Mercury retrograde gives rise to personal misunderstandings; flawed, disrupted, or delayed communications, negotiations and trade; glitches and breakdowns with phones, computers, cars, buses, and trains. And all of these problems usually arise because some crucial piece of information, or component, has gone astray or awry.

Page last updated at 20:04 GMT, Friday, 23 January 2009

Two missile attacks from suspected US drones have killed 14 people in north-western Pakistan, officials say.

At least one missile hit a house in a village near the town of Mirali in North Waziristan, a stronghold of al-Qaeda and Taleban militants.

A second suspected drone attack has been reported in South Waziristan, killing five people.

Pakistan has long argued that such strikes are counter-productive and are a violation of its sovereignty.

These are the first drone attacks since Barack Obama was inaugurated as US president on Tuesday

Federal agents on Thursday raided the offices of a Pennsylvania government contractor with close ties to Rep. John P. Murtha, chairman of the powerful Defense panel on the House Appropriations Committee.

Agents from the FBI, IRS and Defense Criminal Investigative Service searched the offices of Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems in three different locations in Pennsylvania.

Over the last several years, Murtha, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, has helped steer more than $100 million in contracts to Kuchera, a government contractor founded in 1985 by Bill Kuchera. The company and its employees have donated more than $65,000 dollars to Murtha's reelection campaign and leadership political action committee, according to Federal Election Commission records.

KABUL, Afghanistan - The American coalition in Afghanistan opened a joint U.S.-Afghan investigation Saturday into an overnight raid that American commanders say killed 15 armed militants but that two Afghan officials say killed 11 civilians.

Personally, the horror of the Bush years was his indifference to the slaughter of innocent civilians - especially children.
I remember in the opening days of the "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad, we maimed a child and killed his mother, father and siblings.
I hated living with this every day.

The fact that this horrible stupidity in continuing under the leadership of Mr. Obama negates every hope I had for an end to the Bush ethic.

Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard's former church disclosed Friday that the gay s#x scandal that caused his downfall extends to a young male church volunteer who reported having a s#xual relationship with Haggard -- a revelation that comes as Haggard tries to repair his public image.
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The hunt is on for the photographic source of Shepard Fairey's iconic Obama image, and, as Mike Madison says, now "the fair use fun can begin."

[snip]

"This would be a tough fair use argument to win because the 'transformation' is purely in the look of the work, not the purpose. There's no commentary going on. Also, a large and significant portion the work is used, and campaign posters are certainly a reasonable and traditional market for licensed uses of photos, so there'd be a strong argument for market harm even if there's been no measurable lost sales by the photographer.

artlawblog

Brady Boyd, who succeeded Haggard as senior pastor of the 10,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, told The Associated Press that the man came forward to church officials in late 2006 shortly after a Denver male prostitute claimed to have had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with Haggard.

Boyd said an "overwhelming pool of evidence" pointed to an "inappropriate, consensual sexual relationship" that "went on for a long period of time ... it wasn't a one-time act." Boyd said the man was in his early 20s at the time. He said he was certain the man was of legal age when it began.

Roger Ailes