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Saturday, July 12, 2003

The Straw Man! Mr Straw says separate evidence backs the UK claim   Iraq uranium claim sows confusion   The UK Government has defended its claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa, despite the White House saying it was unfounded. The prime minister's office said the extra intelligence had come from a foreign service and could not be disclosed. Whew! – that should certainly put all the speculation to rest.   Meanwhile, Alastair "Dodgy Dossier" Campbell is considering retirement...   A former tabloid journalist, Mr Campbell, 46, has exercised unprecedented power as a communications chief and was dubbed "the real deputy prime minister" when it emerged his influence extended far beyond media matters.   One colleague said if Mr Campbell announced now that he was to go, it would appear that he had lost the battle with the BBC. "How could he do it now with the BBC row? You would get huge conspiracy theories," argued the No 10 official, who said the reason for both Mr Campbell and Ms Millar wanting to leave was that "you get to a stage where you want to do something else". Conspiracy theories are, of course, easily debunked since, after all, they are conspiracy theories - whether or not there is an actual conspiracy. The wound has been cleaned and Doctor Rove will now sew it up.   3:18:41 PM    comment []

Here's another guy with a light bulb over his head (not shown). I wonder, since the guy who started the war says God made him do it, if John Howard is pointing the finger of blame. If so, he'd better look to Forest, OH, and see what happens when you get footloose and fancy free with blasphemy. Here is the disturbing part of the Guardian story: There is no sign of dissent in the governing Liberal and National Party coalition, and Mr Howard has not faced any cabinet resignations. The Labour Party is relatively weak and Mr Howard has a commanding lead in opinion polls. But it is embarrassing at best that the prime minister was never told that the claims about African uranium were suspect - even though Australian intelligence organisations had known this for several months. Even Australian intelligence knew the evidence was bogus? Who was the mastermind behind this international conspiracy to make the coalition of the willing look like the coalition of the easily misled? Maybe Lex Luthor? Khan Noonien Singh? This guy? 12:43:18 PM    comment []

An Email From Sister Bubbles…   I hope you can stand one more story about the sign from God.       We drove to Forest, Ohio, yesterday.  The First Baptist church is on Rt. 37 as it enters town.  The belfry is blackened and has plastic hanging out of it.  There is yellow "do not cross" tape around the church.   Here are the signs on the message board: "He that trusteth in his heart is a fool" Proverbs 28-26 "Surely, I come quickly" And, on leaving town on Rt. 30:  "weather forecast: Jesus will REIGN forever"   Forest (also known as Tree-town) was having their festival; we didn't stay for the parade.   This was so entertaining that we drove to Rt. 33 to Van Wert county, Rockford.  This must have some of the awful weather that Fifi mentioned.  Near the state line Rt. 33 was completely covered with water, there was a semi lying on its side and partly covered (about 2 feet) of water.  We could not drive any further, the road was closed.   Paul, do you remember in your blog, talking about the people in small towns driving out to the scene of a disaster?  Well, that's what we did, and it was fun. 11:34:34 AM    comment []

Trading on fear From the start, the invasion of Iraq was seen in the US as a marketing project. Selling 'Brand America' abroad was an abject failure; but at home, it worked. Manufacturers of 4x4s, oil prospectors, the nuclear power industry, politicians keen to roll back civil liberties - all seized the moment to capitalise on the war. PR analysts Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber explain how it worked.   Once again, The Guardian tells me what I suspected all along… 9:08:29 AM    comment []

Voltaire Author and Philosopher 1694 - 1778 "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."   8:55:31 AM    comment []

Word Counts Now here's a picture of a guy with a light bulb over his head (not shown)! Those 16 naughty words, says George Tenet, were all the CIA's fault! It doesn't wash. Someone at the White House sent the CIA a SOTU draft that contained those 16 words plus a whole slew of others. There was a compromise and those other words got removed. Obviously, someone from the White House was negotiating to have "something" left in. Who was that? The CIA did its job. They had previously asked British intelligence to drop the very reference (in September 2002) they vetted for the SOTU, so the pressure to include it came from another source. I'm not saying that would be Paul Wolfowitz, even though "Paul Wolfowitz did it!" would only be 4 words, but I'm not denying it either. It only takes one word to tell a lie; Most often it is "No." 12:58:23 AM    comment []