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President George W. Bush signed an executive order expanding sanctions against the Government of Zimbabwe Friday morning. The executive order focuses on targeting individuals and entities who support the regime of Robert Mugabe.

If you read, watch and hear the media describe the campaign of 2008, it appears to be the most one-sided contest since Reagan trounced Mondale in 1984. McCain always comes across as borderline senile, lethargic, and pitiful while Obama is awash in media heroics and theatrical flourishes. But the race is still basically tied according to the polls. While Obama has gotten a four point bounce, according to the latest Rasmussen poll, from his European trip and the adulatory response of the left-leaning German crowds, the two candidates have been within one or two points of each other for the...

Parody of "One Night in Bangkok" by Murray Head. See Rush Limbaugh home page.

Supreme Court allows construction to proceedThe U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a case that challenged the Homeland Security Department's right to waive environmental laws and litigation to build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. The decision, made without comment, seemingly removes a potential hurdle to construction of a $48.6 million fencing project across a canyon known as Smuggler's Gulch, west of the San Ysidro port of entry. “It's over. They're going to build a wall,” said attorney Cory Briggs, who in 2004 filed suit to stop the project on behalf of the Sierra Club, San Diego Audubon Society,...

A British woman said she spent $15,000 to have her cat's face rebuilt after it was hit by a car and disfigured. Tanya Dickson said her cat, Hetty, was in a coma when she found him by the side of the road and veterinarians told her one of his eyes had collapsed and his nasal cavity was shunted among other injuries following the accident, The Telegraph reported Friday. Dickson said Hetty underwent a number of operations while being kept alive in an incubator and six days after his injury, he was able to meow again. She said he was eating...

Would it be a great disaster if Iran had nuclear weapons? As a habitual contrarian, I pose the question because almost everyone seems to believe that it would, and that it must be prevented at all costs. But is that true? John Bolton, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, said in April that "if the choice is [Iran] continuing [toward a nuclear bomb] or the use of force, I think you're at a Hitler marching into the Rhineland point." Bush, too, has compared Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler. But these so-called statesmen never consider what might...

Video at link

WASHINGTON - The total cost of the Iraq war is approaching the Vietnam War's expense, a congressional report estimates, while spending for military operations after 9/11 has exceeded it. The new report by the Congressional Research Service estimates the U.S. has spent $648 billion on Iraq war operations, putting it in range with the $686 billion, in 2008 dollars, spent on the Vietnam War, the second most expensive war behind World War II. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. has doled out almost $860 billion for military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere around the world. <snip>...

America is at the Mall by Bridget Geegan Blanton Several months ago I came across a photo while online that appeared to have been taken inside a military installation quite possibly in a theater of war. The photo was simple yet poignant. In the background was the indistinct image of a Marine dressed in camouflage entering the room from the outside and in the foreground the photographer zeroed in on the side of a refrigerator. Three sentences written on the side of the refrigerator constituted the single most riveting feature of the photo. The statement was brief, to the point...

AN Australian submarine - HMAS Waller - has used a new super torpedo - the Mark 48 - to sink an American warship off Hawaii. The HMAS Waller fired the heavyweight Mark 48 torpedo, which the US and Australian navies say is the world's deadliest, during war games this week. Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said the torpedo had been jointly developed by Australia and the United States. The firing occurred during the Rim of the Pacific 2008 (RIMPAC 08) exercise, involving multiple navies off the coast of Hawaii. "This controlled exercise resulted in the planned sinking of a retired US...

The road ahead to the White House is long for Democrat Barack Obama despite a rock star reception overseas, with polls in key states showing a tight race against Republican John McCain. As the Illinois senator gave a crowd-rousing performance before 200,000 people in Berlin, polls released in the United States showed waning enthusiasm for the man who would become the first African-American US president. Obama maintains a lead over his 71-year-old rival — between one and six points according to pollsters — but his edge is beginning to recede, despite what McCain's camp has described as the media's "love...

Sen. Obama's delivered a crucial speech in Berlin on July 24. Find the missing words. This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it. This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it. If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York. If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we...

Homeland Security: Forced to defend its growing terrorist watch list, the FBI let slip a chilling fact that should silence ACLU grumblers: America is teeming with 20,000 terrorists.After 9/11, federal authorities estimated that as many as 5,000 terrorists were living in the U.S. The new figure is jarring not only because it's four times as large but because it's based on real persons, not estimates. It's not something headquarters wanted to publicize. Officials had downplayed the threat so as not to spook the public. The spin had been that Britain has the homegrown problem, not us. But that was before...

Geopolitics: As Barack Obama luxuriated in the adoration of Europeans, a less charming leader was also making his way across the Continent, seeking arms and military bases to direct toward the United States.What happened under the radar last week ought to have gotten more attention, because it's the beginning of a problem that will carry well into the next administration. While Obama was drawing applause in Germany, Venezuela's hostile and anti-American president, Hugo Chavez, was conducting a stealthy parallel trip across Europe spending billions of petrodollars on weapons of war he doesn't need. In Russia, he vowed to buy $1...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Russian shares fell nearly 6% on Friday, as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's call for an investigation of mining company Mechel escalated worries about political risk in the resource-rich emerging market and encouraged investors to sell local equities across sectors. In Moscow, the benchmark RTS stock index fell 5.6% to end at 1,951 points. It is down 14.8% year-to-date. Putin said Thursday that Mechel (MTL: Mechel should be investigated for selling raw materials abroad at half the price it charges domestically. His comments triggered a nearly 40% sell-off in Mechel's New York-listed shares. See Emerging Markets Report.

7/25/2008 - JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq (AFPN) -- Air Force and Army firefighters worked in the searing sun July 22 to contain a fire that engulfed six closely situated structures here. A call to the Joint Base Balad Fire Department at 12:30 p.m. set into motion an emergency-management response of firefighters and civilian volunteers. No one was seriously injured in the blaze, which caused approximately $1 million in damage, said Master Sgt. David Clifford, the 332nd Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron assistant fire chief. However, three firefighters were treated at the Air Force Theater Hospital for heat stress-related symptoms and later...

Aviation expert accuses Iran of military deception Video at link

WASHINGTON — Al-Qaida terrorists have been largely marginalized in Iraq’s Babil province, thanks to the joint efforts of Iraqi and U.S. security forces, as well as local “Sons of Iraq” citizen security groups, a senior U.S. military officer posted in Iraq said July 24. “The organization related to al-Qaida is severely disrupted, … as well as the [extremist] militia” in Babil province,” Army Col. Tom James, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team, said during a satellite-carried news conference with Pentagon reporters. “Overall, we are extremely optimistic about the security situation in Babil province, because of the...

There was a spring in Barack Obama's step and a sense of heady excitement in the air as he took to the stage beside Berlin's Victory column for his latest Big Speech. Members of his expansive entourage could have been forgiven for dreaming about the West Wing offices they will occupy in January. By any yardstick, the first half of the Illinois senator's foreign tour was everything his campaign staff had wished for and a little bit more. Wherever he went, world leaders wanted to bask in his reflected glory as the presumed next president. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of...

Four Iraqi children enjoy some fresh drinking water that’s now available in their community in northern Basrah Province. USACE photo by A. Al Bahrani. BASRAH — Al-Zierji, a town located in northern Basrah Province, has fresh drinking water for the first time ever. “This is one of seven USACE water projects in the province,� said James Hodges, chief construction representative with the Gulf Region Division’s Basrah Area Office. “The $1.2 million reverse-osmosis plant is providing potable water for more than 20,000 Iraqis. It was completed June 20 and is now fully operational, producing 200 cubic meters per hour.�Salah Ali, chief...

"So if you want my take on this, if you want to remember one thing about this trip, is that Barack Obama chose to work out rather than see the wounded troops because he couldn't bring Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson, and Brian Williams with him." -- Sean Hannity "The Sean Hannity Show" Sean Hannity: "You know I've found one article -- I hadn't known this -- I was telling you earlier the Obama campaign tried to blame the Pentagon. Here he was scheduled. He wanted to go visit this military hospital. It was on the campaign sheet to go visit...

VIENNA - Diplomatic masques are coming off. The Jerusalem Post/AP have just reported Tehran has announced the end of any further cooperation with the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) based in Vienna. The angry announcement was made by Iran Vice-President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh today, Thursday, in response to allegations by some of the IAEA thirty-five board members, based on U.S. and other intelligence, that the uranium Iran is enriching can make nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles. Knowing Tehran's offensive foreign policy this should not be a revelation. It was known Iran's nuclear program was revived in the early...

WASHINGTON, July 25, 2008 – An Iraqi organization tasked with consolidating and coordinating that country’s counterterrorism effort is now capable of conducting unilateral missions, a U.S. military official said yesterday. “[The Iraqi National Counterterrorism Force’s] primary mission is to synchronize and focus all elements of Iraqi national power to defeat terrorism here in Iraq,” U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Simeon Trombitas, director of the Iraqi National Counterterrorism Force Transition Team, told online journalist and bloggers. The Iraqi unit was formed in 2003 and has since been trained by U.S. Special Forces soldiers, Trombitas said. While U.S. forces still train with the...

WASHINGTON, July 25, 2008 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today called it a “sacred responsibility” to care for the generation of American military children affected by the deployment, and in some cases the death, of a servicemember parent. “The empty seat at the dinner table night after night is a constant reminder of a child’s worry for his or her parent’s safety,” Gates said, according to his prepared remarks. “And there is also the grief and the heartbreak when a loved one is injured or killed -- a grim reality of war.” Roughly 43 percent of U.S. active-duty,...

WASHINGTON, July 25, 2008 – U.S. soldiers in Baghdad today detained a suspect linked to roadside-bomb attacks against coalition forces during an operation in the city’s Risalah sector, military officials said. The detainee was taken to a coalition base for questioning. In yesterday’s operations: -- U.S. soldiers in Baghdad found an explosive device on the side of a road in Baghdad’s Jazair community. An explosive ordnance team disposed of the bomb. -- U.S. soldiers patrolling Baghdad’s East Rashid sector seized two AK-47 rifles, four magazines and 246 7.62 mm rounds. -- U.S. soldiers found an improvised explosive device-making workshop in...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, July 25, 2008 – Every morning, the soldiers of 1st Platoon, C Company, 6th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, make their way across a scorching flight line to the platoon’s three UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Army Sgt. Adam Connaughton, a medic with 1st Platoon, C Company, 6th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, checks the injured eye of a Marine during a medical evacuation mission to Outpost Vegas, near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, July 22, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Spc. George Welcome, 101st Combat Aviation Brigade  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Pilots, crew chiefs and medics all take part...

Bitter rifts within Iran's leadership came to the surface on Friday when the authorities banned the evening edition of a newspaper controlled by Tehran's mayor, a leading rival of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "Hamshahri", a daily owned by Tehran's municipality, angered the president by reporting an argument between his ministers and the central bank governor, Tahmasb Mazaheri. Faced with inflation of about 30 per cent, Mr Mazaheri wants to raise interest rates but "Hamshahri" reports that Mr Ahmadinejad's cabinet allies have opposed this move. The story struck a nerve because it highlighted the reasons behind the president's acute political vulnerability. One...

WASHINGTON — House Democrats failed Thursday in their efforts to force the Bush administration to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gasoline prices as Republicans stuck to their demands for a vote on an expansion of offshore drilling. Despite winning majority support, the measure to draw 70 million barrels of light crude oil from the reserve for sale in the commercial market did not receive the two-thirds support needed under special rules. The vote was 268 to 157, 16 short of the margin needed.Republicans held together to stall the measure, which Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican...

WASHINGTON, July 25, 2008 – Veterans transitioning from war to peace may need a place to call home, whether it’s for the long or short term, the executive director of a North Carolina-based program that offers them that and a good bit more said. “The needs we are addressing all, in some way, revolve around temporary and long-term living arrangements that are appropriate for the various challenges that our active duty and military veterans face,” Lance Orndorff said about “Americans Heroes Return.” “Camp Hero” is an integral part of American Heroes Return, which, in turn, is part of the...

CAMP TAJI, Iraq, July 25, 2008 – As the sun begins to set beyond the Baghdad horizon, the sound of laughter and conversation emanates from the corrugated steel sleeping trailers of Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division’s Company C, 3rd Battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment, Combat Aviation Brigade. Army Sgt. David Brocato, crew chief, Company C, 3rd Battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment, Combat Aviation Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, Multinational Division Baghdad, mans the gunner's seat of a Black Hawk helicopter before the start of a mission on Camp Taji, Iraq, July 20, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Sgt....

DEBRIS flew past passengers as air was sucked out of an ageing Melbourne-bound Qantas jumbo jet after a mid-air explosion ripped a gaping hole in its fuselage and plunged the plane into a 20,000ft emergency descent. Almost 350 mostly Australian travellers on QF30 from London heard an "almighty bang" yesterday morning and feared a mid-air collision as a rush of wind coursed through the cabin and oxygen masks fell from the ceiling of the Boeing 747-400. "There was a terrific boom, and bits of wood and debris just flew forward into first (class) and the oxygen masks dropped down," Melbourne...

CAMP TAJI, Iraq, July 25, 2008 – Multinational Division Baghdad engineers with the 25th Infantry Division’s 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team journeyed to the Grand Canal Bridge in Taji Qada, northwest of Baghdad, on July 22 to monitor repair progress. Construction workers from a local construction company weld steel that is going to be used to fix the hole in the northbound lane of the Grand Canal Bridge in Taji, northwest of Baghdad, July 22, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Lyndsey R. Dransfield, Multinational Division Baghdad  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The bridge, which spans a portion...

This time last year, it was a given that the war in Iraq would defeat the Republicans in the 2008 presidential election, and that John McCain had no chance of winning his party's nomination -- partly because he felt the war could be won. It should also be mentioned that a year ago Hillary Clinton was the odds-on favourite to win the Democratic nomination. Barack Obama was a longshot who opposed the war from the start, whose cores support was the radical left. How things have changed in a year! Who'd have guessed that as a campaign issue, the war...

As he prepared to meet US presidential candidate Barack Obama later Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a French newspaper that the Illinois senator was his "buddy." "Obama? That's my buddy," Sarkozy was quoted as saying in Friday's edition of Le Figaro. "Contrary to my diplomatic advisors, I never thought Hillary Clinton had a chance. I always said Obama would be chosen" as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. "I am the only French person who knows him," Sarkozy said, recounting that he had met Obama during a visit to the United States in 2006, when he was Interior...

What we really need from the climate modelers is an accurate 50-year projection of global politics. Will people believe the computer's dire prophecy enough to change their lifestyles? While we wait for 50 million lines of code to reveal the supposed future, consider how things look to one very knowledgeable energy analyst, Vinod K. Dar, who runs Dar & Company, a consultant to the energy industry, in Bethesda, Md. What follows is my own gloss on Dar's analysis. Everything he says, however, squares with all that I've seen and learned in the 30 years I've watched energy markets here and...

As Planet Gore readers likely know, Congress currently prohibits the federal government to sell leases for energy production along the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). As the Congressional Research Service Office has put it, “OCS moratoria, which prohibit leasing on most federal offshore lands, have been an important issue in the debate over energy security and the potential availability of additional domestic oil and gas resources. Congress has enacted the moratoria for each of fiscal years 1982-2006 [NB: now 2008] in the annual Interior Appropriations bill.” This prohibition expires at the end of this (and every other) fiscal year. It...

PAGE ONE Voter Unease With Obama Lingers Despite His Lead Poll Finds Background, Experience Are Advantages for McCain WASHINGTON -- Midway through the election year, the presidential campaign looks less like a race between two candidates than a referendum on one of them -- Sen. Barack Obama.With the nominations of both parties effectively settled for more than a month, the key question in the contest isn't over any single issue being debated between the Democrats' Sen. Obama or the Republicans' Sen. John McCain. The focus has turned to the Democratic candidate himself: Can Americans get comfortable with the background...

Once, albinos used to seek shelter from the sun. Now they have gone into hiding simply to survive, after a series of killings linked to witchcraft. In Tanzania, 25 albinos have been killed in the past year. The latest victim was a seven-month-old baby. He was mutilated on the orders of a witchdoctor peddling the belief that potions made from an albino's legs, hair, hands, and blood can make a person rich. Sorcery and the occult maintain a strong foothold in this part of the world, especially in the remote rural areas around the fishing and mining regions of Mwanza,...

DETROIT, Michigan (AFP) - General Motors will begin building Saab vehicles in the United States rather than put its Swedish subsidiary up for sale, GM chairman and chief executive Rick Wagoner said Friday. < > "The issue at Saab is trying to sell too many Saabs in the US as the Swedish (kroner) has strengthened against the dollar. We can't push volume in the US. We have to let it settle out and reflect the currency. "But we've got a number of new (Saab) products coming up beginning in the third quarter next year and it will have a new...

Did you know that your safety and security depend on gay men and lesbians? An estimated 65,000 gay men and lesbians serve in the U.S. armed forces, though by law they cannot be open about their sexuality. As we fight two wars, our military is stretched thin. Those gay and lesbian soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and members of the Coast Guard are essential.

The McCain campaign released the following memo this morning: To: Interested Parties From: Randy Scheunemann, Senior Foreign Policy Adviser Date: July 25, 2008 Re: The Barack Obama Foreign Policy Myths In the past few days, Barack Obama has been trying to alter the reality of international developments to the benefit of his political campaign. Please find below the key Obama myths from this week. MYTH: Barack Obama Claims People Have Adopted His Unconditional Timetable For Withdrawal From Iraq FACT: John McCain, our military commanders and the Iraqi government agree that our troops should come home based upon conditions on the...

Pope Benedict told Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Friday that minority Christians in Iraq needed more protection but the Iraqi leader assured him that Christians were not being persecuted. Maliki, who met the pope for 20 minutes at the pontiff's summer residence south of Rome, invited the pontiff to visit Iraq, saying a trip there would help the process of peace and reconciliation. "We renewed our invitation for His Holiness to visit Iraq. He welcomed the invitation. And we hope that he will be making the visit as soon as he can," he told reporters in the palace after...

An American presidential candidate travels to the very center of Europe and draws a huge cheering crowd. George W. Bush obviously could never do that. Nor could John McCain. For the many Americans sick to death of eight years of confrontation and quarrelling with friends and allies, Barack Obama’s visit to Berlin presented an exciting and hopeful picture. This is how things should be! It was a great moment — so long as you viewed it with the sound off. But if you listened to the speech, you heard an ominous and disturbing statement, one that raises the same unsettling...

It may sound like the escapist indulgence of a well-fed man fleeing the misery around him. But when Jawdat Khoudary opens the first ever museum of archaeology in Gaza this month, it will be an act of Palestinian patriotism, showing how this increasingly poor and isolated coastal strip ruled by the Islamists of Hamas was once a thriving multicultural crossroad. The exhibit is housed in a stunning hall made up partly of the saved stones of old houses, discarded wood ties of a former railroad and bronze lamps and marble columns uncovered by Gazan fishermen and construction workers. And while...

Attacking a Jewish girl and the friends who came to her rescue has landed a Muslim man a one-year jail sentence. Mustafa Taj must also serve a year of probation following his release for what provincial court Judge Bill Cummings ruled was a racially motivated assault. "In this case, I'm satisfied that imprisonment is necessary," Cummings said in accepting the Crown's bid for a jail term. Prosecutors Ken McCaffrey and Inayat Jetha had sought a sentence of up to two years for the hate crime. Taj, 21, was convicted in May of attacking four teenagers the night of Nov. 3,...

Miriam Farhat, the Palestinian mother who became famous in 2002 when she appeared in a video encouraging her son to attack a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, was reported Thursday to be in critical condition after suffering a massive heart attack. When I see all the Jews in Palestine killed, that will be enough for me," she said on camera. "I wish he will kill as many as he can, so they will be scared." Her son Muhammad, 19, killed five teenagers and wounded 23 people at Atzmona before he was shot dead in March of that year. Hamas...

A 12-year old schoolgirl was gang-raped by five gunmen in Sarpul province in Northern Afghanistan. The girl and her family asked Hamid Karzai to prosecute the rapists and take their case seriously. They threatened that if they are not provided justice, the whole family will commit mass suicide to get rid of such life. They say, the local authorities keep silence on such cases and did not act to arrest those responsible. While crying, the rape victim told journalists that she was raped in a village called Baghabi in Sarpul province. She says five gunmen poured into their house in...

Obama’s behavior toward American troops in Germany was so egregious, even the New York Times this morning is picking up the story. The Times writes, “It wasn’t perfectly clear whether the Pentagon asked the Obama campaign to cancel the trip outright or the campaign decided on its own -- after quiet pressure from military officials -- that a political trip to the base was inappropriate.” “The trip” was a scheduled trip to visit American troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, one of the world’s largest military hospitals. Initially, Obama claimed it would be inappropriate because he was in...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is offering Obama a warm welcome on the day of their meeting, in an interview with the conservative daily Le Figaro. "Obama? He's my pal," the president told Le Figaro. "Unlike my diplomatic advisers, I never believed in Hillary Clinton's chances. I always said that Obama would be nominated."Sarkozy added that an Obama victory "would validate" his strategy of reconcilation with the United States. His embrace of the United States has made him American conservatives' favorite Continental politician, but he doesn't seem to be reciprocating. Meanwhile, the French press appears to be welcoming Obama Friday with...

It's another reminder of how much McCain is glad to talk about national security and also to let Obama define the race. Said the GOP nominee to a military veteran gathering in Denver: "We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right," McCain said of the surge and Obama's long-standing support for withdrawing troops in Iraq, mocking his rival's signature phrase and the title of his most recent book.