Former U.N. Weapons Inspector Denies Sex Charges

And now the most absorbing two minutes in television, the latest from the wartime grapevine:

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Scott Denies Sex Charges
Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter is denying that he was the Scott Ritter arrested on sex charges a year and a half ago, after having a sexual discussion over the Internet with a police investigator posing as an underage girl. The case was reportedly kept so secret that not even Paul Clyne, the local district attorney in Albany, N.Y., near Ritter's home in Belmar, N.Y., knew about it. Clyne has now fired the assistant D.A. who handled the case, which a judge put on hold for six months, then dismissed. When the Schenectady Daily Gazette asked Ritter about it, he said, "Sorry you must have the wrong person." Ritter has been a familiar figure on TV news since he came out against U.S. policy toward Iraq, even calling for President Bush's impeachment.

Denouncing Dubya...Again
The latest from the world of entertainment and politics is that Harry Belafonte has renewed his denunciations of the Bush administration this Martin Luther King Day. Speaking at a Church in Chicago on Sunday, Belafonte also renewed his condemnation of Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell for working for Mr. Bush saying they are "serving those who continue to design our oppression." The Chicago Tribune also quotes Belafonte as saying Usama bin Laden "didn't come from the abstract. He came from somewhere, and if you look where, you'll see America's hand of villainy."

Government Mafia?
Meanwhile. George Clooney is saying the U.S. government is "running exactly like the Sopranos." Clooney tells PBS talk show host Charlie Rose in an interview to air tonight that the Bush administration has made deals with France and Russia so they will not object “when we go into a war and kill a lot of innocent people" The New York Daily News reports Clooney says of Saddam, "Are we going to try to talk to him...without jumping in and killing people first." And Robert Redford, speaking from Park City, Utah, scene of his annual film festival, is worried about the loss of free expression in America. He tells Variety, "I see the threat of restrictions on all sorts of things, of the unraveling of constitutional rights, being slid through under a lot of patriotic slogans."