You ought to read this piece by the hard-right columnist Robert Novak. It spells out, with more authority than any liberal could, the squalid, cynical and preposterous bet the president is making in the Middle East. Incredible as it sounds, President Bush appears to believe that a splendid little war will bring the economy back to life.A senior Bush official privately admits what his administration cannot declare publicly. The stagnant economy, a dagger aimed at the heart of George W. Bush's second term, will not immediately respond to the president's economic growth program. The economic engine will not be revived until the war against Saddam Hussein is launched and won.

Military victory is anticipated inside the Bush administration as the tonic that will prompt corporation officers and private investors to unleash the American economy's dormant power. Although it is impolitic to say so, the fact that the United States will be sitting on a new major oil supply will stimulate the domestic economy. That puts a high premium on quickly gaining control of Iraq's oil wells before they can be torched--a major uncertainty in an otherwise strictly scripted scenario. (Full text here (http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak061.html))His chips, of course, are the lives of our soldiers, and thousands of innocent people.

:m: Peace.

To pump life back into lumpy ecomy:
- ease up on small businesses
- economize your own energy resources, even if it means ANWR
- proportion your allies and realize the more bountiful profits across borders not oceans

To stop this war cold
- Capitalize on how easy it is for our leader to wage war from his comfortable office. Have the president assume rites of passage before he can even think to rain bullets on anyone. For permission to give the executive order, have him kill a man with his own hands and blow the brains out of a handful of innocent children before he does so.

By the way goofyfish, your signature has this old lady in school thinking I'm schizoid becuase having read your signature I literally bust out laughing.

I still dont get it...