that other guy’s thoughts

what?…who?…I don’t get it.

2.4% that’s the rate the economy grew in the last 3 months. Basically twice what was expected. Unemployment rates are leveling off, which is too be expected, it being a consistent trailing edge indicator. Now word on the street (street as in “Wall”, not street as in “da hood”) is that growth will be 4% this quarter. Extrapolating, by the time the election rolls around the economy should be ripping it up, pulling the unemployed back from the wayside, and the mildest recession ever* will be a memory. So what exactly will they find to complain about then?

*can’t actually be verified pre-1917, sorry

In case anyone was wondering, I was reminding again this weekend that;

children are people too

if you’re confused, reference this post and you’ll see

These are still perilous times. But if anyone on September 12, 2001, had predicted that 22 months later there would still be no repeat of 9/11; that bin Laden would be either quiet, dead, or in hiding; that al Qaeda would be dispersed, the Taliban gone, and the likes of a Mr. Karzai in Kabul; that Saddam Hussein would be out of power, his sons dead, and an Iraqi national council emerging in his place; that troops would be leaving Saudi Arabia, Arafat ostracized, and Sharon seeking negotiations; that new Middle East agreements under discussion — and all at a cost of fewer than 300 American lives — then he would surely have been written off as a madman

-Victor Davis Hanson

who said this:

We should be pulling for America on this. We should be pulling for the people of Iraq. We can have honest disagreements about where we go from here, and we have space now to discuss that in what I hope will be a nonpartisan and open way. But this State of the Union deal they decided to use the British intelligence. The president said it was British intelligence. Then they said on balance they shouldn’t have done it. You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president. I mean, you can’t make as many calls as you have to make without messing up once in awhile. The thing we ought to be focused on is what is the right thing to do now. That’s what I think.

Leave you guesses in the comment section. And don’t go all google-junkie on me either. I’m looking for gut instincts, not internet research.

ANSWER: Bill “how about a fine cigar” Clinton, it just goes to show how whacked out the democratic party has gone.

a few new additions to the mix tape. (as well as some tweaking to the existing lineup)

The new stuff:

19-2000 - gorillaz
Paradise City - Guns ‘n Roses
Walk on the Wild side - Bob Dylan I decided to go with the original Lou Reed version
…and something by 311

For those of you who haven’t read/listened to/watched British P.M. Tony Blair’s Speech to Congress last week, do it. The text is available here (free reg. required) or you can watch the whole thing here (courtesy of C-SPAN). I recommend watching the speech.

He delivered a message that has been direly lacking from the white house. I have no doubt that all the items Blair mentioned are the same beliefs Bush holds. It’s just that he is not a very good communicator, and thus politician. Actions are really all that matter to me and I keep a close eye on the news, but this may be a wake up call to the casual citizen about all the good stuff that has been done and the noble plans that lay ahead.

Okay I’m just going to clear up a few things for the self-righteous journalists and media icons.

When Scott Peterson whacks his wife and dumps her in the Ocean, I don’t care! Neither do I care about what Kobe Bryant does in Colorado A missing basketball player doesn’t concern me. All of these stories in no way affect me. Stop calling them news. I would rather hear an hour-long recital of all the congressional actions of the day, than listen to another “expert analysis” of what whoever’s lawyer should/might do if somebody else’s lawyer file a certain set of papers. I DON’T GIVE A FLYING FARK!

And another thing I’ve already harped on before (see here and here) but I really wish you would all stop passing off editorial pieces as news.

…And now to an issue near and dear to your heart, Free Speech. You see the first amendment, which you run up the flagpole every time you get it trouble, is pretty specific. It applies to the government (congress shall make no law…) not your employer, not your fans, not Entertainment Tonight, nobody but the government. So when you call the President a dirty SOB and all your fans get their radio stations to stop playing your songs, and thus stop paying you royalties, and when everybody avoids you like the plague, your free speech is not being restricted. You said what you said, nobody imprisoned you, reposed your home, or killed you. And for you whiny news commentators who complain about getting fired because of something you said. You see if all your viewers/listeners get pissed off because of what you said, and they call your network/station to say that they hate your guts, will never watch/listen again, and contemplating hunting you down to the ends of the earth to rid the human species of your wretched vileness, your boss not only has the right to fire you, he’d be declared legally retard should he not.

So there you go. Heed my advice and gain my viewership. Don’t, and the contemplation begins.

My brother is in town, so I probably won’t post a lot. Needless to say, fun will insue.

from the BBC:

Iran has acknowledged that a Canadian-Iranian photojournalist was beaten to death after her arrest outside a prison in Tehran. Vice President Ali Abtahi said Zahra Kazemi died “of a brain haemorrhage resulting from beatings”. Ms Kazemi, 54, was detained on 23 June for taking pictures of Tehran’s Evin prison. She was later pronounced dead after falling into a coma. But officials in Tehran are still refusing to allow Canada to conduct its own investigation into the photographer’s death. “We are knowledgeable enough to examine the body and find out the cause of her death, so we will not allow foreign teams to investigate,” Health Minister Massoud Pezeshkian told the AFP news agency.

normally I’d half-heartedly compliment the BBC for actually reporting news as news, not with their anti-american op-ed slant, but since this is serious I’ll bypass the technicalites.

With this news and a recent statement from Reporters Without Borders that says there are have been 22 foreign journalists arrested and never seen since in the last month. They only question that remains is “Who will be first, North Korea or Iran?”