They're still using the weakest, fraudulent intel to scare us

UPDATE: Before we get to the main point, here's a great example of how our own tax dollars are being secretly used to control the news.

Now on to the main event: Via Electablog, I see this MSNBC article by Lisa Myers, showing just how bad Ashcroft's warning is.

In warning Americans to brace for a possible attack, Ashcroft cited what he called "credible intelligence from multiple sources," saying that "just after New Year's, al-Qaida announced openly that preparations for an attack on the United States were 70 percent complete.... After the March 11 attack in Madrid, Spain, an al-Qaida spokesman announced that 90 percent of the arrangements for an attack in the United States were complete."

But terrorism experts tell NBC News there's no evidence a credible al-Qaida spokesman ever said that, and the claims actually were made by a largely discredited group, Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, known for putting propaganda on the Internet.

"This particular group is not really taken seriously by Western intelligence," said terrorism expert M.J. Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, an international policy assessment group. "It does not appear to have any real field operational capability. But it is certainly part of the global jihad movement -- part of its propaganda wing, if you like. It likes to weave a web of lies; it likes to put out disinformation so that the truth is deeply buried. So it is a dangerous group in that sense, but it is not taken seriously in terms of its operational capability."( Read more... )

We are living in the US's 4th Republic

Here's an interesting case (not new to me, but I've never said it at such mostly deserved length) that the changes to our form of government over the last few centuries has been every bit as great as those that caused the French ot give different numerical epochs to their governments. The author considers this to be the 3rd Republic, but I think he's neglecting the Articles of Confederation.

One of the commenters notes that the (my numbering) 2nd and 3rd Republics each lastted 72 years. The fourth Republic reaches 72 years with the election of 2004.

And how's this for a double whammy of near nuclear annihilation?:

1. Had a Soviet officer followed orders in 1993, WWIII would have started and probably most of use would be dead.
2. the secret codes to launch Minuteman missiles, which were supposed to be memorized, changed from time to time, kept secure, and all that, were actually permanently set to "00000000" and a note to that effect was kept in each box.