Category — Uncategorized

If you work at a pretty good job you are expected to show up for work. While there are 260 workdays a year, at a good job you will get 10 days of vacation and 10 paid holidays, reducing the number to 240 days on the job. This session of the 109^th Congress is barely going to make it into triple digits. Under the Republicans Congress has become a part-time job.

The only thing Congress is really required to do every year is to pass a budget before October 1^st, but this Congress still hasn’t done it, and according to Ellroon at Rants from the Rookery it is set to leave the job for the next Congress.

Is it any wonder the voters fired them?

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A group of Islamic scholars were traveling home after a conference and the sun was setting while they were waiting to board their US Air flight, so they said their evening prayers.

CBS News reports: 6 Muslim Imams Removed From Plane.

There is certainly nothing more suspicious than people praying before getting on an airplane, right? It’s not like you’d see a group of nuns traveling together fingering their rosaries in the boarding area?

CBS has comments on some of its article and this was the first item I saw:

mickeyjay31

If you border a plane in Saudi Arabia, you better not have a bible, bottle or playboy, as you will go to jail, as all 3 are illegal, make sure your wife walks 3 steps behind you, she is completely covered, as that is the law there. You know they still stone people to death and behead them in Saudi Arabia. Staged and the media bought it hook line and sinker.
Posted by mjv2944 at 11:43 AM : Nov 21, 2006

Sorry, Mickey, but you definitely are able to take a Bible to Saudi Arabia; you can’t buy liquor in Santa Rosa County, Florida; nor can you buy Playboy in a lot of places in the US. You can’t hold a Christian religious service in Saudi Arabia, anymore than you can hold an Islamic service in the Vatican, and for the same reason.

Have you seen the Southern Baptist recommendations for wives, Mickey?

As for stoning, it’s in the Bible, while beheading has a very long history behind it. I don’t see a lot of difference between those practices and hanging or lethal injection. In the end the condemned are dead.

If the laws of Saudi Arabia bother you, Mickey, maybe you should be working to ensure that religion and state stay separate in the US, instead of worrying about other countries.

A lot of people have discussed the draft issue, actually Minou of French Tidbits started me thinking about it in comments on an earlier post, and after I wrote about Rangel, I noticed that Mustang Bobby also covered it at Bark Bark Woof Woof.

I was going to write a post on my personal vision of a new draft, but Michael of Musing’s musings wrote Nice that they finally noticed, which is essentially my view.

National service, not just military service, and make it universal without all of the exemptions of the old system.

The gang at Crooks and Liars have Keith Olbermann’s latest special comment: Educating Bush on Vietnam. This time “Sir” translates as “you sniveling little twit.”

Liz at Blonde Sense has The Importance of Teaching Civics in Schools, featuring Richard Dreyfuss on Bill Maher’s show.

The Richard Dreyfuss piece is really vital. We are losing democracy by not teaching civics to American students. Listen and then think about it. The man is speaking truth.

Apparently the media hasn’t bothered to cover the Congress for the last three years, because, like clockwork, every year Charlie Rangel of New York puts forth a bill to re-start the draft. When I read silliness like CNN’s Top Democrat: Bring back the draft, I want to scream at the ADHD middle schools students that constitute the news media to turn off the cartoons and start paying attention to the real world.

Charlie Rangel is personally convinced that there would be fewer wars if the children and grandchildren of the people in charge stood a good chance of fighting the wars they vote for. He thinks that the sacrifice should be shared by all of society, not just the predominantly rural/urban mix in the “all-volunteer” military.

When the military is told to kill and die, while the civilians are told to shop, it’s obvious that the sacrifices are not being equitably shared by all of society.

This is a variation of argument that took place during the founding of the United States. There was a great deal of suspicion regarding a standing army. The founders were more comfortable with local militias responding in defense of the nation, rather than having a professional military. This is why the power to declare war resides in Congress, and defense funding bills may not extend beyond two years.

Well, I went out last night because of the promise of the Leonid meteor shower, and while the sky was clear after the cold front moved through, I had absolutely no sightings and was chilled through and through.

I doing a re-hab on a house for a friend, which is a change from sitting at a desk beating on a keyboard, but when you start by hauling off 6080 pounds of junk, the job is not the touch-up the trim and repair a few electrical problems that was mentioned.

One of the pieces hauled off was the tank that belonged on one of the toilets in the house, so it’s time to install a new toilet.

The nail holes are nothing compared to the fist holes in the walls indicating someone among the former tenants had major anger management issues.

If I wasn’t ready for some physical labor I would have begged off, but I don’t see the December 1st “available to rent” date as realistic, too many things would have to go right for that to happen.

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When it comes to adolescents many of the “primitive” societies have a much better system than Western “civilization.” There is usually some task set for children at about age 13 that carries a certain level of risk. If the individual successfully completes the task, they are accepted as an adult.

Lacking a traditional structure for this rite, middle school and high school students devise their own systems for determining who should be accepted into the “tribe.” And who should be rejected.

Bullying in one form or another is a feature of the American version of this rite, and it has resulted in major incidents of physical and psychological violence. While the damage to the victims of physical violence is obvious, one of the less visible effects is that some of the victims become media pundits who have never grown up and are still attempting to be accepted as adults.

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Just to prove they really don’t understand what happened to them, House Republicans have voted to “stay the course” by re-electing their losing leadership, minus Dennis Hastert. Of course the fact that Boehner and Blunt were primarily challenged by ideologues even more right-wing, shows the Reptilicons have been listening to pundits instead of voters.

Everyone seems to believe that it’s time for James Carville to go away and hide somewhere or find real work behind a counter at a Tom Thumb [7-11 if you are outside of the South], something he might be qualified for with enough training.

You should always stop by Jams’ place [Poor Mouth], especially for cat blogging because he has the most interesting comments around.

Terry at Nitpicker notes that while the wingers might want to help John Bolton out, if the nasty old Senate won’t give him his job, giving him the proceeds from bake sales and blegging is actually illegal.

Finally, Phinky of Ignorant Hussy is on a three-month hiatus due to a job that is taking her to “the sandbox”. Good thoughts for her wouldn’t go amiss.

Continuing their shift into a regional minority party the Dixicons in the Senate have brought back Trent Lott of Mississippi to be Minority whip, he beat out Lamar Alexander of Tennessee by one vote. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky became Minority leader replacing William Frist of Tennessee. The other members of the leadership team will be Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, John Cornyn of Texas and John Ensign of Nevada. Two Westerners well down the list to provide balance?

Senator Mel Martinez of Florida is the head of the National Committee because, apparently, no one else wanted the job and Mel always does what he’s told.

Wikipedia already has their 2008 Presidential election site up and working.

Below the fold is a listing of all of the people who have either talked about running, are running, or people want to run for President, without the usual group of people who run every time to get a seat in the conventions. Within their groups they ordered by my subjective opinion on “popularity,” so don’t assume any great significance.

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The problem of nominating Hillary Clinton in 2008 is that some people hate her. There is no real reason to hate her, but some people just begin foaming at the mouth when her name is mentioned. There’s nothing she can do about it, because she doesn’t deserve the hate.

Strong negative feelings are really difficult to get around, and when they are irrational, it can be dangerous to try. The attacks started when she was First Lady and have never stopped. It makes no sense, because she was a victim in the Whitewater deal, losing money, and she was the aggrieved party in “Monicagate”. She is a DLC centrist Senator if you look at her record. Other than a few key positions on choice and gay rights she votes to the right of most Democrats.

She is in the unfortunate position of being an icon for the Right of everything they hate about liberals, even though she is definitely not a classic liberal. She is so careful to avoid conflicts that I view her as a timid Senator, waiting for a consensus to form before she will take a position.

While I have great personal sympathy for what she has had to put with since 1992, I can’t support her for the 2008 nomination because I can’t see her fighting for people. She strikes me as passive, and I’m beyond the point that I want a passive President – there is too much that needs to be undone following the disaster that is the Shrubbery.

I’m mired in a project that is taking up all of my time so I will not be doing a lot of posting or commenting until it’s done.  Throw in Thanksgiving and visiting family and time is further reduced.

In 1890 the Punch cartoonist, painter, and book illustrator, Sir John Tenniel, drew a cartoon, titled Dropping the Pilot, that had Kaiser Wilhelm II putting German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck “ashore” so he could personally take “the helm” of the German Empire that was created by the hard work of Bismarck.

In 1945 Daniel Bishop used a variation to depict Winston Churchill losing the election.

PZ Myers at Pharyngula has up a modern variant by Steve Bell, with the Shrubbery as the Kaiser, Rummy as the Chancellor, and the entire “ship of state” lying on the bottom.

Very nice snark, that will probably appeal generally to history geeks who are aware of the earlier cartoons.