Letter Never Sent

From InfoPlease.com: Balance of Power:

balance of power, system of international relations in which nations seek to maintain an approximate equilibrium of power among many rivals, thus preventing the preponderance of any one state. Crucial to the system is a willingness on the part of individual national governments to change alliances as the situation demands in order to maintain the balance. Thucydides’ description of Greece in the 5th cent. B.C. and Guicciardini’s description of 15th-century Italy are early illustrations. Its modern development began in the mid-17th cent., when it was directed against the France of Louis XIV. Balance of power was the stated British objective for much of the 18th and 19th cent., and it characterized the European international system, for example, from 1815–1914. After World War I the balance of power system was attacked by proponents of cooperation and a community of power. International relations were changed radically after World War II by the predominance of two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, with major ideological differences between them, but this ended with the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

See H. J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (1960); H. Butterfield and M. Wright, ed., Diplomatic Investigations (1966); P. Keal, Unspoken Rules and Superpower Dominance (1984); R. J. Lieber, No Common Power: Understanding International Relations (1988).

Judging from photoshopped photos, editorial cartoons, and entries on other websites I think I missed something interesting having to do with duct tape and homeland security and/or Tom Ridge. I feel like I’m a traveller from the past experiencing some unknown cultural anecdote. Wtf.

I was reading the news (as I often do) and I noticed something that annoyed me a little especially since my mother has this habit of telling me ‘I don’t believe everything I read on the internet.’

AP: Fuzzy Strands Fill Skies Over Texas City:

A University of Wyoming microbiology professor attributed the webs in Santa Cruz to young spiders that launch themselves on their homemade parachutes after hatching to be blown to a new home.

However, on the Internet, some conspiracy connoisseurs remain convinced the webs are man-made and could be part of an elaborate government plot.

I mean, is that really necessary as the last sentence in an AP story?

The unemployment rate has hit its highest levels in 9 years. That’s not even taking into account the millions of people who have to work 2 jobs each to support their families. The Bush administration offered up two scapegoats, Paul O’Neill and Lawrence Lindsey, to cover for its complete and utter lack of economic initiative or sound policy. Who woulda thunk it that a huge tax cut to the richest Americans would fail so miserably? The richest Americans, even from a capitalist perspective, don’t create jobs unless you consider cleaning mansions a good job. This is a bad sign of things to come. On the other hand, if we hit 10% unemployment maybe people will start looking to hang someone from the streetlights in Washington and things might get done.

This was too funny. I have to start using this phrase. Of course, Ari Fleischer got his panties in a bunch. I saw some bullshit story about how women apparently find him very sexy. Gag me. He always has his mouth hanging open like some sort of waterhead. Remember, if you work for Hitler Jr. and his minions no criticism or you will feel Ari’s wrath. It’s a good sign that even many influential Republicans have little respect for the Bush gang.

Ex-Bush Aide Apologizes for Criticism

A former senior aide to President Bush apologized yesterday after being quoted as saying a band of “Mayberry Machiavellis” is running a White House in which politics trumps policy.

The Esquire magazine article — which extensively quoted John J. DiIulio Jr., the former head of Bush’s stalled effort to aid religious charities — represents a rare criticism by a one-time insider of a Bush White House that has placed a near-total lid on internal dissent.

Reuters: US Government Asks Court to Seal Vaccine Records:

WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) – Attorneys for the Bush Administration asked a federal court on Monday to order that documents on hundreds of cases of autism allegedly caused by childhood vaccines be kept from the public.

The current 1,000 or so autism cases are unusual for the court. Because it received so many claims, much of the fact-finding and evidence-gathering is going on for all of the cases as a block.

NY Times: Justice Dept. Seeks to Seal Vaccine Papers

Lawyers for the families said they were outraged by today’s move. They said the government was trying to prevent families from obtaining damaging information about the preservative, which could later be used against drug companies in civil courts.

Congressional Republicans inserted a provision into the domestic security bill, signed into law on Monday by President Bush, that is intended to protect Eli Lilly, thimerosal’s manufacturer, from lawsuits over the preservative. The provision would force families to seek compensation through the vaccine court instead of civil courts.

Robert Byrd of West Virginia on last Tuesday: Byrd, at 85, Fills the Forum With Romans and Wrath:

ASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — As his colleagues hurriedly tried to give the president a domestic security bill, Senator Robert C. Byrd took the floor this morning to tell them of a “truly great” senator from the first century A.D. named Helvidius Priscus. One day this Roman was met outside the senate by the emperor Vespasian, who threatened to execute him if he spoke too freely.

“And so both did their parts,” Mr. Byrd said. “Helvidius Priscus spoke his mind; the emperor Vespasian killed him. In this effeminate age it is instructive to read of courage. There are members of the U.S. Senate and House who are terrified apparently if the president of the United States tells them, urges them, to vote a certain way that may be against their belief.”

Mr. Byrd, of course, is not one of those timid souls, and his recent speeches have been extraordinary even for the maestro of senatorial rhetoric, who turns 85 on Wednesday. While his colleagues have debated the fine points of the domestic security bill, he has been virtually alone in asking the larger question: Why is this new department suddenly so necessary? What will the largest and hastiest reorganization of the federal government in half a century do besides allow politicians to claim instant credit for fighting terrorism?

“This mon-stros-ity,” Mr. Byrd has been calling the bill, repeatedly lifting its 484 pages above his head with trembling hands and flinging them down on his desk with the fury of Moses smashing the tablets. Mr. Byrd used to be known less for his distaste of federal bureaucracy than for his love of federal aid — he once vowed to be West Virginia’s “billion-dollar industry,” while his critics crowned him the “prince of pork.” But now he is riffing against big government.

“Osama bin Laden is still alive and plotting more attacks while we play bureaucratic shuffleboard,” Mr. Byrd told the Senate. “With a battle plan like the Bush administration is proposing, instead of crossing the Delaware River to capture the Hessian soldiers on Christmas Day, George Washington would have stayed on his side of the river and built a bureaucracy.” Mr. Byrd imagined Nathan Hale declaring, “I have but one life to lose for my bureaucracy,” and Commodore Oliver Perry hoisting a flag on his ship with the rallying cry, “Don’t give up the bureaucracy!”

From DefenseLink:

Caller: Hello to Secretary Rumsfeld, and thank you to Infinity Radio for putting this together. My question, how does our national security have anything to do with Iraq, and has the United States illegally armed Iraq?

Rumsfeld: Has the United States illegally armed Iraq? I don’t know quite what you mean, but no, I don’t know of anything the United States has done that’s illegal at all. If you’re asking, has the United States ever provided arms to Iraqis, as opposed to the Iraqi government, the answer is yes, there are various Iraqis that are in opposition to the Saddam Hussein regime and it is correct that some time, in past years, they have provided some military capabilities to some Iraqi opposition forces. And then there’s the Kurdish forces in the north, and I believe that the United States, again, going back some years, provided some military equipment to the Kurdish forces in the north.

Kroft: I think he may be talking about when the United States was backing Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war.

Rumsfeld: Well, I am told that we did not, but I don’t know, I was not in the government during that period. I saw an article in Newsweek that reported on some — I think it was various types of biologicals. And I’m told that they went through a medical relationship that we had with many countries in the world, and they were for medical purposes. But, I don’t know of any weapons that went to Iraq. I do know that the United States government in the 1980s, I’m told, as I said, provided intelligence to Iraq.