Party baffled by its own war plan? - "For all the fanfare surrounding the announcement of the House Democrats' Iraq war plan, few members seem to understand the specifics in the bill or when it would actually bring troops home."
US sends spies into Pakistan to kill bin Laden - "US officials said that the mission is intended to intensify the pressure on the terrorist leader, who turns 50 tomorrow, and perhaps force him into making a mistake. He is widely believed to be hiding in the region bordering Afghanistan."
Libby set to win pardon and escape jail term - "A White House official said last night that there was a "strong expectation" that President George W Bush would pardon Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the disgraced aide."
Hagel: 'Before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment.' - "The conversation beaches itself for a moment on that word -- impeachment -- spoken by a conservative Republican from a safe Senate seat in a reddish state. It's barely even whispered among the serious set in Washington, and it rings like a gong in the middle of the sentence, even though it flowed quite naturally out of the conversation he was having about how everybody had abandoned their responsibility to the country, and now there was a war going bad because of it."
Total Information Awareness is Back - "Congress attempted to kill the ill-conceived DARPA program in 2003. But instead, the program, designed to somehow find terrorists from documenting everyone's credit card bills, car rental receipts and travel records, went underground and has now returned, bigger and stronger and worse than ever."
FBI Criticized for Patriot Act Use - "A blistering Justice Department report accuses the FBI of underreporting its use of the Patriot Act to force businesses to turn over customer information in terrorism cases, according to officials familiar with its findings."
Frequent Errors In FBI's Secret Records Requests - "The inspector general's audit found 22 possible breaches of internal FBI and Justice Department regulations -- some of which were potential violations of law -- in a sampling of 293 "national security letters." The letters were used by the FBI to obtain the personal records of U.S. residents or visitors between 2003 and 2005. The FBI identified 26 potential violations in other cases."
Gates, Buffett Top Billionaires Ranking - "The tally of billionaires around the globe reached a high of 946, their combined wealth growing 35 percent to $3.5 trillion, according to Forbes magazine's 2007 rankings of the world's richest people."
Is Discovery Burying 'Lost Tomb'? - "Departing from normal procedures, the cable network didn't tout its big ratings win. The network also scheduled a last-minute special that harshly criticized its own documentary, and has yanked a planned repeat of "Tomb." ... Although Mr. Leavy said the network stands by the documentary "100 percent," the company took several unusual steps in the wake of the controversy that could be seen as distancing itself from the content."
Crank Calling for Jesus - "A "family values" media watchdog group called the Dove Foundation hopes to clean up Hollywood by making vaguely sinister computerized phone calls to millions of people all around the country. In recent months Dove has muscled its way to the very top of the whocalled.us annoyance call list with nearly 900 complaints from coast to coast. It turns out the non-profit is conducting a nationwide "survey" targeted determinedly at mothers and grandmothers, which it aims to present to those godless heathens running the entertainment industry."
TOWNS PUT DREAMS IN PRISONS - "According to this piece, non-metropolitan America was relying like never before on prison construction for jobs and economic development. Formerly, Times reporter Peter Kilborn noted, rural communities had depended for employment and economic development on agriculture, manufacturing, and/or mining. Now, however, they were counting on mass incarceration to deliver the goods. Reporting that “245 prisons sprouted in 212 of the nation’s 2,290 rural counties” during the 1990s, Kilborn quoted the cheerful city manager of Sayre, Oklahoma, which had just opened a prized new maximum-security lockdown. "There's no more recession-proof form of economic development," this local official told Kilborn, than incarceration because "nothing's going to stop crime.""
Violent Crime in Cities Shows Sharp Surge - "Local police departments blame several factors: the spread of methamphetamine use in some Midwestern and Western cities, gangs, high poverty and a record number of people being released from prison. But the biggest theme, they say, is easy access to guns and a willingness, even an eagerness, to settle disputes with them, particularly among young people."
Sweden May Spy On E-Mails - "Sweden's government presented a contentious plan Thursday to allow a defense intelligence agency to monitor — without a court order — E-mail traffic and phone calls crossing the nation's borders."
Powerful Documentary Trounces Man-Made Warming Hoax - "An astounding documentary that was broadcast in the UK last night completely trounced the man-made explanation for global warming, not with emotionally-laden propaganda or by attacking the messenger as its adherants resort to, but by presenting carefully considered and rational science."
A History of America's Disappearing Middle Class - "Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman explains in simple terms how the American economy went from having the world's most dynamic middle class to being on the verge of a rich-poor state in only 30 years."
Bill with abortion restrictions going to Gov. Barbour - "A bill designed to eventually outlaw and criminalize abortion in Mississippi got final approval from the Legislature on Thursday and Gov. Haley Barbour is expected to sign it into law. The measure would ban nearly all abortions in the state if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. If Roe v. Wade is overturned and the state bill becomes law, anyone performing an illegal abortion in Mississippi would face one to 10 years in prison."
Big mother is watching with new laws in mind - "Some California lawmakers want to change your ways. They've planted a crop of proposals this year — "nanny" bills, as they're called — that would:"
Sony Brings Real Life Matrix A Step Closer - "Sony is preparing to unveil a simulated reality world in which Playstation gamers can create a new life for themselves, complete with their own apartment, friends, movies, shopping and entertainment, bringing the reality of an actual matrix a step closer."
Nike Is Leading the Race ... to the Bottom - "Despite promises to clean up its act, Nike is making a U-turn on its commitments to improve the sweatshop conditions for its workers overseas."
Study finds age divide on gay marriage - "Two political scientists who analyzed two decades worth of Field Polls on the subject found that age was the strongest factor influencing whether someone opposed gay unions, with people born in the 1970s and '80s more than twice as likely to support them as those born before 1940."
Baby does best with dad off work, study finds - "Children are more likely to suffer development problems if their fathers do not take paternity leave or spend enough time with them when they are very young, according to an analysis of thousands of babies born around the turn of the millennium."
Vaccine officials knew about MMR risks - "Government officials were made aware of some problems with a version of the MMR vaccine in other countries but still introduced it in Britain in the late 1980s, newly released documents show."
The ethical dilemmas of robotics - "Scientists are already beginning to think seriously about the new ethical problems posed by current developments in robotics."
China's dog extermination plan condemned - "A U.S. animal rights group Thursday condemned a plan to kill all pet dogs in an anti-rabies campaign in a district of the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing."
Fish are up to their gills in mercury - "So much mercury has accumulated in fish that there should be a worldwide public warning about eating seafood contaminated by the dangerous heavy metal, says a report summarizing the latest scientific evidence on global mercury pollution."
Dealerships Fake/Alter Customer Satisfaction Surveys To Get Marketing Money From Toyota - "The customer's husband suspected that the salesman refused to sell his wife a car because he was afraid of receiving a poor customer service survey from them. It turns out that he may be on to something, if what our tipster says is true. He claims that his roommate used to be a CSR for a Toyota dealership and it was the roommate's job to make sure the customer either did not fill out the survey or filled our paper surveys so the answers could be changed or poor reviews thrown out. The tipster writes:"
The Internet Makes Us Naked - "I wonder if one reason people are so wary of the intersection of sex and the internet is that it exposes us so completely. It's the flip side of what many of us point to as one of the internet's great strengths -- we discover we are not alone in our desires, finding community and connection even as we learn more about ourselves. For individuals, this sexual self-discovery has been largely positive. But for Americans as a whole, this self-knowledge has not been comfortable to accept. We're learning that our behavior does not match what our culture tells us is "right" or "moral." And we're having a hard time accepting that our behavior has changed only to the extent that technology makes it easier to break the rules, and makes rule-breaking more accessible to larger numbers of people."
Quote of the Day
"The Universe doesn’t give a damn about you, pal! Nor does Mother Nature who spends most of her time kicking butt with floods, forest fires, blizzards, tornadoes, and other fun 'weather events'."
~ Alan Caruba
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