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>>In real news, I saw that Apple stock went up $4 the other day based on a statement from Steve Jobs that his emaciated look is not due to a recurrence of cancer but to an unspecified hormonal disorder. Love them or not, it's hard to think of another institution which would be so devastated by the loss of its leader.
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>L Ron Hubbard beaming up caused quite a stir among the Thetans ...
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>>Change of subject -- I bet you are bordering on apoplexy over Panetta for CIA head, am I right? Sounds like that nomination may be in trouble even among Democrats.
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>From the people who brought you Stansfield Turner and, God help us, John Mark Deutch.
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>I actually knew some of the folks who were instrumental in revoking the latter's security clearance. Has to go down in history as one of the worst appointments ever made to anything. Oh, and if I'm not mistaken the head of the search team that got Clinton to appoint him DCI was ... wait for it ... Leon Panetta.
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>I am truly gobsmacked.
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>He will be confirmed and then never allowed to actually touch anything by those who still understand what the agency is for. I give him a year before he resigns for reasons of health and is replaced by an old hand you've never heard of.

I bet you're right, if he's confirmed that is. The CIA is notoriously resistant to outsiders. And these are folks whose stock in trade is espionage, counterespionage, cunning, stealth, etc. Prepare the body bag now <g>.

OTOH this is a ticklish position for Obama to fill. You could probably guess that by the fact that the announcement was made two weeks after all the other spots had been filled. The Times reports that there was an insider they wanted to go with but decided he was too tainted by his part in anti-terrorist efforts (read: torture). As would about anyone else who has been in the CIA the past few years. The agency has, frankly, embarrassed itself, completely blowing the lead-up to 9/11 and then being up to their eyeballs in torture. Then again, Obama didn't want to leave himself open to charges of being soft on security, an old standard against any Democrat.

I do wish the nominee had been someone else. And for god's sake, why another retread from the Clinton administration? This is change?