Homicide Charges Rare in Iraq War - "Though experts estimate that thousands of Iraqi civilians have died at the hands of U.S. forces, only 39 service members were formally accused in connection with the deaths of 20 Iraqis from 2003 to early this year. Twenty-six of the 39 troops were initially charged with murder, negligent homicide or manslaughter; 12 of them ultimately served prison time for any offense."
Bush 'palace' shielded from Iraqi storm - "THE plans are a state secret, so just where the Starbucks and Krispy Kreme stores will be is a mystery. But as the concrete hulks of a huge 21-building complex rise from the ashes of Saddam's Baghdad, Washington is sending a clear message to Iraqis: "We're here to stay.""
Bush's backdoor draft another sign of strain - "The involuntary call-ups will affect people who believed they had completed their military service. Many of them will leave families and careers behind for at least a second time because of the Bush administration's miscalculations. Also, the Pentagon's implementation of stop-loss policies will keep at least 10,000 soldiers in Iraq indefinitely. U.S. forces are stretched to the limit to serve in the cross hairs of a civil war that the White House never saw coming and has no strategy for quelling. A telling indicator of how poorly things are going in Iraq is the administration's inability - despite a desperate desire to win political points - to bring home token numbers of troops to stem criticism before the November election."
Rumsfeld: Troops' families have no reason to be mad - "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld praised the work Saturday of members of an Army brigade whose one-year tour in Iraq was extended just as they prepared to return home, and said he saw no reason for the soldiers or their families to be angry with him. "I don't put it in that context," he said. "These people are all volunteers. They all signed up. They all are there doing what they're doing because they want to do it. They're proud of what they do. They do it very, very well."" -- They didn't volunteer to invade and occupy another country.
Experts warn U.S. is coming apart at the seams - "A pipeline shuts down in Alaska. Equipment failures disrupt air travel in Los Angeles. Electricity runs short at a spy agency in Maryland. None of these recent events resulted from a natural disaster or terrorist attack, but they may as well have, some homeland security experts say. They worry that too little attention is paid to how fast the country's basic operating systems are deteriorating. ... "If a terrorist group were able to knock the NSA offline, or disrupt one of the nation's busiest airports, or shut down the most important oil pipeline in the nation, the impact would be perceived as devastating," Beckner said. "And yet we've essentially let these things happen — or almost happen — to ourselves.""
Democrats See Victory in U.S. House Races, Senate Within Reach - ""We have to go back to 1974 (during Watergate) to find such a favorable environment,'' says James Carville, who ran Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. "If we can't win in this environment, we have to question the whole premise of the party.''" -- Then they don't need to sound so much like Republicans.
Modest Proposal: Waterboard Congress - "The White House wants military tribunals hearing the cases of terrorism suspects to be able to use "coerced" confessions. As Acting Asst. Atty. Gen. Steven Bradbury helpfully assured Congress last month, "there are gradations of coercion much lower than torture." Because many in the administration and Congress feel strongly that coerced confessions constitute the "best practice" to get truth from people suspected of bad things, then, under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, American citizens should be permitted to use the same method to pry the truth out of their elected representatives. One such method is waterboarding: strapping someone to a board and pushing him underwater to make him feel like he's drowning. Since then-CIA Director Porter Goss assured Congress last year that this was a "professional interrogation method," not torture, citizens should be permitted to bring splintery planks, leather straps and water tanks to expedite discussions with any member of Congress who continues to insist that things are going swimmingly for the U.S. military in Iraq."
The Meaning of the Armitage Leak in the Plame Case - "One mystery solved. It was Richard Armitage, when he was deputy secretary of state in July 2003, who first disclosed to conservative columnist Robert Novak that the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson was a CIA employee. "
Gore Lashes Out at Media Consolidation - "Former Vice President Al Gore said Sunday ever-tighter political and economic control of the media is a major threat to democracy. ... "Democracy is a conversation, and the most important role of the media is to facilitate that conversation of democracy. Now the conversation is more controlled, it is more centralized." He said that in many countries, media control was being consolidated in the hands of a few businesspeople or politicians. ... In the United States "the only thing that matters in American politics now is having enough money to put 30-second commercials on the air often enough to convince the voters to elect you or re-elect you," he said. "The person who has the most money to run the most ads usually wins.""
Professor's 9/11 theories outrage NH leaders - ""In my view, there are limitations to academic freedom and freedom of speech," said U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. "I believe it is inappropriate for someone at a public university which is supported with taxpayer dollars to take positions that are generally an affront to the sensibility of most all Americans," Gregg said." -- In other words: tote the party line and shut up.
Conspiracy Nuts And 9/11 - "I have some friends who are conspiracy nuts. They believe, for example, that on 9/11 some clown named Osama bin Laden picked up his cell phone in a cave in Afghanistan and directed 19 Muslims, none of them professional pilots, to hijack four airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, thereby bringing down three steel-skeleton skyscrapers, the only time in world history that has ever happened. A humdinger of a conspiracy, that one. My conspiracy nut friends know it's true because they have it on good authority -- George Bush told them so. These conspiracy nuts also believe Osama is part of some mysterious worldwide "terrorist" organization of "Islamic fascists" that hates us because of our freedoms and democracy, and have enough power to destroy us -- despite our thousands of nuclear warheads, ships, warplanes, tanks, and countless men under arms. A fearsome enemy, to be sure, as President Bush frequently tells us."
The 9/11 Chronicles: Destroying a Crime Scene - "Forbes reported that over the weekend of September 8-9, 2001, floors 50 and above of the South Tower experienced a power down, meaning that all electrical currents were shut off for about 36 hours. The officially stated reason was that the electrical cables in the building were being upgraded. In that Forbes functioned as a senior database administrator in charge of Fiduciary Trust's computer division, he was entrusted to shut down the company's computers before the shut down occurred. After the power down he had to turn the computers back on and restore service to the network. Because there was no electric power above the fiftieth floor there were also no security cameras or security locks. There were many outside engineering personnel, however, coming and going in and out of the tower all weekend."
Prophets, Priests, Kings and CEOs - Can the Problem Be Mental Illness? - "The world is full of strange, intimidating and unfortunately powerful and influential people who just may be mentally ill. It seems that some of the very personal traits they possess to rise, on the backs of their peers, lead to one disaster after the another. They can build a business, company, organization and or become a powerful politician or charismatic Pastor, only to destroy it and others in the process. If they don't destroy it, they thrive on the drama they inflict upon those who simply can't understand what the hell is wrong with the boss, pastor, dad or politician, that they say and do the things they do? They use and abuse people for their own personal ends and the degree they do this can be both stunning and stupid. For example. If you are troubled by..... ... We commoners need you big wigs to get some help if any of this sounds familiar. Some of you are harmless. Some of you are humerous and we are laughing at you behind your back. But some of you are downright dangerous to our health, welfare and survival. You are wrecking the company, the church, the family and the country with your reckless mental illness. In fact, you are just like the rest of us but don't seem to know it. Please get some help before we all pay even more for your mental illness untreated."
The Deity Does Not Really Need Your Income...But The Church Would Love You to Think So - "Let's face it...God really doesn't need our literal money to make it in the world of humans. Ministers and Churches need our money, but God actually does just fine without it. Ministers need to be paid and churches need to be maintained, enlarged, adorned and air conditioned, but God simply does not personally need our money. He already "owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the wealth in every mine," so He's all set. Let's notice the ofte quoted, Old Testament fundraiser. In Malachi 3 we are often told and encouraged to believe that...."
Weighty matter: Is religion making us fat? - ""America is becoming known as a nation of gluttony and obesity, and churches are a feeding ground for this problem," says Ken Ferraro, a Purdue sociology professor who studied more than 2,500 adults over a span of eight years looking at the correlation between their religious behavior and their body mass index. "If religious leaders and organizations neglect this issue, they will contribute to an epidemic that will cost the health-care system millions of dollars and reduce the quality of life for many parishioners," he says."
S. Dakota Becomes Abortion Focal Point - ""To think passing a law will stop abortion is incredibly naive," Bell said. South Dakota is the unlikely home of this year's most intense duel over abortion, a Nov. 7 referendum to decide the future of HB 1215, a measure that would institute a broad ban on the procedure. No exceptions would be allowed for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest -- abortion would be permitted only when the mother's life is in jeopardy."
The 1,800-Fold Price Hike - "No one much noticed, but thousands of family-planning clinics across the country went into a tailspin last month. They were reacting to a drastic price increase by Ortho-McNeil, a major supplier of birth-control pills and maker of the popular contraceptive patch. The company used to charge publicly funded clinics as little as a penny a pack for the pills. Then, as of July 1, the price of some pills jumped to more than $18 a pack. Ortho's move was apparently legal under federal pricing rules. But it's anybody's guess as to why the company chose to do this now, without giving the clinics any real notice."
Gas prices drop 15 cents in 2 weeks: survey - "Gas prices tumbled more than 15 cents during the past two weeks, to $2.87 per gallon of self-serve regular, a national survey said Sunday." -- Not in my neck of the woods. Where the hell did they survey?
2005 Vies for Hottest Year on Record - "For people living in the Northern Hemisphere—most of the world's population—2005 was the hottest year on record since 1880, the earliest year for which reliable instrumental records were available worldwide."
Footballers use babies for 'repair kits' - "PREMIERSHIP footballers are storing stem cells from their newborn babies as a potential future treatment for their own career-threatening sports injuries. They are freezing the cells taken from the umbilical cord blood of their babies as a possible future cure for cartilage and ligament problems. Stem cells can be used to regenerate damaged organs and tissue because they are the earliest form of cells."
First Bay Area West Nile virus fatality reported - "The Bay Area’s first death resulting from the West Nile virus is not alarming San Francisco health officials."
New York to L.A. in Two Hours - "Lockheed Martin's advanced Skunk Works unit is designing a small, 12-seat passenger jet that would travel at 1,200 mph (Mach 1.8) but which would produce only a whisper of the annoying crack once emitted by the retired Concorde."
Who invented e-learning computing? - "Blackboard's patent doesn't refer to any device or even specific software code. Rather, it describes the basic framework of an LMS. In short, Blackboard says what it invented isn't learning tools like drop boxes, but the idea of putting such tools together in one big, scalable system across a university. ... Blackboard's claims are "incredibly obvious," said Feldstein. The company's patent suggests "that they invented e-learning," said Alfred Essa, associate vice chancellor and CIO of the Minnesota state college and university system."
Study: Teacher's gender impacts how boys, girls learn - "For all the differences between the sexes, here's one that might stir up debate in the teacher's lounge: Boys learn more from men and girls learn more from women."
128 Students Suspended at Ind. School - "Fed up with inappropriate outfits, the principal suspended the students for one day Wednesday, minutes after doors opened at the school. Those suspended represent more than 10 percent of the 1,200 total students. The offending attire - including baggy pants, low-cut shirts, tank tops and graphic T-shirts - are banned from classrooms. Students were also cited for cell phone use."
Switch off TV and switch on your memory - "Turning off the television, picking up a crossword and eating more fish could be the key to a better memory, an Australian survey has found. Results of the on-line survey of almost 30,000 people, conducted as part of Australia's science week, also found people who read fiction had better memories than those who don't, while heavy drinkers found it more difficult to recall names."
Actual Recording Of Astronaut UFO Encounter - "On March 13th, 1989, Donald Ratsch (an American member of a radio club that monitors all of NASA's space travel transmissions) was recording communications from the shuttle Discovery. He picked the right time to record, because he got this astronaut transmission: "Houston this is Discovery, we still have the Alien spacecraft under observance.""
Quote of the Day
"I'd rather die, than give you control."
~ Nine Inch Nails
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