UNCLE!

Okay, here are just A FEW of the leads from news stories troubling me today. I think I am going to have to take a break from the news for a bit:

1) Refusing to give up on the Terri Schiavo case, Gov. Jeb Bush has asked Pinellas prosecutors to sort out time discrepancies Michael Schiavo has provided regarding the hour he found his wife unconscious 15 years ago. (St. Petersberg Times)

2) American officials lied to British ministers over the use of “internationally reviled” napalm-type firebombs in Iraq. (The Independent)

3) A Halliburton Co. unit will build a new $30 million detention facility and security fence at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States is holding about 520 foreign terrorism suspects, the Defense Department announced on Thursday. The announcement comes the same week that Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the jail after U.S. lawmakers said it had created an image problem for the United States. (Reuters)

4) The House was poised to give the Pentagon an additional $45 billion for wars next year, even as public support for combat in Iraq wanes and lawmakers press for an exit strategy.
While President Bush has not asked yet for more war funds, lawmakers included money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in a spending bill the House was expected to approve late Thursday. (Associated Press)

5) Hi, I’m Bill O’Reilly. Thank you for watching us tonight. The latest dispatches from the Natalee Holloway case in Aruba in a moment. But first, what do The New York Times and the mafia have in common? That is the subject of this evening’s “Talking Points Memo”. The answer to that question is both The Times and organized crime routinely engage assassins. In the case of the newspaper, they are propping up character assassins. (Fox News, video available on LiarsandCrooks.com)

6) In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Ga. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session — only private invitations to 52 attendees. There were high-level officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva, and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly “embargoed.” There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers with them when they left. (Salon.com)

Okay, I need a nap…

oh — one more —

Actor Tom Cruise said he and girlfriend Katie Holmes are engaged, after he popped the question early Friday morning atop the Eiffel Tower. (AP)