated Press. "To this day, there has been no one near as funky. No one's coming even close."
His hit singles include such classics as "Out of Sight," "(Get Up I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine," "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Say It Loud — I'm Black and I'm Proud," a landmark 1968 statement of racial pride.
"I clearly remember we were calling ourselves colored, and after the song, we were calling ourselves black," Brown said in a 2003 Associated Press interview. "The song showed even people to that day that lyrics and music and a song can change society."
He won a Grammy award for lifetime achievement in 1992, as well as Grammys in 1965 for "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (best R&B recording) and for "Living In America" in 1987 (best R&B vocal performance, male.) He was one of the initial artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, along with Presley, Chuck Berry and other founding fathers.
He triumphed despite an often unhappy personal life. Brown, who lived in Beech Island, S.C., near the Georgia line, spent more than two years in prison for aggravated assault and failing to stop for a police officer. After his release in 1991, Brown said he wanted to "try to straighten out" rock music.
From the 1950s, when Brown had his first R&B hit, "Please, Please, Please" in 1956, through the mid-1970s, Brown went on a frenzy of cross-country tours, concerts and new songs. He earned the nickname "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business" and often tried to prove it to his fans, said Jay Ross, his lawyer of 15 years.
Brown would routinely lose two or three pounds each time he performed and kept his furious concert schedule in his later years even as he fought prostate cancer, Ross said.
"He'd always give it his all to give his fans the type of show they expected," he said.
With his tight pants, shimmering feet, eye makeup and outrageous hair, Brown set the stage for younger stars such as Michael Jackson and Prince.
In 1986, he was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And rap stars of recent years overwhelmingly have borrowed his lyrics with a digital technique called sampling.
Brown's work has been replayed by the Fat Boys, Ice-T, Public Enemy and a host of other rappers. "The music out there is only as good as my last record," Brown joked in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
"Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James Brown; you know what I'm saying? You hear all the rappers, 90 percent of their music is me," he told the AP in 2003.
Born in poverty in Barnwell, S.C., in 1933, he was abandoned as a 4-year-old to the care of relatives and friends and grew up on the streets of Augusta, Ga., in an "ill-repute area," as he once called it. There he learned to wheel and deal.
"I wanted to be somebody," Brown said.
By the eighth grade in 1949, Brown had served 3 1/2 years in Alto Reform School near Toccoa, Ga., for breaking into cars.
While there, he met Bobby Byrd, whose family took Brown into their home. Byrd also took Brown into his group, the Gospel Starlighters. Soon they changed their name to the Famous Flames and their style to hard R&B.
In January 1956, King Records of Cincinnati signed the group, and four months later "Please, Please, Please" was in the R&B Top Ten.
Pete Allman, a radio personality in Las Vegas who had been friends with Brown for 15 years, credited Brown with jump-starting his career and motivating him personally and professionally.
"He was a very positive person. There was no question he was the hardest working man in show business," Allman said. "I remember Mr. Brown as someone who always motivated me, got me reading the Bible."
While most of Brown's life was glitz and glitter — he was the singing preacher in 1980's "The Blues Brothers" — he was plagued with charges of abusing drugs and alcohol and of hitting his third wife, Adrienne.
In September 1988, Brown, high on PCP and carrying a shotgun, entered an insurance seminar next to his Augusta office. Police said he asked seminar participants if they were using his private restroom.
Police chased Brown for a half-hour from Augusta into South Carolina and back to Georgia. The chase ended when police shot out the tires of his truck.
Brown received a six-year prison sentence. He spent 15 months in a South Carolina prison and 10 months in a work release program before being paroled in February 1991. In 2003, the South Carolina parole board granted him a pardon for his crimes in that state.
Soon after his release, Brown was on stage again with an audience that included millions of cable television viewers nationwide who watched the three-hour, pay-per-view concert at Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles.
Adrienne Brown died in 1996 in Los Angeles at age 47. She took PCP and several prescription drugs while she had a bad heart and was weak from cosmetic surgery two days earlier, the coroner said.
More recently, he married his fourth wife, Tomi Raye Hynie, one of his backup singers. The couple had a son, James Jr.
Two years later, Brown spent a week in a private Columbia hospital, recovering from what his agent said was dependency on painkillers. Brown's attorney, Albert "Buddy" Dallas, said the singer was exhausted from six years of road shows.
Brown was performing to the end, and giving back to his community.
Three days before his death, he joined volunteers at his annual toy giveaway in Augusta, and he planned to perform on New Year's Eve at B.B. King Blues Club in New York.
"He was dramatic to the end — dying on Christmas Day," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a friend of Brown's since 1955. "Almost a dramatic, poetic moment. He'll be all over the news all over the world today. He would have it no other way."
June 10, 1991: James Brown sings 'Living in America' during his three-hour concert at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles, Ca.


Jan. 27, 1992: James Brown is shown with his Award of Merit presented at the 19th Annual American Music Awards in Los Angeles, Ca.

WISHING YOU AND YOUR'S A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS !

Prime Minister Says Ethiopia Has Been 'Forced Into a War,' Bombs Islamic Militia in Somalia

Sunday, December 24, 2006

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Ethiopia sent fighter jets into Somalia and bombed several towns Sunday in a dramatic attack on Somalia's powerful Islamic movement, and Ethiopia's prime minister said his country had been "forced to enter a war."

It was the first time Ethiopia acknowledged its troops were fighting in support of Somalia's U.N.-backed interim government even though witnesses had been reporting their presence for weeks in an escalating battle that threatens to engulf the Horn of Africa region.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi went on television to announce that his country was at war with the Islamic movement that wants to rule neighboring Somalia by the Quran.

"Our defense force has been forced to enter a war to defend (against) the attacks from extremists and anti-Ethiopian forces and to protect the sovereignty of the land," Meles said a few hours after his military attacked the Islamic militia with fighter jets and artillery.

No reliable casualty reports were immediately available.

Ethiopia, a largely Christian nation, supports Somalia's interim government, which has been losing ground to the Council of Islamic Courts for months.

"They are cowards," said Sheik Mohamoud Ibrahim Suley, an official with the Islamic movement, which controls most of southern Somalia. "They are afraid of the face-to-face war and resorted to airstrikes. I hope God will help us shoot down their planes."

Eritrea, a bitter rival of Ethiopia, is backing the Islamic militia, and experts fear the conflict could draw in the volatile Horn of Africa region, which lies close to the Saudi Arabian peninsula and has seen a rise in Islamic extremism. A recent U.N. report said 10 nations have been illegally supplying arms and equipment to both sides in Somalia.

People living along Somalia's coast have reported seeing hundreds of foreign Muslims entering the country in answer to calls from the Islamic militia to fight a holy war against Ethiopia.

The Islamic group's often severe interpretation of Islam raises memories of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, which was ousted by a U.S.-led campaign for harboring Usama bin Laden. The U.S. says four Al Qaeda leaders blamed for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania have become leaders in Somalia's Islamic militia.

For more on the rise of the Islamic militia in Somalia, click here.

The Islamic movement drove secular Somali warlords supported by the U.S. out of the capital, Mogadishu, last summer and have seized most of the southern half of the country, which has not had an effective government since a longtime dictatorship was toppled in 1991.

The interim Somali administration, formed two years ago with U.N. help, been unable to exert any wide control and its influence is now confined to the area around the western city of Baidoa.

Several rounds of peace talks failed to yield any lasting results.

Major fighting broke out Tuesday night, but had tapered off before Sunday's battles began before dawn and continued for about 10 hours.

Ethiopian Information Minister Berhan Hailu said before Meles' announcement that Ethiopian soldiers were fighting alongside Somali government soldiers in Dinsoor, Belet Weyne, Bandiradley and Bur Haqaba.

Witnesses said a major road and an Islamic recruiting center were bombed in Belet Weyne, and 12 Ethiopian soldiers were reportedly captured nearby.

"We saw 12 blindfolded men and were told they were Ethiopian prisoners captured in the battle," said Abdi Fodere, a businessman in Belet Weyne.

Less serious fighting also was reported in Baidoa.

"I think they have met a resistance they have never dreamt of before," interim Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf said in brief remarks as the fighting began to die down at Baidoa.

Suley, the official with the Islamic movement, said his forces had destroyed four Ethiopian tanks outside the city.

As Sunday's fighting wore on, the Islamic militia began broadcasting patriotic songs in Mogadishu about Somalia's 1977 war with Ethiopia. The two countries have fought two wars over their disputed border in the past 45 years.

Meles has said his government has a legal and moral obligation to support Somalia's internationally recognized government. He also accuses the Islamic movement of backing ethnic Somali rebels fighting for independence from Ethiopia and has called such support an act of war.

Leaders of the Islamic militia have repeatedly said they want to incorporate ethnic Somalis living in eastern Ethiopia, northeastern Kenya and Djibouti into a Greater Somalia.

The fighting is hitting a country already devastated by conflict. One in five children dies before age 5 from a preventable disease, and the impoverished nation is struggling to recover from eastern Africa's worst flood season in 50 years.

Government officials and Islamic militiamen have said hundreds of people have been killed in the fighting since Tuesday, but the claims could not be independently confirmed. Aid groups put the death toll in the dozens.
For more on the rise of the Islamic militia in Somalia, click here.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/africa/index.html

Space Shuttle Discovery lands safely at Kennedy Space Center in Florida

Will post even more pics later. Come back. Awesome landing. Awesome machine!

CAPE CANAVERAL, United States (AFP) - Space shuttle Discovery and its seven-member crew landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center here after worries about weather had scotched an earlier landing time.

The landing concluded a nearly 13-day successful mission that advanced construction of the International Space Station (ISS) in four space walks, including one added at the last moment to fix a stuck solar panel array.

The 2232 GMT landing came at the end of a 66-minute descent during which the shuttle plunged at more than 26,500 kilometers (16,500 miles) an hour as it descended through the Earth's atmosphere.

The shuttle gave off a double sonic boom as it descended through the early evening skies to the runway on Florida's Atlantic coast.

Discovery carried seven astronauts, six from the United States and one from the European Space Agency, Christer Fuglesang, Sweden's first astronaut.

Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had hoped weather conditions would improve enough in Florida to avoid having to land the space shuttle at Edwards Air Force Base in California or the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.

A landing at either location in the western United States would have meant NASA would have to fly the shuttle to Florida, in the southeast, on the back of a modified Boeing 747 plane, which would cost some 1.7 million dollars.

There was also a worry about time running out in the mission, now in its 13th day. A landing by Saturday at the latest would be required because of dwindling electrical supplies on the shuttle.

The Discovery team spent eight days at the station, rewiring it and attaching a two-ton truss to its girder-like structure.

The crew also added a day and the extra space walk Monday to shake loose a solar panel array that had gotten stuck as it was being folded.

Earlier Friday NASA officials awakened Discovery's crew to the song "Home for the Holidays," to begin preparations for the return to Earth.

"Good morning, Discovery," the Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, said to the seven crew members after their musical wake-up call.

"We hope you agree with us that 'There's no place like home for the holidays,' because we hope to see you back here on Earth later this afternoon."

"We can't agree more," replied Commander Mark Polansky.

After this mission, NASA plans 13 more shuttle flights -- including five in 2007 -- to complete construction of the International Space Station by 2010, when the three-aircraft shuttle fleet is due to be retired.

ISS construction fell years behind schedule after the 2003 Columbia tragedy when the spacecraft disintegrated minutes ahead of landing, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

NASA suspended the shuttle program to deal with safety problems. The space shuttle Atlantis mission in September marked the resumption of ISS construction.