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Insurgents Attack Convoy With Gunfire, RPGs Dozens of insurgents have attacked a U.S. convoy of the Kentucky National Guard with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades. The attack late Sunday sparked a clash that saw U.S. troops kill 26 militants, one of the largest fights since Iraq's Jan. 30 election. About 40 rebels hit the military police and artillery units from the Kentucky National Guard as the troops traveled along a road 20 miles southeast of Baghdad that has seen a recent uptick in violence. Six soldiers and seven militants were wounded, and one person was arrested. After the attack, troops recovered...

Widespread allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse of Congolese women, boys and girls have been made against U.N. personnel who were sent to help and protect them — despite a so-called zero tolerance policy touted by the United Nations toward such behavior. The range of sexual abuse includes reported rapes of young Congolese girls by U.N. troops; an Internet pedophile ring run from Congo by Didier Bourguet, a senior U.N. official from France; a colonel from South Africa accused of molesting his teenage male translators; and estimates of hundreds of underage girls having babies fathered by U.N. soldiers who have...

The front-runner in the race to head up the so-called party of compassion and understanding said unabashedly on Saturday that he "hates" the opposition. "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for," former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean told Democrats gathered at a Manhattan hotel, in quotes picked up by the New York Daily News. He and six other candidates came to address the final DNC forum before the Feb. 12 vote for chairman. Dean said that despite his hatred for the GOP, he "admires" their discipline and their organization. But he cautioned his Democratic audience that their party shouldn't...

If christians use God's laws as a moral compass, what do atheists use to guide their moral belief? How do they know what is right and wrong? Why do they follow any laws at all? I am just seeking some knowledge to help me understand.

Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day October 3, 1863 The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States...

The failure of the Bush team to produce any weapons of mass destruction (W.M.D.'s) in Iraq is becoming a big, big story. But is it the real story we should be concerned with? No. It was the wrong issue before the war, and it's the wrong issue now. Why? Because there were actually four reasons for this war: the real reason, the right reason, the moral reason and the stated reason. The "real reason" for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world. Afghanistan wasn't enough because a terrorism...

SENATOR EDWARDS: Yes. Let me say first, on an issue that the vice president said in his last answer before we got to this question, talking about tax policy. The country needs to know that under what they have put in place and want to put in place, they -- millionaires sitting by their swimming pool, collecting their statements, to see how much money they're making, make their money from dividends, pays a lower tax rate than the men and women who are receiving paychecks for serving on the ground in Iraq. Now, they may think that's right. John Kerry...

Last week, the Kingdom’s highest Islaamic authority denounced terror attacks in the Kingdom, describing them as “serious criminal acts,” and pledged its full support for the government. “Acts of sabotage such as bombings, murder and destruction of property are serious criminal acts and an aggression against innocent people... which warrant severe and deterrent punishment,” the Council of Senior Islaamic Scholars said in a statement. The 17-member council, headed by the grand mufti, declared its support for the actions being taken by the state to track down terrorists in an effort to shield the country from their actions. The Islaamic body...

What Constitutes A Good Life? by Jim Rohn The ultimate expression of life is not a paycheck. The ultimate expression of life is not a Mercedes. The ultimate expression of life is not a million dollars or a bank account or a home. Here's the ultimate expression of life in my opinion, and that is living a good life. Here's what we must ask constantly, "What for me would be a good life?" And you have to keep going over and over the list. A list including areas such as spirituality, economics, health, relationships and recreation. What would constitute a...

The current toxic political atmosphere, in which one side is concerned about voter fraud and the other about voter disfranchisement, is largely the product of the elephant in the parlor left over from the 2000 election. Of course, I'm talking about the Florida recount, the gold standard for botched elections, and all the bitter recriminations it launched. The Florida battle returned to the news as the 2004 election approached in Michael Moore's hit film Fahrenheit 9/11, which begins with a malicious account of what happened in 2000. In essence, Moore claims that George W. Bush, aided by Florida's Republican secretary...

The double standard may well be the most characteristic feature of the leftist cultural order under which we now live. A particularly revealing instance of the double standard was the media's wall-to-wall obsession with the Abu Ghraib abuses, combined with its refusal to show the tape of the savage beheadings of innocent Americans by Islamist killers. While conservatives complain endlessly (one might even say boringly) about the double standard, however, they have signally failed to understand it. One explanation may be that today's leftists deceptively describe their politics as “liberal,” a fiction to which conservatives have all too willingly subscribed....

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

Omar Bakri Mohammed, the spiritual leader of the extremist sect al-Muhajiroun, said that holding women and children hostage would be a reasonable course of action for a Muslim who has suffered under British rule... He gave an interview yesterday to promote a "celebratory" conference in London next Saturday to commemorate the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Look at the black patch under the US flag... You gotta love them and their humor.

The Bush administration's 2005 budget proposal earmarks an additional $490 million for the IRS. Of that, $393 million would be devoted exclusively to enforcement efforts, particularly against high-income taxpayers, corporations and tax evasion, the IRS reported. The proposal also calls for the hiring of 5,000 new auditors, tax collectors, criminal investigators and other staff.

I want to find info on democrat lawyers who hold the same position as Ginsberg who are not stepping down.

Crosby Noyes: Mr. Kerry, you said at one time or another that you think that our policies in Vietnam are tantamount to genocide and that the responsibility lies at all chains of command over there. Do you consider that you personally as a Naval officer committed atrocities in Vietnam or crimes punishable by law in this country? John Kerry: There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed, in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones...

Photograph of John Kerry meeting with Comrade Do Muoi, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Photo is displayed in the War Remnants Museum (formerly the "War Crimes Museum") in Saigon. Mr. Lupetti also photographed a picture honoring Jane Fonda, who stands next to Nguyen Thi Dinh, deputy commander of the Viet Cong.

Volunteering for the military was an honorable act for you or anyone who served. I can't question your motives other than wanting to fight for your country. There are plenty of questions for your motive now and I don't need to go into that because we all know that information. I even think your protests against the Vietnam war were honorable. You seemed so passionate about your stand against the war. You risked everything by denouncing your fight in the war and by stomping on your war comrads who fought with you. Now you were in the war for four...

''I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops. We will probably have a continued presence of some kind, and certainly in the region. If the diplomacy that I believe can be put in place can work, I think we can significantly change the deployment of troops, not just there but elsewhere in the world -- in the Korean Peninsula perhaps, in Europe perhaps." http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/02/kerry_edwards_defend_their_agenda/ “Why are we withdrawing unilaterally 12,000 troops from the Korean Peninsula at the very time we are negotiating with North Korea — a country that really has nuclear weapons?” Kerry asked. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5745916/