(no subject)

This should be required reading:
The United States of America has gone mad by John le Carré.

It's embarrassing to be from the US these days (again). Funny, for a while there in the 90's, it wasn't so bad. Now we're back to crap like this from the current administration: How can we sneak in martial law without too much protest? How do we twist everything so that people believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the WTC, since we weren't able to find Osama bin Laden? How do we twist it so that people start thinking that buying pot (that bought in the US being usually US-grown) supports Middle Eastern Terrorists? How much does it cost to have CNN be our propaganda arm? How can we cover up Halliburton and Brown Brothers Harriman, and all our connections to oil, plus the Enron mess? How can we distract from the highest unemployment numbers in decades- will it help if we stop funding for the group that tracks mass layoffs, or if we just say everyone who's laid off is lazy and just trying for a free ride? Maybe if we claim the economy is recovering, people won't notice all the companies closing, the lack of jobs, etc. Maybe if we give the rich shitloads of money they'll help us try to convince the idiots out there that things are getting better.


(Now I'm all pissed off, and I've got a lunch meeting today. Grr.)

Dumb and Dumber ride again

From a press briefing last week by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, who announced that President Bush would visit American soldiers wounded in Afghanistan:

Q Ari, as the president heads over to the hospital to visit these wounded soldiers, what is the status of one of the big reasons they were sent to Afghanistan in the first place, the search for Osama bin Laden?

A. Well, actually, if you take a look at what the president said on Oct. 6 or Oct. 7 when the United States defended itself against the attack that took place on Sept. 11, I don't think the president said that one of the reasons we're going over there is to get or to find Osama bin Laden. He said we were going over there to protect the United States from the people who perpetrated this crime against us.


From a question-and-answer session President Bush held at the Pentagon on Sept. 17, 2001:

Q.Do you want Bin Laden dead?

A.I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said: "Wanted: Dead or Alive."