Bits and pieces

The family that strafes together stays together? Seems odd, but then this is a story about Republicans. This August in Manchester, New Hampshire Republicans with 25 bucks to spend will get to bring the wife and kids to a family machine gun shoot. "It's a fun day. It's a family day," said the organizer, Jerry Thibodeau of the August 5 event. "It's quite exciting."

I'll bet it is. Politically I think it's sheer idiocy, but as a way of letting Republicans feel macho without sending others to kill and be killed, it's great. The Brady Bunch is making much of the "ease" of purchasing a handgun in New Hampshire, there being no requirement to register it with the police, but of course they don't ask whether one is safer in that rural state than in Brooklyn with its handgun ban.

They finally subpoenaed Michael Moore for filming in Cuba, although many of my European friends and relatives have taken vacations there. It feels good to live in a free country, doesn't it - where the White House plutocrats get free medical care and the New York Firemen Bush posed with get more smoke.

"Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow." Says the New York Times today, quoting Bush administration officials. Our Allies and Bush business partners seem to be supporting Sunni interests in opposition to our supposed puppet Maliki. A senior official declined to say whether that support was going to Sunni insurgents because, he said, “That would get into disagreements over who is an insurgent and who is not.” So when is an insurgent not an insurgent? Sounds like a job for the Decider, but I'll bet it has something to do with the Bush family business interests. Otherwise it would be hard to understand why we attacked Iraq to retaliate for an attack by Saudis and why we are itching to attack Iran for supporting insurgents without worrying about "disagreements."

Does anyone else think Sleazy Gonzales will soon be handed the medal of Freedom and shown the back door? ¡Ándale! ¡Ándale!