11.26.2003

W's illegal W? When Bush flubbed a line in the State of the Union--the one where he referred to unconventional weapons delivered in a "wial" not a "vial"--it was just a slip of the tongue. But when Democrats discovered the same line used in a pro-Bush TV ad, delivered with silver-tongued perfection--i.e. rerecorded--it just might be illegal. If the Republican party rerecorded the line, they weren't being truthful when they said they didn't coordinate the ad with the president; if that's the case they may have violated campaign laws.

What's in a name? First brother Neal Bush has been up to no good, according to records released from his March divorce proceedings. On several occasions he had sex with women who were likely prostitutes in Thailand and Hong Kong, and was offered $2 million in stock from Grace Semiconductor, even though--as his ex-wife's lawyer put it--he had "not a lot of demonstrable business experience that would bring about a company investing $2m in you."

Woe is Yee. Captain James Yee, the Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay who was accused of espionage, can't catch a break from the government. While he's been set free after three months in captivity and assigned to a new unit--likely because the charges of espionage wouldn't stick--Yee has been hit by new allegations: adultery and having viewed porn on his computer, both crimes in the military. Said Yee's lawyer: "They have destroyed this man's reputation for what turns out to be no good reason, and now it appears they are pursuing matters in a completely vindictive manner."

A powerful, cinematic Flash animation brings out the dead, calculating that, if current trends continue, another 2,400 American soldiers will be dead in Iraq a year from now.

A mouth big enough to speak out of both sides of: FAIR's Nov/Dec issue of Extra! includes ample reasons why Rush Limbaugh ought to turn himself in for his illegal drug use, straight from the horse's mouth. Like this 1995 opinion: "...too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too."

Friday is International Buy Nothing Day, a symbolic act of resistance against overconsumption as a Western cultural value. On the biggest shopping day of the year, stay home and claim your rightful role as a citizen not a mindless consumer. Adbusters reports that 62% of Americans will refrain from shopping on November 28.

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