side note: wow, i mean, he even admits that his brand of conservatism is not an angry, hostile brand, like the one of our president. Of course, i believe it, when i see it. But good luck Governor.

By ANDREW DeMILLO, Associated Press Writer
yahoo.com

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says if he runs for president he won’t be a Republican who will “scare the living daylights” out of independents and moderate Democrats.

“I think I would appeal to true conservatives for whom conservatism doesn’t mean they’re angry at everybody,” Huckabee said in an interview with The Associated Press. “My brand of conservatism is not an angry, hostile brand. It’s one that says `conservative’ means we want to conserve the best of our culture, society, principles and values and pass them on.” (more…)

By ROB GILLIES, Associated Press Writer
yahoo.com

A giant ice shelf has snapped free from an island south of the North Pole, scientists said Thursday, citing climate change as a “major” reason for the event.

The Ayles Ice Shelf — all 41 square miles of it — broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 500 miles south of the North Pole in the Canadian Arctic.

Scientists discovered the event by using satellite imagery. Within one hour of breaking free, the shelf had formed as a new ice island, leaving a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake.

Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and couldn’t believe what he saw.

“This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years,” Vincent said. “We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead.” (more…)

side note: there’s quite a bit of pressure from the international community to force The Dutch to rethink their laws concerning prostitution and soft drugs. There is a lot of bad associated with the “skin trade” in the Netherlands, but I think a lot of good also is accomplished. From what I know, the ladies are taxed and most importantly, they are regurlarly tested for STD’s. Even if the Dutch decide to make it illegal, it’ll still exist. Just take a look at any country where it’s illegal, it actually makes it more dangerous for the women…….

By Geraldine Coughlan
BBC News, the Hague

Brothel owners in Amsterdam’s red light district have taken the city council to court over its decision to close a number of sex businesses.

The council is demanding the closure of 33 brothels, which account for around a third of the district’s sex businesses, by the end of the year.

The prostitutes union says the move will force many women to work illegally.

Prostitution was legalised in the Netherlands five years ago. (more…)

AOL.com

U.S. President Ranks as Top Villain and Top Hero of 2006

America in No Doubt of 2006’s Celebrity Role Models – Oprah Regaled as the Best; Britney Declared the Worst

DULLES, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–A new poll from The Associated Press and AOL News has discovered that Americans are torn in terms of their perception of President George W. Bush and his performance in 2006. When asked to name the past year’s biggest villain, Bush was far and away the #1 choice, commanding 25% of the vote, distantly trailed by Osama Bin Laden (8%), Saddam Hussein (6%), President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran (5%), North Korean leader Kim Jong II (2%) and Donald Rumsfeld (2%). Satan only took in 1% of the vote, as did Hugo Chavez, Tom Cruise, Dick Cheney, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Rosie O’Donnell, among others.

On the flipside, Bush also claimed the top spot when Americans were asked to name the year’s biggest hero, but with only a trifling 13% of the vote. The troops in Iraq came in second (6%), followed by Jesus Christ (3%), Barack Obama (3%), Oprah Winfrey (3%), and rock star/philanthropist Bono (2%). Other “do-gooders” of 2006, receiving 1% each, included luminaries, business leaders and politicos such as Warren Buffett, George Clooney, Bill Gates, Al Gore, Billy Graham, Angelina Jolie, Colin Powell, Arnold Schwarzenegger and (more…)

By Justin Rood
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com

Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden is still at large — but that’s not a failure of White House policy, says Frances Fragos Townsend. As she explained to CNN’s White House correspondent Ed Henry last night:

HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we’re going to get him. Still don’t have him. I know you are saying there’s successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That’s a failure.

TOWNSEND: Well, I’m not sure — it’s a success that hasn’t occurred yet. I don’t know that I view that as a failure.
see original

By PAUL KRUGMAN
The New York Times

After first attempting to deny the scale of last month’s defeat, the apologists have settled on a story line that sounds just like Marxist explanations for the failure of the Soviet Union. What happened, you see, was that the noble ideals of the Republican revolution of 1994 were undermined by Washington’s corrupting ways. And the recent defeat was a good thing, because it will force a return to the true conservative path.

But the truth is that the movement that took power in 1994 — a movement that had little to do with true conservatism — was always based on a lie.

The lie is right there in “The Freedom Revolution,” the book that Dick Armey, who had just become the House majority leader, published in 1995. He declares that most government programs don’t do anything “to help American families with the needs of everyday life,” and that “very few American families would notice their disappearance.” He goes on to assert that “there is no reason we cannot, by the time our children come of age, reduce the federal government by half as a percentage of gross domestic product.”

Right. Somehow, I think more than a few families would notice the disappearance of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — and those three programs alone account for a majority of nondefense, noninterest spending. The truth is that the government delivers services and security that people want. Yes, there’s some waste — just as there is in any large organization. But there are no big programs that are easy to cut. (more…)

side note: oh my god, somebody please save us from this retard. I hate to call people names, but this guy is about as clueless as you get. He needs more time, what the hell is he doing down there. Of course the sad truth is he can’t and won’t really do anything different on Iraq. His whole presidency, everything is based in Iraq. Like typical George Bush fashion, he’ll leave it to the next president to clean up his mess. Which will basically be redeploying our troops out of there, but since George can’t look like a complete and totally moron (in his mind), he’s got to continue with his failure of a plan, at the expense of our fellow men and women of the armed forces. Thanks again Republicans.

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
yahoo.com

President Bush worked nearly three hours at his Texas ranch on Thursday to design a new U.S. policy in Iraq, then emerged to say that he and his advisers need more time to craft the plan he’ll announce in the new year.

Burdened by low approval ratings on his handling of the war, the president is under mounting pressure to come up with a new blueprint for U.S. involvement in Iraq where the execution of Saddam Hussein — perhaps as early as this weekend — could incite further violence.

“We’ve got more consultation to do until I talk to the country about the plan,” Bush said, appearing outside an office building at his ranch.

“Obviously, we’ll continue to work with the Iraqi government. The key to success in Iraq is to have a government that’s willing to deal with the elements there that are trying to prevent this young democracy from succeeding.”

Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stood by Bush as he made his three-minute statement, then turned away, ignoring a reporter’s question about the pending execution. (more…)

Media Matters for America.
http://www.alternet.org

How extreme were conservative commentators in their remarks this year? How about calls to nuke the Middle East and an allegation that a “gay … mafia” used the congressional page program as its own “personal preserve.” Right-wing rhetoric documented by Media Matters for America included the nonsensical (including Rush Limbaugh’s claim that America’s “obesity crisis” is caused by, among other things, our failure to “teach [the poor] how to butcher a — slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter”), the offensive (such as right-wing pundit Debbie Schlussel’s question about “Barack Hussein Obama”: Is he “a man we want as president when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?”), and the simply bizarre (such as William A. Donohue’s claim that some Hollywood stars would “sodomize their own mother in a movie”). Since there were so many outrageous statements, we included a list of honorable mentions along with the top 11, which, if not for Ann Coulter, we might have limited to 10.

The top 11 (in chronological order):

William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights: “Well, look, there are people in Hollywood, not all of them, but there are some people who are nothing more than harlots. They will do anything for the buck. They wouldn’t care. If you asked them to sodomize their own mother in a movie, they would do so, and they would do it with a smile on their face.” [2/9/06] (more…)

side note: where the hell has this been. I mean, he kept his mouth shut during the 04 elections, kept it shut the whole last part of his life. It’s just disappointing, that someone like a former President, who strongly disagreed with the war, was so quiet when his country really needed him. But then again, he pardoned Nixon, so maybe it’s not that shocking. Another politician, being a good soldier for his party, instead of his country. However, we can put that aside, for now,…………….rest in peace Mr. President.

By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. “I don’t think I would have gone to war,” he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford’s own administration.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford “very strongly” disagreed with the current president’s justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney — Ford’s White House chief of staff — and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford’s chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

“Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction,” Ford said. “And now, I’ve never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do.”

In a conversation that veered between the current realities of a war in the Middle East and the old complexities of the war in Vietnam whose bitter end he presided over as president, Ford took issue with the notion of the United States entering a conflict in service of the idea of spreading democracy.

“Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people,” Ford said, referring to Bush’s assertion that the United States has a “duty to free people.” But the former president said he was skeptical “whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what’s in our national interest.” He added: “And I just don’t think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security.”

The Ford interview — and a subsequent lengthy conversation in 2005 — took place for a future book project, though he said his comments could be published at any time after his death. In the sessions, Ford fondly recalled his close working relationship with key Bush advisers Cheney and Rumsfeld while expressing concern about the policies they pursued in more recent years. (more…)

By H. Josef Hebert
The Associated Press
http://apnews.myway.com
House Democrats in the first weeks of the new Congress plan to establish a dedicated fund to promote renewable energy and conservation, using money from oil companies. That’s only one legislative hit the oil industry is expected to take next year as a Congress run by Democrats is likely to show little sympathy to the cash-rich, high-profile business.

Whether the issue is rolling tax breaks – some approved by Congress only 18 months ago – pushing for more use of ethanol and other biofuels instead of gasoline, or investigations into shortfalls in royalty payments to the government, oil industry lobbyists will spend most of their time playing defense.

Details of a renewable fuels fund have yet to be worked out. Nonetheless, it’s one of the initiatives the House will take up during its first 100 hours in session in January, according to aides to Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi. At least some of the money – revenue gained by rolling back some tax breaks – will go to a program to support research into making ethanol from sources other than corn. (more…)

By Robert Scheer
TruthDig.com

The public, seeing through the tissue of Bush administration lies told to justify an invasion that never had anything to do with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 or weapons of mass destruction, now has begun a national questioning: Why are we still in Iraq? The answers posted most widely on the Internet by critics of the war suggest its continuation as a naked imperial grab for the world’s second-largest petroleum source, but that is wrong.

It’s not primarily about the oil; it’s much more about the military-industrial complex, the label employed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower 45 years ago when he warned of the dangers of “a permanent arms industry of vast proportions.” (more…)

side note: and the best part, for me at least, is just about all claim to be “hard working christians”! Yeah, Hard at work trying to screw each and everyone of us.

By Michael Winship, AlterNet.
With 19 members under federal investigation and a record-low number of days in session, let’s hope our new Congress can do more than the old one did.

The 109th Congress is dead. Adjourned for good.

Hooray. Don’t let the door bump your behinds on the way out.

These guys set new milestones for financial and moral hanky-panky, including 19 members under federal investigation and last Friday’s release of the House ethics report on the Mark Foley page scandal.

The Washington Post quoted Republican Rep. Zach Wamp of Tennessee, a member who entered Congress as part of the “Contract with America” Class of 1994: “Our leadership and some of our members grew arrogant in their power, and with arrogance comes corruption.” Senator John McCain added, “We came to change Washington, and Washington changed us.”

The 109th broke by a week the record of the notorious 1948 “Do-Nothing” Congress, managing to convene for a mere 103 days from January 2005 to 5 a.m., last Saturday morning. That’s a little more than four days a month. (more…)

side note: i’ll point people to this post when they ask me where the money we spend to run our cars goes towards…..

via wired.com

Touted as the world’s first luxury hotel to be constructed beneath the waves, Hydropolis will cost $500m to erect and is the brainchild of General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prince of Dubai (Where else?)

The completed destination will offer 220 suites, a high tech cinema, restaurants, and various “Undah tha sea!”-themed entertainment hijinks.

I love that at least somewhere on Earth, crazed plans like this seem to get to within a whiff of actual construction without the kind of endless whining and compromise that destroys the architectural purity of everything built in the West. On the other hand, that is one extraordinarily phallic hotel.

original article

side note: finally….something good coming out of our White House. But lets not get our hopes up yet, as the article says “propose listing”. However, if they do go ahead with this, they will finally admit that global warming is a serious threat, where action is a must!

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Bush administration has decided to propose listing the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, putting the U.S. government on record as saying that global warming could drive one of the world’s most recognizable animals out of existence.

The administration’s proposal — which was described by an Interior Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity — stems from the fact that rising temperatures in the Arctic are shrinking the sea ice that polar bears need for hunting. The official insisted on anonymity because the department will submit the proposal today for publication in the Federal Register, after which it will be subject to public comment for 90 days.

Identifying polar bears as threatened with extinction could have an enormous political and practical impact. As the world’s largest bear and as an object of children’s affection as well as Christmastime Coca-Cola commercials, the polar bear occupies an important place in the American psyche. Because scientists have concluded that carbon dioxide from power-plant and vehicle emissions is helping drive climate change worldwide, putting polar bears on the endangered species list raises the legal question of whether the government would be required to compel U.S. industries to curb their carbon dioxide output.

“We’ve reviewed all the available data that leads us to believe the sea ice the polar bear depends on has been receding,” said the Interior official, who added that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials have concluded that polar bears could be endangered within 45 years. “Obviously, the sea ice is melting because the temperatures are warmer.” (more…)