Tuesday, January 17, 2006

A few things to chew on

It's been a while since I posted here.

Happy belated New Year!

2006 A.D. promises to be a real humdinger.

Apologies for my extended absence, but that is bound to happen from time to time.

Often, by the time I learn enough about a subject (particularly current events) to feel competent writing about it, I'm usually sick of hearing about it.

Besides, sometimes I just need a break.

I've begun and discarded a few tidbits which would otherwise have been electronically transmitted and digitally displayed for the enjoyment of the iris of your eye, and assuming you've got your head right (and I've got mine), your cerebrum and your cerebellum. Hmm... Iris, Osiris. Wonder if there's a linguistic connection....

Anyhow, I don't have anything complete for my humble audience to devour, but I did want to make a few notes related to some writings I've been working on.

1) The United States is approaching its debt ceiling of $8.2 TRILLION DOLLARS and must raise the debt limit in order to continue government operations, according to treasury secretary John Snow.

More on this in coming weeks.

2 The word "terrorism" is being applied in outrageous circumstances these days and the linguistic matrix is tightening its grasp on the mind. There are some examples in current events, but I need not reach that far. A friend of mine was charged with terrorism a few years ago for lighting off bottle rockets.

I am not kidding.

Bottle rockets are quite different from dirty bombs, and it doesn't take a nuclear physicist to see we are nearing the bottom of a slippery slope when we equate the two.

This line of thought will be explored in the future, if I'm not carted away as an "enemy combatant."

3)Iraq and Iran. There comes a time when every freethinking American must ask, are (the large majority of) our representatives naive and ignorant, or crazy and cunning?

I hear Deomcratic Senators and Representatives say of Iraq: "If I knew then what I know now, I would have (insert self-serving authoritative action which ocurred only in what-if world)." [such as, "voted against it"]

My first response was: Even a lowly peon such as I could tell the then-pending Iraq War was a sham back in 2002, why the hell couldn't a few Senators?

Of course, the question is rhetorical. A few understood and voted against, and many understood and voted for, giving Bush constitutionally-questionable "war powers" without ever declaring war, as the Constitution requires.

I've still got money on Iran as the newest named enemy. But whatever happens in the next months, I doubt we'll end up sharing milk and cookies with the Ayatollah.

4)2008 Presidential Election

I know there's an election or two before then, but the subject has been all the rage ever since the 2004 election. I just want to get on the record now with my hypothesis, not prediction, that we are being set up for of Hilary v. Condi, 2008.

I couldn't vote for either. More on that in coming years.


5)Jack Abramoff.

I don't have much to say about him, but he can't be forgotten. He will be the key to either weeding some deep corruption out of Congress OR pretending to weed deep corruption out of Congress while it becomes further entrenched.

6)NSA Spying

I can't avoid this subject, as much as I would like to. I think it is a red herring (DISTRACTION). If Bush is spying on "known terrorists" as he claims, it is hard to reasonably argue against spying on a "terrorist," if you mean the dirty bomb kind and not the bottle rocket kind.

But A) I don't trust that is the case.

And B) Warrants can be easily obtained and rubber-stamped to make such spying legitimate, but that process appears to have been circumvented.

Which begs the question, why didn't the President of the United States of America get easily obtainable warrants approved to spy on "known terrorists?"

I'll let you formulate your own answers to that question.

And it's late, so that's enough for now.

Come back soon.

-Mentalgongfu
J.A.H.

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