“No Llores”
Gloria Estefan, Carlos Santana, Sheila E., Jose Feliciano

This is from Gloria’s new CD, 90 Millas. You can purchase CD here

The Pentagon often has dragged its feet or refused to spend on safer equipment for US troops in Iraq, forcing the Congress to step in, a study published on Tuesday found.

The report published in USA Today came as a crucial report on the military situation is due within days in Washington.

Among many examples, the newspaper cited hesitance by US army officials to buy Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles despite eager requests from commanders in Iraq.

The acquisitions have become higher priorities since Robert Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld as defense chief in December more than two years after the first request from Marines in Iraq.

More at Yahoo News

A US civil rights group filed a lawsuit Tuesday demanding the American military release documents about civilians killed by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, accusing the government of trying to hide the human cost of war.

The American Civil Liberties Union’s legal move came after a request for documents related to civilian deaths under the country’s Freedom of Information laws was rebuffed by the US Navy, the Air Force and Marines. The US Army complied with the ACLU’s year-old request.

The group has already released thousands of documents obtained from the army showing compensation claims from families whose loved ones were killed by stray bullets or in traffic accidents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Tuesday, the ACLU released thousands of additional documents revealing court martial proceedings and military investigations in cases in which US soldiers were accused — and often acquitted — of killing civilians intentionally or through negligence.

More at YahooNews

By Mark Heinrich
Reuters

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s statement that Iran has 3,000 centrifuges running is not backed up by evidence, diplomats familiar with U.N. inspections said.

Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that Iran had 3,000 working centrifuges. With 3,000 centrifuges running smoothly in unison at supersonic speed for long periods, Iran could refine enough uranium for an atom bomb in about a year, nuclear experts say.

“There’s no evidence,” a diplomat said, when asked whether Iran had mastered the technology to get 3,000 centrifuges running effectively together.

Ahmadinejad’s statement also appeared at odds with findings by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors monitoring Iran’s underground Natanz plant.

The IAEA’s latest quarterly report on Iran, issued last Thursday, said almost 2,000 centrifuges were enriching uranium in tandem as of August 19, with about 650 in various stages of installation and testing.

Inspectors revisited the plant on Monday and found about 325 more centrifuges being hooked up, closing in on the 3,000 threshold, diplomats said on Tuesday.

But the initial 2,000 were operating well below capacity, the report said, suggesting Iran has some way to go before establishing an industrial rate of enrichment.

“Ahmadinejad may just be reflecting the number of centrifuges installed,” another diplomat close to the IAEA, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

“The 3,000 figure is symbolically important for Iran. Ahmadinejad is seizing on it to show his domestic public that the program has not bogged down … or buckled to U.N. pressure to stop,” a European diplomat said.

The plan to let Mexican trucks operate throughout the United States has prompted a war of words and legal papers between the Bush administration and Jim Hoffa, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Hoffa and his allies at the Sierra Club and Public Citizen have sued in federal court to stop the government from issuing permits to Mexican freight haulers. Their lawyers argued in court that Mexican trucks pose a danger on the roads and threaten increased human and drug smuggling.

“Dangerous trucks should not be driving all the way from Mexico to Maine and Minnesota,” said Hoffa in a prepared statement. “What is it about safety and national security that George Bush doesn’t understand?”

The government argued that stopping the trucks would unsettle a key trading partner in Mexico and delay U.S.trucks from operating south of the border. Officials insist that a lengthy pre-inspection of Mexican firms has resulted in strict safety standards and compliance with congressional mandates.

More at the Arizona Republic

By SCOTT SONNER
The Associated Press

RENO, Nev. - Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, who has cheated death time and again in his successful pursuit of aviation records, was missing Tuesday after taking off in a single-engine plane the day before to scout locations for a land’speed record, officials said.

Teams searched a broad swath of rugged terrain in western Nevada near the ranch where he took off, but searchers had little to go on because he apparently didn’t file a flight plan, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said.

“They are working on some leads, but they don’t know where he is right now,” FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said.

Fossett, the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon, was seeking places for an upcoming attempt to break the land speed record in a car, said Paul Charles, a spokesman for Sir Richard Branson, the U.K. billionaire who has financed many of Fossett’s adventures.

The 63-year-old took off alone at 8:45 a.m. Monday from an airstrip at hotel magnate Barron Hilton’s Flying M Ranch, about 70 miles southeast of Reno.

A friend reported him missing when he didn’t return, authorities said.

Thirteen aircraft were searching for Fossett in addition to ground crews, said Maj. Cynthia S. Ryan of the Civil Air Patrol. The teams were doing “grid” searches over hundreds of square miles.

“We are committing maximum resources to this effort,” she said. “As far as we know now, it is still a rescue mission.”

By Barry Brown
The Washington Times

TORONTO - A warm summer has produced a record melt of the polar ice cap, leaving the Northwest Passage clear enough for a sailboat to pass and prompting nations of the far north to assert claims over the Arctic Ocean seabed.

“The entire length of the Northwest Passage is navigable,” said Trudy Wohlleben, senior ice forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service, a government agency.

Ice usually blocks at least some parts of the passage, she said. “This melt is unprecedented, and it”s speeding up.”

The development threatens to accelerate long-frozen conflicts over security, sovereignty, environmental and economic conflicts among four powers with claims over the Arctic: the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Russia.

Russia said yesterday that 12 of its strategic bomber planes had begun a two-day exercise over the north of the country that was to include the firing of cruise missiles, the air force said.

All four Arctic powers have publicized their presence in the region this summer, the most dramatic being the planting of the Russian flag under the North Pole by a miniature submarine.

Beneath the Arctic Ocean floor are potentially vast resources, and Canada and the United States have a long’standing dispute over rights to the Northwest Passage, which joins the Atlantic and Pacific.

Mark Serreze, senior research scientist with the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, said all records for low levels of Arctic sea ice were shattered by mid-August.

“The Arctic is on a fast track of change, and the Arctic sea ice is on a death spiral. Both are moving faster than any of our previous models were telling us. We still don’t understand what’s happening up there,” he said.

Robert Huebert, associate director of the Canadian Center for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary, calls the trend troubling.

Canada’s claim of sovereign control over water passage rights through its Arctic archipelago has been disputed by U.S. officials who consider it “international waters.”

“Off the record, American officials understand from a security, alliance, partnership, historical perspective it would make imminent sense to work out some kind of understanding of Canadian control” over the Northwest Passage, he said.

But that would be seen as “backing down” to Canada and prompt other nations with coastlines that the U.S. considers strategic - such as Indonesia and Spain - to demand the same right.

In effect, the U.S. position allows any “North Korean or Chinese ship to sail through North American waters without asking anyone’s permission. From a national security perspective, that’s a mad policy,” Mr. Huebert said.

Yet because of U.S. pressure on this point, Canada doesn’t force ships entering Canadian waters to notify Canadian authorities.

“It’s like asking speeders on a highway to report themselves,” Mr. Huebert said.

Canada and the U.S. lag behind Russia in asserting northern control. This year, Russia commissioned the world’s only nuclear-powered icebreaker, and while Canadian and American icebreakers can reach the North Pole in summer, the Russian ship can get there “any time it wants,” Mr. Huebert said.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Tuesday denounced comedian Jerry Lewis’ use of the word “fag” on Lewis’ annual Labor Day Telethon for Muscular Dystrophy and called on him to apologize.

“Jerry Lewis’ on-air use of this kind of anti-gay slur is simply unacceptable,” GLAAD President Neil G. Giuliano said in a statement posted on the group’s Web site. “It also feeds a climate of hatred and intolerance that contributes to putting our community in harm’s way.”

In the 18th hour of the 21 1/2-hour telethon Monday, Lewis — bow tie undone and shirt collar open — stumbled around the set at the South Coast Hotel, Casino and Spa in Las Vegas, marveling at the cameraman’s ability to keep up with him.

Read more and watch video here

Gee Whoopi, it seems to me that Vick has been around the block a few hundred times. He travels the country continually, and he’s an adult. An adult who, at his age, should have known the difference between right and wrong……good and evil. And I’m guessing the majority of Americans, including those raised in the south, believe using dogs for dogfighting is wrong. No excuse for this. Period. So STFU.

JWhoopi Goldberg started her stint on ABC’s “The View” Tuesday by coming to the defense of convicted felon Michael Vick.

Just 15 minutes into the show she brought up Vick’s conviction on dogfighting charges.

“You know from his background this is not an unusual thing for where he comes from,” said Goldberg.

“There are certain things that are indicative to certain parts of our country.”

Co-host Joy Behar seemed shocked at Goldberg’s statements.

“How about dog torture and dog murdering,” Behar asked.

“Unfortunately it’s part of the thing,” Goldberg replied.

“You’re a dog lover. For a lot of people dogs are sport,” she added.

Behar continued to shake her head in disgust.

Goldberg said it seemed to her that it took a while for Vick to realize that the charges against him were serious.

“It seemed like a light went off in his head when he realized that this was something the entire country really didn’t appreciated, didn’t like,” Goldberg said, referring to Vick’s guilty plea.

More at WSBTV

From Firedoglake:

Last week, I detailed a bit of the background information that I have heard on the Southwick nomination to the 5th Circuit, and the SJC vote that allowed the nomination out of committee. After the piece went up here, I was contacted by no fewer than five sources - some on the Hill, some with contacts there - all of whom were telling me a very similar tale.

The story is this: Pat Leahy got snookered by Arlen Specter, into delaying the vote on Southwick so that the GOP leadership could work on Dianne Feinstein by playing to her ego. And Leahy fell for it - even though he had the votes to shut down the Southwick vote altogether back in July.

Why didn-t the SJC simply vote then, knowing that they could stop the Southwick nomination entirely? No clue. Really…no freaking clue.

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