November 17.2006

THE THINKING SPOT

“...free enterprise, [is] a term that refers, in practice, to a system of public subsidy and private profit, with massive government intervention in the economy to maintain a welfare state for the rich.” : Noam Chomsky

WAR

BUSH: LESSON OF VIETNAM...STAY IN IRAQ… (Now we know, this man can't learn - wonder what such a disability is called?)
http://tinyurl.com/sdtoa

Blix: No. Korea on path to bomb
http://tinyurl.com/ygyt8h

Ex-prisoner tells of torture at Guantanamo: A GERMAN, who was held for four years in the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, has alleged systematic torture in the hands of the US military, from beatings to being chained to a ceiling for days.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20757477-23109,00.html

Rumsfeld OK'd Dog Scares, Strips: Newly-released documents on U.S. policy of torturing prisoners show that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized guards to strip detainees and threaten them with dogs.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/23/iraq/main625525.shtml

What Rumsfeld Knew -- Interviews with high-ranking military officials shed new light on the role Rumsfeld played in the harsh treatment of a Guantánamo detainee.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15631.htm

The Next "Perle" Harbor: Here They Neo-come Again --- Not content with having helped mislead America into its Iraq fiasco, the neoconservative Prince of Darkness Richard Perle has taken a key role in steering the U.S. into yet another counter productive war, this time with Iran.
http://tinyurl.com/y73jqg

How Did Israel Manipulate the US Into Attacking Iraq And Declaring A "War On Terrorism"? - Mossad's pointing the finger to Bin Laden in advance was an attempt to ensure that Bin Laden was blamed for the attack, to pre-empt the finger-pointing. They wanted no other possibilities to be considered!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-lance/al-qaeda-and-the-mob-how_b_34336.html

Al-Qaida 'planted information to encourage US invasion' --- A senior al-Qaida operative deliberately planted information to encourage the US to invade Iraq, a double agent who infiltrated the network and spied for western intelligence agencies claimed last night.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1949927,00.html

New Book Details How Bin Laden's Master Spy Penetrated The CIA, FBI And Green Berets...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/11/17/new-book-details-how-bin-_n_34339.html

THE WHITE HOUSE

Rumors Resurface That Bush Has Started Drinking Again
http://tinyurl.com/sj4ot

Claim: 'Weeks, not months' before Rove exit
http://tinyurl.com/yxbjub

How to get promoted in the Bush administration? Spy for Israel: Alleged AIPAC informant promoted: 06/23/06 - The Bush administration promoted David Satterfield, an alleged informant for a former AIPAC lobbyist facing trial in a classified information case.
http://tinyurl.com/y43my9

Still Waiting for Bipartisanship - The New York Times editors write: "The voters sent a clear message last week that they do not want the far right of the Republican Party calling the shots in Washington. But President Bush has ignored the message, resubmitting a group of archconservative, underqualified judicial nominees that Senate Democrats have already said are unacceptable."
http://tinyurl.com/vew3o

Why Rumsfeld Can Rest Easy Over German Charges - The lawsuit filed in Germany this week against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior Administration officials for alleged war crimes in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo has little chance of making it into court.That's according to Andreas Zimmerman, professor of international criminal law at Kiel University who helped negotiate the Rome Treaty that founded the International Criminal Court
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1560224,00.html

CABINETS & SPECIAL APPOINTMENTS

Pentagon Reclassifies Homosexuality From Mental Disorder To “Circumstances” And “Defects” Like Bed-Wetting...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601088.html

POLITICS

Lieberman's an Albatross: Cut Him Loose
http://tinyurl.com/yywmks

Nancy Pelosi: One of Mikhail Gorbachev’s most useful idiots - Investigative journalists doing their jobs should dig deep—really deep—into Nancy Pelosi’s role in the controversial, $280-million, federal-funded Hunters Point Shipyard affair--in relation to her alleged role as an investor in a real estate investment entity called PRESIDIO PARTNERS
http://www.americasnewssource.com/2006/cover-news111506.htm

Blackmail & Bobby Gates = questions to ask: (1) Did Gates participate in secret and possibly illegal contacts with Iranian leaders from the 1980 election campaign through the Iran-Contra scandal of 1986? (2) Did Gates oversee a clandestine pipeline of weapons and other military equipment to Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq starting in 1982?
http://tinyurl.com/yysbn8

SCANDAL

Siemens in giant fraud scandal?
http://tinyurl.com/y683g6

Pelosi backs Democrat tainted by scandal for top position: Last month, a New York Times article described him as operating "a political trading post" on Capitol Hill, and a watchdog group has listed him as among the 20 most corrupt members of Congress in its 2006 list.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15629.htm

LEGAL ITEMS

Public to get a look at Libby documents - Judge orders redacted versions of evidence be available by next month
http://tinyurl.com/y3aevd

ELECTION ITEMS

Zogby Post-Election Poll: Dems Gained From Global Warming Debate --- Half of Americans who voted in the mid-term elections said concern about global warming made a difference in who they voted for on Election Day 2006,
http://tinyurl.com/y25cmu

ECONOMY

Banks told to predict effects of a 40% crash in house prices - BANKS in the UK have been ordered by financial regulators to assess how they would cope in the event of house prices crashing by 40 per cent.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C9063-2455507%2C00.html

Emory University gets $261 million gift
http://tinyurl.com/y2e92c

Housing construction plunges 15% in October
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061117/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy

Gas Prices Rise After Republican Fall
http://www.dailyfueleconomytip.com/?p=220

911

Triple Cross Author Peter Lance: Al Qaeda and The Mob: How the FBI Blew It on 9/11…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-lance/al-qaeda-and-the-mob-how_b_34336.html

CONGRESS

Trent Lott - The bigot's back and you're going to be sorry. You know that Karl Rove's influence among Republican senators is waning when they resurrect Trent Lott as Minority Whip.
http://tinyurl.com/y5eebr

Exclusive: Senator demands Bush 'torture' memo... ---- http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Dem_judiciary_leader_seeks_torture_documents_1117.html

Hoyer wins leadership - has isolated Democrats who have been strongly critical of the Jewish state.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Dem_judiciary_leader_seeks_torture_documents_1117.html

Murtha and Hoyer Both Rank High in Special Interest Money
http://tinyurl.com/y5fqg9

House Judiciary Chairman Blocks Bill Against Animal Fighting - As Congress returned for its lame-duck session this week, it found one piece of legislation that had overwhelming support. The Senate had already passed it unanimously. And it had 324 co-sponsors in the House, 155 Republicans and 169 Democrats. That was almost 75 percent of the House already on record in support of it. But the bill stood virtually no chance of becoming law. The reason? One powerful committee chairman blocked it.
http://tinyurl.com/yyz36b

Republicans propose last-minute spy bill: The outgoing Republican chairman of a key U.S. Senate committee has made a last-minute attempt at giving the Bush administration what he calls the necessary "resources" for carrying out its phone call and Internet surveillance within the law, but critics remain unconvinced.
http://tinyurl.com/yaxq2y

Senate Democrats Plan Overhaul of Military Tribunals Bill- Gearing up for a major clash with the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress, several key Senate Democrats are planning to overhaul the newly minted legislation governing military tribunals of detainees. Even before it was signed into the law last month, Democrats were criticizing the military commission bill as unconstitutional and a magnet for endless legal challenges.
http://tinyurl.com/y76q3t

Pelosi's early setback has her party on alert - Something does not feel right about this. Pelosi a shoe-in for speaker, yet her own choice for second in command gets bashed 149-86? It feels like Murtha was a feint, never intended to actually win.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-pelosi17nov17,0,2789425.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Boehner, Blunt coast to victories in House leadership races
THE HILL

Blue Dogs back Harman for Intel panel chair -- The dueling letters will likely raise the stakes for the Speaker-to-be. Coming on the heels of a divisive race for majority leader, her decision has the potential to alienate one of two powerful groups: the 44-member Blue Dog Coalition or the 43-member Black Caucus. Eighteen members of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of conservative House Democrats, wrote Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Thursday imploring her to choose Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) to chair the House Intelligence Committee next year.
THE HILL

Senate Dems plan overhaul of military tribunal bill -- Gearing up for a major clash with the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress, several key Senate Democrats are planning to overhaul the newly minted legislation governing military tribunals of detainees. Dodd’s bill seeks to give habeas corpus protections to military detainees; bar information that was gained through coercion from being used in trials and empower military judges to exclude hearsay evidence they deem to be unreliable.Dodd is the first Democrat to take aim at the controversial military tribunals bill. But Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the incoming Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, also said that he is in the process of drafting “major changes” to the legislation.
THE HILL

DOMESTIC

Dismay Grows Over US Torture School: Recent reports of the Bush Administration's decision to increase training and aid for the militaries of Latin America so as to reverse the region's leftward swing have only sharpened criticism at home and abroad.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061127/school_of_the_americas

Parents Try To Censor Gay Penguin Book... A picture book about two male penguins raising a baby penguin is getting a chilly reception among some parents
http://rawstory.com/showoutarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fwp-dyn%2Fcontent%2Farticle%2F2006%2F11%2F17%2FAR2006111700155.html

RELIGIOUS ITEMS

Bush appointee to control reproductive clinic funds: Anti-abortion activist who wanted no talk of contraception--or mention of STDs (link unavailable)

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Hubble Telescope Makes New Discovery - "dark energy" has been pushing the universe outward for at least 9 billion years- supernovae - exploding white dwarf stars - so distant that their light took more than half the history of the universe to reach our orbiting telescope - see pictures:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601063.html

INTERNATIONAL

Chinese Wikipedia “Unblocked” To Allow Apolitical Searches...
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/11/16/china.internet.reut/index.html

MILITARY

Pentagon's Travel System Is Hardly Used: The Defense Department's computerized travel reservation system has turned into a half-billion-dollar fiasco, so flawed that only 17 percent of the travelers are using it as intended, Senate investigators say.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16033072.htm

Pentagon wants to build mini-city for terror trials ((("Pentagonia?")))
http://tinyurl.com/u8wp9

Military may ask $127B for wars- Since 2001, Congress has approved $502 billion for the war on terror, roughly two-thirds for Iraq. The latest request, due to reach the incoming Democratic-controlled Congress next spring, would make the war on terror more expensive than the Vietnam War.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-16-iraq-costs_x.htm?csp=34


MEDIA & JOURNALISM

Democrats "Divided," or Democratic? - It's only 10 days after the Democratic Party's convincing victory on election night, and the corporate media is already trying to find division in the party.
http://tinyurl.com/uzq7n

The New Media Offensive Against Withdrawal- in the wake of midterm elections widely seen as a rebuke to the Iraq war, powerful media institutions are feverishly spinning against a pullout of U.S. troops.
http://tinyurl.com/w6r25

EDITORIALS - OPINIONS

America Faces a Future of Managing Imperial Decline
http://tinyurl.com/tlxmw

HEALTH

Hospital Infections Kill More Than Cars, AIDS, Breast Cancer - The hospitals studied reported 19,154 cases in which patients contracted hospital-acquired infections. The hospitalizations resulting from these infections amounted to 394,129 hospital days and $3.5 billion in hospital charges
http://tinyurl.com/t3mwz

Freeze your way to better health? Cryotherapy boosts circulation to organs, joints and tissues:
http://tinyurl.com/y9xhxd

Ketek antibiotic drug faces intense FDA scrutiny over liver failure reports:
http://tinyurl.com/y64mlz

Most Americans agree smokers should pay more for health insurance:
http://tinyurl.com/yxrkcc

Omega-3 fatty acids help prevent dementia, U.S. study suggests:
http://tinyurl.com/tdnw7

Dark chocolate found to prevent blood clots:
http://tinyurl.com/wvegb

Is the American Heart Association against banning trans fats?:
http://tinyurl.com/y8q79l

Global deforestation finally being reversed in some countries:
http://tinyurl.com/y3yzzv

Global carbon dioxide emissions are acidifying Earth's oceans at alarming rate:
http://tinyurl.com/y4qubx

SPECIAL INTEREST

One (1) shot in Conn. Playstation waiting line Two armed thugs tried to rob a line of people waiting for the new Playstation 3 game system to go on sale early Friday and shot a man who refused to give up his money, authorities said.
http://tinyurl.com/y872d9