Democracy Jesus!

* comment of the day from maha: "And as long as we are there the insurgency will continue, but Bush is too wrapped up with himself as Democracy Jesus to let go of his glorious little war. We’re stuck there until 2009 or the Iraqis kick us out, whichever comes first." (link)
Democracy Jesus! brillo.

* arthur is threatening to leave us again. (link)

* i'm confused about something from during the week - this odd kabuki of Blinky pretending that he apologised... for the intelligence being bad, and then saying he wad reponsible... for fixing the agency. it was a perfectly crafted sentence. bush sounded as though he apologised, and the headlines all reported that he had apologised, but the text shows that he didnt. i can understand the logic of not apologising, no problem there, but what is the logic of appearing to apologise, without actually apologising? i.e. the obvious intent of the sentence was that people, via the headlines, would think that he had apologised. why bother over-engineering the sentence? are they concerned about legal liability for war crimes? i hope those worries keep them awake at night.

* "During his recent visit to Ankara, CIA Director Porter Goss reportedly brought three dossiers on Iran to Ankara. Goss is said to have asked for Turkey’s support for Washington’s policy against Iran’s nuclear activities, charging that Tehran had supported terrorism and taken part in activities against Turkey. Goss also asked Ankara to be ready for a possible US air operation against Iran and Syria. Goss, who came to Ankara just after FBI Director Robert Mueller’s visit, brought up Iran’s alleged attempts to develop nuclear weapons." (link)

* there seems to be some amazing spin going on that bush only spied on 30 people - but what he actually said was "30 times" - who knows how many per batch? the original nyt article said it was thousands of people - but the '30 times' thing is getting a lot of traction. bastards.