Limited, Inc.

Bollettino Wow. An answering spirit. A man who gets it. LI is frankly amazed. In Slate, there�s an article by one Daniel Benjamin . Benjamin analyzes a fact that we have referred to obsessively: the unsecured military dumps around Iraq. In particular, the transfer of anti-aircraft weaponry to unknown, and probably unfriendly, hands. This, we believe, might be the worst thing the Bush administration, in its unblemished record of calamitous and stupid acts, has done so far. A sin of omission indicating the omission is between the ears of the President: �Given the growing intensity of the combat in Iraq, the downing of two helicopters and the resulting deaths of 22 soldiers in the last week comes as little surprise. The destruction of a Black Hawk today, reportedly by a rocket-propelled grenade, and a Chinook on Sunday by a shoulder-fired missile were all but statistical inevitabilities in a country with a deepening insurgence and 600,000 or more tons of largely unsecured armaments

Bollettino Notes on unemployment. LI's was not one of the figures that got slotted into the employment column this month. We are happy to see that one hundred thousand more people did get jobs. Ourselves, it will now be six months, and, we estimate, seventy some applications, resumes, and cover letters since we started our quest. In September, we even went to some employment agencies. Kelly's, and one that specialized in secretarial work. Employment agencies used to be bread and butter. In New Haven, LI really did work for a year for a temp agency. Around that experience, in retrospect, we have woven a rosy glow. Back in those days, we could manfully go out on a Friday and pay for our drinks and eats. Something we haven't been able to do, now, for a year. Today the job we had scared up lately -- painting -- was cancelled. Bad news, as we haven't paid a bill this month, and they are all hanging over our head. There is this much to be said for poverty -- it makes y

Bollettino As we numerously, and numbingly pointed out in the pre-war buildup, Christopher Hitchens, one of the most showcased of the Bush apologists in the media, argued for a war that diverged significantly from the one the Bush administration said it wanted to fight. Hitchens�s war was never fought. Bush�s was. We have been wondering what effect this might have had on Hitchens. Does his heart still belong to Daddy? Or has he crawled off Paul Wolfowitz�s knee and become a finger-pointer? The good news is, Hitchens is a loyal soldier. In his latest column for Slate, he shows that he, and Tony Blair, are perhaps the only Brits left who believe the Saddam and the WMD fairytale. But Hitchens was never along on the weapons case. He was, emotionally, tugged by the idea that Saddam was a terrorist, and he still clings to that. Here�s an all too typical passage: �And it [the peace of 91] left Saddam free to continue to threaten his neighbors and to give support and encouragemen

Bollettino "We mourn every loss, we honour every name, we grieve with every family, and we will always be grateful that liberty has found such brave defenders� � George Bush, November 3 �Bring em on� � George Bush, July 3 Ten names of the 16 that were killed Sunday in Fallujah. Joe Wilson, Crystal Springs, Mississippi Sgt. Ernest Bucklew, Enon Valley, Pennsylvania Sgt. Keelan L. Moss, Houston, Texas Pfc. Anthony Domenic D'Agostino, Waterbury, Connecticut Spc Brian Penniston, Fort Wayne, Indiana Staff Sgt. Daniel Bader, York, Nebraska Private Karina Lau, Livingstone, California Spc. Frances M. Vega, San Francisco, California Darius T. Jennings, Cordova, South Carolina 1st Lt. Brian Slavenas, Genoa, Illinois Sgt. Steven D. Conover, Wilmington, Ohio Let these names lie heavy on D.C.

Bollettino Who are these people? That�s a good question to pose when newspapers quote out of the blue experts, often described with stunning vagueness. This morning, the Washington Post, in a typical D.C. analysis of the helicopter downing � an analysis that sees the deaths of these guys as having no meaning in itself, empty burned ciphers hardly worth a human interest story, but very exciting in terms of polls � maundered on in its brainless way for a while about what the Bushies would do. It wrung its little article hands like this: �Indeed, the helicopter downing came as two worrisome trends face the Bush administration. In Iraq, there are signs that the anti-U.S. opposition is escalating its attacks both in numbers and sophistication. Even while the U.S. intelligence haul in Iraq is improving, commanders there said, the fighters attacking them also are becoming more effective. Meanwhile, the American public's support for President Bush's handling of the war is dec

Bollettino Rumsfeld must go. It is tragic but necessary that Rumsfeld must go. It has been a long, hard slog (or is it � what a long, strange trip it�s been?), but Rumsfeld must go. When the signs were obvious that guerillas were arming themselves from military dumps that the U.S. military has claimed it doesn�t have enough soldiers to guard, Rumsfeld must go. When U.S. forces regardless of the knowledge that guerillas were employing surface to air anti-aircraft missiles did nothing to secure a well known hostile area before packing in GIs and taking off, Rumsfeld must go. When the US forces killed 10 policemen in Fallujah and then investigated the incident with less energy than they put into stocking the drinks for Wolfowitz at his Baghdad hotel suite, Rumsfeld must go. When the administration goes on a p.r. offensive about how nice and cheery it is in Iraq, and sends over people who make cheery speeches about progress in the daytime and fly out to the safety of Kuwait in the nig