Politics

Just to follow up on George Bush’s ratings, here is a summary from pollingreport.com:Bush: Job Ratings. Makes for ugly reading if you’re George!!

They keep on sinking. But instead of changing his ways he digs deeper into the hole. Now he comes out and tells us that it’s wrong to investigate the origins of the Iraq war. No it’s not. Not when we all now realize that we were systematically lied to by the very people who are supposed to protect us. Not after over 2,000 soldiers have died in a war that need not have taken place. And especially not if those who started the war are still pulling all the levers of power. George said in his latest speech [late last week] that he will take responsibility: well then he should come out and say he made a mistake and clear out the mischief mongers on his staff who planned the invasion of Iraq from as long ago as the mid-1990’s. Then he should face the veterans whose lives have been ruined by his ‘mistake’ and explain to them what he’s going to do to help them. George just doesn’t seem to understand that his plummeting popularity isn’t some dastardly Democratic Party plot, but is an indictment of his character: he’s a liar whose lies have cost lives. Lincoln’s saying about fooling people finally caught up with the Bush regime. Too bad there’s no way to get rid of him before 2008.

The Administration’s continuing efforts to justify torture are outrageous. There is no justification whatever that makes torture tolerable as an instrument of American policy. It is obscene to make exceptions. Either the country tolerates torture or it does not. It cannot be ‘sort of’ against. The Bush team, led by Dick Cheney, continues to try to draw distinctions between U.S. citizens, who they say should be safe from torture, and non-U.S. citizens inm foreign countries who may be subject to torture. This is a bogus distinction because some of those non-U.S. citizens are being held by the U.S. in foreign coiuntries exactly so they can be tortured. This is a ‘them and us’ type of argument that completely undermines any shred of respectability that the U.S. may have in the eyes of the world. It simply cannot be allowed. For America to reclaim some semblance of moral standing someone in Washington has to resist, and resist hard. Else there is no difference between the U.S. and any of the tyrants it purports to oppose. Stop it now!

Thank you Dover Pennsylvania! In yesterday’s elections the entire school board of Dover Pa. was voted out. Why is this important? Because the old board was peddling Intelligent Design [ID], which, as all of you know, is creationsism by another name. Some of the local parents had sued the old board to get ID removed from the curriculum, and subsequently the local courtroom had become a showcase for the ID’ers to challenge mainstream science — they even trooped out Professor Behe from Lehigh who is the leading ID intellectual [if that isn’t an oxymoron]. The irony now is that the new anti-ID board will have to decide whether to appeal the case when, hopefully, the court finds in favor of the parents! Don’t hold your breath on that one. So it’s too bad about Kansas, but well done Dover!