Wednesday Observations

If you have time, this is a very interesting article that explains why in four hundred years our descendants will have a 25 hour day. Who knew all those leap seconds would add up? And will they still be strapped for time?

I used to live in downtown San Diego and my local polling place was in a federal building. In order to vote you had to produce identification and then go through a metal detector. At all times there were officers with guns watching your every move. It was irritating and intimidating, so I started voting absentee, unlike others who just quit voting altogether. Imagine that intimidation on a national scale and you can see why conservatives are so gaga over their plan to pack the ballot box with only those voters who can afford the hassle and are less likely to be harassed.

This is so not a surprise. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Unless you are in Mississippi or Louisiana and are trying to collect on your homeowner's insurance for the damage incurred during Hurricane Katrina. Or your company was responsible for estimating the damage and you kept submitting reports of wind damage instead of the preferred "we have no intention of paying" water damage. Well my consclusion, which is supported by the evidence (New Orleans still looks as bad as it did a year and a half ago), is that this is another instance of insurance companies that like to receive premiums but have no intention of living up to their end of the bargain when their services are finally needed.

No kidding. Only three? Nobody wants this debacle on their resume and they realize who is the real power behind the throne. Or as one of the three general who have turned down the job so eloquently put it.

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' " he said.

Uh huh, just like in Empire Strikes Back, all the good officers have been "removed" from duty, now nobody wants to face Darth Vader Cheney. The writing for this disaster was on the wall from the beginning. Even hindsight can't make them face reality.

Forget what the people want, forget that last November the people thought they had made it clear that we wanted the troops home from Iraq. forget that some of these soldiers have been to Iraq more than once, twice, I mean three times. Forget that there are piss poor medical services once they have been stablized and are into recovery, forget that the more time in Iraq, the more incidences of PTSD, lets extend the tours of duty for every one there in a foolish hope that things will get better.

More shenanigans (you have to watch a commercial to access the article) at Walter Reed. It seems that the VA had a report detailing the problems by late 2004 and just ignored it, disavowing all knowledge until confronted with the evidence in a major newspaper. Now Bush has nominated someone who knew about the problems and kept quiet, to be undersecretary of health at the VA. Isn't this a little like the fox watching the hen house?

The crew without a clue wants more power to spy on us. They try and pretty it up, but if you have to break into someone's home to copy a hard drive, you should have a warrant and come in the front door. I know that isn't how this administration likes to operate, but with their current track record of screwing up every thing they touch, I don't want them touching me. Or my hard drive. Not that there is anything on it of interest to anyone but me, but way too many rights have been circumvented already.