LAS VEGAS–I should've known I couldn't escape a trip here without an encounter with Elvis. Only this version didn't have the gyrating hips–in fact, he had no hips at all. A robotic Elvis, from the shoulders up, at least, was one of the more bizarre products to get attention at the Consumer Electronics Show here this week. Here are more details on Elvis and a couple of other offbeat, if potentially useful, gizmos:
Newly minted Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph Biden's claim that the vice president has given up on the war in Iraq is being met in the administration with charges that he misrepresented what Dick Cheney has said about the war. (Biden said last week that he thinks officials in the Bush administration–"maybe even the vice president"–have decided that Iraq is a lost cause.)
Among Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's interlocutors as she testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs today was a spate of senators with announced or suspected ambitions for the presidency, all eager to show toughness and resolve on the war.
AP - Police cordoned off streets around the U.S. Embassy in Athens early Friday after an explosion inside the embassy compound that a senior police official said was an "act of terrorism."
AP - The Pentagon has abandoned its limit on the time a citizen-soldier can be required to serve on active duty, officials said Thursday, a major change that reflects an Army stretched thin by longer-than-expected combat in Iraq.
AP - President Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq ran into a wall of criticism on Capitol Hill on Thursday as administration officials drew confrontational, sometimes mocking challenges from both Democrats and Republicans.
Most troops on the front line did not see President Bush's Iraq speech, but they got the basics -- more soldiers heading their way. Many say more troops can help if used correctly. "If we have more soldiers here, we can be more places at one time," a platoon commander told CNN.
U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq raided the Iranian consulate in the northern town of Irbil, Iraq's state-run television network, Al-Iraqia, reported Thursday, arresting staff members and confiscating office equipment.
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