“That’s an example of professional courtesy,” Silva said.

Defense plans to call as witnesses every officer who was as the shooting scene did not materialize. The court denied defense requests to call officers, who in police interviews called the shooting “friendly fire” and who said another officer’s hand was on the rifle when it was fired.

http://www.sbsun.com/sanbernardino/ci_9422879

Well if that’s the case I’m thinking everyone in my neighborhood must be invovled with drugs. Maybe I should start making some unusual traffic to and from my house so I won’t be indicated in any drug activity.

“For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on,” Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in Vanity Fair magazine’s July issue.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/29/1053801479971.html

All the intelligence in the world doesn’t matter if you deliberately ignore evidence that doesn’t support your conclusions. The Bush Administration made their case for the war the way young-Earth creationists make their cases against evolution.

In the post-war analysis, they found out from Saddam’s people that he was much more worried about an invasion from Iran (lots of bad blood there, still is!) than from the US. That’s why he acted like he had the kind of weapons the US still has to this day. He was trying to bluff Iran, not the US. Dealing with that possibility is part of an intelligence analyst’s job.

Now, I know you can put out a big list of reasons to invade Iraq – but really, it doesn’t matter. The fact is the WMD claims got made, because all the UN arguments just were not enough to get the critical mass needed to get the invasion go-ahead. The WMD claims are what closed the deal with the public. Without the WMD, there was no war rational good enough to get Congress to sign on. That is why the lack of WMD is such a big issue.

To me the Bush administration is looking like a sleazy used car dealer still claiming the lemon I bought was a great buy, even though all the things that got me to buy proved to be not there. I don’t care if they think it was a good idea – the WMD was the deal closer, and no WMD means I was lied too.

Does *anyone* check their sources anymore?

I don’t particularly care for most of the album, nor have I decoded the supposed message, but the section does sound like morse, and it’s the kind of subtle humor MO likes. (Another instance – apparently one cymbal strike in “Tubular Bells II” is actually “Tubular Bells” compressed into a small part of a second).

“I think she looks more like Dee Snider from Twisted Sister.”

Dude, I seriously LOL’d

If the cops were screen a 15 year old’s sex tape, were they basically watching child pornography?

Yes, if they were lowly serfs this is how the law would be applied. But they are LEOs, so they get to operate under a different set of rules. Go read that story and then read some of the comments defending the cops actions

“She shouldn’t have made the sex tape, she deserved what she got” and the like

Shouldn’t they be up on some kiddie porn charge for that?

First, the glaring mistake of saying that the pot that they found was the reason for the raid. It wasn’t. They were looking for a large grow operation, not a personal stash.

Second, we now know who the informant is, and it really makes the whole thing stink worse. He did have a motivation to lie, and he should be facing charges along with the officers who got a (probably phony) warrant based only on his word.