The senior Justice Department legal adviser to President Bush who made the legal case for the Bush Administration's use of torture tactics on terror suspects defended comments that the president could unilaterally "massacre" civilians in wartime in a newly released interview. "You did argue that the president can legally order a village of civilians massacred," a KQED radio host asked John Yoo, now a professor at Berkeley. "Do you stand by that?" "If, I thought it was militarily necessary," Yoo replied. "All you have to do is look at American history.... Look at the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Not backing down, Yoo championed the use of nuclear weapons in World War II.

Russia went public with the plan to deploy the Iskander missiles at its western frontier – in the Kaliningrad region or on the territories of neighboring countries, but the process of probing into Washington's reaction is clearly taking too long. In politics, failure to appreciate the importance of acting quickly invariably creates problems, the above situation being a vivid example. The Iskanders are a remarkably potent weapon but it appears that Moscow risks playing the card as a minor element in the diplomatic game. One gets an impression that the threat to deploy the missiles in the Kaliningrad region has been aired too long for NATO on the whole or even Poland and the Czech Republic to take it seriously. If this is the case and the powerful weapon is depreciated due to the evident lack of determination to use it, the adversary has reasons to conclude that the threat is nonexistent. In other words, NATO feels free to go on expanding east in line with its strategy and to disregard Russia's objections as verbiage.

In late 2006, students at a school in Turin, Italy filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police. We also worked with the local police to help identify the person responsible for uploading it and she was subsequently sentenced to 10 months community service by a court in Turin, as were several other classmates who were also involved. In these rare but unpleasant cases, that's where our involvement would normally end.

But in this instance, a public prosecutor in Milan decided to indict four Google employees —David Drummond, Arvind Desikan, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes (who left the company in 2008). The charges brought against them were criminal defamation and a failure to comply with the Italian privacy code. To be clear, none of the four Googlers charged had anything to do with this video. They did not appear in it, film it, upload it or review it. None of them know the people involved or were even aware of the video's existence until after it was removed. La Repubblica: Google executives sentenced.

Latin America and Caribbean leaders united Tuesday to create a regional bloc excluding Canada and the United States, but its birth was undermined by a spat in which the Colombian president told Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to "be a man." Many of the 32 Latin American and Caribbean countries participating in the summit have long called for a new organization that will not be dominated by the interests of their two wealthy northern neighbors. The Washington-based Organization of American States, the largest diplomatic bloc in the Western Hemisphere, has been heavily influenced by the United States. Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who hosted the summit in a Caribbean resort, said the bloc "will consolidate and globally project a Latin American and Caribbean identity."

Latest from the Ministry of Peace: "WAR IS PEACE": Speaking today at the National Defense University, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates condemned European nations in general for their refusal to contribute larger portions of their population to NATO. Gates warned that Europe’s aversion to war was doing serious harm to assorted US military operations with NATO backing, and was therefore “an impediment” to the lasting peace he envisions those wars eventually creating. Gates’ comments appeared to be directed in part at the Netherlands, who saw its government collapse this weekend after NATO pressure to continue its commitment to the Afghan War led antiwar members of the government to withdraw. The Independent: Military chiefs say more troops needed for conflict. [Empire & Plunder]

Despite calls for restraint in multi-million dollar pay packages, Wall Street bonuses jumped by 17% to $20.3bn (£13bn) for 2009 as America's financial services industry rebounded swiftly from the credit crunch to healthy profitability, according to New York's tax department. New York state's comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, said the average taxable bonus on Wall Street was $123,850, a figure he described as a "bitter pill" for many people still struggling with record unemployment and ongoing economic weakness on the high street. Rolling Stone: Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle. Bloomberg: Secret AIG Document Shows Goldman Sachs Minted Most Toxic CDOs.

When it comes to the trust Americans put in government, a new national poll indicates it's a matter of location, location, location. According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday, only 26 percent of the public trusts the federal government most of the time or always. A third of the people questioned in the poll say they trust their state government most or all of the time. But that number surges to 52 percent for those who say they trust local government most or all of the time.

In the latest Israeli strategy to seize more control, power and land illegally, a Holy War has been invoked. Its is not with innocent intent that the Netanyahu regime has embarked on this current "Mission From God." In reality, where most of us actually dwell, religion is being used as just one more alibi for outright theft, more human rights violations, more false facts on the ground and has already instigated a backlash of "clashes" from Palestinians.

"This is a very obvious fraud, on the public and on the colleague in question. One has to categorically reject such a thing and we must now try, should such things really have happened, to make sure they don't happen again next time." Politico: Bernie Sanders compares climate skeptics to Nazi deniers. The Guardian: Sharp decline in public's belief in climate threat, British poll reveals.

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe has called for a full investigation into the climategate affair, calling the actions of the scientists involved “criminal” and part of “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation”. Inhofe has asked the Department of Justice to determine if climatologists, including Dr. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University and Dr. James Hansen of Columbia University and NASA, engaged in illegal activity to deliberately falsify data and mislead the public on the facts of global warming. The Republican Senator also called for former Vice President Al Gore to be called back before the Senate to testify on the matter. WUWT: Climategate Minority Report.

MI5 and MI6 will not be investigated over allegations they were complicit in the torture of terror suspects abroad, the Attorney General has decided. The Attorney General also rejected calls for a judicial inquiry because such issues were being addressed in civil litigation going through the courts.

The diplomatic row over the Falkland Islands deepened dramatically after Argentina announced that it would take its protests over British oil exploration to the United Nations today. Argentina’s Foreign Minister is to meet the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon. A resolution is also set to be tabled in the UN General Assembly condemning Britain for allowing Ocean Guardian to begin drilling 60 miles north of the islands after Argentina annouced new shipping controls. Desire Petroleum, which is operating the rig, has said that the drilling will take about a month. Further exploration is likely by other companies. People's Daily: Argentines rally against Britain over disputed islands.

A fifth heart attack, such as the one suffered this week by former Vice President Dick Cheney, is not rare because of advances in modern medicine, cardiologists say. "It's something we see often enough that we're not surprised about it," said Dr. Cam Patterson, chief of cardiology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, who is not involved in Cheney's care. "But it's also an indication that somebody has some luck on their side." CBS News: How Cheney Survived 5 Heart Attacks. Kenny's Sideshow/Daily Paul: Our Sentiments Exactly: There was a man who, everyday, would buy a newspaper on the way to work, glance at the headline, and hand it back to the newsboy. Day after day the man would go through this routine. Finally the newsboy could not stand it and he asked the man,

always buy a paper and only look at the front page before discarding it?"

The man replied, "I am only interested in the obituaries."

"But they are on page 21. You never even unfold the newspaper."

This graph explains a lot...

Europe is outraged over the targeted killing of Hamas functionary Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. On Monday, members of the European Parliament threatened Israel with the discontinuation of partnership talks. European foreign ministers likewise demanded Israel's full cooperation. AWIP: 'Netanyahu authorized Dubai assassination'. Al Jazeera: By not challenging Israel's FM, Europe failed to lead him where he really wanted to go.

The supposed international electoral watchdog has been credited by the UN and Western governments with helping to expose a massive fraud in last year's presidential poll, forcing Karzai into a second round of voting that was eventually cancelled due to his rival's withdrawal. The move gives President Karzai the power to appoint all five members of Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC).

The International Monetary Fund operates primarily as a banker bailout machine. They cajole and tempt and confuse and threaten the leaders of governments worldwide to pay off the failed bets of the big bankers using the taxpayer funds of their countries. This has been going on a long time, at least since the early 1980s.

Iran says it has irrefutable evidence confirming that terrorist ringleader Abdolmalek Rigi had been aided and abetted by the US government before his arrest. The leader of the Jundallah terrorist group was on a flight from the United Arab Emirates to Kyrgyzstan when he was tracked down by Iranian security forces on Tuesday. An informed source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Press TV that Rigi and one of his deputies were captured after Iranian security forces forced their plane to land at an airport in the Persian Gulf city of Bandar Abbas. Iranian security forces said he was at a US base in Afghanistan 24 hours before his capture and had a forged Afghan passport issued by the US in his possession when he was detained. PressTV: 'Rigi case will go to court soon'. AWIP: Iran arrests Jundallah ringleader, Rigi. Daily Telegraph: Iran arrests most wanted man after police board civilian flight.

[Click on image to enlarge] The core column shown above the firefighter was discovered after the collapse. The angled cut occurs in exactly the manner that shaped charges slice through steel beams to control the way they fall. Notice the hardened once liquid metal. Was thermite used with the shaped charge?

"State Delegate Bob Marshall of Manassas says disabled children are God’s punishment to women who have aborted their first pregnancy. He made that statement Thursday at a press conference to oppose state funding for Planned Parenthood."

"Exasperated House Democratic leaders have compiled a list showing that they have passed 290 bills that have stalled in the Senate. The list is the latest sign that Democrats in the lower chamber are frustrated with their Senate counterparts. ... The list of stalled bills includes both major and minor legislation: healthcare reform; climate change; food safety; financial aid for the U.S. Postal Service; a job security act for wounded veterans; a Civil War battlefield preservation act; vision care for children; the naming of a federal courthouse in Iowa after former Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa); a National Historic Park named for President Jimmy Carter; a bill to improve absentee ballot voting; a bill to improve cybersecurity; and the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act."

Plagiarism, "unethical research" and unreliable findings from "fabricated data" are grounds for retraction of medical journal articles says the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). But one look at the US National Library of Medicine database shows the bogus, ghostwritten papers Wyeth (now Pfizer) planted in medical journals in a ghostwriting scandal that reached Congress last year, still stand unretracted.