Life in OUR America, Volume 5, the Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

And leaving the world of today ...

Which we can do in here ....

And whisking back in time to the world of yesterday .....

We have ....

"Alpine ice man may have been childless outcast"

By Sophie Hardach

Fri Feb 3, 2:18 PM ET

MILAN (Reuters) - A Stone Age man found frozen in the Alps some 5,300 years after he was murdered under mysterious circumstances may have been a childless social outcast, a new study showed.

Italian anthropologist Franco Rollo studied fragments of the DNA belonging to Oetzi, as the mummy has come to be known, and found two typical mutations common among men with reduced sperm mobility, the museum that stores the "iceman" said.

A high percentage of men with such a condition are sterile.

"Insofar as the 'iceman' was found to possess both mutations, the possibility that he was unable to father offspring cannot be eliminated," the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in the Alpine town of Bolzano said in a statement.

"This not improbable hypothesis raises new questions concerning his social rank within his society," it added, arguing that the new evidence supported a theory that viewed the man as a social outcast.

Hikers discovered Oetzi in the mountains between Italy and Austria in 1991.

In 2001, scientists found an arrowhead in the iceman's shoulder blade, and tests revealed blood from four different people on his clothes and a cut in his hand, possibly from a fight.

Medicine in the man's pockets and sophisticated weapons seemed to indicate that he was a shaman or a chieftain, and one theory says Oetzi was the victim of a power struggle in his own tribe.

A rival theory proposes the opposite -- that he was a reject.

Rollo, a researcher at the University of Camerino in Italy, was also able to assign the mummy's DNA to one of the basic groups of human DNA historically occurring in Europe.

His basic DNA resembles that of the Ladines, an ethnic group still living in the region today, and that of residents of the Oetztal valley where he was found, the museum said.

Rollo's latest research findings will be published in February's edition of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

[jeffmoskin]

A Stone Age man found frozen in the Alps some 5,300 years after he was murdered under mysterious circumstances may have been a childless social outcast, a new study showed

Actually, he was not murdered. He was struck in the shoulder with his own arrow which ricocheted off his intended prey. This is called, "the single arrow theory."

[Livyjr]

Actually, he was not murdered.

He was struck in the shoulder with his own arrow which ricocheted off his intended prey.

This is called, "the single arrow theory."

I heard it was one of those experimental "boomerang arrows" that they were trying out back then as a labor-saving device ....

It came back alright .....

Just not to his hand ....

And that is the notorious "BEWARE SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES THEORY" ......

[Livyjr]

Yesterday, in the mail, I received this little envelope bearing FEMA logo on it ...

And in the middle, right above my name and address was this red "WARNING" label staring me right square in the face ....

And I said to myself, "Now, what on earth is this?"

Is FEMA sending each of us in America a personal warning that it is incompetent and untrustowrthy, just in case we did not already know?

But no ...

That was not it ....

It was from someone named David Maurstad, Acting Director, FEMA Mitigation Division and Federal Insurance Administration ....

The envelope had on it the adress of U.S. Department of Homeland Security, P.O. Box 2012, Jessup, Md. 20794 ....

It was mailed from New Brunswick, New Jersey on permit No. 1512 .....

And it directed me to buy flood insurance from Jim Mylod, Allstate Insurance, 639 Pawling Avenue, Troy, N.Y. 12180, or David A. Fazioli, Fazioli and Sons, Inc., 1813 5th Avenue, Troy, N.Y. 12180 .....

SO ...

What is this, then?

Free government advertising for these insurance companies?

We, the GUMMINT of the United States of MURRIKA want you to have this special insurance, and this is where we, the GUMMINT of the United States of MURRIKA, want you to go to get it .....

I wonder how much this is costing us American citizens ....

And more to the point, I wonder if this is going on all over the country ...

The GUMMINT using OUR resources to advertise for politically-connected local insurance brokers .....

[Livyjr]

BOOM ....BOOM ......BOOM ....BOOM .....

WAR DRUMS BEATING ...

A big fire burning ....

Dick Cheney, with a special gold-plated Abercrombie & Fitch BI-CENTENNIAL EDITION hatchet at only $750, half-naked, dressed only in a designer breech-clout and a special pair of leggings that he got in a Jackson Hole boutique for $3500, mouth drawn back in a rictus, teeth showing like a big Wyoming GRIZ, whirls and capers and cavorts around the fire like an imp released from the bowels of hell itself, gibbering and alternately grunting in some tongue intelligible to only himself, if even that ....

While Donald Rumsfeld, painted up to beat the band in rouge and vermillion and whatever that brown stuff on him is, dressed in the skin of an IRAQINAMI, head still attached, stands up on a stump and shouts exhortations to the assembled crowd .....

WAR ..... WAR .... WAR .... WAR

And here we go again ..

Except this time, since they are using the same script that was used for the IRAQINAM DEBACLE, we are supposed to be saving some money ....

On the front-end load, anyway ....

"Rumsfeld: Iran Regime Sponsors Terrorism"

By DAVID RISING, Associated Press Writer

32 minutes ago

MUNICH, Germany - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld urged America's allies to increase their military spending to prevent the rise of a "global extremist Islamic empire."

He also urged the world to work for a "diplomatic solution" to halt Iran's nuclear program.

"The Iranian regime is today the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism," he said in prepared remarks.

"The world does not want, and must work together to prevent, a nuclear Iran."

Rumsfeld was in Munich to address a defense conference focused on the relationship between America and its European allies.

The remarks came as the U.N. nuclear agency was meeting in Vienna, Austria to vote on a U.S.-backed proposal to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council over concerns Tehran may be developing nuclear weapons.

Rumsfeld said terrorists hope to use Iraq as the "central front" in their war, turning it into a training and recruitment area like they had done in Afghanistan under the Taliban.

He warned "a war has been declared on all of our nations" and said their "futures depend on determination and unity in the face of the terrorist threat."

"We could choose to pretend, as some suggest, that the enemy is not at our doorstep."

"We could choose to believe, as some contend, that the threat is exaggerated."

"But those who would follow such a course must ask: what if they are wrong?"

"What if at this moment, the enemy is counting on being underestimated, counting on being dismissed, and counting on our preoccupation," Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld was to follow German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the opening speeches on the second day of 42nd annual Munich security conference.

In the past defense experts and policy-makers have used the prestigious gathering in southern Germany for frank exchanges.

Rumsfeld said violent extremism is a danger faced as much in Europe as in the United States.

"The struggle ahead promises to be a long war that will cause us all to recalibrate our strategies, perhaps further adjust our institutions, and certainly work closely together," he said.

He said Islamic militants are on the move and have to be checked.

"They seek to take over governments from North Africa to Southeast Asia and to re-establish a caliphate they hope, one day, will include every continent," he said.

"They have designed and distributed a map where national borders are erased and replaced by a global extremist Islamic empire."

Likening the war on terror to the Cold War, Rumsfeld said the battle could be won if nations persevered.

He invoked Merkel's own experience — growing up in Communist East Germany to become chancellor of a unified Germany.

"Freedom prevailed because our free nations showed resolve when retreat would have been easier, and showed courage when concession seemed simpler," he said.

But he pointed out that the United States spends 3.7 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on national defense while 19 of the 25 other NATO nations spend less than 2 percent of their GDP on defense.

He did not name countries, but Germany, which spends 1.4 percent of its GDP on defense, and others have been under pressure to step up their funding.

"It may be easier for all of us to use our scarce tax dollars to meet urgent needs we all have at home," Rumsfeld said.

"But unless we invest in our defense and security, our homelands will be at risk."

[Livyjr]

BOOM ....BOOM ......BOOM ....BOOM .....

WAR DRUMS BEATING ...

A big fire burning ....

Dick Cheney, with a special gold-plated Abercrombie & Fitch BI-CENTENNIAL EDITION hatchet at only $750, half-naked, dressed only in a designer breech-clout and a special pair of leggings that he got in a Jackson Hole boutique for $3500, mouth drawn back in a rictus, teeth showing like a big Wyoming GRIZ, whirls and capers and cavorts around the fire like an imp released from the bowels of hell itself, gibbering and alternately grunting in some tongue intelligible to only himself, if even that ....

While Donald Rumsfeld, painted up to beat the band in rouge and vermillion and whatever that brown stuff on him is, dressed in the skin of an IRAQINAMI, head still attached, stands up on a stump and shouts exhortations to the assembled crowd .....

WAR ..... WAR .... WAR .... WAR

And here we go again ..

Except this time, since they are using the same script that was used for the IRAQINAM DEBACLE, we are supposed to be saving some money ....

On the front-end load, anyway ....

"Rumsfeld: Iran Regime Sponsors Terrorism"

By DAVID RISING, Associated Press Writer

MUNICH, Germany - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld urged America's allies to increase their military spending to prevent the rise of a "global extremist Islamic empire."

"It may be easier for all of us to use our scarce tax dollars to meet urgent needs we all have at home," Rumsfeld said.

"But unless we invest in our defense and security, our homelands will be at risk."

WELL ....

What the heck ...

I mean, after all, the energy companies have their own SHILL embedded in OUR government in the form and personna of the "WYOMING GRIZ" himself, Mr. Dick Cheney ....

So why shouldn't the SECURITY INDUSTRY have their own SHILL as well ....

Right, RUMHEAD, er, Rummy, er, Mr. Rumsfeld?

"Pentagon prepares 'long war' strategy"

By ANN SCOTT TYSON, Washington Post
First published: Saturday, February 4, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon laid out a new 20-year defense strategy Friday that envisions U.S. troops deployed, often clandestinely, in dozens of countries at once to fight terrorism and other untraditional threats, readying for what it calls a "long war."

Major initiatives include a 15 percent boost in the number of elite U.S. troops known as Special Operations Forces, a near-doubling of the capacity of unmanned aerial drones to gather intelligence, a $1.5 billion investment to counter a biological attack, and the creation of special teams to find, track and defuse nuclear bombs and other catastrophic weapons.

China is singled out as having "the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States," and the strategy in response calls for accelerating the fielding of a new Air Force long-range strike force, as well as for building undersea warfare capabilities.

The latest top-level reassessment of strategy, or Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), is the first to fully take stock of the starkly increased demands on the U.S. military -- both in fighting wars abroad and defending the homeland -- since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Under the 2001 review, the Pentagon planned to be able to "swiftly defeat" two adversaries in overlapping military campaigns, with the option of overthrowing a hostile government in one.

In the new strategy, one of those two campaigns can be a large-scale, prolonged "irregular" conflict, such as the counterinsurgency in Iraq.

It calls for no net increases in troop levels, and seeks no dramatic cuts or additions to currently planned weapons systems.

The new strategy marks a clear shift away from the Pentagon's long-standing emphasis on conventional wars of tanks, fighter jets and destroyers against nation states.

Instead, it concentrates on four new goals: defeating terrorist networks; countering nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; dissuading major powers such as China, India and Russia from becoming adversaries; and creating a more robust homeland defense.

end quotes

And of course, what it really does is dump a ton of OUR tax money down the pockets of some influential people in OUR America who have Rumhead, er, Rummy, in there in OUR government as their SHILL ....

And maybe Don's own extensive stock holdings will get a boost here, as well ..

But of course ...

That would be merely accidental ....

[Livyjr]

"Rumsfeld: Iran Regime Sponsors Terrorism"

By DAVID RISING, Associated Press Writer

MUNICH, Germany - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld urged America's allies to increase their military spending to prevent the rise of a "global extremist Islamic empire."

"It may be easier for all of us to use our scarce tax dollars to meet urgent needs we all have at home," Rumsfeld said.

"But unless we invest in our defense and security, our homelands will be at risk."

"It may be easier for all of us to use our scarce tax dollars to meet urgent needs we all have at home," Rumsfeld said.

"But hell, folks, if we do that ..."

"Well, WHAT IS GOING TO BE LEFT TO SHOVE DOWN OUR OWN POCKETS?"

"YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN ..."

And George does ......

"Bush plans hefty cuts to Medicare spending - President looks to slash payments to health care providers by billions"

By ROBERT PEAR, New York Times
First published: Saturday, February 4, 2006

WASHINGTON -- In his budget next week, President Bush will propose substantial savings in Medicare, stepping up his efforts to rein in the growing costs of social insurance programs, administration officials and health care lobbyists said Friday.

For the first time since taking office five years ago, they said, Bush will try to reduce projected Medicare payments to hospitals and other health care providers by billions of dollars over the next five years.

In addition, they said, Bush intends to seek further increases in Medicare premiums for high-income people, beyond those already scheduled to take effect next year.

Despite the failure of his plan to overhaul Social Security last year, Bush has signaled that he intends to remain aggressive in confronting rapid increases in federal spending linked to the aging of the population.

"The retirement of the baby boom generation will put unprecedented strains on the federal government," Bush said in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Administration officials, congressional aides and lobbyists said the President was contemplating a package of proposals that would cut projected Medicare spending by $30 billion to $35 billion in the next five years.

That represents less than 1.5 percent of total Medicare spending in those years.

But whether Congress has the appetite to trim popular benefit programs in an election year is unclear.

The House passed another deficit-reduction bill this week by just two votes, underscoring the qualms among moderate Republicans about how far to go in limiting the growth of domestic programs at a time when the administration continues to push its tax-cutting agenda.

Bush plans to send his budget request for next year to Congress on Monday.

Many of his proposals follow recommendations from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an independent federal panel.

At a meeting last month, the panel said that hospitals did not have to be fully compensated for the increased costs of the goods and services.

These costs are expected to rise 3.4 percent in the fiscal year 2007.

But the panel said that hospitals could get along with a smaller increase, just 2.95 percent, if they became more efficient.

Jack Ashby, a research director at the commission, said, "We expect the recommendation to have no effect on hospitals' ability to furnish care to Medicare beneficiaries."

But Richard J. Pollack, executive vice president of the American Hospital Association, said the cutback could damage the quality of hospital care.

Already, he said, two-thirds of hospitals lose money serving Medicare patients.

The President's 2007 budget also calls for a freeze in Medicare payments to nursing homes and home health agencies, as recommended by the commission.

In addition, he proposes to reduce payments for oxygen equipment provided to Medicare beneficiaries who have trouble breathing.

This proposal is likely to touch off protests from a coalition of patients and oxygen suppliers.

The coalition has been running television commercials against a powerful California congressman who has supported such changes.

In one commercial, an Air Force veteran, with an oxygen tube in his nose, asks the Congressman, Republican Rep. Bill Thomas:

"I was proud to fight for my country."

"Why are you not willing to fight for me?"

Thomas denounced the commercials.

"It's outrageous that some companies are trying to scare seniors," he said Friday.

Nursing home operators said it would be absurd to freeze their Medicare payments at a time when the Bush administration is demanding improvements in the quality of care.

The staff of the Medicare payment commission said current rates were "more than adequate."

Bush's budget does not seek any change in Medicare payments for doctors.

Their payments were frozen this year.

Under current law, they will be cut more than 4 percent next year.

Beneficiaries now pay premiums of $88.50 a month -- more than $1,000 a year -- for coverage of doctors' visits and other outpatient care.

Under the 2003 Medicare law, any beneficiary with more than $80,000 of annual income will have to pay higher premiums in 2007 and later years.

For people with incomes of $100,000 to $150,000, premiums would more than double.

Under the law, the income thresholds are increased each year to reflect inflation.

Bush's proposal would eliminate these adjustments, so that more people would have to pay the higher premiums each year.

The last three presidents regularly proposed to cut Medicare payments to hospitals below the levels needed to keep up with inflation.

But in the last five years, Bush generally avoided making such proposals.

Medicare spending totaled $333 billion last year.

Under current law, it will climb by one-third in two years, reaching $445 billion in 2007, the Congressional Budget Office says.

[Livyjr]

"It may be easier for all of us to use our scarce tax dollars to meet urgent needs we all have at home," Rumsfeld said.

"But hell, folks, if we do that ..."

"Well, WHAT IS GOING TO BE LEFT TO SHOVE DOWN OUR OWN POCKETS?"

"YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN ..."

And George does ......

"Bush plans hefty cuts to Medicare spending - President looks to slash payments to health care providers by billions" 
 
By ROBERT PEAR, New York Times
First published: Saturday, February 4, 2006

WASHINGTON -- In his budget next week, President Bush will propose substantial savings in Medicare, stepping up his efforts to rein in the growing costs of social insurance programs, administration officials and health care lobbyists said Friday.

For the first time since taking office five years ago, they said, Bush will try to reduce projected Medicare payments to hospitals and other health care providers by billions of dollars over the next five years.

"Bill to ensure drug coverage vetoed - State would have been required to pay for seniors' prescriptions while feds sort out new Medicare plan"

By JAY JOCHNOWITZ, State editor, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, February 4, 2006

ALBANY -- Gov. George Pataki on Friday vetoed a bill that would have required the state to keep paying for senior citizens' prescription drugs while the federal government straightens out problems with a new Medicare drug program.

The governor's move, announced at 5:30 p.m. while he was away on a political trip in Iowa, essentially maintains the status quo.

Seniors affected by the decision -- an estimated 600,000 people who are "dual eligible" for Medicaid and Medicare -- will continue to get their prescriptions filled, with the state picking up the cost if necessary, at least through March 8.

But legislators who had pushed the bill as a way to give poor, elderly people some certainty about being able to afford their medications were openly displeased.

There were hints of a possible veto override.

"I will be studying all steps that the Legislature can take in the wake of the governor's veto to make sure that this promise to our seniors is kept," Senate Health Committee Chairman Kemp Hannon, R-Nassau County, said.

His Assembly counterpart, Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, said the veto was "a slap at senior citizens and it violates New York's responsibility to its senior citizens."

A key problem, which is not isolated to New York, is that the new "Medicare D" prescription drug program fails to recognize many Medicaid clients as eligible for coverage.

Previously, Medicaid covered their drugs, but under federal rules Medicaid clients who are eligible for Medicare must switch to Medicare D.

The confusion raised the specter of people going without medications they need to survive.

Last month, Pataki had the Health Department suspend the rules and allow people to be covered under Medicaid for a week.

The Legislature, however, decided on a more permanent solution.

It passed a bill requiring the state to continue paying for dual-eligibles' prescriptions until Health Commissioner Antonia Novello declared in writing that the Medicare D program is fixed.

Pataki said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services assured him it would cover the state's costs through Feb. 15.

After that, Pataki said, pharmacists will "be required to attempt again" to submit claims to the federal government.

If that fails, the federal government would reimburse the state, at least through March 8.

The program is expected to work properly by then.

Jay Jochnowitz can be reached at 454-5424 or by e-mail at jjochnowitz@timesunion.com.

[Livyjr]

As to George W. Bush himself, I seriously doubt that he really has a clue as to what has gone on in the world before his ASCENSION to power here as OUR MESSIAH, our alleged "DELIVERER", and I say that based upon comments made in posts before this one by George W. Bush's own people ...

"WE DO NOT NEED TO STUDY HISTORY ..."

"WE WRITE THE HISTORY THAT OTHERS WILL STUDY WHEN WE ARE GONE ..."

Well ...

Okay, George .....

And here is some of that history that BUSHCO's are writing, right now .....

"Sunni Chiefs Raise Warnings of Civil War"

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 1 minute ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Sunni politicians warned of civil war Saturday after the bullet-riddled bodies of 14 Sunni Arab men were found in Baghdad — apparently the latest victims of sectarian death squads.

One person was killed and 12 injured when a mortar shell exploded near a Shiite mosque north of the capital.

Sunni leaders claimed the 14 men were seized last week by Shiite-led security forces.

There was no confirmation from the Shiite-led Interior Ministry that government troops were responsible.

A top ministry official, Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, said the bodies were shot multiple times and dumped in the back of a truck in northern Baghdad late Friday.

He denounced the killings as a "criminal" act and said "we have nothing so far" to indicate government forces were to blame.

Leaders of several major Sunni Arab political organizations insisted the Interior Ministry was responsible for the killings.

Khalaf al-Ilyan, head of the National Dialogue Council, said the men were arrested by Interior Ministry troops at a Sunni mosque in Baghdad and killed in an unknown location.

"The government is pushing hard toward a civil war," al-Ilyan told reporters.

Dr. Salman al-Jumaili, a senior member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, part of the largest Sunni bloc in the new parliament, threatened to carry through with a threat by his party's leader Wednesday to launch a "civil disobedience" campaign if attacks against Sunnis do not stop.

"There is an escalation in organized assassinations by parties belonging to government security forces," al-Jumaili said.

"There is an organized and well-trained force at the Interior Ministry conducting this sectarian cleansing against us."

The 14 bodies were taken to a morgue to be collected by their families, the Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni clerical group, said in a statement.

The bodies of a father and son were taken to the headquarters of the National Dialogue Council, another Sunni political group, and displayed to reporters.

Shiites, an estimated 60 percent of Iraq's 27 million people, also have been the victims of sectarian killings and often have been targeted in suicide bombings.

Long oppressed under Saddam Hussein, Shiites insist they must maintain control of the security forces to defend themselves and to prevent the return of Saddam-style dictatorship.

Late Saturday, a mortar shell exploded a few yards from a Shiite shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.

One person was killed and 12 injured, including three children, police Capt. Layth Mohammed said.

Top Sunni political leaders have demanded that Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, a member of the biggest Shiite party, be dismissed and that the post in the new government go to someone without close ties to Shiite religious parties.

U.S. and United Nations diplomats have also called for control of the key security ministries to taken out of the hands of sectarian groups.

The issue is expected to hinder quick agreement on a new government when talks among Iraq's parties begin in earnest this month.

Voters chose a new parliament in elections Dec. 15 but no government has been formed because major parties have been awaiting final certification of results, expected in the coming week.

Shiite religious parties, who dominate the outgoing government, won the biggest number of seats — 128 out of 275 — in the new parliament.

That's not enough to govern without partners, and U.S. officials have been pressing hard for a major role for Sunni Arabs as well as Kurds.

Sunni Arab parties won 55 seats, a threefold increase over representation in the outgoing parliament.

The U.S. hopes that an inclusive government will encourage many Sunni insurgents to lay down their arms and join the political process.

Mainstream Sunni politicians warn that killings of Sunni civilians will undermine that goal.

Elsewhere, gunmen killed a former official of Saddam's Baath Party as he left his home in the northern city of Mosul on Friday, police Capt. Ahmed Khalil said.

U.S. troops also found a large weapons cache west of Fallujah, the 11th such discovery in 13 days, the military said Saturday.

Also Saturday, protests continued in Iraq against caricatures of the prophet Muhammad that were originally published in a Danish newspaper.

___

Associated Press correspondents Paul Garwood, Bushra Juhi and Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.

This post has been edited by Livyjr: Feb 4 2006, 06:18 PM

[Livyjr]

BOOM ....BOOM ......BOOM ....BOOM .....

WAR DRUMS BEATING ...

A big fire burning ....

Dick Cheney, with a special gold-plated Abercrombie & Fitch BI-CENTENNIAL EDITION hatchet at only $750, half-naked, dressed only in a designer breech-clout and a special pair of leggings that he got in a Jackson Hole boutique for $3500, mouth drawn back in a rictus, teeth showing like a big Wyoming GRIZ, whirls and capers and cavorts around the fire like an imp released from the bowels of hell itself, gibbering and alternately grunting in some tongue intelligible to only himself, if even that ....

While Donald Rumsfeld, painted up to beat the band in rouge and vermillion and whatever that brown stuff on him is, dressed in the skin of an IRAQINAMI, head still attached, stands up on a stump and shouts exhortations to the assembled crowd .....

WAR ..... WAR .... WAR .... WAR

And here we go again ....

And here is some of that history that BUSHCO's are writing, right now .....

"Sunni Chiefs Raise Warnings of Civil War"

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Sunni politicians warned of civil war Saturday after the bullet-riddled bodies of 14 Sunni Arab men were found in Baghdad — apparently the latest victims of sectarian death squads.

Also Saturday, protests continued in Iraq against caricatures of the prophet Muhammad that were originally published in a Danish newspaper.

"Syrians torch embassies over caricatures"

By ALBERT AJI, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:17 p.m., Saturday, February 4, 2006

DAMASCUS, Syria -- Thousands of Syrians enraged by caricatures of Islam's revered prophet torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus on Saturday -- the most violent in days of furious protests by Muslims in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

In Gaza, Palestinians marched through the streets, storming European buildings and burning German and Danish flags.

Protesters smashed the windows of the German cultural center and threw stones at the European Commission building, police said.

Iraqis rallying by the hundreds demanded an apology from the European Union, and the leader of the Palestinian group Hamas called the cartoons "an unforgivable insult" that merited punishment by death.

Pakistan summoned the envoys of nine Western countries in protest, and even Europeans took to the streets in Denmark and Britain to voice their anger.

At the heart of the protest: 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad first published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten in September and reprinted in European media in the past week.

One depicted the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse.

The paper said it had asked cartoonists to draw the pictures because the media was practicing self-censorship when it came to Muslim issues.

The drawings have touched a raw nerve in part because Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

Aggravating the affront, Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said repeatedly he cannot apologize for his country's free press.

But other European leaders tried Saturday to calm the storm.

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel said she understood Muslims were hurt -- though that did not justify violence.

"Freedom of the press is one of the great assets as a component of democracy, but we also have the value and asset of freedom of religion," Merkel told an international security conference in Munich, Germany.

The Vatican deplored the violence but said certain provocative forms of criticism were unacceptable.

"The right to freedom of thought and expression ... cannot entail the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers," the Vatican said in its first statement on the controversy.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who has criticized European media for reprinting the caricatures, said there was no justification for the violence in Damascus.

"We stand in solidarity with the Danish government in its call for calm and its demand that all its diplomats and diplomatic premises are properly protected."

"It's incumbent on the Syrian authorities to act in this regard."

But Denmark and Norway did not wait for more violence.

With their Damascus embassies up in flames, the foreign ministries advised their citizens to leave Syria without delay.

"It's horrible and totally unacceptable," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said on Danish public television Saturday.

No diplomats were injured in the Syrian violence, officials said.

But Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds -- whose country, along with Chile, has an embassy in the same building -- said she would lodge a formal protest over the lack of security.

In Santiago, the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Chilean Embassy in Damascus was also torched but nobody was injured.

The demonstrations in Damascus began peacefully with protesters gathering outside the building housing the Danish Embassy.

But they began throwing stones and eventually broke through police barricades.

Some scrambled up concrete barriers protecting the embassy, climbed into the building and set a fire.

"With our blood and souls we defend you, O Prophet of God!" the demonstrators chanted.

Some removed the Danish flag and replaced it with a green flag printed with the words: "There is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God."

Demonstrators moved onto the Norwegian Embassy about 4 miles away, also setting fire to it before being dispersed by police using tear gas and water cannons.

Hundreds of police and troops barricaded the road leading to the French Embassy, but protesters were able to break through briefly before fleeing from the force of water cannons.

Amid the furor, Syria's Grand Mufti urged calm, noting the demonstration had started in a "nice and disciplined way," but then turned violent because of "some members who do not understand the language of dialogue."

"We never expressed our anger in such a way, and we believe that dialogue should be done through guidance and teaching, not through killing, harming and burning," Sheik Ahmed Badr-Eddine Hassoun said in remarks carried by state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, or SANA.

In Gaza, masked gunmen affiliated with the Fatah Party called on the Palestinian Authority and Muslim nations to recall their diplomatic missions from Denmark until the government apologizes.

In the West Bank town of Hebron, about 50 Palestinians marched to the headquarters of the international observer mission there, burned a Danish flag and demanded a boycott of Danish goods.

"We will redeem our prophet Muhammad with our blood!" they chanted.

Mahmoud Zahar, leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, told the Italian daily Il Giornale the cartoonists should be punished by death.

We should have killed all those who offend the Prophet and instead here we are, protesting peacefully." he said.

Hundreds of Iraqis rallied south of Baghdad, some carrying banners urging "honest people all over the world to condemn this act" and demanding an EU apology.

Anger swelled in Europe, too.

Young Muslims clashed briefly with police in Copenhagen, the Danish capital, and some 700 people rallied outside the Danish Embassy in London.

A South African court banned the country's Sunday newspapers from reprinting the cartoons.

Iran's president ordered his commerce minister to study canceling all trade contracts with European countries whose newspapers have published the caricatures, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the caricatures showed the "impudence and rudeness" of Western newspapers against the prophet as well as the "maximum resentment of the Zionists (Jews) ruling these countries against Islam and Muslims."

The leaders of Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan denounced the publication of the caricatures.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry summoned nine envoys to lodge protests against the publication of the "blasphemous" sketches.

------

Associated Press writer Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

"George Bush's Ministry of Truth"

By Reggie Rivers
DenverPost.com

When I first read George Orwell's novel "1984" in high school, I was struck by the ability of the Ministry's of Truth to cause the public to forget a truth simply by stating its opposite.

The Ministry's three slogans - "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Strength" - revealed its talent for reversing the meaning of words.

In high school, I assumed that this type of manipulation would never work in the real world, but now and again I wonder - especially when I hear President Bush attempt to reshape our perception of actual events by telling us that the truth is the opposite of what we're seeing.

During the State of the Union address this week, he said, "We seek the end of tyranny in our world."

Yet, his administration has engaged in extremely tyrannical behavior: invading a sovereign nation, incarcerating people without trials, committing torture, spying on its own citizens and shrouding itself in secrecy.

Regarding the war in Iraq, he said, "If we were to leave these vicious attackers alone, they would not leave us alone."

"They would simply move the battlefield to our own shores."

Though it has long been proved that the Sept. 11 terrorists weren't from Iraq, had no connection to Iraq, and are not now in Iraq, President Bush continues to insist that the war is related to Sept. 11.

He said, "There is no peace in retreat."

"And there is no honor in retreat."

Of course, there can be peace and honor in retreat, but since he practices a doctrine of never considering alternatives and never admitting mistakes, denigrating the merits of retreat is like a scorched-Earth policy that forces combatants forward even if it's suicidal to continue.

He said, "We are on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory."

Because of the challenges related to fighting a shadow army of insurgents, the coalition has been on the defensive for most of the war.

The only thing that has been clear from the start is that the Bush administration never has had a well-developed plan.

About the war, President Bush said, "We are winning."

More than 2,200 U.S. troops have been killed, more than 16,500 have been injured, and combat operations have cost hundreds of billions of dollars with no end in sight.

The statement "We are winning" is pure puffery.

"Our coalition has learned from experience in Iraq," he said.

President Bush loves to suggest that he has learned things, but he never reveals what he has learned and, when pressed, he always insists that he wouldn't change any of his previous choices.

True to form, he followed up his comment about learning with, "Hindsight alone is not wisdom."

"Second-guessing is not a strategy."

This is clever speechwriting, but it's simply not true.

If a drunk driver received a DWI citation or, worse, caused an accident, the courts would use hindsight and second-guessing to punish him and to instill greater wisdom in his future choices.

President Bush said, "However we feel about the decisions and debates of the past, our nation has only one option."

Again, he suggests that he has learned something, but then insists that the only possible choice is to continue doing what he's been doing from the start.

Whether it's deliberate or accidental, President Bush is channeling the Ministry of Truth in making these statements that are intended to manipulate the American people into believing the words coming out of his mouth more than the evidence they can see with their own eyes.

His poll numbers continue to drop, so it seems that Americans, unlike the citizens in Orwell's book, are able to see through his lies.

Former Bronco Reggie Rivers (reggierivers2002@yahoo.com) is the host of "Global Agenda" Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. on KBDI-Channel 12. His column appears every Friday.

[Livyjr]

February 4, 2006

New York Times Editorial

"Tax Talk Goes Orwellian"

President Bush had it exactly backwards in his speech Tuesday night when he exhorted lawmakers to keep cutting taxes.

He noted that when the going gets tough, leaders are tempted to take stands that are crowd pleasing yet counterproductive, like championing protectionism in the face of global competition.

Fair enough.

But then he warned that in today's uncertain times, lawmakers might even be tempted to do something as weak-kneed as "increasing taxes."

If Mr. Bush is trying to say that tax cutting is politically courageous, that ignores reality.

Politicians cut taxes to please the crowd, and they are always and understandably reluctant to vote against a cut or — gasp — vote for a tax increase because that could make them unpopular.

Mr. Bush knows that.

He was basically warning the assembled lawmakers, actually the Republicans, that they would never make the cheerleading squad if they didn't extend his temporary tax cuts.

We hope Congress will realize that extending the tax cuts would be an act of political cowardice, not courage.

The country is already deep in debt, and the tax cuts are largely to blame.

In the next two weeks, the administration expects to hit the nation's legal debt limit — $8,184,000,000,000 — and has told Congress it needs to vote to raise the debt ceiling to nearly $9 trillion, a 51 percent increase since 2001, when Mr. Bush took office.

Congress must raise the limit or the government will default.

But Congressional leaders are looking for ways to downplay the vote, precisely because it's a disgrace.

Casting the tax cuts in stone now would be particularly craven because they don't expire for another three to five years.

But Mr. Bush and his supporters in Congress are hot to act now.

That is because the cuts they want to extend the most — special low tax rates for investment income — overwhelmingly enrich the rich and will be even harder to justify in the years to come, when, by all reasonable estimates, the country's financial outlook will have deteriorated further.

The tax cutters are not being brave.

They are afraid they won't get their way if they wait.

[Livyjr]

"Bloody attack on Mass. gay bar stuns region"

By David Ortiz

NEW BEDFORD, Massachusetts (Reuters) - An attack by a neo-Nazi teenager, accused of shooting two people and bludgeoning a third with a hatchet in a Massachusetts gay bar before fleeing, has stunned gays in the region and sparked fears that the assailant could strike again.

A manhunt was under way on Friday for an 18-year-old whom police say walked into Puzzles Lounge in the city of New Bedford late on Wednesday, ordered two drinks and then went on a rampage after asking a bartender "is this a gay bar?"

The crime stunned residents in the blue-collar city.

"It's crazy that it happened in this day and age," said Craig Paiva, a 29-year-old New Bedford resident who lives two blocks from Robida's home.

"You wonder how someone could hate a group of people so badly at the age of 18."

(Additional reporting by Jason Szep in Boston)

Just out of curiosity ....

I wonder how many hours a week this Robida listens to Rush Limbaugh ....

Well ...

There was quite a bit of speculation over these last few days as to where this young CONSERVATIVE who made the attack on the gay bar in Massachusetts would run to ....

And who he would call for sanctuary ....

And whether he would make it to that sanctuary ...

Or not ....

Some thought that he was already packed up and spirited off on his way to IRAQINAM as a civilian contractor, having just proved by his attack in that gay bar that he had the "RIGHT STUFF" to be a HOLY WARRIOR for George W. Bush's CAUSE ....

Some people wondered if he would call Karl Rove, and have Karl get him sanctuary somewhere with some of Karl's "people" ...

Others were betting that he was heading right towards Rush Limbaugh's studio itself, believing perhaps that if he could just get to Rush, everything would be made right for him ...

And likely, he would emerge as a NEW DARLING for the CONSERVATIVE SET, here in OUR America ....

Whatever ...

He didn't quite make it ....

And maybe he will end up emerging here as a MARTYER for the CONSERVATIVES here in OUR America ....

A new SYMBOL of their "VALUES" for them to rally around ...

Now that George's ratings are falling ever lower ....

"Teen Wanted in Mass. Gay Bar Attack Caught"

By NOAH TRISTER, Associated Press Writer

54 minutes ago

GASSVILLE, Ark. - Two days after a violent rampage at a gay bar in Massachusetts, authorities said the teen suspect fled 1,500 miles to Arkansas where he fatally shot a police officer and a 33-year-old woman.

Jacob D. Robida, a high school dropout who friends said glorified Naziism, was shot twice in the head in a gun battle with police Saturday, officials said.

He was critically injured.

After Thursday's hatchet-and-gun attack at Puzzles Lounge in New Bedford, Mass., which injured three people, police said the 18-year-old fled in a green Pontiac and picked up Jennifer Rena Bailey, at her Charleston, W. Va., home.

"Apparently she's had a prior relationship with this guy and had been corresponding with him," said West Virginia State Police Sgt. C.J. Ellyson.

They were driving through the northern Arkansas town of Gassville when Officer Jim Sell pulled them over for a traffic stop.

The teen twice shot Sell, 56, said Massachusetts prosecutor Paul Walsh Jr.

Witness Maryann Hoyne said she saw the officer's squad car bumper to bumper with Robida's car, and heard three gunshots.

Sell was on the ground and Robida got back into his car and drove off, she said.

Robida returned a moment later to retrieve his gun, which he had left at the side of the officer, said Hoyne, manager of the Brass Door Motel in Gassville.

About 25 miles away, Robida drove over spike strips set out by state troopers and drove with two punctured tires into downtown Norfork.

Robida's car then careened into several parked vehicles to avoid a police barricade.

"When he wrecked he started firing at our officer and a state police officer, and the officers returned fire," said Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery.

The teen shot the woman in the car with him before he was wounded in the shootout with police, Walsh said.

State police wouldn't confirm Walsh's account and said ballistics tests would determine how the woman died.

Robida was taken to a Springfield, Mo., hospital, according to Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler.

One victim of the Massachusetts attack — which police have called a hate crime — said he was "elated" the teen had been apprehended.

"Right now I'd like him to be able to regain consciousness and answer some questions," said Bob Perry, who was released from a Boston hospital Friday.

He had a black eye, a five-inch gash on his right cheek and a bullet hole in his back.

Another victim remained hospitalized, and officials would not disclose the location of the third.

Police said Robida would be charged with attempted murder, assault and civil rights violations in the attack.

end quotes

Just out of curiosity .....

I wonder how much this Robida was listening to the DEMAGOGUE Rick Santorum before he went on this rampage .....

Or that Reverend Lusk character .....

Getting the latest poop from them on CONSERVATIVE "VALUES" ....

Here in OUR America ...

[Livyjr]

 
"Climate expert claims coercion - Top NASA scientist says Bush administration is pressuring him to stop speaking out about dangers of greenhouse gases and links to global warming"

By ANDREW C. REVKIN, New York Times
First published: Sunday, January 29, 2006

NEW YORK - The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions.

Where scientists' points of view on climate policy align with those of the administration, however, there are few signs of restrictions on extracurricular lectures or writing.

One example is Indur M. Goklany, assistant director of science and technology policy in the policy office of the Interior Department.

For years, Goklany, an electrical engineer by training, has written in papers and books that it may be better not to force cuts in greenhouse gases because the added prosperity from unfettered economic activity would allow countries to exploit benefits of warming and adapt to problems.

And being a GOOD AMERICAN, of course, one who listens assiduously to Scott McClellan and Rush Limbaugh every day for my instructions on how to see life and how to think as a GOOD AMERICAN should think, well ....

Having accepted that I know absolutely nothing about science ...

And that WHITE HOUSE lawyers know everything that ever was, is, or could be known on the subject ....

Well ....

You know ....

And so ...

Having accepted that these WHITE HOUSE lawyers are right, and correct, that GLOBAL WARMING really is a VERY GOOD THING for the world, and thus, as a corrollary that it may be better not to force cuts in greenhouse gases because the added prosperity from unfettered economic activity would allow countries to exploit benefits of warming and adapt to problems, what I have decided I can do as a GOOD American is to simply report the facts as they develop on this WHITE HOUSE LAWYER THEORY ....

Specifically ...

Adapting to problems in the face of all of this unfettered economic growth that IS resulting from GLOBAL WARMING ...

And here is some now ....

"Earthen dam threatens homes - Debris from landslide holds back creek, posing downstream concern"

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Sunday, February 5, 2006

GREENPORT -- Officials are concerned that an earthen dam that formed when a landslide tumbled into the Claverack Creek earlier this week may break apart, threatening downstream homes.

The new fears prompted local and state authorities to declare a limited state of emergency and to reopen a command post on the site where a 300-yard-section of embankment tumbled into the creek on Thursday.

The landslide has diverted Claverack Creek from its normal path and has led a considerable amount of water to build up behind the massive pile of earth and rock that was formed.

"We're concerned that if the blockage lets loose, a sudden surge of water will come through, especially in low lying areas," said town of Stockport Supervisor Leo Pulcher.

A couple dozen homes in Stockport, about two miles downstream from the landslide, lie in the creek's path, Pulcher said.

Officials plan to continue around-the-clock presence at the site, in case the dam begins to give away.

If it does, authorities expect high water that could dampen homes, but not a massive flood.

"You're not going to have a 15 or 20-feet wall of water coming through," Pulcher said.

"We just want people to know what's going on."

-- Matt Pacenza

end quotes

I mean ...

Well ...

Maybe this is not the economic opportunity of the century here ....

BUT ....

There is some money to be made here, isn't there?

I think this is the kind of GOOD STUFF that these WHITE HOUSE lawyers are telling us is going to be coming our way, this unfettered opportunity for economic growth as a result of GLOBAL WARMING .....

If you are selling boats, anyway ...

[Livyjr]

Well ...

There was quite a bit of speculation over these last few days as to where this young CONSERVATIVE who made the attack on the gay bar in Massachusetts would run to ....

And who he would call for sanctuary ....

And whether he would make it to that sanctuary ...

Or not ....

Interesting .....

How many people here in OUR America were betting that this guy would make the run to Texas .....

Get himself down there to the HOLY GRAIL .....

Maybe take out some of Cindy Sheehan's people outside the gates ...

And then .....

"Man Held in Bar Attack Dies After Shootout"

By NOAH TRISTER, Associated Press Writer

46 minutes ago

GASSVILLE, Ark. - The teenager suspected of a hatchet-and-gun attack in a Massachusetts gay bar and in the killing of two people in Arkansas, including a policeman, died Sunday of wounds suffered in a gun battle with officers, authorities said.

Jacob D. Robida, 18, died at 3:38 a.m. Sunday at Cox-South Hospital in Springfield, Mo., said hospital spokesman Randy Berger.

Robida, a high school dropout who friends said glorified Naziism, was shot twice in the head in a shootout with police Saturday after he killed a Gassville police officer and a woman in his car, authorities said.

Two days earlier, he allegedly went on a rampage at the Puzzles Lounge in New Bedford, Mass., that injured three men, one critically.

Police labeled that attack a hate crime.

"I wish he would have lived and gone on trial," said Dan Sheterom, 51, who lives above Puzzles Lounge and frequents the tavern.

"I would have liked to have seen if the commonwealth here would have taken it up to the federal government as a hate crime."

After Thursday's attack, police say Robida drove off and picked up 33-year-old Jennifer Rena Bailey at her home in Charleston, W.Va.

"Apparently she's had a prior relationship with this guy and had been corresponding with him," said West Virginia State Police Sgt. C.J. Ellyson.

They were driving through the northern Arkansas town of Gassville when Officer Jim Sell pulled them over for a traffic violation Saturday.

Sell, 56, was shot twice, said Bristol, Mass., District Attorney Paul Walsh Jr.

Witness Maryann Hoyne said she saw the officer's squad car sitting bumper to bumper with Robida's car, and heard three gunshots.

She saw Sell on the ground as Robida got back into his car and drove off, she said.

Robida returned a moment later to retrieve his gun, which he had left beside the officer, said Hoyne, manager of the Brass Door Motel in Gassville.

About 25 miles away, Robida drove over spike strips set out by state troopers and continued driving with two punctured tires into downtown Norfork, where he smashed into several parked vehicles to avoid a police barricade.

"When he wrecked he started firing at our officer and a state police officer, and the officers returned fire," said Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery.

The teen shot Bailey before he was wounded in the shootout with police, Walsh said.

State police wouldn't confirm Walsh's account and said ballistics tests would determine how the woman died.

One victim of the Massachusetts attack said he was "elated" the teen had been stopped.

Bob Perry was released from a Boston hospital Friday.

He had a black eye, a five-inch gash on his right cheek and a bullet hole in his back.

Another victim remained hospitalized, and officials would not disclose the location of the third.

Before Robida's death, Massachusetts police had said he would be charged with attempted murder, assault and civil rights violations in the attack.

In Arkansas, killing a police officer is punishable by death.

Robida's friends said he had, at times, glorified Nazism and bore a swastika tattoo, but had not previously expressed prejudice toward homosexuals.

Rep. Barney Frank, the openly gay congressman whose district includes New Bedford, said the community has a history of tolerance.

"This is not some general problem with the people of New Bedford," Frank said.

"This is one disturbed 18-year-old."
___

Associated Press writers Ray Henry in New Bedford, Mass.; John Raby in Charleston, W.Va.; and Tom Parsons in Little Rock contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

And then there is this, of course ....

I'm heading into my sixtieth year ...

And it was my hope to end my days in a world at peace ...

HAH!

"Violence spreads over Muhammad caricatures"

By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press
Last updated: 2:46 p.m., Sunday, February 5, 2006

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Thousands of Muslims rampaged Sunday in Beirut, setting fire to the Danish Embassy, burning Danish flags and lobbing stones at a Maronite Catholic church as violent protests over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad spread from neighboring Syria.

Troops fired bullets into the air and used tear gas and water cannons to push the crowds back after a small group of Islamic extremists tried to break through the security barrier outside the embassy.

Flames and smoke billowed from the building.

Security officials said at least 30 people were injured.

The Danish Foreign Ministry urged Danes to leave Lebanon as soon as possible, while Danes and Norwegians heeded a similar call in Syria, where violent protests broke out on Saturday.

"It is a critical situation and it is very serious," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said Sunday on Danish public radio.

Protesters also took to the streets by the thousands elsewhere in the Muslim world, a day after demonstrators in Syria charged security barriers outside the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus and sent the buildings up in flames.

Those attacks earned widespread condemnation from European nations and the U.S., which accused the Syrian government of backing the protests.

The Danish foreign minister said: "enough is enough."

"Now it has become more than a case about the drawings: Now there are forces that wants a confrontation between our cultures," Moeller said.

"It is in no one's interest, neither them or us."

Syria blamed Denmark for the protests, criticizing the Scandinavian nation for refusing to apologize for the caricatures of Islam's holiest figure.

"(Denmark's) government was able to avoid reaching this point ... simply through an apology" as requested by Arab and Muslim diplomats, state-run daily Al-Thawra said in an editorial Sunday.

"It is unjustifiable under any kind of personal freedoms to allow a person or a group to insult the beliefs of millions of Muslims," the paper said.

Anger has broken out across the Muslim world over 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten in September and reprinted in European media and New Zealand in the past week.

One depicted the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse.

The paper said it had asked cartoonists to draw the pictures because the media was practicing self-censorship when it came to Muslim issues.

The drawings have touched a raw nerve in part because Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depictions of the Prophet Muhammad for fear they could lead to idolatry.

Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said he personally disapproves of the caricatures and any attacks on religion -- but insisted he cannot apologize on behalf of his country's independent press.

Iraqi Transport Minister Salam al-Maliki said his country has decided to cancel its contracts with Danish firms and reject any offers of reconstruction money from Copenhagen to protest the publication of the caricatures.

The government had issued no official statement and the value of the transportation contracts was not available.

Iran also said it has recalled its ambassador to Denmark amid the controversy.

"Insulting the prophet was unacceptable, resentful, and a sign of barbarism," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said, adding that Tehran planned to take further action.

Syria, Saudi Arabia and Libya have also recalled their ambassadors to Copenhagen in condemnation of the caricatures.

Lebanon's Grand Mufti Mohammed Rashid Kabbani denounced the violence and appealed for calm, accusing infiltrators of sowing the dissent to "harm the stability of Lebanon."

Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud denounced the violence, saying: "National unity should remain protected and consolidated."

He warned against attempts to destabilize the country, and his government called for an emergency Cabinet meeting later Sunday.

In Beirut, protesters came by the busloads to rally outside the Danish Embassy, where they chanted, "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God!"

Some 2,000 troops and riot police were deployed.

A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said staff at the Danish Embassy had been evacuated two days ago.

The trouble threatened to rile sectarian tensions in Beirut when protesters began stoning St. Maroun Church, one of the city's main Maronite Catholic churches, and property in Ashrafieh, a Christian area.

Sectarian tension is a sensitive issue in Lebanon, where Muslims and Christian fought a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.

Lebanon's Justice Minister Charles Rizk, a Christian, urged leaders to help end the violence.

"What is the guilt of the citizens of Ashrafieh of caricatures that were published in Denmark?"

"This sabotage should stop," Rizk said on LBC television.

In the Afghan city of Mihtarlam, some 3,000 demonstrators burned a Danish flag and demanded that the editors at the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten be prosecuted for blasphemy, Gov. Sher Mohammed Safi said.

Some 1,000 people tried to march to the offices of the United Nations and other aid groups in Fayzabad.

Police fired shots into the air to disperse them, officials said.

Nobody was hurt.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed anger over the cartoons but said Danish troops and other citizens should feel safe in his country.

"It's not the responsibility of Danish troops, it's not the responsibility of Danish government, it's the free media."

"... We must not hold the troops who are serving in Afghanistan responsible for this," he said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition."

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, students in uniform -- age 13 and even younger -- carried protest posters and shouted: "No to offending our prophet."

Dozens of Palestinian gunmen also defaced the entrance to a French learning center and attacked a man who tried to protect the closed building in Nablus.

In Iraq, about 1,000 Sunni Muslims demonstrated outside a mosque in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi.

A giant banner read: "Iraq must end political, diplomatic, cultural and economic relations with the European countries that supported the Danish insult against Prophet Muhammad and all Muslims."

Another 1,000 supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr rallied in Amarah, denouncing Denmark, Israel and the United States and demanding that Danish and Norwegian diplomats be expelled.

More than 700 Muslims marched through Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, to protest the cartoons' publication in two New Zealand newspapers.

European leaders urged calm and respect -- both for religion and freedom of the press.

"The violence now, particularly the burning of Danish missions abroad, is absolutely outrageous and totally unjustified, and what we want to see is this matter being calmed down," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in London, adding that the media must exercise its free speech privilege responsibly.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier pushed for intercultural dialogue.

"We all agree that words and deeds that insult or ridicule other religions or cultures do not contribute to mutual understanding," he said at a security conference in Germany.

"Both freedom of the press ... and freedom of religion are great liberties -- those who use them must use them with care."

[Livyjr]

And the story is always the same ...

And while the end results might vary, generally, it is not for the good of the people, themselves ...

Which point most, if not all, of OUR nation's founders were well aware of, since they did not have television and video games back then to load their heads up with so much crap that their eyes would turn brown and they would be unable to think coherently for themselves .....

And that is why these founders then structured OUR federal government the way that they did ...

With two houses in the Legislative branch instead of one ...

And an executive who was answerable to the PEOPLE through the laws set in place IN THE LAND by the the elected REPRESENTATIVES of those people ....

All of which has or is going by the boards, right here in OUR own nation ..

Which is no longer a NATION OF LAWS, if it ever was ....

"Specter criticizes rationale for spying"

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press
Last updated: 3:35 p.m., Sunday, February 5, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has not adequately justified why the Bush administration failed to seek court approval for domestic surveillance, said the senator in charge of a hearing Monday on the program.

Sen. Arlen Specter said Sunday he believes that President Bush violated a 1978 law specifically calling for a secret court to consider and approve such monitoring.

The Pennsylvania Republican branded Gonzales' explanations to date as "strained and unrealistic."

The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, predicted that the committee would have to subpoena the administration to obtain internal documents that lay out the legal basis for the program.

Justice Department officials have declined, citing in part the confidential nature of legal communications.

Specter said he would have his committee consider such a step if the attorney general does not go beyond his prior statements and prepared testimony that the spying is legal, necessary and narrowly defined to fight terrorists.

"This issue of the foreign intelligence surveillance court is really big, big, big because the president, the administration, could take this entire program and lay it on the line to that court," Specter told NBC's "Meet the Press."

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 established legal procedures for conducting intelligence-related searches and surveillance inside the United States.

Specter said the FISA court "has really an outstanding record of not leaking, and of being experts."

"And they would be pre-eminently well-qualified to evaluate this program and either say it's OK or it's not OK."

Leahy charged that Bush misled the public when he said during the presidential campaign in April 2004 that his administration was following the law by getting warrants for wiretapping.

"I think ultimately we're going to have to subpoena them," Leahy said on CBS' "Face the Nation," expressing doubt that lawmakers would get the material otherwise.

Under the National Security Agency program put in place after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the government has eavesdropped, without seeking warrants, on international phone calls and e-mails of people within the United States who are deemed to be a terrorism risk.

In testimony prepared for Monday's hearing, Gonzales argues that Bush had authority under a 2001 congressional resolution authorizing force in the fight against terrorism and that heeding the 1978 law would be too cumbersome.

"The terrorist surveillance program operated by the NSA requires the maximum in speed and agility, since even a very short delay may make the difference between success and failure in preventing the next attack," Gonzales said in statements obtained by The Associated Press.

Specter was not so sure.

"I believe that contention is very strained and unrealistic," Specter said.

If the FISA law was inadequate, he said, Bush should have asked Congress to change it rather than ignore it.

"The authorization for the use of force doesn't say anything about electronic surveillance."

Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., was expected to press Gonzales on why, during Gonzales' confirmation hearings last year to be attorney general, he dismissed as "hypothetical" a situation in which the government conducted warrantless eavesdropping.

The NSA program was long in place by then, and Gonzales was White House counsel.

Assistant Attorney General William Moschella, in a letter Friday to Feingold, said Gonzales was referring to as "hypothetical" the idea that Bush would allow warrantless monitoring that was illegal.

That statement is accurate, Moschella wrote in a letter obtained by the AP, because the administration's position is that Bush had legal authority under the 2001 congressional resolution.

Gonzales has acknowledged disagreement with former Justice Department officials, including Attorney General John Ashcroft and Deputy Attorney General James Comey, about the legality of the program.

In responses to written questions from Specter, Gonzales challenged media portrayals about the scope of the spy program, saying it is not "a dragnet that sucks in all conversations and uses computer searches to pick out calls of interest."

The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, reported Sunday that the program involves computers sifting through hundreds of thousands of communications to select for human review.

The program has resulted in thousands of conversations in which someone in the U.S. has been at least briefly monitored, the Post said.

The Post report said that nearly all of them were quickly dismissed as insignificant and that perhaps no more than 10 solid leads a year have been pursued with further domestic surveillance, usually with a court warrant.

But Gen. Michael Hayden, the No. 2 intelligence official in the government, said it was "not true" that "we somehow grab the content of communications and then use the content of the communications to determine which of the communications we really want to listen to."

"When NSA goes after the content of a communication under this authorization from the president, the NSA has already established its reasons for being interested in that specific communication," Hayden said on "Fox News Sunday."

In addition to possibly pursuing documents about the program's legal basis, Specter said he might seek testimony from Ashcroft and Comey.

"If we come to it and we need it, I'll be open about it," Specter said, referring to subpoenas.

"If the necessity arises, I won't be timid."

Specter also said the administration should tread carefully when it came to using subpoenas against journalists to investigate leaks of classified information.

The New York Times in December disclosed the existence of the NSA program, which is classified.

"I think if you move into the area of really serious national security issues, that there may be a justification for it," he said.

[Livyjr]

And here is a story of our times, alright ...

"More hurt by medical charges"

By CANDICE CHOI, Associated Press
First published: Sunday, February 5, 2006

ALBANY -- In the span of a few years, Pat Juliano was socked with a string of tragedies including the death of a partner, a heart attack and numerous ambulance trips to the hospital.

In the end, it was the staggering medical bills that nearly did him in.

The 62-year-old Albany resident is among a sea of people across New York state and the country being pushed into financial ruin and even bankruptcy as a result of towering medical bills, according to a report released last week by the Empire Center for Justice, an advocacy group.

The survey found 65 percent of people attending bankruptcy clinics in urban communities across upstate New York had medical-related debts.

The findings are a snapshot of what's happening across the country, said Trilby DeJung, author of the report.

A national study by Harvard University last year found half of those who file for personal bankruptcy cited medical bills as a reason for their financial ruin.

The study also found that most people who file for bankruptcy protection because of medical problems have health insurance.

The report by the Empire Justice Center corroborates those findings; 68 percent of those with medical bills were working and nearly half had health insurance.

Eighty-six percent had some type of coverage within the past year.

The survey was distributed to 348 people in bankruptcy clinics across upstate New York.

"This is putting a New York face on a national problem," said Assemblyman Alexander "Pete" Grannis, who announced the report's findings along with Assemblyman Richard Gottfried this week.

The Manhattan Democrats are backing a package of bills that would improve health coverage for the poor in the state.

The Empire Justice Center survey found nearly all those struggling with medical debt are wiping out their savings, racking up credit-card debt and asking family and friends for help to pay off bills.

Of those with medical bills, 62 percent owed $5,000 or less while 27 percent owed $10,000 or more -- a significant amount for those surviving on very low incomes, DeJung said.

Seventy-three percent also said they were being pursued by a collection agency as a result of unpaid medical bills and 23 percent said they were sued over their medical debt.

More than half of people had put off medical care and had difficulty getting loans because of unpaid medical bills, according to the Empire Center report.

Those with high hospital bills often don't know where to start looking for financial assistance either.

[Livyjr]

 
"Weld silent on college dealings - Republican answers Democratic call for disclosure with debate challenge"

By ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, January 6, 2006

ALBANY -- Republican gubernatorial hopeful William Weld on Thursday side-stepped Democratic call that he release ex-employees of a failed southern college he ran from confidentiality agreements, and instead challenged potential opponents to a debate.

Weld, a former Massachusetts governor who won a straw poll of New York GOP county chairs in December, has been dogged by the demise of Decker College, a Kentucky vocational school he ran as CEO for eight months.

The FBI is investigating widespread student loan fraud at Decker, and bankruptcy proceedings are scheduled in a Kentucky court Monday.

Some 3,700 students, many of them poor and either black or Latino, were left in limbo when the school shut.

Weld has said he knew of no improper activity at Decker, from which he resigned in September to focus on his gubernatorial campaign.

Weld also said he signed "a handful" of confidentiality agreements with former Decker employees, including one who made complaints about fraud.

In a letter to Weld Thursday, state Democratic Chairman Herman "Denny" Farrell Jr. asked:

"If you have nothing to hide about your involvement at Decker College, why pay former employees to be quiet?"

In a response, Weld's deputy campaign manager, Vincent DeVito, asked Farrell to encourage two Democrats, state Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, who is running for governor, and Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, who might run, to debate Weld within 60 days.

DeVito also said Weld "has always encouraged" employees to "give all possible assistance and information to any proper authorities and continues to do so."

State Democratic Party spokesman Blake Zeff accused Weld of "ducking the issue."

But Weld spokesman Dominick Ianno retorted:

"We'd be happy to debate candidates for governor one on one, but we don't think it's necessary to respond to a state party chairman."

Weld, one of four Republicans currently eyeing a run for governor, did not suggest his three potential GOP opponents join the debate.

"Complaints force Weld site change - Articles from newspapers altered to cut criticism given explanatory notes"

By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press
First published: Sunday, February 5, 2006

NEW YORK -- Republican gubernatorial candidate William Weld made changes to his campaign Web site after being criticized for posting newspaper articles altered to remove criticism of him, or any mention of a criminal investigation at a technical college he once led.

The campaign site http://www.weldfornewyork.org still contained at least two edited articles in its "News" section Saturday, but each now bears a note indicating they are "excerpted" versions.

The campaign added the notes after the alterations, which were small but had the effect of making balanced articles appear more favorable to Weld, were noticed by The New York Times.

"It was not intended to mislead people," Weld spokesman Dominick Ianno said Saturday.

"If there was any misunderstanding, we corrected it."

One of the changed articles was a Jan. 21 profile of Weld by Times writer Patrick Healy.

In the original version, Healy led off by writing that Weld's campaign appeared to be "on life support."

"By his own admission, Mr. Weld, a former governor of Massachusetts, has been wounded by a federal investigation of a Kentucky college he once ran," Healy wrote, adding, "while some New York Republican leaders endorsed him early on, others are now iffy or worse."

"Alfonse M. D'Amato, the former senator, despises Mr. Weld, and he is saying so to anyone who will listen."

The edited version on Weld's site cut those sentences and jumped to the fourth paragraph, beginning, "Mr. Weld is a singular sort -- a man who has never had a bad day, as Massachusetts politicians said about him."

A second altered article was a Jan. 25 story by Yancey Roy, of Gannett News Service, outlining Weld's reform plans for the state.

The version posted by the campaign eliminated sections saying that his campaign was in a "mini-slump," and "dogged by an investigation of a shuttered private Kentucky college he once ran."

Of the more than two dozen newspaper articles posted on http://www.weldfornewyork.org, most are easily identifiable as shortened versions of longer articles, and include a link reading "Click here to read the full story" that allows readers to access the original.

Those links did not appear on the Gannett and Times articles.

Ianno said that was an oversight.

He added that he believed there was nothing wrong with using excerpts from a news article to promote a candidate, and likened it to film studios using one-word movie critic quotes, like "Incredible!" and "Thrilling!" in advertisements.

Weld's potential campaign rivals, Republican John Faso and Democrat Eliot Spitzer, also included newspaper articles on their Web sites, but none reviewed by The Associated Press appeared to have been edited.

Faso's site, http://www.johnfaso2006.com, included an article from the Times Union that mentioned he was trailing Spitzer badly in the polls.

Spitzer's site, http://www.spitzer2006.com, included articles from The Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine that, while generally praising him, contained criticism that he was a political opportunist.

[Livyjr]

And did I already say another story in here was a story of OUR times, right now, here in OUR America?

Well ...

Okay ...

But this one is too ....

"Evacuees ask hotel to pay for move"

Associated Press
First published: Sunday, February 5, 2006

NEW YORK -- A group of Hurricane Katrina evacuees staying at a Queens hotel want it to contribute $2,500 to each family as an incentive to move, but the hotel's owners are questioning their obligation to pay.

Charlie King, a lawyer and a Democratic candidate for New York attorney general who was involved in a meeting this week on the proposal between hotel management and community leaders, told The New York Times that the money also would help cover costs for families seeking permanent housing.

The owners of the hotel, Radisson J.F.K. Airport, are expected to meet with the families' representatives on Tuesday.

"What the hotel is wondering is why private citizens are coming forward and asking the hotel for things that are FEMA's responsibility," said Marc Leffman, chief executive of Atlanta-based French Quarter Hospitality, which owns the hotel.

About 30 families remain at the Radisson, the last of about 120 Gulf Coast-area families who arrived there after the hurricane.

Their rooms are being paid for by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In January, the Radisson's managers told remaining evacuees that they would need to find new housing by the end of the month because of a scheduled $7 million hotel renovation.