News -- February 5, 2006

Frist says military action a posssibility against Iran - "Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Saturday night that the United States must be prepared to take military action against Iran if nonviolent means don't deter the country from building nuclear weapons."

Bush's 'Gulf Of Tonkin' Underlines Criminal Desperation For War - "This week's revelations that George W. Bush and Tony Blair considered staging a war provocation by painting a US spy plane in UN colors and flying it over Iraq, in the hope that Saddam would order it shot down, illustrates a desperate depth of criminality only rivaled by previous notorious historical examples."

Global Eye - "Last month, President George W. Bush murdered four children. This is not a controversial statement. There is no dispute about the facts. Indeed, Bush's own minions fully acknowledge -- even celebrate -- the deed. Nor has the political opposition or the national media offered the slightest objection to the principle of presidential murder. Strange, isn't it? While the American Establishment is now convulsed over the issue of a president ordering wiretaps without court approval, the same president's assertion of the right to kill anyone on earth he chooses without charges, trial or judicial review is readily accepted on all sides. Even when these "targeted assassinations" go horribly awry -- as in Pakistan last month, when 18 innocent people, including four children, were obliterated in their homes by Hellfire missiles, as The Observer reports -- there is no demur, no moral shock. Just tough talk about "doing whatever it takes" to defend civilization from the barbarians."

New Details Revealed on CIA Leak Case - "Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff told prosecutors that Mr. Cheney had informed him "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" in mid-June 2003 about the identity of the CIA officer at the heart of the leak case, according to a formerly secret legal opinion, parts of which were made public on Friday."

The State of the Union's Mystery Suspect - "T-shirts, it turns out, aren't the only things that get you in trouble with the Capitol Police at the State of the Union address. Much has already been made of the fact that both anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and Beverly Young, the wife of Republican Congressman Bill Young, were ejected from the speech for wearing shirts with political messages; ... But on the same evening that President Bush was lauding democracy and freedom, there was one other person in attendance whose rights were infringed upon. ... On Tuesday night, he told the congressman that the experience was "maybe just the price of being brown in America," Turner says."

neocons turn DEFIANT Ahmedinejad into National HERO - ""Issue as many resolutions like this as you want and make yourself happy. You can't prevent the progress of the Iranian nation," he said in comments carried by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.Arguably, the man has what it takes for international stardom. His defiant messages to an uncompromising imperial Goliath in a unipolar world is the equivalent of Michael Jackson's moonwalk on the world stage."

Chavez says Bush worse than Hitler - "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told a rally of thousands of supporters on Saturday that U.S. President George W. Bush was worse than Hitler and vowed to buy more arms to defend his nation as their diplomatic relations deteriorated." -- Only a stupid country, run by stupid people, would not try to obtain some type of weapons to deter an attack from the US.

Mohammed's appearance on South Park fails to spark outcry - "The episode, entitled The Super Best Friends, did not attract a single complaint from Muslim clerics when it was aired by Channel 4 in 2002 and 2003. The lack of protest is in stark contrast to the controversy over the recent newspaper publication of cartoons depicting Mohammed." -- So, is today's controversy organized? Who benefits from the current chaos?

French editor fired over Muhammad drawings - "Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet to prevent idolatry. The drawings have prompted boycotts of Danish goods and bomb threats and demonstrations against Danish facilities, and have divided opinion within Europe and the Middle East. The cartoons include an image of Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse, and another portraying him holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle. Angered by the drawings, Palestinian gunmen jumped on the outer wall of a European Union office in Gaza City on Thursday and demanded an apology. Masked gunmen also briefly took over an EU office in Gaza on Monday." -- It is a flaw in humanity that allows religion to have this much control over people.

The cartoon thatshook the world -- This page has five cartoons.

Fury over cartoons fuels fiery protests - "Rage against caricatures of Islam's revered prophet poured out across the Muslim world yesterday, with Muslims calling for executions, storming European buildings and setting European flags afire."

Blogging the Cartoon Muhammad - "Denmark's stock has dropped dramatically in the Muslim world this week. But in the controversy surrounding the Muhammad cartoons, neither side has comported itself with much dignity -- a fact bloggers are all-too-eager to point out."

Holograms help protect Super Bowl - "The U.S. government will deploy a new "Star Wars-like" hologram technology to help safeguard the Super Bowl on Sunday. As agents for Homeland Security monitor the dozens of security cameras mounted in Detroit's Ford Field, they'll see the images in three dimensions, according to James Fischbach, CEO of Intrepid Defense & Security Systems, the company that developed the LifeVision3D system."

If There is a Superbowl Terror Attack, It Ain't Arabs - "I was thinking just how "perfect" to the real conspirators this might be:"

The plutonium question - "For decades, the question about what to do with America's nuclear waste has had basically one answer: Yucca Mountain. Hold the waste at power plants until it can be shipped to that carved-out mountain lair in remote Nevada, where it can slowly and harmlessly decay for thousands of millenniums. But lawsuits and other political challenges make it doubtful that the facility will open in the next several years. Or maybe ever. So now the Bush administration and some congressional leaders are proposing a new way to reduce the radioactive risks of Yucca Mountain and possibly avoid building more repositories: recycling. What if, they ask, you could take the fuel that comes out of a nuclear reactor and instead of burying it in huge casks that must be guarded for centuries, you could recycle some of it and run it through a nuclear reactor again? Maybe even more than twice? What if that means less nuclear waste would be created and the stuff that is left over would be less radioactive? In theory, it's a powerful and elegant solution. This country has embraced recycling of other commodities. Why not nuclear fuel?"

Gallup: More Than Half of Americans Feel Bush Deliberately Misled Country on Iraq WMD - "Over half (53%) now say the administration "deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction," with 46% disagreeing. Gallup notes that this finding is "essentially reversed" from one year ago."

Army to troops: 'Avoid Marrying a Jerk' - "They are the Pentagon's new "rules of engagement" - the diamond ring kind. U.S. Army chaplains are trying to teach troops how to pick the right spouse, through a program called "How To Avoid Marrying a Jerk.""

Ability to Wage 'Long War' Is Key to Pentagon Plan - "The Pentagon, readying for what it calls a "long war," yesterday laid out a new 20-year defense strategy that envisions US troops deployed, often clandestinely, in dozens of countries at once to fight terrorism and other nontraditional threats."

How I stalked my girlfriend - "For the past week I've been tracking my girlfriend through her mobile phone. I can see exactly where she is, at any time of day or night, within 150 yards, as long as her phone is on. It has been very interesting to find out about her day. Now I'm going to tell you how I did it. ... And that, for me, was the clincher. Your mobile phone company could make money from selling information about your location to the companies that offer this service. If you have any reason to suspect that your phone might have been out of your sight, even for five minutes, and there is anyone who might want to track you: call your phone company and ask it to find out if there is a trace on your phone. Anybody could be watching you."

Snooping Bosses - "But it isn’t just the big snoop at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that you have to worry about these days. Chances are that your employer has already been monitoring you—not for ties to terrorist organizations, but for signs of insubordination, drug use, mental illness, or any other symptom of a “bad attitude.” Everyone claims to crave privacy: Hence, we generally close the door when we use the bathroom and lower the shades at night. But we surrender all rights to privacy when we go to work."

Politicos attack tech firms over China - "Politicians on Wednesday attacked Google, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Yahoo for declining to appear at a briefing about China's Internet censorship and called for a new law to outlaw compliance with such requirements."

Postage is due for companies sending e-mail - "Companies will soon have to buy the electronic equivalent of a postage stamp if they want to be certain that their e-mail will be delivered to many of their customers. America Online and Yahoo, two of the world's largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a controversial system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely. The Internet companies say that this will help them identify legitimate mail and cut down on junk e-mail, identity-theft scams and other scourges that plague users of their services. The two companies also stand to earn millions of dollars a year from the system if it is widely adopted." -- And you can be sure it's more about the money than anything else.

The Smoking Gun riding high on Frey expose - "Now that best-selling author James Frey has been thoroughly embarrassed by his onetime patron Oprah Winfrey, the muckraking news site The Smoking Gun has secured its place in celebrity takedown history."

NBC halts Britney'scrucifixion mockery - "Reacting to pressure from Christian groups, NBC canceled an episode of "Will & Grace" that featured Britney Spears as a conservative who hosts a cooking segment called "Cruci-fixin's" on a Christian TV network." -- Again, all in the name of religion.




Quote of the Day
"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet."
~ Napoleon Bonaparte