[Information Clearing House]
Ralph Nader (remember him?) calls for resignation of Bush and Cheney.

[Wall Street Journal]
Bush has spent $779 million on "fear and shame based" abstinence-only sex ed programs since taking office. Earlier this month, Rhode Island's Department of Education instructed all school districts to refrain from using a federally funded abstinence curriculum in public schools. A spokesman for the department said officials were concerned because the program included "medically inaccurate information" as well as possible religious instruction.

What next? Federally-funded abstinence-based diets to combat American obesity?

[U.S. News & World Report]
The Bush administration moves from illegal electronic eavesdropping to warrant-less physical searches.

[Editor & Publisher]
Gallup poll shows there are now more independents in the U.S. than either Democrats or Republicans.

[Wired News]
In a 6-0 vote, the Federal Election Commission has ruled that the nation's new campaign finance law will not apply to most political activity on the internet. Bloggers will be entitled to the same exemption from the campaign finance law that newspapers and other traditional forms of media receive. There will be no second class citizens among members of the media, said FEC Chairman Michael E. Toner.

[New York Times]
During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, Bush made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second U.N. resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Blair's top foreign policy adviser. Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning...the start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March. This was when the bombing would begin.

[Yahoo! News]
The Bush administration is hiring a Hong Kong (that is, Chinese) conglomerate to help detect nuclear materials inside cargo passing through the Bahamas to the United States and elsewhere. The administration acknowledges that the no-bid contract with Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. represents the first time a foreign company will be involved in running a sophisticated U.S. radiation detector at an overseas port without American customs agents present. Three years ago, the Bush administration effectively blocked a Hutchison subsidiary from buying part of a bankrupt U.S. telecommunications company, Global Crossing Ltd., on national security grounds. And a U.S. military intelligence report, once marked "secret," cited Hutchison in 1999 as a potential risk for smuggling arms and other prohibited materials into the United States from the Bahamas.

[Networking Pipeline]
FCC Chief Kevin Martin yesterday gave his support to AT&T and other telcos who want to be able to limit bandwidth to sites like Google, unless those sites pay extortion fees. Martin made it clear in a speech yesterday that he supports such a a "tiered" Internet.

[Justice Magazine]
We have this Balkanization under the 1st Amendment in regards to sexual speech...It's the only part of the 1st Amendment where there's no national standard. In obscenity alone, material can be free and protected in 49 of 50 states, but in one portion of one state it can be considered obscene and you can be prosecuted. In the age of the Internet, a new issue has been raised—if something considered free speech in New York is accessible in Alabama, where it's considered obscene, what standard should be used? By rejecting the case of Nitke v. Gonzales, the Supreme Court has left that question open.

[The Huffington Post]
Notes for Converts, by Jane Smiley.

[London Review of Books]
Is unquestioning support for Israel good for America?

[Washington Post]
Bush to issue a new national security strategy today reaffirming his doctrine of preemptive war. The preemption doctrine generated fierce debate at the time, and many critics believe the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq fatally undermined an essential assumption of the strategy—that intelligence about an enemy's capabilities and intentions can be sufficient to justify preventive war.

[Yahoo! News]
Despite the confirmation of a third case of mad cow disease in the U.S., the government intends to scale back testing for the brain-wasting disorder.

[Washington Post]
House leaders drafting a bill to require Congressional oversight of foreign acquisitions of U.S. businesses.

[Washington Post]
Former President Jimmy Carter criticized the war in Iraq on Wednesday, urging a troop drawdown as the United States enters its fourth year of conflict in Iraq. It was a completely unnecessary war. It was an unjust war, said Carter, the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner. It was initiated on the basis of false pretenses.

[ExtremeTech]
U.S. Representative John Campbell (R-Calif.) introduced on Friday legislation to permanently protect Internet commerce from discriminatory taxes and disallow taxation on Internet use. Members of congress put a 'sunset' in the bill, which means that it remains in effect for a while and then expires, Campbell said in an interview. I think we have enough experience now with the Internet and what it has done and can do for commerce and communication, that we should make that ban on taxation permanent.

[Washington Post]
Senate caves to Administration yet again and passes Patriot Act extension, despite the fact that lawmakers who voted for the package acknowledged deep reservations about the power it would grant to whomever holds the White House.

[The Daily Kos]
Another Bush lie documented.