OrlandoSentinel.com: Entertainment: "$1.4 billion flowed from the House of Saud to the Bush family and their interests.
So how much influence does this $1.4 billion buy?"

KR Washington Bureau | 03/14/2004 | Families of slain troops join antiwar protest outside Dover air base: "You will not end terrorism by invading a country"

Missteps on Economy Worry Bush Supporters (washingtonpost.com): "Clearly, the machinery's not working very well"

News: "Washington has been channelling hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund the political opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - including those who briefly overthrew the democratically elected leader in a coup two years ago."

AP Wire | 03/12/2004 | PERSPECTIVE: Kucinich still could be factor in presidential race

GRAND THEFT AMERICA

KR Washington Bureau: "The government's top expert on Medicare costs was warned that he would be fired if he told the truth."

Yahoo! News - Rob Rogers

AlterNet: Culture War May Find WMDs

Study Faults Media Coverage of WMD: "Many stories stenographically reported the incumbent administration's perspectives on WMD, giving too little critical examination of the way officials framed the events, issues, threats and policy options."

TAP: Web Feature: Plugging Leaks. by Murray S. Waas. March 8, 2004.: "Rove and other White House officials described to the FBI what sources characterized as an aggressive campaign to discredit Wilson through the leaking and disseminating of derogatory information regarding him and his wife to the press, utilizing proxies such as conservative interest groups and the Republican National Committee to achieve those ends, and distributing talking points to allies of the administration on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Rove is said to have named at least six other administration officials who were involved in the effort to discredit Wilson. "

The Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page: " What you see in this chart is the signature of a corrupted policy process, in which political propaganda takes the place of professional analysis"

Bruce Yurgil's Political Velocity

HoustonChronicle.com - Hines: GOP learns Bush, gasp, is the problem: when the tremor struck Monday (on the evening news) and the strong aftershocks continued Tuesday (in the morning newspapers), the party seemed astonished at the real cause of their prescient unease: President Bush

KR Washington Bureau: "In building the case for war, Bush, Cheney and other top officials relied in part on assessments by the CIA and other agencies. But they concealed disputes and dissents over Iraq's weapons programs and links to terrorists that were raging among analysts, U.S. diplomats and military officials.
They also used exaggerated and fabricated information from defectors and former Iraqi exile groups that was fed directly into Cheney's office and the Pentagon. Those groups included the Iraqi National Congress, whose leader, Ahmad Chalabi, was close to hawks around Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and the White House, but who was distrusted by the CIA and the State Department"

Racial profiling will be eased, Ridge promises - www.smh.com.auBut only for non-citizens.

7,000 Orange County Voters Were Given Bad Ballots : "In 21 precincts where the problem was most acute, there were more ballots cast than registered voters....an exact account of miscast ballots is impossible."

The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Editorials: "It was never a question of whether, but of how President Bush would use the graveyards of Sept. 11 to season his re-election campaign."

The Pentagon's Secret Scream

Scalia Addressed Advocacy Group Before Key Decision :"After Scalia accepted the invitation [to speak at the religious group's fund-raising dinner], Supreme Court staff contacted [the group's founder] to make the justice's appearance conditional on the understanding that the dinner could not make a profit. To satisfy the court staff, Devlin said he assured them that any money from the dinner...would be refunded to guests. But, Devlin said, that turned out to be unnecessary. According to Devlin, the event made no money... 'It was a wash,' he said, adding that the bill for the open bar was higher than expected."

The New Yorker
March 5, 2004
Studio Script Notes on "The Passion"
Steve Martin

Dear Mel,

We love, love the script! The ending works great. You'll be
getting a call from us to start negotiations for the book rights.

Love the Jesus character. So likable. He can't seem to catch a break!
We identify with him because of it. One thing: I think we need to
clearly state "the rules." Why doesn't he use his superpowers to save
himself? Our creative people suggest that you could simply cut away to
two spectators:

SPECTATOR ONE
Why doesn't he use his superpowers to save himself?

SPECTATOR TWO
He can only use his powers to help others, never himself.

Does it matter which garden? Gethsemane is hard to say, and Eden is a
much more recognizable garden. Just thinking out loud.

Our creative people suggest a clock visual fading in and out in certain
scenes, like the Last Supper bit: "Thursday, 7:43 P.M.," or "Good
Friday, 5:14 P.M."

Love the repetition of "Is it I?" Could be very funny. On the eighth
inquiry, could Jesus just give a little look of exasperation into the
camera? Breaks frame, but could be a riot.

Also, could he change water into wine in Last Supper scene? Would be a
great moment, and it's legit. History compression is a movie tradition
and could really brighten up the scene. Great trailer moment, too.

Love the flaying.

Could the rabbis be Hispanic? There's lots of hot Latino actors now,
could give us a little zing at the box office. Research says there's
some historical justification for it.

Possible title change: "Lethal Passion." Kinda works. The more I say it
out loud, the more I like it.

Is there someplace where Jesus could be using an iBook? You know, now
that I say it, it sounds ridiculous. Strike that. But think about it.
Maybe we start a shot in Heaven with Jesus thoughtfully closing the top?

Love the idea of Monica Bellucci as Mary Magdalene (yow!). Our creative
people suggest a name change to Heather. Could skew our audience a
little younger.

Love Judas. Such a great villain. Our creative people suggest that he's
a little complicated. Couldn't he be one thing? Just bad? Gives the
movie much more of a motor. Also, thirty pieces of silver is not going
to get anyone excited. I think it'd be very simple to make him a "new
millionaire." Bring in the cash on a tray. Great dilemma that the
audience can identify with.

Minor spelling error: on page 18, in the
description of the bystanders, there should be a space between the words
"Jew" and "boy."

Merchandising issue: it seems the Cross image Has been done to death
and is public domain?we can't own it. Could the Crucifixion scene
involve something else? A Toyota would be wrong, but maybe there's a
shape we can copyright, like a wagon wheel?

I'm assuming "The dialogue is in Aramaic" is a typo for "American." If
not, call me on my cell, or I'm at home all weekend.

By the way, I'm sending a group of staffers on a cruise to the North
Pole, coincidentally around the time of your picture's release. Would
love to invite your dad!

See you at the movies!

Yours,
Stan

Ashcroft Funds Under Scrutiny (washingtonpost.com) Ashcroft is like a busted drug dealer paying his debt to society by dealing drugs.

'Enduring Freedom:' Abuses by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan (Human Rights Watch Report, March 2004)

The Detainees: As U.S. Detains Iraqis, Families Plead for News: "Iraq has a new generation of missing men. But instead of ending up in mass graves or at the bottom of the Tigris River, as they often did during the rule of Saddam Hussein, they are detained somewhere in American jails....American forces are still conducting daily raids, bursting into homes and sweeping up families. More than 10,000 men and boys are in custody."

FMQB: Radio Industry News, Music Industry Updates, Arbitron Ratings, Music News: "Stern Feels Bush-Whacked End Is Near "

Newsday.com: Air Force One phone records subpoenaed

Blix: 'I learnt I had been vilified, crucified and made to look like an imbecile': "I understood his formulations to say: the witches exist; you are appointed to deal with these witches; testing whether there are witches is only a dilution of the witch hunt."

Rall: NYTimes.com Pulled Comic Because of Conservatives: "If newspapers don't have the personnel to handle hate mail, said Rall, 'just delete it.'"

Greenspan: Maestro of Chutzpah

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Editorials / Gun bill's gaping holes: "Firearms and tobacco are already the only two consumer industries that are not subject to federal consumer safety regulations. Tobacco, at least, has been held accountable in suits brought by states and individuals on behalf of smoking's millions of victims and the budget-busting medical bills that government health programs have to pick up because of tobacco use. That legal recourse also would be denied to victims of guns under the bill."

Bush Ejects Two From Bioethics Council (washingtonpost.com)

Scalia Took Trip Set Up by Lawyer in Two Cases

Government Executive Magazine - 2/25/04 House panel sidetracks resolution calling for spy probe

Guardian Unlimited | Cartoons | 26.02.04: George Bush's stance on gay marriage

Dramatic Climate Change Could Become Global Security Nightmare Article includes link to original report in pdf format.

BW Online | March 1, 2004 | Commentary: Let's Wage War On Gas Guzzlers

Daily Yomiuri On-LineControl Japan's access to oil, control its military.

Primary Struggle Strengthening Contenders : "'I don't think Kerry can beat Bush. But I think Bush can beat Bush, and they're doing a very good job of it at the moment,' said one Republican strategist close to the White House.
"

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

Intelligence: C.I.A. Admits It Didn't Give Weapon Data to the U.N.

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."

In the New Economics: Fast-Food Factories?

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. "

Electionline.org (Electionline Today)

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.

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 "

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."

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."

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?"

White House papers no help, says member of 9/11 panel

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.'"

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."

Bush to Limit 9/11 Panel Session (washingtonpost.com)

Doug Thompson's The Rant: They Came to See a Race, Not a Photo-Op

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.' "

Kucinich Reaches Out to the Neglected (washingtonpost.com)

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.' "

The Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page: "this year's budget contains 27 glossy photos of Mr. Bush. We see the president in front of a giant American flag, in front of the Washington Monument, comforting an elderly woman in a wheelchair, helping a small child with his reading assignment, building a trail through the wilderness and, of course, eating turkey with the troops in Iraq. Somehow the art director neglected to include a photo of the president swimming across the Yangtze River."

BW Online | February 23, 2004 | Commentary: Inventing The "Clinton Recession"

Boston.com / News / Nation / Bush releases his military records: " the White House made available to reporters a retired Guard lieutenant colonel, John Calhoun, who said Bush appeared for frequent drills at the Alabama unit in 1972. But Bush's records do not support Calhoun's claim. And numerous other members of the Alabama Guard unit told reporters this week that they did not recall Bush appearing at the unit."

Memphis Flyer :: Issue 781 :: BUSH A NO-SHOW AT ALABAMA BASE, SAYS MEMPHIAN

washingtonpost.com Duck hunting

Most Think Truth Was Stretched to Justify Iraq War (washingtonpost.com)

the Progressive Southerner | George W. Bush's Lost Year in 1972 Alabama

Michael Moore.com : Mike's Message : Messages: "But your 'desertion' didn't go away -- and here's the reason why. You have sent countless numbers of our sons and daughters in the National Guard to their deaths in the last 11 months. You did this while misleading their parents and the nation with bogus lies about weapons of mass destruction and scary phony Saddam ties to al Qaeda. You sent them off to a never-ending war so that your benefactors at Halliburton and the oil companies could line their pockets. And then you had the audacity to prance around in a soldier's uniform on an aircraft carrier proclaiming 'Mission Accomplished' -- while the cameras from your re-election campaign ad agency rolled."

Yahoo! News - AP: Nuclear Suppliers Were Known to U.S. ... for twenty years.

From Guardsman . . . (washingtonpost.com)

'Pay' Records Prove Bush was AWOL in Alabama

The New York Review of Books: Now They Tell Us

Pakistan's Nuclear Inquiry is a Sham

Opinion: Editorial: Bush records remain AWOL (captimes.com)

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan: "Where was he in December of '72, February and March of '73? And why did he not fulfill the medical requirements to remain on active flight duty status? "

Editorial: Bush on Iraq/An unpersuasive performance

IOL : America wants SA to take activist role in Zim: "Charles Snyder, acting assistant secretary of state for Africa,...rejected criticism that the US was interested in the Sudan only because of its oil, saying its real oil interest on the continent was in west Africa, now supplying about 15 percent of US needs...'We may be guilty of chasing oil elsewhere but not in the Sudan. ' "

The Daytona Beach News-Journal: East Volusia: "This bill is a cinch to pass. Schools should have no trouble sweating $2.7 million or so out of their budgets so legislators can feel the warm glow that comes from requiring other people to be patriotic."

Cheney: The Man in the Bubble : "Cheney's isolation didn't alter Davos for the rest of us, except for minor annoyances. But it provided a disturbing picture of how isolated our president and vice president have become, how apart from the world their existence is. I came away from Davos sensing that the leaders of our country are ever more cut off from the kind of normal feedback and outside input crucial to grasping the current state of the world."

The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida Most state officials believe new rules on power plants will increase pollution

The Price of Loyalty: The Bush Files

d a t e l i n e: "MARK DAVIS: Well, when you analyse much of the so-called intelligence that was being relied upon by George Bush and Tony Blair, much of that information seems to have been sourced from your organisation, or that of your predecessors. In your opinion, was that information misused for the purposes of war?

HANS BLIX: Yes. In many cases it was."

Cheney's Staff Focus of Probe - Insight on the News - National: "Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said."

Yahoo! News - Speech of CIA Director George Tenet: "Let me be clear: Analysts differed on several important aspects of these programs and those debates were spelled out in the estimate. They never said there was an imminent threat."

Scalia Was Cheney Hunt Trip Guest; Ethics Concern Grows : "Both Perry [who runs the Perry Flying Center at the Harry P. Williams Airport] and [St. Mary Parish Sheriff David] Naquin said there were orders prohibiting photographs of those who exited the planes and climbed into the motorcade. But two days later, Cheney returned to the airport without Scalia, and photographs were allowed. Perry and Naquin said the vice president happily posed with them for photos at the Patterson airport."

KR Washington Bureau | 02/02/2004 | Iraq intelligence efforts led by Cheney magnified errors, officials say: "Senior officials on Monday revealed new details of how Cheney's office pressed Secretary of State Colin Powell to use large amounts of disputed intelligence in a February 2003 presentation to the United Nations Security Council laying out the U.S. case for an invasion.

A senior administration official said that during a three-day pre-speech review, Powell rejected more than half of a 45-page assessment on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction compiled by Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, and based on materials assembled by pro-invasion hard-liners in the Pentagon and the White House.

Powell also jettisoned 75 percent of a separate report on al-Qaida, said the official.

Still, he said, Libby continued pressing Powell unsuccessfully right up until a few minutes before the speech to include dubious information purportedly linking Saddam to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "

Ricin Partially Shuts Senate (washingtonpost.com): "An FBI official said the intern noticed clumpy dust on a small mail-sorting machine he had been using. The machine was in a 10-by-15-foot mailroom attached to Frist's office. 'All you have is dust,' said the official, describing why it would be difficult to trace. 'How long has it been there? Did somebody walk in and dump it?'"

Reprint of article removed from washingtonpost.com : "an intern in Frist's office was using a mail opening machine that slices letters open. He left the mail opening area for about three hours yesterday to attend a class, Mihalko said, and when he returned discovered a powdery substance in the area near the machine. "

Remember the armed guard on the Judiciary Committee's computer? They still there?

FBI says ricin also mailed to White House in Nov. Mihalko said that an intern in Frist's office was using a mail opening machine that slices letters open. He left the mail opening area for about three hours yesterday to attend a class, Mihalko said, and when he returned discovered a powdery substance in the area near the machine.

Argument: "My belief is that right up to the publication of the dossier there was a unified view amongst not only my own staff but all the DIS experts that on the basis of the intelligence available to them the assessment that Iraq possessed a CW or BW capability should be carefully caveated"

News: "The intelligence official whose revelations stunned the Hutton inquiry has suggested that not a single defence intelligence expert backed Tony Blair's most contentious claims on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction."

Khan denied confessing transfer of nuke tech: MMA : HindustanTimes.com

Guardian | Bush accused of undermining investigation

Remarks by the President to the Press Pool: Ask a question, lose your job.

"Q I'm wondering what you think of John Kerry, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: You're supposed to be thinking about what it means to start your own business, like these people here have done. "

Daily Yomiuri On-LineU.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on Monday hailed Japan's dispatch of Self-Defense Forces personnel to Iraq to help reconstruct the country as a sign of Japan's growing global leadership.

Speaking at the Japan National Press Club in Hibiya, Tokyo, Armitage praised Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's "remarkable vision" in making the decision. Koizumi "set a new benchmark, not just in the dispatch...but also in redefining Japan's role in the world," he said. ...

Concern both in and outside Japan over Japan's greater role in international affairs are "ghosts of the past," he said, adding, "I see that debate within Japan about changing the Constitution is now picking up speed without changing the unique character of this country."

Cigarette makers forced to put smoking disease images on packets - www.smh.com.au: "Fourteen pictures, including photographs of lung disease, tongue cancers and a dissected brain, would be prominent on the front and backs of [Australian] packets....The parliamentary secretary for health, Trish Worth, said the size of the packet warnings had yet to be decided, with the option of half the front and back or 30 per cent of the front and 90 per cent of the back.

Ms Worth said after similar health warnings were introduced in Canada, the number of smokers fell by 3 per cent. 'We would hope for that, or even better,' she said."

How to Lose Your Job in Talk Radio

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Pilots call for evaluation of US intelligence: "The British Airline Pilots' Association (Balpa) is calling on the UK government to evaluate fully the 'strength and validity' of the security information [from US intelligence services] that has led to disruption for hundreds of holidaymakers.

Terrorism specialist Simon Reeve, author of the book on al-Qaida, The New Jackals, said the pilots' union was right to be sceptical about the quality of the intelligence that has prompted the cancellations. He told the Press Association: 'I think some of the evidence, some of the intelligence surrounding these threats is tenuous to say the least. "

Yahoo! News - Bush to Order Probe of Iraq Intelligence ... places call to Lord Hutton.

Netcraft: www.sco.com is a weapon of mass destruction Geek humor.

Asia Times - Asia's most trusted news source: "pundits agree that Kucinich, along with Dean, have made the mainstream candidates' support of the war resolution an issue; Kerry and Edwards have struggled to explain away their support for the resolutions authorizing the Iraq war....other candidates have been forced to craft plans to increase international involvement in the occupation.

So Kucinich can take some credit for altering the face of the nomination process, and he does raise some important points. He also favors abolishing the World Trade Organization and withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). These stands push the mainstream candidates to explain and define their own positions in specific terms with concrete programs....

Outsider candidates keep the process fresh, challenging mainstream candidates to refine their stances; they turn on voters who otherwise might not be interested in the process, and they challenge their political parties to maintain their relevance to the shifting tastes of the electorate."