The government agent quickens his step, eyeing his subject with great suspicion. "Your papers, please," he asks, extending a hand to accept a government-issued identification card.Surreal? A scene from a movie? Maybe. And then again, maybe not.

The system has some interesting potential side effects. For one thing, the police (or an estranged spouse) could easily subpoena your "travel records" for use in an investigation.

While these scandals are written off in the mainstream press as the work of wayward soldiers taking procedures in their own hands, Lobel says that the duplicity and responsibility for these actions clearly point to the top-to the obvious complicity of Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, and most likely, the President himself.

In a telegram sent by a senior Pentagon official to a top Israeli Foreign Ministry official, the United States asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa.

Truth or consequences.

An earthquake centered near Crescent City in northern California triggered an hour-long tsunami warning from Alaska to the Mexican border.