So, Bush didn't lie, Part IV (or V)

Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction

Money quotes:

Contrary to what some defenders of the Intelligence Community have since asserted, these errors were not the result of a few harried months in 2002. Most of the fundamental errors were made and communicated to policymakers well before the now-infamous NIE of October 2002, and were not corrected in the months between the NIE and the start of the war. They were not isolated or random failings. Iraq had been an intelligence challenge at the forefront of U.S. attention for over a decade. It was a known adversary that had already fought one war with the United States and seemed increasingly likely to fight another. But, after ten years of effort, the Intelligence Commu­nity still had no good intelligence on the status of Iraq’s weapons programs. Our full report examines these issues in detail. Here we limit our discussion to the central lessons to be learned from this episode.

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The Commission also learned that, on the eve of war, the Intelligence Community failed to convey important information to policymakers. After the October 2002 NIE was published, but before Secretary of State Powell made his address about Iraq's WMD programs to the United Nations, serious doubts became known within the Intelligence Community about Curveball, the aforementioned human intelligence source whose reporting was so critical to the Intelligence Community's pre-war biological warfare assessments. These doubts never found their way to Secretary Powell, who was at that time attempting to strip questionable information from his speech.

These are errors--serious errors. But these errors stem from poor tradecraft and poor management. The Commission found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the body of our report, analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments. [emphasis ours]

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RIP, "Bush Lied" (again).

It seems silly to us that the same folks who spent a quarter of a century emasculating the CIA (thank you Frank Church and Bob Torricelli) should now react in horror when the organization f--ks up.

More worrisome though: What has the CIA missed that threatens us this moment? It's time to put some teeth back in this agency, put some gung ho, blood and guts people on the ground, play hardball with the bad guys and ignore the inevitable effeminate whinings from the likes of Paula Krugman and Michelle Moore.

You Lefties are byoots ...

We just stumbled upon "Hannity and Colmes" and witnessed the latter berating a couple pro-Terri guests for giving supporters false hope that might have encouraged them to *GASP* TRY TO BRING TERRI WATER!!!!!

Folks, try this thought experiment: Close your eyes. Pretend Terri is a convicted child killer. How anxious would you be to see her dead then?

Illiberal Education

College Faculties A Most Liberal Lot, Study Finds

College faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined, a new study says.

By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans.

The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative.

"What's most striking is how few conservatives there are in any field," said Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University and a co-author of the study. "There was no field we studied in which there were more conservatives than liberals or more Republicans than Democrats. It's a very homogenous environment, not just in the places you'd expect to be dominated by liberals."

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Once again, Lefties guilty of the very thing they accuse others of: Intolerance and close-mindedness.

Some of the most virulent -- dare we say, anti-American? -- flapdoodle we've ever choked on has been offered up by so-called academics in the last few years. Ward Churchill springs immediately to mind, but he's just the head of the "little Marxes [?]" currently infesting the faculty lounges.

It's gotten so that the silliest stuff comes out of the mouths of the folks with the most letters after their names. This wouldn't be so bad if they were just chattering amongst themselves in some never-ending workshop. But we write checks with a lot of zeroes on the end to have these kooks prepare our kids to excel in the real world. Four years of "The History of Lesbians in Gameshows", grade inflation and "blame America First" indoctrination don't prepare little Bobby and little Susie to be productive, GDP-producing Americans.

We'd be far more comfortable governed by a legislature of VoPro grads than the faculty of Harvard.

Disdain of former hacks affirms wisdom of Bolton appointment

59 American Ex-Diplomats Oppose Bolton

WASHINGTON - Challenging the White House, 59 former American diplomats are urging the Senate to reject John R. Bolton's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

"He is the wrong man for this position," they said in a letter to Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Indiana Republican has scheduled hearings on Bolton's nomination for April 7.

"We urge you to reject that nomination," the former diplomats said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press and dated Tuesday.

The ex-diplomats have served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, some for long terms and others briefly. They include Arthur A. Hartman, ambassador to France and the Soviet Union under Presidents Carter and Reagan and assistant secretary of state for European affairs under President Nixon.

Others who signed the letter include James F. Leonard, deputy ambassador to the U.N. in the Ford and Carter administrations; Princeton N. Lyman, ambassador to South Africa and Nigeria under Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton; Monteagle Stearns, ambassador to Greece and Ivory Coast in the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations; and Spurgeon M. Keeny Jr., deputy director of the Arms Control Agency in the Carter administration.

Their criticism dwelled primarily on Bolton's stand on issues as the State Department's senior arms control official. They said he had an "exceptional record" of opposing U.S. efforts to improve national security through arms control.

But the former diplomats also chided Bolton for his "insistence that the U.N. is valuable only when it directly serves the United States." [emphasis ours]

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The horror! A UN Ambassador willing to be blacklisted from all the best cocktail parties, prefering instead to safeguard the best interests of his own country!

What next -- a Secretary of State who shares the Administration's worldview? Egads!

Damn, we love this Bolton!

We absolutely could not make this stuff up ...

State appealing to lift reprieve blocking Wednesday execution

Lawyers from the Texas attorney general´s office asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to lift a judge´s order blocking the execution of a convicted killer scheduled for later in the day.

U.S. District Judge Terry Means late Tuesday ruled Steven Kenneth Staley should not receive lethal injection until questions about his mental competency were fully reviewed in court.

"I understand about wanting to get it done, but it seems to me we ought to do it the right way," Staley´s lawyer, Jack Strickland, said. "I think now that he's been granted a stay, that's the reasonable thing to do and all of us ought to go be lawyers instead of posturing about in the courts. Let´s put on evidence and let the chips fall where they will."

State attorneys went to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans with an appeal to reinstate the punishment, which had been scheduled for after 6 p.m. CST Wednesday.

Strickland said he will take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if the appeals court overturns the reprieve.

Staley was convicted of the October 1989 slaying of Bob Read, manager at a Fort Worth Steak and Ale restaurant. With his nearly three dozen employees and customers being held at gunpoint by a trio of robbers, Read volunteered to accompany the gunmen if they would spare everyone else.

Staley, 42, was an escapee from a halfway house in his native Denver when he and two other people were arrested after a police pursuit around Fort Worth ended their four-state crime spree. Officers summoned to the restaurant gave chase after Read was led away at gunpoint and was forced into a car the robbers hijacked.

As they fled, police heard several shots.

"I remember this one cop testifying how he ran up to the car, hoping, hoping, hoping to find the man in there alive," said Terri Moore, a former Tarrant County assistant district attorney and one of the prosecutors at Staley´s capital murder trial. "But there he was. A big old gunshot wound to the head."

Staley was examined last week by psychiatrists who determined he was aware of his punishment and why he was being put to death. Those are the criteria the U.S. Supreme Court established in 1986 as the standards for allowing execution of people whose competency is at issue. When the state courts refused to stop the punishment, Strickland went to federal court.

Moore described the former laborer and 11th-grade dropout as "an odd person, but I didn´t see anything that made him incompetent."

Witnesses said Staley and accomplice Tracey Duke ended their late evening meal by pulling semiautomatic weapons from the purse of Duke´s girlfriend, Brenda Rayburn.

They herded customers and employees to the back of the restaurant, then forced Read to open cash registers and the safe, witnesses said, before stuffing money into a briefcase.

In the confusion, an assistant manager slipped out and call police, who surrounded the place.

The robbers panicked and decided to use the group as hostages for a getaway. Read, married and the father of three, urged them: "Don´t take my customers," Moore recounted. "Take me."

Read struggled as he was being forced into the back seat of the car and police moved in. Evidence would show Staley shot Read, then Staley and Duke fired on the officers. The ensuing chase covered about 20 miles and ended with the gunmen trying to flee on foot.

Staley gave a written statement implicating himself in the fatal shooting, was convicted and given a death sentence.

Evidence showed Duke, a probation violator from California, also shot Read. Duke, 38, is serving three life sentences in Texas and has a 30-year sentence in Colorado for murder and armed robbery. Rayburn, now also 38, took 30 years in a plea bargain.

Investigators tied the trio to a series of robberies, assaults and at least one other murder during a spree across Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma after Staley escaped from the Denver halfway house.

While this POS is allowed to exhaust every last appeal, no matter how ludicrous the legal "basis", Terri is dying a slow, lonely, excruciating death.

Should Staley ultimately receive his just penalty, rest assured it will be by much more humane means than those being used to dispose of the inconvenient Ms. Schiavo.

Simply amazing.

Bad news for Micheal Moo-er: Iraqis taking charge

Iraq Workers Protest Insurgent Attacks


Iraqi Civilians Fight Back Against Insurgents


So sorry, Fat Boy. Looks like the "Minute Men" are getting their asses handed to them by freedom loving Iraqis.

Cheer up -- you've still got Iran and Syria.

RIP Barney Martin ...

aka, Morty Seinfeld ...

'Seinfeld' Actor Barney Martin Dies at 82


We've always loved Barney Martin. From an appearance on "Car 54", to his role in "The Odd Couple's" "The Jury Story" (where Felix and Oscar are portrayed as meeting for the first time, in direct contradiction of the show's opening, which described them as "lifelong friends") to his best work, as the TV dad of Jerry Seinfeld, Martin has ALWAYS made us laff.

Tomorrow, our beltless raincoats will fly at half staff.

"My wallet's gone. MY WALLET'S GONE!"

Thank you, sir, for all the laffs.





Barney's TV credits

Affadavit of Doctor who examined Terri March 1

Full text here

The money quote:


By our estimates, we're at or around 110 hours.

Happy Hunting!

Iraq Says 85 Militants Killed at Rebel Base

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - The Iraqi government said on Wednesday its forces killed 85 insurgents at a rebel training camp north of Baghdad, in what would be one of highest guerrilla death tolls in the two-year insurgency.

The U.S. military, which provided ground and air support for Iraqi police commandos, said the fight took place on Tuesday but it could not confirm the insurgent death toll.

The Iraqi government said foreign fighters were among the militants in the hours-long battle and an Algerian was captured. Seven police commandos died in the clashes in a remote region near a lake 160 km (100 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

"Special police commandos conducted a successful raid on a terrorist training camp ... which killed 85 terrorists and lead to the successful capture of one Algerian," the government said in a statement.

"The commandos netted explosives, vehicles, various computers, documents and heavy weaponry. The terrorists had planned on attacking Samarra by using a large number of (car bombs) that were found at the facility."

It was unclear how all but one rebel came to be killed and how none were wounded. The government also could not explain the discrepancy between the high insurgent death toll and the relatively light police losses [The Ponderosa: Boo-fricking-hoo. ], saying only that the operation was a success.

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Hit 'em again tommorow, men! We're all -- well, most of us are -- rootin ' for ya!

Augh: Terri's fate in Justice Kennedy's hands

Dude's probably scouring foreign law journals for guidance ... *wretch*

French take step towards full manhood

France Abolishing Its 35-Hour Workweek

PARIS - France took a big step toward liberalizing its rigid labor laws Tuesday as lawmakers voted to effectively dismantle the 35-hour workweek, cherished by workers [The Ponderosa: "Workers": French for "lazy pantywaists". ] but despised by many employers and potential investors.

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The new law will give employers more latitude to strike labor agreements that call for more than a 35-hour workweek, a flagship policy of the former Socialist-led government that gave many people more leisure time — but also fueled anxiety about France's declining competitiveness and soaring unemployment, currently at 10 percent.
[The Ponderosa: In other words -- The French, as superior to the rest of us as they believe they are, are not immune to the immutable laws of economics]
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Almost a million people joined strikes and demonstrations earlier this month to defend the 35-hour workweek and protest other perceived threats to their working conditions and pay. [The Ponderosa: OK -- perhaps FULL manhood is a ways off. ] The antipathy could spill over into a May referendum on the new EU constitution, which the government supports.

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"It won't be the employee that chooses, it's the employer that decides whether there's work or not." [The Ponderosa: Welcome to Life. ]

Jouan believes the main impact of the change will be felt when, or if, France's economy picks up and companies choose to increase hours instead of hiring. "That's our problem with this reform," he said. "It's just not an answer to unemployment." [The Ponderosa: Paul Krugman's French cousin? ]

Left-wing lawmakers also criticized the proposal. Socialist lawmaker Alain Vidalies called it "economically absurd and socially unjust." [The Ponderosa: Which is to say, commonsensical.]

Most concede, however, that the original 35-hour workweek — introduced on a voluntary basis in 1998 and made compulsory two years later — has failed to create the promised millions of jobs. [The Ponderosa: Um ... DUH! Someone slept --er, ont dormi or WHATEVER -- through Econ 101.]

A parliamentary committee chaired by conservative deputy Herve Novelli last year claimed the shorter workweek had cost the state upward of $13 billion a year. It also disputed a labor ministry report that it had created 350,000 jobs in its first five years. Novelli welcomed Tuesday's vote, saying the 35-hour law had brought a "salary stagnation that is now difficult to emerge from."

According to a 2003 OECD survey of 25 industrialized countries, only Norwegian and Dutch employees worked less time each year than the French, who put in an average 1,431 hours. In Germany — which also has a 35-hour basic workweek — workers clocked an average 1,446 hours, while British employees worked 1,673 hours, Americans 1,792 hours and Koreans 2,390 hours. [The Ponderosa: Damn ... we gotta match them Koreans! ]

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Michael Moore stages "hang in" ...

... in support of Iraqi "insurgents" ...


... vows to hang from a backhoe till democracy is quashed in Iraq -- or his Papa John's order arrives.

Great point from Hewitt

Minnesota savage woulda been spared by Injustice Kennedy et al.

To think this guy sits on the Court only by virtue of besotted philanderer Ted Kennedy's slander of Judge Bork ...

We're back and proud to stand with Terri's defenders ...

... Deceptively worded polls be damned.

First, we accept the concept of a "living will" wherein an individual can clearly state his desires vis-a-vis situations like this.

But there is no proof that Terri wished to die should this be her fate.

She is neither "brain dead" nor on "life support".

Nor is it clear she is in a "persistent, vegetative state".

There are amazing people -- her family -- who are going to extraordinary lengths to assume the unbelievable burden of her care.

We find no inconsistency in our traditional support for federalism and "states' rights" and our current support for Congressional action to ensure this woman is afforded "due process." Once again, Florida's rogue courts have trampled on the will of the people of Florida as expressed by their legislators -- remember the 2000 Election brouhaha? No one so far has made a Constitutional argument that the Congress, acting under the auspices of Article III, has overstepped it's legal role.

What we find astonishing is that the same people who scream "NAZIS" when a terrorist is forced to wear panties on his head are so eager to see this innocent woman starved to death.

We ask them to consider their reaction were Mumia, Khalil Sheik Mohammed or a snail darter in Terri's place.

Is this case such a threat to the "right" to eviscerate unborn babies that you will not afford Ms. Schiavo the same legal protections you will surely DEMAND for the rapist/murderer of Jessica Lunford?

Sick.

Bush Boom Continues Apace

We were remiss not to mention this last Friday:

Stocks Hit 3-1/2-Year Highs on Jobs Jump

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. blue-chip stocks surged to their highest close in more than 3-1/2 years on Friday after a better-than-expected jobs report boosted optimism about the economy but didn't raise worries about accelerated interest-rate hikes.

The Dow closed at its highest level since June 2001, putting it back in sight of the psychologically important 11,000 mark, while the S&P 500 closed at its highest since July 2001.

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You're welcome.

Somewhere in the night, Paul Krugman's puny chest sinks even deeper ... must be coming out his back by now!

Huzzah!

Senate Defeats Minimum Wage Increase

The Senate defeated dueling proposals Monday to raise the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage — one backed by organized labor, the other salted with pro-business provisions —in a day of skirmishing that reflected Republican gains in last fall's elections.

Both plans fell well short of the 60 votes needed to advance, and signaled that prospects for raising the federal wage floor, unchanged since 1996, are remote during the current two-year Congress.

"I believe that anyone who works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year should not live in poverty in the richest country in the world," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., arguing for the Democratic proposal to increase the minimum wage by $2.10 over the next 26 months.

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The corpulent trust fund Senator fuming after being thwarted in another attempt to give away the money of the productive -- simply delicious!

Incompetent, teenaged fast food workers everywhere musta been crushed to hear this on "Yo MTV News" between semi-pornographic reality shows!

Flashback: My Uncle Walter on the Minimum Wage.

Flasback: My cousin Thomas on the "Living" Wage