2008/09/12

Sharper Tone

Sen. Barack Obama & Sen. John McCain hug following a National Service conference at Columbia University in New York City, Sept. 11, 2008.

No reason to 'fret.' This kind of American-made cesspool politics always rears its head as we get closer to the big day (less than two months...) The key statements are by David Plouffe and David Axelrod, Obama's mastermind campaign managers who sound as cool and under control as ever. And why should we doubt the men who beat the most formidable political family in politics and their predestined nominee (the Clintons)?

Hold it down folks...McCain is no Hillary. Obama will win.


Obama Plans Sharper Tone as Party Frets

Senator Barack Obama will intensify his assault against Senator John McCain, with new television advertisements and more forceful attacks by the candidate and surrogates beginning Friday morning, as he confronts an invigorated Republican presidential ticket and increasing nervousness in the Democratic ranks.

Mr. McCain’s choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate and the resulting jolt of energy among Republican voters appear to have caught Mr. Obama and his advisers by surprise and added to concern among some Democrats that the Obama campaign was not pushing back hard enough against Republican attacks in a critical phase of the race.

Some Democrats said Mr. Obama needed to move to seize control of the campaign and to block Mr. McCain from snatching away from him the message that he was the best hope to bring change to Washington.

After back-to-back attack ads by Mr. McCain, including one that misleadingly accused Mr. Obama of endorsing sex education for kindergarten students, the Obama campaign is planning to sharpen attacks on Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin in an effort to counter Mr. McCain’s attempt to present himself as the candidate of change with his choice of Ms. Palin.

The new tone is to be presented in a speech by Mr. Obama in New Hampshire and in television interviews with local stations in five swing states, backed up by new advertisements and appearances across the country by supporters.

In addition, advertising themes will be pay equity for women, an issue that has particular resonance as the campaigns battle for female voters, and a more pointed linking of Mr. McCain to President Bush and Republicans in Washington.

But Mr. Obama’s aides said they were confident with the course of the campaign. They said that, other than making some shifts around the edges, particularly in response to Mr. McCain’s effort to seize the change issue from Mr. Obama, they were not planning any major deviation from a strategy that called for a steady escalation of attacks on Mr. McCain as the race heads toward the debates.

That response is characteristic for a campaign that has presented itself as disciplined and unflappable and is reminiscent of the way Mr. Obama’s campaign reacted a year ago when it came under fire from allies who said it was not being tough enough in going after Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“We’re sensitive to the fluid dynamics of the campaign, but we have a game plan and a strategy,” said Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe. “We’re familiar with this. And I’m sure between now and Nov. 4 there will be another period of hand-wringing and bed-wetting. It comes with the territory.

Still, Democrats outside the campaign suggested Mr. Obama should be urgently working to regain control of the message.

“The Obama message has been disrupted in the last week,” said Representative Artur Davis, Democrat of Alabama. “It’s a time for Democrats to focus on what the fundamentals are in this election.”

Phil Singer, who was a press secretary for Mrs. Clinton in her primary campaign against Mr. Obama, said, “The Obama people need to reboot and figure out ways to make the McCain-Bush argument newsworthy again.”

The uneasiness among Democrats is the result of a confluence of factors in the week since Mr. McCain accepted his party’s nomination in St. Paul. The selection of Ms. Palin became the defining event of Mr. McCain’s convention, revving up the conservative base and drawing the spotlight away from Mr. Obama.

Mr. McCain’s increasingly aggressive campaign has sought to put Mr. Obama on the defensive in each news cycle, using any development at hand, like Mr. Obama’s colloquial comment this week about putting “lipstick on a pig,” to keep attention away from Democratic messages about the economy and the similarities between Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush.

And a series of quick polls taken after the Republican convention have suggested that Mr. Obama has lost support among white women and independent voters. Polls taken so close to major political events are notoriously unreliable, but Democrats remember what happened in 2004, when Republicans used the period right after Senator John Kerry’s nomination to undercut him with a series of attacks.

By every indication, Mr. Obama’s aides underestimated the impact that Mr. McCain’s choice of Ms. Palin would have on the race. Mr. Obama and his campaign have seemed flummoxed in trying to figure out how to deal with her. His aides said they were looking to the news media to debunk the image of her as a blue-collar reformer, even as they argued that her power to help Mr. McCain was overstated.

“Everyone was astonished that she drew 9,000 people to Lancaster the other night,” said Mr. Obama’s senior strategist, David Axelrod. “But we drew 10,000 people there last week.”

“They got a transient boost from the sort of imagery surrounding her selection,” Mr. Axelrod said. “But I think things will settle in. She will be a candidate and not just a symbol.”

Beyond that, Mr. Obama’s aides said they had been taken aback by the newfound aggressiveness of the McCain campaign under Steve Schmidt, who has played an increasingly powerful role since last summer. Even as the aides have denounced the tactics as unsavory, they acknowledge that Mr. McCain is running a more effective campaign than he was a month ago.

“They had big problems in their campaign, and they made adjustments,” Mr. Axelrod said.

To a large extent, the perception that Mr. Obama is struggling is based on national polls taken in the days after the convention. But Mr. Obama’s campaign views such measures as irrelevant and focuses on what is going on in the 18 or so swing states.

Mr. Plouffe argued that the attention being paid by national news media outlets to events like Mr. Obama’s lipstick comment was not mirrored in local news coverage. What is more, the Obama campaign has filled the airwaves in some states with advertisements that link Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush.

And for all the concern voiced by Democrats to Mr. Obama’s aides that the candidate has not hit Mr. McCain hard enough, he has increasingly assailed Mr. McCain in recent days, mocking his attempt to present himself as an agent of change and denouncing his campaign style as a break from the promise he had made to practice a new kind of politics. Yet, at least on television, Mr. Obama’s critique did not break through the lipstick debate.

Inside the campaign headquarters in Chicago, aides said, there have been no emergency conference calls or special strategy sessions to deal with the new dynamic in the race.

Still, interviews with advisers and supporters suggested a concern not seen in the Obama campaign since its most competitive days in the long primary fight with Mrs. Clinton.

“You can’t be so stubborn that you don’t react or adjust to events,” Mr. Plouffe said. “We have been given up for dead any number of times in this process, so it does stiffen your spine a little bit.”

One adjustment for the Obama campaign comes as Mr. McCain is seeking to claim the Democrats’ theme of change by pointing to Ms. Palin. For months, advisers to Mr. Obama had assumed that Mr. McCain would play up his experience; Mr. Plouffe said he welcomed what he argued would be a campaign fought out on the issue of change.

“This is a very major development,” Mr. Plouffe said. “John McCain jettisoned his message and his strategy. It is now about change. We’re going to lean into that very, very hard.”

In the midst of all this, Mr. Obama had a private lunch on Thursday with someone he battled with for much of the year but who knows how to put the Republicans on the defensive: former President Bill Clinton. Discussion topics, aides said, included how Mr. Obama might handle Ms. Palin in the days ahead.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/us/politics/12obama.html

=//Turnquest

2008/09/06

Clippings 2003-2005

Right, no posts in a month, no excuse right right.

And even this isn't much of a real post, but fuck it, *I* find it fascinating. ::::

It's a giant list of clippings I collected from 2003 to 2005 from all manners of internet sources. It's mostly news/politics oriented and totally random. Some of the entries are single words (Ashkelon), others are longer and more easily traceable. Overall, it's an interesting read and simultaneously offers insight into the mind of the authour, and of the world at large.

En guarde!

* * *

Clippings

Disconnected from their past in the Muslim world and uncertain about their future in Europe, they've come to see themselves as citizens of nothing but "Neuf-trois," 93, the postal code for the outer edges of the Paris urban area.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at a U.S.-owned cruise ship carrying more than 300 people in the Indian Ocean on Saturday but the vessel escaped and no one was hurt, its owners said.

The attacks highlight insecurity in Somalia, without a government since warlords ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

*

If the deadly bird flu simmering in Southeast Asia boils up into a pandemic, demand for influenza vaccines will explode. So will Crucell's stock price.

- Fortune Analysis

*

Fitzgerald appeared prepared to indict Rove heading into last week for making false statements, according to three people close to the probe. But that changed during a private meeting last Tuesday between Fitzgerald and Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin. It's not clear precisely what happened in that meeting, but two sources briefed on it said Luskin discussed new information that gave Fitzgerald "pause."

That evening, Fitzgerald's investigative team called Adam Levine, a member of the White House communications team at the time of the leak. An investigator questioned Levine about an e-mail Rove had sent Levine on July 11, 2003 -- the same day Rove discussed Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, according to Dan French, Levine's attorney.

The e-mail, which did not mention Plame, ended with Rove telling Levine to come see him. The investigator wanted details of that conversation, which took place within an hour or so of the Cooper-Rove chat, according to a person familiar with the situation. Levine told investigators they did not discuss Plame.

*

'You know me, you are an Iraqi,' Sadaam Hussein said to Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, who asked the former dictator to identify himself at his trial for crimes against humanity.

*

Many biographies focusing on members of the Wailers relate a specific incident where several people alleged that Tosh became enraged upon hearing that Marley was seeing a well known white woman in Kingston. He talked big and threatened both physical violence and damnation and hellfire for his friend, vowing to track him down and take him to task. Later that day Bob casually walked into a room where Peter was relaxing with some of their mutual friends but mysteriously McIntosh seemed happy to see him and made no mention of any misgivings about the controversial relationship. When Marley was eventually told the whole story he allegedly laughed and responded: "Petah? Fussin'? You don't say!"

*

The Daily Mirror tabloid printed images from a video which it said showed the model doing five lines of cocaine in 40 minutes at a late-night music recording session, preparing them with a credit card and snorting the drug through a five-pound note.

The newspaper said Moss had taken a large amount of cocaine out of her handbag. Her boyfriend Pete Doherty, the musician whose alleged drug problems and brushes with the law have made headlines for months, was also present, the paper reported.

The Mirror said Moss had shouted obscenities when one of its reporters asked her for comment on the allegations outside a restaurant in New York, where she was attending the city's Fashion Week shows.


*

"All over the country, stop cigarettes, stop fuckin' cigarettes. Up in San Francisco, the fag capitol of California, they passed a bill, you can't even smoke in the street. They say it offends people. But it's okay if you wanna butt-slam your buddy while waiting for the bus? You smack him in the face with your dick five or six times? Oh, this isn't offensive. You can smoke a baloney pony, but not a fuckin' Marlboro? Wiping your ass is a filthy habit but nobody's banning that. Oh look at him - he's smoking! Yeah, and I'm jerking off too, honey. Come a little closer, I'll butter your fuckin' popcorn."

*

Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the largest owners of television stations in the country, has decided to preempt its regular network programming days before the Nov. 2 election to air an anti-John Kerry film, Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. David Wade, a spokesman for the Kerry campaign, told the newspaper: "It's beyond yellow journalism; it's a smear bankrolled by Republican money, and I don't think Americans will stand for it." Sinclair either owns or programs 62 television stations throughout the country. The same company ordered several of its stations last April not to air ABC's Nightline roll call of military dead in Iraq, calling it a political statement "disguised as news."

*

Most international Internet traffic is routed through the U.S. and through 9 known U.S. NSA interception sites.
3.24.00 AP Worldstream

*

P.S. for the FBI: All Likudniks are neocons, but not all neocons are Likudniks. It would be the better part of valor to give them a wide berth

*

"Many, but not all, think that the American army is invincible. But now it's appeared only truth is invincible," Sheik Jaber al-Khafaji said in a statement read on al-Sadr's behalf. "America claims to control the world through globalization, but it couldn't do the same with the Mahdi Army."

*

"They were on the street and they were filming protesters. The police came over and they ... gave them a couple of directions to scoot to the side," Andre said. "And they did everything police said and actually the policeman said, 'No, this is not an arrest, you're not getting locked up,' and two or three minutes later, then they started to say, 'Get down on the ground.' And they put these plastic things on people's hands ... and they shipped them off."

Andre 3000, half of the hip-hop duo OutKast, who came to New York to make a documentary about voter registration, was awaiting the release of two crew members who were arrested Tuesday.

*

CBS' Jerry Bowen took a mostly negative look at the Administration's plan to give hospitals $1 billion in aid so long as they begin to ask ER visitors whether they are legal immigrants or not.

*

10/26/65: Selective Service lifted ban against drafting childless married men.

1/19/66: Cheney applied for 3-A status; Lynne was roughly 10 weeks pregnant.

7/28/66: Cheney's daughter Elizabeth was born -- nine months and two days after the ban on drafting childless married men was lifted. [Washington Post, 4/3/91]

*

The Secret Service, which has jurisdiction within Madison Square Garden during the convention, said the screening process is working and no one who has demonstrated inside the convention has had a weapon or posed a threat to anyone.

All of the hecklers had valid floor passes.

*

Mr. Kerry's running-mate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, issued a statement shortly after the Republicans adjourned, saying: "There was a lot of hate coming from that podium tonight. What John Kerry and I offer to the American people is hope."

*

Even before Sept. 11, 2001, he had signaled that he intended to govern ambitiously, ignoring the disputed circumstances under which he came to the White House. On that day that stunned him and the nation, Mr. Bush began learning in earnest about the lethal powers available to him as commander in chief. He soon sent soldiers off to fight in the mountains of Afghanistan and in the streets of Baghdad, and as the still-bloody battle rages in Iraq, he faces an electorate deeply divided over whether he rushed into war without adequate cause.

*

Miller said he supports George Bush because the president has "a good heart and a spine of tempered steel." The two met when both were governors and the Georgian appreciated the Texan for his religious beliefs and his straightforward manner.

*

Whatta paira charlies"!

*

KING: We're back with our remaining moments with President and Mrs. Bush. Sales tax over an income tax?

(CROSSTALK) KING: Wouldn't that hurt the middle class?

G. BUSH: Yes. Listen, the guy asked me a question. He said, "what about getting rid of the entire income tax system for an alternative?" I said it's an interesting idea. My point to him was was that we ought to explore ways to simplify the tax code.

KING: You weren't saying replace it with sales tax?

G. BUSH: No, I said it was an interesting idea. This is politics. People put words in your mouth. People shouldn't worry about me raising taxes. I'm the guy that cut taxes. I worked with Congress...

KING: But you wouldn't replace income with sales tax.

G. BUSH: Well, it's an option that some people think is a viable option. I just said it's an interesting idea. I do think we ought to look at ways to simplify the tax code. The tax code is way too complicated but let me just make this clear so everybody understands. I'm the guy that believes in reducing taxes and keeping them low. It's the other fellow that says he's going to raise taxes and I think it'll be a mistake to raise taxes now. The economy is getting better and raising taxes now on people would slow the economy down.



And I'll give you an example. I live two miles from the state of Connecticut. Connecticut is one of 17 states in which it is now unsafe to eat any freshwater fish in the state, because of mercury contamination. There's no...

HALPIN: That comes from power plants.

KENNEDY: It comes from power plants. There's no geological source of mercury in the state of Connecticut. It's coming from the power plants.

We know a lot about mercury. One out of every six American women now has so much mercury in her womb that her children are at risk for a grim inventory of diseases, including autism, blindness, mental retardation, permanent cognitive impairment.

I have so much mercury in my body — I recently had it tested — that Dr. David Carpenter, who is the national authority on mercury, told me that if a woman of child-bearing years had the same levels that I did, that she would have a child that would have permanent cognitive impairment.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

*

Now all the initial costs of a hurricane must be borne by customers along the Atlantic and Gulf Seaboard. In that huge sweep of territory, the insurers have begun imposing deductibles of one to five percent on policyholders in place of the widespread deductible of $500 that most homeowners in America choose. The result is that the owner of a $100,000 home with a 5 percent deductible pays the first $5,000 in losses rather than $500.

*

"If Israel behaves like a lunatic and attacks the Iranian nation's interests, we will come down on their heads like a mallet and break their bones," the ISNA students news agency quoted Revolutionary Guards Commander Yahya Rahim Safavi

*

Mr. Sadr has said that he would resist the American presence in Iraq "until my last drop of blood." His fighters, armed with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and assault weapons, are confronting armored combat vehicles and heavy weapons of the American forces.

American forces and the guerrillas clashed over night, and residents in Najaf said that early today a column of American tanks entered the cemetery area, probing the path for a convoy of humvees that toured the city's streets, urging people through loudspeakers to leave the city center and nearby town of Kufa and sending a warning to fighters.

"People should cooperate with the Iraqi police and national guard," the message blared out in the streets. "There will be no truce and no negotiations with the corrupt armed militias. We ask you to evaluate the city center and Kufa."

"Leave the city in peace or you will die," the message said, naming districts to be evacuated, affecting about 75 percent of the city.

After the announcement, witnesses said they saw streams of cars heading out of the city. A huge fire billowed up from the direction of the city center. The crack of sporadic gunfire rang out.

Today, Ahmed Shaibani, an aide to Mr. Sadr, appealed for negotiations in a statement broadcast on the Arabiya television network.

"We are ready to accept any peace plan or negotiate to bring peace to the holy city and all over Iraq," he said. He added that the Mahdi army and the Islamic resistance control most of the central and southern governorates of the country, saying this "confirms the failure" of the occupying forces in Iraq.
...Residents in Sadr City say that American counter-fire, with cannons from Bradley combat vehicles and sniper fire, is indiscriminate.

*

But he told reporters on a campaign swing through Arizona, "I would have done this very differently from the way President Bush has." He challenged Bush to answer four questions.

"My question to President Bush is why did he rush to war without a plan to win the peace?" Kerry asked. "Why did he rush to war on faulty intelligence and not do the hard work necessary to give America the truth?

"Why did he mislead America about how he would go to war? Why has he not brought other countries to the table in order to support American troops in the way that we deserve it and relieve a pressure from the American people?

"There are four, not hypothetical questions like the president's, but real questions that matter to Americans," Kerry said. "And I hope you'll get the answers to those questions because the American people deserve them."

*

The desire to pursue a broader strategy against Iran's nuclear ambitions is driven in part, officials say, by increasingly strong private statements by Israeli officials that they will not tolerate the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon, and may be forced to consider military action similar to the attack against a nuclear reactor in Iraq two decades ago if Tehran is judged to be on the verge of deploying a weapon. (In contrast, North Korea's neighbors, especially South Korea and China, are seeking stability first, and disarmament as a longer-term goal, diplomats from the region say.)

*

“A machine of wide and elaborate contrivance and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.”
Edmund Burke

*

"We have a joke here," he adds. "In America, you find out who wins the elections two months after they've finished. In Russia, we know two months beforehand."

*

8. Nearly every political reporter in America is having the same experience — they keep finding Republicans who say they will never vote again for President Bush (over the the war and the deficit, usually) but they have a heck of a time finding anyone who voted for Gore in 2000 who are now certain that they will vote for Bush (and Gore apparently won the popular vote).

*

1. Whoever wins the electoral votes of 2 out of 3 (or 3 out of 3) of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida will be the next president of the United States.

*

The Pentagon and the coalition spokesman identified the missing Marine as Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, but the Pentagon said it could not confirm that he was the man shown in the video.

The videotape showed a man dressed in military fatigues wearing a blindfold. A person standing off-camera held a sword above the man's head. Al-Jazeera also showed what it said were Hassoun's identification papers.

*

In 1974, George spent Superbowl Sunday at a party hosted by Hunter S. Thompson. When asked decades later if he remembered whether Bush had used any drugs at his party, Thompson replied:

"I can't be expected to remember what every drug-addled yuppie hanger-oner who wanted to get close to me during a football game twenty-five years ago digested. There were so many dope fiends milling about, I don't remember what some Yalie named Bush, whose father was a factotum in the Nixon Administration, was doing. But he strikes me as the sort of person I would have thrown out of the room. A rich, beer-drunk yahoo with a big allowance who passes out in your bathtub. ... I don't want to become the Deep Drug Throat. ... I won't do it."

*

On Tuesday, Cheney, serving in his role as president of the Senate, appeared in the chamber for a photo session. A chance meeting with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, became an argument about Cheney's ties to Halliburton Co., an international energy services corporation, and President Bush's judicial nominees. The exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice.

"Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.

*

"I have no doubt that our great-grandchildren will routinely use space elevators,"

*

AFGHANISTAN

The United States has vowed to crush militants this year with a combination of stepped-up military operations and reconstruction aid to Afghan villagers, who commanders hope will provide crucial intelligence on enemy movements.

But the military has been unable to halt violence that has killed more than 500 people so far this year, threatening plans to hold national elections in September.

Workers helping organize those elections have been targeted with roadside bombs. In May, an explosion hit a car carrying Afghan election workers in Kunar province, injuring all four people inside, two of them seriously.

*

"As for you Allawi, the supposedly democratically elected prime minister, we have prepared something very special for you," the voice on the tape said.

"We have prepared a special poison for you and a sharp sword and we have filled a glass for you and we have filled a glass with death especially for you.

"You don't even know how you have repeatedly escaped from our many attempts, but we promise you we will continue the match with you until the end," the voice said.

*

"Kerry doesn't have to win North Carolina to win the presidency. Everybody knows that. Bush knows that. But by taking Edwards on the ticket, it really does force Bush to spend time in an area that, frankly, he can't afford to spend time in," says the pollster who conducted the survey.

*

"'It was dark down there,' Clinton writes of his inner turmoil. As a junior in high school, Clinton wrote that 'I sometimes question the sanity of my existence.'"

*

The [9/11] commission said that controllers at the FAA's Boston Center, in New Hampshire, first realized there was a problem at 8:21 a.m., when American Airlines Flight 11 turned off its transponder, which relays information about the plane's identity and location.

At 8:24:38 a.m. the following transmission was received from Flight 11:

"We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you'll be O.K. We are returning to the airport." The controller was not sure what he heard except "We have some planes."

A few seconds later, controllers picked up another transmission:

"Nobody move. Everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet."

The Boston Center then alerted the FAA of the hijacking, as called for in the protocol for handling hijackings.

The center also warned military air officials, who got the word at 8:37:52 a.m., just nine minutes before Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower.

"The nine minutes notice was the most the military would receive that morning of any of the four hijackings," the report found.

NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) notified officials at Otis Air Force Base, which is about 153 miles from New York City, and a colonel at the base began to seek authorization to scramble the two F-15 fighters it had on alert.

The report said that Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold told the colonel "to go ahead and scramble the airplanes and we'd get permission later."

The fighters were scrambled at 8:46 a.m., but since they were unable to locate the plane, authorities did not know where to send them. They were not in the air until 8:53 a.m.

As this drama unfolded, air controllers struggled as they received indications that three other planes were missing.

Later, Cheney communicated authorization for civilian planes to be shot down if they threatened strategic targets, but that order was not received until Flight 93, the last of the four hijacked airplanes, crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Thursday's hearing is the last public meeting of the commission before it releases its final report, which is due at the end of next month.

*

His work involved transmitting characteristics between pairs of beryllium atoms, while the Austrian work used pairs of calcium atoms. Each atom's "quantum state," a complex combination of traits, was transmitted to its counterpart.

Key to the process was a phenomenon called entanglement, which Einstein derided as "spooky action at a distance" before experiments showed it was real.

Basically, researchers can use lab techniques to create a weird relationship between pairs of tiny particles. After that, the fate of one particle instantly affects the other; if one particle is made to take on a certain set of properties, the other immediately takes on identical or opposite properties, no matter how far away it is and without any apparent physical connection to the first particle.

*

MADRID, Spain - Bodyguards for President Bush (news - web sites)'s daughter were entangled in a fist fight with two men trying to steal a cell phone in southern Spain, a U.S. Embassy official said Tuesday.

The fight happened last Thursday while Jenna Bush was vacationing with some friends in the coastal city of Tarifa, continental Europe's southernmost point and a famous destination for wind surfers, embassy spokesman John Law said.

The 22-year-old Bush was sitting at a hotel terrace when two men tried to steal a cell phone on a nearby table. Law said it wasn't clear to whom the cell phone belonged, but Bush's bodyguards reacted immediately.

One secret service agent punched one of the suspects in the mouth, Law said, adding that he had no other details of the altercation.

He could not confirm reports by state news agency Efe that one of the secret service agents pointed his gun at a suspect.

Jenna Bush was not hurt and did not press charges against the men, who were not arrested, Efe reported.

*
Though 'trade' covers a vast array of products and services both tangible and intangible, four component parts are especially important at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The absolute control of life and death is represented by the pharmaceutical and aerospace-defense conglomerates, while generic tourism in one form or another leads the charge in securing vast sums of transient currencies, and in capturing the 'hearts and minds' of an increasingly mobile global public. None of the above would be able to operate without crude oil, which is therefore the fourth of these important components.

- joe vialls
*

The most frequent complaints are that there are far more men online than women and a lack of protection against sexual predators or cheating lovers, said Michael Kantor, an information technology project manager in Arlington, Virginia, who runs the site.

"Men lie about their availability, whether they have a steady girlfriend or wife, and women tend to lie mostly about their looks," Kantor said.

*

IRAN-CONTRA
The administration in 1984 secretly sold arms to Iran -- which the United States considered a supporter of terrorism -- to raise cash for Nicaraguan contra rebels, despite a congressional ban on support for the Latin American insurgency. An independent investigation concluded that the arms sales to Iran operations "were carried out with the knowledge of, among others, President Ronald Reagan [and] Vice President George Bush," and that "large volumes of highly relevant, contemporaneously created documents were systematically and willfully withheld from investigators by several Reagan Administration officials."

*

Following in the footsteps of the Democratic Carter administration, Reagan surreptitiously supported mujaheddin rebels in Afghanistan in their prolonged battle against occupying Soviet forces. As part of that initiative, the CIA supported Muslim radicals from other Islamic countries. One of the first non-Afghan volunteers to join the ranks of the mujaheddin was Osama bin Laden.

*

And the first duty of a commander in chief is to make America strong and keep Americans safe. A week ago in Seattle, I outlined a new strategy of national security based on four imperatives. First, we must lead strong alliances for the post 9-11 world. Second, to secure our full independence and freedom, we must free America from its dangerous dependence on Mideast oil. Third, in addition to our military might, we must deploy all that is in America's arsenal--our diplomacy, our intelligence, our economic power, and the power of our values and ideas.

And fourth is the imperative I will discuss today: We must modernize the world's most powerful military to meet new and different threats. The Bush Administration was right to call for the "transformation" of the military. But their version of transformation was directed at fighting classic conventional wars, rather than the dangers we now face in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the war against al Qaeda. To rise to the challenges we face, we must strengthen our military, including our Special Forces; improve our technology; and task our National Guard with Homeland Security.

- Senator John F. Kerry, June 3, 2004

*

Ronald Reagan was the greatest leader of the free world in the 20th Century. Franklin Delano Roosevelt left Europe half enslaved. Churchill left Britain in economic decline. Ronald Reagan both defeated the Soviet Union and began a period of economic growth that has lasted a generation and continues to this very day."

- Grover G. Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and chairman of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Projec

*

Al-Sadr's army will officially be outlawed Monday afternoon, according to a senior coalition official. His militia wasn't approached to take part in the new arrangement.

"No groups were excluded, other than by their own actions," the senior official added.

The new law also makes it illegal for al-Sadr to hold office.

*

Although I have no sources on-hand to prove what these are, I'm pretty sure the portrait is of the Comte de St.-Germain. St.-Germain was a mystical adept, a Rosicrucian, and some believe he never died. His true identity was rumored to be Prince Ragoczy of Romania.

*

The radical restructuring may have been decreed by what's called the Global Defense Posturing Review or GDR, the Pentagon's blueprint for the future of the U.S. armed forces.

*

Does the building of a bed precede the love act itself? Or can we 'do it in the road' until the people's army has satisfied our territory problem?

*

The G8 economic summit on Sea Island, Georgia, Fourth of July celebrations, the Democratic convention in Boston, the Republican convention in New York, the Olympics in Greece, and the November election are also seen as possible terrorist targets.

*

ASHKELON

*

Both Kerry and Bush have released negative ads slamming each other while at the same time saying they want to focus on the issues.

*

It's not clear yet, because there's lots of casualties. They are resisting, they are fighting, they are in large numbers," Suetan said.

He said the Pakistani forces were committed to "finish off the terrorists" and that within a day or two there might be "good news" to report. "You have to wait and see," he said.

*

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Suetan, Pakistani military spokesman, said human sources indicated a high-value al Qaeda leader was there.

Asked if it was al-Zawahiri, Suetan said with a smile, "Maybe, maybe."

*

Outside the church after yesterday's service, Johnny François kept a hand on his young son's shoulder and turned his back to a bitter wind. François came to the memorial because he feels a kind of connection: In 1991, his brother, Marcellus, was shot in the head by Montreal police, who thought he was someone else.

*
Reviewer: peter turesson from SWEDEN
Windir's first album ''soknardalr'' gave me a feeling about power and good performarce!
The songs were just perfect!
When ''arntor'' came too me i just can't believe it!
I thoyght it just can't be better....it can!
''1184''!!!
the album who beat up DIMMU BORGIR's ''stormblast'', cradle of filth's ''midian'' and immortal's heart of the winter!!!!
There mixure by blackmetal with great melodies and there folk style is the best i ever heard!
you must excuse my enlish...I'm from sweden...

I have always said that dimmu borgir is the kings of Norwegian blackmetal!
but i haved wrong!
WINDIR is the KINGS!

*

The executed Italian hostage was identified as Fabrizio Quattrocchi.

*

Thousands of U.S. troops will be deployed in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan in return for Washington's support of President Pervez Musharraf's pardon of the Pakistani scientist who this month admitted leaking nuclear arms secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote in the issue that goes on sale on Monday.

Full disclosure of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's activities would have exposed him as "the worst nuclear-arms proliferator in the world," an intelligence official is quoted as saying.

"It's a quid pro quo," according to a former senior intelligence official. "We're going to get our troops inside Pakistan in return for not forcing Musharraf to deal with Khan."

*

"Words cannot describe the emotion of anger and hate inside our hearts," said Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh, a close associate of Yassin in Gaza. He said that "the enemy should expect a response that will turn the ground under his feet to hell ... All of Palestine will turn into a volcano that will burn up the enemies."

*

I have not looked up to see the older man who is sitting in the row across from me at the greyhound station; nonetheless, his cane is tapping out a message coded especially for me. I am staring at the hands in my lap, mine. This is the second weekend that I have smoked opium, brown rock (a gift for which i am most grateful) presumably at one point extracted from Papaver somniferum. I had crushed and mixed it with tobbaco. The smell, taste, and buzz seemed correct. As I stared at my hands I became aware of how much time I spend in my life waiting. waiting for the bus, waiting to understand, waiting for things to make sense. waiting. How much my mind tries at times like these to organize its thoughts, even the things which can never be organized and must be accepted (as a storyteller leaves out the details which do not pertain).

On the way home I am acutely in tune with my surroundings. someone has got 'bells for her' coming very softly out of their car stereo. This too is a sign from synchronicity, perfectly dovetailing into my current life enigma. I am thinking on that old coot William S Burroughs, Jim Carroll, Aleister Crowley, famous and infamous junkies and fiends. I think on tea, and china. social mechanisms. How perfect this opium seems to make sense of my antisocial sides, my geometrically precise version of solitude. unapologetically selfish but hoping to offer some [help/beauty/rawmaterial].

Perhaps the most germane effect, for me, and what made this solitude worthwhile, is the sensation that i can hear things above and beyond what i normally would register. for example, I played a song to my companion hoping to point out a certain string section. However, we never quite made it to that point because we noticed an amazing phenomenon. In the song, an extremely faint one string, vibrated mercilessly throughout. it felt as though i could now experience subsonic and ultrasonic vibrations. yum. The aftertaste of opium is delicious to me and i am certain of its usefulness. uncomfortably certain. I am now more aware than ever of who in my life has taught me things, and who has learned from me or not learned from me. Just when i need to see it most, I see that not only *can* i rise above all occasions, but that I must, whenever possible, do so. I am recommitted to my mortal existence, to the fact that the social structure of the world holds an ideal to which it wont admit, to which i do not fit, and to which i am compelled to find creative ways of skewing.

Overall, the opium receptors in my brain were engaged to varying degrees for 48 hours after smoking. I hope in the future to experiment with a combination of opium and psychedelics.

*

"As with Nixon," noted Mr Dean, "the concept of executive privilege is being abused. This is about pure politics: do it as long as you can get away with it, and when you can't get away with it any more, yield."

*

"There is something about human beings that corporations can't deal with and that's our soul, our spirituality, who we are. We need to find a way in this country to understand-and to help each other understand-that there is a tremendous price to be paid for the supposed efficiency of big corporations. The price is losing the sense of who we are as human beings." (howard dean)

*
"Too many of our leaders have made a devil's bargain with corporate and wealthy interests, saying 'I'll keep you in power if you keep me in power.'"

"As long as half the world's population subsists on less than two dollars a day, the US will not be secure.... A world populated by 'hostile have-nots' is not one in which US leadership can be sustained without coercion."

"Over the last thirty years, we have allowed multinational corporations and other special interests to use our nation's government to undermine our nation's promise."

*

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell and other administration officials Monday sought to clarify questions raised in journalist Bob Woodward's provocative new inside account of the march to war in Iraq -- a book that nevertheless appears to have earned the White House seal of approval.

In an interview Monday in which he disputed suggestions by Woodward that he was out of the loop and dragooned into supporting President Bush on the war, Powell confirmed that the White House had told administration officials to cooperate with Woodward's "Plan of Attack."

"We all talked to Woodward. It was part of our instructions from the White House," Powell said. "It was an opportunity to help him write a contemporary history of this period."

Unlike the hostile treatment accorded recent tell-all tomes from former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and counterterrorism adviser Richard Clark, Woodward's book received a generally positive reception at the White House. The president's campaign Web site even listed the book as "suggested reading," providing a direct link to order a copy from Amazon.com.
Debate continues over timing of war decision

Bush was one of 75 people interviewed by Woodward, who reported that the president ordered up secret plans for an invasion of Iraq in November 2001 and made the decision to go to war on his own, without soliciting the opinions of his vice president or secretaries of defense or state.

"It is, in a sense, the story of his presidency. This is the decision he made, he made it all alone. There was no committee vote," Woodward told CNN's "Larry King Live" on Monday. "He's the one who thought this story should be told."

But just when Bush made the fateful decision to go to war is one part of the book that is being disputed by the White House. Woodward said Bush made up his mind that war would be necessary in early January 2003 and then began telling his top advisers.

Both national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card have said that the final decision to launch military action did not come until March, after Powell went to the U.N. Security Council in early February to make the administration's case for military action.

Woodward said he agrees with Card that the decision to go to war was not absolutely final until it became irrevocable as the March 19 invasion approached. But he told King that the source for his assertion that the actual decision was made earlier was the president himself.

Woodward said Bush told him that when he met in the Oval Office with Powell on January 13, 2003, it was "not a meeting to have a discussion. This was a meeting to tell Colin Powell that a decision had been made and that the president wanted his support."



=//Turnquest