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Incredible Coincidence: A massive earthquake in Asia unleashed tsunamis killing thousands, exactly one year to the hour after the Bam, Iran earthquake killed 26,000. What are the odds of two of the most destructive earthquakes in decades occuring exactly one year apart- almost to the minute!
December 26, 2003 - Bam, Iran, only 6.6 on the richter scale, but quake is centered directly under the city- 26,000 dead.
December 26, 2004 - Centered off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the (…)

Frustrated by the slow pace of the federal government’s response, Shawna Doremus and Judith Kaufman, both New Orleanians displaced in Pittsburgh, have planned a rally in the nation’s capital on Wednesday, December 14, 2005.
”New Orleans is one of America’s most unique cities, and it is heartbreaking to see the city struggling to get back on it’s feet,” said Doremus. “We are Americans, we are taxpayers, and Judy and I both personally represent small businesses. We are asking Congress to (…)

Internet censorship. It did not happen overnight but slowly came to America’s shores from testing grounds in China and the Middle East.
Progressive and investigative journalist web site administrators are beginning to talk to each other about it, e-mail users are beginning to understand why their e-mail is being disrupted by it, major search engines appear to be complying with it, and the low to equal signal-to-noise ratio of legitimate e-mail and spam appears to be perpetuated by it.
In (…)

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that (…)

December 7, 2005
The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States of America The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We are concerned that the Department of Defense has been under-reporting casualties in Iraq by only reporting non-fatal casualties incurred in combat. We write today to request that you provide the American people with a full accounting of the American casualties in Iraq since the March 19, 2003 invasion, (…)

Baghdad, Dec. 9 (AP): A group of Shiite and Sunni parties has signed a declaration condemning terrorism, urging a timetable for the end of the US military presence, and vowing never to normalise relations with Israel.
The parties to the "code of honour" included followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Sunni Iraqi Consensus Front.
The code also (…)

Rhetorical Questions about Lies and Torture
By Peter Fredson
December 11, 2005
Today a news headline stated:
“NATO CHIEF: RICE ’CLEARED THE AIR’ ON DETAINEE CHARGES”
The main story was a simple assertion: “Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has briefed NATO and European Union colleagues on the Bush administration response to allegations the CIA has abused terrorism suspects and had secret detention sites in Europe. NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer says Ms. Rice’s (…)

WASHINGTON - A federal judge yesterday ordered the Pentagon to stop administering an anthrax vaccine to service members without their consent, ruling that defense officials cannot require troops to "serve as guinea pigs for experimental drugs."
In blocking mandatory anthrax inoculations until a full trial can be held on the matter, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan agreed with the contention by six unnamed Defense Department plaintiffs. They say the anthrax vaccine is an experimental (…)

by DAVE ZIRIN
Sometimes sports mirrors politics with such morbid accuracy you don’t know whether to laugh, cry or hide in the basement. Just as the Bush Administration shows its commitment to democracy by operating secret offshore gulags and buying favorable news coverage in Iraq, the New York Mets have made it clear to new player Carlos Delgado that freedom of speech stops once the blue and orange uniform—their brand—is affixed to his body.
For the last two years, Delgado chose to (…)

By Conn Hallinan
There is a moment in Jeffery Goldberg’s New Yorker profile of Brent Scowcroft, George Bush Senior’s former National Security Advisor, when the current Administration’s combination of arrogance and cluelessness crystallize. Over dinner, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice tells Scowcroft that the ’good news’ from the Middle East is that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is pulling out of Gaza, the first step toward resolving the issue of a Palestinian state.
According (…)