July 2003 Archives

Just got the complete Dr. Who "The Key To Time" adventure from Amazon on DVDs. Personally, I'm a Peter Davidson fan more than a Baker fan, but he is the archetype. And there's only a handful of Davidson episodes out so far. . .

I do so want a sonic screwdriver.

Cases of 'Living Dead' Growing in India

<heh>

Über parser Quiddity finds the signal in the Rove based flak.

In other words, Bush does not have right now, nor did he have prior to war, evidence that Hussein had ties to al Qaeda, even though he asserted it eleven times on the campaign trail in 2002 (and numerous times after that).

"It is going to take time," he said, saying there was an "active deception program" and hinting broadly that some evidence might at some point be made public. Said Kay: "The American people should not be surprised by surprises."

It seems kind of... well... sleazy to hold back evidence of WMD for political gain. Especially since people seem to be complaining an awful lot about the "antiwar left" using WMDs for political gain.

But them's the breaks. If they really have WMDs, then they can lord it over me all they want. I'll be damn glad they finally found them.

But I'm hoping against hope at this point that we're going to finally catch Saddam. The latest holdout against reports that Iraqi scientists consistently stick to the same story* is that the Iraqi scientists aren't talking because they're still scared of Saddam. Capturing him will remove yet another excuse for why they keep resisting the interrogations.

Geesh. These guys have jack. Zip. Notta. Not even terrorist connections.

If they're right, I'd have to believe that Saddam was literally a James Bond class villain, which is equally hard for me to believe. I just don't think the US intelligence is that stupid, nor Saddam that devilishly smart.

But if they produce evidence which convinces Hans Blix, I'll be satisfied.

I just can't figure out what will satisfy them, though. Hard to argue with a faith based WMD belief.
_____________
* - i.e., that they didn't have any kind of active weapons program, much less actual WMDs, much less WMDs poised to strike within 45 minutes, much less pilot-less drones that can be smuggled in to devastate a large US city AT ANY TIME

No model for Iraq

The Bush administration is considering asking Congress for a further $1 billion to spend on aid in Afghanistan. In the autumn of 2001, Congress approved the spending of $3.3 billion on both aid and military assistance over four years. More than Azaelf of that has been spent, but the country is still in desperate need of investment. America’s primary aim in getting rid of Afghanistan’s repressive Taliban regime was to end the support it gave to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terror network. But the Bush administration also wanted to bring a measure of democracy, prosperity and stability to Afghanistan, which had been engulfed in war for the best part of a quarter of a century. That goal is now in the spotlight once again, as American and British soldiers and officials struggle to bring order to a post-Saddam Iraq. The Americans are determined to help Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s moderate president, make progress and see off less palatable alternatives; indeed, a commission has just been appointed to oversee elections, which are scheduled for October next year. For now, though, the country remains drug-ridden, lawless and poor. In short, it is no model for Iraq.

Poindexter to Quit Pentagon Post Amid Controversy

I'm shocked I tell you. Shocked!

The official indicated that Poindexter had become a lightning rod for criticism. Poindexter served as President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser in the 1980s and was convicted for his role in the Iran-contra scandal, a conviction that later was set aside.

"Everybody certainly recognizes Admiral Poindexter's background. And in the context of that background, it became in some ways very difficult for him to receive an objective reading of work that he was doing on beAzaelf of finding terrorists," the official said.

Why does the president bother with press conferences?

It was only a matter of time before someone on the lunatic right came up with this suggestion. Damn, I could have made a killing in the market on this one.

Someone in the comments said that I was perhaps too partisan in my response to Bush's news conference yesterday by quoting the NYT as saying "Mr. Bush appeared unruffled and well prepared for the occasionally sharp questions"

Today we have Sidestepping on Iraq

Mr. Bush's vague and sometimes nearly incoherent answers suggested that he was either bedazzled by his administration's own mythmaking or had decided that doubts about his foreign and domestic policies could best be parried by ignoring them.

OMB Watch has an interesting little post about today's report about the GDP growing by 2.4% annual rate in Q2 2003.

Unfortunately, if you take out federal spending on national defense, the economy only grew at a 0.7% rate.

This is Tom Delay. This is Tom Delay on Crack.

Any questions?

Saddam Hussein Reportedly Less Optimistic About War

TIKRIT, Iraq - With his sons dead and his bodyguard captured, former Iraqi President at large Saddam Hussein is showing less of a brave face about the Iraqi resistance, sources close to him say. Sources close to Saddam also wonder how many Dinars 25 million dollars go into, if it's really as much as they think it is. Sources close to Saddam are licking their lips and looking over weirdly at Saddam, Azaellucinating that he is a giant bag of money.

Random searches at airports would catch more terrorists than the current system of passenger profiling.

Well, DUH! But it's nice to see yet another STUPID, IDIOTIC, KNEE JERK, JACK BOOTED REACTION BY FRIGHTENED CHILDREN assigned to the trash heap where it belongs.

CAPPS was put into place in 1999. The system profiles passengers and identifies those who should get extra security screening. While the parameters of the system are classified, anyone who is flagged for extra screening knows it as soon as they are pulled aside for special treatment. Chakrabarti and Strauss show, through computer modeling, how the terrorists can easily defeat the system. Put simply, it's all about trial and error. For example, let's say a terrorist cell sends 20 different guys through the airport (with no weapons and no intent to harm), the person who consistently passes through security without extra scrutiny is the best person to send on a destructive mission in the air. The terrorists basically conclude this guy is "profile proof."

On the other hand, according to the MIT grad students, if the airports employed only random searches the terrorists would not be able to practice against the system. The MIT research explains it this way: an average airport has the ability to do extra screening on eight percent of the passengers. Currently, the CAPPS system uses profile criteria to choose up to six percent of those people for extra screening, the remaining two percent are selected randomly. But if all eight percent were selected randomly, the MIT research shows there is a better chance of catching terrorists or people hiding weapons. That's because with a purely random system, potential terrorists would have no way of knowing ahead of time if they were likely to receive extra screening and they would have no way of practicing against the system.

Well, since the "WMD Program" justification is completely evaporating now, I think that we should set up a Futures Market for predicting the next justification that they're going to be pushing. If we can do it for Terror, why not Iraq War Justifications this Administration is likely to start pushing?

Just a thought.

From Stratfor

U.S. President George W. Bush met with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal and told him the United States would not declassify a portion of a report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that appeared to deal with Saudi involvement. In a deliberate slap at the Saudis, Bush did not wait to deliver the message privately. He announced before the meeting, "It makes no sense to declassify when we've got an ongoing investigation. That could jeopardize that investigation." After the meeting, al Faisal said the report was an "outrage" that falsely accused Saudi Arabia without allowing it an opportunity to defend itself.

Scientists deny Iraqi arms program

Iraqi scientists, that is.

So, I guess the entire WMD argument - even a WMD program - is going to vanish with end of summer.

The sources said four senior scientists and more than a dozen at lower levels who worked for the Iraqi government have been interviewed by U.S. officials under the direction of the CIA. Some scientists have been arrested and held for months, others have made deals in return for information and at least one has agreed to be interviewed outside Iraq.

No matter the circumstances, all of the scientists interviewed have denied that Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program or developed and hidden chemical or biological weapons since United Nations inspectors left in 1998. Several key Iraqi officials questioned the significance of evidence cited by the Bush administration to suggest that Hussein was stepping up efforts to develop new weapons of mass destruction programs.

Again, the Libertarians bring a tear to my eye.

US offshore tax amnesty recovers only $1m

Some experts have questioned whether OVCI would be effective because many of the tax dodges were criminal frauds. "This was like asking people who robbed a bank to come in and return the money," said Howard Abrams of law firm Steptoe & Johnson.

Morat makes a very good point about why there are a lot of people with a lot of reservations about unilateral action by the US in the middle east.

All in all, I don't trust Bush's nation building to succeed because their are no brakes on self-interest. There are no "other parties" to say "Hey, wait a second, that's a bloody stupid idea". In business terms, in honor of our CEO President, it's like asking me to invest in a company that not only doesn't want to let it's books be audited, but has a history of poor planning, and fudging the truth.

Digby... Well, what can you say? Digby hits the nail right on the head again and drives it straight into my forebrain. <heh> Great image, eh? But seriously, it's a devastating criticism of the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) that gets right to the heart of the matter.

It seems that by the DLC’s calculation, the “far left” doesn’t consist of Green party members or anti-globalization protesters or radical groups like Earth First and Peta. According to them, middle aged, middle class Democrats like me who enthusiastically backed charter DLC favorite sons Clinton and Gore in 3 successive presidential elections, supported the wars in Kosovo and in Afghanistan, aren’t fond of bureaucrats whether they work for government or the corporations, respect the need to curb long term deficit spending and come down on the side of the CATO institute as much as the ACLU when it comes to civil liberties…are now “far left.”

(Uh…Viva Che!)

This is a terrible misconception and one that will indeed “hang the party” because these guys are not only out of touch with their own party, they are obviously delusional about the opposition. They don’t recognize that the political landscape has completely changed since 1985 when the DLC was created and 1992 when it reached its zenith of power. In 2004 it is losing its relevance to many Democrats, not because of a difference in policy but because it has failed to recognize that while they have not changed, the Republican Party has undergone a complete metamorphosis. They do not seem to understand that when the competition completely changes strategy, you must be prepared to change strategy as well.

While it was nice to see Bush actually talking to the people whom he leads for a change, it is quite clear why they don't let the man out of his cage very often. I was listening to the speech on the radio, so perhaps I didn't get the full effect of the POTUS. But to me, he seemed laughable. And I don't mean that as a partisan. He didn't answer questions at all, and he seemed completely incoherent at some points. Serious followup by reporters was completely nonexistent.

Maybe it is just simply my partisan filters completely distorting the entire event. But I almost snorted coffee through my nose several times during the speech. Dangerous to do on the highway.

Which only goes to show that there is no magic bullet and things have to be carefully thought out when you're trying to change enormously complicated systems.

Be careful what you tug on. You don't know what it's connected to.

Adding more outside directors may worsen corporate fraud, deception

Jimm is back from a holiday over and has a couple of nice posts on the insanity permeating the blogosphere's right wing. Drop by and check them out, as his stuff is always great.

From Stratfor

Summary

The failure of the United States to achieve a decisive victory in Iraq would have substantial consequences. The deaths of Qusai and Odai Hussein last week reflect the American belief that decapitating the guerrilla movement might be decisive. So far, the tempo of operations by the guerrillas has not declined, but that means nothing yet; it might take time for the effect of the two deaths to ripple through the system. Nevertheless, it is possible that the Hussein brothers were not critical to guerrilla operations. Indeed, it is possible that those operations are designed to continue without centralized leadership. Bringing the guerrillas under control could be a daunting task, but the current disarray within the Bush administration makes it much harder to achieve.

<heh>

I don't say it enough, but I really am glad that anyone finds this site interesting enough to read. According to all the stats I can find, Hellblazer is a slightly average site. So I don't feel like I'm contributing fantastic, world changing ideas like the great propaganda meisters on the web. But it wasn't so long ago that I pretty much personally knew everyone that read what I wrote. Now I have entire anonymous email conversations with amazingly interesting people that I am quite sure I would have never have met were it not for this blog.

So I went out and had a couple of beers in your honor after work tonight. Many thanks for your patience with my seriously flawed reasoning and insane rantings.

Not that this should be surprising, but

EXPOSURE TO VIOLENCE BETWEEN PARENTS AND HARSH PUNISHMENT DURING CHILDHOOD SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASES THE RISK FOR ADULT PARTNER VIOLENCE, STUDY FINDS

Enlightened imperialism could save Liberia

And does anyone but me think that the name "Max Boot" is just a little too convenient with someone of his political mindset?

Nature vs. Nurture?

Ex-CIA Agent on Cheney Iraq Speech: "Longest Statement of Disinformation" Ever Fed U.S. Public

Former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman responded on Democracy Now! by describing Cheney's speech as the "longest statement of disinformation that I think the American government has distributed to the American people."

Goodman went on to say, "For Dick Cheney to recite those charges we all know now not to be true adds to the terrible politicization of intelligence that's created a scandal in the intelligence community unlike anything I ever saw in my 24 years in the C.I.A. that includes the period of Vietnam, the period of the intelligence failure on the Soviet Union, and the incredibly contentious disputes over arms control."

From Stratfor

Today, July 28, was dominated by the ongoing struggle in Washington over Iraq's past and future -- with reports and denials over the possible appointment of former Secretary of State James Baker, or someone like him, to oversee Iraqi reconstruction -- and the meeting planned for tomorrow between Saudi Arabia's foreign minister and U.S. President George W. Bush. On the sidelines, the Marines have not landed in Liberia, and the situation there certainly is not in hand.

On July 26, the Washington Post reported that a "James Baker-type" soon would be appointed to oversee Iraq's reconstruction. A "James Baker-type" used to be a Washington term for an elder statesman. Basically, it is someone who knows what he is doing because he has done it before and has sufficient prestige to avoid being ripped apart by the press in the first 15 minutes on the job. He also is someone old enough to be devoid of personal ambitions. Since Baker is very much alive, the assumption was made that no likeness was needed -- that Baker would be appointed.

U.S. Army hears about IDF tactics

An American military delegation recently visited Israel to hear first hand from IDF officers about army tactics in the territories. The Americans were interested how the IDF responded to guerrilla warfare that evolved in the territories because of the similarity to what they are now encountering in Iraq.

There is growing concern in the U.S. administration and military about the growing number of attacks on American troops in Iraq. Since President Bush declared in May that the war was over, around 50 soldiers have been killed.

Cash, condom, Viagra found in Uday's briefcase

Something that I find just a bit odd is that we're always seeing pictures of these guys with guns. It's like they're walking around in a hunting lodge all the time or something. And they're not like assault weapons or anything. Just ordinary guns.

As I said, very weird.

U.S. Should Let Japan and South Korea Develop Nukes

Puts a tear in my eye, I tell ya. I just get a lump in my throat when I start seeing the Libertarians (with a big "L") start throwing off the robes of the NeoCons and sticking to their guns.

It's a matter of Principle.

The best strategy for the United States to respond to North Korea restarting its nuclear reactor program is to reduce the U.S. military presence in South Korea and Japan and give those countries the green light to begin developing nuclear weapons, according to a new report by the Cato Institute.

CIA probe finds secret Pentagon group manipulated intelligence on Iraqi threat

Okay, the only thing surprising here is that anyone thought this wouldn't be the result of this insanity.

A Azaelf-dozen former CIA agents investigating prewar intelligence have found that a secret Pentagon committee, set up by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in October 2001, manipulated reams of intelligence information prepared by the spy agency on the so-called Iraqi threat and then delivered it to top White House officials who used it to win support for a war in Iraq.

The former CIA agents were asked to examine prewar intelligence last year by Rumsfeld and CIA Director George Tenet. The former agents will present a final report on their findings to the Pentagon, the CIA and possibly Congress later this year. More than a dozen calls to the White House, the CIA, the National Security Council and the Pentagon for comment were not returned.

The ad hoc committee, called the Office of Special Plans, headed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and other Pentagon hawks, described the worst-case scenarios in terms of Iraq's alleged stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and claimed the country was close to acquiring nuclear weapons, according to four of the CIA agents, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the information is still classified, who conducted a preliminary review of the intelligence.

The agents said the Office of Special Plans is responsible for providing the National Security Council and Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and Rumsfeld with the bulk of the intelligence information on Iraq's weapons program that turned out to be wrong. But White House officials used the information it received from the Office of Special Plans to win support from the public and Congress to start a war in Iraq even though the White House knew much of the information was dubious, the CIA agents said.

US warned it faces 'third Gulf war' in Iraq

But don't worry! If we all just have faith back here in the mainland US, everything over there in Iraq will be just hunky dory. After all, CAzaelabi says things are really just going great! It's really just a media conspiracy to get the US public to lose support.

Damn that Liberal Media!

A study on guerrilla warfare in Iraq by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think-tank, blames bad planning by the US administration and the low priority given to "conflict termination" and nation-building strategies by the Pentagon.

CSIS military specialist Anthony Cordesman says the US has not learned the lessons of past conflicts, that "even the best military victories cannot win the peace".

He writes: "Unless this situation changes soon, and radically, the United States may end up fighting a third Gulf war against the Iraqi people . . . It is far from clear that the United States can win this kind of asymmetric war."
. . .
US policymakers say the Iraq war ended too suddenly for an effective postwar strategy to be launched. Mr Cordesman credits the coalition with avoiding many of the worst-case postwar scenarios, such as massive refugee crisis and wholesale destruction of energy infrastructure.

But Mr Cordesman offers a detailed critique of the planning and analysis that went into the war - 26 "avoidable problems" ranging from failure to introduce a police force to assuming that toppling Saddam Hussein would have won "hearts and minds". In confused and angry scenes in the Shia holy city of Kerbala on Sunday US troops opened fire as Iraqis protested over marines killing a man the day before, Reuters reports from Kerbala.

Okay, on the one hand we have the Electoral College fanatics, who are gloating over the fact that they may be able to "technically win" the election with a minority of the actual population. But then to listen to Michael Powell defend his media concentration plans. . . Well, it's just simply astounding.

Some say the problem is media concentration, and point out that only five companies control 80 percent of what we see and hear. In reality, those five companies own only 25 percent of more than 300 broadcast, satellite and cable channels, but because of their popularity, 80 percent of the viewing audience chooses to watch them. Popularity is not synonymous with monopoly. A competitive media marketplace must be our fundamental goal, but do we really want government to regulate what is popular?

I've had a lot of heady discussions on the web and blogs as the "Golden Age of Rhetoric". Sources as diverse as the population that is governed. With so many sources, the theory goes, the truth MUST get out.

An excellent response to my previous post by Stratfor.

Warped Intelligence

Vice President Dick Cheney was in friendly territory when he spoke last week at the American Enterprise Institute, which has served as the administration's intellectual brain trust, to defend the decision to go to war against Iraq. As Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed CAzaelabi looked on approvingly, Cheney declared that it would have been "irresponsible" for President Bush not to have acted.

Cheney's argument rested on a 2002 estimate of Iraq's threat level by the CIA. Considering the blame recently heaped on the CIA by the White House itself for faulty intelligence about Iraq, the speech's logic had an odd ring. The CIA estimate judged that Iraq could develop a nuclear bomb in a decade and that its biological and chemical weapons program was more active than before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Questions remain about the extent to which those warnings were affected by ferocious political pressures. Such pressures are hardly new.

For instance, then-CIA chief George H.W. Bush created a "Team B" in 1976 to analyze the CIA's estimates of the Soviet strategic threat, which said Soviet military expenditures were not radically expanding. The elder Bush's team of "Cold Warriors," which included current Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, came to a much different conclusion: that because of a looming missile gap, the Soviet Union was leaving the U.S. in the dust militarily. When the Soviet Union crumbled in 1989, the Soviet military machine was found to be a dinosaur. An article in the July/August issue of Arms Control Today by Greg Thielmann, until recently a senior official in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, outlines more recent pressures on the CIA to adopt worst-case analyses of foreign threats.

In 1998, Congress asked current Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to lead a high-level commission, which also included Wolfowitz, that concluded the CIA was grossly underestimating the ballistic missile threat posed by Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Five years later, Thielmann notes, none of these countries pose an imminent ballistic-missile threat to the U.S., though it is obviously important to monitor their development programs. Nor has Cheney himself dispelled suspicions about his visits this year to CIA headquarters. Analysts at the spy agency have complained that Cheney pushed them to supply worst-case estimates on Iraq.

With the release Thursday of the congressional joint intelligence report on the 9/11 attacks, the need for sound and reliable intelligence is underscored. The findings don't contain shocking new information, but they show definitively how the FBI and CIA ignored a steady stream of data about terrorist activity within and outside the U.S. The government, it concludes, "did not undertake a comprehensive effort to implement defensive measures in the United States." The effort to correct such catastrophic oversights is certainly impeded by political pressure to cook intelligence agencies' assessments of threat.

It's one thing to have imperfect information. It's quite another to rely on highly questionable analysis of imperfect information.

From Stratfor

The United States spent the weekend trying to come to conceptual terms with both the war in general and the Iraqi campaign in particular. Quite apart from the inevitable politics of the situation, which has focused on the question of intelligence failures and who knew what -- and when. Beneath the standard Washington by-play, there has been an evolution on the part of the administration in its sophistication about the war.

The evolution began when Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz declared the obvious -- that some stupid decisions had been made in Iraq. The first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem. Today, Wolfowitz made further progress. Appearing on Fox News, Wolfowitz said, "The nature of terrorism is that intelligence about terrorism is murky. I think the lesson of 9/11 is that if you're not prepared to act on the basis of murky intelligence, then you're going to have to act after the fact, and ‘after the fact' now means after horrendous things have happened to this country."

That would seem a fairly obvious statement, but it is not -- and it cuts to the heart of the matter. Intelligence always is a murky matter. All of the photos, all of the intercepted cell phone conversations, all of the moles in the world, ultimately cannot provide a crystal clear picture of the world. In our own lives, in our own personal relations, things are usually pretty murky. We rarely understand with certainty those to whom we are closest. Therefore, the idea that intelligence can provide certainty is absurd. Even more absurd is the idea that humans have the luxury to wait until things become certain. Life just doesn't work that way.

Iran holds Al Qaeda suspects: now what?

Iran would "really like to cooperate" but is in a "peculiar situation right now," says Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia University in New York. The Iranians "don't want to hand them over to the US because they don't want to be seen co-operating directly with the Americans, and they can't get other people to take them off their hands, so they're sort of stuck with them."

The level of hostility to Iran is "really extraordinary in this administration," says Mr. Sick, who has served at the National Security Council under three US presidents. "There are people in very high levels who really want nothing more than to have Iran as the next target of US military action."

How the truth goes up in smoke

Vast chunks of what passes for 'news' flows unedited from PR offices. The obsession with 'infotainment' is making matters worse. Friends who have just returned from traveling in the US talked of the very real difficulty of accessing quality news.

In a McCarthyite atmosphere good journalists are being asked: 'Are you an American first, or are you a journalist?' It is depressing but there are grounds for optimism in a plethora of not-for-profit groups and internet sites fighting back hard. It is important that they do. As Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee for Concerned Journalists believes, a great deal hangs on this battle for the soul of journalism.

'Western thought has produced one idea more powerful than any other, the notion that people can govern themselves,' says Kovach. And the people themselves created a largely unarticulated theory of information called journalism to sustain that idea.

'The two - self government and journalism - will rise or fall together.'

Quagmire?

Because the Iraqis welcomed us once we must not misinterpret the escalating deaths of soldiers as the result of organized resistance, sheltered by a willing population. It's just that kind of negative thinking which leads to the logical fallacy that French troops would allow our own troops to come home. Our troops merely need to be sure to read their military issued "So Now You Are a Policeman in Iraq" pamphlet and continue taking bullets for the foreseeable future.

Couldn't dream up headlines like that.

MCI's Call-Routing Policies Are Target of Federal Probe

All phone companies have looked at ways to reduce access fees to other phone operators' networks. The question is whether MCI's practices were within the limits of U.S. law. According to people familiar with the investigation, one person interviewed by prosecutors said that MCI initiated a systematic scheme to reroute calls to make long-distance calls appear as local calls and thus avoid paying access charges. That process was called "Project Invader" by MCI insiders and was known only to a handful of MCI officials, according to people familiar with the investigation.

MCI's rivals said they were stunned by the scale of the alleged wrongdoing. "This is deceit has been going on for a decade and is going on today," said Bill Barr, a legal executive for Verizon. "We were stunned at its scale. Both the whistleblowers and the technical data show they are cheating on a huge portion of their costs, translating into hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the industry."

According to people familiar with the investigation, prosecutors are trying to establish whether MCI rerouted long-distance calls to make them appear like local calls to save an estimated $500 million in access fees per year industry-wide.

MCI 's Mr. Burns questioned the timing of the investigation. "For years we've had in place monthly access-charge resolution meetings with the local phone monopolies," he said. "Also, over the past two weeks we reached comprehensive legal settlements with Verizon and SBC on pre-petition bankruptcy claims related to access charges. You can't help but to question our competitors' motives."

Revealed: Kelly told church of dossier fears

Now, doesn't that throw an interesting wrench into the whole saga?

The disclosure of new evidence about his 'unhappiness' with the dossier came as it was revealed last night that Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, had a private lunch with the weapons scientist shortly before the Iraq conflict, undermining government claims that Kelly was a middle-ranking official with little access to intelligence.

Hoon met Kelly to discuss Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction. Although it is not clear whether Kelly raised his concerns about the use of intelligence to make the case for war, it is unusual for a member of the Cabinet to meet officials unless they have high levels of information unlikely to be known by the Minister.

Sen. Lugar Says White House Hiding Iraq Costs

I guess next time we'll think twice before handing them a blank check.

Asked by NPR whether rebuilding Iraq will cost tens of billions of dollars, Lugar responded, ``Yes. We are talking about that. And that's what needs to be talked about now as opposed to one surprise after another'' in funding requests to Congress.

From reading the 9/11 report, it is clear that the problem was not that we didn't have enough intelligence. It was not the case, as has been suggested by John Ashcroft and many others, that 9/11 occurred because the FBI and countless other agencies had their hands tied by laws that were too protective of civil rights.

It's always sounded extremely hollow to me that the reason we failed to connect the dots is because we didn't have enough dots in the first place. Unless you're analyzing what data you have effectively, getting more data will likely just overload your already stressed and non functioning system.

Disgraced reporter gets new job

"Bob" knows we sorely need a candlestick maker in Iraq.

The third version of the story regarding Jim Baker III descending on Iraq is now up on the Washington Post.

Bush aides put Baker's name forward yesterday as a prime candidate to work alongside L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq. Later in the day, a senior White House official said Baker was one of several prominent figures who might be asked to play a role and said that no decision had been made.

I got to get me some more popcorn.

Insiders suggest Condoleezza Rice could leave

It's just a whisper. No need to get excited.

Found this wonderful site by a strange twist of links that I cannot remember. However, this is a really refreshing find.

"It is time for the Christian Right to meet the right Christians."

Tim has an excellent post about the whole affair, with a particularly good point about rejustifying the war based on humanitarian principles.

Rescuing Iraq from Saddam was never a reason, let alone the reason, for going to war. People should stop pretending that it was.

<heh>

And for the "revisionists" of all stripes - historical or moral - don't miss Reason, Truth and History.

A contrarian in comments to my post I told you so said

I just happen to see this issue from more than one side and did not at all think it the 'great transgression' to express one of those other sides. Boy was I wrong.

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

Hey, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Hunting Bambi paintball video a hoax, Las Vegas officials say

Man, something just zinged by pretty fast. But still, it did actually happen. I swear it did, officer.

Update: Uggabugga has BOTH articles side by side.

I tell ya, it's getting downright eery.

Dr. Felber provides a fitting response to the Icon Based Warfare proponents.

Like most people who are fans of human beings, I'm pretty glad that Uday and Qusay Hussein have gone to their last reward, and that the reward in question likely involves tortures that even they would have deemed "a little over-the-top." I even wish I could have seen Qusay in those last moments, frantically jumping up and down a pyramid of tumbled-down cement blocks, desperately trying to change them all to the same color in time. And I'm glad that Iraqi radio will no longer be forced to play that "hilarious" song parody recorded by the brothers in 1998, "Uday Tomato, Qusay Tomahto."

But I just don't understand how exactly the Bush administration can believe that the deaths of the Super Wario Brothers is going to help them get past this flap over steroid-infused intelligence. The connection between the two issues doesn't seem to exist, except perhaps in the sentence, "Don't look at those intelligence reports, look at these dead bodies!"

Brad DeLong doesn't like Chomsky at all. <heh> But he did point to a wonderful Chomsky satire from McSweeney's.

UNUSED AUDIO COMMENTARY BY HOWARD ZINN AND NOAM CHOMSKY , RECORDED SUMMER 2002 , FOR THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING ( PLATINUM SERIES EXTENDED EDITION ) DVD

Chomsky: I think this is a tragedy, this story. Because it's about two cultures. And poor leadership. It's a human tragedy, and an Orcish tragedy.

Zinn: A perfect example of what you're talking about is right here, when Strider attacks the Black Riders, "saving" Frodo from them.

Chomsky: Think of it from the Black Riders' perspective. No doubt they arrived at Weathertop thinking, "Can we ask a few questions? We'd like to talk to you."

Zinn: Now from here we jump to Isengard, post-ecological atrocities. What I personally see here is… well, I see industrialization, I see a very cooperative workforce, I see a people who aren't terrorized, a people attempting to make do with what they have.

Chomsky: Well, they're making weapons, which is sad. I mean, it would be nice if they could make plowshares, but unfortunately this isn't the time for plowshares in their culture. But they're showing great ingenuity, and they're showing cooperation, you're right about that.

Zinn: Actually it shows the Orcs smithing a lot of pieces of metal. I don't think it's necessarily established that what they're making is swords, is it? They could be farming implements of some sort. They're definitely unusual-looking. But I have to ask you, what about the genetic engineering that goes on with the Uruk-hai?

DeLay Is to Carry Dissenting Message on a Mideast Tour

During the last year or two, Mr. DeLay has emerged as a significant figure in Middle East policy, particularly since his ascension to the majority leader's post this session. He has often fought for more aid to Israel than the Bush administration has offered, and has in the past called the peace plan "a road map to destruction."

As an evangelical Christian, he is the most prominent member in Washington of the Christian Zionist movement, a formidable bloc of conservative Republicans whose support for Israel is based on biblical interpretations, sometimes putting them to the right of Israeli government. His persistent skepticism about Mr. Bush's peace initiative indicates that the president may yet have to wrestle with his right flank in pursuing a plan that ultimately calls for a Palestinian state.

Politely but firmly, we sAzaell see to it that the president corrects the flaws in American policy," says Bauer. On the eve of an election year, he is "counting on the smart Karl Rove," Bush's political adviser, to understand the first message. The groups which Bush can count on for political support consist of "active believers" (66 percent), whites (64 percent) and married (64 percent). In the 2000 elections, 84 percent of evangelical Christians supported Bush, constituting 32 percent of the president's voters. All these are Bauer's natural audience. Therefore, he should be listened to when he predicts ("I'm optimistic") that "in a month you'll be able to see the difference" in the U.S. policy. Bauer wants to stop the custom of officials "sitting in their comfortable offices in Washington [who] think they have a right to tell Israel what it should do." He will not tolerate even a hint of coercion or American pressure on Israel.

Okay, I guess it was inevitable. Now we're going to start having a debate over the merits of lying about the reasons for the war with Iraq. Den Beste vs. MarsAzaell started off debate in the blogosphere that Kevin Drum and Dan Drezner will be continuing.

We've now finally moved past the question as to whether they were whores or not. Now we're simply down to haggling about the price.

From Stratfor

Summary

A schism is emerging among Iraq's Shiites over cooperation with the United States. At least three Shiite factions -- all of which are Islamist -- appear to be moving into distinct camps in their respective bids to maneuver for position in a postwar Iraqi government. Ultimately, this rift could prevent both the Shiite groups and the United States from achieving their political objectives.

White House Wants Baker to Head Iraq Reconstruction

Well, now we just added another head to the hydra in charge of Iraq. That makes three. And not only that, we just upped the uncertainty another notch

The sources said one hurdle is determining whether Baker or Bremer would have the final word, and they said that question is unresolved.

Fla. to Restore Felons' Voting Rights

Some 125,000 people who were taken off the voting roles in 2000 will be allowed to vote in 2004. Of these, only 31,000 will be able to vote without any further legal hurdles. 94,000 of them will have to apply for a clemency hearing.

So this means that RoveCo will have to focus more on Florida than they may well have otherwise. But then again, using the Three Stooges, Inc. voting machines...

Microsoft's Patent Problem

Microsoft suffered utter defeat at a crucial pretrial hearing in what appears to be the highest-stakes patent litigation ever—one in which a tiny company called InterTrust Technologies claims that 85% of Microsoft's entire product line infringes its digital security patents. (See Can This Man Bring Down Microsoft?)

Well, by now you may have heard of the Randy Barnett affair. It is an interesting system to watch develop - shock waves, feedback, restorative forces... The whole system being stirred up by strong viewpoints. My own interaction with the system was coincidental and trivial, but since I corresponded with Randy a bit during the process, the incident is perhaps more amusing to me than to the population in general.

Scientists find 'fingerprint' of human activities in recent tropopause height changes

Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have determined that human-induced changes in ozone and well-mixed greenhouse gases are the primary drivers of recent changes in the height of the tropopause.

Earlier research has shown that increases in the height of the tropopause over the past two decades are directly linked to stratospheric ozone depletion and increased greenhouse gases.

The new research uses climate model results to provide more quantitative estimates of the relative contributions of natural and human influences to overall tropopause height changes. This work indicates that 80 percent of the roughly 200-meter increase in tropopause height from 1979 to 1999 is directly linked to human activities. Smaller tropopause height increases over the first Azaelf of the 20th century are largely caused by natural variations in volcanic aerosols and solar irradiance.

Heard about this... uh... extremely disturbing report on the electronic voting machines that are ruling our lives now - well, our political lives at least - from Morat @ the Skeptical Notion

Analysis of an Electronic Voting System

Recent election problems have sparked great interest in managing the election process through the use of electronic voting systems. While computer scientists, for the most part, have been warning of the perils of such action, vendors have forged ahead with their products, claiming increased security and reliability. Many municipalities have adopted electronic systems, and the number of deployed systems is rising. For these new computerized voting systems, neither source code nor the results of any third-party certification analyses have been available for the general population to study, because vendors claim that secrecy is a necessary requirement to keep their systems secure. Recently, however, the source code purporting to be the software for a voting system from a major manufacturer appeared on the Internet. This manufacturer’s systems were used in Georgia’s state-wide elections in 2002, and the company just announced that the state of Maryland awarded them an order valued at up to $55.6 million to deliver touch screen voting systems.

This unique opportunity for independent scientific analysis of voting system source code demonstrates the fallacy of the closed-source argument for such a critical system. Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts. We highlight several issues including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes. For example, common voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal. Furthermore, we show that even the most serious of our outsider attacks could have been discovered without the source code. In the face of such attacks, the usual worries about insider threats are not the only concerns; outsiders can do the damage. That said, we demonstrate that the insider threat is also quite considerable. We conclude that, as a society, we must carefully consider the risks inherent in electronic voting, as it places our very democracy at risk.

This is beyond being a serious issue. Given what happened in the 2000 election and what is going to happen in 2004, I can't understand what the hell is going on with everyone here. This is just absolutely insane.

This is real stuff, not just theory. These machines have actually been used in real elections. It's not just a fantasy about what may happen. The entire state of Georgia voted on these things in 2002. And wasn't it quite convenient that there was a completely unpredicted 9 point swing from democrat to republican?

Spread this far and wide. Call your representatives and get on their cases immediately. This is a bag of shit that we don't want to be holding. Any insider can swing the election any way he wants, without risk of being caught.

Using publicly available source code, we performed an analysis of a voting machine. This code was apparently developed by a company that sells to states and other municipalities that use them in real elections. We found significant security flaws: voters can trivially cast multiple ballots with no built-in traceability,administrative functions can be performed by regular voters, and the threats posed by insiders such as poll workers, software developers, and even janitors, is even greater. Based on our analysis of the development environment, including change logs and comments, we believe that an appropriate level of programming discipline for a project such as this was not maintained. In fact, there appears to have been little quality control in the process.

From Stratfor.

Potentially significant developments were all over the map on July 23.

In Washington, U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley was the latest official to fall on his sword over the issue: Who knew that the Niger-Iraq uranium deal -- mentioned in President George W. Bush's State of the Union address -- was false, and when did they know it? Hadley said he had received two memos from the CIA last October, expressing concern over the quality of the intelligence, but had forgotten them by the time the State of the Union address was compiled.

We noted in our Weekly Analysis on July 21 that blaming CIA incompetence for the false evidence the White House used in its public case for invading Iraq was risky. We argued that U.S. civilian and military support for U.S. foreign policy was less dependent on the public enunciation of a coherent strategy than confidence that such a strategy exists. Blaming the intelligence community for providing bad information might reduce the political heat on those who used it, but it fundamentally undermines public confidence in the remainder of national policy.

Got a worm on my tongue in anticipation of the 9/11 report tomorow...

It'll be interesting to see what it actually contains.

Brad provides some interesting reading on the background of the staff of the National Security Council.

Recent press reports have led many people to ask, "What kind of people staff the National Security Council these days?" Well, here is NSC director Elliott Abrams on Tail-Gunner Joe (McCarthy, that is):

McCarthy fell not because he was a bad man working for a bad cause but because he was smeared by the iron triangle of liberal journalists, liberal bureaucrats, and liberal politicians.

It's not because the whole thing was completely unplanned, or completely mismanaged that Iraq is in the situation that it is today. It's because BushCo is being smeared by the iron triangle of journalists, liberal bureaucrats, and liberal politicians.

If everyone would just believe and have faith in BushCo, then everything would be just hunky dory. It's the smear campaign by the Iron Triangle which is causing everything to go horribly wrong.

<heh>

Over at the Daily KOS, I see that the law of unintended consequences may rear its ugly head in the CA recall movement. Read the whole post.

So the California Supreme Court will likely have final say on the matter (though they might not). And if the Court backs Bustamante?

Then Issa will have spent millions to allow Californians to replace one corrupt, sleazy Democrat (Davis), with a popular, Latino, and far more progressive Democrat (Bustamante).

And that, my friends, would be what a happy ending looks like.

Sorry, just a bit of schadenfreude. Josh's post yesterday on the ever widening event horizon of the scandal black hole made me go back and look at one of my old posts before the war broke out.

It's no longer a matter of what's the right thing to do. We simply are shooting our foot via our head at this point. Not only are we doing something of questionable worth - heck, just my opinion - I think we're doing it in a way that completely guarantees a shit load of problems that are going to make Saddam look like the paper tiger that he really is. We are now on the brink of doing something incredibly stupid for all the right reasons - well, those who think this is the right thing to do, other than our Administration, who seem to have their heart in the right place.

We have absolutely no history of installing democracies in the world. This Administration has pissed off the entire world in its single minded pursuit of a questionable goal. We're all being dragged in as a nation. Sure, we hope that Iraqis will be throwing flowers and singing our praises as we march as liberators into Baghdad... But this is just a fantasy of how we'd like it to turn out. Everyone knows in the pit of their stomach that Murphy's Law will rear its ugly head and be the ultimate arbiter of this mess. Things ALWAYS go wrong - nothing ever goes as planned. If you think otherwise, you are being an absolute fool.

So, if you look at what is happening now, you would have to be playing Russian roulette with our future to be all for this crap.

And in my opinion, we're playing Russian roulette with five bullets in the six shot chamber. We've got exactly one chance to do everything - and I mean everything - right. I don't know about you, but I can't do everything right in my world, and I can't believe that the military and this gang of Mayberry Machiavellis can do everything right either - so far they've done absolutely everything wrong. And if even one or two things go wrong - and there's a million things that are likely to go wrong - we're in such deep shit that we're going to be wishing we had Saddam still in power where we could ignore the evil bastard.

So, I hope you guys are right and everything goes just as planned. I hope with all my soul that you're right.

But I think you're incredibly foolish to believe that people who have done everything about this wrong so far stand any chance in hell of doing anything right.

Union: IBM jobs may go overseas

White collar jobs are being shipped overseas in record numbers. Striking right at the heart of modern libertarianism - i.e. the tech workers who turned up their nose at Unions. What? We don't need no stinkin' unions.

Ha! It's going to be a true pleasure to see y'all squirm, scream, whine, bitch and moan.

And it's going to be doubly delicious to see you get a union card and listen to you spin your way into a rational that somehow justifies this action.

From Stratfor.

After 82 postwar days of absorbing casualties in Iraq, the United States has inflicted two significant blows on the Iraqi resistance. Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's two sons, Odai and Qusai, were confirmed killed in a six-hour raid in Mosul on July 22, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said at a news conference in Baghdad.

The demise of Odai and Qusai Hussein certainly will serve as a morale booster for U.S. troops, who were unpleasantly surprised to find themselves embroiled in a guerrilla war when they expected to be bound for home following Operation Iraqi Freedom. For the troops, these deaths will serve as a light at the end of an unanticipated tunnel. They also could generate at least a temporary rebound in U.S. President George W. Bush's popularity ratings, which have fallen to their lowest levels since March.

Been seeing more and more of the Google AdSense floating around blogs. Aside from an appearance by Atrios, jr. disparaging all blogs who sport them, they are actually quite amusing windows on the character and political leanings of a blog.

God only knows what algorithms and rituals Google uses to serve the ads, but they do seem to be relevant to the site that sports them. For example, the ones on Andrew Sullivan's site are Republican, right wing stuff. The ads that show up on Brad DeLong's site seem center and center-left.

Anyways, it's a great game to play. You can go here and enter in any site URL and Google AdSense will show you what ads Google thinks are appropriate.

Amusing and wholesome fun for all the family.

So, is the guerrilla movement in Iraq based on die hard Saddam loyalists? Or is it an actually uprising that could care less about Saddam - in fact would sooner collect the reward for his head?

I guess if the attacks don't drop sharply, the people believing this is a Ba'athist guerrilla movement can still point to Saddam and any number of high level cards still in play in Iraq. But if their theories are right, then the death of these two aces should have dealt a serious blow to the movement. After all, the prevailing theory I hear about Saddam is that he was severely injured (if not killed) in the "decapitation" strikes. And with his sons dead, he and his guerrillas must be in dire straights.

Right?

Okay. So Quiddity takes Elton's shorter versions of the nonsense of the Common Narrative and generates Venn diagrams exposing the naked fallacy of what they're trying to push.

that failure to find WMD doesn't mean they never existed, because something that once existed (Saddam, Osama, Judge Crater) cannot be found at the moment.

Well, it seems official. Saddam's sons are dead. And the world is far better off for it. I'm proud of our troops and glad they're taking their jobs very seriously.

2 down, Saddam to go.

Patriot Act powers send up a red flag

The attorney general firmly rejected suggestions that the Patriot Act gives the Department of Justice excessive power over people it suspects of involvement with terrorism.

"No person has been detained by the Department of Justice without filing charges," Ashcroft said firmly. "No person has been detained without access to a lawyer."

To some people, bringing back previous Washington arguments, the statement depends on what your definition of "no" is.

"I would say that statement is a very carefully phrased and disingenuous statement that ignores the Department of Justice's own Inspector General's report criticizing the department's procedures after 9/11," responds Lucas Guttentag, director of the immigrants rights project at the national office of the ACLU.

Bush Aide Takes Blame for Iraq Uranium Flap

And with a wave of his magic wand, The Great Oz turns the page.

The Daily Howler is having fits.

For the record, we don’t necessarily disagree with Raspberry’s larger assessment. But The Razz is exaggerating and stretching facts too! According to Raspberry, Bush’s statement was “a falsehood” (no one knows that) “about Niger” (the claim involved three African countries). Raspberry omits a third claim that has been appearing, as with Noah—the Bushies knew the Niger docs were fake at the time. The Perfect Storm tale is spreading fast, based on facts which no one has demonstrated.

Readers, the press corps always behaves this way. We reported it when it was done to Gore. We’re reporting it now, when it’s done to Bush. But suddenly, your opinion has changed. Suddenly, the press corps’ conduct is perfectly fine, and you are writing troubled e-mails about our puzzling “motives.”

<heh>

The wheel turns. When it turns your way, you feel grateful. When it's grinding against you, you complain bitterly. So I'm not shocked by any of this. And, of course, I wonder why the Daily Howler is...

Human nature being what it is, after all. . .

Go over to Orcinus for an excellent post

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Bush administration abused and misused intelligence for political purposes in selling the nation a bill of goods on the invasion of Iraq. Many of Bush's critics, however, are making the mistake of misjudging Bush's motives for going to war with Iraq.

Bush misled the nation not merely because he hoped to use the war for political fodder in the 2002 and 2004 elections, though that certainly figured into the equation. Neither was it merely because Iraq is such a significant source of oil, though that too probably was an added incentive.

No, this war was above all about ideology.

Stratfor view on the "non" issue.

Summary

The Bush administration's continued unwillingness to enunciate a coherent picture of the strategy behind the war against al Qaeda -- which explains the war in Iraq -- could produce a dangerous domino effect. Lurking in the shadows is the not fully articulated perception that the Iraq war not only began in deception but that planning for the Iraq war was incompetent -- a perception driven by the realization that the United States is engaged in a long-term occupation and guerrilla war in Iraq, and the belief that the United States neither expected nor was prepared for this. Ultimately, this perception could erode Bush's support base, cost him the presidency and, most seriously, lead to defeat in the war against al Qaeda.

One thing that has always puzzled me about the right of late is how they seem to just revel in things that, while technically legal, are somewhat in poor taste, or just this side of dishonest.

Josh MarsAzaell had an excellent analogy for the whole Iraqi intelligence fiasco in a post yesterday.

Let's say a CEO took over a Fortune 500 company. Let's further say that his first act was to walk down to the advertising division and tell them they had no idea what they were doing and had to change the way they did business. He also told them he was going to bring in some outside consultants to comment on (read: second guess) their work. Now, the CEO and his new crew didn't have a huge amount of experience with ad work. But he talked a good game. So people thought he might have something up his sleeve. Then the new results come in at the end of the year and the company's revenues fell off the cliff.

Now, needless to say, the boss's cronies and sycophants would say that it was just an example of how bad the ad division was doing in the first place, or come up with some other such excuse. But how long do you think that CEO would hold on to his job?

Again, this is precisely the same pattern that we've been witnessing from this administration from the very beginning.

Deficit? Oh, that's okay. I know we said there wasn't going to be one. Just go back to sleep.

Iraq? Well, they're the biggest threat since Ossama! We have plenty of scripted scenarios where we show everything works out okay! It's your lack of faith that is killing this whole project.

Tax cuts? Sure! Just like stock options to the CEOs. Again, we have plenty of projections using questionable projections - if not out and out lies - that shows your worries over fiscal ruin are completely unfounded.

The only thing surprising is the complete lack of accountability from the American people, and their proxy, the Fourth Estate.

Fool me once...

Fool me a zillion times....

Geesh.

From Stratfor

Summary

Africa is fast becoming a hot spot for the war between the United States and al Qaeda. A range of disconnected conflicts overlay a cohesive offensive by both sides to control the continent.

Fom Stratfor.

Four U.S. soldiers were killed in action over the weekend -- including two members of the 101st Airborne Division who were killed in an ambush west of Mosul that left another soldier injured. Sunday's ambush occurred near Tall Afar. The interesting thing about these attacks is that both took place outside the "Sunni Triangle" north and west of Baghdad, where attacks have been focused. The guerrillas appear to be expanding their operations deliberately, trying to unnerve U.S. troops and force their commanders to expand the combat arena -- and thereby stretch their resources even more. What is unclear is whether these were special operations at long distances by the Iraqis, or whether they indicated a sustained move into these regions -- and the answers to these questions will be critical.

Officials Debate Whether to Seek a Bigger Military

But we're not straining our military, mind you.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what is not true. The other is to refuse to believe what is true.

Accusations of Abuse in Report on USA Patriot Act

The inspector general said that from Dec. 16 through June 15, his office received 1,073 complaints "suggesting a Patriot Act-related" abuse of civil rights or civil liberties.

The report suggested that hundreds of the accusations were easily dismissed as not credible or impossible to prove. But of the remainder, 272 were determined to fall within the inspector general's jurisdiction, with 34 raising "credible Patriot Act violations on their face."

In those 34 cases, it said, the accusations "ranged in seriousness from alleged beatings of immigration detainees to B.O.P. correctional officers allegedly verbally abusing inmates."

The report said that two of the cases were referred to internal investigators at the Federal Bureau of Investigation because they involved bureau employees. In one case, the report said, the bureau investigated — and determined to be unsubstantiated — a complaint that an F.B.I. agent had "displayed aggressive, hostile and demeaning behavior while administering a pre-employment polygraph examination."

The report said that the second case involved accusations from a naturalized citizen of Lebanese descent that the F.B.I. had invaded his home based on false information and wrongly accused him of possessing an AK-47 rifle. That case, it said, is still under investigation by the bureau.

Idi Amin goes into coma

Brad DeLong finds the Niger documents on Cryptome. Check 'em out.

They're the pictures that appeared in the Italian paper, La Repubblica, on July 16th, 2003. Why haven't we seen them here? I don't think that they're really a side show. . .

Costly Mistake

Dead U.K. Weapons Adviser Was BBC Source

Iraq row over fate of seized scientists

Jokers.

North Korea Hides New Nuclear Site, Evidence Suggests

Indeed, there may now be at least two hidden facilities with the capacity to produce material for nuclear weapons. In October, confronted with American evidence, North Korean officials admitted that they had clandestinely built a plant intended to produce uranium, another fuel for a bomb. (It is the same approach Saddam Hussein tried in the early 1990's, and that Iran is pursuing today.) American officials say they have never found that plant, though they believe it is still a few years away from full-scale production.

If it turns out that the current evidence is being properly interpreted, and a second plutonium plant also exists, President Bush may not even have the option that President Bill Clinton briefly considered in 1994: using a military strike or sabotage to prevent North Korea from producing significant amounts of weapons-grade material. Still, Mr. Bush has vowed that he "will not tolerate" a nuclear North Korea.

Lying -- a Bush Family Value

Via scoobie comes this interesting read.

This strategy of expedient lies, mixed with aggressive cover-ups, has served the younger Bush well, too. He ducked the cocaine-use question with a clever answer about being qualified to serve in his father’s White House – where time limits were set for disqualifying employees over illegal drug use. He one-upped his father’s "no-new-taxes" pledge with his own promise to cut taxes while paying off the federal debt.

Handing out nicknames to reporters, the back-slapping George W. Bush skipped through Campaign 2000 with even less press criticism than his father got. More importantly, he escaped the scrutiny that the press corps concentrated on Gore, whose every utterance was dissected for possible signs of exaggeration or deception.

Bush was, after all, a Bush, who was expected to restore "honor" and "dignity" to the White House.

Waiting in the wings is still the whole Iraq/Al Qaeda non sense. The NY Times has an excellent Oped on this (no doubt Matthew Hoy will have nightmares over it).

And then there's Richard Cohen's latest decent into the "I can't believe I'm a Liberal" theme he's been having lately . . . Unshakable Faith

The favorite Bush grammatical construction is the tautology: Something is bad because it's bad. A synaptic leap is made in which a certain cause will have a certain effect -- never mind why. Things are stated with certainty, but the proof of them is not apparent. This may explain why Bush seems so sanguine about presenting evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program that later turned out to be not true. It doesn't matter. Because it ought to be, it is.

I know. I've stepped into a parallel universe again when I start agreeing with Cohen . . .

Then there's James "WWIV" Woosley in the same edition of the Guardian as a vivid contrast with my last post.

The former Director of the CIA says that America should make no apology for its robust response in the "war on terrorism". And if that makes other states nervous, so much the better

The weakness of al-Qaeda

Finally, and most ominously, it is a war without any obvious means of being brought to an end. There is no country to be occupied, no army to be broken up, no despot to depose. Instead there is an invisible enemy whose incoherence means it can never be fully brought to book.

The implications of this new 'war' on terrorism are serious. Internally, the industrialised nation-states may be about to enter a period when the gains of the democratic era are once again put up for grabs, with a rival governing model based on the rhetoric of the free market and a counter-terrorist-inspired liberal authoritarianism cAzaellenging the assumptions of representative democracy which have enjoyed dominance for decades.

Externally, the perceived necessity for action again terrorism is likely to lead to even more hypocrisy and brutality in international affairs while nations - led by the United States - place force and self-interest above earlier Kantian models of international cooperation: if reason doesn't count in the world, then double standards - a creature of rational thought - no longer matter.

It is still possible to avoid a decline of this type. Democratic values in general and social democracy in particular have proved very robust in the past, and there is no reason to believe that they will simply vanish without a fight. But this political battle needs to be waged in all democratic countries and on all fronts. Otherwise there is a risk that Bin Laden, acting as the unwitting ally of the forces of reaction in western democratic culture, will have succeeded in seriously battering our proud pluralism and draining us of much of our freedom.

Blair feels the heat after scientist's suicide confirmed

France's Mouvement Contre Le Racisme warns that French neo-Nazis and extremist Jewish groups have formed an Internet-based alliance to target Arabs and Muslims.

• French neo-Nazis and extremist Jewish groups are working together.
• The groups are using Internet sites to fuel hatred against Arabs and Muslims
• The groups advocated the assassination of France's President Jacques Chirac.

Italian Says She Gave U.S. Uranium Info

A journalist for an Italian news magazine has come forward, saying it was she who turned over to U.S. diplomats some documents purportedly showing that Iraq wanted to buy uranium from Niger. The documents turned out to be forgeries.

In an interview published Saturday, Corriere della Sera, a leading Italian daily, quoted Elisabetta Burba as saying her source "in the past proved to be reliable." The journalist, who writes for the weekly Panorama, refused to reveal her source.

"I realized that this could be a worldwide scoop, but that's exactly why I was very worried," Burba was quoted as saying. "If it turned out to be a hoax, and I published it, I would have ended my career."

The documents, later declared by experts to be forgeries, served as part of the basis for President Bush's assertion in his State of Union address in January that Saddam Hussein was trying to get hold of material that could be used for nuclear weapons.

Jordan to be face of National Foreplay Day

Fuel Efficiency Trumps Fuel Cells

We'd rather spend billions on a silver bullet than the same amount doing what we already know what to do.

Two U.S. energy experts cast more doubt Friday on a push to develop hydrogen-powered cars as a means to cut air pollution and reduce oil imports.

Cheaper and faster ways already exist to achieve the same effect, including raising fuel efficiency and toughening environmental standards, David Keith and Alexander Farrell wrote in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

"Hydrogen cars are a poor short-term strategy, and it's not even clear that they are a good idea in the long term," Farrell, assistant professor of energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement.

"Because the prospects for hydrogen cars are so uncertain, we need to think carefully before we invest all this money and all this public effort in one area."

"Automobile manufacturers don't need to invest in anything fancy. A wide number of technologies are already on the shelf," Farrell said. "The cost would be trivial compared to the changes needed to go to a hydrogen car."

Alan, You Need To Join The Real World

It always cracks me up that the super rich are so sanguine about other people's problems. But when they're threatened with losses, well then it becomes a true crisis that requires immediate action.

Preemptive action.

U.S. May Be Forced to Go Back to U.N. for Iraq Mandate

Okay, the thing that is going to piss me off about this the most is that every single one of the people who were pushing for the castration of the UN is going to heap even more derision on the UN because they have to go back, hat in hand, and negotiate with these guys to help us with the INCREDIBLE BAG OF SHIT that we're now holding.

The Republicans transform themselves into small, yellow cowards who cringe in the corner, terrorfied by a 71 year old man armed with a sheaf of paper.

The United States is being run by 7th graders.

You guys rock!

Turns out that that guy with the nuclear centrifuge under his rose garden is piling up some more crap on the deception formerly known as the 2003 SOTU speech.

A key Iraqi scientist recently told the CIA (search) that high-strength aluminum tubes bought by Baghdad weren't meant for nuclear bomb production, as President Bush suggested in his State of the Union address, two experts on Iraq's nuclear program say.

For those keeping score at home, the aluminum tube claim goes something like this:

Tubes were for The Bomb:

• One, maybe two CIA analysts, intimidated by Dick Cheney.


• Dick Cheney

Tubes were not for The Bomb:

• US State Department


• US Energy Department


• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)


• David Albright, former IAEA inspector and director of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS)


• Mahdi Shukur Obeidi, former head of Iraq's uranium enrichment unit, and a man with no reason to lie about the aluminum tubes.

On Dean's case for a special prosecutor.

Point 1 is equivalent to Bush saying that because Saddam has bags and bags of dog food, he must have 50,000 dogs. Growth medium is not Anthrax. And might I just point out that growth medium for bacterium can be found pretty much everywhere on the planet. I mean, how idiotic is it to base an imminent threat on this argument? It takes a lot more that sugar to make weaponized Anthrax.

So all you legal idiot savants can figure it out.

Why A Special Prosecutor's Investigation Is Needed To Sort Out the Niger Uranium And Related WMDs Mess

There is an unsavory stench about Bush's claims to the Congress, and nation, about Saddam Hussein's WMD threat. The deceptions are too apparent. There are simply too many unanswered questions, which have been growing daily. If the Independent Counsel law were still in existence, this situation would justify the appointment of an Independent Counsel.

Because that law has expired, if President Bush truly has nothing to hide, he should appoint a special prosecutor. After all, Presidents Nixon and Clinton, when not subject to the Independent Counsel law, appointed special prosecutors to investigate matters much less serious. If President Bush is truly the square shooter he portrays himself to be, he should appoint a special prosecutor to undertake an investigation.

Ideally, the investigation ought to be concluded - and the issue cleared up - well before the 2004 election, so voters know the character of the men (and women) they may or may not be re-electing.

Family, loved ones, and friends of those who have died, and continue to die, in Iraq deserve no less.

Okay, so maybe I'm just easily amused, but I thought BigPicnic's take on the whole YellowCake affair is just hillarious. I broke out laughing when the first picture downloaded over my currently sluggish connection.

Okay, just for laughs, we find that the person suspected of leaking to the BBC has apparently been found dead. Heard this on the way to work this morning and I just couldn't believe it. Yea, it's just coincidence.

But then there's the detailing of the shadow government that's been operating at the highest executive levels. Not only in the US, but apparently in Israel as well... Isn't that just ducky?

And not only is it a shadow government, it's a privately funded shadow government. Outside of congressional oversight. And not only is it a privately funded shadow government working closely with the shadow government in Israel, but it's a privately funded shadow government apparently staffed with incompetents.

There was a mountain of documentation to look through and not much time. The administration wanted to use the momentum gained in Afghanistan to deal with Iraq once and for all. The OSP itself had less than 10 full-time staff, so to help deal with the load, the office hired scores of temporary "consultants". They included lawyers, congressional staffers, and policy wonks from the numerous rightwing thinktanks in Washington. Few had experience in intelligence.

Again, this is just simply insane.

Man, this crap is just insane. Tell me why this is a good idea.

"The FBI is here,"Mom tells me over the phone. Immediately I can see my mom with her back to a couple of Matrix-like figures in black suits and opaque sunglasses, her hand covering the mouthpiece like Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder. This must be a joke, I think. But it's not, because Mom isn't that funny.

"The who?" I say.

"Two FBI agents. They say you're not in trouble, they just want to talk. They want to come to the store."

I work in a small, independent bookstore, and since it's a slow Tuesday afternoon, I figure, "Sure." Someone I know must have gotten some government work, I think; hadn't my consultant friend spoken recently of getting rolled onto some government job? Background check, I think, interviewing acquaintances ... No big deal, right? Then, of course, I make a big deal about it in front of my co-workers.

"That was my mom," I tell them. "The FBI's coming for me." They laugh; it's a good joke, especially when the FBI actually shows up. They are not the bogeymen I had been expecting. They're dressed casually, they speak familiarly, but they are big. The one in front stands close to 7 feet, and you can tell his partner is built like a bulldog under his baggy shirt and shorts.

"You Marc Schultz?" asks the tall one. He shows me his badge, introduces himself as Special Agent Clay Trippi. After assuring me that I'm not in trouble, he asks if there is someplace we can sit down and talk. We head back to Reference, where a table and chairs are set up. We sit down, and I'm again informed that I am not in trouble.

Then, Agent Trippi asks, "Do you drive a black Nissan Altima?" And I realize this meeting is not about a friend. Despite their reassurances, and despite the fact that I haven't committed any federal offenses (that I know of), I'm starting to feel a bit like I'm in trouble.

THIS IS A STUPID STRATEGY. IT DOESN'T CATCH TERRORISTS.

Oooooooo. You find people who don't agree with the government and criticize it.... Great going! You found patriotic Americans and are harassing them for absolutely no good reason.

Isn't this crap precisely what our founding fathers and mothers were fighting against when they created this country of ours?

Geesh. It's like Hoover has been reincarnated.

With so many things flying about these days, it's easy to lose track of everything. As we've seen, things can turn on a dime. Months old knowledge suddenly becomes a liability when things start to turn Guerrilla in the occupation.

And then there's Syria. Major power behind a lot of nasty stuff in the Middle East. State sponsor of terrorism. And there's the whole Lebanon thing . . .

Anyways, an update on our interesting Syrian friends from Stratfor.

From the WaPo, Harold Meyerson writes.

Just how uncomfortable becomes clear by a close reading of the cover story in the July-August issue of Foreign Policy -- Newt Gingrich's attack on the State Department for its refusal to implement George W. Bush's foreign policy. Gingrich's screed has been widely condemned for its bizarre allegations of Foggy Bottom disloyalty. But its most stunning passage -- an attack on the very idea of unbiased intelligence -- has been overlooked.

Gingrich notes that on April 28, Bush told a group of Iraqi Americans in Dearborn, Mich., "I have confidence in the future of a free Iraq. The Iraqi people are fully capable of self-government." Then the Newtster continues:

"Contrast that vision with a recent classified report by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research titled 'Iraq, the Middle East and Change: No Dominoes,' which was leaked in March 2003 to the Los Angeles Times. As reported by that newspaper, the document stated that 'liberal democracy would be difficult to achieve [in Iraq]. . . . Electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements.' " Gingrich goes on to list other Foggy Bottom low points, and concludes: "Can anyone imagine a State Department more out of sync with Bush's views and objectives?"

It's okay if you want to go back and read that again. Gingrich has just criticized an intelligence assessment of what Iraq is for being out of sync with Bush's views on what Iraq should be. Those of us who've called for investigations of whether the administration slanted its intelligence should be abashed. What's to investigate? Here's a member of the administration's Defense Policy Board who argues in print that the very purpose of intelligence is to confirm the president's vision of a proper planet. In the mind of Newt Gingrich, where synapses must misfire at close to the speed of light, the descriptive and the normative are as one.

It's fashionable to dismiss Gingrich today as a kind of crazy uncle with whom the Republicans are saddled. But no one made Don Rumsfeld appoint to his policy board a guy who doesn't understand the most rudimentary premise of intelligence. And the appointment does help explain why Rumsfeld set up his own intelligence assessment office inside the Pentagon in the very image of Gingrich's intelligence cookery.

My friends on the left fear the administration's budding imperialism. I'm more concerned by its raging anti-empiricism.

Faith based reality.

Geesh.

From Stratfor.

Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, said July 16 that the United States is facing "what I would describe as a classical guerrilla-type campaign against us. It's a low-intensity conflict in our doctrinal terms, but it's war however you describe it." He also said, "We're seeing a cellular organization of six to eight people armed with (rocket-propelled grenades), machine guns, etc., attacking us at some times and places of their choosing, and other times we attack them at times and places of our choosing."

This statement is an extremely significant event. Washington has been in a state of denial as to what is happening in Iraq, with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld leading the charge to pretend that the obvious wasn't happening. Even if he knew privately what was going on -- which we certainly would expect -- the public presentation reminded us of Baghdad Bob in his heyday. That, coupled with the obsession about forged letters and WMD, created a sense both at home and among troops in Iraq that the National Command Authority had lost track of reality in Iraq. Abizaid's statement tells us two things: First, he intends to wage a military campaign in Iraq, and second, he will define the reality in Iraq regardless of what the situation is in Washington.

Check out FreeNet

Freenet is free software designed to ensure true freedom of communication over the Internet. It allows anybody to publish and read information with complete anonymity. Nobody controls Freenet, not even its creators, meaning that the system is not vulnerable to manipulation or shutdown. Freenet is also very efficient in how it deals with information, adaptively replicating content in response to demand.

No, not Iraq. That's a protectorate. We're talking Britain here.

We are now a client state

Britain has by now lost its sovereignty to the United States and has become a client state. As Tony Blair flies in to Washington today to be patted on the head by the US Congress, this is the sad truth behind his visit. No surprise, therefore, that the planned award to him of a congressional medal of honour for backing the US invasion of Iraq has been postponed. To be openly patronised in that way, under the circumstances, would be just too embarrassing.

Is it fair to accuse the US of destroying our national sovereignty? The issue is so little discussed that even to make the claim has parallels with the ravings of the europhobes that Brussels plans to make Britons eat square sausages. Yet consider the following seven facts, none of which depends directly on the way the US dragged Britain into Iraq, nor on the current MI6-CIA intelligence blame game about the war.

Via Disinformation, this patent on manipulating the nervous system through a TV monitor

The program that causes a monitor to display a pulsing image may be run on a remote computer that is connected to the user computer by a link; the latter may partly belong to a network, which may be the Internet.

For a TV monitor, the image pulsing may be inherent in the video stream as it flows from the video source, or else the stream may be modulated such as to overlay the pulsing. In the first case, a live TV broadcast can be arranged to have the feature imbedded simply by slightly pulsing the illumination of the scene that is being broadcast. This method can of course also be used in making movies and recording video tapes and DVDs.

Video tapes can be edited such as to overlay the pulsing by means of modulating hardware. A simple modulator is discussed wherein the luminance signal of composite video is pulsed without affecting the chroma signal. The same effect may be introduced at the consumer end, by modulating the video stream that is produced by the video source. A DVD can be edited through software, by introducing pulse-like variations in the digital RGB signals. Image intensity pulses can be overlaid onto the analog component video output of a DVD player by modulating the luminance signal component. Before entering the TV set, a television signal can be modulated such as to cause pulsing of the image intensity by means of a variable delay line that is connected to a pulse generator.

Certain monitors can emit electromagnetic field pulses that excite a sensory resonance in a nearby subject, through image pulses that are so weak as to be subliminal. This is unfortunate since it opens a way for mischievous application of the invention, whereby people are exposed unknowingly to manipulation of their nervous systems for someone else's purposes. Such application would be unethical and is of course not advocated. It is mentioned here in order to alert the public to the possibility of covert abuse that may occur while being online, or while watching TV, a video, or a DVD.

The press gives Bush a free ride on his lies

And by Press we mean Toadies. And by Toadies, we mean the lowest form of life short of plankton. And that's being mean to plankton.

But Bush gets a free pass time after time. The press holds back partly because of America's vulnerability to terrorism, which Bush's handlers exploit shamelessly. The administration is also very effective at pressuring and isolating reporters who criticize Bush, so working reporters bend over backwards to play fair. And the administration benefits from a stage-managed right-wing media machine that has no counterpart on the liberal left.

The press has even stopped making a fuss over the fact that this president has all but stopped holding press conferences. In his Africa trip, Bush intervened to limit questions, even as his African presidential hosts were indicating that press questions were welcome.

Investigations of administration deceptions about how many jobs the tax cuts will create or the actual effects on children of high-stakes testing combined with funding cuts or the saga of how the Pentagon tried to take over the CIA - these are not opinions. They are what journalism is all about.

I know they're dated, but the "excuse" excuse is making the rounds once again.

10 - Iraqi weapons program personnel fooled Saddam into believing he had a WMD program. These sly jokers also fooled the US into believing this as well.

9 - Saddam managed to scrub Iraq so clean, the CSI team from the TV show of the same name can't even tell they've ever been there. Our vast intelligence didn't detect a thing.

8 - Syria felt so confident about having the US armed forces on their border, they decided to take the WMD hot potato from Iraq. Our vast intelligence didn't detect a thing.

7 - Iran, with their own nuclear bombs just months away, decided that they needed to trade up to Anthrax and VX. Our vast intelligence didn't detect a thing.

6 - Saddam, Uber-capitalist, used the vast wealth of Iraq's oil to create a really, really huge Just In Time WMD factory. All he was waiting for was a purchase order from Ossama.

5 - There were so many strategic reasons to take over the country, the only one we thought the American electorate would buy was Weapons of Mass Destruction.

4 - By the time we got around to searching things, the looters had kept themselves warm at night by burning the incriminating documents in radioactive drums they found lying around.

3 - Hey, we found some Trailers of Hydrogen Production. That sounds like Weapons of Mass Destruction if you say it fast enough.

2 - It's a country the size of California. That's a heck of a lot of oil wells and pumping stations to get on line, you know.

1 - We all believed Bill Clinton's CIA director that told us WMDs were there. Just goes to show how soft Democrats are on national security.

Reposted again because I still find them hilarious and I'm extraordinarily easily amused these days.

Statfor Third Quarter Forcast

Summary

The second quarter began as the United States' war in Iraq was drawing to a close, and Stratfor's forecast for the quarter was terse:

"The U.S. victory over Iraq will dominate the second quarter. The world will be absorbing not only that victory, but the relative ease with which it was achieved. U.S. power has advanced to another level, and the world will spend the next quarter coming to terms with what this means."

We did see apparent shifts in political calculations in Europe and the Middle East, and Washington attempted to capitalize rapidly on its victory in Iraq with initiatives regarding Syria, Iran and the Palestinian territories.

But the United States was unable to take full advantage of the postwar global shock and awe as it became encumbered by two developments. Of lesser importance, unless one happened to be Tony Blair, were postwar recriminations over the arguments used by the Bush administration and its allies to justify the war. In short, where were the weapons of mass destruction?

Someone in the comments to this site brought up the fact that the number of soldiers "killed in accidents" was almost double the number of soldiers "killed in combat". Now it seems there's some suspicion about that.

The details of Coffin's death have been mired in confusion since the day it was announced by the military.

Initially, a press release from Coffin's unit stated he died after his vehicle swerved to avoid a civilian vehicle.

But a report from the U.S. Central Command issued a day before said a member of Coffin's unit was killed July 1 when his convoy was hit by "an improvised explosive device."

That report did not name Coffin, but he was the only member of his unit to die that day.

Now a new report from Time, citing "Coffin family members and U.S. government officials looking into the case," says Coffin's vehicle was deliberately run off the road, then surrounded by an angry mob. A Humvee following Coffin stopped to help, but was also overwhelmed and then set on fire.

BigPicnic has the best satire yet. Life imitates Art, savaged by comedy imitating Ari.

<heh>

Why go to Niger?

Troops Will Leave After Election

Oh really? Just one election and democracy will have been rooted so deep it can never be displaced?

I mean, how stupid do you have to be to believe this? Either, they're going to cut and run at the first chance, or they're just complete and utter fools.

Your pick.

Excellent idea.

Over at the Skeptical Notion, Morat talks about the interesting possibility brought up by Josh that the Yellow Cake nonsense was brought into play because of the Democrats' request for the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).

I remember the whole shebang regarding the NIE. It was extremely odd that the White House continued to hem an haw on the NIE. The NIE has been the mainstay of national security decision-making for nearly 60 years. So where was the NIE on Iraq? One intelligence official says the White House decided not to request the report to "avoid enshrining in a widely circulated document the uncertainties that persist about Iraq."

A great note from Bruce Schneier about how to fight back against Stupid Security and the very real threat posed by such insanity.

Three points about fighting back. First, one-on-one negotiations -- customer and pharmacy owner, for example -- can be effective, but they also allow all kinds of undesirable factors like class and race to creep in. It's unfortunate but true that I'm a lot more likely to engage in a successful negotiation with a policeman than a black person is. For this reason, more stylized complaints or protests are often more effective than one-on-one negotiations.

Second, naming and shaming doesn't work. Just as it doesn't make sense to negotiate with a clerk, it doesn't make sense to insult him. Instead say: I know you didn't make the rule, but if the people who did ever ask you how it's going, tell them the customers think the rule is stupid and insulting and ineffective." While it's very hard to change one institution's mind when it is in the middle of a fight, it is possible to affect the greater debate. Other companies are making the same security decisions; they need to know that it's not working.

Third, don't forget the political process. Elections matter; political pressure by elected officials on corporations and government agencies has a real impact. One of the most effective forms of protest is to vote for candidates who share your ideals.

Stratfor had an interesting bit in the last post

It is impossible to believe Iraqi WMD never existed because it is an absolute fact that Hussein used chemical weapons on Iraqis. It is equally difficult to believe that he would have destroyed them without at least inviting former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix to the party. What could Hussein possibly gain from destroying them in secret? It makes no sense. Why did he behave as he did if he had no weapons? We find it impossible to believe that Hussein once had WMD but destroyed them in secret.

Therefore, the extraordinarily improbable must be true: Iraqi WMD still exist.

From Stratfor

Summary

The crisis du jour in Washington is a revelation that President George W. Bush quoted from a forged letter about Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger in his State of the Union address. Congress, as usual, is missing the point. Weapons of mass destruction were not the primary reason Bush went to war in Iraq, but he certainly thought they were there. Everyone thought they were there. The critical issue is: Where are Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons today? What the CIA did with the Niger letter is of no real importance. What the CIA knows and doesn't know about the current war in Iraq and whether guerrillas control chemical or biological weapons is the critical issue that everyone is avoiding.

This one looks very good.

News Monster had some interesting trouble showing unread items, and that was really annoying. Then there's the whole death of Netscape and the scurrying of developers to other pastures. Mozilla, I hardly knew ye.

In any event, Feed demon has some very nice features and it is lightening fast. Shows all my unread articles and hasn't hung or died once. This despite using the Windows .NET libraries. There's some GUI issues in the beta, but they're minor.

Definitely recommend.

Well another year, another 450 Billion dollars. Astounding? Naw. My respect for the Great Oz just climbed another 6 or 7 notches on the "Making Reality Stand Up on Its Hind Legs And Bark Like a Dog" scale.

Running around the news and blogs, I find the usual mixture of shock on the left and "More! More! More!" on the right. Surreal. The mainstream press is trying desperately to put the best spin on it. Talk about the deficit as a relative measure of the GDP n' such.

But, don't it kind of put the whole L Curve into perspective? After all, our economy is so huge that running a deficit of 500 Billion dollars a year is no big deal. Something to yawn about, really. Could be better, but "on course". Getting better.

Cheney under pressure to quit over false war evidence

Robertson: Pray for three justices to go

Yea, this religion and politics stuff is surely good for our country. No offense, but...

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson urged his nationwide audience Monday to pray for God to remove three justices from the Supreme Court so they could be replaced by conservatives.

''We ask for miracles in regard to the Supreme Court,'' Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's ''The 700 Club.''

First HIV hybrid formed in a human revealed

The first case of two strains of HIV combining to form a new hybrid virus in a human has been revealed by researchers.

More than one type of the deadly virus can infect a person at the same time - a state called "superinfection". Scientists have long suspected that different strains could combine to produce a hybrid - but this had never been demonstrated before.

Now scientists have shown that two major subtypes of HIV-1 swapped genes with each other to form an entirely new virus in a female patient. Furthermore, the hybrid took over from the original infections to become the dominant virus in the woman's body. This caused her condition, which had been relatively stable, to rapidly deteriorate.

As well as worsening the outlook for individual patients, this ability of HIV strains to recombine could pose a crucial stumbling block in the hunt for an AIDS vaccine. "Recombination resulting from superinfection with diverse strains may pose problems for eliciting the broad immune responses necessary for an effective vaccine," said Harold Burger, of the Wadsworth Center in Albany, New York, who led the research.

Timing is fatal flaw for missile defense

Again, this is not a defensive weapon. It is an offensive weapon.

Geesh.

North Korea Says It Has Made Fuel for Atom Bombs

1) Insane?
check

2) Known terrorist connections?
check

3) Actually proliferates weapons?
check

4) Been caught red handed at the previous two?
check

5) Has weapons grade plutonium?
check

Yea, this is going to work out real well.

Seymour Hersh, back when the War was Young.

Then the story fell apart. On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes. "The I.A.E.A. has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents . . . are in fact not authentic," ElBaradei said.

One senior I.A.E.A. official went further. He told me, "These documents are so bad that I cannot imagine that they came from a serious intelligence agency. It depresses me, given the low quality of the documents, that it was not stopped. At the level it reached, I would have expected more checking."

And might I add that the above was written in mid March of 2003?

Any claims that the press has "woken up" or have suddenly started to feel their oats over the Yellow Cake affair are wildly overblown. A fantasy spun from dream silk on sugar sprinkled cake.

Ass. Hole in the ground. Do they notice any difference between the two?

It took Baute's team only a few hours to determine that the documents were fake. The agency had been given about a Azaelf-dozen letters and other communications between officials in Niger and Iraq, many of them written on letterheads of the Niger government. The problems were glaring. One letter, dated October 10, 2000, was signed with the name of Allele Habibou, a Niger Minister of Foreign Affairs and Coöperation, who had been out of office since 1989. Another letter, allegedly from Tandja Mamadou, the President of Niger, had a signature that had obviously been faked and a text with inaccuracies so egregious, the senior I.A.E.A. official said, that "they could be spotted by someone using Google on the Internet."

Reading the hundreds of column inches regarding the Yellow Cake affair, I remember with fondness back to Feburary of 2002. The "official" closing of the Office of Strategic Influence.

Doesn't the whole affair just have the stink of a purely propaganda campaign?

We don't know who did the forgeries, and from what I can tell no one is seriously interested in finding out. No one. We actually haven't seen the evidence in question. Everyone is just pointing fingers and constructing excuses. No one seems to care about looking at the rotting corpse and seeing just what it is this is all about.

Another propaganda coup, no doubt.

Israel still holding Belfast journalist in IRA identity snafu

When I first heard this on the drive in to day, it was quite a different story. Amplifying bomb design, expertise with mortars. A really bad seed.

Poor guy.

ABC news reports today that Google Can't Find WMD.

I figure it took 12 days to enter the mainstream narrative.

Another thing that seems to be completely ignored during this whole Yellow Cake issue is the actual frickin' evidence. You know? The actual frickin' documents on which the infamous 16 words were buttressed. Those?

Why oh why hasn't anyone produced these so we can all see them and have independent experts look at them? I mean, what the heck is so secret about them now? Do they even exist?

Maybe I missed something in all the tussle, but I can't believe that none of our crack reporters haven't been screaming for these things.

Oh wait a minute.

Secret deal paves way for Mugabe exit this year

And don't show your face in civilized (or uncivilized) society again. Ever.

<heh>

Love the blog name.

Divine Intervention

These days, it seems religion is the opiate of the rulers. Consider the recent tales of daily Bible class in the White House, of impromptu church services aboard Air Force One, and of British Prime Minister Tony Blair chastising his aides for being a most “ungodly lot.”

Yet Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush are not the only ones whose religion informs their policy preferences. A forthcoming working paper by economists Joseph Daniels and Marc von der Ruhr reveals how an American’s religion is likely to affect his or her views on a range of foreign policy questions. The polling data shows that Baptists, Jews, and pre–Vatican II Catholics are more likely than believers from other religious denominations to favor unilateral action by the United States. Despite the stress that Catholic teaching places on the right to emigrate, Catholics do not support emigration more than members of other faiths. And African-American Baptists are most likely to back restrictions on imports.

However, Daniels cautions against using the results to predict the American public’s attitude toward the Iraq crisis and the Bush doctrine, noting that he and von der Ruhr conducted the survey both before the conflict and before “unilateral” became almost synonymous with military force. Daniels plans to analyze new data later this year to assess how religious affiliation influences U.S. attitudes toward unilateral military action.

Scott Appleby, a religious historian at the University of Notre Dame, observes that the support of the aforementioned groups for U.S. unilateralism may well stem from their “teleological view of history,” in which God drives events toward a certain end—what he calls a “theological version of Manifest Destiny.” Appleby stresses that politics also plays a key role, however, especially for Jews who recognize that the state of Israel is supported by U.S. unilateralism.

Daniels argues that “religious groups are pushing American foreign policy,” citing the example of the debt relief campaign Jubilee 2000, which received support from a wide range of religious organizations in the United States due to its Old Testament origins. As “Old Europe” continues to secularize, Daniels sees the United States’ growing religiosity pushing U.S. foreign policy in an increasingly unilateralist direction.

All But One German Base Could Close

You know, I think it's probably for the best. But it's kind of like leaving on a real, sour, nasty note. Rather than as a good friend.

How our government (in the shape of the US Air Force) hopes to control information.

USAF INTELLIGENCE TARGETING GUIDE

Read it an weep.

Funding for TIA All But Dead

And might I say that I hope Poindexter is out on the welfare rolls. Yea, it's my tax money, but I say it's more than well spent if he NEVER gets close to another government job for the rest of his life.

Nice to see this get formalized.

"This is the fundamental theorem of data hiding,' O'Sullivan said. "One hundred years from now, if someone's trying to embed information in something else, they'll never be able to hide more than is determined by our theory. This is a constant. You basically plug in the parameters of the problem you are working and the theory predicts the limits."

Morat has an excellent response to Tacitus' post update. You should really go read it. But here's my favorite part.

It didn't take a genius to realize, months and months before the war, that the "plan" for Iraqi occupation was CAzaelabi. And it didn't take a genius to realize that was a plan doomed to failure.

So, Tacitus, I opposed this war because I suspected that I was being lied too, and damn well knew that no one was making any realistic plans for the aftermath.

And I've damn well been proven right. Iraq is a mess. Basic water, basic electricity, basic sanitation....these things haven't been fully repaired in the months since the end of the war.

And here you come along and bitch we're not sufficiently optimistic? What do we have to be optimistic about, Tacitus? Every pessimistic and gloomy assessment about the aftermath of the war has come true. Pretty much everything that could be screwed up, was screwed up. We're occupying an increasingly hostile nation, one whose basic services we can't seem to provide, and you want me to be optimistic about the formation of a fairly powerless council?

Fuck optimism. Optimism was what got us into this damn mess in the first place. Had people at State and Defense been more realistic, and less optimistic, then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

Sorry, Tacitus. Optimism is earned. This isn't any sort of damn test for us "anti-war people". It's a test for the "pro-war people".

You got us into this mess. You got us into this mess over our objections, and you have so far managed to screw it up badly. And then you try to come along and bitch that we're not supportive enough?

Update: Jeanne has an excellent post on the "O" word, but from a different angle.

The spin from the common narrative is that the democrats have a problem - the war. As Taranto says

The Democrats are now more united on the war than they've been at any time since that brief burst of bipartisanship immediately after Sept. 11. Trouble is, they're united behind the views of Howard Dean, and that puts the more mainstream candidates--John Kerry, Dick Gephardt and Joe Lieberman--in a logically untenable position. All are now arguing against a war they voted for.

Being duped because you trusted your president is not the issue. And guess what James? The war is a done deal. We have to deal with making the best out of the situation - regardless of how we got into this.

There will be some small wedges that they will attempt to drive into the democratic party block, but I don't think they'll work that much.

I was anti-war, but I'm not going to hold that against *any* democratic candidate. Even Lieberman.

What counts is the lessons learned and what is to come.

Did the candidate learn the right lessons from the whole war experience? Does the candidate understand what went wrong? Does the candidate have an idea of how to prevent such crap from happening in the future? Does the candidate have a clue as to how we're going to get through the next decade without making things far, far worse than they were before the war.

Those are the issues.

The fact that they voted for the war is not even something that comes on my radar screen any more.

Try again, James.

Let the fever of paranoia pass away

And here, of course, is the central point. We're lolloping from one stinky little crisis to the next. Does it matter that Niger didn't export uranium to feed Saddam's non-existent nuclear programme and thus provide him with another non-weapon of mass destruction? Pile tosh upon tosh and you still get tosh. The point is the swilling, stretching ocean of tosh itself.

Trial lawyers pose a threat to homeland security.

Sacrifices have to be made.

Saudi beheads national for shooting compatriot

Saudi Arabia has beheaded a Saudi man convicted of gunning down a compatriot in a dispute over farm land. The execution raised to at least 21 the number of people put to death this year in the desert kingdom, which enforces strict Islamic sharia law.

At least 45 people were executed in the country last year, 75 in 2001 and 121 in 2000.

The Gulf Arab state executes murderers, rapists and drug smugglers - usually by public beheading. - Reuters

Drifting along over the pacific.

From Stratfor.

This week will be about Iraq. There are widespread reports that the guerrillas intend either to intensify operations this week or launch a major offensive. Such rumors come and go, but this one seems to have some credibility. An Iraqi council, a sort of prototype government for Iraq, was installed on Sunday, July 13. This week we will start to see whether this entity can develop any credibility. Finally, the intelligence crisis in Washington has intensified to the point that we will begin to see the extent of the situation. By the end of the week, we will have a better sense of the Iraq situation, as a whole, than has been available since the end of major operations.

Never saw anyone actually asking for them before. Even if Tim is just asking to be bitten, The Road To Serfdom really is a great read.

<heh>

20 Lies About the War

You know, it really would have been a much easier experience if we had a real investigative, aggressive Fourth Estate. I know it is stating the obvious, and it is nice to know the lies even after the fact, but maybe there could be a little more skepticism and fact checking and just plain reporting before we do something really reckless. You know, before committing 150K troops for 2-5 years @ >5 billion a month.

And maybe (if you're feeling frisky) you could pay attention to the polls a bit and publish stories, reports and opinion pieces that at least attempts to correct the public's perception of reality, rather than simply feed the confusion and misconceptions to benefit of the dogs of war.

Geesh.

N Korea claims nuclear weapons ready in months

And need I point out that we didn't need to be at this point. It wasn't inevitable. The "Screw You", tough guy, "I don't need no stinkin' diplomacy" macho bullsh*t posturing is somewhat responsible for this mess. Yea, N. Korea is frickin' insane.

But you don't taunt a rabid wolf.

And you don't ignore it either.

And you certainly don't jaunt around committing massive amounts of your troops for years in newly occupied territory.

A nine page article in the NY Times magazine.

In Hell's Waiting Room

Contrast with Liberal Democrats' Perverse Foreign Policy

As Elton paraphrases Krauthammer

All profitable wars are good, be they defensive or offensive, but it is immoral to intervene militarily solely to help others.

Saw Rummy's incredibly sad performance on Meet The Press this morning. It was just sad. Tim "Mr. Stiffy" Russert largely acted like he was thrust into a cage with a rabid animal. He was terrified. But he tried to stand his ground and Rummy squirmed like a bucket full of earthworms.

I got some inkling of what it must be like to be in a meeting with Rummy. He's a very scary man. Everyone - and I do mean everyone - must be literally terrified to say anything to the man that he doesn't want to hear.

And that, more than anything really, is the source of his evil. He makes up his mind and expects reality to conform to it.

Yi.

Patriot whistleblower, part two

Tens of billions of dollars have been spent developing ground-based, sensor-equipped rockets — "kill vehicles" that would intercept and destroy incoming warheads — the first of which is to be installed in the fall of 2004.

There's just one problem, according to Postol, a 57-year-old missile systems specialist at Boston's Massachusetts Institute of Technology: They do not, cannot and will not work.

The system is fatally flawed, he says, because the sensors are incapable of distinguishing between a missile and a decoy — and decoys would be part of any enemy attack.

Well, there's a simple explanation. It's a damn great offensive system for dominating low earth orbit. When someone puts a satellite into orbit, they hardly ever use a bunch of decoys to confuse someone as to what payload is the real satellite. Hardly ever at all.

So while the system is completely shit for defending against incoming nuclear warheads, it's a truly terrific system for shooting down rockets putting stuff into space that we don't want, or maybe even shooting stuff already in space that's just gotten on our nerves.

Truly classic. Get everyone to argue about what they absolutely don't care about. The battle is being fought in a completely different field, in a completely different game, with completely different rules.

Amazing how everyone falls for it.

Well, the big manly men have finally found their ultimate sport: Hunting Women. I tell ya. It was only a matter of time.

How long do you think it's going to take someone to come up software that uses the vast swarm of cell phone cameras out there to do mass surveillance with. Once they have GPS in all of them... Mosaic swarms, fly-eye surveillance stitched together with digital brains.

In the spirit of Willis

(Washington) - A day after the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, took responsibility for approving the use of unsubstantiated information about Iraq's nuclear program in the State of the Union address, the CIA director stunned the nation today when he revealed that he was responsible for the country's ballooning deficit.

"I don't know what to say," said Tenet, "The CIA should have told them they shouldn't be spending more money than they were taking in." Mr. Tennet's comments followed a strikingly open effort by the White House on Friday to place the blame on the CIA for not stripping from the Administration's budget a line, later found to be based on unreliable economic theories, asserting aggressive revenue generation from dynamic scoring of tax policies.

The Moxie Festival is happening on the one month anniversary of the blogospurt also known as the Moxie affair.

Considering the "he said, she said, they said, we said, no one said" going on in the highest levels of major world powers, it seems doubly appropriate to celebrate Moxie.

So here's to Moxie! In all its incarnations and manifestations.

R.Robot says it best.

The liberals Reloaded

One day, Bin Laden's rule will be at an end. On that day, we want to be able to look these people in the eye and tell them that we cared about them, too.

There you have it: the nattering demagogy, the defeatist smear campaigning of the screeching Left.

"What ever happened to Osama Bin Laden?" says Dick Gephardt. Well, duh. The bigots of the wildly hypocritical elite are not capable of rational thought. So they accuse pro-war people like Tony Blair of whatever pops into their heads. Breathtakingly, to be one of the dishonest cultural elite is to disgrace and disgrace. After all, this is a man who has robbed American children of a Playstation Christmas. "You know, Saddam hadn't actually invaded anything for a while," says Gary Hart. I suppose he'd rather invite the butcher of Baghdad over and make love. "Is there any evidence that Iraq 'thinks they might want to team up with terrorists,' as the President said?" says Senator Kerry. Really? Really? If these people hate America so much, maybe they should move to Basra.

In the wake of George W. Bush's cogent speech, let's put to rest the handwringing deception of the adulterers, for there is nary a shred of evidence.

Anyone but me think it's just too funny of a coincidence that Bush was in Nigeria when the whole thing broke yesterday?

Maybe it's just me.

Oh, and the ability this administration has to make everyone "bark like a dog" is downright eery...

(updated. Niger is not Nigeria. Damn my US geography education!)

Abbas rule 'could collapse'

PALESTINIANS warned that the rule of US-supported Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas could collapse if Israel does not take more concrete steps toward peace

THE Israeli army has demolished a Palestinian house in Rafah, in its first such action in the Gaza Strip since main Palestinian militant groups declared a ceasefire last month, a Palestinian security source said.

The army demolished the three storey house near the border with Egypt yesterday using bulldozers and without giving prior warning to residents, the source said.

Update: I meant "triplets". I forgot about the Bauer's statement in Ha'aretz yesterday.

Okay, tinfoil hat time. A post yesterday on the RealityChecker got me thinking about the whole Iraq thing again from a perspective I played with before. Kevin's alarming post on the recent flip/flop by Rummy on throwing more troops at the problem seemed like the other shoe dropping.

A trap sure doesn't sound so far fetched to me.

What if this was their strategy all along? What if, instead of fighting America in the desert, the Iraqi command authority made a conscious choice to suck us into their cities and fight us 1 platoon at a time, with small-unit ambushes and such? This looks an awful lot like classic insurgency warfare; what some call 4th Generation Warfare. It reflects an old maxim most recently stated by Chinese leader Mao Zedong: "The reed bends with the wind, and then snaps back up again."

I do not think we're seeing low-level criminal activity anymore; I also don't think we're seeing uncoordinated attacks. I think that our enemy has coalesced into something larger and more menacing. Of course, I don't have the on-the-ground intelligence to make this assessment, nor do I have access to anything but open-source reports. But the tea leaves look clear to me. The Iraqis have strategically withdrawn from the desert and regrouped in the cities, and instead of fighting us where we are strong (the desert), they are now fighting us where we are weak. Their ultimate goal is to mimic Somalia. The Iraqis hope to inflict enough casualties on us that we will go home with our tail between our legs. Ultimately, this is a dubious strategy, given our national level of commitment to Iraq as compared to our commitment to Somalia. But in the short-term, it means that Iraqi guerrillas will seek to kill as many Americans as possible wherever they present targets of opportunity.

Despite the spinning he did previously on the Niger affair, I do like reading Volokh. He has a response to a post by Eric Muller (Is that Legal?) that I completely agree with.

You can follow the link above for the details, but the short of it is an invalid premise of Eric's.

But what is kind of funny, and I'm not sure if this is intentionally funny, is the example he uses to illustrate the point. I'm not sure of which school of rhetoric it belongs to, but the technique of re-framing the incident with "Liberals are Traitors to America" struck me as quite clever. It thrust Ann Coulter immediately into my mind. And the image isn't pretty, either...

But I was very amused.

<heh>

Marvin at the Daily Dystopian has a timeline of links from his blogs covering the whole sordid affair...

I just got to say. Why did anyone get taken in by this pack of fools? Why? Everyone is running around either spinning or digging.

How much easier it would have been to actually have investigative reporters on the job, rather than Judith "I'm embedded" Miller reporting pre-packaged propaganda.

It's a lesson in manipulation that almost certainly will go unlearned.

New hope for WMD evidence

THE US has discovered what it believes is decisive proof of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs and taken the material to the US for testing.

US Undersecretary of State John Bolton told The Weekend Australian the US had evidence it hoped would prove Iraq's previous possession of WMD.

Well-informed sources have now told The Weekend Australian that US soldiers made the discovery in Iraq two weeks ago. They believe the material will contain chemical weapons materials.

However, the material was not in a pristine or readily identifiable state when it was discovered and it was decided to take it back to the US for comprehensive laboratory testing.

Again, something that has always bothered me. Why the massive focus on Weapons of Mass Destruction? I just read an interesting article in the Financial Times on the need for a global solution to the trade in illicit weapons - i.e. WMDs.

So, just out of curiosity, how many people have died to date from Weapons of Mass Destruction?

There are the poor souls who died as a result of the two nuclear bombs used by the US in Japan. Then there's the WWI use of gas warfare - a non-insignificant number of deaths and injuries. And then, of course, there is the gassing of the Kurds and Iranians by Saddam.

That's about all that I can think of.

Contrast this number - whatever number it comes out to be - with the massive number of deaths and injuries due to conventional weapons. Just in the DR Congo, it's over 3 million.

I think the number of deaths and injuries due to conventional weapons simply dwarfs the number of people killed by WMDs. And I think the war DR Congo dwarfs this number by itself.

So it seems to me that what is happening is again a big stage production of smoke and mirrors. We seem to be terrified of the possibility of large numbers of casualties from a single incident, yet completely non-plussed about the constant overwhelming stream of casualties due to conventional weapons.

I mean, how idiotic is that? Far more people die every year from conventional weapons than have ever died from WMDs.

Why don't we classify conventional weapons collectively as weapons of mass destruction?

Oh. I forgot. Exporting weapons is a huge part of the American trade balance and a big sector of our economy.

Never mind.

Japanese style. Most excellent live action staging.

Boy, I'm getting dizzy. Eugene Volokh, uber legal pundit of the right wing bloggers has been posting like crazy regarding the CBS expose of what Bush didn't know and when didn't he know it.

He's got three, no four, posts on the "incorrect title" in the CBS piece.

What I love about watching all this - despite the queasiness caused by all the spinning - is that all these guys on the right have really just descended into a complete defense based on semantics.

Precisely what everyone ridiculed Clinton for.

It is completely obvious that the Niger documents were fraudulent on their face. On their face. I think it took the director of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, about 5 minutes when presented with the evidence to figure out for themselves that it was a forgery. But I think I'm exaggerating a bit. I think it likely only took him a few seconds of looking at the documents to figure it out.

Why? The forgery obviously had been made in a dilettante way, with signatures, names and letterheads not corresponding with official Nigerien state documents. The most glaring mistake was one letter purportedly signed by a Niger minister who had been out of office for 10 years.

10 years.

And so the question isn't really when did they know it was fake, but really WHY ON EARTH DID ANYONE EVEN THINK THEY WERE AUTHENTIC.

It's simply amazing to watch people try to spin their way out of this. And watching Volokh madly spin around picayune semantics...

Well, it's downright Clinton-esque.

Top marks!

WMDs were just the only reason everyone could agree upon

Gary Bauer explains the whole thing.

"Politely but firmly, we sAzaell see to it that the president corrects the flaws in American policy," says Bauer. On the eve of an election year, he is "counting on the smart Karl Rove," Bush's political adviser, to understand the first message. The groups which Bush can count on for political support consist of "active believers" (66 percent), whites (64 percent) and married (64 percent). In the 2000 elections, 84 percent of evangelical Christians supported Bush, constituting 32 percent of the president's voters. All these are Bauer's natural audience. Therefore, he should be listened to when he predicts ("I'm optimistic") that "in a month you'll be able to see the difference" in the U.S. policy. Bauer wants to stop the custom of officials "sitting in their comfortable offices in Washington [who] think they have a right to tell Israel what it should do." He will not tolerate even a hint of coercion or American pressure on Israel.

Now, granted, Bauer may be blowing hot air. But considering how absolutely wedded the Right is to the Christian "coalition", I think it's at least plausible that there is a significant amount of pressure being applied. They are an extremely politically powerful group after all.

Personally, I'm getting a touch pissed off at all the derision poured on people for believing things that actually are true, but isn't politically correct to believe.

Especially when the parties in question just come right out and say it.

Arafat tells envoy: Abbas is a traitor

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat yesterday accused Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) of "betraying the interests of the Palestinian people."

The outburst, whose ferocity surprised even Arafat's long-time associates, occurred during the chairman's meeting with UN envoy Terje Larsen, according to a Palestinian source who was present.

"Abu Mazen is betraying the interests of the Palestinian people," Arafat said, according to the source. "He is behaving like a tyro who doesn't know what he is doing. How does he dare to stand next to an Israeli flag and next to [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon and to act friendly with a man whose history is known to all the world?"

This blood feud stuff is just insane.

I was reading a post by Kevin about the sighting of testicles on Democrats, and one of the comments reminded me of a rant I've said privately before.

Something that bothers me a lot about Democrats (with a big D) is that they all seem like they're waiting for Leader. Something that was obvious to me from the moment I groked the politics of democracy was that politicians follow, they don't lead. And the rare ones that actually can motivate masses of people usually turn out to be evil.

Waiting for politicians to lead is like waiting for Godot. Politicians wait for the parade to form and right before it begins marching, they jump out in front and then claim leadership on the whole affair.

Brains hardwired to underestimate own strength

Human brains are wired to underestimate the amount of force exerted on other people, a study of "tit-for-tat" experiments has revealed.

As well as qualifying the teary "she hit me harder" playground argument and explaining why we can't tickle ourselves, the discovery may provide insight into some self-delusional symptoms of schizophrenia.

US-trained police rebel in Iraq

raqi policeman have risen up against US forces, with a stark message: "Get out of town!" Officers taking part in an angry street protest in the flashpoint town of Falluja have themselves been trained by the Americans. But their fury was fuelled by an attack on their headquarters by local militants.

The officers feel they are being targeted for collaborating with occupying troops. Their demonstration was the latest sign of unrest in Falluja, 50km west of Baghdad. It came as a further two American soldiers were killed by hostile fire.

One of them died when his convoy was attacked near Al Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad. Another was the target of rocket-propelled grenades, north of the capital. At least 211 Americans have died in Iraq since the start of the war. More than 30 US troops have lost their lives since major combat was declared over on May 1.

Falluja's policemen have threatened to quit unless US forces withdraw immediately. One police officer complained at the barbed wire the Americans were putting in place at their station. "It is only a barrier between us and our people," he said.

They log on, look out with Web crime cams

In the new world of crime-fighting, it's not Big Brother watching. It's your neighbors on their computers.

Call it e-surveillance. Or citizens on cyber patrol. But with new wireless "crime cams" cropping up around Cincinnati, more people are helping fight crime with a click of a mouse.

They log on, watch and call 911. And all the video is archived, allowing police to come back later for evidence.

It's the perfect way, proponents say, for more residents to more easily get involved, stay out of sight and still help police.

"The community's really screaming for safety," said Sean Darks, Azaelf the two-man team promoting CityWatcher.com. "This is a way to do that quickly. What's not to like about that?"

This is something that has been bothering me for some time. First, there's the statistics of actual terrorist attacks on the US, pointed out by Kevin Drum most recently. Here's the graph. Note that the US has almost NO attacks, the statistics being for the entirety of North America, which includes Mexico and Canada.

Tom over at "Opinions you should have" has probably the best post I've seen about Ari's "Prove I'm Wrong" Freudian slip.

Fleischer then asked a reporter to give him a watch -- "any watch." He then placed Helen Thomas's watch in a handkerchief, hit the handkerchief repeatedly with a hammer, and then opened up the handkerchief to reveal -- Condeoleeza Rice, who jumped out of Fleischer's palm and declared, "See? You can't turn back the clock. To say otherwise is revisionist history."

From Stratfor.

Two interesting things did not happen in Iran today, July 9. Massive student demonstrations did not occur, and talks between Iran and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei over Iran's nuclear program did not collapse. There was the normal flow of invective, with former Iranian President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani declaring that the United States is a dog and Britain is its tail, along with other less-colorful invective on all sides. But we find what didn't happen more interesting than what did -- bear with us for a moment as we weave a far-out theory.

Rumsfeld welcomes UN and NATO help

Normally I don't think it's a good idea to extract vengeance, but seeing Rumsfeld personally request help from France and Germany... I mean personally flying over there, hat in hand, eating dinner with them and asking them for help...

Well, let me tell ya. That would be a start.

Iraqis grapple with post-war radioactivity

In the spirit of not rehashing the reasons for the war, let me say that the whole WMD thing was critical to the larger strategy beyond Iraq. It was the imminent threat of WMDs and Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda which allowed the Administration to get away with destroying international treaties, alliances and organizations.

Armed Avocado Poachers Fire At Field Workers

Heard of a van that is loaded with 'cados, packed up and ready to go Heard of some gravesites, out by the highway, a place where nobody knows The sound of gunfire, off in the distance, I'm getting used to it now

<heh>

Hamas Says Truce Doomed Unless Prisoners Are Freed

Just watching Hillary Clinton serve Tucker Carlson his shoe on CrossFire.

<heh>

Now I'm waiting for the side dish of the tie.

James "my main man" Taranto must have an interesting internal dialog. In his Best of the Web column today he takes an interesting position on the state of Afghanistan.

Good News From Afghanistan
You hear a lot of complaints from foes of the Bush administration to the effect that it's outrageous that in the three months since Saddam Hussein's fall, America has failed to transform Iraq into Norway. Now and again they also complain about Afghanistan, which hasn't even been transformed into Canada (which Reuters reports ranks a pitiful eighth on the U.N. quality-of-life index).

These criticisms are unrealistic; nation building takes time. A report in USA Today notes that things are in fact getting better in Afghanistan. A reporter visits Istalif, a "mountainside village 90 minutes north of Kabul":

Come on a warm, sunny Friday, the Muslim holy day. Stop at a picnic area in a wooded plateau with a commanding view of the Shomali Plain. Chances are, men such as Haji Zahir Kargar, 50, will be there with friends and family who also have driven up from Kabul.

"Often on Fridays now, we are coming here for picnics," Kargar, a clerk, says through an interpreter. "During the Taliban years? No!" Such entertainment was banned by the fundamentalist militia. . . .

It takes an Afghan, someone who knows that this country was one of the world's poorest and least-developed even before it was devastated by two decades of fighting, to see a picnic as a sign of something larger.

The paper quotes 50-year-old Abdul Qadeer: "I'm optimistic about the future of Afghanistan. Before, Afghanistan was gone. Now it is back."

Amazing. I must say, the man has talent.

CIA found no al-Qaida-Saddam tie

But we already knew that. Uh... Well, anyone with brain one did.

The Bush administration pressed the CIA in the run-up to the war on Iraq to look for evidence of close cooperation between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein, but the agency found no proof, according to an internal CIA intelligence review.

The review also reaffirmed that U.S. intelligence agencies had no credible reports that Saddam knew in advance about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Some members of Congress and other critics say the Bush administration, in arguing for military action against Iraq, exaggerated the links between Saddam and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network.

Senior U.S. officials who were skeptical of the administration’s case for going to war with Iraq have said there were contacts between al-Qaida members and Iraqis, and that Islamic extremists associated with al-Qaida were in Iraq. But, these officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, there was never any compelling evidence that Saddam provided support or weapons to al-Qaida for terrorism against Americans.

Prove The Lie
Don't Rehash The War

LiberalOasis prefers pointed to restrained. But to actually achieve political gains, it needs to be done smartly, not haphazardly.

What the Dems are not consistently doing is stressing why people should care, why people should want an investigation.

Without the "why," calling for an investigation just sounds like partisan politics.

And the trick is not to get sucked into rearguing the war.

Long-term marijuana use has minimal effect on central nervous system, study claims

Guess they're going to have to update the DARE curriculum.

Long-term marijuana use doesn't seem to damage the brain and central nervous system, a new study says.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine analyzed the results of studies on long-term, recreational marijuana users. The analysis of those studies failed to reveal a substantial, systematic effect on the neurocognitive functioning of those marijuana users.

The only negative side effect identified by the researchers was a minimal malfunction in the domains of learning and forgetting.

Uqbar

Up until recently, I had rather arrogantly assumed that a lot of people were either terribly ignorant about world affairs or were telling lies on purpose. However, ever since the run-up to the war on Iraq, I have been troubled by a much more worrying possibility. In the first few months of this year, I read a number of short articles containing references to the appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s which, from the context, caused me to suspect that my internet connection was in some way dragging in material from a parallel universe; one in which the USA entered the Second World War in 1939 as a pre-emptive measure rather than 1941 in response to an attack. It just began to seem more plausible explanation than to assume that so many people were making precisely the same error.

When you start thinking this way, of course, you begin to notice all sorts of other examples. Below, I’ve listed a number of statements that are definitely true in my universe. If any of them strike you as being definitely false, then something very interesting indeed is going on. I would particularly like to get in touch with several of you (not all), as I fear that your mathematics is beginning to leak into my world. I had previously to this date established to my own satisfaction certain propositions relating to the amount of money available for pensions in the future, but a person, who I am sure I remember from university, is currently making arguments which appear to me to breach fundamental adding-up constraints.

Just not the way everyone wanted it to.

FCC: Cable TV costs still surpassing rate of inflation

Cable rates are going up way above the inflation rates," said Adam Goldberg, a policy analyst for Consumers Union. "Congress needs to step in and take some action to keep cable rates down."

Cable companies counter that although subscribers are paying more, they also are getting more. The average number of channels offered grew by 25 percent during the past five years.

Expert: U.S. Knew al-Qaida Might Attack

The United States and the international community sat by for a decade as Afghanistan became "a terrorist Disneyland" where attackers were trained and assaults were planned, a terrorism expert testified Wednesday.

Rohan Gunaratna, head of terrorism research at the Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore, told an independent terrorism investigative commission here that U.S. leaders had to know their homeland would eventually be targeted.

"You knew the intention of al-Qaida was to kill American people where they could be found, but still you did not act, and you paid a very heavy price for it," said Gunaratna, the lead-off witness at a full-day hearing on terrorism, al-Qaida and the Muslim world.

Tom Spencer and Morat have some interesting things to say about yesterday's Yellowcake incident in the Admnistration.

From Stratfor, another perspective. Relevant info starts at paragraph 3.

While I wholeheartedly agree with Tom and Morat, I think that the Great Oz is quite a bit more slippery than anyone imagines.

Afghan jails taken over by warlords

Amnesty International yesterday warned that most Afghans still "live in fear" of arbitrary detention, more than 18 months after the defeat of the Taliban regime.

Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary general, met the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, in Kabul yesterday, to press for widespread prison reform and improved security.

The human rights group, in a new report, found that warlords are still operating private prisons across the country, with many civilians held in shackles and detained for months without facing trial.

"The people of Afghanistan were promised security, development and human rights for all," said Ms Khan. "But with the international security assistance force confined to Kabul, the real power is back in the hands of feudal power holders and regional commanders."

Top marks!

North Korea 'reprocessing nuclear fuel'

South Korea's intelligence agency today said it believed its communist neighborhood has begun reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods, giving credence to what many had believed to be a North Korean bluff.

during his interview?

Iraqi with alleged ties to 9/11 hijacker in U.S. custody

Maybe we'll finally settle this whole allegation?

Naw......

Abbas bluff stuns Mideast

Memos show Liberty attack was an error

Kinda strange this is coming out now, though.

<heh>

and yes. Stalin-esque. Kevin Drum points out that the Administration seems to have found that monitors are as useful for controlling the information that comes out of witnesses in an investigation.

Okay all you right wing bloggers. Why isn't this the same thing?

I want to have the truth about 9/11 - even if it pins Clinton to the wall like a dead butterfly. I don't care if Hillary herself is determined to be directly responsible for the entire event. I'm simply amazed that all you foaming at the mouth for war and filled with righteous anger at treasonous liberals types don't want to know the truth as well. Why is it politicizing to ask questions, but not politicizing to have the Administration minders monitoring the information flow?

Isn't this something so fundamentally necessary to protecting ourselves against terrorism? Isn't knowing what went wrong the first step we should have taken long ago?

Oh. Wait a minute.

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms sAzaell not be
infringed.

The Dean campaign has been exposed as nothing more than a cheesy pyramid scheme.

SIAM-AMS Proceedings, Volume 13 1981 (Mathematical Psychology and Psychophysiology. Providence, Rhode Island: American Mathematical Society.)

Most excellent paper by Stephen Grossberg. I actually simulated ART II (analog) on a VAX in Pascal. The equations are really stiff, so you have to remember your numerical programming skills, but aren't there like seven billion libraries for this stuff around now?

He's still living on Fantasy Island.

"I personally don't think anybody is safe. I don't believe any company currently in communications is so well-structured and tied down that they are guaranteed to be here 15 years from now," Michael K. Powell told editors and reporters at The Washington Times.
Amateur inventors can disrupt established companies with new technologies such as wireless phones and instant messaging, Mr. Powell said.
"Kids can still come out of a garage with something that blows the pants off of Ivan Seidenberg," he said, referring to the president and chief executive of Verizon Communications, the nation's largest telephone company.

OH MY GOD

“I envision 100 million Americans looking for indicators of terrorism and promptly reporting it to a central database where it would get analyzed,” said CAT Eyes co-founder Mike Licata, a high school teacher and retired Air Force officer, in an interview with the Boston Globe.

Were CAT Eyes to reach its goal of 100 million neighborhood informers—about one in three Americans—it would exceed the record of informants per capita set by Stasi, the East German secret police, which managed to recruit 2 million neighborhood informers—about one in eight East Germans.(thanks to Joel from "In These Times")

Are you libertarians having fun yet?

No doubt the right wingers will poo-poo this as irrelevant, but I found taking these tests quite fascinating. Found this wonderful site via Promethus_6. Check them out. You might be surprised...

Too bad they don't have one for testing "liberal bias". (snicker)

Go read her post on Love or War? Damn she's good.

(heh)

Atrios, jr would be proud.

They gets so up in arms over such silly stuff and then they are desperately quiet when the shit starts hitting the fan.

Tom has a great little post about the two recent lies that have been exposed which the great white hope seems to be completely ignoring.

No surprise. But still....

Guess Glenn still needs to decompress from his deep diving. Nitrogen narcosis and all...

Geesh. What on earth do libertarians have in common with this Administration? What? Name ONE thing. Okay, money. That's frickin' it. Name another.

Civil rights? Nope.
Minding our own business? Nope.
Smaller government? Nope.
Less regulation? Nope.

When are you people going to wise up?

Naw. Merely a flesh wound.

Appeals court rejects Bush administration's effort to block lawsuit delving into Cheney energy task force

Gee. Maybe this will be just in time for the Recall Election here in CA.

Something else winding its way through the courts is the cAzaellenge to Bush's sealing of Presidential records that were supposed to be released 2 years ago. You know. The ones with Reagan and Bush Sr. and how out of the loop they were on everything?

Gee. Maybe that lawsuit will be finalized just in time for November 2004.

Appeals judges David Tatel and Harry Edwards rejected the administration's effort to stop the case. Judge A. Raymond Randolph dissented, declaring that "for the judiciary to permit this sort of discovery" into the actions of the executive branch "strikes me as a violation of the separation of powers."

Tatel said that if the administration is so concerned about unwarranted intrusion, it can "invoke executive or any other privilege" in an attempt to keep the material out of the public domain.

Thank "Bob" for Tivo.

From Stratfor. This is a REALLY excellent piece.

Summary

The appointment of Gen. John Abizaid as head of U.S. Central Command opens a new phase in both the Iraq campaign and the war on al Qaeda. In order to wage follow-on operations against al Qaeda, an effective counterinsurgency operation must be launched against the Iraqi guerrillas. This is a politico-military imperative. Politically, the United States must demonstrate its effectiveness against the full spectrum of opponents. Militarily, the United States must show it can project forces from Iraq while the base of operations remains insecure. Directly suppressing an insurrection without indigenous support historically has been difficult, but Iraq has a built-in opposition to the guerrillas: the Shiites in the south. But their desire to dominate an Iraqi government -- and their ties to Iran -- runs counter to U.S. policy. This means Washington will have to make some difficult choices in Iraq, and in the end will give away some things it does not want to give away.

Too dirty for words

Everyday conversation is now so foul-mouthed that only a handful of words can be considered truly taboo, according to the authors of the new edition of the Collins English Dictionary.

"Bollocks" and "gangbang" are among 70 words described in earlier editions of the dictionary as "taboo" that have now been downgraded to "slang".

There are now, it appears, only 16 taboo words in use in English, including the f-word and c-word.

According to Collins, the use of asterisks to soften the effects of industrial Anglo-Saxon may soon become a historical nicety as modern discourse sinks ever deeper into the mire.

Well, that's one opinion...

Look. It's like EVERYTHING humans produce. At first it's cool, and then it becomes shit, then it becomes fertilizer, and then you don't even notice it any more.

I'm not bothered by all the whining, internet critics and blog critics. It helps things get better.

But really people. Whining about this stuff is so old hat.

I imagine the very same process was played out in every earth shattering invention since we walked erect.

I can just see the ancestors of these self proclaimed watchers whining over the new fad of tools and wearing fur from dead animals way back in the good old days. Whining about how the wheel, when it first came out was cool, but now everyone has one, and they're mostly used to haul shit around.

Geesh. Well, I guess it takes all kinds.

Luddites are still with us, and will always be there. Quick to tell us how quickly everything is turning to shit. Sitting around drinking their lattes and desperately looking for a coffee shop without WiFi.

Super-WIMPs might hide ninety percent of the universe.

I must say, that with 90% of the universe undetectable, I think we're barely able to theorize as to what is actually happening out there. We're in the stone age as far as cosmology is concerned. Maybe not even that advanced.

Program Inside A U.S. Election Vote Counting

Server is a bit flaky, likely loaded, so keep trying.

Also, Sludge Report #154 – Bigger Than Watergate! the story with, for the first time, a link to the full 40,000 files from the Diebold ftp site.

God I love the internet.

UN agriculture agency delivers sorely needed seeds and tools to southern Sudan

With 300,000 households in southern Sudan in dire need of seeds and tools, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has for the first time delivered a substantial amount of both items by road for tens of thousands of people in previously inaccessible rebel held areas in the Nuba Mountains.

"It is a real breakthrough that FAO succeeded in delivering seeds and tools by road to people who have been living under insecure and extreme conditions," Anne M. Bauer, Director for FAO's Emergency Operations and Rehabilitation said in a statement released in Rome today. "This project will make farmers and their families less dependent on food aid and could be a contribution to peace and stability in the region."

It's been quite interesting to view the propagation of news stories and memes since I've been using news aggregators. I think I have a pretty wide mix of blogs, opinion and general media make up in the zillions of feeds I pay attention to. And it's really strange to watch certain stories wind their way through the blogs, morph and die out.

Nothing much more than that, just was fascinated by seeing this happen.

Steve has a rather interesting post over at the Daily Kos about a subject which is dear to my heart. Seems that a poor graduate student's dissertation is being threatened with a security classification.

Let me just say, as someone who makes his living in the security realm, that this is the most stupidest thing on earth. Everyone in this business knows that you don't get any protection by obscurity. None. You get protection by being proactive and knowing how your system can be attacked. You build an attack tree and then protect the branches of the tree.

From Stratfor

The CIA confirmed July 7 that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is alive. The CIA conclusion was based on a tape Al-Jazeera aired July 4 in which Hussein claimed to be alive and vowed to continue attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq. "The CIA assessment, after a technical analysis of the tape, is that it is most like his voice," CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said. This is a significant event that raises important issues about the nature of the current guerrilla war and the circumstances under which it might be ended.

(heh) View your favorite web site through the eyes of a porno writer. If you're easily offended, stop reading... Really! Don't do it unless you can take a joke.

The four key questions that No 10 now has to answer

Couple of other good ones from the Guardian:

Limelight exposes spies' failings
Not guilty verdict may not prevent an eventual exit

Our fake patriots

Britain is fast becoming Bush's doormat - so why isn't the British right saying a word?

A message from Robert McChesney and John Nichols:

Big media is getting bigger and our democracy is at stake.

As you know, a month ago the FCC dramatically relaxed media ownership regulations, suffocating the cornerstone of American democracy: a free, fair, and open public debate.

Because one million Americans raised their voices against the FCC decision, the Senate Commerce Committee recently sent a bill to the Senate floor for a vote that would roll back many of the rules. Today the cAzaellenge is to get that bill to the floor of the Senate and House for a vote.


Take 3 Minutes to Stop Media Monopoly: Phone It In.

Call your Congressional representatives and demand that they support the rollback. One phone call from a constituent is more effective than scores of email petitions.

Go to www.mediareform.net/stopthefcc and follow the easy steps or read on for more information.

(Don't worry, you don't need to know your Senators' or Representative's names, only your zipcode.)

"Roll Back the FCC" legislation now has 38 supporters in the Senate (out of 100). We need 51 for passage.

The House bills have the overlapping support of 65 cosponsors on HR 2462 and 146 on HR 2052. We need 216 for passage.

The www.mediareform.net/stopthefccwebsite will tell you if your members of Congress are currently supporting rolling back the FCC. If they are supportive co-sponsors, then thank them for their support and ask that they keep the bill alive. If they not a co-sponsor, ask them to become one. (suggested script provided online)

Want to learn more about this issue and media reform? Go to our new organization called Free Press at www.mediareform.net.

Join Free Press.
Call Congress.

For our media, for our Democracy.

Please send this email along to anyone else you think might be interested in having a healthy democratic media system.


Robert McChesney & John Nichols
Free Press
MediaReform.Network

Still, I enjoy the clever fake ones.

PA minister : We must cease all incitement

Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr said yesterday that the Palestinians must change their tone and stop incitement, irrespective of the steps taken by Israel.

Some really great commentary on the festering trash heap that has become known as "The Niger Affair." Josh has a truly precious excerpt from Ari's press conference this morning. It's clear the administration can't come up with a plausible story at all. A sure sign that the RoveCo brains are hard at work trying to find some angle, spin, or diversion to paper over their blatant LIE. Yesterday, KOS theorized that the whole Iraq war could become an albatross around Bush's neck. But the best post I read on the subject so far is Tom's where he talks about a theoretical impeachment resulting from the whole sordid business... And the increasing need for showers after press conferences these days.

I must say, this kind of wild spinning and gunning for the exits takes real courage. Real courage, indeed. Where's the Commander in Chief image for Bush if he just claims that he was out of the loop? A stupid figurehead CEO like Kenneth Lay was with Enron. Being manipulated and duped by his subordinates.

Stirring image to go into an election with, don't cha think?

I'd like to see a commercial based on the Wizard of oz:

Bush can be the Cowardly Lion.
Cheney can be the Tin Man (without a heart, naturally)
Rummy can be the Scare Crow (without a brain, naturally)

Simply amazing that this actually has to be done at ALL.

Leading climate scientists reaffirm view that late 20th Century warming was unusual

A group of leading climate scientists has reaffirmed the "robust consensus view" emerging from the peer reviewed literature that the warmth experienced on at least a hemispheric scale in the late 20th century was an anomaly in the previous millennium and that human activity likely played an important role in causing it. In so doing, they refuted recent claims that the warmth of recent decades was not unprecedented in the context of the past thousand years.

Just took the Presidential Candidate Selector that has been making the rounds in the blogosphere, and it turns out I am, in fact, a liberal. What's odd - to me - is that I scored highest with Kucinich. Going to have to check him out some more. Here's my results:

1. Kucinich, Cong. Dennis, OH - Democrat (92%)
2. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT - Democrat (79%)
3. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (79%)
4. Edwards, Senator John, NC - Democrat (75%)
5. Gephardt, Cong. Dick, MO - Democrat (74%)
6. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (70%)
7. Lieberman Senator Joe CT - Democrat (68%)
8. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol IL - Democrat (65%)
9. Graham, Senator Bob, FL - Democrat (62%)
10. Libertarian Candidate (28%)
11. Bush, George W. - US President (4%)
12. Phillips, Howard - Constitution (0%)
13. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. - Democrat (-5%)

I'm getting really sick of hearing that the Democrats don't have anything to offer other than "Not That". Steve Gilliard over at the Daily Kos has been doing fantastic work on analyzing Iraq and also providing alternative solutions to the madness. Go read the post. It's great.

Man, this is just sad. (Warning: 16.5 Mb video download).

Quit beating around the bush: America faces a guerrilla war.

Out of the mouths of babes. They're still idiotic in that they say "There is every reason to believe that the U.S. will eventually defeat this Baathist-terror counterattack, as completely as it did the Republican Guard in April." Without, of course, giving anything resembling a reason - rather, a mumbling assertion that this isn't Vietnam (duh). But even they can see the writing on the wall.

The public won't turn against the U.S. commitment in Iraq merely because of casualties. But it will turn if it thinks its leaders aren't being honest with them about the cAzaellenges we face or the sacrifices required to prevail. One certain way to undermine public trust is to fail to recognize that the systematic murder of friendly Iraqis is a sure sign of guerrilla war. It's far better for Mr. Bush to define the anti-guerrilla task now and on his terms, rather than wait for casualties to increase and have Howard Dean find a new and more receptive audience for his antiwar message later.

Aaron's Censorware.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Ed Felten Azaelf-seriously suggests that we create censorware that doesn’t overblock and has an open list, so that US libraries who want to receive federal funding can do so without unduly harming free speech. (A recent Supreme Court ruling says that the CIPA law which makes having censorware a condition of federal funding is constitutional.)

Up for the cAzaellenge, I’ve written a simple censorware program (the censor code is only a couple of lines): censor.py

By default it only blocks www.microsoft.com, but the list is adjustable.

Entire rainforests set to disappear in next decade

More than 23 million acres of the world's forests - enough to cover the whole of Scotland - are disappearing each year because of logging, mining and land clearance for agriculture.

The scale of deforestation is so great that some countries, such as Indonesia, could lose entire rainforests in the next 10 years. The appetite for wood for furniture, floors and building in Europe and North America is shrinking the world's forests at a rate of 2.4 per cent every 10 years, official figures show.

Oh, and the ability to sequester CO2 is right on target.

Thanks, guys!

Following the letter or the spirit of the agreement?

How many Palestinian prisoners are there?

IDF claims Hamas still making Qassams

Great summary of what's at issue in the debate about WMDs in Britain by the Independent.

· Conclusion

Mr Cirincione said the CIA assessments of Iraq between 1998 and 2001 did not change but early last year they suddenly did, even though there was no new evidence: "They started to join the dots together differently. The question is what caused that change. We will not know without a full Congressional investigation."

On this side of the Atlantic, Andy Oppenheimer, a specialist in biological, chemical and nuclear weapons at Jane's Information Group, expressed dismay that the foreign affairs committee conducted a limited inquiry: "It has all got into a slanging match over whether someone altered the text when it should be on whether the intelligence was reliable and whether the Iraqis had WMD."

Now, in a knee jerk reaction to 9/11, we seem to have been completely imagining a pattern where none was. The exact opposite of what we did before, and it is still wrong. It was simply done to further some radical vision of American projection of military power in the 21st century. A convenient excuse, as Dennis Miller would say.

"The next time we go to war, don't give a specific reason for the war that the left can seize upon and later flog us with it ad nauseam, just do it. Remember, the first rule of Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club." -- Dennis Miller

Guess it's all hinging on what the word "is" is.

Anyone else find that as just a bit too much like "Through the Looking Glass" - ish?

God, I love the internet. Found this gem via Brad De Long's post.

This paper presents new homogeneous series on top shares of income and wages from 1913 to 1998 in the US using individual tax returns data. Top income and wages shares display a U-shaped pattern over the century. Our series suggest that the "technical change" view of inequality dynamics cannot fully account for the observed facts. The large shocks that capital owners experienced during the Great Depression and World War II seem to have had a permanent effect: top capital incomes are still lower in the late 1990s than before World War I. A plausible explanation is that steep progressive taxation, by reducing drastically the rate of wealth accumulation at the top of the distribution, has prevented large fortunes to recover fully yet from these shocks. The evidence on wage inequality shows that top wage shares were flat before WWII and dropped precipitously during the war. Top wage shares have started recovering from this shock since the 1960s-1970s and are now higher than before WWII. We emphasize the role of social norms as a potential explanation for the pattern of wage shares.

Because that is where the money is. Right?

Something that has always perplexed me was why the IRS was so frickin' wacky. The spend all of this time seemingly going after a lot of tiny little fry and completely ignoring the bloated wAzaeles scattered about, ripe for the pickin'.

the right wing bloggers are going to wise up to this: Troop morale in Iraq hits 'rock bottom'. For all their support of the troops, I have yet to hear them admit that there is a huge problem here. They all expected to have everything pretty much wrapped up by now and looking at significant numbers of troops being returned home by now.

It ain't happening.

And I keep hearing about how it's not really so bad over in Iraq from the various right parts of the blogosphere. There is not really a rebellion going on. Everything is really returning to normal and our troops aren't dropping due to accidents and - well, combat with guerrillas.

This is simply insane.

Some frustrated troops stationed in Iraq are writing letters to representatives in Congress to request their units be repatriated. "Most soldiers would empty their bank accounts just for a plane ticket home," said one recent Congressional letter written by an Army soldier now based in Iraq. The soldier requested anonymity.

In some units, there has been an increase in letters from the Red Cross stating soldiers are needed at home, as well as daily instances of female troops being sent home due to pregnancy.

"Make no mistake, the level of morale for most soldiers that I've seen has hit rock bottom," said another soldier, an officer from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq.

I certainly took GW's comment precisely as Kevin sees it. I still think it was an idiot thing to say. Yes, it's meant to play to the majority of Americans who like this kind of macho stuff. But I think it's precisely this kind of frat boy courage which is blinding the Administration and most of the media and commentators to the reality of what needs to be done in Iraq. It fits precisely with the mentality that - taken to the extremes it has been in this Administration - thinks they can't just psych out the problem.

The same mentality that scripts military war games so that they conform to their version of reality. The same mentality that completely mis-planned for the occupation of Iraq.

I don't have a problem with the "can do" attitude. It's the "can't plan for reality" attitude that really sucks.

Wow! Dave has the whole 40,000 word essay polished up and out in PDF. I just got my copy and am eagerly reading it. He's asking for a five dollar donation, although he isn't requiring it.

I think he deserves far more for the journeyman's work he's done for this...

Many thanks, Dave!

And check out his site anyway, if you haven't already. He always has excellent stuff up.

Just in case you're feeling like there's not been enough of them for you lately.

I'm with Scoobie on this one.

Sorry, folks. We have a hard time interpreting all this with equanimity. Liberal anger is not based on the fact that George W. Bush is "stupid," or that Florida was stolen, or that Rush Limbaugh is a big (if no longer fat) idiot who feeds a daily diet of lies to his listeners. At bottom -- and this is why Independence Day is relevant -- the anger is about the fate of the country. Conservatism is one thing; it is a legitimate way of seeing the world, though one I obviously disagree with. But the contemporary radical right is another thing altogether. Its project, top to bottom, is to remake the country in ways that, well, let's just say they want to turn America into a place we won't recognize.

For example, here comes Ann Coulter with a new "book" rehabilitating Joe McCarthy. OK, it's only Ann Coulter, and she's a nut. But actually it's not only Ann Coulter; liberal anti-Americanism is the theme of several recent right-wing books (by Mona Charen, Sean Hannity and that 13-year-old boy pundit). Furthermore, wait two or three years for a "scholarly" book or documentary (written or made with right-wing funding) to come out "proving" that McCarthy was a wronged man. And finally, watch The New York Times, in the interest of being either "fair" or mischievously counterintuitive or both, give it a thumbs-up.

So yeah. We're pissed. And being counseled to cool it by conservatives doesn't make us any less pissed. It rings with all the sincerity of a husband smacking his wife for a few years and then lecturing her that anger won't solve anything.

Even so, one part of the right-wing critique is, alas, true: Anger doesn't win elections. Moderate voters don't share our anger, and they're more interested in hearing about what kind of country we want to make. This doesn't mean the anger isn't legitimate. It is legitimate. Given the radical right's plans for the country, well, somebody needs to be angry, and for a lot of people, it's a dandy motivator. But it does mean that we don't need to wear it on our sleeves when we're talking to people who don't feel it themselves.

One of my readers sent me a very odd ebook entitled "Confessions of a British Spy and British Enmity Against Islam". You can find it here (scroll down to the bottom). I'm still trying to come up with an opinion on the text, but I found the stratfor analysis on the subject of Wahhabism that I thought I'd share.

Summary

The FBI has arrested 11 men in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania who are suspected of ties to Lashkar e-Taiba, a neo-Salafist/Wahhabi militant Islamist group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. Differences between the charges contained in a federal indictment and Stratfor's own research on the suspects underscore the complexity of the Wahhabi universe.

From Stratfor

Summary

Student protests calling for reform in Iran came to a screeching Azaelt on June 20 after 10 days of unrest. A large segment of the Iranian population wants to reform the country's 24-year-old Islamist regime, but that does not necessarily mean replacing it with a Western-style democracy. In observing the Iranian political landscape, it becomes clear that most reformers -- unlike the student protesters and their allies in some civil society groups -- are not in favor of doing away with the current system and instituting a liberal democracy. Instead, most Iranians want to curtail the arbitrary power of the traditional clerics and institute an Islamic democracy.

Alastair, God and the Devil

Sex, mob hits: Sims tests virtual morals

Chase is a mob leader -- but only in the virtual world. He is one of hundreds of players who found the path of lawlessness and deviance too irresistible when "The Sims Online" cAzaellenged them to "Be Somebody ... else."

The popular commercial game, where thousands of people interact electronically, is turning into a petri dish of anti-social behavior. And that's raising questions about whether limits on conduct should be set in such emerging virtual worlds, even if they are huge adult playpens.

"Games give people the opportunity to either do something they've never had the ability to do before or allow them to do the stuff they are too afraid to do in real life," said Chase, an unemployed, self-described computer geek who lives in Sacramento, California. "This is as close to the real-life mafia that I'm going to be able to get."

All online games see their share of ne'er-do-wells, or "griefers." In other games where violence is the norm and killing routine, thugs delight in slaughtering the less powerful and stealing their loot.

But there are no guns in "Sims," made by Maxis, and it's impossible to do serious harm to another player. That means griefers -- admittedly a small percentage of the game's 100,000 subscribers -- have to be devilishly creative in their social deviance.

Know you've likely seen it, but if these guys live up to even a tenth of what they claim to be offering, then things are going to be interesting.

If anyone asks, now you'll know.

Another sword of Damacles...

With all the drama going on down south, it's understandable to forget that one of the concerns going into the war with Iraq was the whole Turk/Kurd agenda. Kurds want an independent state. Or so everyone fears. The certainly want autonomy. Turkey is greatly threatened by even autonomy, much more so by an independent state.

Oh, and then there's the whole spoiling of the Iraq invasion by Turkey. Wolfowitz had a lot of kind words for the Turks just last month. They're probably right after the French and the Germans on Rummy's shit list.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

We can only hope that Andrew Sullivan has some stirring words for us all regarding this impending mess. Or maybe some homey homilies from Dennis Miller will put my mind at ease.

I just simply love all this strutting around and knocking heads like a frat boy with a few beers in him. Tough talk and a full bladder.

The Downscaling of America

Tony Blair's latest entry

To critics who keep asking where are the weapons in Iraq, he retorted: "Remember for 30 years, we were trying to find weapons dumps in Northern Ireland and didn't."

Found an interesting site through google news. Here's an excerpt from a post entitled "Truth is Important"

Saddam 'destroyed weapons in 1990s'

"It is almost certain that Saddam ordered the weapons dismantled or destroyed some time in the 1990s. Sanctions had seriously impeded the Iraqi efforts to obtain materials and equipment for their WMD programmes.

"The Iraqi strategy was to get sanctions lifted and they mounted a deception ... But then [Osama] bin Laden got in the way. After September 11 the Bush administration turned its attention firmly to Iraq," says Prof Shultz, who believes that the World Trade Centre attacks disrupted the Iraqi strategy.

Dr Magnus Ranstorp of St Andrews University says Prof Shultz's explanation is "very valid": "I think they will eventually find evidence of a WMD programme but I think we have already had indications that it was dispersed."

Be sure to check out the Scientific American article on global warming, and the idiotic, senseless and just outright stupid debate about it.

Again. There's a lot one can debate about global warming. But that kind of stuff isn't currently being debated. Instead we have non-stop attacks based on the flimsiest of theories, backed up by the most questionable of data, analyzed by people who can't even spell "analysis" without using a "q". I cannot believe the number of smart people I know who believe the horse pucky that is consistently shoveled out by those who's motives cannot be questioned - i.e., these people are industry stooges parroting the party line. Amazing how so many are willing to go to war and throw us into a multi year occupation based on Tiffin phantasms of WMD and terrorist connections and yet are unable to filter out the obvious bullshit about global warming spouted by these stooges.

Oh wait a minute.

Fireworks courtesy of the Universe, captured via Hubble.

Israeli nukes 'pose danger'

An Israeli Arab lawmaker said today the nation's nuclear arsenal is a danger to itself, not just to its neighbors.

Israel has never admitted to having nuclear weapons, but foreign reports claim Israel has nuclear warheads for its ballistic missiles.

In parliament yesterday, the lawmaker, Issam Mahoul, again discussed the once taboo subject, as he did in February 2000, the first time a legislator had spoken in public about Israel's nuclear weapons program.

If you ever want a stiff dose of neocon reality, read the World Net Daily. Their current headliner is

Conservatives more proud
of America than liberals?
As U.S. prepares for Independence Day,
Gallup Poll finds wide 'patriotism gap'

Found this while serfing. I'm glad to see the Brits still have a sense of humor.

Brad DeLong already posted the Declaration of Independence. So I'm posting my favorite parts of the constitution, the Bill of Rights. July 4th is the day to celebrate the hell out of them.

The Conventions of a number of the States having, at the time of adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added, and as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution;

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two-thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States; all or any of which articles, when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the said Constitution, namely:

Two years. And this is just their assessment at this moment. Note in the quote below that they say that it's untenable to keep 150K troops in Iraq for more than 24 months.

Duh.

that add up to a really bleak outlook.

Canada sees flat gas output until late in decade

Under its most optimistic scenario, Canada's output will range between 16 billion to 16.5 billion cubic feet a day until the frontiers are developed -- cold comfort for the United States, which relies on Canada for 16 percent to 18 percent of supply.

Last month, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan brought the tight supply situation to the fore, saying high prices could hamper U.S. economic growth.

From the WSJ.

However, growth isn't expected to be strong enough to create many new jobs. The unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged through the end of the year, and then decline slightly to 5.8% by June 2004 from 6.1% in May. Corporate profits, meanwhile, are expected to rise 7.7% this year and 12.3% in 2004 while the currently red-hot housing sector is expected to cool a bit.

Business executives have heard this before. They are approaching the outlook with an air of caution. "I'd like to say the economists are going to be right and we're going to swing back up, but I'm planning for if it doesn't," said Cheryl Merchant, president and chief executive of Hope Global, a Cumberland, R.I., manufacturer of such items as bungee cords and boot laces with about $45 million in annual revenue.

Several economists say they should be excused for being too optimistic about the outlook in recent years because growth has been derailed by a series of unpredictable shocks -- including the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the war with Iraq and the accounting scandals that rattled the corporate sector.

"If you had dreamed this up, you would have been viewed as a bad novelist," said Robert DiClemente, chief U.S. economist with Citigroup Inc. "We didn't have these shocks in our numbers."

Yet these unexpected developments don't explain all of the missed calls on growth. Last year at this time, for example, after the magnitude of the accounting scandals had already become clear, the consensus was still predicting a return to growth rates of about 3.5%. Instead, the economy grew at a 1.4% annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2002, and repeated that performance in the first quarter of this year. The second-quarter growth rate is believed to have been close to the same tepid level. The Commerce Department will report preliminary second-quarter growth later this month.

These are the perils of predicting the future. Even the Federal Reserve has had its share of missed forecasts in recent years. In 2001, for example, Fed economists predicted the economy would grow by a little more than 2% and the unemployment rate would drift up to 4.5%. Instead it grew by 0.3% and the unemployment rate shot up to 5.8%. And last year at this time, the Fed was also predicting growth rates in excess of 3.5% by now.

What is so alluring about the 3.5% growth number that both the Fed and mainstream economists keep coming back to in their forecasts? Since 1930, that is exactly what growth has averaged. Economists call it the long-run growth trend and they believe that through the ups and downs of economic cycles that is what economic growth will revert to. It is also the number that is considered the minimum needed to keep unemployment from continuing to rise. The surprise this time around has been that it is taking so long for economic growth to get back to its long-term trend. But many economists believe it is inevitable.

"The economy doesn't grow at 1.5% forever. It grows at trend," said Joel Prakken, chief economist with Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, a forecasting firm. Mr. Prakken is in the camp of optimists who believe the economy has now worked through many of the shocks and is primed for a spell of good growth. He forecasts growth averaging 4.5% in the next two quarters and 4% in the first Azaelf of 2004.

But pessimists believe the economy's anemic growth rates have been caused by more than a cascade of temporary shocks. They generally believe the investment bubble of the late 1990s -- and the accounting scandals, stock-market swoon and debt build-up that came with it -- is having a more-lasting effect on economic growth than most economists anticipated.

"We would guess we're about Azaelfway through the adjustment process," said William Dudley, chief U.S. economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and the winner of The Wall Street Journal's semiannual forecasting contest. Mr. Dudley expects a spurt of activity related to the tax cuts and then expects the economy to slow down again next year.

Moreover, other problems have cropped up that could undermine the recovery. Edward Leamer, an economist at the University of California, Los Angeles, worries that what the federal government gives in the form of tax cuts, states and local governments will take away in the months ahead. According to an April release by the National Conference of State Legislatures, states face a budget gap of about $78 billion for the coming fiscal year that needs to be closed through tax increases and spending cuts. Mr. Leamer expects that will mute the impact of federal tax cuts, at a time when consumer spending has already slowed. "There is no locomotive," says Mr. Leamer. He's expecting growth of 2.7% in the second Azaelf of this year, a pickup from the first Azaelf but still well below the consensus.

Of the 54 economists surveyed, 16 said they expected the economy to grow below the 3.5% long-term trend in the next six months, four said it would grow at that rate, and 34 predicted above-trend growth.

But all sides agree on one point. With nearly $200 billion in federal tax cuts being thrown at the economy in the next 18 months and with short-term interest rates near zero, now is the time to see economic results. If the economy continues to languish in spite of the stimulus, policy makers will be without many tools to fix it.

"We're force feeding the private sector with a lot of money," said Mr. Sinai. "If we swallow that stuff and don't spend, we are indeed in big trouble."

Extreme weather on the rise

A study released Wednesday by the WMO -- a specialized climate science agency of the United Nations -- says the world is experiencing record numbers of extreme weather events, such as droughts and tornadoes.

Laying the blame firmly at the feet of global warming, the agency warned that the number and intensity of extreme weather events could continue to increase.

We're just simply doomed from our own stupidity.

From the Financial Times

The irony is that there is no shortage of US experts in all these fields, in and out of government, many of them veterans of prior peacekeeping operations. What is lacking is a central office that can marsAzael their expertise. We need to create a colonial office - fast.

Of course, it cannot be called that. It needs an anodyne euphemism such as Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. But it should take its inspiration, if not its name, from the old British Colonial Office and India Office. Together, these two institutions ran large swaths of the world with a handful of bright, honest, industrious civil servants. They had an enormous impact, given the small numbers involved; there were seldom more than 1,000 members of the Indian civil service to administer hundreds of millions of Indians. Like its British predecessors, the US colonial service needs to be an elite civilian agency that can call on forces for assistance where appropriate.

The US does not need or want a formal empire on the British model. But it desperately needs to win the peace in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq - where the British, as it happens, had a lot of experience of their own. They had their share of setbacks but they could not have accomplished as much as they did without their top imperial civil services. America needs to create one of its own, before its hard-won military gains turn to dust.

Just read a most excellent essay by Shirky. Take a look and tell me what you think.

What matters is, a group designed this and then was unable, in the context they'd set up, partly a technical and partly a social context, to save it from this attack from within. And attack from within is what matters. Communitree wasn't shut down by people trying to crash or syn-flood the server. It was shut down by people logging in and posting, which is what the system was designed to allow. The technological pattern of normal use and attack were identical at the machine level, so there was no way to specify technologically what should and shouldn't happen. Some of the users wanted the system to continue to exist and to provide a forum for discussion. And other of the users, the high school boys, either didn't care or were actively inimical. And the system provided no way for the former group to defend itself from the latter.

Ampersand has posted a very interesting email making the rounds. It's a coalition proposal by Abe Gutmann.

I'm not sure if it will fly, but it's very encouraging to at least see this being discussed. Personally, I think it's going to be a bit interesting to see their demands met - especially after the 2000 election. But one never knows. I do think that the chances of Ralph getting a cabinet position are slimmer than a snowball's chance in hell, but another Green would be something that could quite possibly work.

But in the end, the Greens are going to have to decide whether they want to throw the baby out with the bath water and usher in another 4 years of Bush. It's in their hands. They can try to wrangle some concessions for their support - and they should, that's what politics is all about. But there's a limit to this kind of stuff. Going too far will be equally fatal for the party.

Certainly going to be interesting next year.

From Stratfor.

The change of command at CENTCOM is scheduled for July 7, the U.S. Department of Defense announced today. That answers the question we posed on June 26, when we wrote, "Since our view is that Iraq is now in crisis and that the crisis is intensifying, it follows that an accelerated change of command is in order. If [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld grasps the magnitude of the cAzaellenge -- and by now he would have to be in a coma not to -- he will dramatically speed up the transition at CENTCOM." Clearly, Rumsfeld is not in a coma. We can speculate as to why he has chosen to speak about Iraq as he has, but that is no longer all that interesting. The fact is the change of command at CENTCOM will take place at the earliest possible moment, which means Rumsfeld fully understands the severity of the situation, regardless of what he says.

Obviously, it will be left to Gen. John Abiziad to craft the counterinsurgency strategy. However, the Philadelphia Enquirer reported that Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, is asking for a 33 percent increase in the number of troops in Iraq. Reuters quoted a "senior Pentagon official" -- also known as Rumsfeld (we never have figured out why Washington officials play these games, but they all do) -- as saying, "There has been no such request. There are still remnants that are going to try to do harm to our forces. And there are still going to be casualties. The other side is if you put more troops in, you put more targets in there." But you also increase the risk to the guerrillas. Either way, it is clear that a bottoms-up review of U.S. strategy will take place under Abiziad's control, and that review is under way now. Abiziad is in-theater now but will return next week for the change-of-command ceremony. We expect that he also will present his recommendations to Rumsfeld and U.S. President George W. Bush. It should be noted that there appears to be a decrease in Iraqi guerrilla operations in the past 24 hours, since Operation Sidewinder got into high gear. Therefore, an argument can be made -- and we suspect it will be made -- that more troops mean more Sidewinders, not that 24 hours means a whole lot.

As if Iraq and al Qaeda weren't enough, it looks fairly certain that the United States will send nearly 1,000 Marines to Liberia. There has been an ongoing civil war there, and the country is essentially in a state of chaos. U.N. General-Secretary Kofi Annan asked the United States to send troops to Liberia. U.S. officials did not want to get involved there, but Annan was insistent and Washington was trapped. Having made the case for intervention in Iraq against Annan's wishes, U.S. officials were hard-pressed to reject Annan's call for intervention in Liberia. The logic is not crisp, but the public relations are. We suspect Annan enjoyed maneuvering the United States into an intervention. As of this hour, the intervention is not a done deal. Washington is hoping for any miracle that would keep it from sending troops into a situation that is both hopeless and not directly related to what the administration sees as core U.S. interests. But the probability is that the Marines will go in -- although the mission and exit strategy are not clear to us at all, and imaginative explanations is what we do for a living.

Japan buckled under U.S. pressure today. The Japanese were moving toward a deal worth $2 billion to develop the Azadegan oil field in Iran. The United States is putting intense pressure on Iran to curtail its nuclear development program and one of the levers is to try to isolate Iran economically. Japan's decision to reconsider its investment is a measure of the intensity of Washington's campaign. Japan imports all of the oil it uses. It constantly is looking for long-term sources of oil as a matter of core national policy. It also has a core national policy to maintain its security relationship with the United States. The two cores collided, and the United States won. The Japanese certainly are not happy to have been put in this position.

Making Japan unhappy is fairly gratuitous these days. What U.S. officials really want to do is to make the Iranians unhappy. We suspect that they are quite unhappy with both the pressure and its effectiveness. What we continue to anticipate is the Iranian response. The student uprising in Iran has collapsed, but the Iranians continue to regard the rising as an American plot. It is very dangerous to make an enemy feel it is being crushed without actually crushing them. The heavier the pressure on the Iranians, without breaking them, the greater the pressure is for Iran to try to do something decisive -- like stir up the Iraqi Shiites. The United States is on a tightrope with Iran, which is why the faster Abiziad can get control of the situation in Iraq -- assuming he can get control -- the happier Washington is going to be.

Bless their souls.

Part of Dean's appeal is that Democrats understand the country needs someone who can burst into the people's White House, grab the incompetent and corrupt squatter sitting in the Oval Office by the lapels, drag him to the curb, and leave our national shame in a crumpled heap to be forgotten by history. Dean gets that our country has been forced to deal with the Bush regime imbeciles for too long, and desperately needs its dignity, quality of life, economic health, credibility, and character restored.

Found this interesting, thought y'all might as well.

From Stratfor

It is not a forecast but rather a series of guidelines for understanding and evaluating events, plus suggestions on areas for focus

1. The most important issue is how the United States responds to the Iraq war. Beneath Rumsfeld's public bombast, he's a smart guy and clearly knows that there are problems. There are meetings all over DC about what to do about the situation. We need to focus in on figuring out not the solution so much, but what process the Bush administration has in place for developing a strategy. There are two tracks, as always: First, military. What -- beyond massive sweeps rounding up the usual suspects -- do they have in mind? Second, political. What kind of deals can they cut inside Iraq to get the situation under control? Bottom line: The United States is going to evolve a plan. What will it be and how will it develop?

2. How big is this guerrilla movement? This is always hard to gauge, since guerrilla movements don't have neat tables of organization. Still, this one seems to have both personnel and resources, as their operations seem steady. This is much more important than the question of whether or not they are centrally controlled. Resources and dispersed authority -- not central command and control -- define a first-stage guerrilla operation.

3. We're all interested in the numbers coming out of the last quarter in Latin America. Is this simply a dead cat bounce (even a dead cat will bounce if thrown to the ground hard enough) or does it represent a secular shift? We've had an interesting discussion about the effect of currency controls on Venezuelan markets; we reached the conclusion that they either caused the market rise, had no effect on the market rise, or suppressed an even larger rise. We have now positioned ourselves to be right whatever happens. Let's move beyond this.

4. There are persistent reports from multiple sources about U.S. forces operating in eastern Iran. That can't be verified, but the status of U.S.-Iranian relationships can be -- and that seems to have fallen off of our radar.

5. We need to get on top of U.S. African operations. They may be small-scale, but they are strategic. Believe it or not, the situation in Malawi seems to be a significant barometer of something. The gang in Djibouti clearly has something in mind, and Bush is heading over there in a week. Let's climb on top of this.

6. Strange reports are coming out of Moscow about the security apparatus being very upset with Putin over some arrests. Some of these reports include wild talk about whacking him. That's a gauge of feelings. We need to know if these reports have any substance whatsoever. Generally speaking, how is Putin's political health these days?

7. Hong Kong needs to be watched. There is tension over new regulations. We have always felt that Hong Kong would blow at some point. We have always been wrong. Probably won't blow this time, but we need a clear read on what is going on.

Blame Bush for California's Budget Woes

The main reason I think all Republicans in this state are simply sniveling little whiners who want nothing more than to suck up all the money around before they die.

Seriously.

I hope y'all go down in flames on the recall and slither back to the hole in shame.

Try it before it disappears.

Type in "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in the search text, and hit "I'm feeling lucky".

If the search result doesn't appear as a joke, simply go here for my cached copy.

Submitted for your approval:
N.J. Judge Unseals Transcript In Controversial Terror Case.

Okay. Can we just cast this illusion aside now? Can we just stop deluding ourselves that we're in a bad Heinlein novel and just accept the fact that holding individuals without consul, in undisclosed locations, regardless of their status as a citizen, IS SIMPLY WRONG?

And OH! Make me write bad checks.

Okay, Bush is starting the July 4th celebrations early by adding more fuel to the fire.

Bush to Iraqi Militants: 'Bring Them On'

"There are some who feel like that conditions are such that they can attack us there," Bush told reporters at the White House. "My answer is bring them on. We have the force necessary to deal with the situation."

Our troops don't deserve this. No one does.

Oh well. It's not like it was in common use or anything...

U.S. Develops Urban Surveillance System

Boy, that money you Libertarians are getting in return for your civil liberties must be pretty substantial.

Though insisting CTS isn't intended for homeland security, DARPA outlined a hypothetical scenario for contractors in March that showed the system could aid police as well as the military. DARPA described a hypothetical terrorist shooting at a bus stop and a hypothetical bombing at a disco one month apart in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, a city with slightly more residents than Miami.

CTS should be able to track the day's movements for every vehicle that passed each scene in the hour before the attack, DARPA said. Even if there were 2,000 such vehicles and none showed up twice, the software should automatically compare their routes and find vehicles with common starting and stopping points.

Joseph Onek of the Open Society Institute, a human rights group, said current law that permits the use of cameras in public areas may have to be revised to address the privacy implications of these new technologies.

"It's one thing to say that if someone is in the street he knows that at any single moment someone can see him," Onek said. "It's another thing to record a whole life so you can see anywhere someone has been in public for 10 years."

They're back...

I would extract a pretty steep strategical price from the US for cleaning up the mess. If they can pull it off, they should get agreement to abide by the ICC. Sure, they'll likely have to give the current and previous administrations a get out of jail free card, and they'll have to make some compromise around the Iraq war, but the outcome should be that the US is bound by international treaties of war crimes, just like everyone else.

But as we saw leading up to the war with Iraq, the President of the US can simply rip up treaties when ever the President feels like it.

Okay, can we just all agree that reality has left the building?

On the way to work this morning, I was listening to the audio of Rumsfeld's now famous remark about Iraq and how the situation is nothing like Guerrilla warfare. Can't find the transcript of the fun n' games in the usual place anymore. Guess the laughter from the people present was too much for even Rummy. But you can find it on the US State Dept's web site.

Leah, blogging over at Eschaton, observes (in reference to the growing number of people wanting the UN to handle Iraq)

Maybe our fellow Americans are beginning to remember their pre-war skepticism about this administration's notion of aggressive, in your face, yet prickly, easily aggrieved unilateralism being synonymous with strong leadership.

So they're looking to pawn the problem off on the rest of the world.

This is called privatizing the profits while socializing the costs. The world gets to foot the bill in lives, time, and treasure. We create the mess, now we are too inept to fix it, so we're trying to see if there's anyone out there who's a bigger fool than the US electorate.

(sigh)

But going back to Rummy's little chicken dance, I must say that I can't believe anyone thinks the guy is still on this planet. Seriously. Dementia may be involved. He's not exactly a young guy, and maybe he should be examined.

In the audio clip this morning on NPR, I couldn't hear any laughter - it was a short clip. But I got to tell you. It's no longer if they'll self destruct, but how much of the planet is going to be destroyed when they implode.

Yi.

CIA said to find North Korean nuclear advances

American intelligence officials now believe that North Korea is developing the technology to make nuclear warheads small enough to fit atop the country's growing arsenal of missiles, potentially putting Tokyo and American troops based in Japan at risk, according to officials who have received the intelligence reports.

In the assessment — which they have shared with Japan, South Korea and other allies in recent weeks — officials at the Central Intelligence Agency said American satellites had identified an advanced nuclear testing site in an area called Youngdoktong. At the site, equipment has been set up to test conventional explosives that, when detonated, could compress a plutonium core and set off a compact nuclear explosion.

Some intelligence officials say they believe that the existence of the testing range is evidence that North Korea intends to manufacture much more sophisticated weapons that would be light enough to put onto its growing arsenal of medium- and long-range missiles.

Previously, American officials had said they were uncertain whether North Korea had received enough outside technical help to even attempt the precision steps required to detonate such a "miniaturized" nuclear warhead.

The Shi'ites and the Future of Iraq

LAMENT AND REMEMBRANCE

In late April, barely two weeks after the collapse of the Baath regime, elated Iraqi Shi'ites flocked to the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, renewing an annual ritual of lament and remembrance that had been banned by the Iraqi government since 1977. Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, died at the battle of Karbala in ad 680 while attempting to claim the caliphate from the Umayyads, having been betrayed by the people of Kufa in southern Iraq. His martyrdom has come to symbolize the quest of Shi'ites for justice, and their visitation of his shrine is both an act of protest and an expression of hope. Amid the power vacuum created by the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime and with foreign forces occupying Iraq, the procession this year assumed a concrete meaning relating to both the grievances and the aspirations of Iraqi Shi'ites. As one pilgrim put it to an American television network, "We just got rid of one tyrant ruler. We don't want a new tyrant instead. We want a just government, not one which is imposed on us."

In the wake of the war, important questions about Iraq remain. Will the newly energized Shi'ite majority seek an Islamic government modeled after Iran, or will its members agree to share power with other communities? Will the United States succeed in establishing itself as a credible broker, especially in Shi'ite eyes? The future of Iraq may well depend on the answers.

From Stratfor

Summary

Stratfor intelligence, combined with an accumulation of seemingly unconnected events, indicates that the United States is preparing a covert counterterrorism operation in Africa -- most likely in Sudan.

From Stratfor

A cease-fire between the Palestinians and Israelis has arrived, punctuated in Israel by a foreign worker's death in what appeared to be an attack by a rogue element of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade -- with the term "appeared" highlighted and underlined. The fundamental question is: Now what? The cease-fire has three months to go. Each side has a very different expectation of the next steps. The problem is there are three players here: Israel, Hamas and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. The negotiations are being handled by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who has very little influence, save for being anointed by Washington. He represents Washington without having the U.S. presidential seal in his pocket. He doesn't speak for U.S. President George W. Bush, and that makes him fairly insignificant. His participation is intended to simplify the negotiations, but his effect is unclear -- he might complicate matters.

In the end, if there is to be a deal, it will have to take place in three stages. First, Hamas and Fatah will have to reach a common and enduring understanding of the Palestinian position. Second, they will have to reach an agreement with Israel. Third, they will have to protect this agreement against groups on both sides unwilling to compromise.