The World Around You

The full report on 9-11 from the Joint Select Committee on Intelligence is available from CSPAN here.

More to come…

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has exposed another of the contributers to this country’s weight problem,

“Everyone knows that ice cream isn’t a health food,” the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an independent, nonprofit group, said in a study released on Wednesday.

“But the staggering calorie and saturated fat content of most of the treats served up at chains like Baskin-Robbins, Ben and Jerry’s, Cold Stone Creamery, Friendly’s, Haagen-Dazs and TCBY is bound to surprise most consumers.”

The CSPI said an empty Ben & Jerry’s chocolate-dipped waffle cone, designed to hold at least two scoops of ice cream, itself packs 320 calories and 10 grams or half a day’s worth of saturated fat.

“If you put a regular scoop of Chunky Monkey ice cream in that cone, it is going to be worse for you than (a) one-pound rack of baby back ribs, with 820 calories and 30 grams of saturated fat,” CSPI nutritionist Jayne Hurley told a news conference to publicize the study.

“This is something eaten by people strolling around a mall,” she added. “They have no idea they have just eaten 820 calories and one and a half days worth of saturated fat.”

Haagen-Dazs’s Mint Chip Dazzler, a sundae in a cup, has three scoops of ice cream, fudge, cookies, sprinkles and cream — and 1,270 calories, the group said.

Its 38 grams of fat is more than the day’s allowance as calculated by the U.S. government, which says the average American should eat between 2,000 and 2,500 calories a day.

The CSPI called on restaurants and ice cream parlors to list the fat and calorie content of food on menus.

What’s going to be reported is that the food police say ice cream is bad for you. If you read the article and, more importantly, CSPI’s press release (Ice Cream Shops Serving Coronaries in Cones) you’ll see that this is really about a matter of degree. No one is saying ice cream is inherently evil, what CSPI is saying is that the way we consume ice cream and the means through which it is presented to consumers is outrageously calorie and fat-laden and people are not told how bad it really is.

I guarantee you that if every consumer had to look at the calorie and fat content for these ice cream treats every time they ordered one, they would think twice about doing so. We’re talking about allowing consumers to be educated about what they’re really eating. Every consumer has a right to make a choice, but presented with an informed choice more people would make the right one for their health.

Steve at Daily Kos comments on a story from UPI discussing the fact that the report from the 9/11 commission will state that there is no evidence of a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq,

Former Democratic Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, who was a member of the joint congressional committee that produced the report, confirmed the official’s statement.

Asked whether he believed the report will reveal that there was no connection between al-Qaida and Iraq, Cleland replied: “I do … There’s no connection, and that’s been confirmed by some of (al-Qaida leader Osama) bin Laden’s terrorist followers.”

The revelation is likely to embarrass the Bush administration, which made links between Saddam’s support for bin Laden — and the attendant possibility that Iraq might supply al-Qaida with weapons of mass destruction — a major plank of its case for war.

Embarrass? Bullshit. It’s clear evidence of another administration LIE — claimed in Bush’s SOTU address no less — that ties existed between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Just to make clear — Bush directly contradicted clear evidence offered by our intelligence agencies. As Cleland says,

“The reason this report was delayed for so long — deliberately opposed at first, then slow-walked after it was created — is that the administration wanted to get the war in Iraq in and over … before (it) came out,” he said.

“Had this report come out in January like it should have done, we would have known these things before the war in Iraq, which would not have suited the administration.”

This report is going to confirm many of the suspicions of those who did not support going to war. This story is picking up steam and things are only going to get worse for this administration as the lies continue to be exposed.

Let me state this again, we’re not talking about bad intelligence, we’re talking about ignoring the intelligence that was available if it didn’t assist a case for war. That is inexcusable and the lies need to be fully exposed to allow the American people to make their own assessments as to whether or not they were duped.