“Sanctions worked. Weapons inspectors worked. That is the bottom line of the long-awaited report on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” (New York Times editorial)

This is not the first time that US devastation of what military command describes as a suspected ‘safe house’ for foreign fighters is countered by claims by opponents of our occupation of Iraq that what was really attacked was a wedding party. Not that I trust the US government’s version of reality too often, but it does seem that the critics use the wedding party excuse — even at midweek, at that — a little too consistently.

Doug Giebel thinks Bush’s world is falling apart. Readers of FmH know that I have long speculated that Bush is an incurious and malleable patsy of his handlers in the misadministration; a rigid credulous ne’er-do-well of simpleminded faith who has not been lying so much as lied to by his advisers puppetmasters. Giebel agrees, and thinks that what we were seeing in the first debate was Dubya’s dawning realization, despite being the “most insulated leader in our history”, of the contradictions. It is crediting Bush with alot, I know, to think that he is beginning to grasp this. Giebel actually seems to pity the man, which is a neat solution to the pain it causes some of us to hold him in such utter contempt. (Counterpunch)

Related: Here, an intriguing notion of how they might feed the puppet Bush his lines when he is onstage:

“But what should forty-something white professionals listen to?” (BBC)

A very happy fourth blogiversary to an all-time favorite and daily read, wood s lot… if you can call it a blog.

Boing Boing points out:

That’s not all. Although Edwards had pretty much been running for president, and indeed missing many important votes, for the past two years, Cheney rarely meets Democratic senators in his weekly trips to the Hill. Although he represented himself as coming to the Senate in his presiding role, he’s really there for a weekly lunch witht he Republican senatorial delegation.

Some more Bush League lies, via boing boing:

“…we look rock ‘n’ roll death in the eye and examine some of the most ghoulish trends in rock history…”, including the ‘deadest bands in rock’ and the ‘deadliest jobs’ in the field. (New York Daily News)

Could it be that people who take vitamins, as compared to those who don’t, are more anxious about their health, and that this is correlated with the excess mortality, either because they have something about which to be anxious, or because the anxiety itself has adverse health consequences?

Bill McKibben says that low-lying islands are being drowned. They are the ‘canaries in the coalmine’ of global warming, since

New Scientist interviews Vicki Hale, founder of the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company, which is obtaining the rights to ‘orphan drugs’ for rare but devastating diseases traditional drug companies have little incentive to address.

“It has been a long trip for psychedelic drugs, but they’re creeping toward prescription status in the US, thanks to a group of persistent scientists who say they can help people with mental disorders and chronic pain.” (Wired)

New Scientist interviews Jamie Whyte, author of Crimes Against Logic.

“Italy’s adoration of the ‘two Simonas’, the women aid workers abducted in Iraq, began to sour yesterday, as the extent of their sympathy for the Iraqi fight against the allied occupation became clear.” (Telegraph.UK)

In this troubling essay, the physician seems to justify an invasive outright violation of a competent patient’s clearly expressed directives because the patient is grateful several weeks later. The physician asserts that no one really wants to die, and agrees enthusiastically with a colleague, in a travesty of a competency assessment, that if the patient had expressed a wish not to have heroic measures, his thinking wasn’t straight. This style of medicine is pitiful in its singleminded, vain and ultimately of course pointless quest to cheat death at all costs. The pride physicians like this take in their seeming omnipotence and omniscience make me ashamed of my profession. I am surprised that the author was so un-self-conscious as to have no embarrassment at having portrayed himself in this light. There are any number of vignettes most of us can describe — or which you can see on ER every week — that describe the subtleties of medical decision-making in the face of ethical dilemmas… but this is not one.

“The former U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq says the United States ‘paid a big price’ for not having enough troops on the ground after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime.” (CNN)

“Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared Monday to back off earlier statements suggesting Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda.

He also conceded that U.S. intelligence was “wrong” in its conclusions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.” (CNN) What is going on here? Is it possible that, in the aftermath of the debate, as Bush’s inability to admit his mistakes seems as if it will lose the election for him, he is sending out his minions to see how a ‘flip flop’ would play?

Oh, and: Poland (as in “Don’t forget Poland”) is pulling out of the coalition of the misbegotten.

Safire just doesn’t get it: “As the Democratic Whoopee Brigade hailed Senator Kerry’s edge in debating technique, nobody noticed his foreign policy sea change. On both military tactics and grand strategy, the newest neoconservative announced doctrines more hawkish than President Bush.” (New York Times op-ed)

Should Palestinians give up on an independent state?:

The well-respected senior Fox correspondent who wrote the story has been ‘reprimanded’ but continues to report from the campaign trail. Fox has declined to say what action, if any, was taken against those who reviewed the article for posting. The New York Times places this incident in the context of “a time when journalistic errors and lapses both big and small have called into question the credibility of a number of major news organizations”, citing the CBS News embarrassment about the Bush National Guard documents. No mention is made of the Times’ own besmirched record in covering the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and its role in the totally uncritical media coverage of candidate Bush in the 2000 campaign.

“10 Nobel Laureates, 2 Former Presidential Advisers Campaigning on Behalf of John Kerry” (ABC News)

“10 Nobel Laureates, 2 Former Presidential Advisers Campaigning on Behalf of John Kerry” (ABC News)

Of everything I have read analyzing the first debate, Sidney Blumenthal best captures the depths of what was revealed about Bush’s fear, inadequacy, unpreparedness and inflexibility when he has to think on his feet. He concludes:

Even forgeting about content, ‘Body language expert’ says Kerry “more presidential”:

But Derrick Jackson thinks Kerry made one crucial mistake in the debate… and that it might end up costing him the election. (Boston Globe op-ed) And Conason cautionsthat, after the euphoria, “…Kerry and his advisors had better not get too cocky over their victory in the first debate.” (Salon) But, for the moment, let’s be cocky… and full of schadenfreude. Here, from the DNC, is a greatest-hits compilation of Bush’s smirks from the debate.

This has done the rounds but deserves to be posted again since it apparently election season:

Past Work Experience:

I ran for U.S. Congress and lost.

I produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.

I bought an oil company, but couldn’t find any oil in Texas; the company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.

I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.

With my father’s help and name, I was elected Governor of Texas.

Accomplishments as Governor:

I changed pollution laws in favor of the power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union.

I replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America.

I cut taxes and bankrupted Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.

I set the record for the most executions by any Governor in American history.

I became U.S. President after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes with the help of major Enron money and my father’s appointments to the Supreme Court.

Accomplishments as President:

I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.

I entered my office with the strongest economy in U.S. history and have turned every single economic category downward — all in less than two years.

I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.

I garnered the most sympathy for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most resented country in the world, possibly the largest failure of diplomacy in World history.

I am the first president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.

I set the the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one year period,

I am supporting development of a “Tactical Bunker Buster” nuke, a WMD.

I am getting our troops killed, under the lie of Sadam’s procurement of Yellow Cake Nuke WMD components, then blaming the lie on our British friends.

I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. president.

In my first year in office over 2-million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues every month.

I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.

I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any president in U.S. history.

I set the record for least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.

I signed more laws and executive orders effectively amending or ignoring the Constitution than any president in history.

I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.

I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history and refused to use national reserves as past presidents have done.

I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families — in war time.

I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people) shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.

I’ve dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.

I’ve made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in U.S. history.

I’m proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history.

My “poorest millionaire,” Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.

I am the first president in U.S. history to have almost all 50 states of the Union simultaneously suffer massive financial crisis.

I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in history.

I am the first president in U.S. history to order a pre-emptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the world community.

I created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.

I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in history.

I am the first president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.

I am the first president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Elections Monitoring Board.

I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in U.S. history.

I rendered the entire United Nations viewpoints irrelevant.

I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.

I refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. “prisoners of war” (detainees) and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.

I am the first president in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election).

I am the all-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.

My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation) presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. history. My political party used the Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.

I am first president in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.

I am the first U.S. president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the U.S. than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.

I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.

I set an all-time record for the number of administration appointees who violated U.S. law by not selling their huge personal investments in corporations bidding for U.S. contracts.

I failed to fulfill my pledge to capture Osama Bin Laden, dead or alive.

I failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the U.S. Capitol Building. Even after 18 months I have no leads and no credible suspects.

In the past 18 months following the World Trade Center attack I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.

I removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any president in U.S. history.

In a little over two years, I created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided since the Civil War.

Records and References:

I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine. My Texas driving record has been erased and is not available.

I was AWOL from the National Guard.

I refuse to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.

All records of my tenure as Governor of Texas are now in my father’s library, sealed, and unavailable for public view.

All records of SEC investigations into insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.

Please consider my experience when voting in 2004.

Psychiatrist Dies at 74. Dr. Mack was killed when struck by a car apparently driven by a drunk driver, while in London to speak at a conference. He was a founder of the psychiatry department at the Cambridge Hospital where I trained and was one of my mentors, with whom I collaborated on work on the psychological consequences of the nuclear threat. Mack attracted heaps of scorn (and an unsuccessful move to censure him at the Harvard Medical School, which ended up reaffirming him) for his final decades’ focus on people claiming to have been victims of alien abduction. His sophisticated take on the issue was widely misjudged and ridiculed as credulity, since he was often in the company of credulous abduction adherents. But the New York Times obituary has a more accurate bead on the context and the significance of this work:

“He was drawn to psychoanalytic analysis of the misunderstood or vulnerable, including children contemplating suicide, teenagers troubled by the threat of nuclear war and finally, people plagued by what they believed to be recurrent alien encounters.

In the 1990’s, Dr. Mack studied dozens of people who said they had had such contact with aliens, culminating in his book “Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens” in 1994. In it, he focused less on whether aliens were real than on the spiritual effects of perceived encounters, arguing that “the abduction phenomenon has important philosophical, spiritual and social implications” for everyone. “