Surge Report: 2 Nuns Stabbed to Death in Iraq

The state of the surge:

A homicide car bomber killed at least 10 in a market near Ramadi on Tuesday, a mortar attack on a Shiite district area in southern Baghdad killed at least four people and police in the northern city of Kirkuk said intruders killed two elderly sisters, both nuns at the Cathedral of the Virgin.[...]Kirkuk police 1st. Lt. Marewan Salih said the Chaldean Catholic nuns, Fawzeiyah Naoum, 85, and her 79-year-old sister, Margaret, were stabbed multiple times by two intruders who raided their home Monday night near Kirkuk's Cathedral of the Virgin in Kirkuk. They lived alone and there was no sign of a robbery, Salih said.

Margaret Naoum was stabbed seven times as she stood in the garden just outside the sisters' home. The attackers then went inside where they found Mawzeiyah Naoum lying on the sofa, recovering from eye surgery last week. She was stabbed three times.

More bad news for Bush's friends:

Global warming could re-make the world's climate zones by 2100, with some polar and mountain climates disappearing altogether and formerly unknown ones emerging in the tropics, scientists said on Monday.

And when climate zones vanish, the animals and plants that live in them will be at greater risk of extinction, said Jack Williams, lead author of a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"What we've shown is these climates disappear, not just regionally, but they're disappearing from the global set of climates, and the species that live in these climates really have nowhere to go as the system changes," said Williams, a geographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

What ever happened to campaign volunteers who work for a candidate because they believe in them? This is all part of the buying of votes and support. Money has completely taken over our elections and democracy:

A millionaire thanks to his work as a venture capitalist, Mitt Romney is acutely aware of the motivating power of money. His presidential campaign hopes it will have a similar effect on college students, which is why it's offering them a cut of their fundraising.

Participants in "Students for Mitt" will get 10 percent of the money they raise for the campaign beyond the first $1,000. While candidates often offer professional fundraisers commissions up to 8 percent, campaign experts believe the Massachusetts Republican is the first to do so with the legion of college students who have historically served as campaign volunteers.

This guy lives in his own world:

The attorney general is struggling to keep his job in a standoff with Congress over the purging of U.S. prosecutors. The war spending bill is stuck over whether troops should stay in Iraq, another bit of brinksmanship with lawmakers.

And President Bush is again talking, for two days in a row, about converting switchgrass and wood chips into ethanol.

The president's public schedule has Bush operating in two different worlds of news: the one threatening his administration, and the one he is determined to promote whether anyone is listening or not.

So while Congress challenges Bush on the firings of U.S. attorneys, the president is sticking to energy.

Wasn't I just talking about the buying of votes? In Hillary's case, she can raise all the money in the world and still not win the presidency. Although its disgusting that she is in a frontrunner at all. Our democracy, as I alluded to earlier, is apparently ruled by dynasties: Bush 2 followed Bush 1. Now Hillary is on the verge of following her husband into the White House. This for a woman who hosted tea parties for 8 years. She won a Senate seat for a state she didn't even live in, without any qualifications. All because of her name and money connections:

Demonstrating her top billing on Hollywood's political money trail, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton collected a whopping $2.6 million at a weekend fund-raiser for her 2008 White House bid, organizers said on Monday.

The tally from Saturday's star-studded affair doubled the amount brought in by rival Democratic Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) at a similar event last month and organizers said they believe it to be the single-biggest Hollywood fund-raiser for a presidential candidate. That claim could not be immediately verified.

About 700 invitees paid $2,300 each to dine with Clinton at the Beverly Hills estate of supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, a longtime supporter of the New York senator and her husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, according to political consultant Noah Mamet, who co-chaired the event.

About 250 of those guests coughed up an additional $2,300 per person to attend a pre-dinner VIP reception where the senator from New York posed with donors for photographs, organizers said.

This scandal won't go away. Bush, in his infinite arrogance, will keep fighting it no matter how much damage it does to his administration, party, and country:

Monica Goodling, a key Justice Department official involved in the firings of U.S. prosecutors, will invoke a constitutional privilege against self-incrimination and refuse to answer questions at upcoming congressional hearings, her lawyer said Monday.

"The potential for legal jeopardy for Ms. Goodling from even her most truthful and accurate testimony under these circumstances is very real," said her lawyer, John Dowd.