"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
Because we can’t be trusted to run our own lives
A proposal (which I have CC’d to my congressmen) for paying back the American taxpayer for bailing out Wall Street: Impose, as some have already suggested, a .25 per cent trading fee on all future stock transactions. But better yet, put the money collected into an interest-earning fund, then return all, or a substantial portion […]
Listened to Nice Polite Republicans most of the day, and all I heard was scare talk. We’re going to lose our savings, our 401Ks, our IRAs. Putting the money in the mattress won’t work because that’ll cause hyperinflation and a cup of Starbucks’ll cost 6.5 million. Unless we do something quick. Unless we give this […]
About this proposed 700 billion dollar bailout: considering the people this administration has put in charge of every other huge mess it’s made for us . . . the L. Paul Bremers, Monica Goodlings, Donald Rumsfelds, Michael Browns, Alberto Gonzaleses, Paul Wolfowitzes, Scooter Libbys . . . how can we possibly expect anyone associated with George […]
Donna and I went riding with friends this morning in Green Valley, a retirement community 20 miles south of Tucson. I’m glad I had the digital camera in my fanny pack, because this sign cried out for documentation: This long shot doesn’t show it well, but when you’re looking at the “buttes” with your own […]
We are meant to think, apparently, that Bruce Ivins, the civilian US Army scientist who committed suicide after becoming the FBI’s main suspect in the 2001 anthrax killings, was guilty. He was an insider, he had access to anthrax, he was brilliant but troubled, he had a long history of making homicidal threats, he exhibited […]
Some maniac went on a cross-town cop-shooting rampage today. From what I see on the news, he shot a policeman on the west side of Tucson, then shot two additional pursuing policemen as he headed east. They caught him somewhere in my neighborhood. One policeman is on life support and not expected to live. I’m not […]
Avedon Carol rants on the Transportation Security Administration: I haven’t linked to the nipple-ring story because every time I see a reference to it I go into a towering rage about the way TSA drones have been given the power to hold you and all of your possessions hostage to their whim in the name […]
There’s always been a strong strain of puritanism in military leadership, perhaps nowhere stronger than in the U.S. Air Force. The latest expression of it is the outright banning of blogs and blogging on USAF computer networks, including USAF-operated internet cafes at bases worldwide. For years now, the USAF has filtered liberal and progressive web sites […]