Chavez Hearts Chomsky

In addition to ruling a country Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has made time to start a book club and has chosen the podium of the United Nations to launch it. The inaugural title to be read is Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance" and, according to the New York Times, sales of the book "hit No. 1 on Amazon's best-seller list yesterday, and the hardcover edition, published in 2003, climbed as high as No. 6. At both Borders Group and Barnes & Noble, sales of the title jumped tenfold in the last two days". The Associated Press released the above photo of Chavez recommending some summer reading to the General Assembly. The woman who appears to be 'losing it' in the background might have already read it. I haven't although I have read some of Chomsky's work (""The Common Good"") and find it a curious mix of solid ideas and unfounded, ultra-radical theories which border on the ridiculous. Rumor at the UN is that next month Chavez will be recommonding "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom. Oprah, best start looking over your sholder...

Bush Breeds Terrorists

"I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there’s a strong will for democracy." -G.W. Bush to Wolf Blitzer of CNN

A comma. Bush should be slapped awake from his coma. Actually, as of the release of the report compiled by American intelligence agencies, anyone who STILL believes that invading Iraq was a strategically sound move in the War on Terror should be administered nuclear grade smelling salts. According to the New York Times portions of the study remain classified, however, it is clear that the conclusions are the result of the combined information of a large pool of intelligence spanning multiple agencies. According to the CIA a “National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is the most authoritative written judgment concerning a national security issue prepared by the Director of Central Intelligence”. It should be noted that these are, after all, the same people who produced a sterile "smoking gun" pointing to a phantom cache of WMD in pre-war Iraq. Unlike that piece of gross misinformation there are those outside the U.S. government that agree with this NIE. Mark Mazzetti's article that tops the Sunday edition of The New York Times adds that "More recently, the Council on Global Terrorism, an independent research group of respected terrorism experts, assigned a grade of 'D+' to United States efforts over the past five years to combat Islamic extremism. The council concluded that 'there is every sign that radicalization on the Muslim world is spreading rather than shrinking'". Bush's justifications for invading Iraq continue to erode. There are those who will see to it that this "final history" of Iraq Bush paraphrases with a single comma will look a bit different. The comma, instead, will be reversed resembling the Islamic symbol of the crescent moon that militant Muslims also use and, with Bush's help, this history will be written in blood.