Month: November 2003

In unreported news, arson caused $50,000 damage to the home of Mennonite antiwar activists on October 20. Assuming this ever comes to trial, here’s a can’t-lose defense strategy:

1. Call the fire a preemptive strike
2. Insist that the victims were stockpiling weapons (the evidence must have been destroyed in the fire)
3. Frequently remind the jury about the goddamn foreigner who lived with the family and the propensity of goddamn foreigners to belong to al Qaeda
4. Note the benefits to the community that will come from rebuilding the home

Presto! Reelection! Er, acquittal.

If you saw James Bovard on C-Span last night, you probably heard him plug Antiwar.com, right after The Washington Post and The L.A. Times, as one of his favorite sources for info. No mention of The American Spectator.

Rumsfeld comments on the recent attack on an American helicopter, which so far has resulted in the death of 16 soldiers:

“In a long, hard war, we’re going to have tragic days, as this is,” Rumsfeld told ABC’s “This Week.” “But they’re necessary. They’re part of a war that’s difficult and complicated.”

The Washington Post reports that the Coalition has brought the flat tax to Iraq:

It took L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Baghdad, no more than a stroke of the pen Sept. 15 to accomplish what eluded the likes of publisher Steve Forbes, former representative Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.), former senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) and former representative Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) over the course of a decade and two presidential campaigns.

“The highest individual and corporate income tax rates for 2004 and subsequent years shall not exceed 15 percent,” Bremer wrote in Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 37, “Tax Strategy for 2003,” issued last month.

Here comes the punchline:

Bremer’s new economic policy for Iraq will slash Saddam Hussein’s top tax rate for individuals and businesses from 45 to 15 percent. Of course, since Hussein’s government, like others in the Middle East, almost never enforced tax collection, there is no real history of paying taxes in the country.

I have to admit that Saddam had some endearing qualities (ok, just this one)…

I found this essay: “Public Choice: Politics Without Romance,” by James M. Buchanan, on the excellent (though pro-imperialism-tending) aldaily.com website.

“Armed with nothing more than the rudimentary insights from public choice, persons could understand why, once established, bureaucracies tend to grow apparently without limit and without connection to initially promised functions. They could understand why pork-barrel politics dominated the attention of legislators; why there seems to be a direct relationship between the overall size of government and the investment in efforts to secure special concessions from government (rent seeking); why the tax system is described by the increasing number of special credits, exemptions, and loopholes; why balanced budgets are so hard to secure; and why strategically placed industries secure tariff protection.”

Rummy and his aides confuse Afghanistan and Iraq, Romania and Russia. Maybe this whole WMD thing was just a mix-up between Iraq and Israel.