THE GREAT WHITE BEAR

Just call me "Sulfur Boy"

In the year 2000, the Republican party swept to power on a platform that promised to:
1. Increase prosperity for working Americans
2. Increase access to higher education for all Americans.
3. Improve our standing in the world, especially the middle east.
4. Combat terrorism.
5. Save Social Security
6. Preserve and improve Medicare
7. Provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans
8. Provide energy security.

After 6 years in power, these are the promises kept:
Er, well.......

That’s right, none.

They have however:
1. Given us a stupid, immoral, unnecessary, unwinable war that has cost nearly 3,000 American and British lives, over 100,000 Iraqi lives, and over $300 billion, with no end in sight. We have turned a stable, secular country into a sectarian civil war front. 100 Iraqi’s die daily. Women, who had civil rights on a par with western societies , have lost most of those rights. In fact we have turned Iraq into a breeding ground for terrorists. All the meanwhile strengthening the hands of our enemies in Iran.

2. Managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Afghanistan. The Taliban are resurgent, and gaining in popularity. In alliance with war lords turned drug lords, they have turned Afghanistan into a narco state, the new Columbia.

3. Turned budget surpluses into record deficits.

4. Given us a recession, one of the weakest recoveries in history, and an economy slipping back into recession.

Now, let’s look at those promises:
1. Increased prosperity for working Americans: The realty is that 90% of wage earners have lost about 5% of their income to inflation since 2000.

2. Increased access to higher education for all Americans. Fact: College tuition is has risen at twice the rate of inflation since the Republicans took control. Worse, the government just drastically raised the interest on student loans, pricing even more young people out of a college education.

3. Improve our standing in the world: Okay, you can get up off the floor from that laughing fit now! This administration has managed to squander all the good will we had world wide after 9/11. Now, even our allies despise us. Btw, if you have to travel to the UK or Europe, make sure you always wear a Toronto Maple Leafs baseball hat or jersey. Likely to save you from a mugging.

4. Combat terrorism: On the floor again?!!!! Yeah, the latest national security estimate says we are creating terrorists much faster than we can kill them. Try to find a retired military officer who has anything positive to say about Iraq and the war on terrorism. Because they have all been on the radio calling Sulfur Boy everything but caucasian.

5. Save Social Security: Nothing pending on that front. Plan on working till you drop dead.

6. Preserve and improve Medicare: Not happening. In fact, there is a movement in the AMA for doctors to drop medicare patients, due to payment cuts. Seniors, need that operation? Better keep eating Kibbles and Bits so you can save enough to have it done!

7. Provide affordable health insurance to all Americans: Did you all choke on that one? 40,000,000 Americans without health insurance, and almost that many more who go without medical care because of unaffordable deductibles. Does that remotely sound like affordable health care to YOU?

8. Energy security. Do recent events make you feel secure?


How long would you keep someone around who consistently lied and broke their promises to you? Six years is long enough. Time to send Mr. Wizard the Lizard to DC so he can chant “Drissle drassel, dressel drone. Time for these ones to come home”

Send the bums packing!

p.s. My apologies to Tudor Turtle

Now that the Tiger's magic number is two, I thought this song was appropriate. Hear THE DYING CUBS FAN'S LAST REQUEST HERE

Rub it in? MWAH?

Soul Asylum - Lately

Love this song and video

Apparently.... I haven't been giving the President nearly enough credit. Hugo Chavez says he is the devil himself. Here I only thought he was the Anti-Christ!

BACK FROM AN EXTENDED WEEKEND BACK HOME WHERE I....




celebrated Michigan's victory over the Fightless Irish by consuming all if my favorite comfort foods! Had a fabulous Detroit style pizza after the game. Coffee and a couple of TimTarts at Tim Horton's later that evening. And a couple of steak pasties Sunday!

I sincerely apologize for neglecting all my net friends. Just that not only have I been very busy, I have been in one of those moods where I am so pissed off and bummed I cannot write coherently.

It pisses me off the president thinks we are all so stupid we don't understand that when he tells us Americans don't torture people, it means we have others do it for us. That we can't figure out that if these detainees weren't being tortured, we would have no need for secret, foreign prisons. That "alternative methods of interrogation" is a euphemism for torture.

It has always pissed me off the way politicians and the media have used 9/11 to whip up mass hysteria for political and ratings purposes. How they have sullied a genuine tragedy with their grandstanding and quest for ratings.

Tomorrow will be the fifth anniversary of the "email read around the world". It started as a potential op-ed piece, on the subject I spoke of above. I basically said that American had not changed forever, that we would all continue to go to work and play with the grandkids, and carry on as we had before. And it decried the media hype and politicization of a genuine tragedy. I sent it to the people on my mail list, asking for suggestions, and criticisms. Well, not only did my evil, fightin fundie, James Dobson loving ex sister-in-law send an email to everyone on my mail list demanding they all send me excoriating letters of disgust, she sent a copy to everyone on HER email list, demanding the same thing, and asking them to forward a copy to everyone on their email lists, etc. I got HUNDREDS of emails from all over the US and even a couple from Canada and the UK. My ISP threatened to charge me commercial rates, since they were sure I was conducting some kind of business by email.

To be fair, a lot of the emails I got were actually very supportive, but I received a lot more calling me everything but a white man. So I felt very vindicated when a few months later, the venerable Alistair Cooke remarked on his weekly BBC radio show LETTER FROM AMERICA, "Everyone, including myself, thought that America would be changed forever. As it turns out, forever lasts almost exactly three months!"
*****************************************************************

There is some good news this week. Our good friend Jessica at United We Lay had a bouncing baby boy this week. Julian weighed in at 7lbs, 6oz! Drop her a congratulatory note at gletti@rocketmail.com.

******************************************************************

Finally, a special thanks to Ron and Edna Curren, who threw one of the most awesome parties I have ever had the honor of attending Saturday. Festivities included hog roast, hay ride, professional fireworks display, dj, and enough beer and jello shots to float a battle ship!

And to all those light weights at my place of employment, I TOLD YOU NONE OF YOU COULD HANG WITH ME. The exception being the bosses daughter-in-law Shelley, who pretty much matched me beer for beer and jello shot for jello shot. Woman's pretty, smart, funny, and drinks like a man. No wonder Josh married her!