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Wednesday, Apr 21, 2004
barn dour
""I don't think anybody from the State Department would ever have intended to cast aspersions on Pottery Barn's commitment to customer service.""
designated driver
"Faced with a chronically less popular product than the National League, and a major deficit in hitting and scoring, following the 1972 season the American League was ready to take bold action; one might even call it an act of desperation. The AL voted to conduct an "experiment" with the Designated Hitter rule in 1973. Jerome Holtzman in the Sporting News Baseball Guide aptly described it: "The most significant rule change in modern baseball history.""
cross wits
"Clausewitz, that ultimate realist, once said that "he who neglects the possible in quest of the impossible is a fool." And that just might end up being the epitaph for America's insane imperial adventure in the Middle East."
Tuesday, Apr 20, 2004
vested interest
"Yet the memo is gloomy in most other respects, portraying a country mired in dysfunction and corruption, overseen by a CPA that "handle(s) an issue like six-year-olds play soccer: Someone kicks the ball and one hundred people chase after it hoping to be noticed, without a care as to what happens on the field." But it is particularly pointed on the subject of cronyism and corruption within the Governing Council, the provisional Iraqi government subordinate to the CPA whose responsibilities include re-staffing Iraq's government departments. "In retrospect," the memo asserts, "both for political and organizational reasons, the decision to allow the Governing Council to pick 25 ministers did the greatest damage. Not only did we endorse nepotism, with men choosing their sons and brothers-in-law; but we also failed to use our prerogative to shape a system that would work ... our failure to promote accountability has hurt us.""
blow by blow job
wonkette gets her full court press passage.