You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to try to sneak something
past VeeJay. VeeJay keeps them coming...
VeeJay says, "This NYT article has something for just about anyone to chew on."
We're Not Happy Campers
September 11, 2003, by Maureen Dowd
The religion with the tightest mental straitjacket of all of the religions...
"The Saudi religious police are harassing Barbie. The Commission for the
Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is warning that the "Jewish" dolls -
banned in Saudi Arabia for a decade - are a threat to Islam." "The place so eager
to protect itself from 'Jewish' toys and 'the perverted West,' the breeding ground
of the 9/11 hijackers, is still the Bush administration's close ally."
In your face and on your backs?
"Asked at the press club why our intelligence analysts did not predict the extent
of Iraq's decayed infrastructure, Rummy said dismissively, 'They were worrying
about more important things.' Yeah, like how to get Dick Cheney off their backs."
Dorky Democrats?
"Democrats are combing through the $20 billion part of the White House request
involving rebuilding Iraq, trying to make sure there isn't any Halliburton hanky-panky."
President Bush? You'd be relieved to find out that...
"the president has done his level best"
Iraq and Artificial Duckies?
"And now they're hoist on their own canard."
Remember the Beatles, Can't Buy Me Love? "Money can't
buy everything it's true, but what it can't buy, I can't use. I want money,
yeah, that's what I want."
"Testifying before the Senate on Tuesday on the $87 billion request, Paul
Wolfowitz, the Pentagon official who pushed so hard to own Iraq and control it,
said, 'We have no desire to own this problem or to control it.' There may not be
much choice, given Colin Powell's pessimistic warning to Congress yesterday that
no allies want to help us pick up the tab for rebuilding a country full of people
who revile us."
What does it all mean?
"I never thought I'd say this, but watching Dan Quayle's marble bust, unveiled
yesterday at the Capitol - soon to join John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Spiro
Agnew - I was nostalgic for the days when Murphy Brown's baby amounted to a
serious mess."
New York Times article ( reg required)
And Berlusconi?
Berlusconi just keeps coming at you ...
Berlusconi Backs Off Mussolini Quote, AP
"Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was quoted Thursday as saying that Fascist
dictator Benito Mussolini never killed anyone and only sent people away on vacations
in internal exile, a claim that distressed Jewish leaders. The premier explained later
Thursday that he had not intended to re-evaluate Mussolini's place in history, and had
only been responding to a comparison between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Mussolini's
Italy made by his interviewer."
More on the story ..
Italy's Berlusconi has no apologies for being "politically incorrect"
AFP, September 9, 2003
Story ...
 
"Keep your hands off my money!"
Bush signed into the Federal Register, Executive
Order 13303, May 28, 2003. Executive Order 13303 states:
"I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that the
threat of attachment or other judicial process against the Development Fund for
Iraq, Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein, and proceeds,
obligations, or any financial instruments of any nature whatsoever arising from
or related to the sale or marketing thereof, and interests therein, obstructs the
orderly reconstruction of Iraq..."
Vee Jay says 45; Bush's Oil
Build a bridge which everyone knows couldn't cost more than $3,000,000; pad costs to $50,000,000; pocket the difference. Hey, you spoil-sports, what's wrong with a little Yankee ingenuity?
Executive Order 13303 made the following ruling inevitable... Judge Denies Iraq Funds for 9/11 Victims
"A judge ruled Thursday that families of Sept. 11 victims cannot tap into Iraqi funds frozen by the United States at the start of the first Gulf War"
"U.S. District Judge Harold Baer issued the decision after family members sought to freeze some of the $1.7 billion in funds, which the Bush administration has already started to use to help pay for Iraq's revival, to satisfy an earlier court ruling saying Iraq owed the families $63.5 million. "
Story ...
No Ethics? No Experience? No Problem!
by Ted Rall, August 21, 2003
"WorldCom Inc., recently and hilariously accused of rerouting phone calls to avoid paying connection fees to other phone companies (who was running the joint, frat dudes?), ranks with Enron in the annals of modern corporate debauchery. After an $11 billion accounting scandal sunk the infamous telecommunications conglomerate into bankruptcy, the U.S. General Services Administration banned federal agencies from doing business with WorldCom. So how is a proscribed 'company that has demonstrated a flagrant lack of ethics'--the words belong to Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), chairperson of the Senate's Governmental Affairs Committee--poised to land a $900 million Pentagon contract to build a cell phone system for occupied Iraq?
'I was curious about it, because the last time I looked, MCI has never built out a wireless network,' comments Len Lauer of Sprint.
Indeed, WorldCom's MCI division never figured out how to build a cell network in the U.S., and ultimately gave up trying."
Story ...
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