Afghanistan Clash Kills 10 French Soldiers

It's no wonder McCain doesn't mention Afghanistan. We are losing in that country because we are bogged down in Iraq. It is also the reason why the Russians are taunting us.

The French government said Tuesday 10 of its soldiers died in fighting near Kabul, while U.S. and Afghan forces killed several insurgents in other clashes.

The French defense ministry said its soldiers, part of the 1,670-strong French contingent with NATO forces in Afghanistan, had been engaged in fighting Taliban militants since Monday, CNN reported.

Other reports said the fighting had been heavy but further details were not immediately available.

Elsewhere Tuesday, the CNN report said several suicide bombers and militants tried to attack the Forward Operating Base Salerno, a U.S. base north of Khost in eastern Afghanistan, but were beaten back.

Khost is about 12 miles from the border with Pakistan. The report said seven insurgents, including three suicide bombers, were killed.

A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said the approaching militants had been observed by U.S. and Afghan troops at the base.

A Taliban spokesman claimed 15 suicide bombers inflicted heavy casualties at the base, which was dismissed both by ISAF and local officials, the report said.

The latest incident follows a suicide car bombing Monday outside the base in which 10 Afghan civilians died.

F.B.I. Details Anthrax Case, but Doubts Remain

The FBI will never succeed in putting this matter to rest. They have convicted the wrong man and have destroyed any hope that we will find those truly responsible.

Federal Bureau of Investigation officials on Monday laid out their most detailed scientific case to date against Bruce E. Ivins, the military scientist accused of being the anthrax killer, but they acknowledged that the many mysteries of the case meant an air of uncertainty would always surround it.

[...]Dr. Ivins, a longtime anthrax researcher at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Maryland, killed himself last month as the Justice Department was preparing an indictment against him. Since his death, a number of scientists have said that the limited forensic evidence that the F.B.I. made public in linking the attacks to Dr. Ivins is inconclusive.

The unusual presentation by the bureau on Monday was intended to quell those doubts, but some scientists remained skeptical. They said it would be months before they were able to evaluate fully the strength of the forensic evidence, and the new process used, in an independent setting.

At the briefing, F.B.I. officials disclosed that they first obtained a sample of a unique strain of anthrax from Dr. Ivins in 2002, one that could have led them back to the strain used in the 2001 attacks. But the bureau destroyed the sample because Dr. Ivins did not follow protocol in the way it was submitted, making it more difficult to use in court.

It was not until 2006, after a backup copy of Dr. Ivins’s sample was found by another scientist working with the F.B.I., that the bureau’s scientists realized it was the same strain used in the anthrax mailings. That crucial finding helped confirm other evidence pointing to Dr. Ivins.

Report: Tainted Peppers Didn't Alarm FDA

It is clear that this administration doesn't give a damn about the safety of the food supply of Americans.

Federal inspectors at U.S. border crossings repeatedly turned back filthy, disease-ridden shipments of peppers from Mexico in the months before a salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,400 people was finally traced to Mexican chilies.

Yet no larger action was taken. Food and Drug Administration officials insisted as recently as last week that they were surprised by the outbreak because Mexican peppers had not been spotted as a problem before.

But an Associated Press analysis of FDA records found that peppers and chilies were consistently the top Mexican crop rejected by border inspectors for the last year.

Since January alone, 88 shipments of fresh and dried chilies were turned away. Ten percent were contaminated with salmonella. In the last year, 8 percent of the 158 intercepted shipments of fresh and dried chilies had salmonella.

On Friday, Dr. David Acheson, the FDA's food safety chief, told reporters peppers were not a cause for concern before they were implicated in the salmonella outbreak.

"We have not typically seen problems with peppers," Acheson said. "Our import sampling is typically focused on areas where we know we've got problems or we've seen problems in the past, which is why we're now increasing our sampling for peppers."

On Monday, the FDA said Acheson's comment was in relation to outbreaks or illness associated with Mexican peppers, not the rejection of pepper shipments at the borders. Calls to the FDA seeking elaboration were not immediately returned.

Still, food-safety advocates question why the agency did not pay more attention to the peppers being stopped at the border and why it took the nation's largest foodborne illness outbreak for the agency to ratchet up its screening of companies known for shipping dirty chilies.

Oil Price Rises on U.S. Hurricane Fears

Just when you thought it was safe to drive.

Oil prices rose Monday in Asia on concerns that Tropical Storm Fay may disrupt oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Light, sweet crude for September delivery rose 56 cents to $114.33 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midafternoon in Singapore. The contract fell $1.24 on Friday to settle at $113.77 a barrel.

"There could be some supply disruption issues there so the market is watching this closely," said Mark Pervan, senior commodity strategist at ANZ Bank in Melbourne.

Fay, the sixth storm of the 2008 Atlantic season, was slowing down early Monday and moving erratically, but forecasters still expected it to strengthen slowly to a hurricane. Fay has already killed at least five people after battering Haiti and the Dominican Republic with weekend torrential rains and floods.

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has evacuated about 360 staff from the Gulf of Mexico over the past two days.

Early Monday, Fay was centered about 275 kilometers (170 miles) southeast of Havana and 375 kilometers (235 miles) south-southeast of Key West, Florida, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

It had maximum sustained winds near 85 kph (50 mph) and was moving west-northwest at 17 kph (10 mph).

Forecasters expected the storm to begin moving more to the northwest later on Monday. Current models show the storm moving up the western coast of Florida, although forecasters still didn't know exactly where it would make landfall.

So far during this year's hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean, no storm has significantly damaged oil installations in the Gulf.

Russia Begins Georgia Troop 'Pull Back'

This story will only serve as an excuse for the desperate Bushies and McCain to saber rattle. It is why Bush should have been impeached. Through his ineptitude he has singlehandedly rekindled the Cold War.

Russia's military "pull back" from Georgia has begun, says Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of staff of the Russian armed forces.

Nogovitsyn said that Russia's deputy foreign minister had presented the U.S. ambassador to Russia with a timetable of the events that led to Russia's actions and clearly indicated Georgia's responsibility.

As stipulated by a cease-fire agreement, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday that his troops would begin withdrawing to a buffer zone and into South Ossetia on Monday.

The six-point cease-fire gives no timetable for a Russian withdrawal, nor any other specifics, according to a copy of the agreement provided by Georgia's government.

Meanwhile, Russian lawmaker Konstantin Kosachev, head of the parliament's foreign affairs committee, said Moscow would completely withdraw only when it was "assured that Georgians would not continue to use military force" in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russian troops will leave "sooner or later," Kosachev said, saying the timetable depends "definitely on how Georgians will continue to behave."

Survivor of Rwandan Genocide Beaten to Death

The world is becoming increasingly chaotic and lawless. And we seem helpless to stop the madeness.

A woman who lost nearly all her family in the Rwandan genocide has herself been murdered, a local villager told AFP Monday, in what is the latest of several killings of survivors of the 1994 slaughter.

Jozefina Zaninka, 75, was beaten to death overnight Friday in the Muhanga district in the south of the country, Radio Rwanda, the official government broadcaster reported.

"Her body was found Saturday morning in her stable by a young man who had come, as usual, to milk the cows for her," Benoit Kaboyi, executive secretary of Ibuka, the main organisation for the genocide survivors, told AFP.

"We buried her yesterday (Sunday) after the autopsy and some suspects have already been arrested by the police," he added.

Zaninka had been claiming compensation before one of the semi-traditional courts, known as gacacas, for the pillaging of and damage to her possessions during the genocide.

Her murder might have been linked to the court action she initiated, Kaboyi added. Zaninka, who lived alone, had lost nearly all her family, in 1994.

According to Ibuka, 167 survivors of the genocide have been murdered between 1995 and mid-May 2008.

Murders of survivors of the genocide are frequent in the region, Radio Rwanda reported: in May, a survivor in her 90s was burned alive by villagers.

Chinese Officials Seize Bibles from U.S. Christians

Another embarrassment for China during the Olympic games. This is another case in point that shows China will be no more free after the Beijing Olympics than they were before.

Chinese customs officials confiscated more than 300 Bibles on Sunday from four American Christians who arrived in a southwestern city with plans to distribute them, the group's leader said.

The Bibles were taken from the group's checked luggage after they landed at the airport in the city of Kunming, said Pat Klein, head of Vision Beyond Borders. The group, based in Sheridan, Wyoming, distributes Bibles and Christian teaching materials around the world to "strengthen the persecuted church," according to its Web site.

The group arrived in China on Sunday and had intended to distribute the Bibles to people in the city, Klein told the AP in a telephone interview while still at the airport.

"I heard that there's freedom of religion in China, so why is there a problem for us to bring Bibles?" Klein said. "We had over 300 copies and customs took all of them from us."

The move comes as China hosts the Olympics in Beijing, where false media reports last year claimed Bibles would be banned from the games. The state-run China Daily reported last month that 10,000 bilingual copies of the Bible would be distributed in the Olympic Village, which houses athletes and media.

Bibles are printed under the supervision of the Communist government. The officially atheistic country only allows them to be used in government-sanctioned churches and in some big hotels catering to foreigners.

A woman who was on duty at Kunming airport's customs office confirmed over the telephone that 315 Bibles were found in the passengers' checked baggage.

The officer, who would only give her last name, Xiao, denied confiscating the Bibles. She said authorities were just "taking care" of them and provided no further details. She later said she was not authorized to speak to the media and referred questions to the national customs headquarters in Beijing, which did not answer phones on Sunday.

Transcript: Rice, Ridge on FOX News Sunday (8-17-08)

Condoleeza continues her trash talking on the White House's news channel, FOX News. Also, potential McCain presidential candidate, Tom Ridge. Read the entire transcript.

WALLACE: Clear up some confusion, if you will, for us, Secretary Rice. Under the cease-fire, what will the Russians be allowed to do inside Georgia proper? And will they be allowed to keep peacekeepers in the so-called breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia?

RICE: Well, let's remember that there were Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia — or in South Ossetia, which is really the zone of conflict that we're talking about here. They were there as — in an agreement that goes all the way back to 1992. Those peacekeepers will be permitted to stay.

The Russians also had talked about some special security measures that their peacekeepers could take in a very limited area outside of the zone of conflict. They will be permitted to do that for a limited period of time in a very proscribed way.

They're not to go into urban centers. They're not to tie up the east-west highway. That's the clarification, Chris, that President Sarkozy gave to President Saakashvili when I went from France to Tbilisi.

But even that Russian activity outside of the zone of conflict is only until there are monitors in, international monitors.

The other thing the Russians said to the French is that they are now prepared to let the monitors from the OSCE enter the zone of conflict. That should be about 100 additional monitors, and that should happen also within days.

WALLACE: Let's turn, if we can, Secretary Rice, to the bigger issue. There's been a lot of tough talk this week from President Bush and other top officials, including yourself, about viewing the whole range of U.S.-Russia relations. Let's take a look at what Secretary Gates, Defense Secretary Gates, had to say this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT M. GATES: My personal view is that there need to be some consequences for the actions that Russia has taken against a sovereign state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Secretary Rice, if Russia complies with the cease-fire, do relations go back to normal or, as Secretary Gates says, do there have to be consequences for the action that Russia has already taken in the last 10 days?

RICE: Well, I think there's no doubt there will be further consequences. I would note that there have already been significant consequences for Russia.

You know, any notion that Russia was the kind of responsible state, ready to integrate into international institutions of the political, diplomatic, security, economic kind, that this was a different Russia — a Russia, by the way, that President Medvedev himself described about a month ago — this forward-leaning, modern Russia, well, you know, that reputation's, frankly, in tatters, and so that in itself is a significant consequence.

And also, by the way, if the Russians intended this as intimidation, they have done nothing but harden the attitudes of the small states around them, as witnessed by Ukraine's defiance in going to Georgia, Poland, the fact that we are moving forward on missile defense.

I think the Russians have made a significant mistake here.

WALLACE: Just following up directly on that, does the U.S. still want to see Georgia and Ukraine as part of NATO? And are we prepared, if they become part of NATO, to defend their territorial sovereignty with American troops?

RICE: Well, first of all, the NATO alliance has made clear in the Bucharest Declaration that Georgia and Ukraine will be members of NATO.

What the United States is advocating for right now with others is the Georgians and Ukrainians would become part of something called the Membership Action Plan, which is not membership, but it is an umbrella under which numerous states of Eastern and Central Europe have been able to resolve their differences, have been able to make important domestic reforms, civil-military relations, reform their militaries.

That's what we're advocating. We continue to believe that that would be important for Georgia and Ukraine.

Transcript: Rice, Kaine on Meet The Press (8-17-08)

Condoleezza Rice appeared on the Meet The Press to tell the American people that the administration expects the Russians to do as they say not what they do. Also appearing was Obama's potential VP pick, Governor Tim Kaine. Read the entire transcript.

SEC'Y RICE: Well, I just know that the Russian president said several days ago Russian military operations would stop. They didn't. The Russian president told President Sarkozy that the minute that cease-fire was signed by President Saakashvili, Russian forces would begin to withdraw. They didn't. Now he has said that tomorrow, midday, Russian forces will withdraw and withdraw to their pre-August 6, 7 lines. This time I hope he means it. You know, the, the word of the Russian president needs to be upheld by his forces. People are going to begin to wonder if Russia can be trusted. I, I think it's really very much time for them to do what they say they're going to do.

MR. GREGORY: Well, given that lack of trust, as this was all coming together why didn't you go directly to Russia to look them eye to eye to broker this agreement, rather than simply going to Georgia?

[...]MR. GREGORY: Let's talk about the future of the separatist regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Who will control those regions now?

SEC'Y RICE: David, this has been a zone of conflict for well over a decade now, almost 20 years. And in fact, there has to be an international negotiation to determine the security and political and stability arrangements for these two regions. Those negotiations have gone on sporadically for the last several years. But those negotiations will begin from the premise that the territorial integrity of Georgia must be respected, that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are indeed part of--are, are within the internationally recognized boundaries of Georgia and that we will proceed from the basis of Security Council resolutions that recognize that.

MR. GREGORY: Well...

SEC'Y RICE: But there will have to be a negotiated solution to, to these two regions which have been in dispute for a long time.

MR. GREGORY: Will U.S. troops be part of those peacekeeping troops who will be responsible for ensuring that territorial integrity?

SEC'Y RICE: Well, what is first contemplated is that there will be monitors of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OSCE, that will go in now to make sure that the cease-fire is working. And the Russians also told the French that they are prepared to have those monitors come in immediately. So those monitors need to come in immediately. There will then have to be a negotiated solution a part of which will be to get international peacekeeping forces that will have to be neutral peacekeeping forces. And I think the European Union is likely to be one of the lead elements along with others, but that's for future negotiations.

Based on the following answers, it doesn't sound like Kaine will do much to help Obama on his perceived weakness, foreign policy:

MR. GREGORY: Let's get right to it. We both heard Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talking about the situation in Georgia, Governor Kaine. Senator Obama was criticized by the McCain campaign this week, particularly for his comments that there should be restraint on both sides after the invasion. Was he too weak in his initial response?

GOV. KAINE: I think the senator gave a very measured response, which is the tone that we should take. As the secretary made plain, the goal is to use diplomatic means to get Russia to live by the cease-fire. And if diplomacy is the strategy at this point, measured tones is the way to go. And I think that kind of balance is what the situation needs. It is very heartening to hear that there's going to be the--this withdrawal in a day, but we have to check and make sure that Russia lives up to its word.

MR. GREGORY: You don't hear really measured tones out of Secretary Rice. She's pretty tough this morning.

GOV. KAINE: Well, she is, you know, and I think this, this is an issue where there is, there is tough talk. The question is, has there been the kind of action on behalf of the United States over the last years that has been necessary to check Russia's ambitions? My, my significant concern is that we have, through an intensity of focus on Iraq, taken our eye off the ball in other parts of the world like Russia and its bordering states, like Afghanistan. And that is one of Senator Obama's main points, that we need to focus on the significant challenges of the world. And that's why the drawdown in Iraq is so important, so that we can focus and not be stretched so thin.

McCain, Obama at the Saddleback Church Forum (8-16-08)

John McCain and Barack Obama shared the stage briefly at a forum held by the Saddleback Church. It was largely a pro religious-right crowd. This from the NY Times:

• Asked what their biggest moral failings were, Mr. Obama referred to his “difficult youth” when, he said, he experimented with drugs and drank alcohol. “I trace this to a certain selfishness on my part,” he said. “I couldn’t focus on other people.”

  Mr. McCain pointed to his first marriage, which he almost never does publicly.

• Mr. Warren asked Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, which of the sitting Supreme Court justices he would not have appointed. Mr. Obama quickly named Justice Clarence Thomas, saying he was not qualified for the top court at the time.
  
  “I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation, setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretations of the Constitution,” Mr. Obama said.
  
  Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, named all the liberal judges on the court and noted that there might be several vacancies soon. “This nomination should be based on the criteria on a proven record of strictly adhering to the Constitution and not legislating from the bench,” he said.

• Asked what was the most significant issue he had changed his mind on in the last 10 years, Mr. Obama cited the 1996 welfare reform bill signed by President Bill Clinton. He said that he initially opposed it because he believed it would have “disastrous results,” denying millions of women economic support, but that he now believed the law had been largely successful.

  Mr. McCain pointed to offshore drilling. “We’ve got to drill now; we’ve got to drill here,” he said, and took a poke at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican of California, who opposes it. “I know there are some here in Cal-eee-fornia that disagree with that position,” he said, mimicking the governor’s accent.

• Mr. Obama skirted a question about when life begins, saying that determining such a thing was above his pay grade and sending murmurs throughout the audience. Mr. McCain said simply, “At the moment of conception.”

• Asked to define marriage, Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain gave the same answer: that it is the union between a man and a woman.

• On abortion, Mr. Obama declared: “I am pro-choice, I believe in Roe vs. Wade, not because I’m pro-abortion but because ultimately I don’t think women make these decisions casually.” He also said, “I am in favor on limits on late-term abortion if there is an exception for the woman’s health.”
  
  Mr. McCain said he was “pro-life” and would be a “pro-life president.”

This from the Dallas Morning News:

• Mr. Obama said the biblical injunction to care for the disenfranchised “applies to poverty, it applies to racism and sexism, it applies to not thinking about providing ladders of opportunity for people.”

  Mr. McCain recalled how his religious faith sustained him in the face of torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

  “It took a lot of prayer,” he said.

• “If I’m president of the United States, my friends, if I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice,” he said.

• Asked their most difficult decision, Mr. Obama recalled his vote against the war in Iraq. Mr. McCain cited his decision to refuse early release as a POW.

• East Texas evangelist Rick Scarborough, president of Vision America Action, said Mr. McCain offered concise, conservative answers that should help win over religious voters.

  He took Mr. Obama to task for not answering when life begins.

  “This brilliant Harvard grad could not say the obvious,” said Mr. Scarborough. “He’s the most radically pro-abortion candidate our country has ever fielded.”

• Richard Land, who heads the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, said that although Christian conservatives are lukewarm about Mr. McCain, most will vote for him in November because they find Mr. Obama unacceptable.

Bush, McCain Uproar over Georgia: Political Opportunism

If you believe that the outrage by George Bush and John McCain over Russia's attacks on Georgia are motivated by humanitarian concern, I have some WMDs I'd like to sell you. It is the height of hypocrisy for Mr.Bush to berate the Russians for dealing with a country on it's border. What's to stop Putin from demanding that the U.S. pull out of Iraq? That was just as illegal and immoral. No, the outrage is about diverting attention from failing presidencies and campaigns, as the case may be. It is a desperate attempt to take attention away from Iraq, Afghanistan and the economy. It is also a way for McCain to look like a commander-in-chief and create a contrast with his opponent, Barack Obama. Let's not forget that Bush became very popular after 9-11 when it was he who failed to protect us from the al Qaeda attacks. The danger is that the exaggerated rhetoric from the White House could escalate into a serious rift between the U.S. and Russia. America is no position to picking another fight in the world.

Both John McCain and Barack Obama will be paying particularly close attention to the polls early next week to see what impact the Russia-Georgia crisis has had on the US presidential race. Most analysts expect that Mr McCain, who on Wednesday trumpeted "We are all Georgians now", will be the beneficiary.

Mr McCain's robust response at the start of the crisis eight days ago preceded by several hours what Mr Obama and, indeed, President George W. Bush had to say.

His statement, in which he warned Russia of "severe long-term negative consequences", also exceeded what either Mr Obama, who returned yesterday from a week-long holiday in Hawaii, or Mr Bush, who was attending the Beijing Olympics, could produce.

[...]Yet not everybody admires Mr McCain's confrontational stance towards Russia or, by extension, the position Mr Bush has now adopted. A number of Mr Obama's advisers privately express concern that their candidate has been railroaded by campaign politics into talking a similar - although more modulated - stance to Mr McCain on the crisis. "The whole tone is slipping much too easily into cold war rhetoric," says one.

[...]Given the prominent role both Mr McCain and Mr Scheunemann played in beating the drums for the invasion of Iraq, many cringed this week when the Republican contender said: "In the 21st century nations don't invade other nations."

McCain is exaggerating the significance of what is happening in Georgia. It isn't World War III.

Apparently John McCain thinks the Russian invasion of Georgia is "the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War." This is, pretty obviously, factually wrong, since you could trot out the Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, the al-Aqsa Intifada, 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq at a minimum as other serious international crises since the end of the Cold War. But in a way, that doesn't matter. What this demonstrates is McCain's urgent, deep-seated desire to believe that he, John McCain, is right smack in the middle of world historical events, a desire remarkably similar to one we've seen from George Bush since he took office. That temperament hasn't worked out so well for the past few years, and I'm not sure the country is ready for a repeat.

Bush's belligerent style could create a dangerous situation, much worse than he's made it over the last 7 years.

“Realist” diplomats from Henry Kissinger downwards are pointing out that America can’t do both because a contained Russia won’t be a cooperative Russia. However, if Georgia were to join Nato, the consequence could be a much more serious confrontation with Moscow, as the alliance works on the understanding that an attack on one member is an attack on all. Is the invasion of Georgia the first step towards an armed confrontation between America and Russia?

On Friday, Russia even threatened Poland with nuclear retaliation for agreeing to host US rockets as part of its antimissile shield.

Georgia didn't even exist in the media until recently. American's at this point do not care about what's happening in that control. We have too many things to worry about right now to even worry about what is happening along the Russian border. Don't we have enough problems along our own border? And there is another factor: oil. It was a major factor for the Bush/neocon invasion of Iraq.

In fact, that expectation of restraint by the Russians toward their 'independent' neighbor is what the U.S. has been counting on from the instance they decided to encourage and support the construction of the oil pipeline which runs through Georgia from Azerbaijan to Turkey. The expectation was that the West could have a potential control over the flow of oil out of the former Soviet state which supplies Russia's allies (like Bush's nemesis, China). That, undoubtedly, is what has the Bush administration so jazzed about the Russian military incursion.

Bigfoot Capture Hoax and the Press Coverage

The media can't pass up a good story regardless of how untruthful. Even from the earliest reports it was clear this was a hoax. The NY Times reported it this way:

Results from tests on genetic material from alleged remains of Bigfoot, made public at a news conference in Palo Alto held after the claimed discovery swept the Internet, failed to prove the existence of the mythical half-ape and half-human creature.

[...]One of the two samples of DNA said to prove the existence of the Bigfoot came from a human and the other was 96 percent from an opossum, said Curt Nelson, a scientist at the University of Minnesota who performed the analysis.

To MSNBC's discredit they have 3 references (as of 5:47pm) to this hoax, including:

• "Sasquatch hunters claim hairy corpse is Bigfoot"
• "Bigfoot 'Proof' Revealed In Palo Alto"

Of course, FOX has it on it's site. Their attempt at some journalism:

The much-anticipated Bigfoot press conference Friday afternoon in Palo Alto, Calif., revealed little more than two men — introduced by a self-styled Sasquatch seeker — claiming to possess the 7-foot "body" of a "bipedal creature" on ice in a secret location, awaiting an autopsy.

They shouldn't even mention these clowns names. But they do. I will not:

******** showed reporters two blurry photos, claiming one was the mouth of the "creature" while the other was another creature running through the Georgia woods. The men claimed they "stumbled on the creature," but would not reveal more because they were concerned about it being an "endangered species."

******** reiterated his invitation to FOX News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly to come to Georgia and view the body, and plugged his Internet radio show.

He said there wouldn't be anything more revealed Friday, but promised that he would "assemble" a group of scientists to examine the alleged corpse.

******** recounted how he and ******** found the "body," and said that more Bigfoots "paralleled" them as they were loading it onto a flatbed truck.

Here's the AP coverage:

Two men who claim to have stumbled across a Bigfoot corpse in the woods of northern Georgia indignantly stood by their story at a news conference in Palo Alto during which they offered an e-mail from a scientist as evidence and acknowledged they wouldn't mind making a few bucks from the "find" they have kept stuffed in a freezer for over a month.

"Everyone who has talked down to us is going to eat their words," predicted ********

[...]******** and ********, a former [...] announced the discovery in early July on YouTube videos and their Web site. Although they did not consider themselves devoted Bigfoot trackers before then, they have since started offering weekend search expeditions in Georgia for $499. The specimen they bagged, the men say, was one of several apelike creatures they spotted cavorting in the woods.

As they faced a skeptical audience of several hundred journalists and Bigfoot fans that included one curiosity seeker in a Chewbacca suit, the pair were joined Friday by ********, head of a group called ********. Other Bigfoot hunters call ******** a huckster looking for media attention.

Obama Outraises McCain 2 to 1 in July, Still Ahead in Polls

Despite every effort to cut into the lead of Barrack Obama, John McCain still trails his principal opponent in the polls and money race. And there is no indication that will change between now and election day in November.

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential bid added more than 65,000 donors and raised more than $51 million in the month of July, the Obama campaign said in a statement released Saturday.

The Obama campaign recently announced that it has surpassed the 2 million-donor mark and said Saturday that it now has $65.8 million cash on hand.

For June, the Illinois senator's campaign reported raising $52 million, with more than $72 million cash on hand.

[...] Earlier Friday, the McCain campaign announced that it had raised $27 million in July, the presumptive Republican nominee's largest one-month fundraising total to date.

The campaign also said it had $21 million cash on hand, all of which must be spent before the party's convention in early September because of McCain's choice to accept federal campaign dollars.

Although Obama's poll numbers have dipped recently (according to Realclearpolitics.com), the bad news for McCain is that his numbers have also dropped - by even more. This despite the Democratic nominee being on vacation. Obama has dropped approximately 3 points since early July when he peaked at nearly 49%. McCain is now at the lowest point since the middle of July. He is also now lower than he was at the beginning of the year. Obama, on the other hand, is 2 points higher than he was at his lowest point, at start of the year. The trend is clear. McCain is not making up any ground. Only 1 poll has had McCain ahead during the last 3 months.

The Troops Support Obama over McCain

Now who would make a better commander-in-chief?

The Center for Responsive Politics has found that the bona fide war hero is garnering far less financial support from the troops than the Harvard-trained lawyer.

"Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely antiwar Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul," the report said.

The report also included this surprise: "Members of the armed services overall -- whether stationed overseas or at home -- are also favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008. . . . Although 59 percent of federal contributions by military personnel have gone to Republicans this cycle, of money from the military to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama."

Chinese Cheating in Olympics: Lying About Gymnast Age

The question is whether something will be done. Will they be allowed to get away with stealing gold medals from Americans. You can bet U.S. politicians won't stand up for America on this issue.

Just nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhua, reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13, which would have made her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold medal this week.

In its report Nov. 3, Xinhua identified He as one of "10 big new stars" who made a splash at China's Cities Games. It gave her age as 13 and reported that she beat Yang Yilin on the uneven bars at those games. In the final, "this little girl" pulled off a difficult release move on the bars known as the Li Na, named for another Chinese gymnast, Xinhua said in the report, which appeared on one of its Web sites, www.hb.xinhuanet.com

The Associated Press found the Xinhua report on the site Thursday morning and saved a copy of the page. Later that afternoon, the Web site was still working but the page was no longer accessible. Sports editors at the state-run news agency would not comment for publication.

If the age reported by Xinhua was correct, that would have meant He was too young to be on the Chinese team that beat the United States on Wednesday and clinched China's first women's team Olympic gold in gymnastics. She is also a favorite for gold in Monday's uneven bars final.

Yang was also on Wednesday's winning team. Questions have also been raised about her age and that of a third team member, Jiang Yuyuan.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that rulers in Beijing will attempt to use heavy-handed tactics during the games.

A British journalist was detained today while covering a pro-Tibet protest near the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing.

John Ray, a correspondent for ITN, says he was "bundled away, pushed to the floor and pinned down" before being "manhandled into the back of a police van."

The Guardian has footage that shows uniformed police officers shoving other reporters and photographers, too.

In Ray's case, he says Chinese police officers ignored his press credentials and questioned him about his views on Tibet.

Clinton Supporters Plan to Disrupt Democratic Convention

The Clintons, despite claims to the contrary, are trying to get Obama defeated in the Fall so Hillary can run in 2012. They will do anything to sabotage the Democratic nominee. Of course, they will claim not to be behind the subterfuge. And the press will help them get away with it. You still have ignoramuses insisting that Obama needs Hillary as a running mate. He needs her like another hole in the head.

Still sore from an epic primary battle, some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters aren't buying the unity theme planned for the Democratic National Convention.

They weren't mollified when nominee-in-waiting Barack Obama gave prime-time speaking slots to Clinton and her husband, the former president. Instead, they're itching for a fight and plan to wage one in Denver.

One group intends to paper the city with fliers, promote a video detailing what they contend were irregularities in the nominating process and unleash bloggers to give their take on the proceedings. Another group has purchased newspaper advertisements demanding that Clinton be included in a roll-call vote for the nomination.

"I am a very realistic woman," said Diane Mantouvalos, co-founder of the Just Say No Deal Coalition. "I don't think that anything is going to change, but I do think it is important to be heard, and this is our way of doing it."

Hillary's mismanagement is to blame for her defeat, not sexism.

Maureen Dowd skewers Bill and Hillary in her column today. "Obama also allowed Hillary supporters to insert an absurd statement into the platform suggesting that media sexism spurred her loss and that ‘demeaning portrayals of women ... dampen the dreams of our daughters.’ This, even though postmortems, including the new raft of campaign memos leaked by Clintonistas to The Atlantic — another move that undercuts Obama — finger Hillary’s horrendous management skills.”

“Besides the crashing egos and screeching factions working at cross purposes, Joshua Green writes in the magazine, Hillary’s ‘hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices ‘exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency.’ It would have been better to put this language in the platform: ‘A woman who wildly mismanages and bankrupts a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar campaign operation, and then blames sexism in society, will dampen the dreams of our daughters.’”

Home Foreclosures, Inflation Up Sharply in July

The economy continues to worsen dramatically (worst numbers in decades) with no indication that things will get better. Meanwhile, the politicians twiddle their thumbs.

U.S. foreclosure activity in July rose 55 percent from a year earlier as a slump in once-sizzling housing markets forced yet more borrowers to default on their mortgages, according to a monthly report.

Foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — rose 8 percent from June and 55 percent from July 2007 to 272,171, according to RealtyTrac, which records property in various stages of foreclosure.

That means one in every 464 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in July, the firm said. Bank repossessions (REOs) rose 184 percent year-over-year. Default notices were up 53 percent, and auction notices rose 11 percent.

Everything seems to doing poorly in the economy.

Consumer prices shot up in July at twice the expected rate, pushed higher by surging energy and food costs. The latest surge left inflation running at the fastest pace in 17 years.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that consumer prices rose by 0.8 percent last month, twice the 0.4 percent gain that economists had been expecting.

It marked the third straight month of oversized inflation increases following jumps of 0.6 percent in May and 1.1 percent in June and left inflation rising by 5.6 percent over the past year, the biggest 12-month gain since January 1991.

That inflation surge presents a major problem for the Federal Reserve, which could be forced to start raising interest rates even as the economy struggles to avoid a recession.

The big rise in inflation left consumers even more squeezed. The Labor Department said that average weekly earnings, after adjusting for inflation, fell by 3.1 percent in July compared to a year ago, the biggest year-over-year decline since November 1990.

Meanwhile, the number of newly laid-off workers filing applications for unemployment benefits fell less than expected last week, indicating continued stress in labor markets from the weak economy.

Crime-Ridden Arkansas Town Expands 24-hour Curfew

A sign of things to come in America. A return to the bad ole days. Of course, the ACLU is up to it's old tricks.

Officers armed with military rifles have been stopping and questioning passers-by in a neighborhood plagued by violence that's been under a 24-hour curfew for a week.

On Tuesday, the Helena-West Helena City Council voted 9-0 to allow police to expand that program into any area of the city, despite a warning from a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas that the police stops were unconstitutional.

Police Chief Fred Fielder said the patrols have netted 32 arrests since they began last week in a 10-block neighborhood in this small town on the banks of the Mississippi River long troubled by poverty. The council said those living in the city want the random shootings and drug-fueled violence to stop, no matter what the cost.

"Now if somebody wants to sue us, they have an option to sue, but I'm fairly certain that a judge will see it the way the way the citizens see it here," Mayor James Valley said. "The citizens deserve peace, that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution."

The area under curfew, in what used to be a West Helena neighborhood, sits among abandoned homes and occupied residences in disrepair.

White signs on large blue barrels warn those passing by that the area remains under curfew by order of Mayor James Valley. The order was scheduled to end at 3 p.m. Tuesday, but Valley said the city council's vote would allow police to have the same powers across Helena-West Helena.

Among the curfew operation's arrests, 10 came from felony charges, including the arrest of two people carrying both drugs and weapons, Fielder said. The police chief said the officers in the field carry military-style M-16 or M-4 rifles, some equipped with laser sights. Other officers carry short-barrel shotguns. Many dealing crack cocaine and marijuana in the city carry pistols and AK-47 assault rifles, he said.

"We've had people call us, expressing concern for their children," Fielder said. "They had to sleep on the floor, because of stray bullets."

Fielder said officers had not arrested anyone for violating the curfew, only questioned people about why they were outside. Those without good answers or acting nervously get additional attention, Fielder said.

However, such stops likely violate residents' constitutional rights to freely assemble and protections against unreasonable police searches, said Holly Dickson, a lawyer for the ACLU of Arkansas who addressed the council at its packed Tuesday meeting. Because of that, Dickson said any convictions coming from the arrests likely would be overturned.

U.S. Refuses Israel weapons to Attack Iran: Report

Could it be that the Bush-leaguers have wised up and recognize that an attack on Iran would be catastrophic?

The United States has turned down Israeli requests for military hardware to help it prepare for a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, a frontpage report in Israel's Haaretz newspaper said on Wednesday.

The unsourced report said the Americans had warned Israel against carrying out any such attack and had refused to supply offensive military hardware. Instead they had offered to improve the Jewish state's defenses against surface-to-surface missiles.

Interviewed on Israeli Army Radio, Defence Minister Ehud Barak did not deny the Haaretz story, but refused to discuss it. "It would not be right to talk about these things," Barak said.

The West accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies this and says its nuclear program is only to generate electricity. It has vowed to retaliate against Israel and the United States if attacked.

Israel, which is believed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, says a nuclear-armed Iran could threaten its existence.

The Haaretz report, by one of its senior columnists, did not specify what weapons systems Israel had requested. It said Washington had told Israel its aircraft would be denied permission to use Iraqi airspace to reach Iran.

McCain Aide's Firm Lobbied For Georgia

Once again the neocons are ready to go to war for oil. You didn't think the outrage from Bush and McCain had anything to do with concern over human rights?

Sen. John McCain's top foreign policy adviser prepped his boss for an April 17 phone call with the president of Georgia and then helped the presumptive Republican presidential nominee prepare a strong statement of support for the fledgling republic.

The day of the call, a lobbying firm partly owned by the adviser, Randy Scheunemann, signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.

[...]But ethics experts have raised concerns about former lobbyists for foreign governments providing advice to presidential candidates about those same countries. "The question is, who is the client? Is the adviser loyal to income from a foreign client, or is he loyal to the candidate he is working for now?" said James Thurber, a lobbying expert at American University. "It's dangerous if you're getting advice from people who are very close to countries on one side or another of a conflict."

At the time of McCain's call, Scheunemann had formally ceased his own lobbying work for Georgia, according to federal disclosure reports. But he was still part of Orion Strategies, which had only two lobbyists, himself and Mike Mitchell.

[...]As a private lobbyist trying to influence lawmakers and Bush administration staffers, Scheunemann at times relied on his access to McCain in his work for foreign clients on Capitol Hill. He and his partner reported 71 phone conversations and meetings with McCain and his top advisers since 2004 on behalf of foreign clients, including Georgia, according to forms they filed with the Justice Department.