Dispatch from Down Under

WOW Rossi you are AMAZING.

Great Stuff !...You Go Momma.




tp://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=1&u=/ap/20050211/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A vegetable truck rigged with explosives blew up Friday outside a Shiite mosque northeast of Baghdad, and gunmen sprayed automatic fire into a bakery in a Shiite district of the capital in sectarian violence that killed at least 23 people.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/politics/3034495
Republicans in hot seat for donations to DeLay
Democratic House leaders say the pair should be removed from the Ethics Committee
http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/oped/ci_2565996
An unhealthy silence comes from military medics
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=2&u=/ap/20050211/ap_on_re_as/us_nkoreahttp://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=2&u=/ap/20050211/ap_on_re_as/us_nkorea
U.S. Refuses One-On-One North Korea Talks. Why? Because the Last Four Years of Ignoring Them Worked So Well? Bush and Condi Better Wake Up and Smell the Nuclear Flowers. 2/12

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scientists10feb10,0,4954654.story?coll=la-home-nation
More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they have been directed to alter official findings to lessen protections for plants and animals, a survey released Wednesday says.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=512&u=/ap/20050211/ap_on_go_co/democrats_bush&printer=1
WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats demanded Thursday that President Bush (news - web sites) order a halt to personal attacks on the party's leader, Sen. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), and expressed regret that they had failed to mount a stronger defense for his defeated predecessor.

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=9b9b5406a6ff54ecf15ecaae19e53d58
Black Democrats Tuesday assailed President George W. Bush’s proposed budget, calling the $2.57 trillion spending plan “disappointing” and saying drastic cuts in education, food programs and literacy initiatives will create serious hardships for blacks across the nation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1409591,00.html
Domestic gibberish Bush's incoherence on home affairs reminds us that pre-9/11 he was the most unpopular president
http://www.alternet.org/rights/21189/
This is an excerpt from 'The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib (Cambridge University Press),' edited by Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/11WIRE-CNN.html?ei=5094&en=aadf7b2b9d19b393&hp=&ex=1108184400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position
NEW YORK (AP) -- CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amidst a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1479363,00.html
'I'm more scared of going out with these guys than fighting insurgents'They have a reputation for spraying bullets all around them if fired on, and two Americans have been killed by such stray rounds. “I’m more scared of going out with these guys than clashing with the insurgents,” an American trooper says. “They have no concept of identifying friendlies, and let loose at anything.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/12/politics/12clarke.html?ei=5094&en=20dfc8ea10b55dd0&hp=&ex=1108270800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position
The 13-page proposal presented to Dr. Rice by her top counterterrorism adviser, Richard A. Clarke, laid out ways to step up the fight against Al Qaeda, focusing on Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan. The ideas included giving "massive support" to anti-Taliban groups "to keep Islamic extremist fighters tied down"; destroying terrorist training camps "while classes are in session" and then sending in teams to gather intelligence on terrorist cells; deploying armed drone aircraft against known terrorists; more aggressively tracking Qaeda money; and accelerating the F.B.I.'s translation and analysis of material from surveillance of terrorism suspects in American cities.

http://www2.cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2005/02/11/n/HeadlineNews/MCPHERSON-NOMINATED/resources_bcn_html
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today appointed Santa Cruz political stalwart Bruce McPherson to replace Kevin Shelley as secretary of state.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scientists10feb10,0,4954654.story?coll=la-home-nation
More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they have been directed to alter official findings to lessen protections for plants and animals, a survey released Wednesday says

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/nyc-fams0211,0,6253545.story?coll=ny-nynews-headlines
Expressing outrage Thursday, family members of 9/11 victims called on the federal government to probe why it didn't act on intelligence warning of terrorist hijackings in the months before the World Trade Center was destroyed.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021205C.shtml
C.I.A. Operation in Iran Failed When Spies Were Exposed By Greg Miller The Los Angeles Times

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021205Y.shtml
Changing Minds, One at a Time By Howard Zinn The Progressive

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021105A.shtml
Once upon a time, working the White House Press Briefing Room was the crown jewel of mainstream political journalism beats. That was it; short of reporting live from under the President's desk or nailing down an interview with the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, you weren't going to get a better gig if you were a political reporter

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021105H.shtml
The Iraqi Prime Minister Seeks an Alliance with the Kurds to Save His Job By Cécile Hennion Le Monde

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021105L.shtml#1
Let us stand back in awe at the Bush administration's genius. Few administrations in our history have been more successful in setting the terms of the political debate. None has been as skilled at getting its facts accepted as plausible even when they are not. None has looked so principled, even when it said one thing while doing another.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021105G.shtml
WASHINGTON -- A Halliburton Co. shipment of radioactive material went missing in October but the company didn't alert government authorities until this week, Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said today. The material -- two sources of the element americium, used in oil well exploration -- was found intact Wednesday in Boston after an intense search by federal authorities. NRC and Halliburton officials say the public never was in danger

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12223462%255E601,00.html
THE Howard Government has defied US efforts to dissuade the European Union from lifting its 15-year arms embargo on China, which Washington fears could transform the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12234498%255E1702,00.html
BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he'll do his "damnedest" to open a dialogue with the United States in the coming months to tackling the issue of global warming.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1407040,00.html
Last autumn, while Pentagon lawyers were writing memos suggesting that Mubanga may not have had any involvement in terrorism at all and may not have been given a fair hearing, the Guantanamo authorities subjected him to the harshest treatment in his 33 months in Guantanamo, with three brutal assaults by the 'Instant Reaction Force' riot squad for trivial violations of the camp rules.

http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=036d123a-0abe-421a-0134-10ba88669545&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf
Fort Carson amputee returning to Iraq for second tour of duty
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-arnold12feb12,0,3276726.story?coll=la-home-headlines
SACRAMENTO — In a fiery speech to Republican faithful Friday evening, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ridiculed Democrats as wasteful spending "addicts" who have been taking "sleeping pills," and he characterized California's problems as stemming from "evil."

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Zimbabwe/0,,2-11-1662_1661221,00.html
Harare - President Robert Mugabe on Friday sharply criticised US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying she was a "slave" to white masters in Washington who had branded Zimbabwe an outpost of tyranny.

http://www.latimes.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept
Texas GOP moves to exempt itself from law

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=668&u=/ap/20050210/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy&printer=1
WASHINGTON - The U.S. trade deficit ballooned to an all-time high of $617.7 billion last year, pushed by soaring oil prices and Americans' insatiable appetite for everything foreign, from cars to toys and food