THE BRAD BLOG: "OH MY OHIO: Noe Indicted on 3 Counts in Bush/Cheney '04 Money-Laundering Scheme!": "A federal grand jury has indicted Tom Noe, the former Maumee coin dealer suspected of laundering money into President Bush�s reelection campaign, Mr. Noe�s attorney told The Blade today.

Gregory A. White, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, will hold a news conference in Toledo to announce �a major public corruption indictment.�

The U.S. Attorney�s office announced in April that it was investigating Mr. Noe for possible violations of federal campaign finance laws. Sources have told The Blade that authorities believe Mr. Noe gave money to several people who then contributed to the Bush-Cheney campaign."

Cheney Plan Exempts CIA From Bill Barring Abuse of Detainees: "The Bush administration has proposed exempting employees of the Central Intelligence Agency from a legislative measure endorsed earlier this month by 90 members of the Senate that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoners in U.S. custody."

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Fitzgerald Must Broaden Investigation : "'The CIA leak issue is only the tip of the iceberg,' Congressman Jerry Nadler told me when I ran into him on the street near our offices on Friday afternoon. He was quick to tell me of a call -- led by Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Nadler, along with 39 of their House colleagues -- for Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation to be expanded to examine whether the White House -- President, Vice-President, and members of the WH's Iraq War Group -- conspired to deliberately deceive Congress into authorizing the war.And, as Nadler reminded me, lying to Congress is a crime under several federal statutes.

This is the first call by members of Congress for an expansion of Fitzgerald's probe, amid mounting evidence that there was a well-orchestrated effort by what former State Department aide Larry Wilkerson dubbed last week, "the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis" to hijack US foreign policy and knowingly mislead the Congress in order to get its support for an unlawful war.

"We are no longer just talking about a Republican culture of corruption and cronyism," Nadler says. "We now have reason to believe that high crimes may have been committed at the highest level, wrongdoing that may have led us to war and imperiled our national security."

Zuppa Inglese: "it actually mean english soup but zuppa inglese was born in napoli.

The king ferdinando di borbone recived lady hamilton's unexpected visit (she had a relatinship with the duke of wellington).

there wasn't the time to prepare an elaborate dessert so the king gave the orther to prepare 'something sweet'.

so in the kitchen the invented this extemporary mixture served in a bowl like a soup.

so when the king saw the waiter bring this bowl with a strange soup in it said 'date la zuppa all'inglese' (give the soup to the English) meaning lady hamilton.


-----PASTRY CREAMS-----
1 qt Milk
1 1/2 c Sugar
12 Egg yolks
2/3 c Unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tbsp Grated orange zest
2 tsp Vanilla extract
4 oz Bittersweet chocolate
1/2 tsp Cinnamon


BRING THE MILK and half the sugar to a boil in a large saucepan.
Whisk the egg yolks in mixing bowl and beat in the remaining sugar.
Sift in the flour and beat it in. Beat 1/3 of the boiling milk into the egg mixture. Return the remaining milk to a boil and beat in the egg mixture, continuing to beat until the pastry cream thickens and comes to a boil.
Cook, beating about 1 minute. Remove the cream from the heat and pour half into each of 2 bowls. Stir the orange zest and vanilla extract into one and the chocolate and cinnamon into the other. Press plastic wrap against the surface of each and refrigerate until cold.

"

Knight Ridder Reporter Files Harrowing Account After Stint With Iraqi Military: "In a remarkable report published widely Thursday, Tom Lasseter, longtime Knight Ridder correspondent in its Baghdad bureau, reveals what he learned as possibly the first American journalist to embed with an all-Iraqi military operation in the war -- and it isn't pretty.

Lasseter writes that 'a week spent eating, sleeping and going on patrol with a crack unit of the Iraqi army' (the 4,500-member 1st Brigade of the 6th Iraqi Division) suggests that the Bush exit strategy of turning over military control to the Iraqis 'is in serious trouble. Instead of rising above the ethnic tension that's tearing their nation apart, the mostly Shiite troops are preparing for, if not already fighting, a civil war against the minority Sunni population.'

Indeed, the soldiers he traveled with are 'seeking revenge against the Sunnis who oppressed them during Saddam Hussein's rule.'"

Knight Ridder Reporter Files Harrowing Account After Stint With Iraqi Military: "In a remarkable report published widely Thursday, Tom Lasseter, longtime Knight Ridder correspondent in its Baghdad bureau, reveals what he learned as possibly the first American journalist to embed with an all-Iraqi military operation in the war -- and it isn't pretty.

Lasseter writes that 'a week spent eating, sleeping and going on patrol with a crack unit of the Iraqi army' (the 4,500-member 1st Brigade of the 6th Iraqi Division) suggests that the Bush exit strategy of turning over military control to the Iraqis 'is in serious trouble. Instead of rising above the ethnic tension that's tearing their nation apart, the mostly Shiite troops are preparing for, if not already fighting, a civil war against the minority Sunni population.'

Indeed, the soldiers he traveled with are 'seeking revenge against the Sunnis who oppressed them during Saddam Hussein's rule.'"

Bush: Miers' Religion Cited in Court Nod - Yahoo! News
Can you believe it?
President Bush said Wednesday that Harriet Miers' religious beliefs figured into her nomination to the Supreme Court as a top-ranking Democrat warned against any "wink and a nod" campaign for confirmation.
"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers," Bush told reporters at the White House. "Part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."

Reader: "Nearly 870,000 people in Michigan have asthma -- about 9 percent of the state's population. That's a 15 percent increase from the late 1980s, according to 2003 figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the latest data available. Michigan ranks fourth in the nation in the prevalence of asthma. Nearly half the cases are in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Livingston counties: about 290,000 adults and 100,000 children"

NathanNewman.org: "One of Miers only qualifications for her nomination is that she was the head of a major corporate law firm, Locke, Liddle & Sappe.
Where under her leadership, the firm had to pay a $22 million settlement for aiding a client in defrauding investors"

Bush Names Harriet Miers to Supreme Court
Miers came with Bush to the White House in 2001 as staff secretary, the person who screens all the documents that cross the president's desk. She was promoted to deputy chief of staff before Bush named her counsel after his reelection in November. She succeeded Alberto R. Gonzales, another longtime Bush confidant, who was elevated to attorney general.

50 new ways to leave your lover
There is a proven way you can catch a cheating lover by keeping your partner’s dirty mails or – even better - chat logs, at least in the state of Belgium.

Erotic talk with a virtual partner in chatrooms on the web can constitute proof of "grossly insulting behaviour" and can be used as evidence in a divorce case, Belgium's top judges have ruled.

Michael Brown is testifying in front of the sham GOP congressional committee looking to whitewash the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina.

Brown admitted making mistakes, but his admission was limited to the public relations efforts:

But I do believe there are a couple specific mistakes that I made that I want to put on the table right now. First, I failed initially to set up a series of regular briefings to the media about what FEMA was doing throughout the gulf coast region. Instead, I became tied to the news shows, going on the news shows early in the morning and late at night and that was just a mistake. We should have been feed that information to the press instead of -- and in the manner and in the time a we wanted to instead of letting the press drive us.

It's nice to know that Michael Brown thought the biggest problem with FEMA's response was going on news shows instead of holding press conferences. Something tells me the people of the Gulf Coast who lost their homes thought FEMA should have other priorities.

Ted writes "A former engineering major has written an interesting article explaining why he thinks many smart students are not studying engineering anymore." Many business leaders have commented on the lack of engineers and several companies have even started initiatives to help bolster our diminishing ranks. Will these measures be enough, or does the system require much more drastic measures?
Confessions of an Engineering Washout

In FEMA's haste to play catch-up and provide housing in New Orleans, it contracted with Carnival Cruise Lines for three ships for six months, and did the deal overnight, as reported in today's Washington Post.

The problem with the deal with Carnival was a $236M no-bid contract that effectively paid Carnival twice the per person cost of a cruise, with full crew and entertainment, and the ships never leave port. Yet, the ships are only half occupied, so Carnival reaps even greater profits. Do the math: that's four times the cost of a cruise. Without a full crew, the profit is even greater.

Makes me wonder if anybody at Carnival was a big Republican supporter, or were they just incredibly lucky?

Here are just some of the most egregious cuts:

• $225 billion cut from Medicaid, the last-resort health insurance program for the very poor.
• $200 billion cut from Medicare, the health care safety net for the elderly and the disabled.
• $25 billion cut from the Centers for Disease Control
• $6.7 billion cut from school lunches for poor children
• $7.5 billion cut from programs to fight global AIDS
• $5.5 billion to eliminate all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• $3.6 billion cut to eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities
• $8.5 billion cut to eliminate all subsidized loans to graduate students.
• $2.5 billion cut from Amtrak
• $2.5 billion to eliminate the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative
• $417 million cut to eliminate the Minority Business Development Agency
• $4.8 billion cut to eliminate all funding for the Safe and Drug-Free schools program

Safer Internet Programme HOME: "The Safer Internet plus programme aims to promote safer use of the Internet and new online technologies, particularly for children, and to fight against illegal content and content unwanted by the end-user, as part of a coherent approach by the European Union. "

National Enquirer: "A Washington source said: 'The sad fact is that he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught him but the word is his drinking has been going on for a while in the capital. He's been in a pressure cooker for months.

'The war in Iraq, the loss of American lives, has deeply affected him. He takes every soldier's life personally. It has left him emotionally drained.

The result is he's taking drinks here and there, likely in private, to cope. 'And now with the worst domestic crisis in his administration over Katrina, you pray his drinking doesn't go out of control.'

Another source said: 'I'm only surprised to hear that he hadn't taken a shot sooner. Before Katrina, he was at his wit's end. I've known him for years. He's been a good ol' Texas boy forever. George had a drinking problem for years that most professionals would say needed therapy. He doesn't believe in it [therapy], he never got it. He drank his way through his youth, through college and well into his thirties. Everyone's drinking around him.'

Another source said: 'A family member told me they fear George is 'falling apart.' The First Lady has been assigned the job of gatekeeper.' Bush's history of drinking dates back to his youth. Speaking of his time as a young man in the National Guard, he has said: 'One thing I remember, and I'm most proud of, is my drinking and partying. Those were the days my friends. Those were the good old days!'"

Seeing the Forest: Bush Drunk Again?: "Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster.
His worried wife yelled at him: 'Stop, George.'"

Study Finds Racial Imbalance on Death Row - Yahoo! News: "More condemned men and women are on California's death row for killing whites than for murdering people of any other race, despite there being more black and Hispanic murder victims, according to a new study"

Cindy Sheehan was arrested moments ago in Union Square, Manhattan for allegedly speaking in the square without the proper permit.

This tells me that she can make a difference. They are no longer ignoring her. They are no longer laughing at her. They are fighting her. And, if you believe in the old saying, she is on the verge of winning.

We are quickly losing our civil rights and we have lost our sense of outrage at the direction our nation is moving, which means that it will continue in this direction, and will accelerate, until terrible things are happening everywhere and no one cares.