Krauthammer On Fox  —  It's refreshing, actually.  I just listened to Charles say that the torture of terror suspects in 2002 was justified because the United States was flying blind and had no knowledge of what al Qaeda was planning.  He won't say "torture", of course, although the law is clear that it is torture.

Tape Destruction Decision Compartmentalized  —  The decision to destroy the tapes of interrogations that included waterboarding two al-Qaeda terrorists came from the director of the clandestine services of the CIA and in opposition to requests from both Congress and the White House.

C.I.A. Was Urged to Keep Interrogation Videotapes  —  White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.

Huckabee called homosexuality 'sinful'  —  Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, surging in Iowa polls in the Republican presidential race, wrote on a questionnaire while running for U.S. Senate in 1992 that homosexuality is "aberrant" and "sinful."  —  "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant …

Iran Stops Using Dollar for Oil Transactions, ISNA Says  —  Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) — Iran, the second-biggest producer of crude oil in the Middle East, has ``completely halted'' all oil transactions in dollars, the state-run ISNA news agency said, citing Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari.