Happy talk

This report of the effect of Bush's spate of optimistic speeches on Iraq upon his poll numbers (no effect, by the way) is good reporting. Sometimes USA Today comes up with decent summaries of the news, even if it's not known for investigative reporting.

The arrogance of power

This example of egregious in-your-face federal spending is enough to make me pause over my check to the IRS and seriously consider tax protesting. I mean, my likely destination upon conviction would be Lompoc Correctional Facility, just fifty miles up the coast.

Ugly Americans

Why do they hate us? This "apology" by the US military for destroying the ruins of the city of Babylon surely is one reason. Check out, especially, the last two sentences. Straight out of VietNam's famous "We destroyed the village in order to save it."

Here's what's wrong with the Democrats

This post, offering a Democratic response to the Iran "crisis" is so wrong, so stupid, that I had to leave a comment--scroll way down on the many comments--to this effect: The post makes the classic blunder of adopting the Republicans' frame: of attacking Iran or not. That's not the issue. The issue is how to create a Middle East that doesn't adopt weapons as the only dialog. The Democrats should be demanding that Bush engage in face-to-face dealings with Iran to avert further escalation. We know Bush won't do it, but having failed to he won't be on the high ground anymore, and the Democrats will have seized the moment.

Update: Somebody's listening to me about having direct negotiations with Iran. A Republican, that's who. And not just any Republican. A heavy hitter.

A thought about despair

So many things are amiss in the world--not just the many things caused by the Bush/Cheney administration (although many are attributable to them)--that I'm inclined simply to give up, to quit the battle. Would you miss me?

No October surprise

It's not that Bush isn't going to attack Iran in October. He surely will. However, it won't be a surprise. By now, everybody on this side of the pond expects it, and Iran's latest actions are ensuring it. Indeed, Iran's systematic, trumpeted defiance of international approbrium leads one to wonder whether Karl Rove has a direct line to President Ahmadinejad and is dictating his script.

Do we have to do everything for them?

Can't the Iraqis even solve this problem ? I mean, why don't they just siphon it out of the gutters?

More than fifty million Americans voted

to put this idiot into office. Check out this video and, if you can, laugh at us.

Don't believe me

about the iffy state of affairs in Iraq, in Baghdad in particular. Believe this article in The Army Times.

Tipping points

It's not just the glaciers or the Gulf Stream. It's the economy, stupid.

I don't want to be a spoilsport, but

will somebody tell me where in this resolution authorizing Bush to use force against Iraq there's any authority granted by Congress allowing him to attack Iran? I mean, doesn't our president at least have to consult Congress before launching missles against a foreign power?

If you've stumbled onto a different constitution from mine, let me know what it says. But then again, maybe I'm just a silly strict-constructionist. A conservative, you might say.

Lying leaks

This WaPo article is long, but its gist is this: The supposed "declassification" that Bush supposedly "authorized" was supposedly the justification of Libby's statements to reporters (Woodward, Miller) to buttress the Niger-uranium claim in the face of Ambassador Wilson's revelation that it was bogus. But the leaks of the Niger-uranium claim were themselves bogus, because the Niger-uranium claim had already been discounted. So, even as leakers Bush/Cheney are liars.

A thousand words

If you want to know about John McCain, picture this.

I'm ambivalent

about this remark by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw that an attack on Iran would be "completely nuts." On the one hand, I figure such a statement by our strongest ally when we attacked Iraq would operate to inhibit us from using military force against Iran; on the other hand, Straw's comment might merely be descriptive of Bush/Cheney, goading them to action, since they are indeed completely nuts.