Nope, Not Me.

This is one of those moments that kind of speaks for itself. The Politico makes a report about some extremely disparaging comments Harry "Baron Samedi" Reid made while pandering to the nutroots about General Pace. Harry calls Pace incompetent, according to the report. Greg Sargent at TPM Cafe spends pretty much all day calling this a lie based on his contacts with people on the conference call. Everyone he interviews denies that the words ever came out of Harry's mouth.

Except Greg Sargent gets a recording of Harry's talk - and the words are right there. Harry said them, there is no denying them. ALL of Greg's sources were flat wrong. Or worse. So what does Greg do?

Spin like a whirling dervish. No credibility problem with his sources. Nope. not them. It has to be the Politico's fault.

So The Politico's John Bresnahan, who wrote the original story, was right; Reid did call Pace incompetent. On the other hand, it was in the context of a discussion of Alberto Gonzales and other administration incompetents, not Iraq. The reference to Pace was an aside — brought up solely to highlight Bush's loyalty to Gonzales. Reid's focus here wasn't on Pace or the commanders.

Seems to me that the larger context suggests more clearly than the shorter snippet posted earlier by Bob Geiger, another blogger on the call, how pumped up the Politico story and headline were. Nonetheless, the truth is, Bresnahan's story was factually accurate. Though it's still unclear what Reid said about Petraeus, which is the more controversial aspect of the story, since Pace is on his way out and Petraeus is the key guy in Iraq. We were only able to obtain a tape of a limited chunk of the call.

Still outstanding question: Why didn't Reid's office just confirm that he'd said this?

It's almost anticlimactic to point out that Reid DID confirm it. But I suppose that will be for another post. Where the penguins did it or something. It's all about that truthiness and larger context. No facts need rear their ugly little heads. Like I said, speaks for itself.

Bad News

The artist formerly known as Pluto has had even more bad news since being downgraded from a planet last year (it now called a "Solar Truck Stop" or maybe a "dwarf planet", we misremember). It seems that the object currently known as Eris (destined to be "plutoed" and known henceforth as "Smedley", we suspect) has been calculated to be both bigger and more massive than the former planet-that-must-not-be-named.

Astronomers have announced yet more bad news for the much-lamented former planet Pluto. Kicked out of the club of planets last year into a new category of dwarf planet, it is not even the biggest of those, scientists have found.

The same object that began Pluto's problems, a 1,500-mile-wide dwarf planet called Eris, has been confirmed as bigger and heavier than Pluto.

Using the Hubble space telescope and the Keck observatory in Hawaii, scientists used measurements of the orbit of Dysnomia, one of the satellites of Eris, to calculate that Eris is 27% heavier than Pluto. "This is sort of Pluto's last stand," said Emily Schaller, of California Institute of Technology, part of the research team that publishes its results today in Science.

Pluto was demoted from planet status at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union last year. The move solved an embarrassing fudge: when astronomers at the Lowell observatory announced the discovery of Pluto in 1930, they claimed it was several times larger than Earth, ensuring that it was quickly labelled the ninth planet. But as it turned out, Pluto was substantially smaller than the moon. At 1,480 miles, its width is no more than the distance from London to Moscow.

When Eris was spotted on the edge of the solar system in 2003, it forced astronomers to rethink their definition of what made a planet. Ian Crawford, of the Centre for Planetary Science and Astrobiology at Birkbeck College, said the latest research showed that the discovery of Pluto had been a lucky accident: rather than a proper planet, he said, Pluto had just been the first object discovered from the Kuiper Belt, a ring of rocks and comets that surrounds the outer solar system. "It goes to show that there's nothing special about Pluto."

We'll always have Pluto. Because people will be forever proving that is was not a planet, nyah, nyah.

“Only The Sword And The Rifle.”

Well, Hamas has wasted no time at all in declaring where they stand - they will not negotiate with Abbas or Fatah in any way, shape or form. And they are dancing on the desk formerly occupied by Mahmoud Abbas in Gaza. They plan on doing all their talking with the sword and the rifle.

Triumphant Hamas fighters are planning to celebrate their final Gaza victory with Friday prayers today in the captured presidential compound of the routed secular President.

The pledge came from a leading preacher as the Islamist forces overran the last strongholds of their rivals.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President and Fatah leader, declared a state of emergency last night and dissolved the Hamas-led Government. He said that he would call new elections “as soon as the situation allows”.

The President cut an increasingly weak figure, however, and such orders appeared simply to acknowledge the realities of the unfolding chaos.

“There will be no dialogue with Fatah, only the sword and the rifle,” declared Nezar Rayyan, a top Hamas leader, on the Islamist movement’s radio station as Fatah broadcasters were bombed off the air.

Oh, and about those earlier reports of Hamas atrocities, including the execution of captives? Fatah gunmen are pledging payback (as I rather suspected they would.)

Fatah leaders, fearing the fighting was about to spread to the West Bank, ordered their militias there to start arresting Hamas members, although some rank-and-file Fatah gunmen said that they would go even further and kill their rivals if they caught them.

As ugly as it is already, it will get uglier. This is the direct result of the enablers in the West who choose to blame everything on Israel and refuse to hold the Palestinians responsible for there atrocities. Get that, Jimmy Carter? You helped legitimize Yasser Arafat and his terrorist state; this is the payoff for all your help. Proud of yourself?

Message

Police in Washington, DC evacuated the US Post Office next to the Smithsonian Institution's National Postal Museum today after employees noticed an unattended package sitting on the counter. Not only was nobody in sight to claim the package, but the package also smelled very, very bad. After a thorough investigation by the bomb squad, the package was determined to hold nothing dangerous.

Just two cans of spinach and a very dirty diaper.

WASHINGTON - A foul-smelling package that led to the evacuation of a post office next to the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum contained two cans of spinach and a dirty diaper, authorities said.

"No wonder it smelled," said Deborah Yackley, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service. "I don't know why it was being mailed."

A postal worker alerted police shortly before 11 a.m. after spotting the smelly package sitting on a counter with no one around to claim it, authorities said. The package had no postage and no address.

Police are now looking for an extremely skinny brunette with her hair pulled back into a bun and with abnormally large feet. It is believed she was sending a message to someone with the nickname "Popeye" that he was a little too strong to the finish because he ate his spinach.

Ruth Graham, 1920-2007, RIP

Ruth Graham, wife of evangelist Billy Graham has died at age 87.

MONTREAT, N.C. - Ruth Graham, who surrendered dreams of missionary work in Tibet to marry a suitor who became the world's most renowned evangelist, died Thursday. She was 87. Graham died at 5:05 p.m. at her home at Little Piney Cove, surrounded by her husband and all five of their children, said a statement released by Larry Ross, Billy Graham's spokesman.

"Ruth was my life partner, and we were called by God as a team," Billy Graham said in a statement. "No one else could have borne the load that she carried. She was a vital and integral part of our ministry, and my work through the years would have been impossible without her encouragement and support.

"I am so grateful to the Lord that He gave me Ruth, and especially for these last few years we've had in the mountains together. We've rekindled the romance of our youth, and my love for her continued to grow deeper every day. I will miss her terribly, and look forward even more to the day I can join her in Heaven."

Ruth Graham had been bedridden for months with degenerative osteoarthritis of the back and neck — the result of a serious fall from a tree in 1974 while fixing a swing for grandchildren — and underwent treatment for pneumonia two weeks ago. At her request, and in consultation with her family, she had stopped receiving nutrients through a feeding tube for the last few days, Ross said.

My mother  always made it a point to watch one of Billy Graham's televised crusades whenever she could, even though she was a born and raised Lutheran. Rest in peace.

Like A Bad Horror Movie

Like a zombie in a B-grade Hollywood horror film, the illegal immigration "reform" bill is being brought back to life by Harry "Baron Samedi" Reid and the other Senate leadership.

"The leaders have agreed on a way forward," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

The measure, sidetracked a week ago, is expected to return to the Senate floor for additional debate as early as next week.

The legislation has generated intense controversy, particularly for provisions envisioning eventual citizenship for many of the estimated 12 million immigrants now in the country unlawfully. The bill also calls for greater border security and a crackdown on the hiring of illegal employees.

The decision to revive the measure does not necessarily portend passage in the Senate. Critics of the measure have denounced it as conferring amnesty on millions of lawbreakers, and it remains unclear how strenuously they will attempt to prevent its approval.

The decision to bring the bill back for more debate was made at a meeting involving Reid, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and key supporters of the legislation.

Well, that would indicate that the fix is in. But somehow, I am not really sure they will be able to get it past the Senate, much less the House. Brace yourselves for some serious screaming, Senators. The only way American voters are going to let you keep your jobs is if you break the border security out first into a stand-alone companion that cannot be undermined by the rest of the provisions. You are badly mistaken if you think the voters will not remember this if it gets shoved down America's throat.

Abbas Dissolves Palestinian Government

Mahmoud Abbas today dissolved the Palestinian "unity" government officially. Not that there was any real unity in that mess. But he declared a caretaker government until new elections can be held. Meanwhile, Fatah continues to claim its fighters are being shot in the head after they surrender - Hamas keeps denying they have done so. Fatah has begun rounding up Hamas fighters in the West Bank as a preemptive measure. (No word on casualties there yet).

Fearful that Hamas' momentum could spread to the West Bank, Fatah went on the offensive there, rounding up three dozen Hamas fighters.

It was a day of major victories for Hamas and its backers in Iran and Syria — and of devastating setbacks for the Western-backed Fatah. In one particularly humiliating scene, masked Hamas fighters marched agents of the once-feared Preventive Security Service out of their headquarters, arms raised in the air, stripped to the waist and ducking at the sound of a gunshot.

The violence has killed at least 90 people in the past five days, including 32 on Thursday alone. Witnesses, Fatah officials and a doctor reported executions by Hamas militants of defeated Fatah fighters Thursday; Fatah said seven of its men were shot in the head gangland-style. Hamas denied any such killings.

Abbas, of Fatah, fired the Hamas prime minister and said he would install a new government, replacing the Hamas-Fatah coalition formed just three months ago. Abbas' decrees won't reverse the Hamas takeover of Gaza. Instead, his moves will enable Fatah to consolidate its control over the West Bank, likely paving the way for two separate Palestinian governments.

Because Fatah has recognized Israel's right to exist and signed on to past peace agreements, the international community's boycott of the Palestinian territories in the wake of Hamas' electoral successes may no longer apply to the West Bank — just to Gaza. Some 2 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, while 1.4 million reside in Gaza.

Hamas' success has thrown into turmoil everything from Mideast peacemaking to Palestinian statehood to relations with Israel and the West.

"The era of justice and Islamic rule has arrived," Hamas spokesman Islam Shahawan said.

So you can expect executions in Gaza to really get into high gear soon, presumably. The Palestinians in Gaza are about to begin having even more miserable lives than Arafat led them into.

Space Station Computer Problems

The International Space Station is experiencing serious computer problems. NASA engineers are trying to figure out what, exactly, is going on. For now the computers are more or less running, but they are expected to keep going up and down all day. Atlantis may have to remain docked for an additional day so it can help stabilize the station in orbit. In a worst case scenario, the station might have to be abandoned and the astronauts have warmed up the escape capsule, a Russian Soyuz.

The computers were up and running briefly early Thursday, said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations. But since engineers are still troubleshooting, they were expected to go down and come back up throughout the day.

"I think we're stable. In my world, this is space station operations," Gerstenmaier said.

It will probably be several days before engineers figure out what caused the computers to fail Wednesday, he said.

"We've got a challenge. We'll figure out a way to get this behind us," he said. "We've got time. There's no criticality that we have to figure this out in a certain amount of time."

This type of computer failure had never been seen before on the space station. The addition of a new solar array to the space station might be a cause, he said. Other possibilities include electromagnetic interference and a software problem.

A new solar array had been unfolded outside the station Tuesday to help provide power for the orbiting outpost, and astronauts spent Wednesday hooking up a joint that will let the arrays track the sun.

The crew got a scare early Thursday while the computers were being reconnected: A fire alarm went off on the Russian Zarya module, but Gerstenmaier said there was no indication of fire or smoke.

Since Atlantis is still docked at the space station, its thrusters can help, if needed, to maintain the station's position while computers are down, Gerstenmaier said.

NASA has not decided whether to extend the mission because of the problem, he said. But Atlantis astronauts were asked Thursday to begin conserving power in case the shuttle has to remain an extra day.

I have no idea how the computers are set up, but it seems odd that there are not redundant systems in place, which is how NASA normally operates. On the other hand, the computer system is Russian, so who knows. But there is another odd story concerning weird happenings at the station:

PALATINE, Ill. - A mother of two in this suburb of Chicago doesn't have to turn on the news for an update on NASA's space mission. She just flips on her baby monitor. Since Sunday, Natalie Meilinger's baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis.

"Whoever has a baby monitor knows what you'll usually see," said the elementary school science teacher. "No one would ever expect this."

Live video of the mission is available on NASA's Web site, so it's possible the monitor is picking up a signal from somewhere.

"It's not coming straight from the shuttle," NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean said. "People here think this is very interesting and you don't hear of it often — if at all."

You know, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss this as unrelated. It is certainly unprecedented and at least bears looking into.

There’s Nothing So Lonesome

It's lonesome away from your kindred and all
By the camp fire at night where the wild dingoes call,
But there's nothing so lonesome so morbid or drear
Than to stand in a bar of a pub with no beer.

Now the publican's anxious for the quota to come
There's a far away lock on the face of the bum
The maid's gone all cranky and the cook's acting queer
What a terrible place is a pub with no beer.
(Australian traditional, The Pub With No Beer)

Well, never let it be said that Australians don't have their priorities straight. The tiny town of Hinton has been cut off by floodwaters for days now following torrential rains down under. And folks there are getting desperate. Fortunately, the local rescue workers arrived in the nick of time and saved the town: They delivered beer.

The tiny town of Hinton, in the Hunter Valley wine-growing region, has been surrounded for five days by the floodwaters that have devastated parts of New South Wales after storms and torrential rain at the weekend.

The murky brown water, the authorities said, contained sewage and other pollutants, but its 400 inhabitants were more worried about a lack of beer.

A plentiful supply was required to celebrate a much-anticipated rugby league match between New South Wales and Queensland yesterday.

For days State Emergency Service volunteers had been ferrying staples such as bread and milk to the stranded town in flat-bottomed boats.

Yesterday, they added 12 kegs and 36 cartons of beer to their cargo.

Thank heavens! Forget the rugby match, how are you supposed to play a round of cane toad golf without beer? Oh, darn. We've gone and upset them again.

No News For YOU

This is unreal. I've often pointed out the raging hypocrisy of the left - you know, the way they whine on national television about how they are being silenced. Then they turn around and try to silence critics. This is really common among celebrities, of course. Hollywood types are quick to screech into the nearest microphone about being oppressed. But it is rarely quite this blatant. Angelina Jolie has actually taken first prize in the raging hypocrite sweepstakes. To promote a new movie about Daniel Pearl, murdered in the pursuit of press freedom, Jolie is demanding the press surrender their freedom to her if they want an interview.

Angelina Jolie's true colors came out Wednesday as she promoted a film about freedom of the press and then tried to censor all her interviews.

Jolie is touting press freedom these days, playing the widow of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in a new movie called "A Mighty Heart."

But Jolie turns out to be a mighty hypocrite when it comes to her own freedom of the press. Her lawyer required all journalists to sign a contract before talking to her, and Jolie instructed publicists at first to ban FOX News from the red carpet of her premiere.

Ironically, Wednesday night's premiere of the excellent Michael Winterbottom-directed film was meant to support an organization called Reporters Without Borders. Jolie, however, did everything she could to clamp down on the press and control it.

Reporters from most major media outlets balked Wednesday when they were presented with an agreement drawn up by Jolie's Hollywood lawyer Robert Offer. The contract closely dictated the terms of all interviews.

Reporters were asked to agree to "not ask Ms. Jolie any questions regarding her personal relationships. In the event Interviewer does ask Ms. Jolie any questions regarding her personal relationships, Ms. Jolie will have the right to immediately terminate the interview and leave."

The agreement also required that "the interview may only be used to promote the Picture. In no event may Interviewer or Media Outlet be entitled to run all or any portion of the interview in connection with any other story. … The interview will not be used in a manner that is disparaging, demeaning, or derogatory to Ms. Jolie."

If that wasn't enough, Jolie also requires that if any of these things happen, "the tape of the interview will not be released to Interviewer." Such a violation, the signatory thus agrees, would "cause Jolie irreparable harm" and make it possible for her to sue the interviewer and seek a restraining order.

I am told that USA Today and the Associated Press were among those that canceled interviews, and eventually Jolie scotched all print interviews when she heard the reaction.

Welcome to the land of Jolie, where she may preach at will, but you will remain silent. Now that this story is out, Jolie is in for a lot of derogatory comments. She has earned them.

Let the derision begin: Don Surber, Captain's Quarters, Wizbang, NewsBusters,

Lebanon’s Agony

It was just a short while ago that Nancy Pelosi made her pilgrimage to Damascus to shake Bashar Assad's hand and proclaim her version of US foreign policy. There, she defined the world as she thought it should be, not as it really is. Well, reality struck again yesterday. One of Lebanon's fiercely anti-Syrian politicians was assassinated by bomb. The use of bombs as assassination weapons is a hallmark of Syria. So Pelosi's new friend appears to have killed off yet another member of the Lebanese government. And Hussain Abdul-Hussain has had enough.

A bomb in Beirut yesterday killed Walid Eido, a member of the Lebanese parliament, and his son, Khaled, one of the smartest, sweetest and most delightful friends I have ever had.

I should wait for the results of an investigation into the explosion to learn who killed Khaled and his dad. But I will not wait. I am tired of the murders in Lebanon. I accuse the Syrian regime, headed by President Bashar al-Assad, of killing Khaled. As a friend of the family, I want to press charges against Assad and his Syrian and Lebanese associates. Enough is enough with the Syrian regime and its Lebanese puppets.

Walid Eido was a member of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority. Before his untimely death, the majority bloc comprised 69 of the legislature's 128 members. Now, the majority's margin has been narrowed to five, and there is no reason to believe that Syria will not go after these people and kill them, one after another, until it forces the government to collapse.

For the past few months Eido had been the target of a demonizing campaign by Syria's foremost ally, Hezbollah. Similar Hezbollah campaigns against other anti-Syrian lawmakers preceded their assassinations.

Hezbollah has been a supportive partner to Syria, often thanking the Assad regime for what it has "offered" my country. In truth, Hezbollah has sold out Lebanon's national interests to the regional autocrats of Syria and Iran.

Hezbollah might not have started the streak of assassinations of anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians that began with the killing of former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri in February 2005, but the militant group has certainly been complicit with the criminal Syrian regime.

The author goes on to list those who have been assassinated - it's a rather long list, mind you. And Syria and Hezbollah show no signs of letting up on their campaign. He also is risking his life in telling the truth here, increasing the likelihood that he will be met with a car bomb when he visits Lebanon. The agony in Lebanon goes on daily while the West ignores it.

It’s The Freedom, Stupid

Vaclav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic, spent most of his life living under communist oppression. So he knows quite a bit about freedom and the suppression thereof. So he speaks with some authority on what he sees as the real objective of the global warming true believers: suppression of freedom.

We are living in strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough – irrespective of the fact that in the course of the 20th century the global temperature increased only by 0.6 per cent – for the environmentalists and their followers to suggest radical measures to do something about the weather, and to do it right now.

In the past year, Al Gore’s so-called “documentary” film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain’s – more or less Tony Blair’s – Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the weather. Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.

The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

Read the whole thing. His proposals at the end of the piece should make you think. But his closing one is the best of all:

Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts, or use them to defend and promote irrational interventions in human lives.

We are already seeing reports of rampant fraud in the UN-run "carbon mitigation" schemes. We are seeing Malaysia's forests destroyed in pursuit of biofuels. We have seen the massacre of orangutans over biofuels to satisfy the true believers. Then there is the killing of people and the theft of land in Colombia so that more biofuel can be produced. We are seeing skyrocketing food prices - and soon enough there will be a world-wide impact as less and less grain is available for food export. We're seeing hedge funds driving all this in order to line the pockets of their investors. And we're seeing one of the largest energy hogs in America - a part owner of a hedge fund - pimping global warming on a global scale. Alexander Cockburn, a proud member of the left, sees this for what it is. So does Vaclav Klaus.

Forget Snakes On A Plane

Canada has bears on a train.

The black bear cubs, each just a few months old and weighing only about 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms) have twice had to be pulled off rail cars after travelling about 20 km (12 miles) through the mountain passes that separate Banff National Park in the province of Alberta and Yoho National Park in British Columbia.

The cubs and their mother were climbing onto grain cars stopped at a siding to eat grain that had spilled onto a platform at the rear of the car. When the trains started up, the cubs were trapped.

"Mom can jump off but the little guys are too scared so they end up catching a ride," said Hal Morrison, a specialist in wildlife-human conflict with Parks Canada in Field, British Columbia. "This happened twice in the space of two days."

Of course, the cubs were not looking for a little grain. They were intent on hijacking the train and taking all the grain. And not just for food, either. The Animal Uprising™ has a new ethanol initiative. They plan on producing so much of the stuff that the humans starve. Human politicians are cooperating in this endeavor, it seems.

Dancing In The Streets - Hamas Style

Hamas gunmen overran the last major stronghold of Fatah in Gaza City. After they seized the Fatah-controlled Preventive Security headquarters, they led captured Fatah men out into the street.

And executed them.

 Hamas fighters overran Fatah-allied Preventive Security headquarters in Gaza City on Thursday, a key target in their battle to control the entire Gaza Strip, witnesses and a security agency official said.

One witness, Jihad Abu Ayad, said Hamas gunmen were bringing Preventive Security men out of the building and executing them in the street.

Moments after the key security command was taken over, aides said that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas gave his first order to his elite presidential guard to strike back against Hamas rivals.

However, PA officials told the Jerusalem Post that no decision had yet been made and that a meeting between Abbas and his security officials had not yet reached its conclusion.

Nevertheless, the PA officials said that Abbas was expected to officially pull Fatah out of the PA unity government.

The coup de grace to Fatah sovereignty occurred a day after 35 Palestinians were killed in factional fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Earlier, Fatah operatives called on Abbas to order a move from defense to offense, "even at the price of thousands of dead Palestinians," to avoid losing the Gaza Strip to Hamas.

There are reports that Fatah members are demanding the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas for failing to order offensive operations on Hamas and keeping the Fatah forces on defense. (But hey, they are finally calling it a civil war here, too.)

There are reports that Fatah members are demanding the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas for failing to order offensive operations on Hamas and keeping the Fatah forces on defense. (But hey, they are finally calling it a civil war here, too.)