News -- April 18, 2006

State Department Memo: '16 Words' Were False - "Eleven days before President Bush's January 28, 2003, State of the Union address in which he said that the US learned from British intelligence that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Africa - an explosive claim that helped pave the way to war - the State Department told the CIA that the intelligence the uranium claims were based upon were forgeries, according to a newly declassified State Department memo. The revelation of the warning from the closely guarded State Department memo is the first piece of hard evidence and the strongest to date that the Bush administration manipulated and ignored intelligence information in their zeal to win public support for invading Iraq." -- Make sure you understand what that said. Now, why is the Bush administration still in office?

THE REAL WMD'S IN IRAQ - OURS - ""Depleted uranium has a half life of 4.7 billion years - that means thousands upon thousands of Iraqi children will suffer for tens of thousands of years to come. This is what I call terrorism," says Dr Ahmad Hardan."

A Small-Time Crime With Hints of Big-Time Connections Lights Up the Net - "Bloggers are fascinated by what they see as eerie parallels between Watergate and a phone-jamming scandal in New Hampshire. It has low-level Republican operatives involved in dirty campaign tricks. It has checks from donors with murky backgrounds. It has telephone calls to the White House. What is unclear is whether it is the work of a few rogue actors, or something larger."

could the G.O.P phone jamming scandal be the next Watergate? - " Surprisingly, no state is in a better position to expose the full extent of GOP corruption than New Hampshire. This is where the bad guys got caught red-handed tampering with an election. Still, how can this be compared to Watergate? The Watergate scandal brought down the president of the United States, but left the then-fledgling right wing movement intact. This investigation will do just the opposite. George Bush will likely weather the storm as a very lame duck, but the ideological underpinnings of the right wing movement are crumbling."

It's a record: Oil tops $72 overseas - "Oil prices have soared from $20 at the start of 2002 and are now nearing the inflation-adjusted peaks of over $80 hit in 1980, the year after the Iranian revolution."

OPEC believes oil prices are too high: delegate - "OPEC believes oil prices are too steep, after setting a fresh record high above $70 a barrel, and the rise is not justified by market fundamentals, a senior OPEC delegate said on Tuesday. The delegate said there was no shortage of crude oil supply and that OPEC giant Saudi Arabia and other producers had pledged in the past to keep markets well supplied. ... "Geopolitics are riding the price," the OPEC delegate said, stressing that there was no shortage of crude in the market."

UK scientists attack oil firms' role in huge Arctic project - "British scientists are at loggerheads with US colleagues over a controversial plan to work alongside oil companies to hunt for fossil fuel reserves in the Arctic."

'Roe v. Wade': The divided states of America - "The conclusions: Twenty-two state legislatures are likely to impose significant new restrictions on abortion. ... Sixteen state legislatures are likely to continue current access to abortion. ... Twelve states fall into a middle ground between those two categories."

An untold story of 9/11 - "A mix-up in Boston prevented the luggage from connecting with the plane that hijackers crashed into the north tower of the trade center. Seized by FBI agents at Boston's Logan Airport, investigators said, it contained Arab-language papers revealing the identities of all 19 hijackers involved in the four hijackings, as well as information on their plans, backgrounds and motives." -- Really? And you expect me to believe this? Come on. Please stop insulting my intelligence.

Behind the Military Revolt - "The calls by a growing number of recently retired generals for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have created the most serious public confrontation between the military and an administration since President Harry S. Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951. In that epic drama, Truman was unquestionably correct -- MacArthur, the commanding general in Korea and a towering World War II hero, publicly challenged Truman's authority and had to be removed. Most Americans rightly revere the principle that was at stake: civilian control over the military. But this situation is quite different."

Neil Young: 'Let's Impeach the President' - "Young is the latest in a string of recording stars to take musical aim at U.S. President George W. Bush and his conduct of the war in the Iraq. Others have included Steve Earle, Willie Nelson and the Rolling Stones."

Bill Maher's Advice to Bush - "Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote. ... On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. ... So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.'"

Traditional marriage group seeks a few liberal allies - "The Alliance for Marriage (AFM) is assembling broad left-right coalitions, including many black and Hispanic pastors, in several key states to convince senators to support a constitutional amendment against homosexual "marriage," which is set for a June vote in the Senate." -- Remember, religion is to blame for this hatred of fellow human beings.

Gays in Iraq fear for their lives - "That is the fear that haunts Hussein, and other gay men in Iraq. They say that since the US-led invasion, gays are being killed because of their sexual orientation. They blame the increase in violence on the growing influence of religious figures and militia groups in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was ousted. Islam considers homosexuality sinful. A website published in the name of Ayatollah Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shia cleric, says gays should be put to death. "Those who commit sodomy must be killed in the harshest way," says a section of the website dealing with questions of morality." -- Ah, very similar to most religions in that gays are not worthy of being human.

Kentucky goes P.C. on B.C., A.D. - "The Kentucky State Board of Education has recommended textbooks in the state include the secular dating abbreviations of B.C.E. and C.E. alongside the traditional Christian-based B.C. and A.D."

DEADLIEST SHIRT IN THE WORLD - "THIS deadly 9/11 shirt contains so much asbestos it is feared thousands of the disaster's survivors could be hit with cancer. The garment worn by survivor Yehuda Kaploun, 39, has 93,000 times higher levels of asbestos than normal - 47 TIMES the safety limit."

As Many Dropouts as Degrees - "U.S. high schools and doctoral programs share a problem: How do they keep their students enrolled long enough to get a degree? ... At stake, some educators say, is America's tradition of world dominance in doctoral education, which has fueled research and innovation since the first PhDs were awarded in the United States in the 1880s."

Japan replaces extreme TV shows with duller fare - "Nightly doses of pain, degradation and downright embarrassment that once captivated Japanese TV viewers have been toned down dramatically after widespread concerns about their impact on society."

Scientists begin dig at Bosnian ‘pyramid’ - "History-laden hill contains human-made tunnels, researchers say."

Sex just isn't the same in the Silicon Age - ""What is very likely to be present before 2016 would be a multisensual experience of virtual sex," said Julia Heiman, director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, Bloomington. "There is a possibility of developing erotic materials for yourself that would allow you to create a partner of certain dimensions and qualities, the partner saying certain things in that interaction, certain things happening in that interaction." A field dubbed "teledildonics" already allows people at two remote computers to manipulate electronic devices such as a vibrator at the other end for sexual purposes. "People who use it are just blown away," said Steve Rhodes, president of Sinulate Entertainment, which has sold thousands of Internet-connected sex devices over the past three years. "This is not something that just the lunatic fringe does." "The Iraq war...was kind of a boom for our company.""




Quote of the Day
"Mornings feel so damn sad these days."
~ Cowboy Junkies