This Week's Top Stories: September 22, 2006
Bush and Congress GOP Kiss and Make Up
A rift that threatened to hinder Republicans chances at the polls this November has now been all patched up and kissed to make it better. The disagreement arose over conflicting plans for terror suspects detention, interrogation and prosecution. Senate Republicans (especially Lindsey Graham and John McCain) believed the President's plan didn't meet the requirements laid out by the Geneva Conventions. They pointed to the "Merciless Beating" technique as one that might be abused by interrogators.
Before the deal was struck, the disagreement seemed ready to cause major headaches for the GOP in the upcoming election as both the President and Congress refused to budge. The President responded to congressional complaints with the tried and true, "I know you are, but what am I?" reply, while Congress broke several of the President's favorite toys in retaliation. Now the plan just needs to pick up a little support from Senate Democrats. "With friends like these..."
Hezbollah Leader, Obvious Charlton Heston Fan, Says U.N. Will Take His Guns When They "Pry them From My Cold Dead Hands"
While Lebanese Terrorist organizations and the National Rifle Association may not agree on much, they seem to share a public relations team. In his first public appearance since Israeli/Hezbollah skirmishes began on July 12, Sheik Hassan Nazrallah gave an answer to calls for disarmament that would make Charlton Heston proud, "No army in the world will make us drop the weapons from our hands."
Nazrallah claims that without a strong Lebanese government, disarming "...means leaving Lebanon exposed before Israel to kill and detain and bomb whoever they want." Waiting for a strong Lebanese government will be difficult since the main impediment is the presence of an armed militia that doesn't trust or follow the government. It's what I would call a conundrum.
The good news for Hezbollah is that apparently no one is trying to take their guns (now it's just eerily similar to the NRA). The Lebanese government says disarmament should be left up to the U.N. peacekeepers, and the U.N. forces say it's not their job. Because, let's face it, what does disarming terrorists have to do with keeping the peace? If you said nothing, you may already be on the United Nations Security Council!
Americans think President Bush's Magical Powers Include Controlling Gas Prices
Or at least that's what recent polls seem to imply. It doesn't seem to matter how many or how few soldiers die in the War on Terror, scandals don't seem to have much effect, but gas prices will either win or lose this election. A USA Today article quotes research from analysts who have been tracking the President's job approval rating, and gas prices and over the length of Bush's presidency those prices seem to be a better indicator of his public perception than any other single factor.
It is true that Bush was an oilman. It is also true that the war he is currently fighting is taking place in the section of the world that produces more oil than any other. But that's about the only two connections that the President has to the price at the pump. The good news for Republicans is that prices are expected to continue to fall (at least through the November election) and therefore may help them stave off the Democratic challenge to take over Congress. Whoopee magic powers!
In Thai, Coup Means Happy!
Three days after, what appears to be, the most popular military coup in history Thailand is accepting the new situation. A survey conducted by the Bangkok Post found 86.4% of rural residents (generally supporters of ousted Prime Minister Thaskin Shinawatra) approved of the coup.
So what did Thaskin do that was bad enough to turn his own supporters against him? Mostly, caused grid-lock. Thaskin and his political opponents had been so embittered towards each other that the government had been largely ineffectual for the last year. So let the "Yellow Ribbon Coup," as it is being called (due to the Military wearing yellow cloth in honor of the King of Thailand), stand as a warning to all of you gridlock causing politicians. We may just coup! (Can you use Coup as a Verb?)
Now for Something Very Unfunny
Sometime today or this weekend more Americans will have died in the War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan than were killed in the attacks of 9/11/2001 that started the war. Over this weekend, you'll doubtlessly read dozens of articles using this somber milestone as ammunition against Bush, the Republican-led Congress and the War itself. This is not such an article.
Mistakes have been made in the invasions and subsequent occupations and rebuildings of Afghanistan and Iraq, but these mistakes do not mean the decision to go to war was a mistake. We were, in fact, already at war, even though we hadn't been paying attention. So I support the War, voted for Bush (and would do so again), that doesn't mean that I am not saddened by the fact that 2,973 American men and women have lost their lives in this new war.
America spent a long time not losing lives in the quest for freedom. Between the end of major casualties in Vietnam and the first Gulf War we got spoiled. That long period of relative safety makes these deaths harder to accept (not that death should be acceptable).
Many brave servicemen and women have died in the past five years, many more will die before we can say we are "safe" from Islamofacism. We can't (and shouldn't) grow cold or unfeeling about these deaths, but neither can we be the "paper tiger" that al-Qaida imagines we are. We have suffered losses in liberty's cause before, and liberty is the cause we are still fighting for.
That's the news for this week. Thanks for checking out "Apathy as Activism," and remember if we don't laugh about it, we'd have to cry about it.
A rift that threatened to hinder Republicans chances at the polls this November has now been all patched up and kissed to make it better. The disagreement arose over conflicting plans for terror suspects detention, interrogation and prosecution. Senate Republicans (especially Lindsey Graham and John McCain) believed the President's plan didn't meet the requirements laid out by the Geneva Conventions. They pointed to the "Merciless Beating" technique as one that might be abused by interrogators.
Before the deal was struck, the disagreement seemed ready to cause major headaches for the GOP in the upcoming election as both the President and Congress refused to budge. The President responded to congressional complaints with the tried and true, "I know you are, but what am I?" reply, while Congress broke several of the President's favorite toys in retaliation. Now the plan just needs to pick up a little support from Senate Democrats. "With friends like these..."
Hezbollah Leader, Obvious Charlton Heston Fan, Says U.N. Will Take His Guns When They "Pry them From My Cold Dead Hands"
While Lebanese Terrorist organizations and the National Rifle Association may not agree on much, they seem to share a public relations team. In his first public appearance since Israeli/Hezbollah skirmishes began on July 12, Sheik Hassan Nazrallah gave an answer to calls for disarmament that would make Charlton Heston proud, "No army in the world will make us drop the weapons from our hands."
Nazrallah claims that without a strong Lebanese government, disarming "...means leaving Lebanon exposed before Israel to kill and detain and bomb whoever they want." Waiting for a strong Lebanese government will be difficult since the main impediment is the presence of an armed militia that doesn't trust or follow the government. It's what I would call a conundrum.
The good news for Hezbollah is that apparently no one is trying to take their guns (now it's just eerily similar to the NRA). The Lebanese government says disarmament should be left up to the U.N. peacekeepers, and the U.N. forces say it's not their job. Because, let's face it, what does disarming terrorists have to do with keeping the peace? If you said nothing, you may already be on the United Nations Security Council!
Americans think President Bush's Magical Powers Include Controlling Gas Prices
Or at least that's what recent polls seem to imply. It doesn't seem to matter how many or how few soldiers die in the War on Terror, scandals don't seem to have much effect, but gas prices will either win or lose this election. A USA Today article quotes research from analysts who have been tracking the President's job approval rating, and gas prices and over the length of Bush's presidency those prices seem to be a better indicator of his public perception than any other single factor.
It is true that Bush was an oilman. It is also true that the war he is currently fighting is taking place in the section of the world that produces more oil than any other. But that's about the only two connections that the President has to the price at the pump. The good news for Republicans is that prices are expected to continue to fall (at least through the November election) and therefore may help them stave off the Democratic challenge to take over Congress. Whoopee magic powers!
In Thai, Coup Means Happy!
Three days after, what appears to be, the most popular military coup in history Thailand is accepting the new situation. A survey conducted by the Bangkok Post found 86.4% of rural residents (generally supporters of ousted Prime Minister Thaskin Shinawatra) approved of the coup.
So what did Thaskin do that was bad enough to turn his own supporters against him? Mostly, caused grid-lock. Thaskin and his political opponents had been so embittered towards each other that the government had been largely ineffectual for the last year. So let the "Yellow Ribbon Coup," as it is being called (due to the Military wearing yellow cloth in honor of the King of Thailand), stand as a warning to all of you gridlock causing politicians. We may just coup! (Can you use Coup as a Verb?)
Now for Something Very Unfunny
Sometime today or this weekend more Americans will have died in the War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan than were killed in the attacks of 9/11/2001 that started the war. Over this weekend, you'll doubtlessly read dozens of articles using this somber milestone as ammunition against Bush, the Republican-led Congress and the War itself. This is not such an article.
Mistakes have been made in the invasions and subsequent occupations and rebuildings of Afghanistan and Iraq, but these mistakes do not mean the decision to go to war was a mistake. We were, in fact, already at war, even though we hadn't been paying attention. So I support the War, voted for Bush (and would do so again), that doesn't mean that I am not saddened by the fact that 2,973 American men and women have lost their lives in this new war.
America spent a long time not losing lives in the quest for freedom. Between the end of major casualties in Vietnam and the first Gulf War we got spoiled. That long period of relative safety makes these deaths harder to accept (not that death should be acceptable).
Many brave servicemen and women have died in the past five years, many more will die before we can say we are "safe" from Islamofacism. We can't (and shouldn't) grow cold or unfeeling about these deaths, but neither can we be the "paper tiger" that al-Qaida imagines we are. We have suffered losses in liberty's cause before, and liberty is the cause we are still fighting for.
That's the news for this week. Thanks for checking out "Apathy as Activism," and remember if we don't laugh about it, we'd have to cry about it.
posted by Daddy Rogue at 3:46 PM
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