5 New Saints, Rush Redux, Palestine Disunity

Paul Krugman
E J Dionne Jr
Fareed Zakaria

"One lesson from the Great Depression is that you should never underestimate the destructive power of bad ideas."  - Paul Krugman

"The effort to understand where Obama hatred comes from has been one of the few growth areas in the American economy"  - EJ Dionne Jr

“No one ever said it was going to be easy” - Hillary Clinton

taking a poke at the pope...
Upset that Barack Obama is now considered the world's arbiter of peace, the Pope announced that he had canonized 5, count them, 5 new Saints! Some Americans were upset that Brett Favre was not among them... "In his homily, Benedict urged the faithful to learn from “the luminous examples of these saints,” men and women who “did not put themselves at the center but chose to go against the current and live according to the Gospel.”

The new Saints are, listed in no particular order:

   1) Belgian-born priest, Jozef De Veuster, known as Father Damien, who worked with lepers in Hawaii.
   2) Zygmunt Szcezesny Felinski, a 19th-century archbishop of Warsaw who helped defend the Catholic Church during Poland’s annexation by Russia,
  3) Jeanne Jugan, a French nun who helped found the Little Sisters of the Poor, which runs homes for the elderly.
  4) Francisco Coll y Guitart, who founded an order of Dominicans in the 19th century,
  5) Rafael Arnáiz Barón, who renounced his rich upbringing to dedicate himself to prayer.

Northern Californians are happy with with the choice of Francisco Coll y Guitart. They are going to celebrate his canonization by renaming a city after him, Saint Francisco... I'll bet you could see that one coming...How about naming a rich, messy dessert after him, the Gooey Tart... Sorry that I don't know any good leprosy jokes.

rush didn't make the list, you be the judge...
Not to be outdone by Obama and the Pope, Rush Limbaugh has accepted to be a judge of the next Miss America pageant. Because he needs a huge tax write-off now that the Swiss are disclosing their secret account holders, Rush is also trying to buy the current losing football team, the St Louis Rams. Both the NFL player's union and the Rev Al Sharpton are critical of him. He was previously fired as a sports commentator for making an insensitive remark about Donovan McNabb: "Sorry to say this, I don't think he's been that good from the get-go," Limbaugh said. "I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team."

Mr McNabb responded at the time: "It's sad that you've got to go to skin color. I thought we were through with that whole deal,"

The taint of his racist remarks have people riled up over whether he should morally own a team employing both black and white players who must get along. Here are some of his past remarks, compiled from the NewsOne website:

   1) I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.
  2) You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed.
  3) Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?
  4) Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.
  5) The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.
  6) They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?
  7) Take that bone out of your nose and call me back(to an African American female caller).

Ahh Rush, what a basket of strange fruit you have uncovered. I guess the next Miss America will not be Black, but some white girl who is strung out on diet pills and has implants...

divided we fail...
Hamas and Fatah were supposed to kiss and make up so they could then go to peace talks with Israel as a unified party, and to pave the way for upcoming elections in 2010.. They have been meeting in Cairo, trying to get past their very different views on Palestine. The recent UN report on the Gaza conflict has acted as the dividing issue: "Mustafa Barghouthi - an independent member of the Palestinian parliament - said he believed Fatah and Hamas had turned a UN war-crimes report into a party-political issue, rather than into an honest attempt to seek justice. The report, drawn up by a team of experts led by Richard Goldstone, a former South African judge, accuses Israel of using disproportionate force and failing to protect civilians during its bombardment of Gaza at the end of 2008." 


I used to tell my girlfriends that I was revealing to them a guy's secret: that men never develop emotionally past five years old. This must be especially true in the middle east, with all of these leaders acting like bitchy children. No wonder other countries keep sending envoys and bringing them back to talk to one each other time and time again. Maybe if we stock the next meeting with candy bars we can use them as operant conditioning, rewarding them when they make nice...

is that tea-bag full of  mary-jane?..
I find it ironic that the US spends millions of dollars to eradicate growing drugs in places like Afghanistan and Columbia, while small, economically strapped towns in Colorado and California are contemplating growing marijuana to keep them from collapsing into bankruptcy.

I remember a time many years ago when a couple friends and myself were taking the train down to southern China. At one point we were traveling through fields of large, green plants. One friend, who's business was as a pot farmer, did a double-take. Outside our window were fields of 12 - 15 foot tall marijuana plants. A passenger on the train told us that it was used in making rope and other uses that were not for inhaling. Just like our domestic garlic market has collapsed with the importation of cheaper Chinese grown garlic, once the medical marijuana market becomes a national market, the Chinese will be ready...

Of course, the medical marijuana market is a growing racket. They charge a lot of money for their products and its not like you can give them a $10 or $20 co-pay and have the rest covered by insurance. It's certainly one area that will be avoided by both parties in any health care reform...