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EMMETSBURG, Iowa - Memo to Hillary Rodham Clinton: Your deputy campaign manager was right. An internal campaign memo late last month urged the Democratic front-runner to bypass first-up and momentum-generating Iowa because of Clinton's lackluster showing despite drawing large crowds — a memo she immediately disavowed. Yet, the reality from Des Moines to Dubuque lends credence to deputy campaign manager Mike Henry's assessment that for Clinton, Iowa is "our consistently weakest state." Presidential rival John Edwards has capitalized on the remnants of his 2004 presidential operation in the state, the freedom to visit in the absence of a day job...

Former Iowa congressman Jim Nussle isn't worried that Rudy Giuliani is getting a late start in the state's first-in-the-nation caucuses. In fact, Nussle says, the former New York mayor isn't behind schedule at all. "George W. Bush first set foot in Iowa in what would amount to June of this year (in 1999) and still won the (state party's Ames) straw poll," recalled Nussle, Giuliani's top supporter in the state. Still, when Giuliani touches down in Iowa Tuesday for the first time since his presidential bid began, the leader in GOP polls arrives with considerable expectations -- but also many...

The company said after U.S. markets closed that an audit panel had found accounting errors and evidence of misconduct. Dell also said it will delay filing its Form 10-K until it has completed an internal investigation.

214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE Washington, DC 20002 20 March 2007 The Honorable Nancy Pelosi Speaker U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 The Honorable John Boehner Minority Leader U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 The Honorable Harry Reid Majority Leader U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510 The Honorable Mitch McConnell Minority Leader U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510 Re: Constitutional Problems with Congress's Attempted Micromanagement of the War Dear Congressional Leaders: As lawyers and law professors specializing in the Constitution and national security, we write to express our growing concern with the potential abuse of Congress's authority in attempting to unreasonably...

Just breaking on CNN

WASHINGTON, Nov. 27, 2006 -- It’s imperative that the United States, its allies and the Iraqi government stop Islamic extremists from achieving their goal of controlling Iraq and the surrounding region, a senior U.S. military officer said on CBS’s “60 Minutes” yesterday. “We have to stabilize Iraq and the broader regional dynamic in order to make the region less conducive to extremism, because if we don’t, the extremist values will become mainstream and we will have a much worse security situation develop in the future,” Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, told CBS reporter Lara...

This article comes from the New Zealand Herald, part of the Independent (UK) chain. They will not let us post their material on FR. However, this article is well written and contains a good summary of some of the issues facing Airbus. The author concludes that the A380's $14 billion development cost, combined with at least $7 billion in lost profits from the A380's delays, combined with the estimated $12 billion that will be required to come up with the 350XWB answer to the 787 Dreamliner, may be too much for Airbus to overcome. Aviation buffs should find this article...

...Ms. Thompson belongs to a fringe of Internet users now renouncing MySpace and other social-networking sites -- not in spite of their popularity, but because of it. That highlights a dilemma facing News Corp.'s MySpace and Facebook Inc.: While it takes a critical mass of users to make these sites work, having too many users alienates some, especially when they attract an ever-growing cacophony of advertising and in some cases, spam. ...advertisers take advantage of the "friend request" function and send out requests that are really just advertisements. And programs have cropped up that can automatically send mass friend requests...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21, 2006 – Although progress has been profound and his country continues to move forward, terrorists have stepped up their efforts to derail that progress, Afghanistan’s president told the United Nations General Assembly in New York yesterday. “We have seen terrorism rebounding as terrorists have infiltrated our borders to step up their murderous campaign against our people,” Hamid Karzai said. Terrorists, he told the assembly, see a successful and prosperous Afghanistan as a knockout blow for their aims there. “That is why our schools and clinics get burned down and our … teachers and our doctors get killed,”...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12, 2006 – Different parts of Iraq have different security environments, and that is important to recognize as Americans assess stories coming out of the country, Pentagon officials said today. Recent stories about the insurgency in Anbar province paint a very bleak picture of the security situation in western Iraq. The stories reference a classified Marine assessment of the state of the insurgency in the province. The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., commands the Multinational Force West, headquartered at Camp Fallujah. In a written response to the articles, Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, commander...

Does it matter that Harvard’s curriculum is a vacant vessel? It is no secret, after all, that to the Harvard faculty, undergraduate education is at best of secondary interest. What is laughingly called the Core Curriculum—precisely what Summers sought to repair—is distinguished by the absence of any core of studies generally required. In practice, moreover, a significant number of the courses in Harvard College are taught by graduate students, not as assistants to professors but in full control of the content. Although they are called “tutors,” evoking an image of learned Oxbridge dons passing on their wisdom one-on-one, what they...

There is trouble brewing on BOTH sides of the Border. In Mexico,unsuccessful presidential candidate Obrador is threatening to take over the government on 9/16/06. In the USA,especially in the Border states,increasingly fed-up locals are threatening to take matters into their own hands - even if it means civil war !

he worst of times: Evangelicalism in critical condition With the wild popularity of so many evangelical fads like "Forty Days of Purpose"; the lucrative success of the Christian publishing and contemporary Christian music industries; the growing influence of the "emerging church" phenomenon; and a recent cover story by Time magazine featuring "The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America," lots of evangelicals might be tempted to think these are the best of times for their movement. My own assessment would be that evangelicalism's spiritual condition at the beginning of the twenty-first century is reminiscent of the medieval church just prior to...

When Correctional Officer Shayne Allyn Ziska was charged with conspiring to help prison gang members kill other inmates at the California Institution for Men, it wasn't the first time he'd been accused of misconduct. But it was the first time he faced any consequences. Ziska was convicted in February by a U.S. District Court judge on charges of conspiracy, civil rights violations and violent crime in aid of racketeering. He was sentenced last month to 17 years in federal prison. At his trial, several witnesses told how Ziska allowed inmates associated with the white supremacist Nazi Low Riders out of...

WASHINGTON, July 13, 2006 – Afghan security forces are making tremendous strides, but challenges remain, the lead U.S. trainer for the force said today. Army Maj. Gen. Robert Durbin, commander of Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan, speaks to Pentagon reporters July 13. Photo by Helene C. Stikkel.   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Maj. Gen. Robert Durbin, commander of Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan, said numbers for both the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police are on track. Equipment is flowing to the entities, and efforts are in place to "professionalize" both forces, the general...

/6/2006 - KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (AFPN) -- Airmen deployed all over the world overcome obstacles every day in order to get the mission done. In southwestern Afghanistan, two of those Airmen collaborated to build radio-communication antennas. When the Washington Air National Guard's 215th Engineering Installation Squadron arrived here in May, its task was to install new UHF and VHF radio antennas. After taking inventory of the parts that were delivered and what they needed to do, the engineers found they had no way to mount the antennas to the poles. That's when Master Sgt. Curtis Conner, the 215th EIS...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday said he will tell Mexican President Vicente Fox that his government needs to do more to stop illegal immigration into the U.S. when the two meet Thursday. "I will reiterate my positions that immigration and border security is a federal issue and the federal governments of both sides, the United States and Mexico, can and must do more," Schwarzenegger said. But he said he would not be confrontational and suggest that Mexico pay for health care, education, incarceration and other immigration-related costs incurred by the state. "Mexico is our friend," Schwarzenegger said at a Capitol...

Building near WTC entombs toxins, remainsBy AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press Writer 7 minutes ago AP Photo: In this Sept. 30, 2001, file photo NEW YORK - While debates rage about why more buildings have not gone up at the World Trade Center site, there is one, shrouded in a web of black netting and full of trade center dust, that can't seem to come down. The vacant 41-story former Deutsche Bank AG building looms above ground zero, contaminated with toxic waste and still holding tiny body parts more than four years after the trade center collapsed onto it on Sept....

Cattle ranchers in the Paradise Valley say shipping weights have declined since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995. They say their cattle stay close to gates instead of grazing entire pastures. Wary animals tend to eat less than relaxed animals.

Washington -- Organizers intended Monday's "Day without Immigrants" to prod Congress to allow the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants a chance to become citizens. But if anything, the rallies seemed to energize House foes of such a policy and put its supporters -- a bipartisan coalition in the Senate and President Bush -- on the defensive against conservatives angered by the sight of demonstrators waving Mexican flags and singing a Spanish-language version of the Star Spangled Banner. --snip-- House majority leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, denounced a resolution passed last week by the California Senate endorsing the work boycott, and he...