Medical staff help a boy injured in Sunday’s attack

A US air strike in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday killed 47 civilians, 39 of them women and children, an Afghan government investigating team says.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7501538.stm

For more than two decades, Washington officials have expressed faith that financial markets were best left alone to regulate themselves. But that faith has been shaken by the collapse of the investment bank Bear Stearns, and a growing number of officials are calling for tougher government regulation. On Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke joined the chorus.

Read more:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/43476.html

The Onion:

WASHINGTON, DC—In his State of the Union address to the nation last night, President Bush announced a new cabinet-level position to coordinate all current and future scandals facing his party.

Enlarge Image President Bush announces his plan to manage the numerous scandals of his administration.

“Tonight, by executive order, I am creating a permanent department with a vital mission: to ensure that the political scandals, underhanded dealings, and outright criminal activities of this administration are handled in a professional and orderly fashion,” Bush said.

The centerpiece of Bush’s plan is the Department Of Corruption, Bribery, And Incompetence, which will centralize duties now dispersed throughout the entire D.C.-area political establishment.

The Scandal Secretary will log all wiretaps and complaints of prisoner abuse, coordinate paid-propaganda efforts, eliminate redundant payoffs and bribes, oversee the appointment of unqualified political donors to head watchdog agencies, control all leaks and other high-level security breaches, and oversee the disappearance of Iraq reconstruction funds. He will also be responsible for issuing all official denials that laws have been broken.

<Click for More>

From MSN.com. My Favorite:

The security we profess to seek in foreign adventures we will lose in our decaying cities. — Dr. Martin Luther King… [Referring to U.S. Vietnam policy.] Address at Riverside Church, New York. (Source: History Today, April 1998)

http://spotlight.encarta.msn.com/Features/encnet_Features_Lists_default_article_MLKQuotations.html?GT1=10789

A major bailout… Rumors are that special terms include the Fed will provide guarantees on Countrywide’s loan portfolio.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080111/ap_on_bi_ge/countrywide;_ylt=AhARySvLuah3KGgzoZdY6A4DW7oF

BEIJING (Reuters) - More than 100,000 Chinese died in workplace accidents last year, including on the roads and railways, but the figure was down one-tenth on 2006, a senior official said on Friday.

Li Yizhong, head of the State Administration of Work Safety, said 101,480 people died but that government education and publicity campaigns were paying off.

“The national production safety situation continues to steadily improve,” he told a national meeting, carried live on central government Web site http://www.gov.cn.

Accidents in coal mines and on the roads showed the largest improvement, Li added.

China’s coal mines are the world’s deadliest, with fatal accidents taking place almost on a daily basis as mine owners push productions beyond safety limits to pursue profits.

Li said many problems remained.

“One is that the implementation and propagation of the concept of safe development and of safe production policies is not deep enough,” he said. “The work of some localities and work units is still superficial.”

Supervision and safety inspections were carried out unevenly, Li added.

“The results have not been consolidated, and there can easily be localized rebounds,” he said. “It will be hard to maintain the downward trend in 2008.”

Last year’s death toll was still unacceptably high, added Zhou Yongkang, the former head of public security who was raised to the Politburo Standing Committee in October, the Communist Party’s most senior group of leaders.

“It ought to be said that 100,000 people dying in accidents every year is a serious social problem,” he said.

Natural disasters including floods, landslides and lightning strikes also took their toll last year, killing 2,325 people, the Ministry of Civil Affairs added.

More than 1.46 million houses were destroyed and 48.67 million hectares of arable land affected, the ministry added in a statement on its Web site (http://www.mca.gov.cn).

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alex Richardson)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080111/wl_nm/china_accidents_dc;_ylt=AvxUBk3yyBHFxCjE04cx16EDW7oF

Yep, it looks like the “Idealist in Chief” will be returning to public service… Nearly 3 years after being forced out of the Defense Dept, and 6 months after resigned from being President of the World Bank (for giving kick-backs to his girlfriend or “companion” as they call her).

Heeee’s Baaaa-aack! …”An Old Face Resurfaces”… http://www.newsweek.com/id/73273

Some great quotes from Wolfie:

“Iraq is literally floating on a sea of oil. We’re talking about a country that can finance it’s own reconstruction, and very quickly.”

“It is inconceivable that it would require more troops to occupy and secure Iraq than it would take for the invasion.”

Not to forget, our so-called ‘liberal media’ has described Wolfie the “genuine intellectual”… (who likes to lick his comb to use the saliva to slick back his hair), in the following way:

The Iraq War’s major proponent was:

“Idealist-in-Chief Paul Wolfowitz” … “whose sole flaw might be that he is too idealistic. That his passion for the noble goals of the Iraq war might overwhelm the prudence and pragmatism that normally guide war planners.”

That’s from David Ignatious of the Washington Post. Yep, for Real.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49310-2003Oct31?language=printer

Read more about Al-Libi (who was torture, including by water-boarding), and Abu Jandel, who was Osama’s personal bodyguard.

After seeing actual pictures of the WTC Ground Zero site, Jandal eventually volunteered to help - true story:

Two Methods of Interrogation

“I think the sheik went crazy.” 

Notice how the “convential wisdom” is totally wrong. Reagan and Bush have presided over the largest increases in government since WWII.

From IntelligentGuess.com

…Even though they only constitute 11% of the overall population.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21678030/