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Okay, can anyone explain to me why Anderson Cooper felt the need to bring on actor and Christian evangelist Kirk Cameron who starred in the Left Behind series to discuss the mysterious bird and fish deaths in Arkansas? I mean seriously Anderson... WTF? I'd like to know what the hell happened there as well, but the last person in the world I can think of that I would hope to get some answers from is this guy.

I guess someone at CNN thinks we haven't quite Jesus'd up our "news" enough already with right wing evangelicals getting some face time on their airways.

More than 1,000 dead birds fall from sky in Arkansas:

BEEBE, Ark. -- The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission says more than 1,000 dead black birds have fallen from the sky in Beebe.

The agency says its enforcement officers began receiving reports about the dead birds about 11:30 p.m. Friday.

Officials say the birds fell over a one-mile area of the city and that no other birds were found outside of that area.

Some of the dead birds will be sent for testing to the state Livestock and Poultry Commission lab and the National Wildlife Health Center lab in Madison, Wisconsin.

Commission ornithologist Karen Rowe says that similar events have occurred elsewhere. In other cases, she says test results "usually were inconclusive," although the birds showed physical trauma. She says the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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Following the release of 92,000 war log files, Liz Cheney is calling for WikiLeaks to be shut down and says that the founder has "blood on his hands."

"I would point out that although you've got the news about the WikiLeaks documents that that came out this week and clearly Julian Assange's effort was to change course for the US policy in Afghanistan," Cheney told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday.

"He was unsuccessful in that. He does clearly have blood on his hands potentially for the people whose names were in those documents who helped the US and I think that's something he will have to live with now," she continued.

"I would really like to see President Obama to move to ask the government of Iceland to shut that website down. I would like to see him move to shut it down ourselves if Iceland won't do it. I would like to see them move aggressively to prosecute Mr. Assange and certainly ensure that he never again gets a visa to enter the United States," said Cheney.

"What he's done is very clearly aiding and abetting al Qaeda. And as I said, he may very well be responsible for the deaths of American soldiers Afghanistan," she concluded.

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Keith talks to former Ambassador Edward Peck about his experience while aboard one of the flotilla's that was seized by the Israelis while trying to deliver humanitarian aide to Gaza.

There's been a lot of back forth about whether or not there were any weapons were on board the ship where the deaths occurred and if the Israeli's had the right to attack the flotilla in international waters. Ambassador Peck could not say if there were any weapons on board the other ship but maintains that they did not have any on the ship he was on. Keith and Peck discussed the political response to the incident here in the United States.

Olbermann: To some degree has the political equation here also been a question of words being turned on their head? Because it seems as if there are only two positions being offered now. Either you support the Israeli government in all things, uniformly, they can do whatever they want, they could do whatever they wanted to in this situation, or somehow you don't support the State of Israel's existence. This has been drawn that dramatically. What's your reaction to that reality of American politics?

Peck: Well if you want to look at reality and you're asking me for my view, I'll say this again because I've said it before, no one in his or her right mind and I'll recognize that not everybody qualifies, wants a bad thing to happen to one Israeli or one Palestinian or one American. But the sad truth of the matter is that bad things have happened, are happening and will happen to all three groups because of what is going on in Palestine and Gaza and what isn't going on in Palestine and Gaza. And backing Israel was one thing. Backing Israel in everything she does is not only very bad for us, it's very bad for Israel.

Sadly all the back and forth on who had weapons or not has done nothing but give the American media an excuse to repeat the Israeli talking points and to ignore some of the larger issues at hand. For more on that here's an op-ed written by Suat Kiniklioglu, a member of Turkish Parliament from the Justice and Development (AK) Party and its deputy chairman of external affairs.

This Israeli Government Has Gone Too Far:

I have many friends in Israel and I did not hesitate to visit Israel when an invitation was extended to me by an Israeli think-tank. I maintained my optimism that Turkey and Israel would be able to mend their differences despite their disagreements over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

However, Monday was a turning point for me and my nation’s 72 million citizens. On Monday Turkey was shocked to watch Israeli commandos raiding a Turkish flotilla loaded with medical supplies, toys and food bound for Gaza, killing at least nine peace activists in the process.

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It looks like David Gregory is reading C&L and many other blogs because I've been saying that for the cost of the wars, America would have health care bought and paid for. David Gregory finally asked a Republican the same question. This clip also shows that republicans are living in a land far, far from reality if they actually go on TV and say Americans aren't dying because they have no health care.

David writes: Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) told NBC's David Gregory that the war in Afghanistan is a "necessity" but health care reform is not as important.

"And is it a necessity to tackle the fact that there are more and more Americans who die because they don't have access to health insurance?" asked Gregory.

Kyl disagreed with the premise of the question. "I'm not sure that it's a fact that more and more people die because they don't have health insurance. But because they don't have health insurance, the care is not delivered in the best and most efficient way," said Kyl.

Talking Points Memo notes that it is indeed a fact that Americans die from a lack of health insurance.

I imagine Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) -- of "Republicans want you to die quickly" fame -- might have a field day with this one.

And for the record, a highly-publicized Harvard study released last month said that 45,000 deaths are linked to lack of health insurance coverage each year -- and that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher death risk than their privately-insured counterparts.

It would have been nice if Gregory followed up and asked Kyl to back up why he thinks Americans aren't dying over health care. That's what he does week after week. Show quotes and news reports to back up his questions, but to just let Kyl ignore the premise of the question is ridiculous. Gregory knows thousands are dying every month. It's not a secret or some super duper liberal code word. And the country shouldn't be spending blood and treasure on the two Bush wars like it is and the country knows it too.

But I don't want to focus on Gregory too much because at least he asked the question. Sen. Kyl is either a stone cold liar or really is that ignorant.

(David helped me with this post)