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I’ve been watching Kerry and he has recently learned to keep his mouth shut and act like a president. To date you have shown no objective, respectful, disagreement. My love for this country has taugh me to respect, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, LBJ, and Kennedy and this will not change even if the next man to hold American's highest office is named Kerry. While you have spent your internet life trashing one man, one, administration, and one political party. Your opinion is so polarized it’s polluted.
I remember a couple of years ago Bush took Edwards on Air Force One with him on a trip. Bush liked Edwards, Edwards is class and sharp, I like him.
My stance is simple, if Kerry wins the election I will respect our new president and the office of the president just as I always have.
I guess Kerry thinks the Second Amendment is about shooting deer. Strange, just a few days ago Sara said she understood the Second Amendment wasn't about shooting deer.
It's important to me to know Kerry's real positions. Some of us here seem to care about the issues while others seem more interested in dogmatic politics.
I believe this is be Kerry's most up-date comment on his position towards the Second Amendment, hence I post it...
Earlier, in an interview with Radio Iowa, a statewide network, Kerry said, "I am a gun owner and I am a hunter and I respect the Second Amendment." But, he added, "I've never contemplated shooting a deer with an AK-47." A ban on assault weapons is important, he said. "Law enforcement supports these things, and I support law enforcement."
http://www.indystar.com/articles/9/159822-9719-009.html
And a good morning to you too, Sara.
You hunt duck at trap shooting ranges?
Bush aide foresees early lead for Kerry
July's convention may push Demo to 55-40 edge, he says
By Ken Herman
Cox News Service
WASHINGTON — Challenger John Kerry, who according to campaign sources is expected to announce his running mate this morning, will lead President Bush by 15 points when the Democratic convention wraps up at the end of July, according to a top Bush campaign adviser.
Presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry reacts after a speech by his wife Monday at an Independence Day celebration in Fox Chapel, Penn.
Gerald Herbert, Associated Press
In a memo to campaign leadership Monday, Matthew Dowd, Bush's chief strategist, said Kerry is about to benefit from "the average challenger's bounce."
"We should expect the race to swing wildly to his favor by early August," Dowd, who remains confident Bush will win, said in the memo.
Current polls show a dead heat, but Dowd said Kerry could be up by a 55 percent to 40 percent margin in early August.
Dowd also noted that Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe predicted Sunday that Kerry would be up by 8 to 10 points following the convention.
Dowd told campaign officials that history shows a challenger always gets a "dramatic, if often short-lived" bounce from the convention and the selection of a running mate.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595075325,00.html
Why is it I feel this Kerry feller is trying to send me a message?
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry takes aim at a clay bird during a trap shooting at the Gunslick Trap Club in Holmen, Wisconsin on July 3, 2004.
Presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., walks onto the shooting range to trap shoot during a campaign stop at the Gunslick Trap Club in Holmen, Wisc. Saturday, July 3, 2004. Kerry is on a three day bus campaign trip through Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Now that's trick shit, I couldn't do that. B-)
Spacecraft Sends Back Images of Saturn
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Hours after settling into orbit around Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft sent back "mind-blowing" photographs Thursday of the planet's shimmering rings that resembled a fine-grain piece of wood or a grooved phonograph record.
Scientists could not contain their excitement as the raw black-and-white pictures of the rings and the inky gaps between them arrived at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory from more than 900 million miles away.
The photographs showed concentric bands - some dark, some light-colored, some broad, some extremely narrow. Some had wavy edges, some had sharp ones. Some had rippled surfaces, like corrugated cardboard. Some appeared smooth.
"Wow, look at that scallop on the inner edge. That's a beauty," said imaging scientist Jeff Cuzzi as a picture from the sunlit side of the rings was displayed.
Cassini, a spacecraft the size of a bus, passed between two of the rings late Wednesday and settled into orbit around the giant planet to begin the most detailed study ever of Saturn and many of its 31 moons. Imaging team leader Carolyn Porco watched the photographs stream in before dawn.
"It was beyond description, really, it was mind-blowing," she said. "I'm surprised at how surprised I am at the beauty and the clarity of these images. They are shocking to me."
The $3.3 billion mission is funded by NASA and the European and Italian space agencies. Cassini is the first spacecraft to orbit the solar system's second-largest planet. Pioneer 11 and Voyagers 1 and 2 made only fly-bys between 1979 and 1981.
Cassini passed through the rings unscathed and was in perfect condition, program manager Robert Mitchell said.
The rings, which are made of ice and rock and have fascinated astronomers for centuries, were the mission's first priority in the minutes after achieving orbit because Cassini will never again be as close to them during its planned 76 orbits over four years.
Cassini images have five times higher resolution than the best Voyager pictures, Cuzzi said. He called the stream from Cassini "a very rich harvest of data."
The first images to arrive were dark and indistinct because Cassini photographed them from the side not illuminated by the sun. But they quickly became crisper.
"Look at that sharp edge. That brings tears to my eyes," Porco exclaimed.
The major rings, ranging in width from 30 miles to 188,000 miles, are named for the first seven letters of the alphabet - but in the order of discovery, not distance from Saturn. From closest to farthest they are D, C, B, A, F, G and E.
Subject to various vorces, including "shepherding" by Saturn's many moons, the rings have structures that scientists described with terms like "spiral waves,""density waves,""bending waves" and even "notes on a chord."
The causes of most of the observed structures are not known, Porco said.
The sharp edges, for example.
"Ring scientists love sharp edges. They have to be held sharp by some mechanism," Porco said. "We don't know the mechanism so we're intrigued by them."
---
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040702/D83IBLRG1.html
They don't look Italian to me. See them fires? B-)
I see commericals on this Joseph Goebbels movie and I can't help but think it all could backfire to help elect Bush. You know the one, the commerical with the groovie seventies music and Bush bombing. It makes me recall the opening speech of that famous war movie and what that General thought about how Americans really feel when you close that curtian......
...Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. Men, all this stuff you've heard about America not wanting to fight - wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed.
Menino lets loose: Mayor slams ‘incompetent’ Kerry camp
By David R. Guarino and Noelle Straub
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Mayor Thomas M. Menino unloaded a searing attack on fellow Democrat John F. Kerry yesterday, calling his presidential campaign ``small-minded' and ``incompetent' - laying bare a years-old rift weeks before the city plays host to Kerry's FleetCenter coronation.
Menino, in an exclusive Herald interview, let loose on the hometown senator two days after Kerry snubbed him by siding with union picketers outside a U.S. Conference of Mayors event.
``Maybe they should use some of their energies to get their message across to the American people instead of trying to destroy the integrity of someone who is on their team, to try to discredit someone on their team,' Menino said. ``They have better things to do.'
But, in a move that might only intensify the public war of words, the Kerry campaign responded by suggesting Menino made the comments because of the ``pressure' he's under as convention host.
Kerry and Menino ended up on opposite sides this weekend as Kerry debated skipping a scheduled speech to the mayors.
Kerry decided late Sunday night not to give the speech in deference to picketing cops, angering Menino - who quickly replaced him with Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, in a reciprocal snub.
Menino said he was enraged to see a local newspaper item saying he hung up on Kerry Sunday. The mayor yesterday said Kerry's campaign floated the story, which he called untrue.
``I wasn't angry with him, that's a rumor they're spreading,' Menino said. ``They are trying to balance out their decision by saying the mayor's angry. I had no harsh words with them.'
Menino called the alleged leak ``the failure of the campaign to communicate with the public,' adding, ``They are trying to find scapegoats for their incompetency.'
A few hours earlier, the mayor stood with Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe at a press conference cheering Kerry as ``the next president of the United States.'
``We are all on the same team, I thought. Evidently, we're not,' he said. ``This is typical of small-minded individuals who have to create controversy.'
Kerry's campaign refused to make the senator available for comment last night, but suggested Menino might be stressed out.
``The mayor is in the middle of running the city and helping prepare Boston for the national and international spotlight as the Democratic National Convention comes to John Kerry's hometown, where Kerry will accept his party's nomination for president,' spokesman Michael Meehan wrote in an e-mail response. ``These are two very pressure packed jobs and the mayor understandably is working hard to be successful at both.'
Sources close to the Kerry campaign and the mayor say they worry about the rift continuing through the convention - already plagued with bad headlines - and into the general election.
Aides to Menino say the famously fickle mayor has never felt particularly close to Kerry and could well hold back some of his ground troops, which helped put Kerry over the top in critical primaries.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=33881
The liberal god has no cloths...
http://www.michaelmoorehatesamerica.com/video/newtrailer_lrg.wmv
Watch the trailer, Moores complains the boy is "slandering" him. My belly hurts.
Ancient Indian pottery is displayed in the archeology lab at the former Wilcox ranch Wednesday, June 30, 2004, in the Range Creek area southeast of East Carbon City, Utah.
Catalogued arrowheads lie on a table in the archeaology lab.
A woven bottom of an Indian basket lies atop a wooden paddle next to a bark mat in the archeology lab.
Waldo Wilcox poses in the remains of an ancient Indian pit house Wednesday, June 30, 2004, in the Range Creek area southeast of East Carbon City, Utah. Wilcox sold his ranch to the state so all the Indian artifacts could be preserved.
The former Wilcox ranch, rich with ancient Indian artifacts and human remains, is now state owned land Wednesday, June 30, 2004, in the Range Creek area southeast of East Carbon City, Utah.
Journalists look at pottery pieces, arrow heads, beads and other artifacts
Ancient Indian artwork over a thousand years old remains intact.
Yeah but Matey has seen the house years ago. B-)
Buck, Matey ever see this home in the Territory?
http://www.azcentral.com/home/home2/articles/0626coolhome26.html
Way way way cool....Rancher sells archaelogical site to government
SALT LAKE CITY - For more than 50 years, rancher Waldo Wilcox kept most outsiders off his land and the secret under wraps: a string of ancient settlements thousands of years old in near perfect condition.
Hidden deep inside eastern Utah's nearly inaccessible Book Cliffs region, 130 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, the prehistoric villages run for 12 miles along Range Creek, where Wilcox guarded hundreds of rock art panels, cliffside granaries, pit houses and rock shelters, some exposing mummified remains of long-ago inhabitants.
The sites were occupied for at least 3,000 years until they were abandoned more than 1,000 years ago, when the Fremont people mysteriously vanished. The Fremont, a collection of hunter-gatherers and farmers, preceded more modern American Indian tribes on the Colorado Plateau.
What sets this ancient site apart from other, better-known ones in Utah, Arizona or Colorado is that it's been left virtually untouched, with arrowheads and pottery shards still covering the ground in places.
"I didn't let people go in there to destroy it," said Wilcox, 74, whose parents bought the ranch in 1951 and threw up a gate to the rugged canyon. "The less people know about this, the better."
But the secret is out after federal and state governments paid Wilcox $2.5 million for the 4,200-acre ranch, which is surrounded by wilderness study lands. The state took ownership earlier this year but hasn't decided yet how to control public access, said Kevin Conway, director of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
State archaeologist Kevin Jones said the site escaped looters to showcase a glimpse of ancient life only now being catalogued by the Utah Museum of Natural History.
"It's a national treasure. There may not be another place like it in the continental 48 states," Museum curator Duncan Metcalfe said Thursday by satellite phone from the site.
Metcalfe said a team of researchers has documented about 200 pristine sites occupied as many as 4,500 years ago, "and we've only looked in a few places." In places the ground is littered with arrowheads, arrow shafts, beads and pottery.
"It's a legacy that dropped in our laps," said Jones, who was overcome on his first visit in July 2002. "It was just like walking into a different world."
Wilcox said, "It's like being the first white man in there, the way I kept it. There's no place like it left." He said some skeletons have been exposed by shifting winds under dry ledges.
"They were little people, the ones I've seen dug up. They were wrapped like Egyptians, in strips of beaver skin and cedar board, preserved as perfect," he said.
Range Creek sustained ancient people in the canyon until it possibly dried up in a drought worse than the one now turning six years old in the interior West, Wilcox said.
The creek, which starts as a 10,000-foot alpine stream and dumps into the Green River, still runs year-round with abundant trout, shaded by cottonwood and box elder trees. Douglas fir covers the canyon sides.
The canyon would have been rich in wildfire: elk, deer, bighorn sheep, bear, mountain lions, wild turkeys - all animals that Wilcox says are still around, but in lesser numbers due to modern hunting pressure in the larger Book Cliffs region.
Although the University of Utah hired a seasonal caretaker and students from three Utah schools are working the sites this summer, Wilcox worries about possible looting, especially at odd times of the year when nobody may be watching the ranch. He said he gave it up on a promise of protection from the San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land, which transferred the ranch to public ownership.
The promise barely assured Wilcox, but he knew one thing: "I'm getting old and couldn't take care of it." He said he asked $4 million for the ranch, but settled for $2.5 million, moved to Green River, Utah, and retired.
Over the years, Wilcox occasionally welcomed archaeologists to inspect part of the canyon, "but we'd watch 'em." When one Kent State researcher used a pick ax to take a pigment sample from a pictograph, Wilcox "took the pick from him and took him out of the gate."
It wasn't until 2002 that archaeologists realized the full significance of Range Creek, Jones said.
While many structures are still standing or visible, others could be buried. Archaeologists haven't done any excavations yet simply because "we have too big a task just to document" sites in plain view, he said.
After The Associated Press started inquiring, Metcalfe decided to hasten an announcement.
He plans to shuttle news organizations June 30 to the ranch, which is 30 miles off the nearest paved highway over rough, mountainous terrain. A gate inside Range Creek canyon blocks access; from there a dirt road continues about 14 miles down the canyon to a ranch house, now a hub of archaeological activity.
-The Associated Press
http://www.dhonline.com/articles/2004/06/25/news/nation/nation08.txt
Rancher sells archaelogical site to government
SALT LAKE CITY - For more than 50 years, rancher Waldo Wilcox kept most outsiders off his land and the secret under wraps: a string of ancient settlements thousands of years old in near perfect condition.
Hidden deep inside eastern Utah's nearly inaccessible Book Cliffs region, 130 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, the prehistoric villages run for 12 miles along Range Creek, where Wilcox guarded hundreds of rock art panels, cliffside granaries, pit houses and rock shelters, some exposing mummified remains of long-ago inhabitants.
The sites were occupied for at least 3,000 years until they were abandoned more than 1,000 years ago, when the Fremont people mysteriously vanished. The Fremont, a collection of hunter-gatherers and farmers, preceded more modern American Indian tribes on the Colorado Plateau.
What sets this ancient site apart from other, better-known ones in Utah, Arizona or Colorado is that it's been left virtually untouched, with arrowheads and pottery shards still covering the ground in places.
"I didn't let people go in there to destroy it," said Wilcox, 74, whose parents bought the ranch in 1951 and threw up a gate to the rugged canyon. "The less people know about this, the better."
But the secret is out after federal and state governments paid Wilcox $2.5 million for the 4,200-acre ranch, which is surrounded by wilderness study lands. The state took ownership earlier this year but hasn't decided yet how to control public access, said Kevin Conway, director of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
State archaeologist Kevin Jones said the site escaped looters to showcase a glimpse of ancient life only now being catalogued by the Utah Museum of Natural History.
"It's a national treasure. There may not be another place like it in the continental 48 states," Museum curator Duncan Metcalfe said Thursday by satellite phone from the site.
Metcalfe said a team of researchers has documented about 200 pristine sites occupied as many as 4,500 years ago, "and we've only looked in a few places." In places the ground is littered with arrowheads, arrow shafts, beads and pottery.
"It's a legacy that dropped in our laps," said Jones, who was overcome on his first visit in July 2002. "It was just like walking into a different world."
Wilcox said, "It's like being the first white man in there, the way I kept it. There's no place like it left." He said some skeletons have been exposed by shifting winds under dry ledges.
"They were little people, the ones I've seen dug up. They were wrapped like Egyptians, in strips of beaver skin and cedar board, preserved as perfect," he said.
Range Creek sustained ancient people in the canyon until it possibly dried up in a drought worse than the one now turning six years old in the interior West, Wilcox said.
The creek, which starts as a 10,000-foot alpine stream and dumps into the Green River, still runs year-round with abundant trout, shaded by cottonwood and box elder trees. Douglas fir covers the canyon sides.
The canyon would have been rich in wildfire: elk, deer, bighorn sheep, bear, mountain lions, wild turkeys - all animals that Wilcox says are still around, but in lesser numbers due to modern hunting pressure in the larger Book Cliffs region.
Although the University of Utah hired a seasonal caretaker and students from three Utah schools are working the sites this summer, Wilcox worries about possible looting, especially at odd times of the year when nobody may be watching the ranch. He said he gave it up on a promise of protection from the San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land, which transferred the ranch to public ownership.
The promise barely assured Wilcox, but he knew one thing: "I'm getting old and couldn't take care of it." He said he asked $4 million for the ranch, but settled for $2.5 million, moved to Green River, Utah, and retired.
Over the years, Wilcox occasionally welcomed archaeologists to inspect part of the canyon, "but we'd watch 'em." When one Kent State researcher used a pick ax to take a pigment sample from a pictograph, Wilcox "took the pick from him and took him out of the gate."
It wasn't until 2002 that archaeologists realized the full significance of Range Creek, Jones said.
While many structures are still standing or visible, others could be buried. Archaeologists haven't done any excavations yet simply because "we have too big a task just to document" sites in plain view, he said.
After The Associated Press started inquiring, Metcalfe decided to hasten an announcement.
He plans to shuttle news organizations June 30 to the ranch, which is 30 miles off the nearest paved highway over rough, mountainous terrain. A gate inside Range Creek canyon blocks access; from there a dirt road continues about 14 miles down the canyon to a ranch house, now a hub of archaeological activity.
-The Associated Press
http://www.dhonline.com/articles/2004/06/25/news/nation/nation08.txt
Sara, you do know this is the reason our founding fathers found it essential to make the right to bear arms the second amendment to the constitution, don't cha?
Our founding fathers were students of history who understood government historically trampled the rights of the individual and the ultimate right of free Americans to defend our "government of the people", our lives and our homes should lie in the hands of the people.
Seems "Bowling for Columbine's" Michael Moore missed this little detail. I guess he thought our founding fathers were talking about hunting when they saw fit to make the second amendment to the constitution the right to bear arms.
Knowing "very little about" is much closer to "not knowing" than "knowing". Reading comprehension is a beautiful thing, you might want to try it out sometime.
My point? Security officials obviously "don't" know who the insurgents are, as stated in the first sentence of the report you cited.
"Officials in the State and Defense departments told senators yesterday that they know relatively little about the enemy in Iraq"
Officials in the State and Defense departments told senators yesterday that they know relatively little about the enemy in Iraq
Your point 98, the article said "Iraqi insurgents" not Iraqis.
Yes, go to the library and look it up in the "Common knowledge" books, book #47 page 1432.
Don't kid yourself Girl, many conservatives including myself stand with you on this issue.
Conservative Backlash
Provisions of ‘Patriot II’ Draft Worry Those on Right
Some conservative groups are finding common ground with organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, expressing concerns about the effect that the USA Patriot Act and a possible follow-up law, the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, could have on civil liberties.
Liberal critics have directed much of their worry at what they saw as an attack on immigrants' rights in the Patriot Act, the massive measure that was passed as the country was reeling from the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
More than 60 towns, cities and counties around the country have passed resolutions criticizing the act, some going so far as to instruct municipal employees — including police — not to assist federal agents in investigations that they believe violate the Constitution.
Now, right-leaning groups such as the American Conservative Union, the Eagle Forum and Gun Owners of America say they are concerned that American citizens could also be victimized by what they say are unconstitutional law enforcement powers allowed by the Patriot and the potential enhancement act.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/2020/conservatives_patriot030312.html
98, it is not a known "fact" Iraqis are sabatoging the efforts with electricity. As a matter of fact, the best known terrorist in Iraq is a Jordanian named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and that's a fact.
Historical data show a strong correlation between the lack of U.S. involvement in international situations and World Wars.
I wonder if the General Accounting Office has a way to measure the value of freedom?
I wonder what liberals would value more; electricity, the judicial system, overall security or freedom?
"Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils."
Gen. John Stark
Others can make comic attacks and post links from garbage site too.
Liberals are akin to small children- although they understand compassion and their innocence is quite remarkable at times, we would never dare let them make any important decisions because they are naive and ignorant of the world around them. They would like to achieve peace and prosperity without sacrifice, liberty without a willingness to fight for it, and money without the having to earn it. Are we so neglecting of history not to see that these people and their ridiculous ideas amount to reliving disastrous incompetence?
http://www.liberals-suck.com
Oil Falls to 2-Month Low on Iraq Optimism
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices fell to their lowest in two months on Tuesday as the handover of power in Iraq (news - web sites) raised hopes for less sabotage and steadier exports.
U.S. light crude settled 1.6 percent, or 58 cents, lower at $35.66 a barrel.
Growing U.S. commercial supplies and higher OPEC (news - web sites) output have eased fears about summer gasoline shortages and knocked about $6 a barrel off the price of oil since record New York futures highs at the start of June.
News over the weekend that southern Iraqi oil exports resumed after pipeline sabotage weighed on values, as did the end of a strike at Norway's state-owned oil company.
London's Brent crude settled 59 cents lower at $33.11 a barrel.
Monday's earlier-than-expected handover of Iraqi sovereignty had prompted selling, which continued on Tuesday.
Gasoline futures fell more than two cents to $1.124 a gallon after dropping about more than six cents a gallon on Monday.
A 23 percent fall in U.S. gasoline prices since mid-May has helped pull crude down from the $40 level as fears for summer supply shortages diminish.
"The fact that fundamentals are softening and prices heading down comes as no surprise," said analysts at PFC Energy.
Chinese efforts to slow economic growth, reduced fears over the security of Middle Eastern supplies, and higher OPEC output were driving the price downturn, PFC said.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed earlier in June, when New York futures prices were at record highs, to raise its formal output limits by two million bpd from July 1. It also agreed to lift curbs by another 500,000 bpd from August 1.
Prices could quickly go back up again in the event of a major attack on oil facilities, analysts said.
"If the situation in Iraq does worsen substantially, exports could be curtailed far more than has occurred to date and prices could spike over $40 again," the PFC Energy report said.
The latest weekly inventory snapshot from the U.S. government was expected to show tighter gasoline supplies, but a build on crude.
A Reuters poll of seven analysts, ahead of the release of the Energy Information Administration data on Wednesday, forecast an average drop of 800,000 barrels in gasoline stocks in the week to June 25.
Commercial crude stocks were expected to show a two-million-barrel build, which would extend an uptrend to 18 of the past 22 weeks.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040629/bs_nm/markets_oil_dc_9
Consumer Confidence Reaches a 2-Year High
Consumer Confidence Hits Its Highest Level in Two Years in June, Lifted by Improved Job Outlook
The Associated Press
NEW YORK June 29, 2004 — Consumer confidence jumped to its highest level in two years in June, buoyed by an improved job outlook, the New York-based Conference Board reported Tuesday.
The Consumer Confidence Index increased nearly 9 points to 101.9, up from a revised reading of 93.1 in May. The latest reading was much better than the 95 that analysts had expected.
Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board's Consumer Research Center, said the strong improvement in current business conditions propelled consumer confidence to the highest level since June 2002, when the indicator was 106.3.
The Present Situation index is now 104.8, up from 90.5 in May. The Expectations Index, which measures consumers' outlook over the next six months, rose to 100 from 94.8.
"Looking ahead, consumers expect the economy to continue to grow at a healthy clip and to continue to generate additional jobs," Franco said. "And, with prices at the pump beginning to ease, the short-term outlook remains favorable."
Economists closely track consumer confidence because consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of all U.S. economic activity.
The news about consumer confidence was encouraging given that June is turning out to be a weak month for retail sales. Both Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. cut their sales forecast for June because of unseasonably cool weather.
Mark Vitner, economist at Wachovia Corp., suspects that higher gasoline prices also dampened spending, but he said he believes the blip is "only temporary."
"If gasoline prices keep coming down over the summer, then the damage is limited," he said. If gas prices don't continue to decrease, Vitner believes there will be an impact on consumer spending in 2005.
Nevertheless, Vitner feels encouraged by consumer's opinion of current business conditions. "Things are clearly getting better," he said.
Consumers' assessment of current business conditions improved considerably in June. Those saying conditions are "good" rose to 25.6 percent, up from 22.2 percent.
Those saying conditions have worsened fell to 17.5 percent from 21.6 percent. Consumers claiming jobs are "hard to get" decreased to 26.5 percent from 30.3 percent. Those saying jobs are "plentiful" rose to 18.0 percent from 16.6 percent.
Consumers are more optimistic about the short-term future. Those expecting business conditions to improve in the next six months rose to 23.4 percent from 22.8 percent. Consumers expecting conditions to worsen declined to 9.2 percent from 10.1 percent.
The employment outlook remained upbeat. Those anticipating more jobs to become available increased to 19.7 percent from 18.7 percent. Those expecting fewer jobs edged down to 17.1 percent from 17.3 percent. The proportion of consumers anticipating an increase in their incomes rose to 19.3 percent, up from 17.1 percent last month.
The news comes as the Labor Department is set to release its job figures on Friday. Analysts expect the unemployment rate to remain at 5.6 percent. But they are counting on nonfarm payrolls government and private employers to add 250,000 jobs.
The upbeat consumer confidence report propelled stocks higher Tuesday.
In late morning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 30.82, or 0.3 percent, to 10,387.91.
Broader stock indicators were modestly higher. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 1.37, or 0.1 percent, to 1,134.72, and the Nasdaq composite index was up 11.32, or 0.6 percent, at 2,031.14.
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Business/ap20040629_798.html
Allawi said Saturday that the government was considering law "that we are calling the defense of public safety" that would "empower the government to take action to defend its people."
"It wouldn't be martial law," he said. But it would allow the Iraqi government to "take actions and measures against criminals, apprehend them, question them ... and impose curfews."
After 35 people were killed in a car bombing in Baghdad soon after that, the interim interior minister, Falah al-Nakib, said, "if we need to do it, yes, we'll do it. We won't hesitate … this is the security of our country. This is the security and life of our people."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,124041,00.html
Wrong, today Iraq is in charge of their own security.
The Truth About 'Fahrenheit 9/11'
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Michael Moore's (search) "Fahrenheit 9/11" broke records this weekend, becoming the first documentary to debut as Hollywood's top weekend film — but there are holes in the controversial film's story.
For instance, in one often-showed clip, Moore claims that President Bush was on vacation 42 percent of the time during his first several months in office — but that estimation included weekends at Camp David, a common practice for presidents. Without those days figured in, Bush actually spent 13 percent of his time on vacation.
The movie also criticizes Bush for staying inside a Florida classroom full of kids for a full seven minutes after he learned that the country was under attack on Sept. 11, 2001.
However, the vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission has said that Bush did the right thing. "Bush made the right decision in remaining calm, in not rushing out of the classroom," said Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana.
In "Fahrenheit 9/11" (search) Moore also claims that the White House approved plans for planes to pick up relatives of Usama Bin Laden right after the attacks. But according to terrorism czar Richard Clarke (search), he alone approved the Saudi flights.
In addition, Moore says that the departing Saudis were not properly processed by the FBI when leaving the country. That too is contradicted by the Sept. 11 commission, which said the Saudis were properly interviewed.
Finally, Moore shows prominent members of the Taliban visiting Texas, implying that they were invited by then-Governor Bush. The Taliban delegation, however, was invited to Houston by UNOCAL (search), a California energy company.
Moore also doesn't mention that the visit was made with the permission of the Clinton administration, which twice met with Taliban members — in 1997 and 1998.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,124079,00.html
Are we in charge of Iraq security? I don't think so.
Maybe you should spend more time reading real news and less time going to Joseph Goebbels movies.
Your best teacher is your last mistake.
-R.Nader
So following your logic Germany, Japan and South Korea are non-sovereign countries?