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U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) pauses during a ceremony in Janusz Korczak Square at Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, July 23, 2008. Obama began a visit to Jerusalem on Wednesday pledging staunch support for Israel and saying that if elected, he would work to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process. REUTERS/Jim Young (JERUSALEM) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008 (USA

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged Colombian rebels on Sunday to lay down their weapons, unilaterally free dozens of hostages and put an end to a decades-long armed struggle against Colombia's government. Chavez sent the uncharacteristically strong message to the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, saying their ongoing efforts to overthrow Colombia's democratically elected government were unjustified. "The guerrilla war is history," said Chavez, speaking during his weekly television and radio program, "Hello President." "At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place." Such declarations were unexpected from...

It has been a long and slow devolution from the Federalist Papers to Monday Night Raw. ... Monday night, in a state of utter disbelief, I witnessed the intersection of surrealism that may portend the downfall of America. Osama bin Laden could not have devised a more fiendish way of eradicating American self respect, or of amplifying inanity to near-atomic destructive levels. Our presidential candidates appeared and talked smack on a professional wrestling television program. ... When I caught wind that McCain, Clinton and Obama would make appearances on a wrestling telecast, I had an overwhelming urge to crack open...

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The federal government is investigating whether the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety violated the civil rights of Iranian immigrants by refusing to provide them with driver's license tests in their native Farsi language. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched the investigation in March after a complaint filed on behalf of two Iranian nationals living in Bartlesville accused the state agency of unlawful discrimination based on their national origin, according to a letter from the NHTSA to Public Safety Commissioner Kevin Ward. Public safety officials said Tuesday that offering state driver's license tests in Farsi could force...

Earlier this week, I argued that Canada's human-rights censors have managed a seemingly impossible task: They've found a way to rehabilitate the image of neo-Nazis, transforming them from odious dirtbags into principled free-speech martyrs. Case in point: At this week's much-anticipated human-rights hearing in Ottawa, a team of journalists and bloggers were campaigning openly in support of hatemonger Marc Lemire. The villains were Canadian Human Rights Commission (HRC) investigator Dean Steacy and the other apparatchik who've made a career out of parsing Lemire's phobic Web postings. Tuesday's hearing probably won't change the outcome of the case against Lemire: Like a...

OTTAWA -- Investigators at the Canadian Human Rights Commission share control of an online identity called Jadewarr, which they have used to anonymously monitor and contribute to controversial far-right and white supremacist Web sites, in a strategy that a prominent defendant calls entrapment. The admission came in testimony Tuesday at the final day of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's hearing in the case of Marc Lemire, who is charged with violating the Human Rights Act's controversial hate speech section because of comments posted on his FreedomSite. Legally, the admission by CHRC investigator Dean Steacy, and the subsequent cross-examination by Mr....

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named actor George Clooney, who has campaigned for refugees in Darfur, as a U.N. "messenger of peace" on Friday to promote the world body's peacekeeping efforts. Clooney is the ninth U.N. messenger -- people chosen from the fields of art, music, literature and sports who have agreed to help focus attention on the United Nations' work. U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said Clooney would have a special emphasis on peacekeeping. She said he had been "recognized for focusing public attention on crucial international political and social issues." Clooney, who is currently in Sudan, will...

The Republican presidential candidates shown leading the race in recent polls all believe global warming is a serious threat and caused by human activity. When asked at today's Des Moines Register debate in Iowa to raise their hands if they believed climate change were indeed a real problem caused by people, Sen. John McCain, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Gov. Mitt Romney all responded in the positive. "Climate change is real. It's happening. I believe human beings are contributing to it," Giuliani said, calling for a "Manhattan Project" to wean America off foreign energy sources....

(AFFP) 07MAY07 Paris. Hundreds of U.S.-trained election attorneys boarded transatlantic flights this morning to form an army of lawyers demanding a full and fair recount of yesterday's nationwide election. Following the dramatic triumph of conservative Nicolai Sarkozy over rival progressive Sego Royal widespread calls of election fraud have been reported from New York to as far as Los Angeles and Hollywood, CA. A hastily formed team of specialists from the newly formed Kerry, Rodham and Gore LLC firm organized the campaign challenge and its spokesperson R. Emmanual feels optimistic, "We can clearly show some form of cognitive dissonance is afoot...

A Farce and an OutrageBy Mona CharenFriday, February 2, 2007 "As I was walking up the stair/ I met a man who wasn't there./ He wasn't there again today./ I wish, I wish he'd stay away." -- Hughes Mearns Mearns captures the spirit of Washington, D.C. We are in the midst of a criminal trial concerning the leaking of CIA covert operative Valerie Plame's name to the press. The man on trial did not do the leaking. The man who did the leaking is not on trial. The woman who is the subject of the fictional leak was probably not...

A federal judge has ordered a series of closed hearings to determine if Vice President Cheney's former top aide, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, can use certain classified information as a defense during his trial in the CIA/Leak case. Judge Reggie Walton ordered two sets of closed door hearings. The first, to begin on September 25th, and "continue everyday thereafter until completed," will be to make all determinations concerning the use, relevance, or admissibility of classified information that would otherwise be made during the trial. The second set of closed hearing, set to begin October 10th, will deal with classified information...

SACRAMENTO – Students who came to the country illegally could apply for state financial aid when they attend California colleges and universities under legislation approved Tuesday by the Assembly in a party-line vote. Supporters said immigrant children who have graduated and completed at least three years of high school in California should not be penalized for their parents' decision to bring them to the U.S. illegally. “It is one small measure to help these kids that are working their butts off to live the American dream,” said Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, D-South Gate. The bill would build upon existing...

Hizbollah mourners on a funeral parade shoved aside anti-tank barriers at a United Nations base in Lebanon yesterday in a demonstration of their new political strength. The party had been told it would be allowed to bury three "martyrs" at the Naqoura town cemetery inside the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) compound, but only if there was no flag-waving or political sloganising. When the chanting procession, several hundred strong, reached the gates, it found the way barred by cruci-form steel tank traps. Mourners argued with the French guards, but failed to gain entry. A mob of young men then...

This guy, Stack, is one of the war protesters at the Columbia Post Office on Saturday morns. Will he do the same "fasting" as Mother Sheehan? LOL

Bush Fetes Border Security Improvements CRAWFORD, Texas - With 6,000 National Guard troops deployed to Southwestern states, President Bush said Saturday he has fulfilled his pledge to help beef up border security and challenged Congress to give him legislation that will welcome more foreigners into the country. Speaking in his weekly radio address, Bush said immigration reform can only be successful if the get-tough border security to keep people from sneaking in is combined with opportunities for more immigrants to enter the country legally.

The United Nations Security Council this week passed a resolution that gives Iran a stark choice: suspend its uranium-enrichment activities or face possible economic sanctions. There has been mounting alarm over Iran's nuclear activities. Tehran insists that it is merely exercising its right as a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to develop a peaceful nuclear-energy program. That means carrying out all facets of the nuclear-fuel cycle -- including uranium enrichment and nuclear-fuel reprocessing, which can also be used to develop a nuclear bomb. Arguing that it enjoys the right to peaceful nuclear technology, Tehran has suspended talks with...

[I wrote to Boortz today about this, but he didn't respond. I didn't expect him to. Maybe he will discuss it if enough people here make noise.] The Fair Tax - Why we are all being fooled... ... and why it is just lip service. Since the start, way back in the days of CATS (Citizens for an Alternative Tax System), I have been an advocate of the Fair Tax. Back then I was naive. I was doing the cool thing. I have learned a lot about what this "Alternative Tax System" has evolved to... The Fair Tax.

Just curious. Has Hillary Clinton prime sponsored evenone bill that has passed a senate vote ?I'm guessing Not.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - After spending half his life in a Pakistani jail, Tahir Mirza Hussain is scheduled to hang on his 36th birthday for killing a taxi driver _ even though a court acquitted him 10 years ago. Hussain, a British-Pakistani, claims he is innocent. He was cleared by a secular court but retried and found guilty in an Islamic one. He now faces execution June 1 unless President Gen. Pervez Musharraf intervenes. His muddled case, spanning two decades, is emblematic of Pakistan's corrupt and bifurcated legal system, described by a leading rights activist as "flawed" and in desperate need...

Americans are coming to realize the United Nations is not the organization we once trusted, even revered. The United Nations betrays the idealism expressed in the preamble to its charter, forged over 60 years ago in San Francisco, which states, "We the peoples of the United Nations determined ... to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small ..." Two recent events demonstrate why the American people and their elected officials should be scrutinizing our country's subsidization of the...

Will CIA-leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indict Karl Rove? Who knows? While some observers search the tea leaves for answers, the only real answer right now is that nobody outside of Fitzgerald’s office knows for sure. And it’s possible that nobody inside Fitzgerald’s office knows for sure either.But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Rove is indicted. If that were to happen, it appears he would be charged with lying to Fitzgerald’s grand jury and not with any underlying crime, such as exposing a covert CIA agent.In that event, a Rove prosecution would probably resemble the case of Lewis...

Top Ten Surprises In ABC's Bird Flu Movie (Presented By Britney Spears) 10. Thanks to sponsorship deal, flu is cured by delicious taste of Dr. Pepper 9. Humans attacked by pigeons with tire irons 8. 20% of population comes down with less dangerous "bird hiccups" 7. Every time someone says, "chicken," all the characters chug a beer 6. Hilarious scene in which Leslie Nielsen confuses his Tamiflu with his Viagra 5. Every single person in the world ends up at General Hospital 4. The big villain? Larry Bird 3. Sad conclusion in which Charlie Brown puts a bullet in Woodstock...

UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei is in Tehran for talks aimed at defusing an international stand-off over Iran's nuclear activities. He said he hoped to convince Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment "until outstanding issues are clarified". There has been mounting international criticism of Iran over its announcement on Tuesday that it has successfully enriched uranium.

DEPENDING on whom you talk to in Hollywood these days, Hillary Clinton is either too conservative, too polarizing, too famous, too stiff or — keep this to yourself! — too sexy. And those are just the opinions of the celebrities who vote Democrat. (Don't even ask what the few Republicans had to say.) Once the darling of the industry's liberal set, Clinton has come under attack from some as she starts to line up support for what many feel will be a run for the presidential nomination. But that's not unusual for Hollywood — it's almost like a rite of...

Updated: 07:49 AM EST AOL Welcome page headine: "It started with her son's death. See how Cindy Sheen became a force."Acutal article headline: 'Peace Mom' Still Campaigning Against War By MICHELLE LOCKE, AP Jakub Mosur, APSAN FRANCISCO (March 5) - Lunching in the Mission District in a dark skirt, black cardigan and unfussy hairdo, Cindy Sheehan looks every bit the anonymous suburban mom she was not long ago. As the nation's best-known anti-war campaigner, Cindy Sheehan has drawn praise for her efforts, but others believe she has become a tool of liberal groups. That doesn't deter a man who stops...

Bye-Bye, Kyoto One thing George W. Bush got exactly right was Kyoto. The treaty isn't working, and a lot of folks who bought into it are now looking for an exit strategy | By Dan SeligmanTHE YEAR JUST ended was a fateful time for the Kyoto Protocol. It was the year in which the treaty, negotiated in 1997 as a way to slow global warming, formally took effect. That was in February. It was also the year in which Kyoto became operational, i.e., a whole bunch of rules were adopted at a conference in Montreal. That was in November. Finally,...

Valerie Plame's Last Day at the CIA Sources Confirm Betrayed Agent's Departure From Agency By PETE YOST, AP WASHINGTON (Dec. 9) - Valerie Plame, the CIA officer whose exposure led to a criminal investigation of the Bush White House, spent her last day at the spy agency Friday. Neither the agency nor Plame's husband would confirm her departure, but two people who have known Plame for a number of years confirmed she was leaving. Married to Bush administration critic and former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame was working at agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, in 2003 when her CIA status...

by Mark Finkelstein December 5, 2005 - 15:39. Someone, quick: buy the man a Valium. Make it a double! I'm sure most here remember the hysterics in which Shep Smith engaged while reporting from New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. He was back at it today, shouting, screaming and accusing as he zinged the government for its shortcomings as detailed in the just-released 9/11 Commission 'report card' on implementation of its national security recommendations. Thankfully, Shep had James Carafano, across the video lines, to hold his hand, burp him on the back and assure him that the sky wasn't...

Uniformed Mexicans with guns, bulldozer seize drug-bust truck from Border Patrol U.S. Border Patrol agents were backed down this week by armed men, dressed in what appeared to be Mexican military uniforms and carrying military weapons, who seized a captured dump truck filled with marijuana from the U.S. agents and dragged it across the border into Mexico with a bulldozer. The border incident occurred Thursday evening when Border Patrol agents attempted to pull over a dump truck on Interstate 10 in Hudspeth County, Texas. The driver fled from the agents, exiting the freeway and driving toward the Rio Grande which...

By Elizabeth Pineau and Sophie Louet PARIS (Reuters) - President Jacques Chirac on Sunday vowed to restore order in France after riots in Paris spread across the country and began to unnerve his European neighbours. "The Republic is quite determined, by definition, to be stronger than those who want to sow violence or fear," Chirac said after a special domestic security council met to respond to the latest violence in which 1,300 vehicles went up in flames. "The law must have the last word," Chirac said in his first public comments since the riots started in the poor suburbs, noting...

The savage left-wing attack on Judith Miller from inside and outside of the New York Times completely misses the point.... She could have done a potential Pulitzer Prize-winning story that could have broken the Joseph Wilson case wide open. It is a story exposing the Wilson mission to Africa as a CIA operation designed to undermine President Bush. SNIP In my recent special report on this matter, former prosecutor Joseph diGenova called the Wilson mission a CIA "covert operation" against Bush.....But if Miller had done such a story for the Times, the impact could have been enormous. SNIP By any...

I made it home just in time last night to catch the "Grapple in the Apple" debate between my new hero George Galloway, and the former lead singer of INXS, Christopher Hitchens. I was so worked up for it, I couldn't sleep for days. Well, the fact that I was worked up for it and that I couldn't sleep are only marginally correlated. I just hope dad doesn't notice all teh $40 withdrawls from my trust fund over the last 5 days (if you catch my drift). My New Hero Anyway, back to the grapple. My new hero is George...

Via the Freedom of Information Act, a reader obtained copies of the Form 180s that were recently signed by John Kerry to permit, at long last, the release of his military records. I believe there may be a story about this in the New York Sun tomorrow, and no doubt more commentary will be forthcoming over the next few days. Here are the three documents that Kerry signed; on their face, I don't see anything wrong with them, but then, I'm no expert in military personnel records. We look forward to our readers' comments. Go to the link..there are 3...

FREE TO GOTuesday "Judge" Matz, a Clinton appointee, announced Hillary Clinton would not be called as a witness in the Rosen trial. Regardless of the fact that she has been implicated by witnesses, "Judge" Matz, a Clinton appointee, instructed the jury to overlook any personal prejudices against Hillary. They absolutely cannot consider her here for she has been prejudged and determined innocent by "Judge" Matz, a Clinton appointee. "This isn't a trial about Senator Clinton," Judge A. Howard Matz said, as lawyers discussed written questionnaires filled out by potential jurors in the case. "Senator Clinton has no stake in this...

was absolutely astounded yesterday when Florida Governor Jeb Bush held that press conference and talked about the State of Florida taking custody of Terri Schiavo. He presented to the media the opinion of a doctor that Terri Schiavo was not in a persistent vegetative state .. but rather just in some sort of a period of reduced consciousness. This doctor has never seen Terri Schiavo, except on videotape, and he's issuing findings that are completely at odds with doctors who have been personally examining Terri for many months. Think about this for a moment. Attending physicians conduct their examinations and...

Enron: $1 billion writedown of retained earnings, followed by $618 million quarterly loss. 21,000 put out of work in ensuing bankruptcy. CFO Andrew Fastow sentenced to ten years in prison. Jeff Skilling and Kenneth Lay arrested and charged with federal crimes. Worldcom: $10 billion inflation of profits through failure to record expenses. CFO Scott Sullivan reduces prison term through plea bargain in which he cooperates with prosecution of former CEO Bernie Ebbers, now on trial. Arthur Andersen: auditor of Enron and Worldcom loses accounting license in consequence of these and other scandals and is liquidated, putting 65,000 employees worldwide out...

Venezuela's Marxist dictator, Hugo Chavez, has begun confiscating farms and ranches, a violent act worthy of Zimbabwe’s ethinc cleansing, marauding socialist tyrant Robert Mugabe. Like Mugabe, his made his first target a wealthy British aristocrat. But unlike Mugabe, who openly reveled in barbarism, Chavez is using stagecraft calculated to create a melodrama that will excite his supporters, while putting the rest of the world to sleep. And he's doing it to conceal reality Staged with troops, cameras, peasants waving machetes, circling helicopters, Chavez's cow drama aligns “the people” against the 32,000-hectare cattle ranch of Lord Sam Vestey, a British-accented villain...

Over the past few years, France has won the reputation as being the leading anti-American voice of the Western world. Of late, news has been trickling out of France which suggests that President Chirac has taken his opposition to the U.S. to a new level. One example includes allowing the pro-Ba’th pro-Saddam group “La Resistance” to operate out of Paris. The group’s main goal is to support killing U.S. troops in Iraq.

CULTURE CLASH LEAVES JAPANESE AFFLICTED WITH 'PARIS SYNDROME' Received Sunday, 19 December 2004 12:44:00 GMT PARIS, Dec 19 (AFP) - For years visitors to the French capital have complained of the rudeness of the locals, but now there are the first documented victims: hundreds of young Japanese women who have fallen prey to what a Japanese psychiatrist identifies as "Paris syndrome." According to Dr Hiroyki Ota, who works at the Sainte-Anne psychiatric hospital in Paris, more than 100 Japanese people pass through his consulting room every year showing the same symptoms of nervous depression. Around a quarter have to be...

Kiev, Ukraine, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- The extent of an apparent plot to poison Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's opposition leader, and then cover up the evidence now reaches across Europe.

BRUSSELS, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Canada's foreign minister slammed Tehran on Tuesday for turning a dialogue over a Canadian citizen who died in Iranian custody into "a farce", but added that unilateral sanctions would probably not be effective. Pierre Pettigrew also said there was no improvement in the human rights situation in Iran, and that Canada may press its allies to consider joint pressure on Tehran. The Canadian government has accused Iran's hardline courts of covering up the true circumstances of Iranian-born photographer Zahra Kazemi's death last year in order to protect senior judiciary officials implicated in her murder. "We've...

The big news out of the report was, as the Washington Post headline had it, "Al-Qaida-Hussein Link Is Dismissed." As it happens, the report didn't "dismiss" anything, but you can't blame the media for rushing out special commemorative editions and sending out 11-year old newsboys to shout, "Uxtry! Uxtry! New Bush Lie! Vote Kerry!" The actual report put it this way: "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaida cooperated on attacks against the United States." That means what it says: As intelligence types always say, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. And, insofar as...

Senior politicians across Europe have voiced dismay at EU parliamentary election results, after low turnouts and big gains for opposition parties. Governing parties in Germany, France and Poland suffered big losses, while many eurosceptic parties had their best result at the polls. Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said the outcome was a "disaster for the existing coalition in many countries". Turnout reached a record low, with just 45.3% of EU voters casting ballots. European Parliament spokesman David Harley said turnout was "pathetically low" for many of the 10 new member states, which averaged a mere 26.4%. Click below to compare...

<p>When Attorney General John Ashcroft appeared before the September Commission, he revealed that the much criticized wall, the Department of Justice policy limiting communication between law enforcement and intelligence agents, was put in place by Jamie Gorelick, while serving as deputy attorney general for President Clinton.</p>

Link to C-SPAN http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/schedule.csp I'm sure all the networks will be showing this.

(ONN) A well-placed, un-named, senior CIA offical, known for his accuracy, said in off-the-record remarks to an ONN reporter Tuesday that the twenty trucks full of so-called chemical munitions to be used as alleged WMD attacks on Jordan - a nation bordering Iraq and allied with Saddam Hussein during the two gulf wars - was after extensive testing in CIA and ISG labs found to be only insectide used for common agricultural pest control. After the reporter briefed the CIA source on the confession of the alleged terrorist, the source dismissed this as "conspiratorial" and unlikely then returned to his...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks will not relent in its pursuit of public testimony from the president's national security adviser but is unlikely to subpoena Condoleezza Rice, the panel's chairman said Sunday. The former chief counterterrorism adviser at the White House, who has criticized the Bush administration's preparedness for the attacks, said he would welcome the attempt by leading Republicans to declassify 2-year-old congressional testimony. The lawmakers hope to show discrepancies between Richard Clarke's recent attacks on the administration's terrorism policies with flattering statements he made as a White House aide. The White House...

State troopers, alerted by contractors there might be a burglar in a Schuylkill County home they were working in Thursday, cornered a man in the upstairs bathroom and accidentally shot him while trying to arrest him. The man turned out to be the homeowner. David L. Freed Jr., 51, of Wayne Township was hit in the shoulder by a bullet from Trooper Kirk Kirkland's .40-caliber handgun, Trooper Ray Albert said. (Click link for rest.)

Ladies and Gentlemen, Anyone struggling to get a business up and growing must have an absolutely accurate management information system designed to identify/confront emerging problems while they’re non-leathal to the enterprise. Whether this software is stored on a hard disk or in the deep, dark recesses of one’s mind, anyone who’s ever had to manage a household budget week to week, or sorted through various investment options should get a load of what our ‘illustrious’ elected representatives allow for accounting of your tax dollar. It's the accounting that creates the illusion that the libs are protecting your benefits from evil....

Edward L. Greenspan has been reading transcripts of Slobodan Milosevic´s war crimes trial. He´s come to one conclusion Less than two minutes into her opening statement, Carla Del Ponte, prosecutor at the International War Crimes Tribunal, said: "I bring the accused, Milosevic, before you to face the charges against him. I do so on behalf of the international community and in the name of all the member states of the United Nations, including the states of the former Yugoslavia." In effect, Del Ponte´s opening told the judges: "I have the weight and force of the world behind me. The world...