Ok, So You Didn't Hear It Here First

But you heard it here.

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new U.S. intelligence report says Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and it remains on hold, contradicting the Bush administration's earlier assertion that Tehran was intent on developing a bomb.

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released on Monday could undermine U.S. efforts to convince other world powers to agree on a third package of U.N. sanctions against Iran for defying demands to halt uranium enrichment activities."

I was in a university lecture hall in 2003 to hear former UN weapons inspector tell the audience that o weapons of mass destruction wold be fond in Iraq. I was in the same hall when Joe Wilson explained how he knew that the yellow cake uranium story in the 2004 State of the Union Address was false.

In recent months there have been several statements from the Bush White House that Iran is close to building a nuclear weapon. I am here to tell you that, at least for the next decade, that is false.

Although the intentions of the government, or the mullahs, in Iran are unclear and although some of their public statements are troubling, Iran does not have the capability to refine uranium to the level needed and is not now trying to build such weapon.

Remember you heard it here.

Update: What's My Other Blog Doing On The Front Page?

With all my whining, begging and sly attempts to bribe people to give this blog fuel on fuelmyblog , suddenly my other blog , which I haven't even posted on since Thanksgiving, has suddenly catapulted to the number two spot in the Books/Writers section on the fuelmyblog homepage. Sometimes I wonder if this whole thing isn't rigged.

The reading public will be happy to know that my review of "Schulz and Peanuts" by David Michaelis will be coming soon on that blog.



I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.
Charles M. Schulz

I Have A Confession To Make

Yes, It's true. I have been fueling my own blog. It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, as tough I am doing something vaguely unethical or likely to give me hairy palms. But for the past two days I have given each of my blogs one "fuel" each day.

All these blogging websites - TechnoWhizBang, MyBloggingBuddies, ZigZag, WonderWidgets, BloggingFrenzy - there are just too many of them and I can't keep up with them all. But I am determined to make it onto the homepage of fuelmyblog just once before I run out of things to write about - and some have said that I am already running a bit thin on good ideas.

Fortunately the "snuff" feature doesn't seem to be used very much. How horrible to have your blog "snuffed" by some heartless Tony Soprano wannabe. Fuel, though, is hard to come by. Fuel is a scarce commodity. Fuelmyblog is a Darwinian struggle to gather the most fuel in whatever category you signed your blog up for. Those that are fueled the most gain a fleeting moment of fame on the felmyblog homepage, there to bask in a heavenly shower of readers, and of course, more fuel.

By the way, do you see that kind of orange thing over there on the sidebar with all the little teeny tiny pictures on it? The one that says "My Blogroll" and "Click below to . . . fuelmyblog? Go ahead and click it once, you know you want to.

Editors Note:

I just spent the last 20 minutes fueling every blog of every person on my growing friends list. What a suck up. Maybe I should click the little "Report Abuse" button on myself.

The 2007 ROTUS Blog Awards

Because anybody can give an award. - and it works!

Recently my other blog (see the last post) was given a couple of blogging awards and, after a bit of investigation, I discovered that anybody with an internet connection can, and some do, give out an award to any blog or website that he, she, it or they want. Now, you might think that this makes these awards worth about as much as a square of tissue paper, but wait!

I put the code, to show the little graphic of my awards on my blog and, lo and behold, I started seeing traffic on Statcounter that was coming from the websites that had given me the awards and those people seemed to stay around for a minute or five. They were actual readers!

This is kind of like Amway, but you don’t have to try to recruit your family and friends to sell soap for you. In order for an award to work it has to meet the following criteria.

The blogs or websites receiving the award must actually be good.
They also have to believe in the magic just a little bit and put the award code up someplace on their sites.

The blog giving the award must be, at least, not horrible.
It also must post links to the award winners.

There must be several winners at the same time.

What happens then is that people looking at the award winning sites, see the award, click on it out of curiosity, and then click on, after they have seen the other awards, and look at the other award winners. Hopefully some of them will find something that moves them and will become regular readers.

Assuming that this blog is not horrible and without further ado:

The 2007 ROTUS Blog Awards

To Daddy Papersurfer For promoting merriment and creating a blog using a Mac in Great Britain.: A Strong Cup of Coffee.

To Windows to Russia For opening a window into the heart of Moscow: A Giant Bear Hug.

To My Art Becomes Yours for being artistic and wearing a beret in France: The Beautiful Blogger Award.

And finally, to ROTUS for actions above and beyond the call of good taste: A Dead Horse (so it can be mercilessly beaten.)