"The United States is pledging $350 million to help tsunami victims, a tenfold increase over its first wave of aid, President Bush announced Friday."

"The U.S. Department of Justice has issued its first-ever medical guidelines for treating sexual-assault victims - without any mention of emergency contraception, the standard precaution against pregnancy after rape."

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted more gifts (valued at $42,200) than any other Supreme Court justice over the last six years.

Republican leaders are considering a change in House ethics rules that could make it harder to discipline lawmakers. The proposal being circulated among House Republicans would end a general rule against any behavior that might bring "discredit" on the chamber, according to House Republican and Democratic leadership aides.

"Thailand's foremost meteorologists, meeting in a crisis session before the tsunami hit, decided not to issue a warning 'out of courtesy to the tourism industry,' according to a report in the Thai paper The Nation."

The United Nations is having a tough time with US led coalitions -- even when it comes to disaster relief. “I don’t know what that is about but it sounds very much, I am afraid, like the US trying to have a separate operation and not work with the rest of the world through the UN system.”

The Apple home page current lists organizations accepting donations on behalf of Asian tsunami disaster relief efforts.

Donate to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief. One hundred percent of donations made will go to the American Red Cross disaster relief efforts.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a vacationing President Bush has been weathering criticism about insensitivity towards the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster. Responding to the growing complaints, and to statements made by former president Clinton, a White House aid said: "Actions speak louder than words."

The New York Times: 2004 The Year in Pictures

Ousted Fannie Mae Chief Executive, Franklin Raines, is set to receive a monthly pension of more than $114,000 for life (plus life and health insurance benefits).

"Exploiting a political tool that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has used with relish, liberal groups and Democratic lawmakers are planning to place on the ballot some long-favored policies and programs that the governor has so far blocked." (via Political Wire.)

Secretary of State Colin Powell to U.N.: "The United States is not stingy."

Wikipedia: 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake -- "current event" style entry features updated coverage of the on-going disaster.

The United States has dispatched disaster specialists and has prepared an initial $15 million in aid for Asian countries devastated by tsunamis.

"I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon," said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Was Rumsfeld saying "shot down the plane over Pennsylvania" simply a slip of the tongue, and/or more fuel for conspiracy theories about 9/11?

The January 20th official inauguration of President George W. Bush is set to be the most expensive inauguration in history. The 40 million dollar price tag will mostly be financed by donations, with the largest contributions from corporations including the oil companies ExxonMobil and Occidental Petroleum.

"+ WAR + Iraq Poster Exhibition +" is an online gallery of posters expressing views about the war in Iraq. "This project began in early March, 2003, on a public design forum, in the midst of spirited debate over the then impending war in Iraq. One member of the design forum suggested that the other members offset their war anxieties by focusing their energies in a more positive way." (via Metafilter.)

Continuing his so-called "mandate", President Bush plans to renominate 20 people for federal judgeships that were previously opposted by Democrats.

"Christmastime reminds each of us that we have a duty to our fellow citizens, that we are called to love our neighbor just as we would like to be loved ourselves." -- President George W. Bush

"Many Democrats blame the unenlightened people of red-state America for John Kerry's defeat. But most working-class Americans remain politically centrist and a rising number simply want to live in the fast-growing suburbs of middle America. Liberals should stop sneering at the people they aspire to lead."

The Washington Post yesterday called the torture of Iraqi prisoners War Crimes, under orders from Donald Rumsfeld.

The controversial "Bush Monkeys" art portrait of President Bush, which was removed from an art show last week, is now appearing again in New York... on a digital billboard over the Holland Tunnel.

Q: Is it true that the government tracks printouts from color printers?

Some people continue to theorize about the bulge on the back of President Bush's jacket from the debates. A wearable defibrillator?

Media Matters for America has named Bill O'Reilly Misinformer of the Year. O'Reilly also appears on their Top Ten Most Outrageous Statements of 2004 in the media listing.

For the first time, a major U.S. contractor has dropped out of the multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild Iraq, raising new worries about the country's growing violence and its effect on reconstruction.

Top 10 Bushims of 2004.

A Kentucky teenager is suing her local school district for being barred from prom for wearing her Confederate flag themed prom dress.

Just in time for Christmas, President Bush gave the rarest gift of all: "answering" questions from reporters at a press conference. "I'm not going to negotiate with myself and I will negotiate at the appropriate time with the law writers, and so thank you for trying."

As President Bush admitted that results in Iraq have been "mixed", a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll found that a majority of Americans disapprove of the way the war in Iraq is being run and say that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should resign.

Porn isn't limited to blue states.
"In this world of irony, corporate leaders at companies as diverse as News Corp., Marriott International and Time Warner can profit by selling red state consumers the very material that red state culture is supposed to despise. Those elites then funnel the proceeds to the GOP, which in turn has used the money to successfully convince red state voters that the other political party is solely responsible for the decline of the civilization."

Nuclear and chemical warfare operations - Unwanted neighbors in Indian Country.

The Kyoto Protocol is kaput. "The conventional wisdom that it's the United States against the rest of the world in climate change diplomacy has been turned on its head. Instead it turns out that it is the Europeans who are isolated. China, India, and most of the rest of the developing countries have joined forces with the United States to completely reject the idea of future binding GHG emission limits."

Unfortunate Governator Photo of the Day. (Is this "silly looking politicans" day?)

Conservatives in Congress are set to challenge the Bush adminstration on many issues where they feel the President "has strayed from Republican values". They, like the President, feel they now have a mandate.

Unfortunate Texan Photo of the Day.

Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger to Republican Party: "a little to the left."

TIME Person of the Year 2004: George W. Bush

A new poll conducted by the AARP shows that nearly three-fourths of senior citizens support legalizing marijuana for medical use.

Your state driver's license is set to become a de facto national ID card.

Was Bernie Kerik king of Johanna's parasites -- or just a face in the crowd?[face in crowd registration required]

Financial (and spelling) Challanges for Today and Tomorrow.

The American Conservative Union announced it has tapped Sen. Zell Miller to present the "Courage Under Fire" award to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) "Reagan Banquet".

"This is the best $40,000 investment made by any political group," said Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill, who admitted underestimating the impact of the Swift Boat Veterans attack ads.

The FCC has announced they will not attempt to regulate satellite radio (and in effect, Howard Stern) via indecency provisions... at least for now.

"There's a trade deficit. That's easy to resolve: People can buy more United States products if they're worried about the trade deficit." -- President George W. Bush

(Don't bother looking for these mythical "United States products" at your local Wal-Mart.)

Bringing baseball to Washington D.C. (in the form of the Washington Nationals) is in jeopardy due to ... (wait for it) ... politics.

Unfortunate Flower Arrangement Photo of the Day.

The missteps in the "vetting" of Kerik -- "Despite hours of confrontational interviews by the White House counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, the Bush administration failed to get a full picture of the legal and ethical problems of Bernard B. Kerik, its nominee for homeland security secretary."

"In the world of the Christian Right, concern for the environment is still an atheistic socialist plot to bankrupt godly American industry; it has no place in the fight for the health and soul of the nation."

Let the Afghan Poppies Bloom. How the drug war is undermining the war on terrorism.

"As Christmas approaches, France is awakening to the realization that a new law banning conspicuous religious symbols at schools - a measure used mainly to keep Muslim girls from wearing traditional Islamic head scarves to class - can cut both ways."

Unocal Corp. said Monday that it would settle landmark human rights lawsuits brought by 15 villagers from Myanmar who claimed it was responsible for forced labor, rapes and a murder allegedly committed by soldiers along the route of a natural gas pipeline in the Southeast Asian nation.

SinclairAction.com "aims to spur action against Sinclair Broadcast Group's use of the 62 television stations it owns or operates to systematically promote partisan political interests." (Sinclair previously mentioned here and here.)

Presidential candidate John Kerry is going to get one less electoral vote nationally than he should have -- 251 instead of 252 -- because of an apparent mistake Monday by one of Minnesota's 10 electors. One of the 10 handwritten ballots cast for president carried the name of vice presidential candidate John Edwards (actually spelled "Ewards" on the ballot) rather than Kerry.

New Year's Presidential Resolution: Lose weight. "I obviously have gone through a campaign where I probably ate too many doughnuts, if you get my drift," said the usually trim Bush, who pledged to drop some weight.

"Even though I've been a member of the Liberal Hollywood Elite for 15 years, I have never been invited to an orgy."

In Indiana, the morticians lobby has made sure it can’t be liable if the coroner puts someone’s body parts in your great aunt’s coffin. Real estate agents lobbied for a law that protects them if they sell you a house that’s “psychologically affected.”

Those are just a couple examples of how our nation’s special interests line up before Congress and state legislatures each year, not to make the world a better place, but to get special legal entitlements - immunities from liability – and sometimes for the weirdest things (PDF file). [more inside]

"Dr. John Caulfield thought it had to be a mistake when the Army asked him to return to active duty. After all, he's 70 years old and had already retired - twice. He left the Army in 1980 and private practice two years ago... But then the orders came for him to go to Afghanistan."

"They say the war in Iraq is unconstitutional, they oppose the Patriot Act, gay marriage and the income tax, and they want to see ''true'' pro-life judges appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meet the Constitution Party."

Ten years ago the Guardian Unlimited tried to predict what newspapers and the news would be like on December 1, 2004. They got a lot of it right.

(Ex) Homeland security cheif nominee Bernard Kerik isn't the first presidential appointment to suffer from the so-called "nanny problem".

MoveOnCalifornia.org -- "Committee to explore California secession". Yes, they are serious.

Students at the Cary Christian School (NC) are required to read a controversal booklet titled "Southern Slavery, As It Was", which whitewashes Southern slavery and says (among other things) that slaves lived "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures." The booklet's author, Steve Wilkins, is a member of the board of directors of League of the South, which is classified as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Triumph and Collapse of Liberalism -- "Confident that a large majority of the American people have come to regard, see, or hear the adjective liberal as definitely pejorative, the president of the United States found it proper and useful to affix it to his opponent in campaign speeches day after day, across this vast country."

Yahoo News makes their choices for "Pictures of the Year 2004". (Wind seems to be a common theme.)

Is Bush the Antichrist? The Christian right and the Christian left are engaged in a debate over who "owns" Jesus and whether Dubya is a force for good or evil.

Ann Coulter's message to Canada: You're lucky we allow you to exist on the same continent.

Message to Democratic party from liberal political action committee group MoveOn.org: "We bought it, we own it, we're going to take it back."

The November 3rd Theses, by Adam Werbach.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, answering complaints from troops in Iraq about having to use scrap metal as armor for their vehicles:
"I've talked a great deal about this with a team of people who have been working hard at the Pentagon... if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored Humvee and it can be blown up."

Experts have confirmed that Ukraine opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned in an attempt on his life during election campaigning. "Doctors at Vienna’s exclusive Rudolfinerhaus clinic are within days of identifying the substance that left Mr. Yushchenko’s face disfigured with cysts and lesions."

Weeks after the disclosure of abuses at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, Department of Defense officials reported observing Iraqi detainees being brutalized by military interrogators who then allegedly threatened their DoD counterparts and warned them to keep their mouths shut. Smoking Gun has the memo.

The election turmoil in Ukraine should remind us how lucky we are. After all, our presidential candidates weren't named George Bush and George Bueshky. So the race was easier to follow. The battle by Victor Yanukovich and Victor Yushchenko over the Ukrainian presidency also makes one appreciate our tradition of trying to come together after elections. In Ukraine, the presidential race is about major systemic change so the polarization seems proportionate. Whereas our knickers twist over god, guns and gays.
Off the beaten path of our last election, moves toward systemic change did occur. Take term limits. Pols hoped voters would. Across the nation, pols pressed ballot referendums that sought to overturn term limits. But voters overwhelmingly nixed a fixed-in- place political class. Machines must be scrambling to build up larger stables of stalking horses and ringers. Meaning more work for muckrakers. Will Hercules please come to the stable?

Ringers, Wizards & Sinister Orange Fruit

Billboards in Arizona -- Quit Second Guessing and Doubting.
"When you're driving through the middle of the desert and the only thing you can see for miles around is some strident massive glowing political advertisement, its inherent magical realism causes you to suddenly change your mind and do whatever that big piece of plastic wants you to do."

Apparently, so-called "red states" like their pornography too, as long as it's only sold near rural freeway off-ramps.

The US Supreme Court has decided that information gained via torture is now legally admissable in deciding the fate of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Unfortunate charts and graphs: Teen pregnancy rates in "red states" and "blue states".

99.8% of all "indecency complaints" to the FCC orginate from one activist group.

Can you hear me now?

"President Bush has a special talent for avoiding tough questions and reporters who ask them. Here's what the White House press corps should do to smoke him out."

The intelligence reform bill will turn car dealers into spooks, permanently.

What will it take to raise U.S. troop numbers in Iraq to 150,000?

Many Republicans want her to run and some Democrats do not: Hillary Clinton in 2008? "One poll after another shows that roughly one of three New Yorkers has an unfavorable opinion of Mrs. Clinton, a statistic that has not changed since she took office in 2001."

A new report says the U.S. has lost the war for "hearts and minds" in Iraq. "The Pentagon has admitted that the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq have increased support for al-Qaeda, made ordinary Muslims hate the US and caused a global backlash against America because of the 'self-serving hypocrisy' of George W Bush's administration over the Middle East."

Speaking of unfortunate photos, the U.S. military has launched a criminal investigation into possible new prisoner abuse photos involving Navy SEALs that appeared on a public photo-sharing web site.

Unfortunate "Eelect George W. Bush" cargo plane crash photo of the day.

"Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."

Ralph Nader? David Cobb? NAAAAHHHHH!.....Try Teddy Roosevelt, 1912.

"Nearly half of Britons in a poll said they had never heard of Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in southern Poland that became a symbol of the Holocaust and the attempted genocide of the Jews."

Unlike many other senior Bush officials, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will stay on for a second term in the Bush adminstration.

Choose the Blue -- now that you know whether you live in a "red state" or a "blue state", you can obsess further and see what corporations and brands are "red or blue" based on their contributions to political parties.

Kenneth Starr says he never should have led the investigation that resulted in the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.

A congressional report shows that many of the federally funded so-called "abstinence-only" sex education programs are giving students false or misleading information including: "that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals can result in pregnancy."

An Alabama state lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries. Rep. Gerald Allen said that if his bill passes, novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed. "I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," he said.

Starting today, residents in 13 Western states (and soon, the rest of the country) can request their free credit report from the website AnnualCreditReport.com. "The program was designed to help consumers get a better understanding of their credit and to promote accuracy in terms of consumer information," FTC spokeswoman Jen Schwartzman said.