Although I seldom share Rush Limbaugh's viewpoints, I listen to his radio talk show when I want to know what those on the right of the political spectrum are thinking. Yesterday, Limbaugh dissected Barack Obama's new "Plan for Change" ad with especially virulent rhetoric. (I was pleased with this, because it suggests that he's worried about it.)

But I was dumbfounded when Limbaugh concluded his point by point critique with a thinly veiled threat of political violence:

OBAMA:  I approve this message because bitter partisan fights and outworn ideas of the left and the right won't solve the problems we face today, but a new spirit of unity and shared responsibility will.

RUSH:  Unity and shared responsibility?  That sounds like socialism to me.  And, by the way, sir, Senator Obama, could you give us an example of unity that you have brought about?  Is your campaign team unified?  The Democrat Party unified?  Still got a lot of women out there that don't like you.  Have you unified the Republicans to vote for you?  How come your preacher is so damn mad?  Your wife's mad all the time.  All these people you hang around with, you got these wacko terrorists you hang around with, you've got these flake priests you hang around with.  They're all mad as hell.  Everybody around you is mad as they could be.  What unity?  What shared responsibility?  By the way, outworn ideas of the left and right, your ideas are outworn, sir.  They absolutely are.  Ours aren't.  Ours are built on the foundation of individual freedom, individual liberty, and guess what?  Individual liberty and individual freedom are not outworn.  They never go out of style, Senator Obama.  There are people in this country who will pay whatever price is necessary to hold on to their freedom and their individual liberty, even if the enemy that seeks to take it away is people like you.

The show at that point went to a commercial break, leaving those last vitriolic words ringing in my ears.

The right's answer to Obama's "Still" campaign ad which ridicules, among other things, John McCain's inability to use a computer or send an e-mail message is that McCain's war injuries prevent him from using a keyboard. Among those spouting this line are Andrew Malcolm at the Los Angeles Times, Karl Rove in an appearance on Fox News, and Jim Geraghty writing for National Review Online.

However, the claim that war injuries prevent McCain from using a computer are demonstrably false, as shown by the manual dexterity displayed in his appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman earlier this year:

Are those the fingers of a man whose war injuries prevent him from using a keyboard?

John McCain's latest 30-second campaign ad chastises Barack Obama for being "disrespectful" toward his running mate, Alaska governor Sarah Palin:

The female voice claims Obama disrespected Palin by calling her a liar. But in point of fact, the Obama ad in question, the "No Maverick" posted to YouTube on 8 September merely (truthfully) points out the fact that Palin supported the "Bridge to Nowhere" before she opposed it. Is making a valid criticism being "disrespectful?" Watch:

The unspoken but clear subtext to McCain's latest attack ad is that an uppity negro is disrespecting a white lady. Shame on John McCain. Shame on him. Update:FactCheck.org weighs in on McCain's "Disrespectful" ad in "Belittling Palin?"

The following is a video commentary concerning the ballyhooed polygraph examination of Larry Sinclair, who claims (without evidence to date) that in 1999 he twice performed oral sex on Barack Obama and observed him use crack cocaine. The polygraph, paid for by sometime Internet pornographer Dan Parisi, who runs the website WhiteHouse.com, was originally scheduled for Tuesday, the 26th of February, but WhiteHouse.com announced on Friday night that "due to security concerns" the polygraph was moved up, has already taken place, and that the results will be announced on Monday or Tuesday (the 25th or 26th):

On 18 January 2008, a Mr. Larry Sinclair of Duluth, Minnesota posted to YouTube a video statement entitled "OBAMA'S LIMO SEX & DRUG PARTY" in which he made sensational allegations against Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama and challenged him to a polygraph showdown. Mr. Sinclair has to date presented no evidence to corroborate his claims. The video is linked below and followed by a full transcript:

Hi. My name is Larry Sinclair. I'm making this video and posting it on YouTube because of an incident involving myself and Senator Barack Obama between November 3rd and November 8th of 1999 in the Chicago, Illinois area. The mainstream media and Obama himself has done greatly [sic] to prevent this story from becoming public.

During those time periods in 1999, I met Obama at an upscale lounge in Chicago, Illinois. After having a few drinks, Obama and I left in my limo, began to drink. Mr. Obama acquired powdered cocaine for my use, crack cocaine for his use. I performed oral sex on Senator Obama who at the time was a state representative for the state of Illinois.

Mr. Obama knows these allegations to be true. I'm challenging Mr. Obama to come forth, be honest, stop claiming that his drug use is limited to his teenage years. In 1999, you weren't a teenager. In 1999, you were a state representative for the people of the state of Illinois. In 1999, I performed oral sex on you in the back of my limo, as well as in my hotel room in Gurnee, Illinois, two days later.

If you challenge this -- the authenticity of this allegation -- I challenge you to take a polygraph test, as I will submit to as well. These allegations are true and need to be told to the public. Let the public decide whether Mr. Obama is being forthright and honest. Thank you.

Mr. Sinclair soon became the darling of a number of right-of-center political blogs, and he has been interviewed by conspiracy theorist Jeff Rense (download MP3) and New York shortwave talk radio show "The Right Perspective" (download MP3).

On 11 February, Mr. Sinclair filed, pro se, a federal lawsuit against Barack Obama, his campaign manager, and the Democratic National Committee in which he repeated his allegations but again offered nothing to substantiate them.

Then on 15 February, sometime Internet pornographer Dan Parisi, who runs the website WhiteHouse.com, made his own polygraph challenge to Mr. Sinclair, offering him $10,000 to submit to a lie detector test and an additional $90,000 if he passes. Two days later, Parisi reported that Sinclair had accepted his challenge, and on Monday, 18 February, Parisi announced that the "test" will be administered by a "renowned" but as-yet-unnamed polygraph examiner on Tuesday, 26 February 2008. Parisi promises, "Since the outcome of the test will be vital interest [sic] to the voting public, our findings will be made available before the presidential primaries in Texas and Ohio slated for March 4."

Actually, the results of Mr. Sinclair's polygraph examination will shed no light on the question of whether he has spoken the truth, and the voting public should attach no weight to the results. Polygraph "testing" has no scientific basis: it's fundamentally dependent on trickery, inherently biased against the truthful, and yet easily passed by liars using simple countermeasures that polygraphers have no demonstrated ability to detect. See AntiPolygraph.org's e-book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF) for a thorough debunking of polygraphy and details on how anyone can fool the lie detector.

While polygraph challenges may make for titillating political theater and publicity stunts, they are a poor substitute for investigation, fact-checking, and honest reporting.

Times-Picayune staff writer Kate Moran reports regarding a former prostitute's allegations of a months-long affair with U.S. Senator David Vitter (R-LA):

Weeks after U.S. Sen. David Vitter tried to discredit her allegations, a woman who used to work as a prostitute in New Orleans passed a lie detector test averring that she had a "sexual relationship" with Vitter that lasted at least four months.

Magazine publisher Larry Flynt paid for the woman to take the polygraph test, and he plans to hold a news conference with her at his Beverly Hills office today to unveil the results and challenge the senator to submit to a polygraph.

The woman, Wendy Yow Ellis, claims that she had intercourse with Vitter in a French Quarter apartment at Dauphine and Dumaine streets in 1999, the year the Metairie Republican was elected to Congress.

Ellis, whose maiden name is Wendy Yow, said Monday that she took the polygraph test because Vitter tried to impugn her credibility at a news conference in July, when he denied news reports about his involvement with prostitutes in New Orleans without being specific.

"I have been called a liar all of my life," Ellis said. "This is one time that you can't call me a liar. I have admitted my wrongs. I am not proud of myself for my past, but my integrity and my self-respect mean more to me today than anything."

Flynt paid for Ellis to fly to California to take the polygraph, which was administered by Edward Gelb, a past president of the American Polygraph Association who also gave lie detector tests to the parents of JonBenet Ramsey, the child beauty queen who was found murdered in her family's basement in 1996.

While I make no claims regarding the truth or falsity of Wendy Yow Ellis's claims about Senator Vitter, the results of a polygraph test are proof of nothing. Polygraph testing has no scientific basis and is easily manipulated through the use of simple countermeasures that are easily learned and readily available via the Internet. See AntiPolygraph.org's free e-book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, (1 mb PDF) for detailed information on how anyone -- truthful or otherwise -- can pass the polygraph.

Also worth noting, although all polygraph testing is pseudoscience to begin with, the polygrapher who conducted the test in this case has a further ethical cloud hanging over his head. American Polygraph Association past president Edward I. Gelb is a phony Ph.D. (And the American Polygraph Association doesn't consider his masquerading as a Ph.D. to be a violation of its ethical standards.)

In short, the allegations against Sen. Vitter should be assessed base on their merits, and not on the results of a bogus procedure that is wrongly called a test.

Yesterday, I pointed out that in Osama Bin Laden's latest putative address to the American people, the only references to current events are made at points where the video is curiously frozen, suggesting that an older video was altered for the purpose of creating this new release. This anomaly is blatantly apparent and cannot have escaped the attention of U.S. intelligence analysts.

Yet the very same day, U.S. Homeland Security advisor Frances Townsend was on Fox News where she stated regarding the video: "Well, for sure, the intelligence community, having looked at it, believes it is bin Laden. The indications from the contents of the tape are that it was made recently, certainly in the last several months."

Townsend went on to say that analysis of the video is continuing, and cautioned that "the particulars of the technical analysis are not something we're going to reveal." Nonetheless, I think Frances Townsend owes the American people some explanation of how the U.S. intelligence community arrived at the conclusion that this highly dubious video is authentic.

Osama Bin Laden's widely publicized video address to the American people has a peculiarity that casts serious doubt on its authenticity: the video freezes at about 1 minute and 36 58 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The audio track does appear to be in the voice of a single speaker. What I suspect was done is that an older, unreleased video was dubbed over for this release, with the video frozen when the audio track departed from that of the original video.

The video may be downloaded as a 677 mb MPEG file here.

After months of delay by CIA censors, retired CIA polygraph examiner John Sullivan's book, Gatekeeper: Memoirs of a CIA Polygraph Examiner has finally been released. Sullivan, who in April 2007 filed a lawsuit against the CIA, recounts in his epilogue how he -- who administered more polygraph examinations than any other person in the Agency's history -- himself came to fail a CIA polygraph examination during which he was interrogated about his book! While Sullivan is generally supportive of the CIA's use of polygraphs, the book also includes pointed criticism of some aspects of CIA policy, including a chapter deploring torture as an interrogation technique. (In this regard, see Sullivan's article, "Bush and Torture.")

After four months, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence still has not replied to NSA whistleblower Russ Tice's request to provide the committee testimony on illegal activity reaching as high as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Perhaps the Senate is trying to send a message to future whistleblowers about what going through official channels will accomplish?

A press release by the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition is available here.

Speaking at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies on 10 April 2006, President George W. Bush referred to Iran's "nuclear weapons program" as if the existence of such a program were a known fact. In the official White House transcript, Bush says:

...I want Russia to be a part of the -- part of the team, trying to convince the Iranians to give up its nuclear weapons program.

As I heard it (at 9 minutes and 15 seconds into the video of his Q&A session), he fumbled just a bit more than the official transcript indicates:

...I want Russia to be a part of -- part of the team -- tryin' to convince the Iranians to give up its [sic], uh, its nuclear weapons program.

Bush paused briefly, apparently choosing his words quite deliberately when speaking of a putative Iranian "nuclear weapons program."

However, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Mohamad AlBaradei has stated that his agency has no evidence of the existence of such a program.

Earlier this year, at a White House press conference, President Bush erroneously stated that "the Iranians have said, we want a [nuclear] weapon."

If the Bush administration has evidence of the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, it should provide it to the IAEA. If, however, Bush is asserting without evidence the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, then the American people need to know this when considering any case for war that the Bush administration may make.

The U.S. Government's official polygraph handbook, formally titled the Federal Psychophysiological Detection of Deception Examiner Handbook, published by the Department of Defense Counterintelligence Field Activity (parent agency of the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute) and marked "For Official Use Only" is now available to the public.

An earlier version of this document (dated 2001) was released under the Freedom of Information Act, but was heavily redacted. This new version, dated 2004, is available in its entirety.

According to a foreword by Counterintelligence Field Activity director David A. Burt II, "[the handbook's] purpose is to prescribe uniform Psychophysiological Detection of Deception (PDD/polygraph) procedures. The provisions of this manual are effective immediately and apply to those DoD elements that use PDD, and by agreement to other Federal law enforcement, counterintelligence, and security agencies that also use PDD procedures."

It's worth noting that in 2002, a study by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that "[Polygraph testing's] accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies." This report has been studiously ignored by federal agencies that rely on the polygraph for national security purposes.

Some background discussion of the federal polygraph handbook is available here.

The NSA requires applicants and contractors to submit to broad-ranging polygraph interrogations as a condition of employment. One contractor who has been through the experience multiple times with different agencies recently reported:

I have been accused of being a child molester, someone who views child pornography, a spy, someone who has secret meetings with foreign nationals, and of controlling my breathing during a test, among other things.  I have been cursed at, yelled at, and called a jerk.  I have been told that the Junior High students that I worked with at my Church were sluts who were trying to have sex with older men.  I have been forced to guess bra sizes of girls in order to obtain security clearances.  I have been told by government quality control that such lines of questioning are appropriate.  I have seen many other very good people abused and rejected by polygraphers in a similar manner.

Yet there is broad consensus amongst scientists that polygraphy has no scientific basis, and the National Academy of Sciences confirmed as much in it's recent report, The Polygraph and Lie Detection. Nowadays, detailed information about the unreliability of the polygraph is now available to anyone with Internet access. But a poster on the AntiPolygraph.org message board whom I trust now now reports that NSA candidates are being instructed not to research polygraphy on-line:

Just heard, from an SSO [Special Security Officer], that NSA is cracking down on people doing research on polygraphy on the Internet (nothing new). Sounds like they are pretty upset about it. In the past, we were always told not to discuss the polygraph questions, with other employees/candidates - what dumbasses we all were to be mystified by this fantasy. Now, candidates are being told not to do research on the Internet....

This calls to mind the Wizard of Oz commanding, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

When the FBI submitted a secret National Security Letter demanding information about Internet journalist Doug Thompson of CapitolHillBlue.com to the company that hosts his servers, they were apparently unaware that he owns the company himself. See, Bush Declares War on Freedom of the Press."