Back from Delayland

Astroworld has finally been sold. I learned that on another trip to Deer Park, Texas, part of Delay's gerrymandered district in southeast Houston. I also learned that it's librul. Kind of like nucular. Even the top forty stations there are into librul bashin. 'Course, that don't matter nun caus libruls is goin' ta rule this nashun in November unless Bush kin get them Nashunl Gard trupes to the Mexicun Bordur and do them there other thangs to shor up hiz bass. Lik bashin immigrunts.

His speech was a model of Bushism: He quoted no new ideas but tried to present old ones as his own. Amazingly, his speech came the week after the Senate agreed to just about everything he wanted. I can't fault him on much in his speech, there wasn't much of substance there.

And today, with the Dow falling nearly two percent, he trumpets the effects of his tax cuts. They've created deficits that are driving the dollar down which, in our import economy, drives prices up, apart from their effect of making us a debtor nation. American workers are taking home bigger paychecks, he bloviates, oblivious to the fact that a cut of capital gains taxes and dividend taxes has absolutely no effect on paychecks, unless you're getting a monthly disbursement from a stock or bond based investment portfolio. He also claims tax revenues are up, contradicting his own staff who state that the deficit will set a record this year. Again, Bush proves that the truth doesn't matter. Sound bites do.

The only thing Bush understands is force. Under threat of losing his nominee to head the CIA, he caved in and allowed Congress to ask questions concerning his (first) domestic spying program. Not that we'll ever know anything about it. And do you trust Congress to oversee it? I look forward to November when the whole damn thing can be de-funded, i. e. shut down, by a congress not beholden to the Shrub and his gang of thugs. I guess less than thirty percent can even motivate the House Ethics Committee to resume work. Of course, in the name of "balance", they're investigating one Republican and one Democrat, the usual suspects. "Balance" is a dangerous concept when it comes to ethics and journalism. It assumes you have to find one slip on one side to counter a slip on the other. I'd much prefer "objectivity" in both ethics and journalism but then, where would Fox News stand? As Fox Opinion?

And in a nomination for the Boehner Award for this week, the Senate today approved 370 miles of fence along the border with Mexico. The border between Texas and Mexico alone is over 1200 miles long. It'll cost $3.2 million per mile. Perhaps we need to hire some ranchers with some illegal immigrant laborers to build it and save ourselves a lot of money to shift the smuggling of people and drugs to other points along the line. Reminds me of trying to catch a leak in a sieve. Still, it's good to watch the Republicans implode, no matter what the issue.