SPB News for Wednesday.

Hagel takes aim at Limbaugh, Senate colleagues — (CNN) — As his Senate career nears its end, Republican Chuck Hagel isn't holding back when it comes to criticizing members of his own party — including conservative talk radio hosts. — “We are educated by the great entertainers like Rush Limbaugh …

Bill Ayers Delivers Two Speeches in Washington

Obama Girls Get a White House Tour

Beau Biden Will Not Accept Senate Appointment

Afghan article says US Bin-Ladin hunt phoney --Text of article, "Bin-Ladin on the run? The rumour which was fact", by Afghan independent secular daily newspaper Hasht-e Sobh, on 29 September 2008 --Posted by Juan Cole 17 Nov 2008 The USG Open Source Center translates an article from the Persian Afghan press alleging that French troops were at one point close to capturing Usamah Bin Ladin in Afghanistan, but that American forces stopped them from doing so. It says that a forthcoming French documentary containing interviews with the French soldiers provides proof for the allegation. The argument is that the Bush administration needed Bin Ladin to be at large in order to justify its military expansionism. (Description of Source: Kabul Hasht-e-Sobh in Dari Kabul Hasht-e Sobh in Dari)

AP Decries Army Photoshopping Late Friday night, the Associated Press published an article discussing the digitally altered photos of Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody that had been issued to the media by the Defense Department. The article announced that the AP will no longer use Defense-issued photographs.

Administration Moves to Protect Key Appointees --Political Positions Shifted to Career Civil Service Jobs Just weeks before [mercifully] leaving office, the Interior Department's top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies -- including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions -- into senior civil service posts. The transfer of political appointees into permanent federal positions, called "burrowing" by career officials, creates security for those employees, and at least initially will deprive the incoming Obama administration of the chance to install its preferred appointees in some key jobs.

Top judge: US and UK acted as 'vigilantes' in Iraq invasion --Former senior law lord condemns 'serious violation of international law' One of Britain's most authoritative judicial figures last night delivered a blistering attack on the invasion of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international law, and accusing Britain and the US of acting like a "world vigilante". Lord Bingham, in his first major speech since retiring as the senior law lord, rejected the then attorney general's defence of the 2003 invasion as fundamentally flawed.

Mullen: U.S. Would Need More Than 2 Years for Iraq Withdrawal The U.S. military would require two to three [!?!] years to remove its roughly 150,000 troops and equipment from Iraq safely, and the timing of that withdrawal should be based on security conditions on the ground, the nation's top military officer said today.

Premier of Iraq Is Quietly Firing Fraud Monitors The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is systematically dismissing Iraqi oversight officials, who were installed to fight corruption in Iraqi ministries by order of the American occupation administration [Yeah, right!] The dismissals, which were confirmed by senior Iraqi and American government officials on Sunday and Monday, have come as estimates of official Iraqi corruption have soared. One Iraqi former chief investigator recently testified before Congress that $13 billion in 'reconstruction' funds from the United States had been lost to fraud, embezzlement, theft and waste by Iraqi government officials .

Judge delays trial of accused Palin e-mail 'hacker' --Lawyer for David Kernell asks court to bar references to 'hacking' and 'hacker' The Tennessee college student [David Kernell] indicted a month ago for allegedly breaking into the e-mail account of former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will face trial next May, not next month as originally scheduled, according to recent court documents. Initially, the trial was to begin Dec. 16 for Kernell, who faces a single count of illegally accessing Palin's Yahoo Mail e-mail account.