On April 12, 2002, two Greenpeace activists boarded the APL-Jade as it entered the Port of Miami-Dade, believing it was carrying 70 tons of mahogany illegally imported from the Amazon. The activists were arrested before they could unfurl a banner that read, "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging." Greenpeace alleges that the mahogany was eventually delivered to a South Carolina port. Federal officials had no comment.

Fifteen months later, a Miami federal grand jury indicted Greenpeace on one count of illegally boarding the ship and another of conspiracy to commit that act.

What most frightens activists on both sides of the political spectrum are the penalties that could be invoked, ranging from stripping the organization of its tax-exempt status to allowing federal officials to view its records -- including everything from membership rolls to internal communications.

The statute thus applies, by its terms, when a boarding occurs while the vessel is in the process of being moored, but has not yet completed the process.

"Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn."
- Charles De Mar, Better Off Dead

Mogul face plant chill
Winter solitude shatter'd
"Single!" lift line call

The Director of Public Health, or his duly authorized deputy, is hereby authorized and directed to quarantine and/or examine any person of either sex whom he has reasonable grounds to believe is afflicted with a venereal disease and is likely to expose others thereto.

Asked who received the best Christmas present, Sgt Gilbert Nail from Fort Hood, Texas chuckled: "Of course, Saddam. He received free food and boarding for the rest of his life."

"I received only greeting cards," Nail said.

Canada's $800-million rescue helicopter fleet has suffered a litany of problems since its 1998 purchase, including radios and computers that regularly break down, a flawed de-icing system, a chronic shortage of spare parts, a search light so bright it temporarily blinds rescuers, airframe cracking and bearings that prematurely loosen.

At one point, Human Resources Development Canada threatened to padlock a hangar at Canadian Forces Base Comox on Vancouver Island over a worker safety issue.

In documents obtained by CanWest News Service, one Comox officer, Major Ryan LaPalm, described the Cormorant program as dysfunctional and warned of an "FS Molotov" -- a flight-safety Molotov cocktail.

The dispute over the Unix and Linux heritage became even more tangled yesterday when Novell, a software company, announced it had filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for copyright on some of the same Unix code for which SCO claims the rights.

As this Court sits only a short distance from where the World Trade Center once stood, we are as keenly aware as anyone of the threat al Qaeda poses to our country and of the responsibilities the President and law enforcement officials bear for protecting the nation.

To reach space, SpaceShipOne is to fly nearly straight up at a speed of about 2,400 mph, more than three times the speed of sound.

The craft is one of the contenders for the X Prize, a $20 million prize offered by a St. Louis-based foundation to the builder of the first privately developed spaceship to carry three people to 62.5 miles up, then do it again within two weeks.

SpaceShipOne was built in secret and financed without government help at an undisclosed price by Rutan, whose most famous aircraft was the Voyager, which circled the globe in 1986 on one tank of gas. Rutan unveiled SpaceShipOne in April at Scaled's Mojave plant.

Globally, the industry earned $28 billion in 2002, and in the United States, it's growing at around 20 percent a year. According to Fortune magazine, Americans will spend more time playing video games this year -- about 75 hours on average -- than watching rented videos and DVD's. A nationwide survey found that the percentage of last year's college students who had ever played video games was 100. Two games from the industry leader Electronic Arts, Madden NFL Football and FIFA Soccer, have each earned in excess of a billion dollars. (This year's Madden edition made more than $200 million alone.) For new and established musicians alike, games are the new radio; landing a spot on a video-game soundtrack is arguably more prestigious than landing a similar spot in a movie, a function not just of sales figures but also of the fact that the average Madden NFL 2004 buyer, for instance, will spend 100 hours in front of the game. Each statistic is more mind-boggling than the last, and together they certainly pose a challenge to conventional wisdom about which of these media is the tail and which is the dog.

[ . . . ]

Bonnell naturally agrees [with an earlier complimentary assessment of Atari]. ''If you look at the structure of our business today,'' he says, ''you have Electronic Arts running the pack, like 20 percent market share, and then you have a pack of five companies -- Activision, Atari, Take-Two, THQ, Konami -- which are all fighting in the range of 5 to 7 percent market share. At the end of the day, you'll end up with probably four to five players each controlling something between 15 and 20 percent market share, and probably a significant number of smaller players around. To be there, to be in this league, is critical. Because I believe that the big will be bigger and then the small will be smaller. And mechanically, if you're not in the right league -- it's like winning the Tour de France, right? You have to be in the first pack to have a chance. If you are too far behind, you can't really come back.''

South Koreans elected human rights lawyer Roh Moo Hyun as President exactly a year ago yesterday, but opinion polls indicated that many regretted their choice.

Analysts said his decline in popularity was striking even in a country that is famously unforgiving of its leaders.

An election funding scandal that has rocked Mr Roh's term in office has attracted criticism even from a usually sympathetic newspaper and from the country's most senior Catholic leader.

A poll in the Korea Times showed that 56 per cent of those who picked Mr Roh a year ago would vote differently today.

Six out of 10 of the 1,000 voters surveyed gave him the thumbs-down.

In the words of an American officer who works closely with them, "Poland has taken to the Iraq mission for idealistic and principled purposes: Its leadership and military truly believe that freedom and justice are universal values worth fighting for."

To how many other nations would those words apply?

Poland has deployed 2,500 of its best soldiers to Iraq. It sent $64 million worth of its newest equipment - which operations in Iraq will ruin. Warsaw selected its finest officers to command and staff the Multinational Division Center South. A Polish major general commands a total of 12,000 troops from 22 nations with responsibility for a sector previously held by twice as many U.S. Marines. The Polish performance has been flawless.

Their reward? Surely America must recognize such a great contribution from an economically struggling ally - at a time when Polish troops also support peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan and the Balkans?

Sorry. Turkey, which stabbed us as deeply in the back as it could on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom, will receive a minimum of $2 billion from Washington - and the same elements in the Rumsfeld cabal who failed to plan for the occupation of Iraq hope to increase our aid to Ankara to $5 billion.

Pakistan, which refuses to press home the fight against al Qaeda, will get billions from Washington. The repressive Egyptian regime will get a few billion, too, as it does every year. Even Yemen will get a welfare check from Uncle Sugar.

And Poland? Like the Czech Republic, which sent a few medics to the Persian Gulf then withdrew them in panic, Poland will get a standard package of $12 million for NATO-related programs. Other than some logistical support in Iraq, that's it. Strategic peanuts for our most enthusiastic ally on the European continent.

Poland did have one request - a humble one, in the great scheme of things. Warsaw asked for $47 million to modernize six used, American-built C-130 transport aircraft and to purchase American-built HMMWV all-terrain vehicles so elite Polish units could better integrate operations with American forces. Much of the money would go right back to U.S. factories and workers.

Our response? We stiffed them.

Countries that opposed the US decision to invade Iraq have no right to protest US initiatives restricting reconstruction contracts to allies, the Saudi ambassador to the US said Friday.

"It's amazing how people who were doing everything possible to derail the success" of the Iraq war now "feel they have the right" to reconstruction contracts, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan said. "It just takes so much chutzpah."

[emphasis added]

In response to questions as to how Pyeongyang's nuclear ambition will be handled, should nuclear tensions escalate and Washington harden its stance in the future, the minister said such policies will be drawn up when the time comes.

"At this point, I don't think we need to talk about policy issues based on the possibility of negative scenarios." Jeong said.

And in one extended ambush in Samarra, U.S. officials said, insurgents signaled the approach of a U.S. Army patrol by giving flight to a flock of carrier pigeons, then used children as cover to open fire Monday. U.S. forces killed 11 Iraqis in that incident, the U.S. military said Tuesday. No Americans were reported among the casualties.

Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Justice and Peace department and a former papal envoy to the United Nations, told a news conference on Tuesday it would be "illusory" to think the arrest of the former Iraqi president would heal all the damage caused by a war which the Holy See opposed.

"I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures," he said.

"Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him," he said in answer to questions about Saddam's arrest.

[ . . . ]

The news conference was called for Martino to present the World Day of Peace message, in which Pope John Paul took a swipe at the United States for invading Iraq without the backing of the United Nations.

The church is very odd these days in that it dodges those controversies on which it has known authority and expertise, and seems to embrace those controversies on which it seems to have nothing to add but airy non sequiturs. See the comments this week of Cardinal Renato Martino, who said it was not compassionate of U.S. forces to publicly search Saddam Hussein's head for lice. Yes, how brutal. Why, it was like what Saddam himself would have done with a captured foe, except once he was done with him he wouldn't have a head. But never mind.

Saddam, who could face trial before a new Iraqi tribunal for war crimes, was defiant when top Iraqi officials visited him in captivity hours later -- people at the meeting said he refused to admit to human rights abuses.

The senior administration official told Fox News that the U.S. is leaning toward permitting the Iraqis to try Saddam. The senior official noted, with some irony, that "even for someone like him there's a process."

Saddam will now "face the justice he denied to millions," said President Bush, whose troops and intelligence agents had been searching in vain for Saddam since April. "In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over."

The raid by 600 soldiers and special forces took place Saturday night at a farm in Adwar, 10 miles from Saddam's home town of Tikrit, less than three hours after the pivotal tip was received from an Iraqi.

The informant was a member of a family close to Saddam," [4th Infantry Division commander Gen. Raymond] Odierno told reporters in Tikrit. "Finally we got the ultimate information from one of these individuals."

1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%)
2. Bush, President George W. - Republican (63%)
3. Edwards, Senator John, NC - Democrat (58%)
4. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (49%)
5. Libertarian Candidate (49%)
6. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT - Democrat (49%)
7. Kucinich, Rep. Dennis, OH - Democrat (48%)
8. Lieberman, Senator Joe, CT - Democrat (46%)
9. Gephardt, Rep. Dick, MO - Democrat (43%)
10. Clark, Retired General Wesley K., AR - Democrat (31%)
11. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. - Democrat (24%)
12. Phillips, Howard - Constitution (21%)
13. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (15%)
14. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol, IL - Democrat (11%)

(via MSNBC)

"PETA Causes Premature Ejaculation. Chicks Dig The Meat."

Lisa Franzetta, PETA campaign coordinator
(via SFGate)

For the record, I have no staff. If I don't get to stuff, it doesn't get gotten to on InstaPundit. And lots of stuff -- including lots of stuff that I'd cover if I had more time, or more energy -- doesn't get gotten to. But that's okay, because the blogosphere is a big place, and I don't have to get to everything!

But the European Union will not deserve to be taken seriously as international actor, and as a counterpart if not a counterweight to the US, if it does not make a more serious effort in the field of defence and security.

[emphasis added]

A Pentagon directive says countries wanting a share of the $18.6 billion in reconstruction contracts in the 2004 U.S. budget must participate militarily in the postwar effort.

The European Commission called the contract ban a “political mistake,” and said it would examine the contracts to see if Washington had violated its commitments to the World Trade Organization.

"This is a gratuitous and extremely unhelpful decision at a time when there is a general recognition of the need for the international community to work together for stability and reconstruction in Iraq," Chris Patten, the European Union’s commissioner for international relations, said through a spokesman.

[emphasis added]

Of course, Canada was not the only one to complain about the U.S. decision on contracts. Germany, France, Russia and the European Union all professed to be shocked and appalled. How can you expect us to help out in Iraq if you treat us this way, they demanded of Washington? Instead of shutting us out of contracts, you should be asking for our help.

That is precisely what the United States has been doing. For months, it has been practically pleading with other countries to send troops to help restore order in Iraq. From Paris, Berlin and Moscow, the answer has been a diplomatic version of, "You must be kidding."

When Secretary of State Colin Powell asked NATO for help recently, he got the coldest of cold shoulders. As for the United Nations, it pulled most of its international staff out of Iraq when its Baghdad headquarters was struck by a suicide bomber in August. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says it's too dangerous to go back. He's putting the new Iraqi HQ in Cyprus.

Essentially, then, the message to the United States from Canada and the other anti-war countries is this: We won't put a single one of our soldiers at risk to help you rebuild Iraq, but we demand that our companies get a share in profits. The nerve, to use Mr. Manley's term, is "shocking."

Some joker calling himself "The Paratrooper of Love" has taken issue with my latest animation, myself, and Dennis Kucinich for featuring the animation on his site.

In fact, he has called Dennis and I "Traitor Bastards. Traitor. Bastards."

He seems to take issue with me listing the names of the dead soldiers in Iraq, saying that I'm "Using" these folks. He claims Dennis is, similarly "Using" these military fallen to "further his campaign."

Well- let's look at the facts...

Who "used" (and, might I add, callously wasted) the lives of these young men and women in the first place?

Well- dangit- do I need to even say?

It was George Bush who sent these fine young men and women into an unneccessary, illegal war. It was George Bush who sent them off to die.

And why? To make his rich corporate buddies just a smidgen richer, and to achieve closure with a strange, psychological, freudian issue with his failed president of a dad.

Now that these kids have started to come home dead at a rate of 9 per week, George Bush further shows his disrespect and disregard for these fallen dead by outlawing any television coverage of their return, or their funerals.

And what did I do, in creating this animation? I did what Bush is unwilling to do- pay public homage to these folks, and let the american and world public see the price that is being paid for Bush's lies. The more people know of the price we pay when we put up with Bush's lies, the more people are informed, and the fewer of these young men and women will be coming home in body bags.

Kucinich, I believe, has the same sentiments in using this animation. In listing the names of the dead on his site, he is showing far more respect and giving more dignity to their names and lives than the illegitimate president who sent them off to die for selfish, prurient reasons.

Now, even though this "pinhead of love" has posted my e-mail addy to his site, I have yet to recieve a single e-mail from any of his drones. However, he also lists the Kucinich for President phone number, and I know they've been getting a tad of flack from this foolishness, which is truly unfortunate.

But, ya know? While this one, poor, sad sack has gotten his panties into a wad, I've gotten SCORES of supporting e-mails from combat veterans, who truly know of the consequences and horrors of war, and are disgusted at how Bush is mis-using our military.

So- the Moral of this story?

Right-wing gung-ho pinheads who are too stupid to know the score can rant and rave, but in the end, they only show how foolish they really are.

The animation will stay up, and I hope Dennis keeps it up on his site, as long as it is useful to his campaign. People NEED to know the human costs of Bush's insanity, and while the flying monkey right might blow a gasket when confronted with the truth, their hysterical invective should be dismissed for what it is- sheer, misinformed hysteria.

and then theres kwanza.

one thing black people can do well is praise jesus. we do it better than anyone in the world. the music we make when we do it might be the most magical of all music, the preachers we have might be the best there ever were, and the clothes we wear to church are the sharpest.

then on the flip side we have our brothers and sisters who are muslim, and watch them pray. they win at praying. they win at pilgrimiging. they win at letting their spirituality become a solid and regular part of their lives.

with those two options, theres no need for any damn kwanza. some watered down bullshit made up strip mall phony holiday so you can wear a koofi? fuck that shit. we need to focus up on the biggest birthday of the year. we dont need no stinkin kwanza getting in the way.

black folk, the racists want us to have kwanza. it makes us look ridiculous and lost. kwanza represents something missing from being Christian. racists dont want black folk being Christian. they dont want to be equals to us. they dont want to share beliefs, they dont want to have anything to do with us, cuz they know that familiarity destroys ignorance, and only the ignorant can remain hateful.

The Pentagon has formally barred companies from countries opposed to the Iraq war from bidding on $18.6-billion (U.S.) worth of reconstruction contracts.

A directive from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz limits bidders on those 26 contracts to firms from the United States, Iraq, their coalition partners and other countries which have sent troops to Iraq.

The ruling bars companies from U.S. allies such as France, Germany and Canada from bidding on the contracts because their governments opposed the American-led war that ousted Saddam Hussein's regime.

Based upon the findings above, I hereby determine that, in accordance with 41 U.S.C. 253(c)(7), as implemented by FAR 6.302-7, it is necessary in the public interest to use other than competitive procedures in the procurements for the prime contracts described on the attachment. Such procurements shall use competitive procedures, with participation limited to sources from the United States, Iraq, Coalition partners and force contributing nations.

[links added]

Grace Park as Lt. Sharon Valerii (Boomer)
via UGO.com, about.com
(click on pic for full size version)

How dare the President of the United States fly into hostile airspace to spend the holiday with US troops and pose with a mere display turkey?!? The Democrats will have a field day with this. They well know that a US president has no business in Iraq with his hands on a dodgy bird; he belongs in the Oval Office, with his dick in an intern's mouth.

HANNITY: Let me ask you. You know, the PETA people, the animal rights people hate your guts. You know that.

NUGENT: I'm so proud. I couldn't be more proud. Every time they open their mouth, I kill a dozen of something for them.

HANNITY: Yes. You're going to kill some in...

NUGENT: Every time they open their mouths I kill more deer and feed the homeless and I give food to the Salvation Army.

HANNITY: In 2002, you were telling me off the air, 20 million meals were provided because people like you go deer hunting.

NUGENT: Yes. The hunters of this nation in the year 2002 that I have documentation of, this is just I think the tip of the iceberg. But between Safari Club International, our own Ted Nugent United Sportsmen of America, sporting groups across the country, 20 million hot meals of pure protein for homeless shelters. How beautiful is that?

The 8th Army command will investigate making South Korea’s national sport, tae kwan do, compulsory for every U.S. soldier stationed on the peninsula, officials said this week.

The martial art, which was founded in Korea and incorporates kicks and punches, has been a compulsory part of physical training for 2nd Infantry Division soldiers since November 2000.

[ . . . ]

Korean tae kwan do grandmaster Kim Mu-nok, who oversees the 2nd ID program, brought the proposal to Welch. Kim, assisted by eight other masters in teaching Area I soldiers, said 2nd ID personnel devote at least one hour-long physical training session to tae kwan do each week.

Since the program began, 30,000 soldiers have earned their yellow belts in the martial art and 100 U.S. soldiers and 200 Korean augmentees to the Army have obtained black belts, Kim told senior officers and soldiers participating in the tae kwon do program at Camp Red Cloud Tuesday.

“When soldiers come to Korea and study tae kwan do, they learn Korean culture and they learn strength, speed, and confidence useful in combat,” he said.

“It makes them warriors. That is really second to none. Hoo-ah!” he said, combining the 2nd ID slogan and the now-ubiquitous Army grunt of agreement.

One of the more distasteful forms of post-9/11 commentary can be found in suggestions that there were “root causes” to terrorism – “root causes” that not only explained the resort to mass violence against innocents, but made the use of such violence humanly plausible, if not morally justifiable. The corollary to this was the suggestion that the United States had somehow brought 9/11 on itself, by reasons of its dominant economic and cultural position in the world, its Middle East policy, or some combination thereof. The moral-political implication was that such a misguided government lacked the moral authority to respond to terrorism through the use of armed force.

The “root causes” school blithely ignores the extant literature on the phenomenon of contemporary terrorism, which is emphatically not a case of the “wretched of the earth” rising up to throw off their chains. []

[ . . . ]

Among those who have “forgotten” the just war tradition while retaining its language, the classic ad bellum criterion of “last resort” is usually understood in simplistically mathematical terms: the use of proportionate and discriminate armed force is the last point in a series of options, and prior, non-military options (legal, diplomatic, economic, etc.) must be serially exhausted before the criterion of “last resort” is satisfied. This is both an excessively mechanistic understanding of “last resort” and a prescription for danger.

The case of international terrorism again compels a development of this ad bellum criterion. For what does it mean to say that all non-military options have been tried and found wanting when we are confronted with a new and lethal type of international actor, one which recognizes no other form of power except the use of violence and which is largely immune (unlike a conventional state) to international legal, diplomatic, and/or economic pressures? The charge that U.S. military action after 9/11 was morally dubious because all other possible means of redress had not been tried and found wanting misreads the nature of terrorist organizations and networks. The “last” in “last resort” can mean “only,” in circumstances where there is plausible reason to believe that non-military actions are unavailable or unavailing.

[emphasis added]

Here is an awkwardness in Weigel’s case. The terrorist, he says, has no aims that can be taken seriously as political or moral; but this is a sweeping statement, instantly challengeable. The terrorist is objectively wicked, no dispute about that, in exercising the most appalling form of blackmail by menacing the lives of the innocent. Nothing should qualify this judgement. But this does not mean that the terrorist has no serious moral goals (what about the Irgun?). It is possible to use unspeakably wicked means to pursue an aim that is shared by those who would not dream of acting in the same way, an aim that is intelligible or desirable. The risk in claiming so unproblematic a right to define what counts as politics and so to dismiss certain sorts of political calculation in combating terrorism is that the threatened state (the US in this instance) loses the power of self-criticism and becomes trapped in a self-referential morality which creates even deeper difficulties in the application of just war theory.

[emphasis added]

The fact of the matter today is that the just war tradition, as a historically informed method of rigorous moral reasoning, is far more alive in our service academies than in our divinity schools and faculties of theology; the just war tradition “lives” more vigorously in the officer corps, in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and at the higher levels of the Pentagon than it does at the National Council of Churches, in certain offices at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, or on the Princeton faculty.

The race for San Francisco mayor between Supervisors Gavin Newsom and Matt Gonzalez is considered close enough that the participation of any number of voting blocs could sway the outcome of the election. [note - "Supervisors" because it's the "City and County of San Francisco"]

That would include, perhaps significantly, San Francisco's 58,000 registered Republicans, whose views on slashing government spending and cutting taxes put them at odds with the great majority of liberal voters in the city.

Republicans make up nearly 13 percent of San Francisco's registered voters, behind Democrats (54 percent) and voters who decline to state a party preference (26 percent). The Green Party has 3 percent of the registered voters.

Congress is proposing to pass the Clear Act, which will require local police departments to collaborate with federal immigration enforcement agencies as a condition for receiving federal funds. As Mayor of San Francisco, I will advocate with our congressional representatives against passage and will refuse local implementation. I will also aggressively enforce the San Francisco City of Refuge Ordinance, which, with the exception of a few circumstances, prohibits county employees from collaborating with federal immigration enforcement agencies.

I can report that Republicans in the Assembly drew first blood, springing a surprise vote on the Democrats to dispense with the usual rules so the Assembly could instantly consider repealing SB60, which allows illegal immigrants to get a driver's license.

[ . . . ]

Forget the cleansed media reports. Here's what went down: [director of finance Donna] Arduin was invited to present her fiscal audit. Committee chairwoman Jenny Oropeza, D- Long Beach, booked Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill to testify also.

Hill went first. Arduin, who the committee knew had to meet with the governor at noon, was made to wait an hour and 15 minutes. Oropeza refused Arduin's request to testify in a timely manner. Arduin finally spoke at 11:45 a.m.

Suffering a nasty sinus infection, Arduin asked if she could sit down. Oropeza refused to let Arduin sit, using the lame excuse that the committee needed to see her face.

People couldn't believe it. A murmur went up. Was this for real? But Oropeza again insisted Arduin stand. Part way through her testimony, Arduin pleaded for a chair. Two men rushed over. Oropeza -- in a dripping, saccharine voice -- exclaimed, "Of course sit down, of course, if you really need to!"

A joke spread: "Oropeza went to the Cruz Bustamante School of Condescension."

As Arduin answered questions, her noon appointment time passed. Finally, as a legislator asked another question, Arduin ended her testimony and left.

Most media reported that Arduin abruptly left but sanitized the mistreatment by Oropeza. The Los Angeles Times, for example, did not tell readers that Oropeza forced Arduin to stand, and buried the fact that Oropeza made Arduin late.

Maltreatment of Arduin spread. Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Santa Ana, stated at another hearing: "Let's have a little fun here," then turned to Mike Genest, Arduin's top aide, and caustically stated, "You are the director of finance, and she is more of a figurehead."

At the end of World War II, Canada possessed the third largest navy and fourth largest air force in the world, as well as the largest all-volunteer army ever fielded (conscription was only introduced near the end of the war, and no conscripts actually made it into battle).

If this portion of the defence budget continues to fall, and if funding for capital acquisition is not increased, then the air force will likely disappear through the 2008-2013 time frame, and either the army or navy will disappear in the same time frame.

Romeo Dallaire is a national hero and a riveting speaker. I saw him in action recently, and he left the audience in tears. With raw passion, he described the awful butchery in Rwanda and how powerless he was to stop it. Every day for months, he begged and pleaded with the UN for reinforcements. With even a few thousand troops, he believes, he could have saved hundreds of thousands of people. But help never came. Instead of sending more troops, the United Nations decided to withdraw them. The United States was utterly indifferent, too. And so, as the world looked the other way, Rwanda became the greatest killing field since Cambodia.

[ . . . ]

There is a pragmatic argument for spending money on the military, and it goes like this: It's the price we've got to pay for sitting at the table with the big boys. It's hard to preach to NATO about its obligations as long as we spend less per capita on defence than any Western nation but Luxembourg. What's worse, the Americans won't listen to us, either. Why should they pay attention to a nation that scarcely bothers to defend its own borders? If we cut back any more on defence, we'll have to contract the entire job out to them.

There's another argument I like better. I would like us to be able to live up to our cherished image of ourselves as the world's good guys. The trouble is that being good guys requires something more than lip service and good intentions. Just ask Romeo Dallaire.

So let's review. The memos--from 2001-02 when the Democrats controlled Judiciary under the chairmanship of Sen. Patrick Leahy--show the senators took their marching orders from People for the American Way, the Alliance for Justice, NARAL Pro-Choice America and the NAACP. No surprise here, as anyone who's been following the course of Mr. Bush's stalled nominees knows full well. But the extent of the groups' micromanagement is eye-popping and exposes the opposition to Mr. Bush's judicial picks for what it really is: political maneuvering, not principled differences of opinion.

We suggest that you encourage Senator Leahy to continue fighting the Administration for these Memos [written by Miguel Estrada while serving as Solicitor General], and if possible, that one of you help him in this fight.

Elaine [Jones of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund] would like the [Judiciary] Committee to hold off on any 6th Circuit nominees [at the time composed of 9 active judges] until the University of Michigan case regarding the constitutionality of affirmative action in higher education is decided by the en banc 6th Circuit. . . . The thinking is that the current 6th Circuit will sustain the affirmative action program, but if a new judge with conservative views is confirmed before the case is decided, that new judge will be able, under 6th Circuit rules, to review the case and vote on it.

As you know, the meeting with the groups to discuss the strategy on judicial nominations is scheduled for tomorrow at 11:50. Both Senator Schumer and Senator Durbin will attend. The six principals who will attend are (1) Wade Henderson [Executive Director, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights], (2) Ralph Neas [President, People for the American Way], (3) Leslie Proll of the NAACP LDF, (4) Nancy Zirkin [Deputy Director, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights/American Association of University Women Director of Public Policy and Government Relations (?)], (5) Nan Aron [President, Alliance for Justice], and (6) Kate Michelman [President, NARAL].

As you know, during your meeting with the groups, you and Schumer discussed approaching Leahy during the [Dennis] Shedd [(nominee for 4th Circuit] hearing. . . . [W]e don't think you should expend a great deal of effort trying to change Leahy's mind about the Shedd hearing. . . . Instead, you should speak with Schumer []. The three of you [Kennedy, Schumer, Durbin] should approach Leahy [].

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, yesterday urged America to recognise that terrorists can "have serious moral goals".

Earlier today we heard the news of the latest atrocities in Istanbul and the deaths of some Consulate staff as well as many others in the city. I cannot easily express the shock and grief that I and my family and staff are feeling. Our hearts go out to the families of all who have been killed in these vicious and senseless attacks. These acts of violence achieve nothing but to hurt a whole community of all faiths and none.

[emphasis added]

But once in a while, even those in the most hermetically sealed alternative universes enjoy a day-trip to reality. On September 11, Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, happened to be in New York, a couple of blocks from the World Trade Centre. Made no difference.

To Dr Williams, the Americans' liberation of Afghanistan was "morally tainted", an "embarrassment", and an example of the moral equivalence between the USAF and the suicide bomber, both of whom "can only see from a distance: the sort of distance from which you can't see a face, meet the eyes of someone, hear who they are, imagine who and what they love. All violence works with that sort of distance.

[ . . . ]

"It is possible to use unspeakably wicked means to pursue an aim that is intelligible or desirable," he said. By ignoring this, America "loses the power of self-criticism and becomes trapped in a selfreferential morality." Perhaps Dr Williams would like to explain what precisely is the "serious moral goal" of the men who killed his host.

Pyongyang, November 28 (KCNA) -- The International Communications Center of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has kicked off e-mail service. The e-mail service guarantees the privacy of correspondence as it has a network security system.

It has also a large transmission ban, which provides many subscribers with high-speed information exchange at a time.

When a user dials 165 on computer to call e-mail service, he gets connected to international e-mail service system. He then types the user name and password to identify as an authorized user. And he can immediately have access to e-mail box.

The received mails are free of charge.

Technical service on e-mail is also available from the ICC.

[emphasis added]

14. If you offer to buy a woman a drink and she refuses, she does not like you.

15. If you offer to buy a woman a drink and she accepts, she still might not like you.

16. If she buys you a drink, she likes you.

Carter criticized both leaders in the region for not moving forward aggressively to make peace and the Bush administration for what he called its "bias" toward Israel. He speculated that history might have been different if he had been re-elected president in 1980.

"Had I been elected to a second term, with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a final solution," he said.

[emphasis added]

Senior Israeli government officials dismissed Carter's comments as irrelevant. "Does anyone really care what Carter has to say," the official said.

Reminded that the former president is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and as a result enjoys wide spread international recognition and standing, the official said, "Arafat also received the prize, what does it mean?"

Carter said that is of equal importance that Palestinians renounce violence against Israeli citizens, but he said this must happen in exchange for commitment to the Geneva Initiative

The former president also called for the implementation of the Saudi Initiative, which called on the Arab world to recognize Israel in return for Israel accepting into its borders the flood of 4 million Palestinians who claim to be refugees.

It begins in the late 1980s, when Taiwan, in a state of chronic alarm about the threat from mainland China, is seeking to upgrade its fleet.

Sensing a rare opportunity, the then state-owned French defence electronics company Thomson teams up with the Naval Construction Directorate (DCN) to talk the Taiwanese admirals out of a nearly-completed contract with Hyundai of Korea.

But the admirals need a good reason to opt for France's La Fayette class frigates, which are still at the design stage and actually fail to meet many of Taipei's own specifications.

That reason turns out to be a massive commission.

Not unusual in itself - but then the commissions start to multiply.

A three-armed lobbying operation is put in place. A middleman called Andrew Wang is paid to oil the wheels in Taipei.

The seductively-named Lily Liu undertakes to buy off opposition to the deal in Beijing.

And in Paris, Alfred Sirven, of Elf slush-fund fame, tries to influence former Foreign Minister Roland Dumas via his girlfriend Christine Deviers-Joncour.

[ . . . ]

And yet in France all efforts to cast light on the affair are stymied.

In Taiwan, by contrast, the furore generated by the scandal helped bring down the Kuomintang regime in 2000, and the new government has made sure judges have access to all but the most highly-classified documents.

"The reputation of France has been seriously stained," concludes Mr Jean-Pierre.

"And when I compare our old democracy with Taiwan, a country where martial law was only lifted a short while ago, I am seized by shame."

Fox Sports / AP

The inadequate resourcing of the campaign's first phase is linked to a broader problem: The U.S. Army is stretched to the breaking point. We do not need more U.S. troops in Iraq. We do need to increase the active-duty strength of the U.S. Army in order to sustain the current effort in both Iraq and Afghanistan--while remaining prepared to counter North Korea. Many of us are concerned that we won't be able to carry out the strategy we've embarked on in Iraq because we won't be able to sustain it. Next summer, we could be saying that we're breaking the U.S. Army, and that we can't do a third rotation.

[ . . . ]

[ . . . ]

But none of this gets to the heart of the problem, which is that the U.S. military forces in Iraq are being forced into a drawdown situation. "Iraqification" doesn't address the question of the much broader U.S. Army manpower shortages, and it concerns me that Mr. Rumsfeld himself has said that he fails to see evidence that a shortfall exists. "Iraqification" may prove to be an alibi for broader inaction. Mr. Rumsfeld has so dominated the national security process with the force of his personality that his views on manpower are not being sufficiently challenged in Congress. The Joint Chiefs of Staff will have to candidly face up to this issue in the coming months, notwithstanding the political considerations involved.

Conservatives used to believe that the U.S. Constitution set up a government of strictly limited powers.

It was supposed to protect us from foreign threats and deliver the mail, leaving other matters to the states or to the private sector -- individuals, families, churches, charities and businesses.

That's what lots of voters assumed they would get with Bush. In his first presidential debate with Al Gore, Bush contrasted his own vision of tax reduction with that of his opponent, who would "increase the size of government dramatically." Gore, Bush declared, would "empower Washington," but "my passion and my vision is to empower Americans to be able to make decisions for themselves in their own lives."

[ . . . ]

Bush and his aides should be worrying about the possibility that libertarians, economic conservatives and fed-up taxpayers won't be in his corner in 2004 in the same numbers as 2000.

Republican strategists are likely to say that libertarians and economic conservatives have nowhere else to go. Many of the disappointed will indeed sigh a deep sigh and vote for Bush as a lesser evil.

The irony, however, is that the United States exercised greater control over the Iraqi oil sector under the U.N.'s prewar "Oil-for-Food Program" (in which the U.N., not Saddam Hussein, determined the level of Iraqi oil sales abroad) than it will in any future democratic Iraq. If the Bush administration was seeking stable, secure, diverse and cheap oil supplies, it could have simply lifted the embargos on Libya, Iran, Iraq and Sudan, and let the oil gush.

But America's interest in Iraqi oil was not driven either by economics or energy policy. The Bush administration recognized that, above all, Iraqi oil is a critical geopolitical asset. Whoever controls Iraqi oil controls Iraq.

Saddam's power came from his control of the world's second largest oil reserve. He understood perfectly the role that oil played in his power. Faced with the possibility of invasion and defeat, Saddam threatened to burn Iraq's oil fields. Much of the subsequent destruction and looting of Iraqi oil facilities and pipelines reflects the widespread realization that control of oil means control of Iraq.

As the United States planned its invasion, securing the oil fields became a critical priority. The goal was not increased supplies or reduced prices for Americans, but stripping Saddam of his power and, ultimately, establishing and solidifying a new Iraqi government.

Iraq's future depends directly on the fate of Iraqi oil production. Yet the vagaries of the oil business, particularly in such unsettled conditions, make it hard to see how the Bush administration will be able to achieve its goals in Iraq within the next few years.

[ . . . ]

Iraq needs several years to write a new constitution, establish a legitimate and democratic government, negotiate the distribution of oil revenues among its various regions, enact new investment laws, and make the economy attractive to foreigners. It also needs time to negotiate with the international oil companies and neighboring countries, to perform technical and feasibility studies, and to reconstruct, rehabilitate and explore its oil fields.

So even a three-year time frame seems optimistic, for it assumes that within that period, the occupation will end, Iraqis will establish their own democratic government, and that political stability will be achieved.