Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us: "Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network."
Illustration here
Saturday
State Department Excluded From Senate Threat Hearing : "The State Department's intelligence branch, whose skeptical prewar assessments of Iraq's weapons programs were more accurate than other agencies' judgments, is being excluded from a panel that advises Congress each year on worldwide threats..., even though the bureau has participated in the hearing every year since it began in the early 1990s."
Friday
Bush recommending cuts in education spending after '05 : "President Bush, while promoting proposals to boost federal education spending next year, plans to pare back spending on schools in subsequent years, budget figures show. ...'Education is already underfunded in these budgets, and in fact 37 programs will be zeroed out in '05,' said John See, spokesman for the American Federation of Teachers. 'It will just get worse.'
The White House is proposing an education budget increase from $63.26 billion to $66.4 billion next year, although some school programs would get bigger increases than others. The numbers include mandatory as well as discretionary spending authority. But the total would immediately drop in 2006 and would fall to $63.6 billion by 2007.
That's less than 1 percent above current spending, so with inflation it would represent a decrease. It's also 4 percent less than Bush's much-touted increase for 2005. "
The White House is proposing an education budget increase from $63.26 billion to $66.4 billion next year, although some school programs would get bigger increases than others. The numbers include mandatory as well as discretionary spending authority. But the total would immediately drop in 2006 and would fall to $63.6 billion by 2007.
That's less than 1 percent above current spending, so with inflation it would represent a decrease. It's also 4 percent less than Bush's much-touted increase for 2005. "
MSNBC - NBC: Investigators question ricin test results "federal agents have found no source for the powder found in the mailroom of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s office" Did they look in Frist's pockets? Meanwhile the AP characterizes Bill Frist's "calming prescence" during the recent ricin hoax. It's easy to be calm when you know there's no threat.
Thursday
Welcome to the ANG!: "'As threats to America change... the National Guard and reservists will be more involved in homeland security, confronting acts of terror [that] our enemies may try to create.'
President George W. Bush
14 February 2001 "
President George W. Bush
14 February 2001 "
Joint chiefs chairman says duration of US military presence in Iraq is ``unknowable'': Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Richard Myers "said that if he and the top U.S. commanders in Iraq were to 'sit around a table, I think we could draw out a pretty good diagram of where we think we're going to go' with winding up the Iraq operation.
"On the other hand,... 'Actually, the things we've sat around and talked about before have been wrong on every count,' he said with a chuckle."
"On the other hand,... 'Actually, the things we've sat around and talked about before have been wrong on every count,' he said with a chuckle."
LITTLE REGULATION: Chinese citizens demand better job safety after deadly accidents : "By one estimate, an average of 300 Chinese lose their lives every day in industrial accidents, mine collapses and other disasters. China tallied a quarter of a million fires last year alone. More than 120,000 people died in work-related accidents from January to November 2003, the English-language China Daily newspaper reported in December, citing official figures. "
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | US lawyer sues over terror cases: "Mr Convertino says officials punished him for cooperating with a Senate investigation into failures in the war on terror by blowing the cover of an intelligence asset."
Wednesday
ESPN.com - Page2 - Bush's disturbing sleeping disorder: "Desperate men do desperate things, and stupid men do stupid things. We are in for a desperately stupid summer."
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: February 08, 2004 - February 14, 2004 Archives "Q: Why does a 'yes' or 'no' elude you on this?"
Tuesday
The Other Paper | Columbus's News & Entertainment Weekly: If you don't pay to subscribe to the Dispatch...
Mike Curtin, Dispatch president, acknowledges that the Dispatch, since the mid-80's Columbus's only paper, "has been a Republican paper." The Other Paper continues:
"In...88 years..., the Dispatch hasn't endorsed a single Democrat for president.
Until now....
'TOTALLY RECKLESS' was the headline of Sunday's lead editorial, in which the Dispatch disapprovingly linked the Bush administration's domestic and military policies....'It is becoming increasingly difficult to have any confidence in the fiscal policy of this administration.'"
Mike Curtin, Dispatch president, acknowledges that the Dispatch, since the mid-80's Columbus's only paper, "has been a Republican paper." The Other Paper continues:
"In...88 years..., the Dispatch hasn't endorsed a single Democrat for president.
Until now....
'TOTALLY RECKLESS' was the headline of Sunday's lead editorial, in which the Dispatch disapprovingly linked the Bush administration's domestic and military policies....'It is becoming increasingly difficult to have any confidence in the fiscal policy of this administration.'"
The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Letters to the Editor: "President's 'nonpolitical' visit"
President Bush's 'nonpolitical' visit to the Daytona 500 race is as incongruous to the average taxpayer as the custom of requiring the family of a condemned man to pay for the bullets to execute him. Perhaps the visit was to honor Halliburton and the oil industry's support of the war."
President Bush's 'nonpolitical' visit to the Daytona 500 race is as incongruous to the average taxpayer as the custom of requiring the family of a condemned man to pay for the bullets to execute him. Perhaps the visit was to honor Halliburton and the oil industry's support of the war."
Sunday
HoustonChronicle.com - Files shed light on Bush Guard service: "But the documents released Friday indicated Bush's transfer to the Alabama squadron wasn't approved until September 1972, months after Bush's presence as recalled by Calhoun.
Emily Marks Curtis, who said she dated Bush in 1972 when both worked on the Blount campaign, said she had a clear recollection of Bush returning to Alabama in the weeks after the fall election so he could attend Guard meetings.
'He had left Montgomery and had gone back to Texas,' she said. 'Then he called and told me he was coming back to Montgomery to do his Guard duty and asked if we could see each other.'
She said she didn't see Bush at the Alabama squadron's base, but 'I can say categorically he left Montgomery, then came back for what he said were Guard meetings.' "
Emily Marks Curtis, who said she dated Bush in 1972 when both worked on the Blount campaign, said she had a clear recollection of Bush returning to Alabama in the weeks after the fall election so he could attend Guard meetings.
'He had left Montgomery and had gone back to Texas,' she said. 'Then he called and told me he was coming back to Montgomery to do his Guard duty and asked if we could see each other.'
She said she didn't see Bush at the Alabama squadron's base, but 'I can say categorically he left Montgomery, then came back for what he said were Guard meetings.' "
Herald.com: Miami & Ft. Lauderdale News, Weather, Dolphins & More: " The Department of State has notified elections supervisors that touchscreen ballots don't have to be included during manual recounts because there is no question about how voters intended to vote."
The Reliable Source (washingtonpost.com): "An Unguarded Opinion on Fortunate Sons
'Let's not go there,' Secretary of State Colin Powell said three times after Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) raised the flapola over President Bush's military service at a House hearing last week. Responding to Brown's assertion that Bush 'may have been AWOL' from National Guard duty, Powell snapped: 'I won't dignify your comments about the president because you don't know what you are talking about.'
As a Vietnam War vet, perhaps Powell does know what he's talking about. So let's go there -- specifically to page 148 of the hardcover edition of Powell's 1995 autobiography 'My American Journey':
'I particularly condemn the way our political leaders supplied the manpower for that war,' he wrote. 'The policies -- determining who would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live -- were an anti-democratic disgrace. I am angry that so many sons of the powerful and well placed and so many professional athletes (who were probably healthier than any of us) managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to our country.' "
'Let's not go there,' Secretary of State Colin Powell said three times after Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) raised the flapola over President Bush's military service at a House hearing last week. Responding to Brown's assertion that Bush 'may have been AWOL' from National Guard duty, Powell snapped: 'I won't dignify your comments about the president because you don't know what you are talking about.'
As a Vietnam War vet, perhaps Powell does know what he's talking about. So let's go there -- specifically to page 148 of the hardcover edition of Powell's 1995 autobiography 'My American Journey':
'I particularly condemn the way our political leaders supplied the manpower for that war,' he wrote. 'The policies -- determining who would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live -- were an anti-democratic disgrace. I am angry that so many sons of the powerful and well placed and so many professional athletes (who were probably healthier than any of us) managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to our country.' "
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