The skinny on Cheney. Here's an excellent overview of the Cheney problem, as told by the UK's Guardian. Nothing new, just a solid summary and context for Cheney's participation in the Bush administration's disintegration of the American dream.

{ 9:18 AM }

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The contract to build al-Qaeda cells at Guantanamo Bay was landed by... Halliburton? Don't know how I missed this one. Reported in the UK's excellent Guardian Observer and elsewhere, Cheney's Halliburton cronies got the contract to build the cells at Guantanamo Bay.

If only the American public didn't have the attention span and mental capacity of a gnat, the unseemly connection between the administration's business cabal and its military mandate would ignite an outrage. Instead, the lead story will always be Jennifer Lopez's diet/dress/divorce or botox or a scathing expose of the latest athlete to flunk a drug test. Remind me: who owns the media?

{ 5:50 PM }

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It's August. Do you know what "work" is? According to USA Today, "People who objected to his [month-long] hiatus 'don't understand the definition of work,' Bush said last summer." Both he and Cheney will take the month off again in 2002, which staffers like Ari Fleischer insist should be considered "work" because Cheney will make at least a half-dozen "fundraising appearances" and W will "travel" to 12 cities to "raise money" for Republican candidates. That counts as "work," doesn't it? Isn't that what we expect from our "elected" officials?

{ 1:50 PM }

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Don't forget to try the links in the right column. The Media and Blogging links were lovingly hand-selected for your online pleasure. Many of them are rants (albeit far more informed and exhaustive than this one), and some are actually reputable writers and news sources.

All links in the right column pop up in a new window.

{ 10:19 AM }

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"A government should not mobilize an army out of anger, military leaders should not provoke war out of wrath." In The Art of War, Sun Tzu argues over and over that an enlightened government is the key to successful military leadership. Though written over two thousand years ago, these words apply all too well to our present situation with Iraq, in that our president and his father have an ongoing personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein. There is no doubt that Hussein is unsavory, despicable, etc., but the unusually emotional focus of the Bush administration on Hussein to the exclusion of its many failures (the non-capture of bin Laden, the Enron debacle, the stock market crisis, the lack of confidence in corporate governance, Bush and Cheney's own shadowy resumés) betrays its irrationality and overall lack of enlightenment. What else but a grudge match could we expect from an unelected president and his one-term daddy?

{ 10:02 AM }

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"Der Mensch lebt nur von Missetat allein!" These words by Bertholt Brecht in The Threepenny Opera translate as "Man lives by crime alone." To update this thought, replace "man" with "corporate boards."

{ 10:57 AM }

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