Ten Links: Weekend Edition

SCIENCE!

I am not even going to speculate what would happen if Right gets ahold of this. I think we all know what is likely to be broadcast by the RWEC.

Noxious undersea eruptions killing billions of fish

A tease:

Undersea eruptions of noxious hydrogen sulphide are having a major impact on one of the world's richest fisheries. Satellite images show that toxic eruptions off the coast of Namibia are more frequent and widespread than anyone realised.

The world's most productive fisheries are found in upwelling regions of ocean, where wind-driven currents fertilise surface waters with nutrients from the deep. The Benguela upwelling along Namibia's coast has the strongest such currents in the world. The area supports a fishery that was worth around $400 million in 1998, providing Namibia with its second largest source of revenue after mining.

But trouble bubbles beneath these productive waters. Microscopic algae called diatoms grow where upwelling is most intense. These are grazed by plankton, but any that are not eaten sink when they die, forming beds of sediment on the seafloor.

Bacteria in the sediments break down the diatoms and produce hydrogen sulphide in the process. The sulphide builds up in gas pockets that eventually erupt into the ocean, poisoning marine life and stripping oxygen from the water.

Scads more at link. So, natural forces are working in concert with overfishing to pretty much wipe out the world's great fisheries. Like I always say; the environment is the only truly long term issue. We keep screwing with the Earth at our peril.

Spirit and Opportunity Spirit drills Martian rock, while Opportunity checks out "Snout."

Reuters reports that getting rid of 'spyware' is tricky. I find it unfathomable that the author of a tech. article had never heard of "Ad-aware." This person should never be able to pen another 'tech' article. Here's the bit:

A better bet for scouring your hard disk clean may be independent programs. The ones I found worked pretty well from all sorts of places (like the Windows registry).

The best bargain was "Ad-aware," popular with many readers, as I learned from the e-mail I got after last week's column.

"Ad-aware 6.0," available to home users for free from http://www.LavaSoftUSA.com, is easy to use. It lets you sort programs and files by type or adware company, so you can see the program it is proposing to delete. It eliminated annoyances such as a toolbar cluttering up Internet Explorer that kept returning even after I told Explorer not to display it.

"Ad-aware" tracked down traces of adware I thought I had removed, and eliminated two viruses that had gotten on the PC because the owner had not kept his virus checker up to date.

This is a case that the phrase, "Ya gotta be shittin' me" was coined.

113 and 115 Russian and U.S. scientists announced that two new elements have been well, made in a particle accelerator. I'm going to have to update my periodic table - periodically.

Alright. Science claims the top four spots!!

******************************

POLITICS!

I get the feeling that Bush isn't faring well politically. I know that full of shit about, well, everything. It now appears from the most recent polls that all of bs he has been slinging is finally starting to make its way into the American psyche.

When Rumsfeld Fervently Defends Iraq War to European Critics the NYT reports, there is smoke. Rumsfeld was blowing a bunch of it as well. While Rummy lies, saying "If the Iraqi regime had taken the same steps Libya is now taking, there would have been no war," Americans and Iraqis are still dying. It's simple. Iraq claimed well before the war that they had no WMD. It was then incumbent upon the U.S. to prove otherwise. Of course we did not.

Remember this is the same Rumsfeld that said: "It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

Indeed. Please show me, Sec. Rumsfeld. I'm not convinced.

But ole Rummy wasn't the only one shlepping the ole, tired "Iraq war was justified" line today.

Dick Cheney was making the rounds today. Defending the indefensible Iraq war claims while "helping the Missouri Republican Party raise more than $500,000 for this year's election." How the hell does Jarvik 7 Cheney help raise dough? It ain't by running marathons. Could it be that he promises his donors 'friendly legislation?' I don't have a clue.

But Dick and Tony's special relationship has come under new scrutiny. Poor guy.

Congratulations to Kerry and Co. After today, it looks like a wrap.

******************************

Okay. New category.

BLIAR!

First a little personal bit. I really wanted to believe that politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have their citizenry's best interests in mind when contemplating decisions. But, I am also a trained skeptic. Hence, I believe nothing without evidence. A quandary yes, but it's the only way that I know how to view the environment.

The 45 Minute Case Collapses Pt. 1 and The 45 Minute Case Collapses Pt. 2

It comes down to this: What did Blair know? "The public thinks he is lying. The experts can't believe what he is saying. How did Tony Blair get himself into such an unholy mess and this country into such an unnecessary war?"

Blair looks to be in trouble.

More from The Independent

The terrible human cost of Bush and Blair's military adventure: 10,000 civilian deaths

Iraqi exile admits he never checked WMD intelligence

It really looks like the British MI6 is ahead of the game. They don't appear ready to take the rap for Blair's bungling. Meanwhile, here in the States we have ample evidence of the U.S. Administration's cherry-picking of intelligence data, yet the guy who called for war gets to pick the panel to investigate the matter.

Black is white. Up is down.

******************************

That's all folks. I didn't realize that tomorrow's Independent was going to so fruitful.

I got another reading assignment. Again, it came via e-mail.

Now YOU have a reading assignment. This is one of those, "if you only read one thing today" pieces.

Go. Read. Now.

I guess that I need to read The New York Review of Books on a more regular basis. The last time I linked to them, it was another must read.

I'll level with you. I don't know how I can ever keep this pace up. I'd rather write in this silly blog than do my real job. I am finding that as I dedicate more time to blogging, that the rest of my life is suffering. I suppose that's true with any pursuit. We all have limited time, but limitless ambition. Well, enough of that. I think I'll do a bit of work, and then post the 'ten links.

The Truth About Ricin

No. I am not going to detail the production of ricin from the seeds of the Castor plant. This information is only provided to illustrate the difficulty that confronts law enforcement personnel attempting to solve the ricin incident that made headlines earlier this week.

I think that the biggest mis-conception is that only the Castor seed is toxic. This is not so. ALL parts of the plant are toxic in varying degrees, with the seeds being the most toxic. A very good defense mechanism.

First a few bits about toxicity and availability.

Toxicity:

Cornell has a detailed page concerning the mechanistic properties of ricin poisoning.(my apologies to anyone that hasn't taken a college level biology course)

Ricin's LD₅₀( lethal dose responsible for killing 50 percent of the test population) is 30 mcg/kg when administered via ingestion, inhalation or injection. This level of toxicity places ricin in the upper echelon of biotoxins. Because of the extremely low dosage level required to cause death, ricin is unlikely to be detected in a single poisoning. In a larger event, where a more exhaustive search for a causative agent is done, it is likely that some detection of ricin will be found.

Availability:

Ricin is amongst the most widely available highly potent toxin available to a criminal/terrorist. Since the Castor plant can be grown in most climes, and is found in the wild, the seeds are readily available.

On a commercial scale, Castor seeds are produced in excess of a million tons annually. This makes ricin potentially the most common of all potent toxins. It is, by mass many times deadlier than nerve gas for instance..yes, even VX.

Extraction Process:

As stated above, I am not going to detail the production of ricin from the Castor bean. I will, however, VERY roughly outline the steps involved.

This procedure, as well as much of the above information has been verified as accurate by a good friend, and biochemist. He currently serves as laboratory director for a major New England toxicology concern.

Rather than starting from Castor bean 'mash,' this process starts with the seed. FYI, the 'mash' contains roughly 5% toxic material -- ricin and RCA (Ricinus communis agglutinin).

The Castor beans are first ground and pressed to remove most of the oil. The pressed cake still retains about 15% of the oil and further extraction via solvents can reduce the oil content of the cake to ~1%.

After the oil has been removed, the pressed cake is extracted by agitating with water.

Following extraction, the slurry is filtered using one of two methods. Both of these are common laboratory procedures.

The filtrate from the water extraction method is treated with a salt solution to precipitate the proteins.

Following precipitation, the filter cake may be dried and slurried to separate the proteins.

That's all I am willing to post. The odds of someone guessing the missing chemicals invoved, temperatures and PHs is infinitesimally small.

To make ricin in a form that would be inhalable requires a relatively sophisticated process, as it is a mechanical process, and the ricin molecule is broken down by the heat generated by ordinary grinding methods.

Terrorism Potential:

This stuff is so commonly available, that if ricin was to be a major agent of bio-terrorists, it would, most likely, have been widely used by now. There have been a handful of incidents involving ricin. It remains a concern. The most likely use would be as a food or liquid contaminant.

If a terror agent was to aerosolize ricin, it could be dispersed by a conventional bomb. This would only physically impact those in the immediate area. Although it is likely that the psychological impact would be perceived as greater than the real threat.

Now you are far more educated than the talking heads, and I would bet the venerated NYT reporter, Judith Miller as to the use and abuse of ricin.

And that my faithful readers, is the truth about ricin.

If you have a question that I find reasonable, I'll answer it when I review my reader comments.

That's not pure bs.

pure bs opinion piece. Not hard news!!

I made a semi-coherent rant about what I consider to be a flawed policy at Google News. My issue with Google is that somewhere in the chain of what constitutes news a human being is involved. Someone is deciding what consitutes news. This is a flawed process. Google homogenizes hard news, along with Op-Eds and other likely slanted articles from such sources as Rushlimbaugh.com, Weeklystandard.com, and Frontpagemagazine.com on the Right, and Commondreams.org, Indymedia.org and Americanprogress.org on the left making no distinction between any of these sources.

Here's the link to my view of the issue, and some easy ways to fix what truly is a substantive issue given Google's pre-eminent position as both a search engine, and source for real news.

Getting back on track, each of the sources listed above has an agenda. That's an entirely reasonable position.

What made me revisit this so soon, is that the following Op-Ed piece landing in a top position in the U.S. News section on the news main page, not the linked page.

It is as follows:

Could Bush Face a Republican Revolt in November?

Cinnamon Stillwell

In the wake of David Kay?s findings (or lack thereof) in Iraq, President Bush has been enduring withering criticism from Democrats, who are desperate to steer the controversy into the realm of conspiracy rather than intelligence failure. But it isn?t just from the left flank that Bush finds himself under attack. In fact, members of his own party are beginning to chime in, only their concerns are of an entirely different nature. Bush?s runaway spending, huge government entitlement programs, and ill-conceived guest worker proposal are all extremely unpopular with Republicans, and they are beginning to make their displeasure known.

Republicans are not stingy about funding national security and the visionary among their ranks also support expanding the space program. But the Republican Party is known for fiscal responsibility, and that?s something that has been in short supply lately in the Bush administration. And on first glance, the budget proposal for 2005 promises more of the same. At some point, the president has to just say no.

The Medicare bill, which wasn't easy for conservatives to swallow in the first place, now turns out to be even costlier than promised. Bush now has to justify the necessity for this giant entitlement program yet again, but this time to a roomful of hostile Republicans. And a recently proposed $18 million dollar budget increase for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), isn?t helping matters.

Bush?s guest worker proposal (which he stubbornly insists isn?t an amnesty, but everyone knows it is) is not only unpopular among Republicans, but Americans as a whole. In the last poll, over 70\% of Americans were in favor of limiting illegal and legal immigration, not increasing it. And that?s exactly what Bush?s plan will do. Since his speech announcing the proposal, the numbers of illegals crossing the border has increased exponentially. Then there?s the small matter of national security, which means nothing when our borders are sieves. Americans understand all this, so why doesn?t President Bush?

The most popular theory is that Bush?s chief strategist, Karl Rove, is trying to steal the Democrats? thunder. By taking away all their platforms--big government, social programs, increased immigration--Bush puts them in the unenviable position of arguing against their own constituency. But when does this trade-off become counterproductive? At a certain point, Republicans may start to feel that they are simply voting for what is essentially another Democrat.

But Republicans frustrated with Bush?s policies have virtually nowhere else to turn. They don?t want to run the risk of letting a Democrat win the presidential election in November, but on principle, they are ready to bolt. And a few have done just that. More than one Republican has switched their political affiliation to Independent, while others are focusing on rising stars within the Republican Party. A write-in option for Tom Tancredo, the staunchly anti-illegal-immigration Colorado Congressman, has been rumored, and some conservative Christians in the party say they would support Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore should he choose to run. Tancredo and Moore don?t have the mass support to win the presidency, but they could pull away a good chunk of Bush?s voters and do some real damage in the process.

The stakes are high in the next presidential election and the fact is many Republicans are terrified at the prospect of a Democrat inhabiting the White House at this time. It?s likely that the War on Terrorism and national security will take precedence and win Bush the day. But it?s also a possibility that if he doesn?t watch his step, alienated Republicans could pull the rug out from under him.

For all of our sakes, let?s hope President Bush starts getting back in touch with his base.

Link

This thing is filled with erroneous and mis-leading statements. It doesn't rise to the level of 'information.' The souce alone is tip off; 'Opinioneditorials.com.'

I'll tell you some verifiable information.

I thought this was left-leaning editorial until I read the bit about 'voting for what is essentially another Democrat.'

1) Today's 'conspiracy theory' becomes tomorrow's 'conventional wisdom.' See O'Neill's The Price of Loyalty for further confirmation. Re: Iraq war.

The Bush Administration's members own statements clearly show that some of them had a handle on the true nature of the WMD threat. Verifiable data.

2) Both parties like to spend money. After all, it isn't their money. Name the last president that actually cut spending. The Republicans like to spend your money on guns and stuff, and the Democrats on other forms of domestic stuff. The concept of 'small government conservatives' has always been more of a myth than anything. For verification see: U.S. Budget historical data.

3) An $18 million dollar increase in funding for the NEA. Yeah. How about a 7.1% percent increase in the defense budget that only equates to a total of $1.1 billion dollars per DAY. How do they make ends meet? I can see this in light of the huge military threat the U.S, is facing. Oh, wait. There is no military threat. Anywhere.

I'm going to stop there. I think my point has been made. I especially like this bit: "on first glance, the budget proposal for 2005 promises more of the same."

WTF? Hasn't this Cinnamon person crunched the numbers yet? That's simply irresponsible.

The GOP for Roy Moore? Mr. Ten Commandments? Back that statement up.

"For all of our sakes, let's hope President Bush starts getting back in touch with his base." I'd say that's a wrap.

I think Google should opt to change their policy as to what makes onto the news page. As it stands, any source, no matter how demonstrably biased, and or flat out wrong, gets equal standing with reputable hard news sources.

I have tried to keep this blog much as I lead my life. Skeptical. Not cynical. A lot of pure bs has passed my way, and I accept nothing without evidence.

I'll tell you if I'm stating an opinion. This entry is my opinion. I think it is also a good way for Google to differentiate between hard news, Op-Eds, and shrill hyperbole. I think that there is way too much non-newsworthy content on Google News.

It is difficult enough for people to determine what is good information without having to wade through a morass of unverifiable Op-Eds and other dubious sources. But then, what do I know?

IT'S TEN TIME!

Bush's Job Projections v. Reality

******************************

Texas Cage Match Bush Truths vs. Bush Lies in a Winner Take All!

******************************

Orcinus provided earlier color to Bush's 'bipartisan' intelligence panel. You know, the gang that is going to ferret out any wrongdoing by the White House and other parties concerning Iraqi intelligence?

Well, we can add a bit more.

From K-R's Washington Bureau comes the following:

Critics charged that the commission was unlikely to tackle some of the most politically sensitive areas of inquiry, including allegations that administration officials pressured intelligence analysts and distorted intelligence findings to boost the case for war. Administration critics also would like to see an investigation into the administration's prewar claims about an as-yet-to-be-proved link between Iraq and al-Qaida terrorists.

"If (Saddam) Hussein and al-Qaida were not allied, then Iraq was not a direct threat to the United States ... regardless of its WMD capabilities," said Charles Pena, the director of defense policy at the Cato Institute, a libertarian research center.

"The commission has been told to ignore the elephant in the middle of the room, which is how the intelligence was used and misused by President Bush, Vice President (Dick) Cheney and other senior administration officials," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Pena of Cato said the commission appeared to be "an effort to scapegoat" the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

"The commission is bipartisan, but that doesn't tell you anything," Pena said. "This is not a commission that is going to be extremely critical of the administration."

Silberman is known as a tough-minded conservative who never shies from a dispute. He was appointed to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan and had been considered a top contender for Supreme Court slots that Reagan and the first President Bush filled.

In 1991, Silberman denied reports that he'd threatened to punch Judge Abner Mikva during a dispute over an affirmative action case.

In a letter published in Legal Times, Silberman said he told Mikva, "If you were 10 years younger I would be tempted to punch you in the nose." Silberman added that Mikva "did not become 10 years younger," and said the two never came to blows.

Robb, a son-in-law of former President Lyndon Johnson through his wife, Lynda, long has advocated a tough policy toward Saddam.

As a member of the Senate in 1998, Robb advocated lifting an executive order banning political assassinations, as a warning to Saddam. At the time, he said he considered Iraq "far more dangerous than I think the American people fully appreciate."

Robb, who lost a 2000 re-election campaign to Republican Sen. George Allen, is now a professor at George Mason University in Virginia.

Read more. Learn stuff

So, it appears at this early hour that bipartisan ain't likely to equate to impartial. Impartiality is what this country deserves. This needs much closer scrutiny. Bush should not be able to hand pick the members of a panel that could very well investigate him. In fact, it should. The Iraq war redux was, by and large, a Bush war.

******************************

Oh, the irony. WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush asked Congress to eliminate an $8.2 million research program on how to decontaminate buildings attacked by toxins - the same day a poison-laced letter shuttered Senate offices.

Now that's a link! All kidding aside, please read the full article. I meant to post it from a U.S. source yesterday, but it slipped through the deep crevasses that scar the landscape of my grey matter. I like the British press better anyway.

******************************

Too much political bs today. I need SCIENCE!

Before I post the next link, I need to ask a rhetorical question. Am I the only one that feels like they've been hit squarely in the forehead with a large wooden mallet any time 'Bush' and 'intelligence' are incorporated in same sentence? I hope not. Onward.

Spirit and Opportunity are gettin' down! You can get yours by clicking that link.

I have always regarded RealPlayer to be a virus. I have a special loathing for it in its current version. I'll tell you why. I do some site development. Not a great deal, but some. If I write a script, or a series of scripts that won't execute on a Pentium II 233Mhz machine because of the processor load, I won't sell it. I'm sure you're thinking, "what the hell does this have to do with RealPlayer?" Good question. In RealPlayer's current versions, it won't play streaming video with the old processor. Boy, do I feel better. Oh, and the point of this post, that POS media player has security flaws to go along with CPU cycle intensive coding.

You know that you're bright, but did you know reading bs can be good for the ole noggin? In light of this evidence I'll use more of wide range of verbs to illustrate my points floridly. Heh.

******************************

This piece demonstrates the nexus between politics, hard science, and engineering; to any engineers that think this a slight, I am an MSEE, and I assure you it is not. Those irrepressible macaps at the NAS are questioning Bush's timelines regarding commercially available hydrogen powered transportation. Sure it's an NYT piece, but the author raises questions that geeks like me deal with on a daily basis. Check it!

This is chore tonight. Either I missed much today, or was transfixed by Bush's utter contempt for the truth.

Aha! Another one I missed. I meant to post an entry about the Hubble's future some days ago, but it's that whole mental porosity issue again.

Engineer's Papers Dispute Hubble Decision so reads the headline. The short version is that the Hubble will most likely die in orbit within three years unless we send a manned mission up to conduct maintenance. Read and learn.

******************************

It looks like The Times is going to get the gold star today. As if you haven't heard enough about Iraq today. Well, I'm ending with another Iraq piece. This one is more of a summation of the Administration's lack of a coherent message towards weeks end than anything. It is short. A couple of minutes of your time is all it will take. I promise.

******************************

Well, that was a struggle. I'll try and come up with a better mix tomorrow. To be frank, I can't see how I can fail in that.

Kerry/Dean?

The NYT is reporting that Dr. Dean is willing to accept a VP slot on the ticket.

Here you go:

Acknowledging that his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination is "a longer shot than it was," Howard Dean suggested today that he would accept the No. 2 spot on a national ticket if it were offered.

"I would, to the extent, do anything I could to get rid of President Bush," Dr. Dean said on a morning radio program in Milwaukee. "I'll do whatever is best for the party. Obviously, I'm running for president, but whatever's best is what I'll do. Anything. We've just got to change presidents. We're really hurting right now."

Asked whether he would endorse any of his opponents, Dr. Dean said: "Probably not at this point. We are planning on winning, so we're not thinking about endorsing anybody else."

Much more at link

I agree. Bush has to go. I cannot stand serial liars. In Bush's case, his 'misrepresntations' have led to the loss of tens of thousands of lives. This simply cannot stand.

I just picked up O'Neill's book, The Price of Loyalty

I have ony just atarted reading it, and am doing some fact checking. I find that I am fact checking the Treasury Secretary to be fun and novel - no pun intended.

What makes it especially tasty is this quote from an anonymous White House administration aide: "The president "is not a fact-checker"'. This was uttered in an attempt to explain away how the Niger yellowcake ended up in his SOTU address of 2003.

Here I am, a nobody, writing in a weblog checking my material before I post it. The irony is delicious.

O'Neill makes an accusation that Bush used mis-leading financial information in a speech to a joint session of Congress.

I don't know if Bush actually knew this, but O'neill claims that has did. As I went through the address to Congress, virtually every item that touches on fiscal policy was known to be garbage according to O'Neill.

The reason I picked up the book was because of this post by NYT's Op-Ed columnist, Nicholas Kristof.

Kristof dug into the speech of 27, February 2001 and noted the following errors that O'Neill illustrates in the book:

• My budget has funded a responsible increase in our ongoing operations. It has funded our nation's important priorities. It has protected Social Security and Medicare. And our surpluses are big enough that there is still money left over.



• Many of you have talked about the need to pay down our national debt. I listened, and I agree. (Applause.) We owe it to our children and grandchildren to act now, and I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years. (Applause.) At the end of those 10 years, we will have paid down all the debt that is available to retire. (Applause.) That is more debt, repaid more quickly than has ever been repaid by any nation at any time in history. (Applause.)



• We should also prepare for the unexpected, for the uncertainties of the future. We should approach our nation's budget as any prudent family would, with a contingency fund for emergencies or additional spending needs. For example, after a strategic review, we may need to increase defense spending. We may need to increase spending for our farmers or additional money to reform Medicare. And so, my budget sets aside almost a trillion dollars over 10 years for additional needs. That is one trillion additional reasons you can feel comfortable supporting this budget. (Applause.)



• We have increased our budget at a responsible 4 percent. We have funded our priorities. We paid down all the available debt. We have prepared for contingencies. And we still have money left over.

It all checks out. I found the transcript here.

I have already found many other 'inconsistencies' between Bush's fiscal rhetoric and reality. I need to give the book a thorough read or two. I'll follow this up with a much more complete picture in the near future. Kristof just touched the surface here.

If you're a Bush loyalist, I strongly recommend that you read the book. It hasn't struck me a shrill attempt at retribution whatever. It seems a good, solid read. If you're a Bush detractor, it will only serve to reinforce that belief.

BUSH APPOINTS INVESTIGATIVE PANEL OF THE WEEK CHAIRS

I see that dubya has anointed appointed co-chairs of the as yet unnamed panel to look into the Iraqi intelligence issue.

Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Under strong political pressure, President Bush on Friday established a bipartisan commission to investigate failures in intelligence used to justify the Iraq war and gave it until well after the November election to submit its conclusions.

Bush picked as the chairmen of the commission former Virginia governor and senator Charles Robb, a Democrat, and appeals court judge Laurence Silberman, a Republican.

In a hastily arranged appearance in the White House press briefing room, Bush said the commission will "look at American intelligence capabilities, especially our intelligence about weapons of mass destruction."

Bush noted that former chief U.S. weapons hunter David Kay has not been able to confirm prewar intelligence that Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

"We are determined to figure out why," Bush said.

"We're also determined to make sure that American intelligence is as accurate as possible for every challenge in the future," he added.

Bush gave the commission until March 31, 2005, to report back, meaning the results of the investigation would not be known until after the November election. Democrats want the report sooner.

Bush is scrambling to limit the political fallout from Kay's revelations that almost all the prewar intelligence about Iraq's alleged unconventional weapons was wrong.

BUSH TO FIGHT BACK

Claims that Iraq had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were the main reason cited by Bush for the Iraq war, in which more than 500 U.S. troops have died.

Bush's job approval ratings have been fading due to a number of factors, including the weapons issue and the fact that Democratic presidential candidates have been hammering away at him. He will appear on NBC's "Meet the Press" for an hour on Sunday in an attempt to fight back.
Much more at link

Bush's job ratings have been falling for one reason. As president, he stinks.

I think it's a lovely statement that the commission has until 2005 in order to report. If Bush -- and no doubt he has been advised on this -- really wanted the voters to have the truth, well you can finish the sentence.

I'm sure that people are digging into Robb's and Silverman's records as I type this. I suspect that there will be grousing over the appointees.

On Edit: Dave Neiwert has the poop on Silverman. This guy is a throwback to Jim Crow.

This appointment should be opposed by anyone that values truth over party loyalty. Anyone.

pure bs speculation: DO NOT LEND ANY CREDENCE TO WHAT IS BELOW

I had a long entry lost to cyberspace.

Bush and Russert on Meet the Press this weekend. There has been a lot of speculation about what Russert will ask Bush, but history is any guide, Russert will be sticking to the Beltway Brat Pack's Script.

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post lets us know the gravitas of the interview in no less than three separate articles.

It's pretty funny that the second and third links to Kurtz's musings are VERBATIM until he 'borrows' material from other sources. That's what I call resourceful!

There is one paragraph that I find amusing:

The president has stepped up his television presence over the past year or so, granting interviews to ABC's Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters, NBC's Tom Brokaw and CNBC's Ron Insana. But at a time when he has dipped in the polls and is on the defensive over the failure to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, "Meet the Press" and its audience of 5 million represents a roll of the dice.

Well sure, even ONE unscripted interview is a major step for president Bush. A roll of the dice? Hardly. Even if Russert really pitches tough, an hour of Sunday television isn't likely to move the goalposts one way or the other. Nothing short of an announcement that bin Laden has been captured is likely to 'move the sticks'(continuing the sports analogies)

Diane Sawyer has been the toughest on Bush thus far. I think it only matters to pundits and late night television hosts what Bush says or doesn't say on Sunday.

Note: I did thoroughly enjoy this bit of the Sawyer/Bush exchange:

DIANE SAWYER: But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still ?

PRESIDENT BUSH: So what's the difference?

DIANE SAWYER: Well ?

PRESIDENT BUSH: The possibility that he could acquire weapons. If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger. That's, that's what I'm trying to explain to you. A gathering threat, after 9/11, is a threat that needed to be de ? dealt with, and it was done after 12 long years of the world saying the man's a danger. And so we got rid of him and there's no doubt the world is a safer, freer place as a result of Saddam being gone.

After that sterling performance, I have to wonder about the wisdom of Bush appearing on a program where it is typical that the host uses statements and video of his guests to illustrate the difference between their rhetoric and reality.

Oh well, maybe Russert will slow pitch Mr. Bush.

I think it all boils down to this. Given all of the revelations of late about WMD, the greater Iraq issue, Plame, stonewalling the 9/11 commission, and whether Iraq really was a 'side road' in War On Terror™, Bush can only do himself harm if Russert does a journalistically responsible job.

Fun Google link Let's hope we get some real color to that issue.

That's my speculation for today. Bush can only hurt himself barring some Earth moving revelation.

Krugman!

February 6, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Get Me Rewrite!
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Right now America is going through an Orwellian moment. On both the foreign policy and the fiscal fronts, the Bush administration is trying to rewrite history, to explain away its current embarrassments.

Let's start with the case of the missing W.M.D. Do you remember when the C.I.A. was reviled by hawks because its analysts were reluctant to present a sufficiently alarming picture of the Iraqi threat? Your memories are no longer operative. On or about last Saturday, history was revised: see, it's the C.I.A.'s fault that the threat was overstated. Given its warnings, the administration had no choice but to invade.

A tip from Joshua Marshall, of www.talkingpointsmemo.com, led me to a stark reminder of how different the story line used to be. Last year Laurie Mylroie published a book titled "Bush vs. the Beltway: How the C.I.A. and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror." Ms. Mylroie's book came with an encomium from Richard Perle; she's known to be close to Paul Wolfowitz and to Dick Cheney's chief of staff. According to the jacket copy, "Mylroie describes how the C.I.A. and the State Department have systematically discredited critical intelligence about Saddam's regime, including indisputable evidence of its possession of weapons of mass destruction."

Currently serving intelligence officials may deny that they faced any pressure — after what happened to Valerie Plame, what would you do in their place? — but former officials tell a different story. The latest revelation is from Britain. Brian Jones, who was the Ministry of Defense's top W.M.D. analyst when Tony Blair assembled his case for war, says that the crucial dossier used to make that case didn't reflect the views of the professionals: "The expert intelligence experts of the D.I.S. [Defense Intelligence Staff] were overruled." All the experts agreed that the dossier's claims should have been "carefully caveated"; they weren't.

And don't forget the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, created specifically to offer a more alarming picture of the Iraq threat than the intelligence professionals were willing to provide.

Can all these awkward facts be whited out of the historical record? Probably. Almost surely, President Bush's handpicked "independent" commission won't investigate the Office of Special Plans. Like Lord Hutton in Britain — who chose to disregard Mr. Jones's testimony — it will brush aside evidence that intelligence professionals were pressured. It will focus only on intelligence mistakes, not on the fact that the experts, while wrong, weren't nearly wrong enough to satisfy their political masters. (Among those mentioned as possible members of the commission is James Woolsey, who wrote one of the blurbs for Ms. Mylroie's book.)

And if top political figures have their way, there will be further rewriting to come. You may remember that Saddam gave in to U.N. demands that he allow inspectors to roam Iraq, looking for banned weapons. But your memories may soon be invalid. Recently Mr. Bush said that war had been justified because Saddam "did not let us in." And this claim was repeated by Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee: "Why on earth didn't [Saddam] let the inspectors in and avoid the war?"

Now let's turn to the administration's other big embarrassment, the budget deficit.

The fiscal 2005 budget report admits that this year's expected $521 billion deficit belies the rosy forecasts of 2001. But the report offers an explanation: stuff happens. "Today's budget deficits are the unavoidable result of the revenue erosion from the stock market collapse that began in early 2000, an economy recovering from recession and a nation confronting serious security threats." Sure, the administration was wrong — but so was everyone.

The trouble is that accepting that excuse requires forgetting a lot of recent history. By February 2002, when the administration released its fiscal 2003 budget, all of the bad news — the bursting of the bubble, the recession, and, yes, 9/11 — had already happened. Yet that budget projected only a $14 billion deficit this year, and a return to surpluses next year. Why did that forecast turn out so wrong? Because administration officials fudged the facts, as usual.

I'd like to think that the administration's crass efforts to rewrite history will backfire, that the media and the informed public won't let officials get away with this. Have we finally had enough?

TEN LINKS TIME!

RIGHT WING NUTTER ALERT

It's Georgia's evolution v. 'creationism(?)' debate

As MC Hawking would say: "It's two-thousand-aught-three goddammit!"

Ya know, there is a valid reason why it's called 'creationism.' It is simply an non-testable, non-falsifiable myth that doesn't even make the grade as a hypothesis. A - G - T - C four letters that are found in the simplest virii, to humankind. There is a mountain of data to support evolution, but a theory it shall always remain.

Let's hope for the Georgian youth's sake that reason prevails over superstition.

******************************

IRAQ!

Progress by U.S. forces undermined by frequent attacks on Iraqis

Arab-Americans working in Iraq link the U.S. military, Iraqi people

Iraqis cautious about U.S. plans to reduce forces in Baghdad

Death toll in Iraqi blasts climbs above 100

U.S. casualty numbers continue to climb in Iraq

Just in case anyone thought that things were hunky-dory in Iraq.

******************************

MINDFUL BUSH

Bush planning deeper budget cuts over next 5 years

This is a must read. Here's a taste:

WASHINGTON - President Bush's long-term budget plans include deep spending cuts in programs that he's promoting this year on the campaign trail as among his signature achievements.

The president, for instance, trumpeted his "Jobs for the 21st Century" program during a speech in South Carolina on Thursday. That program, which Bush said aids states and local communities, falls under funds for training and employment, which his budget proposes to increase by nearly $100 million for fiscal 2005.

But the following year, Bush would cut those funds by $36 million, assuming he wins re-election in November.

Other programs that the president's budget proposes to increase next year, then reduce the following year, include the Women, Infants and Children supplemental nutrition program; Pell Grants for higher education; special education; Low Income Home Energy Assistance; and the National Institutes of Health.

There is much more at the link above. Now if this doesn't strike one as sledgehammer-to-the-cranium hypocrisy, I think that they must certainly have stopped respiring. Sheeesh.

******************************

SCIENCE!

Much groovy news from the red planet Spirit is back in operation, and Opportunity is performing as advertised. Go and read some. JPL/NASA has the goods.

Hubble sees 'Black Eye' Astronomers speculate. The thinking here is that, galaxy M64, like the majoity of spiral galaxies had all of its stars rotating in the same direction. Now Hubble has shown that there is an outer ring of stars that rotates in the opposite direction as those in the nucleus. Tres cool.

******************************

a human tragedy

This is an old story, but one that I wasn't aware of until today.

How your chocolate may be tainted

DALOA, Ivory Coast - There may be a hidden ingredient in the chocolate cake you baked, the candy bars your children sold for their school fund-raiser or that fudge ripple ice cream cone you enjoyed on Saturday afternoon.

Slave labor.

Forty-three percent of the world's cocoa beans, the raw material in chocolate, come from small, scattered farms in this poor West African country. And on some of the farms, the hot, hard work of clearing the fields and harvesting the fruit is done by boys who were sold or tricked into slavery. Most of them are between the ages of 12 and 16. Some are as young as 9.

The lucky slaves live on corn paste and bananas. The unlucky ones are whipped, beaten and broken like horses to harvest the almond-sized beans that are made into chocolate treats for more fortunate children in Europe and America.

Aly Diabate was almost 12 when a slave trader promised him a bicycle and $150 a year to help support his poor parents in Mali. He worked for a year and a half for a cocoa farmer who is known as "Le Gros" ("the Big Man"), but he said his only rewards were the rare days when Le Gros' overseers or older slaves didn't flog him with a bicycle chain or branches from a cacao tree.

Cocoa beans come from pods on the cacao tree. To get the 400 or so beans it takes to make a pound of chocolate, the boys who work on Ivory Coast's cocoa farms cut 10 pods from the trees, slice them open, scoop out the beans, spread them in baskets or on mats and cover them to ferment. Then they uncover the beans, put them in the sun to dry, bag them and load them onto trucks to begin the long journey to America or Europe.

Aly said he doesn't know what the beans from the cacao tree taste like after they've been processed and blended with sugar, milk and other ingredients. That happens far away from the farm where he worked, in places such as Hershey, Pa., Milwaukee and San Francisco.

There is much more at link. I had heard, and seen footage of the 'blood diamond' trade in Ivory Coast and elsewhere, but hadn't heard of the chocolate/slave labor nexus. Sad.

******************************

Those are tonight's ten. An easy ten I know, but I did make a slew of immaterial entries today. Cut me some slack ;)

:)



Click Bush to order.

Allow me to add a little color.

THEN:

President Bush, March 19, 2003:

"The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."

******************************************

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, March 11, 2003:

"He claims to have no chemical or biological weapons, yet we know he continues to hide biological and chemical weapons, moving them to different locations as often as every 12 to 24 hours and placing them in residential neighborhoods."

******************************************

Vice President Dick Cheney, Aug. 26, 2002:


"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us."

******************************************

Cheney, Aug. 29, 2002:

"His regime is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue an aggressive nuclear-weapons program."

******************************************

NOW:

Tenet Today:

"My provisional bottom line today: Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon, he still wanted one, and Iraq intended to reconstitute a nuclear program at some point."

Referring to the National Intelligence Estimate of 2002, a report by the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies about whether Iraq had chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them:

"We concluded that in some of these categories Iraq had weapons, and that in others - where it did not have them - it was trying to develop them.

"Let me be clear: Analysts differed on several important aspects of these programs, and those debates were spelled out in the estimate. They never said there was an `imminent' threat. Rather, they painted an objective assessment for our policymakers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests. No one told us what to say or how to say it."

Sources: CIA, Federal Document Clearing House

******************************************

I hope you trust my sources ;)

From the ever fruitful Knight Ridder Washington Bureau comes this:

Bush's performance under scrutiny

By RON HUTCHESON
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - President Bush's performance as commander-in-chief was supposed to be his strong suit in the November election, but questions about his leadership suddenly have forced him on the defensive.

With the week only half over, Bush had reversed course on the need for an investigation into prewar intelligence in Iraq, reluctantly agreed to extend an investigation into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and fended off questions about his military service.

In a clear sign of potential political damage, a new Gallup poll shows that voters trust Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts - the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination - more than Bush to decide when U.S. troops should go to war. And, for the first time since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, fewer than half of Americans - 49 percent - say the war was worth it.

"If that goes below 50 percent and stays there, it's a real significant problem for the Bush administration," said Frank Newport, Gallup's editor in chief. "All the discussion about the rationale (for war) is beginning to have some effect on Americans."

The poll, conducted for CNN and USA Today from Jan. 30 to Feb. 1, also showed the president's overall approval rating at a new low of 49 percent. Any approval rating below 50 percent is considered a clear warning sign for a candidate seeking re-election.

Bush has made his wartime leadership the centerpiece of his re-election campaign, but Kerry's emergence as the Democratic front-runner and continuing problems in Iraq and Afghanistan could complicate the Republican game plan. Democrats already are trying to draw a contrast between Kerry's status as a decorated Vietnam veteran and Bush's gap-filled record as a member of the National Guard.

On Wednesday, the president used a routine speech on Winston Churchill to defend his own wartime leadership.

"In some ways, our current struggles or challenges are similar to those Churchill knew," he said at the opening of a Churchill exhibit at the Library of Congress. "We're at a point of testing, when people and nations show what they're made out of. ... We will do what it takes. We will not leave until the job is done."

But Bush has had to surrender ground on issues related to his leadership. Much more at link

The gloves are now officially off. Yesterday, the NYT reported that Ed Gillespie(Chair of the RNC) has been lashing out at Kerry, saying Kerry was "out of sync" with most voters, "culturally out of step with the rest of America," and a man who votes with "the extreme elements of his party."

I know Kerry's voting record pretty well, and it's hardly that of an 'extremist.' WTF does being "culturally out of step with the rest of America" mean? Is it that Kerry doesn't go to NASCAR races, watch BassMasters while beating his dog, and yelling at his wife to bring him another 'cold one?' Is this the message that 'honest Eddie's' pitching to us?

Nonetheless, should Kerry get the nod, we all know who the extremist in the general election is going to be. Lest one his many scandals currently on the stove should go aboil, and result in his hasty departure.

Here is what some of Kerry's guys reportedly said:

"We welcome a debate with the likes of Ed Gillespie, Karl Rove and this White House about who's out of sync with Main Street America." David Wade -- Kerry spokesman

"Their tired old G.O.P. attack dog just won't hunt," Mr. Wade said, adding that Republicans would be running against "a Democrat who fought for his country in war, put criminals behind bars as a prosecutor, stood up for balanced budgets in the Senate," and "kept faith with America's veterans."

Another Kerry adviser was more blunt. "This is not the Dukakis campaign," the adviser said. "We're not going to take it. And if they're going to come at us with stuff, whatever that stuff may be, if it goes to a place where the '88 campaign did, then everything is on the table. Everything."

Everything. I like it.

Bush comparing America today with Great Britain under siege by the third Reich? Talk about dogs that won't hunt. That canine hasn't had a pulse in years. Yes, Bush is certainly Churchillian. There is nothing routine about Bush giving a speech, unless one is referring to his wanton destruction of grammar, diction, and wholesale slaughter of the English language. That's routine.

Canadians to Bush: Hope You Lose, Eh

Take off, hoser. No, but seriously.

According to a new poll, only 15 per cent of us would vote for the President

JONATHON GATEHOUSE

MAYBE IT'S THAT SMUG LITTLE SMILE. His penchant for fantastically expensive military photo-ops. Or the swaggering, belt-hitching walk that cries out for a pair of swinging saloon doors. And though, God knows, we have too many of our own syntactically challenged politicians to be casting stones, shouldn't the leader of the free world know that "misunderestimate" isn't a word?

Yes, we're cavilling, but clearly there is something about George W. Bush that gets under the skin of Canadians. After all, vehemently disagreeing with the policies of American presidents is almost a national pastime. There has to be another explanation for our extreme reaction, the desire afoot in the land to see him turfed from office. That and the unprintable sentiment about him and the horse he rode in on. Even before we know whom he will be running against this fall, Canadians have made their decision.

Only 15 per cent, according to an exclusive new Maclean's poll, would definitely cast a ballot for Bush if they had the opportunity. And if Americans remain almost evenly divided -- some 50 per cent approve of his performance in the White House and he's running neck and neck with his likely Democratic challengers -- there is no such dithering on this side of the border. Just 12 per cent of us feel Canada is better off since he took office, and only a third of respondents will admit to liking the world's most powerful man, even just a little bit. There is a vitual tome at link

Again, Canada lights the way.

Plame Update:

Cheney's Staff Focus of Probe

Posted Feb. 5, 2004
By Richard Sale

Published: Tuesday, February 17, 2004
(we bring you the news weeks in advance!)

Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.

According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls.

The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said.Much more at link

Until there is confirmation, I'll not make a WAG about who I think is likely to take the fall for this. If indeed indictments are served. I'm glad to hear that this is being taken as seriously as it ought to be. Maybe the Republic will stand after all.

In my local newspaper, the Concord Monitor, the lead article is a pitiful piece about gay marriage. Our one term governor, Craig Benson, who is usually unpredictable, followed the GOP line.

I talked to a dozen or so people about this earlier today. New Hampshire is pretty libertarian in many ways, and all of the people under 50 said it was no big deal. A non-issue. The folks in the over 50 set, were pretty much against gay marriage.

My take on the whole thing is pretty simple. Marriage is a legal institution. Under the law, all of our citzenry is supposed to get equal treatment. To treat gays unequally would seem to be unconstitutional.

I saw in the NYT Online that GW Bush -- a known supporter of rights -- is reportedly backing the drafting of an amendment 'defining' marriage. This is not necessarily a position that Mr. Bush personally holds, but could be one borne out of political necessity. You know, to shore up his conservative base.

I think that this is an absurd decision to make, as the Massachusetts ruling is most decidedly not an act of 'activist judges,' but is based purely on the basis of equal rights. Equal rights for everyone, not just for people with whom you agree.

One shouldn't even be able to contemplate an amendment to the Constitution to discriminate against any group, much less support it overtly.

In his own words:

I showed the people of Texas that I'm a uniter, not a divider. I refuse to play the politics of putting people into groups and pitting one group against another." - GW Bush 6, May 1999

A uniter of convenience from all appearances.

In the very same interview, Mr. Bush was asked about Trent Lott's infamous statement concerning homosexuality. It is:

"It is [a sin]....You should try to show them a way to deal with that problem, just like alcohol...or sex addiction...or kleptomaniacs." - Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott, Associated Press, June 15, 1998.

To which then governor Bush said:

"I was taught that we should look after the beam in our own eye before searching for the mote in someone else's."

Hey! That sounds like a pretty progressive guy.

I'm for equal protection under the law for everyone. American or not. I think that the Constitution shouldn't be a document of convenience. As most of Europe pushes for true equal rights, the U.S. again appears ready to fail its citizenry by failing to act in a progressive manner.

I guess that Bush will try make it unanimous. On issues from affirmative action to waging war, to the environment to tax policy, Bush policies have been failures. Let's hope that he takes the legally responsible stance on the gay union issue. He doesn't even have to alienate his base. All he needs to make clear is that this is an issue of equal rights. Certainly his socially conservative would understand that position. Or, maybe not.

Tenet: Iraq never labeled by CIA as imminent threat

I don't know that we'll ever get to the truth regarding the White House's handling of intelligence information. No one knows at this point.

Kay's statement that 'we were all wrong' regarding Iraq's WMD capability is erroneous. Because of the gravity of the situation, and to clearly illustrate this point, I offer Scott Ritter's analysis:

Not everyone got it wrong on Iraq's weapons

Scott Ritter
February 05, 2004

Former UN inspector

WASHINGTON "We were all wrong," David Kay, the Bush administration's former top weapons sleuth in Iraq, recently told members of Congress after acknowledging that there were probably no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Kay insisted that the blame for the failure to find any such weapons lay with the U.S. intelligence community, which, according to Kay, provided inaccurate assessments.

The Kay remarks appear to be an attempt to spin potentially damaging data to the political advantage of President George W. Bush.

The president's decision to create an "independent commission" to investigate this intelligence failure only reinforces this suspicion, since such a commission would only be given the mandate to examine intelligence data, and not the policies and decision-making processes that made use of that data. More disturbing, the commission's findings would be delayed until late fall, after the November presidential election.

The fact, independent of the findings of any commission, is that not everyone was wrong.

I, for one, was not. I did my level best to demand facts from the Bush administration to back up their allegations regarding Iraq's WMD and, failing that, spoke out and wrote in as many forums as possible in an effort to educate the publics of the United States and the world about the danger of going to war based on a hyped-up threat.

In this I was not alone. Rolf Ekeus, the former head of the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, has declared that under his direction, Iraq was "fundamentally disarmed" as early as 1996. Hans Blix, who headed UN weapons inspections in Iraq in the months before the invasion in March 2003, stated that his inspectors had found no evidence of either WMD or WMD-related programs in Iraq. And officials familiar with Iraq, like Ambassador Joseph Wilson and State Department intelligence analyst Greg Theilmann, both exposed the unsustained nature of the Bush administration's claims regarding Iraq's nuclear capability.

The riddle surrounding Iraq's WMD was solvable without resorting to war. For all the layers of deceit and obfuscation, there existed enough basic elements of truth and substantive fact about the disposition of Saddam Hussein's secret weapons programs to permit the Gordian knot to be cleaved by anyone willing to try. Sadly, it seems that there was no predisposition on the part of those assigned the task of solving the riddle to do so.

Bush's decision to limit the scope of any inquiry to intelligence matters, effectively blocking any critique of his administration's use -- or abuse -- of such intelligence, is absurd, especially when one considers that the Bush administra tion was already talking of war with Iraq in 2002, prior to the preparation of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) -- the defining document on a particular area of the world or specified threat -- by the director of Central Intelligence.

According to a Department of Defense after-action report on Iraq titled -- Operation Iraqi Freedom: Strategic Lessons Learned, -- a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times in September 2003, -- President Bush approved the overall war strategy for Iraq in August last year. The specific date cited was Aug. 29, 2002 - eight months before the first bomb was dropped.

The CIA did eventually produce a National Intelligence Estimate for Iraq, but only in October 2002, after Bush had already decided on war. The title of the NIE, "Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction," is reflective of a predisposition that was not supported either by the facts available at the time, or by the passage of time.

Stu Cohen, a 28-year veteran of the CIA, wrote in a statement published on the CIA Web site on Nov. 28, 2003, that the Oct. 2002 National Intelligence Estimate "judged with high confidence that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles in excess of the 150-kilometer limit imposed by the UN Security Council. These judgements were essentially the same conclusions reached by the United Nations and a wide array of intelligence services, friendly and unfriendly alike."

Cohen said the October NIE was "policy neutral" -- meaning it did not propose a policy that argued either for or against going to war. He also stated that no one who worked on the NIE had been pressured by the Bush White House.

Cohen is wrong in his assertions. The fact that a major policy decision like war with Iraq was made without the benefit of an NIE is, in and of itself, policy manipulation. I worked with Cohen on numerous occasions during this time, and consider him a reasonable man. So I had to wonder when this intelligence professional, confronted with the totality of the failure of the CIA to accurately assess the WMD threat threat posed by Iraq's WMD, wrote that he was "convinced that no reasonable person could have viewed the totality of the information that the intelligence community had at its disposal -- literally millions of pages -- and reached any conclusions or alternative views that were profoundly different from those that we reached."

I consider myself also to be a reasonable person. Like Cohen and the intelligence professionals who prepared the October 2002 NIE, I was intimately familiar with vast quantities of intelligence data collected from around the world by numerous foreign intelligence services (including the CIA) and on the ground in Iraq by UN weapons inspectors, at least until the time of my resignation from Unscom in August 1998. Based on this experience, I was asked by Arms Control Today, the journal of the Arms Control Association, to write an article on the status of disarmament regarding Iraq's WMD.

The article, "The Case for Iraq's Qualitative Disarmament," was published in June 2000 and received broad coverage. Its conclusions were dismissed by the intelligence communities of the United States and Britain. But my finding -- that "because of the work carried out by Unscom, it can be fairly stated that Iraq was qualitatively disarmed at the time inspectors were withdrawn [in December 1998]" -- was an accurate assessment of the disarming of Iraq's WMD capabilities, much more so than the CIA's October NIE or any corresponding analysis carried out by British intelligence services.

I am not alone in my analysis. Ray McGovern, who heads a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, or VIPS, also takes umbrage at Cohen's "no reasonable person" assertion. "Had he taken the trouble to read the op-eds and other issuances of VIPs members over the past two years," McGovern told me, he would have found that "our writings consistently contained conclusions and alternative views that were indeed profoundly different -- even without having had access to what Stu calls the 'totality of the information.' And Stu never indicated he thought us not 'reasonable' -- at least back when many of us worked with him at CIA."

The fact is that McGovern and I, together with scores of intelligence professionals, retired or still in service, who studied Iraq and its WMD capabilities, are reasonable men. We got it right.

The Bush administration, in its rush to war, ignored our advice and the body of factual data we used, and instead relied on rumor, speculation, exaggeration and falsification to mislead the American people and their elected representatives into supporting a war that is rapidly turning into a quagmire. We knew the truth about Iraq's WMD. Sadly, no one listened.

The writer was chief UN inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 and is the author of "Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America." This comment was distributed by Global Viewpoint for Tribune Media Services International.

Link

Theilmann in his own words:

Mr Theilmann told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: "I’m afraid I think the American public was seriously misled."

The US administration "twisted, distorted, simplified" intelligence in a way that led Americans to "seriously misunderstand what the nature of the Iraq threat was", he said.

"I’m not sure I can think of a worse act against the people in a democracy than a President distorting critical information," he said.

"For a President to abuse that sacred trust ... is to me a very serious development."

Mr Theilmann said he was "not as knowledgeable about the British side of the question."

But he said: "I am disappointed by some of the statements made by Prime Minister Blair, even though I understand how difficult it is for a close ally of the United States to confront the United States on the use of intelligence information."

British intelligence was still sticking to claims that Saddam attempted to obtain nuclear material from Niger even though the US now acknowledged that was based on forged documents, Mr Theilmann said.

Mr Blair would not have been working on more evidence than the Bush administration, he told Today.

"It is unlikely that any really important intelligence here would not have been shared," he said.

"We are talking about intelligence of extraordinary importance, intelligence that can make the difference between war and peace.

"I find it very difficult to believe that major intelligence has been withheld from one party to the other."

Ritter's assertions were dismissed and a complete hatchet job was done to him courtesy of CNN, MSNBC and the whole brat pack of Hill 'reporters.' Hans Blix, Mohamed el-Baradei, Ekeus, Wilson, and Theilmann just do not exist.

Of course we know what happened to Wilson. His wife was outed by 'senior administration officials' for his telling the truth about the Niger yellowcake non-event. I wonder how that investigation is going? I'm not holding my breath.

This whole thing stinks. I'm for throwing the whole lot of them out.

Tens Links o' Interest is Back!

SCIENCE!

The first two entries are from New Scientist. I think extrasolar planets are a seriously cool thing. Oxygen seen streaming off exoplanet A bit:

Carbon and oxygen have been observed streaming off an extrasolar planet for the first time by researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope.

The study is likely to add important insight into the nature and evolution of extrasolar planets, which are notoriously difficult to observe. It may also provide a model for understanding our own planet's evolution, as the Earth may have been too puny to hold onto its original atmosphere.

"It's a very intriguing and suggestive observation," says Sara Seager, an astronomer who studies extrasolar planets at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, US. "If confirmed, it will provide a nice constraint to understanding the upper atmosphere of this extrasolar planet."

Much more at link!

I like confirmation that things are made up of the same stuff as the Earth. The next link provides evidence that what you believe to be true may in fact be demonstrably false(Bush Administration members, and WMD believers take note)

Also from New Scientist comes this article about a phenomenon being called 'mindsight.' The obligatory tease:

Some people may be aware that a scene they are looking at has changed without being able to identify what that change is. This could be a newly discovered mode of conscious visual perception, according to the psychologist who discovered it. He has dubbed the phenomenon "mindsight".

Ronald Rensink, based at the University of British Columbia in Canada, showed 40 people a series of photographic images flickering on a computer screen. Each image was shown for around a quarter of a second and followed by a brief blank grey screen. Sometimes the image would remain the same throughout the trial; in other trials, after a time the initial image would be alternated with a subtly different one.

In trials where the researchers manipulated the image, around a third of the people tested reported feeling that the image had changed before they could identify what the change was. In control trials, the same people were confident that no change had occurred. The response to a change in image and control trials was reliably different.

Our visual system can produce a strong gut feeling that something has changed, Rensink says, even if we cannot visualise that change in our minds and cannot say what was altered or where the alteration occurred.

"I think this effect explains a lot of the belief in a sixth sense." He has no idea what physical processes generate mindsight, but says it may be possible to confirm it exists using brain scanners.

I think it is fabulous that science has given us the tools to de-mystify life. Then again, I harbor no superstitions nor subscribe to any myths. There is wonder and beauty in the quest for true knowledge. One door closes and another opens.

******************************

WEB LITERATURE!

Ya know, in the less traveled parts of the web, there are some real gems. I don't mention these nearly often enough. For instance, Editor & Publisher always has great content.

In more or less the same vein, Harper's Magazine online is great resource for well researched material. Rick Mac Arthur and staff do a great job. Of course I could help them with their site layout ;) Why even Harper's has a blog.

******************************

BLOGS!

As much as I read during the course of a day, I really don't get a chance to check out a great many blogs. My favorite non-corporate blogs are, in no particular order:

Jesse Taylor's Pandagon. Witty, and incisive. But mostly witty. He's a grand sense of humor.

Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo. Probably the finest, most consistent political writing of all the 'A-List' bloggers.

David Neiwert's Orcinus. Dave could use some help on his layout, but his content is most excellent.

There are only two corporate blogs that I ever read.

Eric Alterman's Altercation Hosted by evil giants Microsoft AND NBGE. He usually puts out wat too much content for me to read, but if I keep up day after day, it isn't bad.

Joe Conason's oddly titled Joe Conason's Journal. Another insightful, thoughtful, and consistently good bit of work. -- This one isn't updated daily, so it's easy to keep track of.

******************************

Globalisation!

I was trying to pry open a javascript pop-up window at Lou Dobbs Tonight entitled 'exporting America.' Well, that didn't work out, so I did a quick Google using the above in full quotation marks. I didn't get the list of companies I was looking for, but I did find Lou Dobbs Moneyline transcript. A pretty good summation of how globalisation is effecting the U.S. middle-class.

You can also check out the World Bank's Globalisation pages.

That's all I'm going to dedicate to that topic.

******************************

BUSH'S BOGUS BUDGET

Biomed Central is reporting that Bush's budget proposes a 2.6% funding increase for the NSF(National Science Foundation), but an 8.9% funding cut for the CDC(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

Select quote:

The president's budget "threatens our progress in medicine and our position as world leader in the scientific research enterprise," said Robert D. Wells, president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), in a statement.

Nils Hasselmo, president of the Association of American Universities, said the administration's budget "significantly underfunds" the nation's investment in scientific research. “The nation must pull itself out of our deficit spiral,” he said in a statement, "but we cannot do so by shortchanging research."

We are so going to lose our technological edge to Asia early in this century.

One more budget item. Okay, it's a few items.

OVERVIEW: The budget features big increases for military and homeland security but cuts or holds down the growth in spending for most other programs. President Bush projected the deficit to be $521 billion in the 2004 fiscal year and $364 billion in the 2005 fiscal year. The 2005 deficit figure does not count the cost of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

TAXES: About $1.1 trillion in additional tax cuts over 10 years, most taking effect after President Bush leaves office. About $175 billion in cuts would take place by 2009; the rest, about $900 billion, would come at the end of the decade.

DEFICITS: A deficit of $521 billion this year, declining to $237 billion by 2009. The budget makes no projections on the size of later deficits.

DOMESTIC SPENDING: Aside from relying on economic growth, the administration’s major proposal to reduce the deficit is holding spending increases on nonmilitary discretionary programs, like parks and health agencies, to less than 1 percent.

MILITARY: Increases spending to $401.7 billion, a jump of 7.1 percent. The increase does not include costs for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. That money, which the White House says may be up to $50 billion, will be sought after the November election.

Well, I'd say that's fiscally responsible. How the f$%# does the military warrant $1.1B I L L I O N per DAY? And that's not accounting for Iraq and Afghanistan. Down the road this tax cut..which of course can never be made truly permanent..is going to burden future generations when a majority of Americans don't even want the stupid thing.

Oh screw it, here's the rest:

ENERGY: The president proposes $24.3 billion in spending for the Energy Department. But the administration significantly scaled back energy tax breaks to $7.2 billion over 10 years compared with about $25 billion sought by Congress last year.

JUSTICE: The Justice Department's $18.7 billion includes $2.6 billion for counterterrorism, an increase of 19 percent from last year. The F.B.I. is the main beneficiary, with a proposed budget of $5.1 billion dedicated to expanding counterterrorism investigations, improving intelligence analysis and other areas.

EDUCATION: President Bush is proposing significant spending increases in two major areas. The budget would increase aid to poor districts by $1 billion, to $13.3 billion, which would go to schools that are the main beneficiaries of his No Child Left Behind program.

DOMESTIC SECURITY: The proposed budget would increase spending for the Department of Homeland Security to $40.2 billion, a 10 percent increase above last year's $36.5 billion. It calls for $890 million to enhance aviation and transportation security and $411 million to strengthen border and port security.

HEALTH CARE: The Bush administration is once again proposing new tax credits to help the uninsured buy health coverage, with a $70 billion plan over 10 years. It also plans a significant increase to the Food and Drug Administration to secure food safety.

NASA: A 5.6 percent increase is proposed in NASA's budget, to $16.2 billion, a step in pursuing the president's vision for refocusing space exploration. Courtesy the NYT

I remember small government conservatives. Although their social policies were a century or so out of touch, I agreed with their at least paying lip service to 'small government.' Why is the defense industry such a hard to kill sacred cow in America? Who exactly do we have to fear? Ourselves, that's who. But that misses the point. *heavy sigh*

******************************

Well, folks. That's a wrap. I think I have ten or so there. I really didn't bother counting. ;)

Bliar:

Tony Blair admitted yesterday that he led the crucial parliamentary debate which approved the war in Iraq without knowing the full truth behind the Government's claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

He was pressed in the Commons to spell out when he knew that the claim Iraq could launch a deadly attack with weapons of mass destruction within that period related only to battlefield weapons, rather than long-range missiles. Mr Blair said: "I've already indicated exactly when this came to my attention; it wasn't before the debate on 18 March.

"When you say that a battlefield weapon would not be a weapon of mass destruction, if there were chemical or biological or nuclear battlefield weapons that most certainly would be held as a weapon of mass destruction and the idea that their use wouldn't threaten regional stability I find somewhat eccentric." The Independent has the full details.

One can only hope that our representatives here in the states are as forthcoming. This is not much of an admission, but hey, it's a start.

Anyone that visits this blog should probably be reading CAP's Progress Report and Talking Points. Both are linked to in the left(ha ha) hand menu on the homepage. I'd put up links, but they use the Microsoft proprietary ASP! Active Server Pages(.asp) should be banished from the web.

There, I feel better now. I hope you do as well. :)

You know what's a helluva lot more dangerous than Ricin?

Being between Bill Frist and a camera.

Talk about a publicity whore. Sheesh.

He is one strange serial cat killer.

There are a couple interesting items on this CBS Marketwatch page. Check out the small Flash presidential comparison interactive tool, and note the differences in health care coverage. It has been a crummy day for equities.

The LA Times appears to paint a picture of Iraq a bit different than that our president delivered in his SOTU address v2004.

Iraq remains a brutal violent place, where under the auspices of the Iraq Governing Council(IGC) , Sharia Law has been accepted. I made note of this in my refutations of Bush's claims in his SOTU address here. (caution, my response to the SOTU is longer than the SOTU address itself)

I'll let the Times take it from here:

Iraqi Insurgency Is as Lethal as Ever Since Hussein's Capture

By Patrick J. McDonnell
Times Staff Writer

February 4, 2004

FALLOUJA, Iraq — Nearly two months after the capture of Saddam Hussein, the casualty rate among U.S. soldiers and Iraqis in insurgent attacks has accelerated, and much of this nation's Sunni Muslim heartland remains a perilous zone of conflict — with bouts of violence also striking the Kurdish north and the Shiite south.

The most recent spate of bloodshed includes bombings last weekend in the northern cities of Irbil and Mosul as well as last month's suicide attack outside the main U.S. compound in Baghdad, blasts that claimed well over 100 lives.

Iraqi security forces, civilians and others deemed collaborators are now the major targets, and although attacks on U.S. troops have diminished in number, they remain lethal: 45 soldiers were killed in January, according to unofficial tallies, compared with 40 in December.

As U.S. forces prepared to head home in a massive rotation that would leave troops vulnerable to attack, front-line commanders interviewed in recent weeks expressed confidence that a measure of order had been restored after Hussein's capture. But they cautioned that the attacks might continue and possibly intensify as the U.S. occupation enters its second year this spring with fresh units of soldiers and Marines.

"I won't defeat all the enemy in my time. That's very clear," Lt. Col. Brian Drinkwine said in this hostile city west of Baghdad, where U.S. troops typically would draw fire within an hour if they remained stationary. "I don't have the threat of a tank battalion rising out of the dust and coming after me. But I've got mortars, I've got rockets, and I've got small elements that are trying to chip away at our will."

The insurgents' goal, apart from breaking the will of American forces, remains the same as before Hussein was tracked down: to sow insecurity among Iraqis and disrupt the transition to Iraqi sovereignty scheduled for this summer.

As outgoing commanders reflect on their tumultuous months here, some wonder aloud what constitutes victory in a low-intensity conflict that seems destined to drag on.

"If the standard is, we reduce all incidents to zero, that would be a standard that no city in the world could be measured by," said Lt. Col. Steven Russell of the Army's 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit, Hussein's former home base. "You will always have the hotheads out there, and those who will look for any reason, angle or cause to resist. But that does not characterize the majority of the population."

U.S. forces say they have struck a serious blow to the insurgent command structure, hunting down anti-coalition cells from the capital to the Syrian border.

Last month, Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, who commands the 4th Infantry Division, told Pentagon reporters in a satellite hookup from Tikrit that loyalists of the former regime "have been brought to their knees." The capture of Hussein on Dec. 13, the general said, "was a major operational and psychological defeat for the enemy."

The arrest of Hussein and seizure of documents in his hide-out led to intelligence gains and probably disrupted funding sources, officials said. But various commanders in the field agreed that they hadn't noted a lasting insurgent retreat since Hussein emerged from his underground chamber south of Tikrit. "Anyone who wanted Saddam back as president emeritus now knows that won't happen," said Col. Joe Anderson, with the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul, a onetime stronghold of Hussein's Baath Party. "But up here, I would say there has been no noticeable difference in any way, shape or form since the time he was captured."

The strategic northern city appeared under siege in November, as insurgents successfully targeted U.S. troops and ground fire brought down two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters, killing 17 soldiers. But a fierce U.S. counteroffensive resulted in the arrest of hundreds of suspected insurgents and restored relative calm by mid-December — although a bombing outside a police station Saturday killed nine people and wounded dozens more.

"There's still enough bad guys out there. This will not stop tomorrow," said Anderson, whose unit has already ceded principal duties in Mosul to an Army brigade from Ft. Lewis, Wash., using the new Stryker armored infantry carrier, which has wheels and is considered more mobile than traditional tracked vehicles. "The enemy has definitely been disrupted. They're definitely much worse off, in all categories. But they're not gone."

In Baghdad, commanders say intelligence arising from Hussein's arrest has helped them infiltrate the insurgent cell structure and its financial backbone. U.S. authorities have identified 14 distinct insurgent cells in Baghdad, with up to 300 operatives, although attacks are sometimes farmed out to paid "trigger-pullers." A loose network of former high-ranking military officers and Baath Party functionaries appears to provide financial support and some guidance.

Eight of the Baghdad cells have been disrupted so far, Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division, told reporters in Baghdad on Monday. But Dempsey acknowledged that some might "regenerate."

Moreover, the insurgency's decentralized organizational scheme remains shadowy. U.S. officials don't seem to know for certain if there are links among the suicide attackers of Irbil, the ambush squads of Fallouja, the mortar men of Tikrit and the bomb makers of Baghdad. Loyalists of the former regime still represent by far the primary threat, officials say, although the presence of foreign fighters and Islamic militants — believed to make up the bulk of suicide bombers — may be on the rise.

U.S. officials have not budged from their estimate that about 5,000 insurgents are arrayed against the American-led coalition nationwide. But almost twice that many people have been detained for alleged anti-coalition activity.

In the meantime, threats shadow U.S. helicopters in the air and armed convoys on the ground — military traffic that is swelling as tens of thousands of troops enter and exit Iraq in an intensely choreographed switch-over of forces scheduled to last through the spring, the largest such move since World War II. It is a period of high vulnerability, especially along the roads, authorities agree.

The military has enhanced its ability to detect and avoid roadside bombs, dispatching crews to sweep suspect routes and focusing forces on capturing and killing bomb makers — including the "rocket man," a former Iraqi air force colonel and scientist implicated in bomb manufacturing who was arrested in Fallouja. But insurgents have made the devices more deadly, packing artillery shells, other explosives and metal shrapnel into the charges placed along the highways and back roads of Iraq.

"As we make progress, the enemy makes progress," said Gen. Larry R. Ellis, head of U.S. Army Forces Command, who was visiting troops in Mosul last week. "What we've got to do is outthink the enemy and move faster than the enemy."

Throughout Iraq, U.S. authorities are gradually ceding security duties to the expanding legions of Iraqi police and civil defense units, who must deal with the constant threat of retaliation — and are much more exposed than their coalition allies. More than 300 Iraqi police and security personnel — including at least six police chiefs — have been killed since May.

U.S. commanders publicly laud the bravery of their Iraqi counterparts. But relations between police and the U.S. military have often been strained. All agree that Iraqi authorities are not ready to rein in the violence without U.S. help anytime soon.

Here in Fallouja, things started out badly in September when arriving soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division shot and killed eight police officers in an apparent case of mistaken identity. For strategic purposes, U.S. commanders have broken Fallouja, a city of 250,000, into districts named after sites in the New York City area. A major bridge over the Euphrates is known as the George Washington. The roughest zone, along the Euphrates at the city's western edge, is code-named the Bronx, say officers of the 1st Battalion of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which patrols the town.

"You get down to some parts of the Bronx and it's tough," said Drinkwine, a former hockey player at West Point who commands the 1st Battalion. "Sometimes you feel like you're wearing a Boston Red Sox hat."

Attacks against U.S. forces in the Fallouja area dropped sharply for about a week after Hussein's capture, said Col. Jefforey Smith, commander of the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, which occupies the zone. But the attacks edged back up.

Military authorities are hopeful that in the coming months, a new influx of U.S. aid will help foster goodwill among U.S. forces, police and hostile populations. Young men in places such as Fallouja often turn to the insurgency not for ideological reasons, officials say, but because firing off an AK-47 or rocket-propelled grenade at a passing convoy is one of the few reliable sources of income.

But commanders acknowledge that there is no immediate solution to the instability in this fractious land where resentment of America runs high and insurgent forces seem determined to keep on exacting casualties, military and civilian.

"Even if we hand out lollipops to these people, that's not to say they're going to love us," Lt. Col. Russell said in Tikrit. "They will always have a bit of reservation, which is understandable, and we will always provide assistance to them, as they need it, but will be on guard for those who would cause problems." Original link

I've said it before, and I'll type it again. The iraqis are acting no differently than we would if the tables were turned. If you can imagine an invading army getting rid of a loathed government, and subsequently occupying the U.S. one can only hope that we would rise up in opposition. This may not be a pretty thing to imagine, but it is the most likely scenario taking place in Iraq. Ordinary Iraqis opposed Saddam's rule, but were powerless to do anything about it. Now they are occupied by another force, and are acting like any individual with a spine would.