A jury has found Scooter Libby guilty of four of five counts.
Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.
I think it is wrong to prosecute someone when the underlying crime that supposedly occurred to set the entire investigation in motion has never been proved to have occurred. (I felt the same way about the Martha Stewart matter.) I think the people who will be cheering this verdict might want to step back and think about how this kind of precedent will be used against one of their own in the future.
And it will. Bet on it.
UPDATE: No, it is not a threat. It is a very obvious prediction. Apparently, Maha is afraid of the awesome might and power of Blue Crab Boulevard to wreak havoc on the American body politic. I'm pointing out the obvious to all but the Clue Proof™. I thought the pursuit of Clinton was a waste of time, effort and (a hell of a lot) of money. Because, in the end, the outcome was predictable. So it is with the assault of the administration this time. Which led to the conviction of a staffer. That's all. A staffer. Not the administration, not the evil Mchitlerbushliburtincheney.
A staffer. Convicted for supposedly telling a lie about something that likely was not even a crime. Joe Wilson published his wife's occupation. How was she covert?
If you start from the premise that someone, somewhere did something wrong at some point, it tends to color all the rest of your perceptions. But the big Karmic wheel has a way of coming back around. If you extract a pound of flesh from someone - say a staffer - do you really think it won't get paid back later against one of your own? When you open the door to politically motivated prosecutions, you must be willing to face the inevitable consequences. They will be remembered, they will be repaid. You cannot argue that Bill Clinton was railroaded and then claim the moral high ground when you cheer the railroading of a staffer.
If you hear him howling around your kitchen door
You better not let him in
Little old lady got mutilated late last night
Werewolves of London again
Ah-ooooo, werewolves of London
Ah-ooooo
Ah-ooooo, werewolves of London
Ah-ooooo
(Warren Zevon, Werewolves of London)
Apparently, there is a werewolf outbreak going on in Wisconsin. Police there have arrested a man who has admitted that he is one. No, really.
A woman called police about 3 a.m. Thursday and said Marsh broke through the deadbolt on her door and grabbed her. Two men in the home stopped him, a criminal complaint said.
The woman said she had been letting Marsh stay with her since his release from prison several days earlier because he was homeless, the complaint said.
Marsh had been drinking heavily and claimed to be a werewolf and involved in a witch religion, the woman told police. When police arrested Marsh, he told them he was a werewolf who could change forms, the complaint said.
We here at Blue Crab Boulevard are frankly dismayed that some humans are crossing over to the Animal Uprising™ in such a complete manner. We urge our readers to plant extensive amounts of wolfbane around their homes. It would also be a good idea to stock up on silver bullets. Not this kind, the other kind. The first kind appears to have contributed to the werewolf outbreak in the first place.
Directly related to the last post, here's another story on the dangers of being an opponent of the Putin regime, this one from the Telegraph.
Speculation of the involvement of Russian agents intent on silencing opponents to President Vladimir Putin's regime, wherever they may be, has increased with an attempted murder in America and an apparent suicide in Moscow.
On the face of it the two incidents appear to have nothing in common, but Paul Joyal, shot in Adelphi, Maryland, on Saturday, is a friend of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy poisoned with polonium in London last year.
And in Moscow, Ivan Safronov, 51, was an ex-colonel and journalist for Kommersant who had irritated the Russian FSB security service with his frequent exposes.
He was reported dead yesterday after apparently falling from a fourth floor window of his apartment block on Friday.
The shooting of Mr Joyal, 53, was part of an apparent robbery, but law enforcement sources last night said it could merely have been a set-up. Mr Joyal, who struck up a friendship with Mr Litvinenko during visits to London, had recently told NBC's Dateline programme that the Russian's death was an act of "political retribution".
There are simply too many "coincidences" happening all at once. The Joyal shooting could have nothing whatsoever to do with Putin's government, but it seems more than a bit odd, doesn't it?
It would be a shame if anything happened to it. It would almost be funny if people weren't dying. The Russian government is looking more and more like a mutant mafia on steroids every day. Yet another Russian journalist has died. This time in a fall from a 5th floor window. The government is trying to say it was suicide.
A military correspondent for Russia's top business daily has died after falling out of a window, and some media alleged Monday that he might have been killed for his critical reporting.
Ivan Safronov, the military affairs writer for Kommersant, died Friday after falling from a fifth-story window in the stairwell of his apartment building in Moscow, officials said. His body was found by neighbors shortly after the fall.
With prosecutors investigating the death, Kommersant and some other media suggested foul play.
"The suicide theory has become dominant in the investigation, but all those who knew Ivan Safronov categorically reject it," Kommersant said in an article Monday.
Safronov's colleagues and relatives have described him as a strong, cheerful person who would be extremely unlikely to kill himself.
The Moscow city prosecutor's office did not respond to repeated calls for comment about the investigation into his death, and neighborhood prosecutors could not immediately be reached.
In a report that may have been aimed to quash speculation of foul play, the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted an unidentified law enforcement source as saying investigators had "not even any minimal information" pointing to the possibility of murder.
It is simply not safe for journalists in Russia if they say anything against the government. That, folks, is real repression. Again. There used to be a joke told in Russia in the days of the Soviets. "What did the dissident say just before he committed suicide? Don't shoot, comrade." It looks like the bad old days are back, only worse.
Or at least one town in Canada. The Animal Uprising™ has sent its rodent minions to undermine the entire town of Canmore, Alberta. The ultimate goal is to have the entire place disappear into the ground.
Canmore, Alberta, just outside the gate of Banff National Park, has found itself inundated with rabbits, and dealing with property damage, years after domesticated animals were set free in the picturesque community, Mayor Ron Casey said on Monday.
"They've been populating one area of town for likely 20 years or more, but the numbers have increased over the last four or five years for a variety of reasons, so now they've spread out a little wider," Casey said……
…..Casey said he could not confirm media reports pegging bunny numbers at more than 1,000.
"I know I can look out the front door of my house virtually any time and see four to six rabbits."
The burrowing bunnies have been working under the town for twenty years. Canmore ought to collapse into the center of the earth any time now. Predictably, some residents don't see the problem as a problem.
In the emission of greenhouse gases.
Far more than previously acknowledged, the battle against global warming will be won or lost in China, even more so than in the West, new data show.
A report released last week by Beijing authorities indicated that as its economy continues to expand at a red-hot pace, China is highly likely to overtake the United States this year or in 2008 as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
This information, along with data from the International Energy Agency, the Paris-based alliance of oil importing nations, also revealed that China's greenhouse gas emissions have recently been growing by a total amount much greater than that of all industrialized nations put together.
"The magnitude of what's happening in China threatens to wipe out what's happening internationally," said David Fridley, leader of the China Energy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
"Today's global warming problem has been caused mainly by us in the West, with the cumulative (carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere, but China is contributing to the global warming problem of tomorrow."
The fact of the matter is that Kyoto ignored China completely. If you're a true believer that man is the cause of global warming, that omission is inexcusable. Even if you have doubts about whether man is really the prime offender here - as I am - this is still a problem. There are any number of very good reasons to stop burning oil as a fuel and to figure out better ways to produce power (read nuclear). The fact remains that the 800 pound gorilla in the room is China. They are expanding very, very rapidly and will completely undo any measures we in the West take to curb our dependency on fossil fuels. The Chinese government is cheering on efforts in the West to strangle our own economies - but they have no plans to curb their emissions. They are, however, waiting to pick up whatever we turn our backs on.
The fact of the matter is that Kyoto ignored China completely. If you're a true believer that man is the cause of global warming, that omission is inexcusable. Even if you have doubts about whether man is really the prime offender here - as I am - this is still a problem. There are any number of very good reasons to stop burning oil as a fuel and to figure out better ways to produce power (read nuclear). The fact remains that the 800 pound gorilla in the room is China. They are expanding very, very rapidly and will completely undo any measures we in the West take to curb our dependency on fossil fuels. The Chinese government is cheering on efforts in the West to strangle our own economies - but they have no plans to curb their emissions. They are, however, waiting to pick up whatever we turn our backs on.
Legal | Gaius Tuesday, 6 March , 2007 | 
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