News – Bin Laden Speaks Again

Middle East

Bin Laden puts out another tape, verified as the real thing. On it, he does the normal brag and threaten, but also gives hits at a potential for truce. This has been, predictably, largely dismissed by government officials. Whether or not this is a sign of weakness or merely a PR gambit remains to be seen. Of course, I’m sure Bush and cronies will paint it, without evidence, of a sign of how bad we’re beating the terrorists. Oh, wait, they already did.. “Clearly the al Qaeda leaders and other terrorists are on the run, they’re under a lot of pressure. We do not negotiate with terrorists, we put them out of business,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters. They are soooo predictable.

Hamas is working on spiffing up its image. Personally, I think they can pull off the shift for real. Though others might doubt and even I know it may be for naught, but if the political wing of Hamas can be made to outgrow and shed the armed wing, then they could be a reasonable party to play a part in Palestine’s future. They’ve already shown the right stuff in providing services for the people, even if some are tilted toward the negative(schools, in particular). I hope they can make a transition, though Israel’s unwillingness to even consider working with them makes that unlikely. The continued attacks on Israel by some likely won’t help either. That, however, is to be expected. Even if 99% of Palestine’s population became friendly with Israel, there is always that 1% to make waves. Islamic Jihad being one of the biggest troublemakers.

A report by USAid belies the positive image given by the US government, painting an image of ‘social beakdown’.

Saddam’s trial continues to be a font of interesting twists and turns, with the new chief judge being accused of being a Ba’athist.

Italy plans to pull out almost half of its troops from Iraq by June, the rest our by the end of the year.

Turkey claims that its fight against bird flu is being hampered because neighboring countries with the flu amongst their people are keeping quiet about it. This, of course, is ever so bad. If an epidemic manages to break out in one of these closed societies, it would be helped by the lack of organized response against it.

Iran releases eight Iraqi coast guards, captured after a clash between the two.

Iran appears to be shifting its foreign assets, in cast the UN tosses some sanctions on them. With U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns saying Iran is a threat to regional and global peace, amongst other actions by the US, I don’t blame them. It would be expedient to protect their assets and show they plan for them to be under attack.

Asia

Japan sets a ban on US beef again after finding risk materials that could cause mad cow disease in a shipment from New York. That was fast, I wonder what short cutting idiot we have to thank for that.

North America

Alberto Gonzalez sends in a brief to congress seeking to explain the legality of Bush’s secret spying program. He’ll also be testifying at a Judiciary committee meeting on Feb 6th. I maintain that Bush could have pursued this openly, by seeking change in FISA where it was ‘slow’, rather than going underground with it.

Google is subpoenaed by the Justice Dept to turn over a database of search terms as part of a government probe into online porn. Google rejects the subpoena as overreaching. It’s wanted as part of an effort to track the effectiveness of a 1998 law, the Child Online Protection Act.

Parents sue Viacom and Kellogg’s, charging they are promoting junk food with their child targeted advertising. Obviously they are, one only need a sample of various ads and product samples to prove that much. The question is.. can a company be sued for it? Probably not, but I suppose we’ll see.

Rebel in Chief, by Fred Barnes, is a one sided love letter to Bush that looks like it was written by Scott McClellan without how vague it is on important points and how many counterpoints it skips to leave not a smudge on Bush. Maybe Fred is hoping to slip into the job of public mouthpiece for the prez after Scott gets fed up with it. If you’re looking for a balanced, detailed book then you should keep looking. If you’re looking to have your own love of Bush reinforced without any sticky facts or shades of gray, I doubt you could find better.

General

Today’s Papers has the Republican National Committee voting on a resolution to condemn President Bush’s proposed guest worker program, the government announcing it will begin its “trusted travelers” program in June: Air passengers who undergo background checks and fork over about $100 annually will get access to express lines and might not have to do things like remove their jackets or shoes, musing on the labored aspect of Bin Laden’s voice on his tape and more in the one page news.

Normally there would be more, but our network has suddenly started to crawl like a dog. So rather than spend an hour trying to load pages for the amusements, I’ve decided to skip that today. Sorry, folks.