Chomping at the bit

Right wing news organizations are almost losing their heads over reports that sarin gas was released in a warhead that exploded yesterday. Don't you see? This means that weapons of mass destruction do exist!! One small reminder: one sarin gas shell, or even a mustard gas shell that they also reportedly found, does not exactly constitute "an imminent threat to the United States," and doesn't quite make up for the mess that has followed. And speaking of said mess, the assassination of the head of Iraq's Governing Council according to the Washington Post has only deepened the sense of pessimism in the country over what the future holds. More allegations are coming out of the incidents at Abu Ghraib, with an Army investigator telling reporters that intelligence officers were responsible for the order to strip the Iraqi prisoners naked before questioning. The State Department has released its annual human rights report that was delayed over the allegations of torture in Iraq and the Atlantic Monthly published a lengthy article on what it calls "the dark art of interrogation." Nick Berg doesn't seem to be disappearing anytime soon, with some people wondering about the validity of the whole incident.

Sonia Gandhi has turned down the post of India's Prime Minister. It is believed that opposition from fundamentalist Hindu groups and family concerns over her life were her main reasons for the decision.

In brief:
- The first amateur rocket has been launched successfully into space.
- The Atkins diet got some credibility today, as two studies found that weight loss was the greatest when following a low-carb rather than low-fat diet. It would have been more legit had the studies not been funded by the Robert C Atkins Foundation though.
- The acceptance or failure of the Kyoto treaty is now all up to Russia.
- King Abdullah of Jordan has openly suggested that Yasser Arafat step down from his position.
- The Pope is celebrating his 84th birthday today.
- The 2012 Olympics finalists features some heavy hitters: London, Paris, New York, Madrid and Moscow.
- Britain's Labour government is looking to curb even futher the powers of the House of Lords in its next election manifesto.
- Two reviews of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, one from the Guardian, the other from the BBC.
- A great Washington Post story about the personal decision made by a same-sex couple in Massachusetts on whether to become formally married.
- Kos notes Bush's recent praise for activist judges.
- Slate looks at the similarities between the Harry Potter and Left Behind series.

Finally, you've got to love this one: a highly religious German couple in their 30s who had been married for eight years but remained childless came to a fertility clinic wondering why they were not having children. After conducting a barrage of tests that found both completely fertile, the doctors finally ascertained that the childlessness was due to the fact that neither person knew that you had to have sex in order to procreate. Guess all that abstinence-only training went a little too far.