Monday, October 30, 2006

Bush vs. Muslim Brotherhood

Watch as the Bush administration shoots itself in the foot once again... And proves its commitment to 'democratizing' the Middle East.

"State of Denial" - Stephen Glain - The Nation

Saturday, October 14, 2006

"Terrorism" yani e?

The latest on where all those Homeland Security dollars are not going:

FBI Agents Still Lacking Arabic Skills (washingtonpost.com)

This one speaks for itself, or should anyway. And we're talking about the FBI, not Rumsfled's crew or the CIA. The FBI is the only agency that might actually stand a chance in hell of hiring any Arabic-speakers. The FBI should have been out for the last 5 years at least, looking for anyone who could say khara convincingly. They should have even called people like me, if nothing else worked. (And no, I'm not interested, and you really don't want me anyway).

Starting bloodshed and drama in other people's countries will make bad guys go away, but hiring a few Arabic-speakers to look for all those bad-guy-cells-among-us is too difficult? This war-on-terror being a front for other things, however, it makes perfect sense. I wonder if any Houston-based companies have any Arabic-speakers working for them? Or maybe Wolfowitz's friends could find some. The FBI should try asking around.

Doh!

Sunday, October 08, 2006

The end of a revolution?

TIME Magazine's cover story this week is "End of the Revolution", by Karen Tumulty. The Great Republican Rampage is clearly faltering at the moment. But this article puts the whole thing in a (slightly) longer-term historical context.

I was born during Reagan's first year in office and wore anti-Newt shirts in high school. This is my lifetime. And if 'the revolution' is really over, I say we celebrate.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

You reap what you sow...

It's been said a thousand times before, in hundreds of ways, but as a country, we seem to be blind to this fact. If I have a field, and I spend a few billion $$$ on farm machinery, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides (organic), I'm probably going to grow some crops sometime. Why else buy all the stuff, right? So, substitute a few billion or trillion $$$ on bombs, tanks, planes, depleted uranium, etc, and the only obvious outcome is that I'm going to make war sometime. Truman warned, beware the military-industrial complex. War is a self-fulfilling prophesy, in that if you keep it onhand as your strongest bargaining tool, with more invested in weaponry than in any other options, weapons are your tools of choice when the time comes to resolve a conflict. I just can't stand to hear someone trying to make some 'sanctity of life' argument against funding stem cell research while voting to increase spending on war in the next breath. What exactly do they think those depleted uranium bullets and cluster bombs are being bought for???