Sunni extremists from Saudi Arabia make up half the foreign fighters in Iraq, many suicide bombers, a U.S. official says.

Saudis reportedly funding Iraqi Sunni insurgents

Saudi Citizens Funding Iraq Insurgents

Adnan Fucking Khashoggi

Osama bin Fucking Laden

Gonzales received another report of an NSL-related violation a few weeks later. “A national security letter . . . contained an incorrect phone number” that resulted in agents collecting phone information that “belonged to a different U.S. person” than the suspect under investigation, stated a letter copied to the attorney general on May 6, 2005.

At least two other reports of NSL-related violations were sent to Gonzales, according to the new documents. In letters copied to him on Dec. 11, 2006, and Feb. 26, 2007, the FBI reported to the oversight board that agents had requested and obtained phone data on the wrong people.

Smoke billows 30,000 feet above Pioneertown, as fires burn towards the dead forests of the San Bernardino mountains.

And World War III starts heating up.

Could be a long summer.

“The earth is flat,” he hollers from around his rubber nose. “And even if it’s not, what about the profits? For God’s sake, won’t somebody think of the profits???”

“Global warming will be fun!” he hollers. And spring-loaded snakes pop from his ears while he dances a merry profit jig.

I want take note of how much he hates and distrusts capitalism as a system. How he claims that if we were to take action which could keep all our major coastal cities from being drowned, the free markets of the world would react with abject surrender and refuse to develop any further. The poor fragile little free markets!

I want to take note, with hurricane season a month away, how he uses the poor as his clown hat. If we were to try to save Bangladesh from submerging beneath storms and oceans, the people who would end up suffering would be undeveloped countries. Like Bangladesh. And then Jonah Goldberg rides his little unicycle in a circle, honking his little horn.

These are my stages of Jonah Goldburg grief: My first reaction is to roll my eyes. My second reaction is to throw up. My third reaction is to pretend I didn’t have the misfortune of reading his goofy schtick. I want to pretend that there aren’t burlesque whores who gaze upon a drowned American city, see the inevitability of more to come, and then shrug and go back to their act.

But finally, rather than ignore them, I want to take note of these happy clowns and remember that the Earth was flat not so long ago.

I also want to think about those mysterious ice chunks falling out of a blue cloudless sky. Some scientists suggest they may be caused by the radically shifting global climate, which cools the upper atmosphere even as the surface heats up. I want to think of Jonah Goldberg hooting and honking about the “pleasant” effects of global warming… suddenly replaced by a huge block of ice crashing through the roof. I want to imagine the ice sitting there — almost comically — in the middle of the room, right where the happy clown used to be, half of a unicycle sticking out from underneath, and the wheel slowly turning to a stop.

CNN anchor Jack Cafferty:

The Mexican flag has become a source of irritation to a lot of Americans during the immigration debate that’s heating up in this country. Carried as a source of pride by demonstrators, the idea could backfire.

Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes:

And that was that huge demonstration in Los Angeles yesterday where many, many people were waving Mexican flags. That just alienates Americans and will only further anger the anti-immigrant forces.

Eponymous pundit-borg Lou Dobbs:

I don’t think that we should have any flag flying in this country except the flag of the United States.

Grave-robbing baby-killer Robert Novak:

[B]randishing the Mexican flag signals divided loyalty or perhaps loyalty to a foreign power.

George W. Bush on his 2004 presidential campaign:

What’s the cutest thing about bloodthirsty worshipers of the God-King of War?

Puppies! Puppies! Puppies! Puppies!

“If I were to do another Terminator movie, I would have the Terminator travel back in time to tell Arnold not to have a special election.”

The confusing thing: who exactly is the “I” in that sentence?

More importantly: who is the “governor”?

“What kinda swords?”

“Epeé? No wait — sabre.”

“Nuh-uh. Rapier.”

“Fine. So you’re swordfighting Scooter. His bejeweled rapier has an evil oily sheen on the blade — one nick means slow death!”

“That fucker.”

“But after a long struggle, you finally get him backed into an ornate grotto in the basement of the Executive Office Building.”

“He can’t maneuver so well cause of his broken foot.”

“Right. You see your opening.”

“Lunge!”

“You lunge! He waves one of his crutches at you — a futile gesture. He is skewered.”

“Scooter kabob.”

“His sword arm is pinned behind him against a life-size marble mermaid. He drops the weapon and falls to his knees. He looks up at you, helpless.”

“As I give the blade a gentle twist.”

“And gasping in pain, he gives you that sorta come closer last words kinda motion. So you lean in to hear what he has to say — ”

“The secret identity of Officer X no doubt…”

” — and he suddenly plunges a tiny dagger towards your neck!”

“What kind?”

“One of those little triangular ones that you can hide in your boot. The kind with the sideways handle and the blade sticking out between your knuckles, so you can conceal it in your hand and then punch someone in the eye with it.”

“That’s my Scooter.”

“So he plunges a tiny dagger towards your neck. You catch the movement out of the corner of your eye, and dodge just enough so that he misses your jugular — ”

“Yes!”

” — but the blade gets buried deep in the meat of your trapezoid.”

“Well fuck… So then what happens?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Aw, man. That’s bullshit.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh well. Empire was the best Star Wars movie. Maybe I get a robot shoulder.”

Once it spring leaks, it can take a long time for a huge ship to sink. Tilting slowly into the water at a sickly angle, until in begins to dive under, it’s fat metal ass lifting into the air, propeller pointing at the heavens, unholy and doomed.

Until finally — at long last — nothing is left of the entire majestic edifice except a debris-filled froth and a field of floating corpses.

This will be Iraq all over again, with the same fetid mix of graft, zeal and hubris. Cronyism like you wouldn’t believe. Money blown on ideological fantasies and half-baked test-cases.

You could come up with a hundred reasons why that’s true. But at root intentions drive all. You’ll never separate this operation or its results from the fact that the people in charge see it as a political operation. The use of this money for political purposes, for what amounts to a political campaign, tells you everything you need to know about what’s coming.

Today, in the New York Times:

Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush’s chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort, which reaches across many agencies of government…

After four and a half years of this shit, the only constant seems to be that it can always get worse.