Let's run the numbers

Sometimes headlines just write themselves Like this one from the Washington Post today: Ex-FEMA Head Starts Disaster Planning Firm Michael Brown certainly has shown he can plan a disaster. Look at how awful Hurricane Katrina was. For preventing or fixing things afterwards, he's not so good.

Out of town I was in Denver last week. I've not had time to get up to speed on the latest Karl Rove revelations, or the latest Supreme Court news. Hopefully soon. Of late I've spent a lot of time listening to RTE News from the Irish Republic. It's escapism pure and simple. Local news isn't as important as U.S. foreign policy, or domestic policy when that causes espionage and treason, but sometimes I just cannot stand our news. Especially when we're talking about the president's senior political advisor blowing the cover of a CIA agent for political payback. Does anyone remember when Dick Morris was one of Bill Clinton's political advisors, and he was caught sucking the toes of a whore? Remember the outcry? And he wasn't even the deputy chief of staff? Like Bob Dole, I'm asking "Where is the outrage?" Anyway, since I was in Denver, and everyone on here who has been around for a while knows I like to eat, here are a few favorite pl...

What's the deal with Bandar? You know, Bandar bin Sultan, Ambassador from Saudi Arabia to the US? The guy the Bushes call "Bandar Bush"? Has he resigned ? BBC said he has. But then Saudi sources have said that he will return to work at the end of August. The International Herald Tribune sums it up pretty well. Bandar is not in Washington. King Fahd has been in poor health since he had a stroke in 1995 (I think) and the kingdom is under the de facto caretaker rule by Crown Prince Abdullah. Fahd had a case of pneumonia that put him in hospital recently, and has been declining. If King Fahd dies, Abdullah becomes king. Prince Sultan, Prince Bandar's father, becomes Crown Prince. Abdullah, like Fahd, is in his eighties. I'm not sure about the age of Prince Sultan. Bandar may be angling to become intelligence chief or defense chief (the position currently held by his father) to increase his chances of becoming Crown Prince, and King eventually. Or, Banda...

New to the blogroll This blogger is great, even if just for the Friday Nudibranch Blogging. Get your minds out of the gutter and check out the sea slug! Bouphonia: Friday Nudibranch Blogging

PBS and bias I've been following the PBS/NPR/Corporation for Public Broadcasting kerflufle for a few days. Basically, the chairman of CPB, Ken Tomlinson, hired a consultant to provide a report to him about liberal bias in PBS and NPR programs. Also, his report analyzed whether or not the shows were favorable of the Bush administration or not. I can almost understand wanting to make sure reporting was truthful, factual, and unbiased. But when they start rating shows based on favorability to the Bush administration, they stepped way over the line. PBS is not a propaganda outlet for the Bush administration. They've already got Fox News, for crying out loud. To prepare a report like this means that the administration may be trying to turn them into one.This and the recent appointment of Patricia S. Harrison , former Undersecretary of State and former Republican Party co-chair, as head of PBS, call the future of PBS and CPB into question. The Corporation was set up to shield...

Karl Rove source of Valerie Plame leak This according to Editor and Publisher, who quote Lawrence O'Donnell on the McLaughlin Group. It's just sad, really. We've got an administration that doesn't really care about policy, good government, or national security. All they care about is what is useful for them now. In this case, national security went by the wayside to extract political payback, "don't fuck with us" points. MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case : "NEW YORK Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name--and it is, according to him, to...

Ahh, if we could only get this kind of thing here This is the kind of government report that shows you have a functioning democracy. The government investigated itself, and found that the Popular Party spun the information it had on the March 11 commuter train bombing in Madrid to influence the electorate, to prevent a backlash for supporting the War in Iraq. What would the investigation of 9/11, the war in Afghanistan, and the War in Iraq look like if we had a government body with subpoena powers that wanted to investigate this? I guarantee it would hold someone in the executive office accountable rather than saying "Oops" like the 9/11 commission report said. Spain's govt 'twisted' bombings for gains - report - Yahoo! News MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's previous center-right government 'manipulated and twisted' the Madrid train bombings of March 2004 in a bid to salvage general elections three days later, a parliamentary commission fo...

Conch Fritters I never did get that post done, but here are my two picks. If you like the cornmeal style, almost hush-puppy like fritters, go to Herbie's in Marathon. If you want a more flour-based, a la corn fritters or funnel cakes, go to Alabama Jack's on Card Sound Road, next to the Card Sound Bridge, in Key Largo. Both are excellent examples of their styles, although Herbie's has better blackened Mangrove Snapper sandwiches.

The Daily Show Note to self: Do not watch The Daily Show with your mother-in-law, especially when they're showing Jim Sensenbrenner cutting off witnesses before the committee, then cutting off the committee, taking his gavel, going home, and on the way out ordering the Democrat's mikes be cut off. She'll just get pissed off that her side isn't understood and is getting made fun of. And then she'll say that Dick Durban is an idiot. Just for the record, I don't think the Nazi's used peeing on religious texts as a method of controlling prisoners. And I don't think that we've done everything that the Stalin-era gulags, or Pol Pot did. But when you hear about the things we have done, you don't think of America. We used to be better than this. We didn't do anything like this, so the contrast between the light and darkness was stronger. Instead, now we're slipping in that direction, turning grey and muddy, all because of a president ...

Well, that election sucked I kept hoping that I'd wake up and President Kerry (or dare I say it, President Gore?) would have made everything better. Oh well, back to work. Update: No, I'm not back just to take cheap shots at my mom-in-law. She's a sweet lady with a minor political problem. But, after having sat on the sidelines, I think I'm remiss if I'm not descending into shrill unholy madness due to the mendacity, stupidity, incompetence, recklessness, and idiocy of the Bush administration and its allies. Not while I've got a *mostly* free soapbox to stand on. Or, as the bumper sticker said, "If your not completely outraged, you haven't been paying attention."