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You know it's amazing how funny a group of people that have little grasp of the concept of humor can be!

Of course, I am talking about the French.

It's official. Things are back to "normal".

To quote the article:
"The situation has returned to normal because about 100 vehicles are set on fire each night in France," a police spokesman said.

Let's see if I have this right. A country about twice the size of Colorado, and a population of around 61 million, is considering race/religious rioting that only burns 100 cars a night "normal"?

I found this little gem of a quote on another site:
I've received several reports that, during the Los Angeles riots of 1992, the French government actually proclaimed that such violent unrest would "never happen" in their country because of sheer pervasiveness of their socialist programs.

My-oh-my...how time has a way of exposing Leftist bullcrap for what it truly is.

Of course, if you have seen a high of 1,400 cars burnt in one night (November 6th), and over 9,000 cars burnt since all of this started on October 27 (3 weeks ago, or roughly 3,000 cars a week), 100 cars in one night seems like a slow night.

It's amazing what you can get used to.

I hate being right, sometimes.

A few years back, when I still considered myself a conservative Democrat, I was talking to a close friend that was a little to the right, politically, of Rush Limbaugh.

This was back when the Republicans were pushing for impeachment of Clinton. My friend was one of those. I didn't necessarily disagree that the President should be impeached. I disagreed with the tactics the Republican Party used to get to that point.

Think back.

Can you remember all the different things that the Republican Congress or their surrogates investigated the President for?

Vernon Jordan's suicide.
Travelgate.
Something about Hillary being involved with a staff dismissal.
Paula Jones
Whitewater
and, finally, among others I have forgotten,
Monica Lewinsky.

I pointed out to my friend that Clinton had, literally, been under investigation for one thing or another since taking office. Were the investigations justified? Possibly. The simple fact of the matter is that no prior President in history had spent as much time under investigation as Clinton.

My conjecture was that there was not another elected official in Washington at the time that could bear that kind of scrutiny while avoiding serious criminal charges. I still believe that. I still think that, after spending that much time and that much of the taxpayer's money investigating the President, these were the only charges they could come up with to impeach him is pretty amazing. (Are you listening Messrs. DeLay and Frist?)

My friend felt that his party was justified in their actions.

I felt it was a political ploy. They couldn't win an actual election against Clinton, at the time. So, they were going to try to get him out of office in ways that cut the electorate (you and I) out of the process. I told my friend this.

Then, I laid out how this was a dangerous precedence.

If the Republicans could do this, now, I said to him, what's to say that someday down the road, when the Republicans have power again, that the Democrats can't turn this tactic on the Republicans.

Well, it appears that day is here. The Democrats have pushed investigating everything from 9-11 to Plamegate. Trying to find a way to blame the Bush administration for all the ills in the world. Just watch the news. "Bush lied and kids died." "Alienating our allies", etc.

And now, the Repubicans, instead of the Democrats, cry foul.

Payback is a ... female dog ... a big one ... PMS'ing... isn't it?

Just for the historical record, though, the Democrats have never been able to bring impeachment proceedings against a Republican President, not even Nixon. The only two Presidents in American history to have impeachment proceedings against them were both Democrats who faced Republican accusers, and both were acquitted.

So, up to this point neither party has been able to get the job done, in that respect.

We'll see what happens. I wouldn't bet on Bush facing impeachment. And, my bet is that the harder that the Democrats push towards that goal the more they will look worthless in the eyes of the American electorate, at least in terms of winning a Presidential election.

Remember, you read it here first.

Have you seen the remake of the Disney film Homeward Bound? The one where Sally Fields, Michael J. Fox and Don Ameche do the voices of the three animals?

There's a cute scene where an animal control officer is trying to catch the cat (Sally Fields). He creeps after her saying, "Here Kitty, Kitty." The cat answers, "No dummy, dummy."

In this instance, Ted Rall is the animal control officer, and those of us that actually pay attention to detail are the cat.

Rall leads off with:

The Libby charges clearly point to the real culprit:
Dick Cheney, who told Libby about Plame's covert status in the first place.

I watched the reading of the indictment, and the subsequent press conference on TV. Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor for the grand jury, referred to Valerie Plame as a "CIA officer", and the fact that she was one was "classified". He never said that she was "covert".

It may seem like I am splitting hairs. But there is a big difference.

Let's look at some definitions, and examples.

A person working for the CIA in a "covert" status is what we would, classically, think of as a spy. Okay? Revealing the identity of a person in covert status is a felony just short of treason.

A "CIA officer" is just about anyone that works for the CIA above a clerical or janitorial status. For instance, if you saw the press conference, you noticed that it was mentioned several times that the CIA has "desk jockeys" that do nothing but sit at a desk in Langley and read the US news to see if there is anything in the news that implies a security leak.

The fact that a person is a CIA officer, no matter how low-level, is classified.

Let's talk about "classified".

There are three levels of "classified": Top Secret, Secret, and For Official Use Only.

Now, as most of you know, I am a musician for the Army. I am a noncommisioned officer ... a sergeant ... actually, Staff Sergeant. The Army has kept me around for over 16 years now because of my skills as a musician. My primary purpose is to play my part in the appropriate Sousa march at the appropriate time in a ceremony.

I hold a Secret clearance.

Why?

Because there are all kinds of things that are classified.

Did you know that the number of bassoon players a given Army Band has is classified? the number of bass drum mallets that the 1st Infantry Division Band has on hand at the moment is, as well? Etc., etc. I could go on ad nauseum.

Now, all of those things I listed are classified "For Official Use Only", but if you don't have the appropriate clearance AND a need to know, then it is just as illegal for me to tell you those things that committed the crimes that instigated this investigation.

In fact, imbedded reporters committed similar "crimes" numerous times while reporting on the invasion of Iraq ... all with Department of Defense approval.

So, someone in the current administration leaked that Valerie Plame was, at least, a paper-pushing, desk jockey for the CIA. Nothing more was actually leaked. Could she have been more? Yes. Was that leaked? No.

Can you say "tempest in a teacup", boys and girls?

Good.

Nice article about veteran's from the New York Post Editorial page.

It includes a quote from George Orwell:

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."

Indeed.

I hope you had a good Veteran's Day.