Office of the Independent Blogger

Am preparing for sleep, with MSNBC’s Locked Up series on. It was on a commercial break a minute ago and the last one was an in-house ad for their station. It ended with Chris Matthews saying, “America is optimism” (assuming I heard him correctly; I know I heard “is optimism”) and then “LOCKED UP” appears on the screen in big yellow text as the show re-starts.

Wonder who thought that would be a good juxtaposition. I suppose they justify it by noting that nobody besides me is watching!

I’ll share a secret with you, my dear reader, so that you may feel more like a Dear Reader than you, perhaps, might have otherwise. I’ve always referred to you as “Dear Reader” not as a superficial greeting but as sincere welcome to my lair. You are a friend, and I treasure your readership, so I’ll tell you something about me. I love espionage. I love the CIA, the Mossad, M16, KGB, Black Bag Operations. I’m not especially secretive in my own personal dealings, and I live a very open life with a great deal of the people that I know, but I love to read about intelligence agencies and activities in the shadows of other people. A good mystery never hurts! I will tell you this, Dear Reader: don’t lie to me because I usually sniff them out, as I am very good at sensing danger and deceit. I’d make an excellent psychologist, detective or secret agent if that were the life I pursued, because I’m a reader of more than books. Don’t worry, however; I respect people’s privacy, as I’ve grown older more than ever, so I will not be bugging your homes!

With all that said, here is a fine article about the slaying of a terrorist lion from Hizbollah. I, for one, found the story fascinating, and those of you who think you understand the Middle East must read several dozen articles just like this one and books on the subject of intelligence and terrorism because you don’t know the half of it until you do.

No, this isn’t about the Laroucheian proposition that we use moon rocks as fuel — because the Russians will do it if we don’t! This is about Roger Clemens’ appearance before the Congress. I’ll keep it brief. First, I was struck by this New York Times article and would urge voters to throw the bums out! because of this serious violation.

Any members of the House oversight committee or their staff who asked Roger Clemens for an autograph during his tour of the Capitol over the past week might have violated a federal law against soliciting things of value from people with interests before the committee, several lawyers with expertise in Congressional ethics laws said.

In addition, if a staff member or a member of the committee had Clemens autograph a baseball, that would apparently violate a House ethics ban against taking a gift valued at more than $50, the lawyers said.

Clemens’s entourage here said he autographed scores of items Thursday and Friday while visiting 19 of the 40 members of the committee, which is set to take his testimony Wednesday. Clemens and his lawyers were back Tuesday, visiting more committee members in advance of the public hearing.

Without sarcasm, allow me to suggest that it was inappropriate and disgusting for Congressman to be fawning over him before the hearing, in addition to the little matter of this whole saga probably not deserving such a hearing. But if it is going to be held, can’t it be held with some level of dignity from the Congressman in charge?

To be fair, they’ve done a good job grilling Roger Clemens and he has been shown to be a liar. He’s admitted his wife’s use of human growth hormone and has attempted to pawn off Pettitte’s contradictions as misunderstandings, but that is not going to fly. Awhile ago, writing for Baseball Evolution, I noted that Clemens was playing a dangerous game, and now he appears to have lost, whatever Dan Burton, Idiot Congressman, has to say about McNamee.

On a final note, this is a comment left on ABC by a reader:

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Waxman and the rest of Congress investigated the connection between the fact that Americans pay 50% more for the same prescriptions than the rest of the world and virtually all of Congress, led by Kerry’s $270,000, have accepted huge campaign donations from Big Pharma - even companies losing money are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars. At one point I wondered what would happen if my pension dropped it’s prescription plan and I had to pick up the tab. I looked at Canadian prices and realized that my part of my premiums is equal to the difference in US and Canadian prices for my diabetes medications. So, thanks to our Congress, Big Pharma picks my, and other Americans, pockets - in my case for $113 per month.

I concur.

Preamble: there was an Earthquake in Chile that has left thousands homeless, killed some and done a ton of damage. I wish there were more that I could do to help but as is, I’ll send my best wishes, hope and karma.

To politics!

I opened my email this morning. Amongst the messages from friends and enemies I had a note from Bill Clinton promising that Hillary was going to kick ass tonight (and would you like to give us some money?). It made me smile: the debate hasn’t happened and the campaigns are spinning all over the Internet; Wolf Blitzer is promising not to go easy on Hillary and everybody knows that the dice are loaded; the game is rigged; the debates are fraud. (Let’s see Tim Russert try to put a time limit on Lincoln and Douglas!)

Karl Rove’s been given a new job as spinmaster for Newsweek, showing us that he is not being courted heavily by Republican candidates (probably because he’s a criminal and he isn’t all that good at his job) so he has to rely on that insidious press to fund his cocaine binges.

Or whatever it is he spends his money on!

One more note on the media, “spin” and the news of today: here’s a Salon article about why the Right-Wing Press supports Giuliani. There are some really sleazy things in there, like Rudy Giuliani’s help in spreading Roger Ailes’ filth all over New York City. Yet another reason to love love love America’s Mayor.

The Bush Administration wants to move Guantanamo Bay to Kansas. Predictably, Kansans don’t want Gitmo there. That begs the question: who would want a prison for terrorists stationed in their backyard? No one, that’s who (would). Except for Alberto Gonzalez, though he should rethink that himself as he is a lawyer, so he should know that terrorists would gain many legal protections as captives in America as opposed to out of America.

We must make a decision — if the goal of Guantanamo is to have a prison with minimal legal protection for terrorists in an attempt to circumvent longstanding legal precedents, America isn’t the spot for that and the government would be better off holding them at Gitmo, outcry be damned, or moving them to some country that nobody has ever heard of. I just wonder if Sri Lanka needs a new bag of guns. Or an airport. I wonder what they need that we can give them as a nudge and a wink. What can we bribe them with? Perhaps that should be the State Department’s next assignment? “Figure out Sri Lanka!” That’s the problem with these strange, small countries, you know. Nobody even knows what a Sri Lankan looks like, so how do you bribe them? My only guess is that they’re lanky and as prone to accepting cash as anyone else, so let’s get to it, Mr. President!

If you’re laundering money or perpetrating fraud in today’s age, you’re bound to get caught eventually, and that was true of these women, but it’s still rather disheartening to hear about how easy it is to scam the American government.

A small South Carolina parts supplier collected about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas, U.S. officials said. The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq, and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Pentagon records show. The owners of C&D Distributors in Lexington, South Carolina — twin sisters — exploited a flaw in an automated Defense Department purchasing system: bills for shipping to combat areas or U.S. bases that were labeled “priority'’ were usually paid automatically, said Cynthia Stroot, a Pentagon investigator.

C&D and two of its officials were barred in December from receiving federal contracts. Today, a federal judge in Columbia, South Carolina, accepted the guilty plea of the company and one sister, Charlene Corley, to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to launder money, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin McDonald said. Corley, 46, was fined $750,000. She faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years on each count and will be sentenced soon, McDonald said in a telephone interview from Columbia. Stroot said her sibling died last year.

Ask yourself, Dear Reader — if the Pentagon can be milked as it naps by twin sisters and their ninety cent washers, what can al-Qaeda do in the night? What can North Korea do? What can Iran do? It’s unacceptable, someone should lose their job over it and then be barred from lobbying. Our government’s heart finds shape at the Pentagon and our business’ heart finds shape in the Iron Triangle — and both of them need to be re-shaped.

On a grave note: Dick Cheney was nearly killed today, just barely surviving an assassination attempt by explosion. Can’t say I feel bad for him — the country might just be better off if he were to die, although that would’ve been more true years ago before the damage was done.

But, at least, it spares us the Condi Rice Vice Presidency and even more bogus rumors that she’ll run for President in a Party that would never tolerate it.

To buzzness! Where have you gone, Joe DiBeegio? Our flowers turn their lonely buds to you.

David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing. In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation’s most profitable.

“I have never seen anything like it,” Mr. Bradshaw, 50, said from an almond orchard here beginning to bloom. “Box after box after box are just empty. There’s nobody home.” The sudden mysterious losses are highlighting the critical link that honeybees play in the long chain that gets fruit and vegetables to supermarkets and dinner tables across the country. Beekeepers have fought regional bee crises before, but this is the first national affliction.

Now, in a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, bees are flying off in search of pollen and nectar and simply never returning to their colonies. And nobody knows why. Researchers say the bees are presumably dying in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted or simply disoriented and eventually falling victim to the cold. As researchers scramble to find answers to the syndrome they have decided to call “colony collapse disorder,” growers are becoming openly nervous about the capability of the commercial bee industry to meet the growing demand for bees to pollinate dozens of crops, from almonds to avocados to kiwis.

What with one part of the Killer B’s likely retiring this year, and this apparent honeybee shortage, I’m afraid for those whose noise is Buzz. Although I must admit, it’s a scarier prospect for the economic implications it may have, but I believe that the American Economy can survive this.

I just hope the bumblebees come home safe and sound and have homes to come home to unlike — you guessed it: segway! — record numbers of Americans who are now in extreme poverty.

The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation’s “haves” and “have-nots” continues to widen. A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 - half the federal poverty line - was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year.

The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That’s 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period. McClatchy’s review also found statistically significant increases in the percentage of the population in severe poverty in 65 of 215 large U.S. counties, and similar increases in 28 states. The review also suggested that the rise in severely poor residents isn’t confined to large urban counties but extends to suburban and rural areas.

The plight of the severely poor is a distressing sidebar to an unusual economic expansion. Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries. That helps explain why the median household income of working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.

These and other factors have helped push 43 percent of the nation’s 37 million poor people into deep poverty - the highest rate since at least 1975. The share of poor Americans in deep poverty has climbed slowly but steadily over the last three decades. But since 2000, the number of severely poor has grown “more than any other segment of the population,” according to a recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

It always stuns me that there aren’t more people who care about poverty. Liberals focus far too much on social issues and Conservatives far too much on religious issues — just once I’d like to have a campaign fought on genuine economic grounds, like 1992, and on that note, I’d like you to shoot me, please, for I have praised that election one too many times in the last twenty four hours (not that it doesn’t deserve praise, not that Clinton doesn’t deserve praise, or anything).

To make up for it, I’d like to refer you to the greatest election in American history, in 1948.
And I hope you think about poverty and do something — anything — about it, from buying a homeless man a sandwich to donating to the Salvation Army.

That is all for today.

George W. Bush has fielded teams consisting of players that have been passed by time during each of the last three seasons, spanning the course of the past six years. Therefore, it should be no surprise that Harriet Miers’ replacement at the hot corner is Fred Fielding.

A veteran Washington lawyer who has been through the legal battles of Watergate and served both Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan is President George W. Bush’s choice to be his White House counsel. Fred Fielding’s appointment was likely to be made Tuesday, according to a Bush administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the move has not yet been publicly announced. Fielding will become Bush’s top legal counsel just as Democrats, once again the majority party in Congress, plan to take a more critical look at the administration. From the Iraq war to environmental policy and secret surveillance, the Democrats who now control both the House and Senate are armed with subpoena power and ready to summon panels of witnesses.

Fielding, of course, played for Ronald Reagan’s Iran-Contras and on the famed Watergate Bombers team of the 1970s. At his current age, he should probably be playing in The Old Tymer’s League (with The Geriatrics, managed by Bill Clinton, with Ace starting pitcher George H.W. Bush and featuring the occasional appearance by Jimmy Carter at first base, along with Gerald Ford in the outfield…before he died) or at the Local County Jail (if not his hometown’s AAA affiliate) but now, he’s going to the show, and it’s a waste of a roster spot, if you ask me because it means that he’ll be playing for the Washington Nationals as managed by George Walker, making a 100-loss season about inevitable. The only way to solve this, I say, is to appoint Donald Rumsfeld Assistant Skipper to Pitching Coach Robert Gates and hope that Condoleeza Rice can play every other position at all times.

–

Seriously, though, Mr. President. There’s a little thing called sex, and it sometimes causes a little thing called life, and that life carried to term often brings about little babies, and those babies grow up into adults. Adults wind up becoming senior citizens, but in between, there’s a such thing as youth, which often brings vigor and insight. It’s nice to sometimes bring in a veteran who’ll swing for the fences and teach the kids how to steal (second, not loot the Treasury…), but it’s probably for the best if you don’t fill your whole team with them.

(On that note, I would like to publicly extend congratulations to Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn, as well as condemnation for those writers who didn’t vote in Bert Blyleven or Goose Gossage. Now, if I can be serious for a moment, I’d like to say that Bush’s appointment of Fred Fielding is a shame not just because Fielding is old. That isn’t even the main reason — the real reason is that he’s a crook and a liar.)

The last session of the 109th Congress was today and the Washington Post chronicles the last nights. Maybe the most interesting thing in the article, however, is the fact that there are still “postmasters” in this country. Wow!

If it’s true that you can’t tell a book by its cover, it’s also true that you can tell a newspaper article by its headline, and by that measure, this article, Team 41 is a Threat to the Bush Legacy was an absurdity before I ever read it. Team Forty One, of course, refers to Bush the Father while Forty Three is the Incumbent. Team Bush, as it currently stands, can accurately be called Team Ford and even Team Nixon, and that’s a major part of their problem. First of all, George Walker Bush built a team that was designed to confront the Atheistic Soviet Union rather than Islamist Extremists or even obsessed-with-power-quasi-warmongors (like Kim Jung), and by that measure he was already fighting a losing battle when his Presidency began (as soon as 9/11 occurred).

I don’t merely have criticism of Bush’s Cabinet building (it must be reiterated, however, that he isn’t a particularly skilled Carpenter, quite unlike Christ and Chris). I take issue with the author. David Brock alleged in his book, Blinded by the Right that Tucker Carlson once wrote an article criticizing a Brock piece because he was offered five hundred to write it, and Carlson figured that it was a good pay for twenty minutes worth of writing. I must wonder if something similar is at hand here, because otherwise, this author — Daniel Henninger is his name — must be a baboon. Team Forty One — a team that has been successful where Bush’s has never — poses no threat to the Bush Legacy unless Bush enjoys the mud that’s all over his face and doesn’t want it cleaned.

The article’s premise is that Bush’s new CIA Director, a Bush 41 Man, is a threat to Bush’s Legacy because it means that they’re turning back on their policies, and I must say, that on this point alone Henninger is correct. The problem in Iraq isn’t ideological. Some might mock the Iraqi’s Democracy — they’ve had three elections. They have an elected government that is doing its best. They’re rebuilding a war-torn country, and that’s not a process that occurs easily. The idea of invading Iraq was never flawed. The tactics taken were the flawed ones, and in that regard, I differ with the author as I more than welcome fresh blood in Washington to attempt and solve the War. If Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush hadn’t screwed up the planning, everything would’ve been better. Which isn’t to say that roses would’ve littered Baghdad: just that Baghdad wouldn’t be overrun as it is, and that brings me to this flawed article, from the other side. Its crux is that the White House is now looking at developing an Exit Strategy, something that I caution dearly against.

This, my Dear Readers, is where Iraq is made or broken. Right here, and what we need to do is raise troop levels while announcing that we will begin withdrawing in a year. Then, we step up our training exercises with the Iraqis and work on rebuilding their infrastructure. The reduction of troops in number would be a variable depending on how competent the Iraqis are, but now is the time to begin Iraqifying the country — just not immediately. It’s time to steady Iraq as she goes down the path of a self-fulfilling Democracy. It isn’t time to cut and run. Whether or not we should shouldn’t be decided for at least one more year. I’m sure that sounds alike a lot to some, but look at it this way: the sand in Iraq has been there for thousands of years. We, on the other hand, are just passing by. We should make the most of it for those people instead of rushing back home.

I had a thought the other day, a miscellaneous political thought, and figured to share it. Anyone ever notice how Vegetarians are often Liberal, and usually justify their Vegetarian stance by stating that the way our meat is prepared happens to be cruel and dishonest? Ever notice that these are often the same people who will tell you that abortion is just fine and dandy because it’s just a fetus! (certainly lower than a cow, as it’s a parasite feeding off its host!) and, hey, it’s her body, after all? It just always seemed ironic to me that vegetarians would complain of cruelty to animals but be all-too-happy to stab a fetus through the brain with scissors. (Correct that: to have a doctor do it.) But, hey. At least they’re not eating the fetii. No sir. (I’m pro-choice, although I’m certainly not trigger happy about it and I’m no culture warrior. I just noticed this irony and thought I’d point it out.)

President Bush is a guy capable of making the most innocent of questions into a revealing glimpse at his soul.

In a CNBC interview with Maria Bartiromo, Bush was asked a question on many of our minds: “I’m curious, have you ever Googled anybody? Do you use Google?”

According to CNBC’s unofficial transcript, he replied: “Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see that. I forgot the name of the program, but you get the satellite and you can — like, I kind of like to look at the ranch on Google, reminds me of where I want to be sometimes. Yeah, I do it some.” He added: “I tend not to email or — not only tend not to email, I don’t email, because of the different record requests that can happen to a president. I don’t want to receive emails because, you know, there’s no telling what somebody’s email may — it would show up as, you know, a part of some kind of a story, and I wouldn’t be able to say, `Well, I didn’t read the email.’ `But I sent it to your address, how can you say you didn’t?’ So, in other words, I’m very cautious about emailing.”

I’ve read words to this effect before — that he doesn’t email because it leaves a papertrail — but it’s surreal to hear it from his mouth. I guess he isn’t being too secretive about being secretive anymore. He must figure, “Sometimes you’ve got to say, What the hell.” I’m glad he’s finally being straight with the American public!

Woke up this morning to find this in my inbox, and I enjoyed it. It’s nice to see Joe Lieberman fire back, and I think you should give it a read, Dear Reader. It’s always nice when a man who has been harassed defends himself.

Before I begin, really begin, let me refer you to this article from Kuwait and said country’s relationship with Russia. It makes me appreciate the fact that American Propaganda is, at least, flashy!

The City seized in Iraq yesterday has been retaken and I’m glad to hear it, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that a Civil War is raging in Iraq and that this war will go on forever. I don’t expect the Administration to begin pulling out or anything like that, however, for a long time, as King George is on record as saying he’ll stay the course even if Barney and Laura are his only supporters. Barney is his dog.

Personally, I’d bet the Dog bailed a long time ago. Man’s best friend isn’t so loyal as to stay the course when his tail is being pulled from every angle! (Wanna know something sad? Army Chief of Staff Peter Pace says that Rumsfeld’s actions are “inspired by God.” Jesus Christ, no wonder George won’t fire him! Here I was thinking that Rumsfeld had naked pictures of him. Instead he’s pointing a Bible right at the King!)

It explains a lot.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an email to the FDA — the story is here — and I will reproduce the email below:

Hi, I read this news story:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid=%7BB160F5C6-58AA-4078-
A431-1A64F9F94D25%7D

My question is, What is the purpose of this task force, exactly? Does this
mean that, before, your organization never looked at Nanotechnology, or that
you’ll be putting forth more analysis into the subject, or what, exactly?
What type of recommendations will you be giving at the end of the force?
“Nanotechnology good? Nano-bad?”

I’d ridiculed the task force as being pointless and ill-conceived, and so I contacted the FDA to find out if I was wrong, and there really was a purpose beyond window-dressing to their panel. Still, for the life of me, I can’t figure out what the hell the panel’s supposed to do, and the problem in perception is made worse by the FDA’s responses to my inquiry. First, they wrote back late to my inquiry, which is to say it took them a week. That’s unacceptable in the digital age, and it’s not as if the FDA’s doors are being banged down by people asking questions. Worse even than their timing, is the first response I received, reproduced as follows:

Mr. Pratt,
Are you a national reporter? I ask only because I want to get you to the
right person. It looks like you may work on the Hill? If so, I would like
to refer you to our Office of Legislation.

What a response! I suppose it must’ve terrified the FDA that Congress might be asking them questions, since that’s what the overall tone of her email gives off. “Oh God, if I say something wrong, this might embarrass the agency and endanger our funds!” Hey, I may be giving a sinister motive to the response I got, but it’s better than giving them the benefit of incompetence, isn’t it? My answer, in turn, was short and to the point, and her reply was, too, actually: “I am not a national reporter. I am a blogger. Who should I contact to get a simple answer to an easy question?”

Her answer to that? “I’m sorry. I don’t remember the question. Could you please re-send? Thanks[.]” What, don’t they have email archives? Whatever, I supposed it was a quick mistake — an effort to get back to me as soon as possible instead of in-a-week? — and then I resent my original question. Her answer was, “[BLANK] is the lead on this and will be back on Monday and will get back to you[.]” This was on Friday afternoon — a weekday, mind you — so I wrote her the following: “I don’t ask to be snarky or rude, but is Susan sick, on vacation, or on an FDA-related trip? I ask because I can’t think of any other reason why she wouldn’t be in on a Friday in the middle of the afternoon.”

Never got an answer to that. Never got an answer from anyone at the FDA yesterday. I guess they had some dangerous Corporate drug to approve or something. Next time, though, I’ll tell them I’m from the Office of the Independent Blogger — that‘ll scare ‘em good!

I say, my dear lads, someone tell Harry Truman the big news — Republicans have passed a minimum wage increase! Except, it’s not that simple. They coupled it with an cut in the estate tax. Clearly, this is a ploy by the do-nothing Republicans to appear as if they do-something, and it’s merely a way for them to be able to say, “Hey, we tried to pass a minimum wage increase!” when they didn’t. Passing this bill would cost the government three hundred billion dollars in lost estate taxes. Isn’t that grand? Several thousand times so!

Needless to say, Democrats won’t pass this, and that’s the right thing to do, considering our overall budget and the integrity of our legislative process. Color me idealistic, but there’s something absolutely disgusting about the dishonest insertion of something into a bill so as to deliberately kill it for political purposes. It’s an attempt to rob Harry S. Truman to pay Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Harry Reid won’t stand for it.

In other economics news, the Economy’s growth is slowing. The only obvious answer is to cut taxes!

Thanks to the National Journal, we know now the salary of White House staffers, and thanks to the Journal’s research, we now know the most overpaid staffers, too, and know that there’s a Director of Lessons Learned. This fellow is being paid over a hundred thousand dollars to do nothing at all. It satirizes itself, like this news.

The State Department is recovering from large-scale computer break-ins worldwide over the past several weeks that appeared to target its headquarters and offices dealing with China and North Korea, The Associated Press has learned. Investigators believe hackers stole sensitive U.S. information and passwords and implanted backdoors in unclassified government computers to allow them to return at will, said U.S. officials familiar with the hacking. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the widespread intrusions and the resulting investigation. The break-ins and the State Department’s emergency response severely limited Internet access at many locations, including some headquarters offices in Washington, these officials said. Internet connections have been restored across nearly all the department since the break-ins were recognized in mid-June.

That is miserable, and I think it’s the first time that I’ve ever blamed our own government for an attack by someone else. There’s absolutely no reason not to guard our computers well enough to prevent them from being hacked by foreign enemies of the United States. If we can’t secure our hard drives in the United States, how can we be expected to secure anything in these turbulent times? This century sucks, and watching it unravel reminds me of the movie Love Potion #9. Did someone in the Clinton Administration poison the White House’s drinking supply with a poli-potion that would instill all its drinkers with incompetence, because this level of overwhelming stupidity and lazyness can not have come naturally.

In Japan, there’s now a debate over whether or not their Constitution would allow a pre-emptive strike in Korea. The answer is simply No, and I hope that no one in the Administration is saying yes. I do recall that a few years ago we had members of the DOD telling the Japanese of al people that they should build nuclear weapons to deter Pyongyang, so anything’s possible, and anything ridiculous is probable, with the folks we have in Washington. Out of the other hotspot in the world today, there’s nothing positive, nothing new, except for the news that Iran is nowhere nearer compromise on anything. You know, I think it’s time for us to play hardball with Iran. Pull away from the talks, and threaten to. Countries like Iran and North Korea only begin talking when they’re told and shown that time is running out.

It’s better than sitting around listening to them brag about how they’re not going to do anything for the “invaders” from the West.

My condolences to those who died in the bomb attacks in Bombay, India. It’s terrible, and inexcusable.