appeared bent

RANDUM RANDOM
* forward: "Pro-Israel lobbyists seemed resigned to a delay and appeared bent on downplaying any suggestion of a rift between the organization and the Bush administration over the (iran) issue. Yet the White House could face an open challenge from hawkish Republican congressmen. The Republican leadership on Capitol Hill has not given its final word on the administration's request. According to congressional sources involved with the legislation, Republican lawmakers are split over how to proceed. Some more hawkish members working on Middle East affairs are inclined to disregard the White House request and push ahead with the (Iran sanctions) bill as soon as possible. Others in positions of power seem more inclined to grant the administration's request for more time." LINK

* " The U.S. Embassy has held indirect talks with members of violent Iraqi insurgent groups, a U.S. official said Wednesday, edging back from a long-standing position not to negotiate with terrorists or those who have American or Iraqi blood on their hands." LINK
'edging back', aka flip-flopping.

* "Boston radio host Jay Severin confirmed that he would be a "permanent cast member" on MSNBC's new show The Situation with Tucker Carlson. Severin, a former longtime Republican political consultant who has worked for the presidential campaigns of George H.W. Bush and Pat Buchanan, has a history of controversial comments, including a suggestion on how to deal with Muslims in the United States: "I think we should kill them."" LINK

* georgia10 has set up a dsm blog for downingstreetmemo.com blog here

* wapo A1 lead: " An hour before dawn, the sky still clouded by a dust storm, the soldiers of the Iraqi army's Charlie Company began their mission with a ballad to ousted president Saddam Hussein. "We have lived in humiliation since you left," one sang in Arabic, out of earshot of his U.S. counterparts. "We had hoped to spend our life with you."" LINK

* "Maybe if the Downing Street memo was blond and missing?" LINK http://first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3424&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

* "The most sensationalized details in the charges against the Lodi, CA terror defendants have been deleted from the final Affidavit filed with the court." LINK

* "The government announced yesterday that it will further scale back its demands for penalties on the tobacco industry in a landmark civil racketeering case, saying it is no longer seeking to help 45 million American smokers quit their habit." LINK

* "The U.S. army has opened a criminal investigation into a blast that killed two soldiers at a base in Iraq after discovering it was not caused by an insurgent mortar attack, a military statement said on Friday." LINK
fragging? oh please please be fragging. i remember being all optimistic before the invasion about the possibility of lots of fragging, and then there was that frag episode in kuwait, and i hoped for an epidemic which the media might cover, and maybe the war would be over by now if that had happened 2 years ago. and so today i repeat those hopes, let the fragging begin, and may the fragging continue. and i say that confident in the sad knowledge that fragging is probably the quickest way to end this war. if you know any cultureoflife soldiers, please tell them that for every one of their superiors they kill, theyll probably save 20 lives.

* chron ed lead: "The Bush administration should explain why Americans should not be disturbed by a secret British memo on the runup to the Iraq War" LINK

* notgannon is in the news again, pretending to be coy and saying that he is notgosch. "My DNA is the last bit of privacy I have left and I'm reluctant to make that available to just to prove that I am not somebody." - altho he has previously, coyly, said that he already 'passed' a DNA test. LINK
he's a freak.

* one of the odd things to come out of the sensenbrenner/conyers hearings was hearing the head of amnesty tell the story of an fbi *literally* going into some library and demanding to get a list of everyone who had borrowed a biography on obl. pure genius.

* btw - i *really* wanna go to one of the terrorist training camps they keep showing on tv where they teach you to jump though burning hoops in the desert. itd be a cool party trick. im not really sure how useful it would be for terrorists though - perhaps they wanna blow up siegfried and roy.

* btw - i loved this nyt headline "Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming" LINK