Revealed: Bush and Blair discussed using American Spyplane in UN colours to lure Saddam into war. - "Channel 4 News tonight reveals extraordinary details of George Bush and Tony Blair's pre-war meeting in January 2003 at which they discussed plans to begin military action on March 10th 2003, irrespective of whether the United Nations had passed a new resolution authorising the use of force."
U.S. agencies find no proof of looming al Qaeda attack - "Despite statements by senior al Qaeda leaders, U.S. intelligence agencies do not have information indicating the group is ready to conduct a major attack, U.S. counterterrorism officials said. The audio and video statements appear to be part of a propaganda campaign by the terrorist group to bolster morale in its ranks, the officials said." -- Or by the U.S. to whip the dissidents back into a fear induced stupor.
Bush approved multi-agency program to spy on Americans - "Although President Bush publicly claims he has limited spying on Americans by the National Security Agency to overseas phone calls involving members of al-Qaeda, privately he has authorized a massive multi-agency domestic surveillance operation that routinely pries into the lives of millions of Americans who have no involvement in terrorism or represent no threat to the security of the United States."
Avoiding the hard questions - "'I am a professional philosopher who has spent 35 years teaching logic, critical thinking and scientific reasoning,'' group co-founder and University of Minnesota professor James H. Fetzer told me. ``When I come to 9/11, it's not hard for me to determine what is going on. This is a scientific question. And it is so elementary that I don't think you can find a single physicist who could disagree with the idea that this was a controlled demolition.'' The group asks, for example,
• How did a fire fed by jet fuel, which at most burns at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, cause the collapse of the Twin Towers, built of steel that melts at 2,800 degrees? (Most experts agree that the impact of airliners, made mostly of lightweight aluminum, should not have been enough alone to cause structural failure.) How could a single planeload of burning jet fuel -- most of which flared off in the initial fireball -- cause the South World Trade Center tower to collapse in just 56 minutes?
• Why did building WTC-7 fall, though no aircraft struck it? Fire alone had never before caused a steel skyscraper to collapse.
• Why did all three buildings collapse largely into their own footprints -- in the style of a controlled demolition?
• Why did no U.S. military jet intercept the wayward aircraft?
• Why has there been no investigation of BBC reports that five of the alleged 9/11 hijackers were alive and accounted for after the event?"
Amazon.com Shares Plunge After Sales Miss Estimates - "Amazon.com Inc. shares plunged as much as 13 percent, the biggest drop since October, after quarterly sales and a 2006 profit forecast disappointed investors."
Homeland Security Tries New 3-D Technology At Super Bowl XL - "Hidden from public view at Super Bowl XL, live-action 3-D holograms created from signals streaming in from networks of electronic eyes will help Homeland Security Agency officials detect people and objects suspected of endangering the 65 thousand ticket holders crowding into Ford Field, and the thousands more celebrating in downtown Detroit. While officials may not go public with the details, the surveillance effort is likely to include:"
Bush on move is Guzzler in Chief - "The White House, Air Force and Secret Service keep a tight hold on the President's travel and mileage, but government and industry figures show that the Air Force One 747 jet gets less than the equivalent of a mile per gallon. The President usually travels with a backup 747 as well as a huge C-17 aircraft packed with the presidential limo and the Marine One helicopter, which flies Bush from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base and around destination cities. The C-17 gets even worse mileage than the 747s, and the chopper's mileage is pegged at .014 mpg. Once on the ground, the President travels in a gas-gulping convoy. At the heart of that convoy are two Cadillac limos and several Chevy Suburbans. ... Bush's 700-mile trip to give his State of the Union encore speech in Nashville yesterday cost $19,594.25 in fuel alone just for Air Force One, according to government figures. He will carry his message over the next few days to Maplewood, Minn., Albuquerque and Dallas before heading back to Washington. That's another 4,341 miles."
Did we elect you, or is this a brothel? - "I'm so glad these people run my world. ... Friends, countrymen, lend me your ears, I'm surrounded by lechers and drunks and gold diggers, and these, these I tell you, these are the men and women that are in control of our basic human rights, I tell you, these are the people we have elected. Dig the bomb shelters, prepare your saran wrap and duck tape, I tell you, take cover."
State of Delusion - "So President Bush's plan to reduce imports of Middle East oil turns out to be no more substantial than his plan — floated two years ago, then flushed down the memory hole — to send humans to Mars. But what did you expect? After five years in power, the Bush administration is still — perhaps more than ever — run by Mayberry Machiavellis, who don't take the business of governing seriously."
Dozens Dead After Egyptian Ship Disaster - "An Egyptian ferry carrying about 1,300 people sank in the Red Sea overnight during bad weather, and rescue ships and helicopters pulled dozens of bodies from the water Friday, an official said. About 100 survivors in lifeboats were rescued."
Tanker runs aground in Alaska, spills oil products - ""At this time we do not have an estimate as to the amount of product released," refinery owner Tesoro Corp. said in a statement."
Researchers see hope for sex disease vaccine - "Research into the vaccine was stalled 25 years ago, but recent advances in DNA knowledge have led to a promising candidate for a vaccine against Chlamydia trachomatis, researchers Harlan Caldwell and Deborah Crane said in interviews on Thursday."
US media at 'all-time low' - "Arabic-language media have an unprecedented chance to take over as the world's premier news source because trust in their US counterparts plummeted following their "shameful coverage" of the war in Iraq, a conference heard today. The US media reached an "all-time low" in failing to reflect public opinion and Americans' desire for trusted information, instead acting as a "cheerleader" for war, said Amy Goodman, the executive producer and host of US TV and radio news show Democracy Now!, at a news forum organised by al-Jazeera."
Busch blocks vote on marriage - "Democratic lawmakers in Maryland, determined to avoid a vote on homosexual "marriage" in an election year, closed the House yesterday to quash a constitutional amendment endorsing traditional marriage. In a move unprecedented in the modern history of the General Assembly, House Speaker Michael E. Busch abruptly recessed the chamber to block a vote on a proposed amendment that would define marriage as a union only of one man and one woman."
Unemployment Rate Declines in January - "Employers stepped up hiring in January, boosting payrolls by 193,000 and lowering the nation's unemployment rate to 4.7 percent, the lowest since July 2001."
Bush Bait and Switch - "Say one thing; do precisely the opposite. ... "AMERICA IS addicted to oil." It was a catchy line in President Bush's State of the Union speech. But in truth, few administrations have done more to feed America's oil addiction than this one -- and the same can be said for this Republican Congress. Welcome to the United States of P. T. Barnum, where there's a sucker born every minute."
FAQ: When Google is not your friend - "It's only a matter of time before other attorneys realize that a person's entire search history is available for the asking, and the subpoenas begin to fly. This could happen in civil lawsuits or criminal prosecutions. That type of fishing expedition is not legally permitted for Web mail providers. But because search engines are not fully shielded by the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act--concocted back in the era of CompuServe and bulletin board systems--their users don't enjoy the same level of privacy."
In Turkish Movie, Americans Kill Innocents - "In the most expensive Turkish movie ever made, American soldiers in Iraq crash a wedding and pump a little boy full of lead in front of his mother. They kill dozens of innocent people with random machine gun fire, shoot the groom in the head, and drag those left alive to Abu Ghraib prison - where a Jewish doctor cuts out their organs, which he sells to rich people in New York, London and Tel Aviv."
Stark Raving Robertson - "Pat Robertson supports pre-emption: pre-emptive war and pre-emptive assasination. He shouldn't mind, then, if God just so happened to pre-empt his sorry ass--maybe not now, but one day--before he becomes too much of a danger to himself and the rest of the world. He has definitely lost it."
MySpace.com Subject of Sex Assault Probe - "Police are investigating whether as many as seven teenage girls have been sexually assaulted by men they met through the popular Web site MySpace.com. The girls, ages 12 to 16, are from Middletown and say they were fondled or had consensual sex with men who turned out to be older than they claimed. None of the incidents appeared to be violent, said Middletown Police Sgt. Bill McKenna."
Kid Writes Essay Threatening Bush, Oprah; Secret Service Investigates - "The boy's homework assignment for English class was to write what he would do on a perfect day. In addition to the president and Winfrey, the boy wrote that violence should be directed at executives of Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart, police and school officials said."
Students prostituting on campus for $10? - "An assistant principal of an Ohio high school where a 16-year-old developmentally delayed girl was forced into sex acts in the campus auditorium reportedly was warned a week before the incident that female students were collecting $10 for performing oral sex on males in the same location."
You Duly Have My Permission - "What I am is a compassionate, honest and knowledgeable third party willing to inject a large dose of common sense into the crises and drama that can blind us to our options. ... What's great about sex tech is that it is fostering a more sexually permissive society in which we can talk about this stuff without feeling unsafe or embarrassed. (If you don't think things are changing radically and globally, just look at the panic about sex in the extreme conservative political agenda, here and abroad.)"
Heroin hidden in puppies - "Colombian drug dealers smuggled heroin into the United States by surgically implanting the powerful drug into puppies, the Drug Enforcement Administration said on Wednesday." -- There are some fucked up people in the world.
New Exam Aims to Measure Tech 'Literacy' - "When it comes to downloading music and instant messaging, today's students are plenty tech-savvy. But that doesn't mean they know how to make good use of the endless stream of information that computers put at their fingertips. Educators and employers call those skills "technology literacy," and while everyone agrees it's important to have, it also is difficult to measure. Now a test that some high school students will begin taking this year could help. The ICT Literacy Assessment touches on traditional skills, such as analytical reading and math, but with a technological twist. Test-takers, for instance, may be asked to query a database, compose an e-mail based on their research, or seek information on the Internet and decide how reliable it is."
Deep Impact Team Reports First Evidence Of Cometary Ice - "The results, reported in an advance online edition of the journal Science, offer the first definitive evidence of surface ice on any comet."
Choose Your Poison - The Mind-Numbing Spectacle of Reality Television - " It's the way things are today - everybody wants to be a star. We're no longer satisfied with letting people who have actual talent entertain us, whether they be actors or musicians or athletes. The standards that existed years ago are gone. Now that network television's floodgates have been opened in the quest for cheaper ways to get bigger ratings, anyone with delusions of grandeur and a willingness to make a spectacle of themselves in front of millions can try to grab that elusive spotlight for their fifteen minutes of fame. And for those willing to sacrifice their dignity at the altar of the golden calf, there could be a healthy financial payoff at the end of it as well. What motivates a person to want to be a contestant on a reality program like Fear Factor, Survivor, or American Idol? Is it an unsatisfied need for attention or simply a case of greed, or maybe a combination of the two? What sort of person would allow themselves to be the brunt of a series of glorified hazing stunts for a mere payback of $50,000, of which they will only collect a portion of should they win - these are, after all, American programs and so subject to United States tax laws. It certainly can't be a sense of pride. Yeah, I was able to eat bugs and consume the entire raw contents of an ostrich egg without puking, and I'm going to put that on my resume so that everyone can admire my extraordinary abilities. It'll go down as one of my life's greatest achievements. ... That's real! Most "reality" television isn't. It's just embarrasing, and it's even more embarrassing that so many people are willing to watch this ridiculous sideshow, week after mind-numbing week."
Quote of the Day
"I'm so glad these people run my world."
~ Melanie Boyer
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