Watchers of right-wing Christian groups in the States say a new apocalyptic videogame released by cultish Revelations-based fiction series Left Behind is riddled with spyware.

Developers have incorporated software from an Israeli firm called Double Fusion. It incorporates video advertising and product placement into the game, and reportedly records players' behaviour, location, and other data to be uploaded to Left Behind's Bible-powered marketing machine.

Aimed at 13 to 34-year-old males, Left Behind: Eternal Forces casts the player as a director of God's Earthly militia, left behind in the Rapture to roam the streets of New York, battling Satan's minions and shooting unbelievers.

[snip]

In an interview on the series' website Greg Bauman of Left Behind Games explains: "Left Behind: Eternal Forces will help readers get a sense of the conflict and chaos of the time period portrayed in Left Behind and live out how they would defend themselves and their faith from the Antichrist and his Global Peace Keeping Forces." The United Nations, already organ of satanic machinations for many on the Christian far-right, features strongly in the game. Goat-footed demons reportedly emerge from UN peacekeeping humvees.

One reviewer noted: "The only way to accomplish anything positive in the game is to 'convert' nonbelievers into faithful believers, and the only alternative to this is outright killing them."®

The Miami group arrested as terrorists, which called itself the "Seas of David," evidently hoping that people might just think they're the latest Royal Caribbean line super ship, were cooking up a plot that was "more aspirational than operational," according to FBI deputy director John Pistole. Sort of like that old Catholic notion that if you think of the sin, you've already committed it. Or, to paraphrase Tom Edison, "Terrorism is 99% aspiration, and 1% perspiration."

It seems the new terrorist cell rolled up near Miami was in such preliminary stages of launching their jihad that they hadn't yet set aside time to become Muslims.

From the NYT: "Neighbors said at least some of the men were in a religious group called the Seas of David that appeared to mix Christian and Muslim beliefs. The group wore uniforms bearing a Star of David and met for Bible study, prayer and martial arts in a one-story warehouse in the heart of the predominantly Haitian section of the impoverished Liberty City area."

From CNN: "The sister of Lyglenson Lemorin, or "Brother Levi," one of the men arrested Thursday on charges of concocting a terrorist plot, said her brother was involved with the group of men to study religion. Gina Lemorin, who had just returned from her college graduation in Atlanta, Georgia, when she learned of the charges, said he had been with the group in Miami doing construction work. But when the group began practicing "witchcraft," she said, Lemorin left and moved to Atlanta about four months ago ...The family of Phanor, who according to the indictment calls himself "Brother Sunni," told reporters in Miami he was innocent of all charges and was a practicing Roman Catholic, not a Muslim. "They all call themselves brothers and they well-mannered," said his older sister, Marlene Phanor. "All they was trying to do was clean up the community. We are Catholic. He's Catholic." She said the family attends St. Mary's Catholic Church in Miami. Sylvain Plantin, a cousin of Phanor's, said he was involved in a religious group called "Mores," which met to read the Bible."

From KR: "The group apparently did little to inspire fear in the Liberty City neighborhood where they took up residence. A close family friend and a distance cousin of Stanley Grant Phanor described the leader of the group, Narseal Batiste, as a "Moses-like figure" who would roam the streets in a cape or bathrobe, toting a crooked wooden cane and looking for young men to join his group. Sylvain Plantin, 30, said Batiste was a martial arts expert who preached an obscure religion."

Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and Rove pulled off a much more sophisticated job: a bureaucratic coup d'état. Without firing a shot, they silenced critics, squelched unwanted facts, and created their own false but salable reality. As a result, they were able to launch a war justified by lies and driven by nothing more than Bush's ignorant whim. It is, truly, the heist of the century.

[snip]

Suskind opens the book with a damning scene in which a CIA analyst warns Bush in August 2001 that bin Laden was planning to strike the U.S. Bush's response: "All right. You've covered your ass, now." That dismissive reply displayed not just Bush's frat-boy boorishness but his poor judgment. And after the terrorist attacks came, all constraints on Bush -- and Cheney -- vanished. Suskind depicts Bush as unbound, liberated by 9/11: While before the attacks senior staff worried that he wasn't thinking things through, now improvisation, not rational thought, was called for. This let Bush be Bush. "Left unfettered, and unchallenged, were his instincts, his 'gut,' as he often says, and an unwieldy aggressiveness that he'd long been cautioned to contain."

Suskind all but comes out and says what many have suspected: that Bush, although a man of deep faith -- he reads Scripture or a religious tract every morning -- is grossly intellectually unqualified to be president. Again and again, Suskind describes scenes that display his disengagement, his lack of curiosity, his ignorance of the most rudimentary facts. His inner circle knew his weaknesses, and assiduously prevented them from being known. "He is very good at some things that presidents are prized for, and startlingly deficient in others. No one in his innermost circle trusts that those imbalances would be well received by a knowledgeable public, especially at a time of crisis. So they are protective of him -- astonishingly so -- and forgiving."

[snip]

Cheney and Rumsfeld, Suskind writes, viewed Bush as an inferior, the child of their contemporaries. A master at bureaucratic stealth, Cheney quietly orchestrated the war, which was "about the only matter on which all three agreed ... So, as America officially moved to a detailed action plan for the overthrow of Hussein, only three men would be in the know: Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld."

[snip]

But Bush, in Suskind's portrayal, was hardly putty in Cheney's hands (although Suskind reports that inside the CIA Cheney was nicknamed "Edgar," after the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, whose famous dummy was Charlie McCarthy). Bush played along with the game. He didn't want to know any more than Cheney wanted him to know. "No one would dare say that the President made it clear to his most trusted lieutenants he did not want to be informed, especially when the information might undercut the confidence he has in certain sweeping convictions."

Seven people were arrested Thursday in connection with the early stages of a plot to attack Chicago's Sears Tower and other buildings in the U.S., including the FBI office here, a federal law enforcement official said.

As part of the raids related to the arrests, FBI agents swarmed a warehouse in Miami's Liberty City area, using a blowtorch to take off a metal door. A neighbor said the suspects had been sleeping in the warehouse while running what seemed to be a "military boot camp."

The official told The Associated Press the alleged plotters were mainly Americans with no apparent ties to al-Qaida or other foreign terrorist organizations. He spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt news conferences planned for Friday in Washington and Miami.

Miami U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said in a statement that the investigation was an ongoing operation and that more details would be released Friday.

"There is no imminent threat to Miami or any other area because of these operations," said Richard Kolko, spokesman for FBI headquarters in Washington. He declined further comment.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, questioned about the case during an appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live," said he couldn't offer many details because "it's an ongoing operation."

"We are conducting a number of arrests and searches" in Miami, Mueller said, which were expected to be wrapped up Friday morning.

Residents living near the warehouse said the men taken into custody described themselves as Muslims and had tried to recruit young people to join their group, which seemed militaristic.

The residents said FBI agents spent several hours in the neighborhood showing photos of the suspects and seeking information. They said the men had lived in the area about a year.

The men slept in the warehouse, said Tashawn Rose, 29. "They would come out late at night and exercise. It seemed like a military boot camp that they were working on there. They would come out and stand guard."

She talked to one of the men about a month ago: "They seemed brainwashed. They said they had given their lives to Allah."

The Iraqi government declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew Friday after insurgent gunmen set up roadblocks in central Baghdad and opened fire on U.S. and Iraqi troops just north of the heavily fortified Green Zone.

With just two hours notice, the prime minister ordered everyone off the streets of the capital from 2 p.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Saturday. U.S. and Iraqi forces also were engaged in firefights with insurgents in the dangerous Dora neighborhood in south Baghdad.

As the state of emergency was announced in the capital, a car bomb ripped through a market and nearby gas station in the increasingly volatile southern city of Basra Friday, killing at least five people and wounding 18, including two policemen, police said.

At least 19 other deaths were reported in Baghdad.

Throughout the morning Friday, Iraqi and U.S. military forces clashed with attackers who were armed with rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and rifles in busy Haifa Street that runs into the Green Zone, site of the U.S. and British embassies and the Iraqi government.

Two Iraqi soldiers and a policeman were wounded in the fighting, said police Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq said.

The region was sealed and Iraqi and U.S. forces conducted house-to-house searches.

Gunmen also attacked a group of worshippers marching from Sadr City, the Shiite slum in eastern Baghdad, to the Buratha mosque on the other side of the city to protest a suicide attack a week ago on the revered Shiite shrine. At least one marcher was killed and four were wounded, Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said.

The U.S. military on Friday said a Marine had died in combat and a soldier was killed in an unspecified non-hostile incident three days earlier. Their deaths raise to at least 2,514 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Tom Gallagher, the Republican state chief financial officer running for governor on a platform of family values, admitted Monday that he had an extramarital affair that led to his 1979 divorce and said he used marijuana before he was elected to public office ''many, many'' years ago.

Gallagher, 62, conducted an impromptu news conference with his wife, Laura, after The Tampa Tribune asked him about 26 pages excerpted from his 27-year-old divorce file, expunged from Miami-Dade court files years ago in a routine purging of dated records.

The revelations come as Gallagher courts religious conservatives, who have embraced him, in part, because he is married and has a 7-year-old son. They see him as more of a committed family man than his GOP primary opponent, Attorney General Charlie Crist, who remains single after a divorce in 1980 following seven months of marriage.

The divorce documents, as well as additional court records obtained by The Miami Herald, show that Gallagher's ex-wife, Ann Louise, kicked him out of their Miami home in 1979 when she discovered he had been having a yearlong affair with a Tallahassee legislative aide.

At the time, Gallagher was a state representative from Coconut Grove and owned a Tallahassee condominium, leased by his then-girlfriend, Stephanie W. McBee.

After Ann Louise filed for divorce in 1979, an allegedly intoxicated Gallagher returned to their home and tore a screen off the house, the court documents say. The next day, he returned and took the dog. Ann Louise Gallagher asked a judge for a restraining order.

The apparently sympathetic judge, Milton Rubin, told Tom Gallagher: ``You're a public figure. You don't need any adverse publicity.''

The judge then agreed not to ''embarrass'' him with a restraining order as long as Gallagher agreed to stay away from the home until the divorce was final.

GIRLFRIEND TESTIFIES

In a copy of a September 1979 deposition of McBee obtained by The Miami Herald, the former girlfriend testified that during 1978 and 1979, she traveled with Gallagher to Atlanta, Texas, California, Miami, Orlando, West Virginia, Washington, D.C., Delaware and Nassau in the Bahamas. She stayed at his Miami home for three days when his wife was in Michigan, and he gave her gifts.

McBee testified that in 1979, she spent three days with Gallagher in Nassau, where they ``went to dinner, saw a show, swam, laid on the beach and read.''

[snip]

A contrite Tom Gallagher said on Monday he does not regret that the documents have become public, and that he takes full responsibility for his past. "Divorces are messy, but I take full responsibility for what led to mine," he said. "It was totally my fault."

A DIFFERENT MAN

But Gallagher emphasized that he is not the same man who first sought the Republican nomination for governor in 1982, when he had a reputation in Tallahassee as a bon vivant and ladies' man.

"I know that many of you have been somewhat skeptical about some of the changes that have taken place in my life -- that it's some kind of a campaign strategy,'' Gallagher said. ``But I'm here to tell you, Christ does change lives, and I'm a different person because of it."

The program, however, is a significant departure from typical practice in how the government acquires Americans' financial records. Treasury officials did not seek individual court-approved warrants or subpoenas to examine specific transactions, instead relying on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from the cooperative, known as Swift.

That access to large amounts of sensitive data was highly unusual, several officials said, and stirred concerns inside the administration about legal and privacy issues.

"The capability here is awesome or, depending on where you're sitting, troubling," said one former senior counterterrorism official who considers the program valuable. While tight controls are in place, the official added, "The potential for abuse is enormous."

The program is separate from the National Security Agency's efforts to eavesdrop without warrants and collect domestic phone records, operations that have provoked fierce public debate and spurred lawsuits against the government and telecommunications companies. But all the programs grew out of the Bush administration's desire to exploit technological tools to prevent another terrorist strike, and all reflect attempts to break down longstanding legal or institutional barriers to the government's access to private information about Americans and others inside the United States.

Officials described the Swift program as the biggest and most far-reaching of several secret efforts to trace terrorist financing. Much more limited agreements with other companies have provided access to A.T.M. transactions, credit card purchases and Western Union wire payments, the officials said.

Nearly 20 current and former government officials and industry executives discussed aspects of the Swift operation with The New York Times on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified. Some of those officials expressed reservations about the program, saying that what they viewed as an urgent, temporary measure had become permanent nearly five years later without specific Congressional approval or formal authorization.

Data from the Brussels-based banking consortium, formally known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, has allowed officials from the C.I.A., the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies to examine "tens of thousands" of financial transactions, Mr. Levey said.

While many of those transactions have occurred entirely on foreign soil, officials have also been keenly interested in international transfers of money by individuals, businesses, charities and other organizations under suspicion inside the United States, officials said. A small fraction of Swift's records involve transactions entirely within this country, but Treasury officials said they were uncertain whether any had been examined.

Dr. Sidney Schaefer (James Coburn), a psychologist, is chosen by the U.S. Government to act as the President’s personal analyst. He is constantly telephoned at any/all hours to go to the White House and listen to his client’s daily problems, and quickly becomes overwhelmed by stress. Schaefer begins to feel that he is being watched everywhere and his paranoia grows to an almost insane degree; he even suspects his sweet girlfriend (Joan Delaney) of spying on him. Eventually, he goes on the lam and manages to narrowly avoid several assassination attempts by tiny agents from the “FBR”, who are trying to kill him due to his having been pegged as a risk to national security. At the same time, spies from every corner of the world attempt to kidnap him because of all the secret information the President has provided to him. Two of Schaefer’s previous clients, a “CEA” assassin (Godfrey Cambridge) and a Russian spy (Severn Darden), come to his aid and help him expose a major conspiracy involving The Phone Company and world domination.

If you're unsure about how the Net Neutrality goes, here's the down & dirty talking point. The big Telcos (AT&T, Bell South, Verizon, etc.) claim that unless they can run the internet their way, innovation is dead, and the internet will suck forever. The big Telcos are calling Net Neutrality "regulating the internet".

What a crock of shit. What the big Telcos want to do is create a monopoly for themselves, rake in money on services that are currently free (by setting up "toll booths" for those services - such as blogging, video streaming, etc.) and potentially determine which content will be provided to users. In order to argue this, McCurry and the Telcos have resorted to outright lies, claiming that Net Neutrality is an issue advocated by the far left and that if the Net Neutrality amendment passes, traffic on the internet will bog down in an increasingly overwhelmed network.

"We'll defend ourselves, but at the same time we're actively working with our partners to spread peace and democracy,"

That emerging Republican approach reflects, at least for now, the success of a White House effort to bring a skittish party behind Mr. Bush on the war after months of political ambivalence in some vocal quarters. As President Bush offered another defense of his Iraq policy during a visit to Vienna on Wednesday, Republicans acknowledged that it was a strategy of necessity, an effort to turn what some party leaders had feared could become the party's greatest liability into an advantage in the midterm elections.

The approach might yet be upended by more problems in Iraq, as Republicans were reminded this week with reports about two American servicemen who were abducted, tortured and apparently killed. Some polls show a majority of Americans continue to think that entering Iraq was a mistake, and pollsters say independent voters are particularly open to the idea of setting some sort of timetable for withdrawal, the very policy Democrats have embraced and Republicans are now fighting.

But people who attended a series of high-level meetings this month between White House and Congressional officials say President Bush's aides argued that it could be a politically fatal mistake for Republicans to walk away from the war in an election year.

White House officials including the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, outlined ways in which Republican lawmakers could speak more forcefully about the war. Participants also included Mr. Bush's top political and communications advisers: his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove; his political director, Sara Taylor; and the White House counselor, Dan Bartlett. Mr. Rove is newly freed from the threat of indictment in the C.I.A. leak case, and leaders of both parties see his reinvigorated hand in the strategy.

The meetings were followed by the distribution of a 74-page briefing book to Congressional offices from the Pentagon to provide ammunition for what White House officials say will be a central line of attack against Democrats from now through the midterm elections: that the withdrawal being advocated by Democrats would mean thousands of troops would have died for nothing, would give extremists a launching pad from which to build an Islamo-fascist empire and would hand the United States its must humiliating defeat since Vietnam.

[snip]

A senior adviser to Mr. Bush said the White House had concluded that it was better to plunge aggressively into the debate on Iraq than to let Democrats play upon clear, public misgivings about the war. "This is going to be a big issue in this election," said the adviser, who was granted anonymity in exchange for agreeing to describe strategic considerations about the war. "Better to shape and fight it — as good and strongly as you can — than to try to run away from it."

The new Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki has vowed to rein in insurgent and sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands of people since U.S. forces invaded Iraq in 2003.

ANBAR PROVINCE - Four U.S. soldiers were killed on Tuesday in two separate attacks in Iraq's western Anbar province, the U.S. military said.

DHULUIYA - Gunmen killed an Iraqi soldier in his home in Dhuluiya, 40 km (25 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad on Wednesday, the U.S. military said.

HAWIJA - Gunmen killed a carpenter on Wednesday in Hawija, 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said.

KIRKUK - Iraqi soldiers killed a gunman and arrested two on Wednesday after coming under attack in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said.

NASA managers have rejected last-ditch pleas from their top safety officer and chief engineer to scrap next month's shuttle launch, saying that they will press ahead despite potentially catastrophic risks.

[snip]

During a weekend meeting at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral, Florida, Dr Griffin gave the final nod for next month's mission, despite what he called an "intensive and spirited exchange" with senior colleagues who recommended a "no-go". "We have elected to take the risk," he said.

If the mission ends in disaster, NASA's multi-billion dollar shuttle programme will be scrapped, leaving construction of the International Space Station unfinished and marking the end of an era in human spaceflight.

"If we were to lose another vehicle ... I would be moving to figure out a way to shut the programme down," Dr Griffin admitted.

Engineers have addressed the foam-shedding problem suffered during last year's mission by removing a stretch of insulating material from the shuttle's external fuel tank.

But smaller pieces could be shed from 34 aerodynamic structures known as ice-frost ramps, which protect the tank's fuel lines from ice build-up.

If a big enough slab hit a certain part of the shuttle, "the results would be catastrophic," said John Chapman, project manager for the external tank.

Former astronaut Bryan O'Connor, now NASA's safety chief, and chief engineer Christopher Scolese have recommended that the next mission should be postponed until the ice-frost ramps can be redesigned.

Dr Griffin said that if the shuttle's thermal tiles are damaged by debris during launch, the vehicle would still make it safely into space. The danger, he said, would come during re-entry.

The astronauts could make minor repairs before coming down or take refuge in the International Space Station and await a rescue mission by a second shuttle, Atlantis.

Dr Griffin said: "I do not see the situation we're in as being a crew-loss situation. If we are unlucky and we have a debris event on ascent, it will not impede the ascent. The crew will arrive safely in orbit, and then we will begin to look at our options."

"crew-loss situation" = death

"debris event" = shit happening + death

Houston, we have a moron.

In interviews with Salon, the former AT&T workers said that only government officials or AT&T employees with top-secret security clearance are admitted to the room, located inside AT&T's facility in Bridgeton. The room's tight security includes a biometric "mantrap" or highly sophisticated double door, secured with retinal and fingerprint scanners. The former workers say company supervisors told them that employees working inside the room were "monitoring network traffic" and that the room was being used by "a government agency."

The details provided by the two former workers about the Bridgeton room bear the distinctive earmarks of an operation run by the National Security Agency, according to two intelligence experts with extensive knowledge of the NSA and its operations. In addition to the room's high-tech security, those intelligence experts told Salon, the exhaustive vetting process AT&T workers were put through before being granted top-secret security clearance points to the NSA, an agency known as much for its intense secrecy as its technological sophistication.

"It was very hush-hush," said one of the former AT&T workers. "We were told there was going to be some government personnel working in that room. We were told, 'Do not try to speak to them. Do not hamper their work. Do not impede anything that they're doing.'"

The importance of the Bridgeton facility is its role in managing the "common backbone" for all of AT&T's Internet operations. According to one of the former workers, Bridgeton serves as the technical command center from which the company manages all the routers and circuits carrying the company's domestic and international Internet traffic. Therefore, Bridgeton could be instrumental for conducting surveillance or collecting data.

If the NSA is using the secret room, it would appear to bolster recent allegations that the agency has been conducting broad and possibly illegal domestic surveillance and data collection operations authorized by the Bush administration after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. AT&T's Bridgeton location would give the NSA potential access to an enormous amount of Internet data -- currently, the telecom giant controls approximately one-third of all bandwidth carrying Internet traffic to homes and businesses across the United States.

The nature of the government operation using the Bridgeton room remains unknown, and could be legal. Aside from surveillance or data collection, the room could conceivably house a federal law enforcement operation, a classified research project, or some other unknown government operation.

The former workers, both of whom were approached by and spoke separately to Salon, asked to remain anonymous because they still work in the telecommunications industry. They both left the company in good standing. Neither worked inside the secured room or has access to classified information. One worked in AT&T's broadband division until 2003. The other asked to be identified only as a network technician, and worked at Bridgeton for about three years.

The disclosure of the room in Bridgeton follows assertions made earlier this year by a former AT&T worker in California, Mark Klein, who revealed that the company had installed a secret room in a San Francisco facility and reconfigured its circuits, allegedly to help collect data for use by the government. In detailed documents he provided to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Klein also alleged there were other secret rooms at AT&T facilities in other U.S. cities.

"Because the U.S. government did not have a plan in place, my nephew has paid for it with his life...I think the U.S. government was too slow to react to this."

In a sick coda, Menchaca's uncle, Ken MacKenzie, appeared on the Today show and recited weirdly inapplicable Democratic Party talking points in relation to his own nephew's death...

Mr. Speaker, I requested this Special Order to read a statement that I earlier placed in the Record during the debate on the Iraq war resolution.

I did not request time during the debate because it was obvious that the chairmen controlling the time, all good friends of mine, wanted only speakers who support the war, and I did not want to place them in an uncomfortable position.

I did not request time from the Democrats because many of my colleagues in the minority were using this debate in a bitterly partisan way. Surely, war should be the last thing that should become partisan.

Yet 80 percent of the House Republicans, including me, voted against the bombings in Bosnia and Kosovo when President Clinton was in the White House. I believe 80 percent of Republicans would have opposed the war in Iraq if it had been started by President Clinton or Gore, and probably almost all the Democrats would have then been supporting it, as they did the bombings in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Much of the resolution that was just passed by this House contains language that everyone supports, especially the praise for our troops. Our troops do a great job everywhere they are sent. And it is certainly no criticism of them to criticize this war.

In August of 2002, two months before Congress voted for the war in Iraq, Dick Armey, then our Republican majority leader, in a speech in Iowa said, "I don't believe America will justifiably make an unprovoked attack on another nation. It would not be consistent with what we have been as a nation."

Jack Kemp wrote before the war, "What is the evidence that should cause us to fear Iraq more than Pakistan or Iran? Do we reserve the right to launch a preemptive war exclusively for ourselves, or might other nations such as India, Pakistan, or China be justified in taking similar action on the basis of fears of other nations?"

Mr. Kemp said, based on the evidence he had seen, there was not "a compelling case for the invasion and occupation of Iraq."

William F. Buckley wrote that if he had known in 2002 what he knew then in 2004, he would have been against the war. Last year, he wrote another column against the war, saying, "A point is reached when tenacity conveys not steadfastness of purpose, but misapplication of pride."

The very popular conservative columnist Charley Reese wrote that this war was "against a country that was not attacking us, did not have the means to attack us, and had never expressed any intention of attacking us. … [A]nd for whatever real reason we attacked Iraq, it was not to save America from any danger, imminent or otherwise."

Many years ago, Sen. Robert Taft expressed a traditional conservative position: "No foreign policy can be justified except a policy devoted to the protection of the American people, with war only as the last resort and only to preserve that liberty."

Millions of conservatives across this nation believe this war was unconstitutional, unaffordable, and worst of all, unnecessary. It was waged against an evil man, but one who had a total military budget only two-tenths of 1 percent of ours.

We are not going to be able to pay all our military pensions, civil service pensions, Social Security, Medicare, and all the other things we have promised if we are going to turn the Department of Defense into the Department of Foreign Aid and attempt to be the policeman of the world.

This is contrary to every traditional conservative position on defense and on huge deficit spending. The conservative columnist Georgie Ann Geyer wrote, "Critics of the war against Iraq have said since the beginning of the conflict that Americans, still strangely complacent about overseas wars being waged by a minority in their name, will inevitably come to a point where they will see they have to have a government that provides services at home, or one that seeks empire across the globe."

Two missing U.S. soldiers in Iraq have been killed and their bodies were found, the spokesman for Iraq's Defense Ministry said today.

"The two soldiers were killed and they were found in Yusufiya near an electricity plant," Major General Abdul Aziz Mohammed told a news conference in Baghdad.

He did not say when the soldiers were killed or when their bodies were found.

Steve, I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. All of this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking. You take a plane -- people were worried they might blow one up, but they were mostly worried that they might try to take a plane and use it for release of the blind Sheikh or some of their own people.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Sunday that the United States had failed to understand the depth of hostility among Palestinians toward their longtime leaders. The hostility led to an election victory by the militant group Hamas that has reduced to tatters crucial assumptions underlying American policies and hopes in the Middle East.

"I've asked why nobody saw it coming," Ms. Rice said, speaking of her own staff. "It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse."
[snip]

Ms. Rice pointed out that the election results surprised just about everyone. "I don't know anyone who wasn't caught off guard by Hamas's strong showing," she said on her way to London for meetings on the Middle East, Iran and other matters.

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

"I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've encountered,"

North Korea appears to have completed fueling a long-range ballistic missile, American officials said Sunday, a move that greatly increases the probability that it will go ahead with its first important test launching in eight years.

A senior American official said that intelligence from satellite photographs suggested that booster rockets had been loaded onto a launching pad, and liquid-fuel tanks fitted to a missile at a site on North Korea's remote east coast.

While there have been steady reports in recent days about preparations for a test, fueling is regarded as a critical step as well as a probable bellwether of North Korea's intentions. Siphoning the liquid fuel out of a missile is a complex undertaking.

"Yes, looks like all systems are 'go' and fueling appears to be done," said the official who discussed the matter only after being promised anonymity because he was addressing delicate diplomatic and intelligence issues. A second senior official, who declined to speak on the record for similar reasons, also indicated that the United States believed the missile had been fueled.

A launching would be a milestone in the North's missile capacity and effectively scrap a moratorium on such tests declared by the North Koreans after their last test in 1998. Moreover, a launching would have enormous importance for American security because it would be North Korea's first flight test of a new long-range missile that might eventually have the capacity to strike the United States.

As a footnote in one of the 23 sections, the embassy relates, "An Arab newspaper editor told us he is preparing an extensive survey of ethnic cleansing, which he said is taking place in almost every Iraqi province, as political parties and their militiast are seemingly engaged in tit-for-tat reprisals all over Iraq."

Among the other troubling reports:

• "Personal safety depends on good relations with the 'neighborhood' governments, who barricade streets and ward off outsiders. The central government, our staff says, is not relevant; even local mukhtars have been displaced or coopted by militias. People no longer trust most neighbors."
  
• One embassy employee had a brother-in-law kidnapped. Another received a death threat, and then fled the country with her family.
  
• Iraqi staff at the embassy, beginning in March and picking up in May, report "pervasive" harassment from Islamist and/or militia groups. Cuts in power and rising fuel prices "have diminished the quality of life." Conditions vary but even upscale neighborhoods "have visibly deteriorated" and one of them is now described as a "ghost town."
  
• Two of the three female Iraqis in the public affairs office reported stepped-up harassment since mid-May...."some groups are pushing women to cover even their face, a step not taken in Iran even at its most conservative." One of the women is now wearing a full abaya after receiving direct threats.
  
• It has also become "dangerous" for men to wear shorts in public and "they no longer allow their children to play outside in shorts." People who wear jeans in public have also come under attack.
  
• Embassy employees are held in such low esteem their work must remain a secret and they live with constant fear that their cover will be blown. Of nine staffers, only four have told their families where they work. They all plan for their possible abductions. No one takes home their cell phones as this gives them away. One employee said criticism of the U.S. had grown so severe that most of her family believes the U.S. "is punishing populations as Saddam did."
  
• Since April, the "demeanor" of guards in the Green Zone has changed, becoming more "militia-like," and some are now "taunting" embassy personnel or holding up their credentials and saying loudly that they work in the embassy: "Such information is a death sentence if overheard by the wrong people." For this reason, some have asked for press instead of embassy credentials.
  
• "For at least six months, we have not been able to use any local staff members for translation at on-camera press events....We cannot call employees in on weekends or holidays without blowing their 'cover.'"
  
• "More recently, we have begun shredding documents printed out that show local staff surnames. In March, a few staff members approached us to ask what provisions would we make for them if we evacuate."
  
• The overall environment is one of "frayed social networks," with frequent actual or perceived insults. None of this is helped by lack of electricity. "One colleague told us he feels 'defeated' by circumstances, citing his example of being unable to help his two-year-old son who has asthma and cannot sleep in stifling heat," which is now reaching 115 degrees.
  
• "Another employee tell us that life outside the Green Zone has become 'emotionally draining.' He lives in a mostly Shiite area and claims to attend a funeral 'every evening.'"
  
• Fuel lines have grown so long that one staffer spent 12 hours in line on his day off. "Employees all confirm that by the last week of May, they were getting one hour of power for every six hours without.....One staff member reported that a friend lives in a building that houses a new minister; within 24 hours of his appointment, her building had city power 24 hours a day."
  
• The cable concludes that employees' "personal fears are reinforcing divisive sectarian or ethnic channels, despite talk of reconciliation by officials."

He's in New Hampshire. He's making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside-saying stay the course. That’s not a plan! We've got to change direction. You can't sit there in the air-conditioned office and tell troops carrying seventy pounds on their backs, inside these armored vessels-hit with IED's every day-seeing their friends blown up-their buddies blown up-and he says stay the course? Easy to say that from Washington, DC.

Rove's Selective Service records are sparse, but they show a seemingly typical path for many male Utah high school seniors in 1969.
Like most, he registered with the Selective Service while he was a senior at Olympus High School, and he was assigned identification number 42-24-50-1691. Rove was first classified as 1S-H, ineligible to be drafted because he was a high school student.
Gustavson and Rove became friends over their shared distaste for the war in Vietnam. Both high school debate team members, they once were thrown out of a pizza parlor after a heated argument over the war. Another time, they trekked downtown together to protest Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey's speech at the LDS Church Tabernacle.

Far from being a conscientious objector, Gustavson recalls, Rove's opposition to the war was political. He considered the conflict a "political skirmish that was not being properly administered."

"I never heard Karl say, 'I hope I don't get drafted,' " Gustavson says. "Everyone went and registered. No matter how we felt about the war, we understood our legal duty. I don't remember Karl saying he would get married or get a student deferment or do anything that would have earned one a deferment."

But Rove got one anyway. Rove graduated from high school in the spring of 1969 and in June was reclassified 1-A, available to be drafted.

Rove enrolled that fall in the University of Utah. In December the Selective Service System held its first lottery drawing in which numbers were assigned to potential draftees based on their birth dates. The lower the number, the more likely it was the young man would be drafted.

Rove received number 84, or within the top one-fourth of the 365 numbers. It would turn out that the highest lottery number drafted from this group was 195, according the Selective Service, putting Rove's number deep within those that could be drafted.
On Jan. 19, 1970, less than two months after the lottery, Rove underwent a required Armed Forces Physical Examination and was found to be fit for military service.

About a month later, on Feb. 17, 1970, Rove was again reclassified, this time as 2-S, a deferment from the draft because of his enrollment at the University of Utah.
During his two years at the university, Rove studied politics. Beloved professor emeritus J.D. Williams, a staunch Democrat, was his mentor. Rove has said he served an internship through the Hinckley Institute of Politics. And in 1970, he worked on former XRepublican Sen. Wallace F. Bennett's successful campaign to defeat incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Frank Moss.

At the time, a full-time student at the university would have had to take 12 hours a quarter. University records show Rove went to school full-time for four of those quarters. But in the autumn and spring quarters of 1971, Rove was a part-time student, registered for between six and 12 credit hours.

Despite the apparent lapse in his full-time status, Rove maintained his deferment.
At the end of the school year in 1971, Rove told Gustavson he was going to Washington to work for the Republican National Committee as executive director of the College Republicans - a job Bennett reportedly helped him secure.
Bush-Cheney campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt says Rove enrolled that fall at the University of Maryland in College Park. But a letter he prepared to notify the local draft board in Murray of his transfer never made it to Utah.

"To this day, it is unclear to Mr. Rove what happened to the letter," Schmidt says. "He turned it in to the university. But whether it was lost in the mail or arrived late, the draft board did not get it in time and the deferment was not renewed."

President Bush greets a guest as White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten
plays bass guitar with his band 'The Compassionates' at the White House
Congressional Picnic on the South Lawn of the White House, June 15, 2006.
(Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Now that top White House aide Karl Rove is off the hook in the CIA leak probe, President George W. Bush must weigh whether to pardon former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the only one indicted in the three-year investigation.

Speculation about a pardon began in late October, soon after Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald unsealed the perjury indictment of Libby, and it continued last week after Fitzgerald chose not to charge Rove.

"I think ultimately, of course, there are going to be pardons," said Joseph diGenova, a former prosecutor and an old Washington hand who shares that view with many pundits.

"These are the kinds of cases in which historically presidents have given pardons," said the veteran Republican attorney.

The White House remains mum on the president's intentions. Spokeswoman Dana Perino declined to comment Friday.

Bush has powerful incentives to pardon Libby, however. They range from rewarding past loyalty to ending the awkward revelations emerging from pretrial motions, a flow that could worsen in his trial next year.

[snip]

By demanding sensitive, sometimes embarrassing materials, some say, Libby appears to be goading the White House into issuing a pardon. Libby's spokeswoman did not respond to questions about a pardon.

One attorney familiar with the Plame case said Bush might find that it is in his interest to pardon Libby sooner rather than later.

A pardon before the trial could could cut off the disclosures and spare Vice President Dick Cheney from testifying as Fitzgerald's witness about Libby, his former chief of staff.

But the timing of a pardon, the attorney suggested, likely would depend on the outcome of the midterm elections.

If Republicans retain control of Congress, Bush could act swiftly. But if Democrats win control of the House or Senate, Bush might wait, and use Libby's trial as an excuse not to cooperate with any congressional investigations into the leak.