LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

– Bumper sticker of the week: I’m retired, but I work part—time as a pain in the ass.

– Quotes of the week: On Ann Coulter: "The reigning diva of the hysterical right. Or, the hysterical diva of the reigning right."

On the 2000 election: "Bush was lying throughout the 2000 campaign. And unlike Gore, Bush’s lies weren’t even true."

On 9/11: "Operation Ignore." Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Al Franken

– Management by Fear: Corporate America, both profit and non-profit (whatever the difference is), are adopting the current administration’s management style: Keep everyone in fear. If you screw up, they’ll come and take you away. Apparently management is paying good money to hear consultants say that it is about time that they, management, relieve themselves of some of that managerial pressure that comes with being at the top, and spread it amongst the masses. You can hardly blame them. Who do the feds keep hauling off? You can’t find a case where they go below management. It seems the feds continue to believe management is in charge. I think letting them live in this delusion is fine. I think it’s perfectly all right.

– Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people: Quite an impressive gathering. And wouldn’t you know it, most of them are Americans. We wouldn’t have it any other way, now would we? These people got more money than the federal reserve. I put the list under my pillow, hoping something might rub off. The ink did! My face looked like an ad for the Walton family.

– Another bumper sticker: Let me guess.... your parents were cousins.

– The government don’t get it: Al Quaeda is a state of mind. It consists of being poor, humiliated, and living in utter and complete despair and hopelessness. Killing yourself for a cause than becomes righteous and irrelevant.

– Speaking of causes: There are approximately 400 million young Muslims under the age of 15. After such a pathetic display of bravado by the U.S. in Iraq, which way will they lean? As stated by C.J. Chivers, "After each pile of rubble is sifted, are there fewer terrorists, or more?"

– Now for some really uplifting news: In 2002, the U.S. once again sold more arms to the rest of the world than any other country. $13.3 billion dollars worth, or 45.5% of the global arms deals. It’s good to see such companies as Lockheed and Boeing doing so well in this category. To name but a few of the countries we do business with: Israel, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Oman, Jordan, Egypt, Columbia Saudi Arabia, China, and Taiwan. As you’ll notice, some of these countries don’t get along, and some use our weapons against us. We’ve cut deals with such notable characters as bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Perez Musharraf, and Margaret Thatcher. You’d think over time we’d learn. Not a chance. Not when big money is involved.

– Headlines: Poverty up, income down. Welcome to BushWorld, where everything will be fine, just you wait and see.

– Life, in many instances, is painful. Anybody saying otherwise is likely selling something.

– Bush’s approval rating drops to 40%: You can pretty soon count on something dreadful happening. It’s a new marketing scheme, called The Fear Factor.

– House intelligence committee scolds U.S. intelligence community: Seems we were a bit misled about Iraq being an imminent nuclear threat. Condoleezza Right, I mean Rice, immediately defends the administration and the CIA . They have "secret" information that they can’t share with us. We couldn’t take the truth. It would ruin the whole thing.

– This whole Iraqi thing don’t add up. Not one thing is right about it. Every leader in Washington responsible for taking us down this path should be relieved of duty and tried for crimes against humanity. This pre-emptive nonsense is criminal. And besides that, it’s got to be illegal. At the very least, it’s seriously immoral.