11.Mar.2007 Waxman plans hearing on Halliburton move. - Nico -

Time’s Karen Tumulty comments on Halliburton’s plan to move its headquarters from Houston to Dubai: “Is this about tax breaks? Getting beyond the reach of congressional subpoenas?

And what about all that sensitive information that Halliburton has had access to?

At a minimum, reincorporating in Dubai would mean that Halliburton will be paying less taxes to the U.S. Treasury, even as it collects billions from government contracts.”

She also reports, “Henry Waxman is already planning to hold a hearing on this, an aide tells me.”
11.Mar.2007 Iran president seeks UN audience President Ahmadinejad says he wants to address the UN Security Council to defend Iran's nuclear programme.
11.Mar.2007 White House Seeks to Boost Aquaculture (AP)

The Bush administration wants to allow ocean farming for shellfish, salmon and saltwater species in federal waters for the first time, hoping to grab a greater share of the $70 billion aquaculture market.
11.Mar.2007 Cancun, Nature at War Over Beaches (AP) Cancun and Mother Nature are at war again.

00.000.2005 beaches washed away by Hurricane Wilma -Mexico spent $19 million to replace- but erosion has shrunk Cancun's sandy playground to the point where waves at high tide lap against some hotel patios.
11.Mar.2007 Northwest Australia braced for second cyclone

Residents of Australia's storm-battered northwest on Sunday braced for more destruction as another maelstrom approached land, days after a powerful cyclone claimed two lives.
11.Mar.2007 Climate Report Warns of Drought, Disease (AP) T

he harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up + within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium.
11.Mar.2007 Biofuels Boom Raises Tough Questions (AP) America is drunk on ethanol. Farmers in the Midwest are sending billions of bushels of corn to refineries that turn it into billions of gallons of fuel. Automakers in Detroit have already built millions of cars, trucks and SUVs that can run on it + are committed to making millions more. In Washington, politicians have approved generous subsidies for companies that make ethanol.
11.Mar.2007 Fermions do not travel together, theory proved Fermions tend to avoid each other and cannot "travel" in close proximity. Demonstrated by a French team at the Institut d'optique (CNRS), this result is described in detail in the January 25, 2007 issue of Nature. It marks a major advance in our understanding of phenomena at a quantum scale.
11.Mar.2007 Gold nanorods assemble themselves into rings Rice University chemists have discovered that tiny building blocks known as gold nanorods spontaneously assemble themselves into ring-like superstructures.
11.Mar.2007 Don't ask U.S. workers about warming The head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said protocol is the reason employees going to meetings about the Arctic are not to discuss climate change.
11.Mar.2007 Put sleeping sickness bug to sleep An Israeli researcher has found a way to kill the parasite that causes sleeping sickness.
11.Mar.2007 Kids Learn Words Best by Working out Meaning

Toddlers learn new words more easily when they figure out the words' meaning for themselves, research by a 22-year-old Johns Hopkins undergraduate from Medford, N.J., suggests.
11.Mar.2007 Clock gene sleep research has implications for workforce
People differ markedly in their response to sleep deprivation but biological markers of these differences have remained elusive.

In findings published in this week's issue of Current Biology, researchers at the University of Surrey's Sleep Research Centre report their discovery that a genetic difference in the body clock gene PERIOD3 makes some people particularly sensitive to the effects of sleep deprivation.
11.Mar.2007 Experts: Safeguards Lacking on Cadavers (AP)

Despite recent ghoulish cases of illegal sales of human body parts, the nation still lacks a universal oversight system to prevent illicit marketing of cadavers donated to science, experts say.
11.Mar.2007 EU Leaders Agree to Cut Greenhouse Gases (AP)

European Union leaders on Friday endorsed binding targets to cut greenhouse gases and ensure a fifth of the bloc's energy comes from green power such as wind turbines and solar panels.
11.Mar.2007 Study Probes Odor, Sleep and Memory Link (AP)

Doctors have long advised that a good night's sleep is important for memory - but researchers now say a familiar scent wafting in the bedroom might help sometimes, too.

The caveat: In the study, being published Friday in the journal Science, it only worked for some kinds of memories and during one stage of sleep, meaning it's not the answer for people hunting a quick memory boost.
11.Mar.2007 6 Air Force Research Satellites Launched (AP) A cluster of Air Force research satellites rocketed into space Thursday night.
11.Mar.2007 Games shaped by brain-waves on the horizon Video games with action dictated by brain waves will be available by the end of the year, according to a Silicon Valley company that has created low-cost headsets.
11.Mar.2007 Type of stem cell found to reside in transplanted lungs

A new study involving a type of stem cells from the lungs of transplant patients demonstrates for the first time that these progenitor cells reside in adult organs and are not derived from bone marrow, which leads to the possibility that the cells may be able to help with the rejection of donated organs and with various kinds of lung disease.
11.Mar.2007 Conflict noted between African scientists A conflict between scientists working with the human immunodeficiency virus and those working with tuberculosis is being reported in Africa.
11.Mar.2007 New diesel fuel filtering process created U.S. researchers have developed a simple, inexpensive filtering process that could prevent costly instability and deterioration of military diesel fuel.
11.Mar.2007 Gadget Aims to Help Tourists in Greece (AP)

If you have ever wandered around a dusty Greek archaeological site in midsummer, clueless about what you are seeing or where you are going, help is finally at hand.

Greece's Culture Ministry on Thursday unveiled a hand-held gadget for visitors that offers high-resolution video, detailed diagrams of sites such as ancient temples, position indicators + imagery along with stereo sound.
11.Mar.2007 Regardless of global warming, rising CO2 levels threaten marine life Like a piece of chalk dissolving in vinegar, marine life with hard shells is in danger of being dissolved by increasing acidity in the oceans.
11.Mar.2007 AIDS Medicine Is Rationed in Puerto Rico (AP)

The U.S. has halted payments to clinics that treat AIDS patients in Puerto Rico, forcing hundreds of poor people to go without free medicine in a U.S. territory with an AIDS rate nearly double that of the mainland.
11.Mar.2007 Digital Crystal Video Receiver: Researchers Patent Process for Aircraft Radar Warning Receivers
Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute have patented a discovery that could significantly increase reliability and reduce cost in equipment that helps protect U.S. military aircraft from attack.
11.Mar.2007 Metacognition: Faced with a test, rats can check their knowledge first
Researchers have found evidence that rats are capable of metacognition?that is, they can possess knowledge of their own cognitive states.

This ability, which can also be thought of as the capacity to assess or reflect on one's own mental processes, was previously only recognized in humans and other primates.

The findings are reported by Allison Foote and Jonathon Crystal of the University of Georgia and appear online in the journal Current Biology, published by Cell Press, on March 8th.
11.Mar.2007 Social tolerance allows bonobos to outperform chimpanzees on a cooperative task
In experiments designed to deepen our understanding of how cooperative behavior evolves, researchers have found that bonobos, a particularly sociable relative of the chimpanzee, are more successful than chimpanzees at cooperating to retrieve food, even though chimpanzees exhibit strong cooperative hunting behavior in the wild.
11.Mar.2007 McCaskill Says VA Secretary Nicholson Is ‘A Brownie Situation,’ Calls For Him To Resign - Nico -

Today on CBS’s Face the Nation, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) called on the Bush administration to remove Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley from his post as Army surgeon general + to fire Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, whose appointment “looks like a Brownie situation.”

“This is a political appointment,” McCaskill said of Nicholson. “This is somebody who has spent a whole lot of the last few years defending everything about the White House.”

CBS host Bob Schieffer piled on, saying “in at least two television appearances that I have seen him…he seemed unfamiliar with the services that were being offered by his own agency.” Watch it:

Nicholson is the Michael Brown of veterans affairs.

His primary qualification for the job was

00.000.1997-00.000.2000 serving as chairman of the Republican National Committee from “raising close to $380 million for the 2000 cycle.”

During Bush’s first term, Nicholson was rewarded with the plush ambassadorship to the Vatican;

after being selected to run the VA, he promptly ranked #4 in The New Republic’s list of “the 15 biggest Bush administration hacks.”

In the wake of the Walter Reed revelations, President Bush appointed Nicholson to lead a special panel to “cut through red tape” affecting veterans.

But veterans advocates say it was Nicholson’s “inept management of the VA [that] has lead to the red tape.”

ABC News revealed last week that Nicholson shelved a program that could have avoided many of the bureaucratic delays plaguing injured vets because of its cost — less than $1 million. Transcript: (more…)
11.Mar.2007 Olmert and Abbas meet for talks Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert meets Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem.
11.Mar.2007 Halliburton plans move to Dubai Halliburton, the oil services giant formerly headed by US Vice-President Dick Cheney, is moving its HQ to Dubai.
11.Mar.2007 The Economist Magazine Looks Outside For Insight - kdawson 106 - "All of traditional media is scrambling to remain relevant on the Net, but The Economist of London is taking it to extremes, with a skunkworks operation called Project Red Stripe. The magazine gathered six staffers from around the world, set them up in a London office + gave them six months to come up with a radically new idea for the business. As a magazine for free markets, they figured others would have the best ideas — so are throwing open the doors for community input."
11.Mar.2007 Subliminal Messages Might Actually Work - kdawson 147 - GrumpySimon writes

"New research indicates that subliminal messages may actually work. In a paper titled Attentional Load Modulates Responses of Human Primary Visual Cortex to Invisible Stimuli, Bahrani et al. demonstrate that even though stimuli may not be available to consciousness, they are processed by the visual cortex. While I'm sure that marketing agencies all over the world are rubbing their hands in glee at this news, the authors report that there's no evidence that this can make people buy things against their will. So with any luck the use of subliminal messages in advertising will remain an urban legend."
11.Mar.2007 Political Leaning and Free Software - kdawson 466 - 00_NOP writes

"HateMyTory is the world's first political rating site and occasionally gets blasted or promoted by British bloggers on either side of the political spectrum. But

here's something even more intriguing: when the right come visiting they hate the site but they are disproportionately likely to be users of free software, whether that is just Firefox on top of their Windows box, or all the way with some Linux distro. But

when the left rally to the cause they are more likely than not to be proprietary software users, albeit with a big bias towards Apple.

If Microsoft's defenders think free software is the road to socialism, why don't the left seem to agree?

As a leftie + a free software advocate, I find this pretty puzzling."
11.Mar.2007 No Passport For Britons Refusing Mass Surveillance - kdawson 685 - UpnAtom writes

26.Mar.2007 -from- "People who refuse to give up their bank records +

tax records +

details of any benefits they've claimed +

the records of their car movements for the last year,

or

refuse to submit to an interrogation on whether they are the same person that this mountain of data belongs to —

will be denied passports.

The Blair government has already admitted that this and other data will be cross-linked so that the Home Office + other officials can spy on the everyday lives of innocent Britons.

Britons were already the most spied upon nation in Western Europe — more so even than Sweden.

Data-mining through this unprecedented level of mass-surveillance allows any future British government to leapfrog even countries like China and North Korea."
11.Mar.2007 Prototype Telescopes Complete Key Test - CowboyNeal 22+ - Matthew Sparkes writes

"Two prototype antennas for the world's largest array of millimeter-wave telescopes have passed a key test, working to track and image Saturn for more than an hour.

Ultimately, ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) is expected to resolve details 10 times finer than the Hubble Space Telescope when it is completed 00.000.2012 ."
11.Mar.2007 Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified? - CowboyNeal 82+ - netbuzz writes

"Absolutely, depending on the circumstances, yet a Florida newspaper's attempt to unmask 'a political group hiding behind the name of a fictitious person' has sparked outrage in some circles.

Part of the reason for that outrage is that the paper posted to its Web site a surveillance video of the blogger visiting its advertising department, a tactic the editor says he now regrets.

What's really at issue here is the right to publish anonymously vs. the right to remain anonymous. The former exists, the latter does not."
11.Mar.2007 British Military Deploys Skynet - CowboyNeal 90+ - rowleyrw writes

"The BBC are reporting, 'The British military is set to take one of its most significant steps into the digital age with the launch of the first Skynet 5 satellite.

The spacecraft will deliver secure, high-bandwidth communications for UK and "friendly" forces across the globe.' It's not yet the Skynet of Terminator, but how long before it becomes self aware?"
11.Mar.2007 Scientists Say Nerves Use Sound, Not Electricity - ScuttleMonkey 271+ - gazzarda writes

"The CBC is reporting that a team of Danish scientists are claiming that nerve impulses are transmitted by sound and not electricity.

'The common view that nerves transmit impulses through electricity is wrong and that they really transmit sound, according to a team of Danish scientists.

The Copenhagen University researchers argue that biology and medical textbooks that say nerves relay electrical impulses from the brain to the rest of the body are incorrect.'"
11.Mar.2007 Connecticut Wants to Restrict Social Networking - ScuttleMonkey 200+ - csefft writes

"According to the Hartford Courant, Connecticut became the latest state to want to restrict the use of MySpace and other social networking sites.

The proposed bill would require that all such sites verify the identity and age of users, as well as get parent's permission for those under 18.

Sites that failed to comply would be subject to a $5,000 per day fine.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said of the proposition, 'If we can put a man on the moon, we can verify age on the Internet,' but quickly followed with the acknowledgment that there is no foolproof method."
11.Mar.2007 Sea Creatures to Provide Basis for New Electronics? - ScuttleMonkey 54+ - hakaii - that

the shells of tiny sea creatures may help to lay the foundation for new electronic devices including an improved pollution detector.

"Using a chemical process that converts the shells' original silica (silicon dioxide, SiO2) into the semiconductor material silicon,

researchers have created a new class of gas sensors based on the unique + intricate three-dimensional (3-D) shells produced by microscopic creatures known as diatoms.

The converted shells, which retain the 3-D shape and nanoscale detail of the originals, could also be useful as battery electrodes, chemical purifiers - +

in other applications requiring complex shapes that nature can produce better than humans."
11.Mar.2007 NASA Backs Quantum Computing Claim - ScuttleMonkey 106+ - narramissic writes

"Canadian startup D-Wave's demonstration via Web link of a prototype quantum computer in

mid-February was met with skepticism in the academic community, but NASA has confirmed that it did, in fact, build a special chip used in the disputed demonstration.

According to an article on ITworld, D-Wave designed the quantum chip and then contracted with NASA to build it."
11.Mar.2007 Game Theory Computer Model Backs Net Neutrality - ScuttleMonkey 261+ - Stu writes

"'A world without net neutrality is one devoid of intellectual development' said Sir Tim Berners Lee in a presentation to congress last week.

Well, now there's a computer model that uses game theory to back that forecast up. Developed at the University of Florida, the model shows that everyone loses if the IPs get their way — even, eventually, the IPs."
11.Mar.2007 Audit Finds FBI Abused Patriot Act - ScuttleMonkey 309+ - happyslayer writes to mention that according to Yahoo! News a recent audit shows that

the FBI has improperly and in some cases illegally utilized the Patriot Act to obtain information.

"The audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine found that FBI agents sometimes demanded personal data on individuals without proper authorization.

The 126-page audit also found the FBI improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances.

The audit blames agent error and shoddy record-keeping for the bulk of the problems and did not find any indication of criminal misconduct.

Still, 'we believe the improper or illegal uses we found involve serious misuses of national security letter authorities,' the audit concludes."
11.Mar.2007 Wind, Solar & Biofuels to Power Remote Cell Towers - ScuttleMonkey 114+ - tcd004 writes

"How do you set up a cell network when there's no power grid? Namibia, India and Nigeria are building towers using localized power sources to provide critical cell phone access to the most remote parts of their countries. Wind/solar hybrids + biofuel power plants will power the radio towers, peripheral communications + even the protective fencing around the installations."
11.Mar.2007 Sweden Admits Tapping Citizens' Phones for Decades - ScuttleMonkey 198+ - paulraps writes

"Sweden is close to implementing new surveillance legislation that will include the monitoring of emails, telephone calls and keyword searches using advanced pattern analysis.

The objective is to detect 'threats such as terrorism, IT attacks or the spread of weapons of mass destruction' but the proposals have divided the country.

In a misguided attempt to put people at ease, the government admitted that Sweden has been tapping its citizens' phones for decades anyway."
11.Mar.2007 From the NYT Magazine _{- BG -}"One of the government’s witnesses, a forensic psychologist named Daniel Martell, testified that brain-scanning technologies were new + untested +

their implications weren’t yet widely accepted by the scientific community."
11.Mar.2007 Robert Kagan’s eternal optimism. - Nico -

One day after the Washington Post reported that President Bush’s rosy claims about escalation were misleading or false, it runs an op-ed by Robert Kagan, William Kristol’s frequent writing partner, titled

“The ‘Surge’ Is Working.” Glenn Greenwald writes:

No rational person would believe a word Robert Kagan says about anything.

He has been spewing out one falsehood after the next for the last four years in order to blind Americans about the real state of affairs concerning the invasion which he + his comrade + writing partner, Bill Kristol, did as much as anyone else to sell to the American public.

00.Apr.2003 Kagan declared the war over + said we won.

Since then, he has continuously claimed that things were getting better in Iraq.

He is completely liberated from any obligation to tell the truth and is a highly destructive propagandist whose public record of commentary about Iraq ought to disqualify him from decent company,

let alone some sort of pretense to expertise about this war.
11.Mar.2007 More Rove fingerprints on attorney purge? - Nico -

Newsweek: “Justice officials say the dismissals were for ‘job-performance reasons,’ as well as for failure to pursue Bush administration policy priorities.

But where did the list of particular U.S. attorneys to fire come from?

Two senior Justice officials, who didn’t want to be named discussing the dismissals, tell NEWSWEEK that Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’s chief of staff, developed the list of eight prosecutors to be fired

00.Oct.2006 - with input from the White House. In a recent statement, the White House said it approved the firings, but didn’t sign off on specific names.”
11.Mar.2007 Kristol Claims A Libby Pardon Would Remove The ‘Cloud Over The White House And The War’ - Faiz -

In this week’s Weekly Standard, editor Bill Kristol writes that Bush must pardon Libby immediately. “If the president does intend to pardon Libby, there is no reason to wait,” he writes.

Asked to comment further on his editorial, Kristol claimed this morning that pardoning Libby would remove the “cloud hanging over his White House and over the war.”

He added that if Bush waits, “Fitzgerald will keep repeating that there’s a cloud over the White House + Bush will be passive + it will demoralize his supporters.” Watch it:

The reason a cloud exists over the White House is because it has failed to confront questions about the involvement of Bush, Cheney, Rove + other key figures.

As Juan Williams noted, if Bush were to pardon Libby, he would only exacerbate the cloud that exists.

“It would be more than a cloud,” Williams said. “It would be a veil at that point, because people would say there is no accountability in this administration for their actions and they excuse their friends.” Transcript: (more…)
11.Mar.2007 Halliburton shifts headquarters to Dubai. - Nico -

“U.S. oil services giant Halliburton Co. will shift its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Halliburton’s new location “will be better placed to focus on relations with the Gulf’s enormous national oil companies.”
11.Mar.2007 Sen. Schumer Calls For Alberto Gonzales To Resign - Nico -

Today on CBS’s Face the Nation, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign.

Schumer said Gonzales has “been even more political than his predecessor,

Attorney General Ashcroft,” + that Gonzales “either doesn’t accept or doesn’t understand that he is no longer just the president’s lawyer, but has a higher obligation to the rule of law +

the Constitution, even when the president should not want it to be so.”

“For the sake of the nation,” Schumer said, “Attorney General Gonzales should step down.” Watch it:

Schumer’s call echoes a New York Times editorial this morning. The Times examined Gonzales’ record beyond the U.S. Attorney purge and the FBI’s Patriot Act violations:

– Gonzales “repeatedly defended Mr. Bush’s decision to authorize warrantless eavesdropping on Americans’ international calls and e-mail.”

– Gonzalez “was an eager public champion of the absurd notion that as commander in chief during a time of war, Mr. Bush can ignore laws that he thinks get in his way .”

– Gonzales “was disdainful of any attempt by Congress to examine the spying program, let alone control it.”

– Gonzales “helped formulate and later defended the policies that repudiated the Geneva Conventions in the war against terror + that sanctioned the use of kidnapping, secret detentions, abuse and torture .”

– Gonzales “has been central to the administration’s assault on the courts, which he recently said had no right to judge national security policies + on the constitutional separation of powers.”

Under Gonzales, the Justice Department “has abandoned its duties as guardian of election integrity and voting rights .

It approved a Georgia photo-ID law that a federal judge later likened to a poll tax, a case in which Mr. Gonzales’s political team overrode the objections of the department’s professional staff.”

Under Gonzales, the Justice Department “has been shamefully indifferent to complaints of voter suppression aimed at minority voters .

But it has managed to find the time to sue a group of black political leaders in Mississippi for discriminating against white voters.” Transcript: (more…)
11.Mar.2007 Upset Over Canceled Fox Debate, Kondracke Attacks ‘Left-Wing Liberals’ As ‘Junior-Grade Stalinists’ - Faiz -

On Fox News’ Beltway Boys, co-host Mort Kondracke blasted the decision by the Nevada Democratic Party to pull out of a Fox News-sponsored presidential debate.

Kondracke said, “This tells you a lot about what Moveon.org, Daily Kos kind of left-wing liberals are all about. I mean they are not about free speech and free debate.”

He added, “This is junior grade Stalinism on their part.”

Defending his network, Kondracke claimed, “If Fox was embarrassingly right wing or something like that, it would be plain for all to see.” Watch it:

Indeed, the heart of the problem is Fox’s propensity to be “embarrassingly right wing.”

As Atrios has said, “The problem with Fox isn’t that it’s conservative, it’s that it’s basically a propaganda outlet” for right-wing partisans.

Matt Stoller added that the Fox News audience is not the issue, “the problem that we have is that allowing Fox News to singlehandedly host the debate gives that channel the legitimacy of claiming to be a real news source.” And the more deference Fox is given as “a ’serious’ news operation,” notes Markos, the greater platform it has to peddle unfounded smears against the left.

By refusing to engage these substantive concerns, tonight’s Beltway Boys segment helped prove the point. (HT: Newshounds) Transcript: (more…)
11.Mar.2007 Did Rove orchestrate the U.S. attorney firings? - Faiz -

New Mexico Republican Party Chairman Allen Weh said he complained 00.000.2005 about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to White House officials + asked that Iglesias be removed because he was not indicting Democrats. 00.000.2006 -in late-during a visit to the White House- “Weh said he followed up with Rove personally.”

Weh said Rove told him: “He’s gone.”

His account calls into question the White House’s involvement in the recent firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
11.Mar.2007 Lost opportunity to engage Iran. - Nico -

“So they went, shook hands and chatted briefly. And that was the sum of the direct interaction between American + Iranian delegates at a long-awaited, day-long regional summit on Iraq today in Baghdad.

… U.S. + Iranian officials said there were no private conversations of any substance.” UPDATE: NewsHog has a round-up.
11.Mar.2007 Gates may undo Rumfeld/Feith intel changes. - Nico -

“Pentagon chief Robert Gates is considering whether to dismantle some controversial spying operations set up by his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, as a way of by-passing the CIA.

… Former officials involved in an ongoing debate about Pentagon spying say he’s considering whether to pull back the so-called ‘Strategic Support Branch‘ + other intelligence channels established by Rumsfeld + his former lieutenants, Stephen Cambone + Douglas Feith.” Shane Harris has the full story in the National Journal. UPDATE: Steve Clemons has more.
11.Mar.2007 Boehner And Putnam Call For ‘Real Debate’ On Iraq, Then Criticize Congress For Taking Real Action - Faiz -

Nearly two months ago — as Congress began debate over a non-binding resolution that sought to put lawmakers on the record as to whether they supported escalation —

conservatives complained that it was a “debate without any real consequence.”

They derided the debate over the non-binding resolution as “a meaningless political stunt” and pure “political theater.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL) called on the majority to produce a substantive proposal:

BOEHNER: “Why don’t we have the real debate and have the real vote and do it now? Let’s get out of the shadow boxing.

Let’s get away from the non- binding resolution. Let’s get away from the slow bleed. Let’s just have the real debate that the American people want us to have and bring it to an end.” [, 2/16.2007 ]

PUTNAM: “If you’re not cutting off the funds for the troops in the field, then you are supporting the commander in chief’s policy.

This gamesmanship sends the wrong message to our troops + it is trying to have it both ways.” [SF Chronicle, 2/7.2007 ]

This week, House Democrats did what the conservatives had been asking for.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced a legislative plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by

00.Aug.2008 at the latest, tying the proposal to the authorization of funding for the war.

So how did Boehner and Putnam react to the news that Congress could now engage in a “real debate”?

By shifting their attacks and blaming Congress for taking the action that they had been encouraging just weeks earlier:

BOEHNER: “The Democrats are using the critical troop funding bill to micromanage the war on terror, undermining our generals on the ground and slowly choking off resources for our troops. [Press Conference, 3/8.2007 ]

PUTNAM: “ Democrats have put forward a haphazardly created proposal that micromanages the war now in order to slowly bleed off funds for our troops later.” [Statement, 3/8.2007 ]

Because House conservatives’ are so desperate to avoid an Iraq debate and provide cover for Bush’s Iraq policy, their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
11.Mar.2007 General: Conservatives Are ‘Absolutely The Worst Thing That’s Happened’ To The U.S. Military - Nico -

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who from

00.000.2003-00.000.2004 was in charge of training the Iraqi military appeared last night on HBO’s Bill Maher Show.

“We are in the midst of recovering right now from a constitutional crisis where you had the executive trump the other branches of government,” Eaton said.

“Thank god” Congress changed hands in November, he said, giving us “a chance to unsort and figure out how to get out from under this.”

Eaton lamented that so many service members believe that conservatives “are good for the military.” “That is rarely the case.

And we have got to get a message through to every soldier, every family member, every friend of soldier,” that the Bush administration + its allies in Congress

have “absolutely been the worst thing that’s happened to the United States Army + the United States Marine Corps.” Watch it:

One year ago this week, Eaton called for the resignation of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a New York Times op-ed. Vanity Fair has a new article checking in on Eaton now:

His new business cards say “consultant,” primarily because he doesn’t know what else he now is.

Since he spoke out, several possible defense-related jobs have mysteriously dried up. ‘Maybe it’s the way I part my hair,’ he says.

In late January, his elder son, a 29-year-old Arabic linguist who is an army specialist, went to Afghanistan.

His younger son, 27, an army captain who has already spent 14 months in Iraq, will probably go back before long. Digg It!
11.Mar.2007 Administration ‘loses’ Padilla interrogation tape. - Nico -

Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was detained for four years without formal charges, much of it in solitary confinement.

An independent medical expert say his repeated interrogations have made him mentally unfit for trial.

Now, the judge in Padilla’s case has ordered the administration to turn over all tapes made of his interrogations, specifically a session from

00.Mar.2004 while he was still held as an “enemy combatant.”

But the administration says it lost the tape.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke was incredulous that anything connected to such a high-profile defendant could be lost.

“Do you understand how it might be difficult for me to understand that a tape related to this particular individual just got mislaid?”

Cooke told prosecutors at a hearing last month. Glenn Greenwald has much more.
11.Mar.2007 Senior Bush Official: ‘No Trend’ Showing Escalation Is Working - Nico -

On Tuesday, President Bush gave a speech claiming the Iraq escalation is showing “encouraging signs” of progress. But in

today’s Washington Post, a senior Bush administration official acknowledges that “right now there is no trend” showing the escalation is working.

Moreover, officials say the information Bush presented to back up his rosy claims was skewed or flat-out false. A fact check:

President Bush: “General Petraeus recently arrived in the Iraqi capital + the plan he is executing is in its early stages. … Yet even at this early hour, there are some encouraging signs.”

FACT: “Sectarian attacks in Baghdad are down at the moment, but the deaths of Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops have increased outside the capital.

… If violence is down in Baghdad, analysts said, it is likely because the Shiite militias operating there are waiting out the buildup in U.S. troops, nearly all of whom are being deployed in the capital.

At the same time, Sunni insurgents have escalated their operations elsewhere.”

President Bush: “Iraq’s Council of Ministers recently agreed on legislation they will submit to their parliament on the development of Iraq’s oil resources and the sharing of revenues.”

FACT: “Though Iraqi leaders have agreed on a new framework law for oil resources, the details of how the oil revenue will be divided among competing Iraqi groups remain unresolved.”

President Bush: “The Iraqi government has completed the deployment of three additional Iraqi Army brigades to the capital. They said they were going to employ three brigades + they did.”

FACT: “A senior U.S. military official in Baghdad said this week that two Iraqi brigades and one battalion of a third have arrived in Baghdad.”

President Bush: “Iraqi and U.S. forces have rounded up more than 700 people affiliated with Shia extremists.”

FACT: “Bush’s report…appears to have little to do with the new strategy.

The number is ‘based on captures…since July 2006,’ the military official said. Bush first reported the same roundup — citing 600 captures — last fall.”

On the same day President Bush gave his speech last week, suicide bombers and gunmen attacked Shiite religious pilgrims, “killing at least 130 people in one of the deadliest days of the four-year war.”
11.Mar.2007 The fox designs the hen house. - Nico -

“The Internal Revenue Service is asking tax lawyers and accountants who create tax shelters and exploit loopholes to take the lead in writing some of its new tax rules.

… [Critics] worry that having private lawyers and accountants draft tax rules could allow them to subtly skew them in favor of their clients.

‘It’s not the fox guarding the hen house; it’s the fox designing the hen house,’ said Paul C. Light, a professor of political science at New York University.” Kevin Drum has much more.
11.Mar.2007 McCain backs Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. - Nico -

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claims that “military leaders” he’s talked to about the ban on gay servicemembers say, “‘Generally, overall, it’s working.’

… And right now we’ve got the best military we’ve ever had - the most professional, best trained, equipped and the bravest.

And so I think it’s logical to leave this issue alone. I really do.”

Currently, the U.S. Army’s readiness for war “has eroded to levels not witnessed by our country in decades,” + since Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell went into effect, the Pentagon has dismissed more than 11,000 servicemembers, many in key specialty skills such as training in Arabic.
11.Mar.2007 Update: says Tom DeLay not joining network. - Nico - Via Hunter, a network spokesperson tells MediaBistro that criminally-indicted ex-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) is not joining .
11.Mar.2007 Army Secretary Who Resigned Over Walter Reed Given Lavish Farewell Ceremony - Nico -

Army Secretary Francis Harvey resigned last week after the neglect and squalor at Walter Reed military hospital was exposed by the Washington Post.

Harvey not only oversaw these conditions, but chose to place Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley — who had been personally aware for years about the problems and apparently done nothing — back in control of the hospital.

That decision was reversed days later by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Despite the terms of his resignation, Harvey today was given a celebratory farewell ceremony at the large Conmy Hall in Virginia, pictured below.

ThinkProgress obtained a media advisory promoting the event, which states that Army chief of staff Peter Schoomaker would be hosting the “farewell ceremony in honor” of Harvey.

In the text of his “Message to the Army,” Harvey says, “I am leaving your ranks saddened,” but claims that the “well-being” of “Soldiers and their families” has “always been my highest priority.”

Significant progress has also been made in force and business transformation, modernization, leader development + the well-being of Soldiers and their families - your well-being has always been my highest priority .

The press advisory notes, “The Secretary of the Army will not conduct a media availability before or after the ceremony.”

Your tax dollars at work. (And how long until the Medal of Freedom?) Digg It!
11.Mar.2007 EXCLUSIVE: Clinton Says Bush Has No Authority ‘To Do Anything With Respect to Iran’ - _{Think Progress} -

Yesterday, ThinkProgress interviewed Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) +

asked her about Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) efforts to expressly prohibit President Bush from taking “unilateral military action in Iran without the express consent of the Congress.”

Clinton expressed her support for the position, saying, “I think that the President should not assume that he has any authority to do anything with respect to Iran.”

Clinton said that Bush “needs to come to the Congress + neither the resolution regarding Afghanistan or Iraq give him authority to take offensive action.” Watch it:

Center for American Progress fellow Ruy Teixeira has noted that the public’s views could not be clearer on Iran: make diplomacy, not war.

Despite the Bush administration’s attempts to ratchet up tensions with Iran, a majority of Americans (57 %) have consistently expressed the view that Iran is a threat that can be contained with diplomacy.

Another 20 % don’t see Iran as a threat to the U.S. at the current time. Support for military action has fallen recently, registering only 15 %. Transcript: (more…)
11.Mar.2007 House demands answers from White House on purge. - Satyam -

The House Judiciary Committee today requested documents from the White House related to the Bush administration’s purge of eight U.S. attorneys.

“The committee is also seeking to interview at least one current official in the White House’s counsel’s office, William Kelley, Deputy Counsel to the President + former White House counsel Harriet Miers.”

Read the letter from Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) HERE.
11.Mar.2007 Accountability at the FBI…kind of. - Payson -

At a press conference today,

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III responded to the Justice Department Inspector General’s report that found “pervasive errors in the FBI’s use” of National Security Letters

to obtain the personal information of U.S. citizens.

“How could this happen?” Mueller asked rhetorically.

“Who is to be held accountable? And the answer to that is, I am to be held accountable.”

However, Mueller “dismissed the idea of offering to resign, saying there has been ‘no discussion of that.’“
11.Mar.2007 Tom DeLay says he’ll be commentator. - Nico -

“Tom DeLay is becoming a commentator for, according to John Fund.

In today’s WSJ Political Diary, he writes:

‘Despite his antipathy toward liberals, Mr. DeLay joked that he’s happy to work with them. He told me he is about to sign on with as a commentator.

“I may be their only conservative on air, but someone has to do it.”‘”
11.Mar.2007 Veterans receive unequal treatment from VA. - Amanda -

“Veterans face serious inequities in compensation for disabilities depending on where they live and whether they were on active duty or were members of the National Guard or the Reserve, an analysis by The New York Times has found. … Those factors determine whether some soldiers wait nearly twice as long to get benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs as others + collect less money, according to agency figures.”
11.Mar.2007 House Conservatives Appoint Chief Climate Skeptic To Lead New Global Warming Panel - _{Think Progress} -

The House of Representatives voted yesterday to create a new congressional committee devoted solely to addressing the global climate crisis.

Unable to block the creation of the committee, House conservative leaders are now doing everything they can to neuter it.

Conservative leadership aides reportedly told Republican members that a vote in favor of the bill creating the global warming panel “would put them out of running for a seat” on the panel.

Worse, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has named Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) to be the committee’s top ranking Republican member.

A look at Sensenbrenner’s record:

Sensenbrenner praised as ‘Inhofe of the House’:

“If there is an Inhofe on the House side, it has to be Wisconsin’s James Sensenbrenner Jr.,” says the American Conservative Union’s David Keene, referring to Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK),

who calls global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” [Link]

Sensenbrenner led climate skeptic delegation to Kyoto conference: “ -back-

00.000.1998 As chairman of the Science Committee, Sensenbrenner led a delegation of skeptics to the Kyoto conference + fought then-President Clinton’s attempt to go along with the Kyoto protocols.” [Link]

Sensenbrenner asked scientist about placing catalytic converters on cows to combat warming:

“Does (it) mean to stop this increase in methane we’ve got to put catalytic converters on the backs of cows?”

Sensenbrenner asked a climate scientist at a hearing last month. If cows are partly responsible for methane gases,

Sensenbrenner said, that “could hit Wisconsin’s economy right between the horns.” [Link]

Sensenbrenner endorsed by Competitive Enterprise Institute:

A spokesman for the oil industry-backed Competitive Enterprise Institute called

Sensenbrenner “exceptionally well qualified” and “a good choice.” [E&E Daily, 2/17.2007 ]

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) — who last month claimed that global warming may have been caused by “dinosaur flatulence” — was reportedly a finalist for the ranking member slot.

Only 13 % of congressional Republicans say they believe that human activity is causing global warming, according to a recent poll, compared to 79 % of Americans.
11.Mar.2007 Rove busy shaping Bush’s legacy. - Nico -

“In an interview this week in his windowless West Wing office, Karl Rove said that there is ‘very little’ discussion about President Bush’s legacy at the White House these days,” the Washington Post reports.

But behind the scenes, Rove “has begun trying to put his own distinctive spin on current events and the longer historical view,” specifically asserting that the “Bush doctrine” will be adopted by future U.S. presidents.
11.Mar.2007 Sixth paper drops Coulter. - Amanda -

Greg Sargent at Horse’s Mouth reports that the North Carolina Sanford Herald has decided to stop running Ann Coulter’s column in its Sunday paper.

The editor said that his paper, which has a circulation of 10,000 to 12,000, has received 834 emails today asking it to drop her.
11.Mar.2007 Brazilian Reactions To The U.S. President: Then And Now - Faiz -

More than six years after President Bush assumed office, the global view of the United State’s role in world affairs has significantly deteriorated.

A recent BBC world poll reported that even in the past two years the U.S.’s reputation around the world has gone “from bad to worse.”

The practical fallout of “the Bush effect” has been on full display in Brazil, where only 19 % of the nation has a favorable opinion of him.

A review of news reports from President Clinton’s trip to Brazil 10 years ago demonstrate how much times have changed:

15.Oct.1997 Christian Science Monitor :

[I]t was his trip to a Xerox-sponsored sports center in the Rio slum of Mangueira that won the hearts of many Brazilians + caused a TV commentator to tell his viewers that Clinton’s speech had him on “the verge of tears.” … [Clinton] ignored the Secret Service’s rigid security by shaking hands and allowing admirers to hug and kiss him.

Some gave him shirts and caps emblazoned with the logo of the slum’s carnival group.

“He looked liked a happy kid finally let loose on the streets,” said Jamelao, one of Mangueira’s most famous samba personalities.

Clinton waved a Brazilian flag, listened to samba music while hitting a tambourine + kicked a soccer ball with Brazil Sports Minister Edson Arantes do Nascimento, the legendary ex-player known as Pele.

09.Mar.2007 BBC :

Clashes broke out in Brazil’s largest city as US President Bush arrived at the start of a six-day regional tour.

At least 20 people were injured in clashes with riot police in Sao Paulo after thousands turned out to protest against George W Bush’s visit.

… In Sao Paulo, about 10,000 people spilled out along one of the city’s broadest avenues, in the heart of the financial district, banging drums, waving red flags + carrying banners reading “Bush Go Home.”

… Many of the demonstrators are angry at the war in Iraq and the proposed ethanol deal, which they say is an attempt to control the country’s production of the bio-fuel which powers eight out of 10 new cars in Brazil.
11.Mar.2007 Ex-Navy official protests Swift Boat funder’s nomination. - Amanda -

Today in the Washington Times, Wade Sanders — former deputy assistant secretary of the Navy, decorated former swift boat skipper + combat veteran — has an op-ed

attacking President Bush’s nomination of Sam Fox to be ambassador to Belgium:

“And as a military man, it doesn’t matter much who is being attacked — John McCain, Max Cleland, John Kerry, or Jack Murtha — I just don’t believe that assaults on the military records of veterans belong in our politics.”
11.Mar.2007 FBI breaking laws that Bush pledged to ignore. - Nico -

“The story here is not merely that the FBI is breaking the law and abusing these powers,” Glenn Greenwald writes.

“That has long been predicted and, to some degree, even documented.

The story is that the FBI is ignoring the very legal obligations which George Bush vowed were not obligations at all, but mere suggestions to be accepted only if he willed it.

It is yet another vivid example proving that the President’s ideology of lawlessness exists not merely in theory, but as the governing doctrine under which the executive branch has acted, time and again +

as deliberately as possible, in violation of whatever laws it deems inconvenient.” (Via Atrios)
09.Mar.2007 March 9, 2007 - _{Think Progress} -

A chilly Latin American reception for Bush. As he “opened a weeklong tour of Latin America” yesterday, “police clashed with protesters in Brazil and across the region.”

Adding insult to injury, “Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate ‘bad spirits’” after Bush visits next week.

Valerie Plame, the former covert CIA agent whose cover was blown by the Bush administration, has agreed to testify before the House Committee on Government Reform

“about the disclosure + how the White House handled it.”

“One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later,” said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA),

in a “scathing criticism” of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s “handling of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys”

“More than a quarter of military veterans with disability cases before the Department of Veterans Affairs wait six months or longer for the agency’s decision, creating financial hardships for them + their families.

03.Mar.2007 -… As of- the VA had almost 401,000 pending cases for disability compensation with almost 115,000 languishing for six months or more.”

The Bush administration said it is “ open to holding direct talks with either Iran or Syria over how to help mend Iraq at a regional conference this weekend.”

David Satterfield, the State Department’s Iraq coordinator, said yesterday that

“if we are approached over orange juice by the Syrians or the Iranians to discuss an Iraq-related issue that is germane to this topic — stable, secure, peaceful, democratic Iraq — we are not going to turn + walk away.” _(more…)
11.Mar.2007 ‘Scathing’ report says FBI violated guidelines. - Nico -

“The FBI repeatedly failed to follow the strict guidelines of the Patriot Act when its agents took advantage of a new provision allowing the FBI to obtain phone + financial records

without a court order, according to a report to be made public Friday by the Justice Department’s Inspector General.

The report, in classified + unclassified versions, remains closely held, but Washington officials who have seen it tell ABC News it documents ‘numerous lapses’ and describe it as ’scathing’ and ‘not a pretty picture for the FBI.’”

UPDATE:

Tomorrow, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will “deliver keynote remarks before the International Association of Privacy Professionals.”

UPDATE II:

Washington Post: “The inspector general’s audit found 22 possible breaches of internal FBI + Justice Department regulations — some of which were potential violations of law — in a sampling of 293 ‘national security letters.’ 00.000.2003-00.000.2005 The letters were used by the FBI to obtain the personal records of U.S. residents or visitors.

The FBI identified 26 potential violations in other cases.”
11.Mar.2007 Rep. Jones (R-NC) backs House Iraq timeline. - Nico -

Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) “signaled Thursday he supported the plan proposed by Democratic leaders today to lay out a specific timeline to withdraw U.S. troops. ‘Conceptually I like what’s been proposed…I think this is on the right track,’ he said. Jones praised the benchmarks in the plan and the inclusion of a date certain for beginning a withdrawal of US troops.”

UPDATE: A new poll shows that a “majority of Americans in competitive, conservative-leaning House districts approve of setting a date for troops to withdraw from Iraq.”
11.Mar.2007 Administration caves on U.S. Attorney law. - Nico -

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and other senators met with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this afternoon.

According to Schumer, Gonzales said the White House will not oppose reversing the PATRIOT Act provision that allows U.S. Attorneys to be installed without Senate approval:

“While we didn’t get any better explanation for these unprecedented firings, two important developments came from this meeting.

First, the Attorney General told us the Administration would not oppose our legislation requiring Senate confirmation for all U.S. Attorneys.

Second, in one form or another, each of the five Department of Justice witnesses will be made available to us for questioning.

The details and venue are still being worked out, but we are hopeful they will cooperate.”
11.Mar.2007 Former Clinton Chief Of Staff Rebuts Rove Claim That Clinton Purged Prosecutors Too - Amanda -

At a speech in Little Rock today, Karl Rove described the Bush administration’s purge of federal prosecutors as “normal and ordinary,” claiming that Clinton did the same thing.

“Clinton, when he came in, replaced all 93 U.S. attorneys,” Rove said.

“When we came in, we ultimately replace most all 93 U.S. attorneys — there are some still left from the Clinton era in place.” Watch it:

Clinton’s former chief of staff John Podesta told ThinkProgress that Rove’s claim is “pure fiction.” The Clinton administration never fired federal prosecutors as political retribution:

Mr. Rove’s claims today that the Bush administration’s purge of qualified and capable U.S. attorneys is “normal and ordinary” is pure fiction.

Replacing most U.S. attorneys when a new administration comes in — as we did 00.000.1993 +

the Bush administration did 00.000.2001 — is not unusual.

But the Clinton administration never fired federal prosecutors as pure political retribution.

These U.S. attorneys received positive performance reviews from the Justice Department and were then given no reason for their firings.

We’re used to this White House distorting the facts to blame the Clinton administration for its failures.

Apparently, it’s also willing to distort the facts and invoke the Clinton administration to try to justify its bad behavior.

Earlier this week, Mary Jo White, who was U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York from

00.000.1993-00.000.2002, also stated that the Bush administration’s prosecutor purge is unprecedented in “modern history”:

You serve at the president’s pleasure, no question about that.

… However, throughout modern history, my understanding is, you did not change the U.S. attorney during an administration, unless there was some evidence of misconduct or other really quite significant cause to do so.

And the expectation was, so long as that was absent, that you would serve out your full four years or eight years as U.S. attorney.

As White noted, attorneys need to serve “without fear or favor and in an absolutely apolitical way.”

By firing well-respected federal prosecutors and replacing them with Republican loyalists, the Bush administration has politicized the judicial system. TPMmuckraker has the transcript: (more…)
11.Mar.2007 House creates special global warming committee. - Nico -

“The House of Representatives voted today to create a new congressional committee, devoted solely to addressing the issue of global warming.

Legislation creating the new ‘Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming’ passed 269 to 150, with 44 Republicans voting in favor of its creation.”

UPDATE: More details at The Gavel.
11.Mar.2007 Exclusive: Hillary Blasts Bush on Military Readiness, Revisionist History - Faiz -

Today, ThinkProgress sat down for an interview with Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) after she delivered an address at the Center for American Progress Action Fund on the U.S. military’s readiness crisis.

We’ll be featuring clips from the interview today and tomorrow.

We asked her to comment on this quote attacking President Clinton from then-candidate George W. Bush 00.000.2000:

So let’s get something straight right now. To point out that our military has been overextended, taken for granted and neglected, that’s no criticism of the military.

That is criticism of a president and vice president and their record of neglect. [, 11/3/00]

“Bingo!” Clinton responded. “It wasn’t true when he said it, but it sure is true now.

[Bush] has in a very deliberative way created conditions that are straining our military, underfunding it with respect to what actually gets to troops on the ground and what they get when they get home.” Watch it:

00.000.2000, Bush claimed there were two Army divisions “not ready for combat.”

The Cleveland Plain Dealer fact-checked Bush’s attacks on the Clinton administration. It reported:

Every unit in those two divisions, down to nine-man squads, was in fact ready for combat, division officers said.

Had war broken out somewhere, they were ready to go. But Army regulations require any division with units deployed away from home be reported as not combat ready.

Maj. Thomas Collins, an Army spokesman, said at the time: “All 10 Army divisions are combat-ready, fully able to meet their war-fighting mission.”

In contrast, the U.S. Army’s preparedness for war today “has eroded to levels not witnessed by our country in decades.”

Virtually all of the U.S.-based Army combat brigades are “rated as unready to deploy,” Army officials say +

a recent Pentagon survey found that troops in Iraq + Afghanistan suffer from chronic shortages of armored vehicles, heavy weapons + communications equipment.

Bush_on_Military_Readiness_Revisionist_History">Digg It! Transcript: (more…)
11.Mar.2007 Waxman to hold oversight hearings on Plame leak. - Faiz -

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman announced he will hold a hearing on whether White House officials followed appropriate procedures for safeguarding the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. In addition, Waxman released a letter he wrote special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, stating in part:

“The trial proceedings raise questions about whether senior White House officials, including the Vice President + Senior Advisor to the President Karl Rove,

complied with the requirements governing the handling of classified information.

They also raise questions about whether the White House took appropriate remedial action following the leak + whether the existing requirements are sufficient to protect against future leaks.

Your perspective on these matters is important.”
11.Mar.2007 Bush will veto House bill on Iraq withdrawal. - Amanda -

Talking to reporters aboard Air Force One, White House adviser Dan Bartlett said that the White House plans to veto the the House Democrats’ bill to withdraw troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008. He said, “It would unnecessarily handcuff our generals on the ground. … Obviously, the administration would vehemently oppose and ultimately veto any legislation that looks like what was described today.”
11.Mar.2007 Murtha To Cut Funds For Iraq Contractors To Force Pentagon’s Hand - Nico -

Today, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other House leaders held a press briefing to announce their Iraq war spending plan, which would redeploy U.S. forces out of Iraq by August 2008 at the latest. More details HERE.

Another provision of the bill was detailed by Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), chairman of the defense spending subcommittee. Murtha explained that the Pentagon has repeatedly stonewalled information about the role of private contractors in Iraq. “I asked the Under Secretary of Defense. He says, ‘I’ll let you know tomorrow.’ We’ve never gotten an answer back,” Murtha said.

Now, Murtha says, both the Government Accountability Office and the Special Inspector General for Iraq have come to him and said, “Help us get a handle on the contractors.”

So Murtha is going to play hardball. “[W]e took five % of their money out + that’s about $800 million. We also fenced 10 % of their money.

We want answers about whether these contractors — how much it costs us, how many we have + how the contracts are being, are being given to these various organizations.” Watch it:

Also today, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is marking up the Accountability in Contracting Act, which would require federal agencies to limit the use of abuse-prone contracts +

increase transparency and accountability in federal contracting. Transcript: (more…)
11.Mar.2007 CONFIRMED: Top House Spending Official Knew Of Walter Reed Squalor - Nico -

Congressional Quarterly confirms today that senior House conservatives, including the chairmen of the appropriations and oversight committees, knew about the neglect and deplorable conditions at Walter Reed years before they were exposed by the Washington Post.

Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-FL), former chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said he stopped short of going public with the hospital’s problems “to avoid embarrassing the Army while it was fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan”:

“We got in Gen. Kiley’s face on a regular basis,” Young said, adding that he even contacted the commander of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda in the hopes of getting better care there for the patient with the aneurysm, though doctors at Walter Reed declined to transfer him. …

“We did not go public with these concerns, because we did not want to undermine the confidence of the patients and their families and give the Army a black eye while fighting a war ,” Young said.

Young claims he regularly “got in Gen. Kiley’s face.” But Kiley never responded to Young’s complaints. Nevertheless, as ThinkProgress noted last week, Young was publicly praising Kiley during a congressional hearing as recently as January:

YOUNG: Well, Mr. Chairman, I want to join you in welcoming our guests and our witnesses today, having known especially Don Arthur and General Kiley very, very well over the years . I thought they’d get tired of seeing us in their hospitals. And we haven’t had as much opportunity to visit with the Air Force, General. But I know that these gentlemen are committed to providing our war heroes with the very, very best medical care that is possible .

Also, while Young claims he didn’t want to go public with the problems at Walter Reed, he was more than willing to use wounded veterans publicly as a political cudgel. Here is Young on the House floor on 11/18/05, speaking against Rep. John Murtha’s (D-PA) redeployment plan:

YOUNG: So tonight, Mr. Speaker, we need to send a strong message to our troops and to their families. For those families who are dealing with the loss of a loved one, for those families who are dealing with a seriously wounded soldier or marine who might be at Walter Reed Hospital or at Bethesda Hospital or at Landsthul in Germany, we need to let them know that we are here to support them . (CR, p. H11009)
11.Mar.2007 A cloud over the Vice President. - Faiz -

Time magazine’s cover article portrays “Dick Cheney in twilight” within the White House. “Cheney has become the Administration’s enemy within,” writes reporter Michael Duffy, “the man whose single-minded pursuit of ideological goals, creaking political instincts and love of secrecy produced an independent operation inside the White House that has done more harm than good.”
08.Mar.2007 March 8, 2007 - _{Think Progress} -

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to “vote today to authorize subpoenas for Justice officials” involved in the purge of U.S. Attorneys, including Michael Battle, who carried out the firings + Kyle Sampson, chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto A. Gonzales.

Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the day-to-day commander of American forces in Iraq, has recommended in a private memo that President Bush’s escalation of U.S. troop levels “be maintained through February 2008.”

Internal memorandums circulated by the Bush administration’s Federal Fish and Wildlife Service “appear to require government biologists or other employees traveling in countries around the Arctic not to discuss climate change, polar bears or sea ice if they are not designated to do so.”

“The Federal Emergency Management Agency hurriedly bought 145,000 trailers and mobile homes just before and after Katrina hit, spending $2.7 billion largely through no-bid contracts. Now, it is selling off as many as 41,000 of the homes, netting, so far, about 40 cents on each dollar spent by taxpayers.”

Yesterday, C-SPAN announced that it would grant public access to many of its video feeds . The network explained, “These actions are intended to meet the growing demand for video about the federal government and Congress, in an age of explosive growth of video file-sharers, bloggers and online ‘citizen journalists.’” (more…)
11.Mar.2007 REPORT: 72 % Of Army Brigades Have Served Multiple Tours of Duty - Payson -

The Center for American Progress has released a new study on the state of our military readiness. The report — “Beyond the Call of Duty: A Comprehensive Review of the Overuse of the Army in the Administration’s War of Choice in Iraq” — undertook a “massive research project to identify, brigade by brigade, the number and duration of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan by the active Army.” The report found a large majority of Army brigades have served multiple tours:

– Brigades with one tour in Iraq or Afghanistan: 12

– Brigades with two tours in Iraq or Afghanistan: 20

– Brigades with three tours in Iraq or Afghanistan: 9

– Brigades with four tours in Iraq or Afghanistan: 2

The report also points out that a total of 420,000 troops have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan more than once + over 84,000 National Guard and Reservists have done multiple tours.

The multiple deployments and extended tours of duty are taking a serious toll on our soldiers. Two-thirds of Army brigades are “not ready for wartime missions,” and one Pentagon survey found that troops in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from chronic shortages of armored vehicles, heavy weapons + communications equipment.

In addition, an Army survey conducted last year found “U.S. soldiers serving repeated Iraq deployments are 50 % more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress, raising their risk of post-traumatic stress disorder”:

Combat stress is significantly higher among soldiers with at least one previous tour — 18.4 %, compared with 12.5 % of those on their first deployment, the survey found. […]

The report also found a

00.000.2004-00.000.2005 doubling of suicides among soldiers -serving in the Iraq war from-to- the latest period for which data are available.

President Bush’s escalation strategy will push these overstressed troops even further.

“Our Army is in bad shape,” report co-author Lawrence Korb said, “and the surge will only make it worse for the Army and the country.” 11.Mar.2007 Libby’s pardon problem. - Nico -

Newsweek reports that Scooter Libby “does not qualify to even be considered for a presidential pardon under Justice Department guidelines,”

which in part “require a petitioner to wait a period of at least five years after conviction or release from confinement (whichever is later) before filing a pardon application.”

President Bush can easily waive the rules, but up until now he “seems to have followed those guidelines religiously.”
11.Mar.2007 Nicholson stalled program to aid wounded vets. - Nico -

“A proposal to keep seriously wounded vets from falling through the cracks of the bureaucracy was shelved 00.000.2005 when Jim Nicholson took over as the secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department,” ABC News reports. “As a result, seriously wounded veterans continued to face long delays for health care and benefit payments after being discharged from the military, says former VA program manager Paul Sullivan.

… Sullivan said he was told the cost of the system — less than $1 million to build and requiring a handful of staff to maintain — was prohibitive.”
11.Mar.2007 Kennedy Rails Into Conservatives Trying To Block 9/11 Bill To Hurt Workers - Nico -

The White House has threatened to veto a critical 9/11 Commission security bill if it includes legislation giving federal airport screeners collective bargaining rights and whistle-blower protections.

Senate conservatives have argued that providing basic workers’ rights to TSA employees endangers our national security. “It’s absolutely absurd,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC). “Terrorists don’t go on strike. Terrorists don’t call their union to negotiate before they attack.”

Today on the Senate floor, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) ripped into the right wing for suggesting that our first-line defenders would sacrifice America’s security. “What is it about the other side that questions that these are men and women of dignity that will do their job when this nation is threatened?” he said. “As the smoke was coming out of the buildings in New York, when we saw the collapse of the first buildings and men and women under collective bargaining agreements were asked to go into those fiery infernos, no one was talking about collective bargaining agreements! They were talking about doing their duty to the United States of America.”

Watch it: The good news: the Senate held the line and voted 51-48 to approve the workers’ protections. Transcript: (more…)
11.Mar.2007 ‘Mostly free of scandal.’ - Nico - David Gergen on the Libby verdict: “This is an administration that has been mostly free of scandal over the last six years +

now they have the taint that they cannot erase.
11.Mar.2007 Afrika feiert Ghanas 50. Geburtstag - sfux Dr. Alexander on Paleske - Am

06.Mär.1957 wurde die britische Kolonie Gold Coast als erstes Land südlich der Sahara unabhängig. Über 100.00 Menschen hatten sich im Stadium der Hauptstadt Accra eingefunden. Um Mitternacht wurde der Union Jack eingeholt und unter grossem Jubel die Fahne des neuen Staates Ghana, rot grün und gold, gehisst.
In seiner Ansprache erklärte der neue Präsident, Kwame Nkrumah, dass die Unabhängigkeit Ghanas bedeutungslos bleiben...
11.Mar.2007 Kann der Iran erobert werden? - sfux Michael Schulze von Glaßer ?

Ob der Konflikt zwischen den USA und der islamische Republik Iran in Zukunft mit Waffen ausgetragen wird lässt sich nicht genau sagen. Doch kann der Iran überhaupt erobert werden?
Einwohner
Im von den USA besetzten Irak sind nach der Truppenaufstockung etwa 170.000 US-Soldaten im Einsatz. Hinzu kommen 9.000 Britische Soldaten und weitere der ?Koalition der willigen?. Die Besatzungstruppen im...
11.Mar.2007 Israel has a long history of supplying Iran with weapons - sfux Dr. Alexander von Paleske -

The Shah of Iran, who was chased from power 00.000.1979, had bought plenty of weapons, before his departure, in the US, for roughly 18 billion US Dollars. Amongst them 80 warplanes of the type F 14.
11.Mar.2007 Nächster Stop: Venezuela? - sfux Karl Weiss -

Unabhängig davon, ob man demnächst den Iran überfällt oder ob man dies vorsichtshalber verschiebt, wird die Weltöffentlichkeit von der US-Regierung bereits auf das nächste Angriffsziel vorbereitet: Venezuela. Es werden bereits Berichte in die Medien kolportiert, Venezuela würde angeblich nicht genug gegen den Kokain-Schmuggel tun, es würde zum Transitland für den Schmuggel und zum sicheren Hafen für Schmuggler....
11.Mar.2007 Teurofighter wird zum Jagdbomber - sfux Michael Schulze von Glaßer -

Die scheinbaren Preissteigerungen die der Euro nach seiner Einführung am 1.Januar 2002 mit sich brachte, heimsten der Währung den Namen ?Teuro? ein. Volkswirte bewiesen aber, dass es keine gesamtwirtschaftliche Preissteigerung gab. Eine deutliche Preissteigerung ist jedoch beim europäischen Jagdflugzeug ?Eurofighter? feststellbar die wohl noch nicht einmal von Volkswirten entzaubert werden könnte. Ob der Volksmund den teuren Vogel wohl auch bald umbenennen...
11.Mar.2007 Oklahoma Bomber McVeigh hatte FBI Hilfe - sfux Stephan Fuchs ?

Terry Nichols, der Mitverschwörer beim

19.Apr.1995 Anschlag auf das Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City- hat

unter eidestaatlicher Aussage vor einem Gericht in Utah erklärt, dass ein hochrangiger FBI Agent, Larry...
11.Mar.2007 Bürgermeister zum dritten mal autopsiert - sfux Stephan Fuchs ?

Der mit grosser Wahrscheinlichkeit ermordete schwarze Bürgermeister von Westlake im südlichen Bundesstaat Louisiana findet keine Ruhe.

Sein Leichnam wurde exhumiert und zur dritten Autopsie nach Pittsburgh überstellt.
Gerald Washington war der erste gewählte schwarze Bürgermeister im 4500 Seelen zählenden Südstaatenstädtchen Westlake.

Die Seelen freilich, sind vorwiegend Weiss. Die Angehörigen des ehemaligen Bürgermeisters sind überzeugt,...
11.Mar.2007 Saudi-Arabien ein Schurkenstaat? Von den Gründen der Kriege - sfux Karl Weiss -

Um nur einen groben Eindruck von den heißgeliebten Verbündeten der US-Regierung zu bekommen, hier ein Detail aus Saudi-Arabien: Eine Frau war gezwungen, sich mit einem Erpresser zu treffen.

Sie wurde danach von einer Gang entführt und von allen Mitgliedern wiederholt vergewaltigt.

Sie erhielt nun die Strafe von 90 Peitschenhieben, weil sie mit dem Mann, dem Erpresser, zusammen im Auto gesessen hatte. Ja,...
11.Mar.2007 Subliminal images affect brain Subliminal images do attract the brain's attention on a subconscious level, say UK researchers.
11.Mar.2007 'Alarm' airport doctor struck off A doctor who put on full protective gear to diagnose a plane passenger with a cough is struck off.
11.Mar.2007 Many mutations drive cancer Many more mutated genes drive the development of cancer than previously thought, research shows.
11.Mar.2007 Snorers cost two years of sleep More than a third of Britons are losing two years of sleep in a lifetime because of their partner's snoring, work suggests.
11.Mar.2007 Laos teenager dies from bird flu Laos officials confirm the nation's first definite human bird flu fatality, after a 15-year-old girl dies from H5N1.
11.Mar.2007 Bush visit to boost ally Colombia President Bush arrives in Colombia in a display of continued support for efforts to fight a leftist insurgency.
11.Mar.2007 Mauritania votes in landmark poll Mauritanians vote for a new president in the final stage of their transition to civilian rule after a coup.
11.Mar.2007 Chavez launches biting US attack The Venezuelan leader lashes out at US policy towards Latin America as he and the US president continue rival tours.
11.Mar.2007 Australian PM begins Japan visit Australia's John Howard arrives in Japan on a visit that will include signing a bilateral security pact.
11.Mar.2007 No deal on UN sanctions for Iran China and Russia express concern about further sanctions on Iran proposed by the UN Security Council.
11.Mar.2007 Best treatment pledge for troops The government pledges to improve medical treatment after claims of neglect of returning UK troops.
11.Mar.2007 Light to detect wound infection UK researchers have developed a way of using light to detect the presence of bacteria.
11.Mar.2007 Iraq plea to help tackle violence Iraq's PM calls for support in ending violence, as world powers including the US, Syria and Iran attend key talks.
11.Mar.2007 Bush talks trade with Uruguay US President George Bush meets the Uruguayan president as part of his five-nation Latin American tour.
11.Mar.2007 Howard backs Japan security deal Australian PM John Howard dismisses suggestions a security declaration with Japan could strain China ties.
11.Mar.2007 Diary reveals Hirohito war doubts Japanese emperor Hirohito expressed doubts about going to war with China, a diary by an adviser reveals.
11.Mar.2007 Insurgent 'leader' held in Iraq A "senior leader" of an al-Qaeda linked insurgent group is held in Iraq, an Iraqi military spokesman says.
11.Mar.2007 Rally to support Pakistan judge Pakistani lawyers protest at the decision by President Musharraf to remove Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
11.Mar.2007 Child medicine additive concern Medicines for young children often contain additives banned from food for under-threes, research shows.
11.Mar.2007 Portuguese MPs vote for abortion Portugal's parliament approves abortion on demand after a referendum last month failed to settle the issue.
11.Mar.2007 Chrysler knocked by huge recall US carmaker Chrysler is to recall almost half a million vehicles, its second recall in two weeks.
11.Mar.2007 Climate Report: Drought, Disease An international scientific report warns of floods, famine and global water scarcity. Sound familiar? But

the government has yet to edit before it's presented in 00.Apr.2007 in Brussels. By AP.
11.Mar.2007 Turkey Lifts YouTube Ban An official for Turk Telekom says the court is lifting the block on YouTube, imposed because of videos insulting to the founder of modern Turkey. By AP.
11.Mar.2007 No Show: U.S. Bioterror Defenses The Centers for Disease Control can't show how the $5 billion given to public health departments

11.Sep.2001 -after-has prepared the country for a bioterrorism attack or flu pandemic. By AP.
11.Mar.2007 March 10, 2000: Pop! The Nasdaq begins its spectacular collapse, signaling the end of the dot-com boom. Compiled by Tony Long.
11.Mar.2007 Report: FBI's snooping did not follow rules The FBI has continually misused the Patriot Act's surveillance powers by unlawfully snooping on Americans without court orders, audit finds.
11.Mar.2007 SEC goes after stock spammers, hackers Separate actions target penny stock promoters and hackers who allegedly broke into stock trading accounts.
11.Mar.2007 Killer salmon with an order of fries? Blog: Maybe you thought farmed salmon was a responsible way to consume some tasty fish without threatening the environment? Staying...
11.Mar.2007 Carbon dioxide + water = unhappy solution Blog: The more carbon dioxide we put into Earth's atmosphere, the more dissolves in the ocean. University of Illinois research just...
11.Mar.2007 This helmet plays mind games Emotiv Systems has developed a neural-processing technology that lets players manipulate a game environment with their mind alone.
11.Mar.2007 Chemical sniffing device uses water, handheld computer. Video: Chemical sniffing device uses water, handheld computer..

Purdue University has helped develop a handheld sniffing system that can detect bacteria, drugs or any other residue of interest.

Applications range from food safety to homeland security. In this video provided by Purdue, analytical chemist Graham Cooks explains DESI (Desorption Electrospray Ionization).
11.Mar.2007 https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,druck-471086,00.html

MI5-Chefin Eliza Manningham-Buller soll die Entdeckung dieser Pläne zum Anlass genommen haben, das Regierungs-Zentrum zum Schutz der Nationalen Infrastruktur ins Leben zu rufen.

Es soll Infrastruktur von Telekommunikationseinrichtungen bis zu Öl-, Gas- und Atomanlagen schützen.
11.Mar.2007 https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,druck-471086,00.html
Der Geheimdienst MI5 habe bei Razzien im vergangenen Jahr in Südengland Computer-Festplatten sichergestellt, auf denen Hinweise zu einem solchen Anschlag gefunden worden seien, berichtet die Zeitung.

Die Verdächtigen seien festgenommen worden. Die Polizei war für eine Bestätigung dieser Angaben zunächst nicht zu erreichen.
11.Mar.2007 https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,druck-471086,00.html

London - Das Terrornetzwerk al-Qaida hat einem Bericht der "Sunday Times" zufolge einen wichtigen Internet-Knotenpunkt in London im Visier gehabt.

Die Verschwörer hätten eine Infiltration des stark gesicherten Internet-Zentrums geplant, um dieses womöglich von innen her in die Luft zu sprengen.
11.Mar.2007 Irak- Heimkehrer: Blair wegen katastrophaler Veteranen- Versorgung unter Druck
11.Mar.2007 Tonbandbotschaft: Al- Qaida- Vize Zawahiri wirft Hamas Kapitulation vor
11.Mar.2007 Mega- Knotenpunkt im Visier: Terroristen wollten Londons Internet- Verbindungen sprengen
11.Mar.2007 IWF- Prognose: Deutschland setzt zu starkem Aufschwung an

11.Mar.2007 Deutsche Wirtschaftsforscher: Angriff aufs Konjunktur- Kartell
11.Mar.2007 Minister gegen Tempolimit: "Dann wird das Klima eben bei Tempo 130 versaut"
11.Mar.2007 Evolution Not macht schlau - Wissen - sueddeutsche.de Tierischer Weltmeister im Werkzeug-Gebrauch etwa sei kein Primat, sondern die Neukaledonische Krähe :

Vor zwei Jahren hatte der Oxford-Zoologe Alex Kacelnick ... www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/artikel/452/44408/print.html
11.Mar.2007 Tales from the Script September 2004 – Bugs schleichen sich ein ...

Neukaledonische Krähen mögen in der Lage sein, Werkzeuge zu verwenden, aber wer hat wohl die afrikanische Blauantilope ausgelöscht? Na? www.microsoft.com/germany/technet/datenbank/articles/600491.mspx
spektrumdirekt Neukaledonische Krähen besitzen einen angeborenen Instinkt zur Werkzeugfertigung. Geschickt vermögen Geradschnabelkrähen aus natürlichen Materialien ... www.wissenschaft-online.de/artikel/770057
wissenschaft.de - Krähen basteln sich Werkzeuge

Star der britischen Forscher ist eine Neukaledonische Krähe namens Betty, die aus einem geraden Stück Draht selbstständig einen Haken bog, um damit Futter ... www.wissenschaft.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=149397
wissenschaft.de - Werkzeug in die Wiege gelegt

Neukaledonische Krähen sind unter Biologen schon lange für ihre geschickte Verwendung von Werkzeugen aus Zweigen und Blättern in freier Wildbahn bekannt. www.wissenschaft.de/wissen/news/248100.html
NETZEITUNG WISSENSCHAFT: Krähe baut sich Werkzeug selber

Neukaledonische Krähen waren in der Wissenschaft schon von jeher als überdurchschnittlich «begabt» bekannt. Immerhin benutzt diese Vogelart in der freien ... netzeitung.de/wissenschaft/201828.html
Radio Galaxy In einem Experiment zeigten neukaledonische Krähen erstaunlichen Erfindergeist:

Die Versuchstiere bastelten sich Angelhaken, um an schwer zugängliche ... community4.radio-galaxy.de/ext_search.asp?searchvalue=Tiere&from=login&rubrik=Haustiere%20und%20Tiere
Leonardo - Wissenschaft und mehr - HTML-Version
Neukaledonische Krähen etwa sind im Sinne des Wortes geborene Werkzeugmacher +

perfektionieren ihre Kunst im Lauf des Lebens durch Lernen + Einsicht. _{www.wdr5.de/sendungen/leonardo/manuskript/ms050613_schwerpunkt-raben_fertig1.pdf}
Krähen vererben die Fähigkeit, Werkzeuge zu bauen

Die Fähigkeit von Krähen zum Bau von Werkzeugen ist einer Studie zufolge nicht erlernt, sondern vererbt. Gefangene neukaledonische Krähen, die nie ihre ... www.3sat.de/nano/news/74778/index.html
NABU | Vogelschutz | Wie Vögel Werkzeuge nutzen

Durch besondere Leistungen fallen Neukaledonische Krähen auf: Sie stellen sich selbst Ästchen als Werkzeuge her – und sind dabei überwiegend „Rechtshänder“. www.nabu.de/m05/m05_03/04626.html
web & lab sport bits & bytes | wissenschaft & technik ...

Gefangene neukaledonische Krähen, die nie ihre Vogeleltern dabei beobachten konnten, wie sie Zweige zur Nahrungsbeschaffung einsetzten, entwickelten diese ... _{lserv2.oncom.de/~dpa_regio/webseiten_welt/weblab.php?r=wissenschaft}
20050913
Sep.2005 Umweltproteste : Atomkraftgegner blockieren Zwischenlager Gorleben ...

06.Sep.2005 Großbritannien : Nazis planten explodierende Schokoladentafeln. https://^{alfatomega.com}/20051013.html
11.Mar.2007 Bush_Protesters">Brazil Police Battle Bush Protesters: Police + anti-Bush protesters also clashed in Colombia, where Bush is scheduled to visit on Sunday

11.Mar.2007 EU leaders agree to cut greenhouse gases:

EU leaders agreed Friday on a bold set of measures to fight global warming, pledging that a fifth of the bloc's energy will come from green power sources such as wind turbines + solar panels by 2020 +

10 % of European cars will run on biofuels.

11.Mar.2007 Belafonte's fires undimmed at 80 : Harry Belafonte at 80 has a real story to tell.

He remembers, for example, a barely known political hopeful turning up at his apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
11.Mar.2007 Congo official in uranium scandal : A minister in the Democratic Republic of Congo has said that his top nuclear research official is part of an international network to illegally mine and export uranium.

11.Mar.2007 Turk convicted of genocide denial : A court in Switzerland has found Dogu Perincek, head of the Turkish Workers' Party, guilty of denying that mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks

00.000.1915 amounted to genocide.
11.Mar.2007 Afghan Official a Convicted Trafficker : When the deal went down in Las Vegas, the seller was introduced only as ``Mr. E.'' In a room at Caesars Palace hotel, Mr. E exchanged a pound-and-a-half bag of heroin for $65,000 cash - unaware that the buyer was an undercover detective. The sting landed him in Nevada state prison for nearly four years.

11.Mar.2007 US sends spies into Pakistan to kill bin Laden : America is stepping up its hunt for Osama bin Laden by dispatching additional CIA operatives and paramilitary officers to Pakistan to kill or capture the al-Qa'eda leader.

11.Mar.2007 Pakistan threatens US alliance :

Pakistani legislators have threatened to halt counterterrorism cooperation with Washington if American military aid is made conditional on Islamabad's commitment to fighting the Taliban + al-Qaeda.
11.Mar.2007 Israel planned for Lebanon war months in advance, PM says:

Preparations for Israel's war in Lebanon last summer were drawn up at least four months before two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by Hizbullah in July, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, has admitted.

11.Mar.2007 EU plans to re-engage with Syria : The European Union is preparing to restart high-level contacts with Syria for the first time in two years.

11.Mar.2007 Jimmy Carter: Palestinians 'Victims of Oppression': Despite the storm it ignited, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter held fast Thursday to his accusation that Israel oppresses the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza + seeks to colonize the land.
11.Mar.2007 Russian, Iranian negotiators fail to agree on Boushehr reactor financing : Russia + Iran have failed to come to terms on a deal paving the way for nuclear fuel to be shipped from Russia to the Boushehr nuclear reactor project, which is being built under Russian supervision, Interfax News Agency said Friday.

11.Mar.2007 Israel behind Iranian general's 'defection,' US official says : Washington Post quotes official as saying that Asgari's disappearance was voluntary, orchestrated by Israel. Another American official says former Iranian defense official is providing Western intelligence agencies with information on Hizbullah-Iran ties

11.Mar.2007 Mossad implicated in missing defector mystery: One of the sources said Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency which is known to have extensive contacts in Iran, coordinated his defection although there was no official confirmation from the Jewish State.

11.Mar.2007 Bedein: Israel On Alert For Iranian Attack : Israeli officials said their Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry have increased security on embassies and legations throughout the world. They said the government declared an alert after Tehran accused the Jewish state of abducting a senior Iranian official.

11.Mar.2007 U.S. has met discreetly with Iran over years: The White House insists that the USA won't talk directly with Iran until Tehran suspends its nuclear program. But U.S. officials have been discreetly meeting their Iranian counterparts one-on-one for more than a decade, often under the auspices of the United Nations.
11.Mar.2007 Petraeus says U.S. will have to negotiate with Iraqi militants: The general leading the troop surge in Iraq admitted Thursday the new offensive won't defeat the insurgents and said the U.S. will have to negotiate with militants.

11.Mar.2007 Maliki suspends UK military cooperation : The government of Iraq has put on hold all its collaboration with British military forces deployed to that country, Al-Iraqiyah news network reported.

11.Mar.2007 Georgia to double troops in Iraq : Georgia has announced that it will more than double the number of troops it has serving with the US-led forces in Iraq from 850 to 2,000.

11.Mar.2007 Coincidence? House endorses further NATO expansion: On a voice vote, the House backed a resolution calling for the "timely admission" to the alliance of Albania, Croatia, Macedonia +

two former republics of the old Soviet Union, Georgia and Ukraine.

11.Mar.2007 The Four Unspeakable Truths: When it comes to Iraq, there are two kinds of presidential candidates. The disciplined ones, like Hillary Clinton, carefully avoid acknowledging reality.

The more candid, like John McCain + Barack Obama, sometimes blurt out the truth, but quickly apologize.
11.Mar.2007 UN panel tells Israel to respect Palestinian rights: Israel should ease roadblocks + other restrictions on Palestinians + put a stop to settler violence + hate speech, a United Nations rights watchdog said Friday.

11.Mar.2007 Obama woos Jewish voters: Democratic candidate perceived as genuine friend of Israel, say Jewish leaders

11.Mar.2007 Robert Fisk: Torture in Lebanon via a Toronto stage: I do know that one of the torturers - who, of course, appears in Scorched as Nawal's rapist - is believed to have found guilty sanctuary in Toronto

11.Mar.2007 Sweden May Spy On E-Mails: Government Wants To Give Intelligence Agency Right To Spy On E-Mail That Crosses Nation's Borders

11.Mar.2007 Tape of Padilla Interrogation Is Missing: ' 'You can't help but be suspicious,'' Markus said. ''It's the government's burden to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt.

When it 'loses' evidence, defense lawyers are right to cry foul.''

11.Mar.2007 The Tragic Case of Jose Padilla. -Affidavits from Padilla and his attorneys detail outrageous conditions of confinement, particularly while he was held as an "enemy combatant," and not yet charged with a crime.

11.Mar.2007 There's no watchdog for secret budgets: How eTreppid won a no-bid, $30-million contract 00.000.2004 for secre

11.Mar.2007 Angry crowds hunt Bush as protests mark start of Latin American tour : Some arrived clutching banners telling "Mr Butcher" to go home. Others brought effigies of "The Warlord" dangling miserably from a hangman's noose.

11.Mar.2007 Putin Still Above 80% Mark in Russia: Vladimir Putin maintains a high level of support in the Russian Federation, according to a poll by the Yury Levada Analytical Center. 81 % of respondents approve of their president’s performance, down five points since January.

11.Mar.2007 03/09/07 Turn Off the Life Support: America is Dead -By DOUG THOMPSON
Turn off the life support. Disconnect the IVs. Bring in the priest for last rites. The US of A is brain dead with no chance for revival. Continue

11.Mar.2007 Beyond Quagmire -.By Tim Dickinson
The war in Iraq isn't over yet, but -- surge or no surge -- the USA has already lost. That's the grim consensus of a panel of experts assembled by Rolling Stone to assess the future of Iraq. "Even if we had a million men to go in, it's too late now," says retired four-star Gen. Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. "Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again." Continue

11.Mar.2007 The Deserter's Tale -Video Report-US Soldier Joshua Key has told Tony Jones about his new book, which concludes that American soldiers were behaving like terrorists in the Iraq war, as a result of their training. Video and transcript

11.Mar.2007 A Predator Becomes More Dangerous When Wounded -By Noam Chomsky
It's widely reported when Ahmadinejad says Israel shouldn't exist - but there is silence when Khamenei says that Iran supports the Arab League position on Israel-Palestine, calling for normalisation of relations with Israel if it accepts the international consensus of a two-state settlement. Continue

11.Mar.2007 George Bush's Samson Option -By Stephen Lendman - Full-scale war on Iran may just be a concocted terrorist attack away from starting the "shock and awe." Continue

11.Mar.2007 Iraq: The Hidden Cost Of The War -By Andrew Stephen
America won't simply be paying with its dead. The Pentagon is trying to silence economists who predict that several decades of care for the wounded will amount to an unbelievable $2.5 trillion. Continue

“Black Tuesday”; Après le deluge -By Mike Whitney
Last week the stock market bull plopped down on an I.E.D. and wound up in intensive-care sucking food from a straw and drifting in and out of consciousness. That put Paulson on the road to South Korea, Japan and China where he’ll meet up with his foreign counterparts to strategize on the deteriorating state of world markets. It’s a daunting task. Continue

11.Mar.2007 In Debt We Trust - America Before the Bubble Bursts -A Documentary Film By Danny Schechter,
The Emmy-winning former ABC News and producer's new hard-hitting documentary investigates why so many Americans are being strangled by debt. It is a journalistic confrontation with what former Reagan advisor Kevin Phillips calls "Financialization"--the "powerful emergence of a debt-and-credit industrial complex." Continue

11.Mar.2007 Justice Dept.: FBI Misused Patriot Act -By LARA JAKES JORDAN
The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the USA, a Justice Department audit concluded Friday. Continue

11.Mar.2007 NSA Pressured LA Times To Kill Domestic Spying Story -Video report
While working at AT&T headquarters in San Francisco, Klein discovered (and had the courage to speak out about) a secret eavesdropping room that all of the company's traffic was routed through. Continue

11.Mar.2007 Ghawar Is Dead!-By Matthew S. Miller
The Wide-Spread Use of Advanced Extraction Techniques are Killing the Mother of All Oil Fields. Continue

11.Mar.2007 Oil, War and Geopolitics: -A Must Watch - Video Lecture - Q &A - Michael Klare -The Global Struggle Over Disappearing Petroleum . Real Video
11.Mar.2007 Women soldiers have died of dehydration to avoid late night trips to toilet [VIDEO] : Women soldiers face more than just the "typical" horrors of war, they have to contend with harassment, assault + sometimes rape -- from those in uniform. The military, many say, is unhelpful when women attempt to report their experiences.
11.Mar.2007 Pigs at the trough: Democrats link pet causes to troop plan: Democrats seeking votes for their Iraq-withdrawal plan have stuffed the bill it's in with billions of dollars for farms, flu preparedness, New Orleans levees, home heating and other causes.

11.Mar.2007 Turkish general says can hit Kurd rebels in Iraq: A top Turkish general on Saturday reaffirmed Ankara's right under international law to send troops into northern Iraq to crush Turkish Kurdish rebels hiding there if it saw fit.

11.Mar.2007 US and Iran talk during conference: The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmy Khalilzad, said he exchanged views with Iranian delegation "directly and in the presence of others" at the one-day meeting of Iraq's neighbours and others including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council

11.Mar.2007 U.S., Iran spar over detainees at Baghdad meeting: A source at the multilateral talks said Iranian delegates used the forum to demand the release of several Iranians captured by U.S. forces in Iraq in recent months.

11.Mar.2007 Ray McGovern: There's still time to rethink Iran: More than five years have passed since President Bush labeled Iraq, Iran and North Korea the ''axis of evil.''

It is imperative that we try to piece together what role U.S. intelligence played in supporting the ''axis'' idea and the misguided policies and actions that ensued.

11.Mar.2007 Americans are being subjected to con job: The administration once convinced more than half the American public that Iraq had WMDs, that Saddam supported al-Qaeda in 9/11 + that he was a threat to U.S. national security. Now it's Iran supplying weapons that kill Americans, Iranians infiltrating the borders + the uranium enrichment program intended for weapons.

11.Mar.2007 Iranian general 'hands over vital documents after defecting to US' : An Iranian general appears to have defected to the West with vital documents, despite Iranian claims that he was snatched last month from a Turkish hotel by US or Israeli agents.

11.Mar.2007 China balks at proposed financial bans on Iran: China, backed by Russia, balked on Friday at financial sanctions against Iran

during talks among six powers on a new U.N. Security Council resolution that would penalize Tehran for its nuclear program.

11.Mar.2007 Top Gun aircraft are seized from US museums in ‘paranoia’ raids: Federal US agents have seized disabled F14 fighter jets from museums in California because of fears that parts would be sold to Iran.
11.Mar.2007 Growing Up Jewdy -By Judy Andreas
Each day, I read stories about Jewish cults and customs, corrupt Jewish leaders and the heinous activities of the Zionist elite. Each day I read about the brutality in the Middle East, the plight of the Palestinians + the culpable Jewish leaders in America. And each day, as I think back on my personal history, my coming of age in an average American Jewish family, I wonder, "where do I fit in?" Continue