Spooky News

Geeze – a glance at the headlines is a scary thing these days, isn’t it? President George Walker Bush’s administration had 34 documented scandals in his first four years as president, most of which were quietly swept under the rug (like when Halliburton was given a $7 billion no-contract bid for services in Iraq – and guess what company subsequently overcharged the government $61 million of taxpayer money), but what’s happening now makes most of those 34 scandals pale in consideration. The Valerie Plame thing is getting serious. It seems that Scooter Libby (vice-president Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney’s head honcho) got his information directly from the vice-president himself, and fibbed about it to a grand jury. So now the list of people with headaches (and litigation) in the administration includes Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Scooter Libby, vice-president Dick Cheney, and a considerable list of other less recognizable names.

I’m not too bothered by this administration shooting itself in the foot – after all, they’ve been aiming at it for five years now. If you were paying attention, you could see it coming. What bothers me is the mess they’re going to leave behind – a mess we’re ALL going to pay for. These guys have wasted, squandered, and in some cases outright taken our money. I do NOT pay taxes for these guys to simply give the money to their friends – I pay taxes for sewers and police and schools and stop lights, and those services are dwindling (look at the amount of trash and graffiti in your neighborhood, and the lack of police). It’s time for a change. Let’s get back on track and get our tax dollars moving the right direction again. Unfortunately, we still have three years left of the present administration (though we may have a new vice-president soon) – but we can change things in the Senate in the midterm elections in 2006.

In other news, Rosa Parks passed away today source. She sparked much of the civil rights movement in the United States.

Alan Greenspan will step down as head of the Federal Reserve in January, to be replaced by Ben Bernanke source, a man who seems to be very qualified (somewhat surprisingly, considering Mr. Bush’s latest nomination for the Supreme Court – his personal lawyer, Harriet Miers).

Quote of the Day…

“A wise monkey is a monkey who doesn’t monkey with another monkey’s monkey.”

– from Mike “Kioti” Gregg

Picture of the Day…

This is a pseudo time-lapse photo of the side of a 45-year-old Heidelberg “Windmill” printing press. (I convinced my “point and click” camera that it didn’t need a flash, so it held the aperture open for a split second longer than it usually does. I like to feel smarter than my camera, even though I have doubts about that.) If you click on the picture, it gets bigger.