Insanity?

Todays Laugh,
The Model Lodger
Doris and Fred had started their retirement years and decided to raise some extra cash by advertising for a lodger in their terrace house.
After a few days, a young attractive woman applied for the room and explained that she was a model working in a near-by city center studio for a few weeks and that she would like the room from Mondays to Thursdays, but would pay for the whole week.
Doris showed her the house and they agreed to start straight away.
"There's just one problem," explained the model. "Because of my job, I have to have a bath every night, and I notice you don't have a bath."
"That's not a problem," replied Doris. "We have a tin bath out in the yard and we bring it into the living room in front of the fire and fill it with hot water."
"What about your husband? asked the model.
"Oh, he plays darts most weekdays, so he will be out in the evenings," replied Doris.
"Good," said the model. "Now that that's been settled, I'll go to the studio and see you tonight."
That evening, Fred dutifully went to his darts match while Doris prepared the bath for the model. After stripping off, the model stepped into the bath. Doris was amazed to see that she had no pubic hair.
The model noticed Doris' staring eyes, so she smiled and explained that it is part of her job to shave herself, especially when modeling swimmer or underclothes.
Later when Fred returned, Doris related this oddity and he does not believe her.
"It's true, I tell you!" said Doris. "Look, if you don't believe me, tomorrow night I'll leave the curtains slightly open and you can peek in and see for yourself."
The next night, Fred left as usual and Doris prepared the bath for the model. As the model stepped naked into the bath, Doris stood behind her.
Doris looked towards the curtains and pointed towards the model's naked pubic area. Then she lifted up her skirt and wearing no panties, pointed to her own hairy mass.
Later Fred returned and they retired to bed.
"Well, do you believe me now?" she asked Fred. "Yes, he replied. "I've never seen anything like it in my life. But why did you lift up your skirt and show yourself?"
"Just to show you the difference," answered Doris. "But I guess you've seen me millions of times."
"Yes, said Fred, I have - but the rest of the dart team hadn't."
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Todays Quote,
The distinction between democracy and dictatorship tends to disappear during war!
Freda Wunderlich
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Cocktail rumor: Condi to replace Cheney as vice president Here's a new rumor straight from the insidious 'Washington cocktail party' circuit. John Negroponte will eventually become Secretary of State to replace Condi Rice when she leaves her job, to replace an "ailing" Dick Cheney.
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Governing By Tantrums! by digby. It seems to me that one of the defining characteristics of the Bush administration is a sort of stubborn, spoiled reaction to his critics. I think it comes from two things. First it is a reflection of Bush's personality which, in a position as powerful as the presidency, is bound to color everything. I'll never forget this odd little anecdote from a family friend who knew the Bush family back in the day and knew the hellraising Junior quite well:
[In] December, during a visit to his parents' home in Washington, Bush drunkenly challenged his father to go "mano a mano," as has often been reported.Around the same time, for the 1972 Christmas holiday, the Allisons met up with the Bushes on vacation in Hobe Sound, Fla. Tension was still evident between Bush and his parents. Linda was a passenger in a car driven by Barbara Bush as they headed to lunch at the local beach club. Bush, who was 26 years old, got on a bicycle and rode in front of the car in a slow, serpentine manner, forcing his mother to crawl along. "He rode so slowly that he kept having to put his foot down to get his balance, and he kept in a weaving pattern so we couldn't get past," Allison recalled. "He was obviously furious with his mother about something, and she was furious at him, too."
From the moment he took office, he has been doing this sort of thing. He won the election in 2000 under very unusual circumstances in the closest election in American history. After running as a "compassionate conservative" in the first place and then taking office as a result of a divided Supreme Court decision, everyone at the time assumed that he would govern humbly, seeking the input of the opposition and running a very moderate administration. Instead he did exactly the opposite, insisting he had a mandate for extreme conservatism.
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Is it any wonder we are in Serious trouble today.
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Another flight from reality by President Bush
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
McClatchy Newspapers
President Bush will present the results of his painful monthlong examination of the options for continuing his mistaken adventure in Iraq, but there's little evidence that he's discovered any new way forward.
The word in the halls of the Pentagon and inside the Beltway is that The Decider will choose some sort of temporary bump in the numbers of American troops currently assigned to fight a war without end and without purpose.
Does anyone, including the president, really believe that an additional 10,000 or even 30,000 soldiers and Marines on top of the 140,000 now in Iraq are somehow going to make Baghdad more secure, or clean up the Sunni insurgents who control much of Anbar province?
This isn't a new way forward, nor is it a recipe for the victory that the desperate architect of an unnecessary and costly war seems to believe is waiting out there to rescue his legacy. It's no more than a continuation of George W. Bush's urgent flight from reality.
It doesn't come close to the 100,000 more troops that Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona - who hopes to be his party's nominee for president in 2008 - has advocated, nor does it satisfy the majority of Americans who no longer have any trust in Bush's conduct of the Iraq war or those like-minded voters who turned Congress over to the Democrats in the November mid-term elections.
What on earth is this president thinking?
More of the White House line: Fight the terrorists over there rather than on the streets of New York and Washington. More of what the late Harry S. Truman would have called horse manure.
The U.S. military commanders who a month or so ago told Congress and the public that no more American troops were needed in Iraq - that more Americans would in fact only take the pressure off the weak Iraqi government to make the necessary hard decisions - are being replaced.
Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of the U.S. Central Command, will retire ahead of schedule and be replaced by Adm. William Fallon, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command. The U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, will be replaced at the same time.
Those who've sacrificed the most - America's Army and Marine ground forces and their families - will be asked to continue bearing the burden and paying an even higher price in dead and wounded for a president's ego and intransigence.
The very troops who will make up the temporary bump in U.S. forces in Iraq are those who've already paid that price over and over. They'll be found by a sleight-of-hand maneuver: ordering units already tapped to return to Iraq to go there earlier than scheduled.
That isn't even robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's robbing Peter to pay Peter.
George W. Bush believes that he can buy another couple of years of violent stalemate so he can hand off the disaster to whoever succeeds him in the White House on Jan. 20, 2009. How many more Americans and Iraqis must die to ensure that Bush's parting words as he retreats to Crawford, Texas, will be: I never cut and ran. I stood tall. I kept America safe.
The problem with that scenario is that it, like all the others drawn by George Bush and Dick Cheney, is far too rosy. The way forward in Iraq is a spiral toward an even bloodier future, and the real decisions are the Iraqis', not George Bush's.
It's too little, too late, Mr. President.

The above I have edited for space here.