Another "This was the Week that Was"

Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that I’ve been somewhere behind and to the right of the anonymous smaller white water tower in the above photo. Fair enough?

But for the rest of you, it seems as though you’ve been in the thick of it again for yet another crazy week. Whether it was simply a weak battery in my cell phone or random cross-talk while I was on the phone getting my weekly political/national affairs summary from my brother Richard in Connecticut, it seems as though things were a little skitzy-screwy from early on Monday through about today.

But to make myself clear on a couple of matters, I want you to know that I do not believe that President Bush had Pat Tillman murdered in Afghanistan, nor do I believe that the Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is part of a huge conspiracy to rid Americans of their First Amendment rights. Also, I don’t really believe that something called “YouTube.com” was able to set off a war of words between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama nor is it even remotely possible that both the NFL and the NBA could be slam-dunked in the same week. And to bring this week right up to today, is it really possible that Dick Cheney was president for the time it took to run a camera up … well … whatever … and that President Bush was put in charge of the country for the time it took to replace a battery in Dick Cheney’s internal heart defibrillator—and more likely an entirely new defibrillator? Whew!! What can possibly happen next week to beat the past week? Maybe, it’s best we don’t ask what with the White House preparing to sell $20 billion in arms to some of my old pals in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, et. al. and Congress preparing yet more “stop the war” bills that might get through debate before they go on recess.

Well whatever, clicking on the appropriate links in the above paragraph will at least give you Mediawingnuts’ take on The Week that Was.

The NFL and NBA both have "new" faces this week ...

New Face of the National Football League

New Face of the National Basketball Association

Neither the NFL nor the NBA have ever had their reputations and images roughed up like they were this week. I happen to be an animal lover, so I was more concerned and sickened by what Michael Vick, the #1 draft choice in the NFL (picked up by the Atlanta Falcons), did than by what Tim Donaghy, the NBA referee, did. The disgusting stories of the Vicks-organized dog fights and the summary executions of the dogs who lost--done right on Vicks' property--made my blood boil.

The Federal indictment read like something out of the PETA mailers I get for donations--and will probably be in future PETA mailings.

Then, as if this weren't bad enough, this week’s news also included allegations that basketball referee Tim Donaghy was betting on games he was officiating, even possibly consorting with organized crime. Now, I happen to remember the "bad" officiating at the Super Bowl game only two or three years ago when Seattle lost when they were clearly the winners and I have to wonder ... aren't NFL referees made of the same skin and bones that NBA referees are?

Of course, half of the sports fans in America are waiting for Barry Bonds to hit that 755th home run--under the suspicion that his earlier homers were hit under the influence of steroids. And what did Gary Player say last week at the British Open about professional golfers and steroids? ... and what about the Tour d'France and blood doping (they actually get blood transfusions to pep up their blood) and ... yes, steroids there too.

But the use of and the torture and killing of helpless dogs ... that is so bad as to make me want to turn off my TV to any more NFL games ... forever!

I'd say "Let's bring back Bobby Fisher and Boris Spaasky for a rematch on worldwide TV!" but they'd probably use mind-altering drugs in 2007 ...

Yuck!

No, George Bush did not put out a contract on Pat Tillman !!!

The debate about Pat Tillman's death in Afghanistan years ago (yes, the wars have been ongoing that long!) got a boost this week when additional details were released by the military in response to (almost languishing) FOIA requests. The bullets that nearly ripped his head off were only millimeters apart and fired from a very close distance--possibly only ten yards, but one of the soldiers in his unit thinks it was as far away as fifty yards.

Yes, it was clearly friendly fire, but we also know now that the orders to keep that fact from his family or the American people was from ... high up! How high up we still don't know because the White House is hiding that information behind "executive privilege" and the 3-star general whose retirement has been smeared isn't talking ... yet.

It's truly interesting that this entire ugly mess only came to light because Pat Tillman's mother knew something was wrong ... woman's intuition, some say.

A couple excerpts from the 2300 pages of testimony that were released this week are particularly chilling. They are, "Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments" and "The three-star general who kept the truth about Tillman's death from his family and the public told investigators some 70 times that he had a bad memory and couldn't recall details of his actions."

George Bush needed a hero; Pat Tillman was available; and lies are always available, as needed, it seems.

YouTube.com Debate was actually pretty interesting ...

I don't think I ever heard or saw so much hype about an upcoming "event" on TV as I heard and saw relating to the CNN Democratic Presidential Debate using YouTube.com questions.

Surprisingly, after I saw both halves (I saw the first half after the second half, thanks to my getting back to the Super-8 Motel too late for the beginning half), I had to admit that it was actually entertaining and somewhat informative ... not great, mind you, but somewhat informative.

Hillary came off as both informed and intelligent. I may not agree with her stance on abortion (didn't come up in the debate, as I recall), but agree with her on just about all other issues and see her as a potentially strong leader. The only actual meaningful confrontation during the debate was between Barack Obama and Hillary over whether or not they would meet with leaders of "enemy" countries in an effort to negotiate around getting stuck in a war like the one in Iraq. Hillary couched her "yes" in conditions that set the terms for such meetings whereas Barack seemed not to--although in later interviews he indicated that he would, of course, set some conditions on meetings with Cuba, Syria, Iran, North Korea, etc.

Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska added some color to the affair with his complaints about the time he was allotted and some (partially truthful) statements about the others' reliance on corporate and lobbyist funding. Dennis Kucinich looked as young as Anderson Cooper (Cooper is still in high school, I'm certain), but pounded away at some pretty courageous stances on a couple of more of the issues.

If there was a winner, I suppose it was Hillary Clinton, but I really think that we are the winners in that it seemed less rehearsed than any other debate in my lifetime going back to (but not including) the first Kennedy-Nixon debate.

Go Gonzo ... while the going is still good!

Without a doubt, as I look back over the past week, the worst event (really, a sequence of events) to have happened was the absolute debacle of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' appearance(s) before Congress. As he went through his earlier testimony, I was absolutely flabbergasted and both Richard (my brother in Connecticut) and I agreed that he looked like a lying, squirming, conniving underling in the Mafia--maybe a cousin-in-law to a lesser member of the Gambino family. He not only looked like he was lying, but then, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III (also a Bush appointee) proved that he, in fact, was lying. Mueller's sworn testimony before the Judiciary Committee directly contradicted Gonzo's obvious lies, but raised other questions about the whole affair about which Gonzo was testifying.

I watched all of this on both C-Span and CNN from my bed in the Super-8 Motel and was pretty dog-tired during my time on the mat (training is hell for a 70-plus-year old man) each of the next days.

Anyway, all of the back-and-forth relating to a strange trip to the bedside of previous Attorney General John Ashcroft is/was concerned with MY CONCERNS over the National Security Agency's secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation a couple of years ago. I wrote a rather long posting on it previously, but it essentially involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former "officials" who were briefed on the program.

I teach data mining technology, among other things, and know the seriousness of just about everything that the Bushies are doing in the name of "security."

It's downright scary and makes minuscule the question(s) that are being directed at whether or not Alberto Gonzales lied (again).

Mediawingnuts' take on the whole sordid affair is that we are only scratching the surface and that it affects all of us ... deeply.

It is very much a matter of ....

From the Super 8 Motel just off Highway 101

Good grief! I go off to my second week of “How to be a Better Person School” and the rest of the persons on the planet seem to have gone crazy (again). [Note: I’m not permitted to divulge my actual full-time job or the actual six-week school that I’m attending, but most of you probably know both anyway.] One way or the other, I was away from my trusty PC for the whole lousy week and I managed to watch a most incredible week unfold on television in front of my Super 8 Motel bed from eight until midnight each week and wonder now just what it was all about.

Fortunately, my cell phone was charged and my brother Richard in Connecticut explained to me on Thursday night that the Democrats didn’t really vote against supporting our troops in Iraq and that polls aside, the election process in America is truly both out of whack and far too long.

I watched Larry King Live on Thursday night while Tammy Faye Messner [formerly Tammy Faye Bakker] gave us all a lesson in courage, humility and faith. I listened sadly today on my car radio as her death was announced—only days after she spoke to Larry and all of us last week. Whatta combination downer-and-lifter! She inspired me as a Christian and honest-to-goodness believer in the Power of her Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. I never did understand why Larry King chose to have Deepak Chopra on later and why he avoided even using the name of Jesus in his own commentary.

The C-Span-2 all-nighter with the US Senate on Tuesday-night-Wednesday-morning was almost more than my body could take, what with the defensive tactics cum aerobics class that I had suffered through the day before and the lengthy lectures and depressing [sometimes, stomach-retching] videos of the next day. Thanks to an overdose of No-Doze and Claritan-D I went for 48 hours without sleep on Wednesday through Thursday night, but at least didn’t fall asleep during my “classes.” For those of you who prayed that the lengthy caughs, sneezing and runny nose would leave my stuffed up head/sinuses, THANKS!! I feel much better today.

As regards that crazy all-nighter with C-Cpan, there seemed to be more interest in the House of Representatives in such weapons as MRAP whenever I switched channels for comedy relief. Strange bed-fellows—and I really needed the No-Dose that the next day, even though it kept me awake for 48 hours the next day.

I wondered why the six hundred or so millions of dollars that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles gave some 500 former alter boys and girls was still in the headlines, but I guess that will drag on for as long as the Roman Catholic Church still has “deep pockets.” My own personal take runs along the lines of “God loves every one of those priests—and those persons (now grown) whose lives were broken … and God even loves me, but I honestly don’t know why!”

In looking over the past week, the honest-to-goodness most invigorating and positive news was that President Bush acted seriously presidential in taking a lead in getting the Israel-Palestinian talks under way (again) and providing some money (and support) where his mouth was/is. His speech on Tuesday was his best ever, IMHO.

But as for the past week as a whole, I guess it was (as always) some good, some bad … but for this old curmudgeon, it’s back to school tomorrow and hopefully, some better moves than I learned last week in the two upcoming mid-eek classes in self-defense and controlled body movement. There are times that I wish I was not 72-going-on-73 and more … well, more like the uniformed 21-year old on my “team” in the class.

And yes, the picture below is the actual bed on which I have spent the weekdays for the past two weeks.

Republicans vote to NOT ALLOW the Iraq funding to be voted on, but the Democrats get the blame. So what's new?

Senator Harry Reid might just be pushing this thing a little too far and too long ... for now at least! After he was unable to get the sixty (60) votes needed for cloture on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning--yawn!), the all-nighter that kept the Senate members up after their beddie-bye time (as well as me) was a big nothing.

And maybe that's as it should be. They clearly are not going to be able to get the votes needed to cut off the funding for our Armed Forces and so the question might be, "why not wait until September and see what General Petraeis has to say?"

On the upside is the possibility, no matter how remote it might seem to us all, that the war in Iraq will turn around and peace and democracy will come to the Iraq people and we can bring our troops home victoriously. The downside, of course, is that another two hundred soldiers will die between now and then ... and nothing will have been accomplished other than the passage of time.

Given the long Congressional recess in August, there is now little, if any, prospect for significant Senate debate on a real change of course in Iraq until after Labor Day. How soon the debate, on at least a piece of legislation, could resume is not clear.

And that is a shame.

The point of these congressional debates, at least in the slightly more fertile ground of the Senate, should be to put maximum pressure on Bush to end a combat role for U.S. troops and ramp up diplomatic efforts.

As it was, four Republicans voted with the Democrats on Wednesday morning to stop the debate and vote on the funding (Senator Reid voted against cloture only so that it could be brought up again) and it only received 53 votes.

Sadly, the White House jumped on the Democrats for not "supporting the funding bill" when it was the Republicans who didn't allow the bill to come up for a vote. And the sad fact of the matter is that most Americans who get their news in sound bites will be left blaming the Democrats for not voting our soldiers a pay raise, among other things.

We do live in a strange world!

Isn't it a little too early for all of this?

Is it a little early for predicting this ... or even aiming at something akin to it?

One of the lessons I learned this week dealt with burnout on the job. "The kind of work we do is conducive to burnout" one of the instructors said over and over again.

Well, I am getting "Presidential Elections of 2008 Burnout" !!!!

Even my brother Richard in Connecticut concedes that we should not be talking about 2008 Presidential politics this early ... and then the two of us launch off into a debate about whether McCain has really dropped out of the picture or is Romney too Mormon or is Hillary too female, Oback too black or Giuliani too New York. Etc., etc., etc.

For those of you who have visited this blog, you know only too well that I have fallen into the same trap into which the media and most politicians in both parties (forget the Independents just yet) have fallen ... big time!

My god! There's another debate coming up next Monday and I'll probably be watching YouTube.com asking questions of upwards of half a dozen Democrats while I'm unable to fall asleep with that going on at the foot of my bed at the Super 8 Motel off of Highway 101.

I honestly hope I have the good common sense to go to sleep and not get drawn into Anderson Cooper's droll smile.

President Bush tells it like it is ... and I say, "Three cheers!"

President Bush really laid it on Israel this week and gave what I consider to be his best speech ever. It was on Monday and I almost missed it while I was trying to figure out how to listen to the Senate's Iraq debate (yawn) when I ran into a replay of a speech he had given only hours earlier.

He essentially stated that we believe that Palestine can coexist with Israel and they can have peace!

By allowing for America (that's us!) to sit with both Palestine and Israel in the person of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, he has broken with almost everything he has said on the subject in recent years. Specifically, he plans a major conference this fall, chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, that would include Israelis, Palestinians and Arab governments, including those of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt. Hamas, the militant Islamist Palestinian group that controls Gaza, is not invited.

Obviously, peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not going to be easily accomplished. Excluding Hamas from the process, as both Israel and Bush agreed to do, and dealing solely with the more pacifist Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah group, is understandable. Given Hamas's violence and its sworn enmity toward Israel's existence, it would have been difficult for GWB to suggest they be involved in the early meetings.

But it's also sticky. Hamas grabbed control of Gaza last month in a military takeover, and Fatah controls the West Bank. Abhorrent as Hamas is, it is an inconvenient truth (thanks, Al Gore!) that last year Hamas was democratically chosen over Fatah to lead the Palestinians. Some U.S. allies worry that freezing out Hamas will push it further into the camp of Iran and Syria.

That is surely a possibility, but the march towards peace has at least begun.

Three cheers to you and your State Department, Mr. Bush!

Running into this portrait, I was reminded of why I love Jesus ...

I guess I love Jesus essentially because He first loved me. And God only knows why! I am reminded almost daily of my sins—past, present and likely future, although the past ones that bother me most are very honestly buried very deeply in the past and won’t show their ugly faces to me again—at least not in any lifetime that I am aware of.

I truly believe that God’s wisdom and knowledge is beyond anything I can fathom—and that makes me wonder even more … how in God’s name (excuse that) can He really love me … and love me so much that I simply can’t grasp the depth and breadth of His Love.

Maybe that’s the most important reason I love Jesus: I love Him because he chose to love me—even knowing in advance every single sin—large and small—that I would ever commit. He chose to save me—to die an ugly and painful death for me—nailed to a board or boards that allowed him to bleed and bleed and bleed—and be spat upon and cursed as His head bowed low.

My Lord and my God!

And yet, do I love Him as I ought to? Heavens no! I hear evangelists state their love for Jesus; I hear churchmen of all faiths openly confess (strange word, in this context) that they love Jesus more than they love anything or anyone else. Can I say that? I wish I could, but my daily activities suggest that I really (deep, deep down) love myself more than I love Him, Who died for me. And that makes me love Him even more—although admittedly not enough!

And yes, I love Jesus because He brings unfathomable meaning to all of this, in a strange and sometimes entertaining, maybe even comical—at least mildly amusing at times—way. Watching and listening to Tammy Faye Messner this week on Larry King Live brought this reason for loving Jesus home to me with a crash.

And yes, although I've essentially already stated it, I love Jesus because he’s my best friend—truer than any other and someone who understands the inside—ugly at times and always deficient—me. The real me!

I pray that I can learn—if that’s the right word—to love Him more and more every day.

I'm not even a Catholic anymore, but I have to ask, "Does Jesus want this to drag on and on ... and on?"

I really don't know what more Cardinal Roger Mahoney might have said. The church is obviously sincerely sorry for all of its past abuses and its primary mission--to bring persons to Jesus--must and will go on.

The $660 million that will be divvied up among more than 500 abused persons (roughly $1.4 million each) is admittedly only a fraction of the cost in emotional trauma that each of these men (and women, I believe) have suffered ... but life goes on!

Cardinal Roger Mahoney (shown above) stated rather honestly, I think: "The one thing I wish I could give the victims ... I cannot."

Although I am no longer a Roman Catholic, I truly believe that the church (lower-case "c") has done about all it can. Every one of us has sinned and we all fall far short of God's glory. Personally, I always wonder why God still loves me, but then I read 1 John and forget I even ever asked such a foolish question.

Let's all move on!

Tammy Faye ... gone at 65 ... but she's where she will be loved forever!

The picture of Tammy Faye on the right was from another time when she was a guest on Larry King Live and shows only a shadow of the life and beauty she showed us all this week when she was on Larry King's show one last time.

Her last words to us all on his show on Thursday were, "I'd like to say that I genuinely love you, and I genuinely care, and I genuinely want to see you in heaven someday. I want you to find peace. I want you to find joy."

I honestly don't even remember all of the scandal and whatever that Tammy Faye went through way back when as the PTL show went pffft; I only know that Jesus has taken a marvelous human being into His Kingdom this weekend.

I think it's worth mentioning that she has been known as one of the few evangelical Christians who actually had the support of the gay community. She was certainly one of the first televangelists to reach out to those with AIDS when it was a little-known and much-feared disease. In return, she told Larry King just this month, "When I went -- when we lost everything, it was the gay people that came to my rescue, and I will always love them for that."

She was 65. And doubtless, her "tummy" and back are no longer in such excruciating pain as she described to us only a few nights ago.

Heaven is a lucky place today ... to have some genuine earth-made lemonade. I will be playing that song a time or two to my students when I get back to them after the six-week "class" that I'm currently taking.

They won't complain.

Tammy Faye gave me courage this week ... and millions of others too!

The photo of Tammy Faye Messner (formerly Tammy Faye Bakker) on the left is about as far as I would allow myself to go in showing how she looked on Thursday evening when I watched her interview with Larry King at the foot of my Super 8 Motel bed. Yes, she was even thinner, if that is/was possible, but her demeanor was one of something like I've never seen before. Love her or hate her; consider her a true believing Christian or (as the gay-bashers out there see her) a "queer-loving" non-Christian; she is, in my view, a wonderful and loving example of what Jesus wants from all of us ... just herself!

I was simply amazed by her faith and strength as she spoke to me personally from inside that horrid-looking red dress that exposed her bony chest and emaciated face. It was often very hard for her to even get words to come out of her 65-pound body (up from 60, she said) and then ... to add humor and power that absolutely no one has shown me in recent years. When asked how she wants us to remember her, she joked, "for my eyelashes!"

She doesn't want to know how much time she has left on earth because she doesn't "want a death sentence." She spoke of missing cheeseburgers and yes, she looks forward to having one again, although admitted that she couldn't eat one now ... but in heaven ... all things are possible! She mentioned looking forward to seeing all of us in heaven some day ... and said she looked forward to seeing Billy Graham there and meeting Ruth Graham (who only died a couple of weeks ago) for the first time, from what I understood.

She was herself--make-up and all--and she was radiant. Thank you for the humility to allow your face and body to be seen by us at least one more time as the cancer eats away at your earthly body. I look forward to seeing YOU, Tammy Faye, as an angel in Heaven.

God accept her into your Kingdom!

MRAP is expensive, if nothing else ... let's hope it protects our soldiers!

Well, it looks as though more of the Mine Resistant Armored Protected (MRAP) vehicles will be funded and "on their way" (to Iraq) soon enough to maybe save an American soldier or two. No, the vehicles that are already there are not being used for "standard" missions--the ones being handled by humvees and (God forbid) jeeps--but that might end as soon as 2008, according to the testimony I heard on C-Span this week when I got tired of listening to the speeches in the US Senate related to ending the same war in Iraq.

But, if Congress is unable to stop this God forsaken war in Iraq, at least fewer American boys and girls will have to die in the years and decades ahead as we continue to fatten the coffers of our defense contractors and oil companies.

Just for the sake of providing you with some numbers to remember, there are 18,000 humvees in Iraq and the military has ordered only about one-third that many of the shiny new MRAPs ... as of what I was able to glean from the TV at the foot of my bed in the Super 8 Motel off of Highway 101.

To give you an idea why they are so expensive, note the differences between the Navy version shown above and the one shown below to be used by the Army and US Marines (shown below).

As for me personally, I like the one below--especially for running up and down the beach during the hours that the teenagers seem to be in control here in Ocean Shores--although the one above would doubtless be more helpful in cleaning my back yard in late autumn and early spring.

Was this really necessary? Shame on both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards ... for starters!

Yeesh! And just yesterday, my brother Richard in Connecticut was trying to argue that we really have no heavyweights in the presidential race yet. Maybe he's right! With an open mike picking up Clinton and Edwards conspiring to limit the debates, etc. to only persons of their calibre (whatever that is), the oh-so-early debates and campaign are becoming even more irrelevant.

But whatever, in a Democracy, all of the candidates are at least as relevant as all others ... right, Dennis Kucinich? Right, Ron Paul?

Jesus must certainly be wondering today ...

And I wonder too! What must go on in the minds of religious zealots anyway?

I was returning home from a week of some serious (and depressing) studying relating to my job when I happened to hear over the car radio that three or four "Christian right-wingers" staged something of a noisy demonstration during the opening prayer for the U.S. Senate yesterday. Their rationale (I guess) was the fact that the chaplain who prayed was a Hindu--whose prayer from what I heard on the radio was as non-obtrusive towards Christianity as any prayer might be. They played one short segment of one of the protesters yelling "Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer which is an abomination in your sight."

The background protest (shouting and disturbing) seemed to me to be an insult to Christians everywhere. Actually, the protests were the "abomination"!

But then, what do I, a simple sinner, know?

Pope Benedict XVI announces from the Paul VI Hall that masses may return to being said in Latin ... on Saturdays!

How on earth could my brother Richard in Connecticut have missed this one? The big news item of the week and in words that ring with solemnity and joy around the world, Pope Benedict XVI (left) removed restrictions on celebrating the old form of the Latin Mass on Saturday.

This was done in a manner so as to draw the two "fighting mayors" (Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg) into agreement on at least one issue and yes, as a concession to traditional Catholics ... but he stressed that he was in no way rolling back the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. If you want to hear the Mass in Latin, you will have to go to the Temple on Saturday just as (I assume) Jesus did--or did Jesus go on Friday as do the Muslims? In any event, the announcement made no mention of exactly which language of the times was used by Jesus of Nazareth when he celebrated Mass ... or whether His Masses were High Masses or Ordinary (low) Masses.

And that's that, Richard! (and a Pax Vobiscum to you all! That's permissable since today is Saturday in the U.S.)

Now, that's what I call news!

[Oh yes, my direct response to the Pope? It's simply, "te audire no possum, musa sapienum fixa est in aura" !!! Use Wikipedia's Latin Phrase Dictionary.]

My Humble Abode in Ocean Shores, Washington

It seems only reasonable that I poke a picture of my home your way. It actually looks much newer when I park my new 2007 Honda Civic on the driveway on the right. The loft that has been the home to at least three "homeless" persons whom I've run into during my trotting about the area is behind the porch upstairs. The "construction" in the back (added room) can't be seen from this view. The raccoon (the other "Richard") lives under the downstairs front porch.

It's nice and relatively private.

I'll try to get some good pics of the remaining cats (you may recall that Sweetheart and Furface passed last summer) when I have a visitor with a digital camera come by--probably my UFO buddy at UFOs Northwest.

He's planning to move to Ocean Shores this summer, which will be great ... for me!

Move aside, Paris Hilton! Move aside, Iraq! Move aside Dick Cheney's (or whomever's) impeachment proceedings! It's the State of Washington's turn!!!

Boeing's brand spanking new Dreamliner 787 !!!

This is what we folks from the Upper Northwest have secretly been working on for the past several years--indeed, my former loft-mate, Bill McClenahan, left my humble abode to assist in the development of the interior of this fabulous new airplane more than a year ago.

Just a couple of statistics to wow you: It will be largely built of composite materials--the first major construction material change since the airline industry went from wood to metal at ... well we all remember Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose, don't we? [See the Aviator when you get a chance!] That was more than a half century ago.

Its new Rolls Royce engines are 10% more efficient and its weight, etc. will allow it to bypass most "stopovers" -- one of the serious shortcomings of air travel.

Sorry, Osama, but we are returning to the skies in CLASS!!! Rollout is tomorrow at the Everett, Washington plant.

Three cheers for Free Enterprise, America and the real 21st Century!

The Shroud of Turin worked for quite a long while ... maybe it will work for the Congressional Republcans too!

It may be a little too little and a little too late … but my brother Richard pointed out to me on the phone tonight that it just might be that a number of Republicans have found that elusive shroud beneath which they might wrap their three years of support for a war whose only purpose has been to reward the western oil companies, enrich the military contractors—both in Iraq and at home—and divert the American public’s attention from our “failure” to catch Osama bin Forgotten—an old Bush family friend, among other things.

The Shroud? It’s simply a bill introduced one month and one day ago in the US Senate (called S 1545) that would implement the 79 recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. The House of Representatives is putting together a similar bill. That Iraq Study Group was the high-level study group co-chaired by former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III and former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Lee H. Hamilton. The beauty of this approach is that it gives the Republicans in both the House and the Senate a chance to support a rational approach to the “Iraq problem” without it looking too much like they are disagreeing with their “boss,” so to speak, … in the months prior to having to campaign under the Republican banner.

Both Bloomberg's website and govtrack's website have posted excellent summaries of the bill and this possible Republican strategy.

The Shroud of Turin worked for eons, it seems; thus, just maybe ... this later cover (in the form of Congressional legislation) will help to draw down the terrible War in Iraq while allowing the Congressional Republicans to support the draw down with their right hand while the left applauds George W. Bush’s efforts to keep the Sunnis, Shia and Kurds from annihilating one another … at the cost of yet more American servicemen and women.

It would still likely drag on through the first quarter of 2008, but it is a start, at least.

Every death has a face and a name ...

Father John Whiteford posted this photo way back in 2005 on his own Blogspot Blogging site in commemoration, so to speak, of the 2000th U.S. GI to have died in this ill-begotten war (at that time). His arguments at that time were largely in support of the war and he even suggested that pulling out now (when he wrote the posting back then) would have been equivalent to pulling out of WW II at the time of the Battle of the Bulge during which the U.S. forces had lost 16,000. [To see his posting, you will have to go first to his site and then link to his archives for October 2005.]

It's not the numbers that grate on most Americans, Father John; it's each and every one of the youngsters who are dying daily ... and for what? Your picture of the cemetery at Normandy with crosses showing no names or other identification is very appropriate, I believe. What family wants to be a family that gives even one son or daughter to a war that will be "winding down" as of, say, September or so?

The following figures were cut and pasted from Father Whiteford's posting ... not to put today's count (somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000) in Iraq in perspective, but to broaden our scope as to the brutality of all wars:

[quote from Father John's site]
The following figures do not include the wounded or the missing:

The Battle of Stalingrad: 1,100,000 Soviets Killed -- 800,000 Axis Killed

Battle of Berlin: 50,000 Soviets Killed -- 90,000 Germans Killed

The Rape of Nanking: 300,000 Chinese killed

The D-Day Invasion: 37,000 Allies Killed -- at least 78,000 Germans Killed

The Battle of the Bulge: 16,000 Americans Killed -- 19,000 Germans Killed

The Battle of Okinawa: 12,000 Americans Killed -- 100,000 Japanese Killed

The Battle of Iwo Jima: 6,800 Americans killed -- 21,000 Japanese Killed

The Battle of Anzio: 4,400 Allies killed -- 5,500 Germans Killed

The Bataan Death March: 10,000 Americans Killed
[unquote]

And no, not a single connection between the U.S. deaths in Iraq and the 3,000 or so who died on 9-11 has yet to be made and, in fact, has even been denied by our own President since Father John's posting.

Me thinks you should not be looking for splinters in others' eyes, Mr. "Plank-in-the-Eye"!

Although you were likely 100% correct in pointing out that the outing of Valerie Plame is surely an activity of the Fourth Branch of the US Government (the Office of Vice president), you should also probably not even peep one decibel above a whisper as regards Mr. Bush's decision to commute Mr. Libby's sentence.

Mr. Libby didn't leak Valerie Plame's name to the press -- and probably wasn't even aware that it had been leaked when it was first leaked. He simply followed orders and, like any good little Nazi, deserves a lesser punishment than the folks in his line of command who were responsible. Your own plethora of pardons make you probably one of the least credible voices calling Mr. Bush's actions re. Libby's sentence commutation inappropriate.

Stick to the positive issues surrounding your wife's run for your old desk.

My brother Richard in Connecticut suggests I celebrate the Fourth by exposing the (un) Fairness Doctrine for what it really is ...

There are surely many reasons to oppose the (un)Fairness Doctrine, but the most important reason of all is that it's un-American. The so-called Fairness Doctrine is all about government mandated censorship. If a conservative radio station is forced by the government to give air time to a liberal show then clearly some other show will not be heard. As a died-in-the-wool liberal, I don't like that kind of law any more than I like to listen to Sean Hannity's and Rush Limbaugh's shows very often.

Hey, Nancy Pelosi and Dennis Kucinich -- I have an Independence day message for you both: I don't like Rush Limbaugh either -- but it's the Free Market that dictates what is aired on the radio and not some Government bureaucracy such as they had in the Soviet Union for most of my lifetime.

Happy Fourth to you All!

Yeh, they had an "unfairness doctrine" of sorts for decades ...

Yes, yes, yes! We need a walled border around our country NOW!!

Without a doubt, we should be striving with everything we can muster to wall-in our beloved United States of America. Not only would we be able to keep the three wise men out (leaving us with naught but the undiluted and pure GWBibberish to guide us), but we would surely be able to maintain a brown-white ratio among our huddled masses that is consistent with Judeo-Christian Principles--whatever the hell they are!

And should we wish to allow history to be our teacher ... just exactly which part of the wall shown below kept the Japanese out of China back in the 1930s and 1940s?

A Christ-like act ... George W. Bush commutes Scooter Libby's jail sentence.

Mr. Bush surely did the right thing in commuting the jail sentence given to Scooter Libby (photo shown) for lying to a grand jury. The sentence was probably a little excessive and besides, we all know who was behind the entire Plame affair and the subsequent 'Plame Game' that ensued.

We can't undo the invasion of Iraq that resulted and we surely can't put the Vice President in jail, so why not just let the past be the past and get on with living ... from where we are today.

But whatever, Mr. Libby will not go to jail simply for defending his boss (he was, after all, Mr. Cheney's Chief of Staff) and supporting his party's interests in the Middle Eastern oil reserves.

Bush advising Bush ... it's long overdue. Thanks, George H. W. Bush -- one of the greatest in U.S. history, IMHO!

I had the distinct pleasure of serving as a senior scientist for the USAF and then the Political Advisor to the Royal Saudi Air Force during the time that Mr. George H. W. Bush (above right) was leading the country much in the manner of Steady Eddie (to quote ABC News). Walls were falling in Berlin and the then leader of what was called the Soviet Union (remember it?) was under great pressure to stop the Soviet Republics from abandoning the S.U.

Mikhail Gorbachev was not too unlike the present President of Russia (no more S. U.), Vladimir Putin, but now it is George H. W. Bush's son, George W. Bush, who will be sitting with the Russian President during these new and (still) dangerous times.

But wait! Who is it that George W. is finally chatting with before (rather than after as he has so often during his presidency) these important meetings? That's right, he's sitting and listening, I believe, to "Steady Eddie," who guided America through what could have been the most dangerous period in our history.

I remember talking with some of the most senior Princes in Saudi Arabia just after George H. W. Bush turned our troops back from chasing Saddam Hussein back to Baghdad and into the Sunni Triangle. Without an exception, they all felt as though Mr. Bush (the Senior) grasped "history" as no previous President, with the possible exception of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

President Bush: Take advantage of the accident of birth to listen, listen, listen during the times you spend with your father!