Gavin in Va Beach

Maybe she wasn't really a 'she' and that heating oil wasn't really 'heating oil'...

Gee, you wouldn't have a biased point of view on this issue, would you? How's about you link to the studies showing the opposite to be true rather than just have us take your "unbiased" word on it. See, I read the newspapers and whatnot and I sure see a lot of frivolous suits out there...

Gotta admit that I had a totally different picture of Jin and Sun in my mind before this episode. I'd always thought he was wealthy and the domineering type, it was quite the contrast to see how unfailingly polite he was...I thought he was going to pop that **** of a boss. Mr Echo will always be Addabissi from Oz to me...though he is a great actor.

Classic

ON MAY 6, 2003, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof examined prewar U.S. claims of WMD in Iraq. His article included this curious passage: I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged. The envoy reported, for example, that a Niger minister whose signature was on one of the documents had in fact been out of office for more than a decade. In addition, the Niger mining program was structured so that the uranium diversion had been impossible. The envoy's debunking of the forgery was passed around the administration and seemed to be accepted--except that President Bush and the State Department kept citing it anyway. It was the first of many times Joseph Wilson would tell his story to a reporter and the first of many times he would overstate his role and invent his supposed findings. The White House didn't pay much attention to the Kristof column. Few people knew about Wilson and his CIA-sponsored trip, and those who did know dismissed Wilson's claims as wildly inaccurate. Wilson, after all, had gone to Niger and returned some eight months before the U.S. government ever came into possession of the forged documents. But if the White House shrugged off the story, Walter Pincus of the Washington Post did not. On June 12, 2003, Pincus published a story that "kicked everything off," according to a former White House official. Pincus wrote: During his trip, the CIA's envoy spoke with the president of Niger and other Niger officials mentioned as being involved in the Iraqi effort, some of whose signatures purportedly appeared on the documents. After returning to the United States, the envoy reported to the CIA that the uranium-purchase story was false, the sources said. Among the envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong," the former U.S. government official said. Two days after the Washington Post story, on June 14, Wilson spoke at a forum sponsored by the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC). Although Wilson never told the gathering he was the source for the stories about "the ambassador's" trip to Africa, his comments revealed intimate knowledge of the mission. I just want to assure you that that American ambassador who has been cited in reports in the New York Times and in the Washington Post, and now in the Guardian over in London, who actually went over to Niger on behalf of the government--not of the CIA but of the government--and came back in February of 2002 and told the government that there was nothing to this story, later called the government after the British white paper was published and said you all need to do some fact-checking and make sure the Brits aren't using bad information in the publication of the white paper, and who called both the CIA and the State Department after the president's State of the Union and said to them you need to worry about the political manipulation of intelligence if, in fact, the president is talking about Niger when he mentions Africa. That person was told by the State Department that, well, you know, there's four countries that export uranium. That person had served in three of those countries, so he knew a little bit about what he was talking about when he said you really need to worry about this. But I can assure you that that retired American ambassador to Africa, as Nick Kristof called him in his article, is also pissed off, and has every intention of ensuring that this story has legs. And I think it does have legs. It may not have legs over the next two or three months, but when you see American casualties moving from one to five or to ten per day, and you see Tony Blair's government fall because in the U.K. it is a big story, there will be some ramifications, I think, here in the United States. So I hope that you will do everything you can to keep the pressure on. Because it is absolutely bogus for us to have gone to war the way we did. The website for EPIC includes a biography of Wilson under the June 14, 2003, event that concludes with this sentence: "He is married to the former Valerie Plame and has four children." Wilson also peddled his story to John Judis and Spencer Ackerman at the New Republic. And as in the whispered "telephone" game that kids play around the campfire, the story became more distorted the more it was told. In the New Republic's version, Vice President Cheney received the forged documents directly from the British a year before Bush spoke the "16 words" in the January 2003 State of the Union. Cheney then had given the information to the CIA, which in turn asked a prominent diplomat, who had served as ambassador to three African countries, to investigate. He returned after a visit to Niger in February 2002 and reported to the State Department and the CIA that the documents were forgeries. The CIA circulated the ambassador's report to the vice president's office, the ambassador confirms to TNR. But, after a British dossier was released in September detailing the purported uranium purchase, administration officials began citing it anyway, culminating in its inclusion in the State of the Union. "They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie," the former ambassador tells TNR. It should be clear by now that the only one telling flat-out lies was Joseph Wilson. Again, Wilson's trip to Niger took place in February 2002, some eight months before the U.S. government received the phony Iraq-Niger documents in October 2002. So it is not possible, as he told the Washington Post, that he advised the CIA that "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." And it is not possible, as Wilson claimed to the New York Times, that he debunked the documents as forgeries. That was hardly Wilson's only fabrication. He would also tell reporters that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to Niger and, as noted in the New Republic article, that Vice President Cheney's office had seen the report of his findings. Both claims were false. It seems that very few people paid attention to the CIA's report on Wilson's trip to Niger. And those who did found that his account--particularly his revelation of the meeting between Mayaki and the Iraqis in 1999--supported the original reporting that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. If the White House launched a campaign to counter the claims Wilson was making to columnists like Kristof, it doesn't appear to have been very comprehensive. Officials who worked on other aspects of the Iraq WMD story say they do not recall any coordinated effort to correct Wilson's misrepresentations. And, in any case, the results were hardly what you'd expect from a White House offensive. Several reporters known to have spoken with Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, the senior White House officials apparently at the center of the current investigation, have testified that they did not learn of Plame's identity or status from either person. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...06/217wnmrb.asp

Yes, but they don't move the ratings needle for the NBA that much. It's the declining ratings that seems to have precipitated this move...

Surburban white kids don't buy luxury boxes...

The 'Bling-Bling Ban', as I'm sure it will eventually be called, is a good one and not racist. White guys and Latinos look equally ridiculous with all that gaudy jewelry and they must be stopped as well...

*cough*just your computer, eh?*cough*

Ishtar is pretty friggin' scary...

Probably has to wax her 'stache once a month too...

Going to be in Central Florida for the game. Quick check looks like it will be Broncos at Giants.

It's the shirt that does it, makes her boobies stand out and look perky...

Looks like she's wearing one of those mouseketeer hats in that picture...

Uhh I didn't watch anything. I distinctly heard him say it on the Dan Patrick Show, which last time I checked is on the radio. And he was asked about a lot more QB's than just those 3. He was also asked about Griese, Ferrote, and a few others...

Didn't Travis Henry trip over a hashmark in that game on a 4th and 1?

Well it can't be over blitz pickups. Isn't Griffith like 5'3'', buck fitty?

Automatic transmission? You kitty!

I hope you're not talking to me because I don't care if the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man was QB for the Bills, as long as they're winning...

Or the formula for Coke...

I agree with you. Salsbury was being given a list of QB's and asked if they will be starting next year and Holcomb was one of them, but he didn't get a chance to explain his reasoning. I'd have to assume that Salsbury thinks we're making the playoffs with Holcomb.

So sayeth Sean Salsbury on the Dan Patrick Show a few minutes ago. Should be fun around here if that happens...

I like your idea, but some argue that it has too many teams. Regardless, there must be a playoff in college football. The bowl system, BCS or otherwise, sucks.

Oops, I thought he was still on their roster. Nevermind...

Oofa.