Potshots

Reagan no mas!

Cal Thomas, that rascally man, is the self-righteous Catholic mouth of the right-wing. He's miffed because today's "conservatives" want to be like Reagan and because they keep reminding folks how much they resemble ol' sleepyhead. "Ronald Reagan is dead," he said, "and he's not coming back. Now, can conservatives please move on?"

That was a bit surprising but some other things he said about the revered Mr. Reagan were kinda shocking.

Thomas questions Reagan's "conservative" credentials by reminding his readers that while Reagan cut taxes (like a good conservative is supposed to do) he also raised taxes.

Oh, my god, is that true?

Thomas also says that Reagan may have opposed abortion but he named Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy to the Supremes and they voted to uphold Roe v. Wade. Hee, hee. This just gets better and better.

Reagan was advised not to send U.S. Marines to Lebanon, but he ignored that advice and hundreds were murdered by a suicidal bomber.

Reagan even did a arms-for-hostages deal with Iran. Holy crap! Can you imagine what the conservatives would have said if Clinton had done that?

On most Sundays, Reagan avoided attending the church of his choice, whatever that was.

So why does Mr. Thomas tell us all this? He's not really clear about that. It appears he's saying that Reagan was no conservative hero, so look elsewhere for direction. He says today's conservatives should adopt "conservative principles to actually solve, rather than just talk about serious problems." [I guess Mr. Reagan's conservative principles are no longer worthy, 'cause they're mostly talk!]

Then Thomas concludes by saying that "Liberal ideas mostly don't work."

Well, hell, I still don't know what a "conservative principle" is, and I don't think Thomas does either. And what in the world are "liberal" ideas? He doesn't say, 'cause he doesn't have a clue. And if we've been operating under conservative principles the past seven years, some "liberal" ideas are long overdue!


Can McCain

We have said several times recently that somewhere along the way John McCain has lost his way.

Bill Press (Tribune Media Services columnist) offers some interesting observations on that topic. Press admits he used to think highly of John McCain. But no longer. Press also admits, somewhat balefully, that McCain has sold his soul. He has, says Press, "morphed into an extreme right-winger ...

" ...he should change the name of his bus from The Straight Talk Express to the Double-Talk Express."

Press provides some examples of soul-selling and double-talk:

1. In 2001 and 2003, McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts for the rich. These days he's praising those same cuts and wants to make them permanent.

2. McCain came down hard on religious right-wingers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and James Dobson, calling them "agents of intolerance." Today he can't bend over fast enough to kiss their asses.

3. In 2000, he said the Confederate flag was "a symbol of racism and slavery." These days he's calling it "a symbol of heritage, and saying the states should decide what to do with that flag.

4. At first he was with Bush on immigration reform. That got conservatives angry. Now he says he wouldn't even sign the immigration bill he sponsored!

5. In 2004, he had nothing but condemnation for the Swift Boat liars and their phony attacks on John Kerry. The Nation magazine reported recently that McCain has accepted more than $60K in campaign contributions from those no-goodniks!

6. This week, as we know, he moved from an anti-torture stance to a "yes, let's waterboard the bastards" stance.

7. Just a year ago he was making big noises about the Iraqi warmongers misleading the American people. Now, Mr. McCain thinks we "can win an overwhelming victory in a very short time," and "it's OK with him if American troops remain in Iraq for 100 years."

Mr. Press notes that it is impossible at this point to tell the difference between the old Bush and the new McCain - they're two peas in a pod.

That's why he says if you vote for McCain "You might as well vote to re-elect George Bush and Dick Cheney for another four years."


Any old dictator will do

This past Sunday, Parade Magazine ran a piece called "The World's 10 Worst Dictators."

The interesting thing is that the U.S. maintains close trade and/or other relationships with eight of them!

Take China, for example: We buy so much stuff from China that our trade deficit is almost one billion dollars a day! The U.S. government owes Chinese lenders $388 billion! Meanwhile, China remains a harsh dictatorship, and carries on a continuing espionage program to spy out our technological secrets.

It's amazing that while the U.S. has forbidden trade with Cuba for over 40 years, it trades with just about every other penny-ante dictator in the world. Well, not so amazing when you remember that most of those Cubans in Miami vote Republican, and would vote against any politician that dared suggest a revising our Cuba policy.

How many times have we heard that Saudi Arabia is our ally in the "war on terror." Hah! They must be laughing so hard in Riyadh they're falling off their camels! Here's what that "alliance" means: they sell us oil and we feed them big bunches of money! Meanwhile they breed terrorists who kill Americans - in New York, Iraq, and elsewhere and we pretend we don't know about it.

The Saudis are ruled with an iron fist by King Abdullah. As Parade pointed out, the country "adheres to a punitive justice system in which young teens can be sentenced to death and defendants tortured. Women are more oppressed than in any country -- they can't even seek medical care without a male guardian's permission." Recently, a woman was beaten and sentenced to death because she was raped by seven men!

We love 'em though, 'cause they got so much oil! And our prez and his man, Cheney, and their families and companies have been sleeping with the Saudis for years!

Now, in spite of the fact that 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and in spite of the fact that most of the al-Qaida fighters in Iraq come from Saudi Arabia, and in spite of the fact that Saudi Arabia is a terrorist nation, our president Bush wended his way across the Atlantic just last month to deliver "a major arms sale to ol' Abdullah himself.

NSA advisor, Stephen Hadley, said this arms deal was "a pretty big package, lots of pieces." We know some of it involved precision-guided bombs. I wonder if they could use those to attack Israel?

Is it any wonder that most of the nations and the people in the world view the Bush administration and, by extension, the rest of us, as major hypocrites?


Billy Graham again

Every Saturday our local paper carries a column written by evangelist Billy Graham. I don't imagine he's writing much now just after brain surgery so he either wrote these at a previous time or someone is ghost-writing them.

This past week's column contained a question for the rev about tithing. [Tithing, in case you don't know, means giving 10% of your income to your church, temple, or mosque or other god-like institution.]

A woman wrote to Billy to ask if tithing was just for rich folks. "Oh no," said Billy, "it's for everybody." And then he told the story about the poor widow that Jesus commended because "'she, out of her poverty, put in everything - all she had to live on.' She did it out of her love for God."

Well, that's a nice story, but it doesn't make a bit of sense. If she gave away everything she had, she would die. What's the point of that?

And if every Christian followed her example, you'd have a lot of really rich churches and a ton of really poor believers.

Billy went sounding a bit like Joel Osteen. He referred to the Hebrew Bible and noted that in Malachi 3:10, God promises great blessings to those who tithe. In fact, you'll get so much stuff you won't have room to store it.

Wow! Everybody go tithe and God will make you rich!


Catholic Church riches

It isn't any secret that one of the world's largest caches of ostentatious wealth can be found at the Vatican.

Not too many people get to see all these riches, however, 'cause they're in Rome, which is way the hell and gone over in Italy, so the Roman church decided to do a road show. They're going to three U.S. cities, the first one being St. Petersburg, right here in Florida.

There's lots of good stuff to see, and it would no doubt be worth the trouble to go to St. Petersburg if you lived anywhere in the vicinity.

But, I was intrigued by one item. It is an artifact "deemed 'not made by human hands.'" Called the Mandylion of Edessa, it features a "gaunt, bearded face staring from" a cloth and is thought to be "the likeness of Jesus."

The story goes "that Jesus pressed a handkerchief to his face, leaving an indelible imprint of his likeness much like the Shroud of Turin. Scientific evidence suggests it is a painting, but regardless, the object remains one of the Vatican's prized possessions."

It should not be difficult to ascertain what the imprint really is. But I guess when you're dealing with magic, you want to avoid the light of the truth at all costs. Furthermore, the Shroud of Turin has been proven a fake, so the RC's probably want to avoid another embarrassment.

Wait, I don't think the RC Church can be embarrassed. If it could, it would have gone out of business years ago!