Monday, October 31, 2005



The Premature Burial by Antoine Wiertz


The Nightmare by Henri Fuseli


The Headless Horseman Pursueing Ichabod Crane

by John Quidor

David Addington, counsel to Vice President Cheney, is currently considered the leading candidate to succeed Scooter Libby as Cheney's chief of staff. But Addington's own role in the Plame matter is emerging just as the vice president considers whether to name him to the job... http://tinyurl.com/bpfzc
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Alright. Let's get this party started...

From THINK PROGRESS: http://tinyurl.com/af83d
Samuel Alito’s America
ALITO WOULD OVERTURN ROE V. WADE: In his dissenting opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Alito concurred with the majority in supporting the restrictive abortion-related measures passed by the Pennsylvania legislature in the late 1980’s. Alito went further, however, saying the majority was wrong to strike down a requirement that women notify their spouses before having an abortion. The Supreme Court later rejected Alito’s view, voting to reaffirm Roe v. Wade.
ALITO WOULD ALLOW RACE-BASED DISCRIMINATION: Alito dissented from a decision in favor of a Marriott Hotel manager who said she had been discriminated against on the basis of race. The majority explained that Alito would have protected racist employers by “immuniz an employer from the reach of Title VII if the employer’s belief that it had selected the ‘best’ candidate was the result of conscious racial bias.”
ALITO WOULD ALLOW DISABILITY-BASED DISCRIMINATION: In Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, the majority said the standard for proving disability-based discrimination articulated in Alito’s dissent was so restrictive that “few if any…cases would survive summary judgment.”
ALITO WOULD STRIKE DOWN THE FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE ACT: The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) “guarantees most workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a loved one.” The 2003 Supreme Court ruling upholding FMLA essentially reversed a 2000 decision by Alito which found that Congress exceeded its power in passing the law.
ALITO SUPPORTS UNAUTHORIZED STRIP SEARCHES: In Doe v. Groody, Alito agued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home.
ALITO HOSTILE TOWARD IMMIGRANTS: In two cases involving the deportation of immigrants, the majority twice noted Alito’s disregard of settled law. In Dia v. Ashcroft, the majority opinion states that Alito’s dissent “guts the statutory standard” and “ignores our precedent.” In Ki Se Lee v. Ashcroft, the majority stated Alito’s opinion contradicted “well-recognized rules of statutory construction.”
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Cia Leak: Not above the law
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
There is a cancer on the presidency, and it cannot be exorcised by the resignation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby...http://tinyurl.com/83xx6
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Sunday, October 30, 2005

Top Five Resignations the American People Should Demand In the Wake of Libby's Indictment:http://www.juancole.com/
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Military shares public's declining support for Bush, war
By TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press Writer
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- More than half of North Carolina military members surveyed in the latest Elon University poll disapprove of President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq and his overall job performance.
Nearly 53 percent of military members said they strongly disapproved or disapproved of Bush's handling of his job. And just more than 56 percent of that same group strongly disapproved or disapproved of how he has dealt with the Iraq war.
Overall, 53 percent of those surveyed for the poll released Friday did not approve of Bush's job performance, while 57 percent did not approve of his handling of the Iraq war.
"We see that those most involved in the Iraq situation, the military, are not so different from the general public after all and share the same concerns about Iraq," said Hunter Bacot, the poll's director...http://tinyurl.com/at2dr
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I'd like to ask all the wing-nut commentators if these people 'hate freedom'.
In passing, someone told me that last week king of the wing-nuts, radio division, Rush Limbaugh was actually suggesting that Special Prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald practiced an 'alternative lifestyle'(code for gay) because he's a 42 year old batchelor married to his job.
The rightwing has no shame. They're really scummy. Smears, queers and fears, that's the Rovian formula. They represent themselves as the 'values' party. What values though?
It is getting exciting though. FAUX NEWS SUNDAY was funny today. They were all on message. Meanwhile GWB's on another 'vacation' (code for drinking binge maybe)...
So it goes...
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From TIME: Sunday, Oct. 30, 2005
Fall Of A Vulcan
How a very smart and very loyal aide to Dick Cheney got indicted for allegedly lying about his role in defending the war
By MICHAEL DUFFY
Scooter libby always had a knack for fiction... http://tinyurl.com/ap293
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A little gallery of paintings by Clovis Trouille
My friend Ray sent this along from Alternet and I'm glad he did. Funny and right on:
Ladies and Gentlemen: The Real George W. Bush: by Stephen Pizzo
For three more years America is going to be led by not just a lame duck president, but a totally discredited president...http://tinyurl.com/d6hsh
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Saturday, October 29, 2005

Cheney's office at center of CIA leak indictment
By James Vicini and Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The indictment of former top White House aide Lewis Libby in the CIA leak investigation will put Vice President Dick Cheney's office at the center of court proceedings, raising the specter of a politically damaging trial for the beleaguered Bush administration.
Libby, who resigned on Friday as Cheney's chief of staff after being indicted for obstructing justice, perjury and lying, is expected to make his first court appearance in the next week or so for an arraignment.
The indictment means the next stage of the case will play out in open court... http://tinyurl.com/8rw77
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Yep. I like the sound of that: OPEN COURT...
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I like this. An article in a major metropolitan daily (Boston Globe) with a whole lot of the names of the neocon cabal identified as such in a specific sense. The word neocon is misused often these days. It doesn't mean 'Pat Buchanan but younger'. It doesn't refer to the holy rollin' gun nuts either. It's these people and they're dangerous if allowed to fester in secrecy. This article is a hopeful sign...

RIPPLE EFFECT
Indictments put focus on neoconservatives
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff October 29, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The indictment and resignation of I. Lewis ''Scooter" Libby yesterday deprives the White House of one of its most influential national security thinkers, a powerful advocate for some of the Bush administration's most far-reaching foreign policy decisions since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
His pending legal battle, however, could also bring new scrutiny to the actions of the close-knit group of officials, many of them his old friends and colleagues from previous Republican administrations, who had long agitated for overthrowing Saddam Hussein and who are accused of exaggerating the threat from Iraq to achieve their goal, according to current and former government officials and specialists.
As the point man in the seat of power for the so-called neoconservatives, Libby was perfectly suited to carry their message: In 1992, as a senior Pentagon official, he coauthored a secret military blueprint asserting that the United States must ''act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated" to protect its interests by force. The draft document was never approved, but had a key word -- ''preempt" -- that became synonymous with a more aggressive, unilateral US foreign policy... http://tinyurl.com/94nqj
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Our 27 months of hell
By Joseph C. Wilson IV,
JOSEPH C. WILSON IV was acting ambassador in Baghdad when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. He is the author of "The Politics of Truth" (Carroll & Graff, 2004). He was a diplomat for 23 years.
AFTER THE two-year smear campaign orchestrated by senior officials in the Bush White House against my wife and me, it is tempting to feel vindicated by Friday's indictment of the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Between us, Valerie and I have served the United States for nearly 43 years. I was President George H.W. Bush's acting ambassador to Iraq in the run-up to the Persian Gulf War, and I served as ambassador to two African nations for him and President Clinton. Valerie worked undercover for the CIA in several overseas assignments and in areas related to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
But on July 14, 2003, our lives were irrevocably changed. That was the day columnist Robert Novak identified Valerie as an operative, divulging a secret that had been known only to me, her parents and her brother.
Valerie told me later that it was like being hit in the stomach. Twenty years of service had gone down the drain. She immediately started jotting down a checklist of things she needed to do to limit the damage to people she knew and to projects she was working on. She wondered how her friends would feel when they learned that what they thought they knew about her was a lie.
It was payback — cheap political payback...http://tinyurl.com/8lql5
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A great summation from THE SMIRKING CHIMP:
W. Christopher Epler: '10 lessons from the toilet presidency of George W. Bush'
http://tinyurl.com/aq832
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Bush heckled during terror speech
At a turbulent point in his presidency, US President Bush has sought to bolster public backing for his war policies, just days after the US death toll in Iraq surpassed 2,000.
"We will never back down, we will never give in and we will never accept anything less than complete victory," the president said.
Bush spoke to an audience largely made up of uniformed service members, delivering a speech which was one of several he has given recently to defend his war policies.
It was nearly the same as the one he delivered recently in Washington.
Outside the Norfolk convention hall, a small group of anti-war protesters greeted him by chanting "Bush lies."
Inside, as the president spoke, a man on the second level interrupted him, yelling "War is terrorism. War is terrorism. Step down now Mr President. Torture is terrorism."
Bush continued speaking as the man left the hall... http://tinyurl.com/9bcc5
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U.S. Congress Just Says No to Ground-Penetrating Nukes - For Now
by Vanessa Hua

NEW YORK - Disarmament advocacy groups in the United States scored a major victory this week as Congress decided not to provide any funds for research on a new nuclear weapons program for the coming financial year...http://tinyurl.com/9yx34
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Indictment doesn't clear up mystery at heart of CIA leak probe
By Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - At the heart of Friday's indictment of a top White House aide remain two unsolved mysteries.
Who forged the documents that claimed Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium for nuclear weapons in the African country of Niger?
How did a version of the tale get into President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, even though U.S. intelligence agencies never confirmed it and some intelligence analysts doubted it?
http://tinyurl.com/b2zqo
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Friday, October 28, 2005

Patrick Fitzgerald: It's Not Over

... Even David Gergen, the former adviser to presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton who is as cautious as they come in these matters, says that the indictments that have now been obtained in the case "raise questions about whether criminal acts were perpetrated to help get the country into war."...
...Some details with regard to the vice president's role have been revealed. The indictment indicates that Cheney was one of the first federal official who spoke with Libby about the identity of Joe Wilson's wife. "On or about June 12, 2003, Libby was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division," it explains. "Libby understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA."...
...40 members of the U.S. House have urged Fitzgerald to expand the inquiry to examine whether Bush, Cheney and members of the White House's Iraq War Group conspired to deceive Congress into authorizing the war – thus committing the federal crime of lying to Congress....
http://tinyurl.com/c44tx
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I'm having a mighty dream...
DUMP BUSH NOW. Why wait?
GORE/EDWARDS NOW.
Make stupidity and greed a crime.
...
Or will "Scooter" get a media career like that piece of human waste Ollie North.
I did hear, not confirmed yet, that Fitz has just taken a two-year lease on office space in DC. So it's not over.
Things are unclear. In Bush's America evil people often win...
We should watch out for 'terrorist' bird flu attacks from outer space.
"It's hard work", "good heart", "Osama bin Daffy is out there tryin' to undermine our freedoms..."
Can idiot son still spout his usual nonsense and sway people?
Adults read Harry Potter books these days and get their news from TV. The mass media induced fog is thick...
Stay tuned.
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From FOX NEWS:
(So it must true? false? I'm confused. Here's the headline on rewrite: FOX NEWS REPORTS SOMETHING TRUE!!! O'Reilly chokes on falafal? or loofah? Brit Hume grows a pair. Says he actually likes the feeling of being a man...
What's next in this Fitzmas season of miracles and indictments...
Imminent Indictment
Cheney's chief of staff to be charged in CIA leak probe
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby accused of making false statements to grand jury; Bush adviser Karl Rove spared for now, but investigation will continue; prosecutor's statement at 2 p.m. EDT
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James Moore on THE CRIMINALIZATION OF CRIMINALS

I was at a trial out in the Davis Mountains of West Texas when I heard a bit of unexpected wisdom. A Texas ranger was testifying at the courthouse in Alpine about a man who had run up into the hills to begin a revolution. Nobody listened very closely to the rebel; except for a few of us reporters who found him an intellectual curiousity.
Eventually, his bubble tilted way off level and he started shooting. People were hurt. In the trial, his lawyers said he was standing on our most beloved principles of a right to protect his freedoms with guns. The old ranger, though, scoffed. "Look," he said. "Wrong is still wrong even if everybody's doing it. And right is still right even if nobody's doing it."
Leaking the names of CIA agents is not politics; it is a crime. Lying to congress about evidence for a war is not politics; it is a crime. Failing to tell a grand jury that you met with a reporter and talked about the CIA agent is not forgetfullness; it is a crime. Deceiving your entire nation and frightening children and adults with images of nuclear explosions in order to get them to support a bloody invasion of another country is not politics; it is a crime. Anyone other than Karl Rove and Lewis Libby and Tom Delay who does not get this, please raise your hand. The three of you will need to stay after class for further instruction in civics... http://tinyurl.com/8srg2
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Thursday, October 27, 2005

Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers To Senate Intelligence Panel
By Murray Waas, special to National Journal© National Journal Group Inc.Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005
Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources...http://tinyurl.com/a89wm
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Here's a picture of a rabbit my girl took. Protective coloration I'd say.
Here's some funny words, and I heard them on a 'news'cast a little while ago: THE GEORGE W. BUSH LIBRARY.
What would be in a GWB Library? It could be the first library without any books in it. But what would be in it?
It's a baffling idea to me.
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Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Egalitarian Finland most competitive, too

HELSINKI, FINLAND - Fifty years ago, Finland was known for little more than the wood pulp from its endless forests. A poverty-stricken land of poorly educated loggers and farmers on the edge of the Arctic Circle, few paid it any attention

Today, this small Nordic nation boasts a thriving hi-tech economy ranked the most competitive in the world, the best educated citizenry of all the industrialized countries, and a welfare state that has created one of the globe's most egalitarian societies.
Envious policymakers from far and wide are beating a path to Helsinki to learn the secrets of Finland's success.
"We have a saying here," chuckles Stefan Nygard, a university lecturer, as he swings his baby daughter gently, soothing her to sleep. "If you are Finnish, you've won the lottery."...http://www.csmonitor.com/
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Don't ever let a Republican tell you anything. They just don't know. There's no reason to listen to them. They're either lieing on purpose in order to steal something from you or they just don't know.
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Vice President for Torture
Wednesday, October 26, 2005; Page A18
VICE PRESIDENT Cheney is aggressively pursuing an initiative that may be unprecedented for an elected official of the executive branch: He is proposing that Congress legally authorize human rights abuses by Americans. "Cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of prisoners is banned by an international treaty negotiated by the Reagan administration and ratified by the United States. The State Department annually issues a report criticizing other governments for violating it. Now Mr. Cheney is asking Congress to approve legal language that would allow the CIA to commit such abuses against foreign prisoners it is holding abroad. In other words, this vice president has become an open advocate of torture... http://tinyurl.com/9cqwz

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005



Did YOU vote for this guy?

What's wrong with you?

He looks like he's about to wrest a bananna away from a child.

How did this country get SO effed up?

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Cheney, Libby May Be at Odds Over CIA Leak-Case Investigation
Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) -- A fissure may be opening between Vice President Dick Cheney and his top aide over the investigation into the leak of a covert CIA agent's identity.
I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, first learned of agent Valerie Plame's identity in a conversation with Cheney weeks before her name became public in July 2003, the New York Times reported last night, citing lawyers involved in the case... http://tinyurl.com/cwucb
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CIA Leak Linked to Dispute Over Iraq Policy
As Grand Jury Term Nears End, Officials' Critique of Administration Gains Attention

...Scowcroft, a close friend of former president George H.W. Bush, revealed in interviews with the New Yorker a deep disdain for the administration's foreign policy, according to an article published this week. He said he had once considered Vice President Cheney "a good friend," but "Dick Cheney I don't know anymore." When Scowcroft was asked whether he could name the issues on which he agreed with President Bush, he replied "Afghanistan." He then paused for 12 seconds before adding only, "I think we're doing well on Europe."... http://tinyurl.com/8bvpm
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Monday, October 24, 2005

A leftie wag I know says it's Fitzmas season and we're all just waiting for our gifts...


They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town

Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row
Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row

Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunkPassed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cupBut all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row

Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding CasanovaTo get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the keroseneIs brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row
Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row
Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Went out to dinner last night. Glad I did. Treated my friend BrotherRay. We both had the chicken-fried steak. Place called MY FATHER'SPLACE over on GRAND AVE. Seriously good. They serve the gravy under thesteak so you maintain a little control. Steak, three eggs any style,fried potatoes( 'o'brien w/ peppers and onions if you want. Me an' Rayboth had it that way.), choice of toast, hot cakes or biscuit. We bothhad coffee. Ray had sunnyside up, I had scrambled. He had a biscuit, Ihad hotcakes. I'm like Elvis sometimes.Good jukebox. SLY and the Family Stone, Sister Sledge, Bob Dylan( 'Tangled Up In Blue').We talked. About war and peace. Girls we'd known. Man stuff. Sports. Iused to do track and field and was pretty good at it. I have a bunch ofmedals and ribbons and a sleight limp. I liked it. Running, jumping,hurling stuff. The arts of war.Ray's spent A lot of time in the Caribean and has that naturalTennessean ability to tell a good story.It was a good few hours...a clean, well lighted place...Almost everything one can hope for from civilization...*

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Cheney, CIA Long at Odds
The vice president's history of tension with the agency may help explain why his office is an area of interest in the blown-cover probe.
By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON — For more than a decade, Dick Cheney has tussled with the CIA, first as secretary of Defense and later as vice president. Now that long and tortured history forms the backdrop of a federal probe into who named an undercover agency officer — an inquiry that is centering in part on Cheney's office.Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has interviewed not only the vice president but also his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and several other current and former Cheney aides as he seeks to learn who told reporters about the agent and whether anyone obstructed his inquiry...http://tinyurl.com/8cxdx
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Wednesday, October 19, 2005

1 in 4 Iraq vets ailing on return
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
More than one in four U.S. troops have come home from the Iraq war with health problems that require medical or mental health treatment, according to the Pentagon's first detailed screening of servicemembers leaving a war zone.
Almost 1,700 servicemembers returning from the war this year said they harbored thoughts of hurting themselves or that they would be better off dead. More than 250 said they had such thoughts "a lot." Nearly 20,000 reported nightmares or unwanted war recollections; more than 3,700 said they had concerns that they might "hurt or lose control" with someone else... http://tinyurl.com/crbql
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I know! Let's cut Veterans Benefits. It'll keep the country safe and Paris Hilton needs to pay less in taxes. We need to get the government off our backs!
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Hysterical and hysterically funny letter to the editor from the GAYLORD HERALD TIMES, MI.

"...The liberal goal is to win back the presidency and Congress. Then, under the coronation of Hilliary Clinton or John Kerry, they will push their agenda for America: legalize gay marriage and N.A.M.B.L.A, raise taxes and do away with all mention of God in America... " http://tinyurl.com/b4dw5
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I'm just stunned when I read things like this. Where do people get this stuff? I know, I know...snarling head radio, wack job ministers, etc. I'm still amazed that such far right gibberish has entered the mainstream. Re-education camps anyone? Or maybe just start teaching Civics and Current Events in the public schools again. Or would the teachers have their houses bombed by 'Christians'?
Watch yourselves out there...
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Billions of dollars short, U.S. must scale back Iraq reconstruction
By SETH BORENSTEIN, Knight Ridder Newspapers
The Bush administration cannot fulfill all its grand promises to rebuild Iraq because soaring security costs, mismanagement and poor planning have cost billons of dollars, federal auditors said Tuesday.
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The guy who said, "The war will pay for itself", is now the head of the World Bank!
Tom Lehrer quit satire when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace prize.
It's all too much...
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Paintings by Felix Labisse

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

October 19, 2005
No Final Report Seen in Inquiry on C.I.A. Leak
By DAVID JOHNSTON and RICHARD W. STEVENSON
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 - The special counsel in the C.I.A. leak case has told associates he has no plans to issue a final report about the results of the investigation, heightening the expectation that he intends to bring indictments, lawyers in the case and law enforcement officials said yesterday.
The prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, is not expected to take any action in the case this week, government officials said. A spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald, Randall Samborn, declined to comment.
A final report had long been considered an option for Mr. Fitzgerald if he decided not to accuse anyone of wrongdoing, although Justice Department officials have been dubious about his legal authority to issue such a report.
By signaling that he had no plans to issue the grand jury's findings in such detail, Mr. Fitzgerald appeared to narrow his options either to indictments or closing his investigation with no public disclosure of his findings, a choice that would set off a political firestorm... http://tinyurl.com/bn8wn
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WHITE HOUSE CIA Leak Prosecutor Focuses On Libby
By Murray Waas, special to National Journal© National Journal Group Inc.Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2005
As federal prosecutors in the CIA leak investigation reach the critical stage of deciding whether to bring criminal charges, they are zeroing in on contradictions between the testimony of I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, and that of New York Times reporter Judith Miller, according to sources close to the investigation and attorneys for individuals enmeshed in the probe.
The prosecutors and the federal grand jury are also scrutinizing whether Libby, or his attorney, tried to discourage Miller from giving testimony to the grand jury, or tried to improperly influence what Miller would say if she testified, according to the same sources... http://tinyurl.com/bejps
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A New Tidbit on the Plame Affair
byLarry C. Johnson
Had lunch today with a person who has a direct tie to one of the folks facing indictment in the Plame affair. There are 22 files that Fitzgerald is looking at for potential indictment . These include Stephen Hadley, Karl Rove, Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney, and Mary Matalin (there are others of course). Hadley has told friends he expects to be indicted. No wonder folks are nervous at the White House...http://tinyurl.com/b37jp
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Cheney's Office Is A Focus in Leak Case
Sources Cite Role Of Feud With CIA
By Jim VandeHei and Walter PincusWashington Post Staff WritersTuesday, October 18, 2005; As the investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name hurtles to an apparent conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has zeroed in on the role of Vice President Cheney's office, according to lawyers familiar with the case and government officials. The prosecutor has assembled evidence that suggests Cheney's long-standing tensions with the CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame...http://tinyurl.com/9msx6
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White House Watch: Cheney resignation rumors fly

Sparked by today's Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney's office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice....http://tinyurl.com/8yy2l
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Cheney aide cooperating with CIA outing probe, sources say

A senior aide to Vice President Dick Cheney is cooperating with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, sources close to the investigation say.
Individuals familiar with Fitzgerald’s case tell RAW STORY that John Hannah, a senior national security aide on loan to Vice President Dick Cheney from the offices of then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, John Bolton, was named as a target of Fitzgerald’s probe. They say he was told in recent weeks that he could face imminent indictment for his role in leaking Plame-Wilson’s name to reporters unless he cooperated with the investigation.
Others close to the probe say that if Hannah is cooperating with the special prosecutor then he was likely going to be charged as a co-conspirator and may have cut a deal... http://tinyurl.com/8s9xk
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The Mindless American: A Tragedy In The Making
by Doug Soderstrom

...As a behavioral scientist, it appears that a vast share of folks in our nation have chosen to relinquish a quality no doubt essential to authentic human life….. an existential responsibility to think for themselves, an ontological need to discount the petty concerns that drive the minds of those directed by triviality. It seems that such individuals have become so fantastically preoccupied with, essentially enamored by, the norm of what others think, they have effectively relinquished, through a process of cognitive foreclosure, the capacity to think for themselves...
http://tinyurl.com/8yday
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Press Release:
Source: FRONTLINE
New Revelations by American Soldiers of Abuse in Iraq
Monday October 17, 9:30 am ET
FRONTLINE Presents "The Torture Question" Tuesday, October 18, 2005, from 9 to 10:30 P.M. ET on PBS
BOSTON, Oct. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Another American soldier has come forward to reveal abusive interrogation techniques by military personnel in Iraq. Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator at Abu Ghraib and member of a special intelligence team in Iraq, has given FRONTLINE a firsthand account of his involvement in the harsh treatment of prisoners.
"It's all over Iraq," Lagouranis told FRONTLINE. "The infantry units are torturing people in their homes. They would smash people's feet with the back of an axhead. They would break bones, ribs. That was serious stuff."
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CIA Leak Probe Shines Light on White House
Probe of CIA Leak Shines Light on Bush Administration's Assault on Its Critics
By TOM RAUM
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's CIA-leak inquiry is focusing attention on what long has been a Bush White House tactic: slash-and-burn assaults on its critics, particularly those opposed to the president's Iraq war policies.
If top officials are indicted, it could seriously erode the administration's credibility and prove yet another embarrassment to President Bush on the larger issue of how he and his national security team marshaled information much of it later shown to be inaccurate to support their case for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003...http://tinyurl.com/8drhx
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THE BURNING OF GIORDANO BRUNO

By Leonora Carrington

Link to selected writings of Bruno: http://tinyurl.com/b5926

Link to Wikipedia article on Bruno: http://tinyurl.com/ayqfd

A Book Review of On the Composition of Images, Signs & Ideas, by Giordano Bruno. Translated by Charles Doria. Edited and annotated by Dick Higgins. Forward by Manfredi Piccolomini. New York: Wills, Locker & Owens. 1992: http://tinyurl.com/cykjd

The Opaque and the Transparent For the last 20 years of his life, Higgins was, primarily, a scholar/painter. He extended his understanding of intermedia toward the past in the form of historic writings on George Herbert's pattern poems (1977), a translation of Novalis (1978, 1984), a history of Pattern Poetry (1987) and a book on Giordano Bruno (with Charles Doria, 1991):http://tinyurl.com/d39x8

Yates, Frances A. :Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition: http://tinyurl.com/aopbr

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Monday, October 17, 2005

CIA leak probe 'widening to include use of intelligence' (from the Financial Times)
By Caroline Daniel and Edward Alden in Washington
Published: October 17 2005
Evidence is building that the probe conducted by Patrick Fitzgerald, special prosecutor, has extended beyond the leaking of a covert CIA agent's name to include questioning about the administration's handling of pre-Iraq war intelligence...http://tinyurl.com/9huas
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How a Lobbyist Stacked the Deck
Abramoff Used DeLay Aide, Attacks On Allies to Defeat Anti-Gambling Bill

...Abramoff had deep roots in the conservative movement and rose to prominence by helping Republicans tap traditionally Democratic K Street lobbyists for campaign dollars. But in the eLottery fight, he employed a win-at-any-cost strategy that went so far as to launch direct-mail attacks on vulnerable House conservatives.
Abramoff quietly arranged for eLottery to pay conservative, anti-gambling activists to help in the firm's $2 million pro-gambling campaign, including Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, and the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition. Both kept in close contact with Abramoff about the arrangement, e-mails show. Abramoff also turned to prominent anti-tax conservative Grover Norquist, arranging to route some of eLottery's money for Reed through Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform.
At one point, eLottery's backers even circulated a forged letter of support from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R)... http://tinyurl.com/by99w
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This is a jaw-droppingly incredible article about some of our favorite 'values' party stalwarts. What should be done about these people? Maybe something like what they used to do in South Africa to people who collaborated with the Apartheid government. It involved gasoline soaked tires and open flames. Or maybe a brief but definitive period like that which followed the liberation in France when they had to deal with the people who'd collaborated with Vichy and the Nazi occupiers. It could make a great extreme reality tv show...
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Cheney May Be Entangled in CIA Leak Investigation, People Say

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- A special counsel is focusing on whether Vice President Dick Cheney played a role in leaking a covert CIA agent's name, according to people familiar with the probe that already threatens top White House aides Karl Rove and Lewis Libby.
The special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, has questioned current and former officials of President George W. Bush's administration about whether Cheney was involved in an effort to discredit the agent's husband, Iraq war critic and former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, according to the people.
Fitzgerald has questioned Cheney's communications adviser Catherine Martin and former spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise and ex-White House aide Jim Wilkinson about the vice president's knowledge of the anti-Wilson campaign and his dealings on it with Libby, his chief of staff, the people said. The information came from multiple sources, who requested anonymity because of the secrecy and political sensitivity of the investigation... http://tinyurl.com/bfhqp
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Sunday, October 16, 2005

Reporter's Account Suggests Probe's Tack
Prosecutor in Leak Case May Be Looking Into Possible Misconduct by Cheney's Office

By JOHN D. MCKINNON, JOE HAGAN and ANNE MARIE SQUEO Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 17, 2005
A New York Times reporter's account of her involvement in the Central Intelligence Agency leak case shows that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been looking into possible misconduct by Vice President Dick Cheney's office...http://tinyurl.com/akqdp
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The biggest 'who cares?' of politics in my life time has been White Water/Bill Clinton's oval office pickled-dildoes. So it's funny to me to watch and listen to the GOP spinmeisters and hacks spew their line about how outing an undercover CIA agent is. We'll never know the damage the Plame/Wilson outing has caused. She did have a front company and I imagine anybody who had 'business' with that company is in very real danger or dead by now. They won't say. They call that world 'the secret world.' Land of the spooks.
I've not been a fan of the CIA over the years but I've made my peace with certain aspects of what they do. Intelligence work keeps us from outright war. They know what we know what they know what we know, etc etc. It makes it very hard to pull a fast one militarily. We can't, they can't, because everyone knows what the other guy is doing pretty much. Makes one wonder about 9/11 but that's another story.
I don't approve of undermining foreign governments or assassinating their leaders etc. Leads to blowback as they call it. Unforeseen consequences like embassy takeovers and people flying airplanes into buildings and such.
I like to think there's a 'silver rule' to go along with the golden rule. The 'what would you do?' aspect of it. What would you do if some country tried to control our country or invaded it the way we've invaded Iraq, etc? It makes the Bush/Wolfowitz doctrine of preemptive strike look pretty dangerous. Maybe that's what happened on 9/11. A preemptive strike against a country that had WMD. The only country that's ever used them on a civilian population in fact.
Dennis Kuchinych's idea of a Dept. of Peace as large and active as the Dept. of Defense(Dept. of War) looks real good to me right now. We have got to make some progress. We have got to move in the direction of peace and justice for all. There is no alternative except endless war and that only makes twisted war profiteers like Dick Cheney happy. This is the shit Dwight Eisenhower warned us about on the way out the door. The Military-Industrial complex. I don't think he had that many people to pardon.
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from the AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN:

Abramoff investigation has GOP holding its breath
CIA leak probe may be getting more attention, but troubles surrounding former lobbyist worry Republicans more... http://tinyurl.com/djmy7
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Looks like it's indictment season. 'Bout time too. Maybe Jr. will have as many cronies to pardon on his way out the door as his daddy. Maybe as many as all-time champion Ronald Reagan. The Oedipal struggle continues on many fronts.
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CIA leak prosecutor asked about any Cheney role

By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal prosecutor questioned New York Times reporter Judith Miller about whether Vice President Dick Cheney himself was aware or authorized her discussions with his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, about a covert CIA operative, Miller said on Saturday... http://tinyurl.com/c9b9l
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LEST WE FORGET DEPT:

Lest we forget what scum Tom Delay is and always has been here's an archived article from SALON about 'the hammer's' work on behalf of the sweatshops of Saipan, land of the mandatory abortion for pregnant workers. That's spelled: H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E, by the way.

"...Enter Tom DeLay and his Texas Republican sidekick, Dick Armey. When the Clinton administration sought to yank Saipan's factories into the 20th century in 1994, requiring the workers be paid a minimum wage, overtime and their living conditions improved, the island government hired a platoon of well-connected Washington lobbyists, headed by former DeLay aide Jack Abramoff, to block the plan. Abramoff, in turn, personally or through his family, contributed $18,000 to DeLay's campaign coffers. So far, the island government has paid the firm of Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds $4 million for their efforts, records show. They also treated DeLay and Armey to trips to the island, where they played golf, snorkled and made whirlwind visits to factories especially spiffed up for the occasion, according to several accounts..."... http://tinyurl.com/cvmgd
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Saturday, October 15, 2005

The most excellent and most eclectic music programmer I know of is Steve Cantor and his weekend show BEATS AND PIECES streams here:
Beats & Pieces
Hosted by Steven Cantor, can be heard Fridays from 9-11pm, Saturdays from 9pm-1am, and Sundays from 9pm-midnight...http://www.opb.org/index.php
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NUMEN
for Ezequiel Vinao

As the map has four angels
Whether desert or ocean
Where there is movement
There’s light whether critique
Or creation the predicate is hope
Which is imagining in action
And not devoid of drama

Where there’s music in the shape of the cult
There are lesions that need binding
We are all bound to destinies beyond hope

Arteries lead to heart’s tracings on the floor of the mind
Breath is the ocean of wind, which is spirit and is never finished
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YOU'RE INVITED...

This execution of Marquis de Sade 's will was celebrated on the 2nd of December 1959 at 22:00 in Joyce Mansour's appartment. It began with a sound tape created by Radovan Ivsic which gave the impression to hear an erupting volcano from close by. This record had been created from sounds of the street amplified up to the unbearable and was transmitted by means of overpowerful loud speakers as an echo of Sade's sentence : "As I was once examining the Etna, the bosom of which was vomiting flames, I desired to be this famous volcano". The sound went on crescendo for several minutes until Jean Benoît's shattering entrance. Then, in a complete silence, one could hear a record of Sade's will read by André Breton. After which, Jean-René Major started to read Jean Benoît's Notes, while Mimi Parent helped him to remove one by one the pieces of his costume until he applied to himself on the spot of his heart a white hot iron in the shape of Sade's name.

Annie Le Brun

All man's happiness lies in his imagination - Sade

(http://tinyurl.com/9e7xw)

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Next Move CIA Leak Investigation Unknown
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

With the criminal investigation into who leaked the identity of a covert CIA officer apparently nearing an end, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald could seek indictments of top White House aides or quietly close up shop.
The grand jury that heard several hours of testimony Friday from President Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, is set to expire Oct. 28. Rove's lawyer said Fitzgerald has "affirmed that he has made no decision concerning charges."
Even if Fitzgerald decides not to prosecute anyone, that may not be the end of the matter: The prosecutor could write a final report detailing his investigation. But unlike past special prosecutors, such as Ken Starr in the Monica Lewinsky affair, who operated under the now-expired independent counsel law, Fitzgerald is not required to produce a public report.
Nevertheless, some Democrats on Capitol Hill are pressing him to do so.. http://tinyurl.com/72fsa
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Friday, October 14, 2005

SIERRA CLUB'S Sierra Summit 2005 was a rousing success, thanks in no small part to our bevy of exciting keynote and master speakers. Use the links below to read reports on the speakers' presentations; further down the page we have brief notes on each speaker...http://tinyurl.com/dqxpu
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The Al Gore (you know, the REAL President of the US) address is a humdinger and they're all pretty good...
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Conservatives and exiles desert war campaign (from The Financial Times)
By Guy Dinmore

Even among the strongest advocates in Washington of the war in Iraq there is a sense of alarm these days, with harsh criticism directed particularly at the draft constitution, which they see as a betrayal of principles and a recipe for disintegration of the Iraqi state.
Expressions of concern among conservatives and former Iraqi exiles, seen also in the rising disillusionment of the American public, reflect a widening gap with the Bush administration and its claims of “incredible political progress” in Iraq...http://tinyurl.com/bt25f
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Rove spends hours before grand jury
By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, testified at length on Friday for a fourth time before a grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA operative's identity, as prosecutors neared a decision on whether to bring charges.
Rove spent 4 1/2 hours at the federal courthouse and was told by prosecutors they had yet to decide whether he should face charges, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said. Legal sources said that could soon change.
Friday's testimony appeared to be Rove's last opportunity to convince grand jurors that he did nothing illegal following the disclosure that he had spoken to two reporters about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband, despite earlier White House denials... http://tinyurl.com/7o24p *
What a punk! Karl Rove is a shit eating weasel in a house full of shit eating weasels. He doesn't stand out when you compare him with the rest of the White House, only when you compare him with decent people.
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Support Our Props
The biggest surprise for me about the furor following President Bush's recent staged TV event with U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq was the media's newfound willingness to expose the facade. Bush has been conducting similar staged events for years now, and he rarely gets called on them...http://tinyurl.com/bqxz7
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Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Oct. 6-10, 2005. N=1,500 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).
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"In the long run, do you think George W. Bush will be a successful or unsuccessful president, or do you think it is too early to tell?"
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Successful:26%
Un-successful:41%
Too EarlyTo Tell:30%
Unsure:3%

I heard an audio clip today of Mary Matilin on the BILL O'LOOFAH SHOW saying that "Bill Clinton had polling numbers as low as this" and history has "judged him a success".
Wow! A bald-faced lie and kind words for BC. Signs and wonders. The lowest BC went was 52% I believe.
And if you wondering why the Dems aren't saying much think of that old saying: Never get in the way of a perfectly good train wreck.
Exciting times ahead. Let the indictments fly.
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Bush Seen Increasingly as a Failed President

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct 13 (IPS) - Amid growing signs of disarray and malaise in the White House, U.S. President George W. Bush is seen increasingly by the public at large as a failure whose policies, particularly regarding the economy and the budget, have harmed more than helped the country, according to a major new poll released here Thursday... http://tinyurl.com/96oe9

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Vice President's role in outing of CIA agent under examination, sources close to prosecutor say:
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is trying to determine whether Vice President Dick Cheney had a role in the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame-Wilson, individuals close to Fitzgerald say...http://tinyurl.com/bjxvy
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Little by little we learn more about the ultra-mysterious Monsu Desiderio...

François de Nomé (b. 1593, Metz, d. 1644, Napoli)
It is only in recent years that the mysterious painter called "Monsù Desiderio" has been separated into two artists who collaborated: Didier Barra (1590-c. 1644) and François de Nomé, both from Metz, Lorraine. Didier Barra usually painted topographical views, chiefly of Naples. François de Nomé was the more adventurous of the two, concentrating on the bizarre. Both painters spent their entire careers in Naples but never assimilated any local influences; they both retained a form of archaising mannerism of a similar type to that of Claude Deruet. At their best, François de Nomé's pictures excite by their power of expression, even though they seem flagrantly to disobey almost every rule of art...
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Jitters at the White House Over the Leak Inquiry
...The result, say administration officials and friends and allies on the outside who speak regularly with them, is a mood of intense uncertainty in the White House that veers in some cases into fear of the personal and political consequences and anger at having been caught in the snare of a special prosecutor... http://tinyurl.com/7jpsf
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