The State of the Union Drinking Game:

When I say “drink” I am, of course, referring to chocolate milk. Try not to spurt it out your nose when George W. Bush claims he is the Environmental President.

Getting dressed in the dark can lead to some interesting results. Today’s outfit: red shoes, blue socks, brown pants and a green shirt.

In Washington DC, everyone’s all in a dither because George W. Bush is going to give a fancy speech tonight in which he says things. Says things? Heck, George W. Bush says things all the time. What George W. Bush actually does strikes me as much more important, and we can be pretty sure that Bush’s actual course of action won’t be outlined in his 2006 State of the Union speech.

We know this because of Bush’s track record on his 2005 State of the Union speech. Let’s look at Bush’s 2005 promises about what he’d do in a year, and compare them to what he has actually done. Ready? Here we go:

Bush 2005 SOTU promise: “America’s prosperity requires restraining the spending appetite of the federal government.”

Bush 2005 Reality: “Over the five-year period 2006 through 2010, policy changes increase outlays by $137.6 billion.” (Bush’s Federal Budget for Fiscal Year 2006)

Bush 2005 SOTU promise: “we will make it easier for Americans to afford a college education by increasing the size of Pell Grants.”

Bush 2005 Reality: “Currently, the maximum Pell grant a student can receive is $4,050, the minimum is $400. These amounts have been constant since 2002. There has not been an increase in the Pell grants since that time.”

Bush 2005 SOTU promise: “America’s immigration system is also outdated — unsuited to the needs of our economy and to the values of our country. We should not be content with laws that punish hardworking people who want only to provide for their families, and deny businesses willing workers, and invite chaos at our border. It is time for an immigration policy that permits temporary guest workers to fill jobs Americans will not take.

Bush 2005 Reality: No immigration reform

Bush 2005 SOTU promise: “To make our economy stronger and more productive, we must make health care more affordable and give families greater access to good coverage and more control over their health decisions.”

Bush 2005 Reality: Bush’s 2006 budget incorporates An increase in out-of-pocket Medicare expenses for poor people, a reduction in Medicare eligibility, elimination of old people from nursing programs.

Bush 2005 SOTU promise: “We must pass reforms that solve the financial problems of Social Security once and for all.”

Bush 2005 Reality: Nothing.

Bush 2005 SOTU promise: “For the good of families, children and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage.”

Bush 2005 Reality: Apparently Jesus doesn’t agree. No constitutional amendment.

Bush 2005 SOTU promise: “Every judicial nominee deserves an up-or-down vote.”

Bush 2005 Reality: Harriet Miers.

Bush 2005 SOTU promise: “We’re all part of a great venture: to extend the promise of freedom in our country, to renew the values that sustain our liberty and to spread the peace that freedom brings.”

Bush 2005 Reality: Unauthorized, unconstitutional and undisclosed spying on Americans. New assertions that the President is above the Constitution. Ongoing, undiminished war.

Mr. Bush, forget new promises for 2006. How about resolving your promises for 2005?

Oh, Alan. Oh, Alan. Mr. Greenspan, you left us today, and don’t tell me I couldn’t tell the difference. When I woke up, the bags under my eyes sagged just a little more. My orange juice at breakfast leaned just a shade more toward yellow. My wife kissed me on the cheek, not the lips, before she went to work. I called out to her, “Have a great day, honey!” as she walked out the door. I tried to make it sound like I meant it. I failed. My wife didn’t even turn around. She just muttered, “I’ll try, maybe,” with her shoulders hunched. I used to love it when her shoulders hunched. It used to turn me on, when you were in charge of the Fed. But now, now? Oh, Alan, I didn’t even get half a stiffie. Not even a tingle.

Oh, Alan, you know we all need you. Even my dog needs you. My dog won’t get up to go outside; all morning, she’s just been lying curled up on the rug, softly wimpering. A dark stain of urine is slowly spreading from her haunches, but she doesn’t even notice any more. She just rolls her eyes slowly in unexuberant circles, letting them fix briefly on the back of her skull from time to time.

Come back, Mr. Greenspan, won’t you? I promise to save more money, and put it in a nice bond and everything, not that trashy hedge fund I’ve been seeing lately. I promise to increase my productivity. I can skip lunch; I don’t need that peanut butter Kudos, really I don’t. If I cancel that trip to Ireland, will you come back? If I say “tax cut” five times and clap my hands really loud, will you come back? I do believe in supply side economics. I do! I do!

My neighbors tell me to get a grip. They never liked you. They called it a cult of personality. They called you irrelevant. They said you didn’t matter anyway! But what do they know? They’re laughing now, Alan, but they don’t know, they don’t know! They never knew the real you, they never found that special place deep inside where you touched all those who truly believed.

You don’t have to respond right away, Mr. Greenspan. Just think about it. Maybe a vacation will change your mind. You can call me, though, if you want to talk about it. I have a brochure called “Coming Out Of Retirement And You” that maybe you’d like to look at. No, really, just take it, maybe you’ll want to read it later, just in case, you think? No? Well, think about it anyway, really.

Oh, Alan. It’s just not the same without you. Fill that hole in my heart, my life, my soul. Come back, Alan. Come back.

I have been tracking the story of Ram Bahadur Bomjan (or Ram Bomjon) for a couple of months now. Ram Bomjon is a teenage boy in Nepal who, his supporters claim, has been meditating without eating or moving for about eight months now, sitting under a pipal tree, just as Buddha did.

The comparison to the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, has been central to this story, as it has been claimed that Ram Bomjon is the new Buddha. Bomjon’s supporters have actually petitioned the government in Nepal to register the organization that surrounds and supports the meditating boy under the name Noma Buddha - new Buddha.

There are important differences, however. Gautama did not receive pilgrims, or have people promoting his meditation. He just sat and meditated, without protection or guidance. Furthermore, Gautama did not sit for eight months. He took under 50 days to reach enlightenment. Gautama’s teachings include the idea that ascetic practices that are too extreme lead to failure, and are misguided.

Ram Bomjon’s supporters don’t seem to see things the same way as Gautama did. They have formed a committee to protect and conceal Ram Bomjon, leading to strong suspicions that the meditating boy is eating and moving about at night. The committee says that Ram Bomjon needs to be guarded from the wild animals that roam the area at night, including tigers. They also say that Bomjon needs to be protected from distractions, such as noise, or being touched. One recent, comprehensive article on the subject quotes a member of Bomjon’s inner circle as explaining,

““Miscreants tried to disturb him by creating noise in the area, and pinching him with sticks,” Thing says, “That is why it was necessary to manage the place in an organized way.”

Such excuses seem credible at first glance. After all, who could meditate while being looked at, talked to, and prodded?

On consideration, I remain skeptical. Who could meditate while being looked at, talked to, and prodded? Well, according the stories, Siddhartha Gautama the Buddha could.

The legends of Gautama’s enlightenment say that, while he was meditating, Mara, the magical lord of desire and attachment, came to tempt him. Mara talked to him, to persuade Gautama to return to his wife and child. Mara shouted at Gautama, made distracting presentations of fear and lust in front of him, and even hurled lightning bolts at him. Still, the Buddha did not budge, and remained steadfast to his purpose of gaining enlightenment.

Now, if Siddhartha could withstand temptations of lust, of family loyalty, and of the most intense terror possible, are we really to believe that the New Buddha cannot keep his concentration if viewers are allowed within 15 feet, if people make noises, or poke at him gently with a stick? Of course, an ordinary teenager could not withstand such temptations and distractions, but a Buddha could.

There’s something very suspicious about a group of people who claim that they have a new Buddha, but are unwilling to hold their Buddha to the same standards that Buddhism has had for Buddhahood for centuries. If you’re going to call Ram Bomjon the Buddha, and say that he hasn’t moved or eaten for two-thirds of a year then allow him to be examined by physicians to verify the truth of the matter. If Siddhartha Gautama could withstand lightning bolts hurled at him from the spirit of temptation incarnate, then surely the new Buddha can keep his meditation intact while physicians take a blood sample. Surely, as Buddha did not need to be covered and protected at night, Ram Bomjon does not…

… unless Ram Bomjon is not a new Buddha. Unless Ram Bomjon is a fake.

After a year of buildup, tonight was the night of the test.

Remember how, in the Spring of 2005, Democratic Senators let a number of wildly extreme Bush nominees become confirmed as federal judges because they said they needed to spare all their ammunition for the upcoming fight that really mattered, over the next Supreme Court nominee? Remember how, in the late Summer and early Fall of 2005, Democratic Senators let John Roberts onto the Supreme Court because, OK, well really now, they said they needed to spare all their ammunition for the next Supreme Court nominee, because that nominee, no, not this one, the next one, would really have to be stopped? Remember how it wasn’t the Democrats who torpedoed the Harriet Miers nomination, but rather some fortunately squabbling Republicans, since a number of Democrats said gosh, let’s hold off on this one, too, and save our dear, sweet holy ammunition for another day?

This, friends, is the bizarre political theory under which too many Democratic Party politicians seem to be operating: the Ammunition Theory. Their argument is that a politician in office can only stand up to majority sentiment — by voting “No,” by supporting a filibuster, or by exercising legitimate legislative rules — so many times. These politicians seem to think that if they exercise their full rights as members of Congress too often, why, why… er…

…um…

…well, what? What will happen if they actually use their Congressional powers and prerogatives more than once in a long while? They never say. Will little bunny Foo Foo scoop them up like field mice and bop them on the head? Will they lose frequent flier miles? Will God send a hurricane to their home state or district? Of course not. What’s more likely is that Republican spinmeisters will talk negatively about them and call them names. That’s it. That’s all that can happen if Democratic members of Congress actually use their “ammunition,” their power as sitting officeholders, to actually do something. It’s not as if it’s really ammunition Senators have at their disposal, after all. It’s not as if members of Congress only have a limited number of “Vote No” bullets, for Pete’s sake. But having given in to fear of being cussed at once, having gotten used to playing “safe” (as if anybody’s going to get slapped in the Rotunda), too many Democrats have retreated to cowed acquiescence as a default position.

Well, here we are again today, friends, with another test of the Democrats’ spine. Senator John Kerry called on his colleagues to stand together and mount a filibuster against extremist lifetime nominee Samuel Alito. Today was a chance for the Senate Democrats to show their mettle. But no. A number of Democrats in the United States Senate decided to “save their ammunition” today, too, because they just can’t stand to be called names. Had all Democrats stood together in the filibuster organized by Senator John Kerry, Samuel Alito would not have been able to ascend to a lifetime term to the Supreme Court. Some Senate Democrats passed the test of courage and, even knowing that they probably wouldn’t prevail, mounted a filibuster attempt nonetheless. Congratulations to the following Senators for choosing principle over comfort:

Evan Bayh of Indiana
Joseph Biden of Delaware
Barbara Boxer of California
Hillary Clinton of New York
Mark Dayton of Minnesota
Chris Dodd of Connecticut
Dick Durbin of Illinois
Russell Feingold of Wisconsin
Dianne Feinstein of California
Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts
John Kerry of Massachusetts
Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey
Patrick Leahy of Vermont
Carl Levin of Michigan
Bob Menendez of New Jersey
Barbara Mikulski of Maryland
Patty Murray of Washington
Barack Obama of Illinois
Jack Reed of Rhode Island
Paul Sarbanes of Maryland
Chuck Schumer of New York
Debbie Stabenow of Michigan
Ron Wyden of Oregon

To these, add Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont, an independent. Thanks to you, too, Senator Jeffords. We’ll miss you when you retire this year.

The above Senators had the guts to make a public stand for what they felt was right. That’s good, but count ‘em: there aren’t forty, and forty brave souls were needed to make the filibuster stick.

Who let us down? Well, the Republicans let us down of course, but we already knew you can’t count on a Republican politician to do the right thing. Not a single, solitary Republican aided the filibuster effort. Even the so-called “moderates” (John McCain, Chuck Hagel, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Arlen Specter) showed the deep extent of their political extremism today when they let the Alito nomination slide on by. So let’s forget the Republicans, who we can now take for lost as a group when it comes to the common-sense defense of liberty in America.

But a Democrat, I say in my heart, a Democrat should know better than to let slide by a lifetime nominee who has said outright that the Constitution does not protect a woman’s right to an abortion.

A Democrat should know better than to let slide by a nominee who compares the legal standing of women to that of children.

A Democrat should know better than to let a Supreme Court nominee get away with asserting the right of presidents to sail above the law.

A Democrat should know better than to let a lifetime nominee slide into the Supreme Court when he defends the strip-searching of completely innocent, non-suspect ten year old girls, who treats little girls like pliable objects to be frisked by the government like it’s no big deal.

So what do we say about the following Democrats? Have they abandoned their values? Are they morally bankrupt? Or are they just cowards?

For the benefit of Google historians ten years from now, let me spell out the unsavory alternatives one by one. (And no, I’m not linking to these sorry souls; let them flap in a miserable, lonely, unhyperlinked wind. Gosh, I’m angry.) Here they are. Consider:

Is Daniel Akaka morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Max Baucus morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Jeff Bingaman morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Robert Byrd morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Maria Cantwell morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Thomas Carper morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Kent Conrad morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Byron Dorgan morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Daniel Inouye morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Tim Johnson morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Herbert Kohl morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Mary Landrieu morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Joseph Lieberman morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Blanche Lincoln morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Bill Nelson morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Ben Nelson morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Mark Pryor morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is John Rockefeller morally bankrupt, or just a coward?
Is Ken Salazar morally bankrupt, or just a coward?

Which is it? Or what, are these Senators just too old, tired, and jaded to give a shit anymore?

What about the rest of us who voted these decrepit souls into office? Will we vote them back in? Personally, I think it’s high time to send a message that moral bankruptcy, tactical cowardice and tired inaction are out of style. It’s time to clean house. It’s time to find a replacement for these pampered veterans. It’s time to throw these bums out.

Call Walter Rich the Jack Abramoff of New York State.

The elements are all there. Illegal gifts. Secret meetings at lavish vacation getaways. Politicians sleeping over at Walter Rich’s mansion in Cooperstown, New York. Real estate giveaways to campaign donors. Huge government grants for railroads that don’t exist. Forced employees donations to Republican candidates. A tell-all book from an insider to the Walter Rich empire that is about to hit the shelves.

Who’s involved? No one knows for sure, but both Republican incumbent Congressman Sherwood Boehlert and his apparent successor, State Senator James Seward are suspected.

This story has just begun, but it threatens to become just as big as the corruption scandals that brought down congressmen Tom DeLay and Randy Cunningham. Read an article for New York Liberal for more details.

Count this as one of those stories you probably missed on Friday while you were out strolling under blue skies and America’s strangely prolonged bout of unseasonable weather: President Bush and his political appointees are exerting pressure on a top NASA scientist to prevent him from telling Americans the truth about global warming.

Dr. James Hansen is director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies for NASA. As such, it is his professional responsibility to follow NASA’s mission “to understand and protect our home planet” (those words come right from NASA’s mission statement).

Yet, around the time that climate data revealed that 2005 was the hottest year for planet Earth on record, Dr. Hansen said he began receiving intimidating telephone calls telling him to stop informing Americans of the growing problem of global warming, as documented by a mountain of scientific evidence. The calls warned him of “dire consequences” if he continued to talk about global warming. His interviews with the news media were cancelled, and Dr. Hansen was told that other officials, who knew enough to stay in compliance with the President’s orthodoxy.

George Deutsch, a public affairs officer for NASA, told Dr. Hansen that he could not talk to anyone at National Public Radio because NPR was part of the liberal media. Deutsch told one of Dr. Hansen’s colleagues, Leslie McCarthy, that it was his job to make the president look good. Of course, that’s not what any public affairs officer of the federal government is hired to do. They are hired to serve the American people by telling them the truth about what the government knows, not to serve the political agenda of the President.

It is no coincidence that Dr. Hansen, just like Galileo before him, has provoked the wrath of the authorities through his revelations of a more accurate picture of the Earth. There is something about the science of the Earth that is deeply disturbing to religious autocrats, and that goes as much for George W. Bush as for the medieval popes. Religious reactionaries prefer a faith-based vision of the Earth, rather than a reality-based understanding based on disciplined observations.

What are the Bush Republicans going to do to Dr. Hansen for trying to tell you about what’s really happening to the planet Earth’s climate? Are they going to put him under house arrest and threaten to burn him at the stake, like they did with Galileo?

There would be no point. It’s too late to suppress the story of global warming. We all can look around us and see what’s going on with our own eyes. With sunrise temperatures well above freezing across the northern United States day after day, we all know that something has gone terribly wrong with the climate, no matter how much President Bush and his court of corporate astrologers try to tell us that the Earth is flat.

Mother Davis gets a paper cut as she flips through the Bible and finds,

A while ago, I wrote an article in which I cited biblical evidence that God practiced contraception. Now, after a night of staying up to read the Bible, I find that, in spite of all the right wing Christian rhetoric to the contrary, God is an abortionist.

Don’t take my word for it. I’ve got evidence. Well, evidence of a sort - the sort that right wing Christians typically use to justify their outlandish perspective on the world.

I’ve got scripture.

Book of Hosea, Chapter 13, verse 16:

“Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.”

How about that? In this text, written in the voice of God, it is foretold that God will rip up pregnant women. If that’s not abortion, I don’t know what is, although, NARAL ought to be advised that God clearly had no interest in performing abortions in order to protect the health of the mother.

To be fair, God also threatened to dash babies who were already born to pieces.

Perhaps some apologists will just say that God was only threatening to perform mass abortions against an entire people, and never intended to follow through with his bluster. I advise all those members of the Religious Right who might make such an argument to stop and think before following through. To do so would be tantamount to accusing God of not keeping his promises, and likening the Bible to idle chatter. That’s blasphemy, and could have you in serious trouble when the Rapture comes later this week.

The Bible is clear: God not only performed abortions, he did it at his whim. God was for abortion on demand. God was not pro-life.

Remembering that Jesus was the outgrowth of divinely planned parenthood,
Mother Davis

—————-
Postscript:

1.When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.
2. And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.
3. Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.
4. Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.
5. I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought.
6.] According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me.
7. Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them:
8.I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them.
9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.
10. I will be thy king: where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes?
11. I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath.
12. The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hid.
13. The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.
14. I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.
15.] Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the wind of the LORD shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up: he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.
16. Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.

Mother Davis encourages her bagel to responsibly hold her melting butter as she comments,

United Sates Senator Evan Bayh is widely seen as a seeking the Democratic nomination for President in 2008. So, it behooves the American people to try to understand his public character. One way to do so is to look at Senator Bayh’s recent voting record. That voting record shows that Evan Bayh’s progressive credentials are not very strong.

It’s also useful to look at what Evan Bayh says about himself, and what he inadvertently reveals when he does so. Let’s consider a statement, for example, on the biography of Evan Bayh that the senator has put up on his official Senate web site.

Senator Bayh’s biography, describing his activities in the Senate, states, “His signature legislative efforts seek to… encourage responsible fatherhood.”

Encouraging responsible fatherhood? Is that the kind of topic that ought to be addressed in legislation through the United States Senate? What exactly would a national law to encourage responsible fatherhood do? Would it mandate three bedtime stories instead of just one?

You must understand that I am by no means against responsible fatherhood. But, I also like a good apple pie. Yet, I am not in favor of federal legislation to standardize pie making procedures to ensure that all apple pies are of high quality. Neither do I favor new federal laws to put some spine into America’s fathers. There are parts of our lives that are deeply personal. Parenthood and pie making are two of them. Let us not place the force of the federal government into these matters.

There are already plenty of good laws in these areas, like parental custody laws, laws against domestic violence, and laws against placing poisons into pies. These are laws that deal with the obligations of people toward one another in a way that is easy to define, based upon their legal relationships to one another. Perhaps we ought to leave it at that.

I worry where the federal government would stop, if laws requiring people to be responsible members of their families began to be passed willy nilly by Congress? How about a law that requires men to do the dishes? Could we get a congressional resolution calling upon women to stop nagging their husbands? Why not a law to make it a federal crime for children to neglect washing behind their ears? And who has changed the cat litter this week, anyway? There could be a law making sure that the American people know!

Where are the mothers in all this, I’d like to know. Does Senator Bayh think that fathers should be required by law to be responsible, but mother should be free to be as irresponsible as they want to be?

I think it’s pretty silly, this idea that responsibility can be created through federal legislation, but Senator Bayh doesn’t seem to think so. He seems to believe that it is the responsibility of the federal government to put personal family matters into the legal code. Considering the very real agenda of the Religious Right to make laws about who is allowed to have sex, when people are to beget children, what families can watch on television, and are working at feverish pace to forbid certain people from ever getting married, Senator Bayh’s similar interest in meddling in private family affairs is disconcerted.

Yes, it’s true. When I woke up this morning, I was feeling quite concerted. Now, that good feeling is all gone.

Gathering her muster for Bagel’s Law, a new piece of legislation that would require bagels to be designed in such a way as to not allow melting butter to spill, (oh my, I am wordy this morning)
Mother Davis

Click here to view and print our 15th in a series of irregular liberal political sudoku. Instructions for completing this puzzle are handily present on the same page as the puzzle itself.

To help you along in solving today’s puzzle, here’s a clue: Appearing in the sudoku grid is an adjective commonly used as a prefix to the name of the American president who said the following: “When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.”

I expected to see a great epic battle when I downloaded the quicktime movie of the giant octopus attack against a remotely operated submarine off the waters of Canada, but I’m not sure that’s what I saw.

The news releases were gasping with excitement. A gigantic pacific octopus, scientific name octopus dofleini, viciously attacked the submarine, said the reports, and was about to bite its way inside the submarine, rip it apart and destroy it, when the submarine’s operators bravely fended off the attack by aiming the thrusters at the octopus until the octopus gave up the fight. Apparently, a couple of big pieces of tentacle were still attached to the submarine when it was brought to the surface.

What I saw was this: A big octopus came ambling up to the submarine, a tentacle on the submarine. Then, almost immediately, before the octopus had a chance to further investigate the submarine, the operator aimed the thrusters at the octopus and blew it away, ripping up the octopus’s tentacles in the process.

But, maybe I wasn’t interpreting the movie correctly. Maybe, I thought, I’m just too much of a soft-hearted pacifist to not tell when a violent animal is on the attack. So, I gave the movie the 5 year-old test. I asked my son to come over to the computer screen with him and watch the movie with me. As he watched, I asked him what was going on.

Watch our version of the movie of a giant pacific octopus filmed by an ROV submarine, and you’ll hear what he had to say.

My son comments. You decide.

What’s happening in the country that we all need to know about?

What’s going down in your town?

What’s going on in your life?

Share and enjoy.

Open thread.

Let’s wrap-up Ethics Friday with an entirely rhetorical question.

Is it OK for military leaders to kidnap the wives of opponents and hold them as bait?

Duh, of course not. Even the formally codified ethics in the international rules of war say so.

OK. Now, what if it turns out the Americans did it? To a young, nursing mother?

Is that OK?