Federal authorities had found the page and placed Wilson on their checklist. They finally reached her this week in her molecular biology class.

The 14-year-old freshman was taken out of class Wednesday and questioned for about 15 minutes by two Secret Service agents.

The War on Terror is over. Terror has won.

Teen questioned for online Bush threats - Yahoo! News

The account by Sean McCormack came hours after Ms. Rice, the secretary of state, told reporters aboard her airplane that she did not recall the specific meeting on July 10, 2001, noting that she had met repeatedly with Mr. Tenet that summer about terrorist threats. Ms. Rice, the national security adviser at the time, said it was “incomprehensible” she ignored dire terrorist threats two months before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Maybe it wasn't memorable to Ms. Rice because she blew him off just like Woodward says. Amazing...

Records Show Tenet Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda Threat - New York Times

The legislation before the Senate today would ban torture, but let Bush define it; would allow the president to imprison indefinitely anyone he decides falls under a wide-ranging new definition of unlawful combatant; would suspend the Great Writ of habeas corpus; would immunize retroactively those who may have engaged in torture. And that's just for starters.

Walt Kelly once wrote, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." For fifty years, this country fought against what we saw as the worst countries and idealogies in the history of man, Hitler and Nazi Germany, Stalin and the Soviet Union, Mao and red China, and where force of arms was not an option did things that were pretty damn questionable in the name of the greater good, like the Somozas and the Shah for starters. But it was ostensibly in the name of the greater good.

That is not this. This is moving directly towards establishing the United States as one of those countries that we spent half a century fighting against. Now written and soon to be signed is legislation that says, "if you fall into any of these categories" you no longer exist. We can beat you, torture you, do anything we want, and you cannot challenge it in any way. You no longer have any legal standing, citizen or not, innocent or not, none of that matters.

If you should die in custody, well that's just too bad. There's no standing so they can just say anything they want and that's the end of it. George Orwell missed his date by 22 years.

Dan Froomkin - Bush Rules - washingtonpost.com

If the Bush administration won't admit error even when it abducts a completely innocent person and sends him to Syria to be tortured for almost a year, when will it?

The question isn't "How will history treat W?" it is "How will the prison guards treat him?"

War Room - Salon.com

In traditional U.S. Army slang dating back to the Second World War, a blivet was defined as "ten pounds of manure in a five pound bag," (a proverbial description of anything egregiously ugly or unmanageable); it was applied to an unmanageable situation, a crucial but substandard or damaged tool, or a self-important person.

Today's word for the day! As used in the which is a bigger blivet? Bush trying to redefine the Geneva Conventions to allow what we've been doing to people we've been doing to people at places like Gitmo, Bagram and the secret prisons, or Bush for trying to do so?

Blivet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"I will resist any bill that does not enable this program to go forward with legal clarity," Bush told reporters back at the White House after his meeting with lawmakers."

I think there already is legal clarity on this. It's illegal.

Bush lobbies Congress on terror suspects - Yahoo! News

And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft", or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here — is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante — and at worst, an idiot — whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.
However. Of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast — of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds… none of us could have predicted… this.
Five years later this space… is still empty.
Five years later there is no Memorial to the dead.
Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
Five years later this country’s wound is still open.
Five years… later this country’s mass grave is still unmarked.
Five years later… this is still… just a background for a photo-op.
It is beyond shameful.

Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on Bush: Who has left this hole in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr. President. You have. May this country forgive you

4. Has the war in Iraq helped or hurt in the fight against terrorism?

It broke the back of our counterterrorism program.

I don't think it gets more succinct than that, and Scheuer knows his business.

Six Questions for Michael Scheuer on National Security (Harpers.org)

What terrorism?

Despite all the ominous warnings of wily terrorists and imminent attacks, there has been neither a successful strike nor a close call in the United States since 9/11. The reasonable -- but rarely heard -- explanation is that there are no terrorists within the United States, and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad.

It is worth remembering that the total number of people killed since 9/11 by al Qaeda or al Qaeda­like operatives outside of Afghanistan and Iraq is not much higher than the number who drown in bathtubs in the United States in a single year.

Although it remains heretical to say so, the evidence so far suggests that fears of the omnipotent terrorist may have been overblown, the threat presented within the United States by al Qaeda greatly exaggerated. The massive and expensive homeland security apparatus erected since 9/11 may be persecuting some, spying on many, inconveniencing most, and taxing all to defend the United States against an enemy that scarcely exists.

Get over it.

Is There Still a Terrorist Threat? | Foreign Affairs

I waited in total silence for about 10 minutes as he kept searching and searching, until I finally asked him, "What are you looking for?"

"Contraband," he said without looking up at me.
"Such as?"
"Child pornography, hate propaganda."
"Child porn I can understand, that's illegal. But hate propaganda is protected speech."
Now he looked up. "What country do you think you're in?"
"Oh, it's illegal in Canada?"
"I honestly don't know. But that doesn't matter. I get to decide what goes in this country. Do you have a problem with that?"
I paused for a long time while I thought about what I should say to this. "Yes."
"Yes, you do have a problem?"
"Yes, I do. If it's illegal in Canada I'll understand, but saying 'I don't want it in my country' isn't good enough when you're a government official."

A) this is a guy who shouldn't be in law enforcement, and B) the story is hilarious.

WoW.com Forums - I played WoW, I became a terrorist (story!)