Republicans Anonymous

Hullabaloo reports:

Shoes Tumbling To The Ground

If any Democratic Senators are looking for a way to shine light on the Downing St Memo(and I'm not holding my breath) this may be the way to do it. And the beauty of it is that they can use that loudmouthed cretin John Bolton to do it:

The entry then quotes from this AP story:

Bolton Said to Orchestrate Unlawful Firing
John R. Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved.

A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state felt Jose Bustani ''had to go,'' particularly because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.
(Source: Associated Press via The New York Times [emphasis added.])

Bush League minion John Bolton's nomination as our next UN Ambassador is a reward for helping W put over his big Iraq WMD lies. Write your Senators!

Looks like W and his Bush League minions were a bit too optimistic when they declared victory in Afghanistan:

During the last six months, American and Afghan officials have predicted the collapse of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamists thrown out of power by American forces in 2001, citing their failure to disrupt the presidential election last October and a lack of activity last winter.

But the intensity of the fighting here in Zabul Province, and in parts of adjoining Kandahar and Uruzgan Provinces - roughly 100 square miles of mountain valleys in all - reveals the Taliban to be still a vibrant fighting force supplied with money, men and weapons.
(Source: New York Times Despite Years of U.S. Pressure, Taliban Fight On in Jagged Hills, June 4, 2005)

The Taliban came to power fighting corrupt warlords after foreign occupiers withdrew - it sounds like they're planning a repeat performance.

Here are some new definitions:

Fabrication: The contents of any speech given by George W. Bush.

Prefabrication: (1)Writing a speech for George W. Bush. Tom Toles explains
(2) George W. Bush walking up to the podium.

Maybe I'm missing something - but why is relying on imported gasoline more risky than relying upon imported oil? Consider this article from Knight-Ridder news:

High investment costs and low profits have discouraged the building of any new U.S. refineries since 1976. Absent new refineries, rising demand for gas will outpace American refiners' ability to make it.
...
Investors fear that U.S. refineries are stretched too thin. A single accident could disrupt the strained supplies and lead to shortages. To ensure against that risk, buyers bid up the price of oil contracts, and the price of gasoline - a refined derivative of oil - rises in the process.
Source: Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau Running full throttle, U.S. refineries still can't meet demand for gas, June 2, 2005 [emphasis added.]

Other than special formulations, it seems to me that refining the oil into gasoline and/or diesel before importing it should be cheaper than hauling crude oil to the US first and then refining it. Why not import only what we want? After all, we either import the stuff and refine it here or import it after someone else refines it. It isn't like we're exporting US crude oil overseas for refining and then re-importing it...

The John Bolton School of Negotiating wins another "victory." BBC News reports:

A North Korean spokesman said Mr Cheney's remarks were tantamount to asking Pyongyang to stop negotiating.

Mr Cheney, in an interview broadcast on Sunday, called North Korean leader Kim Jong-il "one of the world's most irresponsible leaders".

North Korea has not taken part in the nuclear talks for a year.

The North Korean spokesman stressed that Mr Cheney's comments, made in an interview with CNN, came at a point when the US and North Korea had reopened its channel of discussion through the UN in New York.

"The remarks of Cheney, boss of the hawkish hard-liners, revealed the true colours of this group steering the implementation of the policy of the Bush administration," North Korea's KCNA news agency quoted the foreign ministry spokesman as saying.

"What Cheney uttered at a time when the issue of the six-party talks is high on the agenda is little short of telling the DPRK [North Korea] not to come out for the talks."

The spokesman also described Mr Cheney as a "cruel monster and bloodthirsty beast".

North Korea also denounced a move by the US last week to send 15 stealth bombers to the South.

"The United States would be well advised to promptly take out of South Korea the F-117 stealth fighter bombers and other military hardware, stop its war moves against the North and withdraw its aggression forces at an early date," KCNA said.

The North described the move as part of a plan for nuclear war.
(Source: BBC News N Korea denounces Cheney remarks June 2, 2005 [Emphasis added.]

Does George Bush seriously plan to attack both Iran and North Korea while bogged down in Iraq? Will W and his Bush League minions march US armed forces across Iran before shipping them to North Korea? Has Mr. Bush decided to re-fight the Korean War, too? Inquiring minds want to know...

W and The Bush League may be dissembling about how disassembling Al Qaeda shows success in their "War on Terror."

Seems as though those darn French types agree W and Al Qaida has been somewhat "disassembled*" but think this makes it a bigger threat:

France's top anti-terrorism judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, has warned that al-Qaeda is now more fragmented and a bigger threat than before.
...
In the 1990s, Mr Bruguiere focused on the activities of Arab veterans of the 1980s war against Soviet troops in Afghanistan, especially Algerian militants who carried out several attacks in France.

He became an expert on the various cells of Islamist militants operating around the world, many of them loosely linked to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation.
(Source: BBC News Al-Qaeda terror threat 'growing', May 31, 2005

It's something like the success oyster fishermen used to have cutting up starfish and throwing the arms back. Yeah, the starfish was successfully cut up - but each severed arm grew a new starfish. The oystermens' success created a huge plague of starfish... just like W's "taking the war to Iraq is creating a whole new generation of trained terrorists eager to visit us here in the US.


*Disassembled?

Mr Bush said its accusations therefore stemmed from "people who hate America, people that have been trained in some instances to disassemble, that means not tell the truth".

But Amnesty hit back. Executive director William Schulz said: "What is 'absurd' is President Bush's attempt to deny the deliberate policies of his administration."

"What is 'absurd' and indeed outrageous is the Bush administration's failure to undertake a full independent investigation."
(Source: BBC News Bush says Amnesty report 'absurd', May 31, 2005

Click on the link and discover emoticons as a "funny once" art form:

Fun with emoticons: The story of John Bolton

I guess Hollywood and reality are merging:

JERUSALEM, May 30 -- Israel's business community has been rocked by a major computer espionage scandal that was uncovered when a husband-and-wife book-writing team complained to police that someone had hacked into their computer system and stolen files.
...
In a statement released over the weekend, police said they had discovered a "Trojan Horse" virus on Jackont's computer that they were able to trace to an unnamed source. The virus allowed the person to control the computer, make changes to its programs, monitor everything it contained and raid it for information -- all without leaving any hint of the virus's existence. Investigators also discovered that the same person had sold the "Trojan Horse" to three of Israel's largest private investigation companies, which used it to illegally collect data for their corporate clients.

Police said the virus was planted via e-mail or a promotional computer disk supposedly sent to the target company by a well-known and reliable business partner. They said dozens of companies may have been spied upon without ever realizing they were under surveillance.
...
Jackont said he believed the corporate espionage would have gone undetected had Haephrati not decided to harass him and his wife. "He's been obsessive and this was his tragic flaw," said Jackont...
(Source: Washington Post Caught in a Web of Spies

Anti-virus and anti-spyware ("anti-malware") programs work primarily via "wanted posters" and "profiling." (Comparing programs to known viruses and monitoring for suspicious behavior.) A custom-written spy program used selectively and updated to remain undetected by standard anti-malware programs can go undetected for quite some time, so don't install "Elf Bowling" or any of those other cute freeware programs...

This demonstrates two basic life principles:

1) Hubris isn't limited to President Bush; and,

2) He would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those darn in-laws...