WTF Is It Now?!?

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Happy April Fools' Day. The Pouting Primate didn't find any Easter Eggs during the hunt this morning on the WH lawn. I hear next year Karen 'n' Karl will use brightly colored ostrich eggs, instead of the camo ones Laura put out today.


"Less than ten days after he became Vice President -- promising that a bush/Cheney Administration would "restore decency and integrity to the Oval Office" -- Cheney took charge of the Administration's energy policy task force, the National Energy Policy Development Group."

Cheney's return to politics--after he selected himself to be bush's running mate--benefited from Enron-linked contributions that paid for the Chimp/Cheney campaign, the Florida recount fight fund and the inauguration. Cheney and his aides met at least six times with Lay and other Enron officials while preparing the group's report, which is the basis for the Administration's energy policy proposals.

Additionally, Cheney's staff met with an Enron-sponsored lobbying organization, the "Clean Power Group." In the spring of 2001 the severity of the California energy emergency had inspired demands for government action, and Enron had a problem. Officials in California were arguing that federal price caps on wholesale energy sales
would prevent profiteering and stabilize wildly fluctuating energy markets, and even some Republicans were saying that caps made sense. But the caps would cost Enron--which had come to dominate energy markets by taking advantage of deregulation--a fortune.

Enron CEO Kenneth Lay knew he needed high-level help. So he arranged to meet with a man who had headed a corporation with extensive business ties to Enron and who had been a prime recipient of Enron's political largesse. Vice President Dick Cheney cleared his calendar for an April 17 private meeting with Lay regarding what aides described as "energy policy matters" and "the energy crisis in California." At the meeting Lay handed Cheney a memo that read in part: "The administration should reject any attempt to re-regulate wholesale power markets by adopting price caps...."

The day after he met with Lay, Cheney gave a rare phone interview to the Los Angeles Times that had one recurrent theme: Price caps were out of the question. Dismissing the strategy as "short-term political relief for the politicians," Cheney bluntly declared, "I don't see that as a possibility."

- - Read more at The Nation


WH invented air attack on Pentagon, claims French book !

A book claiming that the plane that ploughed into the Pentagon on September 11 never existed, and that the US establishment itself was at the heart of the New York and Washington attacks, has shot to the top of the French bestseller lists.

The Frightening Fraud, by Thierry Meyssan, sold out its original run of 20,000 copies within two hours of going on sale. "We've sold 2,500 copies in 10 days, when a blockbuster novel sells maybe 1,500 in a month," a spokesman at Fnac Les Halles, one of France's biggest bookshops, said. "It's a phenomenon."

Mr Meyssan's conspiracy theory argues that American Airlines flight 77, which killed 189 people when it smashed into the headquarters of the US defence department, did not exist, and that the whole disaster was a plot dreamed up and implemented by the US government.

The French media has been quick to dismiss the book's claims, despite the fact that Mr Meyssan is president of the Voltaire Network, a respected independent thinktank whose left-leaning research projects have until now been considered models of reasonableness and objectivity.

Mr Meyssan's argument, which started out as a rumour on the internet and has risen to prominence largely thanks to the author's reputation and chatshow appearances, suggests that the plane could not have existed because eye-witness statements are contradictory, there are suspiciously few photographs of the catastrophe and none of them shows any wreckage. Even the rescue workers' accounts, published on the Pentagon website, are not convincing, he says.

- - - About time! Read more at The Guardian, and thank God for international media.


Today in History

1918 the Royal Air Force was established in Britain.

1970 President Nixon signed a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and television, to take effect after Jan. 1, 1971.

2001 A U.S. Navy surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter over the South China Sea, then made an emergency landing on China's Hainan island. Preznit Primate abjectly apologized, and paid to have our plane sent back in a box. By the Russians.

2002 April 1st declared "Senate Minority leader Trent Lott Day" by the Mgmt. Crying, whining, and giving the finger-down-your-throat gesture are all encouraged.


The Top 6 Political April Fool's Jokes

6. Declare Bush the winner of the election and then surprise the country with a count showing most Florida voters tried to vote for Gore, then sit back and laugh, laugh, laugh!

5. Have Ari Fleischer go before the press and announce that the White House has forgotten where they've stashed Dick Cheney.

4. Replace Cheney's heart medication with Folger's Crystals, see if he notices the difference.

3. "I've decided to run again, but this time as an independent." (Gary Condit)

2. Call the White House and ask if they've got Dick Cheney's energy task force records in a can.

and the Number 1 Political April Fool's Joke...

1. Mugabe tells Tsvangirai, "You really won the election. You should be President. Sit in my chair." But when Tsvangirai jumps up in response to the hidden joy buzzer, Mugabe says "You don't want to be President?" and sends him to jail.
- - © Top5.com


Villagers' victory over Pictish site:

A HIGHLAND community which won a fight to keep a historic Pictish stone in the village where it was created has taken over the land where the monument lies.

A tug-of-war developed last year over the recently discovered base of the 8th century Hilton of Cadboll cross slab stone carved by Picts in Easter Ross.

Archaeologists wanted to remove the base for study in Edinburgh, where the rest of the stone is housed in the National Museum of Scotland. However, locals insisted the base should remain in the village and formed an action group to campaign to have the other section of the sculpture returned.

Following a public meeting in the village, Historic Scotland agreed to leave the base in a protected shed near St Mary's Chapel, where it was discovered and where it will be conserved and made available for interpretation. The Historic Hilton Trust now wants to promote the history of the village and the wider area, as well as maintaining and preserving historical sites or artefacts.

- - - The Scotsman.co


Mystery Cloaks Ancient Chalk Carving in English Countryside

UFFINGTON, England -- Galloping across the Berkshire Downs, yet never getting anywhere, the White Horse of Uffington is one of the great mysteries of the English countryside. The stylized figure, some 360 feet long, was gouged from the white chalk bedrock some 3,000 years ago. But why and by whom remains an enigma.

David Miles, chief archaeologist at English Heritage, surveyed the site in the 1990s and discovered the horse was made by digging trenches 3 feet deep and filling it with rammed chalk. Using a process called Optical Stimulated Luminescence, Miles and his team from the Oxford Archaeological Unit determined the lower levels of chalk were last exposed to sunlight in the late Bronze Age, some 3,000 years ago. "Which makes it by far the oldest chalk hill figure in England," Miles says.

The horse is set in a dramatic landscape, sculpted by the glaciers of the last Ice Age, and stands guard over the undulating, verdant farmland in the valley below. Although partially visible for miles around, the full shape can only truly be seen from the air, suggesting it had a strong religious significance. "If the horse was built for the ancestors to see from up in the sky, it was very well placed," Miles says.

Some say the horse marks one of many ley-lines crisscrossing the country, and the eye of the horse is said to mark the point where the Earth's force is particularly intense.

Read the rest at The Salt Lake Trib !


Dozens of human skeletal remains found in Kentucky

Nearly 70 sets of skeletal remains have been found at the construction site of the state Transportation Cabinet complex in the three weeks since the first bones were spotted in a dump truck.

David Pollack, an archaeologist with the Kentucky Heritage Council, which is overseeing the recovery, said the body count of 66 is much higher than had been expected after the first week of digging. Officials at first thought the site could have been a cemetery used by the old state penitentiary, which was torn down following the flood of 1937. However, several more children's skeletal remains were found Wednesday, "which makes me think this may not be an old prison cemetery," Pollack said. "But we haven't discounted anything."

Archaeologists believe the people may have been buried between 1800 and 1850. Along with the human bones, archaeologists have found rings, coins and brass coffin handles in the excavation area, which is about the size of a football field.

- - CNN.com

*Pic:"Moai Statues, Easter Island", © SuperStock