War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
“Whenever anyone talks to me about mad cow, I just pull out a picture of my ex-wife.” — Interview, Wall Street’s market animal, The Bull, Esquire, January, 2009 European voters knocked the soup bowl over yesterday, creating a change in the air for the financial chaos that’s got the whole region in a choke hold…
Moist weather here early this morning along California’s northern coast — a seemingly continuous drizzle which turns into a deep, wet fog and then back again. Fairly normal, though, for this region, but it still gets old, and everyone appears jolted with a zest for life at each sliver of sunshine, which comes infrequently. Rare…
Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. — George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946 (h/t Juan Cole) Politics is weird. And creepy.…
One item that’s fallen off the news radar the past few weeks is gas prices — no more the hand-wringing stories of people going without food to fuel their vehicles and all is well. Out of sight, out of mind? You betcha. Yesterday, I put another $20 worth of gas in my Jeep with the…
Put-down of the day number one — from Juan Cole, pissed at Mitt Romney’s put-down of President Obama’s take-out of Osama bin Laden: Mitt Romney said Monday that of course he would have taken out Bin Laden and that ‘even Jimmy Carter would have made that call.’ Since Jimmy Carter ordered a brave and risky…
Mitt Romney waxing eloquent Friday at Otterbein University in Ohio: “The impact of gathering facts, gathering information, learning about the reality behind the words, has proven to me, in the business sector, that facts are more important than words and that results are more important than words,” he said. “So as you look at the…
As we begin a near-seven month nightmare — the 2012 elections — the US of A has become one vast holding pen of pure bullshit, creating an ironic, near-mockery of American democracy. Not only is the political discourse so freakin’ stupid, sometimes just a pain to watch, but the distortion of so much data is…
Early yesterday, we had a couple of power outages — pretty rare up here — and the last one occurred while working on this blog, and no post. First time during the weekdays for more than 18 months straight — hey, not bad. And man — when one is so used to light 24/7 dark…
This would be laughable if not so bat-shit crazy. A response to George Jr. this weekend via Town Square Buzz: Most of Bush’s speeches are closed to the press, and this was no exception, so I was not allowed to record or report on the event. That’s a shame. This was a side of the…
Pretty much a fact that Republicans can’t govern worth a shit — three GOP presidents excepted, Abe, Ike and Dick, though the last guy had some major pathological problems — and George Jr. was the worst White House occupant in US history. The only way that nasty party can even stay alive is by blowing…