TV News LIES

The George Washington University National Security Archive recently published a newly released CIA document from January 2006 titled “Misreading Intentions: Iraq’s Reaction to Inspection Created Picture of Deception”.

The document, the Archive notes, “blames ‘analyst liabilities’ such as neglecting to examine Iraq’s deceptive behavior ‘through an Iraqi prism,’ for the failure to correctly assess the country’s virtually non-existent WMD capabilities.” Foreign Policy magazine describes it as a “remarkable CIA mea culpa”. But nothing could be further from the truth.

A tornado touched down briefly in Queens and Brooklyn Saturday morning, destroying property, disrupting plans and terrifying residents all over the city.

A black funnel cloud accompanied by howling winds screamed into south Brooklyn and Queens at around 11 a.m., with reports of the potent storm hitting the ground on the Rockaway Peninsula and Carnarsie.

It was another week at war in Afghanistan, another string of American casualties, and another collective shrug by a nation weary of a faraway conflict whose hallmark is its grinding inconclusiveness.

After nearly 11 years, many by now have grown numb to the sting of losing soldiers like Pfc. Shane W. Cantu of Corunna, Mich. He died of shrapnel wounds in the remoteness of eastern Afghanistan, not far from the getaway route that Osama bin Laden took when U.S. forces invaded after Sept. 11, 2001, and began America's longest war.

Cantu was 10 back then.

Every time we seem to make any progress as a species, we tend to immediately slump back from the effort, exhausted.  Then, we invent something to take care of the new problem we've created from our initial efforts, and go on with our lives -- satisfied with a job well done.

In other places and times, this might have been called playing to a draw, but in our country, it's usually called Progress.

One of the most hair-raising and intriguing dances is life itself, of course -- although global climate change, religious conflicts and wars of all kinds are spine-chilling, too.  Those dances are all still in continuous motion, as is the case with the most intricate, hypnotic motions.

'Look it up', this is something you'll never, ever hear from the right. They love their talking points that they treat as facts, as they do with any opinion that pops into their heads. Even when they quote an actual real number, they never put it into context.

The big headline today on the rightwing 'news' sites is that the workforce non-participation total is now 89 million. They are implying and hoping you will accept this to mean that there are 89 million unemployed people (all on welfare of course). This is simply nonsense.

Canada has suspended diplomatic relations with Iran, closing its embassy in Tehran and giving all Iranian diplomats in Canada five days to leave the country, Foreign Minister John Baird said on Friday, calling Iran the biggest threat to global security.

Baird, in Russia for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, said Canada's actions were not linked to growing speculation that Israel might launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

This summer's record-breaking arctic melt is accelerating, with sea ice becoming significantly thinner and more vulnerable, Norwegian researchers say. Scientists with the Norwegian Polar Institute said the annual thaw of the region's floating ice reached the lowest level since satellite monitoring began more than 30 years ago.

"It is a greater change than we could even imagine 20 years ago, even 10 years ago," the institute's international director, Kim Holmen, told the BBC. "And it has taken us by surprise and we must adjust our understanding of the system and we must adjust our science and we must adjust our feelings for the nature around us."

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Nearly two years after President Barack Obama signed the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act into law, about 40,000 responders and survivors receive monitoring and 20,000 get treatment for illnesses as part of the World Trade Center Health Program — one of the law’s two components. But the other, Birnbaum’s fund compensating the same kind of people for economic losses, hasn’t been as quick to get off the ground.

It’s not a matter of bureaucratic foot-dragging, but rather an illustration of the complexities of key legislation born of the attacks that took place 11 years ago next week.