Clearing the air

In light of a couple of comments on one of my posts down below, I'd like to clear the air about my feelings on the current administration:

1. I admit I did not vote for George W Bush in 2000. I thought at the time he was the big Y2K problem because he was a lightweight put into the nomination by Texas oil money. Mainly I did not like him because the domestic programs he espoused were too much for big money and business and not enough for the lesser wage earners. His tax cuts did help the economy in one way. We learned back in the guns and butter days of the late 1960s that deficits seem to help the economy although they leave a terrible inheritance.

2. When he decided to invade Afghanistan following 9/11, I backed that effort. I felt, however, after watching the Russians play for years with the Afghans, that it needed to be a massive, quick strike that went in and out and did not get bogged down as the Red Army did. But I did support it.

3. Yes, Eric, Saddam Hussein was a bad man and his own people needed to throw him out. But it was obvious that he did not have weapons of mass destruction that were a threat to us. He also was not a part of the 9/11 conspiracy. If we were going to react to that by invading we should have gone after Saudi Arabia since most of the terrorists were Saudis. It was obvious, even to me from this far out in the boondocks, that Saddam did not have the weapons. The U.N. couldn't find them, nor could our over flights and satellites. That was funny since the papers during the Cuban Missile Crisis certainly carried enough intelligence pictures showing Khruschev's missiles en route to Castro.

4. Removal of Saddam Hussein and making the Near East a democratic bastion were not mentioned when the American people were first sold on invading Iraq. We have seen a lot of other places, in Africa, in Myanmar, in Thailand, where scruffy dictators of the Hussein stripe are killing their own people as Saddam did. Why haven't we invaded them? Was it a guilt complex because we helped install Hussein? I have a lot of questions and I've received a lot of answers. But in the end the only person who can ask my biggest question keeps citing "9/11." Why did we invade Iraq?

So there!!!

Well, a conservative federal judge has spoken clearly and loudly: intelligent design is religious in scope and goals and is not relevant to science. I can't understand why people who are dependent upon science for their daily bread as well as their computer games, tv babysitters, automobiles that take them to the Wall-Mart that sells products made of plastic (an unnatural product), and provides them with cold medicines, antibiotics, etc., that make their visits to the doctor more productive than the old days when doctors just comforted the dying, have such a hatred of science. Do they want to go back to the days of undulant fever from milk, thatched roofs where spiders and rats lived, and sewage running in the streets?

They call it intelligent design, yet my wisdom teeth, my former tonsils, my brother's former appendix, my allergies, tuberculosis, babies so big they have to wait until they're outside the womb to fully develop would seem to indicate that either the designer wasn't intelligent or wasn't giving much thought to his design.

And I like the judge's point about activism: "...this case came to us as the result
of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on intelligent design, who in combination drove the board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy."

It ain't activism when it serves to uphold the status quo rather than advance unsubstantiated claims.

So now they want to help schools

A few years ago, when he was my representative, Roy Brown stood on my doorstep and claimed that the Republicans had fully funded schools. I knew he was wrong and eventually asked him, in no uncertain terms, to get off my front steps since he was so adamant in his errors. Now he stands up with his ugliest face and claims that the Democrats have not solved the school problem. Even if he's right, and I'm not saying he is, I don't understand why he thinks the Republicans did anything about the schools over their long tenure in the legislature and the governorship. I think we were saying a number of years ago that the sainted Marc Racicot was leaving the state in a big financial mess. His party signed off on his messes and nosMartz didn't help the situation. So why is the dumb Brown spouting off now?

Filling in for God

Maybe the only thing we can hope for is that God will affirm to George W that he made a mistake in Iraq.