giuliani, human rights council, job gains, and the streak...

rudy giuliani testifying at moussaoui's trial so that we can kill him. never mind that giving someone the death penalty for failing to cooperate with authorities is frightening, and that it seriously calls into doubt any right to remain silent and avoid incriminating yourself...my question today is, why do people love giuliani? seriously, this guy was one of the most hated new yorkers at 8:30 a.m. on september 11th. his career was done, he was shamed, he was a punchline. now, simply because he was there, he is a national hero (although i didn't see his ass down at the towers rushing in to save his fellow new yorkers). does anyone really think anybody in the mayor's chair wouldn't have put on a strong face? this is ridiculous...and what makes it even more disturbing is that it is the republicans hoisting this guy up...what happened to family values?

the united nations is changing the name of it's little committee in charge of human rights to the UN Human Rights Council. well, problem solved...shit, had they called it the human rights council over the last couple decades we could've avoided genocide in africa and gross human rights violations worldwide. thank god they finally got that straightened out. i mean, obviously if the name is changed, nobody will notice that some of the worst regimes in history find their way onto the body in charge of watching human rights. anyone want to put some money down on the new human rights council being as sadly inept as it's predecessor?

well, the united states says it won't run for a seat on the council this year. wonder why...perhaps because we really didn't want this thing formed, or at least the name change to take effect. maybe it's because we don't have the best track record...yes, i know, that is unamerican of me, and we do a lot of good, but we could and should do more...good i mean, not human rights abuses (sometimes our leaders get that backwards). folks out there are saying we won't run because the bush administration's human rights record is atrocious...and it is. but saying that implies that before bush our leaders were good at the human rights thing. um...not so much. let's not forget that the last guy in office spent eight years bombing iraqis back into the stone age, especially horrifying because it left them with insanely high cancer rates and the inability to even begin to deal with them. but then, nobody wants to discuss how we messed the infrastructure up in that country for the last 15 years...it didn't start with shock and awe folks. how oddly amusing will it be when the united states does run, and doesn't make it because the sudan slid in.

bush is talking about all the hundreds of thousands of jobs created and how unemployment is lower than the average over the last few decades. what he fails to inform you is that just because people have jobs, it doesn't mean that their living is getting at all easier (and that doesn't even take into account the incredibly high number of young men and women, too many of them undereducated and too many of them black that aren't counted as unemployed because society decided to lock them up for the next 40 years for doing some dope). when ends get harder and harder to meet for everyone but the richest schmucks out there, unemployment rates are not the big worry. i find it amusing when our leaders go on and on about how the economy is picking up, when 99% of the population gets left behind when it does. but hell, maybe we can go back to the golden years of the clinton administration when the gaps between the filthy rich and everyone else exploded and we solidified our ill-fated love affair with globalization. woot.

jimmy rollins was chasing baseball history. i wish the story of him chasing dimaggio's 56 game hit streak was bigger national news. maybe it would have been if he got closer (he was still 18 games shy before going hitless yesterday). but here is who we wish bonds was...a cocky, arrogant s.o.b. that doesn't make you want to hate him. a guy without allegations of illegal drug use. and the country mostly ignored him. i guess it's just another example of the american media only focusing on the negative. but with katie couric in the anchor chair now, we should get plenty of feel good stories.

i can guarantee you this is a cloud of smoke...