WallStreetJackass

this sounds familiar

duh, whoops.

The father of terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab met with the CIA at the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, and told of his son's likely radicalization, according to the CIA.

The initial meeting Nov. 19 led to a broader gathering of multiple U.S. agencies the next day, in which the information was shared.

U.S. officials said it is unclear whether intelligence officials in Washington effectively collected and analyzed all the relevant information gathered in Nigeria, pointing toward a possible lapse that could have helped prevent Mr. Abdulmutallab getting on the plane he attempted to bomb. wsj

Nigeria has weapons of mass destruction

we should occupy the Delta.

A Nigerian national, claiming to be acting on behalf of al-Qaeda, is in custody in Detroit after allegedly attempting to light an incendiary device aboard a Northwest Airlines flight after it landed Friday, federal officials said. A White House official said the indicent was an attempted act of terrorism.

note to African terrorists; explosives better before landing.

the two beggars.

Two beggars are sitting side by side on a street in Rome .
One has a cross in front of him the other one the Star of David. Many people go by and look at both beggars, but only put money into the hat of the beggar sitting behind the cross.
A priest comes by, stops and watches throngs of people giving money to the beggar behind the cross, but none give to the beggar behind the Star of David. Finally, the priest goes over to the beggar behind the Star of David and says,
"My poor fellow, don't you understand? This is a Catholic country; this city is the seat of Catholicism... People aren't going to give money if you sit there with a Star of David in front of you, especially when you're sitting beside a beggar who has a cross. In fact, they would probably give to him just out of spite."
The beggar behind the Star of David listened to the priest, turned to the other beggar with the cross and says,
"Moishe, look who's trying to teach the Goldstein brothers about marketing?"

[h/t RichL]

sign of the times

[h/t jas]

GOP - the Party of the Apocalypse.

and it's not just Republican freakshows, a majority of Americans voted for this guy in 2004 knowing he had a bearded imaginary friend telling him how to conduct foreign policy.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the [George W. Bush] appealed to their "common faith" (Christianity) and told him: "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. ... The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled. ... This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins."

just nuts.

thank you GOP

Would the Iraqis then be able to cope? No one is sure. The new security forces are certainly trigger-happy. Some are proving undisciplined. Last week a gang made up of members of the presidential guard and led by the head of security for the second-biggest Shia party robbed a bank, killing eight bank workers before making off with $7m. The police did not dare stop them. In the end, troops from the interior ministry did so, but only because they belonged to a rival Shia party. Such incidents do not bode well for Iraqi peace. The Economist

and, for that matter, thank you The Economist for your invaluable support before the war.

rightwing Christian nutcases.

please, no more of them in the White House.

White House celebrates 8 years without a blowjob in the Oval Office.

Even for someone who works for the Moonie Times, this is stupid commentary.

kept us safe? Well yeah, except for the whole 9/11 thing (Bin Laden, Zawahiri, the Taliban leader still free) and the anthrax attacks (essentially unsolved). In addition, hollowing out our military and multiplying our enemies during the Iraq fiasco hardly awards him an A+.

But Iraq is the least of it; he squandered an economic boom and left his successor trillion dollar deficits. That is the real threat to our future and Americans know it.

Bush apologists like to take refuge in the presidential-rehabilitation fantasy, but  the Brookings Institution says it best... 

Harry Truman and George Bush both left office with rock-bottom approval ratings. That is as far as the parallel goes. Truman set up Nato, strengthened the United Nations and helped lay the groundwork for the European Union – all legacies that persist to this day. Bush leaves no architecture, no institutions, no treaties and no respect for the international rule of law.

I'll concede that the George W. Bush presidency was an unlucky one; But it was also inept, partisan, venal, ultimately catastrophic and will not be vindicated by the passage of time.

The only legacy of note that Bush will leave is Barack Obama. And, after eight years of this carnage, god only knows how that will turn out.

"History always emphasizes terminal events"

I'm ambivalent about the wisdom of the war in Gaza, but that's very clever. [h/t JPK]

Bush attacked by terrorists

[h/t MikeP]