Quotes of the Morning: Mixed Bag

“Insurgents staged attacks against U.S. forces, schools to be used as polling stations and political party offices on Wednesday, as they pressed a bloody campaign to undermine Iraq’s weekend elections. A U.S. Marine transport helicopter crashed in western Iraq.
Three car bombs exploded Wednesday in Riyadh, a tense town north of Baghdad, killing at least five people, including three policemen. One of the car bombs targeted a U.S. convoy but there was no report of casualties, police said.”
-Associated Press, January 26, 2005

“Remember how proud we were of having all of the schools opening up in Iraq? Do you think it was a bad idea to make the schools into polling places, and thus targets for the insurgents? I mean, I sure wouldn’t want Billy going to school if I knew that the place might be attacked in the afternoon by armed gunmen. Just saying..”
-Skippy

The Bush administration plans to announce Tuesday it will request about $80 billion more for this year's costs of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan congressional aides said Monday.
The request would push the total provided so far for those wars and for U.S. efforts against terrorism elsewhere in the world to more than $280 billion since the first money was provided shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, airliner attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
That would be nearly half the $613 billion the United States spent for World War I or the $623 billion it expended for the Vietnam War, when the costs of those conflicts are translated into 2005 dollars.”
-Associated Press, January 24, 2005

“The Vietnam war lasted 11 years. So far the endless war is about three years old, so the ‘burn’ rate is roughly two times more than that of Vietnam. Great. And we’re planning on staying a couple more years. And building a $1.5 billion dollar embassy in Baghdad. Sigh.. I can’t even keep up.”
-Skippy

“Bush tried to get ministers and other leaders of the black community behind his agenda in an earlier private meeting that lasted more than an hour. Attendees said Bush told them his plan to add private accounts to Social Security would benefit blacks since they tend to die younger than whites and end up paying in more than they take out. Private accounts would be owned by workers and could be inherited by loved ones after death.”
-Associated Press, January 26, 2005

“No word on why the African-American community might object to Mr. ‘Hey, but you guys die younger’ Bush’s proposal.”
-Skippy