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Day: December 19, 2006

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Current Events, ,

Life imitating art

From Dean at Deanish: Monty Python Becomes Real

I was just checking on the news this morning and I catch the following headline: —Llamas Enlisted to Thwart Biological Weapons—. Is it just me, or is that more than slightly reminiscent of a wonderful line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which King Arthur asks, —Explain again how you may employ a sheep’s bladder in the prevention of earthquakes?—

Check out his entire post – and a related screen cap from Monty.

I also like his site design (Word Press of course). It’s very clean and easy to read. Dean features lots of posts and information about Nintendo. I’ll be checking his site out more fully after I get my hands on a Wii (and yes, I’m waiting till after Christmas).

Current Events, Perspective, Political

Draft and martial law?

Coming to a community near you. From CNN: Bush: ‘We do need to increase our troops’

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush asked his new secretary of defense to draw up plans to increase the overall size of the Army and the Marines, according to an interview with the president published Tuesday in the Washington Post.

“I’m inclined to believe that we do need to increase our troops — the Army, the Marines,” Bush said. “And I talked about this to Secretary Gates and he is going to spend some time talking to the folks in the building, come back with a recommendation to me about how to proceed forward on this idea.”

Hmm, thought I felt a draft there for a moment. I can see the signing ceremony now, the president surrounded by his junta and idiot congressman Charlie Rangel selling the young men of his constituency down the Tigris and Euphrates. His excuse – it’s ok as long as the rich die too.

Here’s an idea, pull the troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and South Korea. We’ll be overstaffed then. You’ll have to cut back.

Senior administration officials said the timing of the president’s comments is connected with Washington’s oncoming budget season, and that the president intends for such plans to be part of the fiscal 2008 budget.

But the comments also come amid increasing warnings from officials and experts that the U.S. military is stretched too thin to cope with the stresses of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The draft will be his greatest gift to the American people —“ that along with…

“It is an accurate reflection that this ideological war we’re in is going to last for a while, and that we’re going to need a military that’s capable of being able to sustain our efforts and to help us achieve peace,” Bush told the Post…

Ah yes, the ideological war, the one where the increased troop levels will helpfully assert and sustain the priorities of the Administration during the canceled elections.

Sustaining our efforts? And whose would those be? I’m thinking that the vast majority of Americans now disagree with your ideological war Mr. Bush, you know, the war where you’re silencing critics like Flynt Leverett (also here and here).

As for peace:

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid.

Current Events, Media, Perspective, Political

A trainload of freedom —“ leaving soon

No, not the freedom train, but rather boxcars loaded up with the freedoms you and I used to enjoy.

The train is being pulled along by the present administration in an effort to force people into a dialog on a single issue, under a predetermined script, with a single predetermined outcome. If you disagree —“ loose a freedom.

Ask Flynt Leverett. The former CIA, Department of State, and National Security Council specialist has been censored. His crime, he criticized Bush Administration policies. You see, former CIA employees must clear anything they write by the CIA. He wrote an article based on previously published, publicly available information. He submitted that article for clearance and was denied, not by the CIA per-se, but by the White House. For the whole story see: Flynt Leverett Blasts White House National Security Council Censorship of Former White House Officials Critical of Bush Policies from TPM Café.

These boxcars contain much of what we hold dear: Habeas Corpus, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to seek redress, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.

This train, fueled by the Patriot Act and similar legislation with an added boost of egomaniacal energy, is fully under the direction and control of George Bush.

The real problem, the one beyond the obvious, is that once this train chugs through its long uphill slog and passes the crest of the hill, it will careen out of control – the whole rest of the way. When curmudgeonly uncle Bob, the self styled critic of the government, disappears one night and can’t be found, then you’ll know the train is at ramming speed.

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