I Think The Goal Now

Is to prevent the place from becoming a satelite of Iran. That probably means 100 years no matter which party controls congress or the Whitehouse.

We could have saved ourselves a lot of lives, trouble and expense if that had been the goal five years ago.

As it stands, Bush has handed Iran a bigger victory than they ever could have achieved themselves: We took out their worst enemy (Saddam), and in so doing we got their second-worst enemy (us) stuck in a bottomless quagmire. The Ayatollahs should have been dancing in the streets. (maybe they were, and our MSM just failed to report it).

I swear he looks and acts like someone who'd had a stroke.

It doesn't matter. He won't have to do anything as president. He's just a front man. His neocon "advisors" will be calling all the shots.

Why I read a report that cannibalism will return to America this year.

I hate to say it, but that might happen if fuel supplies are disrupted. The U.S. has lots of people living in areas that do not produce much (or any) food locally.

It might not happen this year, but it will probably happen eventually if we continue to concentrate large populations in areas that cannot support them.

Instead, many companies, from boutique outfits to immense corporations like American Express, have avoided the cost and stigma of defending themselves against criminal charges with a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, which allows the government to collect fines and appoint an outside monitor to impose internal reforms without going through a trial.

It sounds like our government is taking bribes for letting companies avoid prosecution. If this isn't bribery, somebody please explain the difference.

he law is the law, what can Congress possibly do about Executive Privilege?

First of all, Executive Privilege is not "black letter" law. It is not mentioned in the Constitution or in any law passed by Congress.

AFAIK, the doctrine of executive privilege is case law from United States v. Nixon. It's pretty good case law because is came from the Supreme Court, but the same ruling also said that it was a qualified doctrine that did not overrule all other considerations.

I have seen MSM articles that attribute his difficulties to the fact that he was apparently caught lying.

The last time I checked, a reputation for truthfulness wasn't a primary qualification for a career in law. I think Gonzo's problem is that his testimony before Congress made it obvious that he is a pitifully unskilled liar, and nobody wants a lawyer who can't tell lies properly.

The Republicans' solution to *every* problem seems to be to run up even more debt. The political difficulty of paying it back is already huge, and it gets worse every day. I'm beginning to think that they have no intention of ever paying it back.

The faster the U.S. government spends money it doesn't have, the faster the dollar goes down the flusher. This will drive the price of oil up even more. By the time McCain's "holiday" is over, the price will be right back where it was and then the tax will kick back in.

Good plan, Johnnie: A hefty gas price increase right in time for the general election campaign.

Your story seems related to what I've been seeing.

I have one credit card. I always pay the full balance every month. For most of the 10+ years I've had this card, the bills arrived like clockwork: Almost exactly the same day of the month, and always at least 20 days before the bill was due, which was also the same day of every month.

That started to change a little over a year ago. First the bills started arriving later, even thought the billing date was the same as always.

Then they started using random-length billing cycles: What used to be a regular cycle tied to the day-of-month was randomized, with billing cycle lengths that varied from 27 days up to 34 days. The payment due date became completely unpredictable.

The most recent change was to knock an entire week off the time between billing and payment due. There was no advance warning of this, I discovered it when I opened a bill and saw a due date a week earlier than I'd have expected from the billing date. I had to mail my payment the next day to have any hope of it arriving on time.

It sure looks to me like the credit card company is trying its damnedest to make it difficult for its customers to avoid late fees.

The real question is whether they've really written down all the bad loans yet, or whether there's more to come.

There's also the question of how many loans that are "good" today will turn bad as the economy implodes.

Weren't these the guys...

...whose purchase of rubber boots was used as evidence that they were "well on their way to committing a terrorist act," because, you know, your shoes get real muddy when you bomb things?

No, I think the "boots" angle with these guys was asking the FBI informant for money to buy some. They apparently couldn't scrape together enough cash to buy their own boots.

His plan is to drive the value of the dollar down so much that most people in the U.S. won't be able to afford fuel anymore.

... that our media plays to the lowest common denominator. I beg to differ. I think our media IS the lowest common denominator.

... while I was picking up take-out pizza. The TV in the pizza shop was tuned to the "debate". What little I saw reminded me of a celebrity gossip show.

It's disgusting that the people who produced this crap are making wads of money while the rest of America is lining up for unemployment checks (while they last).