Sunday, April 08, 2007

Hazy, Water-Colored News Reflections

An odd observation or two before I hunker down into work mode for the remaining 35 days of the school year:

  • Just in case everyone forgot, the Iraq situation is mind-bendingly stupid all around. At this point our collective psyche is pretty much choosing to simply pretend Iraq doesn't exist, and it's stories like this that illustrate the need for our psychological denial and how stupid the whole situation is. I wonder how things would have played out in 1776 if George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson et. al. would have been offered such direct military/political "help" in overthrowing the British. No, I don't wonder that at all. They would have all joined militias fighting both the British and the ostensible "helpers". And the "helpers" would have been forced to rely on second-tier political hacks and money-angling shysters to domestically start the country. Benedict Arnold would be our first President, no doubt about it.
  • The public construction skimming story just gets better and better. I particularly like that Marc Schiff's attorney points out that, "Schiff and the company never benefited in any way. They never made a nickel. If you look at the indictments, this guy was forced to pay— never to receive." Uh, methinks: 1. you probably still made a profit even after making all those kickback payments...otherwise, Mr. Schiff, you're even dumber than you already appear; 2. uh, you could have told..uh, somebody about the shakedown process...maybe before you start paying, or whilst the payments were being made, or, I don't know, at any time prior to investigators banging down your architecturally well-designed door...
  • Yesterday's snow flurries in April proves that "global warming" is a fiction. And remember, I have a Master's Degree in "Science", Political Science, so you should listen to me in these matters. Seriously, I saw some coal company hack as I flipped between channels yesterday dismissing "global warming" and bemoaning the deleterious effects of the 1990 "Clean Air Act". Jesus, what a loser, but you almost had to feel sorry for a guy whose job it is to defend coal-fired power plants, etc. Almost. By the way, I really miss "Dr. Science".
  • Proving once again that I am an agent of evil in the world, my employer, APS, is suing some parents that started up an after-school mariachi program. I often consider the possibility that the district's public relations department is headed by someone who says there name is Tom Savage, but is actually Tom Arnold or Arnold the Pig from "Green Acres" or General Augustus Pinochet, noted Chilean dictator/mass murderer. Well, technically APS doesn't seem to have a "Public Relations Department" from looking at the District's organizational chart. Why am I not surprised by this finding?

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