CIA exercise reveals consequences of defeat - "The CIA this month conducted a simulation of how the Iraq war affects the global jihadist movement, and one conclusion was that a U.S. loss would embolden al Qaeda to expand its ranks of terrorists as well as pick new strategic targets, according to sources familiar with the two-day exercise."
Ahmadineajd: Iran now nuclear power - "The announcement of Iran as a "nuclear power" is bound to significantly escalate tensions between the West and Iran, and marks a dramatic stage in the Islamic Republic's nuclear campaign. In recent days, the US military has begun to build up forces around the Gulf, in what is being seen as as a warning to Iran."
Ahmadinejad: Britain, Israel, US to 'vanish like the pharaohs' - "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has predicted that Britian, Israel and the United States would eventually disappear from the world like the Egyptian pharaonic kings. "The oppressive powers will disappear while the Iranian people will stay. Any power that is close to God will survive while the powers who are far from God will disappear like the pharaohs," he said Wednesday, according to Iranian news agencies."
Holy Warriors Set Sights on Iran - ""The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching," Hagee wrote in his most recent book, Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World. "Just before us is a nuclear countdown with Iran," he wrote, "followed by Ezekiel's war [as described in Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39], and then the final battle – the battle of Armageddon." For Hagee, best-selling author Joel Rosenberg, and other Christian Zionists, Israel plays the critical role in End Time scenarios. Their books, commentaries, and public statements reflect their beliefs that serial conflicts in the Middle East are a sign of the biblical prophecy presaging Armageddon, the return of Jesus Christ, and the final battle for the souls of mankind."
Soldiers in Iraq urge Gates to send more troops - "U.S. soldiers in Iraq urged new Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday to send reinforcements but generals expressed concern that deploying more troops might delay the time when Iraqis take control."
President Confronts Dissent on Troop Levels - "The debate over sending more U.S. troops to Iraq intensified yesterday as President Bush signaled that he will listen but not necessarily defer to balky military officers, while Gen. John P. Abizaid, his top Middle East commander and a leading skeptic of a so-called surge, announced his retirement."
Bush can't kick habit of military might - "HERE WE GO again: A new secretary of defense and yet another call for ending the war in Iraq by escalating it. What are they smoking in the Bush White House?"
If it is broke, don't fix it - "Only the Bush White House and its Pentagon planners believe Iraq is a war still be won. When will the reality dawn on them?"
This is where George Bush gets dangerous - "We now have six years of evidence that George Bush is not all there. The occupant of the White House has consistently demonstrated an extraordinary ability to evade reality and a reckless proclivity to steer the nation by a distorted compass made up of cocaine-induced delusions and two decades of insobriety. Add to this mix a little religious fanaticism and a gigantic ego that serves to accentuate an acute case of intellectual dwarfism. In Bush, we have a man who accepts only the counsel of those that agree with his rudimentary understanding of history. The man is a gambling fool – the kind of loser who doubles up as his political fortunes evaporate."
Desperation in the White House - "This president has made it painfully obvious that he has no intention of listening to anyone who doesn't believe that he's going to win in Iraq. He'll march stubbornly onward without any real change of course until high noon on January 20, 2009, when his successor will inherit both the hard decision to pull out of Iraq and the back bills for his reckless, feckless misadventure."
Bush "Developing Illegal Bioterror Weapons" for Offensive Use - "In violation of the US Code and international law, the Bush administration is spending more money (in inflation-adjusted dollars) to develop illegal, offensive germ warfare than the $2 billion spent in World War II on the Manhattan Project to make the atomic bomb."
No money to treat 9/11 workers, $3 billion a week to fight Iraq? - "Is this a new 9/11 conspiracy The New York Times is reporting? That “roughly $40 million that was set aside by the federal government to treat rescue workers, volunteers and firefighters who became ill after helping with the 9/11 cleanup and recovery will run out in months, physicians and federal officials said yesterday.” And the fund goes broke while the war meter ticks in Iraq at nearly $3 billion a week? On top of that, that sanctimonious Contra criminal, Robert Gates, sworn in Monday as defense secretary warns us that failure in Iraq would be a “calamity” that would haunt the United States for years. Well Bobby, we’ve got a “calamity” here in New York (still part of the United States) that has haunted us for five years and won’t go away. So take your “commanders' assessments” “unvarnished and straight from the shoulder” and you know where to put ‘em."
Yeah, it Feels Just Like Vietnam All Over Again. - "Yeah….. ummm… hmmm... Smell that? Smells just like Vietnam doesn’t it? Weren’t they fighting for democracy over there too? Ostensibly I mean. What’s the word for ‘gook’? Is it ‘towel-head?’, ‘camel fucker’? How do you say, “I give you long time G.I.” in Arabic?"
JFK and 9/11 - Insights Gained from Studying Both - "Now if you remember the case of Oswald, and I have to do this from memory here, so correct me if I am wrong about the details, but within minutes of the assassination and long before Oswald is picked up in the Texas Theater, they put out on the police network and possibly other networks, a description of the killer – five foot ten – 165 pounds (WR 5), which exactly matches what is in his FBI file, exactly matches what’s in CIA documents about him. 2 One of the problems is it doesn’t match the actual height and weight of the man picked up and charged, which is more like five foot nine and 140 pounds.3 And it’s also very suspect because as far as we can trace the origins of this exact fit with the FBI file, it’s attributed to Howard Brennan 4– who saw someone two blocks from here in the sixth floor window, from the waist up. So you’ll have to figure out how they were able to get that exact. It appears they already knew who was going to be charged before they found him in the Texas Theater. Now the parallel to that for 9/11 is, I have to say, even more astounding, because of Richard Clarke, who was director for counter-terrorism activities in the White House, and a very important eyewitness. His book Against All Enemies is almost totally ignored by the 9/11 Commission, and it had to be ignored by the Commission because it is at odds, in many important respects, with what the 9/11 Report says (which I will get back to). But he tells us that at 9:59 am on September 11, which is the time when the second tower collapses, the North Tower, the FBI already had a list of the alleged hijackers. 5 This is extraordinary in the first place because the FBI always says about itself that it doesn’t do much intelligence in the field of terrorism; its specialty is criminal investigation afterwards. They had the names of hijackers at 9:59; at 9:59 am Flight 93 had not yet crashed. And even more astonishingly, if we believe the 9/11 Report (which of course on this point I do not believe), NORAD, which was searching for the hijacked planes, wasn’t aware that Flight 93 had been hijacked until 10:08, which is nine minutes later." -- Hmmmm.
Is It Now Illegal To Link To Other Websites? - "A landmark legal ruling in Sydney goes further than ever before in setting the trap door for the destruction of the Internet as we know it and the end of alternative news websites and blogs by creating the precedent that simply linking to other websites is breach of copyright and piracy." -- Hmmm.
Government declares war on homeschooling families - "The German government, in a throwback to its National Socialist Workers Party heritage, has declared war on homeschool families, promising to bring those with banned "religious convictions" into alignment with the state regulations."
Jakarta airport debuts iris scanner to speed traveler - "Jakarta's busy international airport introduced an iris scanner system on Thursday aimed at business travelers willing to pay around $200 per year to avoid long immigration lines."
Pope Benedict Warns of Secular Trends - "Pope Benedict XVI urged Christians on Wednesday to defend the spirit of Christmas against secular trends during his last general audience before the holiday. ... "It is the duty of Christians to spread through a witness of life the truth of Christmas, which Christ brings to every man and woman of good will.""
Vatican Cardinal: Chastity Fights AIDS - "Fidelity in marriage and premarital abstinence from sex are the key weapons in the fight against AIDS, a senior cardinal who prepared a study on condom use said Wednesday. ... The Vatican study on condoms only deals with married couples in which one partner has HIV, the AIDS-causing virus." -- Abstinence is not a realistic option for humans.
Family Planning Is Family Values - "Listen to the apocalyptic rhetoric of the religious right and you'll find an important theme emerge:"
Class War Weapon of Choice: For the Holidays and All Days - "Any regular person who does not understand that Americans are in a class war is out of touch with our economic reality. Rich and powerful elites that are running and ruining our country have the upper hand. Wiping out the middle class to create a two-class society nationally and globally suits them. The Upper Class can steer most wealth to themselves and spread a small amount around to keep the Lower Class content enough not to revolt. Ordinary people have a powerful weapon to fight their oppressors, yet have not yet used it. It is their money, more specifically their discretionary consumer spending. The reasons for not controlling and politicizing their spending merit examination. Time is running out to understand why millions of supposedly rational people spend themselves into economic slavery."
N.J. Gov. to Make Gay Unions Official - "New Jersey's gay couples are gaining all the rights and responsibilities of marriage under state law as New Jersey moves to become the third in the nation to institute civil unions and the fifth to offer some version of marriage."
Study: Teens getting high on legal drugs - "The government-funded study, conducted by the University of Michigan, found that a high number of teens are taking over-the-counter cold medicine to get high. Measured for the first time, teenagers' abuse of such medicine is widespread, the survey said."
Poll: Stress knows few boundaries - "About three-fourths of people in the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea and the United Kingdom say they experience stress on a daily basis, according to AP-Ipsos polling. Those anxious feelings are even more intense during the holidays. Spaniards, 61 percent, were not as wound up as those in most other countries polled. And they could all take a lesson from Mexico, where more than half of Mexicans said they rarely or never experience stress in their daily lives. But that is certainly not the experience for most people in the 10 countries polled -- especially women."
Internet addicts caught up in web - "THE internet has spawned a new breed of obsessives who are showing symptoms of addiction to using Google, Wikipedia and other websites., according to scientists. The new addicts who have acquired nicknames such as Wikipediholics, MySpacers or photolurkers are believed to have developed these traits because of the instant access to sites which fascinate them."
Shock Waves Can Save Hearts - "Extracorporeal cardiac shock wave therapy sounds like something Capt. Picard might need after a run-in with the Borg. But it's actually a new, real-life way to treat end-stage heart disease. A team of Japanese researchers found that blasting the heart with shock waves helps patients grow new blood vessels and increase blood flow."
Power of thought moves robot - "University of Washington researchers have discovered a method to control the movement of a humanoid robot with signals from a human brain."
Genetics of eye colour unlocked - "Scientists have made a breakthrough in their understanding of the genetics behind human eye colour. They found that just a few "letters" out of the six billion that make up the genetic code are responsible for most of the variation in human eye colour."
Sniffers Show That Humans Can Track Scents, And That Two Nostrils Are Better Than One - "In a paper appearing this week in the advance online edition of Nature Neuroscience, UC Berkeley researchers report conclusive evidence from these experiments that humans do indeed gain a performance advantage from cross-nostril comparisons. They also found that humans can scent-track, and that, with training, they can improve their accuracy significantly while nearly doubling their speed along the scent trail."
Quote of the Day
"The contribution of American culture to humanity is consumption obsession."
~ Joel S. Hirschhorn
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