John Bolton and his affair with Congress

John Bolton was nominated to take over as UN ambassador. Unfortunately, he's never been confirmed. He's just acting like an ambassador, folks. So President Bush asked that this and retroactively confirming his NSA domestic surveillance program. But Senator Lincoln Chaffee has said that he plans to block Bolton's confirmation. Even though he didn't get elected, he feels that Americans do not like the way Bush is doing things, especially his foreign policy decisions. Not to mention, Bolton abuses his subordinates apparently. He also likes to exaggerate and take facts out of context. Well, who doesn't like to do that?

In India, there's a man who is being punished with 51 slaps for raping a mute and deaf woman. Really! He supposedly raped her in a field when she was returning from work. Her complaint has seemingly gone unheeded by local police so the Village court took it upon themselves. The village courts do not really handle legal disputes but land disputes. They fined the man 5,000 Rupees (which amounts $110) and to be slapped 51 times with an open hand. The woman's husband persued it for his wife due to restricted ability to communicate.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair opposes Saddam Hussein being hung. I actually agree. I am opposed to the death penalty. The idea of hanging someone in this day and age as well, makes me very uncomfortable. Apparently, he also is opposed to it because he wouldn't want anyone to get the death penalty.

On this day. in 1969, Sesame Street debuted. The world of Children's television would never be the same.

On this day, in 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, an ore bulk carrier, went down in Lake Superior. She left Superior, Wisconsin headed for Detroit on Novemeber 9th but went down on the 10th. All hands were lost. It was immortalised in Canadian singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot's song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.

With a load of iron ore - 26,000 tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconson
As the big freighters go it was bigger than most
With a crew and the Captain well seasoned.

Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ships bell rang
Could it be the North Wind they'd been feeling.

The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
T'was the witch of November come stealing.

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashing
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane West Wind

When supper time came the old cook came on deck
Saying fellows it's too rough to feed ya
At 7PM a main hatchway caved in
He said fellas it's been good to know ya.

The Captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the words turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd fifteen more miles behind her.

They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the ruins of her ice water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.

And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed, 'til it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.