I’m playing with a different online photo service. This one was harder to work with than flickr.com, but they give you an elaborate editor. Uploading didn’t work nearly as slickly as flickr.com. mjh
Bernie Kerik for Homeland Security?
Bush, sensibly, gave Kerik a pre-hire tryout in the summer of 2002 in a gig that his experience prepped him much better for, training Iraqi police. So how’d Kerik do? Pretty poorly. …
For liberals, there’s a lot of other stuff to raise eyebrows about Bernie Kerik. He once worked as a security chief for the Saudi royal family’s hospital system. He was one of the Bush campaign’s most aggressive and irresponsible attack dogs, telling the press that if John Kerry were President, the U.S. would see another 9/11. And his nomination reeks of an attempt by the administration to permanently associate the GOP’s connection with 9/11. But even for conservatives, it seems hard to understand what professional qualifications this man has for leading the nation’s homeland defense. The President didn’t mention Kerik’s experience much yesterday in the short speech presenting him, choosing instead to focus on his “leadership” qualities. But the record doesn’t give much evidence of leadership: he’s prematurely quit the two biggest jobs he’s ever been handed, just when they got difficult. …
I hope the press and Senate put his record to some rigorous, tough-minded scrutiny as the confirmation process unfolds.
—Benjamin Wallace-Wells
Free Online Postcards
As a part of celebrating my soul, I’ve added some more photos as postcards. mjh
Here are two other sites with free online postcards:
Occupied Territory
ABQjournal: N.M.’s Terror Town
photo by Greg Sorber/Journal
No, it’s not Iraq. Rather it’s a SWAT team of Do?a Ana County sheriff’s deputies and Alamogordo Department of Public Safety officers leaving a Black Hawk helicopter in a mock assault as part of a training exercise Thursday at the official opening of the National Emergency Response Training Center — affectionately known as Terror Town — in the Bootheel town of Playas.
Remember when there was a difference between the police and the military? mjh
diminishing support for the United States
A startling report from an esteemed Pentagon advisory council sharply rebukes President Bush’s belief that freedom is on the march. “American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies,” the report found. “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather they hate our policies.”
Again Bush achieves the opposite of his goals, much as he has with the rising abortion rate. mjh
WHAT FLAG IS THAT?
New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan
That flag photo accompanying today’s lead piece may not look familiar, but it was in our state’s early days. From 1912 to 1925 it was the official state flag. Since then the easily recognizable Zia symbol flag has flown proudly.
Remember: this is satire
The Onion | Republicans Call For Privatization Of Next Election
Citing the “extreme inefficiency” of this month’s U.S. presidential election, key Republicans called for future elections to be conducted by the private sector.
Santorum calls for the removal of big government from the election process.
“When the average citizen hears the phrase ‘presidential election,’ he thinks of long lines at polling places and agonizing waits as election results are tallied,” U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) told reporters Monday. “Putting the election of our public officials into the hands of private industry would motivate election officials to be more efficient.”
“There’s too much talk about the accuracy and fairness of our national elections, and not enough about their proficiency and profitability,” Santorum added. “Who bears the brunt of bureaucratic waste? Taxpayers.”
U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) called for an end to “big government overseeing the election of big government.”
“It’s time we opened the election process to competition,” Burns said. “The free market is the petri dish for innovation, be it in telecommunications, the healthcare system, or democracy.”