Message From A Megachurch

By E. J. Dionne Jr. via The Washington Post
Tuesday, December 5, 2006

American politics took an important turn last week at a church in the foothills of Southern California's Santa Ana Mountains.

When Rick Warren, one of the nation's most popular evangelical pastors, faced down right-wing pressure and invited Sen. Barack Obama to speak at a gathering at his Saddleback Valley Community Church about the AIDS crisis, he sent a signal: A significant group of theologically conservative Christians no longer wants to be treated as a cog in the Republican political machine.

     Senator Obama's speech HERE

100,000 Contractors in Iraq

   A little snippet of information from WaPo that is reporting that the U.S. Military's first report on the matter says that we have nearly 100,000 civilian government contractors in Iraq.

    This includes American, Iraqi, and other nationals hired by the companies doing the work for the contractors. This is interesting since the Pentagon's estimate had the number at only 25,000.

    Some of the companies and their numbers:

 Dyncorp International  has about 1,500 employees in Iraq, including about 700 helping train the police force.

Blackwater USA  has more than 1,000 employees in the country, most of them providing private security

Kellogg, Brown and Root  one of the largest contractors in Iraq, said it does not delineate its workforce by country but that it has more than 50,000 employees and subcontractors working in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait

   If you want to read the entire story, go HERE