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Florida has been declared a state of emergency and the National Guard put on alert due to a pair of so-called "hurricanes" sources claim are going to hit the state sometime in the near future. Named "Bonnie" and "Charlie," the storms are supposedly entering the US from Cuba, a declaration some see as a prelude to a declaration of war against the dicta... er, beloved president-for-life Fidel Castro. Many prominent Democrats see the storm threat as being hyped for political purposes. "I think there has been an exaggeration," Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry said when asked whether President Bush and...

Genesis 1:1-2: First off, nothing ... but God. No light, no time, no substance, no matter. Second off, God says the word, and WHAP! Stuff everywhere! The cosmos in chaos: no shape, no form, no function -- just darkness ... total. And floating above it all, God's Holy Spirit, ready for action. Not exactly the King James Bible, eh? The verses above are from The Word on the Street, a new interpretation of the Bible by Welsh performance artist Rob Lacey. The book is due in stores Sept. 3, from Zondervan, after a successful launch in England earlier this year....

The European Union has decided to tax products from Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, saying it does not recognize these areas as part of Israel. The move is outlined in a new agreement reached between the EU and Israel. Israeli and EU negotiators have signed a document declaring that goods exported by Israel to Europe will be labeled with a town of origin, as well as nationality. Those shown to have been produced in Israeli settlements in Gaza and the West Bank will no longer be allowed to enter the European Union tariff-free under the new...

Long thought to be a myth, freak waves as high as 10-storey buildings are far more common than previously thought, the European Space Agency has found. Severe weather has been responsible for the sinking of more than 200 supertankers and container ships over the past two decades, and rogue waves are believed to be the main cause, the agency said. Three weeks of imaging data by the agency's satellites from early 2001 showed more than 10 individual giant waves around the globe of more than 25 metres in height. Previously, scientists believed that such large waves occurred only once every...

Imaging my surprise when I sat down Sunday morning in front of my computer, cup of coffee in hand, only to find a headline in the New York Times that read, “New Reports Again Question Whether Iraq Sought Uranium in Niger.” My blood pressure started to rise anticipating another article devoid of facts and based in innuendo. But as I started to read I realized the article was in effect a prominently placed but masked retraction. My jaw dropped at the notion…as did my coffee. It will take some time to get that stain out – no Clinton pun intended....

The Senate Intelligence Committee's report on American intelligence failures in Iraq has produced a rare and curious thing — agreement between left and right. For opposite reasons, both are pushing the absurd notion that the report told us that President Bush was not to blame for giving Americans false information about Iraq. The left has denounced the report as a whitewash that unfairly clears Mr. Bush of charges that he or his aides prodded the Central Intelligence Agency into hyping the Iraqi weapons programs, and purposefully misrepresented the threat from Saddam Hussein. The right agrees with the conclusion, and calls...

No Ballots for Those Risking Bullets: As you read this, there's a young Marine patrolling the roadside in Ramallah or Fallujah looking for IEDs. As he does, he daydreams. He thinks about his young wife in San Diego, his mom and dad, and the dog he found at the pound. He remembers that the presidential election is few short months away and he'll need to track down his unit's voting assistance officer and get an absentee ballot. He wants to vote for President Bush because he respects him, thinks he's been a good commander-in-chief. Sure, being in Iraq, several thousand...

TN: You told Tim Russert on Meet the Press that you would actively work for the defeat of George W. Bush in 2004. Wilson: I think what I said was that so long as his foreign policy was headed in the direction it is headed then I would actively work for it. It is safe to say that I will actively work on behalf of the Democratic Party's candidate. The President is in charge of this Republican administration, and this Republican administration is dominated by a part of the Party that I don't see eye to eye with on virtually...

Foreign news channels such as Rupert Murdoch's Fox News may be made to carry on-screen "health warnings" under proposed new guidelines published yesterday covering accuracy and impartiality on television. The broadcasting regulator Ofcom is to ask broadcasters and viewers for their opinion on the idea, which it said was a response to complaints about coverage of the Iraq war. The requirement would compel foreign news channels to carry labelling to alert viewers that their content was originally intended for viewers in other countries. The foreign broadcasters would still have to comply with Ofcom's rules on accuracy and impartiality. Ofcom's proposed...

Kofigate continues. Another stack of secret United Nations Oil for Food documents has now reached the press, this batch procured by congressional sources and providing--at long last--a better view of Saddam Hussein's entire U.N.-approved shopping list. This huge roster of Oil for Food relief contracts fills in a few more of the vital details about Saddam's "humanitarian" partnership with the U.N., spelling out the names of all his U.N.-approved relief suppliers and the price of every deal. We need no longer wonder which Russian company got the contracts, on the eve of war, in February 2003, to sell broadcasting gear...

Just last year, the Bush administration swaggered with certitude that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction. The president was so confident, he dragged the nation into an arbitrary war, all the while impugning the patriotism of those who questioned his assertions. On Friday, a bipartisan report produced conclusive evidence that President Bush's case for waging war on Iraq was terribly frail and flawed. The CIA greatly over-estimated the danger posed by Iraq to the United States, the Senate Intelligence Committee reported. But before launching the war, Bush and his advisers were cocksure that the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, had...

José Manuel Barroso, the outgoing Portuguese prime minister who has been nominated as president of the European Commission, on Tuesday criticised the US for its occasional "arrogance" and sought to distance himself from some of his recent domestic policies by underlining his social and environmental credentials. Questioned on Portugal's involvement in the US-led war coalition in Iraq, on the first day of hearings before the European parliament, Mr Barroso said that, while he was a long-standing admirer of the US, he also hated what he described as American "arrogance" and "unilateralism". He added: "I think there are magnificent things that...

JOLIET, Ill. - If Tony Stewart wanders down a dark alley any time soon, he probably better be on the lookout for Ray Evernham. Evernham had some harsh words for Stewart during Sunday's Tropicana 400 at Chicagoland Speedway after a Stewart bump sent Evernham's Kasey Kahne spinning out of the lead. As Kahne's crew worked to repair the damaged No. 9 Dodge, Evernham lashed out at Stewart. "He definitely needs to get suspended, and he should have his ass beat," Evernham said. "That's the problem with him. Nobody has ever really grabbed him and given him a good beating. If...

CONSIDER the following two events and ask yourself if they are related. On Friday, the International Court of Justice at the Hague ruled that Israel’s security fence with Palestine - aimed at keeping out would-be suicide bombers - was illegal. This was seen as a major political victory in Arab and Palestinian quarters. On Sunday, a working day in Israel, a terrorist bomb filled with metal shrapnel was deliberately exploded near a crowded bus stop in Tel Aviv. This was the first successful terrorist attack inside Israel in many months and was claimed by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an off-shoot...

In a country where nearly everything is controversial, it's no wonder there are good Israelis who are suggesting the fence be dismantled. To all of the reasons that they have brought for dismantlement - among others, the fear that it will serve as a "temptation" and incentive for terrorists - another political rationale has now been added: If we dismantle the fence, we will be fulfilling the expectations of the judges at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and of those behind them. But there is a difference nonetheless: The ICJ judges would settle for dismantling the fence...

ATLANTA To the naked eye, the naming of Senator John Edwards of North Carolina to the Democratic ticket seemed like a play for the South, where Democrats have lost significant ground in presidential politics. . Yet with the news that the Kerry campaign would deploy Edwards in the Midwest and West, it soon became clear that the senator's Southern roots were deemed more valuable outside the South than in it, like American tobacco sold abroad. Some strategists even said his popularity at home was so weak that he would not have won re-election to the Senate. . Indeed, Edwards may...

Jerusalem - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Sunday that a bombing in Tel Aviv had been carried out "under the patronage" of a world court ruling against Israel's West Bank barrier and vowed to ignore the verdict of the UN's highest legal body. "An hour ago, an Israeli woman was murdered by Palestinian terrorist criminals and other civilians were killed. We are all praying for their wellbeing," the premier said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting here. "The murderous act that was carried out this morning was the first to occur under the patronage of the world...

The ACLU protects the freedom of gay marriage, pedophilia, and abortion, but when it comes to religious freedom, some religious people might find themselves discriminated against. The U.S. Equal Employment Commission reported that religious discrimination has gone up an overwhelming 82% over the past eleven years. Religious discrimination has gone up an overwhelming 82% over the past eleven years. This is very scary news for people of all religions. According to the Mansfield Journal, Sandra Hardy was wrongfully let go because her job demanded that she work on Sundays, a day of rest and worship for most Catholics and Protestants....

If you are one of the millions of conservatives who would like to see ultra-liberal Barney Frank out of Congress, you now have a good chance of achieving that--by supporting Chuck Morse who has obtained official ballot status in his campaign against Barney Frank. While Morse calls himself a ''Romney-Bush Republican,'' he registered too late to formally become the Republican candidate and thus is running as an Independent. The Massachusetts Republican Party has given no indication that it intends to put up its own candidate to oppose Frank this year, which means that Morse is essentially the de-facto Republican nominee....

The Daley Political Quiz. Question 1. - Do you think we should concentrate exclusively on developing alternative fuel sources, at the expense of building more conventional power plants and taking advantage of our own untapped energy resources? A.) Yes B.) No Question 2. - Do you believe that relinquishing control over our entire healthcare system to a government agency will result in inexpensive, high quality medical treatment for you and your family? A.) Yes B.) No Question 3. - Do you believe that increasing the taxes of people who make more than $100,000 a year will improve the U.S. economy?...