Five Down, Two To Go

A recent world-wide survey has come up with a list of the NEW Seven Wonders of the World. The old list of wonders was centered around the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and consisted of

Great Pyramid of Giza
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Temple of Artemis
Statue of Zeus at Olympia
Mausoleum of Maussollos
Colossus of Rhodes
Lighthouse of Alexandria

Seven Wonders, as depicted by 16th-century Dutch artist Marten Heemskerk

Of the old wonders, only the pyramids of Giza still remain. I had a chance to see (and crawl through) them back in 1990.

A new list of wonders, spanning the globe, was announced 7-7-07. Of the new seven wonders, I have visited the five:

Great Wall of China


Machu Picchu, Peru


Chichen Itza, Mexico

Colosseum, Rome, Italy


Taj Mahal, India

This leaves two items on my to-do list:

Petra, Jordan


Christ the Redeemer (statue), Brazil

Summer Vacation

It's summer, and the livin' is NOT easy. I've got a lot going on. I'm helping write a (non-political) book, trying to organize my photos, preparing for my September UCARE trip to Ukraine, working in the yard, going out of town, updating my web site, trying to do my ABOG recertification, and hanging out with family.

Busy, busy, busy.

I'll still send the occasional e-mail, but will be taking it a bit easy blog-wise.

Read the blogs in my blogroll (right) to keep informed.

See you later!

'Nuff Said

Rebuild America First

Merle Haggard tells it like it is on this Fourth of July:

Bush the Merciful

I've been a wee bit upset with the commutation of traitor Libby's sentence by Dear Leader, and a mild upset of this sort often leads to incoherent ranting. I found a blog post on BeggarsCanBeChoosers that says it all so well:

Bush Wasn't Known For Mercy Before Libby Case

By MARC McDONALD
George W. Bush has shown us a side we never knew he had in extending mercy to former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Bush spared Libby from a 2 1/2-year prison term, calling his sentence "excessive."

Perhaps Bush is following the advice of Jesus, who once said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." After all, Bush once declared that Jesus was his favorite philosopher.

Yeah, right.

The fact is, if you look at Bush's political career, you'll find a man who has never cared much for mercy. Indeed, you find a cold, callous person who never blinked as people were sentenced to harsh prison terms and given the death penalty under his watch.

Take the case of Karla Faye Tucker, the first woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War. Serving as Texas governor at the time, Bush ignored an international outcry for granting clemency for Tucker, who'd become a born-again Christian while in prison (and who, the prison warden testified, had become a model prisoner who had been reformed). Bush ignored all pleas for mercy from everyone from Pope John Paul II to the United Nations to the World Council of Churches.

Indeed, according to an account by conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, Bush showed shocking callousness in the case. Carlson described how, during an interview, Bush smirked and pursed his lips and said "Please don't kill me," as he mocked Tucker's pleas for clemency.

In fact, Bush was never a man known for mercy in death penalty cases. In his five years as governor, Texas executed 152 prisoners, by far the highest total for any state and more than any other governor in modern American history.

A number of commentators argued that Bush routinely failed to give serious consideration to clemency requests in death penalty cases. Among these critics was Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and leading advocate for the abolition of the death penalty.

As CommonDreams.org pointed out Bush presided over a death penalty cases that was noted for "notorious examples of unfairness," noting cases in which lawyers were under the influence of cocaine during the trial, drunk, or even asleep.

CommonDreams.org quotes a report by The Chicago Tribune on the 152 death cases that occurred in Texas while Bush was governor:

In one-third of those cases, the report showed, the lawyer who represented the death penalty defendant at trial or on appeal had been or was later disbarred or otherwise sanctioned. In 40 cases the lawyers presented no evidence at all or only one witness at the sentencing phase of the trial.

Of course, there's a big difference between the vast majority of defendants in these death penalty cases and Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Most of those executed in Texas were poor people from destitute backgrounds. Many were minorities.

By contrast, Libby is more like Bush himself: male, white, wealthy and from a prosperous, pampered, silver-spoon background.

See, if everyone were rich, white Republican and male, we COULD have equal justice for all!

Who Said It?

"I don't believe my role is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own, unless there are new facts or evidence of which a jury was unaware, or evidence that the trial was somehow unfair."

Answer: George W. Bush, while governor of Texas

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

What does the cartoon above tell us? That all reporters are Democrats and that the news has a well-known liberal bias*. Right?

Well, that's what it wants us to think. The data come from a recent study, but there was a bit of elision performed: what the study actually showed was that, of the less than one percent of journalists (143 out of 100,000+) who actually contributed money to political candidates, 87% of them contributed small sums to the Democrats.

Additionally, what is left unspoken is that the majority of OWNERS media outlets (newspapers, radio and television stations) contributed much larger sums of money to the Republicans.

Besides, who gets to decide what is shown on the TV or written in the newspaper–the hired hand (reporter) or the owner (via his editor)?

As A. J. Liebling said, "Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one. "

______________________________
*As Stephen Colbert once said, the FACTS have a well known-liberal bias, and that is why Fox has decided to go with a fact free format.

Popular Support

Last night, at the Giants' game, as the National Anthem, began some unidentified people unfurled a banner about 14 feet long and 5 feet high that simply said "IMPEACH." They were up in the walkway above the bleachers, so the majority of the fans could have seen it.

Within a minute, stadium people were on the scene and the banner was taken down.

Creationism

Now here's a version of the creation story I could believe:

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)