Let's connect the dots:
Dot 1: Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon
Dot 2: According to news reports, "the NSA began monitoring the communications of anyone "connected" to Al Qaeda figures"
Under this doctrine, even Rush Limbaugh is "connected" to al Qaeda and subject to warrantless surveillance.  In other words, the Bush Administration can now wiretap the international communications of anyone, anywhere, at their sole discretion.  And if any purely domestic communications "accidentally" make it through the filters, I'm sure the loyal Bushie in charge would never, ever consider relaying any politically useful bits to the appropriate political operatives...
(more below the fold)

Yes, a Bush Administration official stressed the importance of timetables:  

"The goalposts keep moving. How much money do they want us to give away unilaterally for no date certain?" Schwab asked, referring to ...

To What?  Iraq?  

No, to opening up free trade to Columbia as a reward for not killing as many union organizers as they used to (they're running out...)

Source:  Pelosi hands Bush loss on Colombia trade pact, Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Friday, April 11, 2008

Yet another example of Bush League hypocrisy - imagine what would happen if someone had asked this of General Petraeus?

Remember this blast from the past?

Pentagon pays Iraqi papers to print its 'good news' stories
The Guardian, Thursday December 1 2005
Faced with suicide bombings, claims of Iraqi death squads, and kidnappings, the Pentagon has come up with an innovative solution to solving the problems in Iraq: buying good news. Using defence contractors or intermediaries posing as freelance reporters, the military has been paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by a military propaganda unit lauding the US mission.

And this recent diary?

How the Spooks Took Over the News
by Inky99
Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 11:46:21 PM PST

No, this isn't about Operation Mockingbird, whereby the CIA put journalists and news personnel on its payroll in order to lie to the American people.

So, in the midst of all these "the Surge is Working" reports from the MSM, one wonders whether all the happy news comes from some psyops colonel in the Pentagon?

Now that Democrats have control of Congress, President Bush has launched a highly visible talking point blizzard  on the evils of Congressional earmarks.  Congressional earmarks, we're told, are quintessential pork-barrel money wasters.

Remember, however, this is coming from a fiercely partisan President who politicized formerly non-partisan government actions, and seeks to expand the Executive Branch's power whenever possible.  This leads one to question whether it is the earmarks that Bush opposes - or the "Congressional" part.  Today's New York Times documents the answer:

From Bush, Foe of Earmarks, Similar Items
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: February 10, 2008
...
The White House contends that when the president requests money for a project, it has gone through a rigorous review — by the agency, the White House or both — using objective criteria.

Of course, those criteria were applied by the likes of Lurita Doan (continued)

You've got to hand it to the Big W on this one: he's applying the same standard on foreign elections as he does when he's running:

Rights Group Says U.S. Is Too Eager to Endorse Suspect Elections
By HELENE COOPER (New York Times)
Published: February 1, 2008
WASHINGTON — The advocacy group Human Rights Watch on Thursday said that the Bush administration was giving lip service to the promotion of democracy around the world by endorsing suspect elections while allowing human rights violations in those countries to go unchecked.
...
Russia, Jordan and “even China,” the group said, have “gotten into the game” of merely using the word democracy to claim real democratic credentials.

Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 seem to have caught on - just like human rights violations in the name of fighting "terror."

Yeah, I know this subject is old news - but the Ohio Secretary of State's 334 page report (pdf warning) remains a scary thing.  Here are the highlights:

The EVEREST report was released Dec. 7 and (Larry Dignan) found it via Slashdot. Overall, the report really raises questions about election systems. Buffer overflows, leaky encryption, audit problems and firmware issues abound. One machine, the M100, from ES&S accepts counterfeit ballots. The Premier AV-TSX allows an unauthenticated user to read or tamper with its memory. The Hart EMS has audit logs that can be erased.
Source: ZDNet, Larry Dignan's blog: 2008: The year of hack the vote?

Of course, 2000, 2002 and 2004 were probably the real "hack the vote" years - but this is scary stuff.  The most frightening thing, of course is that the various state and local government put these things into use without the most elementary security testing.  I guess they figured on never losing another election...

Every year, the stories about "higher sales volume on Black Friday means good news for retailers" meme spouts forth.  All the big media outlets bow to the advertisers funding their operations, speaking of how the sales volume makes or breaks Christmas for retailers.

Given the deep discounting going on, I wonder how reliable this is.

You see, gross sales is not a valid measure of profitability.  It's the old (somewhat updated)  joke of the two MBAs who get a big wad of venture capital to sell fresh produce.  Their plan is to buy cabbages at $0.50/lb and sell them at $0.25/lb.  One of their investors asks "How will you make a profit if you lose money on every sale?"  "Oh" replies one of the MBAs while collecting his bonus check, "We'll make it up through volume!"
(more below)

Gee, times are indeed tough for the ultra-rich.  Forced, forced to choose between things like a $14,500 sabayon in Sri Lanka or a $25,000 chocolate sundae.

Fortunately, they've still got the protection of both the Bush Administration and the Senate, noteably Senator Chuck Shumer:

But key Democratic senators, among them New York’s Charles Schumer, who is the main fund-raiser for Senate Democrats, are balking. They know they must provide alternative tax relief, but they don’t want to tax private equity and hedge funds to pay for it.
(Source: NY Times Editorial Alternative Tax Showdown)

Valiant protector of tax breaks for the ultra-rich, defender of pro-torture Bush Leaguers... which party does he belong to again?

A science fiction author named Mack Reynolds wrote some humorous novels about a future US where one person, one vote was replaced by one dollar, one vote.  Prophetic

Oil isn't the only precious fluid we're running low on:

The Future Is Drying Up
New York Times
October 21, 2007

...
(Nobel Laureate Stephen) Chu noted that even the most optimistic climate models for the second half of this century suggest that 30 to 70 percent of the snowpack will disappear. “There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster,” Chu said, “and that’s in the best scenario.”...

Meanwhile, the developers keep building, and new golf courses keep popping up in desert communities.  And it isn't just the West, either:

Georgia Declares State Of Emergency Over Drought
By REUTERS
Published: October 21, 2007
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Georgia has declared a state of emergency over its worst drought in decades and appealed to President George W. Bush for federal aid, newspapers said on Sunday.

I doubt the "free market" will solve this one.(More Below)

Separation of church and state?  No establishment of religious beliefs by the government?  Not in Iowa!

Teacher: I was fired, said Bible isn't literal
The community college instructor says the school sided with students offended by his explanation of Adam and Eve.

By MEGAN HAWKINS
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

September 22, 2007

A community college instructor in Red Oak claims he was fired after he told his students that the biblical story of Adam and Eve should not be literally interpreted.

Steve Bitterman, 60, said officials at Southwestern Community College sided with a handful of students who threatened legal action over his remarks in a western civilization class Tuesday. He said he was fired Thursday.

And this is the "make or break" state for presidential candidates?  (More below)

Well, it looks like Bush and the Republicans can safely eat french fries again:

France warning of war with Iran
BBC World Service
16 September 2007

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner says the world should prepare for war over Iran's nuclear programme.

"We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war," Mr Kouchner said in an interview on French TV and radio.

Mr Kouchner said negotiations with Iran should continue "right to the end", but an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose "a real danger for the whole world".

Looks like Bush has a new friend in Europe... I'd say the bombs start falling in early 2008, unless the Bush League needs a distraction sooner.

We've thrown a bunch of folks in jail on "suspicion" since 9/11.  Many, after "intense questioning", confessed to various crimes.  After all, some prosecutor had a "gut feeling" they were guilty.

Which brings to mind Richard Jewell.  Remember him?  

Richard A. Jewell; Wrongly Linked to Olympic Bombing
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 30, 2007; Page B07
...
One television outlet featured an interview with a psychologist who said Mr. Jewell resembled a "lone bomber." On NBC, Tom Brokaw said, "The speculation is that the FBI is close to 'making the case,' in their language. They probably have enough on him to arrest him right now . . . but you always want to have enough to convict him as well."

...In October 1996, the FBI cleared Mr. Jewell. In a news conference, he called his 88 days under suspicion a nightmare for him and his mother...

Notice how, despite all the apologies from various media outlets, they keep pretending that poorly-sourced anonymous tips are "news"?  Say, about Iran/Iraq links? (more below)

The scary thing is, this is the best spin Karl Rove's editors could put on the National Intelligence Estimate:

Analysts assess that al-Qaeda "will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qaeda in Iraq, its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland".
(Source: BBC News Al-Qaeda 'stepping up US efforts', July 17, 2007)

Bush's "fight them over there" decision to invade Iraq has allowed Al Qaeda to move to the tribal areas in Pakistan, re-establish their network, and generated a "visible and capable affiliate" eager to attack the United States.  According to the Republicans, this means we should "stay the course."

There was another George who thought the "will to win" guaranteed victory - George Armstrong Custer.  One wonders whether he thought anyone opposing his idea to split up his command and stage a daring attack without adequate advance intelligence or back-up planning just "didn't support the troops."

Yes, the Republican theories of birth control education are catching on world-wide.  How else to explain this:

China blames Internet for rise in teen pregnancies
Reuters
Published on ZDNet News: July 9, 2007, 9:25 PM PT

BEIJING--Nearly half of the pregnant teens in China's financial hub, Shanghai, met their partners on the Internet, state media said on Tuesday.

Zhang Zhengrong, a doctor who oversees the city's first-aid hotline for pregnant teens, said 46 percent of the more than 20,000 teenage girls who called the hotline over the past two years said they had had sex with boys they met on the Internet.

Obviously, those Internet Tubes are brimming with "precious bodily fluids" even behind the Great Firewall of China!

On a more serious note, China is a big warning as to what happens when young people are denied sex education: (MORE BELOW)

Remember how all the "insurgents" in Iraq suddenly became "al Qaeda" members?  Well, the Bush League and their corporate media stenographers have extended this labelling to anyone killed by US Forces:

Village disputes story of deadly attack
BBC News, June 26, 2007
...On 22 June the US military announced that its attack helicopters, armed with missiles, engaged and killed 17 al-Qaeda gunmen who had been trying to infiltrate the village of al-Khalis, north of Baquba, where operation "Arrowhead Ripper" had been under way for the previous three days.

The item was duly carried by international news agencies and received widespread coverage, including on the BBC News website.

But villagers in largely-Shia al-Khalis say that those who died had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. They say they were local village guards trying to protect the township from exactly the kind of attack by insurgents the US military says it foiled.

Carelessness or coverup?  You make the call.

As noted in DemFromCT's diary Do You Believe in Evolution, the Republican Party is having second thoughts about their patron saint Ronald Reagan's alliance with the radical religionists who use carefully selected Biblical quotes to justify their anti-Christian hate (Kristians and KK_Kristians).  However, it's broader than that - the New York Times now reports that some Republicans feel that if Social Darwinism is a core Republican value, Darwin's actual theory of evolution must be a Republican value as well.

This goes to a central contradiction of Kristian (as opposed to Christian) doctrine:  If God loves capitalism and free market competition, why do the Kristians insist that God runs the Universe via Marxist-style central planning?  After all, having the Big Guy carefully design each species in accordance with a central plan dictated by the Leader is kind of a Communist approach, isn't it?  If God's a free-market kind of dude, wouldn't the universe be run on a more competitive basis?

Anyone seen the terrible, undemocratic things those naughty "Loyal Putinists" are doing in Russia?  Why, they're interfering with the freedom of the press!  Consider:

50% Good News Is the Bad News in Russian Radio
ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: April 22, 2007
MOSCOW, April 21 — At their first meeting with journalists since taking over Russia’s largest independent radio news network, the managers had startling news of their own: from now on, they said, at least 50 percent of the reports about Russia must be “positive.”

Aren't you glad this couldn't happen here?

Moyers resurrects a leaked NBC memo about Donahue's firing that claimed he "presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
(Source: Editor and Publisher 'Devastating' Moyers Probe of Press and Iraq Coming)

But hey, Its OK If You're A Republican - or one of their stenographers

There is a serious unreported health problem stalking the Executive Branch.  More and more, their delusional world view is being replaced by severe memory lapses.  Yes, folks, there is an Alzheimers cluster at the White House.

Consider Lurita Doan's tragic case: she can't remember a meeting from two months ago where she apparently asked a group of GSA staffers to brainstorm how they could help Republican candidates in the next election cycle.  Then there's Alberto "What Meeting?" Gonzales - who remembers that he is in charge of the "Justice" Department, but can't remember discussing how he made key decisions, such as firing a bunch of US Attorneys who coincidentally either prosecuted Republicans or failed to persecute Democrats.

Meanwhile, Kyle Sampson had difficulty remembering his own name while testifying.

We know they couldn't possibly be cynically pretending forgetfulness to avoid admitting wrongdoing without taking the 5th Amendment - the only thing left is some unknown agent causing massive memory loss.  Aluminum tubes?