Daily Nonsense

I think we all know where our ex-AG stood on waterboarding, he knew damn well it was illegal torture.  Our newest AG doesn’t seem to be able to make that leap of intellect.  After three months of ‘review’, Mukasey still can decide if simulated drowning, condemned by every civilized nation, is actually torture.

It’s kind of a shame that our Commander in Chief can’t seem to find anyone intelligent to help or advise him……..

Mukasey masters Bush administration strategy

By: John Bresnahan
Jan 31, 2008 06:06 AM EST

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has been in office for less than three months, but he has already mastered one of the Bush administration’s strategies for responding to congressional inquiries: When pressed on an issue, say little. And if questioners still persist, just politely refuse to answer.

Mukasey put that strategy on full display Wednesday as he faced more than four hours of sometimes sharp questioning from the Senate Judiciary Committee, his first trip to Capitol Hill since being confirmed last year.
Most of the questions focused on the hugely controversial issue of waterboarding, during which a prisoner undergoes simulated drowning.

During his confirmation hearing, the former federal judge’s refusal to say whether waterboarding was torture, and therefore illegal, almost derailed his nomination.

Mukasey was eventually approved by a 53-40 vote, the closest vote on an attorney general nominee in five decades.

But after completing a promised review of CIA interrogation techniques since being sworn in on Nov. 9, Mukasey still refused on Wednesday to take a position on the legality of waterboarding, a stance that angered and perplexed Democrats on the committee.

Mukasey did say that the CIA is not waterboarding any detainees at this time and is not authorized to do so under its current interrogation program.

But he would not be drawn into a discussion of whether it could be used by the agency in the future or whether it had been a violation of U.S. law to do so in the past.

There is an ongoing criminal probe by the Justice Department, as well as congressional investigations, into the 2005 destruction of CIA videotapes on which two Al Qaeda detainees reportedly were waterboarded during interrogations two years earlier.

“They should have built a stone wall around him,” one Democratic insider joked in expressing the frustration of committee members following Wednesday’s session with the new attorney general.

Mukasey admitted that waterboarding was “repugnant” to him personally, and he noted that “I would feel that it was” torture if it were ever done to him.

Yet he declined, despite repeated prodding from Democrats, to rule out the future use of waterboarding by the CIA or describe situations where he could state definitively whether it was legal or illegal.

“It’s like saying that you’re opposed to stealing but not quite sure if bank robbery would qualify,” said an exasperated Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) engaged in a tough exchange with Mukasey, getting the attorney general to say that the legality of an interrogation technique may be linked to the value of the information extracted.

That answer upset the former Democratic presidential candidate, who said it clashed with the legal training he had received.

“But the truth of the matter is, I just never heard the issue of torture discussed … in terms of the relative benefit that might be gained from engaging in the technique,” Biden said. “I don’t understand that premise.”
Republicans tried to rally to Mukasey’s defense, with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) pointing out that waterboarding was never widely used by the CIA or any other government agency.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), a former Judiciary Committee chairman, offered him heavy praise for his running of the Justice Department after taking over from the highly unpopular Alberto Gonzales.

Democrats seem to have no personal animus toward Mukasey; that was not the case with his predecessor.

He was even praised by some Democrats, including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), for his willingness to appoint John Durham, a veteran federal prosecutor from Boston, to oversee the CIA videotape probe.
Yet Whitehouse, too, was rebuffed when he asked Mukasey about whether the waterboarding sessions shown on the destroyed CIA tapes were a criminal offense, given that the destruction of the CIA videotapes was a potential criminal matter.

Mukasey demurred, but Whitehouse persisted, saying CIA officials couldn’t just use the “Nuremberg defense” of “we were only following orders” to defend the use of waterboarding.

Again, Mukasey refused to directly offer his opinion, although he clearly bristled at the way Whitehouse, a former U.S. attorney, raised the issue.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), ranking member of the Judiciary panel, offered some of the sharpest comments of the day. Specter asserted that President Bush violated the law by initiating the warrantless surveillance program.

Specter also pushed Mukasey on whether he could help forge a compromise between Congress and the White House on allowing current and former top Bush administration officials to testify under record about the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, although Mukasey showed little enthusiasm for that possibility.

At the end of the hearing, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) summed up the Democrats’ frustration, although no one was ready to put Mukasey on anywhere near the same level as the infamously opaque Gonzales.

“I’m worried we’re not getting enough clarity on critical issues,” Leahy stated. “Instead, we heard references to legal opinions.”

[Thanks, Politico]

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Today in 1747, the first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Lock Hospital.

Today in 1929, the Soviet Union exiles Leon Trotsky.

Today in 1945, US Army private Eddie Slovik is executed, the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion.

Today in 1958, in NASA’s Explorer program -  Explorer I is the first successful launch of an American satellite into orbit.

Today in 1990, the first McDonald’s in the Soviet Union opens in Moscow, USSR.

Celebrating Birthdays today are Franz Schubert, Henri Desgrange, Shastriji Maharaj, Zane Grey, Eddie Cantor, Tallulah Bankhead, Jackie Robinson, Bernardo Provenzano, Suzanne Pleshette, Nolan Ryan, Harry Wayne Casey, and Minnie Driver.

Celebrating Death-iversaries today are Xuande, Guy Fawkes, Joost Bürgi, Charles Edward Stuart, Timothy Eaton, Edwin Howard Armstrong, A. A. Milne, and Gordon R. Dickson.

This morning it was Rudy Giuliani (and good riddance!) this afternoon it’s John Edwards.  Returning to the 9th Ward, literally blocks away from where he originally announced his candidacy, John declared his bid for the Democratic nomination was at an end.

He plans to throw his support behind the candidate that can convince him that fighting poverty, in battered New Orleans as well as across America, is central to their campaign.  I think that Barack can effectively incorporate this poverty message into his already strong bid, and hopefully, get John Edwards as his running mate.  I believe that would be a fearsome  team!

Edwards ends 2008 presidential run
By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY

NEW ORLEANS — Presidential hopeful John Edwards exited the race for president Wednesday in the same place he entered it — in an impoverished corner of New Orleans, amid signs of the ravaged city’s rebuilding.

Flanked by his family and half-built homes in the city’s Upper 9th Ward, Edwards said he was dropping out of the presidential race but stirred visions of a Democratic victory in November.

"It’s time for me to step aside so that history can blaze its path," Edwards said. "We do not know who will take the final steps to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. What we do know is that our Democratic party will make history."

Edwards, dressed in blue jeans and a dark blue button-down shirt, didn’t offer specific reasons for ending his run. He was consistently third in polls and primaries behind Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois.

Edwards said he had not yet decided whether to endorse another candidate and that the decision would hinge on whether the other candidates would embrace his anti-poverty and equality platform. Edwards said he had spoken with both Clinton and Obama and both had pledged to make ending poverty central to their presidential campaigns.

"I want to have very serious, very substantive conversations with them," he told reporters after his speech. "But this is a conversation that needs to be done privately."

Edwards’s anti-poverty platform didn’t win the widespread support he had hoped for. But it resonated loudly in New Orleans, whose economy and people were battered by the devastating floods unleashed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

Edwards visited the city several times since the floods, promising to keep federal attention and funds flowing into the area. He declared his presidential candidacy blocks away in the Lower 9th Ward in December 2006. On Wednesday, he spoke on a stage in the muddy construction site of Musicians Village, an initiative conceived by Habitat for Humanity and New Orleans musicians Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis. The village offers affordable housing to displaced musicians.

"I began my presidential campaign here to remind people that we as citizens and as a country have a moral responsibility to each other," Edwards said. "What we do together matters. We must do better."

The event, initially scheduled as a speech on poverty, drew about 250 supporters who shouldered a cold, cloudless day to attend and applauded frequently during his 11-minute speech. The attendees ranged from college students to retirees and some carried signs, such as "USA Don’t Forget NOLA," or donned T-shirts exclaiming, "John Edwards is Good!" and "FEMA Sucks."

"He cared about our city," said Barbara Adler, 72, a retiree, who attended with her husband, Rick Adler, 82. "He was going to do the things that haven’t been done here. He provided hope."

Laura Singer, an economist with the federal government, said she believed Edwards would help rebuild New Orleans. "He was making this city a priority," said Singer, 23, who used a lunch break from work to attend. "I’m surprised and incredibly disheartened by this."

After his speech, Edwards, along with wife Elizabeth and his children, chatted with community leaders, hugged residents and toured some of the half-built homes of Musicians Village.

"This is not the last time you’re going to see us in New Orleans," Elizabeth Edwards said, "though I suspect it’s the last time you’re going to see us with quite so many cameras around us."

[Thanks, USA Today]

Rudy Giuliani is expected to drop out of the 2008 Republican presidential race today after having suffered yet another crushing defeat at the hands of McCain and Romney in the Florida primaries.  Rudy just can’t keep up the pace, he gaining 200,000 less votes in all of the primary elections added together than Mitt Romney got in just Florida.

Rudy’s campaign has been plagued with inconsistencies and poor decisions.  The NY Times reports:

For Giuliani, a Dizzying Free-Fall

By MICHAEL POWELL and MICHAEL COOPER
Published: January 30, 2008

Perhaps he was living an illusion all along.

Rudolph W. Giuliani’s campaign for the Republican nomination for president took impressive wing last year, as the former mayor wove the pain experienced by his city on Sept. 11, 2001, and his leadership that followed into national celebrity. Like a best-selling author, he basked in praise for his narrative and issued ominous and often-repeated warnings about the terrorist strike next time.

Voters seemed to embrace a man so comfortable wielding power, and his poll numbers edged higher to where he held a broad lead over his opponents last summer. Just three months ago, Anthony V. Carbonetti, Mr. Giuliani’s affable senior policy adviser, surveyed that field and told The New York Observer: “I don’t believe this can be taken from us. Now that I have that locked up, I can go do battle elsewhere.”

In fact, Mr. Giuliani’s campaign was about to begin a free fall so precipitous as to be breathtaking. Mr. Giuliani finished third in the Florida primary on Tuesday night; only a few months earlier, he had talked about the state as his leaping-off point to winning the nomination.

As Mr. Giuliani ponders his political mortality, many advisers and political observers point to the hubris and strategic miscalculations that plagued his campaign. He allowed a tight coterie of New York aides, none with national political experience, to run much of his campaign.

[Thanks, NY Times]

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Today in 1649, King Charles I of England is beheaded.

Today in 1835, in the first assassination attempt against a USA President, a mentally ill man named Richard Lawrence attempts to assassinate President Andrew Jackson in the United States Capitol. Both of Lawrence’s pistols misfire, and Jackson proceeds to beat his would-be assassin with his cane.

Today in 1933, Adolf Hitler is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany.

Today in 1972, the event know as Bloody Sunday where United Kingdom British Paratroopers kill fourteen civil rights /anti internment marchers in Northern Ireland.

Today in 1976, George H. W. Bush becomes 11th director of the CIA after being appointed by then president Gerald R. Ford.

Celebrating Birthdays today are Thomas Tallis, Félix Faure, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dick Martin, Gene Hackman, Boris Spassky, Judith Tarr, Payne Stewart, Dexter Scott King, Mary Kay Letourneau, and Danielle Goyette.

Celebrating Death-iversaries today are Betsy Ross, Frank Nelson Doubleday, Orville Wright, Ferdinand Porsche, Ernst Heinkel, Professor Longhair, Huntz Hall, and Coretta Scott King.

Our much hated leader had the audacity to stand before a combined congress last night and lie through his teeth for more than an hour (and that’s time I’ll never get back!).  Some of the nonsensical things that he said are listed below:

We have faced hard decisions about peace and war, rising competition in the world economy, and the health and welfare of our citizens. These issues call for vigorous debate, and I think it’s fair to say we’ve answered the call. WOW! People have answered the call and debated the hard decisions facing our country.  No mention of fixing anything.

As Americans, we believe in the power of individuals to determine their destiny and shape the course of history. We believe that the most reliable guide for our country is the collective wisdom of ordinary citizens.  This is from the man who is bound and determined to remove our civil and constitutional rights from us.

Just as we trust Americans with their own money, we need to earn their trust by spending their tax dollars wisely. Next week, I will send you a budget that terminates or substantially reduces 151 wasteful or bloated programs totaling more than $18 billion. The budget that I will submit will keep America on track for a surplus in 2012. American families have to balance their budgets; so should their government.  This from a man who is spending $1 BILLION dollars a day in Iraq.  That’s pretty good of him, save enough from ‘bloated’ programs to fund his illegal little war for another 18 days.

On matters of justice, we must trust in the wisdom of our Founders and empower judges who understand that the Constitution means what it says. I — And I’ve submitted judicial nominees who will rule by the letter of the law, not the whim of the gavel. Many of these nominees are being unfairly delayed. They are worthy of confirmation, and the Senate should give each of them a prompt up-or- down vote.  Rule by the letter of WHOSE law?

Every member in this chamber knows that spending on entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is growing faster than we can afford. We all know the painful choices ahead if America stays on this path: massive tax increases, sudden and drastic cuts in benefits, or crippling deficits. I have laid out proposals to reform these programs. Now I ask members of Congress to offer your proposals and come up with a bipartisan solution to save these vital programs for our children and grandchildren.  So, no one will bother to accept, or even listen to, your stupid ideas.  Now it’s time to try to dump the onus onto the group of people who have wanted to create legislation all along.  My prediction is that Bush will veto any bill that addresses these issues.

Yet we also need to acknowledge that we will never fully secure our border until we create a lawful way for foreign workers to come here and support our economy. This will take pressure off the border and allow law enforcement to concentrate on those who mean us harm.  I need cheap labor to work my ranch….hehehe

On a clear September day, we saw thousands of our fellow citizens taken from us in an instant. These horrific images serve as a grim reminder: The advance of liberty is opposed by terrorists and extremists — evil men who despise freedom, despise America, and aim to subject millions to their violent rule. Since 9/11, we have taken the fight to these terrorists and extremists. We will stay on the offense, we will keep up the pressure, and we will deliver justice to our enemies.   Since that fateful day in 2001 we have won no victories in that illegal war being carried out by our beloved sons and daughters on hostile foreign soil.  We have suffered only catastrophic loss of life.  No one wants this war except you for your oil holdings and Cheney for his Halliburton shares.  Bring our troops home!

Our military and civilians in Iraq are performing with courage and distinction, and they have the gratitude of our whole nation.  Um, excuse me?  These civilians you mentioned, are they the murderous Blackwater crowd we’ve heard so much about.  Blackwater, and other cowboys like them, garner no gratitude from me.

And the rest of his tirade was just political blather that showed to the attentive individual that he’s accomplished nothing other than drive our country into the dirt, destroy our nation’s reputation on the world stage, create an economic crisis that will take years to repair and kill almost 4,000 American soldiers while creating tens of thousands of wounded.

There is still time to rid ourselves of this evil duo that have occupied the White House.  Join the almost 1,000,000 people who have signed a petition to Impeach the executive branch of the government.  Sign up HERE.

Today is Constitution Day in Gibraltar.

Today in 1845, "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe is published in the New York Evening Mirror.

Today in 1861, Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state.

Today in 1886, Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.

Celebrating Birthdays today are Thomas Paine, Moses Cleaveland, William McKinley, John D. Rockefeller Jr., W.C. Fields, Allen B. DuMont, John Forsythe, Katharine Ross, Claudine Longet, Linda B. Buck, Tommy Ramone, Oprah Winfrey, and Heather Graham.

Celebrating Death-iversaries today are Francis Meres, Tsar Alexis I of Russia, Louis Racine, Alfred Sisley, Sara Teasdale, Ioannis Metaxas, Robert Frost, Alan Ladd, Allen Dulles, Freddie Prinze, Jimmy Durante, and Eric Griffiths.

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Three famous Kennedy names are now linked to Barack Obama’s campaign.  Both Caroline, daughter of John, her cousin Patrick, and Edward ‘Ted’ Kennedy have endorsed Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.  Using the Kennedy flair for oratory, Edward delivered a speech full of support and promise for Barack and full of insults and criticisms for the both Clinton campaigners.

The article I prefer is from my local Seattle Times:

Kennedy Dumps on Clintons
By RON FOURNIER
Associated Press Writer

Ted Kennedy did more than welcome Barack Obama into the warm embrace of his legendary family. He also consigned the Clintons and their brass-knuckle brand of politics to the past.

"With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion," the Massachusetts senator said Monday in endorsing Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. "With Barack Obama, we will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight against gay."

In an eloquent speech laced with stinging subtleties, Kennedy called Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton a friend who "has been in the forefront of issues." But he might as well have called her a "has-been" _ a legacy of 1990s-style politics that rewards distortion, cynicism, self-aggrandizement and even failure.

Because that must be what Kennedy believes; there is no other way to interpret the clues tucked between the lines of his address.

Kennedy is ticked at Sen. Clinton and her husband, Bill, for trying to marginalize Obama after his triumph in Iowa’s caucuses, according to officials close to the senator. Like many other Democratic leaders, Kennedy worries that playing the race card will divide blacks, whites and Hispanics _ and cause irreparable harm to the Democratic coalition.

Kennedy’s endorsement helps Obama on a number of fronts: It lends him a measure of the family’s political aura; it provides cover to Democratic operatives who were afraid of bucking the Clintons; and it signals to Hispanic voters, who historically are reluctant to support black candidates, that Obama is a rightful heir to the support and adulation earned by the late Robert Kennedy during his 1968 presidential campaign.

But the endorsement also says something about how the Clintons are viewed by many institutional Democrats _ some of whom never cottoned to the couple from Arkansas, and only grudgingly accepted their dominance of the party since 1993.

Look at how Kennedy compared Obama to his brother, John F. Kennedy _ and, by inference, Bill Clinton to a curmudgeonly Harry Truman.

"There was another time, when another young candidate was running for president and challenging America to cross a New Frontier," Kennedy said. "He faced public criticism from the preceding Democratic president, who was widely respected in the party. Harry Truman said we needed ’someone with greater experience’ _ and added: ‘May I urge you to be patient." And John Kennedy replied: ‘The world is changing. The old ways will not do … It is time for a new generation of leadership.’"

Kennedy didn’t have to remind the crowd that Bill Clinton said that Obama was asking voters to "roll the dice" and back him.

Or that Obama has replied that he has the right experience to respond to "the fierce urgency of now."

Line after line of the speech contained a coded criticism of the Clintons, or a defense of Obama.

He said Obama’s campaign is "not just about himself," a dig at Bill Clinton, who talks as much about himself as his wife on the campaign trail.

He said Obama will "break the old gridlock and finally" provide universal health care, a jab at Sen. Clinton, who failed to reform health care when given the opportunity during her husband’s first term.

He said Obama had the courage to oppose the war in Iraq from the start. "And let no one deny that truth," he added, knowing full well that the Clintons have questioned Obama’s courage.

The irony is that Bill Clinton could have made a credible case that Obama’s anti-war stance was not a risky move to take during a Democratic primary in Illinois. Instead, the former president smugly dismissed Obama’s assertion as a "fairy tale," and some black leaders thought Clinton was dismissing a black man’s chance of being president.

Kennedy pointedly said Obama would not be "trapped in the patterns of the past" and could fight for Democratic causes "without demonizing those who hold a different view." Could he be talking about Sen. Clinton, who falsely accuses Obama of not wanting to give all Americans health insurance?

Or perhaps he was referring to Bill Clinton, who acknowledged Obama’s landslide victory in South Carolina by noting that another black man, Jesse Jackson, had won the state in the past _ so, big deal.

Or he might have had in mind the fact that that Clinton surrogates raised the issue of Obama’s drug use as a youth and tried to label him a Muslim (Obama is Christian).

Maybe he had both Clintons in mind. The Democratic Party’s most powerful couple twisted Obama’s admiration of Ronald Reagan’s political success _ sentiments they themselves have expressed _ into an endorsement of GOP ideas.

Kennedy certainly had the Clintons in mind when he said Obama would be "ready to be president one Day One."

Sen. Clinton likes to say that about herself.

Bill Clinton likes to say that about his wife.

They’re a powerful, talented couple and odds are at least 50-50 that Sen. Clinton will win the nomination and extend the Clintons’ grip on the Democratic Party. That is, unless the young lion Obama and old lion Kennedy have their way.

"I feel change in the air," Kennedy said.

He has now cast his lot with the promise of a new brand of politics, not knowing whether it will lead to victory, much less any real change.

[Thanks, Seattle Times]

From ABC News:

Bush’s Legacy: Partisan Politics

By RICK KLEIN
Jan. 20, 2008

He squeaked into office by the narrowest of margins — a Texas governor from outside the Washington orbit who promised a new brand of politics to heal a divided nation.

Yet George W. Bush never governed like a president who harbored uncertainties or self-doubt about his capacity to lead.

Bush’s Legacy: Early Wins

President Bush arrived in Washington and forged ahead with an ambitious agenda — deep tax cuts, vast changes in federal social programs, expansions of executive power and a broad remaking of energy and education policies.

Claiming a mandate by simply declaring its existence, his early successes dazzled his critics. With guru Karl Rove directing the action, Bush won a stunning series of political victories.

He muscled his agenda through a friendly Congress, and gained seats for his party in the 2002 midterm elections. His biggest triumph came in 2004, when he won a second term despite a widely unpopular war.

The "permanent" Republican majority he and Rove envisioned even seemed attainable as Bush plunged himself into his most ambitious legislative effort yet: a partial privatization of Social Security.

But the president who boasted about "political capital" in the heady days after his re-election now faces the worst of political fates as he enters his final year in office: borderline irrelevance.

[Thanks, ABC News]

Well, we don’t need the village idiot to tell us that we’re F&%Ked, do we?  In some kind of deluded effort to define his presidency as something other than a failed war and economic disaster (like father, like son), George ‘Dumbya’ Bush will address the nation and try, once again, to convince us that everything is well with the world.  But ABC News has outlined where his real legacy can be found.

It’s a shame our Congress didn’t impeach both Bush and Cheney years ago.

Bush’s Legacy: War in Iraq, Consequences at Home

By JONATHAN KARL
Jan. 20, 2008

As President Bush begins his last year in the White House, the security situation in Iraq moves in an unmistakably positive direction.

Violence is down across the board. There are fewer attacks, fewer Iraqis dying and fewer Americans getting killed.

U.S. commanders in Iraq have begun slowly reducing the number of American troops in the country. There are even some limited but tangible signs of political progress.

That’s the good news. It’s real. It’s measurable.

For now, it looks as if Gen. David Petraeus’ counterinsurgency strategy combined with the president’s decision to send 30,000 more troops to Iraq in 2007 has yielded some real results.

The success has also moved to Iraq, for the most part, off the front pages of the newspapers and made it a less central issue on the campaign trail — for now.

It’s unclear, however, whether this progress will last as American troops begin to return home. And even if it does, historians may look harshly at the high costs of the war and the mistakes made along the way.

Bush’s Legacy: The Costs of Iraq

First, the costs:

Nearly 4,000 U.S. troops have died in Iraq. Nearly 30,000 have been injured. Through September 2007, the Iraq War cost taxpayers $378 billion and continues to cost nearly $10 billion a month.

There are also costs that can’t be measured.

More than 1 million U.S. servicemen and women have served in Iraq, many of them several times. Their personal sacrifice is not measured in government statistics.

But their long deployments — soldiers currently serve 15 months at a time in Iraq — mean an untold number of missed holidays, missed birthdays and time away from family that takes an immeasurable toll. For those in the National Guard and the Reserve, time in Iraq has also meant time away from their jobs.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Shortly before the war started, on Feb. 7, 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked how long the war would last.

His answer: "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

[Thanks, ABC News]

Please click through and read the rest of this saddening article…

Today in 1754, Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word serendipity.

Today in 1902, The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, DC with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.

Today in 1935, Iceland becomes the first Western country to legalize therapeutic abortion.

Today in 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger, mission STS-51-L, breaks apart 73 seconds after liftoff killing all seven astronauts onboard, including Christa McAuliffe, who was supposed to be the first teacher in space. (Space Shuttle Challenger disaster).

Celebrating Birthdays today are John Barclay, John Baskerville, José Martí, William Seward Burroughs I, Auguste Piccard, Robert Stroud, Jackson Pollock, Alan Alda, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Sarah McLachlan, and Gianluigi Buffon.

Celebrating Death-iversaries today are Charlemagne, Henry VIII of England, Tsar Peter I, William Butler Yeats, Crew of Space Shuttle Challenge, and Emma Tillman.

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Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Today in 1870,the first college sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, is formed at DePauw University.

Today in 1888, in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Society is founded.

Today in 1967, in the Apollo program: Apollo 1 – Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee are killed in a fire during a test of the spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center.

Celebrating Birthdays today are Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Lewis Carroll, Arkhip Kuindzhi, Soong Ching-ling, John Carew Eccles, William Randolph Hearst, Jr., Donna Reed, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mimi Rogers, and Bridget Fonda.

Celebrating Death-iversaries today are Ashikaga Yoshimasa, Bartolomeo Cristofori, Giuseppe Verdi, Thomas Crapper, Thomas Sopwith, André the Giant, and Claude Akins.

Amid a small controversy regarding the polling machines used in South Carolina, Barack Obama is basking in a decisive victory over opponent Hillary Clinton.  Clinton has once again attacked the Obama campaign after having taken a step back from the bickering last Friday.

Barack has commented that it’s difficult when you have to compete on two fronts, one front with the candidate and the other with the unfaithful womanizer.

Obama Carries South Carolina by Wide Margin

By JEFF ZELENY and MARJORIE CONNELLY
Published: January 27, 2008

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Senator Barack Obama won a commanding victory over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic primary on Saturday, drawing a wide majority of black support and one-quarter of white voters in a contest that sets the stage for a multi-state fight for the party’s presidential nomination.

In a bitter campaign here infused with discussions of race, Mr. Obama’s convincing victory puts him on equal footing with Mrs. Clinton — with two wins each in early-voting states — and gives him fresh momentum as the contest plunges into a nationwide battle over the next 10 days.

Former Senator John Edwards, a native of South Carolina who was trying to revive his candidacy, came in third place but vowed to keep his campaign alive, despite failing to win a single state so far.

With 99 percent of the electoral precincts reporting, Mr. Obama had 55 percent of the vote, Mrs. Clinton had 27 percent, and Mr. Edwards had 18 percent.

“Tonight, the cynics who believed that what began in the snows of Iowa was just an illusion were told a different story by the good people of South Carolina,” Mr. Obama told a euphoric crowd here after the results came in. “After four great contests in every corner of this country, we have the most votes, the most delegates and the most diverse coalition of Americans we’ve seen in a long, long time.”

[Thanks, NY Times]

Today is Australia Day, Republic Day in India, and Liberation Day in Uganda.

Today in 1500, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón becomes the first European to set foot on Brazil.

Today in 1808 was the Rum Rebellion, the only successful armed takeover of the government in Australia.

Today in 1837 Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state.

Today in 1998 during the Lewinsky scandal: On American television, U.S. President Bill Clinton denies having had "sexual relations" with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Celebrating Birthdays today are Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, the 12th Dalai Lama, Giuseppe Genco Russo, Seán MacBride, Polykarp Kusch, Philip José Farmer, Scott Glenn, Jonathan Carroll, Eddie Van Halen, Ellen DeGeneres, and Andrew Ridgeley.

Celebrating Death-iversaries today are Georg Mohr, Edward Davy, Abner Doubleday, Lucky Luciano, Edward G. Robinson, João Branco Núncio, Paul "Bear" Bryant, José Ferrer, Jeane Dixon, and A. E. van Vogt.

• Seiko Black Dial & Leather Band Watch $59.99 + s/h @ 1 Sale a Day
• Digital Golf Range Finder $18.65 + $5 s/h @ EjectIT
• Game Over T-Shirt $12.80 + s/h @ Shirt a Day
• Odyssey Putter – Mens Right Hand $79.99 + s/h @ GolfBuzz
• Netgear PS121 Ethernet USB Mini Print Server $16.95 @ Just Deals
• Mens Marmot Chamonix Glove $29.99 + s/h @ Massey’s
• Fly Fishing For Dummies  $5.00 + s/h @ Book Cellar Sales

In a daring decision to remain a strict party hack and personal indentured servant of Bush, AG Michael Mukasy has refused to budge on his unethical, immoral and un-American stance on a number of issues:

1. He refused to say whether he has completed his review of the legality of waterboarding.
2. He refused to say if he would ever publicly announce his opinion of whether waterboarding is legal.
3. He isn’t planning to assign a special prosecutor to investigate whether the CIA broke the law when it destroyed videotapes of terror interrogations.
4. He supports his party’s push for Congress to permanently let U.S. intelligence officials eavesdrop on overseas terror suspects without first seeking court approval.

Wow, he’s a scrappy little fighter.  Knowing that he enjoys an approval rate even lower that his master’s, he refuses to yield to a single inch toward the side of decency, democracy and the United States Bill of Rights.

An article from the Associated Press can be read HERE.