It's Craptastic!

A Pentagon investigation has found overcharging and other violations in a $15.6 billion Iraq reconstruction contract awarded to Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, a defense official said Thursday.

An ongoing audit of Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root subsidiary found substantial overcharging for fuel and other items, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The problems go beyond overcharging, the official said, declining to elaborate.
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Cheney, a former defense secretary, stepped down from Halliburton when he became Bush's running mate in 2000 and has said he played no role in contracts for his former company.

So in the interest of keeping the political discussions honest in the coming year, I'm proposing a variant of Godwin's Law that I'm calling 'Stranger's Law.' And it goes a little something like this:

As a discussion of US politics grows longer, the probability of a liberal or progressive being called a 'Bush-Hater' approaches one. Once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever called someone a Bush Hater has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.

The United States said on Wednesday its decision to bar Iraq (news - web sites) war opponents like France, Germany and Russia from $18.6 billion in U.S. reconstruction projects was appropriate and a reward for U.S. supporters.
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But Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called it a "totally gratuitous slap" that "does nothing to protect our security interests and everything to alienate countries we need with us in Iraq."

He noted it came at a time when Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are seeking greater NATO support in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"What is this administration's policy? It's long past time we stop treating Iraq like a prize," Biden said.

When a teammate is being trapped on the perimeter, Hoiberg rushes over to bail him out, and then promptly gives the ball back. His passes are usually shrewd and accurate and he rarely dribbles into difficulty, resulting in an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.92-to-1 that is nearly twice as productive as Szczerbiak's 1.56-to-1 ratio last season. Despite being two inches shorter than Wally, Hoiberg is averaging almost exactly as many rebounds per minutes played as Szczerbiak did a year ago. Hoiberg defends the pick-and-roll more adeptly than Wally, already knows his defensive assignments more thoroughly, and fouls opponents with more savvy--on breakaways or when a basket is otherwise likely--than any Timberwolf since Mitchell.

"We oppose any unilateral decision by either China or Taiwan to change the status quo," Bush said when asked about a planned March 20 vote in Taiwan on China. "And the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status quo, which we oppose."

Funk music pioneer George Clinton was arrested and charged with drug possession after allegedly telling an officer he had cocaine in his pocket.