Odds and Ends

This is a strange article from CBS News. It purports to be a news story about the Dalai Lama visiting the White House to meet with Obama, but then it turns into an opinion piece suggesting that Obama should use 'his holiness' to mediate a debt ceiling bill. After all, according to the writer of this story his holiness has a lot of experience dealing with the totalitarian communist Chinese government, who haven't been very accommodating either--just like the GOP!

But maybe it's appropriate for Obama to get advice from his holiness. After all, he just recently admitted to being a Marxist. Maybe that will warrant a more dignified exit through the front door this time.

Speaking of the debt ceiling, why does the 'deadline' keep moving? During the brouhaha earlier this year about whether to pass a short-term continuing resolution (which according to Obama, America doesn't do) in lieu of a real budget (which apparently Congress doesn't do anymore), they were talking about the next big impasse being in March. Apparently they found a way to postpone catastrophe then, why not now?

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With the continuing unrest in Egypt (not being covered in the media anymore) we hear a lot about the Muslim Brotherhood and their future role in the proceedings. Most of the stories from major media sources are sanitized, but to get a real feel of what a Brotherhood leader thinks about world affairs this interview by Michael Totten is a must-read. It's as if he was having a debate with a US liberal on a message board.

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In News of the World news, the WaPo has actually written an article calling into question the highly flammable account of 9/11 victims' cell phones being hacked. Weirdly, all of congressfolk demanding investigations were not available for comment. Meanwhile the NY Times has made the Murdoch tabloid story front page news for a week now. Not that it's not news, but anyone who doesn't think they see some Fox News blood in the water please raise your hand.

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The bodyguard who killed Hamid Karzai's brother was a 'trusted CIA contact'? The story says he had been acting nervously of late, getting calls in the middle of the night and even making a trip to Quetta, Baluchistan province Pakistan, currently the capital of terrorism on planet earth. In other words, he had likely flipped to the Taliban. We don't know whether some of the nervousness was actually due to a tug of war with the CIA (maybe they monitored his trip to Quetta to gain intel) but in the end it was a fail. Anyone who thinks there won't be more flips as the US withdraws please raise your hand.

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Police bust teenage girls in Midway, Georgia for operating a lemonade stand without a permit. They switched to yard work to get their extra money, which as everyone knows is a much safer endeavor because it's a job Americans won't do.

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Not everything is cynicism here at Fore Left. There's always room for some mocking humor as well...

Looks like a good intro to one of those Southwest Airlines commercials. Then again to be fair, perhaps Southwest should make a similar commercial about one of their own pilots.. or even this blogger, who once wrote a post entitled "Obama has no chance".