I’m not sure why, but this image keeps haunting me. Doesn’t help that there’s a globe in the background that looks like top-secret plans for the Death Star. And the photo was taken in 1975!
Category Archives: Government
a small measure of privacy
Getting a new passport in 2007? I will be, and the first thing I’ll do after getting it is “sit on it wrong”. With a hammer. Why? Because the old-fashioned printed-on-paper part of it is just as useful as a 2006 passport, which people will need to be able to deal with until 2016 at least. That gives them 9 more years to work out any kinks in the system.
it’s time for this war to end
I was originally going to write another post about the cost of the ongoing occupation of Iraq, but two people far more important than I am have written things you should read instead.
First, bask in the calm brilliance that is Keith Olbermann’s response to the president’s recent comments on Vietnam. If you didn’t catch it, Mr. Bush went to Vietnam and told the American public the lesson he thinks he’s learned from that long, bloody mess: “We’ll succeed unless we quit.” (No, I’m not making this up.)
Second, take part in what might prove to be the antidote to such bloody-minded idiocy. Senator Barbara Boxer has created an online petition calling for the president to begin redeploying U.S. troops out of Iraq now. (Emphasis hers.) I usually advise against Internet petitions because they don’t have any teeth, but this one is different. It’s being sponsored by an official representative with some real power (especially now), so it has at least some chance of being heard. There’s more information in her press release about the petition, which makes some compelling arguments itself.
So read Keith to get fired up, then go do something about it.
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?!?
Just in case you had any misconceptions about where this country is headed. This site is called The Project for the Old American Century — created in response to The Project for the New American Century. Not that the ol’ American century was that great, but it’s better than the alternative “new” one.
Olbermann shines again
Once again, Keith Olbermann gets right to the point and says it in a way I never could:
At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial — barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field — Mr. Lincoln said, “we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”
Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.
Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. “We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground.” So we won’t.
Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they’re doing instead of doing any job at all.
You must, must, must read the rest of his post. And let’s hope others do, too.