Author: Dick

Since I don’t have a lot to do today, I decided to read up on President GW’s nominee for Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).

The selection by George of U.S. Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, understudy to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, to head the CIA has set off some alarm bells among members of Congress. Some are uncomfortable about his status as an active duty general. On its face it is not a totally convincing argument since several active duty generals and admirals have been CIA director during its 58-year-history. Two retired Navy admirals — Vice admiral William Francis Raborn, Jr. and Adm. Stansfield Turner — are also former DCIs.

But there is certainly more than meets the eye with respect to Hayden’s military status. For instance, there’s this guy named Donald Rumsfeld. You know him, Robert McNamara with hemorrhoids?

What is more worrisome to both Republican and Democratic lawmakers is the fact that the warrantless surveillance program used by the National Security Agency began under Hayden’s watch as NSA director.

It certainly can’t be said that “Bo” Hayden (I call him that — I would doubt anyone else does — for a very cheap chuckle ahead (maybe?)) is not intelligent about intelligence. For you see, Bo knows intelligence. HA! I can do that and no one can stop me. Talk about your raw power. I read Bo’s Air Force biography and found he’s been in the spook stuff his entire Air Force career. That is with exceptions of course. Such as:

July 1975 – August 1979, academic instructor and commandant of cadets, ROTC program, St. Michael’s College, Winooski, Vt.

I bet that was a hoot. And:

July 1984 – July 1986, air attache, U.S. Embassy, Sofia, People’s Republic of Bulgaria

Sounds like he either pissed off some higher up or lost a bet to get that duty.

Just in the past hour or so I read that Hayden might be softening his position a bit on his thinking that warrantless surveillance is the best thing in the War or Terror since Islam-friendly Meals Ready to Eat. Isn’t funny how you’ll say anything or do anything to get what you really want?

There would be one upside to Hayden leading the CIA. That is that he would give hope to history majors everywhere that they too can grow up to torture and wiretap someone. (Hayden got both a bachelor’s and master’s in history at Duquesne University).

So do you want to know my opinion about Gen. Michael “Bo” Hayden leading the CIA? You don’t? Are you sure? I will be happy to give you my opinion if you’ll just ask. Please? Okay, I didn’t want to give my opinion anyway. I think I’ll just close my blog for this post and reflect on why I get so little respect.

“I realize that I have issues, but can’t we talk about them after you go to Hell?”

Lately I have been busier than the front page of the Weekly World News so now that I have a little down time I thought I would catch things up with some odds and ends. (Hey, it’s a new mannequin!)

First of all, I found out quite a lot has been written about the efforts to rename East Texas and it has hiked up a heaping helping o’ scorn. I first discovered all the attention at Capitol Annex, which I rather like and plan to add to my blogroll. It was from the ‘Annex that I found out The Pine Blog was having a contest to rename East Texas. I had to throw my 1/2 cent into the contest, which is that if East Texas was going to be renamed, it should be named: “The Thicketalia.” (A word play on the Big Thicket and … you know) Of course, I find the blog name “The Pine Blog” hilarious because it is from the Lufkin-Nacogdoches area (or so I figure) and it seems to be satirizing the name “The Pine Log,” which was our campus newspaper at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches (Steve is what I call it.)

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With the big ol’ pervert who lived in the apartment below me back in the pen for a parole violation, it seems his empire got divided up on multiple tries. His apartment was burglarized three times since he has been gone. Loot taken included his hideous gold Escort station wagon that has a lock and chain on the hood (I’m not making this stuff up.) My landlord told me today that he finally had people just move everything out of the guy’s apartment and he left the broken window open for all to see that nothing is left inside. Sad. I can’t hear jack going on around this place with the exception of my neighbor’s car alarm going off at some ungodly hour.

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Whatever happened to Vivi the missing whippet show dog? I’ve not heard hide nor hair about the pooch in quite some time. I think perhaps she got addicted to the big city lights of New York, the town so nice they named it twice.

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Oh, I almost forgot to mention this. I have become the casual Southeast Texas/Louisiana desk for my pal and former co-worker Nate’s blog Common Sense. Like I have had enough time recently to work on two blogs. Actually I have cross-posted a few things. Nate is expanding his blogrizons though and I am always happy to help.

It would be nice to at least see a parade while standing at parade rest.

This photo brought back memories. I remember a sweltering June day circa 1976 in Gulfport, Miss., when I was standing on a “grinder,” or big, concrete parade field for a Navy change of command ceremony. The Navy district band from New Orleans was supposed to have been there. But they had to cancel because the then president of France was visiting their city. So we had playing all those Sousa marches, the high school band and twirlers from nearby Long Beach (Miss.) High School. It appeared that either some of the twirlers didn’t know or just forgot that one is not to stand stiff at parade rest (legs at an inverted “V” and both elbows out behind the back as the sailors in the above picture). Not moving can cause a restriction in blood flow, as it did for some of the poor twirlers, especially on such a hot, humid day. They started tumbling over like dominoes.

The sailors in this photo taken by Navy Photographer’s Mate Airman Richard Waite are at parade rest during a May 5 change of command ceremony on board the nuclear carrier U.S.S. Stennis in Bremerton, Wash. I hope these sailors didn’t forget to move their legs a little as the stood at parade rest.

Over the past week I have been buried in a project that I thought would never end but hopefully my long nightmare is over. With that said, I have had a little time to digest the life sentence that a federal jury in Alexandria, Va., handed Zacarias Moussaoui last week for his part in the 9/11 conspiracy.

It seems the government was disappointed Moussaoui will rot in the federal “Supermax” prison for the rest of his life. Prosecutors wanted the death penalty which means that if Moussaoui had been sentenced to death he would have been given the choice of lethal injection or electrocution (In federal cases, a defendant sentenced to death is executed under the method of the state in which the crime took place. In this case it was Virginia, location of the Pentagon.)

Since there is a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking on the Moussaoui trial’s outcome and because it is Monday morning, I thought I’d throw my in my 1.5 cents.

First of all, there are those of the opinion that the government case was overreaching and flawed. Others such as Dr. Brooks A. Mick of “The Conservative Voice” think the jury’s verdict was part of society’s mollycoddling in general. But still others, as with Goldilocks and the three bowls of porridge, found the sentence was just right.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what is legally sound here or what isn’t. But it seems to me that Moussaoui was portraying himself a winner no matter what the outcome. If he died he would be a martyr. If he gets life, he lives. That is, of course, if you can call how he will likely live the rest of his life, “life.”

Despite the government’s disappointment I also think they stood to win either way. No matter how much blood lust exists over the horrible events of Sept. 11, 2001, some will argue that life without parole is a much worse fate than death.

So no matter how much I loathe the term “win-win” (and believe me, I loathe the term), I cannot think of a better expression for all sides in the Moussaoui case. Isn’t there something wrong with this picture?

It isn’t often that I have really — I mean seriously really — strange dreams. But a dream I had last night was on my all-time bizarre list. In my dream, I was walking down a dirt road in the woods much like the one pictured in my post yesterday about attempts to rename East Texas. But these woods were alive and filled with working — women — blondes to be exact. There must have been a hundred or more young, attractive, blond women who were doing various woods-type work with hoes and shovels. They were all dressed the same in blue chambray shirts and denim pants, kind of like the working uniform I wore years ago in the Navy only they looked a hell of a lot better in their uniforms. Now I know what some of you may be thinking — this guy is having a woman prison fantasy dream. But it wasn’t that. I didn’t sense these women were prisoners. Actually, I felt like they were Swedish. Yes, great-looking, blond, Swedish woodswomen. I tell you guys (or gals), if you are going to have a dream, that isn’t a bad one to have.

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I got an e-mail from Shane Allen, the assignment manager at KBTV Channel 4 in Beaumont, yesterday who was replying about my post regarding their weather radar being on the fritz. Shane said that the radar was down because of planned maintenance. I certainly understand that. Sometimes I get down for planned maintenance. Anyway, it was nice of Shane to write and explain to a viewer what was shaking.

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Finally, !Feliz Cinco De Mayo! Today is the day of national celebration in Mexico and in the U.S. among many people with the exception of Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan and the Minutemen. The holiday commemorates the victory of Mexican forces led by Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza over the French expeditionary forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, thus beginning the use of the term “Freedom Fries.”