So gasoline prices have been going down in my city over the last couple of weeks. Quite a bit, too. And people say that Bush never solves any problems!

Looks like John Mark Karr won't be standing trial for the murder of JonBenet Ramsey after all. The linked article is mostly about a different crime he's being tried for, in a different state altogether, but it does give a brief explanation for why he isn't being tried for the murder of JonBenet Ramsey: The decision to extradite Karr [to Sonoma County] was made after authorities in Boulder, Colo., informed Passalacqua on Monday that they would not be proceeding with murder charges agai...

In the eight years of his presidency, George W. Bush will never detonate nuclear weapons, not as a test, nor as a demonstration, nor as an attack on America's enemies. If Iran develops nuclear weapons, the Iranian government will detonate them as a test, as a demonstration, and as an attack against Iran's enemies--probably fulfilling all three purposes with a single blast--within eight years of developing them. If the Iranian government detonates a nuclear weapon, the American left will...

Protestant theologian C. S. Lewis subscribes to the idea of a cosmic battle between Good and Evil. According to this idea, the Forces of Good have for some reason chosen us--humanity--as the front and final line of defense in this battle. Developing the military metaphor, Lewis proposes that the faithful are not tested by misfortune as a punishment for their sins, but as a "reward" for their faith. Just as you train your troops hard, so that they will perform well on the battlefield, s...

#3 by STRES2 Tuesday, December 13, 2005 Things are not what they may first seem. Read it and you might understand what i'm saying. people are too rushy rushy, give things a little bit of time and you will be rewarded with understanding. This blog is not for deaf ears. If you are not willing to take the time to understand what is being written then this isn't for you. There is a rule that undermines all yours. it's called freedom of speech. and if my words fall on deaf ea...

Okay, so Bush is Evil. Iraq was about the oil. Or about delivering beatings to poor brown people. Or maybe it was just stupid. Whatever. I'll accept any claim you might make about Iraq. Heck, let's even allow that maybe--just maybe!--9/11 was engineered by Evil Zionazi Neocons as an excuse to put U.S. troops in Iraq to make it easier to nuke Iran's peaceful uranium processing facilities. I'll grant you anything. But let me ask you a question or two. Who is doing more to rebui...

Current Katrina death toll in Louisiana (see paragraph two): 579 (approximately) Death toll from European heat wave in 2003 : 35,000 ("In France alone, 14,802 people died from the searing temperatures...") The body count for Katrina will go up, of course, as the recovery work progresses. If we find sixty times more bodies , it will match Europe's tragedy. Could somebody please explain to me why we listen to Europe about anything having to do with good government, humane ...

"Pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans," said Cindy Sheehan today. Never mind that up until this morning, her own faction's position was that we didn't "occupy" New Oleans enough . Or how about this, from the same essay : "If I had a store with an inventory of insured belongings, and a tragedy happened, I would fling my doors open and tell everyone to take what they need: it is only stuff." Note that it's not her generosity or sacrifice that she's proclaiming: It's the ...

I am cranky, JoeUser. This post, expressing the crankiness, may be safely dismissed as a troll. So let me get this straight: For over a generation now, a central message of the Democratic party has been that Republicans hate the poor and wouldn't mind seeing them all dead (or enslaved in concentration camps, or both). For at least that long, "everybody" has known that New Orleans was in severe danger of catastrophic flooding, due to an inadequate flood control system. So the poo...

More evidence that the the French suck: New Orleans. Now, I'm not saying it's a bad idea to build a city below the water line of the nearest large bodies of water. I mean, the Dutch managed to put an entire country below the water line, once, and they've been doing just fine ever since. But note the key difference between Holland and New Orleans. Holland was set up by the Dutch. New Orleans was set up by the French. Moral of this story: We Americans need to stop taking advice ...

So it looks like soldiers are reenlisting in greater numbers than ever, but less civilians are choosing to enter the military for the first time. I think this is pretty interesting. What it tells me is that the people who have the best, personal, first-hand information on what it's like to be a soldier, and what it's like in Iraq, are quite willing to sign up for more of the same. Meanwhile, those people who get their information about the military and about Iraq secondhand, from the...

So it looks like I was wrong about the whole Able Danger thing (my article ). The issue is a lot more complex and inconclusive than I thought, and the implications aren't really clear yet. I apologize for mouthing off when I should've kept the ol' pie hole shut. That is all. Carry on.

So let me get this straight: The Department of Defense had solid intelligence on the 9/11 hijackers, including names and photographs, well in advance of the hijacking. The DoD tried to communicate this intel to the FBI, but were prohibited from doing so by a Justice Dept. regulation. The FBI was never notified, and (obviously) no action was ever taken. The 9/11 Commission was briefed on this, but did not include it in their report. One of the 9/11 Commissioners was the author ...