LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

Are the leprechauns in charge or what?

– Bumper sticker of the week: Vote the son-of-a -Bush out.

– Quote of the week: "Last night I dreamt that I was reading aloud the names of young men who had been killed. I woke up weeping. ‘What’s wrong?’ Norma asked. ‘I dreamt that young men were being killed,’ I told her. ‘They are.’ she said." Sy Safrensky

– Right-winged science: In an effort to please his right-wing constituency, George W. removes two appointees from a panel that advises him on such issues as cloning and stem cell research. Seems they didn’t always agree with him. Bush’s arrogant, right-winged ideology has no room for dissent. He prefers divisive, fascist leaning policies that even extend into science. He doesn’t like the Union of Concerned Scientists. They’re a little too liberal for him. And they’re not intimidated by his right-wing bullshit.

– Christ probably looked very much like bin Laden does. I don’t know exactly what that means, other than the outcome with bin Laden is pretty much likely to be the same. Bush has upped the reward to hunt him down before the election. I’m guessing they’ll find him sometime around September. The hanging is likely to occur in October. Probably at the Lincoln Memorial. I hear Halliburton is building the cross for somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 million. Mel Gibson is high on the list to direct the whole thing. This should be quite a show.

– Paul O’Neill tells all: "The Price of Loyalty." Scary stuff. Here is a guy the Bush administration recruited to run the Treasury Department. O’Neill, a conservative at best, knew Bush Sr., Rumsfeld, and Cheney very well from Bush Sr.’s tenure in the White House. O’Neill, when he was recruited, was CEO at Alcoa, and not particularly eager to leave. Alcoa was on a Republican induced comeback, and he was making a bundle. But he trusted his friends, who all claimed Bush Jr. was an ok guy, much like his daddy. O’Neill and author Suskind now paint a picture of a President who doesn’t have a clue, and ain’t about to get one. O’Neill confirms that Bush was out to get Hussein from the very beginning, to finish the job his daddy couldn’t. I guess maybe like a Father’s Day gift. Anyway, 9/11 gave him all the ammo he needed. O’Neill questioned the invasion of Iraq, on both fiscal and political grounds. In BushWorld, asking questions is a sign of disloyalty. O’Neill was gone.

– Galesburg on the go:

• The GREDA staff is growing. The rest of the town is not.

• I hear someone stopped by the tourism center last week. Now we’re rolling. I’m surprised The Register-Mail didn’t do a front page story.

• The city council apparently went.

• I hear Knox College is going to become a training center for corporate heads of state.

• What do you do with an industrial park without a sewer system? Oh shit!

• Everybody seems to be on the go. Unfortunately, to somewhere else.

– A security question for The Defense Department and/or Homeland Security: What do you do when the people in charge are more dangerous than the perceived enemy?

– How to tell if you’re a leprechaun:

• You’re eye level with everyone’s crotch.

• People try to pick you up and throw you.

• You get invited to a lot of Halloween parties.

• You’re tired of making shoes for all those damn fairies.

• The color green makes you sick.

• Hope you had a Happy St. Patrick’s Day. (If you’re reading this in jail, it probably wasn’t).

– Bush administration continues unprecedented federal prosecution of Greenpeace: Their crime – they boarded a ship carrying illegally logged mahogany from the Amazon. They put a banner across the bow of the ship that read: "Bush, Stop Illegal Logging." Rather than the smugglers being arrested, Greenpeace was arrested, the entire organization, under an obscure 1872 law prohibiting boarding ships to lure sailors to whorehouses. Stand up with Greenpeace to protest such nonsense. This was a non-violent protest against an environmental crime, one being condoned by the Bush administration. Send a donation to Greenpeace, P.O. Box 90136, Fredericksburg, VA 22404.