Arkansas Blog

The continuing postmortem releases of Gerald Ford tapes are amazing. Today Ford is ripping Reagan and the Bushes for being pro-choice but not saying so (to her credit, Barbara Bush HAS said she's pro-choice). Ford couldn't stand the move to the far right the Republican party has taken.

I'm glad he lived long enough to see the recent election. I wish I'd know his true feelings when he was alive. I'd have had a lot more respect for him.

I have a question dealing with state gov. If a person (me) saw a need for and a benifit to be gained from forming a new state agency (state office to investigate statewide animal abuse complaints), could the govenor form this agency or would it have to go thru the ledge?

John J,

Funding to operate the agency would have to be passed in the form of an appropriation by the legislature. However, Farm Bureau would veto this bill.

Dear John, You are in Arkansas. This is a state where my stepson was killed on the job due to workplace negligence and the company walked away scott free. Do you reallly think a puppy has a better chance ? Good Luck

John J.

The Legislature would have to pass an Act that would create the new agency and yet another Act would have to be passed to establish staffing and funding.

This state doesn't even
protect its children from being
abused. Has anyone heard
of using the "surplus" to
increase the number of case
workers investigating child
abuse? Nope....

I guess someone needs to
sue the state again to make
them protect children.

Anyone know if suspension of mail service and closing of federal offices and Wall Street is normal during "state" funerals? I don't remember it happening in the past although I may simply not have been paying attention.

Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq

Iraq's former leader Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging at an unspecified location in Baghdad, along with two senior members of his regime, reports say.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

And please, someone 'splain to me why anyone would build a tornado shelter a few hundred yards from the house, ala the Bush ranch house at Crawford, Texas.
I know I'd appreciate having to dash down the hill and up the other side every time the weather sirens sounded. OK, OK, they're a good idea -- except that the sirens around here are triggered on a county-wide basis. So we are blasted out of bed in terror, snatching bedding, falling over the dog and grabbing a spitting, slashing cat here in northern Jefferson County only to discover -- the next day -- that the potential for danger was more than 30 miles away. The system needs a little fine tuning.
On second thought, with nasty weather looming tonight, maybe I should withhold my complaints.

Saddam executed . . .

I know it's a bit odd, but I feel sad. I didn't feel sad about Jeffrey Dahmer.
Perhaps there is some guilt too, knowing that the United States set Saddam on the course which ultimately led to his being hanged.
In spite of the horrors he visited on his own countrymen and those in neighboring countries, my impression of the trial was payback time rather than justice. Or am I being naive, and justice really is all about payback?

"An open line for Friday, though I have at least one 'live' post yet to come."

I thought you turned into a pumpkin at 10.

Party hardy, blogmeistro.

Saddam is dead.

The POTUS has killed more people than Sadaam killed in Iraq.

Is Bush next?

Doigotta,

Because it's Bush XLIII and he has a Harvard MBA!

BUSH NOW MORE POPULAR THAN SATAN

click on handle for article

"A new poll from The Associated Press and AOL News has discovered that Americans are torn in terms of their perception of President George W. Bush and his performance in 2006. When asked to name the past year's biggest villain, Bush was far and away the #1 choice, commanding 25% of the vote, distantly trailed by Osama Bin Laden (8%), Saddam Hussein (6%), President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran (5%), North Korean leader Kim Jong II (2%) and Donald Rumsfeld (2%). Satan only took in 1% of the vote, as did Hugo Chavez, Tom Cruise, Dick Cheney, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Rosie O'Donnell . . ."

http://www.icasualties.org/oif/

TOTAL - NON-MORTAL US CASUALTIES 46,880 As of December 2, 2006

Per CNN Intl - December 108 dead, highest rate so far

total US dead 2997

18,000 medivac'd for disease? that sure sounds high

Well over a trillion dollars including intrest.

Nothing good will come of this.

Blueridge raises an important point. We in the United States executed a number of people after Lincoln's Assasination. We imprison those who attempt to assasinate our Presidents. The Austro-Hungarian Empire invaded the tiny Serbian Kingdom and World War One erupted over an assasination.

I believe Capital Punishment is wrong. But even for the reason Saddam was executed, isn't that sort of two-faced? Why when he executed those who tried to kill him was it an atrocity and yet when others do it, its justified?

Moreover, there were far worse crimes from his reign of terror for him to be convicted.

Still like Mussolini, Ceasescu, and other tyrants, so goes the way of Saddam Hussein.

"Why when he executed
those who tried to kill him
was it an atrocity and yet
when others do it, its justified?
Posted by: The Roaming Gnome"

Yes, they had no shortage of atrocities to try him on. They just picked the easiest case, the one where the evidence was easiest to get together. The verdict was never in doubt since his enemies run the country now.

"Still like Mussolini, Ceasescu, and other tyrants, so goes the way of Saddam Hussein."

It's one of those deals where the winners write the history and decide who the war criminals are and who the good guys are. It's always that way. In warfare, for sure, might makes right.

Still this all has been a waste of human lives. Our present administration should look at people like :

* IDI AMIN
* POL POT
* ENVER HOXHA

In none of these did we have to reallyt intervene then you isolate them, the people around them who get burned, chase them from power and they die in obscurity.

Really one may think they escape punishment but to ego maniacs like most dictators it really is a fall from grace to be on top of the world and fall to nothing!

They executed him for things not so connected with the US, so they didn't have to deal with the things that did.

Bet he could have told some tales...