In Today's Times

A new feature: stuff from today's New York Times!

Condi Keeps Us Guessing
Well, the Condi Rice era of foreign policy is off to a roaring start. Demonstrating the same competence that guided her term as national security advisor, she contradicted her boss just days after his most important speech of the year. Fortunately, she wasn't muddying the waters of any sort of sensitive or important topic or anything; only this small central Asian country called Iran:

"Three European Union countries are trying to negotiate with Iran to stop it from developing nuclear weapons, and President Bush said in his State of the Union address that he is working with those allies.

"But on Thursday Ms. Rice said Washington would continue to rebuff European requests to take part in directly offering incentives for Iran to drop its nuclear program."

Greetings From Kabul
While we're firing the blowtorch of liberty around the world, we might want to turn back to the first place we liberated, Afghanistan, and use that torch to light some fires so people can keep from fucking freezing to death:

"After eight years of drought, the heavy snows that have blanketed Afghanistan over the past two weeks might seem to be welcome. But for the 4,000 homeless families crammed into tents in several camps around the city, the snow and the cold are bitter reminders that despite billions of dollars in aid and the country's rapid development, thousands of Afghans are still without shelter and the means to survive.

"At worst, for the most vulnerable, they are a death sentence.

"Eighteen people have died since the extreme cold descended on the country two weeks ago, the minister of health, Sayeed Mohammad Amin Fatimie, said in an interview this week. Of the 18 people, 13 died in and around Kabul, including several babies, he said."

...

"An estimated 10,000 homeless people are in Kabul, about 4,000 of them in two squatter camps. In addition, groups of displaced people are living in public buildings and abandoned ruins in as many as 25 locations throughout the city. Most are refugees who have returned from camps in Pakistan in the three years since the fall of the Taliban. Some families have been living all that time in tents, with the men scraping up a little work as porters in nearby fruit markets."

Think of how much good we could have done if only we'd spent our billions on really fixing this country.

Knowledge is King
As usual, Bush's best friend is an ignorant populace:

"'I've been hearing for years now that Social Security was definitely headed for trouble, that it wouldn't be there when I was ready to retire,' said Mrs. Law, a home health care nurse who is 59. 'Last night's speech took that fear away. It was a weight taken off my shoulders.'

Yes, thank goodness Mrs. Law, who has never bothered to find out whether her retirement will be secure, even though it's just a few years away, who has chosen instead to rely on vague scary rumors as the basis for her retirement planning -- thank goodness she will be safe. And I will be paying for it.

Fortunately, most young people in this other article agreed that the plan was risky, though they did manage to find one Alex Keaton type who was gung-ho for privatization:

"'I trust in the market, long term,' Mr. Kotok said. 'I don't trust that an entirely government-run system is going to work.'"

Yes, because the track record of the stock market has been so much more consistent and placid than the track record of social security lo these 70 years or so.

But the article you really need to read is this one.