One of the reasons that complete fools can get away with being complete fools while still retaining status and respect (from some quarters), is that we have such small memories and face such large amounts of information to be remembered.
By way of James Wolcott's blog of 8/23 (http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2005/08/me_tarzan_you_h.php), I wormed my way back through the memory hole to a glowing description of our illustrious president and his "Mission Accomplished" speech on the deck of the ship. For those who don't recognize the name, Micheal Ledeen is one of the less sane people involved in the American Enterprise Institute. Judging by his incredible grasp of the unreal shown in the following piece, it's safe to say that American Enterprise is in bad hands, indeed.
Editor & Publisher reports that "American Legion American Legion Declares War on Protestors -- Media Next?" (August 24, 2005). According to the E&P piece, the national commander, Thomas Cadmus, said ""The American Legion will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples."
Just wondering how the good commander intends to interpret that little phrase "anyone..that will..endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attack..." Do you think Mr. Cadmus intends for his organization's almost 3 million members to "stand against" Ann Coulter whose inflammatory rhetoric against Muslims probably makes great propaganda for recruiting new terrorists?
Or maybe Mr. Cadmus will begin a major push for the completion of an objective investigation of the role that the Department of Defense had in promulgating policies of torturing prisoners in Iraq. I understand that the pictures and stories of the torture have had a major inflammatory effect in the Muslim world, especially since many of the people tortured had absolutely nothing to do with terrorist activity.
Is that what the American Legion has in mind?
The bull is loose in the china shoppe, folks. John Bolton is causing an uproar in the UN, but not in a nice way, like as in "you should clean up your act". No, it's more like "Muah ha ha! Global warming doesn't exist, and all you poor folks should starve!"
When is all hell going to break loose, anyway?
Hawaii became the first state in the union today to cap wholesale gas prices at $2.16/gallon. Sounds good right about now, but that's before taxes and retail markup, making the minimum practical price in Honolulu next week $2.87/gallon.
Is Pat Robertson our own version of Mullah Omar?
He's just not the stereotypical version. You know, he's not brown. Or Muslim. So most of the American public will shake their weary litlle heads when I say "Pat Robertson is a terrorist".
I don't know how it managed to slip by me, but it turns out that military recruiters have a right to ask public schools for a list of their students--names, addresses, telephone numbers. This provision got tacked onto the end of the "No Child Left Behind Act" which certainly puts a whole other light on the "left behind" title. What exactly does the government not want your child to be left behind FROM?
Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) has introduced a "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act" designated H.R. 550. If you are one of the people who think that paper trails are essential checks on the evil potentials of electronic voting, check out the legislation here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.550:
If it seems like a good idea to you, let your federal representatives know.
After several ill-fated ventures into the oil industry, our illustrious president made a sizable chunk of money by investing in the Texas Rangers baseball team. In fact, his original $605,000 investment, using almost all borrowed money, produced $10 to $14 million when he sold his interest some 9 years later.
This story was kicked around the dark fringes of the media during the 2000 campaign, briefly raised its head in public after Bush was sworn in, and seemed to have completely disappeared by the 2004 campaign. How did our president get so lucky as to come up with $10 million or more from a modest investment over a fairly short time? Well, it's big time business, and big time power, so it isn't exactly pretty. But it seems worth bringing back into the light.
