Gerbil's Giant Gumball Gumbo

t r u t h o u t - Frank Rich | Laura Bush's Mission Accomplished:

"Mrs. Bush's act was a harmless piece of burlesque, but it paid political dividends, upstaging the ho-hum presidential news conference of two days earlier in which few of the same reporters successfully challenged administration spin on Social Security and other matters. (One notable exception: David Gregory of NBC News, whose sharply focused follow-ups pushed Mr. Bush off script and got him to disown some of the faith-based demagoguery of the Family Research Council.) Watching the Washington press not only swoon en masse for Mrs. Bush's show but also sponsor and promote it inevitably recalls its unwitting collaboration in other, far more consequential Bush pageants. From the White House's faux 'town hall meetings' to the hiring of Armstrong Williams to shill for its policies in journalistic forums, this administration has been a master of erecting propagandistic virtual realities that the news media have often been either tardy or ineffectual at unmasking."

t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt: The Millstone:

"September 11 justifies a lot of things previously considered abominable. That is what a lot of Republicans tell themselves these days. No Republican in his right mind would have supported something like the Patriot Act before the attacks. Indeed, a variety of anti-terrorism actions offered by the Clinton administration were shot to pieces by the Republicans in Congress because they were considered too invasive. Then, of course, everything changed."

What Rough Beasts?:

"The idea is to avoid animals with human sex cells or brain cells, Mr. Wade wrote. 'There is a remote possibility that an animal with eggs made of human cells could mate with an animal bearing human sperm. To avoid human conception in such circumstances, the academy says chimeric animals should not be allowed to mate,' he explained. Human cells in an animal brain could also be a problem. As Janet Rowley, a University of Chicago biologist, told a White House ethics panel: 'All of us are aware of the concern that we're going to have a human brain in a mouse with a person saying, 'Let me out.' '"