Monday, June 27, 2005

Hmmmm....caught with hand in cookie jar again

Monkey Prez once again been caught in a howler. On June 7, he claimed during a press conference receiving Tony Blair at the White House that US aid to sub-Saharan Africa had risen 300% in the last four years. Welllll, as with many things connected to Monkey Prez these days, that's reaaaaalllllly not true. Aid has in actuality gone up from $2.34 billion to $3.39 billion over that time-an amount not quite at 50%-six times less than El Hijo Fortunato estimated. Furthermore, over half of that aid has come in the form of food. While this is not to heap scorn on the value of the aid, certainly the money might be better used in strengthening infrastructure and empowering folks in sub-Saharan Africa to care for themselves.

Again though, the US media declines to address the big stories of the day. I read the above story via My Yahoo!. However, it was only on clicking on "Top Stories" and then scrolling past about 20 other stories (also including articles about how Halliburton's no bid work in Iraq, according to one of its chief whistle-blowers, is probably the most egregious example of fraud in US business history (and that's saying something), about the difficult of retaining customers for American beef now that Mad Cow disease has been found in US cattle, and Donald Rumsfeld's admission that we could be in Iraq 12 more years (getting warmer now Rummy)). Meanwhile, on the front page, under the "Top Stories" link was a report on the Supreme Court's ruling on the Ten Commandments and a link to the confessions of the serial killer in Kansas who killed ten. Again, it would seem, with all due respect to the families of the victims of this serial killer and also to the significance of the separation of church and state, that the stories hidden behind the link are much more important to Americans' long term goals and purported values. Yahoo! obviously doesn't want to offend or inflame the populace either and then find themselves out of pocket from people who buy their Fantasy Sports and Greeting Cards and who don't like being kept in the dark.

Finally, to leave you with a couple of uplifting notes, Ted Rall's case for the usefulness of the Flag Burning Amendment and Maxine Waters ripping El Hijo Afortunado et al. a new one.

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