So Who's Commander in Chief?
It seems I'm the only one weirded out by the fact that Vice President Dick Cheney (and
not the President)
gave the order to shoot down non-responding aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001. Why wasn't it the President? It's not like he was lost or hospitalized or something. The Veep said the order was
"pursuant to the president's instructions" but again, why didn't the President deliver the order himself? Is the VP a military commander? I didn't think so, but apparently the Air Force thinks so. Adding to the weirdness is that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
wasn't told about the shoot-down order until later in the morning. Hmmm, maybe his cell phone was out.
L.A. Says "Oops!" to DNC Protestors
The City of Los Angeles has
agreed to pay an additional $1.2 million to 91 people who were fired upon by police during the 2000 Democratic Convention at the Staples Center. While lead attorney James Muller says he hopes police
"will take this case as a lesson that they cannot intimidate and injure people who are exercising their First Amendment rights", I can't help but think the cops
did intimidate and injure people, many of whom weren't even protesting (as if
that should make a difference). Did any of the cops go to jail? Were any of them even fired? What safeguards are in place to prevent authorities from doing this again (and just paying another fine)? Paying a few bucks four years after the fact doesn't undo the incredible chilling effect that firing on these people created. What might have happened if the protesters had been allowed to make their point to the politicians, rather than having to run for their lives from the cops?
"Move" is the meme
Despite efforts to obfuscate the fact, it seems that
MoveAmericaForward is hardly the non-partisan organization it claims to be. Apparently it has
very close ties to the Republican Party. Now it seems they've gotten a
PR Firm to launch an
anti-Michael Moore site, which is kinda ironic since I'm convinced this is exactly the kind of thing
Mr. Moore wants to promote his new film.
Signal Orange remembers the dead
Signal Orange is a project to remember the soliders who have given their lives while serving in Iraq. On bright orange T-shirts they print the name of the soldier, and how they died. The point is to have people wear these T-shirts in a visible way (read: get seen in the media) as a reminder of what our country has lost.
Our Hopeless Addiction
I can think of no better way to begin this blog than by pointing you
to
a recent piece by my favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut.
