12 May 2005
Spectator
The view from here
Uncommencement Week at Yale?
Has Yale ever taken back a degree? You know, rescinded the conferral of a baccalaureate degree because there was overwhelming evidence that the degree recipient was an unabashed idiot? If not, the current occupant of the White House is screaming for the policy to be changed. It isn't just that the man has never met a polysyllable that he could master. It isn't that the man is so intellectually dishonest that you expect every pronouncement he makes to end with the Jon Lovitz' sobriquet "Yeah, that's the ticket." Now the moron is using history like it was his own personal Play-Dough. George Bush has now contended that the Yalta Conference at the end of WWII, constituted the western sellout of eastern Europe. Who advises this guy? The same people that advise Tony Masiello and Joel Giambra? President Roosevelt insisted and won a signed "Declaration on Liberated Europe" at Yalta. He, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin all signed the document that recognized the right of all people to choose their own form of government. The history is that Stalin ignored the advice of his own advisors to sign the document. In signing it, he had to become a public liar when he violated the declaration. True, that didn't prevent the enslavement of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, et al., but no one then could have seen the treachery that was to come after Yalta. No one "divided up Europe" and ceded a portion to communism as Bush would have us believe. George Bush is an embarrassment to us a nation but what must it be like to an Eli, trying to live down the stunning arrogance of stupidity that earned Bush a degree?
Recycling incompetence
Speaking of stupidity, the Spectator was chortling on Tuesday when he heard Nancy Naples lay out her "plan" to save Erie County. First, said our ersatz fiscal watchdog, we should take stock of all our social service programs and find out which of them is paid for by the state, which is paid for by the federal government, and which is paid for by the county. Then, she continued blithefully, we should determine if we can afford those locally funded programs. Damn!!! Why didn't we think of that before? Better yet, why didn't she? Why didn't Giambra? Why didn't anyone? What kind of intellectual sewer are they running over there? If we can't do better than this, we deserve this kind of representation. And wherein does our next political savior lurk? In the form of none other than Bob Whalen, who recently announced that he wants Naples' job. For the historically challenged, it should be recalled that Bob Whalen taught Giambra everything he knows. That's right. Giambra sat at Whalen's knee in Buffalo City Hall while Whalen was city comptroller. Armed with that knowledge and expertise, Giambra then proceeded to run Erie County into the ground. We keep recycling losers and wondering why we can't win.
Cheating to lose
CBS News has reported that all Army recruiting is currently "standing down." In realspeak, that means it has stopped. No one is even remotely approaching recruitment goals and yet, recruiting efforts are shut down. Why? Because the Army's recruiting staff has been guilty of as many frauds as Enron. Threatening recalcitrant prospects with arrest if they fail to keep appointments with recruiters, making occupational commitments that can't be kept, firing recruiters who don't meet quotas—these are just a few of the frauds that are being used to try to feed George Bush's war machine. And still the Army can't meet its goals. It's one thing to cheat to win. It's pathetic to cheat and still lose.
Cheating to kill
The Marines in Iraq received a good news/bad news treat recently. The good news is that five thousand armored vests are being recalled because they were found to be defective. The bad news is that five thousand Marines will be patrolling the mean streets of Iraq without body armor again. But even worse news is that a contractor besides Halliburton is cheating our fighting men and women.
Donald Rumsfeld's nefarious band of assholes
In the latest edition of his report, Jim Hightower points out that medics in Iraq don't carry tourniquets. With a high percentage of wounds stemming from IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and high percentage of such wounds resulting in traumatic amputation and the like, one might think that a tourniquet would be an essential device to stop bleeding and save lives. The Army, Hightower tells us, has the tourniquets but isn't issuing them because they have yet to produce a manual instructing soldiers on their use. But then again, Donald Rumsfeld did tell us war was a come as you are party. Didn't you think, though, that someone might have given a little thought to something as important as this? John Kerry was put through electoral hell because he voted against a war appropriation. What is the point of appropriating money if such a nefarious band of assholes is spending it?
Copyright 2005 by Buffalo Report, Inc.