Sickening, Disgusting New abuse charges against American soldiers, this time for burning in Afghanistan two dead Taliban soldiers’ bodies (the Muslim faith prohibits cremation), facing them west as an affront to the Muslim requirement for facing Mecca during prayers, and using them to taunt the enemy. Forget about violating Islamic faith and forget about violating the Geneva convention, what about violating human decency, what about violating common sense? Where is our leadership?

Questions of the Week
1. Is Bush’s foreign policy run by a Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal, as charged by Colin Powell’s former chief of staff?
2. Is Bush Supreme Court nominee Miers a Red Herring?
3. Which will come first: Saddam’s verdict or American troop withdrawal from Iraq?
4. Are Intelligent Design and Creationism the same?
5. So what do you think of the Iraqi Constitution vote so far?

Corporate Dumb Speak Award Beer pong promotes beer drinking—that’s why it was invented, that’s why it exists. Bud Pong, Budweiser’s eponymous look alike doesn’t because, according to Budweiser, official rules call for water to be used, not beer. C’mon, even if you owned a water company, not even chug-a-lugging a dozen cool ones sells us on that line of B.S.

Weekly Misspeak Award To W, who said, “But the American people expect me to do my job, and I’m going to.” And the start date is…

Weekly Chutzpah Award To Donald Rumsfeld for lecturing the Chinese on their expanding missile forces, particularly those that can bomb the shit out of anyone beyond the Pacific region. I wonder how our Pacific region allies feel about Rummy’s concerns.

Dumb Ass of the Week Award To Neil French, WPP worldwide creative director, for saying women “don’t make it to the top because they don’t deserve to.” In his past, French has fought bulls. I would expect he’d now find that rather tame.

Boogle This Reality check: even at $6 per share, Google trades at over 50 times earnings.

Our Friends in Government Update
1. Rove and Libby are hanging by a thread on the CIA leakathon. Charges could include perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statement. We, the people, call that lying.
2. Tom DeLay got mugged, printed, and released on $10,000 bail. God I hope he skips.
3. Fernando’ Hideaway might be the best spot for Big Apple mayoral candidate Ferrer, who each day steps closer to a landslide loss.

Brown Eats while New Orleans Floods Marty Bahamonde, FEMA’s man in New Orleans, cries for help. An aide to Bush’s ‘Good Job Brownie’ told Bahamonde to find a good restaurant in Baton Rouge. This is a quote from the e-mail: “It is very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner.”

Corporate Crook Update
1. Seventeen KPMG, as in accounting big, partners have been indicted for trying to screw the IRS. One, David Greenberg, is considered a flight risk and is being held without bail.
2. Refco insiders, mainly Phillip Bennett, former CEO and Tone Grant, CEO before Bennett, took $1.1 billion from the till before declaring bankruptcy. This is getting good.
3. Ex-Merrill Lynch energy trading head, Daniel Gordon, gets three and a half years in the slammer for making off with $43 million of Merrill’s honestly earned dollars. Gordon agreed to give the money back and pay a measly $100,000 fine. I mean, couldn’t they at least whacked him for 1%?

BANG! If you get wounded or shot dead, don’t be looking to firearms manufacturers or gun dealers for restitution. Congress caved to NPR pressure and passed a shield law that Bush, his Bic poised, is frothing at the mouth to sign. In Brazil, where 40,000 citizens are annually popped off, a nationwide ban is being considered. Is that what it takes?

Beware CEO’s Bearing Gifts Robert Miller, CEO of bankrupt Delphi, who asks hourly workers to accept deep wage cuts, slashed his own salary to $1 from $1.5 million. Oh, but he’s keeping the $3 million signing bonus. Hey, give hourly workers a signing bonus of twice their annual salary and they’ll take a buck a year too.

Your Purse, or Mine? In a NYT front page photo of Supreme Court wannabe, Harriet Miers, in Senator Charles Schumer’s office, there appears to be two women’s purses on Charlie’s desk. Which is yours, Charlie?

This here’s my brother Jeb Florida (other states are in a ‘wait and see’ mode) gets fast approval from brother George’s boys in D.C. for outsourcing Medicare—now the greedy healthcare industry rife with financial scandal will dictate what is good and necessary treatment. This is scary. Can disenfranchisement of the poor be far behind?