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Duncan notes that it is back up to where it was in June, 2001. That means that your investment has taken 4½ years to come out of the “red”.

Of course, that doesn’t include what you have paid in management fees or the value lost to inflation. You would have been ahead stuffing the money in your mattress, but not as well off as putting it in a passbook savings account at your local bank.

The Shrubbery’s running joke about tax cuts for the wealthy encouraging investment and creating jobs sure is getting old.

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CNN has an article on Dana Rohrabacher’s reaction to Jack Abramoff’s situation.

The problem is that if I tore into Rohrabacher, like I really want to do, in the back of my mind I would hear my Mother lecturing me about not making fun of people who are “slower” than the rest of us.

On the other hand I have worked with “slower” people for decades, because, frankly, ARC provides some of the best work for your dollar when you use their services. Rohrabacher doesn’t measure up to the standards of ARC.

Is this something that afflicts everyone who worked as a speechwriter for the Reagan White House, this disconnect from reality? To say that Abramoff is a good person who made some mistakes – the man pled guilty to multiple felonies for crying out loud, what does it take to get listed as a “bad person”, other than being a Democrat?

[I have to stop. “My Mother’s voice” is using my middle name, always a bad sign.]

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The media is shocked at the notion that Native Americans might give political contributions to anyone without the direction of Jack Abramoff. After all why would the Lakota people give money to Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan of North DAKOTA, who sits on the INDIAN AFFAIRS committee?

I cannot independently verify that the Shrubbery is hitting kittens with a hammer. That is almost as absurd as having an Attorney General who thinks calico cats are cursed, or a major leader “adopting” cats from an animal shelter to cut them up. Next they’ll be telling us that the government is tapping everyone’s phone…

Writer and entertainer Adam Felbers felt obliged to point out that not “everyone” believed in the “conventional wisdom” prior to the invasion of Iraq.

It does make one pause when you realize that a comedy writer has had more success at understanding the foreign policy situation and predicting the future than the current government.

Given that the most trusted “news program” is on Comedy Central, perhaps we should give up on think tanks and universities and start hiring the National Security Council from the ranks of stand-up comics.

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