11.4.07
The age of nonsense
by Jon Worley
Lately I feel like I've been swimming in place. My brain simply cannot process any more nonsense. I've been reading the paper, and I just can't quite make sense of things any more.
All of the following things really happened in the last couple of weeks. And I couldn't begin to tell you why.
Our next attorney general can't decide whether or not waterboarding is torture. I'm not sure if this is a job requirement, but it does seem to be a fairly cut-and-dried question. Something along the lines of "yes" or "no." Not "I haven't been given the security clearance necessary to answer that question." And speaking of that...shouldn't you get your clearance before you get confirmed? I mean, you don't want the attorney general sitting on his ass for a few weeks waiting on that clearance. This just smells all too bogus for me.
FEMA faked a press conference to talk about the California wildfires. The press conference was called fifteen minutes before it started--which meant that no reporters could physically attend. There were phone lines set up for reporters to listen in, but those reporters weren't allowed to ask questions. Who asked the questions? FEMA staffers. You want to know how stupid this was? When the White House press office found out, it issued a press release saying that it would never, ever do such a thing...unless the Vice President made them do it.
The military dictator of Pakistan has declared martial law and fired the chief judge of the Supreme Court. This just after he had supposedly paved the way for a marginal move toward real elections by allowing the return of the Queen (er, Benazir Bhutto). I understand the firing...the Supreme Court has been coming down on the government for a long time. But I don't understand the "state of emergency" (martial law by another name). Seems to me that if you want to calm things down, you don't run into a theater and shout "Fire!" Then again, maybe that's how things work in Pakistan.
Kansas scored 76 points on Nebraska and Missouri beat Colorado by 45--at Colorado. There is a very real chance that both teams could be in the top 5 when they meet the weekend after Thanksgiving. The mind boggles. Still.
Christmas beers hit the stores the day after Halloween. I know that places like Target started moving in the mechanized Santa Clauses and such in the middle of October, but brewers are usually a more circumspect bunch. Get the stuff out there before Thanksgiving, sure. But do I need three months of Anchor Steam's Merry Christmas and Happy New Year? Well, maybe. But I've got a lot of Oktoberfests to finish off first. And there's a task that truly does stagger the mind.
One of the campaign chairmen for Fred Thompson's presidential campaign has multiple drug dealing convictions. That's not surprising. There are only so many ways to score the massive amounts of cash necessary to be a political player, and dealing is one of the more ethical ones. What's more surprising is that Thompson is defending his bud. To a point, anyway. They'll remain friends. No word yet on whether Philip "Superfly" Martin remains with the campaign.
The dingbat behind The Bell Curve has struck again, this time with an article in Commentary magazine called "Jewish Genius." The premise of his article (and a book by Jon Entine called Abraham's Children) is that Jews are naturally smarter due to certain genetic factors. Of course, Entine is only talking about Ashkenazi Jews (folks from Eastern Europe, generally). Murray would like to include Sephardic Jews in the brainy bunch because he's known a few of them to be brilliant, as well. I'm afraid I'm not smart enough to tell whether or not this is a giant joke foisted on those of us with lesser brain power.
Hollywood writers are going on strike. I really don't care, but I am curious why people do. I mean, if this kills ten episodes of some nameless, faceless sitcom, shouldn't we be happy? I just don't see the angst, people.
I'm sure more things are going on, but I just can't think of them. My brain is toast. Time to find another Oktoberfest.
Jon Worley would like to announce that homebrew season has finally arrived inside the Beltway.
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