Okay, We Lied: There Will Be Spawn'd Tittyries After All

     President Bush began the new year on Sunday at the bedsides of wounded servicemen and women, and awarded nine Purple Hearts to U.S. troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
     The president had a two-inch scratch across the left side of his brow.
     "As you can probably see I was injured myself, not here at the hospital but in combat with a cedar," Bush quipped. "I eventually won."

News in Brief:

• Grass-roots organization U.S. Family Network receives $1 million donation from Russian oil and gas executives; had close ties to DeLay (Washington Post, December 31, 2005) [Local color: Edwin A. Buckham, DeLay's former chief of staff and organizer of the U.S. Family Network, is a University of Tennessee alumnus.]
• The number of Guantanamo Bay prisoners taking part in a nearly five-month-long hunger strike has surged to 84 since Christmas Day (National Nine News, December 30, 2005)
• "To call this an imperial presidency is unfair to emperors" (Chicago Tribune, December 25, 2005)
• FISA judges request briefing on surveillance (Washington Post, December 22, 2005)
• Bin Laden phone leak urban myth (Washington Post, December 22, 2005)
• Yukon school group found on U.S. threat list (CBC, December 20, 2005)
• Ohio Patriot Act will give police power to arrest anyone in public, for no particular reason (Yahoo! News, December 19, 2005)
• House and Senate negotiators agreed Friday to a measure that would enable the government to keep prisoners at Guantánamo Bay indefinitely on the basis of evidence obtained by coercive interrogations (New York Times, December 17, 2005)
• U.S. military appears to be spying on "don't ask, don't tell" protests (Advocate.com, December 17, 2005)
• Military body armor recalled (Military.com, November 18, 2005)