1. Rice to Lead Effort To Speed Iraqi Aid
“President Bush announced yesterday that the White House will take a stronger role in overseeing the struggling effort to rebuild Iraq through a new group intended to speed the flow of money and staff to Baghdad and streamline decision-making in Washington…
The new group, to be led by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and drawn from more than a half-dozen Cabinet agencies, is intended to remove a bottleneck in decision-making by identifying and resolving problems faced by the U.S.-led occupation. Responsibility for running postwar Iraq will remain with the Defense Department, and civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer will retain considerable autonomy.”
That’s like having the fox guard the henhouse!
2. Sharon Threatens to Hit Israel’s Enemies Anywhere
“President Bush insisted on Monday that Israel should not feel constrained in defending itself but said he told Sharon: ‘It’s very important that any action Israel take(s) should avoid escalation and creating higher tensions.'”
Do as I say, and not as I do!
3. Consumer borrowing surged in August
“The Federal Reserve reported Tuesday that consumers increased their borrowing by a seasonally adjusted $8.2 billion, or at a brisk annual rate of 5.2 percent from July to August. That pushed up total consumer debt to $1.96 trillion.”
That’s biting off more than you can chew!
Month: October 2003
3.6 earthquake hits Southern California.
[Earthquake data via the ever-fruitful Fark]
Dear Headline Writers at The New York Post and The New York Daily News:
Please resist using the headline “LOST IN TRANSLATION” when reporting this story tomorrow. The lazy use of this headline was already thoroughly trashed in The New York Observer two weeks ago, so it’s not like you can still find it orginal or clever.
Thank you,
Your friends at low culture
So, Senator Bob Graham (D- Fla.) has withdrawn from the race for the 2004 Democratic Presidential Nomination. Hopefully, this will enable him to start working on shoring up some support for a shot at the V.P. position, allowing the Dems to maintain some degree of limited relevance in the New South (I mean, seriously, Sen. John Edwards is so gone and Gen. Wesley Clark is a “barely-there” Arkansan, which sounds suspiciously like some sort of designer undergarment).
One of the sadder elements of this withdrawal, however, is not the loss of a veteran politician with relevant international experience, but the manner in which the withdrawal occurred, as per the Miami Herald:
In an anticlimactic finale, the 66-year-old Graham made his announcement during an interview on CNN’s Larry King Live, keeping much of his own senior staff in the dark about his fate until the end of a 52-minute segment on the show examining the future of Las Vegas duo Siegfried & Roy.
Thinking it was another one of those mean “Morning Zoo” radio pranks, Nobel Prize winner Peter Mansfield doubted his wife when she told him he’d won.
[link via the tireless Fark]
Categories
Li’l Millionaires
Attention Dakota Fanning: If you ever leave California, move to New York. According to today’s New York Times, Albany passed a new law forcing parents to put at least 15% of their perfmormer children’s money in a trust fund to be turned over to the little darlings if and when they reach 18. This is good news for child actors everywhere. If only this law had been in place sooner, Jonathan Lipnicki might not have descended into a Lick-’em-ade and OxyContin addiction and turned to rodeo clowning to make ends meet.
Categories
Blogs 1, New York Times, 0
Gothamist, Sept. 19: Angle Grinder Man*
New York Times, Oct. 7: Car Owners’ Hero Dressed for the Job
* Yes, I know that Gothamist was linking from CNN, but she did it first.
Categories
Welcome back, RZA
Out today: RZA’s Birth of a Prince. I guess medical school didn’t work out for The Abbot, but I’m glad he’s back to what he does best.
RZA doesn’t have a Web presence anymore (the mighty Wu empire is, sadly, in decline), but you can swing on over to rza.org home of Religious Zionists of America.
Categories
Dear Robin, David, and Shia
Robin Williams, what happened to you? You were doing so good there for a second or two. You almost made me forget about Patch Adams and Jakob the Liar, What Dreams May Come and the other syrupy sweet pieces of crap you put out in the last decade. And now I hear about
Now, David Duchovny, what happened to you? I was never an X-Files fan, but I like your droll, intelligent persona (and your awesome cameos on The Larry Sanders Show and creepy role in Full Frontal). You wrote and are currently directing this movie (in Brooklyn, no less), so I’m sure it’s autobiographical, but David Duchovny, please resist the temptation to make anything that can be described as “touching,” “shot-through with emotion,” or “ringing true with pure sentiment.” I expect better from you. Please, David Duchovny!
Don’t even get me started on you, Shia LeBeouf! Get a haircut already. Please, Shia LeBeouf!
It’s all going according to our master plan, sirs!
Stage 2 (or is this Stage 3? We’ve lost count) of the Bush Administration’s expiration-date-devoid War on Terror™ is now officially underway. Thanks, Israel! You’re doing those of us at Boeing and Lockheed-Martin proud!
This, by the way, per half-assed Democratic presidential candidate General Wesley Clark’s recently revealed knowledge of the current administration’s master plans:
“As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan.” Clark adds, “I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned.”
Sigh. It’s time to start boning up on the Lebanon Factsheet. TIP: next time, boys, please alphabetize your plan-of-attack list.