Bush Expresses Caution on Key Points in Iraq Panel’s Report - "President Bush moved quickly on Thursday to distance himself from the central recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group: pulling back all combat brigades over the next 15 months and direct talks with Iran and Syria."
Cracks appear between Bush and Blair over need for talks with Iran and Syria - "Differences have emerged between Tony Blair and George Bush on strategy in the Middle East, even as the two leaders agreed that a major change of course was necessary in Iraq in the wake of the devastating critique delivered this week by a high-level bipartisan panel in Washington."
Israel frets over Iraq report, dispatches FM to Washington - " Israel's foreign minister has arrived in the United States amid worries that the Jewish state's main ally could shift course after a report urged Washington to redouble Mideast peacemeaking efforts."
Israelis piqued by Gates nuclear "confirmation" - "Some Israelis were less pleased, however, to hear Gates mention with equal frankness what U.S. administrations have long avoided uttering in public -- that the Jewish state has the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal. ... Israel neither confirms nor denies having the bomb, as part of a "strategic ambiguity" policy that it says fends off numerically superior enemies while avoiding an arms race. By not declaring itself to be nuclear armed, Israel also skirts a U.S. ban on funding countries that proliferate weapons of mass destruction. It can thus enjoy more than $2 billion in annual military and other aid from Washington. ... This sanctioned reticence is a major irritant for Arabs and Iran, which see a double-standard in U.S. policy in the region."
Robert Fisk: The Roman Empire is falling - so it turns to Iran and Syria - "This is also the language of the Arab world, always waiting for the collapse of empire, for the destruction of the safe Western world which has provided it with money, weapons, political support. First, the Arabs trusted the British Empire and Winston Churchill, and then they trusted the American Empire and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Truman and Eisenhower administrations and all the other men who would give guns to the Israelis and billions to the Arabs - Nixon, Carter, Clinton, Bush... And now they are told that the Americans are not winning the war; that they are losing. If you were an Arab, what would you do? Be sure, they are not asking this question in Washington."
Democratic Party Denies Democracy “We will not cut off funding for the troops” - "It is generally understood that the recent overthrow of Republican control of congress was a direct result of the war in Iraq. As if taking Impeachment off the table wasn’t enough, now Democratic ‘leaders’ are promising to stay the course in Iraq. Americans are tired of destroying an innocent nation, killing hundreds of thousands and poisoning possibly millions with Depleted Uranium just so Halliburton can continue it’s looting. The problem however, is that the Democratic leadership doesn’t feel the same way about humanity as the rest of us. They think that We the People put them in power so that they could get more corporate donations than the Republicans."
Bush could bypass new torture ban - "When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief."
Follow God or vanish, Ahmadinejad tells West - ""They are angry with our nation. But we tell them 'so be it and die from this anger'. Rest assured that if you do not respond to the divine call, you will die soon and vanish from the face of the earth," he said."
Flirting With Fascism on CNN Headline News - "Host Glenn Beck threatens Muslims with concentration camps. ... All you Muslims who have sat on your frickin' hands the whole time and have not been marching in the streets and have not been saying, 'Hey, you know what? There are good Muslims and bad Muslims. We need to be the first ones in the recruitment office lining up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head.' I'm telling you, with God as my witness... human beings are not strong enough, unfortunately, to restrain themselves from putting up razor wire and putting you on one side of it. When things—when people become hungry, when people see that their way of life is on the edge of being over, they will put razor wire up and just based on the way you look or just based on your religion, they will round you up. Is that wrong? Oh my gosh, it is Nazi, World War II wrong, but society has proved it time and time again: It will happen."
Rumsfeld faces personal suit by detainees - "Former detainees represented by human rights groups accuse him — along with a top general of the Iraq war, a former commander of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and a commander of U.S. military intelligence and police forces — with "derelictions of duty and command" and promoting the practice of inflicting "physical and psychological injuries" on civilians held by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Rumsfeld Wants Torture Case Dismissed - "The lawsuit, filed by two civil rights groups, describes the imprisonment of nine foreigners detained in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lawsuit contends the men were beaten, suspended upside down from the ceiling by chains, urinated on, shocked, sexually humiliated, burned, locked inside boxes and subjected to mock executions."
Abu Ghraib Whistleblower Worries - "Like most soldiers serving in Iraq, Joe Darby just wanted to go home when his time was up. But blowing the whistle on his unit members for abusing Iraqi prisoners changed all that, and now the former military police specialist lives in an undisclosed city with his wife, still worried for their safety."
Venezuela's Opposition Concedes: Chavez Is Here to Stay - "How big was the leftist leader's reelection victory? So big his opponents didn't even cry foul."
Eminem Track: Public Enemy 1 -- Have a listen.
Iran plans to reduce use of dollar in trade - "Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, plans to reduce its use of the US dollar in world trade and increase use of the euro, two Tehran-based newspapers reported."
Richard Dawkins: You Ask The Questions Special - "It would be intolerant if I advocated the banning of religion, but of course I never have. I merely give robust expression to views about the cosmos and morality with which you happen to disagree. You interpret that as 'intolerance' because of the weirdly privileged status of religion, which expects to get a free ride and not have to defend itself. If I wrote a book called The Socialist Delusion or The Monetarist Delusion, you would never use a word like intolerance. But The God Delusion sounds automatically intolerant. Why? What's the difference? I have a (you might say fanatical) desire for people to use their own minds and make their own choices, based upon publicly available evidence. Religious fanatics want people to switch off their own minds, ignore the evidence, and blindly follow a holy book based upon private 'revelation'. There is a huge difference."
The Bible Unearthed - "It was under King Josiah that the Bible was finally written and something resembling modern Judaism begins to take shape in the 7th and 8th centuries BC. It is a political document that is designed to glorify the Josiah and to connect him falsely with the golden era when the state of Israel briefly rose up as a powerful and advanced civilized centre. The Bible is essentially a work of propaganda, weaving historical fragments and myths of various Canaanite peoples into a powerful justification for Josiah's rule and expansionist policies."
NY Times: End seen to use of 'paperless' evoting machines - ""By the 2008 presidential election, voters around the country are likely to see sweeping changes in how they cast their ballots and how those ballots are counted," write Ian Urbina and Christopher Drew, "including an end to the use of most electronic voting machines without a paper trail.""
Many Americans too illiterate to understand prescription medication labels - "More and more people living in America don't have the needed English-language literacy skills to read, interpret and follow directions -- and that can cause big problems when prescription medications are not taken per the doctor's orders. Even people with higher levels of literacy still can't understand some intricacies of medication labels."
Internet gangs hire students for cybercrime - "Organized gangs have adopted "KGB-style" tactics to hire high-flying computer students to commit Internet crime, a report said on Friday. Criminals are targeting universities, computer clubs and online forums to find undergraduates, according to Internet security firm McAfee. Some gangs have sponsored promising students from other disciplines to attend computer courses before planting them in businesses as "sleepers.""
Now Viagra 'helps the body fight cancer' - "VIAGRA and other impotence drugs help switch on the immune system to attack a range of cancers, a study has found."
Boston company will test nasal spray treatment for obesity - ""It seems so simple - blocking the sense of smell and taste," company chief executive Chris Adams wrote in an e-mail. "But it has never been used to treat obesity, and it really does work. Our bodies do not crave what we cannot smell or taste.""
Ebola virus kills 5,000 gorillas, says study - "An outbreak of Ebola virus in northwestern Republic of Congo has killed 5,000 gorillas, helping to push the threatened species even closer to extinction, a study says."
Danger? Nanotube-Infested Waters Created in the Lab - "Carbon nanomaterials can mix in water despite being hydrophobic, raising the possibility of a spreading spill in the future."
Mars water evidence excites NASA - "After decades of scouring images of Mars for signs of water, scientists believe they have found stunning evidence that water may even now be flowing through the Red Planet's frigid surface."
NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows on Mars - "NASA photographs have revealed bright new deposits seen in two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment through them sometime during the past seven years."
Radical New Tire design by Michelin - "Here are photos of the new Michelin tires. These tires are airless and are scheduled to be out on the market very soon."
Quote of the Day
"This is the way an empire falls, with armies of confused killers abroad and legions of killer clowns at home."
~ Phil Rockstroh
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