Politic in Question

"An ideogram from the Middle Ages representing a conventionalized map of the world. The vertical line signified the Mediterranean, the horizontal line to the left represented the river Nile, and that to the right, the river Don. The right upper section was Europe, the left represented Africa, and the lower half circle Asia. The point in the middle of this lower sector stands for Jerusalem." [From Symbols.com]

Lift the Deadline

WE HAVE REPEATEDLY argued that Congress ought to lift the May deadline for the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States to complete its work. This week, the commission itself for the first time acknowledged that the deadline threatens its work. As Chairman Thomas H. Kean and Vice Chair Lee H. Hamilton put it in requesting an extension, "much work remains," including "some hard work in finalizing our report." The commission asked for a two-month extension. It would be better to lift the deadline entirely.

The administration and congressional Republicans are keen to avoid an extension, apparently because they want whatever damaging facts the commission's report contains to be old news by Election Day. That's not acceptable. The commission was charged with "making a full and complete accounting" of "the circumstances surrounding the attacks" and "the extent of the United States' preparedness" for and response to the Sept. 11 disaster -- and to offer recommendations for reform. Such comprehensiveness does not happen with a stopwatch ticking down to an arbitrary date.

As long as the commission faces a deadline, those who possess useful but embarrassing information may be tempted to stall. Legitimate and delicate disputes about information, moreover, will have to be resolved under enormous pressure. The commission's report will likely turn out less valuable than it could be. [Read More]

George Bush promised to bring honor and integrity back to the White House. Instead, he got rid of accountability.

Surely even supporters of the Iraq war must be dismayed by the administration's reaction to David Kay's recent statements. Iraq, he now admits, didn't have W.M.D., or even active programs to produce such weapons. Those much-ridiculed U.N. inspectors were right. (But Hans Blix appears to have gone down the memory hole. On Tuesday Mr. Bush declared that the war was justified — under U.N. Resolution 1441, no less — because Saddam "did not let us in.")

So where are the apologies? Where are the resignations? Where is the investigation of this intelligence debacle? All we have is bluster from Dick Cheney, evasive W.M.D.-related-program-activity language from Mr. Bush — and a determined effort to prevent an independent inquiry.

True, Mr. Kay still claims that this was a pure intelligence failure. I don't buy it: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has issued a damning report on how the threat from Iraq was hyped, and former officials warned of politicized intelligence during the war buildup. (Yes, the Hutton report gave Tony Blair a clean bill of health, but many people — including a majority of the British public, according to polls — regard that report as a whitewash.)

In any case, the point is that a grave mistake was made, and America's credibility has been badly damaged — and nobody is being held accountable. [Read More]

Last week it was "WMD" all over again in the President's State of the Union message. This time the unsubstantiated claims and wrongheaded policy were aimed at America's schoolchildren in this latest effort to get them to "just say no" to illegal drugs.

Citing recent declines in illegal drug use among teenagers, and couched in loving and caring rhetoric, Bush credited random drug testing with the reduction. He then proposed an additional $23 million for schools opting to use, as Drug Czar John Walters touts, this "silver bullet."

Immediately following, HR 3720 was introduced in the House by Rep. John Peterson (R-5th/PA), providing grants under the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act to schools that institute random drug testing of all students.

These proposals are based on shaky assumptions and political whim rather than sound research. Thoughtful investigations instead reveal that random drug testing does not deter drug use, and that it alienates students. [Read More]

See You on the Darknet
Why we don't really want Internet security.
By Paul Boutin

I have a game I play whenever I read an essay on politics written by a techie: How long until the first reference to George Orwell? Autodesk founder John Walker, in a recent 28,000-word monograph ponderously titled "The Digital Imprimatur," wastes no time: His piece is subtitled "How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle." If your eyes don't glaze over right then, they will as soon as Walker begins to explain how by signing up for cheap broadband service, with its firewalls and dynamic IP addresses, you've already compromised your freedom. [Read More]

"[W]e now know that the human animal is characterized by two great fears that other animals are protected from: the fear of life and the fear of death... Heidegger brought these fears to the center of his existential philosophy. He argued that the basic anxiety of [humanity] is anxiety about being-in-the-world, as well as anxiety of being-in-the-world. That is, both fear of death and fear of life, of experience and individuation."

And my comments…

John Kerry

I’m impressed he was able to keep the momentum up. Not only did he keep the Kerry-wave going, he again came out on top with an impressive margin! But yet again, though I see Kerry as looking damn good on paper, I can’t manage to get excited about him. Though he has a great message and excited crowds chanting ‘Bring it on’ he has yet to really show any passion. Missouri, where Kerry plans to focus this next week, could provide him with a mass of votes and further solidify his position as the frontrunner.

Howard Dean

Well, I heard on MSNBC the Dean camp was planning for a 2^nd place finish…hopefully no more than 5-7% behind the forerunner. They were, undoubtedly, disappointed with 13% difference. Dean will now focus this week on Arizona and New Mexico, and if he is successful, could add the necessary strength his campaign. Pundits are predicting the end of Dean, but I estimate a few more surprises ahead, particularly if Kerry stumbles.

Wes Clark

Perhaps Clark’s campaign made a fatal mistake by not competing in Iowa? I was nearly certain that Clark would pull down some serious numbers in NH, considering he spent an extra week there! But, Kerry’s momentum coming out of Iowa and his appeal to vets rolled over Clark, leaving him with a tie for an unimpressive third. Depending on South Carolina (also holding primaries next week) this could be the beginning of the end for Clark. What a short run this could be…

John Edwards

Before Iowa, Edwards’s upbeat campaign was painting him a good VP option. Now, and especially with South Carolina coming, Edwards is becoming more and more appealing. Nevertheless, tying for third place with Clark clearly indicates that the southern primaries will pin these two against each other. Edwards could soon become one of the more interesting candidates, and no matter, he still remains a fine running mate.

Joe Lieberman

Watching this man’s speech after the results became apparent, I found myself almost feeling pity for him. He seems to be under the delusion that his campaign can go on and yet he couldn’t even make a good showing in his own backyard. My advice to Joe: take a tip from Carol Moseley-Brown and Dick Gephardt; it’s time to admit defeat and stop wasting our time. And take Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich with you!

—Advising quail hunter and New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici, Roswell, N.M., Jan. 22, 2004

"This week, cable television's USA Network revisits Traffik and Traffic once more, in a miniseries that is ostensibly based on both but is really more of an attempt to spin the brand into a franchise. Unlike Gaghan's adaptation, the USA series starts from scratch, updating and expanding the definition of "traffic" to include illegal immigrants and international terrorism. And so, over the course of three nights (starting tonight, 9 ET), bankrupt businessman Ben Edmonds (played by Balthazar Getty) will sell his soul to Chinese-American mob boss Ronny Cho (Nelson Lee), DEA agent Mike McKay (Elias Koteas) will go AWOL with $10 million in Afghani heroin, Chechen cab driver Adam Kadyrov's (Cliff Curtis) efforts to smuggle his family into the United States will go terribly awry, and an al-Qaida cell will ship two containers of smallpox onto American soil." [Read More] [From:Traffic Update Does the third incarnation take a different route? By Alex Abramovich]

I'm currently inthrawled in this mini-series and plan on doing my own assesment of the outcome. Stay tuned, this could be exciting ;)

Please, is there really a need for such a law? And this is what narcotics agents are after?!?!

B U R L E S O N, Texas, Jan. 22 — Like many saleswomen before her, 43-year-old Joanne Webb made a living by toting her plastic products from house to house for little get-togethers with women interested in making their everyday lives better and easier.

Webb, who is married with children, says she found a real sense of accomplishment in her lucrative career … until she was arrested by two undercover narcotics investigators.

"I was in shock. My heart was racing. I was in fear," said Webb on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "I thought, 'How could this be?' "

Webb, a former elementary school teacher, was arrested on charges that she broke a Texas obscenity law that bans the sale of items "designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs."

Webb says the investigators, who had posed as a couple, had her arrested after she helped them choose a few sex toys to purchase through Passion Parties, a company she joined in June. She now faces a year in prison and a $4,000 fine if convicted. [Read More]

In January 2003 thousands of us from across the world gathered in Porto Alegre in Brazil and declared – reiterated – that "Another World Is Possible." A few thousand miles north, in Washington, George W. Bush and his aides were thinking the same thing.

Our project was the World Social Forum; theirs, to further what many call the Project for the New American Century.

In the great cities of Europe and America, where a few years ago these things would only have been whispered, now people are openly talking about the good side of imperialism and the need for a strong empire to police an unruly world. The new missionaries want order at the cost of justice. Discipline at the cost of dignity. And ascendancy at any price. Occasionally some of us are invited to "debate" the issue on "neutral" platforms provided by the corporate media. Debating imperialism is a bit like debating the pros and cons of rape. What can we say? That we really miss it?

In any case, New Imperialism is already upon us. It's a remodeled, streamlined version of what we once knew. For the first time in history, a single empire with an arsenal of weapons that could obliterate the world in an afternoon has complete, unipolar, economic and military hegemony. It uses different weapons to break open different markets. There isn't a country on God's earth that is not caught in the cross hairs of the American cruise missile and the IMF checkbook. Argentina's the model if you want to be the poster boy of neoliberal capitalism, Iraq if you're the black sheep. Poor countries that are geopolitically of strategic value to Empire, or have a "market" of any size, or infrastructure that can be privatized, or, God forbid, natural resources of value – oil, gold, diamonds, cobalt, coal – must do as they're told or become military targets. Those with the greatest reserves of natural wealth are most at risk. Unless they surrender their resources willingly to the corporate machine, civil unrest will be fomented or war will be waged. Editor's Note: This article was adapted from Arundhati Roy's January 16 speech to the opening plenary of the World Social Forum in Mumbai. [Read More]

The nearly 100 million viewers expected to tune in to next month's Super Bowl on CBS will be served up ads that include everything from beer and bikinis to credit cards and erectile dysfunction.

They will also see two spots from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. What's missing from America's premiere marketing spectacle will be an anti-Bush ad put forth by upstart advocacy group MoveOn.org. The group had hoped to buy airtime to run "Child's Pay," a 30-second ad that criticizes the Bush administration's run-up of the federal deficit.

CBS rejected a request from MoveOn to air the 30-second spot, saying "Child's Pay" violated the network's policy against accepting advocacy advertising, a company spokesperson told reporters.

At the same time, CBS is allowing ads placed on the docket by the White House's anti-drug office. For the third year in a row the White House has paid between $1.5 and $3 million each for 30-second spots during the broadcast. The 2004 ads, produced for the White House by Ogilvy & Mather, are expected to convey a message similar to their previous Super Bowl spots. While CBS would not reveal the content of the upcoming ads, previous White House Super Bowl spots drew a controversial link between casual drug use and the financing of global terrorists. [Read More]

Democracy at Risk

The disputed election of 2000 left a lasting scar on the nation's psyche. A recent Zogby poll found that even in red states, which voted for George W. Bush, 32 percent of the public believes that the election was stolen. In blue states, the fraction is 44 percent.

Now imagine this: in November the candidate trailing in the polls wins an upset victory — but all of the districts where he does much better than expected use touch-screen voting machines. Meanwhile, leaked internal e-mail from the companies that make these machines suggests widespread error, and possibly fraud. What would this do to the nation?

Unfortunately, this story is completely plausible. (In fact, you can tell a similar story about some of the results in the 2002 midterm elections, especially in Georgia.) Fortune magazine rightly declared paperless voting the worst technology of 2003, but it's not just a bad technology — it's a threat to the republic. [Read More]

ASHINGTON — Whoa! That was quite the steroid-infused performance. Who's the guy's political consultant — Russell Crowe? He was so in-your-face, smirking his trademark smirk, it was disturbing to think of him in charge of the military. It's a good thing he stopped drinking and started talking about God.

You wonder how many votes he scared off with that testosterone festival: the taunting message, the self-righteous geographic litany of support? The Philippines. Thailand. Italy. Spain. Poland. Denmark. Bulgaria. Ukraine. Romania. The Netherlands. Norway. El Salvador.

Can you believe President Bush is still pushing the cockamamie claim that we went to war in Iraq with a real coalition rather than a gaggle of poodles and lackeys?

His State of the Union address took his swaggering sheriff routine to new heights. "America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country," he vowed.

Translation: Hey, we don't need no stinking piece of paper to bring it on in other countries. If it feels good, we'll do it, and we'll decide later why we did it. You lookin' at me? [Read More]

Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of [humankind].

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of [people].
I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

War of Ideas, Part 4

et's not mince words. American policy today toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is insane.

Can anyone look at what is happening — Palestinians, gripped by a collective madness, committing suicide, and Israelis, under a leadership completely adrift, building more settlements so fanatical Jews can live in the heart of Palestinian-populated areas — and not conclude the following: That these two nations are locked in an utterly self-destructive vicious cycle that threatens Israel's long-term viability, poisons America's image in the Middle East, undermines any hope for a Palestinian state and weakens pro-American Arab moderates. No, you can't draw any other conclusion. Yet the Bush team, backed up by certain conservative Jewish and Christian activist groups, believes that the correct policy is to do nothing. Well, that is my definition of insane. [Read More]

So, the Iowa caucus took place today and I think I’ll throw in my two cents on this one. For those of you not up on the results Kerry won and Edwards came in second (Dean a distant third)…a very good showing for Kerry and Edwards. Pundits were chatting it up the past few days that Kerry, Edwards, Dean, and Gephardt all had a shot to take it.

So, what does all of this come down to? First, Gephardt is done, probably working on the speech right now. I’m wondering if he’ll wait to drop until after New Hampshire, not because he has a chance, but he’ll likely want to throw his support behind one of the candidates that fairs well in NH.

As for Dean…well, up until tonight I was throwing a good deal of support behind him. And really, third is all he needed in Iowa. But it was after the results were announced and he gave his speech that I started to question my support for him. The man just ranted and growled, red-faced and pandering! Unlike Dean, Edwards had a beautiful speech (though this one has been spun quite a bit the past few weeks) that really displayed him in his best light…in control of himself and his campaign.

Europe grapples with rising anti-Semitism

Attacks, especially in France, seen tied to Mideast politics

By Dawna Friesen

PARIS - From his synagogue in Ris-Orangis, a small town on the outskirts of Paris, Rabbi Michel Serfaty, a Moroccan-born father of five, has always advocated tolerance and worked with his Muslim and Christian neighbors to foster mutual respect.

But last October, Serfaty came face to face with an ugly new reality: what some believe is part of a new wave of anti-Semitism on the streets of Europe.

As he walked to the synagogue one morning with his 16-year-old son, some young men began yelling at them from their car.

"Vive la Palestine. Long live Palestine. Palestine will vanquish you. We will massacre you," he said they shouted.

Shocked by what he heard, Serfaty said his first instinct was to try to talk to the young men, to reason with them. He walked over to the car, and leaned down to speak to them.

"What I saw written on their face was hostility and rage," he said.

One of them smashed the car door in Serfaty's face. He was knocked to the ground, where he lay unconscious for a few seconds, his lip badly cut.

His encounter was just one of a rising number of attacks against Jews and Jewish targets in some European countries, most of which appear to be the work of Muslim immigrants feeling marginalized by society and angry over Israeli policy in the conflict in the Mideast. [Read More]

Who Gets It?

Earlier this week, Wesley Clark had some strong words about the state of the nation. "I think we're at risk with our democracy," he said. "I think we're dealing with the most closed, imperialistic, nastiest administration in living memory. They even put Richard Nixon to shame."

In other words, the general gets it: he understands that America is facing what Kevin Phillips, in his remarkable new book, "American Dynasty," calls a "Machiavellian moment." Among other things, this tells us that General Clark and Howard Dean, whatever they may say in the heat of the nomination fight, are on the same side of the great Democratic divide.

"And if you're interested in the quality of education and you're paying attention to what you hear at Laclede, why don't you volunteer? Why don't you mentor a child how to read?"—St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 5, 2004

"Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it."

Presented by Dick Gephardt

10. "Every speech begins: 'It's great to be wherever the hell I am today'"

Those who favor the U.S. government's role as international policeman must be ecstatic that the feds are now expanding their jurisdiction in their decades-long war on drugs to include the entire world. How so? Well, despite the fact that U.S. drug laws apply only in the United States, U.S. military forces are now using their "war on terror" and their invasion and occupation of Iraq to search and seize ships in the Persian Gulf and the North Arabian Sea alleged to be carrying illicit drugs and to remove the crew members to the Pentagon's prison camp in Afghanistan for interrogation and punishment.

What? Have the suspects fired on U.S. military vessels? Have they laid mines in the ocean to blow up U.S. ships? Have they fired torpedoes?

No, all they've been accused of doing is what smugglers always do in response to such political interventions as drug laws – smuggle.

Struggling to reconcile the ever-widening gulf between what the Bush administration claims to be true and what is actually true is getting harder by the day. Fortunately, Paul O'Neill has a timely, if disturbing, diagnosis, backed up by some 19,000 pages of lab results: The country is being governed not by the genial figurehead now running toward the center in hopes of re-election, but by a band of out and out fanatics.

On the administration's two defining issues, Iraq and taxes, the former Treasury Secretary paints a scathing portrait of a cabal of closed-minded zealots steadfastly refusing to allow anything as piddling as fact, evidence, or truth to get in the way of their unshakable beliefs and forgone conclusions.

According to O'Neill, invading Iraq was a Bush goal before he had even learned where the Oval office supply closet was. It came up just ten days after the inauguration, at the new president's first National Security Council meeting. "It was all about finding a way to do it," O'Neill says. "That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this.'" [Read More]

War of Ideas, Part 3

During the next six months, the world is going to be treated to two remarkable trials in Baghdad. It is going to be the mother of all split screens. On one side, you're going to see the trial of Saddam Hussein. On the other side, you're going to see the trial of the Iraqi people. That's right, the Iraqi people will also be on trial — for whether they can really live together without the iron fist of the man on the other side of the screen.

This may be apocryphal, but Saddam is supposed to have once remarked something like: Be careful, if you get rid of me, you will need seven presidents to rule Iraq. Which is why this split-screen trial is going to be so important. Either Saddam is going to be laughing at us and at Iraqis, saying "I told you so," as Iraqis are squabbling and murdering each other on the other side of the screen.

Or, we and the Iraqi people will be laughing at him by proving that it is possible to produce something the Arab world has rarely seen: a self-governing, multiethnic, representative Arab government that accepts minority rights and peaceful transfers of power — without a military dictator, monarch or mullah standing overhead with a stick.

War of Ideas, Part 2

hile visiting Istanbul the other day, I took a long walk along the Bosporus near Topkapi Palace. There is nothing like standing at this stunning intersection of Europe and Asia to think about the clash of civilizations — and how we might avoid it. Make no mistake: we are living at a remarkable hinge of history and it's not clear how it's going to swing.

What is clear is that Osama bin Laden achieved his aim: 9/11 sparked real tensions between the Judeo-Christian West and the Muslim East. Preachers on both sides now openly denounce each other's faith. Whether these tensions explode into a real clash of civilizations will depend a great deal on whether we build bridges or dig ditches between the West and Islam in three key places — Turkey, Iraq and Israel-Palestine.

Let's start with Turkey — the only Muslim, free-market democracy in Europe. I happened to be in Istanbul when the street outside one of the two synagogues that were suicide-bombed on Nov. 15 was reopened. Three things struck me: First, the chief rabbi of Turkey appeared at the ceremony, hand in hand with the top Muslim cleric of Istanbul and the local mayor, while crowds in the street threw red carnations on them. Second, the Turkish leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who comes from an Islamist party, paid a visit to the chief rabbi — the first time a Turkish prime minister had ever called on the chief rabbi. Third, and most revealing, was the statement made by the father of one of the Turkish suicide bombers who hit the synagogues.

"We are a respectful family who love our nation, flag and the Koran," the grieving father, Sefik Elaltuntas, told the Zaman newspaper. "But we cannot understand why this child had done the thing he had done . . . First, let us meet with the chief rabbi of our Jewish brothers. Let me hug him. Let me kiss his hands and flowing robe. Let me apologize in the name of my son and offer my condolences for the deaths. . . . We will be damned if we do not reconcile with them." [Read More]

Watchdog Groups Urges Florida Governor To Remove Minister From Judicial Nomination Commission

Dozier’s Questioning Of Judge Nominees About Religion, Family Life, Homosexuality Is ‘Overt Religious Bigotry,’ Says AU

A member of a Florida commission that helps select state court judges has inappropriately asked nominees about their religious beliefs and should be removed from office, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The Miami Daily Business Review reported Jan. 8 that Broward Judicial Nomination Commission (JNC) member O’Neal Dozier has asked several candidates for Broward County judgeships inappropriate questions about their religious beliefs, such as whether they attend church and are “God-fearing.” Several of those judicial nominees complained about those types of questions

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, sent a letter to Gov. Bush today calling on him to fire Dozier.

“Dozier’s overt religious bigotry is wholly unacceptable and he must no longer be allowed an official role in the selection of judges in Florida,” Lynn wrote. “It is appalling that in 2004 judicial nominees are being subjected to an inquisition. Religious litmus tests are unconstitutional in America.”

In addition to grilling candidates about religion, Dozier has also been accused of questioning judicial candidates about their personal lives and their stands on controversial social issues. One woman said she was asked whether she could balance her duties as a single mother of twins with her duties as a judge. Another candidate was asked his opinions on the Supreme Court’s decision last summer that overturned a Texas sodomy law.

According to the Miami Daily Business Review, Dozier said such questions are appropriate. “I am totally against that ruling,” he told the newspaper. “We cannot have a judge who feels sodomy is OK.”

Dozier has repeatedly expressed an intolerant and theocratic approach to government. According to a report in the New Times Broward-Palm Beach late last year, Dozier told a Religious Right gathering, “We as Christians must take control of the government. We should be the ones in charge of the government.”

New Times said Dozier also observed that homosexuality is “something so nasty and disgusting that it makes God want to vomit.”

According to the more recent Miami Business Review article, Dozier said, “There is no such animal as separation of church and state in the Constitution.”

Dozier was appointed to the judicial nomination commission by Gov. Bush, and AU’s Lynn urged Bush to act quickly to remove Dozier from that official post.

“As I am sure you are aware,” Lynn wrote, “state and federal law forbid religious tests for public office. In our highly pluralistic society, it is outrageous to require judicial nominees to profess certain religious beliefs, participate in religious activities or conform their lives to the tenets of a particular faith.” [From the Americans United Website]

WASHINGTON - The Army’s suicide rate in Iraq has been about a third higher than past rates for troops during peacetime, the Pentagon’s top doctor said Wednesday.

Also, the military still has about 2,500 troops waiting for medical care after returning from overseas, said Dr. William Winkenwerder, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. The Pentagon is preparing for even more soldiers on “medical extension” after tens of thousands of troops are rotated home from Iraq this spring, Winkenwerder said.

The issue of suicides so worried the military that the Army sent an assessment team to Iraq late last year to see if anything more could be done to prevent troops from killing themselves.

Rush Limbaugh is a hero to some and a big fat idiot to others. But when it comes to his criminal investigation for allegedly buying thousands of prescription painkillers, his politics are irrelevant. As long as no one else was harmed as a consequence of his drug use, Rush Limbaugh should not face incarceration or otherwise be punished for what he chose to put into his own body. Neither should any other American, regardless of class, age or race.

"Child's Pay" is an austere piece depicting children laboring in factories and working as dishwashers, housekeepers and garbage collectors. The scenes are shot in a hopelessly grim bluish-gray light, and accompanied by an equally desolate minor-key guitar. A graphic at the end asks, "Guess who's going to pay off President Bush's $1 trillion deficit?" [Read More]

An article from Slate also looks at the winner of the competition…

…this ad completely ignores the MoveOn crowd's single biggest issue: the war in Iraq. Is this what all those grass-roots folks wanted to see when they donated money to air a spot that would speak for unheard voices? An ad about the growing deficit? [Read More]

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - White socks have been declared indecent by the Dutch Finance Ministry.

A ministry official on Tuesday confirmed a recent internal publication that proclaimed white sports socks "transgress the limits of decent dress behavior" for ministry employees.

The officials were also expected to wear dark blue or gray suits in order to convey "reliability and professionalism."

"People are expected to dress in accordance with their function," said a spokeswoman, stressing there were no strict controls.

Why Is Kashmir So Hotly Disputed?
The conflict began with a gift of goats.
By Brendan I. Koerner