Editorial

"The Chinese used poles in an attempt to snag the Impeccable's towed acoustic array sonars," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, reporting on the standoff between the USNS Impeccable and five Chinese military and fishing vessels on Sunday. The event ended with seamen on the USNS Impeccable turning their firehoses on the crews of the Chinese vessels, and the Chinese stripping down to their underwear. So… Other than needing a bath, what's irking China? Maybe it's the fact that the USNS Impeccable was 75 miles off the coast of the Island of Hainan, where the Chinese have a major submarine base (and the Impeccable has the latest generation of sub-hunting sonar). Oh, and the Chinese practically own America (our debt at least) and were probably using those poles to secure some collateral. One other note: China's newly announced 15% increase in military spending this year pegs its total budget at $124 billion – which is hardly one-sixth of America's last year (including Iraq and Afghanistan). Don't worry one bit: Take the entire world and total their spending on defense, and America still outspends everyone – combined. In fact, we spend so much money on sonar and guns and bombs and drones that we have obviously run out of names for our Navy ships; thus the "Impeccable."

Tapes? Oh, Those Tapes!
Hearkening back to the good old days
of Nixon, the Bush Administration is quickly learning that tapes cannot
simply disappear. What the CIA and Bush/Cheney Junta once declared as a
total of only two videotapes and one audiotape of interrogation (=
torture) sessions of suspected terrorists, new (court-ordered)
disclosures by the CIA put the number of recordings at much higher: At
least 92 tapes. Don't expect these to hit YouTube anytime soon; the CIA
destroyed all of these tapes, and any accounts of their contents may be
classified to protect the names of the CIA personnel that viewed them.
Interesting… This is like the time you found dad's porn collection and
called all your buddies - But you somehow can't get busted because you
and all your buddies are in a special club - Which always works,
especially when dad walks in and finds you and your buddies watching
his porn. Anyway, the ACLU sued to obtain information on torture and
any possible evidence, and an official said that this disclosure
"confirms that the CIA engaged in a systemic attempt to hide evidence
of their own illegal conduct." Meanwhile, a CIA spokesman (unnamed, of
course) said, "The CIA intends to produce all of the information
requested to the court and to produce as much information as possible
on the public record to the plaintiffs." Wow! I feel a whole lot
better, don't you? We can totally trust those clandestine boys and
their club now.

Not afraid of a handoutA small, stoic and stupid number of Republican Governors are saying they won't accept funds from the newly passed economic stimulus bill. Seriously, the residents of Idaho, Alaska, Texas, Louisiana and South Carolina won't receive a cut of President Obama's $800 billion plan, if their elected leaders have their way. Why? Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is questioning $1 billion funding for the national census and $50 million for the arts, saying it's "not apparent to me why they had to be in the stimulus package." Maybe so — Perhaps to accurately count the number of people in Louisiana and New Orleans (which each of us now own at least nine square/sinking inches of, after evacuating and rebuilding post-Hurricane Katrina). Republicans hate accurate tallies, and the arts - we all know that - and it must be added that South Carolina is already a welfare state, receiving around $1.30 for every $1 it sends to Washington.

Finally proving that they can do the nation's business without bipartisanship or any semblance of full disclosure - having learned well from the Bush Admin and GOP - Democrats passed the $787 billion stimulus bill with a House vote of 246-183, and a Senate vote of 60-38 (with only three Republican Senators saying "Yeah, sure…"). Republicans, obviously exhausted from blowing our nation's future over the past eight years, will soon be replaced by a third-party known as "2012 Mayans and Other Loonies Enshrined Symbiotically" (acronym: MOLES). Despite a firestorm of criticism, President Obama can now claim victory, and is only eclipsed by Abraham Lincoln as the greatest president ever: Seriously, name one president who has dealt with more bullshit than Obama in his first few weeks. "Shovel-ready" projects will promptly receive funding, including $15 million to lowly Bend to widen U.S. 97. Unemployed carpenters should start digging ditches to refill, service workers should learn to gut and cook panhandlers (young bums can be rather sinewy, and older should be served well-done, to avoid ring-worm and to fully baste the Thunderbird). Meanwhile, monkey butlers approved in the stimulus bill will be arriving at Broken Top in the next few weeks.

"I inherited the deficit that we have right now and the economic crisis that we have right now," said President Obama during his primetime speech on Monday, given in hopes of speeding passage of the 'stimulus' bill now mired in partisanship and hypocrisy, and to set the record very straight: "The notion that I just came in here ginned up to spend $800 billion dollars – that wasn't how I envisioned beginning my presidency." Well, good luck with that… And good luck to Republicans so quick to forget that they followed Dubya into an abyss - blowing a balanced budget and surplus, ruining America's standing in the world, and leaving the new president with two wars (Afghanistan is so very Taliban right now) and a debt of several trillion. Former POW and presidential candidate, and future Geritol spokesman John McCain calls the stimulus "generational theft." Meanwhile, TARP funds from the $700 billion banking bailout (devised by Bush and zealously endorsed by both Obama and McCain) have proved to be utterly untraceable, with Wells Fargo's $25 billion buyout of Wachovia seemingly underwritten by us. US, as in you and me…