47 percent of Iraqis approve of attacks on American forces, but there were large differences among ethnic and religious groups. Among Sunni Muslims, 88 percent said they approved of the attacks. That approval was found among 41 percent of Shiite Muslims and 16 percent of Kurds.
George Clooney picked up three nominations: as supporting actor for his role as a steadfast CIA undercover agent in “Syriana” and best director and co-writer for his Edward R. Murrow tale “Good Night, and Good Luck.”
In a communique at the end of its meeting, the quartet said: "It is inevitable that future assistance to any new government would be reviewed by donors against that government's commitment to the principles of non violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the road map."
pushing the savings rate for all of 2005 into negative territory at minus 0.5 percent. That was the lowest annual savings rate since a decline of 1.5 percent in 1933, a year in which the country was struggling to cope with the Great Depression.
Bob Woodruff was in Baghdad for ABC reporting the good news that the Bush administration complains is ignored by the news media, and he ended up as a glaring illustration of the bad news.
Jan. 30, 2006 When Charlie Prestwood retired to his small rural home north of Houston, after 33 years of working in a power plant, he knew exactly what he had in his nest egg.
"1,310,570 dollars and some few cents. That was my life savings," Prestwood said.
Today that nest egg is gone. Like thousands of other former Enron employees, he is still struggling to recover from his loss. He says at his age, 67, he won't live long enough to ever recoup that money.
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Cindy Sheehan, the peace activist who set up camp near President Bush's Texas ranch last summer, said Saturday she is considering running against Sen. Dianne Feinstein to protest what she called the California lawmaker's support for the war in Iraq.
Basra's governor has threatened to suspend dealings with UK forces unless five police officers being held as suspected insurgents are released. The men were arrested on Tuesday in a British-led operation following an increase in roadside bombings.
| The Populist You scored 60% individualism, 36% fatalism, 40% hierarchy, and 52% egalitarianism! |
| You adhere to both the Individualist and Egalitarian cultures. You oppose rules and customs that tell people what they can and can't do, and believe that everyone should be treated equally. |
My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
|
| Link: The Scientific Cultural Theory Test written by Stentor on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test |
"The program's legal, it's designed to protect civil liberties, and it's necessary," Bush told a White House news conference.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
"The poorest fifth of households in South Carolina spend 7.9 percent of their income on state and local taxes, while the very richest spend just 5.5 percent of their income on state and local taxes."
Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency.
He also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.
Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co., the world's third- biggest automaker, will close 14 manufacturing facilities and eliminate as many as 30,000 jobs by 2012 after three straight quarters of North American losses.
The closings will include assembly plants in Atlanta, St. Louis and Wixom, Michigan, and two unidentified plants by 2008, the company said in a statement today on PR Newswire. The cuts were announced as part of the ``Way Forward'' plan, Chief Executive Officer William Clay Ford Jr.'s second restructuring in four years.
I wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members of Congress. He didn't. I should have said he directed his client Indian tribes to make campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties.
Abramoff's Indian clients contributed money to 195 Republicans and 88 Democrats between 1999 and 2004.
| Inventor. Businessman. Genius. |
Two Indonesian children died of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, the World Health Organization has confirmed according to health officials. The deaths of the 13-year-old girl and her four-year-old brother bring the total number of bird flu fatalities in Indonesia to 14.
A former Pentagon analyst who gave classified information to an Israeli diplomat and two members of a pro-Israel lobbying group was sentenced Friday to more than 12 years in prison.
Lawrence A. Franklin, 59, a policy analyst whose expertise included Iraq and Iran, pleaded guilty in October to three felony counts in exchange for having three other counts dropped.
The author, Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, laid out the scientific rationale for Darwin's theory of evolution, saying that in the scientific world, biological evolution "represents the interpretative key of the history of life on Earth."
He lamented that certain American "creationists" had brought the debate back to the "dogmatic" 1800s, and said their arguments weren't science but ideology.
CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Jazeera aired an audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden on Thursday, saying al-Qaida is making preparations for attacks in the United States but offering a truce to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan.
BAGHDAD, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Iraqi insurgents killed at least 22 people in two simultaneous bomb blasts in central Baghdad on Thursday, challenging a security clampdown on the capital ahead of the release of the results of last month's elections.
One day after a New York investment group raised $110,000 for Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis, the House passed a defense spending bill that preserved $160 million for a Navy project critical to the firm. The man who protected the Navy money? Lewis.
According to lobbyists and ethics experts, even if Hastert's proposal is enacted, members of Congress and their staffs could still travel the world at an interest group's expense and eat on a lobbyist's account at the priciest restaurants in Washington.
The only requirement would be that whenever a lobbyist pays the bill, he or she also must hand the lawmaker a campaign contribution. Then the transaction would be perfectly OK.
Panic trading spurred by a widening criminal investigation of a popular Internet startup forced the Tokyo Stock Exchange to shut down 20 minutes early Wednesday as share prices plunged for a second day.
It was the first time trading had to end early because the markets computers couldn't handle a surge of transactions. The benchmark for the Tokyo exchange slid 2.9 percent Wednesday. The Nikkei 225 index dropped 464.77 points
NEW YORK - Civil liberties groups filed lawsuits in two cities Tuesday seeking to block President Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program, arguing the electronic surveillance of American citizens was unconstitutional.
The U.S. District Court lawsuits were filed in New York by the Center for Constitutional Rights and in Detroit by the American Civil Liberties Union.
A toughened bankruptcy law requiring debtors to seek credit counseling is doing to little to curb the number of consumers filing for bankruptcy
While the new law, which took effect late last year, requires debtors to seek counseling in hopes that it will steer them toward repayment plans instead of bankruptcy court, counseling agencies said most debtors are too far in financial trouble to qualify for a debt-management plan.
ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) -- A 12-year-old girl who died Sunday has tested positive for the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu, health officials said, bringing Turkey's death toll from the virus to four and the number of its human cases to 20.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A U.S. helicopter went down north of Baghdad on Monday, a U.S. military official said.
The official said the helicopter usually has a two-person crew and was being used by the U.S. Army's Task Force Iron Horse.
WASHINGTON Jan 15, 2006 Rep. Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican implicated in a lobbying corruption investigation, said Sunday he will step aside temporarily as chairman of the House Administration Committee.
"Unfortunately it has become clear to me in recent days that the false allegations made against me have become a distraction to the important work of the House Republican Conference and the important work that remains ahead for the House Administration Committee," Ney said in a written statement.
Rizgar Mohammed Amin submitted his resignation for "personal" reasons, the tribunal said, and not because of government pressure. It said the trial against Saddam and seven co-defendants would again convene on Jan. 24 as previously scheduled despite the uncertainties surrounding Amin.
The weekend attack, believed to have been carried out by a CIA-operated unmanned drone aircrafts on Friday, left at least 18 people dead including women and children.
Leaders of Pakistan's opposition Islamic alliance were preparing on Sunday to launch a fresh campaign against president Pervez Musharraf's government, as anti-US anger mounted in the wake of US airstrikes on a remote village in the north.
On Sunday, there were demonstrations in several towns and cities across the country as protestors vented their anger at the US. In Karachi, the southern port city, at least 10 thousand supporters of Islamic and mainstream parties joined hands in protest, in a rare expression of solidarity.
KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 14 -- Gunmen in the southern city of Kandahar on Saturday killed a former Taliban leader who had repudiated the extremist movement in recent years, siding instead with the U.S. presence and Afghanistan's move toward democracy.
Mohammed Khaksar, the Taliban's former intelligence chief, was shot in the chest, neck and head by two gunmen on a motorbike while he was carrying groceries home from a market around 4 p.m., according to his brother and the Kandahar police chief. He died instantly.
You scored as Pelagianism. You are a Pelagian. You reject ideas about man's fallen human nature and believe that as a result we are able to fully obey God. You are the first Briton to contribute significantly to Christian thought, but you're still excommunicated in 417.
Are you a heretic? created with QuizFarm.com |
You scored as Mathematics. You should be a Math major! Like Pythagoras, you are analytical, rational, and when are always ready to tackle the problem head-on!
What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3) created with QuizFarm.com |
"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
WASHINGTON : President Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in their first meeting since her election, presented a united front Friday against an Iranian nuclear program that Bush called "a grave threat to the security of the world."
{snip}
Bush praised Germany's cooperation but insisted that it was not yet time to talk about sanctions against Iran, a step that could reopen divisions between Washington and Berlin. Of the three European countries involved in negotiations with Tehran, Germany has been the least enthusiastic about joining the United States in pressuring Iran.
"I'm not going to prejudge what the United Nations Security Council should do," Bush said.
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- More violence will engulf Iraq in the weeks ahead as the country's splintered politicians and religious groups struggle to form a government, the U.S. military predicted Thursday.
The warning followed a week marked by what U.S. Brig. Gen. Donald Alston described as "horrific attacks," amid deteriorating relations between Iraq's largest Shi'ite religious group and Sunni Arabs who make up the core of the opposition
BAGHDAD, Jan. 12 -- On Nov. 22, the top U.S. military and civilian leaders in Iraq handed over Saddam Hussein's most lavish palace compound to the safekeeping and control of the new Iraqi army and government, in a ceremony whose intended symbolism was as impossible to ignore as the military brass band.
{snip}
But in the days after American forces and the Iraqi brass band pulled out of the circular palace drive on a bluff overlooking the Tigris River, local officials now say, looters moved in, ripping out doors, air conditioners, ceiling fans and light-switch plates from some of the compound's 136 palaces, leaving little more than plaster and dangling electric wires.
The culprits are some of the same Iraqi security forces and officials to whom Americans transferred control, police and the governor say.
Washington -- The White House acknowledged Thursday that the budget deficit would climb back above $400 billion this year, erasing the brief improvement last year and complicating President Bush's vow to cut the deficit in half by 2009.
{snip}
Joel Kaplan, the White House deputy budget director, predicted that the government's shortfall would climb from $319 billion in 2005 to more than $400 billion in 2006, largely because of relief efforts tied to Hurricane Katrina.
That shortfall would be equal to about 3.1 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, a significantly higher share than last year and high for a country that is expected to experience its fifth straight year of economic growth.
The Bush administration took the unusual step yesterday of asking the Supreme Court to call off a landmark confrontation over the legality of military trials for terrorism suspects, arguing that a law enacted last month eliminates the court's ability to consider the issue.
In a 23-page brief, U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement said the justices should throw out an appeal by Yemeni national Salim Hamdan, an alleged driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden
Today, Specter said the records showed that Alito did not attend meetings in 1983 and 1984. ``He's not even mentioned in the minutes,'' the senator said.
``The files contain canceled checks for subscriptions to CAP's magazine, Prospect, but none from Judge Alito,'' Specter said. ``The files contain dozens of issues of CAP's magazines, but none of the articles was written by, quoted or mentioned Samuel Alito.''
WASHINGTON - Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, a central figure in the U.S. detainee-abuse scandal, this week invoked his right not to incriminate himself in court-martial proceedings against two soldiers accused of using dogs to intimidate captives at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, according to lawyers involved in the case.
The move by Miller -- who once supervised the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and helped set up operations at Abu Ghraib -- is the first time the general has indicated he might have information that could implicate him in wrongdoing, according to military lawyers.
ISTANBUL -- Preliminary tests show that the strain of bird flu virus that has hit at least 15 people in Turkey has evolved in a way that could make it somewhat more hazardous to human beings, although it still lacks the capacity to be passed easily from person to person, international health officials said yesterday.
Last fall, as Sunni Arabs protested vehemently against the proposed constitution, the Shiite and Kurd leaders who dominated its drafting promised that a panel would be created which could recommend amendments during the four months following the formation of a new government.
{snip}
The leader of Iraq's most powerful party indicated today that his group would block substantive changes to the country's new constitution.
TIPS
And as Iraqis see their own countrymen defending them against the terrorists and Saddamists, they're beginning to step forward with needed intelligence. General Casey reports that the number of tips from Iraqis has grown from 400 in the month of March of 2005 to over 4,700 last month....
--Bush speech, 1/10/06
In the week since national elections, police officers and Iraqi National Guardsmen said they have received more tips from the public, resulting in more arrests and greater effectiveness in their efforts to weaken the violent insurgency rocking the country.
--Washington Post, 2/7/05
U.S. and Iraqi officials insist they are getting more tips from Iraqis about insurgent activity since the Americans transferred sovereignty to an interim government last June.
--AP, 1/21/05
The U.S. military is reaping more high-quality intelligence tips from Iraqi prisoners than ever since it stopped using several coercive interrogation techniques after the Iraqi prisoner-abuse scandal in May, the American general in charge of Iraqi prisons said Monday.
--USA Today, 9/6/04
the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation warned on Wednesday that bird flu could become endemic in Turkey and that the virus may be spreading despite all the measures taken so far to control it. The outbreak has spread rapidly across the country in the past few days from its source in an isolated village in the east, and has now reached the outskirts of Istanbul and Ankara.
He did not clarify whether he still believes it but implicitly seemed to accept that when he argued that as a judge he would put his personal feelings aside and determine whether the doctrine of stare decisis compelled upholding Roe.
This makes it clear, Alito would vote to overturn Roe UNLESS the doctrine of stare decisis compelled otherwise.
As for stare decisis, Alito stated repeatedly that it "is not an inexorable command."
It seems clear that Alito will likely vote to overturn Roe if he is confirmed to the Supreme Court.
PROSECUTORS prepared to launch a criminal investigation into South Korea's disgraced king of cloning Woo Suk Hwang yesterday as an inquiry concluded he had faked almost all his groundbreaking data.
The veterinary scientist had achieved international scientific acclaim, nationwide celebrity status and millions of dollars in support from the South Korean Government when he claimed to have cloned human embryos and extracted embryonic stem (ES) cells from them.
In April 2002, 14 months before Shinseki was due to retire, The Washington Post reported, quoting "Pentagon officials", that his replacement had already been selected. "In another unusual move, Rumsfeld has tapped Army Gen. John Keane, the No. 2 officer in the Army, to succeed the current chief of that service, Gen. Eric Shinseki, whose term runs out next year. Selecting a successor for the current chief so far in advance is highly unusual." This leak was seen by some as undercutting Shinseki's authority within the Army.
He is one of the most effective and dedicated public servants I have ever had the opportunity to work with and I am honored to be his friend.
