Iraq Reconstruction, General Sir Mike Jackson, Target Iran, Osama, Conservative Dems, Jeb Gets a Job, Sour Grapes & Stupid Katrina Quotes.

Just one of the many, many lies that the Bush Administration told the American people was that we could do this war on the cheap.

Another lie was after the invasion there was "incredible progress" being made on Iraq reconstruction.

Now after years of "incredible progress" and nearly 4,000 American combat deaths comes a GAO report that says we have accomplished squat in Iraq.

This should come as no surprise.

Iraq's crucial oil and electricity sectors still need roughly $50 billion to meet demand, analysts and officials say, even after the United States has poured more than $6 billion into them over more than four
years.

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration has
focused much of its $44.5 billion reconstruction plan on oil and electricity.
Now, with the U.S.-led reconstruction phase nearing its close, Iraq will need to
spend $27 billion more for its electrical system and $20 billion to $30 billion
for oil infrastructure, according to estimates the collected from Iraqi and U.S.
officials.

Yesterday I posted former British Army Commander, General Sir Mike Jackson's little critique of the U.S. handling of the occupation of Iraq. He says pretty much what we already know, the Bush Administration is a bunch of screw-ups.

"All the planning carried out by the State Department went to waste,"
Jackson wrote. He said the Pentagon did not deploy even half the troops it would
have needed for a country the size of Iraq.

He said Rumsfeld and those around him took it as "an
ideological article of faith that the coalition soldiers would be accepted as a
liberating army."

Jackson also characterized Rumsfeld's claim that U.S. forces "don't do
nation-building" as "nonsensical."

It looks like the Bush Administration may be putting a lot of faith in the Law of Averages. Afghanistan, blew it, Iraq, blew it and now Bush has his sights set on Iran. If that don't scare you, something's wrong.

THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to
annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a
national security expert.

Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at
the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing
for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking
out the entire Iranian military,” he said.

If you look at it from Bush's point of view, it makes sense. Everybody knows that war is good for business. With just a little over a year left to transfer the tax-payer's money into the private sector, another war would be the most effective method. It will also take Americans minds off inconvenient facts like the guy who got this whole mess started, Osama bin Laden is laughing his ass off watching George Bush do more damage the this country than he ever dreamed of.

I wish the media would stop calling conservative Democrats, "moderate" Democrats. It's deceitful. They are not moderate, they are Republicans. Even worse, the gutless Democrat Party is letting them call the shots. The people can see the results of almost seven years of conservatism, Republicanism, fascism or whatever you want to call it and they don't like it. And the Democrats are too timid to take advantage.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Divided by their liberal and moderate wings, congressional
Democrats return from a monthlong recess without consensus on how to tackle
several pressing issues, including Iraq and warrantless wiretaps.

Jeb Bush would make a great "moderate" Democrat. He's selling himself to Lehman Brothers in order to help them get as many of our tax dollars as possible. Selling influence is the Bush family business.

In the arms race by private-equity firms to line up ever-higher profile
"advisers," Lehman
Brothers may have just taken the lead. The investment bank hired former
Florida governor and presidential son and brother Jeb Bush for its in-house
investing arm.

Private-equity firms and hedge funds hire politicos and former corporate
honchos all the time to help them open doors to deals, as well as to manage
government relations and the companies in their portfolios. Former Treasury
Secretary John Snow and former vice president Dan Quayle, for example, both work
for Cerberus Capital Management, the hedge fund that recently bought Chrysler LLC. And Washington
is well-stocked with its share of Wall Streeters, including current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, former chairman of Goldman Sachs Group.

Some Democrats are capable of having good ideas, like cutting this early primary foolishness out. I hope.

The Democratic candidates have signed a pledge that would forbid them from
campaigning in states such as Michigan and Florida that have sought to move their presidential primaries into
January 2008.

The move ended weeks-long jockeying over which states get to hold early
primaries.

What the energy companies and their political prostitutes (No offence to honest hard-working prostitutes) don't want us to believe is having an affect on the grape harvest in France.

ROUFFACH, France -- On a cobweb-encrusted rafter above his giant steel grape
pressers, Ren? Mur? is charting one of
the world's most tangible barometers of global warming.

The evidence, scrawled in black ink, is the first day of the annual grape
harvest for the past three decades. In 1978, it was Oct. 16. In 1998, the date
was Sept. 14. This year, harvesting started Aug. 24 -- the earliest ever
recorded, not only in Mur?'s vineyards, but also in the entire Alsace wine district of northeastern France.

Another good reason for Al Gore run for president.

It's Labor Day weekend, my football team lost, bad and I have to take boy to work after while. So I'll leave you with 25 Mind-Numbingly Stupid Quotes About Hurricane Katrina And Its Aftermath.