March 03, 2006

Today's headlines

State and Local


  • Rep. Katherine Harris made extra political efforts for defense contractor Mitchell Wade, the principal owner of MZM who pleaded guilty to bribing Rep. "Duke" Cunningham. Wade also made illegal contributions to Harris's campaign. A Justice Department investigation is ongoing. -LINK-
    Let's get this straight: Harris is handed $32,000 in checks by an executive who wants a $10-million defense contract, she dines with him to discuss the request and then she writes a letter specifically for his project after her other appropriations requests were submitted? And she is unclear about the intent? - St. Petersburg Times
  • Tom Gallagher, candidate for governor and Bush crony, faces questions over money deals. The state's chief financial officer also made questionable stock trades -- while day-trading in his government office ... but, hey, he's a "family man" protecting Florida from the evil homosexuals. -LINK-

  • Gallagher fast making inroads with the religious right. -LINK-

  • Man's tongue-wag lands him in jail ... facing 15-year prison sentence. -LINK-

  • Ex-gay movement focusing bogus therapies on gay youth. -LINK 1- LINK 2-


  • National


  • Senate approves renewal of "Scoundrel Act". Give loss of liberty a catchy title -- Patriot Act, terrorist surveillance -- and dare spineless politicians to oppose it. -LINK-

  • House plans to rewrite FISA spy program, giving Congress "more oversight" -- yet another brass-balled Republican attempt to cover up Bush's illegal deeds, this time by retroactively permitting the lawbreaking. When excuses for arrogance, incompetence and criminality cannot be ignored, legalize it. -LINK-

  • Senate GOP faces vote to increase Bush's $8.2 TRILLION national debt limit. It's called Republican economics: Reward the rich with huge tax breaks first, and eventually the wealth will trickle down to minimum-wage workers, the old, and those with no health insurance. So... what's your share of the "trickle-down" national debt? -LINK-

  • Battle brewing over food label warnings... cooking up a recipe to keep consumers as ignorant as Congress. -LINK-

  • Evangelical broadcasters tune out Pat Robertson. Is it real -- or a change of image? -LINK-

  • World


  • Lebanon's leaders try to resolve divisions. -LINK-

  • Bush faces fallout from nuclear deal with India. Hypocrisy? Naw... he "hearts" India and hates Iran, and he's never wrong. And what do we do in 10 years when India owns our technology -- and asks us to get out of their country (say, like Iran, 1979)? -LINK-
    India's nuclear program has previously mixed civilian and military purposes. But the accord announced in New Delhi would place 14 of India's 22 nuclear reactors under civilian inspection regimes by 2014.

    The phase-in and the possibility that breeder reactors may never come under such a regime have drawn fire from critics. "This deal not only lets India amass as many nuclear weapons as it wants, it looks like we made no effort to try to curtail them," said George Perkovich, vice-president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. -
    theage.com.au
  • Bush not deterred from visit by suicide bombing in Pakistan. Pfft! He's a brave war leader -- and Cheney is hunting dumb birds elsewhere. -LINK-
  • 4 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    Why do we like India and not Iran ? Its really very simple. Its the same reason most folks like or dont like someone. Iran calls us names and threatens to kill our friends. What do you call that at school ? >>Bully. India is nice to us and to our friends. Thanks.

    Aikäne said...

    I don't advocate giving unfettered nuclear capability to Iran either.

    MadMustard said...

    Your blog is the most visually appealing that I have encountered. Do you design your own templates?

    I really like the 'Headlines' posts, good stuff.

    Aikäne said...

    Hey Madmustard! Thanks for the great comments. Yeah, you could say I "designed" the template. I took one from Google and experimented till I got something I like better. I know absolutely nothing about web design or html (or is it xml) codes, so it's time-consuming to get a look that interests me. I'm happy you can like it -- since I don't know how it looks on other screens. I can't even get Foxfire to match IE! :-)

    And I'm glad you like the "news" section. Since I don't have the time or inclination to spend all day online, I decided to move the "news" from the right margin. That way, I can choose a few items at my leisure and use the headlines to convey my impressions. That's an experiment as well -- but I have lots of great blogs, like yours, to steal ideas from -- so maybe I'll stumble on something that works for me.

    Thanks again for being a regular visitor.