wandering hillbilly

wasted mornin of buddy don:
whut i dun in sted of bloggin

tiz gittin hardern ever to git myself to quit readin bout thangs a'goin on n git to ritin. i wonta git back to the novel i been ritin since last june, life n pinions of buddy don, hillbilly, but it seems lack everday thars a fresh bit of awful news. used to be i could read a cuple articulls n then look away. i lack to thank that ritin good fickshun is bettern trine to keep up with the "facks" on a counta with good fickshun ye gut a chants to git closer to lastin truth. facks is always changin n rarely proovd or bleevd by bof sides. as nietzsche put it, "there are no facts, only interpretations."  ole friedrich had im sum other good quotes that seem to fit todays sitchewayshun. heres a mo of em:

• Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. (Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality)
  
• Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions. (Human, All Too Human)
  
• Madness is something rare in individuals -- but in groups, parties, peoples, ages it is the rule.  (Beyond Good and Evil)

so heres whut tuck up my mornin:

• frum Slate, thars a articull name of Trust, Don't Verify: Bush's incredible definition of credibility by William Saletan. here's the quote that i caint fergit. tiz sumthin mr bush sed in his third prime time news confernts: And the credibility of the United States is incredibly important for keeping world peace and freedom.
  
• in The Washington Post, thays an articull name of House Member Seeks Gorelick's Resignation bout how mr sennsenbrenner, a congressman, wonts to git one of the commishuners taken off the commishun on a counta how he thanks thays a conflick of innerst: In a statement yesterday, Sensenbrenner said Gorelick's memo had established "the heightened 'wall' prohibiting the sharing of intelligence information and criminal information." But other officials and documents suggest that the wall was in the process of being built before the memo. The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, in a 2002 ruling, noted that the Justice Department had begun erecting the legal wall "during the 1980s," as an interpretation of the 1978 statute governing clandestine wiretaps.
  
• frum the ny times, articull name of Expert Kept From Speaking at Antidepressant Hearing by Gardiner Harris, bout how "Top Food and Drug Administration officials admitted yesterday that they barred the agency's top expert from testifying at a public hearing about his conclusion that antidepressants cause children to become suicidal because they viewed his findings as alarmist and premature": Recent studies have shown that children given antidepressants are more likely to become suicidal than those given placebos. But the studies have lead to different interpretations by psychiatrists. The refusal by drug companies to publish the studies has worsened the confusion. Internal agency documents obtained by The New York Times show that federal health officials are divided, too. Dr. Andrew D. Mosholder, an agency epidemiologist, was the man charged with analyzing 22 studies involving 4,250 children and seven drugs. In a carefully argued, 33-page memorandum, he concluded that children given antidepressants were almost twice as likely as those given placebos to become suicidal.
  
• ny times -- krugman: A fiscal comparison of George Bush's and Lyndon Johnson's policies makes the Vietnam era seem like a golden age of personal responsibility. At first, Johnson was reluctant to face up to the cost of the war. But in 1968 he bit the bullet, raising taxes and cutting spending; he turned a large deficit into a surplus the next year. A comparable program today — the budget went from a deficit of 3.2 percent of G.D.P. to a 0.3 percent surplus in just one year — would eliminate most of our budget deficit. By contrast, Mr. Bush, for all his talk about staying the course, hasn't been willing to strike anything off his domestic wish list. On the contrary, he used the initial glow of apparent success in Iraq to ram through yet another tax cut, waiting until later to tell us about the extra $87 billion he needed. And he's still at it: in his press conference on Tuesday he said nothing about the $50 billion-to-$70 billion extra that everyone knows will be needed to pay for continuing operations.
  
• salon -- conason: "Let me be clear," said Ashcroft. "My thorough review revealed no covert action program to kill bin Laden." In other words, all the former Clinton officials who had sworn otherwise, including Clarke, must be lying. A few minutes later, members of the commission dryly informed Ashcroft that he was badly mistaken. Without saying so directly as to compromise classified material, Richard Ben-Veniste and Fred Fielding both indicated that the commission had obtained a 1998 Clinton "memorandum of notification" specifically targeting the al-Qaida chieftain. Evidently the commission staff found this important document among the Clinton papers withheld by the White House until very recently (and disgorged only after a public complaint by Clinton attorney Bruce Lindsey). It would be interesting to find out why that particular item was held back from the commission by White House lawyers. After being told that the "MON" contradicted his accusation, Ashcroft was forced to swallow his words. He ended up promising that "we'll work to understand that more thoroughly."
  
• washington post front page articull name of General Calls Insurgency in Iraq Sign of US Success; Political Achievements Are Cause of Uprising, Myers Says: The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday that the deadly insurgency that flared this month is "a symptom of the success that we're having here in Iraq" and an effort to undermine the country's transition to self-government.  Asked at a news conference here whether the military had failed to counter insurgents' attacks in Iraq, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers said guerrillas want to undermine several political successes, including the creation of the Iraqi Governing Council, the signing of a bill of rights and efforts by the United Nations to devise an interim government that would assume power on June 30.
  
• ny times front page articull name of U. S. Open to a Proposal That Supplants Council in Iraq: The Brahimi plan would replace the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council with a transition government whose leaders would be appointed by the United Nations, after consultations with the United States, the governing council and other Iraqis. It could include members of the current governing council, but it is unclear how it would balance religious and regional rivalries within Iraq. By endorsing the Brahimi plan, the administration seemed to accept diminished American influence over the Iraqi political process as self-rule approaches and after power has passed back to Baghdad. The move was the latest abandonment of an element of the plan the Americans arrived at on Nov. 15, specifying the June 30 transfer.
  
• la times articull name of U. S. Shift Undermines Efforts for Mideast Peace, Arabs Say: Arab leaders charged Thursday that the United States, by recognizing Israel's claims to major settlements in the West Bank, could no longer be viewed as an honest broker for the Middle East peace process. But the Bush administration insisted that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's initiative for the Gaza Strip and West Bank could restart the peace process by removing Israel's presence in Gaza. And it said the move would not hinder U.S. efforts to shore up Arab support for creating a stable interim government in Iraq.

whuts a'goin on now makes me thank i mite half to start bleevin whut i dont wonta bleev, witch tiz a nuther quote frum nietzsche: What is good? -- All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.