As the State of the Union flap and George Tenet’s G. Gordon Liddy turn dominate the headlines, InstaPundit is headlining something else, something which may well turn out to be much more important. A “lifelong Democrat and a man of unimpeachable integrity,” Judge Gilbert S. Merritt of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, has, “through an unusual set of circumstances,” come into contact with direct evidence of a Saddam-Osama connection:

The document shows that an Iraqi intelligence officer, Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, assigned to the Iraq embassy in Pakistan, is ”responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group.”

The document shows that it was written over the signature of Uday Saddam Hussein, the son of Saddam Hussein.

Merritt’s article is hardly an exercise in sucking up to Bush:

Up until this time, I have been skeptical about…claims [of a Saddam-Osama connection]. Now I have changed my mind. There is, however, one big problem remaining: They are both still at large and the combined forces of the free world have been unable to find them.

I doubt Howard Dean and his ilk will pay much attention to this story. They certainly haven’t paid much attention to any of the previous stories indicating that substantial evidence of direct connections between Iraq and terrorists, including Al Qaeda, was and is being uncovered. Indeed, I am constantly being told by some of my more liberal friends that no evidence whatsoever of a terrorist connection has been found, which is just patently untrue. Well, anyway, this is another piece of the jigsaw puzzle. And we’re really just beginning to put it all together.

Oh, and about that State of the Union thing, I think Alex Knapp, a blogger who has already announced his intention to vote against Bush in 2004, has it about right:

Heaven knows I’m no Bush supporter, but if this is the best the Democrats can do, then they’re going to keep losing for a long, long time. This was one sentence in one speech, people! The Bush Administration’s case for going into Iraq was a lot more than this statement. Hell, I wouldn’t even have remembered Bush had said it if it hadn’t sparked so much brouhaha. This was not a vital part of Bush’s case. It was hardly part of it at all.

Surely, the opposition party can do better than this. But instead, they’re so blinded by their hatred of Bush that they’re not accomplishing sh*t, nor are they offering any constructive alternative to his policies.

UPDATE: As usual, ScrappleFace has the answer:

In an effort to make sure all of his public statements are accurate, U.S. President George Bush said today that he will personally verify all CIA reports before using them publicly.

“I regret that I didn’t go to Niger to check out that uranium sale to Iraq story,” said the President. “Today I deputized myself as an agent in the CIA. I’ll go on deep-cover missions, onto foreign soil, sometimes behind enemy lines to verify all crucial information.”

Heh.

Thanks to my Aunt Patty for this tip: A bunch of researchers with an interest in art history, a talent for astronomical sleuthing, and an overabundance of time of their hands say they have determined the exact date and time when Vincent Van Gogh witnessed the scene that he immortalized in his painting “Moonrise.”

A 12,000-square foot, 76th- and 77th-floor penthouse condominium in Columbus Circle has been sold for $40 million, the largest residential transaction in New York City history.

The condo is part of the new AOL Time Warner Center, which consists of two under-construction skycrapers. They are due to be completed this fall, but they’re already quite impressive. As it happens, I took a picture of them on Monday after getting off the subway at the Columbus Circle station:

Becky and her friends went to a concert by Great Big Sea, one of my favorite bands, at D’Arcy McGee’s Irish pub in Buffalo.

I didn’t. I’m in Connecticut at the moment.

Am I jealous? Nah…

(pout, pout)

SpaceWeather.com is linking to a photo gallery and an article about something called “noctilucent clouds” — mysterious, wispy clouds that hover literally on the edge of outer space, 50-plus miles high. (They are most often visible at this time of year, hence the sudden attention.)

Here’s a whole website devoted to noctilucent clouds. I’d never heard of them before, but they seem pretty cool. I’d like to see them someday.

Meanwhile, aurora borealis — a.k.a. Northern lights — are possible tomorrow night.

A newly discovered, extremely old planet “means that 13 billion years ago, life could have arisen and then died out. This has immense implications.”

Too bad Carl Sagan isn’t alive to comment on this discovery. “Billions and billions…”

I’ve been playing with my blog categories even more. It’s a work in progress, but I’m liking how things are going so far. You can use the drop-down scrolling thingy at right to check them out.