From The Swamp - The World According to Greg | January 2, 2003 (Vol. 1 Iss. 32)

Happy New Year! (btw...anyone notice that today is 01/02/03?)

Greg going nuts, suing yourself, and college professor's new competition

Well, Happy 2003 to everyone, hope you had safe and happy new year celebrations! The world is still screwed up of course, but the holiday did give us a brief break. Until I read the papers today. Some of you have complained that there has been too little ranting lately, and boy are you going to be sorry you complained today...I'm going to start with the Democratic Party's slow creep towards anarchy, with NC Senator John Edwards announcing today that he will run for President. OK, few problems here. 1. He's like 12. 2. He's a trial lawyer, not exactly America's favorite profession. And no, not a Law and Order type, the "Man gets $273 million for paper cut from Staples" kind. 3. If he had to run for re-election today, the Freshman Senator would LOSE! How the hell can someone expect to be President when their own job isn't secure? Maybe that's why he's running, he knows he can't keep the current job. Other than that, I do like some things about him, but I just see shades of Al Gore in 1988 here, running now so he can run later, which won't help the Dems next year.

Space...the Chinese frontier? Secondly...down below you will see an article about the Chinese planning a manned space program this year. Despite what you may be assuming, I actually think this is a good idea. It increases the potential for further scientific and commercial exploration of space, and may urge on the US to do something with the hunk of junk space station they're building up there. Some sources claim that China is aiming for a moon base by the end of the decade. Isn't kind of strange that after going to the moon, we haven't been back since 1972? What, like there was nothing there, we figured, "well, seen all there is to see here, no real research potential"...yikes. Don't get me wrong though, the Space Station is a good idea, it will help us to learn more about long-term exposure and such. Another thing NASA and other space agencies need to do is to begin to figure out how to do some of this stuff cheaper. When Reagan first proposed the space station in the mid 1980's, NASA estimated the cost at about $8 billion. They got the money, and then spent it all on research, and was done with it within 5 years. The research they do is good, but other good programs are getting cut because of the fiscal pressure. Perhaps working more closely with the private sector is the answer. It would be a shame to loose the edge in space, not because we might sleep under a "Red" moon or anything like that, but because it means that we as Americans would have lost our sense of adventure and exploration.

Homeland Insecurity: Third...if the Administration really wants to help "homeland security" they should dissolve the FBI immediately and start over. So last week they send the whole damn world on alert for these 5 guys that supposedly illegally crossed the US border from Canada on Christmas Eve. (Subquestions: if they illegally crossed, I'm assuming that means they didn't do it at a border crossing. How the hell did they figure out who they were then? And what ever happened to that damn surveillance system we were supposed to put on the border?) Now, as you'll read below, it turns out that one of the people they are looking for lives in Pakistan. And still is in Pakistan. And has never been to North America. OK folks, the problem here is that the FBI is a POLICE DEPARTMENT! They are basically the national police, or at least the national detective force, investigating federal crimes. Yes, they should also work on preventing crimes, but they are not equipped to be the lead agency on homeland defense, or to be an intelligence agency. In addition, the culture there is apparently so bad, that problems are hidden instead of fixed. The solution? Make the FBI cops again. For crimes like fraud and such, they should investigate and try to prevent. But the only way we will be able to get anywhere in the war on terror is to create a domestic intelligence agency like MI5 in Britain. This way, we can build from the ground up a domestic agency that can work on preventing terrorism without resorting to the civil liberties limiting tactics of the FBI, and we can keep the CIA out of the domestic business as well. Of course this will never get done, because the bureaucracy is too big for anyone to be willing to take it on, but every day the FBI sits around with their thumbs up their asses, another attack becomes more and more probable.

DC...town of idiots: And finally. On New Year's Eve/Day, at around 1:30am, I drove home. The night does have a reputation for housing a lot of drunk drivers, and this night was no exception. Except I did not encounter any in Virginia, where I started out, only in the good ol' District of Columbia. I encountered at least 2 people who were obviously unfit to drive, one on Rock Creek Parkway (parts of which are tough to drive in the rain sober, as those of you from the area know). But the second was up in NW DC, after I had dropped off some friends at their apartment building. This man was regularly doing 5 MILES AN HOUR on the road, and at one point was stopped at a green light for at least 30 seconds while the cars behind him were honking at him to go. So...where were the police? I did not encounter a single checkpoint, despite the supposed plethora of them. Again, I'm sure it was just the DC Police leadership keeping the police off the streets, rather than fighting crime, which of course fits the pattern of rising crime in DC. This really bugs me, because DC has done so much in the past 5 years to make itself a nice place to live, but a high crime rate will only ruin that. I'll note that I critize the DC Police leadership, because most police officers are hard working, they're just overworked, and the department is not funded well enough. A funny final story about DC services, I was at a New Year's reception in my neighborhood, when some neighbors were talking about a former resident, who moved to some third-world country (can't remember which) BECAUSE HE GOT BETTER SERVICES THAN IN DC! Ok, so it's not that bad anymore (usually), but you get the point. And today, Tony Williams will inaugurate his 2nd term. *sigh* Ok, enough ranting...let's start the insanity!

Maybe they should start looking for John Ashcroft: The clueless FBI apparently is looking for a man who illegally entered the US. The catch? He lives in Pakistan and has never been to North America -

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/south/01/02/pakistan.w anted/index.html

Look Who's Running For President: John Edwards announced today, becoming the 3rd Democrat to officially enter the race for the 2004 nomination. And 2003 has only just begun... -

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Edwards-Democrats.html
BTW, look at this wire photo of Edwards announcing...what the hell is he standing on? It looks like he's about to do a Michael Jackson and throw his daughter over the wall...and what is on her head? -

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/030101/1 68/2ynuu.html&e=10&ncid=480

Do the "taikonauts" have the right stuff? China announced its intention to begin a manned space program by the end of 2003 -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2620915.stm

Please Appease Me: A Slate author makes the case for appeasing North Korea -
http://slate.msn.com/id/2076213/

Yikes: Tony Blankley doesn't think it will be a very good year -
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/blankley.htm

The Department of Education - Leaving Children Behind since 1979: Once again we see what happens when the Bush Administration takes a good idea, and then uses it solely for political purpose. States are realizing that almost all of the schools in the country will be declared "failing" within 5 years. Why? Because the law puts that possibility within the range of statistical error, meaning nothing the schools could do would solve the problem. -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64246-2003Jan1.html

First Baby of 2003...wait a minute: A normally "traditional" news story kind of got blown out of the water in the DC area yesterday. The region's first baby of the new year, born at Inova Fairfax Hospital at 12:01am on January 1...was born to a lesbian couple, who now must flee the state or they will lose custody of the baby. How's that for throwing you a curve? -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64193-2003Jan1.html

Only in New Jersey: A North Jersey mayor is suing himself. Now, it's not abnormal for people to end up doing that, (i.e., the mayor is suing the town, so he is in theory the defendant). However, what's unusual about this case is that this guy is plotting both the plaintiff and defense strategies. One must ask if the man has enough time on his hands... -

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?level_3_id=18&page=6 149777

Worth Noting: In case you ever happen to drink anti-freeze for some reason, now you know the antidote...a bottle of whiskey. Maybe this is just an example of socialized medicine in Britain though... -

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-528566,00.html

News Flash - World Death Rate still at 100 percent: Canada's National Post looks at how what kills us is changing -
http://www.nationalpost.com/artslife/story.html?id={93950294 -0582-4EAF-A5BD-B7F309837694}
But don't die in December...especially if you want to be in one of the "year in death" issues -
http://slate.msn.com/id/2076208/
Oh, and an interesting ethical question...is it ok to kill a clone?
http://slate.msn.com/id/2076199/

Another bad economic sign for 2003: Wireless phone companies are about to roll out a whole new series of products and phones. Except that they probably won't sell, because Americans are not like the Japanese, especially American teenagers -

http://slate.msn.com/id/2076197/

AU in the news/College Professors have to be interesting? The NYTimes does a piece which features my ol' alma-matter AU, but also notes an interesting trend. With schools like AU installing wireless networks, when students get bored in class they're now just surfing the Internet, posing an interesting dilemma for professors. While there is some fault of technology here, I will say that many professors (including some I had at AU!) really do need to try and make the stuff more interesting. I mean, I would sometimes end up falling asleep in classes, ones in which I enjoyed the subject matter! A good piece that examines this though -

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/02/technology/02WIRE.html

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I want baseball in DC, I really do. BUT...the latest reports say that the biggest bid for a team (probably the Expos) is likely to come from BET Chairman Bob Johnson, with as his partner...Redskins owner Daniel Snyder. Dan Snyder is by far the worst owner in the NFL (Jerry Jones looks like a model citizen compared to him) and has trashed the Redskins since buying them from the Cooke family. Considering there is already 2 ownership groups vying for a DC team, I will continue to hope that Snyder is unable to pull this one off. -

http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2003/0101/1485476.html

Headline of the Future? It's funny now, but lawsuits like this are actually being filed -
http://www.theonion.com/onion3849/hersheys_ordered_to_pay.ht ml

Prison...Finnish Style: These prisons look nicer than my college dorm room was -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/02/international/europe/02FIN L.html

Comments? Questions? Threats? greg@fromtheswamp.com Please note that I'm not currently taking any more requests for subscriptions pending our move to the new e-mail domain in a week or so. Then we'll sign everyone up! Sorry for the growing pains. Also coming soon...a tracking mechanism of some sort for our Democratic Whipping Boys, I mean Presidential Candidates.

Oh, and also, if you haven't joined our family of nations in www.nationstates.net, you're missing out! E-mail me at crazygreg@fromtheswamp.com and I'll get you the info to join our region.

Gregory S. Gadren