"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent

revolution probable." - John F. Kennedy

Poor George. He's upset. No one wants to come to his party and he doesn't understand why. Bad enough that his approval ratings are around 30 percent but dislike for him appears to be spreading upward. It seems not one foreign diplomat returned the president's invitation to his Feb. 4 State of the Union address and Bush is demanding that State Department ambassadors work to "change his appalling image," according to KGO's Ray Taliafero.

He quoted a State Department memo in which Secretary of State Condy Rice urged her ambassadors to "get out and create one-person embassies" to change Bush's "appalling image around the world."

Bush is upset that foreign diplomats appear to be "unwilling participants" is his foreign policy, Taliafero said, and the president threatened to withhold US aid from "countries not supporting him."

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In Pakistan, thousands demonstrated in the streets, chanting "Death to America" and burning Bush in effigy to protest the recent US bombing which killed mostly civilians, missing Osama's #2 man who was supposed to be there, but, of course, wasn't. "Flawed intelligence" was the old excuse trotted out for this occasion.

Meanwhile, the White House announced that Bush "firmly rejects" an offer for a truce from Osama. Apparently, there's still a lot of money to be made.

When asked how many Iraqis had been killed so far, Bush responded, "30,000 more or less." But according to a John Hopkins University study and the Guardian (Great Britain) the figure actually is closer to 100,000, half of them women and children.

While the White House keeps telling us how well things are going in Iraq, CNBC's Maria Bartiroma reports "There are no safe zones in Iraq outside of the Green Zone. The US sends Iraqis out with digital cameras to take photos of various projects to show our 'successes.'

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A secret Pentagon report concludes that 80 percent of the Marines who died from upper body wounds would not have died if they had been issued the proper body armor, according to the New York Times. So many parents have been buying the armor themselves that the IRS has created a deduction for them. Parents spending $3,000 for the armor can claim a $1,100 deduction. Thanks.

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With the Supreme Court going the Way of the White House, it seems our only hope for salvation lies with the "06 Congressional elections. But what about those Republican voting machines? Activist and actor Peter Coyote recently reminded us on KPFA that "there is no federal agency over-seeing elections."

"The election process has been privatized," he said. "Only the companies owning the machines (Diebold, for example) know how to program and have access to the machines." Maybe by "08 the problem will be fixed.

Speaking of which, KGO reports that Laura Bush has formed an "exploratory committee" to test the winds for a possible presidential bid. That would certainly make it easy on the voting machine cabal.

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National Guard soldiers from Massachusetts and New York, who were sent to protect national monuments after 9-11 have filed a $73 million class action law suit against the government, seeking to be reimbursed for their expenses (gas, food, etc.) totaling thousands per soldier and in some cases over $10,000 per soldier. The soldiers claim they filed the suit because they were threatened with being relieved of duty if they kept asking, according to KGO. Where IS all that money going?

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The Department of Veterans Affairs offered FEMA 7,000 vacant homes shortly after Katrina but they went unused because of "bureaucratic paper work," according to ABC. So, while thousands of homeless live in cars, tents trailers and the street, 7,000 homes sit empty thanks to governmental ineptitude or

worse.
ABC also reports that according to the Inspector General's office, the Department of Homeland Security is marked by "fraud, waste and abuse." Not graft?

Socialist president Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, hated by the Bush White House and attacked by Pat Robertson, who called for his assassination, has been sending millions of dollars of below market oil to the people of Massachusetts who can't afford to heat their homes and cannot get help from the US government, according to ABC.