If you scroll down a bit or just click here, you’ll learn the tale of the Hutia Conga (aka the Hudu), Cuban spymaster of the tiny almost-ungulate world.

The tricky little beastie is so unlikely — seemingly part bunny, part pudu, and part kangaroo — that several emailers actually
claimed I’d been deceived, and that the photo is a composite of
multiple creatures.  Not so; the snapshot is a frame-grab from a Quicktime movie emailed by a reader using the code name "Richard."  In the video, taken in the course of highly-secret activities, you must believe, the Hudu pictured and several
others hop about, masticate, and generally behave in expected bunnyroo
pudurodent fashion.

Adorable, in other words.

But the photo does not, in fact, depict what an authentic Hutia Conga
looks like, found on a Czech server.  (I could show you myself, but I’d be endangering you by doing so.  Oh, you can click if you wish, and learn the Hudu’s secret identity, but all the risks are your own, my friend.  I wash my hands of it.)

Instead, what we see pictured below is a Mara, (aka the
Patagonian Cavy, aka the Mardu).  Here’s another photo of a completely
different Mara, courtesty the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City:

So the original post was not, in fact, a Hutia Conga.

It was a Hutia Conga cleverly disguised as a Mara.

No wonder Cuban intelligence thinks they make great spies.

This post, incidentally, will self-destruct.

Not right away.

At what point will we know the White House’s troubles are irreversible?
Any necessary government function shows evidence of long-term planning for the general welfare
163   27.8%
CNN develops special frog-march theme music
160   27.3%
Cheney and Rove hit the escape pods and launch into deep space
158   27%
Bush starts clearing brush in the Situation Room
105   17.9%

This just in: Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), already a multi-millionaire, just won $853,492 in a Powerball drawing.

Life is SO not fair.

What jumps out at me is that the guy claims that he plays "sporadically," and yet he admits the night he won he played four sheets of tickets.

And then there’s this:

Which is his right, of course.  But, um, let me search for the word: URRRRGH.

What sort of other frustratingly unfair events can we expect?

New poll at left.

Sounds crazy at first, I know.

But remember that the forged Niger documents are at the heart of Joe Wilson’s trip, George W. Bush’s false Iraq-is-gonna-get-nukes claim in the 2003 State Of The Union address, Joe Wilson’s op-ed, and the Plame leak which may bring down half the administration.

As Patrick Fitzgerald himself has reportedly grokked, the forged Niger documents — and their signal path from questionable sources in Italy through the U.S. administration all the way to Bush himself — are a real key to who pushed the war and why.

And it’s beginning to look a lot like the documents might just be the handiwork of some of the war-profiteering fanatics who gave us Iran-Contra.

Supposedly, history repeats itself first as tragedy, the second time as farce.

I’m still waiting for the farce part here.

Have a look at this Kos diary.

If you want to know why the "news" media couldn’t be bothered to report
enough actual news to prevent an elective war based on lies that were
plainly nonsensical at the time — and why, 2.5 years, tens of
thousands of deaths, and hundreds of billions of dollars later, they’re
still strugging to burp up the obvious — that diary explains a big part of it.

Personal experience with same issues: when my radio commentaries were syndicated, one of the reasons we didn’t get on more stations was because
Program Directors were cowed by ownership (often ClearChannel) and
afraid some liberal might piss off advertisers, especially in the hysterical post 9-11 climate.  Never mind the awards I’d won, or that in over a thousand commentaries, I never once had to retract
anything in a single broadcast.  The question wasn’t quality, accuracy, even entertainment value; it was avoiding any risk of
displeasing advertisers and ownership.

Matter of fact, I got canned from the biggest news station in Los Angeles specifically because
I was talking about stories the rest of the "news" didn’t, even though
the new boss who canned me didn’t have the guts or honesty to admit it
to my face.  (He’d grumbled at me for years, but when the day came, he said they were "cutting back all their features,"
although they a) kept every moralistic right-winger who would never
dream of criticizing corporate influence and b) replaced me
specifically with the unpointed musings of a Ted Baxterish TV anchorman
with remarkably little to say.)

I mention this a) because obviously, yeah, it still bugs me when I’m reminded of it, and b) much more to personally vouch, from direct
experience, for the only bias that matters in media.  It is real.  This is how this stuff
works.  (Incidentally, management denials of any such bias are almost
always sincere; they have drunk the Kool-Aid, they deeply believe what
they do actually accomplishes something, and that’s a big part of why
they succeed.)

These are businesses, after all.  You are not the media’s customer; you are
their product.  Their only customers are the advertisers.  That is all
that matters.

It’s right in front of our faces, all the time.  Jon gets it right here, too, as I mentioned yesterday.

The anonymous Kos writer isn’t perfect, but he gets the gist absolutely correct.

Have a look at this Kos diary.

If you want to know why the "news" media couldn’t be bothered to report
enough actual news to prevent an elective war based on lies that were
plainly nonsensical at the time — and why, 2.5 years, tens of
thousands of deaths, and hundreds of billions of dollars later, they’re
still strugging to burp up the obvious — that diary explains a big part of it.

Personal experience with same issues: when my radio commentaries were syndicated, one of the reasons we didn’t get on more stations was because
Program Directors were cowed by ownership (often ClearChannel) and
afraid some liberal might piss off advertisers, especially in the hysterical post 9-11 climate.  Never mind the awards I’d won, or that in over a thousand commentaries, I never once had to retract
anything in a single broadcast.  The question wasn’t quality, accuracy, even entertainment value; it was avoiding any risk of
displeasing advertisers and ownership.

Matter of fact, I got canned from the biggest news station in Los Angeles specifically because
I was talking about stories the rest of the "news" didn’t, even though
the new boss who canned me didn’t have the guts or honesty to admit it
to my face.  (He’d grumbled at me for years, but when the day came, he said they were "cutting back all their features,"
although they a) kept every moralistic right-winger who would never
dream of criticizing corporate influence and b) replaced me
specifically with the unpointed musings of a Ted Baxterish TV anchorman
with remarkably little to say.)

I mention this a) because obviously, yeah, it still bugs me when I’m reminded of it, and b) much more to personally vouch, from direct
experience, for the only bias that matters in media.  It is real.  This is how this stuff
works.  (Incidentally, management denials of any such bias are almost
always sincere; they have drunk the Kool-Aid, they deeply believe what
they do actually accomplishes something, and that’s a big part of why
they succeed.)

These are businesses, after all.  You are not the media’s customer; you are
their product.  Their only customers are the advertisers.  That is all
that matters.

It’s right in front of our faces, all the time.  Jon gets it right here, too, as I mentioned yesterday.

The anonymous Kos writer isn’t perfect, but he gets the gist absolutely correct.