So on this auspicious occasion –my 100,000 visitors—it’s time for a blogging retrospective. First off, I feel about blogging the very same way I felt about my first hip replacement surgery: what the Hell took me so long?
As for my hips, simple vanity: I was too young for that (and would rather limp badly and take forever to climb a simply set of stairs than spend a week flat on my back zoned out on pain meds and then six weeks on crutches)
As for blogging, I actually worried about not enough material for a decent numbers of posts per week (with my initial target being three or four.) Now I worry about too much material.
Yesterday for instance I did four posts (and actually had a 5’th—a photo of 'The Evergreens'--but never got around to it, besides Mary Carey scooped me on that although you can tell from her photo that she took it later in the morning because the snow is still showing in mine).
The thing I liked about radio advertising—either for my business but especially for politics—is the immediacy. I would cut a commercial and within an hour or two it was on the air.
Blogging is the ultimate combination of text, photos and video instantly uploadable. And you can go back and change anything and republish instantly. Plus, cheap point-and-shoot digital cameras are so easy to use and are small enough to hide in a pocket until needed (but only used on/from public property of course).
A rundown of the last two years highlights:
Highest number of hits: The day the Associated Press issued a national story about my blog bringing down former Czar…. what’s her name? Oh, yeah Anne Awad, ensconced in South Hadley but wanting to keep her locally elected town position in the People’s Republic of Amherst. (414 hits.)
And of course without this blog she would still be a sitting Amherst Select Board member (even though commuting to South Hadley) 'His Lordship' Gerry Weiss would still be Chair and 'Princess' Stephanie (the former blogger) would still be stenographer/secretary rather than Chair, with a “new majority” of fairly normal folks.
#2 (coming in around 375 hits): a tribute/post that I dreaded doing because it concerned a young Amherst firefighter David Pollack, who died suddenly at age 27. I rolled it into a mention of Homer Cowles, the ultimate Yankee farmer and former Deputy Fire Chief who died the week before (but at a more acceptable age of 83--if death is indeed ever acceptable), and my landlord and long-time neighbor Dick Johnson who also passed that week (and did more for this town than most folks will ever know).
But my sitemeter told me the vast majority of folks were coming to me looking for information about David Pollack.
#3: The death of a child. One by bus accident the other by drowning in a back yard pool. It just does not get any worse than that; as I stated both times, if you can think of something worse please don't tell me.
Post with the most legs, meaning it still gets one or two hits per day and every time I see it on my sitemeter I'm depressed. Let’s call it a terrible tie:
The suicide of Jenny Kim, a promising Amherst College student; and “Hall of Shame” where I simply list all Amherst Town Meeting members (by an overwhelming majority) who voted against flying the flags in town center to remember/commemorate 9/11, the worst day in the last two generations of American history.
Quickest response ever from a high-ranking town official to an upload: The 2’nd in a series of three posts (over six weeks) showing the People’s Republic of Amherst is too cheap to provide hot water at the lavatories at Wildwood Elementary school.
47 minutes after uploading a blurry photo of a brand new thermometer clearly showing a bathroom water temperature of only 70 degrees, Acting Interim School Co-Superintended Alton Sprague called me spitting-and-swearing, threatening to have me arrested (and suggesting I was a pedophile).
Only time I hesitated about hitting the “publish post” button: In China, last summer, after we had toured my first daughter’s orphanage and I could tell we took them by surprise and--unlike five years earlier--got an actual glimpse of the kids routine overcrowded existence.
And I could have sneaked a photo or two (the “guards” escorting us were not exactly highly trained) but I figured things were so bad I should be able to get that across with just words. But still, I did not want to put my family in danger either.
Biggest victory due to the 'power of the blog': The flags in downtown Amherst flew this past 9/11, for the first time since 2004 (that too had a lot to do with Ms. Awad no longer a player). And damn well better next year or there will be Hell to pay.
Oh yeah, that May 1, 2007 $2.5 million Override that I helped knock down and thus far has saved taxpayers over $5 million and counting.
Biggest regret? Lost personal relationship with media friends—reporters and editors—who probably now consider me the enemy because of this newfangled Blogesphere/Web that threatens their existence.
Plans for the future? A political revolution! And this time, I have the power...
81 comments:
A real milestone Larry Kelley. Thank you.
Every time I think about that issue with the water, I reflect on how damn lucky the school department is that it was you and not me.
I have filed five lawsuit-type-things against UMass and I actually sorta like them -- you don't want to imagine what the Supts would have received had I gotten a trespass order.
I don't even quite know what I would do if I got a phone call from a govt official implying I was a pedophile - but it would cost the town money.
In a different context, I called the two Supts fascists on Catherine Sanderson's blog today and they really are.
What the internet has done is bring us back to the late 19th Century when people could meet in stores, barbershops and after church and discuss the issues of the day. And this is good.
And a threat to the established order...
Thank you Neil.
That reminds me: I forgot to mention that in all this time my Google Adsense (removed a couple months back) generated a total of $28.
great photo! hubble? a boondoggle (recall the need for corrective lenses), but well worth the taxpayers' money - do you agree? - since no private institutions
could afford it and then give away the data....
Hey Ed,
Actually I'm not done with the (lack of) hot water issue or the idiotic "Trespass Order" from the acting Super.
Notice he did not have me arrested when I violated it three times in one night a while back.
And of course Annual Town Meeting is coming up (on school property) and I sure as Hell am not going to ask his permission to attend it.
Anon 12:05 AM
Are you trying to make a point?
Yeah, it was a NASA photo I grabbed off Google Images (I was hoping for a perfectly clear sky tonight so I could shoot my own damn shot but you know Mother Nature).
There are indeed some things government does way better than the private sector: National defense, police, fire, public heath and space exploration.
But recreation--golf courses, skating rinks and health clubs--are not high on the list.
Although, National Scenic Outdoor Parks would be.
just curious where you'd draw the line
how'bout air traffic control? interstate highways?
amtrak? public funding for medical or science research? universities? housing or heath care (for vets, at least)? public libraries? pre-K for all kids?
we agree on public parkland, so here's a question:
any parts of the valley you'd like to make a nat'l park?
Yes to most, probably not Amtrak or even the US Post office. But then I probably would not have supported the bail out for the auto industry either.
My idea of a National Park is something rather large so nothing in the Happy Valley jumps to mind. Unless you count the little outposts on top of Mt. Sugarloaf or The Notch.
Onward ans upward, Larry. I respect what you are doing it, and if I knew how, I would be doing it also. Keep everyone informed and if you need help, call out to me.
Until later..............
Thanks Ethel,
Will do.
Keep on bloging, Larry. What's the expression? Reporters don't have friends, only sources.
"who probably now consider me the enemy because of this newfangled blogesphere that threatens their existence."
"I alway love how it comes down to your over-inflated ego."
Ed,
Can you detail your "five lawsuit-type-things against UMass..."?
> Can you detail your "five lawsuit-
> type-things against UMass..."?
Can - yes, will - no. Discretion is often the better part of valor. I was trying to make one point and drifted into something else.
Yes someone could find them if someone really wanted to, but I like to think that no one has that much time on his/her/its hands.
Larry, as to the trespass thing, you are putting your friends in the APD in a difficult situation.
They personally know you, they personally know the order exists (because you posted it on the internet), and they are personally seeing you in violation of it.
So take the Jason Vassell case, more accurately described in the UMass Minuteman Newspaper:
http://www.umassminuteman.com/
The defense is arguing not that Vassell stabbed and damn near killed two white boys, but that in order to prosecute him for it, the state has to prove that both the UMPD and the DA prosecute white defendants for the crime of slicing and dicing other human beings.
I know that this is Massachusetts but I can't even believe that the judge is having a hearing on this, but I digress...
So lets say that the APD arrests someone who is a really bad man doing really bad things and who just happens to be black. And this man's defense attorney files the same motion to dismiss and the same judge (there is only one in Hamp Superior Court) holds a hearing.
He calls in the various APD officers (who have to tell the truth) and the lawyer asks:
"Do you know Larry Kelly" -- well, yes.
"Do you know of the trespass order against him" -- well, yes.
"Have you seen him on ARSD property in violation of the order" -- well, umm, he was sitting next to me at that waste of time known as Town Meeting.
"And did you arrest him" - well, no.
"So then you only arrest black men, isn't it"......
This level of stuff is already happening in that courthouse right now with the absolute last person I would ever consider to be a racist being painted exactly as that. So you are putting the APD in a very difficult situation with potentially bad consequences.
Anon 8:26 AM
I never said this little blog threatens their existence, I clearly stated the Internet/Blogesphere does (mainly because they do not embrace it, but think of it as the enemy).
And if think the decline in hardcopy news readership, layoffs and bankruptcies of major media institutions have nothing to do with the rise of the Internet, then you're a nitwit.
One thing on the Amherst Homeless issue -- the Bully story does have some interesting facts that they kinda understood.
Section 8 requires that everyone in the household be listed as such with the voucher issuing authority (housing authority or HAP). This is because the rent is 30% of HOUSEHOLD income (with many exceptions) and the live-in boyfriend's earnings need to be included. You would be amazed at the number of tenants reporting absolutely no income, and what they have in their apartments, but I digress...
Northland (which owns the Bolders and they are not unique in this) demands that everyone living in an apartment be on the lease because they want to be able to go after all the college students if the rent doesn't get paid.
With a Section 8 lease, it can only be modified if the HA agrees. And there is paperwork involved and the most petty of bureaucrats work at housing authorities.
So thus you get into a situation where housing regulations and bureaucratic bureaucrats create homelessness. Apparently none of the people living there had any problem with this man living there, it was only Northland and the HA who did.
A half century ago, prior to the spending of all this money, the solution to his homelessness would be that he was "staying with friends" -- which is what you hear on the news when a house burns down.
Now we need to toss large amounts of money around to fix a problem that needn't have existed in the first place.
Larry, have you ever considered that the decline in the traditional media is based on their content and coverage?
Why is talk radio such a bastion of the right? OTHER viewpoints were already being expressed elsewhere and the NYT was about to hire Rush Limbaough....
The railroads went bust a half century ago not just because of the automobile but because they weren't meeting the needs and desires of their customers. So too here.
I was trying to make one point and drifted into something else." - Ed
That seems to be a perpetual problem for you Ed. On just about every blog you post interminable comments waxing poetic about some knowledge or alleged knowledge you have that is related, somewhat related and mostly entirely unrelated to the thread. Nobody likes a know-it-all and nobody likes what babblers do to dialogue in the comment section. It's as if you are constantly seeking approval for your scholarly earnings and insights. I've had enough. I wonder if I'm alone. Try responding on point and keeping it short.
I COMPLETELY agree on the Ed comment - it's gotten to the point that if i see his name at the top I'll just scroll down to the next entry. Too long, too self-indulgent, and way too scattered for my tastes. Rather than take such a shotgun approach each time - and see what sticks afterwards - maybe try to remain focused on the topic at hand...you just may have some good points buried in those piles of words you spew forth each & every time.
And congrats on the milestone Larry...you're absolutely dead on correct re: the Internet - embrace it or find yourself going the way of the dodo and disco.
Ed is a bore.
"Like a thousand points of light" (X 100)"
Translation: A thousand points of ego.
Okay everybody be cool! Otherwise, I sentence you to an Amherst Men’s Resource Center For Change seminar.
Where we can retreat into the woods, beat bongo drums, cry over” Daddy never loved me" and finish with a Group Hug.
And if you have ever seen Ed the term “bear hug” springs to mind.
Anon: 12:47 PM
That would be a 100,000 points of ego you nitwit (what's the matter, can't do simple math?)
And you know what? You just became one of those "points." Freakin nitwit.
I have no doubt Ed is a nice man. I just don't know if he's open to listening and taking feedback. Actually, he has shown some resistance to it already on my previous attempts to communicate with him on the subject. As you might agree Larry, sometimes you have to put away the tack hammer and take out the sledge hammer. I will reaffirm my opinion that Ed is a nice man and he has every good intention. I will also reaffirm my original post on the subject: That seems to be a perpetual problem for you Ed. On just about every blog you post interminable comments waxing poetic about some knowledge or alleged knowledge you have that is related, somewhat related and mostly entirely unrelated to the thread. Nobody likes a know-it-all and nobody likes what babblers do to dialogue in the comment section. It's as if you are constantly seeking approval for your scholarly earnings and insights. I've had enough. I wonder if I'm alone. Try responding on point and keeping it short.
Oh, I can do the math. It was your 100,000th childish name call. Bravo.
No, actually you nitwit, I only started using the term a few months ago.
Since you obviously have time on your hands feel free to search my blog (top left) and count them, but I would guess it is still under 100.
And since you are a cowardly (yeah, I use that term now almost as often) "Anon" for all I know most of them were in direct response to YOU.
Yeah, it's real cowardly to remain anonymous with an ego maniac obsessive compulsive stalker. There's a No Trespass on you for a reason. It's not everybody else is out to get you. It's that they don't want you to get them. And you prove it by touting that you violate the No Trespass and are darn proud of the fact. So, call me a nit wit, but I don't have a No Trespass on me. Yep, you're one up on me there. Oh, and I don't have a dingy failing business either, so you are two up on me. I'll see you when I pick up my kid from Wildwood. Oops! Not.
Well…my theory is that by this coming Town Meeting taking place on school property this spring (you know something I have been, regretfully, involved in since 1991) the "ACTING" Co-Superintendent Sprague will have either:
A) Succumbed to a heart attack
B) Blown out his brains with a registered handgun (murmuring my name)
C) Fired for incompetence.
At this point, if I had to guess, it will—and most definitely should be-- option C
Either way (or whatever the pleural is to cover three choices) I'm figuring on C.
And that will probably “vacate” his trespass order, which he himself is too cowardly too actually enforce (but hey, you can relate, as “birds of a feather”)
Although...the School Committee--other than Catherine Sanderson—IS pretty gutless.
"Actually I'm not done with the (lack of) hot water issue "
Of course you're not, because you are the Captain Ahab of Amherst.
Hey Larry, I enjoyed the virtual tour of your illustrious facility on your website. Not. Because it doesn't work just like the rest of your lame ass place. Good quality control Mr. Internet.
Yeah, well the 1987 Cherry Hill Golf Course purchase--easily the BIGGEST financial mistake this town has made over the past 22 years--would be a FAR better example (can you imagine some nitwit suggesting we spend $2.2 million today to buy a freakin Golf Course?)
As opposed to Wildwood's equally embarrassing lack of hot water situation that I have only been locked-and-loaded on for six weeks.
Anon: 4:00 PM
Well Gee, then maybe you should have the balls to show up in person.
In fact, give me call, email me, fax me, send me a telegraph, I'll give you a "personal tour". Cowardly/nitwit
"So when I was banned from the Town Meeting listserve..."
Hmm, banned from the Town Meeting listserve, a No Tresspass. Looks like a trend. How come the first 4 generations of Kelleys didn't have such a steller track record? Maybe they weren't obnoxious.
"In fact, give me call, email me, fax me, send me a telegraph, I'll give you a "personal tour". Cowardly/nitwit"
Why? So you can beat me up? Looks like you need to get the Double No Trespass notice.
Re trespass being vacated upon death or discharge of issuer - I would check but my guess would be that it is NOT.
Supt signs a union contract, purchase contract with someone - these all remain valid.
Yeah Ed, I suppose you're correct.
But then, even before his body gets stiff, nobody is going to give a crap about anything he did over the past 7 or 8 months.
I've got a novel idea. Why don't you try an apology.
Sure, when you find YOUR balls and leave YOUR name I'll consider YOUR (nitwit) opinion.
Larry,
Keep on fighting for what you believe in. Interesting blog you have provided us with, exchanging viewpoints can lead to change.
-Ryan Willey
Will do. Thanks.
And change is a coming.
Larry, apologize -- in the form of Plato's Apology.
Apologize for being a concerned citizen, apologize for being concerned about the wellbeing of the children, apologize for wanting to make sure that town money isn't wasted (etc, ad nausuem).
That could not only be a truly hilarious document but one that puts the Supts in a truly impossible situation. Sunshine is the best disinfectant....
"I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him"
Well as a result of these comments it looks like Ed is well on topic now. that's progress.
Congrats on the major milestone. I first came across your blog back in August 07. Then, as now, I consider your caustic wit, fused with the irony of a lone conservative voice railing against the Bastille of liberal Amherst politics, refreshing...(and from an out-of-towner's point of view, entertaining).
If I ever get political with a blog, your's will be a template. Good stuff Larry, keep em' coming...
Thanks for keeping an eye out on things, Larry. Someone needs to!
Your welcome Alison, the camera never blinks.
Thanks Tony,you're my template whenever I try to get off politics and take nature shots.
But then, THEY keep drawing me back in.
OK, so don't appologize. Just keep making comments like "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him" and see how far that gets you. I think it won't get you far.
Oh I'm sure Ed (and non nitwits everywhere) got the reference...
If your point is that you are ut to "bury" Sprague I'm sure that really helps your chances to get the No Tresspass lifted. Good Luck!
(For Sprague is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men)
I know they are both dead white guys, but Plato's Apology is that of Socrates, who drank the Hemlock...
From Wikipedia: The charges against Socrates:
Socrates says that he has to refute two sets of accusations: the old, longstanding charges that he is a busybody, and a curious person who makes inquiries into the earth and sky, and the recent legal charges that he is guilty of corrupting the young, and of worshipping supernatural things of his own invention instead of the gods recognized by the State.
One other thing: the underlying issue in Athens at that time, as well as in Danvers/Salem in 1691, as well as Amherst today, is an established socieo/political order attempting to maintain power in the face of demographical change.
Socrates was a problem not because of what he said or did, but because he was the visible face of the new merchant/artisan class that was taking power from the landowner class - the latter killing Socrates in a desperate attempt to hold onto power.
In addition to the LSD theory (which makes *no* sense unless you remember that this was all happening in Danvers, then part of Salem) and a rather interesting theory about what we would now call PTSD from the Maine Indian wars, the argument is that the Puritans were desperately attempting to hold onto power.
Their charter had been yanked by James II because (as Puritans) they had been felt not to have been properly loyal to the Crown in the past. During Cromwell's reign, Puritans stopped coming to Massachusetts and the people who had recently arrived weren't Puritans. Etc.
And in Amherst today, the folks who arrived in the '70s are attempting to hold onto power in the face of inexerable change.
One other thing:
Socrates was accused of saying that the sons were turning out worse and less productive than their fathers. Today we would call those people "living off a trust fund" and Amherst is full of them. And who are Larry's biggest critics?????
Well????
What nonsense. Ed, Larry's biggest critics are people that have legitimate disagreements over the form that twn government should have and the role it should play. They don't have trust funds, they work just like he does, and they have a right to an opinion like anybody else.
P.S. if this town had a mayor, it wouldn't be better off. Just look at Northampton. You just get a different group playing favorites and feathering their own nest. People ar people and they act in their own self-interest. Just look at the ex-mayors of Providence and Chicopee. They traded their nice cushy jobs for nice cushy jail cells.
If Amherst had a mayor who was elected every two years (and I would want to see it two rather than four) then if I was upset about something I could either threaten to support the mayor's opponent in the next election or actually do it.
The July Fourth Parade alone would have cost the town manager an election, and the people whom the populace did elect to set policy (the Selects) can't do anything to stop him. And the Town Meeting is a joke - a Polkim Village chirade.
We already have a dictator, I just want the chance to vote for a different dictator when things get too bad...
If Ed on topic is "Socrates" and "70's Amherst trust fund babies holding on to power" it's time to up his meds.
Ed,That's Potemkin village but it doesn't matter because the rest of your comment was equally silly.
Look at it this way: Describe who was on the Selectboard and School Committee 5-7 years ago and who is on it now. Brewer and O'Keefe rather than Awad and her husband - and Boss Hill is gone and others. Professor Catherine Sanderson on the board, Professor Barbara Love off it.
If you knew NOTHING about Amherst other than these six people (and if memory is right, it was Brewer who beat Love) - if you knew nothing else, wouldn't you conclude that change is in the air?
Drive around town in December and notice how many more Christmas lights you see (in a recession) than you did 5-7 years ago.
Look at how the college kids dress and where they shop, as opposed to how they used to 10-20 years ago. And look at what the internet has done....
The powerbase is shifting and calling me names isn't going to solve anything....
"a Polkim Village chirade" that's a good one. I always love it when a blowhard shows his ignornace inadvertently. Please go on...
Ed,You're a good match for Larry who still hasn't figured out that 5th isn't spelled 5'th. I guess they don't require spelling to major in Exercise Science. Exercise Science is one of those degrees they made up in the 70s when people started majoring in Hospitality (Hotel/Motel Management as they used to call it) instead of real degrees like Macroeconomics. It allowed the high school c students to still go to college and become gym teachers.
Macroeconomics? Yikes!
And why do I just know you you're wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt?
President Andrew Jackson once asked "what kind of damn fool is it that can't think of more than one way to spell a word?" People thought enough of him to put him on the $20 bill. Democrat, too.
Second, I think that "Exercise Science" is now part of the field of Kinesiology. It might interest you to know that the Dean of the Commonwealth Honors College is from there - these are by no means stupid people. Nor is what they study stupid -- do you have any idea just how much legitimate but stupid worker's comp accidents cost this country? You may laugh about some of this, but it isn't funny if you are the one out of work (at only 2/3 pay and in pain) nor is it funny if you are the one paying for it (which we all actually are).
It was an undergrad in Kinesiology who helped me understand just how drunk Bowes was just from the fact that the BAC was taken after he had lost 500 cc of blood and had been given 1500 cc of fluid before the test was administered at Bay State.
There is real science involved there -- these folks really aren't all that far from nurses, or do you make fun of them too?
Then as to HRTA, now "HT" (and part of the Isenberg School of Management I might add...), just ask yourself one question: how many lawsuits could a truly incompetent resturant/hotel manager get you inside of just one shift?
There is someone overthere who is getting Homeland Security grants for research into food safety. Even without malicious terrorism, do you have any idea just how easy it is to *accidentially* get large numbers of people sick with either food poisoning or food intoxication? (Bet you don't know the difference between the two, either...)
And then we have our liability laws and our nondiscrimination laws and the skills necessary to deal with schmucks with more money than brains and we are talking some real education here.
Lets compare this to the UMass Econ Department. The ONE professor who wasn't a Marxist got driven out - and he wasn't even a Republican. The annual *worldwide* conference on Marxist Economics is held there because after the fall of the Soviet system, it is the only place IN THE WORLD where people actually believe in Marxist Economic Theory.
The entire department is so far to the left that it is an open joke - even at a place like UMass - and you dare compare this to real fields with real issues that those who can master get real jobs with real responsiblities?
Smoke a bit more dope, my friend...
(And when is the Amherst open container ordinance going to be ammended to pot possession?)
I'd rather wear my Che Guevara t-shirt than your Bill O'Reilly shirt.
BTW, the rise of the corporation and the current economic collapse was just what Marx predicted. He was apretty smart cookie.
I'd rather wear my Che Guevara t-shirt than your Bill O'Reilly shirt.
I would rather wear a Che Guevara shirt similar to the poster I saw the other day: a picture of Che Guevraa made out of the names of his victims.
Yeah, Che--what a chump...manages to get taken out by the Bolivian army.
Reportedly, he said:
"Don't shoot, I'm Che."
I believe they did anyway....
Thanks Ed. You once again show that you don't know what you are talking about. Che was captured and held prisoner by the army and eventually killed. He wasnt just shot in an ambush.
But on the day he was captured after a shoot out that left him wounded, he had encamped in a "ravine" rather than on the HIGH GROUND of the freakin mountain from which the "third rate Bolivian Army” (as Che described them) descended.
And I believe that it was the Army that executed him, hence ... they did anyway...
Unlike 96% of the causalities in the United States of America on a most gorgeous morning (9/11/01) Che Guevara, hero of the Revolution, was a MILITARY combatant (and a nitwit to boot).
And even the MILITARY has rules of engagement (called the Geneva Convention).
For instance, on the most gorgeous morning of 12/7/41 (Hawaii time—you know, the date that will live in infamy) the Japanese military came down with all their combined might on an opponent who was, essentially, asleep.
But they had NO FREAKIN mercy.
So we freakin nuked them 4 years later. And now they are our best buddies. Go figure.
Larry,
That is so vulger as to defy description. 200,000 to 350,000 civilians wre killed. For every mother and child that died that day, shame on you. Your glee at such killing says too much about you.
Melissa Blount
If the United Fruit Company and other American interests in Cuba had shown the least bit of regard for the workers they utterly exploited, there would have been no Cuban Revolution.
Che was captured by the Bolivian Army, but of course it was backed by the CIA like so much of the rest of the South American military.
If you really want to know about this, read this book: “Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life” a very complete and well done biography: http://tinyurl.com/bj6zhl
Good point there Rick
And my only only MONUMENTAL regret is that CIA. FBI, and NSA fucked up BIG TIME on the morning of 9/11.
They sure did - and then get awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom for doing so (George Tenet) by the biggest *nitwit* ever (the other George of course).
We should also regret what the CIA has done over the years messing around in South America for the sole purpose of aiding American companies doing business there, which is not the business the American government should be in. You go do business in another country, you take the risk.
And there would not have been a 911 had we not messed around in the Middle East in much the same way. Yet we continue to mess around… pissing people off for no good reason, and so those pissed off people decide to go do something about it.
Not to be a downer, but sooner or later a nuke is going to go off in NYC. We really have no way of stopping that from happening. We recovered from 911 and could recover from another one. We won’t recover from an NYC nuke. People don’t get what that really means. It will dwarf what happened in Japan.
So there’s a happy thought for your 100,000 anniversary. Sorry…
But the simple fact remains: we have NOT been stupendously hammered since THAT freaking DAY. (When we were so stupendously hammered) and that alone justifies “the other George”…
And yeah, ALL my extensive contacts –local, state and federal--agree that it is only a matter of time before a nuke goes on in NYC. Indeed, not a happy thought for my 100,000 hit.
But one I have, unfortunately, gotten used to. And no, I will not sleep well tonight.
'God bless America', or more succinctly: 'God help us'!
Did I miss something? Didn't 9/11 happen on Bush's watch?
Yes it did, and he, Tenet, Rice and others dropped the ball for sure. But blame should fall on Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton as well. Policies in all of those administrations (some more than others) lead to 911. I hope Obama will be different, we’ll see.
The fact that nothing has happened since 911 means nothing. Nothing had happened the 8 years before 911 either.
"That is so vulger as to defy description. 200,000 to 350,000 civilians wre killed. For every mother and child that died that day, shame on you. Your glee at such killing says too much about you."
??????
(?????!!!!!!!)
"??????
(?????!!!!!!!)"
Perhaps if I type slower you will understand.
Post a Comment