Grateful Dead

The US is now the largest donor among governments of the world to the victims of the Swat Valley floods. However, the NY Times reports that officials are trying to gain major torque with the Pakistani people in the fight against aq. America just happens to be pre-positioned with mass airlift of all kinds of stuff from Iraq they were planning to put on Craig's List. Disease such as cholera and malaria are becoming epidemic with 2 million dislocated and about 2000 dead around the Indus in Pakistan. This ranks with Haiti and the big Tsunami as three disasters in this decade of truly biblical proportions.

it seems like every people want their royalty. if there is no king and queen then the leader of the country fills that status. it comes with the trappings of power. america has many past and present first families -- and some would add the kennedys to this list. heaven knows it's all obscene but if i had to pick my battles they'd be things like nationalizing goldman-sachs and reigning in such masters of war as haliburton & blackwater. but still have to agree w/j'man, it really is wretched excess.

as example, look at that obscene display of wealth and power that was the wedding of Chelsea Clinton, besides which, i wonder how many taxpayer dollars went for Secret Service for the event. On the first lady's recent SHOPPING trip in Spain, there was an entourage of s.u.v.'s that would rival any funeral procession, and with 70 agents drawing $237 a day in per diem, in addition to their regular pay, i have to question it all. as i always say, you can't trust ANY of the bastards.

which is the mantra of the right seems to only be applied to those who have to struggle to get by. If you're filthy rich theses guys just want to give you more, more, more! We live in an immoral society.

Alan Simpson, US Senator from Wyoming (home of Dick Cheney), and apparently font for all evil in the world, is about to return results from his fact-finding commission on SS. In order to "cut the budget" SS will have to be amended, meaning that people will receive less in the way of a monthly check. If there is any issue that baby-boomers should be concerned about, it is SS. And not just baby-boomers. Any amendment to SS should be stomped and the authors railroaded out of office as a lesson to any other politician that would dare try this again. Cut the war budget, get corporations off welfare but for God's sake, allow people who worked hard all their life the peace and dignity of a semi-comfortable retirement where they can afford decent food and medicine. Really, Simpson and his ilk have no shame.

Alan Simpson, US Senator from Wyoming (home of Dick Cheney), and apparently font for all evil in the world, is about to return results from his fact-finding commission on SS. In order to "cut the budget" SS will have to be amended, meaning that people will receive less in the way of a monthly check. If there is any issue that baby-boomers should be concerned about, it is SS. And not just baby-boomers. Any amendment to SS should be stomped and the authors railroaded out of office as a lesson to any other politician that would dare try this again. Cut the war budget, get corporations off welfare but for God's sake, allow people who worked hard all their life the peace and dignity of a semi-comfortable retirement where they can afford decent food and medicine. Really, Simpson and his ilk have no shame.

...at Ground Zero. The latest faux controversy has to do with Obama supporting the law in the US, which says that religious groups have a right to build anywhere they can get local approval (permits, zoning). The Islamic cultural center (not mosque) will be built a couple blocks from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. Apparently it is believed that when Muslims win a battle in a holy war they build a mosque near that site. This has our zany right-wing on an Obama-bashing tear. Personally, I wish there was a yoga studio in that old Burlington Coat Factory building, where people could stop in and meditate on their lunch hour or pilgrimmage to Ground Zero. If we could just visualize a tolerant world it would be a great start.

Did you make that up? and it leaves the engineer with a worried mind

Yeah, I just noticed some of the maple trees starting to change color this morning. I watched the Perseids Wednesday night from the top of 3,760 ft. Wildhorse Prairie 15 miles from the ocean, pretty cool, then lost my car keys in the morning for an hour, finally down to my last hope I unrolled my sleeping bag and they came tumbling out, whew. Shall we go You and I while we can Through the Transitive nightfall of diamonds

it irritates the monkey and gets the hammer dirty