This is a Must See, Great Pictures from Hubble

Astronomers Select Top Ten Most Amazing Pictures Taken by Hubble Space Telescope in Last 16 Years

'...they illustrate that our universe is not only deeply strange, but also almost impossibly beautiful.'
Michael Hanlon/AH (Nov 25th, 2006)

20 April 2008, The New York Times





In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded "the gulag of our times" by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration's communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

1 December 2008,  Politico

The NY Times' David Barstow follows up on his April investigation of network military analysts,  and their relationships to the Pentagon and contractors, with a 5,100-word, front-page look  at Gen. Barry McCaffrey.
Barstow writes:

Through seven years of war an exclusive club has quietly flourished at the intersection of network news and wartime commerce. Its members, mostly retired generals, have had a foot in both camps as influential network military analysts and defense industry rainmakers. It is a deeply opaque world, a place of privileged access to senior government officials, where war commentary can fit hand in glove with undisclosed commercial interests and network executives are sometimes oblivious to possible conflicts of interest.

1 December 2008

U.S. President George W. Bush said the biggest regret of his presidency was flawed intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Bush told ABC "World News" in an interview scheduled to air on Monday that he was unprepared for war when he took office.

Bush leaves the White House on Jan. 20 with public approval ratings near record lows partly due to the unpopular Iraq war that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. More than 4,200 U.S. troops have died in Iraq.