Diary of a Wolfeman

To answer the Republican response to the Democratic outrage resulting from this appointment (or why many of us feel Dubya screwed that poor pooch again.)

There are damn good reasons why the Democrats fought this particular appointment as long as they did, and feel pretty pissed that Bush snuck him in during recess. Here’s two, quoted from CNN.com:

Bolton spent Bush’s first term serving as undersecretary of state for arms control and disarmament. In confirmation hearings for his new job, witnesses accused him of trying to get intelligence analysts who disagreed with him transferred or fired.

Now, if I remember correctly, the proper thing to do in a situation like this is gather enough evidence to refute the opposition’s standpoint, not remove them from the discussion. Oh, wait – he’s following executive precedent here, considering how we waged the early stages of the war.

Carl Ford, the former chief of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, called Bolton “a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy” and a “serial abuser” of subordinates.

“Serial abuser” is a pretty serious allegation, and the American public (and the world too, for that matter) deserve to get to the bottom of that before anyone gets to be a poloitical appointee of any stature. This man will be working closely with the other members of the U.N. in regards to, among other things, the treatment of prisoners. Do we want an abusive personality in that position? Especially after these allegations have been made public – the other ambassadors won’t look favorably upon these allegations.

What it boils down to to me, though, is that the world at large hates the U.S. right now for the way we went to war and the results thereof. This means that anyone Bush appoints without Congress’s backing is going to be looked upon as scum, and will not be co-operated with, no matter how good his ideas are.

Add to all of that just how completely we are all fed up with Dubya’s rampant cronyism, and the total is not pretty. The Republicans have the majority, and have done nothing but fuck up at every turn, and the world has been watching. They will expect more of the same from Bolton.

For a long time at our shop, we have been comparing the wear on the hard drive of a computer to tread wear on your tires when it comes to doing routine backups. You know that as your hard drive ages, wear and tear will eventually cause it to fail. So, when we see a drive we think is on the way out, we will reccommend the customer do a full data backup and consider replacing the drive now, before they have a blowout and lose everything. “You wouldn’t drive on the freeway with bald tires would you?”

Hmmm…bald tires…Now that I think of it, it’s been a while since I put new rubber on the Little Black Beastie. I’d better go check…

Sure enough, the left front tire has belts poking through on about a third of its circumference. Yikes!

So, the car has an appointment tomorrow morning to get some new tread. Luckily, I was just about to turn in a mileage report worth almost the cost of new tires, so it works out rather nicely :)

Now all I have to do is find a transmission shop with messed-up computers willing to barter services…