My state legislator died of a heart attack yesterday. He was actually in the hospital for a wrist injury that required surgery. I never voted for him. I taught one of his children and he was a bad apple. Since it is not good to speak ill of the dead, I have nothing more to say about that.



Two teenage girls were arrested for making terroristic threats, saying on myspace that they were going to shoot up our school today and then kill themselves. They were arrested yesterday. It is not clear that they actually had access to weapons. A grandmother of one of them turned them in. One attended the school, and the other girl had been sent to the county's alternative school for disciplinary reasons, but had withdrawn and was being "home schooled." So much for the reputation of those homeschoolers.



Have I ever told you how parents use the home school thing? Long story short. Kid is failing every class near the end of the semester. Parent withdraws student so he gets no final grades. Parent returns student and re-enrolls two weeks later in the new semester. Parent presents a report that the student took all his classes in home school and made a grade of A in each class. This grade is recorded and credit is given. Student is put in the next level. The county must accept any grades given by homeschools.

Oil is at $92 a barrel at this moment. When was it that it was $18 a barrel? Oh yes, that was just before Bush and Cheney, the oilmen friendlies took over the government (in my opinion through fraud, not by democratic election). We have hit the all time highs for oil adjusted for inflation, so now we are in Carter era economics. What do you all you Repubs think about that? If we are having happy days like you say then let's revise the books and say President Carter led us through economic prosperity as well. Or . . . admit the truth about now. I think it is time to stop the executive branch cold. No more helping them muddle through their lame duckness. Fund the timely withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Nothing else. If the preznit wants any money, that is the money he gets. Otherwise, load em up and bring them all home right this minute. That won't be the best? Okay, well it is the preznit's decision.

My girls sang on Sunday. I was proud of them. It was the equivalent of a college choir singing after 3 weeks of rehearsal. Pretty tough. They pulled it off and looked good doing it. Five or Six hundred in the audience. That is a plus.

I didn't think Boston would sweep, but they were a powerful team. Pitching and hitting. The Rockies were outmanned. Why does the World Series have to end at mid-night? Too late for me to want to watch. When I was a kid watched the weekend games in the day. The weekday games were in the day too, but we had to listen to them surreptitiously on transistor radios. When it was warm.

There is a big picture on the front of the AJC today celebrating one year of sobriety for Tonya McElrathbey. With interventions by Oprah and other national figures and groups, she has managed to get off drugs and alcohol for one year. She does not have custody of her eight children back. Did you know that even with this heroic level of intervention and one year of success, the odds are still not in her favor for remaining sober. The bad part is there are thousands of Tonyas in Atlanta alone. The national media is not helping them. I don't want to say their situation is hopeless, but it is nearly so.

My daughter and her husband came to visit this weekend. They celebrated their first anniversary yesterday. That's a happy time. They seem to be in a good place in their lives.

The preznit now has 755,000 names on our terrorist watch list. Really? There are 755,000 known terrorists to watch out for? Of course you know that Ted Kennedy and John Lewis are on the list and get stopped and searched at airports.

Remember when all those islamic charity groups were shut down, their assests seized and their leaders charged with aiding terrorists. The government went to court to close them presenting "secret" evidence that the defendents never saw and could not defend themselves against. The judge ruled in the governments favor. How does one defend onesself against evidence you cannot see? Now the leaders of one group have been tried in Dallas with 197 charges against them. This time evidence had to be presented in court. Defendants were acquitted on all 197 charges. The government has a nice theory, but zero evidence that Islamic charities are anything other than charities. Great.

I see on CNBC this morning that the administration is putting on a new dog and pony show today, saying that virtually all trade with Iran secretly funds state sponsored terrorism by that country and aids them in their efforts to secure nuclear weapons and long range ballistic missles. They'll not be presenting any evidence in this case either.

Secretary of State Rice met with Jimmy Carter yesterday to get advice on the Israeli-Palistinian peace process. Pretty desperate move on the Repub's part, but they are trying to avoid complete and utter failure of the talks. President Carter declined their invitation to get involved at this point. When President Carter won't go in, things are not right.

The non-partisan office of management and budget said yesterday that the Iraq-Afghanistan conflicts will cost 2.4 trillion dollars to American taxpayers over the next 10 years. A trillion seems similar to a billion and is only three letters different from a million. But a trillion is a million millions. If you or I had a million dollars. We'd be retired. I noticed that 1.2 billion was totally unaccounted for in budget for training new Iraqi military. Where did that money go? Must have misplaced it.

Today the paper (AJC) reported that a 38 million dollar computer system that we have provided for the government in Iraq to do their accounting has been down for a month. No one has noticed. We have decided not to spend any money getting it back up since no one uses it.

The insanity, corruption, and evil of this administration has no parallel in American history.

One of my neighbors has a sticker on his car window:
1/20/2009 The end of an error.

There you have the Republican campaign strategy rolled out all in one day. We've got to stop Iran from having nuclear capability or we'll have world war. The drums of war, already beating for losing campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, are now crescendoing against Iran. And of course the nutcase, "we have no homosexuals" president of that country, teaming with the evil Russian Pootin', just fans the flames of fear. The purpose? To raise a question to the top of the campaign rhetoric: Who can best protect you from the terrorists, Rudy the Great or Hillary the girl?

The problem is . . . this ain't the right question. It's not even one of the top ten questions. In ganstuh talk, "fuhgetaboutit!" Iran isn't close to nuclear capability. We must focus on getting out of the mess of Iraqistan and rebuilding and resupplying our worn out armies, destroyed by the Bush Administration. How are we going to do that? That would be a good question.

I heard Repubs on the radio today saying that they expect Democrats to have a 58 to 42 majority in the senate following the next election. That isn't enough. Somehow we have to come up with 2 more senators in order to push aside the Repubs and repair the country. Back to peace. Back to fiscal sanity. The Repubs can go the way of the Whigs.

If the preznit insists on attacking Iran, someone in our government must stop him. We must make it clear that Attack Iran = Impeachment. First democratic candidate to say that has my vote. There is a crisis at the top. Impeachment times 2. Swift and final. We can get it done in a week. President Pelosi.

Patriotism that costs nothing.

If you watched Ken Burns' series "The War," you had to be impressed with the amount of sacrifice that given by the 16 million who served in the armed forces and the sacrifice of those who remained at home. Everyone was in the war. Recently, while at my father's LST reunion one of the men spoke to close out their final session. He said "We have been called the greatest generation. But I'll tell you the next generations seem to be doing pretty well for themselves." In other words, the country is continuing along a path that this former sailor felt gave honor to America. Fortunately for me, I can't really imagine their sacrifice. I did not see my friends blown into pieces, burned beyond recognition, or eaten by sharks. I cannot imagine it. They cannot forget it.

Yet I fear that this war, while added to the national debt, and while a tremendous burden to the families of the 3,800 dead and the 27,000 severely injured and their families, has not cost the common American anything. I feel it hasn't cost me anything. The stock market is at an all time high. My taxes can't even be raised to pay for it. "No new taxes." Not even a war bond drive. Ideology cannot be sacrificed while a Repub is in office. Let someone else pay the cost later.

I live in a community that is 80 to 85% Repub. They vote Repub. They talk Repub. They wave the flag. As I walk the dog in the mornings, we pass homes which vary in price from about $300,000 up to about $800,000. Pretty nice places. Every other place has a flag displayed and many have two or more flags unfurled. In the cluster home community there are, some have tiny driveways which won't completely accomodate the Ford 250 truck with the extra long bed that they drive, so it hangs out into the street. Why does this retiree drive this shiney new "boss" truck, wave a flag, call Clinton a draft dodger, John Kerry a traitor, and vote Repub? Why does he fear immigrants?

Are our lives guided by our experiences, by our reason, by our emotions, or heaven forbid, by our DNA? Could it be we have little choice about what we do in life? Like the twins, separated at birth who met at age 50 to find they married women by the same name and hair color. They named their children the same names. The smoked the same cigarettes, drank the same beer, captained their bowling teams, etc., etc. They each thought they were making choices. Perhaps not?

The Repub fear of immigrants is interesting to me. How unhappy to have these people coming in from troubled or war torn countries who don't speak a word of English. Someone like 9 year old Mario Capecchi (kuh Peck ee) and his mom, who came from Italy in the late 40's. Separated from his mom at age 4 when she went to the Dachau death camp, he lived on the street, in orphanages, and in a hospital for malnutrition, until Mom, one of the few to survive the camp, found him in hospital at age 9. Two weeks later, they were in the United States. He was one of the ESOL kids, starting in the 3rd grade, even though he had never been to school and spoke only Italian. Yesterday, he won a Nobel prize in medicine, along with another American, Oliver Smithies, 82, and Sir Martin Evans 66, of Wales. Our national media reported that two Americans and one Brit were awarded the prize. They did not say that the two Americans were both immigrants, one from Italy, one from the United Kingdom. Pause. Wave the flag. Ignore the irony.

Mario Capecchi seems about like the many disadvantaged immigrants or like the children of lower class America who struggle against so many issues. Yet he wins the Nobel prize. How do we explain it?--The influence of his mother, his Italian work ethic, his reason, "choices" that he made? Or maybe . . . the stuff he was working on which won him the prize--his DNA.

I don't know what makes me a Democrat. I'd be willing to have my taxes raised to help give $190 billion to making the world better. Instead, the proposal is to put $190 on the charge bill to go and blow stuff up. We must find a way to stymie this horrible preznit. If I were a congressman today. I would refuse to vote for any legislation until compromises were made. No compromise, no government. I'd cut off my own pay. I'd cut off all travel allowances for the executive branch. I'd cut off everyone's pay. Until compromises were made.

When I went to a reunion for my dad's WWII ship recently, I was presented with 3 very odd photographs. Taken from a ship that was next to my father's LST, they show a Japanese kamakazi plane in the sky, diving toward the ship, and the explosion and fire that follow the crash. It's one thing to see this on TV, and another to realize your father is in that photo. The ship went down with about half the crew. Men who could get over to another ship were rescued. These guys are all in their 80's now, but energetic, interesting, and obviously bound together. This was their 25th annual reunion. They went about 35 years before they got together the first time.

Saddam asked for 1 billion in exchange for leaving Iraq and going into exile, one month before the war. This report in the UK is being ignored by the White House. Regime change without war.

$600 billion later, there is no end in sight. What was the purpose of all this?

A new conservative group with very, very, deep pockets is gearing up to promote the idea that Iran is a threat to the national security of the U.S. Watch for them.