''When you look at the numbers, there is a tremendous amount of data that supports the supposition of election fraud,'' concludes Freeman. ''The discrepancies are higher in battleground states, higher where there were Republican governors, higher in states with greater proportions of African-American communities and higher in states where there were the most Election Day complaints. All these are strong indicators of fraud -- and yet this supposition has been utterly ignored by the press and, oddly, by the Democratic Party.''

Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

The last group from the beach is unloaded from the landing craft into the belly of the Nashville, and we're off to Cyprus. Two battleships -- including the USS Cole escorting us. A Lebanon I never got to know, a Beirut I didn't get to show the world disappears slowly over the horizon -- a beautiful dream turned nightmare. It's not what I saw happen in Beirut that I feel like talking about, though that's what I'm doing, isn't it? It's not about what happened to me that remains an unfinished show, a not fully fleshed out story, or even a particularly interesting one. It feels shameful even writing this. It's the story I didn't get to tell. The Beirut I saw for two short days. The possibilities. The hope. Now only a dream.

Watching Beirut die | Salon Life

James Dobbins, a former Bush administration envoy to Afghanistan who now heads military analysis for the Rand Corp., said choice of targets by Israel was the key and may be misdirected.

"The military rationale seems rather thin, since many of the targets have no conceivable relationship to Hezbollah," he said.

I wish I could find the actual source for this quotation. Its possible that the sentence that followed this in the original source material started with the word "However." Fortunately I have reporters to do the thinking for me.

Having said that, this story finds numerous commentators who seem to be saying that Israel is intentionally punishing the civilian population of Lebanon in order to influence them politically.

Military analysts question Israeli bombing - Yahoo! News

The ABA group, which includes a one-time FBI director and former federal appeals court judge, said the president has overstepped his authority in attaching challenges to hundreds of new laws.

The attachments, known as bill-signing statements, say Bush reserves a right to revise, interpret or disregard measures on national security and constitutional grounds.

"This report raises serious concerns crucial to the survival of our democracy," said the ABA's president, Michael Greco. "If left unchecked, the president's practice does grave harm to the separation of powers doctrine, and the system of checks and balances that have sustained our democracy for more than two centuries."

ABA: Bush violating Constitution - Jul 24, 2006 - CNN.com

The US and British leaders may be getting domestic flak for their perceived mistakes in Iraq, but some observers in the Arab world see them as being quite successful - in carrying out a well-calculated plan to divide the country.

The debate dates back to July 13, 2003, when the Iraqi Governing Council was formed under Paul Bremer, the US administrator.

Sectarianism and ethnic extremism were strengthened in that council and various laws have since encouraged an aggressive sectarianism leading to a fierce militia war.

Anis Mansour, an Egyptian editor and author, believes the US is following the historical British policy of divide and rule.

He says: "What we are seeing now is just the beginning of a scheme to split the country up into regions.

"It is not true that the US has failed. It did what it wanted to do and this will last for a long time.

"It will stay the same whether a Democratic or a Republican president is to follow [George] Bush."

Divide and Rule in Iraq - Aljazeera.Net - Dismembering the body politic in Iraq

The attack has the trademarks of Kashmiri Islamic terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba which has set off bombs in quick succession in Indian cities before. India's domestic intelligence agency, the Intelligence Bureau, claims that this attack, as also the grenade attacks in Jammu and Kashmir earlier today were aimed at diverting attention from the elections being held in Pakistani Kashmir.

It does sound like Pakistani/Kashmiri separatists are adopting the style of 'Al Q.'

Several blasts rock Mumbai commuter trains - Wikinews

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- More than 2 million gay men, lesbians and transvestites waving rainbow flags and dressed in lavish Carnival costumes paraded Saturday to celebrate gay pride and demand an end to homophobia.

Wow.

Gay parade draws 2.4 million - Jun 17, 2006 - CNN.com

Stratfor: Geopolitical Intelligence Report - May 16, 2006

Civil Liberties and National Security

By George Friedman

USA Today published a story last week stating that U.S. telephone
companies (Qwest excepted) had been handing over to the National
Security Agency (NSA) logs of phone calls made by American
citizens. This has, as one might expect, generated a fair bit of
controversy -- with opinions ranging from "It's not only legal but
a great idea" to "This proves that Bush arranged 9/11 so he could
create a police state." A fine time is being had by all. Therefore,
it would seem appropriate to pause and consider the matter.

Let's begin with an obvious question: How in God's name did USA
Today find out about a program that had to have been among the most
closely held secrets in the intelligence community -- not only
because it would be embarrassing if discovered, but also because
the entire program could work only if no one knew it was under way?
No criticism of USA Today, but we would assume that the newspaper
wasn't running covert operations against the NSA. Therefore,
someone gave them the story, and whoever gave them the story had to
be cleared to know about it. That means that someone with a high
security clearance leaked an NSA secret.

Americans have become so numbed to leaks at this point that no one
really has discussed the implications of what we are seeing: The
intelligence community is hemorrhaging classified information. It's
possible that this leak came from one of the few congressmen or
senators or staffers on oversight committees who had been briefed
on this material -- but either way, we are seeing an extraordinary
breakdown among those with access to classified material.

The reason for this latest disclosure is obviously the nomination
of Gen. Michael Hayden to be the head of the CIA. Before his
appointment as deputy director of national intelligence, Hayden had
been the head of the NSA, where he oversaw the collection and
data-mining project involving private phone calls. Hayden's
nomination to the CIA has come under heavy criticism from Democrats
and Republicans, who argue that he is an inappropriate choice for
director. The release of the data-mining story to USA Today
obviously was intended as a means of shooting down his nomination
-- which it might. But what is important here is not the fate of
Hayden, but the fact that the Bush administration clearly has lost
all control of the intelligence community -- extended to include
congressional oversight processes. That is not a trivial point.

At the heart of the argument is not the current breakdown in
Washington, but the more significant question of why the NSA was
running such a collection program and whether the program
represented a serious threat to l... [ Read More (2.0k in body) ]

Civil Liberties and National Security

I've taken the existing transcripts I've seen of Stephen Colbert's brilliant monologue at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and the actual footage (complete video available at Democratic Underground), and edited the transcripts (correcting spelling and punctuation, adding mistakenly omitted words, etc.) to produce the following improved transcript. I have now also transcribed all of Colbert's Press Secretary "audition video." Continue below the fold with me.

Daily Kos: Re-Improved Colbert transcript (now with complete text of Colbert-Thomas video!)

Have the generals forgotten their schooling in our nation’s tradition of military subordination to civilian control? Is their true goal really to compel the resignation of the SecDef? Are they petty men working off petty grievances by thumbing their noses in public at a man they just don’t like? Are they working to get every incumbent up for election this year thrown out of office?

If your answer to any of those questions was “Yes,” then you have assumed these six generals are simple men, incapable of subtlety, whose public actions should be taken at their simple face value.
I‘m telling you this knife-fight ain’t about Iraq: it’s about Iran!

Nukes are bad, mmm-kay?

The Heart of the Matter: Iran and Iraq