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- Police and family members said a 10-year-old boy who died by hanging himself from a bunk bed was apparently mimicking the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Sergio Pelico was found dead Sunday in his apartment bedroom, said Webster police Lt. Tom Claunch. Pelico's mother told police he had previously watched a news report on Saddam's death. "It appears to be accidental," Claunch said. "Our gut reaction is that he was experimenting."

"If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God almighty through the authority of Christ and his blood, I'm going to say this very plainly, you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket," Mr. Hagee said during a service interspersed with religious and patriotic videos. Asked afterward at a political rally whether he agreed with Mr. Hagee, the governor said he didn't hear anything that he would take exception to. He (Perry) said that he believes in the inerrancy of the Bible and that those who don't accept Jesus as their savior will go to hell.A...

The linked page (entitled "Kerry apologizes to troops after ‘botched joke’") has a link to a video report with the reassuring title "Kerry remarks not on troops' radar". On the video, serious faced reporter Engel wants us all to know that the troops didn't even mention the Kerry gaffe during a busy day at work ...

DALLAS, Oct 26 (Reuters) - A new poll shows support for the war in Iraq is slipping among white evangelical Protestants, previously a key pillar of support for President George W. Bush's conduct of the conflict. The poll is the latest bad domestic news for Bush and the Republicans about Iraq with just 12 days to go to congressional elections in which the Democrats are widely expected to capture control of the House of Representatives. Conducted by the PEW Research Center, it found that 58 percent of white evangelical Protestants surveyed felt the United States made the right decision in...

When being anti-Israel is anti-Semitic Bernard Pinsky There has been much discussion and finger pointing about criticism of Israel, its actions and its policies, and Israel's defenders' claims that much of the criticism is based on anti-Semitism. Critics of Israel say they cannot speak out for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic. Defenders of Israel are concerned that anti-Semitism is the basis for the criticism in many cases. It is therefore important to know when in fact anti-Israel rhetoric is founded in, results from or itself creates anti-Semitism. 1. When the media prints every allegation against Israel, no matter how...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday there has always been a risk Iraq could slip into a civil war but he accused the news media of exaggerating the severity of the current situation. "I do not believe they're in a civil war today," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing. "There's always been a potential for a civil war. That country was held together through a repressive regime that put hundreds of thousands of human beings into mass graves." "It was held together not by a constitution, not by a piece of paper, not by respect for your...

Iraq's landmark constitution seemed assured of passage Sunday after initial results showed minority Sunni Arabs had fallen short in an effort to veto it at the polls. The apparent acceptance was a major step in the attempt to establish a democratic government that could lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Opponents failed to secure the necessary two-thirds "no" vote in any three of Iraqi's 18 provinces, according to counts that local officials provided to The Associated Press. In the crucial central provinces with mixed ethnic and religious populations, enough Shiites and Kurds voted to stymie the Sunni bid to...

Al Qaeda in Iraq says Zawahri letter is fake: Web DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq on Thursday rejected as a fabrication a letter by top group leader Ayman al-Zawahri which was issued by U.S. officials this week, according to an Internet posting. "We in Al Qaeda Organization announce that there is no truth to these claims, which are only based on the imagination of the politicians of the Black (White) House and their slaves," the group said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site. According to the letter, released this week by U.S. intelligence officials,...

A posting on an Islamic Web site Thursday accused the United States of fabricating a letter in which al-Qaida's No. 2 leader asked for money and laid out the terrorist group's plans for expanding the insurgency in the Middle East. "We in al-Qaida declare that there is no truth to these claims, and they are baseless, except in the imagination of the politicians of the Black (White) House," according to the statement on a Web site known as a clearing house for al-Qaida material. The statement was signed Abu Maysara, who claims to be spokesman for al-Qaida in Iraq. It...

Pentagon says it won't spy on 'innocent' Americans, but critics say past record shows this is false. Claiming it needs greater latitude for the war on terror, the US Senate Intelligence Committee has approved a request from the Pentagon for the right to "covertly" gather intelligence on US citizens in order to determine whether they can recruit them as informants, without telling them that they are doing so on behalf of the US government. Reuters reported Friday that the Pentagon said the measure, which is aimed at the Muslim community in the US, could help them fight insurgencies in Iraq...

Tin SoldierAn American Vigilante In Afghanistan, Using the Press for Profit and Glory By Mariah Blake In April 2004, a former U.S. Special Forces soldier named Jonathan Keith Idema started shopping a sizzling story to the media. He claimed terrorists in Afghanistan planned to use bomb-laden taxicabs to kill key U.S. and Afghan officials, and that he himself intended to thwart the attack. Shortly thereafter, he headed to Afghanistan, where he spent the next two months conducting a series of raids with his team, which he called Task Force Saber 7. By late June, he claimed to have captured the...

Thousands of people came to downtown Dallas Monday celebrate the life of a man who preached about peace....Some say Dr. King would have been disappointed about what happened at the parade in his honor. Several juveniles were arrested after disrupting the end of the parade and fighting. A police officer was injured trying to break up the fights...

There are two pictures of the national economy being reported this Labor Day weekend, one dark and one bright. Some of the reports are daunting: President Bush has lost more jobs than any president since the Great Depression. The wealthiest Americans are hogging more of the nation's income. Are the rich really eating more and more of the pie? Some numbers do support that. One wire service report stated that ``the wealthiest 20 percent of households in 1973 accounted for 44 percent of total U.S. income,'' and ``their share jumped to 50 percent in 2002.'' The numbers are from the...

Released: August 15, 2004 Kerry Favored Over Bush 47%-43% In Multi-Candidate Race; Voters With Passports Give Kerry 58%-35% Edge; Candidates in Dead Heat Among Investors; New Zogby America Poll Reveals Massachusetts Senator John Kerry is favored over President George W. Bush (47%-43%) among likely voters when Ralph Nader, Libertarian, Constitution and Green Party presidential candidates are factored into the 2004 presidential race, according to a new Zogby America poll. The telephone poll of 1011 likely voters was conducted Thursday through Saturday (August 12-14, 2004). Overall results have a margin of sampling error of +/-3.1. Presidential Candidates % Aug12-14 Democrat -John...

..........The Kerry examination began over the weekend, not by the old media, but by the Internet world of blogs. Over the weekend many have dug up a particularly interesting tidbit on exactly where John Kerry spent his Christmas in 1968. Did he go accidentally into Cambodia? Kerry says he did. Did he spend his Christmas only “close to the Cambodian border?" Kerry says he did. From the AP’s John Diamond in 1992... Navy Lt. John Kerry knew he had no business steering his Mekong River patrol boat across the border into Cambodia, but orders were orders. From the Boston Globe’s...

When Pierre Rehov saw images of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy being shot, it altered the course of his life. The film producer was stunned to learn Israel had been accused of targeting young Mohammed al-Dura, whose gripping death in the arms of his father was an image broadcast around the world. Indeed, the graphic images of the boy dying in his father Jamal's arms, supposedly murdered by Israeli soldiers, became the icon of the newly launched intifada and fueled the ambitions of a thousand young, would-be suicide bombers. "I was in shock," Rehov said in a recent magazine interview. "In...

FAIR Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting 112 W. 27th Street New York, NY 10001 ACTION ALERT: Fox News Spins 9/11 Commission Report June 22, 2004 The Bush administration's long-running attempts to link Iraq and Al Qaeda were dealt a serious blow when the September 11 commission's June 16 interim report indicated that there did not appear to be a "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Osama bin Laden, and that there was no evidence that Iraq was involved in the September 11 attacks. But if you were watching the Fox News Channel, you saw something very different, as the conservative cable...

Media Blatantly Distorts Iraq-Al Qaeda Link By Bobby Eberle June 21, 2004 The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States published a number of staff reports this past week which describe the unfolding of events leading up to and during the fateful day of September 11, 2001. One such report provides background on the rise of Usama bin Laden and al Qaeda, the terror network known to be responsible for the 9-11 attacks. Among the many conclusions drawn by the 9-11 Commission staff was a particular statement regarding Iraq and al Qaeda which the media has spun into...

White House - AP Bush Takes Issue With 9/11 Panel Findings Fri Jun 18, 9:46 AM ET Add White House - AP to My Yahoo! By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press WriterWASHINGTON - Disputing the findings of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks, President Bush (news - web sites) continues to insist there was a link between Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and al-Qaida. AP Photo (AP Video) Latest headlines: · US Strikes 'Al Qaeda Safe House' in Iraq, 22 DeadReuters - 8 minutes ago · U.S. Senators in Iraq Call for More Aid AP - 49 minutes...

Bush-Cheney '04 Morning Reads, May 24th -- 162 Days until Election! In today’s Reads – the Boston papers flood the zone on Kerry’s plan use the Democrats’ nominating convention to do anything but accept the nomination. Plus, a must-read Michael Barone piece on the growing gap between media spin and the reality on the ground on Iraq. Morning Reads: Will the Real John Kerry Please Stand Up? Reading John Kerry's hometown newspapers this morning, one gets a clear sense that Boston residents are less than appreciative of their junior Senator's latest ploy to delay his nomination several weeks beyond...

The liberal media jumped on the horrific massacre of U.S. civilians in Fallujah to cast doubt on official assessments of the continuing threat in Iraq. The New York Times' John Burns wrote on April 1 that the attacks undermined the U.S. military claims that "Islamic militants, including foreigners, rather than Iraqi supporters of Saddam Hussein, are increasingly behind terrorist attacks." Burns is a highly respected foreign correspondent who criticized the performance of the media in covering up Saddam Hussein's atrocities before the Iraqi war. But his recent report on the Fallujah massacre seems a distortion of what American officials are...

NO SERBS INVOLVED IN DROWNING: UNMIK PRISTINA -- Wednesday – UNMIK spokesman Derek Chappell said tonight that the survivor of yesterday’s Ibar River drowning has told his parents that he and three friends entered the river alone and were immediately caught up in the heavy current. The boy managed to reach the opposite bank of the river, but his three companions were swept away. The incident happened at about 4.30 p.m. and police began a search of the river about an hour and a half later. Two bodies have been found so far. Today’s violent incidents around Kosovo were sparked...

The Hating of the Presidents.By Cathy Young, 9/29/2003In the acidly witty 1999 movie "The Election," a meek-mannered high school civics teacher becomes consumed with his hatred of an obnoxiously perfectionist, overachieving student -- to such an extent that he decides to sabotage her campaign for student body president. When I first saw the film, I wondered if it was meant, to some extent, as a clever metaphor for many Republicans' Clinton obsession, which went far beyond normal political opposition.Now, the much-discussed phenomenon of "Clintonophobia" has a parallel on the other side of the political spectrum. A lot of the criticism...

Headline in Friday’s Sun-Sentinel: “HAMAS, JIHAD END CEASEFIRE.” Gee, Ya think? The story, written by James Bennet of The New York Times states in the first paragraph that Hamas and Islamic Jihad abandoned their decision to suspend attacks against Israelis, after Israel killed a top leader of Hamas on a busy street in Gaza City. This is an absolutely amazing slant on what has actually taken place over the past few weeks in the Middle East while a supposed ceasefire was being adhered to by Israel and their so-called peace partners, the Palestinians. The sad part is that most of...

ASHINGTON, Aug. 8 — Engineering experts from the Defense Intelligence Agency have come to believe that the most likely use for two mysterious trailers found in Iraq was to produce hydrogen for weather balloons rather than to make biological weapons, government officials say. The classified findings by a majority of the engineering experts differ from the view put forward in a white paper made public on May 28 by the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which said that the trailers were for making biological weapons. That report had dismissed as a "cover story" claims by senior Iraqi scientists that...

WHO LIED TO WHOM? by SEYMOUR M. HERSH Why did the Administration endorse a forgery about Iraq's nuclear program?Issue of 2003-03-31Posted 2003-03-24 Last September 24th, as Congress prepared to vote on the resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to wage war in Iraq, a group of senior intelligence officials, including George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq's weapons capability. It was an important presentation for the Bush Administration. Some Democrats were publicly questioning the President's claim that Iraq still possessed weapons of mass destruction which posed an immediate threat to the...

Dems, Republicans Close in Fund Raising 1 hour, 29 minutes agoBy SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer The Senate's majority Republicans have a slight edge over their Democratic counterparts in early campaign cash, raising about $14.1 million in the first half of the year compared to about $10.6 million for the Democrats. The picture was far different for the parties' national committees. The Republican National Committee (news - web sites) raised nearly three times as much as its Democratic rival. The RNC took in about $54.8 million so far this year, while the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) raised...

The television pictures of U.S. tanks in Baghdad seemed undeniable, but Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's spokesman denied them anyway - with his usual flair for insult. ``There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad,'' Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf asserted outside Baghdad's Palestine Hotel on Monday. "The infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad," he told reporters gathered on the roof of the Information Ministry. "As our leader Saddam Hussein said, 'God is grilling their stomachs in hell.' " Undeterred by the black smoke billowing behind him over central Baghdad, and the sound...

<p>CAMP SAYLIYAH, Qatar -- Facing mounting skepticism about their strategy in Iraq, senior Pentagon officials launched the fiercest defense yet of their decision to send in limited ground forces, dismissing reports yesterday of discord between US political and military officials over how to prosecute the war.</p>

Ignoring California's Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon's top campaign aide Sal Russo's statement that he, and not his boss, sent a completed questionnaire to a gay political group, the State's liberal media is attacking Simon for allegedly caving in to pressure by that terrible conservative "religious right" and changing his position on so-called "gay rights." Simon told reporters that he neither saw nor signed a controversial survey on gay issues that has become the latest problem for his troubled campaign and blamed his staff for sending it out without his knowledge, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. "A lot of...

In the 2001-03 state budget debate, a reduction from a planned $5.2 billion to $5.1 billion for K-12 is being called a cut even though this is an increase over 1999-2001 spending of $4.6 billion. -- MATT EVANS, Executive director, Oregon Tax Research. Did you understand that? The actual 1999-2001 school budget was $4.6 billion. The proposed Republican 2001-2003 budget is a record $5.1 billion. Unless you attended a modern public school, you can probably tell which number -- 5.1 or 4.6 -- is greater. The Oregon Left (mainstream media reporters and editors, liberal Democrat and Rockefeller Republican politicians, publc...

It's fascinating how the media have turned President Bush's request to Israel into a demand. After we posted an article from United Press International about President Bush's comments Thursday on the Middle East, a faithful reader noted an inaccuracy. According to UPI, "Bush insisted Israel immediately withdraw its military forces from the occupied territories." The reader noted, "He does not 'insist,' he asks, and he does not say 'immediate.'" We found the transcript of the speech, which included this phrase: "I ask Israel to halt incursions into Palestinian-controlled areas and begin the withdrawal from those cities it has recently occupied."...