Ronald Reagan dies

Former President Reagan died today at age 93.

I was in high school when Ronald Reagan was shot shortly after being elected president. It was one of those startling moments that shake you out of your day-to-day existence and force you to pay attention to the rest of the world. I remember the detailed diagrams in TIME magazine showing the path and trajectory of each bullet and where all the wounded people - Reagan, James Brady, the Secret Service agent and the police officer - were all standing. I remember thinking that Reagan could still die even though he survived the initial shooting and wondering what that would mean.

My family was pretty much apolitical when I was growing up. I used to tell my parents who they should vote for before I was old enough to vote myself. (I don't know if they actually took my advice.) In 1980, I told them to vote for Jimmy Carter, probably because he was the incumbent who I was familiar with. But by 1984, the first presidential election I was old enough to vote in, I had been completely won over by Reagan. I had a picture of Reagan and campaign bumper stickers in my dorm room at Texas A&M. I used to clip out cartoons that lauded Reagan and lampooned poor Walter Mondale. I couldn't understand why anybody would vote for Mondale over Reagan.

The landslide that year for Reagan meant I was pretty much in tune with the rest of the country. But during his second term a number of things happened that gave me second thoughts. I read a biography of Martin Luther King Jr. I became facinated by the Kennedy assassination conspiracy and became convinced that a shadowy right-wing cabal had gotten away with the murder of the century. And then the Iran-Contra scandal hit the news. At first I was willing to give Reagan the benefit of the doubt. I still liked Reagan and hadn't shifted my allegiance at that point. But I remember him coming on television shortly after the news of the scandal first broke and explaining that the arms that had been shipped to Iran were just a tiny shipment that could all fit on one airplane. It seemed reasonable to me, no big deal, no harm done. But then I found out that was not really the case. The arms sent to Iran were much more substantial than what Reagan had claimed. Was he lying? Was he misinformed? Either way my confidence in Reagan was shattered and I began to have a lot of second thoughts about my politics.
By 1988, I had done a complete turnaround and was supporting Dukakis for president (after voting for Jesse Jackson in the primary).

However, I still liked Reagan. He was just hard to dislike. He was so full of optimism and pride in America that he had become an icon for our country, not just for conservatives, but for everyone. Today I think Reagan was a great leader for our country who, unfortunately had some wrong-headed ideas that took us in bad directions, but for the most part his impact on the country was positive. He did leave us with a huge national debt, but he also helped to make the country stronger - in spirit if not materially.

By direct contrast, George W. Bush has made our country weaker. He has presided over a deep recession and a long jobless recovery and he has led us into a tar pit in the Middle East that has aggravated our friends and enemies alike. In many ways, Bush is the Republican version of Jimmy Carter. What the Democrats need - and I'm hoping John Kerry can be - is a Democratic version of Ronald Reagan. We need to restore our faith and pride in our country and repair our tarnished image around the globe. Rather than an aggressor nation that bullys smaller countries and conducts pre-emptive invasions, and then abuses foreign prisoners, we should be the "good guys" who are there to help and lead through example. If the Democrats can take those positive aspects of Reagan and apply them to good government policies, I think they will retake the White House for the next eight years.

From Bush - “Unprecedented Negativity”

From the Washington Post...

“Scholars and political strategists say the ferocious Bush assault on Kerry this spring has been extraordinary, both for the volume of attacks and for the liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts. Though stretching the truth is hardly new in a political campaign, they say the volume of negative charges is unprecedented -- both in speeches and in advertising...

“...Scott Reed, who ran Robert J. Dole's presidential campaign that year, said the Bush campaign has little choice but to deliver a constant stream of such negative charges. With low poll numbers and a volatile situation in Iraq, Bush has more hope of tarnishing Kerry's image than promoting his own.”

Bush is currently running a nasty, negative campaign because he has nothing positive to run on - absolutely nothing. The economy has been lousy for his entire presidency, he is the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss of jobs, he squandered the surplus on tax cuts for the rich which have failed to revive the economy and the Iraq war is without a doubt a complete and utter debacle.

Why would anyone want four more years of this?

You tell 'em, Al!

Al Gore's speech the other day at New York University was the kind of no nonsense rhetoric that I would like to hear more of from Democrats in the coming months.

“From its earliest days in power, this administration sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had guided America since the end of World War II. The long successful strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of "preemption." And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush's team is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat - and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President...

“President Bush said in his speech Monday night that the war in Iraq is "the central front in the war on terror." It's not the central front in the war on terror, but it has unfortunately become the central recruiting office for terrorists. The unpleasant truth is that President Bush's utter incompetence has made the world a far more dangerous place and dramatically increased the threat of terrorism against the United States.”

I imagine this is just a taste of the kind of address Gore will be giving at the Democratic Convention this summer.

Apparently unable to rebut the substance of the speech, The Republican National Committee has tried to dismiss Gore's criticism by attacking MoveOn.org, the group that sponsored his speech. In a statement, the RNC opined that Gore’s credibility was undermined by his association with MoveOn.org. However, I would respond that the RNC’s credibility is greatly diminished by its association with George W. Bush.

A favorite tactic of the Republican spin machine recently has been to spread the lie that MoveOn.org sponsored ads comparing George W. Bush to Hitler. What actually happened was that the group sponsored a contest to find the best ads critical of the Bush administration and out of 150 submissions there were two that had made the Hitler analogy. These ads were rejected and were never used by the MoveOn.org. The organization addresses this smear here, not that it will make any difference to the lying liars who continue to spin this tale.

Campaigning on failures

I guess when you have nothing but failures to show for your four years in office you have to make the best of them. In this New York Times story from yesterday, the Bush administration is sending its minions out to campaign by touting programs that Bush tried to cutback or eliminate:

- Justice Department officials recently announced that they were awarding $47 million to scores of local law enforcement agencies for the hiring of police officers. Mr. Bush had just proposed cutting the budget for the program, known as Community Oriented Policing Services, by 87 percent, to $97 million next year, from $756 million.

- Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, announced recently that the administration was awarding $11.7 million in grants to help 30 states plan and provide coverage for people without health insurance. Mr. Bush had proposed ending the program in each of the last three years.

- The administration also announced recently that it was providing $11.6 million to the states so they could buy defibrillators to save the lives of heart attack victims. But Mr. Bush had proposed cutting the budget for such devices by 82 percent, to $2 million from $10.9 million.

In each case, the additional spending that is being touted represents a failure by the Bush administration to curtail or end a program that it was opposed to. They were unable to accomplish these cutbacks even with total Republican domination of all branches of the federal government. That is what I would call incompetent. Bush can’t even even lead within his own party, much less so on the world stage.

That brings us to another recent news story where the U.S. Faces Growing Fears of Failure in Iraq.

This really should not be a surprise to anyone who has followed Bush’s career over the years. He almost always fails in his various ventures and then sits back and waits for his daddy’s wealthy friends to come and bail him out. I’m just not sure who is supposed to bail us out this time, other than the U.S. taxpayers, of course, who get stuck with another $25 billion for Bush’s Iraqi Quagmire.

"357 Channels and Nothing On"

It looks like I might still have a few programming options on next season’s television schedule - but not many.
The number of shows that I watch regularly has been slowly dwindling and the shift away from quality television programming to cheap, brainless “reality” shows means I will have that much more free time in the evenings.

With the series finales of “Friends” and “Frasier” now past and the finale of “Angel,” the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” spinoff, later tonight one might think the networks would be scrambling to come out with some worthy replacement shows. But on first glance at the new fall schedules being announced this week, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Other than the “Friends” spinoff “Joey,” while I will check out, the only new show on the schedule that even looks remotely interesting is “Lost” scheduled for Wednesdays on ABC. It is some kind of adventure series set on a deserted island and stars Matthew Fox of “Party of Five” fame as well as Dominic Monaghan who was a hobbit in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’m sure ABC will axe the series after airing only a handful of episodes since I have shown some interest in it now.

Other than that, there are no shows on ABC that interest me (except possibly the “Wonderful World of Disney” depending on what is showing). I haven’t watched anything on Fox since I got bogged down with the second season of “24” and the cancellation of “Angel” means I won’t be wasting my time tuning into the WB Network again.

I understand that UPN has decided to renew “Star Trek: Enterprise” for one more season so I will continue to faithfully tune them in once a week as a devoted Trekee.

NBC still has “ER” on Thursday nights and CBS has renewed “Judging Amy” and “Joan of Arcadia,” and that is about it. There are a few others shows that I would normally find worthy but for various reasons I have not found the time or the desire to watch them regularly. They include “The Simpsons,” “West Wing,” and “Alias.”
I also watch “60 Minutes” on occasion depending on the topic.

Finally, I have a friend who is such a devoted fan of “The Amazing Race” that he has applied to be on the show for its sixth season. So I will probably break down and watch an episode or two next season to see what it is all about.

Here is my tentative viewing schedule for next fall:

Monday: Nothing
Tuesday: “Judging Amy”
Wednesday: “Lost”
Thursday: “Joey,” “E.R.”
Friday: “Star Trek: Enterprise,” “Joan of Arcadia”
Saturday: “Amazing Race”
Sunday: Nothing

Not an isolated incident

From a report
by the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC)

This is just chilling.....

“The agency said arrests allegedly tended to follow a pattern.

"Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down doors, waking up residents roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members into one room under military guard while searching the rest of the house and further breaking doors, cabinets and other property," the report said.

"Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people," it said. "Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles."

I can understand that seeking out insurgents during the heat of battle can be a tense and hazardous duty and I would expect our soldiers to take every precaution to protect and defend themselves, but what is the purpose behind these gestapo tactics? What is that supposed to accomplish other than spread fear and resentment among the masses.
And when we are gathering our prisoners in this manner it is little wonder that -

“...some coalition military intelligence officers estimated that "between 70 percent and 90 percent of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake.”

Yes, innocent civilians. Not insurgents, not terrorists, but the very people we are supposed to be liberating and introducing to democracy.

And the worst part about the ICRC report aside from how their warnings were ignored by the Bush administration was the answer they got back from military officials in response:

“The ICRC report said the agency was told that in general that the prisoner abuse in Iraq by U.S. military personnel is "part of the process" during interrogation.”

That’s right. Just part of the process.

Here is the process...

“The report cites abuses - some "tantamount to torture" - including brutality, hooding, humiliation and threats of "imminent execution."
"These methods of physical and psychological coercion were used by the military intelligence in a systematic way to gain confessions and extract information and other forms of cooperation from person who had been arrested in connection with suspected security offenses or deemed to have an 'intelligence value.'"”

So this was not just an isolated instance and court marshalling a few guards who had the misfortune and poor judgement to have their pictures taken during some of the abuses is not going to do anything to address the real problem.

“U.S. President George W. Bush said the mistreatment "was the wrongdoing of a few," but the Red Cross report backs up with detail the neutral agency's contention that the abuse was broad and part of a system, "not individual acts."”

More Bush lies. No surprise there.

Arrogance and Incompetence

Fareed Zakaria, international editor for Newsweek, sums up the “arrogance and incompetence” that has been the hallmark of President Bush’s administration:

“On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq—troop strength, international support, the credibility of exiles, de-Baathification, handling Ayatollah Ali Sistani—Washington's assumptions and policies have been wrong. By now most have been reversed, often too late to have much effect. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world.
Whether he wins or loses in November, George W. Bush's legacy is now clear: the creation of a poisonous atmosphere of anti-Americanism around the globe. I'm sure he takes full responsibility.”

Speaking of taking responsibility, Zakaria notes earlier in the article that it has little meaning at Bush Corp.

"I take full responsibility," said Donald Rumsfeld in his congressional testimony last week. But what does this mean? Secretary Rumsfeld hastened to add that he did not plan to resign and was not going to ask anyone else who might have been "responsible" to resign. As far as I can tell, taking responsibility these days means nothing more than saying the magic words "I take responsibility."

“After the greatest terrorist attack against America, no one was asked to resign, and the White House didn't even want to launch a serious investigation into it. The 9/11 Commission was created after months of refusals because some of the victims' families pursued it aggressively and simply didn't give up. After the fiasco over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, not one person was even reassigned. The only people who have been fired or cashiered in this administration are men like Gen. Eric Shinseki, Paul O'Neill and Larry Lindsey, who spoke inconvenient truths.”

President-elect John Kerry

Pollster John Zogby predicts election victory for Kerry!! Woo Hoo!!

He gives four reasons summarized as follows:

1. Bush has bad re-election numbers for an incumbent president with the latest poll showing Kerry up 47 - 44 in a 2-way race.

2. There are few undecided voters at this point and most of those tend to break for the challenger against the incumbent.

3. The economy is still the top issue for voters next to Iraq and both situations have veered out of control for the president. The economy is improving too little, too late to make a difference to most voters and Iraq is a quagmire.

4. Historically, Sen. Kerry is a good closer and always performs well in the final weeks of a campaign.

The Abu Ghraib - Guantanamo link

I find it interesting that most of the details of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal were reported as early as Jan. 21, 2004 and yet there was no uproar until the mass distribution of the photos sparked by the 60 Minutes II television show.

Now we have fresh turmoil in Washington where fingers are being pointed and accusations are flying about who didn't tell whom about the brewing scandal. President Bush claims not to have known anything about it before the 60 Minutes show which raises a number of questions.

Is he really that poorly informed by his staff? Did they just not think it was a big deal?

Anthony Lewis in The New York Times today draws the obvious link between our refusal to honor the Geneva Convention accords with respect to the prisoners at Guantanamo and our leaders' seeming indifference to the mistreatment of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

More disturbing is the very real possibility that this issue was not taken seriously because it is all too common and par for the course in the netherworld that makes up our military intelligence gathering operations.

Disney censoring Michael Moore

Good news for Michael Moore, the Academy Award-winning documentary film maker, best-selling author and leftist rabble-rouser.

It looks like the clowns at Walt Disney Co. are trying to do the same thing for Moore’s latest film project that Bill O’Reilly and Fox News did for Al Franken’s book “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.”

In the same way that the Fox News lawsuit created publicity and helped boost sales of Franken’s book, Disney’s efforts to prevent the distribution of Moore’s new anti-Bush documenatary "Fahrenheit 9/11" is sure to create buzz and drive up interest in the film.

I’m not a huge fan of Moore. I though he was an idiot for supporting Ralph Nader’s campaign during the 2000 elections. I liked his last film “Bowling for Columbine” for the most part, but I thought his interview with Charlton Heston at the end of the film went over the top. If Moore had simply done a straight-up interview with the celebrity icon turned gun nut it would have worked. But when he pulled out a photo of a girl killed by a gun accident and started hounding Heston with it I had to cringe. I came away feeling sympathy for Heston, and I don’t think that is the reaction that Moore had intended for the scene.

The problem with Moore is that while his in-your-face aggressive attitude is good for rallying the faithful, it does little to convert those on the outside and rather tends to drive them away. Still, it is not bad for the left to have a few folks like that around. The right has people like that coming out of their ears.
So while I don’t always agree with him, and I don’t like his style, I still want to see his new movie and Disney’s inept attempts at censorship only heightens that desire.

The battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people is over.

We lost.

NAJAF, Iraq (AP) -- Dhia al-Shweiri spent several stints in Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, twice under Saddam Hussein's rule and once under American. He prefers Saddam's torture to the humiliation of being stripped naked by his American guards, he said Sunday in an interview with The Associated Press.

When you have people like this comparing us unfavorably to Saddam, it's no wonder they aren't throwing rose petals at our feet.

And 11 more U.S. troops were killed this weekend. Almost one year to the day since President Bush did his little "Mission Accomplished" victory jig aboard that U.S. aircraft carrier. It looks like May isn't going to be much better than April.

Clinton, unlike Bush, had his priorities straight

From the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire (page A4):

“When the two spoke privately at inauguration time, Clinton put al Qaeda at the top of his list of national-security concerns, with Iraq behind the Mideast, North Korea and India and Pakistan, according to one outsider who recently heard Clinton’s account. It is confirmed by several former Clinton aides from the time.
Bush, by contrast, already had called for regime change in Iraq.”

That sounds about right. Too bad Bush insisted on being the anti-Clinton in all respects.

Wolfowitz underestimates U.S. troop deaths in Iraq

From the Associated Press:

“Asked how many American troops have died in Iraq, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz , the Pentagon's No. 2 civilian and an architect of the military campaign in Iraq, estimated Thursday the total was about 500 - more than 200 soldiers short.
Wolfowitz was asked about the toll at a hearing of a House Appropriations subcommittee. "It's approximately 500, of which - I can get the exact numbers - approximately 350 are combat deaths," he responded.
"He misspoke," spokesman Charley Cooper said later. "That's all."
American deaths Thursday were at 722 - 521 of them from combat - since the start of military operations in Iraq last year, according to the Department of Defense.”

How pathetic! One of the chief chickenhawks responsible for this Iraqi quagmire and he can’t be bothered to keep straight the number of American soldiers who have been forced to pay the ultimate price for his and Bush’s folly!

First they try to prevent the media from publishing photos of the stream of coffins being shipped back from Iraq. Now they are trying to keep broadcasters from airing a special NightLine segment that will honor all of the fallen soldiers from the conflict.

Bush's manipulation and abuse of science threatens the well being of our nation

Scientific American magazine has a withering editorial assailing the Bush administration for its political manipulation of science. They make an apt comparison between the current ideology-driven administration and the Soviets of the 1930s:

“Starting in the 1930s, the Soviets spurned genetics in favor of Lysenkoism, a fraudulent theory of heredity inspired by Communist ideology. Doing so crippled agriculture in the U.S.S.R. for decades. You would think that bad precedent would have taught President George W. Bush something. But perhaps he is no better at history than at science.”

The Bush administration’s efforts to impose their fundamentalist ideology in place of sound science was well documented recently by the Union of Concerned Scientists in a report signed by 62 leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, 19 recipients of the National Medal of Science, and advisers to the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations.

The report details instances where the administration “misrepresented the findings of the National Academy of Sciences and other experts on climate change. It meddled with the discussion of climate change in an Environmental Protection Agency report until the EPA eliminated that section. It suppressed another EPA study that showed that the administration's proposed Clear Skies Act would do less than current law to reduce air pollution and mercury contamination of fish. It even dropped independent scientists from advisory committees on lead poisoning and drug abuse in favor of ones with ties to industry.”

The Bush administration responded to the report by having John Marburger, George Bush's science adviser, issue a strongly worded defence of the president's science policy.

This past week, the Economist magazine took a look at the back and forth and found that while “some of Marburger’s responses look justified—for example, his denials that the Bush administration overruled scientific advisers in acting to weaken the Endangered Species Act. Some, however, have a whiff of spin about them.” And in other instances he is simply unconvincing such as with the accusations of committee-packing, the rebuttal merely states that the UCS report is wrong in all instances, without explaining why.

The Economist, which is based in England, tends to be a slightly moderate to conservative publication (they support the war in Iraq, for instance), so their perspective is refreshingly free of American political bias. So I halfway expected to read a wishy-washy “both sides are bad” type of summation of the issue, but instead they end thier piece with this rather frightening denunciation of the Bush administration:

“To the extent that it is aimed at environmental and bioethical questions, which have long divided America on party-political lines, this disagreement could be seen as business as usual. However, it is not limited to those fields. There is a widespread feeling among scientists that Mr Bush is ignoring scientific results and opinions he does not like in other areas, too. In August 2003 the House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform made claims similar to those of the UCS report. But it also observed widespread scientific unease about the feasibility of the missile-defence systems proposed by the administration. This report has gone unanswered by Dr Marburger, as has a report made in July 2003 by the American Physical Society (APS), a professional organisation for physicists in America. The APS report concluded that boost-phase missile defence, one element of the system planned by the Bush administration, would be ineffective.

“These are serious accusations. Suppressing research into stem cells is causing that research to move abroad, which will damage America's biotechnology industry. But that will not be fatal to America's future, and opponents of stem-cell research might argue that it is a price worth paying for their beliefs. Monkeying with defence is a different matter. America's current military prowess has been achieved, in large part, because the country has listened to and lauded its physicists and engineers. Spending billions on technology that most of them believe will not work is, at the least, a dubious approach. Politicians can cheat nature no more effectively than scientists can.”

Kerry's medals

The recent news reports that has Republicans questioning the validity of John Kerry's combat medals made my jaw drop.
Could they really be that stupid?? Then I saw this offensively stupid letter to the editor in the local San Antonio daily :

Medals meaningless

I expect other former servicemen have reached the same conclusion as I: John Kerry's military awards in Vietnam are undeserved.
First, three Purple Hearts, with confusion among observers on whether Kerry was under enemy fire. Even Kerry's superior officer was dubious about the validity of his claim that his scratches were caused by enemy fire. No hospital time.
Next, a Bronze Star for hauling a man, who had fallen overboard, out of the water. A commendable action, but not particularly heroic and certainly not deserving a Bronze Star.
Finally, a Silver Star, one of the nation's highest military awards, for killing an enemy soldier. Apparently, naval officers forgot that killing the enemy is the primary objective of military personnel. If every soldier, sailor and Marine who killed an enemy were awarded this honor, the medal would be cheap indeed.
Remembering the battles that our young men have fought, where (unrewarded) exceptional valor was (and is) a common virtue, Kerry's adventures seem pale in comparison.

Charles D. Wood

This is really outrageous!! If you are going to question the validity of one of Kerry's medals they you are essentially questioning the validity of every medal earned by any and all of our service people. And this coming from an administration led by someone who blew off the last year and a half of his National Guard service and filled with chicken hawks like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who avoided military service for themselves. And the one guy with any military credibility - Colin Powell - is ignored and shunted aside during preparation for the Iraq invasion.


My father recieved the Silver Star for actions he took in Vietnam. When his squadron was cut off from their base in the middle of the Tet Offensive with no means of communication, he and another pilot ran out in the midst of sniper fire to push an abandoned jeep back into their compound so they could use its radio. By doing so they were able to call for reinforcements which kept the whole unit from being overrun.

I'm obviously very proud of what my father did in Vietnam and the idea that somebody would question whether he really deserves his medal really makes my blood boil. If this is the tactic that Republicans want to take in this campaign they will lose very badly.

As I've said before, the difference between Kerry's military service and Bush's military service can be summed up by the simple observation that while Kerry's superiors were pinning medals on his chest for valor in combat, Bush's superiors in the National Guard were scratching their heads wondering where the hell he was half the time.

Too close to home

My brother-in-law’s Louisiana National Guard Unit is being called up for duty in Iraq. He leaves on May 9 for three months of training at Fort Hood followed by one month of testing somewhere else before beginning a 12-plus month tour overseas.
Needless to say I am not happy about the situation, although I am very proud of by brother-in-law for his service. He and I don’t see eye-to-eye on politics, but that has never been an issue between us. I’m sure that other than being separated from his family, he doesn’t have a problem with the deployment and is very supportive of the whole operation.
But it will still be a hardship on both him and my sister as he is forced to leave her at home with their four young children - my three nieces and one nephew. My prayers are with them.

I have already come to the conclusion that we need to start pulling out of Iraq. We have scoured the country for WMDs and found nothing. We captured Saddam Hussein, killed his two sons and scattered the remnants of his government. So now it is time to declare victory and go home. Pass the baton to the United Nations and let the Iraqis have the government that they choose rather than one we want to force on them. Unfortunately, that government will probably be closer to the religious oligarchy they have in Iran than to anything we would prefer, but Bush should have thought about that before plunging us into this mess. (Or he should have at least listened to someone with half a brain who actually does think once in awhile.)

The Knoblauch mystery is solved!

The NY Times finally answers the mystery of what happened to Chuck Knoblauch?
Knoblauch dropped off the radar when his contract was not picked up by the Kansas City Royals. But now the former New York Yankee is happily retired from baseball and living in Houston.
Well, I’m happy for him. He had a great career that was unfortunately cut just a bit short by his throwing problem which happened to coincide with the deteriorating health of his father.
I think it would be great if Knoblauch could be lured out of retirement to join his old teammates with the Houston Astros this season.
It is pretty obvious that the Yankees are missing him now that they have traded away Alfonso Soriano and are left with a gaping hole at second base.

Too bad Bush didn't listen to Colin Powell

Back when Bush tapped Colin Powell to be Secretary of State, everyone thought it was a brilliant move. Unfortunately, we now know it was just a political calculation and that Bush never had any intention of actually listening to Powell or heeding his advice on foreign policy matters.

The new Bob Woodward book notes that Powell warned Bush about the war's cost to no avail.

"You're sure?" Powell is quoted as asking Bush in the Oval Office on January 13, 2003, as the president told him he had made the decision to go forward. "You understand the consequences," he is said to have stated in a half-question. "You know you're going to be owning this place?"

Yeah, we certainly own it now and the Bush administration is finally starting to have buyer's remorse. Now suddenly, after months of denigrating the United Nations as being inconsequential, Bush is going back to the U.N. with hat in hand begging them to bail us out of this Iraqi quagmire.

This is yet another fine example of a classic Bush flip-flop, but the subservient media is oddly portraying it as Bush and Blair "staying the course."

Things in Iraq have gone from bad to worse these past two weeks and we would be lucky if the U.N. does agree to come in and pull our bacon out of the fire.

Mood music

My friend Robert at Beginner's Mind asks about music that people use to change their moods.

I guess when I listen to music it doesn't put me in a mood so much as it transports me back to a time and a place when I first heard it. Music can be very nostalgic. I have certain music that I associate with my childhood. Some that dates to junior high school. Some that takes me back to high school days and some that is from college.

Whenever I hear Elvis Presley's "That's Alright, Mama" I'm back in elementary school - Elvis having been one of the first albums I ever got. If I hear the Kingston Trio singing "Tom Dooley" or Herb Alpert and the Tiajuana Brass playing "Tiajuana Taxi" I am transported back to my childhood listening to my father's recorded music from Vietnam on his reel-to-reel player.

The Bee Gee's "Tragedy" and "Play that Funky Music" by Wild Cherry transports me back to junior high days in Victoria riding the bus to school and listening to the local rock radio station each day. Same goes for "Barracuda" by Heart and "Rich Girl" by Hall & Oates.

But to alter my mood, I suppose one song that always makes me happy to listen to is "When Jimmy Falls in Love" by Vance Gilbert. Or the soundtrack to Walt Disney's Dumbo - particulary "Pink Elephants on Parade." I also love a particular version of "If I knew you were coming I would have baked a cake" sung as a duet by Bing Crosby and Bob Hope on Crosby's radio show.

Of course, you can't always make yourself happy just by listening to music. Sometimes when you are really down or heartbroke the old adage "misery loves company" applies and you want to know that you are not alone. That is when Hank Williams Sr. is most effective. The guy knew something about misery and could put it in a song so that it was both catchy and sincere.

Time to look for the exits in Iraq

I agree with Sen. Byrd. It's time to Follow the Exit Signs in Iraq and get our troops out of there.

"The United States should get out of the business of running Iraq.
Additional military force from the United States, which is now widely viewed as an international bully by those in the region, will not ease the transition to a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. A new approach is urgently needed. We should work with the community of nations. It is time to turn full authority over to the United Nations."

It is very clear now, one year into this operation, that the Bush administration did not have the foggiest clue as to what they were getting us into.

As Maureen Dowd noted in the NY Times the other day:

"Every single thing the administration calculated would happen in Iraq has turned out the opposite. The W.M.D. that supposedly threatened us did not exist. The dangerous dictator was deluded and writing romance novels. The terrorism that would be thwarted has mushroomed in Iraq and is feeding Arab radicalism.
Mr. Rumsfeld thought invading Iraq would exorcise America's Vietnam syndrome, its squeamishness about using force. Instead, it has raised the specter of another Vietnam, where our courageous troops don't understand the culture, can't recognize the enemy and don't have an exit strategy. And the administration spins the war every day.
Rummy also thought he could show off his transformation of the military, using a leaner force. Now even some Republicans say he is putting our troops at risk by stubbornly refusing to admit he was wrong.
Dick Cheney thought fear was better than weak-kneed diplomacy, that if America whacked one Arab foe, all the others would cower. Wrong. The Iraq invasion has multiplied and emboldened our enemies.
Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld thought America should flex its hyperpower muscles, castrating the U.N. and blowing off multilateral arrangements. Now the administration may have to crawl back for help.
The hawks thought they could establish a democracy that would produce a domino effect in the Arab world. Wrong. The dominoes are falling in a scarier direction.
The president thought he could improve on the ending to his father's gulf war. Wrong again."

We supposedly went to Iraq to find WMDs which we now know did not exist (at least not in this decade) and to depose a brutal dictator. Well, Saddam Hussein has been captured and his evil sons are dead. So let's declare victory and go home.