We don't belong in Iraq !

Hassan Jabir, a victim in the Baghdad shooting, rested in an Iraqi hospital yesterday surrounded by his family. (Hadi Mizban/Associated Press)

We never did !

Oppose the draft !

Troops home now !

One third of Iraq's populous is in poverty. Millions are refugees. Estimated another million dead.

SEN. BIDEN: [Secretary Rice] indicated that direct negotiations with Syria and Iran would be -- her words were, quote "puts us in a role of supplicant," end of quote, it would be, quote "extortion;" end of quote, not diplomacy. You've spoken to this. Can you tell me why there are those-- and because these are very bright and respected people -- why they would view it as extortion and/or us being a supplicant?

Iraq: High-Level Meeting Aims To Expand UN Iraq Presence

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon speaks to reporters as Afghan President Hamid Karzai looks on, after a high-level meeting on Afghanistan.
Photo Credit: By Mary Altaffer -- Associated Press Photo

...'Positive And Encouraging' (click on title to link)
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon described the gathering as "very positive" and "encouraging." "There was a strong Iraqi support for an enhanced UN role within the framework of the new mandate in Security Council Resolution 1770. Broad areas for our future work in Iraq were outlined," Ban said. The resolution, adopted in August, extended for one year the UN assistance mission in Iraq, and urged broader cooperation between the Iraqi authorities and UN bodies. In particular, the measure called on the UN to advise, support, and assist with Iraqi political dialogue and national reconciliation. Prime Minister al-Maliki shared the UN secretary-general's positive assessment of the meeting....

Someone has to take the sovereignty of these countries seriously. Lord knows Bush and Cheney don't. They simply break down the world into exploitable resources including those that are human and make plans in the map room while Rove spins the spin and hands it off to FOX.

...and...for...WHAT ? Generals without a clue?

Give...me...a...break !

This is the joke of all jokes. All this has been transpiring in Iraq. Baghdad. And no USA General had a clue?

Dear God, they actually believe I was born yesterday !

The Bush/Cheney Executive Branch is a complete disgrace.

Army Command Sgt. Maj. Angel Febles, Joint Task Force Guantanamo command sergeant major, passes the task force colors to Army Maj. Gen. Jay Hood, outgoing commander, during the Joint Task Force Guantanamo change of command ceremony at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, March 31. Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris took command of the task force. Photo by Sgt. Sara Wood, USA (Click photo for screen-resolution image)

...the american people have their security compromised by diverting a war against al Qaeda to Iraq...Iraq is a war for oil...unjustifiable...there is Gitmo...Abu Ghraib...the complete destruction of Religious Iraqi infrastructure while a self-righteous Christian 'Guns for Hire' group found complete impunity in their activities...Osama bin Laden is still laughing about the events of September 11th...the USA has entered into insoluable debt with it's national debt ceiling chronically raised year after year after year...while taxes cut to the point of deprivation of revitalizing the American infrastructure...innumerable retired Generals...no bid contracts...exploitation of the USA treasury by every contractor involved in the Bush/Cheney oil war...PTSD...concussion wounds...over 36,000 American troops severely maimed and wounded...nearly 4000 dead...inadequate armor...humvees that are vitually worthless...the longest deployed and most dangerously deployed National Guard units...and...issues like:

US used white phosphorus in Iraq (click here)

US troops used white phosphorus as a weapon in last year's offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja, the US has said.
"It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants," spokesman Lt Col Barry Venable told the BBC - though not against civilians, he said.
The US had earlier said the substance - which can cause burning of the flesh - had been used only for illumination.
BBC defence correspondent Paul Wood says having to retract its denial is a public relations disaster for the US.
Col Venable denied that white phosphorous constituted a banned chemical weapon....

Do you think privately owned helicopters could transport weapons for mercenaries? Definately a possiblity. Wonder where they took them?

Sold them to? Couldn't be Blackwater is supplying both sides of this war? Nah, couldn't be. I mean all munitions are accounted for after all, or are they? No. Not all of them. Hm.



A Blackwater helicopter flies over Baghdad in April 2004. (click here) The growing presence of private security companies is stirring up questions over objectives, coordination and accountability. Contractors are generally immune from Iraqi law for acts performed in carrying out their contracts. PATRICK BAZ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES



Blackwater slams claims of exporting arms to Iraq (click at title to entry, thank you)
Under-fire security contractor Blackwater USA has denied media reports it was involved in illegally shipping automatic weapons equipment to Iraq. A newspaper in North Carolina has reported US federal officials are investigating claims made by two former employees who pleaded guilty to weapons charges. The men are said to be cooperating with investigators as part of a plea bargain. A Blackwater spokesman said the allegations were "baseless" and that the company had "no knowledge of any employee improperly exporting weapons,"The claims put more pressure on the security firm whose staff were accused by the Iraqi government of killing 11 people in Baghdad this week. The shooting happened while the contractors were escorting a US embassy convoy through Baghdad. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has suggested the Embassy stop using Blackwater.

...some of the most ego driven, testosterone freaks in the world found a place to hide. Baghdad, Iraq. What a playground that is. My, my, my.

Removing Blackwater from Iraq's security equation opens the door to other contractors -- though filling the void left by Blackwater could come at a much higher price. The suspension also could result in more attacks against security contractors by insurgents aiming to increase tensions, further destabilize the security environment in Baghdad and complicate the political process.

Does anyone actually think this is a good idea? I know for a fact, the Iraqis don't think it is....and about that Iranian involvement 'thing.' Does anyone believe that Iran is actually ready to 'step in' at a moment's notice if the USA leaves? Ah, yeah.

Does anyone think Iran will have the trouble the USA has? Ah, no.

Does anyone actually believe there is a 'real reason' for confronting Iran given the fact the USA has never had control over the circumstances in Baghdad and Iraq AND Iran is using whatever means available to prevent a war at it's borders?

NO, the USA has absolutely no viable reason to invade Iran. NONE ! The nuclear issue is a separate issue completely and is more akin to a North Korean problem than an Iraq problem, but the Republicans will use every reason in the world to try to convince the American public Iran is the problem when in fact this illegal war has ALWAYS been the problem.

Example below:

Baghdad security guard by day, insurgent by night (click here)
3 hours ago
BAGHDAD (AFP) — By day Ahmed works for an Iraqi security company. By night the stocky 30-year-old fights the "American occupier" in his Baghdad neighbourhood.
Ahmed admits he is a member of what the US military terms "Special Groups" -- secret Shiite cells it says wage acts of "terrorism" in Iraq with the financial and military backing of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards units.
"Our mission," Ahmed tells AFP during a discreet interview in a Baghdad hotel car park: "Kill the Americans, as many Americans as possible."
He says he is proud to have been chosen, along with other fighters from his district of Bayaa, to do a one-month course on explosives and guerrilla tactics.
"I still don't know where I'll be sent. This will be communicated to me at the last minute," he says while fidgeting nervously with a string of black prayer beads.
"The best go to Lebanon, to be trained by Hezbollah, or to Iran, in camps controlled by the Quds Force," the covert operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards.
"Others go to camps in the (mainly Shiite) south of Iraq," where they are trained by Iraqi, Lebanese and Iranian instructors.
According to Ahmed, whose claims could not be independently verified, most members of the Special Groups are drawn from Iraq's main Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army of radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
"Our chiefs are in regular contact with the leadership" of the Mahdi Army but "each acts independently," he says.
The US military has identified the Special Groups, which they say are fighting a proxy war for Iran, as a long-term threat. Tehran continually denies it is training or funding militants to fight in Iraq.
Son of a Shiite father and a Sunni mother, Ahmed says he is himself "not very religious."...

These boys certainly seem to enjoy their work. Right?

It would seem even the members of the USA Coalition have their issues with the activities of the Bush/Cheney private militia.


Blackwater clue to kidnap of five Britons in Baghdad (click here)


A NEW theory to explain why five Britons were kidnapped in an audacious terrorist operation at the ministry of finance in Baghdad at the end of May emerged yesterday.
As the hostages spent their 117th day in captivity, Matthew Degn, a former American policy adviser to the Iraqi government, said he thought they had been seized in revenge for the fatal shooting of an interior ministry driver by guards of the US private security company Blackwater a few days earlier.
It was Blackwater’s shooting of at least 11 civilians in a Baghdad square last Sunday that prompted an open row between the Iraqi government and Washington days before Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, meets President George W Bush this week.
Degn, who advised the interior ministry, believes the mistaken killing of its driver triggered the kidnapping of the Britons. Their nationality was irrelevant, he thinks: what mattered to the kidnappers was that they were part of the American-led coalition and were easy targets....

Now super impose this reality over the fact Blackwater has been assassinating people in Iraq at will with impunity.

The scene in Fallujah was unforgettable: four Americans shot, their bodies defiled, two of them hung from a bridge. They weren't soldiers, but private guards working for a North Carolina company. Their fate sparked outrage and left many questions. This is their story.

The article, which has it's link at title of entry, would seek to make this phenomena a global issue. I don't recall hearing of the tradition of hanging people on bridges a global issue. I guess it's the mutilation part the Charlotte News and Observer was plugging into. Well, we know that terrorist networks do mutilate/blow up/kill people, but, this isn't a terrorist network. These are people of Baghdad. Iraq. And while they aren't a terrorist network, they sure ain't happy, now are they?

...Working for Blackwater
The four men had been brought together in Iraq to work for Blackwater USA, based in Moyock, in North Carolina's northeast corner. The company, and others like it, made money by doing work the military once handled on its own.
Blackwater had several jobs for the U.S. government in Iraq, including a $21 million contract to protect L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian who ran the country until June 28.
The company's owner -- a 35-year-old former Navy SEAL named Erik Prince -- had strong connections. His father, Edgar, owner of an auto parts manufacturer that sold for $1.35 billion, had donated tens of millions of dollars to conservative Christian organizations. Erik Prince interned in Congress and for the first President Bush, campaigned for presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan and gave heavily to conservative candidates.
Zovko, Batalona, Teague and Helvenston had signed short-term contracts with Prince's company, earning about $600 a day. They knew little about Prince, but they knew that the company was run mainly by former SEALs, people like them in many ways, men highly trained in military operations.
Helvenston, 38, of Oceanside, Calif., had been not just a SEAL but an instructor, teaching underwater techniques and advanced parachuting -- SEAL stands for the attack routes of sea, air and land. He had parlayed his 12 years with the commando unit into acting and consulting on Hollywood movies, selling a line of fitness videos and working as a fitness trainer and climbing guide....

Blackwater in Iraq - Kindly click on for link to 'video link'

The gunman in the video, at the above link, is noted to be wearing ear plugs. How nice for him...and if he would say, "Hey look, I'm doing the work the citizens of the USA should be doing !" I would reply, "Please don't bother, it's the "W"rong "W"ar for the "W"rong reason for any moral American.


Private Contractors Die in Iraqi Helicopter Attack (click here)

All Things Considered, January 24, 2007 · On Tuesday in Iraq, five Americans working for the private security contractor Blackwater USA died when their helicopter crashed. The contractors were escorting a convoy heading away from the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.
Melissa Block talks with Deborah Avant, a professor at George Washington University and author of The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security, about how many contractors are currently working in Iraq and what sort of services they provide.

Witness tells of carnage in Baghdad shooting (Does anyone actually believe this is the first incident? Do you?)

A convoy of an unidentified private security company drives through Baghdad. An Iraqi traffic policeman told how Blackwater security guards caused carnage when they opened fire on civilians in Baghdad, as a senior officer probing the shooting insisted it was unprovoked.


Blackwater was given complete immunity to any prosecution. These contractors have been in Iraq since the initial invasion. And the USA miltiary has the audacity to state the 'real ' problem for ethnic cleansing lies with Iraqis. Really? How would anyone know? Blackwater are mercenaries. They fight for money and plenty of it. With complete immunity from any "W"rong doing one has to wonder, whom is killing whom over there and why? Why an al Qaeda in Iraq at all and how much of what the private contractors are doing is the cause of any insurgency?

And one has to ask themselves with so many Iraqis 'standing down' in Baghdad, whom among those in Iraq sincerely wants the USA there. Rice and Malaki can't stand to look at each other yet alone dialogue diplomatically. Today, the French Ambassador showed that the EU wants to 'be involved' in Iraq. I think it's about time any other country, including the neighors of Iraq, get involved other than the USA.





Witness tells of carnage in Baghdad shooting
7 hours ago
BAGHDAD (AFP) — An Iraqi traffic policeman told Sunday how Blackwater security guards caused carnage when they opened fire on civilians in Baghdad, as a senior officer probing the shooting insisted it was unprovoked.
One week after the gunbattle that killed 10 civilians and enraged Iraq's government, police and interior ministry officials were still gathering witness accounts and hunting video footage perhaps taken by amateurs on mobile phones.
Blackwater insists the US convoy it was escorting came under attack by insurgents before its guards opened fire but the Iraqi government was incensed by the incident and said it would revoke the security company's licence.
Traffic officer Ali Khalaf, who was on duty on Sunday last week in Al-Yarmukh, in the mainly Sunni Mansour area of west Baghdad, told AFP he had witnessed the entire incident.
"The American convoy arrived... and as usual I stopped the traffic to allow them to pass," Khalaf said.
As they often do, guards from the US firm -- the largest private security operators in Iraq -- hurled water bottles at cars to stop traffic as they drove through.
"Then without reason, they opened fire. Four shots, in the air, aiming just above the cars," Khalaf said.
"But one of the bullets struck a man in his car. I went to his aid but he was already dead, his body was slumped on the dashboard.
"His wife was then killed before my eyes by a bullet that hit her in the head."
Khalaf said he ran to take shelter inside his little hut as the gunfire continued.
The car with the dead couple "continued to move, with its doors open and the bodies inside -- like a phantom vehicle."
"The Americans fired at everything that moved, with a machine gun and even with a grenade launcher. There was panic. Everyone tried to flee. Vehicles tried to make U-turns to escape."
According to Khalaf, people then left their cars and tried to flee for cover, some being struck down as they ran. A car was hit by two grenades and burst into fire, engulfing its occupants in flames.
"There were dead bodies and wounded people everywhere, the road was full of blood. A bus was also hit and several of its occupants were wounded," said the traffic officer.
Two small black helicopters that always accompany Blackwater on security missions swooped down and sprayed the scene with machine gun fire, Khalaf added.
On Wednesday, the Iraqi and US governments announced they had set up a joint commission to investigate the shootings as well as to examine the broader question of rules governing foreign security companies operating in Iraq.
Despite opposition from Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Blackwater, which escorts US embassy personnel, was back on the streets of Baghdad on Friday after being grounded for four days.
According to a senior policeman involved in the investigations, other witnesses are equally adamant that Blackwater opened fire without provocation.
"The Americans say that the convoy first came under small arms fire. That is totally false," the officer told AFP, asking not to be named because he is not entitled to speak to the media.
"None of the witnesses we have interviewed speak of an attack," he said.
"There is at least one video, shot by police using a digital camera just moments after the shooting, which shows the victims," said the police officer. "This video is in our hands and we are examining it."
He did not rule out the possible existence of other videos taken at the moment of the shooting, including with mobile phones, given the number of people present at the time.
"The Blackwater guards opened fire on motorists without reason, they were never a target of a single shot or any attack," the officer said.

Baghdad mostly under U.S. control

A US soldier patrols a street in Baghdad, July 2007. Insurgents have killed an American soldier in Baghdad with armour-piercing explosives of the sort the US military has previously linked with Iran.



Since the March 2003 invasion, at least 3,796 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq.

US Soldier Killed in Baghdad (click here)
BAGHDAD, Sept 23--A US soldier has been killed in Baghdad with armor-piercing explosives, the US military said.The military said the soldier died Saturday when the so-called explosively-formed penetrator (EFP) was detonated as his patrol passed.The latest death brought the military's losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 3,796, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

US soldier killed in Baghdad (click here)
11 hours ago
BAGHDAD (AFP) — Insurgents have killed an American soldier in Baghdad with armour-piercing explosives of the sort the US military has previously linked with Iran.
The military said the soldier died on Saturday when the so-called explosively-formed penetrator (EFP) was detonated as his patrol passed.
The military has repeatedly charged that Iraqi extremists are receiving the EFPs, which are fist-sized bombs that can cut through heavy armour, from the Quds Force, the covert operations arm of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.
Iran has consistently denied the accusation.
The latest death brought the military's losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 3,796, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.




By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
IRAQI SUPPORT: The portion of Baghdad where Iraqi security forces are in control with minimal help from the American military has grown only slightly in recent months, to just over 8 percent.


VIOLENCE DOWN: That occurred despite an overall decline in insurgent violence in Baghdad, a U.S. commander said Friday.


SUSTAINABLE SECURITY: A key issue is whether the U.S.-trained Iraqi forces will be able to hold the line.


Baghdad mostly under U.S. control







Baghdad mostly under U.S. control







Baghdad mostly under U.S. control







Baghdad mostly under U.S. control







Baghdad mostly under U.S. control







Baghdad mostly under U.S. control







Baghdad mostly under U.S. control





...etc., etc., etc.

The recent testimony by General Petraeus is being used as a political propaganda tool for the Republicans.

To begin, General Petraeus is not new to Baghdad or Iraq. He has been around since the beginning of this illegal war for oil. In this picture he is with Paul Bremer, the first 'suit' to attempt to control the chaos of anarchy with no post invasion plan except those that secured the oil fields of course.


If you click on the link above it will take to the 'place' Petraeus was before being REDEPLOYED to Iraq. He was teaching American soldiers at Leavenworth. Below is one of his classes.


When Petraeus came back to 'report' regarding Iraq, the Republicans mounted a campaign against the American people and the media is all about 'striking up the band' for Bush with less than two years to complete in office.



There has been a lot of 'fuss' over 527 ads regarding the General. Don't know why, it would seem as though there actually is more hype to the reports than anyone wants to admit, so I intend to sort through some of the realities now being lost in the media as the focus falls OFF Iraq, Baghdad and the withdrawal of USA troops and ONTO the 'quality' of citizen and legislator that finds themselves ANY BUT Republican.


To note that General Petraeus was 'in it' from the beginning is to realize the degree to which his reporting is tainted. He was never at the top of the heap to file reports to Washington before now, and it must be somewhat of a vindication to finally be 'the man' and come to DC with reports of accomplishments never before achieved. Quite a coupe if you will. You almost get the feeling that here is the man with all the answers for Iraq and no one ever listened.



I find THAT reality; very, very odd. General Petraeus, the silent general. Never listened to, never influential before now. Sounds more like Washington Neocon politics than reality, won't you say? Well, let's do a run down on the 'reality' none of the American people are familiar with but is the reality of the Iraq people.

It's Sunday Night

"Baghdad" by Offspring

In your plane in the blue sky
You roam around
Worlds that echo in your mind
Make your heart beat faster

'This is no Vietnam
We will win in Iraq'

The president said, 'Let it ride'
Islam be damned
Make your last stand
In Baghdad

Warrior, the time bomb's about to go
What will you feel
Will you even wonder
If the man that's in your sights
Ever kissed his girlfriend good-bye
The Captain said, 'Kill or die'
Islam be damned
Make your last stand
In Baghdad

Great satan, our flags are burning
Now America has found its young men In the sand
Where their casualty Is just another number
In Iraq

The president said, 'Let it ride'
You will be damned
Make your last stand
In Baghdad
In Baghdad
In Baghdad

More than 200 child porn web-sites shut down in Russian Internet

Just a mention. There is a change in the 'culture' noted in the Russian newspapers since the new Prime Minister came to town.



A real effort to build 'a society.' (click here) Quality of life issues for Russia. The St. Petersburg influence. European, if you will. Socialites. It's a new taste of freedom and prestige for this communist nation. I find it interesting. Vladimir Putin has enjoyed far more social contact with the Russian people than any other Russian President in history in my opinion. I find it all the more interesting that with the emergence of the new Prime Minister, an intimate friend of Putin, there is more 'jazz' in Russian society than before. I would say the ladies and gentlemen like to enjoy themselves. At least that is the feeling they want the Russian people to come to understand and relish. If one values a city in which they live and it's a matter of prestige then the society, and this is just my opinion, is more likely to 'like' it's government and vanquish corruption. Just a different view according to where I sit. The tensions between The West and Russia don't seem to be deescalating but Russia is not backing down on it's commitment to cooperate with the IAEA and the limits placed on Iranian nuclear opportunities.



14:01 21/09/2007
London fashion week show: Model behaviour. Video (click here)
Models at London fashion week show off the latest designs at the Aquascutum show but not entirely without a hitch. At the Aquascutum show, one model seemed to be having difficulty walking in some high-heeled shoes with laces around the ankle - twice. After the second mishap she didn't appear in the final walk through. (27 sec./1.06Mb, shows: 204)



Russian tycoon Usmanov buys Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya collection (click here)

Morning Papers - It's Origins

The Rooster

"Okeydoke"

In order for Richard Paey to receive justice, Jeb Bush had to be replaced.

Florida Department of Corrections photo of Richard Paey


Disabled Man Pardoned After Serving 4 Years On Drug Charge
POSTED: 8:09 am EDT September 21, 2007
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A disabled former attorney returned home Thursday after four years in prison, arriving hours after Gov. Charlie Crist and the rest of the state clemency board pardoned his drug trafficking charges. It ended a case that gained national attention as an example of outrageous mandatory minimum drug sentences.
Richard Paey, 48, had a broad smile as he exited the vehicle driven by prison officials to his Hudson home in Pasco County.
"In the immortal words of Dorothy...there's no place like home," Paey said, pausing in mid-sentence to kiss his wife Linda....

Richard Paey Granted Full Pardon (click on for Kathy's Place)

...Now I also want to say that when Jeb Bush was still Gov. of Fla. he was approached and refused, to do anything for this man. He had stated that a drug charge was a drug charge and he wasn't getting involved. When his daughter was arrested for drug fraud, did she get a mandatory 25 year prison sentence and a $500,000.00 fine? Did she have an MVA, a botched back surgery and have MS and was the drugs she was using, selling, stealing or whatever, actually prescription drugs that were only used for her own chronic pains? I hope when this next Presidential election is over, and we get GW Bush out of office, that we never elect another Bush to any Office ever again. One thing is for certain, there will never be another one to get my vote. Lord, I voted for GW in 2004. Here is what happened to Jeb Bush's daughter in the state of fla. when she was arrested, not once, but twice, on drug charges..

Noelle is the daughter of Florida governor Jeb Bush and his wife, Columba, and the niece of U.S. president George W. Bush. She has two brothers: George P. and John Jr. (known as Jebby). Noelle made news headlines on 29 January 2002 when she was arrested by Tallahassee police and charged with prescription fraud after she tried to buy the sedative Xanax at a local pharmacy. The case received extra attention because it echoed the 2001 arrests of Noelle Bush's cousins, Jenna & Barbara Bush, for underage drinking. In February 2002 Noelle Bush entered an Orlando drug treatment center. In July of 2002 she was jailed temporarily after she was found in possession of prescription pills, a violation of her court-ordered treatment plan. In September 2002 she was back in the news after police visited the drug treatment center and found Bush in possession of cocaine. She was sentenced 17 October 2002 to ten days in jail for violating the terms of her court-ordered drug treatment program.

I am truly happy for this man and his family. I only wonder where he is now going to find a doctor willing to treat his pain? He was being given far more pain medication in prison, that what he was in possession of during the time of his arrest. I hope this is something someone is helping him figure out.

TALLAHASSEE — Richard Paey is a chronic pain patient in year three of a 25-year mandatory-minimum sentence for trafficking in drugs — his own pain medication.
But his freedom is just hours away.
Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet voted unanimously to grant Paey a full pardon Thursday morning for his 2004 conviction on drug trafficking and possession charges....

Op-Ed Columnist
A Taste of His Own Medicine (click here)
By JOHN TIERNEY
Published: May 6, 2006
Now that Rush Limbaugh has managed to keep himself out of prison, the punishment he once advocated for drug abusers, let me suggest a new cause for him: speaking out for people who can handle their OxyContin.
Like Limbaugh, Richard Paey suffers from back pain, which in his case is so severe that he's confined to a wheelchair. Also like Limbaugh, he was accused of illegally obtaining large quantities of painkillers. Although there was no evidence that either man sold drugs illegally, the authorities in Florida zealously pursued each of them for years.
Unlike Limbaugh, Paey went to prison. Now 47 years old, he's serving the third year of a 25-year term. His wife told me that when he heard how Limbaugh settled his case last week — by agreeing to pay $30,000 and submit to drug tests — Paey offered a simple explanation: "The wealthy and influential go to rehab, while the poor and powerless go to prison."
He has a point, although I don't think that's the crucial distinction between the cases. Paey stood up for his belief that patients in pain should be able to get the medicine they need. Limbaugh so far hasn't stood up for any consistent principle except his right to stay out of jail.
He has portrayed himself as the victim of a politically opportunistic prosecutor determined to bag a high-profile trophy, which is probably true. But that's standard operating procedure in the drug war supported by Limbaugh and his fellow conservatives.
Drug agents and prosecutors are desperate for headlines because they have so little else to show for their work. The drug war costs $35 billion per year and has yet to demonstrate any clear long-term benefits — precisely the kind of government boondoggle that conservatives like Limbaugh ought to view skeptically.
Yet conservatives go on giving more money and more power to the drug cops. When critics complained about threats to civil liberties in the Patriot Act, President Bush defended it by noting that the government was already using some of these powers against drug dealers. Why worry about snooping on foreign terrorists when we've already been doing it to Americans?
Limbaugh objected when prosecutors, unable to come up with enough evidence against him, demanded to be allowed to go through his medical records in the hope of finding something.
He managed to stop them in court, but other defendants can't afford long legal battles to protect their privacy.
Drug agents and prosecutors go on fishing expeditions to seize doctors' records and force pharmacists to divulge what they're selling to whom. With the help of new federal funds, states are compiling databases of the prescriptions being filled at pharmacies. Once their trolling finds something they deem suspicious, the authorities can threaten doctors, pharmacists and patients with financially crippling investigations and long jail sentences unless they cooperate by testifying against others or copping a plea.
Paey was the rare patient who refused to turn on his doctor or plead guilty to a problem he didn't have. He insisted that he'd been taking large quantities of painkillers because he needed them. He wanted to protect his own right to keep taking them, and others' rights as well.
"They say I was stubborn," he told me last year. "I consider it a matter of principle."
Limbaugh got off partly because he could afford the legal bills (which he says ran into millions of dollars) and partly because he cooperated with prosecutors. He confessed to being an addict, went into rehab and swore to remain clean.
Perhaps he really was one of the small minority of pain patients who hurt themselves by compulsively using drugs like OxyContin for emotional, not physical, relief. But most pain patients can become physically dependent on large doses of opioids without being what doctors consider an addict. They take the drugs not to escape reality, but to function normally.
Even if Limbaugh believes that drugs like OxyContin are a menace to himself, he ought to recognize that most patients are in Richard Paey's category. Their problem isn't abusing painkillers, but finding doctors to prescribe enough of them. And that gets harder every year because of the drug war promoted by conservatives like Limbaugh.
It has been said that a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested. I wouldn't wish such a conversion on Limbaugh. But a two-year investigation by drug prosecutors should be enough to turn a conservative into a libertarian.

Seattle Post Intelligencer

U.N. summit to push climate talks
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Yvo De Boer, left, Executive Secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and Rajendra K. Pachauri, right, Chairman of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change speak to reporters at U.N. Headquarters in New York Saturday, Sept. 22, 2007. (AP Photo/David Karp)
UNITED NATIONS -- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Gore and the leaders of some 80 nations converge on the U.N. on Monday for a summit on the warming Earth and what to do about it.
The unprecedented meeting comes just days after U.S. scientists reported that melting temperatures this summer shrank the Arctic Ocean's ice cap to a record-low size.
"I expect the meeting on Monday to express a sense of urgency in terms of negotiating progress that needs to be made," said the U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer.
President Bush, who has long opposed negotiated limits on the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, will not participate in the day's meetings, but will attend a small dinner Monday evening, a gathering of key players hosted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1501AP_UN_Climate_Summit.html?source=mypi



It takes a city to limit greenhouse gases
By LISA STIFFLER
P-I REPORTER
If you could give a rip about global warming and the pressure to do environmental good to stop it, the city of Seattle is going to drive you nuts.
Steps for slowing climate change will confront you on the flip side of the No. 12 cheer cards waved by fans at the Seahawks game. They'll nudge you from posters hanging at the local Starbucks when you're grabbing a mocha to go. The friendly librarian might add a fluorescent light bulb to your stack of books to take home.
But if you're pumped up to do what you can to slow global warming -- strategizing the best bus routes and bumping down the thermostat -- you might embrace the city's new Seattle Climate Action Now campaign in all its manifestations.
After the hoopla of vowing that Seattle will cut its greenhouse emissions on par with the Kyoto Protocol -- plus getting 672 U.S. cities to join the effort -- leaders here are trying to kick-start public involvement.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/332637_globalwarming22.html



Rising seas likely to flood U.S. history
By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP SCIENCE WRITER
Stanford University biologist Terry Root says that in a hundred years or so rising ocean waters from global warming may kill the last remaining wetlands in Palo Alto, Calif., behind her Sept. 6, 2007. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Ultimately, rising seas will likely swamp the first American settlement in Jamestown, Va., as well as the Florida launch pad that sent the first American into orbit, many climate scientists are predicting.
In about a century, some of the places that make America what it is may be slowly erased.
Global warming - through a combination of melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warmer waters expanding - is expected to cause oceans to rise by one meter, or about 39 inches. It will happen regardless of any future actions to curb greenhouse gases, several leading scientists say. And it will reshape the nation.
Rising waters will lap at the foundations of old money Wall Street and the new money towers of Silicon Valley. They will swamp the locations of big city airports and major interstate highways.
Storm surges worsened by sea level rise will flood the waterfront getaways of rich politicians - the Bushes' Kennebunkport and John Edwards' place on the Outer Banks. And gone will be many of the beaches in Texas and Florida favored by budget-conscious students on Spring Break.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1501AP_Rising_Seas.html?source=mypi




Man dies months after Kansas tornado hit
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GREENSBURG, Kan. -- A man who was struck by debris and suffered brain damage when a tornado destroyed this town in May has died, making him the 12th victim of the storm, his family said.
Max M. McColm, 77, of Liberal was staying with his daughter, Beverly Volz, while recovering from shoulder surgery when the tornado hit on May 4.
McColm's grandson, Ross McColm, of Lakewood, Colo., said his grandfather was hit in the head with a large piece of metal. He fell into a coma and was taken to a Wichita hospital. At the end of June, he was moved to a long-term acute care center in Overland Park.
He regained partial consciousness in mid-July and was told his daughter had died, said his son, Matthew McColm, also of Lakewood, Colo. Max McColm died on Wednesday, his family said.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Kansas_Tornado.html



Wildfire destroys 6 Wash. state homes
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WHITE SALMON, Wash. -- A wildfire pushed by strong winds blowing through a gorge destroyed five homes on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River and a sixth closer to the water, authorities said.
Residents of a bluff above where the wind-whipped fire started were told Thursday afternoon to leave their homes, but all but three were allowed to return Friday evening, said Dale Warriner, a spokesman at the fire command center.
"We got a lot of good work done," said Warriner. "We feel they can go back in safely."
The fire had burned about 150 acres and was about 60 percent contained by midday Friday, Warriner said. About 300 firefighters were battling the blaze, aided by four helicopters and three air tankers.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Wildfires.html



Fake parks fun, but how will Seattle pay for the real thing?
Advocates turn patches of urban asphalt into green oases
By JENNIFER LANGSTON
P-I REPORTER
Friday morning, Tom Reeve unrolled a square of grass sod on the edge of a barren downtown waterfront pier. He added a beach umbrella, a potted hawthorn tree, pink lawn chairs and proceeded to play bocce ball on the temporary lawn.
"Welcome to the park. Here for one day only ... unless we do something," Reeve said to curious passers-by.
Other volunteers erected mobile pint-sized parks in parking spaces near the Seattle Art Museum and Olympic Sculpture Park, part of a nationwide event that's part advocacy, part performance art.
"The point is quite simply to help people imagine more green space in their urban areas and to do it in a way that's sort of eye-catching and fun and non-political," said Karen Macdonald, spokeswoman for Trust for Public Land, the event sponsor.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/332713_parks22.html



Iraq: Blackwater guards fired unprovoked
By ROBERT H. REID
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Hassan Jabir, 37, is surrounded by family as he recovers from gunshot wounds in a hospital in Baghdad, Iraq on Saturday, Sept. 22, 2007. Jabir, a lawyer, says he was in his car in the Mansour neighborhood when guards in a U.S. State Department convoy opened fire, shooting him four times. Iraq's Interior Ministry has expanded its investigation into other incidents allegedly involving Blackwater USA security guards amid the furor following a deadly shooting that claimed at least 11 lives, a spokesman said Saturday.(AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
BAGHDAD -- Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in an incident last week in which 11 people died, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case was referred to the Iraqi judiciary.
Iraq's president, meanwhile, demanded that the Americans release an Iranian arrested this week on suspicion of smuggling weapons to Shiite militias. The demand adds new strains to U.S.-Iraqi relations only days before a meeting between President Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Iraqi authorities had completed an investigation into the Sept. 16 shooting in Nisoor Square in western Baghdad and concluded that Blackwater guards were responsible for the deaths.
He told The Associated Press that the conclusion was based on witness statements as well as videotape shot by cameras at the nearby headquarters of the national police command. He said eight people were killed at the scene and three of the 15 wounded died in hospitals.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Iraq.html?source=mypi



Rice, al-Maliki keep distance at meeting
By MATTHEW LEE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
UNITED NATIONS -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki kept a polite distance Saturday as they attended a group meeting and avoided discussion of a deadly Baghdad shootout involving guards from a U.S. company protecting American diplomats.
The two greeted each other before the meeting, but in a brief exchange of pleasantries, the issue of the shootout didn't come up, deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.
With tensions soaring over the Sept. 16 incident, Rice and al-Maliki chose not to speak about it at a United Nations gathering at which they were among senior diplomats and officials from Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria, weighing future assistance to Iraq.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1152AP_US_Iraq.html



Rising tensions as Rice, al-Maliki meet
By MATTHEW LEE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
UNITED NATIONS -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Saturday with Iraq's prime minister in their first face-to-face talks since a Baghdad shootout involving guards from a U.S. company protecting American diplomats.
Rice and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were among numerous top diplomats and officials from Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria, which the United States accuses of destabilizing Iraq, gathering at the United Nations with U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to discuss Iraq's future.
Neither spoke to reporters as they entered the room for the meeting, which came as a senior Iraqi official in Baghdad said Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows employees of Blackwater USA opening fire against civilians without provocation on Sept. 16.
At the same time, Iraq's Interior Ministry said it had expanded its investigation of the shooting to include six other incidents involving Blackwater guards over the past seven months .

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1152AP_US_Iraq.html?source=mypi



Iraqi PM: Shootings 'cannot be accepted'
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI AND TAREK EL-TABLAWY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITERS
NEW YORK -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki walked a fine line Sunday: confronting his American backers over what he sees as violations of Iraq's sovereignty while stressing that his relations are rock solid with the country on whose support he still relies.
"Success is shared," he said in an interview with The Associated Press, referring to his deeply intertwined partnership with President Bush and the U.S. government. "God forbid, failure is also shared."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Al_Maliki_Interview.html



Germany: U.S. won't send kidnap suspects
By MATTHIAS ARMBORST
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
FRANKFURT, Germany -- U.S. authorities have told Germany that they will not extradite 13 purported CIA agents sought in the alleged kidnapping of a German citizen, an official said Saturday.
A Justice Ministry spokeswoman said the Bush administration told Berlin it would not hand over the group and said the ministry had, as a result, decided against giving Washington Munich prosecutors' formal request for their arrest. She spoke on condition of anonymity as required by the ministry.
The Justice Ministry last month sounded out U.S. authorities' willingness to cooperate with legal proceedings against the suspected agents, sending a legal request that officials call a common first step in dealing with international arrest warrants.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103AP_Germany_CIA_Kidnap_Claim.html



Walt Crowley, 1947-2007: Keeper of local history
By MIKE LEWIS
P-I REPORTER
Walt Crowley, a political commentator and former City Council candidate who co-founded one of the nation's finest regional history Web sites, died Friday after complications following a stroke. He was 60.
Crowley, who had battled cancer of the larynx for the past year, had just undergone surgery to remove a small growth linked to the disease's recent recurrence when the stroke occurred late Thursday. Doctors removed life support Friday and he died at about 8:15 p.m. at Virginia Mason Medical Center surrounded by family and friends.
"It's devastating," said Marie McCaffrey, his wife and collaborator on www.historylink.org. "We weren't expecting this."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/332802_crowley20.html



Black and white becomes gray in La. town
By TODD LEWAN
AP NATIONAL WRITER
JENA, La. -- It's got all the elements of a Delta blues ballad from the days of Jim Crow: hangman's nooses dangling from a shade tree; a mysterious fire in the night; swift deliberations by a condemning, all-white jury.
And drawn by this story, which evokes the worst of a nightmarish past, they came by the thousands this past week to Jena, La. - to demand justice, to show strength, to beat back the forces of racism as did their parents and grandparents.
But there are many in Jena who say the tale of the "Jena Six" - the black teenagers who were charged with attempted murder and conspiracy for attacking a white classmate at Jena High School last December - is not as simple as all that.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_A_Place_Called_Jena.html?source=mypi



Fujimori returns to Peru to face trial
By MONTE HAYES
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
LIMA, Peru -- Former President Alberto Fujimori was extradited Saturday from Chile to face charges of corruption and sanctioning death-squad killings, a grim homecoming for the strongman who fled Peru seven years ago as his government collapsed in scandal.
Hundreds of supporters were gathered to greet Peru's former leader as his police plane landed in a heavy mist at Las Palmas air force base, across town from Lima's international airport.
Many Peruvians were elated by Fujimori's extradition but others were indignant. He maintains a strong following - a recent poll showed that 23 percent of Peruvians want to see him back in politics - and some worry his return could provoke turmoil in a country emerging from decades of political and economic chaos.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1102AP_Fujimori.html?source=mypi



Fake veteran gets 5-month sentence
Man claimed to have helped kill civilians in Iraq
By MIKE BARBER
P-I REPORTER
Jesse MacBeth never was an Army Ranger, much less a corporal, never received a Purple Heart for wounds inflicted by a foreign foe, and neither saw nor participated in war crimes with fellow U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, claims for which he became a poster boy for the anti-war movement.
So, there was likely no way the 23-year-old Tacoma man suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from the horrors of war and other injuries.
MacBeth was sentenced Friday to five months in jail and three years' probation for falsifying a Department of Veterans Affairs claim and an Army discharge record.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/332642_fakevet22.html



Shoreline teachers and staff plan for one-day strike
By CRAIG HARRIS
P-I REPORTER
Teachers and support staff in Shoreline School District announced they would stage a one-day strike Thursday because of frustration over class sizes.
A district spokesman said a decision would be made Monday as to whether the suburban Seattle school district, which has more than 9,600 students, would have classes if teachers went on strike.
Craig Degginger, a district spokesman, said Shoreline Schools had not received an official strike notice, but officials were disappointed in the announcement because employees earlier this month ratified a two-year contract.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/332816_shorelinestrike23.html



Yellowstone snowmobiles may be reduced
By MATT GOURAS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
HELENA, Mont. -- Yellowstone National Park officials want to reduce the number of snowmobiles allowed each day in the park as part of its winter management plan, said a congressional aide briefed on the plan.
The park is seeking to impose a daily limit of 540 snowmobiles, down from 720 vehicles, said Matt McKenna, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont. McKenna said a park official met with the senator's staff Thursday to discuss the plan.
Park spokesman Al Nash declined comment.
The 540-snowmobile limit will be the agency's new "preferred alternative" in the park's winter management plan to be released Monday, McKenna said. A final decision was expected sometime in November.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Yellowstone_Snowmobiles.html


Bodies of 2 missing hikers found in WA
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LEAVENWORTH, Wash. -- The Chelan County sheriff's office reports that the bodies of two hikers - a father and 12-year-old son from Spokane - have been found in the Wenatchee National Forest.
The bodies were discovered after two backpacks belonging to 53-year-old Otto Vaclavek and his son, Max, were found on Dragontail Peak, which rises 8,800 feet. The Vaclaveks were expected back earlier this week.
More than 60 searchers and three helicopters combed a rugged wilderness area of Chelan County Saturday. The searchers include the father's co-workers from Spokane Valley-based outdoor outfitter Mountain Gear.
The search began Thursday.
Vaclavek's wife reported her husband and son missing on Wednesday. They left Spokane last Saturday with a three-day supply of food.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420AP_WA_Missing_Hikers.html



Iraqi PM: Shootings threaten sovereignty
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI AND TAREK EL-TABLAWY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITERS
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is photographed during an interview, Sunday, Sept. 23, 2007, in New York, ahead of his appearance Monday at the U.N. General Assembly. (AP Photo/Diane Bondareff)
NEW YORK -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Sunday the shooting deaths of civilians - allegedly at the hands of Blackwater USA guards - and other violence involving the company pose "serious challenges to the sovereignty of Iraq" and cannot be accepted.
"The Iraqi government is responsible for its citizens and it cannot be accepted for a security company to carry out a killing," he told The Associated Press, speaking in his New York hotel suite ahead of his appearance at the U.N. General Assembly.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Al_Maliki_Interview.html?source=mypi



Iran's leader: U.S. wants new opinions
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
TEHRAN, Iran -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that the American people are eager for different opinions about the world, and he is looking forward to providing them with "correct and clear information," state media reported.
The hardline Iranian leader left Sunday for New York to address the U.N. General Assembly and speak to students and teachers during a forum at Columbia University.
Tensions are high between Washington and Tehran over U.S. accusations that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons and helping Shiite militias in Iraq that target U.S. troops - claims Iran denies.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Iran_US.html?source=mypi



Italians feared kidnapped in Afghanistan
By ALISA TANG
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Two Italian military personnel were believed to have been kidnapped in western Afghanistan, and police Sunday said they were searching for the pair and their two Afghan staff.
At a meeting at the United Nations, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told participants he had information about where the Italians were and would pass the information to Italian authorities, said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.
In northeastern Afghanistan, meanwhile, NATO helicopters fired on a group of suspected insurgents in response to a rocket attack. Four Afghans died and 12 were wounded, the alliance said, and officials were investigating whether the dead and wounded were Afghan police or civilians targeted mistakenly.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1104AP_Afghanistan.html?source=mypi



50 years since Little Rock integration
By ANDREW DEMILLO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
LITTLE ROCK -- Fifty years after federal troops escorted Terrence Roberts and eight fellow black students into an all-white high school, he says the struggles over race and segregation still are unresolved.
"This country has demonstrated over time that it is not prepared to operate as an integrated society," said Roberts, who is a faculty member at Antioch University's psychology program.
He and the other students known as the Little Rock Nine will help the city observe Central High School's 50th anniversary this week with a series of events culminating with a ceremony featuring former President Bill Clinton.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Integration_Anniversary.html?source=mypi



New photo shows Castro standing, smiling
By WILL WEISSERT
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
HAVANA -- Cuba published a photo Sunday of a standing, smiling Fidel Castro looking heavier but still gaunt as he met with Angola's president, the first head of state to see the ailing 81-year-old since June.
The picture, which appeared on the front page of Communist Party youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde, shows Castro in a track suit, athletic pants and tennis shoes. The Cuban leader appears to have gained weight and wears a warm half-smile as he shakes hands with Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, who was in Cuba since Thursday on an official visit.
The image was released two days after Castro gave a surprise hourlong interview on state television, during which he answered rumors about his death that have swirled recently in the United States by saying simply, "well, here I am."
Sunday's photo was the first time Castro has been seen standing in months. He stayed seated during the interview, which aired Friday evening just hours after officials said it was taped.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1102AP_Cuba_Castro.html?source=mypi



Miami Cubans skeptical of Castro on TV
By JESSICA GRESKO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MIAMI -- Cubans in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood expressed a mixture of skepticism and disappointment Friday at Fidel Castro's first appearance on Cuban television in three months.
Rumors of the Cuban leader's death had reached a fever pitch here last month after the leader's 81st birthday came without any news. Local leaders met to go over their plans for when he does pass away, fueling even more rumors.
Still, when Castro appeared in an interview on Cuban television for the first time since June 5, not everyone was convinced.
"Could be six months ago. Could be one year ago," said Cuban-born Victoria Martinez, 76, of Hollywood, who called the leader's talk "incoherent" while at the Cuban restaurant Versailles.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Cuba_Castro_Miami.html



Rice to outline Mideast peace conference
By MATTHEW LEE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
UNITED NATIONS -- The U.S. is letting its international partners in the push for a Mideast settlement know about details of President Bush's planned peace conference, including countries to be invited.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice planned to outline ideas for the conference to representatives of the diplomatic group known as the Quartet - the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia - at a U.N. meeting late Sunday afternoon, a senior U.S. official said.
In addition to Israel and the Palestinians, those countries expected to be asked to attend the as-yet unscheduled conference in the U.S. are, according to the official: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia and Yemen.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_UN_Mideast.html?source=mypi



Scientists hopeful despite climate signs
By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP SCIENCE WRITER
WASHINGTON -- Climate scientist Michael Mann runs down the list of bad global warming news: The world is spewing greenhouse gases at a faster rate. Summer Arctic sea ice is at record lows. The ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica are melting quicker than expected.
Is he the doomsayer global warming skeptics have called him?
Mann laughs. This Penn State University professor - and many other climate scientists - are sunny optimists. Hope blooms in the hottest of greenhouses.
Climate scientists say mankind is on the path for soaring temperatures that will melt polar ice sheets, raise seas to dangerous levels, and trigger mass extinctions. But they say the most catastrophic of consequences can and will be avoided.
They have hope. So should you, Mann said.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Optimistic_Doomsayers.html



Beaked whales focus of Navy sonar study
By AUDREY MCAVOY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii -- Robin Baird's research team members stare at the horizon for hours, searching for rarely seen beaked whales.
The small, gray marine mammals have been at the center of the dispute over the Navy's use of high intensity sonar ever since several washed ashore with bleeding around their brains and ears during naval exercises in the Bahamas seven years ago.
"They appear to be the most susceptible group of cetaceans to impacts from Navy sonars," said Baird, a marine biologist based in Olympia, Wash., whose team recently spent three weeks off Hawaii's Big Island studying whales.
Training sailors to use sonar is a top priority for the Navy as more nations, including China, have acquired quiet, hard-to-detect submarines. In many cases, the only way the Navy can find these stealthy ships is by using mid-frequency active sonar, firing bursts of sound through the water and listening for an echo off a ship's hull.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Navy_Whales.html



FBI reviewing anti-Jena 6 Web page
By BECKY BOHRER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NEW ORLEANS -- The FBI is reviewing a white supremacist Web site that purports to list the addresses of five of the six black teenagers accused of beating a white student in Jena and "essentially called for their lynching," an agency spokeswoman said Saturday.
Sheila Thorne, an agent in the FBI's New Orleans office, said authorities were reviewing whether the site breaks any federal laws. She said the FBI had "gathered intelligence on the matter," but declined to further explain how the agency got involved.
CNN first reported Friday about the Web site, which features a swastika, frequent use of racial slurs, a mailing address in Roanoke, Va., and phone numbers purportedly for some of the teens' families "in case anyone wants to deliver justice." That page is dated Thursday.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Jena_Six.html



Columbine memorial opens
By P. SOLOMON BANDA
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
LITTLETON, Colo. -- Hundreds of people gathered under blue autumn skies Friday to dedicate an expansive hillside memorial to the Columbine High School massacre victims, after more than eight years of money struggles and occasional disputes.
The placid, stone-walled oval nestled in Clement Park is next to the suburban Denver school where two student gunmen killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves on April 20, 1999, plunging the community into mourning and disbelief.
During the ceremony, 213 doves were released and flew over the park.
Patrick Ireland, who was wounded in the attack, offered words of optimism. He was shot twice in the head and hung out of a library window while the tragedy unfolded, and has since had to relearn how to speak, walk and read.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Columbine_Memorial.html



Del. State students describe tension
By RANDALL CHASE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
DOVER, Del. -- Tension between rival groups of friends from New Jersey and Washington, D.C., preceded the late-night shooting at Delaware State University that wounded two people, students said Saturday.
While investigators worked to find the shooter who opened fire early Friday as several students left a campus dining hall, a classmate recalled how the violence had escalated from altercations during the week.
"They've been getting into it, New Jersey people and D.C. people," said James Dillion, 23, of Cleveland.
"Thursday night, they saw each other again and got into it," he said. "Everybody's still astonished about what happened."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Delaware_State_Shooting.html



Emancipation Proclamation draws crowds
By JON GAMBRELL
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- As she looked at the Emancipation Proclamation, Catherine Jewell-Gill recalled her days of picking cotton in Arkansas as a child and later becoming a teacher and principal.
Jewell-Gill was among more than 2,100 people who filed through the Clinton Library on Saturday to see the three-page document that declared the end to slavery. Jewell-Gill, 72, said having the document in Little Rock during the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of Central High School pulls history together.
"I think it coincides beautifully," she said.
More than 10,000 people are expected to file past the proclamation during its four-day stay in the city, a rare trip outside the National Archive.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Emancipation_Proclamation.html



Pentagon can't find major named in suit
By JOHN MILBURN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
TOPEKA, Kan. -- Military officials are investigating an Army specialist's allegations that he was harassed for being an atheist but said Saturday they have found no trace of the officer listed as a defendant in the soldier's lawsuit.
Spc. Jeremy Hall and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed a lawsuit this past week against a Maj. Paul Welborne and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
The suit, in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., alleges that Welborne threatened to file military charges against Hall and to block his reenlistment for trying to hold a meeting of atheists and non-Christians in Iraq. Hall is in Iraq with the 97th Military Police Battalion out of Fort Riley. He has been in Iraq since 2006, on his second tour.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Military_Religion_Lawsuit.html



Baby cribs recalled after 3 deaths
By ANN SANNER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- About 1 million Simplicity and Graco cribs have been recalled after three children became entrapped and suffocated. The recall was announced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission on Friday, more than two years after a California lawyer says he alerted the federal agency about a 9-month-old who died in a faulty crib.
"Two years and two deaths is not fast enough. It's inexcusable that it took that long," said Charles Kelly, who represents the parents of the 9-month-old. Liam Johns of Citrus Heights, Calif., died in April 2005.
In addition to the Johns baby, 6-month-old Edward Millwood died in November 2006 while in one of the Simplicity cribs. His parents filed suit against the manufacturer on Sept. 4.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Cribs_Recall.html



Alaska ends plan for 'bridge to nowhere'
By STEVE QUINN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
JUNEAU, Alaska -- Some called it a bridge to the future. Others called it the bridge to nowhere.
On Friday, Alaska decided the bridge really was going nowhere, officially abandoning the project in Ketchikan that became a national symbol of federal pork-barrel spending.
While the move closes a chapter that has brought the state reams of ridicule, it also leaves open wounds in a community that fought for decades to get federal help.
"We went through political hot water - tons of it - and not just nationally but internationally," Ketchikan-Gateway Borough Mayor Joe Williams said. "We have nothing to show for it."
The $398 million bridge would have connected Ketchikan, on one island in southeastern Alaska, to its airport on another nearby island.
Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday the project was $329 million short of full funding.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Bridge_to_Nowhere.html



Wildfire destroys 6 Wash. state homes
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WHITE SALMON, Wash. -- A wildfire pushed by strong winds blowing through a gorge destroyed five homes on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River and a sixth closer to the water, authorities said.
Residents of a bluff above where the wind-whipped fire started were told Thursday afternoon to leave their homes, but all but three were allowed to return Friday evening, said Dale Warriner, a spokesman at the fire command center.
"We got a lot of good work done," said Warriner. "We feel they can go back in safely."
The fire had burned about 150 acres and was about 60 percent contained by midday Friday, Warriner said. About 300 firefighters were battling the blaze, aided by four helicopters and three air tankers.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Wildfires.html



McGreevey ordered to hike spouse support
By JEFFREY GOLD
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ELIZABETH, N.J. -- Former Gov. James E. McGreevey was ordered Friday to more than double the amount of support he pays to his estranged wife.
The nation's first openly gay governor should pay Dina Matos McGreevey $2,500 a month, Superior Court Judge Karen M. Cassidy ruled. Matos McGreevey had been receiving $1,129 a month, but maintained that was insufficient to meet the needs of herself and the couple's 5-year-old daughter.
Cassidy rejected Matos McGreevey's request for $4,000 a month, noting that Matos McGreevey said she needed to spend $2,200 a month on clothing. "It seemed a little high," the judge said.
A lawyer for the former governor, Matthew D. Piermatti, argued that his client's income was decreasing now that he'd entered an Episcopal seminary. They had offered to increase support to $1,691 a month.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Gay_Governor_Divorce.html



State trooper praised at Amish shooting
By MARK SCOLFORO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- The first state trooper to breach the Amish school where 10 girls were shot last year got inside by ripping out part of a window frame with his bare hands, helping save the lives of five of them, the state police chief said.
The trooper used a ballistic shield to batter a window at West Nickel Mines Amish School, then pulled out part of the frame, injuring himself, and dove through to find the gunman still alive, Commissioner Jeffrey Miller said Thursday.
Charles C. Roberts IV had just shot 10 young girls. Five of them died.
"At the time, he was reloading. I have no question about what he was going to do, which is finish these kids off that were still alive," Miller told The Associated Press in his first in-depth interview about the shootings since shortly after the Oct. 2 massacre.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Amish_School_Shooting.html



Boy drowns in swollen creek in Minn.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MINNEAPOLIS -- Torrential rains, damaging winds and large hail struck a broad swath of Minnesota on Thursday. One death was linked to the storms.
A 13-year-old boy drowned in Battle Creek Regional Park in Maplewood Thursday night. Police said he was with three friends who went to play in the swollen stream.
The rushing water swept him over a small concrete dam, Maplewood Police Chief David Thomalla said.
Rescue crews later pulled the boy's body from the water. His name was not immediately released.
Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport briefly suspended departures because of the storm.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Minnesota_Storms.html



Ohio investment convictions hit 19
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The former investment chief for Ohio's insurance fund for injured workers pleaded guilty Friday to charges that he failed to report gifts including meals and a sports ticket from a firm doing business with the agency.
James McLean, who led the bureau's investment operation from 2003 until he was fired in 2005, pleaded guilty to failing to properly report $500 in gifts, including a Chicago Cubs ticket, a meal at MK Restaurant in Chicago, a private tailgate party and transportation from New York-based investment firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.
It is the 19th conviction in an investment scandal at the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation that rocked state politics, leading directly and indirectly to convictions on ethics violations of former Gov. Bob Taft and his chief of staff.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Investment_Scandal_Plea.html



Fla. man says he was Tasered over Quran
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
OCALA, Fla. -- Four police officers are under investigation after a man accused them of using a Taser on him three times when he wouldn't take his hand off a Quran hidden under his shirt, a police spokesman said Friday.
Jeffrey Shields, 49, of Ocala, filed a complaint with the Ocala Police Department alleging an officer used a Taser to force him to hold up his right hand, police spokesman Lou Biondi said.
In a complaint filed Tuesday, Shields said he did not want to raise his right hand from under his shirt because he did not want to drop the Quran, but the officers said they could not tell what he was holding, Biondi said.
"The officers didn't have a clue what he had under there, regardless of what he was saying," he said.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Man_Tasered_Quran.html



Conn. gov bans parole for some inmates
By DAVE COLLINS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Gov. M. Jodi Rell banned parole on Friday for all Connecticut inmates serving prison time for violent offenses following a string of crimes police say were committed by parolees.
The parole ban will be in effect until state lawmakers reform its parole process, she said. Critics worried the move would swell the state's already crowded prisons.
"I will not allow public safety to be jeopardized because parolees return to a life of crime," Rell, a Republican, said.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_No_Parole.html



Judge rules against Tenn. executions
By ERIK SCHELZIG
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A federal judge's ruling this week that Tennessee's lethal injection procedure could cause excruciating pain is yet another blow to the three-drug cocktail used by every state that executes the condemned by injection.
Federal judges reached similar conclusions in Missouri and California last year, and now states have to decide whether to defend the three-drug method, or find a new way to put death row inmates to death by injection.
Death penalty opponents are heartened to see that three federal judges in three very different parts of the country have made similar findings.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Tennessee_Lethal_Injection.html



Ill. congressman won't run for 8th term
By CARLA K. JOHNSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
JOLIET, Ill. -- Republican U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller, recently named one of the most corrupt members of Congress by a watchdog group, announced Friday that he will not seek an eighth term.
"I need to give my family the time needed to be a full-time dad and full-time husband," Weller said during a Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce luncheon. "I'm 50 years old; I've given half of my life to public service."
Weller's announcement comes amid a swell of scrutiny. A watchdog group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington recently declared him one of the 22 most corrupt members of Congress. He's fighting a subpoena in a former colleague's bribery trial, and he faces criticism that he did not reveal to Congress the extent of Nicaraguan land purchases.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Illinois_Congressman.html



Holocaust survivor's neighbor was Nazi
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MESA, Ariz. -- Nathan Gasch and Martin Hartmann lived next door to each other for four years in a quiet retirement community called Leisure World.
You can tell where Gasch had been six decades earlier by the tattooed number on his arm. Gasch could see where Hartmann had been when he walked into his neighbor's house and a picture of him wearing a Nazi hat on the wall.
Gasch, a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, saw the picture soon after he first moved in, when Hartmann and his wife invited him to their house in Mesa, east of Phoenix.
"I just walked out of the room," said Gasch, a soft-spoken 84-year-old with a Polish accent.
But he didn't notify authorities.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Nazi_Neighbor.html



Protests over Rumsfeld at Stanford
By TERENCE CHEA
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SAN FRANCISCO -- Thousands of Stanford University students, faculty and alumni are protesting the conservative Hoover Institution's decision to appoint former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a visiting fellow.
The Stanford-based Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace announced earlier this month that Rumsfeld, who served as President Bush's defense secretary for almost six years, would join a task force that will focus on issues related to "ideology and terror" in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
An online petition contesting the appointment on the grounds that Rumsfeld clashed with the university's core values had more than 2,500 signatures Friday.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Rumsfeld_Stanford.html



Anglican head downplays split over gays
By RACHEL ZOLL
AP RELIGION WRITER
NEW ORLEANS -- The archbishop of Canterbury indicated Friday that the Episcopal Church isn't on the brink of losing its place in the world Anglican fellowship, despite the uproar over Episcopal support for gay clergy.
Anglican leaders, called primates, had set a Sept. 30 deadline for the Americans to pledge unequivocally not to consecrate another gay bishop or approve an official prayer service for gay couples. Episcopal bishops have dedicated their meeting here to crafting a response.
But after two days of private talks with Episcopal leaders, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican spiritual leader, said "there is no ultimatum involved." The goal, he said, is "compromise."
"It's been presented sadly as a set of demands," Williams said in a news conference before he left. "I don't think that what was in the primates' minds. In fact, I'm sure it isn't."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Episcopal_Bishops_Gays.html



Zimbabwe votes in favor of amendment
By ANGUS SHAW
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Lawmakers voted unanimously Thursday in favor of a constitutional amendment that critics say further consolidates ruling party power, but is hailed by the government and opposition as a breakthrough in easing Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis.
The amendment would combine presidential and parliament elections next year and increase the number of legislative seats. It still must go before the upper house of parliament and then to President Robert Mugabe.
In a major concession by the government, the amendment scraps the president's power to appoint 30 members of parliament's lawmaking lower house. It also includes provisions for a new independent electoral commission as demanded by the opposition.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1105AP_Zimbabwe_Constitution.html



Aid workers seek flood help in Africa
By KATY POWNALL
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
AMURIA DISTRICT, Uganda -- Aid agencies were appealing for millions of dollars Friday to help more than 1 million Africans affected by deadly floods that have swept across the continent.
The United States planned to send $100,000 for Uganda - one of the hardest hit countries - and the European Commission and the Netherlands each announced more than $15 million in aid for flood victims across 17 countries. The floods have killed at least 200 people and displaced hundreds of thousands since the summer in central and eastern Africa.
"If we don't get food people will die in this place," Francis Aruo, 28, told The Associated Press in eastern Uganda, one of the hardest-hit regions of Africa. "All our crops are rotten."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1105AP_Africa_Floods.html



Darfur aid convoy ambushed, 3 wounded
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
EL FASHER, Sudan -- Armed men ambushed an aid convoy in Darfur, wounding three humanitarian workers, the U.N. mission to Sudan said Saturday.
The convoy from U.S.-based World Vision International, which included eight staff members, was attacked some 25 miles south of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, on Thursday, the U.N. said.
All three wounded aid workers were Sudanese. Two were shot in the head and one in the arm, World Vision said. Two are in stable condition, and one is serious condition, the group said. It did not provide more information.
The attackers have not been identified but the U.N. statement said Arab tribes have been regularly clashing in the area.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1105AP_Darfur_Violence.html



20,000 march in Myanmar against junta
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
YANGON, Myanmar -- About 20,000 protesters led by Buddhist monks and nuns on Sunday mounted the largest anti-government protest in Myanmar since a failed 1988 democratic uprising, shouting support for detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
At one point a small crowd of about 400 - about half of them monks - split off from the main demonstration and tried unsuccessfully to approach the home where Suu Kyi is under house arrest. The monks carried a large yellow banner that read: "Love and kindness must win over everything."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1104AP_Myanmar.html



Vietnam develops taste for luxury goods
By BEN STOCKING
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam -- In a country whose peasant army once marched on flip-flops cut from old tires, Gucci beach sandals priced at $365 can come as a shock.
But the luxury market is booming in Vietnam, where Ho Chi Minh's communist revolution exalted equality and the common man just a generation ago.
As the country begins to embrace private enterprise, its nouveaux riches are snapping up shoes at Gucci, handbags at Louis Vuitton and watches at Cartier, offering proof of how much the country has changed after decades of war.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1104AP_Vietnam_Luxury.html



Australian follows path of Khan on horse
By PABLO GORONDI
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
BUDAPEST, Hungary -- He scared off wolves with firecrackers in Mongolia and rescued his dog from hungry miners in Kazakhstan. But after three years on horseback, Tim Cope has retraced the route of Genghis Khan and other Asian nomads who crossed into Europe over the centuries.
The 28-year-old Australian arrived in Hungary on Saturday, ending a 6,200-mile trek through Mongolia, Kazakhstan, southern Russia and Ukraine.
"I'm very happy to be here," Cope said in the Hungarian town of Opusztaszer, surrounded by his traveling companions - his dog and three horses. "Sometimes I didn't think I would ever arrive."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1104AP_Path_of_Genghis_Khan.html



Risk of fraud high in visa program
By PETE YOST
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- Nearly 10,000 foreigners from states sponsoring terrorism have obtained permanent residency in the United States in the past seven years, congressional investigators say.
The State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs did not implement a recommendation to bar aliens from those countries, says the report from Congress' Government Accountability Office.
The GAO focused on the issue after the State Department inspector general pointed to the risk in allowing foreigners from countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism to obtain visas under the special diversity visa program.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1152AP_Border_Security.html



Fujimori returns to Peru to face trial
By MONTE HAYES
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
LIMA, Peru -- Former President Alberto Fujimori returned to Peru on Saturday to face charges of corruption and sanctioning death-squad killings, a grim homecoming for the strongman who fled the country seven years ago as his government collapsed in scandal.
The plane carrying the 69-year-old former ruler landed in a heavy mist at Lima's Las Palmas air force base, a day after Chile's Supreme Court authorized his extradition. He was then flown by helicopter to a police base, where he is to be held until a permanent facility is prepared for his detention.
Some 700 supporters who gathered outside the police air terminal across town to greet him were frustated when his plane was diverted to the air base.
"We have come to welcome Fujimori, to tell him that we are with him and will accompany him wherever he goes so that he feels he has the support of his people," his daughter Keiko Fujimori, who was elected to Congress in 2006, told The Associated Press.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1102AP_Fujimori.html

continued...