Instahoglets 27th Jan 06

Poor King George, it's been a tough week.

The Washington Times called George incompetent for all his screwups but especially for Medicare Part D, his flagship domestic initiative. Jacob Weisberg at Slate called him power mad for trying to turn America into an elected dictatorship. Now comes the news that he's about as popular as a fart in a space-shuttle cockpit according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll - 58% described his second term as a failure and 51% said they would rather vote for congressional candidates who don't support him.

Amnesty International wrote an open letter to King George two days ago. Have you seen it in the mainstream media yet? -

"[We] urge you to speak to the issue of US involvement in torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. As the evidence of US complicity in torture and ill-treatment grows, it is incumbent that this nation and the world know clearly whether the United States stands unequivocally for the absolute ban on torture and ill-treatment. It is essential that all who tune in to your State of the Union Address hear that anyone responsible, even at the highest levels, for policies that have led to the torture and ill-treatment will be held accountable to ensure such abuses do not occur in the future. The blanket denials issued by your Administration do not reflect the gravity of the situation or the growing evidence of such acts."

They are probably vegan and as such a threat to Mom's apple pie!

Noah Shachtman at DefenseTech:

Very roughly speaking, there are two factions jockeying for control in the Pentagon. One thinks that the U.S. military is going to spend a big chunk of the next twenty years hunting down terrorists and stabilizing screwed-up states. The other believes that China has to be smacked down, before it bulks up to superpower status.

Guess who gets just words and crumbs and who gets the gold-plated shiny toys worth tens, even hundreds, of billions? Of course, the shiny toys and the poor bloody infantry would probably be affordable if it wasn't for the pork larded onto defense bills by legislators and lobbyists working hand-on-gland to line each other's pockets.

When Rummie says that the U.S. military isn't overextended, just "battle hardened" he flies in the face of his own experts. Don't they tell him to get his head out of his ass and face the truth that's been obvious for two years? Does he just ignore them? Or is he thinking about the shiny toys that are all pristine because they're no bloody use at all against the likes of Osama and Zarqawi?

They've found another use for those toys though - sending into oblivion the nation of Iran. Never mind the many arguments against such a course, the neocon counter in favor of war goes that:

multiplied together, squared, and then cubed, the weight of these arguments does not come close to matching the case for us to stop, by whatever means may be necessary, Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

They hope none of their brethren hawks notices that nothing short of full scale invasion would halt Iran's nuclear weapon program if they had one. And a full scale invasion can't succeed. Oops. There goes the logic. Next?

The thing is, if you've gone as far as the military option then you've already put all other options in the trash...there is no "next option" after the military one fails.

Bush and the neocons are too dumb to have figured that one out. That's why they are now blackmailing India. No help with India's own nuclear program unless they vote the way Bush wants at the IAEA meeting.

Those poor misguided wingnuts. No sooner are their celebrations over Canada's new minority conservative government over than Canada's new leader shows he won't join their line to kiss Bush ass like they all expected:

Political pundits who declared that Stephen Harper, Canada’s next prime minister, would move quickly to patch up ties with the United States were having to regroup Friday after Harper used his first post-election press conference to tell the United States to mind its own business when it comes to territorial rights in the Arctic North.

You see, Canada believes in global warming and sees itself making huge revenues when the fabled Northwest Passage is finally free. Bush wants it to make money for his own asskisser corporations even though he pretends not to believe in global warming.

Uber-wingnut pundit Ann Coulter, the only Fox contributor with both an apple and a banana, has suggested giving rat poison to liberal Justice John Paul Stevens. Even some of the wingnuts realise she jumped the shark a long time ago, although they are sure to forgive her (after all, they forgave John Cornyn and he's not as popular as Coulter). That says as much about them as it does her.