Bits and Pieces
Sometimes when we are focused on other things, there are stories that tell us a great deal about the current state of affairs and where we are headed. Sometimes they are seemly irrelevant, but are windows into the heart of many issues. Here are this weeks tidbits:
➢ The Justice Department’s Inspector General released a couple of reports confirming that for the last couple of years the Justice Department used a litmus test for religious and political beliefs to hire administrative judges in violation of federal law. Note that the Attorney General felt there was nothing criminal here and a spokesperson for the Justice Department said, “The fact that the process was flawed does not mean that the immigration judges selected through that process are unfit to serve.” Oh really? When immigrants applied for asylum, these judges disproportionately rejected these claims. Let’s see, judges appointed illegally are caring out an immigration policy that raises question about the legality of the whole system. No, there is no problem here Attorney General Mulcasey. So these people were hired illegally, others were denied jobs because of their political or eligious affiliation, and looking at the disproportionality or asylum decisions, 157 immigrants who would have been granted asylum were sent home. No, you are absolutely right, correcting these injustices would open up too many wounds, especially on your Republican brethren.
➢ In the little town of Derby Line, Vermont, they used to mark off the border between Canada and the United States with a painted line on the pavement. Now they have border police trying to watch every crossing and soon there will be a fence. I wonder if Oklahoma considered a fence on their border to keep Timothy McVey out? Is this getting stupid or what? It really is a case of barbarians at the gate
➢ The Pentagon’s intelligence agencies are relying more on polygraph tests and contractors to screen its 5700 prospective and current employees each year. Maybe there is a role here for Blackwater. How do you fight a polygraph interpretation? I would never get hired because they would find out about that stapler I took home in 1982 and forgot to return.
➢ The US continues to show how effective air power is as we employ it against the Taliban in Afghanistan. In one air strike against the enemy we got 95 of…. well, that’s the question. The Afghans tells us we got over 50 children. Collateral damage is a bitch isn’t it? Is this a great way to fight a war or what? I am sure the Afghans are lining up behind us in droves now
➢ Remember the ugly American. Well we are losing our lead as Brits and Germans surpass us as our economic and world leadership decline. In Malia, Greece, as the mayor describes them, “They scream, they sing they fall, down, they take their clothes off, they cross-dress, they vomit.” In San Francisco, German politicos came on a junket and instead of meeting with their counterparts, shopped, played, drank, and in one case, broke an angle and told the local German Consul, to get them a wheel chair and a n*&^r to push them around. What is this world coming to when we can’t even be the ugliest tourists anymore?
➢ Al-Qaida (You are right, I spell it different every time I write it, but have no idea which is right) has not focused on expensive terrorist attacks which might mean that our focus on cutting off their funding didn’t stop any attacks. It appears that most were raising plenty of cash for their activities through common criminal rackets such as drug dealing and credit card theft. Maybe this whole this is really mostly a police action after all.
➢ In Georgia thousands took to the street in Poti, Georgia to tell the Russians to get out. It is a new day and the Russians may find that their strongarm tactics may backfire just as the South’s attempt to deny integration marchers back in the 60’s did. The whole world can see what and who they are as we saw who the segregationists were. They may find that their tactics will backfire big time in the future.
➢ For those of you that think the war is won in Iraq, out of 151,000 families that had fled their houses in Baghdad, just 7112 had return by mid July according to the Iraqi Ministry of Migration. If things are so peachy there I wonder why that is? The sectarian war gets closer and closer. Tick, tick, tick.
➢ Meanwhile back at the ranch, the citizens of New Orleans are expressing great confidence in the Army Corps of Engineers new flood walls by rebuilding in flood prone areas while experts point out that the protection is less than what they had before Katrina. It says all you need to know about what short memories we have and how repeating our stupid errors is a habit of choice.
So just a little insight into how well things are going and how little we really understand cause and effect. That is the only way I make sense out of people who want to continue the Bush legacy with John McMean.