Spring has sprung! (and the Republican ship is springing massive leaks too!)

By the Numbers –
. . . . . . . 1,384 days to go.
. . . . . . . $161.3 billion for the war effort in Iraq
. . . . . . . 1,544 U.S. soldiers killed to elect a Shiite Prime Minister in Baghdad
. . . . . . . $7.8 trillion in National Debt as a legacy

Today's Quote –
. . . . . . . "The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."
Patrick Henry
Lawyer, patriot, and orator, symbol of the American struggle for liberty, 1736-1799


Today's Rants –
. . . . . . . Finally the truth comes out, after days of spinning by the GOP offices that the outrageous memo circulated to the GOP membership "was a dirty trick" and "wasn't real"; the memo that recommended the GOP leap on the Schiavo case to "excite their voter base" and called it a "great political issue", is real and was written by a staffer for Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida. It was, in fact, his legal counsel. Which strikes to both my points about lawyers and Republicans, in this case all neatly rolled up into one slimy bundle.
. . . . . . . Alright, enough of this shit! Another Looney Tunes incident perpretrated by young, extreme left activists. This time, it was another pie-throwing incident. The President of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, an extreme conservative was hit by a pie when he began to speak at Butler University last night. This goes along with the Pat Buchanan salad dressing throwing incident, the Ann Coulter heckling handled by the black-shirted College Republican crowd and another pie-thrower at a Conservative speaker last week. It also dovetails right into the extreme anarchy that goes along with every GATT and Free Trade conference. We have got to stop acting like circus clowns and lunatics. The only way that we can ever hope to win participation and credibility back is if we can participate in some healthy dialog and debate, acting and looking like adults. We have the arguments and the facts are on our side, and every time some jackass decides to resort the MTV-themed "Jackass" stunts for real, we lose ground. It's going to be up to the leaders of each of their factions to rein their children in.
. . . . . . . Speaking of ethical liabilities, did anyone catch the latest on The Hammer? Seems Tom DeLay, the self-styled "Hammer" of the Houe of Representatives has now been nailed on inappropriate gifts and trips to Russia. Can anyone say "Russian Mob"?
. . . . . . . Jesus doesn't carry a Republican voter's card? It's about damn time someone on the left started stating the obvious. David Schimke in the Utne Reader starts the dialog by simply looking the New Testament and Jesus's role. He was a radical, a hippie, he hated the Establishment and so forth, things we all at least know. I'm just happy that the discourse is starting to make folks understand the God isn't the exclusive province of the Neo-Conservative crowd.
. . . . . . . The pressure that we all are putting on, big and small is working. This Washington Post article this AM summarizes the points that we all know, that the coalition holding the Republican party together is fracturing due to the extreme looniness by the Religious Right and the NeoCons.

Sunday Blues

By the Numbers –
. . . . . . . 1,388 days of insanity left
. . . . . . . $160.4 billion thrown away on the War in Iraq
. . . . . . . 1,536 American lives sacrificed in Iraq for what goal?
. . . . . . . $7.8 trillion in National Debt (and you thought you were overdrawn, hah!)

Today’s quote –
. . . . . . . "Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty." Thomas Jefferson

The Rant –
. . . . . . . May whatever God he believed in and whatever Heaven his vision was greet and grace the Pope. Despite being a non-Christian, and having an absolute personal wall up against a Supreme Being having only one representative here on Earth, I feel a sense of sadness. John Paul was a man of deep faith and conviction, which takes balls and courage. He was also a man of deep moral conviction, which is just another symptom of those things. I also feel that times are perilous enough without the leader of a Church being gone as well, and someone who was so well respected and honored at that. He will always have my personal respect for his steeliness in his fight against Communism and Fascism, two more “isms” that I cannot stomach.
. . . . . . . .Hats off to Bill O’Reilly, who actually impressed me Friday night on the broadcast of HBO’s Late Night with Bill Maher. I think that two of them surprised themselves with how closely they agreed on some issues. Of the 4 demonic media horsemen, Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity and O’Reilly, it’s Billy O. who always strikes me as having a brain and some coherent vision of the American political fabric.
. . . . . . . Just as proof that I get on everybody, today’s dissatisfaction is with the spineless, ball-less Democrats. Where the hell have they disappeared to? Anyone know? They came out of February with Howard Dean leading them, the new firebrand who wasn’t gonna take any shit. Now, the very cowardly hit the sidelines during the Schiavo case, and that’s with the numbers showing them that the majority of American wanted Frist, Delay and the Bush’s to stay the hell out of the case.
. . . . . . . . Doesn’t anyone get it at all? Both parties have been hijacked by extremists who do not represent the majority of American people, it’s just that with one particular party in power, it’s the evangelical Right who is trying to dominate us. All it would take is for a moderate or centrist of either party who was willing to rise up and take a loud aggressive stand for the people to begin to feel like they’re represented.