WASHINGTON, (AFP) - The US Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged it "lacked specific information" about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction when it compiled an intelligence estimate last year that served to justify the US-led invasion of Iraq.

I missed this story when I was off in Iraq entertaining the troops with the USO tour early this week:

November 25, 2003 -- A sneak-attack caller yesterday launched Rush Limbaugh into a defense against charges he was a hypocrite for demanding tough sentences for drug users while he himself was taking black-market pain killers.

"It's not hypocritical because my behavior doesn't determine the value of right and wrong - nobody's does," Limbaugh told listeners.

The caller "Mike from Miami" had made an innocent comment about a congressional vote and then suddenly blurted, "How do you equate hypocrisy and addiction, pillhead?"

I'll post the audio here as soon as I find a copy.

mclusky@overspun.com (hint, hint)

Reading the varying accounts of the episode it's funny how NewsMax covers it- saying that "radio megastar Rush Limbaugh" could have hit the dump button as he most certainly usually does when he's losing an argument. Not hitting the button shouldn't be applauded, hell, Howard Stern is called a "hook-nosed Jew bastard" and various other names by callers nearly every day- he never hits the button unless there's something the FCC would fine him for.

His response which took place after a commercial break (he had time to think about it!!!) was totally incoherent. I for one hope this call didn't cause a relapse. I guess we'll know if he starts dropping weight again.

The comparisons between Bush's campaign stop in Baghdad and Hitler's little jaunt to Paris are coming fast and furious... It seems like we are making all the same mistakes that others in history made.

Another example:

When the British captured Baghdad in 1917, defeating the Ottomans, Gen. Stanley Maude made a declaration to the Iraqis:

"People of Baghdad, remember for 26 generations you have suffered under strange tyrants who have ever endeavoured to set one Arab house against another in order that they might profit by your dissensions. This policy is abhorrent to Great Britain and her Allies for there can be neither peace nor prosperity where there is enmity or misgovernment. Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators."

Sound familiar?

Our president needs a history lesson quick, before he kills again.

The cowed media labels the trip "heroic" and "courageous," but of course the 130,000 people he left behind in Iraq are the true heros. If Bush uses this footage in a campaign ad it will hurt him, badly. Using soldiers as extras for a campaign ad would be unforgivable. Not to mention the cost of the trip should come out of campaign funds...

Er... turkey, chicken... same difference...

WASHINGTON - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch said Tuesday he had put one of his staffers on administrative leave for improperly obtaining data from the secure computer networks of two Democratic senators.

Hatch, R-Utah, said preliminary interviews suggested that a former Republican member of the committee staff may have also been involved in penetrating the Democratic computers.

"I was shocked to learn that this may have occurred," Hatch said in a statement. "I am mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."

Yeah, keep those eyes peeled there, Orrin...

Bwahaha!
You go London!

Spaz.

That's all I'm saying ...

"Sure, all that is just what's happening in people's lives, but what we need is the Big Picture. Well, the Big Picture is that after September 11, we had the sympathy of every nation on Earth. They all signed up, all our old allies volunteered, everybody was with us, and Bush just booted all of that away. Sneering, jeering, bad manners, hideous diplomacy, threats, demands, arrogance, bluster.

'In Afghanistan, Bush rode a popular tide; Iraq, however, was a singular act of presidential will,' says Krauthammer.

"You bet your ass it was. We attacked a country that had done nothing to us, had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, and turns out not to have weapons of mass destruction."

More ...

Police Peruse Pigboy's Past Purchases of Prescription Pain Pills Pre-2003. Perhaps Pound-You-In-The-Ass Prison Possible? Probably!

ABC's Brian Ross reports that in 2001 Limbaugh had taken between 30 to 40 cash withdrawals from his account in amounts just under $10,000.
A $10,000 withdrawal triggers a suspicious activity report that's filed with the federal government as a matter of course.
From the report:
"Limbaugh's lawyers confirm [!] that as part of US Trusts service a bank employee personally delivered the cash to Limbaugh at his New York studio, in amounts of about $9,900."
US Trust Bank paid a $10,000,000 fine in 2001 for Limbaugh's suspicious transactions and others like them.

Looks like Rush picked the wrong week to stop taking amphetamines.

Developing HARD!

We need a guy like this running things...

According to an old adage, there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. But, as U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist may have learned this week, on the Internet it can be hard to tell which is which.
Continue...

Alabama's judicial ethics panel removed Chief Justice Roy Moore from office Thursday for defying a federal judge's order to move a stone Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Court building.

Senator Bill Frist (R- Moron) put up a poll on his web site earlier today asking:

When Senator Reid mentioned that the poll wasn't supporting Frist's position, Frist simply changed the question- asking instead, "Should the Senate be prevented from exercising its Constitutional duty to provide the President's judicial nominees with an up or down vote," flipping the meaning of Yes and No without resetting the numbers... The "Yes" votes started rolling in.

Then for a while the question was changed to the ambiguous, "Should the Senate from exercise its Constitutional duty to provide the President's judicial nominees with an up or down vote?" When "Yes" overtook "No" the question was flipped again so "No" was the opposition. The "No" vote once again took over and the question was flipped once again.

Finally the poll was closed moments after this screen shot:


After the poll closed the question was changed again:

TexasPatriot points out that they kept counting votes after the polls closed. Could it be that Diebold is running this poll? That would explain a lot...

Link to incriminating screen caps. - Feel free to use them however you see fit. I don't have caps from early on, but these cover a couple of flip-flops and the final flop, switching the question after the fact. (Yes, I do have the google toolbar installed, and obviously I did finally find a copy of PrintKey)

Here's Atrios's post pointing out the first flip-flops...

This stuff is great!

THE COURT: Let me ask you about that: Mr. O'Reilly uses in his book "the good, the bad and the completely ridiculous." Is that not a play on "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"?

MS. HANSWIRTH: I don't know.

THE COURT: You don't know whether that's a play on "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

MS. HANSWIRTH: I don't know.

THE COURT: Well, assume that it is. Is that not a play on a trademarked phrase?

MS. HANSWIRTH: That's a title of a movie.

THE COURT: Yes. And I assume there's some kind of protection for the title of the movie "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

MS. HANSWIRTH: Your Honor, there generally --

THE COURT: I think that I have in some of the papers, it might have been the amicus brief, a representation that the phrase "the good, the bad and the ugly" is a trademarked phrase.

MS. HANSWIRTH: I don't know that that's the case. And I don't know --

THE COURT: Well, I mean, isn't Mr. O'Reilly doing exactly the same thing using a trademarked phrase in the title of his book? The good, the bad --

MS. HANSWIRTH: He's not doing it to confuse. He's certainly not using it to sell the product.

A group of more than two dozen House of Representatives Democrats on Monday said they had introduced a resolution urging President Bush to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
All late comers are still welcome aboard!

This article describes the experience of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was deported from the US to Syria in September of 2002.

After being starved, deprived of sleep, and being told he's not allowed to see a lawyer while in U.S. custody he was told he was being deported not to Canada (where he was headed anyway) but to Syria.

He told U.S. officials that he was worried he'd be tortured if he was sent back to Syria.

They didn't care.

He was more right than he could have imagined.

Link

While reading this account I kept hoping to read later today that this was a fake but nothing so far indicates that it's anything but the truth.

Our country knowingly sent this guy to get tortured or worse. We need to do something about this.

... on account of they keep gettin' shot down by enemies of freedom.

Another helicopter was shot down yesterday. Sure, that means progress to the Bush administration, but the rest of us humans think about how many families are destroyed by every one of these incidents. Is it worth this?

We can't just cut bait and leave, but step one to fixing the problem is putting the current administration out of work. One more year for our troops in mortal danger- that's terrible, but it's better than five more years.

Here's my tribute to that wacko who thought this stone monument was his God. It's my lame attempt to capture a moment that this guy will be unjustifiably proud of for the rest of his life.

I don't actually see hate on the faces of the workers, but the guy had a different angle, so maybe they do hate God.

"Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct an independent search."

I think the message here is clear- we were going to invade no matter what. This isn't a shock to those of us who knew the Bush administration had no interest in a peaceful resolution. There's no money in that...

Link

Broadcast flag approved, TiVo goes out of business. (Okay, not yet...)

President Bush this week said the attacks on our troops are a sign of progress in Iraq. Boy, we had tons of progress last night! Thirteen dead (so far) after a helicopter was shot down near Baghdad airport.

I'm sure there will be tons more "progress" today.

I guess it begs the question, why are we hiding soldiers' flag draped caskets from the press? I would think the administration would be proud to show us all these incredibly positive signs of progress we're seeing almost every day.

War is Peace
Ignorance is Strength
Regress is Progress


UPDATE 9:13 AM:
The death toll/Success rate has increased by two- total of 15 deaths/success markers are being reported at this hour. All good news for the Bush White House.
UPDATE 11:19 PM:
Make that 16. I heard the president dedicates a wanking session to each soldier he's gotten killed. His prolific masturbation habits result in a smaller backlog than one would expect.
UPDATE 11/5/03:
Make that 15 again. Hope the count keeps going down, no matter what kind of progress this signifies to the Prez...