Potomac Chronic

It is definitely the political season. Obama says that he wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His opponent Mitt Romney, in turn called the president a poopy head. It is on, ladies and gentlemen and it is all ready way too tiring.

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Saw that the Obama administration is now pushing for company drug testing across the land. It will boost "productivity and reduce health care costs", according to the 2012 National Drug Control Report released Tuesday.

On the heels of the Oaksterdam crackdown, more drug testing? Barrie is sounding more like a Republican every day. The now repentent ex stoner from the Ponahou School appears to have been institutionalized if not completely co-opted. The Young Obama would be very disappointed with this prissy late incarnation. The guy who sounded so cool as a candidate and then conveniently forgot all those promises. Oh, well. Politicians are mostly lawyers and everybody knows lawyers lie.

The political calculus is that the medical and recreational pot community is either too insignificant to harm his election chances or else much more inclined to vote for him than his Republican opponent anyway so you can't blame his strategy, just his about face.

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CIA wants permission to kill people with drone missiles, even when they do not know their identities if there is "intelligence indicating patterns of suspicious behavior." I applaud the move. Can't make omelettes without breaking a few eggs and win a few, lose a few. And hey they are only Yemenis, its not like they are going to come over here and kick our ass, right?

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American Catholic nuns are on the hot seat over radical, feminist views according to a new Vatican report. The archbishop from Seattle has been appointed to kick a little butt and get the sisters in line.

Network is a catholic group formed in 1971 that focussed on the dumb stuff like "poverty, immigration and health care." They were silent on abortion and it evidently pissed off some of the boys overseas.

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Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is upset with the Los Angeles Times for printing two of the least gruesome photographs of members of the 82nd Airborne with mutilated corpses. I can see the reason for his discomfort but think that his ire should be reserved for his own troops, the people actually responsible for the pictures.

As a student of history with a fondness for 17th century Japan, I can tell you that these types of war trophies are as old as combat. During the time of Ida Nobunaga troops would have to bring back heads of opposition leaders. I doubt that there was ever a war where soldiers didn't help themselves to these types of morbid parting gifts.

These soldiers are not robots, nor crusaders. They are men and women with real emotions. That is why so many of them come back so messed up. Killing is barbaric by nature, no matter how noble the supposed cause. War is crazy and people are all affected differently. Can't be sanitized.