Life's A Wire-To-Wire Beach For Bourdais!

Jumbotron celebration (L to R) with Justin Wilson (2nd), Sebastien Bourdais (1st) with his team owner - Paul Newman, and Alex Tagliani (3ird). Photo Credit: ecj

... and it really was never that close, not even on the re-starts after the yellow flags.

Excerpts from AP via the Globe And Mail -

AUTO RACING ROUNDUP
Bourdais wins Grand Prix after pileup derails three
Associated Press

Long Beach, Calif. -- Sébastien Bourdais keeps getting better.

The Frenchman began the quest for his third Champ Car World Series title in a row with an overpowering victory yesterday in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Winning here for the second year in a row, Bourdais trailed only after a mid-race pit stop, leading 70 of 74 laps on the 1.986-mile (3.196-kilometre), 11-turn circuit that threads its way through city streets tucked between downtown and the Pacific Ocean.

The 27-year-old driver was dominating throughout the weekend, leading nearly every practice and winning both sessions of qualifying. Through most of the race, he was as much as a half-second faster than runner-up Justin Wilson on each lap.
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Likely championship contenders Paul Tracy of Toronto, Bruno Junqueira and A.J. Allmendinger didn't even make it through the first turn of the first race of the season.

As the leaders approached the left-hand turn, Mario Dominguez hit the rear of Forsythe Championship Racing teammate Tracy's car, lifting his rear tires off the ground and sending Tracy careering into Bourdais's teammate Junqueira.

Junqueira slammed into RuSport's Allmendinger and Oriol Servia also got caught in the accident that sent all of them to the garage.

"It's definitely not the way to start the season," said Tracy, a four-time Long Beach winner. "That accident took out a lot of championship contenders, and it's a real shame."
Read All>>

Additional Anaylsis from Robin Miller at the CCWS website .

NOTE: Paul Tracy's Forsythe Championship Racing teammate, Mario Dominguez, comes in 4th. Mario said, "This was a strong way to start the season. I'm a little disappointed because we were very close to stepping on the podium. We were saving fuel for most of the race to make sure that we could stay out one lap longer than the guys in front of us. We managed to run quick and consistent laps and at the same time stay within our fuel mileage target and it paid off, we stayed out one more lap and came out in front of Tagliani. Unfortunately our tire choice didn't work very well."

Cristiano da Matta, back from a try at Formula 1, had a strong showing in a second tier team car. It was a very good day for Dale Coyne Racing as the Champion driver line up of Cristiano da Matta and Jan Heylen deliver 5th and 7th place finishes.

O' Canada - Kyoto No Mo'

Power bloc ... WESTPAC, the business roundtable, meets with journalists last Thursday and issues supportive initiatives to combat global warming (Sydney Morning Herald – second article excerpted below). Photo: Lee Besford

Is it just a more conservative new government or the weight of sixty scientific experts that put the kabash on Kyoto in Canada?

Excerpts from the Telegraph -

Kyoto is pointless, say 60 leading scientists
By Philip Sherwell(Filed: 09/04/2006)

Canada's new Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, has been urged by more than 60 leading international climate change experts to review the global warming policies he inherited from his centre-Left predecessor.

In an open letter that includes five British scientists among the signatories, the experts praise his recent commitment to review the controversial Kyoto protocol on reducing emissions harmful to the environment.
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They emphasised that the study of global climate change is, in Mr Harper's own words, an "emerging science" and added: "If, back in the mid 1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary." Despite claims to the contrary, there is no consensus among climate scientists on the relative importance of the various causes of global climate change, they wrote.
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"'Climate change is real' is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified.

"Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise'."
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So, who are these guys listening to?

Excerpts from The Sydney Morning Hearld -

Business warms to change
New research on global warming has caused a split at the top end of town, writes Deborah Snow.

WESTPAC chief executive David Morgan had an interesting story to tell at an invitation-only breakfast for a handful of journalists in Sydney last week.

The anecdote concerned a recent private conversation with the head of the giant General Electric Company in the US, Jeff Immelt.

"He said to me he was virtually certain that the first action of the next president of the United States, be it Republican or Democrat, would be to initiate urgent action on climate change. And he wasn't saying that as a casual political comment ... he is [allocating] billions of dollars worth of investment in the confidence of that development."

George Bush and John Howard have both cold-shouldered the case for more direct government intervention to combat global warming.

But last Thursday Morgan - and five other top businesss executives - put their heads above the parapet with the launch of the Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change, a powerful new voice which wants business and government to respond more rapidly to inexorably rising world temperatures.
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It is also an open rebuke to the Business Council of Australia, the body which represents the chief executives of Australia's top 100 companies. The council was so wracked with division the last time it debated the issue nearly four years ago that it wound up deadlocked and decided not to take a position at all.

Morgan told journalists last week that the council's debate had been "immature", and signalled that he and other members of the roundtable would now be going back into that forum to try to move it forward. "The thing that has been missing is some fact base about the economics," he said.
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The fact that these business leaders are basing their action and opinions on "a recent private conversation with the head of the giant General Electric Company in the US, Jeff Immelt" is pretty scary!

Let me see, who would MAXINE listen to about "global warming" ... 60 scientists or ... the head of a company that left Katie Couric on the air for fifteen years just to have her bolt off to be the on-air cornerstone of the competition’s news division.

Palm Sunday

Photo Credit: http://www-bfs.ucsd.edu/pur/sbo/images/lone_palm.jpg

This from The Anchoress -

7 Days that Shook the World
by Greg Kandra - April 9, 2006

After spending the last few weeks in the desert of Lent, suddenly we find ourselves in an oasis, clutching long leaves of palms.

But like so many things you see after being in the desert, it’s a mirage. What we see, or think we see, is about to shift before our eyes.

Soon enough, the palms will be whips. The leaves will be thorns. Jubilation will become jeers. That is the paradox and the mystery of Holy Week.

The liturgies of this week are powerful and primal. In the days to come, there is silence and smoke, fire and water, shadow and light. We are a part of something both ancient and new, and what we do this week reminds us of that. The altar will be stripped. The cross will be venerated. The tabernacle will be emptied. The Blessed Sacrament will be moved. Bells will be stilled.

And yet here we stand, at the gates to Jerusalem, palms in our hands and hosannas on our lips, beginning the arduous trek to Calvary.

It is easy to be distracted by the events of the world, and not really pay attention to what we will do this week. Somewhere, wars are raging, and politicians are squabbling. Somewhere, Easter eggs are being sold, and chocolate is being inventoried, and plastic grass is lining wicker baskets.

But not here. Not now. Not yet.

This week, take the time to wonder about what we are doing, and what we are remembering.

For close to two thousand years, we have gathered like this, in places like this, to light candles and chant prayers and read again the ancient stories of our deliverance and redemption.

But are we aware of what we are doing? Do we understand what it means? Do we realize the price that was paid? A proper accounting is impossible. The ledger—His life, for our souls—seems woefully unbalanced.

So try this. This week, take a moment in each day that passes to wonder: What was He doing during this time of that one week all those centuries ago? What was crossing His mind on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday? What sort of anguish? What kind of dread?

Has anything we have ever worried about, or lost sleep over, or agonized about, even come close?

He was a man like us in all things but sin. He must have been terrified, His mind buzzing with questions. Long after the others had drifted off to sleep, did He stay awake and worry? Maybe He sat up alone, late at night, whittling a piece of wood, the way His father had taught Him, until a splinter sliced His skin, drawing a rivulet of blood. He might have flinched and thought: Well, this is nothing. And still it stings. How intense would the pain of death become? How long would it last? How much humiliation would He be forced to endure, stripped and bleeding? And: What about His mother? Is there anything He could do to spare her from this?

As you shop for Easter baskets and dye, think of this. Ponder this. Wonder about it. Make it a kind of prayer.

And then, remember what we are doing, and why.

Because, of all the calendars in all of human history, this is the week that changed the world.

Wilson Breaks Up Newman/Haas Front Row

Sebastien Bourdais wins the pole position - Photo Credit: CCWS

Sebastian Bourdais sets new track record on his way to keeping the provisional pole position he earned yesterday, and scoring the 19th pole of his career (tying him for 10th all time with Rex Mays and Danny Sullivan). Tracy drops to a disappointing sixth position in the starting grid.

This from the CCWS website -

A Champ Car driver gets 15 laps around any given track in order to set a fast time in qualifying, but two-time defending Bridgestone Presents Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford champion Sebastien Bourdais (#1 McDonald's Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone), used just six of them to establish his dominance in Long Beach.

Bourdais set a new track record on his sixth trip around the 1.968-mile Long Beach street circuit, then decided to spend the rest of his day admiring his handiwork, getting out of car after just one stint on his red-walled Bridgestone Potenza tires. His top lap of 1:06.886 (105.924 mph) was nearly a half-second better than anything anyone else in the 18-car field was able to muster on a sunny Saturday, giving him the Bridgestone Pole Position for tomorrow's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

The defending Long Beach champion earned his 19th career Champ Car pole with the effort, moving him into a tie for 10th on the all-time Champ Car list. He will be joined on the front row for tomorrow's 76-lap affair by RuSPORT's Justin Wilson (#9 CDW Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone), who snared the second spot in today's qualifying with a best lap of 1:07.208 (105.416 mph). Bourdais' Newman/Haas Racing teammate Bruno Junqueira (#2 Hole In The Wall Camps Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) rounded out the top three after posting a top effort of 1:07.225 (105.389 mph).
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Paul Tracy (#3 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) was the first driver to wrest the top spot away from Bourdais, vaulting to the top of charts at the halfway-point of the 35-minute session.

Tracy's best lap triggered a furious run of quick circuits that saw his Forsythe Championship Racing teammate Mario Dominguez (#7 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) jump ahead before Bourdais decided to put his cards on the table. Using the red-walled option tires from Bridgestone, the Frenchman went to the point on his third lap, got into the 66-second range on his fifth and set his eventual pole-winning time on his next pass.
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Tomorrow's season-opening Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach will take the green flag at 1 p.m. local, 4 p.m. Eastern. The race can be seen live on NBC as well as the official website of the Champ Car World Series, www.champcar.ws, using the popular Race Director feature.
Read All>>

The top nine positions are within one second of each other making this first race for ChampCar more competitive than the IndyCar qualifying at the St. Pete street course last week. IndyCar only managed to have the top six cars post times within one second of the top qualifying time.

Tomorrow, MAXINE will be on the streets of Long Beach! Yeah!

Audio Stalking - A New Way To Watch You

Photo Credit: London Times

It always feels like ..., someone is watching meeeeeee!

We are aware that businesses and municipalities have been installing cameras all over for security purposes, but did you know that if you are in the proximity of a cellphone user that, inadvertently, your conversations might be picked up and monitored as well?

You may become a part of a larger survey to gage advertising exposure without your permission, and worse, without your knowledge.

At least, when you are out in public, you know you may be watched ... for your own safety. With this new technology it is possible that you may now be exposed to monitoring within your own home ... without your knowledge.

This from the Wall Street Journal -

Ad Measurement Is Going High Tech
Explosion of Media Offerings Complicates Finding Whether Message Is Getting Through
By DON CLARK - April 6, 2006; Page B4

Media companies have long searched, with mixed results, for proof that advertising works. Some high-tech help may be on the way.

A number of established audience-measurement companies and industry newcomers are developing tools to better gauge the connection between media exposure and consumer behavior. The audience-measurement job is more complicated these days because of an explosion of media offerings in and outside the home.

A dark horse in the race is Integrated Media Measurement Inc., a start-up led by some prominent technology entrepreneurs that is using specially adapted cellphones to measure what consumers listen to and see. The company has developed software that helps the phones take samples of nearby sounds, which are identified by comparing them against a database.

Besides television and radio, IMMI, as the San Mateo, Calif., company calls itself, says the technology can track exposure to CDs, DVDs, videogames, sporting events, audio and video on portable gadgets and movies in theaters. The closely held company has been testing its system for nine months with about 200 consumers in Sacramento, Calif., and hopes to help answer some tricky questions. They include:

• How often are TV shows watched outside the home?

• Which songs prompt listeners to change radio stations?

• Which movie trailers get viewers to go to the theater?

"For the first time, you may be able to get an answer to one of the holy-grail questions -- is my promo working?" says Alan Wurtzel, president of research for General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal unit, who has been briefed on the IMMI system. "It's a very interesting methodology."
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Some companies argue that cellphones could lead to distorted research. Survey participants, for example, could change how often they carry or converse on phones or download content to them.

Arbitron Inc. instead proposes a special-purpose gadget called the portable People Meter, which it has been testing in Houston. GfK AG's Mediamark Research Inc. also is developing a pager-size media-measurement device.
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With conventional media ratings, "we don't have the opportunity to take a look at cause and effect," said Artie Bulgrin, senior vice president of research and sales development at ESPN, which has been evaluating IMMI's service. "What we see so far is very interesting and very compelling."
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Say again? What's that program you're watching?

Technology creep and privacy, it is becoming a big issue.

Of Flag Burning To Flag Banning In Colorado

A group of students hold an immigration protest across the street from Skyline High School in Longmont, Colo., on Friday, after school officials denied the students to protest on campus. Daily Times-Call photo by Richard M. Hackett via Associated Press

Civil protests take on many forms. The displaying our nation's flag, for ANY reason, should not be considered to be an insightful or negative act.

In Colorado, the nationally mandated education establishment felt it was perfectly ok to ban the display of the American Flag.

In the morally equivalent world of academia, if the Mexican Flag waved in protest to the wish of American citizens of having our immigration laws be respected, then the display of the American Flag in support of the American rule-of-law must be insulting as well.

This is a prime example of why "home schooling" and "vouchers" alternatives to the present education system have been gaining popularity. The "inmates" have come to run the asylum!

Excerpts frim the Washington Times Insider -

Colorado school drops ban on flags
By Valerie Richardson - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - April 8, 2006

DENVER -- Students at Shaw Heights Middle School wore Old Glory on their T-shirts without fear of reprisal yesterday after their principal bowed to community pressure to drop the school's flag ban.

Principal Myla Shepherd canceled the ban late Thursday night after an outcry from parents, students and state leaders, including Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, who said the school rule violated state law.
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Ms. Shepherd said she changed the dress code March 31 after nationwide immigration rallies led to "some unrest and increased tensions among students." Some students taunted each other with U.S. and Mexican flags, while several dozen students wore camouflage one day in support of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Another Colorado school, Skyline High School in Longmont, enacted a ban on flag displays after some students threw U.S. and Mexican flags in each other's faces. Skyline also lifted the prohibition yesterday.

The about-face came shortly after Mr. Suthers sent letters to the schools Thursday along with copies of the state statute, which states that the right to display the U.S. flag "shall not be infringed with respect to the display: (a) On an individual's person; (b) Anywhere on an individual's personal or real property."

"While schools can and should act to prevent conduct by students that interferes with the education process, their remedy must be narrowly tailored and cannot include a general ban on displaying the American flag," Mr. Suthers said.
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Eric Golgart, whose sixth-grade daughter, Katie, was suspended Thursday for wearing a Marines T-shirt, said the superintendent promised to expunge the suspensions from the students' records.

Still, Mr. Golgart said he wanted to see Ms. Shepherd resign her post and issue an apology to the U.S. Marine Corps.

"As soon as she started suspending kids, it got personal," said Mr. Golgart. "One girl who was suspended has a brother and sister-in-law fighting in Iraq. She's been wearing these shirts all year."
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So now, in Colorado anyway, it is ok to NOT be suspended from attendance to the nationally mandated education system for showing support for our military (national employees) or displaying our American flag (our nation’s symbol). Thank GOD!

Please tell Mr. Golart that he will be waiting until the U.S. becomes part of Mexico, or a Muslim nation for the principal (Mrs. Shepard) to resign her post and give that apology to our troops.

Of course, if the "inmates" carry the day with their version of Ward Churchill like attitudes and philosophy ... the apology may not be that far off!

Is It Racism, Or "Just Another One Of Them Racing Deals"?

(ht: Michelle Malkin)
From COX & FORKUM on Dateline planting Muslims in the stands to gage reaction.

As MAXINE sees it, given the three-fer in the middle, we'd be giving the 'raspberry' to the NBC camaraman (not the Jeff Gordon fan ... or the Muslim)!

Frenchie Lays It Down - Gains Seasons First Point

Sebastien Bourdais qualifies at Long Beach - Photo Credit: CCWS

The day was cool and so was the challange to be at the top of the point standings after today's first qualifing session of the season.

Excerpts from Champ Car website -

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

It took just 30 minutes for two-time defending Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford champion Sebastien Bourdais (#1 McDonald's Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) to resume his place at the top of the point standings, as the Frenchman claimed the first available point of the 2006 season by leading Friday qualifying at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Bourdais earned the first point of the year and guaranteed himself a front-row starting spot for Sunday's season opener after posting a best lap of 1:07.675 (104.689 mph) to lead Friday qualifying at the 1.968-mile street circuit in Long Beach. Bourdais' fast lap ended a furious game of leapfrog atop the time charts, ending a chase that saw six different drivers hold the pole at various times throughout the 30-minute outing.

Bourdais headed a 1-2 Newman/Haas Racing sweep on a sunny Long Beach Friday, besting his teammate Bruno Junqueira (#2 Hole in the Wall Camps Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) by 0.066 seconds. Junqueira, who ran his first Champ Car session since his devastating accident in last year's Indianapolis 500, hung up a time of 1:07.741 (104.587 mph) on just his fifth lap of the year, slipping into the second spot.

Four-time Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach winner Paul Tracy (#3 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) showed his customary speed on the Southern California streets, ending his day in the third spot despite the fact that he banged the wall and shredded his right-rear tire with six minutes to go in the session. Tracy's best lap of 1:07.947 (104.270 mph) was the last of the 18-car field to card a time in the 67-second range on the day.
Read More>>

So, tomorrow is the run for the pole, but Sebastian will get to be in the front row no matter what happens. Someone needs to break up the Newman/Haas Racing front row! Pray for our neighbor from the north (Tracy) doesn't keep banging the walls.

Beauty And The "Beach" - A Preview

Photo Credit: champcarworldseries.com

2006 is here and it really all begins (in LA) at the Long Beach Grand Prix. This year will be the 32nd year the vision of Chris Pook will be run in the streets of Long Beach.

It is this venue that helped add to the legends of racing elites like Mario and Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr., Bobby Rahal, Emerson Fittipaldi, Danny Sullivan, Alex Zanardi, Paul Tracy, and Sebastien Bourdais to name a few.

The green flag drops on the first qualifing session today at 2:05 PM PST. Sebastien Bourdais from the Newman-Haas Racing Team (ChampCar champion of the last two years) was second quickest to Justin Wilson in the testing sessions held last week at Fontana. Bourdais looks to be the first driver to "three-peat" as champion of an open-wheel racing series since Ted Horn did it through 1946-1948.

The beauty is the venue (photo above).

This from Robin Miller at Champ Car World Series -

ROBIN MILLER'S STRAIGHT FROM THE GEARBOX

There are several plausible reasons why Sebastien Bourdais won't walk away with his third straight Champ Car title this year.

Bruno Junqueira, three times a bridesmaid in this series, has the fire and experience to unseat his teammate at the top of the heap.

Justin Wilson, a two-time winner in 2005, is real comfortable with his surroundings as he begins his third season and he's got the team and talent to pull it off.

Paul Tracy, whose 30 victories are tops among active drivers, certainly possesses all the right stuff and has the added incentive of making up for last year's disappointment.

A.J. Allmendinger, a champion at every level during his still developing career, is as quick as anybody on four wheels and just needs to improve his consistency to be a challenger.

Oriol Servia, runner-up in the point standings a year ago, has moved to a new team but his smarts and savvy should bring out the best of PKV Racing.

Any or all of these drivers could unseat Bourdais but, at the end of the 15-race schedule, the championship is going to have to come through the 27-year-old Frenchman.
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"It's going to be a learning process but there are some very clever people on this team and we'll do our best to be competitive," said the 31-year-old Spainard, who will also be tutoring rookie teammate Katherine Legge.

At the end of the day, it's going to take an idiot to pick against Bourdais. Or somebody who flunked out of Ball State.

I'm going with Mr. Wilson in 2006 so that should make Sebass feel pretty confident
Read All>>

By the way, this is a track where the IRL has never been!

UPDATE: from CCWS website -

Sebastien Bourdais paced the opening practice session of the 2006 Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford season today, besting the 18-car field in Friday morning's 75-minute practice at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Bourdais got around the 1.968-mile street course in 1:08.948 (102.756 mph) to pace the morning's outing, coming in a tenth-of-a-second ahead of Team Australia's Alex Tagliani.

Tagliani (1:09.030) , A.J. Allmendinger (1:09.043), Justin Wilson (1:09.180) and Paul Tracy (1:09.225) rounded out the top five in the session, which was run without incident. Team Australia's Will Power led the six-car rookie class in the morning and was 10th overall.

NOTE: The first eight places were within one second of each other.

Da Vinci Code Found To Be "New" Fiction

A copy of the book The Da Vinci Code is displayed outside the High Court in London, February 27, 2006. (Toby Melville/Reuters)

Yes, Dan Brown did not steal (word for word) the fiction of the novel titled "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail".

Excerpts from Reuters -

“Da Vinci Code" publishers win case
By Gideon Long 42 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - The publishers of "The Da Vinci Code," the blockbuster novel by author Dan Brown, won their UK court case on Friday over accusations of plagiarism.
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Judge Peter Smith gave his verdict at the end of a trial which lasted nearly a month and was followed intensely by reporters, copyright lawyers and fans of the novel, which has sold over 40 million copies worldwide.

"The plaintiffs' case has failed," he said. "Dan Brown has not infringed copyright. None of this amounts to copying The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail."
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They had based their argument on the similarities between the books, which both raise the possibility Jesus had a child by Mary Magdalene, that she fled to France after the Crucifixion and that Christ's bloodline survives to this day.
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Cool, an "original work" of fiction. Now we can sleep.

When Is A Leak NOT A Leak?

Photo Credit: Slate.com

When the President asks someone to divulge the contents of a "formally classified" document to someone else.

Also, when the L.A. Times puts the story about what "Scooter Libby" testified to (according to court papers) on page A-20 ... that's all anyone really needs to know!

Excerpts from the New York Post -

DUBYA CAN'T LEAK
April 7, 2006 -- AND INFO WAS ALREADY PUBLIC
By John Podhoretz - Opinion

IT'S amazing how the common topics and subjects of discussion three years ago should vanish so quickly from memory.

Yesterday, breathless news reports suggested that President Bush had directed the "leak" of classified information in July 2003. Yet the "leak" in question was from a document called the National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE - and by the time this "leak" occurred, the contents of the NIE as they related to Iraq were almost entirely public.

On Oct. 7, 2002, nine months before Bush's supposed "leak," the administration released an unclassified version of the very same NIE at the urging of Senate Democrats. And in early 2003, reporters hostile to the administration (primarily John Judis and Spencer Ackerman of The New Republic) were being told all sorts of things about the still-classified portions of the NIE.

And this "leak" wasn't a leak in any case. A "leak" is the unauthorized release of government information. The leak of classified information is a crime. But according to Scooter Libby, the former chief of staff to the vice president who gave the information from the NIE to a reporter, he only released it because he was authorized to do so by the president himself.

Constitutionally, the authority to declare documents "classified" resides with the president. So, under the terms of an executive order first drafted in 1982, he can declassify a document merely by declaring it unclassified.
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Also lost in the mists of recent memory is the reason we're talking about this in the first place. Fitzgerald is involved in this story because he was asked to investigate whether the public exposure of Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment was a crime. For it to be a crime, she had to be a covert CIA operative who had served in that capacity at some point in the five years prior to her exposure - and the person exposing her had to be doing it consciously and with knowledge that she was covert.
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Wilson's appalling lies were revealed in 2004. And yet, here we are, in 2006, fighting the same old battles. Guess this is what happens when you don't win a war quickly enough.
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Of course, that is the whole point. There is the world war against terrorism due to 9/11 ... and then there is the war for power inside the U.S. (which is also never won quickly enough) by people who will try to win at ANY COST.

The Democrats in congress first complain that the Bush administration is to secretive about what it is doing and "we" need more information. The Bush administration releases information so then the Democrats in congress complain that the information is a "leak". What is a President to do?

"Classified" information communicated to the press is NOT a leak when the President says it is NOT a leak. To the members of the fourth estate and the Democrats in congress ... get elected President, then you can do the same! Oh yes, you tried that in the last election (with Kerry) and FAILED.

Let's move on.