Ridge accuses Bush White House of political use of terror alert system

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We Are At Liar Alert Level "Pants On Fire"

As reported in the Boston Globe, and many, many other places, Tom Ridge confesses that terror alert levels were manipulated based on political polling for tactical partisan advantage.

In his new book, the first Homeland Security chief, Tom Ridge, accuses top aides to President George W. Bush of pressing him to raise the terror alert level to influence the 2004 presidential election.

I am shocked, shocked, that the whole Roy G. Biv color scam was just a PR ploy. But at least we finally found those weapons of mass destruction.

CIA Hired Firm for Assassin Program

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Another Tale of Outsourcing Gone Bad

When the CIA found out that IT couldn't organize assassination teams, it decided the way around that loophole was to HIRE assassination teams.

A secret CIA program to kill top al-Qaeda leaders with assassination teams was outsourced in 2004 to Blackwater USA, the private security contractor whose operations in Iraq prompted intense scrutiny, according to two former intelligence officials familiar with the events.

The North Carolina-based company was given operational responsibility for targeting terrorist commanders and was awarded millions of dollars for training and weaponry, but the program was canceled before any missions were conducted, the two officials said.

{snip}

"Outsourcing gave the agency more protection in case something went wrong," said a retired intelligence officer intimately familiar with the assassination program.

Because hiring mercenaries to do your dirty work is the American way.

(h/t to bob s)

Edwards to admit paternity of ex-mistress' child

or
On The Next Maury: Edwards Gets Reille

Sources say that John Edwards will fess up to fathering the child of his former mistress.

Sources have told WRAL News that they expect former U.S. Sen. John Edwards to admit that he is the father of his former mistress' 18-month-old daughter.

Edwards, a two-time Democratic presidential candidate, confessed last August to having an affair with Rielle Hunter, who served as a videographer on Edwards' 2008 campaign. He has denied fathering her daughter, saying his relationship with Hunter ended before the child was conceived.

His rather stalkerish former assistant had been taking that bullet for Team Ken Doll.

By confessing to having knocked up the former girlfriend of 80s literary star Jay McInerney, Edwards reduces the number of people fooled by his previous ridiculously transparent denials to exactly zero.

Psychologists repudiate gay-to-straight therapy

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You Can't Pound Square Pegs Into Round Holes

The American Psychological Association has determined that gay-to-straight therapy advocated by many fundamentalists just doesn't work.

The American Psychological Association has declared that mental health professionals should not tell gay clients that they can become straight through therapy or other treatments.

Instead, the APA is urging therapists to consider multiple options — that could range from celibacy to switching churches — for helping clients whose sexual orientation and religious faith conflict.

Or you could just find a religion that doesn't say that God hates you for being the way he made you.

Embattled S.C. Governor Sanford, Wife Are Splitting Up

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Charlie Crist Is Taking Notes

According to the Washington Post, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford is kicking his long-suffering and independently wealthy wife to the curb of the governor's mansion.

Since the Republican governor secretly traveled abroad in June and admitted upon his return that he had an Argentine mistress, the Sanfords have vacationed together in Florida and Europe, and both have repeatedly said they were working to repair their marriage.

But the first lady said Friday that she will move to the family's oceanfront cottage on Sullivan's Island, a lush beach enclave near Charleston nearly two hours by car from the state capitol, where her husband remains in office.

This should free up plenty of time in his busy schedule for Appalachian Trail hiking and Argentinian divorcée banging.