The House - Senate Conferees have reportedly agreed to a compromise 2007 Iraq Supplemental Bill that will set the stage for withdrawal. As reported by AP

Defying a fresh veto threat, the Democratic-controlled Congress will pass legislation within days requiring the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq beginning Oct. 1, with a goal of completing the pullout six months later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday.

The bill, mirroring the Senate proposal, apparently has benchmarks that must be met or the withdrawal will start earlier

Under an agreement by Democratic leaders, the final bill could trigger the withdrawal of U.S. troops as early as July 1 if Bush cannot certify that the Iraqi government is making progress in disarming militias, reducing sectarian violence and forging political compromises.

It also appears that the conferees decided to junk most of the extraneous add-ons but keep those related to the troops, Katrina and other disaster relief. But the devil will be in the details.

I'd say Global Warming is a clear symptom of advanced State of Denial syndrome.   The chronic condition that is directly related to  "The sins of the fathers being visited on the heads of the children... unto the seventh generation!"

Until the blind leading the blind admit they don't know where they're going, and we stop letting them get away with it, "our likely hood of survival will be that of a snowball's chance in hell."  
More below the fold...

Unbelievable.  I am reading Woodward's book, "State of Denial," and have just come across a stunning revelation which I have NOT seen reported anywhere else.  According to the book, the Fox News Channel and the White house coordinated their message on election night 2004.

I'll retype the pertinent paragraph (from page 346) in its entirety.  In recounts a telephone call from the night of the 2004 election:

"People of faith were disaffected over the summer, but I think they'll come back.  It's like any other election season -- people get frustrated that they haven't achieved everything they want. But as you get close to the election, you begin to look at the alternatives and realize that staying home is going to make things worse rather than better."

                       -Leonard Leo, head of Catholic Outreach at the Republican National Committee.

I visited the three major bookstores in a nearby city and not only were all of the books gone, but while I was at the counter other people were coming up and asking for it and they were receiving telephone calls.

The young lady working the counter said they had lots of requests.

The Republicans are killing me.  Literally!  I'm suffering from a "Republican Debacle Priapism".  Per Wikipedia:

Priapism is a painful and potentially harmful medical condition in which the erect penis (erection) does not return to its flaccid state (despite the absence of both physical and psychological stimulation) within four hours.

I need a cure.  Help!  Pass the word.  The only cure that can help me is, is, is ... Democrats to take over both the House and the Senate on November 8, 2006.

Isn't it hypocritical to be Co-chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives whilst writing sexually explicit e-mails to an underage congressional page?

• He publicly crusaded against the very activities that he appears to have done himself.  By definition, doesn't that make him a hypocrite?  And a corrupt one at that?


• This is very similar to what happened with evangelist Jimmy Swaggart who advocated moral and marital purity but was caught with a prostitute.


• There's a psychological component in play here: contradictory actions such as these are consistent with those of a person struggling with an internal moral battle.  "The righteous, fervent crusading against something often may represent an attempt to keep one's own impulses under control," said Dr. Jon Shaw , director of the division of child and adolescent psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the U of Miami(i).

There is a lot of new stuff in this book, how much of it is made up?

That bullshit question was followed by a disingenuous chuckle by the blond puff head news boy.  Sorry I don't the names of most of the pinheads over on that excuse of a cable channel.  It was one of the morning show chuckleheads.  

I was only looking at the website to see if they had any of the `Foley D-Florida' crap on the site.  This interview got in the way of my continuing that search.  

Link below the fold:

see below

Or did Woodward change his opinion about the Administration because of its outright mendacity?

A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did indeed brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001 about looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman said on Monday evening.

The account by the spokesman, Sean McCormack, came hours after Ms. Rice, the secretary of state, told reporters aboard her airplane that she did not recall such a meeting and said it was "incomprehensible" she ignored dire terrorist threats two months before the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. McCormack also said the Bush administration had determined that the Sept. 11 commission had been briefed about the meeting, even though no mention of it appears in the commission's report.

The question of whether such a meeting took place and what may have occurred has emerged as central since an account of it appeared in "State of Denial," the new book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post. The book said that Mr. Tenet and his top counterterrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, believed that Ms. Rice had not taken their warnings seriously.

Condi was right in her initial reaction, that it is "incomprehensible" that she would ignore such warnings.

And yet she did.

Mr. Woodward's book reports that Mr. Tenet hurriedly arranged a White House meeting on to try to "shake Rice" into taking action on ominous intelligence reports warning of a potentially catastrophic attack by Al Qaeda, possibly within American borders.

The book says that Mr. Tenet and J. Cofer Black, who was then his counterterrorism chief, left the meeting in frustration, believing they had been given a "brush-off."

I don't recall that scene being in the ABC/Disney mockumentary on 9-11....

The lead:

Rice Received Qaeda Warning Before 9/11

By PHILIP SHENON
Published: October 2, 2006

JIDDA, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 2 -- A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did indeed brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001 about looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman said on Monday evening.

The link

Just a few words below the fold . . .

The article outlined how the corporate media meekly suggested that this president was a bald faced liar, but would not directly use the 'L' word.  Somehow, using words that were less direct and less truthful themselves made George Bush less of the liar than he is.

Now we have Woodward's amazing revelation of a WH in denial.  Wow, the President "failed to tell the truth"  More of the same.

One of the burning questions in newspapers, cable TV news, and blogs is why the 9/11 Commission report did not mention the July 10, 2001 meeting called by then-CIA Director George J. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Tenet and Black hoped to impress on Rice the compelling need to act immediately against bin Laden because there was "a huge volume of data" suggesting strongly that a major attack was imminent.

"But both men came away from the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had not taken the warnings seriously," writes Woodward.

The Nation: When the news of Foley's emails broke in the media, Hastert declared, "I was surprised." Really? That's strange. Mark Foley's sexuality was never much of a secret to those who served with him in the House.
        The New York Times and every major newspaper in Florida had been writing articles on the congressman's agonizingly inept attempts to remain closeted for years. Indeed, it was the embarrassing manner in which he had attempted to cloak his sexuality that prevented Foley from securing his party's nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and again this year.

Let me start with and dismiss myth-buster #5, part II, where Laura Bush is alleged to have wanted Donald Rumsfeld removed:

FACT: "Mrs. Bush's Office Has Said, Not True ... Flatly Not True." (Tony Snow, Press Briefing, Washington, DC, 9/29/06)

I'll give them this one.  Why?  Because I have as much interest in Laura Bush's opinion on national security matters as I have in Nancy Reagan's belief in the occult. In other words, none.  But let's look at the others...