Roundup of News and Snark

I might not have time to do a series of posts today, so here goes a Global Roundup of News and Snark

1. This one had too long of a chain to give a "H/T" credit to, just know it's not from me:

You probably have heard that Ol' Turdblossom Hisself has been trying to shop around his memoirs for an asking price of $3,000,000 (working title: "Present at the Shredding: the Bush Administration and American Democracy"), with no takers at that price. It sold for half of that and the buyer was a co-worker in the Fascisti, Mary Matalin. So Mary had to go bail Rove out, and you can bet that is an advance, which means if it sells as well as it should, most of the copies will be available in Books For a Buck (last stop before the pulp mill) in a few months after the presses roll and Mary will be asking Karl to please cut her publishing firm a check for $1,499,950.

2. The New York Times has a story today about how a good chunk of the US aid for Pakistan's antiterror efforts has been either misdirected or outright stolen. Note this quote: "During a recent visit to the border, an American official found members of the Frontier Corps “standing there in the snow in sandals,” according to the official. Several were wearing World War I-era pith helmets and carrying barely functional Kalashnikov rifles with just 10 rounds of ammunition apiece."

I wonder about two things. First off, this is an old-news story, as none of this is really unknown to someone who has been paying attention, which means that Chimpy doesn't know anything about it.

Second, there are a few days of the year in which you can bury a story by printing it on page 1 and above the fold. Christmas Eve is one of those days. So the NY Times gets to run a story about how the McFuckwit Administration is screwing the pooch with your tax dollars and they can be reasonably assured that nobody will pay attention to it.

3. Jeff Huber has a good piece outlining how the line of the Pentagon that 'the Turks only told us they were attacking the Kurds at the very last second" is pure bullshit. Jeff knows a hell of a lot about air operations, his argument is worth paying attention to.

4. Scientists inscribed the Old Testament on a pinhead. No, they did not tattoo it on the Chimperor's head, but you get snark points if that was your first thought.

5. Now it seems that the El Stupidico Administration had plenty of warning that the use of security contractors in Iraq was a recipe for disaster. Note that the rules for contractors were written by the trade association for contractors. That would be like turning over the rule-making on cigarettes to the American Tobacco Association; anybody who thought that was a good idea probably needed to be watered twice a week. One of the nicer comments directed at the goons of Blackwater in the article was along the lines of "to say they were universally despised would be an understatement."

6. The retailers aren't feeling the joy this season. It seems that their sales figures suck. People seem to be spending as though there is a recession going on. Of course, with the threat of a recession looming, Bush is acting as firmly as he did for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

7. In the Times of London, Andrew Sullivan explains why the Torture Tapes and their destruction show that George Bush is a war criminal.

That ought to do it for today.