Israel will hit Iran in the next few months: Israeli official - "Israel will strike Iran’s nuclear facilities in the next “month or two or three,” an Israeli official has been quoted here as saying."
Israel rated world’s sixth-largest nuclear power - "History repeats itself: a Middle Eastern country launches its own nuclear program. The international community suspects it is a cover for building atomic weapons. The United States calls for the country’s nuclear sites to be inspected. Another government urges the country to scrap its nuclear plans. It is answered by defiant boasts that the nation's sovereignty will not be compromised. The country in question is not Iran in 2006, but Israel in 1969."
Putin Chastises U.S. on Democratic Ideals - "During an emotional moment in the nationally televised speech, Putin used the fairy-tale motif on the need to build a fortress-like house and to illustrate Russia's need to bolster its defenses. He also suggested that Washington puts its political interests above the democratic ideals it claims to cherish."
FBI, DoD, NSA: All Spying on You - "Quietly, the war on terror, in which everything is permitted, has laid the ground work for the Bush administration to intrude into the political life of citizens. Over the last several months, it has been revealed that the FBI, the Pentagon and the National Security Agency have each set up apparently independent covert operations to monitor the constitutionally protected political activities of citizens opposed to the Bush administration’s war in Iraq."
NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls - "The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews."
New security glitch found in Diebold system - "Armed with a little basic knowledge of Diebold voting systems and a standard component available at any computer store, someone with a minute or two of access to a Diebold touch screen could load virtually any software into the machine and disable it, redistribute votes or alter its performance in myriad ways."
No `verify,' no trust - "Scratch your head over a report on the 2004 general election in Miami-Dade from the county's Election Reform Coalition (www.reformcoalition.org). Among a pile of puzzlements, it concludes that seven polling places had between 50 and 99 more voters than ballots and that four polling places had over 100 more voters than ballots. In addition, six polling places had between 52 and 100 more ballots than voters, and one polling place had 282 more ballots than voters."
Another Possible Bump to the Debt Ceiling - "A $2.7 trillion budget plan pending before the House would raise the federal debt ceiling to nearly $10 trillion, less than two months after Congress last raised the federal government's borrowing limit. The provision -- buried on page 121 of the 151-page budget blueprint -- serves as a backdrop to congressional action this week."
Minorities getting closer to the majority - "Bureau figures released Wednesday show the U.S. population grew by 2.8 million between July 1, 2004, and July 1, 2005. Hispanics accounted for 1.3 million of that increase, with 800,000 attributable to natural causes -- births minus deaths -- rather than immigration."
Congress targets social network sites - "Now MySpace and other social-networking sites like LiveJournal.com and Facebook are facing a new threat: a proposed federal law that would effectively require most schools and libraries to render those Web sites inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the category's most ardent users."
Sen. Clinton Says Bush Has Charm, Charisma - "Clinton, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, said that despite their "many disagreements about many, many issues," she has always had a good personal relationship with the president."
Bush: Brother Jeb would be ‘great president’ - "President Bush suggested Wednesday that he’d like to see his family’s White House legacy continue, perhaps with his younger brother Jeb as the chief executive."
New boss, same as the old boss - "But things won't change if the Democrats take over. We will just replace one cadre of crooks, scoundrels, con-artists and thieves with another. Democrats and Republicans are an equal match when it comes to moral lapses, ethical challenges and lust for power."
Banned In Boston - "Catholic Charities of Boston made the announcement on March 10: It was getting out of the adoption business. "We have encountered a dilemma we cannot resolve. … The issue is adoption to same-sex couples.""
Contraception: The New Abortion - "Gee, imagine that. Reduced use of contraceptives leads to more abortions. Sounds like common sense, doesn't it? So why am I writing about it? Because some people — some relatively influential people — disagree. Some Christian conservatives are starting to jump on the same bandwagon that Catholic groups have occupied for decades: Life begins at fertilization and anything that interferes with that is abortion. And they're willing to use laws and government regulations to force everybody to conform to their beliefs."
Abstinence Backfires - "One of the Christian Right's most cherished ideological victories since the 1990s has been the dominance of federally funded "abstinence only until marriage" programs now taught to millions of teenagers across the country. New evidence, however, suggests that these same programs have contributed to soaring rates of unplanned pregnancies, out-of-wedlock births and, yes, abortions among women who are young or poor. ... Ironically, teenage contraceptive use had nearly doubled during the Reagan era, when comprehensive sex education-including contraception instruction-still remained the norm. In contrast, U.S. law now requires federally funded sexuality education to inform teenagers that ''sexual activity outside the context of [monogamous and heterosexual] marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.''"
Piracy worse than child porn - "So in other words if you copy a Disney CD and sell it you will be in the same league as a paedophile who is distributing pictures of sexual attacks on children."
Rising number of schools face serious penalties - "Falling short of requirements under President Bush's education law, about 1,750 U.S. schools have been ordered into radical restructuring, subject to mass firings, closure, state takeover or other moves aimed at wiping their slates clean."
Men Pay the Ultimate Price to Attract Women - "While it is tough to be a woman, being a man can be downright deadly. Women live longer than men. And now scientists suggest a simple Darwinian reason: Competing for a mate can wear a guy out or get him killed."
Bill would make sale of sex toys illegal in South Carolina - "But banning the sale of sex toys is actually quite common in some Southern states."
DNA Tests Confirm Bear Was a Hybrid - "But Roger Kuptana, an Inuvialuit guide from Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories, was the first to suspect it had actually happened when he proposed that a strange-looking bear shot last month by an American sports hunter might be half polar bear, half grizzly. Territorial officials seized the creature after noticing its white fur was scattered with brown patches and that it had the long claws and humped back of a grizzly. Now a DNA test has confirmed that it is indeed a hybrid - possibly the first documented in the wild."
Quote of the Day
"Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of government power, not the increase of it."
~ Woodrow Wilson
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