First of all, how can any single person be in three holes at once? Secondly, what the fuck is he talking about? If you're supposed to stop digging when you're in one hole, why should you dig more in three? How does that even begin to make sense? It's stuff like this that makes me wonder if the editors over at the New York Times editorial page spend their afternoons dropping acid or drinking rubbing alcohol.

Someone Take Away Thomas Friedman's Computer Before He Types Another Sentence | The Smirking Chimp

President Barack Obama issued four executive orders Thursday to demonstrate a clean break from the Bush administration on the war on terror, including one requiring that the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay be closed within a year.

A second executive order formally bans torture by requiring that the Army field manual be used as the guide for terror interrogations. The order essentially ends the Bush administration's CIA program of enhanced interrogation methods.

A third executive order establishes an interagency task force to lead a systematic review of detention policies and procedures and a review of all individual cases.

A fourth executive order delays the trial of Ali al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident who has been contesting his detention for more than five years as an enemy combatant in a military brig without the government bringing any charges against him.

Obama signs executive order to close Guantanamo Bay - CNN.com

In one of his first acts in office President Obama has ordered the U.S. government to suspend prosecutions of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay for 120 days, military officials said Tuesday.

Obama calls for halt to Gitmo prosecutions - CNN.com

Swiss wealth manager UBS AG (UBSN.VX) (UBS.N) is closing all the offshore accounts of its U.S. clients, the bank said on Friday, as it comes under pressure from U.S. tax authorities.

The Swiss bank decided in July last year to stop offering offshore accounts to U.S. citizens after it was targeted by a U.S. tax investigation which challenges Switzerland's famous banking secrecy laws.

U.S. prosecutors have alleged UBS helped clients hide $18 billion of untaxed American money in undeclared accounts. This amounts to around $300 million of annual unpaid taxes, the newspaper said.nullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnull

UBS closing U.S. clients' offshore accounts - Yahoo! News

Dr. Gupta, who performs double duty as a medical correspondent for CNN and a neurosurgeon, is a leading contender to fill the high-profile position in the Obama administration. The job could be accepted in the coming days, according to people familiar with the situation at the television network and in the Obama transition.

CNN Medical Correspondent as Surgeon General? - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com

They’re going down. Now, that’s not to say they’ll be wiped out, exterminated, whatever. That doesn’t happen any more, for reasons I’ll discuss in my next column. What we’re talking about here, what the IDF has in mind, is more what the Romans called “decimation”: killing enough of the right people to make Hamas weak for five or ten years, which may, just may, be long enough to give Israel’s allies the PLO/Fatah the edge in the Palestinian Civil War. That’s what this is about, getting your guys to win that war.

The War Nerd: Hamas Ain’t No Hezbollah - By Gary Brecher

Utah is the nation's fastest growing state, increasing 2.5 percent from July 2007 to July 2008, according to new population estimates from the Census Bureau.
Barack Obama greets one of the newest members of the U.S. population this year on the campaign trail.

Barack Obama greets one of the newest members of the U.S. population this year on the campaign trail.

The main reason for Utah's growth is a "natural increase" -- births minus deaths -- said Census Bureau demographer Greg Harper.

"Utah has a strong rate of natural increase and domestic migration, where more people move into the state and [are] not moving out," he said.

We need to put legislation in place to stop Mormons from breeding.

Utah is fastest growing state, Census Bureau says - CNN.com

While every modern president has implemented last-minute regulations, Bush is rolling them out at a record pace — nearly twice as many as Clinton, and five times more than Reagan. "The administration is handing out final favors to its friends," says Véronique de Rugy, a scholar at George Mason University who has tracked six decades of midnight regulations. "They couldn't do it earlier — there would have been too many political repercussions. But with the Republicans having lost seats in Congress and the presidency changing parties, Bush has nothing left to lose."

Bush's Final F.U. : Rolling Stone

The first step would be to quit letting Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham set its agenda.

A second step would be for congressional Republicans to actually try to help President-elect Barack Obama succeed in addressing the country's dire problems – offering better ideas where appropriate and opposing just when necessary, not reflexively. null

Referenced by Colin Powell in recent CNN interview.

GOP recovery: Fire Rush Limbaugh | The San Diego Union-Tribune

"We did not know the layout of the hotel," the commando told reporters. "There was one person on the hotel staff who was helping to guide us around."

They entered the hotel for the first time essentially blind to what was ahead. They had no idea what kind of people they would encounter, what kind of weapons might be pointed at them, and whether they might be blown up by explosives. Learn more about the Taj's past and future »

So... this is why it took the special forces so long to take down the terrorists. There were no blueprints to map out a quick/simultaneous entry by lots of guys to sweep the whole building, as you would expect them to do.

Commandos entered dark hotel filled with bodies, gunfire - CNN.com