It's hard to believe, but the case against Ivins, as far as being the "Anthrax Killer" just keeps getting worse.  And more embarrassing to the FBI.

Now it turns out that the FBI was offering Big Bucks, millions of dollars, for people to turn on Ivins and report incriminating stories about him.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Before killing himself last week, Army scientist Bruce Ivins told friends that government agents had stalked him and his family for months, offered his son $2.5 million to rat him out and tried to turn his hospitalized daughter against him with photographs of dead anthrax victims.

It gets worse ....

I know there's a thread going, but it's got over 500 comments and my computer can't even handle that many, and I'm sure others' can't as well.

I just have to share this:  This bizarre case is getting even MORE bizarre as the government displays more and more desperation in trying to make their case.  

Get a load of this headline from the AP:

Sorority may link anthrax suspect to NJ letters

Sounds promising, no?  A lonely scientist obsessed with sorority girls?  Right?  

Wrong.  This is such a desperately smelly red herring tossed our way once again all I can think of is "they must think we're really stupid".  

So I'm off today, not having to work, and it's great.  Hanging out at home, trying to get caught up on everything happening in the world ....

And I stumbled across a chart.  About the economy.  About our current financial situation.

And I had to stare at it for a while to even figure it out.  Because it didn't look like most charts.  I couldn't see the usual ups-and-downs, the fluctuations that you normally see in charts.

What is the chart?  And why will it make your hair stand on end?

It's a chart that shows the level of borrowing, by banks, from the Federal Reserve.  Econ 101 tells us that money is created in our society by the loaning of money from the Fed.  In other words, money is created through the creation of debt.

So this definitely falls into the "with friends like these, who needs enemies?" category.  The woman who, upon being the first Speaker of the House, has completely disgraced herself, her position, her place in history, by playing "see no evil, hear no evil" with regards to The Most Corrupt and Criminal President In History, has once again decided we all must be really fucking stupid:

Pelosi told "The View" today that she'd impeach Bush if anybody knew of a crime he'd committed.

Does this make you feel sick?   It does me.  

Hey Nancy.  Guess what?  We're not that stupid, and you're a goddamn liar.  

For a truly breathtaking (and accurate) view of the news headlines, I like to go over to Life After The Oil Crash dot com and get a bracing, non-candy-coated view of where our economy, and civilization, are headed.

You'll be shocked at the headlines, all of which are from major economic sources like the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Forbes, etc., showing the truly epic scope of the current economic nightmare.  

One article that struck me especially hard lately was the one which this diary will be about.

It basically says this:  At some point, the price of oil will consume 100% of the world's income.   This articule postulates that $300 a barrel for oil is the point at which so much of the world's income will be spent merely buying oil that the entire economy will come to a screeching halt.  And we'll be looking over the "smoldering ruins of the world's economy."

So this is what it's come to here?  Are people here DELUSIONAL?  

Can't people here separate what they see actors doing on TV from REALITY?

Right now, the McCain Heebie Jeebies video diary is at the top of the recommended list.

Can someone please explain why?

At least the "bad teeth" diary was about something real -- McCain's somewhat yellowed teeth.  

This one is based in some sort of utter delusional nonsense -- that somehow McCain playing a creepy husband in a skit on SNL is somehow indicative of his true charter.

Are those of you who recommended this divorced from reality?  Please explain!

This just up on Americablog.com:

Why is McCain getting $58,000 a year in disability income?
John Aravosis (DC)    

First off, I find it fascinating that John McCain, who is refusing to vote for the GI Bill for our troops because "it's too generous," is himself getting $58,000 a year, tax-free, from the US government for his military service. Had McCain been getting that amount every year since Vietnam, that would total $2,000,000 for the man who isn't into overgenerous government. I just find that interesting.

Holy wheelchairs, Batman!

If you check my diary history here, you'll see several on how the administration and their propaganda machine is reading from a prepared script re: "let's attack Iran".

Well today there are several new sources claiming that Bush will attack Iran before his term is out.  One of them says he's going to do it especially if a Democrat wins the nomination.   But the other is Rush Limbaugh, boasting of special insider knowledge:

Today on his radio show, Rush Limbaugh boasted about his insider access and told a caller that important Bush donors had assured him the President would attack Iran soon ...

Yeah sure it's a great thing that Hillary has finally gotten caught up on her third grade math, but while we're all nice and distracted by that, Bush is making the moves to steal Iraq for good.  And we're talking a permanent act of piracy, a literal lockdown of another foreign country, something unprecedented (as far as I know) in American history, and something none of us, or any of our elected representatives, have had any say in.  Oh yeah, and it'll cost a damn fortune.  Forever.

Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control

Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors

Isn't that special?  Heck, make me a damn contractor and send me to Iraq!  I can get 100% immunity for anything I do!  WHOO HEE!

Yup, guys like Newt Gingrich know what's good for America.  More terror attacks.

"This is ... one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration," Gingrich continued. "The more successful they've been at intercepting and stopping bad guys, the less proof there is that we're in danger. And therefore, the better they've done at making sure there isn't an attack, the easier it is to say, 'Well, there never was going to be an attack anyway.' And it's almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us."

What a patriotic Republican hero this man is!  It's a shame he didn't run for President!

Call me cynical and burned-out, but the whole Snotty McClellan "story" has left me unmoved.    Mainly because, well, it's old news.   Bush lied?  Yawn ....  

So what DID piss me off about this?   Well, I'll tell you:  Nancy Pelosi's response:

"''This war is a big lie. It was a lie to begin with..and it continues to be a lie.."

Whoa, whoa, Nancy, slow down here.  It looks to me that you are admitted your own guilt.   Are you not obligated, required by law as Speaker of the House, to pursue justice where laws have been broken by the executive branch?   Yet formerly you told us that no investigation would take place, that impeachment was "off the table", in effect that Justice would not be served, no matter what crimes were committed.  

Isn't this analagous to a if a judge were to say, at a murder trial, that he had already decided to find the defendant not guilty, regardless of what evidence was presented?

Well, look who's decided that high oil prices aren't just the result of speculators:

LONDON (AFP) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned Wednesday that the world faced an era-defining oil "shock" that required urgent action, as European leaders struggled to contain growing protests over soaring fuel prices.

"It is now understood that a global shock on this scale requires global solutions," Brown wrote in The Guardian newspaper.

And there's someone else who's not happy about it either -- the CEO of Dow Chemical.  More on that over the bump.  

Today, Alternet published an excerpt from Bill Moyers' new book, "Moyers on Democracy", which states the plain damn simple truth about this mess America is in right now.   I'm amazed nobody here has diaried it yet (I did a search but found nothing.)

At any rate, here's a little sampler:

. . . the philosophy popularized in the last quarter century that "freedom" simply means freedom to choose among competing brands of consumer goods, that taxes are an unfair theft from the pockets of the successful to reward the incompetent, and that the market will meet all human needs while government itself becomes the enabler of privilege -- the philosophy of an earlier social Darwinism and laissez-faire capitalism dressed in new togs -- is as subversive as Benedict Arnold's betrayal of the Revolution he had once served.

Wow.  Just wow.  More over the break

Surprised this hasn't been diaried yet:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has, since 2001, cremated some of the remains of U.S. service members killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in a Delaware facility that also cremates pets, a practice that ended Friday when the Pentagon banned the arrangement.

The facility, in an industrial park near Dover Air Force Base, has cremated about 200 service members, manager David Bose said Friday night. It uses separate crematories a few feet apart to cremate humans and animals, he added.

Nice.

"There are more and more dead bodies on the streets and the stench is unbearable. Smoke is everywhere. It's hard to know how much people outside Fallujah are aware of what is going on here. There are dead women and children lying on the streets. People are getting weaker from hunger. Many are dying are from their injuries because there is no medical help left in the city whatsoever. Some families have started burying their dead in their gardens."

That was Fallujah in 2004.  Bush and Petraeus are about to do the same to the slum of 2.5 million in Baghdad known as Sadr City.  1,000 civilians have already been slaughtered.  Right now 75,000 children are trapped.  

Welcome to the buzzkill.  It's called Bush's War Crimes R Us, and it's the reason most of us have been so furious for all these years now.  

They're about to do to Sadr City what they did to Fallujah, and why?  Because they're still in power, because nobody has been able to stop them.  

Last night I wrote a diary which I really didn't expect to get much attention:

Scott Ritter - "virtual guarantee" of Iran strike

I was heartened that it ended up on the recommended list and got a lot of comments.  Today I stumbled across two more indications that the Bush administration is determined to attack Iran before the elections.  

The first is the one the title mentions.  Over at Think Progress, Bolton: Striking Iran ‘Is Really The Most Prudent Thing To Do’.  

Yesterday morning, Fox News interviewed former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton to discuss whether America is close to striking Iranian targets, as new reports indicate the Bush administration is drawing up plans for a "surgical strike." Bolton said that while there are "obviously risks associated" with a strike on Iran, the risks of not doing something are "far higher" at this point.

Scott Ritter hasn't been wrong about too many things regarding U.S. intentions in the Middle East.  He was one of the few who called "bullsh*t" on Bushco's claims of WMD's in Iraq.  A former Marine and former Republican, he's not exactly a partisan player, he seems to be a guy who just doesn't like being lied to.  And now he's telling us there's a "virtual guarantee" of a strike against Iran:

Ritter: US will target Iran next

We take a look at the military buildup, we take a look at the rhetoric, we take a look at the diplomatic posturing, and I would say that it’s a virtual guarantee that there will be a limited aerial strike against Iran in the not-so-near future—or not-so-distant future, that focuses on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command. And if this situation spins further out of control, you would see these aerial strikes expanding to include Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and some significant command and control targets.

United States is drawing up plans to strike on Iranian insurgency camp

The US military is drawing up plans for a "surgical strike" against an insurgent training camp inside Iran if Republican Guards continue with attempts to destabilise Iraq, western intelligence sources said last week. One source said the Americans were growing increasingly angry at the involvement of the Guards’ special-operations Quds force inside Iraq, training Shi’ite militias and smuggling weapons into the country.