‘Gordon Brown yesterday moved to announce himself as the pre-eminent figure in British politics, forcing Tony Blair to break his silence on the execution of Saddam Hussein and issuing what amounts to a scathing criticism of the Prime Minister's foreign policy.

‘Telephone logs recorded by the National Security Agency and obtained by Congress as part of an ongoing investigation suggest that the vice president may have used the Oval Office intercom system to address President Bush at crucial moments, giving categorical directives in a voice the president believed to be that of God.

‘After six years of spending the American taxpayers' money like an overindulged, forever prepubescent Ivy League frat boy on spring break with his Daddy's credit card; George W. Bush has decided that he has a plan to "balance the budget by 2012."

Let's keep in mind that this is the guy who put together "the plan" - the "victory strategy" - for Iraq and, following Hurricane Katrina, the recovery plan for the Gulf Coast. In other words, if Bush decides to stick with his plan to balance the budget by 2012 and Democrats are goofy enough to go along with his foolishness - the deficit will double by 2008.

‘Not long before Christmas Day 2002, a young man was being held in a US facility known as the Bagram Collection Point, in Afghanistan. Like many other Afghan nationals, he had only one name: Dilawar.

He led a simple, quiet life. He had a wife, a young daughter, and one friend. He was 22 years old, and weighed only 122 pounds. He had become a cab driver because he couldn't feed his family as a farmer anymore.

‘Energy will be a central theme of President George W. Bush's state of the union speech this month, as it was in last year's address when he briefly caught national attention with the claim that the country was "addicted to oil".

But his critics doubt that he will do much more than call for more spending on alternative fuels, and again fail to embrace international efforts to agree a post-Kyoto regime to tackle greenhouse emissions.

from the Center for American Progress …..

‘CNN reports that President Bush is "expected to announce his new Iraq strategy in an address to the nation early next week." According to the BBC, "The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq." The Pentagon is already drafting plans "extending U.S. military units already in Iraq and moving troops from other locations" in anticipation of the announcement. One thing that hasn't been decided: what the extra troops would do in the middle of a civil war. The BBC reports "The exact mission of the extra troops in Iraq is still under discussion." Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) says Bush's plan for escalation in Iraq is "Alice in Wonderland," adding, "I'm absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq. It is folly."

‘There is simply no way to understand the reign of Saddam Hussein, nor the past few decades of Iraq's history, without including the very real and important role that the United States has played in shaping these realities.

The reason that tens of thousands of American soldiers have been killed and maimed – and that hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been slaughtered, and millions more plunged into hellish suffering – is because this history has been buried, perverted, ignored or forgotten.

bush issues new year’s resolutions for 2007 –

vows to Invite hugo chavez to lunch at taco bell …..

In an unprecedented televised address to the nation last night, President George W. Bush announced a list of his New Year’s resolutions for 2007, telling the American people, “I am a big believer in abiding by resolutions, as long as they don’t come from the United Nations.”

‘As George Bush hacked down brushwood and rode his bike at his Crawford ranch this weekend, he gave the impression of a US president little preoccupied by two Iraq milestones that complicate his deliberations on a change of strategy.

The first, the hanging of Saddam Hussein, found Mr Bush asleep, and according to advisers he spent only a short time discussing the execution. The second, the reports of the 3,000th US fatality in Iraq, evinced only a general remark.

‘….. and the remaining population were loaded on to ships, allowed to take only one suitcase. They left behind their homes and furniture, and their lives. On one journey in rough seas, the copra company's horses occupied the deck, while women and children were forced to sleep on a cargo of bird fertilizer.

The Editor,

Sydney Morning Herald. December 30, 2006.

Man of steel, John Howard, reckons he’d be happy to live next door to a nuclear reactor (‘PM bets house on uranium’, Herald, December 30).

‘Tony Blair's Christmas holiday sparked controversy yesterday after it emerged that the Prime Minister was staying in the Florida mansion of rock star Robin Gibb, who just weeks ago lobbied the government to beef up musicians' rights.

It emerged that Mr Blair would be staying at the £5.8 million home of Gibb, a singer with the band the Bee Gee's and a leading voice of the British Academy of Composers and Song Writers.

Nearly four years after US led forces invaded Iraq & jughead junior declared victory, the US has experienced its worst month of casualties all year …..

With three days left in December, 109 service members have died, according to figures provided by the military & news releases of combat deaths.

The total number of US military deaths in the Iraq war stands at 2,983: a tragic statistic that, nevertheless, pales to insignificance when compared to the carnage wrought against more than 650,000 innocent Iraqis.

‘In today’s America there appear to be several articles of faith on which people will brook no debate: One is that the U.S. military, the most destructive organizational force in human history, is capable of crushing any and all resistance. This faith is, of course, false. U.S. forces in the Middle East are failing not due to a shortage of destructive might, but because of the limits imposed by the moral level of action.