ReviewOlogy

I normally don't advertise the work of one of my kids, but I highly recommend ReviewOlogy. There are reviews of TV shows, films and live theatre, all by one 11-year-old self-proclaimed critic, that are funnier and more informative than anything you'll ever read in the Calendar section of the L.A. Times.

Question

Be sure to stop at Wolf Blitzer's site and answer the Question of the Day:

Did President Bush exaggerate the ties between al Qaeda and Iraq?

The Bush Juggernaut

Jeremy Brecher's Foreign Policy in Focus discussion paper analyzes ways of "Terminating the Bush Juggernaut". Intro:

The Bush administration is presenting itself to the world as a juggernaut--a "massive inexorable force that advances irresistibly, crushing whatever is in its path." Bush's National Security Strategy envisions its "war against terrorism" as "a global enterprise of uncertain duration." It says the U.S. will act against "emerging threats before they are fully formed." The Bush administration envisions the coming decades as a continuation of recent U.S. demands, threats, and wars. It intends to continue the aggressive behavior already illustrated by war on Afghanistan and Iraq, armed intervention in the Philippines and Columbia, and threats against Syria, Iran, and North Korea. The Bush administration and its successors are likely to continue this juggernaut until they are made to stop.

Iraq, circa July, 2002

Just how prophetic was Phyllis Bennis regarding our Iraq policy? Read for yourself.

Bush = Nazis, part XXII

Bill Connolly raises one of those issues that cyclicly surfaces and disappears every few years. He points out that the Polish edition of Newsweek ran a recent article about the connection between President Bush's grandfather (Prescott Bush) and the Nazis in the 1930's and 40's. Here is the standard conspiracy site that covers the whole biased story.

Let's Give It More Time

Speaking of bandwagons (see last post) there's no reason just yet to start shooting off calls for "Bush's impeachment because he lied to us" about the reason for invading Iraq. A lot of information still needs gathering and analysis, i.e. more ex-Hussein officials need to be interviewed, more locations need to be inspected. The damage to the increasingly reactionary Left will be severe if the impeachment process is asked to walk before it can crawl. Let's take our time and get the facts so that the accusations are irrefutable. The Left is already on shaky ground with the lack of direction and power. It can ill afford another blow that can cause permanent damage.

Museum Treasures Safe

So it turns out that the Baghdad Museum was not as severely ransacked as originally reported. A special report on the Guardian Unlimited reveals the truth. An awful lot of the media an even more bloggers (including yours truly) wrongly jumped onto the misinformed bandwagon. I'm beginning to wonder if we're all making the same mistake about WMD...

Added Catalyzer Journal to the Politics & Opinions blogroll.

Also: Cure for Headaches

Keep Your Number

Finally! Cell phone users can keep their numbers, court rules.

Louis Gould has a solution to the problem of the U.S. Presidency.

Problem: Two-Term Limit:

The story of the modern presidency is a cautionary tale rather than an American success saga. The instituion badly needs rethinking and fundamental reorientation. As it stands now, the presidency is beset with intractable problems. These difficulties, I believe arise from the interaction of three main forces:

1. The increase in size of the presidency.
2. The rise of what has been called "continuous campaigning."
3. The impact of the twin pressures of celebrity and show business. (One key structural change in the Constitution, the Twenty-Second Amendment, completed the emergence of the presidency as we know it.)

Solution: Repeal the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

First and foremost, I would endorse the repeal of the Twenty-Second Amendment mandating only two elected terms for any successful president. Passed after World War II largely with Republican support, it was designed to make it impossible for any other politician, and presumably a Democrat, to serve three terms as Franklin D. Roosevelt did and then to be elected to a fourth. The amendment achieved that purpose, of course, and will operate against President Bush if he is reelected in 2004. There is at least one congressman now, Jose Serrano of New York, a Democrat, who wants to repeal the Twenty-Second Amendment, but his initiative is unlikely to go anywhere.

This is an issue that is long overdue for debate. Read the entire article HERE

A WMD Tribute to Dr. Seuss

A young person's guide to weapons of mass destruction by Tim Dunlop. Here's the Beginning:

I am Sa-ddam
I am Sa-ddam
Saddam I am

That Saddam-I-am
That Saddam-I-am
I do not like
that Saddam-I-am

Have you found my weapons in the sand?

I have not found your weapons in the sand.
I have not found them Saddam-I-am.

Have you found them here or there?
Have you found them anywhere?

I have not found them here or there.
I have not found them anywhere.

This may become your poisoned chalice.
Have you looked inside my palace?

Read the entire poem HERE.

And then there's THIS one.

Speech by Senator Robert Byrd June 5, 2003. Snippet:

"Saddam Hussein is missing. Osama bin Laden is missing. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are missing. And the President's mild claims that we are "on the look" do not comfort me. There ought to be an army of UN inspectors combing the countryside in Iraq or searching for evidence of disbursement of these weapons right now. Why are we waiting? Is there fear of the unknown? Or fear of the truth?"

"How Badly Do You Want to Win?"

This speech by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) made two days ago will get you out of your La-Z-Boy.

WOW!

CNN possibly supports the impeachment of Bush? Snippet:

This administration may be due for a scandal. While Bush narrowly escaped being dragged into Enron, which was not, in any event, his doing. But the war in Iraq is all Bush's doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable.

To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."

Sign me up as a witness!

This editorial by Ruth Rosen of the S.F. Chronicle says it in a similar fashion.

Sent to me by Jason; from Famous Quotes:

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." -- Elie Wiesel (1928- ) Writer, Nobel Peace Prize winner 1986

Stuff

Here's something fun to do for about 60 seconds before you get bored. Each time you click on the refresh button in the browser when on THIS WEB SITE you'll see the content in a totally new configuration that is randomly generated. The nice thing is that you can save the configuration and use it for your own web page (instructions on the site).

And speaking of fun, by just entering your birthdate HERE you can determine what type of person you were in your past life. It turns out that two of my three sons were females several centuries ago, and two were watchmakers. I wonder if they kept their bedrooms any neater 500 years ago.

Bored? How would you like to BUY A GHOST?

And Finally... How to KEEP YOUR BEER COLD outside on hot days.

Poor People and Taxes

Here's a great quote from the T.A.P. newsletter of 6/6/03:

...ever wonder why so many conservatives -- from Bob Novak to Rush
Limbaugh to The Wall Street Journal editorial page -- keep talking about how poor people don't pay taxes? ... Aaron Schatz looks at the absurdity of this bald-faced lie. Of course many of the poor don't pay federal income taxes. But given the number of regressive taxes out there, many end up paying a larger percentage of their earnings to the government than the average American. As Schatz puts it: "The Wall Street Journal, for example, claimed this week that the tax bill "exempts another three million-plus low-income workers from any federal tax liability whatsoever." Perhaps, but apparently these 3 million people aren't paying FICA. They also don't drive cars, smoke, drink or use the phone. That's not 3 million people. That's Eric Robert Rudolph."

Well, okay, you just can't say it any better than THIS

Everybody say it together: "I'm a liberal. F*ck you!"