01 Beat Crusaders - Mickey Mouse Club March (Mickey Mouse Club)

02 Snuff - Yo Ho (Disneyland)

03 Reel Big Fish - Main Street Electrical Parade (Disneyland)

04 H2O - ItÕs A Small World (Disneyland)

05 the band apart - When You Wish Upon A Star (Pinocchio)

06 Husking Bee - Baby Mine (Dumbo)

07 All - Chim Chim Cher-ee (Mary Poppins)

08 Asparagus - Forever And Ever (Winnie The PoohÕs Most Grand Adventure)

09 Voodoo Glow Skulls - I WanÕna Be Like You (The Jungle Book)

10 Oi-Skall Mates - Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (Mary Poppins)

11 Doping Panda - Go The Distance (Hercules)

12 4106, Yuki, TDC, Masa (Spoony) - Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo (Cinderella)

13 Rude Bones - Hakuna Matata (The Lion King)

14 Tsutchie feat. Mayu Kitaki - SomeoneÕs Waiting For You (The Rescuers)

Disney to shoot Blu-ray shorts
Reuters
July 17, 2006

Raising the bar in the Blu-ray Disc vs. HD DVD battle, Walt Disney is creating a
series of short films to be shot in high-definition to accompany select films
the company will release in the Blu-ray format.

It's the first move by any studio to develop original content for the
Sony-developed Blu-ray format, a step observers feel is critical to giving the
format the upper edge over Toshiba's rival HD DVD.

Finding a successor to standard DVD is a key issue in Hollywood, as 28 million
U.S. households are expected to have high-definition televisions by the end of
this year, and packaged media desperately needs a seat at that table.

The latest projections are that high-definition discs could generate $10
billion in annual consumer spending by 2010, keeping home entertainment
spending level despite continued and rapid encroachment by digital downloading.

The "Blu-Scape" shorts will be shot by cinematographer Louie Schwartzberg, who
two years ago directed a theatrical feature film, "America's Heart & Soul," for
Walt Disney Pictures.

Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment unit is expected to announce on Monday
its first nine titles in the next-generation Blu-ray Disc format, coming in two
waves, beginning Sept. 19. Five of them--Walt Disney Pictures' "Dinosaur,"
"Eight Below," "Glory Road" and "Haunted Mansion," along with Touchstone
Pictures' "Gone in Sixty Seconds"--will come with the exclusive shorts, which
the studio says will be "inspired" by the respective films.

"Dinosaur" and "Eight Below" are slated for September 19 release, along with
Miramax Films' "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" and "The Great Raid."

The second wave of titles, due October 17, includes "Glory Road, "Haunted
Mansion" and "Gone in Sixty Seconds," as well as Touchstone's "Dark Water" and
Dimension Films' "The Brothers Grimm."

Most Buena Vista Blu-ray titles will list for $34.99.

At launch, Buena Vista's Blu-ray titles will feature advanced new menus, with
seamless navigation and settings that can be accessed while the movie is
playing. They also will come with new layering coating technology that provides
a scratch-resistant surface.

Still being developed: more groundbreaking interactive features; personalized
chapter selections; and compelling online content, including Web connectivity
that will enable users to connect to live events hosted by the studio.

Buena Vista's expected announcement will make it the fourth studio to announce
titles and release dates for Blu-ray, tipping the scale in favor of the format.
Warner Home Video weighed in last week with four titles, while Sony Pictures
Home Entertainment and Lionsgate have both been releasing Blu-ray products
since late June.

Only three studios are releasing HD DVD products: Universal Studios Home
Entertainment, Paramount Home Entertainment and Warner.

Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox Film are expected to announce their
inaugural Blu-ray lineups shortly.

It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the
Bush administrationÕs response to the terror attacks is becoming clear. Much of
it, we can see now, had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden than with
expanding presidential power.

Over and over again, the same pattern emerges: Given a choice between following
the rules or carving out some unprecedented executive power, the White House
always shrugged off the legal constraints. Even when the only challenge was to
get required approval from an ever-cooperative Congress, the president and his
staff preferred to go it alone. While no one questions the determination of the
White House to fight terrorism, the methods this administration has used to do
it have been shaped by another, perverse determination: never to consult, never
to ask and always to fight against any constraint on the executive branch.

One result has been a frayed democratic fabric in a country founded on a
constitutional system of checks and balances. Another has been a less effective
war on terror.

The Guant‡namo Bay Prison

This whole sorry story has been on vivid display since the Supreme Court ruled
that the Geneva Conventions and United States law both applied to the Guant‡namo
Bay detention camp. For one brief, shining moment, it appeared that the
administration realized it had met a check that it could not simply ignore. The
White House sent out signals that the president was ready to work with Congress
in creating a proper procedure for trying the hundreds of men who have spent
years now locked up as suspected terrorists without any hope of due process.

But by weekÕs end it was clear that the presidentÕs idea of cooperation was
purely cosmetic. At hearings last week, the administration made it clear that it
merely wanted Congress to legalize President BushÕs illegal actions Ñ to amend
the law to negate the courtÕs ruling instead of creating a system of justice
within the law. As for the Geneva Conventions, administration witnesses and some
of their more ideologically blinkered supporters in Congress want to scrap the
international consensus that no prisoner may be robbed of basic human dignity.

The hearings were a bizarre spectacle in which the top military lawyers Ñ who
had been elbowed aside when the procedures at Guant‡namo were established Ñ
endorsed the idea that the prisoners were covered by the Geneva Convention
protections. Meanwhile, administration officials and obedient Republican
lawmakers offered a lot of silly talk about not coddling the masterminds of
terror.

The divide made it clear how little this all has to do with fighting terrorism.
Undoing the Geneva Conventions would further endanger the life of every member
of the American military who might ever be taken captive in the future. And if
the prisoners scooped up in Afghanistan and sent to Guant‡namo had been properly
processed first Ñ as military lawyers wanted to do Ñ many would never have been
kept in custody, a continuing reproach to the country that is holding them.
Others would actually have been able to be tried under a fair system that would
give the world a less perverse vision of American justice. The recent disbanding
of the C.I.A. unit charged with finding Osama bin Laden is a reminder that the
American people may never see anyone brought to trial for the terrible crimes of
9/11.

The hearings were supposed to produce a hopeful vision of a newly humbled and
cooperative administration working with Congress to undo the mess it had created
in stashing away hundreds of people, many with limited connections to terrorism
at the most, without any plan for what to do with them over the long run.
Instead, we saw an administration whose political core was still intent on
hunkering down. The most embarrassing moment came when Bush loyalists argued
that the United States could not follow the Geneva Conventions because Common
Article Three, which has governed the treatment of wartime prisoners for more
than half a century, was too vague. Which part of Òcivilized peoples,Ó Òjudicial
guaranteesÓ or Òhumiliating and degrading treatmentÓ do they find confusing?

Eavesdropping on Americans

The administrationÕs intent to use the war on terror to buttress presidential
power was never clearer than in the case of its wiretapping program. The
president had legal means of listening in on the phone calls of suspected
terrorists and checking their e-mail messages. A special court was established
through a 1978 law to give the executive branch warrants for just this purpose,
efficiently and in secrecy. And Republicans in Congress were all but begging for
a chance to change the process in any way the president requested. Instead, of
course, the administration did what it wanted without asking anyone. When the
program became public, the administration ignored calls for it to comply with
the rules. As usual, the presidentÕs most loyal supporters simply urged that
Congress pass a law allowing him to go on doing whatever he wanted to do.

Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced on
Thursday that he had obtained a concession from Mr. Bush on how to handle this
problem. Once again, the early perception that the president was going to bend
to the rules turned out to be premature.

The bill the president has agreed to accept would allow him to go on ignoring
the eavesdropping law. It does not require the president to obtain warrants for
the one domestic spying program we know about Ñ or for any other program Ñ from
the special intelligence surveillance court. It makes that an option and sets
the precedent of giving blanket approval to programs, rather than insisting on
the individual warrants required by the Constitution. Once again, the president
has refused to acknowledge that there are rules he is required to follow.

And while the bill would establish new rules that Mr. Bush could voluntarily
follow, it strips the federal courts of the right to hear legal challenges to
the presidentÕs wiretapping authority. The Supreme Court made it clear in the
Guant‡namo Bay case that this sort of meddling is unconstitutional.

If Congress accepts this deal, Mr. Specter said, the president will promise to
ask the surveillance court to assess the constitutionality of the domestic
spying program he has acknowledged. Even if Mr. Bush had a record of keeping
such bargains, that is not the right court to make the determination. In
addition, Mr. Bush could appeal if the court ruled against him, but the measure
provides no avenue of appeal if the surveillance court decides the spying
program is constitutional.

The Cost of Executive Arrogance

The presidentÕs constant efforts to assert his power to act without consent or
consultation has warped the war on terror. The unity and sense of national
purpose that followed 9/11 is gone, replaced by suspicion and divisiveness that
never needed to emerge. The president had no need to go it alone Ñ everyone
wanted to go with him. Both parties in Congress were eager to show they were
tough on terrorism. But the obsession with presidential prerogatives created
fights where no fights needed to occur and made huge messes out of programs that
could have functioned more efficiently within the rules.

Jane Mayer provided a close look at this effort to undermine the constitutional
separation of powers in a chilling article in the July 3 issue of The New
Yorker. She showed how it grew out of Vice President Dick CheneyÕs long and
deeply held conviction that the real lesson of Watergate and the later
Iran-contra debacle was that the president needed more power and that Congress
and the courts should get out of the way.

To a disturbing degree, the horror of 9/11 became an excuse to take up this
cause behind the shield of AmericansÕ deep insecurity. The results have been
devastating. AmericansÕ civil liberties have been trampled. The nationÕs image
as a champion of human rights has been gravely harmed. Prisoners have been
abused, tortured and even killed at the prisons we know about, while other
prisons operate in secret. American agents ÒdisappearÓ people, some entirely
innocent, and send them off to torture chambers in distant lands. Hundreds of
innocent men have been jailed at Guant‡namo Bay without charges or rudimentary
rights. And Congress has shirked its duty to correct this out of fear of being
painted as pro-terrorist at election time.

We still hope Congress will respond to the Supreme CourtÕs powerful and
unequivocal ruling on Guant‡namo Bay and also hold Mr. Bush to account for
ignoring the law on wiretapping. Certainly, the president has made it clear that
he is not giving an inch of ground.

Copyright © 2006 The New York Times Company

Slate.com
Reality Bites
Is the Bush administration capable of facing the world's problems, much less solving them?
By Fred Kaplan
Thursday, July 13, 2006

The world seems to be falling apart, and the designated powers are fumbling at
the controls, unsure which levers spin, which axes in what direction. The
metaphor is a bit of a stretch; no country or alliance could command the planet,
like an orchestra conductor or a god, regardless of how clever its leaders might
be. Still, it's horrifying to scan the full horizon of disastersÑin the Middle
East, the Persian Gulf, East Asia, South Asia, all the simmering hot spots on
the verge of boiling overÑand to realize that no one in charge knows what to do.

It's a perfect storm out there, each crisis feeding into the others yet at the
same time laden with unique origins and features, demanding unique approaches
and solutions. George Marshall himself would have a hard time keeping his grip.

The United States is hardly the only country at fault. Yet by its claims ("the
sole superpower," "the indispensable nation," "we're an empire now") and by the
objective facts (we are closer to being those things than any other country is),
it does have the leverageÑsome would argue, the responsibilityÑto organize,
mediate, and lead the way toward some solution.

Michael Hirsh has an excellent column in the latest Newsweek, an impassioned
exhortation for President Bush to lead, dammit! The problem, though, is that
neither Bush nor most of the top people around him have shown any inclination to
do the things that leadership requires.

Two stories in today's New York Times reveal pieces of the problem. One reports
that Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the U.S. commander in Iraq, wants to move more
American troops into Baghdad to prevent the capital's deadly cycle of violence
from worsening. (More than 140 people have been killed in sectarian violence
over the past four days alone.)

It's unclear what effect this would have. The same story quotes Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld as saying that troop levels in Baghdad have already been
increasedÑfrom 40,000 to 55,000Ñto deal with the surge of killings. Yet, as the
Times reporters dryly observe, "[T]he increase has not noticeably restrained the
sectarian bloodletting."

At one point during this occupation, an extra 15,000 troops, deployed in the
right place and given the right orders, might have quelled this sort of
disruption. But the hatred between Sunnis and Shiites has so intensified, their
militias have taken such hold, the Americans are so widely viewed as occupiers,
and the fledgling government has amassed such scant legitimacy that it's hard to
see how force alone can bring orderÑunless we're talking about 10 times as many
extra troops, a real occupying army, but this is out of the question; we simply
don't have that many extra troops to send.

Gen. Casey is a military commander; troops are his basic tools. But what are we
to make of Rumsfeld? On Wednesday, according to the Washington Post, he said
that settling the violence is "as much a political task as anything." True
enough, but it's not clear he knows what this means. On Thursday, at his news
conference with Gen. Casey, Rumsfeld elaborated on the point. Iraqi officials,
he declared, are "going to have to persuade as many people as possible that it's
in their interest to support the government and participate in the political
process. And anyone who doesn't want to, they're going to have to go find and do
something about."

Ah.

The other Times story that sheds light on our failures is an op-ed by Rory
Stewart headlined, "Even in Iraq, All Politics Is Local." Stewart is the
33-year-old, Farsi-speaking former British foreign service officer who walked
across Afghanistan shortly after the Taliban were defeated and chronicled his
adventure in a wonderful best seller, The Places in Between. Just after the
toppling of Saddam Hussein, Stewart took a taxi from Jordan to Baghdad and soon
found himself the appointed acting governor of a province in southern Iraq. (He
writes about that tale in a new book, The Prince of the Marshes, out next
month.)

Stewart's key insight is that local leaders, in Afghanistan and Iraq, know a lot
more than the U.S.-led coalition gives them credit forÑand that the coalition
would be more successful if it gave these leaders real power and authority.

When Stewart walked the breadth of Afghanistan, from Herat to Kabul, he was
"struck by the strength and vibrancy of local politics." Only a few months had
passed since the Taliban had been ousted, yet "political councils had re-emerged
to balance the demands of the community and the realities of local power"Ñand
these councils were based on a different political system in almost every
village. Similarly, when he helped to set up a new political system in southern
Iraq's Maysan province, just months after Saddam fell, 54 political parties
emerged and 14 tribal groups demanded representation.

These local parties and tribes are where true power resides. The national
leaders in both countries understand thisÑHamid Karzai in Afghanistan, Nuri
al-Maliki in IraqÑand the coalition should stop interfering in their efforts to
strike deals, even if some of the deals involve unsavory characters. Troops and
money alone can't solve problems that are political and religious. Political
change can't happen without strong local support; Karzai and Maliki have "a far
better understanding of the limits and possibilities of the local political
scenes" (they're also elected). So, Stewart urges Western politicians to drop
their "utopian dreams" and to let the local leaders make their deals with
militias, insurgents, warlords, or whatever it takes. Otherwise, success is
impossible.

Obviously, some insurgentsÑfor instance, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, when he was
aliveÑaren't worth talking with, under any circumstances. But many others are.
One key task is to make the distinction. A big problem is that, until recently,
the Bush administration hasn't been willing to acknowledge the distinction, much
less to do anything about it. Bush now seems more open to the idea, if only
because more purely military approaches have failed. But the problem here is
that so few diplomats on the scene are trained in the local culture or language.
The situation isn't as bad as when the Coalition Provisional Authority was in
charge and was staffed, to a large extent, by naive nephews of big Republican
donors. Still, the operation is less than expert.

Places like the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., are strenuously
trying to fill the gap, but neither the diplomatic corps nor the military
command structure is set up to exploit the resource. About a year ago, after I
wrote a Slate column about the Pentagon's pathetic effort to improve its
language training, I received dozens of letters from military and
foreign-service officers who had been schooled in Farsi or Arabic, scored well
on their tests, yet been assigned to jobs or embassies that had nothing to do
with their talents.

But this sort of neglect is but a side effect of the larger deficiencies at the
top. Whatever else might be said of them, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld are not worldly men. They're neither well-traveled nor curious about
the world. They came into office believing that America had emerged from the
Cold War as the only real power and, as such, they didn't have to care about
what other countries said. They didn't understand that powerful countriesÑat
least powerful democraciesÑhave always acted through alliances, even if only by
manipulating them. A powerful country doesn't always need allies to get a job
doneÑbut it does need them to get a job done with legitimacy, to get it done and
keep it done.

One senior Bush adviser famously told Ron Suskind, back in those halcyon days
shortly after Saddam fell: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our
own reality." What's happening now is that reality is roaring back.

Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate. He can be reached at
war_stories@hotmail.com.

Beer baron Coors loses license for DUI
Sat Jul 15, 9:02 PM ET

DENVER - Beer baron Peter Coors' driver's license has been revoked by a hearing
officer who ruled the executive had been driving under the influence of alcohol,
officials said.

Hearing officer Scott Garber ruled Friday that Coors did not stop at a stop sign
on May 28 and was driving intoxicated.

Coors, 59, said he had consumed a beer about 30 minutes before leaving a
wedding, the Rocky Mountain News reported Saturday. He faces a July 20
arraignment and has 30 days to appeal the revocation.

"I made a mistake. I should have planned ahead for a ride," Coors said in a
statement. "For years, I've advocated the responsible use of our company's
products."

Coors' spokeswoman, Kabira Hatland, said Coors was charged with driving while
under the influence. Coors' lawyer, Steve Higgens, did not immediately return a
call seeking comment.

Hatland said that Coors rolled through a stop sign a block from his home in
Golden and that an officer stopped him in his driveway.

In one breath test, he registered a blood alcohol level of 0.073 percent. In a
second, 20 minutes later, he registered 0.088. In Colorado a blood alcohol count
of 0.05 results in a driving while impaired charge, while a count of 0.08
results in driving under the influence.

Legal analyst Scott Robinson said drivers with no previous alcohol convictions
are usually held to have driven while impaired, rather than the more serious
driving while under the influence. A DWI finding can result in a loss of driving
privileges for 90 days; DUI can result in suspension for a year.

Peter Coors "has never even had a moving violation," said Coors spokeswoman
Kabira Hatland.

Coors took over as president of his family's company in 1987 and in 2000 was
named chief executive of the brewer, with 8,500 employees and $4 billion in
sales in 2003. Following a 2005 merger, it is now the Molson Coors Brewing
Co.

WASHINGTON, July 8 Ñ In a sharply worded letter to President Bush in May, an
important Congressional ally charged that the administration might have violated
the law by failing to inform Congress of some secret intelligence programs and
risked losing Republican support on national security matters.

The letter from Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the Republican
chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, did not specify the intelligence
activities that he believed had been hidden from Congress.

But Mr. Hoekstra, who was briefed on and supported the National Security
Agency's domestic surveillance program and the Treasury Department's tracking of
international banking transactions, clearly was referring to programs that have
not been publicly revealed.

Recently, after the harsh criticism from Mr. Hoekstra, intelligence officials
have appeared at two closed committee briefings to answer questions from the
chairman and other members. The briefings appear to have eased but not erased
the concerns of Mr. Hoekstra and other lawmakers about whether the
administration is sharing information on all of its intelligence operations.

A copy of the four-page letter dated May 18, which has not been previously
disclosed, was obtained by The New York Times.

"I have learned of some alleged intelligence community activities about which
our committee has not been briefed," Mr. Hoesktra wrote. "If these allegations
are true, they may represent a breach of responsibility by the administration,
a violation of the law, and, just as importantly, a direct affront to me and
the members of this committee who have so ardently supported efforts to collect
information on our enemies."

He added: "The U.S. Congress simply should not have to play Twenty Questions to
get the information that it deserves under our Constitution."

Frederick Jones, a White House spokesman, declined to comment on the concerns
raised by Mr. Hoekstra but said that "we will continue to work closely with the
chairman and other Congressional leaders on important national security issues."

A spokesman for Mr. Hoekstra, Jamal D. Ware, said he could not discuss the
activities allegedly withheld from Congress. But he said that Mr. Hoekstra
remained adamant that no intelligence programs could be hidden from oversight
committees.

"Chairman Hoekstra has raised these issues with the administration to ensure
that the Intelligence Committee is able to conduct its job of oversight," Mr.
Ware said. "Intelligence officials have committed to being forthcoming with
Congress, and Chairman Hoekstra is going to hold them to their word."

Mr. Hoekstra's blunt letter is evidence of a rift between the White House and
House Republican leaders over the administration's perceived indifference to
Congressional oversight and input on intelligence matters. Mr. Hoekstra wrote
that he had shared his complaints with House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert,
Republican of Illinois, and that the speaker "concurs with my concerns."

A spokesman for Mr. Hastert declined to comment.

The letter appears to have resulted at least in part from the White House's
decision, made early in May, to name Gen. Michael V. Hayden to lead the Central
Intelligence Agency, with Stephen R. Kappes as his deputy. The letter was sent
the day of General Hayden's confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence
Committee.

Mr. Hoekstra (pronounced HOOK-stra) complained publicly about the choices when
they were announced, but his private letter to Mr. Bush was much harsher. He
warned that the choice of Mr. Kappes, who he said was part of a group at the
C.I.A. that "intentionally undermined the administration," sends "a clear signal
that the days of collaborative reform between the White House and this committee
may be over."

Mr. Hoekstra also expressed concern about the intelligence reorganization under
John D. Negroponte, the first director of national intelligence, who he said was
creating "a large, bureaucratic and hierarchical structure that will be less
flexible and agile than our adversaries."

Mr. Hoekstra's views on oversight appear to be shared by some other Intelligence
Committee members.

"I think the executive branch has been insufficiently forthcoming on a number of
important programs," Representative Heather A. Wilson, Republican of New Mexico,
said in an interview. She would not discuss any programs on which the committee
had not been briefed, but she said that in the Bush administration, "there's a
presumption that if they don't tell anybody, a problem may get better or it will
solve itself."

Ms. Wilson said she shared "deep concerns" about the pace and direction of
intelligence reforms overseen by Mr. Negroponte's office. "We have some troubled
programs," she said.

American intelligence agencies routinely conduct many secret programs, but under
the National Security Act, the agencies are required to keep the Congressional
intelligence committees "fully and currently informed of all intelligence
activities." Even in the case of especially sensitive covert actions, the law
requires briefings for at least the leaders from both parties of the committees
and the House and Senate.

As the administration has asserted broad presidential authority to fight
terrorism, concerns about Congressional oversight and checks and balances
between the branches of government have become increasingly heated. Democrats
complained that the administration's failure to brief the full Intelligence
Committees on the N.S.A. warrantless eavesdropping, which focuses on the
international communications of Americans and others inside the United States,
was a violation of the National Security law. Some members of Congress said they
had been briefed on the Treasury Department's bank monitoring program, which
examines international money transfers through a Brussels-based consortium, only
after The New York Times began making inquiries in recent months.

But the assertion that other intelligence activities had been hidden from
Congress is particularly surprising coming from Mr. Hoekstra, who defended the
administration's limited briefings on the N.S.A. program against Democratic
criticism.

An official familiar with recent exchanges between the intelligence agencies and
the House committee said Friday that General Hayden had twice briefed the full
committee and had addressed Mr. Hoekstra's questions about the intelligence
activities referred to in the letter. The C.I.A. director promised "a free flow
of information," and Mr. Hoekstra, who initially objected to placing a military
officer in charge of the C.I.A., said he would work closely with the agency's
new leadership.

The official, who spoke of the briefings only when granted anonymity because
they were classified, declined to say anything about what the activities were or
which agencies they involved.

Officials with both Mr. Negroponte's office and the C.I.A. declined to comment
specifically on Mr. Hoekstra's letter. But Carl Kropf, a spokesman for Mr.
Negroponte, said that over the past year his office had "engaged in hundreds of
briefings, meetings and discussions with Congressional committees."

He added, "We value this dialogue with Congress, and we will continue to provide
the committee with the information they need to fulfill their responsibilities."

Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, a spokeswoman for General Hayden, said that "the
director believes in the important oversight role Congress plays, and he will
continue regular and transparent interactions with members."

Since his appointment as committee chairman in August 2004, Mr. Hoekstra has
been a critical ally of the White House on intelligence matters. He has
supported the administration's most controversial policies, including its
treatment of terrorist suspects, and he has balked at Democratic demands for an
investigation of pre-war intelligence on Iraq. He has defended the legality and
necessity of the N.S.A. program and the bank monitoring.

Mr. Hoekstra has been one of the strongest advocates in Congress for a crackdown
on leaks of classified information to the media, a cause championed by both Mr.
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

But in recent months, Mr. Hoekstra has begun to express some disaffection. In
March, he joined the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Representative
Jane Harman of California, in a public critique of Mr. Negroponte's performance.
He criticized intelligence officials for initially resisting his demand that
thousands of captured Iraqi documents be posted on the Web. Like other House
Republicans, he bristled when Porter J. Goss, a former House colleague, was
forced out as C.I.A. director in early May.

Most recently, Mr. Hoekstra strongly criticized a news briefing arranged by Mr.
Negroponte's office on an Army report that 500 pre-Gulf War chemical shells had
been found scattered around Iraq. On June 29, Mr. Hoekstra, who had said the
finding established that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, made
public an angry letter to Mr. Negroponte calling the briefing "inaccurate,
incomplete and occasionally misleading" and asserting that "attempts were made
to downplay the significance of relevant facts."

A spokesman for Mr. Negroponte's office said he had not yet replied to the
complaint.

Copyright © 2006 The New York Times Company

The M&M Mars candy factory on the city's Northwest Side was closed Thursday by
the health department after the sweet treats drew uninvited guests, including
fruit flies and mice.

The factory at 2019 N. Oak Park, in the city's Galewood community, had been
warned after a June 21 inspection showed an "infestation" of fruit flies in the
food production area as well as gaps in doors that might allow rodent access to
the facility, officials said.

The earlier inspection was prompted by a call to the city's non-emergency 311
line, said Tim Hadac of the Chicago Public Health Department. The caller said
there were roaches at the facility that produces not only M&M chocolate, but
also Snickers bars and other candies.

Thursday's follow-up inspection showed no action had been taken to fix the
problem and the factory was shut down. In addition, inspectors found mouse feces
in the food processing area and noticed several food items were stored on the
floor instead of elevated, as required.