Oh boy, it just seems that the ability to doublespeak is a requirement for being a 1600 Crew Toady. Our glorious National Parks (which 99% of all republicans and Joe Lieberman want to sell off) are under attack by well, our National Government.

Once portals that lured gold-seeking pioneers, the black holes that dot the sun-baked mountainsides of this California desert haunt J.T. Reynolds.

The Death Valley National Park superintendent fears tourists will tumble down the decrepit shafts or vanish into the rocky tunnels that abound in his park’s famed Gold Rush-era mines and ghost towns.

To completely "mine-safe" some 6,000 shafts and caves would take money that Reynolds does not have.

"Most visitors do not realize that park resources have been under threat from deterioration, vandalism, neglect and rot for some time," Reynolds said. "We put up a good front and try to keep high visitor-use areas clean and neat. Even this facade is fading due to the lack of appropriate resources."

Across the 390 parks, preserves and historic sites that make up the 90-year-old national park system, Reynolds' colleagues face similar tough choices as growing costs from labor, utilities, maintenance, operations and preservation exceed wartime budgets from Washington.

Prior to joining the Bush Administration in July 2001, she was President of the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation, a nonprofit current affairs research and communications organization.

Ms. Scarlett is author of numerous publications on incentive-based environmental policies. Ms. Scarlett received her B.A. and M.A. in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she also completed her Ph.D. coursework and exams in political science and political economy.

I'm speechless. Well, not really. It's Heckuva-job Lynn to the rescue. Pretty soon all our Parks will look like Death Valley and they won't even be deserts (now).

Note: What the hell is a degree in "Political Economy"?

In the "No Science, Any Time" 1600 Crew, this has to have come as a shocker. Nah. Kidding. Like all other information that has a patina of scientific truth to it, it will be ignored as "incomplete" or some other bullshit.

Weighing in on the highest profile debate about global warming, the nation's premier science policy body on Thursday voiced a "high level of confidence" that Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, and possibly even the last 2,000 years.

After all, it could not have been that hot, since there were no air-conditioners on the dinosaurs that the cavemen rode, right? Now, there's some scientific reasoning.

So, the focus-group tested "cut and run" phrase has now taken the place of any meaningful discussion in the Congress, and we can continue to watch our young men and women who voluneteered to defend our country have their lives wasted as political pawns for incredibly corrupt (morally and in every other way) politicians who don't give a fart in a windstorm about them except at election time.

The Senate today rejected proposals on withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, decisively voting down two competing Democratic amendments -- one that set a deadline for a pullout and the other that stopped short of establishing a timetable.

Senators first voted 86-13 to defeat a proposal , offered by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), to "require a redeployment" from Iraq starting immediately and to be substantially completed by July 1, 2007.

A second measure , advanced by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), drew support from more Democrats but still went down, 60-39. The nonbinding "sense of Congress" proposal urged President Bush to start pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq this year but did not set a withdrawal deadline.

Both proposals, offered as amendments to the 2007 defense authorization bill, were denounced by Republicans as advocating "defeatism" and a strategy of "cut and run."

In a floor speech, the majority leader said, "The proponents of these amendments want us to tell the new government of Iraq that we are leaving . . . no matter what the implications for the future of their country, no matter how much they plead with us to stay." He asserted that the proposals may differ in some details, "but the bottom line is exactly the same: the amendments tell us to set a deadline and leave by that deadline. This would be a dangerous policy, a reckless policy, a shameless policy."

Frist added, "The time to leave Iraq is when we have achieved or objectives. If we knew our objectives were unachievable, then these amendments might make sense. But our objectives are achievable, and we are achieving them." He charged that the amendments carry "the spirit of defeatism and surrender."

Fristy also has a son, who I believe is old enough to go off and serve in Mess O'Potamia, something that will never happen since republican Noblesse Oblige is limited to internships at the Heritage or American Enterprise Institutes where shedding blood for your country is restricted to paper cuts and coming to work hung-over from too much partying with your future K-Street corporate masters.

The temperature in Baghdad is 91 degrees at 11PM local time, the winds are from the west-southwest at 12 mph, the altimeter is 29.65 and the visibility is 6.2 miles. Sounds like a good place for a young republican to hump some field gear, while looking for IEDs, now that the minimum age for enlistment is now 42. Surely the Scion of Frist could stand a summer vacation...that lasted about 14 months and a return trip to boot.

91 degrees and a 56 degrees dewpoint around midnight and summer has only just begun. Well, at least it's a dry heat.

Woohoo, some Austrian journalist with balls takes on Bunnypants and what's he get? Lies and 9/11.

"So my question to you is why do you think that you've failed so badly to convince Europeans, to win their heads and hearts and minds?"

Bush: "Well, yeah, I thought it was absurd for people to think that we're more dangerous than Iran.

"I -- you know, it's -- we're a transparent democracy. People know exactly what's on our mind. We debate things in the open. We've got a legislative process that's active.

"Look, people didn't agree with my decision on Iraq. And I understand that. For Europe, September the 11th was a moment; for us it was a change of thinking.

"We're transparent" We have a legislative process" "9/11" mommy! mommy! waaaaah! they're being mean to me! waaaaah!

In another story about the abducted and murdered soldiers, there's this little gem:

Meanwhile, General Caldwell said that a US airstrike on a fleeing vehicle killed a senior al-Qaeda leader from Iraq on Friday in the same area where the two American soldiers went missing.

So typical of the Administration of the Simians, another pronouncement from on-high that is fraught with potentially perilous consequence made by someone sitting safely behind a desk. Subject: the up-coming shuttle launch.

NASA managers have rejected last-ditch pleas from their top safety officer and chief engineer to scrap next month's shuttle launch, saying that they will press ahead despite potentially catastrophic risks.

The head of the US space agency, Dr Michael Griffin, overruled warnings that there was a "relatively high" chance the shuttle's external fuel tank could shed some of its solid foam coating when it launches on 1 July, carrying seven crew including Briton Piers Sellers, an Edinburgh University graduate.

... Dr Griffin gave the final nod for next month's mission ... "We have elected to take the risk," he said."

If there's an accident (let's all hope not), wanna bet that they'll be rewriting history to have "Dr" Griffin fighting bravely to kill this launch, but finally conceding because of the stifling bureacracy of NASA and the 1600 Crew?

The lede.

Two U.S. soldiers, missing for three days since their abduction in an insurgent stronghold south of Baghdad, were found dead, a military spokesman said Tuesday, and a top U.S. commander ordered an investigation into why the men were isolated from a larger force in such a dangerous part of Iraq.

Those two soldiers are dead because of bad policies intiated by the Cabal that started this war on the "cheap". They wre there because there was probably not sufficient support to have more troops at that check-point and all the others that now have to be manned to ensure the now-mythical "security" in Iraq.

Three more soldiers have paid the ultimate price, not to secure the mythical "Free and Democratic" (forgive me while I laugh my ass off over that one) Iraq, but because Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney and Beloved Leader were not going to send more than some number of troops in that they pulled out of their ass. General Eric Shinseki was unceremoniously cashiered because he spoke the truth to power. He cared a hell of a lot more for Private First Class Kristian Menchaca, Private First Class Thomas L. Tucker, and Specialist David J. Babineau than any politician in the 1600 Crew ever did or ever will, all their public prostestation to the contrary. Words are cheap. The lives of our soldiers are not, unless you're a war-mongering republican chickenhawk piece of shit.

The deaths of these three young men doing their duty can be laid more directly at the doorstep of the NeoCons than almost any others. The lack of troops is a product of their "hearts and flowers" vision of post-Saddam Iraq. Their control of DOD policy, in contravention to the State Department's documented blueprints of the chaos that would ensue following a post-Saddam Iraq, is responsible for this.

How many more? Not a question I want to ask, but a question that might be answered all to soon. Way to go, NeoCon assholes.

Well friends, a real adversary (as opposed to the fictitious one represented by badman Saddam) is back to flexing its muscles in Southeast Asia. Yes, the North Koreans are getting ready to test their first ICBM. Now, adversaries testing their missiles was an old and honored tradition in the old Cold War days. Hell, we went up and sat off of Midway Island and watched the Soviets send ICBMs into the waters 300 miles or so north of there, they even had a task group with a missile-observation ship I think it was the Yuri Gagarin or something there to watch the results, we just bored holes in the ocean watching them watch their missiles, (and laughed at their inability to UNREP).

So, now we have a bunch of swaggering KaBoys in the Crew who are probably ready to send another group of young Americans off to die in another effort to enforce Preznit Deserting Fratboy's Preemption Doctrine.

The U.S. military yesterday moved ships into position off the coast of North Korea to detect the launch of any long-range ballistic missiles and prepared its new, unproven missile-interception system to attempt a response if necessary.

they declined to confirm a Washington Times story yesterday that said the system had recently been activated, and that the Bush administration is considering shooting down the North Korean missile.

"The United States has a limited missile-defense system, but I'm not going to discuss status or capabilities," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

There are nine interceptor missiles based in Alaska and two in California. They are at the core of a complex system that connects launch data from satellites and radars on land and aboard ships, and transmits the data to command-and-control facilities, where senior commanders make decisions about whether to launch interceptors. The system has not successfully intercepted a missile in its current configuration.
...
...Nor would the U.S. government want to risk an embarrassing failure of its system, they said, and it is possible that the missile could carry a satellite into space, rather than arc back to earth.

My worry would be that the ride'em cowboys in the 1600 Crew would decide that sending a few bombers in for a "surgical" strike (it's so easy, isn't it?) would be the perfect cure, Beloved Leader to Beloved Leader as an attention-getting mechanism.

We'll just have to see how this Strangelovian scenario plays out. Oh, and boys and girls there will be no fighting in the War Room.

The most prime example of the ineptitude of the 1600 Crew has to be what's happening in Afghanistan. If the Democrats can't get the backbone to point out that even with absolute, unfettered Carte Blanche that Bunnypants and Company have fucked up the situation in Afghanistan, with absolutely almost 100% public support for the efforts there (as opposed to Mess O'Potamia) then they need to rething whether or not they can stand up to the coming assault out of the Rovian Blast Fax.

As fighting in Afghanistan has intensified over the past three months, the U.S. military has conducted 340 airstrikes there, more than twice the 160 carried out in the much higher-profile war in Iraq, according to data from the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East.

[chirp chirp chirp]

Thought so.

My old buddy, The Talking Dog has another in his series of interviews about the travesty of GITMO, this one with a former detainee released in 2004, who was the lead plaintiff in Rasul v Bush. Fascinating reading.

Go check it out.

Billmon on the upcoming Rovian Strategery (or how to play the cocktail-weenie press corpse):

To be sure, you know this won't stop the machine from simply making shit up -- kilowatt hours of available electricty conjured out of thin air, paper battalions magically transformed into crack commando units, pins on maps marking pacified villages where insurgents held sway only days before. If there is one thing that any bureaucracy knows how to do, and do well, it's spit out the kind of statistics that can make defeat look like victory, at least for a while.

Yeah, I'd have to count Jim Webb's victory in the Virginia primary as a victory of sorts for the netroots community. He was certainly outspent n by Miller, and his best press came from his ability to project what he is: a former Marine Officer, and a leader. In a fair fight, that's a hard image to beat, when you're getting outspent and trashed by "establishment" Democrats the road uphill has to seem longer than a 30 mile forced march with full pack. But he did it.

Miller is a worthy man, and certainly if Webb had not decided to toss his hat into the ring, a man that could have given George Allen a good run for his money. But Allen could have beaten up Miller with all the old republican chestnuts about liberalism ad nauseum, and it might still have worked. I don't know that Allen has that option to play against Webb, although I'm sure he'll try.

Webb's past, and his "conversion" from republican to Democrat make him an interesting paradox in this year's election. I know that the Rovian smear machine will go to any length to dishonor Webb's service in the Marine Corps (how long until they start questioning his service beginning with whether or not he actually graduated from Annapolis), right up through being SECNAV for Reagan (and a really good one, let me add). Webb has some elephant skeletons in his closet, but his willingness to stand up for the people of Virginia against Empty-suit Allen more than makes up for his past, IMHO.

George Allen had to have woken up today with a troublesome feeling. Virginians understand the military, and those who serve. He'll probably wince every time he has to drive by Quantico on his way to work for what will (hopefully) be his last days in the Senate. I don't think that operating from the swift-boat playbook will serve George of the Empty-suit too well in the months ahead. And he certainly can't run on his record of sucking up to that other empty suit who bears his name who has a 29% approval rating and hope for some coattails to ride. But then, this is George Allen, second-dumbest Senator in America we're talking about here so yeah, maybe hope springs eternal in that dim brain of his. You go, boy.

From an MSGOP Headline:

Bush: War in Iraq worth high price to U.S.

No, really.

Aww...how cute, those sagging poll numbers (which he never reads) must have driven this trip off to Mess O'Potamia for a (shocker!!) photo-op with the Eye-Racki Gubmint ministers.

All very hush hush, as they didn't want to tip off the bad guys that the worlds biggest living coward and blob of intellectual goo was coming to town.

President Bush assured Iraqis in a surprise visit to Baghdad on Tuesday that the U.S. stands with them and "the future of your country is in your hands."
...
"I've come to not only look you in the eye," Bush told al-Maliki. "I also come to tell you that when America gives its word, it keeps its word."

Sorry for the weirdness if you tried to get here earlier today, and couldn't. Apparently some kind of hosting madness. All fixed now (yes, my hosting company is very good) sometimes strange things happen with computers, right?

Jo

Just wow. This is breath-taking in it's scope and audacity. Seems that former homemaker Christine Delay was quite the rain-maker in La Famiglia Delay.

A registered lobbyist opened a retirement account in the late 1990s for the wife of then-House Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and contributed thousands of dollars to it while also paying her a salary to work for him from her home in Texas, according to sources, documents and DeLay's attorney, Richard Cullen.

The account represents a small portion of the income that DeLay's family received from entities at least partly controlled by lobbyist Edwin A. Buckham. But the disclosure of its origin adds to what was previously known about the benefits DeLay's family received from its association with Buckham, and it brings the total over the past seven years to about half a million dollars.

Buckham was DeLay's chief of staff before he became a lobbyist at the end of 1998, shortly before the account was opened and the flow of funds began. He has come under scrutiny from federal investigators because his lobbying firm received hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from clients of indicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

From 1998 until recently, Buckham, an evangelical minister, met regularly with DeLay, occasionally attended staff meetings in his office, made scheduling recommendations or decisions for the office, and served as DeLay's chief political and spiritual adviser, even though he was not formally employed by him. At the time, Buckham's clients included a host of companies with regulatory and legislative business before Congress, and whose interests DeLay supported.

Under congressional ethics rules, lobbyists such as Buckham are barred from providing gifts or gratuities with a total value exceeding $50 to lawmakers in a single year. No similar prohibition exists for payments to a lawmaker's family members, but the pay must be a reasonable wage for real work and not be meant to influence a lawmaker's votes. Nothing in pending House and Senate lobbying reform legislation addresses the issue of such lobbyist payments to lawmaker's families.

Besides financing the retirement account, Buckham played a role in two other streams of income that indirectly benefited DeLay.

One involved payments to DeLay's family by his principal political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), which drew its largest donations from corporations. Three former DeLay staffers with firsthand knowledge of Buckham's activities have described him as a decision maker for the group, even though it was formally run by its executive director.

An arm of the group paid Buckham a monthly consulting fee, and Buckham in turn employed its executive director as a consultant to his lobbying firm. The two of them shared a single office on the top floor of a townhouse owned by a nonprofit organization that Buckham created and directed. Buckham's role is relevant because from 2001 to Jan. 31, 2006, ARMPAC paid Christine DeLay; DeLay's daughter, Dani DeLay Ferro; and Ferro's Texas firm a total of $350,304 in political consulting fees and expenses, according to public records.

The Washington Post previously disclosed that from 1998 to 2002, Buckham's lobbying firm, Alexander Strategy Group, paid Christine DeLay a monthly salary averaging between $3,200 and $3,400. Cullen initially said the payments were for telephone calls she made periodically to the offices of certain members of Congress seeking the names of their favorite charities. Christine DeLay then forwarded that information to Buckham, along with some information about those charities.

Christine Delay- "Hi, this is Speaker Tom's wife! I need to know congress critter X's favorite charity. Every call I make, ensures that money goes to my favorite charity, Tom'n'Me!! Yeah, calling to find their favorite charity for $3,400 a month from home. What, she got that idea off of one of those "work at home" infomercials?

Last week, Cullen said the payments were also for general political consulting Christine DeLay provided to her husband. Cullen said he does not have complete records of the salary payments or the dates when Christine DeLay performed the work from the couple's home in Sugar Land, Tex. But a source familiar with the pay records said the total she received from the Alexander Strategy Group was about $115,000.

Together with the retirement account worth about $25,000, this means the family's total financial benefits from entities at least partly controlled by Buckham exceeded $490,300.

Before being paid by ARMPAC for political consulting, Christine DeLay, a homemaker and advocate for foster care, had not done paid work of that type. That circumstance has figured in government investigations of payments to other lawmakers' spouses, on the grounds that, if the compensation began after a lawmaker's election, it might have been meant to influence official acts.

I'm guessing that no legislation is going to cover this egregious loophole now or ever. Delay used it, William Jefferson allegedly used it to extract money from donors/those with business before him in one way or another.

The only way to change is to humiliate and arrest enough of these "public servants" until they law is changed and like little kids they are all "penalized" for the behaviour of a miscreant few because they can't seem to stop feeding at the trough of corruption long enough to realize what it's doing to the Republic.

Hm, well it seems (and I know you all will have a tough time with this), that the adminstration has lied again... or is just continuing the same lie forward.

We were told that the VA record thefts were records of vets discharged after 1975, and those with whom the VA has had contact/records of things like VA home loans, and educational assistance; then it was a few Navy and National Guard troops who might still be on active duty, but not to worry. Now it seems that the data theft covers damn near everyone who has ever served and is still serving since 1975.

Social Security numbers and other personal information for as many as 2.2 million U.S. military personnel -- including nearly 80 percent of the active-duty force -- were among the data stolen from the home of a Department of Veterans Affairs analyst last month, federal officials said yesterday, raising concerns about national security as well as identity theft.

The department announced that personal data for as many as 1.1 million active-duty military personnel, 430,000 National Guard members and 645,000 reserve members may have been included on an electronic file stolen May 3 from a department employee's house in Aspen Hill. The data include names, birth dates and Social Security numbers, VA spokesman Matt Burns said.
...
For example, security experts said, the information could be used to find out where military personnel live. "This essentially can create a Zip code for where each of the service members and [their] families live, and if it fell into the wrong hands could potentially put them at jeopardy of being targeted," said David Heyman, director of the homeland security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Another worry is that the information could reach foreign governments and their intelligence services or other hostile forces, allowing them to target service members and their families, the experts said.

Apparently however, word out of the 1600 Crew is that they still "support our troops and honor our veterans". I'm having a harder and harder time understanding how. Don't know about you all.

This ought to be an issue in the reelection of every single congress criminal out there. If they don't support a massive and immediate program to (1) change every single vets and active duty person's social security information and (2) ensure that every affected person is protected by free credit monitoring and some type of indemnity program against ID theft then they are not worth a single penny they are getting paid.

And if they say it's "too costly", fuck'em. They're getting ready to hand better than One Trillion dollars to people like Paris Hilton. I think that we come before hereditary zillionaires, or maybe I'm just some sort of commie-pinko asshole who wants a handout, or something.

The whole O'Reilly-Malmedy thing just pisses me off to no end. There sits Supreme Windbag Bill O'Reilly lying outright about the Malmedy Massacre and the sound of pins dropping in Right Blogistan is pretty amazing.

Keith Olbermann has been all over our old buddy, Falafel O'Loofah like a polyester shirt on a humid day. Not a moment of time goes by without Keith getting in O'Reilly's face about this, and rightly so. So I sent Olbermann a letter. Apparently the Actor, Charles Durning, is not only a survivor or the Normandy Landings as an infantryman, but a survivor of Malmedy. How fitting that someone like Durning should call O'Reilly out on June 6th about the lies that O'Reilly is spreading.

Anyone who can pass this on to Countdown gets my eternal gratitude, since I'm sure they get 12 million emails an hour.

Here it is:

Keith,

I have been watching Countdown and getting ever more annoyed over the O'Reilly lies about Malmedy and his casual slander of veterans. Today it's Malmedy, tomorrow it'll be the heroic Lt William Calley who escaped with his life after being pinned down in a savage firefight with the villagers of My Lai....doncha know?

It might be interesting to know, that doing some checking around the internets using Google (something that O'Loofah has never heard of, obviously) that the actor Charles Durning was not only one of the first Americans to land on the beaches at Normandy, but also a survivor of the Malmedy Massacre. I wonder if he'd be willing to speak to O'Reilly and try to shut him up (not that O'Loofah will ever actually shut up).

Here's what I found from this web site

Durning was wounded by an "S" Mine on June 15, 1944, at Les Mare des Mares. He was transported by the 499th Medical Collection Company to the 24th Evacuation Hospital. By June 17, he was back in England at the 217th General Hospital. Although severely wounded by shrapnel in the left and right thigh, right hand, the frontal region of the head and the interior left chest wall, Durning recovered quickly and was determined to be “fit for duty” on Dec. 6, 1944. Durning was present for the Battle of the Bulge, the German counter-offensive in December 1944. Taken prisoner, he was among the very few troops who escaped being massacred by Gen. Pieper's 1st Liebstandart Adolph Hitler, an elite SS Panzer unit at Malmedy. He escaped with two others, and returned to find the remainder murdered.

Is it worth your time (I hope you read this) to have someone try and speak to Mr. Durning (who is very reluctant to speak of his wartime experiences)?

I hope this might be useful in the continuing battle to bring a small dose of reality to the delusional world of Falafel O'Loofah.

Sincerely,

Jo Fish
usndemvet.com/blog

I wonder how long it'll be before the mailing lists of the DNC, which are probably on some William Jefferson-owned PCs start getting emails about from a Jefferson offspring asking for help getting their money out of Nigeria? After all, the story has all the elements of a good Nigerian Scam letter; the family fortune endangered, the patriarch locked away or threatened by the law, the benighted son or daughter pleading for help getting their money... it's all there.

Seems Jefferson is our very own "allegedly" corrupt politician. I suspect he's a Democrat by neccescity, and for no other reason. Had he been able to be elected under the Banner of Pachydermness, he'd have as easily thrown his allegiance to them. Public service, so it appears, was all about getting and staying rich, not the public good...

Four months later, over lunch in a congressional dining room, Jefferson informed Mody that he wanted a 5 percent to 7 percent stake in W2-IBBS in the name of his five daughters. That stake would be channeled through their own African company, Global Energy & Environmental Services LLC, which would be run by his son-in-law, according to court documents.

Over the ensuing months, Mody increasingly questioned Pfeffer and Jackson about the deal and her $3.5 million. In March 2005, she went to the FBI. From then on, Jefferson's ever-more-complex business dealings unfolded under the watch of federal investigators.

On May 12, 2005, Jefferson demanded that his stake in the Nigerian deal rise from 7 percent to as much as 20 percent, "for my children," according to court documents. The figure eventually reached 30 percent.

Oh, and I completely forgot this bit of William Jefferson trivia...

Amid the chaos and confusion that engulfed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck, [Rep. William Jefferson, (D-LA)] used National Guard troops to check on his property and rescue his personal belongings — even while New Orleans residents were trying to get rescued from rooftops, ABC News has learned.

Let's get a replay from the 1600 Crew's greatest hits for a moment, shall we?

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday played down recent deadly attacks on Americans in Iraq, equating those losses with everyday violence in large U.S. cities.
...
Asked at Pentagon press conference about the Iraqi resistance, Rumsfeld described it as "small elements" of 10 to 20 people, not large military formations or networks of attackers. He said there "is a little debate" in the administration over whether there is any central control to the resistance, which officials say is coming from Saddam Hussein's former Baath Party, Fedayeen paramilitary, and other loyalists.

"In those regions where pockets of dead-enders are trying to reconstitute, Gen. (Tommy) Franks and his team are rooting them out," Rumsfeld said, referring to the U.S. commander in Iraq. "In short, the coalition is making good progress."

Gunmen wearing police uniforms raided bus stations in central Baghdad, abducting at least 50 people, including drivers and passengers preparing to travel outside Iraq, including two Syrians, an interior ministry official said.

The attackers also seized people working in the area, where several travel agencies are based and buses pick up passengers traveling mostly to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, Lt.-Col. Falah al-Mohamedawi said.

The victims were herded into more than a dozen vehicles. More details were not immediately available.

In Iraq it seems, the "light at the end of the tunnel" might truly be an on-coming train. It's just that the geniuses who planned this debacle aren't traveling by rail, they're in their private jets laughing all the way to the bank.

1. Yogi Bear weeps
   
2. No Science, Any Time
   
3. Big Fat Ass(hat) Alert
   
4. Bunnypants ... Lying Decider
   
5. Five O'Clock Follies, West
   
6. The Royal "We"
   
7. Bad Policy, Bad Results. It's that simple.
   
8. Too funny...well not really
   
9. Oh, yeah. That war.
   
10. Timely