so much for that

I've been unwell and unfocused, so here are some of the things I meant to write about last week but didn't get to--most fall under the heading "even more reasons to be enraged with the Bush administration":

More on "extraordinary rendition"--of the wrong people. Anyone want to bet the sloppy intelligence and vengeful enthusiasm that led to the errors Mahar Arar and Khaled el Masri's cases are unusual?

The administration's political litmus test for citizens who represent the country abroad: if you don't support its Iraq policy, you ain't going. Among those who've been stopped from speaking their minds are a prominent conflict resolution specialist who was scheduled to participate in a Jerusalem videoconference until Washington suddenly told him he wasn't needed, having discovered that he'd written a book called "Losing Iraq." In another case, the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta requested that Senator Barack Obama--who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia--make a visit, but couldn't get the State Department to authorize it.

Here's a good piece on the thoroughly disastrous effects of the recently-revealed policy of paid propaganda in the Iraqi press.

The new Telhami/Zogby poll on popular opinion in the Arab world--in case you hadn't guessed, we're not very popular. Or trusted.

There's plenty more, but at some point I lose the willpower to keep typing.