Ironic news item of the day.....

[Liberal Veteran]

"Top U.S. arms negotiator John Bolton described North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Thursday as a tyrannical dictator who lived like royalty while jailing thousands and keeping many hungry in a "hellish nightmare"

Not that I don't doubt his observations, but have we looked at our own house lately?

[MrBenchley]

1. Irony is in short supply among the Pirates of Enron

Remember last week when Wolfowitz called for "foreigners" to stop meddling in Iraq?

Here he is again...

"Wolfowitz: "It’s difficult for Americans to imagine what it’s like to live in a country, not only where they can grab you at night and torture you, but they’ll grab your children and torture them in order to make you talk. It takes time to root out that kind of criminal gangs." "

http://www.msnbc.com/news/944794.asp

"Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said tougher methods are being used to gather the intelligence. On Wednesday night, he said, his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: "If you want your family released, turn yourself in." Such tactics are justified, he said, because, "It's an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info." "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54345-2003Jul27.html

[quilp]

2. The double standards in the US are getting very embarrassing.

We talk of "human rights" while 44 million have no health coverage.
We condemn Saddams WMDs while we have thousands of Atom bombs.
We lecture on "democracy" even after the fiasco of our last election.
We boast of "freedom" while having the largest prison population in the world.
We screamed about the luxury that the wealthy of other countries enjoy while CEOs here live like pharaohs, and workers are in poverty.
We preach "transparency" while having the most secretive government in recent history.
The list is endless. I just wish we would stop lecturing the rest of the world. They can see for themselves what our "values" really are.

[MuseRider]

3. What? This is the USA

with the "adults" in charge. Wealthy Repubs never look at their own house, someone else always takes care of it. Doubtful they would ever remember if they had been told the condition, "the report must be here on my desk somewhere."

[mumon]

4. Don't forget the Nepotism connection

This man:



And this one:



owe their jobs to Daddy's pull. Nothing more.

[mumon]

5. Speaking of which...

We were discussing the "L-curve" income distribution in the United States in the office, a couple of foreign nationals, a moderate, a Repugnant, and myself.

After the standard reply from the Repugnant, one of the foreign nationals noted that the "L- curve" applies to both the US & North Korea.

Now, nobody's starving here, but when you think about it, there's not that much difference.