This is yet another of those sneaky programs blindly authorized under the screaming banner of "homeland security." It has received practically no mass-media coverage, but I'm sure you'll be excited to learn that the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) sets up a whole new surveillance program to defend you and yours from a rather odd national security threat: terrorist chickens. And terrorist cows, horses, pigs, sheep, llamas ... and so on. Advanced under the benign guise of protecting public health from outbreaks of animal-borne diseases, this program is intended to tag and track every farm animal in America from birth to death.

Israel, US Shared Data On Suspected Nuclear Site

Bush Was Told of North Korean Presence in Syria, Sources Say

Israel's decision to attack Syria on Sept. 6, bombing a suspected nuclear site set up in apparent collaboration with North Korea, came after Israel shared intelligence with President Bush this summer indicating that North Korean nuclear personnel were in Syria, U.S. government sources said.

President Bush today called on Congress to make permanent a law that gives the government broad authority to eavesdrop without warrants on phone calls, e-mail and other communication between people in the United States and suspected terrorists abroad.

The president wants Congress to extend the law, set to expire in February, that allows spy agencies to intercept the communications of suspected terrorists that pass through U.S. switching facilities.

Nullarbor set to have world's biggest golf course

The Federal Government has agreed to fund what is set to become the world's biggest golf course.

The 18 hole course stretches 1,300 kilometres across the Nullarbor Plain between Kalgoorlie and Ceduna in South Australia.

It will also provide historical information at each hole.

Pope 'refused audience for Rice'

Pope Benedict XVI refused a recent request by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss the Middle East and Iraq, Vatican sources say.

The Pope refused a request for an audience during the August holidays.

Senior Vatican sources told the BBC the Pope does not normally receive politicians on his annual holiday at the Castelgandolfo residence near Rome.

The Bush Republicans with complicit Democrats have essentially brought government accountability to an end in the US. The US government has 80,000 people, including ordinary American citizens, on its “no-fly list.” No one knows why they are on the list, and no one on the list can find out how to get off it. An unaccountable act by the Bush administration put them there.

Americans are notoriously good at moving on, which tends to amount to turning our backs on the messes we’ve made, and averting our noses from the stench of what our government likes to call foreign policy. Currently that government is taking pains to assure us that the mess in Iraq is improving, and hinting heavily that we lend our attention to the fresh hydra’s head of Iran. Time to move on. The President’s troop "surge" is doing the trick, Eden is just around the corner, the war really was the grand idea it was always billed to be.

from Crikey

The Fed bails out the fat and the dodgy. And Wall Street

Glenn Dyer writes …..

Excuse me for being cynical, but the US Fed's 0.50% cut on the button overnight was nothing but a bail out of Wall Street urgers, dodgy London and European financiers and fat, complacent Australian banks.

Gen. David Petraeus' report to Congress and President Bush's nationally televised address have had little impact on Americans' distaste for the Iraq war and their desire to withdraw U.S. troops, polls show.

Fifty-four percent still favor bringing the troops home as soon as possible, a measurement that has not changed in months, according to a poll released Tuesday by the non-partisan Pew Research Center.

Rice returns to Middle East talks

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is on her way to Jerusalem in another attempt to restart the stalled Middle East peace process.

Ms Rice is due to hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The US is also giving financial assistance to build up the Palestinian Authority president's security forces.

In 2003, University of Lausanne theology professor Thomas Römer received a telephone call from the Elysée. Jacques Chirac's advisers wanted to know more about Gog and Magog ... two mysterious names pronounced by George W. Bush while he was attempting to convince France to enter the war in Iraq at his side. In its September edition, the University of Lausanne's review, Allez savoir, reveals this story that could seem fantastic did it not, as Allez savoir's Editor-in-Chief Jocelyn Rochat emphasizes, reveal the religious underpinnings of Bush's policy.

The Iraqi government Monday ordered Blackwater USA, the security firm that protects U.S. diplomats, to stop work and leave the country after the fatal shooting of eight Iraqi civilians following a car bomb attack against a State Department convoy.

The order by the Interior Ministry, if carried out, would deal a severe blow to U.S. government operations in Iraq by stripping diplomats, engineers, reconstruction officials and others of their security protection.