peace in our time

My administration has been calling upon all the leaders in the -- in the Middle East to do everything they can to stop the violence, to tell the different parties involved that peace will never happen.
--George w. Bush

Crawford, TX
08/13/2001

republican humor

Q.: Why doesn't Mark Foley use bookmarks?



A. He'd rather just bend the pages over.

Messopotamia

Mr. Churchill got to the root of the Mesopotamia issue when he said, on June 14, that our `obligation' there is not `unlimited,' that a point might be reached when no more sacrifices could be demanded from British taxpayers, and that the time might come when `the conditions of our finance or our military resources were such that we could do no more' for Mesopotamia. In our view, the point defined by Mr. Churchill was reached long ago. . . . Every child at school has heard of Babylon and its tragic fate; and the mounds of rubble which are all that now recall the vanished glories of the Babylonian empire may still serve to remind our rulers that every Power which has sought to control these dismal lands has met with ultimate disaster.
18 July 1921
Mesopotamia. (Editorial)

Andrei Sakharov writing in 1974:

“Far in the future, more than 50 years from now, I foresee a universal information system (UIS), which will give everyone access at any given moment to the contents of any book that has ever been published or any magazine or any fact. The UIS will have individual miniature-computer terminals, central control points for the flood of information, and communication channels incorporating thousands of artificial communications from satellites, cables, and laser lines. Even the partial realization of the UIS will profoundly affect every person, his leisure activities, and his intellectual and artistic development. Unlike television… the UIS will give each person maximum freedom of choice and will require individual activity. But the true historic role of the UIS will be to break down the barriers to the exchange of information among countries and people.“

Briefed

We've known for years now that George W. Bush received a presidential daily briefing on Aug. 6, 2001, in which he was warned: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." We've known for almost as long that Bush went fishing afterward.

What we didn't know is what happened in between the briefing and the fishing, and now Suskind is here to tell us. Bush listened to the briefing, Suskind says, then told the CIA briefer: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."