The Facts Machine will return on Wednesday, August 3rd.

Sorry about the lack of posts today. I was busy finishing my undergraduate career at UCSB. That took waaay too long. Time to enter the real world! Hooray! Oh wait, I'm going into the music industry. If that's the real world, then Natalee Holloway is black.

FROM INSIDE BURGER KING HEADQUARTERS

"We need a good advertising campaign for our new chicken fries"

"Chicken fries?"

"Yeah, we have the means to make them vertical and such, we figured, 'hey, let's put them in the fry containers and see if people are gullible enough to buy them!'"

"Hey, did you know that guy who runs The Facts Machine used to chew on fry containers when he was very little?"

"That's nice, but let's try to stay on task, we're trying to come up with an ad here. You're in touch with the youth of today, what kind of music do they listen to?"

"Ummmm... uh... Gwar?"

"Yes! Everything I see on television today tells me that NOW is the time for the great Gwar revival! Why didn't I think of that myself?"

And thus, Coq Roq was born. I smell a good Seth Stevenson article over at Slate in the coming days...

The truth about what's really going on in Iraq . . . from Daisy Duke!?

A bit more on Bob Novak, from the Washington Post:

In a strange twist in the investigation, the grand jury -- acting on a tip from Wilson -- has questioned a person who approached Novak on Pennsylvania Avenue on July 8, 2003, six days before his column appeared in The Post and other publications, Wilson said in an interview. The person, whom Wilson declined to identify to The Post, asked Novak about the "yellow cake" uranium matter and then about Wilson, Wilson said. He first revealed that conversation in a book he wrote last year. In the book, he said that he tried to reach Novak on July 8, and that they finally connected on July 10. In that conversation, Wilson said that he did not confirm his wife worked for the CIA but that Novak told him he had obtained the information from a "CIA source."

Novak told the person that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA as a specialist in weapons of mass destruction and had arranged her husband's trip to Niger, Wilson said. Unknown to Novak, the person was a friend of Wilson and reported the conversation to him, Wilson said.

(snip)

[Bill] Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified.

In a column published Oct. 1, 2003, Novak wrote that the CIA official he spoke to "asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties' if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name."

Translation: Bob Novak knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote his column on Joe Wilson. Harlow couldn't out-and-out disclose Plame's status because, well, that would be illegal (and, coincidentally, that's precisely what Rove and company are in trouble for doing). Furthermore, the explanation provided by Novak in the October column is best viewed through the lens of the political sphere of the scandal. File it next to Rove attorney Bob Luskin's claim that Rove was simply "discouraging" Matt Cooper from writing "an inaccurate story". In other words, bullshit! Novak's own history of his use of the word "operative" flies in the face of his well-conjured explanation from October 03.

LET'S MAKE A DEAL!

Dear NewsMax,

You've definitely got a point! You really do.

So tell you what...

When Rove, Libby et al are convicted for leaking classified information, and they have completely served their prison sentences, and then several years pass . . . yes, at that point, I'd be happy to let the sitting President pardon them.

It's a pleasure doing business with you!

Love,

TFM

P.S. Enjoyed your meaningless Hillary-related tea-leaf reading ("I'm nodding").

WE HAVE THEIR ANSWER

The White House has made it their policy not to comment on an ongoing investigation... but they're more than happy to have the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman investigate the investigation on their behalf.

LOVE ON THE ROCKS



Is this what you think it is?

According to the Beeb, maybe!

A sculpted and polished phallus found in a German cave is among the earliest representations of male sexuality ever uncovered, researchers say.

The 20cm-long, 3cm-wide stone object, which is dated to be about 28,000 years old, was buried in the famous Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm in the Swabian Jura.

The prehistoric "tool" was reassembled from 14 fragments of siltstone.

Its life size suggests it may well have been used as a sex aid by its Ice Age makers, scientists report.

"In addition to being a symbolic representation of male genitalia, it was also at times used for knapping flints," explained Professor Nicholas Conard, from the department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, at Tübingen University.

Knapping flints? Oh, that's no fun! I suppose it makes sense though, as flints -- and by extension (ugh), arrows and spears -- are quite phallic as well.

Are these scientists sure? Pretty much:

Researchers believe the object's distinctive form and etched rings around one end mean there can be little doubt as to its symbolic nature.

"It's highly polished; it's clearly recognisable," said Professor Conard.

The Tübingen team working Hohle Fels already had 13 fractured parts of the phallus in storage, but it was only with the discovery of a 14th fragment last year that the team was able finally to put the "jigsaw" together.

And did they mention that it was found in a cave? Oy.

Garrison Keillor's take on the Plame affair is very, very amusing. Even though I'd rather hear him read it aloud.

(link via hoffmania)

AND I, FOR ONE, WELCOME OUR AUSTRALIAN WINGNUT OVERLORDS...

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