A nice break from bad news

I've been off on vacation this week which might explain the lapse in posting. It's a good thing too. It's been a really awful week as far as news events to blog about. I would have had nothing good to say all week.

First Bush appoints fanatical U.N. basher John Bolton to be our new envoy to that very same body. If Bush really wants to pull the U.S. out of the U.N. like so many of his far-right supporters then he should just go ahead and do so and drop this charade. If Bush had even a quarter of the diplomatic skills of his father he would know that you lure more flies with honey than with vinegar. If he really wants to influence and change the direction of the U.N. it would have been smart to put someone in there who could gain the trust of the other delegates rather than someone who is going to insult them and further isolate us from everyone else.
Appointing Bolton to the U.N. post is like appointing a pacifist to be Secretary of Defense. When Republicans don't like a particular government entity, rather than just shuting it down they appoint people who are diametrically opposed to everything it is supposed to be doing - like Reagan appointing James Watt to be Secretary of Interior (the guy who saw no need in preserving our national parks and wilderness because Jesus' Second Coming was just around the corner and the world was about to end anyway).

Second, was Bush's nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank. Wolfowitz is one of the neo-con architects of the $300-plus billion Iraqi Quagmire. I guess this is his payback since everyone else has already gotten a promotion or a medal.

Then there was the Senate vote to open the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. They finally got this atrocity passed by cheating and attaching it to a spending bill which can't be filibustered. P.M. Bryant has more on this issue here.

Meanwhile, back at home our state legislators in Austin are continuing to push our inadequate state financing system further over the cliff - making it even more regressive and unstable.