A few tidbits and outrages, for those who may have missed them the first time around:

• Sean-Paul Kelly's interview with an Air Force general, speaking on background: part I and part II. A sample:

  SPK: "Ok, so in summary what you are telling me is that the brass doesn't like Rumsfeld and the idea behind Iraq, that you guys feel Korea is much more urgent from a proliferation standpoint and that life in the Pentagon isn't real rosy under an Administration that was supposed to be 'military' friendly? Does that sum it up about right?"

  GO: "Sure does. Military friendly? That's a joke. Look at how they are treating our veterans. This makes me sick. It's galling. It's unconscionable. But the grunts think these guys are the greatest. The politicians see us as a means to an end. Of course, that is their prerogative. We ARE a means to an end, in a certain twisted sense. That's the role I've chosen for my life. I just think this 'end' isn't so important when there is another huge problem out there. We should be much more concerned about Asia. Much. They are proliferating. They are doing all those things we say we fear Hussein is doing. And we still have time to rememdy the situation in Asia."

  It also features Kissinger's on Rumsfeld ("the most ruthless man he ever met").

• Matthew Yglesias on the latest escapades of our friends the Saudis, spiriting the wife of a terror suspect out of the country, one step ahead of a grand jury subpoena.

• Nathan Newman on the administration's plan for "Lifetime Savings Accounts" free of all taxation, which would give a class of wealthy investors a completely free pass on the income tax, and its other plan to convert housing and Medicaid programs to block grants, allowing states to divert the money away from the poor.

  This administration stands opposed to class warfare. They don't want the other side to show up and fight.

• Brad DeLong on Dubya's accounting:

  The numbers in the back of the 2004 Budget documents project that the budget year that began when Clinton was still President will be America's last surplus year, ever. The policies proposed in the 2004 Budget are projected to see the deficit widen steadily to 17.5 percent of GDP by 2050. By that date debt held by the public is projected to be 229.4 percent of GDP--a debt and deficit level that no economy could possibly sustain.

  What does this mean? It means that the (not very bad) economic news of the past year coupled with the provisions the Bush Administration has put into its 2004 Budget will, if enacted, put the U.S. once more on the path to national bankruptcy. Once again the commitments of the government--to defense, administration of justice, the safety net, and the large elderly programs of Medicare and Social Security--will be far beyond the reach of federal revenues.

• Tom Spencer on Dubya's assassins.

• WampumBlog on the current Ivory Coast crisis, and the table-pounding tactics of Glenn Reynolds.