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| The Iraq war's dampening effect on recruiting has led to a plan by the Marine Corps to put hundreds of additional recruiters on the streets over the next several months and offer new re-enlistment bonuses of up to $35,000, military officials said Thursday. NYT (reg/req) |
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| Juan Thomson’s telling of his father’s suicide in today's Rocky
Mountain News should put the issue to rest. At least it does for us.
"The guy was a warrior,” said Hunter’s son, “and he went out like a warrior."
In 1998 we traveled to Nevada to interview Lt. Col. James "Bo" Gritz shortly after his own unsuccessful suicide attempt. The bottom line answer received to the question, “Why?” was this - “…you know, it's always been said a warrior can pick the time and place of his death." |
| A toxic chemical used in rocket fuel was found in virtually every sample taken in a new study of nursing mothers' milk...The AP |
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| The choice of Ibrahim Jaafari as candidate for prime minister of the majority United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) is seen as an important advance for the more pragmatic forces in the administration of President George W. Bush against their adversaries among the neo-conservatives and other hawks. IPS News |
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| The global web blog community is being called to action to lend support to two imprisoned Iranian bloggers. Iranian authorities have been clamping down on prominent sites for some time. The month-old Committee to Protect Bloggers is asking those with blogs to dedicate their sites on February 22nd as "Free Mojtaba and Arash Day"... Done...Amnesty International has recorded a growing number of cases of people detained or imprisoned for disseminating their beliefs or information through the internet, in countries such as China, Syria, Vietnam, the Maldives, Cuba, Iran and Zimbabwe. BBC |
| As military recruiting stumbles and needs grow, some say draft may be impossible to ignore. Christian Science Monitor |
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| Hunter S. Thompson, the maverick journalist and author whose savage chronicling of the underbelly of American life and politics embodied a new kind of nonfiction writing he called "gonzo journalism," died yesterday in Colorado. Tricia Louthis, of the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office, said Mr. Thompson had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Woody Creek, Colo., yesterday afternoon. He was 65. NYT (reg/req) |
| When Yahoo! decided to lease the former headquarters of film giant Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer several weeks ago, there was an undeniable symbolism. Ever since the start of the Internet revolution, Web-based companies have dreamed of the day when they could harness the creative might of Hollywood on a fiber-optic wire, allowing customers to call up films and television shows with the click of a mouse. The opening of the new Yahoo! Center in Santa Monica, Calif., this April suggests that, at last, this era may begin in earnest. Christian Science Monitor |
| Strict vegetarians who insist their children live by the same principles
were criticised today by a leading nutrition expert.
Denying growing children animal products in their diet during the critical first few years of life was "unethical" and could do permanent damage, said Professor Lindsay Allen, from the University of California at Davis. She conducted a study which showed that adding just two spoonfuls of meat to the diet of poverty-stricken children in Africa transformed them both physically and mentally. Over a period of two years the children almost doubled their muscle development, and showed dramatic improvements in mental skills. They also became more active, talkative and playful at school. Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC, Prof Allen said: "Animal source foods have some nutrients which are not found anywhere else. If you're talking about feeding young children and pregnant women and lactating women I would go as far as to say it is unethical to withhold these foods during that period of life. The Independent |
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| Things we learned en route to looking up other things: Being
a grumpy old man in my fifties, in this column I tend to focus on such
things as the Iraq war, Israel, violence in Iran, corporate corruption,
etc. But two decades ago I wrote that we had entered a golden age, and
I still believe that. Present perturbations are miniscule on a historical
scale: our present worldwide civilization is one of peace and goodwill,
healing and regeneration, and it will remain so for two centuries.
How can I say that? Because a little known and virtually never studied planetary incident occurred in November 1983. This phenomenon, Pluto's return to Scorpio, occurs every 247 to 250 years, and accurately foreshadows the major movements of history for the ensuing two and a half centuries. The 1983 Pluto "return" chart showed many things about the years 1984 to 2232 A.D. Many of those trends have already sounded their first note. I wrote back then that the world would see a grave new sexual disease, that men and women would "become interchangeable," that the world wars would end and be replaced by a form of police state, etc. We've already seen AIDS, a rise in female soldiers, rapists, husband-batterers, lawyers and doctors. We've watched the U.S. become the policeman of the world (Iraq, Afghanistan) and we've seen a form of police state slowly infect continental America. Here are some other things the 1983 Pluto return chart shows (with apologies to long-time readers who've heard this before): It shows that those who communicate in short bits will be the guides for mankind; and that the long-winded, lawyers, professors, big business, book writers, etc., will be corrupted, or at least frustrated. It shows the cataclysmic, erratic violence of the preceding (1736-1983) era, not only the world wars, the violence endemic to society, will be supplanted by a more "controlling" society. It shows corporate crime will expand massively. It shows men will become more psychic. The sexes will merge. (We've already seen male fish in the great lakes turn female in reaction to the drugs from human waste.) It shows a new happiness amongst lovers, new patterns of loyalty and camaraderie - and group fellowship - that replace the "private passion" approach of past centuries. It shows a two-century explosion in medical and ultra-tech development. This era (1983-2232) will be the last to support religion, language, property ownership and linear thought. It forms a "gateway" to a new chain of eras that will feature impressionism, color, perception, spirituality, vision, belief, and entropic thought. Astral Reflections |
| The great French sociologist is now half forgotten, but he shaped much 20th-century social thought. The inventor of the idea of "anomie," and analyst of suicide and religion, still speaks to us. Prospect |
| One does not have to look far in Washington these days to find evidence that government policy is being crafted with America’s biggest corporations in mind. For example, the Bush administration’s 2006 budget cuts the enforcement budgets of almost all the major regulatory agencies. In These Times |
| For nearly three years, U.S. military authorities have been investigating evidence of torture at American prisons in Afghanistan. But instead of disciplining those involved, the Pentagon sent them to Iraq. Mother Jones |
| The real issue in the Eason Jordan controversy, argues Jeremy Scahill, is the US military's killing of journalists in Iraq. The Nation |
| Media groups say reporters not targeted, but charge US troops are killing journalists 'because of negligence or indifference.' Christian Science Monitor |
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| Scientists have determined that human fossils found in Ethiopia in
1967 are 195,000 years old, 65,000 years older than first thought. The
revised date, they said, makes the skulls and bones the earliest known
remains of modern Homo sapiens.
The research reinforces the theories of an African origin for modern humans, and the earlier date gives the species more time to have evolved the cultural attributes that probably supported its spread out of Africa to Asia and Europe. The new date appears to be near the early boundary for modern human emergence, as suggested in recent genetic studies. NYT (reg/req) |
| The Vatican university is launching a new course for exorcists - Roman Catholic priests who cast out evil spirits from the possessed. BBC |
| It's nuclear party time. The Pentagon is again seeking funds to develop the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, aka bunker busters or mini-nukes. Asia Times |
| "Confessions of An Economic Hit Man" author John Perkins, says the U.S. invaded Iraq only after the economic hit men failed to bring Saddam around "to a deal like the royal House of Saud had agreed to" -- and after "the jackals" were sent in to try to overthrow him. Read excerpt |
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| Groups associated with al-Qaeda are at the top of the list of threats
to the United States, leading government intelligence officials said Wednesday,
saying Iran has emerged as the top threat to American interests in the
Middle East.
Despite gains made against al-Qaeda, CIA Director Porter Goss, in an unusually blunt statement before the mostly secretive Senate Intelligence Committee, said the terror group is intent on finding ways to circumvent U.S. security enhancements to attack the homeland. "It may be only a matter of time before al-Qaeda or other groups attempt to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons. We must focus on that," Goss said. The AP |
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| Arthur Miller, the playwright who explored the underbelly of the American
Dream through the pie-in-the-sky eyes of Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman,"
has died. He was 89.
Miller died Thursday night of heart failure surrounded by family members and his girlfriend at his home in Roxbury, Conn., his assistant, Julia Bolus, said today. The Pulitzer Prize winner reportedly had been struggling with ill health in recent months. A friend told Newsday on Jan. 11 that Miller had been suffering from "a touch of pneumonia and chemo treatments for some form of cancer." ABC News |
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| Sudden emotional stress - from grief, fear, anger or shock - can cause
heart failure, in a little known and poorly understood syndrome that seems
to affect primarily women, researchers are reporting today. The victims
are generally healthy, with no history of heart disease.
A death in the family, an armed robbery, a car accident, a biopsy procedure and a surprise party were among the events that sent 18 women and one man to coronary care units in Baltimore with chest pains and weakening of the heart, according to an article in The New England Journal of Medicine. NYT (reg/req) |
| Female interrogators repeatedly used sexually suggestive tactics to
try to humiliate and pry information from devout Muslim men held at the
U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a military investigation
not yet public and newly declassified accounts from detainees.
The prisoners have told their lawyers, who compiled the accounts, that female interrogators regularly violated Muslim taboos about sex and contact with women. The women rubbed their bodies against the men, wore skimpy clothes in front of them, made sexually explicit remarks and touched them provocatively, at least eight detainees said in documents or through their attorneys. Washington Post (reg/req) |
| In what would be a major shift in health policy, some experts are recommending that virtually all Americans be tested routinely for the AIDS virus, much as they are for cancer and other diseases. The AP via NYT (reg/req) |
| Noam Chomsky discusses what the policies might be of an independent, sovereign Iraq. "You might find what in Washington must be the ultimate nightmare—a Shiite region which controls most of the world's oil and is independent." International Relations Center |
| In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission. NYT (reg/req) |
| A grass-roots movement is gaining momentum to turn down the decibel level on all things annoying. Christian Science Monitor |
| While authoritarian states in much of the world routinely jail journalists
and others for expressing critical opinions, a high percentage of U.S.
high school students believe the government should censor the press and
that constitutional protection of free speech goes ”too far”.
These are among the findings of a two-year, one-million-dollar study of 100,000 high school students, nearly 8,000 teachers, and more than 500 administrators and principals, carried out in more than 500 high schools by researchers at the University of Connecticut. Entitled ”The Future of the First Amendment,” the poll was commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. ”These results are not only disturbing, they are dangerous,” said Hodding Carter III, president of the Knight Foundation. ”Ignorance about the basics of this free society is a danger to our nation's future.” IPS News |
| ast year was the fourth warmest since systematic temperature measurements
began around the world in the 19th century, NASA scientists said yesterday.
Particularly high temperatures were measured over Alaska, the Caspian Sea region of Europe and the Antarctic Peninsula, while the United States was unusually cool. But the global average continued a 30-year rise that is "due primarily to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," said Dr. James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in Manhattan. The main source of such gases is smokestack and tailpipe emissions from burning coal and oil. NYT (reg/req) |
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| President Bush said Wednesday Medicare is next on the government's
fix-it list because the health care plan for the elderly and disabled,
like Social Security, is facing financial stress with the retirements of
baby boomers.
New administration estimates released Wednesday showed that the Medicare prescription drug benefit will cost taxpayers $724 billion over its first full 10 years, far higher than earlier estimates and rekindling congressional ire over its price tag. The new estimate exceeds earlier projections chiefly because the figure now covers 2006 to 2015, a decade when prescription coverage will be in effect the entire period. Earlier calculations ran from 2004 to 2013 and included 2004 and 2005, when the program was being slowly phased in. The AP |
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| What to call the worst criminals? A few forensic scientists have taken to thinking of them as not merely disturbed but evil. NYT (reg/req) |
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| In the weeks leading up to the November 2 election, the New York Times
was abuzz with excitement. Besides the election itself, the paper’s reporters
were hard at work on two hot investigative projects, each of which could
have a major impact on the outcome of the tight presidential race.
One week before Election Day, the Times (10/25/04) ran a hard-hitting and controversial exposé of the Al-Qaqaa ammunition dump—identified by U.N. inspectors before the war as containing 400 tons of special high-density explosives useful for aircraft bombings and as triggers for nuclear devices, but left unguarded and available to insurgents by U.S. forces after the invasion. On Thursday, just three days after that first exposé, the paper was set to run a second, perhaps more explosive piece, exposing how George W. Bush had worn an electronic cueing device in his ear and probably cheated during the presidential debates. Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting |
| Loved, hated, and always controversial, the best-selling author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged is more relevant than ever. Reason |
| The Hubble Space Telescope and a mission to explore Jupiter's moons look to be the biggest casualties in NASA's 2006 budget plans outlined on Monday. BBC |
| Experts say president's $2.75 trillion proposed budget requires unrealistic cuts to domestic programs. Washington Post (reg/req) |
| Army soldiers are being issued new fatigues with easy-to-use Velcro openings and a redesigned camouflage pattern that can help conceal them as they move rapidly from desert to forest to city in places like Baghdad. The AP |
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| Scientists have begun designing a new generation of weapons meant to be sturdier and more reliable. NYT (reg/req) |
| The pace of training and combat required of U.S. troops in Iraq is prompting the Army to quadruple its production of small-arms ammunition. Chicago Tribune (reg/req) |
| We moderns have gotten used to the slow, seemingly inexorable dissolution of traditional social forms, the family prominent among them. Yet the ever-decreasing size of the family may soon expose a fundamental contradiction in modernity itself. Fertility rates have been falling throughout the industrialized world for more than 30 years, with implications that are only just now coming into view. Growing population has driven the economy, sustained the welfare state, and shaped modern culture. A declining population could conceivably put the dynamic of modernization into doubt. Policy Review |
| Tiny single-celled creatures, many of them previously unknown to science, have been found at the deepest point in the world's oceans, almost 11km down. BBC |
| The preliminary count from Iraq's election last week confirms that
the main Shiite slate will dominate the new parliament. The only suspense
left is how great its dominance will be. Now, slowly and cautiously, the
leading Shiite politicians in the United Iraqi Alliance are beginning to
lay out their political demands and expectations.
Iraq's next prime minister will probably be a member of their coalition - not Iyad Allawi, the current interim prime minister and America's favorite. And Islam, they say, will play a bigger role in government than ever before in modern Iraq. Christian Science Monitor |
| A prisoner, who won a landmark case in which the US Supreme Court ruled
that mentally retarded prisoners could not be executed, could find himself
back on death row because his IQ has improved as a result of working on
his defence.
In an extraordinary reversal of fortune, Daryl Atkins will return to court later this year where a jury will decide whether he is officially retarded. If the court decides he is not, Atkins, 27, could be executed by lethal injection in effect, because of the work he did that resulted in other mentally retarded prisoners being spared. Atkins' IQ was first tested in 1998 and was found to stand at 59. But when it was tested more recently, he scored 76. In Virginia, the level at which the state differentiates between someone who is retarded and someone who is not is 70. The Independent |
| Some moments become lasting recollections while others just evaporate. The reason may involve the same processes that shape our brains to begin with. Scientific American |
| College researchers are studying whether electric light changes hormone levels in women and makes breast cancer more prevalent in developed countries. The AP |
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| ast month, the self-appointed head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
railed against ''this evil principle of democracy'' and said he would send
his fighters to kill people who tried to vote. Days before, in Washington,
President Bush delivered an inaugural address focused almost exclusively
on promoting democracy, which he portrayed as an antidote for ''our vulnerability.''
His theory was that ''resentment and tyranny'' simmer in undemocratic nations,
breeding violent ideologies that will ''cross the most defended borders''
to pose a ''mortal threat.''
Given these statements by Zarqawi and Bush, Americans might well conclude that Al Qaeda's primary aim is preventing democracy. Following the president's theory, they might assume terrorism cannot grow in democracies and that the best way to deal with it is to create more democracies. Unfortunately, both beliefs may be mistaken. NYT Magazine (reg/req) |
| Insurgents attacked a police station south of Baghdad under cover of darkness Sunday, killing 22 Iraqi police and soldiers, police said. Gunmen seized four Egyptians technicians in Baghdad in the second kidnapping of foreigners in the Iraqi capital within a week. The AP |
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| President Bush's budget for 2006 cuts spending for a wide range of
public health programs, including several to protect the nation against
bioterrorist attacks and to respond to medical emergencies, budget documents
show.
Faced with constraints on spending caused by record budget deficits and the demands of the war in Iraq, administration officials said on Friday that they had increased the budget for some health programs but cut many others, including some that address urgent health care needs. NYT (reg/req) |
| Top chefs across the US are frantically dusting off their CVs - the White House has announced it is looking for a new executive chef. BBC |
| When Judge Hamoud al-Hitar announced that he and four other Islamic
scholars would challenge Yemen's Al Qaeda prisoners to a theological contest,
Western antiterrorism experts warned that this high-stakes gamble would
end in disaster.
Nervous as he faced five captured, yet defiant, Al Qaeda members in a Sanaa prison, Judge Hitar was inclined to agree. But banishing his doubts, the youthful cleric threw down the gauntlet, in the hope of bringing peace to his troubled homeland. "If you can convince us that your ideas are justified by the Koran, then we will join you in your struggle," Hitar told the militants. "But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you must agree to renounce violence." The prisoners eagerly agreed. Now, two years later, not only have those prisoners been released, but a relative peace reigns in Yemen. And the same Western experts who doubted this experiment are courting Hitar, eager to hear how his "theological dialogues" with captured Islamic militants have helped pacify this wild and mountainous country, previously seen by the US as a failed state, like Iraq and Afghanistan. Christian Science Monitor |
| On Iraq: 'We're going to seek a peaceful solution to this. We think
one is possible' - 20 October 2002
On Iran: 'The question [of a military strike] is simply not on the agenda at this point in time. We have diplomatic means to do this' - Yesterday The Independent |
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| In the case of Iraq, democracy was born already in its old age, hooked up to intravenous devices and breathing tubes and kept alive on the fiscal equivalent of an iron lung - oil. This can in no way be confused with self-determination. Asia Times |
| A preliminary study contracted by the Pentagon has concluded that the
Defense Department should not take charge of the CIA's paramilitary functions,
senior defense officials said yesterday.
The study was conducted in response to a request from President Bush that the Pentagon, the CIA and other agencies consider how to act on a recommendation by the Sept. 11 commission that lead responsibility for covert and clandestine paramilitary operations be shifted from the CIA to the Defense Department. The commission's report said the CIA lacked a robust paramilitary operation and relied too heavily on proxies. The United States could not afford to build two paramillitary arms, it said, and suggested they be consolidated under the military's Tampa-based Special Operations Command. Washington Post (reg/req) |
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| The US Defence Secretary has said he is considering whether to attend a conference in Germany, where he may face arrest for war crimes. Donald Rumsfeld is due to attend a gathering of high-level defence officials and experts next week. But he says he has not yet decided whether or not to attend the conference in the German city of Munich. US lawyers representing Iraqis who say they were abused in US custody have filed a complaint with a German court. BBC |
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| A USA
TODAY analysis of two Department of Education surveys shows how
quickly student aspirations have risen. In 1990, 59% of 10th-graders with
educational aspirations expected to get a four-year college degree or higher;
by 2002, nearly 80% said the same.
"The word's out there," says Tom Mortenson of the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. "The people doing the best in this kind of economy have college educations." Nudged by economic trends showing manufacturing, farming and other blue-collar jobs disappearing or being shipped overseas, public schools are telling students — even low-income and underperforming students — that they need college degrees. The message is clear, says Kay McClenney of the Community College Leadership Program at the University of Texas: "College is the ticket to the middle class." |
| Scorsese and De Niro are planning a sequel to the 1976 movie that cemented their reputation. Guardian |
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| If you haven't been to a college campus lately, here's a quick primer on the current freshman class...For the past 25 years, there's been an increase in the percentage of students who place a high value on "being very well off financially," and a parallel decline in the importance of "developing a meaningful philosophy of life." Christian Science Monitor |
| A year after a sweeping federal antispam law went into effect, there is more junk e-mail on the Internet than ever. NYT (reg/req) |
| By most physical measures, teenagers should be the world's best drivers.
Their muscles are supple, their reflexes quick, their senses at a lifetime
peak. Yet car crashes kill more of them than any other cause -- a problem,
some researchers believe, that is rooted in the adolescent brain.
A National Institutes of Health study suggests that the region of the brain that inhibits risky behavior is not fully formed until age 25, a finding with implications for a host of policies, including the nation's driving laws. Washington Post |
| Birdbrain has long been a colloquial term of ridicule. The common notion is that birds' brains are simple, or so scientists thought and taught for many years. But that notion has increasingly been called into question as crows and parrots, among other birds, have shown what appears to be behavior as intelligent as that of chimpanzees. NYT (reg/req) |
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| Election day in Iraq's violence-prone, third largest city Mosul ended as it began, with a spate of bomb attacks. But in between a fair number of people voted. IPS News |
| One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more
restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories
before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.
The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get “government approval” of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion. USA Today |
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| In case television news producers barricaded in fortified hotels in Baghdad needed to be reminded that Iraq is unsafe, the country’s Ministry of Interior issued a memo on Jan. 18 warning that Iraq would not assume liability for any American media outlets on the scene for the Jan. 30 elections. "News agencies that decide to cover elections will do so with the full understanding that the situation in Iraq is atypical," the memo explained. New York Observer |
| Press commentators across the Arab world reveal a sense of foreboding
as the elections in Iraq fast approach.
Most see the presence of coalition forces and US pressure to hold the elections as undermining the whole process. In marked contrast, one Iraqi paper views the election in a positive light. BBC |
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| Twenty months after Saddam Hussein's government was toppled and its
torture chambers unlocked, Iraqis are again being routinely beaten, hung
by their wrists and shocked with electrical wires, according to a report
by a human rights organization.
Iraqi police, jailers and intelligence agents, many of them holding the same jobs they had under Hussein, are "committing systematic torture and other abuses" of detainees, Human Rights Watch said in a report to be released Tuesday. Washington Post (reg/req) |
| Illinois students would have to study all acts of genocide, not just
the Holocaust as state law currently requires, under a proposal being pushed
by two Chicago area legislators.
But some Jewish groups blasted the proposed legislation Monday, saying the plan would minimize the mass murder of European Jews and other groups by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. "The Holocaust -- that's capital-letter-H Holocaust -- stands as a singularly unique tragedy in the course of human history," said Richard Hirschhaut, executive director of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation in Skokie. "It represents the first instance of a highly sophisticated and technologically advanced society applying all of its resources toward the elimination of an entire people." The 1990 Illinois Holocaust Education Mandate, championed by the foundation, was the first law in the United States to require all schools to include instruction about the Holocaust. Chicago Sun-Times |
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| Nearly two dozen Guantanamo detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves during an eight-day period in 2003, including 10 simultaneous attempts on a single day, the U.S. military disclosed Monday. Chicago Tribune (reg/req) |
| The US may scrap or divert $152 million earmarked for aerial poppy eradication in Afghanistan this year. Christian Science Monitor |
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| While the Army and the Marine Corps are straining to meet their yearly recruiting goals, the Air Force and the Navy are having banner years and may wind up turning away thousands of potential recruits...One of the primary reasons the Air Force and the Navy are so flush with troops and willing recruits, personnel experts say, is that those branches have suffered relatively few casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. "I think the most obvious explanation is that that you're less likely to be killed or wounded in the Navy or Air Force," says Richard Kohn, a professor at the University of North Carolina who studies military culture. USA Today |
| The Bush administration plans to announce Tuesday it will request about $80 billion more for this year's costs of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, congressional aides said Monday. The AP |
| As Plato recognized long ago, philosophers are rarely kings, kings rarely philosophers. So what should we expect from George W. Bush? Philosophy Now |
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| Opus Dei, a mysterious arm of the Catholic Church, has come under the spotlight after the new education secretary in the UK government, Ruth Kelly, revealed she receives spiritual guidance from it. The best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code puts the sect at the heart of an international plot to control the Vatican. So what is known about the group? BBC |
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The Atlanta-Journal Constitution (29 September 2002) via The Information Clearing House |
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| Survey shows most of the 21 nations polled believe Bush could make world more dangerous. Christian Science Monitor |
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"BUSH: I SWEAR IT'S IRAN NEXT, George Bush pledged all-out global war
on terrorists and tyrants,"
"POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE, The band played Hail to the Chief. A 21-gun salute sounded. Then, protected by a bullet-proof shield, President George Bush repeated his message to the enemies of democracy," the INDEPENDENT. The TELEGRAPH: "DEFIANT BUSH DOESN'T MENTION THE WAR, President George W Bush began his second term in unapologetic style yesterday, pledging to maintain his muscular foreign policy and spread freedom 'to the darkest corners of the world'." The TIMES: "HIS SECOND-TERM MISSION: TO END TYRANNY ON EARTH, Four years ago he was the Accidental President, scion of a ruling family propelled into the highest office more by genetics and duty than by political zeal and ideological mission." The GUARDIAN: "SMILES FOR THE FAMILY, A FIERY WARNING FOR THE WORLD." |
| President Bush sees no limits. Never has an American president invoked the name of God more often nor I believe in such fundamentally flawed ways as George W. Bush. His references are usually connected to statements identifying the United States as God’s chosen country and with America carrying out God’s mission. While this construct is not unique to Bush – we heard it all in the mid-1840s when the term Manifest Destiny, the God-given right of white America to take the whole continent of North America from Atlantic to Pacific no matter who already controlled the land – it is amazing to hear it revived. Does history teach us nothing? The most blatant or excessive comment the President made came three days after 9/11 when he spoke at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and said, with no qualification, it is America’s “responsibility to history” to “rid the world of evil.” It astounds me that an American president – after slavery, the Cold War, Vietnam – would be that thoughtless. Such pride – saying that America could do what God has not done – flies in the face of Bush’s claim to be Christian. Archipelago |
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A leading expert on counterterrorism imagines the future history of the war on terror. A frightening picture of a country still at war in 2011. The Atlantic (sub/req) |
| If you were relying solely on media accounts for guidance, you would have gotten the impression that the Supreme Court’s June 28 rulings on “enemy combatants” were a clean sweep for civil liberties. With few exceptions, reporters and commentators interpreted the rulings as unwavering affirmations of the judicial branch’s authority in the face of an overreaching executive intent on detaining, indefinitely and incommunicado, citizens and noncitizens designated as enemies in the war on terror...The reality, however, was significantly less uplifting. Berkeley law professor John Yoo, a former official in John Ashcroft’s Justice Department, concluded that the Court had left the government “with sufficient flexibility to effectively prevail in the future.” The effects of the rulings have yet to be fully felt since the proceedings have a long way to go before they are finally played out, but the fine print of the Court’s controlling opinions, combined with the manner in which the government is proceeding with enemy combatant hearings, strongly suggests that widespread proclamations about the triumph of liberty were premature and probably in serious error. Each decision included enough qualifications and concessions to eviscerate in practice the due process rights that the justices praised in theory. Reason |
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| Ducks may have been paddling about in primeval swamps when T. rex was king of the dinosaurs, scientists have announced in the journal Nature. Fossil remains of a bird that lived 70 million years ago appear to belong to a relative of modern ducks and geese. The partial skeleton, discovered on Vega island, western Antarctica, is likely to stir up controversy. Many scientists believe modern bird lineages did not evolve until the end of the dinosaurs' reign. BBC |
| Today's inauguration of President George W. Bush may depress many Democrats,
who had hoped to take back the White House this year. But at Air America,
the upstart liberal radio network, there's at least some cause for celebration.
Coinciding with the presidential ceremonies, Air America will launch its brash Bush-bashing talk-radio format onto the airwaves in President Bush's backyard -- Washington, D.C. -- as well as Detroit and Cincinnati, bringing its total nationwide reach to 45 markets. The Wall Street Journal (reg/req) |
| While officially every European government is welcoming the inauguration of President Bush, the prevailing mood on the continent (if I may engage in a ridiculously sweeping generalization!) still seems to be one of shock and awe that Americans actually re-elected this man. NYT (reg/req) |
| The D.C. press corps failed to ask hard questions about the inauguration's huge cost and its unprecedented security. Salon (reg/req) |
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| Drinking water aboard the nation's airliners is getting worse, not better, despite government-ordered sanitation improvements, the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday. About one in six airliners in the latest round of tests conducted in November and December had drinking water that failed to meet federal safety standards, EPA said. Similar tests in August and September showed the water in one in eight aircraft testing positive for coliform bacteria. - AP via USA Today |
| Things we learned en route to looking up other things: In an ABC News poll of 1,000 U.S. adults taken in 2004, a full 61 percent said they believe that creation as described in the Bible's book of Genesis is literally true...Genetic studies have suggested a common ancestor for modern apes and humans may have existed about six million years ago. BBC |
| "If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it." - Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud & America's No. 1 Publicist in the 1920's |
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| Research suggests that while an unmade bed may look scruffy it is also unappealing to house dust mites thought to cause asthma and other allergies. - from the BBC |
| President Bush will begin his second term in office without a clear mandate to lead the nation, with strong disapproval of his policies in Iraq and with the public both hopeful and dubious about his leadership on the issues that will dominate his agenda, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. - from the Washington Post |
| The Pentagon's plans for Iran—and for expanded covert activities. - by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker |
| Claims that US special forces are operating from bases in Pakistan to conduct reconnaissance missions in Iran would fit the theory that Islamabad wants to appease the US by establishing a clear distance between itself and Tehran, given their previous nuclear cooperation. But this still leaves Iran in the firing line. - from Asia Times |
| In his youth, Terry Gilliam's satire shocked Christians and horrified Jews. His only regret is not having outraged Muslims. There's still time, the Python turned film director tells Sholto Byrnes. And he intends to make the most of it. - from The Independent |
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| Americans are expressing increasing doubts about the Iraq mission as violence continues before the elections. More than half, 52%, of those surveyed Friday through Sunday in a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll say it was a mistake to send troops into Iraq. That's eight percentage points higher than a survey Oct. 29-31, but less than the peak of 54% last year. - from USA Today |
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| The war in Iraq is becoming a "training ground for terrorists," replacing
Afghanistan as the center of that activity, according to a new report,
"Mapping the Global Future." The report was prepared by the National Intelligence
Center, an in-house CIA think tank...the authors of the report also believe
'"radical Islamic terrorists" will "obtain and use" some form of biological
weapon in the next two decades...The report outlines four possible scenarios
over the next 15 years:
Pax Americana: US predominance survives radical changes and creates a "new, inclusive world order." A New Caliphate: Radical Islam challenges Western norms and values as "the foundation of the world system." A Cycle of Fear: Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction leads to "large-scale intrusive security measures" to prevent outbreaks of deadly attacks, "possibly introducing an Orwellian world." Davos World: India and China become global superpowers along with the US, which has the effect of eroding US economic preeminence. - from the Christian Science Monitor |
| "The last few days have witnessed an upsurge in violence, a fact which
is not in the least surprising. Suicide attacks have been carried out on
a daily basis, mostly in Mosul and Baghdad, and political assassinations
are alarmingly rampant in many parts of the country.
The power grid broke down several times these last two weeks resulting in country-wide blackouts sometimes lasting 2 or 3 days. At one point, oil exports were crippled from both Kirkuk and Basrah oil fields. Meanwhile, the shortage of local oil products has exacerbated and lines at gas stations are longer than ever. Both the ministers of defense and oil have admitted that National Guard units and the police have been selling petrol in the black market. However, independent observers say that some people lining up at the stations are to blame. They harrass the station guards and offer large bribes in return for entry to the stations. Some pose as party or government officials and threaten the guards if they are not allowed to break the queues. Since I've moved recently from Basrah to work in a suburb of the capital, I have discovered how problematic and difficult it is to cross Baghdad from one side to the other. Taxi drivers charge incredible fees and I don't blame them, so instead I have to rely on buses, the Kia or Pregio minibuses which Iraqis call Kayyat. I have to take 3 to reach the clinic with some walking between each. Normally, it takes about 2 hours to reach work, and much more if there is a problem on the road. Say, an American patrol, a roadside bomb, a suicide attack, an ambush or something of the sort. For all the above reasons combined, I'm getting a bit nostalgic for Basrah. It's a curse to be in the beginning of your medical career in Iraq. We have this system called Medical Graduation, tadarruj tibi. Once you graduate from medical or dental college you spend a one or two year rotation period in the capital which is fine. After that you are required to spend another two or three years in the governorates. Once you pass this system, you are granted your practice license and you are free to work in the capital. This horrible system was devised decades ago in order to overcome the shortage of medical professionals in most parts of the country, since Iraq has only 8 medical colleges and 4 dental colleges. As a result, all graduated doctors and dentists have to spend some time in distant villages to earn their licenses. In the past, a graduate could not even get his graduation certificate for years until they have passed. I have one year to go and I'm already sick of it. But I digress." - from Healing Iraq |
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| In the time of dinosaurs, mammals were the meek that had yet to inherit
the earth. They were small creatures, many no bigger than mice, and essentially
nocturnal, feeding mainly on insects and cowering in holes and underbrush
from the terrible tread of the reptilian lords of the land.
Two newly discovered fossils show that this lowly image of early mammals, long the reigning view of science, did not do them justice. A few of these animals were as large as a dog and spunky enough to devour dinosaurs, at least juvenile dinosaurs. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Most “Christians” commit treason daily against their religion. They claim Jesus is Lord, but they show allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment. - from Christianity Today |
| Since President Bush's now infamous proclamation aboard the USS Lincoln
on May 1, 2003, 1,242 US troops have died. Since then, a pattern has emerged.
With each new major development--hailed by the President as a decisive
step toward freedom--conditions deteriorate further.
"The administration has suggested that Iraq would move closer to stability as it reached one milestone after another," wrote Richard Stevenson in The New York Times. "The capture of Saddam Hussein; the handover of sovereignty and the appointment of an interim government; the deployment of Iraqi security forces; the military campaign to expel the insurgents from strongholds like Falluja; and the first round of elections. Yet most of those milestones have passed with little discernible improvement in the security situation." "Little discernible improvement" is polite Times-speak for can't-get-any-worse. Take a look at the actual record of Bush's faith-based war. - from The Nation |
| By picking former US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick as Condoleezza Rice's deputy, President George W Bush has sought to consolidate his foreign policy team. The vanguard of corporate America, Zoellick's my-way-or-the-highway approach to global economy issues gels well with the administration's unilateralism in foreign and military policy. - from Asia Times |
| The judgment you make about a person in the blink of an eye may well prove more reliable than a 700-page biography. - from The New York Sun |
| There are questions about the motivation behind post-tsunami generosity. - from the Christian Science Monitor |
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| Nasa's Deep Impact mission, which will crash a projectile into Comet Tempel 1, is ready to launch from Cape Canaveral at 1847 GMT on Wednesday 12 January. - from the BBC |
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| It is the opening line on so many phone conversations these days: This call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes. The taped message is so common that many callers might assume that no one is ever listening, let alone taking notes. But they would be wrong. Monitoring is intended to track the performance of call center operators, but the professional snoops are inadvertently monitoring callers, too. Most callers do not realize that they may be taped even while they are on hold. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
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| Tragedy notwithstanding, the tsunami strike has witnessed nations flexing their presence to provide relief to the victims, but behind it all a power game is also being played over who calls the shots and retains influence in the Indian Ocean region, and by default the rest of Asia. - from the Asia Times |
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| When it comes to getting prescriptions filled, the first few days of the month are the most popular -- and the most dangerous, according to new research. A study published this month in the journal Pharmacotherapy found that deaths due to medication mistakes rise by as much as 25 percent above normal in the beginning of the month. - from the Chicago Sun-Times |
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| The big turbines that stretch for miles along these rolling, grassy hills have churned out clean, renewable electricity for two decades in one of the nation's first big wind-power projects. But for just as long, massive fiberglass blades on the more than 4,000 windmills have been chopping up tens of thousands of birds that fly into them, including golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, burrowing owls and other raptors. -from USA Today |