Jeez!

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Let's see, that makes it:

$3.059 per gallon on April 19, 2006
$3.259 per gallon on May 1, 2006
$3.399 per gallon on May 15, 2006

And just think, driving seasons starts Memorial Day Weekend!

F

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Pat Oliphant

President 29%

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At The Economist:

THEY have been improbable soul-mates, the silver-tongued British barrister and the drawling Republican from Texas. But the partnership between Tony Blair and George Bush has shaped world events in the nearly five years since the attacks of September 11th. Over the past year, however, the debacle in Iraq and problems at home have turned both leaders from soaring hawks into the lamest of ducks.

snip

That Mr Bush has made big mistakes in foreign policy is not in doubt. He oversold the pre-war intelligence on Iraq, bungled the aftermath, betrayed America's own principles in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, ignored Mr Blair's pleas to restart peace diplomacy in Palestine.

Walk This Way

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BAG News Notes analyzes this photo.

Add your own captions!

Heckuva Job Georgie

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Clay Bennett

"The Courtesy Not To Try To Find Out"

Sidney Blumenthal concurs with Stephen Colbert's depiction of the the White House Press Corp but warns of more efforts by Bush's Imperial Presidency to stifle free speech.

Stephen Colbert performed within 10 yards of Bush's hostile stare and before 2,600 members of the press and their guests. After his mock praise of Bush as a rock against reality, Colbert censured the press by flattering its misfeasance. 'Over the last five years you people were so good - over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out ... Here's how it works: the president makes decisions ... The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spellcheck and go home ... Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!'

Failure To Grasp The Concept

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RJ Matson St. Louis Dispatch

Ouch!

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On April 18, I filled up my Toyota Camry at the local Union 76 station. Gas was $3.059 per gallon and the cost to fill the tank was $48.65. On May 1, at the same station, gas was $.20 higher or $3.259 per gallon and the cost to fill the tank was $53.36.

Our Tax Dollars At Work

The London Times reports on the growing trend for U.S. trained security forces in Iraq to defect to the militias.

Soon after he graduated near the top of his class at the American-run police academy, Alah defected. He did not bother to inform his superiors. The young Iraqi police officer simply walked into a recruitment office in a rundown neighbourhood of Baghdad and signed on for the Mahdi Army, the private militia run by the radical young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr that has been blamed for some of the most savage atrocities in this city in recent weeks.

The 23-year-old absconder described it as “a career move”. The pay was better, the duties less onerous and there was far less chance of being killed.

Three years after President Bush declared “mission accomplished” in Iraq, young gunslingers such as Alah are what passes for the law across much of this city today.

Nobody knows for sure the strength of Iraq’s militias, but they certainly outnumber the 120,000-strong police force that estimates it is losing several hundred recruits a month. This is the only country where police and soldiers have it written into their contracts that they can leave on a whim without being punished.

Alah’s defection is a blow to attempts to rebuild Iraq. Western money and manpower trained him to replace the British and US forces. But, with young recruits deserting in ever growing numbers, the prospect of a swift pullout recedes still further.

Read it all here.