November 27, 2006

THE THINKING SPOT

Just how mad can you be: "Well, do you get the feeling sometimes that you're living in an occupied country? Very often that's a feeling I get when I wake up in the morning. I think, "I'm living in an occupied country .... They've taken over the country. They've taken over the policy. They've driven us into two disastrous wars, disastrous for our country and even more disastrous for people in the Middle East. And they have sucked up the wealth of this country and given it to the rich, and given it to the multinationals, given it to Halliburton, given it to the makers of weapons. They're ruining the environment. And they're holding on to 10,000 nuclear weapons, while they want us to worry about the fact that Iran may, in ten years, get one nuclear weapon. You see, really, how mad can you be?"
(((My feelings exactly Howard Zinn)))

WAR

Scholars agree Iraq meets definition of 'civil war'; It is put among the worst in 60 years
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/26/news/civil.php

It Only Goes from Horrible to Worse Everyday in Iraq, Why Does The Boy in the Bubble Get to Continue to Occupy the White House? "Two mortar rounds hit a U.S. military post in eastern Baghdad on Sunday, setting it on fire, police and witnesses said."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061126/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Iraqi Clerics Say U.S. Should Leave: Leading Sunni and Shiite clerics in Iraq said Saturday the U.S. military presence aggravates the sectarian violence that is tearing at the country.
http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

Olmert and the Baker Boys: James Baker, the consiglieri of the Bush crime family, brings Syria and Iran to the table and they hammer out an understanding on Iraq and, horror stacked upon horror, “some kind of long-term Israeli-Arab diplomatic agreement,” as the Jerusalem Post puts it.
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=665

Iraq a moral blunder, says war hero: THE former SAS officer who devised and executed the Iraq war plan for Australia's special forces says that the nation's involvement has been a strategic and moral blunder.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20817682-601,00.html

THE WHITE HOUSE

Cheney's Quest to Expand Presidential Powers
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112706F.shtml

Bush's Bad Reputation - From Britain to China, Bush is the "go-it-alone cowboy" to much of the world, leading the United States in the direction he wants, regardless of what anyone else thinks.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112706P.shtml

Cheney and Neo-Cons Plotting More Wars: They are now preparing to survive the fall of the House of Bush, and are already making plans for the next confrontations: against Iran and Russia, to name the top two targets du jour.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=11446

Maureen Dowd:: United States is lost in the desert of Iraq: Dick Cheney and his wormy aides, of course, are still babbling about total victory and completing the mission by raising the stakes and knocking off the mullahs in Tehran. His tombstone will probably say, "Here lies Dick Cheney, still winning."
http://www.whittierdailynews.com/opinions/ci_4722405

THE WISHING CORNER

US v. Bush, et al.- "The scene is a Federal Grand Jury room. There, impaneled ordinary citizens listen intently as a veteran federal prosecutor asks them to return an indictment unique in American history. The charge is Conspiracy to Defraud the United States. And the defendants are President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, outgoing defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and former secretary of state Colin Powell."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112706M.shtml

CABINETS, COMMISSIONS, etc

Rumsfeld Approved of Torture Says Former US General - Outgoing defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib, the prison's former US commander said in an interview on Saturday.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112606Y.shtml

Controversial Senior Aide To Condoleezza Rice Resigns...In September, Zelikow caused some ripples in the Bush administration when he suggested during a speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that to build a coalition for dealing with Iran, the United States needed to make progress on solving the Arab-Israeli dispute
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061127/pl_nm/usa_zelikow_dc

Justice Dept. Opens Probe Into Warrantless Wiretaps...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061127/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/domestic_spying
The Justice Department's internal investigations division said Monday it has opened an inquiry into the agency's use of information gathered in the government's warrantless surveillance program.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/27/america/NA_GEN_US_Domestic_Spying.php
POLITICS

Lott tells Fox he has problems with Rove
http://rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fthinkprogress.org%2F2006%2F11%2F26%2Flott-rove-divide%2F

NOTE: "Dick Armey, former House majority leader and an architect of the Republicans' 1994 takeover of Congress, told National Public Radio's Diane Rehm that the GOP had become the big government party. "They actually grew the government," he said."
http://circ.jmellon.com/docs/view.asp?ex=8

SCANDAL

Whistle-blowers tell of cost of conscience: In 2002, decorated FBI Special Agent Mike German was investigating meetings between terrorism suspects. When he discovered other officers had jeopardized the investigation by violating wiretapping regulations, he reported what he found to his supervisors, in accordance with FBI policy.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-23-whistle-blowers_x.htm

LEGAL ITEMS

Case could shape policy on warming - The Supreme Court this week will begin hearing perhaps the most significant environmental case ever to reach its marbled halls — a dispute that could shape the future of U.S. policy on global warming.
http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4361315.html

Police want power to crack down on offensive demo chants and slogans
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2006/271106slogans.htm
Hastert land deal triggers call for Justice Dept. investigation
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Watchdog_asks_Justice_Dept_to_investigate_1127.html
High Court Rules Against The New York Times In Leak Investigation Case...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/26/supremecourt/main2209121.shtml
Convicted GOP Fundraiser Forced To Repay $13.7 Million...$3 Million For His Own Prosecution...
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=738

Wreath Peace Sign Brings $25/Day Fine from Ignorant Homeowner's Assoc.
http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=2126

ECONOMY

Big Energy Firms Crimping Oil Supplies - An Associated Press analysis suggests that big oil companies have been crimping supplies in subtler ways across the country for years. The analysis, based on data from the US Energy Information Administration, indicates that the industry slacked off supplying oil and gasoline during the prolonged price boom between early 1999 and last summer, when prices began to fall
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112606X.shtml

Ford Raises $18 Billion in Financing - For the first time in its 103-year history, the Ford Motor Company is mortgaging its assets, including factories, equipment, office buildings, patents and trademarks, and stakes in subsidiaries like Volvo, in order to raise $18 billion to overhaul itself.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/1128biz-mktsector1128.html

Wall Street's Worst Day In Months...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061127/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/wall_street

Death Knell of the US Dollar...:The dollar plunged with startling ferocity late last week, driven by heavy selling. This was very bearish action that signals panic, and the probable onset of a severe downtrend. A break below the crucial support at 80 on the dollar index is expected to mark the transition from a clandestine unloading of dollar assets to an all-out stampede to “get what you can for them” before it’s too late.
http://news.goldseek.com/CliveMaund/1164561623.php

The U.S. Dollar is the Week's Biggest Turkey: While Americans were busy digesting their Thanksgiving feasts, the rest of the world was barfing up dollars. As a result of our massive trade deficits, foreigners certainly have their bellies full of them.
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Schiff/nov242006.html

911

Ex-employee says FAA warned before 9/11 - "Immediately (after 9/11), numerous government officials from FAA as well as other government agencies made defensive statements such as, 'How could we have known this was going to happen?' " Dzakovic testified later before the 9/11 Commission. "The truth is, they did know."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15735.htm

CONGRESS

Sen. Brownback (R-KS) Blocks Judicial Nominee just because She Attended a Lesbian "Commitment Ceremony" in 2002 for a Friend ((How big of him!!))
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/139

Lawmakers Lose Patience With Iraq Government - "It is not too late. The United States can still extricate itself honorably from an impending disaster in Iraq," Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said in urging for a planned withdrawal of US troops. "If the president fails to build a bipartisan foundation for an exit strategy, America will pay a high price for this blunder - one that we will have difficulty recovering from in the years ahead."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112706D.shtml

School of the Americas Opponents Seek New Vote - Opponents of the School of the Americas think that with the new make-up of Congress, they might have the votes to shut down the controversial training center for foreign military officers. Last weekend, thousands of protesters returned to Fort Benning, Georgia, for the 17th consecutive year to call for the closure of the school, whose training manuals advocate torture, extortion and execution. Rebecca MacNeice was there and filed this report for Truthout.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112706Q.shtml

Waxman Has Bush Administration in Sights - Congressman Henry Waxman has spent the last six years waging a guerrilla campaign against the White House and its corporate allies, launching searing investigations into everything from military contracts to Medicare prices from his perch on the Government Reform Committee. In January, Waxman becomes committee chairman - and thus the lead Congressional hound of an administration many Democrats feel has blundered badly as it expanded the power of the executive branch.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112706Z.shtml

DOMESTIC

U.S. to require passports for all by 2008:
http://www.newstarget.com/021178.html

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

NASA draws up plans to land astronaut on doomsday asteroid:
http://www.newstarget.com/021182.html

Web Tool Said to Offer A Way Past the Government Censor - Deep in a basement lab at the University of Toronto a team of political scientists, software engineers and computer-hacking activists, or “hactivists,” have created the latest, and some say most advanced tool yet in allowing Internet users to circumvent government censorship of the Web.
http://www.usenix.org/events/sec02/feamster/feamster_html/

INTERNATIONAL

Israel and Palestinians Reach Agreement on Cease-Fire
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112606C.shtml

MEDIA AND JOURNALISM

Transgender role added to soap
http://rawstory.com/showoutarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fpageoneq.com%2Frssfeedstuff%2Findex.php%3Fid%3D9745

Documentary Films Rattle Business World - Videocam-Toting Davids Shooting Documentaries Tackle Corporate Goliaths on Business Practices.
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSINESS_DOCUMENTARIES?SITE=HIHAD&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-11-26-13-50-07

EDITORIALS - OPINIONS

Siege and Seizure in Korea - apart from what the US is doing to the wretched countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, I have never been more ashamed of the US government than when I visited the village of Daechuri with 17 other American peace and social-justice activists and a campesino from Colombia
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112706B.shtml

HEALTH

Prescription painkillers now more common than heroin as street drugs:
http://www.newstarget.com/021177.html

"Illegal" psychedelic mushrooms prove to be genuine medicine for cluster headache sufferers:
http://www.newstarget.com/021179.html

UK's "Healthy Start" program to provide fruits, vegetables and nutritional supplements to poor, expectant mothers:
http://www.newstarget.com/021180.html

Folic acid proven to prevent heart disease and stroke in study:
http://www.newstarget.com/021181.html

Fast Food Nation movie meets with mixed reviews from critics,moviegoers:
http://www.newstarget.com/021184.html

Nutritional content of wheat substantially improved by activating latent "wild" gene:
http://www.newstarget.com/021183.html

For vocal chord paralysis, make sure you share this report on the new material being injected into the vocal chords that has significantly helped 80 percent of patients, according to Dr. Roy Casiano.
http://www.ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?storyid=14985

News from Vanderbilt on a special drug researchers hope will help prevent lung cancer that has shrunk tumors in mice by more than 70 percent.
http://www.ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?storyid=14988

Future Cancer Risk for Stem Cell Transplant Patients
http://www.ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?storyid=14984

Drug Takes Aim at Kidney Transplant Rejection
http://www.ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?storyid=14977