Why do we always have the bad luck? Some guy chucked a grenade at Bush, and missed! Furthermore, it didn’t even go off — which is good, since it landed in a crowd of innocent people – a category W certainly doesn’t belong in.

I guess the way to put a positive spin on this is that at least we don’t have Cheney as prez…

Michael Moore points out on his site the glaring omission of coverage on a leaked British memo from July 23, 2002 – prior to the Iraq war. The memo details how:

Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

I mean, we already know he’s a sonofabitch liar (and moron); it’s just that Americans have also been too thick-headed to see it. Although maybe some folks are finally coming around.

Another interesting piece from the memo:

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

How can this not be on the front page of every paper??! Why do we protect this criminal? Why isn’t Congress calling for his resignation? Boy, I’d love to see that idiot Bush at the Hague on trial for war crimes. If he isn’t guilty of treason, I don’t know who is. Execution is the punishment for treason. How fitting that would be! How many lives (U.S., Iraqi, British, Australian, you name it) has he cost?

trea·son 1 : the betrayal of a trust : TREACHERY
from Merriam-Webster

Update 5-12-2005
Further article on this in the LA Times (registration may be required).

Turn in your classmates for $$$! What a great idea! Of course, the Nazis came up with it first; except that they let you turn in your parents (actually, to be fair, I found that this commonly-held view of the Hitlerjugend is most likely false – see this interesting treatise). Maybe instead we could work on addressing the societal roots that cause guns to end up in school: culture of violence, easy access to firearms, socioeconomic imbalances, ethnic prejudice, etc. Nah, why do that? Sounds like another one of those namby-pamby liberal crackpot ideas to me…

Here’s some good satire on Tom DeLay. Of course, it’s so true that your laugh may be somewhat uneasy. Here’s one sure way to find out if there is a God: thumbs up if DeLay gets bounced out of Washington. Wait a minute; I retract that statement. God wouldn’t waste her time on such a worthless piece of drek as DeLay. Wait; now I retract that. God really should be on the prowl to rescue the greatest sinners, and “Little Satan” DeLay certainly qualifies as one of them. Maybe we just shouldn’t tie the existence/non-existence of God to anything to do with DeLay…

Great story about some people that recognize that people are people the world over. Some soldiers in the North Dakota National Guard are trying to bring an Iraqi family back to the U.S. to protect them from retribution. The father of the family was killed by insurgents for his role in helping the soldiers find and remove roadside bombs in Iraq.

Great article on how the radical right wants to eliminate all that pesky free-thinking by weeding out so-called “liberal” professors. Maybe there is a such a preponderance of liberals in academia just because they’re….smart?

Check this article out when you’ve got some time. Incredibly detailed (and depressing) account of the Bush — “Sieg Heil!” — policy of “extraordinary rendition”, which is just a euphemism for state-sponsored kidnapping, torture, and elimination of legal process.

You may have heard some about it before, but this account is extremely well researched and documented.

If you had any lingering doubts about why why the privatization of Social Security is ba-a-a-a-a-a-ad, this article on the “corporatizing” of government ought to set you straight.