We don't need no stinkin' French Fries!!! But, uh, we'll take your money and young to sacrifice for some bitchin' oil rights!

France, Germany Say U.S. Draft on Iraq Falls Short

Basically, BushCo has now decided it wants the UN's help after dissing them and basically considering them irrelevant for the past year. Man, they are so like that guy you date that breaks up with you on your birthday to go out with a really hot, rich bitch and then when she dumps him and steals his car, he calls you up to ask to borrow your car, and, oh yeah, can you fill it up with gas for me and not be seen with me in it? Great, thanks.

I mean, hello!!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back before the first shot was "officially" fired, those of use that opposed the war were like "whoa, dude, seriously. Chill. Wait for the World to get on board, okay? Because we don't have the money, manpower or organizational skillz to do the job right, you dig?" And Bush was all "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I wanna go to war NOW! NOW NOW NOW! I'll take my toys and go home!" So the big losers in Congress and all the goosestepping, brainwashed middle-Americans started slobbering over bombing that dude with the mustache that we were just sure was invoved in 9/11. As usual, agression won out over common sense and now we are in exactly the position all the intelligent, rational people said we were going to get ourselves in to.

Instead, Bush squandered the incredible good will the world felt for the US after 9/11. Our leadership is the butt of jokes every where and respect has run out .

Morons run our country. There is no arguing here. It is just a fact. The Pointy Haired Boss runs our country.

Salon, of course, has excellent commentary on the subject today.

Would you like Freedom Fries with Your Crow, Mr. President?

Let me make sure I've got this right. After being insulted, belittled and called irrelevant by the swaggering machos in the Bush administration, the United Nations is now supposed to step forward to supply cannon fodder for America's disastrous Iraq occupation -- while the U.S. continues to run the show?

In other words, the rest of the world is to send its troops to get killed so that a U.S. president it fears and despises can take the credit for an invasion it bitterly opposed.

The rest of the world may be crazy, but it ain't stupid.

If You Can't Laugh, You'll Cry and Sometimes, You Just Have To Cry Because It's So Horrible Update

Census survey finds nearly 1.4 million more people in poverty in 2002

Nice. Here is what Mark Morford of the San Fran Chron had to say about this in his Morning Fix which I highly recommend to everyone who is not a tight ass and/or Republican. ;)

President Bush, distressed at the news, immediately gave huge tax relief to the wealthiest Americans in the nation, slashed welfare and school budgets and moneys for social programs of a thousand different varieties, and gutted the national budget so severely that the states were required to sell off their prettiest little girls to Thailand to make extra cash just to pay for water and electricity and shopping mall maintenance. Meanwhile, the GOP simply didn't give a damn, everyone with any sense of tenderness or concern felt this crushing sense of bitter ennui and sad detachment coupled with an overwhelming urge to take a long hot bath and drink fine scotch and try to numb the savage karmic pain, and one million unwanted dogs in shelters all across the country waited, patiently, for someone to come and take them home. There. Can we all just scream now?

Yes we can, Mark. Scream loudly, at the top of our ever lovin' lungs. Something like "GET THAT CRAZY MOFO OUT OF OFFICE BEFORE I DEFECT TO CANADA!"

In other depressing news, The LA Times reports " EPA Switch Allows Sale of PCB-Tainted Sites".

Yes, Dubya has found another way to fuck over Americans and line the pockets of rich people with little chunks of fossilized Hitler dung for hearts. Here's a little taste:

The Bush administration has quietly allowed the sale of properties contaminated with PCBs, reversing a 25-year-old policy aimed at protecting people from exposure to the highly toxic chemicals.

The Environmental Protection Agency said the change would speed the redevelopment, and possibly even the cleanup, of former military installations and other hazardous sites.

Environmental activists and congressional Democrats warned that the action removed a needed incentive to clean contaminated properties and could result in some properties being redeveloped while still tainted.

Under the old rules, said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the federal government in effect oversaw the transfer of PCB-contaminated properties because the properties could not be sold until the seller proved that the PCBs were gone. Now, she warned, that protection seemed to be lost.

"I can't believe they would ease the rules around one of the most persistent and dangerous chemicals known to mankind," Boxer said. "This administration is really waging war against our health." . . . Environmentalists also complained that the change, which took effect in the middle of last month, was made without involving or even informing the public. The EPA released information about its new policy Tuesday, after a story about it appeared in USA Today.