As always: http://www.110stories.us

And your thought for the day, by way of Ronald Reagan: Are you better off today than you were four years ago?

Is our country safer? Are we prepared for another attack? Have we stopped funding our enemies by being energy independent? Is our financial house in order, or are we spending ourself into debt? Are we all pulling together, or are rich folks getting huge tax cuts while spending is slashed on essential programs? Are we ready to be serious, or are we going to keep letting underqualified clowns and hacks lead us into one disaster after another?

And what are you prepared to do about it?

(Cross-posted here.)

I think that if any of his people did much in the way of foreseeing, they ceased being his people. Foresight creates responsibility, and to this administration, responsibility is anathema.

Personally, I've declared a news blackout day today. I just can't listen to all-maudlin, all the time.

You know, I was going to do a post entitled "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" and scapped the idea because I didn't want to give my comment sections any excuse for getting sidetracked.

"FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF MY DEATH

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out..."

-- W. S. Merwin

Phoneposts from a liberal attending the Freedom Walk; some of them are transcribed and some aren't.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/hyounpark/

Quote that probably sums up the entire experience the best: "It feels like a pep rally."

Will today's ceremonies include a 7-minute period of silence, during which the President will stare blankly into space, waiting for somebody to tell him what to do?

Unfortunately, Dubya and his own people can't foresee themselves, or protect us from them.

I... maybe I just have a case of the Internet Cynicism, but I honestly don't see how people can, sincerely and without a trace of irony, keep prefacing things with "Freedom".

I really hope everyone realizes that the rally in DC was specifically purposed to exclude the dead in NY and PA

"Will today's ceremonies include a 7-minute period of silence, during which the President will stare blankly into space, waiting for somebody to tell him what to do?"

Thank you. That's brilliant.

I am tired of 9/11 wittering.
Tired of hearing the families of victims whine about the memorial. Which they expect me (and you) to pay for.
London was blitzed in WWII. Londoners mourned and moved on and rebuilt. Given how long there has been a city in that place, it's probable that every square inch is someone's dying-place. So what?
What troubled me most after 9/11 was that I didn't hear any American politicians asking what went wrong, to make people hate us so, and what could we do to fix it.
I'm still not hearing this. Anyone who as much as mentions talking with "terrorists" is labeled as unpatriotic.
Yes, it was a disaster, and horrible. Follow the example of the Duke of Wellington: tie a knot, and move on.

I notice that Dubya is calling on Americans to respond to Hurricane Katrina with the spirit of 9/11. So I assume we will imminently see war declared on the weather and Castro given 48 hours to either prove he's not stockpiling winds or to get out of Cuba.

I... maybe I just have a case of the Internet Cynicism, but I honestly don't see how people can, sincerely and without a trace of irony, keep prefacing things with "Freedom".

Perhaps I do too, but ... what do you expect, Pommes Frites a la Mode de Guantanamo ?

[Pentagon Spokeswine] Mrs. Barber said organizers and police expect anti-war backlash. "It would be naive to do anything in Washington and not expect the other opinion," she said.

Protesting the walk, she said, would be tantamount to "protesting the events of September 11 or protesting our veterans."

They made lots of rules so nobody other than pre-registered people would be able to get near the walk today. The news just showed police leading away a guy with a sign I couldn't read, and wearing a cloak reminiscent of DEATH.

I notice that Dubya is calling on Americans to respond to Hurricane Katrina with the spirit of 9/11

And I'm sure he intends to make sure that each and every family devasted by Katrina gets the same compensation as the family of the guy who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald who lived on the other side of the block from me. I'm deepy deeply moved.

I've been doing some research on FEMA's claims processing prowess. The results are pretty galling.

I really hope everyone realizes that the rally in DC was specifically purposed to exclude the dead in NY and PA

WTF? Explain this, please. I don't have a TV so I have no idea what you are talking about. Do you mean they held a ceremony purporting to mourn the dead of 9/11 without mentioning the towers or Flight 93? You don't mean that.

Do you?

"Protesting the walk," she said, "would be tantamount to protesting the events of September 11"

Being as how I am deeply opposed to the events of September 11th, I'm sorry now that I didn't go and protest the walk.

Heather, W has explained to us that the reason the terrists hate us is because they hate our Freedom. To question that Revealed Truth is to show yourself a terrist who hates Freedom.

See? It's so simple.

It really is very easy. All you have to do is start from the premises that George W Bush is a "good guy", that anyone who opposes the "good guys" is a "bad guy", and a "good Guy" must do as much as they can to oppose "bad guys". Once you do that it all makes perfect sense so long as you are arrogant enough to override all othet moral considerations with a morality based on yourself as the ethical centre of the universe.

Onserve any two year old. Assume the same level of moral maturity. Apply to any situation and Bush's responses generally make perfect sense. Perfect two year old sense mind you.

In my most charitable moments, I think he must still be drinking. But no. I don't think he has that excuse.

I may have phrased intemperately - y'all can judge - but the concentration of the event on the Pentagon dead seemed to me a bit unusual considering that the Pentagon dead were 1/30 of the dead.

Personally, I'm starting to wonder whether the dominant political ideology isn't so much PNAC as Infernokrusher.

Vote Infernokrusher! Help blow up cool shit for fun and profit!!!

Julia, I can see the logic of concentrating on the Pentagon dead. If Bush & Co. came here, they'd have to face the fire, EMS, and police units whom they stiffed on all that promised help once the photo ops were over.

So I assume we will imminently see war declared on the weather and Castro given 48 hours to either prove he's not stockpiling winds or to get out of Cuba.

Billmon thinks that Bush wold end up fighting the war against hurricanes in the Indian Ocean and anyone who points out that Katrina never went/originated there would be called 'unpatriotic'. :)

Ritu, I thought it was that he was going to order a dam built in Arkansas because it was better to fight the water here than there.

I notice that Dubya is calling on Americans to respond to Hurricane Katrina with the spirit of 9/11. So I assume we will imminently see war declared on the weather and Castro given 48 hours to either prove he's not stockpiling winds or to get out of Cuba.

You forgot the step of 'invading a non-involved country with no capability of damaging the US directly'.

Of course, no one could have forseen that this administration could have been such a complete disaster....