28 May 2008 Part III

Family: my very own “Beatles” concert.

Rant, part II

I’ll post this photo as an “answer” to the idiot featured in the above photo:

(larger photo)

Shalini was attending what appeared to be a cool conference:

Yes guys, Shalini is straight and single (sigh….) but alas, I am married and more than twice her age.

Ranting….McClellan says what we’ve been saying!

Image from here.

Workout notes two sets of pull ups (5, I know, pathetic) and 5 miles in 1:03:17 (32:09, 31:08). We finished at about 10 am; I am trying to get used to heat.

Interestingly enough I wore my bluejean shorts over my running shorts so I could use the pockets.

Barbara managed to get lost again.

Political Rant. Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan came out with a book which said much of what we on the political left have been saying all along.

“History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided — that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder,” McClellan wrote in “What Happened,” due out Monday. “No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact.”

“What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary,” he wrote in the preface.

White House aides seemed stunned by the scathing tone of the book, and Bush press secretary Dana Perino issued a statement that was highly critical of their former colleague. [...]

The president’s real motivation for the war, he said, was to transform the Middle East to ensure an enduring peace in the region. But the White House effort to sell the war as necessary due to the stated threat posed by Saddam Hussein was needed because “Bush and his advisers knew that the American people would almost certainly not support a war launched primarily for the ambitions purpose of transforming the Middle East,” McClellan wrote.

“Rather than open this Pandora’s Box, the administration chose a different path — not employing out-and-out deception, but shading the truth,” he wrote of the effort to convince the world that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, an effort he said used “innuendo and implication” and “intentional ignoring of intelligence to the contrary.”

“President Bush managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option,” McClellan concluded, noting, “The lack of candor underlying the campaign for war would severely undermine the president’s entire second term in office.”

No duh. Actually, others have said this a long time ago, but they were ridiculed. But what is just as disturbing to me is this:

“President Bush has always been an instinctive leader more than an intellectual leader. He is not one to delve into all the possible policy options — including sitting around engaging in extended debate about them — before making a choice,” McClellan wrote. “Rather, he chooses based on his gut and his most deeply held convictions. Such was the case with Iraq.”

Again, “duh”. But here is what bothers me more than anything: this “following one’s gut” and “just doing it” is actually viewed favorably by those millions of moronic losers who follow Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity and the rest. The fact is that we, as a country, were screwed over by the millions of sad sacks, insipid losers, jerks, and faux patriots who voted Bush into office to begin with. Too bad that these losers didn’t realize that Dirty Harry, Rambo and Die Hard were only movies.

Unfortunately, these morons are still with us and many will still vote. So, it is our job (those of us who are astute enough to, say, be able to find Iran and Iraq on a globe) to convince the reasonable independent voters that we don’t need another Bush; voting for someone with intellectual ability is good.

Of course, there are millions of idiots out there, so we just have to out poll them.

note: too bad that we can’t give people a test on evolution and deny the fruits of evolutionary theory (e. g., medicine) to those who fail the exam.

Boy, I am full of vinegar today, aren’t I?

Fun Videos May 2008

Note: I don’t consider the “fairy tale” remark to be race baiting; WJC was talking about the media saying that BHO was anti-Iraq war whereas HRC was pro-war. Of course, WJC was wrong, but not racist when he said that. Also, I didn’t know what the Clinton administration could have done about the Rwanda slaughter.