0688 - ChungLingSoo

As Readers fond of trivia know, Chung Ling Soo was the stage name of William Robinson, a magician whose famous act was to have audience members mark bullets, and then have a gun fired at him, "catching" the marked bullets with his teeth. Alas, on March 23, 1918, when the gun was fired, it actually shot him dead. [Date courtesy of our History Channel calendar.] What is the relevance? Well, it reminds us of the Iraq war and the behavior of one Dick Cheney, who seems to be playing Chung Ling Soo. An article in The Economist asks the question why Cheney devoted so much time and energy to destroying Joseph Wilson, who said, rightly, that Saddam was not buying uranium from Niger. Why was Cheney so "obsessed"? Did he know the administration was lying about WMDs? No, says the author, he seemed to really think Saddam was a nuclear possessor and was, well, shot with his fake gun.

We note this quaint coincidence because the TV is chock full of the plight of the hapless and badly unimpressive Attorney General, under heavy attack for telling differing stories about his firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. The story, the kind the TV loves, is whether he too will go the way of Rummy. To our reflective Staff, the question should be whether he should be dismissed for multiple violences on the Constitution, for endless imprisonments on Guantanamo, and for standing for torture. Off to Gitmo for him, yes, but stop babbling about who Congress can subpoena.

Here on Anguilla, luckily, we do not have this sort of problem. Yesterday, the island was inundated with several thousand visitors to a concert by one Buffett – the singer, not the famed investor. The OO and neighbors all hid out at their quiet East end of the island until the crisis passed. Shall we ever hear the end of the Iraq crisis?

Meanwhile, work is drawing to a close on our monster expand-the-office construction at The Objective Observatory. By the time the U.S. election rolls around, we will be staffed and ready, with a double size office. Which brings up the question, what about Microsoft Vista? Is the thing working, or not, and is it reliable yet? And, most important, can our fine ancient programs (like Rhyme) work on Vista? If not, how will we be prepared to write our election ode to Obama? These thoughts come from a fancy new digital 5.8 cordless phone. The instruction for this is on a sheet of paper the size of a large rug, and just as easy to read. If we get a Vista computer, how big will the instructions be? Is this Progress? Is the Bush Administration progress? Is the new Democratic Congress progress when it passes an end- the-war bill containing spinach and dairy subsidies. What foolishness! Shame! The next thing you know they will be subsidizing broccoli, plainly an outrage on society.

Perhaps our querulousness is just a sign of being "doited", meaning dazed or crazy, as in old age. Or, maybe that's what's the matter with Cheney. All of Washington is suffering from "Opinionatry" – that is, obstinacy, inflexibility, stubbornness. What we need is something computers now have, called "Flash memory." Yes, that's the ticket! When the multiple stupidities of modern politics tend to overwhelm, just plug in another megabyte or two of flash memory, and relax. Or maybe they will invent "Flush memory" – push the handle and flush away the many recent stupidities.

Or, maybe, we are either (a) taking the incumbent dolts too seriously or (b) not reading our Forgotten English calendar. The word for Washington syndrome is "Pseudomania", meaning "an insane tendency to make false statements". That's it, all right.

Next time: Brilliancy [OO #689]

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