Operation Incessant Lies

Is this America?

By that I mean, how can this combined with this be America? People pawning possessions to buy gas while oil executives make $150,000 dollars a day?

If that is anyone's defintion of all men being created equal, then the word "equal" has no meaning. If that is "promoting the general welfare," then that phrase is useless.

And by all sane accounts, Bush's insane, unnecessary saber-rattling against Iran is helping jowly executives while stretching the budgets of jowly (and non-jowly) non-executives literally to the breaking point.

War is a racket. Wars like the one we are waging against Iraq and like the one Bush and Co. want to wage against Iran violate not only international law, they violate American law.

This is not what America should be.

And Aravosis is right, watching all those kids sing along to Pink's "Dear Mr. President" is heartening, moving, and hopeful. Especially when they all cheer during the part about being gay (especially if you know that the studio version was recorded with the incomparable Indigo Girls).

Is Ahmadenijad A Nice Guy Or A Demon? I Report, You Decide...

Based on this quote from this story:

AFP adds from Tehran: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated his view Friday that only rich countries should pay the "real price" of crude oil and that poorer nations should get it more cheaply.
"We should adopt a formula and schedule to prevent the increase in oil prices from harming the weaker countries who do not have oil," he told reporters on the sidelines of an oil industry exhibition in Tehran.
"They should not be harmed, although industrial countries who have hundreds of billion of dollars should pay the real price of oil," he explained, adding that the Iranian oil and foreign ministries were studying the issue.

To me, that sounds like fair trade. Fair business practices. It's like the StickerGuy's policy for doing stickers for bands: if you're on a major label and are backed by millions of dollars, he charges you a lot more for stickers (that's what his policy used to be, anyway). If you're a self-financed, DIY, independent band, he charges you less. It's progressive pricing. And that's an attitude the corporatists and the right-wing meanies don't dig.