I ran across this article by Greg Palast. I found it at smirkingchimp.com.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/

just parking this link here for future use. Feel free to use it yourself

http://www.slate.com/id/2115879/

I filed for divorce.

http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2005/01/yahoo-message-board-post-u.html

Atrios is rightly freaked out by these two paragraphs from the Washington Post

Instead the administration plans to push major amendments that would shield interest, dividends and capitals gains from taxation, expand tax breaks for business investment and take other steps intended to simplify the system and encourage economic growth, according to several people who are advising the White House or are familiar with the deliberations.

The changes are meant to be revenue-neutral. To pay for them, the administration is considering eliminating the deduction of state and local taxes on federal income tax returns and scrapping the business tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance, the advisers said.

And people think that Boondocks kid is overstating the problem...

From talkingpointsmemo.com:

On every significant point of conflict between the Bush administration and the country's cadre of intelligence professionals, the Bush political appointees turned out to be wrong. Often very wrong, and with disastrous consequences. Sometimes the intel folks were wrong too; but when that was so, the appointees were always more wrong.

This is not argumentative or hyperbole or even up for much serious dispute.

And the upshot of all that we've seen, the result of all those struggles over the last three years is that the 'appointees' are purging the 'professionals'. Another way to put it is that the folks who were always wrong and often catastrophically wrong are rooting out the folks who were often right and sometimes somewhat wrong. The answer to politicized intelligence, it turns out, is a more thorough politicization of intelligence and the elimination of those who resisted political pressure.

If you think this is just a Washington squabble or political debating point you'd be mistaken. Because your lives, and those of your families and friends, may very well be on the line.

http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/home.html

submit your pictures to:
www.sorryeverybody.com

from the LA-Times: Dear rural/exurban Christian conservative voters: Congratulations on your election victory. By going to the polls in unprecedented numbers Tuesday, you overwhelmed an enormous Democratic turnout and returned President Bush to office, along with a number of very conservative senators. Now Bush is preparing to repay your efforts by moving immediately on your highest priorities: a flat tax and privatizing Social Security.

Oh, wait. You didn't particularly hanker for those things, did you?

Iraqis piled high-grade material from a key site into trucks in the weeks after Baghdad fell, four U.S. reservists and guardsmen say. LA-Times

Not sure if you've heard about this whole caging business, but here's a little story that sums up what was happening, and, ruh roh, the unholy fire that's going to rain down on all the Republican rubes who tried to pull this crap. Jail time, baby!

From the Broward Count Sun-Sentinel:

Hoping to avoid another presidential election fiasco, Broward County officials scrambled Wednesday to replace tens of thousands of missing absentee ballots, cut long waits for early voting and beef up a phone system deluged with calls from angry voters.

So, did anyone else catch the website mention Cheney gave in last night's debate? In an effort to back up what he was saying, he directed people to FactCheck.com. It appears that he meant to say FactCheck.org. Funny! The guy can't even get his facts right when he's trying to prove that he's got his facts right.

A humorous side note, the GOP held a "conference call" with Ken Mehlman in which campaign "Team Leaders" call in to be told what to think and get their talking points for the debate. Atrios, bless his heart, posted the number and the password to be accepted to the conference call. I got in without a problem and, after enduring ten minutes of painful smooth jazz, got to hear firsthand how the Bush campaign was going to spin [the debate].

And then, DOH, they openned the line up for questions...

By way of First Draft, excerpts from an e-mail from a foreign correspondent in Iraq:

Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are things?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad."

What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now stopped disclosing them.

Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.

A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=1833