Sabotage

The fatal collision on Friday evening between a large airliner and a small plane on the ground at Los Angeles International Airport, one of the nation's busiest, comes as no surprise to aviation experts who have been issuing warnings about dangerously congested runway conditions nationwide. "We know that the two planes did collide on the (ground)," said Elly Brekke, a regional spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Let's face facts: Some Halloween candy is more tempting than others. In an online poll conducted by the "Today" show, respondents named candy corn, something resembling peanut butter taffy and hard candy in general as the least-coveted treats. If that were all we (or our kids) brought home after a night of knocking on doors, it wouldn't be too hard to stay on the straight and narrow. Alas, it's not uncommon to binge on candy in the early days of November. The more conscientious among us may go to the trouble of looking up the calorie content of our favorite treats online to see just how much damage we're doing to our diets.

I'm sick of viruses. I'm even sicker of the weasels who program them. Starting at midnight tonight, the so-called Columbus Day virus (also known as the Datacrime virus) will allegedly spring to life to destroy all the hard disk data on thousands of IBM-compatible personal computers. Picture someone sneaking into your office and torching every item in your files--letters, reports, memos. Everything. Multiply that by thousands and you have computerdom's equivalent to Hurricane Hugo.

A gas leak and not sabotage caused an explosion Tuesday at a newly inaugurated section of an oil refinery in Abadan just before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, state media reported. But Ahmadinejad quickly drew criticism from a lawmaker and some staff members at the refinery who suggested that the facility in the southwestern city was launched too soon, a semiofficial news agency reported. The blast, which killed as many as four people and injured up to 25 more, did not halt Ahmadinejad's speech, which included fairly typical denunciations of U.S. relations with Middle East autocrats and the course of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, according to news agencies.

A cable news program was temporarily replaced with hard-core pornography, shocking viewers who had been watching a health show featuring former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw. The incident on KPPX-TV was "an act of human sabotage" at the Phoenix-area station, said Ion Television, which operates the station. "We have launched a rigorous investigation, and any implicated employees will face strict disciplinary action and termination," spokeswoman Leslie Monreal said.

A judge on Friday ordered two high-ranking Los Angeles transportation engineers to stand trial on felony charges of allegedly gaining unauthorized access to the city's computer system in order to sabotage traffic flow at four busy city intersections in August 2006.

Chevron Corp. said it had shut down its onshore oil production to protect the environment after a pipeline in the southern Niger Delta was sabotaged. The region's main militant group said it was not involved but had been contacted by angry youths who said they had blown up the pipeline.

The theory that Ben Johnson was a victim of sabotage at the Seoul Olympics surfaced again at an inquiry into drug use by Canadian athletes on Tuesday at Toronto. David Sookram, attorney for Dr. Jamie Astaphan, who treated Johnson, suggested during cross-examination of Waldemar Matuszewski, Johnson's physical therapist, that Johnson received pills described as pain killers several days before he tested positive for steroids and was stripped of the gold medal he won in the 100-meter dash.

Rightist Mozambican guerrillas said they sabotaged the railroad linking landlocked Zimbabwe to the Indian Ocean and killed 90 soldiers in recent fighting. In a statement issued in Lisbon, the South African-backed Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) rebels also said they launched a "large-scale counteroffensive" in northern Zambezia province, where the government has claimed victories. There was no comment from the government.

A million-volt transmission line carrying power from the Pacific Northwest to Southern California was back in service, three days after vandals toppled a 120-foot tower and downed the line near Independence on the eastern slope of the Sierra. The FBI and Inyo County sheriff's deputies were continuing to investigate the sabotaging of the tower, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power spokeswoman Treva Miller said. "We know some guy wires were cut, but we don't know why," Miller said.

An explosion blamed on a gas leak struck a newly inaugurated section of an oil refinery Tuesday just before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at the facility's ribbon-cutting ceremony, state media reported. At least one person was killed and up to 25 were injured by the explosion in Abadan, in Iran's oil-rich southwest, according to accounts by domestic Iranian news agencies. One Abadan resident quoted by the Associated Press said he saw rescue vehicles rushing to the site. The incident did not disrupt Ahmadinejad's speech, which included fairly typical denunciations of U.S. relations with Middle East autocrats and the course of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, according to news agencies.

Iran declared Saturday that it had uncovered and dismantled what it called a U.S. "espionage and sabotage network" and arrested 30 people allegedly spying for the CIA. Tehran claimed that it also had identified and exposed 42 others in connection with the suspected U.S. spy network, according to a widely disseminated statement by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The statement alleged that the network was run by CIA agents via U.S. embassies in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Malaysia and sought to "gather information from scientific, research and academic centers … especially in terms of nuclear energy, aerospace and defense industries and biotechnology" as well as on oil and gas pipelines, telecommunications and electricity networks and border controls.

Six months after agreeing to form a national unity government, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and his secular rival Iyad Allawi are again exchanging insults and cannot agree on such basic issues as who should run the nation's police and army. The rift, though unlikely to send Iraq back into sectarian violence, does have Iraqi and Western analysts concerned that the country will continue on a dysfunctional path as American troops move to complete their withdrawal by year's end, nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Egypt resumed natural gas shipments to Israel on Wednesday for the first time since the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak. But many here remain worried about the long-term prospects for the $2.5-billion export deal, which when signed in 2005 was touted as an indication of warming bilateral relations, but could soon turn into an uncomfortable diplomatic dispute with Egypt's new government. The flow of natural gas from Egypt was halted in early February after the pipeline in the northern part of the Sinai peninsula was sabotaged by unknown militants.

WASHINGTON -- As Sarah Palin ponders whether to enter the 2012 GOP presidential wars, a skirmish over two competing chronicles of her time in Alaska has broken out. A former aide to Palin, Frank Bailey, is working on a manuscript in which, according to press reports, Palin is portrayed as thin-skinned and obsessed with her political critics. On Tuesday, Bailey accused author Joe McGinniss, who has been working on his own Palin book, of leaking Bailey's manuscript to the media. Posting on the anti-Palin blog Mudflats on Tuesday, Bailey, along with his co-authors, Ken Morris and Jeanne Devon, issued what they termed was a "cease-and-desist order" against McGinniss, which read, in part, that the three "believe [McGinniss']

An Egyptian pipeline providing gas to Jordan was attacked and set ablaze Saturday near the northern Sinai town of El Arish, media reports said, disrupting gas flow and sending a stern warning to Israel and the world about the volatility of the political upheaval in Egypt. Other reports said the terminal also provided gas to Israel and Syria. An unnamed official told Agence France Presse that the attackers used explosives against the pipeline and that the blast had forced authorities to turn off gas supply from a twin pipeline to Israel, located near the Gaza strip.

A military jury on Wednesday acquitted a Marine on charges that he sabotaged his comrades' parachutes and caused three servicemen to be injured during a training jump. But the jury convicted him on drug charges. A sentencing hearing got underway after the jury of six Marines reached its verdict against Cpl. Clayton A. Chaffin. Chaffin, 28, of Columbus, Ohio, was convicted of soliciting to buy and use drugs, distributing cocaine and marijuana, and using marijuana.

After years of warning that an Iranian atomic bomb is right around the corner, Israeli officials now say Iran is at least four years away from deploying a nuclear weapon, maybe more. And Obama administration officials agree, although they shy away from endorsing a specific time frame. "We've gained some breathing space," a senior U.S. official told me last week. "The good news is that we have slowed down the nuclear clock. " U.S. and Israeli officials say their revised timeline is based mainly on reports that Iran is having trouble with its centrifuges, the machines that enrich ordinary uranium into the stuff used in weapons.

This post has been corrected. Please see the note at the bottom. It's all about karma. Fifteen years ago, while living in Cheyenne, Wyo., I would frequently have lunch at a great place called the Egg and I. Nice little spot, walking distance from the state’s Capitol building.  Easy to get to. RELATED: Two Guys Lose Weight: The Kickoff But on the way back, I would walk by a taco joint.  Another great place. I love fast food.  I love fast food too much.