Weird day yesterday: one minute I was lying there, watching ST:TNG with the windows open, the next minute it was snowing.

I see Blogger still hasn't fixed the damn template. Not only are my new links missing, but so is my Jim Capozzola for Senate banner.

More weekend stuff: got a new battery for the car. Watched Titanic and cried like a baby. Saw The Usual Suspects and hooted like a loon.

It was 14 degrees this morning. Enough already.

There are (is?) a pair of buzzards roosting in one of my trees. Pretty cool, but disturbing at the same time. My neighbors must all be crossing themselves at this point.



Roll over! Good boy!
"Mmmmmm, Karl said no - uhhhhhh, Ari says this guy is a real douchebag - ahhhhhh, nope, she said I sucked as preznit...."

USA Today White House reporter Larry McQuillan, seated in the front row, stopped raising his hand after he realized that Bush - who himself used the word "scripted" during the news conference to describe what was going on - was calling on names from a list and not deviating from it. - Peter Johnson of USA Today.

The WH propaganda communications director, Dan Bartlett, said "we know what the questions are going to be, and those are the ones we want to answer. These are all legitimate questions that he has answers for and wants to talk about."

The ones we can't answer, like North Korea, or the economy, or where Osama is, or how this war will lead to more terrism, well, you guys try asking this stuff and you'll never work in this town again! Saddam is evil! His country may have let some al Qaeda-types use their hospitals! He has anthrax that we sold him!

Little Bunnypants not only had a prearranged list of reporters, he even had a prearranged script of stock answers that he used to answer questions that were known in advance. Good job, guys. You'd spend all day licking your own balls if you had any.




Ho hum...
N Korea fires another cruise missile, Colin says he'll talk with them "eventually." By the way, Saddam is evil and is a threat to the US. - link.

Stuff

Push has come to shove: Blah3 and TBTM's 'Fascist Groove Thang', a must-see!

Added CalPundit and Hegemoney to the list, but Blogger is still screwing up my template, so they may not appear for a while.

"Oooooohh! 'Navy Seals'!" Saw Clerks last night - what a hoot! Zen slackers, philosophers with filthy mouths, snowballing, a debate on the 'politics' of the subcontractors on the second death-star in Return of the Jedi... I'm still laughing. ("snowballing" ?!?!?!?)

Jesus' General has guessed that I'm "Probably French." Merde alors!

Credibility gap widens yet again
Some Evidence on Iraq Called Fake: U.N. Nuclear Inspector Says Documents on Purchases Were Forged -

A key piece of evidence linking Iraq to a nuclear weapons program appears to have been fabricated, the United Nations' chief nuclear inspector said yesterday in a report that called into question U.S. and British claims about Iraq's secret nuclear ambitions. Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also rejected a key Bush administration claim - made twice by the president in major speeches and repeated by Colin Powell yesterday - that Iraq had tried to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes to use in centrifuges for uranium enrichment. Also, ElBaradei reported finding no evidence of banned weapons or nuclear material in an extensive sweep of Iraq using advanced radiation detectors.

"I really wish these f*ckwits in Washington would quit pulling our chains. This is getting to be just too much," an aide to ElBaradei said. - link.

More trouble in pReznit Poopypants' paradise
GOP Leader Challenges Bush Statements: House Republicans Sensitive to Criticism They Underfunded Homeland Security

A senior republican lawmaker, firing back at president Bush for recent statements blaming Congress for underfunding emergency workers, accused the White House of factual inaccuracy and inadequate communication.

"You lying sack of shit!" House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young (R-Cojones) should have said, in the letter he wrote to WH Chief of Staff Andy 'Lying Sack O' Shit' Card.

[the] letter underscored the unusually raw feelings that have developed among House republicans since Bush began blaming them for inadequate homeland security funds. Democrats have long criticized Bush for inaccurate statements on spending and other matters, but this is the most prominent case of a republican accusing Bush of falsehoods.

And the way things are going, hopefully it won't be the last. - more here.

What a way to start the morning:

'I am the overlord! All bow before me!'
Emperor Snippy has pulled out of a speech to the European Parliament because he could not be guaranteed a standing ovation.

Yes, you read it right: senior White House officials said his Royal Whineness, the criminally court-appointed Cretin of Crawford would only go to Strasbourg to talk about Iraq if he had a stage-managed welcome. A source close to negotiations said last night: "president Bush agreed to a speech but insisted he get a standing ovation like at the State of the Union address. His people also insisted there be no protests, or heckling.

"I believe it would be a crucial speech for Mr Bush to make in light of the opposition here to war. But unless he only gets adulation and praise, then it will never happen." Mr Bush's every appearance in the US is stage-managed, with audiences full of supporters. - story here.

Lookin' for some hot stuff
Dammit. You've worn me down. As promised, here's one of those hot elf-on-elf pics I received. God, I feel so dirty!
(Click on the pic to enlarge, baby)

Stuff

"Heck, I don't have an idea most of the time anyway except for how I should maybe sneak into the infirmary and drink all the NyQuil. That's always a really good idea." - a new blog, by George W Bush, President.

Blogger keeps deleting the new site links I've added to the lists. I don't know what's up with that, except they were migrating some of the templates this week.

Blah3 is back!

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe...
Q: Mr President, millions of Americans can recall a time when leaders from both parties set this country on a mission of regime change in Vietnam. 50,000 Americans died, the regime is still there in Hanoi and it hasn't harmed or threatened a single American in the 30 years since the war ended. What can you say tonight sir to the sons and the daughters and the Americans who served in Viet Nam to assure them that you will not lead this country down a similar path in Iraq?

Squinty the Boilfaced Doper: It's a great question. Our mission is clear in Iraq. Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament. In order to disarm, it will mean regime change. I'm confident that we'll be able to achieve that objective in a way that minimizes the loss of life. No doubt there's risks with any military operation. I know that. But it's very clear what we intend to do. And our mission won't change. The mission is precisely what I just stated. We've got a plan that will achieve that mission should we need to send forces in. Last question. Let's see, who needs one? Jean? - link.

The actual word-for-word reply, as transcribed by CG at the BC Forum:

pReznit GameBoy: Hmmm....That's a great question....ah....Our mission is clear in Iraq....should we have to go in....our mission is very clear....disarmament.....in order to disarm....it will mean regime change....I'm confident we'll be able to achieve that objective....in a way that minimizes the loss of life....no doubt there's risks in any military operation, I know that.....ah.....but it's very clear what we intend to do and our mission won't change our missions precisely what I just stated, we have got a plan that will achieve that mission should we need to send forces in....ah....last question......


Just answer the friggin' question!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regional problem
Totally Unconvincing: "Everyone knows that war has been the president's first choice - not his last - since at least the summer of 2002" - Jonathan Alter discusses the Menace of Midland's press conference, over at Newsweek.



"After months of lies, the president has given millions of people around the world reason to doubt that he has sent Americans into battle for the right reasons." - Dick Armey.

"Never underestimate a desperate president." - Rep. Jerry Solomon, R-N.Y.

- December 1998, as President Bill Clinton was getting ready to order air strikes against Iraq.

Well, last night's press conference certainly was ...inspiring. I've never been so inspired to start shooting up heroin in my life.

Some reactions:

"his train of thought had jumped the tracks": Bush's Wake-Up Call Was a Snooze Alarm, by Tom Shales.

Bush as Caligula: Let Them Hate as Long as They Fear, by Paul Krugman

Bush only pretends to answer questions, by Bartcop.

The questions that weren't asked, Joe Conason.

Stuff
"US will defy the UN and attack Iraq for defying the UN." - headline seen at the BartCop Forum today.

At least Jim Capazzola didn't pick me as The Blogger He'd Most Like To Punch in the Nose...

There's 4 inches of fresh snow out there, and more coming down. I will not shovel anymore!!

Chimpy the Rednosed Boozer would lose to a Democrat if the presidential election were held now because of concerns about possible war and the economy, according to an opinion poll published today. - link.

'Americans ill-served by own media'
The media's failure to serve the public interest helps explain why, as the Internet audience-measurement company Nielsen NetRatings revealed last month, Americans are turning more and more to news sites outside the country for a more accurate and balanced picture of the world. How else would they have learned, for example, that, as reported by the London Observer on Sunday, the U.S. government had pulled out its bag of "dirty tricks" to spy on recalcitrant members of the United Nations Security Council?

The U.S. mainstream media - in the past few days alone - have also largely ignored reports by the brave and brilliant British correspondent Robert Fisk exposing how CNN ("By Appointment To The Pentagon") war reports will undergo a new and especially rigorous screening process and how doubts have been cast on the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has been mysteriously promoted from a minor scowling face on the FBI's terrorist list to, as MSNBC put it the other day, "Al Qaeda's CEO."

Wrote Debra Pickett, a columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times: "The cynical view on this is that Mohammed is still the relatively small fish we were first told he was, but the news of his arrest is being hyped because the Bush administration needs a victory in the war on terrorism before going to war in Iraq." - from Antonia Zerbisias' column in the Toronto Star.

"who will be left holding Bush's jockstrap when he raptures off into the ever after"
[Khalid Shaikh Mohammed]'s been captured and on ice for weeks, if not months. Now, when every day brings a fresh reminder that the Bushmeister is a blundering, warmongering bozo, the White House releases a picture of a greasy, bewildered, cross-eyed Arab to remind America what he's protecting us against.

And the fact that "KSM" was hurriedly bumped up the Al-Qaeda roster from last year's number 22 ranking to "more important than bin-Laden" should alert people that he's simply this year's Jose Padilla - a lost soul to be kept in limbo until the masters of the universe decide he can be useful to them. - Peter Lee, courtesy of SmirkingChimp.com.

Repugs Can't Stop Estrada Filibuster
Senate repugs failed today to break a Democratic blockade on Miguel Estrada's nomination for a federal appeals court judgeship, dealing pResident Evil his first major defeat since the GOP won control of Congress in November. The vote was 55-44, with four of the usual asslicking stooges DINOs breaking ranks: Zell Miller of Georgia, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida and John Breaux of Louisiana.

Bob Graham of Florida, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, missed the vote. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Kitten Kevorkian, said the GOP will try again later to break the filibuster, but Tom 'that's Mister Isadora to you!' Daschle warned that future votes would have the same result. - link.

"Listen Bozo, this is the White House. There are no clowns here."
The White House believes it should not be the subject of satire and is trying to censor a web site that mentioned Dick Cheney's humourless wife.

The NY Civil Liberties Union struck back Wednesday on behalf of John A. Wooden, threatening a lawsuit to protect his First Amendment rights to parody the White House and Bush officials on his site, whitehouse.org.

Cheney counsel David S. Addington warned Wooden's Chickenhead Productions Inc. that Lynne Cheney's name and pictures - altered to show her with a red clown's nose and a missing tooth - could not be used to make money without her consent, and told Wooden to delete the photos and "fictitious biographical statement about her." - from here.

Moon over Washington
The people speak out:
"sadly we are being accused of siding with the damn terrorists if we voice our antiwar sentiments." - bbb

"so let's all go get nekkid on the White House lawn. If we all just get butt towards the building, we won't even have to spell anything out. Bet it would zing right over the goober's head though." - wzzw

"GOD !!! AREN'T THERE ENOUGH ASSHOLES IN THE WHITE HOUSE ALREADY ?" - zpthth

- Some of my buddies on an email list exchange their views on the current political situation. Names have been changed to protect these patriotic citizens.

Oh boy! It's snowing again!





Peace Takes A Bullet
"It cannot be overstated: Shrub's war marks a momentous shift in our society, a huge political and philosophical sea change, as we move from a unified coherent defensive posture to an aggressive, roguish, preemptive-strike attitude, kill first and ask questions never.

"It is called the Bush Doctrine, a.k.a. Shut the Hell Up You Durn Foreigners and Eat Our Might, and it is in flagrant defiance of not just the U.N. charter and international law but also every moral and philosophical tenet America itself was founded on." - from Mark Morford's column.




Bill Clinton signs with CBS News?
CBS News plans to revive the commentary segment 'Point/Counterpoint' on 60 Minutes, starring Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, beginning this Sunday night, newsroom sources say... Clinton has signed for 10 weeks in a deal reportedly worth $1 million... Spots will be 45 seconds a week, about 90 words; $100,000 for each commentary, and over $1000 for each word... developing, at drudge.

That whoomp! you hear is the sound of thousands of relatively empty fretard bushmoonie heads exploding in dumb rage. Smells like.....victory.




And some more good news
Mall Asks Police to Drop Trespassing Charges Against N.Y. Man Arrested Over Anti-War T-Shirt
Officials at a mall where a man was arrested for refusing to remove an anti-war T-shirt (that he had bought at the mall) asked Wednesday that trespassing charges against him be dropped. Police said managers from Crossgates Mall called and asked that the complaint against Stephen Downs be withdrawn. Police Chief James Murley said he would support the mall's decision.

Earlier Wednesday, about 100 anti-war demonstrators marched through the mall to protest the arrest. They told a mall manager they would stop only when charges against the shopper were dropped and when the mall outlined its policy. - link.

Cardinal Pio Laghi on his visit with Squinty the Wonderchimp today: "I went to the White House, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt that says 'Who cares what you think?'

Just kidding.
My mom's already told me I'm going to Hell.

Update
Please welcome The Hamster, 'bringing the best of the progressive web'!

Quotes
"Everything known about Bush apart from his political rhetoric suggests belief in a conventional rich man's God. His idea of paradise is a country club golf course. His public religiosity is precisely calculated to enthrall fundamentalist Christians whose failure to turn out in 1992 led to his father's defeat - the only Armageddon Junior seriously anticipates." - Gene Lyons.

"Every day [Bunnypants] asks us to ignore more and more troubling facts, and every day it seems more and more that Mr. Bush has mustered not a coalition of the willing, but rather, as one wag put it, 'a coalition of the billing.' It is very disturbing that so many of our 'allies' have to be bribed or bludgeoned into joining this war. The Turkish Parliament's vote against allowing U.S. troops to use Turkish bases is stunning when you consider that the Bush team had offered the Turks a dream package - $6 billion in aid and new weapons, and veto power over the future of Iraq's Kurds. But there is something admirable about the Turkish democracy's refusing to be bribed into a war its people don't want. It would be shameful for us to force the Turks to vote again - considering that their Parliament gave this war more thought than the U.S. Congress." - Thomas Friedman .




"My husband bought me a mood ring the other day. When I'm in a good mood it turns green. When I'm in a bad mood, it leaves a red mark on his forehead." - Laura Bush anonymous emailer.

Senate nutjob wants human shields punished
Damn commie traitors!
WASHINGTON - Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Insane) asked Attorney General Jesus John Ashcroft Monday to provide him with a legal assessment of those Americans headed to or already in Iraq to offer themselves as "human shields." Graham, who has been vehement in his opposition to Americans who go to Iraq and calls them "treasonous," said he believes the "full force of the law should be applied to those American citizens who give aid or comfort to our enemies."

"It is my opinion that any American who voluntarily engages in conduct to impede a potential American military operation, and who thereby endangers the lives of our nation's men and women in uniform, is participating in a program designed to weaken the power of the United States to wage war successfully. I strongly believe efforts to impede a potential military operation against Iraq should be strongly dealt with and I am seeking your assistance in this matter," Graham said, foaming at the mouth while vigorously beating himself off. - link.

Pope to Bush: Go into Iraq and you go without God
Pope John Paul II has a "strong message" for pReznit Stupid: God is not on your side if you invade Iraq. But the Incredibly Incompetant Impotentate is expected to tell the Pope's envoy to f*ck off that the leader of the world's Catholics is wrong.

Smirky McSimpleton will meet behind closed doors this afternoon with Cardinal Pio Laghi, a former papal nuncio to the United States and "listen carefully" as he daydreams of lassoing all them dirty sandmonkeys evildoers who're standing between him and the promised by God oilfields a free Iraqi people. Good Lord. - link.


Jesus loves you, everyone else thinks you're an asshole.
Jesus: F*ck that! {....}

Freezing rain this morning, car battery dead, still no crocuses up. Big story on the news, riding into work this morning: Bush disses Pope!

Song playing in my head: "Amazing Grace". Just a coincidence.

Scene playing in my head: nailing an orc into a tree with an arrow. An orc that resembles John Ashcroft. Another coincidence, I assure you.

The little voices in my head are screaming for coffee.

"If you want to change the government in Iraq, why don't you just bring in the Supreme Court?" - guest Eric Idle, on The Daily Show, 3/3/03.




France, Germany, Russia to Nix War Vote
Russian dressing joins list of items boycotted by fretard bushmoonies.
French, German, and Russian foreign ministers said today at a news conference in Paris that they will put the skids on the passage of a U.N. resolution to authorize war gainst Iraq.

"We will not allow a resolution to pass that authorizes resorting to force," French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said. "Russian and France, as permanent members of the Security Council, will assume their full responsibilities on this point." - link.

Bush tells His Holiness "F*ck you"
The White House rejected today the Vatican's argument that there is no moral justification for a pre-emptive war in Iraq. - link.

Updates

I'm trying a hover-craft thing with the article links. Keep your mouse pointer over them for a few secs. Of course, I still can't get the permalinks to work, but what the hey.

Symbolman of Take Back the Media has some fun with Rush Limpbag, here! "Listen to a caller nail Pigboy's ass to the shed!"

Advisors warn Crusader Bunnypants he faces "humiliating" defeat on UN resolution
Senior nursemaids aides to the Court-Appointed Ignoramus say he faces a humiliating defeat before the United Nations Security Council next week, prompting speculation that the chicken chickenhawks may withdraw the resolution from security council consideration.

Colin Powell, fresh from his latest round of meetings with representatives of countries on the Security Council, delivered the bad news to Smirky McOilpipe yesterday.

"You will lose, Mr. 'President'," Powell told the Nooculer Nincompoop. "You will lose badly and the United States will be humiliated on the world stage." - Like, more than we are right now. link.

"War-team toadies"
From Dennis Hans' 'The disinformation age' - How George W. Bush and Colin Powell are lying America into an unnecessary war - and what honest journalists can do about it:

"Nothing [Saddam] says has been taken at face value since the 1980s, that golden decade when he was committing his worst human rights abuses with the blessing and support of Saint Colin of Powell and presidents Reagan and Bush - not to mention Reagan's special emissary to Baghdad, a chap named Donald Rumsfeld.

"There is a lying leader, a bit closer to home.... Not only does the leader lie, but so too do his top aides. And the news media, with rare exceptions, routinely pass along their lies as fact. The result is that the people of America are out of touch with the people of the world. Thus we're far more willing than any other populace to launch an unprovoked attack on Iraq. Whereas the German and French people - and the populations ruled by governments siding with Uncle Sam - are reasonably well-informed and overwhelmingly opposed, Americans are reasonably well-disinformed." - from SmirkingChimp.com.

It's good to be the Dictator-tot
Napoleon Bonehead "is as determined as ever to move forward quickly, and is not likely to be 'distracted' by either logistical or diplomatic obstacles. Administration officials refused today to describe the benchmarks Saddam Hussein would have to pass to convince them that his disarmament was real, suggesting again that there was nothing he could do to persuade them he has got rid of all his weapons." - link. It's like a bad joke, isn't it?

Yeah, how's it feel, wh*res?
ABC, CBS and NBC were snookered into breaking into regular programming Wednesday night to carry pResident Poopypants' speech on the Middle East when White House spokes-tool and wetnurse Ari 'the Liar' Fleischer made off-the-record calls to their Washington bureau chiefs. But when Bunnypants' address to the American Enterprise Institute dealt only generally with the future of a post-Saddam Middle East, some network bigwigs felt they'd been had.

Says one network executive: "The White House was incredibly heavy-handed with the request. At a time when we're leading up to war, they said it was going to make news."

The White House had been "lobbying" for live coverage of the Dribbling Dumbass's remarks, Ted Koppel said on Nightline, but "in one form or another, he has said all of these things before." - link.

Aide on U.S. Image in Muslim World Quits
Charlotte Beers, the Bush misadministration's point person for improving the U.S. image in the Muslim world, is resigning to spend more time with her family because of "health reasons." She came to realize that 'changing hearts and minds in Islamic countries is a long-term challenge,' especially at a time when the US is being run by a bunch of arrogant, war-happy, pseudo-religious, intolerant wackjobs. - link.

The beauty of caller ID
After listening to their own people and not to King George the Criminally Dense, Turkey throws up its' hands and says "Oh, all right! Now quit calling me!"

Under intense pressure by the Bushies, a senior Turkish official indicated that his government would ask Parliament a second time to allow American troops to use the country as a base against Iraq, a day they rejected the plan.

After sweaty, panicky phone calls from Colin 'Ass=Grass' Powell this weekend, the Turkish government may take another resolution to Parliament later this week. - link.

Tough love
"It's heart-warming to hear Tony Blair's concern for the plight of the Iraqi people and how the only possible way to help them is to bomb them with everything the Americans have."

Terry Jones tries to explain the BFEE's PNAC ("The Project For The New American Century") to Tony 'Piddles' Blair, at the Observer .




Hot, moist, squishy love
Howard 'the Hormone' Fineman embarrasses himself yet again in the new issue of Pulsating pResidential Man Meat Magazine Newsweek, with "Bush and God - A higher calling: It is his defining journey - from reveler to revelation. A biography of his faith, and how he wields it as he leads a nation on the brink of war."

WTF has Howard been smoking? Have his editors lost their minds?? Wielding? Leading?? Maybe I got it wrong, though. The article isn't all halos and genuflections: Smirky McStupid's so-called piety comes off as extremely shallow and politically expedient, not to mention conveniently not applicable at times (remember Karla Faye Tucker and "please don't kill me"? all those Texas executions? "a major-league asshole"? "I hit the trifecta"?).

Then there's this. I'm sorry, but it just isn't that easy:

'The president is known to welcome questions about faith that staffers sometimes have the nerve to share with him. But he's not the kind to initiate granular debates about theology. Would Iraq be a "just war" in Christian terms, as laid out by Augustine in the fourth century and amplified by Aquinas, Luther and others? Bush has satisfied himself that it would be - indeed, it seems he did so many months ago. But he didn't do it by combing through texts or presiding over a disputation. He decided that Saddam was evil, and everything flowed from that.'

Moral clarity. God help us. - link.

"That was an incredibly stupid thing for the White House to do"
Geez, I'm losing count here - just how many does this make??

George of the Bungle blames repugs, repugs say Dumbya is screwing his own party - link.

"While CNN slept"
Television's pro-war bias: ratings, revenue, and not being thought of as a damn commie.
link.




Turkey's governing party listens to the people's overwhelming opposition to a war in Iraq, "stuns" Washington
Huh - Turkey uses a focus group!
Turkey's ruling party has no plans in the "foreseeable future'' to seek another parliament vote for the deployment of U.S. troops on Turkish soil for a war with Iraq, a party leader said Sunday.

The announcement by Eyup Fatsa, deputy head of the Justice and Development party, came a day after the legislature dealt a serious blow to U.S. war planning by failing to approve a motion to deploy U.S. soldiers, weapons and equipment. - link.


Karl! I want my mommy! Get me my mommy!

I'm trying something new with the article links. Please let me know if you have problems with them!


Bushies spying on Security Council members?
Secret document details the misadministration's plan to bug phones and emails of key Security Council members. The existence of the surveillance operation, understood to have been requested by Condoleezza 'Chevronwhore' Rice, is deeply embarrassing to the BFEE Oil Cartel in the middle of their efforts to win over the undecided delegations. The disclosure comes at a time when diplomats from other countries have been complaining about the outright 'hostility' of US tactics in recent days to persuade then to fall in line, including threats to economic and aid packages. - link. Those numb f*ckheads.





Bushies pissed at sign of independant thinking by some in the media
How dare you! Rid yourselves of those testicles NOW!
The White House and Pentagon yesterday criticized news coverage of the Iraq showdown and other military matters in a sign of increasing acrimony between the press and administration.

In a surprise development, White House spokes-tool and buttwiper Ari 'the Liar' Fleischer accused the WH stenographers in the lapdog whore media of "missing the big picture on the Iraq story" by "distorting daily developments." Although criticism mounts against Saddam Hussein, Ari said, the press emphasizes the doubt from wavering allies such as France and Russia.

"Journalists still have to ask themselves questions about the responsibility to accuracy - knowing that the raving chickenhawks in the Bush administration Iraqis are nothing but propagandists and deceivers," Ari went on to say with a straight face. - link

pReznit Pinhead:

too stupid to know any better
too arrogant to care
too insane with power
too oblivious to everything but his GameBoy
all of the above

Fun stuff
"You'll hardly notice you're being brainwashed!"
The CNN Iraq Tracker, from Take Back the Media!

"Past moral culpability"
From Peter Beinart's column: "The Bush administration's current outrage at Saddam's crimes is bogus. If people like Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and Richard Armitage (all of whom held prominent government positions in the '80s) really cared about the Iraqi people, they wouldn't have helped Saddam brutalize them in the '80s. And, since the United States doesn't care about the Iraqi people, our real motivation for war must lay elsewhere - either in a thirst for world domination, or oil, or both.

"Why don't my fellow hawks ever discuss America's history with Saddam Hussein? Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush armed him. The history is appalling, and it involves key officials shaping Iraq policy today. Saddam first used chemical weapons in 1983. The Reagan administration wasn't bothered. To the contrary, it sent Middle East envoy Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad. In the spring of 1984, Rumsfeld returned for another visit. During Reagan's presidency, the United States sold Iraq anthrax, bubonic plague, and botulinum toxin. Over congressional opposition, Reagan sold Iraq 'Huey' helicopters, which Saddam used in chemical attacks on the Kurds. Rumsfeld should have trouble sleeping at night given his role in abetting Saddam's crimes. Instead, last fall on CNN, he insisted that in 1983 he 'cautioned' Saddam about chemical weapons." State Department records show no such thing. - link to TNR.

UN Finds No Long Range Missiles in Iraq
From Democrats.com, via e-mail: "This article is a must read. It is one of the most in-depth written on the Al Samoud 2 missile and the success of weapons inspections. Obviously, it has been squashed by the 'liberal media' because of its positive reflection of Iraqi cooperation with the inspections process. The irony is that the only newspaper we could find that printed it was the Austin-American Statesman, based in Austin, Texas! It states:

"U.N. inspectors swarming over Iraq's missile industry found an infraction last week: The short-range Al Samoud 2 sometimes flies a few miles farther than allowed. But the experts have reported no sign of any longer-range missiles that could strike Israel or neighboring oil nations as Washington fears. In fact, after three months' intensive work, the U.N. teams are looking ahead to ending their current investigative phase, and moving on to long-term monitoring via electronic 'eyes and ears.' Such a system could rein in missile development for years, experts say."

- link to article.

Oh, and by the way...
The Dictator-tot demands it! Make it so!

WH spokes-tool and nanny Ari Fleischer said yesterday that to escape military action, Iraq must disarm and Saddam must be deposed. Pressed on the point, he said both would be necessary conditions because disarmament was the United Nations' goal and changing Iraq's government was the "president's."

The statement puts the United States on a different track from the United Nations, whose resolutions have been concerned with the immediate and unconditional disarmament, not with a change of government in Baghdad.

The Canadian prime minister, Jean Chretien, was pissed. "If you start changing regimes, where do you stop, this is the problem. Who is next? Give me the list, the priorities." - the NY Times.

Costs could be "staggering"
Yeah, but Guinea and Spain are with us!
Washington Squabbles Over Price of Iraq War, Peace

Cost estimates of $61 billion to $95 billion for a 'short conflict' and cleaning up the mess afterwards were leaked by unidentified administration officials on Monday, and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki told the Senate Armed Services Committee he estimated it would take "something on the order of several hundred thousand" troops to keep the peace in Iraq.

In addition to direct war costs, the misadministration is putting together humanitarian supplies, multibillion-dollar economic aid packages for Turkey, Israel and other key allies in the region, plus huge security details to guard the BushCheney oilfields against the Iraqi owners evildoers.

Darth Rummy disagreed with Gen. Shinseki's estimates. "People are entitled to their own opinions," Don 'Warboner' Rumsfeld told reporters. "And the ones they're entitled to should be mine!" - Reuters link.

Reminder: While our servicemen and women are preparing for a nightmare of a war in Iraq, the AWOL, court-appointed Chimpy the Chickenhawk is back for another fun-filled weekend playing video games at Camp David, because it's too snowy for golf.




"You can do a lot with bayonets but you can't sit on them"
Turks March Against U.S. Troop Deployment

Thousands of protesters marched through Turkey's capital today, urging parliament to reject the Bush misadministration's bribe to use the country as a launch pad for an attack on Iraq. Ankara is torn between widespread public opposition to a war against a fellow Muslim state and intense pressure from Washington, which is dangling a multi-billion dollar aid package to shore up Turkey's frail economy, while our own economy is in the crapper. - link to story.




Look! Elvis!
According to Newsweek, "Hussein Kamel, the highest-ranking Iraqi official ever to defect from Saddam Hussein's inner circle, told CIA and British intelligence officers and U.N. inspectors in the summer of 1995 that after the gulf war, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them. Kamel's revelations about the destruction of Iraq's WMD stocks were hushed up by the U.N. inspectors, sources say, for two reasons. Saddam did not know how much Kamel had revealed, and the inspectors hoped to bluff Saddam into disclosing still more." - from Altercation. Puh - if he's Iraqi, he must be lying.

....{/sarcasm}..... Kamel was Saddam's son-in-law, and had direct knowledge of what he claimed: for 10 years he had run Iraq's nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs. After six months in exile in Jordan, Kamel realized the US would not support his dream of becoming Iraq's ruler after Saddam's death. He chose to return to Iraq - where he was promptly killed.