political news and pure bs

The newspaper also reported that the "Information Operations Task Force" in Baghdad has bought an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station, and was using them to disseminate pro-American views as well.

It said it based the story on interviews with U.S. military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity and with Iraqi newspaper employees, as well as documents it obtained.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said he could not say whether the story was true but some of what it described was "troubling" and he had asked military officials in Iraq for information.

"This article raises some questions as to whether or not some of the practices that are described in there are consistent with the principles of this department," he said.

The Times reported the program began this year. Records and interviews indicated that the articles were written in English, translated into Arabic and then given to Baghdad newspapers to print in return for payment.

Earlier this year, the Bush administration came under criticism after federal agencies distributed video packages to American TV stations that could be broadcast as news stories.

The Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress, has said those efforts could be seen as a form of "covert propaganda".

No comment.

[snip...]If what you say is correct, in your view, is Dick Cheney then guilty of a war crime?

Well, that's an interesting question - it was certainly a domestic crime to advocate terror and I would suspect that it is - for whatever it's worth - an international crime as well.

You've got also John Kerry recently accusing President Bush of orchestrating one of the great acts of deception in American history, and saying that flawed intelligence was manipulated to fit a political agenda. Now Colin Powell would be tarred with that same brush wouldn't he? Did he feel that he had correct information about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction when he outlined the case against Saddam?

He certainly did and so did I. I was intimately involved in that process and to this point I have more or less defended the administration.

I have basically been supportive of the administration's point that it was simply fooled - that the intelligence community, including the UK, Germany, France, Jordan - other countries that confirmed what we had in our intelligence package, yet we were all just fooled.

Lately, I'm growing increasingly concerned because two things have just happened here that really make me wonder.

And the one is the questioning of Sheikh al-Libby where his confessions were obtained through interrogation techniques other than those authorised by Geneva.

It led Colin Powell to say at the UN on 5 February 2003 that there were some pretty substantive contacts between al-Qaeda and Baghdad. And we now know that al-Libby's forced confession has been recanted and we know - we're pretty sure that it was invalid.

But more important than that, we know that there was a defence intelligence agency dissent on that testimony even before Colin Powell made his presentation. We never heard about that.

Follow that up with Curveball, and the fact that the Germans now say they told our CIA well before Colin Powell gave his presentation that Curveball - the source to the biological mobile laboratories - was lying and was not a trustworthy source. And then you begin to speculate, you begin to wonder was this intelligence spun; was it politicised; was it cherry-picked; did in fact the American people get fooled - I am beginning to have my concerns...[/snip]

Bush told reporters earlier during a visit to the U.S.-Mexican border that any decision on drawing down U.S. troop levels would be based on whether U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq believe Iraqi forces are sufficiently prepared to fight the insurgency.

"If they tell me we need more troops, we'll provide more troops," Bush said. "If they tell me that the Iraqis are ready to take more and more responsibility and that we'll be able to bring some Americans home, I will do that."

But White House spokesman Scott McClellan joined other top administration officials on Tuesday in raising expectations that Washington could reduce the number of troops next year.

"In 2006, the expectation is the conditions will be changed on the ground. We can make real progress with training Iraqi security forces and that conditions will permit us to be able to reduce our presence," McClellan said, although he cautioned that any reductions would be based on "conditions on the ground" at the time.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last week that the United States may not need the number of troops it has in Iraq "all that much longer."

[snip]..."The United States realizes that these are topics that are generating interest among European publics as well as parliaments and that these questions need to be responded to," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters after the diplomats' meeting.

Rice maintained the U.S. position of avoiding denying or confirming a newspaper report that secret centers to interrogate terrorism suspects were located in Eastern Europe, but Steinmeier said he was reassured Washington would be more forthcoming.

Steinmeier said that Rice, who will visit Germany on a trip to Europe next week, pledged to "provide a prompt and detailed response" to an EU request for clarification of the report...[/snip]

"The United States of America does not torture. And that's important for people around the world to understand."

War based on a lie

Weapons of mass destruction? I’m still looking for them, and if you find any give me a call so we can justify our presence in Iraq. We started the war based on a lie, and we’ll finish it based on a lie. I say this because I am currently serving with a logistics headquarters in the Anbar province, between the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. I am not fooled by the constant fabrication of “democracy” and “freedom” touted by our leadership at home and overseas.

This deception is furthered by our armed forces’ belief that we can just enter ancient Mesopotamia and tell the locals about the benefits of a legislative assembly. While our European ancestors were hanging from trees, these ancient people were writing algebra and solving quadratic equations. Now we feel compelled to strong-arm them into accepting the spoils of capitalism and “laissez-faire” society. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching Britney Spears on MTV and driving to McDonald’s, but do you honestly believe that Sunnis, Shias and Kurds want our Western ideas of entertainment and freedom imposed on them? Think again.

I’m not being negative, I’m being realistic. The reality in Iraq is that the United States created a nightmare situation where one didn’t exist. Yes, Saddam Hussein was an evil man who lied, cheated and pillaged his own nation. But how was he different from dictators in Africa who commit massive crimes again humanity with little repercussion and sometimes support from the West? The bottom line up front (BLUF to use a military acronym) is that Saddam was different because we used him as an excuse to go to war to make Americans “feel good” about the “War on Terrorism.” The BLUF is that our ultimate goal in 2003 was the security of Israel and the lucrative oil fields in northern and southern Iraq.

Weapons of mass destruction? Call me when you find them. In the meantime, “bring ’em on” so we can get our “mission accomplished” and get out of this mess.

Capt. Jeff Pirozzi
Camp Taqaddum, Iraq

[snip]...But any Rove legal debts—which won't have to be publicly disclosed until next year—could bring attention to his relationship with Patton Boggs, the D.C. powerhouse lobbying firm, where his lawyer in the leak case, Robert Luskin, is a partner. Lobbying records show Patton Boggs represents a battery of foreign governments, corporations and others with interests before the government. Rove has been involved in White House meetings involving at least one big Patton Boggs client: the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which paid the firm $400,000 earlier this year to lobby for a controversial native-Hawaiian recognition bill. Patton Boggs lawyer Ben Ginsberg, a Rove friend and big GOP lawyer who recommended he hire Luskin, is a principal on the case. The White House—which recently ordered all staffers to take an ethics training course—declined to say if there is any policy for Rove to recuse himself from issues involving Patton Boggs clients. "All ethical obligations are being met," said spokeswoman Nicole Wallace...[/snip]

[snip]...He said a suspension of voting rights would be justified if any country is found to have breached the bloc's founding principles of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Such a move would be unprecedented.

A diplomatic source said that to suspend a member state's voting rights in the Council of the European Union, the other 25 member states would have to vote unanimously to take such a step, which would be unlikely to happen in practice.

Mr Frattini said the Bush administration had asked for more time to deliver a response to the accusations after a senior commission official formally raised the issue on a visit to Washington last week.

"Right now, there is no [US] response," he said.

The allegations that the CIA held al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons in Eastern Europe were first reported in the Washington Post on 2 November.

According to civil liberties group Human Rights Watch, the jails are based in Romania and Poland.

Mr Frattini said Romania's Interior Minister, Vasil Blaga, told him there were no such prisons in his country.

The justice commissioner said it was "very, very important to get the truth", but he cautioned that it was "impossible to move only on the basis of allegations"...[snip]

"I think it would be to Bush's advantage. It would bring him closer to the people, dispel some of the concern that, understandably, our people have about the loss of life and limb, the enormous cost of this war to the American public," Warner said.

"We have got to stay firm for the next six months. It is a critical period ... in this Iraqi situation, to restore full sovereignty in that country. And that enables them to have their own armed forces to maintain that sovereignty," he said.

Bush is to speak on immigration in Arizona on Monday and then will return to Washington on Tuesday and give a speech about the war on terror at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis on Wednesday.

[snip]...The Republicans, however, are handicapped by the fact that their top advocates for staying the course in Iraq - Bush, Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney - are no longer viewed as credible by a majority of Americans.

Cheney demonstrated this problem in a speech the other day: "Those who advocate a sudden withdrawal from Iraq should answer a couple simple questions. Would the United States and other free nations be better off or worse off with Zarqawi, bin Laden, and Zawahiri in control of Iraq?"

He thus implied that foreign jihadists run the insurgency (the same insurgency that he recently claimed was in its "last throes"). But a new report by military expert Anthony Cordesman, at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies, concludes on the basis of evidence gathered from U.S. intelligence and Iraqi contacts that between 90 and 96 percent of insurgents are homegrown Iraqis rebelling against the ascendant Shiites and the U.S. occupation...[/snip]

[snip]...Nor can the administration assume any longer that its critics are all Democrats. A leading critic these days is William Odom, a retired Army general who ran the National Security Agency for Ronald Reagan. He thinks the Iraq war "will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history," and he urges "rapid withdrawal" because "to hang on to an untenable position is the height of irresponsibility."..[/snip]

Democrats fumed last week at Vice President Cheney's suggestion that criticism of the administration's war policies was itself becoming a hindrance to the war effort. But a new poll indicates most Americans are sympathetic to Cheney's point.

Seventy percent of people surveyed said that criticism of the war by Democratic senators hurts troop morale -- with 44 percent saying morale is hurt "a lot," according to a poll taken by RT Strategies. Even self-identified Democrats agree: 55 percent believe criticism hurts morale, while 21 percent say it helps morale.

[snip]...While most Republicans have stayed mum on Ney's problems, there was a notable exception last week. In a breakfast with reporters, Republican activist and key White House ally Grover Norquist, whose own dealings with Abramoff have come under scrutiny, suggested if Ney is facing a "serious legal problem," he "should step aside for the good of the team." While no Republican has publicly asked Ney to step down in '06, party officials privately admit worries over the investigation, which reportedly includes other lawmakers. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Justice Department is now probing Abramoff's dealings with DeLay, Rep. John Doolittle and Sen. Conrad Burns, all of whom are up for re-election in 2006. All have denied wrongdoing...[/snip]

Many members of our Armed Forces are observing this holiday in places far from home. They are serving with courage and skill in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere to defend our freedom and extend the blessings of freedom to others. In the past year, these brave Americans have continued to fight terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home. And they have helped the people of Iraq and Afghanistan hold historic and successful elections.

We think especially this week of those military families who are mourning the loss of loved ones. Every person who dies in the line of duty commands the eternal gratitude of the American people. The military families who mourn the fallen can know that America will not forget their sacrifice, and they can know that we will honor that sacrifice by completing the noble mission for which their loved ones gave their lives.

[snip]...One soldier uses the smoking corpses to taunt local villagers, describing the Taliban as "cowardly dogs" and "lady boys".

"You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to come down and retrieve their bodies," a soldier named as Sgt Jim Baker is seen saying through a loudspeaker.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the allegations were very serious and, if true, very troubling...[snip]

[snip]...The desecration appears calculated to cause maximum offence. Cremation is not part of Islamic tradition and the reference to "facing west" seems to be a mockery of the practice of facing Mecca - which lies west of Afghanistan - during daily prayers. "This is against Islam. Afghans will be shocked by this news. It is so humiliating," said Faiz Mohammed, an Afghan Muslim leader.

The film was shot three weeks ago by Stephen Dupont, a freelance cameraman embedded with American soldiers conducting "psychological operations" near the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. The soldiers told him they burned the bodies for hygienic reasons but the taunts appeared to indicate that they really wanted to rile the Taliban, he told SBS.

"They used that as psychological warfare, I guess you'd call it," he said. "They deliberately wanted to incite that much anger from the Taliban so the Taliban could attack them ... That's the only way they can find them."...[/snip]

[snip]...The U.S.-led coalition's operational commander, Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, said two junior officers who ordered the bodies to be burned would be officially reprimanded for showing a lack of cultural and religious understanding, but said the men were unaware that what they were doing was wrong.

Kamiya also said two noncommissioned officers would be reprimanded for using loudspeakers to taunt Taliban rebels who were believed to still be lingering in a nearby village after a clash with the troops. The men also would face non-judicial punishments, which could include a loss of pay or demotion in rank.

"Our investigation found there was no intent to desecrate the remains, but only to dispose of them for hygienic reasons," Kamiya said...[/snip]

"One might also argue," Vice President Cheney said in a speech on Monday, "that untruthful charges against the commander in chief have an insidious effect on the war effort." That would certainly be an ugly and demagogic argument, were one to make it. After all, if untruthful charges against the president hurt the war effort (by undermining public support and soldiers' morale), then those charges will hurt the war effort even more if they happen to be true. So one would be saying in effect that any criticism of the president is essentially treason.

Lest one fear that he might be saying that, Cheney immediately added, "I'm unwilling to say that" -- "that" being what he had just said. He generously granted critics the right to criticize (as did the president this week). Then he resumed hurling adjectives like an ape hurling coconuts at unwanted visitors. "Dishonest." "Reprehensible." "Corrupt." "Shameless." President Bush and others joined in, all morally outraged that anyone would accuse the administration of misleading us into war by faking a belief that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear and/or chemical and biological weapons.

Interestingly, the administration no longer claims that Hussein actually had such weapons at the time Bush led the country into war in order to eliminate them. "The flaws in the intelligence are plain enough in hindsight," Cheney said on Monday. So-called WMD (weapons of mass destruction) were not the only argument for the war, but the administration thought they were a crucial argument at the time. So the administration now concedes that the country went to war on a false premise. Doesn't that mean that the war was a mistake no matter where the false premise came from?

Shafts of ancient ice pulled from Antarctica's frozen depths show that for at least 650,000 years three important heat-trapping greenhouse gases never reached recent atmospheric levels caused by human activities, scientists are reporting today.

The measured gases were carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Concentrations have risen over the last several centuries at a pace far beyond that seen before humans began intensively clearing forests and burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels.

The sampling and analysis were done by the European Program for Ice Coring in Antarctica, and the results are being published today in the journal Science.

The evidence was found in air bubbles trapped in successively older ice samples extracted from a nearly two-mile-deep hole drilled in a remote spot in East Antarctica called Dome C.

[snip]...And there are others: the Shia Defenders of Khadamiya - set up under Hussein al-Sadr, a cousin of Muqtada, who is an ally of the former prime minister Iyad Allawi - and the government-backed Tiger and Scorpion brigades. They all have similar looks: balaclavas or wraparound sunglasses and headbands, black leather gloves with fingers cut off, and a variety of weapons. When not manning checkpoints, they hurtle through the streets in four-wheel drives, scattering the traffic by firing in the air. Out of sight they are accused of arbitrary arrests, intimidation and extrajudicial killings.

The US and Britain, which trained many of the forces involved, and which still have ultimate responsibility for them, are implicated. But the pattern of illegality is also the continuation of a process that began with the questionable justification for the invasion. American and British forces have played their own part, from the abuses of Abu Ghraib to deaths in British military custody, from the deployment of white phosphorus as a chemical weapon in the assault on Fallujah to the wild use of overwhelming American firepower, which some have called almost as indiscriminate as the killings caused by Sunni insurgents' car bombings...[/snip]

[snip]...John Reid, the Secretary of State for defense, admits that he knows of "alleged deaths in custody" and other "serious prisoner abuse" at al-Jamiyat police station, which was reopened by Britain after the war.

Militia-dominated police, who were recruited by Britain, are believed to have tortured at least two men to death in the station. Their bodies were later found with drill holes to their arms, legs and skulls.

The victims were suspected of collaborating with coalition forces, according to intelligence reports. Despite being pressed "very hard" by Britain, however, the Iraqi authorities in Basra are failing to even investigate incidents of torture and murder by police, ministers admit.

The disclosure drags Britain firmly into the growing scandal of officially condoned killings, torture and disappearances in Iraq. More than 170 starving and tortured prisoners were discovered last week in an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad.

American troops who uncovered the secret torture chamber are also said to have discovered mutilated corpses, several bearing drill marks...[/snip]

[snip]...Earlier this month Ron Harris wrote a series in his newspaper, the St Louis Post-Dispatch, under headlines that included, "Is Jimmy Massey Telling the Truth About Iraq?". The articles seized on minor discrepancies of detail and implied that, because Mr Massey suffers from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, he is less than reliable...[/snip]

[snip]...But when Mr Harris appeared on CNN to accuse Mr Massey of lying, claiming he had witnessed the incidents described by the marine, he in turn was challenged by another journalist. Jeff Schmerker, a reporter for The Mountaineer in North Carolina, said Mr Harris told him that he did not see the events with his own eyes. The St Louis Post-Dispatch man was assigned to a different company in the battalion from Mr Massey's.

The sergeant's main charge is not denied by the reporter or the Marine Corps. "Yes, marines killed civilians," said Mr Harris. "I even reported on the shooting and killing of a British TV crew while I was in Iraq." In December 2004, the Marine Corps spokesman at the Pentagon, Major Douglas Powell, told MSNBC: "We're not saying he's lying, but his perception of what the situation was in relation to the rules of engagement, and what was justified, is different than ours."...[/snip]

After fiercely defending his Iraq policy across Asia, President Bush abruptly toned down his attack on war critics Sunday and said there was nothing unpatriotic about opposing his strategy.

"People should feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about Iraq," Bush said, three days after agreeing with Vice President Dick Cheney that the critics were "reprehensible."

The president also praised Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., as "a fine man" and a strong supporter of the military despite the congressman's call for troop withdrawal as soon as possible.

"I heard somebody say, `Well, maybe so-and-so is not patriotic because they disagree with my position.' I totally reject that thought," Bush said.

"This is not an issue of who's patriotic and who's not patriotic," he said. "It's an issue of an honest, open debate about the way forward in Iraq."

(Videotape, November 16, 2005)

VICE PRES. DICK CHENEY: The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory or their backbone. But we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: "Losing your memory or your backbone." What would you say to the vice president?

REP. MURTHA: Well, I tell you, Cheney's a friend of mine. We work very closely together. He was a good secretary of Defense, but he's wrong. They should have fired people. The president should be furious with this--the people that work for him giving him bad intelligence. We spend more on intelligence than any country in the world. We spend more on intelligence than the whole world spends together and our intelligence was wrong. There's no question we're going in the wrong direction and we're not winning. The incidents have increased and the economic indicators--oil, which was supposed to pay for all of this, is below prewar levels. There's nothing that's happening that shows any sign of success.

And the biggest problem is this illusion that--I remember going to Iraq a month or so after the invasion when they said it was all over. And one of the members said to Ambassador Bremer, "What do you think about this cleric named Sistani?" And he turned to his expert, and you know what she said? She said, "Oh, he's just a minor cleric." Now, two weeks later that guy had 100,000 people in the street. That's the kind of information they were acting on. They've been overly optimistic and illusionary about their policy. We got to--this is not a war of words, this is a real war where people are getting killed. Fifteen thousand people have been wounded, and half of them are desperately wounded, blinded, without their arms.

I mean, it breaks my heart when I go out there and see these kids. I see wives who can't look at their husbands because they've been so disfigured. I saw a young fella that was paralyzed from the neck down and his three children were standing there crying with his wife and his mother. So this is a real war, which--we have to find a solution. We--and since there's no progress, we've got to find a way to let the Iraqis take over.

"What we're trying to do is save the future generations from mountains upon mountains upon mountains of debt. The deception is saying that we should do nothing." - Rep. Patrick T. McHenry(R-NC)

"This is the cruelest lie of all: That the only way you can help people who have lost everything is by hurting somebody else." - Rep. Gene Taylor(D-MS)

[If the issue was] "in fact [about] cutting deficits, one could argue persuasively that we need to balance the budget. But it's not. It's about cutting spending here, and then cutting taxes." - Rep. Steny Hoyer(D-MD)

"We are having to try to balance the budget on the backs of people who can least afford it," he said. "I think what's happening is a lot of the things the Republicans have been doing are coming back to haunt them, and the nation." - Rep. Elijah E. Cummings(D-MD)

"I call this bill the 'Tax Increase Prevention Act.'" - Sen. Rick Santorum(R-PA)

"After the tax cuts are passed, there won't be a dime to pay for (hurricanes) Katrina or Rita." - Rep. John Spratt(D-SC)

"We made a serious effort to reduce the patterns of spending in this gigantic bill. Then we made the gigantic and controversial step of saying no to projects. The combination of that was too much for them to swallow." - Rep. Jerry Lewis(R-CA)

"It [this bill] betrays our nation's values and its future. "It is neither compassionate, conservative nor wise." - Rep. Steny Hoyer(D-MD)

"There's a message in this, and that's that the people of America are only going to accept so many cuts in healthcare, in Medicaid, in Medicare, in transportation, and other vital areas." - Sen. Dianne Feinstein(D-CA)

[snip]...Human Rights Watch has said it has evidence indicating the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania.

"I think that the European Commission should investigate these abuses," Amnesty International's Secretary-General Irene Kahn said at the opening of a three-day conference on prisoners and the U.S. war on terror.

Earlier this month, the European Commission -- the European Union's executive office -- promised to launch an informal probe, requesting answers from all 25 EU member states and candidate countries Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Turkey. Some members of the European Parliament, however, have asked for a formal investigation...[/snip]

[snip]...Moazzam Begg, 37, who was held at Guantanamo for three years, said that prison and other detention facilities were fueling hatred against Britain and the United States.

"If this continues ... I can almost guarantee that violence and terrorism will only proliferate," said Begg, who lives in Birmingham, England.

He said the British government refused to recognize the connection between prisons and terrorist attacks, such as the attacks in which four suspected suicide bombers killed 52 people in London on July 7.

"Part of the denial that (Prime Minister) Tony Blair has taken since the July 7 bombings has to do with Guantanamo. He is not in tune with the political reality of how people feel about this issue," Begg said.

The London conference drew former Guantanamo detainees from Britain, Russia and Afghanistan...[/snip]

[snip]...The broader budget bill would slice almost $50 billion from the deficit by the end of the decade by curbing rapidly growing benefit programs such as Medicaid, food stamps and student loan subsidies. Republicans said reining in such programs whose costs spiral upward each year automatically s the first step to restoring fiscal discipline.

"This unchecked spending is growing faster than our economy, faster than inflation, and far beyond our means to sustain it," said Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa...[/snip]

[snip]...To win House approval, Hastert ordered modest concessions on plans to limit eligibility for food stamps and require the poorest Medicaid patients to pay more for their care. He ordered killed a provision to deny free school lunches to about 40,000 children whose parents would lose their food stamps.

Those changes and other promises won the votes of lawmakers who had earlier registered opposition to the bill, including James Walsh, R-N.Y., Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., and Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y.

The biggest concession came Thursday evening when Walsh won language permitting food stamp recipients making the transition to work to continue to be able to receive non-cash benefits for child care, transportation and housing without losing their nutrition benefits...[/snip]

The bill, passed 217-215 after a 25-minute-long roll call, makes modest but politically painful cuts across an array of programs for the poor, students and farmers.

Colmes brought up the recent news that there was a spy in the White House and of course Simmons mentioned that he started there with Al Gore adding that standards were loose in the Clinton White House telling Colmes, "Clinton made it so easy."

Colmes was very annoyed and brought up Rove and the expected indictments. Simmons defended Rove and blurted out the recent right wing myth that David Corn is the leaker and then went after Joe Wilson. Colmes was all over Simmons, " Joe Wilson had the balls to call them on the Niger yellowcake story.." ( never heard Colmes say "balls" on H&C) Then Colmes suggested that they call David Corn about being the leaker and he was really ready to do it. Simmons was forced to back down and the know it all persona that he parades on Fox News was seriously damaged.

The battle continued until Simmons shouted, "You hate that Bush is right!" and Colmes replied, "I hate that he's so wrong!"

Iraq's interior minister said Thursday that reports of prisoner mistreatment at a secret detention center in Baghdad have been exaggerated, and he denied that he condoned torture.

Allegations of widespread torture and executions at the underground prison are "untrue and inaccurate," Interior Minister Bayan Jabr told reporters at a news conference.

Disclosures about the detention center, which was seized by U.S. troops last weekend, have stirred anger among Sunni Muslims and drawn condemnation from human rights organizations. But Jabr, a member of the Shiite Muslim majority, denied that his ministry targeted Sunnis, who make up the bulk of Iraq's insurgency, and he said the detainees at the prison included Shiites.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari announced Tuesday that U.S. troops had found 173 detainees at the secret prison in the capital's Jadriyah district. He said some of them were malnourished and appeared to have been tortured.

In a strongly worded statement, the U.S. Embassy said Thursday that the abuses found at the prison and sectarian control of such facilities cannot be tolerated.

"We have made clear to the Iraqi government that there must not be militia or sectarian control of Iraqi security forces, facilities or ministries," the embassy said. "We do not tolerate any abuse of detainees in Iraq. . . . The Iraqi government must take measures to ensure this kind of thing does not happen again."

A distinction has to be made between wanton abuses like those in Abu Ghraib and tightly controlled interrogations of top-level al-Qaida captives. Yes, prisoners should be treated humanely, and it will be a permanent blot on the administration's record that it didn't better control how prisoners were being treated in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But there are cases when tough techniques are probably justified. When al-Qaida leader Abu Zubaida, a planner of 9/11, was caught in Pakistan, he had been shot in the groin. Painkillers were administered selectively as an interrogation tactic. He coughed up information that led to the capture of other al-Qaida members. At Guantanamo Bay, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved - then eventually revoked - 16 aggressive techniques for Mohammed al-Qahtani, the 20th hijacker in the 9/11 plot. They involved isolating him, making him stand for long periods and playing on his phobias. They might have helped pressure him into talking.

Vice President Dick Cheney added his voice on Wednesday to the chorus of Republican criticism of Democrats who have accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence on Iraq, calling it "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city."

"Some of the most irresponsible comments have, of course, come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing force against Saddam Hussein," Cheney said in remarks prepared for a GOP fundraiser.

Use of white phosphorous is not banned but is covered by Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons. The protocol prohibits use of the substance as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas.

Blair's spokesman pointed out that Britain is a signatory to the convention. The United States is not.

Britain's Liberal Democrat Party, which opposed the Iraq war, criticized U.S. forces for using the substance as an incendiary weapon.

"A vital part of the effort in Iraq is to win the battle for hearts and minds," said the party's foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell. "The use of this weapon may technically have been legal, but its effects are such that it will hand a propaganda victory to the insurgency."

[snip]...US forces yesterday made their clearest admission yet that white phosphorus was used as a weapon against insurgents in Iraq. A Pentagon spokesman told the BBC last night that it had been used as "an incendiary weapon" during the assault last year on Falluja in 2004.
Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable said the substance, which can be used to lay smokescreens but burns down to the bone in contact with skin, was not covered by international conventions on chemical weapons.

But Paul Rodgers of the University of Bradford's Department of Peace Studies said the substance would probably fall into the category of chemical weapons if used directly against people...[snip]

[snip]..."White phosphorus is a conventional munition. It is not a chemical weapon. They are not outlawed or illegal," he told the BBC. "We use them primarily as obscurants, for smokescreens or target marking in some cases. However, it is an incendiary weapon, and may be used against enemy combatants."

Asked if it was used as an offensive weapon during the siege of Falluja, he replied: "Yes, it was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants. When you have enemy forces that are in covered positions that your high explosive artillery rounds are not having an impact on, and you wish to get them out of those positions, one technique is to fire a white phosphorus round into the position: the combined effects of the fire and smoke - and in some case the terror brought about by the explosion on the ground - will drive them out of the holes so you can kill them with high explosives."...[/snip]

[snip]...The pace of U.S. home sales is showing further signs of slowing, amid a widening gap between sellers' asking prices and the amount skittish buyers are prepared to offer, according to an industry survey, real-estate brokerage firms and housing economists.
Rising mortgage rates, higher energy costs, widespread talk about the risk of a "bubble" in housing and a surge in the number of homes on the market are among the factors behind the apparent slowdown. They have combined to make home shoppers more cautious, economists and real-estate brokers say. Buyers are taking their time to look for bargains, while many sellers have put unrealistically high price tags on their homes. That leads to a standoff, causing the number of sales to drop -- a classic ending to a period of unusually rapid house-price increases.

In a survey conducted last week, real-estate consulting firm Real Trends found that the number of home-purchase contracts signed last month dropped 8% from a year earlier at 48 of the nation's large real-estate brokerage firms. Those brokers responded to an email poll sent to 80 brokerage firms...[snip]

"There is a definite change" in supply and demand, says Jacelyn Botti, a senior vice president at Weichert Realtors, a big chain based in Morris Plains, N.J. Along much of the East Coast, she says, inventories of homes available for sale have bloated to a supply sufficient to last five to eight months at current sales rates, compared with three or four months a year ago.

With sales slowing, condominium developers in San Diego are appealing to buyers with an array of incentives, says Robert Griswold, owner of Griswold Real Estate Management. "The market has definitely turned," says Mr. Griswold, noting that fliers offering condo buyers a car were being handed out at a recent Rolling Stones concert. "When you see that kind of advertising and promotion, they are clearly getting desperate."

While many sellers of single-family homes are stubborn in resisting price cuts, some are starting to compromise. Ken Baris, president of Jordan Baris Inc., a real-estate brokerage in West Orange, N.J., says he received an email on Friday from a client suggesting that the firm reduce the price on his five-bedroom home to $829,900 from $849,900. The house has been sitting on the market for 90 days. "It was an unsolicited price adjustment," says Mr. Baris. "I haven't seen that in a very long time."

Until recently, unusually low interest rates and flexible lending standards were helping Americans keep paying more for houses, despite slow growth in personal income. But that's changing. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is about 6.5%, the highest level in more than two years, according to HSH Associates in Pompton Plains, N.J. That's up from about 5.2% in June 2003, which was the lowest in more than four decades.

A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.

The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.

In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task force. The president of Shell Oil said his company did not participate "to my knowledge," and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know.

Chevron was not named in the White House document, but the Government Accountability Office has found that Chevron was one of several companies that "gave detailed energy policy recommendations" to the task force. In addition, Cheney had a separate meeting with John Browne, BP's chief executive, according to a person familiar with the task force's work; that meeting is not noted in the document.

The task force's activities attracted complaints from environmentalists, who said they were shut out of the task force discussions while corporate interests were present. The meetings were held in secret and the White House refused to release a list of participants. The task force was made up primarily of Cabinet-level officials. Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club unsuccessfully sued to obtain the records.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Food and Drug Administration didn't follow its usual review process in deciding to reject over-the-counter sales of a morning-after pill, according to a report released Monday by congressional investigators.

While the agency followed its general procedures for considering Barr Laboratories Inc.'s application to approve its "Plan B" pill for over-the-counter sales, aspects of its review process were "unusual," the Government Accountability Office, which serves as Congress' investigative arm, said in its report.

FDA's scientific advisors in 2003 overwhelmingly urged approval of the OTC application. The agency typically follows the recommendations of its advisory panel. But FDA in May 2004 rejected the application, citing worries about use of the pill by young teens without a doctor's supervision.

Congressional critics have charged that FDA abandoned scientific principles in rejecting the OTC application, bowing instead to political pressure.

"We are deeply opposed to this subversion of science," Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and 17 other lawmakers wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt. The lawmakers, who requested the GAO audit, urged Leavitt to intervene in the reconsideration of the drug's status.

Some conservatives have asserted that Plan B, which helps block conception when taken within 72 hours of having unprotected sex, is akin to abortion. Others have asserted that allowing over-the-counter use would encourage risky sexual behavior among teens.

A bipartisan group of senators reached a compromise yesterday that would dramatically alter U.S. policy for treating captured terrorist suspects by granting them a final recourse to the federal courts but stripping them of some key legal rights.

The compromise links legislation written by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), which would deny detainees broad access to federal courts, with a new measure authored by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) that would grant detainees the right to appeal the verdict of a military tribunal to a federal appeals court. The deal will come to a vote today, and the authors say they are confident it will pass.

Graham and Levin indicated they would then demand that House and Senate negotiators link their measure with the effort by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to clearly ban torture and abuse of terrorism suspects being held in U.S. facilities.

"McCain's amendment needs to be part of the overall package, because it deals with standardizing interrogation techniques and will reestablish moral high ground for the United States," Graham said.

Such broad legislation would be Congress's first attempt to assert some control over the detention of suspected terrorists, which the Bush administration has closely guarded as its sole prerogative. By linking a provision to deny prisoners the right to challenge their detention in federal court with language restricting interrogation methods, senators hope to soften the administration's ardent opposition to McCain's anti-torture provision -- or possibly win its support.

Two Iraqi men who were arrested in Iraq in 2003 but never charged with crimes say that U.S. troops put them in a cage with lions, pretended to execute them in a firing line and humiliated them during interrogations at multiple detention facilities.

Sherzad Khalid, 35, and Thahe Sabber, 37, say they were brutally beaten over several months at U.S. facilities such as Camp Bucca, Abu Ghraib prison and another detention facility at the Baghdad airport. They said the abuse occurred when they were unable to tell U.S. troops where Saddam Hussein was hiding and did not know about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Both are businessmen who were arrested in a July 17, 2003, raid in Baghdad while Khalid, of Kurdistan, was visiting friends. Both said they were supporters of the U.S. invasion.

The two men are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First against Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and top military commanders in Iraq. The suit contends that U.S. policies during the war allowed abuse and torture. Both men say that they were tortured and degraded for months before they were released.

"That was a terrifying period for me," Khalid said through an interpreter yesterday, slowly recounting being shoved into a lion's cage at one of the presidential palaces in Baghdad three times before soldiers lined him up for a mock execution. "I was wondering if it could be real that the American army would act this way."

[snip]...As part of his application, Alito sent in a document saying his work in the solicitor general's office had included helping "to advance legal positions in which I personally believe very strongly."

"I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government argued that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion," he wrote.

That sentence provides one of the first clear-cut statements attributed to Alito about abortion, which will be one of the main topics of his January confirmation hearing as retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement.

Bush picked Alito after White House counsel Harriet Miers withdrew her Supreme Court nomination because of withering criticism by some conservatives.

"This may explain why the right wing expressed such enthusiastic support for Judge Alito after campaigning against Harriet Miers," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., one of several senators who will meet with Alito privately on Tuesday. "When he comes before the Senate, Judge Alito faces a heavy burden of demonstrating that he no longer holds these extremely troubling views and would bring an open mind and a real commitment to fundamental rights and freedoms."

The Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said yesterday that one lesson of the faulty prewar intelligence on Iraq is that senators would take a hard look at intelligence before voting to go to war.

"I think a lot of us would really stop and think a moment before we would ever vote for war or to go and take military action," Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) said on "Fox News Sunday."

Senators "don't accept this intelligence at face value anymore," said Pat Roberts, left, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee. Sen. Carl M. Levin said Iraq became a center of terrorism after its invasion in March 2003.

"We don't accept this intelligence at face value anymore," he added. "We get into preemptive oversight and do digging in regards to our hard targets."

He said that agreement has been reached on the Phase 2 review that the intelligence panel is doing to look into whether the Bush administration exaggerated or misused prewar intelligence. The review may not be finished this year, he said.

Rice Condemns Iran for Israel Comment

By ANNE GEARAN
AP Diplomatic Writer

November 13, 2005, 4:43 PM EST

JERUSALEM -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave her strongest rebuke yet on Sunday to the renewed hardline Islamic leadership of Iran, saying that "no civilized nation" can call for the annihilation of another.

Rice was referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remark last month that Israel is a "disgraceful blot" that should be "wiped off the map." Her remarks drew applause from politicians, diplomats and others gathered for a U.S.-Israeli symposium.

"No civilized nation should have a leader who wishes or hopes or desires or considers it a matter of policy to express that ... some another country should be pushed into the sea," Rice said, speaking slowly and sternly. "It is unacceptable in the international system."

Speaking a day after part of her agenda for political openness in the Middle East ran into heavy weather, Rice also said the Bush administration is under no illusions about the difficulty of spreading democracy in the region.

"We are not naive about the pace, or difficulty, of democratic change," Rice said. "but we know that the longing for democratic change is deep and urgently felt."

[snip]...In recent weeks, his administration has:

* Seen its proposal for a Western Hemisphere-wide free-trade pact torpedoed during Bush's trip to Latin America. Several other of his trade initiatives are in jeopardy, too.

* Failed to persuade the U.N. nuclear watchdog to refer Iran's suspect nuclear activities to the Security Council for possible penalties.

* Ran into more obstacles in six-country talks over North Korea's nuclear agenda.

* Clashed with major European allies which, for the first time, joined other countries in supporting a move to wrest administrative control over the Internet from the United States.

"Behind the scenes, there's a recognition that the United States is tied down somewhat in Iraq and preoccupied domestically, and that this is a tough time for the Bush administration," said Kurt Campell, who was deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia and the Pacific during the Clinton administration.

"It comes at a time when China's stock is extremely high in Asia as a whole. There's a growing recognition that China has taken enormous advantage of the challenges facing the Bush administration, in Iraq and elsewhere, to consolidate its gains in Asia," said Campell, now with the Center for International and Strategic Studies.

In Europe, Bush's principal Iraq war partner, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is reeling from political woes of his own...[/snip]

[snip]...Now, allies might be even more emboldened in opposing positions staked out by the U.S. And antagonistic governments in North Korea, Iran and elsewhere might be less intimidated by Bush's threats, seeing how bogged down the U.S. is in Iraq.

"I think he is less scary to them," said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy specialist at the Brookings Institution.

Iran and North Korea probably are less fearful than before that Bush might use pre-emptive military force against them to accomplish Iraq-style changes in rule, and so, too, are their neighbors, O'Hanlon suggested.

"South Korea, for example, might have worried before about a war with North Korea they did not want. And I think they're probably less worried about it now," he said.

The U.S. still wields enormous influence, of course, if only because it remains the sole military superpower and has the largest economy...[/snip]

[snip]...Aid workers are scrambling to get tents to survivors in high mountain areas where snow may arrive any day, but the international relief effort is failing.

The problem is a severe lack of funds. Relief agencies warn that if they do not get adequate shelters to survivors before snow falls, thousands will die.

A desperate plea made to The Independent on Sunday, from a village in the mountains above the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, illustrated the scale of the crisis.

"Please tell the British government to help us. Please tell anyone," Mohammed Idris said by telephone. "We have no tents and it is so cold at night. If we do not have tents soon the children will die."

Mr Idris said he was one of 4,000 villagers in Rajmerra with only 20 tents between them. On some nights, he added, temperatures already dip below freezing and water turns to ice. On other nights survivors are pelted with torrential rain, have nothing to sleep under and sit awake all night, shivering...[/snip]

[snip]...Of an estimated three million people made homeless by the earthquake, only 10,000 are in official relief camps. Most remain in their often remote mountain villages, where aid is still struggling to get through. The charity World Vision last week said around 250,000 survivors had received no aid at all.

Aid agencies say they are doing what they can but governments have not put up enough money. The United Nations has received only $133m (£76m) towards an emergency appeal for $550m. It urgently needs $42m just to keep the current aid effort going.

Pakistan says that out of the $2bn pledged by foreign governments, it has received only $9.5m. The charity Oxfam says Britain has contributed only 24 per cent of what it says would be its "fair share", based on the size of its economy...[/snip]

Yikes! Godzilla was Jurassic park player
By Dawn Witlin

No need to sound the alarm in Tokyo, this fearsome reptile has been extinct for billions of years.

[snip]...A number of the demonstrators were arrested as they marched through the centre of the regional capital Muzaffarabad, said Shahid Hassan, Azad Kashmir police chief.

"They were ordered to leave the temporary camp because it was set up in the middle of the city and it did not have any proper sanitation or waste disposal facilities," Hassan said.

Pakistan’s President Musharraf visited the camp at Jalalabad Park, close to the banks of the River Neelum, one week ago when he came to Muzaffarabad for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

The protest comes as aid officials struggle to contain an outbreak of acute diarrhoea at Muzaffarabad’s main tent camp — in the sports ground of the city’s university — and a number of other spontaneous settlements. “We were shifting them to a proper camp with better living conditions but they did not agree,” police chief Hassan added. "Around 250 people protested, and police, in order to disperse them, used a mild baton charge. They arrested a few people and dispersed the rest of the crowd," he added.

They were stopped because they were heading towards a "sensitive area" where a US military hospital for quake victims was located, said Tahir Qureshi, the deputy police chief...[/snip]

[snip]..."We go in the open air," 12-year-old Rafit giggled, obviously embarrassed by the question, as his cousin Umcad, laughed out loud. "We don't use the toilets over there - it's too far," he complained, referring to the basic amenities on offer at the Dawa tented camp in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir and home to over 1,000 quake victims.

In fact, both boys concede going outside was simply an easier option. "It's a problem for ladies, but not for us," they bragged.

But for aid workers, health officials and UN agencies on the ground, the problem is huge.

"We need to build about 200,000 toilets," Andrew MacLeod, head of the UN Emergency Coordination Centre, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

"We have to aim for something like that - but that goal is a long way off," Larry Robertson, project officer and chief of water and environmental sanitation for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said in Muzaffarabad.

Whatever the exact figure, it's clear the challenge in building these latrines is daunting. With an estimated 4 million people defecating in the open and 1,500 mt of faeces being produced every day, communities were at high risk of an outbreak of communicable disease, UNICEF has warned...[/snip]

MANAMA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took aim at Syria on Saturday over its human rights record, stepping up Washington's bid to isolate Damascus internationally.

The top U.S. diplomat used a conference in Bahrain attended by Arab leaders trying to promote economic and political reform, to criticize what she said was Syria's "arbitrary detention" of human rights activists.

"We continue to support the Syrian people's aspirations for liberty, democracy, and justice under the rule of law," said Rice in a sideways swipe at the government in Damascus.

"We would like to see an end to the arbitrary detentions of democratic and human rights activists -- including Kamal Labwani and all the prisoners of conscience from the Damascus Spring," she added.

President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.

Neither assertion is wholly accurate.

The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements.

But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.

...[snip]And our debate at home must also be fair-minded. One of the hallmarks of a free society and what makes our country strong is that our political leaders can discuss their differences openly, even in times of war. When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support. I also recognize that some of our fellow citizens and elected officials didn't support the liberation of Iraq. And that is their right, and I respect it. As President and Commander-in-Chief, I accept the responsibilities, and the criticisms, and the consequences that come with such a solemn decision.

While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. (Applause.) Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs....[/snip]

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, The 700 Club.

"And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city," he said.

In his 20-minute speech, Rove singled out four Democratic senators who have strongly criticized the White House in the CIA leak probe and have been staunch opponents of some of the Bush administration's judicial selections. The four are Sens. Charles Schumer of New York, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Richard Durbin of Illinois and Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

Rove suggested the four Democrats have met their match in the conservative agenda of the Federalist Society.

"Who would have thought that the powerful members of the world's most exclusive club would be so threatened by a movement of competent, principle-driven egghead lawyers?" Rove said to laughter.

Rove in turn was the beneficiary of a Federalist Society attack on his opponents.

"Karl Rove has pursued conservative policies," said co-chairman David McIntosh. "He's come into the cross-hairs of criticism from the liberal establishment here in Washington.

When the establishment can't defeat the power of one's ideas, "they crank up the engine of personal attack in order to distract the leaders," McIntosh suggested.

Rove is under investigation for his involvement in leaking the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, is under indictment. Rove and Libby were involved in leaking Plame's identity to the news media.

"Everybody's presumed innocent until convicted and a mere investigation shouldn't hinder anyone's political activities," attorney Stephen Yelverton, a two-decade Federalist Society member, said of Rove's appearance.

Researchers have unearthed fossil evidence of a 135-million-year-old "sea monster" they're calling Godzilla.

A large skull of the animal was found in southern Argentina in an area that was once part of the Pacific Ocean.

Named Dakosaurus andiniensis, the creature is an entirely new species of ancient crocodile. It had a head like a carnivorous dinosaur and a tail like a fish. With its massive jaws and serrated teeth, it preyed on other marine reptiles.

Totally unique among marine crocodiles, "it is one of the most evolved members of the crocodilian family and also one of the most bizarre," said Diego Pol, a paleontologist at Ohio State University in Columbus, who served on the research team.

The research, led by Zulma Gasparini, a paleontologist at Argentina's Universidad Nacional de La Plata, was funded by the National Geographic Society. The discovery is described tomorrow in the journal Science and will appear on the cover of the December 2005 issue of National Geographic magazine.

Carnivorous Dinosaur

The creature's almost intact skull was found in 1996 in Argentina's Neuquén Basin, a region that was once a deep tropical bay of the Pacific Ocean. Prior to the find, researchers had only sketchy fossil evidence of the fearsome sea monster.

They have now established that the giant animal belongs to the crocodyliforms, which include today's crocodiles and their extinct relatives. Marine crocs were abundant during the Jurassic period some 200 million to 145 million years ago. At that time they were found worldwide.

The researchers don't yet know what events triggered the relatively sudden emergence of Dakosaurus, nor do they know what caused it to go extinct.

I lost my job but still have my passion

By: RUTH SMITH

For the Monitor

It is my turn to say a deep and heartfelt thanks to each of you who has written to the editor, called, emailed, sent a card, greeted me with hugs or held me in your thoughts since I and seven others were laid off from New Hampshire Audubon.


I appreciate the support, affirmation and love that have come my way. In spite of being callously severed from a job that I loved and dedicated nearly 18 years of my life to, I feel blessed to be part of this remarkable community, which values strong connections with the earth and each other and is willing to speak out for those values.

Many have asked where I am. I'm harvesting my garden, stacking wood and painting my new "environmentally friendly"house in Canterbury as I listen to see where I'm being called to next. For parents concerned about what my layoff teaches their children, I share with you lessons I've gained from these chores.

From the potato patch I have observed that as you sow, shall you reap. Each potato planted in the spring produced many new potatoes. As I dig them up, I discover small ones, large ones and some in surprising places, each with the potential to produce more potatoes. My teaching has been like that through the years, but I am reaping a rich harvest now through the incredible support I'm receiving. Yet my work is fulfilled only when those whom I've reached pass on what they've learned. Keep it going.

The woodpile reminds me that living trees must be cut down to warm my home. Some things must end for new beginnings to occur. My time at Audubon is over, but there is much warmth yet to create. Spreading warmth through connections and community is something we all can do.

The walls of my new home are becoming brighter with paint. Paint covers many things, yet if the wallboard is damaged, paint will not improve it. The lesson here seems to be that we must not be fooled by outward appearances when deeper repairs are needed. As I've taught over the years, it is important to be a careful observer, think critically, ask tough questions.

One question worth asking is: Where is Audubon's mission? For many I was the face of Audubon, but Audubon is so much bigger than one person or one department. Its mission is at the heart of what many of us cherish about New Hampshire, and it must continue.

If you are angry over the decisions and actions of Audubon's management, there are many appropriate responses. Whether you end your contributions in protest or stand by the hardworking staff who remain is a personal choice. The key is to act and to speak out for what you care about.

I have tried to be a role model in this way because I truly believe the message on my license plate: "UNLESS someone like you cares a whole lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not." (From The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss). My job was not just to teach about nature but also to build relationships. I look forward to continuing those relationships with many of you as we keep caring, learning and working for what we believe in. Thanks again for sharing and enriching my journey.

Still, Tony Perkins, president of the Washington-based Family Research Council, said the Kaiser study underscored the belief among many parents that television was having a coarsening effect on their kids.

"It's not the same today as when I was growing up and parents left their kids in front of the TV to watch 'Captain Kangaroo,' " Perkins said. "The sex depicted on television does have an effect on kids. If we are what we eat, then we become what we watch."

The loss in Virginia was a personal setback for Bush, who put his declining political capital on the line with an election-eve visit on behalf of Republican former attorney general Jerry Kilgore -- only to see him soundly defeated by Democratic Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine.

With Bush's popularity at the lowest level of his presidency, the results helped giddy Democrats claim momentum one year before elections to decide control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress and 36 governorships.

"Yesterday the election was a shot across the bow to George Bush," said New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, head of the Democratic Senate campaign committee, who called the results "a clear repudiation of Bush" and the Republican agenda.

Republicans cautioned against reading too much into the results, saying the elections produced no signs of widespread anti-incumbent sentiment. Redistricting initiatives that could have hurt incumbents in Ohio and California went down to defeat and no governors' offices changed parties.

Americans do not join the CIA to commit torture. Yet that could be the result if a proposal advanced by Vice President Cheney becomes law.

When the abuses by U.S. servicemen and intelligence officers at Abu Ghraib surfaced last year, there was understandable outrage in this country and abroad. Internal investigations and congressional hearings revealed several causes of the abuse. One of the most important was confusion in the military and intelligence agencies as to what rules governed interrogations. A root cause of the confusion was the belief at the highest levels of the administration that the Geneva Conventions, which had governed our conduct for 60 years, were outmoded and should not constrain our treatment of prisoners. Regrettably, the career lawyers in the armed forces and the State Department who have guided our compliance with the Geneva Conventions for decades were cut out of these discussions.


In response, Sen. John McCain, himself a victim of brutal torture by the North Vietnamese, introduced an amendment to the 2006 Defense Appropriations Act that would, in essence, require all agencies of the U.S. government to comply with the Geneva Conventions and international law, which prohibit torture. Over strong administration objection, McCain's amendment passed 90 to 9. It will soon be considered by a conference committee with the House, which has no similar provision in its version of the bill. Enter the vice president.

Cheney and Porter Goss, director of the CIA, have proposed a modification of the McCain amendment that would permit the president to exempt the CIA from its strictures. McCain wisely rejected that proposal. So should the conferees.

If the administration's proposal passed, what would be the consequences? Why should we adhere to the Geneva Conventions when our terrorist enemies do not?

The answers are simple. First, we have long championed the Geneva Conventions because we want our citizens treated humanely when they are captured. Second, morally it is the right thing to do. If this amendment passes, what weight will our complaints have when other governments use their intelligence services to torture Americans?

WASHINGTON -- At the CIA's request, the Justice Department is weighing whether to open a criminal investigation into the leak of possibly classified information on secret prisons to The Washington Post.

A story the newspaper published on Nov. 2 touched on a number of sensitive national security issues, including the existence of secret CIA detention centers for suspected terrorists in Eastern European democrcies.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the issue deals with classified information, said the CIA's general counsel made the referral to the Justice Department shortly after the story appeared last week.

The department will decide whether to initiate a criminal investigation. The leak investigation into the disclosure of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity came about through the same referral procedure and led to a five-count indictment against the vice president's now former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby.

Post spokesman Eric Grant said Tuesday the newspaper had no comment.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sidestepped questions about possible secret prisons, saying the United States was in a "different kind of war" and had an obligation to defend itself.

"We, our allies, others who have experienced attacks, have to find a way to protect our people," said Rice, who would not confirm the existence of secret prisons.

Democrat Timothy M. Kaine's quick and convincing victory in the Virginia Governor's race Tuesday night gave his party a huge morale edge and fund-raising boost heading into next year's midterm congressional elections, and perhaps a lesson for the next Presidential race of '08: Democrats can talk about religion too.

The first ad that Kaine bought in his quest for the statehouse in Richmond was on a Christian radio station in rural Virginia. His first television spot of the fall told about his experience with Catholic missionaries, when he took a one-year leave from Harvard Law School to service as principal of a vocational school teaching carpentry and welding to teenagers in Honduras. Red, white and blue "Catholics for Kaine" bumper stickers proliferated in the Old Dominion. David Eichenbaum, Kaine's media strategist, tells TIME that he sees a recipe for national Democrats in Kaine's victory in Virginia, a GOP stronghold that President Bush won by 8 points in 2000 and 9 points in 2004. "Talking about his faith gave people a comfort level that he wasn't a big, scary liberal," Eichenbaum said. "We're trying to show voters that God isn't a Republican." Kaine echoed that in his acceptance speech: "We proved that faith in God is a value for all, and that we can all share, regardless of our partisan label."

It was a discouraging night for the White House. The other marquee contest was for Governor of New Jersey, where Sen. Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat, drubbed Republican benefits-management executive Doug Forrester. Across the Hudson, Republican Michael Bloomberg was easily reelected Mayor of New York City in a blowout of Democrat Fernando Ferrer.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MADRE, An International Women's Human Rights Organization

August 2, 2005-New York-MADRE, an international women's human rights organization, strongly condemns the appointment yesterday of John Bolton, an extremist who has made a career of undermining the United Nations, to the position of US Ambassador to the UN. The underhanded appointment, made while the Senate was in recess, was a fitting reflection of the impatience for public scrutiny or dissent that has characterized both the Bush presidency and Bolton's career. Bolton's appointment is another step to the extreme right, taken with no regard for public opinion in the US or the world.

As US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton poses an alarming threat to human rights around the world. He is contemptuous of international law and unapologetically supportive of the use of force-pre-emptive or otherwise-by the United States. The UN Charter defines the organization's most fundamental purpose as saving "succeeding generations from the scourge of war." But Bolton has argued for the US to have unrestricted "discretion in using force to advance its national interests," and has expressed support for using military force to overthrow the governments of North Korea, Syria, and Iran. He also opposes any limits on civilian access to weapons and has fought against restrictions on small-arms trade, landmines, biological weapons, child soldiers, and nuclear-weapons testing.

For non-governmental organizations like MADRE, Bolton's appointment will mean an escalated struggle to make the voices of community groups heard at the UN. Bolton has said, "we do not support the promotion of international advocacy activity by international or non-governmental organizations, particularly when those political or policy views advocated are not consistent with the views of all member states."

Emilia DiSanto, chief investigator for committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), arrived at her suburban Virginia home after work Wednesday about 6:30 p.m. As she was unloading belongings from her car, a 6-foot-1-inch white man dressed in black struck her repeatedly with an unidentified object believed to be a baseball bat.

After she screamed to her family inside the house, the assailant fled. DiSanto was transported to Inova Fair Oaks Hospital, where she was treated for significant upper-body injuries. Nine staples were needed to close her head wound.

DiSanto, who declined to comment, has reported back to work.

The female hormone oestrogen could give women the edge when it comes to tasks such as safe driving, say researchers.
Tests showed attention span and ability to learn rules were far better among women than men.

The Bradford University scientists told a hormone conference in London how tasks requiring mental flexibility favour women over men.

A woman's oestrogen levels may prime the part of the brain involved in such skills - the frontal lobe - they said.

They asked 43 men and women aged 18-35 to perform a battery of neuropsychological tests that assessed skills such as spatial recognition memory, rule learning, attention, planning and motor control.

The women were far better at being able to shift their attention from one stimulus to another, making it easier for them to perform everyday actions like driving and reading.

This might explain why girls find it easier than boys to concentrate at school and why women are more careful drivers, the researchers hypothesise.

WASHINGTON -- A year and a half ago, the US Supreme Court delivered a blunt message to the White House: War is not a blank check entitling the president to violate the constitutional liberties of American citizens.

The decision resulted in the release of Yasser Hamdi, a dual US and Saudi citizen, who had been held indefinitely in a military prison without charge or access to a lawyer.

On Monday, the nation's highest court set the stage for the next major constitutional showdown over President Bush's ongoing war on terror. The issue is whether the president has the authority to put AlQaidaa suspects on trial before military commissions at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In agreeing to take up the appeal of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the high court will examine government efforts to empanel a military-run war-crimes tribunal to weigh charges against Mr. Hamdan and three other terror suspects.

Such tribunals mark the first time in a half-century that the US government is relying on ad hoc military commissions to mete out justice rather than civil federal courts or the military justice system.

The Hamdan case raises fundamental issues, including the scope of the president's power to detain and place on trial any foreign national deemed to be an enemy combatant. In urging the high court to take up the Hamdan case immediately, Hamdan's lawyer, Neal Katyal, drew upon a lesson from American history. He compared the Hamdan dispute to landmark Supreme Court case upholding the supremacy of civilian courts over an effort by President Abraham Lincoln to rely on military tribunals to quickly and efficiently prosecute suspected supporters of the Confederacy.

"At issue is whether the president can supersede established civilian and military judicial systems," Mr. Katyal says in his brief. "No graver question was ever considered by this court, nor one which more nearly concerns the rights of the whole people," he writes, quoting Ex Parte Milligan, an 1866 Supreme Court decision.

The scientists who advocate intelligent design explained that the complexity of biological organisms and the "purposeful arrangement of parts" are evidence that there is a designer. They said their theory is not religious because they are not claiming the designer is God, since that is untestable.

Opportunity is there for the Democrats: Capitalizing on George W. Bush's troubles, the party has a 12-point advantage over the Republicans in trust to handle the nation's main problems, and it leads in nine of 10 individual issues, with some huge gains from three years ago. In the tenth -- Bush's trademark, handling terrorism -- the Democrats run even.

Sampling, data collection and tabulation for this poll were done by TNS.

Indeed, 55 percent of Americans in this ABC News/Washington Post poll say they'd like to see the Democrats take control of Congress in 2006. And if the election were today, registered voters would favor the Democrat in their congressional district by 52-37 percent.

That 15-point margin is numerically the biggest for the Democrats since an ABC/Post poll in September 1984 (they ultimately lost 14 seats), although about the same as a 14-point Democratic lead in one poll in 1996 (when they gained nine).

Which Party Do You Trust to Handle... 
Democrats Republicans 
Economy   56%   34% 
Social Security   56   29 
Education   55   32 
Health Care   54   29 
Taxes   48   38 
Iraq   48   37 
Federal Budget   48   34 
Gas Prices   47   26 
Terrorism   42   42 
Ethics   42   36 


So does their edge in attributes: They hold a 10-point lead, 50-40 percent, as the
 party that "better represents your personal values."

Party Attributes 
Democrats Republicans 
Is more open to ideas of political moderates   60%   24% 
Is more concerned with needs of people like you   56   33 
Better represents your values   50   40 
Has stronger leaders   35   51

He[President Bush] will be away from Washington for much of the rest of the month. After returning from a trip to South America, Mr. Bush will leave for a week in Asia and then will spend Thanksgiving at his ranch in Texas.

When he returns, allies of the White House said, he hopes to regain traction by moving smoothly ahead with Judge Alito's nomination, shifting the focus to the policies he intends to emphasize next year, including reduced government spending and an overhaul of the immigration and border control systems, and making a more effective case for why victory in Iraq is vital.

Tomorrow, in its print edition, The New York Times starts to answer the question, with reporter Douglas Jehl disclosing the contents of a newly declassified memo apparently passed to him by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

It shows that an al-Qaeda official held by the Americans was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the basis for its claims that Iraq trained al-Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to this Defense Intelligence Agency document from February 2002.

It declared that it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, "was intentionally misleading the debriefers" in making claims about Iraqi support for al-Qaeda's work with illicit weapons, Jehl reports.

"The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility," Jehl writes. "Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as 'credible' evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

"Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that 'we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's opinions on abortion, discrimination and other contentious issues are the work of a mainstream jurist, not the ideologue depicted by critics, the White House argues in a voluminous briefing book meant for Republican senators.

Alito's dissent in a 1991 abortion ruling showed "concern for the safety of women," the material says. By approving a requirement for spousal notification, he "reflected the position advanced by the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania."

A 1996 dissent in a sex discrimination case in which Alito sided with the employer shows he "simply questioned the wisdom of a 'blanket rule'" on dismissing such complaints before trial, in the White House view.

The Associated Press-Ipsos poll on public attitudes about President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, is based on telephone interviews with 1,006 adults from all states except Alaska and Hawaii and areas heavily damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. Because of hurricane damage, Ipsos did not try to interview respondents in Louisiana, southern Mississippi and central and southern Florida.

The interviews in the rest of the country were conducted Oct. 31-Nov. 2 by Ipsos, an international polling firm.

Results were weighted to represent the population by demographic factors such as age, sex, region, race and income.

No more than one time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than 3 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all Americans were polled.

There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions. Results may not total 100 percent because of rounding.

1. As you may know, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring,
 and President Bush has nominated Samuel Alito to replace her. Is your opinion of 
Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito favorable, unfavorable, or haven't you heard
 enough about Samuel Alito yet to have an opinion?

_Favorable, 20 percent _ Miers-19, Roberts-25

_Unfavorable, 14 percent _ Miers, 13, Roberts 14

_Haven't heard enough to yet have an opinion, 64 percent _ Miers-67, Roberts-59

_Not sure, 2 percent _ Miers-1, Robert-2

2. Do you think the U.S. Senate should or should not vote to confirm Harriet Miers
 as a Supreme Court justice? Do you feel strongly or not strongly about that?

Total should vote to confirm _ 38 percent _ Miers-41, Roberts-47

_Feel strongly, 22 percent _ Miers-19, Roberts-36

_Do not feel strongly, 16 percent, Miers-22, Roberts-11

Total should not vote to confirm _ 22 percent, Miers-27, Roberts-24

_Feel strongly, 13 percent _ Miers-13, Roberts-16

_Do not feel strongly, 9 percent _ Miers-14, Roberts-8

Not sure, 40 percent _ Miers-32, Roberts-29

Hopes of uniting the hemisphere from Canada to Chile within a common free trade zone were stalled until further notice as the Americas Summit wrapped up Saturday without even a blueprint for advancing the proposal.

President George Bush attended the two-day summit in Mar Del Plata, Argentina hoping to burnish relations between the United States and the region, as well as inject new vigor into the decade-old proposal to create the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

But the resort area just south of Buenos Aires quickly became a magnet for anti-U.S. demonstrators led by Venezuela's populist leader Hugo Chavez and became the scene of fiery violence as some protestors torched stores and battled with riot police.

Chavez, who has repeatedly accused Bush of wanting to invade his oil-rich nation, triumphantly gathered with local icons, such as famed soccer player Diego Maradona, and declared the deal dead at a peacefully stadium rally that attracted more than 20,000 protestors.

"Every one of us has brought a shovel, because Mar del Plata is going to be the tomb of F.T.A.A.," Mr. Chavez told a crowd carrying banners calling Bush a "fascist," "child-killer" and "genocidal-beast," the New York Times reported.

"F.T.A.A. is dead, and we, the people of the Americans, are the ones who buried it."

Chavez believes Latin American and Caribbean nations should band together and reject U.S. style capitalism, instead adopting more socialist inspired ideals.

White House officials will be required to attend briefings next week on ethics and the handling of classified information after the indictment last week of a senior official in the CIA leak probe, according to a memo released on Saturday.

The White House counsel's office will conduct a series of presentations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for those aides with security clearances.

"Your attendance at one of these sessions is mandatory," said a memo to White House staff from White House counsel Harriet Miers.

The memo was released in Mar del Plata, where President George W. Bush was attending a 34-nation Summit of the Americas.

The briefings will provide a refresher course on general ethics rules, including "the rules governing the protection of classified information," the memo said.

The budget bill, the most ambitious effort to curb federal spending in eight years, was approved by a vote of 52 to 47. Five Republicans opposed the measure; two Democrats voted for it.

Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said, "This bill is a reflection of the Republican Congress's commitment to pursue a path of fiscal responsibility."

It will, Mr. Gregg said, reduce the deficit and save roughly $35 billion over the next five years.

Democrats said the savings would disappear and the deficit would increase if Republicans carried out their plan to cut taxes by $70 billion later this year.

The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, called the budget "an immoral document" that "harms vulnerable Americans to provide another round of large tax breaks for the elite of this country, special interests and multimillionaires."

Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, told a Congressional committee on Thursday that lawmakers should not extend President Bush's tax cuts if they could not make up for the lost revenue.

The Republican senators who voted against the budget bill were Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. The Democrats voting for the bill were Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

The Senate Democratic leadership over the course of the last several days has had discussions among themselves, along with senior congressional staff, about the possibility of pressing the Senate to appoint a special Senate select committee to investigate both the misuse of pre-war intelligence by the Bush administration to make the case to go to war with Iraq, as well as the Plame affair, according to at least three people who have been involved in those discussions.

"There is just a resolve on this issue that is not going to go away," said one person involved in the leadership discussions. One source said that although the discussions are preliminary, they were contemplating such a select committee in the tradition of the Senate Watergate committee, the Church committee-- which investigated abuses of the CIA and other intelligence agencies in the 1970s, or the joint congressional Iran-contra committees: "There is a historical model as to how this might be done."

Then there is CBS' Bob Fuss' assertion that, "There has not been a closed session in 25 years." Um..Wrong!

On 8, Jan. 1999, the Senate had a closed session to discuss the impeachment process of one William Jefferson Clinton. There were six sessions about the fellated fellow. Of course there have been a few other instances in the last quarter century..But hey, I'm a semi-conductor engineer. My work depends on accuracy ;)

"In my administration, we will ask not only what is legal but what is right, not just what the lawyers allow but what the public deserves." - GW Bush Oct. 26, 2000