Number of African countries in which the average life expectancy has declined since 1978 : 22

... the 9/11 commission staff assured us recently that repeated contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda (including the presence in Baghdad and Kurdistan of the reigning terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), "did not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship."  This week, the Senate Intelligence Committee chimed in, saying these contacts "did not add up to an established formal relationship." (Italics mine.) 

Think about that. Do today's groupthinkers believe that Osama bin Laden would sit down with Saddam in front of the world's cameras to sign a mutual assistance pact, establishing a formal relationship? Terrorists and rogue states don't work that way. Mass killers collaborate informally, without a photo op, even secretly.

Strange, considering how the nation's interest is riveted on this week's (Senate Intelligence Committee) report on our Iraqi intelligence mistakes, how little interest was shown in the Senate Intelligence Committee's extensive report on the terrorist attack on the U.S.S. Cole in October 2000, which cost the lives of 17 American sailors.

After a second major car bombing in 24 hours, Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi vowed Thursday to "annihilate" militants and announced that his interim government was forming a new national security agency to fight the insurgency.

Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.

They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western suburbs.

They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they "deserved worse than death".

"People are dying now because they are living in totally unsatisfactory conditions, but too many more could die in the coming weeks unless we prevent the lack of sanitation, malnutrition, shortage of clean water and the coming rains from combining into a recipe for death," WHO Director General Lee Jong Wook said in a statement.

I was not prepared for the far more sinister scene I encountered in a ravine deep in the Darfur desert. Bodies of young men were lined up in ditches, eerily preserved by the 130-degree desert heat.

The story the rebels told us seemed plausible: The dead were civilians who had been marched up a hill and executed by the Arab-led government before its troops abandoned the area the previous month. The rebels assert that there were many other such scenes.

Refugees in Chad claim people had been stuffed into wells by the Janjaweed to poison the water supply. We went looking for these wells and found them covered in sand, in what might be construed as an effort by the Sudanese regime to cover its tracks.

The pro-government militias that drove them from their homes, massacred their family members and friends, and burnt their villages and fields to the ground, now surround them in Riyad. Almost every night militiamen sweep in on their horses to attack and kill, and they beat and rape women who forage for whatever wood, food, and water remains beyond the camp's periphery.

Finally, I believe in the value of American leadership in the world. Today, a massive humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Darfur, Sudan, where 300,000 people or more may die in the coming months. This administration must stop equivocating. These government sponsored atrocities should be called by their rightful name -- genocide. The government of Sudan and the people of Darfur must understand that America stands prepared to act, in concert with our allies and the UN, to prevent the further loss of innocent lives. The United States must lead the UN Security Council in sanctioning the planners and perpetrators of genocide and authorizing an international humanitarian intervention. As president, I will bring the full weight of American leadership to address this crisis and to promote the democratic hopes of people throughout Africa, Haiti and the Caribbean.

Four on Ethics Panel Accepted Delay Money

Four of the five House ethics committee Republicans investigating Majority Leader Tom DeLay have accepted money in the past from the fund-raising operation involved in the complaint against him.

Last week, Fabrizio McLaughlin and Associates, a GOP polling firm, released a strategy memo based on their recent Battleground State Survey that reveals undecided voters "are currently poised to break away from President Bush and to John Kerry."

REPORTER: How similar is this tour, component-wise, to what we saw with (Energy Secretary) Spencer Abraham on the tour a few months ago? Is it additional materials or the same things that have already been shown to the press through Spencer Abraham?

McCLELLAN: Well, I guess there are a couple shipments of materials that went from Libya to Oak Ridge -- one back in January, and another, I think, back in March. So I imagine -- I wasn't on that trip, so I don't know exactly what you saw on that trip, but I imagine it's similar to some of what you saw. But you all will be there to cover it and be able to make that determination on your own.

REPORTER: Scott, if the President is comparing where we are now in the war on terror with where we were three years ago, isn't this really a campaign speech and not an official event?

McCLELLAN: He's the President of the United States regardless of the fact that we're in an election year, and he's talking about the approach that we've been taking over the last few years. There are, obviously, clear choices in the war on terrorism and how we wage that war on terrorism. I think the American people recognize that the President's most solemn obligation is their safety and security. And the President is going to continue talking about this highest of priorities ...

Queerly Beloved

The world views marriage as a legal contract between two or more individuals. Contracts are based on rights and responsibilities and are motivated by self-interests rather than on unconditional love. A legal contract is necessary to begin and likewise end a relationship. But a covenant is more than a contract. It is more than a legal document declaring a state of interdependence.

For the past 30 years, our nation has been wandering in the wilderness of "no-fault divorce" brought about by an acceptance of the view that marriage is simply a contract. During this time of aimless wandering, the church has found herself taking on the beliefs and practices of our culture rather than impacting our culture with the life-changing Word of God regarding marriage.

DROPPING CHENEY [KJL]
A New York Times piece based on, it seems, just about nothing. The assignment editor was bored.

President Bush has been "very clear he doesn't want to break up the team," Cheney said in a C-SPAN interview that will be broadcast Sunday.

There has been persistent speculation that Cheney would step down for political or health reasons.

"He's made his decision," Cheney said of Bush. "I've made mine. I suppose right now, because we're in the run up to the convention, people don't have much to talk about so you get speculation on that. It's normal. When we get to the convention, I think that'll put an end to it."

The crisis of Darfur is a "traditional tribal conflict" asserted, in Rabat Monday, the Sudanese ambassador in Morocco.

Ahmed Mekki Ahmed Yahya told a press conference that a "foreign campaign aims at politicising the problem," denying that "an ethnic cleansing" took place in the country.

He argued that "all tribes of African origin are Muslims," consequently, the government "can not proceed to cleansing against its own partisans."

The 3 Democrats Who Supported FMA*

Robert Byrd - WEST VIRGINIA
Zell Miller - GEORGIA
Ben Nelson - NEBRASKA

The 6 Republicans Who Opposed FMA*

Ben Nighthorse Campbell - COLORADO
Lincoln Chafee - RHODE ISLAND
Susan Collins - MAINE
John McCain - ARIZONA
Olympia Snowe - MAINE
John E. Sununu - NEW HAMPSHIRE

On 48-to-50 vote, proponents fell 12 short of the needed 60 to clear a Democratic procedural hurdle and move to a vote on passage of the proposed constitutional amendment.

[snip]

Three of 48 Democrats ended up voting to end their party's procedural hurdle while six of 51 Republicans broke ranks and voted to maintain it after a number of Republicans disagreed earlier this week over the wording of the proposed amendment.

When the Starr report was made public, independents (like me) who usually lean to the right began to support the president. All the caustic criticism and the self righteous condemnation really turned me off.

These days I'm swinging in the opposite direction but for similar reasons. Michael Moore, the 911 Commission, the Intelligence Committee report - these things are making my blood boil.

I'll vote for the president, not because I think he's doing a great job, but because those [standing] against him disgust me.

I'm sure I'm not alone. maybe something to think about.

I have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a frontman, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his administration. Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the world of any president in my memory.

It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague. Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and articulately in English than our own president at their joint press conference recently.

John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to think and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than Bush's comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's unfortunate that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.

... People who think of themselves as conservatives will really display their stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush. Bush is as far from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled me once, but he won't fool me twice.

It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to vastly increase the power of government, to show contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of American jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits don't matter, and that people should not know what their government is doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most secretive president in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward the authoritarian.

... This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons, but because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's almost restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America is not only hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in the world thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush administration.

... I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a man in the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us with it. Go to Kerry's Web site (www.johnkerry.com) and read some of the magazine profiles on him. You'll find that there is a great deal more to Kerry than the GOP attack dogs would have you believe.

... It would be good to have a man in the White House who has killed people face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a man and dispels all illusions about war.

New government estimates suggest that employers will reduce or eliminate prescription drug benefits for 3.8 million retirees when Medicare offers such coverage in 2006. That represents one-third of all the retirees with employer-sponsored drug coverage, according to documents from the Department of Health and Human Services.

No aspect of the new Medicare law causes more concern among retirees than the possibility that they might lose benefits they already have. Democrats are likely to cite the new estimates as evidence to support their contention that the new law will prompt some employers to curtail drug coverage for retirees, forcing them, in some cases, to rely on Medicare's leaner benefits.

Ethylene glycol is the ingredient that makes antifreeze tasty. Though colorless and odorless, the syrupy alcohol derivative—which is excellent at lowering the freezing points of vital engine fluids—has a sweet taste that jibes well with soda, juice, and other sugary beverages. As many concerned pet owners and parents are well aware, dogs, cats, and kids are prone to lap up puddles of antifreeze left on garage floors. Every year, 90,000 animals and 4,000 children ingest the toxic liquid; if not treated immediately, the consequences of the poisoning can include renal or cardiovascular failure, brain damage, and death.

Oregon and California both require that antifreeze manufacturers add a bittering agent to their products, in order to make them unpalatable to pets and children (and, one would presume, potential murder victims). The city of Albuquerque, N.M., passed a similar measure in January, nicknamed "Scooby's Law" after a local golden retriever who was maliciously poisoned with antifreeze. And Congress is currently considering a bill, the Antifreeze Safety Act, that would mandate the addition of yucky-tasting denatonium benzoate to all antifreeze products containing more than 10 percent ethylene glycol.

A judge ruled Tuesday that former Rep. Bill Janklow was on duty when he caused a deadly accident, meaning taxpayers would be liable for civil damages in a wrongful-death lawsuit.

U.S. Magistrate Arthur Boylan ruled that the South Dakota Republican was on official business on Aug. 16 when he sped through a stop sign and crashed into motorcyclist Randy Scott.

Janklow, 64, was on his way home from official appointments when the accident occurred.

Boylan, ruling in St. Paul, Minn., concluded that the federal government should be listed as the defendant in the lawsuit filed by Scott's family members, who are from Minnesota.

Also on Tuesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers pushed for the U.S. Congress to declare genocide is occurring in Darfur, a step they said would pressure the United Nations to take action to protect Africans in the region from Arab militias.

Marauding government-backed militias known as Janjaweed have put hundreds of thousands of people at risk of death from starvation or illness as the rainy season approaches, U.S. officials say.

"While the world debates about what we should do, people continue to die in Darfur. It is time to end the debate and start saving lives," Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican just back from Darfur, said at a news conference.

I'm deeply concerned about the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Darfur, Sudan. For the sake of peace and basic humanity, I echo the sentiments of the Secretary of State. I call upon the government of Sudan to stop the Janjaweed violence. I call on all parties of the conflict to respect the cease-fire, to respect human rights, and to allow for the free movement of humanitarian workers and aid. The United States and the United Nations and the leadership of the African Union are working to bring relief to the suffering people of that region. America will continue to strongly support these efforts for peace.

A genocide in the making demands the immediate attention of our government.

The president is doing something that few of his predecessors dared undertake: putting the US case for mideast peace to an Arab summit. It's a distinctly skeptical crowd that Bush faces. His political courage and tactical cunning are worth noting in our reporting through the day.

[edit]

The so-called 9/11 commission has already been meeting. In fact, this is the eighth session. The fact that former Clinton and both frmer and current Bush administration officials are testifying gives it a certain tension, but this is not "what did he know and when did he know it" stuff. Do not turn this into Watergate. Remember the fleeting sense of national unity that emerged from this tragedy. Let's not desecrate that.

[edit]

The events in Iraq Tuesday are going to be the top story, unless and until something else (or worse) happens. Err on the side of doing too much Iraq rather than not enough. Do not fall into the easy trap of mourning the loss of US lives and asking out loud why are we there? The US is in Iraq to help a country brutalized for 30 years protect the gains made by Operation Iraqi Freedom and set it on the path to democracy. Some people in Iraq don't want that to happen. That is why American GIs are dying. And what we should remind our viewers.

[edit]

More serious and more important is the US military's end of waiting game for Fallujah. If, as promised, the coalition decides to take Fallujah back by force, it will not be for lack of opportunities for terrorists holed up there to negotiate. Let's not get lost in breast-beating about the sadness of the loss of life. They had a chance.

We need Scott Paterno in Washington to help us keep America moving forward with our strong economy, our values respected by government, and our nation well defended in a dangerous world. Scott has the good judgment and the common sense that you should expect in a congressman.

Anyone who has information that is damaging to Clinton's presidency has conveniently, and mysteriously, died. The list of Clinton dead makes Charlie Manson look like a petty criminal. Among those I haven't discussed is Luther Parks, and it illustrates most clearly what happens when you threaten Bill Clinton.

Parks was owed $81,000 from Clinton for providing security for the former Governor. He had kept a file about Clinton's dealings when he was providing security. After publicly threatening to talk if he wasn't paid, he was gunned down in Little Rock, Ark. by four or five assailants. His son was quoted as saying ". . . they had my father killed to save Bill Clinton."

That is what happens to people who threaten this president. They die, they die fast and they die before they can do any damage.

Scott also understands the importance of having sensible, well qualified men and women serving on the federal courts -- judges who interpret the law instead of legislating from the bench. Those are the kinds of judges President Bush has nominated. Yet far too many of his nominees are being forced to spend months, or even years, waiting for hearings and for an up-or-down vote. A number are still being filibustered. Some aren't even given a hearing because individual senators -- including the one running for my job -- are standing in the way. That's unfair to judicial nominees, and it's an abuse of the constitutional process. Every nominee deserves a prompt up-or-down vote on the floor of the United States Senate.

All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war with Iraq was worth fighting, or not?

Yes, worth fighting, STRONGLY 34%
Yes, worth fighting, SOMEWHAT 10%
No, not worth fighting, SOMEWHAT 12%
No, not worth fighting, STRONGLY 42%

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq?

Approve 43%
Disapprove 55%

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the US campaign against terrorism?

Approve 55%
Disapprove 43%
DK/No opinion 2%

Do you think the war with Iraq has or has not contributed to the long-term security of the United States?

Yes, GREAT DEAL 30%
Yes, SOMEWHAT 24%
No, has not 43%

The long-time domestic partner of a World Trade Center victim should be given the opportunity to show she is entitled to a portion of a $530,000 award from the federal September 11th Victim Compensation fund, a Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn has ruled.

The lawsuit pitted the victim's domestic partner, Margaret Cruz, against the victim's closest relative, her brother, James P. McAneney.

[snip]

The plaintiff, Cruz, reported having lived with the victim, Patricia McAneney, for 19 years before she was killed.

[snip]

Cruz based her claim to a share of the award on the fact that fund administrators increased the award by about $250,000 after she filed information about her relationship with Ms. McAneney.

The initial fund award, after Mr. McAneney filed a claim, was $278,087. That amount was increased to $531,541 after Cruz filed a statement of interest.

Cruz is represented by Eric Shimanoff of Kramer, Levin, Naftalis & Frankel, and Mr. McAneney by Susan Kalib, of Carter, Ledyard & Milburn. Both lawyers worked pro bono.

The point is not that the President and his senior aides were consciously lying. What was taking place was much more systematic -- and potentially just as troublesome.

Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council expert on Iraq, whose book "The Threatening Storm" generally supported the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein, told me that what the Bush people did was "dismantle the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information. They created stovepipes to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership. Their position is that the professional bureaucracy is deliberately and maliciously keeping information from them.

"They always had information to back up their public claims, but it was often very bad information," Pollack continued. "They were forcing the intelligence community to defend its good information and good analysis so aggressively that the intelligence analysts didn't have the time or the energy to go after the bad information."

The Administration eventually got its way, a former C.I.A. official said. "The analysts at the C.I.A. were beaten down defending their assessments. And they blame George Tenet" -- the C.I.A. director -- "for not protecting them. I've never seen a government like this."

"The Vice-President saw a piece of intelligence reporting that Niger was attempting to buy uranium," Cathie Martin, the spokeswoman for Cheney, told me. Sometime after he first saw it, Cheney brought it up at his regularly scheduled daily briefing from the C.I.A., Martin said. "He asked the briefer a question. The briefer came back a day or two later and said, 'We do have a report, but there's a lack of details.'"

The Vice-President was further told that it was known that Iraq had acquired uranium ore from Niger in the early nineteen-eighties but that that material had been placed in secure storage by the IAEA, which was monitoring it. ... According to a former high-level C.I.A. official, however, Cheney was dissatisfied with the initial response, and asked the agency to review the matter once again. It was the beginning of what turned out to be a year-long tug-of-war between the CIA and the Vice-President's office.

As the campaign against Iraq intensified, a former aide to Cheney told me, the Vice-President's office, run by his chief of staff, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, became increasingly secretive when it came to intelligence about Iraq's WMDs. As with Wolfowitz and Bolton, there was a reluctance to let the military and civilian analysts on the staff vet intelligence.

... "There's so much intelligence out there that it's easy to pick and choose your case," the former aide told me. "It opens things up to cherry-picking."

The intelligence agencies, and particularly the CIA, gave the President bad information. He put his faith in the quality of the CIA's work. Everything he said--about WMDs, Iraq-al Qaeda links, the ease of a postwar transition to a stable and democratic Iraq, and so on--was based on what the CIA told him. If anything he said has since turned out to be incorrect, the people to blame aren't the President or his advisors but those who gave him faulty intelligence. Based on what the President thought was true at the time, he made all the right decisions.

"We don’t have the capacity to address the basic minimum needs," she continued, adding that the available aid was "nowhere near sufficient to address the immediate concerns of the population, let alone the deteriorating situation over the next few months".

We do not need to know more in order to act. Genocide is a real and present threat in Darfur.

Let the lawyers write their memos and have their intriguing legal discussions of what constitutes evidence for "intent to destroy." But don't wait to act while they are doing so. Canada, the United States, the European Union, the African Union, the Arab League and the entire United Nations need no further legal advice. All they need is political will.

The time for action in Darfur is now.

"Tens of Janjaweed militias have been apprehended in the last few days and they will be brought to justice," Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters here.

"It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right .... Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife."

President Bush has decided that excoriating Democrats for blocking his judicial nominees is a potent political strategy that he will exploit in both the presidential race and congressional elections.

Reagan - Judges Confirmed During First Term: 164
Bush I - Judges Confirmed During First Term: 194
Clinton - Judges Confirmed During First Term: 202
GW Bush - Judges Confirmed During First Term: 198

Reagan - Percentage of Nominees Confirmed During First Term: 88%
Bush I - Percentage of Nominees Confirmed During First Term: 73%
Clinton - Percentage of Nominees Confirmed During First Term: 81%
GW Bush - Percentage of Nominees Confirmed During First Term: 88%

Out of the 254 nominees sent by the Bush administration to the Senate, nearly 200 have been confirmed. Six nominees to the circuit court have been denied confirmation votes; two of those nominees were subsequently appointed by Mr. Bush during a Senate recess, but have yet to be confirmed. Dozens more have been stalled in the Judiciary Committee.

"I do not regret my columns so much as I disagree with some of the positions I took in them."

Four years ago, presidential candidate George Bush declared that the common-sense federal ban on assault weapons should remain on the books, saying "It makes no sense for assault weapons to be around our society."

President Bush has the opportunity to use the power of his office to ensure that the statute, enacted in the wake of a shooting spree in San Francisco's financial district 11 years ago, does not expire as scheduled on Sept. 13.

Last month, a presidential spokesman said that Bush still supports the assault weapons ban, but is waiting for the House to act. An aide to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., added that were the president to push for the ban it would probably be reauthorized. The aide conceded, however, that without word from the White House, the chances for passage are remote.

The president's critics contend that Bush is trying to have it both ways on this politically contentious issue. They claim that while the president pays lip-service to congressional reauthorization of the ban, he is counting on House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, to see to it that the measure never makes it to a floor vote. This cynical speculation is supported by DeLay's repeated boasts to do precisely that.

DeLay's defiance is consistent with his carrying water for the National Rifle Association ... Never mind that the ban is favored by the public at large, as well as every former president from Gerald Ford.

In 1994, former President Ronald Reagan, supporting the ban when it was making its way through Congress, wrote, "While we recognize that assault weapon legislation will not stop all assault weapon crime, statistics prove that we can dry up the supply of these guns, making them less accessible to criminals. We urge you to listen to the American public and to the law enforcement community and support a ban on the further manufacture of these weapons."

So much for the NRA's contention that Reagan never supported the ban. To the contrary, while a deeply divided Congress was debating this issue a decade ago, Reagan placed numerous calls to undecided House members urging them to approve the measure.

President Bush could make a single phone call to Speaker Hastert and put an end to the procedural game-playing that is preventing the reauthorization of the assault weapons ban from coming to a vote.

One of the few things Paterno has accomplished in his 31 years on the planet is writing a series of op-eds for the college newspaper in the mid-90s. Among his columns celebrating collegiate drug and alcohol abuse was an endorsement of the wingnut theory that Bill Clinton was a serial killer.

Anyone who has information that is damaging to Clinton's presidency has conveniently, and mysteriously, died. The list of Clinton dead makes Charlie Manson look like a petty criminal. Among those I haven't discussed is Luther Parks, and it illustrates most clearly what happens when you threaten Bill Clinton.

Parks was owed $81,000 from Clinton for providing security for the former Governor. He had kept a file about Clinton's dealings when he was providing security. After publicly threatening to talk if he wasn't paid, he was gunned down in Little Rock, Ark. by four or five assailants. His son was quoted as saying ". . . they had my father killed to save Bill Clinton."

That is what happens to people who threaten this president. They die, they die fast and they die before they can do any damage.

[edit]

OK, we all have youthful indiscretions, so maybe he's turned over a new leaf. Except that the Clinton-is-a-murderer column is posted on Paterno's official campaign website.