And now for his drum solo, Creepy Joe Lieberman

Our independent Senator grows ever more so as he thumps a lonely tatoo on his war drum.

Seems Joe would have us lob a few hot ones into Tehran to rekindle the fear into the Iranian decision making process.

Read the argument and you'll find he's actually attempting to rekindle the fear into the Congressional decision-making process.

One wonders how the Wall Street Journal's opinion page could grow more conservative under the watchful eye of Rupert Murdoch.

Night of the Living Insurgent

Apparently, not only are the insurgents going to follow us home ("fight them there, or fight them here,") but now they are returning from the dead to haunt us.

Better start using silver bullets.

George Bush is right, they hate us, but he won' t like the reason

Seems like the people of other nations, with the exception of some Christian nations in Africa, really do hate us.

Interestingly, a new Pew poll shows that the big hate fest coincides with the Bush tenure. It's about when I began to feel icky about us too.

Collateral damage

Let's say someone guns down your mother in a robbery and the NRA dismisses it as "collateral damage" as we strive for the Constitutional freedom to bear arms.

Or someone runs over your kid and dismisses it as "collateral damage" in the libertarian struggle to drive where, when and how we want to.

Or someone poisons your father, and dismisses it as "collateral damage" in a free market defining itself by importing pharmaceuticals from countries with low safety standards.

Your not buying any of it, right?

So how do we deal with the "collateral damage" in Iraq when it reaches these proportions?

Let's connect the dots

If Scooter Libby hadn't helped to discredit Joe Wilson by outing Valerie Plame, then George Bush might not have been able to make his case about yellow cake uranium, allowing him to convince the world, and particularly Congress that we should go to war, and this guy wouldn't have had to go to jail.

We are about to hear a lot of stories about folks in jail as a result of Scooter's evil manipulations as ordered by Dick Cheney.

Must be something in the water...lobbyists

There's a point at which the arrogance of power turns into a nonchalant disregard for common sense. When a conservative Supreme Court sides with environmentalists, wouldn't you know the Bush administration would find someone with enough money to disagree.

A few thoughts on independence from tyrants

Colin McEnroe, the only bright spot in Hartford's vast AM radio wasteland, blogs eloquently about what makes a tyrant, and what makes us free from tyrants. Provocative. Give it a read.

Memo to Creepy Joe: Are we talking about the same surge?

The facts seem to indicate that "the surge" is particularly uneffective.

So, Creepy Joe must belong to a different drum circle than the rest of his Senate colleagues. And with the slip of a vowel, he can encourage continued mayhem in two countries - Iraq and Iran.

Let's talk about courage, shall we

Resident of the White House, George W. Bush, made a speech on Independence Day, aside from the laughably ironic treatise about religion and government therein. He said, in talking about his relentless pursuit of "something" in Iraq, that, "Victory in this struggle will require more patience, more courage, and more sacrifice."

Well, we know he hasn't really made any sacrifice in his pursuit of an ever-receding victory, and we know his patience is akin to a mule's.

But courage. Courage? This is a man who refuses to give any speech in front of any audience who might question the veracity of his statements. This is a man who chooses, in advance, the journalists who will be allowed to ask him questions at press conferences. This is the man who refused to speak with Cindy Sheehan. This is the man who corrals protesters into fenced "free-speech zones," at his public appearances. This is the man who frittered away his opportunity for courageous action during the Viet Nam war by using his uniform to pursue Southern belles and mint juleps.

This is a man who, with a straight face, can invoke a plea for courage? Give him a medal. It worked for the cowardly lion.

The failure of journalism begins at home

When a reporter takes all her cues from City Hall, the ensuing story is likely to read something like the one the Courant published on the Liberty Square development this morning - completely lopsided.

The viewpoints opposing the proposal weren't even given a complete sentence in the story. The clause, representing these other views ("Some had criticized the project, citing the parking plan and the decision to move the former church, among other concerns,") was made a complete sentence by another clause ("but City Planner William Warner said he looks at it differently.") which tells you all you need to know about the story - it was dictated by the city planner and transcribed by the reporter.

The fact that two Council members, one from each party, opposed the development on grounds that the process of selecting the developer was flawed, is ignored. The fact that aside from the developer, four citizens spoke in favor of the development (two who don't live in Middletown), and that five residents opposed the plan as proposed, is given no mention.

My analysis of the Council meeting is covered in a post here. While I support commercial and retail development on that site, I think the proposed plan needs changing to be the best for the site, the city, and for safety.

The Courant missed those points completely.