Lawyers acting for Dan
Brown, the world's highest-paid author, and the two men who claim he
stole their ideas, met at the High Court in London yesterday to agree
details of a trial scheduled to begin on February 27.
Two
historians, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, are suing Brown's
publishers, Random House, claiming that Brown lifted "the whole
architecture" of the research from their 1982 book, The Holy Blood and
the Holy Grail, for The Da Vinci Code, Brown's global hit of a
religious thriller.
Baigent and Leigh's
non-fiction work presents the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene
married and had a child, and that their descendants have carried on
their bloodline to the present day. This theme forms the basis for the
action in Brown's novel, which has sold 29m copies worldwide, earning
its author £45m in the last year alone.
The
novel's suggestion that the Catholic church has spent the last 2,000
years working tirelessly to cover up the relationship between Jesus and
Mary Magdalene has roused the ire of the Vatican, which was driven in
March to appoint a cardinal to rebut what it calls the "shameful and
unfounded errors" contained in the book.
However,
the combination of the central conspiracy theory and the clues,
anagrams and puzzles that litter the pages are central to the appeal of
the book, which has been translated into over 40 different languages.
Commentators
have already pointed out that the name of one of the major characters,
Sir Leigh Teabing, is an anagram of the names Leigh and Baigent,
although there is no sign of Henry Lincoln, the third author of the
1982 book, who has chosen not to take part in this suit.
This
is not the first time that Dan Brown has been called to defend himself
over the provenance of his novel. In August, he won a court case
brought by another author, Lewis Perdue, who claimed that The Da Vinci
Code reproduced elements from two of his novels, Daughter of God and
The Da Vinci Legacy. Perdue had sought damages of $150m (£84.2m), and
had requested that the court block further distribution of the book and
stop work on the movie adaptation currently in production, starring Tom
Hanks and the French actor Audrey Tautou in the lead roles.
Following
yesterday's discussions between the lawyers, Random House says that a
"substantial" part of the claim by Baigent and Leigh has been dropped.
The publishing house adds that it is "delighted with this result, which
reinforces [its] long-held contention that this is a claim without
merit."
Ground Control to Fox: Valerie Plame Wilson Was Covert
For Hannity and Hatch and all the other liars, Fitzy said this: I am
the umpire and Scooter threw sand in my eyes just as I was going to
call a strike.
Last night, Sean Hannity said this:
I don’t think anybody exposed anything. I think everybody knew in town what [Valerie Wilson] did for a living. There’s no evidence that she was covert. None.
And two nights ago, Ann Coulter said:
She hadn’t been a covert agent for six years, and everyone in Washington knew she worked for the CIA.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald knocked that talking point down hard today in the Libby indictment:
At all relevant times from January 1, 2002 through July 2003, Valerie Wilson was employed by the CIA, and her employment status was classified. Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community.
OK. These are several really simple questions for any Republican here who does not support this investigation.
1. If Mrs. Wilson was not a covert agent, and thus no
crime was committed by revealing her name (no matter WHO did it), then
why did the CIA request the investigation to begin with? No guesses;
please cite sources backing up your answer(s).
2. If Mr.
Wilson lied about his findings, and an honest Bush Admin. surely would
have known it if he did (and thus should have hammered home the true
facts with the American people), then why did administration officials
even remotely consider discussing his wife amongst themselves and
others? Especially if her status in the CIA was not truly not covert?
What do you suppose they hoped to accomplish?
And of course, Illinois Governor Ryan was a Republican, and his
indictments did a lot to throw the state Republican party into
fueding...and they still haven't recovered here.
When asked, Fitzgerald would not comment on whether "Official A" was Ryan.
From the Chicago Daily Herald April 3, 2002, Wednesday All
But despite branding two of Ryan's former top aides and his
campaign committee as corrupt, Fitzgerald would not say if the
investigation will eventually reach Ryan. The vast majority of the
corruption uncovered so far happened under his watch when he was
secretary of state from 1990 until 1998. The governor has not been
accused by prosecutors of any wrongdoing in the past, and Tuesday's
indictments did not include him.
"I cannot answer that question," Fitzgerald said when asked about
any Ryan involvement. "We cannot discuss people not charged in the
indictment."
Sun Times June 20, 2002
Stewart would send bills to Stanley and Doyle for bogus
legal work Stewart never performed. Stanley and Doyle would "pay" for
the work, when in fact they were passing along bribes through Stewart
to Udstuen.
Stanley also allegedly passed bribes to Udstuen through another
person, dubbed "Individual A" in the indictment, in a similar scheme.
Individual A was a close friend of Udstuen's and a social acquaintance
of Stanley's.
Ryan was indicted four months after the previous indictment had been
issued referring to him as "Official A". By the time Ryan was
indicted, Fitzgerald had indicted 65 other officials and gotten
convictions on 59. One thing's for sure: when it comes to Ryan
you can't say it's over until the investigation is officially closed.
Now this year, we have Ohio and Kentucky and the DeLay-Frist-White
House Axis of Evil. . .why is it that everything the self-righteous
fundies attach themselves to ends up in a corrupting mess?
To superstitious athletes, hair is a big thing. They'll grow good-luck
beards, carve out funny-looking goatees, shave their heads bald.
Somehow, this is supposed to improve their chances of winning. So, what
are we to make of this year's World Series? The Astros were the ones messing about with their hair,
and they're just got swept four games to none. (They grew beards, then shaved
them. Who knows what they'll do now that it's over.) The White Sox, meanwhile, have a
more unusual superstition -- they think it's a good thing to have Journey's Steve Perry follow them around. Hair is less important. Or is it? Back on Sept. 2, the team did host a Mullet Night
promotion at U.S. Cellular Field. It seemed like no big deal. But
before Mullet Night, the Sox had lost 15 of 22 games at home, and they
had a losing record overall for August. After Mullet Night, they picked
things up, steamrolled the Indians, the Red Sox, the Angels and the
Astros, and now they just won their first world championship in 88 years.
Coincidence?
According to the NYT,
somebody got ahold of notes from a "previously undisclosed
conversation" between Scooter and the Veep on June 12, 2003 that
"appear to differ from Mr. Libby’s testimony to a federal grand jury
that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson,
from journalists, the lawyers said."
The notes, taken by Mr.
Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in
the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson’s
husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration’s
handling of intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear program to justify the
war.
Lawyers said the notes show that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms.
Wilson worked at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was
made public and her undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated
column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003.
(snip)
It
would not be illegal for either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby, both of whom
are presumably cleared to know the government’s deepest secrets, to
discuss a C.I.A. officer or her link to a critic of the administration.
But any effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his
conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J.
Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case, to be an illegal effort to
impede the inquiry.
(snip)
But the notes, now in Mr.
Fitzgerald’s possession, also indicate that Mr. Libby first heard about
Ms. Wilson — who is also known by her maiden name, Valerie Plame — from
Mr. Cheney. That apparent discrepancy in his testimony suggests why
prosecutors are weighing false statement charges against him in what
they interpret as an effort by Mr. Libby to protect Mr. Cheney from
scrutiny, the lawyers said. (my emphasis)
(snip)
Mr.
Cheney was interviewed under oath by Mr. Fitzgerald last year. It is
not known what the vice president told Mr. Fitzgerald about the
conversation with Mr. Libby or when Mr. Fitzgerald first learned of it.
"So those must've materialized recently. Where did they come? And when?
Is Scooter trying to play "Let's Make a Deal?" And is the fact that
they were leaked to the press -- with all their damning implications
for Cheney -- an indication that Scooter is no longer willing to fall
on a sword for his boss?"
I
can't see Fitz getting libby's notes from anyone BUT Libby...and he
must be in deep, deep shit to provide notes that undercut his own
testimony.
...Just fantasizing for a minute: imagine if Fitz had been in charge of
the 9/11 Commission -- can you imagine how the heads would've rolled?
Kindasleezy wouldn't have gotten away with all her pretty little lies;
Cheney and Bush would not have been allowed to testify together like
the fuckin' ventriloquist and his overstuffed dummy, and maybe, just
maybe, someone would have been declared criminally negligent and
punished accordingly, and the families of the victims would have had
some sense of justice served.
Imagine: after two years of dragging lies and half-truths out of these
miserable suckers, he can now sit back and enjoy a steady stream of
primo grade evidence just dropping in his lap, tying all the loose ends
together and wrapping his case up like a great fitzmas gift. Man, if Fitz just could sit still for another month, he wouldn't have
anything left to do except mop the blood off the White House floor.
This could be me. This could be you. In the Amerika that is Now.... Fred Bieling
Daniel Goetz is a stop-lossed soldier whose tour in Iraq was supposed to end seven months ago. ("Stop-loss" means a soldier can
still be retained in a unit's tour of duty even if his/her enlistment
time is up.) Via Tattered Coat,
we learn that he's been blogging to vent his frustrations; yet in spite
of the fact that he's taken great care to play by the rules of being a
military blogger, he will no longer be posting on his blog due to some
extra attention he received last week.
He
went on to express his concern on his own blog that this widespread
attention might cause some ire with the military censors. What's
brilliant of him is to end his blog tenure with this bit of is the Orwellian language -- he even titles the post "Double Plus Ungood".
The rules, to my knowledge, have nothing to say about disagreeing with
policy in general or expressing frustration with a rotten
situation. This appears to be exactly the reason that Daniel was
silenced. He
disagreed with a policy, and was forced to publicly admit to a position
he had previously been opposed to. This dramatic of a shift indicates
the intent of the government to control private thoughts or personally
held beliefs, which they cannot do. This is only a move by them to
maintain public support for the war by silencing the opposition to it.
If you read his previous posts, it is apparent this had nothing to do
with operational security.
Censor Senseless? Post on Friday, October 14, 2005
Operation Truth has published my story as their Veteran of the Week
profile. I am excited and nervous for the extra attention this will
attract. Excited because the army is trying very hard to muffle the
cries of battered soldiers, abused by the system they are sworn to
protect. Each time our story is heard by someone new, the country comes
that much closer to understanding what is happening to us in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
I'm also nervous, though. Every time I add a new
writing to my site, I ask myself if I've gone too far. I have a pretty
good grasp on what constitutes a violation of the laws I am bound to;
in specific, I am very familiar with the sections of the Uniform Code
of Military Justice that strips every servicemember of his or her First
Amendment rights. Unfortunately, the laws are purposely vague; designed
to muzzle even those of us who tread with caution.
My stateside
housemate, Ben, has unfortunately made himself into an icon of military
censorship. He has written on subjects that violate neither operations
security nor military law. He has, however, incurred the wrath of his
commander nonetheless. Although Ben acquiesced and removed the
offending material, he went on to write - much more eloquently than I
could - about the experience. More can be read at his site, Doce Meses de Soledad ("twelve months of solitude").
If
you are visiting this site because you were linked from the Operation
Truth website, you can respond to my biography by commenting on the
post below (entitled "A Brief History of Mine"). I also encourage you
to sift through some of the archives. Most of my writing is just me
whining about how much I hate the army; but I have linked to several
which I find to be the most entertaining of my work.
Club Fed is the best of satire. In it, a persuasive argument is made for the benefit of being deployed to Iraq. Baath Time is a light-hearted entry about how glad I was to move into a toilet. In Black Hole, I explain my frustrations over the seemingly inexhaustible waste of tax dollars here in Iraq. Remember Petey
is a story about a school (in a way); it might be about something else
completely, but I would be forbidden to say so if it were. I'm not much
of one to tell war stories, but Crude Reaction is the tale of one of my adventures on the streets of Baghdad.
For more fact and fiction from the banks of the Tigris, browse through the archives. Also, don't forget to check out Holly's site,
and those that are linked to the right; the ones linked beneath the
title "friends" are all especially good reading. Finally, at the bottom
of this page, there is a disclaimer; please read it before you seek or threaten legal action against me.
Double Plus Ungood Posted on Saturday, October 22, 2005
I thank all of you
who have been so supportive recently. I have never before received so
much positive feedback, and it was very heart-warming to know that so
many people out there care. Having said that, it breaks my heart to say
that this will be my last post on this blog. I wish I could just stop
there, but I can not. The following also needs to be said:
For
the record, I am officially a supporter of the administration and of
her policies. I am a proponent for the war against terror and I believe
in the mission in Iraq. I understand my role in that mission, and I
accept it. I understand that I signed the contract which makes stop
loss legal, and I retract any statements I made in the past that
contradict this one. Furthermore, I have the utmost confidence in the
leadership of my chain of command, including (but not limited to) the
president George Bush and the honorable secretary of defense Rumsfeld.
If I have ever written anything on this site or on others that lead the
reader to believe otherwise, please consider this a full and complete
retraction.
I
apologize for any misunderstandings that might understandably arise
from this. Should you continue to have questions, please feel free to
contact me through e-mail. I promise to respond personally to each, but it may take some time; my internet access has become restricted.
Goetz's "full and complete" retraction - which at first reads like the
painful scene in Cool Hand Luke in which Paul Newman breaks down,
pleading for beatings to stop and claiming he's "got his mind right" -
is totally undercut and undone by the headline of yesterday's same
retractive post: Double Plus Ungood.
One pictures military censors standing over Goetz's shoulder as he
types, shaking their heads and shrugging, completely oblivious of this:
"Double-Plus Un Good - (another NewSpeak term from 1984). In NewSpeak, there is no word for bad or evil, there is only ungood. Modifiers are also ambiguous. One uses the modifier plus for emphasis, so plus ungood means especially ungood. The most emphatic modifier is double-plus, so double-plus ungood is the worst thing you can say about something.
Hard not to suspect Goetz's mind - from the military point of view, of course - is still not quite "right."
Maxim, of all magazines, has an article this month (Nov 05) called
"No End in Sight." It is the first time this publication has truly
delved into the dark side of the soldiers experience. In the past,
Maxim has treated the whole war thing like a video game. What this new
article makes clear is that being a soldier in Iraq should not be
confused with playing SOCOM 3: Navy SEALs Edition.
In a nutshell, the article says that if you serve in Iraq, you might
get killed. If you don't get killed, you'll get maimed. If you don't
get maimed, you'll get injured. If you don't get injured, you'll get
PTSD and commit suicide. If you don't get PTSD, you won't get a job
when you get out and you will be 4 to 6 years behind your high school
buddies financially. If you need any help with any of your problems,
the government won't help.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, a good soldier, warned us about the military
industrial complex. Welcome to the nightmare. Cross the corporation,
you get fired. Cross the military, you get muzzled. Either way, you
belong to the machine. I salute all the brave men & women who
continue to assert their right to their voice, to their own ideas, to
their own opinions. Where else is the battle for democratic principles
won, but in the mind?
Perjury, Rule Of Law, and The Trivialization of Treason
Sen. Kay Baily Hutchison and other GOPs were "Against perjury before being for it."
We see Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) is of two
minds when it comes to politicians lying under oath. Where
are all those enraged Republicans who loudly proclaimed: "It's
not the sex, it's the lying under oath." Kay Bailey Hutchison, Sunday on Press the Meat:
I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that
says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not
some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime so
they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation
were not a waste of time and dollars.
Let's
revisit what was said during the Clinton Era of Peace and Prosperity:
Sen. Hutchison: "The edifice of American jurisprudence rests on the foundation of the
due process of law. The mortar in that foundation is the oath. Those
who seek to obstruct justice weaken that foundation, and those who
violate the oath would tear the whole structure down.
Sen. Frist: "There is no serious question that perjury and obstruction
of justice are high crimes and misdemeanors...Indeed, our own Senate
precedent establishes that perjury is a high crime and
misdemeanor...The crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice are
public crimes threatening the administration of justice."
[Congressional Record, 2/12/99]
Sen. Kyl: "...there can be no doubt that perjurious, false, and
misleading statements made under oath in federal court proceedings are
indeed impeachable offenses...John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the
United States, said `there is no crime more extensively pernicious to
society' than perjury, precisely because it `discolors and poisons the
streams of justice.'" [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]
Sen. DeWine: "Obstruction of justice and perjury strike at the very
heart of our system of justice...Perjury is also a very serious
crime...The judiciary is designed to be a mechanism for finding the
truth-so that justice can be done. Perjury perverts the judiciary,
turning it into a mechanism that accepts lies-so that injustice may
prevail." [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]
Sen. Talent: "Nobody else in a position of trust, not a CEO, not a
labor union leader, not a principal of a school could do half of what
the president has done and stay in office. I mean, who would have said
a year ago that a president could perjure himself and obstruct justice
and tamper with witnesses... and stay in office." [CNBC, "Hardball,"
12/19/98]
Sen. McConnell: "I am completely and utterly perplexed by those who
argue that perjury and obstruction of justice are not high crimes and
misdemeanors...Perjury and obstruction hammer away at the twin pillars
of our legal system: truth and justice." [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]
Sen. Voinovich: "As constitutional scholar Charles Cooper said, `The
crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice, like the crimes of
treason and bribery, are quintessentially offenses against our system
of government, visiting injury immediately on society itself.'"
[Congressional Record, 2/12/99]
Sen. Craig: "There is no question in my mind that perjury and
obstruction of justice are the kind of public crimes that the Founders
had in mind, and the House managers have demonstrated these crimes were
committed by the president. As for the excuses being desperately sought
by some to allow President Clinton to escape accountability, it seems
to me that creating such loopholes would require tearing holes in the
Constitution-something that cannot be justified to protect this
president, or any president." [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]
Sen. Brownback: "Perjury and obstruction of justice are crimes against
the state. Perjury goes directly against the truth-finding function of
the judicial branch of government." [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]
The same KBH who managed to avoid indictments previously by Ronnie
Earle purportedly with legal shenanigans, evidence tampering and a
friendly judge.
I'd love to hear KBH expound on how Clinton's grand jury testimony
about blowjobs was false, willful, and material to Starr's 7-year,
$70,000,000 investigation into a failed land deal, yet the testimony
(under oath or not) from Bush and myriad administration officials in
Fitzgerald's short and focused investigation into the outing of an
undercover CIA agent doesn't tear the whole edifice of American
jurisprudence down. Should we alert Bill Clinton that Kay Bailey Hutchinson's note of apology is on its way?
Ya just gotta stand in awe of such majestic hypocrisy.
My other favorite line is the one about the "criminalization of
politics". Hey, guys, the way these guys practice politics, it IS
criminal!
Nigeria, home to some of the world's most
notorious cyber crimes, has proposed a law making spamming a criminal
offence for which senders of unsolicited e-mails could be jailed for at
least three years.
Is this the end of an era? Nigeria is cracking down on its best-known
export - email scams - by putting a law up for vote that would finally make
these scams a criminal matter. The move is the latest by the government
there to project a tough stance on the issue - back in August, the
country even hosted a conference on how to crack down on spam.
According to this Reuters story,
spammers who are caught could face up to five years in prison, and
possibly have to give up the proceeds derived from their, uh,
entrepreneurship. But sadly, if effective (although we kinda doubt the
practice will entirely cease), it will deprive us of some of the
best - if inadvertent - humor online. On the other hand, if the Nigerian
spammer goes the way of the 20 gigabyte iPod, it could boost sales of Tuesdays with Mantu, Rich Siegel's book about his email correspondence with a Nigerian con artist, for nostalgia value alone.
The advance fee e-mail scam, known as "419" after the relevant
section of the Nigerian Criminal Code, is a computer age version of a
con game dating back hundreds of years and is sometimes called "The
Spanish Prisoner."
Typically spammers send millions of
unsolicited e-mails around the world promising recipients a share in a
fortune in return for an advance fee. Those who pay wait in vain for
the promised windfall.
President Olusegun Obasanjo has been keen
to clean Nigeria's image as a country of spammers and one of the
world's most corrupt nations since he was elected in 1999, ending 15
years of military rule in Africa's top oil producer. He set up the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in 2003 to crack down on
e-mail fraudsters who had elevated scamming to one of the country's
main foreign exchange earners after oil, natural gas and cocoa,
according to campaigners.
The anti-fraud agency is investigating hundreds of suspects and prosecuting over 50 cases involving about 100 suspects.
The
agency got its first major conviction in July when a court sentenced a
woman whose late husband masterminded the swindling of $242 million
from Brazilian Banco Noroeste S.A. between 1995 and 1998, one of the
world's biggest e-mail scams.
This is a link to one of my favorite
online videos, Ze Frank's request, in which he dramatizes a Nigerian
scam e-mail, verbatim: http://www.zefrank.com/request/
The
Veterans Affairs Department is currently reviewing approximately
one-third of the cases of veterans who are receiving disability
benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After conducting an
internal study, the VA believes that they were too lenient in deciding
which soldiers were eligible for PTSD benefits. Last year, the VA spent
$4.3 billion on PTSD disability payments, and the VA hopes to reduce
these payments by revoking PTSD benefits for many veterans. This will
be the final insult to soldiers who were asked to fight a war in Iraq
on false premises.
Owing
to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of veterans receiving
compensation for PTSD has increased by almost 80 percent in the last
five years. By comparison, the number of veterans receiving
compensation for all other types of disabilities increased by only 12
percent. Under the guidelines of the current review, soldiers who
cannot prove that a specific incident, known as a "stressor," was
sufficient to cause PTSD, their benefits will be revoked. Given the
nature of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's not surprising that
many returning soldiers are suffering from mental illness.
In
the July 2004 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Colonel
Charles W. Hoge, MD, the chief of psychiatry at Walter Reed Army
Institute, published a preliminary study of the effects of the war in
Iraq and Afghanistan on military personnel. The study concluded that
close to 20 percent of soldiers who served in Iraq and approximately 12
percent of those who served in Afghanistan returned home suffering from
PTSD. The study found that there is a clear correlation between combat
experience and the prevalence of PTSD. The study determined that "Rates
of PTSD were significantly higher after combat duty in Iraq."
Approximately
86 percent of soldiers in Iraq were involved in combat, as were 31
percent in Afghanistan. On average, soldiers engaged in two firefights
for each tour of duty.
The
study indicated that 95 percent of soldiers had been shot at. And 56
percent of soldiers had killed an enemy combatant. An estimated 28
percent were directly responsible for the death of a civilian. Equally
grim, 94 percent had seen or handled corpses or bodily remains.
Additionally, 68 percent witnessed fellow soldiers being killed or
seriously wounded.
Although
the number of soldiers suffering from PTSD is high, Dr. Hoge's study
found that a majority of veterans are not seeking treatment. Only 40
percent of returning soldiers acknowledged that they need mental health
care, and only 26 percent were actually receiving care. Therefore, the
number of veterans approved for PTSD compensation by the VA is
relatively small. Yet the VA believes that too many soldiers were
approved for PTSD disability compensation and is now seeking to deny
soldiers this benefit.
The
lack of pre-war intelligence also likely contributed to a rise in PTSD
disability claims. Studies of the Vietnam War have indicated that when
soldiers can't anticipate the nature and intensity of warfare that they
ultimately encounter, they are psychologically unprepared, leading to
PTSD in many instances. During the early phase of the war in Iraq, many
soldiers were almost certainly unprepared for what they encountered.
The
Bush administration initially indicated that the war would be quick and
easy. Vice President Cheney, only a few days after the invasion of
Iraq, infamously stated that soldiers "will, in fact, be greeted as
liberators." Ahmed Chalabi, a close advisor to the Bush administration
prior to and immediately following the invasion said, "American troops
will be greeted with flowers and candy" by the Iraqi people, and the
administration repeated this many times. President Bush flew onto a US
aircraft carrier in May 2003 and, while standing beneath a banner
proclaiming "Mission Accomplished," announced that major combat
operations had ended.
It's
easy to understand why the VA has seen an increase in soldiers seeking
benefits due to post-traumatic stress disorder. What is difficult to
comprehend is why the very agency responsible for meeting the needs of
our veterans is now turning its back on them. Perhaps it's attributable
to money. The Bush administration may be seeking to reduce compensation
to soldiers for PTSD so that more money can be diverted to the ongoing
war in Iraq.
Or,
perhaps this is simply a public relations issue. The effort to revoke
PTSD benefits may be an attempt to assert that the war has not been
that devastating. What is certain is that the very people asked to
sacrifice their lives, if necessary, for the nation are now being
punished for doing so.
CHELSEA: God spoke with the roar of revving motorcycle engines during a
protest Tuesday by six members of a Kansas church that believes God is
punishing the U.S. for protecting homosexuals by killing soldiers
overseas.
Couldn't be the opposing army who's killing em. People do tend to die in wars.
"Chelsea
residents, however, believed God spoke on their behalf as the engines
of more than 100 Veterans of Foreign Wars motorcycles drowned out the
voices of the Westboro Baptist Church members who were allowed to
protest from 1-1:30 p.m. before the 2 p.m. funeral services for Staff
Sgt. John Glen Doles."
But the No. 1 reason was to show support for Staff Sgt. Doles and
his family and to oppose Fred Phelps, who is the leader of the
anti-homosexual group.
The bikers succeeded in keeping the protesters out of sight and
sound of the Doles family but for anyone else close enough to see their
brightly colored signs spoke loud and clear: "GOD IS YOU OR ENEMY; GOD
HATES THE USA; GOD IS AN AMERICAN TERRORIST; TOO LATE TO PRAY; THANK
GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS; YOU'RE GOING TO HELL; GOD HAS SPOKEN IT'S NOT A
BLESSING IT'S A CURSE and AMERICA IS DOOMED."
The locals had a couple of signs of their own. Three older
women held up a white sheet that said "SHOW AMAZING GRACE" and two
young people held a cardboard sign saying "YE WITHOUT SIN CAST THE
FIRST STONE."
John B. Milam, a Chelsea native, said of his feelings about the
protest, "I have no respect for anyone who has no respect for the
dead."
Not only was it a pathetic protest in the first place - six
people? Doesn't this guy have like 80 kids? - but veterans on
motorcycles drowning them out? It doesn't get much sweeter than this.
Although I would prefer to just attribute it to karma. But that's me. I think "God Hates Fred Phelps" myself.
If the allegations are true, it’s awful. We
understand that athletes aren’t necessarily role models, but we at
least expect them to abide by the basic laws of the state. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty
How sad is it when the biggest news about the team you grew up dying to beat is about something that didn’t even happen on the
football field? Of course, with the Vikings mailing in their first four
games this year, a good sex scandal might be just what the team needs
to divert the attention of fans and the media from their miserable 1-3
start.
Personally, I don’t much care what adults do in their spare time.
It’s a free country, and when you have a collection of large men hopped
up on testosterone and possessing more money than sense, what do you
think is going to happen? Of course, If laws were broken, then the
legal system should be allowed to do what it does. If not, then those
folks who in the meantime all falling all over themselves in fits of
righteous, moralizing indignation need to just shut the hell up.
Of course, given that the Vikings were a team in disarray before
this alleged incident occurred, it’s not as if this is going to make
putting Humpty Dumpty back together again any easier.
The names of 17 Minnesota Vikings who were
identified as being aboard two charter boats last week where sex
parties allegedly took place have been given to Vikings officials in a
controversy that has put the team’s bid for a new stadium and its
standing among fans and community leaders in jeopardy.
At
least six crew members who allege they were confronted with
out-of-control Vikings players on the boats met Wednesday with Hennepin
County Sheriff’s detectives who are investigating allegations of
prostitution and lewd behavior….
The claims involve
players aboard two boats on Lake Minnetonka. Because of the ongoing
investigation, the repercussions are hard to gauge. But what is known
is this: The NFL once again is monitoring a legal issue involving the
Vikings, anti-stadium opponents are having a field day, public
relations is at its lowest point in memory and the Vikings are the butt
of jokes.
At the time of the party, Vikings officials
were heavily lobbying state legislators to convene a special session to
get public funding for a stadium….
No one has been
charged with a crime in connection with the charter boat cruises, which
occurred last Thursday night on Lake Minnetonka….
Employees
of the boat company and a resident of the lake community of Mound
described players having public sex, drinking heavily, urinating on a
lawn and aggressively propositioning female crew members.
Yep, just a bunch of rich, randy, spoiled athletes having some good,
clean fun during their bye week…or breaking a few laws along the way.
Who knows what actually happened? Hey, you must as well get your fun in
now. Before too much longer, winter will descend on the Frozen Tundra,
and the only things on Lake Minnetonka will be snowmobiles. Kinda tough
to have a sex party on one of those, eh??
Jeez...I know you can get an grand jury to indict a ham sandwich but I never knew you could get one to indict a file!
More happiness, from Larry Johnson (ex-CIA) and his blog No Quarter (thanks to Atrios):
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.
Yes folks, the National Security Advisor expects to be indicted for
activities he allegedly undertook while he was Number Two to our
current Secretary of State. So can someone tell me how Condi skates if
Hadley gets nailed?
Juggling appearances before a grand jury and conservative
admirers didn’t seem to make sense, so presidential adviser Karl Rove
has canceled three such outings as he waits to hear whether he or
anyone else will be indicted in the leak of a CIA officer’s identity.
Rove canceled plans to attend two Republican fund-raisers,
the national party confirmed Tuesday. And he did not give his scheduled
speech to the conservative Hudson Institute think tank on Oct. 11.
Republican National Committee spokesman Brian Jones said
scheduling conflicts kept Rove from an RNC fund-raiser Monday night in
Greenwich, Conn., and a Virginia Republican Party fund-raiser Saturday.
Jones said that Rove, who is Bush’s top political aide, currently has no plans to appear at upcoming RNC events.
For a man who is supposedly innocent, he sure is radioactive all of a sudden.
With the pending indictments of numerous Bu$hCo cronies, not
excluding according to some reports pRedzident of Vice Richard Bruce
Cheney, this item should be of serious concern to those who helped
Bu$hCo gut the country's local governments of operating funds:
The Monroe County Jail is within 10 days of running out of
the most basic supplies, including toilet paper and cleaning materials,
the jail commander says... Council President Mark Stoops said Monday
that a majority of the Council felt there was enough money in the jail
budget to stretch things to the end of the year on supplies.
Indiana is a solid Red State. If this is the financial status of a
Good Red State, in what condition will the Federal Prison that receives
Big Time Dick and Scooter and Karl be like? Many lurid images come to
mind as to how these Topper$ will deal with personal hygiene under such
conditions!
The WH could always send them stacks of Presidential Daily Bulletins. They've never been used for anything else.
Dick Cheney and George Bush have left the
Whitehouse in a white Bronco and are reported to have a large sum of
cash, fake mustaches and a case of tequila and glycerince pills.
They are headed toward Gualajara Mexico and are reportedly handed the keys to the Whitehouse over to the ghost of Richard Nixon.
MORE NEWS AS IT DEVELOPS.
The Washington Post has a major story tonight that puts Vice President Cheney's office at the center of the Fitzgerald investigation:
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 shows Cheney's long-running feud with the
CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame.
In
grand jury sessions, including with New York Times reporter Judith
Miller, Fitzgerald has pressed witnesses on what Cheney may have known
about the effort to push back against ex-diplomat and Iraq war critic
Joseph C. Wilson IV, including the leak of his wife's position at the
CIA, Miller and others said. But Fitzgerald has focused more on the
role of Cheney's top aides, including Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter"
Libby, lawyers involved in the case said.
Cheney, a longtime proponent of toppling Saddam Hussein, led the White
House effort to build the case that Iraq was an imminent threat because
it possessed a dangerous arsenal of weapons.
Before
the war, he personally traveled to CIA headquarters for briefings, an
unusual move that some critics interpreted as an effort to pressure
intelligence officials into supporting his view of the evidence. After
the war, when critics started questioning whether the White House
relied on faulty information to justify war, Cheney and Libby were
central to the effort to defend the intelligence and discredit the
naysayers in Congress and elsewhere.
The New York Daily News is set to report in Tuesday editions that a
well-placed source interviewed by the newspaper believes a senior White
House official has flipped and may be helping the prosecutor in the case.
Also under a microscope is the White House Iraq Group, an ad-hoc
strategy group started by Bush chief of staff Andrew Card aimed at
selling the war in Iraq.
Two officials close to Fitzgerald say
they have seen documents obtained from the White House Iraq Group which
state that Cheney was present at several of the group's meetings. They
say Cheney personally discussed with individuals in attendance at least
two interviews in May and June of 2003 Wilson gave to New York Times
columnist Nicholas Kristof and Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus,
in which he claimed the administration “twisted” prewar intelligence
and what the response from the administration should be.
For what it's worth, someone named "Larry Johnson" posted the following on the Raw Story
message board. I am wondering if its the same Larry Johnson who is a
former CIA agent and trained with Valerie Plame.
To superstitious athletes, hair is a big thing. They'll grow good-luck
beards, carve out funny-looking goatees, shave their heads bald.
Somehow, this is supposed to improve their chances of winning. So, what
are we to make of this year's World Series? 
According to the 
We see Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) is of two
minds when it comes to politicians lying under oath. Where
are all those enraged Republicans who loudly proclaimed: 
The
Veterans Affairs Department is currently reviewing approximately
one-third of the cases of veterans who are receiving disability
benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After conducting an
internal study, the VA believes that they were too lenient in deciding
which soldiers were eligible for PTSD benefits. Last year, the VA spent
$4.3 billion on PTSD disability payments, and the VA hopes to reduce
these payments by revoking PTSD benefits for many veterans. This will
be the final insult to soldiers who were asked to fight a war in Iraq
on false premises.
CHELSEA: God spoke with the roar of revving motorcycle engines during a
protest Tuesday by six members of a Kansas church that believes God is
punishing the U.S. for protecting homosexuals by killing soldiers
overseas.
Latest Tidbit On The Plame Affair
Jeez...I know you can get an grand jury to indict a ham sandwich but I never knew you could get one to indict a file!
More happiness, from Larry Johnson (ex-CIA) and his blog No Quarter (thanks to Atrios):