Not Just A River In Egypt

Yup, still snowing. Keep burning, Indiana. Keep burning.

The Rod Blagojevich Road Show is now in full swing. His impeachment trial opened without him this week, as he was off roaming the country in search of additional television cameras in front of which to make statements. Blago dropped in on Larry King yesterday to make his case to “the American people” that he is being unjustly persecuted by the Illinois State Senate for being a great guy. I don’t really understand what good the support of 30 people in Arizona will do him in his Illinois trial, but I’m willing to admit that I might simply be missing the big picture. Or not. Every time he opens his mouth, a quote from some Hollywood production falls out, in his mind providing a metaphor for his struggle on behalf of people against The Man. Like a modern day Robin Hood – with a medieval hair cut. He’s even demanded the editorial boards of major newspapers get involved in attempting to save him from impeachment. Of course, several happen to be the very same editorial boards he is on tape trying to have fired for negative coverage of his misdeeds, but he’s proved he isn’t willing to let reality get in the way of a good performance. This whole saga is so bizarre it’s almost humorous. Okay, that’s not true, it’s so bizarre it is definitely humorous. But it’s humor I’d be more than happy to go without. Where’s Larry Craig when you need him?

Closing out their first official in the minority under the Obama administration, Congressional Republicans answered the President’s calls for bi-partisan cooperation by obstructing every single thing he attempted to do. First came the meaningless hold on Clinton’s nomination to Secretary of State. (The senator that requested the hold voted in favor of confirmation anyway.) Then there was the delay of the confirmation votes of the Treasury Secretary and the Attorney General. Tax-hating Republicans – all of whom would never pay a cent if they felt they could get away with it - admonished the now Treasury Secretary for failing to pay $35,000 in self-employment taxes six years ago when he worked for the International Monetary Fund. Never mind that when the error was discovered in 2006, Geithner acknowledged his mistake, filed the correct paperwork and repaid the outstanding balance. Clinton-hating Republicans – apparently and inexplicably still upset with Bill Clinton eight years after he went away – held up the nomination of Eric Holder for his failure to prevent President Clinton from pardoning a tax cheat (notice a pattern here?) he had every right to pardon if he so desired. Then, even before Obama made the trip to the floor to listen to their concerns, (something President Bush NEVER did), House Republican leaders announced they would be demanding their members vote against whatever stimulus bill is brought up for a vote tomorrow, claiming the stimulus package, forty percent of which is comprised of tax cuts, simply gives them nothing to vote for and shuts them out of the process. I don’t want to go so far as to call these clowns liars, but they certainly are adept at failing to tell the truth. Newsflash; YOU JOKERS LOST THE ELECTION! Barack Obama and Joe Biden were inaugurated last week, not John McCain and She-of-Whom-We-Do-Not-Speak. You didn’t lose because eight million people mistakenly checked the wrong box on the ballot. You lost because 63 million Americans rejected your IDEAS. The people reduced you to 41 votes Senatorial votes, why on earth should you and your ideas have a greater percentage of input in the stimulus package than you have representation in Congress? Get a grip! I realize that during the Bush terms you came to believe that the meaning of bi-partisanship is that the Republican Party automatically gets everything it wants, but President Bush was pretty good at mangling words and their definitions. Now that we have a leader who reads, writes, speaks and understands English, perhaps we can finally reunite words with their proper meanings. The words bi-partisan, cooperation and compromise ARE NOT synonyms for obstruction.

As much as it irks me that he’s doing it, I think it’s wonderful that Obama is making the effort to ensure the concerns and ideas of the minority are received, considered and sometimes even implemented in the policies of his administration. If the previous president had but attempted such a brazen act of leadership but once, it might have softened the way he is now viewed in hindsight. For the good of the nation, I hope all the factions of the government can agree on a package to provide help to struggling citizens. But personally, deep down somewhere, I hope the Republicans continue to obstruct, the stimulus passes over their objections, and is a wild, unbelievable success, leaving three of them in Congress to try to explain why they intentionally tried to sabotage this country’s recovery.

I don’t understand the “sky is falling” panic among some resulting from the President’s decision to outlaw the practice of torture. I actually heard a guest on a Nation Public Radio show assert that torture is the ONLY way to obtain information from suspected terrorists. Sounds like someone’s been watching too many episodes of 24. Seriously, it cannot be the stated policy of a free and democratic nation to torture anybody, for any reason. I hope the reasoning behind that statement is self-evident. The leaders of the free world must take a stand and say that inhumane behavior diminishes both the victim and the torturer and we will not engage in it. Will that end torture? Of course not. But it will re-establish the precedent that it terrible and wrong. To those of you soiling yourselves in fear of the now impending suitcase nuclear strike, allow me to ease you mind. Every U.S. interrogator is going to do absolutely everything they can to obtain whatever information they believe a suspect is hiding. If an interrogator is convinced the suspect they are holding is privy to information needed to halt an attack scheduled to commence in five minutes, and they feel the only way to ascertain that information is to rip out the suspect’s fingernails with pliers, they aren’t going to let a little something like a law get in their way. But after they have done that, saving your city from imminent destruction, they will have to stand before a judge and a jury of their peers and explain why they felt it was necessary to him or herself and dehumanize another human being. If the judge and jury agree with that decision, then so be it. But the days of abusing any Rasheed, Habib and Ahmed for whatever reason tickles someone’s fancy are over. Abuse has to be the exception, not the rule.

A Los Angeles man killed his wife, five children and himself today because he was upset over being fired from his job. Why can’t disturbed people just kill themselves BEFORE turning the guns on everyone else?

Read a headline today that said something to the effect of, “Prince Harry’s longtime girlfriend dumped him through Facebook this week, reportedly because she was tired of the lifestyle.” Hmm. She broke up with the prince because she was tired of being treated like a princess? Wow. She just set women back about a hundred years. Actually, further reading of the story revealed that is was Prince Harry’s lifestyle that Chelsy Daly was tired of, not hers. Apparently the prince is something of a flirt. A ladies man, if you will. I don’t know. What’s the point of being the prince if you can’t make out with any woman you want? But seriously, how lame is it to break up with someone through Facebook? Isn’t that like asking your friend to break up with your boyfriend/girlfriend for you? Weak.

This past weekend, a 14 -year-old Chicago kid dressed in a police uniform strolled into a police station and stood in line. He was promptly assigned a partner and sent out on patrol. Only five hours later did the real police discover that he - the kid - was not. Five hours? No wonder there aren’t any detective shows based in Chicago.

Finally, Japan has a population problem. It is in decline. No worries. They’ve come up with a novel solution. Japanese companies are trimming hours from the workday and encouraging their employees to use the additional time to… well… procreate. That’s right, they’re giving workers time off to have sex. Now where did I put that plane ticket?