It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.

These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.

Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.


 
This morning, we bring you two great new jokes from the Bush Administration:

First, from Vice President Dick Cheney, there was the statement this Sunday, "I am a deficit hawk... so is the President." If a multi-trillion dollar budget deficit over the next few years makes Dick Cheney a deficit hawk, then I guess my $2100 paycheck last week makes me a millionaire.

Then, there's the latest explanation of the reasons for the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Colin Powell suggests that the real reason that George W. Bush rushed an invasion of Iraq was a chemical weapons attack in the north of Iraq back in 1988. Oh, how I wish I were making this up. Colin Powell says that a chemical weapons attack within Iraqi borders by the Iraqi government fifteen years ago is adequate proof there was an immediate danger of a chemical weapons attack against the United States this spring. Actually, American soldiers have found no evidence that Iraq has had any chemical weapons at all in recent years.

Under Mr. Powell's logic, the fact that the United States dropped nuclear bombs on Japanese cities in the 1940s proves that there is the threat of an imminent American nuclear attack against Mexico, and justifies the violent overthrow of the American government and occupation of the United States by the Mexican military.

I can't wait to hear what these guys are going to think of next.

Posted by J. Clifford Cook at 8:31 AM. # (permalink)  




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