News (Page 2) -- April 5, 2006

THE ARCHITECTS OF WAR: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? - "President Bush has not fired any of the architects of the Iraq war. In fact, a review of the key planners of the conflict reveals that they have been rewarded – not blamed – for their incompetence." -- A terrific list of the players involved.

Bush and neocons beating war drums for attack on Iran - "It’s surely mind-boggling that so many consider Iran the greatest threat when it is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and there is absolutely no proof that it is developing nuclear weapons. Conversely, Israel isn’t, though it has at least 200 nuclear warheads pointing at Middle Eastern states, nuclear-armed submarines patrolling the Gulf, and has actually threatened to bomb Iranian nuclear sites, just as it did Iraq’s Osirak reactor in June 1981."

John McCain on The Daily Show - "Has John McCain's Straight Talk Express been re-routed through Bullshittown? You know who we could ask — Senator John McCain! Senator, what's going on? I heard this crazy story that Senator John McCain is giving the commencement address at Jerry Falwell's university."

David Ray Griffin: Theologian scoffed at 9/11 conspiracy theories, then looked closer - "Griffin began to delve into 9/11 conspiracy theories after looking at a time line of the events of Sept. 11, 2001 (by Paul Thompson, who later turned it into a book) on the Internet. He found himself swayed by the catalog of inconsistencies and strange coincidences."

'Iraq was awash in cash. We played football with bricks of $100 bills' - "At the beginning of the Iraq war, the UN entrusted $23bn of Iraqi money to the US-led coalition to redevelop the country. With the infrastructure of the country still in ruins, where has all that money gone? Callum Macrae and Ali Fadhil on one of the greatest financial scandals of all time."

How the GOP Became God's Own Party - "Now that the GOP has been transformed by the rise of the South, the trauma of terrorism and George W. Bush's conviction that God wanted him to be president, a deeper conclusion can be drawn: The Republican Party has become the first religious party in U.S. history. ... The United States has organized much of its military posture since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks around the protection of oil fields, pipelines and sea lanes. But U.S. preoccupation with the Middle East has another dimension. In addition to its concerns with oil and terrorism, the White House is courting end-times theologians and electorates for whom the Holy Lands are a battleground of Christian destiny. Both pursuits -- oil and biblical expectations -- require a dissimulation in Washington that undercuts the U.S. tradition of commitment to the role of an informed electorate."

Bush's Unprecedented Arrogance - "Never in history has a president asserted claims to such unchecked power."

Several House Republicans call for debate on Iraq war, breaking with GOP leadership - "Three of the Republicans announced at a press conference today that they would sign H. Res 543, a "discharge petition" being pushed by anti-war groups that would force a debate on the House floor over the objections of House GOP leadership. In order to force the debate, the petition needs 218 members' signatures."

Remember When? - "REMEMBER WHEN your tax dollars paid for things like improved education and social programs, instead of making Halliburton shareholders millionaires? ... REMEMBER WHEN you could rely on your elected representatives to put your interests ahead of the corporations that filled their campaign coffers, or the lobbyists who gave them great basketball tickets? REMEMBER WHEN you didn’t even KNOW what religion the people you voted for were, because it didn’t really matter? Remember when you didn’t know what party your neighbour belonged to, because that didn’t really matter either? ... REMEMBER WHEN your parents worked all their lives to ensure you a better life, instead of worrying about how bad the life they’d be leaving their children might be? ... REMEMBER WHEN questioning your government’s policies was seen as ‘participating in the process’, and not ‘giving aid and comfort to the enemy’?"

Police Uncover New Duke Lacrosse E-Mail - "Hours after an exotic dancer was allegedly raped by members of the Duke University lacrosse team, a player apparently sent an e-mail saying he wanted to invite more strippers to his dorm room, kill them and skin them. It was not clear whether the message was serious or a joke."

Dr. Death & The Religion Of Genocide - "The furore surrounding the comments of Professor Eric R. Pianka, who told a crowd at Arlington UT that 90% of the world population need to be culled to solve overpopulation, have been characterized on the one hand by an expected outrage but on the other by a sycophantic mainstream media who have collaborated to spin the story and obfuscate the real issues."

Professor Predicts Human Time Travel This Century - " With a brilliant idea and equations based on Einstein’s relativity theories, Ronald Mallett from the University of Connecticut has devised an experiment to observe a time traveling neutron in a circulating light beam. While his team still needs funding for the project, Mallett calculates that the possibility of time travel using this method could be verified within a decade."

The Universe trapped in its own web - "Galaxy formation theories predicted such an effect, but its empirical verification has remained elusive until now."