hi kids, skippy the bush kangaroo here, with today's round up:

continuing with the economic questions i asked yesterday, are we headed for another great depression? how's your oil supplies? and, why the hell does mrs. skippy keep watching this guy's show?

thanks to the dems, who have less spine than mary poppins, there's no telling who could be in your bathroom now.

i didn't go to y2kos this year, so i missed out on the hate from the right and the whiny cajoling from the media (cue rogers and hammerstein). but to be honest, it doesn't sound like i missed out on much else.

and it's difficult to decide which is more interesting: judi v. jeri, mike v. sam or chris v. pz.

here's a riddle: how is new orleans like minneapolis? answer: aWol promised they'll both get rebuilt! come on, stop laughing! (speaking of obsolete bridges, pam links us to an interactive map detailing which ones are ready to collapse...)

with friends like this, who needs enemies? and more importantly, with cleavage like this, who needs a penis? and what about cap'n dyke?

that's it for today, kids! send your tips to skippybkroo at aol dot com, in blogtopia (and yes, i coined that phrase)!  

Hi kids, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo here, guest blogging the Round Up for the week, so let's get started!

Too bad the Minnesota Dept. of Transportation decided against reinforcing the I-35 bridge last winter, even tho they knew the supports were cracking. But don't worry, aWol gave a speech, so, everything's ok.

Gee, you'd think that in the NYTimes article about the study that found women in big cities make more than men, they would point out that race was a factor (and not the way you would think)!

Hint to Republicans: Offering oral sex really isn't a good way to get away from someone who makes you nervous, because kind of the exact opposite thing would happen. Trust me on this.

Anyone planning to march in Washington next month?

Eat Blue Gal's dust, Michelle Malkin!

And let me add my voice to the growing chorus of those who repeatedly say: I agree with Digby (specifically this time about the Congressional Dems rubber-stamping aWol's unchecked powers).

That's all for now, kids! Send any tips to Skippybkroo at AOL dot com! And I'll see you in Blogtopia (and yes, I coined that phrase!)

Anything They Say - how to blow up hearts and minds in Afghanistan.

And here's a clue for the clueless on another way the Bush administration has thrown away America's goodwill around the world - Gitmo.

The latest good news from Iraq - the most efficient government service in Iraq is bomb clean-up.

Experts admit it without saying so outright - Shinseki was right all along.

It's OK if U.S. soldiers die as long as Bush doesn't look bad. But does Godwin's Law still apply if the right are being so blatant about taking tips from the Nazis?

If the current U.S. force in Iraq can't deter a larger regional conflict who the hell is dumb enough to believe a residual force could?

Another set of Los Alamos nuclear secrets goes AWOL and almost no-one notices.

Guest round up by Cernig @ The Newshoggers (newshog AT gmail DOT com).

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - Former Oakland Raiders (news) center Barret Robbins was shot and critically wounded during a struggle with a police officer investigating a burglary at a South Beach office building.

Robbins, a former All-Pro known best for going AWOL during the 2003 Super Bowl and other erratic behavior, was hospitalized in critical condition....read on

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Bernard Goldberg was on The O'Reilly Factor last night touting his hot new scoop in the long-running controversy over George W. Bush's military service in the Texas Air National Guard:

Until now, the controversy over the Rather/Mapes story has centered almost entirely on one issue: the legitimacy of the documents – a very important issue, indeed. But it turns out that there was another very important issue, one that goes to the very heart of what the story was about – and one that has gone virtually unnoticed. This is it: Mary Mapes knew before she put the story on the air that George W. Bush, the alleged slacker, had in fact volunteered to go to Vietnam.

Who says? The outside panel CBS brought into to get to the bottom of the so-called “Rathergate” mess says. I recently re-examined the panel’s report after a source, Deep Throat style, told me to “Go to page 130.” When I did, here’s the startling piece of information I found:

Mapes had information prior to the airing of the September 8 [2004] Segment that President Bush, while in the TexANG [Texas Air National Guard] did volunteer for service in Vietnam but was turned down in favor of more experienced pilots. For example, a flight instructor who served in the TexANG with Lieutenant Bush advised Mapes in 1999 that Lieutenant Bush “did want to go to Vietnam but others went first.” Similarly, several others advised Mapes in 1999, and again in 2004 before September 8, that Lieutenant Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam but did not have enough flight hours to qualify.

This information, despite the fact that it has been available since the CBS report came out four years ago, has remained a secret to almost everybody both in and out of the media — one lonely fact in a 234- page report loaded with thousands of facts, and overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the documents.

There's only one problem with this: These claims were nothing new. In fact, it had been reported by the Washington Post back in 1999 -- in a story that Goldberg in fact cites in his piece. Here are the relevant grafs:

Four months before enlisting, Bush reported at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts to take the Air Force Officers Qualification Test. While scoring 25 percent for pilot aptitude – "about as low as you could get and be accepted," according to Martin – and 50 percent for navigator aptitude in his initial testing, he scored 95 percent on questions designed to reflect "officer quality," compared with a current-day average of 88 percent.

Among the questions Bush had to answer on his application forms was whether he wanted to go overseas. Bush checked the box that said: "do not volunteer."

Bush said in an interview that he did not recall checking the box. Two weeks later, his office provided a statement from a former, state-level Air Guard personnel officer, asserting that since Bush "was applying for a specific position with the 147th Fighter Group, it would have been inappropriate for him to have volunteered for an overseas assignment and he probably was so advised by the military personnel clerk assisting him in completing the form."

During a second interview, Bush himself raised the issue.

"Had my unit been called up, I'd have gone . . . to Vietnam," Bush said. "I was prepared to go."

But there was no chance Bush's unit would be ordered overseas. Bush says that toward the end of his training in 1970, he tried to volunteer for overseas duty, asking a commander to put his name on the list for a "Palace Alert" program, which dispatched qualified F-102 pilots in the Guard to the Europe and the Far East, occasionally to Vietnam, on three- to six-month assignments.

He was turned down on the spot. "I did [ask] – and I was told, 'You're not going,' " Bush said.

Only pilots with extensive flying time – at the outset, 1,000 hours were required – were sent overseas under the voluntary program. The Air Force, moreover, was retiring the aging F-102s and had ordered all overseas F-102 units closed down as of June 30, 1970.

In other words, if Bush actually did volunteer for Vietnam duty, he did so secure in the knowledge there was no chance he'd actually be called upon. That is, he was talking big talk, once again, knowing full well he'd never have to back it up.

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