Another Missed Opportunity!

When I drove cross-country with my son, Jake, in August, the total driving time for our 2,801 mile trip was 45 hours and 45 minutes. We, of course, assumed we had established a new transcontinental speed record. It turns out we weren't even close and apparently you have to drive straight through without stopping! Who knew? The new record had been set a year ago but due to issues with the statute of limitations the new record holders couldn't reveal anything until now. Oh, and the new record is 31 hours and 4 minutes. Of course they had a BMW X5 M and we had a 1999 Honda CRV. We were so close . . .

History of Religion in 90 Seconds

Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Click here and watch it unfold before your very eyes!

Halloween Jesus Dress Up!

I can't tell you how many ways this must be sacrilegious!

Oh Black Water, Keep On Rolling

I don't know about you but I'm thinking that if you pull your weapon and tell U.S. soldiers in a war zone to disarm and lie on their stomachs, you're gonna be in big, big trouble. No way you'd get away with that right? Well, unless your part of the secret army the Bush administration has employed to do their dirty work for them because they apparently believe U.S. soldiers are not up to the task.

Check out this Newsweek article . . .

The colonel was furious. "Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers." He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street in Baghdad's Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV. His account was confirmed by the head of another private security company. Asked to address this and other allegations in this story, Blackwater spokesperson Anne Tyrrell said, "This type of gossip has led to many soap operas in the press."

Seems like an act of treason to me but what do I know? Too bad we can't seem to support our troops though!

Money Is No Object!

Regardless of how you feel about the war, one thing we should all be furious about is the horrendous mismanagement of the financial resources allocated for the war. Rolling Stone recently ran a great article titled The Great Iraq Swindle that details the waste, fraud and malfeasance of the sleazy businessmen who are stealing billions of dollars that should be going towards the support of our troops.

The article is full of great stories that you'll find impossible to believe. And it's not just about the waste involved; it's how it's all done at the expense of our troops. It's also about how - in very real and scary ways - these companies are supporting Al Qaeda and insurgents. And it's how the Bush administration and Congress don't care enough to do a dang thing about it - and, in fact, have created and supported this environment. But, most infuriating to me, is that all this is done at the expense of the men and women who need it most.

Not to spoil the punchline, but here's the final paragraph:

According to the most reliable ?estimates, we have doled out more than $500 billion for the war, as well as $44 billion for the Iraqi reconstruction effort. And what did America's contractors give us for that money? They built big steaming shit piles, set brand-new trucks on fire, drove back and forth across the desert for no reason at all and dumped bags of nails in ditches. For the most part, nobody at home cared, because war on some level is always a waste. But what happened in Iraq went beyond inefficiency, beyond fraud even. This was about the business of government being corrupted by the profit motive to such an extraordinary degree that now we all have to wonder how we will ever be able to depend on the state to do its job in the future. If catastrophic failure is worth billions, where's the incentive to deliver success? There's no profit in patriotism, no cost-plus angle on common decency. Sixty years after America liberated Europe, those are just words, and words don't pay the bills.

We should be outraged! We should be mad as hell and vow that we're not gonna take it any more. But apparently we don't really care all that much about supporting our troops after all . . .

I'm Shocked, I Tell You! Shocked!!

I know it's hard to believe but Richard Roberts, son of Oral Roberts and the president of Oral Roberts University (Motto: We Believe In Miracles and as Long as You Keep Sending Us All Your Money, You Can Too!) is in a bit of a pickle over maybe having misused his position and, oh, spent a whole lot of money on personal stuff. And then there's his wife, Lindsay. You won't believe what she's been up to! Here's some of the specifics:

- A longtime maintenance employee was fired so that an underage male friend of Mrs. Roberts could have his position.

- Mrs. Roberts - who is a member of the board of regents and is referred to as ORU's "first lady" on the university's Web site - frequently had cell-phone bills of more than $800 per month, with hundreds of text messages sent between 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. to "underage males who had been provided phones at university expense."

- The university jet was used to take one daughter and several friends on a senior trip to Orlando, Fla., and the Bahamas. The $29,411 trip was billed to the ministry as an "evangelistic function of the president."

- Mrs. Roberts spent more than $39,000 at one Chico's clothing store alone in less than a year, and had other accounts in Texas and California. She also repeatedly said, "As long as I wear it once on TV, we can charge it off." The document cites inconsistencies in clothing purchases and actual usage on TV.

- Mrs. Roberts was given a white Lexus SUV and a red Mercedes convertible by ministry donors.

- University and ministry employees are regularly summoned to the Roberts' home to do the daughters' homework.

- The university and ministry maintain a stable of horses for exclusive use by the Roberts' children.

- The Roberts' home has been remodeled 11 times in the past 14 years.

If you want to check out the rest of the gory details, click this link to the AP article.

You Get What They Pay For

Regardless of how you feel about the war, don't delude yourself into thinking that electing a Democrat will bring the troops home OR that electing a Republican will help us "stay the course" (whatever that means) in fighting terrorism. It ain't gonna happen.

Between the President and Congress (either now or after the 2008 election) there isn't enough agreement to make any kind of bold move in either direction. The proof is in the inability (or lack of courage) of the Democratic Congress to affect any kind of change in our current strategy (or lack thereof). Congress is gutless and the President is clueless.

The biggest reason is that we never elect the best people into office - just the ones who pony up the most dough. We're too damn lazy to look at what someone might really do if they were elected. Of if they have any real ideas. Or even if they have any leadership skills. Not that it would matter because your single informed vote ain't gonna offset all the uninformed votes of the rest of Americans who were to lazy to do their homework. We vote for our U.S. Presidents just like we voted for our student body presidents in high school.

So, when President Clinton takes office in January, 2009, expect more of the same. You get what you pay for - or what they pay for, at least. And don't come crying to me.