We found the WMDs! We found the WMDs! (oh, they're from us... never mind).

A cache of missiles that were made in the United States found in Iraq

One awkward find was a cache of missiles that were made in the United States.

Though details of the discovery are classified, sources in Washington say that military and intelligence agencies launched an urgent investigation to find out how the weapons got to Iraq and whether American firms might have violated U.N. embargoes and U.S. laws. Recently the inquiry was abandoned when convincing evidence turned up that the missiles had been exported legally from the United States to Iraq in the years before the first gulf war, when American policymakers cozied up to Saddam as a counterbalance to Iranian ayatollahs.

- rob 1:41 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Krugman: Toward One-Party Rule

Scary stuff.

- rob 1:39 PM - [PermaLink] -

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US Senate leader says weapons of mass destruction not main cause of Iraq war

"I'm not sure that's the major reason we went to war," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told NBC television's Today Show.

I'm not sure either, we agree on something I guess.

Frist said Saddam's brutal record as a dictator alone was sufficient justification for his ouster.

Then why did we deal with him so 'lovingly' in the eighties? I'm so confused. Well, Frist is a confusing guy, when he was a medical student he used to go to animal shelters and find cats caring homes (at least that is what he told the people there). He'd then take them home and skin them for practice. See here's where I'm confused, wasn't Frist training to be a doctor of humans?

- rob 1:38 PM - [PermaLink] -

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"Oh my God this tastes like [Florida Tab Water]"

EPA May Ease Its Drinking Water Rules

TAMPA - Every day, 640 million gallons of sewage in Florida is injected deep underground, where it's supposed to stay far away from drinking water supplies.

But what goes down is coming up, migrating into portions of the aquifer that cities and counties tap for their water supplies, a violation of current federal regulations governing drinking water.

Officials from the federal Environmental Protection Agency were in Tampa on Wednesday to get public opinion about a controversial proposal to relax those rules and allow what's called deep-well injection of sewage to continue, even if the treated effluent is mixing with drinking water.

Changes are opposed by environmental groups, but utilities - mainly in South Florida - want the regulations altered. The change would apply only to Florida.

Whitman just couldn't take it any more. She wanted to sleep at night I guess.

- rob 1:32 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Cafe Press runs our store, and they just sent me an email that says this:

Summer is here! Celebrate summer with CafePress.com's coupon promotion. Your customers can save $4 when they spend $30 or more. Coupon offer expires July 15, 2003. Coupon code: FREEDOM

so go crazy!

- rob 1:12 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Christian Broadcasting Network has proposed a link between the bad weather the US is experiencing this spring and the intensification of US efforts to bring peace to the Middle East. Can the rest of the world really have any respect left for this country?

- Alex 10:57 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Blogger has been updated, tell me your opinion:

Should quotes from articles look like this?

Or should they look like this?

thanks.

- rob 2:00 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush reading about the Goat.

I've harped on it here before, and I'm not saying it proves "he knew," I'm saying it proves tremendous incompetence. I really want to see this scene in the TV movie remake.

Here's a longer take of George on 9/11 reading about a Goat despite the nation being under attack. And folks when the second plane hit you KNEW we were under attack. You reacted. He didn't. He was the only person in American who could have ordered a passanger jet to be shot down. The Pentagon bieng hit did not have to have happened.

At 9:03 AM on 11 September 2001, the second airplane hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center. President Bush was in Florida, at the Emma T. Booker Elementary School, listening to children read. Chief of Staff Andrew Card came over and whispered in Bush's ear, "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack."

- rob 1:57 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Please visit BlackBoxVoting. Anyone who actually works on the web or in computers will tell you that computerized voting (with no paper trail) is a really bad idea. Caltech and MIT will tell you that too.

It is interesting to learn who the owners on these companies are. Or in this case, it is most interesting to learn that you can't know who the owners are.

Election.com, a struggling Garden City start-up scheduled to provide online absentee ballots for U.S. military personnel in the 2004 federal election, has quietly sold controlling power to an investment group with ties to unnamed Saudi nationals, according to company correspondence.

I'm just leaving it at that. But you don't have to be paranoid to think that nothing good is coming from that.

- rob 1:51 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Expert Said to Tell Legislators He Was Pressed to Distort Some Evidence

You know that headline should create a huge to do, but it won't. Oh well. Treason isn't what it used to me (you know featuring nudity and cigars).

WASHINGTON, June 24 — A top State Department expert on chemical and biological weapons told Congressional committees in closed-door hearings last week that he had been pressed to tailor his analysis on Iraq and other matters to conform with the Bush administration's views, several Congressional officials said today.

The officials described what they said was a dramatic moment at a House Intelligence Committee hearing last week when the weapons expert came forward to tell Congress he had felt such pressure.

By speaking out, they said, the senior intelligence expert, identified by several officials as Christian Westermann, became the first member of the intelligence community on active service to make this sort of admission to members of Congress.

- rob 2:28 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Please don't read this:

U.N. Report Sees 800 Qaeda Members at Large-Expert

The United Nations will issue a report next week showing Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda militant network has some 800 members ready to strike economic or tourist targets, a French consultant to the report said on Monday.

Roland Jacquard, head of the International Observatory on Terrorism, said bin Laden sent this "third generation of al Qaeda" from Afghanistan before U.S.-led forces toppled Kabul's Taliban leadership in November 2001.

The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the report would show that United Nations travel and arms sanctions on members of the al Qaeda network had not succeeded in capturing a single suspect person or weapon crossing international borders.

Because you must remember the invasion of Afganistan dealt Bin Laden a crippling blow... leaving al Qaeda without a heirarchy and left individual cells rudderless and thus powerless. The problem with having a CEO Administration is that no one there can conceive of any operation happening without several meetings occuring and without input of the "Steering Committee." Do they realize the invididual cells can basically do whatever they want that is within their "Mission Statement?" By the way their "Mission Statement" is basically translated as "To Do Bad Things."

Not sure if I got this (and others today) from Buzzflash or This Modern World or elsewhere, but thanks to whomever.

- rob 2:25 PM - [PermaLink] -

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You know this news is over a year old now, having been a cover story in Time a year ago, and having been mentioned elsewhere before that, but it is always good that it is brought up again (cause no one read it the first two times it seems).

Officials: U.S. Slow on Bin Laden Drones

When President Bush took office in January 2001, the White House was told that Predator drones had recently spotted Osama bin Laden as many as three times and officials were urged to arm the unmanned planes with missiles to kill the al-Qaida leader. But the administration failed to get drones back into the Afghan skies until after the Sept. 11 attacks later that year, current and former U.S. officials say.

Top administration officials discussed the mission to kill bin Laden as late as one week before the suicide attacks on New York and Washington, but they had not yet resolved a debate over whether the CIA or Pentagon should operate the armed Predators and whether the missiles would be sufficiently lethal, officials told The Associated Press.
...

The disappearance in 2001 of U.S. Predators from the skies over Afghanistan (news - web sites) is discussed in classified sections of Congress' report into pre-Sept. 11 intelligence failures and is expected to be examined by an independent commission appointed by the president and Congress, officials said.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA put the armed drones into the sky within days — and they soon played an important role in one of the early successes of the war on terror.

But do remember, despite that fact that the Bush White House was slow, incompetent, and infighting before 9/11, aren't we glad they were in charge? I mean cause they make us feel safer and all that stuff.

- rob 2:17 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The defense department is busy calling cities across American telling them how to celebrate the 4th. How best to display our love for Freedom!

His [Rumsfeld] staffers have been phoning city officials, including some in Orange County, and strongly urging them to structure Fourth of July celebrations around the war in Iraq.

"I got the impression that they had a list of every city in the nation that had applied for a pyrotechnics permit, and were calling them to persuade them to be part of the program," said one OC city official.

Maybe Rumsfeld’s just looking out for his boys, helping to make sure the troops get the thanks they deserve. But it’s not as if our servicemen aren’t already swamped in bunting, praise and patriotic country songs. Do they really need Washington to orchestrate the public mood for them?

Apparently. The project even has a name: Operation Tribute to Freedom, putatively overseen by Air Force general Richard B. Myer. Check out the website at www.defendamerica.mil/otf/photos/index.html. Therein, it is claimed that Pentagon officials had been "inundated" with requests from communities asking how they could show support for the troops. Another press release remarks on the "spontaneous" displays of support for the military. And there doubtless have been many.

So why, then, does the Department of Defense deem it necessary to cold-call cities to sell them on a military salute?

"It seemed pretty obvious they were just trying to manufacture more public support for their war," said the city official.

- rob 6:12 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Our President Is An Insane Religious Fanatic.

I don't know how else to interpret this:

According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."

He is getting instructions from God. Does God sound like Cheney? Does God drive a Hummer? Is God in a secret undisclosed location?

If he is getting instructions from God (because, who am I to question God?), why is he willing to put the peace process aside for the elections. Oh wait. God told him to blow things up... solving problems seems to be his own idea. God works in mysterious ways.

From: `Road map is a life saver for us,' PM Abbas tells Hamas

(link from either Buzzflash or This Modern World)

- rob 3:14 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Top Ten Conservative Idiots

3. John Warner
Senator John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (and therefore a very important and presumably knowledgeable man), visited Kabul recently to check up on how things are going over in Afghanistan (answer: poorly, but that's another story). Apparently Warner got a nasty surprise when he arrived at a training camp, only to be greeted by a French soldier. "What are they doing here?" demanded Warner. "They muckin' things up again?" In fact, French soldiers play a substantial role in the International Security Assistance Force which patrols Kabul and the surrounding areas, attempting to keep the peace and assisting with the rebuilding of Afghanistan. Funny, you'd think that as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Warner ought to know about things like that. But then, as Joe Conason so aptly put it in Salon: "Warner does better at looking like a senator than behaving like one."

4. The Bush Administration
Here's an interesting story: it seems that "dozens of people are showing up every day at a hospital near a defunct Iraqi nuclear plant, suffering from rashes, bloody noses and other symptoms of radiation poisoning," according to the Associated Press. So what? Well, again according to the Associated Press, "The Tuwaitha nuclear facility, 12 miles south of Baghdad, was left unguarded after Iraqi troops fled the area on the eve of the war. It is thought to have contained hundreds of tons of natural uranium and nearly two tons of low-enriched uranium, which could be used to make nuclear weapons. U.S. troops didn't secure the area until April 7. By then, looters from surrounding villages had stripped it of much of its contents." Um, so this is how we're preventing nuclear materials falling into the hands of terrorists, is it? Good job. Incidentally, U.S. troops had secured the oil fields by March 21...

- rob 3:05 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Funny Republican "dirty tricks"

Republicans for Sharpton

What could be more fun than watching the Democratic party implode right before your very eyes?

To help make this a reality, the folks at MetroSpy are encouraging all voters to support Al Sharpton for the Democratic nomination. Big Al has the ability to turn the 2004 Presidential race into one of the most fun and entertaining political campaigns in history. His bouffant hairdo and pimped-out suits are just the beginning. Al Sharpton has a talent for verbal comebacks and witty one liners that none of the other candidates can match. His straight face denials and outright whoppers are rivaled only by those of the former Iraqi Information Minister.

Just imagine a campaign with Al Sharpton as Democratic nominee. Every night, the evening news will look like an episode of 'Bloopers & Practical Jokes'. The debates will look like a 'Saturday Night Live' sketch and the circus around Florida polling places will be hysterical.

The end of democracy is now a comedy skit. Well, okay. Comedy is good.

- rob 3:03 PM - [PermaLink] -

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A lot of you are probably wondering when we are going to attack Syria. Well, we "might" have already. Not that I could find that out from an American news source:

US probes Syria bombing claim

A US attack on a convoy that was believed to have been carrying Iraqi leaders may have taken place inside neighbouring Syria, a Pentagon official has admitted.

At least five Syrian border guards were injured in the attack, which was carried out by US special forces backed by aircraft, US officials said.

Hey, but that's okay. Attacking other countries not officially involved in the conflict has never cause problems in the past (Cambodia anyone?).

- rob 2:53 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Paul Krugman seeing an obvious pattern of deception and denial, wonders, What will happen to our democracy? He cites specifically that thanks to "a magisterial article by John Judis and Spencer Ackerman in The New Republic we now know that top officials, including Mr. Bush, sought to convey an impression about the Iraqi threat that was not supported by actual intelligence reports."

I think we've fallen into a black hole from which no truth can escape. Caveat pre-emptor.

- Michael 1:15 AM - [PermaLink] -

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And for the "I'm Shocked" category:

Report Cast Doubt on Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection

In a nationally televised address last October in which he sought to rally congressional support for a resolution authorizing war against Iraq, President Bush declared that the government of Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to the United States by outlining what he said was evidence pointing to its ongoing ties with al Qaeda.

A still-classified national intelligence report circulating within the Bush administration at the time, however, portrayed a far less clear picture about the link between Iraq and al Qaeda than the one presented by the president, according to U.S. intelligence analysts and congressional sources who have read the report.

- rob 1:53 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Specter: U.S. should try two Palestinians in Israeli custody

Meanwhile Ashcroft has already sent a briefing to a federal court trying to urge the court to NOT allow foreigners to sue american companies in american courts for human rights abuses.

New rules for America:

1) You are a terrorist in some nation attacking another nation. Our courts will ACCEPT your case and allow you to be put to death in America.

2) You are an American company doing business in a foreign nation. You can KNOWINGLY hire guards who force the local villagers to forced labor and commit rapes and other crimes. You CANNOT be sued by these villagers in American courts. None of our business you know.

(thanks Matt for the link)

- rob 1:47 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Former General Wesley Clark basically states on air that he was told by the White House to lie about Saddam on the days that followed 9/11, and the press reports... nothing. From FAIR.

But the June 15 edition of NBC's Meet the Press was unusual for the buzz that it didn't generate. Former General Wesley Clark told anchor Tim Russert that Bush administration officials had engaged in a campaign to implicate Saddam Hussein in the September 11 attacks-- starting that very day. Clark said that he'd been called on September 11 and urged to link Baghdad to the terror attacks, but declined to do so because of a lack of evidence.

Here is a transcript of the exchange:

CLARK: "There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11, to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein."

RUSSERT: "By who? Who did that?"

CLARK: "Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.' I said, 'But--I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence."

- rob 1:42 PM - [PermaLink] -

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If, by some horrible accident, you lose all your memories of the past few years right before election day in 2004. Here is a site you look at:

One Thousand Reasons

One Thousand Reasons not to vote for Bush. It must have been hard to whittle it down to just a thou.

- rob 1:39 PM - [PermaLink] -

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