THE PEACOCK REPORT (TPR)

Armor & Irony: Destroy the Village & Sell Huts to Homeless Villagers

Isn't it ironic that U.S. industry produces items such as mini armored troop carriers while simultaneously manufacturing bombs known as sensor fuzed weapons, which are made to destroy such human-delivery watercraft?

Come to think of it, they probably limit sales of this disparate combination of protective and destructive goods to just the good guys. So, there you have it: a natural and understandable balance to an otherwise contradictory production schema. Similarly, I have found such a logical balance in the attempted bribery of Congress, whose members -- such as my dear congressman Rep. Don Sherwood (R-Pa.), indicted ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), and incarcerated felons such as ex-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Cal.) -- have stood side-by-side to collect millions of dollars from the political action committees of global military-hardware behemoths such as Textron.

Jobs, Rejoice! Price Chopper Now Offers Hobson's Choice

The Washington Post reported that U.S. employers added 243,000 jobs last month. Most notable is Post writer Neil Irwin's proclamation that these U.S. Dept. of Labor statistics are "the latest evidence that the U.S. economy began the year on an upswing."

Let's keep in mind that the DoL stats may or may not be as reliable as President Bush's claim that Iraq in 2001 was a threat to our national security. Okay, maybe that's somewhat harsh. Instead, let me recast the validity of those numbers on the level of, say, the Reagan Administration's stance in the 1980s that Nicaragua was a threat to U.S. sovereignty, thereby requiring U.S. Special Forces to flood that nation's waterways with mines. The Texas border was, after all, just a two-day drive away from Managua.

Perhaps I digress. Back to the Post article, placed in the context of the booming job market here in Northeastern Pennsylvania.