Jane Galt speaks...

Lately, I've run across a number of bloggers who make just about all of us on LJ seem like participants in some sedentary activity at a retirement home for those over 100. One such site is run by a certain Jane Galt - which is certainly not her name - who caught my eye with a post that started as follows:

Is there anything the Clinton foreign policy team did that was successful?

I'm serious about this, not inviting partisan rants. So far this year, we've seen Ireland unravel, Palestine implode, North Korea admit that they've got nukes and the means to deliver them, Pakistan and India go head to head with weapons they acquired on Clinton's watch, Al Qaeda confess that Clinton's response to their incursions led them to believe that they could stage 9/11 with impunity.

I ran across her site in an effort to see what reaction there might be in the world to news that the North Koreans took billions in aid in exchange for curtailing their nuclear research, and then proceeded to perform both the research and spend the money they got for not doing it on (probably) nuclear weapons development, seeing as how people in the North Korean countryside have had to resort to eating moss (and, it is reported, each other) to stay alive.

I also seem to recall that Jimmy Carter, who recently jointed Yasser Arafat as a recipient of the Nobel Piece Prize (I've decided it's been spelled wrong all these years, if these two yahoos won it... now I'm just trying to figure out what "piece" the prize was for, or if the recipient is the "piece," etc., but I digress...) ... anyway, that Carter brokered the Korean deal for Clinton, and that up to a few days ago, anyone who ventured the opinion that Korea was not living up to their end of the deal was resoundingly laughed out of polite political company.

I wonder if the California teacher's union - which recently came out with a resolution condemning Bush's plans for Iraq and encouraged its members to take time off from providing a level of education not found anywhere else in the civilized world to work against the planned Iraqi invasion - has had the time to work up any similar resolution with regard to the North Koreans. I'm not going to hold my breath.

* * *It was a good quarter for retail sales, as the store today forked over the largest quarterly sales tax collection so far to the state. Next major deadline, paperwork-wise, is the unemployment insurance filing by the end of the month.

* * *There's been a lot of press lately about a show called CSI. I seem to recall seeing the pilot of the original, and thought it was a pretty good show, but like most shows - including my beloved The X Files - I don't have the patience to remain a faithful viewer. Something always comes up.

Tonight, I watched the spinoff, CSI: Miami and found myself wondering about what was being portrayed. In a case where a priest is found shot dead in the rectory of a Catholic church, I found it interesting that a search warrant was introduced as a warrant to search a suspect's house and take DNA samples. Assuming the writers aren't manufacturing police procedure from thin air, I find it interesting that the state can demand DNA samples from persons who are merely under suspicion of complicity in a crime (i.e., not actually charged).

I also found it interesting that - at the end - the organist decided to play (and the choir sang) Amazing Grace at the funeral of the Catholic priest. I'll admit that it's been a while since I've attended Catholic services (the last time was in the Marines, because I had to go somewhere during Protestant services, but again, I digress...), but I've always been under the impression that AG is a fine Protestant tune. Has the Church become so ecumenical as to adopt AG as its own?

The paper chase continued today. I am slightly depressed, as the paper piles seem not to be diminishing in size. We'll go at it again tomorrow.

Cheers...