An Empire in Decline

There have been a number of articles like this one recently.  How can our leaders not see that our incessant focus on extending our power and influence is destroying us from within?  From Atrios:

We're The Greatest Nation In The History Of The Universe

Not any more.

This should be required reading for the President, every cabinet member and every member of Congress.

I'm Back!

Sorry to have been gone for so long.  For those of you who wonder why.... from the NY Journal-News on July 21:

Family escapes overnight
fire in Southeast
SOUTHEAST — A family that woke up to fire was able
to call 911 and get out of the home before anyone
was injured.
The fire at 58 Allview Ave. started shortly before 4 a.m.
Volunteers from the Brewster Fire Department
arrived to see smoke coming from the single-family
home.
The fire was out within five minutes and did not
cause major structural damage, the fire department
said.
Investigators were determining a cause.

Here's another article from the Journal-News on July 22:

Second suspicious fire at
Southeast home of Lorraine
Mitts
SOUTHEAST — State police are investigating the
cause of a small fire at the home of a former Town 
Board member after investigators determined the
blaze was suspicious.
The Allview Avenue home of Sean and Lorraine Mitts
was the site of an earlier suspicious fire in 2007 as
well as other acts of vandalism.
The 4 a.m. fire Wednesday was quickly doused and
caused minor damage, said Brewster Assistant Fire
Chief Tom Leather. It was confined to a foyer area of
the home, he said. Someone in the house
discovered the fire and called 911.
But the case was turned over to state police after
investigators determined the blaze's origin to be
suspicious, Leather said.
Lorraine Mitts is a former council member who ran
unsuccessfully for supervisor in 2007, and Sean
Mitts is a Brewster Board of Education trustee. They
have two sons.
On June 14, 2007, a 100-year-old barn on their
Allview Avenue property used for storage burned to
the ground. That followed an October 2006 incident
when someone threw a 15-lb. rock through a bay
window at the Mitts' home and a January 2006
incident when someone splattered red paint on their
antique front doors.
Mitts, who was a Republican councilwoman from
2003 to 2007, left a Town Board meeting in
February 2006 and found a decapitated Barbie doll
covered in ketchup inside a bag that was hanging
from her car's rear-view mirror.
Lorraine Mitts said Thursday she had no comment
on the latest incident.
At the time of the barn fire, she speculated that the
disturbing events were directed toward her due to
her involvement in town politics. Her husband, she
jokingly said at the time, "is much nicer than I am."
The Putnam County Fire Cause and Origin Team investigated the June 2007 fire, Capt. William
McNamara of the Putnam County Sheriff's Office said
in an e-mail Thursday, and its findings were
inconclusive.
The Mittses had also hired their own fire inspector
to go over the fire scene and offered a $5,000
reward for information relating to the two earlier
acts of vandalism.

 

Needless to say, things have been a little crazy for the past month or so.  But they're beginning to settle down....