Quite a few stories of interest today:

[G_j]

I was going to post the first story about the NSA, but decided to post the Truthout newsletter:

Thursday 19 January 2006

t r u t h o u t | 01.19

Report Cites Breach of Law in Bush Spying
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011906I.shtml
The Bush administration appears to have violated the National Security Act by limiting its briefings about a warrantless domestic eavesdropping program to congressional leaders, according to a memo from Congress's research arm that was released yesterday.

Insurgents Kill Dozens after Copter Crash
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011906J.shtml
The horror began after American and Iraqi forces cordoned off part of a highway north of Baghdad following the deadly crash of a US helicopter. With traffic directed onto narrow dirt roads, insurgents turned the area into a killing field. They set up makeshift checkpoints, grabbed motorists and slaughtered about 40 over a two-day period, police said.

US Confirms Holding 8 Women Prisoners in Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011906K.shtml
US forces in Iraq said on Wednesday they were holding eight women prisoners, after the abductors of an American journalist threatened to kill her unless the authorities freed all Iraqi women within 72 hours.

US Poised for Radical Change in Foreign Aid
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011906L.shtml
The Bush administration wants its multibillion-dollar aid programs to serve its foreign policy goals better. Critics are worried that by in effect merging USAID into the State Department, the agency will lose some of its independence, and development will become purely politicized.

Republican Rep. Lewis and the Hedge Fund
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011906M.shtml
One day after a New York investment group raised $110,000 for Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis, the House passed a defense spending bill that preserved $160 million for a Navy project critical to the firm. The man who protected the Navy money? Lewis.

Vatican: 'Intelligent Design' Is Unscientific
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011906N.shtml
The official Vatican newspaper published an article this week labeling as "correct" the recent decision by a judge in Pennsylvania that intelligent design should not be taught as a scientific alternative to evolution.

Fatal Flaws: Why the Walls Tumbled in New Orleans
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011906O.shtml
Faulty soil analysis is one of many defects or flaws in concept, design, construction and maintenance that left many of the levees in New Orleans especially vulnerable to Katrina. Environmental miscalculations, including the loss of natural protection from marshes, added to the problems.

Sidney Blumenthal: Republicans Gone Wild
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011906Z.shtml
Sidney Blumenthal writes that historians in the future will examine the implications and nuances of the Abramoff affair, the K Street Project and the trajectory of the Republican Congress from the dawn of its "revolution" to its Thermidorian dusk. For now, however, the matter is in the hands of the prosecutors.

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[Sydnie]

1. All worthy of a look see - thanks for putting them all together n/t