- playing dead they've had practice at; just look at the bills they passed without even reading them - odd how quickly Ashcroft had his wish-list ready to go, in a few days. Is that efficiency or what?

Musharraf is coming under increasing pressure, as anti-US sentiment settles in for a coda - to the already established minuet required for the original US-cooperation. Nukes there, and right across their border.. and Kashmir is a great catalyst any old time.

Probably too, expect return of the body-shrouds and repeal of female participation in Afghanistan (presumably under the same old same old warlords as are adept at swapping sides in a trice). Maybe the British press will cover this - unless it occurs during Iraq attack. Ours? Hah.

Anyway, that's a pretty cynical scenario you outline.. Dubya can only truly test the irresolution and malleability of congress by some next precipitate action. And there's a mini-election coming up in Nov: already the Repo crowd is floating a hell of a smear campaign against Sen. Tom Daschle in S. Dakota; a warm-up?

Seems that, Daschle's a bit lukewarm about W's undeflected aim to make more "tax cuts" for the obscenely rich (peanuts for the merely fat - but there are more of these). This despite [those polls!] demonstrating Muricans' growing unrest about Constitutional mayhem and Corp crime - the whole mothers milk of Dubya, Cheney and their Admin handlers. (Dubya is of course deaf to the opposite advice of even Greenspan! re these 'rebates' as he was deaf to the possibility of global er warming and so much else.)

So I'd suggest that, were Dubya to move before election, there remains at least a small chance of the rest of the govt. actually functioning (!) and the loss of Repub majority in both houses. Then things could get interesting instead of merely ominous.

Meanwhile... I'll go with Sinclair Lewis's assessment of Murican tendencies and call it 50/50 [which IS terminally scary] that we'll let a Village Idiot fuck up the next 10-15 years.. or worse. For naked, blatantly transparent [oil] commodity lock-in.

But please to call it, for Murica's concern for the Freedom Loving Iraqi [Saudi? Egyptian? Iranian? Uzbek? ...] Peepul (Anyone heard from Putin lately?)


[Mahler plays at ppp interspersed with songs from Kindertotenlieder and G\ufffdtterdammerung .. at mf]


Ashton
With homo-saps it's either homogenized boring mercantile crap or - running off in all directions shooting at anything that moves.
BANG BANG BANG was it good for you too?