Social Security: The New York Times reported today that Representative Jim Kolbe, Republican from Arizona stated, "People do not understand that tough choices need to be made." What we understand, Mr. Kolbe, is that you are making these "tough choices" for us and our kids. The people who will be most affected have little if any choice in the matter. Of course, that's precisely the point Kolbe and others of his ilk or making: they want us to pull our money out of Social Security and place it in the stock market. Who among us has such expertise? Well, they respond, our money will be placed in "safe" investments for us. Thanks, folks! So we are to trust the managers of Enron and others of their ilk with our money. The government bureaucrats aren't good enough to trust, we're supposed to trust whom? These same bureaucrats who will simply shlip our money off from one area to another, having managed it so wisely heretofore.

The structure and organization of our government has been founded on one guiding principle: you can't trust people with power to do the right thing.

Iraq: Read Thomas Friedman's Op-Ed piece in today's New York Times. He's got it as close to right as anybody. Iraq, when all is said and done, is nothing more than a Bush public relations boondoggle. And no one has figured out how to extricate us; they're operating on a wing and a prayer. Oh, well, we also have the Vietnam exit stratedgy: delcare victory and leave.

The Middle-East has always been about controlling trade. It has never been about anything else. The new Oliver Stone film about Alexander the Great should be enough of a reminder. Forget that nonsense about "freedom." Don't believe anyone who tells you this. Just as with Tricky Dick Nixon, follow the money. It's always about the money. And the struggle for controlling the Middle-East trade routes are much older than Alexander. This war has existed since before history.

A challenge: "I believe that the responsibility for peace is going to rest with the Palestinian people's desire to build a democracy and Israel's willingness to help them build a democracy."—George W. Bush.

Go ahead, diagram that sentence! It sounds good when that grand euphemism, "democracy," is thrown around, but what does it mean? The "responsibility" rests with Palestinian "desire" and "Israel's willingness"? Usually "responsibility" rests with one or more people, not with abstract notions such as "desire" and "willingness," which cannot be measured.

Some will say, "You know what he means," but that's the trouble with this president; we all know what he means by his grand labels, like "compassionate conservativism": he means whatever we want to think he means.

Notable Stat: 50 years ago, 33 percent of the American workforce were members of a union; today only 13 percent are union members. Fifty years ago, the teachers' union hardly existed, now almost all teachers in public schools are members of a union. Is this progress? Or exploitation?

For a thousand years (that's 1,000 or a millineum if you prefer) Europe (that includes the U.S.) has attempted to dominate the Middle-East. Following World War II, they attempted to assuage their guilt and gain an advantage by supporting the Jewish people's vision of returning to their Biblical homeland. This would provide a secure beachhead. But the land of Palistine had no oil. In the intervening years, little progress has been made in their domination. The friendly dictator in Iran was over thrown. The friendly dictator in Iraq turned out to be a Hitler wanna be. The friendly family in Saudi Arabia couldn't control its violent sons and daughters. What to do? What to do?

All of this is well known, but you see just about what you want to see, regardless of the facts.

So it goes.

Constitution under fire: Eight (8) journalists have been found in contempt of court by right wing judges, in assualt on our freedoms that rivals the worst demogogic nations, while the Bush propogandist Robert Novac, who "outed" a C.I.A. officer in violation of federal law, remains completely free of any government scrutiny or threat.

Just in case you are young and don't understand what is going on: The White House employed The C.I.A. agent's husband to do some investigative work. When the results that were delivered did not match those the White House wanted, the White House set out to punish him and his family (remember: this is the "value oriented" administration) by releasing the C.I.A. agent's name to the press, thus destroying her career and putting her life at jeopardy. They gave this agent's name to reporters at the New York Times, who refused to publish it. They also gave it to their own propagandist, Mr. Novak, who did publish it. Subsequently, they have prosecuted the New York Times folks for refusing to reveal their source to a non-existant story. Novak has never been questioned.

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, instead of going after Novak, has persued other reporters, who had declined to publish the story. Needless to say, Fitzgerald has made no progress in his case against whoever it was at the White House who actually divulged the officer's name to the press, but he has succeeded in harrassing the liberal press while reassuring the right wing that it can publish anything it wants, whether absurd or criminal.

Thank goodness Ashcroft secured our safety for us before the prez accepted his resignation.

NOTE: Of course the press is liberal: The act of sharing information is by definition "liberal." Restricting access to information is conservative.

Wow! Are the Dems busy denying Michael Moore! They loved him when his films were playing to sell out crowds around the world, but now that Bush has beaten their man, it's deny, deny, deny: "and immediately the cock crew."

Sorry, folks, Mr. Moore got a lot of it right, and he supports the second amendment. He also looks like a good many of us (so how can we respect him?). But what do I know? I'm dumb enough to believe that education might actually have a slim chance to improve our lives, not just lead to more consumerism.

The new metaphors are interesting: Instead of talking about the voter as being on the floor at the GM plant or on the tractor in the Nebraska corn field, now the talk is of "in Applebee's as opposed to the Capitol Diner." Americans are defined as consumers rather than producers. People in this country, apparently, live completely off of others. It seems my dad was right about me after all.

The New York Times: "According to a 2002 study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, approximately 1,400 college students 18 to 24 die annually as a result of alcohol abuse." Most are a result of "traffic accidents" but some "300 are from unintentional injuries … including alcohol poisoning." ("Drinking Deaths Draw Attention to Old Campus Problem," Mindy Sink, Nov. 9 2004).

College officials are struggling with the problem. Overlooked in the article, and by almost everyone, is the problem or recruitment and retention. Colleges around the country are struggling to maintain their high enrollments. They've modeled themselves on constant growth, and as everyone should know by now, America's demographics have dramatically changed. There are just fewer and fewer young people every year.

Traditionally colleges have been a mechanism for prolonging adolecents. Alocohol consumption, specifically to the point of making a fool of oneself, has been a part of this for at least 800 years in western culture.

Few colleges and universities around the country are going to make a serious attempt to alter this behavior when it means that their chief attraction as a place to "party hearty for four more years" might be tarnished. What university president wants to face having his budget reduced because students who might have chosen his college to attend have chosen to go to another college where no one will try to alter their behavior.

Don't wait for the alcohol industry to try to restrict this behavior. We live in a capitalist society. The marker of success is the bottom line at the end of each quarter. Just ask our Prez.

The Feds have made major progress in keeping America secure: The house and the senate have agreed to keep the intelligence budget secret. Evidently America's most important military-industrial secret is how much money we actually spend on security. Key to this is the knowledge that the people we are keeping this secret from is you and me, the American Taxpayer. I'm sure we all feel much safer in our war against terrorism, knowing this.

He wants a constitutional amendment banning "Gay Marriage." He's a moral kinda guy. He's in favor of "civil unions," granting gays all the same rights as married folks, 'cept they can't call themselves "married."

Evidently, he want's to put the dictionary makers out of business along with the federal government. You gotta ask yourself, is he writing a second chapter to the story of the profligate son? The first chapter ends with daddy celebrating the wayward boy's return.

A little more than 140 years ago, the southern states decided they wanted to be independent states (like nations), and they formed a loose confederation in order to confront the national government in order to do so. They hired a brilliant general and fought a bankrupting war and failed in their objective.

Many years later, a carpetbagger from the northeast showed up with a better plan. "Look," he said in his newly acquired twang, "I've got a better idea. You take over the company, then bankrupt it. This works like a charm. I've done it several times already. You've just got to be careful not to have rich relatives and friends to bail you out." And he assured them that he knew exactly how to offend those rich relatives and friends so that they'd never interfere.

"I've got capital, … now I intend to spend it." — President Bush.

Some people have never met a dollar that didn't burn a hole in their pockets, even when that dollar belonged to someone else.

And so it goes.

Thirty-one hours later, I'm still sick. We had a chance to elect a Democrat to the White House for the first time since 1964, and we blew it. (Clinton and Carter were Republicans dressed up as donkeys.) Time to turn to the Daley Show to get the correct spin on things.