Digital Brainwaves

 ABC News, and just about every other mainstream media news outlet, thought they had their damning evidence against the war in Iraq:

It’s government report the White House didn’t want you to read: yesterday the Pentagon canceled plans to send out a press release announcing the report’s availability and didn’t make the report available via email or online.

Based on the analysis of some 600,000 official Iraqi documents seized by US forces after the invasion and thousands of hours of interrogations of former officials in Saddam’s government now in US custody, the government report is the first official acknowledgment from the US military that there is no evidence Saddam had ties to al Qaeda.

That’s not really what the report says, though. As usual, it’s been spun to make readers believe what they want you to believe, instead of believing the facts. The report does not state there were no links, only that there was no evidence, in the small percentage of files they had examined, of an “operational link” — which is to say, Saddam wasn’t giving al-Qaeda orders.

Richard Miniter, writing for Pajamas Media, goes into great detail on what links were there, and concludes:

No connection? Well, Al-Qaeda and the Iraqi state certainly had a lot of meetings, money changed hands, some terrorist training occurred in Iraq, and a lot of personnel — including Abu Musab al Zarqawi — moved freely through the Iraqi police state. In short, there are connections.

None of this means that Iraq ran Al-Qaeda or had foreknowledge of its most gruesome attacks. It certainly does not mean Iraq was behind the 9-11 attacks or even knew about them in advance. [emphasis mine -- P]

Still, for there to be “no connection” between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, it would mean no meetings, no money, no training and no movement of personnel. On the strength of much weaker evidence, Saudi Arabia is “connected” to Al-Qaeda. Why is Iraq the one nation given the benefit of the doubt?

Have a read.

I either randomly stumbled across it in an article someplace (if I did, I didn’t save the link), or someone mentioned it in conversation recently, but I remembered the other day that I’ve blogged about man due to be sworn in as the next Governor of New York tomorrow, David Paterson, before. He had the wacky idea at the time to try to legislate that cops should, when things get dicey enough to require use of arms, get fancy and shoot to wound rather than shoot to kill.

Hopefully he’s got that idea shook out of his head.

That was fast:

“At Virgin Mobile, you’re more than just a number. When you call us we’ll treat you like a person, not a client. Whether you’re #9 or #900, you’ll get hooked up with somebody who’ll finally treat you just how you want to be treated.”

That Governor Spitzer may have been caught up in a prostitution sting…

…or this rather silly-looking picture from his abrupt press conference this afternoon?

(AP photo, retrieved from FOXNews.com)

This should make it, *ahem* interesting to be a New Yorker for the next few months, if not longer: Governor Eliot Spitzer, in advance of a suddenly-scheduled announcement for later this afternoon, has allegedly admitted to his staff his involvement in a high-priced prostitution ring.

If the allegations prove true, it comes as rather interesting and hypocritical for this to be coming from the former state attorney general who has, from the article, “built his political legacy on rooting out corruption.” As I’m typing this, the radio is reporting Spitzer may possibly resign.

For the record, I voted for the other guy.

Apparently, new studies suggest that global CO₂ output must be ceased altogether in order to curb global warming. Two points on that:

1. Get the entire population of the world to give up their cars, trucks, minivans and SUVs? Good luck with that.
2. Considering that Earth isn’t the only planet whose temperature is changing like this, maybe we should look at some other ideas.

There’s a few other points that could be made, but this is a good start. Feel free to contribue in the comments below.

…that Congress is getting the important legislation to President Bush’s desk in a timely manner. Yay priorities.

Note: This week’s American Idol blogs should be written and posted tonight.

Last night I was watching parts of Sunday Night Football (for the periods while I wasn’t watching The Amazing Race 12), and NBC started their whole NBC Green is Universal deal by shutting off the studio flood lights and going dark for the remainder of the pre-game, half-time and post-game shows.

Anyone else think they’d save even more energy if they’d shut off all those plasma screens (or LCDs, or whatever they are) behind them, and in front of the desk?

They had flashlights, you’d totally still be able to see the commentators. No ubiquitous logo branding, though. Obviously, they couldn’t go that way.