From Bali on boycott to DC Smackdown game...

From American Progress:

Think Fast...

European nations at the U.N. conference in Bali, yesterday "threatened to boycott U.S.-led climate talks next month unless Washington accepts" a draft document 'suggesting that industrialized nations consider cutting emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020."

Twenty-eight retired generals and admirals wrote to the House and Senate intelligence committees yesterday, "urging them to require the CIA to abandon harsh interrogation techniques. Among the signers were two retired Army generals who investigated the Abu Ghraib detainee abuses in Iraq, Gen. Paul J. Kern and Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba."

In 2002, Marine Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann, who is now the chief judge of the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, "wrote a paper on the Bush administration's plan to use military commissions to try Guantanamo suspects, concluding that "even a good military tribunal is a bad idea."

"Diplomatic posts at the State Department and U.S. embassies worldwide will be cut by 10 percent next year because of heavy staffing demands in Iraq and Afghanistan, Director General Harry Thomas informed the foreign service yesterday."

109: The record number of soldiers who "have killed themselves this year, according to Army statistics showing confirmed or suspected suicides."

A new report by the American Institute of Philanthropy says that "eight veterans charities, including some of the nation's largest, gave less than a third of the money raised to the causes they champion, far below the recommended standard."

Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Mark Agrast urges Congress to support the conference report on the FY2008 Intelligence Authorization bill, which would outlaw CIA interrogation methods that are not authorized by the Army Field Manual.

And finally: The new video game "DC Smackdown" pokes "evenhanded fun" at public figures with 17 figures, including Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, and Jesse Jackson. The final two levels of the game involve "combat between former Vice President Al Gore and President George W. Bush. Gore has a 'CO2 fart attack,' while Bush has a Karl Rove attack. Dressed like the grim reaper, Rove passes through and steals the opponent's soul."

Wrap...