Looks Like Duckgate by Peggy Hirsch After the revelation that Vice President Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Scalia had been duck hunting together, heretofore called "Duckgate," the propriety of their socializing was questioned, because Scalia will hear Cheney’s case regarding his energy task force’s papers.
AP: Clark Abandons Presidential Race - AP NewsBreak: Wesley Clark Drops Out of Race for Democratic Presidential Nomination by The Associated Press Wesley Clark, the novice politician with four-star military credentials, abandoned his presidential bid Tuesday after two third-places finishes in the South.The retired Army general will return to Little Rock, Ark., on Wednesday to announce his departure from the race, said campaign spokesman Matt Bennett. Clark will pledge to work closely with the Democratic Party to support the presidential nominee and other candidates across the country.
Massachusetts Weighs a Deal on Marriages Between Gays by Pam Belluck Seeking to counteract last week's court decision allowing gay couples to marry in Massachusetts, state lawmakers on Tuesday fashioned what they called a compromise: a proposed amendment to the state's Constitution that would define marriage as a heterosexual institution but allow same-sex couples to join in civil unions.
Microsoft warns consumers about major Windows security flaws by Ted Bridis Microsoft Corp. warned customers Tuesday about unusually serious security problems with its Windows software that could let hackers quietly break into their computers to steal files, delete data or eavesdrop on sensitive information.Microsoft, which learned about the flaws more than six months ago from researchers, said the only protective solution was to apply a repairing patch it offered on its Web site. It assessed the threat to computer users as ''critical,'' its highest rating.
Eight car-boat migrants returned to Cuba - Judge gives family of three temporary reprieve by Reuters Eight of the 11 Cubans who tried to cross the Florida Straits a week ago in a boat made from a green 1959 Buick car were sent home on Tuesday by the U.S. Coast Guard, which confirmed it had sunk the Buick.The Coast Guard said it repatriated the group as part of a larger batch of 98 Cuban migrants who were picked up at sea in recent days and delivered to the port of Cabanas in western Cuba on Tuesday morning.
MTV consigns racy videos to late-night by Reuters In the aftermath of Janet Jackson's controversial Super Bowl breast exposure, MTV has decided that pop tart Britney Spears may be a bit too "Toxic" for daytime tastes.The music channel, which produced Jackson's notorious halftime duet with Justin Timberlake, said Monday it has moved six of its racier videos, including Spears' video for her new single, "Toxic," from daytime to late-night rotation.
Kerry wins in South, Clark to quit - Clark to withdraw Wednesday by CNN Sen. John Kerry took two victories in southern primaries Tuesday which drove one of his rivals with roots in the South out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who finished third in both Tennessee and Virginia, will announce his withdrawal Wednesday afternoon in his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas.
Sun, Sand and Anna Kournikova - Anna Kournikova Graces the Pages of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue by ABCNEWS.com The much-awaited Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is due out tomorrow, and millions of readers — mostly men — are unlikely to be disappointed this year.Featuring a bevy of beautiful models posing in swimsuits at spectacular locations around the world, the swimsuit issue this year starts with tennis player Anna Kournikova on the cover in an itsy-bitsy swimsuit.
Maybe He's Smarter Than We Knew? by Katrina vanden Heuvel "I don't think America can stand by and hope for the best from a madman."-- George W. on "Meet the Press," Sunday, Feb. 8th
French lawmakers vote overwhelmingly to ban religious apparel in public school by Elaine Ganley France's lower house of parliament voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to ban students from wearing Islamic head scarves and other religious apparel in public schools.The classroom ban, which also applies to Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, was approved 494-36. In early March, the measure will go to the Senate, where there is little opposition.
More than 1,300 priests accused of abuse since 1950, records indicate by Rachel Zoll The scope of sex abuse accusations against Roman Catholic clergy since 1950 appears to be much greater than previously estimated by victims' groups and the media, an Associated Press review of reports from dioceses has found.The U.S. church will make an unprecedented, nationwide accounting of abuse claims and costs later this month, and some bishops already have started releasing local figures. The AP contacted dioceses across the country and found that 1,341 clergy members have been accused of molesting minors, with more than half the dioceses yet to report.
It's the Symbolism, Stupid - Gay Marriage and the Future of American Politics by Richard Goldstein When the Massachusetts high court ruled last week that gay couples must be granted full marriage rights, it lobbed a grenade into John Kerry's lap. Here he is, struggling to define himself as a hog-riding, puck-slamming populist, when the patrician tradition of New England liberalism bites him in the butt.
Woman drops lawsuit over Jackson peep show by AP Less than a week after filing a class-action lawsuit because of her outrage over Janet Jackson's Super Bowl stunt, Terri Carlin believes she's made her point.The Knoxville banker is withdrawing the suit filed last Wednesday in U.S. District Court against Jackson and Justin Timberlake, along with MTV, CBS and their parent company, Viacom.
Americans should be expressing some outrage by Anne Cook I keep asking myself, “Where is the outrage in this country? When are we going to wake up and see what’s happening under the ‘leadership’ of George W. Bush?”People need to inform themselves. Forget the soundbites — do some serious reading. You’ll see that Bush, while sending us into a disastrous war, has ignored the real issues facing us, such as:
Partisans And Fools Still Back Bush by Bill Gallagher For George W. Bush and company, these are good, bad and ugly days -- very little good, a lot of bad and mostly ugly. A series of events are converging. Past lies and flawed polices are now apparent. The administration built on the four Ds -- deception, debt, dirt and deals -- is now in serious disarray and the American people are catching on.
Pundits say Bush interview not his finest hour - He appeared unfocused and unconvincing by Carla Marinucci President Bush's unusual appearance on "Meet the Press'' -- with host Tim Russert grilling him for an hour on Iraq, his military history and the economy -- is now behind him.Or maybe not.With political analysts and observers hitting the "replay'' button, the White House must now relive the sound bites and the lackluster reviews from even some normally supportive Republicans who were left ruing the decision to put the president front and center so early in the campaign.
Bush Supports Shift of Jobs Overseas - The loss of work to other countries, while painful in the short term, will enrich the economy eventually, his report to Congress says. by Warren Vieth and Edwin Chen The movement of American factory jobs and white-collar work to other countries is part of a positive transformation that will enrich the U.S. economy over time, even if it causes short-term pain and dislocation, the Bush administration said Monday.The embrace of foreign outsourcing, an accelerating trend that has contributed to U.S. job losses in recent years and has become an issue in the 2004 elections, is contained in the president's annual report to Congress on the health of the economy.
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs by Paul Krugman Last Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered yet another disappointing employment report.Since there's a lot of confusion on this subject, let's talk about the numbers. The bureau actually produces two estimates of employment, one based on a survey that asks each employer in a random sample how many workers are on its payroll, the other on a survey that asks each household in a random sample how many of its members are employed. Most experts regard the employer survey as more reliable; even in the midst of the recovery, that survey has contained nothing but bad news. The household numbers look better, but not particularly good.
What Did the Vice-President Do for Halliburton? by Jane Mayer Vice-President Dick Cheney is well known for his discretion, but his official White House biography, as posted on his Web site, may exceed even his own stringent standards. It traces the sixty-three years from his birth, in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1941, through college and graduate school, and describes his increasingly powerful jobs in Washington. Yet one chapter of Cheney’s life is missing. The record notes that he has been a “businessman” but fails to mention the five extraordinarily lucrative years that he spent, immediately before becoming Vice-President, as chief executive of Halliburton, the world’s largest oil-and-gas-services company. The conglomerate, which is based in Houston, is now the biggest private contractor for American forces in Iraq; it has received contracts worth some eleven billion dollars for its work there.
Bush Cried 'Wolf' on Iraq's Threat by Editorial A year ago U.S. President George Bush warned the world that Saddam Hussein was "a grave and gathering danger" who "continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised," making him "an urgent threat to America.""The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations," Bush warned. He cited, approvingly, a British report that Iraq could launch weapons on 45 minutes' notice.
Moral Mob Mauled Blind by Janet's Areola Borealis by Pierre Tristam At Halifax Memorial Hospital three months ago I found myself locked, without a valid avenue of escape, in a four-hour seminar on breastfeeding. Expectant mothers outnumbered extraneous fathers by a ratio of six to one, though there I was, one of those ones duly seated next to my wife and the future terror she was carrying. I wasn't playing sensitive husband. I have no illusions that men could be much more than third wheels when it comes to such things as birth and breastfeeding. The sensitivity cartel finds things for men to do, of course. But if make-work of the foot-massage and shoulder-to-cry-on variety generally makes men feel less useless, it doesn't begin to diminish post-partum agonies on the other side (nor make up for only vicariously experiencing the elation of life-giving). The reason I was attending the seminar was mostly anthropological. I wanted to take stock of the breast in third-millennium America. If the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons, as Dostoevsky may or may not have said, the degree of imbecility in a society can be judged by the way it handles its breasts. Come to find that I could have skipped the four-hour epic at Halifax for the flash of Janet Jackson's areola borealis at the Superbowl halftime show. The cultural uprising let loose by that split-second flop says more about the nation's arrested development than a year's worth of Ph.D. theses from every sociology department in the hemisphere.
Doubts, Dissent Stripped from Public Version of Iraq Assessment by Jonathan S. Landay The public version of the U.S. intelligence community's key prewar assessment of Iraq's illicit arms programs was stripped of dissenting opinions, warnings of insufficient information and doubts about deposed dictator Saddam Hussein's intentions, a review of the document and its once-classified version shows.
Top Bush Aide Is Questioned in C.I.A. Leak by David Johnston President Bush's press secretary and a former White House press aide testified on Friday to a federal grand jury investigating who improperly disclosed the identity of a C.I.A. officer, the press secretary and a lawyer for the aide said on Monday.The appearances of the press secretary, Scott McClellan, and the press aide, Adam Levine, reflected what lawyers in the case said was the quickening pace of a criminal inquiry in which a special prosecutor is examining conversations between journalists and the White House.
Statement by Stuart Trager, M.D., Chair, Atkins Physicians Council on February 10, 2004 Report on Dr. Atkins Weight at the Time of his Death by Stuart Trager, M.D. Today's Wall Street Journal ran a story on the health of Dr. Robert Atkins and grossly distorted and inaccurately reported information that Dr. Atkins was obese at the time of his death. In fact, up until the time he became comatose and lay in the hospital for two weeks. Dr. Atkins' average weight was actually 60 pounds less than reported in the Journal. The newspaper article was based on incomplete personal medical records that were illegally delivered to the newspaper in violation of federal law, coming from a known group of Vegan and animal rights extremists.
Pundit O'Reilly Now Skeptical About Bush by Reuters Conservative television news anchor Bill O'Reilly said on Tuesday he was now skeptical about the Bush administration and apologized to viewers for supporting prewar claims that Iraq (news - web sites) had weapons of mass destruction.The anchor of his own show on Fox News said he was sorry he gave the U.S. government the benefit of the doubt that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s weapons program poised an imminent threat, the main reason cited for going to war.
