(April 23, 2005)

To start with, there are just a few issues of note this week:

On Tuesday the 19th at Let's Talk About Democracy I posted a story about the Senate Foreign Relations committee dalaying a vote on John Bolton to be the new U.N. ambassador until next month. There was just too many alligations of his "serial abuse" going around for even some republican senators. I also inlcuded a link to a Der Spiegel article which dealt with the many problematic nominations Bush has sent to congress so far.

Besides Bolton, Stephen L. Johnson the nominee to head the EPA is a real winner. Barbara Boxer and Bill Nelson of Florida ( Total bonehead.) had threatened to delay the vote if he didn't promise to eliminate a program called Cheers, for Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, which paid mainly poor Florida black families to take money to expose their children to pesticides. Democratic Sen. Thomas Carper threatened to put the nomination on "hold," on the 14th.

On the 20th I updated a story I've been watching closly on the Madain hostage taking in Iraq. It turns out about 70 bodies have appeared floating in the Tigris, which are presumed to be those of the hostages. Although, I read in the WaPo yesterday there was some question as to whether all the corpses were from this one incident or maybe some of them had been weighted down earlier on and were just coming up now that it was getting warmer. Now, isn't tha plesant. This is what is going on over there, but you usually don't get that sort of graphic description of it from the media here in the U.S.

On the 21st came the news that Iyad Allawi narrowly avoiding get himself assasinated on his way home. He has predicted back in Feburary the insurgeny would be ended within months. The new governemnt isn't even formed yet, two months later, but the insurgents are surging again. There have been more car bombings than anyone can count and a civilian helicopter was downed killing 11 including 6 American contrators. The same day, the senate approved $592 million to build a massive embassy in Baghdad and the next day they signed off on a billion more for the war. We're not getting out of there anytime soon. Never mind all the permanate bases we're building.

On the 23rd the New York Times reported "Leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee have urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to seek a formal invitation from the new Iraqi government for American troops to remain until domestic security forces are capable of fully defending their country." What a crock! Are these guys kidding?

April 22nd was the 5th anniversary of the Baby (Jesus) Elian being taken away from his crazy family in Miami by the Feds. I wrote a pretty bitter tirade against the Cubans in Miami and the whole stupid deal. I'm not saying all Cubans are bad, but the those who were involved with the political pandering and the rioting and the roadblocking and all the other crap that went on during that entire embarrassing episode are trully despicable.

One good thing that did come out of the whole mess was the clipping of the Cuban American National Foundation's wings in Washington. Politians started running for the hills when they saw the polls on American's views of what was going on down there. The farm states are also a big counterweight to the Cuban lobby these days as well. There's too much money to be made seeling food to Fidel!

At Non Sum Dignus on 20th , I had a big beef with NPR again. I posted a very stern letter I sent to All Things Considered, which even as we speak is probably being deleted. Linda Wertheimer did this sappy piece on Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn and his push to change senate ethics rules to allow him to keep practicing medicine. Seems those crazy ethics rules bar members making money on the side while they're supposed to be working for theie constituents. How unfair!

Wertheimer's report was about 10 minutes long and it basically consisted of asking his patients and home town friends whether he should keep working or not. What never got mentioned was his little problem with sterilizing underage girls to keep them from having more babies. He actually sterilized on girl and never told her. So much for "parental consent," or patient consent for that matter. I should think if you're going to do a story on a doctor trying to keep praticing you might mention something about his record as a physitian.

Well, no one can ever accuse NPR of "liberal Bias" any more. (Or providing excellent journalism either, for that matter.) My God, they have reallly gone off the deep end. Now that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is run by a bunch of right wing idealogues, most NPR programming is so slanted to the crazy frige there realy isn't any point to listening these days. If I want that kind of crap I'll just go to FOX. Even Pacifica Radio is starting to sound mainstream in comparison!!!

One other thing; if you are into political satire "The President's Intern" is ome of the best I've seem in a while. I don't know who this person is, but they are brilliant!

So much for this week. It'll get better. Maybe.