Here's what Rumsfeld said Friday: "I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten – indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be.

Women who are overweight or obese are more likely to get pregnant while taking birth control pills than women of normal weight are, new research finds.

The death toll from the earthquake and tsunamis that devastated coastal areas in southern Asia soared to nearly 77,000 on Wednesday, and the Red Cross said it feared that it could exceed 100,000 once bodies buried in the mud and wreckage are counted.

Thousands of stranded holiday travelers unable to reach their Christmas destinations over the weekend were stunned to learn that the airline they had booked seats on, Comair, does not exist.

At first, Comair had blamed the cancellation of thousands of flights on a computer glitch, but with the possibility looming that travelers would soon discover that the airline itself did not exist, it decided to come clean.

“We are sorry if our imaginary status has in any way inconvenienced holiday travelers,” said non-existent company spokesman Cheryl McKree. “I want to apologize to all of them on behalf of Comair and its 1500 fictitious employees.”

She added that while the passengers’ checked baggage did in fact exist, Comair had absolutely no idea where any of it was.

He is in the middle of speaking to the press and he suddenly drops his head and mumbles something and then immediately continues speaking. It is seriously one of the oddest things I've ever seen. Can anyone tell what he says? What the hell was that? Does he have tourettes? Is he talking into his tie? Did his shoe fall off? Seriously, I have never seen anything like this.

I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know.

I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said.

Well, um, you know, something's neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so, I suppose, as Shakespeare said.

An alarming trend has been making news recently. It's nothing new; in fact, it's been going on for years. We're talking about the Pharmacists' Refusal Clause—referred to by its anti-choice advocates as a conscience clause—which allows pharmacists to refuse to fill certain prescriptions because of their own "moral objections" to the medication. Only a handful of states have passed refusal clause legislation specific to pharmacists, but more and more state legislatures are considering adding it, an effort that the majority of people living in the U.S. oppose.

"It's striking how weak he is right now," says presidential historian Richard
Shenkman, editor of George Mason University's History News Network. "You'd have to go back to Woodrow Wilson to find a president who was reelected in a position as weak as this one. There's been no euphoria around Bush's win."

More than 1,300 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion -- most of them during the guerrilla campaign that has raged since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003.

NASA is on a collision course with a comet, and scientists say they can't wait to see what happens.

The collision, which is to take place between a projectile fired from the space agency's Deep Impact spacecraft and a 4-mile-wide comet known as Tempel 1, is scheduled for July 4, 2005. That's when Tempel 1 will be close enough to Earth for astronomers to monitor the debris that the impact kicks up. If the mission is successful, it will help the scientists see for the first time just what comets are made of.

Well, this weekend, I also happened to hear a Wal-Mart ad bragging about this. They claim to give $5/sec. Target's $2 million a week works out to $3.30/sec.

That works out to $104,000,000 donations for Target and $157,248,000 for Wal-Mart. Indexing it to total revenue, Target gives $1 for every $444 spent at its stores, while Wal-Mart gives $1 for every $1,425 spent. Target donates 3.2X more than Wal-Mart, who donates less than 1 tenth of 1 percent of its revenue.

I know where I'm shopping, and I suggest the National Clergy Council call off its Target boycott. That whole, forest for the trees thing.

In response to reports that actor and comedian Chevy Chase called President Bush a "dumb f---" while co-hosting a December 14 People For the American Way awards ceremony in Washington, DC, FOX News host Bill O'Reilly asserted on the December 16 O'Reilly Factor that "you don't see this kind of thing on the right." He added: "You don’t see prominent conservatives cursing out Democratic members of Congress, for example."

Acknowledging mistakes in Iraq by the Bush administration, leading Republicans expressed reluctance Sunday that the White House replace Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has lost the confidence of some GOP lawmakers over the conduct of the war.

[...]

More than 1,300 American troops have died since the war began in March 2003. On Sunday, car bombs rocked Iraq's two holiest Shiite cities, killing 62 people and wounding more than 120. In Baghdad, the capital, dozens of gunmen killed three Iraqi election officials during an ambush on a car in the middle of morning traffic.

[...]

"I find it astounding. ... Things are worse than they've ever been" in Iraq, [Sen. Chuck] Hagel told CBS' Face the Nation.

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- U.S. President George W. Bush's bold, uncompromising leadership and his clear-cut election victory made him Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2004, its managing editor said Sunday.

A 21-year-old Perth man is lucky to be alive after having his stomach ripped open during a beer-skolling game using a home-made device powered by an electric pump.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Communications Commission rejected a request Wednesday to begin imposing indecency standards on satellite radio, where frequent agency target Howard Stern is taking his show.

The FCC's media bureau turned aside a radio station owner's request that broadcast indecency regulations apply to subscription satellite services.

Steen had only lived in the home about three weeks when he decided to enjoy the Saturday evening air. But some suspicious activity on the street impaired his view.

Steen saw what he thought was a drug deal in the street. When those involved noticed him watching, they simply told him to "look away," Steen said.

Instead of looking elsewhere, Steen ran the suspects' license plates. It led to a search of two houses and a vehicle, then the arrest of James MacArthur, 46.

MacArthur is charged with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, unlawful possession of a firearm and possession of drug paraphernalia.

About 16 grams of marijuana was confiscated, along with a rifle and a shotgun, Steen said. The investigation is continuing.

From Nov. 5 to Dec. 3, Firefox's share of the U.S. market grew to 4% from 3%, a 33% gain, WebSideStory said this week. The nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, which oversees the development of the browser, released the first commercial version of the browser, Firefox 1.0, on Nov. 9.

Firefox's market-share gain was 13% from Oct. 8 to Nov. 5.

WebSideStory Chief Marketing Officer Rand Schulman said Firefox's goal of capturing 10% of the market in the next year "no longer seems unattainable."

(CBN News) - "Holiday trees" instead of “Christmas trees,” "Season's Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas." We seem to be editing Christ right out of Christmas and it is getting pretty ridiculous.

A New Jersey high school brass ensemble was not allowed to play Christmas carols at their annual concert, this year, even instrumentals, which made a lot of students and parents angry.

Well, I was also upset that I was forced to sing Christmas carols at my public high school, because I didn't want religion interfering with my education. So I can understand the decision to not make a band play Christmas songs.

One female student said, "This is censorship at its most basic level, and political correctness to the extreme. You are supporting ignorance and I think it's very sad."

Personally, I believe Christianity itself supports ignorance, but asking a band to play different songs isn't censorship when it's publicly funded and religious in basis.

Across the nation, Christianity is under attack by those who do not want religion in the public square.

One Chicago school dropped the words “Merry Christmas” from a traditional holiday favorite, singing it as "We wish you a swinging holiday."

A Christian church was told they could not enter a religious float in Denver's holiday “Parade of Lights.”

Many Americans are outraged at the growing trend that takes Christ out of the holiday that celebrates his birth.

Doug Newcomb of Faith Bible Chapel said, "Without Christ in the holiday celebration, what do you have? Money. Greed. What do you have?"

Demetrios Stratis, of the Alliance Defense Fund commented, "It's legal and it's right, so celebrate religion publicly. We need to recognize that religion is part of our culture, whatever the faith may be."

But others say religion has no place in public life.

Mark Browstein said, "Holiday celebrations where Christian music is being sung make people feel different. And because it is such a majority, it makes the minority feel uncomfortable."

But not everyone feels uncomfortable, and it is important to have the freedom to hang on to holiday traditions.

One Jewish parent says it is ok with him if his son plays Christmas songs in the ensemble.

Eric Chabrow remarked, "We need to look at the center. The center in this country is vanishing."

That man, Jewish or not, is an idiot. The center is vanishing, but the center is miles and miles away from Christmas in school.

Christmas will be over in just a few weeks, but it is clear the debate over religion in public life will not be resolved any time soon.

"LIMBAUGH: Miss Plastic Surgery. (chuckle) And – I’d – I’d – I – I don’t – I don’t know what the winner – I – and, oh, I didn’t print out both pages, so I don’t know what the – I don’t know what the winner gets. Probably a certificate to go to San Francisco to have an add-a-dick-to-me operation. "

Not long ago, at the kind of dinner party I rarely attend, I made the mis­take of admitting that I not only liked to sleep but liked to get at least eight hours a night whenever possible, and that nine would be better still. The reaction – a 'complex Pinot Noir of nervous laughter displaced by expres­sions of disbelief and condescension – suggested that my transgression had been, on some level, a political one. I was reminded of the time I'd confessed to Roger Angell that I did not much care for baseball.

[...]

The alarm rings and we're off, running so hard that by the time we stop we're too tired to do much of anything except nod in front of the TV, which, like virtually all the other voices in our culture, endorses our exhaustion, fetishizes and romanticizes it and, by daily adding its little trowelful of lies and omissions, helps cement the conviction that not only is this how our three score and ten must be spent but that the transaction is both noble and necessary.

4. The Beatles: The Beatles are generally seen as the single most important rock band of all time, because they wrote all the best songs. Since both of these facts are true, the Beatles are rated properly.

The campaign aims to spur action against Sinclair Broadcast Group's use of the 62 television stations it owns or operates to systematically promote partisan political interests. Of particular concern is a nightly "news and commentary" segment titled "The Point," in which Sinclair vice president Mark Hyman consistently espouses one-sided, conservative rhetoric without any counterpoint.

We believe the fairest way to remedy this situation is for Sinclair to provide a meaningful opportunity for those with an opposing point of view to respond to editions of "The Point." With your help, we can hold Sinclair accountable for its slanted news programming and demand that it become a responsible steward of the airwaves to which it has been granted access on behalf of the American people.

We are hopeful advertisers will join our effort to encourage Sinclair to balance the content of their news programming by offering equal air time for a counterpoint.

Google, the operator of the world's most popular Internet search service, plans to announce an agreement today with some of the nation's leading research libraries and Oxford University to begin converting their holdings into digital files that would be freely searchable over the Web.

It may be only a step on a long road toward the long-predicted global virtual library. But the collaboration of Google and research institutions that also include Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford and the New York Public Library is a major stride in an ambitious Internet effort by various parties. The goal is to expand the Web beyond its current valuable, if eclectic, body of material and create a digital card catalog and searchable library for the world's books, scholarly papers and special collections.

Google - newly wealthy from its stock offering last summer - has agreed to underwrite the projects being announced today while also adding its own technical abilities to the task of scanning and digitizing tens of thousands of pages a day at each library.

Although Google executives declined to comment on its technology or the cost of the undertaking, others involved estimate the figure at $10 for each of the more than 15 million books and other documents covered in the agreements. Librarians involved predict the project could take at least a decade.

Turn Your Back on Bush is a new kind of event in an old tradition: direct nonviolent action. In the past four years, Bush has made it clear that dissent is unwelcome in his America, and his policies have created an atmosphere where demonstrators are corralled and their messages marginalized. Polls show that the majority of Americans disagree with Bush on numerous issues, but by refusing to talk to anyone but the most subservient press outlets and appearing only in highly staged events, he has cut himself off from all but his most ardent supporters.

We want our audience with our President.

On inauguration day, we will gather as citizens for the public events of the day and join the rest of the crowd. At a given signal, we will turn our backs. Until the moment we turn around, there will be nothing to distinguish us. By leaving our signs and buttons at home, we will avoid all of the obstacles that Bush and his supporters have used to keep anyone who disagrees with him out of sight.

One of the things that makes Turn Your Back on Bush a unique action is that we won't know who is participating until the moment it begins. This is a nonviolent, silent, and non-responsive action. We expect that our actions will cause some supporters of President Bush to confront us. In order to make this action as effective as possible, we will publish action guidelines and expect those people participating in the action to remain silent, refrain from escalating, and above all, keep this protest non-violent.

For this one moment the opposition to Bush will stand together.

In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations bar American companies from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first obtain U.S. government approval.

The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the First Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian regimes cannot be published freely in the United States.

"I can't tell you how good it makes me feel to open up the intranet site and see new things that friends and family have posted," Ken said. "Plus it allows all of them to be able to contact each other, which wasn't possible before because they did not have each others' e-mail addresses. It brought people together from all aspects of my life."

Ken Dilg has been in the U.S. Army Reserves for 18 years. He served in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during Desert Storm, in Germany during the Bosnia conflict, and now he is in Iraq. His and Lisa's 13-year relationship is a map of the development of communications technology.

"When he was in Desert Storm, there was no real public access to the internet, and no one we knew had a computer," said Lisa. "We had to make phone calls and hope the other was around when we called. We spoke maybe twice a week, and our phone bills were astronomical. One month, we had to cut down to once a week because we couldn't afford the calls anymore.

"When he was sent to Germany, my sister moved in and she brought a computer with her," Lisa said. "I called Ken and asked if he by chance had e-mail -- which I didn't even really understand back then -- and he said he did. It was an unbelievably long address. So using my sister's computer, with pay-by-the-hour dialup, we could e-mail at least once a day. Fast-forward to now when he is in a war-torn country, we can usually e-mail several times a day, sometimes instant message and always communicate through the intranet site."

Zimpfer said Yushchenko's blood and tissue registered concentrations of dioxin - one of the most toxic chemicals - that were 1,000 times above normal levels.

"It would be quite easy to administer this amount in a soup," Zimpfer said.

Blood tests have been run on Yushchenko before, but this time the hospital sent the samples to a hospital in Amsterdam which is using a new analysis method that could test it for dioxin, Dr. Nikolai Korpan said.

Korpan added that no functional damage would remain and Yushchenko was "fully capable of working."

Want a ticket to see President Bush or Vice President Cheney at this year's inaugural? No problem, as long as you can afford to shell out $100,000 for a shadowlit glimpse of the president at an "elegant" candlelight dinner, or $250,000 to dance with the bigwigs at the inaugural ball. The New York Times reports that, "Even at a time of war when more than 138,000 American troops are serving in Iraq," organizers of the events "say that the inaugural celebration at the end of the January will not be marked by any noticeable restraint and will cost more than any other in history." Of course, the lavish fundraising hasn't stopped the White House from trying to stick cash-strapped Washington, D.C. with the bill for the millions it will cost to keep the partygoers safe.

In the past week alone, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay and lesbian advocacy group, has accepted the resignation of its executive director, appointed its first non-gay board co-chairman and adopted a new, more moderate strategy, with less emphasis on legalizing same-sex marriages and more on strengthening personal relationships.

The leadership of the Human Rights Campaign, at a meeting last weekend in Las Vegas, concluded that the group must bow to political reality and moderate its message and its goals. One official said the group would consider supporting President Bush's efforts to privatize Social Security partly in exchange for the right of gay partners to receive benefits under the program.

Asshole.

Spc. Thomas Wilson had asked Rumsfeld, "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?" Shouts of approval and applause arose from other soldiers who had assembled in an aircraft hangar to see Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question.

"We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north," Wilson, 31, of Nashville, Tenn., concluded after asking again.

"You go to war with the Army you have," Rumsfeld replied, "not the Army you might want or wish to have."

Regular Army Volume (all RA contracts):

Mission: 25,322
Achieved: 12,703 (50.17 percent)

Army Reserve Volume:

Mission: 7,373
Achieved: 3,206 (43.48 percent)

"You know, there are doubters [about the transformation of Iraq] and those who say it can't be done. Well, there have always been doubters who have said it couldn't be done. Think of Afghanistan only three years ago." U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld speaking on 8 December to U.S. troops at a base in Kuwait.

According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.

This year, the trend has continued, and perhaps intensified.

Through early October, 99.9 percent of indecency complaints—aside from those concerning the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl halftime show broadcast on CBS— were brought by the PTC, according to the FCC analysis dated Oct. 1. (The agency last week estimated it had received 1,068,767 complaints about broadcast indecency so far this year; the Super Bowl broadcast accounted for over 540,000, according to commissioners’ statements.)

CALLER: I agree with what you've been saying recently -- you're concerned about the secularization of Christmas and -- I'm concerned about the secularization of Jews and about the -- and Christmas going into schools.

When I was growing up -- I'm Jewish, but I was not in a very Jewish area. There were some Jews there but, I was kind of -- grew up with a resentment because I felt that people were trying to convert me to Christianity --

O'REILLY: Were they?

CALLER: Yeah, when I got to college I found out -- that's true. A lot of people were. I found that millions of dollars were spent trying to convert --

O'REILLY: I mean that you really believe that people were trying to convert -- you personally -- were trying to make you change from being Jewish to Christian?

CALLER: Absolutely.

O'REILLY: How do they do that?

CALLER: Well, for example, there are various organizations in the colleges that go to people -- try to invite you to Bible study groups --

O'REILLY: Yeah, I know, but -- I mean, you don't have to go. I mean they do that to me. They come -- the Jehovah's Witnesses come to my door and invite me places. I mean, I don't care -- I just say no, get outta here.

CALLER: The thing is, is when you have -- for example, Christmas carols or gift exchanges being done in school, that kind of sets the kids up to being converted.

O'REILLY: Yeah, but you give gifts on Hanukkah, don't you?

CALLER: No, there's not really a Jewish tradition of giving gifts on --

O'REILLY: Well, the seven candles [sic], you get a gift for every night, don't you?

CALLER: Actually, the Jews give gifts on --

O'REILLY: All right. Well, what I'm tellin' you, [caller], is I think you're takin' it too seriously. You have a predominantly Christian nation. You have a federal holiday based on the philosopher Jesus. And you don't wanna hear about it? Come on, [caller] -- if you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel then. I mean because we live in a country founded on Judeo -- and that's your guys' -- Christian, that's my guys' philosophy. But overwhelmingly, America is Christian. And the holiday is a federal holiday honoring the philosopher Jesus. So, you don't wanna hear about it? Impossible.

And that is an affront to the majority. You know, the majority can be insulted, too. And that's what this anti-Christmas thing is all about.

Loading the eyeglasses with music is pretty simple.

Greeks had been eagerly anticipating the movie. They were particularly curious to see how Stone would treat the historical debate over whether Alexander was bisexual.

A group of Greek lawyers who had threatened to sue Warner Bros. if homosexual "innuendoes" were too strong sat in the audience. After the movie, they dismissed the film as unworthy of their efforts.

"I think that if we attach importance to this innuendo we will give too much importance to a film that doesn't deserve it," said Costas Koutsoulelos, one of the lawyers.

There is a part of me, albeit a very small part, that wants my students to watch this episode. Might they witness an aspect of real-world social interaction that could provide a dose of useful reality, a wake-up call to the un-glamorous manner in which design is quite often approached and indeed, argued in the hands of non-designers? And isn’t this a very basic aspect of professional practice, beyond the vicissitudes of critique and the formalities of consensus? On the other hand, if a student of mine used the term “wow factor” in a critique, I might have to get violent — this, on the assumption that I could hold my nausea at bay.

The Giugiaro-designed carbon-fiber body seats three people abreast and features "drive-by-wire" controls, allowing you to position the steering wheel and pedals in front of any one of them. And the Volta's 408-hp Hybrid Synergy Drive (a 3.3-liter V6 with an electric motor for each axle) not only delivers 435 miles on a 13.7-gallon tank, but 0 - 60 acceleration in a mere 4 seconds.

Pop quiz: Which of the following drugs have federally approved medical uses, yet are highly addictive and can be lethal in an overdose?

A. Morphine

B. Cocaine

C. Marijuana.

Answer: A and B.

A zero-tolerance Congress declared war on Woodstock Nation in 1970 by classifying marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, devoid of medical value and illegal in all uses. Thirty-four years later, despite the passage of laws in Oregon and 10 other states allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana for certain conditions, federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents are still sledgehammering law-abiding cancer patients' front doors in order to confiscate their pot.

Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has an opportunity to create a common-sense antidote for that reefer madness. The court should reject the Justice Department's hyperbolic argument that medical marijuana laws undermine the entire federal drug enforcement effort and affirm the long-standing principle that states have the right to regulate the practice of medicine.

The South Africa Supreme Court of Appeal ruled 4-1 in favour of ending the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage rights yesterday.

The court's decision only affected common-law marriage, and did not legalise same-sex marriage outright, but it was hailed as a major step forward by gay activists.

"It's not possible for people of the same sex to be currently married due to the limitations in the current marriage formula and other regulations in the Marriage Act," said Evert Knoesen of the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project.

"We have to go ahead with legal action to fix up those somewhat more minor legal problems, and we foresee that within the next 12 months or so, same-sex couples will indeed be married. The principle has been won," he told South African radio.

I then felt enough time had passed in our discourse to enter the next phase of our relationship. I felt it was time for me to critique her show. I won't go into details, because I'm sure I wasn't as clever as I remember, but I do think I offered up some constructive criticism. Including the fact that the dead ferns on her set were very Public Television and even though I personally was not a fan, she and her program were better than that.

The $388 billion spending bill for the current fiscal year, approved by both houses of Congress on Nov. 20, provides $5.473 billion for the National Science Foundation, which is $105 million less than it got last year and $272 million less than President Bush requested.

Representative Vernon J. Ehlers, Republican of Michigan, said the cut was "extremely short-sighted" and showed "dangerous disregard for our nation's future."

"I am astonished that we would make this decision at a time when other nations continue to surpass our students in math and science and consistently increase their funding of basic research," said Mr. Ehlers, a former physics professor who is chairman of a technology subcommittee. "The National Science Foundation supports technological innovation that is crucial to the sustained economic prosperity that America has enjoyed for several decades."

Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said the cut was "the most Luddite provision" in the entire bill.