Sadly, No!

In a comment posted on our Reagan dime post below, Michael suggested we do the following:

Go to thomas.loc.gov and type “dime” in the search box to see the lame text in the Reagan bill … But, make sure you read the Reagan text on an empty stomach…

Well, we did. And we’re gonna need a new bucket. Listed below are the accomplishments included in H. R. 3633. We’ve added some comments, because that’s the kind of blog we run here:

This Act may be cited as the ‘Ronald Reagan Dime Act’.

Does it have to though? We much prefer the Ronald Reagan Arms for Hostages Celebration Act. But on with the show:

In 1981, when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated President, he inherited a disillusioned nation wracked by rampant inflation and high unemployment.

How terrible, that poor man! In January 1981 unemployment in the United States of America was 7.5%. It would take Ronald Reagan’s economic miracle producing machine barely two years to increase it to 10.8% in December 1982. It then took another brisk 17 months before the rate went below its January 1981 level: 7.4% in May 1984.

Total time needed to achieve a 0.1% reduction in the unemployment rate? Three years and four months. Booyah!

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And Jonah Goldberg is right there to get giddy about them:

Interesting piece in the New York Times on how demographic changes help Bush in the electoral college. The essential bit:

[snip]

“The shift in the electoral map means that the Republicans have a crucial cushion going into the 2004 presidential campaign. Mr. Bush could hold all the states he won in 2000 except for, say, West Virginia and its five electoral votes, and still win in 2004. The Democrats have no such room for error. They must hold all the states Mr. Gore won and add to them to make up the difference.” [Emphasis added]

Yes — seeing as how the Democrats had 266 electoral college votes in 2000, please forgive us if it’s not a shocking piece of news that they must win more states in 2004 to win the White House. We’re pretty sure they’re on to that as well. But we guess you have to get your good news somewhere when you’re stuck in the corner.

Yesterday, the internet’s favorite, uh, Matt Drudge, offered this “exclusive:”

Top Hollywood activists and intellectuals are planning to gather this week in Beverly Hills for an event billed as ‘Hate Bush,’ the DRUDGE REPORT has learned!

Today, the NY Daily News’ Lloyd Grove reports:

In response, David told me yesterday, she was subjected to a barrage “of ugly messages,” including this one, from an Akron, Ohio, man who somehow obtained her private fax number:

“Dear Laurie David: Thanks for revealing how Compassionate Liberals such as yourself would initiate a Hate Bush campaign. And some wonder why there is increasing anti-Semitism. I’m not.”

[snip]

“I don’t hate Bush,” she [Laurie David] said. “I hate his administration’s policies – especially what they have done concerning the environment. But for all I know, he is personally a lovely man.”

Late yesterday, after Drudge forwarded me the smoking E-mail with the “Hate Bush” subject line, I sent an E-mail to the author, and a man phoned me to identify himself as the culprit.

[snip]

Drudge was unapologetic.

“Welcome to the wonderful world of the Internet,” he told me. As for anti-Semitic reaction, “Speaking as a Jew myself, I think Laurie David is trying to equate the Drudge Report with Jew haters. I know what she’s doing. I also think that the Bush-hating organizers of this event need to get better organized.”

Is it just us, or is Matt Drudge a lying piece of shit scum? Just askin’!

Grove link from No More Mister Nice Blog, a most excellent blog you should be reading every day.

In case anyone needed something to be gay about this holiday season, we have just the right thing:

Reagan dime makes sense, backers say …

Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., introduced the legislation that would boot the Democratic architect of the New Deal in the Great Depression from all future 10-cent coins to make way for the conservative icon.

“It is particularly fitting to honor the Freedom President on this particular piece of coinage because, as has been pointed out, President Reagan was wounded under the left arm by a bullet that had ricocheted and flattened to the size of a dime,” Souder wrote to colleagues in rounding up support for his bill.

[snip]

“FDR believed the federal government should spend your dimes. Ronald Reagan believed the people should spend their own [WTF?!?] dimes. I think it’s clear that the dimes in your pocket should bear Ronald Reagan’s image,” Gallegly said in a statement explaining his support of the bill.

Rep. Souder later added, it would also be a good idea to put Reagan on a yet to be created $1.4 trillion dollar bill, the amount of debt the 39th president managed to rack up during his two terms.

Link from Demagogue.

The commander fundraiser in chief stops by Pittsburgh today:

White House advisers are urging Bush to abandon the steep tariffs he imposed last year on imported steel. Doing so would avert billions in retaliatory duties from other countries.

But the steel industry argues that without Bush’s tariffs, low-priced foreign steel will again flood the American market and potentially lead to the elimination of thousands of steel jobs.

Aides said they expected the president to steer clear of the subject in his Pittsburgh visit Tuesday, a trip devoted solely to fund raising. …

Last month, Bush visited a BMW manufacturing plant in South Carolina to tout his economic proposals. The plant is a leading steel buyer, and the visit was on the day when the World Trade Organization declared the administration had illegally hindered trade with tariffs on imported steel.

The president made no mention of the steel debate that day, instead reiterating his general support for “free and fair trade.” [But not balanced?!? — Much emphasis added ]

It’s always nice to see President Fuck Off With Your Policy Concerns Just Show Me the Goddamn Money You Assholes reaching out to his constituents rich contributors.

…that this other guy told him this thing, and it is like so awesome and excellent:

U.S. troops may have killed or arrested Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam Hussein’s top former deputy who is suspected of leading the anti-U.S. insurgency, an Iraqi official said Tuesday. Officials of the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad said they had no information on the report.

Al-Douri, No. 6 on the U.S. list of most-wanted Iraqis, may have been arrested or killed in a U.S. raid in Kirkuk in northern Iraq, a senior Kurdish official in Kirkuk said on condition of anonymity.

Well, that sounds like good news. If that guy is right and all that stuff.

This post is dedicated to Pietro salad dressing, the official salad dressing of Sadly, No!

From Jim Henley last night we read the following:

Let’s add it up. “Two teams of up to 30 Fedayeen.” That’s somewhere south of 60 guerrillas.

54 dead militants. That’s a kill ratio of 90%. That’s absurd for a running firefight in an urban setting, which is what this was. (Again, I’m correctible on this.) I’m pretty sure that an attacking force should generally “break” at the 30% casualty level if not before.

But worst of all: “Up to 60” minus 54 is – six. Tops. Brigadier General Kimmitt is telling us that 6 guys carried off 54 bodies. General Kimmitt is full of shit. Or else the reporting on this is really bad. Or both.

Things seem to get a bit more complicated this morning:

The only corpses at Samarra’s hospital were those of civilians, including two elderly Iranian visitors and a child.

A top military commander acknowledged on Monday that the toll was based entirely on estimates gleaned from troop debriefings and that US soldiers had not recovered a single body from the scene of Sunday?s clashes. …

Hospital director Abd Tawfiq said ?more than 60 people wounded by gunfire and shrapnel from US rounds are being treated at the hospital?.

Meanwhile, in the winning hearts and minds department:

??If I had a gun, I would have attacked the Americans myself,?? said Satar Nasiaf, 47, a shopkeeper who said he watched two Iraqi civilians fall to American fire. ?”The Americans were shooting in every direction.”

We don’t know what happened, but it sounds like no one knows for sure either.

Update: Blair sends us this story from The Independent with more (conflicting) information. Thanks Blair!

Meanwhile, in automotive news:

Fading football star Stefan Effenberg is used to shooting off his oversized mouth, but not having to pay for it: A court in Braunschweig sentenced him on Wednesday to a EUR100,000 [US$81,000] fine for denigrating a police officer – a crime in Germany, where fines are linked to income. His latest brush with the law came on Feb. 19, when he was pulled over for speeding: Two cops heard him call one of them an “Arschloch” (asshole), though Stefan swears he only wished him “sch?n Abend noch” (enjoy the rest of the evening). For some strange reason the court chose to take the word of the two Polizisten over that of the 35-year-old Effenberg …

Effenberg, of course, is a graduate of Bayern Munich, the top-ranked soccer club, where it seems that to really belong you have to cheat on your wife and get caught doing it by photographers (Claudia Strunz was even a teammate’s wife, presumably earning our boy double the points).

Sounds like Effi Steffi as we like to call him tried to use the old South Park trick:

Stan: Well, we can’t do anything for now, that fat bitch won’t let us.
Ms. Crabtree: What did you say?
Stan: Uh, I said that rabbits eat lettuce.
Ms. Crabtree: Oh. Well, yes, they certainly do.

and:

Ms. Crabtree: I SAID SIT DOWN!
Stan: Yeah, whatever ya fat bitch!
Ms. Crabtree: What did you say?
Stan: I said I have a bad itch.
Ms. Crabtree: Oh.

Hopefully this can help Germany solve its Maastricht-criteria-busting deficit.

Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, President Bush speaks out:

And the Senate needs to get out for the junk lawsuits that make it hard to do business. It’s important that we have a judicial system that’s fair and balanced. Class action lawsuits oftentimes are not fair and balanced. After all, the money goes to the lawyers and not to the people who got hurt. We need a system that’s fair and balanced, and the Senate needs to act on that.

I am committed to working with the Congress to ensure that fair and balanced campaign reform legislation is enacted. link

The President’s tax plan is fair and balanced. link

President Bush and his Administration worked closely with both the Senate and the House of Representatives, with members of the Armenian American community, and with the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia to develop a waiver that is effective, fair, and balanced. link

The United States believes the comprehensive proposals presented to the Northern Ireland parties by the British and Irish governments on August 1, 2001, constitute a fair and balanced approach to further implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. link

We hoped that the Secretary General’s meetings with the two Cypriot leaders in The Hague on March 10-11, 2003, would lead to a breakthrough on the basis of the Secretary General’s fair and balanced settlement plan. link

And we can add to that trust by enacting fair and balanced election and campaign reforms. link

In my judgment, in order to enhance economic vitality, the Senate must act on fair and balanced tort reform legislation, starting with class-action lawsuits. link

With thanks to Jonathan S. Gradowski for his important Surgeon’s General Warning about this problem and the first F&B quote.

Social Security Breakout

If George Bush ‘fixes’ Social Security we promise not to care anymore that he totally fucked up Medicare.

Shorter concept inspired by busy, busy, busy from an idea by D-Squared.