(no subject)

Edit. This is dated two weeks ago. I'm just seeing it now? I was on vacation at the time, but i'm guessing that this did not make much of a dent in the mainstream media...

Holy Moley. Looks like the "smoking gun emails" in the Plame Affair have been found:

The White House turned over last week 250 pages of emails from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. Senior aides had sent the emails in the spring of 2003 related to the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald revealed during a federal court hearing Friday.

The emails are said to be explosive, and may prove that Cheney played an active role in the effort to discredit Plame Wilson’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s prewar Iraq intelligence, sources close to the investigation said.

Sources close to the probe said the White House “discovered” the emails two weeks ago and turned them over to Fitzgerald last week. The sources added that the emails could prove that Cheney lied to FBI investigators when he was interviewed about the leak in early 2004. Cheney said that he was unaware of any effort to discredit Wilson or unmask his wife’s undercover status to reporters.

.... Cheney said he was unaware that Ambassador Wilson was chosen to travel to Niger to look into the uranium claims, and that he never saw a report Wilson had given a CIA analyst upon his return which stated that the Niger claims were untrue. He said the CIA never told him about Wilson's trip.

However, the emails say otherwise, and will show that the vice president spearheaded an effort in March 2003 to attack Wilson’s credibility and used the CIA to dig up information on the former ambassador that could be used against him, sources said.

Some of the emails that were turned over to Fitzgerald contained references to Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status, and developments related to the inability of ground forces to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the start of the war in March 2003.

According to sources, the emails also contained suggestions by senior officials in Cheney’s office, and at the National Security Council, on how the White House should respond to what it believed were increasingly destructive comments Wilson had been making about the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence.

from White House 'Discovers' Emails Related to Plame Leak

(no subject)

"Right before I came here I got an e-mail from someone urging me to protect marriage. And the thought I had was, 'From what?' In Massachusetts now for something approaching two years gay people have been allowed to get married. And what has happened? Are heterosexual couples not getting married as often, more often, getting married too quickly, too soon, too many kids, not enough kids? Too tall? What exactly is happening that I need to be protecting my constituents from?"

-- Rep. Daylin Leach of Montgomery County (PA), on HB 2381, the proposed state amendment to ban gay marriage
(thanks to pamscoffee for this)

(no subject)

Have you seen Jack-In-The-Green?
With his long tail hanging down.
He sits quietly under every tree ---
in the folds of his velvet gown.
He drinks from the empty acorn cup
the dew that dawn sweetly bestows.
And taps his cane upon the ground ---
signals the snowdrops it's time to grow.

July 30, Boston: Ian Anderson fronts an orchestral concert of Jethro Tull's music. I'm going. Anyone want to join me?

I saw Jethro Tull live in 1992 with layitlarge; Anderson is a marvelous entertainer. As i watched the concert i could picture him wandering from town to town as a bard, the kind of person who's company is so easygoing and enjoyable people will ply them with food and drink just to keep them around for an evening or two.