Here is the text of the speech delivered by Sen. Robert Byrd on the floor of the United States Senate on Feb. 12, 2003. We urge you to read the whole thing. Here's a sample:

This administration, now in power for a little over two years, must be judged on its record. I believe that that record is dismal.

In that scant two years, this administration has squandered a large projected surplus of some $5.6 trillion over the next decade and taken us to projected deficits as far as the eye can see. This administration's domestic policy has put many of our states in dire financial condition, underfunding scores of essential programs for our people. This administration has fostered policies which have slowed economic growth. This administration has ignored urgent matters such as the crisis in health care for our elderly. This administration has been slow to provide adequate funding for homeland security. This administration has been reluctant to better protect our long and porous borders.

In foreign policy, this administration has failed to find Osama bin Laden. In fact, just yesterday we heard from him again marshaling his forces and urging them to kill. This administration has split traditional alliances, possibly crippling, for all time, international order-keeping entities like the United Nations and NATO. This administration has called into question the traditional worldwide perception of the United States as well-intentioned peacekeeper. This administration has turned the patient art of diplomacy into threats, labeling and name calling of the sort that reflects quite poorly on the intelligence and sensitivity of our leaders, and which will have consequences for years to come.

Taking a Stand on Iraq: Speak Out
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, San Francisco Chronicle

And a vast paranoia sweeps across the land

And America turns the attack on its Twin Towers

Into the beginning of the Third World War

The war with the Third World

And the terrorists in Washington

Are drafting all the young men

And no one speaks

And they are rousting out

All the ones with turbans

And they are flushing out

All the strange immigrants

And they are shipping all the young men

To the killing fields again

And no one speaks

And when they come to round up

All the great writers and poets and painters

The National Endowment of the Arts of Complacency

Will not speak

While all the young men

Will be killing all the young men

In the killing fields again

So now is the time for you to speak

All you lovers of liberty

All you lovers of the pursuit of happiness

All you lovers and sleepers

Deep in your private dreams

Now is the time for you to speak

O silent majority

Before they come for you

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is San Francisco's first poet laureate (1998) and the owner and founder of City Lights Bookstore. This poem first appeared on the City Lights Web site .

The FBI and CIA are moving their counter-terror operations into a joint complex. The Administration promises that each agency will maintain control over its own staff.

But a joint intelligence center to be created at the same location, probably in Northern Virginia, will report to George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. That arrangement in particular has prompted civil liberties advocates to warn that lines of authority could become blurred, giving the Central Intelligence Agency a new role in domestic spying....

Civil liberties advocates said they were concerned that the plan, especially the creation of the joint center with the director of central intelligence in charge, would give the C.I.A. an active role in the gathering of intelligence within the United States.

Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an interview that despite pledges by the Bush administration to honor the longtime separate roles of the two agencies, "we think it will be difficult for them to hold that line."

Bush has said he intends for the two agencies to maintain their separate identities and operations, but that there is a greater need for sharing of intelligence information.

He said the move was "an important advance" in creating a better, more integrated system for analyzing intelligence about terrorists...."In order to better protect our homeland, our intelligence agencies must coexist like they never had before."

The new center will be called the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. It will open for business May 1.

The Guardian reports that millions will march in hundreds of cities Saturday as part of the global protest against the war.

More than 10 million people are expected to take to the streets in 600 cities today as part of global demonstrations against a war in Iraq. It is anticipated that today's marches will be the largest ever for a single cause and far greater than at the height of the Vietnam war in the 60s. Last night London was celebrating peace, as politicians, poets, musicians, trade unionists and actors came together to lead debates and concerts. But protest organisers raised the stakes by calling on people to stage thousands of impromptu demonstrations, sit-ins, walkouts, strikes, vigils and acts of civil disobedience as soon as hostilities started." "We want people to strike on the day that war breaks out and occupy the whole Whitehall area of central London," said Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition.

Devra over at Talk A Blue Streak says she's getting paranoid about things. Here's a sample of her concerns:

We have a President who embraces Fundamentalist Christian theology as a guide to governing in Foreign Policy. And who rejects 'Christian Charity' as a guide to governing in Domestic Policy. We have a Commander In Chief who is knowingly driving our government into bankruptcy. What does this add up to? A president who seeks to undermine us. I'm not inclined to paranoia - I'm just paying attention.

If you are a Fundamentalist Christian, you are probably perfectly comfortable with the idea that the government should be 'Faith Based' - provided that Faith is a Christian, Bible-centered one.

But how is this any different from the many 'Faith Based' Muslim nations of the world? The Taliban does come to mind, here, as does Saudi Arabia.

We are a secular nation. That is our strength. Why do we sit by, afraid to ask questions of a president who seeks to turn this into a bankrupt Christian nation. I wonder, what do Christian militias think of George W. Bush? Do they think he's on the right track? Bankrupt the Federal government, strengthen private industry, weaken labor, turn over social services to churches, privatize privatize privatize ... what's next? Dismantle government, and the individual protections it promises. Good god. It's like I'm living the prologue of a dystopian science fiction novel. And then there's the War.

And after that, the Moonies. Go read, and let her know she's not alone in her anxiety.

Via The Agonist, a link to the blog Uzbekistan Diary, "A year in the life of a North American Journalist working in Uzbekistan."

The most recent post is yesterday. It begins,

We are in the middle of a fight with the US Embassy. There are certain un-named factors in the US Embassy that want my organization to trumpet all the good things the US is doing here. And they want us to make our UZ journalists tell those stories on UZ TV.

This presents a conflict of interest for me.

Sure, as a private US citizen, I would like the world to know about the good things my country does. But as a director of a press organization, I do not see it as my job to do PR for the United States, even though my salary comes from US taxpayer money. My job -- my mandate -- is to promote a free and independent press. It is not to promote and create an UZ press that tells the stories the US government wants them to tell.

[Note: We incorrectly identified the blog's author as a "He"--so we have changed the title of this post. Thanks to Sean-Paul for letting us know.]

A federal court in Florida today issued an order preventing the state of Florida from blocking nude anti-war activists.

As has been occurring in other cities, a group of women planed "to gather in a state park, strip nude and form a peace symbol with their bodies in protest of a U.S. war on Iraq."

"U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks wrote an eleven-page order stating that "nude overtly political speech in the form of a 'living nude peace symbol' is expressive conduct well within the ambit of the First Amendment."

The demonstration took place Friday morning at John D. MacArthur Beach State Park on Singer Island, north of West Palm Beach. Two dozen men and women took off their clothes, lay down and formed a peace symbol.

Why the nudity? "Organizer T. A. Wyner said the protesters stripped because it shows vulnerability and calls attention to their lack of weapons."

No one was arrested. The best comment we've seen on it:

Marilyn Weil, who brought her three young grandchildren to the Singer Island beach Friday morning, said she was warned before she reached the sand about the protest. "It's a little bizarre, but it's freedom of expression and that's what this country is all about," Weil said. "I'd rather have them see that than a bunch of dead bodies on the television screen, which is what we'd see if we bomb Iraq."

Us too.

Update: You can view photos from the various protests here. [link via Buzzflash]

This may be the funniest thing we've read all week. It's written by The Farmer, a commenter over at Atrios . The topic is MSNBC's new lineup.

Ok, I'm no network program exec, but...... Listen up MSNBC,

Please keep up the good work.

I really enjoy the weekend "news" stories. Especially the exposes on fat people who aren't fat anymore. Please make more dieting documentaries. For instance; I'd like to see Al Rochers arms and legs surgically removed on television. Is that feasible?

Also..... I would like to see more stories about cats. Any kind of cats will do. (Enough with the pretentious inbred dog shows.) And more car chases ....with car chases, you can't go wrong.

Here are some more subjects/ideas I think MSNBC should consider. Especially on weekends, when there is no actual news because everyone goes home and stops making up news.

1- More shows about designer penis enlargement medications like the old ones starring Bob Dole. I know, prostate surgery is in this season. But I miss the hearty old time bounders.

2- More shows about prostitutes and strippers. Especially child prostitutes. America loves child prostitutes! Doesn't really matter about the kinds of strippers or prostitutes actually, America likes them all. Housewife prostitutes?
Strippers for God? Obese lesbian prostitutes on diets! You know what I mean? Fancy Lady stories. More Fancy Lady stories.

3- More celebrities gone bad shows. Like those former child-star exposes about once popular and beloved personalities who grow up into rogue adult miscreants and prostitutes. America likes celebrity prostitutes too. People are sick of Michael Jackson. People are begining to think that you are paying Michael Jackson to act weird just so you can report that Michael Jackson is acting weird. Its getting old. Whats Gary Condit up to? Can't you go bother Gary Condit some more. Does Gary Condit know any prostitutes?

Clara Harris was sentenced by the jury to 20 years for husband's murder.

A Houston jury Friday sentenced Clara Harris to 20 years in prison for murdering her husband with her car after catching him with another woman. The 45-year-old dentist and mother of two appeared to collapse in the grasp of her attorneys when the verdict was announced after six hours of deliberation. The same jury of nine women and three men Thursday convicted Harris of murder. The jurors could have sentenced Harris to life in prison but ruled she acted with "sudden passion," which provided for a reduced sentence, but they then gave her the maximum 20 years provided under that provision. She could have received as little as two years in prison.

That's outrageous. What about her twin sons? They grow up with no parent? George Parnum, Harris's defense attorney,

... said during a news conference this evening that he will appeal the case, and said there were numerous grounds for such action, including evidence that was not allowed to be admitted.

That included an audiotape made by police of Clara Harris the night of the killing. Parnham describe his client as "incoherent and rambling" and it would have shown her state of mind had it been allowed.

"This fight is not over," he said.

We're glad to hear it, but we don't have much faith in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Another case where everyone loses.

South Knox Bubba has had an epiphany on what's wrong with the Democratic Party. Don't forget to read the comments. [link via Atrios.]

Journalist, author and blogger David Neiwert makes a lot of sense in trying to figure out what's "so new" about the material reported this week in the Associated Press on McVeigh and Oklahoma, and in his description of what could use further investigation:

Well, a lot of it has to do with the investigation itself. As I've explored in some depth in Salon, there are still some very important unanswered questions about the case. Some of them -- particularly the credibility of, and the circumstances surrounding, the eyewitness identifications of McVeigh and Nichols during the bomb-building phase in Kansas -- cut deeply against the government's own conclusions.

If you are interested in the Oklahoma bombing case, and you haven't yet read David's Salon piece, you should. He really nails the problems with the Government's eyewitnesses and its insistence that "John Doe 2" was not a co-conspirator.

A hearing began yesterday on a lawsuit brought against the Mississippi Department of Corrections by six death row inmates and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The suit alleges that MDOC officials have knowingly subjected death row inmates to inhumane conditions leading to pain, suffering and mental instability and violated their constitutional rights...

Death row inmate William Holly said he knows he is not on Unit 32 at Mississippi State Penitentiary to be made comfortable, "but I didn't know it involved torture.".."There is the filth, with feces bubbling up in my toilet when those next to me flush their toilet," said Holly, 28.

Expert witness James J. Balsimo...testified that insects, filth, lack of water and showers, high temperatures and a lack of fans are among the shortcomings.

He also criticized the absence of a maintenance schedule to prevent water and sewer failures. Balsimo said the lack of a maintenance plan was evident when Unit 32 was without water and sewer for almost a week in June 2002.