From The Guardian: “Senior [Bush] officials bypassed army chief to introduce interrogation methods.”

America’s most senior general was “hoodwinked” by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners…  Read more 

a decline in a country’s gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth, for two or more successive quarters of a year.

Bush claims that he inherited a recession and also disputes that we are now in a recession.

As both cannot be true, it seems that “recession” is not a macroeconomic term, rather, a political one.  Read more 

From today’s Presidential Radio Address:

Where do we start?  Read more 

The Order of the Higher Weaselality
{Dirty Hippies and Lefty Bloggers Need Not Apply}

Does it really matter whether or not there is an actual emerging consensus about how to bring our adventure in Iraq to a less-than catastrophic conclusion as long as so many dues-paying members of that most exalted beltway Club of The Higher Weaselality insist there is one?

Find the correct answer below the fold:  Read more 

Think back six-and-a-half years ago to all the things we didn’t like about America:  Read more 

JC Christian wrote a letter to a Mr. John Petroski about Petroski’s paean to rape.

Upon reading Petroski’s slippery words I couldn’t help but feel he was talking to our President about Iraq. Guess I’m funny that way. Regardless, some lyrics ensued…

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No-bid Rapists On Parade

don’t drink no scotch
don’t snort no coke
days are dry, he don’t get high
his little soldier needs a poke

yeah, I know she’s ugly
yeah, I know she’s afraid
no one does her for free
(no-bid rapists on parade)
who needs a wet dream
when you can cream
in mesopotamia
(no-bid rapists on parade)
I’ll hold her down
you grab her wrist
come on boys
lets do the twist
maybe even kiss
no-bid rapists on parade  Read more 

Chapter 1. Shrubsville

A pack of sleep dogs stretch and yawn lazily under a stand of tower Oak trees as the little commute train steams out of the Shrubsville station. Spring is here. The beauty Magnolias and Azaleas are just beginning to bloom. The passengers look out of the dirt windows as clouds of brick-red dust blow across the fresh-plow fields. Red Gibson, the engineer, peers out from under the bill of his stripe cap as the train moves slowly down the wind track in the direction of Shooterville. Red is a very tradition man. He remembers the glory days of the Republic Party—the Ronald Reagan days and the Contract-With-America days— when the Democrat Party knew its place in the scheme of things. “We’ve come a long ways from Doleton and Gingrichburg,” he says to his crust old brakeman. “Imagine the gall of this new Democrat Majority—thinking they have the right to question the Decider on matters of nation security.”  Read more