75 year old Ann Timson stops 6 robbers armed with sledge hammers with a handbag.

Asylum.uk: Meet Supernan -- the elderly lady who saw off 6 armed robbers... with a handbag
ABC News: 'Supergran' Who Clobbered Robbers Angry That Others Watched

Two years into his presidency, Americans remained largely split on whether President Barack Obama deserved a second term in office, according to a poll published Tuesday morning. The survey, by CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation, found that 51 percent of Americans (PDF) believed Obama would not win a second term, while 47 percent said that he likely would. The results were largely the same as a similar poll published nearly one year ago, where CNN found that 52 percent felt Obama did not deserve a second term.

House rejects measure that would extend key Patriot Act provisions through December. A measure to extend key provisions of the Patriot Act counterterrorism surveillance law through December failed the House Tuesday night, with more than two-dozen Republicans bucking their party to oppose the measure. The House measure, which was sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and required a two-thirds majority for passage, failed on a 277-to-148 vote. Twenty-six Republicans voted with 122 Democrats to oppose the measure, while 67 Democrats voted with 210 Republicans to back it. Ten members did not vote. The measure would have extended three key provisions of the Patriot Act that are set to expire on Monday, Feb. 28, unless Congress moves to reauthorize them.

OutsideTheBeltway: House Fails To Re-Authorize Key PATRIOT Act Provisions
Jason Ditz: House PATRIOT Act Extension Derailed by GOP Freshmen Opposition
GovTrack: 65% of Democrats, 11% of Republicans vote against extension of Patriot Act - Find how your Representative voted within
Kenny's Sideshow: Patriot Act Provisions Extension Fails but...

Fretting over a scenario in which armed U.S. soldiers could be called to the border — or even over it — to hold back lawlessness and violence, Undersecretary of the Army Joseph Westphal invoked a contentious word to describe Mexico’s problem with drug cartels: He called it an “insurgency.” Speaking at the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics on Monday, the second-highest ranking civilian official in the U.S. Army spent most of his lecture explaining the economic and bureaucratic obstacles faced by defense budget makers amid complicated challenges in the Middle East and South Asia. But in response to a student’s question about strategic blind spots in U.S. foreign policy, Westphal switched hemispheres.

“One of them in particular for me is Latin America and in particular Mexico,” he said. “As all of you know, there is a form of insurgency in Mexico with the drug cartels that’s right on our border.”

Though such reports had been rejected over the weekend, US officials are now confirming that the Obama Administration is suspending most of its high level contacts with the Pakistani government to “punish” them for the continued detention of a consulate employee on a double murder charge. Congress is threatening to withdraw all aid from Pakistan over the detention, and the State Department is continuing to insist that the employee had “diplomatic immunity” from murder charges. This does not, however, appear to be in line with the US’ own standards surrounding diplomatic immunity, which only grant it to consular employees in the event they are committing an act that is part of their official duties. The tensions are leaving growing questions surrounding the upcoming three-way talks between the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan, scheduled for February 24 in Washington DC. The talks have not yet been cancelled, but some suggest it is only a matter of time.

WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices. US diplomat convinced by Saudi expert that reserves of world's biggest oil exporter have been overstated by nearly 40%.

The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show.

The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom's crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%.

The revelation comes as the oil price has soared in recent weeks to more than $100 a barrel on global demand and tensions in the Middle East. Many analysts expect that the Saudis and their Opec cartel partners would pump more oil if rising prices threatened to choke off demand. However, Sadad al-Husseini, a geologist and former head of exploration at the Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, met the US consul general in Riyadh in November 2007 and told the US diplomat that Aramco's 12.5m barrel-a-day capacity needed to keep a lid on prices could not be reached.

The "war on terror" prison at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba is "one of the finest prison systems in the world," former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday. Rumsfeld, who is promoting his autobiography titled "Known and Unknown," praised US military personnel that worked at the site in the interview on FOX News Channel's Hannity show. Rumsfeld was defense secretary 2001-2006 under former president George W. Bush. He was replaced as defense secretary by Robert Gates.

"The heart-breaking thing with respect to Guantánamo is not that there's anything wrong with it, it's one of the finest prison systems in the world," said Rumsfeld.

Glenn Greenwald: Guantánamo death highlights U.S. detention policy
Richard Phillips/WSWS: Former Guantánamo Bay prisoner Mamdouh Habib speaks with WSWS

How Much Longer Are We Going To Put Up With This Shit? Redistribution of wealth. These are the three dirtiest words in the English language…to the 2% of Americans holding 95% of the country’s wealth. It’s of small wonder we hear politicians from both sides of the aisle condemning any attempt to even the economic scales. When the insurance companies and their corporate shills, the Republicans, claimed that national health care was a socialist plot designed to redistribute the wealth of this country, Mr. Obama and the rest of the Democrats fell apart like a toilet paper bathing suit. Good-bye single payer, good-bye public option. How could basic health care possibly be considered a redistribution of wealth in the eyes of anyone possessed of a rational mind? It makes you wonder who is representing the 95% of Americans who have next to nothing.

The only journalist known to have been killed during the Egyptian uprising was honored Monday in Cairo. Ahmed Mohamed Mahmoud was a reporter for the state-owned newspaper Al Ta’awun. He was shot on January 28 when he tried to use his phone to film riot police as they fired tear gas canisters at protesters. He spent a week in the hospital before he died on February 4. On Monday, journalists, family and friends held a symbolic funeral in Cairo, marching from the Journalists’ Syndicate to Tahrir Square holding an empty coffin. We speak to Al Jazeera English producer and writer Laila Al-Arian, who has just returned from Cairo, where she interviewed Mahmoud’s widow. [includes rush transcript]

i.imgur.com: Egyptian cop kicks downed protester in face as he walks by
Raw Story: Journalist: Egypt’s police treating us like ‘prisoners or war’

Egypt crisis flying under Americans' radar. The Pew Center has come out with a new poll asking Americans about the crisis in Egypt, and it's clear they're not thinking about it a great deal. About half of Americans — 52 percent — report having heard little or nothing about the demonstrations, according to the poll of 1,385 adults, which was conducted Wednesday through Monday. Clear majorities of Democrats (69 percent) and independents (57 percent) say President Barack Obama administration has handled the situation about right. By contrast, only 43 percent of Republicans say the same, and they're just about split on whether he's showing too much support for the protesters (19 percent) or too little (15 percent).

Cairo’s Tahrir square was filled with the largest demonstration yet Tuesday, as masses of Egyptians rejected the “orderly transition” through which the Obama administration and its principal ally, former military intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, are attempting to salvage Egypt’s dictatorial military regime. The mass demonstration in Cairo, staged as the uprising shaking the US-backed dictatorship of President Hosni Mubarak enters its third week, was accompanied by similar outpourings in Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city, and in smaller towns and cities across the country. Even more significantly, the mass popular demonstrations demanding the ouster of Mubarak were joined by a growing wave of strikes by Egyptian workers and angry demonstrations by youth demanding jobs.

Egyptian people again pack the streets of major cities and refuse to take a step back from their campaign to topple out-of-favor President Hosni Mubarak.

In a show of power, Egyptian protesters rallied to the Interior Ministry and Parliament in central Cairo and surrounded the two buildings for a while before returning to the Liberation Square. In the capital Cairo, tens of thousands have remained camped out in Liberation Square. Protesters have slammed the talks between Vice President Omar Suleiman and some opposition groups.

Egypt's second largest city, Alexandria, was also the scene of popular rallies against the regime. Many protesters are angry at the US stance toward the ongoing uprising in their country. Thousands of workers have gone on strike in the cities of Suez and Ismailia. The protests continue for the 15th day despite the government's promise of constitutional reforms and an offer of pay rise to public sector workers.

Salon.com: Egypt VP warns that protests cannot be allowed to go on long: Omar Suleiman tells reporters there will be no regime change and President Mubarak will not resign anytime soon.

PressTV: VP Suleiman: 'Egypt can't tolerate protests for long'
Jason Ditz: Suleiman: Egypt ‘Not Ready for Democracy’

[Editor's Comment:] ‘Not Ready for Democracy’ -This is one of the favorites of the authoritarians. We've heard this one any number of times during our lifetimes. (A quick sampling from recent years: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. A more telling sample from Nazi Germany here.). This pernicious idea is the implicit policy of Obama (torturer), and (now) the stated policy of Suleiman (torturer). The reason they both seem to agree on this is that this is that both are shilling for Israel. Obama & Suleiman need to call Tel Aviv first, in order to know what attitude they want them to adopt. Once that's clear, they're happy. - Happy stooges for Israel. In Jewish World Review Barry Rubin explained about 'democracy':

should the United States pursue a policy that we have every reason to believe will be catastrophic: namely, pushing for a situation in which radical Islamists are more likely to take over. (In Middle East still not ready for democracy)

See? Just like in Gaza. If you believe you can win, then you're all for democracy. But if you believe the other side's gonna win, then you don't want democracy but something else. What precisely that 'else' really is, the Gazans found out after they democratically elected Hamas. As for Egypt and Suleiman's creepy warnings, we'll find out in a couple of days. It probably won't be pretty.

Stephen Soldz: The torture career of Egypt’s new Vice President
Patrick Martin/WSWS: Omar Suleiman—longtime collaborator with Israel and US

Media reported Monday that Mubarak's family fortune could be as high as $70 billion, much of it in Swiss banks or tied up in real estate in New York, Los Angeles and London. The $70 billion dollars would put the 82-year-old comfortably ahead of Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim Helu, worth about $53.5 billion dollars, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the richest American with $53 billion. According to Princeton political science professor Amaney Jamal, quoted by ABC, Mubarak’s three-decade rule in Egypt had kept him in a perfect spot to get a piece of any government action. Mubarak, his wife and two sons were able to also accumulate wealth through a number of business partnerships with foreigners, Christopher Davidson, professor of Middle East Politics at Durham University in England, told ABC. Egyptian law requires that foreigners give a local business partner a 51 percent stake in most ventures.

It seems as though the Catholic Church really really wants us to go to confession, so much so that apparently it has sanctioned a new iPhone app aimed at bringing some of the wandering sheep back into the fold. You can now wipe your slate clean with Confession: A Roman Catholic App, available through iTunes for $1.99. Now I know what you're thinking: Great, no more dark scary box. No more having to look at a perplexed clergyman trying to figure out how anyone could have been so stupid as to do that. But, not so fast.