The Oscar thread; Update: Goracle (almost) announces!  Update: Gore wins Oscar for Best Social Consciousness  —  Tonight's the night Hollywood takes a break from disclaiming responsibility for any of the culture's ills to congratulate itself for having so much influence over the culture.

Al Gore Takes Home the Statue!  —  Frankly, I'm thrilled but not surprised.  An Inconvenient Truth was a teriffic documentary, plus, let's face it, politics plays a role in the selection process.  Congrats, Al!  Here's a little video compilation of the Vice President's big night.  —  Download (212) |

Al Gore's big announcement: »  —  the Oscars have gone green.  Find out more HERE and watch Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio make the announcement at tonight's Academy Awards:

Hersh: U.S. Funds Being Secretly Funneled To Violent Al Qaeda-Linked Groups  —  New Yorker columnist Sy Hersh says the "single most explosive" element of his latest article involves an effort by the Bush administration to stem the growth of Shiite influence in the Middle East …

THE REDIRECTION  —  A STRATEGIC SHIFT  —  In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy.  The "redirection," as some inside the White House …

Rube Goldberg Policy Contraption by digby After...  tristero 2/25/2007 12:57:00 PM |  —  Rube Goldberg Policy Contraption  —  by digby  —  After you watch a presidential admnistration for a while you begin to see shifts in policy or different phases of the old ones by the way the officials all speak.

The limits of biography  —  If the stakes weren't so high, the efforts of Democrats to use combat veterans to push a defeatist foreign policy might be amusing.  In 2004, the vehicle was John Kerry.  Somehow, the Dems convinced themselves that his service in Vietnam would insulate him and the party …