A couple things have inspired this post. One of them is I heard, actually read, that Georgie W Bush read Albert Camus' "The Stranger" during his vacation this summer. The other is that I have been reading something myself for the last three weeks (wish I could go faster) and I got thinking last night that I wish I could make Georgie Boy read this. So here's a question for you all: if you could pick one piece of required reading for our wonderful leader, what would it be? I'll tell you mine in a couple days or so; by Friday for sure. Bring it on!

Which is worse: this "Psychic" judge, or George Bush deciding things after "praying"?


Filipino 'dwarf' judge loses case
A Philippines judge who said he consulted imaginary mystic dwarves has failed to convince the Supreme Court to allow him to keep his job.
Florentino Floro was appealing against a three-year inquiry which led to his removal due to incompetence and bias.

He told investigators three mystic dwarves - Armand, Luis and Angel - had helped him to carry out healing sessions during breaks in his chambers.

The court said psychic phenomena had no place in the judiciary.

The bench backed a medical finding that the judge was suffering from psychosis.

'Dwarf dalliance'

The Manila trial judge had asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the complaint and return him to the bench, after being sacked in April.

From obscurity, my name and the three mystic dwarves became immortal
Florentino Floro

"They should not have dismissed me for what I believed," Mr Floro told reporters after filing his appeal in May.

The judge said he had made a covenant with his dwarf friends that he could write while in a trance and that he had been seen by several people in two places at the same time.

Judge Floro reportedly changed from blue court robes to black each Friday "to recharge his psychic powers".

In a letter to the court he said: "From obscurity, my name and the three mystic dwarves became immortal."

However, the Supreme Court said dalliance with dwarves would gradually erode the public's acceptance of the judiciary as the guardian of the law, if not make it an object of ridicule.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/5261856.stm

Published: 2006/08/18 01:57:03 GMT

© BBC MMVI

And claiming that everything you do is guided by "God" should erode the public's faith in the Presidency. Why don't we just have a national priest/minister/whatever?

How can we (with a straight face) suggest that our military presence in Iraq is justified on the grounds that the Iraqi people need to be liberated and it was up to us to do it because we could and it's part of our mission statement to promote and protect democracy all over the world, after allowing Castro to rule Cuba with an iron fist for forty-seven years? Cuz there is no oil? Possibly, but there has never been a shortage of desire on the part of some to take control of and exploit Cuba economically (back at least to 1895), not to mention its strategic value militarily (especially to an enemy, like the commies!).

Could it be that we never fully recovered our lost pride after the horribly ill-conceived Bay of Pigs fiasco?

Or could it be that we had no real justification to do something like that (affect regime change) based on our perception of what the "people" of a country want? In which case, one must ask, why is it more justifiable now? Iraq is much farther away geographically than Cuba so we should have less reason now than before.

Could it be that the only real difference between Cuba for 47 years and Iraq now is that now we have an administration that reads things a little differently and assumes rights (responsibilities?) not assumed before (even under Reagan)?

9/11? Is that the difference? I thought, though, that it was now mostly accepted that Iraq had no ties to 9/11 and that we were no longer using it as part of our justification for invading Iraq (along with wmd's). Anybody?

"The big story" on sports talk radio and even TV today was the fact that apparently a court somewhere has ruled that the pat-down the Tampa Bay Buccaneers put their fans through as they enter the stadium is "unconstitutional". Anybody have any thoughts?

Some of mine:

There are things that piss me off more than a quick pat-down, for instance, having less seat space every game I go to, at football games anyway.

Overpriced concessions with no such thing as, for example, a small coke.

Bunch of freakin' drunk morons (sometimes), mostly at football.

The possibility of a terrorist attack, oh wait, I've never once worried about that, and I've even read "Black Sunday". You know who's happiest about this right now, don't you? (No not the terrorists). The people that like to sneak a bottle in (you remember, the freakin drunks).

Hooray for civil liberties, I guess.

I just had a thought, maybe our esteemed president will weigh in. Should be good.

We played (baseball) for three hours today in the steaming heat and lost 21-11. Is life unfair or what? Miraculously our 5-3 record is still good for a tie for first.

You know there's good ESPN and bad ESPN, right? Lots of bad ESPN tonight. They actually moved the Sunday night baseball game up two hours so they could have prime-time for the stupid ESPY awards show. And it was no good switching over to classic; it has become the all poker network. So I went out.

Did I mention I had four hits today? Just thought I'd throw that in there.

How's that plan workin' out for ya George Bush? You know, the one where you were going to bring peace to the middle east (like God wants you to)? How's that goin?