Not a response to a Russian mission this month nor Canada’s plan for an Arctic port. Riggghhhttt!

A U.S. Coast Guard cutter is headed to the Arctic this week on a mapping mission to determine whether part of this area can be considered U.S. territory, after recent polar forays by Russia and Canada.

The four-week cruise of the Coast Guard Cutter Healy starts Friday and aims to map the sea floor on the northern Chukchi Cap, an underwater plateau that extends from Alaska’s North Slope some 500 miles northward.

This is the third such U.S. Arctic mapping cruise — others were in 2003 and 2004 — and is not a response to a Russian mission this month to place a flag at the North Pole seabed, or a newly announced Canadian plan for an Arctic port, U.S. scientists said.

“This cruise was planned for three years and we’ve had the earlier cruises; this is part of a long and ongoing program, not at all a direct response,” said Larry Mayer of the University of New Hampshire, who will be on the voyage.

So why are the countries with Arctic coastlines all heading northward now?

Under the U.N. Law of the Sea treaty, every coastal state that has the potential to claim some part of the Arctic’s undersea mineral wealth must make a claim to the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

More at Reuters

Israeli media reported Monday that Syria has acquired an array of advanced Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles as part of a military build-up ahead of a possible war with the Jewish state. Syria currently has “the densest anti-aircraft deployment in the world,” Israel’s mass’selling Yediot Aharonot daily quoted a military source as saying. “Syria has purchased from the Russians the world’s most advanced surface-to-air missiles. This is the last word in plane interception technology. According to one estimate, the Syrians hold about 200 anti-aircraft batteries of different models … in an attempt to provide a response to the absolute superiority of the Israeli air force,” it said.

Army radio has also reported that Syria has acquired advanced weapons, including chemical warheads for surface-to’surface missiles.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has nevertheless refused to order the distribution of gas masks to civilians, fearing such a step would further escalate the heightened tensions between Israel and its northern neighbor, the report said, quoting sources in the military intelligence.

More at the Daily Star

Geezzzz…it never ends.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - With large swaths of the Gulf Coast still in ruins from Hurricane Katrina, rich federal tax breaks designed to spur rebuilding are flowing hundreds of miles inland to investors who are buying up luxury condos near the University of Alabama’s football stadium.

About 10 condominium projects are going up in and around Tuscaloosa, and builders are asking up to $1 million for units with granite countertops, king’size bathtubs and ‘Bama decor, including crimson couches and Bear Bryant wall art.

While many of the buyers are Crimson Tide alumni or ardent football fans not entitled to any special Katrina-related tax breaks, many others are real estate investors who are purchasing the condos with plans to rent them out.

And they intend to take full advantage of the generous tax benefits available to investors under the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, or GO Zone, according to Associated Press interviews with buyers and real estate officials.

The GO Zone contains a variety of tax breaks designed to stimulate construction in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. It offers tax-free bonds to developers to finance big commercial projects like shopping centers or hotels. It also allows real estate investors who buy condos or other properties in the GO Zone to take accelerated depreciation on their purchases when they file their taxes.

The GO Zone was drawn to include the Tuscaloosa area even though it is about 200 miles from the coast and got only heavy rain and scattered wind damage from Katrina.

More at the Sun Sentinel

Why do they deal with this prick at all? Reid should have done what he first said he’d do. Keep the Senate in “pro forma” session. But nooooooo……their vacation time is more important.

From TPM:

Perhaps a little wiser after seven months in the majority, Democrats have strategized to prevent the White House from utilizing some of its sneakier powers while Congress is in recess.

There’ll be no recess appointments this time around, Roll Call reports (sub. req.), meaning the White House won’t be taking advantage of Congress’ vacation to install any contested nominees. That’s due to a deal between Bush and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

Last recess, the White House made a number of controversial recess appointments, including Swift Boat backer Sam Fox as ambassador to Belgium. In order to prevent that sort of thing from happening again, Reid had plotted to keep the Senate in “pro forma” session during the recess — whereby the Senate floor personnel show up every three days to make it an official session. But now Reid and Bush have made a deal, according to Roll Call. Bush won’t make any recess appointments and Reid has promised to move some of his nominees when Senate gets back in session.

(more…)

The Honorable Alberto Gonzales
Attorney General
United States Department of Justice
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

Today, my staff was briefed by the Justice Department regarding guidelines to institute the new foreign to domestic wiretapping authority Congress granted to you this month by The Protect America Act.

Regrettably, my colleagues reported that they learned virtually nothing new about how you intend to use the broad new authority to intercept emails and phone calls when one party is in the U.S., or how those U.S. people will be protected from unwarranted government intrusion. With so much at stake, the public needs to have a fuller understanding of what its Justice Department will be doing with its most private communications.

(more…)

That’s what I’m talking about……..

From NowPublic.com

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-As many as 250 people gathered Saturday afternoon at the corner of Hwy. 22 and the Village Road to protest the war in Iraq and to decry Vice President Dick Cheney’s role in the four-and-a-half-year conflict.

Organized by Jackson Hole residents Jim Stanford, Walt Farmer and Karen Hogan, the event featured speeches by State Rep. Pete Jorgensen (D-Jackson), author Alexandra Fuller, attorney Kent Spence, and veteran war medic Nick Rowley, along with protest music by Phil Round, Derrik Hufsmith, Peter “Chanman” Chandler, Dick Barker and Carolyn Groves. Afterwards, demonstrators marched 1.4 miles down the Village Road pathway to the gates of the Teton Pines Country Club, where the Vice President owns a house and is currently vacationing.

“In this day and age it’s very easy to be jaded about politics,” said Stanford in his opening speech. “We don-t feel we can really trust the people that we send to Washington, D.C., to do the people’s business.”

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani continues to discard the moderate and liberal positions of his past. The latest is civil unions for same’sex couples, which the Republican presidential candidate has been backing away from in recent months.

A campaign aide told the Globe this weekend that Giuliani favors a much more modest set of rights for gay partners than civil union laws in effect in four states offer.

Giuliani has described himself as a backer of civil unions and is frequently described that way in news reports. But he began distancing himself from civil unions in late April, when his campaign told The New York Sun that New Hampshire’s new law goes too far because it is “the equivalent of marriage,” which he has always opposed for gays.

More at the Boston Globe

Like the dog that he is……..

Karl Rove may be leaving the White House, but Democrats on Capitol Hill still want to see him testify on at least one issue - the firing last year of nine U.S. attorneys - and possibly more.

Rove was subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee last month to testify on what he knew about the prosecutor purge, and when he knew it.

Citing executive privilege, the White House refused to make Rove available for public questioning, although White House counsel Fred Fielding did offer House and Senate Democrats a chance to talk to Rove about the firings, provided it was in private, no transcript was kept and the House and Senate Judiciary committees agreed not to subpoena him or any other top aides afterward. But Democratic congressional leaders declined the offer, saying it fell far short of their requests.

Two of Rove’s colleagues, Sara Taylor, former White House political director, and J. Scott Jennings, the deputy director, did testify, though they refused to answer any questions regarding Rove or his involvement in the dismissals.

More at Politico

WÃœRZBURG, GERMANY - No one looked comfortable at the sentencing hearing. Not family and friends who packed the US military courtroom’s straight-backed benches. Not the rookie Army prosecutor in stiff dress greens who flushed with every “Your Honor.” Not Judge R. Peter Masterton, whose usually animated face was now grave.

And not the convicted deserter - Army medic Agustín Aguayo - on the stand in a US military court in central Germany last March, pleading for understanding.

“I’m sorry for the trouble my conscience has caused my unit,” Private 1st Class Aguayo said, his voice thick with emotion. “I tried to obey the rules, but in the end [the problem] was at the very core of my being.”

Colonel Masterton, a veteran military judge, stared down at his bench. The defense wanted him to free this man of conscience. The prosecution asked that he put the coward away for two years to show other soldiers that “they are not fools for fulfilling their obligation.”

Aguayo craned to face the judge. “When I hear my sergeants talking about slashing people’s throats,” he said, crying openly, “if I’m not a conscientious objector, what am I when I’m feeling all this pain when people talk about violence?”

Next door in the press room, where reporters crowded to watch the proceedings on bleached, closed-circuit TVs, a soldier guarding the door wiped tears from his face.

More at the Christian Science Monitor