It seems that Israel is playing into this whole event somehow

Israel is a big exporter of military arms and has expanded into training, based on their reputation. Israel sold arms and training to the tune of $1 billion to Georgia.

That, at the most basic level, is how they play into it.

Dear Glen I know that you are busy but please, please cover this.

Another poster just reminded me about this one and I just did a web check and found this:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Aug. 18, 2008 CONTACT:

Ben Stein

(301) 975-3097

NIST to Release Report and Recommendations from Investigation of World Trade Center Building 7

*** Agency Will Hold Public Webcast on August 21 ***

Gaithersburg, Md. -- The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will hold a media briefing and live public webcast on Aug. 21, 2008, in Gaithersburg, Md., on the findings and recommendations from its building and fire safety investigation of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7). WTC 7 was a 47-story building that fell nearly seven hours after the World Trade Center (WTC) towers collapsed following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The NIST WTC 7 report will present the probable collapse sequence for the building and will provide recommendations for improving building and fire safety in other buildings similar to WTC 7. The draft WTC 7 investigation report released at the briefing will be open for public comment through noon Eastern Daylight Time on Sept. 15, 2008.

Shyam Sunder, director of the NIST Building and Fire Research Laboratory and lead investigator for the federal building and fire safety investigation of the World Trade Center disaster, will present the report and answer questions from reporters at the briefing. The public will be able to view the briefing through a live webcast that will be accessible from NIST's WTC Web site at http://wtc.nist.gov

What Did We Expect?

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: August 19, 2008

If the conflict in Georgia were an Olympic event, the gold medal for brutish stupidity would go to the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin. The silver medal for bone-headed recklessness would go to Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and the bronze medal for rank short-sightedness would go to the Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams.

As usual Friedman has picked his dog in this fight but the backgrounding is succinct and useful.

=========================================================

As I understand it, much of the "blame USA/ blame Bush" is based on the (not far fetched) assumption that Saakashvili was emboldened by Bush's very public, very in-your-face-Vlad support of HIM in the last year... and all the armaments we've sold them, military maneuvers, proposed missles etc. **

Saakashvili's move is considered to have been rash and excessively violent and extremely provocative.

And Putin's response was overkill.

And France negotiated the still shaky settlement.

** Saakashvili seems to have believed we "had his back" ... we (TeamBush) have been taking the back seat in deference and letting France "handle it" ... The American press, on the other hand, has been overwhelmingly and simplistically pro-Saakashvili to the point that "Prague 1968" keeps being invoked ...

link on my name

somebody's got israelis on the brain.....

it's just an extension of what's been going on in journalism since forever. it's pretty well known to everybody with an iq greater than room temperature that the "buff books", magazines about cars, or stereo equipment, or computers, etc. aren't likely to pan a product, particularly not from an established company. it's not, as sometimes suggested, because they're afraid of losing ad revenue; but because they're afraid of losing something more valuable; access. if they piss off a major manufacturer, there go all the exclusives, insider leaks, preproduction samples for review, as well as all the paid junkets for demos, etc. in short, they won't have anything to publish that won't have become old news by the time they publish it.

now it seems that that has been extended to the "legitimate" news media and their relationship with the powers that be. piss off the white house, or get too critical of their attempts to mold the public with a "leak", and you'll find yourself reporting on what the more malleable press reported on two days ago.

the alternative, of course, is hardcore investigative journalism, and that's difficult and expensive. no way to run a newspaper, not on a for profit basis in a diminishing field of business in a collapsing economy.

Dear reader there follows a nearly true story:

Yesterday Michael Chertoff, the most dangerous man in America, gave a statement to the Washington Post at a press call in Dick Cheney’s office. He announced further measures that will be installed for the tracking and cross-referencing across other databases of all movements of American citizens in and out and around and about the precious Homeland that is now America.

When asked why such measures were necessary Chertoff replied that they had been obliged to introduce these measures because of lobbying by the cattle and milk marketing boards. Asked to explain further he reminded the Washington Post reporter that since 2001 all cattle and milk cows had had to have passports that tracked them and their meat and milk from farm through markets, meat and milk processing plants and right through to the supermarket shelves.

Having first made a hefty contribution to Republican Party coffers, the cattle and cows had now stated through their highly paid K street lobbyists that it was only fair that if any human wanted to purchase and eat their meat or drink their milk that a full log of that human individuals whereabouts since birth up till and including the last time they farted before making their purchase of meat and/or milk should be made available to the cattle and cow industry’s representatives who would install bio metric facial recognition and document scanners at all supermarket checkouts.

Having made that statement, whilst Chertoff & Cheney kicked off their shoes poured them selves a large one and had a good laugh, the Washington Post ‘journalist’ returned to his desk and uncritically re wrote what he had been told. After a quick scan to correct typos the subby passed it through to the print room where it was published in the next days edition.

The next morning the Washington Post’s readership, now dumb as cows, paid their nickels, read the article, nodded in dull appreciation at the wisdom of their government and continued to sleep walk their way down the street towards a holding pen as large as America that had a giant flashing neon sign hanging over it that read;

YOU ARE NOW ENTERING A POLICE STATE. ELECTRIC RESTRAINT DEVICES ARE USED IN THIS FACILITY.