"MEANWHILE, IN IRAQ..."

I remember Doonesbury, last fall, having a strip described as being set a year in the future, talking about unrest in the streets of occupied Baghdad, attacks by pockets of Iraqi militants on Americans, and an inability to locate a hiding Saddam Hussein. The idea being, of course, that occupied Iraq would probably end up looking something like occupied Afganistan.

Of course, this can't help but inspire comparisons either:

(CNN) -- The United States is offering a $25 million reward for information that either leads to the capture of Saddam Hussein or confirms that the former Iraqi leader is dead, U.S. officials announced Thursday.

The unavoidable thought is this: The Bush administration, as well as Iraq hawks here and abroad, have repeatedly asserted that Saddam was in league with, and had close ties to Al Qaeda. Thus, by Bushie logic, shouldn't there be people out there with information about both guys, and thus a possible $50 million jackpot in their future??? Talk about shaking hands with Ken Lay...

If Bush "brings us on" to Iran, Syria, DPRK, etc, expect myself and others to make future use of that "Meanwhile, in Iraq" headline.

Of course, maybe aWol has a better plan for bringing wealth to the Iraqi people:



Heh.

Damn, I need to stop "Heh"ing.

"REFORMER WITH RESULTS!"

Bush to Iraqi militants: "Bring them on"

"There are some who feel like that conditions are such that they can attack us there," Bush told reporters at the White House. "My answer is: Bring them on. We have the force necessary to deal with the situation."

Iraqi militants to Bush: "You bet your ass!"

BAGHDAD, Iraq -— An Army truck hit an explosive west of Baghdad on Thursday, injuring six U.S. soldiers, and attackers ambushed patrols in the capital, wounding three other Americans. The violence also left two Iraqis dead and several wounded, including a 6-year-old.

In Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad, an explosion went off during a demonstration by Iraqis angry over the U.S. military’s detention of the town’s top Shiite cleric. One person was killed and several wounded.

The violence comes a day after President Bush vowed that anti-American attacks would not keep the United States from fulfilling its mission in Iraq. American troops have been targeted daily in the past weeks by ambushes and hit-and-run attacks, blamed on Saddam Hussein loyalists and others.

You know, between Jeneane Garofalo, Sean Penn and the Dixie Chicks, I don't remember any of them ever inviting people to kill Americans.

Why does George W Bush hate Americans so much?

But Dubya certainly is the CEO President; he asked for something, and he gets it.

(of course, it would help if, along with his "bring them on" statement, bush told us exactly which station in Basra or Baghdad he'll be manning, but hey, what can ya do)

Life imitates The Simpsons . . . again

TRY AGAIN, HOMOPHOBE

Hey, the Horse is back!

In its first issue back from vacation, MWO reprints some comments from a thread at one of the lowest bile-zones on the right, lucianne.com (recommended by kausfiles, and thus, by slate, and thus, by microsoft), responding to an article called "Homosexuals Deserve Dignity".

What do we find?

Well, there's this.

Reply 3 - Posted by: mamamoose, 6/29/2003 2:11:56 PM

Who said so? They might have sort of won some ground in Court, but that does not mean they deserve dignity. I have never seen a dignified fag.

...and this...

Reply 9 - Posted by: zzen01, 6/29/2003 2:35:16 PM

I'll give 'em respect at the end of my .357!

...both of which sound about par for the course for the denizens of Lucianne and Free Republic.

Then there's this nitwit...

Reply 13 - Posted by: web, 6/29/2003 2:42:46 PM

...If homosexuality is so "normal" then tell me, what would be the result of a little experiment? Place 100 "gay" men on an island, and come back in a hundred years, sort of like what happened to Fletcher Christian and his followers on Pitcairn Island. Would there be any survivors of your "normal" lifestyle to carry on your society? ... not unless you can inseminate feces.

Homosexuality is anti-life.

Not that any of these people are worth engaging intellectually, but I must: "web", if you put 100 straight men on an island, you'd come up with the exact same result. Is heterosexuality anti-life too?

Sigh.

Roger Ailes -- the good one -- gives us this hilarious exchange from Hardball between Screamer Matthews and gun-rights advocate John Lott, on the idea of teachers taking guns to class with them:

[CHRIS] MATTHEWS: It could happen-teacher is at the blackboard chalking up some math lesson, kid runs up real fast, grabs it out of her drawer, he knows it’s there.

[JOHN] LOTT: It’s not going to be in her drawer.

MATTHEWS: Where would it be?

LOTT: It would be on her in some way.

LEAR: How does a teacher in a summer dress carry a gun on her?

LOTT: You can carry it inside your thigh. There’s lot of places you can carry it where somebody is not going to see where it is.

Hmm...


("I was just wondering
where you hide your firearm")

MY FAVORITE PART IS THAT YOU'RE PAYING FOR IT

(found this via tbogg, who has a lot of good stuff up)

Tom and Ray, aka Click and Clack of NPR's "Car Talk", have given us something timely, special and relevant:

The top ten gay & lesbian cars.

There are two lists, one for each gender. And TFM is all over the place here. I drive Lesbian #9 (in fact, i think that's my model and color in the pic). My mother drives one, too. But it gets better. My sister drives Gay #1, and Laurie's father drives Lesbian #1. Wow!

See if your wheels made the lists!

I wonder if Mr Scalia's car got on there. I think he just entered the so-called homosexual automobile.

Heh.

Sometimes Doonesbury makes the leap from antiquated to not antiquated.

COMMENCE POUNDING OF HEAD ON THE TABLE

No one ever went broke misunderestimating the intelligence of the American people.

WASHINGTON - Seven in 10 people in a poll say the Bush administration implied that Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States.

Okay, we're doing alright so far...

And a majority, 52 percent, say they believe the United States has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam was working closely with the al-Qaida terrorist organization.

pound! pound! pound!

Actually, just about all of the other numbers in the UM poll are much less upsetting -- the percentage of Americans who think we've found WMD has dropped by one third, and 64% of Americans think the UN should have a bigger role in post-war Iraq. (60+ post-USS Lincoln casualties will do that)

Nevertheless, the fact that more than half of Americans believe that something objectively false is true is distressing. The media, and heck, the government are not doing their job on this one. The issue of Saddam's 9/11 or Al Qaeda connections is not an issue of conservative vs liberal, but of accurate vs inaccurate. The illusion of a connection is the only thing (short of the unlikely emergence of an Iraqi Thomas Jefferson) that's holding Dubya's house of cards together on this one. It supports the atmosphere of fear, which is really the only objective difference between W's reelection chances and those of his father. But if it falls, he falls. Still, a happy ending in Iraq doesn't appear to be anywhere in sight...

Steve at DailyKos has a very handy pocket guide for debating Iraq hawks.

THE LAST TEMPTATION OF MEL

Okay, Mel Gibson, I have only two words for you:

Battlefield Earth

That is all.