a worthy ready

it's not often that i read the front page of DU, (here's where i declare my $10/month membership), but this one was a worthy read by all.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/05/11/12_believe.html

read it and tell me that it's not true. i dare ya.

any narnia fans out there?

this was mentioned on DU about narnia:

It is the big daddy who makes the rules and doesn't tell you what they are and requires that you live your life by them and as means to his end, and judges you by them and bestows rewards or imposes punishment on you when you die, except you really don't die, according to whether he likes you or not content.

shit, you cant unquote out of this damn GUI on blogger. i hate their shit. but if that's what narnia is really all about, i think i wanna take a gander at it.

Paragraph Pick of the Day

Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus, in a Page One WP fact-check, note that the administration's defense—that Congress saw the same intelligence as the White House before the war and that independent commissions have determined the intelligence to have been represented accurately—is not quite true.

(thanks to today's papers for their patriotic service to America)

Letter of the WeeQ

After the last election I made the statement that mass education was not working in America. Well I was wrong. President Bush's approval rating is down to 34 percent, Vice President Dick Cheney's is down to 19 percent. The public can be educated — it just takes time.

—William Tempelmeyer, retired special education teacher, Marshalltown.

attribution

i jus happen to know bill tempelmeyer. he used to come into the tallcorn hotel where i worked as a bartender.

Letter Of The Day

today, you get to make the choice. which letter would you pick to win LOTD?

Why do President Bush and Vice President Cheney continue to fight Sen. John McCain's amendment to codify what is the armed forces' official stance on torture?

This is from the White House's official statement on the matter: "The administration strongly opposes such amendments, which would interfere with the protection of Americans from terrorism by diverting resources from the war to answer unnecessary or duplicative inquiry or by restricting the president's ability to conduct the war effectively under existing law."

Set aside the fact that torture has been shown to be ineffective. Ignore the fact that we condemn such behavior in other countries (such as Saddam's Iraq), or that the Army's own guide to conduct explicitly forbids such behavior.

Ask yourself this question: Why is President Bush willing to exercise the first veto of his two terms in office to allow torture? And then ask yourself this: If the president is successful, are you still proud to be an American citizen?

—-Jeff Dickey-Chasins, Grinnell.

Regarding the recent Nov. 5 article, "Cheney Says Exempt CIA From Suspect Torture Ban": The truly interesting, below-the-surface part of this article is not that Vice President Cheney wants to continue ignoring the Geneva Convention rules on the treatment of prisoners of war. That is to be expected from this crowd.

The interesting part is that someone "leaked" what Cheney said at a weekly private meeting of Republican senators.

This has been the most secretive and behind-the-scenes administration for many years. The fact that the dike is cracking and that the veil of secrecy and the "house of cards" is coming down is the real headline.

It's due time.

—Rodger Routh, Ankeny.

attribution

a great editorial

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051112/OPINION04/511120311/1035/OPINION

keeping him in the dark

won't work for an excuse, i'm sorry sir, but you'll need to do better than that.

A former top official in the Bush administration is suggesting that a White House memo outlining the need for hundreds of thousands of troops for the Iraq invasion was kept from the president. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to then-secretary of state Colin Powell during President Bush's first term, said in a November 7 speech that the National Security Council had prepared a pre-war memo recommending that hundreds of thousands of troops and other security personnel were needed. “I don't know if the president saw it,” Wilkerson told the audience of military officers and international lawyers, who had gathered at the military for a conference on on international humanitarian law. In response to a follow-up question after his speech, Wilkerson, a retired U.S. army colonel, said he believed that then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice or her deputy, Stephen Hadley, had blocked the memo, but he acknowledged that he had no clear evidence.

--source

i am convinced

cbsnews has seen the light and is helping to dethrone the thieves of washington.

Pundit Pic of the Day

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/10.html#a5800

Caught On Kos

A proposal to end the long-standing practice of veterans groups addressing a joint session of the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees is an insult to all who have fought, sacrificed and died to defend the Constitution, according to the Disabled American Veterans (DAV). And in a strongly worded letter to House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.), the DAV has urged him to continue the joint hearings as an invaluable tool in formulating public policy toward America's veterans.
Chairman Buyer recently announced that veterans service organizations will no longer have the opportunity to present testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees.

"The tradition of legislative presentations by veterans service organizations dates back to at least the 1950s. And the timing of this announcement---just before Veterans Day---could not have been worse," said DAV National Commander Paul W. Jackson.

--attribution

links of the day

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/11/MNGFMFMNV41.DTL

"You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium and I say, 'Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds,' " O'Reilly said Tuesday on his radio show as San Franciscans were approving the two measures. Perhaps, he didn't realize that he'd be speaking mostly to foreign tourists and suburbanites if he were standing in Union Square.

"Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead," O'Reilly went on. "And if al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/11/politics/11policy.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 - Faced with a bleak public mood about Iraq and stung by Democratic accusations that he led the nation into war on false pretenses, President Bush is beginning a new effort to shore up his credibility and cast his critics as hypocrites.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-11-10T211653Z_01_SCH076551_RTRUKOC_0_US-RELIGION-ROBERTSON.xml&archived=False

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, "The 700 Club."

"And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there," he said.

(they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting "intelligent design")

and finally, from foxnews no less:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,175184,00.html

Today, 36 percent of Americans approve and 53 percent disapprove of the job Bush is doing as president. For comparison, two weeks ago 41 percent said they approved and 51 percent disapproved, and at the beginning of his second term 50 percent approved and 40 percent disapproved (January 25-26).

lets see if i got this right

you lie to me, and convince me of that lie to be the truth. i go along with you believing you. it turns out that it wasn't the truth, and now YOU WANT ME TO SHARE THE BLAME?

HOW IN THE FUCK DOES THAT WORK? only in republiCON circles does that work. not in democractic America.

The White House went on the offensive in the debate over the Iraq war yesterday, insisting that U.S. intelligence had compiled a "very strong case" that Saddam Hussein harbored banned weapons and accusing congressional critics of hypocrisy because many of them voted for force three years ago.

--WaPo

so, the president is going to spring some new zingers this time to convince us that we didn't hear with our lying ears what we heard. this i gotta watch. get the popcorn out girls, tis a party waitin to happen.

see how the NYT fibs?

The NYT says that in Jordan, "the nation grew defiant Thursday." Along with other papers, the Times describes protesters in the streets of Amman vowing to stand by their government and the fight against terrorism. And exactly how many people were engaged in this mass show of defiance? "About 300 residents."

from today's papers.

Letter Of The Day

The government is looking to save money for hurricane relief, among other things. Apparently it has settled on upping charges on student loans along with other fees.

If a Democrat were president with a Democratic Congress, this would be called a tax increase for out-of-control government spending. But since both are Republican-controlled, it is called "fiscal responsibility."

-Eric McLuen, Des Moines.
attribution

judy miller's crybaby fareway letter to the editor

is up on the times' site.

another lie another dollar

The Marines said that, according to a witness, rebels broke into a family's home, killed two of the occupants and locked the rest in a room. The insurgents then used the house as a base to launch attacks on American and Iraqi troops, the Marines said. Unaware that civilians were in the house, Marine aircraft bombed it on Monday, reducing it to rubble.

...

"It is unknown why insurgents used this particular house, which was occupied, when there were so many homes in the area that were abandoned," Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, a spokesman for the Second Marine Division, said in a statement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/international/10iraq.html?pagewanted=all

gee, do you REALLY believe that line?

random thoughts on a wednesday night

i just had the thought and it escaped me as soon as i pulled out the pen (if you will). dammit all.

i'd sure like to know why my text paragraphs are double. i like it, but still, i don't remember turning that on.

shit, i wish i could remember what the hell it was i was rememberin'. it had to do with something from years and years ago. back when i didn't have a care in the world, made a ton of money, and spent it like no tomorrow. dammit all anyway.

if it comes back, i'll update this post.

hey howard!

ya out there babe? here's a whisper for your ear:

come up with an agenda. a rock solid one that can even attract the centrists out there. but one that is sure to energize your base. an agenda that sets not only the goals but the time in which they are to be met. an agenda that is bold, and enough out there that some will question the feasibility of the idea. which is where you'll shine even brighter if you have the answer.

but having an agenda when the republicans don't will not only give you that edge but provide you with a foot inside that winner's circle we so desperately want. making your agenda a reality will put your other foot inside the winner's circle.

so go get 'em howard. give 'em hell!

just upgraded zoundry

zoundry, which is how i publish most of my posts, has a new version of their software out, and it takes a bit getting used to. more features always get me confused.

Technorati : zoundry

Quote of the Day

"If someone lies to me, and I believe them, then afterwards I realized they lied to me, am I not entitled to say "If I knew you'd been lying to me - or even not giving me the full story - my decision would've been different"?
--Brooklyn Michael
attribution

it's getting legs

and God i hope it runs like hell.

A leading campaign group has demanded an urgent inquiry into a report that US troops indiscriminately used a controversial incendiary weapon during the battle for Fallujah. Photographic evidence gathered from the aftermath of the battle suggests that women and children were killed by horrific burns caused by the white phosphorus shells dropped by US forces.

The Pentagon has always admitted it used phosphorus during last year's assault on the city, which US commanders said was an insurgent stronghold. But they claimed they used the brightly burning shells "very sparingly" and only to illuminate combat areas.

But the documentary Fallujah: the Hidden Massacre, broadcast yesterday by the Italian state broadcaster, RAI, suggested the shells were commonly used and killed an unspecified number of civilians. Photographs obtained by RAI from the Studies Centre of Human Rights in Fallujah, show the bodies of dozens of Fallujah residents whose skin has been dissolved or caramelised by the effects of the phosphorus shells. The use of incendiary weapons against civilian targets is banned by treaty.

Last night Robert Musil, director of the group Physicians for Social Responsibility, called for an investigation. He told The Independent: "When there is clear testimony that use of such weapons has done this, it demands a full investigation. From Vietnam onwards there has been a general condemnation of [the use of white phosphorus] and concern about the injuries and consequences."

--source

nothing to see here, move along

USA TODAY analysis of MZM-related campaign contributions shows how the company's growth and its political activities became intertwined at key moments. In more than 30 instances, donations from MZM's political action committee or company employees went to two members of the House Appropriations Committee — Cunningham and Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va. — in the days surrounding key votes or contract awards that helped MZM grow.

For example, MZM's political action committee gave Cunningham $5,000 in 2003 the day before his appointment to a congressional panel negotiating the final version of the defense budget. Ten days later, the day after the House passed the final Pentagon spending bill, Wade gave Cunningham $2,000.

Both lawmakers sit on the subcommittee overseeing the Pentagon's spending and have acknowledged putting language in bills that created or expanded contracts that went to MZM.

--source

what if you were to line up the networks to the armed forces?

what pairing would you come up with?

me?

abc = army
nbc = navy
fox = airforce
cbs = marines

dont ask me how i did that, i wouldn't be able to explain it.

FARPOINT FACTOID

this shows up on a google search

http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=us+military+denies&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Results 1 - 10 of about 5,680,000 for us military denies. (0.21 seconds)

that is 5 million 6 hundred 80 thousand times - for US Military denies

followed by:

5,480,000 hits for US Military Admits.

so who would you believe? last nite i posted the link to a video (i have since copied it to here. i report, you decide. ya gonna believe proven liars, or your own eyes?

ROME (Reuters) - The U.S. military in Iraq denied a report shown on Italian state television on Tuesday saying U.S. forces used incendiary white phosphorus against civilians in a November 2004 offensive on the Iraqi town of Falluja.

It confirmed, however, that U.S. forces had dropped MK 77 firebombs -- which a documentary on Italian state-run broadcaster RAI compared to napalm -- against military targets in Iraq in March and April 2003.
--source

another scandal?

god, how much more can this administration swallow???

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top U.S. Republican lawmakers are seeking a congressional investigation into leaks of information used by The Washington Post in an article on the CIA's secret global prison system, congressional aides said on Tuesday.
--source

dealing with social security

is a horror show. and now with this part D program getting started. i'm on the phone with that 800# that came in the mail. its basically an automated service that doesn't do anything but take messages.

this is one of the most insane things that has ever come out of our Congress. i'm ashamed for them. whoever voted on this boondoggle should be too embarrassed to show his or her face in public again.

Letter Of The Day

By BRAD PAULSEN, Mason City

The No Child Left Behind Act, Social Security, Medicare, enough nursing homes for the Americans in their golden years, homelessness, hunger, poverty, environmental concerns, decaying infrastructure, heating our homes, fuel for our cars, trucks, trains, planes, lawn mowers, snowblowers, wars on drugs, illegal immigration, hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Wilma, homeland security, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the trade deficit, the national debt, which, is only $4.50 over $7 trillion.

The issues facing America, mentioned above, are not at all troublesome, worrisome or perplexing whatsoever.

Why? Because we Americans are very fortunate that we have in place a government in absolute complete control of the “compassionate conservatives.” The late Lawrence Welk would say, “A wonderful! A wonderful!”

Dissent of government policy is of no use; ask anyone who knew of the late Rosa Parks. Rosa was arrested and had to pay a fine for practicing the undefined art of dissent.

So stop complaining, Americans. But just as a precaution, open a Swiss bank account and learn to speak Chinese.

attribution

and now for something really shocking

Italian media going full-bore on the Bush Administration. After its revelations on the subterfuge behind the Nigergate forgeries, documentary evidence of the use by US troops of phosphorus and a new formulaton of napalm [MK77] on the Sunni civilian population will be broadcast tomorrow on international satellite TV. Global coverage of the atrocity, folks.

(from kos)
grabbed this from elsewhere

http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchiesta/video/fallujah_ING.wmv

what more can we expect from our punk in the whitehouse? what more can we stomach from this administration? how much more torture does the world have to endure because of this man?

they lied, part 10

The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."

The newly declassified portions of the document were made available by Senator Carl M. Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Levin said the new evidence of early doubts about Mr. Libi's statements dramatized what he called the Bush administration's misuse of prewar intelligence to try to justify the war in Iraq. That is an issue that Mr. Levin and other Senate Democrats have been seeking to emphasize, in part by calling attention to the fact that the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee has yet to deliver a promised report, first sought more than two years ago, on the use of prewar intelligence.

A White House spokeswoman said she had no immediate comment on the D.I.A. report on Mr. Libi. But Senate Republicans, put on the defensive when Democrats forced a closed session of the Senate this week to discuss the issue, have been arguing that Republicans were not alone in making prewar assertions about Iraq, illicit weapons and terrorism that have since been discredited.

--nytimes

so that's their defense? "they did it tooo"?? how infantile.

incompetence defined

The LAT fronts an investigation of the extreme mismanagement of equipment procurement in Iraq's military. The U.S. appointed a Polish Iraqi with no weapons-buying experience who proceeded to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on no-bid contracts for shoddy materiel. The Iraqi Justice Ministry is now charging him with corruption, but his case is far from isolated: "The portrait that emerges from interviews and documents," the paper informs, "is a Defense Ministry whose members were picked [by the U.S.] with the care of choosing a pickup basketball team."

again the source for this is today's papers

what's wrong with this picture?

"National security letters" have been around for decades, the Post reports, but since the Patriot Act became law in October 2001 their use has expanded from 300 to 30,000 per year. Such a letter can compel an institution to hand over "transaction records" on a suspect—who he called, what Web sites he visited, where he traveled, what he bought, etc. Unlike issuing a regular subpoena, issuing an NSL requires no grand jury investigation or judicial oversight, allows for the dissemination of compelled information among multiple government agencies, and prohibits the suspect from even knowing he is being investigated. Since the Patriot Act, an FBI agent need merely request authorization—with little-to-no justification—from one of five-dozen bureau supervisors. NSL-obtained information used to be destroyed when a suspect was cleared; now information on cleared suspects is permanently stored in a database.

--source

that there is no judicial oversight regarding these 'letters' goes against everything this country stands for.

the day i've had

this has been one of those days that you wouldn't wish upon your enemies.
woke up to the bed being sopping wet. my back, the clothes i was wearing (flannel shirt over a gap tee with flannel lounge/night pants) soaking to the poing of dripping. the numbness that comes with such a shock kept me from realizing just exactly what truly happened to get me into such a predicament. it wuznt until i sat on the toilet, slipping off the seat for being so slippery from urine, that i realized that i had pissed the bed, and a good one at that.

i've been pissing gallons lately (not in bed silly), and it's a testament to the amount of liquid i drink. but to have pissed as much as i did, when i did, is a mystery that i'm bound to unravel. could it have been the 3 gallons of water i drink a day? or could it be as simple as just making sure i get to the bathroom before i retire? as i sit here and ponder such things, i'm loathe to consider that there's really nothing i _can do about this act of nature.

oh wait, there's more.

went back to the bedroom where i came face to face with the ultimate 'holy shit' "what happened here" landscape the wetbed created. as i tear it down, i'm reminded of just how heavy wet laundry can be. and of course, the mattress pad (from wal-mart) didn't protect the mattress, but kept the puddle to a mere 10" diameter on the $900 mattress.

i managed to get the sheets & mattress pad into the washing machine, with soap, and it starts fine, but then.... for some reason i stopped the machine and discovered that there's a problem. it's not allowing water out.

i freek.

i soon gather my senses and call bob, who doesn't answer, i figure this is emergency enough to warrant a steal. so i went down and took the car, and drove over to the 12th street laundromat where i got it cleaned up rather quickly.

oh, then i proceeded to call my landlord. he answers! but informs me that those are MY appliances that HE doesn't have appliances in HIS places, and i reminded HIM that he wanted 50% of the proceeds of the refrigerator i used to have, so now that something's broken that it's all MY loss?? how DARE that son of abitch treat me like that. he has forever branded himself as a scumlord. anyway, i'll tell him it cost me $75. let him think he got over.

the machine is working now, thanks to the appliance store down the block coming to remove some cotton balls (gunk from the mattress pad). it only cost me $20.

why i cringe everytime i hear the word bechtel

http://www.americas.org/item_22666

Quote of the Century

found the winner folx:

"But war is the terrorism of the wealthy, as terrorism is the war of the poor."

--Frei Betto

attribution

IMPEACH IMPEACH

from rawstory:

A new poll of likely voters by Zogby International has found that a majority of Americans support Congress considering the impeachment of President Bush if he “did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq,” RAW STORY has learned.

The poll, to be released this afternoon, finds that 51 percent of likely voters want Congress to eye impeachment, while 45 percent do not. It was commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a coalition of progressive groups seeking a Congressional investigation of the events leading up to war in Iraq.

lost in translation

The NYT goes off-lead with a U.N. audit report demanding that the United States repay Iraq millions of dollars used to pay a Halliburton subsidiary for shoddy contract work done at inflated prices. Stay tuned: The Pentagon is under pressure to release its own internal audits.

from today's papers. so halliburton is not only the king of no-bid contracts, but does shoddy work on top of it.

quote - einstein?

science without religion is lame.
religion without science is blind.

is that the quote i thought i heard on cbs' threshold?

the numbers

Nearly six in 10 Americans, 58%, said they had doubts about the president's honesty, a 13% rise in 18 months. Only 32% believed Mr Bush was handling ethical issues well, a significantly worse score than Bill Clinton achieved in his last scandal-besmirched year in office. His overall popularity has plunged to 39%, a new low for the Washington Post/ABC survey.
...

The latest popularity poll was published after Lewis "Scooter" Libby became the first White House aide for 130 years to be indicted in office. He appeared in court on Thursday to plead not guilty to five charges of lying to investigators.

At its core, the case concerns the evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction assembled by Mr Libby - at the time the vice-president's chief of staff - and other White House officials to justify the war in Iraq. The president's top political adviser, Karl Rove, is still under investigation for his role in the case, which has refocused attention on the WMD debacle.

According to yesterday's poll, 55% of Americans think the president "intentionally misled the American public" in making the case for war, and 60% now believe it was not worth fighting. Yesterday, Mr Bush was asked whether Mr Rove would keep his job. He refused to discuss the issue on the grounds that the investigation was ongoing.

--source
there is only one way out of this for the man. and that's for an event to occur. God help us one and all.

message to howard dean:

get an agenda.
publish it.
stick to it.

do that, and you'll have them eating out of your hand

FARPOINT FACTOID

"One in 20 [D.C.] residents is infected with the AIDS virus, the highest rate of any major U.S. city."

--source

DIVIDE!

then CONQUER!

cbs is reporting a white house divided.
now would be the time for dean to move.

howard, are ya listenin?
make them so distracted that they don't know which end is up.

the CIA secret prisons

A leading human rights group on Wednesday identified Poland and Romania as the likely locations in eastern Europe of secret prisons where al-Qaeda suspects are interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/86734122-4be9-11da-997b-0000779e2340.html

can't depose a fugitive

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 - Omar al-Faruq, a confidant of Osama bin Laden who was one of Al Qaeda's senior operatives in Southeast Asia, escaped from an American military prison in Afghanistan in July, a Pentagon official said Wednesday.

that's bad enough. but wait, here's the kicker:

Pentagon officials confirmed that he was one of the fugitives only after the information was disclosed this week in Texas at a military trial of an Army sergeant charged with maltreating detainees in Afghanistan. Mr. Faruq was identified by an alias at the time of the jailbreak.

His disappearance, a major source of embarrassment to American officials at the base, came to light on Tuesday when defense lawyers for Sgt. Alan Driver demanded to know where he was so that he could testify at the trial.

--nytimes

so, the dude was supposed to testify against someone in the military, and he just happens to escape from a military jail. you don't see the irony?

and they wonder why they hate us....

Citing residents of one Iraqi town, the Post mentions that about 20 people were killed late yesterday by two U.S. airstrikes. "The people gathered to rescue people whose house was bombed in the first strike," said one neighbor. "A short time after they gathered, another plane came and bombed the house again, killing most of them."

(from today's papers @ slate)

this is the 2nd time now that airstrikes have mistaken their targets. and they wonder why they hate us. is it not terror when they come out of nowhere and use weapons that are far into the future of what is available to the man on the street?

GREAT GOING DENVER!

Initiated Question 100
Marijuana Law 406/421 96.44%
Votes/Total Votes % Votes
YES 55035/ 102,964 53.45%
NO 47929/ 102,964 46.55%
Back to list of contests

http://www.denvergov.org/election/results.asp

and jus so we know

everybody, and i mean, EVERYbody is to blame for the fact that there is no report on how the administration portrayed the intel that went into going to war with iraq.

As it happens, the American Prospect recently looked at why the report has gone MIA; it saw Republican foot-dragging, Pentagon stonewalling, and Democratic incompetence.

--from today's papers

in today's WaPo:

this story about the CIA's secret prisons, and i guess it got bannered across the front page: *teehee*

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.

The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.

The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.

--source

FARPOINT FACTOID

this was a series i did when i was over at ia.talk.misc. the group has since gone down the toilet, but nonetheless, there's plenty more over there. today's entry comes from a letter writer to the des moines register:

It is appalling that Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley and his Republican cohorts, who have given themselves seven pay raises since the last minimum-wage increase, voted down the modest increase proposed by Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy.

yes, it IZZ appalling.

oh, and the source: Mark L. Smith, president, Iowa AFL-CIO, Des Moines

silly me

my neighbor caught me hanging my flag this morning.

from the 'I DIDN'T KNOW THAT" file

Diverting money into private accounts won't solve the structural problems in Social Security. Also, young people like Tolle would actually lose benefits over time, said Kingson, who is currently an associate social work professor at Syracuse University. People in their 30s would see a 30 percent reduction over time while teenagers would see their benefits decrease by 40 percent to 45 percent when they reach retirement age because of a method of calculating benefits by the rate of inflation, not wages.

--source