Now, before I slaughter Rumsfeld right next to this text, for trying to think and failing miserably, here's a raw deal: the US government is now prepares its own version of news for the nation (and abroad, likely). The New York Times report that "...the federal government has aggressively used...pre-packaged, ready-to-serve news report", which means that US officials are now ready to ditch regular media channels to make their own stories up. Among the first government-made-and-packaged stories is a little something on how American-based Iraqis love the USA and, mainly, president Bush, for liberating their nation. Jon Stewart says: "Wow, that report could have been written by the US state department. Which it was!"

2005-03-16, during a press-conference, Bush said: "There's a justice department opinion that says these, um...s...pieces are within the law, so as long as they're based on facts and not advocacy [...]", after which The Daily showed a quick piece where one of the beforementioned Iraqis spoke of the USA and Bush. Ready? Here's what he said, in three pictures: one, two and three. No advocacy! I guess "I say thank you Bush, thank you USA, I love Bush." is pretty neutral for the government to spew.

Ah, Rumsfeld. He effectively bent over to display his darkest side of polemics, when he was faced with a very recent ABC News/Washington Times poll, where American people were asked: "Has the war made the U.S. stronger or weaker in the world?". The interesting thing is, when the poll was first run in 2003-04-09, nearly two years ago, 52% said stronger, and 12% said weaker. Now, nearly two years later when the poll is run again, 28% say stronger, and 41% say weaker. That's a huge decline in people who think the Iraqi war is making the U.S. look strong on an international scale!

You'd think that displaying these numbers would be easy, but...maybe not. When Rumsfeld was shown this poll, i.e. the question and the more recent percentages, he was asked: "What do you say to those Americans?". He answered: "Well, I haven't seen the poll [...]".

Well, he was shown it a few seconds before, but that must have gone miles over his head. What a chief architect he is. He can help conjure up a war where torture is order of the...years, but can't take in a question that even George W. Bush might respond to, in a coherent fashion. Don't call me a liar. I wrote "might".

The show also reported on the debacle surrounding the fact that the US government has decided to infringe on a dealt-with court case, to be exact, that of Terri Schiavo. More on that right here, where you'll find a stream- and downloadable film on what's utterly wrong with the case. Jon Stewart reported that should Ms. Schiavo's life-dependency support be unplugged, the news media channels would just have to find some other way to stay alive.

And oh, don't forget Fox Networks has a psychic friend. Yes, it's John Edward, the biggest douche in the universe. Check all on that here, as he claims Terri Schiavo is "definitely clear on what's happening now around her". What the fuck does he know? He's a TV psychic, which means he scams the life out of people. And Fox has him on the air, as their guidance on this matter? For fuck's sake, shoot yourselves.

On the tech-y side of this, somebody has made a Terri Schiavo Status Firefox Plugin.