So, all you Bush supporters, it IS true that the extensive damage and lack of preparedness is this administration's fault.

No mitigation monies in 2003...huge budget cuts forthcoming...NG troops having to be 'borrowed' to restore order...privatization of emergency managment tasks...

Under current law, an assailant must be a member of the "enemy forces" against Israel for the action to be considered terrorism, said Mayan Malkin, a spokeswoman with the Defense Ministry.
But in this case the shooter was Jewish and his attack cannot be designated as terror, said Malkin.

ON 7/7 IT WAS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE 'SUPPOSED' LONDON BOMBERS TO BE FILMED AT 7.22 AM AT LUTON STATION
AND ALSO CATCH A TRAIN WHICH ARRIVED AT KINGS CROSS PRIOR TO BEING FILMED AT 8.26 AM

It's 1:45 p.m. West Coast time, and still, amazingly, not a word from our President. Not a call for prayer. No "I feel your pain." Not even a plea to Americans for donations of money and time. Nada. Just a big empty void where our leadership should be.

Jerusalem NewsWire ---> Is this some sort of bizarre coincidence? Not for those who believe in the God of the Bible and the immutability of His Word.

What America is about to experience is the lifting of God?s hand of protection; the implementation of His judgment on the nation most responsible for endangering the land and people of Israel.

The Bible talks about Him shaking His fist over bodies of water, and striking them.

While the "disengagement" plan was purportedly the brainchild of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the United States of America has for more than a decade been the chief sponsor and propeller of a diplomatic process that has dangerously weakened Israel in the face of an overwhelming, growing threat to annihilate her.

"America is now experiencing the consequences (curses) of Middle East policies, which have been opposed to God?s Word and to the preservation of His covenant land."

President George W. Bush showing the nation that not even a major city being entirely submerged can prevent him from getting on with his life.

A well known radio host said this morning, "When this is over, some people will have a lot to answer for," referring to unnamed elected officials.

Trudy Childs recalls rubbing her wrists and wincing in agony. No stranger to pain, the 52-year-old rheumatoid arthritis sufferer could barely tolerate the zip tags Utah County Sheriff?s deputies used to keep her in line. An unsympathetic officer congratulated Childs on an ?Emmy-winning performance,? laughing as his colleagues?close to 90 law-enforcement officials, including Provo City police and a Utah Department of Corrections SWAT squad?cleared out hundreds of people attending Versus II, an electronic music event hosted on her private property Aug. 20. ?I don?t know why you think this is so damn funny,? Childs told the officer, frustrated by his mocking grin.

"If individuals break the law, punish them. But don't assume that everyone who goes to a rap, hip-hop, or electronic music concert is a criminal."
The Sheriff?s Office did not return phone calls.

Cindy Sheehan packed up her campsite outside President Bush's ranch today and took her war protest on the road, ending a nearly monthlong vigil that drew thousands and ignited an anti-war movement.

Rather than heading home to California, the grieving mother of a 24-year-old solider who died in Iraq boarded one of three buses heading on tour to spreading her message.

The bird flu virus that has hit several Asian countries is likely to spread to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, the U.N. food agency warned on Wednesday, urging nations at risk to step up surveillance and prepare national emergency plans.

Tragedy.

Possessing and accessing extreme internet pornography could become illegal under government proposals.

President Klaus spoke last Monday, warning for the new "substitute ideologies of socialism" such as "Europeanism" and "NGOism." These "isms" are currently threatening Europe. "In the first decade of the 21st century we should not concentrate exclusively on socialism," he said.

"There is a well-known saying that we should not fight the old, already non-existent battles. I find this point worth stressing even if I do not want to say that socialism is definitely over. There are, I believe, at least two arguments, which justify looking at other ideologies as well. The first is the difference between the hard and soft version of socialism and the second is the emergence of new 'isms' based on similar illiberal or antiliberal views."

Fewer than half of Americans know the purpose of the Patriot Act, and the more they know about it the less they like it, according to a poll.

George W. takes much more after his acerbic and vindictive mother, Barbara, than his more even-tempered father. The president's pattern of blame and denial and his rattled response to the criticism of his disastrous war are manifestations of his addiction-damaged and dangerous personality, according to psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank, author of "Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President." He sees Bush's history of substance abuse shaping him into a fear-driven bully. Confrontation -- like Cindy Sheehan's vigil -- unveils the real Bush.

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The total of arms sales and weapons transfer agreements to both industrialized and developing nations was nearly $37 billion in 2004, according to the study.

The United States once again dominated global weapons sales, signing deals worth $12.4 billion in 2004, or 33.5 percent of all contracts worldwide.

Watching news coverage of the refugees trying to enter the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans for safety from the approaching force-five Hurricane Katrina, I was incredulous how the people attempting to enter the stadium were being treated by the National Guard troops and local police. The people were made to stand for hours outside in the awful Louisiana climate while they were admitted one or two adults at a time so they could be searched "for firearms and alcohol."

The scene outside George W. Bush?s brush-growing ranch in Crawford, Texas is beginning to look like a down-sized, rural version of the Vietnam War protest clashes in some of the country?s big cities and not a bit like the united nation that Bush once championed.

Because he is stubborn, close-minded, egocentric and arrogant, the president sticks with policies that, rather than make people feel more aligned, have defaced the body politic with wide, indelible lines -- in wealth, health, education, justice, religion and, most especially, ideology. In all of those categories, the divide is filled with animus.

an economic September 11 -- a worldwide financial panic triggered by a sudden massive sell-off of US dollars that would lead inexorably to the collapse of economies around the world.

If that happens, Prestowitz predicts: "It would make the Great Depression of the 1930s look like a walk in the park."

global warming and climate change are making it ever more likely that storms and floods will plague America and Europe. "There is only one possible route of action," he writes. "Greenhouse gases have to be radically reduced and it has to happen worldwide. Until now, the US has kept its eyes shut to this emergency. (Americans) make up a mere 4 percent of the population, but are responsible for close to a quarter of emissions." He adds that the average American is responsible for double as much carbon dioxide as the average European. "The Bush government rejects international climate protection goals by insisting that imposing them would negatively impact the American economy. The American president is closing his eyes to the economic and human costs his land and the world economy are suffering under natural catastrophes like Katrina and because of neglected environmental policies." As such, Trittin also calls for a reworking of the Kyoto Protocol -- dubbing it the uncreative title of "Kyoto 2" -- and insisting that the US be included.

As Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on Monday, experts said it could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries.

Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm.

That's exactly what Katrina was as it churned toward the city. With top winds of 160 mph and the power to lift sea level by as much as 28 feet above normal, the storm threatened an environmental disaster of biblical proportions, one that could leave more than 1 million people homeless.

Overall, there were 37 million people living in poverty, up 1.1 million people from 2003.

Sharon said Netanyahu was "not fit to lead a government - certainly not a government like Israel's."

"Under every pressure he goes to pieces immediately. I've seen him do so not once but many times. Israel is a unique country. To run it one needs levelheadedness and nerves of steel. Netanyahu has neither," Sharon said. He also described Netanyahu as "dangerous."

After months of intense negotiations recently culminating in a deal allowing for the transfer of Gaza's high-tech Jewish greenhouses to the Palestinians, several former Jewish residents who briefly returned to their farms told WND they were shocked to find most of their produce has died because Israel turned off the water in the area.

Jude was one of the leading ex-conservatives who had turned antiwar, and hard-core antiwar at that. His writings had been among the strongest antiwar articles featured in conservative publications.

Cindy Sheehan hasn't achieved a meeting with the president during her three-week war protest, but she met a man who plays one on TV. Martin Sheen, who portrays the president on NBC's "The West Wing," visited Sheehan's makeshift campsite Sunday.

George Bush. "One dead American for every day in office".

"This document confirms our fears that federal and state counterterrorism officers have turned their attention to groups and individuals engaged in peaceful protest activities," said Ben Wizner, an ACLU staff attorney and counsel in a lawsuit seeking the release of additional FBI records. "When the FBI and local law enforcement identify affirmative action advocates as potential terrorists, every American has cause for concern."

A high-level contracting official who has been a vocal critic of the Pentagon's decision to give Halliburton Co. a multibillion-dollar, no-bid contract for work in Iraq was removed from her job by the Army Corps of Engineers, effective Saturday.

Greenhouse went public last year with her concerns over the volume of Iraq-related work given to Halliburton by the corps without competition. She told Congress that the independence of the corps' contracting process had been compromised.

Thousands of Sunni demonstrators rallied in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit on Monday to denounce Iraq's new constitution a day after negotiators finished the new charter without the endorsement of Sunni Arabs.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday his government would take legal action against Pat Robertson and potentially seek his extradition after the U.S. evangelist called for Washington to assassinate the South American leader.

The retired officer - of assistant chief constable rank or higher - has testified that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people.

The police chief, whose identity has not yet been revealed, gave the statement to lawyers.

The officer, who was a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland, is supporting earlier claims by a former CIA agent that his bosses "wrote the script" to incriminate Libya.

The oldest son of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was indicted Sunday on corruption charges in connection with fund-raising activities for one of his father's election campaigns, the Justice Ministry announced.

Omri Sharon is suspected of setting up fictitious companies to conceal illegal contributions during the 1999 campaign, when his father won the chairmanship of the Likud Party and became its candidate for prime minister.

The disengagement from Gaza will spell relief for all of the Strip?s 1.5 million Palestinians. But it will be especially meaningful for the communities living closest to the settlements, many of whose homes were demolished and even occupied for periods of time.

Liberty survivors presented details of a ?Report of War Crimes? brief filed by James R. Gotcher, general legal counsel for the USS Liberty Veterans Association (USS-LVA). On June 8, the anniversary of the attack, Gotcher submitted the 35-page, carefully footnoted report to Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey, who acts as executive agent for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. After receiving this report, brimming with evidence of war crimes committed by Israel against U.S. military personnel, the secretary of defense is obligated to initiate an official inquiry.

As the US-backed Iraqi puppet government flails about arguing over the so-called constitution, Iraq remains in a state of complete anarchy. There is no government control whatsoever, even inside the infamous ?Green Zone? where the puppets seem to have tangled their strings.

"If he [Hugo Chávez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop."?Pat Robertson

"Muslims want to rule the world. They want to take over the whole world. That's their evil purpose . . . Most of them are very harsh. There's no tenderness or love."

Question asked by Rose Aguila: "Where do you get your information about the war?" Answer of Mary Fowler, 54, Oklahoma housekeeper: "The Bible and the 700 Club. I also listen to preachers who know what's going on. Pat Robertson."?Excerpted from Rose Aguila's blog...

Norway has a Lutheran Protestant Christian democracy with a king, England has an Anglican Protestant Christian democracy with a queen, Spain has a Catholic Christian democracy with a king, and Israel has a Jewish democracy with a prime minister. Why can't Iraq have an Islamic democracy?

The National Science Foundation is backing a major initiative that could lead to a completely new internet architecture, with built-in security measures and support for ubiquitous sensors and wireless communications devices, among other things.

Before the Pat Robertson affair is completely swept under the rug by the American media and political establishment, the incident is worth more careful consideration for what it reveals about the state of political life in the United States. It is, after all, not every day that a prominent American and one-time presidential candidate openly advocates the assassination of a foreign head of state.

A witness to the police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes has described how armed officers fired 11 regular shots, one every three seconds, at the Brazilian electrician.

Bush was booed at a Vet's meeting and there was genuine hostility evident?but of course the media "forgot" to report it.
I was not there but a colleague was and he said Bush was livid with rage that anyone had dared to boo him and was heard to ask if somehow military pensions could be terminated! And at home, we have to put up with the manic mouthings of senile and vicious Pat Robertson. A fine soldier he would have made! I have a report that talks about how he ran weeping to his father, a Congressman, when he was on a troopship enroute to Korea and was promptly taken off and sent to a safer place. It's amazing, looking at the sheep-faced anus, that one can pile shit so high and not have it fall over.

Few things are more likely to antagonise US conservatives than the combination of Mr Galloway and Ms Fonda - still hated by the right because of her outspoken opposition to the war in Vietnam - joining to condemn the American presence in Iraq. But Mr Galloway can expect a thunderous reception from those he impressed with his performance before a Senate committee last May.

PHILIP ZELIKOW, a lawyer, diplomat and historian, served as the executive director of the commission staff that produced THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT.

Philip Zelikow, chief architect of the 9/11 Commission Report, told how he ran the operation, scrutinizing 200 million pages of documents out of a hotel room -- there was no office, not even a telephone.

"Get the word out and focus on this issue now," he said. "I expect to see immediate improvement."

MEMBERS of Britain?s elite have been selected as priority cases to receive scarce pills and vaccinations at the taxpayers? expense if the country is hit by a deadly bird flu outbreak.

If there is an avian flu pandemic in the coming months there would be enough drugs to protect less than 2% of the British population for a week.

A bomb stashed in a pack of clothes exploded on a ferry in the southern Philippines as it was loading passengers Sunday morning, injuring at least 30 people, including nine children, military officials said. The region had been on alert for terror attacks.

A suicide bombing has injured at least 10 people at a crowded bus station in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.

H5N1 in Scandinavian countries would be particularly dangerous. In 2003 there was an outbreak of H7N7 in the Netherlands. Over 30 million birds were culled. However H5N7 isolates were found, indicting H7N7 had reassorted with H5N2. Reassortment, or swapping of whole genes, happens during dual infections, when the same host is infected with two different viruses. The H5N7 isolated in 2003 from a mallard duck in Denmark was novel and signaled new genetic combinations between H5 and H7 viruses.

The U.S. military announced Saturday that it released nearly 1,000 prisoners from Abu Ghraib prison over the past few days in response to a request by Iraqi authorities.

The move, the largest prisoner release to date, followed appeals by Sunni representatives to start releasing thousands of prisoners who have been languishing in the jail for months without being charged.

HURRICANE KATRINA NOW A CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE PACKING SUSTAINED WINDS OF 175 MPH...

...DIRECT STRIKE OF POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC AND LIFE THREATENING HURRICANE EXPECTED...

...RUSH PROTECTIVE MEASURES TO COMPLETION AND LEAVE THE AREA NOW!...

Plans for a global response to a mass outbreak of bird flu in humans are taking shape, but are far from complete.

Tamsin Rose of European Public Health Alliance ---> "Millions and millions would die, and a pandemic would change society as we know it," she said. "And no-one seems prepared."

The Associated Press-Ipsos poll on public attitudes about the war in Iraq

Q: Do you think it is OK for people who oppose the war in Iraq to express their opposition publicly, or not?

-Yes, 87 percent

-No, 12 percent

-Not sure, 1 percent

The first thing - of what we do know, and it's amazing how many Americans seem to skate over this - the first nuclear reactor given to Iran was given by the United States in 1967 - a five-megawatt trigger reactor, research reactor, under the Eisenhower Atoms for Peace Program. Still operated ... The other thing that Americans forget is that in 1974, the shah announced a policy of 23,000 megawatts of nuclear energy in Iraq. The US reaction? [Former US national security adviser and secretary of state] Henry Kissinger beat down the door to be sure that two US constructors, General Electric and Westinghouse, had a preferred position in selling those reactors. We did not say, "it's a stupid idea, why would you want to do that when you are flaring gas and you have immense oil reserves?" We said, "That is very interesting; it's an example of how the Iranian economy is moving and becoming modern." Imagine in Iranian ears how it sounds now when we denigrate that capacity. They remember. We were sellers of nuclear reactors and wanted to be sellers of nuclear reactors to the shah.

Sharpton's office said Thursday he would participate in a prayer vigil Sunday with Sheehan in Crawford, Texas.

"Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals ... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate,"

USATODAY ---> The battle may have already begun. Less than 48 hours after Israeli troops evacuated 15,000 settlers and activists from Gaza and four West Bank settlements ? territory Israel is ceding for what could be part of a future Palestinian state ? violence erupted in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Israeli troops killed five suspected Palestinian terrorists during a raid in the Tulkarem refugee camp overnight Wednesday. A Palestinian stabbed to death a British ultra-Orthodox Jewish student and injured his American classmate in the first attack in Jerusalem's Old City in three years.

Russians, whose lives are shorter and poorer than they were under communism, have more abortions than births to avoid the costs of raising children.
"The appearance of a first child pushes many families into poverty," Kulakov said today in the government's official newspaper, Rossiskaya Gazeta. "Potential parents first try to start a career, stand on their feet and so forth."

Suicide bomber Hasib Hussain ate a last meal at McDonald's before blowing up the No. 30 bus on 7 July, killing 13 people.

Just when you thought cable news couldn't sink any lower, cable news sinks lower...

Fox News wrongly identified the house of Randy and Ronnell Vorick as a terrorist lair:
John Loftus, a former U.S. prosecutor, gave out the address Aug. 7, saying it was the home of a Middle Eastern man, Iyad K. Hilal, who was the leader of a terrorist group with ties to those responsible for the July 7 bombings in London.

In a thinly disguised effort to minimize political damage from growing disillusion with the vortiginous war in Iraq, the Bush administration has begun to "scale back" its predictions of what is actually achievable under the U.S. occupation. Put on a pair of sunglasses and grab onto your seat:
U.S. officials are now saying they "no longer expect to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry, or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges"

"Venezuela could supply gasoline to Americans at half the price they now pay if intermediaries who "speculated ... and exploited consumers" were cut out."

Connie Fogal, lawyer, Director Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee and Leader of Canadian Action Party says " 'NO' to an impending federal law to give police and national security agencies new powers to eavesdrop on cellphone calls and monitor the Internet activities of Canadians".

The Italian authorities are investigating a fax, allegedly signed by al-Qaida, which makes veiled threats against the Vatican.

The three-page document, written in Arabic, accuses the Vatican of supporting "the capitalist countries" who joined the war in Iraq and justifies terror attacks in Britain and Spain as "self defence against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan".

The fax was sent in Barcelona to the offices of the Spanish conservative daily newspaper ABC and to a Spanish television station.

Electronic snooping designed to snare terrorists and Mafia kingpins is trapping some unexpected prey. Surreptitious listening is now so common in Italy that people with little or no connection to criminal cases have found themselves recorded and their private utterings made public in newspapers.

White House aides scramble frantically behind the scenes to hide the dark mood of an increasingly angry leader who unleashes obscenity-filled outbursts at anyone who dares disagree with him.

"I'm not meeting again with that goddamned bitch," Bush screamed at aides who suggested he meet again with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother whose son died in Iraq. "She can go to hell as far as I'm concerned!"

...those who protest the war, Bush calls "motherfucking traitors."

He reportedly was so upset over Veterans of Foreign Wars members who wore "bullshit protectors" over their ears during his speech to their annual convention that he told aides to "tell those VFW assholes that I'll never speak to them again is they can't keep their members under control."

"Who gives a flying fuck what the polls say," he screamed at a recent strategy meeting. "I'm the President and I'll do whatever I goddamned please. They don't know shit."

Cindy Sheehan said the day after she leaves Aug. 31, she will embark on a bus tour ending up in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 24. Then the group will start a 24-hour vigil in the nation's capital.

"I am not alone," she said at a news conference Thursday. "There's the people standing behind me here, but there's thousands of military families ... who want the same answers to the same questions."

Most of these "terrorism experts" are no experts at all, and their dangerous charade should be brought to a merciful end. They represent a strange new school of intellectual buffoonery and socio-political amusement, in a mainstream American communications and political culture where the prized criteria for success are kicking ass, making the public feel good, and defining the terror problem as the criminal manifestation of aberrant Arab, Asian and Islamic cultures.

A storm of anti-war protests and sentiment is sweeping across the nation. Finally, reality and truth are trumping President George W. Bush's lies. Even the perpetual propaganda machine of the corporate media can no longer manufacture consent for Bush's monstrously bad policies and decisions.

That's Pat Robertson, of course, calling on his good Christian friend, George W. Bush, to murder Hugo Chavez, elected leader of the South American nation of Venezuela.

Will we see denunciations of this "radical cleric" in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times?
Will Tony Blair now refuse to allow this peddler of violent hate speech into the United Kingdom, as he has banned Muslim preachers of poison?
Will we see earnest disquisitions from mainstream pundits demanding that the "Christian community" public disassociate itself from this dangerous crank and his murderous theology?

...what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on?

Israel has issued orders to seize Palestinian-owned land to build a section of its separation barrier around the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, the Justice Ministry said.

Palestinians condemned the construction of the barrier around Maaleh Adumim and accused Israel of quietly issuing the land-confiscation order while the world's attention was focused on the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Egypt has imposed a media blackout on the probe into the July 23 bombings in Sharm El Sheikh after weeks of confusion and contradictory information on the country's deadliest attack by militants.

A group of young Palestinians sat outdoors on a warm night, snacking on sunflower seeds and chatting with a well-known militant leader when a group of white-shirted men jumped out of a Mercedes and fired, a witness said. The undercover Israeli troops killed five people, at least three of them armed.

Pat Robertson falsely denied that he used the word "assassination" and claimed that he was "misinterpreted" by the Associated Press.

In fact, Robertson did use the word "assassination" in the August 22 broadcast and said, "[I]f he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."

WARNING: The following photo gallery contains graphic and shocking images of death and devastation in Iraq.

Hugo Chavez and the Men Who Claim to Speak for Jesus?

Fascism in America

"T'anks to Mr. Bush!" by anti-war activist Stephen Pearcy, depicts a star-spangled United States being flushed down the toilet. It was part of an exhibit of art created by lawyers.
The other relocated paintings are a poster reading "Palestine -- Stop U.S. Financed Genocide in the Middle East" and a painting depicting a caricature of President Bush riding a tank shaped like a church.

...democracy? freedom of speech?

Sheehan has been recently accused of being anti-Semite...

What's wrong in expressing her wish of ending the Israeli occupation in Palestine?
How can forcing people out of their homes for sixty years be justified?

The American Legion, which has 2.7 million members, has declared war on antiwar protestors, and the media could be next. Speaking at its national convention in Honolulu, the group's national commander called for an end to all "public protests" and "media events" against the war, even though they are protected by the Bill of Rights.

Investigators described the video footage as "interesting" and said it would eventually be shown in court.

This follows earlier claims that police had handed back CCTV tapes to tube staff saying: "They are blank."

David Frum's Diary ---> By now it should be clear that President Bush's words on the subject of Iraq have ceased connecting with the American public. His speech yesterday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars is the latest - and one of the most serious to date - manifestations of the problem.

An important venue will be chosen. A crowd of thousands will be gathered. The networks will all be invited. And after these elaborate preparations, the president says ... nothing that he has not said a hundred times before.

If a president continues to do that, he is himself teaching the public and the media to ignore him - especially when the words seem (as his speech to the VFW seemed) utterly to ignore the past three months of real-world events.

Kremlin loyalists across Russia have begun a concerted campaign to rewrite the country's constitution to allow President Vladimir Putin to serve a third term.

I'm coming back to Crawford because -- now and forever -- this is my duty for my son, for my other children, for other parents, and for my country.

"Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him."

"This public call to assassinate a head of state, considered a crime by all modern legislation, is prosecutable by its very nature. That is what the civilized world is expecting of U.S. authorities," the Venezuelan government said on Wednesday.

By invoking the woman ? Tammy Pruett of Pocatello, Idaho ? Bush's speech to National Guard members and Air Force troops marked the latest effort by the White House to respond to increasingly organized antiwar protests being led largely by mothers of fallen soldiers.

"There are few things in life more difficult than seeing a loved one go off to war," Bush told an enthusiastic crowd of more than 9,000 crammed into the Idaho Center in suburban Boise, about a half-hour helicopter ride from the mountain resort where Bush spent Tuesday.

"Tammy says this ? and I want you to hear this," the president continued moments later. He quoted the mother:

"I know that if something happens to one of the boys, they would leave this world doing what they believe, what they think is right for our country. And I guess you couldn't ask for a better way of life than giving it for something that you believe in."

Said Bush: "America lives in freedom because of families like the Pruetts."

Bush interrupted his Texas vacation this week to respond, delivering a speech in Utah on Monday and telling reporters Tuesday that Sheehan did not reflect the feelings of most military families with whom he has met since the war began.

Free ---> pdf

...the photo made the AP and is all over the net now.

Bill Moyer, 73, wears a "Bullshit Protector" flap over his ear while President George W. Bush addresses the Veterans of Foreign Wars. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac)

...this photo and statement is going to be hot, symbolic and all over the net.
...this is it...
...we are stating to discover newer forms of protests and statements.
...more appropriate for the XXI century and for the kind of enemy we are facing.
...almost art...very honest...non violent
...passionate
...strong

"I heard a lot more happened to other people. I feel lucky to be one of those who didn?t go to jail. Didn?t have police dogs sent after them, and most of all, I?m glad I didn?t get tasered."

"...at about 11:30 pm a helicopter began circling the party. Out of nowhere huge semis filled with national guard, swat, and the police rolled up. Soldiers came out of the bushes and rushed down to the party. Carrying M-16s, Ak-47s, nightsticks, and tazers. They proceeded to attack random people and push their might around on people who had done nothing wrong."

"A friend of mine was forced at gunpoint to put his hands on his head and turn around, because he asked if he could get his things from the tent. Tents were ripped open indiscriminately, and all belongings and bags were recklessly searched. I've heard accounts of people taking pictures, and when they refused to hand over the camera to the authorities, beaten or tasered."

"Men in Full Camo, Kevlar Vests, Gas Masks MP5 Navy's AUG's and many other fire-arms. Attack Dogs, were barking somewhere ahead of me."

"Last night was one of the worst nights of my life. I am still incredibly shaken up by what happened ....enough to the point of where I'm still having problems talking about it."

"(Allisha - girl in the red hoody) "I said what whats going on, at which point i was brutally attacked. Thrown to the ground and in the scuffle punched in the face by swat. That was not it either. I suppose i posed some a threat as another swat member rushed over to subdue me to the ground puting his knee in my back and arresting me. At that point I am screaming to a patron "whats going on?
I had three grown men attack and beat me and throw me to ground for absolutely no reason at all. Not to mention being dragged to a van and violently being tossed in and taken to jail. Fined for resisting arrest and another outrageous charge."

We have to tell our story. Do all that you can and dont be afraid to speak up.

...for surveillance cameras, motion detectors and other equipment to detect potential attacks against its stations, bridges and tunnels.
1,000 cameras and 3,000 sensors under the three-year deal that aims to eventually allow the New York
Metropolitan Transportation Authority to stop attacks before they happen by spotting unattended packages that may contain bombs and alerting its employees to unauthorized intruders in its tunnels and other sensitive areas.

The protest was led by none other then the Mayor of Salt Lake City himself - Rocky Anderson !!

And his tag line in his speech to the crowd - "we're not going to take it anymore!"

As Israeli forces removed residents from the last Jewish settlement still to be cleared in the Gaza Strip yesterday, Ariel Sharon sought to win back support from the Israeli right by promising continued expansion of Israel's West Bank colonies.
Sharon specifically mentioned further construction in Ma'ale Adumim settlement, designed to link it to Jerusalem despite Washington's objections. He said that Ariel settlement, in the heart of the West Bank, would be annexed as "a part of Israel for ever".

TONY Blair is expected to join one of the most exclusive groups of businessmen in the world after he leaves Downing Street.

The PM is being lined up for a highly lucrative position with the Carlyle Group - an American-based investment giant with strong links to the White House and the defence industry.

The firm has been nicknamed "The Ex-Presidents Club" because it has had a host of former world leaders on its books including George Bush Senior, his former secretary of state James Baker and former British PM John Major. There a also a large number of former US Army top brass.

Police in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania used tasers, attack dogs and pepper spray to disperse a crowd of nonviolent protesters who had organized to shut down the local military recruiting station.
...a woman, already subdued on the ground and surrounded by police officers, being shot with a taser. A 68 year old woman was bitten by a police dog and hospitalized. There were several other hospitalizations and at least six arrests.

Chris Floyd ---> The network links a bewildering line-up of players -- the Bushes, the Vatican, bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and China's Communist overlords, among others -- in a staggering array of crime and turpitude: prostitution, pedophilia, mass death and war profiteering. Yet this is not some grand "conspiracy theory," a serpent's egg hatched in Bilderberg or Bohemian Grove. It's simply the way the Bush boys do business, trawling the globe for sweetheart deals and gushers of blood money from the war and terror they foment.

There's a new batch of photos from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and these are reportedly far worse than the sickening originals. Naturally, the Pentagon is trying to block their release.

The bug that has stolen all the data is thought to be a variant of a family of trojans known as Dumaru or Nibu that exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.

The server held passwords for online accounts from 50 banks, Ebay and Paypal logins, hundreds of credit card numbers and reams of personal data.

Canada can pull out of free trade agreements and return to WTO without penalty...

So what news of that Utah rave busted up by 90 military-style SWAT team cops with automatic weapons, helicopters, tear gas and dogs? Scanning today's Mormon State newspapers we get a bunch of illuminating justifications and outright lying from cops and politicians. For instance --->

It's still unknown how the common pig bacteria turned deadly and jumped to humans.

The hijacking of the probe into the 9-11 hijackers.

Scientists have successfully converted human embryonic stem cells into lung cells, taking a first step towards building human lungs for transplantation.

"The removal is over," Commander Meir Ben-Ishai declared.

he parents, Patrick and Mary Tillman, who live in San Jose, cautiously welcomed the new investigation and said they hoped it would reveal a fuller picture of how their son had died in Afghanistan.

"The other investigations were frauds," Patrick Tillman said.

Researchers said the findings in Georgia were about 1 million years older than any widely accepted pre-human remains in Western Europe and were the oldest found outside Africa. The discoveries have provided additional evidence that human ancestors left Africa a half-million years or more earlier than scientists had previously thought.

That vagrant in the subway may not really be a homeless person. The government says he may be a terrorist in disguise.
An e-mail message from the U-S Attorney's Office in Washington warns that some terrorists may be pose as street people to conduct surveillance of buildings and mass transit stations for future attacks.

...fear, fear and more fear

The founder of the Christian Coalition said during the Monday night television broadcast of his religious program, "The 700 Club," that Chavez, one the most vocal critics of President George W. Bush, was a "terrific danger" to the United States.

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said.

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

...Christ is in his heart, right?

"Camouflaged troops" descended in helicopters on a Utah canyon Sunday night to bust up a permitted and insured rave party.
There are scores of reports of the police and troops sexually molesting teen-aged girls and savagely beating others.
As usual in police-state actions, the troops and cops seized any videotapes they could find and were particularly brutal when dealing with kids taking pictures of the attack.

Utah government reports that this action was undertaken out of fear that the Rave would be used to rally support for the protest against Bush's Utah visit.

here ---> A horrific video recording of the police and military violence against hundreds of dance kids

here ---> DJ's account of the events






...fascism !!!

Two senior Brazilian justice officials today arrived in London to question the investigators examining the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes by British police.
The Brazilian government has expressed its "shock and bewilderment" over the death of the innocent Brazilian electrician at Stockwell tube station, and wants answers on "a number of matters".

CCTV tapes depicting Mr de Menezes' last moments were handed out to police but returned blank.

Tube Lines, the company which runs Stockwell station, said it had not been aware of any faults on its cameras on 22 July.

The Mail on Sunday quoted a senior transport union official as saying: " After the incident, the police took the tapes away. When they brought them back three or four days later, they said, 'These are no good to us. They're blank.'"

Perhaps part of the problem is that very few of the thousands-strong international members of the press who are currently in Israel-Palestine covering the disengagement are in the West Bank, nor are the journalists who are usually stationed here, covering what is considered the most politically important part of the world. But once again, this only shows the hypocrisy of the Western press: when it's Jewish Israelis being removed from their homes, it's the biggest story to happen here in decades. But when Palestinians weep over their displacement, which happens time and time again thanks to Israel's collective-punishment home demolitions, their suffering is largely undocumented by the press.

The ICM poll published on Monday in the Guardian newspaper showed that 73 percent of respondents backed the trade off, with only 17 percent rejecting it outright. The results suggest the British public largely backs a range of anti-terror measures proposed by Prime Minister Tony Blair?s government.

...if the American military presence in the region lasts another five years, the total outlay for the war could stretch to more than $1.3 trillion, or $11,300 for every household in the United States.

Whether the Bush administration lied is immensely important, not only because of the lives and limbs lost, but because reliable, accurate information is a bedrock of democratic government. Aldous Huxley warned, "The survival of democracy depends on the ability of large numbers of people to make realistic choices in the light of adequate information." A public fed a heavy diet of misinformation cannot make the adequately informed decisions democracy requires of them.

"There is no doubt that all the people here will say no to the constitution because nobody here trusts the Government and nobody wants the country to be divided the way the other groups want it," Mr Samaraai said. Jamal al-Shimari, a neighbour, agreed. "It's not going to be a constitution. It's a conspiracy to divide the country," he said, referring to the federal demands of the Shias and the Kurds.

There are now two Baghdads. One is the Green Zone, where US and Iraqi officials live in a protected realm; the other is the danger zone, where everyone else lives.
Robert Fisk reports from beyond the Coalition's concrete walls

Capitol Hill Blue ---> Bush and his klavern of crooks, con-men and thieves have turned this nation into a monster that threatens world peace, an arrogant bomb-throwing bully who poses a far-greater danger than any Islam-spouting lunatic with a turban.

Zalka mayor Michel Murr told the Lebanese Brodacasting Corp. that the bomb was placed in an open area between the Centre Moussa shopping center and the hotel, which was packed with tourists. A busy Starbucks coffee shop sits across the street.

...in the past couple weeks links in Google search results being routed through a click-tracking server. Now it seems to be happening with all results.

As lies about the war are exposed and opposition to it grows, apologists for the Bush-Cheney Gang are collectively going bonkers.
As their pro-War ship of bile continues to sink, these lackeys for the Establishment have targeted for abuse a prime symbol of the rising opposition in the country to the immoral conflict: Cindy Sheehan! They have also begun a malicious smear campaign against pro-Peace groups, like: Code Pink-Women for Peace, United for Peace and Justice and Veterans for Peace. The obviously unstable Robert Novak, on Aug. 20, 2005, even questioned the patriotism of the members of these fine organizations, who have showed up to support Sheehan at her vigil in Crawford, Texas, by wrongly labeling them as "extreme antiwar demonstrators."

Magal Security Systems - - owned in part by the government of Israel - - is in charge of security for the most sensitive nuclear power and weapons storage facilities in the United States.
Not only does Magal provide security for American nuclear facilities, but it also does likewise for most major nuclear facilities in Western Europe and Asia.
Magal provides security for 90% of the American prisons that utilize electronic systems.
Magal may have an inside shot at getting a monopoly in guarding America's water supplies.
...and is working to expand its business in the protection of oil pipelines.

Ignore. That?s what the vast majority of Germans did in the 1930s as Hitler curtailed civil liberties and launched aggressive wars.
...how it could possibly be that, highly educated and cultured as they were, the Germans for the most part could simply ignore. Why was it that the institutional churches, Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran, could not find their voice? Why was it that so few spoke out?

British police say they have reviewed their controversial shoot-to-kill policy and made one or two small changes, which have yet to be made public.

What is the actual intent behind Cheney's Paraguay caper?
Locate the regional South American developments in the context of the documented short-term drive for pre-emptive war against Iran, including nuclear strikes, which has been launched by Dick Cheney and his allied gang of "spoon-bender" Utopian lunatics within U.S. military and intelligence circles. And locate them, as well, in the framework of a rapidly disintegrating global financial system, which Cheney et al. have been deployed to salvage, at all costs.

International media organizations, whose representatives have shut themselves up in luxury hotels in Baghdad for fear of kidnapping, have apparently imposed a news blackout on the situation in Tel Affar, our correspondent says.

Tel Affar is a big city with 300,000 people, plus another 270,000 in the suburbs, giving a total of 570,000.
The shelling has so far killed several people and wounded many others. Those staying behind suffer from lack of water, food and health services.
The people are too scared to go out and recover corpses of dead relatives or tend the wounded.

"U.S. troops have ringed the city and now prevent people from either leaving or entering the city."

Haaretz ---> Not only did we not invest there, not only did we not build or develop, but we exploited them as a cheap labor force, we sold them our 'Grade B' and 'freshness date expired,' and we did not enable them to build up an industry that might have competed with its Israeli counterpart, heaven forbid. In Gush Katif, 7,500 people gained control over 20 percent of the land in Gaza, and over more than 20 percent of the water. If that is not cruel colonialism, then what is?

One of the US soldiers convicted of mistreating prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison says his superiors made it clear those incarcerated were to be abused.

Robert Fisk ---> Whatever The West Decides

"This administration has been disastrous to the country," Anderson said Friday. "If people could organize and speak out in an effective manner from the reddest state in the country, that would garner a lot of attention."

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has just let the cat out of the bag about what's really behind our trade agreements and security partnerships with the other North American countries. A 59-page CFR document spells out a five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter."

Just to make sure that bringing cheap labor from Mexico is an essential part of the plan, the CFR document calls for "a seamless North American market" and for "the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico."

The document's frequent references to "security" are just a cover for the real objectives. The document's "security cooperation" includes the registration of ballistics and explosives, while Canada specifically refused to cooperate with our Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

The ad began airing on other area stations Saturday, two days before Bush was scheduled to speak in Salt Lake City to the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

However, a national sales representative for KTVX, a local ABC affiliate, rejected the ad in an e-mail to media buyers, writing that it was an "inappropriate commercial advertisement for Salt Lake City."

...members of the surveillance team who followed de Menezes into Stockwell underground station in London felt that he was not about to detonate a bomb, was not armed and was not acting suspiciously. It was only when they were joined by armed officers that his threat was deemed so great that he was shot seven times.

America Has Turned Against the War

The parents of the Brazilian man gunned down by police at London's Stockwell Tube station have reportedly turned down a one million US dollars compensation offer from Scotland Yard for his mistaken shooting.

"The source of contamination was not related to Iran,'' said Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi. "We are sure the source is not internal.''

The United States has alleged the material was produced by Tehran and the particles were evidence that Iran was experimenting with producing highly enriched uranium, which is only used in nuclear weapons.

...back off, USA!
...YOU LIED

An explosion in the troubled southern Russian region of Dagestan killed at least two police officers and wounded several more, officials said Saturday.

President George W. Bush said on Saturday U.S. troops in Iraq were fighting to protect Americans at home from more attacks like those of September 11, 2001, starting a five-day focus on his case for the war amid growing public discontent.

"Our troops know that they're fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere to protect their fellow Americans from a savage enemy," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

...you are a savage enemy, Bush...you and yours
...and people are starting to voice that louder and louder.
...WE KNOW...

Speaking in Gaza City, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas confirmed Saturday that Palestinian legislative elections will be held January 25.

"Run away from the light": Such might be the motto of a new, covert policy that the Bush administration is considering implementing. According to recent news reports, it would be the largest expansion into the world of black ops and covert action since the end of the Vietnam War in the 1970s.

Mr. Chossudovsky described himself as being of Jewish descent, and said he has relatives who were Holocaust victims. "I'm the first person to withdraw any kind of hate material directed against the Jewish people."

He went on to defend the reprinted articles that have also sparked complaints, saying they are legitimate commentary representing views that are "anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic."

It was irrelevant to them whether he was a terrorist or not. They decided to pursue him, and literally grabbed him out of the hands of the London police, because they wanted to set an example.

A non-lethal -- but potentially harmful -- crowd control weapon that heats human skin is bound for Iraq, and possibly to a police department near you.

On September 26, 2005 a nation wide strike is being called for all students... To protest the influence of the Military and Weapons Industries on Education, and the resulting wars that feed our kids as fodder to a system of profits created from intentionally created conflict.

Some 100m Indonesians were without electricity on Thursday as power outages hit the country's main grid, leaving office workers in Jakarta trapped in elevators and the state-owned power monopoly struggling for an explanation.

"(Powell) came through the door ... and he had in his hands a sheaf of papers, and he said, 'This is what I've got to present at the United Nations according to the White House, and you need to look at it,'" Wilkerson says in the program. "It was anything but an intelligence document. It was, as some people characterized it later, sort of a Chinese menu from which you could pick and choose."

Guardian ---> There was no 'sensitivity training' when bulldozers went into Rafah.

...families in Rafah were usually given a maximum of five minutes' warning before their houses, and life savings, were crushed. Many people did not even have time to go upstairs to collect belongings when the barking of loudspeakers ordered them out, sometimes before dawn. Fleeing with their children in the night, they risked being shot if they turned round or delayed.

Business Week reports that the army will spend more money on recruitment ads next year, about $320m up from $240m this year. As it helpfully points out this amounts to $4,000 per recruit if the army signs up 80,000 next year - more than twice what Toyota spends to woo a new customer.

...a simple question: why did my son have to die? And by asking that question, she has revealed something that has come as a surprise to many Americans: the president has no morally defensible answer.

This petition will be delivered to the White House and other addresses on September 26, 2005

Sponsors of this action include. Noam Chomsky, Medea Benjamin, Franklin W. Stahl, Peter Phillips Ph.D., Scott Kerlin Ph.D.?and hundreds more

They're called "synthetic biologists'' and they boldly claim the ability to make never-before-seen living things, one genetic molecule at a time.

They're mixing, matching and stacking DNA's chemical components like microscopic Lego blocks in an effort to make biologically based computers, medicines and alternative energy sources.

The first man to be convicted over the September 11 attacks on America was today sentenced to seven years in prison after a German court found him guilty of belonging to a terrorist organisation.

...a $2.2 billion aid request from Israel to develop the country's Galilee and Negev regions.

We believe it necessary to work out a schedule of gradual withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq. Many Iraqis consider them occupational," Putin said at a joint new conference after meeting with visiting Jordanian King Abdallah II .

Iran and China have had close relations in various spheres and have always maintained their brotherly relations over the course of history, since they have always had some mutual objectives

One Jordanian soldier has been killed after unidentified attackers fired rockets from Jordan near a US warship in the port of Aqaba and on a neighbouring Israeli resort in apparently coordinated strikes.

Radiation Expert Claims High-Radiation Readings Near Pentagon After 9/11 Indicate Depleted Uranium Used; High-Ranking Army Officer Claims Missile Used at Pentagon, Not Commercial Airliner.

Two high profile radiation experts concur Pentagon strike involved use of a missile. Also Geiger counter readings right after the attack shows high levels of radiation 12 miles away from Pentagon crash site.

It's Not About Me, It's About the War

The alliance between a cabal of American neo-conservatives and the most extreme elements of the Israeli right represents the true obstacle to peace.

A high ranking Kremlin official emphasized Wednesday, "Iran's right to take advantage of nuclear power for peaceful purposes must be internationally recognized," the official Iranian news agency reported today.

The Government is creating a system of "mass public surveillance" capable of tracking every adult in Britain without their consent.
Biometric facial scans, which will be compulsory with ID cards, are to be put on a national database which can then be matched with images from CCTV. The database of faces will enable police and security services to track individuals regardless of whether they have broken the law.

Home Secretary, has said that the "facial images national database should be operational by December 2006".

George Galloway ---> Those who fed the initial pack of lies to the press must be exposed and sacked. And Ian Blair and the government ministers who were responsible for sanctioning the shoot-to-kill policy which produced the utterly avoidable death of this young man, must resign.

Once the media circus is over, Israel's melodramatic withdrawal from the Gaza Strip should be judged by how it improves Palestinian lives and the chances of a just and peaceful resolution of the conflict.

John Pilger ---> Friedman's latest bark is about free speech, which his country's constitution is said to safeguard. He wants the State Department to draw up a blacklist of those who make "wrong" political statements. He is referring not only to those who advocate violence, but to those who believe US actions are the root cause of the current terrorism. The latter group, which he describes as "just one notch less despicable than the terrorists", includes most Americans and Britons, according to the latest polls.

Can we in the so-called "lone superpower" face that we are now a nation of mercenaries?

Our dark cabal of Neocon leaders, several of whom have held positions of great power under Reagan, Bush I, and now Bush II, are perpetuating unrestrained expansion of the American Empire while utilizing Orwellian propaganda to convince its subjects that they are still living in the "land of the free".

Photos

The grieving woman who started an anti-war demonstration near President Bush's ranch nearly two weeks ago said Thursday she was leaving because her mother had a stroke.
Cindy Sheehan told reporters she had just received the phone call and was leaving immediately to be with her 74-year-old mother at a Los Angeles hospital.

"We are not waging a war on terror in this country. We?re waging a war of terror. The biggest terrorist in the world is George W. Bush!"

"We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now. That country is contaminated. It will be contaminated for practically eternity now."

"The whole world is damaged. Our humanity is damaged. If he thinks that it?s so important for Iraq to have a U.S.-imposed sense of freedom and democracy, then he needs to sign up his two little party-animal girls. They need to go to this war."

"We want our country back and, if we have to impeach everybody from George Bush down to the person who picks up dog shit in Washington, we will impeach all those people."

Bolton said yesterday. "Funding this kind of activity is inappropriate and unacceptable. We plan to raise the issue with UNDP and with others," he said in a statement to The New York Sun. In effect, Mr. Bolton expressed to the UNDP that the most serious problem for his office was not the logo, but the fact that the agency supported that message with its checkbook.

...some 50,000 homes in the Cincinnati area have signed up for BPL Internet- service. And Manassas, Va., a town of 37,000, runs its own BPL service. "Our hope is that in the next two years you'll see millions of homes" using BPL, says Kevin Kushman, vice president of corporate development at CURRENT Communications Group.
...now Broadband over Power Lines (BPL), with investments from big-name companies including Google and IBM, is beginning to move beyond small trial projects to deploying systems for large communities.

Newly declassified State Department documents show that government experts warned the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in early 2003 about "serious planning gaps for post-conflict public security and humanitarian assistance," well before Operation Iraqi Freedom began.

Haaretz ---> The 30 years of pointless settlement on the Gaza coast had to come to an end. The great injustice done to the Palestinians had to be ended. Israel's great historic mistake had to be corrected. But there was something anguishing about the way in which the sentence was carried out. There was something chilling in the way Israeli secularism bisected Gush Katif's world of faith over the last year.

Haaretz ---> It has almost nothing to do with national security, or strategy, or party politics - and just about everything to do with the mind and soul of Ariel Sharon.

It may seem contradictory, or an irony of history, that the "father of the settlements" has turned around to uproot them, but this is an optical illusion. For Sharon, it is not whether he storms into enemy territory or away from it: The essence lies in the very movement, the swift and bloody campaign, east or west, north or south, in or out. Sharon does not have the courage of his convictions - he has the agility of his ambitions. By nature and upbringing, he cannot just stand there, he must do something. What's ideology got to do with it, the songwriter may ask, and the correct answer would be: little or nothing.

Sheehan has been called everything from a "kook" to an anti-Semite by conservative bloggers and pundits over the past few days. But it's clear her message is reaching new audiences.
Whether one supports Sheehan's position or not, she put the war back on the front pages in the middle of August and brought the war home to suburbia in a way other antiwar organizers hadn't been able to do.
"She has made it OK to have these conversations, as they're now about her, " Tuman said. "She's given people a way to talk about the war again."

The sharp comments came after lawyers for Jean Charles de Menezes' family met the watchdog group, demanding answers amid allegations of a police cover-up.

London's Metropolitan Police chief is facing growing calls to resign over the shooting of an innocent Brazilian man, as reports emerged that he tried to stop an inquiry into the killing and the fallout from last month's London bombings continue.

They will involve as many as 10,000 soldiers -- mostly Chinese -- as well as 140 naval ships and submarines, Russian Tu-22M long-range bombers, and Tu-95 strategic bombers.
"The main aim of these exercises is to ensure the training, to ensure the readiness of the structures in charge of the subdivisions taking part from the armed forces of the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China, precisely in order to counter the challenges we face today in the Asia-Pacific region, and in the world as a whole."

The number of hastily organized protests across the state and the country -- more than 50,000 registered for 1,627 vigils across the United States, the political action group Moveon.org said on its website -- showed a new depth of feeling against the war that has coalesced around Cindy Sheehan and her protest in Crawford, Texas, organizers said.

THE share of Americans who believe that news organizations are "politically biased in their reporting" increased to 60 percent in 2005, up from 45 percent in 1985, according to polls by the Pew Research Center.

Technicians from Truly Nolen Pest Control of America are being trained by local law enforcement to spot anything unusual as they visit customer's homes.

Israeli troops stormed two Gaza Strip synagogues and dragged out screaming settlers and supporters on Thursday in assaults on the last bastions of resistance to a pullout from the occupied territory.

This afternoon, the National Security Archives at George Washington University released some stunning documents, that seem to further corroborate the Downing Street Minutes, as well as buttress the argument that there was precious little post-war planning in the rush to topple Saddam. Among them is this State Department powerpoint slide...

Guys that had a role in the (Sept. 11 intelligence) failure got promoted.

Immanuel Wallerstein ---> It's over. For the U.S. to win the Iraq war requires three things: defeating the Iraqi resistance; establishing a stable government in Iraq that is friendly to the U.S.; maintaining the support of the American people while the first two are being done. None of these three seem any longer possible. First, the U.S. military itself no longer believes it can defeat the resistance. Secondly, the likelihood that the Iraqi politicians can agree on a constitution is almost nil, and therefore the likelihood of a minimally stable central government is almost nil. Thirdly, the U.S. public is turning against the war because it sees no "light at the end of the tunnel."

As a result, the Bush regime is in an impossible position. It would like to withdraw in a dignified manner, asserting some semblance of victory. But, if it tries to do this, it will face ferocious anger and deception on the part of the war party at home. And if it does not, it will face ferocious anger on the part of the withdrawal party. It will end up satisfying neither, lose face precipitously, and be remembered in ignominy.
Let us see what is happening --->

The e-mail stated that Jacob Rothschild is quite sick and this is causing some problems in the world of finance, media and just who controls things. One has to ask the question; ?Is what?s going on in the world really nothing more than a family feud?? Are the Rothschild?s in Paris, actually in a war with the Rothschild?s of London?

The magnitude 7.2 quake was the heaviest Japan has experienced this year and its epicentre was only 95km east of Sendai, a coastal city of more than 1million people. Buildings in Tokyo, 350km to the southwest, were shaken for up to a minute.

An Italian court has approved the extradition of one of the men suspected of an attempted bomb attack on a London Tube on July 21.

The call by the family of Jean Charles De Menezes follows the publication of leaked eyewitness reports which contradict the police account of the circumstances leading to his death on July 22.

Fred Mattlage, an Army veteran, said he sympathises with the demonstrators whose makeshift camp off the winding, two-lane road leading to Bush's ranch has angered most residents. Mattlage said the group will be safer on his corner 1-acre lot.

"I just think people should have a right to protest without being harassed," Mattlage told The Associated Press on Tuesday night.

"And I'm against the war. I don't think it's a war we need to be in."

Tonight, at 7:30 pm, all across this country people will be standing in the spirit of peace with Cindy Sheehan, in candle light vigils.

Civil libertarians and the Pentagon appear headed for yet another trainwreck in the ongoing dispute over the so-called second batch of photos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Howard Zinn ---> There are killings every day in Iraq. Occupying troops, diplomats, aid workers and media people are killed, as are Iraqis, in far greater numbers. But President George Bush?s war is not only against opponents in Iraq and the Middle East: it is a war against his fellow Americans.

Baghdad's body count

The French-based ecumenical Taize community tried to pick up the pieces Wednesday after the fatal stabbing of its popular 90-year-old founder.

Officials say the 82nd Airborne Division will send about 700 soldiers to Iraq over the next two months.

Russia warned on Wednesday against using force to stop Iran's nuclear program, saying any such action would have grave and unpredictable consequences.

Israeli police said the assailant was a driver who had taken Palestinian workers to jobs in Shiloh, a Jewish West Bank settlement. Once there, he snatched a security guard's gun and turned it on his passengers. Police later arrested him.

A military intelligence team repeatedly contacted the F.B.I. in 2000 to warn about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a veteran Army intelligence officer who said he had now decided to risk his career by discussing the information publicly.

The officer, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, said military lawyers later blocked the team from sharing any of its information with the bureau.

State Department analysts warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 that Osama bin Laden's move to Afghanistan would give him an even more dangerous haven as he sought to expand radical Islam "well beyond the Middle East," but the government chose not to deter the move, newly declassified documents show.

Many gunmen who had taken hundreds of schoolchildren and their parents hostage in the South Russian town of Beslan a year ago owe their escape from the school stormed by the security forces to people dressed in police uniforms, a former hostage, Inga Kharebova, told a court where the only hostage-taker detained by the authorities ? Nurpasha Kulayev ? is currently facing trial.

The new underground reported to Lehrman that "the imminent Northcom nuclear terror exercise based in Charleston, S.C, where a nuclear warhead is smuggled off a ship and detonated, was originally intended to 'go live' - as in the drill would be used as the cover for a real false flag staged attack."

If the role of journalists is to make power accountable, then there is virtually no journalism going on in the United States. That is, no journalism that reaches the masses of the people. Americans are left deaf, blind and dumb to the world around them. This would be sad, if it only affected the population of the United States. But the U.S. is the sole remaining super-power, and the disappearance of journalism means that the criminals in power in Washington can convince the public that up is down, day is night, and hot is cold. Television and the newspapers will not challenge them, and as a consequence, the Bush men are free to wage war against whoever they choose, under any pretense they can conjure up. They can lie at will. Citizens who point out the lies are ignored, or made to look insane, or worse.

Jefferson knew that peaceful protests had greater power than violence or threats.

"But keep away all show of force," he wrote to Pendleton, "and they will bear down the evil propensities of the government, by the constitutional means of election and petition. If we can keep quiet, therefore, the tide now turning will take a steady and proper direction."

Thousands of young men and women from leftist groups participating in the world youth festival cheered when the judge on Sunday read the verdict ending the two-day trial: "Condemned, for crimes against humanity."
Witnesses at the trial held in a Caracas stadium pointed to the war in Iraq, Washington's financial support for the Colombian government's fight against Marxist rebels and U.S. economic policies that often leave many developing nations in poverty as evidence of crimes committed by Bush.

This has angered many Canadians, who even if they don't approve of Mr Emery's activities, fear that the long arm of the law in the US is now reaching across the border. They say it is wrong for a Canadian to be tried in the United State for selling marijuana seeds from his Vancouver base. The US has far harsher penalties.

"I'm deeply concerned about subjecting a Canadian citizen to the draconian laws of a foreign nation when we don't bother charging this person for violating our laws," Alan Young, an associate professor of law at Osgoode Hall, wrote in the Globe and Mail newspaper.

The Justice Department played hardball last week with former superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, in part because of concerns he might flee to Israel. Hours before Abramoff was indicted on fraud charges in Miami last Thursday, FBI agents tried to arrest him at his Maryland home. But he'd already left for Los Angeles. Agents tracked him down on his cell phone and ordered him to surrender to the local FBI office. When Abramoff did, later that day, he was handcuffed, thrown into jail, then released last Friday on a $2.2 million bond.

...allegations of Democrat-led voter fraud across the nation.
The GOP is setting the table for the next round

Investigators looking into how police mistook a Brazilian man for a suicide bomber and shot him, are concerned over an alleged leak of sensitive documents.

The documents seem to cast doubt over the police's version of the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, shot dead at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July.

A fast-moving computer worm Tuesday shut down computer systems using Microsoft operating software, hitting computer systems across the United States and reportedly in Germany and Asia.

The Justice Department's inspector general said Monday a federal prison center in Brooklyn, N.Y., failed to turn over hundreds of videotapes to investigators probing the treatment of detainees taken into custody after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Enough is enough!" said Delores Taylor, alongside her husband, Tom Laughlin (Billy Jack). The quintessential activist heroine and hero of the 1970's are back with a vengeance. They are determined to end the war in Iraq, by restoring America to her moral purpose, before subway terrorists possess nuclear weapons in suitcases.

To reveal this new exciting exit plan, Laughlin will be holding a press conference at Peace House located at 9142 5th Street, Crawford, Texas, on Thursday, August 18, 2005 at 1 p.m. (CT).

"This plan is a win/win situation for the Iraqi people, and especially for every American -- Republican, Democrat or Independent. Over 87% of 174 voters strongly approved this plan, including 61% who were Republican or initially favored the war," said Laughlin.

Not affiliated with either political party, Taylor and Laughlin are inviting the public to join them in a crusade to end the war and diffuse the escalating nuclear crisis.

George W. Bush is a new kind of bi-polar: the poles being indifference and destructive violence.

"The US forces surrounded the village of Mazraa near Baiji and detained five children under 10 years old, calling on the residents by loudspeakers to hand over several other children showed on TV channels celebrating the killing of US soldiers after roadside blast last week," a police source from Baiji said.

A pickup truck ran over wooden crosses erected at anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan's campsite on Monday night, in the latest sign of tension over the peace vigil outside vacationing President George W. Bush's Texas ranch.

It seems that Israel wants to lock up Gaza and throw away the key.

Jamal al-Fadl was taken on as a key prosecution witness, who along with a number of other sources claimed that Osama bin Laden was the leader of a large international terrorist organisation which was called "al-Qaeda".
Jamal al-Fadl was on the run from bin Laden, having stolen money from him. In return for his testimony, the United States gave him witness protection in America and hundereds of thousands of dollars. Many lawyers at the trial believed al-Fadl exaggerated and lied to give the Americans a picture of a terrorist organisation they needed to prosecute bin Laden.

The Post backed out of the agreement after critics said the event, scheduled to take place four years after the attacks that hit New York and Washington and resulted in the crash of a commercial airliner over western Pennsylvania, would have a pro-war slant and that support of the event by the newspaper would compromise the Post's journalistic integrity.

Japanese researchers have developed a flexible artificial skin that could give robots a humanlike sense of touch.

The team manufactured a type of "skin" capable of sensing pressure and another capable of sensing temperature.The "skin" can sense temperature and pressure simultaneously.

Italy has arrested 141 people in a security swoop following the bombings in London and Egypt last month and remains at high risk from an attack by Islamic militants, the Interior Ministry said on Monday.

Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem indicate that Israel's unilaterally imposed disengagement was never meant to start a peace process, but rather to end one.

As long as this administration refuses to admit to its mistakes and to pursue its current policies, specifically relating to Iraq, the so-called war on terrorism, the proliferation of WMD, and human rights, America's star will steadily dim. It will be only a matter of time before other nations will join together and successfully challenge U.S. supremacy. The United States cannot continue to squander its moral authority and then demand or count on the rest of the world's allegiance.

He wasn't wearing a heavy jacket. He used his card to get into the station. He didn't vault the barrier. And now police say there are no CCTV pictures to reveal the truth. So why did plainclothes officers shoot young Jean Charles de Menezes seven times in the head, thinking he posed a terror threat?