"I always felt the regime should be toppled for human rights reasons. Everyone should have made that argument about the war. The barbarity was so acute that no human being could listen to this and not take some action. So, it was the week after I came back and I made that speech. I couldn't look the Kurds in the face again if I opposed the war. Once I had made up my own mind, there was no going back for me.'

Clwyd admits that the question of weapons of mass destruction was the wrong one on which to base the war. But rather than blame the protagonists, she says that the fact that there is only a shaky legal basis under the United Nations for military intervention on humanitarian grounds - apart from to avert genocide - shows that the UN needs to look again at its own charter.

'I am sure people sincerely believed that there were and are weapons of mass destruction,' she said. 'Whether they are right or not, I don't know. As the Kurdish leader said, the biggest weapon of mass destruction was Saddam himself. He didn't understand why we have this obsession with WMD here.'

(January) World tension mounts when North Korea announces that it is withdrawing from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, on the grounds that it's really hard to pronounce "proliferation." Faced with clear-cut evidence that the North Koreans are actively developing weapons of mass destruction, President Bush vows to determine whether North Korea "is located anywhere near Iraq."
[ . . . ]
(February) Meanwhile, tension between the United States and North Korea continues to mount as North Korea, in what the White House calls "a deliberate act of provocation," uses nuclear missiles to destroy Columbus, Ohio. A visibly angry President Bush warns the North Koreans that they "better not give any of those missiles to Iraq."
[ . . . ]
(March)North Korean troops invade Oregon, prompting a grim-faced President Bush to declare that "time is running out for the Iraqi regime." But the United States continues to have trouble getting other nations to join the coalition, and is forced to bribe Turkey by giving the Turkish government an "economic aid package" consisting of $37 billion in cash, plus unlimited nighttime and weekend minutes, plus what is described as a "hard-to-get video" of Britney Spears. With Turkey onboard, the coalition now consists of seven nations, assuming you count Guam, Puerto Rico and Staten Island as nations.

[POINT] When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands buttered side down. Therefore, if a slice of toast is strapped to a cat's back, buttered side up, and the animal is then dropped, the two opposing forces will cause it to hover, spinning inches above the ground. If enough toast-laden felines were used, they could form the basis of a high-speed monorail system.

[COUNTERPOINT] It is in the interests not only of public safety but also public sanity if the buttered toast on cats idea is scrapped, to be replaced by a monorail powered by cats smeared with chicken tikka masala floating above a rail made from white shag pile carpet.

The Internal Revenue Service will announce this morning that it is going to focus on misconduct by lawyers and accountants who represent wealthy individuals and corporations. The I.R.S. commissioner, Mark W. Everson, said auditors would be instructed to develop cases that impose penalties on taxpayers. The move is intended to shut down the lucrative trade in opinion letters, which taxpayers buy in the expectation that they can get penalties waived if their strategy is disallowed.

Mr. Everson said he wanted to weed out "attorneys and accountants who sacrifice their independence and integrity at the altar of higher fees." Opinion letters, typically scores of pages long and freighted with caveats, sell for as much as $1 million each. Such letters typically assert that a particular tax strategy is "more likely than not" to survive an I.R.S. audit, but often they are based on unreasonable economic and legal assumptions that do not necessarily match the specific circumstances of the taxpayer who buys the letter.

Under regulations to be issued this morning, such opinion letters would become worthless for deals made since last Jan. 1, as a defense against penalties, which can run as high as 75 percent of the taxes not paid.

Oh, and also that I Don't Want to be the King/I Am Destined to Be the King Dude is with them, and he has this whole other story where he pretty much decides to be the King because, I mean, pussy for miles. This is where I started getting really confused, though, because they start talking about kingdoms and alliances and there's a lot of lines like, "Rohan shall ride!" and "Gondor still stands!" and "Flabadan Son of Rectum must wear the mantle of Bloggith!" and also there's some shit with the elves that's like being in a fucking candle store for twenty minutes.

But the movie is only doing this to set up the BATTLE OF SHIT-YOUR-PANTS, which isn't the actual name of the battle but SHOULD be because you will shit stuff you did not eat when you see it.

Today, our civilization faces just such a challenge, with enemies within and without. America, the champion of the West, is challenged by the orcs of violent Islam, the would-be Sauron that is the United Nations, and its Nazgul – France, Germany, Russia and China. Nor should we forget our globalists in government, who, like Saruman, would betray everything to which they are sworn in an attempt to win the favor of the growing shadow.

We cannot all be Aragorn. But, perhaps we can each strive to be a Frodo, shouldering our lonely burden for the sake of those and that which we love. And we can hope for loyal companions such as the trusty Sam Gamgee, who will walk by our side, always ready to lift us up and carry us when we falter.

In this manner, we will persevere ... until the return of the King.

Warner's Budget Puts GOP on Spot
RICHMOND, Dec. 17 -- Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) presented a budget Wednesday that increases spending on public education, colleges, police and health care and challenges Republicans who control the legislature to cut popular programs or approve the $1 billion tax increase he has proposed to pay for them.

Warner's $59 billion budget for the next two fiscal years assumes that the General Assembly will approve the tax increases on goods, corporations, smokers and upper incomes he proposed three weeks ago.

Republican lawmakers challenged that assumption and said they will try to cut state government before turning to taxpayers.

"The whole plan is to make us look like a grinch if we don't go along with him," said House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith (R-Salem). "Most of these things are good things. But when you look at the overall cost to the economy in Virginia, it may not be such a good thing."

[I]t’s not just a matter of James Baker going round the world saying come on you stingy bastards and Chirac saying oh go on then. Now that the debt’s entered the Paris Club process, it’s no longer really an option for France or Germany to unilaterally forgive a chunk of debt (that’s presumably why they did it). The Paris Club is a good process for making sure that the eventual restructuring is a genuinely workable plan, and for minimising free-riding by creditors, but it’s more or less completely incompatible with the piecemeal, quick-win style approach which Baker appears to be taking.

But under this bifurcated policy, Baker is basically taking pains to point out the big fucking stick in "Old Europe's" hands, while Wolfowitz is daring them to use it to bash Iraq into a bankrupt, seething Weimar. This deeply conflicted policy won't work.

Unless I am very wrong, much of the air will go out of the resistance now. While certainly some of the insurgents have been outsiders, or have been Iraqis motivated by something other than loyalty to Saddam, a large portion of them are Saddam's men, for whom Saddam's escape and continued freedom were simply more evidence for the myth of Saddam's indestructibility.

Israelis face, as they say, the impossible triangle. Israel can be Jewish and democratic but not include Palestinian land, it can be democratic and have the Palestinian land but fail to be Jewish, or it can be Jewish and have the land but fail to be democratic.

The second and third options are simply unacceptable to most Israelis, I think, so like it or not that leaves only the first option: giving up the land.

Pentagon: Halliburton Overcharged Millions
Pentagon auditors found that Vice President Dick Cheney's former company overcharged by possibly as much as $61 million for gasoline in Iraq, senior defense officials said Thursday.

Halliburton's subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, also submitted a proposal for cafeteria services that was $67 million too high, the officials said speaking on the condition of anonymity. The officials said the Pentagon rejected that proposal.

The Pentagon officials said they were concerned about the problems with KBR's contracts, which were awarded without competitive bidding for up to $15.6 billion.

I - that am centrist-stamp'd, and lack th'ability
To strut with style and flatter aimless kids -
I - that am curtail'd of Leftist endorsements,
Cheated of stature by dissembling colleagues,
Hawkish, Jewish, sent before my time
Into this breathing world a DINO born,
And that so wonkish and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I lecture them-
Why, I, in this calm before the shitstorm,
Have no delight to give away this time,
Because Bush is not stupid, alas -
Or unaware of our deficiencies.

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity.

Only thing I can do is think about how damn ugly I am.

The only way I can amuse myself is to piss on my own shadow out of disgust for my own ugliness.

Under the guidelines, which were issued on Friday but became public knowledge today, only companies from the United States, Iraq and 61 other countries designated as "coalition partners" will be allowed to bid on the contracts, which are financed by American taxpayers.

Among the eligible countries are Britain, the closest American ally in Iraq, as well Poland and Italy, which have contributed troops to the American-led security effort. But the list also includes other nations whose support has been less evident, including Turkey, which allowed American aircraft to fly over its territory but barred American forces at the last minute from using its soil as a staging point to invade Iraq from the north in March.

The directive by Mr. Wolfowitz does not spell out a precise argument for why allowing French, German and Russian companies to join in the competition for the contracts would hurt American security interests. But it suggests that the main motivation is to use the contracts as a reward for countries that participate in the American-led coalition and contribute troops to the American-led security effort.

Limiting competition for prime contracts will encourage the expansion of international cooperation in Iraq and in future efforts.

BLITZER: Was U.S. intelligence going into the war faulty?

CARD: Well, intelligence -- I think, first of all, there was plenty of justification to go to war. He had stiffed the United Nations many, many times. He was a threat to his own people and a threat to the region. He was a threat to our interests. And we had called for -- as a country, we had called for regime change under the previous administration.

But when you go there today and you see some of the mass graves that are there, where he murdered his own people, you just can't help but think that we are much better off with[out] Saddam there. So, I think that's a moot point.

"This was effective, because it captured something about the president that people know is true, that he really cares about the soldiers and gets emotional when he sees them," Mary Matalin, a former administration official, said about the trip to Baghdad. "You have to figure out how to capture the Bush we know, even if it doesn't come through in a speech situation or a press conference. He regularly rejects anything that is not him."

So fake scenes are good becaue they capture deeper truths about the president "that people know [are] true." That's classic. Sorta like how the Santa Claus story captures the deeper meaning of Christmas or that other story about the Stork.

Before proceeding further, the Court notes that this case involves two extremely likable lawyers, who have together delivered some of the most amateurish pleadings ever to cross the hallowed causeway into Galveston, an effort which leads the Court to surmise but one plausible explanation. Both attorneys have obviously entered into a secret pact--complete with hats, handshakes and cryptic words--to draft their pleadings entirely in crayon on the back sides of gravy-stained paper place mats, in the hope that the Court would be so charmed by their child-like efforts that their utter dearth of legal authorities in their briefing would go unnoticed. Whatever actually occurred, the Court is now faced with the daunting task of deciphering their submissions. With Big Chief tablet readied, thick black pencil in hand, and a devil-may-care laugh in the face of death, life on the razor's edge sense of exhilaration, the Court begins.

To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day hero ... assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an un-winnable urban guerilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability.