If Bush designed mousetraps...

(cross posted at appletree)

The Bush Administration in a nutshell

This cartoon neatly captures the legacy of the Worst President Ever

Here's a couple of stories that illustrate just how stupid and just how brutal the Bush Administration was:

Buy High, Sell Low

The federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation decided to shift its holdings from bonds to equities, just about the time the bottom fell out of the stock market.

A finance professor who had previously advised the agency not to make the switch away from bonds compared the move to an insurance company writing policies to cover hurricane damage and then investing the premiums in beachfront property.

Bush was able to do for the PBGC what he tried and failed to do for Social Security.

Bush's Torture Rationale Debunked

Abu Zubaida was the alpha and omega of the Bush administration's argument for torture.

That's why Sunday's front-page Washington Post story by Peter Finn and Joby Warrick is such a blow to the last remaining torture apologists.

Finn and Warrick reported that "not a single significant plot was foiled" as a result of Zubaida's brutal treatment -- and that, quite to the contrary, his false confessions "triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms."

Zubaida was the first detainee to be tortured at the direct instruction of the White House. Then he was President George W. Bush's Exhibit A in defense of the "enhanced interrogation" procedures that constituted torture. And he continues to be held up as a justification for torture by its most ardent defenders.

But as author Ron Suskind reported almost three years ago -- and as The Post now confirms -- almost all the key assertions the Bush administration made about Zubaida were wrong.

Zubaida wasn't a major al Qaeda figure. He wasn't holding back critical information. His torture didn't produce valuable intelligence -- and it certainly didn't save lives.

Betray every ideal that America was supposed to stand for, and stupidly flush billions of dollars down the toilet. All in pursuit of long-debunked theories of economics and interrogation techniques that were based on the sort of simplistic reasoning that appeals to children. Greater risk brings greater reward. Inflict enough pain, and you'll get to the truth.

It's as if we were governed for eight years by teenagers who were raised on a steady diet of "24" and "Wall Street". Except that I think the teenagers might have gotten better results for their efforts.

(cross posted at appletree)

Frolicking Financial Fun For Friday ...

Here it is, folks!



What we've all been waiting for.



The joke of the day - week - month - year - decade - century - millennium!



*(Cross posted across at 'appletree')

Did You Hear the One About Bush in Bangkok?

And now for something completely different.



Let's all lighten up a little, eh?



Remember - laugh and the world laughs at with you.



So here's some of the jokes, folks.

Meanwhile ... Back in Virginia, An Unhappy Fourth for a Heckled Bush

See and and hear for yourself as PResident G.W. Bush is shouted down, good style, as he gives (yet another) phony 4th July address -- this time it's in Virginia.

(Cross posted at 'appletree')

Gormless, Goofy Generals? Or Godamned Greedy Others?

Some time ago, an extremely powerful world leader learned the hard way, just how costly it is to ignore one's own military generals.

Yet even now, there are still some world leaders who can't/won't either face facts nor, learn from others' catastrophically, costly cock-ups.

White House denies Army's pitch for more brass

By Richard Lardner, Associated Press Writer, Mon Jun 23 2008

WASHINGTON - The Army's march to overhaul its tarnished contracting system has been slowed by an unlikely foe: the White House.

The Office of Management and Budget, President Bush's administrative arm, has shot down a service plan to add five active-duty generals who would oversee purchasing and monitor contractor performance.

The boost in brass was a key recommendation from a blue-ribbon panel that last fall criticized the Army for contracting failures that undermined the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, wasted U.S. tax dollars, and sparked dozens of procurement fraud investigations.

So, is THIS sheer stupidity or is this sheer stupidity?



Well, they got THAT right. Ike WAS right.




(Cross posted at 'appletree')