Hinessight

I was proved wrong by a fill-in host for Mark Levin (another “Mark,” who I assume was Mark Simone). This afternoon I heard him blabbing about how Google has purposely jiggered with its search engine so typing in “failure” brings up, as the #1 result, the official biography of George Bush. Simone claimed that this shows the left-wing bias of Google, which he said has Al Gore on its board of directors. That’s false. Gore is a Senior Advisor to Google and a member of Apple’s board. But he was correct about the “failure” search. And it’s also true that…

Today, on KPAM’s Victoria Taft show, I listened to Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Saxton blather on about out-of-control state spending. That’s a fiction. I proved so in my April post, “Oregon is not a high tax state.” In my blogger delusionality, I figured that would be the end of it. Politicians and talk show hosts would have learned the truth. My post would have changed the world. Sadly, the message obviously hasn’t gotten through. So I’ll sing my song again. Oregon ranks 36th out of the 50 states in state and local taxes as a percentage of per capita income.…

Now that the 9,400 acre Black Crater fire near Sisters, Oregon is nearly contained, the local weekly is asking why the fire wasn’t stopped when it was 50 to 100 acres in size, before it threatened residential communities. The Nugget newspaper’s answer: lack of resources. Sisters District ranger Bill Anthony is quoted: “The fix is, obviously, to make more resources available,” said Anthony. And that would take a considerable ramping up of funding. “I would say that that discussion needs to be between the citizens and the public representatives that represent them,” Anthony said. My wife and I are part…

It’s no wonder things are going so bad in Iraq. The U.S. military can’t even count. Images taken from drones flying over the recent massive pro-Hezbollah rally in Baghdad supposedly showed that 14,000 people attended the demonstration. The organizer of the march, Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, said the crowd totaled one million. So who are you going to believe? I’d say, “none of the above.” An Iraqi working for the Los Angeles Times estimated there were at least 100,000 demonstrators. Tellingly, the story in which this estimate appeared said, “American military officials, eager to play down support for Hezbollah, put…

If I was the parent of one of the 37 children killed by the Israeli bomb that hit the Lebanese town of Qana last night, the least I’d expect from the citizens of the country whose President and Secretary of State see no need for a cease fire that would have saved the lives of those innocents is this: A tear. Better, lots of them. Have we forgotten how to cry? Sometimes it takes a talented writer to remind us of what it means to be human. (Are you paying attention, George and Condoleezza?). I’ve just finished reading “God Laughs…

This morning I was drowsily watching President Bush and Prime Minister Blair answer softball questions lobbed at them by a passive press corps when NBC’s David Gregory woke me up with a fast ball pitched right over the plate. “Mr. President, three years ago you argued that an invasion of Iraq would create a new stage of Arab-Israeli peace. Yet today there is an Iraqi prime minister who’s been sharply critical of Israel. Arab governments, despite your arguments for criticizing Hezbollah, have now changed their tune. Now they’re sharply critical of Israel. And despite, from both of you, warnings to…