Sunday, June 12, 2005

Random Nonsense Inc.

And the Shinseki Award goes to…

Congratulations, Major General Joseph Taluto! The senior US military chief said he could understand why some ordinary Iraqis would take up arms against the US military:
If a good, honest person feels having all these Humvees driving on the road, having us moving people out of the way, having us patrol the streets, having car bombs going off, you can understand how they could [want to fight us].
[Link via Best of the Blogs]


In retrospect, the $30 billion was a bargain

Testimony by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of Iraq policy, before a House subcommittee on Feb. 28, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, illustrated the optimistic view the administration had of postwar Iraq. He said containment of Hussein the previous 12 years had cost "slightly over $30 billion," adding, "I can't imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $30 billion to be there for another 12 years." As of May, the Congressional Research Service estimated that Congress has approved $208 billion for the war in Iraq since 2003."[emph added]
[Memo: US Lacked Full Post War Plan]


Two intriguing concepts

From Justice Clarence Thomas's dissent in Gonzales v. Raich (regarding medical marijuana):
Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything — and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers. [emph added]


FOX News goes touchy-feely

It was stunning: Neil Cavuto used up several minutes of precious national airtime to tell us, in no uncertain terms, that it's not nice to make fun of fat people.
I was coming back from my big interview with President Bush (search) — did I mention that I interviewed the president? Anyway, I was on line to get a cup of tea at one of those airport stands and a few people ahead of me was a woman trying to decide what to order.
She was fairly heavy herself. OK, maybe I'm being kind — she was quite heavy. And don't a couple of guys in back of me knew it.
They started grumbling about how she's holding up the line — which she really wasn't.
As she tried to decide what to order, one of them snapped, clearly within earshot, "Put down the donut, fatso."
And Cavuto, still on a testosterone high following his presidential interview, summoned up all his courage and… shook his head at them.

[link]

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