The first one is by Matt Towery at Townhall.com, who ruminates on “Why More and More Politicians are Rotten to the Core”. Towery echoes a lot of things that have been on my mind during the past year, which have led me to tell many people more times than I care to remember that “There is no faith to be had in politics”.
And on the somewhat more ornery side of things, Fred Reed – the Internet’s greatest curmudgeon – waxes eloquent in his piece “What Have the Bastards Done to My Country?”....
Is there anything more pathetic than a person scrambling against time in a vain effort to ensure that history will be kind to him or her?
Perhaps only if that person happens to be a current President of the United States.
George W. Bush was at West Point yesterday, trying to spin his eight years in office as a blazing success. The most foolish man to ever occupy the Oval Office actually defended his policy of pre-emptive war (something that had never been done before in American history) and declared to the assembled cadets that “With all the actions we’ve taken these past eight years, we’ve laid a solid foundation on which future presidents and future military leaders can build.”
The Decider also boasted that the present condition of the United States military is “”stronger, more agile and better prepared” than how he found it when he first took ...
Today’s edition of the News & Record (the big newspaper in Greensboro) has a front-page story – like most other papers across the country this morning – about Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich getting arrested for corruption regarding the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama.
The headline in the News & Record reads: “Senate seat alleged for sale”
So when was the last time a Senate seat wasn’t for sale in this country?
If he did this, then Blagojevich should be thrown in, no… under the jailhouse and left to rot. But let’s get real folks: politics in the United States has become a high-stakes poker game with a buy-in that drastically exceeds the means of the average citizen. Unless you are filthy rich or otherwise have socially astute connections, you have no chance of running for high office.
Hell, it takes a fortune just to hire enough lawyers who ...
A few weeks ago it occurred to me why this country is presently so screwed-up financially:
From top to bottom, we have been trying to hack it on a Star Trek economy… without the requisite Star Trek technology needed to make it work.
Gene Roddenberry had funny ideas about money in his Star Trek universe. Namely, that the United Federation of Planets, including Earth, didn’t use it. It was an ideal socialist state that based its economy on the pursuit of excellence, for the betterment of self and society. Remember how Kirk and Spock had to sell the spectacles in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ‘cuz they were cash-strapped in San Francisco circa 1986? And then later in the same movie, Kirk admitted to Gillian that they didn’t have money in his own time.
The concept got fleshed-out a bit more (interestingly after Roddenberry’s passing in 1991): the ...
Couple of items that I found in the news today, that juxtaposed together make for a rather disturbing scenario…
First, the Pentagon wants 20,000 soldiers deployed inside the United States by 2011 to complement local law enforcement agencies. A move that from what I’m reading comes perilously close to blatantly violating the Posse Comitatus Act.
And as if that isn’t bad enough, the Pentagon is also working with a British scientist to create robot soldiers that will be deployed without risk of “committing war crimes”.
So logically, it can be deduced that in the near future there is an outstanding possibility that robot soldiers – armed with lethal firepower – will be active on the streets of your hometown.
This blog has already discussed reasons why this might not be such a hot idea. Gotta wonder if the first robotosoldier that goes nuts and kills a pregnant woman will ...
People keep asking me what do I think of Barack Obama, now that he is going to be President come January 20th, 2009. Which I’ll admit a kind of devious joy in answering them since I didn’t vote for either Obama or John McCain (in keeping with my policy of never voting for anyone who runs a single negative ad, neither one of ’em deserved my vote). Whenever anyone’s asked me that in the past few weeks my answer has been the same: that I can’t see Obama being a good President at all… but as bad as he would have been on his own, he will be even worse because George W. Bush paved the way first.
It will be decades before we fully understand the damage that Bush has done to this country, and consequently to this world. Yet Bush is so self-deluded with grandeur that he seriously ...
On a quiz covering fundamental American history, civics and economics conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, United States elected officials crashed and burned. Politicians averaged 44 percent, while average citizens scored better but not by much: 49 percent. The test was given to 2,500 Americans.
Want to try it yourself? Here it is.
How did I do? Not bad: my score was 90.91%. I missed three questions, but one of them I’m inclined to contest if that were possible and the other two, I have to wonder about also. Maybe that’s giving away too much already about which questions they are 😛
So… what does this test say about us as a country?
The Founders understood that the United States would only endure and thrive if her people were educated, vigilant, and actively seeking enlightenment. Hard to say that we’re doing any of that.
So does anyone ...
Yeah you read that right: eHarmony, the relationship-matching website that’s found especially strong popularity with Christians, is “going gay”.
From the story in The Wall Street Journal…
...A settlement Wednesday between eHarmony Inc. and the New Jersey attorney general requires the online heterosexual dating service to also cater to homosexuals, raising questions about whether other services that target a niche clientele could be forced to expand their business models.
The settlement stemmed from a complaint, filed with the New Jersey attorney general’s office by a gay match seeker in 2005, that eHarmony had violated his rights under the state’s discrimination law by not offering a same-sex dating service. In 2007, the attorney general found probable cause that eHarmony had violated the state’s Law Against Discrimination.
As part of the agreement, the Pasadena, Calif.-based company will develop and market Compatible Partners, a Web dating service for same-sex couples, and will
President-Elect Barack Obama is likely going to overturn a lot of Bush’s policies via the use of executive order and “signing statements”.
And here’s why Bush’s most stubborn supporters had darned well better start worrying up a sweat…
George W. Bush set a horrible precedent with his abuse of executive orders and signing statements (which are how he got around the letter of the law a lot of times, by “interpreting” legislation according to his own whims and declaring that it was his executive privilege to do so). And for most of the past decade, the “Bush-bots” have cheered him on… even when he’s grievously violated the Constitution in the process.
And now that very same power is going to land in the hands of Barack Obama.
Can you people who have thought Bush could do no wrong these eight years, possibly be capable of understanding what that means?
I’ve ...
…we still woke up. The sun rose again. There was a new morning. Life did go on.
In fact, it couldn’t sincerely be said that much of anything changed at all.
This country, this world even, is not made by the grace of a single man or woman. An individual can render it grievous harm however.
But in the end, America – and every other country for that matter – is the result of the diligence of her entire people. And I tend to believe she is only as good as the lengths her people will go to admit that they are not wise enough to govern this land with mere human reasoning.
Acknowledging that much is the beginning of the enlightenment that the Founders prayed we might have. We’ve lost sight of that, and that has to be said regardless of what “party” we might belong to.
I’m going ...