Bulletin

WASHINGTON - The FBI issued a global alert yesterday for four suspected al-Qaida terrorists it said may be plotting attacks against U.S. interests. Although at least one of the men has lived in the United States in the past, authorities said there was no indication that any were here now or that they were conspiring to launch terrorist strikes within U.S. borders. Still, officials said that possibility could not be ruled out because all four are believed to have used false names and fake travel documents in the past.

A Cumberland man was sentenced in federal court Wednesday to 10 years in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release for his part in running a child pornography website, prosecutors said. George Sell, 70, pleaded guilty in November to conspiring to transport child pornography, the U.S. Attorney's Office for Maryland said in a statement Wednesday. From December 2006 through August 2008, Sell was the administrator of a website called the "Country Lounge" that was dedicated to trading child pornography images, the government said.

When international affairs reach a certain level of tension -- nuclear testing, border wars, instablility inside a major power -- the phone in Mike Moore's office inevitably rings. Journalists on the line have one simple question: "Are you going to change the clock?"Moore, a former newspaperman himself, is editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and thus the public keeper of the Doomsday Clock, which, since 1945 has served as a symbol of how close the world is to nuclear disaster.

A few weeks ago I noticed the bulletin board inside of the Village Square Café at Cross Keys. A welcomed addition to the neighborhood it is. Fewer and fewer bulletin boards are in the 'hood. They used to be at the front of the library and neighborhood grocery stores. No more.   Schneider's Hardware on Wyndhurst has for generations used the glass front door for neatly taped notices. An overflowing bulletin board sits at the back of Evergreen Café on Cold Spring Lane. The Children's Bookstore  on Deepdene Road has one at the front of the store.

Remember when nuclear winter was what everyone worried about? Then came global warming. What a choice; in contemplating the end of civilization as the world knows it, fashionable worriers have swung from ice to fire. But the threat of one doesn't rule out the threat of the other, and yesterday the people who put out the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved their venerable Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight, on the notion that nukes and greenhouse gases each pose a danger to the globe - and, in both cases, it's a growing one. At the end of the Cold War, the 60-year-old Doomsday Clock was set at 17 minutes to midnight, but it's been creeping closer to the fatal hour ever since; yesterday's adjustment resets it at 11:55.

RELIGIOUS clashes seem to be popping up in the strangest places these days. In fact, they are seeping more and more often into disputes that have little or nothing at all to do with differences of faith.Frederick County resident Joanne Caldwell has decorated rocks in her Lake Linganore yard with religious symbols and expressions. The community association wrote her up for violating neighborhood covenants against "noxious and offensive things."Ms. Caldwell says this rule impinges on her religious freedom.

I'm sure the New York Yankees are just heartbroken that Alex Rodriguez has decided not to play in the World Baseball Classic, and if you detect a hint of sarcasm in that observation, you are very perceptive, indeed. It should be obvious to everyone by now that I never met a conspiracy theory that I didn't like, and the announcement by A-Rod that he was pulling out of the WBC because he didn't want to dishonor either his U.S. citizenship or his Dominican heritage is far too convenient to pass without suspicious comment.

150 years ago in The SunOct. 3: Yesterday as the cars were coming into the Pratt Street Depot, they knocked down the staging upon which some of the workers were engaged in plastering the building, and one of the men fell, dislocating a shoulder.100 years ago in The SunSept. 30: Although Baltimore has won the championship three successive years, the Orioles have not had any pitcher of pre-eminent ability, such as Rusie or Cy Young, or Meekin in his prime. But the weakest point in the Baltimore club has always been the pitching department.

IT WAS with no little trepidation that we read the word "Bulletin" on our computerized news wire the other day. That is the warning in newspaperese that some monumental event has just occurred, as in:"Bulletin: Japanese warplanes bombed Pearl Harbor this morning" or " Bulletin Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak was snapped at 56 straight games tonight in Cleveland."So it was with apprhension that we read: "Bulletin: Louisville, Ky., (Reuter) -- An autopsy on the remains of President Zachary Taylor showed he was not poisoned by arsenic 141 years ago, ending the debate about whether he or Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated, Kentucky Medical Examiner Dr. George Nichols announced Wednesday."

MACON, Ga. -- Like a sort of small-scale, not-for-profit Victor Kiam, I liked calling bulletin boards so much I bought one.And I think you'll like them, too.When you first call a bulletin board system, you'll want to remember that all you're doing is calling someone else's PC. Thanks to viruses and hackers, the owner of the other computer has an obvious interest in knowing who you are.So, once your modem has made the connection to a board, the first thing...

First Mariner Bancorp, locked in a fight for survival, suffered another setback Wednesday when its stock was delisted from the Nasdaq stock market. Starting Thursday, First Mariner shares will be traded on the over-the-counter bulletin board. The latest development comes as the company is trying to raise desperately needed capital to close a deal that would keep regulators at bay and the bank in business. The deal requires the Baltimore company to raise nearly $124 million by Thursday or risk losing a cash infusion from a New York investment firm.

Hines Ward, quoted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, talked about the Steelers' competition in the AFC North - without mentioning the Ravens. "We're 2-0," Ward said. "Cincinnati and Cleveland are 0-2. They have to catch up to us. It is big. Everybody picked Cleveland as the team to beat. We came on the road and won up here. It speaks volumes for our team. ... We are the division champions from last year." (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/ravensinsider)

WASHINGTON -- In October 2004, the U.S. Army issued an urgent bulletin to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by contractors, the bulletin stated, soldiers at American bases in Iraq had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been electrocuted. The bulletin, with the headline "The Unexpected Killer," was issued after the horrific deaths of two soldiers who were caught in water -- one in a shower, the other in a swimming pool -- that was suddenly electrified after poorly grounded wiring short-circuited.

WASHINGTON -- Security officials scrambled yesterday to quell public concern over a government report that warned of possible "dry runs" for a terrorist attack that would target airports, including Baltimore's. Officials played down the information in the report, which highlighted an incident at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport last year in which a couple's checked baggage contained a block of processed cheese and a charger for a DVD player, which might have substituted for bomb components.

Austenland By Shannon Hale Bloomsbury / 198 pages / $19.95 Ask a woman to describe Fitzwilliam Darcy, the obstinately ineligible stiff who thaws under the lively wit of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, and watch her eyes take on a lustful sheen as she conjures up the image of Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, plunging shirtless into an icy English pond. Firth played another Darcy in Bridget Jones's Diary, suffering through one of Bridget's mum's awful parties in a reindeer sweater.

Apparently, it comes as quite a surprise to some people that Sen. Barack Obama is black. I'm driven to this realization by the response to a recent column in which I referred to the senator as African-American. Many people wrote to correct me on that. Among the most memorable was a guy who said: "I heard his dad was a radical Muslim from Africa and his mom was a white atheist from Kansas City. If that be the case, wouldn't he be half a black man and half a white man? If he's a half-breed, shouldn't you do a correction?"

IF THERE was any doubt that Baltimore is the home office for weather wimps, that should be about gone now. Look, we all know people freak out about snow around here. Mention snow is on the way, and you might as well set off the air-raid sirens, too, as people scramble to get to the supermarket and home before the coming nuclear winter hits. But now we freak out about rain, too. In fact, in terms of inducing panic, rain has become the new snow. Now we get the same kind of end-of-the-world TV and radio coverage for rain as we do for snow: the First Warning Weather alerts, potential inch counts, reporters in foul-weather gear doing stand-ups against a backdrop of bumper-to-bumper traffic and beating windshield wipers, shots of BGE trucks on standby in case the power lines start snapping, etc. Case in point: I'm in my car last week, listening to a talk show on the radio, when suddenly they break in with a news bulletin.

WASHINGTON -- In October 2004, the U.S. Army issued an urgent bulletin to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by contractors, the bulletin stated, soldiers at American bases in Iraq had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been electrocuted. The bulletin, with the headline "The Unexpected Killer," was issued after the horrific deaths of two soldiers who were caught in water -- one in a shower, the other in a swimming pool -- that was suddenly electrified after poorly grounded wiring short-circuited.

Remember when nuclear winter was what everyone worried about? Then came global warming. What a choice; in contemplating the end of civilization as the world knows it, fashionable worriers have swung from ice to fire. But the threat of one doesn't rule out the threat of the other, and yesterday the people who put out the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved their venerable Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight, on the notion that nukes and greenhouse gases each pose a danger to the globe - and, in both cases, it's a growing one. At the end of the Cold War, the 60-year-old Doomsday Clock was set at 17 minutes to midnight, but it's been creeping closer to the fatal hour ever since; yesterday's adjustment resets it at 11:55.

I'm sure the New York Yankees are just heartbroken that Alex Rodriguez has decided not to play in the World Baseball Classic, and if you detect a hint of sarcasm in that observation, you are very perceptive, indeed. It should be obvious to everyone by now that I never met a conspiracy theory that I didn't like, and the announcement by A-Rod that he was pulling out of the WBC because he didn't want to dishonor either his U.S. citizenship or his Dominican heritage is far too convenient to pass without suspicious comment.