Politics

“David Kay stepped down as leader of the U.S. hunt for banned weapons in Iraq on Friday and said he did not believe the country had any large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons.”
“In a direct challenge to the Bush administration, which says its invasion of Iraq was justified by the presence of illicit arms, Kay told Reuters in a telephone interview he had concluded there were no Iraqi stockpiles to be found.”

On Monday, Ashcroft tries to claim that none of that matters and that the invasion of Iraq was still justified.
Good try.

WASHINGTON — Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.
From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight — and with what tactics.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Detroit News, 10/20/2003:
The group’s report uncovers dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations.
Bush in State of the Union:
Already, the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations.
I guess there’s some speculation that Bush’s team actually wrote the op/ed piece for Hoekstra, which is why the language is the same. Not that either of the statements are actually true, factually speaking.

Turns out that the government is using all kinds of data to build their new CAPPS II passenger screening program, including Census data; a major no-no and violation of privacy issues.
One of my favorite parts of this discussion on the issue is a comment from a commentor further down the page: “If you’re looking for a needle in a haystack, don’t bring in more hay.” He makes the point that the failure of 9/11 was not that we didn’t have enough data, but that we didn’t have enough people to process the data we had. But they’ve increased the amount of data they collect, without increasing the people to analyze it, and the result is that people are using broad generalizations to track terrorists and gathering up mostly innocent folks in the net as a result.

If you have to watch our Bonehead-in-Chief deliver the State of the Union this evening, (I don’t; I have stuff recorded on DVR) you may as well do it drunk. I’d highly recommend it.

I’m disappointed that Howard Dean didn’t do better in the Iowa Caucuses… he came in third. I suspect that had something to do with the “volvo-driving” ad, though. But that ad won’t do much in New Hampshire. 🙂
I’m hoping he does well there.

Margaret Cho, the well-known comedian, did a stand-up set during MoveOn.org’s “Bush in 30 Seconds” awards ceremony-fundraiser-show in New York on Monday night. After the show, a partial, heavily edited transcript of her stand-up routine was published by Matt Drudge, who took what she said out of context and even implied that she was giving a speech rather than a comedy show.
This prompted quite a few Republican’s to respond on Margaret Cho’s website. Here’s a sample of what they had to say:
F$@# you you oriental c$%& . you are not even an american. You are soooo stupid. Go f$@# yourself and go back to Asia you slanted eye whore.
Pretty. Notice that the e-mail address of the fine fellows are linked, so you can send them an e-mail and let them know what you think of THEIR writing.

Is not just to “search for the origins of life” which is what’s being touted as the reason for going. It’s to set up their buddies Halliburton, who will get a piece of the action.

According to the New York Times, George Bush is planning on spending $1.5 billion dollars of my money to promote heterosexual marriage. By design, the plan is also to discourage equal marriage rights for gay people.
I suggest that he take a cue from Britney Spears, and just fly het couples to Vegas and get them drunk.