Don't look now but more doom and gloom is on the horizon. According some sources, there are indications that nukes might already be planted on US soil. John J. Albanese writes about it in this article. It's not a pleasant thought.

These August vacations make me nervous. Bush doesn't seem to pay inordinate attention to his decisionmaking process at the best of times, and much less when he's busy clearing brush.

It doesn't ease my mind that President Bush will surpass 362 days of vacation during his tenure in office. I believe this will be the day count by the end of this current August, 2005 trip. Yes, I know he does some work on these trips but it's still a rather large amount of time to be on vacation. Nearly 20% of his time in office has been spent at the Crawford ranch. Of course, the reason he doesn't have to work longer hours is because he goes with his gut rather than his mind. Never mind all that "thinking" stuff. Thinking is for ordinary folks, not someone guided by a divine voice in his head. How nice for him.

Perhaps this penchant for tough talk and minimal office work is the best indication that this is a laisse faire president whose "subordinates" actually do all of the policy research and planning. In other words, Bush is the figurehead while an evil cabal really controls the reins of power. This is nothing new, he's just an obvious and exaggerated case of it. It's been said often over the last decades that the presidency isn't won on policy or clear vision for the country, it's won on popularity. Is a popularity contest the best way of choosing? I don't think so.

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This is PBU33, counting down to the Apocalypse with the Progressive Blogger Union (not to be confused with the Union of Concerned Scientists or the atomic countdown of the "Doomsday Clock.") Other subjective and objective views on possible doomsday scenarios can be found under the subject header "PBU33" at the PBU group at Flickr.