The way the pro-Palestinian activists on the Freedom Flotilla II see it, Israel has managed to extend the sea blockade of Gaza to Greece. First, there was the anonymous safety complaint that docked the U.S. ship, The Audacity of Hope, and prompted Greek authorities to conduct a still-ongoing investigation of its seaworthiness. After that, there was the mysterious damage to the propeller shaft of a Greek-Swedish-Norwegian passenger boat. Then, on Friday, the Greek government forbade all ships bound for Gaza ...

It was 40 years ago this month that a criminal conspiracy was hatched in the Oval Office — a fact that bears noting as we witness the self-immolation of Anthony Weiner over matters of far less import and ask ourselves just what determines which sins are punished, which forgiven and which forgotten in the public arena. The occasion in 1971 was the publication of the first installment of the Pentagon Papers, a 2.5-million-word secret history of the Vietnam ...

Retired Major General Joseph McChristian looked straight at the jury in a Manhattan federal courtroom last week, recalling a day in May 1967. He had brought to General William Westmoreland a carefully researched proposal to virtually double the official estimate of enemy troops in Viet Nam. "I stood in front of his desk, and I handed it to him," McChristian said. "I gave him a little bit of background on what it was. He read it. He looked up at ...

The ancient Mayans predicted that a world cataclysm would occur on the winter solstice in 2012, and so have enough conspiracy theorists to spur a swelling industry of doomsday books and TV shows. In the new thriller 2012, those lunar or just lunatic prophesies come true. "It's kind of galling," says a previously skeptical White House pooh-bah , "when you realize that the nutbags with the cardboard signs were right all along." The nutbag with the $250 million ...

For Omar bin Laden, the fourth eldest of Osama bin Laden's 20 known children, the awful realization that his father was a terrorist mastermind who was plotting a global conspiracy that would destroy the lives of thousands of innocent people and even his own family came gradually. Of course, there were warning signs: Omar's childhood was marked by regular beatings and survivalist training; the growing army of ruffians and retainers who called his father "Prince"; and that ...

I am neutral on most things that don't involve food or sex or sexfood, which does not yet exist but which I already feel strongly about. But I am against Net neutrality. That's the idea being pushed by the President, the FCC and people who write comments on blogs and want everything to be free except what they happen to do for a living. Net neutrality would set up rules to make sure your Internet provider treats all information equally; ...

The prosecution cannot argue that sex was a motivation for doctors to give Anna Nicole Smith the drugs that may have led to her death, a judge ruled Thursday. "I'm just not buying that," Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Perry said. The ruling came on the third day of a preliminary hearing for Howard K. Stern -- Smith's lawyer and companion -- and co-defendants Dr. Khristine Eroshevich and Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, on charges stemming from the Playboy model and ...

The raid looked like something out of a Hollywood action movie. On July 7, Russian special forces dropped down on ropes from a helicopter to storm a luxury yacht on the Pirogovsky reservoir outside Moscow, arresting three dozen mobsters, including the group's alleged ringleader, Tariel Oniani. But within days, nearly all of them, including Oniani, had to be set free because prosecutors couldn't charge them with anything. Russia's laws have long been weak and unspecific when it comes to combating organized crime, part of the ...

The friend of a man accused of conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction in the United States said Saturday he had put his life "on hold" because of the investigation. Naiz Khan said he has been under round-the-clock surveillance by authorities ever since Najibullah Zazi was charged with conspiracy. Authorities say Zazi planned to be in New York with the intent of using an explosive device on September 11, 2009. The alleged plot, which came to light after ...