half the people post as anonymous then they complain that no one's paying attention to them, or worse, when they are, they're not being taken seriously.

I have no idea who you are. If you think I'm talking to you fine, you believe that. Bully fuck all for you and your narcissistic rage.

After having lived in developing countries for years, as an economist on the sharp point of aid programs and how fucked up they go, I too know a little something something. And it's been my experience that people up on soapboxes screaming about the Big White Bwana are generally the biggest thieves of all.

So go have a cookie, calm down and try not to bite the steering wheel as you drive to Starbucks for your Free Trade coffee. Thanks. And oh, Fuck you too, darling. Kiss noise.

Qualifications: Blind loyalty, ineptitude, incompetence, obstinacy, mendacity, and stupidity. Must have demonstrated ability to to fail spectacularly. Ability to obfuscate and prevaricate while glaring accusingly, a plus. Applicants with principles and integrity need not apply. Forward resume and letter of intent to George W. Bush c/o Karl Rove.

Short List of Potential WB Presidential candidates:

Claude Allen

Michael Brown

Jack Abramoff

Bernie Kerik

Scooter Libby

Alberto Gonzales (May be available soon)

Kyle Sampson

Monica Goodling

Juanita Doan

Lori Swanson

Douglas Feith

Harriet Miers

Andrew Card

John Negroponte

Donald Rumsfeld

OK, maybe not so short.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky was a brilliant mathematician in his youth, before he became the billionaire CEO of an energy firm famous for using hit men to enforce the non-compete clauses in their departing executives' employment contracts.

Wolfowitz, alas, looks like another good mathematician gone bad. (Although I don't think he's been accused of ordering contract killings of ex-employees just yet.)

This reminds me that Lenin was at the top of his class in math and physics; indeed his father wanted him to study with the great Lobachevsky, an early explorer of curved geometry after Gauss.

Who knows -- if things had gone differently, we could have ended up with Lenin's Theory of General Relativity.

It seems like the capacities for extreme clinical detachment and obsessively minute focus that go into making a good mathematician are also ingredients that work well in the recipe for a really scary human being.

This post should have been titled @Elephantman

Just may be another’s trivial pursuit.

I participate in these discussions and letter threads to understand the viewpoints of others.

That is the only reason I have engaged you with some questions. Your response to my latest questions is as curious as the initial mysterious statement you made which prompted my first questions. I’m puzzled why you would consider any of my questions to be potentially offensive. I have seen many responses from others to you in this thread that could be considered offensive. Again, attempting to understand your views, tell me what I wrote in engaging you that was offensive? To the best of my knowledge, I have not even misspelled or played word games (as others have) with your screen name. Do you find questioning your views offensive?

Now you say that my asking if you’re someone (with the same screen name) that you admit may be “agreeable” is evidence of a need to offend and an obsession about YOU.

Having seen how you respond to questions, I can now truly say, with apologies to Rhett Butler, “frankly……..

I resisted looking at those links you supplied and I am a little ashamed to admit that I just had to check it out to see what offense you might have intended this time. I guess I am glad that I did, because after five minutes of looking, trying to figure it out, I finally saw at the bottom why you posted it. (How do you find those things?)

Anyway, it isn't me, and I have no idea who that person is, however agreeable he may be.

Are you Googling the screen name "elephantman"? I don't think obsessing about me will do you any good. It hasn't helped Rusty Austin's mental health issues...

“I really do think this is a case where the facts aren't in much dispute. You all are just overjoyed at any development which appears to hurt the Bush Administration, regardless of the circumstances. Hurt Bush first, ask questions later.”

Hmmm, that kind of reasoning sounds a little like this logic:

Question to Elephantman:

What reason do you have to believe the earth is flat?

Answer: Because Leftists insist that it is round.

Does that sound familiar?

If not, check out this link:

http://conservaglobeusa.blogspot.com/

Or this one:

http://palinforvp.blogspot.com/

Hint: Read the About Me profiles

Now, the reason that Wolfowitz is being forced out is unrelated to the employment of Shaha Riza; instead, the reason he must go is because of his management style?

Then why did the world press waste weeks of headlines and front-page stories on the phony scandal to begin with? Why did the World Bank hold its overblown ad hoc show trial on the Shaha Riza matter, only to conclude that it "accepts" Mr. Wolfowitz's position that he did nothing wrong? Why, after a show trial that didn't prove any wrongdoing, demand Wolfowitz's resignation?

I really do think this is a case where the facts aren't in much dispute. You all are just overjoyed at any development which appears to hurt the Bush Administration, regardless of the circumstances. Hurt Bush first, ask questions later.

Elephantdung: "What the hell. Who cares about fighting African poverty when they have an image to protect?" -- Ironic, considering Wolfie made the Bank a joke in his desperate attempt to salvage the last tattered shreds of his own reputation and respectability.

Sadly for the neocons and their apologists, that train has sailed. Woflie's credibility as well as any illusion as to his competency vanished when he sold a war based on falsified intel; predicted the occupation of Iraq would last "four to six months;" and testifed that "we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

He's either an imbecile or a madman, or both, and in any event had no business heading the World Bank. History is not kind to evildoers who start failed wars based on lies.