No One Saw This Coming

In response to this:

Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said Thursday that he had been warning the Bush administration in recent days that Iraq was hurtling toward disintegration, a development that he said could drag the region into war.

"There is no dynamic now pulling the nation together," he said in a meeting with reporters at the Saudi Embassy here. "All the dynamics are pulling the country apart." He said he was so concerned that he was carrying this message "to everyone who will listen" in the Bush administration.

The President has agreed to, uhh, hmmm, not raise taxes.

They're working on a new response which will be coming shortly. Expect the word "freedom."

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, Karl Rove has been showing Bush new footage of the Middle East he had previously not seen. After viewing it Bush issued a statement saying, "I'm positive Anakin will be reuinted with his mother, and am concerned for the family and the people living in the region."

Help Me Out Here

If 5 people saw someone commit a robbery, but 13 others who were there didn't see it happen, but also didn't see it not happen, don't you listen to the 5 who actually saw the robbery?

Not in Congress. In Congress the waters are murky...

No, What's Ridiculous

Is that this guy is seen as honest by his supporters:

Several ethics experts and watchdogs said they found it odd that Frist could intervene to order such a sale when the HCA stock was ostensibly out of his reach in blind trusts. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, said, "The notion that you have a blind trust but you can tell your trustee when to sell stock in it just doesn't make any sense. It means you have a seeing eye trust and not a blind trust. It's ridiculous."

What's ridiculous is what an opportunist scum bucket this guy has always been.

BUT HE'S A DOCTOR!!!

Try yelling that when talking about Howard Dean.

You Know

Republicans want to make sure people have photo IDs to vote, which I'm not for. But if you want to apply the same concept to public bathrooms I'd be all for it :)

You Mean

Sit and wait like you were oh so willing to do until Democrats called for an independent inquiry?

Davis said the House investigation would proceed, with or without Democrats. "You can't sit and wait. You have to move ahead. . . . We have to have hearings while evidence is fresh."

My PBR Trucker Hat

I need that.

Every cool bar in New York City sells "$2 PBRs!!!" I asked my buddy which was the better beer: Budweiser or PBR. He tells me he likes them both equally.

C'mon, cut it out already. Just because the coolest bars in the East Village are having sales on PBRs does not make the beer better than it is. They're selling them so cheaply because it's cheap beer!

Is it terrible? Not at all. Is it Bud, the King of all Beers? Not at all.

He tells me that Coke is the "classic" but he can enjoy other colas. Yes, true, but RC isn't Coke, as good as it is.

PBR is cool for the same reason trucker hats are cool. Cool people think drinking an old school beer, or wearing an old school hat, makes them old school cool.

It makes you modern day tool, but that's just my worthless opinion.

Horrawful

First it was the Wetlands that was shutdown becuase they couldn't afford the rent. The new tennant tore it down and built luxury condos. Then came Joe's Pizza that couldn't afford the rent, and in it's place came a cheesedick Italian restaurant. And here comes the almost finale: THE BLIND TIGER, to be closed on December 31st, 2005, since they too can no longer afford the rent.

Yes, it's true, there will be no more Tiger in 3 months.

After my boy Wilson commented, "What's going to be here? A Starbucks?"

The bartender Dermit laughed and said, "Yeah, I think so!"

We really don't know what's coming, but rest assured, someone really close with Calvin Klein will have another chic place to shop.

When the new bar "Employees Only" popped up three doors down we laughed about a bar with a line in the West Village. Stop laughing. The Meat Packing District is just a few blocks north, and there's nary a bar/club there without a line. Seeing "EO" on E! Televisions "Hot Spots" made me realize the West Village is in serious trouble. It's all but done.

Everyone knows the rents are so high down there, and the further west you go the higher the rent, but I thought everyone moved down there because of the cool bars, restaurants, and general environment. Slowly, but surely, the places that make the West Village cool will be closing up. It seems small business, unless you're a high end restaurant, cannot survive down there.

It totally blows.

Lookout Corner Bistro, because you're next!

I Have a Feeling

Things with Demi are going to take a turn for the worse.

 

Unreal

Watching Conservatives race to help Katrina victims is like watching a Special Olympics race:

One cut being considered is a delay in the start of the new Medicare prescription drug coverage for one year to save $31 billion and eliminating $25 billion in projects from the newly enacted transportation measure.

The list also proposes eliminating the Moon-Mars initiative that NASA announced on Monday, for $44 billion in savings; ending support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $4 billion; cutting taxpayer payments for the national political conventions and the presidential election campaign fund, $600 million; and charging federal employees for parking, $1.54 billion.

Great on So Many Levels

But the highest of those levels is the fact the FBI Agents themselves watch porn, hence why they're able to come up with such good titles.

The FBI is joining the Bush administration's War on Porn. And it's looking for a few good agents.

Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III...

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

Among friends and trusted colleagues, an experienced national security analyst said, "it's a running joke for us."

A few of the printable samples:

"Things I Don't Want On My Résumé, Volume Four."

One Day

After the NYTIMES instituted their pay policy the Top Ten Most Emailed has Paul Krugman coming in at Number 11. Usually 1 or 2, he has sunk, and the same goes for all pay articles.

Nice work.

Wait, Even Better

The person the Bush White House is choosing to head up the agency that deals with Women's Health at the FDA is a VET! And I'm not talking Vietnam!

One week ago, the Office of Women's Health of the Food and Drug Administration sent an e-mail notice to women's groups and others announcing the appointment of Norris Alderson as its new acting director.

An FDA veteran trained in animal husbandry who spent much of his career in the agency's Center for Veterinary Medicine, Alderson quickly became the subject of active and largely negative comment on the Internet and elsewhere.

The Office of Women's Health serves as a liaison with women's health groups and as an advocate on women's issues; critics said that a man with a primarily veterinary background could not properly fill the role.

Too funny that they were caught doing this, and backtracked. Can't fault 'em for trying.

Too Funny

Now that Mike Brown has been ousted, Bush's nominees are facing more scrutiny.

Checkout the qualifications, or lack of, for his latest nominee.

Apparently, marrying the right people, and being the daughter of a General is all you need these days.

Remember, this is the party that doesn't like to use government to give people jobs. Unless that job is for one of their friends, and wields a lot of influence.

So we have Colin Powell's son, Scalia's son, Richard Myers' daughter, Tom Delay's daughter, and countless others getting ahead on your dimes.

And Behind It All

Tom Delay and Grover Norquist.

These two men are the defacto leaders of the Republican Party, and you couldn't find two bigger crooks if you looked in a prison.

BushClintonKatrinaFundThingMajiggy

I saw President Bush on ESPN tonight discussing the Bush/Katrina Fund, and something just jumped out at me. Bush, and Clinton, and the current Bush, and everyone else, keep saying "The American people are so generous...we've received millions of dollars and more keeps going in..." Where's this money coming from?

How come the American public has rallied and given so much to Tsunami victims in Asia, and those who have lost much across the south? Is it because we're so giving? Is that it? Is it because we're only giving in the face of tragedy? Is that it? Do we have to be jolted into speechlessness before we reach into our pockets and give away money? I think that's it!

People are starving in this country every day, and yet we're told "We won't raise taxes..." We're fighting wars and we're told, "We won't raise taxes..." We get hit by a brutal storm and yet, "We won't raise taxes..." Why? Because taxes are bad, right? Taxes stifle the American economy from taking off. Yet, I'm told the American economy is doing just fine, even with high gas/oil prices, and yet people are giving away all of this money. If you ask the Republicans the economy is either "on the right track" or "recovering from a disaster." There's no middle, and no other response.

So here we are, giving away money that we seemingly have to give away, yet it cannot be done through taxes. That's the government dictating how we spend our money, right? That'd be wrong. Yet the government is supposed to spend money in order to avert disasters. Whether it be suring up levees, funding a competent FEMA, or educating people so they can rise out of poverty, the government's job is to do the best job possible. Their job is to spend taxpayer dollars, and focus on things that you and I are not able to accomplish, or don't understand. We may want to keep our money, but do you want to deliver my mail? Do you know how? We pay taxes for that.

Yet Bush seems to staff his government with incompetent people who cannot spend your money wisely, and will certainly fail at doing so. Taxes cannot be raised, right? We have all of this money pouring in to BushClinton, yet Americans are spread thin, right? So where's it coming from? Is it coming from the richest people who now want to spend money on recovery, but won't be taxed into spending money on things like job training, education, and health, which would certainly limit the damage caused by catastrophes like this?

YES! THAT'S WHERE IT COMES FROM!

All the Republicans who are so giving in this time are so proud of themselves for doing so. I'm sure they let all their friends know just how much they gave. That's what it's all about: giving, and letting others know you did. It's like the red, white and blue ribbon of stupidity.

We have a group of people running the government telling me that government is incompetent all the while making it incompetent. Telling you that Washington is wasting your money, while they waste your money. Then a disaster comes, and everyone gives money they supposedly don't have (it needs to be spent on small business, and the family farm). What gives?

There are just so many questions!!! Who can answer them all?

I'll tell you one person who definitely can't.

Americans need to wake up and realize you don't just live for today. Every politician speaks about the future, and the children, and growth, and blah blah blah. But only one of the two parties partially gives a shit, and the other not at all.

People will spend money on helping people if they know money is being spent correctly. People needed to be awakened to the reality of how much they've truly been "taxed" this year, and how yet we're still surviving! After high oil, tsunamis, enormous budgets, and hurricanes, we're still getting by. How is that possible? You are being taxed emotionally and in the wallet.

I am fully aware people rest easier, and smile larger after they choose to give money, and that paying taxes is something they abhor. Filling them in that it's the same difference, and that paying taxes can help avoid disasters is something that not only the opinion media needs to do, but the REAL MEDIA.

The REAL MEDIA needs to show what goes on in the inner cities. The REAL MEDIA needs to discuss REAL PROBLEMS. Maybe if people saw on their TV sets every day, the suffering that goes on in this country, they'd be more willing to give, whether in the form of taxes or charity. They wouldn't need a disaster. If they saw body bags, maybe they wouldn't vote for war as well...

Right now we have a jackass president who won't discuss raising taxes to fund the disasters. Borrowing is bottomless. The same jackass who talks about racism as if people like him, and his friends, aren't the reason racism thrives. The guy who underfunds education so people are too poor to grow out of shacks. The guy who fights against affirmative action so these people who Barbara Bush thinks that "things are working out very well" for can thrive in the future.

All this country truly lacks is leadership. In place we have a bunch of fucking clowns. Someone needs to start telling people how it is.

So This Morning

I was in the shower rubbing myself down with some handmade soap my daughter bought me. The stuff is nice! Makes me smell really good, I'm told. Anyway, I put the soap between my legs and you wouldn't believe what I found: MY BALLS!

A strange thing happened to another guy in a very similar way.

Hmmm

Wonder why Mike Brown was hired to run FEMA in the first place? You shouldn't. He had the things the Bush Folk have learned to love: loyalty, no qualifications, no mind of his own.

Think about it, here's a guy who hasn't really accomplished much in his life, and like Bush, what he has done has resulted in failure. PERFECT! Less than Bush, that's what he wants. Someone less than himself. Someone he might be smarter than.

Thank Paul O'Neil for Mike Brown being hired. O'Neil, with his capitalist desires to make money selling a book (even though, like the Jews, has 3/4 of the world's money supply), has a mind of his own. John Dilulio has a mind of his own. Lawrence Lindsay has a mind of his own. General Shinseki has a mind of his own. William Donaldson has a mind of his own. Of course, Christine Whitman tried as well. This whole "mind of his/her own" thing really wasn't working for them. All these people were replaced by hacks and yes men. They were willing to give people a shot, hoping they were as retarded as themselves, but it didn't work out. Now everyone who is hired is a hack who has little to say, and little clue (outside of John Snow, who has a clue, but is still a hack).

Because people chose to think on their own others who didn't, or couldn't, had to be hired.

Don Rumsfeld is a strange one when it comes to all this. Clearly smarter than all these assholes, he was kept off the stage for a year before the election. Rumsfeld has balls, and ability, plus he isn't the liar the rest of them are. But Democrats wanted him fired so badly the Bush team would never do it. Had Rumsfeld's head never been asked for by Democrats he actually would have been fired, which is the irony.

The guy who is really the biggest wrench of all the tools is Transportation Secretary Norman Minetta. This guy was the one Democrat they gave a job to, thinking Transportation wouldn't matter at all. Well, it matters, and security lapses have everything to do with transportation matters, as well as the HUGE spending bill for Transportation Congress passed.

Where was Mr. Minetta during all of this? He's involved in cabinet meetings, what does he have to say? Has he become one of them? Google this guy and you get nothing! But better than nothing is what does come up (I know, doesn't make sense, but you get the point):

Thousands of people across the country gathered to pray Friday for the victims of Hurricane Katrina as part of a national day of prayer.

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta marked the occasion by attending a prayer service in Franklin, then joining Tennessee Representative Marsha Blackburn to meet with evacuees at the Red Cross shelter in Williamson County.

Speak, guy, SPEAK! Are you telling me this guy hasn't been able to say anything about what has gone on the last 5 years? Maybe he thinks he can do more on the inside than he could on the outside. Who knows? All I do know is I haven't heard shit about this guy for 5 years, and transportation has been a huge issue.

In the end, head nodders and yes men, that's what they want. Because people spoke out against the President the new hirees were/are incompetent jackasses.

Fun country.

Nice Call

The season is still young, and it's not out of the question the Minnesota Viking can turn it around, but it don't look too good.

Check out the ESPN "Experts" picks.

I barred my teammate Chief from drafting Culpepper in Fantasy Ball...

Can I Use My One Pass Miles?

To upgrade to NYTIMES "Times Select?"

The "time" has come and from now on you'll have to pay in order to read the best columns in the New York Times. I guess that's how it used to work when people bought the paper, but I think the internet has opened up many more people to the best writers around such as Rich and Krugman. Not anymore.

Now you'll be able to read the news, but not the columns. This, as Andrew Sullivan noted months ago, will limit the audience the columnists are speaking to.

An unfortunate situation.

Totals

That's what matters these days when you want to shift the scope of the Iraq War from actual successes to "body counts."

Using enemy body counts as a benchmark, the U.S. military claimed gains against Abu Musab Zarqawi's foreign-led fighters last week even as they mounted their deadliest attacks on Iraq's capital.

But by many standards, including increasingly high death tolls in insurgent strikes, Zarqawi's group, al Qaeda in Iraq, could claim to be the side that's gaining after 2 1/2 years of war. August was the third-deadliest month of the war for U.S. troops.

I remember another war in which the US defeated the enemy 58,000 to 1.1 million. We called it Vietnam.

Holes in Coles

Crazy shit:

New York Jets wide receiver Laveranues Coles is a survivor of sexual abuse.

In a profile in Sunday editions of The New York Times, Coles said he was molested between the ages of 10 and 13 by a man his mother later married.

I remember when Coles first came into the league and both fans and media were giving him a hard time for being a "bad seed." Of course, never thinking a kid like this may have grown up with problems. Everyone is quick to judge, like they are for every black athlete who has a problem.

They treated Terry Glenn the same way, and countless others.

Glenn, 22, had no choice but to become tough before his time. When he was 13, his mother, Denetta, was murdered near his home in Columbus, Ohio. He never knew his father. As a teenager, he was raised by Charles and Mary Henley, the parents of one of his best friends. They eventually became Glenn's guardians.

Remember?

Before 9/11, Iraqistan, the bad economy, extremely high gas prices, tax cuts for the wealthiest, underfunding of education, two Supreme Court vacancies, before ALL OF IT, they were already lying.

They didn't even have to. They just were.

The good 'ole days.

Hey, C'mon...

The President said we're going to fix this thing without raising taxes, like in Iraq. Cuts have to come from somewhere!

Louisiana officials on Saturday said a $2.6 billion aid package for schools affected by Hurricane Katrina does not appear to include salaries for displaced teachers, one of the state's primary educational requests.

Officials of the restructuring firm that runs the New Orleans school system have said they are out of money to pay teachers for any periods after Katrina. Cecil Picard, the state superintendent of public instruction, said this week he would seek $2.4 billion for teacher salaries and benefits alone.

But state officials said the $2.6 billion package from the U.S. Department of Education will largely go to functioning school districts that have received displaced students.

"Picard did express concern that as he interprets the proposal it does not currently include money for displaced teacher salaries," the state said.

Officials from the Education Department in Washington could not immediately be reached for comment.

And that's because they're a large bureaucracy where no one does anything, including the answering of questions.

Again, Jokes Become Reality

As is the case here.

 

Back Where We Started

Except now North Korea has 8-9 missiles; not 1-2.

I think it's great a Bush Administration can differentiate between the Clinton Framework for North Korea and the Bush by saying this:

The administration official emphasized that the new accord does not repeat what he viewed as the main mistake of the Agreed Framework because it does not focus on "freezing" the North's nuclear program but makes abandonment of the program the benchmark for progress. "We were very careful not to get caught up in the notion of a freeze," he said.

Way to go, boys. Way to not get caught up in the language. Unfortunately, most of the difficult aspects of this supposed agreement have yet to be ironed out, and the DPRK will be allowed to work on a light-water nuclear reactor in the future, which can create material to make weapons, although it does take a longer time to do so.

This agreement was made solely so the Bush Administration could accomplish something, if you can even call it that. It is basically the same deal Clinton had in 1994 that every conservative has criticized, except this time they let China take the lead. That's right, the Chinese government now puts together peace-seeking treaties in the new millenium.

Whether this works, or not, I have no idea. This SAME plan didn't work in 1994 because the N. Koreans cheated. Why they won't cheat again is beyond me. The only real issue I have is how do we even know if the N. Koreans do fully disclose what weapons they have? When this whole thing started they may have 1-2, and now they have 8-9. How do we know if they'll even give up all their weapons if we can't verify what they actually have? Do you not think they've been building storage units, and moving these things over the last 4 years? I would assume they're doing just that.

So the Bush White House talks tough for years, allows DPRK to build more weapons, adds them to the "Axis of Evil", while complaining about Clinton's failed attempts only to implement a near identical agreement without ironing out the larger points and many details as well.

Bush diplomacy at work. Love the hypocrisy almost as much as the stupidity.

I think this is really the only way to go with DPRK, but it was also the only way to go 4 years ago. Allowing them to build weapons, and wasting time with the tough guy talk has gotten us NOWHERE. Nice work.

That's Nice

I wait for the Republicans to attack the Iraqi Prime Minister the way they have Kofi Annan:

One billion dollars has been plundered from Iraq's defence ministry in one of the largest thefts in history, The Independent can reveal, leaving the country's army to fight a savage insurgency with museum-piece weapons.

The money, intended to train and equip an Iraqi army capable of bringing security to a country shattered by the US-led invasion and prolonged rebellion, was instead siphoned abroad in cash and has disappeared.

"It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history," Ali Allawi, Iraq's Finance Minister, told The Independent.

"Huge amounts of money have disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal."

The carefully planned theft has so weakened the army that it cannot hold Baghdad against insurgent attack without American military support, Iraqi officials say, making it difficult for the US to withdraw its 135,000- strong army from Iraq, as Washington says it wishes to do.

Don't fret, people. I think this money was stolen by philanthropic Iraqis who plan on giving the money to those affected by Hurricane Katrina.

The Future

Get used to hearing more and more about this.

People can claim it won't be as big an issue as some suspect, but come on, we're talking about a Republican led government here. It'll be worse.