"Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous"
Caesar to Antony in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar,  Act 1, Scene 2.

Nowadays, it's Casio not Cassius causing the alarm, according to an AP report dated today, which reveals that the evidence the U.S. has cited against 8 detainees at Guantanamo include the fact that they were wearing Casio digital watches when picked up.

Well, "SLITHY" means "lithe and slimy." "Lithe" is the same as "active." You see it's like a portmanteau -- there are two meanings packed up into one word. Humpty Dumpty, in Alice in Wonderland.

And Alberto Gonzales is all that and more, if you've followed his public appearances and his unreassuring assurances on several subjects over the last several days.  The definition of "torture" once again tortured.  The ambiguity of prior statements to the Senate clarified so as to increase the ambiguity.  Announcement by the Attorney General for what appears to be one of the most corrupt administrations in history that "One of my priorities for the Justice Department in the coming year is to better safeguard public integrity -- not solely in the area of Hurricane related fraud, but also procurement fraud and other instances of public corruption."

I couldn't resist posting this small, relatively insignificant example of the lack of ethics in international business.  A UK news site reports that a multi-national energy firm, called "E.ON UK," stuffed the electronic ballot box at a UK newspaper trying to take a poll on whether it was a good idea to  build seven 355-foot wind turbines on Denshaw Moor in Oldham, Greater Manchester, as the enrgy company was proposing to do.

Rueters is reporting that two women have sued the Marine Corps, the Navy, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee, Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter and two Marine Corps recruiters, alleging that the recruiters forced them to have sex after they expressed interest in joining the Corps.

Two stories in today's news pretty well demonstrate the state of Republican allegence to Mr. Bush.  In one, it's obvious that Bush, although he's lost the ability to keep the Republicans in Washington in total lock step, still has enough clout to make them whimper "okay, Georgie" as to domestic spying.  But in the other, it appears that Bush's hold on unelected Republican conservatives may be tenuous, indeed, from the reported roasting he took at a forum sponsored by the Cato Institute.

At my new state's series of Town Meetings last night, 5 Vermont towns approved a nonbinding resolution calling on our sole member of the U.S. House, Bernie Sanders, to file articles of impeachment against President Bush for misleading the nation into the Iraq war and engaging in illegal domestic spying.

Writing in the Danville, KY Advocate-Messenger, Brian Cooney, a Professor at Centre College, today called President Bush's war on terror "mostly rhetoric - an excuse for invading Iraq and an election slogan to distract us from the damage he is causing at home and abroad."

A while ago, the Lobotomist posted a story about Duke Cunningham's use of a chart (a "rate card") to determine how much of a bribe he was due for each "favor."

Well, he's got competition for the title of Most Organized Political Extortion (MOPE).  It seems that Ohio's Terrence Gasper, that state's former chief financial officer of the Bureau of Workers' Compensation allegedly had a "handwritten list" specifying how much each brokerage firm was to receive in commissions for stock trades.

Showing no fear of the growling that surrounded her, Katherine Harris last week declared her complete innocence of all wrongdoing in having met with Mitchell Wade, the defense contractor who bribed Duke Cunningham.  She declared her innocence of all wrongdoing in having taken $32,000 in illegal campaign donations from Wade.  She declared her innocence of all wrongdoing in having submitted a $10 million dollar budget request to fund the project she discussed with Wade.  She saw no wrongdoing in one of her aides shortly thereafter going to work for Wade's company.

In a conference call last Friday, she said "There is nothing to it except for the press trying to be negative."

This week, she's invisible, even though still running for the Republican Senate nomination in Florida.

Bloomberg has a piece on which congressmen most often use private corporate jets for their flights.

I don't want to be too Blunt about the subject, but Blunt is the leader, and 9 of the top 10 are Repubs.

Hey, at least it's a smaller percentage than they comprise of the Abramoff scandal.  With Republicans, we might have to consider that progress.

Read Older Articles