Hey Nancy Is the War Over Yet?

LJB --
I hear they might know.

 

Does any one Doobie cost triple a regular musician?

 

Every one except Michael Fucking McDonald.

 

A significant digression, I'm sorry, but does anyone else have a hard time with Memorial Day celebrations while we're at war?

You've got Americans fighting and dying, and their families here just completely suffering....and then you have your backyard bbqs and picnics and the Big Sale on Dinette Sets! at the mall.

It just seems hypocritical and callous to plan the big summer hoop-de-doo to honor the military, while our military is engaged in war.

Completely open to suggestions on why my thinking is wrong on this. Boom--who has lost family members to war--would say you can't overthink it, and he's probably right. But I still think it.

 

His contributions on the "Takin' It To The Streets" album were valuable.

Afterward? Not so much.

And God, was Patrick Simmons a pussy from 1977-80.

 

Move Memorial Day to the first Monday in February.

80 percent of the country is freezing. Super Bowl hangover has set in. Everyone's Christmas toys have been broken (along with their New Year's resolutions).

Sounds like a perfect time for a solemn holiday.

Won't be too many barbecues and pool parties in Minneapolis on Feb. 5.

 

Nobody really associates Memorial Day with remembering the soldiers all that much anymore. It has become "Which National Holiday is letting me not work? Oh, Memorial Day. Okay."

As such, you shouldn't think about it too much.

 

What boggles my mind is this money will fund the war through September. Can you imagine? One hundred billion dollars ($100,000,000,000), and it will only last through the summer! Then it'll be gone with nothing to show for it except for a bunch more flag-draped coffins carrying soldiers who came home the hard way. You think Iraq and Afghanistan will be any closer to democracy by September than they are now? Me neither. Meanwhile, how many schools or hospitals could be built or refurbished with that kind of money? Just thinking about it completely floors me.

And before Boom or his friends get all pissy because another Canadian had the audacity to stick his nose into American politics, a little reminder - I'm also an American citizen and a direct descendant of veterans of King Philip's War, the War of Independence and the War of Northern Aggression.

 

The recession that Bush's tax hike caused was what condemned Bush 41 to the one-termer club.

Our last two presidents have been embarrassments, but the sad thing is, they weren't exactly going up against top competition in the presidential elections. Now, especially since Bob Dole's sacrificing in 1996, our presidential elections are between two people who can come up with the best soundbite and play well to the Oprah crowd and "win" the partisan fights, not who's going to be the best statesman and do the right thing for the country, which would have George Washington rolling over in his grave. Bush 41 was willing to sacrifice his political future on the budget plan (and tax increase). Ford did the same thing on pardoning Nixon, because they felt it was best for the country.

I blame 24-hour TV news and the overanalyzation of everything, but what we expect of presidential candidates isn't the same. And the 2008 field appears to be full of hyper-partisan shills -- Clinton, Obama, Rudy ... there's a reason Fred Thompson keeps looking attractive.

 

Not everybody picnics and drinks beer on Memorial Day.

 

Bush signed the tax increase into law in November 1990.

The recession began four months earlier, in July.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1994/06/art1exc.htm#1

Wow. I didn't know tax increases could sink an economy before they are enacted.

 

Yes, because ol' Fred has accomplished exactly what?