(Originally posted to Humor at EraBlog on Sat, 08 Feb 2003 01:54:46 GMT)

I have received hundreds of copies of the Nigerian scam spam in the last couple of years. Nigerian criminals, typically claiming to be relatives of rich-but-deceased African potentates, ask for "help" in getting assets out of Africa. You are asked to pony up some money to defray expenses, in return for a cut of the proceeds.

Someone has put together a Bush-Iraq parody of these letters. George Walker Bush, son of the former President of the USA, seeks your help in acquiring oil funds that are trapped in Iraq...

----- Forwarded message from Steve Schear <schear@attbi.com> -----

From: Steve …continue.

(Originally posted to Politics at EraBlog on Fri, 07 Feb 2003 07:13:08 GMT)

Tomorrow [Wed Feb 5th, 2003], Colin Powell goes to the UN to make his case against Iraq. Reportedly, he has "no smoking gun".

To my mind, the Bush Ad­min­is­tra­tion has not yet made a compelling case for going to war.

Yes, Saddam Hussein is a murderous tyrant. Yes, he has not come clean with the UN and appears to be in "material breach" of Resolution 1441. Yes, he almost certainly has chemical and biological weapons, though probably not nuclear weapons.

But, to my mind, this is not a case for war. Con­tain­ment has worked for the last twelve years. …continue.

(Originally posted to Politics at EraBlog on Fri, 07 Feb 2003 08:44:21 GMT)

The In­de­pen­dent profiles Con­gress­woman Barbara Lee, the sole Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to vote against President Bush's resolution of September 15, 2001 asking Congress for the authority to make war on any person, nation, or or­gan­i­sa­tion deemed re­spon­si­ble for the attacks.

Lee's argument for voting against the resolution: "Pared down to its essentials, it ran like this: Congress rep­re­sent­ed the rational. It was a body that had to remain above the fray. What decisions it made had to consider the lasting good and not respond to the emotion of the moment. By pushing for a vote so quickly, Lee believed, the …continue.

(Originally posted to Politics at EraBlog on Fri, 07 Feb 2003 GMT 03:19:36)

I didn't listen to Bush's State of the Union last week, because I was still at work. Reading about it afterwards, I found it to be pre­dictably ob­jec­tion­able.

I'm a Toast­mas­ter, so I found Salon's "Horrible" speaker, great speech to be an in­ter­est­ing critique of the delivery and pre­sen­ta­tion.

The only parts of the speech that I did care for were the hydrogen car and the promise to help prevent and treat AIDS in Africa.

Hydrogen cars would be a big im­prove­ment over gas-guzzling SUVs, but there are a few problems. First, they're many years out and the …continue.