Author: catnip

As Larry Johnson reminded us in his piece Mambo Italiano and Plame Gate, there is much involved in the overall forged Niger documents story that we still don’t have concrete answers about. Prosecutor Fitzgerald’s grand jury will only take us so far and is not designed to answer all of those questions. Will we ever know the full story?

The Independent’s Norman Dombey asked that question in his recent commentary, Tell Us Who Fabricated the Iraq Evidence, and ties together three figures involved in their own major news stories lately: Karl Rove the possible leaker of Valerie Plame’s name, Mohamed ElBaradei who revealed the forgery to the UN Security Council, and Larry Franklin who pleaded guilty last week to providing classified DoD information to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC .
It’s a retelling of events worthy of a Tom Clancy spy novel.

Via Danielle Crtittenden over at The Huffington Post –  a leaked transcript of Ed Gillespie prepping Harriet Miers:

wait…there’s more…

I am not my leaders. I am not my elected officials. I am not my parents. I am not my neighbour. I am my own person.

There’s been much debate on the site recently about the concept of personal responsibility for others thoughts, actions and policies. That conversation has been based on the deep despair so many feel about their leaders and their countries decisions related to the Iraq war. Some have asked for solutions and that has been a difficult request to respond to. However, as most of the best solutions are, the answer is quite simple. You, as an individual, can either be co-dependent or interdependent.

According to an AFP/Yahoo! News article, the US recently debated launching military strikes in Syria at camps allegedly harbouring Iraq war insurgents.

According to Newsweek, Condi Rice “successfully opposed” the strikes at a meeting held Oct 1, 2005. Part of her reasoning was that the UN may soon issue a report blaming Syria for the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri. The consequences of such a report are unstated.

Under mounting pressure from Iraq and the United States, “Syria had ended all security and intelligence cooperation with the United States several months ago after growing frustrated with persistent public criticism from Washington.” The diplomatic tension is palpable.

What blue Smurfy hell hath UNICEF wrought? The horror…the horror… The short film pulls no punches. It opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand-in-hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past...