The News Roundup

Steve Scott has an interesting take on illegal immigrants: http://fromthepew.blogspot.com/2006/04/illegal-immigrants-strangers-within.html.
Some of us can’t stand it that some immigrants escape the notice of the government and get paid in cash “under the table”. Instead of demanding the same freedom for ourselves, we want it taken away from the immigrants.

At the New Yorker (via Lew Rockwell), Seymour Hersh reports that Bush and his fellow conspirators are planning to nuke Iran: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact.
Apparently, Bush and his minions believe that bombing Iran will lead the Iranian people to blame their own government and overthrow it. The Iranian people will be grateful to the US for bombing their country and killing thousands of them and will install a pro-American government. And, of course, there will be no wider repercussions.

Rachel Maddow reported this morning on Air America that the DoD has been planting propaganda in Iraq and the US to exaggerate the importance of Al Qaeda and Zarqawi in Iraq. The NY Times was the recipient of leaks about Zarqawi and dutifully published the story of Al Qaeda’s masterminding the insurgency in Iraq. He is not much of a player in reality, but the DoD wants us to think that the ongoing Iraq war is about Al Qaeda, not the resistance of the Iraqi people. I reckon I could be a journalist now that the standards are so low. I took three years of journalism in high school and worked on the school paper where I was editorial editor, so I may be overqualified. Apparently, all you have to do now is wait for the government to announce or leak something and then report what the government spokesman or leaker said. That’s it! You don’t have to check on the “truth” of the matter or follow up at all.

I watched the Science Channel this weekend and learned about the Sun and Allosaurs and our hominid precursors. I also recently re-watched an amazing program about the moon. Scientists reckon that the moon was blasted out of the earth when another planet collided with the earth. It used to be much closer and to produce tides thousands of feet high every day, scouring the land and filling the sea with all kinds of chemicals. The moon also stabilizes the earth on its axis and is responsible for earth’s relatively predictable climate. Without the moon, the earth would wobble wildly like Mars and Venus. The moon is gradually receding, and earth’s day is getting longer. Someday the moon will be so far away that it no longer stabilizes the earth, and then life will get pretty rough. That’s all I need; something else to worry about.

In sports, apparently some baseball was played, and there was a major golf tournament.

In health news, Mrs Vache Folle reports that there is significant arsenic in chicken other than free range chicken. This is added to their feed to kill bugs. Does this impart resistance to arsenic poisoning for frequent consumers of McNuggets? Inquiring minds want to know.