Women Drivers: It's the Estrogen

Far from being a disparaging post about the fairer sex, this is a post positively fair ;)

The BBC is reporting on a study that may indicate that women are better drivers due to biology.

From across the pond:

The female hormone oestrogen could give women the edge when it comes to tasks such as safe driving, say researchers.
Tests showed attention span and ability to learn rules were far better among women than men.

The Bradford University scientists told a hormone conference in London how tasks requiring mental flexibility favour women over men.

A woman's oestrogen levels may prime the part of the brain involved in such skills - the frontal lobe - they said.

They asked 43 men and women aged 18-35 to perform a battery of neuropsychological tests that assessed skills such as spatial recognition memory, rule learning, attention, planning and motor control.

The women were far better at being able to shift their attention from one stimulus to another, making it easier for them to perform everyday actions like driving and reading.

This might explain why girls find it easier than boys to concentrate at school and why women are more careful drivers, the researchers hypothesise.

Of course there is more at link. It's worth a read, as other research is also cited - and lo, it indicates that men may be better at, "spatial skills such as map reading and parking may be difficult for some women because they had too little testosterone in the womb."

Hmmm. Too little testosterone = shitty map reading.

Okay, the obvious question that needs to be addressed is this: Has a man ever consulted a map - or any means of navigation - other than intuition?

That is one for the ages.

Gitmo Driver Drives Supremes

I know it's a good thing to have Osama's driver in the joint, but I am somehow left wanting.

I should note that I know little about law. I've had attorneys sue a few clients for money owed over the years, but that, and some real estate law are the only things with which I have any experience. I'm not going to play legal expert. Okay? Good.

I'll let the CS Monitor set the table.

WASHINGTON -- A year and a half ago, the US Supreme Court delivered a blunt message to the White House: War is not a blank check entitling the president to violate the constitutional liberties of American citizens.

The decision resulted in the release of Yasser Hamdi, a dual US and Saudi citizen, who had been held indefinitely in a military prison without charge or access to a lawyer.

On Monday, the nation's highest court set the stage for the next major constitutional showdown over President Bush's ongoing war on terror. The issue is whether the president has the authority to put AlQaidaa suspects on trial before military commissions at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In agreeing to take up the appeal of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the high court will examine government efforts to empanel a military-run war-crimes tribunal to weigh charges against Mr. Hamdan and three other terror suspects.

Such tribunals mark the first time in a half-century that the US government is relying on ad hoc military commissions to mete out justice rather than civil federal courts or the military justice system.

Of course, this White House appears to ignore 'blunt messages.' Be they in the form of a Supreme Court ruling, or a Presidential Daily Briefing stating that "bin Laden [is] Determined To Strike in US."

Vacationing is so much more fun than national security - unless your accomodations are at Camp X-Ray. But I digress.

A bit more:

The Hamdan case raises fundamental issues, including the scope of the president's power to detain and place on trial any foreign national deemed to be an enemy combatant. In urging the high court to take up the Hamdan case immediately, Hamdan's lawyer, Neal Katyal, drew upon a lesson from American history. He compared the Hamdan dispute to landmark Supreme Court case upholding the supremacy of civilian courts over an effort by President Abraham Lincoln to rely on military tribunals to quickly and efficiently prosecute suspected supporters of the Confederacy.

"At issue is whether the president can supersede established civilian and military judicial systems," Mr. Katyal says in his brief. "No graver question was ever considered by this court, nor one which more nearly concerns the rights of the whole people," he writes, quoting Ex Parte Milligan, an 1866 Supreme Court decision.

Of note to the curious, yet uninformed observer(that would be me):

1) Chief Justice John Roberts has recused himself from the case.

2) Allegedly, Hamdan was Osama's driver(motor vehicle, not camel - Osama only had one driver?) and is charged with being a member of al-Qaida.

Go ahead and read the article. It has lots of quotes from people with actual experience in matters of law. My concern is not only to point out that this White House cherry-picks what is or is not important - hence what to ignore - but to flag this case as one that seemingly has great implications for the governmental separation of powers. A fight which is being waged even as I type.

I also hope to not fall into the legal black-hole reserved for 'enemy non-combatants.'

Lefty Resource Center, Etc.

I'm about to make about another change to the template. I'm putting the "Little Lefty Resource Center" in the left hand column (see bottom left).

Update: I've also just completed a few other minor tweaks for the sake of readability.

Three other minor things.

I'm on a link swapping drive. My Google PR is 5...not bad considering I took over a year off from actively blogging. So, if you've got a site that you think might be a match..or something cool, leave a comment, or drop me an email. Don't make me beg, dammit!

Secondly, Al Franken's new book, The Truth (with jokes) is a great listen..I have the audiobook. I suspect that the print version is a good read. Lots of good stuff in the book to use as a cudgel against Right-Wing BS.

Lastly, well, there is nothing more to say 'cept, "Happy Monday all!"

If You Have Done Nothing Wrong...

..You have plenty to fear. WaPo exposes 'National Security Letter' abuses

No oversight? No sunset clause? If you're the FBI..No problem.

The PATRIOT Act has to be amongst the most onerous pieces of legislation ever to rammed down the throats of a frightened citizenry.

Read the article. Get active!

Intelligent Design Case Now In Judge's Hands

I have really struggled to steer clear of anything religious. I have no religous - or any other supernatural beliefs.

But when religion and science clash on something as profound as evolutionary theory, a stand must be taken.

The NYT has this little that article anyone with scientific training can dissect(no pun intended) in an instant.

Here's the bit:

The scientists who advocate intelligent design explained that the complexity of biological organisms and the "purposeful arrangement of parts" are evidence that there is a designer. They said their theory is not religious because they are not claiming the designer is God, since that is untestable.

Well, I spent 8 years at university learning - in part anyway - what a 'scientific theory' is...and it is above all, testable.

End.
Of.
Argument.

Another Day, Another Poll

This one via ABS News

Flashy title: "Poll: Issues Favor Dems in 2006 Elections"

Then we get to the issues, and there is some odd editorial mixed in with the results. First, the results:

Opportunity is there for the Democrats: Capitalizing on George W. Bush's troubles, the party has a 12-point advantage over the Republicans in trust to handle the nation's main problems, and it leads in nine of 10 individual issues, with some huge gains from three years ago. In the tenth -- Bush's trademark, handling terrorism -- the Democrats run even.

Sampling, data collection and tabulation for this poll were done by TNS.

Indeed, 55 percent of Americans in this ABC News/Washington Post poll say they'd like to see the Democrats take control of Congress in 2006. And if the election were today, registered voters would favor the Democrat in their congressional district by 52-37 percent.

That 15-point margin is numerically the biggest for the Democrats since an ABC/Post poll in September 1984 (they ultimately lost 14 seats), although about the same as a 14-point Democratic lead in one poll in 1996 (when they gained nine).

Okay, great. Then there is this crown jewel of journalistic insight: "The Democrats' advantage on issues extends to some surprising areas -- Iraq and the economy, for example -- and show striking gains from late 2002."

Excuse me? This comes as a surprise to whom exactly? A question that will go unanswered for now.

Onward! To the charts!

Which Party Do You Trust to Handle... 
Democrats Republicans 
Economy   56%   34% 
Social Security   56   29 
Education   55   32 
Health Care   54   29 
Taxes   48   38 
Iraq   48   37 
Federal Budget   48   34 
Gas Prices   47   26 
Terrorism   42   42 
Ethics   42   36 


So does their edge in attributes: They hold a 10-point lead, 50-40 percent, as the
 party that "better represents your personal values."

Party Attributes 
Democrats Republicans 
Is more open to ideas of political moderates   60%   24% 
Is more concerned with needs of people like you   56   33 
Better represents your values   50   40 
Has stronger leaders   35   51

As always, I left the tables as found. No fancy formatting.

Okay, so the GOP is viewed as having stronger leaders, whilst this stronger leadership has fallen flat on virtually every issue? I think I have the interpretation right.

[Short digression]

If you've recently filled out a survey at a major retailer, the survey typically starts off with a general question about your shopping experience. Then the survey progresses to the specifics of your shopping experience. Then - and this is the important bit - the survey brings you back to the general question about your shopping experience after having qualified you by asking you specifics about your experience.

The qualifying questioning may cause inconsistencies between a shopper's initial response and their latter one. This provides the surveyor with a more accurate picture of your shopping experience than asking a simple series of random questions.
[/Short digression]

I'm certain that I'm the only one that finds it ironic that: GOP leaders - Great! GOP policy - Asinine!

With polls, it's the trend that matters. That said, if the GOP can't pull out of their tailspin, it looks pretty good for 'the other party' in 2006.

NYT Intel Bombshell

I was going to title this post: "Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!" As I purchesed the NYT this morning prior to logging on and checking the front page online..Anyway, the Douglas Jehl piece that E&P referenced here, and we(well me actually) reported here is available online. *sigh*

There goes my coffee allowance for a day ;)

Moving right along, here is the NYT piece. The article is essentially a verbatim review of the information that E&P released yesterday. There is more detail, but the bullet points outlined by E&P are the major, relevant ones.

It'll be interesting to see if this issue is brought up on any of the Sunday 'news shows.' The tie-in to the Democrat's call for a closed session of the Senate makes for the obvious segue.

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

Since I already 'spilled the beans' on the NYT's really big story, here's another from the Grey Lady concerning the White House's attempts to distance itself(themselves?) from the Plame outing case.

No spoiler here, just this bit near the end:

He[President Bush] will be away from Washington for much of the rest of the month. After returning from a trip to South America, Mr. Bush will leave for a week in Asia and then will spend Thanksgiving at his ranch in Texas.

When he returns, allies of the White House said, he hopes to regain traction by moving smoothly ahead with Judge Alito's nomination, shifting the focus to the policies he intends to emphasize next year, including reduced government spending and an overhaul of the immigration and border control systems, and making a more effective case for why victory in Iraq is vital.

The whole reduced gov't. spending issue has to viewed from the vantage point of: from what level? Hey, the National Debt. is only a touch over 8 TRILLION DOLLARS. Not to worry, I'm sure that George has a plan that'll not only cut taxes, but pass the debt onto generations yet unborn. And we know how precious the unborn are to the GOP...If that's not irony, then I don't kno...Okay, I forgot where I was going with that ;)

Remember, The Boondocks tonight.

The Boondocks

Premiering on [adult swim] tomorrow night 11 PM Eastern.



Being a huge fan of the strip, I know I'll either really ♥ or loathe the show.

See you there!

NYT To Release 'Smoking Gun' on Cooked Iraqi Pre-War Intel?

According to the ever resourceful folks at Editor and Publisher(E&P), the answer seems to be....Maybe.

Tomorrow, in its print edition, The New York Times starts to answer the question, with reporter Douglas Jehl disclosing the contents of a newly declassified memo apparently passed to him by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

It shows that an al-Qaeda official held by the Americans was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the basis for its claims that Iraq trained al-Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to this Defense Intelligence Agency document from February 2002.

It declared that it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, "was intentionally misleading the debriefers" in making claims about Iraqi support for al-Qaeda's work with illicit weapons, Jehl reports.

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

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

I'll not rush to judgement - especially given The Times penchant for mis-handling recent events - but I'll have to pop for a copy on the morrow.

If this claim has merit, it could blow the White House's denials regarding pre-war intelligence manipulation right into the hopper.

Stay Tuned!

WH Dispenses 'Alitoganda' - To the GOP!

Fascinating bit of cherry-picking.

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's opinions on abortion, discrimination and other contentious issues are the work of a mainstream jurist, not the ideologue depicted by critics, the White House argues in a voluminous briefing book meant for Republican senators.

Alito's dissent in a 1991 abortion ruling showed "concern for the safety of women," the material says. By approving a requirement for spousal notification, he "reflected the position advanced by the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania."

A 1996 dissent in a sex discrimination case in which Alito sided with the employer shows he "simply questioned the wisdom of a 'blanket rule'" on dismissing such complaints before trial, in the White House view.

For an argument that his guy is mainstream, the material presented is pretty thin. There is more at the link, but it looks pretty inconsistent.

If the White House feels that Alito needs shoring up with the GOP, it certainly signals something - or perhaps a series of things.

The fact that Bush is really weak right now is all too clear, and if Alito fails to get confirmed, it'll be a further sign of weakness.

The other thing that may be happening here is that the White House is showing the Republican senators that while this guy is firmly in the conservative camp, he's palatable enough to dish out to the public as a mainstream(whatever the hell that means) jurist.

I don't buy a bit of it. I mean look at this, the White House is trying to point out that Alito's views are nuanced, but what I mostly see are his limitations as a representative of all Americans.

In Whitehousespeak: "Well sure, he voted this way on this case, BUT..." That my gentle reader, is pure spin.

Weird (polling) Science

This really leaves one with an uneasy feeling. The results and a partial abstract of this AP-Ipsos poll are troubling from the first sentence.

The Associated Press-Ipsos poll on public attitudes about President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, is based on telephone interviews with 1,006 adults from all states except Alaska and Hawaii and areas heavily damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. Because of hurricane damage, Ipsos did not try to interview respondents in Louisiana, southern Mississippi and central and southern Florida.

The interviews in the rest of the country were conducted Oct. 31-Nov. 2 by Ipsos, an international polling firm.

Results were weighted to represent the population by demographic factors such as age, sex, region, race and income.

No more than one time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than 3 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all Americans were polled.

There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions. Results may not total 100 percent because of rounding.

Well, I guess some folks just plain count(no pun intended) for more than others. Of course it has always been so. Okay, I understand not wanting to spend the money in the states affected by the hurricane season - ya know, busy signals, downed lines and the like. Or, it may be that (dons tin-foil blogging hat) Ipsos felt that the people in Lose-yana and the other places most affected by the hurricane-season-that-won't-end might have a less favorable view of anything with Bush's name attached. I cannot fathom as to why.

But why exclude Alaskans and Hawaiians? Again, I think the short answer is money.

What follows is why quickie polls are inherently flawed. This taken from the above referenced article.

1. As you may know, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring,
 and President Bush has nominated Samuel Alito to replace her. Is your opinion of 
Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito favorable, unfavorable, or haven't you heard
 enough about Samuel Alito yet to have an opinion?

_Favorable, 20 percent _ Miers-19, Roberts-25

_Unfavorable, 14 percent _ Miers, 13, Roberts 14

_Haven't heard enough to yet have an opinion, 64 percent _ Miers-67, Roberts-59

_Not sure, 2 percent _ Miers-1, Robert-2

2. Do you think the U.S. Senate should or should not vote to confirm Harriet Miers
 as a Supreme Court justice? Do you feel strongly or not strongly about that?

Total should vote to confirm _ 38 percent _ Miers-41, Roberts-47

_Feel strongly, 22 percent _ Miers-19, Roberts-36

_Do not feel strongly, 16 percent, Miers-22, Roberts-11

Total should not vote to confirm _ 22 percent, Miers-27, Roberts-24

_Feel strongly, 13 percent _ Miers-13, Roberts-16

_Do not feel strongly, 9 percent _ Miers-14, Roberts-8

Not sure, 40 percent _ Miers-32, Roberts-29

Sorry about the formatting. But that is how it is displayed.

Okay, at least people were given a 'haven't heard enough' option. However, this is a far cry from 'don't know enough.'

And I guess we may never know how much the people in our 49th and 50th states feel about the Miers miasma, the Alito (right-wing) annointing, or the Roberts reassurance.

The 'Other Americans' Say NO to FTAA!

This piece comes from CBS Marketwatch a Dow Jones Co. aligned with the 'business community'(code phrase: Bush sycophant)

Note: Access to source article may require registration, or simply a copy and paste into Google(that works, too)

Okay. Without further ado:

Hopes of uniting the hemisphere from Canada to Chile within a common free trade zone were stalled until further notice as the Americas Summit wrapped up Saturday without even a blueprint for advancing the proposal.

President George Bush attended the two-day summit in Mar Del Plata, Argentina hoping to burnish relations between the United States and the region, as well as inject new vigor into the decade-old proposal to create the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

But the resort area just south of Buenos Aires quickly became a magnet for anti-U.S. demonstrators led by Venezuela's populist leader Hugo Chavez and became the scene of fiery violence as some protestors torched stores and battled with riot police.

Chavez, who has repeatedly accused Bush of wanting to invade his oil-rich nation, triumphantly gathered with local icons, such as famed soccer player Diego Maradona, and declared the deal dead at a peacefully stadium rally that attracted more than 20,000 protestors.

"Every one of us has brought a shovel, because Mar del Plata is going to be the tomb of F.T.A.A.," Mr. Chavez told a crowd carrying banners calling Bush a "fascist," "child-killer" and "genocidal-beast," the New York Times reported.

"F.T.A.A. is dead, and we, the people of the Americans, are the ones who buried it."

Chavez believes Latin American and Caribbean nations should band together and reject U.S. style capitalism, instead adopting more socialist inspired ideals.

Whether or not Chavez is paranoid should certainly be open to reasoned debate, but what is beyond debate is that the US will allow capitalism without democracy, but is not openly fond of democracy without capitalism. Indeed, a close look at US trade policy shows the second option to be intolerable.

Even I don't think that Bush deserves the epithets cast his way. Not ALL of them anyway.

As I noted in an earlier post, I'm not going to address all the negative aspects of neo-liberal trade policies. In fact, I'm not going to address any of them without a proper exegesis. So there!

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

For a much fuller view of the FTAA breakdown - other than Chavez is the root of all evil - see News A La Mexicana

WH Staffers To Go To School!

In an effort - one can presume - to purge his administration from any further improper handling of classified information, GW Bush has instructed his staffers to attend ethics classes. Reuters has the goods. A snippet:

White House officials will be required to attend briefings next week on ethics and the handling of classified information after the indictment last week of a senior official in the CIA leak probe, according to a memo released on Saturday.

The White House counsel's office will conduct a series of presentations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for those aides with security clearances.

"Your attendance at one of these sessions is mandatory," said a memo to White House staff from White House counsel Harriet Miers.

The memo was released in Mar del Plata, where President George W. Bush was attending a 34-nation Summit of the Americas.

The briefings will provide a refresher course on general ethics rules, including "the rules governing the protection of classified information," the memo said.

How quaint. White House staffers, who may or may not be still under the microscope of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigatory team, need a little brushing up on how to properly out a CIA operative. Oops. That's clearly not what I meant.

Anyway, one session, and you get a gold star from the president. How did we ever get to this point?

Sources in the WH have told pure bs that the classes are to be called: Handling Intelligence - If it Ain't Illegal, it's cool with George.

Stuff of Note

Just a few things from the usual suspects.

John Dean sees more in the Libby indictment than most(and let's face it, this guy knows a thing or three about federal cases) It's good.(hint: RBC)

Those fine folks at E&P have the lowdown on Lawrence Wilkerson's(Powell's former chief of staff) latest bombshell..Cheney responsible for prisoner abuse. I though Rummy was the chief player here.

And finally, also via E&P by way of the AP, the Orange Park, FL principal censors(nixes, really) an article about the reality of homosexuality. (spoiler - the student gets the issue almost exactly as scientists describe, and the gendarme of the school freaks)

So, two Cheney revelations(maybe) and a freedom of the press/speech/civil rights issue for your perusal.

If you are looking for a relatively impartial US source of news, Knight-Ridder's Washington Bureau is a good bet. On today's front page, there's a good read about 'wrongful incarceration in Iraq,' and the erosive effect that long, wrongful detainment is having on Iraqi's new government. These are Iraqi run facilities, not a US run prison, the abuses of which we're now so used to hearing.

Gotta bail for a while.

Drilling Polar Bears, and Still Screwing the Poor

From the NYT

The budget bill, the most ambitious effort to curb federal spending in eight years, was approved by a vote of 52 to 47. Five Republicans opposed the measure; two Democrats voted for it.

Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said, "This bill is a reflection of the Republican Congress's commitment to pursue a path of fiscal responsibility."

It will, Mr. Gregg said, reduce the deficit and save roughly $35 billion over the next five years.

Democrats said the savings would disappear and the deficit would increase if Republicans carried out their plan to cut taxes by $70 billion later this year.

The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, called the budget "an immoral document" that "harms vulnerable Americans to provide another round of large tax breaks for the elite of this country, special interests and multimillionaires."

Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, told a Congressional committee on Thursday that lawmakers should not extend President Bush's tax cuts if they could not make up for the lost revenue.

Sure. After spending us into an 8 trillion dollar deficit - not in any small part due to a certain unneccessary, unpopular and quite probably illegal war, these 'deficit hawks' are now crowing about their "fiscal responsibility." Give me a break.

For the record, the Senators that 'broke party ranks' are:

The Republican senators who voted against the budget bill were Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. The Democrats voting for the bill were Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Gregg's voting record has almost always been in lockstep with Bush's desires..Despite his self described pride as being 'an independent voice' in Washington - he's a foot soldier for Bush. In NH, this is pretty common knowledge.

I think that all Senators' voting record should be front and center in 2006 and 2008.

How did your Senators vote? Roll Call has the goods.

I was going to post something earlier about my feelings regarding neo-liberal trade policies, as the Argentinians would most likely enjoy Bush tarred and feathered or worse, but it's such a vast complex topic, that I need to do some real work before making the case against liberalised trade.

Template Update!

Well, for my one reader that has been following along ;) My new and compliant template is ready for primetime. Expect it to go live by Sunday evening, whilst I test it out in the more obscure browsers.

The only thing that I cannot seem to get to display properly, and I have tried every CCS trick that I know of, is that when viewed in IE, there is ugly whitespace above the subject division. This is due to some bizarre interaction with the new Javscript used to display the Blogger header. *sigh* I'll live with it for now.

Sharp readers will no doubt see that I have added a link(right upper) to my soon to be off-site Lefty Resource Center. It's actually live now, so feel free to click. My plan is to expand the Resource Center with four columns of stuff that Left-of-Center minded individuals might find of interest. I may even use a script-generated page that requires no database that I wrote in PERL a while back for a photographer friend.

That issue will remain fluid as I decide on how I want to update The Center. Since I keep all my HTML files locally, it's sort of a toss-up as to how I'm going perform updates.

If you have any ideas on what I could add - or subtract - please do not hesitate to email me, or respond with a comment.

Another option that I toyed with was having a javascript popup display on this page when the link was opened. Because The Center is something I'd like to grow, I've decided that I'll simply add a bit of code to have the page open in a new broswer window.

Again, any thoughts to the contrary are always appreciated.

EDIT: New template now live!

A Day, Sans Blogging

Well, I did it. I didn't blog at all yesterday.

I do a bit of teaching two nights per week. It's a little intro. to computers thing that is kind of fun to do. If I had to assign a title to last night's class, it might be something along the lines of, 'The Windows Registry: Fragile and a pane in the ass.'

I wouldn't bring this up, but last night, one of my darling students gave me Al Franken's latest, The Truth (with jokes)..in audiobook format no less!

I only casually mentioned during my introduction to this crop of students that my political philosophy lies somewhere to left of Chomsky.

Then I get this wonderful gesture.

I can hardly wait to wake up, caffeinate heavily, and start listening!

Why Did The GOP 'Re-Open the Investigation?'

Perhaps this piece by Murray Waas has the answer. (hat tip to C&L)

The Senate Democratic leadership over the course of the last several days has had discussions among themselves, along with senior congressional staff, about the possibility of pressing the Senate to appoint a special Senate select committee to investigate both the misuse of pre-war intelligence by the Bush administration to make the case to go to war with Iraq, as well as the Plame affair, according to at least three people who have been involved in those discussions.

"There is just a resolve on this issue that is not going to go away," said one person involved in the leadership discussions. One source said that although the discussions are preliminary, they were contemplating such a select committee in the tradition of the Senate Watergate committee, the Church committee-- which investigated abuses of the CIA and other intelligence agencies in the 1970s, or the joint congressional Iran-contra committees: "There is a historical model as to how this might be done."

As always, much more at link.

Surely the GOP either knew about this prior to yesterday's 'demonstration,' or if Waas' account is accurate, they unquestionably must now know.

One must always follow the ball. It's too close to the 2K6 elections to have the WH, and their minions in the Senate - of which one-third will be up for de-selection, erm....re-election, embroiled in controversy. The appointment of a special committee to get to the heart of a metter that the GOP claimed that they would handle, plainly looks bad.

Because of the likely, long nature of the investigation, and the gravity of the issues it would have been addressing, it's a no-brainer that the GOP would prefer to compromise..To which they really didn't agree - rather merely pledge to finish a job that they half-finished in July 2004.

A fun quote from yesterday:

Bill Frist: "They[Democrats] are without convictions"

Terrific quote for a guy under invstigation by the SEC and the Justice Dept.

pure bs Correction!

In the post below titled, "Reid Dumps Alito From News Cycle!," I made a sweeping statement about closed Senate sessions.

Then there is CBS' Bob Fuss' assertion that, "There has not been a closed session in 25 years." Um..Wrong!

On 8, Jan. 1999, the Senate had a closed session to discuss the impeachment process of one William Jefferson Clinton. There were six sessions about the fellated fellow. Of course there have been a few other instances in the last quarter century..But hey, I'm a semi-conductor engineer. My work depends on accuracy ;)

Since my work does indeed depend on accuracy, it is my duty to give you, my gentle readers the whole truth.

CBS News political corresondent Bob Fuss was probably mis-quoted. A more correct statement about closed Senate sessions would read something like, "There has not been a closed session in 25 years, where the other side wasn't consulted beforehand"(publicly, one can only assume, as what goes on - or went on behind closed doors - prior to Reid's remarkable day can never really be known)

You may think that this is a trifling distinction, but in the interest of accurate blogging, it needs to be aired.

Sorry about any mis-conceptions my earlier post may have caused.

G WTF? Bush

"In my administration, we will ask not only what is legal but what is right, not just what the lawyers allow but what the public deserves." - GW Bush Oct. 26, 2000

So, George...Wtf?

Reid Dumps Alito From News Cycle!

Give 'em hell, Harry!
I must say...I know, I'm breaking my self-imposed day off, but this certainly warrants comment.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has, by virtue of forcing a closed-session in the Senate today, has blown Alito from the headlines.

Call it partisan, call it what you will, Reid's questions are something that all Americans should be demanding answers to.(ending sentence with a preposition, eh, I'm tired)

His timing was simply genius.

Volleying the ball back to the Rove-Iraq-war-rationale-Wilson-outing was almost too good to believe.

There are a couple of things noteworthy about the press coverage. Read Bill 'serial cat killer' Frist's foaming ad-hominem attack.

Then there is CBS' Bob Fuss' assertion that, "there has not been a closed session in 25 years." Um..Wrong!

On 8, Jan. 1999, the Senate had a closed session to discuss the impeachment process of one William Jefferson Clinton. There were six sessions about the fellated fellow. Of course there have been a few other instances in the last quarter century..But hey, I'm a semi-conductor engineer. My work depends on accuracy ;)

So, the cover-up of an exra-marital affair gets six closed sessions, while matters of grave national security deserve none? That's the GOP's take.

Wrapping up, the WH got a one-day pass. Brilliant!

No-Blogging Tuesday!

I'm really tired, and hence will not be adding any innuendo, rumor, or facts, to your day today.

Truth is, my mom has the 'Big C'(hepatic lymphoma), and I've been caring for two households. Her prognosis is very good, but I am emotionally and physically exhausted.

Hope to see you tomorrow!