j_b

from buzzflash: "Off the Record, Some Reporters Contacted by White House Say Rove Was the Leaker Who Committed Treason, According to Guardian Reporter (Audio Tape)" web page

which of course, begs the question: how does trask form his opinions? by reading/listening to soundbites from conservative media? forcing one's opponent to utter soundbites is a good way to level the field when facts don't support one's case.

as your type is fond of saying .... this is america, love it or leave it .... oh 'freedom lover' thankfully no. i'd have to spend the whole day doing it. we? do you mean, the king and you this is rich coming from you. i don't spend anytime looking for articles to undo your spin on current events. i go to http://buzzflash.com/ and unlike faux news, it's all there. also, when i cut and paste, i quote the source .... not unlike someone we know.

there is a lot more info there than can be cut into a single paragraph. putting a spin on events takes a sentence, straigthening out the spin put on by a number of posters takes a short article. if it's too long for you, skip over it.

there is nothing like facts to cut through obfuscation. did i exceed your attention span?

but let iraqis decide how it should be fixed let's not forget that turkey is only a small step removed from a military dicatorship (as long as the western alliance is not questioned). the kurds and turkish opponents can testify to the extent of democracy there (it's a veneer that peels off as soon as other methods are 'required').

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/29/cnna.wilson.zahn/ WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Ambassador Joe Wilson, an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, blames the White House for telling a newspaper columnist that his wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA operative. The Justice Department is investigating the claim at the request of the CIA. Wilson spoke to CNN anchor Paula Zahn Monday. ZAHN: Are you still saying this goes all the way to the top levels of the White House? WILSON: No, on the contrary, I don't have any specific information. I would hope that an investigation would yield the information as to who was responsible for the precise leak. What I do have are any number of journalist sources, none of whom I have any reason not to believe, who have said that the White House was pushing this story after the leak, after the Novak article, and including [bush political strategist] Karl Rove. ZAHN: The Washington Post reported over the weekend that at least six Washington correspondents were fed this same information. Why? WILSON: Well, I think, if The Washington Post article is correct, I think there were probably two waves. The one wave was being this -- of the phone calls to the six journalists. The only person who published an article was Mr. Novak. He's now claiming that he wasn't called. But it was in that timeframe, apparently. Then, I believe there was a second wave that occurred later on in the week, when I started getting phone calls from different journalistic outlets, saying things like, the White House is telling us that the real story here is not the 16 words. The real story is Wilson and his wife, culminating in the day that I actually did an interview on another network, saying that my understanding was that this might be against the law, after which those calls stopped. ZAHN: And why do you think you're at the receiving end of all this? WILSON: Well, I had assumed early on that it was probably because the White House wanted to discourage others from coming forward. And I have said that repeatedly, that there was nothing they could do to me. I had already told my story. The accuracy or the validity, the veracity, of my story had been sort of agreed to by the White House 36 hours or 30 hours after my article appeared in The New York Times. There was nothing particularly to be gained by going after me. But you might want to discourage other people from stepping forward. There were a number of people at the time who were speaking off the record to journalists about pressures that they felt out at the CIA. Whether those were accurate or not, those were the stories that were going around. So I thought that it might be directed at them. ZAHN: Do you believe your wife's life is in any increased danger as a result of this? WILSON: Well, I don't know. We've always thought about this in the context of what is compromised in terms of national security, what operations, what agents, what networks that have been put in place during her career. That was the focus of our thinking. I will tell you that, increasingly, people are asking that question. And I'm going to have to think about it. But I'm not -- we have not been the recipients of any general threats or even -- or specific threats. ZAHN: So you're not sure whether you fear for her safety, when you say it's something you have to think through? WILSON: Well, I'm certainly concerned about her safety, but it's -- we had not thought about it in those terms at this point. We had thought about it more in terms of the violation to our own national security. ZAHN: And, finally, I wanted to share with you something that Robert Novak [the columnist who wrote the initial report] had to say a little bit earlier today about this controversy. Let's listen to what he had to say. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "CROSSFIRE") ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative, and not in charge of undercover operatives. So what is the fuss about, pure Bush-bashing? (END VIDEO CLIP) ZAHN: You want to answer that question? Is this Bush-bashing on your part? WILSON: Let me make a couple of points about that. First of all, Novak also said that I was a Clinton appointee. In actual fact, my first political appointee was as ambassador. And I was appointed by George H.W. Bush, the first President Bush. So I really am apolitical in all of this. Secondly, somebody with Novak's self-described 46 years experience will know the difference between operative and analyst. And his report clearly says -- his article says operative. ZAHN: So what does that mean? WILSON: That means that I think that he knew and he was told that she was a CIA operative, which means that they come under the branch of the CIA that deals with clandestine operations. ZAHN: So you're basically saying there's no doubt in your mind that this was a leak, when in fact he said, in the course of interviewing a senior White House official, that is what he was told, and your wife's -- not her name at that point, but at least her official capacity was shared with him? WILSON: Bob Novak called me before he went to print with the report. And he said, a CIA source had told him that my wife was an operative. He was trying to get a second source. He couldn't get a second source. Could I confirm that? I said no. After the article appeared, I called him and I said: "You told me it was a CIA source. You wrote senior administration officials. What was it, CIA or senior administration?" He said to me, "I misspoke the first time I spoke to you." That makes it senior administration sources.

Home gun safes, education and a clue. Prosecution and a revocation of said moron's gun rights if all else fails. [sarcasm]do you mean revocation of gun rights after the 2nd deadly shooting incident? are you arguing for home inspections to make sure those guns are put away?[/sarcasm]

Karl Rove doesn't hold an office, even an appointed one. He is basically an employee of Bush's. He is a political advisor. The Code implies certain obligations for government service, one of these is to expose corruption and deceit. Perhaps there is a conscientious person in the administration who realized a tactical error was committed by the two others in their disclosure. This source is only identified as a senior administration official. I understand that Rove is a political strategist, a modern-day Machiavelli, in Bush's employ. they were sending a message to the intelligence community: don't speak out or else.

From this thread on dynafits over at www.telemarktips.com: Oh! The irony! well i'll have to try it on my wife's setup. i have certainly encountered my share of dynafit users flustered by this. btw i fail to see the irony in my being mistaken. thanks ak. do you have a later generation dynafit binding. i wonder if your method works with the original model.

one big disadvantage of the dynafit is that one cannot switch mode (locked to unlocked) without taking the ski off. switching mode back and forth is very convenient when tired and skiing rolling terrain on the way out. most other problems with the dynafit are surmountable with practice and it is a very nice binding.

ouch!

if you rent a car, rent it in advance from here (much cheaper). is this what you did? it sounds pretty cool. i am jealous.

one bit of statistics that says it all: they get ~30 bodies a day at the bagdad morgue (many resulting from violent death). this is 4 times more than before intervention. if you want info from someone with a stellar journalistic reputation, has been a middle east correspondent for 30 years, and has been in iraq since before the war: http://www.robert-fisk.com/ (the server appears to be down at present but give it a try some day.) funny how these comments about biased iraq reports come out in mass as the admnistration is in serious trouble with the us public on its handling of the situation there. perhaps they should do like they do in iraq: close down unfavorable media and shoot reporters.

oops! does it mean one should not be too subtle around here?

not local semi-tough (11a), jt. If a hand crack is not overhanging and not "too tight" or too rattly, it is probably going to go at 5.8/5.9 IMO. you are most probably right. the climb i mentioned is dead vertical and if i recall correctly it, indeed, has a variety of placement sizes. i do remember the hand size part though because of the scabs on the back of my hands for weeks afterward and to think i climbed the pitch a second time

not local semi-tough (11a), jt.

probably more like it that nowadays it's much more difficult to portray war as a glorious affair. when i think of ww1, this kind of event (if event it was) is not what comes to mind. PP, it depends on your intent. also, i have no idea what you meant to say. anyhow, i don't have a problem with it, even though i don't especially like to be targeted since, in this environemnt, one never knows what the mob will turn out to say.

bokchoy and shiitake shrooms udon immortal ipa

anecdotal evidence is irrelevant. especially when presented by sensationalistic media and conservative gun totters in need of being reassured because they have an irrational fear of death (or fear of everything different). nothing short of statistics will do. here ya go press i am afraid this is not a fishing expedition (or at least i am not doing the fishing). you'll have to find the statistics supporting "being attacked by black kids on the streets of Seattle (plenty of those around)". until you do so convincingly (since you appear to take up greg's gig), i'll consider it as irrational fear mongering.

anecdotal evidence is irrelevant. especially when presented by sensationalistic media and conservative gun totters in need of being reassured because they have an irrational fear of death (or fear of everything different). nothing short of statistics will do.

then it should not be too difficult to provide statistics to illustrate your point as well as relate it unfavorably to the risk involved in other activities you engage in (such as trad climbing or mountaineering. are you sure you don't want to grid bolt everything in sight? it'd be much safer). i'll take your failure to present evidence as meaning that you are spewing non-sense.

so is bloodletting still your favorite remedy to all ills? better watch out for those 'elitist, intellectual' doctors. they are out to get your right to life. what about those engineers who force upon you all those construction codes, bunch of commies out to get your freedom to build as you see fit (hey it's your 'freedom', right?). what a dastardly world we live in .... darn intellectuals, out to force their knowledge upon you. what a shame ....

death by homicide in 1998 for washington state was 0.003%. this is probably less than the risk of dying incurred while climbing and definitely less than driving to the hills ....

"Analyzing political conservatism as motivated social cognition integrates theories of personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism—intolerance of ambiguity), epistemic and existential needs (for closure, regulatory focus, terror management)" psychology of conservatism