WTF I apologize to all me readers… okay, I‘ve stop laughing now … for my long absence. In a way there was nothing to comment on and at the same time so much. Sometimes it just seems silly to keep beating the same dead animal.

But I imagine I’d better write now while I still can, PATRIOT Act II is on the way. I guess it is time for a reality check.

WAKE UP!!!

Our civil liberties are being taken away. The FBI is openly advocating the monitoring of civil protests. Your reading habits can be delved into without a warrant or so much as a judge’s say so. The information highway is going to have checkpoints all along the way. The government will be able to arrest you and no one is suppose to know. What in the world is everybody thinking?

Let me remind you that we beat the "Evil Empire" (aren’t they all evil, including the one Dick Cheney wants us to become) with all the civil liberties that we are now supposed to surrender. To all you Ditto Heads and disaffected ones, we won the cold war more than 10 years after the Church Committee. More than 10 years after the steps were taken to right the egregious wrongs of another group of Republicans. Oops, some of these guys were part of that group, also. The present regime has manipulated understandable fears and apprehensions to garner a go-ahead for a grand scheme that is far and away nothing to do with the problem at hand.

The Russians had capabilities that this group of mujhadeen bandits can only dream of. And no, the mujhadeen didn’t beat the Russians in Afghanistan. The Russians beat themselves by getting involved in a fight that they could not win on their terms. Kinda like Iraq. And yeah, while we are on the subject, it was President Carter’s secretary of state that came up with the idea of aiding the anti-Russian forces in Afghanistan. Let’s be honest now, that quagmire was the turning point in the dissolution of the Soviet empire. Then President Reagan came along, abandoned the Afghani’s and decided he would rather help some tinhorn dictator named Saddam (Republicans have a thing for dictator’s, see South/Central America); worked out all right, right?

So, let’s review now. A long standing habit of Republicans to take credit for things they didn’t do, engage in paranoid jingoistic rants, prop up dictators and deny Americans their civil and political liberties. Then everyday, real Americans get to pay with their blood. These guys think they can run the world?
  ¶ 11/30/2003 01:47:00 AM

  Talk the talk versus walk the walk I say the difference in responses denotes the value of their respective personal experience. If you've been there, seen it, felt it and lived to talk about it then you know what to do.

Update: Bush's Legacy of Leadership

Bush, spending a long weekend at his Texas ranch, said nothing in person about the helicopter shoot-down Sunday, a day in which three other Americans, including two civilian contractors, also were killed in Iraq.

But White House spokesman Trent Duffy, in a statement read to reporters, said: "The terrorists seek to kill coalition forces and innocent Iraqis because they want us to run, but our will and resolve are unshakable."


General Wesley Clark sends condolences to families of fallen soldiers Sunday:

"My wife, Gert, and I send our prayers and condolences to the families and friends of the American Soldiers killed in Iraq today. We hope that all our troops will be out of harm's way as soon as possible."

(excerpted from MWO)

  ¶ 11/06/2003 08:51:00 PM 0 comments

  Eat my mcnuggets O'Reilly Widow of McDonald's founder gives $200 million to NPR
Washington Post
The cash gift from the late philanthropist Joan Kroc shocked and delighted NPR staffers, report Paul Farhi and Reilly Capps. (It's almost twice NPR's annual operating budget.) "No one saw this coming," says a public radio employee. Kroc, who died on Oct. 12, had expressed admiration for NPR's pre-war and war coverage from Iraq. (Romenesko)  ¶ 11/06/2003 07:29:00 PM 0 comments