My temperature's rising, my fingers are tingling
I'm starting to shake
I look in the mirror and everything's funny
I think you're a fake


Rob Pruitt, No Blood for OIl, 2003

* Top ten conservative idiots. excerpt:

3. John McCain

"George W. Bush isn't the only one seeing Iraq with 'success' written all over it - step forward John McSame, the guy who's supposed to be super-experienced but somehow hasn't yet realized that the Pro-War Express is on a non-stop one-way trip to Losertown.

"Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said that success in Iraq was 'within reach' at the beginning of the high-profile hearing on Iraq involving Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. general in Iraq, and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, the top American diplomat in Baghdad.

"Success is 'within reach!' Oh yes, McCain can sense it, taste it, almost grasp it in his withered and arthritic fingers.

"Now some might say, 'Hold on a minute. Haven't I just read that 'violence swells' in Iraq and more than 20 U.S. troops have been killed this month already?'

"Those people might then go on to say, 'Furthermore, haven't I also just read that Iraq Sudy Group experts have concluded that 'political progress is so slow, halting and superficial and political fragmentation so pronounced that the United States is no closer to being able to leave Iraq than it was a year ago,' and that 'The new report predicts that lasting political development could take five to 10 years of full, unconditional commitment to Iraq, but also cautions that future progress may not be worth the massive human and financial costs to the United States.'?'

"But pay no attention to them. You see, just because starting a pre-emptive war turned out to be a really bad idea, don't expect John McCain to rule out the possibility of trying it again.

"Sen. John McCain, facing criticism from Democratic opponents that his election as president represents a third term for President Bush, said today that he could not rule out a pre-emptive military strike against enemies such as the one that Bush launched against Iraq.

"Well I guess they don't call him Senator Crazylegs McBatshitinsane for nothing."

* Human Statue of Liberty, formed by 18,000 soldiers in July 1918.

* Lee and Nancy: Some Velvet Morning.

* "The defeats and victories of the fellows at the top aren't always defeats and victories for the fellows at the bottom." -- Bertolt Brecht