Hear No Evil Crisco-head Ashcroft, our country's sorry excuse for an Attorney General, testified yesterday that 9/11 was all Clinton's fault: "We did not know an attack was coming because for nearly a decade our government had blinded itself to its enemies," he said. "Our agents were isolated by government-imposed walls, handcuffed by government-imposed restrictions and starved for basic information technology." But former acting FBI Director Thomas Pickard testified that, au contraire, Ashcroft actually ordered the FBI to stop providing him with briefings on terrorism in the summer of 2001. Even after the August 6 memo saying that Bin Laden was determined to strike US targets, Ashcroft refused to meet with Pickard about it. Good one!
Will the '70s Revival Never End? Let's see: We've got worldwide terrorism, hostages in the Middle East, rising gas prices, a born-again Christian in the White House, Yankee dominance in the American League, and now, according to this article, rapidly rising inflation. I can't wait for the VH1 special "I Love the Return of All the Bad Shit from the Seventies."
Democracy: We Deliver At least 83 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq so far this month (a quick glance at your Dilbert calendar will tell you that it's only the 14th), along with two missing and about 560 wounded. I remember reading one of John Yates' books years ago and seeing the graphic of the flag-draped coffins returning home (the same graphic, I think, that Husker Du put on the "Land Speed Record" album cover). I remember thinking at the time (this was 10+ years ago) that such scenes were unlikely to ever happen again in America, that the graphic was just a relic of Vietnam-era politics. Another illusion dispelled:
How Could Cracks Appear in this Carefully-Constructed Coalition? First Spain announces it will pull its troops out of Iraq, then Poland says it will leave early, and now the Philippines is thinking about leaving early, what with all the kiling and so forth. Eventually, it's just going to be the three staunchest nations in the coalition: the U.S., Britain, and Halliburton.
Damn It! I just filed my federal taxes yesterday, with a measly refund of $285, which is almost wiped out by the taxes I owe the state. How about President Bush, with a yearly annual income of over $800,000? Well, the tax cut legislation he signed last year saved him more than $31,000 in taxes, or more than my entire gross salary. That makes me so angry I want to post a juvenile photo of him where it looks like he's fucking a small dog.
There. I feel much better now.
-Consider Arms
