COOKING THE BOOKS

Caption: This is another one to howl about.

This headline item from the last few days probably came as a surprise to nobody:

A special unit run by former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's top policy aide inappropriately produced "alternative" intelligence reports that wrongly concluded that Saddam Hussein's regime had cooperated with al-Qaida, a Pentagon investigation has determined.

Of course, that misinformation helped bolster the bogus case for this unnecessary war. Think of all the unnecessary misery, death and destruction the ideological fanatics who gave us this war have created...

At this writing, well over 3,100 U.S. soldiers have died there and at least 100,000 Iraqis, maybe more.

And as for financial costs, as of Sunday it was around $366 billion, according to the National Priorities Project. And that's just what people know about as of now.

One can only wonder what the final butcher's bill will be. (Or, for that matter, what the final cost will be for the administration's efforts to suppress federal action on global warming.)

It's going to take a lot of people a very long time to undo even a portion of the damage that has been done to this country over the last six years.

Oh yeah...now they're working on Iran.

ON A DIFFERENT NOTE the following rant of yours truly in support of the Employee Free Choice Act appeared in yesterday's Charleston WV Sunday Gazette-Mail.

MINIMUM WAGE UPDATE. For those following the federal minimum wage saga, the U.S. House is considering its own $1.3 billion package of business tax cuts in an effort to free up obstacles to final passage. Anticipated House cuts are about 1/6th the amount of the cuts that were attached to the bill that recently passed the Senate.

We'll see...

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED