Darwin Award, Politics Division

State Rep. Charged in Anthrax Hoax

Well-summarized by Josh Marshall:

George Radich is a constituent of Allegheny County State Rep. Jeffrey E. Habay.

Radich and four other constituents petitioned a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court to audit the records of Habay's political action Committee, the Friends of Jeff Habay.

So, according to charges filed today, the next time he received a letter from Radich, Habay sprinkled some white powder on to the envelope and then called the cops, claiming that Radich had tried to take him out with an Anthrax mailing.

Unfortunately for his sake, Habay is apparently a fool since Radich had, uncharacteristically for a Anthrax mailer, included a return address. And things went even worse for him when it turned out that he had paid for the postage with a credit card.

Self-destructing politicians seem to suddenly be as plentiful as pollen this spring. Tom DeLay would seem a shoe-in for the award, but the level of unprovoked stupidity on display here might elevate Habay form dark horse to legitimate contender.

Midnight Wounded Supply

Steeling against rain and cold night air, clutching candles and placards, a group of activists are standing nightly vigils at the entrance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, protesting what they believe is the Pentagon’s attempt to hide the human toll of the war in Iraq.

With wounded troops arriving from Germany, where most receive treatment after being stabilized in the field, flights to the United States are arranged so that soldiers are admitted into Walter Reed for follow on care at night.

“When we first heard about this, we were appalled,” said vigil organizer Gael Murphy, part of nationwide grass roots women’s group dubbed Code Pink. “Why are they bringing them in only at night? Is it because they don’t want the media to cover it? Is it because they don’t want Americans to see the real cost of this war?”

FBI Reportedly Studies Possible Yucca Mountain Fraud

The FBI is investigating possible document falsification by workers on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project in Nevada, a congressional staffer said Wednesday.

Chad Bungard, deputy staff director and chief counsel for a House Government Reform subcommittee, said he learned of the probe from the inspector general's office at the Department of Interior, which also was investigating.
...
Bungard's panel is holding a hearing on the possible document falsification next week, and staffers are preparing to release e-mails from a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist that suggest the falsification occurred.

The e-mails were written from 1998 to 2000 and circulated among scientists studying how water moves through the planned dumpsite, a key issue in determining whether radiation could escape, and how much.

USGS scientists validated Energy Department conclusions that water seepage was relatively slow, so radiation would be less likely to escape.

The Energy and Interior departments revealed the existence of the e-mails March 16, and handed them over Tuesday to the House Government Reform subcommittee on the federal workforce and agency organization.

The subcommittee, led by Rep. Jon C. Porter (R-Nev.), plans to make redacted versions public on Friday.

"We don't want to compromise the criminal investigation," Bungard said, adding that the agencies were doing the redacting.

The Energy Department inspector general is also investigating the suspected document falsification, and the department is conducting a scientific review as well.

The revelation about the potentially falsified documents was the latest setback to the planned dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Yucca Mountain, approved by Congress in 2002, is planned as the nation's only underground repository for 77,000 tons of defense waste and used reactor fuel from commercial power plants. The material is supposed to be buried for at least 10,000 years.

But the project has suffered serious problems, including funding shortfalls and an appeals court decision last summer that is forcing a rewrite of radiation exposure limits for the site. The Energy Department recently abandoned a planned 2010 completion date, and department officials have not given a new date.


As it begins to dawn on the powers that be that the fossil fuel well is running dry, the energy cartel is going to start pushing nuclear energy again-- and the American public will accept anything that doesn't require conservaton or giving up 3-ton SUVs.

So continuing SNAFUs at the last best hope for a dumpsite are going to loom increasingly large, unless, of course, they can be convered up. But Nevada's (justifiable) NIMBY backlash may make that difficult.

John Bolton's Iran-Contra past

from David Corn:

Beyond his UN-bashing, Bolton has not just been extreme in his foreign policy views, he has been wrong and reckless: accusing Cuba of developing biological weapons and Syria of posing a serious WMD threat without proof. (The CIA felt obliged to block him from testifying before Congress on Syria and WMDs.) He also has had his brushes with scandal, receiving money from a political slush fund in Taiwan and advocating for Taiwan in congressional testimony (when he was not in government) without revealing he was paid by a Taiwanese entity to write policy papers for it. (He might have even broken the law by failing to register as a foreign agent.)
...
Bolton's record as Assistant AG for the Office of Legislative Affairs in 1986 and 1987 merits special scrutiny. He "tried to torpedo" Sen. John Kerry's inquiry into allegations of contra drug smuggling and gunrunning, a committee aide says. When Kerry requested information from the Justice Department, Bolton's office gave it the long stall, a Kerry aide notes. In fact, says another Congressional aide, Bolton's staff worked actively with the Republican senators who opposed Kerry's efforts.

In 1986 this chum of Meese also refused to give Peter Rodino, then chair of he House Judiciary Committee, documents concerning the Iran/contra scandal and Meese's involvement in it, Later, when Congressional investigators were probing charges that the Justice Department had delayed an inquiry into gunrunning to the contras, Bolton was again the spoiler.

The reason Bolton is getting the position is evident: he has been a made man for at least 20 years.

Yahoo! News - C-Murder Loses Murder Conviction Appeal

C-Murder, who lost in his latest bid to get his second-degree murder conviction thrown out, is hopeful Louisiana's Supreme Court will be more favorable to his appeal than the lower courts have been.

"I'm just trying to bring darkness to light the best way I know how," the rapper said in a phone interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday night. "I'm hoping everything turns out all right."

The rapper, whose real name is Corey Miller, was convicted Sept. 30, 2003, in the death of Steve Thomas, 16, at a nightclub in the New Orleans suburb of Harvey. He faces a mandatory life sentence without parole.

Dear C-Murder:

OK, I know this outs me as both old and white, but if I wanted to beat a murder rap, I don't think I would rap under the name "Murder."

Sincerely,

Artist formerly known as C-I Didn't Do It

US admits killing Arab journalists in Iraq

The US military has acknowledged it was responsible for killing two journalists working for Dubai-based satellite channel al-Arabiya who were shot close to a checkpoint in the Iraqi capital earlier this month.

Al-Arabiya cameraman Ali Abd al-Aziz died on 18 March from a gunshot wound to the head. Correspondent Ali al-Khatib died from his wounds in hospital the next day. Both were Iraqis.

Colleagues said US troops fired on their car near a checkpoint in central Baghdad. The US military initially said it was unlikely its bullets had killed them.

On Monday, a US military official said an investigation into the deaths showed troops were responsible, but had acted "within the rules of engagement".

US soldiers were aiming at a different car, a white Volvo that had driven through the checkpoint at high speed, the investigation said. Al-Arabiya's grey Kia car was 50m to 150m down the road, trying to turn when it was accidentally hit, the military said.

OK, got that? Our boys were aiming at car A, and two people in car B, roughly a football field away, but who just happened to be Arab journalists, got hit. In the head.

Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.

Gannon @ the National Press Club

The blogosphere is agog at the decision of the National Press Club to invite JimmyJeff to speak on a panel about blogging. (I tried posting on it, but Blogger ate my homework.)

Paul Lukasiak, who did some truly heroic digging into Shrub's military records before CBS screwed the pooch (still available here), found a bit of humor in it all:

The room at the National Press Club where the Gannon/Guckert Blogger/Journalist panel discussion will be held is.... (wait for it)

Holeman Lounge.

I love this game.

Pigs @ the Trough: the series

From the UK-based Independent, natch:

Halliburton, the world's largest military private contractor, has made at least $8bn (£4.3bn) in war-torn Iraq - doing everything from washing American troops' laundry to setting up vital oil supplies. Now, a critically well-placed army employee says contracts were unfairly awarded to Halliburton, whose chief executive used to be US Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Bunnatine Greenhouse, the highest-ranking civilian in the US Army Corps of Engineers, saw the contracts handed to Halliburton pass over her desk. She objected to all of them on the grounds that the government was being too generous to the Texas-based company. Now she might lose her job.

The army tried to demote her last autumn after her performance ratings swung from excellent to sub-standard. An alternative offered to the 60-year-old, who followed her husband into the army, is a swift retirement.

According to Ms Greenhouse, who is hanging on to her job under American laws that protect whistleblowers, her superiors want her out because she is "a stickler for the rules". She hopes to stay on at the corps until she is ready to retire, even though many of her colleagues "treat me like I have the plague".

Having worked in government and army procurement for 23 years, she says her duty has been clear as the principal assistant responsible for contracting, known as the Parc. "In a time of war on terrorism, we as a government have to make sure there is a fairness, there is an integrity, and that there is an arm's length approach in the business of contracting," she said.

But when it came to Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, whose services range from oil and gas to meeting all of soldiers' living needs, Ms Greenhouse found her commanders did not share her vision.

Time and again, there was little or no competition for the huge contracts the US administration awarded, and repeatedly, it seemed that senior army people were stepping in to overrule her attempts to make KBR accountable.

On top of that, there was a "revolving door", with senior army employees joining Halliburton. These included Tom Quigley, who had previously done Ms Greenhouse's job, and Chuck Dominy, a three-star general who is now Halliburton's chief lobbyist on Capitol Hill.

I know, I know. Steering bazillions of dollars in business to a company to which a sitting Vice President retains close financial ties is, well, the real American way. I should take my medication and get on with my daily does of Certainly Not News. But this orgy of baksheesh has somehow included me out, and I reserve the right to my sputtering outrage.

Missing WMD Report

Remember the pre-election Senate Intelligence Committee's WMD whitewash? The one that blamed it all on bad intelligence?

Jay Rockefeller, the committee's senior Democrat, noted that the report outlined "one of the most devastating...intelligence failures in the history of the nation."

But the committee's report did not cover a crucial area: how the Bush Administration used -- or abused -- the prewar intelligence to build support for the Iraq invasion. Roberts claimed his committee was hot on that trail: "It is one of my top priorities," he said. The problem, he explained, was that there was not enough time before the November election to complete the assignment. Rockefeller took issue with that and complained that the "central issue of how intelligence was...exaggerated by Bush Administration officials" was being relegated into a "Phase II" investigation that would not begin until after the election. A Democratic committee staffer said that such an inquiry could easily be completed within months.

Still, Roberts succeeded in his transparent effort to kick that inconvenient can down the road. (Imagine the headache for the Bush campaign if news stories appeared before the election reporting that the committee had found Bush had stretched an already stretched truth.) Now -- with Bush re-elected -- Roberts no longer considers Phase II a priority. In mid-March, Roberts declared further investigation pointless.

You would think that after pointing out for the hundredth time that irony is deader than than doornail, I would stop being surprised at the the things Republicans say without cracking a smile. Yet I am gobsmacked again.

Well sure it is pointless, Mr. Roberts. I'm sure members of the Politburo thought exactly the same thing when they looked at Stalin's excesses. It is pointless because swells like yourself have decided that the rule of law is one of those ancient aires and dances Alberto Gonzales dismissed as "quaint." It is pointless because there is no line the boy king can cross that will shake you from your slumber. It is pointless because no failure of logic or demonstration of monstrous illegality will deflect your headlong lunge toward collective oblivion.

Wanker.

...but he's still fat

Yahoo! News - Documents show FBI helped Saudis depart after 9/11 attacks: New York Times

The FBI played an active role in arranging chartered flights for dozens of well-connected Saudi nationals -- including relatives of Osama bin Laden -- after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The New York Times reported that the documents show Federal Bureau of Investigation agents gave personal airport escorts to two prominent Saudi families who fled the United States, while several other Saudis were allowed to leave the country without first being interviewed, citing newly-released US government records.
...
FBI officials contacted by the daily reacted angrily to the allegation of preferential treatment for the Saudis.

One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, when queried by the Times about the airport escorts said "we'd do that for anybody if they felt they were threatened -- we wouldn't characterize that as special treatment."

The Saudis' chartered flights -- arranged in the days after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks when most aircraft were still grounded -- long have been a topic of allegations related to close family ties and associates of US President George W. Bush and the Saudi royal family.

Score one more for Michael Moore, who made this argument to a veritable shitstorm of a response.

And the anonymous FBI source is right -- we give "personal airport escorts" to a large number of middle eastern types on a regular basis. Only the generally accepted term for those flights is "extraordinary rendition."

Queer Eye for the Republican Guy

Another bloviation up @ Raw Story.

Daily Kos :: J.D. Guckert/Jeff Gannon: These Are Your Lives!

A whole bunch o' investigative reporting (you remember investigative reporting, don't you?) at dKos on the life and times of JimmyJeff. As with most such endeavors, it raises more questions than it answers.

When I look at the timeline they constructed, one thing that jumped out immediately is that nowhere in his reverse-engineered CV is there a place to insert his claimed stint in the Marines.

Oh, well... pretending you served in the military doesn't seem to disqualify one from becoming President, so why should it trouble a mere "reporter."

Less life of culture in our culture of life

Michigan To Let Doctors Refuse To Treat Gays

(Lansing, Michigan) Doctors or other health care providers could not be disciplined or sued if they refuse to treat gay patients under legislation passed Wednesday by the Michigan House.
The bill allows health care workers to refuse service to anyone on moral, ethical or religious grounds.

The Republican dominated House passed the measure as dozens of Catholics looked on from the gallery. The Michigan Catholic Conference, which pushed for the bills, hosted a legislative day for Catholics on Wednesday at the state Capitol.

The bills now go the Senate, which also is controlled by Republicans.

The Conscientious Objector Policy Act would allow health care providers to assert their objection within 24 hours of when they receive notice of a patient or procedure with which they don't agree. However, it would prohibit emergency treatment to be refused.

But what if the stars of "Queer Eye" or "Will & Grace" get sick?

Easter Sunday Sermon

Discrimination Against Christians? Oh, Please ...

In honor of the day, and our secular humanist sensibilities, a sermon from www.secularhumanism.com.

As individuals, majority Christians can’t be blamed for feeling like victims, or even for whining about it. But other Americans – including moderates and liberals within the Christian majority – should be encouraged to reject these claims of victimhood, just as most Americans rejected the victimhood claims of white segregationists in the South.

The whole thing is worth a read.

Naomi Klein Reveals New Details About Sgrena Shooting

Naomi Klein talked with Giulana Sgrena, and reveals some very suspicious goings on. Read the whole interview, but the money quote is this:

The other thing she told me that was surprising to me was that they were fired on from behind. Because I think part of what we're hearing is that the U.S. soldiers opened fire on their car, because they didn't know who they were, and they were afraid. It was self-defense, they were afraid. The fear, of course, is that their car might blow up or that they might come under attack themselves. And what Giuliana Sgrena really stressed with me was that she -- the bullet that injured her so badly and that killed Calipari, came from behind, entered the back seat of the car. And the only person who was not severely injured in the car was the driver, and she said that this is because the shots weren't coming from the front or even from the side. They were coming from behind, i.e. they were driving away. So, the idea that this was an act of self-defense, I think becomes much more questionable. And that detail may explain why there's some reticence to give up the vehicle for inspection. Because if indeed the majority of the gunfire is coming from behind, then clearly, they were firing from -- they were firing at a car that was driving away from them.

Waiting for the Sky Taxi

Good piece on Rapture monkeys on DU.

Schiavo and the American Taliban

AP reports:

A North Carolina man was charged by the FBI on Friday with offering a $250,000 bounty for the murder of Michael Schiavo, the husband of a brain-damaged Florida woman dying in a hospice after years of legal wrangling with her parents.

Richard Alan Meywes was arrested without incident at his home in Fairview, the FBI said. Tim Stutheit, an FBI spokesman in Charlotte, declined to give Meywes' age.

Meywes was charged in Tampa, Fla., with murder for hire and with the transmission of interstate threatening communications.
...
Meywes is accused of sending an e-mail putting a $250,000 bounty "on the head of Michael Schiavo" and another $50,000 to eliminate a judge who denied a request to intervene in the Schiavo case, the FBI said in a prepared statement. The FBI did not identify the judge.

"It is my understanding that whoever eliminates Michael Schiavo from the plant while inflicting as much pain and suffering that he can bear stands to be paid this reward in cash," the e-mail said, according to a text of the message contained in an affidavit prepared by Tampa FBI agent A.J. Gilman.

Here, in all its glory on this Easter weekend, is the Culture of Life, Fatwa Division.

For the benefit of any wingnuts who might wander here by mistake, a few relevant selections from the Sermon on the Mount:

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake:
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
...
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a
tooth for a tooth:

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever
shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other
also.

And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy
coat, let him have thy cloak also.

And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him
twain.

Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of
thee turn not thou away.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy
neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse
you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you, and persecute you.

That Jesus fella had some good ideas; it might be interesting to see what would happen if someone organized a religion around this stuff.

Just a thought.

Terry Schiavo, the Easter Martyr

We have a winner!

Yesterday I challenger our extensive readers base to find a wingut casting Terry Schiavo as Christ. Reader Allison came through. Thanks, and a tip o' the hat - you are the Memian of the Week..

Lots of wingnuttery on display at the main site, like this headline: "Scientists to make 'Stuart Little' mouse with the brain of a human." Need I lay out the punch line about what a perfect bookend that mouse will be?

Iran has underground uranium enrichment facility, exile asserts

From Knight-Ridder:

Iran has built a secret underground facility inside a tightly guarded military complex to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, an Iranian exile charged on Thursday.
The allegation, which couldn't immediately be confirmed, was leveled by Alireza Jafarzadeh, an exile whose previous claims helped reveal that Iran had been conducting clandestine nuclear activities for some 20 years.
Iran doesn't have diplomatic relations with the United States, and the Iranian mission to the United Nations didn't immediately return two telephone calls seeking a response to Jafarzadeh's latest allegation. Iran has repeatedly said its nuclear program is for electricity production and denied Bush administration allegations that it's secretly developing nuclear weapons.

A U.S. official, who insisted on anonymity because the matter involved intelligence methods, said the claim could not be substantiated "at this point."


Puh-leeze.

This exile doesn't happen to go by the name of Chalabi, does he? How many times is the press going to sit on the same damned whoopee cushion?

Cheney 2008?

via the LA Times via The Smirking Chimp:

In the summer of 2000, Dick Cheney was appointed to find a vice presidential candidate for George W. Bush, and, as we now know, the winner of the search turned out to be Dick Cheney.

Today, Republicans are casting about for a successor to Bush. And the winner of that search just may turn out to be … Dick Cheney again.

The Draft Cheney movement is burbling just below the surface. Fred Barnes suggested it earlier this month in the Weekly Standard. Tod Lindberg of the Washington Times and Lawrence Kudlow of National Review Online echoed Barnes in columns this week.

Cheneymania has reached critical mass.

I was absolutely certain that Cheney would have a convenient infarct about now to open the inside track for Jeb or some other worthy winger for 2008. I just can't imagine Cheney carrying a general election. But the "keep the dream alive" meme will certainly appeal to the red meat Republicans.

For now, this is too strange to fully process.

Wolfowitz, Lothario

From the Mail online: Will a British divorcee cost 'Wolfie' his job?

The British press is perhaps even more obsessed with bedroom scandal than our own. Today they have an interesting American in the crosshairs: that handsome comb-licker, Paul Wolfowitz.

Downing Street 'furious' at nomination

Wolfowitz became known around the world as one of the fiercest proponents of invasion of Iraq. The Mail on Sunday has learned that Downing Street is "furious" about his nomination, fearing his hardline attitude could alienate large sections of the international community.

But it is his tangled private life that could stop him taking up the World Bank post.

Critics say it would be impossible for Wolfie - as he is nicknamed by Bush - to make independent decisions when his lover, who works on Middle Eastern and North African issues, is so committed to overthrowing Middle Eastern regimes.

"His womanising has come home to roost," a Washington insider said. "Paul was a foreign policy hawk long before he met Shaha but it doesn't look good to be accused of being under the thumb of your mistress."

One of his opponents at the bank said: "Unless Riza gives up her job, this will be an impossible conflict of interest."

National security risk

Wolfowitz married Clare Selgin in 1968. But they have lived separately since 2001, after allegations of an affair with an employee at the School of Advanced International Studies where he was dean for seven years.

According to one Republican Administration insider, Clare was so upset by rumours about the affair that she wrote to then President Elect Bush, saying if the story were true it could pose a national security risk.
...
The bank's staff association has told executives it has been swamped with complaints from employees about Wolfowitz.

However, Wolfowitz's only comment on the complaints has been a terse statement issued through a Pentagon spokesman. He said: "If a personal relationship presents a potential conflict of interest, I will comply with bank policies to resolve the issue."

The Clinton administration was largely scandal-free but for Willie's willy, and it was dogged by incessant press coverage of his womanizing. It is almost certainly a vain hope, but since the only line the current junta hasn't obliterated is the marital infidelity taboo, perhaps this story can help turn the tide.

Plus, I think the American public would rather do just about anything than visualize Wolfowitz schtupping anybody.

Frank Rich follows my lead...

Last week me, regarding the Rapturized churchgoer who gunned down 5 fellow believers:

Oh, my. Homicidal wackos tied to an apocalyptic religion. Where have we heard that before?

Now if only the mainstream press would follow this one where it leads....


This week him:

Faith-based news is not far behind. Ashley Smith, the 26-year-old woman who was held hostage by Brian Nichols, the accused Atlanta courthouse killer, has been canonized by virtually every American news organization as God's messenger because she inspired Mr. Nichols to surrender by talking about her faith and reading him a chapter from Rick Warren's best seller, "The Purpose-Driven Life." But if she's speaking for God, what does that make Dennis Rader, the church council president arrested in Wichita's B.T.K. serial killer case? Was God instructing Terry Ratzmann, the devoted member of the Living Church of God who this month murdered his pastor, an elderly man, two teenagers and two others before killing himself at a weekly church service in Wisconsin? The religious elements of these stories, including the role played by the end-of-times fatalism of Mr. Ratzmann's church, are left largely unexamined by the same news outlets that serve up Ashley Smith's tale as an inspirational parable for profit.

OK, he said it better, and the NY TImes has a few more readers. But you (both of you) heard it here first.

NO Military Service for Gannon/Guckert?

A regular at Daily Kos has done a bit of digging and has perhaps caught JimmyJeff in yet another whopper: lying about (non-existent) military service. The story isn't fully nailed down yet, but it sure doesn't look good for our favorite gay prostitute.

Science, religion and Terri Schiavo

The medical diagonosis is as unambiguous as science can be (via
TCS: Tech Central Station):

The medical reality of Ms. Schiavo's case is this: She has been in what is medically referred to as a "permanent vegetative state" for the past 15 years, ever since her heart temporarily stopped (probably due to the severe effects of an eating disorder), depriving her brain of oxygen. Brain scans indicate that her cerebral cortex ceased functioning -- probably just after she experienced cardiac arrest in 1990. Ms. Schiavo's CAT scan shows massive shrinking of the brain, and her EEG is flat. Physicians confirm that there is no electrical activity coming from her brain. While the family video repeatedly shown on television suggests otherwise, her non-functioning cortex precludes cognition, including any ability to interact or communicate with people or show any signs of awareness. Dozens of experts over the years who have examined Ms. Schiavo agree that there is no hope of her recovering -- even though her body, face and eyes (if she is given food and hydration) might continue to move for decades to come.

The problem, for the wingnuts trying to keep her alive, though, is precisely that: science says Terry Schiavo the person disappeared long ago, but this case is merely another skirmish in their assaullt on the real enemy, which is science.

Science says the universe is billions of years old, people evolved over millions of years from monkeys, and the Bible, though perhaps useful as myth and metaphor, cannot possibly be literally correct. Science is therefore the enemy.

So when complicated machines that simple folks don't understand tell a story those simple folk don't want to hear, it is just another collision between data and belief. And when your worldview is centered in faith, belief trumps all possible data.

Next: Who will be the first wingnut to draw parallels to the Easter story?

Plame Case May End With Criminal Going Free and 'Witnesses' Jailed

via Editor & Publisher

As I have said all along, the point of the Plame leak prosecution was never punishing, or even identifying, the leaker. The point was to deliver a horse's head between the sheets of anyone else in government who might think about ratting on Maximum Leader, and any reporter who thinks about writing a story about it. And the result is another great success for dictatorship.

The bloom is definitely off this case. No longer does one hear it described as a once-in-a-generation showdown between the government and the Fourth Estate over the First Amendment. It’s not that it is being ignored by the working press; indeed, several reporters told me that, unfortunately, the Plame affair is often mentioned by would-be confidential sources when explaining their skittishness in talking about classified matters, doubly so given the obsession with secrecy of the Bush White House.

The chief of one top chain's Washington bureau speaks of leads on stories that have "fizzled." A senior investigative reporter for a prominent national newspaper made the point that there is no way to measure the insidious effect of the Fitzgerald probe, in that it has become an invisible part of the warp and woof of the relationship between a free press and a security-obsessed administration.

One of Miller's former colleagues put it this way when describing her problematic role in the Plame case: "She has made it tougher for us all" by, in his view, essentially inventing the claim that she was contemplating a story about Plame.

Gov. Bush Seeks to Take Custody of Schiavo

Terri Schiavo's parents saw their options vanish one by one Wednesday as a federal appeals court refused to re-insert her feeding tube and the Florida Legislature decided not to intervene in the epic struggle. Refusing to give up, Gov. Jeb Bush sought court permission to take custody of Schiavo.

Given that Jeb's own daughter has had real problems with nose candy and prescription drug fraud, I'm not sure a court would agree that he would be a fit guardian. And, of course, there are the interesting words of Governor Bush, one of the authors of the current media circus, when his family was under the klieg lights:

"This is a private issue as it relates to my daughter and myself and my wife."

But I digress.

Two Schiavo points that I have not seen elsewhere:

1. Would Bill Frist, Tom Delay and Jeb Bush be falling over themselves in orgiastic "culture of life" rituals to save a gay black man felled by complications from AIDS? Judging by the right-wing silence regarding the sad case of Sun Hudson in Texas, one must assume the answer is no. Which brings us to:

2. Many of the articles on this case point out that Schaivo's heart atack was brought on by bulimia. The jury in the malpractice case brought on her behalf whacked about 2/3rd of the award because the jury thought she was partly to blame for her collapse.

The Bush Social Security plan and the Republican-sponsored evisceration of the bankruptcy laws are both evidence of a general dedication on the Right to the individualization of risk -- if your life doesn't pan out, don't come looking to society to bail you out. And yet, incredibly, these paragons of consistency seem bound and determined to bring the full force and effect of the entire federal government to bear to rescue this woman who, though unfortunate, had a hand in her own tragedy.

Wanker of the Day: Jeff Gannon

JimmyJeff seems to think the REAL story on the shooting incident in Minnesota is that the kid was a liberal. How does he reach that conclusion? Because

The teenager who went on a shooting rampage at a Minnesota high school Monday, killing ten people including himself, apparently had links to a neo-Nazi website that promotes environmental extremism and eco-terrorism.

Despite those connections, don't expect the establishment media to make it an issue, said a spokesman for a free market think tank.

"A real Nazi killer commits horrible acts, and much to the media's disappointment, he's linked to green groups. Not convenient, not gonna go down that path," Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the free market Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Cybercast News Service Tuesday.

Understanding this bit of twisted logic requires wading through some industrial-strength slime. The link on JimmyJeff's website takes you to a story at the wingnut Cybercast News Service. That site in turn sends you to www.nazi.org, which JimmyJeff seems to think is a branch of the Environmental Defense Fund.

Sure, JimmyJeff. And TomDelay gives a rat's ass about Terry Schiavo. And you are a journalist.

Here is what the "Libertarian National Socialist Green Party" themselves say about their "green" connection:

Green is a fraction of the National Socialist view on land. "Blood and Soil" is our doctrine of homeland, or origin to each person, and thus which ground is sacred to them and they upkeep for generations. Each ethnic group should have a homeland, because in a consensus group one can declare poisoning the earth to be a great offense.

If that doesn't tip you off that this ain't exactly a liberal group, take a gander at this:

While ethnic mixing can be beneficial, as in the case of Southern Italy, it is important that the original Arctic tribes remain undiluted, and thus among these we have a strict prohibition on breeding outside of the tribe, as to incorporate the genetic histories of those who did not make the Arctic migration is to adulterate all that it signified, then and now, as a philosophy of believing in life enough to endure great hardship for the purpose of growing stronger. Indeed, the tribes of the south and east have clearly different standards than those of the Nordic-Germanic people, and this is why we demand separation and the right to self-determination.

Or perhaps this:

However, we also believe that there is no way for people with a Jewish ethnic and cultural identity to exist among us, thus they must be deported to their homeland, Israel, with our blessing.

And then there is the flyer on the www.nazi.org website that proclaims that "The average Black commits murder 7.9 times as often as the average White."

Reading is fundamental, JimmyJeff. You have to get past the labels. I know that not all gays are prostitutes, that not all gay prostitutes are liberal, and that not everyone who claims to be conservative views really thinks there is something inherently heinous about buggery for pay. You might want to learn how to do research, and perhaps graduate to the realization that not everything with "green" in the title is on our collective lefty buddy list.

Wanker.

IRS hits church over Sen. Kerry visit

viaThe Raw Story:


A Florida church’s tax-exempt status is in jeopardy as the IRS has launched a probe into a visit by former candidate John Kerry last fall, the (registration-restricted) Miami Herald reports Tuesday. Some wonder if the probe is politically motivated. Excerpts follow.

The probe is related to an appearance last October by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and several black leaders, including U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

The reason for the investigation, an IRS official wrote in a 10-page letter obtained by The Herald, is that “a reasonable belief exists that Friendship Missionary Baptist Church has engaged in political activities that could jeopardize its tax-exempt status as a church.'’


This move is a complete red herring. Team Bush does NOT want to keep church and state separate. They are doing this because they know that us libruls believe in the rule of law, and they want to establish the precedent of defending the right of churches to cross the line. They WANT preachers telling their flocks that they will all rot in eternal damnation unless they vote Republican.

New EPA Mercury Rule Omits Conflicting Data

Cooking the books, EPA style:

When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule last week to limit mercury emissions from U.S. power plants, officials emphasized that the controls could not be more aggressive because the cost to industry already far exceeded the public health payoff.

What they did not reveal is that a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion.

That analysis estimated health benefits 100 times as great as the EPA did, but top agency officials ordered the finding stripped from public documents, said a staff member who helped develop the rule. Acknowledging the Harvard study would have forced the agency to consider more stringent controls, said environmentalists and the study's author.

When you consider this in the context of the report issued last week about the health effects of mercury, the "culture of life" tripe rings rather hollow.

Schiavo in context: the war on science

from the Guardian, viaThe Smirking Chimp:

The interference by the White House in the case of Terri Schiavo - the woman at the centre of America's latest right-to-die controversy - marks another milestone in President Bush's campaign for faith over fact. More concerned with the wonder of miracles than Schiavo's 15-year irreversible vegetative state, Bush and his allies have blithely overturned multiple court decisions to maintain artificial feeding and let evangelical populism triumph over medical opinion.

Thanks to the policies and prejudices of the Bush administration, science has become a dirty word. The American century was built on scientific progress. From the automobile to the atom bomb to the man on the moon, science and technology underpinned American military, commercial and cultural might. Crucial to that was the presidency. From FDR and the Los Alamos laboratory to Kennedy and Nasa to Clinton and decoding the genome, the White House was vital to promoting ground-breaking research and luring the world's scientific elite. But Bush's faith-based, petro-chemical administration has reversed that tradition: excepting matters military, this presidency exhibits an abiding aversion to scientific inquiry that is in danger of affecting the entire country.

I'm not sure why, given the debacle of undermanned Iraqi forces, and the billions spent on "shoot down bullets with bullets" weapons systems, why the author exempts the military. but never mind.

I think there is an additional nefarious aspect to the Schiavo case. Think about the perfect American from the Republican standpoint -- compliant, obedient, cranium filled with tapioca -- sound familiar? Terry Schiavo isn't filing FOIA requests or asking awkward questions about Social Security. Rush has pointed out that by supporting abortion, Democrats are murdering potential liberal voters. The Republicans won't make that mistake. indeed, I'll wager they will try to find a way to let her parents fill out ballots for her.

Circus Circus

My wife likes watching CNN while getting ready in the morning. I usually can't stand to watch.

This morning they interrupted wall-to-wall Terry Schiavo only to show Michael Jackson's perp walk into court.

Not exactly how I would have stacked the top stories. Perhaps they could be persuaded to change their name to Circus, Not News.

Americans are just plain better people, part XIV

from Roachblog, a blog I had never seen, talking about Iraqis and Afghans who "expired" in US custody:

Suddenly, the count of prisoners dead in captivity is up to 108. Boy, that happened fast, didn't it? When I did my seven year hitch in the Navy, the gold standard for horrible, communist, totalitarian, non-Geneva convention deadly bastards who you never wanted to get captured by was the North Vietnamese.

They were happy if you died in your cell. They tortured. They hated. They abused just for perverse commie, Stalinist fun. They were the worst. Worse than Nazis, even, because the Nazis at least sometimes pretended to be civilized about POW treatment. The North Vietnamese didn't even pretend.

So how many American POWS died while captured by the insane and lawless North Vietnamese during the entire Vietnam war? One hundred and fourteen.

But those dead folks must've hated freedom, or we wouldn't have killed them.

Times gives Gannon hand job

viaEditor & Publisher:

In an interview to be published on Sunday in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, former White House correspondent/ escort Jeff Gannon (real name James Guckert) predicts, “At some point in the future, everyone is going to have a picture on the Internet that they are unhappy about.”

He also reveals that he’d “like to get back into journalism. I’m hoping someone will offer me a job as a commentator or one of those political analysts that you see on the news shows all the time.”

Asked about running a gay escort service, he pulls a Mark McGwire. He does not deny it, but says, “Don’t let that confuse the issue. We have driven so many good people from public service through the politics of personal destruction.” But, cryptrically, he admits that people in the White House press office “probably treated me better than I deserved.”

The one-page interview, by Deborah Solomon, which carries the headline “Blogged Down,” and refers to Gannon as a “shill,” is accompanied by a warm and fuzzy black and white photo of Gannon in a sweater, a far cry from the naked torso familiar to millions in recent weeks.

Can we just change the subtitle of the Times to "All the News George Bush Wants You to Read" and be done with it? And I have proudly called myself a liberal against all enemies, but I want to make damned sure that I'm not whatever they call the Times -- if they are liberal, I must be something else.

Rox Populi : Road Paved for Michelle Malkin to Join Reserves

The recent changes in the age cut-off for U.S. military recruiting presents an awkward situation for under-40 hypocrites like Michelle Malkin and Jonah Goldberg -- or would, if they saw hypocricy as something to be avoided, rather than a chance for them to perhaps earn their own Medals of Freedom.

The whole "fodder unit" thing is a lot less funny now, ain't it?

More on the Falluja killings

Aljazeera.Net - Journalists tell of US Falluja killings

All is quiet in Falluja, or at least that is how it seems, given that the mainstream media has largely forgotten about the Iraqi city. But independent journalists are risking life and limb to bring out a very different story.

The picture they are painting is of US soldiers killing whole families, including children, attacks on hospitals and doctors, the use of napalm-like weapons and sections of the city destroyed.

One of the few reporters who has reached Falluja is American Dahr Jamail of the Inter Press Service. He interviewed a doctor who had filmed the testimony of a 16-year-old girl.

"She stayed for three days with the bodies of her family who were killed in their home. When the soldiers entered she was in her home with her father, mother, 12 year-old brother and two sisters.

She watched the soldiers enter and shoot her mother and father directly, without saying anything. They beat her two sisters, then shot them in the head. After this her brother was enraged and ran at the soldiers while shouting at them, so they shot him dead," Jamail relates.

I really wish I could dismiss this as the raving of lunatics. But I can't -- I fear the lunatics are the ones doing the dismissing.

Zimbabwe Bars Critics As Poll Monitors

The government of President Robert Mugabe has hand-picked observers for Zimbabwe's upcoming parliamentary vote in what critics call a shallow and transparent attempt to restore legitimacy to the country's discredited democracy.

It has systematically barred observer missions from countries and groups that said elections in 2000 and 2002 were flawed and probably stolen by Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party amid massive vote-rigging and state-sponsored violence and intimidation.

Observers for the March 31 elections have been invited from generally pro-Mugabe African states such as South Africa, friendly countries such as China, Iran (news - web sites) and Venezuela, and from the Southern African Development Community, a generally supportive regional body.

"They left out everybody who gave them a negative report," said University of Zimbabwe political scientist John Makumbe.

"Essentially it says the regime has something to hide, that it can't stand close scrutiny," Makumbe said in a telephone interview from the United States, where he is a guest lecturer at Michigan State University.

I'm sure there is no truth to the rumors that Katherine Harris and Kenneth Blackwell have served as consultants to the Mugabe government. No truth at all.

Did US troops use chemical weapons in Fallujah?

It is from The Moscow Times, which 20 years ago would have made it laughable, but could not possibly be more full of shit than what we now get at home.

Earlier this month, the American media completely ignored an important announcement from an official of the Iraqi government concerning the oft-maligned U.S. operation to clear insurgents from the city of Fallujah last November. Although the press conference of Health Ministry investigator Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli was attended by representatives from The Washington Post, Knight-Ridder and more than 20 other international news outlets, nary a word of his team's thorough investigation into the truth about the battle made it through the filter's dense mesh. Once again, the American public was denied the full story of one of President Bush's remarkable triumphs.

Dr. ash-Shaykhli's findings provided confirmation of earlier reports by many other Iraqis -- reports that were also ignored by the arrogant filterers, who seem more interested in hearing from terrorists or anti-occupation extremists than ordinary Iraqis and those like Dr. ash-Shaykhli, who serve in the U.S.-backed interim government vetted and approved by President Bush. But while the media elite turn up their noses at such riffraff, the testimony of these common folk and diligent public servants gives ample evidence of Bush's innovative method of liberating innocent Iraqis from tyranny:

He burns them to death with chemical weapons.

The article backs up this accusation with specific, verifiable details. Is there a line Bush won't cross?

Draft alert

A dKos diary reports on the coming draft.

On March 31st, the Director of the Selective Service System (the SSS) is due to report to the Pentagon that the agency is ready to open 1,980 draft board offices around the country and be ready to operate lotteries by June 15th.

The next several weeks I believe will be crucial on the draft question. The generals have all gone before the nation and the press and said the recruitment is down and things look grim.

The only thing holding back the draft at this point appears to be Bush's losing fight on Social Security. He must wait until that vote is won or lost before he can take the unpopular and long-planned step of reinstating the draft.
...
The week after Social Security is voted up or down, expect legislation for the Skills Draft and Updated Medical Draft to appear on the Republican side. As soon as that goes through in the dead of some night, the draft will be reinstated soon after.

Time to learn the words to "O, Canada."

You go, Arianna

Salon.com The Washington establishment fails Logic 101

I just got back from a trip to the Happiest Place on Earth. Didn't ride the teacups, though. Because I wasn't in Disneyland but in Washington, D.C., where everyone is walking on air, swept away by the Beltway's latest consensus: President Bush was right on Iraq, and as a result, Tomorrowland in the Middle East will feature an E-ticket ride on the Matterhorn of freedom and democracy.

The political and cultural establishment has gone positively Goofy over this notion. In the corridors of power, Republicans are high-fiving and Democrats are nodding in agreement and patting themselves on the back for how graciously they've been able to accept the fact that they were wrong. The groupthink in the nation's capital would be the envy of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il.

Even heroes of mine like Jon Stewart and my buddy Bill Maher have hopped on the Bush bandwagon. "I've been supportive of President Bush," Maher told Wolf Blitzer this week, "now that I think Iraq is turning around ... He had a bigger and better idea than the rest of us."

She gets the logical fallacy wrong (it's post hoc ergo propter hoc). But it is still a strong, insightful piece. And she seems as worried as I am about how the Kool Aid is getting around.

The Dennis Millerization of Bill Maher

In my very first substantive post on this blog, when the anger and shock of the November election was still an open wound, I talked about the hollowing out of Bill Maher's final show of the season:

Pretty much all you need to know about what life will be like after election '04 was on display on the last Real Time of the season. The tenor of the show was rather different from the pre-election shows, as you might expect. The scary part was the anger and vicousness of the conservatives. A foul-mouthed Alan Simpson became Zell Miller, browbeating Maher, ignoring his questions and essentially threatening him. And Andrew Sullivan, whose relatively moderate blog I had been reading, was strident and nasty, falling over himself to show his Republican bona fides. The more liberal voices were generally subdued. By the end of the hour the air was completely out of the balloon. It would not surprise me if the show does not come back, or if they give it to Dennis Miller next time around.

I have watched the last few shows, and my prediction was only slightly off. Bill Maher is still the host, only now he seems to be channeling Dennis Miller. The guest panels lean right, and Miller/Maher talks about Bush as a man of vision on both Iraq policy and Social Security. And the next show will feature -- I'm not making this up -- Bill O'Reilly.

At this rate, soon the only thing worth watching on HBO will be The Sopranos, and you'll be able to get the equivalent just by watching C-SPAN.

Weekend Diversion: Kobes to the Lottery

With last night's loss to the Pacers, the L.A. Kobes have probably cemented their coveted place in the 2005 draft lottery. The Kobes are now below .500 with only 17 games left in the regular (and their only) season.

Steve Kerr on the great unravelling:

Bryant's desire to lead his own team to a championship may one day yield him another title, but at this point it seems like a distant mirage. Entering Friday's games, the Lakers trailed 1½ games behind Denver for the West's eighth and final playoff spot, and their schedule does not lend itself to a strong finish.

One wonders if Kobe spends any time at all pondering the events that led to Shaq's departure. Does he stay up at night thinking about what might have been? Does he wonder if he made a huge mistake in letting the Big Fella leave town? Does he ever consider that the two of them could have formed the NBA's greatest duo ever? Does he realize he could have worn six or seven championship rings by the end of his career?

Be careful what you wish for indeed.

I know most basketball fans are focused on March Madness about now. My preferred version is here.

Study: Abstinence May Lead to Risky Acts

Teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to take chances with other kinds of sex that increase the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, a study of 12,000 adolescents suggests.

The report by Yale and Columbia University researchers could help explain their earlier findings that teens who pledged abstinence are just as likely to have STDs as their peers.

The latest study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that teens pledging virginity until marriage are more likely to have oral and anal sex than other teens who have not had intercourse. That behavior, however, "puts you at risk," said Hannah Brueckner, assistant professor of sociology at Yale and one of the study's authors.

Among virgins, boys who have pledged abstinence were four times more likely to have had anal sex, according to the study. Overall, pledgers were six times more likely to have oral sex than teens who have remained abstinent but not as part of a pledge.

Given the source of the push for abstinence, and his well-known lack of empathy for the fodder units of the world, an Antoinette-inspired alternative name for our imperial President's favored program suggests itself: Let them eat cock.

More on Taiwan, China and the balance of trade

On Monday I linked to Steve Soto's observation that the U.S. is unlikely to have any effect on the brewing Taiwan-China situation. Yesterday Tom Friedman echoed:

The excessive tax cuts for the rich, combined with a total lack of discipline on spending by the Bush team and its Republican-run Congress, have helped China become the second-largest holder of U.S. debt, with a little under $200 billion worth. No, I don't think China will start dumping its T-bills on a whim. But don't tell me that as China buys up more and more of our debt - and that is the only way we can finance the tax holiday the Bush team wants to make permanent - it won't limit our room to maneuver with Beijing, should it take aggressive steps toward Taiwan. What China might do with all its U.S. T-bills in the event of a clash over Taiwan is a total wild card that we have put in Beijing's hands.

The conventional wisdom, as voiced by Dick Cheney, is that deficits don't matter. I sense imminent refutation, though such logic-based concepts have become increasingly quaint.

A Connecticut Democrat in Joementum's Court?

Salon reports that there may be a primary challenge for George Bush's favorite Democrat in Name Only:

Bloggers have begun to suggest that it's time for a "real" Democrat to challenge Lieberman in the 2006 primary. It appears they may get their wish. John Orman, a politics professor at Fairfield University, tells the Associated Press that he's thinking about making a run. "Our party's senator is no longer a Democrat," Orman told the AP. "He has joined the Republicrat Party. After 17 years as a safe-seat senator, Joe has lost touch with his party and with his state."

Orman may be half-right. While Lieberman has set himself apart from other Democrats, the man Josh Marshall calls "the dean of the fainthearted faction" remains wildly popular among Connecticut voters: According to the New York Times, recent polls show that more than two-thirds of the state's Democrats -- and more than two-thirds of the state's Republicans -- approve of the way Lieberman is handling his job. Orman says he understands that challenging Lieberman would be a challenge, but he sees a benefit in just trying: Having someone run to his left "could make Joe Lieberman be a Democrat for a year."

His campaign can count on a few dollars from me.

GOP boards up the 'town hall'

Sure, it is dumbed down. But man, USA Today sure hits hard.

Republicans in Congress have a game plan to avoid "March madness" when they go home this weekend to talk to constituents about Social Security during a two-week holiday recess.

Shaken by raucous protests at open "town hall"-style meetings last month, House Republican Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce of Ohio and other GOP leaders are urging lawmakers to hold lower-profile events this time.
...
This month, Republican leaders say they are chucking the open town-hall format. They plan to visit newspaper editorial boards and talk to constituents at Rotary Club lunches, senior citizen centers, chambers of commerce meetings and local businesses. In those settings, "there isn't an opportunity for it to disintegrate into something that's less desirable," says Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.

Uh, yeah. Like democracy.

Republican leaders are urging their party's lawmakers to take the spotlight off themselves by convening panels of experts from the Social Security Administration, conservative think tanks, local colleges and like-minded interest groups to answer questions about the federal retirement program.

The shift in venues and formats, Santorum says, is aimed at producing "more of an erudite discussion" about Social Security's problems and possible solutions.

"Erudite" translates as "make sure nobody with a friggin clue is allowed within a hundred yards of us."

Santorum was among dozens of members of Congress who ran gantlets of demonstrators and shouted over hecklers at Social Security events last month. Many who showed up to protest were alerted by e-mails and bused in by anti-Bush organizations such as MoveOn.org and USAction, a liberal advocacy group. They came with prepared questions and instructions on how to confront lawmakers.

MoveOn, which campaigned against Bush's re-election and is now focused on defeating his Social Security proposals, has issued a guide for activists. It includes such tips as: "Ask pointed questions that put the representative or senator on record on important issues like benefit cuts, raising the retirement age and new debt necessary to pay for privatization." It also includes a section on "How to talk to a conservative about Social Security (if you must)." The group says it sent activists to 28 meetings.

Pryce says of such efforts: "It's 'Rabble Rousing 101.' " She contends that the groups gave their followers "everything but eggs to throw at us."

The nerve of those rabble rousers -- armed with actual questions. Didn't the Patriot Act ban those?

Pryce says many Republicans "came back amazed at the depths that the opposition is going to and a little wiser about how to promote our issues." She says opposition tactics scared away constituents with "legitimate concerns," and Republicans now want to "put a little more control back into it."

It is common knowledge that responsible leaders value control above the free exchange of ideas. You know, like ... Stalin. And Mussolini. And that little Austrian guy.

But many other Republican lawmakers didn't hold Social Security events last month. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas says he was "disappointed" by how few Republicans held town halls during the Presidents Day recess: 95 out of 232.
...
"There are some people who are probably shying away" from holding meetings, says Rep. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who offered advice on how to avoid disruptions to her fellow Republicans at a House caucus meeting last week. Capito, a veteran of town-hall meetings in other years that she has "not been able to control," reported that two recent district meetings went off without a hitch.

"You don't call on (protesters) when you see them in the audience, because you know who your constituents are," says Capito, who doesn't plan any public events on Social Security this month.

Well duh. If they protest, they aren't constituents. Only the folks who vote for us are constituents, right?

Pryce denies that her party's members would limit participants or audiences to supporters, as the Bush administration has done during its current 60-day Social Security tour.

I sure feel safer knowing USA Today is out there speaking truth to power.

BBC NEWS: US planned Iraq invasion before 9/11

The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.

Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protesters claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.

In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists".

"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.

Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US.


This is big -- bigger even than steroids in baseball. Yet my Google News search reveals that exactly zero mainstream American news sites are picking it up. Zilch.

I guess the "accountability moment" has passed on this issue.

Mercury, Autism Connection Found in Study

Coming on the heels of the recent promulgation of regulations allowing coal-fired power plants to continue pumping out mercury-laden emissions, this story should resonate -- but won't:

Texas researchers have found a possible link between autism and mercury in the air and water.

Studying individual school districts in Texas, the epidemiologists found that those districts with the highest levels of mercury in the environment also had the highest rates of special education students and autism diagnoses.

The study does not prove that mercury causes autism, cautioned the lead author, Raymond F. Palmer of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, but it provides a "provocative" clue that should be further investigated.

"Mercury is a known neurotoxin," said Dr. Isaac Pessah of UC Davis' MIND Institute, who was not involved in the study. "It's rather intriguing that the correlation is so positive," meaning that there was a strong, direct relationship between mercury and autism levels. "It makes one worry."

Scion of traitors and warlords: Bush's Irish links

The Guardian reports on a newly discovered aspect of Dubya's geneology:

The US president's now apparent ancestor, Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke - known as Strongbow for his arrow skills - is remembered as a desperate, land-grabbing warlord whose calamitous foreign adventure led to the suffering of generations.

Reminds me of the old joke about the difference between a catfish and a personal injury lawyer -- one is a scum-sucking bottom feeder and the other is a fish.

Crooked Timber: Further religious news

In the newly revised, more accessible edition of the New International Version of the Bible, “stoned” has been changed to “stoned to death” for fear that modern readers may get the impression that the reward for adultery is a big spliff.

SUV trifecta: GM's Blazer Ranked Deadliest Car on U.S. Roadways

The two-door Chevrolet Blazer from General Motors Corp. has the highest driver death rate of any passenger vehicle on U.S. roadways, a research group with links to the insurance industry said on Tuesday.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (news - web sites) based that conclusion, and its embarrassing result for the world's largest automaker, on an extensive study of passenger vehicles from the 1999-2002 model years.

The study focused on the rate of driver deaths in various types of crashes, including both single- and multiple-vehicle accidents.

The overall driver death rate, for 199 models studied during the 2000-2003 calendar years, was 87 per million registered vehicles annually, the Insurance Institute said.

Weighing in at more than three times the overall rate, the Insurance Institute said the two-door, two-wheel-drive Blazer -- a midsize sport utility vehicle -- had an average of 308 driver deaths per million.

The Blazer also had the highest rate of driver deaths in rollover accidents at 251 per million.


Sure, you buy an SUV to show off your profligacy by wasting as much gasoline as possible. But sleep easy knowing you get a death trap at no extra cost.

Very shrewd.

And kudos to the General for doggedly pursuing such a wise and responsible strategery.

'Passion' Tied to Attacks on Canadian Jews

Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" on Tuesday was cited by a report as the cause of an upsurge last year in Canadian anti-Semitic attacks, now running at a record pace.

The League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith, releasing its 2004 audit of anti-Semitic attacks in Canada, said last year's media coverage of Gibson's film and its alleged depiction of Jews as the "Christ killer" led to an often violent spike in attacks against the Canadian Jewish community.

"Whereas only nine incidents in 2003 had religious connotations to the story of Jesus' death, there were 32 such incidents in 2004, nine of them in February when the movie opened and a further 15 in the three months following its release," the B'nai Brith study found.

As unappealing as The Torture of the Christ isn't the cause of the problem. Stupidity is. I guess we need to keep in mind that religious zealotry exists north of the border, too.

GM pays the piper: sales slump, stock nears 13-year low

A week ago I posted on the way oil prices had begun to affect SUV sales. I prognosticated thusly:

When these chickens come home to roost, and they will, the effects will not be subtle. The 1973 oil crisis will look mild by comparison, and GM, Ford and Chrysler will be caught as flat-footed as they were 30 years ago.

Reuters reports:

General Motors Corp. (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Wednesday warned its 2005 earnings will be as much as 80 percent below its prior forecast due to slumping North American auto sales, sending its shares down 13 percent to a nearly 13-year low.

The warning from the world's largest carmaker, whose once dominant position in its key U.S. market has fallen to less than a 25 percent share on a steady loss to foreign automakers, spurred Standard & Poor's to caution that it could downgrade GM's debt to "junk" status at any time, which would likely raise its borrowing costs.

GM also said it will post a loss in the first quarter, compared with its prior forecast of breaking even or better, due to significant losses in North America.

The automaker's top money-makers in the United States, SUVs and pickup trucks, have been losing out to newer offerings from competitors.

But have no fear. ANWR will save us all. Consume, America. (Actually, there are a number of ways of punctuating that sentence. Take your pick.)

Jeff Gannon lives

I just watched a few minutes of the Preznit's press conference. A reporter I did not recognize asked the Boy King if the flowering of democracy in the Middle East gave him a "sense of vindication."

Attaboy, Mr. Hardball.

I said a few weeks ago that the reason for publicizing Gannon's hackery was not the ways in which he differs from the rest of the White house Press corps, but the ways in which he is indistinguishable from them.

Q.E.D.

Was the Sgrena shooting a hit?

Seems like a pretty good case can be made that it was. If so, it was as well thought through as the rest of this operation -- it has led directly to the announcement that Italy is pulling its troops from Iraq.

Al Qaeda had to kill 191 people to get Spain out of the "coalition of the willing." We are far more efficient - we pushed out Italy by killing just one guy, and it wasn't even the person we are aiming at.

Want to know what Bush thinks? Read Sharansky

The great interest in the Israeli government minister responsible for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, [Natan Sharansky,] does not derive from the way in which he is carrying out his duties, or from his heroic past as a freedom fighter in the Soviet Union, but rather from the fact that none other than United States President George W. Bush has enlisted in the publicity campaign for his new book.

The brand new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, told Sharansky about this in November, when she was still serving in her previous role as national security advisor. She said she wasn't reading the book because it is a best-seller, but rather because the president is reading it, and she had to read every book that her president reads.

Pity poor Condi, having to read "every book that the president reads." how does she keep up?

My guess is that by now she can recite "My Pet Goat" from memory.

The Left Coaster connects the dots on China-Taiwan

The Left Coaster Steve Soto points out that China's sabre-rattling isn't just about Taiwan.

No one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue should overlook the fact that this vote was authorized after we asked for restraint. This is nothing more than the Chinese wanting to show that the Bush Administration, despite all its bluster, is impotent outside of Iraq. It sends the desired message to all countries in Asia and throughout the world that the Chinese don’t think much anymore of Bush or his administration, and I’m sure the Chinese leadership is eagerly awaiting the first visit of Condi Twin Mirrors to schmooze them.

There's an old saying in business: if you owe a thousand dollars to the bank, you have a problem; if you the bank a million dollars, they have a problem. I think the opposite likely applies with foreign currency exchange. China holds bazillions in overvalued dollars. If they dump them, China could easily start a run on the dollar that could devastate the U.S. economy. And convince George Bush to imitate Ned Beatty in Deliverance.

Wanker of the day

Jeff Gannon:

While he is "on hiatus" from the White House briefing room, JimmyJeff lobs his whiffleballs from the comfort of his personal website. Today he exhibits the deep insight for which he is famous:

"'On Sunday, the New York Times reported that weapons sites were looted in the weeks following the invasion of Iraq. If there were no WMDs and the regime posed no threat as the media continues to emphasize, isn't this an insignificant revelation?'"

Amen, JimmyJeff. Ask the 150,000 or so U.S. troops in Iraq about the significance of the 380 tons of high explosives removed from Al Qa Qaa, which are the most likely primary source of the explosives which have been used to blow up Humvees and in all the deadly car bomb attacks since the Occupation began.

Ask the families of the roughly 200 American soldiers killed by IEDs, JimmyJeff. I'm sure they will all line up beside you to tell us all just how insignificant those weapons sites were.

Wanker.

Start Change Now -> Stop Fake News

It might just be barking at the moon, but sign the stopfakenews.com email anyway.

L@@K~CRUCIFIX - CHRISTIAN ICON - POTATO CHIP ~ UNIQUE!!

Been a while since we saw something from the Virgin Mary on a Grilled Cheese Sandwich crowd....

Wisc. Sect Focused on 'End Time' Prophecy

Terry Ratzmann, the man who police say killed seven people and then himself during a church service, was a member of the Living Church of God, a denomination that focuses on "end-time" prophecies.

The church's estimated 6,300 members in 40 countries place a strong emphasis on using world news to "prove" that these are end times, to be followed by Christ's second coming.

This year, the group's leader, Dr. Roderick C. Meredith, wrote that events prophesied in the Bible are "beginning to occur with increasing frequency."

"We are not talking about decades in the future. We are talking about Bible prophesies that will intensify within the next five to 15 years of your life," he wrote in the church's magazine, Tomorrow's World.

He advised members to gather emergency food supplies and follow government instructions on how to prepare for an emergency. He also warned about a coming "financial emergency" and cited an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about the financial fallout as baby boomers retire.

Oh, my. Homicidal wackos tied to an apocalyptic religion. Where have we heard that before?

Now if only the mainstream press would follow this one where it leads....

The new entitlement

New piece up @ Raw Story. Joe Bob sez check it out.

A small sliver of reason: Gas prices affect SUV sales

Rising U.S. gasoline prices are hurting sales of large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks, according to some industry analysts, a trend that could stall a major engine of profits for Detroit's automakers.

The gas-thirsty, full-sized SUV segment lost 1.2 percentage points of U.S. market share over the last two months and large pickups were down about 2 percentage points, according to Edmunds.com, which tracks the industry.

Fuel-efficient compact cars, on the other hand, gained 2.2 percentage points of market share in the same period.

Large SUVs and full-sized pickup trucks account for close to 80 percent of North American automotive profits for Ford Motor Co. (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and General Motors Corp. (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache said in a recent research note.

When these chickens come home to roost, and they will, the effects will not be subtle. The 1973 oil crisis will look mild by comparison, and GM, Ford and Chrysler will be caught as flat-footed as they were 30 years ago.

Congress May Cut Food Aid, Not Farm Aid

"Mr President? Congressional Republican Ideological Purity Commission here. We know that your mandate was for the dismantling of the welfare state -- well, for the part that helps the poor, anyway. So we were, um, puzzled when the White House proposed cutting back on the largest farm subsidies in the proposed budget.

The president wants to lower the maximum subsidies that can be collected each year by any one farm operation from $360,000 to $250,000. He also asked Congress to cut by 5 percent all farm payments, and he wants to close loopholes that enable some growers to annually collect millions of dollars in subsidies.

Instead, Republican committee chairmen are looking to carve savings from nutrition and land conservation programs that are also run by the Agriculture Department. The government is projected to spend $52 billion this year on nutrition programs like food stamps, school lunches and special aid to low-income pregnant women and children. Farm subsidies will total less than half that, $24 billion.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said the $36 billion food stamp program is a good place to look for savings.

"Come on now, Mr. President. How could you have forgotten? Income redistribution is fine, but only from poor to rich, remember? Try to keep it straight, sir --Take from the poor, give to the rich.

"We've got your back, sir. Now go evict some widows and orphans."

Moonie Times to Prez on SS: Drop Dead

Bad advice to Bush blamed for Social Security struggle - The Washington Times:

There was this:

Republicans hold seven of the nine seats in Alabama's congressional delegation, but most of them won't be joining President Bush when he visits Montgomery on Thursday to promote his Social Security plan.

And of course the kiss-off from Katherine Harris, the Ken Blackwell of 2000:

President George W. Bush's first visit to Sarasota in more than three years was nixed just hours after it was announced on Thursday.
...
The visit also could have had strategic implications for Harris, who has balked at fully endorsing the president's efforts. Harris has said she is willing to consider the idea of private accounts, but has stopped short of saying the president can count on her vote. Harris said any plan that goes to a vote in Congress must have assurances that current seniors won't see any change in their benefits.


But this has got to be the coup de grace:

A senior Republican senator said, "The message coming out of the White House is that we'll fix Social Security by raising your taxes and cutting your retirement benefits and, to get something passed, we'll forget about the personal retirement accounts we promised."
The senator said that is like telling voters, "Never vote for Republicans again -- we lie."

Actually, Senator, you and your boss have been transmitting that message on all frequencies for four years, but until now lots of folks weren't receiving.

If the Moonie Times is running a story like this, it seems a very safe bet that every Republican outside the White House has given up on privatization, and our Preznit is about to learn what it means to be a lame duck.

We are fast approaching the point where it will make sense to redeploy efforts to the next battle.

Obama finds Bush's pitch 'offensive'

I had been wondering when the new wunderkind would step up on Social Security. He may be late to the party, but manomanoman, did he deliver. He said the things you would expect him to say about Bush's shameful bit about Social Security being a bad deal for blacks because of their lower life expectancy. The super double-good extra was his inspired, easy-to-grasp reductio ad absurdum:

Said Obama, "This is as if the president is arguing for privatization of fire protection because our houses aren't worth as much as houses in rich neighborhoods. Or maybe we could privatize police protection because if we get robbed, our stuff is not as nice. It defies logic.''

Wow.

'NY Times' Gives Frank Rich an Op Ed Slot

OK, that puts OpEd in good shape. But when are ethey going to do sometting about the pathetic state of the Ed? The rest of the paper bears the same resemblence to the Times of old that the LA Kobes bear to the Showtime Lakers.

Dismal Science Wankery

viaUB News Services:

As Team Bush watches its Social Security plan take on water like a conceptual Exxon Valdez, I expect them to reach for ever more slender reeds in their attempts to sell a truly lousy idea. So it would not surprise me in the least to see this study published by economist Isaac Erlich thrust into daylight soon.

Policymakers and citizens pondering the merits of Social Security reform should consider new evidence showing that "social security" adversely affects decisions to marry and have children.

A new University at Buffalo study, examining the experience of 57 countries over a 32-year period, concludes that in the U.S. and other countries where social security is instituted as a defined-benefits, pay-as-you-go system, marriage and fertility rates fell sharply over time -- partly as a result of social security itself.

I studied a bit of econometrics in college. And I take a very dim view of studies like these. Econometrics is moderately good at showing correlations between phenomena that may or not be related. Post hoc ergo propter hoc is not a commonly-understood logical fallacy among the regression-happy computer jockeys who now call themselves economists.

According to the study, declines in marriage and fertility rates that are attributable to the specific impact of social security were not observed on average among the subset of countries (Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines) in the international sample that utilize government-managed personal saving accounts or privatized pension funds (Chile) as a basis of their social security system, rather than our type of pay-as-you-go social security.

Ehrlich, who supports the principle of social security as a means to secure old-age pension benefits, attributes declines in U.S. marriage and fertility rates partly to a Social Security system that does not strongly link the defined benefits with contributions that are supposed to fund the system.

Prior to the establishment of current form of Social Security in the U.S., the family was the main form of social security, Ehrlich points out. "Working children took care of retired parents as they aged, and so there was an incentive for parents to have large families," he says.

A pay-as-you-go system is, in principle, financially sound if it behaves like a large family where the entire generation of retirees is supported by the succeeding generation of workers, Ehrlich says. "In reality, however," he adds, "the pay-as-you-go system does not provide strong incentives for the system to remain financially sound.

"Today, your Social Security benefits are entirely independent of what your children put into the system or whether you have any children at all. And yet the entire concept of our current Social Security system is based on the present generation of retirees being financed by the next generation of workers, their children.

"There is an obvious disconnect between the financial needs of the system and the needs of the family," he concludes. "The structure of our Social Security system is sowing the seeds of its own financial vulnerability, if not ultimate demise."

The solution, Ehrlich suggests, is to reform Social Security by making it fully funded by individual contributions (thus, also independent of inter-generational support).


Turns out Mr. Ehrlich "supports the principle of social security" if by Social Security you mean the antithesis of what it has meant for the last 70 years: he has been flogging our existing Social Security system for more than a decade.

Erlich's "support" is clear in a quote from another source.

"The crisis has already started, and it's only going to get worse," said Isaac Ehrlich, University at Buffalo distinguished professor and chair of the department of economics, and a longtime supporter of Social Security reform.

Ehrlich has shilled for other Bush economic voodoo before. And he made himself popular with conservatives years ago by writing a study that tried to bolster arguments for the death penalty by claiming that every execution deterred eight murders (a study quickly debunked by the National Academy of Sciences).

...But I digress.

Doesn't the U.S. already have the highest birth rate of any industrialized nation? Other than creating additional drones in an intergenerational Ponzi scheme, why in a world of scarce resources would you want to reverse the normal reduction in birth rates that comes with a rising standard of living?

So if that's your goal, lots of things encourage higher birth rates, Mr. Ehrlich. Like poverty, for instance. And low educational levels. So if you want to raise birth rates, you should be advocating something absurd like making most Americans poorer and less educated.

Oh, wait -- you are. Never mind.

Cognitive Dissonance, thy name is Dreier

It is tough to find a better case study in self-negation than the gay-bashing gay Congressman from Rancho Cucamonga. (Well, there's cub reporter JimmyJeff and his 8 inch cut anti-pornographic Johnson.... But I digress.)

A rather remarkable example of his situationality is listed in the report the House Dems just put out on the tactics of the Republicans in the 108th Congress. The report quotes a USA Today story in which Dreier unapologetically admits that where he stands on issues of governance depends entirely on where he sits:

"We have had to do some of the things we criticized once…But now that I'm in the
majority, I have this responsibility to govern. It's something I didn't completely understand when I was in the minority."

[Insert your own snarky comment here about what the personal lives of large numbers of prominent Republicans must be like if the closeted Mr. Dreier is in the majority.]

New and Improved Pneumonia®

Now with Kung Fu Poison Phlegm ^TM and Judith Miller Hacking^TM Cough. And dynamic hock-a-loogie action.

Batteries not included. Offer void where prohibited.

Gannongate: dKos sets the record straight (so to speak) on porn

While Jeff Gannon's colleagues at the "conservative" news website GOPUSA.com were writing about pornography in this manner -

April Shenandoah...We are allowing the devil to vomit all over our children, and we elect political officials who gladly swim in the same puke. We should be doing everything humanly and spiritually possible to drown pornography in its own vomit... link

Jeff "Bulldog" Gannon not only was posting pornographic pictures of himself to sell gay porn on the internet, he was operating as a porn webmaster himself.

Thanks to the excellent investigative work of blogslut, here , we now have definite confirmation that James Dale Guckert aka "Jeff Gannon" was an adult porn webmaster.
Useful stuff to keep in mind when cutting through all the nonsense Gannon and others are arguing.

Interesting and scary take on the Sgrena shooting

fromWatching the Watchers.org

Could it be that, Giuliana Sgrena, was a “friendly” hostage in Iraq? In other words, was her “kidnapping” by Iraqi resistance fighters a cover to allow her to investigate US war crimes in Iraq, and Fallujah specifically? I raise this question only as a possibility because it is apparent that the Bush minion and front man in Iraq, John Negroponte, either believed this, or at least suspected it, and took drastic steps to prevent journalist Giuliana Sgrena from leaving Iraq without first searching her person, and those traveling with her.

These kinds of conspiracy-theory explanations look less wacko by the day. The Italians are seriously pissed about now -- pissed enough to bring down Berlusconi, and maybe even enough to get a bit of truth out.

Spy Agencies Fear Some Applicants Are Terrorists

U.S. counterintelligence officials are increasingly concerned that Al Qaeda sympathizers or operatives may have tried to get jobs at the CIA (news - web sites) and other U.S. agencies in an effort to spy on American counterterrorist efforts.

So far, about 40 Americans who sought positions at U.S. intelligence agencies have been red-flagged and turned away for possible ties to terrorist groups, the officials said. Several such applicants have been detected at the CIA.

"We think terrorist organizations have tried to insinuate people into our hiring pools," said Barry Royden, a 39-year CIA veteran who is a counterintelligence instructor at the agency.

Also, three senior counterintelligence officials said they feared terrorist groups may be trying to place an "insider" in America's fast-growing counterterrorist planning and operational networks as part of a long-term strategy to compromise U.S. intelligence efforts.

Note to terrorists: Use an alias. "Jeff Gannon" seems to work pretty well.

Gannongate - new angle?

AMERICAblog picks up on something I missed on JimmyJeff's site yesterday:

I watched a clip of Sen. Joe Biden on Bill Maher's HBO crapfest. I wonder why he didn't mention meeting me some years ago. C'mon Joe, think...

Now, GannonGuckert is either lying or telling the truth. If he's lying, his already sinking credibility will sink even further. If he's telling the truth, however, then things get even more interesting with this story as "some years ago" would be at least two years ago, and it's only two years that Gannon has been covering the White House. That would put GannonGuckert and Biden's "meeting" smack dab in the middle of Gannon's known prostitution years.

And if GannonGuckert is suggesting he slept with a senior US Senator (who is one of the top Senators on foreign policy issues) for pay during war time, then all bets are off on this investigation. That would mean we were right to be concerned about the security risk of GannonGuckert getting access to the White House, senior staff and the president. It would mean we were right to be concerned about who GannonGuckert might have slept with as a client to gain and retain access to the White House, and possibly sensitive information. It would mean we were right to ask what connection GannonGuckert has to Senator Thune in South Dakota, to Karl Rove, to Scott McClellan, and more.

If Gannon really wants to go there, then have at it. Because he's starting to make the case for one hell of an FBI investigation.

While this could be bad for Joe Biden personally, it could be just what the rest of us need to blast this story onto the front page...

So you go, JimmyJeff -- out a prominent Democrat. The mainstream will grab the story, and let's see where it leads.

Huge Beirut rally rejects Syria pullout

via Aljazeera:

Team Bush has pointed to the anti-Syria protests in Beirut as evidence of their "spring is bustin' out all over" view of the domino effect of invading Iraq. So what do they make of this?

Hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese flooded central Beirut on Tuesday for a pro-Syrian rally called by Hizb Allah.

The protest dwarfed previous protests demanding that Syrian troops quit Lebanon.

Hizb Allah chief Shaikh Hasan Nasr Allah urged the Lebanese opposition to join a national unity government and reject a UN demand for the Syrians to leave and his own militia to disarm.

Nasr Allah said no one in Lebanon feared the United States, whose troops left Beirut in 1984, a few months after a bomber killed 241 Marines at their headquarters in the capital.

"We have defeated them in the past and if they come again we will defeat them again," he said, drawing chants of "Death to America" from the sea of demonstrators.

As the mainly Shia Muslim crowds thronged Riad al-Solh square, Syrian forces began moving eastwards under a phased withdrawal plan announced on Monday, the Lebanese army said.

The huge Hizb Allah rally was the first major show of popular support for Syria in Beirut since the 14 February assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri touched off daily anti-Syrian protests, mainly involving Maronite Christians.

Lebanon is probably even more ethnically complex than Iraq, though it lacks Iraq's strategic significance (i.e., its oil). The local Muslims see Hezbollah (and Syria) very differently than we do.

Hizb Allah, dubbed a terrorist group by Washington, began as an anti-Israel militia but is now also a political party with deputies in parliament and a network of charities.
...
Syrian forces are credited with helping end the civil war that tore Lebanon apart.

Christian, Muslim and Druze militias fought each other and about 150,000 people are thought to have died in that conflict.

If Ringo Bush straps on his six-gun and proposes to get us involved, I pray someone in the inner circle has the guts to ask, "you and what army?"

Rigorous Intuition: The Benefit of the Dumb

Lots of folks are talking about how Giulana Sgrena shooting ought to rehabilitate Eason Jordan. It should.

Here is an excellent piece on what happened, and why, and how shameful U.S. coverage has been.

Here are two excerpts from Sgrena's work, which may speak to motive. First, a July, 2004 interview with a woman tortured in Abu Ghraib:

I asked her if she was held on her own all the time. 'No. It was then that they put me in a cell with other women, two women per cell. There were thirteen women, mainly wives of men belonging to the previous regime, and seven children. There was even the wife of Sabah Merza, one of Saddam's guards in the 1970s, who kept her hands plunged in ice to soothe the pain caused by the torture that had been inflicted on her. Another woman was in really bad shape: they'd kept hurling her against the wall. Another had been locked in a tiny cage for six days and couldn't even move. One of the prisoners had been forced to walk on all fours and her knees and elbows were in a terrible state. Another woman had been forced to separate faeces from urine, using her own hands. The soldiers frequently forced us to drink water from the toilet bowl. A woman of sixty, who had said she was a virgin, was continually threatened with rape.'

Did you know of cases of rape? 'Yes, but I'm not going to go into that. In our society, it's something you don't talk about.' How old were the women prisoners? 'Between forty and sixty years of age.' And what about children, how were they treated? 'We heard them screaming. They were tortured too. Mostly dogs were set on them.'

And last November, in Fallujah:

"We buried them, but we could not identify them because they were charred from the napalm bombs used by the Americans." People from Saqlawiya village, near Falluja, told al Jazeera television, based in Qatar, that they helped bury 73 bodies of women and children completely charred, all in the same grave. The sad story of common graves, which started at Saddam’s times, is not yet finished. Nobody could confirm if napalm bombs have been used in Falluja, but other bodies found last year after the fierce battle at Baghdad airport were also completely charred and some thought of nuclear bombs. No independent source could verify the facts, since all the news arrived until now are those spread by journalists embedded with the American troops, who would only allow British and American media to enrol with them. But the villagers who fled in the last few days spoke of many bodies which had not been buried: it was too dangerous to collect the corpses during the battle.

As she was released, Sgrena's captors - whoever they were - warned her to take care, because "there are Americans who don't want you to go back."

An independent foreign journalist, witness to numerous war crimes, writing for a communist paper. Would the killers and heirs of killers of nuns, Kennedys and Kings blink an eye at targetting such a person?

Sgrena's ambush was a colossal mistake, only because she survived it.