Two people caught skinny dipping in a Portland reservoir that is a main source of water for the city nearly caused officials to dump millions of gallons of water and close the facility.
Obama vowed to never question the patriotism of others in the campaign, adding "I will not stand idly by when I hear others question mine."
Obama has been defending his patriotism ever since the beginning of the primary season, when he was first criticized for not wearing a flag pin -- which he now does much more frequently -- and when false rumors began circulating that he did not say the Pledge of Allegiance.
New York stocks bounced back modestly on Monday as soaring oil prices boosted energy stocks but the rally was too little, too late to prevent the S&P 500 from registering its worst month since September 2002.
The relentless rise in oil prices has been the scourge of stock markets this month, undercutting investor confidence with the threat of inflation and turning modest gains in April and May into significant losses in June.
Noam Chomsky, the linguist and activist, said in an email that he thought Americans should question the relevance of McCain's torture in an unjust war to his campaign.
"The questions could scarcely even be understood within the reigning intellectual and moral culture—though I don't doubt that much of the population would understand," Chomsky said.
"McCain isn't being mocked, he's being questioned..."
The record breaking rally in oil prices has made stagflation -- quickening inflation combined with slowing economic growth -- a top fear for investors and is making analysts unhopeful about equity markets in the second half.Reuters: Detroit's mood grim as automakers face the brink
"Stagflation is here," read the subject of a weekly report from JPMorgan asset allocation strategists
Crosstown rivals Ford Motor Co and privately held Chrysler LLC face similar pressures (dwindling sales). As the automakers weigh their options to ride out the industry's most-trying slump in 25 years, thousands of Detroit families are doing the same.As a friend recently said, the other shoe has dropped. Its a hold onto your hats period and it is worldwide.
But last week, GM shares skidded to their lowest level since 1955.
On a combined basis, GM, Ford and Chrysler have cut more than 100,000 factory jobs since sales began to slow in 2006.
Michigan's jobless rate jumped to a 16-year high of 8.5 percent for May.
The U.S. military faced Iraqi anger on Sunday over a raid near the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala in which a distant relative of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was killed.The first line states that the US military faces Iraqi anger over a raid. The key word is "U.S. military."
"Coalition forces deeply regret the loss of life and are conducting an investigation," he said.
U.S. helicopters landed in the al-Hindiya district, just east of the southern city of Kerbala, during the raid.
The scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which include the Central Intelligence Agency, have now been significantly expanded...
Among groups inside Iran benefiting from U.S. support is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People's Resistance Movement, according to former CIA officer Robert Baer. Council on Foreign Relations analyst Vali Nasr described it to Hersh as a vicious organization suspected of links to al Qaeda.
New research shows that male birds trying to compete with traffic and city sounds are singing louder and at increasingly higher frequencies, which could harm their vocal cords and hearing. As a result their songs are becoming more chaotic and less diverse, which makes them less attractive to female birds and damages their mating opportunities.
Another study of the dawn chorus of nightingales found that birds in Berlin sang up to 14 decibels louder than their counterparts in the forest. The highest volume occurred on weekday mornings. A further group found that great tits in European cities sang at a higher frequency than birds in the country, so that they could be heard above the rumble of cars, lorries and industry.
"I can remember asking the question during our war gaming and the development of our plan, 'Okay, we are in Baghdad, what next?' No real good answers came forth," Col. Thomas G. Torrance, the commander of the Third Infantry Division's artillery, said in the report
The court ruled 9 to 0 that participants in 401(k) retirement plans can sue to recover losses due to the mishandling of their individual accounts.
By a vote of 6 to 3, the court upheld Indiana’s voter identification law, which requires would-be voters to present current state or federal photo identification to cast a ballot.
Bill Clinton is so bitter about Barack Obama's victory over his wife Hillary that he has told friends the Democratic nominee will have to beg for his wholehearted support.
Fifty-two passengers on a Chinese airliner whose flight was cancelled due to bad weather refused to disembark and instead spent the night onboard before finally leaving to their destination, local media said on Friday. The passengers boarded for their 8 p.m. (1:00 a.m. EDT) flight from Beijing to the eastern coastal city of Yantai, but after more than three hours of sitting on the tarmac, the airline cancelled the flight, the Beijing Morning Post said.
John McCain directed his trademark straight talk toward a former president, flatly calling Jimmy Carter a "lousy" commander in chief.Sheesh, if all we are talking about is lousy, exactly which Republican President over the last 50 years does not fit this description. Most would easily exceed the criteria and the present one would exponentially exceed the criteria.
The Arizona senator has long attempted to portray Barack Obama's policies as in the mold of Carter's, though the Republican has previously held back criticizing Carter so directly.
"If there is a confrontation between us and the enemy from outside the region, definitely the scope [of the confrontation] will reach the oil issue," Jafari said.Here is an article from June 2006 on oil and an Iran War.
"After this action (of Iran imposing controls on the Gulf waterway), the oil price will rise very considerably and this is among the factors deterring the enemies," he said.
World oil prices could triple if the West's stand-off over Iran's nuclear programme escalates into conflict, the Saudi Arabian government has warned.
The Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, said such an event could send prices spiralling from their current level of about $70 per barrel.
Fears that as many as 5 million acres of corn and soybeans have been lost to flooding in the world's largest grain and food exporter have pushed corn and livestock prices to record highs in the last week.
“We want to make people realise that they can use their gardens, yards and roof terraces to grow food,” says Adolfo López Villanueva, the programme’s director. “With the climate we have in Mexico City you can get between two and three harvests a year and that would help families keep costs down.”
A wealthy New York woman has been sentenced to 11 years in jail for keeping two Indonesian women as slaves.
Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 46, and her husband Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, kept them as slaves and abused them physically and psychologically.
Asia shares looked set for a gloomy end to the week and the first half of the year as New York shares tumbled overnight to near two-year lows and investors fretted about prospects for the US, a key export market. Oil jumped to a record of $140 a barrel overnight.
The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved $161.8 billion in new funds to continue fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the next year, without timetables for withdrawing combat troops.
The Senate's 92-6 vote to pass the war-funding bill marked a victory for Bush...
Spiking oil prices, poor corporate earnings reports and more bad news from the banking sector sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average scuttling to its lowest level since September 2006 and knocked the S&P 500 below 1,300 on Thursday.Its interesting, I read in January when the recession was being openly discussed initially, that it takes about 6 months for stocks to bottom out. Here we are, 6 months into 2008 and stocks are as flat as a pancake.
From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water-treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.
The plan - hatched, naturally, in a bar - would place a vote on the November ballot to provide "an appropriate honor for a truly unique president."
Supporters say that they have plenty of signatures to qualify the initiative and that the renaming would fit in a long and proud American tradition of poking political figures in the eye.
"I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution."The Supreme Court just made the ruling on child rape:
The 5-to-4 decision overturned death penalty laws in Louisiana and five other states. The only two men in the country who have been sentenced to death for the crime of child rape, both in Louisiana, will receive new sentences of life without parole.From a purely political point of view, and this is probably the most unimportant aspect of this decision, with his statement Obama comes across as more of a centrist. Look, he's agreeing with Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito, the gang of four. So perhaps he is yearning for praise from Limbaugh.
Those who voted with Justice Kennedy in the majority were Justice Stevens and Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the dissent, along with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
The plan, which aims to reduce pollutants by 10 percent from current levels by 2020 while driving investment in new energy technologies that will benefit the state's economy, is the most comprehensive yet by any U.S. state.Recall that the massive Federal Government complex under the direction of the deft visionary George Bush has focused the needs of the country on preventive and elective go it alone wars. George Bush had a gut feeling that this is what is best for the country, and America went along with it because - you can imagine yourself having a beer with this man.
The program will also encourage development of walkable cities with shorter commutes, high-speed rail as an alternative to air travel...
John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush's successor is sworn in.
"The key point would be for the Israelis to break Iran's control over the nuclear fuel cycle and that could be accomplished for example by destroying the uranium conversion facility at Esfahan or the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.
Asked whether Israeli officials were pressuring the administration to take military action against Iran before Bush leaves office, Perino said: "This is a rumor that I hear quite a lot from reporters being brought to us, and what I can tell you is President Bush believes that we can solve this issue diplomatically, and that everyone's preference is to solve it diplomatically, not just here in the United States but with our allies and certainly with Israel."This is strange. Bush has spent the last 7.5 years saying that the US does not talk with "the enemy."
Buoyed by enthusiasm among Democrats and public concern over the economy, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has taken a sizable lead over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at the opening of the general election campaign for president, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.The poll indicates that Obama has a greater margin with Barr and Nader in the race.
In a two-man race between the major-party candidates, registered voters chose Obama over McCain by 49% to 37% in the national poll, conducted Thursday through Monday.
On a four-man ballot that included independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr, voters chose Obama over McCain by 48% to 33%.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned on Tuesday the U.S. economy was on the brink of a recession, with the chances of that happening at more than 50 percent.Surprising news since we have been under the wing of the most deft leadership that I can recall.
The U.S. economy has been hit by a credit crisis which began in the sub-prime mortgage market, prompting a series of interest rate cuts to help boost the economy. But price pressures are growing, making more rate cuts unlikely.
There is freedom within, there is freedom without
Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup
Theres a battle ahead, many battles are lost
But youll never see the end of the road
While youre travelling with me
Hey now, hey now
Dont dream its over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know they wont win
Now Im towing my car, theres a hole in the roof
My possessions are causing me suspicion but theres no proof
In the paper today tales of war and of waste
But you turn right over to the t.v. page
Hey now, hey now
Dont dream its over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know they wont win
Now Im walking again to the beat of a drum
And Im counting the steps to the door of your heart
Only shadows ahead barely clearing the roof
Get to know the feeling of liberation and relief
Hey now, hey now
Dont dream its over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
Dont ever let them win
A bomb killed 10 people including two U.S. government employees and two U.S. soldiers at a council meeting in the Baghdad stronghold of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Tuesday, officials said.The news about Iraq cannot go onto the occasional back page of an obscure newspaper. Its looks like its going to be up to us to make sure it stays in people's eyesight.
James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.I don't want to sound like the pessimist here but the news would not seem to indicate that a reversal in man made carbon emissions is happening.
Randy Scheunemann, McCain's chief foreign policy spokesman, in 2002 founded the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which agitated for the US invasion that was launched in 2003.More information on Randy Scheunemann:
Scheunemann and Robert Kagan, another McCain advisor, head the neoconservative Project for a New American Century, which takes a hawkish line on foreign policy issues.
A well-connected lobbyist and political insider with strong ties to the neoconservative political faction, Randy Scheunemann has been involved in a number of advocacy campaigns aimed at pushing an aggressive U.S. foreign policy agenda in recent years, helping found the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), an advocacy outfit that emerged in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to push for war in Iraq. Along with other like-minded groups, including the now mostly defunct Project for the New American Century (for which Scheunemann served as a director), CLI played a key role in forging coalitions of political figures behind a neoconservative-inspired Middle East agenda that had at its core toppling Saddam Hussein. CLI members included several prominent congressional figures, including Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).It should be as clear as a bell, a McCain Presidency will include more Iraq and expanding the war into Iran and possibly (probably) into other countries as well.
A long-standing associate of McCain, Scheunemann serves as an adviser to McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, helping bolster the senator's arguments for continuing the war in Iraq. Criticizing various Democratic-supported ideas aimed at reducing U.S. troop levels in Iraq, Scheunemann said in April 2007: "It's ludicrous. Because the idea that we will be able to better prevent sectarian violence and fight al-Qaida better from Kuwait than how we are doing it now is laughable" (quoted in "McCain's Bulldog," New York Observer blog, April 11, 2007).
Apache attack helicopters have fired the thermobaric weapons against fighters in buildings and caves, to create a pressure wave that sucks the air out of victims, shreds their internal organs and crushes their bodies.
The Ministry of Defence has admitted to the use of the weapons, condemned by human rights groups as "brutal", on several occasions, including against a cave complex.
The use of the Hellfire AGM-114N weapons had been deemed so successful they would now be fired from RAF Reaper unmanned drones controlled by "pilots" at Creech air force base in Nevada, an Defence Ministry spokesman added.
A member of an Iraqi city council shot at U.S. forces Monday outside Baghdad, killing at least three soldiers, two Iraqi Interior Ministry officials said.Chalk it up to a free and democratically elected Iraqi government.
Car sales in Russia continue to soar, having reached a record 855,000 vehicles so far this year, including both imported and domestically-produced models.I feel bad for Russia. Heartless endless highways filled with anxious drivers and massive threatening trucks, crammed mega malls circled by a sea of rusting metal car carcasses, exhaust fumes stench, emergency rooms with crumpled teens, boom box cars drowning out your thoughts, traffic jams, oh yes the benefits of wealth, at least you can get there in style.
There are currently 260 car owners per 1,000 people in Russia, and if the trend in sales persists, Western Europe will be overtaken in two years’ time. The United States, with a rate of 900 cars per 1,000 people, is set to be left behind in another two years.
“For anyone to represent that someone drilling off the coast in Florida is going to lower gas prices here or anywhere in this country is disingenuous and a flawed argument,” he said. “Oil drilling could take 10 years before any oil is pulled out of the ground, and there are a large number of leases held by oil companies that are not being exploited now. We can’t say we need more until we’ve exploited those.”Marco Rubio (R) appears to have summed up the latest shrill talking point from the right. The talking point is designed to give land rights to big energy while the giving is good i.e. while Bush is in office.
In yoga, we are taught to become aware of various parts of the body that we previously ignored -- perhaps noting some extra tension we're carrying in our shoulders or abdomen, for instance. With our money habits, when we look honestly at the areas we've been avoiding, we can identify the underlying motivations for our spending, investing or giving -- and transform our bad habits into behaviors that serve our best interests.
The sharp rise in food prices is being felt acutely by poor families on food stamps...I've said this again and again but families that live on the financial margins are going to be incredibly pressed with the steep rise in food and fuel.
In the past year, the cost of food for what the government considers a minimum nutritional diet has risen 7.2 percent nationwide. It is on track to become the largest increase since 1989...The prices of certain staples have risen even more. The cost of eggs, for example, has increased nearly 20 percent, and the price of milk and other dairy products has risen 10 percent.
But food stamp allocations, intended to cover only minimum needs, have not changed since last fall and will not rise again until October, when an increase linked to inflation will take effect.
That is down slightly from Obama's 8-point advantage on McCain in May, before Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York left the Democratic race.When I talk with friends about the Presidential race, many express the same concerns.
At least 15 people were killed and 35 wounded when a female suicide bomber blew herself up among policemen having lunch north of Baghdad on Sunday, Iraqi police and hospital sources said.
"All eyes will be on the FOMC which is slated to announce its latest policy decision on Wednesday," said Meny Grauman, economist at CIBC World Markets.
Credit problems are expected to deteriorate over the next 12 months, which should drive stock prices lower in the second half of 2008, in our opinion."
Bank stocks, he added "need to bottom out before the broader stock market can begin a meaningful sustainable rally."
President Bush is accusing Democrats in Congress of blocking his energy proposals, saying they are partly to blame for high gasoline costs pinching Americans' budgets.First off, we don't Bush planning anything whatsoever for the US except his quick exit.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows Barack Obama attracting 45% of the vote while John McCain earns 41%. When "leaners" are included, Obama holds a four-point advantage, 48% to 44%.Newsweek:
With numbers consistently showing rock-bottom approval ratings for President Bush and a large majority of Americans unhappy with the country's direction, the opposing-party candidate should, in the normal course, have attracted more disaffected voters. Now it looks as if Obama is doing just that. A new NEWSWEEK Poll shows that he has a substantial double-digit lead, 51 percent to 36 percent, over McCain among registered voters nationwide.
Four soldiers of the U.S.-led Coalition were killed and two were seriously wounded Saturday in a roadside bomb attack in southern Afghanistan, the Coalition said in a statement.
Unlike the attack on Iraq five years ago, to deal with Iran there need be no massing of troops. And, with the propaganda buildup already well under way, there need be little, if any, forewarning before shock and awe and pox -- in the form of air and missile attacks -- begin.
This time it will be largely the Air Force's show, punctuated by missile and air strikes by the Navy. Israeli-American agreement has now been reached at the highest level; the armed forces planners, plotters and pilots are working out the details.
A public school teacher preached his Christian beliefs despite complaints by other teachers and administrators and used a device to burn the image of a cross on students' arms, according to a report by independent investigators.
U.S. President George W. Bush did not know about a White House effort to leak the identity of a CIA agent but tried to protect staffers who were involved in one of the biggest scandals of his administration, former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told Congress on Friday.When all is said and done about Bush, everything that we suspected will end up being the tip of the iceberg.
But Bush, through his chief of staff, ordered McClellan to tell reporters that White House staffers Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby were not behind the leak...
Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.First off, I do not believe Israel carries this off without US approval.
A suicide bomber attacked a military convoy as it drove through a town in southern Afghanistan Friday, killing five civilians and one soldier from the U.S.-led coalition, officials said.
Republican John McCain promised on Wednesday to put the United States on course to build 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030 if elected president as part of a plan to move the country toward energy independence.I've posted on the problems with nukes many times here.
McCain, his party's presumptive nominee in this fall's presidential election, is laying out a strategy to wean the United States from foreign oil, an issue that has risen to the top of voters' minds as gasoline prices soar.
In an indictment unsealed in New York, the former Bear Stearns executives, Ralph Cioffi and Mathew Tannin, were charged with conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud. Cioffi was also charged with insider trading.
A powerful Hindu-nationalist political party in western India has called for Hindu suicide squads to counter Islamic terrorism, causing outrage and embarrassing the national opposition with which it is allied.We must save ourselves by killing them is as old as the hills, but we do not want to see extremist Hindus adding to the misery of suicide bombing, bad idea, really really bad idea. We need to figure out how to prevent suicide bombing not create more suicide bombing.
"Just like Islamic extremism, to safeguard the country and Hindus we must create Hindu suicide squads if Hindu society is to be saved."
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."If you do a check on Bush and war crimes you will find that this goes back a few years. People have equated Bush to a war criminal for a while now.
...he's giving the House Judiciary Committee 30 days to act on his resolution proposing 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush...If Judiciary does nothing, he'll go back to the House floor next month armed with nearly twice as many articles.
Barack Obama attracting 45% of the vote while John McCain earns 41%. When "leaners" are included, Obama holds a three-point advantage, 48% to 45%.
A House committee subpoenaed yesterday records of the FBI's interviews with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney during the investigation into the leak of a covert CIA officer's name.
Chairman Sen Carl Levin said they had then "twisted the law to create the appearance of legality".
The White House responded by saying the US had treated all detainees humanely.
The Pentagon in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks pursued abusive interrogation techniques once used by North Korea and Vietnam on American POWs despite stern warnings by several military lawyers that the methods were cruel and even illegal, according to a Senate investigation.I just don't get Lindsey Graham. He makes a responsible statement like the one above and then he comes out completely in favor of the administration that approved it in the first place.
"The guidance (administration lawyers) provided will go down in history as some of the most irresponsible and shortsighted legal analysis ever provided to our nation's military and intelligence communities," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C...
Several of those techniques, including stress positions, were later approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in a December 2002 memo for use at Guantanamo Bay. Rumsfeld and Haynes agreed to the methods, despite objections by military service lawyers that they might be illegal.Pointing to Rumsfeld as a source for torture is like pointing to the sky and saying that's where the air is.
A car bomb tore through a market area in a mainly Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing more than 50 people and wounding dozens, officials said, the deadliest such attack in more than three months.I can't say it enough, but if this type of violence occurred one time in the US, the mood of the country would crumple. Yet we read about this in Iraq and have become numb to its implications. Sure, the surge is working.
As Mr. Gore ticked through a long list of challenges facing the nation, he hailed Mr. Obama as “clearly the candidate best able to solve these problems and bring change to America.”
The numbers of people employed past retirement age are growing faster than any other section of the labour market, according to official data.
The data tell an important story: as lifespans expand and retirement benefits shrink, growing numbers are entering, or refusing to leave, and workplaces are gradually changing their perception of the ideal worker.
the Vice-President-elect gave the new order of battle: “We would seek confrontation on every front. . . . The new Administration would divide Americans into red and blue, and divide nations into those who stand with us or against us.” Cheney’s combative instincts and belief in an unfettered and secretive executive proved far more influential at the White House than Bush’s campaign promise to be “a uniter, not a divider.” Cheney behaved as if, notwithstanding the loss of the popular vote, conservative Republican domination could continue by sheer force of will. On domestic policy, the Administration made tax cuts and privatization its highest priority; and its conduct of the war on terror broke with sixty years of relatively bipartisan and multilateralist foreign policy.
Ed Rollins said, “Rove knew his voters, he stuck to the message with consistency, he drove that base hard—and there’s nothing left of it. Today, if you’re not rich or Southern or born again, the chances of your being a Republican are not great.”
