…that should be beyond elementary to those in power.

Something important to note for those in power who forget their limitations, and all do eventually - Continued news releases such as this:

Al Qaeda Big Killed in Iraq; Saddam’s Nephew Could Give Informtion

Thursday, October 20, 2005
FOX News

BAGHDAD — A senior Al Qaeda (search) leader was killed during a series of Coalition raids in western Iraq on Oct. 15, the U.S. military says.

According to a press statement released by the Coalition Press Information Center in Baghdad, Sa’ad Ali Firas Muntar al Dulaymi (aka Abu Abdullah) was killed near the town of Ramadi during raids on suspected terror hideouts.

At least 11 other terrorists were killed in the operation, according to the military.

These kinds of news releases need to have both concrete, serious follow-up stories and show postive, unrefutable progress within months of release, otherwise after a short while they become both symbols of propoganda and objects of ridicule in a free society.

Despite the whining of those on the far-far-left-wing, we do indeed still have a free society, please, at least find the office so that you can buy a ticket to the clue train so that what you release doesn’t reek of spin if not outright propaganda in light of the continued repetition of “we got the #2″ with no apparent signs of progress that are obvious when other sources are compared to your so-called “news” releases.

How many times have we been told an “al Qaeda biqwig” or the “al Qaeda number two man” has been killed or captured?

More times than I can recall.

Yet, we continue to be told that “terrorism is our greatest threat”… NOT a North Korea that has declared they already have a nuclear weapon (or eight or so), and NOT a China that has the largest educated population on the planet which is buying up the bonds to our debt as fast as we issue them.

The math isn’t working out for those of us who are willing to take the time to do the sums.

I have done those sums, and the terrorism “threat” falls far short of that by either the thugs in North Korea or the Chinese, who have their own, nationalist, agenda that is NOT friendly to the United States.

I do not want my nation to fail because of your incompetence.

Perhaps you should stop listening to your own propaganda and start looking at the real threats.

At the risk of being moved into the “from the right” column by the algorithm at UNPARTISAN.com, I am extremely uneasy at the attempts to create an anti-gun environment using similar lawsuit techniques as those used against the tobbacco industry, of which I was against as well (for the technique used, not the outcomes).

I do strongly believe that “legislation by lawsuit” is extremely undemocratic.

…according to the algorithm used by UNPARTISAN.com, an ostensibly non-partisan site that uses computer algorithms to separate weblogs classified as “from the left” and from the right” my site here at Random Fate is a weblog “from the left.”

Given that the majority of the weblogs on my blogroll are on the right-leaning side of the spectrum, and that I cannot recall linking to many overtly left-leaning weblogs, I must wonder about the algorithm used.

Of course, we all hate our voice when we hear a recording of ourselves speaking, don’t we?

…comes from a comment upon the Democratic Party and their collective response to the nomination of Harriet Miers to the United States Supreme Court:

Each day they resemble a 7-Eleven employee who has been told that if there’s a robbery, don’t resist but give them what they want because resisting could only make things worse.
   -Joe Gandelman, at The Moderate Voice

As a counterweight to all the right-wing cheerleaders who cannot see the administration commit any error, make any mistake, or betray any friend, I note the following:

Official: FEMA chief warned of dire Superdome conditions

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials did not respond to repeated warnings that the situation in New Orleans was growing dire in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the first FEMA official to arrive in the city said Thursday.
Marty Bahamonde, regional director of FEMA, told a Senate panel investigating the government’s response to the disaster that after the storm hit on Aug. 29, he gave regular updates to then-FEMA Director Michael Brown of the worsening situation at the Superdome, where many of the evacuees were sheltered.

Medical care was lacking and so were basic needs such as food, water and toilet paper, Bahamonde said.

“I told him that the Superdome conditions were deplorable, and that we desperately needed food and water,” Bahamonde said in testimony to the Senate Homeland Security panel. “I believed at the time and still do today, that I was confirming the worse-case scenario that everyone had always talked about regarding New Orleans.”

His testimony contradicts Brown, who has said he didn’t learn of the conditions until days later and that local officials were most responsible for the sluggish response.

The reporting at the time was indeed a little overwrought because the reporters on the scene were witnessing first-hand things that most of us are never forced to see, but we should not use that immediate, emotional reaction to absolve the administration by saying, “See, it wasn’t as bad as they said!!!”

Unfortunately, there are many who are already doing exactly that in oblivion of the irony that the right-wing side of the political spectrum has been the one that demands “accountability.” Apparently, for those who are not blind but will not see, that accountability applies to everyone except their fellow travelers.

President George W. Bush was wrong when he said the Presidential election in 2004 was his “accountability moment.”

That accountability moment is now, when there is a convergence of events, each arising from the results of his decisions, and when many of those formerly unquestioningly supporting the President have decided the accounts do not balance.

The President may well be left only with the ones who fit a quote from the last “war President” who also busted the budget, Lyndon B. Johnson, who said, “If two men agree completely, you can be sure only one of them is doing the thinking.”