for those of you with appropriate technology, there is a 1963 video of frank zappa on the steve allen show which i’ve heard the audio for, but never actually seen…

the washington quarter is due to be minted next year. there are currently 3 candidates, of which i, personally, feel that #3 is the preferable one. if you’re a resident of the state of washington, maybe you’ll get a vote in the final decision. if not… stay away, ’cause we’ve already got far too many people from other states here, and they’re clogging traffic and contributing to smog.

the latest in a long, involved and complicated string of lies,
Cheney says he has power to declassify information
Vice president stays mum on case involving aide Libby
Thursday, February 16, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that an executive order gives him the authority to declassify secret documents, but he would not say whether he authorized an indicted former aide to release classified information.

Cheney’s former chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, told a grand jury he was “authorized by his superiors” to disclose classified information from an intelligence estimate on Iraq to reporters, the special prosecutor investigating the 2003 leak of a CIA agent’s identity told Libby’s attorneys. The prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, did not identify who those “superiors” are.

In an interview Wednesday with Fox News, Cheney said the case was “nothing I can talk about.” But he said he had the authority to declassify material under an executive order that “focuses first and foremost on the president, but also includes the vice president.”

He would not disclose whether he had exercised that authority, however.

Libby was indicted in October on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to investigators probing the July 2003 exposure of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Plame’s husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had just emerged as a critic of the pre-war intelligence underpinning the invasion of Iraq when her identity was disclosed.

According to Fitzgerald, Libby met on July 8, 2003, with New York Times reporter Judith Miller to give her information regarding the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. The document included much of the information used to justify the invasion of Iraq earlier that year.

But a legal source involved in the case tells CNN that Libby has never suggested and did not testify that anyone in the administration — including Cheney — authorized outing Plame.

Cheney declined to discuss the investigation but said he had “cooperated fully” with the special prosecutor. And he suggested he may have to testify in Libby’s trial, now tentatively set for January 2007.

“Scooter is entitled to the presumption of innocence,” the vice president said. “He’s a great guy. I’ve worked with him for a long time, have enormous regard for him. I may well be called as a witness at some point in the case and it’s, therefore, inappropriate for me to comment on any facet of the case.”

Cheney’s remarks came during an interview in which he accepted responsibility for the weekend shooting of a companion during a south Texas quail hunt.

The wounded man, 78-year-old Harry Whittington, remained in intensive care in a Corpus Christi hospital on Wednesday.

The incident’s belated disclosure left the White House fending off questions for three days and fueled renewed criticism of the vice president, with Democrats calling it symbolic of an administration obsessed with secrecy.

now let me get this straight… in an investigation to discover who outed plame, i seem to recall cheney vowing that whoever was responsible would face extreme and dire consequences… but when it turns out that he is the one who was actually responsible, suddenly he has the power to declassify information and nothing was done wrong… including his shooting “his friend”, harry whittington…

does that make sense to you, or does it sound like more back-pedalling and ass-covering?