After delivering a speech at a leadership conference in Abu Dhabi, former President George Herbert Walker Bush was forced to defend his son from verbal attacks by the “hostile audience,” on the same day that a new poll reveals that more Americans preferred the first Bush president.

“We do not respect your son,” a woman in the audience told Bush. “We do not respect what he’s doing all over the world.”

The Associated Press reported that “Bush appeared stunned as the audience of young business leaders whooped and whistled in approval” at the woman’s comments, coming after the “retired president had just finished a folksy address on leadership by telling the audience how deeply hurt he feels when his son the president is criticized.” (more…)

The idea seems like something out of a Superman comic: a machine or missile shoots tonnes of particles into the atmosphere that would block the Sun’s rays, cool down the overheated Earth, and reverse global warming.

But at the weekend scientists gathered in a closed session organised by NASA and Stanford University to discuss researching such a strategy. The idea is called geo-engineering: using technology to tinker with the Earth’s delicate climate balance. (more…)

NEW YORK — In a major victory for bloggers, forum participants and Web publishers, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday that individuals cannot be held liable for publishing defamatory statements written by others.

“Subjecting Internet service providers and users to defamation liability would tend to chill online speech,” the unanimous ruling said.

The ruling clarifies that a 1996 law, the Communications Decency Act, protects not only content providers, but also users of online services who republish content. (more…)

Book says Mohamed engaged in terrorism for two decades

Those who want a chilling account of a killer who slipped through the hands of a daft justice system shouldn’t bother to read the tripe now being peddled by O.J. Simpson.

As a murderer, his record of terror just can’t compare with Ali Mohamed.

How the al-Qaida superspy manipulated FBI intelligence watchdogs, as well as one of America’s most respected U.S. attorneys, is a chilling bedtime story. Those few people who still believe the West has been told all there is to know about intelligence bungling that led up to 9/11 — a recent poll found 80% of Americans think their administration is not being fully truthful — should trace the blood-timeline of Ali Mohamed with utter alarm.

Which is what Peter Lance (peterlance.com) — an Emmy-award winning investigator — has done in his book, Triple Cross. The 600-plus-page opus — released by Regan publishing next week but given an exclusive Canadian advance here — is a detailed account of how Mohamed worked worry-free under the gaze of U.S. watchdogs. (more…)

Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who defected to the United Kingdom and is now a British citizen, lies in an intensive care bed in a London hospital, his chances of survival described as “50-50″.

He is the victim of an attack with a deadly poison that apparently took place in the course of a meeting in a public place. This fact has taken nearly three weeks to establish beyond doubt by toxicology tests. A number of disturbing questions that arise from this crime remain in dispute.

There is, in the minds of his friends and most knowing observers, a link between the catastrophic fate that has left Mr Litvinenko so near to death and his ties to known enemies of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Not only is he an associate of Russian “oligarch” exiles in Britain, and of Chechen activists, but he has recently been involved in investigating the murder of Russian dissident journalist Anna Politkovskaya. (more…)

Joshua Muravchik, neocon “scholar” at the American Enterprise Institute, the criminal organization where Bush gets his “minds,” wants to shock and awe Iran, and soon.

“The only way to forestall” Iran’s figmental nuclear weapon program, writes Muravchik in the “liberal” Los Angeles Times, “is by the use of force. Not by invading Iran as we did Iraq, but by an air campaign against Tehran’s nuclear facilities.” Muravchik hankers to “inflict severe damage,” supposedly on Iran’s phantasmal nuke program, but since such a program does not exist, the damage will likely be on the people of Iran, who after all support the mullahs and thus, under the demented rubric of neocon logic, deserve to be killed and maimed, as the Iraqis continue to be killed and maimed. (more…)

Allowing phone-tap evidence to be used in court would not help secure many convictions in terrorism cases, the government’s intercept watchdog says.

Intelligence agency studies had found few cases, if any, where it would have made a big difference, Sir Swinton Thomas told BBC Radio 4’s File on 4.

He said changing the law could harm law enforcement and security services. (more…)

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, could order the assassination of all his exiled opponents in Britain, including me, unless Tony Blair and George W Bush end their appeasement of his authoritarian regime.

I have no doubt that the man who tried to kill my friend Alexander Litvinenko is back in Moscow and will walk free in its streets for as long as the current regime, which is dominated by ex-members of the KGB, controls the Kremlin.

Alexander was a high-profile critic of Moscow who often spoke in strong language of the state’s abuses of power. His most recent investigations were driven by his belief that Mr Putin had ordered the execution of Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who was shot in the doorway of her apartment building last month.

The attempt to kill Alexander, who had only last month been granted British citizenship, could not have been carried out without the express approval of the president. (more…)

WASHINGTON — The 109th Congress is drawing to an end, but that doesn’t mean supporters of civil liberties and a free, open Internet can breathe easy. Several bills that threaten core civil liberties and privacy protections remain very much in play in the waning days of the lame-duck Congress. Defenders of those values must remain vigilant to ensure that these misguided measures don’t find their way into the large legislative packages likely to be approved before lawmakers head home for the holidays.

Today, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) issued a special lame duck edition of its “Internet Watch List,” identifying seven legislative efforts that cannot be allowed to succeed in the so-called “silly season” at the end of the 109th Congress. The watch list is online here. (more…)

US President George Bush shrugged off massive protests against his visit to the world’s most populous Muslim nation yesterday as a sign of a healthy democracy, as thousands braved heavy rains to call him a war criminal and a terrorist.

Bush also pledged to work with Indonesia’s government to fight Islamic extremists.

The archipelago is considered an important ally in Washington’s war on terror, but public anger is high over US foreign policy in the Middle East and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, seen by many here as attacks on their faith. (more…)

One of the segments featured on Your World w/Neil Cavuto today (November 20, 2006) was a roundtable discussion about Iraq captioned: “Go Big, Go Long, Go Home: Which Does Wall Street Want?” The participants included three cast members from Fox’s Saturday morning “business news” show, Cashin’ In, and a guest participant, conservative radio talk show host Paul McGuire.

McGuire said Wall Street wanted to go big and long and Fox’s Dagen McDowell agreed. Wayne Rogers said we should get out. Cavuto seemed to be for anything but “losing,” and Jonathan Hoenig was for bombing Tehran. Some of the reasons he gave for why we attacked Iraq in the first place were pretty interesting too: (more…)

BAGHDAD, Iraq - After nearly a quarter-century of severed ties, Iraq on Tuesday resumed diplomatic relations with neighboring Syria — a move seen as a possible step toward stemming some of the unrelenting violence, which claimed another 100 lives.

The Iraqi and Syrian presidents also received invitations from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a weekend summit in Tehran to tackle the chaos in Iraq, Iraqi lawmakers said. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s spokesman said his boss would attend but that Syrian President Bashar Assad would not. The invitation was thought to be an attempt by Iran to upstage expected U.S. moves to include Syria and Iran in a wider regional effort to clamp off violence in Iraq.

The announcement of restored Iraqi-Syrian ties came during a groundbreaking visit to Baghdad by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem. (more…)

A U.S. district court judge has ordered the FBI to correct disclosures regarding the US government’s evacuation of Saudi royals and bin Laden family members after the September 11 attacks in 2001, a conservative watchdog organization announced today.

“Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Roberts of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to submit ‘proper disclosures’ to the Court and Judicial Watch by December 15, 2006 concerning the U.S. government’s evacuation of Saudi royals and members of the bin Laden family from the United States immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” the group said in a press release obtained by Raw Story. (more…)

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Web sites that publish inflammatory information written by other parties cannot be sued for libel, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The ruling in favor of free online expression was a victory for a San Diego woman who was sued by two doctors for posting an allegedly libelous e-mail on two Web sites.

Some of the Internet’s biggest names, including Amazon.com, America Online Inc., eBay Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., took the defendant’s side out of concern that a ruling against her would expose them to liability. (more…)

Although Congress is unlikely to follow calls from a top Democrat to bring back the military draft, the United States does have a plan, if necessary, aimed at inducting millions of young men for service.

The Selective Service System, an agency independent of the Defense Department, says it’s ready to respond quickly to any crisis that would threaten to overwhelm the current all-volunteer military. (more…)