November 25, 2006

THE THINKING SPOT

"No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue." -- George Mason. (1725-1792), drafted the Virgina Declaration of Rights, ally of James Madison and George Washington

ALERT

Blood Pressure Readings: Which Number is More Important? - Systolic blood pressure may be an important indicator of the progression of heart disease; the lower the number, the worse it likely is.
http://www.mercola.com/2006/nov/25/blood-pressure-readings-which-number-is-more-important.htm

WAR

Shiites Warn of Government Withdrawal: A powerful legislative bloc loyal to firebrand Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr threatened to withdraw from the government if Iraq’s prime minister attends a scheduled meeting with President Bush in Jordan next week.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15723.htm

Report: Iraqi Insurgency Now Financially Self-Sustaining… Raising $70-$200 Million A Year By Smuggling, Kidnapping, Other Illegal Activities…
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/world/middleeast/26insurgency.html?hp&ex=1164517200&en=2a2a5b9d24a4cf05&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Civil war could ripple outward --- NEARBY NATIONS DREADING IRAQ'S DISINTEGRATION So now it appears that the war on Iraq is perilously close to creating a full-on war in the entire region....Welcome to the world of unitended consequences, courtesy of this Administration!
http://tinyurl.com/yc83oo

Iraqi coalition on brink of collapse as country descends towards civil war
http://tinyurl.com/yb89gr

El Salvador-style 'death squads' to be deployed by US against Iraq militants -- THE Pentagon is considering forming hit squads of Kurdish and Shia fighters to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency in a strategic shift borrowed from the American struggle against left-wing guerrillas in Central America 20 years ago.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1433353,00.html

KENNEDY ASSASSINATION REVISITED

CIA role claim in Kennedy killing
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/serrano.html

Robert Kennedy Assassination: Intimidation of a witness.
http://tinyurl.com/yfpr8s

Robert Kennedy Assassination: The Enyart Photos -- In 1988 Scott Enyart requested that his photographs should be returned. At first the State Archives claimed they could not find them and that they must have been destroyed by mistake. Enyart filed a lawsuit which finally came to trial in 1996. During the trial the Los Angeles city attorney announced that the photos had been found in its Sacramento office and would be brought to the courthouse by the courier retained by the State Archives. The following day it was announced that the courier’s briefcase, that contained the photographs, had been stolen from the car he rented at the airport.
http://tinyurl.com/y228ha

SCANDAL

“Make Sure This Is Accomplished”: Rumsfeld Signed Letter Authorizing Detainee Torture...
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-11-25T164527Z_01_L25726413_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-RUMSFELD.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage2

LEGAL ITEMS

Northrop Grumman Engineer Could Get Death Penalty For Selling Classified Info - LA federal grand jury has indicted Noshir Gowadia, a Northrop Grumman engineer, for allegedly transferring classified military information to China, Israel, Germany, and Switzerland.
http://tinyurl.com/tuoc9

Child porn in Web cache OK -- Pennsylvania man appealed his conviction for knowingly possessing downloaded child pornography, saying he didn't know it was in his Web browser's cache....(This makes sense. You don't know what you are accessing until you look at it. You can delete it right then and there, but it will still be in your cache. Therefore, the contents of the cache do NOT represent what you willingly chose to keep.)
http://news.com.com/Police%20blotter%20Child%20porn%20in%20Web%20cache%20OK/2100-1030_3-6137123.html?tag=sas.email

States Will Tell Supreme Court Feds Must Act on Warming -- a coalition of 12 states will try to convince the Supreme Court the Feds must deal with global warming.
http://tinyurl.com/ycyo3v

ECONOMY

Wal-Mart sees weak sales as holiday season starts
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061125/us_nm/retail_holiday_dc


911

Ex-employee says FAA warned before 9/11 - The team repeatedly warned the FAA of the potential for security breaches and hijackings but was told to cover up its findings, Dzakovic says.
http://tinyurl.com/yk4u6b

CONGRESS

Senate Democrats Revive Demand for Classified Data - Seeking information about detention of terrorism suspects, abuse of detainees and government secrecy, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are reviving dozens of demands for classified documents that until now have been rebuffed or ignored by the Justice Department and other agencies.
http://tinyurl.com/y8k2zn

DOMESTIC

Fond du Lac Parents Want Angelou Book Banned
http://tinyurl.com/yn66co

Despite a Year of Ire and Angst, Little Has Changed on Wiretaps -- For all the sound and fury in the last year, the National Security Agency's wiretapping program continues uninterrupted, with no definitive action by either Congress or the courts on what, if anything, to do about it, and little chance of a breakthrough in the lame-duck Congress.
http://tinyurl.com/ydcgeg

ENVIRONMENT

Energy Firms Come to Terms With Climate Change - While the political debate over global warming continues, top executives at many of the nation's largest energy companies have accepted the scientific consensus about climate change and see federal regulation to cut greenhouse gas emissions as inevitable.
http://tinyurl.com/u6rzn

Laurie David: Science Teachers Omitting Global Warming Because Of Exxon Mobil Funding…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112400789_pf.html

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Gangsters hijack home PCs to choke internet with spam
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2470742,00.html

INTERNATIONAL

Putin's new secret weapon - Ownership of 30% of the world's gas supply and being the second-biggest oil producer has given him a new and powerful economic bargaining counter.
http://tinyurl.com/yxxset

MEDIA AND JOURNALISM

True to form, NOAM CHOMSKY makes a sweeping and copiously detailed indictment of U.S. Middle East policy. His history-filled lecture (interrupted by occasional applause) focuses on four crises, involving the Palestinians, the Lebanon invasion, the Iraq war and the “impending catastrophe in Iran.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15730.htm