The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees. 

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin compared the United States to a "frightening monster" on Friday and urged France to distance itself from its American ally. 

"How can one be such a shining example of democracy at home and a frightening monster abroad?" Putin said in an interview with French newspaper Le Monde transmitted live to journalists in Paris. 

Such is the relentlessness of Tony Blair's public immersion into matters of faith these days that Alastair Campbell's 'we don't do God' assertion in Downing Street has now been fully exposed for what it was: a skilful piece of diversionary spin. 

His American jailers spared Al-Ghizzawi the very worst of the worst in the long list of torture techniques now in use. He was not murdered or waterboarded. He did not have a razor blade taken to his penis, nor was he hung from the ceiling by his arms. One might describe Al-Ghizzawi's torture as a kinder, gentler torture. 

For years, scientists have had a straightforward idea for taming global warming. They want to take the carbon dioxide that spews from coal-burning power plants and pump it back into the ground. 

from Crikey ….. 

Bringing down Henson: Police, politicians and pester power join forces 

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan continued to press his case Thursday that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to justify the war in Iraq, and responded to a growing chorus of criticism from other former administration officials.

All those pundits out there who have been saying construction of the Gunns pulp mill is a foregone conclusion obviously forgot something. ANZ has pulled out of financing the controversial project.  

As President Bush’s press secretary, Scott McClellan was a dutiful practitioner of the swift, efficient and highly coordinated strategy the White House typically employs to take on Mr. Bush’s critics.  

from Crikey ….. 

Camden: a tale of cowardice and mortgage belt bigots 

Alex Mitchell writes:  

International Space Station astronauts are eagerly awaiting the arrival of shuttle Discovery - it is bringing a new pump to mend their broken toilet. The station's urine collection unit, as opposed to its solid waste unit, has been malfunctioning for several days.  

NASA said it thought a separator pump was at fault, and the three male crew members were operating it manually.  

Does Kevin Rudd have a butler?

Poor is the new rich. 

So 'Bare-Arse' Brendan Nelson and his shadow treasurer, Malcolm 'Totally Broke' Turnbull, did everything they could yesterday to expose Kevin 'Rolling In It' Rudd and Wayne 'Squillionaire' Swan as mean and out of touch. 

The Pentagon's core budget – already a staggering $300 billion when George W. Bush took the presidency – has almost doubled while he's been parked behind the big desk in the Oval Office. For fiscal year 2009, the regular Pentagon budget will total roughly $541 billion (including work on nuclear warheads and naval reactors at the Department of Energy).  

It is not news that the United States is in great trouble.

The pre-emptive war it launched against Iraq more than five years ago was and is a mistake of monumental proportions—one that most Americans still fail to acknowledge. Instead they are arguing about whether we should push on to “victory” when even our own generals tell us that a military victory is today inconceivable.