Pius XII Memorial Library Government Documents

Iran has a contested election and the political whims of Europe are shifting right — will Gordon Brown step down?  But here in the USA there is a standard that can’t be beat — exhibit A — the infamous 60th Senate seat in Minnesota, still up for grabs.  You can always trust Congress for comic [...]

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Not enough the shores of Tripoli, we just now need a riff on CTF 151 which seems to be all pirates all the time.  Still can’t get used to the military putting together an effective fighting force with the levels of bureaucracy and mind-numbing command structure… could it be that anything is possible when your [...]

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What’s all this about tainted milk and milk products in China?  Looked at any product labels lately? Most likely you will see the phrase Made in China, yes?  So is the FDA monitoring the potential problem?  You decide…
First we have this press release:
On September 12, 2008, in light of reports from the People’s Republic of [...]

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The list of speakers was impressive and would give pause to aspiring statespersons of any country as the UN started the General Debate of the 63rd Session.
It would be wise of the candidates and incumbents to read a few of the statements and reflect on the broader world in which we are intertwined.  Luiz Inácio [...]

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Bush & Putin — into the sunset (official White House photo)
We decry the violence, but can’t help but wonder “what were they thinking” when President Bush said “Georgia is a sovereign nation and its territorial integrity must be respected…”  Consider that he introduced the doctrine of “pre-emptive” invasion in 2003, and in the Bush example the country [...]

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Hillary has an op-ed piece in the WSJ this week speaking out on the GAOs new report on tax shelters in the Cayman Islands (remember, don’t count Senator Clinton out until Jan 20).
From GAO abstract:
Financial activity in the Cayman Islands is measured in the trillions of dollars annually… to evade income taxes or hide [...]

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With a budget in the neighborhood of half a trillion dollars the Pentagon spends a lot of time coming up with catchy phrases for their “operations.” The latest seems to be the Afghanistan “surge” — make that “Plus-Up.”
Planners Study Afghanistan Plus-Up

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The wags at the Swamp have found a scholar who says Senator McCain is not eligible to be President per Art. II, Sec. 1, Clause five of the Constitution — to wit:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a
Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this
Constitution, shall be eligible [...]

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Call me cynical (is that what happens after 15 years as a journalist and 15 years as a documents librarian) but the latest article on Gitmo from the NYT has me shocked. NYT says “enhanced interrogation” techniques used in Gtimo were inspired by the Chinese Reds in the 50’s. Link is here.
“An interrogation class at [...]

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Yummy. According to a NASA researcher Mars is ripe for planting:
From the Science Magazine webpage:
“Earth-type life would be happy to live in this soil,” Phoenix team member Samuel Kounaves of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, said at a media teleconference today. “You could grow asparagus but not [acid-loving] strawberries” in the alkaline dirt.

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