Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said it would be the first time in federal law that a fetus would be recognized as having the same rights as the born. The bill "is not about shielding pregnant women," she said. "It is and has always been about undermining freedom of choice."

The House, said Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, was "taking advantage of tragedy to promote the far-right agenda of trying to rob women of their right to choose."

Nita Lowey and Kate Michelman, standing tall for a murderer's right to choose. And in truth, they are the ones undermining the intellectual case for abortion rights. The pro-life argument has always been that abortion is murder; Lowey and Michelman's view is that murder is abortion.

A reporter dies and goes to journalist heaven, where St. Peter issues him a harp and a set of moderate-sized wings.

"These seem kind of small," the reporter complains.

"Well," says St. Peter, "Wing size here is determined by how much abuse you suffered in your earthly life. See that guy with the butterfly-sized wings? He was a publisher. And the person with condor-sized wings? She was a night city editor."

Just then a squadron of F-16s roars overhead, forcing the two to hit the dirt.

St. Peter stands up, dusts himself off and mutters, "Damn copy editors."

Let me spare you the usual economist's sermon on the virtues of free trade, except to say this: although old fallacies about international trade have been making a comeback lately (yes, Senator Charles Schumer, that means you), it is as true as ever that the U.S. economy would be poorer and less productive if we turned our back on world markets. [emphasis added]

"Trade often produces losers as well as winners," declares the best-selling textbook in international economics (by Maurice Obstfeld and yours truly).

One brave and skeptical line of discussion would have been to ask Gibson, "How do you know any of this actually happened?" Journalists are supposed to be in the business of asking impertinent, uncomfortable questions. But I never heard or read anyone in any mainstream press organization wade into that one. Certainly not in the context of interviewing Gibson or in direct reference to "The Passion."

I have on hand a hundred dollar bill I keep for emergencies – why, I don’t know, but it gives a certain amount of comfort. I would hand it over immediately just to hear the exchange that would follow if Mr. Lambert asked Mel Gibson that impertinent, uncomfortable question.

Now let us imagine Mr. Lambert reviewing an “O’Reilly Report” episode where the host began his interview with a major Muslim cleric by saying “So you actually believe in the word of Mohammed? What proof do you have?” One suspects that such an episode would be used to prove the pro-Christ bias of Murdock’s Fox empire, eh?

I await more Lambert pieces in which he goes to Iran, interviews the opposition, and asks them why they believe this Mohammed stuff. "How do you know any of this actually happened?" I can even see the headline: “Are Muslim Beliefs Grounded in Unexamined Fantasy? Devout Unable to Provide Empirical Proof of the Existence of the Transcendental Divine to Satisfy Cathode-Ray Tube Entertainment evaluator.”

With the economy now growing strongly, he said, the deficit "will tend to narrow somewhat" in the short term, but that won't be enough to cover the long-term federal retirement expenses of the 77 million baby boomers. The first-born members of that generation will become eligible for Social Security benefits in 2008, and for Medicare in 2011, he said. Over time, as the population ages, there will be fewer workers paying into the funds for every retiree drawing money out.

"This dramatic demographic change is certain to place enormous demands on our nation's resources -- demands we almost surely will be unable to meet unless action is taken," Greenspan said, speaking for himself and not the Fed.

Greenspan, who chaired a commission that studied Social Security during the Reagan administration, said he would not change current retirees' benefits, but reminded members of Congress of two specific ways they could curtail the program's future growth.

He again recommended gradually raising the eligibility age for both Medicare and Social Security, to keep pace with the population's rising longevity. And he noted that they could link cost-of-living increases in Social Security benefits to a measure of inflation other than the consumer price index, a widely followed measure that many economists believe overstates the rise in overall prices. A measure that showed less inflation would cause benefits to rise more slowly.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, of California, said in a written statement that Greenspan's comments "dramatize the destructive effects of Republicans' reckless economic policies: record budget deficits, higher interest rates, lower economic growth and substantial risk to the Social Security benefits that retirees depend on."

Today's holding is limited to training the clergy, but its logic is readily extendible, and there are plenty of directions to go. What next? Will we deny priests and nuns their prescription-drug benefits on the ground that taxpayers' freedom of conscience forbids medicating the clergy at public expense? This may seem fanciful, but recall that France has proposed banning religious attire from schools, invoking interests in secularism no less benign than those the Court embraces today. When the public's freedom of conscience is invoked to justify denial of equal treatment, benevolent motives shade into indifference and ultimately into repression. Having accepted the justification in this case, the Court is less well equipped to fend it off in the future. I respectfully dissent.

Is North Korea a threat?

Yes. Let me say that I hold no brief for Kim Jong Il. And having been the highest-level American official to meet him ever, in Pyongyang, and knowing full well what goes on in North Korea. It's a horrible place and the people are starving. And he is a horrible dictator. I do think, however, that we were in the process of talking with him about a verifiable agreement on limiting missile technology and the export of missile technology. What we were also doing was working out a way so that we could make a clear statement that we had no intention of aggression. And with the ultimate goal of trying to figure out whether there could be some kind of a normal relationship or diplomatic relations or some kind of path to that. And I had had interesting talks in Pyongyang with him. It made it very clear to me that he was smart and knew what he was doing.

I believe very strongly that you make arms control agreements with your enemies, not with your friends. So it was very important to try to get them within a variety of arms control regimes and then try to make them as verifiable as possible. We left a hand of cards on the table and the (Bush) administration did not pick them up.

Does the revelation by the North Koreans that they were in fact cheating on the agreement that they reached with the United States change any of your thoughts about North Korea?

First of all, I think there's some genuine confusion these days about what they really said. And whether the translations were correct. So it's hard to say.

There is an inherent right of self-defense for any country, which the president, as the commander in chief, exercises. The U.N. Charter is based on collective action. But Article 51 of the U.N. Charter does allow for the inherent right of self-defense. But once the international community takes a look at it, then it's supposed to be moved over to them.

The American public knows very little about Islam and I think makes gross generalizations about people who are Muslims without understanding that that religion has been hijacked by fundamentalists. [emphasis added]

In fashioning this sensitive policy in the midst of an impeachment crisis that lasted into early 1999, Clinton's national security adviser, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, struggled to forge a consensus within the White House national security team. Among other things, he had to keep on board a skeptical Attorney General Janet Reno and her Justice Department colleagues, who were deeply invested in law enforcement approaches to terrorism, according to senior officials involved.

As the months passed, Clinton signed new memos in which the language, while still ambiguous, made the use of lethal force by the CIA's Afghan agents more likely, according to officials involved. At first the CIA was permitted to use lethal force only in the course of a legitimate attempt to make an arrest. Later the memos allowed for a pure lethal attack if an arrest was not possible. Still, the CIA was required to plan all its agent missions with an arrest in mind.

Some CIA managers chafed at the White House instructions. The CIA received "no written word nor verbal order to conduct a lethal action" against bin Laden before Sept. 11, one official involved recalled. "The objective was to render this guy to law enforcement." In these operations, the CIA had to recruit agents "to grab [bin Laden] and bring him to a secure place where we can turn him over to the FBI. . . . If they had said 'lethal action' it would have been a whole different kettle of fish, and much easier."

* al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein: Rumsfeld changed the rules of fighting against terrorists, focusing on one primary goal-killing them. Rumsfeld streamlined rules of engagement allowing soldiers on the ground to act quickly on new information. Rumsfeld also moved new special operations units under the control of the Pentagon. The book reveals how one such unit, the secret Grey Fox, could turn on cell phones without the enemy knowing it, allowing the CIA Predator to use the phone signal for a missile strike.

GRANHOLM: But the reality is, Chris, you've got to come to the states where it is really happening.

In my state, we just had a company last week say 2,700 jobs in a town of 8,000 — that's like a nuclear bomb going off — are moving to Mexico, even though we offered zero taxes — zero taxes — for 20 years. We gave them a new plant. The UAW came up with concessions of $32 million a year, unprecedented.

But the company, Electrolux, chose to go to Mexico because they could pay people a $1.57 an hour. How are we supposed to compete with that when we have zero taxes...

WALLACE: But how is any president going to be able to solve that?

GRANHOLM: That's why...

WALLACE: You can rewrite a trade agreement, but that isn't going to make wages the same in Mexico as they are in Michigan.

GRANHOLM: No, clearly not, but why are we subsidizing the job losses? Why aren't we providing incentives for manufacturers to stay here? Why don't we enter trade agreements that have, at least, basic core labor and environmental standards, so that you do level the playing field?

Sunday's attack brought an immediate condemnation from chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat.

"We condemn this attack and once again we urge the United States, and other members of the Quartet [Russia, EU and UN] to exert every possible effort to revive the peace process and put it back on track," he said.

The story started to change only last year when the Democrats began citing Cleland's lost Senate seat as proof that Republicans hate war heroes. Indeed, until the myth of Republicans attacking Cleland for his lack of "patriotism" became central to the Democrats' narrative against George Bush, Cleland spoke only honorably and humbly about his accident. "How did I become a war hero?" he said to the Boston Globe reporter in 1997. "Simple. The grenade went off."

Cleland even admitted that, but for his accident, he would have "probably been some frustrated history teacher, teaching American government at some junior college." (OK, I got that wrong: I said he'd probably be a pharmacist.)

Cleland's true heroism came after the war, when he went on to build a productive life for himself. That is a story of inspiration and courage. He shouldn't let the Democrats tarnish an admirable life by "sexing up" his record in order to better attack George Bush.

This is delusional in the extreme. "Sensible" people have "only one hope"? Liberals bemoan the fact that Bush has used fear to divide the country since 9/11, yet here they are now trying to motivate voters with talk of the Apocalypse. Alterman & Co. are just a tiny hop, skip and a jump from proclaiming George W. Bush the Antichrist. You can just feel it.

Daschle told state chamber of commerce representatives meeting in the South Dakota capital that he is satisfied with the way things are going in Iraq.

"I give the effort overall real credit," Daschle said. "It is a good thing Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. It is a good thing we are democratizing the country."

He said he is not upset about the debate over pre-war intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, an issue that has dogged President Bush as Democratic presidential contenders have slogged through the primary season.

A new poll conducted by Zogby International for The O’Leary Report and Southern Methodist University’s John Tower Center from February 12-15, 2004 of 1,209 likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percentage points found that if the election for president were held today, Democrat John Kerry would edge George W. Bush 46% to 45% in the “blue states” – or states won by Al Gore in the 2000 election. In the “red states,” or states won by George W. Bush in 2000, however, Bush wins handily by a 51% to 39% margin.

Mr. Pryor is known for, among other things, defending the right of high school athletes to pray "spontaneously" and for his initial support of an Alabama state judge who posted the Ten Commandments in his courtroom and erected a monument engraved with the Commandments in the Supreme Court rotunda.

"The president is on shaky ground with the hard right and is using this questionably legal and politically shabby technique to bolster himself," Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a Judiciary Committee member, said on Friday. "Regularly circumventing the advise-and-consent process is not the way to change the tone in Washington. It's shabby and the motivation is political more than anything else." [emphasis added]

Pawlenty described Yecke as highly qualified and her detractors as "apologists for the status quo." He added: "Not liking somebody's policy direction isn't a good reason to tube a confirmation. If they don't like the policy direction, they should maybe win an election. That might be a new idea for them."

"I have to vent," Mr. (Gerald W.) McEntee, the often blunt leader of the nation's largest public service union, said in a leisurely interview in his office here. "I think he's nuts."

Clinton's philandering in fact heavily impacted both his terms in office. First, his wife had the goods on him, which encouraged him to defer to her in giving her health care plan priority over welfare reform and defending it past the moment of compromise--the biggest mistakes of his first four years, mistakes that led directly to GOP control of the Congress. Second, because Clinton got away on the philandering charge in 1992 (thanks to all the Democrats covering for him) he was encouraged to think he could get away with it in office, even in front of a federal judge, with the obvious disastrous results for his second term. [emphasis in original]

All of this is to say that death was not the purpose of Jesus' life but only one part of a story that stretches from incarnation at Bethlehem to life as a Jew in Nazareth to preaching in Galilee to a courageous challenge to Roman imperialism in Jerusalem to permanent faith in the God of Israel whose promise is fulfilled in resurrection. In this full context, the death of Jesus can be seen as a full signal of his humanity -- and more. [emphasis added]

"We've been down this road many, many times before. We are extremely reluctant to follow this kind of thing up unless there is a really, really compelling public interest. We don't feel there is any reason to until it reaches a threshold.

"All we have at the moment is that the woman's parents, who are republicans, [sic] don't like Senator Kerry.

"In any case, nobody would be too shocked if Kerry lied about an affair. Even if someone came to us with photographs we still wouldn't run it. Lying to Don Imus [the radio host to whom Kerry gave his initial denial] is not a federal offence." [emphasis added]

Retired Brig. Gen. William Turnipseed, the 187th's Tactical Reconnaissance Group's former commander, recanted his statement that he couldn't remember if Bush reported for duty, now saying his memory is faulty because he's in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's disease.

And The Boston Globe, which took the lead in challenging Bush's Guard service, reported serious doubts about the account given by one of Bush's prime accusers.

Turnipseed reversed gear after retired Lt. Col. John "Bill" Calhoun went public to say he remembered Bush well, and that in fact it was Turnipseed, then a colonel, who introduced Bush to him.

"Col. Turnipseed brought [Bush] in when he first came to me. I just know that he saw him there," Calhoun told The Post. Turnipseed said he regards Calhoun as trustworthy and believes he'd remember it correctly.

The other defining feature of the Clinton foreign policy was multilateralism, which expressed itself in a mania for treaties. The Clinton administration negotiated a dizzying succession of parchment promises on bioweapons, chemical weapons, nuclear testing, carbon emissions, anti-ballistic missiles, etc.

Why? No sentient being could believe that, say, the chemical or biological weapons treaties were anything more than transparently useless. Senator Joseph Biden once defended the Chemical Weapons Convention, which even its proponents admitted was unenforceable, on the grounds that it would “provide us with a valuable tool”--the “moral suasion of the entire international community.”

Moral suasion? Was it moral suasion that made Qaddafi see the wisdom of giving up his weapons of mass destruction? Or Iran agree for the first time to spot nuclear inspections? It was the suasion of the bayonet. It was the ignominious fall of Saddam--and the desire of interested spectators not to be next on the list. The whole point of this treaty was to keep rogue states from developing chemical weapons. Rogue states are, by definition, impervious to moral suasion.

An article in Business Day yesterday about PeopleSoft's rejection of the latest takeover offer from Oracle misstated the name of an economics consulting firm whose chief investment officer said many stockholders were waiting as long as possible to tender their PeopleSoft shares in case a better offer came along. It is Trend Macrolytics, not Trend Macroanalytics.

Fresh from his latest win in Maine, the favourite to challenge George Bush for the US presidency has secured the financial support of some of the most powerful media moguls in the world.

As John Kerry's campaign to secure the Democrat nomination - and with it a crack at the White House - continues to gather pace, it has emerged that it is being bankrolled by key executives from News Corporation, MTV-owner Viacom and Sony.

The victory in Maine, Mr Kerry's 10th out of the 12 primaries in the opening weeks of the Democrat selection campaign, confirmed his position as overwhelming favourite to take on President Bush in November's presidential election.

Unsurprisingly, the donation from News Corp's boardroom came not from chairman Rupert Murdoch, a committed Republican, but from the company's chief operating officer, Peter Chernin.

We are here to ask, and we're here to ask vehemently: "Where are the leaders of our country?" Where is the leadership? We're here to ask William McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatric and so many others: "Where are they now that we the men that they sent off to war have returned?" These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war.

"He betrayed this country!" Mr. Gore shouted into the microphone at a rally of Tennessee Democrats here in a stuffy hotel ballroom. "He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place."

In a letter delivered to the committee Friday morning, Manuel Miranda says he has read "documents evidencing public corruption by elected officials and staff of the United States Senate."

The Overclockers.com website published a barely believable hoax last week detailing the gutting of a brand new and very expensive Power Mac G5. This brought on an unbelievable reaction from the Mac community.

The hoaxer, identified only as "Andy," claimed he received a dual-processor G5 for Christmas. But preferring a Windows PC, he swapped out the insides of the $3,000 machine for the guts of a cheapo PC. The post included several digital photographs to prove the outrageous claim.

The stunt quickly became meme of the week. As news of it spread around the world, it generated the best traffic ever for the long-running Overclockers site, which claimed more than 300,000 visitors a day.

Reaction from the Mac community was swift and brutal.

Andy said his e-mail inbox quickly filled to capacity, with more than 1,300 messages, and an unknown number bounced. The mail he did receive was full of nice, kind thoughts like death threats, insults and all kinds of colorful invective.

"I hope your PC blows up and leaves your miserable face disfigured forever," read one. "You will surely burn in hell for an eternity for this one."

Another said Andy should be hung by his testicles and set on fire.

WASHINGTON - A Senate colleague was trying to close a loophole that allowed a major insurer to divert millions of federal dollars from the nation's most expensive construction project. John Kerry (news - web sites) stepped in and blocked the legislation.

Over the next two years, the insurer, American International Group, paid Kerry's way on a trip to Vermont and donated at least $30,000 to a tax-exempt group Kerry used to set up his presidential campaign. Company executives donated $18,000 to his Senate and presidential campaigns.

Were the two connected? Kerry says not.

But to some government watchdogs, the tale of the Massachusetts senator's 2000 intervention, detailed in documents obtained by The Associated Press, is a textbook case of the special interest politicking that Kerry rails against on the presidential trail.

"The idea that Kerry has not helped or benefited from a specific special interest, which he has said, is utterly absurd," said Charles Lewis, head of the Center for Public Integrity that just published a book on political donations to the presidential candidates.

This new study from the National Research Council, a division of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that while air pollution is declining, the reduction could be accelerated by a "multi-state, multi-pollutant" approach that sets broad overall reduction targets, then allows industrial facilities to trade reduction permits with each other. (Current Clean Air Act rules generally require cumbersome site-by-site, pollutant-by-pollutant litigation.) It's, um, a scientific study, and so perhaps The New York Times might have been forgiven for reporting it in a short article on page A11, while The Washington Post might have been forgiven for according the study but three grafs under "Washington in Brief." Here's what was missing from the coverage. The "multi-state, multi-pollutant" approach just endorsed by the National Academy of Sciences is exactly what the Bush administration has proposed to adopt under its Clear Skies initiative.

Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat whose backers have raised questions about President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard, once assailed critics of President Clinton’s lack of military service, saying, "We do not need to divide America over who served and how."

The Massachusetts senator, a decorated Vietnam veteran, went to the Senate floor in 1992 to defend Clinton, who was being dogged in his presidential campaign by charges that he dodged the draft.

Kerry compared Clinton’s critics to "latter-day Spiro Agnews" by playing "to the worst instincts of divisiveness and reaction that still haunt America. Are we now going to create a new scarlet letter in the context of Vietnam?"

"The race for the White House should be about leadership and leadership requires that one help heal the wounds of Vietnam, not reopen them," Kerry said at the time.

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You have been connected to Paula Andrews.

Paula Andrews: Matthew, thank you for contacting the McAfee Online Support Center. How can I assist you today?

Matthew Hoy: Hello

Paula Andrews: Hello, Matthew.

Matthew Hoy: OK, here's the deal. I have a well-known e-mail address for my web site and i'm getting hit with this mydoom virus like crazy it's not getting in, McAfee is catching it...but... I'm sick and tired of having to click the "continue what I was doing" button AND "no, I don't want to scan all my files now" boxes. Is there some way to turn them off? Seriously, I got home from work and spent 5 minutes clicking and clicking.

[delete queries regarding software version and OS I'm using]

Paula Andrews: Matthew, there is only one option to stop these pop ups.
Paula Andrews: Press CTRL + ALT + DEL, click on Processes tab---end task on Mcvsescn file from there.

Matthew Hoy: Is that disabling the Virus scanner?

Paula Andrews: No, it is for email scanning.

Matthew Hoy: So, the e-mail wouldn't be scanned and these viruses removed?

Paula Andrews: Matthew, please end task this file and then download all your emails and then scan your system.

Matthew Hoy: So you're saying I would have to scan my entire system after each time I downloaded e-mails?

Paula Andrews: Yes, that is the only solution to stop these popups.

Matthew Hoy: That's unacceptable. Who can I write a nasty e-mail to about this "feature"?

Paula Andrews: Matthew, you are facing this because of this virus only, this is for some time only.

Matthew Hoy: Yeah, but it's a pain in the butt and there should be some option given to me to turn at least the second notification off. That's what's driving me up the walls. I don't mind clicking the "continue what I was doing" button, it's that it doesn't let me continue what I'm doing, I've got to click another dang box. Who is someone in customer support that I can write to?

Paula Andrews: Matthew , there is no option for this thing, but I will pass on your feedback to the appropriate department.

Matthew Hoy: Thanks. Also make a note to them that this is something that makes me want to go back to Norton. This is the equivalent of being harassed by a program -- Norton never did that to me.