Morning News Roundup

• Despite support from the US and China, Iran says that the offered Russian plan for enriching uranium for Iran is "not sufficient" (via BBC--"The theory is that if Iran has no enrichment capability, and no nuclear waste, it cannot refine the uranium further to the high quality required to make a nuclear weapon.").
  
  
• John Kerry's quixotic/phyrric call for a filibuster against Samuel Alito from Davos, Switzerland is being met by Democratic cringes and Republican jeers (via the NYTimes).
  
  
• A Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that 76 percent of respondents believe that President Bush should release records of meetings between White House staffers and Jack Abramoff (via WaPo). Two-thirds of Republicans and 80 percent of Democrats favored disclosure, despite press secretary Scott McClellan noting that "people who want the information are trying to 'engage in partisan attacks'" (via ThinkProgress).
  
  
• The US economy hit the skids in the fourth quarter, bringing a cumulative 3.5% growth for 2005 versus 4.2% in 2004 (via Agence France Presse).
  
  
• Hundreds of Iraq reconstruction projects, including basic water and electricity, will not be completed due to shifting of funds to security. Additionally, the BushCo administration will not be seeking additional funds from Congress, so they're on their own (via WaPo).
  

  As much as 60 percent of all projects aimed at improving Iraq's water supply, including work on sewer systems and drinking water supplies, will remain unfinished because more than $2.1 billion originally allocated to that purpose was shifted away, according to the report.

• And finally, your HappyNews for the day: "The land of ''liberte, egalite, fraternite'' is hoping to boast another civil liberty starting next week: the right to urinate for free. On Feb. 1, Paris plans to begin converting its more than 200 self-sanitizing public toilets to work for free."
  

FYI - posting will be light and spotty over the next four days or so, as Mrs. F and I travel to Alabama for her grandmother's funeral (also the mother of Old Fogey, my blogging partner). Friends, please keep them in your thoughts.