Old Fogey's Quotes on Hunger, Over-Indulgence, and Bush Cover-ups

They really are all tied together

"If we ought to be able to do anything as a country, it's that we ought to be able to get enough adequate, decent food to everybody."
Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center.
Democrats Say Hunger Report Stalled
[The above article notes that since 1999, the number of people struggling with hunger has risen from 31 million to 38 million in 2004. At the same time we are spending hundreds of billions dollars in Iraq and to pay the interest on the national debt. Please don't tell me we don't have the money to be sure everyone has enough to eat]

"So you can say, 'Turn on my air conditioning, I want my shades up three-quarters of the way, I want the football game on mute and my favorite CD playing when I get home."
Christopher Mathieson, referring to computerized control panels that allow owners to tinker with their apartment from anywhere in the world.
1 BR, Fully Loaded
[It's a shame that the poor don't have a computerized control panel to ensure there will be food on the table when they get home from work]

''Taxpayers do not fund scientific research so the Bush White House can alter it.''
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., referring to ''coordinated, sweeping investigations of the Bush administration's censorship and suppression'' of federal research into global warming by the Department of Commerce and NASA
Censorship on Global Warming Alleged
[I guess that "science is for sissies" in this real-man, butt-kicking administration of King George the Cowboy]

“Here you are standing in an employment line at my age. Nobody wants you no more. You’re left out. You’re not American no more.”
James Hash, standing in line at unemployment center in Tennessee
Related Article
[The new poor are people who have worked hard in manufacturing jobs all their lives only to lose their jobs and often their pensions to plant closings. I guess we could still say almost all Americans lived above the poverty line if we set it at the going wages in China and India]

“It’s just stunning. It’s unprecedented.”
Kenneth S. Rogoff, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund , referring to the $800 billion a year leaving the US, which is borrowed from overseas to support our lifestyle
Gambling Against the Dollar
[It seems to me if we don't get minimal fiscal responsibilty, the national credit card will soon be maxed out. But like the consequences of the Iraq debacle, the Bushies are hoping to postpone the reckoning until they will have someone else to blame]

"So many different kinds of scandals going on at the same time, that's pretty unique. There were scandals throughout the '70s, multiple scandals, but the number of stories now are almost overwhelming."
Julian E. Zelizer, a congressional historian at Boston University.
Scandals Alone Could Cost Republicans Their House Majority
[Looks like we have a lot of Neros, fiddling away while climate disaster and more poverty lurk on the horizon. Perhaps if these guys were less interested in lining their pockets and expanding their power, some progress could have been made.]