Is George Bush Losing it?

B. Thomas Cooper - Editor

blogment - National Newswire - The Infinite Echo

There has been much speculation as of late in regards to George W. Bush’s mental health. Questions began arising as far back as 2004, but in light of recent developments, it seems appropriate to address this very serious issue again. Let there be no mistake, George W. Bush has threatened to start World War III if he doesn’t get his way. Of course, he lays the blame at the feet of others, but the facts are clear. George Bush wants war.


Our Commander in Chief?

George W. Bush has, and continues to threaten to bomb Iran for a weapons program it does not have. The bombing of course, would be done with real bombs the US does indeed have, rather than the make believe ones Iran has been accused of seeking.

We’ve been through this before, folks, and it’s nasty business. This is the exact same rhetoric Hitler used to justify the invasion of France. Then again, why should the excuses for World War III be any different than the excuses for World War II?

It is not unusual for world leaders to suffer from grandiose delusions, but this goes deep into the redline. Bush has his finger on the button, and he is just itching to push it before his term expires. If the president has mental health issues, it would be better to consider them now, rather than later. For instance:

“Aides report “In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as "enemies of the state."



White House Aides paint a picture of an administration under siege, led by a man who declares his decisions to be "God's will" and then tells aides to "fuck over" anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration."

“Senior aides describe Bush as increasingly “edgy” or “nervous” or “unfocused.” They say the President goes from apparent coherent thought one moment to aimless rambles about political enemies and those who are “out to get me.”

“It’s worse than the days when Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s began setting in,” one longtime GOP operative told me privately this week. “You don’t know if he’s going to be coherent from one moment to the next. What scares me is if he lapses into one of those fogs during a public appearance.”

Aides say Bush, who has always had trouble focusing during times of stress, is increasingly distant during meetings, often staring off into space during discussions on the nation’s security and other issues.”

This represents only a fraction of the information I was able to find on the subject. If you are interested in learning more, simply type the criteria into your favorite search engine. I typed in “George W. Bush mental health” In the past, I have been accused of making this stuff up, but rest assured, I am neither that good, nor that vindictive. The president's mental stability is quickly becoming a real issue, one that we would all be best served if it just went away quietly.

…to a padded cell.

B. Thomas Cooper - Editor

blogment - National Newswire - The Infinite Echo

An Era of Steel and Steam

B. Thomas Cooper - Editor

blogment - National Newswire - The Infinite Echo

It was an age of steel and steam. It was a time of great power and wealth. Soon the world would be forever changed by this new mechanical marvel, the steam locomotive, the driving force behind the industrial revolution.

For centuries, man had understood the potential of steam as an energy source, but it took until 1803 before Samuel Homfray was able to successfully harness that energy with his invention of the steam engine. The first successful railway followed soon after, when on March 25th, 1807, England began passenger service between Swansea and Mumbles.

Across the pond, America was developing it’s own railway, and by 1869, eighteen hundred miles of track connected Omaha, Nebraska with Sacramento, California. The resulting improvement of trade routes was felt throughout the world. Within a decade, the industrial revolution was on a roll.



By 1893, the U.S. had completed five transcontinental trunk lines and no less than 260,000 miles of track. Monopolies flourished. A brilliant engineer named Theodore Judah successfully persuaded Washington to pony up ten to twenty square miles of land and at least $48,000 for every mile of track completed. The track was laid by armies of imported Chinese ’coolies’, laborers who toiled relentlessly while rail barons were popping champagne corks and charging glasses in celebration.

Enter, Andrew Carnegie, philosopher and opportunist, and in later years, philanthropist. At age 18, Carnegie caught the eye of Pennsylvania rail baron Tom Scott, becoming his personal secretary and telegraph operator. Carnegie however, had great plans for the future. The unbreakable grip of the iron industry was about to give way to steel.

By the turn of the century, William McKinley was president, and in 1903, New York State enacted legislation prohibiting the operation of steam locomotives south of the Harlem river, thus ushering in the era electrified tracks. The first use of internal combustion engines began in 1913, and was quickly superseded by the invention of the diesel locomotive, which proved more effective. The times, they were a changing.

During the great depression, the railroad became symbolic of the American struggle. Today we look back on these amazing machines as products of a bygone era. The mighty iron horse has been put to pasture. Or has it?

The steam engine may be a thing of the past, but today, light rail tracks and monorails are springing up in greater numbers. Perhaps these are not the romantic machines made famous by daring engineers like Casey Jones, but they provide safer, if not more efficient service. Meanwhile, thousands of miles of railway still grace the countryside, as modern locomotives pull seemingly endless processions of freight cars, hauling lumber, cattle, and virtually everything in between.

Away in the distance, a lonesome whistle blows. Tonight, perhaps further in the distance than in recent memory. The age of steel and steam has passed, but the dreams of those who dared make it happen, remain. An era, vanishes in a puff of smoke. A new era begins.

B. Thomas Cooper - Editor

blogment - National Newswire - The Infinite Echo

The Curse of War

B. Thomas Cooper - Editor

blogment - National Newswire - The Infinite Echo

When we are asked to support our troops in Iraq, I can’t help but wonder precisely which troops, and under what circumstance? Obviously not every US soldier serving in Iraq deserves my unwavering support.

As with any conflict of this nature, bad things can happen to good people, and sometimes good people do bad things. I don’t lack compassion for our young men and women who have been unjustly thrust into chaos, but I have equal compassion for the residents of Iraq who are suffering as a result of the occupation, which may I remind you, remains an international war crime.

We Americans love to believe we are the world’s police, welcome or not. Our arrogance has long overshadowed our sense of reason. Indeed, if the US is the world’s police, we entered Iraq without a search warrant, killing innocent people in the process.

Obviously, when German soldiers were slaughtering the Jews they were following orders.
They indubitably believed what they were doing was necessary, no matter how blatantly evil. I can’t imagine they thought much about the heinous nature of their crimes; after all, such would have amounted to treason.

Right about now, I predict many of my readers are understandably aghast at my comparisons. I don’t blame you. Here’s a suggestion: wake up and smell the coffee!

You see, I have o reason to believe every Nazi who participated in the holocaust was born to kill Jews. It was a deplorable idea, thrust upon them by desperate, deranged superiors. I don’t condone their actions by any means. What happened was wrong and that is precisely why I feel compelled to compare the holocaust to the invasion of Iraq. The Iraqi’s are not better off now than before the invasion. Quite to the contrary, Iraq is smack dab in the middle of it’s very own holocaust, one of our making.

Whatever.

Call it a civil war if you must. In fact, call it whatever you damn well please; a rose is a rose by any other name. I doubt very seriously Iraqi mothers who must bury their dead children every day, really feel inclined to debate semantics.

I am and will remain a patriotic American, but I’m not blinded by the misdirected rhetoric. I know better than to pretend every US soldier in Iraq is behaving heroically.

So where then should I draw the line? Should I support those who participated in the Haditha massacre? Should I support the soldiers who gunned down innocent lives, destroyed schools and hospitals, looted museums, tortured captives, raped and murdered children in front of their families?

If right now you are attempting to justify such conduct with some platitude, think again.
War is hell? Collateral damage? The spoils of war?

How about crimes against humanity?

Face it folks, good people are dying in Iraq. Some of them are Americans. Likewise, some very bad things have been done in Iraq and like it or not, some of it, by Americans.

B. Thomas Cooper - Editor

blogment - National Newswire - The Infinite Echo