[The Raw Story]
A new Zogby International survey shows 52 percent of Americans would support a strike on Iran, while 53 percent expect Bush to launch such an attack before the end of his second term.

[Crooked Timber]
Some fascinating maps of what the 2004 presidential elections would have looked like if only (1) poor, (2) middle income, or (3) rich people had been able to vote.

[USA Today]
The government's terrorist watch list has swelled to more than 755,000 names. It undermines the authority of the list, says Lisa Graves of the Center for National Security Studies. There's just no rational, reasonable estimate that there's anywhere close to that many suspected terrorists.

[Los Angeles Times]
Are Bush and Cheney psychotic? Should they be removed on mental health grounds?

[The Political Inquirer]
The defense industry this year abandoned its decade-long commitment to the Republican Party, funneling the lion share of its contributions to Democratic presidential candidates, especially to Hillary Clinton who far out-paced all her competitors.

[iTnews]
Panelists at a trade forum levelled harsh criticism at the United States, focusing on a burgeoning trade clash between the U.S. and Europe over internet gaming. The forum believes that the U.S. could be liable for up to US$100 billion in trade concessions to European industries after placing illegal discriminatory trade restrictions on European gaming operators.

[Slate]
Don't take this the wrong way, but everything you know about the link between business and politics is incorrect.

[Los Angeles Times]
CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has mounted a highly unusual challenge to the agency's chief watchdog, ordering an internal investigation of an inspector general who has issued a series of scathing reports sharply critical of top CIA officials. U.S. intelligence officials who are concerned about the inquiry said it was unprecedented and could threaten the independence of the inspector general position. The probe could at least lead to appearances he's trying to interfere with the IG, or intimidate the IG or get the IG to back off.

[The New York Times]
The Marine Corps is pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and to send marines instead to Afghanistan, to take over the leading role in combat there, according to senior military and Pentagon officials.

[Council of Europe]
European Parliamentary Assembly officially opposes creationism and intelligent design.

[WashingtonPost.com]
U.S. intelligence officials will investigate allegations that the government improperly leaked a secretly obtained Osama bin Laden video, alerting al-Qaeda to a security gap in the terrorist group's internal communications network that it was able to shut.

[CNN]
Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights, said former President Jimmy Carter. Bush has defended the techniques, saying, This government does not torture people. Carter said, That's not an accurate statement if you use the international norms of torture as has always been honored—certainly in the last 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated. But you can make your own definition of human rights and say we don't violate them, and you can make your own definition of torture and say we don't violate them.

[Newsweek]
Rudy Giuliani is stacking his campaign team with neocons: Clearly it is a rather one-sided group of people, says Dimitri Simes of the Nixon Center, a Washington think tank. Their foreign-policy manifesto seems to be "We're right, we're powerful, and just make my day." He's out-Bushing Bush.

[Reuters]
Six years after the September 11 attacks in the United States, the "war on terror" is failing and instead fuelling an increase in support for extremist Islamist movements. British think-tank Oxford Research Group describes the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as a "disastrous mistake" which had helped establish a "most valued jihadist combat training zone" for al Qaeda supporters.

[TheAtlantic.com]
We have war criminals in the White House. What are we going to do about it?

[The New York Times]
While Attorney-General, Albert Gonzales approved a memo providing explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.