Palace, Revolt-ing

* laura asks "What kind of administration tries to silence its top scientists?" before half-answering her own question: "This is the kind of frankly threatening behavior towards scientists we might expect from the leadership of Russia, or China. Not from an advanced democracy." (or perhaps she answers it in full - 'advanced democracy'? america? maybe not)

* speaking of how the american govt treats top scientists - emptywheel has an amazing series about the treatment of Iraq's nuclear scientists, specifically the top nuke scientist Mr Obeidi who was apparently running around baghdad for a month after the invasion trying to make contact with the americans so that he could tell them about the nuclear plans and centrifuge prototypes buried in his back yard. emptywheel's series is quite dense and a difficult read - but fascinating none-the-less. the latest post - part 5 - is here and it has links to the earlier posts. i'm told that part 6 will be a blockbuster.

* wow. in a Newsweek article called Palace Revolt, journos Daniel Klaidman, Stuart Taylor Jr. and Evan Thomas refer to "Prime Minister Cheney" in a news piece. how did they get that one through? and what price will they pay?

* tim russert actually did a reasonable job today! congrats to jane and arianna and others who have been on his case. i wonder when Frist was booked on the show - if timmeh wanted to mock/ridicule someone into looking stupid, Frist would be the ideal target. what a maroon.

* atrios: "Look, there's no evidence of positive momentum on Bush's poll numbers... It's amazing how they can keep going up and be stuck at 41 simultaneously. It's similar to how the Bushies do their budget accounting PR." (link)

* digby: "I don't see a society (America) that is truly fearful. I've been to countries that were at war. And life always goes on to some extent. But this country does not feature the psychological traits of a country that is really at war or one that really fears terrorism in any palpable way. It features the psychological traits of a country watching a horror movie, which is not the same thing at all. You certainly see this in the fevered one-handed war blogging and the endless evocations of pre-9/11 and post 9/11 thinking reminds me of nothing so much as people who are hooked on a stimulating drug." (link)
read the rest. another seminal digby post