Five years and a month ago George W. Bush launched a war to get rid of Saddam and make the Iraqi people’s lives better. How’s that working out?

BAGHDAD — Even as American and Iraqi troops are fighting to establish control of the Sadr City section of this capital, the Iraqi government’s program to restore basic services like electricity, sewage and trash collection is lagging, jeopardizing the effort to win over the area’s wary residents.

For weeks, there have been reports that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is preparing to move ahead with a multimillion-dollar program to rebuild the southern swath of Sadr City, which is currently occupied by Iraqi and American troops.

But almost a month after American and Iraqi forces pushed into the area, there are no signs of reconstruction. Instead, the streets are filled with mounds of trash and bubbling pools of sewage. Many neighborhoods are still without electricity, and many residents are too afraid to brave the cross-fire to seek medical care. Iraqi public works officials, apparently fearful of the fighting, rarely seem to show up at work, and the Iraqi government insists the area is not safe enough for repairs to begin.

No one could have predicted ….

And now Condi’s gone and called Muqtada al Sadr a coward.

In Baghdad, Struggle Ties Security to Basic Services [NYT] via Atrios

As if anyone really needed confirmation that a guy everyone calls Psychogeezer is a crazy, dangerous, doddering lunatic, the Washington Post ran a front-page story with a string of anecdotes about this ‘tard at large erupting into nutbag-biting psychotic rages for no other reason than people were standing in the same room as him.

If Democratic presidential candidate Barrack Obama wanted to drop the goofy earnestness of his campaign and observe the prime directive of all presidential campaigns - entertain the Cynics’ Party commenters - he could have a great time poking a stick into the Psychogeezer in televised debates asking him crazy-baiting questions. (Of course, his best buddy, arch crypto-neocon Hilbot 9000 just loves to rim Psychogeezer’s asshole in public with comments about his experience and integrity, so she has disqualified herself as a Psychogeezer baiter.)

Let’s look at the WaPo piece and see if there is fodder for provocative comments or questions from the Unicorn that could provoke the Psychogeezer into raging, shrieking face-biting paroxysms.

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Behind on your mortgage now that the payment has tripled? Hiding your car in a friend’s garage because they’re trying to repossess it? Credit card companies robocalling you twice an hour? Sallie Mae tracking your every move?

Don’t worry dude … the Psychogeezer™ says it’s all in your mind. Your house is being auctioned off? Meh - it’s all in your head. They towed your Escalade away because you missed a couple payments? Feh - it’ll reappear in your driveway - with a full tank of gas. Sallie Mae sucking up most of your paycheck because you defaulted on your student loans? Oh please - that bitch will be over to apologize and offer you a blowjob within the hour (or cunnilingus if you’re so equipped):

This week on Fox News, Neil Cavuto asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) about the worth of rescinding an 18-cent gas tax as prices at the pump escalate this summer. McCain responded that “a lot of our problems today” are “psychological” — even the “ability to keep our own home”:

I’m very concerned about it, Neil. And obviously the way it’s been going up is just terrible. But I think psychologically — and a lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological — the confidence, trust, the uncertainty about our economic future, ability to keep our own home. This might give them a little psychological boost. Let’s have some straight talk, it’s not a huge amount of money.

Watch the video after the jump.

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…when telling the story of his time in ‘Nam: “And that’s all I have to say about that.” Now I’m off to go hang with family and be Jewish for a bit. With Pope Nazifuck here visiting my city that’s never seemed like more of an appealing option. Avinu Shalom Aleichem my brothers!

Thank fucking god this fucking week is almost over.  Isn’t your birthday week supposed to be happy and shit? What the fuck ever.

Anyway, my thoroughly beat down and exhausted brain had this thought just now after reading the following in an AP article about the latest tea leaf readings, i.e. poll number from the Clinton/Obama mess (because it is so similar I would reference stool readings, like in Running with Scissors, but I fucking hated that book with a white hot passion and don’t want to bring back the memory):

Voters of all types have gotten a better sense of Obama, who was an obscure Illinois legislator just four years ago. As more people moved from the “I don’t know him” category in the AP-Yahoo! News poll, more rated Obama as inexperienced, unethical and dishonest. And 15 percent erroneously think he’s a Muslim, thanks in part to disinformation widely spread on the Internet.

I gotta think without the Reverend Wright controversy, that number would be a solid 35%. Am I wrong?

Ongoing nomination fight hurting Clinton more than Obama [AP/Yahoo]

(by the way, I can’t even begin to tell you how offensive the blog on which I found the above picture is. scary)

No one brings on teh crazy like Alan Keyes. Sure, we had Ron Paul to kick around and, who knows, he might yet make an independent bid for the White House. We miss Mittens, and we surely miss one-issue wonders like Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, and Sam Brownback. But Alan Keyes is wingnuttery squared. He is batshit insane. He is blogging gold. Behold:

[Embryonic stem cell research] is the “moral equivalent of Nazi medical experiments on the inmates of death camps during World War II.” The result, he said, would be “new legions of humans to be enslaved and brutalized.”

And now Alan Keyes is leaving the GOP. And he might make a presidential run under the Constitution Party’s banner. Imagine him on the debate stage with the Psychogeezer and Barry Hussein. Ah … the entertainment value. Watch this video, and dream.

Oh great FSM - please let him run. After two Bush terms, we need a good laugh.

Is it just me or does this Pope thing strike you as totally fucking crazy? Maybe it’s because I’m down here in Florida getting my Jew on for Passover. But I don’t think so.

Remember when Gerald Ford died and it took about fourteen weeks to bury him? This Papal visit is looking equally interminable. And Pope Ratzi hasn’t even gotten to NYC yet to fuck up our traffic. Of course, the Secret Service is involved, which means your tax dollars are paying part of the cost of this mass of feelgoodiness.

But before you let the fawning news coverage get you all misted up, remember who we’re dealing with here:

Ratzinger is on record as believing that Vatican II was a mistake because the Church entered into a dialogue with society rather than holding itself apart from “a progressive process of decadence”.

In interviews, he has fumed about the laity that no longer allowed priests to run their lives, women ignoring their most important functions as virgins and mothers and the widespread failure to believe in the devil.

More after the jump.

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“I want to hit you in the face so bad right now.”

Thank god there’s another debate. There’s so much to talk about, like how Obama hates white people and poor people and people who have jobs and god and America. As for me, I’m getting ready to go on a massive old-people-and-babies tour of various cities where my family lives, so this one’s up to you guys. Discuss.

The Boss is a fan of the ‘Bama’s audacious hope-i-ness. But the real question is where does this put Obama and Hillary in the Battle of Celebrity Endorsements? Hillary might have picked up Elton John (a non-voter) since I wrote the article, but she lost 50 Cent and Springsteen more than cancels out Jon Bon Jovi. So, just like with the race for superdelegates, Hillary’s falling further and further behind.