Clinton warns the Bush administration off Iran.

She made the “speech”:http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=269287 this afternoon in the U.S. Senate.

Here’s one part:
“In dealing with the threats posed by the Iranian regime, which has gained its expanding influence in Iraq and the region as a result of the Administration’s policies, President Bush must not be allowed to act without the authority and oversight of Congress. It would be a mistake of historical proportion if the Administration thought that the 2002 resolution authorizing force against Iraq was a blank check for the use of force against Iran without further Congressional authorization.”

Photo: In this image from APTN video, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., delivers a speech on Iran from the Senate floor Wednesday in Washington. (AP Photo/APTN)

Another reason to eat curries?

Turmeric might help with arthritis.

Research shows that it stimulates the creation of cortisol, which relieves inflammation.

Another study that used a combination of turmeric, ginger, frankincense and ashwagandha, an Indian herb, on patients suffering from osteoarthritis found that half experienced less pain.

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s attempt to explain her vote authorizing war in Iraq isn’t going over well with some on the Internet.

On the “Daily Kos”:www.dailykos.com web site, she got this valentine today.

“Slot this in the ‘cry me a river’ category: ‘Mrs Clinton’s advisers do not relish the idea of someone bringing up her 2002 Senate vote at every campaign stop.’”

The post, from Kos, goes on to castigate her for refusing to say her vote was a mistake.

Over the weekend in New Hampshire, Clinton got asked about it. And she insisted that it was the Bush administration that made the mistake. Yes, there were no weapons of mass destruction, but she was starting to sound as if she was tying herself in knots trying to draw distinctions. She said that she accepted responsibility for her vote, that there were no do-overs in life, but that it was President Bush’s bad intelligence that was to blame.

Kos further writes: “After resisting for so long, she finds herself in the thick of the presidential primary (yes, even a year out) with no room to maneuver. If she suddenly reverses course and decides that yes, she’ll take personal responsibility for her vote, it’ll feed into the strongest anti-Hillary narrative—that she’s a panderer and will say what is most politically expedient at the moment.”

Sure there are lots of Democrats who find this dispute in the past and completely beside the point.

But still—not what you want on the Democratic blogs.

Health problems associated with the Sept. 11 attacks, such as respiratory illnesses and mental trauma, are costing about $393 million a year, according to an analysis by New York City officials.

The analysis notes the late emergence of cancer and pulmonary fibrosis among the people who worked in the dust and ash at the World Trade Center, the Associated Press notes.

The Bush administration has announced it will spend at least $25 million more on treatment programs; Sen. Hillary Clinton wants $1.9 billion over several years, according to the AP. Now New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants $150 million a year.

The report was issued as new details emerged about Cesar Borja, the police office who died from pulmonary fibrosis and whose son pleaded with President Bush for more money to treat the Ground Zero workers. He was described in news accounts as rushing downtown on Sept. 11, 2001, to help with the rescue efforts and working long shifts on top of the rubble.

It turns out Borja’s first shift downtown wasn’t until Dec. 24, 2001, and he worked several blocks away.

That version of Borja’s role was first reported Tuesday by The New York Times.

His relatives continued to say they believed his work downtown was linked to his illness.

The city is doing an autopsy.

Americans have a funny attitude about money.

Lots of people like the fact that John Edwards is a self-made man, even if he made his millions as a trial lawyer. His story gives an extra punch to his theme of two Americas: the rich and the poor.

But now would-be voters are getting a view of what Edwards spends some of that self-made money on and the jokes won’t stop.

Edwards is building his family a 28,000-square-foot estate in North Carolina that includes, according to the Associated Press, five bedrooms, six-and-a-half baths, a handball court, an indoor pool, an indoor basketball court, and a cleared space for a soccer field.

From Jay Leno on NBC’s Tonight Show, according to AP: “Well, I think we know which America he’s living in.”

Edward’s wife, Elizabeth, at one point wrote on her husband’s campaign web site: “What I do know is that it is no news bulletin that John and I have money. It is no news bulletin that he earned every cent.”

Last month the Carolina Journal Online, published by the conservative John Locke Foundation, printed a photo of the “house.”:http://carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=3848

I’m off for a few days. See you on Monday

A former House majority leader, Dick Armey, was quoted over the weekend as saying he’d bet on Hillary Clinton for president.

“If you said right now, Dick Armey, put your money on a horse that’s in the race, I’d put my money on Hillary,” Armey, a Republican from Texas, told the McClatchy newspapers. “She will be whoever you want her to be. She’s a skillful, able politician. Her husband could go in and screw it up in a day. She’s walking around with a ton of dynamite in her hip pocket.”

Armey, who is now a senior lobbyist, also said he did not think his former colleague, Tom DeLay, was a good person.

Read the interview “here.”:http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/16621288.htm

The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank based in Washington, D.C., is offering $10,000 to academics to critique the just released survey from the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The news was first reported in the “Guardian”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2004230,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=11 newspaper in London and again in the “Washington Post”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/04/AR2007020401213.html

Advocacy groups note that the think-tank has gotten money form Exxon Mobil in recent years.

In the Washington Post, a Greenpeace spokeswoman called upon Congress to “ignore Exxon Mobil’s disinformation campaign via climate skeptics.”

The think-tank says it is examing the policy debate over global warming, not the science.

The former mayor takes a step closer. This from the AP:

By LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP)—Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor whose popularity soared after his response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, moved closer to a full-fledged campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on Monday.

In a sign that he’s serious about running for the White House, the two-term mayor was filing a so-called “statement of candidacy” with the Federal Election Commission. In the process, he was eliminating the phrase “testing the waters” from earlier paperwork establishing his exploratory committee, said an official close to Giuliani’s campaign.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting any disclosure by Giuliani.

Unlike chief GOP rivals Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney, Giuliani has been somewhat ambiguous about whether or not he would ultimately pursue the Republican nomination.

He took the initial step in November of creating a committee to explore a candidacy but added the caveat that he was simply “testing the waters� — a provision that allows truly uncertain candidates to move forward without any commitment to seek a top spot on the ticket or the need to identify donors. At the time, Giuliani also did not file an official statement declaring that he was a presidential candidate.

The steps Monday put Giuliani on the same level legally as McCain and Romney, the other top-tier GOP candidates who have formed regular exploratory committees and filed statements of candidacy.

Giuliani’s cautious and noncommittal attitude has caused some critics to question whether he would abandon his bid even before formally entering the race, as he did in 2000 when he was considering a Senate campaign against Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks about leadership qualities during a Global Leadership Forum luncheon in Edmonton, Canada, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2006. (AP Photo/CP, Jason Scott)

The Pentagon deputy who criticized lawyers representing Guantanamo prisoners resigns.

By PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior Pentagon official resigned Friday over controversial remarks in which he criticized lawyers who represent terrorism suspects, the Defense Department said.
Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said Charles “Cully� Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, told him on Friday that he had made his own decision to resign and was not asked to leave by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Stimson said he was leaving because of the controversy over a radio interview in which he said he found it shocking that lawyers at many of the nation’s top law firms represent detainees held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba.
“He believed it hampered his ability to be effective in this position,� Whitman said of the backlash to Stimson’s comments.
Stimson drew outrage from the legal community — and a disavowal from the Defense Department — for his Jan. 11 comments, in which he also suggested some attorneys were being untruthful about doing the work free of charge and instead were “receiving moneys from who knows where.�
He also said companies might want to consider taking their legal business to other firms that do not represent suspected terrorists.
“I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms,� Stimson told Federal News Radio.
Stimson publicly apologized several days after the radio interview, saying his comments did not reflect his values and that he firmly believes in the principles of the U.S. legal system.
But it didn’t completely quiet critics.
The Bar Association of San Francisco last week asked the California State Bar to investigate whether Stimson violated legal ethics by suggesting a boycott of law firms that represent Guantanamo Bay detainees.