Iraq braces for Hussein verdict - "A complete movement ban -- both people and vehicles -- will be imposed in the capital and in Salaheddin and Diyala provinces starting at 6 a.m. Sunday until further notice, the Iraqi prime minister's office told CNN."
Fifty Years On - "Today the United States is viewed in the Arab world as a too-often blundering and ill-informed imperialistic meddler, whose judgment of the Middle East is always distorted by its slavish support for Israel. Fifty years ago its reputation could hardly have been more different."
Bush administration: Ex-CIA prisoner shouldn't speak to attorney - "A suspected terrorist who spent years in a secret CIA prison should not be allowed to speak to a civilian attorney, the Bush administration argues, because he could reveal the agency's closely guarded interrogation techniques." -- Which means he was tortured.
U.S. Seeks Silence on CIA Prisons - "The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that their captors used to get them to talk." -- Torture by another name.
Why is the New York Times covering up the torture of Jose Padilla? - "Lawyers for Padilla filed a motion October 4 asking a US District Court judge in Miami to throw out charges against their client on the grounds of “outrageous government conduct.” The 20-page brief spells out the various means by which Padilla was mentally and physically tortured by American authorities. The lawyers quite rightly call the prospect of his prosecution “an abomination,” describe his treatment as “a blot on this nation’s character, shameful in its disrespect for the rule of law” and argue that it “should never be repeated.” The news of the motion to dismiss all charges, as well as the allegations of torture, did not receive serious coverage in the American media, much less enter into the election campaign as an issue."
American Prison Planet - "In a remarkably few years, the Bush administration has been able to construct a global detention system, already of near epic proportions, both on the fly and on the cheap."
Was Kerry Right? - "Since John Kerry "botched" a joke and implied that those without education "get stuck in Iraq," political leaders from both parties have been piously describing U.S. troops as valiant young Einsteins in desert camouflage. But deep down, a lot of them probably think Kerry is right. If those grunts were half as smart as members of Congress, they'd be on Capitol Hill getting sucked up to by lobbyists instead of sucking up dust in Baghdad's bloody alleys — right? Most of our current political leaders didn't waste any time serving in the military. Like Vice President Dick Cheney, they had "other priorities." As recently as 1994, 44% of members of Congress were veterans. Today, it's only 26%. And despite the mandatory "I adore our heroic troops" rhetoric, most on Capitol Hill aren't steering their own children toward military service. Only about 1% of U.S. representatives and senators have a son or daughter in uniform. For many in Congress, serving in the military is a fine thing to do — for all those poor schmoes who don't have any better options, that is."
Neocons turn on Bush for incompetence over Iraq war - "Several prominent neoconservatives have turned on George Bush days before critical midterm elections, lambasting his administration for incompetence in the handling of the Iraq war and questioning the wisdom of the 2003 invasion they were instrumental in promoting."
Army Times: "Time for Rumsfeld to go" - "It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation's current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads."
Baptist Convention told: Muslims 'are here to take over our country' - "Clippard reserved his strongest words for what he said he considered paramount for all Americans: the threat of Islam. "Today, Islam has a strategic plan to defeat and occupy America," he told the 1,200-strong crowd of delegates (called "messengers"), pastors and lay people, many of whom cheered his words." -- Jesus.
Haggard, Foley and GOP Preaching Against the Very Vices they Can't Shake - "What are we to make of a reigning conservative regime that lists the following inglorious claims to fame: Strom Thurmond, a notoriously racist senator who turned out to have a black lover; a Republican indictment of President Clinton's sexual license headed up by a team of philanderers; a Congress full of divorces passing an anti-gay law known as the "Defense of Marriage Act"? In the pundit corner, we recently saw three giants of conservative moralizing unmasked as incapable of restraining their own vices: William Bennett turned out to be addicted to gambling, Rush Limbaugh to drugs. Meanwhile, Ralph Reed, the hand-picked youthful leader of the religious right, was quietly helping the corrupt lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, enable everything that religious conservatives oppose: casinos on Indian reservations and compelled abortions and sex slavery in the Northern Mariana Islands, an American territory. And this is not even to mention the Catholic Church's strident indictment of sexual freedom as it shuffled its own cadre of child-molesting priests from parish to parish. The cover-ups and power grabs, of course, are simply raw politics. But the pattern here may reveal something more striking than the obvious reality that those in power will sacrifice almost anything to stay there. The Republican Party appears to be chock full of people who make a life of preaching against the very vices they can't shake. Why?"
Tangram: Son of Total Information Awareness - "Of course, cutting edge snoop technology and programs are never closed down and TIA lived on, thanks to the NSA under the classified annex to the 2004 DOD Appropriations Act. It now appears TIA finally surfaced in Negroponte’s office and is called Tangram. It is “a computer system capable of data-mining huge amounts of information about everyday events to discern patterns that look like terrorist planning,” although “officials have said it is being tested without using any data about Americans.”"
Poll: Britons warier of Bush than Kim Jong Il - "The United States is seen as a threat to world peace by its closest neighbors and allies, with Britons saying President Bush poses a greater danger than North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, a survey found Friday."
Bush mocks Democrats' 'lack of plan' - "President Bush yesterday said Republicans nationwide are running on a strong record of accomplishment as he ridiculed Democrats seeking to take control of the House and Senate, asking: "What's your plan?"" -- Strong record of accomplishment?
America's last chance - "On the other hand, if Republicans steal the election again, and Democrats are silent again, and the media again won't report it ... ... If fraud is all over the blogs but the reports never crack the mainstream media, ... If there's no outcry, no furious protests that threaten to shut down this criminal government ... ... Then it will finally, inarguable be clear that both parties, and the media, are in on the fix. It will finally be obvious, even to stubborn hold-outs like me, that democracy is over in America."
Scientists say negative campaign ads work - "In fact, the ad's effects on the brain "are actually shocking," says UCLA psychiatry professor Dr. Marco Iacoboni. Iacoboni's brain imaging research from the 2004 presidential campaign revealed that viewers lost empathy for their own candidate once he was attacked."
Signs of the times - "So what is all this about? Are we really in the Last Days? The answer is yes. What we see today are the labor pains of what is yet to come. As we watch these things happen in our world, as we sense these labor pains getting closer and closer together, they tell us the coming of Jesus Christ is near. In fact, I see nothing in Scripture that needs to occur before the Rapture of the church can take place. In my understanding of Bible prophecy, it is the next event on the prophetic calendar. And it could happen at any time."
Exxon sees plenty of oil supplies to meet demand - "The world is not running out of oil and even with advances in alternative energy, fossil fuels will remain the dominant energy source well into the future, Stephen Pryor, president of Exxon Mobil Refining and Supply Co., said at a conference here Friday."
Will seafood nets be empty? Grim outlook draws skeptics - "But other scientists question that forecast. "It's just mind-boggling stupid," said Ray Hilborn, a University of Washington professor of aquatic and fishery sciences."
Bigfoot research makes professor a campus outcast - "Jeffrey Meldrum holds a Ph.D. in anatomical sciences and is a tenured professor of anatomy at Idaho State University. He is also one of the world's foremost authorities on Bigfoot, the mythical ape-man of the Northwest woods. And Meldrum firmly believes the lumbering, shaggy brute exists. That makes him an outcast -- a solitary, Sasquatch-like figure himself -- on the 12,700-student campus, where many scientists are embarrassed by what they call Meldrum's "pseudo-academic" pursuits and have called on the university to review his work with an eye toward revoking his tenure. One physics professor, D.P. Wells, wonders whether Meldrum plans to research Santa Claus, too."
Quote of the Day
"Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world."
~ Kevin Tillman
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