What the hell?

It's less than a month after the inauguration of president who claims he has a mandate to do, essentially, as he pleases, and who, for the next four years (if the last four are any indication), will indeed do just that. And yet according to the just-released poll by AP, fifty-eight percent of Americans believe the country is on the "wrong track" as opposed to thirty-eight who believe it's headed in the right direction.

There's a disconnect here that's more than troubling. It's scary.

What if only one-fifth of this is true?

Even so, this dispatch from Iraq, a report of an Iraqi doctor in Fallujah after the siege, is as ugly as it gets. As feared, too, he equates the actions of Bush and the Army with "Americans," all of us. So much for a trip to Baghdad by any American tourist in our lifetimes.

Compassionate conservatism in action

Bush's reaction to a woman's plight of having to work three jobs to support her "mentally challenged" son: classic.

If I were religious

Especially a Christian, I'd be mighty miffed that my religion had been taken over by a bunch of stupid, warmongering bigots. I mean, I'm pissed off that the Democratic Party has sold out to the middle-roaders and am protesting and organizing against it, as are millions nationwide over the last few years. But from the Christian left, even the Christian middle, not a peep about the theft of their religion by the pro-Bush faction. No organization, no spokespersons, nobody standin up to say, Enough. Jesus was a peacemaker. God is justice and tolerance, not war.

I'd like to hear about this from somebody who's religious, Whazzup with the silence?

A couple of things, both profound

1. The Bushies have denied--and hand-wringing Democrats have been worried about--the prospect of a "civil war" in Iraq. Well, we now have an "elected" government, with its troops (and with the U.S. as its allies), doing daily battle with "insurgents" who are blowing up people, pipelines, buildings. If that's not a civil war, what is?

2. I do a lot of reading about the human psyche and mind and stuff. My conclusion, backed by a bunch of heavy-hitting Ph.D.'s, is that the mind is a super-computer, with electric energy and sophisticated chemical happenings that we don't understand. But, at base, "just" a computer. So, if that's true, isn't it absolutely certain that the reason Bush got elected again is because of the elemental computer maxim that is based on the current state of the media coverage of his administration prior to the election, namely, "Garbage in, garbage out"? I mean, the Democrats and others have done much soul-searching over the question "what happened?" and "where do we go from here?" and I think the answer is simple: We take back the media.