Early this morning China let the idiots in Washington, and on Wall Street, know that it has them by the short hairs. Two senior spokesmen for the Chinese government observed that China’s considerable holdings of US dollars and Treasury bonds "contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency."

Strategic thinkers, if any remain who have not been purged by neocons, will quickly conclude that China’s power over the value of the dollar and US interest rates also gives China power over US foreign policy.

This is a grim outlook. We got in this position because our leaders are ignorant fools. So are our economists, many of whom are paid shills for some interest group. So are our corporate leaders whose greed gave China power over the US by offshoring the US production of goods and services to China. It was the corporate fat cats who turned US Gross Domestic Product into Chinese imports, and it was the "free trade, free market economists" who egged it on.

How did a people as stupid as Americans get so full of hubris?

Russia and China have now witnessed enough of the Bush administration's unprovoked aggression in the world to take neocon intentions seriously. As the US has proven that it cannot occupy the Iraqi city of Baghdad despite 5 years of efforts, it most certainly cannot occupy Russia or China. That means the conflict toward which the neocons are driving will be a nuclear conflict.

Considering the instabilities and dangers that abound, the aggressive posture of the Bush regime goes far beyond recklessness. The Bush regime is the most irresponsibly aggressive regime the world has seen since Hitler's.

Obama launched what he considers a bold new foreign policy initiative: invade Waziristan. Obama was clearly attempting to place himself on the hawkish side of opponent Hillary Clinton, mouthing war-mongering language designed to position him as a warrior-statesman.

But Pakistan has The Bomb. And there is no telling what kind of regime will replace Musharraf once he is overthrown by his own military or fundamentalist Muslim supporters when the Americans invade Waziristan, Pakistani territory. Musharraf has told them over and over again that an invasion of Waziristan would destablilize his government. However, Obama is not listening. He is more intent on out-warmongering Hillary Clinton, than making sense of the world.

Has the United States ever had to endure a president who lies as often as George W. Bush? He repeatedly lied to the American people in order to invade Iraq. Now he is lying about Iran. Who is going to hold him accountable?

A story that the US government hoped would never see the light of day finally has been published, 60 years after it was spiked by military censors. The discovery of reporter George Weller's firsthand account of conditions in post-nuclear Nagasaki sheds light on one of the great journalistic betrayals of the last century: the cover-up of the effects of the atomic bombing on Japan.

Makes more sense than attacking Iraq...

The Daily Wørd from Comedy Central's Colbert Report, broadcast on August 7.

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