In short, Israel must win.

* this via calipendence:

"Democratic congressional candidate John Pavich of Beecher Wednesday sought to use a New York Times story to associate incumbent Rep. Jerry Weller, R-Morris, with lawmakers caught up in a congressional (Duke) bribery scandal."

more blood to come?

* Raw:

"The United States government this week released much sought-after information regarding events surrounding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, RAW STORY has learned.
Included in the release are full transcripts of aircraft-to-ground air traffic recordings from all four flights hijacked on 9/11, as well as flight path studies for three of the flights. The transcripts are the government's first full disclosure of the recordings' contents."

(RawStory has the data)

* larry johnson on bojinka2:

"JESUS CHRIST!! How much stupidity must we endure from the Bush Administration? How much farther up their ass can they stick their heads? Binary explosives, and their ready availability, have been a fact since World War II. And we're supposed to believe that George Bush, Tony Blair, and Michael Chertoff have just awakened to this fact? At a minimum, this is a further indictment of the incompetence of Bush and his cronies. They have done NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING to deal with this threat even though security professionals have known and fretted about this for years."

* billmon:

"The long knives are already out -- for Olmert, for Peretz, the ward boss turned defense minister, for Halutz and the commander of the Northern Front (who was effectively sacked in the middle of the war) and probably half of entire IDF general staff, if they don't sink them in each other's backs first. Losing is never pretty, and the post-war settling of accounts is going to be even less so.
[]
There will be hell to pay for this fiasco -- coming as it does on top of Uncle Sam's own murder suicide pact in Iraq. When and where that payment wil be demanded isn't clear yet, but if the past is any guide it will be paid in the blood of the innocent and not the guilty."

* haaretz:

"The radical Islamist belief that the West is a "weak horse" has, of course, also been reinforced by the continuing insurgency in Iraq and the rising peace movements in Europe and the United States, but Israel is on the front line. Any conclusion of the current conflict on terms that leave Hezbollah unbowed would further undercut the West's credibility, and would squander much of the deterrent effect of Israel's past military successes from 1948 to the present.

In short, Israel must win."

* amy:

"In Iran, the government has announced a ban on the legal rights group headed by Nobel Peace Prize winning lawyer Shirin Ebadi. The Interior Ministry says the Centre for Defence of Human Rights is illegal because it did not apply for a proper permit. Tehran says it will now prosecute any of the group’s activities. Ebadi’s group has been a leading advocate for hundreds of persecuted dissidents, journalists and academics. Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division, said: "If [Shirin] Ebadi is threatened for defending human rights, then no one who works for human rights can feel safe from government prosecution.”"

* btw - i see that quite a lot of you come here by googling 'wotisitgood4' - obviously it's easier to bookmark if you know how to do that - but also, if you google 'lukery' you'll end up at my place too (and it's easier than typing 'wotisitgood4' (which sucks))