But they love George and they love the money.

Meanwhile, "In a rare public discussion of her husband's infidelity, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that she probably could not have gotten through her marital troubles without relying on her faith in God."

Hey, local news.. My old neighbor, Bandar da Coke Prince of Aspen, Colorado! And all this time I thought he made his money in discount auto parts!

Hey, Vince, don't poke fun! If all go according to plans (his, of course), he may very well be the next "King of Saudi Arabia" - with a little help from friends Cheney and Netanyahu, and quite possibly the Wahhab clerics. I once read that his wife has been very busy on the cleric front.

You have to dig around a bit in the BBC articles but, hey, the bank handling all those transactions to Young and Dashing Prince Bandar was none other than Riggs National! You remember Riggs, right? Riggs doesn't exist anymore because of the various investigations into, oh, payments via Ms. Bandar to one or more of the 9/11 terrorists, and because they were secretly handling Pinochet and Co.'s money, and Teodoro Obiang Nguema's money, and laundering money left and right. Riggs was the subject of, I think this is right, five Congressional investigations before all those investigations were shut down for "National Security Reasons."

A brief but amusing overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riggs_Bank

Oh, and it looked like the Bandar accounts were handled by none other than Bush Pioneer and Bush uncle, Jonathan Bush, although Norm Coleman's report on Riggs didn't quite get to that. And gosh, Bush Pioneer Joe Albritton didn't just walk from Riggs--after paying a few buck to Pinchet's victims--he and his son went on to found, yeah, Politico.

Anyway, wow, hundreds of millions of pounds laundered to Prince Bandar didn't show up in any of those Congressional (and Commerce Dept.) investigations. Gosh, I wonder if Norm Coleman's gonig to go back and reopen those investigations? And, ya know, it's just too bad that all the Riggs paperwork had to be thrown out when they went under.

I heard that BBC report and thought, now, I wonder which bank handled this? And, oh, yes, it was our good friend Rigggs! Do you think any enterprising journalist will ask Tony Snow if Bush is concerned about the Albrittons and Jonathan Bush's involvement in bribes to Young and Dashing Prince Bandar? Or, perhaps, ask Norm Coleman how he missed, oh, a billion bucks of bribes to the Prince while there were looking into the Princesses accounts?

"elder Bush had participated in the shared rituals of manhood -- hunting trips, vacations together, and the like..."

Rituals of Manhood? Vacations together? And the like...?

That's too rich! What would Holsinger say?

After circumcision, I stopped participating in "shared rituals of manhood."
But what got me through that one, just as Hillary says, was my "faith in God."

On second thought, in my case, that should have read "sheared ritual of manhood."

BAE Systems is a publicly traded company. I believe it is shareholder fraud to give hundreds of millions in off-the-book bribes to someone using shareholder money.

Anon beat me to it. I was going to say, "And of course the bank was Riggs; you knew that without looking..."

Joe Albritton and all his minions (including the whores at The Politico): may they rot in hell.

Hey, Jon, have you heard of a British comedian named Mark Thomas? As well as being a comedian, he's a campaigner against the arms trade and a lefty activist sort of in the Michael Moore vein. He managed to pull some stunts that got questions asked in Parliament. He wrote a book recently about the arms trade, called As Used On The Famous Nelson Mandela (an actual quote from an arms dealer's catalog). His main target, of course, is BAE Systems, and his secondary target is New Labour for breaking their promises and coddling them. It's very entertaining. Or at least, as entertaining as anything can be that deals with the merchants of death and subjugation. I think you'd like it a lot.

Chris, I've heard of Thomas, but I've never really checked him out. But thanks to your encouragement I will do so. I have to respect anyone who's written a book called As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela.

I hadn't heard of Thomas before happening across the book, but I was sold as soon as I'd read the first page, which reads:

-------------------------

A NOTE TO THE SKIM READER

You need to read the introduction ... sorry, I know intros are for students and book clubs, but you do need to do it. I know skim readers don't do intros, but a bit of concentration and effort now will pay dividends later. If it helps, console yourself with the fact that Victoria Beckham wouldn't even have got this far.

There is one other moment in the book when the skim reader will be tested to the limit. For one paragraph you will need to focus all your powers of attention and learning. To alert you to this paragraph, I have given it a special title: 'Ozzy's cocaine breastmilk.' I thought it might make it easier.

Funnily enough, I've just finished reading As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela. Good book.

Also funnily enough, dear Leader Tony recently (via his pet Lord Advocate, Lord Goldsmith, who you may remember being central to the "Cash for Peerages" scandal) squelched a Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribes paid by BAE to the Saudis, citing "national security reasons".

It's all corruption, all the time with these guys.

As for the idea that the Saudis have perfected corruption - who's more corrupt, the guy who takes the bribe, or the guy who pays the bribe?

When will someone file a civil complaint in a federal criminal court based on R.I.C.O. against The White House?

Thanks.

With all these connections between the Bush family - Bin Ladin - The Saudi Royal family - Prince Bandar - the Bin Ladin family - Bin Ladin Construction Inc. - the ISI in Pakistan along with Pakistan our military dictatorship ally - Abromoff - and 9/11 terrorist flight schools, I would swear a classic coup was being rubbed in my face. Too many connections to be coincidence. Oh what's a lowly blogger to do in a world that just let Paris Hilton out of jail because she's special. It's as if I'm living in a world where spoiled rotten rich kids who can't read a paper, or get higher then a C average in school just get whatever they want, and then get away with murder.

Davol : Yep, that's the world you live in and, of course, I live there too.

Davol, you're right on baby! Gimmie Castro any fuckin' day o' the week over this shit!!

Davol, you're right on man. Gimmie Castro anyday O' the fuckin' week over these 'tards!

At least Castro EARNED the right to fuck up his country....