One last item from the, "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out." department of international diplomacy comes this shocker:

BAGHDAD, Dec. 27 -- The United States has backed away from several of its more ambitious initiatives to transform Iraq's economy, political system and security forces as attacks on U.S. troops have escalated and the timetable for ending the civil occupation has accelerated.

Plans to privatize state-owned businesses -- a key part of a larger Bush administration goal to replace the socialist economy of deposed president Saddam Hussein with a free-market system -- have been dropped over the past few months. So too has a demand that Iraqis write a constitution before a transfer of sovereignty.

With the administration's plans tempered by time and threat, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and his deputies are now focused on forging compromises with Iraqi leaders and combating a persistent insurgency in order to meet a July 1 deadline to transfer sovereignty to a provisional government.

"There's no question that many of the big-picture items have been pushed down the list or erased completely," said a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq's reconstruction, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Right now, everyone's attention is focused [on] doing what we need to do to hand over sovereignty by next summer."

The new approach, U.S. diplomats said, calls into question the prospects for initiatives touted by conservative strategists to fashion Iraq into a secular, pluralistic, market-driven nation. While the diplomats maintain those goals are still attainable, the senior official said, "ideology has become subordinate to the schedule." more at WaPo.

Shorter Bremer: Your pipes are broken lady, and I ain't no plumber.

I guess when you call out for war, it's a bit different than pizza. It takes a bit more planning than getting a few pals together to pony up a few bucks. But that's what you get when civilians are in charge of the military. Donald McNamara Rumsfeld and his sidekick Wolfy figured that an occupied populace would shower us with petroleum products once we ousted the bad guy. Being an ideologue is fun, but when it comes to actually doing something, rather than kicking back in your desk chair smoking your pipe in your slippers, you need to get the adults involved.(sorry about the run-on sentence, it's been quite a long day)

On Edit: Those weapons of mass destruction, Fuck 'em. They are a fantasy, and I've an election to rig win. Right, Karl?

From the, "Gee I learned something Today" department come these two items courtesy the NYT:

THE WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT? AWARD

To Ralph Nader, for calling on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to include corporate crime statistics in its annual crime report.

"Because the F.B.I. does not collect data on corporate crime," Mr. Nader wrote in a letter to John Ashcroft, the attorney general, last November, "both the American public and the law enforcement community lack good information on what has become a pressing national problem - a corporate crime wave." Mr. Nader is right. Investors need a scorecard.

Way to go, Ralph! Now just put your ego in your pocket and leave the stage.....Quietly. Thank you. Yes, you know what I'm talkin' 'bout.

And this too!

THE BEST SECOND ACT AWARD

To Henry Blodget, the former Internet analyst at Merrill Lynch who left Wall Street in 2001 and recently resurfaced as a reporter for Slate, covering the Martha Stewart trial. His debut was a brilliant piece, full of self-deprecation and sympathy for the embattled Ms. Stewart.

ah, the admonished Mr. Blodget and Ms. Stewart in the same sentence. I had no idea Blodget was penning for Slate. Beats a term in slammer. You know why they call it the slammer, don't you, Henry? Good.

More Market Merriment and Manipulation courtesy the NYT. (pass the eggnog)

Another sad day in Iraq.

Coordinated rebel attacks in Iraq kill 13, injure at least 172

In the biggest rebel attack since Saddam Hussein's capture, suicide bombers and assailants with mortars and grenade launchers blasted coalition military bases and the governor's office in this southern city Saturday, killing 13 people and wounding at least 172.

The death toll in Karbala included six coalition soldiers -- four Bulgarians and two Thais; six Iraqi police officers; and a civilian.

At least 172 people, many of them civilians caught in the chaos, were wounded in three nearly simultaneous assaults apparently designed to test the resolve of Washington's allies in the coalition governing Iraq. A Polish-led force is responsible for security around the holy Shiite city of Karbala. More at link.

What did Bush have to say about the inverse proportion of violence to desperation? Oh yes, here's the quote:

"The more progress we make on the ground, the more free the Iraqis become, the more electricity is available, the more jobs are available, the more kids that are going to school, the more desperate these killers become, because they can't stand the thought of a free society." -- G. W. Bush Oct. 28, 2003

Things must be really desperate in Iraq. What will they -- Rove & Co. -- dream up to keep dear leaders poll numbers aloft? One can only guess. We're almost out of alerts, and the Mad Cow scare hasn't riled the anarchistic vegans one iota. I know. People have told me lately that I seem more cynical. They watch Fox news.

Dean and that Evil Liberal Media

That liberal media again..sheesh will they stop at nothing?!?!

Let's discuss Howard Dean for a moment. Well, I'll pontificate, you can leave if you wish. Dean is receiving the very same treatment that gore did in 2000 after he won the primary. There seems to be an uproar over some comments Dean made about Osama bin Laden. I have inside information as I'm in Concord, NH and have seen Dean literally dozens of times. I have also talked at length to some of the Concord Monitor reporters covering the primary.

The current brouhaha is over some words Dean used when asked by Concord Monitor reporter Lisa Wangsness about his foreign policy positions.

Here is the quote that is causing so much hand-wringing:

"I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found. I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials. So I'm sure that is the correct sentiment of most Americans, but I do think if you're running for president, its best to say that the full range of penalties should be available. But it's not so great to prejudge the judicial system."

Sure, the words are a little sloppy, but the position is well-reasoned. Unless I'm not mistaken rule of law and presumption of innocence are still valid concepts in America. Although post 9/11 anyone that states this -- particularly where al-Qaida is concerned -- may not be expressing the sentiment of most Americans. Osama's head on a pike, preferably sans trial is what large numbers of the populace want.

So, there are Dean's words. I'll confirm them on Monday with Ms. Wangsness.

Here is some of the backlash:

In this AP story the S.F. Gate uses the headline: "Dean not ready to pronounce Osama bin Laden guilty"

And CBS cites another AP piece, this time a phone interview where Dean is quoted as saying: "I'm just like every other American, I think the guy is outrageous. As a president, I would have to defend the process of the rule of law. But as an American, I want to make sure he gets the death penalty he deserves."

Dean is mistaken on a couple of points. First of all, Gov. Dean is not, "just like every other American." He's running for president, and rightfully or not, he's under the microscope. Secondly, although I wish it were not so, this race may come down to; "Guns, God and gays." Osama's head on a pike serves both guns and God. The media is trivializing this primary saeson so that if we are not careful, their selective coverage will appeal to our worst nature, not to reasoned intellect. And god dammit, Karl Rove and Rupert Murdoch are going to see that stays that way. Issues out, jingoism in. Glory!

That librul media. Will they stop at nothing?

From the Department of "You're Not Jessica Lynch" comes this altogether underreported story...(that's in part due to the POTUS unwilling to acknowledge these people.

US towns gather in their wounded

Returnees shunned by national media win warm local welcome

Gary Younge in Greenfield, Missouri
Saturday December 27, 2003
The Guardian

As the honorary grand marshall of Greenfield's Christmas parade, Derick Hurt waved with his right hand as he led the other vehicles in a lap of the main square on Saturday. His left hand is still not functional since he bailed out of his Humvee in Mosul, Iraq, and landed on it, breaking his wrist. Every now and then he would stop saluting locals holding "Welcome Home Derick" posters and tap the spot where his lower leg used to be, to ease the throbbing.

Behind him, local dignitaries, church groups, and the kings and queens of the high school threw sweets to children from the boats and floats on which they were towed. Ahead of him was a lifetime of disability as an amputee, with a body flecked with shrapnel.

"It's a big thing for me," said Mr Hurt, 26, of the reception he has received in the week since he arrived home. In a town of around 1,500 nestled in the rural midwest, an area of big skies and small creeks, his injury and homecoming have been a big event. Local people raised thousands of dollars to help his family travel to see him at the Walter Reed military hospital in Virginia. Cameras from the local networks met him when he arrived at the airport in Springfield. When he got to Greenfield, the town was waiting in the square.more at link.

Again I ask, why do we have to go to the foreign press to get news like this? WTF is wrong with our sense of value? Are the media so fearful of tarnishing the Neo-cons' Excellent Iraqi Adventure™ facade that they won't cover this sort of thing? Didn't Time just name the 'soldier' person of the year?

About your humble author:

I am a caucasian male living in New Hampshire.

I am not particularly fond of any particular political party. I am vehemently anti-lie, anti-propaganda and pro-democracy. I am fond of using hyphens :)

I have a Master's of Science in Electronic Engineering, and my area of expertise is semi-conductor gate design/process.

I have two cats and two turtles.

I dragrace two motorcycles. One is also streetable. My drag only bike is a Suzuki GS1150 Based turbocharged 1428cc small tire(8" slick) with 260 Rear Wheel Horsepower. In a PMFR chassis it runs low 7 second quarter miles at my local track. New England Dragway. My street bike is a ZX-12R based rocket. It is now a 1270cc w/ a hidden nitrous oxide injection system. HP figures are 202hp no nitrous, 325 RWHP nitrous and pump gas, 405RWHP race gas(VP c-16). Yes, I am crazy.

I'll add to this list of things as I think of stuff. Or get really pissed off about the nature of things.

I have been "scroogled." As of yesterday, this blog was at the top spot at Google for a variety of search terms. My page was last crawled Dec. 25th!! Now, I no longer have a listing at all with Google. No cache, no nothing, nada, zip, zilch.

For any sites titled, "pure bs," this site is by far the most frequently updated, has the most content, and even looks the best. :) I am not going to bother contacting Google over this issue. I'll just keep plugging away, in hopes that I'll be noticed by Google's crawlers next trip around.

If anyone wishes to exchange links with me, I'm open to doing so. See sidebar for contact info.

In the, "We'll reserve comment until more information becomes available department," we offer this:

Saddam Threatens to Expose US
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News Staff

JEDDAH, 27 December 2003 — Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, now being grilled by American investigators, has reportedly warned US authorities that he will expose Washington’s “political games” and its behind-the-scene role in the occupation of Kuwait.

“Saddam threatened that if they continue to pressure him he will reveal startling facts — about America’s political games with his country — that would shock the whole world,” Al-Watan Arabic daily quoted a high-level European source as saying.

The source said Saddam had stopped answering the investigators’ questions and asked them to “give him enough time to clear his mind.” He did not elaborate further, the source added. More at link.

There can be little doubt that after being supported for better than 20 years by the U.S. that Saddam certainly has some embarrassing information about his once cozy with the U.S., and I am certain that we don't yet have the unfiltered truth from Gulf War the 1st. At this point, I wonder if the majority of my apathetic fellow citizens even care. From the amount of attention lavished upon the many 'problems' of the current administration's follies, I don't think 'the people' care what we've done, or not done. Sad really.

10 quick links of the day:

475 G.I.s dead per Centcom.

Bush Administration proposes fuel economy Changes. Oil producers/automakers: 1 Earth: 0

'Nothing but devastation and debris' as earthquake strikes Iran 10,000 feared dead.

2004 shaping into a very Martian new year Red Planet 'Rovers' due to land next month.

Holiday e-tail watchers sing 'ka-ching' 'B to C' biz finally arrives.

Russian jets receive upgrades. New digs for MiGs.

GOP lead Congress Scuttled Meat Protection Measure Why is this getting play in the UK but not in the US? Nevermind.

Bush Gets a 'Can Do Better' From Terror Panel. A 'C' student..'needs improvement' probably a phrase with which dubya's familiar.

Scientists begin measuring pollution in human bodies Note: I know that this had been done in NYC on a select group of pregnant women. ALL were found to have varying levels and types of pollutants in their blood/tissue.

New Home Sales Unexpectedly Fell by 2.4% in November. Sales of new, single-family homes retreated in November for the third straight month amid rising mortgage rates.

Now, from the department of "We Sometimes Eat Our Own as Well," comes this:

Conservatives Dispute GOP Budget Claims
Figures Cited Are for Authorized Spending, Not Actual Outlays, Say Critics

After three straight years of double-digit increases in federal spending, President Bush and the Republican Congress say they have the situation under control. But a number of conservatives say actual spending this year will be triple the figures cited by the White House.

The two camps have simply chosen different kinds of budget numbers to bolster their positions. Bush enumerates the amount of spending that Congress authorizes each year. His critics cite the actual amount the government is spending. In effect, the president and his allies are counting the money put into the spending pipeline, while the others count the amount flowing out the other side, some of which may have been slowly trickling through for years.

The debate over federal spending has become politically charged, with both sides tossing out wildly divergent numbers. On Dec. 15, Bush said at a news conference that his administration and the GOP-controlled Congress had held spending not related to the military or homeland security to a 6 percent increase in fiscal year 2002, with a 5 percent increase last fiscal year and a 3 percent increase for the 2004 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

"We're working with Congress to hold the line on spending," Bush said.link to GOPork

Uh huh. Sure you are, George. This coming from a *cough* fiscal conservative *cough* that has never met a spending bill he didn't like. 3 years in office 0 vetoes on ANY bills arriving at his desk. Zero, none, nada, zip. You tell me which party is fiscally responsible.. :)

Short Market report: Beef Down, Beans up.

From the Journal of Virology, comes an interesting article concerning possible anti-TSE(Transmissable Spongiform Encephalopathies) drugs. Mad Cow Disease(BSE), vCJD(variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease) and Scrapie are all forms of TSEs.

Curcumin, the major component of the spice turmeric and the yellow pigment in curry powder, has several properties that make it of interest as a possible anti-TSE drug. First, its structure resembles Congo red, the most potent of the small-molecule PrP-res inhibitors that have been assayed in ScNB cells in that both are potentially planar compounds that have two aromatic rings or ring systems with conjugated linkers. Structure-activity studies have provided evidence that the potential for coplanarity of the rings and linker is important for the inhibitory potency of Congo red . Second, unlike Congo red, curcumin is uncharged and is thought to have at least limited bioavailability to the brain after consumption. Indeed, recent studies with a rat model of Alzheimer's disease reported that dietary curcumin reduces ß-peptide deposition in the brain as well as associated neuropathology and cognitive deficits. Third, curcumin has antioxidant activity, a factor that may be important given that oxidative damage is a feature in TSE neuropathogenesis. Fourth, humans consume curcumin in large amounts with no apparent toxicity. Toxicology studies have indicated that rodents can tolerate for a long period up to 5% of their diet being turmeric oleoresin (80% curcumin) without their life spans being shortened (http://ntp-server.niehs.nih.gov/htdocs/LT-studies/tr427.html). These considerations prompted us to test whether curcumin could inhibit the formation and accumulation of PrP-res. More

See, here at pure bs, we are curious about a great many things. Honest!

In my very last entry, I muttered something incoherently about the Valerie Plame issue. I just paid a visit to Atrios, and he posted a link to a WaPo article that makes a tepid attempt..If it can even be called that, to provide some color to what are, in all seriousness, unanswered questions.

A teaser:

Leaks Probe Is Gathering Momentum

(I'm resisting the urge to apply exclamation points ;))

The Justice Department has added a fourth prosecutor to the team investigating the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity, while the FBI has said a grand jury may be called to take testimony from administration officials, sources close to the case said.

Administration and CIA officials said they have seen signs in the past few weeks that the investigation continues intensively behind closed doors, even though little about the investigation has been publicly said or seen for months.

According to administration officials and people familiar with some of the interviews, FBI agents apparently started their White House questioning with top figures -- including President Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove -- and then worked down to more junior officials. The agents appear to have a great deal of information and have constructed detailed chronologies of various officials' possible tie to the leak, people familiar with the questioning said.

The Justice Department has added a prosecutor specializing in counterintelligence, joining two other counterintelligence prosecutors and one from Justice's Public Integrity section.

Agents investigating the matter have been increasingly apparent at CIA headquarters in Langley over the past three weeks, officials said. "They are still active," a senior official said.

But sources said the CIA believes that people in the administration continue to release classified information to damage the figures at the center of the controversy, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and his wife, Valerie Plame, who was exposed as a CIA officer by unidentified senior administration officials for a July 14 column by Robert D. Novak.

Wilson, a prominent critic of the administration over Iraq, has said that was done to retaliate against him for continuing to publicize his conclusion, after a 2002 mission for the CIA, that there was little evidence Iraq had sought uranium in Africa to develop nuclear weapons.

Sources said the CIA is angry about the circulation of a still-classified document to conservative news outlets suggesting Plame had a role in arranging her husband's trip to Africa for the CIA. The document, written by a State Department official who works for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), describes a meeting at the CIA where the Niger trip by Wilson was discussed, said a senior administration official who has seen it.

CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the INR document, the official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame's alleged role in arranging Wilson's trip could not have attended the meeting.

"It has been circulated around," one official said. CIA and State Department officials have refused to discuss the document.

That takes you to the midway point of the article. Unless I am blind, there isn't a whole lot of new material there. Then there are these select gems:

Capitol Hill aides in both parties said Wilson had badly hurt his credibility with his apparently enthusiastic participation in a spread in the January issue of Vanity Fair that includes a glamorous photo of him and his wife outside the White House, a scarf and dark glasses shielding her. In another photo in the magazine, she shields her face with the front section of The Washington Post as he eats breakfast barefoot on their deck with the Washington Monument in the distance.

Wilson is quoted as saying he is "appalled at the apparent nonchalance shown by the president of the United States on this." The article includes Wilson's steamy account of his early romance with Plame. Congressional aides said the article bolstered the contention of Wilson's critics that no one had done more than him to draw attention to Plame, and that the couple had eagerly contributed to their celebrity.

Wilson, in an interview, defended his participation in the glossy magazine's article. "The Republicans are going to say anything to deflect attention from the crime, which was exposing a CIA operative," he said, adding that his wife's "cover was completely blown" before the article appeared.

"My only regret about the Vanity Fair photo is that after all my wife and I have been through on this, that she had to be clothed as generic blonde in order to deal with the genuine concern that some wacko on the street might easily identify her," he said. "It was just in the interest of personal security."

Okay. Let me see if I have this straight. Wilson's claim that his wife's cover was completely blown is pretty much a matter of no contention, yet he is being chastised for what? Bringing additional publicity to his case? This is the same Vanity Fair that Paul Wolfowitz reputedly told: "for bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue - weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on" whan asked about how the Iraq war was sold to the US populace.

This thing may yet die on the vine, but I for one, want to know just what the hell happened. If Bush was really on board with this investigation it wouldn't be being -- as far as I can tell -- 'soft pedaled' by the administration.

A felony was committed. As to what, how or why someone did after the crime occurred doesn't matter a freakin' whit!!! Bah. I need food. I'm rambling and incoherent.

Yesterday, in this post, I promised to take a look at; "Alterman, the reality of the threat posed by Jose Padilla by someone who really knows, and give you the latest on the indigenous terrorism front. Plus a look at Iraqi violence over the X-mas holiday".

Okay, two out of three done, going for it all now. I was going to give Alterman his own space, as I think what he had to say about Bush, the SCLM(So Called Liberal Media) and the way The Hill is bashing Dean is all very important stuff. Alterman is almost always a good read. Then this morning, I read Krugman. The two pieces seem to complement each other so much so, that I'm going to cover them both here.

Alterman Sets 'em Up

First Alterman's piece in The Nation :

column | Posted December 24, 2003

STOP THE PRESSES by Eric Alterman
Washington Goes to War (with Howard Dean)

Saddam Hussein may be out of his spider hole, but Washington's real enemy is still at large. His name: "Howard Dean"--and nobody in America poses a bigger threat to the city's sense of its own importance. New Republic writer Michelle Cottle returned from maternity leave to find Washington fit for a "Tarantino-style blood bath," with the Democratic front-runner cast as a "paleoliberal...a heartless conservative...too na?ve to beat Bush...too politically cynical to trust...a Stalinist...[and] a neofascist [who] kills babies and drinks their blood."

In its self-appointed role as semiofficial punditocracy politburo, the Washington Post editorial board issued what ABC News's The Note properly termed "a button-popping, eye-bugging anti-Dean editorial" that it undoubtedly hoped would serve as Dean's political death sentence. Expressing editorial shock and awe over Dean's unarguably accurate observation that Saddam Hussein's capture left the United States no safer than before, Post editors termed the candidate's views to be "not just unfounded but ludicrous" and complained of his "departure from the Democratic mainstream."......

Yes, hard to believe, but it's all true. I found the pertinent text and transcripts. EA continues:

..........While the Post editors and Brooks speak for hard-line neocons, Dean receives no less abuse at the hands of many genuine liberals. My colleague at the Center for American Progress, Matthew Miller, attended the speech and found it lacking, not in substance, which he thought properly Clintonian, but in presentation. "When Dean barked it out, it felt smaller and shabbier, as if he were lecturing us on simple facts we ought to have known." Miller worries at length about what it means that Dean accidentally thanked US soldiers for their "services" rather than "service." Jonathan Chait, so obsessed he now operates an anti-Dean blog at The New Republic, also admits that the position that so exercised the Post pooh-bahs is "narrowly true." Chait's problem with Dean, and I quote, is that the Vermont governor "gives off the vibe that he likes to equivocate about the bad guys rather than recognize them for what they are" (what a bummer that Dean dude is...).

ABC's Sam Donaldson made the same silly point, admitting that "in context, you know what he's saying," but when normally perspicacious pundits like Miller and Chait talk in terms of "feelings" and "vibes," something more than policy disputes are at work. Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post's walking conflict of interest and barometer of conventional wisdom-- named by the American Conservative Union as one of the most reliable reporters--offers up a clue to the journalistic zeitgeist when he complains of Dean, "Reporters who have spent hours with Dean express surprise that he never asks a single question about them." (Would Kurtz feel better if Dean said, "So, Howie, does CNN pay you more to report on the Post or does the Post pay you more to report on CNN?")

Ha ha. The Beltway Brats™ are 'dissed' because Dean never asks questions about them? How dare he! You can see that the press has already circled the wagons, and Dean is going to get a 'Goring™.'

I don't know who at The Post is the worse partisan hack, Kurtz or the good doctor, Stammer Krauthammer. Alterman again:

Dean has some problems, no doubt, but the pundits hardly seem to notice that George W. ("You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror") Bush cannot pretend to defend deceiving the nation into war anymore. When ABC's Diane Sawyer pressed him in an interview about whether Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction or merely would have liked to have them, Bush replied contemptuously, "What's the difference?" (Try this, Mr. President: "I shot that man, Your Honor, because he pointed a gun at me and was about to pull the trigger," or "I shot that man, Your Honor, because he looked like he was thinking about getting a gun.")

I have seen precious little about Georgie's Excellent PrimeTime Adventure™. Your millionaire pundits aren't going to grill him -- if his handler's would let them -- for fear of upsetting their corporate masters or jeopardizing their ability to get at the front of the class.(ask Helen Thomas about this)

Lots more Alterman at link.

Note: Much of what Alterman says has previously appeared on these very pages.. you don't think that?.....Nah!!!

Krugman Nails a Strike

(replete with unordered list)

New Year's Resolutions

By PAUL KRUGMAN

During the 2000 election, many journalists deluded themselves and their audience into believing that there weren't many policy differences between the major candidates, and focused on personalities (or, rather, perceptions of personalities) instead. This time there can be no illusions: President Bush has turned this country sharply to the right, and this election will determine whether the right's takeover is complete.

But will the coverage of the election reflect its seriousness? Toward that end, I hereby propose some rules for 2004 political reporting.

? Don't talk about clothes. Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean was a momentous event: the man who won the popular vote in 2000 threw his support to a candidate who accuses the president of wrongfully taking the nation to war. So what did some prominent commentators write about? Why, the fact that both men wore blue suits.

This was not, alas, unusual. I don't know why some journalists seem so concerned about politicians' clothes as opposed to, say, their policy proposals. But unless you're a fashion reporter, obsessing about clothes is an insult to your readers' intelligence.

? Actually look at the candidates' policy proposals. One key proposal in the State of the Union address will, we hear, be the creation of new types of tax-exempt savings accounts. The proposal will come wrapped in fine phrases about an "ownership society." But serious journalists should tell us how the plan would work, who would benefit and who would lose.

An early version of the plan was floated almost a year ago, and carefully analyzed in the journal Tax Notes. So there's no excuse for failing to report that the plan would probably reduce, not increase, national savings; that it would have large long-run budget costs; and that its benefits would go mainly to the wealthiest few percent of the population.

? Beware of personal anecdotes. Anecdotes that supposedly reveal a candidate's character are a staple of political reporting, but they should carry warning labels.

For one thing, there are lots of anecdotes, and it's much too easy to report only those that reinforce the reporter's prejudices. The approved story line about Mr. Bush is that he's a bluff, honest, plain-spoken guy, and anecdotes that fit that story get reported. But if the conventional wisdom were instead that he's a phony, a silver-spoon baby who pretends to be a cowboy, journalists would have plenty of material to work with.

If a reporter must use anecdotes, they'd better be true. After the Dean endorsement, innumerable reporters cracked jokes about Al Gore's inventing the Internet. Guys, he never said that: it's a malicious distortion of a true statement, and no self-respecting journalist would repeat it.

? Look at the candidates' records. A close look at Mr. Bush's record as governor would have revealed that, the approved story line notwithstanding, he was no moderate. A close look at Mr. Dean's record in Vermont reveals that, the emerging story line notwithstanding, he is no radical: he was a fiscally conservative leader whose biggest policy achievement ? nearly universal health insurance for children ? was the result of incremental steps.

? Don't fall for political histrionics. I couldn't believe how much ink was spilled after the Gore-Dean event over Joe Lieberman's hurt feelings. Folks, we're talking about war, peace and the future of U.S. democracy ? not about who takes whom to the prom.

Political operatives have become experts at manufacturing the appearance of outrage. In the last few weeks the usual suspects have been trying to paint Howard Dean's obviously heartfelt comments about his brother's death in Laos as some sort of insult to the military. We owe it to our readers not to fall for these tricks.

? It's not about you. We learn from The Washington Post that reporters covering Mr. Dean are surprised ? and, it's implied, miffed ? that "he never asks a single question about them." The mind reels.

I don't really expect my journalistic colleagues to follow these rules. No doubt I myself, in moments of weakness, will break one or more of them. But history will not forgive us if we allow laziness and personal pettiness to shape this crucial election.

There you have it. Campaign 2K4 may turn out to be something very different than what these two men see. There are a lot of things that could cause Bush to go down eith that sinking ship that is Iraq. There is also the 9/11 commission, Cheney's Energy Policy debacle and Valerie Plame. You knw whay our liberal media hasn't pressed Bush on these issues. It is beacause the SCLM is history........A creature that once lived and was never the evil force that its many detractors have made it out to be.

Flyswatter? Flypaper? Oh, Who Knows?

As promised yesterday, pure bs looks at holiday violence.

New attack on Musharraf, airliner alerts, alleged Al Qaeda plotting continues, and sadly, much more.

First, 746 articles dealing with continued -- perhaps escalating -- violence in Iraq. Didn't Howard Dean, and the CIA say that this was likely? Don't make me pull up the links!! Okay, now for a more formal run-down. (I spent hours on this, I hope somebody reads it)

Agence-France Presse reports terrorism analysts fear that Al Qaeda militants and religious fanatics are behind an increasingly organized effort to kill Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf. Mr. Musharraf escaped his second assassination attempt in 11 days Thursday.

We here at pure bs don't have a clue as to whether al Qaeda is behind the Musharraf assassination attempts. The removal of Musharraf would certainly be inline with what we have been told about al Qaeda's objectives. More..

Suicide bombers rammed his motorcade with two bomb-laden cars at a gas station about a mile and a half from his residence in Rawalpindi. Pakistani authorities say 14 people were killed and 46 injured in the blast. The Guardian reports that a special electronic jamming device delayed the blast by crucial seconds, and this allowed Musharraf to escape with his life.

Your humble blogger is also an MSEE, and while I won't speculate on whether or not a jammer was used by Pakistani intelligence -- the ISI -- or some other entity, it is certainly within the realm of possibility. After all, these folks have functioning nukes.

"The broad guess is that it could be a nexus between Al Qaeda and extremist militant groups here," analyst Talat Masood said. "They seem to be determined; look at their audacity, boldness and precision (in carrying out) the attacks. ... These groups might see the present policies of Musharraf as detrimental to their interests. They want to eliminate him, thinking that the next guy will be too scared to check their activities," he said.

We don't rely on "broad guesses" here at pure bs. Until a link can be found, the allegation is a spurious one. Pakistan is loaded with engineers. I'll see what Masood's credentials are. Googled him, career military, now a security expert. We need confirmation, not speculation. I am not an apologist for al Qaeda. I am a slave to the truth.

Paknews.com reports that Musharraf says he is "unafraid" of such attacks, and that he plans to carry out his mission to "eliminate terrorists and extremists from the country."

The Voice of America reports that Pakistan declared a national day of Thanksgiving Friday to celebrate Musharraf's survival. Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told the Pakistani Senate that investigators have identified the remains of the two bombers in the attempt on Musharraf's life Thursday, and believe they know the groups responsible for both attacks.

But CNN(Certainly Not News™) reports that Mr. Hayat later amended his story to say that authorities have not yet determined the bombers' indentities. Also, a leading Pakistani general said there was no information leading "to any single individual, group or agency."

There is way too much noise, and too little frequency to make a call on this one. One possibility is that the authorities do know the identies of the bombers, and retracted the statement pending a deeper investigation. But, it would seem that they have blown their cover if this is the case.

The Times of India reports that Musharraf will shift his residence to Islamabad, a city considered to be much safer than Rawalpindi. But in a separate article, the
Timesnotes several media reports have speculated that the assassination bids could be "stage-managed," while some others have suspected that these could be the handiwork of people in his inner circle or religious extremists and their sympathizers in the army.

Lots of differing opinions on the Musharraf front. All of which could be in error, certainly most of them are. That's how the press works. Or rather, doesn't. This next bit of 'reporting' is exactly why you should be a critical thinker, and take the pure bs vow of skepticism(details to follow)

The Washington Times reports that if Musharraf was killed, it would "create a crisis in Pakistan; possibly of nuclear proportions."

There you have it. The Washington Times is world reknowned as having inside information on Pakistan's nuclear weapons launch systems and safeguards. Do we need another opinion? Nah!!

The Daily Telegraph of London notes that extremist elements in Pakistan have becoming increasingly furious at Musharraf for several reasons: his attempts at reconciliation with India (in talks led by former US president Bill Clinton); his willingness to cooperate with attempts to learn how nuclear technology from Pakistan has been making its way to Iran and North Korea; and for his support of the US's war on terrorism.

I agree with the premise, now let's get to the unvarnished kernel of truth...If indeed there is one.

The New York Post editorializes that perhaps these two near missed will force Pakistan to do what Egypt did after the assassination of Anwar Sadat; "finally clamp down effectively on radical Islamists in his country; both the Al Qaeda remnants in the border lands and their sympathizers in his own officer corps."

It's a crazy world when pure bs cites an editorial piece from The New York Post! Your added bonus is that I agree with the Post. If Musharaff still has popular support(and I do not how a New Hampshirite could determine such a thing), then yes, I think that this is 'doable.'

The Christian Science Monitor reports on how the unrest in Pakistan has aided Al Qaeda's partner in Afghanistan, the Taliban.

The BBC reports that the US ambassador to Afghanistan says Al Qaeda and remnants of the Taliban are using Pakistan as a sanctuary and trying to return Afghanistan.

Other than the obviously mis-leading name, The Christian Science Monitor is one of my favorite major papers in the U.S. Are they correct? They often are. Read both of the above articles. They are far more cogent than most of the rest of my Holiday Violence articles.

The Scotsman notes that the attack on Musharraf, the terrorist threats to airports in France and America, and numerous attacks in Baghdad show that terrorism "takes no breaks for Christmas."

From the above article:

Both in Iraq and in Pakistan, a firm line needs to be taken if terrorist extremism is not to be fed by a sense that the terrorists are dealing with ineffectual weaklings, reluctant or unable to respond effectively. In Iraq, the work of the coalition is of necessity complex and multi-tiered: on the one hand, to encourage participation in talks on the new constitution and in particular the involvement of the Sunnis; and at the same time to make every effort to curb and defeat the daily assault of suicide bombers.

Hey! I didn't need validation for my observations..or has The Scotsman been reading my blog? I am getting over 150 hits/day(the counter is less than 48 hours old. :P

Meanwhile, Turkish authorities say they have "broken up" the Istanbul cell behind recent suicide bomb attacks. They also confirmed the cell's connections to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

I hate to ask for evidence after finding that thriving cottage WMD industry in Iraq, but until the intel is parsed by neutral parties, I am on the fence.

The London-based Arab weekly al-Majalla said on Friday that bin Laden has vowed to launch a "back-breaking attack" on the United States by February, confirming an earlier message by the militant network. The magazine said it had received an e-mail from Abu Mohammed al-Ablaj, a "little-known Al Qaeda member," saying bin Laden would release a video tape in which he affirms his group's determination to fight the United States.

"A messenger of bin Laden informed him (Ablaj) that the al Qaeda leader will appear on a televised tape after the execution of an operation which bin Laden described as back-breaking and which would change the order of things," al-Majalla said in a report in its latest edition, a copy of which was sent to Reuters. "They (Americans) should prepare...Their coffins, hospitals and graves. The coming days will be full of surprises and great events which will make them a historic example," the magazine quoted Ablaj as saying.

Would this be a full run-down without a nod to that shining example of expert investigative journalism, Fox News? No way! And from the RNC to your PC come the final word:

Faux Fox News (recites GOP talking points) and reports that the Bush administration says disaster teams are ready to respond to any strike by Al Qaeda, and special equipment is monitoring the air for biological agents in some 30 cities in the US.

Knowing that diaster teams are ready to respond makes me feel warm. Honestly, didn't the DHS funding not meet what first responder's were saying as vital to effectively respond to multiple strikes with multiple means of attack? I'm certain that this is the case.



And that is my all too lengthy synopsis of Holiday violence in the Middle-East.

Jose Padilla threat -- from someone that knows

Just how dangerous was/is alleged, 'dirty bomber' Jose Padilla? The mass media can't and/or won't tell you. Ashcroft can't/won't tell you. We were told that this person back into the US carrying cash, and a plot to detonate a radiological weapon. No one outside of a few hundred people at most, know if this has any basis in reality.

We here at pure bs get our facts from people who know. The corporatist mass media do not have the expertise to tell you how dangerous Padilla potentially was. Nor do most of the agents at the CIA, FBI and ATF. They simply lack the training in nuclear science. Ashcroft as well.

As a subscriber to The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists, I found a realistic assessment of Mr. Padilla's threat.

Without further ado:

Dirty bomber? Dirty justice

By Lewis Z. Koch

According to John Ashcroft's Justice Department, even U.S. citizens are not entitled to their constitutional right to legal representation.....

......Could he have built a bomb?

The components of a radiological dispersion device, at first glance, may seem obvious and easy to obtain. Building a dirty bomb requires a source of radioactivity, explosives, and someone to put the two together.

Although some materials from hospitals, research universities, and other facilities are radioactive enough to be lethal, it would be very difficult to deliver high doses to more than a few people. (On the other hand, an attack with such materials could create panic and might cause a great deal of economic damage.)

The richest source of radioactivity is spent fuel rods. But spent nuclear rods are not exactly lying around like piles of abandoned automobiles. Terrorists looking to get the "dirt" for a dirty bomb from spent nuclear fuel rods would have to get them from a nuclear facility.

Putting aside the controversy surrounding security at U.S. nuclear power plants, a would-be dirty bomber faces a Herculean task. A spent fuel rod weighs about 28 kilograms, with 36 rods weighing more than a metric ton. Heavy shielding and remote controls are required in their handling, because each rod exposes anyone standing nearby (within a meter) to a lethal dose within seconds. To prevent a quick death from radiation, the thieves would need to encase the rods in a 40-plus-ton, lead-lined shipping cask (18 rods will fit in one cask) and use shielding and remote handling equipment to move the rods at every stage of the operation. After securing the rods in a protective cask, the thieves would need to move them to a location where they could be matched with explosives, then move them to the target site. All that shuttling means the gang would need a specialized truck built to handle the rods and cask. These trucks are, as one can imagine, large, cumbersome, slow-moving, and easily identifiable—not exactly stealthy.

Of course, one can chance the move without the cumbersome shipping cask. That would suggest a scenario of this sort: A group of six people approaches an area where spent-fuel rods are assembled. These rods are two and a half years old. From a distance of 300 meters, gamma rays are beginning to be distributed in enough quantity to become lethal. The group spends 20–30 minutes approaching and absorbs a five-gray dose. The closer they get to the rods, the greater the amount of gamma rays absorbed. Even if they were to cease their operations and flee the scene at this point, they would die of radiation poisoning in a few weeks. If they carried on, they would absorb even more radiation as they gathered the spent rods and placed them in lead-lined concrete containers. To be generous, the group would spend at least another 20–30 minutes in close proximity to the rods, absorbing more lethal gamma rays. Now the bombers would have a week to live. Next, after moving the stolen rods to a safe house (let's estimate two hours' travel time) the rods would have to be uncrated (one hour) and united with the to-be-constructed explosive device. One can be charitable here, but using Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's record as an example of bomb-construction time (without radioactive materials), it would take more than three hours. [4] Then there would be the time used in wedding the radioactive materials to the explosives. Another hour, perhaps. And finally the time necessary to transport the dirty bomb from point B to its destination, point C. (In McVeigh's case that took three hours.)

Our gang of thieves would have, at the very least, spent almost 10 hours within seven feet of unshielded spent nuclear rods, absorbing, conservatively, 5,000 grays, enough radiation to make them burnt toast.......

.......What would it deliver?

For the sake of argument, let's say Padilla's gang was able to gather the materials and construct the device without killing themselves. How powerful—how destructive—would such a bomb be? The answer depends on who is asked. There is wide disagreement when it comes to describing a dirty bomb's destructive capabilities.

For instance, Bruce G. Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on October 21, 2001: "Detonation of a dynamite-laden casket of spent fuel from a power plant would not kill quite as many people as died on September 11. . . . But if it happened in Manhattan, you could expect 2,000 deaths and thousands more suffering from radiation poisoning."

No, not exactly.

What Blair failed to calculate is that the intensity of the dynamite explosive would scatter the radioactivity over a wide area, lessening by a significant degree its potential lethality. Furthermore, in an urban environment like New York City, many people in the blast area would be protected from radiation by the shielding of the buildings and the offices in which they live and work. They would receive a much lower dose of radioactivity than those walking down the street near the explosion. And people on the streets outside the immediate blast zone would be exposed to a very small dose of dissipating radiation, made even more diffuse by the explosion itself.

Richard Garwin, an expert on nuclear weapons and nuclear power, has been a member of the scientific advisory group to the Joint Chiefs' Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff and was a member of the Rumsfeld commission that assessed the ballistic missile threat to the United States. In his essay "The Many Threats of Terror," Garwin describes the estimated consequences of a hypothetical explosion of one kilogram of plutonium in Munich, Germany: "The average population density of Munich is about 4,300 people per square kilometer. The study estimated that 12 cancers would occur per milligram of inhaled plutonium. Under the pessimistic assumption that very still air would cause the radioactive cloud to hover over the city for 12 hours, about 120 deaths from cancer would eventually be anticipated. (This would be in addition to the 400,000 people in the city who would likely die of cancer from natural causes.)"

Garwin cites a 1983 report by Sandia National Laboratories' California branch (located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) on the results of a hypothetical explosive attack on a shipping cask containing spent nuclear fuel. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission indicated that for the most densely populated area studied (as many as 200,000 persons per square mile), at evening rush hour on a business day there would be no immediate fatalities and fewer than three fatalities from latent cancer. The scenario projected a six-inch diameter hole releasing three grams of radioactive fuel as aerosol—fine particles wafted in the air. As with the hypothetical example for Munich, more harmful consequences could be achieved by using conventional explosives in a sports stadium.......

Here we have a mulitude of errors of fact. All accepted because they were spoken by someone of alleged authority. This logical fallacy is known as: Argumentum Ad Verecundiam. Because we or others belive that a person is an authority on X, if said person declares X(situation) to be true, then it must be so.

Also, Argumentum Ad Populum, or appealing to the gallery(people), and Argumentum Ad Numerum..I like to call this the argument from 'conventional wisdom.' Just because many people believe something to true, does not make it so..In fact, it is likely to be demonstrably false, or lacking in evidence to warrant this belief.

The astute observer will note that I too, am guilty of guilty of Argumentum Ad Vercundiam, and while I believe that the above article details the real difficulties of obtaining material(s) and effectively delivering those assembled materials to a target, I am still open to other interpretations.

Do yourself a favor, and flip through a copy of The Bulletin. It's not a nuclear science manual, but a (super)critical(ha ha) -- look at issues that face us today.

Of additional interest:

Tune in on Monday, December 29, at 8:00 pm ET, 7:00 pm CT
The story of the Bulletins famous Doomsday Clock is told in a new, one-hour special program on the History Channel. The program examines the events behind the setting of the hands of the clock--from its first appearance on the magazineÂ’s cover in 1947 to the most recent resetting in February 2002.

Indigenous Terrorists

Atlanta man killed in road rage incident on Gulf Coast highway

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. -- An Atlanta man died of a gunshot wound Thursday after his car was fired upon by occupants of another vehicle on Interstate 10 on the Gulf Coast.

Sgt. Joe Gazzo of the Mississippi Highway Patrol identified the victim as 40-year-old Datel Ghanshyam. Four other family members, all adults, were unhurt, Gazzo said.

Gazzo said Ghanshyam and his family arrived in Biloxi on Wednesday to go to the casinos.

About 7 a.m. Thursday, Gazzo said they left casinos, getting back on I-10 East in Ocean Springs. Soon after they merged onto the highway, a small, blue imported car with a loud, large aftermarket muffler, came up alongside the family, repeatedly swerving close to them, then getting in front of them and slowing down.

"Harassing them with actions of the car, you could say," Gazzo said.

Gazzo said witnesses told investigators that one of the occupants of the harassing car then got on a cell phone and apparently called another vehicle, a brown sports utility vehicle, which pulled alongside the Atlanta family and opened fire with an automatic weapon.


Gazzo said the family's vehicle was hit eight times. He said one of the shots hit Ghanshyam under the arm, killing him instantly.

The other occupants were able to get the vehicle off the road safely.

Gazzo said state troopers are investigating but have no suspects or motive in the incident.

"We're going to look at all the possibilities," Gazzo said. "The only thing we ruled out is it was not because of winnings at the casino. Our first thought was maybe someone hit a big jackpot and they were followed out, but that was not the case."

Road Rage? I hardly think so. This is a case of pre-meditation. This incident, a slap in the face to most of America, brings to the fore a couple of things.

1) Mr. Ghanshyam was most likely a swarthy male, that the fringe right has tacitly declared open season on...Thank you Ann Coulter and Co.

2) Where is the FBI and/or the ATF in all of this? We have the perpetrators using fully automatic weapons on a victim that is most likely only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Justice in America. If this was a case of a Mr. Smith, Christian* being horrifcally gunned down whilst his family watched, the outcry for justice would be loud and incessant.



*I'm playing the media/politico game here. Using a logical fallacy to draw untoward attention to an as yey established point. That's all. I know I'm doing it.

Goes to Eleven

Here is an exchange that took place in the 'rockumentary,' This is Spinal Tap.

Nigel Tufnel is one of Spinal Tap's members, and Mr. DiBergi is a reporter covering the band.

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and -
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you
go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Pause

This exchange is precisely how things in America work, or rather don't work, today.

Merry Ho Ho, all you wacky X-tians!! Tomorrow we look at Alterman, the reality of the threat posed by Jose Padilla by someone who really knows, and give you the latest on the indigenous terrorism front. Plus a look at Iraqi violence over the X-mas holiday.

I was going to post my own thoughts about this earlier, as it just seemed to dovetail with the myriad explosions heard and witnessed in Iraq. Well, Edward Wong reporting for the NYT echoes my somber sentiment. That sentiment being that the additional daily activity of the iraqi 'insurgents' might well be related to the fact that Dec. 25 is a major Christian holiday. A symbolic show of force that is magnified because of the significance placed on a calendar date. A bit here:

3 GIs and 6 Iraqis killed -- Holiday-timed bombings hit around nation

By EDWARD WONG

New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- As coalition soldiers began celebrating Christmas Eve, guerrilla fighters mounted a number of bomb attacks, killing at least three U.S. soldiers and six Iraqi civilians and wounding dozens of people, military and government officials said.

Wednesday's attacks, perhaps timed to undermine the Christian holiday, underscored the tenuous security situation in Iraq and showed insurgents are still coordinating deadly strikes despite the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam Hussein.

The Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led group that administers Iraq, warned staff Wednesday there were signs fighters planned attacks to "demonstrate that they are still a significant force." It urged workers to be especially vigilant over the next 10 days.

Security fears were also evident among Iraqi Christians, who make up 4 percent of Iraq's 25 million population, as churches throughout Baghdad held traditional midnight Mass in the afternoon. GIs attended some of those observances, putting down their rifles and helmets to pray while priests delivered sermons on the urgent need for world peace. The rest of the story.

I think that this will put to rest any notions the Saddam was orchestrating events from his 'spider-hole.' It also underscores the likelihood that the 'insurgents' are indeed a significant force. May you and yours find peace throughout the remainder of the holiday season.

Rush 'Smack Daddy' Limbaugh Claims Evil Democratic Persecution!

I have tried to keepm this a Limbaugh Free Zone™, but Limbaugh and the truth have never been very good friends..Perhaps never even met. I feel it is incumbent to my 4 readers to hear Rush's side of the story. Here is the Hot Air Hindenburg™ in his own words. These are the last two paragraphs:

I could give you some names of actors and actresses and sports figures, and not one of them have been pursued in this circumstance. Let me read to you from the New York Times today just to establish this leak business - and there's more than you even know about this. "During Mr. Black's presentation yesterday at the medical records hearing, the most detailed defense of Mr. Limbaugh since the investigation became public in October, the lawyer called the prosecution of his client 'a witch hunt built on leaks tailored to smear my reputation.' In court yesterday, Roy Black accused the state attorney's office in Palm Beach County of orchestrating leaks to several organizations, and details were given."

There was a court reporter there. Have you, in all the stories of this hearing yesterday, have you seen very many detailed references to what my lawyer said about the leaks in this case? Well, it's all there, if anybody cares to go get the court transcript, and you'll find out exactly what was said by my lawyer regarding this. My friends, it is, and has been, obvious to me for the longest time that all these leaks were an attempt to try me in the court of public opinion. The Democrats in this country still cannot defeat me in the arena of political ideas, and so now they are trying to do so in the court of public opinion and the legal system. I guess it's payback time. And since I'm not running for office, can't get to me that way. They're going to seek the occasion of this event in my life to see, to find out if they can do any damage. And that's as much as I want to say... No, that's not as much as I want to say; that's as much as I'm going to say about it at the moment. Link to Bassmaster Limbaugh's Ongoing Oxycontin Odyssey™.

There is a lot more(or is that less?) if you follow the link.

Maybe a symptom of synthetic opiate withdrawal syndrome are paranoid breaks with reality, but in the 3 minutes of research I just conducted, I could not find this as a symptom.

I'd have some sympathy for the guy if he wasn't such a self-righteous bastid, and now a whining victim. He's a victim of his own personal demons, no more. What a pathetic fellow.

"I'm eating vegetation, 'cause of fast food nation..I'm wearing a couple of shoes 'cause of globalization -- Fat Mike, NOFX

Feel The Love

A Compassionate Conservative™ Christmas Wish

New Year's sneak peak: Book burning and a maybe a witch or two! Glory!

Happy Ramadan <--sarcasm

Baghdad rocked as troops battle guerrillas

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces are battling insurgents in southern Baghdad, shaking the Iraqi capital into the early hours with some of the heaviest explosions and gunfire in weeks.

Witnesses reported hearing the blasts kilometres away and some residents said U.S bombers were in action. The U.S. military would only confirm its troops were involved in Operation Iron Justice, part of the new tactics adopted to counter a relentless insurgency.

More than 200 U.S. soldiers have been killed since Washington declared major combat over on May 1 in attacks officials have blamed on loyalists of ousted President Saddam Hussein and foreign fighters......

.....EXTREMISTS

American officials said they hoped the arrests of the Muslim militants would help lead them to Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of Saddam's top aides and the most-wanted former Iraqi official still sought by U.S. authorities.

"We detained three individuals in the extremist religious organisations with ties to...Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri," Lieutenant-Colonel William Adamson, head of a U.S. task force in Baquba, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Al-Douri, who has a $10 million reward on his head, is number six on a list of 55 Iraqis most wanted by the United States and is suspected of playing a role in directing insurgents.

The arrests raise important questions on ties between Saddam loyalists and Islamic militants suspected of crossing Iraq's borders to wage holy war on occupation troops.

The detentions over the past 24 hours were significant because they point to a tangible link between Saddam loyalists and Muslim militants.

Adamson said arrests after Saddam's capture would make it easier to track down more guerrillas.

But there was no sign that violence will ease anytime soon. More at link.

A couple of things stand out from this sample.

1) The fighting is still fierce, and there is no end in sight

2) Another in a long string of tenuous links to the terror 'organisation de l'heure.'

Then there is this:

Blast Rocks Baghdad Near Sheraton Hotel

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A huge explosion rocked central Baghdad on Wednesday night, and the U.S. military said it was a rebel rocket-propelled grenade that narrowly missed the Sheraton Ishtar Hotel.

"We can confirm that an RPG was fired at the Sheraton but missed," Capt. Jason Beck of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division, the unit that controls Baghdad, told The Associated Press.

"The other loud explosion are effects from Operation Iron Grip. We are firing on targets in the general area," he said.

At the Sheraton, guests called by satellite telephone, said they were fine, and a hotel worker in the hotel lobby said the upper floors had been checked and it had not been hit. "That wasn't our hotel," he said.

A firefight followed the blast, which occurred at about 8:15 p.m. local time and appeared to come from some distance behind the heavily barricaded hotel, a haven for Westerners on Abu Nawas Street, on the east bank of the Tigris River.

The 1st Armored Division unleashed a barrage farther from central Baghdad before dawn Wednesday and said it was aimed at anti-American insurgents. Troops raided homes and arrested a Sunni sheik said to be close to Iraq's most wanted man. A string of separate bombings killed six civilians and three American soldiers.

The military would not say what it was targeting in Baghdad, but Maj. John Frisbie of the 1st Armored Division indicated troops were still acting on information gleaned from the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam Hussein, as well as information from residents.

"We continue to gain intelligence from the neighborhoods here and the residents of Baghdad who are seemingly frustrated at these continued (rebel) attacks," Frisbie said.

Military commanders said the number of daily attacks on U.S. troops had slowed in recent weeks, even before Saddam's capture _ but north of Baghdad, three soldiers were killed Wednesday as they traveled in a convoy near Samarra.

In the northern city of Irbil, a car bomb exploded in front of the Kurdish Interior Ministry, killing at least five people, hospital officials said. About 50 people were injured.

Irbil also houses the Kurdish parliament. Under U.S.-led aerial protection, Iraqi Kurds, ethnically distinct from the majority Arabs, have ruled an autonomous Switzerland-sized stretch of northern Iraq since the end of the Gulf War more than a decade ago.

Kircout Ali, a civilian who was at the scene of the blast in Irbil, said the bomb exploded at barricades in front of the Interior Ministry. At least four passengers in a car beside the booby-trapped car were killed, Ali said.

At a news briefing, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said only two people died in Irbil, including the bomber and a civilian, and said the blast brought down the protective wall in front of the building.

Kimmitt also said two Iraqi police were killed in an attack in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, and that two suspected assailants were detained. Much more at link.

I think that there is some overlap between the two stories, and the second article really delineates the danger of the situation. I can't help but wonder if the reality is that Iraq is splintering around it's three main populations. This is just awful.

Logging Industry gets Early X-Mas Gift, Rest of Nation Mourns

Y'know, over the long term the only issue that really matters is the environment. Everything else is temporal. But when you fuck with the planet, you just can't move to another one. It ain't happenin.' Now, team BushCo® isn't generally known for their gentle hand in dealing with..Hell, anything, other than those CC(Conservative Christians) that are core GOP voters, but this just pisses me off.

Goodbye, Alaska wilderness: Bush expands logging area in Tongass National Forest

Date: Wednesday, December 24 @ 09:51:51 EST

Topic: The Environment


The decision, approved by the White House Office of Management and Budget, will add 300,000 more acres.

By Miguel Bustillo, Los Angeles Times

The Bush administration Tuesday opened 300,000 more acres of Alaska's Tongass National Forest to logging by exempting it from a Clinton-era rule that barred road-building in most of the 17-million-acre area, the biggest expanse of temperate rain forest left on the planet.

The widely expected decision by the U.S. Department of Agriculture stemmed from the Bush administration's settlement of a lawsuit by the state of Alaska. The state charged that the Clinton administration's 2000 "roadless rule," which had declared most of the forest off-limits to vehicles, was excessively restrictive and would cause economic hardship.

U.S. Forest Service officials said Tuesday's action, which was approved by the White House Office of Management and Budget, would bring the total acres exposed to logging to 4% of the forest.

However, conservationists noted that it lifted the road-building restriction on a much larger area -- 9.3 million acres -- and argued that it would clearly lead to roads through a much greater portion of the forest as loggers pushed to reach the most desirable old-growth trees.

"The Bush administration claims this only affects the 300,000 acres, but that is the part of the forest they actually intend to log the biggest and best trees on the Tongass," said Nicole Whittington-Evans of the Wilderness Society. "What they don't mention is that to get to those areas, they will allow roads to be built through 9 million acres."


Lots more

The thing that really irritates me is that it'll take thousands of years to regenerate this forest resource. That will never happen. Humankind has to this point, proven itself to be terrible stewards of the planet. It's encoded in our genes to fuck shit up. Dammit, we're good at it as well.

Maybe Santa will leave me a new Jonsered under the tree. Oh, the irony.

I had a long rant about the Bush Administation's secrecy ready to post..A thousand words or so..But I just lost power and didn't hear my battery alarm going off. Grrrrr.

Shortened pure bs: From Dick Cheney's failure to turn over subpoenaed Energy Policy documents, to the Bush Administration's stonewalling on the release of the Daily Presidential Briefs to the 9/11 commission, this administration with a largely complicit media, have controlled information like no other. Seymour Hersh is virtually alone in American investigative journalism. This isn't surprising when dissent from the GOP's talking points get you labeled, as Mr. Hersh was, as: "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist", by Defense Policy Board member, Richard Perle on national television.

Shorter pure bs: Information is dangerous.

Please read below:

White House Faulted on Uranium Claim

Intelligence Warnings Disregarded, President's Advisory Board Says

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 24, 2003

The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has concluded that the White House made a questionable claim in January's State of the Union address about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain nuclear materials because of its desperation to show that Hussein had an active program to develop nuclear weapons, according to a well-placed source familiar with the board's findings.

In the speech Jan. 28, President Bush cited British intelligence in asserting that Hussein had tried to buy uranium from an unnamed country in Africa. The White House later said the claim should not have been made, after reports that the intelligence community expressed doubts it was true. After reviewing the matter for several months, the intelligence board -- chaired by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft -- has determined that there was "no deliberate effort to fabricate" a story, the source said. Instead, the source said, the board believes the White House was so anxious "to grab onto something affirmative" about Hussein's nuclear ambitions that it disregarded warnings from the intelligence community that the claim was questionable.

The source said that at the time of the State of the Union speech, there was no organized system at the White House to vet intelligence, and the informal system that was followed did not work in the case of that speech. The White House has since established procedures for handling intelligence in presidential speeches by including a CIA officer in the speechwriting process.

The board shared its findings with Bush earlier this month. It is the first government body to complete its inquiry into an episode that buttressed criticism by lawmakers and others that the administration exaggerated intelligence to make the case for war. Word of its findings has also circulated within the White House and on Capitol Hill. The White House declined to comment on the board's findings.

The findings of the advisory board do not appear to add many new details about the uranium episode, but they make it clear that the White House should share blame with the CIA for allowing the questionable material into the speech. CIA Director George J. Tenet and deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley have accepted responsibility for allowing the assertion into the address.

In May, Bush asked Scowcroft to look into how the alleged Iraqi attempt to buy uranium in Africa -- the claim concerned Niger -- made it into the presidential speech. The intelligence board, made up of 16 members, including former California governor Pete Wilson, former Netscape chief executive Jim Barksdale and retired Adm. David E. Jeremiah, traditionally provides the president private advice on intelligence questions. Scowcroft served in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, among others.

That request came at the same time that members of the Senate intelligence panel asked the inspectors general of the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department to investigate the matter. The House and Senate intelligence committees are looking into the episode as well.

Although the president's intelligence board keeps its findings secret, the Senate panel plans to make public details of its inquiry in a report, which is being drafted and is expected to be released next spring, according to congressional sources.

"The whole Niger case will be disclosed and the entire story told because it is not classified," one senior congressional aide familiar with the committee inquiry said yesterday.

At the time of the president's speech, the allegation about Hussein's uranium purchase in Africa was already part of the administration's campaign to win domestic and international support for invading Iraq. Although at the request of Tenet a reference to Niger had been removed from a speech by Bush the previous October, the White House subsequently wanted to "find something affirmative" for the January speech, one source said.

That month, the allegations had already been included in two official documents sent out by the White House and in speeches and writings by Bush's four most senior national security officials.

The CIA and the State Department had doubts about the purported Niger information because they knew that Hussein already had a stockpile of the same type of uranium that he was supposed to be seeking. In addition, the CIA had sent former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV to Niger in February 2002, and he reported that officials in that country had denied the report.

More recently, the Iraq Survey Group looking into weapons activities in that country under the direction of David Kay reported in October that it found no support for the report that Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa. In fact, Kay said, the group found that the Iraqis had turned down an offer of uranium from a still-unidentified country.

One enduring mystery is which White House official was responsible for promoting the material in question. Senate hearings have indicated there was a disagreement between a CIA analyst and the White House National Security Council staff member about how the material was handled. "One side did not coordinate with the other," said the source familiar with the advisory board's inquiry.

The Senate probe has been slowed by disputes between Republicans and Democrats. It will not probe how other intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was used in public statements by administration officials in the run-up to the war, one congressional official said.

"But how that intelligence was portrayed [by policymakers] is a subjective thing and not something a committee could agree on," he said. "What was said publicly is available publicly," he added, saying each senator could make his own judgment.

It probably will be at least two to three months before the committee releases its report and holds public hearings on the prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs, according to congressional sources. The first drafts are not expected before February, when they will first be reviewed by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the intelligence panel, and its vice chairman, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). Then other senators get to read it and make suggestions, a process that could take weeks.

Meanwhile, Roberts has tentatively set March for a closed hearing to update the work of Kay's survey group. At that time, or perhaps even before, Kay is expected to resign his position for personal reasons -- although the work in Iraq is expected to continue for at least another year, according to administration sources. WaPo link.

The next time someone claims that you're a moonbat conspiracy theorist, you're theory may well be right.

Fun: I am not much of a scooter fan. I do have a Puch moped as a pit bike. If you have a broadband connection, and like two-wheeled antics, you'll probably like this .

How Now, Mad Cow?

I just noted that the NYT has reported that the US has likely discovered its first case of Mad Cow Disease. Early test(s) are positive for the novel disease. A variant of sheep borne Scrapie, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease or vJCD.

U.S. Discovers Its First Suspected Case of Mad Cow Disease

By MATTHEW L. WALD and ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 — A sick cow slaughtered about two weeks ago near Yakima, Wash., has tested positive for mad cow disease in early laboratory results, the first such case in the United States, the secretary of agriculture said on Tuesday.

Agriculture officials are likely to announce as early as Wednesday a voluntary recall on beef they hope to trace to the plants where the cow was slaughtered and processed, said Dr. Elsa Murano, the under secretary for food safety.

"We are considering if we need to take that step, but it's likely to happen," Dr. Murano said in an interview.

Federal officials did not say where the meat is now, but the agriculture secretary, Ann M. Veneman, said that the meat supply was safe because of precautions taken over the last decade to keep the nerve tissue of slaughtered beef out of the food supply. Only the brain, spinal cord and related parts can spread the disease to humans, Ms. Veneman said, and she added that she intended to serve beef to her family at Christmas.

"This finding, while unfortunate, does not pose any kind of significant risk to the human food chain," she said at a news briefing here tonight.

While agriculture officials urged the public not to overreact to the discovery, Dr. W. Ron DeHaven, the chief veterinary officer for the Agriculture Department, said: "This is certainly a big concern. We now have evidence of a disease that we didn't have before in the U.S."

Agriculture officials and leaders of the beef industry were particularly concerned about the impact on domestic sales and beef exports. When a single case of mad cow disease, known formally as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was found in Alberta, Canada, in May, a number of countries, including the United States, banned the import of Canadian beef. The ban has been eased somewhat, and beef imports, of boneless cuts and from cattle younger than 30 months, have resumed.

No cases have turned up in people.

According to federal officials, the cow in the Washington case, a Holstein, was traced back to a farm in Mabton, about 40 miles southeast of Yakima. The farm has been quarantined, Dr. Veneman said.

The sample was taken on Dec. 9, the same day the cow was slaughtered. Inspectors took a sample because the cow was a "downer animal," which Ms. Veneman said meant "non-ambulatory."

Nerve tissue from the cow was tested at a government laboratory in Ames, Iowa, establishing a "presumptive" diagnosis, she said, and a military jet is flying a sample to a laboratory in England for a definitive diagnosis. No result is expected for several days, but the government was proceeding as if the finding was conclusive, she said.

The development is likely to be a serious blow for ranchers, feed-lot operators and slaughterhouses. Shortly after the announcement, Japan and South Korea announced that they were banning imports of American beef. About 10 percent of American beef production is exported, industry officials say.

McDonald's and Wal-Mart Stores quickly said they did not believe they had received meat from the animal.

And almost as soon as Ms. Veneman finished her news conference, officials of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association began a conference call to seek to reassure consumers. Terry Stokes, the chief executive officer of the group, referred to a "triple firewall" to prevent the introduction or spread of the disease.

Mr. Stokes said these safeguards consisted of testing animals that arrive at slaughterhouses unable to walk, forbidding imports of cattle and bovine products from countries where the disease is present, banning as food for cows material derived from cows. That is meant to prevent the transfer of aberrant proteins, called prions, which are believed to cause the disease.

Investigators are still trying to determine how and when the cow was processed.

"First we have to determine where the stuff went. That will determine how big the recall is," with officials hoping to recall any Washington beef that may have become mixed with and contaminated by the diseased cow, Dr. Murano said.

Dr. Murano said it was possible that the contaminated beef had already been distributed and eaten, but she said that even in that case she did not believe it posed a risk to consumers because the processed parts did not include the tissue that has been shown to carry the disease. Or the beef could have been frozen "and it may all be sitting in a warehouse somewhere," she said.

Dr. Murano said she expected the recall to be a "Class 2," the middle grade in the three-tiered system the U.S.D.A. uses to rank the severity of the health risk. "This is a voluntary thing out of an abundance of caution," she said.

Despite the evident failure of the system to prevent the case in Washington, Mr. Stokes said that consumers should have confidence in the food supply, because there is no evidence that the disease is transmissible through muslcle meat. Such a reassurance is critical since Agriculture Department officials said that meat from the infected animal, but not tissue from its central nervous system, had been sent to at least two other processing plants.

Critics say that the safeguards are not perfect. Among the problems, they say, is that machines that strip meat scraps from carcasses can contaminate the meat with tissue from the nervous system. Critics also say that regulations to prevent contamination of cattle food with nerve tissue are unevenly enforced.

"We put a number of measures in place that we thought would substantially reduce our chance of seeing mad cow disease in this country, but clearly those methods fell short of perfect," said Dr. Fred Cohen, a professor of pharmacology at the University of California in San Francisco and a leading expert on ways to treat prion diseases.

Still, Dr. Cohen said the risk was low.

"One can derive a fair bit of comfort from statistics and epidemiology," he said. "Put the question into context. When there were 60,000 to 80,000 infected cows in the U.K., approximately 150 people out of 60 million developed the disease," he said. "One cow is not likely to be translated into any cases" in the United States, he said.

The disease makes brain tissue spongy and full of holes. Sheep, deer and elk can also get spongiform encephalopothies. The human form is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and kills about 250 Americans a year. In most cases the cause is unknown.

Agriculture inspectors at the slaughterhouse in Mabton learned of the possibility of the disease when they tested the meat of a cow that had been unable to walk, a symptom of mad cow disease. A fraction of all cows in slaughterhouses that cannot walk on their own are tested for the disease.

The possibility of an infected cow renewed calls to end the slaughter of animals that cannot walk. Wayne Pacelle, the vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, said that such animals are pushed by bulldozers or dragged by chains, and are a threat to the food supply.

He said that the Senate had approved an amendment to the Agriculture Department's appropriations bill for the current fiscal year that would have forbidden such slaughter, but that the House had narrowly defeated it and a conference committee had left it out of the current version. The bill is part of the omnibus appropriations bill that Congress will face in January.

Ms. Veneman said in the news conference that her department had tested 20,526 head of cattle for mad cow disease this year, triple the level of last year.

The diagnosis in Washington State came just a week after a federal appeals court in New York resuscitated a lawsuit brought by an animal rights group that believes the Agriculture Department has not done enough to protect consumers from mad cow disease.

The group, Farm Sanctuary, maintained in a 1998 lawsuit that the government's policy of allowing the slaughter of animals that cannot walk poses a significant health risk to consumers. A judge threw out the lawsuit, saying the danger was remote, but the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned that decision last week and revived the lawsuit.

A couple of things. The three novel diseases are believed -- and I do not know if this has been confirmed -- to be transmitted by rogue prions . As is Kuru, and a few other extremely rare spongiform encephalopathies. The immediate reaction that some people I know have had to previous confirmations of BSE(Mad Cow Disease) and/or vJCD is: Thank god it isn't over here. Well, now it very well may be. These fears play into the darkest fears of anti-globalization persons and organizations. One can certainly see why. These are terrifying diseases for which there are no cures.

Locking down the borders in a case like this is a little like stoppering the bottle after the genie is loosed. These disease entities have long incubation periods. The only real solutions are those that recognize that the world is one big community, and that we're all in this together. International inter-cooperation is the key to containing this, and a whole host of other maladies, from global climate change, to terrorism. Sorry to have rambled on so. I'll cease.

The other thing that struck me as odd as I opened the webpage at the NYT contaning the above article was that there was an advertisement which the text flowed around. The advertisement contained this ad..Nevermind. The Times has changed the feed, and it is no longer displaying a barely clad Victoria's secret model. I found the juxtaposition of the BSE article and the advertisement very odd indeed.

In the, "Truth is Stranger than Fiction" category, once again those wacky spin-meisters at the White House have done it again. This page, with the oddly un-Christian title: A Season of Stories, offers these nuggets of wisdom:

This year’s holiday theme combines the wonder of the season with the magic of those classic children’s stories that have captured our hearts and shaped American culture. Just like the holidays, great stories have a way of bringing families together.

On winter nights, children enjoy curling up with a loved one for cocoa and a story. And parents beam with excitement when their children unwrap a new book which just happens to be one of their childhood favorites.

Since stories bring us together, we’ve brought some favorite children’s storybook characters to the White House to celebrate the holidays. Our thanks to the Executive Residence staff members who recreated the characters. And special thanks to the authors and illustrators who have given us the stories we celebrate.

There are also links to such treats as, "BarneyCam II", and a compassionate conservative moment with "Barney & Spot's Winter Wonderland"(an obvious homosexual tryst) as well as, Secretary Ann Veneman's reading of "Auntie Claus," "a celebration of alternative lifestyles", and a personal favorite; Treasury Secretary Snow's reading of, "Olive, the Other Reindeer" ..I'm still scratching the noodle over the train conductor's selection. Wouldn't a quick reading from "The Little Engine That Could" be more appropriate?

Secretary Snow is truly a man of firm convictions that celebrates human diversity.

All of the above are streamed in RealMedia, bringing the White House and staff right to your home.

My pick as a must see, however is Herr Rove's RealMedia Tour de Force, "Santa's New Reindeer". Multimedia never looked so good.

Please visit the page. There is much more than I have touched upon here. This Administration is truly one of inclusion.