When you read the statements from Israeli and US politicians, and try to match them with the pictures of devastation, there seems to be only one explanation. They must have one of those conditions, called something like "Visual Carnage Responsibility Back To Front Upside Down Massacre Disorder".

An environmental disaster of epic proportions just happened in Tennessee. Monday night 2.6 million cubic yards (the equivalent of 525.2 million gallons, 48 times more than the Exxon Valdez spill by volume) of coal ash sludge broke through a dike of a 40-acre holding pond at TVA’s Kingston coal-fired power plant covering 400 acres up to six feet deep, damaging 12 homes and wrecking a train.  

The United States, like many countries, has a bad habit of committing wartime excesses and an even worse record of accounting for them afterward. But a remarkable string of recent events suggests that may finally be changing - and that top Bush administration officials could soon face legal jeopardy for prisoner abuse committed under their watch in the war on terror.                               

Through the marvel of television - and the remote button - a debate of sorts was available on last Sunday morning's interview shows between the departing vice president and the man soon to succeed him. 

On the Fox News show, Dick Cheney spent most of an hour defending his eight-year tenure, in which he has been seen as such an influential incumbent that he has often been cast as the real power behind President Bush.