Quote of the day

"When you make mistakes, there are no time machines to rectify them. Mistakes are lodged like harpoons and fish hooks in an intelligent person's soul." --Ed Sanders, activist, musician, on his friend and fellow musician Phil Ochs

Party! My house! Sunday,May 22nd!

May 21, 2011 - Judgment Day!; October 21, 2011 - The End of the World

Judgment Day!

May 21, 2011

And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.Revelation 9:5

Man, I love these people.

They know nothing of human history.  Of course, they'd say I know nothing of the Bible.

See you 

Link (because you really should see if for yourself):  http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/outreach/tracts/may21/

Signs you may have screwed up

Your only big, famous and good-paying job is being the voice of a duck.

And you get fired from it.

Aflac seeks new voice for its duck

Link:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110322/ap_on_en_ot/us_aflac_duck_voice_search

Quote of the day--from Ted Haggard?

"The word marriage is a big deal to people of faith. We’ve made it sacred. That’s why I believe that churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples should have total freedom to have whatever types of unions they believe as godly. But I think that we as a democratic society, as a constitutional republic — if we don’t respect individual civil liberties, then we’re making a horrific mistake. The church is in the early stages of another ‘the earth is flat’ crisis. I say to all religious people that we should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry on the subject. Or we’re going to be embarrassed in another 10 or 20 years."  -- Ted Haggard

Keep in mind they were supposed to be on the same team

From the Kansas City Star today:

"An angry (McCain) aide characterized the shopping spree..."--of Sarah Palin and her brood at Neiman Marcus, etc., as... 'Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus coast to coast,' and said later the full amount wasn't reported yet."

So it looks as though it will go higher than the $150,000.00 earlier estimate.

Yeah. She was a maverick, all right.

She was--excuse me, is--just dressed up white trash, folks, with little education.

And she was going to be in the number 2 spot, for power, in the United States and the world.

This is how well things are going--and have gone--in Iraq

Iraq. It drives me crazy.

First, the claim that we "had to invade", is such a boldface lie that has been either accepted, denied or ignored, you'd think the American public would be in an uproar.

But no, of course not.

Then, there's the mis-managed debacle that it's become that's so maddening. There's a report out, just this morning, about a prison that you and I--the American taxpayer--paid for, to the tune of 40 million dollars (I always have to spell those out) and it will never be used. Unbelievable. And yet not, right? Not with this administration. You can see the full, original story here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080728/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_vacant_prison

The contract was originally awarded and didn't go well, right from the start, it's reported.

But that's only a small portion of the insanity.

"In a companion report also being released Monday, Bowen (Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction) said the prison was part of a $900 million Parsons contract to build border posts, courts, police training centers and fire stations. It was one of 12 contracts awarded in 2004 in hopes of restoring Iraq's infrastructure."

But wait, there's more:

"Of 53 construction projects in the massive Parsons contract, only 18 were completed."

"As of this spring, Parsons had been paid $333 million. More than $142 million of that — or almost 43 percent — was for projects that were terminated or canceled."

This from the "conservative" President. This from the "conservative", "shrink government" Republicans. Right.

Some of the problems seem like they might have had easy and obvious ways to avoid, too:

"Bowen said only about 10 U.S. contracting officers and specialists were working on the $900 million contract, whereas 50 or 60 would be assigned to a comparable undertaking in the United States."

It was never completed. It was never done right. But the company awarded the contract, Parsons, got 31 million dollars for their efforts. 31 million dollars for a job they never finished. The other 9 million dollars went to subcontractors. Sweet deal, eh?

But wait! There's still more:

"And the choice of Parsons — in retrospect — was part of a far bigger web of alleged shortcomings by the conglomerate in Iraq."

"This is the worst performing contractor that we have identified" among the seven firms so far studied in Congress-mandated reviews of Iraqi projects, said Bowen."

Why is this administration getting off so free and easy? Why aren't people raising bloody hell?

"Bowen said his agency has done 120 audits on Iraqi projects. "And they tell an episodic story of waste," he said."

What is it going to take to get this administration to take responsibility for the deaths, injuries, destruction, waste, corruption, graft, payoffs and lack of responsibility they've inflicted on the United States--and the world?

Why aren't you people madder than hell?

In a completely separate but definitely related story, the Bush Administration announced this morning that the 2008 deficit will set a record.

No, no. Don't get upset or anything.

"Hang on to your seats..."

"...it's going to be a bumpy ride."

Tomorrow's testimony by General David Petraeus before the Senate should be fascinating, for several reasons.

For starters, it's going to be interesting to see how he describes the situation in Iraq. Things don't sound too good over there but Senator McCain is saying how "golly-gosh terrific" it is and that, gee, it's just not that bad. Meanwhile, as I entered in the blog 2 days ago, Generals in the military are saying how frayed the soldiers are, since some of them are on their 2nd, 3rd or fourth tour of duty. Also, the "Green Zone" had casualties over the weekend, too.

Then there's the fact that all 3 candidates to be our next President are going to be there, asking questions--leading, in their own way, of course, no doubt. I can hear them now: "General, don't you think...?". Beauty.

Third, there's the fact that the testimony has to happen but that the Republicans really don't want to be there or go through with it, most likely, this being an election year and the whole war being such a huge mistake, in so many ways.

And that's just 3 of the factors.

Yeah, it's going to be pretty fascinating.

It's a good thing we're not cynical, eh?

Lessons on a Monday in February

Lesson one:

Societies shouldn't have mechanisms created that take large amounts of money and transfer them to people of formerly extremely small means. Put another way, it is nearly crazy for a society to have a lottery in which middle class or lower middle class people can win millions of dollars.

It's a mistake virtually always.

It doesn't make sense.

It's a mistake looking to happen.

Wanna' have a terrific documentary? Rush to Georgia right now and start filming the family who just won 270 million dollars in the "Mega-Millions" lottery. It'll be a runaway success. This has tragedy written all over it (unless this family is extremely lucky--or smart).

Lesson number 2: World leaders should NOT hand uncompeted contracts worth large sums of money (read: millions of dollars--again) to friends, colleagues or associates. (See "Day 2" below).

I was right. The contract given to former Attorney General John Ashcroft for between 27 and 52 million dollars, according to the Associated Press, was not competed by the government--yours and mine--that gave it to him.

I wish I had been wrong.