FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY

To achieve a sound body, treat it as you would a sound
business.  Pay all bills well before
they’re overdue so nature doesn’t have to foreclose.

MURDOCTORED UP NEWS DEPT.

    We’re offering a scoop to Fox News:  you know
the F_X news service with nothing (O) in the middle as opposed to the
(AU) gold, we modestly offer from ours, ahem.  That said, we now
reach out to inform this staunchly anti-communist guardian (or Pravda,
take your choice) of the right about a big time business man who’s
aiding the communist party and Chinese government on many levels. 
This gentleman has been effusive in his public praise of the current
Chinese communist party leaders, engaged in financial dealings with
their children, and helped them in their development of a
website.  He is now even in league with the Communist Youth League
on a fledgling television project.  What is it with such short
sighted self serving capitalists so memorably mocked by Lenin with his
declaration that a capitalist will sell you the rope you use to hang
him?  Why aren’t the murdoctored forces of Murdoch’s minions
exposing this communist enabler?  Well, there’s one reason and
that is under the you can’t make this up genre because, and you may
have guessed it, the businessman we’ve described is Rupert Murdoch
himself.  The reality of these guys is so bizarre, they’re killing
fiction.

WILL THE BLOOMBERG STAY ON THE ROSE-DEPT.

Independent candidates make great press but face even greater
odds.  Billionaires or not (actually yes, Michael Bloomberg is
worth eight billion dollars), well financed candidates have shown they
can get votes from the people (Ross Perot got 19% in 1992) but rarely
get enough for the Electoral College; Perot got zero.

 

We could make an argument that Mr. Bloomberg is the most capable person
holding elective office in the U.S. but, that said, he could prove to
be the most disruptive, however well intentioned.  On the positive
side, it must be noted that the mayor is currently the public enemy
Number 1 of the NRA due to his targeting the 1% of all gun dealers that
supply 60% of the guns used in crimes in the U.S.  And, gosh, we
would have hoped the NRA would have targeted criminals as the
enemy.  On the downside, there remains the open ended question . .
. if he runs, does he spoil and get us yet another “fir me or agin me”
president, you know a “uniter not a divider”?  Were that to
happen, historically the Bloomberg would sadly have come off the rose.

Friday Fauxlosophy

Ink dries, life is fluid.

TORT REFORM, STICK A BORK IN IT

    In 1987 towards the end of his presidency, Ronald
Reagan wanted to make a conservative statement, and to do so, he
nominated Robert Bork to fill a Supreme Court vacancy.  Mr. Bork
was a man who regularly made conservative statements as well and wanted
to effect serious change on what he felt was an off course
America.  Among his foremost goals was to achieve tort reform, to
guard against greedy people suing for all they could get, deserving or
not.  He called these suits “expensive, capricious and
unpredictable”, basically the act of a real slime ball.

    Recently, such a suit appears to have been filed
against the Yale Club of NYC (by a Yale Alum) in fact, by a man who
fell while stepping off a podium in June of 2006.  The suit is for
a million dollars and could be a case in point for Mr. Bork’s argument
if the lowlife, we mean plaintiff, or well, both, was not Mr. Bork
himself.  The lesson:  a right wing ideologue trumpeting the
dangers of self serving greed should be taken seriously; it’s like a
great white warning that certain fish are carnivorous.

JOHN MCCAIN, A DOWN MARKET

The current trend is unmistakable; John McCain is failing badly in the Republican polls. Mr. McCain is a true military hero who’s tried to become a true ideological hard right conservative but that sometimes rather base base has never really trusted him. For one thing, he stands up to less than dutiful defense contractors and come Haliburton or high water, that is something this ruling group of right wingers never does, as if supporting the troops includes actually giving them the best support, in materials and armor. So let’s take a Faux Network look then at some of the other leading candidates, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson to see how these brave, hawkish proactive would be commanders-in-chief in theory, served our country in fact, as did former Vietnam prisoner of war, McCain.

THE POWER OF THREE

9 Rudy 1 Giuliani 1 is not, of course, his legal name but we bet he’d make it that if he could. People forget he was Rudy the reviled before that tragic day, and he’s been living off it politically AND financially ever since but a look at Mayor Rudy’s career suggests that there’s a better number for him than 911. Please follow, his much maligned post 9/11 security business had THREE partners who were indicted or under investigation. He claims to have always valued families and, in fact, has had THREE of them, or at least that’s the number of his marriages and just how did rugged Rudy serve his country in the Vietnam era, he had, you guessed it, THREE deferments.

THE MISSIONARY POSITION

Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, is riding the financial wave of having raised the most money for his campaign and, of having the most money in his pockets, as well. However, he’s running against the cultural tide as some 30% of Americans feel they would have difficulties voting for a Mormon, claiming they’re a sect and citing the early Mormons’ polygamy, among other differences. As to the polygamy thing, there are only currently 40, sorry, make that 40,000 polygamists in this country, but Mr. Romney himself has had a singularly happy marriage so if you’re going to point fingers regarding the conduct of other Mormons, take their wives, please. On the military side, mega Mitt avoided service in the Vietnam era a number of times, in a related way by taking on what he describes as missions for his calling, assuming, if you will, the missionary position as he faced the draft.

WHAT WILL CANDIDATE THOMPSON SHOW AND WHEN WILL HE SHOW IT?

Fred Thompson is not yet a full candidate so he doesn’t merit a full article, he will announce, we’re told, on July 4th. None of his bios mention military service but he is famous for the singular question during the Watergate inquiries, a line he fed Howard Baker, “What did the President know, and when did he know it”?, so what will candidate Thompson show . . .

OUR FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY

To those who feel tough talk is the litmus for leadership; careful, don’t confuse attitude with aptitude.

THEIR OWN WORSE ENMITY

What did it take for Republicans to turn on G.W. Bush, as so
many now have. Was it an incompetent occupation of Iraq, a botched budget due to an absurd up with the rich tax refund, or a stubborn refusal to protect our country as he fails to implement any significant portion of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations. No, it’s that Mr. Bush had the temerity to offer a plan which would give avenues, not easy ones mind you, to citizenship for the 12 million plus immigrants now in residence in the U.S. So why then does his conservative base object so virulently? Could it be, dare we raise the issue, that the would be citizens in question are not fair skinned? The political right’s tradition of not welcoming those “different” has been historically, and sadly, consistent and was in previous times, confirmed by the way in which first and second generation Irish, Italian, and Jewish citizens aligned themselves politically: namely as democrats. Were I an Hispanic citizen, I’d so “register” my reaction.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BY, WE MEAN TO GEORGE

It’s George H. W. Bush’s 83rd birthday and we wish him a happy. We’re unable to suppress a grin, however, because of the mug given to me by my dear son-in-law, Dan, featuring 41’s picture with the following “quote”: I should have pulled out. Nonetheless to H.W., we wish a happy and many more.

A SEMI-COLIN UPDATE

This past Sunday on “Meet the Press”, former Bush cabinet member, Colin Powell, took a deep breath and exhaled a few candid ones. First, he acknowledged that if he knew the true facts about there being no WMD’s in Iraq, he would not have been able to make a case for attacking Iraq in his appearance before the U.N. He also allowed that the management of the Iraqi occupation by his former boss, Mr. Bush, had been unbelievably mismanaged and that the surge as constructed won’t work because it’s not backed up by the requisite training of Iraqi troops and the proper diplomatic steps among the warring Iraqi factions. And, Mr. Powell closed with among other thoughts that, what we should do with the Guantanamo Bay interrogation centers is close them. Right now, in fact and if people go to trial he said “So what”. It seems Colin Powell has confidence in our judicial systems as most Americans do, and it seems our Constitution, as well. Wish Mssrs. Bush and Cheney, among others, had more of Mr. Powell’s mettle of freedom in their own constitutions.

OUR FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY: THE RAPPORT ON SUPPORT

My input and experience confirms indisputably that the survival instinct of soldiers is not diminished one little bit by any real, or perceived lack of public support or sympathy. We didn’t give a crap if they were fornicating at Furman or protesting in Pepperdine; we protected each other and ourselves, knowing all too well that our future quality of life depended on many non- regrowable parts. We anticipated and reacted accordingly.

THEY SHOOT ZEBRAS, DON'T THEY?

Yet again, another acquaintance has likened the battlefield to the football field, with both Vietnam and Iraq in his terms, cases in point. You play to win say such bold (and safe) men, but are we in Iraq the players? I ask this because in uniform on a football field, there are 3 groups of people, the two competing teams, and the officials. Those lining up opposite each other, of course, (the two teams) agree on few things, except more often then not their dislike of the group in the striped shirts called derisively “the zebras”. And since this civil war in Iraq, and it is one with all its sub plots and splinter plots, is basically between the Sunni’s and the Shiites, now that the central government of Saddam Hussein is long gone, what else are we but the on the ground umpires and referees, et al.
Imagine then, a gridiron contest with no enforcement of rules, and the mayhem and bodily harm sure to follow. Chaos might ensue or . . . getting their violence unedited, and first hand, might just encourage the rival forces to ratchet on down, resulting in at least a bit of sanity not just for our sake but for their’s as well. In the meantime, with our forces as buffer targets, the combatants continue to IED and snipe away. Again, if people want to analogize this situation to a football game, remember our role, and that in this secular crossfire of a contest, they shoot zebras, don’t they?

THIS WEEK'S FAUXLOSOPHY FOR FRIDAY

The small owner operated business has, invariably, this unique dynamic; we pay taxes on our profits but our aggravation is net.  And, alas, often a good deal of take home.