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Cheney Criticized for Attire at Auschwitz Ceremony

"The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower," Robin Givhan, The Washington Post's fashion writer.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney raised eyebrows on Friday for wearing an olive-drab parka, hiking boots and knit ski cap to represent the United States at a solemn ceremony remembering the liberation of Auschwitz.

Other leaders at the event in Poland on Thursday marking the 60th anniversary of the death camp's liberation, such as French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin, wore dark, formal overcoats and dress shoes or boots.

"The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower," Robin Givhan, The Washington Post's fashion writer, wrote in the newspaper's Friday editions.

Between the somber, dark-coated leaders at the outdoor ceremony sat Cheney, resplendent in a green parka embroidered with his name and featuring a fur-trimmed hood, the laced brown boots and a knit ski cap reading "Staff 2001."

"And, indeed, the vice president looked like an awkward boy amid the well-dressed adults," Givhan wrote.

Britain's Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph newspapers also both noted that Cheney had opted for casual attire.

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Insult to injury
Some wounded soldiers back from Iraq are having to pay for meals at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Veterans' groups say it's another symptom of fighting a costly war on the cheap.

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By Mark Benjamin

Jan. 27, 2005  |  WASHINGTON -- Most patients at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington have a lot on their minds: the war they just fought, the injuries they came home with, the future that lies ahead. The last thing a wounded soldier needs to worry about is where the next meal is coming from. But for hundreds of Walter Reed patients, that's a real concern. Starting this month, the Army has started making some wounded soldiers pay for the food they eat at the hospital.

Paying out of pocket for hospital meals can impose a serious financial burden, costing hundreds of dollars every month. That can be a lot of money to a military family. But perhaps worse, the meal charge feels like an ungrateful slap in the face to some soldiers. "I think it sucks," said a soldier from West Virginia who broke his neck in Iraq after falling off a roof. "I think that people should be able to eat. They get us over there, get us wounded and shot up and then tell us: Fend for yourself. You are all heroes, but here you go."

Whether it is the lack of protective armor for troops in the field or, now, wounded troops paying for food, complaints from soldiers have shed an unflattering light on how the military bureaucracy takes care of its troops. And they have prompted accusations that the Pentagon is fighting the Iraq war on the cheap, no matter what the cost to soldiers. The meal charge policy "is an example of a much larger problem relating to the overall cost of the war. It is all an indication of extreme costs they are trying to make up on the backs of these men and women," said Steve Robinson, a retired Army Ranger and the executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center. "If the war is costing too much, the one place you don't skimp is on soldier and veteran programs. The administration has no problem deficit-spending on the needs of conducting war, and we see no reason not to apply the same methodology to veterans' benefits and soldier care."

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US to slap tourists with RFID

Jo Best
silicon.com
January 26, 2005

The US Department of Homeland Security has decided to trial RFID tags in an effort to make sure only the right sort of people get across US borders.

The controversial US-VISIT scheme for those visiting the US from abroad already fingerprints holidaymakers on their way into the country and is now adding RFID to the mix in order to improve border management, the department said.

The trials will start at a "simulated port" in the spring and will then be extended to Nogales East and Nogales West in Arizona; Alexandria Bay in New York; and Pacific Highway and Peace Arch in Washington by the end of July.

The testing phase will continue until the spring of next year. The exact way RFID will be used with the travellers is not yet known.

RFID chips will be used to track both pedestrians and vehicles entering the US to automatically record when the visitors arrive and leave in the country.

So far, over 400 people have been turned away from the country or arrested as a result of US-VISIT checks.

US Under Secretary for Border & Transportation Security, Asa Hutchinson, said in a statement: "Through the use of radio frequency technology, we see the potential to not only improve the security of our country, but also to make the most important infrastructure enhancements to the US land borders in more than 50 years."

The US government has already shown a marked fondness for the tagging technology. The US Department of Defense mandated its suppliers to use the technology, while the Food and Drug Administration is encouraging the pharmaceutical industry to use the chips in an attempt to beat counterfeiters.

Dear Voter,

This is personal. As I traveled across the country last year, I learned a lot about the dreams, hopes, fears and frustrations of the American people. Nothing touched me more than the parents I met who feared that illness would strike a child who is uninsured.

A sick child is always a worry. A sick child that you can't get help for is a parent's worst nightmare. Helping the 11 million children who have no health coverage isn't even on the radar screen of the Bush administration and the Republican leaders in Congress. But, we're going to put it there.

It is totally unacceptable that, in the greatest country in the world, millions of children are not getting the health care they need. That's why this week I introduced the Kids Come First Act. Help me push through the Republicans' political roadblocks and take care of the 11 million children without health insurance.

Please co-sponsor my Kids Come First Act by clicking here:

http://www.johnkerry.com/KidsFirst

The Republican leadership will try to prevent this essential legislation from ever seeing the light of day. Help me gather one million co-signers for the Kids Come First Act, and we'll force them to act or to admit that they just don't care enough to act. Here's why it's so important to do something now:

• 1/4 of children are not fully up to date on their basic immunizations.
• 1/3 with chronic asthma do not get a prescription for medications they need.
• 1/2 of uninsured children have not had a well child visit in the past year.
• 1 in 6 has delayed or unmet medical needs.
• 1 in 5 has trouble accessing health care.
• 1 in 4 does not see a dentist annually.
• 1 in 3 had no health insurance during 2002 and 2003.

Another Writer Backing Bush Plan Had Gotten Federal Contract

By Howard Kurtz

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 26, 2005; Page C01

Stealth Attack On Evolution
Who is behind the movement to give equal time to Darwin's critics, and what do they really want?

Monday, Jan. 31, 2005

Ken Bingman has beern teaching biology in the public schools in the Kansas City area for 42 years, and over the past decade he has seen a marked change in how students react when he brings up evolution. "I don't know if we're more religious today," he says, "but I see more and more students who want a link to God." Although he is a churchgoer, Bingman does not believe that link should be part of a science class. Neither does the Supreme Court, which declared such intermingling of church and state unconstitutional back in 1988.

But that decision does not sit well with a lot of Americans. So at a time when religious faith is increasingly worn on public sleeves--most prominently that of the President--a dispute that dates back to the celebrated 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial" is being replayed around the country in legislatures, courts, school-board meetings and parent-teacher conferences. School administrators in rural Dover, Pa., visited biology classes last week to read a declaration proclaiming, among other things, that "Darwin's theory [of evolution] ... is a theory, not a fact." And in suburban Cobb County, Ga., officials pasted stickers on biology textbooks declaring the same thing and are now appealing a court order to remove them.

The intellectual underpinnings of the latest assault on Darwin's theory come not from Bible-wielding Fundamentalists but from well-funded think tanks promoting a theory they call intelligent design, or I.D. for short. Their basic argument is that the origin of life, the diversity of species and even the structure of organs like the eye are so bewilderingly complex that they can only be the handiwork of a higher intelligence (name and nature unspecified). read more...

23 at Guantanamo Attempted Suicide in 2003

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Twenty-three terror suspects tried to hang or strangle themselves at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay during a mass protest in 2003, the military confirmed Monday.

AP Photo AFP Slideshow: Guantanamo Naval Base

The incidents came during the same year the camp suffered a rash of suicide attempts after Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller took command of the prison with a mandate to get more information from prisoners accused of links to al-Qaida or the ousted Afghan Taliban regime that sheltered it.

Between Aug. 18 and Aug. 26, the 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves with pieces of clothing and other items in their cells, demonstrating "self-injurious behavior," the U.S. Southern Command in Miami said in a statement. Ten detainees made a mass attempt on Aug. 22 alone.

U.S. Southern Command described it as "a coordinated effort to disrupt camp operations and challenge a new group of security guards from the just-completed unit rotation."

Guantanamo officials classified two of the incidents as attempted suicides and informed reporters. But they but did not previously release information about the mass hangings and stranglings during that period.

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 Politician wants Schwarzenegger to lose citizenship

California governor 'not worthy' to be Austrian

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should be stripped of citizenship in his native Austria for approving the execution of a convicted killer, a leading Austrian politician said Saturday.

Peter Pilz, a top official with the environmentalist Green Party, said the Austria-born Schwarzenegger no longer is worthy of citizenship in his homeland because he broke the law by clearing Donald Beardslee's execution on Wednesday.

Capital punishment is illegal here, and Schwarzenegger -- who holds dual U.S.-Austrian nationality -- should be stripped of his Austrian passport for "heavily damaging the reputation of the republic," Pilz said.

He told Austrian media he sent the Interior Ministry a letter formally requesting that the government begin the process of terminating Schwarzenegger's citizenship. read more...

District Acknowledges Wrongful Arrests

City Government Agrees to Pay $425,000 to Seven People Arrested in 2002

The District government agreed today to pay a total of $425,000 to seven people caught up in a mass arrest at a downtown park in September 2002, acknowledging that they were wrongfully arrested and promising to adopt changes in police procedures.

The agreement settles a lawsuit in which the seven alleged that D.C. police violated their constitutional rights and department policy during the roundup of some 400 protesters and bystanders in Pershing Park. The settlement also requires D.C. police chief Charles H. Ramsey to send a personal letter of apology to each of the plaintiffs.

The monetary award raised questions about the settlement's impact on three other lawsuits that make similar claims against the city, including a class-action suit filed on behalf of all 400 people arrested that day. read more...

In One Night, Iraqi Turns From Friend to Foe
Man Who Supported U.S. Occupation Calls Americans 'the Devil' After Alleged Raid on His House

BAGHDAD -- The day after the soldiers came, Imaad ordered his mother to go through her refrigerator and pantry and throw out all the cheese that had been made outside Iraq. He went around and collected any images of Westerners in the house, threw them in a pile and burned them until they were floating bits of ash. He struck his mother repeatedly and forbade her to watch foreign news or movie channels on their new television.

The Americans were "the devil," Imaad ranted.

By all accounts, Imaad, 32, was a typical, mild-mannered college graduate who spoke English well and had quietly supported the U.S. presence in Iraq -- until Jan. 5, the night the soldiers came.

His story about that night, told days later in his small living room, is the story of how the U.S. military made an enemy of one man during a 20-minute encounter.

The U.S. military, along with Iraqi security forces, routinely conducts raids throughout Iraq to try to catch insurgents. For the troops, the missions are often dangerous; soldiers say one of the greatest difficulties they face is figuring out who is a friend and who is an enemy.

Since the war began in March 2003, 1,077 American troops have died in hostile action, official figures show. In addition, insurgents kill Iraqi troops on an almost daily basis.

Often, soldiers on raids find illegal weapons, ringleaders and vital information that can prevent more attacks. But often, the raids turn up little and leave hard feelings among civilians who resent foreign soldiers bursting into their homes, breaking doors and gates and pointing guns at their heads. They resent these men catching their wives and daughters in their bedclothes. They resent them barking orders, telling them to get on the ground, invading their homes, emptying drawers and turning over mattresses. read more...

Lawmaker says he shares homes with 2 women

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) -- A state lawmaker who heads a committee on child welfare has acknowledged that he lives in separate homes with two women whose children he fathered.

Sen. John Ford testified in a Juvenile Court hearing in November as part of his defense in a child support case over increasing his financial support of another child he fathered with a third woman, The Commercial Appeal newspaper of Memphis reported Sunday.

The Memphis Democrat has tried to make use of a law he authored that keeps court-ordered support lower when a father is financially responsible for other children. read more...

Bush's summons to serve as a juror in the drunken-driving case was, in retrospect, a fateful moment in his political career: by getting excused from jury duty he was able to avoid questions that would have required him to disclose his own 1976 arrest and conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) in Kennebunkport, Maine—an incident that didn't become public until the closing days of the 2000 campaign. (Bush, who had publicly declared his willingness to serve, had left blank on his jury questionnaire whether he had ever been "accused" in a criminal case.) Asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy to describe "in detail" the only court appearance he ever made on behalf of Bush, Gonzales—who was then chief counsel to the Texas governor—wrote that he had accompanied Bush the day he went to court "prepared to serve on a jury." While there, Gonzales wrote, he "observed" the defense lawyer make a motion to strike Bush from the jury panel "to which the prosecutor did not object." Asked by the judge whether he had "any views on this," Gonzales recalled, he said he did not. read more...

madeyouthink.org

Police in Germany are hunting pranksters who have been sticking miniature US flags into piles of dog poo in public parks.

Josef Oettl, parks administrator for Bayreuth, said: "This has been going on for about a year now, and there must be 2,000 to 3,000 piles of excrement that have been claimed during that time."

"We have sent out extra patrols to try to catch whoever is doing this in the act," said police spokesman Reiner Kuechler. "But frankly, we don't know what we would do if we caught them red handed."

Legal experts say there is no law against using faeces as a flag stand and the federal constitution is vague on the issue.

Get your own Bush-Poo flags here.

Reuben's album J20 Counter Inauguration Los Angeles 1 of 32 photos You're invited to view these photos online at Ofoto! Just click on View Photos below to get started. If you'd like to save this album, just sign in, or if you're new to Ofoto, create a free account. Once you've signed in, you'll be able to view this album whenever you want and order Kodak prints of your favorite photos. Enjoy!

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