“Michael A Ledeen, resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he works closely with the better-known former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle, has been a fixture of Washington’s neo-conservative community for more than 20 years. But he is now out front, in a public campaign for the United States to confront Iran, warning that Tehran will cause Washington problems in both Iraq and Afghanistan and that ‘the mullahs are determined to obliterate Israel’. ” Asia Times [props to walker] Ledeen is apparently the international affairs analyst Karl Rove consults when he wants a ‘fresh idea’, and he increasingly sees his fax transmittals to Rove turned into official policy statements.

Of course, the American authorities regret this ‘serious’ mistake. But, of course, no one will be held culpable for this war crime [and I will be flamed for even calling it so.]

““I wish Saddam (Hussein) would return and kill all Americans,” Anwaar Kawaz said. Under Saddam, “we used to go out at one in the morning. We went out at 9 now and they killed us.” Guardian/UK

Related: Saddam’s Followers Raise Bounty for Dead Americans ABC News

Texas ANG George W Bush Action Figure: “Why wait until the redesign of Mount Rushmore?

Now you can own a piece of American history; the Texas Air National Guard George W Bush Action Figure.

This figure probably stands 14′ in height, and is exactly as the future Leader of the Western World(tm) appeared during his service defending our Nation’s borders from Mexicans and Bahamians.

Comes with detailed uniform (as imagined by base commander), sealed discharge papers, Coors Light keg, and ‘licensed to chug’ bumper sticker.

Now you can have George in your home every day, even after November 2004!

This fully pose-able action figure of the Commander in Chief is likely correct down to the slightest detail. Our highly skilled Chinese craftspeople have been in the action figure industry for years, and trained under a generous re-education program. They make the best, most desirable action figures in the Free Market, or die tryin’!

Winning bidder will be notified of upcoming GWBANG accessories; pile of dried branches, action pretzel, overstuffed bags with ‘$’ printed on them, blindfold, bible with real, highlighted passages, and earplugs.

The winning bidder will also receive TWO bonus gifts: the George W. Bush ‘Afternoon of September 11th 2001’ tennis ensemble, and a genuine “First Lady Laura Bush Serving Sandwiches at a VA Hospital” action figure!

Supplies are limited; don’t let yours disappear!”

Click on the link to view (or, if I am sadly mistaken about my readers, to bid on) the item; it is not what you think. [thanks, Adam]

GIs flood US with war-weary emails: “An unprecedented internet campaign waged on the frontline and in the US is exposing the real risks for troops in Iraq… (amidst) rising fears that the conflict is now a desert Vietnam.” Guardian/UK

Rebecca Blood points with obvious distress to this story about an eight-year-old sex symbol. Her parents approve; her father is — shall we say? — ‘pimping’ her in the sense that she works for his modelling agency in Brisbane. Rebecca reminds us of the furor over Brooke Shields’ suggestive prepubescent modelling, but forgets to draw the parallels to Jon-Benet Ramsay, rest her soul.

Democratic Presidential hopeful Howard Dean is getting the treatment. The acerbic physician and former governor of Vermont has raised more money and gained more popularity than expected. As a result, the pundits who examine political candidates’ viability have turned their gaze on him. In June, Tim Russert and a clique of Washington pundits and reporters who follow Russert’s lead pronounced Dean unfit. According to a flurry of news stories and columns, Dean’s appearance on Meet the Press with Russert on June 22 was an embarrassment for the candidate and a disaster for his campaign.

People who saw the show or read the transcript might well ask: What was the big deal? — Ruth Conniff, The Progressive [via Alternet]

Screenwriter/director Frank Pierson’s commencement address to the 2003 USC film school graduating class; “What has happened in Hollywood has happened to us all. In life as in movies, we are seeing the disappeance of the odd, the old, the personal, the traditional and the idiosyncratic…” Alternet

Big beast extinction blamed on prehistoric fire starters: “Analysis of ancient eggshells suggests giant Australian animals suddenly became extinct because people burned their habitat.” New Scientist

Dial the world: “The Web and E-mail are second nature to PC owners. Jeff Pulver hopes the same will soon apply for Internet phone calls. A 40-year-old pioneer in the field, Pulver is a passionate, fast-talking crusader trying to sell a skeptical public on the future of Net telephony. His latest venture is a no-charge service called Free World Dialup.” US News

“An electronic glove that can turn American Sign Language gestures into spoken words or text, designed to help the deaf communicate more easily with the hearing world, is under development.

Researcher Jose Hernandez-Rebollar of George Washington University has demonstrated that his ‘AcceleGlove’ can translate the rapid hand movements used to make the alphabet and some of the words and phrases of sign language.” Houston Chronicle

Paris heat wave ‘kills 100’: “At least 100 people have died from heat-related causes in the last eight days in the Paris area as scorching temperatures continue to bake much of Europe, according to a French medical official.” CNN

One of the most alarming aspects of the heatwave, showing what a thin veneer our most ‘advanced’ technological achievements place over environmental disaster, is embodied in this story: France Frets Over Nuke Plants and Heatwave Toll: “Temperatures have hit around 104 degrees Fahrenheit in the past few days, spelling trouble for France’s nuclear reactors, many of which are cooled by river water. The plants pour water back into the rivers but only once it has been cooled to a certain temperature to protect the environment. With river levels falling and the mercury rising, authorities face the choice of spewing out hotter water, risking ecological damage, or cutting output, potentially leading to blackouts.” UN-Cast News Wire

Herbs for Hot Flashes: “Stunned by the string of negative studies about hormone replacement, including research released last week that emphasized the risk of heart attacks and breast cancer, millions of menopausal women are searching for safe substitutes. Their quest for relief from hot flashes, night sweats and other symptoms has coincided with the first wave of results from studies begun over the last several years of popular herbs and other nonpharmaceutical treatments.

But to the dismay of enthusiasts of alternative medicines, the evidence of the benefits has been limited and mixed. As a result, experts are urging caution in using products that are just beginning to be understood, are of inconsistent quality and are sold in nontraditional ways.” NY Times

“To the growing numbers of medical experts who preach evidence-based medicine — the discipline that insists on proof that time-honored medical practices and procedures are actually effective — there is no more inviting target than the annual physical.

Checkups for people with no medical complaint remain the single most common reason for visiting a doctor, according to surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…

Yet in a series of reports that began in 1989 and is still continuing, an expert committee sponsored by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services, found little support for many of the tests commonly included in a typical physical exam for symptomless people.

It found no evidence, for example, that routine pelvic, rectal and testicular exams made any difference in overall survival rates for those with no symptoms of illness.

It warned that such tests can lead to false alarms, necessitating a round of expensive and sometimes risky follow-up tests. And even many tests that are useful, like cholesterol and blood pressure checks, need not be done every year, it said in reports to doctors, policy makers and the public.” NY Times

‘Evidence-based’ is ominously synonymous with ‘cost-effective’, of course, and its findings cannot measure intangible mutual benefits of an annual physical such as deepening the rapport between a patient and her/his physician, continuity of care, etc., unless they have a measurable impact on a statistic being studied. There is a branch of medicine which attempts to quantify the value of “quality-of-life” changes from medical interventions, but I doubt their data bearing on the annual physical checkup, if there is any, would be included in this purview.

“Not too long ago, it was easy for an armchair astronomer to keep up to speed on the moons of the solar system. There was the Moon, of course, and the four Jovian satellites spotted by Galileo, those two around Mars, and some odd ones here and there — that weird fractured cue ball orbiting Uranus, for instance.

These days, though, it is tough to tell the moons without a scorecard. In the past six years, dozens of satellites have been discovered around the giant planets, more than doubling the total in the solar system. Jupiter is the current leader, with 61, followed by Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The tally for these four planets is 124 (the other five planets have only four among them), but that number is sure to change in the next year or two.

…

(S)cientists say these moons offer some of the only clues to the early years of the solar system. They are a window into the past, some 4.5 billion years ago, when the planets formed from a swirling nebular disk of gas and dust.”

“A drug given to Parkinson’s patients may have an unexpected side-effect — compulsive gambling, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

An unusually large number of patients taking Mirapex gambled themselves into debt, while patients taking other drugs did not, the team at the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Research Center in Phoenix, Arizona reported.” Reuters

Some Doubt the Value And Safety of the Latest Pill, Crestor: “For patients who have tried and failed to lower their level sufficiently with lifestyle changes — diet and exercise — physicians generally recommend a statin, says Pasternak. However, with five such drugs already on the market, ‘I don’t think we desperately need an additional statin,’ he says.

Judging by the hundreds of millions the company spent developing Crestor and the effort it has put into winning approval, AstraZeneca disagrees. The company had to delay the drug’s introduction by a year when alarming toxicity was discovered at the highest dose of Crestor — 80 milligrams a day. People taking that dose were more likely than people on lower doses to have serious side effects such as muscle and kidney damage.” Washington Post

Audio of high court cases is ready for download: “Getting audio recordings of landmark legal arguments is becoming as easy as downloading the latest Snoop Dogg single. For the first time, Internet users can download, edit, and swap many of the US Supreme Court’s greatest hits.

Oral arguments available include those for the Roe v. Wade abortion rights case and the disputed 2000 presidential election.

The audio files come from the OYEZ Project, a multimedia archive that gets its name from the phrase used to open a session of court.” Boston Globe