Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin passed this one along – I’ve been waiting for Sy Hersh to drop another shoe ever since his post Abu Ghraib speaking engagements, when he warned of even bigger Big Bad Stuff to come. And advised an interviewer that if he had a second passport, to keep it handy. You know… if Hersh is accurate about this story, the United States of America is contemplating using nuclear weapons against Iran, as one of many possible options (or threatened options) to pre-emptively end their own nuclear weapons program. If this country drops the Bomb, it will no…
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Utah
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Heh, it’s just not Sunday without reading the funnies! This one begged to be blogged. “You’re one of those lactose intolerants!” I loves me some whacked-out Bucky Katt. Early rising is usually not in the cards Chez Gique on the weekends, but there’s something about spring mornings that makes it a little easier to bestir oneself. Of course, we have 3 functioning alarm clocks (one feline), so our pre- and post-dawn routine follows a comfortable pattern. This morning, most unusually, I got up a couple of hours before absolutely necessary and fetched the laptop for a little Sunday morning blogging…
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This was another story I spotted the other day, but didn’t have time to finish (okay, shouldn’t really have started it at work, and then didn’t get around to publishing it til now. Chicago Tribune | U.S. Will Pass on Rights Council, for Now UNITED NATIONS — The United States has decided not to seek a seat on the new U.N. Human Rights Council for now, preferring instead to see how it takes shape, a U.S. official said Thursday. “We’re going to take a wait and see attitude,” the U.S. official said, speaking in from Washington on condition of anonymity…
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This week’s big news was the revelation that “Scooter” Libby testified to the grand jury that he had been given clearance by President Bush via Vice President Cheney to leak classified information about Valerie Plame’s work with the CIA to Judith Miller of the New York Times. I wanted to compare and contrast several different news sources that covered this story. Just how fair and balanced is our national media? I looked around for several different sources and found some different takes on it. Here’s how Editor and Publisher, a site by and for journalists, ran the story: New Court…
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Chicago Tribune | 3 Arrested at Mass. Baby Shower Brawl SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — An argument at a baby shower escalated into a brawl in which one man was shot and the pregnant guest of honor was beaten with a stick, police said. Three people were arrested after the fight, described by police as a “baby shower gone bad.” Authorities said the shooting victim, Aristotle Garcia, got into a fight with a man who is dating his ex-girlfriend. The argument, over whether the woman let their 5-year-old daughter drink beer, escalated and drew in two other people — Jazz Rivas and…
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Chicago Tribune | U.S. Rolls Out Nuclear Plan The Bush administration Wednesday unveiled a blueprint for rebuilding the nation’s decrepit nuclear weapons complex, including restoration of a large-scale bomb manufacturing capacity. The plan calls for the most sweeping realignment and modernization of the nation’s massive system of laboratories and factories for nuclear bombs since the end of the Cold War. Until now, the nation has depended on carefully maintaining aging bombs produced during the Cold War arms race, some several decades old. The administration, however, wants the capability to turn out 125 new nuclear bombs per year by 2022, as…
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I decided to take a photo of something I use every single workday – actually two things. That’s my handmade, wide-bottomed coffee mug, bought when we went on a road trip to Starved Rock State Park. Every weekday morning without fail, I fill the thing with coffee, at least twice. And the green folder underneath it is the hated group hotels file, one of my least favorite tasks. Still, I do it to the best of my abilities, and today I got an award at work – kind of the runner-up award to the big one, which involves travel to…
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Chicago Tribune | Intelligence watchdog slow to bite WASHINGTON — When a privacy-rights group requested records to show how many times a secretive presidential oversight board had asked the Justice Department to investigate possible violations of intelligence-gathering laws since 2001, the answer that came back last month was as simple as it was startling. Zero. One possible reason: For more than half of President Bush’s first term, the Intelligence Oversight Board had no members because Bush did not appoint anyone to it. Bush didn’t make appointments to the board until March 17, 2003, well after his administration had begun an…
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DeLay to Resign From Congress Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), a primary architect of the Republican majority who became one of the most powerful and feared leaders in Washington, said today that he will give up his seat rather than face a “nasty” and expensive reelection fight that was becoming a referendum on his ethical troubles. Now that a major source of rot has stepped down (no doubt to face even more criminal charges, so he’ll need the money for his defense fund), the race for his old seat in Texas just got a lot more interesting. With a viable Independent…