UncommonSense

5/31/02

Ah, those Red State family values.

Arrianna Huffington (registration required). "It should come as no surprise that, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the accounting industry has already doled out $5.2 million in 2002 campaign contributions -- with $293,196 of that going to 16 of the 21 members of the Senate Banking Committee, including $37,500 to Gramm, and another $52,497 to Mike Enzi, who have cosponsored a highly diluted, industry-approved, next-to-useless alternative to the Sarbanes bill." OK, ok, ok. Correct me if I'm wrong. But didn't Phil Gramm announce his retirement from Congress? So what does he need with $37,000 in campaign contributions? How is this legal? The man isn't running for office. How can he receive contributions? Somebody please clarify this for me.

Remember those $900 hammers and $600 toilet seats the military bought a few years ago? Think it has stopped? Think again. How about $4,600 for sand, purchased for a base in Saudi Arabia (snicker). Or $3,400 for a Sumo wrestling outfit (snicker, snicker). Or $24,000 for a sofa (snort). "Military experts claim that such recreational items can be a useful tool for building good relations with officials of a host country, whom base officers can invite for, say, a friendly round or two of golf." Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

When Dr. Seuss wrote How the Grinch Stole Christmas, he was writing about Gingrich Republicans. But Bono was under the mistaken impression that he could make Paul O'Neil's heart grow three sizes that day. Bono is learning that some people are just heartless pricks who don't care.

Let's call a spade a spade. Or in this case, let's call a Stinger missile a Stinger missile and acknowledge that Al-Qaeda might have shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles because WE GAVE IT TO THEM.

Your DubyaSpeak quote for the weekend:

I first of all, there's a lot of brains in this room. And you get to decide whether there's a brain drain in Russia. I tell Vladimir all the time -- I mean, Mr. President all the time -- that Russia's most precious resource is the brain power of this country. And you've got a lot of it. It's going to take a lot of brains in Russia to create a drain.

- St. Petersburg University, St. Petersburg, Russia, May 25, 2002

5/30/02

Under Dick Cheney, Haliburton adopted aggressive accounting practices that might be labeled fraudulent. Cheney, on the ropes, refuses to answer the bell, denies knowledge and Lord three times. Cock crows; Cheney questions partisan rooster's patriotism.

Fifteen days ago, the BUSH KNEW story broke and was immediately met with incredulous denials. Now, the FBI says, well, maybe if we had paid more attention and not sandbagged our own agents' efforts, the plot might have been detected. You know that if it is bad enough for them to admit this, there must be some pretty condemning evidence still floating around.

Rarely have I read a more human-centric statement than this: "There are millions of species on Earth. Millions. Among this protoplasmic plentitude, how many species are smart enough to be interesting on the telephone or able to help you with Sunday’s crossword? Well, there’s Homo sapiens, and then there’s… nobody." This isn't true. What is true is that there are millions of species on our planet, and we know how to communicate with just one. And even then, sometimes we get it wrong. Our inability to communicate with other Earth species doesn't mean they aren't intelligent. In fact, it calls into question our own intelligence. But statements like the one above assure that it will be years yet before we allow ourselves to admit that we might not be alone on our own planet. In fact, we might not even be the most intelligent life on this planet.

Something I never thought I'd see in the Wall Street Journal - someone arguing against cutting the taxes of the criminally affluent.

Can you say sham? I thought you could. "A week after reigniting the controversy over the 2000 presidential election, the Justice Department told Congress on Tuesday that no Floridians were intentionally prevented from voting and that problems at the polls caused only a few people to leave without voting." A week? Just a WEEK? I'm surprised it took that long to interview Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush, James Baker, Dick Cheney and George Bush before announcing their findings.

How many times have you heard people qualify their criticism of Bush's domestic agenda by admitting he has done a good job in the war in Afganistan. Good job, you say? I guess they haven't read this, then.

They say war is hell, but they never said it would be like this!

A translation of the Der Spiegel article describing Bush's astonishment that there are black people in Brazil. All you can do is shake your head. The man is a blithering idiot. Or maybe his knowledge of that country derives entirely from the movie The Boys from Brazil, and he thought it was a country filled with Adolf Hitler clones. For a minute or two, he must have felt right at home.

"It's not very easy to wrap one's mind around the inhumanity of these numbers." What numbers? Why, that less than 500 people own more of the world's wealth than the bottom 50% of the world's population. Let me help you wrap your mind around those numbers. The world population is over 6 billion people. The top 500 wealthiest individuals have combined assests of $1.54 trillion. 500 people have more money than over 3 BILLION people. If you murdered them all and laid their skulls crown to chin one after the other, the line of skulls would circle the globe 15 times! Remember that $300 'tax rebate' you got last August, the one that was supposed to stimulate the economy, the one you had to pay back in April? It would take five billion, one hundred thirty three million, three hundred thirty three thousand, three hundred and thirty three of those rebates to equal the combined total wealth of the 500 wealthiest people in the world.

Laura Bush's European Adventure - Postcards from A Broad, by the incorrigible Betty Bowers.

Be sure to check out BartCop today. Something there from yours truly. See if you can guess.

5/29/02

DubyaSpeak quote of the day. Just call him President Cranky Boy:

GREGORY: I wonder why it is you think there are such strong sentiments in Europe against you and against this administration? Why, particularly, there's a view that you and your administration are trying to impose America's will on the rest of the world, particularly when it comes to the Middle East and where the war on terrorism goes next? [In French to President Chirac:] And, Mr. President, would you maybe comment on that?

DUBYA: Very good. The guy memorizes four words, and he plays like he's intercontinental.

GREGORY: I can go on.

DUBYA: I'm impressed -- que bueno. Now I'm literate in two languages.

-- Dubya taking time out of his busy schedule to belittle NBC News White House correspondent David Gregory, and employing his Spanish "prowess" to do so, press conference with French President Jacques Chirac, Paris, France, May 26, 2002

Yeah, he's just a regular man, a man of the people, he can be just as big a prick as anyone else - how endearing. The only difference is, he does it in front of the president of France and the rest of the world.

"Who cares what you think?" - another famous Dubya quote.

Congress Threatens to Leave DC Unless New Capitol Is Built (The Onion). Washington - "Calling the current U.S. Capitol "inadequate and obsolete," Congress will relocate to Charlotte or Memphis if its demands for a new, state-of-the-art facility are not met, leaders announced Monday."

Memphis (follow up) - Memphis attorney Duncan Ragsdale has threatened to file a spate of frivolous lawsuits if the city council approves a measure to use taxpayer funding to attract Congress to Memphis, as was reported yesterday in The Onion. At a press conference to announce potential locations for the new Capitol building, Mayor Willie Herenton stated that his office fully supports the move, provided a way is found to pay for it that doesn't jeopardize his political career. "Bringing Congress to this city will certainly put us in the big leagues, once and for all," Herenton said. City leaders believe that a downtown location could finally revitalize the struggling downtown district. Several downtown locations are currently under consideration, including a Beale Street locale and a plan to divert the Mississippi River to Little Rock in order to open more land to construction. Cordova homemaker and part-time entertainment coordinator Nancy White has begun an effort to oppose the move to Memphis. "I'm a mother, and I don't want my children exposed to a bunch of lecherous Democratic congressmen," White said. "Gary Condit, you know. Now, if we could just get the Republican Congress here, that would be great. As long as they don't build it too close to Cordova - traffic is bad enough as it is. They can put the Democrats in Whitehaven or Orange Mound or Summer Avenue, where they belong."

Let's say that there was some scientific debate about the number of cars on the road. Let's say that one group, the majority, said that there are more cars on the road. The other group says nonsense, there only appear to be more cars on the road because you are looking for them. But no one bothers to ask the people living on the median strip whether there are more cars on the road, not until it is almost too late.

If I were a Biblical Doomsayer, I might be thumping my Bible at this moment.

Did you know that FBI director Robert Mueller publicly stated that there is no evidence that the 19 accused hijackers are actually the people who hijacked the plane? What, you didn't catch that segment on NBC Nightly News, the Today Show, Larry King, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Bill O'Really, Meet the Press, Press the Meat, and every other news program in America? What, were you asleep? Don't worry, it wasn't you who was asleep, it was the press.

So if they don't really know who did it, explain to me again the justification for everything that has happened since 9/11.

And if you want to talk about bizarre coincidences, how about the one where business leaders from the WTC just happened to be attending a charity event at Offut Air Force Base on the morning of 9/11. That would be the same Offut with the famous rabbit hole down which our brave leader ducked on that same day. How often, you ask, are charity events for wealthy civilian East Coast powerbrokers held at 8 AM at Air Force bases in Nebraska? Do the words 'God-forsaken hour' and 'God-forsaken place' ring a bell? Is this something they do all the time? Enquiring minds want to know.

5/28/02

Al Martin is at it again. This is some scary shit. Don't read this in the dark by yourself, kiddies. I don't know if this is true. But for some reason, I can believe it. I hate to say it, because saying it truly is unthinkable, but something happened on September 11th, something so dark, so evil, that it beggars comparison.

True or not? The questions keep coming.

The FBI agents who arrested Zacarais Moussaoui seem to have been blocked and thwarted at every turn by their own superiors in Washington. I read a report somewhere that said they even tried to contact the CIA to get some help.

In response to the above, FBI director Robert Mueller stamped the above link Classified. Why? If he wants this classified, what other incriminating documents are classified?

And doesn't this shed new light on the administration's effort last year to expand government authority to punish people who expose classified material, even if such material is classified because it details government malfeasance?

There is a comment on bartcop that says that since the Kennedy administration, pilots could carry a handgun on any commercial flight - it was their option. All administrations since have upheld this FAA ruling or law or whatever it is. All administrations until the current one. In July of last year, at about the same time that they were getting urgent warnings of a major terrorist assault, at about the same time that Italy was installing anti-aircraft missiles in preparation for the G8 summit because they had reliable, specific warnings that terrorists might hijack a commercial airliner and crash it into the hotel where the diplomats were staying, the Bush administration reversed this ruling. Why?

You read about all this stuff, and then you see that the Florida National Guard is practicing urban warfare and suppression. This isn't the first article about this. A few months ago, there were pictures of GW attending a demonstration of riot suppression in which the military practiced shooting at peaceful demonstrators. Remember this?

So what does all this mean? How well have you been sleeping of late? I know my nights have not been peaceful for a long time. Sometimes when I look out the window at night, I wonder if there is someone out there looking back. Is this paranoid?