Volume 2 Issue 132

September 10, 2003

Staggering

Looking at the adminstrations changing minds, one man takes extreme steps to avoid airline food, and Slurpee Science

The Cost of War: As Congress considers the President's $87 billion request, consider this from an excellent Jonathan Weisman piece..."With $166 billion spent or requested, Bush's war spending in 2003 and 2004 already exceeds the inflation-adjusted costs of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and the Persian Gulf War combined, according to a study by Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus. The Iraq war approaches the $191 billion inflation-adjusted cost of World War I." Wow. That figure is staggering, and should give both supporters and detractors of the Iraqi war pause, especially as we approach a $500 billion deficit this year.-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45117-2003Sep8.html

They're not lies, we'll just deny we ever said them: Dana Milbank says that no matter what changes the Bush administration makes in Iraq policy, they're still saying they're not making changes -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45475-2003Sep8.html

And David Brooks, a new conservative columnist at the New York Times, takes on the same issue in a damning indictment of the administrations tactics -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/09/opinion/09BROO.html

Extending your stay: Reservists and National Guard troops in Iraq have received the bad news that they will be there for up to a year, further screwing up the economy -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45553-2003Sep8.html

The Washington Monthly had an excellent piece on how the reserve call ups, as well as other Bush administration decisions, have hurt police forces across the nation and increased crime -
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0309.wallace-wells.html

Where did them WMD go? Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was strangely mum on the WMD issue as he toured Iraq this week -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42728-2003Sep8.html

Speaking of WMD, it is now confirmed. More Weapons of Mass Destruction have been found at an old chemical warfare research site at American University in Washington, DC then in Iraq. They hid the weapons in DC! Damn Iraqis...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20030909-103541-9989r.htm

The Last to go Home: The last firefighter from the 9/11 attacks in New York was laid to rest this week, two years after the attack -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/09/nyregion/09FUNE.html

Look Who's Running for President: More Republicans are worried about Dean -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47145-2003Sep9.html

In fact, as Kurtz point's out, there's even a new site of Republicans for Dean!
http://atlblogs.com/republicansfordean/

Look Who's Running for President 2: Not much news out of yesterday's debate in Baltimore...except for the Lyndon LaRouche hecklers, who really got out of control, getting the ire of Sharpton, Lieberman, and the Baltimore City Police -
http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/national/deba209102003.htm

Look Who's Voting for President: The New Hampshire people are pissed about DC again -
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20030908-105500-2242r.htm

Campaign Finance goes to Court: The Supremes heard arguments on McCain-Feingold this week -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/09/politics/09SCOT.html?hp=&a mp;pagewanted=all&position

And then there were 132: Peter Ueberroth dropped out of the California Governors race yesterday, leaving California voters with only 132 choices. The horror!
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/recall/la-me-ueberroth10sep10,1,5025915.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Bad John Edwards Photo of the Day:

Shit! Where did the bus go? Damn it, this is the 3rd time they've done this to me today!

Educational Experimentation: In an interesting experiment, many schools are now trying something called "looping", where an elementary school teacher moves up with the class through grades. It's a great idea if you get a good teacher...perhaps not so good on some other areas though -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51411-2003Sep9.html

In Passing: Leni Riefenstahl, 101, Hitler's documentairan, dies this week in Germany, leaving behind a controversial past -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/09/obituaries/09CND-RIEF.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position

Speeding on through: New Jersey will be the first state to install widespread high speed EZ pass lanes, meaning that motorists won't have to slow down for the toll plaza anymore, and setting the stage for a wider revolution in toll collection on highways -
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1063173314284131.xml

Special Delivery: Seeking to save money, a man shipped himself from New York to Dallas, spending 15 hours in a crate. While funny...what if a terrorist decided to do it? Of the millions of tons of cargo flown on both passenger and cargo jets annually...none are screened for weapons or explosives. -
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Southwest/09/10/stowaway.flight.a p/index.html

The Swamp is for sale as well! New York City has sold it's soul...I mean, sold exclusive beverage rights to Snapple. Hope you like it if you live there -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/10/nyregion/10SNAP.html

A Pennant Race of a Different Sort: The Detroit Tigers, 37-106 with 19 games left in the season, are trying to avoid becoming the worst team in Major League History, held by the 1962 Mets with 120 losses. It won't be easy -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/10/sports/baseball/10tigers.h tml?8hpib

We Can Build It. We Can Make it Better: You would be amazed at the amount of science that goes into a Slurpee -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/09/business/09SLUR.html