This data is an accounting of civilian deaths in Iraq to date.
See Iraqbodycount.net for statistical methodologies

Viacom Silences GOP Criticism
CBS has declined to air advertisements by Moveon.org during the insipidly popular Super Bowl. Moveon.org, an organization openly critical of the Bush Administration, sought to place an advertisement featuring children laboring in factories and performing menial services, to illustrate that the recklessness of the Bush fat cat tax giveaways and profligate spending which will create budget deficits that will be dealt with by the toil of future generations.

Of course, CBS refers to some blanket policies that vaguely eschew what it refers to as "advocacy advertisements." Rest assured, angered readers, it has nothing to do with parent company Viacom seeking favorable policy rulings from the Federal Communications Commission in its attempts to seek greater media consolidation and conglomeration.

This same yearning for the highly profitable FCC monopoly floodgate opening had nothing to do with CBS deep sixing the Reagan docudrama, in which Reagan is depicted as a doddering nincompoop unable to know the highly visible activities of his own staff, while his wife ran his affairs with input from Astrologers.

It has just come to my attention (O.K., I'm a little slow on the uptake; though, clearly, they'd rather this fact not be perused too carefully) that the Bush administration has glorious plans (as The Guardian puts it) to "hand back power to Iraqis through a carefully crafted process of selecting appointees to a transitional government."

Hummmmmm..... Is that the putting into play of American democracy? I must have missed something in my fifth grade Social Studies classes way back when. Or maybe the Bush-ites have now unconstitutionally taken over the Webster's dictionary too. They have their hands in many pots! Clever fellows, they are (that includes you, Condalezza, you sell out).

Meanwhile, Dick Cheney and Tony Scalia are having male bonding rituals in the woods (guns! kill! mine is bigger than yours!), where they seal their friendship and scheme to corrupt the American political system further from within. S: "Oh, Dick, no worries, love; if you give me that glorious mallard ["blam!"] I'll pave the way for you to keep those incriminating documents just between you and your billionaire energy industry friends.... Just watch out for my tweeds there." C: "Capital, my dear. Capital. Could you also find a way to silence all news stories about the unfortunate, hem, exaggerations of 'fact' we used to bolster support for the war in Iraq? And the lack of connection between Saddam and Osama? And, while you're at it, we could use a constitutional amendment extending the presidency up to 12 years -- only for Republican presidents, of course. And eradicating any stipulations about being born as an American citizen (that's for you, Arnie)? And why don't we just get rid of the whole mess of an electoral process while we're at it (and the U.N., too; why not?)? That would be so lovely."

Good thing I now live in the old world where such rituals linked to an "honorable" aristocratic tradition; a country that still admits it's a monarchy.

State of the Union... EXPOSED! - Volume One
Once again, our Crap Sickened PsyOps team has managed to decode subliminal messages in the President's State of the Union message. Here, in its decoded glory is the text...
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens: America this evening is a nation called to great responsibilities. And we are rising to meet them.

As we gather tonight, hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women are deployed across the world in the war on terror as well as in Iraq. By bringing hope to the oppressed, the hope they can knock off another chopper to get us the hell out, delivering justice to the violent but not the guys who gave the violent the Sarin base chemicals, the Anthrax spores and other goodies, they are making America more secure. (Applause.)

Each day, law enforcement personnel and intelligence officers are tracking terrorist threats and whiny hippie enemies of the state; analysts are examining airline passenger lists for foreign sounding names; the men and women of our new Homeland Security Department are patrolling our coasts and borders which should protect us from any threat other than, say anything you could smuggle in on the backs of thousands of Mexicans that pour through our porous borders every year. And their vigilance is protecting America. (Applause.)

Americans are proving once again to be the hardest working people in the world especially when it comes to inventing new old reasons for invading Iraq. The American economy is growing stronger, in a jobless, anti-manufacturing kind of way. The tax relief you passed is working to make the fat cats hideously obese. (Applause.)

Tonight, members of Congress can take pride in the great works of compassion and reform that skeptics had thought impossible or at least riddled with lies. You're raising the standards for our public schools and punishing the retards that can’t meet them, and you are giving our senior citizens prescription drug coverage under Medicare if you can figure out the complexities of using that coverage. (Applause.)

We have faced serious challenges together, and now we face a choice the kind of simple A/B choice that works best in my tiny brain: We can go forward with confidence and resolve, or we can turn back to the dangerous illusion (and believe me, I'm a sucker for dangerous illusions) that terrorists are not plotting and outlaw regimes are no threat to us. We can press on with economic growth creating dozens upon dozens of new jobs each quarter, and reforms in education and Medicare, or we can turn back to old policies and old divisions. Gee, when I put it that way, it seems pretty simple, eh?

We've not come all this way -- through tragedy, and trial and war -- only to falter and leave our work unfinished. People, there are nations out there still uncrushed and still not terrified of my itchy trigger finger. Americans are rising to the tasks of history while somehow ignoring the lessons of history, and they expect the same from us. In their efforts, their enterprise, and their character, the American people are showing that the state of our union is confident and strong. (Applause.) Get it? State of the Union?? Man, I’m good!

Our greatest responsibility is the hyper-active defense of the American people. Twenty-eight months have passed since September 11th, 2001 -- over two years without an attack on American soil, since that whole Anthrax thing was an attack on people, not soil. And it is tempting to believe that the danger is behind us, but that would allow people to stop living in the abject fear that is necessary for voters to accept drastic rollbacks in the Constitution. That hope is understandable, comforting -- and false, and baby-cakes, I know false hope! The killing has continued in Bali, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Mombasa, Jerusalem, Istanbul, and Baghdad Didja like how I stuck Baghdad in there and omitted Kabul? Booya! The terrorists continue to plot against America and the civilized world, because we’ve been busy destroying Iraq instead of figuring out what to do with Al Qeada. And by our will and courage, this danger will be defeated at some vague point in time after Nov 2004.

To be continued...

Look for weekly installments of the Decoded SOTU until we exhaust our material.

The Killing Continues
Not that Americans care anymore, but the Iraqi resistance is alive and well, at least by the body count data the continues its gristly toll. With Saddam in some concrete spiderhole and Iraq in shambles, you'd think the Iraqis would just chill and let the sweet nectar of democracy lull them into a peaceful slumber while US oil interests went about their business.

Now the damn Shi'ites are demanding elections, which would put them into power, giving them a chance to exact revenge on the damn Sunnis, who benefited enormously from Ba'ath party rule. Both sides hate the damn Kurds, so you know they'll get hosed. On top of these pressures, Karl Rove has to figure out a way to cram all the mess into a closet and slam the door before it spills out. Then, whomever opens the door has to clean it up. Brilliant.

David Kay and Colin Powell are soft-pedaling the paucity of WMD in Iraq, while Cheney is trying to redefine "is" to prove they might still be there. Then Georgie talks of "dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities." That's a whole lot of qualifiers on that statement, Mister President.

Meanwhile, Halliburton quickly threw $6.3 million to the defense department, moments before government auditors uncovered a graft operation with Kuwati suppliers, thereby partially staving off yet another embarrassing picture of Cheney's guys with their hands in the till.

Good God, if you're going to be the global conqueror, shouldn't you look like you know what you're doing?

Sick of this Crap Staff (yes, the links really work!):

Editor:
Publisher:
Layout:
Research:
Interns: , ,
Admin:
Contributors: