I just, without even blushing, touted a mostly apolitical diary entry in which I describe my years as a monkey watcher.  I'm trying to write up the more humorous parts of the experience.  However, my shameless puffery went un-noted because the General Discussion blog rolled over, so here I am again.

The Primate Chronicles: Doing ‘Hard Time’Posted by Sharon K on October 19, 2005 - 10:26am.

George sat on a rock dismembering the rat. 

I sat in front of his cage on a hot Saturday afternoon, hungover -- August 25th, 1979, 2:16 P.M., 103^o.  I had a migraine.  The cage cleaners didn’t work on weekends.  I was hung over and my stomach lurched, upset by last night’s abuse and by the odor of sun-roasted feces.  The horsefly on my nose surfed rivulets of sweat coursing from my brow in the San Antonio sun.  My eyes stung from the salt.

I was doing hard time.

Lunchtime!

Is Oct 19 too early to start listening to Christmas music?

Christmas.
Sodoku Craze Adds Up to Book Sales
OTHER
You just blew my mind.
Is Oct 19 too early to start
Actually, do you ever think
Yummy! But I just had a
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite
Very Interesting
And

'The revelation that Hannah and Wurmser have become prosecution witnesses, as well as being identified as the original sources of the leak, indicates Fitzgerald now may be looking into the motive for outing Plame and how Administration officials sought to derail a vocal critic of Iraq intelligence.

The two administration hawks were instrumental in shaping the Bush administration’s agenda with Iraq prior to 9/11.'

http://tinyurl.com/839fu 

Bail is being set for him.

WOW!  It begins!

CNN....

'The US administration has formed a committee of experts on the Middle East to examine the root causes of Arab and Muslim resentment of US policies. This is a positive sign since it at least involves an admission that something has gone amiss.'

http://tinyurl.com/aezk3

Please read my blog on the Niger document forgery. You will be very interested. Also, RawStory has up that Wurmser (sp?) has turned and is giving info to Fitz. Also, it's claimed Bush "made Rove feel miserable" for his part in outing Plame, two years ago. Kos comments on it today as does Josh Marshall. Fitz specializes in RICO and this looks like the biggest racket ever to me. We need to do something special for Fitzmas.

Go to Original:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/10/19/national/w112706D64.DTL

    Texas Court Issues Warrant for DeLay
    By Suzanne Gamboa
    The Associated Press

    Wednesday 19 October 2005

    A Texas court on Wednesday issued a warrant for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's arrest, and set an initial $10,000 bail as a routine step before his first court appearance on conspiracy and state money laundering charges.

    Travis County court officials said DeLay was ordered to appear at the Fort Bend County, Texas, jail for booking, where he'd likely be fingerprinted and photographed. DeLay's lawyers had hoped to avoid such a spectacle.

    The warrant, known as a capias, is "a matter of routine and bond will be posted," DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin said.

    The lawyer declined to say when DeLay would surrender to authorities but said the lawmaker would make his first court appearance Friday morning.

    The charges against the Texas Republican stem from allegations that a DeLay-founded Texas political committee funneled corporate money into state GOP legislative races through the National Republican Party.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/101905X.shtml

FROM COMMON CAUSE RE BILL FRIST....

We need your help in convincing the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the sale of Senator Bill Frist's stock in his family's company.

We have written two letters to the Ethics Committee requesting an investigation of Senator Frist's sale of HCA, Inc. stock from his so-called "blind" trust. The Securities and Exchange Commission is already investigating whether Frist is guilty of insider trading because his family started HCA and his brother sits on the board of directors.

According to the Ethics Committee, a "blind" trust means that there shall be no "direct or indirect communication" between senators and trustees unless the senator is directing the trustee "to sell all of an asset . . . [which] creates a conflict of interest … due to the subsequent assumption of duties " by the senator.

There is an obvious conflict of interest when a member of Congress has a large, personal financial stake in a specific company or industry that has a direct interest in legislation. For years, Senator Frist has held a large stake in HCA while working closely on legislation of interest to HCA.

We need your help to ensure that this allegation concerning Senator Frist's blind trust is properly and thoroughly investigated.  Senate leaders need to hear from us today.  Call their offices and demand that the Ethics Committee investigate Senator Frist's stock sales:

Senator George Voinovich (R-OH)
Chairman, Senate Ethics Committee
202-224-3353

Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD)
Ranking Member, Senate Ethics Committee
202-224-5842

The concern about conflict of interest about Senator's Frist stock sales is pretty apparent.  First, there appears to be "direct or indirect communication " between Senator Frist and his trustees concerning the contents of the blind trusts.  Senate records show that trustees for Senator Frist and members of his family wrote the senator nearly two dozen times between 2001 and July 2005, about transfers of assets to his blind trusts and sales of assets. This does not sound like a "blind" trust.

And, what are Senator Frist's "subsequent assumption of duties?"  He has been the majority leader in the Senate for three years. A spokesperson for Senator Frist has said that the sale was approved to avoid a conflict of interest because the senator is preparing to promote health care legislation.  The problem with this argument, of course, is that Senator Frist has been promoting health care legislation for years, such as the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit bill in 2003, which he sponsored in the Senate.

So, clearly there is a legitimate concern that Senator Frist may have violated conflict of interest rules, which the Senate Ethics Committee needs to investigate today.  So, please call the Senate leaders at the number above , and urge them to start a prompt and thorough investigate by the Ethics Committee into Senator Frist's stock sales.

Please ask your family, friends, anyone else who wants to join our efforts to restore honor and integrity in our democratic institutions:

http://www.commoncause.org/demandFristInvestigation

It is critical that the Senate Ethics Committee exercise effective oversight and enforcement of rules relating to the use of blind trusts in order to maintain public credibility and avoid conflicts of interest.

We appreciate your passion for holding our public officials accountable to the highest ethical standards.  Your actions do make a difference.  Thank you again for your commitment to Common Cause.

Sincerely,
Chellie Pingree
President & CEO, Common Cause

tonight is $340 million.

'Bunny Greenhouse was once the perfect bureaucrat, an insider, the top procurement official at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Then the 61-year-old Greenhouse lost her $137,000-a-year post after questioning the plump contracts awarded to Halliburton in the run-up to the war in Iraq. It has made her easy to love for some, easy to loathe for others, but it has not made her easy to know.'

http://tinyurl.com/dncyg

Hurricane Wilma makes grim history

Storm makes record for most rapidly strengthening, lowest-pressure system.

Welcome to CCN.

October 19, 2005
David Wurmser follows John Hannah's lead
Posted 3:30 pm | Printer Friendly

Few outside Patrick Fitzgerald's office know what's going to happen next, but in the meantime, experiencing schadenfreude from watching the once-arrogant Bush gang cringe is almost inevitable. The Chicago Tribune quoted one senior administration official saying the reports about possible indictments have been "like Novocain," apparently because of their numbing effect on the White House. "Everyone's trying to act like normal, but it's not," the official said. It seems to be a common sentiment. A "key" Bush official told NY Daily News, "I'm very concerned it could go very, very badly."

And as if John Hannah's decision to cooperate with Fitzgerald didn't cause enough anxiety, Raw Story reports that a second Cheney aide, David Wurmser, is working with prosecutors as well.

A second aide to Vice President Dick Cheney is cooperating with the special prosecutor's probe into the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, those close to the investigation say. […]

Now, those close to the investigation say that a second Cheney aide, David Wurmser, has agreed to provide the prosecution with evidence that the leak was a coordinated effort by Cheney's office to discredit the agent's husband. Her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, was one of the most vocal critics of the Iraq war.

Wurmser, Cheney's Middle East advisor and an assistant to then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton, likely cooperated because he faced criminal charges for his role in leaking Wilson's name on the orders of higher-ups, the sources said.

According to those familiar with the case, Wurmser was in attendance at several meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a little-known cabal of administration hawks that formed in August 2002 to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Those who say they have reviewed documents obtained in the probe assert that the Vice President was also present at some of the group's meetings.

Before becoming a top Cheney aide, Wurmser served as a "special assistant" to John Bolton. And like Hannah, Wurmser was cited in Joseph Wilson's book as someone he believed to be involved with the Plame leak.

Drip, drip, drip…

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/

George Bush has had his day and he's bollixed it up.

Anyone know what he's up to for the next month?  I notice there are no events for 26 days.  But I kind of doubt he's decided to just take a nice long vacation.  So what's up?

Miller's omission: The stunning detail she left out of a 1993 "scoop" on Middle East terrorism

On one level, it almost seems like piling on to write about Judy Miller at this point. Her account of her role in the "Valerie Flame" caper has been sliced and diced already, and it's doubtful that she'll ever write for the New York Times again.

But this episode is troubling enough that we feel compelled to write about it.

You may have seen an odd story making the rounds tonight, that Miller may be called as a witness in a federal case in Chicago against a Palestinian-born car dealer accused of funneling money to Hamas to finance terrorism. (In a weird twist, the case is being prosecuted by U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the same one who successfully sought her 85-day jailing in the Plame case.) That's because Muhammad Salah claims that Israel forcibly coerced a confession from him in 1993, and because Miller witnessed part of that interrogation. (posters emphasis added)

It's bizarre and pretty much unheard of for a journalist to witness an interrogation -- just like it's equally odd and even more rare for a reporter to receive a security clearance from the Pentagon. But Miller has talked very openly about watching the questioning of Salah, who she says was not mistreated. She talked about it on "60 Minutes" with Steve Croft, she wrote about it in her book, "God Has Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting From a Militant Middle East," and has answered questions from Chicago reporters about it.

But there was one place that Judith Miller did not talk about witnessing Salah's interrogation.

That would be in the New York Times -- even though she published a story about Salah's alleged ties to funding terrorism on Feb. 17, 1993, just six short days after watching the questioning of the prisoner.

What she did write is troubling. The article frequently mentions his grilling by Israeli authorities -- but always attributing the information to "Israeli officials" or, in one case, to what she describes as "to notes of the interrogations provided by them."

She did not write in the New York Times about anything she saw first-hand on Feb. 11, 1993, even though the push for her to be present reportedly came from Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin himself. On June 14, 1998, the Chicago Sun-Times reported (Note: All articles from Nexis):

~SNIP~ read on........

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002423.html

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2005/10/the_f_list.html

October 18, 2005
The F List
From today's Hotline:

~SNIP~ the list below is of those who have been interviewed by officials in connection with the case. Inclusion does not necessarily indicate that the listed person has testified under oath.

Bush: Early Summer, 2004 (did not testify under oath)
Cheney: Early summer, 2004 (did not testify under oath)
Ex-Dep. Sec/State Richard Armitage
WH Assist. To. Pres. Dan Bartlett
Ex-WH press aide Claire Buchan: Feb. 6, 2004
WH COS Andy Card
Time's Matt Cooper: July 13, 2005
Ex-WH press. sec. Ari Fleischer (at least twice)
A.G. Alberto Gonzales: June 18, 2004
Ex-DOS BIR dir. Carl Ford
NSA Stephen Hadley
Ex-CIA comm. dir. Bill Harlow
Assis. Sec. of Commerce/Ex-Rove assist. Izzy Hernandez
Assist. Sec. of State Karen Hughes
Ex-Sec/State counterproliferation offic. Bob Joseph
Washington Post's Glenn Kessler
Ex junior WH press aide Adam Levine: Feb. 6, 2004
Cheney CoS Irving L. "Scooter" Libby (twice)
Ex-Cheney adviser Mary Matalin: Late January, 2004
Current WH Press Sec. Scott McClellan: Feb, 6, 2004
Ex-CIA dep. dir. John McLaughlin
Cheney aide Cathie Martin
New York Times ' Judy Miller (twice)
CIA comm. dir. Jennifer Millerwise (did not go before grand jury)
Columnist Bob Novak
Ex-Sec/State Colin Powell: July 16, 2004
Ex-Abramoff assist./Rove assist. Susan Ralston
WH DCoS Karl Rove (4 times)
NBC News' Tim Russert
Stranger who stopped Novak in the street
Ex-CIA dir. George Tenet
Sen. Adviser to Sec/State Jim Wilkinson (has said he did not testify)
Ex-Amb. Joseph Wilson
    
On the witness list at one point but never called to tesify:

New York Times' Nick Kristoff
    
"Cooperated" with Fitzgerald:

Sec/State Condoleezza Rice
    
John Hannah, David Wurmser (senior members of Cheney's staff) (Hotline sources)
    
Other journalists mentioned in press acounts as having initially sparked Fitzgerald's interest:

Time's Massimo Calabresi
Time's Mike Duffy
Time's James Carney
NBC's Andrea Mitchell
NYTer David Sanger
Newsday's Timothy M. Phelps
Newsday's Knut Royce
Newsweek's Evan Thomas
Ex-Postie Mike Allen
NBC's Campbell Brown
WSJ ed. page. editor Paul Gigot / reporter Greg Hitt
Ex-celeb. James Guckert/Jeff Gannon

ClarkWarner, alexm, where are you????

~SNIP~

Asked if he believed indictments were forthcoming, a key Bush official said he did not know, then added: "I'm very concerned it could go very, very badly."

"Karl is fighting for his life," the official added, "but anything he did was done to help George W. Bush. The President knows that and appreciates that."  [yeah, you bet!]

~SNIP~

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/v-pfriendly/story/357107p-304312c.html

'Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, facing tough questions about Iraq from Republican and Democratic senators, asserted that progress was being made in securing the country but declined to predict when American forces could withdraw or to rule out widening the war to Syria. . .

I have said our strategy is to clear, hold and build," Ms. Rice said. "The enemy's strategy is to infect, terrorize and pull down." She explained that this meant efforts to clear out insurgents' sanctuaries, occupy these areas with Iraqi and other forces and build a political consensus while reconstructing the country.'

http://tinyurl.com/bzw7t

Still into bumper-stickers.

Do you guys like the Colbert Report so far?  He seemed a little nervous--needs a little more of that "alpha male" attitude that Jon Stewart has, but we thought it was hilarious!

We thought the best aspects of the show were the satires of Bill O'Lielly--the words scrolling by as he talks, the MEMEMEME egotistic attitude, the interruptions of the interviewee, etc..  My daughters liked the eagle stuff best!

**MEDIA ALERT** Tonight General Clark will be on Hanity & Combs at 9:10 Eastern Time

(from the home page)

On the last thread some were discussing the "nice tie" comment on CIC and wondering if someone was reading the blogs . . . my own theory is that one or some of the writers for the show know Wes JR.!  When he came to Seattle he made a joke about his dad's ties!

George Bush has had his day and he's bollixed it up.