I ignored Dan as he kept screaming about Ralph Nader supposedly costing Al “can’t wait to talk about God and morality again” Gore the election.

Now he’s ranting about how liberals should be FOR the war in Iraq because it will liberate the Iraqi population from a terrible dictator. He thinks this administration is capable of pulling of a post-WWII Japan trick on Iraq!

Did aliens replace his brain? It’s more fun to read David Ehrenstein’s discussion of it than it is to read the actual column.

Oh, and he’s tired of worrying about AIDS too:

“I used to think about AIDS all the time, read about AIDS constantly, and do a lot of writing about AIDS. But in the last few years, I’ve found it harder and harder to give a shit about AIDS. Instead, I want to write about the monorail or Iraq — this despite the fact that two of my best friends in the whole world are infected with HIV.”

Where are our priorities? I just read this letter in the NY Times.

Re “The Forgotten Domestic Crisis,” by Marcia Angell (Op-Ed, Oct. 13): In addition to placing health care increasingly out of the economic reach of individuals and businesses, our commodity approach guarantees that the pool of insurable individuals will continue to shrink, thereby undermining the very essence of affordable insurance.

Insurance works because a lot of people pay premiums and not everyone uses services. The more healthy people insured, the stronger the system. A single-payer, broadly financed health insurance system is hardly socialism; it is the only way health care can become universally accessible and even remotely cost-effective.

SUSAN POOR
San Francisco, Oct. 15, 2002

My first reaction was that we’re going to have national terrorism insurance before we have national health insurance!

Gay City News has an article on the lovely and talented Julian Fleisher.

Probably many people have heard of his murder, but know little else. Gay City News has a good history of the murder and the political changes that followed.

When I wrote about his show earlier, I couldn’t link to images of his work because Nikolai Fine Art’s web site is having some technical difficulties. I found out today that he has his own web site, so head on over and check it out.

So, the Bush administration knew about North Korea’s admission concerning its nuclear program one week before the vote on Iraq in Congress. Were they waiting because they were afraid that Congress would raise questions about the logic of bombing Iraq but negotiating with North Korea?

Good letter in the NY Times today:

In “North Korea Says It Has a Program on Nuclear Arms” (front page, Oct. 17), you say “the administration’s decision to keep news of the North Korean admission secret for the past 12 days while it fashioned a response appears significant for several reasons.”

One reason not directly addressed in the article is the timing of the admission in relation to the Iraq resolution that was debated in Congress.

The administration withheld its announcement about the North Korean nuclear program until the day President Bush signed the resolution.

If this announcement had been made just a few days earlier, it would have been yet another reason for members of Congress to question the wisdom of invading Iraq over its hypothetical nuclear program when a real one exists in a different hostile government.

The administration’s decision to withhold this information was apparently another cynical ploy to force a vote in Congress about Iraq while withholding critical and relevant facts.

JEREMY E. MEYER
Haverford, Pa., Oct. 17, 2002

Interesting fact: When the Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly returned from his trip to North Korea on October 5, he canceled his planned press conference.

I can’t believe anyone trusts this administration at all.

From a BBC article on the BG Wildlife Photographer Of The Year awards.

The contest site is here.

… is TBOGG. He’s consistently funny, whether he’s skewering Andrew “shilling for big pharm” Sullivan, having a “Name the War” contest, or castigating President Bunnypants.

The Council on Foreign Relations, not exactly a left-wing group, has issued a new report saying that Saudi Arabia is turning a blind eye to fundraising by al-Quaeda and similar groups.

There’s also a BBC article on the subject.

Bush and his ilk care more about oil and doing business with oil-rich despots than they do about terrorism. Anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly misguided.

Fried Twinkie Fad Hits Arkansas