Lots of good targets in Iraq

I watched 60 Minutes for the first time in years to see that counter-terrorism guy. First, what’s with all the reaction shots of Leslie Stahl? Second, loved the bit about Bush wanting pictures of Al Qaida leaders so he could cross them out as they were killed. Anyway, we now have a pretty clear picture of the Bushies having been completely blind to the terrorist threat to the point of the “president” not having bothered to get a briefing on the subject and downgrading counter-terrorism from a cabinet-level position, and Wolfowitz saying not to bother with bin Laden, and Rumsfeld having been willing after 9/11 to ignore bin Laden in favor of attacking Iraq for no reason except he always wanted to (“There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq.”). This is exactly the scenario that got the Spanish government booted, except that the Bushies were persuaded for PR reasons to invade Afghanistan before going after their real target. If Kerry can’t use this to his advantage, he doesn’t deserve the presidency, and I may have to refer to “President” Bush without the quotation marks.

Here’s a hint on how to do that: “There was no reason for us to become involved in Iraq recently. That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and from Washington, claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for [the] 9/11 attacks, claiming falsely that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And I think that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair probably knew that many of the allegations were based on uncertain intelligence ... a decision was made to go to war [then people said] 'Let's find a reason to do so'.” Jimmy Carter.

Under the provisions of the Palestinians With Disabilities Act, Israel had no choice but to kill Sheikh Yassin, the quadriplegic founder of Hamas. Took 3 missiles. They must be so proud.

But were they home-made missiles, like the bullets in the bizarre assassination attempt in Taiwan, if that’s what it was. Slate mentions a WashPost article that says President Chen did this before, 14 years ago appearing at election rallies with an IV claiming his enemies had tried to poison him. I can’t find any such article, not in the Post or via news.google or Lexis-Nexis. Has anyone else heard such a thing? The whole story gets weirder and weirder. Today they had to release footage of the president being operated on, to prove it actually happened.

A Nigerian woman goes into labor aboard a flight from Lagos to London. That must have been a fun flight (actually, it turned around and went back). The airline: Virgin. The jokes: painfully obvious. The kid’s name: Virginia, who will be able to fly free on Virgin until she turns 21.