Getting Things Wrong

In a strict party-line vote (20-14), the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Karl Rove in Contempt of Congress. Which is purely an exercise in futility unless Speaker Nancy 'Off The Table' Pelosi approves a full vote, and unless Attorney General Michael 'Never Saw A Crime He Didn't Prosecute' Mukasey enforces the law.

Pelosi's up for re-election in November. Without leading the way on accountability and oversight, nothing else she can claim to have achieved during her tenure as Speaker is worth a damn.

As for the party line vote, if running the country was that simple, I'd borrow the tic-tac-toe playing chicken from the county fair and put it in office.

Tuesday's earthquake in Southern California provided two television moments, both from shows under production at the time.

The first was an episode of Judge Judy, where the set begins to shake, and then crashing noises are heard off-camera. Judy looks completely perplexed, and the audience promptly panics and heads for the faux door of the set.

It strikes me as odd that there was no instruction to the audience, and clearly no safety briefing prior to taping, even as simple as, "... should an emergency arise during taping, staff members will direct you to the nearest exit."

The other clip is from the reality show Big Brother, where the contestants panic and call for their housemates to come outside.

"Ohmygod, the ground is shaking," notes one of the contestants.

Um, yes. That's why it's called an earthquake. Seriously, folks, we've had two major quakes in the last thirty years (Loma Prieta and Northridge), not to mention quakes in other countries. There are programs on Discovery Channel, History Channel; there are museums that feature 'shake table' earthquake simulators.

IMHO, 'Ohmygod, the ground is shaking,' is indicative of someone being so fucking self-absorbed that they qualify for the picture alongside the term, 'head up one's ass.'

And maybe it's why the whole Fear Terrorism thing works so well - we're stupid. Idiots. Sheep. Baaaaaaa.

The RAND Corporation has released a study that says long-term intelligence and police procedure is more effective at stopping terrorism than military action.

The study points out that al-Qaeda played a more prominent role post-9/11 and our action in Afghanistan than it had during its prior history. (That is, we didn't really impact their operations and quite possibly made them into a rising star.)

Would the media please report that Bush's little victory speech this morning was a collection of half-truths, most notably the 'we're cutting tours-of-duty to 12 months' so our military personnel can spend more time with their families?

Have we already forgotten that the Bush Administration has been playing a constant shell game with our troops, lengthening and shortening deployments, going back on their word to give units uninterrupted time out of theater?

Have we forgotten that, just this past week, the staggering amount of suicide prevention calls by veterans was reported, showing how lax we've been in care for PTSD and post-combat transitioning?

Yet the Cow Chip-in-Chief stands there and smirks and bobs and shrugs, and he's treated like he speaks nothing but gospel truth.

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