Author: Dick

George Walker “Gee Dubya” Bush will give his farewell address tonight. Is he gone yet?

As I have mentioned here many times Bush Jr. has been not only a terrific disappointment as president he has been the worst president in my memory, which goes back to Jack Kennedy. I loathed Richard Nixon even though Tricky Dick was my first military commander-in-chief and actually did make some positive contributions while in office. All the more GHWB is a personal disappointment because he is the only president I ever interviewed, although those interviews were before he even ran for Texas governor. And I covered a good many functions at which he spoke as governor as well as attending several news events when he was president. While actively working in the news biz I experienced his entire elected political career, abysmal as that was.

Shrub was a divider, not a uniter, to use the converse of his little campaign phrase. He took us into an unnecessary, unwise and probably illegal war in Iraq. He trampled upon our civil liberties. If the Republicans hadn’t had their knickers in a wad over Bubba Clinton, Bush might have been impeached. I don’t know. Maybe I give Congress way too much credit sometimes. It goes on and on and on though. I wish Bush would have been a success even though I believe the Supremes crossed the line when their decision made him president.

I hope Obama is better. If he’s not, we are in some kind of trouble.

An old pilot saying goes something like: “Any landing you walk away from is a good landing.” So the U.S. Airways flight that crashed into the Hudson River in New York technically made a good landing.

Just the other day I read that the U.S. had experienced two straight years without a fatal airline crash. Then my heart started to sink when I saw the headline a few minutes ago when I logged on. Apparently a bird struck the Airbus A320 and all passengers have escaped relatively unscathed. Wikipedia reports that for the entire A320 family there have been 19 hull-loss accidents with a total of 631 fatalities as of 27 November 2008.

Wikipedia has a post on U.S. Airways Flight 1549 here.

Pro football is probably the one professional sports I watch more than others but for some reason I probably keep up with baseball more. But while I am a fan, I am no fanatic.

It never ceases to amaze me what football crazy folks will do as will boosters of a particular city to get their civic moment in the sun. The latest example is Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has changed his name to Luke Steelersthal to honor his hometown team the Steelers. The Steelers, of course, will play the Baltimore Ravens this weekend for the AFC Championship.

This is reminiscent of the small town of Buffalo, Texas, changing its name to Blue Star, Texas, during the Super Bowl weekends in 1993 and 1994 to support the Dallas Cowboys who were playing the Buffalo Bills. The town south of Dallas also changed its name in 1999 to Green Star, Texas, to honor the Dallas Stars NHL team.

Some folks will do anything for a little attention. Maybe I should change the name of my blog to “Bernie Madoff With Your Money.”

When the history of the human race is finalized, if ever, one wonders where the whole USB port thing will rank up there? If I had a vote it would be pretty damned high.

Otherwise known as “that little rectangular hole in the back or side of your computer” the USB port makes so much possible it would inspire serious, or seriously bad, poets from far-removed centuries to pen verses aplenty. Too bad they didn’t have laptops back in the day.

In fact, I think a great invention would be a computer that would serve as nothing but one big host for hundreds of USB cables. Those cables could run your entire house, your entire life for that matter. Why not wireless? Why not indeed.

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This is a strange story, the one about the Indiana financial manager who sent a Mayday from his plane, apparently left it on autopilot and jumped parachuting to the ground. It reminds me of a verse I really like from an 80s song by Tony Carey called “It’s a Fine, Fine Day:”

“Then one day Sonny stopped comin’ around
Heard he’d gotten himself into a little trouble out in town
Sometime after that he finally disappeared for good
Then he pulled that ol’ Houdini
Like we always knew he would”

It appears the pilot has some alleged fraud complaints against him back in the Hoosier State and he is trying to pull that ol’ Houdini.

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Our local police are having fits with some fellows who apparently talk like Jamaicans and pull home invasion robberies and/or burglaries in the UMC neighborhoods. TV station KBMT had this hed on its Web site:

“Beaumont Police Seek Armed Bandits”

It just makes me wonder: If all of these robbers just happened to be missing arms would the television station have a headline reading:

“Beaumont Police Seek One-Armed Bandits?”

It irks me just a bit that since all the furor has been raised about the detention facility for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo, the name in the media has become synonymous with the prison.

The Barack Attack (I haven’t settled on a nickname for him just yet — oh yeah, he WILL get a nickname. He doesn’t get a pass just because he is a Dem.)is preparing an order to shutter the compound housing suspected terrorists at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. I figure most people — regardless of how they feel about what all closing the jail entails — know what Obama’s reasoning is for such an order so I won’t go into that whole can or worms.

But all along the media has talked about the facility and the uproar over it saying calls have come to “close Guantanamo.” That makes it sound like people want to and the incoming administration will shut down the Navy base lock, stock and watch towers put up to keep out the Commies. I suppose people will say it is just understood that people know to separate the detention facility closing from the base continuing to operate. But one positive thing pounded into my head by editors during my career was that people don’t understand everything. In fact, many people don’t understand anything at all. It (the phenomenon that many people don’t understand anything at all) is called the “dumb-ass factor.” That is not to be confused with the “O’Reilly Factor,” which is a reactionary show hosted on Fox (We Lie Our Asses Off) News by Bill O’Reilly, who is an ass, makes an ass of himself quite regularly and often makes very dumb-ass remarks.

Here is a history of the naval base, how the U.S. came to have and keep a navy base in Cuba and the whole ball of wax. Sorry for the cliches but I am a bit tired.

Okay, I’ve said my piece, now the media will stop what they are doing and start explaining the difference between the navy base and the detention facility. I’ve saved the world again. Then, I woke up.