Scott Ritter on Iran :

We are told that the President of the United States and others in the administration have said there can be no doubt Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Well you know what, there's nothing but doubt that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. There is no evidence whatsoever! I need to reinforce that point: There is no evidence whatsoever to back up the rhetoric that the Bush administration has put out there that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program.The sole purpose of the Bush administration's policy objectives vis-à-vis Iran is to create opportunities for conflict and confrontation, because the goal is regime change.

The sole purpose of the Bush administration's policy objectives vis-à-vis Iran is to create opportunities for conflict and confrontation, because the goal is regime change.

Miss Candy Barr

Make no mistake: Former Vice President Al Gore will be our next president.

I am as confident about that assertion as I am that George W. Bush will go down in history as America's worst president ever.

Were the bones of Jesus in this box?

Cameron: Jesus tomb film is a ‘detective story’

Excerpt from "The Jesus Dynasty"

Many years ago a man from the BBC came to me and he asked me if the Dead Sea Scrolls will harm Christianity. I said to him that nothing can harm Christianity. The only thing which could be dangerous to Christianity would be to find a tomb with the sarcophagus or ossuary of Jesus — still containing his bones.

I have to say I love this story. If true (a big if) it shows that Jesus of Nazareth was a man; a man who had a mother and a father; who may have married a had a son; and who died.

Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine. - Patti Smith

From San Francisco Chronicle. Its called a circumzenithal arc; not exactly an upside down rainbow, but close enough.

SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

"More troops in Baghdad are irrelevant to what's going down in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The surge supporters who accuse the Iraq war's critics of emboldening the enemy are trying to deflect attention from their own complicity in losing a bigger battle: the one against the enemy that actually did attack us on 9/11."

QKENCHANT UPDATE

The CIA has recently put some documents related to QKENCHANT online. They can be found here.

General says eliminating bin Laden not priority

The Army's highest-ranking officer and the former leader of the secretive world of Special Operations offered his thoughts on the importance of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden during a luncheon here Friday.

They're probably not what anyone expected.

"I don't know whether we'll find him," Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, said in a speech to the Rotary Club of Fort Worth. "I don't know that it's all that important, frankly."

His Commander-in-Chief agrees.

The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.

The United States demanded that Israel desist from even exploratory contacts with Syria, of the sort that would test whether Damascus is serious in its declared intentions to hold peace talks with Israel.

Syria has made overtures towards Israel and the U.S. I guess peace in the Middle East doesn't fit in with the neocons plans.

Top U.S. Bin Laden Expert: Confession Video “Bogus”

Is the famous “confession video” genuine? Despite Bush’s insistence that the tape is authentic, America’s top academic Bin Laden expert has finally gone on the record, joining numerous other experts. “It’s bogus,” says Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University’s Religious Studies program.

Lawrence, author of Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, offered his historic debunking of the administration’s lie in an interview with Kevin Barrett (“Dynamic Duo,” gcnlive.com, 2/16/2007, first hour). The interview marked Lawrence’s first major public statement since he made headlines last year by suggesting that recent Osama tapes are hoaxes and that the real Osama Bin Laden may be dead.

Tomb of Jesus Found?

Jerusalem- The makers of a new documentary, to be aired for the first time at a news conference in New York Monday, claim that a tomb found in a Jerusalem cave 36 years ago belongs to none other than Jesus Christ.

The claim presented in the documentary is based on years of research by world-renowned archaeologists, statisticians, experts in ancient scripts and in DNA, the Israeli Yediot Ahronot daily Friday quoted the makers as saying in an exclusive interview.

DNA? In other words, if this actually the tomb of Jesus Christ, THEY FOUND THE BODY.

Update: new book The Jesus Tomb: The Discovery That Will Change History Forever

Move over Wikipedia: Conservapedia is here!

Many thanks to my favorite Conservative Jon Swift for calling my attention to this new online conservative encyclopedia. According to their main page "Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American."

Now, thanks to this valuable resource, if your child is asked to do a report for school on, let's say, kangaroos he or she will no longer be limited to encyclopedias that are limited to facts. Instead the student will learn this:

Like all modern animals, modern kangaroos originated in the Middle East[1] and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood.

Or let's say that our young student is interested in learning more about Jesus Christ:

Historical context indicates that as a 'rabbi' in judea, Jesus would have been married. An explaination (sic) for his lack of a wife may be that he was a confirmed bachelor, and had twelve men to fufill his needs.

There have been a number of attempts by silly people to tamper with Conservapedia. For example, the page on Jesus now says that God has recently announced on his blog that Jesus is actually his nephew, not his son. I would urge these trouble-makers to desist. Conservapedia is funny enough already.

Ion Mihai Pacepa is a high-level Romanian intelligence official who defected to the United States during the Carter admistration. Subsequently, according to his Wikipedia entry, "he worked with American intelligence in various operations against the former Eastern Bloc."

Pacepa has recently expressed his opinions on the Kennedy assassination in a manuscript "Programmed to Kill", quoted in this blog. He maintains that Khrushchev and the KGB programmed Oswald to kill Kennedy but later unsuccessfully tried to abort his mission. In the end Oswald went ahead on his own. His opinion seems to be based more on his professional opinion than on evidence but as an intelligence professional his opinion is one to be taken seriously. (One must also consider the possibility of disinformation. He once worked for the Communist Romanian government, but it is obvious who he is working for now.)

All of us bloc intelligence leaders had spent at least twenty years focused on recruiting American servicemen assigned outside the United States, and all of us could recognize the elements of Oswald’s intelligence handling even in our sleep...It was crystal clear to us that Oswald had been recruited by Soviet espionage while he was a Marine stationed at Atsugi Air Base in Japan ...

I am inclined to agree with him here; however I think that Oswald was probably working for American intelligence at the time.

the U.S. investigators had in their possession Oswald’s 1961 letters to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and to his brother Robert in the U.S. stating that his wife, Marina, was born in Leningrad; the investigators established that she did indeed speak with a Leningrad accent, but they did not know what to do with Marina’s birth certificate stating that she was born in remote Archangel oblast. The investigators were, evidently, not familiar with the Soviet pattern requiring that intelligence agents selected to become spouses of Western visitors be endowed with fake identity documents showing that they came from remote areas, usually ones prohibited to foreigners, so as to preclude attempts to verify their backgrounds.

Again, I think he is correct than the KGB likely steered Marina toward Lee Oswald.

That was another Soviet pattern—seven chiefs of the Soviet political police itself were secretly or openly assassinated to prevent them from incriminating the Kremlin. Furthermore, immediately upon news of JFK’s assassination Moscow launched Operation “Dragon,” a disinformation effort in which my service was deeply involved. The aim—which has succeeded only too well—was to throw the blame on various elements in the United States for killing their own president.

Pacepa, in these excerpts at least, does not consider the possibility that Oswald was working for American intelligence the whole time, a possibility that any intelligence analyst would obviously have considered.

The only evidence that Pacepa has ever alluded to is a conversation he had with Romanian President Ceausescu, in this article in National Review.

“Ten,” Ceausescu remarked to me. “Ten international leaders the Kremlin killed or tried to kill,” he explained, counting them off on his fingers. Laszlo Rajk and Imre Nagy of Hungary; Lucretiu Patrascanu and Gheorghiu-Dej in Romania; Rudolf Slansky, the head of Czechoslovakia, and Jan Masaryk, that country’s chief diplomat; the shah of Iran; Palmiro Togliatti of Italy; American President John F. Kennedy; and Mao Zedong. (Among the leaders of Moscow’s satellite intelligence services there was unanimous agreement that the KGB had been involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.)

Now it is my opinion that no intelligence service, either theirs or ours, would have used Oswald in a plot to assassination the American President, except as what he said that he was, a "patsy." Although Oswald was hardly the dolt he has been made out to be, neither was he 007. Would the Soviets really have used an individual who could so obviously have been traced back to them? Also it would have been unlikely that either side could be completely sure that he was actually working for them, and had not been doubled.

Is it possible that Pacepa is being influence in his opinions by his current employers in American intelligence? Of late, he has been associated with David Horowitz's FrontPage Magazine and The Washington Times in efforts to establish that Saddam Hussein really did haveWMDs. He also wrote an article for National Review linking John Kerry's Vietnam-era testimony to the Congress to a Soviet propaganda campaign.

Look for an article soon to be in the LA times that will piece a good portion of the JFKA [JFK assassination] together. EHH [E. Howard Hunt] confided this information to his sons 4 years before his death. All information was verified by ERIC HAMBURG and a real book will be out with in a year. American Spy was ghost written and has no real value.

--David Hunt, son of E. Howard Hunt

Blackwater Forms Intelligence Agency

Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA, announced Tuesday the formation of a new CIA-type private company to provide intelligence services to commercial clients.

The executive roster for the new venture, Total Intelligence Solutions, is loaded with veterans of U.S. intelligence agencies, including two other Blackwater officials.

Riverbend of Baghdad Burning:

And yet, as the situation continues to deteriorate both for Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq, and for Americans inside Iraq, Americans in America are still debating on the state of the war and occupation- are they winning or losing? Is it better or worse.

Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile.

Emphasis added.

Terry Nichols: McVeigh had high-level help

Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols says a high-ranking FBI official "apparently" was directing Timothy McVeigh in the plot to blow up a government building and might have changed the original target of the attack, according to a new affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Utah.

The official and other conspirators are being protected by the federal government "in a cover-up to escape its responsibility for the loss of life in Oklahoma," Nichols claims in a Feb. 9 affidavit.

In his affidavit, Nichols says he wants to bring closure to the survivors and families of the attack on the Alfred B. Murrah Federal Building, which took 168 lives. He alleges he wrote then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004, offering to help identify all parties who played a role in the bombing but never got a reply.

A curious lack of curiosity on the part of the former Attorney General.

New York Times editorial: Making Martial Law Easier

A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.

Beyond cases of actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or to any “other condition."

Senators Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Christopher Bond, Republican of Missouri have introduced a bill to repeal this provision.

New Iraqi Oil Law Leaked

This law legalizes PSAs (production sharing agreements) in Iraq. Iraq will be the only country in the middle east with such contracts privatising Iraqi oil and giving foreign companies crazy rates of profit that may reach to more than three fourth of the general revenue. Iraq and Iraqis need every Dinar that comes from oil sales. In addition to the financial aspects of this law, it can be considered the funding tool for splitting Iraq into three states. It undermines the central government and distributes oil revenues directly to the three regions, which sets the foundations for what Iraq's enemies are trying to achieve in terms of establishing three independent states.

I subscribe to the email newsletter of the Blackwater Corporation, also known as the Rock Stars of Baghdad:

Blackwater is, for all intents and purposes, your very own little Special Forces, available anywhere, anytime, for the low low price of a couple of million dollars. These Birds are used to fly recon and air support for various security contracts, usually with federal government agencies.

Arnaud de Borchgrave writes in the Washington Times of a conversation he had with R. James Woolsey, the former CIA director:

In response to my question about how he rated the odds of a bombing campaign against Iran, R. James Woolsey, the former CIA director, hummed an answer for me on the sidewalk as we exited the Metropolitan Club. It was a parody of the Beach Boys hit "Barbara Ann" -- "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb-Bomb Iran."

This is the mentality we are dealing with. Mr. Woolsey also believes that we have been in World War 4 since 1979, when the Shah's regime was overthrown in Iran.

Meanwhile Tehran insider tells of US black ops:

TEHRAN - A former Iranian ambassador and Islamic Republic insider has provided intriguing details to Asia Times Online about US covert operations inside Iran aimed at destabilizing the country and toppling the regime - or preparing for an American attack.

"The Iranian accusations are true," said Richard Sale, intelligence correspondent for United Press International, referring to charges that the US is using the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) organization and other groups to carry out cross-border operations. "But it is being done on such a small scale - a series of pinpricks - it would seem to have no strategic value at all."

The American Association for the Advancement of Science on Global Warming:

“The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society.

"Accumulating data from across the globe reveal a wide array of effects: rapidly melting glaciers, destabilisation of major ice sheets, increases in extreme weather, rising sea level, shifts in species ranges, and more.

“The pace of change and the evidence of harm have increased markedly over the last five years. The time to control greenhouse gas emissions is now."

From Kikos House

A new book Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait by Uri Dan reveals that George W. Bush told Arie Sharon that if he caught Osama bin Laden, "I will screw him in the ass."

Ha'aretz from a review the new book "Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait" by Uri Dan, Palgrave Macmillan, 320 pages, $18.45 :

Speaking of George Bush, with whom Sharon developed a very close relationship, Uri Dan recalls that Sharon's delicacy made him reluctant to repeat what the president had told him when they discussed Osama bin Laden. Finally he relented. And here is what the leader of the Western world, valiant warrior in the battle of cultures, promised to do to bin Laden if he caught him: "I will screw him in the ass!"

I have always thought of the President as a bottom.

New film released shows JFK motorcade ninety seconds before assassination

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, TX is releasing a newly found color film which shows President John F. Kennedy's motorcade ninety seconds before the president was assassinated in November of 1963.

David Ferrie's Plane Located

Noblesville resident Don Roberts had no idea what was sitting out in the shed next door to his eastside home, located at the Noblesville airport on Promise Road. He knew it was a Stinson Voyager single-engine airplane manufactured in 1946. More significantly, it turned out to be a piece of American history.

David Ferrie, known to all viewers of Oliver Stone's JFK as the character played by Joe Pesci, has been a mainstay of JFK assassination conspiracy theories since the sixties. This article describes how one researcher located his airplane.

Not only is the article above most interesting but some of the comments are worth reading as well. One from Dallas researcher Jim Gatewood:

Randy Brodenhead Owner of the Highland Park Airport 7 miles from Dealy Plaza.

"Two FBI agents came to the airport 2 days after the assassination - and found a flight plan filed for Havana. David Ferrie the pilot - Lee H. Oswald passenger. The plane had been rented at the Garland, Texas airport a twin engine Apache Piper. The agents tried to take the flight plan but had no warrant and were refused.

That night there was a fire at the air port- but the files were not destroyed as they were in steel filing cabinets. The next night there was another fire and the files were destroyed."

Mr. Gatewood is the author of several books on Dallas history. I have taken the liberty of correcting several typos in his comments.

Update: Another article on the plane.

All the Christian Conservatives who maintain that United States of America was founded by Christians as a Christian nation, and that their original intent was later corrupted by secular humanists, would do well to read Christian Theocrat Gary North's Conspiracy in Philadelphia: Origins of the United States Constitution. North's book, which I must admit I have only glanced through at this point, argues precisely that this country was not founded as a Christian nation, and that, in North's view, is the problem.

Ultimately North's argument is with the founding fathers and their constitution and, indeed with the values of the Enlightenment and the liberal democratic tradition. He correctly sees the founding fathers as his enemy.

Why were the pamphlet debates of 1787–88 conducted in terms of Roman historical examples and not biblical historical examples? Why was there never any appeal to specific biblical laws, but endless appeals to natural laws? Why were the symbols adopted by the Continental Congress, the Convention, and the post-war nation systematically non-Christian? Why, if the Constitution is Christian, is the name of Jesus Christ missing?

There is only one sensible answer: the U.S. Constitution is not
Christian. But Christians resist this answer. They want to blame later generations of politicians for the decline of Christian political influence. They want to share in the glory of the Convention. This is a strategic mistake, and it is surely an historiographical mistake.

Rep. Don Young uses fake Lincoln quote to suggest that Democrats should be hanged as traitors. Let's call this what it is: fascism.

JFK assassination author and researcher Mark Lane's mugshot after he was arrested as a Freedom Rider in the civil rights movement.

I'm going to the Second Level of Hell according to this internet test.

You have come to a place mute of all light, where the wind bellows as the sea does in a tempest. This is the realm where the lustful spend eternity. Here, sinners are blown around endlessly by the unforgiving winds of unquenchable desire as punishment for their transgressions. The infernal hurricane that never rests hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine, whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them. You have betrayed reason at the behest of your appetite for pleasure, and so here you are doomed to remain. Cleopatra and Helen of Troy are two that share in your fate.

Cool, a threesome with Cleopatra and Helen of Troy.

"Unless there is some great reversal, Bush will be seen as one of the country's poorest presidents. Iraq will stand at the top of the list, but the administration's failed responses to Katrina and global warming will stand with its abuse of civil liberties to mark Bush out as a man with poor judgment and a failed leader."

— Robert Dallek, historian

The Truth at Last

I would like to refer my readers to today's Cannonfire post. It seems that Georgia state Representative Ben Bridges of Georgia, a Republican of course, has fallen in with a bad crowd; namely anti-Semitic geocentrists. Yes, that's right, people who believe that the Jews are concealing the truth that the Earth does not move and the rest of the cosmos revolves around us, just like they believe the Bible says. Now, you might think that no one in their right mind could believe this, and you would be right, of course. Nonetheless, geocentricity seems to be making a small come back among creationists. There is even one astronomer, Gerardus Bouw Ph.D, who holds to the geocentric position, according to his website, which calls itself the official geocentricity website. Dr. Bouw is, of course, a religious nut. Now, before anyone takes offense, I respect all religions (except Scientology) but if your religious beliefs lead you to believe that the Sun orbits the Earth, or that the Universe is 6000 years old, you are a religious nut, and you might as well wear the label proudly.

Now, back to Rep. Bridges. He is also a religious nut, of course, and wants to ban the teaching of evolution in the public schools. He has backed away a bit from the geocentric nonsense but did have this to say:

“I agree with it more than I would the Big Bang Theory or the Darwin Theory. I am convinced that rather than risk teaching a lie why teach anything?”

Now, I am sure that Rep. Bridges is not opposed to teaching, say reading and writing, so long as children are not allowed to read science books that might lead them to believe that life evolved from more primitive forms, or that the Earth is billions of years old, or that the Earth rotates and revolves around the Sun. Because those beliefs, you see, offend some people's religious sensibilities.

Update: copy of crazy anti-evolution memo

My new t-shirt. Bought it on ebay.

Wonkette clears up Bush News Conference on Iran

Al Gore at the Grammys (Say, has he lost weight?)

Happy Valentines Day!

CentCom Commander: ‘I Have No Idea’ If White House Iran Claim Is True

Today on CNN, CentCom Commander William Fallon, the top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, was asked about the administration’s claim. Fallon said, “I have no idea who may be actually with hands-on in this stuff.”

(Via Cannonfire)

Meanwhile General Pace is not backing down: No evidence Iran is arming Iraqis

A top U.S. general said Tuesday there was no evidence the Iranian government was supplying Iraqi insurgents with highly lethal roadside bombs, apparently contradicting claims by other U.S. military and administration officials.

Update: General Caldwell, the chief spokesman in Iraq: U.S. general: No evidence Iran is arming Iraqis

"I think people want to make an inference. I think people want to hype this up."

I'm shocked. What possible motive could the Bush administration have to hype up evidence on Iran? Obviously there is substantial opposition within the military to a war with Iran.

Update: President Bush at his news conference this morning on the alleged Iranian involvement in IEDs in Iraq:

"Here's my point, either they knew or didn't know. What matters is, is that they're there. What's worse, that the government knew, or that the government didn't know?"

What's worse is that he really doesn't care one way or the other.

The whole purpose of setting up Guantánamo Bay is for torture. Why do this? Because you want to escape the rule of law.

--Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, the JAG lawyer whose career was ended for representing his client in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. An American hero.

World Underwhelmed by Iran-Iraq Connection

After two delays several anonymous officials have presented their evidence that Iran is arming the insurgents in Iraq.

Iran denies the charges of course:

Such accusations cannot be relied upon or be presented as evidence. The United States has a long history in fabricating evidence.

(When they're right, they're right.)

Patrick Cockburn is skeptical:

The allegations by senior but unnamed U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington are bizarre. The U.S. has been fighting a Sunni insurgency in Iraq since 2003 that is deeply hostile to Iran.

The insurgent groups have repeatedly denounced the democratically elected Iraqi government as pawns of Iran. It is unlikely that the Sunni guerrillas have received significant quantities of military equipment from Tehran. Some 1,190 U.S. soldiers have been killed by so-called improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

The Voice of America reports Top American General Disputes US Military Claim on Iran

The top American military officer, General Peter Pace, declined Monday to endorse the conclusions of U.S. military officers in Baghdad, who told reporters on Sunday that the Iranian government is providing high-powered roadside bombs to insurgents in Iraq.

This is astounding. The Bush administration cannot get the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to back them up on this. The Minneapolis Star Tribune in an editorial titled Congress must prevent attacks against Iran has this to say:

Sunday came a strange briefing in Baghdad in which three anonymous Pentagon officials laid out what can only be generously called "evidence" that Iran was supplying advanced munitions to Shiite militants in Iraq that were being used to kill U.S. soldiers. The briefing was a dud, leaving reporters, according to National Public Radio, "with more questions than answers." Even the new U.S. intelligence estimate on Iraq says "the involvement of these outside actors (Iraq's neighbors) is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability." On Monday, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointedly declined to endorse the central allegation made at the briefing: that the Iranian government was sending the munitions to Iraq.

It appears that the Joint Chiefs do not want to attack Iran, probably because it is such a monumentally stupid idea.

The McCone-Rowley Memo: Is it a fake or new evidence connecting Lee Harvey Oswald to the CIA? Since I first received this document from a 70's era tabloid journalist it has made the rounds of the internet. For more on its history and origins click here.

"the intelligence community is quietly indicating that the case purporting to prove Iran's involvement in Iraq is murkier and less decisive than the thrust of recent administration statements suggests."

Impeach Cheney not Bush

The primary wingnut defense of the sales campaign that got us into the war in Iraq is that it was just bad intelligence. Now the Pentagon's own Inspector General's report shows that this simply is not true. There is a word for "purposely manipulated intelligence" and that word is "lies". There is apparently an attempt to lay the blame for this on Douglas Feith but clearly the trail leads to Donald Rumsfeld and, above all, Dick Cheney.

CBS: A "very damning" report by the Defense Department's inspector general depicts a Pentagon that purposely manipulated intelligence in an effort to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida in the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, says the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Washington Post: Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included "reporting of dubious quality or reliability" that supported the political views of senior administration officials rather than the conclusions of the intelligence community, according to a report by the Pentagon's inspector general.

Not only is Cheney likely involved in the campaign of lies that led to an unneccessary war but the evidence suggests that he was behind the smearing of Joseph Wilson and the outing of Valerie Plame.

If Bush is impeached it is highly unlikely that he would be convicted in the Senate. And if he was we would have President Cheney--a very scary thought. Impeach Cheney. (And while we're at it, impeach Alberto Gonzales; there is a good deal of documentary evidence linking him to the legal justifications for torture and mistreatment of prisoners.

Three killed in suspected meteorite fall

New Delhi- Three people were killed and four injured in a mysterious blast in a village in India's northern Rajasthan state Thursday that villagers claim was caused by a meteorite, news reports said. Residents of Banchola village in Bundi district, about 200 kilometres south of Rajasthan capital Jaipur, said the victims were sitting with some iron scrap in an open field when an "object" fell from the sky and hit them, IANS news agency reported.

"The matter is under investigation. We know that there was a blast but looking at the crater it does not seem that it happened due to a meteorite," a Bundi police official was quoted as saying by IANS.

Anna Nicole Smith

11-28-67 - 2-8-07

Rest in Peace

Army probe: No Abuse at Guantanamo

An Army officer who investigated possible abuse at Guantanamo Bay after some guards purportedly bragged about beating detainees found no evidence they mistreated the prisoners — although he did not interview any of the alleged victims, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

There is also no gambling at Rick's.

Rendezvous With Death: JFK & the Cuban Connection

1 hr 27 min - This is the German documentary that attempts to make the case that Castro was behind the assassination.

William F. Buckley on E. Howard Hunt

A year ago he asked me, through an intermediary, to write the introduction to his memoirs. I read them with great misgivings. There was material there that suggested transgressions of the highest order, including a hint that LBJ might have had a hand in the plot to assassinate President Kennedy. The manuscript was clearly ghostwritten.

I declined to write the introduction. But when the manuscript was resubmitted to me, with the loony grassy-knoll bits chiseled out, I said okay, but wrote an introduction restricted to describing our early friendship in Mexico. The book will be published (by John Wiley) in March.

Darn, I really wanted to read the "looney grassy-knoll" parts.

Top 10 Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian by Heidi Lore

10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."

3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

Prominenent Conservative wingnut Joseph Farah on How Bush lost the war

Not only has Bush lost the House and Senate, but he has truly lost the ear of the people on this war. It's probably too late for Bush to rally Americans to the cause now.

It will almost certainly take another major attack.

Meanwhile neocon Edward Lutwakk says To Help Iraq, Let It Fend for Itself

THE sooner President Bush can get his extra troops for a “surge” in Iraq, the sooner he will be able to announce that all American troops are coming home because of the inevitable failure of the Iraqi government to “live up to its side of the bargain.”

A recent NEWSWEEK Poll found that 77 percent of Americans believe that Britney, Paris and Lindsay have too much influence on young girls.

Perhaps so, but someone has to corrupt the young.

Could Al Gore be our funniest President? Al Gore on "An Inconvenient Truth About Christmas."

NewsDredge asks: Is Bush Bald?

A friend of mine has a friend who was aboard the aircraft carrier when Bush declared that the mission was, indeed, accomplished. This fellow (a Bush supporter) saw Bush come out of a workout room and noticed that Bush was bald on top. And then he had this picture snapped with our Beloved Moral Leader.

Bush administration officials acknowledged Friday that they had yet to compile evidence strong enough to back up publicly their claims that Iran is fomenting violence against U.S. troops in Iraq.

They cling precariously to the top of what is left of the ice floe, their fragile grip the perfect symbol of the tragedy of global warming.

Francis Fukuyama on Iraq, Iran and how The neocons have learned nothing from five years of catastrophe

It is hard to have much confidence that US intelligence on Iranian facilities is any better than it was in the case of Iraq. An air campaign is much more likely to build support for the regime than to topple it, and will stimulate terrorism and attacks on American facilities and friends around the globe. The US would be even more isolated in such a war than during the Iraqi campaign, with only Israel as a certain ally.

Vanity Fair:

The same neocon ideologues behind the Iraq war have been using the same tactics—alliances with shady exiles, dubious intelligence on W.M.D.—to push for the bombing of Iran. As President Bush ups the pressure on Tehran, is he planning to double his Middle East bet?

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

And what do real scientists--those not willing to prostitute themselves for cash--think of this?

Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's most prestigious scientific institute, said: "The IPCC is the world's leading authority on climate change and its latest report will provide a comprehensive picture of the latest scientific understanding on the issue. It is expected to stress, more convincingly than ever before, that our planet is already warming due to human actions, and that 'business as usual' would lead to unacceptable risks, underscoring the urgent need for concerted international action to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. However, yet again, there will be a vocal minority with their own agendas who will try to suggest otherwise."

"I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent." -- Arthur C. Clark

Michael Ledeen:

The war in the Middle East — for it is a regional war, not merely a battle for Iraq — cannot be analyzed at the level of the individual terrorist groups, because the terrorists are part of a larger context. The organizing center is, as Spanish Magistrate Balthazar Garzon publicly put it, a "directorate" located in Iran, that works closely with Iranian intelligence organizations, including the Revolutionary Guards. Those organizations, in turn, work with their counterparts in other friendly countries.

In order to conceal their activities from us, the Iranians have deployed several deceptive myths. The two most effective are "al Qaeda" and "Zarqawi."

Essential Reading: Robert Parry, one of the few real journalists:

Military and intelligence sources continue to tell me that preparations are advancing for a war with Iran starting possibly as early as mid-to-late February.

Click on the link and read the whole thing.