Another Possibility: the Genius of the Bush/Cheney Plan

In the previous post, I posited that the Chimperor and his gang had essentially contributed to a worsening of situations across the board, and the commentary got pretty heated. What if there is something both we, the so-called "Bush-haters" and their opposite, "the Bush-crack-lickers" had all gotten wrong?

What if total chaos is the overriding goal of this gang of miscreants? After all, even I wouldn't argue that Bush and company actually tried to fuck up on every single thing they touched. No one wants to be a total incompetent all the time. Or do they?

If you have investment interests in oil, or in armaments suppliers, or in shipping, or in security firms, or in big pharma, then destabilization of currencies, energy supplies, governments, security, travel, and the creation of a more fearful world are going to make you very, very wealthy.

If you own stock in Lockheed-Martin, the Carlyle Group, General Dynamics, and Northrop-Grumman, which is better: a quick, efficient victory, followed by a stable transition to new governance, and then a rapid withdrawal, or a quick, efficient victory followed by a meatgrinder of civil and sectarian strife that bogs down the world's most powerful military machine for a decade or longer?

Cui bono?

Those bastards may have outsmarted all of us on both sides.

More Americans Enter Reality-based World

When only 16% of the nation thinks that the Chimperor's administration is truthful about what happened on 9/11/2001, that's some deep doodoo, to quote the elder Bush. And speaking of Bush 41, he and his cabinet members now must bear the burden of the idiot son, Bush 43, completely fucking up the Middle East and generally weakening the United States in every arena. And they knew it was going to happen, emphasizing again how these mandarins always put their power over the national interest.

"Everyone knew how Rumsfeld acts," another key 41 assistant said. "Everyone knew 43 didn't have an attention span. Everyone knew Condi [Rice] wouldn't be able to stand up to Cheney and Rumsfeld. We told them all of this, and we were told we don't know what we're doing."

That any American still naively believes that politicians act out of conscience is frightening, but that they can be so utterly bamboozled by power-mad fiends with no conscience at all is even more frightening.

We've got to quit acting like children looking for a daddy or a mommy to make our world safe. Democrats, Republicans, independents, all politicians are corrupted by the electoral process, and owe their offices to focused special interests, not to the people who elected them. Politicians respond to the will of the people only when they fear the people. That's how power works.

And yet, despite the debacle we have entered thanks to arrogant power, we do not see people in the streets.

When I was in Leipzig, Germany, earlier this year, I spent some time in the Stasi Museum which documents the abuses of that internal security mechanism against the citizens of the state. The Stasi was perhaps the most efficient and widespread internal security operation in history. In October of 1989, however, the people got fed up. A paving stone in the town square commemorates the event when the people surrounded the secret service headquarters that now houses the museum and began chanting, "Stasi raus!" The Stasi officers barricaded themselves inside the building, genuinely fearing for their lives.

You know the rest of the story. On November 9, the Berlin Wall fell. Less than a year later, the East German regime ceased to exist.

The memorial, that paving stone, is simply the impressions of different pairs of feet. Feet on the street. That's how people take back their power.

Olaf and the White House Agree!!!

My wife is an optimist. She believes that no matter how bad the break between people, deep down somewhere there is an accord of some kind, an issue on which they can agree. And from that agreement, it is possible to build bridges to more common understanding, and ultimately achieve compromise, and maybe someday...harmony.

Well, I don't know about all that, but on one thing apparently the White House crooks have been in the closet when they could have been out front hangin' in solidarity with old Olaf Rotkohl. From MSNBC last night on Keith Olberman's Countdown, we learn something from the former #2 man inside Chimpie's Office of Faith-based Iniatives, David Kuo:

He says some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.”

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,’” Kuo writes.

And yet the Bushits won something like 95 percent of the evangelical vote, and even more astonishingly, they did it by actually spending $20 million a year LESS than Clinton on the "nuts." How did they pull this off?

The money that was appropriated and disbursed, however, often served a political agenda, Kuo claims, with organizations friendly to the administration often winning grants.

More pointedly, Kuo quotes an unnamed member of the review panel charged with rating grant applications as saying she stopped looking at applications from “those non-Christian groups,” as did many of her colleagues.

Hahahahahahahahaha! Suckers! I told ya so! You and the rest of the 59 million who "reelected" these criminals in 2004 are now being shown that the only thing that matters to the Chimpie and Cheney syndicate is power, and there is no one they won't sell out, lie to, maybe even kill, to get it and keep it.

And to all of those who were conned? Both the White House and I enthusiastically say: Fuck you, fools.

Why Some People Shouldn't Do Drugs

The Hillbilly Heroin Homeboy hits one out the park! Those Democrats--so diabolical that they set up a ten-year sting operation to get Republican Mark Foley to troll for teenage boys.

Of course, there's another Republican theory on the talking points list too--that Mark Foley was in deep cover as a Democratic plant, set to embarrass them at just this moment.

Of course, applying Occam's Razor to this outrage, it would appear to simply be that Mark Foley--REPUBLICAN--is just a creepy old man with no regard for age-of-consent laws or power differentials in working relationships.

Your First Amendment Rights...

...as interpreted by your Vice President's office. You see, he is a dictator, immune from any contradictory comments. Mr. Howardss fuckup was that he didn't say "reprehensible" to Chimpie the Hand Puppet. The Chimperor would have taken it as a compliment, slapped Howards on the back, and said, "We'll repre-insulate those evildoers and killers over there so we won't have to repro-masturbate them over here."

Chimpie Indirectly Admits His War Criminality

Watch Jack Cafferty on yesterday's CNN spot.

Bush knows he's in the shitter if the Congress flips...and if the Dems have the guts to do what's right and ship his--and Cheney's, Rumsfeld's, Wolfowitz's, Rice's, et alia's--ass to the Hague for prosecution.

Death penalty for certain war crimes under the Geneva Convention--I like that, particularly since we still execute people--even retarded ones--in this country, so Chimpie hasn't got a rock to hide under, especially in Texas.

Welcome to Tyranny

Mind you, this comes from the highest law enforcement official in our nation, who also seems to forget that we have three branches of government, one of which--the judiciary--is to ensure that our rights are preserved. But Alberto "Tortureboy" Gonzalez must have been snorting coke with Chimpie that day in law school.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is defending President Bush's anti-terrorism tactics in multiple court battles, said Friday that federal judges should not substitute their personal views for the president's judgments in wartime.

You see, Tortureboy doesn't believe that judges should participate in judicial processes if it contradicts a mad-as-a-hatter and dumb-as-a-rock president.

"Judges must resist the temptation to supplement those tools based on their own personal views about the wisdom of the policies under review," Gonzales said.

Even judges aren't exempt from little waterboarding.

Welcome to Amerikkka. James Madison was too prescient.

Must-see YouTube!

Oh my goodness, this is funny! Viva iMovie!!!

How Can Anyone Support This Buffoon? A Theory...

I think that anyone left who supports Bush-- and Rasmussen's poll claims that includes 40% of my fellow Americans--must do so now only out of (a) total embarrassment, (b) total separation from the reality-based universe, or (c) a traitorous intent to destroy the United States from within by continuing to enable a combination of ill-educated fuckwads, greedheads, and Christofascists to loot the treasury, convert democratic rule to autocratic theocracy, and descend into a Caligulopoly.

Caligulopoly, you ask? Well, "Caligula" originally meant "little soldier's boot," a nickname the original Caligula acquired as a boy and always hated, sort of like "Shrub" or "Nitwit Son." And while, perhaps, Chimpie's personal habits do not descend to the (actually unprovable) depradations of Caligula, his insistence on the right to torture, invade countries, detain without cause anyone he deems his enemy, and declarations like "I'm the Decider" coupled with the childish tantrums of late (he said he won't allow ANY interrogations of terror suspects if Congress won't give him his way on torture), have pushed him into at least the outer circle of Cal's camp in terms of leadership style and megalomania.

And I should apologize for using a word like "buffoon" for Bush. He's too malevolent to be a mere buffoon. What he is is a fucking disaster.

9/11: How Mass Murder Gets Turned into Media Exhaustion

I really hope that no national holiday gets created for 9/11. Already, before the Madison Avenue juggernaut has really had a chance to fully exploit this day, exhaustion is overpowering me, and perhaps others, because the collective media melded mindset simply cannot approach the subject with anything like an original or critical intent. God help us when five more years pass and we start having ad blitzes like this:

We're exploding prices on our 2011 SUV line!

We're terrorizing high prices!

Osama may still be on the loose, but you can catch our 9/11 end-of-summer sale and beat the terrorism of high prices!

You get the idea.

In addition, of course, the criminal empire that is BushCo. is inventing new levels of ghoulishness by parading the animated corpse of Dick Cheney onto "Meet the Press" and ordering Condi Rice to repeat her mantra, "No one could have imagined [fill in your fuckup here]." In all this masturbation, politicking, and ass-covering, the people who deserve to be able to reflect on their own and actual experiences are having their memories blighted or obliterated by the media onslaught, to wit, "Your experience is meaningless unless it is filtered through OUR lens."

It's the ultimate tyranny--now you can't even experience your own tragedy, unless Auntie Katie or Uncle Bryan read it to you over the teleprompter. Those who died and those who loved them are still under attack by an engine of commerce that knows no limit to avarice and has no inkling of shame or reflection. By turning this event into the carnival of thumbsucking that it has become--just another means to sell toilet bowl cleaner and skin care products--the greed that drives everything ultimately triumphs any pure opportunity for uncovering truth, because it just might cause the traffic in goods and services to stumble for a moment and notice the gaping chasm that our culture is hurrying toward, arms clasped full of worthless shit heads full of simplistic answers.

Chimpie Wants to Remember Anniversaries, eh?

Well, let's cast back 5 years and 1 month to August 6, 2001, to a presidential daily briefing given to El Presidente. What was the title of said briefing?

Bin Laden determined to strike in US

Today's presidential "speech" should have had him laughed off the lectern, but the bootlickers, sycophants, enemies of liberty, and scum of what passes for political and media life in the United States actually broadcast and applauded this idiot.

What fucking country am I living in? It's like a perpetual bad acid trip through a totalitarian nightmare commanded by morons and incompetents.

I'm sorry not to be posting more but it's hard to write when you're running the house screaming, "Shit!!!! Shit!!!! Shit!!!!"

So Jenna and Barbara Are Enlisting When?

Oh boy. El Presidente met with families of those slain on 9/11, in Afghanistan, and Iraq. Am I so cynical to believe this has something to do with disaster in his foreign and domestic policies and his correspondingly plunging ratings (except for the true wackos who could be plunged in boiling oil and claim it refreshing if Dick Cheney told them it was a hot tub)? You bet your sweet ass I am. From way up north in Maine:

One anti-war widow said she used the opportunity to voice her objections to Bush's policies.

"I said it's time to stop the bleeding," said Hildi Halley, whose husband, Army National Guard Capt. Patrick Damon, died June 15 in Afghanistan. "It's time to swallow our pride and find a solution."

She said Bush responding by saying "there was no point in us having a philosophical discussion about the pros and cons of the war."

So if discussion of the war is just reduced to hypotheticals, let's suppose Chimpie's two progeny enlist in the Marine Corps and volunteer for Iraq. He shouldn't object to that since it's all just philosophical jerking off. I'm sure those Marines are countering the premises of IEDs on the roadside with agile rhetorical wizardry.

The progress of Chimpie's philosophy:
--My decision to invade was based on sound evidence of WMD.
--My decision to invade was based on flawed intelligence.
--My decision to invade was the right one, even if there weren't any of those things there
--My decision to invade is not to be challenged except by terrorists and their sympathizers
--Don't blame me for the decision to invade. Who could have forseen this shit?
--The decision to invade was just a philosophical exercise. Next issue? Oh yeah, and I'm really sorry your kid/spouse/parent is dead. They died for a great neocon philosophy.
--Can I go for my bike ride now, Karl?

The Future of Advertising

Love those crazy Berliners! Once again, the city has inspired acts of resistance that could spread like a virus, in fact, ought to spread like a virus. My favorite artistic inspiration:

At 5:37 a.m. on April 2, 2002, the Parisian artist Zevs kidnapped a 10-meter (33-feet) model advertising Lavazza coffee from one of Berlin's main squares, Alexanderplatz. To be sure, the ad slogan "Express yourself!" was asking for trouble. Within a few hours, Zevs had cut the lady from the ad and left a note: "Visual Kidnapping -- Pay now." Zevs then issued a written statement demanding a €500,000 ($638,694) ransom. Just to make it clear he wasn't fooling around, he severed one of the model's fingers and mailed it to the company headquarters in Turin. Before the police could catch him, he escaped to Sweden.

From then on, Zevs toured the art galleries of Europe with a documentary film about his "kidnapping" and the kidnapped model itself, rolled up for convenient transportation. Two years ago, he asked visitors of Berlin's New Society for the Visual Arts (Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst) to take a vote about whether the model should be "executed." Last year, he finally returned her to the Lavazza company, following a sham ransom payment. Zevs is on a mission.

So if you're getting bored with your summer...

When Credibility Croaks, or, Rather, Gets Croaked

Zogby poll: "Rating down despite foiled terror plot and Lebanon cease fire; Democrats hold generic Congressional lead."

Why? Read my previous post on returning from Europe. Nobody can believe the Bushits anymore when it comes to terror warnings or declarations of making things safer. Terrorism and the "war" thereupon are first and foremost political tools for Team Bush. William Greider, writing for The Nation, has it perfectly articulated.

More to the point, it is equally true that Bush desperately needs the terrorists. They are his last frail hope for political survival. They divert public attention, at least momentarily, from his disastrous war in Iraq and his shameful abuses of the Constitution. The "news" of terror--whether real or fantasized--reduces American politics to its most primitive impulses, the realm of fear-and-smear where George Bush is at his best.

So, once again in the run-up to a national election, we are visited with alarming news. A monstrous plot, red alert, high drama playing on all channels and extreme measures taken to tighten security.

The White House men wear grave faces, but they cannot hide their delight. It's another chance for Bush to protect us from those aliens with funny names, another opportunity to accuse Democrats of aiding and abetting the enemy.

This has worked twice before. It could work again this fall unless gullible Americans snap out of it. Wake up, folks, and recognize how stupid and wimpish you look. I wrote the following two years ago during a similar episode of red alerts: "Bush's ‘war on terrorism' is a political slogan--not a coherent strategy for national defense--and it succeeds brillantly only as politics. For everything else, it is quite illogical."

Then Greider asks the key question.

Where is the famous American skepticism? The loose-jointed ability to laugh at ourselves in anxious moments? Can't people see the campy joke in this docudrama called "Terror in the Sky"?

Now inevitably, some dickhead is going to accuse me of not taking terrorism seriously. Echoing the Donald Rumsfeld mode of Q&A, do I believe terrorism exists? Yes, of course. Do I understand that there are people who think nothing of killing thousands to make a point about their particular superstitious belief in invisible cloud beings and rewards after death? Absolutely. But do I think that the actual, measurable, and preventable acts of terrorism that truly threaten us have been responsibly addressed? In a word, no. Looking at actions versus rhetoric on the issue, I can only conclude that Bush and company care primarily for terrorism as a tool for the acquisition and consolidation of power and any protection of the people a fortunate coincidental occurrence.

After all, how many innocent people have been killed in Iraq? Has that action reduced the threat of terrorism? Are our ports better controlled? Are our borders secure? Where's Osama? Any word on those anthrax attacks four years ago? Are there fewer or more young Muslims ready to embrace the mythical 70+ virgins in martyr's heaven?

Good job, Georgie!

Detecting Bullshit in Berlin

Although I've been back since late Saturday night, it's taken me a while to get my thoughts together on the past week. Since my wife and I had to fly through London's Heathrow Airport from Berlin back to the US, we took acute interest in the alleged terror plot "uncovered" last Thursday. As I write this, our bags are still sitting somewhere in London, among more than 20,000 others, due to cancelled flights, broken screening machines, and the other effects of the alert. By some stroke of luck, we arrived at our ultimate destination in the United States less than two hours behind schedule, and even though our bags remain in limbo, I have to commend the British Airlines employees who worked so hard to keep things working. I'm very impressed with their diligence and calm in a rotten situation--they were universally helpful, understanding, remarkably good-natured, and I'll cheerfully fly British Air on my next trip back to the Old World.

On Thursday night, we came back to our apartment after a lovely dinner in a Mitte restaurant near Oranienburger Tor, and before turning bellies toward the ceiling to aid digestion, I flipped on the TV, hoping to catch another cool German detective show to help my admittedly poor language skills. On a German news channel, there was coverage of a terror plot uncovered and the effect it was having on air traffic through Heathrow. We switched to the BBC, needing to fully understand the implications for our return home, and received a calm and detailed report of what was known about the situation as well as information about what to expect as air travelers--delays, tight restrictions on carry-on baggage (i.e. none), and a rapidly developing situation.

Then over to CNN. The mantra: "Total chaos." This was repeated ad nauseum over shots of frustrated travelers, crowds of people at Heathrow, airplanes on the tarmac, and so on. "Total chaos." We would be flying home on Saturday, so this was not welcome news. "Total chaos."

On Saturday, fortunately, our flight Berlin-London was not one of many that were cancelled due to the situation. As we had learned from BA's website, we could carry only our identification papers, money, keys, and prescription meds--everything else had to be checked, including my little travel guitar which, alas, was not in a hardshell case but only protected by its gigbag, lush though its padding is. "Ah, die arme Guitarre," a young German man said behind me. Yes, the poor guitar indeed. Oh well--it was the risk I took hauling it around. Better to be secure.

But something about the distinct hysteria of CNN compared to coverage of the BBC and the German networks was sticking in my throat. While I was happy to shed myself of all material possessions in the interest of airline safety, there was something fishy here. My wife didn't think so--so many people arrested, such a profound set of restrictions suddenly imposed on air travel, so many flight cancellations, etc., she felt this had to be something imminent and very real. Call me cynical at this point, but when a terrorist "attack" is uncovered following a really shitty week for the Bush administration--ally on war Joe Lieberman defeated in the Democratic primary in Connecticut and much criticism on failing to act early in the Lebanese situation plus Dick Cheney's accusations of al Qaeda sympathies for anti-Lieberman voters--it's become rather natural to consider a political rather than a security motive.

Well, surprise, surprise! From the London Times today, we find this interesting piece.

“This is the busiest airport in the world at the busiest time of year,” said Heathrow’s chief executive officer Tony Douglas. “To suggest we could continue as if nothing had happened is frankly ludicrous.” Except, actually, nothing had. Not at Heathrow, anyway. No suspected terrorists were apprehended at or on the way to the airport, no bomb-making material was found on airport land. It never is. Look at the clear plastic box on display at every security checkpoint. Nail files, scissors, corkscrews, pen knives. No guns or bombs. Shortly to be joined by paperback books, cuddly toys and a litre of Buxton’s finest. But still no bombs.

Today, Britain’s state of alert will be downgraded from “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God” to “Is it me or is that bloke with the beard sweating a bit?” which means small hand luggage will be allowed, but no liquids. Water bottles being the new shoes — remember Richard Reid, when everyone was under attack from Hush Puppies? — it is absolutely vital that we do not take liquid refreshment on to planes. Trains, fine: because, of course, whoever would think of targeting the rail network in Britain? Not this year, anyway. Well, I’m certainly feeling safer.

Now this doesn't mean that there wasn't a terror plot unfolding. It's just that it hadn't really unfolded so far that the British wanted to spring the trap.

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.

In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

So why did the British pull the trigger when they did? Here's an Australian take on what I wish I was seeing on US network news. Why isn't this making its way into our mainstream media outlets?

BRITISH and American authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on suspects in the alleged plot to bring down US-bound airliners, US reports suggest.

A senior British official told NBC News on Saturday that British police were planning to continue surveillance for at least another week as the suspects had not yet bought airline tickets and some did not even have passports.

In contrast to previous reports, the unidentified official told NBC an attack was not imminent, but the US pressured British police to move in. The source did say police believed one British-based suspect was ready to conduct a "dry run". British authorities had wanted to let him continue with part of the plan, but the US baulked, the report said.

Isn't it sad when kneejerk reactions like mine, which are admittedly biased by my disgust with this regime, keep turning out to be true?

Anyway, more on the trip later. Only problem--my notebooks are in London with all the other stuff--not a ballpoint pen, nor a notebook could be carried onboard. Still, kudos to British Airways. Now, if they just deliver that guitar in playable condition...

Off the Grid for a Couple of Weeks

Olaf's off to Berlin on his first vacation in fourteen months, so the postings will likely be very thin for the coming weeks. However, if I find a friendly internet cafe and a little inspiration, perhaps I'll post from abroad. Those damned European keyboards are mapped differently, though, and can really confound these old American fingers, so if my spelling or punctuation goes to hell, please cut me some slack.

I'll be back, my friends, bigger and badder and uglier and madder than ever.

All the best!

Olaf's New Face

My new look. Hope you like it.


The Reign of the Moronic Chimperor has finally gotten to me. Trust me, I feel worse than I look. Time to return to Berlin for a rejuvenatory vacation.

Oh, Barack Obama! Whither Thou Goest?

This is for my friend MB:

I was as excited as anyone to see Mr. Obama elected to the Senate two years ago. Dick Durbin has always been one of the few true Democrats and adding Mr. Obama as the junior senator was something to make every Illinois citizen proud. But something has happened to him since he's arrived in Washington, and it's the same disease that has destroyed the Democrats as an opposition party. Here's an example in today's press.

In a speech last month that drew fire from liberal bloggers and raised eyebrows in Washington, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., warned that far-right conservatives like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson would continue to hold sway unless the Democratic Party competes for the support of evangelical Christians and other churchgoing Americans.

"We make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people and join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy," Obama said.

Here's the problem--a modern, pluralistic democracy cannot exist without a strict separation of church and state and there's a damned good reason why: bending public policy to fit the superstitions of people of "faith" rather than reason and experience is destructive. Any examination of history shows that faith-based or faith-influenced government (and that includes ideological "faith" as well--fascism, Stalinism, cults of personality) always, ALWAYS leads to totalitarianism and disaster.

Religion should be free from government intervention and government should be free from religious intervention. Until Obama quits catering to fanatics who believe their mumbo-jumbo should dictate our lives, he's a loser in the Democratic Party. Falwell, Robertson, and Dobson are power-mad charlatans, con men, and anti-democratic fringe fanatics who, were it not the usefulness they provide to the fascist wing of the Republican Party, would be raving on a street corner somewhere in shit-stained smocks. They are not to be catered to, or even acknowledged as contributors to any discussion of how our democracy should operate. They believe that invisible beings speak to them and through them. I call that mental illness, not leadership.

Shame on you, Mr. Obama. Compromising with the likes of Falwell, et. al. does nothing for the progress of democracy; in fact, it inhibits it. We cannot "reconcile" foolish superstition with self-governance based on reason and experience. One if absolute fantasy, and the other is all that saves us from the more malevolent exploiters of such fantasy, like Falwell, Dobson, and Robertson.

So You Still Don't Think It's All About Oil?

Click and learn. If we could just pull that needle out of arm and develop alternate energies, conserve, and be good global citizens, all this shit would be entirely unnecessary.

But then, who is the biggest exporter of arms to the world? Who spends fully half of all worldwide monies on military expenditures? Who selectively attacks and props up equally repugnant regimes in the mideast, including those (Pakistan) who sell nuclear technology abroad? And ultimately, whose "standard of living" is most at risk from its loss of control over the oil-rich regions?

Neocons desire perpetual war, absolute oppression of the people, and plutocratic control...and we're just letting it happen.

Goodbye, America. It was a nice experiment.

What Our Greatest Ally's People Think of the U.S.

Think of this on Independence Day--we are held in lower esteem by our greatest ally than during Vietnam. And as far as the majority of Britons are concerned,

People in Britain view the United States as a vulgar, crime-ridden society obsessed with money and led by an incompetent president whose Iraq policy is failing, according to a newspaper poll.

Sounds about right, I'd say. And I hope Chimpie takes it very, very personally. They hate him, man.

With much of the worst criticism aimed at the US adminstration, the poll showed that 70 percent of Britons like Americans a lot or a little. President George W. Bush fared significantly worse, with just one percent rating him a "great leader" against 77 percent who deemed him a "pretty poor" or "terrible" leader.

And how is it that so many Britons see through this bastard's rhetoric by good ol' Americans continue to be fooled again and again and again.

More than two-thirds who offered an opinion said America is essentially an imperial power seeking world domination. And 81 per cent of those who took a view said President George W Bush hypocritically championed democracy as a cover for the pursuit of American self-interests.

I'd say that the British know a little something about imperial power, wouldn't you?

Oh, the irony! Happy 4th of July!