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Apr. 13th, 2004
(no subject)
Apr. 13th, 2004 09:21 amI must be getting obsessed with G.W. He was on my mind for hours before I finally was able to fall into deep sleep. (No more Worse than Watergate before bed.)
After I got to sleep, I had odd dreams that of course I can't recall in full now. I remember coming across several fishtanks that were probably a memory from a previous dream. These five tanks were filled with fish years ago, but I had to abandon them. Most of the fish were common, but some in the largest tank (the size of a big-screen TV) had exotic fish in there. When I came back to the tanks, I expected to find, well, small bodies floating at the top of the water's surface. Instead, there were still fish in there, alive. Most of them, however, were large and ugly, as if they'd mutated from eating the other, smaller fish.
( Read more... )
After I got to sleep, I had odd dreams that of course I can't recall in full now. I remember coming across several fishtanks that were probably a memory from a previous dream. These five tanks were filled with fish years ago, but I had to abandon them. Most of the fish were common, but some in the largest tank (the size of a big-screen TV) had exotic fish in there. When I came back to the tanks, I expected to find, well, small bodies floating at the top of the water's surface. Instead, there were still fish in there, alive. Most of them, however, were large and ugly, as if they'd mutated from eating the other, smaller fish.
( Read more... )
I've only begun to reread this book.
Apr. 13th, 2004 06:01 pmLong before the appointed moment arrives, the election becomes the greatest and so to speak sole business preoccupying minds.
[...] For his part, the president is absorbed by the care of defending himself. He no longer governs in the interest of the state, but in that of his reelection. . . .
Intrigue and corruption are vices natural to elective governments. But when the head of state can be reelected, the vices spread indefinitely and compromise the very existence of the country. . . . [When] the head of state puts himself in the running, he borrows the force of the government for his own use.
[...] The plain citizen who uses reprehensible maneuvers to attain power can only harm public prosperity in an indirect manner; but if the representative of the executive power descends into the lists, the care of the government becomes a secondary interest to him; his principal interest is his reelection.
[...] It is impossible to consider the ordinary course of affairs in the United States without noticing that the desire to be reelected dominates the thoughts of the president; that the whole policy of his administration tends toward that point; that his least steps are subordinated to that object; that above all as the moment of the crisis [of the national election] approaches, individual interest is substituted in his mind for the general interest.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (2000 edition), pp. 127-29.
someone's lying--under oath.
Apr. 13th, 2004 06:31 pmThe second [FBI] report quoted Pickard as saying he had briefed Ashcroft on terrorist threats in late June and July 2001 but the attorney general was not interested.
"After two such briefings, the attorney general told him he did not want to hear this information anymore," the report quoted Pickard as saying. Pickard himself repeated the charge in his testimony but Ashcroft vehemently denied it.
"Acting Director Pickard and I had more than two meetings. We had regular meetings," he said.
"Secondly I did never speak to him saying that I did not want to hear about terrorism. I care greatly about the safety and security of the American people and was very interested in terrorism, and specifically interrogated him about threats to the American people and domestic threats in particular."
Ashcroft at Center of Storm Over Sept. 11 Attacks
"After two such briefings, the attorney general told him he did not want to hear this information anymore," the report quoted Pickard as saying. Pickard himself repeated the charge in his testimony but Ashcroft vehemently denied it.
"Acting Director Pickard and I had more than two meetings. We had regular meetings," he said.
"Secondly I did never speak to him saying that I did not want to hear about terrorism. I care greatly about the safety and security of the American people and was very interested in terrorism, and specifically interrogated him about threats to the American people and domestic threats in particular."
Ashcroft at Center of Storm Over Sept. 11 Attacks
(no subject)
Apr. 13th, 2004 10:07 pmMan! Can anyone in the Bush administration answer the questions they're given? Tonight's press conference was a sorry spectacle.
Read for yourself.
Read for yourself.
(no subject)
Apr. 13th, 2004 10:26 pmBush rejected a suggestion that Iraq was becoming another Vietnam — a quagmire without ready exit. “I think that analogy is false,” he said. “I also happen to think that analogy sends the wrong message to our troops and it sends the wrong message to our enemy.”
Bush vows to stay the course in Iraq
Well, that's nice, Mr. President. Could you maybe tell us why you think it's a "false" analogy? Lots of other people seem to think it's right on, including some Republicans.
Sometimes it's not about "message". Sometimes it's about truth.
(And I swear, if I hear "stay the course" one more time, I'm going to have to break something.)
Bush vows to stay the course in Iraq
Well, that's nice, Mr. President. Could you maybe tell us why you think it's a "false" analogy? Lots of other people seem to think it's right on, including some Republicans.
Sometimes it's not about "message". Sometimes it's about truth.
(And I swear, if I hear "stay the course" one more time, I'm going to have to break something.)