19. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

Fiction! This story is set in a late 1960s world where the allies had lost WWII to the Germans and Japanese who have split North America in half - the eastern half is German and the Western half is Japanese. It is an interesting story filled with unexpected twists and turns. I recommend it.

The Reprehensibles Part V

With a single stroke -- the nomination of Harriet Miers -- the president has damaged the prospects for reform of a left-leaning and imperialistic Supreme Court, taken the heart out of a rising generation of constitutional scholars, and widened the fissures within the conservative movement. That's not a bad day's work -- for liberals.

There is, to say the least, a heavy presumption that Ms. Miers, though undoubtedly possessed of many sterling qualities, is not qualified to be on the Supreme Court. It is not just that she has no known experience with constitutional law and no known opinions on judicial philosophy. It is worse than that. As president of the Texas Bar Association, she wrote columns for the association's journal. David Brooks of the New York Times examined those columns. He reports, with supporting examples, that the quality of her thought and writing demonstrates absolutely no "ability to write clearly and argue incisively."

The administration's defense of the nomination is pathetic: Ms. Miers was a bar association president (a nonqualification for anyone familiar with the bureaucratic service that leads to such presidencies); she shares Mr. Bush's judicial philosophy (which seems to consist of bromides about "strict construction" and the like); and she is, as an evangelical Christian, deeply religious. That last, along with her contributions to pro-life causes, is designed to suggest that she does not like Roe v. Wade, though it certainly does not necessarily mean that she would vote to overturn that constitutional travesty."

Who do you think wrote this editorial? It wasn't some democrat upset at how badly he's been spanked for 6 years. It was Robert Bork - the conservative of all conservatives, the neo of all neo-cons and one of the biggest Bush supporters around.

With his nomination of his personal lawyer (that's right not district attorney or even a justice department lawyer) Bush has chosen the single least qualified person he could to fill the O'conner vacancy. Some politico, I can't remember who, said that Harriet Miers would not make it on anyone's list of top 100 conservative lawyers in America. Why? Because she is simply not bright enough!

Bush is surpassing the Clinton white house's cronyism with this appointment.

I'm Happy to be Arrested!

Hi, I'm Tom Delay. I am so happy to be arrested by the Houston police.

18. A Wrinkle in the Skin by John Christopher

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Originally uploaded by buzby.

Other than that the last quarter of the book is dense with somewhat annoying romantic themes and, more importantly, that the author never once writes about how these people go to the bathroom in the post apocalyptic world this book is excellent.

You laugh about my last statement but the author spends a lot of time on diseases coming from all the dead bodies lieing around but spends no time talking about diseases from all the fecal matter that must be all over the place.

Also, the book is very well reviewed by my friend Lantzvillager

17. America Unbound by Ivo Daalder and James M. Lindsay

I don't need to read any more books about why Bush decided to wage war on Iraq because nobody appears to know why. The reasons are variously: (a) revanche! for Saddam trying to kill his father; (b) to help American oil interests; (c) because he really believed that Iraq had WMDs; (d) because after 9/11 he had no policy and invading Iraq was the only choice on the table; (e) because he really believes that he can democratize the middle east and tame fundamentalist Islam.

Bush himself may not even know why.

This book does not add anything new to the picture.

The Reprehensibles Part IV

The Republican Study Committee ("RSC") is a group of over 100 House Republicans organized for the purpose of advancing a conservative social and economic agenda in the House of Representatives. Most of the brilliant ideas to pay for the $200B+ tab for Katrina come from this group.

Last week these people launched "Operation Offset," a way to find money to pay for the costs of Katrina by cutting government expenses. Some of their ideas are not bad but many of them are just dumb, like cutting Medicare and Medicaid coverage, eliminating national science foundation grants, cutting back on foreign aid or eliminating funding for NPR.

These 100 Representatives should really be reprimanded.

The Reprehensibles Part III

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Originally uploaded by buzby.

Oh, there are so many things to say about Tom Delay (rhyme not intended).

He is a truly incorrigable Representative, constantly pushing the envelope of appropriate behavior.

He is a guy who wanted to bring the judiciary under the control of the legislature after the Schiavo debacle; he has taken golf trips (described as fact finding missions) to Scotland with the now notorious lobbyist Jack Abramoff; he has been indicted by a grand jury in Texas for campaign finance violations; as a result he has been kicked out as Majority leader of the House of Representatives; and finally, he headed the Texas congressional redistricting which resulted in one of the most lopsided congressional redistricting efforts in history.

If you don't dislike him for all of the above reasons, then you should dislike him just because his nickname in the House is "Delay the Hammer".

The Reprehensibles Part II

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Originally uploaded by buzby.

There are not enough bad things to say about Bill Frist. First his name is far too similar to the word first. Second, he is a doctor and he came out during the whole Terry Schiavo situation and said that he felt that all of the doctors that had actually examined Schiavo and said that she was brain dead were wrong. He mad this assessment despite the fact that he had never met, much less examined, Terry Schiavo. Third, he is just George Bush's little panzy. Fourth, he regularly signs up for broadcasts on the closed circuit church network which is aired in many US churches every Sunday morning.

His only redeemning quality is that he has disagreed with Bush et al about stem cell research.

He is going to run for the Republican nomination in 2008. I hope that he gets beaten badly.