I would say that we have courted disaster, in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran, generally with regard to domestic crises like Katrina, Rita and I could go on back, we haven't done very well on anything like that in a long time. And if something comes along that is truly serious, truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence. Read it some time again.

... the case that I saw for 4 plus years was a case that I have never seen in my studies of aberration, bastardizations, [UI], changes to the national security [UI] process. What I saw was a cabal between the Vice President of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense and [UI] on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.

And then when the bureaucracy was presented with those decisions and carried them out, it was presented in such a disjointed incredible way that the bureaucracy often didn't know what it was doing as it moved to carry them out.

God bless Eisenhower in 1961 in his farewell address the military industrial complex and don't you think they aren't ... today in a concentration of power that is just unparalleled. It all happened because of the end of the Cold War.

... tell you how many contractors who did billion dollars or so business with the Defense Department that we have in 1988 and how many do we have now. And they're always working together. If one of them is the lead on the satellite program, I hope there's some Lockheed and Grumman and others here today [UI] if one of them's a lead on satellites, the others are subs. And they've learned their lesson there in every state.

They've got every Congressman, every Senator, they got it covered. Now, it's not to say that they aren't smart businessmen. They are, and women. They are. But it's something we should be looking at, something we should be looking at. So you've got this collegiality there between the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President. And then you've got a President who is not versed in international relations. And not too much interested in them either.

Support for Bush has dropped 14 points in the last year among Republicans, and GOP officials fear that could complicate their efforts in next year's races for Congress and governor. For the first time in his presidency, half the voters in Chicago's Republican-rich collar counties disapprove of Bush's job performance, a departure from last fall when he carried all five suburban counties. ...

... In addition to Bush's low standing among voters in the collar counties of DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will, 54 percent of voters Downstate now say they disapprove of his performance. Downstate voters generally are more conservative and have in the past been more supportive of Bush. But his disapproval rating among those voters has climbed 12 percentage points since May.

With whole villages covered in mud from landslides without warning, the death toll is into the thousands. People´s homes have been filled with mud and water, destroying all of their belongings. Entire villages can´t be found under several feet of mud. The economic means of this country have been washed away with the fields of crops and business.

... the current problem now, besides the fact that people are digging their homes out of the earth, is that most of the highways leading to the affected communities are impassible making the passage of food and pure water near impossible. The crops of the rural communities have been destroyed and the water sources are gone. The people are starving. And drinking contaminated water.

... We visted a few communities yesterday and what we saw was horrible. These people haven´t eaten for several days and their houses are piles of mud. The families that are worst off are staying in community buildings but those who were deemed ¨bad enough¨ are still in their houses, receiving no help.

Our mission is clear: get food and water to these people. However, there are a few problems. Food is running out. Not running out here in Santo Domingo...running out everywhere in the country. We need help. We need money now for supplies and food (when we find some) and later because most Guatemalans don´t have insurance and aren´t going to get back anything that they lost. Most Guatemalans live day to day and without work for the last week, they can´t feed their families. I am putting some information at the bottom of this email about where to send funds through the Presbyterian Church. The money will come here, we will buy food and then give it to the communities so that they can divide up the rations as they see fit. We trust the churches in the communities to know more than we do about who needs what. These are churches that we have been in partnership with for years. So, if you are able, the people of this country need help. However, I do believe that the power of prayer supercedes all, so, please keep Guatemala in your prayers and pray that this country sees a quick recovery to what has been called the worse natural disaster Guatemala has ever seen.

Life without parole, the most severe form of life sentence, is theoretically available for juvenile criminals in about a dozen countries. But a report to be issued on Oct. 12 by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International found juveniles serving such sentences in only three others. Israel has seven, South Africa has four and Tanzania has one.

By contrast, the report counted some 2,200 people in the United States serving life without parole for crimes they committed before turning 18. More than 350 of them were 15 or younger, according to the report.