Newshog 16-02-2005

Every Wednesday and Sunday, we at Newshog bring you brief links to news items we found important or interesting or might make us all think a bit. Here are today's offerings so if you have a thought, post a comment

• Imperial America under Bush is less concerned with other nations and cultures than with introspective adulation of heroes past, if recent history book publishing is any guide.
  
  
• Iran has vowed to back Syria against "challenges and threats" as both countries face strong US pressure.
  
  
• The US Senate has unanimously confirmed Michael Chertoff a.k.a. The Gremlin as the new secretary of homeland security. Colour me disgusted - so much for reports of Senate Dems growing belated backbones.
  
  
• Prompted by an absence of standard oversight, congressional Democrats heard testimony Monday about policies of massive waste and mismanagement involving a mercenary firm and a US-funded propaganda TV network in Iraq. Not that the wimps will actually do anything with the findings. Maybe the more fiscally responsible Republican bloggers should take this one up. Sheesh, I can't believe I just wrote that.
  
  
• Major chunks of the Pentagon's $82 billion supplemental defense bill are only distantly related to the fights going on in Afghanistan and Iraq - a clever ploy to make sure the Pentagon gets extra funding as voting against "the money for the troops" would be political suicide. Forget I mentioned fiscally responsible Republicans - there are none in this administration.
  
  
• Want to see what rightwing "opinion leaders" see? PNAC says that they got exactly what they wanted in the Iraqi election.
  
  
• Gobal economics: how the US suffers when the dollar falls.
  
  
• The New Zealand government has named a Mossad agent as being behind organised killings of Australians to obtain passports for fake identies. The agent has fled to North Korea.
  
  
• For Canadian citizen Maher Arar, who was sent to Syria (yes, Syria) for beatings and prolonged captivity when US officials deemed him dangerous, quiet exoneration is not compensation. He wants nothing short of an end to the practice that led to his ordeal.
  
  
• The head of the International Committee for the Red Cross, that well-known bastion of pinko treasonous liberalism, has met US President George W Bush to discuss concerns about torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
  
  
• The Church of England is to grant partners of homosexual clergy the same pension rights as clergy spouses. Will Episcopalians elsewhere follow suit, I wonder?
  
  
• Tony Blair is an admirer of Margaret Thatcher. That should help him learn from her biggest mistake - destroying her party over Europe.
  
  
• For all those who think "Evangelo-fascism" isn't as serious as "Islamo-facism" - courtesy of Wewstboro Baptist Church, Kansas, we bring you godhatesamerica.com - spread the word.
  
  
• The following transcript of a recent White House "Press" briefing comes to our attention courtesy of the Hartford Courant newspaper.
  

Thanks to Kat and Shadows for links.
Quote of the Day:

When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects, this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive.
Robert A. Heinlein.