Every day I promise to post about some of the interesting technical stuff I’m doing and quit posting about Iraq and other matters, but the constant feeling that my head is going to explode repeatedly drags me back into the morass that I have come to loathe. If you also loathe it, just skip this post. I won’t hold it against you. Today, Slate has published a Timothy Noah article on the Bush administration’s compulsion to prevent facts from getting in the way of a predetermined agenda.

One of the items he cites is our war in Iraq. The thing that frustrates me most about people who are believers in the transformational philosophy of fighting terrorism is that they stand behind President Bush even though his administration’s unwillingness to deal with reality greatly hampers any chance for success. This administration decided that facts were too important to get in the way of a war they wanted to start. Not only did they lie to us about why they wanted to start this war, but they lied to themselves about what kind of effort was needed to make the war a success.

The article also talks about the drug program costs scandal that I mentioned the other day and a new scandal that broke out today about mercury emissions. The Bush administration wanted to push through new regulations on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, and told the EPA not to do any scientific or economic analysis on the proposal. Because facts not provided by the industry to be regulated might reveal information demonstrating that the new regulations would be a bad idea, the scumbags Bush has appointed at the EPA told the regulators not to do their jobs. I don’t see how anyone can support these guys, period. It’s sickening.