Monkey Temptation

Theory On the Bogus Nigerian Yellowcake Uranium Rodger A. Payne's has a theory on the bogus yellowcake uranium document that Joseph C. Wilson debunked to sheds. Payne's theory is plausible. He links to Symour Hersh's and Josh Marshall's thoughts on the subject. It sounds like Marshall is about to crack the story open. Is it just me or is Bush starting to look really beatable. He's got all these scandals on national security going on at once. If he looses the national security issue, I don't see what else he has to run on.

Kevin Drum May Have Broke the AWOL Story George W. Bush got 4 credit points (which are earned for retirement) for serving time on October 29, 1972. He received this on an ARF statement of points earned. What is an ARF statement? I let Drum answer that. The answer, as you can see from the top line, is that it is an ARF document, as is this record from 1973-74. So what is ARF? I asked Bob Rogers, a retired Air National Guard pilot who's been following this for some time, and what follows is his interpretation of what happened. ARF is the reserves, and among other things it's where members of the guard are sent for disciplinary reasons. As we all know, Bush failed to show up for his annual physical in July 1972, he was suspended in August, and the suspension was recorded on September 29. He was apparently transferred to ARF at that time and began accumulating ARF points in October. more inside

George W. Bush: The Plato of the White House William Saletan of the Slate compares President Bush to Greek philosopher Plato. Plato believed that what's real isn't the things you can touch and see: your computer, your desk, those empty barrels in Iraq that Bush thought were full of chemical weapons. What's real is the whole idea of these things. The idea of a computer. The idea of a desk. The idea of a grave threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Whether you have a computer or a desk, or whether Saddam had chemical weapons, doesn't really matter. What matters is the larger truth. The abstraction is the reality.

Monkey Sex Song My pal Discothekid was "awoked up" by his upstairs neighbor having "monkey sex." He posted this song in response.

Atrios Tires of the Pro-War Hypocrisy Atrios writes a suberb essay on how the violence is getting worse in Iraq and the hypocrisy the the pro-war people. He targets warbloggers, Paula Zahn, Andrew Sullivan, Ahmed Chalabi, Jim Hoagland and liberal hawks. It's aided and abetted by the "liberal hawks" who for the most part seemed to just want to prove they have bigger testicles than the rest of us. But, why the hell should anyone listen to them? They were wrong, and I don't really care about reading their tortured essays of self-evaluation. I say it didn't matter whether or not Saddam Hussein had WMD. The Bush administration don't need a reason 9in their collective minds.)

Weapons of Mass Destruction Related Program Activities Song The scary thing is sounds like what passes for a country music hit these days. When Johnny Cash couldn't get radio play for his last album then something is wrong.

Ass Hunter In this online game you are a hunter going against savages that only have one thing on their minds. NSFW

John Hannah and Lewis "Scooter" Libby Named In Plame Probe I always thought that the Valerie Plame leak came from Dick Cheney and not Karl Rove. Boy Genius hasn't slipped up yet. Cheney has been messing up from the Energy Commission to the Iraq war. According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls. None of this matters since Glenn Reynolds officially declared the Plame leak bogus.

Andrew Sullivan - Fact-checker of the NY Times Andrew Sullivan tore former New York Times editor Howell Raines and new asshole for the Jayson Blair's plagiarism. The only problem with that is he let Ruth Shalit and Stephen Glass do the same thing on his watch when he was editing the New Republic. Charles Lane had to clean up his mess. The Sullen Man was also fired from the New York Times for his own sloppy reporting and then told the Washington Post he was fired because of his blog. Someone explain to me why people take this man seriously.

CBS Will Run Whitehouse Medicare Ads The White House is using taxpayer dollars to promote (the already passed) Medicare Bill during an election year. It gets weirder. The new Medicare ads urge citizens to call 1-800-MEDICARE to hear more about the new law. And in "Big Brother" style, when you call that number you have to actually say out loud "Medicare improvement" in order to get information. The information you then receive is filled with distortions. The hotline claims the new Medicare "is the same Medicare you have always counted on"