“Into the palace parlor they stepped; her hand in his paw the old bruin kept,” 1875 Thirty-seven American soldiers were killed in Iraq, ending the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the past two-and-a-half years. U.S. military commanders were negotiating cease-fires with Iraqi militants, Turkish troops shelled northern Iraq, and in Baghdad the country’s preeminent calligrapher was shot to death. icasualties.orgAP via breitbart.comAP via International Herald TribuneBBCIraq was found to be the world’s 121st least peaceful country out of 121 countries; the United States ranked 96, below Yemen but above Iran.BBCThe crowd at the Miss Universe competition in Mexico City …

President George W. Bush signed the Military Commissions Act, which suspends the right of habeas corpus for terrorism suspects and grants immunity to CIA interrogators and government officials, such as President Bush, for violations of the War Crimes Act. New York TimesChicago Sun-TimesDomestic security officials notified seven football stadiums of a discredited threat of radiological bomb attacks out of an “abundance of caution,” New York Timesand the United States Coast Guard announced plans to mount 7.62 mm, M-240B machine guns on official boats in the Great Lakes. Rear Adm. John E. Crowley Jr. said, “I don�??t know when or if …

Hezbollah declared victory in its 34-day war with Israel. “I guess,” said President George W. Bush, “I would have done the same thing if I were them.” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged that Israel would “do better” in what Defense Minister Amir Peretz referred to as “the next round.” An official said killing Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nasrallah was a top priority.The Daily Telegraph (Australia)Dan Halutz, chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, was under fire for selling all of his stocks in the hours before the war began.The Wall Street JournalThe New York TimesThe Daily Telegraph (UK)The New York …

In Iraq an Islamic militant group claimed that it had kidnapped two U.S. soldiers, 23-year-old Kristian Menchaca and 25-year-old Thomas L. Tucker. The Army sent 8,000 Iraqi and U.S. troops, supported by fighter jets and drones, to search for the missing soldiers,The New York Timesand the Pentagon announced the 2,500th American death in Iraq. “It’s a number,” said White House press secretary Tony Snow.Toronto StarIraqi prosecutors called for Saddam Hussein to be sentenced to death,Daily Mailand President George W. Bush visited Iraq because he wanted to “look at Prime Minister Maliki in the eyes.”The New York TimesIt was reported that …

Caught in the Web, 1860. Iran announced that it had successfully produced low-grade enriched uranium; to celebrate, men in traditional dress danced with uranium samples.Reuters via Yahoo! NewsThe Iranian government also promised to give $50 million to the Palestinian Authority, now controlled by Hamas, which let it be known that it would recognize Israel’s right to exist if the Jewish state were to withdraw from the entire West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. CNN.comDemocracy Now!A suicide bomber killed nine people at a falafel restaurant in Tel Aviv,The New York Timesand in Sri Lanka bomb attacks by Tamil rebels killed 16 …

A bovine idyll. It was the 229th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.Arrivenet.comThe U.S. Capitol was evacuated for a few minutes,CNN.comChina Export & Credit Insurance Corporation was planning to buyHuffy Bikes,BBC NewsSenator Gaylord Nelson died,The New York TimesNASA smashed a coffee-table-sized device traveling at 23,000 miles per hour into the Tempel 1 comet,Nasa.govand Toyota announced that it would open a new $800 million plant in Ontario. The company turned down hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies in the United States because, when compared to Canadians, U.S. workers are too hard to train, often illiterate, and expensive …

The World Health Organization warned that outbreaks of cholera and dysentery resulting from a lack of clean drinking water could easily double the number of people killed by the Indian Ocean tsunami.ReutersNearly 150,000 people were confirmed dead in the disaster and far more were badly injured. Estimates of the homeless ran to five million.Associated PressUnited Nations secretary general Kofi Annan cut his Christmas holiday short to meet with world leaders about providing relief and announced that he would fly to affected countries to help organize the effort from the ground.Agence France-PressePresident George W. Bush stayed on vacation down at the …

Weighing the soul, 1875. A suicide bomber set off a bomb at a mess tent on a U.S. base in Mosul, killing 22 and wounding 69. Among the dead were 13 American soldiers and four employees and subcontractors of Halliburton. A spokeswoman for Halliburton called for a full investigation into the attack. South of Kirkuk, insurgents set an oil well on fire,AP and south of Baghdad, an explosives-rigged gas tanker blew up, killing at least eight.AP Families returned to the bombed-out city of Falluja and found little clean water.APAPDonald Rumsfeld made a surprise trip to Mosul on Christmas Eve.New York …

Weighing the soul, 1875. Finance experts warned that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the government agency that insures company pensions, could be forced into a situation similar to the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, which led to a $200 billion bailout, as a result of cascading pension defaults in the airline industry.New York TimesEconomic growth was slowing,Washington Postfewer jobs were being created, crude oil prices reached a record high of $44.41,New York Timesand the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped to a new low for 2004.Associated PressBerkshire Hathaway’s second quarter earnings were down 42 percent.ReutersThe Bureau of Labor Statistics …

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a scathing report on the CIA’s unfounded, unjustified, and unreasonable claims about Iraq’s purported weapons of mass destruction; the report was oddly silent, however, about the Bush Administration’s well-documented and apparently successful campaign to intimidate the CIA into coming up with justifications for the President’s fraudulent case for the invasion.New York TimesSenator Trent Lott was outraged by the CIA’s “totally ridiculous, uncalled for, and counterproductive” redactions of the report and called for an independent commission to oversee the classification of government information.New York TimesJapan’s defense ministry said that it will issue its annual defense whitepaper …

Caught in the Web. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testified publicly and under oath before the commission investigating September 11; Rice acknowledged that President Bush had received a classified CIA briefing on August 6, 2001, entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States,” though she characterized the report as “historical information based on old reporting.” She also acknowledged that the report mentioned the existence of Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States but “there was no recommendation that we do something about this.” Rice also admitted that Richard Clarke, whose book on the Bush Administration’s antiterrorism failures …

Ariel Sharon, a known war criminal, was elected prime minister of Israel; Sharon declared that the peace process was dead and that the Palestinians must submit to Israeli domination before negotiations could resume. Palestinians set off a car bomb in Jerusalem; Israeli soldiers shot and killed a teenage Palestinian goatherd. United States Secretary of State Colin Powell defended President George W. Bush’s plans to deploy the national missile defense system despite its technical and political flaws: “I don’t consider it as being an arrogant position,” he said. “Or one where we are trying to force anything on the rest of …