Tony Bennett and the Ralph Sharon Quartet
In a Mellow Tone

The Ralph Sharon Quartet:
Ralph Sharon (p)
Clayton Cameron (dr)
Paul Langosch (b)
Gray Sargent (g)

Amazing how accurate the intel that reaches Al-Qaida is. Maybe they have a spy network set up in America. Or perhaps they’ve watched a few SOTU speeches lately.

Al-Qaida’s No. 2 calls Bush an alcoholic

CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida’s No. 2 said President Bush was an alcoholic and a lying gambler who wagered on Iraq and lost, according to a new audiotape released Tuesday.

Ayman al-Zawahri said in the tape that Bush has been forced to admit his failure in Iraq after he was “stubborn” and repeated the “lie, which he became addicted to, that he is winning” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Bush suffers from an addictive personality, and was an alcoholic. I don’t know his present condition … but the one who examines his personality finds that he is addicted to two other faults - lying and gambling,” al-Zawahri said in the audiotape.

Bush, who is now 60, has acknowledged he had a problem with drinking but gave up alcohol when he was 40 years old.

Source: Yahoo! News

Isn’t more like Syria is closing its borders?

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq announced plans on Tuesday to close its borders with Iran and Syria and lengthen a night curfew on vehicles in new emergency measures to try to curb unrelenting violence in Baghdad.

The measures were unveiled during another day of bloodshed in the capital in which a suicide bomber blew up a truck rigged with explosives near a Baghdad college, killing 18 people just a day after bomb blasts ripped apart two crowded city markets.

They are the clearest sign yet from Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that an offensive against militants who are tearing Iraq apart is picking up pace.

Speaking on Iraqiya state television, the official in charge of the crackdown, Lieutenant-General Abboud Qanbar, said the borders with Iran and Syria would be shut for 72 hours.

He did not say when, but a government official said an announcement would be made when the frontiers had been closed.

Qanbar said other measures included confiscating illegal weapons and explosives, imposing restrictions on the movement of vehicles and individuals and setting up checkpoints in the city.

In addition, “all patrols of the ministries of defense and interior would have to identify themselves, otherwise security forces will deal with them as outlaw forces”, he said.

Read more at Reuters

Kevin Rudd, Labour Party leader in Australia, calls a censure motion of Prime Minister John Howard to withdraw his remarks about Barack Obama.

H/T Scottie for this post!!

There will be a 4 part series focusing on the battle between the government
and the media. This series beginning 2/13 and airs on PBS TV stations. This
series will also look at journalism from the aspect of infotainment,
undisclosed sources, the future of news and political spin. This is Amy
Goodman from DemocracyNow interviewing the producers of the series plus a
promo for the series.

Part I

Part II

You can check here for schedule and times in your area for this series.

H/T Joe for this post!

Jon Stewart talks about Democratic Presidential hopefuls theme songs and more.

All these breaches can’t be accidental. This information is being gathered somewhere. I’ve been following breaches for over a year, and there’s probably fewer people in the U.S. whose data hasn’t been breached than has.

DAILY BRIEFING
February 12, 2007

The hard drive that went missing from a Birmingham, Ala., Veterans Affairs Department facility last month contained highly sensitive information on nearly all U.S. physicians and medical data for about 535,000 VA patients, agency officials announced over the weekend.

The data for the 1.3 million physicians who have billed Medicaid and Medicare, both living and deceased, could result in widespread fraud, such as the creation of fake Medicare and Medicaid invoices.

There are 902,053 physicians in the United States, according to the American Medical Association.

According to congressional sources, personal information on patients and medical data were kept in separate files, but there is enough information that files could be linked.

A VA research assistant was using the physician data to analyze VA health care providers and compare them to non-VA providers, according to a statement from the department. The research assistant used the hard drive to back up information contained on an office computer, and the data is not believed to have been encrypted.

Read more here

(crossposted at Vagabond Scholar)

Okay, now for the more serious post. There’s some important news, or at least important fake news, especially on the Iran front.

Dan Froomkin provides an invaluable survey of the Iran news in “A Shaky Briefing on Iran?” He starts by focusing on the ridiculous deep background briefing lapped up uncritically by The New York Times. He links Greg Mitchell’s skeptical dissection as well and Glenn Greenwald’s brutal, on-target critique.

Howard Kurtz also weighed in on the briefing when responding to a reader question in Kurtz- weekly online discussion:

The Pentagon staged a briefing for journalists at which a “senior defense official” and a couple of experts were trotted out on a background basis. I do not understand why they could not have presented their findings on the record. I don’t think it’s quite like Iraq, in that this was an officially sanctioned briefing, but it does raise a similar question: If the Defense Department is so sure of its evidence on Iran’s involvement, why the anonymity?

There are two U.S. warship groups in the Gulf, and allegedly a third on the way. The Bush administration keeps on denying that there’s any plans or intent to attack Iran. Froomkin notes:
(more…)

(crossposted at Vagabond Scholar)

The New York Times reported on Friday, 2/9/07 that “The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran.”

This stunning scoop was dug out by the Times by attending a presentation arranged by the Bush administration.

Absolutely certain about their evidence, the senior defense official and two experts insisted that the monumental import of their officially sanctioned briefing would be undermined if they were named or went on record.

The first source explained: [name redacted] “Oh no, no, no, D—– mustn-t say his name, mustn-t, mustn-t! Iran is bad, very, very bad. D—– came to warn you. NO! You mustn-t take photos of the shells! Can-t bring in your expert to verify the evidence! But D—– knows! D—– knows, but shouldn-t be telling you this! Not to that liberal bastion of peerless reporting, The New York Times! Oh, Bad D—–, Bad D—–!”
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