Delay, WikiLeaks, Plame, and FOX 11.26.10

With Stars Over Washington still lounging about somewhere near Atlanta, GA on Thanksgiving holiday 2010 (well, there's only me, really) I've taken an hour to mosey round the Web and catch up on all the news I can smoosh into such a brief time.

Two of the four bits that stood out to me are the (long overdue) conviction of gangster Tom Delay for money laundering, and the upcoming release of a WikiLeaks cache revealing what global diplomats say about their governments and think of one another. How groovy! Sounds like a grand idea to me especially as an astrologer who likes to peek under the hood of politics at what political hoodlums and their brethren are secretly up to!

Might the new revelations from WikiLeaks cause havoc, interfere with so-called diplomacy, and undermine war? You betcha! Yet what causes more havoc than war - and perpetual, illegally waged at that?

Also the release of the Valerie Plame-Joe Wilson film starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn may be elucidating as well for I did have a chance to watch Tavis Smiley interview them this week on his program. It's the Hollywoodesque-ing of Washington, yes, but good stuff.

Fourth is the crazy tale of how the FOX organization's fans and dupes took a satirical story in The Onion as gospel: it was a "75,000-word email" supposedly sent "to America" by Barack Obama detailing what some readers determined was evidence of the President's 'breakdown' which convinced them that he should be removed from office based on only the "email", that he should be sent to a shrink, etc. (If he keeps such an appointment, he should take all Washington warmongers and certain media moguls with him.)

The amazing degree of their rabid-fox gullibility defies description except to be breath-taking in its hilarity - a definite gotcha moment for any anti-Obamaist who apparently can't recognize The Onion's satire when they see it because the fakery plays conveniently into a typical FOX News propaganda script. Duh.

So, in honor of anyone and everyone who leaks the truth, tells it from the start, appreciates those who do, or uses satire to point it out, here is a quote brought to you compliments of the excellent Information Clearing House Newsletter where you'll find interesting articles galore on these and other newsworthy topics:

"Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions."

-Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), literary essayist, author; Source: The Suppression of Poisonous Opinions, 1883

See you all on Sunday - opinions, hood-peekings, and all!

Jude, the Dissenter (whose only nag in the race is America)