Yeah! Great-god-in-the-morning, aren't there times when you wish you could sit down and write about the things that just make you nuts?

You bet, me too.

Fortunately, in my case I'm a writer and so I've dedicated a portion of this writing site to just those things. Who knows, maybe we share one or two?

• Taking His Name in Vain
  There are slightly different versions of the particular commandment by God that speaks of his name and how it shall be used; not taking his name in vain being the short version.
• A Hat-Trick For Pharmaceutical Killing
  Four or five thousand deaths doesn’t square with the advertising image of a young girl, asthma-free in a field of flowers.
• For Pfizer, Killing You is an Inconvenient Side Effect
  It’s a here-we-go-again moment, another pill company giving not a tinkers damn about the side effects of their dangerous answer to whatever your level of joint-pain might be.
• Stand and Deliver
  But Congress, in its wisdom, failed to fund the most expensive war we have ever fought and (ditto) failed to fund the most expensive natural disaster the nation has ever known. That’s what is known as going two for two and it’s not always a sports metaphor.
• Another 'War' On This Or That
  I was amazed to read just yesterday that you needn’t travel to the Middle East to find a War on Christians. Rick Scarborough, a large-caliber televangelist guy (what other kind is there?) hosted the initial declaration of this particular war.
• As Angry As I Have Ever Been
  I really don’t know where to start with this one, without sounding Maureen Dowd-like. Maureen’s shrill and constant one-note harping has, for me, become mere background music to what may once have been a defensible position.
• Things I Learn On the Way to Other Things
  I don't like child-abusers, particularly wealthy ones who are politically connected and institutionalize their abuse. They abused their own child in a similar program. It's what inspired them to cripple other young lives.
• The Flim-Flam Man, Details at Nine
  St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans’ famed Jackson Square, illuminated by financial smart-bombs, shuddering under the weight of administration wage-agreements that further depress the region and line the pockets of contractors and blitzed by the president’s carefully scripted words, is the opening scene of the federal flim-flam.
• Will the Last Woman With a Voice, Please Turn Out the Lights
  Before Roe vs. Wade, no rich women were out there at risk because they all had the dough to go elsewhere, even if elsewhere was Europe with a vacation thrown in. No, it’s the poor and the scared and the powerless who pay.
• A Tale of Four Generals
  WARNING: Reading this commentary may be injurious to your perception of the United States Army, its traditions and command structure.
• Sense and Nonsense
  The sense is that the Senate finally approved an exemption for gun manufacturers that frees them from liability when someone misuses their product. The nonsense is that we still have no practical control over guns in this country.
• America Dishonored
  For the first time that I know of, an American president has been declared to be a source of law instead of beholden to it.
• Shaw's Law
  “When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.” – George Bernard Shaw
• Photoshopping the First Amendment
  Did you know?---I certainly didn’t---that in country rank for free and unencumbered press, America is tied with Estonia, Latvia and Barbados at 24th out of the 194 countries ranked.
• Follow the Yellow-Brick Road
  t must be that number 66 that fundamentalist Christians fear so much, that old Devil at work again during this 66th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz and Kansas has gone nuts.
• The Row Over Roe
  Charles Krauthammer is one of my favorite conservative columnists and he takes a fairly balanced look at Tom DeLay and others' recent foaming at the mouth concerning judicial activism.
• The Day the Lights Went Out
  I read some years ago that we could be crippled as a nation by detonation of a nuclear bomb in the sub-stratosphere.
• Include Me Out
  When Congress mulls this one over and it comes to deciding who pays, include me out.
• Parachuting In
  My God, what a novice I proved myself to be yesterday (The Wall Street Welcome), suggesting that the golden parachutes of departing CEO’s were out of hand.
• The Wall Street Welcome
  Carly Fiorina’s exit package is still causing enough turbulence to rock all incoming boats.
• Minimum Wage With the Emphasis on Minimum
  I know all the arguments; that it’s only kids getting it, an increase will lose jobs and no one actually lives on minimum wages.
• Service Jobs? Excuse Me?
  My bank delights in telling me how important my call is to their entire organization and that I will be helped by absolutely the next available operator.
• Two Guys Who Need to Lose a Star
  It’s only right . . . do the right stuff and get promoted, screw up and get pulled a grade or two . . . works for enlisted men and (presumably) officers as well.
• W's Willing Deficit
  A doctor friend of mine says that the first thing they teach you in medical school is that all bleeding stops eventually.
• Another Fart in a Whirlwind
  An expensive fart, an eighty-five million dollar fart in a whirlwind no one needs.
• A Market Economy Gone Rogue
  I am a lifelong ‘market economy’ supporter, a guy who thinks the major force behind our national success is surely part multi-ethnic, part individual opportunity, part regulatory simplicity, but mostly developing markets where they did not exist.
• Quick to Denounce the Wrong Issue
  No grass growing under Senator Grassley’s feet as he moves quickly to stamp out a tax break for façade easements.
• Going Up in Smoke
  Attorney General nominee Gonzales lit his own tail on fire in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
• Gonzales Policy Doesn't Bind, Unless it Does
  That is it would have, if it had, but it didn’t, depending upon who and when it was supposed to, if it did at all, which probably isn’t likely whenever that question was appropriate to ask.
• Another Toy for the Donald
  Not that Donald, although congratulations are in order for his wedding. No, it’s Rummy we’re talking about and his new sleuthing machine, something conjured up to set those CIA rascals back on their heels.
• Another Toy for the Donald, Part Two
  Well, John McCain was listening and claimed to be not all that happy about reading things that pertained to his Senate committee in the Washington Post.
• A Little Song, a Little Dance (a little high-test down your pants)
  You gotta hand it to Chevron-Texaco and “trust the man who wears the star” to jump right in there when times are tough, the country is at war and a quick profit can be turned.
• The Mouse that Roared
  Maybe you remember that outrageous and wonderful movie with Peter Sellers playing all three main roles about the fictional European principality of Grand Fenwick.
• I'm Irresponsible, Give Me Money!
  We all have our favorites to trot out at cocktail parties (does anyone actually have those anymore?) but this will do for the moment, from today's Washington Post:
• Don't Look to Pogo for an Explanation
  There is scarcely an excuse for not knowing the issues of the past election except for John Kerry's outrageous inability to define them in terms the electorate could understand.
• Alan Greenspan's Got a Plan
  Senate committees are always awed by Alan. Part of it is they seldom understand what the hell he's talking about and take it for profundity.
• Stop Me, Before I Sociologise Again
  Dalton looks deeply into his sociological crystal ball and finds there, a plan to compensate black American families for the 150 years of deprivation they presumably suffered from slavery.
• Ads for Wonder Drugs
  A look at those wonderful double-page spreads in your favorite magazine
• The Sting
  The dollar is weak-kneed against all the world's currencies, behaving like a grouchy old uncle that no one wants to invite to dinner when compared to the euro and yen
• Our National Mom-In-Law
  Their fussbudgetry sends sons-in-law to the local saloon and daughters-in-law to lie down for twenty minutes in a dark room. It's annoying and we live with it as best we can, but up until now it's never been foreign policy.
• The Deadly Assessory
  Bushwhacker is one name they go by and I guess there are others---those Rhino-like chromium bulldozer bumpers that are so often attached to the front of whatever SUV claims to be the big dog in the park
• Our Pants Have Long Been Pressed in the American Crease
  Reading last night, a low fire burning comfortably in the fireplace, isolated in this small Czech village and snug (smug?) in the vastness of my personal comfort.
• The IRS Gets It Wrong Again
  The Internal Revenue Service has a new broom, Commissioner Mark Everson, who's declaring war on low income tax cheaters.
• Hands in Cookie Jars
  Overfed these days on paranoia, California's 'three-strike' law unbalances the justice we pride ourselves on
• Alarms in the Night
  That 2:30am urge to take a baseball bat to the car screaming in the street
• The Fun of Fundamentals
  It's hard out there in the business world. You have to factor in the International dynamics and pay attention to the fundamentals
• Judgement Without Judgement
  It's refreshing to see that someone has finally shown as much disregard for sensible judgment as the oft-criticized and much-maligned American jury
• Someone's Got Your Number
  So, I'm kind of a numbers guy, I admit it. Numbers get my attention, but I don't think it's all that unusual in a numbers oriented society
• Middle Predicament
  I'm living for the moment in Middle Predicament. You may know the place. It's really large for such a small town, located out there in middle America not too close to Dire Straits and yet a good long way down the pike from High Cotton
• Widgetry
  I've got a pretty long memory but can't remember a time when there was so much nervous wealth
• Breaking Up is Hard to Do
  A duffer's ode to the game of golf
• In the Melt
  Smoking, thinking about Iraq and life in general
• Death, but for Chance
  The conversation was about death, a dialog that's fascinated mankind as long as he has been aware of his mortality
• Remembering Ray
  A letter in my mailbox this morning from Apryl Kennedy, way over here in the Czech Republic where I live now and I knew the moment I fished it out of the box that Ray was dead
• What Is It Makes Me Sleepless?
  Three in the morning I'm lying there wide awake, wondering if I take a piss if I'll fall back asleep, but my skin tells me it's not going to happen
• Augusta
  Martha Burk drops her ball on the 1st tee
• John Paul-In-A-Box
  It is irreverant to allude to Pope John Paul II's address marking International Women's Day as a Jack-In-The-Box response. But why not?
• It's a Common Complaint
  One is sneered at if one opens a door for a woman, yet I have always opened doors for men as well as women and I'm at a loss as to why courtesy has recently become tainted with feminism
• The Joke Played on Women
  Women's clothing designers hate women. There can be no other possible reason for what I see on the fashion pages of the papers and what's breathlessly reported from the runways in Paris

Get out of the Archives and read what Jim's writing today