Bilmon - August 3, 2005

Bombs Away

When I wrote about last week's Texas-sized barbeque of corruption in Washington, I wasn't aware of the most amazing piece of pork on the menu -- a nuclear knockwurst for one of the world's largest manufacturers of weapons-grade uranium:

A provision tucked into the 1,724-page energy bill that Congress is poised to enact today would ease export restrictions on bomb-grade uranium, a lucrative victory for a Canadian medical manufacturer and its well-wired Washington lobbyists.

The Burr Amendment -- named for its sponsor, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) -- would reverse a 13-year-old U.S. policy banning exports of weapons-grade uranium unless the recipients agree to start converting their reactors to use less-dangerous uranium . . .

Bring 'Em On

Fourteen Marines were killed in a roadside bomb blast in western Iraq on Wednesday, the U.S. military said, in one of the single deadliest attacks against U.S. forces since the beginning of the war. It is the second major deadly attack against Marines in the area in the past three days.

Reuters
Bomb kills 14 Marines in western Iraq
August 3, 2005

There are some who feel like -- that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: Bring them on. We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.

George W. Bush
Remarks to the Press
July 2, 2003

A friend of mine predicts the day will come when mothers in this country get their children to eat their vegetables (or wash their ears or do their homework or go to bed on time) by warning them that if they don't, the big bad George W. Bush will come and get them. I don't know about that, although I did successfully terrify my kids into submission once by threatening them with the Cheney monster. I'll never make that mistake again: The nightmares kept them up for weeks.

Too Close for Comfort

Late in the afternoon of Election Day, the corrupt South Texas border bosses whose support [LBJ] had purchased asked him when they should report the voting results from their counties, and he violated a fundamental rule of Texas politics: report your key precincts -- the ones in which you control the results -- only at the last minute, so your opponent would not know the total he had to beat. . .

Robert A. Caro
Means of Ascent
1990

Paul Hackett easily beat my expectations, as well as those of the Washington punditburo, in Ohio's special congressional election yesterday. He did not, however, beat his opponent, Jean Schmidt, who will now take her rightful place with the other GOP heel clickers in our Chamber of People's Deputies.