Colombia president dissolves disgraced DAS domestic spy agency, shifts staff to other offices

BOGOTA, Colombia ? President Juan Manuel Santos dissolved Colombia?s scandal-plagued DAS domestic intelligence agency Monday, saying its employees will be transferred to other state offices.

He had already announced that the agency would be replaced by a new entity.

The agency was caught spying on presidential foes including judges, reporters and human rights activists during the 2002-2010 administration of Santos? predecessor, Alvaro Uribe, Washington?s closest ally in the region at the time.

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The secret stories of very public men

The art of modern politics involves creating the illusion of intimacy with our leaders. But two new biographies remind me that even the most famous personalities remain elusive and, in some ways, unknowable.

This combination of closeness and distance will be on display in the 2012 presidential election, in which, I?m guessing, the candidates will be Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. These two politicians have worked overtime to seem relaxed and accessible; they make a point of wearing open-neck shirts and casual clothes, to appear like ordinary folks. Each has written a book that explains his life story in fastidious detail.

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Mitt Romney, the pretzel candidate

The Republican presidential dynamic ? various candidates rise and recede; Mitt Romney remains at about 25 percent support ? is peculiar because conservatives correctly believe that it is important to defeat Barack Obama but unimportant that Romney be president. This is not cognitive dissonance.

Obama, a floundering naif who thinks ATMs aggravate unemployment, is bewildered by a national tragedy of shattered dreams, decaying workforce skills and forgone wealth creation. Romney cannot enunciate a defensible, or even decipherable, ethanol policy.

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?Common ground? vs. ?compromise?: Which route should the debt supercommittee choose?

?Compromise? is not the same thing as finding ?common ground.?

That?s the argument that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) made Monday morning in a lecture at the University of Louisville?s McConnell Center (named for the Republican leader in the other chamber, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky).

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In a new elite Army unit, women serve alongside Special Forces, but first they must make the cut

The medics helped Sgt. Janiece Marquez into a chair and started to treat her sprained ankle. Marquez, 25, had tripped over a rock on one of the dark paths in the camp. She had just run two miles during the physical fitness test and marched at least six miles carrying a 35-pound rucksack that evening. Now she could barely walk.

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Alexander Semin?s sublime skill has never been in doubt. His commitment to using it on every shift, though, has been the subject of much consternation during his tenure as a Washington Capital. But if the mercurial winger?s effort in Game 1 against the New York Rangers is an indication of what?s to come, the rest of the NHL should watch out.

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Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=2c021d597a7233142c9068af75058206

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Supreme Court to take another look at prosecutorial misconduct

Prosecutors, says Angela Davis, former head of the D.C. public defenders office, ?are the most powerful officials in our criminal justice system.?

Davis, a professor at American University?s Washington College of Law, explains:

?They decide whether a person?s going to be charged, what to charge them with, whether there?s going to be a plea bargain and what the plea bargain will be. As they make those decisions, they exercise almost boundless discretion.?

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Why military pensions should be generous

The news story ?Military pensions not ?out of control??? [The Federal Worker, Oct. 26] highlighted what I have been saying for some time: One of the richest nations on Earth can afford to continue the current military retirement system for those few who defend it with a lifetime of service. �

Suggestions that private-sector pension plans should be a model for the military retirement system fail to acknowledge the vast difference between civilian jobs and the military profession. Military retirement benefits are not gifts; they are earned through blood, sweat, repeated deployments, missed birthdays and anniversaries, and the significant risk of injury or loss of life.�The benefits are designed to provide a powerful incentive for top-quality people to serve full careers despite the hardships of such service for troops and their families. �

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Officials say suicide bomber kills 3 near international organization in south Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan ? Afghan officials say suicide bomber kills 3 near international organization in southern Afghanistan

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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'Field of Dreams' property in eastern Iowa sold

The sprawling eastern Iowa cornfields made famous by the movie "Field of Dreams" are being sold to a company that will preserve the site's baseball legacy, the owners announced Sunday.

Source: http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7170570/field-dreams-property-eastern-iowa-sold

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Deal Hunter: Get moving with gym deals

The coming months are a dietary minefield for the health-conscious, beginning tomorrow night with those leftover Kit-Kats after the trick-or-treaters have all sugar-crashed and drifted off to dreamland. Many people resign themselves to the holiday season bloat, with oversized sweaters and the promise of salads and spin classes starting Jan. 1.

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AP Enterprise: Brown estate was saddled by debt

Soul singer James Brown's charitable trust had withered to just $14,000 and his estate was saddled with more than $20 million in debt before a professional money manager was able to turn it around, an attorney told The Associated Press.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-enterprise-brown-estate-saddled-debt-142805198.html

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?We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People,? by Peter Van Buren

Why couldn?t $63 billion invested in the reconstruction of Iraq manage to keep the lights on? How can it be that in 2011, blackouts are still part of daily life, drinking water remains a luxury, and only about a quarter of the population has sewage? If reliable utilities are fundamental to both the grand goal of nation-building and the narrower mandate of counterinsurgency, why didn?t the largest nation-building effort in history get those utilities back up and running?

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Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=615ae3c0b8ee72aaea199841d8f76dd5

lifestyle entertainment news

The secret stories of very public men

The art of modern politics involves creating the illusion of intimacy with our leaders. But two new biographies remind me that even the most famous personalities remain elusive and, in some ways, unknowable.

This combination of closeness and distance will be on display in the 2012 presidential election, in which, I?m guessing, the candidates will be Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. These two politicians have worked overtime to seem relaxed and accessible; they make a point of wearing open-neck shirts and casual clothes, to appear like ordinary folks. Each has written a book that explains his life story in fastidious detail.

Read full article >>

Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=713770ea02c072f252446b04a6e63b05

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David Margolick?s ?Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock?

Fifty-four years ago, Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan had a momentary encounter on the streets of Little Rock, Ark. An ugly encounter, drenched in the hatreds of the time.

Eckford was then a shy, sheltered 15-year old who, for reasons no one quite understood, had volunteered to be among nine African Americans asked to desegregate Little Rock?s all-white Central High School. On the first day of classes, Sept.4, 1957, the nine were supposed to arrive as a group. But no one told Eckford. So she came to school alone and, in the one of the famous incidents of the Civil Rights era, walked into a mob.

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Meghan McCain, all-purpose media whatever, shares her side at storytelling event with Forest Whitaker

Meghan, Meghan, Meghan! Hard to believe there was a time one had to identify Meghan McCain as the-daughter-of. Three years beyond the 2008 race, she?s a brand-name freelance all-purpose media whatever ? writing for Daily Beast, speaking on campuses, punditizing on TV, and scrapping with the Twittersphere.

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Editorial: Shaky arguments block federal commission on crime

THE UNITED STATES remains the world?s leading jailer, with more than 2 million individuals locked up. The annual price tag is $50 billion.

Who are the individuals behind bars? What crimes were they convicted of and what penalties did they receive? What relationship is there between the rate of incarceration and the drop in violent crime? Are there more effective and inexpensive ways to deal with lawbreakers?

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MPAA wins permanent injunction against Zediva

A U.S. district court has ordered Zediva, a start-up video service accused of copyright violations in a lawsuit filed by the MPAA, from continuing service. Company also agreed to pay studios $1.8 million.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cnet/tcoc/~3/ZO8q4hLzJvE/

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Kabul suicide bomb kills 13 troops, civilians workers

KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber on Saturday killed 13 troops and civilian employees of the NATO-led force in Kabul, including Americans and a Canadian, in the deadliest single ground attack against the coalition in 10 years of war in Afghanistan.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suicide-bomber-attacks-foreign-troops-kabul-police-075637391.html

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Kathryn Sikkink?s ?The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are Changing World Politics?

What is the impact of putting former national leaders on trial for massive violations of human rights? Surely, most who are aware of the crimes, and certainly the surviving victims, find value in the trials and convictions of murderous leaders and their associates. On the other hand, there are cases in which such prosecutions may forestall healing; few, for example, have questioned Nelson Mandela?s decision not to seek criminal trials for the former leaders of South African apartheid.

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