Whowhatwhy.com with some controversial takes on recent events. Are we even allowed to question the official version?
The Marathon Bombing: What The Media Didn't Warn You About
With the media’s constant “coverage” of the Boston tragedy, it’s easy to think you are well- informed. But are you? Here is some perspective you probably didn’t get from your favorite mainstream outlet.

Just Asking: Media Outfoxed On Spate Of Bizarre Shootings?
Should the media line up behind a Fox News reporter facing jail time for her refusal to name sources? Of course. But they might also look into where reporters get those “scoops”—and how they shape public perceptions. Particularly in the cases of these “lone nut” shooters that have become increasingly common, leaks from law enforcement should not be taken at face value.

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Yes, Virginia, Glenn Beck lies.

Like a rug.

Last weekend at the Beck rally in Seattle, one of his supporters (you can see him in the video) was upset that one of the protesters carried a sign proclaiming, "Glenn Beck Lies". He wanted to know when Beck had ever lied.

Answer: Oh, about nightly.

Case in point: His program last night.

In his opening rant, Beck talked about his Seattle appearances, and opened up by pointing out that there were only "about 40" protesters outside his Safeco Field shindig. And this was true. But what Beck didn't bother to explain to his viewers was that up in Mount Vernon, at his main event, there were more than 500 who showed up to protest him.

Then he said this:

Beck: Now they're worried about bombings taking place. Well, let me show you some new footage. A bombing did take place this past week in a town just north of Seattle called Everett. The only reason why I know this story is 'cause I was there. Radio station KRKO, their towers were blown up. When freedom of speech is being squelched, the left usually says, "That's fascist!" But in this case the left doesn't even call them anything!

But in reality, there were no bombs in this incident at all. All Beck and his staff had to do was read the actual news reports -- you know, the same ones from which they obtained their ELF quote:

"What they used was a machine called an excavator, it has a front arm off the front end of the machine. They stole it out of the yard," Andy Skotdal, president and general manager of KRKO. "They went and attached it to the tower and pushed one of them over and pulled the other one down."

Moreover, the vandalism had nothing to do with "free speech" and everything to do with the towers being a public nuisance:

The towers have been at the center of controversy for years. There are four towers currently at the location and there have been plans to build two more towers. Opponents have claimed that AM radio waves can harm people and wildlife.

More recently, nearby residents claim radio signals coming over home phone and intercom lines have increased since KRKO recently boosted its broadcasting power.

Just to be clear: Eco-terrorism, even without bombs, is a despicable act that deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The people who brought these towers down need to be caught and jailed.

But the threat they pose, at least so far, is strictly to property, not to people. The same cannot be said of the right-wing extremists who Beck is calling out of the woodwork now.

Someone needs to ask Beck: When, exactly, was the last time a left-wing activist walked into a church or a museum and opened fire with a gun? When was the last time an eco-terrorist gunned down police officers because he feared the President and his New World Order were trying to take his guns away?

Because just in the past year alone, there have been five such incidents involving right-wing extremists. Nancy Pelosi is right to be concerned about the potential for extremist violence from the right -- because it's already happening. And when we talk about right-wing violence, we're not talking about damage to property or facilities -- we're talking about terrorists who kill people.

Moreover, we can thank Glenn Beck for his share of fomenting it.

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Global News Blog [Christian Science Monitor]:

It takes a certain amount of courage to attend a church in Iraq.

In the past 24 hours, bombs exploded outside of six churches in various Baghdad neighborhoods, killing at least four people, and wounding more than 30, according to a Reuters report from the Iraqi capital.

Sunday’s attacks were among the worst, in terms of the death toll. But many of these same churches have been bombed before. On Jan. 6, 2008 – also a Sunday – seven churches (four in Baghdad, three in Mosul) were hit in a similar round of bombings. Two years earlier, four churches (three in Baghdad, 1 in Kirkuk) were bombed – also on a Sunday in January.

The Assyrian (Christian) International News agency reports that 52 Assyrian churches have been bombed in Iraq between June 2004 and the end of 2008.

The latest attacks come in the wake of the US withdrawal of combat troops (on June 30) from most Iraqi cities.

read more...

Informed Comment: Obama in Iraq: Der Speigel proves al-Maliki story is correct; Series of bombings hit Baghdad

PERRspectives: Where in the world is John McCain? No wonder the NYT asked for a rewrite of his op-ed piece, thus sending the wingosphere into a tantrum

Vagabond Scholar: Right-Wing Cartoon Watch

Feministe: Hillary Clinton has taken a public stand against the Bush administration's outrageous attempts to put common forms of contraception in the same category as abortion

Brad DeLong: Republicans eat their "budget experts"

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Mullin's World, Science and Democracy, Cajun Boy in the City, Andrew Halcro

Bob Geiger:

George W. Bush gave another White House speech on Monday in which he again misled the American people on the Iraq war and, at the same time, moved to new depths in his penchant for using the troops and their families as cheap props to eke out another sliver of faith in his failed policies.

I'm sure White House staffers don't tell these families how their anguish is to be used and Bush didn't waste much time yesterday before harnessing that grief to bolster his disastrous non-strategy in Iraq. The family of Michael Carlson, who died in Iraq two years ago, was present and Bush lowered the ethical bar still more by using the Carlson family -- and even a poem about being a soldier that Michael had written in high school -- to goad Congressional Democrats into accepting his ridiculous stay-the-course policy.

Bush using troops as props ? Say it ain't so! Do you suppose he acknowledges to these families who have sacrificed their loved ones for his occupation that the only tangible outcome of his "surge" tactic has been an increase in U.S. losses?

Over the past six months, American troops have died in Iraq at the highest rate since the war began, an indication that the conflict is becoming increasingly dangerous for U.S. forces even after more than four years of fighting.

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I've been trying to get some sort of handle on exactly what went on in Somalia. Something about it did not pass the smell test for me. A military expert with whom I consulted expressed some of the same reservations about the story that I had (albeit with far more specific knowledge).

First, the AC-130 is not a precision weapon in any practical term. It is fairly accurate area weapon and can contain it's fire to areas slightly larger than a football pitch (100mx90m). They may have hit "a senior terrorist figure" (who can tell from that altitude) but they hit a lot of other people in the process. Unless there were special forces on the ground calling in the fire it would be haphazard. Talk about back to the future, when every dead Vietnamese was Viet Cong -- the only requirement for identification was an unmoving corpse.

Then, as a follow up, he sent this article from the Guardian UK:

The US air strike on Somalia failed to kill any of the three top al-Qaida members accused of terror attacks in east Africa.

A senior US official said today that Sunday night's attack had killed between eight and 10 "al-Qaida affiliates" near the southern tip of Somalia.

But he said that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Abu Taha al-Sudan and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, all linked to the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2002 Mombasa hotel attack, were still on the run. "Fazul is not dead," said the official, contradicting earlier reports. "The three high-value targets are still of interest to us."

I'm not sure what to think about this. Why Somalia now? Is this another case of "Wag the Dog" the Republicans accused Clinton of during the "Monica-gate" scrutiny?

Associated Press

A new round of car bombings and other violence struck Iraq on Wednesday, with 55 people killed or found dead as the Iraqi government unveiled a plan to assume responsibility for security in Baghdad by early next year.---The scope of the problem was clear Wednesday, from the first bombing at a bus stop during morning rush hour through the announcement at 9 p.m. that the tortured, bullet-ridden bodies of 21 kidnap victims had been found on the streets of the capital.

Forbes:

The federal government has agreed to pay an Oregon lawyer $2 million to settle part of a lawsuit he filed after the FBI misidentified a fingerprint and wrongly arrested him in the 2004 Madrid terrorist bombings.

"The pain and torture and humiliation that this (case) has caused my family is hard to put into words," Brandon Mayfield said after the settlement was announced Wednesday.

Mayfield was arrested in May 2004 on the basis of a fingerprint found on a bag of detonators in Madrid that was mistakenly matched to him after the March 11, 2004, train bombings that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500. Mayfield was jailed on a material witness warrant but was released after the FBI acknowledged the fingerprint was not his.

Mayfield, who was detained for two weeks, and his wife, Mona, maintained that he was arrested because of his Muslim faith.

"We are Muslims. We are American. We are patriotic," Mona Mayfield said. "We are unhappy with the current administration stripping away our rights." Read on...

Anthony Bourdain is the kind of travel writer that Hunter S. Thompson would have been had he started up in the restaurant industry. He drinks too much, smokes too much and is unapologetic for his caustic nature. His non-fiction book, Kitchen Confidential, will forever change your notion of eating out (including ordering fish for Sunday brunch--just don't do it). His Gonzo style has morphed into testing culinary boundaries around the world. On his show "No Reservations" airing Mondays on the Travel Channel, Bourdain is more likely to eat the still-beating heart of a snake in Cambodia than to be found at any one of the hundreds of tourist traps masquerading as "authentic" along the Mekong Delta.

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Progressive States Network: Outrages of the Week...and take a look at our 100 Worst Corporate Citizens

Public Campaign Action Fund: Reed/Abramoff emails hit the fan...oh, and--better siddown-- it turns out Jack was at the White House a lot more than BushCo previously admitted.

Hughes for America: The O'Donnell Factor...how bad is she? We miss Chris Matthews!

Spittle & Ink: Wingers are having fun picking on the New York Times travel section for running a bit on Rummy's house. Mark responds in kind.

2 Political Junkies: Holy Crap...and it's Top 10 Peddlers.

The Osterley Times: Several good posts on the anniversary of the London bombings