THE DRAFT
I have a piece this week in LA CityBeat on the rumors that George Bush is planning to reinstitute the draft. (But an edit killed a neat fantasy – seeing that women will be drafted – of an Elvis-style media event when Paris Hilton arrives at Parris Island for induction.)
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1270&IssueNum=69

TWO QUOTES FROM GEORGE SOROS
I realize that what I am saying is bound to be unpopular. We are in the grip of a collective misconception induced by the trauma of 9/11, and fostered by the Bush administration. No politician could say it and hope to get elected. That is why I feel obliged to speak out. There is a widespread belief that President Bush is making us safe. The opposite is true. President Bush failed to finish off bin Laden when he was cornered in Afghanistan because he was gearing up to attack Iraq. And the invasion of Iraq bred more people willing to risk their lives against Americans than we are able to kill - generating the vicious circle I am talking about.

The Bush campaign is trying to put a favorable spin on it, but the situation in Iraq is dire. Much of the Western part of the country has been ceded to the insurgents. Even the so-called Green Zone (a small enclave in the center of Baghdad where Americans live and work) is subject to mortar attacks. The prospects of holding free and fair elections in January are fast receding and civil war looms. President Bush received a somber intelligence evaluation in July but he has kept it under wraps and failed to level with the electorate.
For the whole story... http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0928-16.htm

AND FROM WILLIAM SHIRER (author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich)
I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons. It was obvious they were parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers.

Sometimes one was tempted to say as much, but on such occasions one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty, that one realized how useless it was even to try to make contact with a mind which had become warped and for whom the facts of life had become what Hitler and Goebbels, with their cynical disregard for truth, said they were.

LINKS...
Got Milk or got tequila?
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0929043limeade1.html

And God’s back. Creationists in pseudo-scientific drag
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/evolution.html

THE SQUID
The squid may be as smart as me
Enough to never leave the sea

THEM WACKY SPEEDFREAKS
Doc40 congratulates Steven K. Konopatzke who attempted to board a commercial airliner with the components of his meth lab in a carry-on bag. On the other hand, we might not buy his speed.

CRYPTIQUE – Verily I say unto you.