“Where hacks come to spew nonsense” – B2B
The most recent Fox News poll indicates that Americans see the Republican congressional majority as materially more corrupt and more responsible for the current spate of scandals than the Democrats. Indeed, the building sense of popular anger against the GOP resembles nothing more than the last congressional scandal — the bounced-check congressional bank affair of 1991 — in its political impact. But that scandal paved the way for Newt Gingrich’s takeover of Congress three years later. This scandal may undo the Republicans.
It is said only in hushed tones and not by anybody of prominence, but a few brave souls in the Bush administration admit it. President Bush’s Medicare drug benefit that went into effect Jan. 1 looks like a political blunder of far-reaching consequences. Furthermore, these critics assign major responsibility to Karl Rove.The hideous complexity of the scheme, which has the effect of discouraging seniors from signing up, is only the beginning of difficulties it entails for the president and his party. It will further swell the budget deficit without commensurate political benefits. On the contrary, the drug plan may prove a severe liability for Republicans facing an increasingly hazardous midterm election in November.
Today’s Anti-Strib question for Liberals: Are the Jews and a Palestinians morally equivalent? If not which society is superior and why?
Society does not possess the ability to have a mental state, or a goal, or an intention. Society is just a collection of people. Collections of people do not plan or consider possibilities or have needs or goals or take responsibility for things.
There can be groups, within a society, that can do all of these things however. A business, an army, a state, a government, a union, a church, etc. These groups are called collectives. Collectives can be responsible for actions, collections can not.
Jews and Palestinians? Just collections of people.
Israel and Palestine? Israel is certainly a collective but can Palestine be considered a collective? I would say not at this time.
Israel and Hamas? Since Hamas is a terrorist organization I think you could say that Israel has morality on their side.
So, in summary, I don’t believe that you can assign morally to a particular collection of people. A collective, within the collection, may be able to have moral superiority over another depending upon their motivations and actions. Are Jews and Palestinians morally equivalent? I don’t believe that it’s a valid question.
Peggy Buryj asked everyone she could to help find out the details of her son’s last hours. She even asked President Bush when she and other grieving parents met with him during a campaign stop in hotly contested Ohio. He promised to look into it. Soon afterward, she said, his campaign called and asked her to appear in a commercial for him, but she declined.Months went by with no clarification. “We had a lot of questions,” said Amber Buryj, 22, Jesse Buryj’s bride of seven months. “We were left in the dark.”
And in the dark they stayed. Family members say they were not told Jesse was killed by “friendly fire,” though the Army later said they were. They did not know that Polish soldiers with Jesse’s unit may have fired the fatal shot and that his death had the potential to cause a rift with a coalition partner right before the 2004 presidential election. They asked friends in Jesse’s platoon what had happened, but the soldiers had been told not to discuss the incident until the investigation was complete.
Even today, 20 months later, Peggy Buryj — a Bush supporter who believes strongly in the Iraq war — is left with swirling questions, a shattered faith in the Army, and the unsettling feeling that her son’s death has been sullied by partisan politics and international intrigue.
At least she can hold her head up high that she did not let President Bush pimp her out in one of his campaign commercials.
I am also going to open my weight challenge to the general public. Between now and February 1st you can enter this contest to pick what my weight is going to be on April 17th. Submit your entries here. Those who pick the right number will be entered into a drawing to win a fabulous Banjo Brothers gear bag. A few rules:
• You can only submit one entry• You must pick a whole number
• Feel free to enter under a pseudonym if you don’t want your name made public
• I will take the weight measurement first thing out of bed, but after the visit to the toilet, on the morning of April 17th
• I will enter into a hat the names of those who picked the closest weight number and whose ever name I pull from the hat wins the fabulous Banjo Brothers gear bag.
So get those entries in today and I will post all entries on February 2nd.
