In reference to my post from Saturday, with images snagged from the front page of the Des Moines Register - it is definitely NOT in their online articles! AND I notice that this story and the "White House Fever" quotes are not what is making the rounds in traditional media. I am seeing the posts about the book and Woodward's explaination in his new book "Plan of Attack", but I am not seeing anywhere in print, on TV or online the actual quotes from the AP story run Saturday. "Disappeared" doya think? Or is it another time when the story was buried over the weekend and after a couple days only the indymedia and bloggers care? I hardly think that this could be viewed as only partisan politics...

With my new policy of getting into this blog some of the most important snips of current news stories - in case there is a sudden "memory hole" - here is a snip from The Independent, UK. Why important? See the whole article for the helpful background to this. I've underlined some of the key points as to my concerns. First, this prisoner began an 18 year term, most in solitary confinement, and done with similar strategy that the US government is presently doing with those Homeland Security wants "disappeared". Second, the "state of emergency" laws for Israel enacted in 1945 have never been lifted???? Third, the British government of 1945 enabled this strategy. Like Blair, apparently there were "stand-up" men then, too, as Bush describes Tony Blair. And the fourth concern, again I shake my head that Israel continues to have nuclear weapons (read "WMD") and the US is not worried about this? Certainly recent actions by the Israel hit squads of assassination of Palestinians raises the probability that Israel both continues terrorist actions and is supported by the US in doing so. So, in this era when Bush administration places all other countries in the "for us or agin' us" categories, when "we" do such things it's ok because we are the good guys and by labeling others as the bad guys, well that's the ticket, set, and point.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=512513
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
18 April 2004
Vanunu released to life of 'internal exile'

"Vanunu released to life of 'internal exile'
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
18 April 2004
Vanunu released to life of 'internal exile'

Meir Vanunu: After 17 years, there's more worry than celebration

Mordechai Vanunu, the man who first revealed that Israel had nuclear weapons, is "demoralised, worried and angry," as he finally prepares for the end of his 18-year prison sentence this week.

In one of the more grudging and unusual prison releases of recent times, Mr Vanunu, 49, is due to walk out of jail on Wednesday at the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon and into a series of heavily confining restrictions, amounting to a form of internal exile.

Mr Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona nuclear plant, spent almost 12 years of his sentence in solitary confinement after he was lured to Rome in 1986 and then drugged and kidnapped by Mossad agents after talking to The Sunday Times in London about Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons programme. According to his brother Meir, Mr Vanunu feels subdued and frustrated after warnings by the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet that he will be subject to tight controls on his movements. These were laid down in emergency legislation imposed during the British mandate in 1945 and never revoked by Israel."

Has anyone else noticed a distinct similarity between Bush and an ostrich besides me? I see the usual "chimp" images, but there's that bead-eyed bird look that comes to mind, too: