If aluminum tubes are outlawed, only outlaws will have aluminum tubes

At the UN, Bush said that if Iraq’s government doesn’t obey the UN, then Iraq’s government is illegitimate, and if the UN doesn’t do what Bush tells it to do, then the UN is illegitimate. His proof of Iraq’s nuclear, excuse me, nookyuler, program is that Iraq has tried to buy aluminum tubes, but was fortunately stopped. Somehow I don’t feel particularly threatened--Oh my God, he has an aluminum tube!

Meanwhile, the British Parliament will soon be recalled in order to have a debate on the Iraq war. Not a vote, mind you, that would be too much like democracy (making war is a prerogative of the crown, so there is sometimes a vote, and sometimes not--there was none before the Falklands war). The government will release its long-delayed dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction 3½ hours before the debate starts.

At a British hospital, a woman had a prosthetic right knee joint installed. In her left leg, unfortunately.

Following up a glancing reference in the London Times to the speech after Bush’s at the UN, that of Generalissimo Musharaf, I went to the Times of India’s website. 1st insight: in headlines, they call him Mush. Mush had some not very nice things to say about India. And in keeping with the theme of the day of using the UN to make threats, Russia threatened war against Georgia. And Robert Mugabe attacked Tony Blair.

By the way, is it not bad taste for the US to bitch about Iraq violating commands from the UN Security Council, when the Security Council is set up so that it will never make any demands on the US?

And as Bush prepared to give the speech, he sent the real message to the UN by moving war hq from Florida to Qatar. He told the UN not to make itself “irrelevant,” a word I’ve gotten pretty sick of this year as Ariel Sharon keeps using it for Arafat.

Nelson Mandela accuses the US of racism in its selective condemnation of certain countries having certain weapons. It’s evidently ok for a white country like Israel. He also says that the US lack of respect for the UN is perceived as coming from the series of black secretary-generals.

When Afghani interim puppet in chief Karzai was almost assassinated last week, he was saved by his American Special Forces bodyguards. Back in the US, Pentagon officials saw the footage and saw a really major problem--the soldiers looked pretty scruffy. They had been encouraged to blend in, so they all had beards and bandanas. They have since been ordered to shave (they all have sunburn now) and wear nice pressed uniforms--which will make them targets.

A poem from a Washington Post reporter, consisting of lines from Shrub:

MAKE THE PIE HIGHER By George W. Bush

I think that we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses.
Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope, where
Our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher!