As I've said before, I fully believe that this administration is dishonorable, and the dishonor spreads from top to bottom.

How do you feel about a claim by the U.S. military that the Geneva Conventions prevented it from commenting on whether the NY Times had identified the right Iraqi detainee as the person in the infamous Abu Ghraib picture of a hooded prisoner standing on a box, attached to electric wires?

What can bridge the apparent gulf between Arabs and the US?  Check out this excerpt from an editorial on Al Jazeera by Remi Kanazi:

If the Bush administration interviewed my father, a 59 year old, Christian Republican Arab doctor living in the US, they would have realized, "Arabs don't like to be occupied." Arabs--be it Sunni, Shia, Coptic, Orthodox or Maronite--don't want to be invaded by a Western force capable of bombing Baghdad to oblivion. Nevertheless, many Muslim and Christian Arabs in the Middle East send their children to Western schooling and profoundly appreciate Western Culture. As James Zogby--president of the Arab American Institute--pointed out on CNN, Americans can see the integration of US based multinational food chains and stores in Saudi Arabia. More than 70 McDonalds and 32 Pizza Huts spread across the country, while a 69,000 sq ft Chuck E. Cheese opened in Jeddah in 2001, with bumper cars, a bowling alley and a new ice rink. There is thirst for American culture within Saudi society, without the aggression and ramifications of US foreign policy.

Student loans get many a student through college, so you'd think that this administration, headed by a man trying so hard to become the Education President, would really be firmly in favor of these loans.  And looking out for the interests of the students, who only represent our future.

But not so.  The recently passed Deficit Reduction Act contains provisions that will raise the rates on most student loans, while restricting the right of borrowers to consolidate their loans to minimize overall costs.

And the hands of John Boehner, new House leader, and many of his Republican brethren are all over the laws that so heavily favor the lenders, especially Sallie Mae, now known as SLM Corporation (both Sallie Mae and SLM are used to describe the company throughout this article).

Just as there is an unending stream of those who insist the Holocaust never happened, or that it has been "greatly exaggerated, there is never a lack for someone, usually in the south, to insist that slavery wasn't all that bad.  In the not too distant past, a private school in Virginia or Maryland (I forget a lot of the details) was using a textbook that had the hidden benefits of slavery as a major theme.  Just a few days ago, we got Adele Fergusen, in the Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal who enlightens all of us ignorant fools who consider slavery to be a hellish event that was physically, psychologically, and spiritually destructive to all involved that we're just wrong.  In fact:

The pony hidden in slavery is the fact that it was the ticket to America for black people. I have long urged blacks to consider their presence here as the work of God, who wanted to bring them to this raw, new country and used slavery to achieve it. A harsh life, to be sure, but many immigrants suffered hardships and indignations as indentured servants. Their descendants rose above it. You don't hear them bemoaning their forebears' life the way some blacks can't rise above the fact theirs were slaves.

Besides freedom, a job and a roof over their heads, they all sought respect. But even after all these years, too many have yet to realize that to get respect, you have to give it.

When you are facing a sea change in the world around you, it's easy to underestimate the severity of what's going on.  Don't you think that many ordinary people living in countries that underwent political revolutions managed to miss the revolution part until it was too late?

That's all just a way of introducing what sounds at first hearing like paranoia and conspiracy mongering. Paul Craig Roberts formerly served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and Contributing Editor of National Review. Last month, he wrote a piece for Counterpunch that posits the following:

Having eliminated internal opposition, the Bush administration is now using blackmail obtained through illegal spying on American citizens to silence the media and the opposition party.
...
The years of illegal spying have given the Bush administration power over the media and the opposition. Journalists and Democratic politicians don't want to have their adulterous affairs broadcast over television or to see their favorite online porn sites revealed in headlines in the local press with their names attached. Only people willing to risk such disclosures can stand up for the country.

Free press is hard to find, and you sure won't find it in Iran.  Here's a recent headline from The Tehran Times: "Opinion poll in Belgium supports Mottaki's views on cartoons"

Respondents in the poll (Moroccans living in Belgium ) were asked:

Was Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki right in criticizing in Brussels the cartoons as showing lack of respect to 1.5 billion Muslims?

The problem with the headline?  Only "Forty-five percent of the respondents said they completely agreed" with the Foreign Minister's statement.  Another 33.5% said he was exaggerating and pouring oil on the fire, while a whopping 21.5% simply had no opinion.

Yeah, that's "support" for a statement like Bush won a "mandate" in 2004.

Free press.  Wishful thinking.

You'd have to read pretty deep into the news stories to find out, but Claude Allen, the ex-Bush aide recently arrested on charges that he effectively stole some $5,000 of merchandise from retailers is the same Claude Allen that Bush had nominated to the 4th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.  After it became clear that Bush would be unable to push the nomination through the senate, Allen "requested" that his nomination be withdrawn.

Our illustrious president has stated that he is "shocked" by the charges against Allen.  When you finish reading this, you probably won't be.

When a man who has been wrong more times than a hunch better at a fixed roulette wheel, our president inexplicably likes to voice his opinions.  Think "heck of a job, Brownie," his opinion that no one could have anticipated the breaks in the New Orleans levees, many statements about WMD, and his vociferous assurances that the Dubai ports deal would go through.  I think I would very much like to go to a race track with George W.  Every time he bet on a race, I could at least eliminate his choice a a potential winner, improving my own odds considerably.

His latest is in the AP headline "Bush Confident Iraq Will Avoid Civil War."

Senator Russ Feingold wants the Senate to censure Lord Clusterf**k, eh? Story here...

Tom Gilroy makes a pretty sick point over at huffpo, that some jokes aren't funny, or are they?

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