Officials: U.S. didn’t find WMDs, despite claims - "Senior U.S. intelligence officials said Thursday they have no evidence that Iraq produced chemical weapons after the 1991 Gulf War, despite recent reports from media outlets and Republican lawmakers."
Indictment: Suspects wanted to 'kill all the devils we can' - "The mission was intended to be "as good or greater than 9/11" beginning with the destruction of Chicago's Sears Tower, according to court documents obtained Friday by CNN."
Snow: Program Vital to War on Terrorism - "Treasury Secretary John Snow on Friday said a program tracking millions of financial transactions was not invasion of privacy of Americans but "government at its best" and vital to the war on terrorism."
Ike Was Right About War Machine - "I'll tell you where we ought to start saving: on our bloated military establishment. We're paying for weapons we'll never use. No other Country spends the kind of money we spend on our military. Last year Japan spent $42 billion. Italy spent $28 billion, Russia spent only $19 billion. The United States spent $455 billion. We have 8,000 tanks for example. One Abrams tank costs 150 times as much as a Ford station wagon. We have more than 10,000 nuclear weapons — enough to destroy all of mankind. We're spending $200 million a year on bullets alone. That's a lot of target practice. We have 1,155,000 enlisted men and women and 225,000 officers. One officer to tell every five enlisted soldier what to do. We have 40,000 colonels alone and 870 generals." -- Think of the progress and benefits that money could bring if it was used for more positive purposes.
Bush sets up domestic spy service - "US President George W Bush has ordered the creation of a domestic intelligence service within the FBI, as part of a package of 70 new security measures."
Newspapers Reject Government Request to Kill Story - "The New York Times and Los Angeles Times on Friday published a major story on government surveillance of private banking records over the objections of the Bush administration. The same team that produced the Pulitzer-winning National Security Agency (NSA) "domestic spying" program, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, put together the New York Times' piece. In the middle of the article, they reveal that the White House had asked the paper not to run it. This had happened with the NSA story as well, and the Times put off running the pair's key findings for a year."
Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror - "Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials."
'End Times' Religious Groups Want Apocalypse Soon - "For thousands of years, prophets have predicted the end of the world. Today, various religious groups, using the latest technology, are trying to hasten it. Their endgame is to speed the promised arrival of a messiah. For some Christians this means laying the groundwork for Armageddon. With that goal in mind, mega-church pastors recently met in Inglewood to polish strategies for using global communications and aircraft to transport missionaries to fulfill the Great Commission: to make every person on Earth aware of Jesus' message. Doing so, they believe, will bring about the end, perhaps within two decades."
Secret Government or A Free Press? - "France, Germany and courts in Japan could teach America a thing or two about one essential aspect of democracy: Their governments are more willing to make sure that journalists have the means to act as watchdogs on the people in power."
Class Warfare: The Minimum Wage Goes Down - "The GOP just shafted the working people of America. ... Even the not-exactly-populist Wall Street Journal points out, "While the minimum wage has remained frozen, lawmakers' salaries have risen with annual cost-of-living increases keyed to what is given federal employees. And last week's vote in the House Appropriations Committee followed a floor vote days before in which the House cleared the way for members to get another increase valued at thousands of dollars annually." So, while Congress will soon make close to $170,000 a year, hardworking full-time minimum wage workers make just $10,700 annually."
Jon Stewart, Enemy of Democracy? - "This is not funny: Jon Stewart and his hit Comedy Central cable show may be poisoning democracy. Two political scientists found that young people who watch Stewart's faux news program, "The Daily Show," develop cynical views about politics and politicians that could lead them to just say no to voting." -- Making Stewart a scapegoat and villian. Americans do not have much choice when the two "choices" are so much alike.
Welcomed or Wanted? - "It would be a wonderful thing if the 25 heads of government of the E.U. were to inform Mr Bush clearly that he is not wanted in Europe, except in the dock in The Hague, and that he should stay forever in his own home state of Connecticut or in his adopted state of Texas. He should be warned that if he strays again into any other part of the world he risks immediate arrest and being charged with, and punished for, his hideous crimes."
Feds Would Make Every Citizen a Criminal - "There’s only one reason for having tens of thousands of laws on the books. The government wants to be able to use these laws to punish political opponents."
S.F. unveils universal health care plan - "The city would offer health care to any adult resident, regardless of immigration or employment status, under a plan announced Tuesday. ... "Rather than lamenting about the fact that we live in a country with 45.8 million Americans that don't have health insurance ... San Francisco is doing something about it," Newsom said. "San Francisco is moving forward to fulfill its moral obligation.""
Crackdown on Homeschoolers: It’s the UN Wot Done It - "“One of the conditions [for homeschooling] is that the homeschoolers must sign a document in which they promise to rear their children along the lines of the UN Convention on Children’s Rights. These parents have not done this. This is why the ministry has started an inquiry." ... The document the homeschoolers are made to sign also states that government inspectors decide whether families comply with the UN’s ideology. Furthermore, it contains a clause in which the homeschooling parents agree to send their child to an official government recognized school if the inspectors report negatively about them twice."
Slow-frozen People? Latest Research Supports Possibility Of Cyropreservation - "The latest research on water - still one of the least understood of all liquids despite a century of intensive study – seems to support the possibility that cells, tissues and even the entire human body could be cyropreserved without formation of damaging ice crystals, according to University of Helsinki researcher Anatoli Bogdan, Ph.D."
Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says - "Americans are far more socially isolated today than they were two decades ago, and a sharply growing number of people say they have no one in whom they can confide, according to a comprehensive new evaluation of the decline of social ties in the United States."
Scientists plan to recreate 'Big Bang' to uncover universe's mysteries - "International scientists will recreate the immediate aftermath of the "Big Bang" in a bid to uncover the mysteries of the universe, a world physics summit announced."
'Cat's pee' sweet smell of success for NZealand wine - "A wine with a whiff of "cat's pee on a gooseberry bush" has transformed Marlborough's Wairau Valley from scruffy farming country into New Zealand's wine capital in just three decades."
Quote of the Day
"Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all."
~ Michael Rivero
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