Friday Update - Basketball?

(Hey, where did all these basketball fans come from?  From out of the woodwork of the NCAA Tournament in San Jose, California, that's where.  Normally, in our family, the term "March Madness" usually is used in reference to a furniture sale at some local emporium, or perhaps the emotion surrounding yet another forecast of heavy rain for tomorrow.  But there's something about our U of O Ducks basketball team this year.  They're not only good, they're winning. Mind you, I'm not a big basketball fan.  I'm more of a 100-yard, 4-down man.  But we all love our Ducks of any persuasion around here, and when they're winning we especially love to ride on the wagon.  First they got our attention by winning the Pac12 Championship. So I'm almost obligated to assume you're interested in all this, and tell you where The (Mighty) Duck Basketball Team stands at this point in the NCAA Tournament:  Seeded 12th, The Ducks beat #5 Oklahoma State yesterday, 68-55, at the opening game of the tournament.  Saturday they play #4 Saint Louis.  Maybe it's just because there's no football being played at the moment, or it's because the Duck hoopsters are so much fun to watch, or maybe a little of both:  I'm hooked.  Go Ducks!  But I digress ...)

• If Bad Hat had a Person-of-the-Week Award it would go to Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who so far in her young career has made a name for herself as a brazen tell-it-like-it-is equal opportunity questioner.  David Bernstein says Warren "has an independence and authority that frees her to be outspoken without getting alienated."  Check out Bernstein's article and rejoice the fact we have someone on the hill who's on our side.
• We passed a milestone the other day.  The tenth anniversary of the night of "Shock and Awe," the beginning of the war in Iraq.  This little skirmish that Rummy told us was going to last "six days .. six weeks," and would cost us no more than $60 billion (estimated cost to date: approaching $2 trillion), has mainly been swept under the media rug, something most of us would rather not talk about anymore.  Even though this unnecessary tragedy will never be over for hundreds of thousand of veterans and their families, including those in the ranks of the daily suicide rate (more Iraq Vets have committed suicide than were killed in combat), for some reason the Iraq War has become what Jon Lee Anderson calls " the Great American Unmentionable, the fiasco that was."  From The New Yorker, How We Forgot Iraq.
• Apparently Bill O'Reilly hasn't been institutionalized as yet, because he's still saying ridiculous things on television and radio.  This latest one, I love.  O'Reilly usually uses the cold winter months to rail against the evil-doers attempting to get rid of Christmas (i.e. The War On Christmas).  This year he's after those of us on the Left who are trying to destroy the Easter Bunny.  That's right, Bill thinks that "secular progressives" are trying to do away with the beloved Easter Bunny so that abortion will be legalized in America, just like it is in China and, gasp, Canada!  If that makes sense to you I sincerely hope I don't strike up a conversation with you at some party this summer.  Read this and see if you can understand O'Reilly:  The Left Is Trying to Destroy the Easter Bunny So That Everyone Can Do Drugs and Have Abortions. 
• Taking a plane trip next week during Spring Break?  Get ready to be humiliated and/or assaulted by TSA agents at the airport.  Here's an article that does more than any recent one on the subject to explain why I don't fly anymore, as it tells of TSA agents ordering a wheel-chair bound double amputee Marine Vet to put his new prosthetic legs on and "walk" through the scanner.  It also lists other insanities of the TSA and their perceived "threats" such as 18-month-old babies, 84-year-old grandmothers, and dangerous cupcake frosting.  To their credit, the TSA did pat-down suspected war criminal Henry Kissinger, so they can't be all bad ... 
• And speaking of war criminals, one more time, with authority:   Said Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, writing in his memoir, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."  To which I add:  The fact that George Bush and Dick Cheney are still walking around without formally being charged with war crimes is one of the great shames of our times. 

Popes, Billionaires, and the Anti-Cheney

(We've been enjoying an early Spring here in Oregon this week, with temperatures dangerously near 70 at times with no rain.  In our neighborhood the daily sound is the drone of lawn mowers and leaf blowers, with the occasional jarring braap of a chain saw.  It's all an illusion, of course, as we true Oregonians know that the weather around here can be cruel to those who rototill too early.  Last year we had 4 inches of snow at the end of March.  By the way, today is "pi day," 3/14, get it?  It is also the day I retired, exactly one year ago.  But I digress ...)

• Does anyone but me see the joke potential in having a Nazi Pope retire and an Argentine Pope take his place?  Can anyone tell me what the hell this is all about?  Why do we have be subjected to hourly media coverage of this nonsense?  Maybe this will explain some of it.
• Dumb people hate to read.  At least they hate to read anything more complicated than comic books and menu items on the reader board at the Burger King drive-up window.  So how do some organizations who love dumb people, such as churches and the Republican party for example, attract their flock?  I mean, consider this: 18% of Americans believe the Sun revolves around the Earth.  Another 18% still believes the President of the United States is a Muslim.  Surely people don't get ALL their news from FOX News, do they?  Mark Morford comments "37 Percent of People Completely Lost."
• It's been a while since we checked in with the world's billionaires, those bloated fat cats who never worry about paying the utility bill on time.  This year, the combined wealth of the world's billionaires hit an all-time high of 5.4 trillion dollars.  Just for fun, here's a list of the 10 Worst People on Forbes Billionaires List, beginning with, of course, The Koch Brothers.
• And as the billionaires keep getting richer and richer, the homeless are becoming more and more invisible.  Cutting safety net programs for families in need to fund the non-need for F-35 fighter jets has seemingly become the national political norm.  For example, how would you raise 5 kids in a tiny camper?  "The Atrocious Ways America Treats Poor Women and Children."
• Don't know about you, but I'm getting a little uneasy about President Obama's secrecy surrounding the drone program.  I've even gone so far as to feel almost thankful for Rand Paul's recent filibuster which called attention to this problem, even though I still think Rand Paul is a bit of a nut case. And what's this about the administration saying they have legal justification to drone kill American citizens?  What?  And now we have President Obama trying to calm us about all this by saying at least "I'm not Dick Cheney."  Well, that's comforting in some surreal way I suppose, but I'm afraid we need a bit more information than that.
• And finally, thanks too the urging of several Vietnam era veteran friends of mine, and especially to my advocate friend Dirk, I went down to the local Veterans Affairs office in town and signed up for overdue benefits. Apparently some of my ailments are on the list of symptoms of Agent Orange poisoning and I am entitled to a monthly stipend.  Who would have guessed?  And while we're on the subject, here's some interesting news:  Representative Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) proclaimed the other day the "Vietnam was winnable!"  Apparently he agrees with some of us who have always believed we were just two 20 megaton bombs away from beating those little bastards. 

Basketball Diplomacy

If you had to pick a public American figure to travel to North Korea and meet with the 28 year old heir to the leadership of that fortified and embattled nation, who would you pick? The head of Google and Bill Richardson? Tried that, no luck. Oh Hell, let's just roll the dice and send in the most undiplomatic and unpredictable person we can find. A complete nut case. Who would that be? Bingo, Dennis Rodman. Oh, I know, you're going to say that is like something from a movie, that it would NEVER WORK.

Until, guess what, it did. Let me take this a step further. Could ANYONE ever imagine Dennis Rodman getting a Nobel Peace Prize? Hey, the committee are all Norwegians, they don't do things that make sense to us, they do what they think makes sense. You heard it here first. I am debating making a call to a bookmaker in London to put down a bet on this one.

Arthur

Giving It Up For Lent

So here we are in the third week or so of Lent, and Lent being that particular holy time when Christians are supposed to be reflecting on or taking stock of their religious lives.  Lent believers usually give up something they enjoy during this time as a sacrifice to release themselves from worldly pleasures and get nearer to God, or some such nonsense.  The leader of millions of Catholics across the globe has observed Lent by giving up his job.  I suggest to whomever in the Catholic Church still has free will and a clear mind, for Lent, give up the Catholic Church. 

Now that there's no Pope, here's a list of things you Catholics can now legally do:  (1) Wear a condom. (2) Masturbate.  (3) Stop giving money to the most wealthy church in the world. (4) Eat meat on Fridays, and Ash Wednesday. (5) Stop feeling sad and grave during High Mass. (6 ) Be gay. (7) Marry anyone you want.  (8) Get divorced. (9) Give up on the AntiChrist, he ain't comin'. (10)  Stop thinking Father Casey just wants to check the tags in your underwear.