TODAY'S TOP FIVE: Stop Your Fooling Around.
The Pacification of Iraq, Armstrong Williams-Style Apparently, the government bribing reporters isn't just for the USA anymore: Iraqi leader Iyad Allawi's government has been giving an exciting new meaning to "hospitality" by handing out $100 bills to journalists while campaigning in the run-up to the elections at the end of the month. $100, incidentally, is the equivalent of about half the average monthly salary in Iraq. Think there'll be some hard-hitting coverage of the issues?
If Adolf Hitler Flew In Today... Prince Harry of Britain, the Goofus to his brother William's Gallant, has landed in what may be his biggest P.R. blunder to date: He was photographed at a "fancy dress party" in a Nazi costume. Although frankly, as the photograph included with this story shows, it's a pretty poor Nazi costume: the armband is all wrong, the shirt is untucked, and he's wearing baggy khakis. He looks less like a stormtrooper and more like one of those unemployed, shifty dudes who used to hang out with George Lincoln Rockwell.
All The Truth In the World Adds Up to One Big Lie Almost two years after the U.S. and Britain launched an illegal invasion to disarm Saddam Hussein of his chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons, the effort to prove that he had any such weapons has ended with a whimper. Last month, the final members of the Iraq Survey Group quietly left the country; there are no more Americans searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In other words, the entire reasoning behind the war was based on demonstrably false premises. Compare it to your favorite phony justification - the Maine explosion, Gulf of Tonkin incident, Polish soldiers shooting Germans - and the end result is still: In seven days, George Bush will be sworn into a second term as president. Fuck.
How The Party of Small Government Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Big Brother Remember the halcyon days of the Clinton administration, when Republican whackos were also banging on about black helicopters, jackbooted federal thugs, and the unlawful encroachment on our privacy by the surveillance state? Man, those were the days! Today, Republicans have apparently learned that there are some benefits to being Big Brother, as witnessed by Tom Ridge's latest proposal: He wants all passports to include fingerprints in a digital chip that will also have other personal information about you.
A Newfound Respect for Mel Gibson As one of the approximately nine Americans who enjoyed both "The Passion of the Christ" and "Fahrenheith 9/11," I am pleased to note that our ranks have been swelled by the addition of a new member: Mel Gibson. I always suspected he wasn't on board with a lot of conservative stuff when he ridiculed the lack of WMD on the Hannity show, and now he's praised "Fahrenheit 9/11" and says he feels a kinship with Michael Moore. You have to follow the link to the Free Republic message board; the wingnuts there don't know what to make of it, and electronically cry tears of frustration and betrayal. Choice.
-Consider Arms, relieved that The Sikh Geek has made it to Hollyweird safe and sound
