Quoted: Ta-da! The deal just announced for US oil companies is not just any old deal. It's a series of no-bid contracts:
"Imagine. At the precise moment when demand for oil was the highest in history, a recently democratized country with enormous reserves had the chance to sell extraction contracts to the highest bidder. This was a country that desperately needed the revenue to help rebuild its schools, power grid and water supply after a long internal conflict. So why did it hand out the contracts with no auction at all?"

Quoted: Pete talks about a moral disgrace. You know what is a moral disgrace? Conflating innocent people with those who "want to slit the throats and watch innocent Americans bleed and die." Here's also what is a disgrace: that an American administration knowingly seized individuals who were innocent of any crime, tortured and abused hundreds of them, and lied about it. That Dick Cheney and George W. Bush decided in advance to bypass the Congress in setting clear, legal, constitutional rules for the handling of detainees in the war on terror and so ended up in the Gitmo mess. That, in a time of war and great peril, Bush and Cheney decided to go on an executive branch power-grab because they knew full well that what they intended to do - torture their way to "intelligence" - was illegal. That the Bush policy has neither brought anyone to justice nor provided a decent alternative to habeas rights and poisoned the reputation of American justice for a generation around the world. That the United States coopted former Soviet prison camps in Eastern Europe in order to perpetrate Gestapo methods of interrogation. That's a disgrace.

Quoted: The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.

Quoted: A teenage rap duo in Chicago has recorded a track, aptly called "The Economist," that extols the British publication's breadth and brevity and samples podcast ...

Someone at the Pentagon removed any mention about the fact that Major Alan Rogors was gay from Wikipedia. And they were so inept at doing it, that they did it from an actual Pentagon IP address and not a local internet cafe, for example.

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Quoted: Bill talks to Michael Ware who is still reporting for CNN in Baghdad. I disagree with many of Ware's points. One, we've already got blood on our hands for go...

More Code Pink hilarity.

Quoted: And this week, which will see the fifth anniversary of the start of the war, Code Pink plans to "step up the pressure," as its leader Medea Benjamin said. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Code Pink has a full roster of activities planned for the week, including: yoga every morning at 8:30; organic potlucks every noon; nightly movies and popcorn; a bike ride around Berkeley on Tuesday; an open-mike musical jam on Wednesday; and a 'send-off' to the Marines on Friday, when protesters will bring suitcases and pink berets for traveling." How the Bush administration will be able to resist is anyone's guess.

Quoted: And Clinton will swiftly realize that the most potent antidote to conservative criticism of her at home will be buttressing her military image, working the Thatcher thing, constructing an Iron Lady persona that will both appeal to her white ethnic base and keep the Republicans at bay. She will no more withdraw troops from Iraq than John McCain will. Anything that could make her look weak - and it's Hannity and O'Reilly to whom she will defer in this perception game - she will resist.