I don't normally talk politics with my best buddy, because I figured she and I pretty much thought along the same lines.  Boy, was I shocked yesterday when she told me that she was so angry because the ACLU was trying to take Christmas away.

Not content to manufacture phony news stories in the US to control public opinion, the Bush administration is now reported to have done the same thing in Iraq.  Story here

The ballyhooed "Iraq Plan" was described in the president's speech today at the Naval Academy, and released in writing to the public in several locations on the net. Such as here

Did it change your mind?  Make you feel better about the prospects in Iraq?

For those who have worked in a corporation, did it remind you of anything?  Like a "mission statement," for example?  Or the internal sales plan for a new product?

I won't go into excruciating detail on what bothers me about it--I'm too tired, it would take far too long, and who the hell am I, anyway?.  The short version follows.

In just a few weeks, our illustrious president will deliver his 2006 State of the Union speech.  You and I both know that he won't describe the real state of the nation, or even address many aspects of the nation that are really, really bad.  Dangerous.  Potentially disastrous.

Just to get a jump on the whole State of the Nation thing, here's a brief summary of the state of the nation's economic health.

Boy, we just can't seem to get enough of playing empire, now can we? Neat story courtesy of Pravda.....

Remember the move "As Good As It Gets" from a few years back?  At one point in the movie, Jack Nicholson, whose life is being ruined by both obsessive-compulsive disorder and a crappy personality looks at a waiting room full of mental patients and says "What if this is as good as it gets?"

Well I just read a small piece in the UK's The Observer titled "'Hangover hospitals' could go nationwide" that brings that phrase to mind. Story here

The first post-Saddam Prime Minister of Iraq, Iyad Allawi, has told the UK newspaper The Observer that post-Saddam Iraq is beginning to look unfortunately like Saddam's Iraq in terms human rights abuses. Story here  And we all know what that euphemism "human rights abuses" means--imprisonment, torture, secret policing activities, and the like.  

Allawi accuses his fellow Shias in the government of being responsible for death squads and secret torture centers

Back to my last deal on Christmas, and my #$#)@(#@) Radeon 9800 bites the dust....

So private e-mails between Republican lobbyists (and soon to be convicts) Michael Scanlon and Jack Abramoff called their Indian clients "idiots," "losers," "morons" and "monkeys."

And people assume that this is a bad thing, that the two richer-than-rich lobbyists were denigrating the character of their clients.  But lets look at this more closely. Could these simply be terms of endearment?

In a depressingly large number of media stories these days, there are statements that appear contradictory, or which are so obviously questionable that you can't believe the author didn't follow up to clarify.

I came across this one in a story on Rick Santorum titled "The Path of the Righteous Man," by Mike Newall, from Philadelphia City Newspaper, 9/29-10/05, 2005:

"Rick's father was the chief of psychology and his mother was the chief of nurses"--the former head of personnel at the VA hospital where the Santorums worked in Butler, PA.

"They were good people, a well-principled, blue-collar family"--A childhood friend, describing Rick Santorum.

Could someone tell me how the chief of psychology at a VA hospital, and the chief of nurses at the same hospital, somehow comprise a "blue collar" family?  What the Hell does blue collar mean these days, that someone actually works instead of getting all their money from investments?

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