Sunday

While You Were at War . . . - washingtonpost.com
Healthy? Insurers don't buy it - Los Angeles Times: "A consumer survey this year found that 1 in 5 people who applied for individual coverage was turned away or charged a higher premium because of preexisting conditions. ...In a letter to an otherwise healthy recent college graduate, for instance, Blue Cross listed among the reasons it denied coverage a past bout of jock itch, 'successfully treated with cream.'"

Saturday

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: News Releases: "Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees" Just in case there was any doubt of the quality of US leadership.
Military Times Polls: "Barely one-third of service members approve of the way the president is handling the war, according to the 2006 Military Times Poll."

Friday

Many soldiers say troop surge a bad idea - Yahoo! News: "In dozens of interviews with soldiers of the Army's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment as they patrolled the streets of eastern Baghdad, many said the Iraqi capital is embroiled in civil warfare between majority Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs that no number of American troops can stop"

Thursday

CounterPunch: "America's Best Political Newsletter": "Unlike George W. Bush, Ford was of humane temper and could mostly hold in check his bloodthirsty counselors"
Emirates narrowing dollar reserves - Yahoo! News: "the implications of a cash-rich friend of Washington selling off its dollars is a sign that central banks elsewhere may be looking to cut losses from a dollar widely expected to slip further in 2007"

Thursday

Tuesday

Safety issues probed at Texas nuclear plant - Los Angeles Times The high level of activity at the Pantex plant apparently reflects the increasing amount of work to maintain aging U.S. nuclear weapons that must be overhauled, as well as to decommission weapons under the 2002 Moscow Treaty. The U.S. and Russia have agreed to reduce deployed strategic warheads to about 2,000 each by 2012, a two-thirds reduction for the U.S.
The American Muslim (TAM): "It’s a sad commentary on our so-called "information society" that our most powerful broadcasting companies have made people like Beck filthy rich for spewing this sort of garbage."
- toledoblade.com -: "Senator Voinovich has avoided the fallout from the Noe scandal despite the accusations and convictions of some of his closest political allies in Columbus."
- toledoblade.com - The Republican Way

Friday

Red Ryder Claims Another Victim
The Repeatedly Re-Elected Autocrat
Prince Bandar and Some Saudis Cheerleading for a Bombing Campaign Against Iran? | TPMCafe: "Ambassador Turki's decision to resign not only had to do with his refusal to tolerate the unprofessionalism of Bandar and Massoud -- but with the signals that Bandar and Massoud have sent to Cheney, David Addington and others on Cheney's national security staff that Saudi Arabia would 'acquiesce to, accept, and not interfere with' American military action against Iran."
CJR Daily: The "Good News" Chorus Sings On

Sunday

Top Air Force Lawyer Had Been Disbarred - washingtonpost.com: "A top Air Force lawyer who served at the White House and in a senior position in Iraq turns out to have been practicing law for 23 years without a license"

Thursday

Iraq Study Group: The Comic - Wonkette
Democracy Now! | Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid: Jimmy Carter In His Own Words: "that doesn't preclude an incumbent administration from demonstrating with their own actions and words that they are concerned about Israeli peace, they are also concerned about peace and justice for the Palestinians. And that's what I did. It’s what Richard Nixon did. It’s what Ronald Reagan did after I left office. It’s what George Bush, Sr. did. It’s what Bill Clinton did. But it's not being done now. "
And related to the last post, can it be coincidental that just days after the election, the still heavily Republican controlled Ohio legislature may be willing to reverse decades of opposition to
mental health insurance parity?

Wednesday

NEW HAVEN ADVOCATE - NEW HAVEN ADVOCATE: "a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush"
Iran/contra: 20 Years Later and What It Means
Increase in carbon dioxide emissions accelerating (Media Release): "fossil fuels are having an impact on greenhouse gas concentrations in a way we haven’t seen in the past"

Tuesday

Los Angeles Times: Insurers learn to pinpoint risks -- and avoid them: "Allstate now sorts its home and auto policyholders into 384 categories, up from the three that it used until a few years ago. At Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm, the nation's largest auto and home insurer, the number of categories the company uses has increased 100-fold. At Cleveland-area-based auto insurer Progressive, the number runs into the millions....'If I have a lot of house fires, [insurance companies] should charge me more,' said Washington state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler. 'But when insurers reach and grab information like credit or occupation or education, people say, "Wait a minute. I thought we were talking about insuring my home or auto. What does occupation or education have to do with it?"'"
Texas ethics panel's cash-gift decision attacked | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle: "What the Ethics Commission has done is legalize bribery in the state of Texas"
Civil War in Iraq Near, Annan Says - washingtonpost.com: "Saudi Arabia is so concerned about the damage that the conflict in Iraq is doing across the region that it basically summoned Vice President Cheney for talks over the weekend, according to U.S. officials and foreign diplomats."

Saturday

MiamiHerald.com | 11/21/2006 | Tiny town could be Waterloo for vote machines: "Randy Wooten, owner of Randy's Karaoke Bar out on Highway 14 and one of three mayoral candidates, received no votes. Not even his own.

''He voted for himself. I watched him,'' said Roxanne Wooten, the candidate's wife. ''I was standing right behind him. And then I voted for him,'' she told me Monday."

Wednesday

Analysis: Ballots favored Dems: "The results showed that the undervoted ballots skewed Democratic in all of those races, even in the three races in which the county as a whole went Republican."

Tuesday

O.J. sewer leads right to Murdoch - Los Angeles Times: "It is one of history's inexplicable perversities that this avaricious antipodean has been welcomed into this country while honest Mexican workingmen are walled out."
Big Win for Free Speech for Bloggers/Web Posters in Court
CJR Daily: CNN Goes Full-Court Press Over a Non-Story: "Rangel isn't really calling for a draft, nor does he seem to think it would have much of a chance of passing anyway. Instead, he's trying to use the atmospherics of television and the 24-hour news cycle to get the country talking about service and class, despite the fact that journalists like Zahn insist on missing the point"

Monday

Pressure at OSHA to alter warning - baltimoresun.com
TomDispatch - Tomgram: Robert Lipsyte, How the Republicans Lost the Garage
- toledoblade.com -: "You ought to praise him, for Christ’s sake."
- toledoblade.com -: "some in Ohio wonder why the former coin dealer's political backers were not on trial as well"
The New Yorker : fact : content: "The White House’s concern was not that the Democrats would cut off funds for the war in Iraq but that future legislation would prohibit it from financing operations targeted at overthrowing or destabilizing the Iranian government"

Sunday

U.S. Contractor Fired On Iraqi Vehicles for Sport, Suit Alleges - washingtonpost.com Page 1 when they're killed or kidnapped. Page 20, and web-indexed only as "business news," when they're doing the killing.

Saturday

Daytona Beach News-Journal Online: Elections "officials admit that delays caused by [a years-old problem in Diebold memory] cards may have deterred voters, that the problem adds to the cost of elections and that faulty cards caused egregious errors in some elections."

Friday

libretto: "Mackris v. O’Reilly Libretto"

Thursday

UPDATE 1-Wall Street's fear gauge drops to near historic low | Reuters.com"Wall Street's fear gauge, is closing in on a low not seen in more than a decade"
Blue Horseshoe likes Democrats.
The Columbus Dispatch - Local/State: "As in many economic categories, Ohio is racing to the bottom."

Wednesday

MiamiHerald.com | 11/14/2006 | Sarasota vote recount begins with a lawsuit: "The computer expert" hired by the State of Florida to analyze the glitches in the 13th District congressional race "told the Tallahassee Democrat on Dec. 3, 2000, while wearing a ''Bush Won'' sign on the steps of the Florida Supreme Court: ''I'll never be a passive political participant again.''"
Democracy Now! | Out of Iraq or More Troops? A Debate on Withdrawal with Fmr. Senator George McGovern, Congressman Dennis Kucinich and AEI's Joshua Muravchik: Kucinich: "there's one solution here, and it's not to engage in a debate with the President, who has taken us down a path of disaster in Iraq, but it's for Congress to assume the full power that it has under the Constitution to cut off funds. We don't need to keep indulging in this debate about what to do, because as long as we keep temporizing, the situation gets worse in Iraq."
- toledoblade.com - Toledo Blade compares Tom Noe to murder suspect.
First Coast News - Florida State News - Abramoff to Report to Prison Wednesday

Monday

'Arrows for the War'
- toledoblade.com - Noe guilty of 29 felony counts

Tuesday

Vote scan begins; final tally days away: "Last week, Blackwell decided to end the practice of letting parties finalize their observer list the day before the election. He said the lists had to be final 11 days before the election. [In an 11 a.m. Monday ruling, Common Pleas Judge Timothy McMonagle ordered Blackwell to allow the party to change polling place observers through 4 p.m. Monday.] Blackwell did not send out a directive until 4 p.m., leading McMonagle to extend his order until 6 p.m. Monday."
Another Outing? Sinclair TV's Bush Propagandist Mark Hyman Suddenly Quits - Wonkette
Cheney Going Hunting on Election Day - washingtonpost.com

Monday

Think Progress » 109 Reasons To Dump The 109th Congress
The Baker Report, Leaked!
- toledoblade.com -: "a reminder that Ms. Montgomery’s ties to a flashy GOP businessman, big contributor, and fund-raiser — and eventual convicted felon — did not start with Tom Noe"
Biotech Rice Saga Yields Bushel of Questions for Feds - washingtonpost.com: "Federal officials are still investigating how the experimental 'LLRICE601' escaped from Bayer's test plots after the company dropped the project in 2001. When they announced 10 weeks ago that the unapproved variety had become widespread in the nation's long-grain-rice supply, countries around the world blocked imports from the United States, rice futures plummeted and hundreds of farmers sued Bayer."

Saturday

U.S. Seeks Silence on CIA Prisons - washingtonpost.com
California eVoting: Push Here to Vote (Again): "anyone intending to electronically stuff the ballot box -- can switch the machine to manual operation and then vote as often as they like.
The unit will be widely in use in California, as well as in other states throughout the country"

Thursday

Democrats say hunger report stalled - Yahoo! News: "The report has shown steady increases in the number of people struggling with hunger, from 31 million in 1999 to 38 million in 2004."
Daytona Beach News-Journal Online The latest glitch is an example of the controversy associated with Diebold machines

Tuesday

U.S. Drops Bid Over Royalties From Chevron - New York Times: "The decision also sets a precedent that could make it easier for oil and gas companies to lower the value of what they pump each year from federal property and thus their payments to the government."

Monday

MiamiHerald.com | 10/28/2006 | Glitches cited in early voting
Secrecy News DoD Contractor Improperly Blocked Release of Info

Guess which one.

Friday

Independent Online Edition > World Politics Governments, oil companies still receiving reparations for the first Gulf War, earmarked from current Iraq oil revenue.
U.S. Rank on Press Freedom Slides Lower - washingtonpost.com

Thursday

American evangelical group arrives in Ashdod on solidarity mission - Haaretz - Israel News: "'We had to be nice to these people,' port spokesman Yigal Ben-Zikry said, 'they're more Zionist than any Israelis I know.'"

Sunday

Bush's family profits from 'No Child' act - Los Angeles Times But you read that on this blog what, three years ago?

Monday

GOP on a Mission to Save Santorum - Los Angeles Times: "Across Pennsylvania, pastors are preparing to stuff voter guides into their Sunday bulletins."

Sunday

Displease a Lobbyist, Get Fired - Los Angeles Times: "the ax fell after intervention by one of the highest officials at the White House: Ken Mehlman, on behalf of one of the most influential lobbyists in town, Jack Abramoff."

Thursday

Arms Control Association: Arms Control Today: Global Arms Exports Continued Upswing in 2005: "the 2005 weapons export total stands as the highest mark in five years"

Monday

U.S. Rules Allow the Sale of Products Others Ban - Los Angeles Times"One birch plank from China, bought at a Home Depot store in Portland, gave off 100 times more formaldehyde than legal in Japan and 30 times more than allowed in Europe and China, according to July tests ...'I'll guarantee you that no one tells a customer building a $75,000 kitchen that their cabinets contain plywood from China that will off-gas formaldehyde.'"
USGS Earthquake Hazards Program » Magnitude 4.2 - NORTH KOREA

Tuesday

AP Wire | 10/03/2006 | Noe witness list doesn't include convicted official
Foley Saga No Shock to Some - Los Angeles Times: "The current and former congressional staffers interviewed by The Times, who are from both parties, said it was well known within the Capitol's gay community that Foley was interested in young men."
McClatchy Washington Bureau | 10/02/2006 | Rumsfeld, Ashcroft received warning of al Qaida attack before 9/11: "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target that was given to the White House two months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "

Saturday

Foley resigns from Congress over e-mails - Yahoo! News: Republican leadership "learned of the e-mail exchanges 10 to 11 months ago" but did nothing.

Tuesday

Playing the patriot game: "For those unfamiliar with American politics, the Republican Party has become inextricably tied to the evangelical Christian movement, which can mobilise millions of votes through its churches to affect local, state and national elections."
Afghanistan and Iraq: $8 billion per month Everything you want to know from the Congressional Research Service PDF file.

Monday

MiamiHerald.com | 09/25/2006 | State's land deal seen as very unusual St. Joe has long-running ties with the governor's administration, and one of Bush's former top aides is a vice president of the company. At one point, St. Joe owned a 50 percent stake in the company run by Armando Codina, who was Bush's business partner before Bush became governor.

Friday

Bush approval rating vs. price of gas.
HUD Secretary urged favoritism in awarding of contracts - Dallas Business Journal:: "Top aides to Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson testified that they and other senior staff members were advised to take political leanings into consideration when awarding discretionary contracts, according to an internal report issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development's inspector general. "

Saturday

The Nation's Long Term Fiscal Outlook "The Bottom Line: Today’s Fiscal Policy Remains Unsustainable"

Thursday

- toledoblade.com -: Noe said he arranged the scheme because "in 2003 I was pressured by Bush-Cheney officials"

Tuesday

US 'allowed Zarqawi to escape' - World - theage.com.au: "Mr Bush had Zarqawi in his sights almost every day for a year before the invasion of Iraq and he didn't shoot"

Monday

- toledoblade.com -: "in March, 1998, several days before the bureau invested the first of two $25 million payments with Mr. Noe, his Vintage Coins account at National City Bank in Toledo was running a negative balance and had bounced 40 checks, a forensic accountant for the attorney general’s office wrote in a sworn affidavit.

Sunday

So, Osama walks into this bar, see? Greg Palast: "America is the only nation on the planet that kindly informs bombers, hijackers and berserkers the days on which they won’t be monitored. You’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to get a jump on George Bush’s team.
There are three possible explanations for the Administration’s publishing a good-day-for-bombing color guidebook.
1. God is on Osama’s side.
2. George is on Osama’s side.
3. Fear sells better than sex.
A gold star if you picked #3."

Saturday

Noe didn't use public money for Bush gifts, feds say But the Feds don't say where Noe got the $45,400 he gave to the Bush campaign. Noe was broke when he began transferring millions from BWC accounts into his own.
Daily Press: Eustis chief: Iraq post-war plan muzzled: "The secretary of defense continued to push on us ... that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we're going to take out the regime, and then we're going to leave,' Scheid said. 'We won't stay.'

Scheid said the planners continued to try 'to write what was called Phase 4,' or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like occupation.

Even if the troops didn't stay, 'at least we have to plan for it,' Scheid said.

'I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that,' Scheid said. 'We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today."

Thursday

Male Bass Across Region Found to Be Bearing Eggs: "In 1996, Congress required the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ... identify which chemicals are endocrine disruptors. Ten years later, the agency hasn't tested a single chemical, officials said."
9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased - New York Times The pre-election Rove-a-thon begins to help the Faith Based community back on track. Forget reality. Believe TV. It's all Clinton's fault. War is peace...

Wednesday

Ohio to Delay Destruction of Presidential Ballots - New York Times
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall August 30, 2006 10:01 AM: "Iran has a defense budget of about $6 billion a year. The United States spends over 50 times more than that. But perhaps comparisons to the USA are misleading. Let's compare our would-be regional hegemon to its neighbors. Well, Israel spends $9.6 billion and Saudi Arabia spends $25.2 billion. Pakistan, immediately adjacent to Iran and nuclear armed, actually has engaged in a recent defense buildup. What kind of quest for hegemony is Iran supposed to be on?"
The Post-9/11 Jackpot(pdf)

Sunday

ArmsControlWonk | an arms control weblog: TCB on The Fleitz of Fancy: "The irony, therefore, is stunning when Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), who heads the House Committee, explained the rush by commenting that “We want to avoid another ‘slam dunk.’” The famous “slam dunk” judgment on Iraq’s WMD was, of course, the result of selective reading of available intelligence (which some call cherry-picking), plus a willingness by some to subordinate the (often prosaic) facts to (sensational) ideological conviction.
That is exactly what has happened in this report. It is a sloppy attempt to lay the ground for another slam dunk judgment and a potential rush to war. It deserves to be recognized for what it is."

Friday

Think Progress » Gen. Batiste: Rumsfeld ‘Served Up Our Great Military A Huge Bowl of Chicken Feces’
- toledoblade.com -: "Not only was he a very effective fund-raiser, he was very generous with his own money as well. Oh, excuse me, that’s right ... it wasn’t his own money."

Thursday

In Defense of War Photographers: "What this is all about, is an attempt by right wing blogs to muddy the waters and somehow claim, like Michele Malkin and Rush Limbaugh have, that Qana and other civilians deaths in Lebanon are staged."
IRAQ FOR SALE: The War Profiteers

Wednesday

Attytood: "Rockey I": If it sounds too good to be true...: "Turns out that the earthy Vaccarella -- a highly successful businessman in the fast-food industry -- is indeed a Republican pol, having run unsuccessfully under the GOP banner for a seat on the St. Bernard Parish commission back in 1999. "
Israel Regroups on Approach to War Inquiry - Los Angeles Times: "After one day's work, the Israeli government suspended its review of the way it conducted the war in Lebanon, officials said Tuesday, as scores of reserve soldiers back from the fighting rallied here to press for the resignation of top political figures."
Marines Set to Call Up Thousands for Iraq, Afghan Duty - Los Angeles Times "the latest sign that American armed forces are under strain and a potential signal of the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war among young veterans."

Wednesday

Review of Diebold Devices: Voting Machines Risky: "comparison of the electronic results with the paper totals [for the May 2 primary election in Cuyahoga County] showed discrepancies of more than 25 votes in 36 percent to 46 percent of the precincts. Some varied by more than 200 votes."
20 Amazing Facts about Voting in the USA

Monday

Democracy Now! | Seymour Hersh: U.S. Helped Plan Israeli Attack, Cheney "Convinced" Assault on Lebanon Could Serve as Prelude to Preemptive Attack on Iran: "you have to talk about Dick Cheney. I can tell you pretty firmly that it's his office. I guess you could say it's sort of the home of the neoconservative thinking in Washington"
The New Yorker: Fact: "The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks"

Sunday

- toledoblade.com -: BWC tried to keep $215M loss under wraps prior to '04 vote
Documents reflect director's concern about possible 'leak'
Activists: Advisory proves Blackwell suppressing vote

Saturday

NBC: Disagreement over timing of arrests - Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit - MSNBC.com: "an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports"

Friday

Bush staff wanted bomb-detect cash moved - Yahoo! News: "the Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new homeland explosives detection technology"
Pakistan arrested 2 Britons last week linked to plot - Yahoo! News If they made arrests 10 days ago, why wait until now to raise the warning level?
Tip Followed '05 Attacks on London Transit Release of old news well timed.
Mercenary Jackpot
Bush seeks political gains from foiled plot - Yahoo! News: "Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big,' said another White House official, who also spoke on condition of not being named"

Wednesday

Months-long bond hearing in Boulis murder case ends: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
- toledoblade.com -: "Noe sentencing in federal case set for Sept. 12"
Israel backed by army of cyber-soldiers - Newspaper Edition - Times Online
War Crimes Act Changes Would Reduce Threat Of Prosecution
CNN.com - Transcripts: "One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon."

Tuesday

AP Wire | 08/08/2006 | Ohio law may complicate GOP plans in choosing Ney replacement: "One Republican strategist, speaking on condition of anonymity, said lawyers had concluded Padgett was likely covered by the so-called political sore loser's law and thus would not be eligible to run."
Democracy Now! | Former President of Morgan Stanley Int'l: "It's Now Considered the American War Against the Arabs...It Will Take Us Decades to Recover from What We've Done"

Wednesday

DenverPost.com - Pentagon's version of 9/11 far from truth, panel found
American Prospect Online - It's the Stupidity, Stupid: "The president's ignorance would be hilarious if it weren't so dangerous"

Monday

George Bush singing "Sunday Bloody Sunday" - Google Video
Alexander Cockburn: The Triumph of Crackpot Realism: "actual conditions in the outside world bounces off the impenetrable dome of imbecility sheltering America's political leadership"

Tuesday

SCOTUSblog: Rehearing in Bush v. Gore sequel: "The Circuit Court panel found the systems gave some counties' voters less chance of having their votes counted"
The New Yorker: Fact Ohio’s gubernatorial race tests the power of the Christian right

Friday

For Bush and the NAACP, Uneasy Does It: "it was as if, for a moment, the past five years had never happened"

Wednesday

Think Progress » Neocons Resurrect Plans For Regional War In The Middle East: "Neocons Resurrect Plans For Regional War In The Middle East"
Secrecy News CIA Report on Terrorist Recruitment (2002)

Wednesday

Search Results - THOMAS (Library of Congress): "The Supreme Court of the United States and each Federal court--
(1) shall not adjudicate--
(A) any claim involving the laws, regulations, or policies of any State or unit of local government relating to the free exercise or establishment of religion;
(B) any claim based upon the right of privacy, including any such claim related to any issue of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction; or
(C) any claim based upon equal protection of the laws to the extent such claim is based upon the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation; and"

Monday

CJR Daily: Wag That Tail, Fido; It's July: "This is the third straight year in which the White House has summoned reporters well ahead of the official budget release to project a higher-than-anticipated deficit,' reported Weisman at the time. 'In the past two years, when final deficit figures have come in at record or near-record levels, White House officials have boasted that they had made progress, since the final numbers were below estimates."
FBI plans new Net-tapping push | CNET News.com

Sunday

Brutality, corruption pervade Iraqi police force - baltimoresun.com: Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption investigations."

Saturday

CounterPunch: "America's Best Political Newsletter": "Former President George W. Bush will be invited by wealthy friends to enjoy the pomp and circumstance in Britain; the glories of Paris, Rome and Madrid; the charm of Swiss mountains; horse rides on beautiful haciendas in Argentina, Chile and Mexico. These were the perks of people like Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton who have left the Office before him.
But he will not know where and in which of these places charges may have been filed..."
Ally Told Bush That Failing to Inform Congress of Secret Projects Might Be Illegal - New York Times: "I have learned of some alleged intelligence community activities about which our committee has not been briefed,' Mr. Hoesktra wrote. 'If these allegations are true, they may represent a breach of responsibility by the administration, a violation of the law, and, just as importantly, a direct affront to me and the members of this committee who have so ardently supported efforts to collect information on our enemies.'
He added: 'The U.S. Congress simply should not have to play Twenty Questions to get the information that it deserves under our Constitution."
The Raw Story | Sources say no serious plot for NYC, just hate chatter

Friday

Foreign Policy: Seven Questions: Covering Iraq: "You can only manage the news to a certain degree. It is certainly hard to hide the fact that in the third year of this war, Iraqis are only getting electricity for about 5 to 10 percent of the day. Living conditions have gotten so much worse, violence is at an even higher tempo, and the country is on the verge of civil war. The administration has been successful to the extent that most Americans are not aware of just how dire it is and how little progress has been made. They keep talking about how the Iraqi army is doing much better and taking over responsibilities, but for the most part that’s not true."

Monday

NATIONAL JOURNAL: Bush Directed Cheney To Counter War Critic (07/03/06)
AlterNet: War on Iraq: Three Iraq Myths That Won't Quit: "America is in its 'silly season,' the summer months leading up to a national election, and the media is going full speed ahead in exploiting its primacy in the news arena by substituting responsible reporting with headline-grabbing entertainment."

Sunday

- toledoblade.com - Investigators' handling of Noe case raises questions; just 1 of 24 alleged conduits prosecuted for donations
ArmsControlWonk | an arms control weblog: Cold Case?: "We had in place the most coercive inspection regime ever imposed on an independent nation. And it was working."
Israel warns: free soldier or PM dies | News | The Australian last night's direct threat to kill Mr Haniyeh, a democratically elected head of state, sharply raised the stakes.

Saturday

- toledoblade.com - Prosecutors claim Noe attorneys may be called on to testify at trial
State Tracked Protesters in the Name of Security - Los Angeles Times: "...a practice that senior law enforcement officials say is an abuse of civil liberties."

Friday

Old WMD News and Declassification Hypocrisy | TPMCafe: "If Colin Powell had gone to the United Nations in February of 2003 and rested the Administration’s case on the fact that Iraq still possessed degraded weapons from before the first Gulf War, he would have been laughed out of the room."
Paul Craig Roberts: the High Price of American Gullibility

Tuesday

Think Progress » Former Admin. Official Needs Only Three Words To Explain Manipulation of Intel: ‘The Vice President’ The Vice President needs only two words to explain why he did it: Haliburton profits.

Monday

AP Wire | 06/24/2006 | Judge seals documents in battle over coin dealer's attorneys: "Prosecutors in the case of a major GOP fundraiser accused of stealing from a state investment in rare coins tried to have his attorneys disqualified, but a judge sealed court documents explaining why."

Sunday

MiamiHerald.com | 06/25/2006 | Did feds foil -- or foster -- terror plot?: "The defendants had no guns or other weapons when they were arrested last week. The (FBI) did provide some boots and a camera for the suspects to photograph a North Miami Beach FBI office and other local targets"

Friday

Senators' Report On Abramoff Case Disputes Rep. Ney One more time Bob Ney is on the Washington Post's front page.

Thursday

GOP Rebellion Stops Voting Rights Act: "The act is widely considered a civil rights landmark that helped thousands of African Americans gain access to the ballot box."

There they go being inclusive again.
Think Progress » Administration Responds to North Korea Missile Stunt With Missile Defense Stunt: "The Bush administration has responded to a North Korean missile that doesn’t work by activating an anti-missile system that doesn’t work."
General Union of Oil Employees in Basra: "IRAQI GOVERNMENT ATTACKS OPPONENTS OF OIL PRIVATISATION"

Monday

LiP Magazine"What's done more to destroy the organics movement, the systematic dismantling of the tenets of the USDA labeling system, or the creation of the system in then first place?....In the meantime, buy local and fresh. Develop relationships with the folks creating your food. Grow your own. And, above all: Look beyond the label."

Wednesday

Loving Day Recalls a Time When the Union of a Man And a Woman Was Banned At least the headline writer gets it.

I'll always remember how dumbfounded I was, reading the Loving case in first-year Constitutional Law. I called my mom. "Oh yeah," she said matter-of-factly, "the church we wanted to get married in was in Virginia, but it was illegal there." Kudos to them for instilling us kids with their quiet support of the civil rights movement, while at the same time recognizing that it wasn't really about them.

Saturday

Scott Ritter: Blame for Haditha Lies at Bush's Feet: "The sad fact is that American service members in Iraq are not fighting a fight they can win. There is no standard for victory. They are deployed for six months, a year, or more, to a theater of operations that President Bush has already acknowledged will only be resolved by the next president. This means that those being dispatched to Iraq have only one mission: to survive. This is not a mission statement conducive to sound decision making and action. It is a mission statement that has all U.S. combatants reverting to a primal state where it is kill or be killed, regardless of the rules. And it is asinine in the extreme to talk about rules in the first place when the leadership of the men and women America sends into harm's way show such a wanton disregard for rules to begin with."

Saturday

Friday

- toledoblade.com -: "Tom Noe's admission in federal court yesterday that he funneled thousands of dollars into the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign wasn't enough to prompt President Bush to immediately return the illegal money."
Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

Wednesday

The Columbus Dispatch - Local/State Noe pleads guilty to federal campaign fund-raising charges

Funny how they leave out the fact that the campaign contributions had been made with money "misspent" from the BWC investment.

Tuesday

BloggingHeads.tv Judith Miller: Busted Again!

Monday

Secrecy News State Secrets Privilege Shuts Courthouse Doors

Monday

- toledoblade.com - Bob Ney's worst nightmare

Monday

Friday

ArmsControlWonk | an arms control weblog: Iran's 164 Centrifuge Cascade "In the preliminary stages of the work, we noticed that our machines broke down frequently. We couldnʹt discover the cause, since we didnʹt have any scientific sources or books to refer to. After great efforts we discovered that our experts didnʹt wear fabric gloves during the assembly phase. We found out that when you assemble the parts with bare hands, germs are transferred to the machinery from the smallest amount of sweat which comes off the hands.

This little amount of germs is enough to trouble and destroy the machine. When we say a machine is destroyed we mean that it turns into powder."
- toledoblade.com - Documents released recently allege that Mr. Noe wrote checks from money in the state’s coin funds to his friends, forged their signatures, and then deposited the money — a total of $440,200 — into accounts he controlled.

Thursday

The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town: "muddling through the rest of the Bush Presidency, without being forced to admit defeat, until January of 2009, when the war will become a new President’s problem"
Letter Reveals Reason for Firing of Vermont AP Chief

Monday

Bush challenges hundreds of laws - The Boston Globe: "Bush has been aggressive about declaring his right to ignore vast swaths of laws "

Thursday

Projected Iraq War Costs Soar: "The cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill currently before the Senate, and that total is likely to more than double before the war ends"

Tuesday

CJR Daily: Faced With Lie Detectors, Anonymice Reach for the Phone That sound you hear is Porter Goss's head exploding.
The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town: "The catch, of course, is that the audience-of-one that most urgently needs to see the film and take it to heart—namely, the man who beat Gore in the courts six years ago—does not much believe in science or, for that matter, in any information that disturbs his prejudices, his fantasies, or his sleep. Inconvenient truths are precisely what this White House is structured to avoid and deny."

Monday

Prewar Intelligence Ignored, Former C.I.A. Official Says - New York Times
Spell 'No Comment' for Us, Please - New York Times: "The first glimmerings of what is happening come from those whose message the White House cannot control easily"

Friday

Contractor picked up dinner tab for Harris - Orlando Sentinel : Elections: "In her interview Wednesday, Harris acknowledged for the first time that [Mitchell] Wade had paid for the dinner at Citronelle, reversing a statement from her congressional spokeswoman earlier this year.

But in the interview, Harris also said her campaign had, at some point, 'reimbursed' the restaurant.

When asked how she could have reimbursed a business that was owed no money -- Wade paid the bill that evening -- she abruptly ended the interview and walked off.

Her spokesman called back an hour later and asked a reporter not to publish anything Harris had said Wednesday night about the dinner.

On Thursday, Harris' campaign released a two-paragraph statement that differed from her explanation a day earlier. It stated that Harris thought her 'campaign would be reimbursing' her share of the [$2800] meal but later found out that hadn't happened.

To resolve any questions, the statement said, 'I have donated to a local Florida charity $100 which will more than adequately compensate for the cost of my beverage and appetizer.'
"

Friday

Rockford's Newspaper Rock River Times | rockford illinois news information: "state documents were being shredded on orders of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush"
- toledoblade.com -: "The party’s bylaws say the executive committee must approve all obligations exceeding $5,000. Neither in 2002 nor in 2004 did the committee vote on the loans. Instead, they were reportedly accepted by Mr. Noe’s wife, Bernadette, when she was chairman of the party."

Tuesday

Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War: "The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true."
TIME.com Print Page: TIME Magazine -- Why Iraq Was a Mistake: "We have been fooled again."

Saturday

Al-Ahram Weekly interviews Mohamed el-Baradei
What would make you withdraw your support?
KRT Wire | 04/07/2006 | Libby testimony shows a White House pattern of intelligence leaks: "the information that the administration leaked or declassified, however, has proved to be incomplete, exaggerated, incorrect or fabricated"

Friday

Bush Faces Rare Audience Challenge in N.C.: "just what the White House wanted"

Wednesday

Consortiumnews.com: "this doctrine – that the Bush administration has the right to invade other nations for reasons as vague as social engineering – represents a repudiation of the Nuremberg Principles and the United Nations Charter’s ban on aggressive war, both formulated largely by American leaders six decades ago."

Tuesday

Los Angeles Times: Bone drugs' reverse danger: "Serious adverse reactions that weren't apparent in premarket tests emerge in half of all prescription medications."
FCC Chairman Martin: Repeal of Cross-Ownership Ban Overdue: "newspapers must “educate the public about the changing media landscape,” and the benefits of ending the 31-year-old ban on same-market ownership of newspaper and broadcast stations.
"
The Cost of War
Secrecy News: "the Buyer proposal would effectively transfer to the executive branch the power to approve or deny membership on the intelligence or defense appropriations committees"

Monday

How the GOP Became God's Own Party: "there is a potent change taking place in this country's domestic and foreign policy, driven by religion"

Sunday

Think Progress » VIDEO: Gen. Zinni Calls on Rumsfeld and Others to Resign for ‘Disastrous Mistakes’ in Iraq: "those that have been responsible for the planning, for overriding all the efforts that were made in planning before that, that those that stood by and allowed this to happen that didn’t speak out — and there were appropriate ways within the system you can speak out, at congressional hearings and otherwise — I think they have to be held accountable."

Friday

Wednesday

Infections Take Heavy Toll on Patients, Profit: "'Not only were we harming patients, but look at what this is doing to the bottom line,' he said in an interview. He speculated that most hospitals do not realize it is possible to virtually eliminate infections and they 'don't understand the economic imperative to do so.'"
How Environmentalists Lost the Battle Over TCE - Los Angeles Times

Sunday

What do you do with 70 dead birds?
Former DeLay Aide Enriched By Nonprofit: "DeLay's former chief of staff, Edwin A. Buckham, who helped create the group while still in DeLay's employ, and his wife, Wendy, were the principal beneficiaries of the group's $3.02 million in revenue, collecting payments totaling $1,022,729" Oh Dear Lord, please give me more money and power.

See how easy it is?
CREW FILES IRS COMPLAINT AGAINST PA PASTORS NETWORK FOR ASSISTING SEN. SANTORUM IN RE-ELECTION EFFORTS - CREW: "In a February 24, 2006 speech, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson stated that the IRS plans to step up enforcement actions against churches and charities that violate the prohibition against political intervention." So long as it doesn't affect Republicans. Amen.

Saturday

The Columbus Dispatch - Local/State: "a third of the state funding received by each school was pocketed by Brennan’s operation"
USATODAY.com: "$21 billion U.S. effort to end short of goals "

Monday

Some Say Civil War Already Started - Los Angeles Times: "Bush and top advisors tout progress, but U.S. lawmakers and Iraq's Allawi sharply disagree."
The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town: "Bush deserves censure, not only for the warrantless wiretapping but also for the many other catastrophes his Administration has generated, including the manipulation of intelligence to justify the Iraq war, the willful failure to heed warnings of what the invasion’s aftermath would entail, the sanctioning of torture, and the neglect of “homeland security”—to say nothing of a set of domestic policies that sacrifice solvency, safety, the environment, and elementary fairness on the altar of enriching the rich in the name of Christian compassion."

Sunday

Bush's Iran plan a time bomb with explosive results - Business - Business
The 'Long War'? Oh, Goodie: "the Pentagon has decided to fight what it is now calling 'the Long War.' Has anyone asked you about this? Me, neither. Nor has anyone asked Congress. The administration — mostly Donald Rumsfeld — just decided we would have a long war and declared it, and is now committing us to fight against a fuzzy ideology no one seems to be able to define."
A Sliding Scale for Victory - Los Angeles Times: "We've been in a civil war for more than a year."

Friday

Barbara Lee Barbara Lee Amendment on Permanent Bases Approved in Debate on Iraq War Supplemental Spending Bill

Wednesday

AlterNet: Chavez's Alleged Anti-Semitism
Eight Easy Pieces: News You May Have Missed if You Rely on the Deficit Disorder Mainstream Media (ADD MSM): "Odd, how they stuck with that Lewinsky thing – a private affair with no public consequence – for three years, with almost daily headlines, but haven’t been able to hang in there for even three days on lies and incompetence that directly effects us all in the most profound manner."

Tuesday

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | US postwar Iraq strategy a mess, Blair was told: "We may have been seduced into something we might be inclined to regret. Is strategic failure a possibility? The answer has to be 'yes'"

Monday

What Portion of Our FY05 Federal Taxes Supports Current and Past Military Activities? - FCNL Issues: "An estimated 42 percent of our federal income tax dollars was spent on past and present military activities. "
Householder investigation lost in shuffle: "Spokesmen for the Justice Department, FBI and IRS all declined to comment on the investigation, which has focused on allegations that Householder traded legislation for campaign contributions and violated campaign-finance laws."
TIME.com Print Page: TIME Magazine -- The Mission: Find a Way to Stay Relevant: "Through the challenges, the President has kept his human touch. Touring New Orleans last week, he met a man who had survived for days on canned goods before being evacuated to Utah. 'Were you the only black man in Salt Lake City?' Bush asked."

Thursday

CJR Daily: In a Party Mood, USA Today Gets It All Wrong: " if you're handy with a calculator and put all the numbers together -- something that USA Today did not do for its readers -- you get this: What once was a city of close to half a million, 325,000 of them black, has been reduced to a current city of 189,000, only 70,000 of them black. In short, in Katrina's aftermath, New Orleans has lost 255,000 black citizens, but only 37,000 white citizens, reversing the racial demographic that has marked the city for many decades."

Wednesday

Over-the-counter drug works well for allergies - Yahoo! News And now, the real reason why they've made it so hard to get pseudoephedrine.

Saturday

Guarding the TruthFemale former civilian guard at Nazi concentration camp speaks out. The story doesn't explicitly make the connection to present-day wartime prison guards and soldiers, but it's inevitable. "'So many of them came for such banal reasons -- to get out of their parents' house, make money, maybe get a man. We have to try to understand these women -- and yet at the same time not understand the fact that they stayed.'"..."Even when police were explicitly excused from the mass slaughter of Jews, without adverse consequences, no more than 10 of 400 refused to shoot. 'You realize with horror...that it was easier to decide to participate in mass murder than to break away from the dominant group.'"
Alan Maass: War Crimes and Hunting Misdemeanors: "all the qualities we've come to expect from Cheney and the Bush administration--arrogance, obsessive secrecy and sleazy attempts to avoid blame for anything that goes wrong."

Friday

Secrecy News: "The idea that the government can penalize the receipt of proscribed information, and not just its unauthorized disclosure, is one that characterizes authoritarian governments, not mature democracies.The idea that the government can penalize the receipt of proscribed information, and not just its unauthorized disclosure, is one that characterizes authoritarian governments, not mature democracies."

Tuesday

Declassification in Reverse: The Pentagon and the U.S. Intelligence Community's Secret Historical Document Reclassification Program: "many of the recently withdrawn documents contain information which could easily be construed as embarrassing to the U.S. intelligence community."
The White House's Chilling Effect: "how is it possible this information wasn't sought and considered before the fact?"
Foreign Affairs - Intelligence, Policy,and the War in Iraq - Paul R. Pillar: "During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, writes the intelligence community's former senior analyst for the Middle East, the Bush administration disregarded the community's expertise, politicized the intelligence process, and selected unrepresentative raw intelligence to make its public case."

Monday

- toledoblade.com - The Universe of Tom Noe

Saturday

Cheney's Secret Powers
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall February 18, 2006 02:06 AM: "Having admitted unparalleled corruption, defendant Randall H. Cunningham now comes before the Court to be sentenced for his stunning betrayal of the public trust."

Friday

Quick Rise for Purveyors of Propaganda in Iraq - New York Times
Congressman Dennis Kucinich Kucinich Introduces Resolution Demanding Documents On PR Contracts Used To ‘Sell’ The War

Tuesday

Los Angeles Times: Army Accepting More Recruits With Criminal, Drug Histories: "Last year, almost 1 in 6 Army recruits had a problem in their background that would have disqualified them from military service. In order to accept them, the Army granted special exceptions, known as recruiting waivers....[T]he largest increase was among recruits with a history of either criminal conduct or drug and alcohol problems."

No waiver allowing them to get student loans, though.
Misunderstanding Muslims - The Boston Globe: "One of the major disconnects in the present conflict is the way in which European and American analysis obsesses with the apparently anarchic outbursts of violence in the ''Arab street' without taking in how brutally violent the post-9/11 ''coalition' assault has been, not only physically but psychologically.

Mobs throw stones through the windows of European consulate offices, and the legion of CNN watchers recoils with horror. Meanwhile, unmanned drones fly across stretches of desert to drop loads of fire on the heads of subsistence farmers in their villages; children die, but CNN is not there."
CollegeHumor Picture: "Ten Ways Dick Cheney Can Kill You"
Putfile - MontyPython TwitOlympics
U.S. and Israelis Are Said to Talk of Hamas Ouster - New York Times Democracy not OK.

Monday

FMQB: Radio Industry News, Music Industry Updates, Arbitron Ratings, Music News and more!: "That’s the nonsensical thing to me about the FCC’s indecency laws. You can throw around the n-word along with any other racial slur you can think of, and talk about how you want to go around raping and killing people and you’ll never get a fine. But if you say, “I’ve got to take a piss” they can fine you $27,500."
Extracting Plutonium from Nuclear Reactor Spent Fuel: "While some supporters of a U.S. reprocessing program believe it would help solve the nuclear waste problem, reprocessing would not reduce the need for storage and disposal of radioactive waste. Worse, reprocessing would make it easier for terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons materials, and for nations to develop nuclear weapons programs. "
nbc4i.com - News - Charges Filed Against Coin Dealer In Corruption Scandal: "Noe Indicted On 53 Counts"
Telegraph | News | US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites Bush War II
AP Wire | 02/12/2006 | Observers: Ohio lobbying laws hard to enforce, full of loopholes
Report: U.S. Is Abusing Captives - Los Angeles Times: "in some cases, constitutes torture."
TV On The Fritz: The Effectiveness Thing "We are ruled by bunglers. Every major venture by the Bush adminstration, from the occupation in Iraq to the Medicare drug program, has turned into an epic saga of incompetence."

Sunday

Join the party download mp3

Blinded by blood lust while attempting to kill a harmless six-ounce bird, Vice-President Dick Cheney shot a 78-year old man in the face. The man was wearing a flourescent orange hunting vest when Cheney shot him.
Secrecy News The AIPAC Case: Criminalizing Public Speech

Friday

Envoy objects to Indian leftists branding Bush head of 'pack of killers' - Yahoo! News: "Last month, [the US envoy to India] made comments that prompted a protest from the Indian government.

"Mulford had suggested New Delhi could lose out on a landmark nuclear deal with Washington if it did not vote against Iran at a meeting of the UN atomic watchdog..."

Sound familiar?
WSJ.com - Expert on Congress's Power Claims He Was Muzzled for Faulting Bush

Tuesday

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Worlds apart
The Charleston Gazette - News: "The last time 1st Lt. William “Eddie” Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood." He still doesn't have full use of the arm, but the Army billed him over $700 for the armor, and required him to pay it as a condition of being honorably discharged.
Robert Fisk: This Isn't About Islam vs. Secularism

Monday

Mike Ferner: Pentagon Database Leaves No Child Alone: "Rumsfeld's Scheme to Spy on Your Kids"

Saturday

Pentagon plans new arms to meet rivals like China - Yahoo! News After losing Iraq, NeoCons eye China.

Friday

Bush's Goals on Energy Quickly Find Obstacles - New York Times: "The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget.
A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation's oil imports. "

Thursday

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Blair-Bush deal before Iraq war revealed in secret memo: "Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme"
Foreign Policy In Focus | A Mis-statement of the Union Address
North Jersey Media Group providing local news, sports & classifieds for Northern New Jersey!: "Bush aides say don't take vow on oil literally"

Monday

Rising Islamic fundamentalism worries many that Iraq following in Iran�s footsteps: "If this isn't an Islamic state, then we're heading toward one"
Will Durst: That Ethical High Ground: POSSIBLE NEW REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS REFORMS:
Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases: "That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks"
Savings Rate at Lowest Level Since 1933: "Americans dipped further into their savings, pushing the savings rate for all of 2005 into negative territory at minus 0.5 percent. That was the lowest annual savings rate since a decline of 1.5 percent in 1933, a year in which the country was struggling to cope with the Great Depression."

Sunday

Pentagon Can Now Fund Foreign Militaries: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also threw her support behind the measure, overruling lower-ranking staff members who had argued that existing laws were sufficient and who had cautioned against granting the Pentagon such flexibility"

Saturday

U.S. Policy Seen as Big Loser in Palestinian Vote: "The election outcome signals a dramatic failure in the administration's strategy for Middle East peace, according to analysts and some U.S. officials. Since the United States cannot deal with an organization labeled a terrorist organization by the State Department, Hamas's victory is likely to curtail U.S. aid, limit official U.S. contacts with the Palestinian government and stall efforts to create an independent Palestinian state."

Mission Accomplished!

Friday

Project Censored Media democracy in action No Paper Trail Left Behind: the Theft of the 2004 Presidential Election
The Truth About the State of our Union

Thursday

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Recent myths about the budget and taxes
ArmsControlWonk | an arms control weblog: Iran & the Bomb 1: How Close Is Iran?: "Iran is probably a little less than a decade away from developing a nuclear weapon."
Audit Describes Misuse of Funds in Iraq Projects - New York Times: "It does not surprise me at all,' said a Defense Department official who worked in Hilla and other parts of the country, who spoke anonymously because he said he feared retribution from the Bush administration. He predicted that similar problems would turn up in the major southern city of Basra and elsewhere in the dangerous desert wasteland of Anbar province. 'It's a disaster"
Palestinian Candidates Condemn U.S. Program: "Every time the United States says it doesn't want Hamas, they boost Hamas"

Tuesday

TPMCafe || The Missing Abramoff-to-Dems Money
ABC News: EXCLUSIVE: Supreme Ethics Problem?: "'You know a lot of people would be embarrassed at that. I don't think Antonin Scalia will be embarrassed,'"

Sunday

Independent Online Edition > Environment: "Every enhanced production technique invented has been tried and tested in American oilfields. But it has all made no difference to the remarkable symmetry of the up-and-down curve that expressed Hubbert's thinking. The US is just short of halfway down the second half of the curve now. In other words, it has used up some three-quarters of its original endowment of recoverable oil. Given its almost total lack of attention to the efficiency with which oil is burned, the US becomes more dependent on foreign oil imports by the day....The American pattern of historical oil discovery and production is only a loose guide to what is going on in the rest of the world."