Saddam Risked His Life for WMD Secrets

The Washington Post reports on a story leaked to Spain's El Pais about a meeting between President Bush and the former Spanish president Jose Maria Aznar weeks ahead of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It's interesting to note how Bush discusses Saddam's signals that he might accept exile from Iraq.

El Pais provides the Spanish language transcript here. And here's Bush on the chances that Saddam Hussein might choose exile instead of war [translation mine]:

...The Egyptians are talking to Saddam Hussein. It seems he's indicated that he'd be ready to go into exile if he's allowed to take $1 billion dollars and all the information he wants about weapons of mass destruction. Gaddafi has told Berlusconi that Saddam Hussein wants to leave. Mubarak tells us that in that case, there's a strong possibility that he'd be assassinated.
Read More

We are not trying to win the elections, we are trying to have elections

The main goal of Russian foreign policy is to raise the oil price, no matter what - that's why the tensions in the Middle East are so important to Putin Read More

Hungary issues entrepreneurial permits to prostitutes

In an effort to bring prostitutes into the legal economy, officials said Monday that Hungary will allow sex workers to apply for an entrepreneur's permit - a move that could generate government revenues from an industry worth an estimated $1 billion annually.Read More

Acupuncture helps back pain, don't ask how

Acupuncture provided twice as many patients relief from lower back pain as did conventional drug and exercise therapy, which German researchers said on Monday might point to a "superplacebo" effect. Read More

Worshipers Of A Bloodthirsty God

Humans are clearly well-suited to some economic, political, and religious systems and not to others. Some systems--such as Islamic jihadism with its recycled socialist and communist politics -- are nothing more than a Procrustean bed of torture, as they try to adjust human nature to fit their "perfect" religion and the will of their bloodthirsty god.

In every case where totalitarian ideologies are put in place, whether they are religious or not, the result has been either catastrophic human misery and death (when the ideology is applied ruthlessly and viciously) or stagnation and decay (when applied nonchalantly and accepted passively).Read More

The War on Terror: The German Front

Although praise for the United States occurs very seldom in anti-American Western Europe, it was different in Germany last week. Unreported by most media outlets, the largest potential terrorist attack on German soil since the Second World War that saw three men arrested, two of them German converts to Islam, was thwarted with considerable American help. Read More

Walmart Flipflop Checmical Burning Case Reported

The story of the burnt foot from flip-flops confirmed my Fear that I had suffered a Chemical Burnt from a Black Flip Flop, bought at Walmarts too. Unfortunately three doctors have not yet identified why I suddenly developed dried, Cracked skin under my booth feet and on the sides. Read More

Are Democrats Tough Enough To Be President Of The United States

If you're not tough enough to repudiate a scurrilous, outrageous attack such as that (on General Petraeus), then I don't know how you're tough enough to be President of the United States. Read More

Battleground Europe

The Continent is a front line in the war on terror, whether its people know it or not. Read More

Terrorism the main challenge to Europe

In a sign that Europeans are increasingly nervous about their vulnerability to terrorism, a recent survey by the German Marshall Fund of the United States showed a sharp increase in the number of Germans who fear international terrorism.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Europeans are increasingly worried about terrorism.

The survey said that 70 percent of Germans felt they might suffer a terror attack, a 32 percent increase over 2005. That brings the fear of terror among Germans close to the level of fear among Americans, which stood at 74 percent in a similar survey

On Wednesday, a report by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) gave further cause for concern.

The growth of international terrorism will remain one of the main challenges for 2008 after the recent discovery of terrorism plots in Europe, the report said. Read More

Kelly's general theory of scandal relativity

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Jack Kelly has a bang-up column occasioned by the resignation of Senator Craig. Both Kelly and the Post-Gazette deserve some kind of special recognition for letting these reflections see the light of day in the hard copy of a mainstream newspaper: [M]edia bias is not the main reason why Republicans suffer more from scandals. Democratic voters expect Democrats to steal on their behalf. Lawmakers are judged on the basis of how many goodies from the federal treasury they can shower on their constituents. The typical Democratic voter doesn't mind terribly if their senator or congressman takes something for himself along the way. (Time Magazine's story on Rep. [Alan] Mollohan's re-election was headlined, "Pork Trumps Scandal.")Read More

Dumping Immigrants

The nationalist Swiss People's Party is proposing a deportation policy that anti-racism campaigners say evokes Nazi-era practices. Under the plan, entire families would be expelled if their children are convicted of a violent crime, drug offenses or benefits fraud. Read More

By Karl Rove

The Long View - Advisory thoughts on the 43rd president. - The Washington Post scorned President Truman as a "spoilsman" who “underestimated the people's intelligence." New York Times columnist James Reston wrote off President Eisenhower as "a tired man in a period of turbulence." At the end of President Reagan’s second term, the New York Times dismissed him as "simplistic" and a "lazy and inattentive man." Read More

America Has 90 Guns Per 100 People

Read More

America: exporting high wages abroad

And China has labor shortages!
Read More

Islam Misunderstood in Korea Due to Hostage Crisis

Read More

The Real Public Servants

If the world was a fair place, the sump-pumpers and bilge-bailers of this world would make as much as a Congressman. They do more for the public good than both houses of Congress. Read More

We have broken speed of light

A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light - an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time. Read More

Amber Baby Teething Necklaces

Eastern Europeans believe that amber has curative powers. One of the ways that they use it is to help babies in the teething process. Amber baby teething necklaces are extensively used. You never know. Look at
Amber Teething Necklaces

Global Conspiracy!

Inside Iran, some see global conspiracy to keep international opinion in the dark about what is really happening in the Islamic Republic. They ask: Why is it that world media representatives in Iran never interview any of the thousands of trade unionists, teachers' leaders, journalists, student activists, women's-lib militants and dissident intellectuals? Why is the brutal repression in several provinces, which has already claimed scores of lives, never covered on the spot? Read More