Author: Gareth

We’re back at home, after spending an afternoon at ‘s parents’ “Show The American Holiday To Our Foreign Visitors” festival.

No huge family gathering (for which I am somewhat thankful), and given that, as is the tradition of her parents in such years, they invited people from the University to share the meal with us and give them a glimpse into “traditional American culture” (or what passes for it.)

As noted, at least this year they didn’t invite people from opposed cultures (apparently one year it was a Taiwanese student and a professor visiting from Mainland China). No, it was a professor and his wife, visiting from Norway. It was pleasant….ish. (As pleasant as sharing a family holiday with strangers can be, I suppose)

Denied the opportunity of cooking a Thanksgiving meal, I will instead be doing ours tomorrow….this house WILL smell of roast turkey, damn it! There WILL be left-overs!

…which, naturally, leaves the question of what we’re having for dinner tonight. Feh. Dunno.

DC comics is launching a new WARLORD series in February.

Unfortunately, it won’t be Mike Grell. The series will be written by Bruce Jones (VIGILANTE, YEAR ONE: BATMAN/SCARECROW) and drawn by Bart Sears (JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL). Check out some sample pages.

Not too bad, but I’ll miss Grell’s work:

‘Course, I’m sure I’ll pick it up anyway.

You won’t be seeing this on any US Media outlets. They have to report about Thanksgiving travel, after all….let us know which airports are busy. Important stuff like that.

The National Journal has published a story revealing the contents of the President’s Daily intelligence Brief (PDB) for Sept. 21, 2001.

This post 9/11 briefing was a report on the links between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government, and it said (quoting from the Journal’s report):

“the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda”

This is the same PDB that was denied to the Senate Intelligence Commitee and the 9/11 Commission.

The article also talks about the Office of Special Plans, the shadowy cadre within the Pentagon set up shortly after the September 11 attacks by then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith. The OSP is under investigation by the Congressional Intelligence Committe, who is getting no cooperation from Feith or the Pentagon.

The OSP is a NeoCon group, set up as an alternate source of intelligence analysis….one that will tell them what they want to hear…..as is evidenced by this note scribbled by Vice President Cheney at the bottom of one of the OSP briefing papers:

“This is very good indeed … Encouraging … Not like the crap we are all so used to getting out of CIA.”

So, we’ve got proof and details of withholding evidence from Congress, and creating an intelligence corps who will cook the intel for the Administration.

…and nobody is reporting it.