Bush won't commit to Iraq troop changes - "President Bush said Monday he hasn't decided whether to send more troops to Iraq or begin bringing them home, saying he is awaiting the military's recommendations. He also shrugged off protests that greeted him in the world's most populous Muslim nation, calling it a sign of a healthy democracy."
Kissinger: Iraq Military Win Impossible - "Kissinger presented a bleak vision of Iraq, saying the U.S. government must enter into dialogue with Iraq's regional neighbors _ including Iran _ if progress is to be made in the region."
Embittered Insiders Turn Against Bush - "Forty-three months later, the cakewalk looks more like a death march, and Adelman has broken with the Bush team. He had an angry falling-out with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this fall. He and Cheney are no longer on speaking terms. And he believes that "the president is ultimately responsible" for what Adelman now calls "the debacle that was Iraq.""
Gonzales attacks ruling against domestic spying - "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales contended Saturday that some critics of the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program were defining freedom in a way that presents a "grave threat" to U.S. security."
CIA analysis finds no Iranian nuclear weapons drive: report - "A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis and said the White House had been hostile to it, he wrote. Cheney and his aides had discounted the assessment, the official said. "They're not looking for a smoking gun," the official was quoted as saying, referring to specific intelligence about Iranian nuclear planning. "They're looking for the degree of comfort level they think they need to accomplish the mission."" -- "We have no need for the facts!"
Bush: I would understand if Israel chose to attack Iran - "In talks with Israeli sources several days ago, a French government official asserted that an Israeli military attack against Iran would be "a total disaster" in terms of its implications for the entire world. According to the French official, such a strike would at best delay the completion of Iran's nuclear program by two years." -- Humanity is disgusting.
Hersh: Is a damaged Administration less likely to attack Iran, or more? - "If the Democrats won on November 7th, the Vice-President said, that victory would not stop the Administration from pursuing a military option with Iran. The White House would put “shorteners” on any legislative restrictions, Cheney said, and thus stop Congress from getting in its way. The White House’s concern was not that the Democrats would cut off funds for the war in Iraq but that future legislation would prohibit it from financing operations targeted at overthrowing or destabilizing the Iranian government, to keep it from getting the bomb. “They’re afraid that Congress is going to vote a binding resolution to stop a hit on Iran, à la Nicaragua in the Contra war,” a former senior intelligence official told me."
White House dismisses Hersh article - "White House spokeswoman Dana Perino on Sunday derided Hersh's article in the upcoming issue of The New Yorker as "riddled with inaccuracies" and charged that "once again he is creating a story to satisfy his own radical views.""
WHAT THE AMERICANS DO NOT KNOW - "The aggression against the Palestinians is widening and the United States of America is taking an active role in it. The country of "Justice for All" and its allies are maintaining a deadly blockade against the people of Palestine. Medicine, food and water are not available and the Palestinian children, like their young brethren in Iraq, are suffering the most."
Chertoff says U.S. threatened by international law - "A top Bush administration official on Friday said the European Union, the United Nations and other international entities increasingly are using international law to challenge U.S. powers to reject treaties and protect itself from attack."
Bolton in extraordinary outburst against United Nations - "Bolton was furious over the adoption by the General Assembly of a resolution which said the assembly regretted the deaths of 19 civilians in an attack by the Israeli military in the town of Beit Hanoun last week. Despite the resolution being significantly watered down at the behest of the United States, and being passing by 156 votes to seven, Bolton launched a blistering attack on the UN, and many of its members." -- These are sad days.
Iraqi students fear death of education system - ""The future? The future is a dream. We only live in the now. There is no future," the 21-year-old student says. This university, with its sprawling green campus, once was abuzz with activity. Now it is covered in the layer of grime and dust that seems to blanket all of Baghdad. Like most of the students at Baghdad University, Maha lives in fear. But now, after the mass kidnapping at the Ministry of Higher Education this week, she lives not only in fear of the violence, but in fear of losing the one thing that will determine her future -- her education. ... When she heard that the education ministry was thinking of shutting down the university, her world -- already shattered -- crumbled. "You can't imagine what we felt, I saw our future destroyed," she says. "How do you know that a future of a country ... has been destroyed? It's when there is no justice, no security, and no education, if you reach the stage of no studies and no education. And when you lose that, that's it, the people are finished. "There is no future.""
Global Hawk to fly 1st mission over U.S. - "They've become a fixture in the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan, a new breed of unmanned aircraft operated with remote controls by "pilots" sitting in virtual cockpits many miles away. But the Air Force's Global Hawk has never flown a mission over the United States. That is set to change Monday, when the first Global Hawk is scheduled to land at Beale Air Force Base in northern California."
USA Disses UN Human Food Rights - "The government of President George W. Bush shamed the United States into international isolation after it rejected a UN resolution defending the human right to food."
E-voting glitch turns up in Texas - "County officials uncovered the hiccups on the day after the election, when they found that the number of reported votes was higher than the number of people who signed at their polling places."
Time for a Constitutional Convention - "Given that both the Republican and the Democratic parties are wholly corrupt, and they are just 2 heads of a single corporate/imperial party (with the main difference that the Democrats wear more of a velvet glove and give an occasional token nod to the "little guy" and the less-affluent), how can we save America? We need a new constitutional convention."
1040 Checkmate? - "On May 12, 2006 in Peoria, Illinois, the attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) begged the court to dismiss all charges against IRS victim Robert Lawrence in federal District Court. The motion for dismissal came on the heels of a surprise tactic by Lawrence’s defense attorney Oscar Stilley. The tactic threatened exposure of IRS’s on-going efforts to defraud the public. The move put DOJ attorneys in a state of panic that left them with only one alternative: beg for dismissal, with prejudice."
No doubt about it - Jesus Camp is ritual child abuse - "Obviously, in these times of professed sensitivity to child abuse, hitting kids is not allowed, nor is sexually exploiting them, but psychologically abusing the hell out of them in Jesus' name is sanctioned and/or ignored by both church and state."
When religion loses its credibility - "Religion's only real commodity, after all, is its moral authority. Lose that, and we lose our credibility. Lose credibility, and we might as well close up shop. It's happened to Christianity before, most famously when we dug in our heels over Galileo's challenge to the biblical view that the Earth, rather than the sun, was at the center of our solar system. You know the story. Galileo was persecuted for what turned out to be incontrovertibly true. For many, especially in the scientific community, Christianity never recovered. This time, Christianity is in danger of squandering its moral authority by continuing its pattern of discrimination against gays and lesbians in the face of mounting scientific evidence that sexual orientation has little or nothing to do with choice. To the contrary, whether sexual orientation arises as a result of the mother's hormones or the child's brain structure or DNA, it is almost certainly an accident of birth. The point is this: Without choice, there can be no moral culpability."
In the beginning: scientists get ready to hunt for God particle - "The project may prise open extra dimensions and create baby black holes; it may reveal enigmatic "dark energy" that drives the expansion of the universe. It should certainly discover what some call the "God particle", finally answering the embarrassingly simple but elusive question of why things have mass."
Europeans ‘would accept climate change curbs’ - "Research carried out this month by Harris Interactive in Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain found that 86 per cent of people believed humans were contributing to climate change, and 45 per cent thought it would be a threat to them and their families within their lifetimes."
Introducing the nano battery, as thick as a strand of hair - "A university here has developed and patented nano-battery technology suitable for military applications."
Calif. couple calls for orgasm for peace - "The Global Orgasm for Peace was conceived by Donna Sheehan, 76, and Paul Reffell, 55, whose immodest goal is for everyone in the world to have an orgasm Dec. 22 while focusing on world peace."
European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs - "Are streets without traffic signs conceivable? Seven cities and regions in Europe are giving it a try -- with good results."
'You're an Idiot,' And Other Festive Holiday Greetings - "The Web site http://www.platewire.com/ allows motorists to post the license plate numbers of offending drivers on the Internet and tell the world what a moron that guy was on the Capital Beltway. The Web site was created by a Fairfax man who said he wants to shame people into driving better. Police disapprove, saying the best tactic is to call authorities. On the Web site, license plate numbers are accompanied by pointed, sometimes-profane commentaries on the motoring skills of their owners. They are listed under headings such as "Maniac" and "Jerk on the Phone.""
Quote of the Day
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."
~ Henry Kissinger, The New York Times, October 28, 1973
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