the past ... again

.
And in the news that caught my paltry attention this morning:

-- The decomposed body of a woman was found on the 20,000-acre royal estate at Sandringham and is being treated as a murder. Is this true or is it simply a teaser for some relatively-intelligent British who-dunnit on public television?

-- The rising tide of on-line holiday purchases is expected to ebb (big time) as people rush to correct their earlier, one-click generosities.

-- Oil giant BP is suing Halliburton, another economic giant, over $42 billion costs incurred during the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. No doubt the economic fallout will rain down on unsuspecting taxpayers, but in the meantime there is something satisfying about the battle between careless titans.

-- Today, Iowa voters will express their preferences for a Republican presidential nominee, not one of whom, as far as I can determine, has openly taken a stand on anything they are credibly 'for.' The caucuses in Iowa are the first voting activity in the race for the White House in 2012. And in the midst of it all -- debates, kissing babies, hand shakes, attack ads, vapid sincerity swathed in scowling pronouncements -- no one is mentioning former Republican President George W. Bush. Not even the Republicans dare to link arms with the man who gave us two wars and created a deficit where finances had been in the black... a man who demeaned the nation under cover of a tattered 'patriotism.' Bush was a man and a president who makes it abundantly clear that democracy is capable of profound idiocies. But as former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once observed,  "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the rest."
.