July 31, 2004
Quote Of The Moment #0064
We have been told again and again in America we have problems that are so intractable we can't do anything about them. Well, that's the prescription for the end of the United States of America. We started this country on the principle that we don't need King George to tell us what to do. We can solve our own problems. It says in the Preamble to our Constitution that we created this Constitution to promote the general welfare. We can solve every single problem we've had, but we have to be citizens, and we have to do the hard work of maintaining our democracy. The reason we can't solve lots of problems in our society is that we aren't trying. We're hoping somebody else will.
People say to me everywhere I go to speak: Well, how would you fix this? And my answer is: I don't know. Because I'm not God. I'm not omniscient. Here's what I do know: If everybody in America will pay attention to our tax system, and you think how much money you pay in taxes, think about whether it's worth spending less time worrying about who Jennifer Lopez is sleeping with, and more about your tax dollars. If all of us paid attention and listened, and spent some time learning, we would get out of our collective wisdom a tax system that does what a good tax system should do. -- David Cay Johnston
Johnston isn't speaking about War Tax Resistance, but WTR could be an essential tool in achieving tax justice.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 05:14 PM
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This blog has joked a few times before that the President is not man, but cyborg, or that his wild youth had permanently impaired him. The latter probably is true.
But it's been apparent for quite some time that the man is highly medicated. One need simply look at any picture of him, or listen to him speak. Capitol Hill Blue has now "learned" what has long been obvious for anybody with eyes to see:
President George W. Bush is taking powerful anti-depressant drugs to control his erratic behavior, depression, and paranoia, Capitol Hill Blue has learned.
The prescription drugs, administered by Col. Richard J. Tubb, the White House physician, can impair the President's mental faculties and decrease both his physical capabilities and his ability to respond to a crisis, administration aides admit privately.
"It's a double-edged sword," says one aide. "We can't have him flying off the handle at the slightest provocation, but we also need a President who is alert mentally."
But of course, if Dick Cheney is truly running the country, there's no reason to believe that he wants a President who is "alert mentally".
The remainder of the Capitol Hill Blue piece is pretty entertaining as well. A university pyschiatrist, Dr. Frank, has judged the President a "disturbed" "paranoid megalomaniac", while an anonymous GOP political consultant warns that, "We have to face the very real possibility that the President of the United States is looney tunes."
So there are your poster-boys for the Republican Party: George W. Bush and Rush Limbaugh, a couple of sanctimonious, hypocritical, junkie crackers. You can see why bin Laden is just quaking in his boots, can't you?
Begging the question, who to vote for come November? As the Democrats trot out three (count 'em) war criminals to speak at their party convention's closing night (Wesley Clark, Madeleine "We think the price is worth it" Albright, and John Kerry hisself), and as Dennis Kucinich has sold out the peace movement, there's no reason to suppose that the Democrats will consider de-militarisation any time soon.
Neither would the Republicans, by choice. But with the walls closing in on Bush's mind, with DeLay on the ropes, with Rumsfeld having been swept under the rug, with Powell an outed liar, with Cheney being hounded for his Halliburton ties (and prone to outbursts of his own), that could sooner than later leave only Condi and Ashcroft minding the store. But with the military in near open revolt at the Administration's imperial overstretch -- and at taking it in the shorts care of the Iraqi Resistance, when Ashcroft issues the orders for martial law, he's likely to find the guns turned on him. Meanwhile, "Doctor" Rice's logical faculties are hardly any better that Bush's.
So who would step into the vacuum created by the Republican melt-down, which is drawing closer by the week? Why not the Peace and Justice movement?
But first we've got to do our duty, and re-elect the Cyborg.
July 29, 2004
Tell Us Something We Don't Know
This blog has joked a few times before that the President is not man, but cyborg, or that his wild youth had permanently impaired him. The latter probably is true.But it's been apparent for quite some time that the man is highly medicated. One need simply look at any picture of him, or listen to him speak. Capitol Hill Blue has now "learned" what has long been obvious for anybody with eyes to see:
President George W. Bush is taking powerful anti-depressant drugs to control his erratic behavior, depression, and paranoia, Capitol Hill Blue has learned.
The prescription drugs, administered by Col. Richard J. Tubb, the White House physician, can impair the President's mental faculties and decrease both his physical capabilities and his ability to respond to a crisis, administration aides admit privately.
"It's a double-edged sword," says one aide. "We can't have him flying off the handle at the slightest provocation, but we also need a President who is alert mentally."
But of course, if Dick Cheney is truly running the country, there's no reason to believe that he wants a President who is "alert mentally".
The remainder of the Capitol Hill Blue piece is pretty entertaining as well. A university pyschiatrist, Dr. Frank, has judged the President a "disturbed" "paranoid megalomaniac", while an anonymous GOP political consultant warns that, "We have to face the very real possibility that the President of the United States is looney tunes."
So there are your poster-boys for the Republican Party: George W. Bush and Rush Limbaugh, a couple of sanctimonious, hypocritical, junkie crackers. You can see why bin Laden is just quaking in his boots, can't you?
Begging the question, who to vote for come November? As the Democrats trot out three (count 'em) war criminals to speak at their party convention's closing night (Wesley Clark, Madeleine "We think the price is worth it" Albright, and John Kerry hisself), and as Dennis Kucinich has sold out the peace movement, there's no reason to suppose that the Democrats will consider de-militarisation any time soon.
Neither would the Republicans, by choice. But with the walls closing in on Bush's mind, with DeLay on the ropes, with Rumsfeld having been swept under the rug, with Powell an outed liar, with Cheney being hounded for his Halliburton ties (and prone to outbursts of his own), that could sooner than later leave only Condi and Ashcroft minding the store. But with the military in near open revolt at the Administration's imperial overstretch -- and at taking it in the shorts care of the Iraqi Resistance, when Ashcroft issues the orders for martial law, he's likely to find the guns turned on him. Meanwhile, "Doctor" Rice's logical faculties are hardly any better that Bush's.
So who would step into the vacuum created by the Republican melt-down, which is drawing closer by the week? Why not the Peace and Justice movement?
But first we've got to do our duty, and re-elect the Cyborg.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 04:56 PM
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Signs were growing yesterday that leading countries are prepared to walk away from last-ditch trade-treaty negotiations if they don't get their way over agriculture.
Developing countries say a draft framework for the World Trade Organization (WTO) treaty does too little to force rich nations to cut their import tariffs and subsidies, while the European Union remains concerned that EU farmers would have to give up more than their U.S. rivals.
...
"We cannot sacrifice substance for timing," Argentina's International Trade Secretary Martin Redrado told reporters. "If there is no good substance, Argentina will not go along with it."
Argentina and other members of the Group of 20 developing countries are concerned that the current proposal could allow rich nations to maintain high import duties on many farm goods and that it contains a loophole for the United States to continue subsidizing farmers.
...
The European Union has agreed to eliminate all export subsidies on farm products and to make big cuts to other subsidies, but only if the United States, Australia, and other rich nations make similar moves. They are concerned that the current proposal is unclear on that.
Emphasis added.
Note: This Free Market Miracle brought to you by the party of Small Government, the GOP.
July 28, 2004
Free Market Miracle #0002
Signs were growing yesterday that leading countries are prepared to walk away from last-ditch trade-treaty negotiations if they don't get their way over agriculture.
Developing countries say a draft framework for the World Trade Organization (WTO) treaty does too little to force rich nations to cut their import tariffs and subsidies, while the European Union remains concerned that EU farmers would have to give up more than their U.S. rivals.
...
"We cannot sacrifice substance for timing," Argentina's International Trade Secretary Martin Redrado told reporters. "If there is no good substance, Argentina will not go along with it."
Argentina and other members of the Group of 20 developing countries are concerned that the current proposal could allow rich nations to maintain high import duties on many farm goods and that it contains a loophole for the United States to continue subsidizing farmers.
...
The European Union has agreed to eliminate all export subsidies on farm products and to make big cuts to other subsidies, but only if the United States, Australia, and other rich nations make similar moves. They are concerned that the current proposal is unclear on that.
Emphasis added.
Note: This Free Market Miracle brought to you by the party of Small Government, the GOP.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 03:24 PM
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Jack Daniels and Jim Beam are getting a boost from Uncle Sam.
For the first time, the national trade group representing the liquor industry is getting government help promoting its products to overseas consumers.
The Distilled Spirits Council has received a yearlong grant worth $62,000 from the Agriculture Department to participate in an overseas marketing program for U.S. agricultural products. Spirits that are made from grains qualify, said Frank Coleman, a spokesman for the trade group.
The amount is pretty negligible, in the grand scheme of things. But it just goes to show how desperate (and how shameless) big business is when it comes to slurping up any scraps it can get, using any loophole it can find, from the U.S. Taxpayers.
Alcohol being one of the nastier drugs, it also points up again the hypocrisy of the so-called "war" on drugs.
One other random (but related) thought: all advertising should, of course, be considered a market distortion. That's a pretty "visible" hand guiding a consumer toward a given product? Advertising by the government, on behalf of industry, is just icing on the cake.
Note: This Free Market Miracle brought to you by the party of Small Government, the GOP.
Free Market Miracle #0001
Jack Daniels and Jim Beam are getting a boost from Uncle Sam.
For the first time, the national trade group representing the liquor industry is getting government help promoting its products to overseas consumers.
The Distilled Spirits Council has received a yearlong grant worth $62,000 from the Agriculture Department to participate in an overseas marketing program for U.S. agricultural products. Spirits that are made from grains qualify, said Frank Coleman, a spokesman for the trade group.
The amount is pretty negligible, in the grand scheme of things. But it just goes to show how desperate (and how shameless) big business is when it comes to slurping up any scraps it can get, using any loophole it can find, from the U.S. Taxpayers.
Alcohol being one of the nastier drugs, it also points up again the hypocrisy of the so-called "war" on drugs.
One other random (but related) thought: all advertising should, of course, be considered a market distortion. That's a pretty "visible" hand guiding a consumer toward a given product? Advertising by the government, on behalf of industry, is just icing on the cake.
Note: This Free Market Miracle brought to you by the party of Small Government, the GOP.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 01:13 PM
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Offbeat News Report: Bigger breasts offered as perk to soldiers
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The U.S. Army has long lured recruits with the slogan "Be All You Can Be," but now soldiers and their families can receive plastic surgery, including breast enlargements, on the taxpayers' dime.
The New Yorker magazine reports in its July 26th edition that members of all four branches of the U.S. military can get face-lifts, breast enlargements, liposuction, and nose jobs for free -- something the military says helps surgeons practice their skills.
"Anyone wearing a uniform is eligible," Dr. Bob Lyons, chief of plastic surgery at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio told the magazine, which said soldiers needed the approval of their commanding officers to get the time off.
Between 2000 and 2003, military doctors performed 496 breast enlargements and 1,361 liposuction surgeries on soldiers and their dependents, the magazine said.
The magazine quoted an Army spokeswoman as saying, "the surgeons have to have someone to practice on."
Yeah, why not? The troops are already guinea pigs anyway -- testing the viability of the Bush Doctrine, and the tolerance of the American public. So far, the loss of soldiers' lives and limbs are considered "strategically insignificant". Good to know -- if you don't give a fuck about the lives destroyed.
Don't Know Whether To Laugh Or Cry
Offbeat News Report: Bigger breasts offered as perk to soldiers
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The U.S. Army has long lured recruits with the slogan "Be All You Can Be," but now soldiers and their families can receive plastic surgery, including breast enlargements, on the taxpayers' dime.
The New Yorker magazine reports in its July 26th edition that members of all four branches of the U.S. military can get face-lifts, breast enlargements, liposuction, and nose jobs for free -- something the military says helps surgeons practice their skills.
"Anyone wearing a uniform is eligible," Dr. Bob Lyons, chief of plastic surgery at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio told the magazine, which said soldiers needed the approval of their commanding officers to get the time off.
Between 2000 and 2003, military doctors performed 496 breast enlargements and 1,361 liposuction surgeries on soldiers and their dependents, the magazine said.
The magazine quoted an Army spokeswoman as saying, "the surgeons have to have someone to practice on."
Yeah, why not? The troops are already guinea pigs anyway -- testing the viability of the Bush Doctrine, and the tolerance of the American public. So far, the loss of soldiers' lives and limbs are considered "strategically insignificant". Good to know -- if you don't give a fuck about the lives destroyed.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 01:02 PM
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So once sang Metallica.
The Seattle Times' headline-writer for a recent Los Angeles Times piece examining the pyschological effects of warfare ("Trained to kill, not to cope") may or may not have had Metallica in mind -- but in any case may as well have.
This blog once speculated that the second Gulf War would create more Timothy McVeighs. The process appears to be proceeding apace:
• "I want to know if I killed that guy yesterday. I saw blood spurt from his leg, but I want to be sure I killed him."
• "I'm confused about how I should feel about killing. The first time I shot someone, it was the most exhilarating thing I'd ever felt."
• "We talk about killing all the time. I never used to talk this way. I'm not proud of it, but it's like I can't stop. I'm worried what I will be like when I get home."
• "Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. It's like it pounds at my brain. I'll figure out how to deal with it when I get home."
• "I enjoy killing Iraqis. I just feel rage, hate when I'm out there. I feel like I carry it all the time. We talk about it. We all feel the same way."
• "The other day an Iraqi guy was hit real bad, he was gonna die within an hour, but he was still alive and he started saying, 'Baby, baby,' telling me he has a kid. I mentioned it to my guys after the mission. It doesn't bother me. It can't bother me. If it was the other way around, I'm sure it wouldn't bother him."
• "It did not bother me at all to see those bodies up close. I'm a warrior. ... My soldiers, they are all warriors. They have no problems. I don't let them have problems. There is no place in this Army for men who aren't warriors."
• "I'm a Christian. I feel I'm saving my soldiers' lives by destroying as many enemy as I can. But at the end of each day, I pray to God. I worry about my soul. Every time a door slams, I flinch. I'm hoping it will just go away when I get home."
July 26, 2004
Bred To Kill, Not To Care
So once sang Metallica.
The Seattle Times' headline-writer for a recent Los Angeles Times piece examining the pyschological effects of warfare ("Trained to kill, not to cope") may or may not have had Metallica in mind -- but in any case may as well have.
This blog once speculated that the second Gulf War would create more Timothy McVeighs. The process appears to be proceeding apace:
• "I want to know if I killed that guy yesterday. I saw blood spurt from his leg, but I want to be sure I killed him."
• "I'm confused about how I should feel about killing. The first time I shot someone, it was the most exhilarating thing I'd ever felt."
• "We talk about killing all the time. I never used to talk this way. I'm not proud of it, but it's like I can't stop. I'm worried what I will be like when I get home."
• "Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. It's like it pounds at my brain. I'll figure out how to deal with it when I get home."
• "I enjoy killing Iraqis. I just feel rage, hate when I'm out there. I feel like I carry it all the time. We talk about it. We all feel the same way."
• "The other day an Iraqi guy was hit real bad, he was gonna die within an hour, but he was still alive and he started saying, 'Baby, baby,' telling me he has a kid. I mentioned it to my guys after the mission. It doesn't bother me. It can't bother me. If it was the other way around, I'm sure it wouldn't bother him."
• "It did not bother me at all to see those bodies up close. I'm a warrior. ... My soldiers, they are all warriors. They have no problems. I don't let them have problems. There is no place in this Army for men who aren't warriors."
• "I'm a Christian. I feel I'm saving my soldiers' lives by destroying as many enemy as I can. But at the end of each day, I pray to God. I worry about my soul. Every time a door slams, I flinch. I'm hoping it will just go away when I get home."
Posted by Eddie Tews at 02:50 PM
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Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Friday he would be willing to launch a pre-emptive strike against terrorists if he had adequate intelligence of a threat.
...
"Am I prepared as president to go get them before they get us if we locate them and have the sufficient intelligence? You bet I am,'' he said at a news conference at his Washington headquarters.
...
"I will never allow any other country to veto what we need to do and I will never allow any other institution to veto what we need to do to protect our nation.''
Can you say, "Same as the old boss"? I knew you could!
The Kerry Doctrine
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Friday he would be willing to launch a pre-emptive strike against terrorists if he had adequate intelligence of a threat.
...
"Am I prepared as president to go get them before they get us if we locate them and have the sufficient intelligence? You bet I am,'' he said at a news conference at his Washington headquarters.
...
"I will never allow any other country to veto what we need to do and I will never allow any other institution to veto what we need to do to protect our nation.''
Can you say, "Same as the old boss"? I knew you could!
Posted by Eddie Tews at 02:30 PM
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I don't have any idea of what we're trying to do out here. I don't know what the [goal] is, and I don’t think our commanders do either. I feel deceived personally. I don't trust anything Rumsfeld says, and I think Wolfowitz is even dirtier. -- Staff Sgt. A.J. Dean
Update, 7/25/04: Apologies for not providing the link! Is fixed. A general tip, for future reference: copy a small selection of the quote onto your clipboard, browse on over to Google News, paste the selection into the search box (book-ending it with quotation marks), and fire away.
July 21, 2004
Quote Of The Moment #0063
I don't have any idea of what we're trying to do out here. I don't know what the [goal] is, and I don’t think our commanders do either. I feel deceived personally. I don't trust anything Rumsfeld says, and I think Wolfowitz is even dirtier. -- Staff Sgt. A.J. Dean
Update, 7/25/04: Apologies for not providing the link! Is fixed. A general tip, for future reference: copy a small selection of the quote onto your clipboard, browse on over to Google News, paste the selection into the search box (book-ending it with quotation marks), and fire away.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 05:59 PM
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All we've gotta do is re-elect Dubya:
...you just got to know nobody wants to be the "war President". I want to be the "peace President". [Applause.] I want to be the President -- after four years, four more in this office, I want people to look back and say, the world is a more peaceful place. [Applause.]
Happy Days Are Near Again
All we've gotta do is re-elect Dubya:
...you just got to know nobody wants to be the "war President". I want to be the "peace President". [Applause.] I want to be the President -- after four years, four more in this office, I want people to look back and say, the world is a more peaceful place. [Applause.]
Posted by Eddie Tews at 05:55 PM
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All I can say is if you read the total body of intelligence in the last 12 to 15 years that flowed on Iraq, I quite frankly think it would be hard to come to a conclusion other than [that] Iraq was a gathering, serious threat to the world with regard to WMD. -- January, 2004
[Bush and Blair] should have been able to tell before the war that the evidence did not exist for drawing the conclusion that Iraq presented a clear, present, and imminent threat on the basis of existing weapons of mass destruction. That was not something that required a war. -- July, 2004
July 19, 2004
Will The Real David Kay Please Stand Up?
All I can say is if you read the total body of intelligence in the last 12 to 15 years that flowed on Iraq, I quite frankly think it would be hard to come to a conclusion other than [that] Iraq was a gathering, serious threat to the world with regard to WMD. -- January, 2004
[Bush and Blair] should have been able to tell before the war that the evidence did not exist for drawing the conclusion that Iraq presented a clear, present, and imminent threat on the basis of existing weapons of mass destruction. That was not something that required a war. -- July, 2004
Posted by Eddie Tews at 11:59 AM
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Do not fall into the easy trap of mourning the loss of U.S. lives and asking out loud why are we there? The U.S. is in Iraq to help a country brutalized for 30 years protect the gains made by Operation Iraqi Freedom and set it on the path to democracy. Some people in Iraq don't want that to happen. That is why American GIs are dying. And what we should remind our viewers. -- John Moody, FOX News Senior Vice President
July 14, 2004
Quote Of The Moment #0062
Do not fall into the easy trap of mourning the loss of U.S. lives and asking out loud why are we there? The U.S. is in Iraq to help a country brutalized for 30 years protect the gains made by Operation Iraqi Freedom and set it on the path to democracy. Some people in Iraq don't want that to happen. That is why American GIs are dying. And what we should remind our viewers. -- John Moody, FOX News Senior Vice President
Posted by Eddie Tews at 12:24 PM
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This "man" is a fucking cyborg, people! A matter this blog has speculated upon before now. But, really, can there be any doubt?
July 12, 2004
Cyborg Update
This "man" is a fucking cyborg, people! A matter this blog has speculated upon before now. But, really, can there be any doubt?
Posted by Eddie Tews at 01:49 PM
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"Soldiers die. Get over it. Civilians die. Get over it. That is the nature of war." -- Michael Syvertsen, U.S. Navy (ret.)
July 11, 2004
Quote Of The Moment #0061
"Soldiers die. Get over it. Civilians die. Get over it. That is the nature of war." -- Michael Syvertsen, U.S. Navy (ret.)
Posted by Eddie Tews at 10:23 AM
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Q On Ridge's security warnings, can the President today guarantee Americans that no terrorist attack can upset the U.S. elections this November, that they will go ahead as planned?
MR. McCLELLAN: Ann, I don't think anyone can make guarantees.
July 08, 2004
No Guarantees
Q On Ridge's security warnings, can the President today guarantee Americans that no terrorist attack can upset the U.S. elections this November, that they will go ahead as planned?
MR. McCLELLAN: Ann, I don't think anyone can make guarantees.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 06:45 PM
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Our interest is in not trying them and letting them out. Our interest is in -- during this global war on terror [sic] -- keeping them off the streets, and so that's what's taking place. -- Donald H. Rumsfeld, September 2003
Everybody has a desire not to hold people that need not be held. And it's conceivable, and I'm not saying that this is the way it will end up, it is conceivable that people who can be determined no longer needing to be held need not necessarily be part of a judicial process if we can make that determination short of a judicial process -- that's all I'm saying. And that's, those are the kinds of questions that are being evaluated right now. There's been no decisions as far as I know. There are some number of detainees down there who may in fact be, after review, the types of individuals that can be repatriated, wherever they may come from. -- Pentagon Spokesman Larry De Rita, June 2004
Why is the Bush Administration no longer "interested" in keeping detainees locked up indefinitely without trial, rather than sending back to "wherever they may come from"? Yeah, the Supreme Court ruling informing it that its practices are illegal.
But if it's able to "review" the situations of individual detainees now, why couldn't it have done so two weeks ago? Or two months ago? Or two years ago?
And again we come back 'round to a most basic, obvious question. How would the Bush Administration react were American citizens to be captured from the United States, on suspicion of having committed some nebulous crime; and then winged half-way around the world to be held in atrocious conditions, indefinitely, without any chance of a trial?
And the obvious corollary: how, now, do we expect American citizens will be treated when they are in future captured -- regardless of their guilt or innocence?
Of course, there's yet another angle from which this issue may be looked. Namely, that Rumsfeld's bumbling attempts at coherence notwithstanding, the Administration has consistently portrayed the Guantanamo detainees as ruthless terrorists, who will take up their jihadi cause as soon as they are set free. So now that they're going to be set free, we can only assume that the Bush Administration wants them to be out perpetrating acts of terror. (Yeah, sure, the Supreme Court has ordered their status changed. But legal niceties have never troubled the Bush Administration before now. Dubya could simply keep them all locked up in Guantanamo, and claim he doesn't need a "permission slip" from the Supreme Court to allow him to carry on with his divine mission of protecting "the lives and the liberty of the American people.")
July 01, 2004
Pentagon Backs Down (Again)
Our interest is in not trying them and letting them out. Our interest is in -- during this global war on terror [sic] -- keeping them off the streets, and so that's what's taking place. -- Donald H. Rumsfeld, September 2003
Everybody has a desire not to hold people that need not be held. And it's conceivable, and I'm not saying that this is the way it will end up, it is conceivable that people who can be determined no longer needing to be held need not necessarily be part of a judicial process if we can make that determination short of a judicial process -- that's all I'm saying. And that's, those are the kinds of questions that are being evaluated right now. There's been no decisions as far as I know. There are some number of detainees down there who may in fact be, after review, the types of individuals that can be repatriated, wherever they may come from. -- Pentagon Spokesman Larry De Rita, June 2004
Why is the Bush Administration no longer "interested" in keeping detainees locked up indefinitely without trial, rather than sending back to "wherever they may come from"? Yeah, the Supreme Court ruling informing it that its practices are illegal.
But if it's able to "review" the situations of individual detainees now, why couldn't it have done so two weeks ago? Or two months ago? Or two years ago?
And again we come back 'round to a most basic, obvious question. How would the Bush Administration react were American citizens to be captured from the United States, on suspicion of having committed some nebulous crime; and then winged half-way around the world to be held in atrocious conditions, indefinitely, without any chance of a trial?
And the obvious corollary: how, now, do we expect American citizens will be treated when they are in future captured -- regardless of their guilt or innocence?
Of course, there's yet another angle from which this issue may be looked. Namely, that Rumsfeld's bumbling attempts at coherence notwithstanding, the Administration has consistently portrayed the Guantanamo detainees as ruthless terrorists, who will take up their jihadi cause as soon as they are set free. So now that they're going to be set free, we can only assume that the Bush Administration wants them to be out perpetrating acts of terror. (Yeah, sure, the Supreme Court has ordered their status changed. But legal niceties have never troubled the Bush Administration before now. Dubya could simply keep them all locked up in Guantanamo, and claim he doesn't need a "permission slip" from the Supreme Court to allow him to carry on with his divine mission of protecting "the lives and the liberty of the American people.")