(There's some wierdness going on with Blogger, I think. I tried to post a few things last night and watched helplessly while the indicator graphic spun in an endless loop; I finally gave up, signed off and went home. The items never showed up on the blog, but the posting appeared in the list of published entries that I can review when I publish new ones. So, my apologies if something appeared/disappeared/reappeared in the last 12 hours. I have no idea what's up.)

I sure hope Bush enjoyed his bounce --
because this won't be a good news week for him.

Happy to say I don't have one of these OB/GYNs --
From Reuters' "Oddly Enough" news, another puzzler from Bush: "We've got an issue in America. Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."

Josh Marshall noticed an interesting coincidence -- minutes after the AP yesterday noted the passing of our 1000th soldier in Iraq, Tom Ridge announced - not for the first time, of course - that terrorists hope to disrupt US elections. And Harvey Wasserman finds it unsurprising that there were no terrorist threats announced during the RNC -- despite several terrorist attacks:

But with passenger planes being blown out of the sky, hundreds of Russian children held hostage and hordes of protestors descending on New York, nothing could be allowed to disrupt media coverage of the Republicans' Hate Show.

Ridge gave the GOP had an alert-free Labor Day weekend to crow about the post-convention bounce that might have been Kerry's. Team Rove also floated its first notice of an election-timed "capture" of Osama bin Laden. As millions have predicted, after three years the Administration may have miraculously "tracked him down" just in time for the November vote.

(Here's a link to the "capture" story.)

Maybe his bifocals are upside-down? --Rummy tells us once again that the continued violence in Iraq is a sign of progress:

"The progress has prompted a backlash, in effect, from those who hope that at some point we might conclude that the pain and the cost of this fight isn't worth it," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference. "Well, our enemies have underestimated our country, our coalition. They have failed to understand the character of our people. And they certainly misread our commander in chief."

While Rumsfeld was out of his cage, he also informed us that Iran is funding the Iraqi insurgents. (So, of course, we'll have to invade them.)

You don't say! --
How much MORE proof do we need that the commander-in-chief failed to fulfill his sworn responsibilities to the National Guard? Can we see some equal time advertising, now? Testimonials from Drunken Stateside Sons of Privilege for Plausible Deniability (abundant thanks due The Daily Show for helping us all laugh)?

No tactic too revolting for Bush/Cheney --
Yesterday, Cheney informed us that if Americans don't vote for Bush/Cheney in November "then the danger is we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that'll be devastating from the standpoint of the United States..." (Atrios had the best response so far: "I can't be the only one who remembers what happened the last time those two were put into office.") I listened to "Good Morning America" news this morning while I readied for work, and heard an idiot reporter tell us that Cheney raised hackles yesterday when he "seemed to say" that voting for Kerry would invite another terrorist attack. SEEMED to say?! He DID say it, despite Bushie administration spinners' efforts to reinterpret the comments: "Whoever is elected in November faces the prospect of another terrorist attack... The question is whether or not the right policies are in place to best protect our country. That's what the vice president was saying." No, actually, that doesn't sound anything like what he said.

Dick Cheney, selfless afterall --
Juan Cole thinks Cheney's obsession to invade Iraq wasn't merely to enrich Halliburton, but to permanently install the Right:

I suspect (Cheney's eagerness) is political. Not all corporations make money on war. Some actually lose money. But Halliburton, Bechtel and a few other components of the Military Industrial Complex do benefit from war. Strengthening that sector of the American economy strengthens the political Right. Turning the Republic into a praetorian state would permanently yield profits for the military industrial complex in such a way as to create a permanent Republican dominance of all the branches of the US government.

The Rolling Stone Dick "Destroyer" Cheney Retrospective --
starts this way:

Should George W. Bush win this election, it will give him the distinction of being the first occupant of the White House to have survived naming Dick Cheney to a post in his administration.

Read the whole thing; it's a miraculous story of how far you can go despite destroying everything you touch. No wonder these two work so "well" together.

Taking a page from the Cheney Energy Advisory Committee-Stacking manual --
CA Governor Schwarzenegger has allowed Chevron to shape refinery policies in the sweeping California Performance Review project.