Great Minds Thinking Alike?

In one post yesterday, I described setting up two print servers, which will be clustered. Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, cluster...and then later last night, I took a look at Ben Tripp's Counterpunch article. I've always liked reading his stuff.

The word for the year 2003, ladies and others, is 'clusterfuck'. I leave it to you to embellish to taste, appending 'complete and utter' or 'unmitigated', for example...

It's a great economy if you are already worth tens of millions of dollars. For the vast majority of us who are part of that 120% spending-to-income ratio, the economy is not so good. There was a joke in the Clinton years: "this president has created many new jobs. I know, because I have three of them just to make ends meet." It wasn't funny then, and its current variation is even less amusing: "this president has lost more jobs than anyone since Hoover. I know, because I am a white-collar worker without employment for sixteen months."

But let's not dwell on dollars. Nobody else is; the dollar lost gobs of its value against the Euro in 2003. Even the zloty is starting to look robust. Instead let's look at the War on Terrorism, as it is known, although I prefer the term 'Total War All the Time', or 'TWAT' for short. Terrorism is threats or violence by unofficial entities used to intimidate larger societies and governments. Who has perpetrated the most terrorism in 2003? Golly, I hardly dast say. Al-Qaeda was fairly quiet. The Israeli government kept it local, as did the Palestinians. Could it be the Executive Branch of the U.S. government? They invaded Iraq and continue to occupy it by means of intimidation. The Iraqi insurgents aren't terrorists, despite their tactics- we did the same thing during the American Revolution. Our White House pulverized the United Nations. It pimp-slapped most of Western Europe. And this same small group of unelected zealots holds the entire American people in a thrall of fear using color-coded threats, speculation on the theme of disaster that would make the most committed paranoid zenophobe shake his head in disbelief, and for good measure the occasional whisking-away of some troublemaker or other.

The American saber has been rattled with such vigor against enemies ranging from Syria to North Korea that the pommel has come loose. En garde. Terrorism on this scale is more often called 'belligerent foreign policy', especially as it's officially sanctioned by the U.S. government, but seeing as the U.S. government at this point isn't officially sanctioned by most of the American people, I'm only willing to split hairs just so far. These screwheads are willing to split hairs all the way down to the cerebral cortex. Add to this the more commonly accepted version of terrorist: rag-headed crazies making bombs out of chewing gum and twine-and you have an unpalatable collation indeed. Because while the RNC is inventing threats and menaces to keep us all cowering in the woodshed, real actual genuine authentic terrorists are gathering in record numbers, spurred on by the goad of violent American adventurism in their homelands or adjacent areas. They have plans of their own, and our peri-urban chemical plants, nuclear power facilities, and Wal-Marts are so utterly undefended that a motivated boy scout wielding a two-pound rock could bring the entire American homeland to its knees. Although this would probably be the position he found it in.

Of course, I'm talking work, and Tripp's talking public policy, but I couldn't pass up noticing. By the way, if you haven't read the entire piece, take a look. It's hilarious.