The Globe and Mail: Canada refuses further role in missile defence

The Globe and Mail: Canada refuses further role in missile defenceThe formal announcement Thursday that Canada will refuse any further participation in the controversial U.S. missile-defence shield was met with an immediate warning that Canada had given up its sovereignty.

Although Prime Minister Paul Martin said Canada would “insist” on maintaining control of its airspace, U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci warned that Washington would not be constrained.

“We will deploy. We will defend North America,” he said.

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Hmmm. Exactly, what does this mean “We will deploy. We will defend North America?”
Will the US defend Canada even if Canada doesn't want US defence?

The entire article is a can of who said what, when it was said and to whom it was said.

Suicide Bomber In Lieutenant's Uniform Kills 15

Suicide Bomber Kills 15 at Iraq Police Station

BAGHDAD — A suicide car bomber disguised as a police officer drove into a police station parking area this morning, killing at least 15 people in the northern city of Tikrit.

The victims were members of the new Iraqi police force, whose station is along the main road through Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home city.

The bomber struck at a busy time, 8 a.m., when police were changing shifts, police Lt. Col. Saad Dahan Abid said. About a dozen cars caught fire.

The police official said the attacker was able to slip into the station undetected because he was wearing a police lieutenant's uniform.

Boston.com / White House raps author for secret tapes

Boston.com /White House raps author for secret tapes NEW YORK -- The White House lashed out yesterday at the Bush family friend who secretly tape-recorded the future president discussing issues such as drug use and gay rights.

Even though aides insisted there was little damaging information on the tapes, they made no effort to hide the fact that President Bush felt betrayed by conservative author Doug Wead.

"These were casual conversations with someone whom the president considered, or believed to be, a friend," said White House spokesman Ken Lisaius.

Wead said he made the tapes, from 1998 to 2000, for a book because he believed Bush would become a "pivotal figure in history."

"I had a choice to either write propaganda about the Bushes or write accurately and fairly based on what I knew," Wead told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Wead said his publisher insisted on listening to the tapes to confirm anonymous sources he cited in his new book, "The Raising of a President." The New York Times then got wind of the tapes, Wead said, and it "all became unraveled."

The tapes were made as Bush considered a run for the White House.

The People's Email Network

The People's Email NetworkShould Congress investigate press conference integrity?

How is it that someone with no journalistic credentials was elevated to a position of asking propaganda questions at White House press conferences? The issue is not whether Mr. Guckert (Jeff Gannon) may have moonlighted as a prostitute. The real question is whether the press itself, in the exercise of its professionalism, should have more control over the process. Is time for Congress to get involved to make sure the tough questions are asked? What do you we should do?

Here is an easy one-click form you can use make your voice heard. It automatically looks up your senators and house representative and sends them your personal message all at the same time.

Do you want our representatives in Washington to stand up for you more often? We must back them up with our vocal support if we expect them to fight for us on this or any issue. The People's Email Network encourages you to speak out and keep speaking out, regardless of your political position, until our representatives truly hear you.

And now you can have your own custom Issue Action Center featuring any issue of interest to you for you for no charge. It's an amazingly small block of HTML code you can drop into any web page anywhere for an instant dynamic action menu effect. And we will set up a corresponding issue action page on The People's Email Network for you too. Pursue your own policy initiative! See the code in action

Fairfield County Weekly: A World to Win

David Rovics tackles corporate greed through music, reclaiming folk as he goes

David Rovics is the kind of musician that makes you reevaluate what folk music is. Is it somebody strumming a guitar, eking out a couple chords as background for some heartbreak story from their diary pages? Is it safe and smiling, hokey in a good-old-fashioned way? Or is that what's gone wrong with folk music in the last few decades, when, dependably, those stepping up on stage had less and less to actually say? Words take on new meanings with each generation, and ours is one in which folk has become a predictable form that has little if anything to do with its Americana ancestry. Once the medium of the anti-war movement--Bob Dylan, of course, and Utah Phillips, Phil Ochs and Woody Guthrie--folk became the medium of the open mic circuit, the easy listening background for the coffee-shop crowd. Nothing wrong with that, except that the need for those messages now couldn't be greater.

Rovics never analyzed the whys and why nots of his musical genre of choice--he calls himself a songwriter if one must split hairs--he's just always felt a natural inclination toward the left. The inclination has become more stubborn and outspoken (or outsung, as the case may be) since his early years in Wilton, where he attended "a little hippie elementary school." In his early 20s Rovics dropped out of college and moved to Berkeley, Calif., where he found like minds, and like voices. His vision of a better society clashed dramatically with the lives he witnessed of immigrant workers, the Central American refugees living in San Francisco's Mission District. And then he lost a friend in a gang shooting, and the whole world began to spin off-kilter. (more)


by Brita Brundage