Forbes needs a proof reader...

Former Longtime Confidant Accuses Ariel Sharon of Assassinating Yasser Arafat...

While the world prepares to say goodbye to the year 2006, waiting eagerly to welcome the new year 2007, the people of Afghanistan, the Karzai government and the US and NATO fighters would like to forget their worst year since the ouster of Taliban five years ago.

Despite pumping billions of Dollars, the lack of improvement in the lives of ordinary Afghans has belied the aspirations of people with signs of frustration, hopelessness and disillusionment.

Alarmist assessments of Iran's nuclear program lack a key component: evidence.

Can we rely upon our regulatory agencies to protect us? Those with long memories might recall DDT, tryptophan and thalidomide, all of which were originally approved for use, with disastrous results that are with us still. I remarked at the outset that food is big business. Big business means investment and employment, and they are two words that governments listen to, especially within the narrow confines of national interest. But what we're talking about here is global economics. By 1993 agricultural biotechnology was controlled by only eleven giant corporations, a figure that is now even smaller since recent amalgamations and take-overs. There is a global power struggle taking place. The European Commission is negotiating with the World Trade Organisation to remove trade barriers between the Northern and Southern hemisphere, while at the same time negotiating to protect the 'patents of life' for biotechnology through the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights agreements.

Bush �outpolled by Lucifer�...

Europeans denounce Hussein's execution...

Inside reports suggest President Bush has already decided on sending many more troops to Iraq starting next month. Until now, the media has bought into his labeling of this as a mere "surge." But the media needs to call it by its proper name: "escalation."

Governor Jon Corzine intends to sell New Jersey's toll roads to private investors for $10 billion. Selling or leasing publicly owned toll roads degrades our public and financial security. Toll road takeovers led by Goldman Sachs, where Governor Corzine was the Chairman and CEO before taking elected office, prove the point.

Goldman Sachs took the Indiana Toll Road and the Chicago Skyway private in 2005. Goldman invested its own money in both deals. Goldman worked every side of these deals, collecting fees as lobbyists, deal makers and investors.

Doctor and invention outlast jeers and threats...

Hamzeh said the fact that Saddam looked composed as he was readied for execution would not diminish the negative impact of the footage.

"It is not about his behaviour. The normal viewer will see the picture as humiliating," he argued. "Humiliation can provoke anger, violence."

Arab commentators are angry about the timing of the execution on one of the holiest days of the Muslim calendar. Some argue Washington rather than Baghdad dictated the timing and ask why Americans have not been brought to justice for all the Iraqis killed since the 2003 invasion.

A former United Nations weapons inspector and leading Iraq War opponent has written a new book alleging that Jerusalem is pushing the Bush administration into war with Iran, and accusing the pro-Israel lobby of dual loyalty and �outright espionage.�

�After Saddam's execution, the U.S. is bracing for blowback that could last days, months or even decades.�

"It was this man, Gerald R. Ford, who led our republic safely though a crisis that could have turned to catastrophe," said Cheney, speaking in the Capitol Rotunda where Ford's body rested. "Gerald Ford was almost alone in understanding that there can be no healing without pardon."

Millions of Americans live on the margins of the American economy, depending on the likes of payday lenders and pawnshops, who charge excessive interest rates and superhigh fees for their services.

Some limitations have long been evident. The prisoners have no right to a lawyer, or to see evidence, or even to know the identity of their accusers. What has been less visible, however, is what many officials describe as a continuing shortage of information about many detainees, including some who have been held on sketchy or disputed intelligence.

"We have tried again and again to have a say in the process," said Barbara Olshansky, a lawyer who has coordinated much of the work of the detainee lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights. "But we learned pretty early on that these were kangaroo courts."

CNN.com's homepage exclaimed "DEATH OF A DICTATOR" in an increased 32 point font on Saturday (12/30/06) after Saddam Hussein was hanged. The accompanying article did not contain any condemnation from world leaders or leading experts, many of whom believed that Saddam's trial was flawed.

My New Years Resolutions...

Much to the dismay of President Bush, Americans can remember all on their own, without any coaching from Democrats, that in the run up to war in Iraq, it was top official from the administration who were making the claim that Saddam was in cahoots with bin Laden and that he was secretly involved to 9/11.

Should DailyKos ban all discussions of Israel and Palestine?...

Nearly 70 percent of respondents to a survey conducted by a leading Christian publication believe in disinvestment from companies whose products are used by the Israeli government in the territories.

FLASHBACK: Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth - Americans Probing Reports of Israeli Espionage...

The execution of Saddam may have brought "closure" to the White House, but it left a bitter taste in the mouths of the rest of us. He was executed under the auspices of an Anglo-American occupation that has brought little but death and destruction to Iraq. Even members of the Iraq Study Group in the US Senate accept that the people of Iraq are probably worse off now than under Saddam.

A brace of Christmas opinion polls has left Clinton with a political hangover after a year that had appeared to cement her status as the Democrats� best-organised, best-financed and best-connected contender for her party�s presidential nomination.

US Army War College: NO PROOF SADDAM GASSED THE KURDS!...

�If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone 'America died from a delusion that she had moral leadership'.� ---Will Rogers

Iraq War is "War for Oil" - Los Angeles Times...

WHAT PRICE SADDAM?...

Saddam's Accomplices...

The judge who first announced the ruling on Tuesday had referred to a statute which says hangings must take place within 30 days of the failure of an appeal. But two senior officials told Reuters on Thursday that the execution would only happen within 30 days if Iraq's president issued a decree ordering an immediate execution.

SADDAM'S HANGING VERDICT IS ILLEGAL AND UNJUST...

As usual, there were two lackey former colonels on the air to parrot everything Hannity said right back at him, "Yes Sean, our troops our ecstatic that this man will be hung. Yes, things are probably going to get much better now."

Then Greta had one of Saddam's lawyers on, and he clobbered her. She said that Saddam had been convicted of killing the 148 people in Dujail and prosecutors had information about another 5,000 Kurds killed. First, he said some completely unconvincing nonsense about how some of the dead people in Dujail were still alive. But then he made a fair point that Saddam was never convicted of the crimes against the Kurds and that now we would never truly know.

When Greta said those are some tremendous numbers referring again to the two incidents of 148 and 5,000 killed, the lawyer responded that those numbers were not nearly as tremendous as the 750,000 Iraqis killed since the US invasion. Ouch.

"President Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran. As an American strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help him pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly) and US newspaper editors. We need to do this in order to turn the Iranian issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure.

We must turn to Hillary Clinton and other potential presidential candidates in the Democratic Party so that they publicly support immediate action by Bush against Iran. We should also approach European countries so that they support American actions in Iran, so that Bush will not be isolated in the international arena again."

Egypt want Isreal's nuke acknowledged & inspected....

The decision to send Hussein to the gallows was not a judicial but a political one. It was signaled by al-Maliki himself after the death sentence was pronounced by a special tribunal on November 5, when the Iraqi prime minister declared that Hussein would be executed before the New Year. In the rush to impose the penalty on that timeline, Iraqi officials ignored both elementary principles of judicial fairness and even their own constitution, which requires confirmation of a death sentence by the current Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani.

Ramsey Clark reacts to the execution of Saddam Hussein...

Bush believes that killing Saddam will achieve the �closure� which has eluded him through 4 years of occupation. But he is mistaken. Saddam�s death will only eliminate any opportunity for a political solution. Reconciliation will be impossible and Saddam will die as a hero.

"I find it appalling that two days prior to my final exams, two years after any formal training, and with two tours of combat duty served, the U.S. military would even consider reactivating myself or any soldier,'' he said. "To ask that of any veteran is crazy."

But it's allowed under the contract all enlistees sign. Soldiers can be called into active duty anytime within eight years of signing up, said Bryan Hilferty, an Army personnel spokesman at the Pentagon.

Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte awarded $200,000 grants earlier this month to 10 scientists in the intelligence community, one of whom could not be named and several of whom declined to be interviewed, for projects whose details remain secret.

This is the second annual DNI Fellows award program. Last year's recipients, the release says, "made significant progress with technology to locate terrorists and to extract intelligence from remote areas."

When scholars, such as John Walt and Stephen Mearsheimer, or President Jimmy Carter, who has tried harder than anyone else to achieve Arab-Israeli peace, point out that Israel�s mistreatment of Palestinians is a cause of Middle East turmoil, they are immediately denounced as anti-Semites. Columnists and academics who know nothing about the Middle East or its troubles nevertheless know what they are supposed to say whenever anyone mentions Israel in any critical context. And they have no compunction about saying it, the truth be damned.

Without commitment to truth, science, justice, and debate falter and disappear.

The FDA wants to hear from you about Animal Cloning...

The tendency to treat Saddam and Iraq in a historical vacuum, and in isolation from the superpowers, however, has hidden from Americans their own culpability in the horror show that has been Iraq for the past few decades.

At first it looked like an ugly oil slick.

But as they crew of the yacht Maiken sailed closer to brown patch on the ocean near Tonga they realised they were observing something far rarer and far more beautiful.

The Totalization Agreement could allow millions of illegal Mexican workers to draw billions of dollars from the U.S. Social Security Trust Fund.

The agreement between the U.S. and Mexico was signed in June 2004, and is awaiting President Bush's signature. Once President Bush approves the agreement, which would be done without Congressional vote, either House of Congress would have 60 days to disapprove the agreement by voting to reject it.

In their perpetual search for a pretext to launch illegal aggressive war against Iran and Syria, Jews have been accusing both nations of interfering in the internal politics of Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. The reality is that the Israelis have been interfering in the internal politics of the United States of America for decades and have incited genocide against the Palestinians, Iraqis, Lebanese, Iranians and Syrians, among others.

It was later confirmed that the five detained Israelis were in fact Mossad agents (21). They were held in custody for 71 days before being quietly released.

Think about it. It was the Bush administration and not Saddam that turned out to be lying about WMDs. As we all know now, there weren't any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Amazingly enough, it was Saddam who was telling the truth from the very beginning. Bush was the one who lied to the whole world.

Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq, has been assassinated....

Is there something wrong with a nation of �freedoms� and �democracy� that celebrates death, makes it a video game, a holiday event for the children to enjoy? Hell yes.

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007...

Saddam Hussein hanged, says Al Hurra TV station...

Sadam's death is a part of last episode of US drama on war on terror. Its death will produce no effect on Iraq as it has already been destroyed. The deaths of more Muslims are worthless on its soil now. The US would surely try to achieve two benefits from his death. Firstly, because of his reason of punishment it would divide the Muslim community and the Shia- Sunni conflict would escalate in the region, indirectly giving benefit to Israel for strengthening its roots. Secondly his penalty would be used as a threat for other leaders, that disobedience from US could bring same fate for them too. If Muslim and world leaders would have ever united it is best time to summon Bush,Blair and their defence secretaries on the same grounds which are now using for Saddam's punishment. If Saddam is sentenced for 148 deaths then Both Bush and Blair should be on trial for the destruction of Iraq and killings of millions of people.

9/11 - Who Signed Sakher Hammad's WTC Basement Level Pass?...

But history will record that the Arabs and other Muslims and, indeed, many millions in the West, will ask another question this weekend, a question that will not be posed in other Western newspapers because it is not the narrative laid down for us by our presidents and prime ministers - what about the other guilty men?

No, Tony Blair is not Saddam. We don't gas our enemies. George W Bush is not Saddam. He didn't invade Iran or Kuwait. He only invaded Iraq. But hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead - and thousands of Western troops are dead - because Messrs Bush and Blair and the Spanish Prime Minister and the Italian Prime Minister and the Australian Prime Minister went to war in 2003 on a potage of lies and mendacity and, given the weapons we used, with great brutality.

John Scarlett, who took responsibility for the error-ridden dossier that justified the war in Iraq, is knighted in today's New Year's Honours list. The award will enrage peace campaigners, who have accused the veteran spymaster of saving Tony Blair's skin over the flawed case for the invasion.

The IRS agreed to stop collecting the tax after several cases held the continued collection of the tax to be illegal:

Saddam Hussein will be hanged before dawn on Saturday in Iraq, before 6 a.m. (10 p.m. Friday ET), according to Appeals Judge Munir Haddad.

Palestinian militants fire at convey of German diplomats...

Lawyers for Saddam Hussein on Friday made a last-minute appeal to an American court to avert execution in Iraq, asking a judge to block his transfer from U.S. custody to the hands of Iraqi officials.

Hollywood Movies I Would Love To See...

It was one thing to have Yehuda Shaul give a talk inside Israel, Glaser said. "Outside of Israel, you're playing with fire."

This chilling statement was a candid expression of the goals of the Israel lobby. A member of a Jewish organization was saying that it's OK to have a wide-open discussion of these issues in Israel, but it's dangerous to have such a discussion here. Why? Because America is the mainstay of support allowing Israel to continue its policies in the Occupied Territories. The Israel lobby fears that Americans, if left to their own devices, will abandon Israel, out of indifference, or antisemitism. So Americans must be influenced�in this case by having the information they get about Israel/Palestine vetted, and by pressuring Jews on campus to toe the party line.

Because real estate is slowing in appreciation, the incredibly high amount of outstanding mortgage debt at the national level � 9.5 trillion in the third quarter of 2006 � takes a larger percentage of the value of real estate. Just as importantly, residential real estate now comprises the largest percentage of household assets since 1955. Conversely, homeowner�s equity � which represents the amount a person actually owns in real estate �- is at a post WWII record low.

According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) in a report released this week [PDF], Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees.

Furthermore, a book approved by the Service claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood ,rather than by geologic forces, is on sale in the park for more than three years, even though a review was promised to Congress and the press. A Freedom of Information request [PDF] reveals that no review has ever been requested, nor taken place.

Many of the American soldiers trying to quell sectarian killings in Baghdad don't appear to be looking for reinforcements. They say the temporary surge in troop levels some people are calling for is a bad idea.

In 1989 - there were plans to erect scaffolding and disassemble the WTC towers and rebuild them. Cost projection was around $5.6 billion. One of the architects shows up to work one day and the MIB's were there - had confiscated all of the plans, specs, details, etc for WTC. They even confiscated their office cubicles and had tape on the floor outlining where they went.

Reason - the exterior cast aluminum WTC panels had been directly connected to the steel superstructure of the building, thus causing galvanic corrosion. In short, the "life cycle" of the WTC was not 200 - 300 years, more like 30 years or so.

The US is likely to import a record amount of steel this year.

Incoming House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes says he'd rather figure out how to stabilize Iraq and bring the troops home than get bogged down investigating what went wrong.

Seven police officers were indicted Thursday on murder or attempted murder charges in a pair of shootings on a bridge that left two people dead during the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Carol Tucker Foreman, of the Consumer Federation of America, said the FDA was ignoring research showing cloning results in more animal deaths and deformities than other reproductive technologies.

British scientists are on the verge of producing a revolutionary flu vaccine that works against all major types of the disease.

Ryan was found guilty in April of mail fraud, money laundering, extortion, obstruction of justice and bribery while he was secretary of state and governor between 1991 and 2003.

A Mandela Institute lawyer, Buthaina Dukmak, visited with several of the political prisoners. She reports that 13 Palestinian political prisoners are in the Ramle Hospital suffering from paralysis or such severe disability that they cannot move without either human or wheelchair assistance.

A day in the life of the average Iraqi has been reduced to identifying corpses, avoiding car bombs and attempting to keep track of which family members have been detained, which ones have been exiled and which ones have been abducted.

The protests are being portrayed in much of the Western media as a sectarian battle, or a coup attempt--engineered by Hezbollah's two main allies, Syria and Iran--against a US-backed Lebanese government. Those are indeed factors underlying the complex and dangerous political dance happening in Beirut. But the biggest motivator driving many of those camped out in downtown isn't Iran or Syria, or Sunni versus Shiite. It's the economic inequality that has haunted Lebanese Shiites for decades. It's a poor and working-class people's revolt.

in most conversations with people at the sit-in and protests, economic concerns quickly emerge: Siniora's government is corrupt, has failed to reduce Lebanon's crippling $41 billion public debt and has done little to improve people's lives. Shiites are especially forgotten in the country's economic planning. Many at the sit-in have been out of work for years, or lost their jobs after the recent war.

Many of the American soldiers trying to quell sectarian killings in Baghdad don't appear to be looking for reinforcements. They say the temporary surge in troop levels some people are calling for is a bad idea.

In dozens of interviews with soldiers of the Army's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment as they patrolled the streets of eastern Baghdad, many said the Iraqi capital is embroiled in civil warfare between majority Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs that no number of American troops can stop.

Strapped for soldiers, the U.S. Army wants new authority to send National Guard and Reserve soldiers back to Iraq for repeat deployments, even those who have already served the maximum time allowed by the Pentagon.

A national commission looking at National Guard and Reserve issues will decide in March whether to endorse the Army`s plan, a change that could affect the 522,000 citizen-soldiers in the Army National Guard and Reserve, and more broadly the 800,000 reservists serving in all the military services.

Some regional experts believe that Washington should have encouraged any regime that brought stability to Somalia, even an Islamic one.

Their fear now is that if Somalia is not already the terrorist breeding ground that Washington says it is, it will quickly become one if reduced once more to lawlessness.

American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman in Washington this month that Israel must "choke off" Hamas, the Hebrew newspaper Ma'ariv reported.

A Japanese research team has succeeded in filming a giant squid live and says the elusive creatures may be more plentiful than previously believed, a researcher said Friday.

Labour's flagship freedom of information laws are being blocked by ministers who are increasingly refusing to answer routine inquiries about government policy, new figures show.

For growing numbers of international business travelers, visa and customs regulations are making trips to the United States a thing of the past.

Saddam Hussein's chief lawyer implored world leaders Thursday to prevent the United States from handing over the ousted leader to Iraqi authorities for execution, saying he deserves protection as a "prisoner of war."

In the backyard of a Hurricane Katrina victim in New Orleans' 9th Ward, former Senator and Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards announced today that he is running for the Democratic presidential nomination. And, in what can be better characterized as a talk than a formal political speech, Edwards changed the dynamic of the fledgling Democratic race for 2008 with both the tone and substance of his message.

The key U.S. manufacturing sector is expected to be hit hard next year, heightening fears a recession is now much more likely than many economists had expected.

To be sure, as most Pennsylvanians, Attytood readers and Oliver Stone fans know, it was another prominent politician, Sen. Arlen Specter, a staff attorney for the Warren Commission, who developed the idea -- also known as "the magic bullet" -- that one bullet caused seven different wounds in the president and Texas Gov. John Connally and still ended up on a hospital stretcher in pristine condition. If Kennedy and Connally had been struck by separate bullets, there would not have been enough time for just one gunman to have fired all of the shots in Dealey Plaza that day.

But Specter was a lowly staffer, and his theory would still not have become political and media gospel in the 1960s without help from at least one of the five men that President Lyndon Johnson named to the Warren panel.

And Gerald Ford, then a GOP congressman from Michigan, was that man.

The UN Security Council resolution to sanction Iran certainly is the foreign-policy coup for the Bush Administration it has been trumpeted to be�at least in the narrowest sense and in the short term. But it also undermines U.S. interests and is a liability for the United Nations and its fragile credibility.

Most of Windows operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel.

The Bush administration and Congress are warning that a proposed $16 billion deal between a Chinese company and Iran could trigger economic penalties under an American law aimed at starving Iran of funding for terrorism and nuclear weapons.

Officials at the American embassy in China delivered a demarche Saturday in Beijing. They demanded an explanation of the deal from Chinese government officials and warned them that it could trigger a 1996 law, the Iran Libya Sanctions Act. The law prohibits foreign firms that invest more than $10 million in Iran's energy sector from raising capital in American financial markets.

The afternoon of Friday, Nov. 8, 1985, a co-worker at the Anti-Terrorist Alert Center in Suitland, Md., noticed Pollard wrapping a thick batch of TS/SCI materials (top secret/special compartmented information), which he said he had received by mistake. He claimed to be preparing to return them to a documents center. A few minutes later, the co-worker saw Pollard's wife Anne drive up to the headquarters entrance. Pollard emerged carrying the envelope he had said he was returning. Something seemed amiss.

What do you think about former President Ford's comments about the Iraq war?...

Will Iraq be better off with Saddam hanged?...

President Bush, citing two trailers that U.S. intelligence agencies have said were probably used as mobile biological weapons labs, said U.S. forces in Iraq have "found the weapons of mass destruction" that were the United States' primary justification for going to war.

You can see it in the countless local-economy projects -- wind-power stations, farmer's markets, local enviro organizations, food coops -- that were already proliferating, hardly noticed, by the time the Saudi Oil Wars swept the whole Middle East, damaging major oil fields, and bringing on the Great Gasoline Crisis of 2009. That was the one that didn't just send prices skyrocketing, but actually becalmed the globe-roaming container ships with their great steel-box-loads of bottled water, sweatshop garments, and other gratuitous commodities.

An Iraqi court has published its formal written condemnation of Saddam Hussein, putting in motion the legal machinery which will lead to his execution, as bombs rocked Baghdad.

The dollar dropped the most in a week against the euro as the United Arab Emirates said it will convert some of its reserves of U.S. assets into the European currency.

The troop increase is now certain (if indeed it had ever been in doubt). In the past few days, with the nation distracted by the Christmas holidays (and by the ever-phony and genuinely idiotic "Christmas Wars" eating up media airtime), the Bush Faction has carried out a quiet coup � or perhaps a counterrevolutionary purge � in the military ranks. Top generals who openly opposed increasing the U.S. occupation force in Iraq have either announced their retirements or else have been compelled to crawl and eat their words in public recantations.

Intelligence sources say President Bush -- along with Israel's Ehud Olmert and the UK's Tony Blair -- are weighing the possibility of Israeli-led attacks on Syria and Iran in early 2007, with the United States providing logistical back-up.

Drinking one soda a day could cause you to gain 15 pounds a year. Other related health risks include type 2 diabetes, heart disease, bowel cancer and nerve damage.

Prosecutors said Mutual Benefits directed an international network of agents who conned people into investing in viatical settlements, which are agreements to buy the life insurance death benefit of a terminally ill or elderly person in return for a lump-sum payment.

The investors were led to believe that their investments were safe because doctors would determine the life expectancy of the insured person.

Undeterred by the horrors and setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, the Bush administration has opened another battlefront in the Muslim world. With full U.S. backing and military training, at least 15,000 Ethiopian troops have entered Somalia in an illegal war of aggression against the Union of Islamic Courts, which controls almost the entire south of the country.

As with Iraq in 2003, the United States has cast this as a war to curtail terrorism, but its real goal is to obtain a direct foothold in a highly strategic region by establishing a client regime there. The Horn of Africa is newly oil-rich, and lies just miles from Saudi Arabia, overlooking the daily passage of large numbers of oil tankers and warships through the Red Sea.

Judging by the latest economic data, the world confronts the risk of a US recession next year, brought on by a collapse in house prices. A recession would almost certainly lead to a fall in the US current account deficit, and possibly a further significant decline in the dollar�s real exchange rate. Only a fool would dare forecast the dollar�s exchange rate next year, or the precise mechanism through which global imbalances will eventually adjust. But there is a distinct possibility that the much predicted adjustment may be about to happen.

China to use foreign reserves to build up strategic resource base, vice premier says...

North Korea, desperate for foreign currency under harsh US-imposed sanctions, has started to sell its gold reserves on the international markets, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported yesterday.

THE Israeli army has admitted its soldiers may have fired on a Red Cross ambulance during the war in Lebanon - an incident Foreign Minister Alexander Downer claimed was a hoax that had duped a gullible Australian and international media.

In the near term, Pentagon leaders hope to modify the Navy's Trident D-5 nuclear-tipped, submarine-launched missiles so they are able to deliver conventional payloads over long ranges and with improved accuracy. If the effort wins backing from a somewhat skeptical Congress, 24 of the modified missiles could be fielded aboard the stealthy subs beginning as early as 2009. Full capability could come two years later, according to Navy officials.

Nearly 70 percent of respondents to a survey conducted by a leading Christian publication believe in disinvestment from companies whose products are used by the Israeli government in the territories.

Three quarters of people who answered the survey agreed that the churches should call for the removal ofJewish West Bank settlements and that the institution should support Palestinian calls for an "independent homeland within the borders that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israel war".

The agency said it was getting harder to bring immigrants out of countries that made up the former Soviet Union, from where more than one million people moved to Israel in the 1990s. The number for 2006 was 7,300 -- about 23 percent down on 2005.

"These people are no longer running away from something," said Michael Jankelowitz, a spokesman for the Jewish Agency, explaining the decline.

Iran summoned Britain's ambassador in Tehran to its foreign ministry to hear its "strong objections" to British Prime Minister Tony Blair's claim that the Islamic republic poses a threat to the region.

Patients with 'self-inflicted' illnesses face discrimination.

Israel increased attacks on Palestine autonomous territories on June 25 after an Israeli soldier was abducted by the resistance.

A grenade exploded outside a pair of nightclubs Sunday in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco, wounding 10 people, Mexican media reported.

Islamic forces abandon Somalia's capital, clan militias begin taking control...

"I have come to the conclusion that this is no longer America�s war in Iraq, but the Iraqi civil war where America is fighting," Maj. William Voorhies, the American commander of a military training unit in Baghdad tells the Times.

The dollar dropped the most in more than a week against the euro yesterday after the head of the United Arab Emirates central bank said it will convert some of its reserves of U.S. assets into the European currency.

The U.A.E. is among oil exporters including Iran, Venezuela and Indonesia that are looking to shift their reserves into euros or price the commodity in the 12-nation currency.

More Prison Time for Khodorkovsky?...

Within five minutes of stopping the car I was approached by a man in a military uniform who made it clear he wanted me to leave.

The value of euro notes in circulation is this month likely to exceed the value of circulating dollar notes, according to calculations by the Financial Times. Converted at Wednesday�s exchange rates, the euro took the lead in October.

The prosecutor general said late Wednesday it had found links between the fatal poisoning of Litvinenko in November and Leonid Nevzlin, a former executive in the Yukos oil company who fled criminal charges in Russia and is now an Israeli citizen.

It has long been known in intelligence and higher-level political (Republican) circles in Washington, that Israel was fully responsible for training the operators and supplying inside information to the Arabs who blew up the WTC, the Pentagon, and intended to blow up the White House.The leadership believed, correctly as it turned out, that such a violent terrorist outrage would so energize the American public that they would rush to support George Bush�s plan for a permanent U.S. military base in the Middle East, destroy Israel�s most dangerous enemy, Saddam Hussein, and gain for both nations, free and unfettered access to the huge Iraqi oil reserves.

The Israeli excuse when their participation in this was uncovered? Why, they fully informed American intelligence of what was happening at every step! This is an example where the excuse was worse than the crime, for if Mossad and the Israeli Embassy had, indeed, kept the American leadership courant with the plot, why didn�t American authorities interdict and stop it? They knew where and when the aircraft were to be hijacked yet did absolutely nothing and no protective steps were even instituted and no heightened alerts were ever issued.

The public indifference that accompanies this pageant of unrelieved suffering makes all Israelis accomplices to a crime. Even parents, who understand what anxiety for a child's fate means, turn away and don't want to hear about the anxiety harbored by the parent on the other side of the fence. Who would have believed that Israeli soldiers would kill hundreds of children and that the majority of Israelis would remain silent? Even the Palestinian children have become part of the dehumanization campaign: killing hundreds of them is no longer a big deal.

Slashdot reports today (via Long Zheng) that Microsoft is sending out free top-of-the-line Acer-Ferrari laptops pre-loaded with Vista to bloggers as a "no strings attached gift."

Disillusion with Labour is now so great that the party is losing a member every 20 minutes, a candidate for the Labour deputy leadership has claimed.

Iraq was preparing for the rapid execution of former dictator Saddam Hussein, with the US-backed government eager to bring his chapter in the country's bloody history to an end.

Science Meets Ignorance...

The world survived 2006 without a major economic catastrophe but the year produced warning signs for the future of the global economy.

Early Wednesday, Goldman Sachs became one of the first newspaper industry analyst firms to analyze the shocking announcement of the pending sale of the Star Tribune of Minneapolis by McClatchy Co. to a private equity firm. In its heading, Goldman stated it plainly: "Minneapolis valuation a Bearish signal for newspaper industry."

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signed orders that will send the 82nd Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade to Kuwait shortly after the new year, senior defense officials said Tuesday.

Plans to build a pipeline to siphon oil from newly conquered Iraq to Israel are being discussed between Washington, Tel Aviv and potential future government figures in Baghdad.

Rumsfeld denies making claims Iraq had WMDs...

Will Bush Explain Why War Continues?...

CIA spokesperson Bill Harlow angrily denied the Newsweek report. "It is incorrect, bogus, wrong, untrue," Harlow told Reuters (2/24/03) the day the report appeared. But on Wednesday (2/26/03), a complete copy of the Kamel transcript-- an internal UNSCOM/IAEA document stamped "sensitive"-- was obtained by Glen Rangwala[...] In the transcript (p. 13), Kamel says bluntly: "All weapons-- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed."

FLASHBACK: Bush Was Set on Path to War, British Memo Says...

Hossam Shaltout, a former political adviser to Saddam Hussein's son, said today that before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, Saddam expressed his intent to yield to all American demands, but that the Bush administration refused his offers.

People taking powerful antacid drugs called proton pump inhibitors face an increased risk of hip fracture, University of Pennsylvania researchers report.

Common proton pump inhibitors include Aciphex, Nexium, Prevacid, Prilosec and Protonix; they are often prescribed for stomach conditions such as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). The report is published in the Dec. 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The researchers found that taking a proton pump inhibitor for more than one year increased the risk of hip fracture by 44 percent, compared with people not taking these medications.

YouTube - Syncronized dancing robots...

In reality, Bush's "new approach" for Iraq may well have the consequence of enlarging the conflict, possibly bringing Iran, Syria, Turkey and Saudi Arabia into the inferno. In other words, the neocon inspired Bush-Cheney team will do exactly the reverse of what the Baker-Hamilton Commission has recommended. No wonder former president George H.W. Bush is crying aloud in public.

Middle East" href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2103736.ece" target="_blank"> Iranian diplomats arrested by US forces...

Israel has approved a new settlement in the West Bank to house former Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, officials said Tuesday, breaking a promise to the U.S. to halt home construction in the Palestinian territories.

For most of 2006, Colorado has had the highest foreclosure rate in the country - a grim tally of mortgage defaults behind which lie thousands of stories of personal heartache. But money can be made even from misery, and this year, profits from foreclosures have soared.

with more than 18,000 foreclosures expected this year - a record for the metro area - servicing foreclosures is where the action is in real estate these days.

Israel has chosen the path to endless war instead of accepting an Arab peace/surrender plan....

In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the FBI said it identified 94 leak investigations since 2001, but that the investigative files in 22 of those cases "are missing" and cannot be located. "There is no physical slip of paper on the shelf which indicates that the file has been charged out to a particular FBI employee, so therefore there is no way of knowing where the file may actually be," an official in the bureau's records division, Peggy Bellando, wrote in a December 22 declaration.

If you can't build online buzz for your brand, then just buy it.

That's the pitch from a handful of dubious Internet services offering to turn people into paid shills for advertisers. Their tactics have sparked a controversy similar to the one over fake blogs, or "flogs," launched by Wal-Mart and Sony.

Worst newspaper in US destroys value...

U.S. Says Captured Iranians Can Be Linked to Attacks...

Authorities are trying to figure out how dozens of pieces of luggage belonging to international air travelers ended up in a trash bin behind a Houston pet store.

Restoring the dictator to power may give Iraqis the jolt of authority they need. Have a better solution?

The dollar had its biggest drop this month against the yen on speculation waning consumer confidence in the U.S. will increase the likelihood for a cut in interest rates by the Federal Reserve in the first quarter.

A government report tomorrow may show sentiment in the world's largest economy declined for a third straight month. The U.S. currency also snapped a three-day winning streak against the euro on prospects the allure of dollar-denominated assets may diminish.

Friends and associates expressed disbelief at the news of Sanford's death and that it was ruled a suicide, saying Sanford seemed happy and had made many plans for this week and in coming months. Mills said he and Sanford recently decided to open a shared law office to serve Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, something Sanford was looking forward to doing.

...

Police declined to state exactly why they ruled the case a suicide.

Journalistic Malpractice: Iraq 9/11 and US support of Israel...

Saddam and two regime cohorts were convicted of crimes against humanity on November 5, after a court heard they ordered the deaths of 148 Shiite men from the village of Dujail in an act of collective punishment.

The US is telling its overseas allies that it has stopped "extraordinary renditions" and needs their help to empty Guant�namo's prison cells. But human rights groups dispute this assertion and a question mark hangs over 200 "war on terror" detainees who could be held indefinitely without trial.

The United States offered full and direct approval to Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor, a move by then-president Suharto which consigned the territory to 25 years of oppression, official documents released Thursday show.

The documents prove conclusively for the first time that the United States gave a 'green light' to the invasion, the opening salvo in an occupation that cost the lives of up to 200,000 East Timorese.

Army Reservist James E. Dean had already served 18 months in Afghanistan when he was notified three weeks ago that he would be deployed to Iraq later this month. The prospect of returning to war sent the St. Mary's County resident into a spiral of depression, a neighbor said.

Despondent about his orders, Dean barricaded himself inside his father's home with several weapons on Christmas, threatening to kill himself. After a 14-hour standoff with authorities, Dean was killed yesterday by a police officer after he aimed a gun at another officer, police said.

Newly released documents show, however, that Warren Commission member Congressman Gerald Ford pressed the panel to change its description of the wound and place it higher in Kennedy's body.

The FBI and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are moving jobs to the Shenandoah Valley - a picturesque locale that happens to be just outside Washington's "blast zone."

Where Do We stand?-- goes on to say that the Church believes in praying �equally� for Jews and Palestinians and Arabs. However, the attendees� attitudes did not reflect this even-handedness; many of those who came and went told us in plainest of language: �This Church is for Israel.�

Few, if any, said anything about praying for Arabs. Furthermore, at least three of the Vigilers had attended or still attend the church, and none could recall hearing any specific prayers for the Palestinians or Arabs or Iraqi victims.

Former President Ford dies...

Thirty-three years ago, Gerald R. Ford took pen in hand and changed - ever so slightly - the Warren Commission's key sentence on the place where a bullet entered John F. Kennedy's body when he was killed in Dallas.

The effect of Ford's change was to strengthen the commission's conclusion that a single bullet passed through Kennedy and severely wounded Texas Gov. John Connally