November 2, 2006

THE THINKING SPOT

How did the Neocons dupe these United States? When American voters go to the polls on November 7, one of the foremost questions that should be on their minds is how did the United States get into the Iraq mess? What went wrong with Washington, and what can citizens do about it?"

ALERT #1

There is now a new drug for "Electile Dysfunction." It's window of opportunity is only 12 hours. Don't miss it.

ALERT #2

Kansas AG Gets Abortion Clinic Records --- The state attorney general Phill Kline, one of the nation's foremost abortion opponents, said Tuesday night that his office received the records of 90 patients from two abortion clinics and is reviewing them for possible crimes. The clinics had argued that giving the attorney general access to the records would invade patients' privacy.
http://tinyurl.com/y7wxfp

ALERT #3

THE CIVILIAN INMATE LABOR PROGRAM --- This regulation provides guidance for establishing and managing civilian inmate labor programs on Army installations. It provides guidance on establishing prison camps on Army installations. It addresses record keeping and reporting incidents related to the Civilian Inmate Labor Program and/or prison camp Applicability. This regulation applies to the Active Army, the Army National Army management control process. Contents (Listed by paragraph and page number) Guard of the United States, and the U.S. Army Reserve unless otherwise stated. (No, this is NOT a joke. And as a reminder, all those camps the Nazis had during WW2 were originally started as a civilian inmate labor program.)
http://tinyurl.com/maqpd

WAR

Why The Hell Won't We Have To Fight Them Here Even If We Beat Them There? (My question exactly)
http://tinyurl.com/y5fy9h

More Than Ever, Insurgents Are Targeting US Forces - October's death toll of 103 troops killed October's death toll
http://tinyurl.com/y6dybg

How Arab Americans Will Vote in 2006 - James J. Zogby writes: "Arab Americans will vote overwhelmingly Democratic this year, expanding on a trend that began in 2002. Bottom line, it is frustration with the Bush administration's domestic and foreign policy that is shaping Arab American preferences."
http://tinyurl.com/y4kmje

“There has never been an American army as violent and murderous as the one in Iraq”. Hersh described video footage depicting U.S. atrocities in Iraq, which he had viewed, but not yet published a story about. He described one video in which American soldiers massacre a group of people playing soccer. (Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh slams Bush at McGill address)
http://tinyurl.com/sfsqf

665,000 Iraqi's Killed Since U.S Invasion: Lancet Report Co-Author Responds To Question: A recent study published in The Lancet medical journal estimated that 655,000 Iraqi people have been killed as a result of the March 2003 US-UK invasion of Iraq.
http://tinyurl.com/8plta

British believe Bush more dangerous than Kim Jong-il
America is now seen as a threat to world peace by its closest neighbours and allies, according to an international survey of public opinion published today that reveals just how far the country's reputation has fallen among former supporters since the invasion of Iraq. (They have that right!)
http://tinyurl.com/y49wyy

THE WHITE HOUSE

The Great Divider - (No longer the companssionate conservative) - The New York Times editors write: "As President Bush throws himself into the final days of a particularly nasty campaign season, he's settled into a familiar pattern of ugly behavior.
http://tinyurl.com/tql4x

Bush 'would understand' attack on Iran --- President Bush reportedly said he would "understand" a preemptive Israeli strike against Iran s nuclear sites. (Bush is saying that it is okay with him for Israel, which HAS nuclear weapons.)
http://tinyurl.com/u5rzw

COMMENT: Laura Bush cautions Americans to speak carefully when debating Iraq (I wish she had spoken more CAREFUL in picking a husband - like saying NO instead of YES!)

POLITICS

Ex-CIA Chief Goss Considering Tell All Book...
http://tinyurl.com/y4zsdg

Republican Scandals Put 15 GOP Seats In Jeopardy...
http://tinyurl.com/y6kv9d

SCANDAL

U.S. near the bottom in privacy study--- U.S. privacy protections rank among the worst in the democratic world, a London-based privacy organization said Wednesday. Privacy International ranked 36 nations around the globe, including all European Union nations and other major democracies, and determined that in categories such as enforcement of privacy laws, the U.S. is on par with countries like China, Russia and Malaysia.
http://tinyurl.com/ydb65c

Another GOP Lawmaker Resigns After Scandal -- Republican representative Ralph Arza, under fire for leaving a message filled with obscenities and a racial slur on a colleague's voice mail, resigned Wednesday from the Florida Legislature. He had been urged to step down.
http://tinyurl.com/y4p8y9

GOP Senator George Allen to Be Interrogated by Police in Blogger Brawl --- Charlottesville investigators are looking into possible charges as a result of Tuesday's physical confrontation at an Allen campaign stop.
http://tinyurl.com/yx34rd

GOP Rep Paying 500K To Ex-Mistress Who Accused Him Of Strangling Her...Payment Meant To Keep Her Quiet Before Election Day...
http://tinyurl.com/yebyyk

LEGAL ITEMS

Two Kicked out of Bush Event Win Court Order
http://tinyurl.com/y85d3z

Former HP chair indicted over same crimes still committed by Bush Administration- An internal investigation at Hewlett-Packard that may have used illegal practices has led to the arrests of several key members of the company's hierarchy, but one political critic wants to...
http://tinyurl.com/vlo4w

THE DARKEST SIDE OF IDENTITY THEFT
http://tinyurl.com/tb4jh

Suit Filed to Prevent Sending Convicts out of California - Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to ship thousands of California inmates to private, out-of-state lockups objected to by unions.
http://tinyurl.com/y2a3xw

ELECTION ITEMS

GOP Handbook Teaches “Insidious Voter Intimidation Tactic”…
http://tinyurl.com/y43od3

Academic Study Predicts Democrats Are Likely To Gain 32 Seats”…
http://tinyurl.com/yx4wxb

New NYT/CBS poll. Guess what? A substantial majority of Americans expect Democrats to reduce or end American military involvement in Iraq if they win control of Congress next Tuesday and say Republicans will maintain or increase troop levels to try to win the war if they hold on to power on Capitol Hill. The poll showed that 29 percent of Americans approve of the way President Bush is managing the war, matching the lowest mark of his presidency.
http://tinyurl.com/ybrsxd

Frank Rich: “What I've Found Everywhere... Is A Tremendous Sense Of Frustration At Having Been Misled And Lied To About The Iraq War.”
http://tinyurl.com/yk6sqv

The War's Effect on Elections --- With less than a week to go before the election, it's clear no single issue will have more impact than the war in Iraq.
http://tinyurl.com/y5d73j

ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and the AP own the exit polls and have defied John Conyers' request for the raw data, keeping that data secreted from even qualified independent researchers.
http://tinyurl.com/tcymg

I Should Be Supporting Allen. Instead, I'm Leaving the Party. "I'm a Christian, a writer, a military parent and a registered Republican," writes Frank Schaeffer. "My wife and I have reached the tipping point. We plan to go to town hall to dump our Republican voter registration and re-register as independents.
http://tinyurl.com/y8ohwu

The watchdog group BlackBoxVoting.org. resulted from the investigation of the electronic voting systems with discovering shocking revelations about the vulnerability of the software and hardware of Diebold.
http://tinyurl.com/y7dpmc

Diebold Demands HBO Cancel Documentary on Voting Machines - Diebold Inc. has insisted that cable network HBO cancel a documentary that questions the integrity of its voting machines, calling the program inaccurate and unfair. The program, "Hacking Democracy," is scheduled to debut Thursday, five days before the 2006 US midterm elections. The film reveals that Diebold voting machines aren't tamper-proof and can be manipulated to change voting results.
http://tinyurl.com/wmffs

Jews Give Bush, Republicans Failing Grades
http://tinyurl.com/yx6q69

Reuters/Zogby Poll: Midterm Mayhem! Dems Maintain Lead in Key House Contests, But Momentum Shifts Indicate an Unsettled Electorate
http://tinyurl.com/y7csjd

Justice Department is Reducing Elections Monitoring and Ignoring State Noncompliance With Electoral Improvement Laws
http://tinyurl.com/y69cwk

Election Report: On the Ground in Missouri - the issue that is dominating the debate is stem cell research.
http://tinyurl.com/yxwane

Stem Cell Research Issue Ignites California's Lt. Governor's Race - elected to the state's second-highest elected office, McClintock would have the power to make five appointments to the committee that oversees the state's new stem cell research institute, a program McClintock initially opposed.
http://tinyurl.com/t3rsp

Female Dark Horses Surge to Election's Finish Line - Overlooked by political odds makers for most of the 2006 election cycle, a number of obscure female congressional candidates are surging in their final sprints to the November 7 finish line and improving the odds that women will make significant gains in the House of Representatives on Election Day.
http://tinyurl.com/ut6kr

Boehner Insulted the Skills and Integrity of Our Military. Howard Dean Calls on House Republican Leader to Apologize for Blaming Generals for Bush Iraq Fiasco.
http://tinyurl.com/uxxoq

Scandals Alone Could Cost Republicans Their House Majority - Indictments, investigations and allegations of wrongdoing have helped put at least 15 Republican House seats in jeopardy, enough to swing control to the Democrats on Tuesday even before the larger issues of war, economic unease and President Bush are invoked.
http://tinyurl.com/y6kv9d

Writer quits GOP in disgust at Allen ad
http://tinyurl.com/ykcz3q

Vermont poised to elect America's first socialist senator --- Amid the furious debate over Iraq and the speculation that George Bush may be a lame duck after next Tuesday's mid-term elections, an extraordinary political milestone is approaching: a cantankerous 65-year-old called Bernie looks set to become the first socialist senator in US history.
http://tinyurl.com/tcrcx

GOP smear tactics backfire
http://tinyurl.com/yyp2jx

Paul Newman Appears In Ad For Lamont...
http://tinyurl.com/yxc8o3

ECONOMY

Big Pharma fears Democratic majority, end of Medicare profiteering racket - Big Pharma firms have donated upwards of $9 million to Republican congressional candidates in an attempt to help them maintain a majority in the House, while $4 million has been donated to Democratic candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
http://tinyurl.com/y57ozp

Families USA: Drug Plan Coverage for Seniors in "Doughnut Hole" Will be Scarcer and Less Affordable in 2007
http://tinyurl.com/yyw4vb

The coming financial collapse of the U.S. government: Fed papers reveal what's in store for Americans - The bankruptcy of the United States government has been talked about for years by independent observers. If you've read the book, "Empire of Debt," then you know where the U.S. is headed financially. But...
http://tinyurl.com/y2hcoo

Nervous defense contractors watching elections - After years of surging military spending by the Bush administration and a Republican-led Congress, the nation's defense industry is trying to gauge what life would be like if power on Capitol Hill shifts to the Democrats.
http://tinyurl.com/y2p3d4

U.S. Economy Wrecks Housing - Data released on Wednesday showed conditions in the housing market deteriorated in September, extending a slide that began early this year.
http://tinyurl.com/yhocwq

Manufacturing sputters as housing slump spreads U.S. manufacturing growth edged closer to stagnation in October as a housing-led economic slowdown hurt demand across a wide variety of sectors, according to reports on Wednesday.
http://tinyurl.com/y3uahj

The productivity of American workers slowed to a standstill in the summer, while wages were rising at the fastest clip in more than two decades — a combination likely to raise inflation concerns at the Federal Reserve. (Too much money siphoned off for war. Too much debt to pay. Too many manufacturing jobs sent overseas.)
http://tinyurl.com/yzp9gb

Wal-Mart sees Nov same-store sales flat Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Thursday forecast flat November sales at U.S. stores open at least a year, sounding a sour note for the start of the vital holiday shopping season and sending its stock lower in early electronic trading.
http://tinyurl.com/wge4e

911

9/11 Pentagon Attack - Eyewitness report and photos.
http://tinyurl.com/y3832v

CONGRESS

The Honest Government Agenda: How Congress Can Clean Up Corruption
http://tinyurl.com/y49ogq

'Horrific' records of committee chairs
http://tinyurl.com/ycgssr

DOMESTIC

Chertoff Given Henry Petersen Award...Petersen's Grandson Protests Decision: Chertoff Is “An Ass”...
http://tinyurl.com/scpjs

RELIGIOUS ITEMS

Haggard steps down amid gay affair inquiry - Ted Haggard, one of the most prominent evangelical pastors in the nation, resigned today as president of the National Association of Evangelicals amid allegations that he carried on a three-year sexual relationship with a male prostitute.
http://tinyurl.com/u7zfa

Pay and sex bias rows hit Pope's TV station - An unholy row has broken out at the Pope's television station, with accusations flying that it paid derisory salaries, imposed demeaning conditions, victimised women employees - and even tried to hold a staff meeting to find out if some were virgins.
http://tinyurl.com/vk88d

ENVIRONMENT

TV stations in Maine censor stories about global warming - In Maine, television stations are not covering the global warming story at all, after direction from Michael Palmer, the general manager of television stations WVII and WFVX, ABC and Fox affiliates...
http://tinyurl.com/uavre

Environmentalists Attack Republican Stronghold in California, especially Richard Pombo --- selling off one quarter of the country's national parks - pushed for oil and gas drilling in the Alaskan wilderness - took money from Abramoff - his deals with developers, who have increased the value of his family-held landholdings
http://tinyurl.com/vpcgs

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

College students compete to design superior e-voting system
http://tinyurl.com/t7kf9

Google pushes for global literacy with new online resources - Google has unveiled a website dedicated to literacy. The new website integrates Google's book, video, map and blog services to help teachers and educational organizations communicate more...
http://tinyurl.com/yyos7j

The $100 laptop is coming
http://tinyurl.com/y32kz4

Stretchable silicon could be next wave in electronics
http://tinyurl.com/y8cmra

Fuel cells, a neglected clean source of energy
http://tinyurl.com/yxe2uy

INTERNATIONAL

Joint Anglo-American project to check Internet "misuse" (Oh boy, here we go!)
http://tinyurl.com/y8b6uo

MILITARY

An Abu Ghraib Offender Heads Back to Iraq - A military dog handler convicted for his role in the prisoner abuse scandal has been ordered back to help train the country's police
http://tinyurl.com/y6zgta

AWOL Soldier Who Returned, Flees Again - A U.S. Army soldier who fled to Canada rather than return to Iraq has disappeared again, this time just a day after surrendering to the military.
http://tinyurl.com/y4bzmo

MEDIA AND JOURNALISM

Conservative Andrew Sullivan: Bush "Has Lost His Mind - President Bush said yesterday that both Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney "are doing fantastic jobs, and I strongly support them." Andrew Sullivan, the conservative writer who was once a key media supporter for the Iraq war, denounced the latest Bush statement on CNN on Wednesday night, stating that the president is so delusional, "This is not an election anymore, it's an intervention."
http://tinyurl.com/y4whpy

News Networks Install "Quarantine Room" For Election Night: No One Gets Out With Exit Pole Info.. The biggest behind-the-scenes change in network coverage involves what has been dubbed the Quarantine Room. Determined to avoid a rerun of recent years, when its exit polls leaked out by early afternoon. All cellphones, laptops and BlackBerrys will be confiscated. (Without a paper trail, there is no real, meaningful way to determine who has actually won.)
http://tinyurl.com/y2c8g9

MSNBC has double-digit viewership gains in Oct... Olbermann up 67%
http://tinyurl.com/y83zuk

EDITORIALS - OPINIONS

Changing How America Works - "Something's wrong when only the rich are getting richer, and average folks are feeling the squeeze. The answer isn't more education, or simply electing better leaders. We need widespread change."
http://tinyurl.com/y368ux

HEALTH

No toke about it, Canucks accept pot use for medicinal purposes, expert says - In a nationwide survey, an overwhelming 93 per cent of Canadians indicated they accept the idea of people legally smoking marijuana for health reasons.
http://tinyurl.com/yynyyl

IBM computer factory workers show markedly increased cancer death rates, says researcher - Workers involved in the manufacture of computer parts have death rates that are significantly higher than the general population, according to a study published by Environmental Health. ...
http://tinyurl.com/tepvd

Telemedicine growing as more patients use videoconferencing to see psychiatrists - A lack of psychiatry specialists in many remote areas in certain regions of the country is making treatment over video conferencing more and more common. In a case that speaks to this...
http://tinyurl.com/y7yugp

Curry Ingredient May Help Fight Alzheimer's --- Curcumin spurs immune cells to 'eat up' brain plaques, early study shows. Curcumin, a component of curry and turmeric, seems to help the immune system get rid of amyloid beta -- the protein that builds up to form damaging plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. (Article at ScoutNews)

Why Are Health Care Costs So High? - Nearly all Americans are livid with the fact that the U.S. wastes $2.2 trillion dollars, or $7,129 per person, on disease care -- EVERY year.
http://tinyurl.com/y33hl3

Grape Seed Extract Stops the Growth of Cancer - New experiments have shown that grape seed extract can halt the growth of cancer cells, and even cause them to self-destruct.
http://tinyurl.com/y8dju9

High Blood Pressure Reduces With HIGH Carb Diet - Hard to believe, but a HIGH-carb diet can actually lower blood pressure, weight and cholesterol in some people.
http://tinyurl.com/yxfxxx

Light-emitting bandage heralded as skin cancer treatment breakthrough:
http://tinyurl.com/y2ly3k

Regular exercise cuts eye disease risk by 70 percent:
http://tinyurl.com/w3ajg

Resveratrol in red wine protects body from excess food consumption:
http://tinyurl.com/y6v94t

WHO accuses China of refusing to share samples of new bird flu strain:
http://tinyurl.com/v3gbj

New York may require restaurants to disclose calorie content of food products:
http://tinyurl.com/yyl6sn

Study shows milk thistle extract treats diabetes by lowering blood sugar, protecting liver:
http://tinyurl.com/yy6ke6

Think before you pink: breast cancer ribbons may be little more than marketing gimmicks:
http://tinyurl.com/y3s529