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7/12/02 - Why Would That Be?
There is a story on Salon premium today that says:
When President Bush sold more than 200,000 shares in Harken Energy Corp. in June 1990, he said he did not know the company was in bad financial shape. But memos from the company show in great detail that he was apprised of how badly the company's fortunes were failing before he sold his stock -- and that he was warned by company lawyers against selling stock based on insider information.
Oh gosh, you mean he lied during his first run for Texas governor, his second run, his run for president, and just about every day for the last week? Why would that be?
Like the story yesterday about the Bush administrations's intention to, in effect, classify all 9/11 evidence to prevent its use in civil trials, this story falls into the Oh My God! category. It seems that the Bush administration wants Congress to give them money to defend against the allegations of malfeasance regarding the handling of Native American trust funds, while at the same time cutting off funding to the Federal courts trying to investigate these allegations. We're talking about billions of dollars that are missing here, and the Bush administration is insisting that no one be allowed to investigate it. Why would that be?
The FBI says that there might be as many as 5,000 American citizens aiding Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, all but 74 of the people nabbed in the post-9/11 terrorist sweep have been released. So they're telling us that of the 1,100 suspicious people they caught before, none were members of this insidious 5,000? They're also telling us that there are 17 American Al Qaeda for every Al Qaeda member being hunted down in Afganistan and Pakistan (I've read reports - from non-American sources - that there may not be more than 250-300 Al Qaeda members in Afganistan). So if these reports are true, aren't we bombing the wrong country? Why would that be?
I don't usually address entertainment issues. The last movie I saw at the theater was The Fellowship of the Ring. The next movie I'll see will probably be The Two Towers. The last CD I bought was an old Judas Priest album, and that was two years ago. Just about the only shows I watch on television are Iron Chef (FoodTV, every Friday night) and Enterprise (and Enterprise is in reruns for the summer). Occasionally, I'll catch an episode of Malto Mario, but I don't set aside time for it.
That's why I mention my excitement about Monk, the new detective show starring Tony Shalhoub, debuting tonight on USA. I'm excited for a number of reasons. The character he plays interests me, I love this kind of detective fiction, Tony Shalloub is a great character actor, (I've loved him since he played Antonio on Wings), and it is showing at 8 PM Central. The debut episode is two hours long, but after that, it will be on in the hour before Iron Chef. So my Friday nights are set.
7/11/02 - The Super Big Gulp
Once upon a time, I thought that the only real chance for the truth about 9/11 ever coming out lay with the civil lawsuits filed with the victims' families. But now we learn that the Bush Administration has informed the New York judge that it intends to severely restrict access to any and all evidence in those same civil trials - for the sake of National Security.
In other words, you can sue, you just can't have any of the evidence you need to prove your case.
National Security. The greatest threat to National Security at this point is the hiding of the truth. The Bush Administration is sitting on a powderkeg and pissing with all their might on the fuse. Sooner or later, they are going to run out of piss.
But you know, I can't help but think that the Bush administration is not comprised of the master political tacticians we have been told directs the boy king's every move (bowel or otherwise).
Audacious tacticians, yes. Master? Not hardly. Bush seems to be more of a George McClellan than a George Patton. All bluff and bluster and very little substance. Or action.
Like McClellan, every few weeks he sends new warnings of impending doom, asking for another 100,000 troops before he can even consider moving from his fortifications. Meanwhile, a ragtag band of dedicated fighters bamboozles him at every turn, frightening him with wooden cannons and theatrical marching.
Like McClellan, he seems to be trying to do little more than wait out the next two years in order to ride his enormous but unaccountable popularity into the presidency. An actual action might result in failure, and failure would end his chances at a second term. Better to not fail than to risk winning.
His entire position is based solely on his audacity and his popularity among the troops. Of course, the troops loved McClellan because he never pushed them into a fight. He rode around on his high horse, the little Napoleon, exhorting his troops with their someday victory, promising much and delivering little.
And when it finally came to a fight, Granny Lee whupped his ass and sent him full of excuses back to Washington.
History repeats itself.
The thing is, the troops also came to love Grant, but for very different reasons. Grant sent them into the meat grinder again and again. Their losses were terrible, and he didn't really seem to be bothered by this. But when he lost, rather than jump to the head of the retreat line with his mouth full of blame for everybody else, instead, he marched them to another fight because he knew his strength, he knew the enemy's weakness, and he was willing to exploit both.
That's a quality we know as leadership.
History does not look kindly on McClellan. His greatest contribution to military science is as a lesson of horrendous leadership.
The Bushes seem to have forgotten history. They seem to have forgotten that in, at most, six years, they will be history, and the next administration may very well pull out all the stops in investigating the crimes of the previous administration. National security may not be an overriding issue. Justice may be the order of the day.
George Bush should ask himself, will the next president throw my sorry lying ass in jail?
Jesus, Lord let it be so.
'The problem with the French,' Bush confided to Blair, 'is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur.'
WP, July 10, 2002
7/10/2002 - The Future
I have a little boy, age 16 months, who looks a lot like this:
And let me say that I have baby-itis in the worst way. His personality is really shining through now, and I live for his smiles and the sound of his laughter.
But whenever I look at him, I cannot help but think about the world that awaits him. Will it be like the one I grew up in, will it be better, or will it be much much worse? From where I stand today, I don't know which direction the world is heading. This doesn't frighten me, because I know that change is inevitable, and all I can do is prepare my son to adapt to that change.
But still, what does the future hold for him? Well, for one thing, it will be a future without petroleum. In the next 20 years or so, as world supplies dwindle to pre-1960 levels while demand grows to double our current levels, will the world descend into endless war to secure the last few pools of oil? Will my boy be drafted to fight to preserve the world's oil supply so American business interests can sell it to China and India? Will he shuffle off his mortal coil in the Flanders fields of Turkmenistan?
Or will we, today, this very moment, see what a dwindling oil supply must inevitably lead to - a Mad Max world of political Toe Cutters and military Night Riders driving Crusader self-propelled artillery and flying stealth bombers loaded with tactical nukes and biological weaponry, but without a Christ-figure Max to save us all at the cost of his own soul.
Without oil and without alternative energy sources, our civilization is doomed, within my son's lifetime, to crumble to pre-Industrial levels. If it must, it must, but I'd rather it went quietly than with a bang. I'd rather sit by candlelight with my son in a world grown suddenly slow and silent, than burn $40-a-gallon gasoline purchased with the blood of my boy.
Will he grow up to live in a police state where even the mention of the Bill of Rights is a crime? Will it be a world where oral history, whispered history, is the only source of the truth? Will he know his father at all? Will this website get me removed to a re-education camp where my plastic-bag-wrapped skull will sink into the mud along with the millions of other useless eaters. I thank God my boy was born blond-haired and blue-eyed, as maybe that will save him one day. But I fear that day might arrive before he is old enough to remember me, and that he'll be raised by strangers who know nothing but hate.
Will there be a world at all? Are those in power raping and pillaging the planet as quickly as they can because they know that 'the big one' is spinning our way at 70,000 miles per hour, and they need as much money as they can to build their secret underground cities where only the rich and the beautiful and the unquestionably Aryan will be invited to dine on lark's tongues in a white raspberry vinegrette as the skies begin to throb with a dull tangerine glow. Or will it all just disappear in a single momentary gamma ray burst from a nearby supernova, as the world elite escape to new worlds in ships designed from backward engineered UFOs collected and kept secret since 1949?
Or will The Select kick back in their Baruba hideaways, 200 CC's of high grade genetic vaccine pumping through their blue veins, as the race plague invented by the microbiologists who were eliminated between November 2001 and May 2002 ravages an unsuspecting world and 9/10ths of the muddy population is wiped out, freeing up vast tracts of lands and resources to the 'lucky', racially-pure survivors? Again, I thank God my boy looks like a fine little Aryan, as it may save his life.
But maybe, just maybe he will grow up in a world free of the shackles of non-renewable energy dependence, a world where war is too expensive to wage, a world where humans at last achieve the capability to explore and colonize space. I want him to grow up in a world of grand adventure and grand possibilities, where I won't have to depend on the color of his skin and his eyes to secure his future. I can always hope. Hope is all I have.
Meanwhile, in other news, President Bush has nominated Frank Burns to be Surgeon General.
