It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.

These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.

Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.


 
As part of our effort to throw the bum out, we've been offering bumper stickers in support of Democratic contenders for two months or so now. I thought you might be interested to know which candidates are the most popular, at least in the Irregular Times crowd. Here's the breakdown by percent of all candidate stickers ordered so far:

Dean: 51%
Kucinich: 38%
Kerry: 6%
Edwards: 5%

None of the other Democratic candidates has sold a single sticker.

Even more interesting is that only one of the twenty most popular bumper stickers is a pro-Democrat bumper sticker (a sticker for Dean). The other nineteen most popular stickers are all anti-Bush stickers. It seems we're not fired up by any Democratic candidate as much as we are ticked off by Bush. Anbody listening at the DNC?

Posted by Theodiclus Lock at 10:07 AM. # (permalink)  


 

We've Been Programmed

1. George W. Bush is now only confident that Hussein had a WMD program, not that Hussein had WMD (see entry below).
2. Donald Rumsfeld testifies there was no new evidence against Hussein before going to war (see this BBC Report.)
3. The British Government no longer thinks WMDs are to be found in Iraq (see the same BBC Report.)

It can't be plainer, and Bush and Blair can't parse their way out of this: THE CASE FOR WAR IN IRAQ WAS BUILT ON UNTRUTH.

George W. Bush:
The UnTruth President.

Posted by Matthew Cook at 6:06 AM. # (permalink)  


 

"I am confident that Saddam Hussein had a weapons-of-mass-destruction program"

-- George W. Bush, July 9, 2003

So says the Resident today, adding one very crucial word: "program."

I can have an excercise program and still be a lard ball.
I can have a stop-smoking program and still be smoking away.
I can plot out a program by which I will leave my wife, become a novelist and move to Maui, but never carry through.

Let's be clear about what this means. It means that George W. Bush is no longer confident that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. This is what Bush claimed to have "bulletproof evidence" of -- not a program, not a plot, not a plan -- ACTUAL WEAPONS.

Today, George W. Bush parsed more transparently than Bill Clinton ever did, and about much more important things.

Today, George W. Bush admitted that he doesn't believe his own hype.


Posted by Matthew Cook at 4:33 PM. # (permalink)  


 
Diplomat Confirms that Bush "Twisted" Facts to Push for War

In a New York Times commentary published today, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson confirmed that the Bush Administration was aware that supposed "evidence" it used to push an invasion and occupation of Iraq was not reliable. Last fall, Wilson was sent by the CIA to Africa to investigate claims that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Niger. He found that there was no substance behind the claim.

Wilson describes the several forms in which these findings reached offices in the Bush Administration, including the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. Yet, many weeks after these falsity of the uranium claims was made clear to the Bush Administration, George W. Bush and his advisors continued to insist to the American people that Iraq had tried to get uranium from Niger.

That's a lie, folks. A plain lie.

Bush lied, people died.

Now, are the American people going to sit still for that?

Posted by J. Clifford Cook at 12:50 AM. # (permalink)  




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