Saddam's Execution

BREAKING...VIDEO!

WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES for MATURE EYES ONLY!!

Saddam Hussein's execution captured via video phone--

(Click here & Watch courtsey of Pandachute.com)

Woodward: 'Ford Pardoned Nixon out of Friendship'

BREAKING....NEWS!!!

By BOB WOODWARD
Washington Post Staff Writer

Filed 12.29.06

Months before Richard M. Nixon set a relatively unknown Michigan congressman named Gerald R. Ford on the path to the White House, Nixon turned to Ford, who called himself the embattled president's "only real friend," to get him out of trouble.

During one of the darkest days of the Watergate scandal, Nixon secretly confided in Ford, at the time the House minority leader. He begged for help. He complained about fair-weather friends and swore at perceived rivals in his own party. "Tell the guys, goddamn it, to get off their ass and start fighting back," Nixon pleaded with Ford in one call recorded by the president's secret taping system.

(Click & Read on courtsey of The Washington Post)

Photo Captions & Credits: "Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, shown in October 1973, were friends as much as political allies" via United Press International

Saddam may hang within hours: senior Iraqi source

BREAKING...NEWS!!!

By REUTERS

Filed 12.29.06, 1:04 PM ET

BAGHDAD(Reuters) - Saddam Hussein could be hanged within hours, a senior Iraqi source told Reuters on Friday after Saddam's lawyer said U.S. forces had handed over the former president to Iraqi authorities for execution.

"Things have changed in the past three hours. There were some issues ... and now that is resolved so it seems it's possible he may be hanged tonight," the source, who is in a senior position of authority, said after a day of confusion.

However, the start of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha on Saturday raised the possibility of a delay until after the week-long holiday is over, he added: "It's not certain," he said.

(Click & Read on courtsey of Reuters)

James Brown Honored in Harlem

By The Village Voice

Filed 12.28.06

Thousands of New Yorkers sang and danced in the cold Thursday to give James Brown a final goodbye. The Godfather of Soul died over Christmas at age 73. Early yesterday morning, a white carriage pulled by two horses brought Brown's body to the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

By noon, hundreds of visitors had arrived; thousands more would come before nightfall. Record stores along 125th Street blasted Brown's hard funk into the chill air. I stood in circle of people, watching a homeless woman flap her knees as we whooped and hollered. A man joined her, then another until we stopped watching, stepped in, and rode Brown's rhythms with our hips, grinning wildly.

(Click & Read on courtsey of The Village Voice)

Photo Captions & Credits: "Mourners for James Brown during services in Harlem, NY Thursday" by Cary Conover for The Village Voice

Ex-Prez Gerald Ford dead, Putting an End to Watergate

By BOB WOODWARD
Washington Post Staff Writer

Filed 12.27.06; 12:16 PM

On Sunday, Sept. 8, 1974, President Ford attended church alone. He sat by himself in a pew at St. John's Episcopal Church on Lafayette Square. He took Holy Communion.

Back at the White House at 11:05 a.m., he went on television to announce that he had decided to pardon Richard Nixon for any crimes he might have committed during Watergate.

(Click & Read on courtsey of The Washington Post)

How Bush can make Iraq disappear:It's not as easy as 'Presto!' but the president just yet may be able to use his magic touch on Iraq.

A freely available OPINION

By ROSA BROOKS
LA Times

Filed 12.22.06

NO ONE LOVES HIM.

His favorability ratings in the U.S. are lower than they've ever been, and our closest allies, the British, think he poses a greater danger to world peace than either President Kim Jong Il of North Korea or President Mamoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. His party has lost its congressional majority, the Iraq Study Group declared his Iraq policies a failure and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are reported to unanimously oppose his plan for a "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Rummy's gone, the tabloids have claimed that Laura's filing for divorce, and some say that even Barney the dog no longer wants to talk to him. George W. Bush has a problem, and it's called Iraq, the country that just won't go away. There's no satisfying way to solve this problem either.

(Click & Read on courtsey of The Los Angeles Times)

Nonprofit Connects Murtha, Lobbyists

By JONATHAN WEISMAN
Washington Post Staff Writer

Filed 12.25.06

For a quarter of a century, Carmen Scialabba labored for Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), helping parcel out the billions of dollars that came through the House Appropriations Committee, so when the disabled aide needed a favor, Murtha was there.

In 2001, Murtha announced the creation of Scialabba's nonprofit agency for the disabled in Johnstown, Pa. The next year, with Scialabba still on his staff, Murtha secured a half-million dollars for the group, the Pennsylvania Association for Individuals With Disabilities (PAID), and put another $150,000 in the pipeline for 2003, according to appropriations committee records and former committee aides. Since then, the group has helped hundreds of disabled people find work.

(Click & Read on courtsey of The Washington Post)

Photo Captions & Credits: "Congressman John Murtha (D-Pa.)" on-line stock photo

Homeless on the range

By GIL BRADY
Star-Tribune correspondent

Filed 12.21.06

JACKSON -- Before the resorts and the subdivisions came, old paintings suggest, all you had to do was head west to find these people pulling calves or guarding small herds on horseback -- sturdy wanderers roaming the open range like blackbirds on buffalo.

Then the ranchers and developers squeezed the free-rangers out, until someone got the bright idea to hang their likeness in galleries, or immortalize them on license plates and on billboards selling cigarettes.

Recently, movies and cable TV became places where you could pay to watch them -- tending sheep, having love affairs, and riding bulls for big bucks. But it’s getting harder and harder to find a cowboy in the Cowboy State without somehow paying for it.

However, if you had hung around federal court here recently, you could have seen one raising hell for nothing.

A homeless man, found guilty in November of letting his horses damage forest vegetation and shed their waste near waterways, was sentenced last week to nine months' probation, ordered to keep his livestock off national forests until next fall, and pay $105 in court costs.

(Click & Read on courtsey of the Casper Star-Tribune)

Photo Captions & Credits: "Terry & Pan, Teton Valley, WY, near Idaho border" by Gil Brady for The Cowboy Times.

*Correction: Amrein's probation sentence was 1 year, unsupervised, not 9 months as stated above.

"NUTS": Does Eco-Emotionalism have Grizzlies on the Run?

A freely available Investigative Opinion

By TERRY AMREIN
Range Magazine

Winter 2006

Grizzly bear habitat ranges from southeast North Dakota westward to the California coastal foothills. But today the species' recovery area centers in and around Yellowstone National Park. Exact boundaries of the recovery zones are difficult to determine. Around the park is an area defined as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The management inside and outside the park reflects starkly different perspectives.

(Click & Read on courtsey of Range Magazine)

Teen 'boarder to spend XMAS in slammer

BREAKING...NEWS!

By NOAH BRENNER
JH News & Guide

Filed 12.22.06

A snowboarder who killed skier Heather Donahue in a 2005 accident at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort will spend the holidays in the Teton County Jail.

Greg Doda, 18, of Crownsville, Md., had pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide, a misdemeanor, and received a one-year sentence Wednesday with six months suspended and the remaining six months stayed.

(Click & Read on courtsey of JH News & Guide)

Fear and Hope in Immigrant’s Furtive Existence

A tale of Three Sisters

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
The New York Times

Filed 12.20.06

SAN ANTONIO — Verónica keeps her foot steady on the pedal. She turns onto a side street, where trouble is easier to avoid. A yellow traffic light flashes and she stops; running it is not an option.

Verónica, 31, does not take chances. In her mind, she already took the biggest chance of her life by moving here illegally from Monterrey, Mexico, with a husband and three young children. Now she has too much to lose.

(Click & Read on courtsey of The New York Times)

Photo Captions & Credits: "Verónica, a Mexican immigrant who lives and works illegally in San Antonio, is constantly on the alert" by Monica Almeida for The New York Times.

Violent Crimes on Rise, Especially in West, an F.B.I. Report Says

BREAKING....NEWS!

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
The New York Times

Filed 12.19.06

HOUSTON, Dec. 18 — Driven by a surge in robberies, violent crimes nationwide rose 3.7 percent for the first half of 2006, with the West leading the increase, the F.B.I. reported Monday. But property crime was down 2.6 percent.

Robberies reported to the authorities were up 9.7 percent, murders were up 1.4 percent and arson was up 6.8 percent, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in its summary. Rape was largely unchanged.

Reflecting a surge in crime in Texas after the dislocations of Hurricane Katrina, Houston recorded a sharp increase in homicides, to 202 for the first half of 2006, up from 158 in the comparable prestorm period last year. Three Texas cities ranked among the nation’s top 10 in crimes per capita.

(Click & Read on courtsey of The New York Times)

Study: Wyo Ag paid $48 mill in taxes

By the ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed 12.18.06

LARAMIE - Wyoming's agriculture industry pays more than $48 million in state and local taxes, according to a study compiled by the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation.

"On average each operation is paying over $5,000 worth of taxes to run the state and local governments," Brett Moline, Wyoming Farm Bureau Director of Public and Government Affairs, said.

The organization used data from the 2002 Census of Agriculture in its study to show the impact of agriculture has on the state's economy.

(Click & Read on courtsey of the Casper Star-Tribune)

Photo Captions & Credits: "Baby Cows" courtsey of 'Travel Blog'

Man Given Costume Option for Slaying Dog

Another oddball Sunny-Times tail from around the wonderous and crazy United States

Filed 12. 17. 06

PAINESVILLE, Ohio - A man who shot his Great Dane in the head may have his jail sentence reduced if he dresses up as a dog.

Municipal Judge Michael Cicconetti offered Thursday to cut Robert M. Clark's sentence to 10 days in jail if he wears a Safety Pup costume and visits the city's five elementary schools. The mascot educates children about issues ranging from traffic safety to drug abuse.

Clark, 38, pleaded no contest to an animal cruelty charge and was sentenced to 180 days in jail for shooting his dog.

(Click & Read on courtsey of the Casper Star-Tribune)

Is Old Faithful Ready to Blow? Domes rising in Yellowstone

By MIKE STARK
Billings Gazette

Filed 12.15.06

BILLINGS, Mont.-- Parts of the collapsed, restless volcano inYellowstone National Park are swelling faster than has ever been recorded.

Geologists from the University of Utah say two domes inside the Yellowstone caldera have steadily inflated at two to three times the rate as some of the most rapid movements recorded between 1923 and 1984.

(Click & Read on courtsey of the Casper Star-Tribune)

Not out of the Woods yet: proposal changes wolf boundaries

By JARED MILLER
Star-Tribune capital bureau

Filed 12.15.06
CHEYENNE—Hoping to end the standoff over Wyoming's wolf management plan, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has quietly suggested what it hopes is a compromise solution.

The plan would alter somewhat the boundaries of the wolf management area in northwest Wyoming, while allowing the state to maintain a controversial provision to manage wolves as predators in most of the state.

(Click & Read on courtsey of the Casper Star-Tribune)

Photo Captions & Credits: "A Yellowstone wolf walks past a thermal pond on Mary Bay, along the north shore of Yellowstone Lake." By Jim Laybourn, Star-Tribune correspondent.

Jefferson's win after scandal big headache for Pelosi

By Charles Babington and Allan Lengel
Washington Post Staff Writers

Filed 12.12.06

House Democratic leaders, who have vowed to run a more ethical Congress, are struggling with how to respond to the reelection of Rep. William J. Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat whose Washington home freezer once held $90,000 in alleged bribe money.

Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), poised to be the next speaker, stripped Jefferson of his seat on the influential Ways and Means Committee in June and has hinted that she may place him on no committee when the 110th Congress convenes next month. But a source close to Pelosi said yesterday that she is more likely to place him on a lower-profile committee and hope the controversy dies down.

(Click & Read on courtsey of The Washington Post)

Caption & Credit: "Dollar Bill Jefferson (D-LA)" artwork by audacious

Forbes Magazine CENSORS Poverty-fighting Nobel Laureate Winner!

BREAKING...FORBES EDITS NOBEL LAUREATE'S CRITIQUE OF GLOBALIZATION!

Nobel Laureate Economist Muhammad Yunus Hopes Award Will Inspire Others to Fight Poverty

By KARL RITTER
The Associated Press

Filed 12.10.06

"To me, globalization is like a hundred-lane highway crisscrossing the world," the Nobel-Prize Winner said. "If it is a free-for-all highway, its lanes will be taken over by the giant trucks from powerful economies. Bangladeshi rickshaws will be thrown off the highway."

"Rule of 'strongest takes it all' must be replaced by rules that ensure that the poorest have a place and piece of the action, without being elbowed out by the strong," he said.

(Click Here & Read ABC/AP unedited version)

(Click Here & Read Forbes' edit of the AP)

Photo Captions & Credits: "Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, right, receives his medal and diploma from Nobel Committee Chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes at City Hall in Oslo, Norway Sunday Dec. 10, 2006." Yunus said he hoped the award would inspire "bold initiatives" to fight poverty and eradicate the root causes of terrorism. (AP Photo/John McConnico)

McJob Growth Still...Good!

By JAMES PETHOKOUKIS
U.S News & World Report

Filed 12.08.06

Housing and autos may be in the dumps, but the rest of the U.S. economy seems to be holding up just fine, adding 132,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs in November.

Breaking things down: The service sector added 172,000 jobs last month, according to a preliminary Labor Department report (PDF), while construction lost 29,000 and manufacturing lost 15,000. Of those departed construction jobs, more than half were related to real estate. Some 7,000 auto-related jobs disappeared as well.

(Click & Read on courtsey of U.S. News & World Report)

Senator says Iraq war may be "criminal"

By MATTHEW DALY
The Associated Press

Filed 12.08.06, 1:03 p.m. PT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Gordon Smith, who voted in favor of the Iraq war and has supported it ever since, now says the current U.S. war effort is "absurd" and "may even be criminal."

In a major speech on the Senate floor, the Oregon senator called for changes in U.S. policy that could include rapid pullouts of U.S. troops from Iraq. He said he would have never voted for the conflict if he had known the intelligence that President Bush gave the American people was inaccurate.

(Click & Read on courtsey of News Flash)

A mess Team W can't fix

A freely available opinion

BY Col. LAWRENCE B. WILKERSON
SPECIAL TO THE NY DAILY NEWS

Filed 12.08.06

No miracles will occur.

Whether this declaration flows from a White House assessment of the work of the Iraq Study Group or from the leaders of that group themselves declaring their lack of angelic qualities, it is an accurate description. There will be no miracles in Iraq to save President Bush from America's failure there.

(Click & Read on courtsey of The Daily News)

Photo Captions & Credits: "Workers clean away human remains and blood after car-bombing in Iraq" via reality-based, on-line stock footage

Will: 'Iraq study group made irrelevant by reality'

A freely available opinion

By GEORGE F. WILL
The Washington Post

Filed 12.07.06

The Iraq Study Group, like the policy it was created to critique, was overtaken by the unexpectedly rapid crumbling of the U.S. position in Iraq since the ISG was formed in March. The deterioration was manifested in last week's misbegotten summit between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which made brutally clear how difficult it will be to apply even the ISG's temperate recommendations to the deteriorating reality.

(Click & Read on courtsey of The Washington Post)

Spence busts feds for $2M, then NAGS them

By ANGUS M. THUERMER, Jr.
JH News & Guide

Filed 12.06.06

Fresh from winning a $2 million settlement in a suit against the FBI for wrongly tying an Oregon lawyer to the Madrid bombing case, Jackson Hole attorney Gerry Spence warned Tuesday of growing fascism in America.

(Click & Read on courtsey of the N & G)

Photo Captions & Credits: "Mr. Gunning for Justice himself, Gerry Spence" courtsey of on-line stock & one very, very brave photographer.

Veep's gay daughter 'prego,' ah..."huh"?

By The ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed 12.06.06

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Mary Cheney, the openly gay daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, is pregnant.

Mary Cheney, 37, and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, 45, are expecting a baby, said Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for the vice president. The baby is due in late spring.

"The vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of their sixth grandchild," McBride said.

(Click & Read on courtsey of the Casper Star-Tribune)

Iraq study group verdict: 'Mess-o-potamia'

By WILLIAM BRANIGIN, JOSH WHITE and ROBIN WRIGHT
Washington Post Staff Writers

Filed 12.06.06; 2:10 PM EST

Conditions in Iraq are "grave and deteriorating," with the prospect that a "slide toward chaos" could topple the U.S.-backed government and trigger a regional war unless the United States changes course and seeks a broader diplomatic and political solution involving all of Iraq's neighbors, according to a bipartisan panel that gave its recommendations to President Bush and Congress today.

(Click & Read on courtsey of The Washington Post)

Photo Captions & Credits: Co-chairmen of Iraq Study Group, former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, right, and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, hold a news conference. (Reuters)

Man catches thief

By JOHN MORGAN
Star-Tribune staff writer

Filed 12.05.06

Bill Jacobs was coming out of his house early this morning on his way to work when he saw a man breaking into his car.

According to an affidavit from the Casper Police Department, Jacobs walked up to his car, set his coffee mug on the roof and grabbed the man.

(Click & Read on courtsey of the Casper Star-Tribune)

Gates Says U.S. 'Screwing Up' in Iraq

BREAKING...VIDEO!

By WILLIAM BRANIGIN and DEBBI WILGOREN
Washington Post Staff Writers

Filed 12.05.06; 12:26 PM EST

Robert M. Gates, President Bush's nominee to be the next secretary of defense, told a Senate confirmation hearing today that "all options are on the table" in dealing with the situation in Iraq, and he said he does not believe that U.S. forces currently are winning the war there.

(Click & Read on courtsey of The Washington Post)

Is China your daddy?

By RICK NEWMAN
U.S. News & World Report

Filed 12.4.06

Every economist will tell you that China's surging economic growth has a direct effect on U.S. consumers. But how, exactly? Sure, cheap Chinese imports help lower our shopping bills. But Communist Party ministers in Beijing also touch the average American through more abstruse things, like what they do with foreign-exchange reserves and currency valuations.

(Click & Read on courtsey of U.S. News & World Report)

Spy who killed me letters reveal little love in 'secret hit squad'

By PRESS ASSOCIATION

Filed 12.1.06 12:13 PM

Detectives are investigating letters smuggled out of Russia purporting to show the existence of a secret squad set up to target poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko and others.

Scotland Yard has been passed copies of two letters apparently penned in jail by former Russian intelligence officer Mikhail Trepashkin, in one of which Mr Litvinenko is warned that both he and hisfamily are at risk.

(Click & Read on courtsey of the Guardian Unlimited)

Photo Captions & Credits: "Poisoned Kremlin critic and former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko days before he died" courtsey of on-line stock