Microcosmically speaking, how is Zimbabwe different from the US?
Zimbabwe: Teachers, Students, Doctors, Nurses All on Strike

, OneWorld US Wed Feb 21, 1:58 PM ET

Zimbabwe's education and healthcare sectors are lying almost completely dormant this week, and government repression of political opponents continues.


A strike looms as the nation's teachers and government officials remain far apart on salary negotiations. The government's latest offer is still less than half the so-called Poverty Datum Line, and a 1600-percent inflation rate has turned most of the country's 180,000 civil servants into paupers, according to the Zimbabwe Standard newspaper.

University lecturers are already on strike, as are the country's higher education students.

Last week, some 74 students and their leaders were rounded up, assaulted, and detained, according to the International Union of Students, which released a statement supporting its Zimbabwean peers.

More than 40 were arrested following a meeting to discuss "issues of the ever deteriorating standards of education, the astronomical hikes in tuition fees, and broader socio-economic and political pandemonium in Zimbabwe." The Zimbabwe National Students Union says that "more than 600 innocent, unarmed, and hungry students who had gathered on campus for the Extraordinary General Meeting were violently and brutally dispersed by the ruthless riot police and the non-uniformed state security agents."

But students are not the only Zimbabweans to have faced the truncheons in recent days.

A Valentine's Day march sponsored by the group Women of Zimbabwe Arise was met by police with tear gas outside the Parliament building in Harare.

And as one of the country's main opposition parties attempted to launch its presidential campaign with a public rally in the capital Monday, police fired tear gas and water cannons containing irritating chemicals and beat opposition supporters with batons.

A spokesperson for the opposition party claimed that more than 500 of its supporters had been beaten and severe injuries were sustained. There were unconfirmed reports of three deaths.

But perhaps the most difficult problem facing both the Zimbabwean government and its estranged citizens is the near-total collapse of the national health system.

Many of the country's doctors and nurses have quit working in recent weeks to demand higher wages and better conditions.

"Hundreds of people are dying every week due to lack of healthcare since the doctors' industrial action began on December 21 last year, bringing the health delivery system, already battered by a collapsing economy, to a near-total halt," reports Florence Cheda for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

One province recently reported that it had only one doctor to service 4 million people--and that was before the strike.

While government officials fly to South Africa and other countries for their own medical treatment, says Cheda, "Zimbabweans are left wondering how much longer the nation and international community [will] continue to watch so many of their relatives, friends, and others die unnecessarily."

A pitiful drop in a bucket, if you ask me!
SENATE PASSES 2007 BUDGET BILL, VA GETS INCREASE --

VA will get $3.6 billion more than last year.

President Bush signs.

VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 02-15-2007 #8


Story here... http://www.bloomberg.com/
apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=
aVHyC6BYMbR8&refer=us

Story below:

UPDATE: President Bush signed the budget bill on February 15, 2007.

---------------

Congress Passes $463.5 Billion Spending Measure for Fiscal 2007

By Brian Faler



(Bloomberg) -- Congress approved increased funding for education grants, veterans' health care, law enforcement and international AIDS relief as part of a $463.5 billion spending measure, completing work on the 2007 budget more than four months late.

The Senate's 81-15 vote to pass the spending measure leaves most government programs funded at last year's levels, drops more than 9,300 pet projects proposed by lawmakers and increases funding for a handful of programs favored by the chamber's Democratic majority.

``This is not a perfect resolution, but it is a thoughtful resolution,'' said Senator Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat who heads the Appropriations Committee. The measure ``will ensure that we answer some of our nation's most pressing needs.''

Republicans, who weren't given an opportunity to amend the legislation, complained they were forced to choose between approving the plan or shutting down the government.

``We are all rubberstamps: Take it or leave it,'' said Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican. ``We have the option of closing down the government if we don't approve this rubberstamp procedure, and we are not going to do that. We had experience with the closing down of the government back in December of 1995 and it was a very bitter experience.''

A stopgap spending measure now funding 13 of the 15 federal departments expires tomorrow night.

Been Approved

The legislation, which has already been approved by the House, now heads to President George W. Bush, who has signaled that he will sign it into law. His approval will end months of uncertainty for agency officials who have been waiting to find out their budgets for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

Bush's signature also will end a process that began more than a year ago, when he called for holding domestic spending below the rate of inflation for the third consecutive year while providing much larger increases -- at least 7 percent -- for both defense and homeland security programs.

Last year's Republican majority approved increases for the security programs, yet couldn't pass the nine appropriation measures funding the government's domestic programs. Republicans said in December that they were giving up, leaving the remaining budget work to the Democrats. Since then, Democrats wrote the measures according to their own priorities while remaining within the overall budget limit set by the Republicans last year.

Byrd said Democrats cut more than $11 billion from 125 government programs, eliminated funds for more than 9,300 lawmaker's pet projects and left 450 programs frozen at last year's levels to free up money for the party's priorities.

Law Enforcement

The plan adds $3.6 billion for veterans' health-care programs, $1.6 billion for federal, state and local law enforcement and $1.4 billion more for international AIDS relief.

The legislation will expand the budget for Pell Grants, which go to college students from low-income families, by $616 million. That increase will boost the maximum grant by $260 to $4,310, the first such increase in four years.

It would provide an additional $200 million for special education programs along with $104 million for Head Start, a pre-school education program.

The measure provides an additional $620 million for the National Institutes of Health, along with $207 million more for community health centers. It increases funding for basic scientific research, providing $200 million more for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, $335 million more for the National Science Foundation and $50 million more for the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

No Veto Threat

While the Bush administration didn't threaten to veto the measure, it criticized the legislation for shortchanging initiatives such as its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership -- an anti-nuclear-proliferation program -- while ignoring the president's call to reduce or cut 141 other programs.

Congressional Republicans said it failed to adequately fund priorities such as military construction projects. Some Democrats said the measure leaves programs stuck at last year's funding levels, amounting to cuts once inflation, required pay increases for government employees and other costs were counted.

Praise

The legislation drew praise from some lawmakers, such as Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, for halting the rapid increase in pet projects, called earmarks, seen over the past decade.

``I applaud the Democrats,'' said DeMint. ``There are no new earmarks in this spending resolution.''

DeMint and other lawmakers expressed concern that their colleagues may still fund their pet projects by phoning the federal agencies with individual wish lists.

The Energy Department has said that it has begun fielding such requests. A half-dozen lawmakers have asked Bush, who denounced the earmarking practice in his State of the Union speech, to ``clarify that agencies of your administration will not be bound or give any preference to earmarks contained in committee reports or in direct communications from members of Congress or their staff.''

A senior administration official, who declined to be identified, told reporters this week at a briefing that he hasn't heard of any such requests elsewhere in the government, while saying it is a potential problem. He said the administration will explain how it intends to implement the measure after it is signed into law.



To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Faler in Washington at bfaler@bloomberg.net

---------------

Larry Scott --

So, Cheney, how many lives will this "Honor" cost! Seems we can't be sunk any lower, then you come along with a plan...!
U.S. wants to leave Iraq "with honor," Cheney says

By Caren Bohan Wed Feb 21, 7:16 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Vice President
Dick Cheney said on Wednesday the United States wants to finish its mission in
Iraq and "return with honor," despite the war's growing unpopularity at home and doubts among U.S. allies.

Cheney, whose visit to Tokyo comes just weeks after Japan's defense minister said starting the Iraq war was a mistake, also insisted Americans would not back a "policy of retreat."

The defense minister's remarks forced Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to scurry to reassure Washington that Tokyo's backing for U.S. policy in Iraq was unchanged, although most Japanese think that
President Bush was wrong to start the war.

"We know that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength, they are invited by the perception of weakness," Cheney said in a speech aboard the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier at Yokosuka Navy Base near Tokyo.

"We know that if we leave Iraq before the mission is completed, the enemy is going to come after us," Cheney said.

"And I want you to know that the American people will not support a policy of retreat," he added. "We want to complete the mission, we want to get it done right, and we want to return with honor," said Cheney, who heads on Thursday for Australia to meet Prime Minister John Howard, another backer of Bush's Iraq policy.

ASIA-PACIFIC COMMITMENT

Bush is sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq, but surveys show that most Americans are unhappy with the war and Democrats in charge of the U.S. Congress are pressing for a new strategy.

British Prime Minister
Tony Blair was to announce on Wednesday a timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, a government source said in London, adding that Britain's 7,100-strong Iraq force would fall to 5,500 by year's end.

In talks earlier with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki, Cheney thanked Japan for the roughly 550 non-combat troops it sent to southern Iraq in 2004 as part of Tokyo's largest and riskiest overseas mission since World War Two.

The soldiers came home last July, but about 200 Japanese air force personnel based in Kuwait are still transporting supplies to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

A Japanese Foreign Ministry official told reporters that Cheney and Abe had agreed on the need to "closely monitor" China's military capacity in space after its satellite-killing test last month, the first known such test in space in 20 years.

The two leaders also shared concerns about Beijing's rapid military buildup and its lack of transparency, the official said.

Cheney sought to allay any fears that Washington's commitment to Japan and the Asia-Pacific region would falter.

"The president asked me to make this journey, first to Japan, then to Guam, and then to Australia ... to reaffirm America's deep commitment to a forward presence in the Asia-Pacific region," he said in his speech on the Kitty Hawk.

The United States has some 50,000 troops based in Japan, about half its total military presence in the region.

The two allies agreed last year to reorganize those forces, including shifting 8,000 Marines from Japan's southern island of Okinawa to the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam by 2014.

NORTH KOREA

On attempts to curb
North Korea's nuclear ambitions, Cheney and Shiozaki agreed in their talks that a six-party energy-for-arms agreement forged in Beijing last week was a step in the right direction, a Japanese statement said.

Cheney expressed understanding for Tokyo's refusal to provide economic aid to Pyongyang until progress was made on resolving a feud over Japanese citizens kidnapped by the North's agents decades ago, the statement added.

"We want to see resolution to the tragic case of Japanese abductees," Cheney said at the start of his talks with Abe.

Abe's critics have said Tokyo risked international isolation with its tough stance if denuclearisation talks made progress.

Under the deal between the United States, China, Japan, the two Koreas and Russia, Pyongyang is to receive fuel aid in return for shutting down and disabling its nuclear facilities.

Cheney, who last visited Japan in 2004, is not scheduled to meet outspoken Defense Minister Kyuma.

He will, however, find time in his tight schedule to meet the parents of one Japanese abductee early on Thursday, before leaving for Guam and then Australia.

(Additional reporting by Linda Sieg and George Nishiyama)

Now it's the old sympathy ploy. Get off the stage!
Laughs end with bizarre Britney in rehab

By ERIN CARLSON, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 37 minutes ago

NEW YORK -
Britney Spears has been ridiculed for everything from her 55-hour first marriage to backup-dancer second husband and her recent pantyless partying escapades. Now that she's entered rehab, though, the joke is over.


This is a new frontier — even for Spears, whose well-documented gaffes and personal traumas have played out in excruciatingly public fashion, including photos published of Spears driving with her son Sean Preston on her lap and another time almost dropping him.

Spears' manager, Larry Rudolph, told People magazine's Web site on Tuesday that Spears had voluntarily checked herself into an undisclosed treatment facility.

"We ask that the media respect her privacy as well as those of her family and friends at this time," Rudolph was quoted as saying. He didn't disclose why she entered rehab.

The 25-year-old pop star has been seen wearing skimpy outfits and partying heavily since filing for divorce from Kevin Federline in November, after two years of marriage.

On Friday night, Spears, the mother of two young sons, shaved her head bald. But that didn't send her into hiding as she was later seen wearing an inexpensive blond wig.

"You know, for these celebrities, it's really tough," New York-based psychiatrist Gail Saltz told The Associated Press. "They have no idea if anybody likes them for them. ... Everybody wants a piece. Everybody wants to make something off of her, get somewhere by her."

Spears' very public divorce isn't helping matters, said Saltz, who also suggested that Spears could be suffering from postpartum depression.

Federline's attorney had earlier confirmed that Spears and Federline would continue to share custody of 5-month-old Jayden James and 17-month-old Sean Preston this month, following terms of a January custody agreement.

"I'm a good father," Federline has said. "I love my kids and I'll always be here for (them)."

The Web site TMZ.com said Spears had entered an inpatient facility in Los Angeles after family members pressed her to check in.

Spears representatives didn't return calls from The Associated Press.

Entertainment TV shows and Web sites reported Friday that Spears had gone in and out of rehab that week.

"I think that she's finally listening to the people that are closest to her, and I think that she's probably going to stay in rehab for as long as it takes," Ruben Garay, who runs ThatOtherBlog, told the AP.

"You understand that this whole thing with shaving her head was kind of like the last straw, and that was really what led everyone (who) was already concerned about her (to) become, like, really concerned about her," said Garay, who recently closed his Spears' fan Web site, worldofbritney.com.

"She is a child star unraveling and is the perfect example of when a child star evolves into an adult and doesn't have someone telling them what to do, or giving them the right affirmative advice, and the right support," said Ian Drew, editor at large at Us Weekly magazine. "She basically started out very young in a competitive business."

Spears grabbed an electric shaver at a San Fernando Valley salon and shaved her head bald Friday night. Video on KABC-TV showed a newly shorn Spears with tiny tattoos on the back of her neck as she sat for a new tattoo — a pair of red-and-pink lips on her wrist.

Esther's Haircutting Studio, where Spears shaved her head, set up a Web site to auction off her hair and other items for a minimum price of $1 million, said J.T. Tognozzi, who owns the salon with his wife.

"This is it, the opportunity of a lifetime," according to BuyBritneysHair.com. The winning bidder gets Spears' dark, knotty hair extensions, the clipper she used to cut them off, the Red Bull she drank at the salon and her cigarette lighter.

"This girl is out of control," Joy Behar, a co-host on ABC's "The View," said Monday. "And, she's in a lot of trouble. A lot of people feel this is self-mutilation."

Craig Ferguson, host of CBS' "The Late Late Show," said that after seeing photos of Spears' shaved head, he reconsidered making jokes at the expense of the "vulnerable."

"For me, comedy should have a certain amount of joy in it," he told viewers Monday. "It should be about attacking the powerful — the politicians, the Trumps, the blowhards — going after them. We shouldn't be attacking the vulnerable."

Good call, Senator, but you missed on where funds are going...!
Space station needs help, Glenn says

By MATT LEINGANG, Associated Press Writer Tue Feb 20, 10:44 PM ET

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The country is not getting its money's worth out of the international space station, John Glenn said Tuesday, the 45th anniversary of the day he became the first American to orbit the Earth.


Diverting money from the orbiting research outpost to
President Bush's goal of sending astronauts back to the moon and eventually on to Mars is preventing some scientific experiments on the space station, Glenn told an audience of about 300 high school students and space enthusiasts at the COSI Columbus science center.

"To not utilize that station the way I think it ought to be utilized is just wrong," said Glenn, 85, also a former U.S. senator.

Glenn made three trips around the planet inside his Friendship 7 capsule on Feb. 20, 1962, making him a national hero and proving that the nascent
NASA space program was competitive with the Soviet Union, which had accomplished a manned orbital flight a year earlier.

In 1998, Glenn, then 77, flew on the shuttle Discovery and became the oldest person ever in space.

He said he supports the president's moon and Mars goals but not at the expense of the space station, which is only two-thirds complete.

NASA and its international partners, including Canada, Japan and Russia, hope to finish the space station in 2010, but no decision has been made to extend its operation past 2016.

Glenn, a Democrat who represented Ohio from 1975 to 1999, said the station shouldn't be abandoned, especially after costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

"We will not even begin to realize its potential," he said.

A White House spokesman said Tuesday night that officials were not prepared to comment. Messages were left after business hours at NASA headquarters.

Been there, done that, no surprise!
U.S. orders review into treatment of wounded troops

By Matt Spetalnick Tue Feb 20, 6:47 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration ordered a review on Tuesday of the care of wounded U.S. troops returning from
Iraq and
Afghanistan after reports that many face neglect in the Army's medical system.


Democrats controlling Congress demanded a thorough investigation and promised legislation after a Washington Post series exposed deteriorating conditions for hundreds of outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, the premier U.S. military hospital.

The controversy poses a public relations problem for
President George W. Bush, who has spoken often of America's debt to military personnel wounded in the wars, visited the hospital's wards and honored military amputees at White House functions.

The White House expressed concern at conditions for veterans after reports that many suffering physical and psychological problems lived in shoddy housing on or near the sprawling complex and faced long battles with Army bureaucracy.

"I can tell you that we believe that they deserve better," White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters. "Of course, there's outrage that men and women who have been fighting have not received the outpatient care."

"We need to make sure that whatever problems there are get fixed," he added.

The
Pentagon said an independent panel would look into outpatient care and administrative processes at Walter Reed and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

"We are committed to improving the clinical and administrative processes, including improving temporary living conditions for our service members and their families," said Assistant Secretary of Defense William Winkenwerder, the Pentagon's top doctor.

The Army and Navy had also begun their own reviews into the two medical centers, the Pentagon said in a statement.

The White House has irked the new Democratic majority in Congress by suggesting that they would be hurting American troops if they made any effort to cut off funds for the Iraq war, which faces growing public opposition.

Two Democratic senators, Barbara Mikulski (news, bio, voting record) of Maryland and Patty Murray (news, bio, voting record) of Washington, wrote Defense Secretary Robert Gates urging a high-level investigation of "deplorable living conditions" at Walter Reed, where presidents, lawmakers and soldiers have been treated since 1909.

Two other Democrats, Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) of Illinois and Sen. Claire McCaskill (news, bio, voting record) of Missouri, said they would introduce legislation to improve the quality of care and require more frequent inspections of active-duty military hospitals.

"Caring for our returning heroes is one of the things we can still get right about this war, and that's why the deterioration of the conditions at Walter Reed is both appalling and unacceptable," said Obama, a candidate for his party's 2008 presidential nomination.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Gray)

Blasphemous! The US would never be capable of evil! We're genetically predisposed toward goodness!
U.S. Slammed for Backing off 'Genocide' Charge

Aaron Glantz, OneWorld US Thu Feb 15, 9:20 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 15 (OneWorld) - Human rights groups spoke out this week, condemning the United States Special Envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, for claiming the crisis in Darfur no longer constitutes genocide.


"The term genocide is counter to the facts of what is really occurring in Darfur," Natsios told a gathering at Georgetown University February 7th.

The statement shocked many observers since both
President Bush and the State Department have used the term "genocide" to describe the situation in western Sudan.

Since 2003, the Sudanese military and its allied militias have killed at least 400,000 people, while more than 2 million innocent civilians have been forced to flee their homes and now live in camps in Sudan and neighboring Chad. More than 3.5 million men, women, and children are now completely reliant on international aid for survival.

Not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994, campaigners argue, has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter.

"Activists across the country are outraged by Natsios' denial of genocide in Darfur," Marie Clarke Brill of the group Africa Action said in a statement. "The death toll is mounting, and the U.S. must act now to stop the escalating violence by the Sudanese government and to provide protection to civilians and humanitarian operations in Darfur."

Brill's group is concerned that Natsios' statement marks a shift in U.S. policy and is an attempt to provide cover for his government's failure to convince Sudan to allow a stronger international peacekeeping force into the country. Africa Action has said the U.S. government holds the most sway with Sudanese officials and therefore is uniquely obligated to pressure Khartoum on peacekeeping.

Activists point out the killing continues unabated despite ongoing negotiations with the Sudanese government in Khartoum. On Wednesday, the
United Nations Mission in Sudan reported that fresh violence has displaced at least 110,000 people in southern Darfur since December.

"Up to this week there is [still] bombing of civilians, so the lack of security still prevails," Dr. Ali Ali-Dinar told OneWorld. The native of Darfur is Outreach Director for the University of Pennsylvania's Africa Studies Center and runs the Web site darfurinfo.org.

"Civilians still face continuous harassment," he said. "They're still in their camps. It's still not safe to go back. So the ingredients are still there. Just because [U.S. envoy Natsios] mutters that there is not a genocide doesn't mean that one isn't going on."

Recently, an African Union military mission in Darfur was bolstered by United Nations blue berets, but Ali-Dinar said that hasn't done anything to improve the situation.

"They are there but with a very flimsy mandate and under its presence nothing is changing," he said. "The government is still bombing civilians. All this is going on even with the UN Mission. Nothing is new."

On Monday, the
European Union Council released a statement from Brussels protesting what they called "an unsustainable level of insecurity" for humanitarian workers attempting to help refugees seeking relief from the killing.

Attacks on relief workers and their property have become common, the aid groups said. There have been at least five car-jackings this month.

Those actions prompted a fresh reaction from the U.S. Envoy, Andrew Natsios, on Wednesday. The same man who said "genocide is counter to what's occurring" told Reuters "the government has lost control. There is anarchy in large parts of Darfur. The risk is that if the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) leave, the UN humanitarian agencies leave...there will be no one to care for these people in the camps who can be trusted."

But those statements drew criticisms from campaigners as well. Far from losing control, they argued, the Sudanese government is itself behind much of the violence and displacement.

Increasingly, activists are trying to use their power as private citizens to press the government of Sudan to change its ways. Modeling their work on successful solidarity work that brought down the apartheid regime in South Africa, they're urging states, pension funds, and college campuses to restrict or eliminate their Sudan-related investments.

In 2005, the state of Oregon sold $35 million in holdings it had invested in four oil companies that work in Sudan. In January 2006, Maine followed suit, selling its holdings in Schlumberger Ltd., an oil company stock held by Maine's $24 million State Held Trusts.

Last September, California Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill directing the massive California Public Employees Retirement System and California State Teachers Retirement System, which together hold more than $350 billion in assets, to divest from companies doing business in Sudan.

According to the non-profit Genocide Intervention Network, there are active campaigns in an additional two-dozen colleges, 15 states, and numerous other countries.

"This is only the beginning," said Sam Bell, the group's advocacy director. Divestment campaigns are currently underway in Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and Virginia, Bell said.

Been there, done that, no surprise!
U.S. orders review into treatment of wounded troops

By Matt Spetalnick Tue Feb 20, 6:47 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration ordered a review on Tuesday of the care of wounded U.S. troops returning from
Iraq and
Afghanistan after reports that many face neglect in the Army's medical system.


Democrats controlling Congress demanded a thorough investigation and promised legislation after a Washington Post series exposed deteriorating conditions for hundreds of outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, the premier U.S. military hospital.

The controversy poses a public relations problem for
President George W. Bush, who has spoken often of America's debt to military personnel wounded in the wars, visited the hospital's wards and honored military amputees at White House functions.

The White House expressed concern at conditions for veterans after reports that many suffering physical and psychological problems lived in shoddy housing on or near the sprawling complex and faced long battles with Army bureaucracy.

"I can tell you that we believe that they deserve better," White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters. "Of course, there's outrage that men and women who have been fighting have not received the outpatient care."

"We need to make sure that whatever problems there are get fixed," he added.

The
Pentagon said an independent panel would look into outpatient care and administrative processes at Walter Reed and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

"We are committed to improving the clinical and administrative processes, including improving temporary living conditions for our service members and their families," said Assistant Secretary of Defense William Winkenwerder, the Pentagon's top doctor.

The Army and Navy had also begun their own reviews into the two medical centers, the Pentagon said in a statement.

The White House has irked the new Democratic majority in Congress by suggesting that they would be hurting American troops if they made any effort to cut off funds for the Iraq war, which faces growing public opposition.

Two Democratic senators, Barbara Mikulski (news, bio, voting record) of Maryland and Patty Murray (news, bio, voting record) of Washington, wrote Defense Secretary Robert Gates urging a high-level investigation of "deplorable living conditions" at Walter Reed, where presidents, lawmakers and soldiers have been treated since 1909.

Two other Democrats, Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) of Illinois and Sen. Claire McCaskill (news, bio, voting record) of Missouri, said they would introduce legislation to improve the quality of care and require more frequent inspections of active-duty military hospitals.

"Caring for our returning heroes is one of the things we can still get right about this war, and that's why the deterioration of the conditions at Walter Reed is both appalling and unacceptable," said Obama, a candidate for his party's 2008 presidential nomination.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Gray)

Being Sensationally Idiotic is good business...
Spears has entered rehab, Web sites say

By ERIN CARLSON, Associated Press Writer 10 minutes ago

NEW YORK -
Britney Spears entered rehab Tuesday after a bizarre weekend that included shaving her head and getting a new tattoo.

Spears' manager, Larry Rudolph, told People magazine's Web site that Spears, 25, had voluntarily checked herself into an undisclosed treatment facility.

"We ask that the media respect her privacy as well as those of her family and friends at this time," Rudolph was quoted as saying.

The Web site TMZ.com said Spears had entered an inpatient facility in Los Angeles after family members pressed her to check in.

Calls to Spears' representatives by The Associated Press weren't immediately returned Tuesday.

Entertainment TV shows and Web sites had reported Friday that Spears had gone in and out of rehab that week.

Since announcing her separation from Kevin Federline in November, Spears has been seen partying heavily, and her appearance has been increasingly sloppy.

"We are witnessing Britney in the midst of a breakdown," Ian Drew, editor at large at Us Weekly magazine, told the AP.

"She is a child star unraveling, and is the perfect example of when a child star evolves into an adult and doesn't have someone telling them what to do, or giving them the right affirmative advice, and the right support," Drew said. "She basically started out very young in a competitive business."

New York-based psychiatrist Gail Saltz said she "would not be surprised" if Spears, mother to 5-month-old Jayden James and 1-year-old Sean Preston, was suffering from postpartum depression.

Her public split with Federline isn't helping matters, Saltz told the AP. She suggested that Spears' seemingly impulsive decision to shave her head was "a blatantly self-destructive, you know, desperate kind of act."

Spears grabbed an electrical shaver at a San Fernando Valley salon and shaved her head bald Friday night. Video on KABC-TV showed a newly shorn Spears with tiny tattoos on the back of her neck as she sat for a new tattoo — a pair of red-and-pink lips on her wrist.

Esther's Haircutting Studio, where Spears shaved her head, set up a Web site to auction off her hair and other items for a minimum price of $1 million, J.T. Tognozzi, who owns the salon with his wife, told the AP.

"This is it, the opportunity of a lifetime," according to BuyBritneysHair.com. The winning bidder gets Spears' dark, knotty hair extensions, the clipper she used to cut them off, the Red Bull she drank at the salon and her cigarette lighter.

"This girl is out of control," Joy Behar, a co-host on ABC's "The View," said Monday. "And, she's in a lot of trouble. A lot of people feel this is self-mutilation."

Craig Ferguson, host of CBS' "The Late Late Show," said that after seeing photos of Spears' shaved head, he reconsidered making jokes at the expense of the "vulnerable."

"For me, comedy should have a certain amount of joy in it," he told viewers Monday. "It should be about attacking the powerful — the politicians, the Trumps, the blowhards — going after them. We shouldn't be attacking the vulnerable."

Someone is attempting to rewrite history!
Burn these Republican words into your mind

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 1:35 PM on December 11, 2006.

Ike's farewell...


On January 17, 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower said goodbye to public office with an address that concluded with the words below [strangely, the Eisenhower Library's version and the audio in the video to the right, differ slightly. Brackets represent the text in the Library version omitted from the audio file...].

You're familiar with the warnings in this speech against the "military-industrial complex," but the subtler parts of the speech are every bit as powerful and refreshing...

As we peer into society's future, we - you and I, and our government - must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

During the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

[Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.]

[Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.] Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war - as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years - I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

So - in this my last good night to you as your President - I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I, my fellow citizens, need to be strong in our faith, that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace, with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

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Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.

"He's not an ordinary soldier, of course."
Harry's deployment poses royal challenge

By JENNIFER QUINN, Associated Press Writer Mon Feb 19, 8:05 PM ET

LONDON - He's a freckle-faced royal rascal who has led a life of privilege. But Britain's Prince Harry is also an army officer — and he could soon be heading to
Iraq to face the reality of combat.


No matter that royal officials have said no decision about a deployment has been made, or that the Ministry of Defense has dismissed such reports as "entirely speculative." Newspapers are filling their pages about the security headache that a war zone assignment for Harry — who is third in line to the throne — could bring for the British army.

"Harry's always wanted to be treated as an ordinary soldier," the Daily Mail quoted an unidentified army source as saying. "He's not an ordinary soldier, of course."

When Harry, 22, left Sandhurst Military Academy last year, he became a second lieutenant and joined the Blues and Royals regiment of the Household Cavalry. At the time, the defense ministry said he could possibly be deployed to Iraq, but that there might be situations when the presence of a member of the royal family could increase the risk for his comrades.

Harry himself was having none of it.

"There's no way I'm going to put myself through Sandhurst, and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country," he said in a television interview to mark his 21st birthday.

"It's entirely understandable that he should want to go," said William Wallace, a professor emeritus of international relations at the London School of Economics and a British defense expert. "There's not much point of being in the army unless you experience the same things as your men."

Harry went to the elite all-boys school, Eton, and has been described as "one of the lads" by celebrity gossip magazine Hello! Harry is considered more impetuous than his elder brother Prince William; he has often been seen leaving posh London nightclubs — and once scuffled with a photographer.

Harry has also acknowledged drinking underage and smoking marijuana, and in January 2006, he apologized after being pictured in a national newspaper at a costume party dressed as a Nazi, including a swastika armband.

But he's also been photographed working with
AIDS orphans in Africa during a year spent abroad. And while Harry has been pictured with a beer or a cigarette in his hand, stories about his possible deployment to Iraq were accompanied by more dignified shots of the prince in battle gear.

Harry and William — who graduated from Sandhurst late last year and is also with the Blues and Royals — join a long line of royals in the military. Their uncle, Prince Andrew, served in the Falklands war as a Royal Navy pilot; Prince Philip, their grandfather, had a distinguished career in the Royal Navy during World War II.

Even
Queen Elizabeth II, their grandmother, served — she was trained as a driver in the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service during World War II.

Amyas Godfrey, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank, said Harry could do a number of jobs in Iraq. As a junior officer, that might mean patrolling the streets of Basra, working inside the command headquarters, or training Iraqi police officers.

"It would be untrue to say he will be like everyone else — and he'll want to be like everyone else — but he won't be able to because he is Prince Harry," said Godfrey, a former Army officer who has served in Iraq. Godfrey said that one of the biggest obstacles to the prince serving in the field is his recognizability, which could make him vulnerable to attack.

The Ministry of Defense said William technically could be deployed to Iraq. However, it was highly unlikely that the second in line to the throne would be placed in harm's way.

The publicity surrounding Harry's possible deployment in April could affect whether he is sent to Iraq, where Britain has about 7,500 troops, based mostly in Basra, 40 miles southeast of Baghdad. More than 100 British soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the beginning of the war in 2003.

"I think the military will be very wary about getting it right — getting it right in the public eye," he said. "If he doesn't go, (the public) will say, bad decision, because they're treating him with kid gloves.

"If he does go and gets hurt, then it'll be a bad decision," Godfrey said. "The fact that it's in the public eye makes it a difficult decision."

Parallels are more revealing than an idiot like Bush can appreciate...! BIG HERO!
Bush looks to historic parallels for final legacy

By Steve Holland Sun Feb 18, 10:08 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the Lincoln Bedroom,
President George W. Bush likes to show off one of the most treasured historical artifacts in the White House, a handwritten copy of Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Gettysburg Address.

The building's walls speak of past battles, victories, defeats, heartache. President George Washington's portrait hangs in the Oval Office. Civil War Commander and two-term President Ulysses Grant is placed in Bush's private study.

The Queen's Bedroom offers memories of Winston Churchill, who stayed there before and after World War Two, as Bush told C-SPAN, "waddling around ... with a cigar in one hand, a brandy in the other, demanding attention."

As Bush marks the Presidents Day holiday and George Washington's 275th birthday on Monday, he faces a drumbeat a criticism for the event that will likely be a big part of his legacy -- the
Iraq war.

The president believes it will take some time to determine his place in the pantheon of presidents, despite the negative assessments some historians have already made.

"I don't think you'll really get the full history of the Bush administration until long after I'm gone. I tell people I'm reading books on George Washington and they're still analyzing his presidency," Bush told CBS' "60 Minutes" in an interview last month.

Many in the current crop of historians are already prepared to declare Bush's presidency a failure.

In a December opinion article in The Washington Post, Columbia University history professor Eric Foner wrote that Bush was likely to join mediocre presidents like Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.

"Even after being repudiated in the midterm elections of 1854, 1858 and 1866, respectively, they ignored major currents of public opinion and clung to flawed policies. Bush's presidency certainly brings theirs to mind," Foner wrote.

Foner's article was headlined, "He's the worst ever."

BE LIKE IKE?

But Vanderbilt University history professor Thomas Alan Schwartz said it was too soon to judge Bush. "Presidential reputations tend to go up and down," he said.

He cited Dwight Eisenhower as a president whose stock has risen in the decades since he handed over power to John Kennedy in 1961.

"But Bush will face some enormous obstacles to being fully rehabilitated. Much does depend on Iraq, but even if that does not end in disaster -- still an open question -- the mistakes made in the occupation will be ascribed to him. Were Osama Bin Laden to be captured or killed before Bush leaves office, that could help, but the uncertainties involving
Afghanistan will also hurt him," Schwartz said.

Bush, a Republican, sees historical parallels in Democrat Harry Truman's presidency. Truman set in motion the Cold War doctrine that shifted U.S. foreign policy from one of getting along with the Soviet Union to trying to contain its expansion.

Bush sees his ultimate legacy as starting a years-long effort to check a radical Islamist militant movement from spreading globally. He sees Iraq as a central battleground.

"Today, at the start of a new century, we are again engaged in a war unlike any our nation has fought before. And like Americans in Truman's day, we are laying the foundations for victory," he said last May.

After Truman, presidents from Eisenhower to
Ronald Reagan confronted the Soviet threat. Will future presidents similarly continue to wage Bush's war on terrorism?

Many of the 2008 presidential candidates are searching for a way out of Iraq. Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), for example, says he would bring U.S. forces home by March 2008.

And Obama's comments on the war on terrorism, laid out in his February 10 speech announcing his candidacy, did not appear as muscular as the president's. He said terrorists could be tracked down with a stronger military and better intelligence.

"But let us also understand that ultimate victory against our enemies will come only by rebuilding our alliances and exporting those ideals that bring hope and opportunity to millions around the globe," Obama said.

The war for Independence was diredted by those who wanted to cut King George out of his slice of the Pie, dumb-ass!
Bush links terror war to independence war

By Steve Holland Mon Feb 19, 5:08 PM ET

MOUNT VERNON, Virginia (Reuters) -
President George W. Bush linked the U.S.-led war on terrorism on Monday to the country's struggle for independence led by George Washington more than 200 hundred years ago.

Bush visited the snow-covered grounds where Washington lived and died and which today is a popular tourist attraction.

Joined by his wife Laura, with a military honor guard wearing Revolutionary War uniforms standing at attention, Bush laid a wreath at the tomb of the first American president on the Presidents Day holiday to mark Washington's birth 275 years ago.

Standing before the Mount Vernon mansion and sharing the stage with an actor dressed as Gen. George Washington, Bush said Washington's Revolutionary War leadership inspired generations of Americans "to stand for freedom in their own time."

"Today, we're fighting a new war to defend our liberty and our people and our way of life. And as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world, we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone," Bush said.

"He once wrote, 'My best wishes are irresistibly excited whensoever in any country I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom,"' Bush said.

Bush is locked in a dispute with the Democratic leaders of the U.S. Congress over his deployment of 21,500 more U.S. troops to
Iraq, which Bush considers a central front in the war on terrorism.

The House of Representatives voted last week to oppose his troop buildup in a nonbinding resolution, while a similar measure in the Senate failed to advance due to opposition from Bush's Republican allies.

The real test of Bush's Iraq policy is to come in weeks when the House and Senate consider the president's $100 billion request for funding wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

Bush has vowed to fight hard against any attempt by members of Congress to reduce funding for U.S. troops.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/18/AR2007021801335.html?referrer=emailarticle
THE OTHER WALTER REED
The Hotel Aftermath
Inside Mologne House, the Survivors of War Wrestle With Military Bureaucracy and Personal Demons

By Anne Hull and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, February 19, 2007; Page A01

The guests of Mologne House have been blown up, shot, crushed and shaken, and now their convalescence takes place among the chandeliers and wingback chairs of the 200-room hotel on the grounds of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Oil paintings hang in the lobby of this strange outpost in the war on terrorism, where combat's urgency has been replaced by a trickling fountain in the garden courtyard. The maimed and the newly legless sit in wheelchairs next to a pond, watching goldfish turn lazily through the water.
Holding Pattern at Mologne House
Photos
Holding Pattern at Mologne House
Mologne House, on the grounds of the 113-acre Walter Reed Army Medical Center, opened in 1997 as a short-term lodging facility for military family members and retirees visiting Walter Reed and Washington. But the hotel has been completely overtaken by the war-wounded, housing some 300 soldiers, Marines and their family members.

Today's story is the second of a two-part series on outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Sunday's story and a collection of photographs of Cpl. Dell McLeod and his wife, Annette, who lived at a short-term facility for outpatients for 14 months, can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/nation.

Chat: Staff writers Dana Priest and Anne Hull will be online Tuesday at 12 p.m. to answer questions about this story at www.washingtonpost.com/

liveonline.

WASHINGTON POST RADIO

Priest and Hull will also discuss this story at 7:30 a.m. today.

Tune in to 1500 AM, 107.7 FM

More on Walter Reed
Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility
The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that shines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into something else entirely -- a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients.


Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, an amputee, was at Walter Reed for 16 months. He expressed frustration with his time there, calling it a 'nonstop process of stalling.' (Michel du Cille -- The Washington Post)
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But the wounded of Mologne House are still soldiers -- Hooah! -- so their lives are ruled by platoon sergeants. Each morning they must rise at dawn for formation, though many are half-snowed on pain meds and sleeping pills.

In Room 323 the alarm goes off at 5 a.m., but Cpl. Dell McLeod slumbers on. His wife, Annette, gets up and fixes him a bowl of instant oatmeal before going over to the massive figure curled in the bed. An Army counselor taught her that a soldier back from war can wake up swinging, so she approaches from behind.

"Dell," Annette says, tapping her husband. "Dell, get in the shower."

"Dell!" she shouts.

Finally, the yawning hulk sits up in bed. "Okay, baby," he says. An American flag T-shirt is stretched over his chest. He reaches for his dog tags, still the devoted soldier of 19 years, though his life as a warrior has become a paradox. One day he's led on stage at a Toby Keith concert with dozens of other wounded Operation Iraqi Freedom troops from Mologne House, and the next he's sitting in a cluttered cubbyhole at Walter Reed, fighting the Army for every penny of his disability.

McLeod, 41, has lived at Mologne House for a year while the Army figures out what to do with him. He worked in textile and steel mills in rural South Carolina before deploying. Now he takes 23 pills a day, prescribed by various doctors at Walter Reed. Crowds frighten him. He is too anxious to drive. When panic strikes, a soldier friend named Oscar takes him to Baskin-Robbins for vanilla ice cream.

"They find ways to soothe each other," Annette says.

Mostly what the soldiers do together is wait: for appointments, evaluations, signatures and lost paperwork to be found. It's like another wife told Annette McLeod: "If Iraq don't kill you, Walter Reed will."

After Iraq, a New Struggle

The conflict in Iraq has hatched a virtual town of desperation and dysfunction, clinging to the pilings of Walter Reed. The wounded are socked away for months and years in random buildings and barracks in and around this military post.

The luckiest stay at Mologne House, a four-story hotel on a grassy slope behind the hospital. Mologne House opened 10 years ago as a short-term lodging facility for military personnel, retirees and their family members. Then came Sept. 11 and five years of sustained warfare. Now, the silver walkers of retired generals convalescing from hip surgery have been replaced by prosthetics propped against Xbox games and Jessica Simpson posters smiling down on brain-rattled grunts.

CONTINUED 1 2 3 4 5 Next >

Bite me.
Traumatized US soldiers being treated in 'virtual Iraq'

by Rob Woollard Sun Feb 18, 7:53 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Traumatized US soldiers are being treated for post-war psychological disorders by going out on patrol in a computer-generated "virtual
Iraq," experts told a conference.

Skip Rizzo, a psychologist at the University of Southern California, has helped create a program that simulates life in the war zone for Iraq veterans suffering from conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The ground-breaking treatment allows soldiers to experience the sights, sounds and even the smells of a war-zone, courtesy of wrap-around goggles linked to a startlingly realistic virtual world.

The idea is to re-introduce veterans to the experiences that have inflicted mental scars until gradually they are no longer haunted by the memories, a long-established therapeutic technique known as "exposure therapy."

"What we do is put somebody in a virtual Iraq but at a level where initially there will be minimal anxiety," Rizzo said at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting.

"Say for example their trauma event was being blown up in a Humvee -- we might start them off just standing in the desert next to a Humvee.

"Gradually we would put them in the Humvee and have them start driving down a desert road. Eventually over the course of the therapy you introduce elements that increase the realism -- bombs going off, things blowing up.

"It's a gradual exposure to a realistic environment which you can't really do just through imagination."

Soldiers undergoing the treatment can be placed in a variety of situations -- either as the passenger, driver or gunner in an armored vehicle or as a soldier on a foot patrol walking through an Iraqi city.

"You could be walking down one street and a child will come up to greet you, you could be walking down another street and a car explodes," Rizzo said.

The virtual Iraq experience is designed to be completely immersive.

Fake aromas -- including gunpowder, burning smoke, diesel fuel, body odors, exotic spices and roast mutton -- are wafted under the patient's nose.

The boom of bombs is simulated by giant speakers placed under the patient's chair. "If you've ever stopped at a set of traffic lights and a kid has pulled up next to you playing rap music and you can feel your car shaking -- it's the same principle," Rizzo said.

The realism of the graphics has impressed patients, Rizzo said. "We've have had people ask us in certain situations 'Is that real or is that video?'," Rizzo said.

So far the 'Virtual Iraq' has been used in clinical trials at 10 locations across the United States, although only four soldiers have completed a course of the treatment.

One of the first successful patients was a 21-year-old female treated for PTSD. "She was a support staff person that had frequent exposure to suicide bombing sites and areas where there was significant human carnage," Rizzo said.

"I'm very conscious about making any grand claims about this treatment yet because there is such a small group of patients. But the early results have been encouraging," Rizzo said.