Letters to the Editor
MacK..
Published Letters: 491 Editor's Choice: 49
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History of Iraq
[Read the article: Iraq: Why the media failed]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Lev Raphael's comment:
"One thing that shocked me in the run-up to the war was an absence of commentary on Iraq's history and the way in which it had been cobbled together by Churchill from three separate Ottoman provinces that had nothing in common with one another."
Is partly right and partly wrong. The Divine Porte (as the Ottoman administration was known) always feared that its governors might make a play for power, indeed historically they had. There were two concerns, (a) that they might make a play for ultimate power in the empire as a whole, or (b) that they would set up as Kings for themselves and cease to be subordinate. To make this difficult the governors were always given mixed up territories to rule, territories on the edge of governability, inherently unstable bases from which to mount a coup or to run without the support of the center. Most of Iraq, which was after all very close to Turkey itself reflects this objective -- the place was designed to be unstable, and not by the British, but by the Ottoman empire.
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Hesitant though I am to criticize Glenn Greenwald -- but there is Cat-shit in this story
[Read the article: Response from ABC News re: the Saddam-anthrax reports]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For cr*ss@kes would you add the factoid that makes Jennings and ABC look really stupid --
There is absolutely nothing exotic about Bentonite, you can buy it in most grocery stores, just look for Kitty Litter!
Yes, biggest single US use for Bentonite, soaking up cat-shit and pee, followed by use as drillers mud, in oil wells. It also seems unlikley to be useful in weaponising any powder, since it would probably make it clump.
Bentonite is used by the ton for all sorts of inocuous purposes, The Bentonite used in this instance was probably Fullers' Earth.
Think of this, if these morons at ABC had even bothered to pull an Encyclopaedia Britanica off the shelf, or ask a chemist "hey what's Bentonite" and "where can I get some" they would not have bought a scam as obvious as the the sale of the Brooklyn Bridge.
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Catshit
[Read the article: Response from ABC News re: the Saddam-anthrax reports]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My apologies -- I did not see your earlier story --
But that said, many other readers did not, so can I suggest that you note everytime you quote an ABC statement about the oh-so-exotic Bensonite that we are talking about Kitty-Litter, but with an -ite on the name that makes it sound to the scientifically ignorant a bit like "dynamite." Hell I would insert [Kitty-Litter] in square brackets everytime the exotic sounding Bensonite is mentioned in one of the quotes so that the reader can get an idea of how absurd anyone falling for this so-called story, or hyping it was.
And by the way, some of the ABC stuff you quoted sounds really absurd when you sub Kitty Litter for Bensonite, roll over laughing silly in fact -- try:
ROSS: "Peter, from three well-placed but separate sources tonight, ABC News has been told that initial tests on the anthrax sent to Senator Daschle have found a telltale chemical additive whose name means a lot to weapons experts. It is called [Kitty-Litter.]"
OK Sexist joke, but are weapons experts typically single women living in small apartments with lots of cats?
And lets not mention "silica."
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Busy Body
[Read the article: Upending the Mayberry Machiavellis]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You are of course aware of all the dodgy things that went on in the RIM v. NFC case, off-the-record meetings organised with the Commissioner for RIM, etc. All pretty illegal -- and here is the hilarious bit, Fred Fielding knows about this stuff, he was NTP's lawfirms senior partner when this happened.
Anyway, this stuff is heading for a blow-up before the Fed.Cir. soon
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Annes3
[Read the article: Upending the Mayberry Machiavellis]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Georgetown run by religious folks --
I remember only on "religious" prof at Georgetown, the late great Father Bob Drinan, Congressman, ethicist and all round good guy. Pity Goodling did not take an ethics class from him. Technically the University is Catholic, but the lawschool has/as a Jewish dean, protestant faculty and a tiny, empty chapel in the basement.
Seriously, the idea that regent is the same as other schools is BS and you know it.
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And the RNC Server does not have backup-tapes?
[Read the article: Yeah, that's the ticket]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]BS -- no professional operation has a computer system without backups. They need to restore them.