2.09.2003

Briefly noted:

• German antiwar demonstrator urges "Re-elect Gore!"

• Of 535 members of the U.S. House and Senate, only one has a child or grandchild in military service, Sen. Tim Johnson, Democrat of South Dakota.

• Last week, Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced legislation repealing the president's "blank check" for war.

• The royal family of Qatar--home to US Central Command in the event of war with Iraq--allegedly helped a chief al-Qaeda leader escape the FBI.

• Sen. Edward Kennedy asks the president: "We will certainly win the war, but how do we win the peace if there are massive civilian casualties, if factional fighting fractures Iraq, if food, water, and medicine are in short supply and millions of Iraqis are displaced from their homes, or if a new wave of terrorism erupts against America as an occupying power, or because of the war itself?"

• Comedian Al Franken: "I love statistics. For example, 1.7 million jobs were lost in the six total years of the two Bushes. If you extrapolate that, if the Bushes had run this country from its inception to the present day, no one would have ever worked. We'd be the poorest country in the world. Numbers don't lie."

• Bill O'Reilly of Fox's The O'Reilly Factor calls Mexicans "wetbacks."

• In a live interview, O’Reilly called Jeremy M. Glick, a signer of the Not In Our Name “Statement of Conscience” whose father was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11, “anti-American,” cut the power to Glick's microphone, and later told Glick to “Get out, get out of my studio before I tear you to f**king pieces!

(All links via BuzzFlash).

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