3 H 34 (Feb. 04, 2003) - 2:53 p.m.

Panic in the sky?

I'm going through an honest phase. Enjoy it while you can, because it's starting to bore me.
— Prince Kheldar of Drasnia, in Guardians of the West by David Eddings

Okay, I've just about bitten through my tongue vis-a-vis this post from my favorite message board. If I'd been on the ball, I'd have posted this reply to the Ballad, but the less timely it gets, the less I feel like posting it there. Besides, I'm taking advantage of CB's current willingness to rant about politics as an excuse to do some ranting of my own.

Walkie, if you're reading this, let me recommend to you this piece by Michael Moore. (Of course, you being the frothing Republiclone you are, you probably already dismissed it the moment I told you whom it was by, but at least you know it's out there.)

Now, admittedly, it's been a year or more since the events he describes, and the literally insane policies he relates may have changed. But still, there is no "most charitable interpretation" of that key policy point, nor even a least uncharitable one. Either
a) this adsinistration is so deeply in Big Tobacco's pocket that keeping RJ Reynolds, Philip Morris Altria and Brown & Williamson happy (by not confiscating lighters their customer base wouldn't be allowed, under current non-smoking regs, to use in the air anyway) is more important to them than the War on Some Terror, or
b) the War on Some Terror is completely bogus anyway.
Quite frankly, I don't know which would be worse.

Consider also this statistic from the blogger some call Tim:

just to drive home a point, it took hours to put together an independant investigation team for this, over a year for 9-11.

And for the late God's sake, don't let me get started on sElection 2000 or we will be here all night. Rather than risk that, in fact, I'll bail now. Please take the quiz on your way out.

-30-

I'm an apparently intelligent, liberal, not-too-generous, not-too-selfish, relatively well adjusted human being!
Which, like you care, makes me 75% compatible with canadibrit, who pointed me at this test.
See how compatible you are with me!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey [Tweaked 4 H in an attempt to remove what was viewed as an unfair characterization of smokers by the specific smoker I was hoping not to offend in the first place, and to say some things I was afraid to say about the implications of the lighter policy.]

last time, on The Slack Shack - our next inciting exstallment