How The Con Works

Atop the table on the sidewalk are three cups.

The man puts a ball under the cup labeled "Iraq".
Next to it are "Iran" and "Korea".

"The first round is free!" he says. "It'll pay for itself! Trust me!"

So you say, ok, I'll play.

He moves the cups around, back and forth.
When they stop, you pick "Iraq".
OK, the ball's there.

"Ready to play?"

So you plonk down the ante.
$100 Billion dollars.
100,000 cases of PTSD
10,000 wounded.
1000 dead.

America's safety goes under a cup. He moves them around and around.

Pick the cup.

Wait! It's not there!
Try another cup?

"Sure, ante up again."
More dollars.
More PTSD
More wounded.
More dead.

Missed again! But now you see how he does it.

Ante up again.
Missed it again!
But next time, you will win for sure!

The game goes on.
It will go on as long as you care to play.

Why?

You are an honest, decent citizen.
You do not understand how cons work.
The ball is not under any of the cups.
The ball is in his hand all the time.

As long as the game continues, you keep giving him money.
Why would he want the game to stop?

Why do you want to keep playing his game?

Republican Party to Quit the GOP

Washington (AP) - Faced with a complete abandonment of traditional conservative principles and a revolt among the rank-and-file, the Republican Party announced today that it is leaving the GOP.

"We can no longer remain in an organization headed by a President who believes in large, intrusive government," said a spokesman. "The GOP has lead America into a morass of costly foreign adventures and no-knock warrants. We don't stand for that."

White House spokesman Tony Snow dismissed the statement. "George W Bush has never been a member of the Republican Party, regardless of what those liberals want you to think."

Lawrence of Arabia Said...

"Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly.

It is THEIR war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them.

Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be so good as, perhaps, you think it is."

T.E.Lawrence, August 20, 1917

Facebook picture change

 

LOOKING BACK IN TIME: On this day, I changed my Facebook photo to this. It is a picture of myself looking through a piece of stone art - I think it's at Kubota Gardens - that I persuaded Kris to take. Obviously I moved in the stonework in the image a bit for reasons I don't recall -- REW 2023-09-09

The Darfur Wall

Four hundred thousand numbers cover the The Darfur Wall. Each represents a victim of genocide in Darfur, Sudan. By donating $1 or more, you can turn a number from dark gray to brilliant white and honor one lost life.

The Darfur Wall has raised over $50,000 from donors in 30 countries. 100% of the proceeds benefit four Darfur relief organizations: Doctors Without Borders, Save Darfur, Save the Children, and the Sudan Aid Fund.

C'mon, it's only a dollar: http://darfurwall.org

2008 Hurricane Names

Abramoff
Bush
Cheney
DeLay
EVoting
FEMA
Gitmo
Halliburton
Iraq
Jeb
Katrina
Libby
McCain
NOLA
Office of Special Planning
PDB
Qatar
Rumsfeld
Surge
Torture
United Arab Emirates
Voter Intimidation
Wolfowitz
eXecutive Priviledge
Yellowcake
Zero

Happy Mother's Day for Peace!

Did you know that that Mother's Day in the United States was originally a woman's movement for peace. In 1870, Julia Ward Howe (best known for writing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic") published a Mother's Day Proclamation in reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War.

It didn't catch on, but her daughter Anna Jarvis continued and until in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.

Sadly the U.S. holiday became so commercialized that Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become. But we can take it back.

Happy Mother's Day, one and all!

(more)

Remember when troops were promised

...they'd get a year in the USA between deployments?

That was a solid promise, issued last month, sort of a bargain made in exchange for increasing deployments to 15 months.

Well, that promise didn't last 30 days before being broken, according to an article in Stars And Stripes:

"Members of the 1st Armored Division’s 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, Company A, learned Tuesday that they are scheduled to head back to Iraq in November, just nine months after the 150-soldier company left the combat zone in February ..."

Support the troops for real, not fake.

As a liberal, I believe that any American who works full-time should be able to:

• Support a family with 2 or 3 kids, without the spouse having to work
• Have decent health & dental care for the family
• Have a paid vacation and sick time
• Have a decent retirement at a reasonable age.

Now, we can quibble about the details. But anyone who does not agree with the above is simply anti-family and, I believe, not a good American.