The Independent
28 December 2005
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
A daily dose of vitamin D could cut the risk of cancers of the breast, colon and ovary by up to a half, a 40-year review of research has found. The evidence for the protective effect of the "sunshine vitamin" is so overwhelming that urgent action must be taken by public health authorities to boost blood levels, say cancer specialists.
A growing body of evidence in recent years has shown that lack of vitamin D may have lethal effects. Heart disease, lung disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis are among the conditions in which it is believed to play a vital role. The vitamin is also essential for bone health and protects against rickets in children and osteoporosis in the elderly.
Vitamin D is made by the action of sunlight on the skin, which accounts for 90 per cent of the body's supply. But the increasing use of sunscreens and the reduced time spent outdoors, especially by children, has contributed to what many scientists believe is an increasing problem of vitamin D deficiency.
After assessing almost every scientific paper published on the link between vitamin D and cancer since the 1960s, US scientists say that a daily dose of 1,000 international units (25 micrograms) is needed to maintain health. " The high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency combined with the discovery of increased risks of certain types of cancer in those who are deficient, suggest that vitamin D deficiency may account for several thousand premature deaths from colon, breast, ovarian and other cancers annually," they say in the online version of the American Journal of Public Health.
The dose they propose of 1,000IU a day is two-and-a-half times the current recommended level in the US. In the UK, there is no official recommended dose but grey skies and short days from October to March mean 60 per cent of the population has inadequate blood levels by the end of winter.
The UK Food Standards Agency maintains that most people should be able to get all the vitamin D they need from their diet and "by getting a little sun". But the vitamin can only be stored in the body for 60 days.
High rates of heart disease in Scotland have been blamed on the weak sunlight and short summers in the north, leading to low levels of vitamin D. Differences in sunlight may also explain the higher rates of heart disease in England compared with southern Europe. Some experts believe the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet may have as much to do with the sun there as with the regional food.
Countries around the world have begun to modify their warnings about the dangers of sunbathing, as a result of the growing research on vitamin D. The Association of Cancer Councils of Australia acknowledged this year for the first time that some exposure to the sun was healthy.
Australia is one of the world's sunniest countries and has among the highest rates of skin cancer. For three decades it has preached sun avoidance with its "slip, slap, slop" campaign to cover up and use sunscreen. But in a statement in March, the association said: "A balance is required between avoiding an increase in the risk of skin cancer and achieving enough ultraviolet radiation exposure to achieve adequate vitamin D levels." Bruce Armstrong, the professor of public health at Sydney University, said: " It is a revolution."
In the latest study, cancer specialists from the University of San Diego, California, led by Professor Cedric Garland, reviewed 63 scientific papers on the link between vitamin D and cancer published between 1966 and 2004. People living in the north-eastern US, where it is less sunny, and African Americans with darker skins were more likely to be deficient, researchers found. They also had higher cancer rates.
The researchers say their finding could explain why black Americans die sooner from cancer than whites, even after allowing for differences in income and access to care.
Professor Garland said: "A preponderance of evidence from the best observational studies... has led to the conclusion that public health action is needed. Primary prevention of these cancers has been largely neglected, but we now have proof that the incidence of colon, breast and ovarian cancer can be reduced dramatically by increasing the public's intake of vitamin D." Obtaining the necessary level of vitamin D from diet alone would be difficult and sun exposure carries a risk of triggering skin cancer. "The easiest and most reliable way of getting the appropriate amount is from food and a daily supplement," they say.
The cost of a vitamin D supplement is about 4p a day. The UK Food Standards Agency said that taking Vitamin D supplements of up to 1,000IU was " unlikely to cause harm".
What it can do
Heart disease
Vitamin D works by lowering insulin resistance, which is one of the major factors leading to heart disease.
Lung disease
Lung tissue undergoes repair and "remodelling" in life and, since vitamin D influences the growth of a variety of cell types, it may play a role in this lung repair process.
Cancers (breast, colon, ovary, prostate)
Vitamin D is believed to play an important role in regulating the production of cells, a control that is missing in cancer. It has a protective effect against certain cancers by preventing overproduction of cells.
Diabetes
In type 1 diabetes the immune system destroys its own cells. Vitamin D is believed to act as an immunosuppressant. Researchers believe it may prevent an overly aggressive response from the immune system.
High blood pressure
Vitamin D is used by the parathyroid glands that sit on the thyroid gland in the neck. These secrete a hormone that regulates the body's calcium levels. Calcium, in turn, helps to regulate blood pressure, although the mechanism is not yet completely understood.
Schizophrenia
The chance of developing schizophrenia could be linked to how sunny it was in the months before birth. A lack of sunlight can lead to vitamin D deficiency, which scientists believe could alter the growth of a child's brain in the womb.
Multiple sclerosis
Lack of vitamin D leads to limited production of 1.25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, the hormonal form of vitamin D3 which regulates the immune system, creating a risk for MS.
Rickets and osteoporosis
The vitamin strengthens bones, protecting against childhood rickets and osteoporosis in the elderly.
A daily dose of vitamin D could cut the risk of cancers of the breast, colon and ovary by up to a half, a 40-year review of research has found. The evidence for the protective effect of the "sunshine vitamin" is so overwhelming that urgent action must be taken by public health authorities to boost blood levels, say cancer specialists.
A growing body of evidence in recent years has shown that lack of vitamin D may have lethal effects. Heart disease, lung disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis are among the conditions in which it is believed to play a vital role. The vitamin is also essential for bone health and protects against rickets in children and osteoporosis in the elderly.
Vitamin D is made by the action of sunlight on the skin, which accounts for 90 per cent of the body's supply. But the increasing use of sunscreens and the reduced time spent outdoors, especially by children, has contributed to what many scientists believe is an increasing problem of vitamin D deficiency.
After assessing almost every scientific paper published on the link between vitamin D and cancer since the 1960s, US scientists say that a daily dose of 1,000 international units (25 micrograms) is needed to maintain health. " The high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency combined with the discovery of increased risks of certain types of cancer in those who are deficient, suggest that vitamin D deficiency may account for several thousand premature deaths from colon, breast, ovarian and other cancers annually," they say in the online version of the American Journal of Public Health.
The dose they propose of 1,000IU a day is two-and-a-half times the current recommended level in the US. In the UK, there is no official recommended dose but grey skies and short days from October to March mean 60 per cent of the population has inadequate blood levels by the end of winter.
The UK Food Standards Agency maintains that most people should be able to get all the vitamin D they need from their diet and "by getting a little sun". But the vitamin can only be stored in the body for 60 days.
High rates of heart disease in Scotland have been blamed on the weak sunlight and short summers in the north, leading to low levels of vitamin D. Differences in sunlight may also explain the higher rates of heart disease in England compared with southern Europe. Some experts believe the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet may have as much to do with the sun there as with the regional food.
Countries around the world have begun to modify their warnings about the dangers of sunbathing, as a result of the growing research on vitamin D. The Association of Cancer Councils of Australia acknowledged this year for the first time that some exposure to the sun was healthy.
Australia is one of the world's sunniest countries and has among the highest rates of skin cancer. For three decades it has preached sun avoidance with its "slip, slap, slop" campaign to cover up and use sunscreen. But in a statement in March, the association said: "A balance is required between avoiding an increase in the risk of skin cancer and achieving enough ultraviolet radiation exposure to achieve adequate vitamin D levels." Bruce Armstrong, the professor of public health at Sydney University, said: " It is a revolution."
In the latest study, cancer specialists from the University of San Diego, California, led by Professor Cedric Garland, reviewed 63 scientific papers on the link between vitamin D and cancer published between 1966 and 2004. People living in the north-eastern US, where it is less sunny, and African Americans with darker skins were more likely to be deficient, researchers found. They also had higher cancer rates.
The researchers say their finding could explain why black Americans die sooner from cancer than whites, even after allowing for differences in income and access to care.
Professor Garland said: "A preponderance of evidence from the best observational studies... has led to the conclusion that public health action is needed. Primary prevention of these cancers has been largely neglected, but we now have proof that the incidence of colon, breast and ovarian cancer can be reduced dramatically by increasing the public's intake of vitamin D." Obtaining the necessary level of vitamin D from diet alone would be difficult and sun exposure carries a risk of triggering skin cancer. "The easiest and most reliable way of getting the appropriate amount is from food and a daily supplement," they say.
The cost of a vitamin D supplement is about 4p a day. The UK Food Standards Agency said that taking Vitamin D supplements of up to 1,000IU was " unlikely to cause harm".
What it can do
Heart disease
Vitamin D works by lowering insulin resistance, which is one of the major factors leading to heart disease.
Lung disease
Lung tissue undergoes repair and "remodelling" in life and, since vitamin D influences the growth of a variety of cell types, it may play a role in this lung repair process.
Cancers (breast, colon, ovary, prostate)
Vitamin D is believed to play an important role in regulating the production of cells, a control that is missing in cancer. It has a protective effect against certain cancers by preventing overproduction of cells.
Diabetes
In type 1 diabetes the immune system destroys its own cells. Vitamin D is believed to act as an immunosuppressant. Researchers believe it may prevent an overly aggressive response from the immune system.
High blood pressure
Vitamin D is used by the parathyroid glands that sit on the thyroid gland in the neck. These secrete a hormone that regulates the body's calcium levels. Calcium, in turn, helps to regulate blood pressure, although the mechanism is not yet completely understood.
Schizophrenia
The chance of developing schizophrenia could be linked to how sunny it was in the months before birth. A lack of sunlight can lead to vitamin D deficiency, which scientists believe could alter the growth of a child's brain in the womb.
Multiple sclerosis
Lack of vitamin D leads to limited production of 1.25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, the hormonal form of vitamin D3 which regulates the immune system, creating a risk for MS.
Rickets and osteoporosis
The vitamin strengthens bones, protecting against childhood rickets and osteoporosis in the elderly.
Markets
Latest Hurricane Info: [Link Me to NOAA]
[See The Latest Computer Models]
[DHL WORLD CLOCK]
Miami, FL
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Monday, December 26, 2005
ABC Bids Farewell to Monday Night Football
Dec 26, 8:23 AM (ET)
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) - If you were ready for some football, it was the place to be for 35 seasons on Monday nights. Tonight, the NFL bids farewell to ABC, with the New England Patriots playing the New York Jets.
The second longest-running series on network TV shifts to ESPN beginning next season.
The series began in 1970, with Keith Jackson handling the play-by-play.
ESPN is paying about $1.1 billion over eight seasons for the Monday night contract.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) - If you were ready for some football, it was the place to be for 35 seasons on Monday nights. Tonight, the NFL bids farewell to ABC, with the New England Patriots playing the New York Jets.
The second longest-running series on network TV shifts to ESPN beginning next season.
The series began in 1970, with Keith Jackson handling the play-by-play.
ESPN is paying about $1.1 billion over eight seasons for the Monday night contract.
Some more wacky stories...
When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at its intend-
ed victim during a holdup in Long Beach, California, would
be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire
wonder: He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger
again. This time it worked.
************************************************************
The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat
cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submit-
ted a claim to his insurance company. The company, suspect-
ing negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for
himself. He tried the machine out and lost a finger also.
The chef's claim was approved.
************************************************************
A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for
his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his
vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably,
he shot her.
************************************************************
After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean
bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed
to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not
wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a
nearby bus-stop and offered everyone waiting there a free
ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital,
telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and
prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered
for 3 days.
ed victim during a holdup in Long Beach, California, would
be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire
wonder: He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger
again. This time it worked.
************************************************************
The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat
cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submit-
ted a claim to his insurance company. The company, suspect-
ing negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for
himself. He tried the machine out and lost a finger also.
The chef's claim was approved.
************************************************************
A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for
his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his
vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably,
he shot her.
************************************************************
After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean
bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed
to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not
wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a
nearby bus-stop and offered everyone waiting there a free
ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital,
telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and
prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered
for 3 days.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Roundup of wacky stories
The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed Shawn Gementera, a
California man who pleaded guilty to mail theft, to be
sentenced to spend a day outside a post office wearing a sign
stating: “I stole mail. This is my punishment.”
A 22-year-old named Ronald MacDonald was charged with
stealing money from a Wendy where he worked in
New Hampshire.
Christina Destorges, a 15-year-old Canadian girl with a
peanut allergy, died after kissing her boyfriend, who had
just eaten a peanut snack.
In a study by The Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Dublin,
Ireland, researchers concluded fatter rear ends are causing
drug injections to miss their mark, the buttock muscle, and
longer needles may be required.
From his deathbed, rocker Johnny Ramone
advocated for the nomination of Cat Stevens to the Rock ‘n’
Roll Hall of Fame. A year and half later, Stevens’ name
appeared on the ballot, though he did not win induction.
A Pennsylvania farmer painted his cows, horses and dog
bright orange so hunters wouldn’t mistake them for deer.
California man who pleaded guilty to mail theft, to be
sentenced to spend a day outside a post office wearing a sign
stating: “I stole mail. This is my punishment.”
A 22-year-old named Ronald MacDonald was charged with
stealing money from a Wendy where he worked in
New Hampshire.
Christina Destorges, a 15-year-old Canadian girl with a
peanut allergy, died after kissing her boyfriend, who had
just eaten a peanut snack.
In a study by The Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Dublin,
Ireland, researchers concluded fatter rear ends are causing
drug injections to miss their mark, the buttock muscle, and
longer needles may be required.
From his deathbed, rocker Johnny Ramone
advocated for the nomination of Cat Stevens to the Rock ‘n’
Roll Hall of Fame. A year and half later, Stevens’ name
appeared on the ballot, though he did not win induction.
A Pennsylvania farmer painted his cows, horses and dog
bright orange so hunters wouldn’t mistake them for deer.
Headlines that caught my attention and my annoying comments
MERRY CHRISTMAS Y'ALL
CELEBRITIES REFUSE TO ENTERTAIN TROOPS...
They just love the military. We need another Bob Hope
JOHNNY CASH ON CHENEY'S I-POD...
The VP is hip. I don't even have an I-pod
Feds Monitor Muslims Without Warrants; Search For Nukes...
Awesome. Just don't tell the whole world.
Thwarted al-Qaida plot to kill Bush reported...
They got nothing, we kick ass.
China recruiting U.S. IT grads...
Scary.
Russia deploys new set of strategic nuclear missiles...
Putin is a scary dude. Ex-KGB...I wouldn't trust him
Christmas Eve sales slower than predicted
Predicted by who? Do they have a crystal ball?
Moderate Quake Shakes Pakistan
See, not only us infidels get hit.
Wait a sec for leap into 2006
Oh my god! The Earth is slowing down. Bush better do something about it.
Beware, Barbie! Kids Find Torturing Fun
Kids will be kids.
CHOLESTEROL DRUG MAY BE A LOT MORE
Phenomenal. We may never die. Now we just gotta fix Social Security.
Lawyer demands probe into Saddam torture claim
Why is this even news?
Bush, GOP Downsize Ambitions for 2006
Good. He's got too much in his plate already. Stick to protecting the country
which is his main and most important responsibility. Where in the constitution does it say that the President is responsible for all this other crap.
Vineyard in a box is must-have gift for Italian townies
I want one!!
CELEBRITIES REFUSE TO ENTERTAIN TROOPS...
They just love the military. We need another Bob Hope
JOHNNY CASH ON CHENEY'S I-POD...
The VP is hip. I don't even have an I-pod
Feds Monitor Muslims Without Warrants; Search For Nukes...
Awesome. Just don't tell the whole world.
Thwarted al-Qaida plot to kill Bush reported...
They got nothing, we kick ass.
China recruiting U.S. IT grads...
Scary.
Russia deploys new set of strategic nuclear missiles...
Putin is a scary dude. Ex-KGB...I wouldn't trust him
Christmas Eve sales slower than predicted
Predicted by who? Do they have a crystal ball?
Moderate Quake Shakes Pakistan
See, not only us infidels get hit.
Wait a sec for leap into 2006
Oh my god! The Earth is slowing down. Bush better do something about it.
Beware, Barbie! Kids Find Torturing Fun
Kids will be kids.
CHOLESTEROL DRUG MAY BE A LOT MORE
Phenomenal. We may never die. Now we just gotta fix Social Security.
Lawyer demands probe into Saddam torture claim
Why is this even news?
Bush, GOP Downsize Ambitions for 2006
Good. He's got too much in his plate already. Stick to protecting the country
which is his main and most important responsibility. Where in the constitution does it say that the President is responsible for all this other crap.
Vineyard in a box is must-have gift for Italian townies
I want one!!
Merry Christmas
May your holidays be filled with peace and happiness in the company of your loved ones, and lets not forget about our brave troops defending our freedom in all parts of the world.
China and Cuba explore socialist development
Luo Gan (L), member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, shakes hands with Cuban leader Fidel Castro during his visit in Havana, Dec. 20, 2005. Luo began his goodwill visit to Cuba Sunday afternoon at the invitation of the Communist Party of Cuba.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Fidel Castro Says Bush 'Very Much a Fool'
Dec 23, 9:23 PM (ET)
By ANNE-MARIE GARCIA
(AP) Cuban President Fidel Castro speaks during a Session of the Cuban Parliament, in the Palace of...
Full Image
HAVANA (AP) - Fidel Castro said Friday that the Bush administration was wrong to prohibit Cuba from sending a team to next year's World Baseball Classic.
"He is very much a fool," the Cuban president said of Bush. "He doesn't know who the Cuban baseball players are, or that they are Olympic and world champions. If he knew, he would know something about this country's government."
Castro mentioned the ongoing dispute during the second day of regular sessions of the island's National Assembly.
The U.S. Treasury Department last week rejected the application for Cuba to play in the 16-team tournament scheduled for March 3-20, evidently because of concerns that Castro's government could enjoy financial gain by participating.
Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association, which are organizing the tournament, reapplied Thursday to the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. OFAC's permission is required under U.S. laws and regulations governing transactions with Cuba, which has been under an American trade and financial embargo for more than four decades.
In an attempt to eliminate a major concern of the U.S. government, the Cuban Baseball Federation announced Thursday night that any money gained by the national team would be donated to Hurricane Katrina victims.
Cuban baseball "would be willing for the money associated with participation in the classic to go to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans," said the statement read on state television by baseball federation president Carlos Rodriguez.
Cuba is scheduled to play first-round games in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and would remain in San Juan if it advances to the second round.
Antonio Munoz, a businessman who agreed to pay millions of dollars to bring the games to Puerto Rico, thinks the Treasury Department will reverse its decision.
"All efforts are being made to get Cuba to come and participate and I think we will succeed," Munoz told The Associated Press by telephone from New York.
---
Associated Press writer Luis R. Varela in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report
By ANNE-MARIE GARCIA
(AP) Cuban President Fidel Castro speaks during a Session of the Cuban Parliament, in the Palace of...
Full Image
HAVANA (AP) - Fidel Castro said Friday that the Bush administration was wrong to prohibit Cuba from sending a team to next year's World Baseball Classic.
"He is very much a fool," the Cuban president said of Bush. "He doesn't know who the Cuban baseball players are, or that they are Olympic and world champions. If he knew, he would know something about this country's government."
Castro mentioned the ongoing dispute during the second day of regular sessions of the island's National Assembly.
The U.S. Treasury Department last week rejected the application for Cuba to play in the 16-team tournament scheduled for March 3-20, evidently because of concerns that Castro's government could enjoy financial gain by participating.
Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association, which are organizing the tournament, reapplied Thursday to the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. OFAC's permission is required under U.S. laws and regulations governing transactions with Cuba, which has been under an American trade and financial embargo for more than four decades.
In an attempt to eliminate a major concern of the U.S. government, the Cuban Baseball Federation announced Thursday night that any money gained by the national team would be donated to Hurricane Katrina victims.
Cuban baseball "would be willing for the money associated with participation in the classic to go to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans," said the statement read on state television by baseball federation president Carlos Rodriguez.
Cuba is scheduled to play first-round games in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and would remain in San Juan if it advances to the second round.
Antonio Munoz, a businessman who agreed to pay millions of dollars to bring the games to Puerto Rico, thinks the Treasury Department will reverse its decision.
"All efforts are being made to get Cuba to come and participate and I think we will succeed," Munoz told The Associated Press by telephone from New York.
---
Associated Press writer Luis R. Varela in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report
Little Christmas cheer in Cuba; Santa blacklisted
Sun Dec 18, 2005 12:10 PM ET
By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA (Reuters) - Eight years after Communist Cuba restored December 25 as a national holiday in a gesture to Pope John Paul II, there is not much Christmas spirit to show for it.
Christmas decorations are mostly to be found in the more expensive shops and tourist spots, and there is no Santa Claus waving at children on the street corner.
Santa, viewed as a symbol of capitalist consumer society, is banned from storefront displays and can only be seen in private homes.
Cubans have not taken to saying "Merry Christmas," which is not surprising since the atheist state had the holiday crossed off the calendar from 1969 to 1997.
Most use "Happy Holidays" as their greeting and tend to see New Year's Eve as a bigger seasonal holiday. That's when President Fidel Castro's government celebrates the anniversary of the revolution that brought him to power in 1959 and authorities put on street fairs with salsa music and cheap beer.
"Few people say 'Happy Christmas.' The young have no idea what it means," said Carmen Vallejo, a Catholic dissident who works with cancer-stricken children.
Cuba did away with the Christmas holiday in 1969, when Castro's government was trying to bring in a record sugar harvest of 10 million tonnes and needed Cubans to work the extra day cutting cane.
It became a holiday again in 1997, as a show of goodwill before the late pope's historic visit to Cuba one month later. The Church got a temporary boost from the visit, but few of Cuba's 11 million people are practicing Catholics.
This year, for the first time, authorities have allowed a choir of 93 singers from 28 Christian churches to sing Christmas carols in Cuba's main cities and broadcast a performance on state-run television.
At the top of Old Havana's Obispo street there is a large Christmas tree lighting up the Floridita bar, where American author Ernest Hemingway drank frozen daiquiris.
'PEOPLE HAVE NO MONEY'
But residents say there are fewer lights than last year along the colonial-era shopping street, and fewer shoppers.
Stores in Central Havana's main shopping center, Carlos III, are stacked with Chinese goods, from bicycles and tennis rackets to skateboards and roller blades.
Plastic toys made in China are expensive for Cubans, with some selling for $20, more than a doctor's monthly salary.
"There are much fewer shoppers this year. Things are very bad," said Carlos, a parking attendant. "This is the worst year since I started here nine years ago. People have no money."
Many Cubans supplement meager wages with dollars sent by relatives in the United States. But the cash remittances lost 20 percent of their purchasing power after Cuba penalized the U.S. currency a year ago and revalued its own currency.
"There is no Christmas spirit, not even in the churches, because people have no prospects. In the current economic crisis they don't have enough to get by on, let alone celebrate," said Vallejo.
"Sometimes I feel God has turned his back on Cuba."
Cubans got some year-end relief from price cuts ordered by the government for some imported supermarket foods, including jam, raisins, tomato puree and canned tuna and sweet corn.
Christmas cheer or not, Cubans will enjoy a family dinner on Christmas Eve, a tradition akin to Thanksgiving consisting of roast pork and "congri" -- black beans mixed with rice.
© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA (Reuters) - Eight years after Communist Cuba restored December 25 as a national holiday in a gesture to Pope John Paul II, there is not much Christmas spirit to show for it.
Christmas decorations are mostly to be found in the more expensive shops and tourist spots, and there is no Santa Claus waving at children on the street corner.
Santa, viewed as a symbol of capitalist consumer society, is banned from storefront displays and can only be seen in private homes.
Cubans have not taken to saying "Merry Christmas," which is not surprising since the atheist state had the holiday crossed off the calendar from 1969 to 1997.
Most use "Happy Holidays" as their greeting and tend to see New Year's Eve as a bigger seasonal holiday. That's when President Fidel Castro's government celebrates the anniversary of the revolution that brought him to power in 1959 and authorities put on street fairs with salsa music and cheap beer.
"Few people say 'Happy Christmas.' The young have no idea what it means," said Carmen Vallejo, a Catholic dissident who works with cancer-stricken children.
Cuba did away with the Christmas holiday in 1969, when Castro's government was trying to bring in a record sugar harvest of 10 million tonnes and needed Cubans to work the extra day cutting cane.
It became a holiday again in 1997, as a show of goodwill before the late pope's historic visit to Cuba one month later. The Church got a temporary boost from the visit, but few of Cuba's 11 million people are practicing Catholics.
This year, for the first time, authorities have allowed a choir of 93 singers from 28 Christian churches to sing Christmas carols in Cuba's main cities and broadcast a performance on state-run television.
At the top of Old Havana's Obispo street there is a large Christmas tree lighting up the Floridita bar, where American author Ernest Hemingway drank frozen daiquiris.
'PEOPLE HAVE NO MONEY'
But residents say there are fewer lights than last year along the colonial-era shopping street, and fewer shoppers.
Stores in Central Havana's main shopping center, Carlos III, are stacked with Chinese goods, from bicycles and tennis rackets to skateboards and roller blades.
Plastic toys made in China are expensive for Cubans, with some selling for $20, more than a doctor's monthly salary.
"There are much fewer shoppers this year. Things are very bad," said Carlos, a parking attendant. "This is the worst year since I started here nine years ago. People have no money."
Many Cubans supplement meager wages with dollars sent by relatives in the United States. But the cash remittances lost 20 percent of their purchasing power after Cuba penalized the U.S. currency a year ago and revalued its own currency.
"There is no Christmas spirit, not even in the churches, because people have no prospects. In the current economic crisis they don't have enough to get by on, let alone celebrate," said Vallejo.
"Sometimes I feel God has turned his back on Cuba."
Cubans got some year-end relief from price cuts ordered by the government for some imported supermarket foods, including jam, raisins, tomato puree and canned tuna and sweet corn.
Christmas cheer or not, Cubans will enjoy a family dinner on Christmas Eve, a tradition akin to Thanksgiving consisting of roast pork and "congri" -- black beans mixed with rice.
© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
IN THE NEWS
Rumsfeld to cut troops in Iraq
What are the dems gonna wine about now?
FBI Monitoring Mosques For Nukes
Must we tell the enemy everything we are doing to foil them GEEEEZZZZZ?
Gee Abdula I guess we must find a new place to hide our dirty bomb.
Alito Defended Use of Domestic Wiretaps
OH MY GOD!!! What a bastard he is.
What are the dems gonna wine about now?
FBI Monitoring Mosques For Nukes
Must we tell the enemy everything we are doing to foil them GEEEEZZZZZ?
Gee Abdula I guess we must find a new place to hide our dirty bomb.
Alito Defended Use of Domestic Wiretaps
OH MY GOD!!! What a bastard he is.
Bolivia's Morales thanks Cuba for example
Posted on 20 Dec 2005 # Reuters
HAVANA: Bolivian President-elect socialist Evo Morales thanked Communist-run Cuba for providing an example for Latin America and vowed to ''liberate'' Bolivia and the region.
''Thank you very much Cuba for showing Latin America and the world how to live with dignity and sovereignty,'' Morales said in a phone interview for a Cuban television show on his Sunday victory at the polls.
''The hour to liberate Bolivia and Latin America has arrived,'' Morales, a former leader of coca farmers and the country's first Indian leader, said.
Morales is an outspoken admirer of Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who together are pushing an alternative Latin American integration plan to Washington's Free Trade Zone for the Americas.
Morales, who has called his Movement Towards Socialism a ''nightmare'' for Washington, is also an outspoken critic of Washington's trade plans for the region.
Randy Alonso, moderator of the state-run television show which reflects the views of the government, hailed Morales' victory as an important contribution to Latin American integration and a defeat for Washington.
''Evo's election represents a severe blow to neoliberalism and its backers and a defeat for Washington's aggressive neoconservative policies in the region,'' Alonso said.
Morales' leading rivals conceded defeat when results tabulated by local media Sunday showed him heading for a resounding victory, taking slightly more than 50 per cent of the vote.
With 33 per cent of the official results tallied yesterday, Morales led with 48 per cent to 35 per cent for Jorge Quiroga, a conservative former president. The official count will take several days but based on media calculations Morales' vote tally is expected to remain near 50 per cent.
If Morales gets more than half of the votes in the final result, he will avoid having to face a congressional vote between the two top vote-getters as required by Bolivian law.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
HAVANA: Bolivian President-elect socialist Evo Morales thanked Communist-run Cuba for providing an example for Latin America and vowed to ''liberate'' Bolivia and the region.
''Thank you very much Cuba for showing Latin America and the world how to live with dignity and sovereignty,'' Morales said in a phone interview for a Cuban television show on his Sunday victory at the polls.
''The hour to liberate Bolivia and Latin America has arrived,'' Morales, a former leader of coca farmers and the country's first Indian leader, said.
Morales is an outspoken admirer of Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who together are pushing an alternative Latin American integration plan to Washington's Free Trade Zone for the Americas.
Morales, who has called his Movement Towards Socialism a ''nightmare'' for Washington, is also an outspoken critic of Washington's trade plans for the region.
Randy Alonso, moderator of the state-run television show which reflects the views of the government, hailed Morales' victory as an important contribution to Latin American integration and a defeat for Washington.
''Evo's election represents a severe blow to neoliberalism and its backers and a defeat for Washington's aggressive neoconservative policies in the region,'' Alonso said.
Morales' leading rivals conceded defeat when results tabulated by local media Sunday showed him heading for a resounding victory, taking slightly more than 50 per cent of the vote.
With 33 per cent of the official results tallied yesterday, Morales led with 48 per cent to 35 per cent for Jorge Quiroga, a conservative former president. The official count will take several days but based on media calculations Morales' vote tally is expected to remain near 50 per cent.
If Morales gets more than half of the votes in the final result, he will avoid having to face a congressional vote between the two top vote-getters as required by Bolivian law.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Clinton Claimed Authority to Order No-Warrant Searches. Does anyone remember that?
December 20, 2005, 9:46 a.m.
In a little-remembered debate from 1994, the Clinton administration argued that the president has "inherent authority" to order physical searches — including break-ins at the homes of U.S. citizens — for foreign intelligence purposes without any warrant or permission from any outside body. Even after the administration ultimately agreed with Congress's decision to place the authority to pre-approve such searches in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, President Clinton still maintained that he had sufficient authority to order such searches on his own.
"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes," Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994, "and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General."
"It is important to understand," Gorelick continued, "that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."
Executive Order 12333, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981, provides for such warrantless searches directed against "a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power."
Reporting the day after Gorelick's testimony, the Washington Post's headline — on page A-19 — read, "Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches." The story began, "The Clinton administration, in a little-noticed facet of the debate on intelligence reforms, is seeking congressional authorization for U.S. spies to continue conducting clandestine searches at foreign embassies in Washington and other cities without a federal court order. The administration's quiet lobbying effort is aimed at modifying draft legislation that would require U.S. counterintelligence officials to get a court order before secretly snooping inside the homes or workplaces of suspected foreign agents or foreign powers."
In her testimony, Gorelick made clear that the president believed he had the power to order warrantless searches for the purpose of gathering intelligence, even if there was no reason to believe that the search might uncover evidence of a crime. "Intelligence is often long range, its exact targets are more difficult to identify, and its focus is less precise," Gorelick said. "Information gathering for policy making and prevention, rather than prosecution, are its primary focus."
The debate over warrantless searches came up after the case of CIA spy Aldrich Ames. Authorities had searched Ames's house without a warrant, and the Justice Department feared that Ames's lawyers would challenge the search in court. Meanwhile, Congress began discussing a measure under which the authorization for break-ins would be handled like the authorization for wiretaps, that is, by the FISA court. In her testimony, Gorelick signaled that the administration would go along a congressional decision to place such searches under the court — if, as she testified, it "does not restrict the president's ability to collect foreign intelligence necessary for the national security." In the end, Congress placed the searches under the FISA court, but the Clinton administration did not back down from its contention that the president had the authority to act when necessary.
— Byron York, NR's White House correspondent, is the author of The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They'll Try Even Harder Next Time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200512200946.asp
FLASHBACK: CLINTON, CARTER SEARCH 'N SURVEILLANCE WITHOUT COURT ORDER
Bill Clinton Signed Executive Order that allowed Attorney General to do searches without court approval
Clinton, February 9, 1995: "The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order"
WASH POST, July 15, 1994, "Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches": Extend not only to searches of the homes of U.S. citizens but also -- in the delicate words of a Justice Department official -- to "places where you wouldn't find or would be unlikely to find information involving a U.S. citizen... would allow the government to use classified electronic surveillance techniques, such as infrared sensors to observe people inside their homes, without a court order."
Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, the Clinton administration believes the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes."
Secret searches and wiretaps of Aldrich Ames's office and home in June and October 1993, both without a federal warrant.
Government officials decided in the Ames case that no warrant was required because the searches were conducted for "foreign intelligence purposes," a goal of such vital national security interest that they said it justified extraordinary police powers.
Government lawyers have used this principle to justify other secret searches by U.S. authorities.
"The number of such secret searches conducted each year is classified..."
Jimmy Carter Signed Executive Order on May 23, 1979: "Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order."
END
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release February 9, 1995
EXECUTIVE ORDER 12949
- - - - - - -
FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE PHYSICAL SEARCHES
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution
and the laws of the United States, including sections 302 and 303 of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("Act") (50 U.S.C. 1801,
et seq.), as amended by Public Law 103- 359, and in order to provide for
the authorization of physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes
as set forth in the Act, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) of the Act, the
Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a
court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of
up to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications
required by that section.
Sec. 2. Pursuant to section 302(b) of the Act, the Attorney
General is authorized to approve applications to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court under section 303 of the Act to obtain
orders for physical searches for the purpose of collecting foreign
intelligence information.
Sec. 3. Pursuant to section 303(a)(7) of the Act, the following
officials, each of whom is employed in the area of national security or
defense, is designated to make the certifications required by section
303(a)(7) of the Act in support of applications to conduct physical
searches:
(a) Secretary of State;
(b) Secretary of Defense;
(c) Director of Central Intelligence;
(d) Director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation;
(e) Deputy Secretary of State;
(f) Deputy Secretary of Defense; and
(g) Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.
None of the above officials, nor anyone officially acting in that
capacity, may exercise the authority to make the above certifications,
unless that official has been appointed by the President, by and with
the advice and consent of the Senate.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
THE WHITE HOUSE,
February 9, 1995.
---------------------------------
EXERCISE OF CERTAIN AUTHORITY RESPECTING ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE
EO 12139
23 May 1979
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the authority vested in me as President by Sections 102 and
104 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C.
1802 and 1804), in order to provide as set forth in that Act (this
chapter) for the authorization of electronic surveillance for
foreign intelligence purposes, it is hereby ordered as follows:
1-101. Pursuant to Section 102(a)(1) of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802(a)), the Attorney General
is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign
intelligence information without a court order, but only if the
Attorney General makes the certifications required by that Section.
1-102. Pursuant to Section 102(b) of the Foreign Intelligence Act
of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802(b)), the Attorney General is authorized to
approve applications to the court having jurisdiction under Section
103 of that Act (50 U.S.C. 1803) to obtain orders for electronic
surveillance for the purpose of obtaining foreign intelligence
information.
1-103. Pursuant to Section 104(a)(7) of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1804(a)(7)), the following
officials, each of whom is employed in the area of national
security or defense, is designated to make the certifications
required by Section 104(a)(7) of the Act in support of applications
to conduct electronic surveillance:
(a) Secretary of State.
(b) Secretary of Defense.
(c) Director of Central Intelligence.
(d) Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(e) Deputy Secretary of State.
(f) Deputy Secretary of Defense.
(g) Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.
None of the above officials, nor anyone officially acting in that
capacity, may exercise the authority to make the above
certifications, unless that official has been appointed by the
President with the advice and consent of the Senate.
1-104. Section 2-202 of Executive Order No. 12036 (set out under
section 401 of this title) is amended by inserting the following at
the end of that section: ''Any electronic surveillance, as defined
in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, shall be
conducted in accordance with that Act as well as this Order.''.
1-105. Section 2-203 of Executive Order No. 12036 (set out under
section 401 of this title) is amended by inserting the following at
the end of that section: ''Any monitoring which constitutes
electronic surveillance as defined in the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be conducted in accordance with that
Act as well as this Order.''.
Jimmy Carter.
In a little-remembered debate from 1994, the Clinton administration argued that the president has "inherent authority" to order physical searches — including break-ins at the homes of U.S. citizens — for foreign intelligence purposes without any warrant or permission from any outside body. Even after the administration ultimately agreed with Congress's decision to place the authority to pre-approve such searches in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, President Clinton still maintained that he had sufficient authority to order such searches on his own.
"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes," Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994, "and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General."
"It is important to understand," Gorelick continued, "that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."
Executive Order 12333, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981, provides for such warrantless searches directed against "a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power."
Reporting the day after Gorelick's testimony, the Washington Post's headline — on page A-19 — read, "Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches." The story began, "The Clinton administration, in a little-noticed facet of the debate on intelligence reforms, is seeking congressional authorization for U.S. spies to continue conducting clandestine searches at foreign embassies in Washington and other cities without a federal court order. The administration's quiet lobbying effort is aimed at modifying draft legislation that would require U.S. counterintelligence officials to get a court order before secretly snooping inside the homes or workplaces of suspected foreign agents or foreign powers."
In her testimony, Gorelick made clear that the president believed he had the power to order warrantless searches for the purpose of gathering intelligence, even if there was no reason to believe that the search might uncover evidence of a crime. "Intelligence is often long range, its exact targets are more difficult to identify, and its focus is less precise," Gorelick said. "Information gathering for policy making and prevention, rather than prosecution, are its primary focus."
The debate over warrantless searches came up after the case of CIA spy Aldrich Ames. Authorities had searched Ames's house without a warrant, and the Justice Department feared that Ames's lawyers would challenge the search in court. Meanwhile, Congress began discussing a measure under which the authorization for break-ins would be handled like the authorization for wiretaps, that is, by the FISA court. In her testimony, Gorelick signaled that the administration would go along a congressional decision to place such searches under the court — if, as she testified, it "does not restrict the president's ability to collect foreign intelligence necessary for the national security." In the end, Congress placed the searches under the FISA court, but the Clinton administration did not back down from its contention that the president had the authority to act when necessary.
— Byron York, NR's White House correspondent, is the author of The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They'll Try Even Harder Next Time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200512200946.asp
FLASHBACK: CLINTON, CARTER SEARCH 'N SURVEILLANCE WITHOUT COURT ORDER
Bill Clinton Signed Executive Order that allowed Attorney General to do searches without court approval
Clinton, February 9, 1995: "The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order"
WASH POST, July 15, 1994, "Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches": Extend not only to searches of the homes of U.S. citizens but also -- in the delicate words of a Justice Department official -- to "places where you wouldn't find or would be unlikely to find information involving a U.S. citizen... would allow the government to use classified electronic surveillance techniques, such as infrared sensors to observe people inside their homes, without a court order."
Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, the Clinton administration believes the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes."
Secret searches and wiretaps of Aldrich Ames's office and home in June and October 1993, both without a federal warrant.
Government officials decided in the Ames case that no warrant was required because the searches were conducted for "foreign intelligence purposes," a goal of such vital national security interest that they said it justified extraordinary police powers.
Government lawyers have used this principle to justify other secret searches by U.S. authorities.
"The number of such secret searches conducted each year is classified..."
Jimmy Carter Signed Executive Order on May 23, 1979: "Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order."
END
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release February 9, 1995
EXECUTIVE ORDER 12949
- - - - - - -
FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE PHYSICAL SEARCHES
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution
and the laws of the United States, including sections 302 and 303 of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("Act") (50 U.S.C. 1801,
et seq.), as amended by Public Law 103- 359, and in order to provide for
the authorization of physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes
as set forth in the Act, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) of the Act, the
Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a
court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of
up to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications
required by that section.
Sec. 2. Pursuant to section 302(b) of the Act, the Attorney
General is authorized to approve applications to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court under section 303 of the Act to obtain
orders for physical searches for the purpose of collecting foreign
intelligence information.
Sec. 3. Pursuant to section 303(a)(7) of the Act, the following
officials, each of whom is employed in the area of national security or
defense, is designated to make the certifications required by section
303(a)(7) of the Act in support of applications to conduct physical
searches:
(a) Secretary of State;
(b) Secretary of Defense;
(c) Director of Central Intelligence;
(d) Director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation;
(e) Deputy Secretary of State;
(f) Deputy Secretary of Defense; and
(g) Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.
None of the above officials, nor anyone officially acting in that
capacity, may exercise the authority to make the above certifications,
unless that official has been appointed by the President, by and with
the advice and consent of the Senate.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
THE WHITE HOUSE,
February 9, 1995.
---------------------------------
EXERCISE OF CERTAIN AUTHORITY RESPECTING ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE
EO 12139
23 May 1979
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the authority vested in me as President by Sections 102 and
104 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C.
1802 and 1804), in order to provide as set forth in that Act (this
chapter) for the authorization of electronic surveillance for
foreign intelligence purposes, it is hereby ordered as follows:
1-101. Pursuant to Section 102(a)(1) of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802(a)), the Attorney General
is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign
intelligence information without a court order, but only if the
Attorney General makes the certifications required by that Section.
1-102. Pursuant to Section 102(b) of the Foreign Intelligence Act
of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802(b)), the Attorney General is authorized to
approve applications to the court having jurisdiction under Section
103 of that Act (50 U.S.C. 1803) to obtain orders for electronic
surveillance for the purpose of obtaining foreign intelligence
information.
1-103. Pursuant to Section 104(a)(7) of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1804(a)(7)), the following
officials, each of whom is employed in the area of national
security or defense, is designated to make the certifications
required by Section 104(a)(7) of the Act in support of applications
to conduct electronic surveillance:
(a) Secretary of State.
(b) Secretary of Defense.
(c) Director of Central Intelligence.
(d) Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(e) Deputy Secretary of State.
(f) Deputy Secretary of Defense.
(g) Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.
None of the above officials, nor anyone officially acting in that
capacity, may exercise the authority to make the above
certifications, unless that official has been appointed by the
President with the advice and consent of the Senate.
1-104. Section 2-202 of Executive Order No. 12036 (set out under
section 401 of this title) is amended by inserting the following at
the end of that section: ''Any electronic surveillance, as defined
in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, shall be
conducted in accordance with that Act as well as this Order.''.
1-105. Section 2-203 of Executive Order No. 12036 (set out under
section 401 of this title) is amended by inserting the following at
the end of that section: ''Any monitoring which constitutes
electronic surveillance as defined in the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be conducted in accordance with that
Act as well as this Order.''.
Jimmy Carter.
A Tale of Two Rulers
From the Real Cuba
The one on the right ruled Chile for 17 years, from 1973 to 1990.
The one on the left has ruled Cuba for the last 47 years.
After being in power for 15 years, the one on the right allowed a plebiscite to ask the Chilean people if they wanted to continue to be under his rule.
The one on the left has refused to allow a plebiscite or any kind of free elections in 47 years and has named himself 'president for life.'
After losing the plebiscite, the one on the right transferred power to a democratically elected president. The one on the left named his brother to succeed him after he dies.
The one on the right implemented free market policies that laid the groundwork for rapid economic growth and prosperity.
The one on the left took over a country with one of the strongest economies in this Hemisphere and turned it into a basket case.
The one on the right has been prosecuted for his alleged crimes by tribunals in and out of his country.
The one on the left has never been prosecuted for his many crimes, can travel freely and is received by kings, prime ministers and democratically elected presidents as one of their own.
The one on the right has been vilified in many films and documentaries.
The one on the left is revered and idolized by most of Hollywood luminaries.
The one on the right has seen his closest collaborators being sent to jail for crimes committed during his rule.
The one on the left has made millions of dollars printing t-shirts, key chains, postcards, etc. with the effigy of one of his closest collaborators who was responsible for hundreds of crimes.
The one on the right has seen his foreign bank accounts frozen because of illegal transactions.
The one on the left has become one of the world's richest dictators and has full access to all his bank accounts locally and internationally.
Now, guess who is the one who the media always calls a 'dictator' and who is the one that they always refer to as 'president'?
Good News for America - Bad News for the Libs
Booming Economy Boosts Spirits at White House
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, Dec. 22, 2005
WASHINGTON -- President Bush, working to retool the Republican message for 2006, is trying to shift public attention to something in short supply during his almost five years in office: a run of good economic figures.
"We're heading into a new year with an economy that is the envy of the world, and we have every reason to be optimistic about our economic future," he told a news conference this week.
Bush's pivot to highlight the economy started at the beginning of the month after a government report revealed that 215,000 jobs had been created in November. Bush went before reporters in the Rose Garden to personally welcome the news. A few days later, he visited a plant in North Carolina to salute those numbers and others, including a third-quarter growth rate that was the highest since early 2004 and a jobless rate that was being kept to 5 percent.
Hoping to keep a spotlight trained on the economy while Bush mounted a concentrated defense of his Iraq policies, the White House press office started issuing a "week ahead" schedule listing upcoming appearances of Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Treasury Secretary John Snow and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. Last week, for instance, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Gutierrez teamed up at a suburban Chicago mall to promote holiday-season shopping. On Monday, it was Snow's turn to Christmas-shop for the cameras.
Suddenly, the president's economic team is getting a measure of respect - something it didn't get much of in his first term.
It's beginning to look like "prosperity all across America," Snow told reporters at a year-end news conference to bask in the numbers, exuding an optimism not shared by many Democrats.
Republicans hope talking up the economy will blunt Democratic attempts to use it as an issue in next year's elections and help shift public attention away from casualties in Iraq. Bush continues to face low poll numbers on his handling of the economy, despite the recent improvements.
"Politically, war trumps the economy. But the president has very few things that he can brag about right now," said American University political scientist James Thurber. "He has to point out that the economy is doing very well. It would be foolish not to."
Administration officials can point to the creation of some 1.8 million new jobs in the past year. The economy grew in the July-September quarter at a healthy 4.3 percent, despite Katrina and other hurricanes. Retail sales are up as the holiday season nears.
Democrats point to confusing new Medicare prescription drug choices facing seniors, the threat of huge home heating bills and continued dislocations due to Katrina. "Many families are spending the holidays still in tent cities," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.
David Wyss, chief economist for Standard and Poors in New York, said for now, the economy looks fairly solid, and is likely to remain so through 2006, potentially making it a better 2006 political issue for Republicans than for Democrats.
"Right now it's 'so-far so-good.' The economy's doing much better than we thought it would at this point," Wyss said.
But he said he has some worries - including energy availability and prices and an overvalued dollar that is making U.S. products less attractive overseas.
Some potential problems that economists see lurking:
If gasoline prices spike upward again, as they did in September and October when they pushed above $3 a gallon, consumers could get spooked and cut back on purchases. Soaring home heating bills from a colder-than-normal winter could help depress consumer sentiment.
If the Federal Reserve goes too far in raising interest rates in an effort to fend off inflation, it could stall the economy.
The Fed last week raised short-term rates to a 4 1/2 year high of 4.25 percent. Most economists see one or two additional quarter-point rate hikes - one at Chairman Alan Greenspan's last meeting in January and perhaps another at incoming Chairman Ben Bernanke's first in March.
But inflation persists, and if Bernanke keeps raising rates to demonstrate his credentials as an inflation-fighter, the economy could take a hit.
In Bush's first term, his economic team took a back seat to his national security team, made up of such policy heavyweights as Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser and now the secretary of state.
Bush fired his first treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, in December 2002 after O'Neill questioned the need for a fresh round of tax cuts. Lawrence Lindsey was forced out at the same time as director of the president's National Economic Council after suggesting that a war with Iraq and the aftermath could cost $100 billion to $200 billion, which turned out to be a little on the low side.
So far, Snow has proved wrong forecasts of an early retirement and is serving as top cheerleader for Bush's handling of the economy.
Gutierrez, the former chief executive of cereal giant Kellogg, has been taking an active role in stumping for the president's agenda and promoting the recent economic momentum.
"The challenge, of course, is how do you keep it going," the commerce secretary said.
© 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, Dec. 22, 2005
WASHINGTON -- President Bush, working to retool the Republican message for 2006, is trying to shift public attention to something in short supply during his almost five years in office: a run of good economic figures.
"We're heading into a new year with an economy that is the envy of the world, and we have every reason to be optimistic about our economic future," he told a news conference this week.
Bush's pivot to highlight the economy started at the beginning of the month after a government report revealed that 215,000 jobs had been created in November. Bush went before reporters in the Rose Garden to personally welcome the news. A few days later, he visited a plant in North Carolina to salute those numbers and others, including a third-quarter growth rate that was the highest since early 2004 and a jobless rate that was being kept to 5 percent.
Hoping to keep a spotlight trained on the economy while Bush mounted a concentrated defense of his Iraq policies, the White House press office started issuing a "week ahead" schedule listing upcoming appearances of Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Treasury Secretary John Snow and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. Last week, for instance, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Gutierrez teamed up at a suburban Chicago mall to promote holiday-season shopping. On Monday, it was Snow's turn to Christmas-shop for the cameras.
Suddenly, the president's economic team is getting a measure of respect - something it didn't get much of in his first term.
It's beginning to look like "prosperity all across America," Snow told reporters at a year-end news conference to bask in the numbers, exuding an optimism not shared by many Democrats.
Republicans hope talking up the economy will blunt Democratic attempts to use it as an issue in next year's elections and help shift public attention away from casualties in Iraq. Bush continues to face low poll numbers on his handling of the economy, despite the recent improvements.
"Politically, war trumps the economy. But the president has very few things that he can brag about right now," said American University political scientist James Thurber. "He has to point out that the economy is doing very well. It would be foolish not to."
Administration officials can point to the creation of some 1.8 million new jobs in the past year. The economy grew in the July-September quarter at a healthy 4.3 percent, despite Katrina and other hurricanes. Retail sales are up as the holiday season nears.
Democrats point to confusing new Medicare prescription drug choices facing seniors, the threat of huge home heating bills and continued dislocations due to Katrina. "Many families are spending the holidays still in tent cities," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.
David Wyss, chief economist for Standard and Poors in New York, said for now, the economy looks fairly solid, and is likely to remain so through 2006, potentially making it a better 2006 political issue for Republicans than for Democrats.
"Right now it's 'so-far so-good.' The economy's doing much better than we thought it would at this point," Wyss said.
But he said he has some worries - including energy availability and prices and an overvalued dollar that is making U.S. products less attractive overseas.
Some potential problems that economists see lurking:
If gasoline prices spike upward again, as they did in September and October when they pushed above $3 a gallon, consumers could get spooked and cut back on purchases. Soaring home heating bills from a colder-than-normal winter could help depress consumer sentiment.
If the Federal Reserve goes too far in raising interest rates in an effort to fend off inflation, it could stall the economy.
The Fed last week raised short-term rates to a 4 1/2 year high of 4.25 percent. Most economists see one or two additional quarter-point rate hikes - one at Chairman Alan Greenspan's last meeting in January and perhaps another at incoming Chairman Ben Bernanke's first in March.
But inflation persists, and if Bernanke keeps raising rates to demonstrate his credentials as an inflation-fighter, the economy could take a hit.
In Bush's first term, his economic team took a back seat to his national security team, made up of such policy heavyweights as Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser and now the secretary of state.
Bush fired his first treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, in December 2002 after O'Neill questioned the need for a fresh round of tax cuts. Lawrence Lindsey was forced out at the same time as director of the president's National Economic Council after suggesting that a war with Iraq and the aftermath could cost $100 billion to $200 billion, which turned out to be a little on the low side.
So far, Snow has proved wrong forecasts of an early retirement and is serving as top cheerleader for Bush's handling of the economy.
Gutierrez, the former chief executive of cereal giant Kellogg, has been taking an active role in stumping for the president's agenda and promoting the recent economic momentum.
"The challenge, of course, is how do you keep it going," the commerce secretary said.
© 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Thanks Germany for letting this terrorist scum free
Gonzales Asked Germany to Hold TWA Hijacker
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, Dec. 22, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales personally asked the German government not to release a terrorist accused of killing a Navy diver, but was rebuffed, the Bush administration said Wednesday.
Mohammed Ali Hamadi was freed on parole by German authorities after serving 19 years of a life sentence for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA plane during which a U.S. Navy diver was killed. The 17-day ordeal riveted the United States and brought Middle East terrorism home for many Americans.
"We did, at senior levels at the U.S. government, contact the German authorities to emphasize that we thought it was important that he serve out his entire term, but we did so with a full understanding that under German law it was highly likely that he was going to be released," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions are ongoing, said the United States believes Hamadi was released from temporary custody in Lebanon and has disappeared.
Lebanon is an emerging U.S. ally in the volatile Middle East, with a new democratically elected government and growing diplomatic and economic ties with the West. Lebanon's Syrian-allied prime minister remains in power, however, and the country is still largely defined by sectarian politics.
The United States has no extradition treaty with Lebanon.
"We have been in contact with them on the issue," McCormack said. "And at this point I think what I can assure anybody who's listening, including Mr. Hamadi, is that we will track him down. We will find him. And we will bring him to justice in the United States for what he's done."
Lebanese authorities questioned whether they have any grounds to hand over Hamadi.
"They (U.S. authorities) could have asked Germany to hand him over to the United States. Why are they asking us?" Prime Minister Fuad Saniora told reporters Wednesday.
The United States had sought to prosecute Hamadi when he was arrested in Germany in 1987, but the Germans would not turn him over. The United States has periodically asked that Hamadi not be released early, requests that intensified as his potential parole date approached.
Gonzales contacted his German counterpart within the last month, McCormack said. A Justice Department official confirmed Gonzales' involvement but could not provide an exact date or details of the conversation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussion was private.
The State Department said the United States did not renew its extradition request to Germany as Hamadi neared release because German law would not permit him to be handed over for prosecution for a crime already prosecuted in German courts.
Trans World Airlines Flight 847, with 145 passengers and nine crew members, was flying from Athens to Rome on June 14, 1985, when it was hijacked by Shiite Muslim militants demanding the release of hundreds of Lebanese from Israeli jails.
The plane was forced to crisscross the Mediterranean from Lebanon to Algeria, landing in Beirut three times before it was finally allowed to remain there. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem, 23, was killed and his body dumped on the Beirut tarmac.
© 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, Dec. 22, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales personally asked the German government not to release a terrorist accused of killing a Navy diver, but was rebuffed, the Bush administration said Wednesday.
Mohammed Ali Hamadi was freed on parole by German authorities after serving 19 years of a life sentence for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA plane during which a U.S. Navy diver was killed. The 17-day ordeal riveted the United States and brought Middle East terrorism home for many Americans.
"We did, at senior levels at the U.S. government, contact the German authorities to emphasize that we thought it was important that he serve out his entire term, but we did so with a full understanding that under German law it was highly likely that he was going to be released," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions are ongoing, said the United States believes Hamadi was released from temporary custody in Lebanon and has disappeared.
Lebanon is an emerging U.S. ally in the volatile Middle East, with a new democratically elected government and growing diplomatic and economic ties with the West. Lebanon's Syrian-allied prime minister remains in power, however, and the country is still largely defined by sectarian politics.
The United States has no extradition treaty with Lebanon.
"We have been in contact with them on the issue," McCormack said. "And at this point I think what I can assure anybody who's listening, including Mr. Hamadi, is that we will track him down. We will find him. And we will bring him to justice in the United States for what he's done."
Lebanese authorities questioned whether they have any grounds to hand over Hamadi.
"They (U.S. authorities) could have asked Germany to hand him over to the United States. Why are they asking us?" Prime Minister Fuad Saniora told reporters Wednesday.
The United States had sought to prosecute Hamadi when he was arrested in Germany in 1987, but the Germans would not turn him over. The United States has periodically asked that Hamadi not be released early, requests that intensified as his potential parole date approached.
Gonzales contacted his German counterpart within the last month, McCormack said. A Justice Department official confirmed Gonzales' involvement but could not provide an exact date or details of the conversation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussion was private.
The State Department said the United States did not renew its extradition request to Germany as Hamadi neared release because German law would not permit him to be handed over for prosecution for a crime already prosecuted in German courts.
Trans World Airlines Flight 847, with 145 passengers and nine crew members, was flying from Athens to Rome on June 14, 1985, when it was hijacked by Shiite Muslim militants demanding the release of hundreds of Lebanese from Israeli jails.
The plane was forced to crisscross the Mediterranean from Lebanon to Algeria, landing in Beirut three times before it was finally allowed to remain there. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem, 23, was killed and his body dumped on the Beirut tarmac.
© 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Friday, December 23, 2005
Meet Your Deadlines with These Tips
by Margot Carmichael Lester
Not meeting deadlines can spiral into project or career failure. Yet deadlines are one of the most vexing pieces of the time-management puzzle.
But there are ways to manage your deadlines, according to Jeffrey and Laurie Ford, coauthors of Deadline Busting.
Five Deadline-Busting Tips
1. Create and Maintain a Due List of All Deadlines: Write down any promised result, communication, product or service -- even the things that don't have specific due dates but are due sometime. "We have found that this is one of the single greatest stress reducers, because it shows you everything due to others," the Fords say.
2. Plan and Schedule Your Work: For each deadline on your due list, identify the action items (tasks, communications, research, etc.). Put these in order, and estimate how long each will take. Then transfer this information to your schedule or calendar. "Even when I do just a little work on an assignment, if I know that according to the schedule the day's work has moved me closer to completing the article, then I've got nothing to be anxious about," explains Duncan Murrell, a freelance writer and editor in Pittsboro, North Carolina.
3. Negotiate Due Dates: Most deadlines are not set in stone, so propose alternatives if necessary. This gives you more control over when things are due, enables you to meet more of your deadlines and creates less stress. "I always look for a little wiggle room," explains Benson Shinn, a legal temp in Seattle. "The key is to sound reasonable, not whiny or plaintive. And if you don't get your way, you just have to stud up and try to meet it anyway."
4. Learn to Say No: Sometimes deadlines are utterly unworkable. When this happens, it's better to say no up front than to accept the assignment, fail to do it and then make an excuse for why you couldn't get it done. "People won't remember how good your excuse was, but they will remember you didn't do whatever you said you would do," say the Fords. "Although there may be some stress in telling someone no, it is nowhere near as stressful as the worry associated with not doing what you said you would."
5. Ask for Help: "Most of us do not like to admit we're having problems or that there is something we don't know or can't do," the Fords suggest. "Too often, when problems arise, we become like turtles and pull back into our shells pretending things are fine." If you're crunched for time, ask other people to do specific things that will help you pick up the pace.
Missed-Deadline Damage Control
What if, despite your best efforts, you miss the deadline? "Keep working, albeit a little faster," Murrell says. "Make no excuses unless your excuse is you're in the hospital. Give them the earliest possible time that you can have the project ready, and meet that deadline. Do not blow the second deadline."
Not meeting deadlines can spiral into project or career failure. Yet deadlines are one of the most vexing pieces of the time-management puzzle.
But there are ways to manage your deadlines, according to Jeffrey and Laurie Ford, coauthors of Deadline Busting.
Five Deadline-Busting Tips
1. Create and Maintain a Due List of All Deadlines: Write down any promised result, communication, product or service -- even the things that don't have specific due dates but are due sometime. "We have found that this is one of the single greatest stress reducers, because it shows you everything due to others," the Fords say.
2. Plan and Schedule Your Work: For each deadline on your due list, identify the action items (tasks, communications, research, etc.). Put these in order, and estimate how long each will take. Then transfer this information to your schedule or calendar. "Even when I do just a little work on an assignment, if I know that according to the schedule the day's work has moved me closer to completing the article, then I've got nothing to be anxious about," explains Duncan Murrell, a freelance writer and editor in Pittsboro, North Carolina.
3. Negotiate Due Dates: Most deadlines are not set in stone, so propose alternatives if necessary. This gives you more control over when things are due, enables you to meet more of your deadlines and creates less stress. "I always look for a little wiggle room," explains Benson Shinn, a legal temp in Seattle. "The key is to sound reasonable, not whiny or plaintive. And if you don't get your way, you just have to stud up and try to meet it anyway."
4. Learn to Say No: Sometimes deadlines are utterly unworkable. When this happens, it's better to say no up front than to accept the assignment, fail to do it and then make an excuse for why you couldn't get it done. "People won't remember how good your excuse was, but they will remember you didn't do whatever you said you would do," say the Fords. "Although there may be some stress in telling someone no, it is nowhere near as stressful as the worry associated with not doing what you said you would."
5. Ask for Help: "Most of us do not like to admit we're having problems or that there is something we don't know or can't do," the Fords suggest. "Too often, when problems arise, we become like turtles and pull back into our shells pretending things are fine." If you're crunched for time, ask other people to do specific things that will help you pick up the pace.
Missed-Deadline Damage Control
What if, despite your best efforts, you miss the deadline? "Keep working, albeit a little faster," Murrell says. "Make no excuses unless your excuse is you're in the hospital. Give them the earliest possible time that you can have the project ready, and meet that deadline. Do not blow the second deadline."
FISA Court Discouraged Moussaoui Warrant
Friday, Dec. 23, 2005 10:34 a.m. EST WSJ
Led by the New York Times, a chorus of administration critics have been insisting all week that there was no reason for President Bush to circumvent the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court when he sought to wiretap terrorists operating inside the U.S. - since the FISA Court almost always approves such requests.
But that's not what the Times reported three years ago, after FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley came forward with the allegation that the Bureau might have been able to stop the 9/11 attacks if only investigators had been allowed access to the laptop computer of suspected 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui.
Moussaoui was arrested in Minneapolis on Aug. 16, 2001 - nearly four weeks before the 9/11 attacks - after an instructor at a local flight school he attended called the F.B.I. to report that he suspected the Moroccan-born terrorist was up to no good.
In a May 2002 report the Times noted: "Two days later, F.B.I. agents in Minnesota asked Washington to obtain a special warrant to search his laptop computer."
However, there was a problem. The paper explained:
"Recent interviews of intelligence officials by The New York Times suggest that the Bureau had a reason for growing cautious about applying to a secret national security court for special search warrants that might have supplied critical information."
"The F.B.I.," officials told the Times, "had become wary after a well-regarded supervisor was disciplined because the [FISA] court complained that he had submitted improper information on applications."
The secret court went so far as to discipline Michael Resnick, the F.B.I. supervisor in charge of coordinating terrorist surveillance operations, saying they would no longer accept warrant applications from him.
Intelligence officials told the Times that the FISA Court's decision to reprimand Resnick, who had been a rising star in the FBI, "resulted in making the Bureau far less aggressive in seeking information on terrorists."
"Other officials," the paper said, complained that the FISA Court's actions against Resnick "prompted Bureau officials to adopt a play-it-safe approach that meant submitting fewer applications and declining to submit any that could be questioned."
Sen. Charles Grassley is among those who think that the FBI might have been able to stop the 9/11 attacks if the FISA Court hadn't discouraged the Bureau from aggressively pursuing a warrant in the Moussaoui case.
In a January 2002 letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, Grassley noted that had a search been permitted, "Agents would have found information in Moussaoui’s belongings that linked him both to a major financier of the [9/11] hijacking plot working out of Germany, and to a Malaysian Al Qaeda boss who had met with at least two other [9/11] hijackers while under surveillance by intelligence officials."
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Led by the New York Times, a chorus of administration critics have been insisting all week that there was no reason for President Bush to circumvent the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court when he sought to wiretap terrorists operating inside the U.S. - since the FISA Court almost always approves such requests.
But that's not what the Times reported three years ago, after FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley came forward with the allegation that the Bureau might have been able to stop the 9/11 attacks if only investigators had been allowed access to the laptop computer of suspected 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui.
Moussaoui was arrested in Minneapolis on Aug. 16, 2001 - nearly four weeks before the 9/11 attacks - after an instructor at a local flight school he attended called the F.B.I. to report that he suspected the Moroccan-born terrorist was up to no good.
In a May 2002 report the Times noted: "Two days later, F.B.I. agents in Minnesota asked Washington to obtain a special warrant to search his laptop computer."
However, there was a problem. The paper explained:
"Recent interviews of intelligence officials by The New York Times suggest that the Bureau had a reason for growing cautious about applying to a secret national security court for special search warrants that might have supplied critical information."
"The F.B.I.," officials told the Times, "had become wary after a well-regarded supervisor was disciplined because the [FISA] court complained that he had submitted improper information on applications."
The secret court went so far as to discipline Michael Resnick, the F.B.I. supervisor in charge of coordinating terrorist surveillance operations, saying they would no longer accept warrant applications from him.
Intelligence officials told the Times that the FISA Court's decision to reprimand Resnick, who had been a rising star in the FBI, "resulted in making the Bureau far less aggressive in seeking information on terrorists."
"Other officials," the paper said, complained that the FISA Court's actions against Resnick "prompted Bureau officials to adopt a play-it-safe approach that meant submitting fewer applications and declining to submit any that could be questioned."
Sen. Charles Grassley is among those who think that the FBI might have been able to stop the 9/11 attacks if the FISA Court hadn't discouraged the Bureau from aggressively pursuing a warrant in the Moussaoui case.
In a January 2002 letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, Grassley noted that had a search been permitted, "Agents would have found information in Moussaoui’s belongings that linked him both to a major financier of the [9/11] hijacking plot working out of Germany, and to a Malaysian Al Qaeda boss who had met with at least two other [9/11] hijackers while under surveillance by intelligence officials."
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Live and let spy
Dec 21, 2005 by Ann Coulter ( bio archive contact )
Apart from the day the New York Times goes out of business – and the stellar work Paul Krugman's column does twice a week helping people house-train their puppies – the newspaper has done the greatest thing it will ever do in its entire existence. (Calm down: No, the Times didn't hold an intervention for Frank Rich.)
Monday's Times carried a major expose on child molesters who use the Internet to lure their adolescent prey into performing sex acts for webcams. In the course of investigating the story, reporter Kurt Eichenwald broke open a massive network of pedophiles, rescued a young man who had been abused for years and led the Department of Justice to hundreds of child molesters.
I kept waiting for the catch, but apparently the Times does not yet believe pedophilia is covered by the "privacy right." They should stop covering politics and start covering more stories like this.
In order to report the story, the Times said it obtained:
copies of online conversations and e-mail messages between minors and the creepy adults;
records of payments to the minors;
membership lists for webcam sites;
defunct sites stored in online archives;
files retained on a victim's computer over several years;
financial records, credit card processing data and other information;
The Neverland Ranch's mailing list. (OK, I made that last one up.)
Would that the Times allowed the Bush administration similar investigative powers for Islamofacists in America!
Which brings me to this week's scandal about No Such Agency spying on "Americans." I have difficulty ginning up much interest in this story inasmuch as I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.
But if we must engage in a national debate on half-measures: After 9-11, any president who was not spying on people calling phone numbers associated with terrorists should be impeached for being an inept commander in chief.
With a huge gaping hole in lower Manhattan, I'm not sure why we have to keep reminding people, but we are at war. (Perhaps it's because of the media blackout on images of the 9-11 attack. We're not allowed to see those because seeing planes plowing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon might make us feel angry and jingoistic.)
Among the things that war entails are: killing people (sometimes innocent), destroying buildings (sometimes innocent) and spying on people (sometimes innocent).
That is why war is a bad thing. But once a war starts, it is going to be finished one way or another, and I have a preference for it coming out one way rather than the other.
In previous wars, the country has done far worse than monitor telephone calls placed to jihad headquarters. FDR rounded up Japanese – many of them loyal American citizens – and threw them in internment camps. Most appallingly, at the same time, he let New York Times editors wander free.
Note the following about the Japanese internment:
The Supreme Court upheld the president's authority to intern the Japanese during wartime;
That case, Korematsu v. United States, is still good law;
There are no Japanese internment camps today. (Although the no-limit blackjack section at Caesar's Palace on a Saturday night comes pretty close.)It's one or the other: Either we take the politically correct, scattershot approach and violate everyone's civil liberties, or we focus on the group threatening us and – in the worst-case scenario – run the risk of briefly violating the civil liberties of 1,000 people in a country of 300 million.
Of course, this is assuming I'm talking to people from the world of the normal. In the Democrats' world, there are two more options. Violate no one's civil liberties and get used to a lot more 9-11s, or the modified third option, preferred by Sen. John D. Rockefeller: Let the president do all the work and take all the heat for preventing another terrorist attack while you place a letter expressing your objections in a file cabinet as a small parchment tribute to your exquisite conscience.
Ann Coulter is a popular syndicated columnist for Universal Press Syndicate.
Copyright © 2005 Universal Press Syndicate
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
22 Congressmen Hate Christmas - Including 3 from South Florida
Thursday, Dec. 22, 2005 5:21 p.m. EST
This year's "War for Christmas" – keeping "Christ" in the holiday has apparently been won. And, like many "wars," there has even been a Congressional resolution in support of keeping Christmas alive and well.
On December 15 the House of Representatives passed a resolution "protecting the symbols and traditions of Christmas" by an overwhelming 401-22 vote.
Representative JoAnn Davis (R-VA), the resolution's sponsor, said the resolution was necessary to counter "political correctness run amok."
"No one," she said, "should feel like they have done something wrong by wishing someone a Merry Christmas."
Twenty-two Democrats played Scrooge and disagreed.
Representative Robert Scott (D-VA) said Republicans were more concerned with the symbolism rather than the substance of Christmas – referring to Republican passage of a bill to slow the rate of growth in federal entitlement programs.
Davis lodged a preemptive response to critics who might question the constitutionality of her resolution.
"Celebrating Christmas is not a violation of separation of church and state," she said. "The Framers intended that the First Amendment to the Constitution would prohibit the establishment of religion, not prohibit any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialogue."
The text of the resolution read as follows:
Whereas Christmas is a national holiday celebrated on December 25; and
Whereas the Framers intended that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States would prohibit the establishment of religion, not prohibit any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialog: Now, therefore be it resolved, that the House of Representatives –
(1) Recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas;
(2) Strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and
(3) Expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions, for those who celebrate Christmas.
As the Christmas season draws to a close, we thought we would share the names of the 22 Congressman who voted against the pro-Christmas resolution:
Congressman Party-State District
Ackerman D-NY 5th
Blumenauer D-OR 3rd
Capps D-CA 23rd
Cleaver D-MO 5th
DeGette D-CO 1st
Harman D-CA 36th
Hastings D-FL 23rd
Honda D-CA 15th
Lee D-CA 9th
Lewis D-GA 5th
McDermott D-WA 7th
Miller, George D-CA 7th
Moore D-WI 4th
Moran D-VA 8th
Payne D-NJ 10th
Rush D-IL 1st
Schakowsky D-IL 9th
Scott D-VA 3rd
Stark D-CA 13th
Wasserman Schultz D-FL 20th
Wexler D-FL 19th
Woolsey D-CA 6th
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
This year's "War for Christmas" – keeping "Christ" in the holiday has apparently been won. And, like many "wars," there has even been a Congressional resolution in support of keeping Christmas alive and well.
On December 15 the House of Representatives passed a resolution "protecting the symbols and traditions of Christmas" by an overwhelming 401-22 vote.
Representative JoAnn Davis (R-VA), the resolution's sponsor, said the resolution was necessary to counter "political correctness run amok."
"No one," she said, "should feel like they have done something wrong by wishing someone a Merry Christmas."
Twenty-two Democrats played Scrooge and disagreed.
Representative Robert Scott (D-VA) said Republicans were more concerned with the symbolism rather than the substance of Christmas – referring to Republican passage of a bill to slow the rate of growth in federal entitlement programs.
Davis lodged a preemptive response to critics who might question the constitutionality of her resolution.
"Celebrating Christmas is not a violation of separation of church and state," she said. "The Framers intended that the First Amendment to the Constitution would prohibit the establishment of religion, not prohibit any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialogue."
The text of the resolution read as follows:
Whereas Christmas is a national holiday celebrated on December 25; and
Whereas the Framers intended that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States would prohibit the establishment of religion, not prohibit any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialog: Now, therefore be it resolved, that the House of Representatives –
(1) Recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas;
(2) Strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and
(3) Expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions, for those who celebrate Christmas.
As the Christmas season draws to a close, we thought we would share the names of the 22 Congressman who voted against the pro-Christmas resolution:
Congressman Party-State District
Ackerman D-NY 5th
Blumenauer D-OR 3rd
Capps D-CA 23rd
Cleaver D-MO 5th
DeGette D-CO 1st
Harman D-CA 36th
Hastings D-FL 23rd
Honda D-CA 15th
Lee D-CA 9th
Lewis D-GA 5th
McDermott D-WA 7th
Miller, George D-CA 7th
Moore D-WI 4th
Moran D-VA 8th
Payne D-NJ 10th
Rush D-IL 1st
Schakowsky D-IL 9th
Scott D-VA 3rd
Stark D-CA 13th
Wasserman Schultz D-FL 20th
Wexler D-FL 19th
Woolsey D-CA 6th
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Thursday, December 22, 2005
1994, Clinton expanded use of warrantless searches to entirely domestic situations...
'Warrantless' searches not unprecedented
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 22, 2005
Previous administrations, as well as the court that oversees national security cases, agreed with President Bush's position that a president legally may authorize searches without warrants in pursuit of foreign intelligence.
"The Department of Justice believes -- and the case law supports -- that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes and that the president may, as he has done, delegate this authority to the attorney general," Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick said in 1994 testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
That same authority, she added, pertains to electronic surveillance such as wiretaps.
More recently, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- the secretive judicial system that handles classified intelligence cases -- wrote in a declassified opinion that the court has long held "that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information."
Such warrantless searches have been at the center of a political fight in Washington after the New York Times reported Friday that the Bush administration had a program to intercept communications between al Qaeda suspects and persons in this country, a story whose publication coincided with the congressional debate over reauthorizing the USA Patriot Act.
[READ MORE]
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 22, 2005
Previous administrations, as well as the court that oversees national security cases, agreed with President Bush's position that a president legally may authorize searches without warrants in pursuit of foreign intelligence.
"The Department of Justice believes -- and the case law supports -- that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes and that the president may, as he has done, delegate this authority to the attorney general," Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick said in 1994 testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
That same authority, she added, pertains to electronic surveillance such as wiretaps.
More recently, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- the secretive judicial system that handles classified intelligence cases -- wrote in a declassified opinion that the court has long held "that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information."
Such warrantless searches have been at the center of a political fight in Washington after the New York Times reported Friday that the Bush administration had a program to intercept communications between al Qaeda suspects and persons in this country, a story whose publication coincided with the congressional debate over reauthorizing the USA Patriot Act.
[READ MORE]
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Quotes of the Year, From Kanye to Jessica
By The Associated Press Wed Dec 14, 3:12 PM ET
Quotes from the past year's major entertainment events:
___
"I will be acquitted and vindicated when the truth is told." — Michael Jackson.
"For those who follow these sorts of things, we would like to explain that our separation is not the result of any speculation reported by the tabloid media." — Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.
"Brad Pitt is in the process of becoming the adoptive father of both (of Jolie's) children." — Pitt's publicist.
"George Bush doesn't care about black people." — Kanye West.
"The two of us were on fire every time we sat down" to write music. — Paul McCartney on John Lennon. The 25th anniversary of Lennon's death was Dec. 8.
"I think my work — the activism — will be forgotten. And I hope it will. Because I hope those problems will have gone away." — Bono.
"Is `I don't know' an acceptable answer?" — Dave Chappelle on his plans after walking away from his hit TV series.
"All my friends and those agents that stuck around when I couldn't get an audition, I would be absolutely nowhere without all of you and you know who you are." — Teri Hatcher after winning a Golden Globe for "Desperate Housewives."
"Matt, Matt, you don't even — you're glib. You don't even know what Ritalin is." — Tom Cruise, arguing with "Today" show host Matt Lauer.
"It is very much a familial relationship when you know you can depend on them being there, especially in a society where you can't always depend on people being there." — University of Alabama professor Jennings Bryant on the exits of TV anchors Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and the late Peter Jennings.
"The last marriage that was televised was Prince Charles and Lady Di, and that didn't work out too well." — Donald Trump, saying his wedding with Melania Knauss would be private.
"Her combination of brains, humor, frankness and sense were unlike any other artist." — Mike Nichols on Anne Bancroft, whom he directed in "The Graduate." She died June 6.
"We have four black nominees tonight. It's kinda like Def Oscar Jam tonight." — Oscar host Chris Rock.
"The time has finally come to share our wonderful news that we are expecting our first child together." — Britney Spears.
"He was the kind of guy who was born to do what he did musically and let the world know about it." Roberta Flack on Luther Vandross, who died July 1.
"What's that?" — Paris Hilton, when asked if she reads blogs.
"This is possibly the most shameful situation I've ever gotten myself in in my life, and I've done some pretty dumb things in my life. So to actually make a new No. 1 is spectacularly stupid." — Russell Crowe, apologizing for throwing a phone at a hotel concierge.
"I just want to say I'm deeply ashamed and upset that I've hurt Sienna and the people most close to us." — Jude Law, apologizing to his fiancee, Sienna Miller, after an affair with his children's nanny.
"I have never for a moment had a feud with you." — Oprah Winfrey, to David Letterman on his "Late Show."
"He was the Charlie Parker of comedy, a master of telling the truth that influenced every comedian that came after him." — Quincy Jones on Richard Pryor, who died Dec. 10.
"I would say I'm 97 percent back now. It is very hard. ... Chemotherapy is so hard on a person. And I would say I'm fully recovered, yeah." — Melissa Etheridge.
"It just feels like the right thing to do — to come full circle." — August Wilson on "Radio Golf, the final chapter in his 10-play cycle. Wilson died Oct. 2.
"He said that my plays were necessary. I will go one step further and say that Arthur's plays are essential." — Edward Albee, on the death of Arthur Miller on Feb. 10.
"To play Daisy Duke, I mean, that's like an iconish ... is that a word? ... iconic figure." — Jessica Simpson.
"Hopefully mine and Nick's story will continue for the rest of our lives, like what we vowed, through sickness and in health." — Simpson, denying rumors of divorce from Nick Lachey.
"After three years of marriage, and careful thought and consideration, we have decided to part ways." — Simpson and Lachey.
"As silly as it seems to all of us, it has made a difference in a lot of children's lives." — Dawn "Mary Ann" Wells, on Bob Denver's TV character Gilligan. Denver died Sept. 2.
"This frozen embryo that is in New York is my child waiting to be brought to life." — Celine Dion.
"I do not have a child and all allegations saying so are false." — Janet Jackson.
"I'm a guy who's leaving! A guy who's not drunk. For once." — Gerard Depardieu, ending his film career.
"He's my hero." — Alan Alda on Ossie Davis, who died Feb. 4.
"He was one of the most honored performers of his generation." — "Law & Order" producer Dick Wolf on Jerry Orbach, who died Dec. 28. (this was in 2004)
"Katherine whipped Michael more than I did." — Joe Jackson, referring to his wife.
Quotes from the past year's major entertainment events:
___
"I will be acquitted and vindicated when the truth is told." — Michael Jackson.
"For those who follow these sorts of things, we would like to explain that our separation is not the result of any speculation reported by the tabloid media." — Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.
"Brad Pitt is in the process of becoming the adoptive father of both (of Jolie's) children." — Pitt's publicist.
"George Bush doesn't care about black people." — Kanye West.
"The two of us were on fire every time we sat down" to write music. — Paul McCartney on John Lennon. The 25th anniversary of Lennon's death was Dec. 8.
"I think my work — the activism — will be forgotten. And I hope it will. Because I hope those problems will have gone away." — Bono.
"Is `I don't know' an acceptable answer?" — Dave Chappelle on his plans after walking away from his hit TV series.
"All my friends and those agents that stuck around when I couldn't get an audition, I would be absolutely nowhere without all of you and you know who you are." — Teri Hatcher after winning a Golden Globe for "Desperate Housewives."
"Matt, Matt, you don't even — you're glib. You don't even know what Ritalin is." — Tom Cruise, arguing with "Today" show host Matt Lauer.
"It is very much a familial relationship when you know you can depend on them being there, especially in a society where you can't always depend on people being there." — University of Alabama professor Jennings Bryant on the exits of TV anchors Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and the late Peter Jennings.
"The last marriage that was televised was Prince Charles and Lady Di, and that didn't work out too well." — Donald Trump, saying his wedding with Melania Knauss would be private.
"Her combination of brains, humor, frankness and sense were unlike any other artist." — Mike Nichols on Anne Bancroft, whom he directed in "The Graduate." She died June 6.
"We have four black nominees tonight. It's kinda like Def Oscar Jam tonight." — Oscar host Chris Rock.
"The time has finally come to share our wonderful news that we are expecting our first child together." — Britney Spears.
"He was the kind of guy who was born to do what he did musically and let the world know about it." Roberta Flack on Luther Vandross, who died July 1.
"What's that?" — Paris Hilton, when asked if she reads blogs.
"This is possibly the most shameful situation I've ever gotten myself in in my life, and I've done some pretty dumb things in my life. So to actually make a new No. 1 is spectacularly stupid." — Russell Crowe, apologizing for throwing a phone at a hotel concierge.
"I just want to say I'm deeply ashamed and upset that I've hurt Sienna and the people most close to us." — Jude Law, apologizing to his fiancee, Sienna Miller, after an affair with his children's nanny.
"I have never for a moment had a feud with you." — Oprah Winfrey, to David Letterman on his "Late Show."
"He was the Charlie Parker of comedy, a master of telling the truth that influenced every comedian that came after him." — Quincy Jones on Richard Pryor, who died Dec. 10.
"I would say I'm 97 percent back now. It is very hard. ... Chemotherapy is so hard on a person. And I would say I'm fully recovered, yeah." — Melissa Etheridge.
"It just feels like the right thing to do — to come full circle." — August Wilson on "Radio Golf, the final chapter in his 10-play cycle. Wilson died Oct. 2.
"He said that my plays were necessary. I will go one step further and say that Arthur's plays are essential." — Edward Albee, on the death of Arthur Miller on Feb. 10.
"To play Daisy Duke, I mean, that's like an iconish ... is that a word? ... iconic figure." — Jessica Simpson.
"Hopefully mine and Nick's story will continue for the rest of our lives, like what we vowed, through sickness and in health." — Simpson, denying rumors of divorce from Nick Lachey.
"After three years of marriage, and careful thought and consideration, we have decided to part ways." — Simpson and Lachey.
"As silly as it seems to all of us, it has made a difference in a lot of children's lives." — Dawn "Mary Ann" Wells, on Bob Denver's TV character Gilligan. Denver died Sept. 2.
"This frozen embryo that is in New York is my child waiting to be brought to life." — Celine Dion.
"I do not have a child and all allegations saying so are false." — Janet Jackson.
"I'm a guy who's leaving! A guy who's not drunk. For once." — Gerard Depardieu, ending his film career.
"He's my hero." — Alan Alda on Ossie Davis, who died Feb. 4.
"He was one of the most honored performers of his generation." — "Law & Order" producer Dick Wolf on Jerry Orbach, who died Dec. 28. (this was in 2004)
"Katherine whipped Michael more than I did." — Joe Jackson, referring to his wife.
Mainstream Media Subordinate the Truth to Politics
David Limbaugh
Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2005
As I was watching President Bush's latest news conference, I was struck by the thought of how different the news climate and public mood would be if the mainstream media (MSM) were truly as unbiased as they pretend to be.
If the MSM were indeed objective, and animated by an investigative impulse and a nonpartisan, government-watchdog instinct, they might thoroughly cover and inquire into the following:
Why Joe Wilson appears to have lied when he denied that his wife, Valerie Plame, recommended him to the CIA to investigate the claim that Saddam Hussein sought uranium yellowcake from Niger. They might also examine Wilson's bragging about debunking certain forged documents on his trip – documents that were not even discovered until eight months later.
Senator Durbin's unconscionable likening of America's treatment of terrorist detainees to the treatment of prisoners by Pol Pot, the Nazi regime and the Soviet Gulags.
Why one of their own standard-bearers, the vaunted New York Times, sat on the surveillance "scandal" story until the week Congress was debating reauthorization of the Patriot Act.
Where Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid gets off demanding an independent investigation about this NSA surveillance – a practice that essentially began under President Clinton and about which Reid and his colleagues were privy to a dozen briefings.
How Democratic leaders have continually accused President Bush of lying to get us into war when they had access to the same WMD intelligence as President Bush and voted to authorize him to attack Iraq.
Why only a handful of Democratic senators availed themselves of their access to certain detailed reports on Iraqi WMD.
Why Democratic leaders claim their plainly unconditional authorization to attack Iraq was based on further conditions.
Upon what evidence the Democrats base their slanderous allegation that the Bush administration, as a matter of policy, engages in the systematic torture of terrorist detainees.
How Democratic leaders could justify their irresponsible call for a specific withdrawal timetable for Iraq without playing into the terrorists' hands.
Why most of those Democrats, when Republicans called their bluff, were afraid to back up their destructive rhetoric with their votes.
The Democrats' conspicuous inability or unwillingness to offer a single alternative plan for Iraq, though they ceaselessly condemn President Bush's policies on it.
Why senators who voted for the Patriot Act are now refusing to reauthorize it despite the lack of a credible case that the administration has abused its authority or compromised civil liberties.
How Democratic senators can complain about the government's failure to connect the dots concerning the terrorists' 9/11 plot and at the same time take action that will virtually guarantee our inability to connect future dots.
On what basis Sen. Harry Reid charges that the present Congress is "the most corrupt in history."
The remarkable progress in Iraq of the training of Iraqi security forces and the rebuilding of the Iraqi infrastructure.
The positive morale of the American troops in Iraq despite the endless distortions by the MSM and Democratic politicians.
The robustness and resilience of the American economy under President Bush.
The MSM have been largely silent or slanted on these stories, along with many others that don't support their preferred template.
Yet, in the face of this evidence, the MSM mostly deny their bias. What's scary is that many of them actually believe they aren't biased, which is as much a result of self-deception as deception of others.
This is because they operate in the type of stifling bubble they believe envelops President Bush. They surround themselves only with people who share their decidedly leftist, secular worldview. They harbor a myopic arrogance that regards contrary opinion as aberrant, perverse and evil. They oppose at all costs anything that advances that worldview, including the dissemination of the truth.
Thus, their professed allegiance to the truth must yield to their jaded perception of the higher good. Their pretense toward objectivity must be subordinated to their desired political ends.
This explains their concerted suppression of the undeniable historic significance of the Iraqi elections in favor of their timed release of the story on the surveillance scandal. It explains CBS's John Roberts' obliviousness to how he embarrassed himself in asking President Bush – on the heels of this remarkable news about the burgeoning Iraqi government – to confess his worst mistake in office.
While I am mindful and appreciative of the profound counterbalancing impact of the New Media in the interest of truth, we must remember that the MSM are still alive and kicking and hell-bent on shaping the news and public opinion in conformity with their worldview.
To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at www.davidlimbaugh.com.
COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2005
As I was watching President Bush's latest news conference, I was struck by the thought of how different the news climate and public mood would be if the mainstream media (MSM) were truly as unbiased as they pretend to be.
If the MSM were indeed objective, and animated by an investigative impulse and a nonpartisan, government-watchdog instinct, they might thoroughly cover and inquire into the following:
Why Joe Wilson appears to have lied when he denied that his wife, Valerie Plame, recommended him to the CIA to investigate the claim that Saddam Hussein sought uranium yellowcake from Niger. They might also examine Wilson's bragging about debunking certain forged documents on his trip – documents that were not even discovered until eight months later.
Senator Durbin's unconscionable likening of America's treatment of terrorist detainees to the treatment of prisoners by Pol Pot, the Nazi regime and the Soviet Gulags.
Why one of their own standard-bearers, the vaunted New York Times, sat on the surveillance "scandal" story until the week Congress was debating reauthorization of the Patriot Act.
Where Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid gets off demanding an independent investigation about this NSA surveillance – a practice that essentially began under President Clinton and about which Reid and his colleagues were privy to a dozen briefings.
How Democratic leaders have continually accused President Bush of lying to get us into war when they had access to the same WMD intelligence as President Bush and voted to authorize him to attack Iraq.
Why only a handful of Democratic senators availed themselves of their access to certain detailed reports on Iraqi WMD.
Why Democratic leaders claim their plainly unconditional authorization to attack Iraq was based on further conditions.
Upon what evidence the Democrats base their slanderous allegation that the Bush administration, as a matter of policy, engages in the systematic torture of terrorist detainees.
How Democratic leaders could justify their irresponsible call for a specific withdrawal timetable for Iraq without playing into the terrorists' hands.
Why most of those Democrats, when Republicans called their bluff, were afraid to back up their destructive rhetoric with their votes.
The Democrats' conspicuous inability or unwillingness to offer a single alternative plan for Iraq, though they ceaselessly condemn President Bush's policies on it.
Why senators who voted for the Patriot Act are now refusing to reauthorize it despite the lack of a credible case that the administration has abused its authority or compromised civil liberties.
How Democratic senators can complain about the government's failure to connect the dots concerning the terrorists' 9/11 plot and at the same time take action that will virtually guarantee our inability to connect future dots.
On what basis Sen. Harry Reid charges that the present Congress is "the most corrupt in history."
The remarkable progress in Iraq of the training of Iraqi security forces and the rebuilding of the Iraqi infrastructure.
The positive morale of the American troops in Iraq despite the endless distortions by the MSM and Democratic politicians.
The robustness and resilience of the American economy under President Bush.
The MSM have been largely silent or slanted on these stories, along with many others that don't support their preferred template.
Yet, in the face of this evidence, the MSM mostly deny their bias. What's scary is that many of them actually believe they aren't biased, which is as much a result of self-deception as deception of others.
This is because they operate in the type of stifling bubble they believe envelops President Bush. They surround themselves only with people who share their decidedly leftist, secular worldview. They harbor a myopic arrogance that regards contrary opinion as aberrant, perverse and evil. They oppose at all costs anything that advances that worldview, including the dissemination of the truth.
Thus, their professed allegiance to the truth must yield to their jaded perception of the higher good. Their pretense toward objectivity must be subordinated to their desired political ends.
This explains their concerted suppression of the undeniable historic significance of the Iraqi elections in favor of their timed release of the story on the surveillance scandal. It explains CBS's John Roberts' obliviousness to how he embarrassed himself in asking President Bush – on the heels of this remarkable news about the burgeoning Iraqi government – to confess his worst mistake in office.
While I am mindful and appreciative of the profound counterbalancing impact of the New Media in the interest of truth, we must remember that the MSM are still alive and kicking and hell-bent on shaping the news and public opinion in conformity with their worldview.
To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at www.davidlimbaugh.com.
COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Dems criticized for trade talks with Castro
By Victoria Wallack
Statehouse News Service
WINDHAM (Dec 21): House Speaker John Richardson, [another usefull idiot] who paid his own way to go to Cuba with Gov. John Baldacci last week, said he was part of the discussion with President Fidel Castro and that meeting the dictator was crucial to winning what the administration says is a $20 million export deal for Maine.
“You’ve got to understand, Fidel Castro micromanages that economy and a failure to meet with him is a failure to gain a greater amount of export (dollars.) …He’s sharp as a tack. He has a full grasp of what’s going on in the agriculture field, and he definitely calls the shots,” Richardson said of Castro.
Richardson said he was technically a consultant to the trade mission, which included the governor and businesses representatives from the dairy, agricultural and timber industries, along with former Agriculture Secretary Robert Spear. Rep. Ed Dugay, D-Cherryfield, was there representing his company and also paid his own way. Richardson said the trip personally cost him between $2,000 and $3,000.
“The governor only stayed a day and a half. I headed up the official delegation from that point forward,” Richardson said.
During the governor’s short stay, the delegation got a “surprise” visit from Castro, Richardson said. News of that meeting sparked strong criticism from Republican legislative leaders, who said the meeting “lends legitimacy to a brutal communist ruler with an appalling record of human rights violations.”
Richardson said the talks were about agricultural products and people.
“We were talking about our likes and similarities...We’re a poor, very proud but poor state; we hold our children in high esteem; education is a big issue – in Cuba and in Maine. There are a lot of similarities,” he said.
Castro specifically wanted to know about Maine dairy cattle, Richardson said, because Maine farmers export dairy cattle to Cuba. There also were discussions about apples, potatoes, lumber and Maine seafood. “It was all on the table,” Richardson said.
The speaker said he didn’t understand the Republican reaction, since many of the business people on the trip were Republicans, and the trade mission was about creating Maine jobs.
“For the life of me, I don’t understand it,” said Richardson. “Meeting with Fidel Castro….it’s how we got from $10 to $20 million,” he said, referring to the original agreement for $10 million in Maine exports negotiated by Spear in April. That trip ended when Spear got seriously ill and had to be flown home. Spear has since been replaced as agriculture secretary, but asked to go on this latest trip.
Richardson said Republicans are “backing off” from their criticism because they’re hearing strong support for the governor’s trade agreement.
Rep. David Bowles, R-Sanford, the House minority leader, said he’s not backing off from anything and hasn’t received a single e-mail opposing his position.
“It’s just not an issue that I think needs to be prolonged,” said Bowles of his criticism of the governor, adding that if Richardson met with Castro, “shame on him, too.”
“We’ve not criticized the trade mission nor have we criticized trying to promote trade. Trade is not the issue. It’s the face-to-face meeting with a brutal dictator,” Bowles said.
Asked about President George Bush’s meetings with communist leaders, Bowles said it is up to the federal government to determine whether something useful can come out of those types of meetings.
“It’s the federal government that establishes foreign policy, not the states,” he said. “It has clearly been the formal policy of the United States since 1960 to not meet on a personal level with Fidel Castro.”
Richardson said, “Meeting with Fidel Castro…in this day and age that doesn’t mean much to people.”
U.S. law limits travel and trade to Cuba, but was amended in 2000 to allow the states to sell agricultural products to the country.
Sent by Sr. Cohiba
Statehouse News Service
WINDHAM (Dec 21): House Speaker John Richardson, [another usefull idiot] who paid his own way to go to Cuba with Gov. John Baldacci last week, said he was part of the discussion with President Fidel Castro and that meeting the dictator was crucial to winning what the administration says is a $20 million export deal for Maine.
“You’ve got to understand, Fidel Castro micromanages that economy and a failure to meet with him is a failure to gain a greater amount of export (dollars.) …He’s sharp as a tack. He has a full grasp of what’s going on in the agriculture field, and he definitely calls the shots,” Richardson said of Castro.
Richardson said he was technically a consultant to the trade mission, which included the governor and businesses representatives from the dairy, agricultural and timber industries, along with former Agriculture Secretary Robert Spear. Rep. Ed Dugay, D-Cherryfield, was there representing his company and also paid his own way. Richardson said the trip personally cost him between $2,000 and $3,000.
“The governor only stayed a day and a half. I headed up the official delegation from that point forward,” Richardson said.
During the governor’s short stay, the delegation got a “surprise” visit from Castro, Richardson said. News of that meeting sparked strong criticism from Republican legislative leaders, who said the meeting “lends legitimacy to a brutal communist ruler with an appalling record of human rights violations.”
Richardson said the talks were about agricultural products and people.
“We were talking about our likes and similarities...We’re a poor, very proud but poor state; we hold our children in high esteem; education is a big issue – in Cuba and in Maine. There are a lot of similarities,” he said.
Castro specifically wanted to know about Maine dairy cattle, Richardson said, because Maine farmers export dairy cattle to Cuba. There also were discussions about apples, potatoes, lumber and Maine seafood. “It was all on the table,” Richardson said.
The speaker said he didn’t understand the Republican reaction, since many of the business people on the trip were Republicans, and the trade mission was about creating Maine jobs.
“For the life of me, I don’t understand it,” said Richardson. “Meeting with Fidel Castro….it’s how we got from $10 to $20 million,” he said, referring to the original agreement for $10 million in Maine exports negotiated by Spear in April. That trip ended when Spear got seriously ill and had to be flown home. Spear has since been replaced as agriculture secretary, but asked to go on this latest trip.
Richardson said Republicans are “backing off” from their criticism because they’re hearing strong support for the governor’s trade agreement.
Rep. David Bowles, R-Sanford, the House minority leader, said he’s not backing off from anything and hasn’t received a single e-mail opposing his position.
“It’s just not an issue that I think needs to be prolonged,” said Bowles of his criticism of the governor, adding that if Richardson met with Castro, “shame on him, too.”
“We’ve not criticized the trade mission nor have we criticized trying to promote trade. Trade is not the issue. It’s the face-to-face meeting with a brutal dictator,” Bowles said.
Asked about President George Bush’s meetings with communist leaders, Bowles said it is up to the federal government to determine whether something useful can come out of those types of meetings.
“It’s the federal government that establishes foreign policy, not the states,” he said. “It has clearly been the formal policy of the United States since 1960 to not meet on a personal level with Fidel Castro.”
Richardson said, “Meeting with Fidel Castro…in this day and age that doesn’t mean much to people.”
U.S. law limits travel and trade to Cuba, but was amended in 2000 to allow the states to sell agricultural products to the country.
Sent by Sr. Cohiba
Friday, December 16, 2005
Why can't I get arrested?
Why can't I get arrested?
Dec 15, 2005
by Ann Coulter
I'm getting a little insulted that no Democratic prosecutor has indicted me. Liberals bring trumped-up criminal charges against all the most dangerous conservatives. Why not me?
Democrat prosecutor Barry Krischer has spent two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to find some criminal charge to bring against Rush Limbaugh. Political hack Ronnie Earle spent three years and went through six grand juries to indict Tom DeLay. Liberals spent the last two years fantasizing in public about Karl Rove being indicted. Newt Gingrich was under criminal investigation for 3 1/2 years back in the '90s when liberals were afraid of him. Final result: No crime.
And of course, everybody cool in the Reagan administration was indicted. Or at least investigated and persecuted. Reagan's sainted attorney general Ed Meese was criminally investigated for 14 months before the prosecutor announced that he didn't have anything (but denounced Meese as a crook anyway).
I note that nobody ever wanted to indict Bob Dole or Gerald Ford (except, of course, other Republicans).
In the Nixon administration, liberals even brought "Deep Throat" up on charges – and he was one of you people! What, now I'm not even as hip as "Deep Throat"?
I've done a lot for my country. I think I deserve to be indicted, too. How am I supposed to show my face around Washington if I haven't been "frog-marched" out of my office by some liberal D.A. looking to move to D.C. for the next Democratic administration? What's a girl have to do to become a "person of interest" around here? Mr. Krischer, where do I go to get rid of my reputation?
Barry Krischer has been going around calling El Rushbo a criminal for more than two years but has yet to bring any charges. Last month, Krischer's assistant, James Martz, told the court that his office has "no idea" if Limbaugh has even committed a crime. I'm no lawyer – hey, wait a minute, yes I am! – but it sounds like maybe Krischer's maid has been out scoring him stupid pills again.
These liberals are fanatics about privacy when it comes to man-boy sex and stabbing forks into partially-born children. But a maid alleges that she bought Rush Limbaugh a few Percodans, and suddenly the government has declared a war on prescription painkillers.
Liberals are more optimistic about the charges against Tom DeLay than they are about the charges against Saddam Hussein – and the only living things Tom DeLay ever exterminated were rats and bugs.
In the remaining money-laundering case against DeLay, the prosecutors have acknowledged that they cannot produce the actual list of candidates who allegedly gained from the purported money-laundering scheme. But they hope to introduce a facsimile cobbled together from someone's memory.
In other words, during Rathergate, the case against the president consisted of a faked memo, whereas the case against Tom DeLay consists of an imaginary one.
Charges like these are not brought at random. They are brought against people who pose the greatest threat to liberals. (What am I? Miss Congeniality?)
The only difference between the Stalin-era prosecutions – also enthusiastically defended by liberals – and these prosecutions is that it's possible to get acquitted here. But the validity of the charges is about the same.
The only way to stop the left's criminalization of conservatism is to start indicting liberals.
It wasn't calm persuasion that convinced liberals the independent counsel law was a bad idea. It was an independent prosecutor investigating Bill Clinton (who actually was a felon!).
It wasn't logical argument that got them to admit that – sometimes – women do lie about sexual harassment. It was half a dozen women accusing Bill Clinton of groping, flashing or raping them.
It wasn't the plain facts that got liberals to admit that, sometimes, "objective" news reports can be biased. It was the appearance of Fox News Channel.
Can't we rustle up a right-wing prosecutor to indict Teddy Kennedy for Mary Jo Kopechne's drowning? Unlike the cases against Limbaugh and DeLay, Mary Jo's death was arguably a crime, and we could probably prove it in court.
Ann Coulter is a popular syndicated columnist for Universal Press Syndicate.
Dec 15, 2005
by Ann Coulter
I'm getting a little insulted that no Democratic prosecutor has indicted me. Liberals bring trumped-up criminal charges against all the most dangerous conservatives. Why not me?
Democrat prosecutor Barry Krischer has spent two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to find some criminal charge to bring against Rush Limbaugh. Political hack Ronnie Earle spent three years and went through six grand juries to indict Tom DeLay. Liberals spent the last two years fantasizing in public about Karl Rove being indicted. Newt Gingrich was under criminal investigation for 3 1/2 years back in the '90s when liberals were afraid of him. Final result: No crime.
And of course, everybody cool in the Reagan administration was indicted. Or at least investigated and persecuted. Reagan's sainted attorney general Ed Meese was criminally investigated for 14 months before the prosecutor announced that he didn't have anything (but denounced Meese as a crook anyway).
I note that nobody ever wanted to indict Bob Dole or Gerald Ford (except, of course, other Republicans).
In the Nixon administration, liberals even brought "Deep Throat" up on charges – and he was one of you people! What, now I'm not even as hip as "Deep Throat"?
I've done a lot for my country. I think I deserve to be indicted, too. How am I supposed to show my face around Washington if I haven't been "frog-marched" out of my office by some liberal D.A. looking to move to D.C. for the next Democratic administration? What's a girl have to do to become a "person of interest" around here? Mr. Krischer, where do I go to get rid of my reputation?
Barry Krischer has been going around calling El Rushbo a criminal for more than two years but has yet to bring any charges. Last month, Krischer's assistant, James Martz, told the court that his office has "no idea" if Limbaugh has even committed a crime. I'm no lawyer – hey, wait a minute, yes I am! – but it sounds like maybe Krischer's maid has been out scoring him stupid pills again.
These liberals are fanatics about privacy when it comes to man-boy sex and stabbing forks into partially-born children. But a maid alleges that she bought Rush Limbaugh a few Percodans, and suddenly the government has declared a war on prescription painkillers.
Liberals are more optimistic about the charges against Tom DeLay than they are about the charges against Saddam Hussein – and the only living things Tom DeLay ever exterminated were rats and bugs.
In the remaining money-laundering case against DeLay, the prosecutors have acknowledged that they cannot produce the actual list of candidates who allegedly gained from the purported money-laundering scheme. But they hope to introduce a facsimile cobbled together from someone's memory.
In other words, during Rathergate, the case against the president consisted of a faked memo, whereas the case against Tom DeLay consists of an imaginary one.
Charges like these are not brought at random. They are brought against people who pose the greatest threat to liberals. (What am I? Miss Congeniality?)
The only difference between the Stalin-era prosecutions – also enthusiastically defended by liberals – and these prosecutions is that it's possible to get acquitted here. But the validity of the charges is about the same.
The only way to stop the left's criminalization of conservatism is to start indicting liberals.
It wasn't calm persuasion that convinced liberals the independent counsel law was a bad idea. It was an independent prosecutor investigating Bill Clinton (who actually was a felon!).
It wasn't logical argument that got them to admit that – sometimes – women do lie about sexual harassment. It was half a dozen women accusing Bill Clinton of groping, flashing or raping them.
It wasn't the plain facts that got liberals to admit that, sometimes, "objective" news reports can be biased. It was the appearance of Fox News Channel.
Can't we rustle up a right-wing prosecutor to indict Teddy Kennedy for Mary Jo Kopechne's drowning? Unlike the cases against Limbaugh and DeLay, Mary Jo's death was arguably a crime, and we could probably prove it in court.
Ann Coulter is a popular syndicated columnist for Universal Press Syndicate.
Another Biased Editorial about Cuban embargo
From the Maine Morning Sentinel
United States should lift embargo against Cuba
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
The United States' restrictive policies on Cuba are out of date, self-defeating and harmful to the economies of Maine and the nation.
The decades-old embargo limiting U.S.-Cuban trade should be lifted -- even if Fidel Castro is still in power.
The sanctions, after all, accomplish nothing except to cause economic hardship for two nations. And because other countries, including Canada, are not honoring the embargo, the restriction's impact is minimal.
Yes, Castro is a dictator whose communist regime is notorious for its human-rights violations and abuses, including harassing, detaining and even imprisoning people for political reasons. He is, by any measure, a bad guy who needed to go long ago.
But these concerns should not be reasons that businesses -- employers -- in Maine and across the United States should be prevented from selling as much as possible to Cubans.
The island nation, after all, is rife with potential. As proof, look at how a Maine trade delegation now in Havana has fared despite the federal limits placed on what can be sold to Cuba.
Gov. John E. Baldacci, who spent Sunday and Monday in Cuba as part of the trade group, has signed a trade agreement with Cuban officials calling for them to buy $20 million worth of agricultural products from Maine companies -- including dairy cows, seed potatoes, apples, eggs, frozen fish, sardines, wood products and other goods -- over the next two years.
The agreement expanded on and finalized a preliminary, $10 million export agreement signed last year by Robert W. Spear, then Maine's agriculture commissioner, and by the head of Cuba's state-run, food-import agency. It makes Maine the 37th state that is selling millions of dollars in agricultural products to Cuba.
The successful trade mission, during which Baldacci and members of his staff met with and discussed agricultural issues with Castro, has generated greater sales commitments than the combined total of the three previous trade missions that Mainers have taken.
Baldacci, along with other state officials and business people from Maine, traveled to France in October, Germany and Italy in 2004 and Ireland and the United Kingdom in 2003. Maine businesses generated $5.2 million in sales from the France trip, $1.2 million from the Germany-Italy trip and $7.5 million from the trip to Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Clearly, Cuba is a potentially lucrative market and trading partner.
We understand why the U.S. government broke diplomatic relations and ordered a trade and travel with Cuba in 1959, when Castro became premier (he assumed the title of president in 1976).
And it made sense when Congress passed a law in 2000 allowing American food and medicine to be sold to communist Cuba on a cash-only basis -- to be paid in full before the items leave American ports.
But today, the embargo's only demonstrable effect is to unnecessarily hinder economic -- and cultural -- interaction between the United States and Cuba. (Cuban products, including its famous cigars, still cannot be brought into this country.)
We agree with Baldacci, the sixth U.S. governor to travel to Cuba, that Maine should be a leader in the effort to expand trade with the island only 90 miles from Key West, Fla.
"We're working within the existing framework, trying to show other states the ability to trade with Cuba, and gain from Maine leadership," Baldacci said. "We hope to demonstrate how important this is."
This plan makes sense.
The federal government should take a close look at a trade-and-travel embargo against Cuba that made sense in 1959 -- and for many years after.
What was once a fitting political and strategic response to a communist dictator does little today except hurt the people and economies of the United States and Cuba.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
United States should lift embargo against Cuba
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
The United States' restrictive policies on Cuba are out of date, self-defeating and harmful to the economies of Maine and the nation.
The decades-old embargo limiting U.S.-Cuban trade should be lifted -- even if Fidel Castro is still in power.
The sanctions, after all, accomplish nothing except to cause economic hardship for two nations. And because other countries, including Canada, are not honoring the embargo, the restriction's impact is minimal.
Yes, Castro is a dictator whose communist regime is notorious for its human-rights violations and abuses, including harassing, detaining and even imprisoning people for political reasons. He is, by any measure, a bad guy who needed to go long ago.
But these concerns should not be reasons that businesses -- employers -- in Maine and across the United States should be prevented from selling as much as possible to Cubans.
The island nation, after all, is rife with potential. As proof, look at how a Maine trade delegation now in Havana has fared despite the federal limits placed on what can be sold to Cuba.
Gov. John E. Baldacci, who spent Sunday and Monday in Cuba as part of the trade group, has signed a trade agreement with Cuban officials calling for them to buy $20 million worth of agricultural products from Maine companies -- including dairy cows, seed potatoes, apples, eggs, frozen fish, sardines, wood products and other goods -- over the next two years.
The agreement expanded on and finalized a preliminary, $10 million export agreement signed last year by Robert W. Spear, then Maine's agriculture commissioner, and by the head of Cuba's state-run, food-import agency. It makes Maine the 37th state that is selling millions of dollars in agricultural products to Cuba.
The successful trade mission, during which Baldacci and members of his staff met with and discussed agricultural issues with Castro, has generated greater sales commitments than the combined total of the three previous trade missions that Mainers have taken.
Baldacci, along with other state officials and business people from Maine, traveled to France in October, Germany and Italy in 2004 and Ireland and the United Kingdom in 2003. Maine businesses generated $5.2 million in sales from the France trip, $1.2 million from the Germany-Italy trip and $7.5 million from the trip to Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Clearly, Cuba is a potentially lucrative market and trading partner.
We understand why the U.S. government broke diplomatic relations and ordered a trade and travel with Cuba in 1959, when Castro became premier (he assumed the title of president in 1976).
And it made sense when Congress passed a law in 2000 allowing American food and medicine to be sold to communist Cuba on a cash-only basis -- to be paid in full before the items leave American ports.
But today, the embargo's only demonstrable effect is to unnecessarily hinder economic -- and cultural -- interaction between the United States and Cuba. (Cuban products, including its famous cigars, still cannot be brought into this country.)
We agree with Baldacci, the sixth U.S. governor to travel to Cuba, that Maine should be a leader in the effort to expand trade with the island only 90 miles from Key West, Fla.
"We're working within the existing framework, trying to show other states the ability to trade with Cuba, and gain from Maine leadership," Baldacci said. "We hope to demonstrate how important this is."
This plan makes sense.
The federal government should take a close look at a trade-and-travel embargo against Cuba that made sense in 1959 -- and for many years after.
What was once a fitting political and strategic response to a communist dictator does little today except hurt the people and economies of the United States and Cuba.
Sent by Sr.Cohiba
Saddam's WMDs have been found
MONDAY APRIL 26 2004
OPERATION: IRAQI FREEDOM
New evidence unveils chemical, biological, nuclear, ballistic arms
© 2004 Insight/News World Communications Inc.
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
New evidence out of Iraq suggests the U.S. effort to track down Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction is having better success than is being reported.
Key assertions by the intelligence community widely judged in the media and by critics of President Bush as having been false are turning out to have been true after all.
But this stunning news has received little attention from the major media, and the president's critics continue to insist that "no weapons" have been found.
In virtually every case -- chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missiles -- the United States has found the weapons and the programs that the Iraqi dictator successfully concealed for 12 years from U.N. weapons inspectors.
The Iraq Survey Group, ISG, whose intelligence analysts are managed by Charles Duelfer, a former State Department official and deputy chief of the U.N.-led arms-inspection teams, has found "hundreds of cases of activities that were prohibited" under U.N. Security Council resolutions, a senior administration official tells Insight.
"There is a long list of charges made by the U.S. that have been confirmed, but none of this seems to mean anything because the weapons that were unaccounted for by the United Nations remain unaccounted for."
Both Duelfer and his predecessor, David Kay, reported to Congress that the evidence they had found on the ground in Iraq showed Saddam's regime was in "material violation" of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the last of 17 resolutions that promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not make a complete disclosure of its weapons programs and dismantle them in a verifiable manner.
The United States cited Iraq's refusal to comply with these demands as one justification for going to war.
Both Duelfer and Kay found Iraq had "a clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses with equipment that was suitable to continuing its prohibited chemical- and biological-weapons [BW] programs," the official said. "They found a prison laboratory where we suspect they tested biological weapons on human subjects."
They found equipment for "uranium-enrichment centrifuges" whose only plausible use was as part of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. In all these cases, "Iraqi scientists had been told before the war not to declare their activities to the U.N. inspectors," the official said.
But while the president's critics and the media might plausibly hide behind ambiguity and a lack of sensational-looking finds for not reporting some discoveries, in the case of Saddam's ballistic-missile programs they have no excuse for their silence.
"Where were the missiles? We found them," another senior administration official told Insight.
"Saddam Hussein's prohibited missile programs are as close to a slam dunk as you will ever find for violating United Nations resolutions," the first official said. Both senior administration officials spoke to Insight on condition that neither their name nor their agency be identified, but their accounts of what the United States has found in Iraq coincided in every major area.
When former weapons inspector Kay reported to Congress in January that the United States had found "no stockpiles" of forbidden weapons in Iraq, his conclusions made front-page news. But when he detailed what the ISG had found in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last October, few took notice.
Among Kay's revelations, which officials tell Insight have been amplified in subsequent inspections in recent weeks:
A prison laboratory complex that may have been used for human testing of BW agents and "that Iraqi officials working to prepare the U.N. inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the U.N." Why was Saddam interested in testing biological-warfare agents on humans if he didn't have a biological-weapons program?
"Reference strains" of a wide variety of biological-weapons agents were found beneath the sink in the home of a prominent Iraqi BW scientist. "We thought it was a big deal," a senior administration official said. "But it has been written off [by the press] as a sort of 'starter set.'"
New research on BW-applicable agents, brucella and Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin that were not declared to the United Nations.
A line of unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, or drones, "not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 kilometers [311 miles], 350 kilometers [217 miles] beyond the permissible limit."
"Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited Scud-variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the U.N."
"Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] -- well beyond the 150-kilometer-range limit [93 miles] imposed by the U.N. Missiles of a 1,000-kilometer range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets throughout the Middle East, including Ankara [Turkey], Cairo [Egypt] and Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emirates]."
In addition, through interviews with Iraqi scientists, seized documents and other evidence, the ISG learned the Iraqi government had made "clandestine attempts between late 1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300-kilometer-range [807 miles] ballistic missiles -- probably the No Dong -- 300-kilometer-range [186 miles] antiship cruise missiles and other prohibited military equipment," Kay reported.
In testimony before Congress on March 30, Duelfer, revealed the ISG had found evidence of a "crash program" to construct new plants capable of making chemical- and biological-warfare agents.
The ISG also found a previously undeclared program to build a "high-speed rail gun," a device apparently designed for testing nuclear-weapons materials. That came in addition to 500 tons of natural uranium stockpiled at Iraq's main declared nuclear site south of Baghdad, which International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky acknowledged to Insight had been intended for "a clandestine nuclear-weapons program."
In taking apart Iraq's clandestine procurement network, Duelfer said his investigators had discovered that "the primary source of illicit financing for this system was oil smuggling conducted through government-to-government protocols negotiated with neighboring countries [and] from kickback payments made on contracts set up through the U.N. oil-for-food program."
What the president's critics and the media widely have portrayed as the most dramatic failure of the U.S. case against Saddam has been the claimed failure to find "stockpiles" of chemical and biological weapons. But in a June 2003 Washington Post op-ed, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus called such criticism "a distortion and a trivialization of a major threat to international peace and security."
The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction concluded that Saddam "probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons [MT] and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW [chemical warfare] agents -- much of it added in the last year."
That assessment was based, in part, on conclusions contained in the final report from U.N. weapons inspectors in 1999, which highlighted discrepancies in what the Iraqis reported to the United Nations and the amount of precursor chemicals U.N. arms inspectors could document Iraq had imported but for which it no longer could account.
Until now, Bush's critics say, no stockpiles of CW agents made with those precursors have been found. The snap conclusion they draw is that the administration "lied" to the American people to create a pretext for invading Iraq.
But what are "stockpiles" of CW agents supposed to look like? Was anyone seriously expecting Saddam to have left behind freshly painted warehouses packed with chemical munitions, all neatly laid out in serried rows, with labels written in English?
Or did they think that a captured Saddam would guide U.S. troops to smoking vats full of nerve gas in an abandoned factory?
Stockpiles found
In fact, as recent evidence made public by a former operations officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority's intelligence unit in Iraq shows, some of those stockpiles have been found - not all at once, and not all in nice working order -- but found all the same.
Douglas Hanson was a U.S. Army cavalry reconnaissance officer for 20 years, and a veteran of Gulf War I. He was an atomic demolitions munitions security officer and a nuclear, biological and chemical defense officer. As a civilian analyst in Iraq last summer, he worked for an operations intelligence unit of the CPA in Iraq, and later, with the newly formed Ministry of Science and Technology, which was responsible for finding new, nonlethal employment for Iraqi WMD scientists.
In an interview with Insight and in an article he wrote for the online magazine AmericanThinker.com, Hanson examines reports from U.S. combat units and public information confirming that many of Iraq's CW stockpiles have indeed been found.
Until now, however, journalists have devoted scant attention to this evidence, in part because it contradicts the story line they have been putting forward since the U.S.-led inspections began after the war.
But another reason for the media silence may stem from the seemingly undramatic nature of the "finds" Hanson and others have described. The materials that constitute Saddam's chemical-weapons "stockpiles" look an awful lot like pesticides, which they indeed resemble.
"Pesticides are the key elements in the chemical-agent arena," Hanson says. "In fact, the general pesticide chemical formula (organophosphate) is the 'grandfather' of modern-day nerve agents."
The United Nations was fully aware that Saddam had established his chemical-weapons plants under the guise of a permitted civilian chemical-industry infrastructure. Plants inspected in the early 1990s as CW production facilities had been set up to appear as if they were producing pesticides, or in the case of a giant plant near Fallujah, chlorine, which is used to produce mustard gas.
When coalition forces entered Iraq, "huge warehouses and caches of 'commercial and agricultural' chemicals were seized and painstakingly tested by Army and Marine chemical specialists," Hanson writes. "What was surprising was how quickly the ISG refuted the findings of our ground forces and how silent they have been on the significance of these caches."
Caches of "commercial and agricultural" chemicals don't match the expectation of "stockpiles" of chemical weapons. But, in fact, that is precisely what they are. "At a very minimum," Hanson tells Insight, "they were storing the precursors to restart a chemical-warfare program very quickly."
Kay and Duelfer came to a similar conclusion, telling Congress under oath that Saddam had built new facilities and stockpiled the materials to relaunch production of chemical and biological weapons at a moment's notice. At Karbala, U.S. troops stumbled upon 55-gallon drums of pesticides at what appeared to be a very large "agricultural supply" area, Hanson says. Some of the drums were stored in a "camouflaged bunker complex" that was shown to reporters -- with unpleasant results.
"More than a dozen soldiers, a Knight-Ridder reporter, a CNN cameraman, and two Iraqi POWs came down with symptoms consistent with exposure to a nerve agent," Hanson says. "But later ISG tests resulted in a proclamation of negative, end of story, nothing to see here, etc., and the earlier findings and injuries dissolved into nonexistence. Left unexplained is the small matter of the obvious pains taken to disguise the cache of ostensibly legitimate pesticides. One wonders about the advantage an agricultural-commodities business gains by securing drums of pesticide in camouflaged bunkers 6 feet underground. The 'agricultural site' was also colocated with a military ammunition dump -- evidently nothing more than a coincidence in the eyes of the ISG."
That wasn't the only significant find by coalition troops of probable CW stockpiles, Hanson believes. Near the northern Iraqi town of Bai'ji, where Saddam had built a chemical-weapons plant known to the United States from nearly 12 years of inspections, elements of the 4th Infantry Division found 55-gallon drums containing a substance identified through mass spectrometry analysis as cyclosarin -- a nerve agent.
Nearby were surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, gas masks and a mobile laboratory that could have been used to mix chemicals at the site.
"Of course, later tests by the experts revealed that these were only the ubiquitous pesticides that everybody was turning up," Hanson says. "It seems Iraqi soldiers were obsessed with keeping ammo dumps insect-free, according to the reading of the evidence now enshrined by the conventional wisdom that 'no WMD stockpiles have been discovered.'"
At Taji -- an Iraqi weapons complex as large as the District of Columbia -- U.S. combat units discovered more "pesticides" stockpiled in specially built containers, smaller in diameter but much longer than the standard 55-gallon drum.
Hanson says he still recalls the military sending digital images of the canisters to his office, where his boss at the Ministry of Science and Technology translated the Arabic-language markings. "They were labeled as pesticides," he says. "Gee, you sure have got a lot of pesticides stored in ammo dumps."
Again, this January, Danish forces found 120-millimeter mortar shells filled with a mysterious liquid that initially tested positive for blister agents. But subsequent tests by the United States disputed that finding.
"If it wasn't a chemical agent, what was it?" Hanson asks. "More pesticides? Dish-washing detergent? From this old soldier's perspective, I gain nothing from putting a liquid in my mortar rounds unless that stuff will do bad things to the enemy."
The discoveries Hanson describes are not dramatic. And that's the problem: Finding real stockpiles in grubby ammo dumps doesn't fit the image the media and the president's critics carefully have fed to the public of what Iraq's weapons ought to look like. A senior administration official who has gone through the intelligence reporting from Iraq as well as the earlier reports from U.N. arms inspectors refers to another well-documented allegation.
"The Iraqis admitted they had made 3.9 tons of VX," a powerful nerve gas, but claimed they had never weaponized it. The U.N. inspectors "felt they had more. But where did it go?" The Iraqis never provided any explanation of what had happened to their VX stockpiles.
What does 3.9 tons of VX look like? "It could fit in one large garage," the official says. Assuming, of course, that Saddam would assemble every bit of VX gas his scientists had produced at a single site, that still amounts to one large garage in an area the size of the state of California.
Senior administration officials stress that the investigation will continue as inspectors comb through millions of pages of documents in Iraq and attempt to interview Iraqi weapons scientists who have been trained all their professional lives to conceal their activities from the outside world.
"The conditions under which the ISG is working are not very conducive," one official said. "But this president wants the truth to come out. This is not an exercise in spinning or censoring."
OPERATION: IRAQI FREEDOM
New evidence unveils chemical, biological, nuclear, ballistic arms
© 2004 Insight/News World Communications Inc.
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
New evidence out of Iraq suggests the U.S. effort to track down Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction is having better success than is being reported.
Key assertions by the intelligence community widely judged in the media and by critics of President Bush as having been false are turning out to have been true after all.
But this stunning news has received little attention from the major media, and the president's critics continue to insist that "no weapons" have been found.
In virtually every case -- chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missiles -- the United States has found the weapons and the programs that the Iraqi dictator successfully concealed for 12 years from U.N. weapons inspectors.
The Iraq Survey Group, ISG, whose intelligence analysts are managed by Charles Duelfer, a former State Department official and deputy chief of the U.N.-led arms-inspection teams, has found "hundreds of cases of activities that were prohibited" under U.N. Security Council resolutions, a senior administration official tells Insight.
"There is a long list of charges made by the U.S. that have been confirmed, but none of this seems to mean anything because the weapons that were unaccounted for by the United Nations remain unaccounted for."
Both Duelfer and his predecessor, David Kay, reported to Congress that the evidence they had found on the ground in Iraq showed Saddam's regime was in "material violation" of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the last of 17 resolutions that promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not make a complete disclosure of its weapons programs and dismantle them in a verifiable manner.
The United States cited Iraq's refusal to comply with these demands as one justification for going to war.
Both Duelfer and Kay found Iraq had "a clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses with equipment that was suitable to continuing its prohibited chemical- and biological-weapons [BW] programs," the official said. "They found a prison laboratory where we suspect they tested biological weapons on human subjects."
They found equipment for "uranium-enrichment centrifuges" whose only plausible use was as part of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. In all these cases, "Iraqi scientists had been told before the war not to declare their activities to the U.N. inspectors," the official said.
But while the president's critics and the media might plausibly hide behind ambiguity and a lack of sensational-looking finds for not reporting some discoveries, in the case of Saddam's ballistic-missile programs they have no excuse for their silence.
"Where were the missiles? We found them," another senior administration official told Insight.
"Saddam Hussein's prohibited missile programs are as close to a slam dunk as you will ever find for violating United Nations resolutions," the first official said. Both senior administration officials spoke to Insight on condition that neither their name nor their agency be identified, but their accounts of what the United States has found in Iraq coincided in every major area.
When former weapons inspector Kay reported to Congress in January that the United States had found "no stockpiles" of forbidden weapons in Iraq, his conclusions made front-page news. But when he detailed what the ISG had found in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last October, few took notice.
Among Kay's revelations, which officials tell Insight have been amplified in subsequent inspections in recent weeks:
A prison laboratory complex that may have been used for human testing of BW agents and "that Iraqi officials working to prepare the U.N. inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the U.N." Why was Saddam interested in testing biological-warfare agents on humans if he didn't have a biological-weapons program?
"Reference strains" of a wide variety of biological-weapons agents were found beneath the sink in the home of a prominent Iraqi BW scientist. "We thought it was a big deal," a senior administration official said. "But it has been written off [by the press] as a sort of 'starter set.'"
New research on BW-applicable agents, brucella and Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin that were not declared to the United Nations.
A line of unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, or drones, "not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 kilometers [311 miles], 350 kilometers [217 miles] beyond the permissible limit."
"Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited Scud-variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the U.N."
"Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] -- well beyond the 150-kilometer-range limit [93 miles] imposed by the U.N. Missiles of a 1,000-kilometer range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets throughout the Middle East, including Ankara [Turkey], Cairo [Egypt] and Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emirates]."
In addition, through interviews with Iraqi scientists, seized documents and other evidence, the ISG learned the Iraqi government had made "clandestine attempts between late 1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300-kilometer-range [807 miles] ballistic missiles -- probably the No Dong -- 300-kilometer-range [186 miles] antiship cruise missiles and other prohibited military equipment," Kay reported.
In testimony before Congress on March 30, Duelfer, revealed the ISG had found evidence of a "crash program" to construct new plants capable of making chemical- and biological-warfare agents.
The ISG also found a previously undeclared program to build a "high-speed rail gun," a device apparently designed for testing nuclear-weapons materials. That came in addition to 500 tons of natural uranium stockpiled at Iraq's main declared nuclear site south of Baghdad, which International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky acknowledged to Insight had been intended for "a clandestine nuclear-weapons program."
In taking apart Iraq's clandestine procurement network, Duelfer said his investigators had discovered that "the primary source of illicit financing for this system was oil smuggling conducted through government-to-government protocols negotiated with neighboring countries [and] from kickback payments made on contracts set up through the U.N. oil-for-food program."
What the president's critics and the media widely have portrayed as the most dramatic failure of the U.S. case against Saddam has been the claimed failure to find "stockpiles" of chemical and biological weapons. But in a June 2003 Washington Post op-ed, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus called such criticism "a distortion and a trivialization of a major threat to international peace and security."
The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction concluded that Saddam "probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons [MT] and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW [chemical warfare] agents -- much of it added in the last year."
That assessment was based, in part, on conclusions contained in the final report from U.N. weapons inspectors in 1999, which highlighted discrepancies in what the Iraqis reported to the United Nations and the amount of precursor chemicals U.N. arms inspectors could document Iraq had imported but for which it no longer could account.
Until now, Bush's critics say, no stockpiles of CW agents made with those precursors have been found. The snap conclusion they draw is that the administration "lied" to the American people to create a pretext for invading Iraq.
But what are "stockpiles" of CW agents supposed to look like? Was anyone seriously expecting Saddam to have left behind freshly painted warehouses packed with chemical munitions, all neatly laid out in serried rows, with labels written in English?
Or did they think that a captured Saddam would guide U.S. troops to smoking vats full of nerve gas in an abandoned factory?
Stockpiles found
In fact, as recent evidence made public by a former operations officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority's intelligence unit in Iraq shows, some of those stockpiles have been found - not all at once, and not all in nice working order -- but found all the same.
Douglas Hanson was a U.S. Army cavalry reconnaissance officer for 20 years, and a veteran of Gulf War I. He was an atomic demolitions munitions security officer and a nuclear, biological and chemical defense officer. As a civilian analyst in Iraq last summer, he worked for an operations intelligence unit of the CPA in Iraq, and later, with the newly formed Ministry of Science and Technology, which was responsible for finding new, nonlethal employment for Iraqi WMD scientists.
In an interview with Insight and in an article he wrote for the online magazine AmericanThinker.com, Hanson examines reports from U.S. combat units and public information confirming that many of Iraq's CW stockpiles have indeed been found.
Until now, however, journalists have devoted scant attention to this evidence, in part because it contradicts the story line they have been putting forward since the U.S.-led inspections began after the war.
But another reason for the media silence may stem from the seemingly undramatic nature of the "finds" Hanson and others have described. The materials that constitute Saddam's chemical-weapons "stockpiles" look an awful lot like pesticides, which they indeed resemble.
"Pesticides are the key elements in the chemical-agent arena," Hanson says. "In fact, the general pesticide chemical formula (organophosphate) is the 'grandfather' of modern-day nerve agents."
The United Nations was fully aware that Saddam had established his chemical-weapons plants under the guise of a permitted civilian chemical-industry infrastructure. Plants inspected in the early 1990s as CW production facilities had been set up to appear as if they were producing pesticides, or in the case of a giant plant near Fallujah, chlorine, which is used to produce mustard gas.
When coalition forces entered Iraq, "huge warehouses and caches of 'commercial and agricultural' chemicals were seized and painstakingly tested by Army and Marine chemical specialists," Hanson writes. "What was surprising was how quickly the ISG refuted the findings of our ground forces and how silent they have been on the significance of these caches."
Caches of "commercial and agricultural" chemicals don't match the expectation of "stockpiles" of chemical weapons. But, in fact, that is precisely what they are. "At a very minimum," Hanson tells Insight, "they were storing the precursors to restart a chemical-warfare program very quickly."
Kay and Duelfer came to a similar conclusion, telling Congress under oath that Saddam had built new facilities and stockpiled the materials to relaunch production of chemical and biological weapons at a moment's notice. At Karbala, U.S. troops stumbled upon 55-gallon drums of pesticides at what appeared to be a very large "agricultural supply" area, Hanson says. Some of the drums were stored in a "camouflaged bunker complex" that was shown to reporters -- with unpleasant results.
"More than a dozen soldiers, a Knight-Ridder reporter, a CNN cameraman, and two Iraqi POWs came down with symptoms consistent with exposure to a nerve agent," Hanson says. "But later ISG tests resulted in a proclamation of negative, end of story, nothing to see here, etc., and the earlier findings and injuries dissolved into nonexistence. Left unexplained is the small matter of the obvious pains taken to disguise the cache of ostensibly legitimate pesticides. One wonders about the advantage an agricultural-commodities business gains by securing drums of pesticide in camouflaged bunkers 6 feet underground. The 'agricultural site' was also colocated with a military ammunition dump -- evidently nothing more than a coincidence in the eyes of the ISG."
That wasn't the only significant find by coalition troops of probable CW stockpiles, Hanson believes. Near the northern Iraqi town of Bai'ji, where Saddam had built a chemical-weapons plant known to the United States from nearly 12 years of inspections, elements of the 4th Infantry Division found 55-gallon drums containing a substance identified through mass spectrometry analysis as cyclosarin -- a nerve agent.
Nearby were surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, gas masks and a mobile laboratory that could have been used to mix chemicals at the site.
"Of course, later tests by the experts revealed that these were only the ubiquitous pesticides that everybody was turning up," Hanson says. "It seems Iraqi soldiers were obsessed with keeping ammo dumps insect-free, according to the reading of the evidence now enshrined by the conventional wisdom that 'no WMD stockpiles have been discovered.'"
At Taji -- an Iraqi weapons complex as large as the District of Columbia -- U.S. combat units discovered more "pesticides" stockpiled in specially built containers, smaller in diameter but much longer than the standard 55-gallon drum.
Hanson says he still recalls the military sending digital images of the canisters to his office, where his boss at the Ministry of Science and Technology translated the Arabic-language markings. "They were labeled as pesticides," he says. "Gee, you sure have got a lot of pesticides stored in ammo dumps."
Again, this January, Danish forces found 120-millimeter mortar shells filled with a mysterious liquid that initially tested positive for blister agents. But subsequent tests by the United States disputed that finding.
"If it wasn't a chemical agent, what was it?" Hanson asks. "More pesticides? Dish-washing detergent? From this old soldier's perspective, I gain nothing from putting a liquid in my mortar rounds unless that stuff will do bad things to the enemy."
The discoveries Hanson describes are not dramatic. And that's the problem: Finding real stockpiles in grubby ammo dumps doesn't fit the image the media and the president's critics carefully have fed to the public of what Iraq's weapons ought to look like. A senior administration official who has gone through the intelligence reporting from Iraq as well as the earlier reports from U.N. arms inspectors refers to another well-documented allegation.
"The Iraqis admitted they had made 3.9 tons of VX," a powerful nerve gas, but claimed they had never weaponized it. The U.N. inspectors "felt they had more. But where did it go?" The Iraqis never provided any explanation of what had happened to their VX stockpiles.
What does 3.9 tons of VX look like? "It could fit in one large garage," the official says. Assuming, of course, that Saddam would assemble every bit of VX gas his scientists had produced at a single site, that still amounts to one large garage in an area the size of the state of California.
Senior administration officials stress that the investigation will continue as inspectors comb through millions of pages of documents in Iraq and attempt to interview Iraqi weapons scientists who have been trained all their professional lives to conceal their activities from the outside world.
"The conditions under which the ISG is working are not very conducive," one official said. "But this president wants the truth to come out. This is not an exercise in spinning or censoring."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)