Quickies

The head of the UN is now warning of increasing civil war in Iraq. He wants other nations to come in and save the U.S.'s ass Iraqi's from failed U.S. policy. Even if you believe that the policy was a sound one, you have got to think by now that it was implemented poorly and ran by incompetents who were political cronies whose only qualifications were that they were Republican loyalists. Indeed, some of this gaming goes on under all White House governments, however the purge amongst the Bushtistas has been profound. Reagan, Clinton, Bush Sr., Carter, even Nixon let members of the opposing party maintain high level positions if they were highly qualified for that position. The Bushtistas on the other hand have created an affirmative action program for wealthy contributors that pits loyalty over quality. This shouldn't come as a surprise since they oppose the Estate tax which only benefits less than .2% of families and which taxes the unearned wealth of rich children.

Love this headline from The Independent: First drugs, then terror: now U.S. in 'war with spinach'. It's a funny take in the current food crisis, but some people have seriously suggested that the bacteria were planted by terrorists and the government has had to spend resources debunking this myth. It also reminds us of the so-called drug war and today Congress is set to take up some of the craziest bills proposed yet in that war. Amongst the offerings? Warrentless searches, including strip searches of students. No evidence necessary! Also in the front of that war, the government has begun posting their worthless, $1.2 billion of anti-drug PSAs on YouTube. Commence the remixes, folks.

Bush is blocking the campaign to put pressure on Darfur. As manager of the U.S. efforts, Bush has nominated the man who, as the head of U.S. AID, promised that the rebuilding of Iraq would cost no more than $1.7 billion. We're at $20 billion and counting. He's also the guy who ran the crumbling 'Big Dig' project in Boston. How much did he give to the Republican Party?