Curtains rise on another act; Wurmser (under Bolton) said to be a key channel in Plame case

Amazing Mike Luckovich cartoon illustrates the thousands of dead soldiers. Also as high-rez PDF.

The sun will dawn on a different world in a few hours. Finally the Law has pierced the flesh of that most dangerous of beasts, the Bush Administration, and they cannot keep telling themselves how immaculate they are with an indictment lodged in the corpus... (narcissism in the leadership leading to ego projection in the followers - doesn't lead to good things)

Great diary about Seymour Hersh speech, relating torture, the regular bombing of Turkic people in northern Iraq, etc. Many arguments these days about how the war wasn't a mistake, it was sedition!!!

Basic hypocrisy from the Powerline crew on Clinton scandals vs Bush madness.

To clarify, with the Pat Lang link earlier, evidently Lang has been posting stuff from an experienced journalist using this 'alternate channel.' An interesting approach which will help solve the problem of political pressure from editors. Anyway, the journalist Sale writes (via Lang):

According to the Times account, Cheney told Libby the covert name of the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. diplomat who had publicly alleged that the administration had mishandled of intelligence relating to Iraq's nuclear weapons programs.

But several former and serving U.S. intelligence officials strongly disputed this. "That is simply not accurate," a very former senior CIA official told this repoter. "Libby's notes on this are misleading and inaccurate or both."

This source, supported by three others, alleged that it was a telephone call from the Department of State that first gave Libby the name of Plame.

The name of the caller? No one is sure. But these sources said that the call defintely came from the State Department office of John Bolton, then the arms control chief of the department.

These same sources alleged that two employees of Bolton, David Wurmser, a virullent pro-war hawk, first told Libby that Valerie Plame had sent Wilson to Niger to attempt to discredit the administration's line on Iraq's nuclear weapons programs.

These same intelligence sources alleged that Wurmser, as Bolton's special assistant, got his knowledge of Plame's classified identity from a colleague in his office, Frederick Fleitz, a CIA officer detailed to Bolton's office from the agency who worked in the CIA's Weapons Intelligence Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Center (WINIPAC.)

"We do not know yet which of the two called," the former very senior intelligence official said.

There are conflicting reports about the fate of Rove and the whole investigation (across LA Times, NY Times, the WaPo). So who knows how it adds up? The money question: is it true that Fitzgerald Expands Probe to Prewar Intel?

Nice little scandal index they got at Perrspectives.

Fortunately we have twits like Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard to blame the Wilsons for their perpetual mendacity. (Hayes himself has many sins to atone for in the intel disinformation game)

Norm is playing a role in Armed Forces Media. DailyKos: Ed Shultz Isn't Popular Enough: Norm Coleman. Galloway swats back against Norm.

Geekiest arm tattoo ever.

Because Beyonce is too black, they had to retone her skin for a fashion magazine. Thanks.

Teams Fail To Recreate Archimedes' Fabled Death Ray. Go Mythbusters.

Peak Corn? As Wal-Mart Shifts from Petroleum to Corn, Farmers Flee the Crop

What the fuck does this even mean? "Metrosexual man bows to red-blooded übersexuals" Apparently now someone has decided that George Clooney is cooler than Jude Law. Well no shit!

Breathalyzers and Open Source:

Lawyers for 150 Floridians accused of drunk driving have asked a court to order the disclosure of the source code for software running in the breathalyzer machines used by police to analyze their blood alcohol level, according to a Tom Sanders story on vunet.
The defendants say they have the right to examine the machines that accused them, and that a meaningful examination requires access to the machines’ software. Prosecutors say the code is a trade secret.

I respect that. Get the code while you can!!!

Iraq: Quite full of explosions these days, even in the Green Zone.The New York Review of Books: Last Chance for Iraq: the forceful argument to let it break up. Sunnis try to merge it up. Abu Ghraib photo court appeal runs out - new torture photos soon to be released?

Google: Chinese dissident observes: My Experience of Google's Censorship. Also good ol Seth Finkelstein's Google Censorship - How It Works.

The Turkish alphabet: CNN:

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) -- A Turkish court has fined 20 people for using the letters Q and W on placards at a Kurdish new year celebration, under a law that bans use of characters not in the Turkish alphabet, rights campaigners said.

Voter fraud: check out video footage of Clint Curtis saying that Florida Congressman Tom Feeney ordered him to make vote-rigging software. (the actual link - an odd site)