Ever the victim of emailing neocons....

A few days ago, the media reported the details of a letter from Zawahiri, believed to be the second in command of Al Qaeda, to al-Zarqawi, believed to be the leading representative of Al Qaeda and the insurgency in Iraq.  The letters contents were described in some detail on Oct. 7 in the NY Times.[source here www.nytimes.com/2005/10/07/politics/07zarqawi.html]
That article offers one of the first pportunities for Americans to compare the announced goals and concerns of Al Qaeda to the descriptions of those goals and concerns by Western officials, most  notably President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, and to events in Iraq.

In a recent story, Kevin Knobloch of The Union of Concerned Scientists insists that fighting global warming would actually be good economically...

The sleaze connections among top Republicans and the corporate world seem endless.  The investigation of Abramoff now includes criminal charges against three mafia types accused of killing the man from whom Big Jack and his "connected" buddy bought a cruise line/gambling company, and could well entwine Grover Norquist, a host of Ohio Republicans, and several members of congress.

Now the Missoula Independent publishes an article speculating that the investigation and trial of the money laundering charge against DeLay may lay bare the role of then-RNC Chairman Marc Racicot in both the money laundering and the deregulation of power companies in Montana that has been a disaster for the state's citizens. story here

I'm far from the first to notice that Bill O'Reilly can't seem to be bothered to check his facts, or his mouth, before blurting some nonsensical thing.  Which he frequently denies having said (sort of what Bush's old Yale Economics professor says about Bush).

A few days ago he made a beaut, claiming that the 82nd Airborne Division had committed mass murder of German troops during World War II, when, in fact, it was the German troops who murdered a bunch of American prisoners.  But the same insightful genius can be gleaned from his comment that "Now, in order to fail in this country, you've gotta be one troubled individual."

So I ask, which statement is worse?  You be the judge.

I have a theory on why it is seems to be so much harder to get people outraged today than it was during the Viet Nam war (actually, it's my wife's theory, but I can use it).  We simply have too many people on anti-depressants and tranquilizers.  These drugs chemically interfere with the emotions of sadness, anxiety, and anger.  And you've seen the dollar figures for sales of these drugs in the US--billions a year.  How many patients would that equate to?  One million?  Five million?  All chemically indisposed to dissent.

Adding to the voices that consider the invasion of Iraq to have been a disaster, Retired Army Lt. Gen. William Odom said the "invasion of Iraq was the "greatest strategic disaster in United States history," according to a piece in the Lowell (Massachusetts) Sun at http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_3072005

Dubya is preparing to speak to the country on Thursday, warning that an "early" exit from Iraq would lead to future terror attacks on US soil

The site military.com has a piece by Larry Scott on the Bush Admin's hostility to the VA, and some speculation about what drives the hostility.
http://www.military.com/opinion/0,,77901,00.html

It's good to have a serious, committed, government with experienced, competent people in charge of the important functions that affect us all.  You can sleep easy when you have a cadre of such officials watching over you.

Wish we had some of them here.  From the front page of the 9/9/05 NY Times story titled Political Issues Snarled Plans For Troop aid:

"According to the administration's senior homeland security officals, the hurricane showed the failure of their plan to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated and unable to act quickly until reinforcements arrive on the scene."

That was some plan.  Maybe we should change "NRP" (National Response Plan) to "NUP" (National Unresponsive Plan).

They actually admit (anonymously of course) that they didn't anticipate that a hurricane might disrupt local emergency services.  Were they expecting a trained hurricane that would devestate everything except the emergency facilities and access roads?

Did they anticipate that the flood would involve significant wetness?  How about the loss of power producing significant dark after the sun went down?

We're now an embarrassment to ourselves, not just the rest of the world.

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