Thursday, December 30, 2004

More from my father

Passing Thoughts

"Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it." George Bush, November 10, 2004

It's been about 8 weeks since the election. Some passing thoughts as we see Bush spending some of his "political capital". Some things to consider.

1. Cabinet realignment: decent or disagreement not allowed
2. Iraq; perhaps 5th time restating reason, rational and purpose
3. Iraq; still no progress, civil war appears on the horizon
4. Iraq; troops still not equipped, 33% killed are by roads-side bombs
5. Social Security; $3 trillion to fix something that may not be broke
6. Medical Insurance; nothing there
7. Federal Debt; $7.5 trillion and going up by $1 million every 50 seconds
8. Bankruptcies; up 33% since 2000
9. Booming economy; way short of new jobs required just to stay even
10. Attitude; remains arrogant
11. Morals and values

Let's just look at "Morals and Values" for a few seconds.

Jan Egeland of the UN never mentioned the USA in his statement regarding "rich countries being stingy". George felt compelled to reply for some reason or another.

You know Sister Ellen Rita used to say; "the first person that speaks up when an accusation is made, is usually the guilty one".

People have written and there are commentaries about this. Taking four days before making any sort of public gesture towards the countries by an American president when over 80,000 people perished from this Earth in a matter of minutes is nothing short of a national embarrassment.

George, you're supposed to show some compassion, leadership and after all don't you know and understand that America is the "beacon of hope" for the planet.

And by the way George, Americans don't sit back and think about should we help this country: they are Muslims, we don't trade with them, how will get our money back, what's the political payback.

When nations face disasters, Americans help all peoples and any time simply because we are humans beings first. Nothing more and nothing less.

George, I know you didn't make any mistakes but I certainly hope you learned something.

Summary

While once again no mistakes were made, a good deal of "political capital" has been spent. As I said it's been about 8 weeks since the election. I have got to believe that somewhere, someplace a good portion of 60,693,281 Americans are saying to themselves, "what the hell was I thinking?".

Now, that would be a good name for a book, "What the Hell was I Thinking?". You could do a sequel book and call it, "I can Think therefore I am". You could explore such things as; the insurgents in Iraq are all conservatives not a single liberal in the group. Or maybe something like; if the mood were conservative in the 1770's we would have a Parliament.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Houston miracle my ass

From the same people who brought you the Houston Miracle comes the new wave of “organized, educator-led cheating on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills at schools in Houston and Dallas, along with suspicious scores in hundreds of other schools.

This should be no surprise to anyone who actually looks at the Texas education system and the people who run it. They cheated while Bush ran the show there. They cheat now.

The answer is simple: don’t threaten to take away funds from school who “under perform.” This whole debacle is the result of the No Child Left Behind act and the legislation in Texas that lead to the act’s creation. The public education system is not a business, and it should not be run like one in all instances.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Here's a poem my father gave me

This is something that was forwarded to my father from someone else, and he forwarded it to me. I thought some of you might get a kick out of it.

The election is over,

The voting all done.

My side lost,

Your side won.

Let's pull together

And forget the past,

I'll hug your elephant,

You kiss my ass.



Cute huh?

If you want to check out a site that is just full of quality examples on how to be a proper and well mannered young woman in today's society, check this page out. Two phenomenal examples of how girls should act.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

I'm not sure what to make of this

I haven’t been paying too much attention to the “election conspiracy” ideas. However, I’ve recently been hearing murmurs about some programmer who was asked by some legislator in Florida to make a program that allows them to corrupt voting machines.

It turns out the programmer’s name is Curtis Clinton, and he alleges the lawmaker is Florida Representative Tom Feeney. Evidently, Feeney asked him to develop a program to steal the election – “specifically to create a program that would enable a programmer, like himself, to be able to flip votes between candidates.” I wouldn’t have really paid much ear to this except for the fact that voting results seem to be opposite from exit polls all around the country. As if some error flipped the results in the machines. The claim that this program exists would support this reoccurring oddness in the voting results.

Anyway, turns out Air America’s Unfiltered has an interview with this guy up on their site.

Click here to check it out.

I pray to God this turns out to be nothing because if people actually can prove the election was a fraud I think it’s going to set up some major problems, not to mention huge federal election disenfranchisement.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Hey Rummy! You suck!

I’ve recently found I can stream AP News radio while at work. I must say, this is great! I’ve been getting sicker and sicker of the bubble gum types that present the news on CNN, MSNBC, and that God forsaken FoxNEWS. I don’t want laugher, I don’t want jokes, I don’t want some stupid 90 Second pop, I want cold hard facts. I’ll even let a little opinion slide in. I like my news dry, to the point, and informative.

AP News seems to deliver that to me quite nicely. I get NPR Morning Edition in the car to work interspersed with Air America’s Morning Sedition (I tell you, Mark and Mark get better every day they are together), but AP News is like a news ticker for your ears. They don’t cover everything I’d like to hear about, but for the two free hours I get to hear everyday on my Radio at AOL thing, it gets the job done.

Now, while listening to AP News I heard about Rummy in Kuwait talking to the troops. I also heard the sound clip about the soldier who called him out on the poor job they’ve done on arming the Humvee’s. Well, I did a little research on the Humvee.

Turns out, these things cost about 150,000 a piece and are made by the same company that makes the Hummer for GM, AM General. However, they were not designed for use in combat. The Humvee, which is short for high mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicle, a transport vehicle, nothing more. It was designed as a light tactical vehicle, not a vehicle to support combat operations as it is being used now.

Also, there is only one company that makes the armor that is used to strengthen the Humvee. One company, that’s it, just one. So, the most important vehicle the army likes to use is not only produced by one company, but the armor comes from just one company too. Now, I’m not expert on military logistics, but doesn’t this seem counter productive? I know we have a plethora of defense contractors that make our jets, guns, artillery equipment, but yet when it comes to the key item for troop support we only have one company? BTW, I didn't find this info about the armor myself, I heard it on the Randi Rhodes show this evening.

I just have a hard time with this. When our own troops are questioning our Secretary of Defense to his face about not having the support they need, we’re in trouble. Couple this with the report for the CIA about Iraq, and I just don’t see this going down as a happy ending. The Reds are supposed to be the super patriots, the ones who “support the troops” more than anyone else. Yet, where is that support? Why do they not get everything they need? And I don’t buy this “you go to war with the army you have” bullshit. You know who says things like that, people who don’t have to go into war. Old white guys who plans wars again old brown people, that’s who.

This whole thing makes me sick. I don’t know what to do, and I don’t have the time to get well enough informed. Really puts me in a catch-22 you know?

-then I realized what I had been chewing on was indeed my hand

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Run and hide you fascist bastards!

My boy, Eliot Spitzer is going to run for NY Governor. I think this is just great. Spitzer is evidently the only one who got the corporate crime memo from the White House when W started to talk about cracking down on white collar crime.

I think he will beat Pataki, although I am not a NY resident so I can’t really say anything on the matter with any amount of merit. However, I do agree that Pataki has been rather bland while in office. I mean, he’s not a bad guy, but the governor of NY needs to be a reference point for all people to compare their governors too. Spitzer doesn’t take shit from anyone, and I don’t think he’ll start as governor either.

Good for him.

In unrelated news, the CIA is again stating that Iraq is a disaster. Please continue to support our troops over there, and don’t give them flack. However, feel free to yell and scream to their superiors about the war, mainly those in government.

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

America, F yeah!

Been busy at work lately.

I don't leave until around 7 and with Atlanta traffic I don't get home until around 8. By the time I eat it's almost 8:30.

Things will slow down and I'll actually have time to post things with merrit like my earlier posts.

As anyone can see, the Bush cabinet is down 7, leaving the score at America 7, Cabinet 8. Man, to lose almost 50% of a cabinet is crazy. Sure, a second term always loses a few, but 7? Sheesh.

Anyway, for all you super patriots out there this little link here is for you.

Little Link.

Be forwarned, there is some questionable material here. So if you are republican you will probably be offended.

-Game over man, game over.