WHETHER OR NOT BUSH HAD AUTHORITY TO LEAK IS SIDE ISSUE
"The pundits are arguing over whether Bush had the legal right to leak national security information. But, that's a fake debate. Even if its true that releasing the information was no crime, the leakers have committed a bigger crime."
(BUZZFLASH, unearthed by Progreso Weekly)

TRAILERS OF MASS DISTRACTION
"50 days after the fall of Baghdad, Bush proclaimed 'We have found the weapons of mass destruction,'a claim repeated by top administration officials for months afterward and hailed as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true."
(WASHINGTON POST)

WHAT BUSH LEAKED
"Only 14 of the full 93 pages of the National Intelligence Estimate that President Bush authorized Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, to disclose to New York Times reporter Judith Miller has actually been officially declassified, according to a posting today on the Web site of the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

The estimate has apparently been released in four forms:

one, a white paper that purportedly represented the substance of the estimate but actually left out most of the dissents and caveats;

second, an abstract that Mr. Libby apparently used to brief New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003;

third, the July 18, 2003, release by the White House of the 'key judgments' section and parts of the dissents;

and fourth, a Freedom of Information Act release to the National Security Archive on June 1, 2004, that included two additional pages but left the vast majority of the estimate whited out.
(NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVES)

"FINGER POINTER" TAKES AIM AT JURORS
A Texas prosecutor's angry reaction to losing a case is drawing criticism from some jurors, who say he accused them of breaking the law after they found the defendant not guilty."
(HOUSTON CHRONICLE, unearthed by Bill Messick)

TARGETTING THIEVES
"Police departments and government offices (Customs, NASA, even the FBI) rely on state-of-the-art investigation support from Target (department stores). According to a January Washington Post report, Target's world-class forensics lab in Minneapolis is the first choice by many departments for examination of surveillance tapes and other evidence, and it was Target in the mid-1990s that finally moved agencies to coordinate previously incompatible databases of criminals (treating the felon population as a nationwide "inventory control" problem). A Target executive said he works for "a high-tech company masquerading as a retailer."
(NEWS OF THE WEIRD, unearthed by Joel Sogol)

BLUE BOOK ON BUSH
If President Bush were a stock, his chart would look less like that of Texas-based oil giant Exxon-Mobil and more like that of Wal-Mart—a spike in 2001 followed by a downward slide.
(SLATE)

CHRISTIAN INTIFADISTS WAGING WAR ON CORPORATE AMERICA
"The culture war that heated up over gay marriage and roiled the 2004 presidential campaign is now expanding on the corporate front. In recent months, conservative Christians have waged campaigns against Ford Motor Co. and Microsoft Corp. for their support of gay and lesbian causes.
(LAW.COM)"

YOU'VE GOT TO CHANGE YOUR EVIL WAYS, BABY!
a wrongful termination suit in San Francisco by a former personal assistant to Carlos Santana and his wife, claims the couple made him see a chiropractor to be tested for his 'closeness to God.' Bruce Kuhlman claims he was subjected to "Neuro Emotional Technique" testing to improve his consciousness or awareness level and make him a better worker.
(LAW.COM)

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
Supermodel Naomi Campbell's felony assault charges filed after she allegedly threw a phone at a housekeeper in her Park Avenue New York City condo.
(FINDLAW)

DRIVER TICKETED FOR BUMPER STICKER FIGHTS BACK
A Georgia driver ticketed for having an anti-Bush bumper sticker under a lewdness ordinance has vowed to have her day in court.
(ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION)

HOW DO I LOVE THEE? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS!
"Smith v. City and County of San Francisco, an unpublished ruling out of California's 1st District Court of Appeal goes to great lengths to define a word which, as noted in the decision, is a '"four-letter verb for 'copulate,' of possible Scandinavian origin...[which] appears frequently in the record along with its gerundive and a related noun involving the maternal parent.'
A quick search of the text of reveals 19 uses of 'f#&k,' nine of 'f#&king' and three of 'motherf#&ker.' There's also one 'F up' -- as in 'shut the F up' -- and three instances of 'a$$hole.' "
(LAW.COM)

TONY BLAIR CALLS FOR GUANTANAMO GULAG'S CLOSURE
"British Prime Minister Tony Blair joined the growing calls for the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay to be closed after he was questioned about the claims of torture by two British residents held there."
(THE INDEPENDENT, unearthed by CubaNews Digest)

CELL PHONE TRICK
Looking for an address? Send a text message to 46645 (GOOGL) on your cell phone with a query like "Barnes and Noble, Campbell, CA" and it would send you back the address and phone number of the business. Totally free (unless you get charged for TXT). This has a lot of other uses: you can look up phone numbers, translate words, find out the population of Japan and sports scores. For say, basketball games. Text message the words "Seton Hall" and you'll instantly find out that Witchita State won that game 86-66. Try it out yourself, or check out the demo for Google SMS (short message service).
(MERCURY NEWS)

JUDGE DISMISSES EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION CASE
Maher Arar became one of the best-known victims of the CIA's practice of "extraordinary rendition", the sending of suspected terrorists to countries known for torturing their prisoners. "In a startling, ominous decision, a Federal District Judge has dismissed a lawsuit by Arar, who, during a stopover at Kennedy Airport on the way home to Canada after vacation, was kidnapped by CIA agents and flown to Syria where he was tortured for nearly a year in solitary confinement in a three-by-six-foot cell."
(VILLAGE VOICE)

THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR
Just before Jumah al-Dossari tried to kill himself by fashioning a makeshift noose and opening a gash in his right arm, the Guantanamo Bay detainee handed his lawyer an envelope containing pages of tidily handwritten Arabic, some stained with dried blood:

"The detainees are suffering from the bitterness of despair, the detention humiliation and the vanquish of slavery and suppression," Dossari wrote, according to a translation. "I hope you will always remember that you met and sat with a 'human being' called 'Jumah' who suffered too much and was abused in his belief, self, dignity and also in his humanity. He was imprisoned, tortured and deprived from his homeland, his family and his young daughter who is in the most need of him for four years . . . with no reason or crime committed."
(WASHINGTON POST)