the newspeak chronicles #65,469

US report plays down Iran threat


says the Beeb at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7125701.stm in the headline for its story that the latest US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) reveals that Iran, contrary to countless increasingly rabid accusations from Il Buce and other members of his junta, abandoned the quest for a nuclear-weapons program in about 2003.

All those claims by Iran's leaders that they were pursuing nuclear technology for energy rather than missiles, all those claims that were summarily dismissed as lies?

It seems they were, um, true.

You might think this would be a time for Our Glorious Leaders to engage in a little quiet contemplation and perhaps a few -- or many -- mouthfuls of crow.

Nope.

As the Beeb says in the midst of the article:

US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley said the report's findings confirmed the US was "right to be worried" about Iran's nuclear ambitions and that President George W Bush had "the right strategy".

Let me see if I've got this straight.

Iran, after all, isn't pursuing a nuclear-weapons program. This goes to show that the Bush Administration was right all along.

Pass the straitjacket, someone. I can feel one of my funny turns coming along.

lorluvaduck! Inferno's back in the headlines

And now there's been a further excellent review for the new Ellen Datlow anthology Inferno, this time in the prestigious Booklist. The reviewer singles out just three stories for special mention . . . and I'm far too modest to say any more on that particular subject other than that in the same company as Steve Gallagher and Joyce Carol Oates strikes me as a damn' good place to be.

The review concludes:

Eschewing many of the horror genre’s common motifs, the stories here achieve unsettling effects with less mayhem and more pure craftsmanship, so that this is one of the best recent collections of horror as literature.