Daily Dreamtime

*World's Biggest U.S. Embassy May Not Be Quite Big Enough*

By Al Kamen
Wednesday, May 16, 2007; A13

For all those who keep whining about how the government can't do
anything right, we're happy to report that the massive New Embassy
Compound in Baghdad, the biggest U.S. embassy on earth, is going to be
completed pretty much as scheduled in August.

The bad news is that it appears it's not going to have enough housing
for all the employees who'll be moving to the 27-building complex on a
104-acre tract of land -- about the size of the Vatican, two-thirds the
size of the Mall -- within the Green Zone.

"This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination that match could have come from three or more separate bullets," the researchers said. "If the assassination fragments are derived from three or more separate bullets, then a second assassin is likely," the researchers said. If the five fragments came from three or more bullets, that would mean a second gunman's bullet would have had to strike the president, the researchers explained.

Scientists Cast Doubt on Kennedy Bullet Analysis
Multiple Shooters Possible, Study Says

By John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 17, 2007; A03

 

In a collision of 21st-century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald alone shot the two bullets that struck and killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

The "evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed," concludes a new article in the Annals of Applied Statistics written by former FBI lab metallurgist William A. Tobin and Texas A&M University researchers Cliff Spiegelman and William D. James.

The researchers' re-analysis involved new statistical calculations and a modern chemical analysis of bullets from the same batch Oswald is purported to have used. They reached no conclusion about whether more than one gunman was involved, but urged that authorities conduct a new and complete forensic re-analysis of the five bullet fragments left from the assassination in Dallas.

It's Our Cage, Too*
Torture Betrays Us and Breeds New Enemies

By Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar
Thursday, May 17, 2007; A17

Fear can be a strong motivator. It led Franklin Roosevelt to intern tens
of thousands of innocent U.S. citizens during World War II; it led to
Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt, which ruined the lives of hundreds of
Americans. And it led the United States to adopt a policy at the highest
levels that condoned and even authorized torture of prisoners in our
custody.

May 17, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist


 The President and Wolfowitz

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/nicholasdkristof/index.html?inline=nyt-per>

As Paul Wolfowitz is to the World Bank, the U.S. is becoming to the world.

We should look at the battle unfolding at the World Bank not as the
story of one man falling to earth, but as a moral tale of the risks the
U.S. faces unless the Bush administration spends more time rebuilding
bridges it has burned all over the world.

Mr. Wolfowitz genuinely aspired to help Africa develop, but he ended up
isolated, friendless and vulnerable; receiving no credit for his genuine
accomplishments; and unable to make progress on the issues he cares
about. And the U.S. is in a similar position today.

*Thursday May 17, 2007 08:42 EST*


   What will be done about James Comey's revelations?

*/The Washington Post/ Editorial page has been one of the most
establishment-defending organs over the last six years, repeatedly
minimizing or dismissing criticisms of the Bush administration and
reserving its vigor primarily for attacking Bush critics (and for
supporting the Iraq war). That's what makes its **Editorial this morning
*
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/16/AR2007051602489.html>*regarding
James Comey's testimony -- entitled "The Gonzales Coverup" -- so
striking, and potentially indicative of a compelled acknowledgement by
the Beltway class of how serious the NSA scandal is and /how serious it
has been all along/. *