Death Count 2,972 This Christmas Day 2006

6 U.S. Troops Die in Bloody Iraq Weekend

Some 12,000 Iraqi policemen have been killed since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, the country's interior minister said Sunday, as clashes, a suicide bomber and weekend explosions killed more than a dozen Iraqi officers and six American soldiers......more

RIP: James Brown

Surging into the Abyss

It now looks like the administration has adopted the surge strategy as its mantra. Simply put it means no new political road map for Iraq in place of the “national unity government” formula that has so far failed has not delivered on the insurgency but has managed to alienated the Shias, and has actually caused more rather than less sectarian violence since the U.S. adopted it.......more

New Poll: Hillary Over McCain

A new poll from Newsweek has some interesting data on Hillary Clinton's electability. According to the poll, Hillary beats John McCain 50 to 43 percent, squeaks by Rudy Giuliani 48 to 47 percent and trounces Mitt Romney, 58 to 32 percent. Her presumptive rival, Barack Obama, narrowly loses to McCain and Giuliani but thumps Romney as well, 55 to 25 percent.....more

Noam Chomsky on Creating Another World in a Time of War, Empire and Devastation

World-renowned scholar and linguist Noam Chomsky spoke this weekend at an event sponsored by Massachusetts Global Action. The event titled, "What's Next? Creating Another World in a Time of War, Empire and Devastation" was held at the Emmanuel Church in Boston. Chomsky, who is a professor of Linguistics at MIT, returned from Latin America in October. He talked about the recent elections in the region, which have brought leftist, governments to power that are challenging U.S foreign policy. Chomsky also spoke about Iraq and Iran in the context of Latin America.....more

The U.S. Has a History of Using Torture

In April 2004, Americans were stunned when CBS broadcast those now-notorious photographs from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, showing hooded Iraqis stripped naked while U.S. soldiers stood by smiling. As this scandal grabbed headlines around the globe, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the abuses were "perpetrated by a small number of U.S. military......more

They Wash the Homeless people's feet

A Witness To What Faith Can Be

Something radical is happening every Friday night where homeless people congregate downtown under the Burnside Bridge. Car and vanloads of Christian volunteers swoop in with sleeping bags and coats to protect their dispossessed friends against the raw, wet weather that has moved in. They dispense hot meals and set up stations for shaves and haircuts. While a few pull out guitars and strike up their Jesus-themed songs, a small number of the volunteers commit one of the more audacious acts of compassion and humility I have ever witnessed......more

Bridgetown Ministries

Screen every child in school for mental illnesses

Pres. Bush has commissioned the mental health field to screen every child in school AND PRE-SCHOOL for mental illnesses. Once in the mental health system, they are given drugs that are NOT FDA approved for kids, mainly anti-depressants. I'm a nurse and I can tell you that these new drugs they are NOW giving these kids CAUSE suicidal and homicidal behaviors. I have a study in my hand that says they are targeting the MEDICAID children. From the year 2000 to 2005, there was an increase of 528% in these drugs given to Medicaid children. Almost 60,000 just in Florida alone. So, this cause will affect your future if it's continued. The way they get into schools is through TeenScreen mental health screening. We can stop the government from doing this by signing the petition below.

Go to this website and sign this on-line petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html

Also visit: www.nurses4humanrights.org

Bill defies Bush, visits Syria

In a direct affront to the Bush administration, a Democratic senator spent an hour Wednesday with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus, emerging from the meeting to say Assad was willing to help control the Iraq-Syrian border.....more

Meet: Maj. Megan McClung

A roadside bomb killed her a month before coming home

She was known for sprinting along the Tigris River in Iraq, competing in a triathlon in Brazil and doing a back flip in North Carolina to prove to police she was sober.With her copper-red hair, athletic ability and sense of humor, Maj. Megan McClung was a memorable figure to the troops and journalists she worked with as a Marine Corps public affairs officer......more

America Loses Another War
Iraq: a shameful ass-whupping, or just a pathetic trouncing? Ugly disgrace? Choices, choices

The good news is, we're all back in harmony. All back on the same page. No more divisiveness and no more silly bickering and no more nasty and indignant red state/blue state rock throwing because we're finally all back in cozy let's-hug-it-out agreement: The "war" in Iraq is over. And what's more, we lost. Very, very badly......more

Clueless

Pinochet's grandson kicked out of army

The grandson of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was booted out of the army today for criticising the judiciary in a highly politicised speech at his grandfather's funeral. In his funeral speech, the younger Pinochet described his grandfather as "a man who, at the height of the Cold War, defeated the Marxist government which tried to impose its totalitarian model, not through the ballot box, but through direct use of force."......more

The Fall of the Mighty Dollar

Is an end of an era looming in the foreign exchange markets? The dollar has been depreciating against the euro for weeks. Currency experts and the German government don't yet see this as cause for alarm. The US currency's role as a lead currency isn't as important as it used to be, they say......more

Blame the Iraqis and run

As George W. Bush agonises over which bits of last week’s Baker-Hamilton re­port to adopt for his forthcoming “new way forward in Iraq” announcement, an­other consensus is emerging in Washington on how to handle the situation: blame the Iraqis.....more

December 10, 2006: Human Rights and Impeachment (Prison) Day
here

European Left see better ties with US after Democrat win

The chairman of the national committee of the US Democratic Party, Howard Dean, told the gathering his party now "has a say" in US policy and wants to restore close political ties with Europe. "It is time for the US to renew its ties with the rest of the world. It is time for us to treat our allies with respect and honesty," he said to applause from participants.......more

A New Game

If you’re like me, you’ve got a wingnut friend or two that persists in trying to “convert you” by sending you foolish spam emails and chain letters. Sometimes the emails aren’t so bad - I got one from a devout Christain friend the other day that spoke of respect for the troops during the holidays. Jingoistic? Sure… But it was touching, nonetheless......more

The Dixie Chicks Earn Five Grammy Nominations

Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Best Country Album........more

The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is sad and profoundly un-American.”.........Harvey Weinstein

Changes Are Expected in Voting by 2008 Election

By the 2008 presidential election, voters around the country are likely to see sweeping changes in how they cast their ballots and how those ballots are counted, including an end to the use of most electronic voting machines without a paper trail, federal voting officials and legislators say......more

Dean calls for another election in District 13

"You cannot seat someone if you don't have an election that's valid," Dean said in a taped interview scheduled to air Sunday on Bay News 9, Tampa Bay's cable news channel......more

George Bush "in denial"

"Make no mistake about it, sir, I understand how bad it is, I talk to the families who die," Mr Bush went on, leaning forward past his podium to hammer home his point with a string of trademark malapropisms......more

Are Saudis funding Iraq terror?

Report says millions sent to Sunni insurgents for weapons

Private Saudi citizens are giving millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq and much of the money is used to buy weapons, according to Iraqi officials and The U.S. Iraq Study Group report said Saudis are a source of funding for Sunni Arab insurgents. Several truck drivers interviewed by reporters described carrying boxes of cash from Saudi Arabia into Iraq, money they said was headed for insurgents.......more

Al Gore:

"The worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States.”

I would urge the president not to — to try to separate out the personal issues of being blamed in history for this mistake and instead recognize it’s not about him. It’s about our country and we all have to find a way to get our troops home and to prevent a regional conflagration there.....more

All the President's men are down to one

They were all this President's men - Cheney and Rummy and Wolfie and Bolton - neoconservatives, hard-line conservatives, iron-fisted conservatives, unyielding conservatives. Once they were not only The Untouchables but also The Unbudgeables. Now there is only one.....more

Wealth distribution disparity growing

The richest 2 percent of adults still owns more than half of the world's household wealth, perpetuating a yawning global gap between rich and poor, according to research published Tuesday by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research.....more

Why Are Folks So Afraid of John McCain?

With John McCain sporting a fairly robust level of popularity, scoring a 57.7 out of 100 in Quinnipiac's national thermometer (third highest overall) and maintaining a favorable/unfavorable ratio of between 2-to-1 and 2.5-to-1, there are more than a few people -- even on this side of the aisle -- who believe that it is all but a foregone conclusion that the senior Senator from Arizona will become the 44th President of the United States.....more

Delaware underdogs find strength
America's tradition of dissent unites disparate voices into powerful force for change

In Delaware, a woman raised by a Methodist minister and who runs an organization working for peace stands alongside an intellectual raised by a blacklisted union organizer who argues for inclusion and neighborhood revitalization for Wilmington's African-American community......more

Video is a window into a terror suspect's isolation

One spring day during his three and a half years as an enemy combatant, Jose Padilla experienced a break from the monotony of his solitary confinement in a bare cell in the brig at the Naval Weapons Station in Charleston, South Carolina.....more

Cuba To Celebrate Failed Revolution

Communist Cuba's military is rolling out its olive green Soviet-era hardware this weekend, summoning 300,000 troops and citizen soldiers for a show of strength in times made uncertain by Fidel Castro's illness. "These Arms Will Never Bow Down Before the Empire!" the red letters of an eight-story-high banner proclaimed Friday from the side of the National Library facing the plaza.....more

WMNF: Holiday Bazaar Music & Book Sale
December 2, 2006 10am - 5pm
Cuban Club, Ybor City

Irish Ban ‘Guantanamo Express’

THE plane sometimes referred to as the ‘Guantanamo Express’, used by the CIA to transport kidnapped suspects to secret jails, has been banned from landing at Irish airports in future, Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern told a European Parliament committee......more

29 November 2006 McDowell rejects claim on 'rendition' flights

Menu for this year's White House holiday receptions

As the president flies back from his summit on the war -- the one that will have claimed the lives of more than 3,000 Americans by Christmas -- the Office of the First Lady is distributing the menu for this year's White House holiday receptions....here

"The time of war is a time of sacrifice."

Slaughter House Iraq

Civil war is raging across central Iraq, home to a third of the country's 27 million people. As Shia and Sunni flee each other's neighbourhoods, Iraq is turning into a country of refugees. The US and British position in Iraq is far more of a house built on sand than is realised in Washington or London, despite the disasters of the past three-and-a-half years. George Bush and Tony Blair show a unique inability to learn from their mistakes, largely because they do not want to admit having committed any errors in the first place......more

US Hearts and Minds Cash Goes to Taleban

When United States troops in the southern province of Ghazni handed out cash to village elders, they must have thought they were winning friends. The money, intended for bridges, wells, drinking water, irrigation systems and other infrastructure projects, was supposed to convince the local Afghans that the foreign presence would benefit their country in general and themselves in particular. But the resources intended to combat Taleban influence ended up doing just the opposite. Local people in several parts of Andar district told IWPR that almost as soon as the coalition forces left their villages, the money found its way into Taleban coffers to finance the jihad against the foreigners......more

Howard Dean opens Liberal Party convention

As the Liberals struggle to regain their confidence and drive -- having lost to Harper's Conservatives in January after 12 years in power -- they've turned to a man from south of the border for inspiration. U.S. Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean will open the convention.....more

Committee on Public Information

Also known as the CPI and the Creel Committy, was established under Woodrow Wilson as an independent agency by Executive order 2594, April 13, 1917.

Its purpose was to influence American public opinion toward supporting U.S. intervention in World War I via a vigorous propaganda campaign. Among those who participated in it were Wilson adviser Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays, the latter of whom had remarked that "the essence of democratic society" was the "engineering of consent", by which propaganda was the necessary method for democracies to promote and garner support for policy. Many have commented that the CPI laid the groundwork for the public relations (PR) industry.......@Wikipedia

Stop The War! Bring The Troops Home!

Whistling Past Dixie

'How Democrats Can Win Without the South'

Democrats should forget about recapturing the South in the near term and begin building a national majority that ends, not begins, with restoring their lost southern glory. Most of the South is already beyond the Democrats' reach, and much of the rest continues to move steadily into the Republican column. White southerners used to be among the most economically liberal voters in America but are now among the most conservative.....more

The Civil War in Iraq

Miami

World Class City Where Diversity Is Celebrated

Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo calls Miami a `Third World country'. pointed to Miami as an example of how ''the nature of America can be changed by uncontrolled immigration.

''I invite my friend, Tom, to visit beautiful Miami, my hometown, and experience firsthand our hospitality,''...Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Tancredo didn't visit Miami on the Nov. 18-19 trip, but has visited before, a spokesman said. And, if Ros-Lehtinen's invitation includes ''a stay at a five-star beachfront resort, he may be willing to look beyond the inherent dangers that he had cited and visit Miami again,'' his spokesman said.....more

In a funk
Why is the nation's happiest party still so unhappy here at home?

Let's start in Hillsborough, where the Democratic Party continued to lose ground. How bad was Nov. 7 for local Democrats? The only local Dems on the ballot who won the county vote were Congresswoman-elect Kathy Castor, House candidates Mike Scionti and Betty Reed, Senate candidate Arthenia Joyner and Tampa City Council member Kevin White. All five ran in districts with wide Democratic registration margins and represent no great achievement for the party......more

Peace sign a symbol of Satan

A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan......more

9/11 was a Tuesday. FEMA got there on Monday night

State chiefs credit Dean for victory

Democratic state chairmen, decrying postelection bickering, say the party's gains were in large part a result of National Chairman Howard Dean's 50-state strategy, which helped make deep inroads into Republican territory......more

Ridiculing the hicks

Despite all the rave reviews and boffo box office, I've had a distinctly uneasy feeling about Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat film-- and therefore haven't made an effort to see it......more

Rosa Brooks: Iraq is broke beyond repair

The invasion of Iraq, for instance, will go down in history as a national transgression of epic proportions — and our original screw-up (an unjustified invasion based on cooked intelligence books) was compounded many times over by our failure to plan for the reconstruction of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.....more

The real Afghan war

The Taliban and the insurgency are not Afghanistan's worst problems. The country is now ruled by a new mafia of corrupt police and officials, who are crippling any hopes for a democratic future......more

What is the point of Iraq deaths?

Will God punish the United States for all the deaths, both Iraqi and American? I don't believe that God works that way. However, our intervention in that chaotic, broken country will certainly have created hundreds, perhaps thousands of would-be martyrs who will seek vengeance. We will have brought it on ourselves......more

Are the Germans Stationed in Afghanistan Cowards?

Southern Afghanistan is far from having been pacified -- a bloody war with the Taliban has erupted there. German troops have picked a relatively comfortable spot for themselves in the north of the country. Because they have avoided deadly fighting, they have been labeled "cowards" by the Americans and Brits. But are they?.....more

No Thanks to Thanksgiving
Instead, we should atone for the genocide that was incited -- and condoned -- by the very men we idolize as our 'heroic' founding fathers

One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.....more

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Giving Thanks

Let's take stock and be oh so thankful for the blessings of food, family, clothing and shelter that we take for granted. Let's reach out in 2007 to help others less fortunate in our own backyards. Whether volunteering at a shelter, giving food to a food bank, collecting signatures for petitions or staying involved in political actions, It's incumbent upon us to find ways to help heal our broken culture and neighborhoods.......more

Americans Now Say Iraq War Similar to Vietnam Conflict

Claims by critics of the war in Iraq that this conflict is similar in many ways to the U.S. experience in Vietnam have long been derided by pundits and administrations officials. But a new survey finds that almost 6 in 10 Americans believe that the analogy is accurate.......more

Faces of the Fallen

The News From Qatar

Al Jazeera English debuts

U.S. cable and satellite companies aren't exactly tripping over one another to carry the channel, which maybe has something to do with the widespread belief that Al Jazeera has an anti-American bias. The vast majority of Americans who want to size up the channel for themselves have to head to its Web site, where you can sample 15 minutes for free.....more

Rangel Is Right

Well over 95% of Americans, including Congress and White House staff, have no personal connection to this war--no relative or friend serving in Iraq. Over 99% of us have made no sacrifice for this war--we have not paid one more penny of taxes nor shed a drop of family blood. One of my military relatives thinks of it this way: "The American military is at war, but America is not at war.".....more

It takes a very special kind of combat coward to advocate combat for others.