Wednesday, September 28, 2005

How do you spell "stupid?"

The United States Army, in their inimitable wisdom, has concluded that there is not enough evidence to "pursue criminal charges" against soldiers who have taken grisly photos of war dead and traded those photos for pornography on a Florida man's web site. Let's hope they pursue something under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (which by the way is part of the United States Code --- the law of the land). And how about 27-year-old Chris Wilson who owns the site? Does he not understand the furor caused by the Abu Ghraib photos and that all of these things aids those who are killing U.S. troops? And don't the soldiers who shot the pictures and want to trade them for porn understand either?! Oh, by the way, the site was intended to be a place where "men could post nude photos of their wives and girlfriends." How do you spell "stupid?"

Monday, September 26, 2005

Why am I not surprised?!

Readership in the main stream media is falling precipitously. And the media --- mostly run by the green eyeshade folks --- don't understand why. It's the hype, stupid. I was in Italy during the Three Mile Island accident. Hearing the newscasts and reading the papers, I thought that there was a huge hole from State College to Trenton, N.J. Pennsylvania, as we knew it, no longer existed. And it's only gotten worse. As example - "Reports of anarchy at Superdome overstated" and "Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy." And, of course, how many blogger jumped at the original story and expressed their outrage?! So much for journalism being a profession!

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Mr. Bush's Social Security Plan

Random Thought

Never trust a president who cannot speak in complete sentences!

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

The War

I support the courageous, selfless men and women of the U.S. armed forces.
I do not support the rationale for going to war in the first place. The two are not the same.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Here we go again!

If you examine this blog's URL, you will see it begins with "htvrt." Let's just turn that around: trvth. A little subtle perhaps. In any event, it would be nice if we could get some accuracy from the media and from the bloggers who will jump on the media misstatements and accept them as truth. Example: We were alarmed to hear the first company to get a contract in the rebuilding of New Orleans was Halliburton..." This blog repeats and accepts the less-than-accurate report from Reuters:
"We were alarmed to hear the first company to get a contract in the
rebuilding of New Orleans was Halliburton, another nonbid contract,"
said Leslie Cagan of United for Peace and Justice, which bills itself
as the largest anti-war coalition in the United States. The largest U.S. contractor in Iraq, Halliburton Co.'s subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root has been given a $29.8 million contract to rebuild Navy bases along the Katrina-battered Gulf Coast. What Reuters fails to report, as other media have, that this was let as a result of a $16 million contract that was a competive bid and it was done in July ... long before Katrina was a breeze, let alone a hurricane.

Friday, September 16, 2005

The high price of natural gas

"There is an abundance of natural gas in North America .... In fact, there is a vast amount of natural gas estimated to still be in the ground." So says the Natural Gas Supply Organization on their web site. So there is no reason that the price of natural gas should rise by the 35% this winter as predicted, except that the natural gas companies, like the oil companies (in many cases the same) have figured out all gouging depends on is to say that there are shortages. Not only that, but there is no increase in the transportation costs since most of it is transported by pipeline. Right, Columbia??!!! Consumers: There is an old Navy term for what's happening to you. It's BOHICA: bend over, here it comes again!!!

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Bush and Katrina

One might ask: Why was not Bush more presidential in the wake of Katrina as he appeared to be in the wake of 9-11? My take is that the person in charge immediately after 9-11 was Rudolph Guilliani. It was he who was presidential. Isn't it strange that two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers were dispatched to New York City within hours and the hospital ship Comfort was dispatched the next day following the attack on the WTC yet for Katrina, Comfort sat in Baltimore for a week before setting sail to, not New Orleans, but Pascagoula, Miss.

Bush and Blacks

I truly don't think that President Bush is discrimnatory. The lack of leadership, the inability to adequately respond to the critical needs generated by Katrina, the bureaucratic bungling that took place are not the result of any discrimination by Bush but rather the simple fact that the man is incompetent. Good hearted, maybe, but incompetent nonetheless. (BTW you notice I don't use the word "race." There is but one race on this planet --- the human race. Different enthnicities, yes. But one race.)