Including the Healing Iraq document (he translated it just fine), but with new docs about WMD's.

Here's ABCNews' wiggling regarding the linking of Osama and Saddam in one document:

(Editor's Note: The controversial claim that Osama bin Laden was cooperating with Saddam Hussein is an ongoing matter of intense debate. While the assertions contained in this document clearly support the claim, the sourcing is questionable — i.e. an unnamed Afghan "informant" reporting on a conversation with another Afghan "consul." The date of the document — four days after 9/11 — is worth noting but without further corroboration, this document is of limited evidentiary value.)

What they say is true, but they also seem to strongly undervalue the importance of this document. While the document does not, in fact, outright prove what it purports to prove, it certainly moves the likelihood from "not cooperating" to "cooperating with an eye to terrorize the US."

This describes an IIS document naming Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq (pre-war), including al-Zarqawi himself. Check out ABCNews' helpful spin:

"Al Qaeda Presence in Iraq"

Document dated August 2002

A number of correspondences to check rumors that some members of al Qaeda organization have entered Iraq. Three letters say this information cannot be confirmed. The letter on page seven, however, says that information coming from "a trustworthy source" indicates that subjects who are interested in dealing with al Qaeda are in Iraq and have several passports.

The letter seems to be coming from or going to Trebil, a town on the Iraqi-Jordanian border. Follow up on the presence of those subjects is ordered, as well as comparison of their pictures with those of Jordanian subjects living in Iraq. (This may be referring to pictures of Abu Musaab al Zarqawi and another man on pages 4-6) The letter also says tourist areas, including hotels and rented apartments, should be searched.

(Editor's note: This document indicates that the Iraqis were aware of and interested in reports that members of al Qaeda were present in Iraq in 2002. The document does not support allegations that Iraq was colluding with al Qaeda.)

It does support such allegations, dickheads. It just doesn't outright prove them.

Thanks to Jack Straw.

Posted by: Ace at 10:29 AM | Comments (27)
Post contains 376 words, total size 3 kb.

Report the news, and if the news isn't interesting enough, just fake it.

Via Israellycool.

Correction/Update: A poster who wishes to remain anonymous sends me information about the pic.

While this picture was run on the left-wing (I'm told) Haaretz.com, with attribution to the AP, in fact an earlier AP photo (actually it looks like a picture used in a banner, with additional graphics) does not show the "second settler."

The photo may have been taken from AP, photoshopped by someone else, and then used by Haaretz (with the AP attribution) without Haaretz realizing it had been altered. They'd be guilty then of gross negligence (I mean, how obvious is it that that "second settler" is just a duplicate of the first?), not deliberate deception or distortion.

And it appears, at the moment at least, that AP didn't create the fake photo. Or, at least, their original photo shows no "second settler."

Thanks to the anonymous tipster for that.

Posted by: Ace at 09:06 AM | Comments (7)
Post contains 173 words, total size 1 kb.

Actually, this is a bit of intelligence from Iraq, about what Afghani sources have told them about the Taliban and Saddam's government. It's not quite the same as the IIS saying "We're in cahoots with Saddam;" it's actually just the IIS reporting "Our sources say we're in cahoots with Saddam."

Those sources may be wrong.

But it's interesting that Iraq's own Intelligence Service thought Iraq was working with Osama bin Ladin, isn't it?

Iraq the Model enlists up as a blogosphere translator and translates this bombshell document here.

Our Afghani source #002 (info on him in paper slip '1') has informed us that Afghani consular Ahmed Dahistani (info on him in paper slip '2') had spoken before him of the following :

1-That Usama Bin Ladin and the Taliban group in Afghanistan are in contact with
Iraq and that a group from the Taliban and Usama Bin Ladin's group had conducted a visit to Iraq.

2-That America possesses evidence that Iraq and Usama Bin Ladin's group had
cooperated to strike targets inside America.

3-In case Taliban and Usama's group are proven involved in those sabotage
operations, it will be possible that America directs strikes at Iraq and Afghanistan

Thanks to Steven.

Posted by: Ace at 08:38 AM | Comments (55)
Post contains 215 words, total size 1 kb.

Sounds about right.

8:00: Story circle

9:00 Unsafe sexual practices and body fluids exchanges

10:00 Show and tell

11:00 Safe alternatives to fisting

12:00 Nap time

1:00 Selected readings from Encyclopedia Brown, including "The Case of The Hermaphritic Hemophiliac"

2:00 Intensive psychological counselling to attempt to heal the deep scars just inflicted on kids that still fucking believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny

Posted by: Ace at 08:31 AM | Comments (32)
Post contains 85 words, total size 1 kb.

He attempted to touch his penis against them outside of hand-to-hand range.

You can speculate as to how he might have done that, or you can clink the link, which I strongly advise you not to.

Posted by: Ace at 08:26 AM | Comments (11)
Post contains 54 words, total size 1 kb.

Lovely.

When you were young,

and your heart was an open book,

you used to say "Live and let live"

(you know you did you know you did you know you did)

But if this ever changin' world in which we live in

makes you give up and cry

say "Live and let die"

I'm really getting into that Live And Let Die kind of mood. It's not defeatism so much as disgust.

Thanks to Allah.

Posted by: Ace at 08:16 AM | Comments (13)
Post contains 100 words, total size 1 kb.

They won't be rerunning the Scientology episode, because Tom Cruise threatened not to promote Mission Impossible: 3 on any Viacom channel if they did.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker issued a (genuine, I think) response:

" So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!

-- Trey Parker and Matt Stone, servants of the dark lord Xenu."

I'm so sick of Hollywood celebrities chilling our right to dissent.

Posted by: Ace at 08:10 AM | Comments (23)
Post contains 129 words, total size 1 kb.

Really.

This is their lead story today.

Breaking news
United States of America will cease to exist on February 5th, 2006
The U.S. is facing imminent economic collapse. Considering the Bush AdministrationÂ’s penchant for preemptive action, it will act to protect the empire before rather than after the collapse occurs. As the economy comes crashing down, hordes of angry, rioting Americans will create a large pool of newly criminalized slave laborers

Posted by: LauraW. at 08:01 AM | Comments (30)
Post contains 97 words, total size 1 kb.

Happy St. Patrick's day, Sean and Mick, you've actually got slave names:

Many popular male first names commonly thought of as being Irish, such as Patrick, Mick and Sean, actually originated with the English and the French-Danish-Norwegian Normans, who invaded Ireland in the 12th century and led to radical changes in the way Irish families named their children, according to a new study.

Freya Verstraten, a doctoral postgraduate student of history at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, authored the study, published in the current Journal of Medieval History.

She studied name registries and other documents dated to, and concerning, the Middle Ages. She determined that upper-class Irish nobles fought to retain their traditional Gaelic names, which emerged out of thousands of years of Celtic dominance of the Green Isle.

Irish families from other social classes, however, wound up adopting Anglo-Norman names because of military and political alliances, intermarriages, and other means.

The name Patrick, for example, is not Gaelic, but instead comes from the popular Latin name Patricius, meaning "noble one." According to the Patron Saints Index of the Catholic Community Forum, Saint Patrick was born in Scotland in 387-390 A.D. His given name at birth was Maewyn Succat, which was changed to Patricius when he was baptized.

Verstraten told Discovery News, "Patrick was not a popular name in Ireland until well after the Middle Ages, but it was used more commonly in conjunction with 'Giolla' and 'Maol'— both these words indicate a religious subservience: the name 'Giolla Pádraig' or 'Maol Pádraig' would basically mean something like 'servant of Patrick.'"

...

[Another researcher] said, "Archetypal Irish names in Irish America, such as Patty and Mick, really are more a product of the Roman Catholic Renaissance (which occurred well after the Anglo-Norman invasion in 1167 A.D.). The clergy tried to wipe out traditional Irish names by replacing them with Biblical names."

Canonical laws in Ireland for many years prevented the baptism of children unless the chosen name was that of a saint. Girls often took on variations of the name Mary. At the same time, harsh penal laws from the 16th to the 19th century further weakened traditional Gaelic/Celtic culture.

Verstraten, however, suggests that the earlier Anglo-Norman invasion had possibly a more profound impact on Irish names.

"A name like Seán is usually thought of as typically Irish; however, it is an Irish adaptation of the Biblical name John, and this version of the name was used in Ireland only after the invasion," she said. "There are many other names people consider to be Irish, although they are in fact Irish versions of Anglo-Norman names. Séamus, for example, is the Irish form of James."

Because of a geneological interest, and because I've tried sometimes to make sense of the tribes in Age of Empires, I've tried to figure out exactly what people are originally "British" or "Irish," and it's just too confusing. The only indiginous people in the Isles are the Picts, or so my real-time computer strategy-game based research informs me.

That whole thing with Robin Hood about the "indiginous" Saxons being repressed by the invading Normans? The Saxons were invaders several hundred years before, too. King Arthur fought the Saxon invaders; Robin Hood defended the "Saxons" from the Norman invaders. And King Arthur himself, if he existed at all, was probably a Roman, or half-Roman. Scotsmen are of course almost pure Anglo-Saxon-Jute-Dane Vikings.

The whole thing is confusing. I'm not sure if other nations have as much a confusing racial geneology. It seems that virtually everyone in north Europe (and Rome) invaded and colonized the British Isles at one time or another.

But now that I know I have a slave name, I'll go by the name "Cormac X."

I'll bet you the "Irish" came from somewhere else, too, and wiped out the poor oppressed Pictish aboriginals.

Posted by: Ace at 08:00 AM | Comments (41)
Post contains 650 words, total size 4 kb.

To thank them for his high-quality Dell Computer.

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:52 AM | Comments (13)
Post contains 14 words, total size 1 kb.