And why, you might ask, would we at Pensito Review be partying on Aug. 8? To celebrate our founder’s birthday, of course! Happy birthday Jon! Love ya! Mean it!
Please add your own special birthday wishes for Jon in our comments section.
According to www.weather.com, it is currently 85 degrees in Jacksonville (near me) and 84 in Miami. The expected low here tonight is the mid-80s.
It is so frickin’ hot I can’t believe it. The company I’m doing some work for had the grand opening of our newest branch today from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. and the flowers on the outside tables wilted. The cheese on the cheese tray melted. And don’t even ask about whatever that red, meat-looking stuff inside those egg roll shaped things did.
We went for beers afterward but we were so sluggish and damp by them that we just nodded off. I’m miserable. Good night.
As soundbites scripted for debates go, I really like this one from today’s event in Chicago:
“For 15 years, I have stood up against the right-wing machine and I’ve come out stronger. So if you want a winner who knows how to take them on, I’m your girl,” [Sen. Hillary] Clinton said.
What’s important this time is winning, and not just in the margins. It’s clear that Bush will not be impeached. The only recourse to accountability left for impeachment advocates is to ensure his party gets a thumpin’ of biblical proportions next year.
I’m still undecided about Clinton (and Obama and Edwards) and leaning toward Bill Richardson. But the threshold issue for me has never been Clinton’s politically calculated vote to authorize Bush’s war in 2002. It’s which candidate is the least likely to run a wimpy-ass campaign like John Kerry’s in 2004. If you can’t defeat Karl Rove, the Swiftboaters and their ilk, you don’t deserve to be the Democratic nominee, much less the president.
The candidate who wins the Democratic primaries next year needs to go on the offensive out the gate. Standing up to the rightwing lies and smears is a good first step. If Clinton walks the talk, who knows, she could be just the woman to do it.
I hate to break away from Utah mine collapse coverage just as Lindsay Lohan, in the state for more rehab, might make an appearance but…
The Iraqi government is falling apart.
…five more ministers announced a boycott of Cabinet meetings — leaving the embattled prime minister’s unity government with no members affiliated with Sunni political factions.
Clueless State Dept. calls Sunni boycott “very healthy political debate”…The new cracks in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government appeared even as U.S. military officials sounded cautious notes of progress on security, citing strides against insurgents linked to al-Qaida in Iraq but also new threats from Iranian-backed Shiite militias.
…The Cabinet boycott of five ministers loyal to former Iraqi leader Ayad Allawi left the government, at least temporarily, without participants where were (sic) members of the Sunni political apparatus — a deep blow to the prime minister’s attempt to craft reconciliation among the country’s majority Shiites and minority Sunnis and Kurds.
The defense minister is from a Sunni background but has no political ties and was chosen by al-Maliki.
The Allawi bloc, a mixture of Sunnis and Shiites, cited al-Maliki’s failure to respond to its demands for political reform. The top Sunni political bloc already had pulled its six ministers from the 40-member Cabinet of al-Maliki, a Shiite, last week.
So there are no Sunnis at all in the Iraqi Cabinet anymore. But hey, the U.S. State Department isn’t worried. That’s because they’re also clueless.
“There’s a very healthy political debate that is going on in Iraq, and that is good,” [State Department spokesman Sean] McCormack said. “It’s going to be for them (the Iraqi people) to make the judgments about whether or not that government is performing.”
What we need in this country is a very healthy Iraqi-style debate on whether our government is performing.
George Bush’s favorability rating has now been below 40 percent for 18 months, which beats the 15-month streak of Richard Nixon’s unpopularity, which ended in his resignation under threat of impeachment. And with 17 months left to go, Bush still has time to beat the all-time record of 30 months below 40 percent held by Harry Truman:
George W. Bush has sunk below Richard Nixon and could break Harry Truman’s record for persistent unpopularity among modern U.S. presidents.
The latest Gallup Poll found that Bush’s popularity had been below 40 percent for six consecutive quarters [18 months], the Dallas Morning News reports. Nixon ended his five-quarter [15-month] streak by resigning in 1974.
Truman’s approval ratings were below 40 percent for 10 [quarters], the longest ever in the history of the Gallup Poll. Bush, with six quarters [18 months] remaining in his second term, could surpass Truman.
Is it possible that Mitt Romney is even dumber than George Bush? At yesterday’s GOP debate in Iowa, he tossed out the old Saddam equals al Qaeda canard that even Bush has been forced to repudiate:
“Just come home,” dissented Texas Rep. Ron Paul, the lone advocate of a quick troop withdrawal on a presidential campaign debate stage. He said there had never been a good reason to go to war in the first place.
“Has he forgotten about 9/11?” interjected former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Last year, during his address to the nation on the fifth anniversary of the 2001 attacks, Bush grudgingly admitted that the connection he and his administration’s top official made between Saddam and the attacks was a lie:
George Bush last night admitted that Saddam Hussein had no hand in the 9/11 terror attacks, but he asked Americans to support a war in Iraq that he said was the defining struggle of our age…
“I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks,” Mr Bush said
Romney’s assertion otherwise in the debate was of course, a lie. And yet the moderator, George Stephanapolous, the famous liberal, did not stop to ask him if he had new evidence of Saddam’s culpability in the 2001 attacks.
Romney is playing to the ever-shrinking GOP base — particularly to the last vestige of true-believers in the false Saddam-al Qaeda connection rolled out by Bush and his rightwing talk-radio propagandists in 2002 and 2003 during the run-up and aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
What is unsmart about this is the fact that the number of people who remain under the delusion that invading Iraq was retribution for the 2001 attacks is dwindling, even among Republicans. By the time votes are counted 64 weeks from now, the number who cling to the illusion that the attacks justified the war could be minuscule.
Ron Paul, the smartest GOP candidate, and thus the one no chance, also injected this rare moment of common sense into yesterday’s debate:
“If you make a mistake and you’re marching toward a cliff, the best thing you can do is march back,” Texas Congressman Ron Paul said.
The bad news is, history has taught us that intelligence is not even on the list of attributes Republicans look for in their presidents, so if history is to be our guide, they could well foist Romney on the nation, if the November 2008 election is close.
Downtown Jacksonville’s Main St. Bridge
There’s a bunch of long, high bridges in Jacksonville. One local restaurant even takes its name from this fact, calling itself Seven Bridges after the biggest and most iconic structures.
But people in all the counties that line the banks of the St. Johns River, a broad, northern-flowing body of water, take bridge travel as a part of daily life. So it’s a little unsettling to know that some of our hundreds of bridges don’t pass muster. It’s even worse not to know which ones.
It’s for our own good, according to the Florida Department of Transportation.
…inspections have put a handful of state bridges in Northeast Florida in the same broad engineering category as that Minnesota bridge — “structurally deficient” — which means, under the state’s policy, it’s time for immediate action.
…[FDOT bridge inspection chief Keith] Campbell says the Florida Department of Transportation isn’t allowed to tell you how the bridges you drive across every day did on their most recent inspections. And he’s not allowed to say which ones flunked their tests.
Ironically, the state workers says their lips and records are sealed — for your safety.
“After the 9/11 events and with homeland security, all bridge records have become exempt as public documents,” Campbell said.
All bridge records? Including whether or not it’s safe to cross one?
The DOT cites a law, passed in 2002, which states “building plans, blueprints, schematic drawings, and diagrams” are off-limits to be released to the public.
But a local lawyer, Tad Delegate, said that the law isn’t specific enough.
“They’re certainly trying to protect the public,” he said. “I have no doubt about that, but I think they’re reading this too broadly and they’re not limiting themselves to the specific terms of the statute.”
He said there is no wording in the law that says inspection reports cannot be made public.
A local T.V. station has put in a formal request for the information, but so far the FDOT’s only reaction is to lawyer up.
Will every single person in Colorado who ever voted for Rep. Tom Tancredo (R) please go to your rooms and stay there? Like, forever?
Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo’s campaign stood by his assertion that bombing holy Muslim sites would serve as a good “deterrent†to prevent Islamic fundamentalists from attacking the United States, his spokeswoman said Friday.
“This shows that we mean business,†said Bay Buchanan, a senior Tancredo adviser. “There’s no more effective deterrent than that. But he is open-minded and willing to embrace other options. This is just a means to deter them from attacking us.â€
Tancredo and Pat Buchanan’s sis must have missed it last year when so-called “insurgents” bombed the Golden Dome mosque of Samarra. That wasn’t exactly a success, deterrent-wise, for the bombers, since violence in Iraq skyrocketed and has never abated to this day.
All this time, I thought Bush/Cheney was as bad as it could get for harebrained diplomacy.
Tom Casey, a deputy spokesman for the State Department, told CNN’s Elise Labott that the congressman’s comments were “reprehensible†and “absolutely crazy.â€
More of this is needed.
Trump and the Iranians seem to be in different realities,
Though they share a callousness toward the war’s casualties.
Is Trump insane
Or just insanely vain?
And how can we extract ourselves from his “Quagmire of the Vanities?”
