1101 am 'Get This' news

11/01/07 Get This
Chris Andreae
 

1. Twenty-two million dollars poured into two - count ‘em – two ballot measures, and as of Monday only 21 percent of Oregonians have bothered to vote.  Why not just split the take and give half to the sick kids and use the rest to pay the developers to leave the State and never come back…?
2. The agency in charge of restoring Northwest salmon concludes that the latest plan for running federal dams on the Columbia and Snake River basins won’t jeopardize the survival of threatened and endangered fish -  tell you what, LNG plants on the river will definitely be the end of life as we know it over and under water on Oregon’s rivers.  US District judge James Redden pointed out that “surviving” wasn’t good enough.  “Thriving” is more like it.
3. Wrong Number:  The Oregon News Service has a story:  Northwest salmon advocates want Congress to help protect wild salmon, the thousands of jobs the fish provide and the rural and coastal communities dependent upon them.  Congress being the top of the food chain, would do well to heed their pleas – after all, what are they going to eat after they’ve consumed their own?
4. In other scavenger/bottom-feeder news, it’s shaping up to be a good crab season.  (There is a nasty rumor abroad that all the crabs are dead and they we are in reality relying upon the Strategic Crab Reserve.
5. Where the Boys Are: Another Republican goes down – And How! – Washington State GOP Representative Richard Curtis got caught with his pants down;  And there’s no shame in that.  Here’s where the shame of it all is, Curtis has been a virulent opponent of gay rights.  In his own defense, Curtis has this to say, “I am not gay.”  Yes Richard but you are a bigot, a hypocrite and a hater…
6. The Few, The Fraud, The Marines:  Nine Marine Corps recruiters have been caught arranging for stand-ins to take the Armed Services exams.  Apparently, in the recruiter’s estimation, their ‘fish’ were too stupid to pass without cheating.  (Which begs the question, How does one play that balancing act:  Too dumb to pass the test, not smart enough to know a bad deal when it’s right there on the TV?)
7. The 300:  It’s The Revolt of the Diplomats:  We have built the biggest and the most heavily fortified embassy in the world over there in Iraq, and we can’t persuade any diplomats to go over there and hold down a desk.   (Or possibly crouch under one, in the highly likely event of a mortar attack…)  They  won’t go.  That’s it.  No.  One of them said, the posting is a “potential death sentence.”  (I’ve got an idea; two words:  “extraordinary rendition.”
8. Here’s the line:  “The Army, stung by a contracting fraud scandal that has generated more than 80 criminal investigations, needs  14 hundred more personnel to deal with the demands of supplying troops in combat.”  Translation:  contractors need to make more money.  They are already over-billing the government 1000 to 1500 times the actual cost of delivering goods and services.  But don’t take my word for it.  Read David Rose’s investigative piece in this month’s Vanity Fair, ‘The People vs. The Profiteers.’  If you don’t, ‘The contractors may already have won…’
9. A jury awarded a grieving father nearly $11 million dollars after his son’s funeral (Killed in Iraq.) was rudely crashed by wild-eyed Evangelicals chanting, “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “God hates fags.”  What’s the connection, you ask?  Members of the Westboro Baptist Church think that God sent America to Iraq to punish us for tolerating homosexuality.  Jeez, the last time I checked, America was as homophobic as it ever has been.
10. Bigger than Mardi Gras:  The New Orleans District Attorney, Eddie Jordan resigned in the wake of scandal, murder, corruption and more.
11. Another Crony Decamps:  Karen Hughes has left the Bush administration – for the second time.  We al remember Karen.  She the plucky gal who went to the Middle East and told a group of high-octane women in business and politics her favorite recipes and offered home-making tips.  Karen was in charge of improving America’s image in the world.  There is an easier way than telling dubious foreigners how to cook a hamburger.  (Actually, Ms. Hughes may already have improved America’s image – by leaving…)
12. The former commander of all US forces in the Middle East, retired Army General John Abizaid says that we’re  could be bogged down in Iraq for fifty years – and Wowie!  Have we ever got the embassy to prove it.  The thing is bigger than Vatican City, surrounded by blast walls.  It’s mostly empty and nonfunctional – But hey;  It sends a message.  (And the message is, We could be in Iraq for fifty years...)
13. Santa Ana winds are revving up in Southern California, so you Mums and Dads out there in the southland, lock up your little pyros and invest in a good hose.
14. Dick Cheney cheerfully admits to resembling Darth Vader in spirit, if not actual physical appearance…As far as we know…
15. In Southeastern Mexico, massive flooding has sent thousands of people fleeing for higher ground, much of it in Texas.
16. And in the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Noel has hit Haiti and the Dominican Republic hard.  More than 60 people have died in floods and mudslides and 25 thousand have been left homeless.
17. After a white-knuckle lull, violence is surging back in Iraq:  Sixteen people have been killed in Baghdad – and that’s just the ones officially declared dead by a hospital.  None of these numbers take into account the hundreds left where they fell because of fear of reprisals.  (Though how real this “sectarian” bogey-man is, is debatable.  Many Iraq blogs report that it is US forces who are behind what appear to be sectarian attacks.  Why would this be?  Read the article about contracting fraud:  You’ll see why…)
18. In Pakistan, security forces killed more than 70 supporters of a pro-Taliban cleric (Why “security forces” think this sort of mayhem is going to win and hearts and minds, is anybody’s guess.  Maybe they’re taking a page from the Vietnam playbook…)   And Benazir Bhutto left for Dubai to “spend more time with her family.”
19. Take This Envelope And Call Me In The Morning:  Huge Western pharmaceutical companies – Pfizer, Wyeth, Glaxo-SmithKline, the whole shooting match – have been popped for bribing doctors in developing nations to improperly proscribe a rainbow of dubious drugs.  All this without mentioning possible side effects.
20. In Israel, the Knesset passed “preliminary” legislation aiming to bar Israelis of who have visited “enemy states” (That would be most of the rest of the world with the exception of the United States.) from serving in parliament.
21. But then the Israeli government might look the other way – at least until it finishes negotiating the enormous missile buy with American defense contractors, Raytheon and Lockheed-Martin.   Mustn’t put the cart before the horse…