Episode 22: No Shelter

The debate in the House began on February 13th, about the same time this year's first nor'easter plowed through D.C. on its way to New York and New England.
Only 17 Republicans joined Democrats in a non-binding resolution denouncing Bush's plan to deploy another 21,500 troops...but it's a start. Count it as a rebuke - Bush becomes ever more isolated.
Hard-right Bush loyalists, predictably, continue to insist that the Iraq disaster is simply part of the larger war on terror. That this is patent nonsense doesn't deter such knuckle-draggers as Minority Leader Boehner. He and his henchmen, adhering to their required globs of talking points, say that not only is the wrong message being sent to our troops, but the resolution endangers America. They do this while drenching the chamber with "God" and "liberty" like catsup on Freedom fries.
This is the Republican strategy, of course: Pretend that the issue is terrorism, not "The Surge" and the murderous debacle that is Iraq. If they can pull that off, they win.
Tune in C-Span 2. You'll see three or four grown men in an otherwise empty chamber jabbering maddeningly about "Honorable Gentleladies" and "esteemed colleagues" and "yielding" chunks of debate minutes back and forth, when the people who elected them have already made clear they want this grotesque misadventure over. Right now!

At least George will always have Joe. Kiss kiss.

















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"Anxiety is interest paid on trouble before it is due."
- William R. Inge, English vicar

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Disorder in the American Courts
A book by that name records actual exchanges between real lawyers and witnesses. It swears these are real, taken down by court reporters.

Attorney: Are you sexually active?
Witness: No, I just lie there.
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Attorney: How was your first marriage terminated?
Witness: By death.
Attorney: And by whose death was it terminated?
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Attorney: All your responses must be oral, okay? What school did you go to?
Witness: Oral.
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Attorney: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice?
Witness: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
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Attorney: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
Witness: The autopsy started aound 8:30 p.m.
Attorney: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
Witness: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him.

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Felonious Grunts
Everyone deserves a second chance. So it warms the very cockles of Geezer's heart to know that the Army, for purely platonic reasons, has provided "moral waivers" to 13, 047 new recruits since 2003. Most of these were awarded to candidates with past convictions for assault, burglary, robbery, and vehicular homicide, but 11 percent of those had felony records - that is, crimes requiring sentences of one year or more. The odds that some of these ex-convicts might just possibly commit rape, murder, and/or other atrocities in battlefield conditions might be high, but hey, where's your compassion?
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A More Than Slightly Rotten Apple
Ever since the dawn of personal computing, people in the know have been advising Geezer - rather smugly, it has seemed to me - that Apples are far, far superior to PCs. It's use is easy, intuitive. Plug and play. Download in seconds. Ironclad protection against viruses and worms. But back there fifteen years ago, choosing Microsoft over Apple seemed as logical as picking VHS over Sony Beta. As annoying as Bill Gates' baby could be, it was the vehicle of choice for over 90% of computer users.
Geezer was right. I recently ordered an iPod Shuffle, the kind that records 250 songs in a device the size of an Elvis commemorative stamp. In my ongoing effort not to bore the friends and family who might actually choose to read this blog, I won't go into painful detail. Suffice to say, downloading 135 tunes from CDs and the Apple store took five days. There were noticeable gaps in the 35-page instruction manual, as when it said to press a "stop" button that appeared nowhere on the screen. Finally, after days of attempting to extract rational information from Apple Central, it conceded that my Shuffle was "corrupted". Required to complete several lengthy forms, I was eventually promised a replacement within three business days.
It's now ten days...and counting. Fie on Apple.
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No Comment
*In Tennessee, the enlightened state that hosted the Scopes Monkey Trial, Republican state representative Stacey Campfield introduced legislation that would require death certificates for aborted fetuses.

*Residents of the Serbian village of Medja have elected to build a monument to Johnnie Weissmuler as he appeared in the Tarzan movies. They were inspired by a similar decision by authorities in the village of Zitiste, where they're erecting a statue of Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa.

*The pilot of an Air Mauritania discerned that the Arab gunman hijacking his Boeing 737 didn't speak French, so he warned the passengers and crew that he was going to make a rough landing to throw the man to the floor. He did so by slamming on the brakes, then accelerating. Ten people threw boiling water in the hijacker's face, then pummeled him into submission.

*At at demonstration in Beirut, one group of marchers chanted, "We are against sectarianism! And God is with the Sunnis!"
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