The latest New Yorker arrived in my mailbox this afternoon with this fabulous cover art, "OctoRush" by Barry Blitt. I think my neighbors wondered why they heard that lady several doors down yell "Open Thread!"

Open Thread below....

SteveAudio: I eat alone in the desert, with skulls for my pets.

The Other McCain: Botched raid in Iraq.

James Wolcott: It appears that once again Washington Post journalist and social arbiter Sally Quinn has created a stir by opening her brassy mouth.

Amygdala: ...if it aint got that swing

The Existentialist Cowboy: Carlin: "We can bomb the sh*t outta your country."

Listen to the entire broadcast of the House Judiciary Committee Hearings on Torture, with comments from Scott Horton, as well as interviews with The New Yorker's Jane Mayer, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, The New York Review of Books contributor Mark Danner, Torture Team author Philippe Sands, American University Professor Stephen I. Vladeck, and other guests

What we love most at the Open Thread is good writing. When I saw a THIRD well-written review of the Led Zeppelin London concert, reviews that were clearly labors of literary love, I had to share. It's a thing to behold when fine art, in this case an amazing musical career and arguably the concert of the year, leads and inspires another kind of artist, the journalist, to greatness as well.

Instances by...

Salman Ahmed and Mark Levine at Al Jazeera,

Sasha Frere-Jones at The New Yorker,

and Ben Ratliff at The New York [effin] Times...

Open thread below...

The Village Voice would have you believe that it paves the way for some sort of international tribunal. I'm just hoping it doesn't go down the memory hole unnoticed...

While the Democratic Congress has yet to begin a serious investigation into what many European legislators already know about American war crimes, a particularly telling report by the International Committee of the Red Cross has been leaked that would surely figure prominently in such a potential Nuremberg trial. The Red Cross itself is bound to public silence concerning the results of its human-rights probes of prisons around the world-or else governments wouldn't let them in.

But The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has sources who have seen accounts of the Red Cross interviews with inmates formerly held in CIA secret prisons. In "The Black Sites" (August 13, The New Yorker), Mayer also reveals the effect on our torturers of what they do-on the orders of the president-to "protect American values." Read on...

Sy Hersh was on "Late Edition", and talked about his new article in the New Yorker with Wolf Blitzer about serious war plans being drawn up against Iran-that includes nukes-which is causing military leaders to say they'll resign.
Download | play -WMP low res Download | play -QT

(transcript)

BLITZER: And you're saying that some senior military officers are prepared to resign?

HERSH: I'm saying that, if this isn't walked back and if the president isn't told that you cannot do it -- and once the chairman of the joint chiefs or some senior members of the military say to the president, let's get this nuclear option off the table, it will be taken off. He will not defy the military in a formal report. Unless something specific is told to the White House that you've got to drop this dream of a nuclear option -- and that's exactly the issue I'm talking about -- people have said to me that they would resign.

Hersh: ...And then, of course, nobody in their right mind would want to use a nuclear weapon in the Middle East, because it would be, my God, totally chaotic. When the JCS, the joint chiefs, and the planners wanted to walk back that option, what happened is about three or four weeks ago, the White House, people in the White House, in the Oval Office, the vice president's office, said, no, let's keep it in the plan. They refuse to take it out. And what I'm writing here is that if this isn't removed -- and I say this very seriously. I've been around this town for 40 years -- some senior officers are prepared to resign. They're that upset about the fact that this plan is kept in. Again, let me make the point, you're giving a range of options early in the planning. To be sure of getting rid of it, you give that option.

JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: The idea of a nuclear strike on Iran is completely nuts.

BLITZER: He didn't mince any words: "completely nuts" in his words. You want to react to that?

HERSH: Well, what he didn't say -- he didn't deny that there's serious planning about the military strike is the point. I mean, he's absolutely right about a nuclear option, but there is serious planning for a conventional war.

Jeralyn at Talk Left takes a look.

Seymor Hersh of The New Yorker magazine talks about short term commando raids the Pentagon might use to attack various spots in the middle east.

Video

Mr Hersh is saying that Iran is the target that they have in their sights first and foremost!

Pentagon Pushes Back Against Hersh Story on Iran - Without Denying It

You'll recall that Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker that the Bush Administration has been conducting secret missions in Iran since last summer, with the intent of mapping out military targets for a future war.

Today, the Pentagon pushed back and trashed Hersh, as they always do. They did everything to discredit Hersh's story.

Everything that is, except to deny the story.