Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat - "A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks." -- Duh.
Democrats: Leaked intel shows U.S. needs new leadership - "Democrats seized on leaks from an intelligence assessment that said the Iraq war has increased the terrorist threat, saying it provided further evidence that Americans should choose new leadership in the November elections."
Cheney says Democrats soft on national security - "Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday accused Democrats of being soft in the war on terrorism with a strategy of "resignation and defeatism in the face of determined enemies.""
Torture in Iraq 'worse than under Saddam' - "Torture in Iraq is worse now than it was under the regime of Saddam Hussein and "is totally out of hand", according to a United Nations investigator. "The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein," said Manfred Nowak, a UN special investigator on torture, at a press conference in Geneva."
Take Your Torture and Go, George - "For God's sake, take your torture program and go. Take your secret prisons, your attack dogs, your electrodes, your water boards, your feeding tubes, your ceiling restraints, your whipping wires, your excruciating music, your sleep deprivation, your hobbles and cuffs. Take all such instruments and go. They're making things much worse, as I will show you."
BOYS GONE WILD - "Right-wing Republicans are weird. When gays and lesbians want to marry and raise kids in the suburbs, the right-wingers freak out. "Perverts!" they scream at these bland strivers. But when supposedly straight soldiers in the army, marines and CIA engage in male-on-male rape and other acts of homosexual sadism so bizarre and extreme they turn off the average, gay-marriage-craving civilian, Republican legislators think it's the best thing ever. ... Of course, America's state media censored the most disturbing images. Hundreds of photos showed sex acts between and among soldiers and detainees. Male prisoners were videotaped while being forced to masturbate and have sex with one another. They were forced to wear women's underwear. U.S. soldiers, CIA torturers and private mercenaries hired by the Bush Defense Department sodomized them with flashlights and possibly broomsticks. They were kept naked for days at a time. Some were smeared with feces."
Crisis Is Upon Us - "How can Bush administration war plans be reconciled with expert opinion that the consequences would be too dire for the U.S.? Perhaps the answer is that what appears as irrationality to experts is rationality to neoconservatives. Neocons seek maximum chaos and instability in the Middle East in order to justify long-term U.S. occupation of the region. Following this line of thought, neocons would regard the loss of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf as a way to solidify public support for the war. American anger at the Iranians could even result in support for a military draft in order to win "the war on terror.""
US forces in Iraq to exceed 140,000 - "US officials said on Monday that American troop levels in Iraq were likely to remain well above 140,000 for the next few months, although they would not confirm reports that the 3,500-strong First Armoured Division had been ordered to remain in Iraq beyond its official tour of duty."
Egypt to begin nuclear programme - "On Thursday, Francis J. Ricciardone, the US ambassador to Egypt, said that the United States would have no objection to Egypt's peaceful use of nuclear energy."
Opec considers drop in output - "Oil exporting countries may consider a cut in output after crude prices fell below $60 a barrel on Monday for the first time in six months."
Will Democrats Ever Fight for What's Right? - "Thus, the election campaign of the next eight weeks will be very predictable. George Bush and the Republicans will raise security threats to orange and red, accuse the Democrats of wanting to "cut and run" from Iraq, and preach the old-time religion of tax cuts. The Democrats will complain that Bush isn't enacting enough Homeland Security measures (guarding our ports, bus stations, etc.) and that he bungled the war in Iraq. They will accuse Bush of giving away the farm to his wealthy pals, but they won't propose transferring much more than pocket change from rich to poor. And on Election Day, more than half of those eligible won't vote."
U.S. to Relax Air Travel Restrictions - "The government is relaxing its ban against carrying liquids and gels onto airliners, instituted after a plot to bomb jets flying into the United States was foiled, an administration official said Monday." -- Which means it was originally all bullshit.
Crude Awakening - "When the Taliban, the most anti-woman militia in Afghanistan's civil war, took over the country in 1996, they immediately forced women to leave their jobs, banned work outside the home, prohibited females from attending school and put women under house arrest, unable to go out in public unless accompanied by a close male relative and wearing a head-to-toe burqa. Women who violated Taliban decrees were beatened, imprisoned, even killed. Despite this, the U.S. government was on the fast track to recognize this unelected, oppressive regime as Afghanistan’s official government, and to prop up the militia with millions of taxpayer dollars. Why? In a word: oil."
The real reasons to hate the Pope - "The tragedy is that when there are so many good reasons to hate Joseph Ratzinger, this week’s rioters have chosen one of the few bogus ones. For over a decade now, he has been one of the primary defenders of priests who go to the poorest, most vulnerable people in the world and tell them condoms are the cause of AIDS. In the past year, I have sat in two Catholic churches thousands of miles apart and listened while a Catholic priest told illiterate people with no alternative sources of information that condoms come pre-infected with AIDS and are the reason people die of it. In Bukavu, a crater-city in Congo, and in the slums ringing Caracas, Venezuela, people believed it. They told me they “would not go to Heaven” if they used condoms, and that condoms contain tiny invisible holes through which the virus passes – the advice their priest had doled out. ... However much he swears it is not, this argument is deeply anti-Enlightenment. The central insight of the Enlightenment is that there are two fundamentally different ways to understand the world. One is divine revelation, where a being contacts you from another realm and discloses some truth. (Another word for this is ‘hallucination’). The second method is reason – observing the world empirically, and drawing conclusions from the things we observe. The ultimate expression of reason is the scientific method. These approaches are fundamentally contrasting, and you cannot simply weld them together with contorted theological trickery."
Enough With the 'One God' Stuff - "In the world today, one ancient religious ideology, monotheism, stands out as especially dangerous, repressive and loony. ... But monotheism posits one omnipotent, lonely sucker all by himself -- "the sky god" as Gore Vidal once called him. The first five books of the Hebrews' Bible reveal, not surprisingly, that the sky god is often angry, jealous, vengeful, and even murderous -- regularly toying with, manipulating and punishing the puny beings he creates to worship and amuse him. Not surprisingly, he's a self-absorbed ascetic who invents for his "children" bizarre, impossible-to-comply-with rules governing a multitude of tiny details of daily life. Sometimes he goes berserk about minor infractions; frequently he ignores major violations of his own rules. He's the original bad father, threatening awful punishments, with no wife, lover, siblings, friends, co-workers, neighbors or relatives to reign him in. Early Christians and then Muslims added to monotheism the great creative innovation of the promise of eternal life. A person gets to live forever if, and only if, that person closely follows the sky god's rules. This made monotheism much easier to sell, especially when coupled with the offer of extra credit toward salvation for converting others. It also made monotheism fantastically effective in motivating, inspiring, controlling and ruling people. Fueled by the monotheists' inexhaustible missionary zeal, in nearly 2,000 years this peculiar ideology has spread throughout much of the globe."
Global warming fear lights fire under Congress - "But the mounting scientific evidence that human activity is causing global temperatures to rise coupled with a growing public alarm -- fueled by former Vice President Gore's climate change documentary, "Inconvenient Truth," this summer -- has forced lawmakers to take up the issue."
Messages that go `poof' after sending them - "A hallmark of "Mission: Impossible" was the message that would self-destruct after a spy played it. Now a startup communications company promises that same level of secrecy with a Web-based messaging system designed to leave no traces."
What if Bionics Were Better - ""I would be inclined to go through with some pretty radical conceptual self-improvement procedures," Garner said. "I think of cosmetic surgery as collaborative art.... And when I next have disposable income, I'll be back in the O.R." ... Such desire for radical body transformation remains very much on the fringe, and represents behavior that many if not most people would consider taboo. But the distance between denial and acceptance could turn as much on what current machines can and can't do, as it does body image."
Grow Your Own Limbs - "In response to the hundreds of soldiers coming home from war with missing arms or legs, Darpa is spending millions of dollars to help scientists learn how people might one day regenerate their own limbs."
Is there anybody out there? How the men from the ministry hid the hunt for UFOs - "The Ministry of Defence went to extraordinary lengths to cover up its true involvement in investigating UFOs, according to secret documents revealed under the Freedom of Information Act."
Quote of the Day
"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government."
~ Thomas Paine
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