TV News LIES

Only one week until the government shutdown because the tea baggers need to be in the spotlight for as long as possible. The thing is, we've been here before.

An actual government shut down in the 90s was a disaster for the Republicans which makes seeing Newt Gingrich on the Sunday morning shows acting like an expert statesman all the more hilarious. People forget that he was run out of the Congress by Republicans. And the tea baggers have already tried this fiscal brinksmanship themselves, and failed miserably.

More on our country from the only viable, mostly-untainted point of access -- the foreign press:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24142085

My reaction?

Well, sure, I mean:

If someone doesn't get their Uber Grande Triple Mocha Espresso with Caramel Monkeybutt Sauce and Cupid's Arrow and Heart Design in their Whipped Cream just right, then, in 'Merica, that customer should have the right to pump a couple of magazines of steel-jacketed rounds and dum-dums into the bastard barista who ruined their day, week, and life, right?

Goddam right, boys and girls.

A secret unit operating under the direction of former Chicago police commander Jon Burge carried out systemic torture of suspects in criminal cases, mainly African-Americans on Chicago's South Side, to produce false confessions between 1972 and 1991.

While the abuse has been widely documented, Mr. Burge was never criminally prosecuted, despite ongoing accounts of almost 200 men sent to prison based on forced confessions on his watch. Meanwhile, the statute of limitations has run out, preventing Burge from ever facing a criminal trial. He is currently serving a 4-1/2-year prison term for perjury and obstruction of justice charges from a 2010 civil case related to the torture cases.

The greatest series of earthquakes in U.S. history began when an 8.6 magnitude quake rocked the Mississippi River Valley near New Madrid, Missouri on December 16th 1811. The earthquake raised and lowered parts of the Mississippi Valley by as much as 15 feet and changed the course of the Mississippi River. At one point, the Mississippi momentarily reversed its direction, and created Reelfoot Lake in northwest Tennessee. Now that was an earthquake.

I’ve experienced a couple of geological earthquakes that were unnerving at the moment, but in my lifetime there have been three socio-political earthquakes whose aftershocks have reverberated for decades:

The JFK Assassination, the Supreme Court’s decision to nullify a national election by installing George W. Bush as president, and the attacks of September 11th 2001.

There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.

Thus intoned Rod Serling at the beginning of the first episode of the first season of The Twilight Zone in 1959. It would be years before I read Kafka, Huxley, and Orwell, but I knew the territory well. Rod Serling, Charles Beaumont, and Richard Matheson, had already taken me there once every week for five years.

Two years ago today, August 22nd, we moved to Beautiful British Columbia. I’m only going to say this one more time as I can imagine everyone is getting awfully tired of hearing it:

Every Single Day I read at least one news item, oftentimes more, from The States that makes me very happy and relieved we don’t live in the U.S. anymore.

And …

Every Single Day I have a moment, some days a couple of moments, when I am grateful we now live in Canada.