U.S. Adds $20 Million to Earthquake Relief

The U.S. Agency for International Development is adding $20 million to an initial $15 million contribution for Asian earthquake relief as Secretary of State Colin Powell bristled at a United Nations official’s suggestion the United States has been “stingy.”

There are over 125,000 people dead. If the U.S. had any extra cash laying around, I’m sure we would send it.

Inauguration likely among costliest

The inauguration is estimated to cost $30 million to $40 million.

See? It’s already spent. Sorry. Maybe next tsunami.

U.S. Releases New Memo Defining Torture

The Justice Department released a rewritten legal memo on what constitutes torture, backing away from its own assertions prior to the Iraqi prison abuse scandal that torture had to involve “excruciating and agonizing pain.”

A little international scandal here, a little revisionist history there, and voila! We’re the good guys again.

It’s great that they rewrote that memo. Now if only they could rewrite the collective memory of the entire Arab world …

Bush Signs Order to Raise Fed Workers’ Pay

The cost-of-living raise lifts salaries for members of the House and Senate from $158,000 this year to $162,100 in 2005.

Whew! Just in time, too. I’m pretty sure I just saw House Speaker Dennis Hastert standing in line for government cheese.

Violence Against Iraq Troops Takes Toll

Key measures of the level of insurgent violence against American forces in Iraq, numbers of dead, wounded and insurgent attacks, show the situation has gotten worse since the summer.

When they say “worse”, I’m sure what they really mean is “the light of liberty is shining brightly.”

Or maybe that’s an oil fire. Hard to tell. Does the light of liberty include massive plumes of black smoke?

“All along the way it’s bumpy,” Rumsfeld told a group of Marines over lunch at their base outside of Fallujah, the city west of Baghdad where nearly 100 Marines have been killed over the past two months. “It’s tough, and there are setbacks. It’s not a smooth, easy, steady path to success.”

Unfortunately, the path to failure is a fuckin’ Slip-n-Slide. Watch your step.

U.S. commanders insist they are making progress, in part by taking the fight more directly to the insurgents. And they remain hopeful that more U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces will join the fight soon.

Sure, at first glance numbers like these look bad. I used to wonder how Bush could see this kind of trend and still say we’re making progress.

Then I realized, progress is a relative term. If you look at the numbers a different way, it doesn’t look so bad.

When viewing Bush’s recent actions through a mirror — giving medals to the architects of the Iraq invasion, lauding Rumsfeld for a job well done, bragging about the strength of the economy — suddenly it all makes sense.

Ex-Justice Describes Commandments Fight

Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore acknowledges having feelings of “doubt and fear” on the night of July 31, 2001, as he sat alone in his state courthouse office awaiting delivery of a Ten Commandments monument he wanted to install in the rotunda.

In a new book, “So Help Me God,” Moore describes that night as the completion of a lifelong mission to use his position as the state’s highest judge to publicly display a symbol of his religion.

At least someone in this crazy world has an eye to what’s really important: using your political power to impose your personal religious beliefs on the general public.

I’m tired of all the naysayers preaching that judges should be concentrating on trivial things like, say, justice. What good is a judicial system built on equal treatment under the law without a little reminder that, though everyone is technically “equal,” Christians are just a little bit superior.

I’m looking forward to my impending appointment to the federal court, so I can fulfill my lifelong dream of using my power to publicly display a 5 ton, anatomically correct, granite sculpture of my puckered asshole.