Sub Ubi

Excerpted from Bloomberg.

Bush said yesterday he’s unconcerned that the price tag on the package may seem high.

“I’m sure there are some of my friends out there that are saying, ‘I thought this guy was a market guy, what happened to him?’” the president said. “My first instinct was to let the market work, until I realized, while being briefed by the experts, how significant this problem became.”

The Bush administration seeks “dictatorial power unreviewable by the third branch of government, the courts, to try to resolve the crisis,” said Frank Razzano, a former assistant chief trial attorney at the Securities and Exchange Commission now at Pepper Hamilton LLP in Washington. “We are taking a huge leap of faith.”

A government with George W. Bush in the executive branch, a man whose financial history includes nothing but failed businesses, asks us to trust his administration—in particular a non-elected official—with $700 billion dollars and with zero oversight. That is more than the combined budgets of the Department of Defense, Education, and Health combined.

Call your Senator or congress critter of choice, and make it clear that you have no desire to see your financial future and that of your children handed over to one man with zero oversight. This is, simply put, outrageous.

As seen on the internets:

While dropping a friend off at the airport today, Carrie noted that Cleveland Hopkins is permanently on an ORANGE alert, which indicates a HIGH RISK of terrorist activity.

I was digging through this blog looking for a Muppet version of the terrorism alert scale, which I thought I had linked to once before… and cannot find at this point. However, I discovered that in 2003 (yes, that’s five years ago now), I actually wrote about this:

Fear has long been the tool of tyrants and despots. It is a powerful mechanism for control, but any population made to live in fear will eventually wake up and realize that the thing they have been conditioned to fear has long since died, or that the fear has been stoked and fed by the very agents who are supposed to dispel that fear, and make their world a better place.

I titled the post Orange alert, my ass. I was an angry young man back then; now, I’m just young. And much better looking. And very self-affirming, with a great sense of humor. And I’m still amazed by the persistent culture of fear-mongering that has taken root in this country.

PS. I found it! The muppet terror alert level indicator can be found at http://www.geekandproud.net/terror/.

I think this thing is hilarious.