Author: jp

From North Korea Says It Has Nuclear Weapons, the Associated Press, Feb 10, 2005:

“The North Koreans have been told by the president of the United States that the United States has no intention of attacking or invading North Korea,” Rice told a news conference in Luxembourg.

From The President’s State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002:

North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.
[…]
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.
[…]
And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation’s security.

President Bush announces his 2006 U.S. budget, seated comfortably between Treasury Secretary John Snow and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
(AFP/Brendan Smialowski)
RELATED: Pentagon Budget Up; War Cost Is Excluded, the New York Times; Congress Unlikely to Embrace Bush Wish List; Experts Say Cuts in Farm Subsidies, Medicaid and Other Domestic Programs May Be Unrealistic, the Washington Post

From a rather bluntly-sequenced series of sentences in President Offers Budget Proposal With Broad Cuts, the New York Times, February 8, 2005:

“The Environmental Protection Agency would cut by $500 million its program to help poor communities build wastewater treatment plants and other water projects.
The cuts would be offset to some extent by increased spending on programs Mr. Bush supports. NASA would get an added $400 million, or 2.4 percent, bringing its budget to $16.5 billion as it focuses on the administration’s long-term goal of a manned mission to Mars.”

Iraqi policemen in Najaf, Iraq on Monday, Feb. 7, 2005, living it up.
(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Iraqi policemen in Baghdad, Iraq on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2005, dying it up.
(AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

US soldiers at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Iraq on Monday, Feb. 7, 2005, eating it up.
(AP Photo/Chris Tomlinson)

Wait, wait, wait, my mistake. This particular chart was prepared to demonstrate the dire failings of Social Security, and not the President’s reckless federal budget.
Alert graph readers can make note of this by observing that the above chart depicts a spending deficit occurring sometime after 2020, whereas, with the President’s budget, we’ve had a federal deficit since early 2002.

Arbiters of language and justice are seemingly obsessed with the issue of word count in President Bush’s speeches – in particular, his noted recent over-emphasis on the grandiose notions of “freedom” and “liberty“.
Well, then, this seems like an easy (if not excessively lazy) manner of proving any sort of ideological point, however disingenuous it may be in spirit…and with that in mind, we hereby are setting out to prove, through careful study of last night’s 2005 State of the Union address, that while President Bush does in fact love the idea of spreading American ideals around the world, he nonetheless hates the people who clean his toilets.
Ok, now, you need proof? Take a look at this precise, scientific statistical breakdown of the President’s address last night:
FREEDOM: 21 instances.
So easy. This indicates a devotion to America and all that for which it stands. Peace, justice, and the American way. Liberty. Democracy. Phrases that can appear on the back of coins. The president loves this shit.
POOR: 1 instance.
This noted depreciation in verbal occurrences, in turn, reveals a deep-seated desire to spit upon the nation’s army of vacuuming and janitorial specialists. And those people that work at Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Shack at the local mall? They, too, shall be subjected to the President’s spittle, in an unusual reversal of the food server/servee relationship.
Oh, and there’s one other remaining gem buried within this close reading of the President’s address:
ASBESTOS: 1 instance.
That’s right, Bush abhors people who live and/or work in homes or buildings constructed prior to the 1970s.
The White House, incidentally, was heavily redesigned in the 1980s, so it’s totally “safe” in this matter. Contractors added this cute little balcony on the South Portico during the Reagan administration, and while uptight White House historians like Doris Kearns Goodwin readily insist this was done under President Truman’s watch, we all know how Goodwin has herself been discredited time and again as a liar.
Ergo, asbestos…Reagan…Bush hates poor people.

I guess we’ll never know.
RELATED: Major parties and alliances, the Associated Press

Cheney Criticized for Attire at Auschwitz Ceremony, Reuters
Cheney’s Attire Draws Ire, CBS News
Cheney criticized for Auschwitz attire, Swissinfo
Fashion Writer Tsks Cheney’s Wardrobe Malfunction, FOX News
Dick Cheney, Dressing Down, Washington Post
Cheney Under Fire For Attire At Auschwitz Ceremony, Jackson Channel
Oh, and some other issues of note:
Five US soldiers, eight Iraqis killed in pre-election attacks, Turkish Press