David Drake

A top Democratic lawmaker Tuesday dismissed the findings of two longtime Iraq war critics, who cited a dramatic improvement in the situation there following the infusion of thousands of additional US troops.

"I dismiss it at as rhetoric," said US Representative John Murtha, a former marine, congressional heavyweight on military matters, and outspoken Iraq War critic.

"I don't know where they were staying. I don't know what they saw. But I know this: that it's not getting better," Murtha said on CNN television.

"It's over-optimist. It's an illusion," the Pennsylvania lawmaker continued.

Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni, renowned for his 1966 release Blow-Up, has died aged 94.

He gained two Oscar nominations for the iconic release, and was awarded an honorary Academy Award for his life's work in 1995.

[...]

Another great Italian director, Mario Monicelli, said Antonioni was "one of the masters of Italian and international cinema".

"He found out how to tell things, emotions, that before him nobody think could ever be told through this mean of expression which is cinema," he said.

Actress Sarah Miles, who appeared in Blow Up, told the BBC World Service's Europe Today that Antonioni was "a rogue and a tyrant and a brilliant man".

"He was all things, as everybody is who has got any great talent. He had his dark side and his light side," she said.

[...]

"He invented his own language of cinema - that's what made him very, very inventive," he said. "He didn't owe anything to anybody else. He was a total original."

[...]

The first was Blow-Up, in which a photographer appears to have uncovered a murder in his photos.

Shot in London, and starring David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave, it was his biggest international hit.

Antonioni captured the "flower power" era in 1970, filming Zabriskie Point in California, while Hollywood actor Jack Nicholson starred as a journalist.

Kevin Garnett was traded on Tuesday in the largest trade for a single player in NBA history.

The Boston Herald reports also that Garnett has agreed to a three-year extension with the Celtics, in addition to the two years left on contract, which would keep him in Boston through the 2011-12 season.

The Celtics acquired Garnett, a 10-time All-Star and the NBA MVP in 2004, from Minnesota in exchange for Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff, Sebastian Telfair, a 2009 first-round draft pick and a return of Minnesota's conditional first-round pick previously obtained in the Ricky Davis-Wally Szczerbiak trade.

The Timberwolves also receive cash considerations in the deal. The 2009 pick Boston is sending to Minnesota is top-three protected.

Reports surfaced Monday afternoon that the Timberwolves have resumed talks with the Boston Celtics that involve moving Kevin Garnett to Beantown.

Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Qur'an abuse at Guantanamo Bay.

Bergman’s dozens of works combined deep seriousness, indelible imagery and unexpected flashes of humor in finely written, inventively shot explorations of difficult subjects such as plague and madness.

[...]

[described] by Woody Allen as “probably the greatest film artist ... since the invention of the motion picture camera,” Bergman first gained international attention with 1955’s “Smiles of a Summer Night,” a romantic comedy that inspired the Stephen Sondheim musical “A Little Night Music.”

[...]

The other actor most closely associated with Bergman was Max von Sydow, who appeared in 1957’s “The Seventh Seal,” an allegorical tale of the Black Plague years as a knight playing chess with the shrouded figure of Death, one of cinema’s most famous scenes.

Talk show host Tom Snyder, whose smoke-filled interviews and robust laughter were a staple of late night television, has died after a struggle with leukemia. He was 71.

Snyder died Sunday in San Francisco from complications associated with leukemia.

[...]

Known for his improvised, casual style, Snyder conducted a number of memorable interviews as host of NBC's "The Tomorrow Show." Among his guests were John Lennon, Charles Manson and Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols.

[...]

His catch phrase for the show was: "Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air." Snyder smoked throughout his show, the cigarette cloud swirling around him during interviews.

Bill Walsh, the groundbreaking football coach who won three Super Bowls and perfected the ingenious schemes that became known as the West Coast offense during a Hall of Fame career with the San Francisco 49ers, has died. He was 75.

Walsh died at his Bay Area home early Monday following a long battle with leukemia.

[...]

The soft-spoken native Californian also produced a legion of coaching disciples that's still growing today. Many of his former assistants went on to lead their own teams, handing down Walsh's methods and schemes to dozens more coaches in a tree with innumerable branches.

Walsh went 102-63-1 with the 49ers, winning 10 of his 14 postseason games along with six division titles. He was named the NFL's coach of the year in 1981 and 1984.

Few men did more to shape the look of football into the 21st century. His cerebral nature and often-brilliant stratagems earned him the nickname "The Genius" well before his election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993.

In the late 1990s, Peavoy was contacted by the author Gail Sheehy, who was researching a book on the First Lady. He agreed to to let Sheehy see the letters, from which she would quote snippets in her 1999 biography, "Hillary's Choice". When Clinton heard that Peavoy had kept her old letters, she wrote him asking for copies, which he obliged. He has not heard from her since.

"Since Xmas [sic] vacation, I've gone through three and a half metamorphoses and am beginning to feel as though there is a smorgasbord of personalities spread before me. So far, I've used alienated academic, involved pseudo-hippie, educational and social reformer and one-half of withdrawn simplicity."

"Can you be a misanthrope and still love or enjoy some individuals? How about a compassionate misanthrope?"

Liberal activists are stepping up their campaign against Fox News Channel by pressuring advertisers not to patronize the network.

MoveOn, the Campaign for America's Future and liberal blogs like DailyKos are asking thousands of supporters to monitor who is advertising on the network. Once a database is gathered, an organized phone-calling campaign will begin, said Jim Gilliam, vice president of media strategy for Brave New Films, a company that has made anti-Fox videos.

The groups have successfully pressured Democratic presidential candidates not to appear at any debate sponsored by Fox, and are also trying to get Home Depot Inc. to stop advertising there.

[...]

Groups like the Sierra Club have targeted Home Depot because they believe it's inconsistent for the company to promote environmentally friendly products while advertising on a network that has questioned global warming.

The groups seem particularly angry at Fox's Bill O'Reilly, who has done critical reports on left-wing bloggers. On July 16, O'Reilly said the DailyKos.com Web site is "hate of the worst order."

A Missouri man said he's upset a judge took away a foster son because he is obese.

Gary Stocklaufer weighs 500 pounds. He said a family court judge ruled this week that he wasn't fit enough to be an adoptive father.

"It's out-and-out discrimination," Stocklaufer said.

Stocklaufer is a state-certified foster parent. He and his wife, Cynthia, had taken in baby Max from a cousin who couldn't raise him. The couple also has an adopted son named Bobby.

Stocklaufer said he and his wife wanted to formally adopt Max, so they went to family court and expected quick approval.

They didn't get it.

"We had Max for three months. He was taken away around the 13th of last month," Stocklaufer said. "He means the world to us, and our world has been taken out from underneath of us."

Stocklaufer said his weight should remain immaterial to his being an adoptive father.

"I mean, if I'm able to be a licensed foster care parent and we've had lots of kids in this home, then why would I not be able to adopt my own cousin?" Stocklaufer said. "We tried to follow all the legal steps, not knowing my weight would ever be an issue."

The ruling has shaken the couple's faith in the state's system.

"We're hurt, sad, frustrated," Cynthia Stocklaufer said. "We've tried to raise our child to believe the justice system will work for you."

"We understand they're out for the best interest of the child, but the state should not have this kind of authority," Stocklaufer said.

Coincidentally, the judge who ruled Stocklaufer unfit is the same judge who allowed the adoption of Bobby seven years ago.

[...]

"Under Missouri law, the court is required to consider the welfare and best interests of the child when determining whether or not an adoption should be approved, which is a complicated determination ... Factors to be considered include the petitioner's educational, financial, marital, medical and psychological status and criminal background check."

The term morbid obesity refers to patients who are 50 - 100% -- or 100 pounds above -- their ideal body weight. Alternatively, a BMI (body mass index) value greater than 39 may be used to diagnose morbid obesity.

More than 3,000 fatal heart attacks and strokes could be prevented in the UK each year if [a Fat Tax] was slapped on a vast range of foods, say Oxford researchers.

"No shot is below the belt."

"The immortal Dante tells us the divine justice reserves special places in Hell for certain categories of sinners. Madam president, I am confident -- madam president, I am confident that the hottest places in Hell are reserved for the souls of sick and brutal people who hold God's creatures in such brutal and cruel contempt! I yield the floor."

"The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia. It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the Union. Will you please inform me as to the possibilities of rebuilding the Klan realm of W. Va."

"I will never submit to fight beneath that banner with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."

"There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much."

[Members] of Congress met in conference to finalize provisions of the 9/11 security bill, which implements the final recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. But as of press time, the Democratic majority was using a technicality to block the so-called John Doe amendment from being included in the bill.

The amendment, which protects citizen whistleblowers who report suspicious activity from being sued, was sponsored by Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) after six imams who were removed from a U.S. Airways flight in November filed a lawsuit against the passengers who reported their behavior to flight crews.

Their lawsuit charges that the imams were victims of an "intentional" and "malicious" . . . "conspiracy to discriminate" and seeks compensatory and punitive damages from the airline and "John Doe" passengers - including an elderly couple who, according to legal papers, "purposely turned around to watch them" in the boarding area and then "made a cellular phone call."

The John Doe legislation, called the Protecting Americans Fighting Terrorism Act, passed in the House in April with overwhelming bipartisan support, by a vote of 304-121 - including 105 Democrats. Now, King wants to include it in the 9/11 security legislation as a stand-alone measure to assure its passage apart from the larger bill. It is up to the majority leadership, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whether they will allow the provision to be added to the bill. Reached by telephone yesterday, a senior Pelosi staffer refused several times to say whether Pelosi supports the John Doe legislation in principle.

Why? What could prevent any member of Congress from supporting no-brainer, bipartisan legislation that protects Good Samaritans from frivolous lawsuits? One possible motive: According to key Democrat leaders, John Doe protection will encourage "racial profiling."

[...]

We disarm ourselves when we succumb to political correctness - which encourages us to second guess our common sense and look the other way. It is an outrage that Pelosi and Reid would allow individuals to be punished when they come forward to protect us all.

At least for now, the Democrats have killed Rep. Pete King's amendment which would have provided protection from being sued for people who report suspicious behavior — like the Flying Imams' simulated hijacking — in national security cases.

[...]

The Democrats' maneuver here is also an obnoxious assertion of state power over the individual: If the state subpoenas you for information, you are compelled to provide it to the authorities whether you want to or not; but if you want to provide it voluntarily in order to protect your community, the Democrats say, "prepare to be sued."

Vice President Dick Cheney will serve as acting president briefly Saturday while President Bush is anesthetized for a routine colonoscopy, White House spokesman Tony Snow said Friday.

Bush is scheduled to have the medical procedure, expected to take about 2 1/2 hours, at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, Snow said.

comment # 131- "two and a half hours of pure, concentrated evil."

"Well, look, if that's the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife which we haven't done," Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven't done. Those of us who care about Darfur don't think it would be a good idea," he said.

There was not a massive bloodbath in Vietnam. There were reeducation camps, and they weren't pretty and, you know, nobody, you know, likes that kind of outcome. But on the other hand, I've met lot of people today who were in those education camps, who are thriving in the Vietnam of today.

Meanwhile, the regime had already started setting up its “re-education camps" and new economic areas,”

Thousands of urban Vietnamese families have been forced to sell their homes and start over again in new economic areas ere even the basic necessities are lacking. (Hence corruption, once thought of as a Thieu trademark, is flourishing: a new mandarin class has emerged ready to sell anything from a place in a fertile new economic area to a visa to France

In all, some 300,000 people are being detained in re-education camps which are in no way similar to the show camps set up for the benefit of visiting dignitaries an foreign reporters. (The Washington Post story of February 15 was based on a visit to such a show camp.)

One out every three Saigon families has a member in one of the camps, according to French journalist Jean Lacouture, who made an automobile trip from Hanoi to Saigon in 1976. After a visit to a new economic area for former Saigon near Phan-Thiet, Lacouture wrote that it was “a prefabricated hell and a place one comes to only if the alternative to it would be death."

Democrats are trying to pull a provision from a homeland security bill that will protect the public from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior that may lead to a terrorist attack, according to House Republican leadership aides.

[...]

Rep. Pete King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Steve Pearce, New Mexico Republican, sponsored the bill after a group of Muslim imams filed a lawsuit against U.S. Airways and unknown or “John Doe” passengers after they were removed for suspicious behavior aboard Flight 300 from Minneapolis to Phoenix on Nov. 20 before their removal.

“Democrats are trying to find any technical excuse to keep immunity out of the language of the bill to protect citizens, who in good faith, report suspicious activity to police or law enforcement,” Mr. King said in an interview last night.

“This is a slap in the face of good citizens who do their patriotic duty and come forward, and it caves in to radical Islamists,” Mr. King said.

“I don't see how you can have a homeland security bill without protecting people who come forward to report suspicious activity,” Mr. King said.

Al Aqsa television station, run by the militant group Hamas, has come up with another controversial character for its young Palestinian viewers.

First the station brought us Farfour, the Mickey Mouse look-alike character who espoused Islamic domination and martyrdom. The character received widespread international coverage — most of it negative.

Now comes Nahoul the bee, a different animal carrying the same message of Islamic extremism and self-sacrifice.

[...]

"I want to continue in the path of Farfour, the path of Islam, of heroism, of martyrdom and of the mujahedeen. … We will take revenge of the enemies of Allah," the bee says.

It's likely Nahoul, already being called the "killer bee" by some, will attract the same level of outrage in Israel and the international community. It's not clear whether the little bee will receive the same fate as its bigger and furrier predecessor.

It's bad enough to wake up and find someone has vandalized your car. But it's even worse to find out you may have been targeted because your car has come to symbolize big road hogging gas guzzlers everywhere.

The H2 was Gareth Grove's dream car. So when he finally bought it and fixed it up just right, he was happy man. That lasted four days.

Early Monday morning, someone came by his house and smashed it up.

[...]

[The incomplete message] "For the environ" [was scraped into the Hummer's metal exterior].

Neighbors were sympathetic, but [Ah- the "But". D.D.] everyone we talked to had a sense that the Hummer has come to be a symbol of American greed and waste on the roadways.

Some neighbors admit they don't like gas-guzzling Hummers, but said they aren't condoning the vandalism.

"People were commenting that it was a bit ostentatious," Olivier said.

[...]

One neighbor, however, hopes the Hummer never returns.

"I think you should suggest to them to get a more discrete vehicle. Discrete and economical," Athena Adams said.

A federal judge dismissed former CIA operative Valerie Plame's lawsuit against members of the Bush administration Thursday, eliminating one of the last courtroom remnants of the leak scandal.

[...]

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds and said he would not express an opinion on the constitutional arguments. Bates dismissed the case against all defendants: Cheney, White House political adviser Karl Rove, former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

ONLY one week after Live Earth, Al Gore's green credentials slipped while hosting his daughter's wedding in Beverly Hills.

Gore and his guests at the weekend ceremony dined on Chilean sea bass - arguably one of the world's most threatened fish species.

Also known as Patagonian toothfish, the species is under pressure from illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities in the Southern Ocean, jeopardising the sustainability of remaining stocks.

If you're looking to book Al Gore for a 75-minute "Environmental Multimedia Lecture," the former vice president will cost you $100,000, plus travel, hotel, security, and per diem expenses.

“Harry, sweetheart,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, who led a group of Democrats in pleading with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for a delay in voting, “5:30 or 6?” Reid complied and senators abandoned the chamber so fast you would have thought it was on fire.

US forces say they have arrested a senior member of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the group accused of being behind some of Iraq's deadliest violence.

The man was named as Khaled Mashhadani. He was captured earlier in July in the northern city of Mosul, officials said.

US military officials said he had told interrogators Iraq's supposed al-Qaeda kingpin, Omar al-Baghdadi, was a front.

They added Mashhadani was a "conduit" between its real Egypt-born leader in Iraq and top al-Qaeda figures globally.

"Mashhadani is believed to be the most senior Iraqi in the al-Qaeda in Iraq network," said Brig Gen Kevin Bergner.

A search warrant filed in Hennepin County connects a shooting investigation to a possible terror plot.

According to court documents, four Somali teenage males were riding in a cab on June 24 the same night a man was shot in the chest around 9:00 p.m.

Video surveillance at the Glendale Housing Projects captured the cab fleeing near the scene of the shooting.

Police were able to identify the taxicab and located the vehicle at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport four days later.

Inside the cab, police found a handwritten note describing acts of terrorism and bombings.

Police questioned an 18-year-old relative of the cab owner who confessed to being the driver of cab on June 24.

Minneapolis Police turned the terrorism note over to federal authorities and said they will "Further aid in their investigation of possible acts of terrorism against Unites States."

Taxi drivers at the airport on Wednesday told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that they thought it was all a joke.

by Cindy Sheehan
Thu Jul 12, 2007 at 06:16:05 AM PDT

I can't post here anymore because my potential run for Congress is not on the Democratic ticket.

[...]

I know a lot of you are hostile towards my candidacy.

Love always,
Cindy

In all, 82 percent of Franken's donors this year, who together have contributed more than $2.5 million, are from outside Minnesota.

More than 50 percent of [Republican incumbent Norm] Coleman's donors came from Minnesota, according to his campaign. Of [Democrat Mike] Ciresi's donors, 73 percent are Minnesotans.

A release from Franken's campaign said it was "thrilled" to get money from actors Edward Norton and Meg Ryan. The campaign said it expects criticism for receiving out-of-state money despite holding "low-dollar events" in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Bill Maher [contributing $1,000] and Rosie O'Donnell [contributing $2,300].

[...]

[Those] contributing $4,600 -- with $2,300 earmarked for the general election, should Franken get that far. Those included Dan Aykroyd, Robin Williams and Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner.

Among other notable contributors were actor Ed Norton, director Harold Ramis, actress Meg Ryan, cartoonist Garry Trudeau, former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, and Karenna Gore Schiff, daughter of former Vice President Al Gore.

That followed a first-quarter performance that included $4,600 contributions from actors Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jason Alexander and Larry David.

Bail was set at $25,000 Tuesday for a Minnesota cornerback accused of raping a woman who investigators say had consumed so much alcohol that she was physically helpless and unresponsive.

Dominic Jones, 20, made his first court appearance on a charge of third-degree criminal sexual conduct stemming from the April 3 incident which investigators say was captured on video by a cell phone.

[Jones] he was not arrested with his three teammates in April until the case took what Freeman calls an unexpected turn: two weeks after April's three arrests, investigators learned of a cell phone video taken by one of those teammates.

Specialists retrieved the deleted file, which they say shows Jones raping the victim, who by then was unresponsive.

"A picture's worth a thousand words," Freeman said. "And that cell phone video really reflects what happened, at least at that point in time."

Police are still investigating what else happened that night, and say they have both interviews and evidence that point to the three other players. And while Freeman says those men remain suspects, it's still unclear whether they'll be charged.

Frustrated by Republican efforts to block votes on bringing American combat troops home from Iraq, Senate Democratic leaders were preparing to roll out sleeping cots Tuesday for an all-night debate on the war.

[...]

"We're going to work today. We're going to work [tonight]," Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters Monday. "We're going to continue working on this until we get a vote on this amendment."

[...]

Workmen will set up cots near the Senate floor so senators have a place to slumber -- although it's not clear how many senators will choose to stay up for the debate, much less use the cots.

Americans of all ages are interested in current affairs and are consuming news like never before, right?

Not so[.]

[Most] teenagers and adults 30 and younger are not following the news closely at all, the report, titled “Young People and News,” concluded. It is based on a national sample of 1,800 Americans that included teenagers, young adults aged 18 to 30 and older adults.

[...]

Only 16 percent of the young adults surveyed aged 18 to 30 said that they read a newspaper every day and 9 percent of teenagers said that they did.

"I hope my swim will inspire world leaders to take climate change seriously,." [he said].

It may seem craven to say so, but a person really had to wonder at the inability of trained medical personnel to hook wire A to battery B to alarm clock C and detonate a car loaded with gasoline and nails in London. An then having to resort to the rather amateurish alternative of crashing a Jeep Cherokee into the Glasgow airport terminal - the suicide bomb alumni association must be shaking their heads.

[The] fiasco in London is bound to bring new directives from the Department of Homeland Security forbidding doctors and nurses from operation motor vehicles. It only makes sense. Where there is smoke, there is fire. The war on terror must be pursued where it leads, and right now it points toward people with stethoscopes.

[...]

And so starting Sept. 1, everybody - no exceptions - in the health-service field will be banned from driving anything with an ignition system. Thank you for your cooperation. You will be allowed to ride a bicycle or use public transportation, but you may not get behind the wheel or even sit in the front seat, lest you have a fit and overpower your driver and steer the vehicle into a terminal. Also you must register the purchase of nails with your local law-enforcement agency.

[...]

How can we be certain that our own internist or pediatrician does not have explosives strapped to his body? Medical personnel will be sniffed by trained dogs.

It is understandable that Sens. Lugar, Voinovich, Domenici, Snowe and Warner may no longer want trust President Bush's judgment when he tells them to wait until [General David] Petraeus' reports in September. What is not understandable is the vote of no confidence they are passing on Petraeus. These are the same senators who sent him back to Iraq by and 81-0 vote to institute his new counterinsurgency strategy.

[...]

Just last week, Patraeus said that the one thing he needs more than anything else is time. To cut off Petraeus' plan just as it is beginning - the last surge troops arrived only last month - on the assumption that we cannot succeed is to declare Petraeus either deluded or dishonorable. Deluded in that [Patraeus falsely believes we can win]. Or dishonorable in pretending to believe in victory and sending soldiers to die in what he really knows is an already failed strategy.

Public satisfaction with the job lawmakers are doing has fallen 11 points since May, to 24 percent.

[...]

[President Bush's] job approval rating in the AP-Ipsos survey remained virtually unchanged at 33 percent.

[...]

Just two months ago, 35 percent of the public approved of Congress' work.

[...]

[The] percentage of Democrats who are turning up their noses at Congress [nearly doubled]. Among Republicans, though, not so much.

The Red Robin restaurant chain is taking action after a Twin Cities family won a bear with an ad for Viagra at one of its restaurants.

Joe Kelner, 11, won a bear while playing the claw machine at the Red Robin in Shoreview.

Joe's parents thought it was inappropriate and complained to restaurant employees.

"It's important for parents to know that there are maybe inappropriate toys in these vending machines that you think are safe," Lori Kelner said.

Red Robin says the bears were supplied by a local vendor from New York as part of a Nascar package promoting its sponsors.

The company said they are removing the bears from all its restaurants.

Flames shot from a luxury car near I-94 and Humboldt in Brooklyn Center late Friday morning, backing up traffic on the major interstate.

Smoke filled the sky just before 10:00 a.m. Authorities arrived on the scene and were able to put out the fire in the Lexus, which was only three months old.

The driver, Cory Grambart, wasn't hurt and walked away from the car. Grambart told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that he got out just in time.

"I was driving in my car and it just started goin' funny, the next thing you know I could smell smoke," Grambart said, who was on his way to meet a businesses associate in Maple Grove. "My dash lit up like a Christmas tree."

"I look over my shoulder and there was already fire in the car. I pulled over real fast, jumped out of the car and it was engulfed within seconds."

At this point, it's not clear why the luxury vehicle caught on fire so rapidly.

Nixon complained bitterly about Democratic campaign hecklers who shouted down his speeches, in contrast to well-mannered Republicans.

“Our people,” he snapped, “are so goddamn polite.”

[Nixon and Charles Colson] agree that they want "a Jew" to have a prominent post in Nixon's second term.

Nixon: "I don't basically want a "house Jew" for example, like Max Fisher, you know, is insisting that his man come in and I'm not going to do that."

Colson: "No.

Nixon: "You know this fellow, to the last, was a prick. Did you see his concession statement?"

Kissinger: "Oh, cut it out."

Nixon: "He was very gracious in the beginning."

Nixon says speechwriter Ray Price urged him to send McGovern a message that he looks forward to working with him and his supporters for peace in the years ahead.

Nixon: "And I just said hell no, I'm not gonna send him that sort of wire. Don't you agree?"

Kissinger: "Absolutely. He was ungenerous, petulant, unworthy."

Nixon: "As you probably know, I responded in a very decent way to him."

Kissinger: "I thought it was a great statement."

A US appeals court has dismissed a case challenging President George W Bush's domestic surveillance programme.

The judges in Cincinnati ruled 2-1 that the groups which brought the lawsuit, including the American Civil Liberties Union, had no legal right to sue.

The ruling strikes down a lower court's order that found the programme, adopted after 9/11, to be unconstitutional.

[The bill will] make it illegal to sell or give to anyone under age 18 toy guns that look so realistic they can be mistaken for a real firearm.

[...]

Gun rights advocates plan to fight the bill.

"It misses the mark because it demonizes toys instead of criminal behavior," said Scott Bach, president of the New Jersey Association of Rifle and Pistol Clubs.

[...]

"This bill seeks to intimidate retailers of even toy water pistols rather than to address the bad acts of criminals who use imitation guns in furtherance of crime," Bach said. "A parent who gives a child a toy firearm as a gift would be guilty under this legislation."

[That] on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about eleven years old. As Lt. David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

Karnataka's Home Minister M P Prakash confirmed that Kafeel Ahmed was indeed the Glasgow bomber and Mohammed Haneef, detained in Australia, has definite links to the UK terror plot.

''With regard to his physical presence at places where the attack took place, he is not there. But if his antecedents are checked up, he is one of the most misguided youth, who had the bent of mind to plan it.

[...]

There is incriminating material like videos of terrorist executions, attacks filmed by terrorists and speeches by key Al Qaida leaders, none of which is available, either publicly or on the internet.

The intelligence agencies say this indicates that Kafeel was part of some kind of internal distribution list in a terrorist network.

BBC One's average ratings between 2000 and 2200 BST on Saturday were 3.1 million, compared with 11.4 million for the Diana gig on the previous Sunday.

One's average ratings between 2000 and 2200 BST on Saturday were 3.1 million, compared with 11.4 million for the Diana gig on the previous Sunday.

[...]

NBC's three-hour primetime "Live Earth" special, which included highlights from Saturday's global concerts, failed to generate much enthusiasm in the ratings. The estimated 2.7 million viewers was slightly under the 3 million viewers NBC has averaged on Saturday nights in the summer with repeats and the Stanley Cup hockey playoffs on what is already the least-popular night of television.

[...]

CBS and Fox split Sunday night in primetime, with CBS winning viewership while Fox won in adults 18-49 thanks to repeats of "Family Guy" and "The Simpsons."

Cindy Sheehan, the slain soldier's mother whose attacks on President Bush made her a darling of the anti-war movement, has a new target: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Sheehan, who announced in late May that she was departing the peace movement, said she decided to run against Pelosi unless the congresswoman moves to oust Bush in the next two weeks.

[...]

Sheehan said she will run as an independent against the San Francisco Democrat in 2008 if Pelosi does not file articles of impeachment against Bush by July 23.

"Speaker Pelosi has said repeatedly her focus is on ending the war in Iraq. She believes that the best way to support our troops in Iraq is to bring them home safely and soon. July will be a month of action in Congress to end the war, including a vote to redeploy our troops by next spring."

[He] blamed jihadists outside the country for influencing young Britons, and said the terror fight was a "daunting task".

He urged people to be un-British by "snitching" to the authorities.

Meanwhile Gordon Brown said he wanted a system put in place across Europe to help identify potential suspects.

[...]

Sir Alan told BBC News the campaign against terrorism using the "four Ps" - prepare, protect, pursue and prevent - was going in the right direction.

He said he wanted to get a cross-Britain consensus, to bring in the best brains, and look at things more holistically for what was a "daunting task".

Sir Alan said: "We're talking about such a big change in the way people behave that it's inevitably going to take 10 to 15 years, and that's if we're lucky, and that's what I hope we can achieve.

"I think it would be wrong to pretend otherwise to the British nation."

Sir Alan said jihadists outside the country were influencing young British men and women and that "we need to think about how we can change that".

The gunman fired 16 shots and wounded four people from a balcony early Friday at about 12.45am, before he was tackled by off-duty military reservists [at the New York-New York Casino in Vegas].

[...]

'It was crazy, pandemonium,' said Ms Jade Jacobson, 28, a tourist from Florida. 'All I was thinking was that I could die right now.'

[...]

The gunman, 51, is a Las Vegas resident, but is said to be a native of Hungary.

He had extra ammunition in his tan-coloured trench coat when he was arrested, and may have wanted to provoke a fatal confrontation with police, said Captain James Dillon of the Las Vegas police.

'This subject was capable and motivated to continue shooting... but he was tackled and taken into custody after the first volley of rounds,' he said.

[...]

He was described as 'greatly emotionally distressed'.

A Las Vegas resident, 43, who identified herself as the suspect's cousin, said he had been divorced for several years and estranged from most of his family since his ex-wife remarried.

'I love my cousin and everything,' she said, 'but his temper and not being able to relate has really gotten worse recently.

'He's been threatening the family for some time now. He's been pushing everyone away.'

She described him as an unemployed house painter who liked to gamble.

During his time in Belfast, Ahmed was a leading member of the Islamic Student Society of Northern Ireland.

His link to the Glasgow Airport incident has shocked people within the Muslim community in Belfast who knew him.

[...]

"I must say my personal experience of him was of a very pleasant, very placid and friendly guy.

"He was very polite, very intelligent and intellectual, in fact."

Mr Iweida said the Muslim community maintained its position of " condemning any act of terror and violence against anybody, anywhere".

"I was single for a long time, and, yep, I chased a lot of women," Thompson replied, chuckling.

nine concerts played over 24 hours across seven continents before an audience of two billion.

For her 2006 World Tour, she flew by private jet, transporting a team of up to 100 technicians and dancers around the globe. Waiting in the garage at home, she has a Mercedes Maybach, two Range Rovers, an Audi A8 and a Mini Cooper S.

[...]

The Live Earth event is, in the words of one commentator: "a massive, hypocritical fraud".

For while the organisers' commitment to save the planet is genuine, the very process of putting on such a vast event, with more than 150 performers jetting around the world to appear in concerts from Tokyo to Hamburg, is surely an exercise in hypocrisy on a grand scale. Matt Bellamy, front man of the rock band Muse, has dubbed it 'private jets for climate change'.

A Daily Mail investigation has revealed that far from saving the planet, the extravaganza will generate a huge fuel bill, acres of garbage, thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions, and a mileage total equal to the movement of an army.

[...]

The most conservative assessment of the flights being taken by its superstars is that they are flying an extraordinary 222,623.63 miles between them to get to the various concerts - nearly nine times the circumference of the world. The true environmental cost, as they transport their technicians, dancers and support staff, is likely to be far higher.

The total carbon footprint of the event, taking into account the artists' and spectators' travel to the concert, and the energy consumption on the day, is likely to be at least 31,500 tonnes of carbon emissions, according to John Buckley of Carbonfootprint.com, who specialises in such calculations.

Throw in the television audience and it comes to a staggering 74,500 tonnes. In comparison, the average Briton produces ten tonnes in a year.

The concert will also generate some 1,025 tonnes of waste at the concert stadiums - much of which will go directly into landfill sites.

Moreover, the pop stars headlining the concerts are the absolute antithesis of the message they promote - with Madonna leading the pack of the worst individual rock star polluters in the world.

Sepermodel Kate Moss, another profligate polluter through her use of private jets, is producing a T-shirt for the event. Yet, Gore is touting the concerts as 'carbon neutral'. So how can that be?

Let us start with some facts. Worldwide, an audience of around 1,268,500 is expected to attend the concerts - making it one of the largest global events in history.

Dr Andrea Collins, an expert in sustainability from Cardiff University, has researched the impact of such mass gatherings on the environment.

"An event of this size at Wembley - which holds 65,000 at a rock concert, will generate around 59 tonnes of waste," she says. "That is largely composed of the rubbish from food and drink consumption."

She found that a Wembley-sized football match generated an 'ecological footprint' of 3,000 global hectares - an area the size of 4,166 football pitches. This is the amount of bioproductive land required to absorb the C02 emissions produced by such an event.

[...]

Dr Collins estimates that the global audience for Live Earth will generate some 1,025 tonnes of waste. An extraordinary one million people are expected at the free concert at Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach, featuring Lenny Kravitz, Macy Gray and Pharrell Williams.

Other venues including the Coca-Cola Dome in Johannesburg - where Joss Stone is performing - will cater for audiences of tens of thousands.

Live Earth say that they will recycle much of the waste generated. Fine talk, but in fact some of the concert venues are struggling to keep up with their commitments.

A spokesman for Wembley says they only have the capacity to recycle around a third of waste produced - the rest will go into landfill sites.

Travel forms the vast majority of the 'carbon footprint' talked of by ecological campaigners - contributing up to 90 per cent of the environmental 'cost'.

Collins says: "It is patently absurd to claim that travel of this nature doesn't have an impact. Each person attending the event will have to make a return journey to the venue, be it by air, rail, bus or car. This burns fossil fuel - precisely what we are trying to reduce.

"There is also the environmental cost of these artists flying around the world - that is absolutely huge."

Indeed, an audit of the lifestyles of the A-list performers appearing at Live Earth, reveals that they are among the worst individual polluters in the world, as their world tours and private jets billow thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. One hour in a Gulfstream jet burns as much fuel as driving a family car for a year.

The Daily Mail has found that five of the top performing acts together have an annual output of almost 2,000 carbon tonnes. Madonna alone has an annual carbon footprint of 1,018 tonnes, according to John Buckley.

Remember, the average Briton produces just ten tonnes.

The veteran pop singer's Confessions tour last year produced 440 tonnes of carbon pollution in just four months, simply in flights between venues. This does not include the trucks required to transport equipment, the power needed to stage each show, or the transport for fans travelling to each concert.

Rock group Genesis re-formed last year and are in the middle of their European tour. The three-man band will fit their Live Earth performance into a tour of at least 47 locations across the world.

Their carbon footprint last year totalled 195 tonnes.

James Blunt, another Wembley performer, completed his world tour of the U.S. last year, racking up a carbon footprint of 195 tonnes.

American band Red Hot Chili Peppers have, like Madonna, flown in to Wembley from the U.S.. They have produced 220 tonnes of carbon dioxide with their private jet alone over the last six months.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail has learnt that Bon Jovi left the UK this week to travel back by private jet to the U.S. to perform at the New York stadium for the American leg of Live Earth.

Music impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber's ex-wife Sarah Brightman is being flown out to sing at the Shanghai concert in China. This is a distance of 5,679.95 miles, producing one tonne of carbon dioxide pollution.

Two other acts have already been criticised for being paid to promote fuel-guzzling cars. John Legend is featured in a Lexus advert, while Sheryl Crow's hit Everyday Is A Winding Road is used to sell Subaru 4WDs.

[...]

Razorlight frontman Johnny Borrell has been criticised for urging people to drive electric eco-scooters - but buying a 1,000cc Moto Guzzi bike - described as 'a monster-revving beast'.

[...]

Radiohead, who are pioneers in eco-friendly performing, have refused to appear.

[...]

Andrea Robinson, Live Earth's green manager, says her message to celebrities is: "Leave the Learjet at home - fly commercial."

[...]

The Aussie Stadium in Sydney will run the event on 100 per cent green energy supply. Each Australian Live Earth ticket comes with a free public transport voucher, while all the bathrooms will be waterless with waste being composted into fertiliser.

Conversely, in New York's Giants Stadium, trade unions have blocked Live Earth's attempts to recycle, and the 52,000-seater arena is not situated near public transport. The smallest - and least polluting - concert will be held at the British Antarctic Survey's base in Rothera.

Bizarrely, the concerts are also being 'independently audited' by consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers over the next seven weeks, to assess the level of pollution they will have generated.

[...]

critics say that the practice is simply a way for consumerist industries and nations to export their responsibility to developing countries. Others say it simply does not work.

Carbon-offsetting is, it turns out, how celebrities square green issues with their extravagant lifestyles and use of private jets.

Jon Bon Jovi has said: "We wrote a cheque, we took care of our footprint and raised awareness, blah blah blah." [such a lyricist that JBJ is - huh? - D.D.]

[...]

Pictured Above: Big Green Al

John Rego, the environmental director of Live Earth, says he expects to purchase at least 3,000 tonnes of carbon credits to off-set the event. It is believed the organisers will spend in excess of £1million on carbon offsetting to counter criticism.

Rego explains: "All the events are carbon neutral. We have chosen a reforestation and reagricultural project in Mozambique. It is a credible certifiable carbon-diffused project. We are in the process of purchasing a carbon offset."

Dr Collins says: "Taking a flight and planting a tree does not add up. It does not make it all right. It is having your cake and eating it."

Dr John Barrett, from the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York, says: "There is a huge irony in flying halfway across the globe in a private jet, eating up fossil fuel.
"The idea that you can offset the pollution you cause is just ridiculous. What these people at Live Earth have done is defined their boundaries to suit themselves, but there is no sense in which this concert is carbon neutral.

"Planting trees or investing in renewable energy does not reverse the damage of releasing huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the environment.

"It is far better not to pollute in the first place. Carbon offsetting can be a removal of guilt, but it is not an effective one."

Live Earth is encouraging 'citizens of the world' to take small steps: share a car, plant a shrub, turn off a light or hang out washing rather than use a dryer.

But Dr Barrett says: "It would be far better for these celebrities to stay at home. Holding large concerts to highlight environmental concerns and cut carbon emissions just seems ridiculous. What planet do these people live on?"

Mr. Gore reportedly wanted to turn out the lights all over Britain for a brief period at the time of the concert. Was this really an attempt to signal to his home planet? As it turned out, the plot was foiled when the operators of the National Grid pointed out that the power surge when the lights were switched back on might disrupt the entire system, possibly flat-lining hospital patients on life-support.

[the revival] of a global, pan-Islamic caliphate.

[...]

Much of the video is taken up with outspoken attacks against what Zawahiri depicts as the corrupt and repressive governments of Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

[...]

The video outlines elements of al-Qaeda's strategy.

The short-term aim, says Zawahiri, is to attack the interests of the "Crusaders and Jews" (the United States, its Western allies and Israel).

The long-term aim is to topple what he calls corrupt Muslim regimes - and to use Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia as training grounds for militants.

[Hair Stylist Joseph] Torrenueva said one haircut during the 2004 presidential race cost $1,250 because he traveled to Atlanta and lost two days of work.

[...]

[When Edwards] campaign reported in April that it had paid for two of his haircuts at $400 each, the political damage was immediate. With each punch line on late night TV his image as a self-styled populist making poverty his signature issue was further eroded.

Edwards said that he was embarrassed by the cost and that he "didn't know it would be that expensive," suggesting the haircuts were some kind of aberration given by "that guy" his staff had arranged.

Several of the suspects have now been linked to known extremist radicals listed on MI5’s data base.

[...]

Canon White, who runs Baghdad’s only Anglican parish, said that he met the al-Qaeda leader on the fringes of a meeting about religious reconciliation held in Amman, the Jordanian capital.

“He talked to me about how they were going to destroy British and Americans. He told me that the plans were already made and they would soon be destroying the British. He said the people who cure you would kill you.”

[Al Gore, III ] was driving a blue Toyota Prius on the San Diego Freeway at about 100 mph at 2:15 a.m. Wednesday morning when a sheriff's deputy stopped him at the Crown Valley Parkway exit, said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

The deputy smelled marijuana, a quantity of which he found in the vehicle, while also discovering two prescription bottles containing Valium, Vicadin, Xanax, and Adderall.

"He was cooperative and admitted to smoking marijuana very recently," Amormino told ABCNEWS.com. "None of those drugs in his possession did he have a prescription for," said the spokesman, adding that one of the bottles had no writing on it and one had partial writing on it in someone else's name.

The former vice president's son, an associate publisher at Good magazine, was taken into custody and booked into the Santa Ana Inmate Reception Center on narcotics possession charges. Bail has been set at $20,000. The sheriff's department was not sure if Gore's father or mother had contacted their son. Al Gore was traveling back from Europe today, and was not available for comment.

"He's still being booked," said Amormino. The Prius, an environmentally-friendly hybrid car championed by his father, was impounded.

The young Gore has a history of driving violations.

Plame was never a so-called deep-cover NOC (Non-Official Cover), he said, meaning the agency did not create a complex cover story about her education, background, job, personal life and even hobbies and habits that would stand up to intense scrutiny by foreign governments. "[NOCs] are on corporate rolls, and if anybody calls the corporation, the secretary says, 'Yeah, he works for us,'" says Rustmann. "The degree of backstopping to a NOC's cover is a very good indication of how deep that cover really is." (1)

"...we have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly, intentionally outed a covert agent. We have not charged that. And so I'm not making that assertion." (2)

"It is clear that we are dealing in general terms with people who are associated with al Qaeda," [said Gordon] Brown.

As fixated as the media and media watchers were on the hearing to determine if the publisher violated a non-compete contract or illegally took corporate data when he left the Pioneer Press for the Star Tribune in March, reader concerns have been less about the lawsuit's particulars and more about whether it's affecting journalism in their newspaper.

[Star Tribune] Reporter Warren Wolfe [says that because of the Ridder trial] he is [having] trouble [interviewing] sources [for stories]: "I was visiting the Minneapolis Veterans Home, which has had a string of regulatory problems. The day I visited [the Veterans Home], I asked a top official of the home if the home now was back in compliance." 'I don't know,' the official replied, 'Is your publisher?' I had no answer," Wolfe said.

Business columnist Neal St. Anthony has encountered a similar situation in the business community, saying, "Par Ridder has become the local business ethics case of the year."

[...]

Sports reporter Rachel Blount is running a gantlet of questioning each day on her beat. "Everyone I contact in interviews, before you can even ask them questions, they have to ask their questions. The Par situation, in particular, they do have questions. People are bothered by it. It's troubling to them and to us. It's embarrassing to answer questions about whether he stole these things."

In the end, the journalism that readers find in their newspaper has a lot more to do with the reporter on the beat than with the publisher in the corner office.