Here’s what we have on this, the 53rd birthday of my cousin Craig, who was born the day that Sputnik was also launched. I remember that because it was the day after my 4th birthday (and thanks to all you who wished me a Happy on Facebook over the weekend). Anyway, the news:
- Two S.C. soldiers killed in Afghanistan (thestate.com) — The deaths of Specialist Luther Rabon, 32, of Lexington, and Staff Sgt. Willie Harley, 48, of Aiken, killed together by an IED, brings the Guard’s total, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, to 13. Meanwhile, we have apparently killed some Germans who were working with al Qaeda over the border.
- Maliki, Allawi consider deal on forming new Iraqi government (WashPost) — There’s still an Iraq, and there’s still stuff going on there? Even the occasional battle, which the Iraqis are having a bit of trouble winning without us…
- Good TARP News Doesn’t Fit; Media Are Flummoxed (NPR) — The MSM struggles with such questions as “What do we do with the end of TARP? And what do we do with the news that TARP will not have cost anything like the $700 billion we thought it would? What if it really cost $50 billion, or less?” Poor MSM. And the Tea Party just standing there ready to yell “Liar!” at whatever you say…
- Rousseff falls short of outright win in Brazil election (BBC) — This is several hours old now, but since I was griping about the lack of Latin American news in the American MSM, I thought I’d share this with you from the BBC. Meanwhile, the president of Chile promises to get the miners out soon, and Raul is thinking about releasing more political prisoners in Cuba. The Church is on the case.
- Twitter Names New CEO (WSJ) — I knew it. There was just something… different about my Tweets today. A disturbance in the Force, I thought…
- A new snapshot of U.S. sex lives (WashPost) — No, there are no pictures. In fact, I sort of faked you out with this. It’s actually pretty boring, about condoms and stuff. Which just ruins it for me. And the story keeps using “orgasm” as a verb, which I find objectionable.
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Caos in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Now that’s a surprise. I’m about ready to impeach Obama if he can’t get us out of these dualing quagmires.
What we need is a series entitled: “Where Conservatives were Wrong”. It would be a long enough list that a new story could be enumerated every day for months. One of my pet peeves with the media is how they fail to properly follow up on big political stories especially those that demonstrate just how flawed the American conservative movement has been over the years. I had this thought while I was reading about the history of the Panama Canal. (It started when I became interested in a story about the battleship Oregon’s odessy back in 1998 to join the fleet in Cuba). Anyway, when Jimmy Carter was able to push through a treaty with Panama to peacefully turn over control of the canal to the Panamanians, the shrill outcry from the conservatives in this country was amazing. All the horrible stuff that was going to happen once we turned over control. As I recall we would probably be speaking Chinese by now, or some other such nonsense. Yet nothing bad ever happened and we now have very good relations with Panama. Had we done what the conservatives wanted we’d probably have all sorts of Latin American issues to deal with.
The moral of the story: When conservatives are shrill enough it’s probably time to do just the opposite of what they want.
Next issue of “Where Conservatives were Wrong” – Deregulation of the banking industry.
That should of course by 1898 on the Oregon’s odessy.
Brad, I can somewhat understand your POV as an old-school writer, but the English language has always been fluid. We’ve been turning nouns into verbs for centuries. Or at least for the past century. Have you “Googled” anything lately?
Yes, grammatically, one “achieves orgasm” or “reaches orgasm,” but over time English has once again evolved to make “orgasm” both a noun and verb.
Look it up at Oxford or Merriam-Webster. Or just Google it.
The ironies of this strange political era abound: passing health care reform is a major achievement which is already bringing benefits to many, yet Democrats dare not whisper its name; voting for TARP, which seems to have done much to save the nation from plunging into much deeper financial chaos and true collapse, is one issue that Joe Wilson (just to name one GOP incumbent) happened to be correct on—yet in these last few weeks of the election you won’t hear him touting that vote as a sign of his good judgment.