According to a Survey USA poll Bush's approval ratings are now below 50% in 21 of the 31 states that he carried in the 2004 election, and opinion was a dead even 49 to 49 in another.  And all 19 of the states that went for Kerry had a majority disapproving of Bush.

"In its Financial Risk Outlook 2006 survey, the regulator warns that a growing minority of consumers are risking financial ruin as a result of their burgeoning personal debts."

America? Nope.  The UK, according to Monsters & Critics in a late January news piece which includes the statement that, "The UK's leading financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), has warned that spiralling levels of consumer debt could destabilise the UK economy."

As reported by the Washington Post, Bush administration stonewalling and Republican senators' bootlicking/ass-covering may have put the kabosh on a thorough investigation into the administration's warrantless and thus illegal domestic spying program. As politics, this may turn out to be a success for the GOP. As governance, it's an unambiguous disaster for the republic.

A 2-16-06 piece in the NY Times announces "Outsourcing Is Climbing Skills Ladder."

They're talking about a recently completed study funded largely by the Kaufmann Foundation.

Proving that Iranians can be every bit as petty and simplistic as American politicians, an Iranian "confectioner's union" has decreed that there shall be no more "Danish pastries" in Iran.  No, in order to punish the Danes for the publication of the cartoons depicting Muhammad, the country's pastry lovers will instead have to request "Roses of the Prophet Muhammad."

More Abu Ghraib torture pictures have been published, in Australia, then republished in several places.

I've looked at the pictures. They make me wonder exactly why Senator Dick Durbin apologized a while back for saying that acts against prisoners at Guantanamo were the kind we associate with Nazis and other tyrannical regimes.

As the White House struggles to explain the mysterious delay in going public with the Dick Cheney shooting of Mr. Whittington, and to explain how an experienced hunter could mistake a large lawyer for a small quail, it's only natural that the press seek information from long time colleague Donald Rumsfeld.

As dishonorable as this administration is, it has been opposed by a steady stream of men and women--civilian and military--whose own sense of right and wrong put the members of the Bush administration to shame.  As in any environment where corruption and deception rule the day, most of these honorable people have paid a price for their ethics, ranging from loss of their job to smears of their reputation, to harassing litigation.

The Nation Institute's tomdispatch.com has a three part "memorial" to 200+ bureaucrats and government officials who have resigned, transferred, been forced out, or otherwise changed positions because of their opposition to the administration's policies.  

If you'd like to take a stroll through the mirror to find out what life is like in Republand, check out PUPPET POLITICS: VALUES EDITION on the Texas Republican Party web site.

The subtitle is "Democrats Shun History Lesson In Values And  Let Liberal Fringe Groups Pull Their Strings." The gist is that Democrats are mere puppets to the extreme wing of their party.  The implication is that the Republicans do not dance and sing at the behest of the far right.  Which would be funny if it wasn't so sick.

Last Sunday, 2-12-06, Howard Dean was one of two guests on Face the Nation.  For a man who gets a lot of smear from the right, and grief from Independents and some Democrats, he was making a lot of sense.

Among other things, he laid out a very reasonable five-point agenda for the Democrats, and put Ken Mehlman's recent attempt to portray Hillary Clinton as "too angry" in proper perspective.

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