au revoir ,UN

WAR
* maxboot "And yet it's clear to everyone (except, that is, President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld) that the U.S. military is far too small to handle all the missions thrown its way... There's no reason we couldn't recruit a fresh batch of foreigners today. " oooh oooh - pick me! pick me! can i play? pleeeease??? neocons want more warriors. move to canada. or mars. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3059805

* " the active-duty Army missed its February recruiting goal by more than 27%. It was the first time in almost five years that the Army has failed to meet a monthly target." missing by 27% is bad - but combined with the first sentence, its really extraordinary. lets get foreigners! http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20050303/pl_usatoday/armymissesrecruitinggoal

* "A subsequent presidential directive said that the United States could retaliate with nuclear arms against a chemical or biological weapons attack, and that it could even strike against countries suspected of having nuclear, chemical or biological weapons."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0302-23.htm

* woohoo - new pix of zark on the teeve - can you hear me laughing across the oceans?

* " ([Early reports said] The car had been rushing toward a checkpoint and did not slow down. [It is now being denied by Ms. Sgrena that the car was rushing toward a checkpoint, making the behavior of the US troops hard to understand.]" indeed. http://www.juancole.com/2005/03/us-wounds-italian-hostage-kills.html

* juan also reminds us that there is no govt in iraq yet.

* "The companion of freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena on Saturday levelled serious accusations at US troops who fired at her convoy as it was nearing Baghdad airport, saying the shooting had been deliberate." http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1671944,00.html

* " "Giuliana and the other people who were there told me that the American attack was completely unjustified. They had alerted the whole chain of command, the Italian troops were awaiting them at the airport. And yet, they fired 300, 400 rounds. Why?"" - and this interesting snippett: "Friday's shooting occurred shortly after Giuliana Sgrena was released from a Baghdad hospital." (which the AP left unexplained) http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000827944

* g tells about a date with someone he wants to call "Deep Tuchas" (my spanish isnt great - i think it translates into 'she who touches my heart deeply')
"and in between the fog of inebriation, she said something to the affect that her Israeli (or maybe Russian) friends told her that it was no accident, but actually a premeditated hit by the Ams, not on the journalist, but the intelligence agent, who had too much information... I asked for clarification and details today, but she became very dodgy...saying she was just talking drunken crap to try to get me into bed". one thing is for sure, they wanted (at least) of the 4 dead - there were 300 bullets or something - whether it was calipari or sgrega or one of the others, we dont know. hopefully it was not calipari and we'll find out more... the funniest part of the story of course is someone trying to talk g into bed - one can imagine Nell succeeding in about 2.4 secs.


AMDOM
* oreilly is suiing someone for linking to him - copyright or some such. happy fucking hyperlinking. http://www.newshounds.us/2005/03/04/dear_bill_oreilly_you_dont_scare_us.php

* davidcorn: "A reliable source of mine reports that he recently chatted with one of the principle figures in the investigation and that this fellow said the AIPAC scandal was about to "blow up," meaning there would be new, noteworthy developments that presumably would generate headlines." we can hope... http://www.davidcorn.com/2005/03/is_the_potentia.php

* triffic piece on bush lying about socsec by josh http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_02_27.php#005007 - josh totally rocks - if the murdermonkeys socsec plan fails, josh will deserve a whole lot of the credit (and krug of course) - a lot of people read tpm, and any journo that writes about socsec knows that josh will call them out, and they know that everyone else is watching.

* amyl h writes "I would love to chance to party in Beirut some day..." to which i replied 'we could party likes its resolution 1559' - both of us seemed to think that was funny. mostly me, prolly.

* kate obeirne from npr was spooky on mtp (i dont know her) - 'hillary could run for pres, she could move way to the right'

* 2 questions wrt notgannon: a) if the shitehouse wanted a plant, why him? b) if the shitehouse wanted a hooker, why him?

* bolton takes negropontes old job. good fucking grief. i wonder what theyll do with the UN site in NYC when it is vacated.

* err yuk - pletka is on the teeve again

* " Smackdown delivered to Condi Rice" by former Foreign Minister of Canada. sweet. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/3/10423/16639

* the repug socsec tactic seems to be 'getting the dems to the table' - its still unclear what the game is.

* grrrrr - do macs crash as often as pcs? i hate losing work.