The girls are told they can't slide down that pole onto anybody

After the State of the Union Address, I comprehensively trashed Bush’s AIDS initiative. Naturally, it got worse in practice, as Bush hasn’t come close to keeping his spending promises, and is cutting AIDS spending domestically. And there are more bad bits, like forbidding any projects that work with prostitutes, who certainly could have nothing to do with the spread of AIDS, 1/3 of spending must be on abstinence (this is an international program; it’s bad enough that so much of the spending goes through religious groups, why are we trying to proselytize a particular model of sexuality as well?), and religious groups can reject any AIDS-fighting strategy they object to. And some idiot is trying to force the countries getting AIDS aid to take genetically modified as well, because the AIDS victims are looking a little skinny and need the nourishment; also, they’re easier to find if they glow in the dark.

Here’s an interesting bit from the Post story:

He also subtly cast the AIDS initiative in the context of the conservative, antiabortion agenda, saying: "We believe in the value and dignity of every human life."

The Post is absolutely right about the underlying message of that sort of statement, of course, but isn’t it interesting that when Bush talks about the value and dignity of human life, we all know that he only means fetuses?

The Supreme Court legalizes torture, or what Clarence Thomas calls “mere compulsive questioning.” Without Miranda, yet, so long as it is not used in prosecution. The cops shot a guy in the back and head and asked him questions while he screamed for medical attention.

Before the invasion of Iraq, it was claimed that it possessed 10,000 liters of anthrax, up to 6,500 chemical munitions, at least 80 tons of mustard gas, sarin, botulinum toxin, etc etc. We were told that Iraq had these weapons ready to be used within 45 minutes. But today, Rumsfeld said that they may have destroyed all of that before the war started (a reporter asked him how the hopelessly incompetent Iraqi army managed to get just this one thing right; he didn’t really answer). Britain’s former foreign minister and leader of the House of Commons Robin Cook has demanded that Blair admit he was wrong to go to war. And that’s someone on his side, so you can imagine what members of the opposition are saying. I’m expecting Democrats here to make the same demand of GeeDubya, just any...day.....now.

You know, I think Americans should feel dissed that the Bushies didn’t even go to the trouble to plant some WMD evidence. They don’t even have that much respect for us.

An awful lot of soldiers seem to be getting ambushed, shot at with RPGs, hand grenades and plain old bullets this week. Robert Fisk of the Independent asks “Isn't it time we called this a resistance war in Iraq?”