Failed moralist Bill Bennet wanted to get ahead of the Palin daughter pregnancy on CNN, "things happen in life." No Bill, even an idjit like you ought to be able to figure out pregnancy doesn't just happen. There is a pretty reliable way to get pregnant and it doesn't involve lightning strikes while crossing a deserted street.
I don't give a rat's ass if the girl is easy or whatever or not or anything to do with her. What I do care about is the concrete demonstration of the effectiveness of Abstinence Only as the Governor's stance. The abstinence policy is a failure, demonstrated so. Whatever familial failings or successes Palin has are only her business to deal with, obviously it is too late to make Abstinence Only work in this case.
Now there is something of a disconnect going on here, the Republican VP candidate makes an issue of the Theocratic Republican Family Values and we're not to look at the personal fallout? Somebodies do have to deal with the fallout of the failure of public policy. Why exactly is the candidate exempt? Only plain John and Jane Doe are up for discussion when a national policy fails? I have exactly no intention of playing at the daughter's moral standing, it isn't an issue. Momma's policies and their fallout are the issue and a pregnant teenage unmarried high school daughter is fallout.
The woman wants to teach ignorance - creationism, abstinence, Christian nationhood, the superstitious jingoistic theocratic junk of the Republican Theocrats and that is an issue. The Republican VP candidate thinks the Pledge, with "under God", was good enough for the Founders. The Pledge was written a century after the Constitution and the "under God" added in 19damn54. This kind of stupid ignorance in a VP candidate could only pass muster in the Theocon Republican Party. You are (and should be) free to have whatever religious belief you choose, that doesn't allow you to re-make history in whatever mold pleases you. Invoking the Founders in support of your religion is more ignorance of history or propagandist rewriting of it, this would be why the Constitution prohibits a religious test. It doesn't take a history major to know this stuff and the Pledge and Christian Nation have been subjects of sufficient dispute that anyone who cares an iota about it has had ready access to facts. Apparently facts don't count to Palin.
If you think this End Times Millennial Christianity thing Palin is involved in is mainstream or historical Christian belief you need to give Hart Williams a visit and he'll lay it out clearly, if not real politely, for you. You might find certain mindsets not real favorable in a world leader - as I remember the Islamist view of Iran's government puts some people on edge. Am I raising the spector of an American Talibanism? You betcha.
These people really suck, not kinda, lots and lots.
Monday, September 01, 2008
Heck Of A Job, Brownie
Since it looks like the Republican Convention won't be forced to have George II inflicted on them, courtesy of Gustav, nor apparently the Dick, and not even McPOW...I guess they'll have a heck of a good time. The coppers are cleaning up the town of riff-raff (profanity warning) so there'll be no shenanigans. They may have a telethon to get money for the disaster - to make up for all the attempts McPOW voted against. You suppose the Media will mention that little detail as he photo-ops the unfolding disaster? While McCain with no authority gets in the way looking important Rick Davis slams Obama for playing politics while Gustav looms by criticizing McCain/Palin today. It is pretty pathetic.
When a Democrat has the temerity to note with black humor that the Democrats had fine weather despite Republican prayers and the Republicans get Gustav the Republicans blow a gasket. While I am sincerely distressed that the area may get slammed once again, it is also a fine reminder of the Republican idea of governing and its outcomes. George II says he's going to stay out of the way, just be near by. I'm pretty sure phone calls get to St Paul just as fast as they do to Texas, but looking like he's doing something versus actually having done something - like take care of the mess over the last 3 years is important - politically.
If it were the Republican Party getting smashed by Gustav, I'm not sure I would shed tears; but as it is the innocent will once again suffer while those responsible will profit. You know the media won't dare ask any embarrassing questions or point out uncomfortable truths while there's a big blow going on. Probably not after, either.
There will be those who sympathize with the Republicans for having their party stomped on by Gustav, certainly the protesters will be disappointed. I think this is probably the very best thing that could happen for the GOP. This way the prominent no-shows won't matter, the Bush/Cheney embarrassment is avoided, and their show and candidate don't have to compete with the Democrats. C'mon, that a win. McCain can phone in and not look like the horrid speaker he is and their vacuous ideas won't get wall to wall media exposure. How unfortunate...
When a Democrat has the temerity to note with black humor that the Democrats had fine weather despite Republican prayers and the Republicans get Gustav the Republicans blow a gasket. While I am sincerely distressed that the area may get slammed once again, it is also a fine reminder of the Republican idea of governing and its outcomes. George II says he's going to stay out of the way, just be near by. I'm pretty sure phone calls get to St Paul just as fast as they do to Texas, but looking like he's doing something versus actually having done something - like take care of the mess over the last 3 years is important - politically.
If it were the Republican Party getting smashed by Gustav, I'm not sure I would shed tears; but as it is the innocent will once again suffer while those responsible will profit. You know the media won't dare ask any embarrassing questions or point out uncomfortable truths while there's a big blow going on. Probably not after, either.
There will be those who sympathize with the Republicans for having their party stomped on by Gustav, certainly the protesters will be disappointed. I think this is probably the very best thing that could happen for the GOP. This way the prominent no-shows won't matter, the Bush/Cheney embarrassment is avoided, and their show and candidate don't have to compete with the Democrats. C'mon, that a win. McCain can phone in and not look like the horrid speaker he is and their vacuous ideas won't get wall to wall media exposure. How unfortunate...
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Republicans Don't Understand What Corruption Is
After almost 8 years of corrupt behavior at the top of the government by Republicans you'd think the Party would begin to understand what defines it. But noooooo. 8 years of cronyism no-bid contracts, religious/political tested hirings and firings, political destruction of a CIA operative, fictitious war intelligence, un-Civil Rights DOJ actions, illegal destruction of the 4th Amendment, etc ad nauseum and they don't get it exactly this much - Sarah Palin.
No, this isn't ideology, it is about the use of a high public office to interfere in a personal/familial relationship. It is about firing the head of Public Safety in Alaska for not firing Palin's ex-brother in law for allegations in a custodial suit. Palin, as Governor of Alaska fired a public official for personal reasons, she used her office for personal ends to the possible deficit of her citizenry - a law suit. This isn't a left wing joke, it is really serious business, it is exactly as corrupt as government gets.
I don't care if the allegations against her sister's ex-husband are true or not, there is a process for determining that and it must be followed. She broke that rule for her reasons. She stinks to high heaven as a VP candidate. My bet is that the bipartisan committee in the Alaskan legislature is going to find against her and that will cause deserved heart burn for the McCain campaign. POW or otherwise this is inexcusable, a demonstration that the rule of law is suspended if you are Republican.
Possibly you haven't understood why I am so dead set against John McCain and why I keep bringing up Chuck Keating - the man is corrupt to his core. He believes in it, this Palin story didn't just break. Considering the norm of corruption in Alaska it was scarcely a national story until he took that Alaskan corruption into the national scene. He calls Palin a reformer, this reform would just barely pass as sufficient governance in most of the other 49 states. As an Oregonian I am offended that he makes a case that this is bringing reform anywhere other than Alaska, in this state her idea of reform would result in the bunch being run out of town on a rail. Ted Stevens was her pal until he was indicted, well actually, per her website, until McCain announced her. Ted Steven was known crooked long before she was elected Governor and she liked him fine until...the FBI raided his offices and home last year, well before she disowned him - and his Bridge. She'll fit in fine with the McCain, Gramm, Black, Scheunemann, Rove bunch, Americans not so well - I hope.
No, this isn't ideology, it is about the use of a high public office to interfere in a personal/familial relationship. It is about firing the head of Public Safety in Alaska for not firing Palin's ex-brother in law for allegations in a custodial suit. Palin, as Governor of Alaska fired a public official for personal reasons, she used her office for personal ends to the possible deficit of her citizenry - a law suit. This isn't a left wing joke, it is really serious business, it is exactly as corrupt as government gets.
I don't care if the allegations against her sister's ex-husband are true or not, there is a process for determining that and it must be followed. She broke that rule for her reasons. She stinks to high heaven as a VP candidate. My bet is that the bipartisan committee in the Alaskan legislature is going to find against her and that will cause deserved heart burn for the McCain campaign. POW or otherwise this is inexcusable, a demonstration that the rule of law is suspended if you are Republican.
Possibly you haven't understood why I am so dead set against John McCain and why I keep bringing up Chuck Keating - the man is corrupt to his core. He believes in it, this Palin story didn't just break. Considering the norm of corruption in Alaska it was scarcely a national story until he took that Alaskan corruption into the national scene. He calls Palin a reformer, this reform would just barely pass as sufficient governance in most of the other 49 states. As an Oregonian I am offended that he makes a case that this is bringing reform anywhere other than Alaska, in this state her idea of reform would result in the bunch being run out of town on a rail. Ted Stevens was her pal until he was indicted, well actually, per her website, until McCain announced her. Ted Steven was known crooked long before she was elected Governor and she liked him fine until...the FBI raided his offices and home last year, well before she disowned him - and his Bridge. She'll fit in fine with the McCain, Gramm, Black, Scheunemann, Rove bunch, Americans not so well - I hope.
Sometimes, as the Republicans may note (as Gustav interferes), god ain't on your side just because you invoke him:
Well, no it doesn't offer squat, now:
I bring this failure to your attention as a public service to those who actually believe the Republican faith based claptrap concerning government. God evidently can't run a bank and certainly shouldn't be in charge of governing a nation. I don't mind a bit churches and people's various religions, but there is a place for that.
Oh, yeah, George the Second says that you needn't worry,
Yes the GDP growth did increase from 0.9% in the first quarter to 3.3% in the second quarter but the stimulus checks are spent and increasing unemployment, crashed housing, and rising costs will probably flatten the snot out of the third quarter. But our President has faith based assurances for you and surely god will help him out, like always...
Now that Palin is the POW's VP candidate god will undoubtedly smile on the Republic-an once again. While so many scoff at the Iranians and their Mullah based government they ignore all the "moral" laws the US has...which are based on what morality - Bible? I vastly prefer a government which makes no pretence to morality, minds ethics and protects individual liberty and civil order and leaves morality to the province of those able to engage in it. A government can be a theocracy, but it cannot be moral. Morality involves personal choice not forced coercion - ie law enforcement. A politician can be moral, but a government cannot. If there is any morality in our form of government, it is the Bill of Rights which lays out a proscription from governing in certain areas of life.
You just cannot get it through some people's heads that a law against murder or theft is not about the morality of such an act, it is about the protection of civil order from such things. Very few would engage in that behavior if it were not against the law, the law is there to provide consequences for those who would disrupt their fellows lives in such a manner and remove their negative impact. To touch on something perhaps a bit less obvious, the prohibition of child pornography doesn't exist because it is nasty or immoral, but because it involves the imposition of a behavior on those unable to make an informed choice to engage in it - social disorder.
You don't run banks or governments on godliness, you run them on sound rational processes designed to accomplish their ends. Don't expect the Republicans to grow up, and don't count on the Democrats to not follow them into stupidity - gotta win elections and all.
Integrity Bancshares, Inc. is an Atlanta based bank holding company. Integrity Bank, its wholly-owned subsidiary, is a full service independent community bank. Since its inception in 2000, Integrity has specialized in real estate lending and serving the local communities with its faith-based culture. Keeping its strategy simple and straight-forward, Integrity has grown into a billion dollar organization while maintaining a hometown atmosphere in all of its locations.
Integrity currently operates five full service financial centers and a loan production office in the rapidly growing north metropolitan Atlanta area.
Well, no it doesn't offer squat, now:
FDIC Information for Integrity Bank, Alpharetta, GA
On August 29, 2008, Integrity Bank, Alpharetta, Georgia was closed by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance. Subsequently the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was named Receiver. No advance notice is given to the public when a financial institution is closed.
All deposit accounts have been transferred to Regions Bank, Birmingham, Alabama. For more information on Regions Bank visit us at http://www.regions.com/welcome.
The FDIC has assembled useful information regarding your relationship with Integrity Bank. Besides a checking account, you may have Certificates of Deposit, a business checking account, a Social Security direct deposit, and other relationships with the institution.
I bring this failure to your attention as a public service to those who actually believe the Republican faith based claptrap concerning government. God evidently can't run a bank and certainly shouldn't be in charge of governing a nation. I don't mind a bit churches and people's various religions, but there is a place for that.
Oh, yeah, George the Second says that you needn't worry,
"There have been some recent signs that our economy is beginning to improve."
"The economic stimulus package that I signed earlier this year is having its intended effect," the president said. "Many Americans who received tax rebates are spending them. Businesses are taking advantage of tax incentives to purchase new equipment this year. And there are signs that the stimulus package will continue to have a beneficial impact on the economy in the second half of the year."
Yes the GDP growth did increase from 0.9% in the first quarter to 3.3% in the second quarter but the stimulus checks are spent and increasing unemployment, crashed housing, and rising costs will probably flatten the snot out of the third quarter. But our President has faith based assurances for you and surely god will help him out, like always...
Now that Palin is the POW's VP candidate god will undoubtedly smile on the Republic-an once again. While so many scoff at the Iranians and their Mullah based government they ignore all the "moral" laws the US has...which are based on what morality - Bible? I vastly prefer a government which makes no pretence to morality, minds ethics and protects individual liberty and civil order and leaves morality to the province of those able to engage in it. A government can be a theocracy, but it cannot be moral. Morality involves personal choice not forced coercion - ie law enforcement. A politician can be moral, but a government cannot. If there is any morality in our form of government, it is the Bill of Rights which lays out a proscription from governing in certain areas of life.
You just cannot get it through some people's heads that a law against murder or theft is not about the morality of such an act, it is about the protection of civil order from such things. Very few would engage in that behavior if it were not against the law, the law is there to provide consequences for those who would disrupt their fellows lives in such a manner and remove their negative impact. To touch on something perhaps a bit less obvious, the prohibition of child pornography doesn't exist because it is nasty or immoral, but because it involves the imposition of a behavior on those unable to make an informed choice to engage in it - social disorder.
You don't run banks or governments on godliness, you run them on sound rational processes designed to accomplish their ends. Don't expect the Republicans to grow up, and don't count on the Democrats to not follow them into stupidity - gotta win elections and all.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Hi, Ted - Love Ya, Sarah
Freshly scrubbed from Palin's Website...
Bus, Ted, Under, Thrown, Straight Talk Express
What? It's a news flash that Ted Stevens is corrupt in Alaska? Even in 2006?
Be Careful What You Wish For
A long time ago when I was first sobering up I made a mental note about Prayer - be careful what you wish for. Like many alcoholics/addicts I had very little going for me in the line of patience; immediate gratification after all is a hallmark of the disease. One day I started to pray for patience and then a little light went on in my head, gods or higher powers or whatever object of prayer have other ideas and asking for patience might get me lots of opportunities to practice patience...I didn't need more opportunities. I really already had my hands full.
I was struck by that thought as one of the Evangi-nuts appealed to his Christianist fellows:
Now it hasn't escaped my notice that Hurricane Gustav appears to have pasted a bullseye on New Orleans, not quite on the anniversery of Katrina, and also coinciding with the Republican Convention and Bush's speech. This might be attributing more power to a nitwit from Focus on the Family than is merited, oh hell, it certainly is; but the irony is too rich not to mine.
Since some of this ilk were so ready to blame Katrina's disasterous outcome on the new Soddom and Gomorrah aspects of New Orleans and a gay parade and there isn't one scheduled it would only seem right for that vengeful Jewish god to be making this about St Paul and Republican Conventions. (why note the Jewish god? - well I'll answer that)
[These pissants regularly make claims to Christianity, they invoke the guy at every possible opportunity. The problem is that they seem to take really large portions of their god view from the Old Testament - really big portions. The namesake of their "religion" said "I bring a new way" and that new way would be what he had to say and the god he talked about had Love as a basis - not vengence. That would be why there are Old and New Testaments, the Old one is supposed to be a history lesson - 'this is how we got here where I tell you the rules aren't the same as you thought.' But the Christianists are all caught up in the Jehova of vengence, plagues, destruction, and general meanness and small mindedness. (If you're Jewish, take no offense at me, I don't believe a bit of it - re: god or you) It boggles the mind that they'll use the name of Christ in their rants. "Adam and Eve not Adam and Andy" or AIDs is payback for sin or 9/11 was allowed because...] (If you're a Christianist and take offense - tough, do it differently)
I suppose if we were to get really Fundamentally Insane it would be apt to blame Gustav on McCain's elevation of a woman beyond her station - despite her insistance that...oh cripes the Republican "family values." What you need to keep in mind that this 'elevated' woman has slobbering approval from people that scare fairly conservative Christians. It is too bad that a woman VP candidate has this much going against her because I surely have a real desire to see women take a real place in American politics, but not this one.
I was struck by that thought as one of the Evangi-nuts appealed to his Christianist fellows:
COLORADO SPRINGS – A video producer for Focus on the Family is asking people to pray for rain when Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois) makes his speech at the end of the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Obama is giving his acceptance speech outdoor at Invesco Field at Mile High on Thursday, Aug. 28.
Stuart Shepard made the prayer request in his latest Internet video for the evangelical Christian group.
He says he's only partly joking.
"Sure it's boyish humor perhaps to wish for something like that, but at the same time it's something people feel very strongly about. They're concerned about where he would take the nation," said Shepard.
Shepard does a weekly commentary called Stop Light, produced for the Internet by Focus on the Family Action.
(Copyright KUSA*TV. All rights reserved.)
Now it hasn't escaped my notice that Hurricane Gustav appears to have pasted a bullseye on New Orleans, not quite on the anniversery of Katrina, and also coinciding with the Republican Convention and Bush's speech. This might be attributing more power to a nitwit from Focus on the Family than is merited, oh hell, it certainly is; but the irony is too rich not to mine.
Since some of this ilk were so ready to blame Katrina's disasterous outcome on the new Soddom and Gomorrah aspects of New Orleans and a gay parade and there isn't one scheduled it would only seem right for that vengeful Jewish god to be making this about St Paul and Republican Conventions. (why note the Jewish god? - well I'll answer that)
[These pissants regularly make claims to Christianity, they invoke the guy at every possible opportunity. The problem is that they seem to take really large portions of their god view from the Old Testament - really big portions. The namesake of their "religion" said "I bring a new way" and that new way would be what he had to say and the god he talked about had Love as a basis - not vengence. That would be why there are Old and New Testaments, the Old one is supposed to be a history lesson - 'this is how we got here where I tell you the rules aren't the same as you thought.' But the Christianists are all caught up in the Jehova of vengence, plagues, destruction, and general meanness and small mindedness. (If you're Jewish, take no offense at me, I don't believe a bit of it - re: god or you) It boggles the mind that they'll use the name of Christ in their rants. "Adam and Eve not Adam and Andy" or AIDs is payback for sin or 9/11 was allowed because...] (If you're a Christianist and take offense - tough, do it differently)
I suppose if we were to get really Fundamentally Insane it would be apt to blame Gustav on McCain's elevation of a woman beyond her station - despite her insistance that...oh cripes the Republican "family values." What you need to keep in mind that this 'elevated' woman has slobbering approval from people that scare fairly conservative Christians. It is too bad that a woman VP candidate has this much going against her because I surely have a real desire to see women take a real place in American politics, but not this one.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Sarah...Who???
There are plenty of things about Republicans I do not understand, like the piece where they talk as tough as nails and then squeal about threats requiring the scrapping of civil liberties. I may be missing something but I don't understand why the extemely wealthy need help being wealthy. All that may be primarily ideological, but it takes a thinking process I don't understand to get there.
Now we have anothe example of Republican ability to contradict themselves in essentially the same sentence - Sarah Palin. McCain has made an issue out of Barack Obama's "inexperience" and celebrity versus the "grand old POW candidate" so a 72 year old cancer survivor picks as VP a woman who is a 2 year governor of the 47th most populated state and previously mayor of a 7800 population suburb. Their VP pick had to start out, in her first speech, telling whoppers. She claimed to have told Congress thanks but no thanks to Sen Ted Steven's (R-AK) Bridge to Nowhere; when in fact she said in 2006 that it was important to get Alaska's infrastructure projects under way with a favorable majority in answer to a question regarding that Bridge. In March she called Hillary a "whiner" and today she praised her - odd... Not really if she's supposed to be the "Hillary dead-ender" draw. This woman stands in opposition to virtually everything Hillary campaigned on, anti-abortion rights, drilling ANWAR, global warming as not human influenced...take your pick.
Sarah Palin seems warm and friendly, that might balance McMaverick's temper, but she's an empty hair-do. It will pay the Democrats to define her before the Republicans have that chance. She has no standing whatever nationally and can be easily defined. Her entire reputation seems to be her fight with the Alaskan legislature over corruption. Some questions may be raised about her relations with Ted Stevens since she has some pretty friendly pictures floating around.
She is McCain's bow to the socially conservative wing (read whackos). You will get the Christianist theocratic drum thumping you've waited for. On abortion, rape and incest don't count, it is a case of so-what you bear the child. You have to work very hard to understand that mind set and I'm not willing. I find McPOW offensive at best, this woman makes him look reasonable. I fail to see how prostituting to the Religious Right once again is Mavericky. I guess if you're a Republican or media shill you'll figure it out. Oh yeah John, in search of a VP safety valve for a candidate older than dirt you pick a 2 year governor of a State with a smaller total population than most states have in a single city - there's an expert for you. (Somebody ought to point at Alaska's sucking at the Federal tit)
I'll admit that the idea that one needs years in foreign policy experience to run to be hoo-hoo, I vastly prefer judgement to practice at getting it wrong - John - but some demonstration of one or the other is required. Whatever the grandstanding of the surprise pick, there is a nation to run at stake.
Now we have anothe example of Republican ability to contradict themselves in essentially the same sentence - Sarah Palin. McCain has made an issue out of Barack Obama's "inexperience" and celebrity versus the "grand old POW candidate" so a 72 year old cancer survivor picks as VP a woman who is a 2 year governor of the 47th most populated state and previously mayor of a 7800 population suburb. Their VP pick had to start out, in her first speech, telling whoppers. She claimed to have told Congress thanks but no thanks to Sen Ted Steven's (R-AK) Bridge to Nowhere; when in fact she said in 2006 that it was important to get Alaska's infrastructure projects under way with a favorable majority in answer to a question regarding that Bridge. In March she called Hillary a "whiner" and today she praised her - odd... Not really if she's supposed to be the "Hillary dead-ender" draw. This woman stands in opposition to virtually everything Hillary campaigned on, anti-abortion rights, drilling ANWAR, global warming as not human influenced...take your pick.
Sarah Palin seems warm and friendly, that might balance McMaverick's temper, but she's an empty hair-do. It will pay the Democrats to define her before the Republicans have that chance. She has no standing whatever nationally and can be easily defined. Her entire reputation seems to be her fight with the Alaskan legislature over corruption. Some questions may be raised about her relations with Ted Stevens since she has some pretty friendly pictures floating around.
She is McCain's bow to the socially conservative wing (read whackos). You will get the Christianist theocratic drum thumping you've waited for. On abortion, rape and incest don't count, it is a case of so-what you bear the child. You have to work very hard to understand that mind set and I'm not willing. I find McPOW offensive at best, this woman makes him look reasonable. I fail to see how prostituting to the Religious Right once again is Mavericky. I guess if you're a Republican or media shill you'll figure it out. Oh yeah John, in search of a VP safety valve for a candidate older than dirt you pick a 2 year governor of a State with a smaller total population than most states have in a single city - there's an expert for you. (Somebody ought to point at Alaska's sucking at the Federal tit)
I'll admit that the idea that one needs years in foreign policy experience to run to be hoo-hoo, I vastly prefer judgement to practice at getting it wrong - John - but some demonstration of one or the other is required. Whatever the grandstanding of the surprise pick, there is a nation to run at stake.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
POW, POW, POW !
Sorry, no it's not a Batman TV post, it's a Mavericky sort of thing. You see, the answer for any and all criticism is, POW. Honest to god, John, getting shot down has not one damn thing to do with how many houses you've got. Surprisingly enough it is less germane to that than it is to being a good President. What is important to the question is that you want to talk about no kitchen table and such crap in relationship to your houses while actual NON-POW Americans are being put into the same position by fellow Americans without the excuse of them having bombed the snot out of them. That's right, you numbskull, your policies promoted by your advisers and prosecuted by your pals are putting are putting your fellow citizens on the street. Out of jobs, strangled by high prices, screwed by mortgage companies freed by Phil Gramm you're busily creating real competition with yourself for the title of "most dispossessed."
POW. There is no inherent honor in that, there is nasty circumstance to be endured as best possible, but the ability to get into that club isn't remarkable. It may have escaped your notice that there were a bunch of members in the same war and a whole lot of them didn't spend their active war on a carrier being taken care of by seamen. Nope while the Admiral's son spent his time breathing air through a mask dropping ordnance on distant "foes," they were in the mud and blood. Their daily lives just plain sucked, and then they sucked worse and I've yet to hear of one claiming POW makes him Presidential material. Just you.
I'm entirely unimpressed. You want to keep sending our kids back into Iraq, tour after tour, you've made them prisoners of your ambition, die for me little trooper. Another tour, the wife watches her husband leaving wondering if he'll be more of a mess when and if he comes back. How many pieces missing? This POW experience is even uglier, they get a little vacation from it and then cruelly enough, yanked back into it. Telling your five and half year old, I'll see you when you're seven - if I do. You, John McCain, did nothing to cover their butts from torture if captured in any war, nah, if it was good enough for you they can have some - George II decreed it should happen and you were too chickenshit to stand up.
A child of privilege and influence, you lost it for awhile from enemies you'd expect to lose it from; and now we're to believe that experience gives you something in common with ordinary Americans screwed by the policies you approve? You'll give them a $5000 tax credit to get health insurance? They don't pay $5000, you nimrod, or they'd be able to afford some kind of insurance. It is important you look out for your monied interests, POW.
You married mob money and built a political career on the back of your wife's money and POW; working for a living with short prospects isn't something you're familiar with. You have the nerve to call Obama a celebrity and question his credentials, the credentials and Americanism of a family who have done all the right things and all the hard work - versus you - a failure at Annapolis except for Daddy and Grand-daddy. Your academics would never have qualified you for a seat in a jet, I knew Naval aviators and they had to excel to get there. Not you.
You spend POW like it was water, you got elected on it, you've covered your butt with it. Chuck Keating should have sunk you, philandering on your wife in the Republican Party should have sunk you - values you know - but POW saved you. Every stupid remark or policy statement that you make you retreat to POW. It will wear out, McMaverick, it'll become a latenight TV punch line and that'll be it. The Obama campaign must pussyfoot around your qualifications, because you'll POW them. "How dare you question my leadership and judgement, I know how to get captured." You're an ill tempered old man with poor judgement and a worse sense of civility and a bare grasp of current events and geography, but...POW.
I've honestly tried pretty hard to figure out what it is that you offer ordinary Americans other than the discredited trickle down economics and all I come up with is POW. It isn't values, Chuck Keating, cheating on and dumping a crippled wife, an anti-abortion privileged male, living off his wife's money while insulting her in public, just setting an example of a POW making good, by marrying money and influence. Since you're a great leader, how did it escape your notice that your wife was an addict and stealing drugs from a charity? Is that how you propose to run a White House? We've had one disengaged idjit in there for 2 terms already.
I didn't like your sorry self in 2000 and I like you a whole lot less in 2008. Now that you've become the George III and hooked up with his unprincipled political machine you've trashed whatever respect you might have been due for your service 35 years ago. The American public deserves something better than the politics of POW, try it. They might vote for it, but don't bet on it, you may find you've over played that hand. Considering how little I like your ideology (or whatever it is - Mr Flipper-Flopper) I think you should just ignore this little post and keep on POWing. It is what you've got...
POW. There is no inherent honor in that, there is nasty circumstance to be endured as best possible, but the ability to get into that club isn't remarkable. It may have escaped your notice that there were a bunch of members in the same war and a whole lot of them didn't spend their active war on a carrier being taken care of by seamen. Nope while the Admiral's son spent his time breathing air through a mask dropping ordnance on distant "foes," they were in the mud and blood. Their daily lives just plain sucked, and then they sucked worse and I've yet to hear of one claiming POW makes him Presidential material. Just you.
I'm entirely unimpressed. You want to keep sending our kids back into Iraq, tour after tour, you've made them prisoners of your ambition, die for me little trooper. Another tour, the wife watches her husband leaving wondering if he'll be more of a mess when and if he comes back. How many pieces missing? This POW experience is even uglier, they get a little vacation from it and then cruelly enough, yanked back into it. Telling your five and half year old, I'll see you when you're seven - if I do. You, John McCain, did nothing to cover their butts from torture if captured in any war, nah, if it was good enough for you they can have some - George II decreed it should happen and you were too chickenshit to stand up.
A child of privilege and influence, you lost it for awhile from enemies you'd expect to lose it from; and now we're to believe that experience gives you something in common with ordinary Americans screwed by the policies you approve? You'll give them a $5000 tax credit to get health insurance? They don't pay $5000, you nimrod, or they'd be able to afford some kind of insurance. It is important you look out for your monied interests, POW.
You married mob money and built a political career on the back of your wife's money and POW; working for a living with short prospects isn't something you're familiar with. You have the nerve to call Obama a celebrity and question his credentials, the credentials and Americanism of a family who have done all the right things and all the hard work - versus you - a failure at Annapolis except for Daddy and Grand-daddy. Your academics would never have qualified you for a seat in a jet, I knew Naval aviators and they had to excel to get there. Not you.
You spend POW like it was water, you got elected on it, you've covered your butt with it. Chuck Keating should have sunk you, philandering on your wife in the Republican Party should have sunk you - values you know - but POW saved you. Every stupid remark or policy statement that you make you retreat to POW. It will wear out, McMaverick, it'll become a latenight TV punch line and that'll be it. The Obama campaign must pussyfoot around your qualifications, because you'll POW them. "How dare you question my leadership and judgement, I know how to get captured." You're an ill tempered old man with poor judgement and a worse sense of civility and a bare grasp of current events and geography, but...POW.
I've honestly tried pretty hard to figure out what it is that you offer ordinary Americans other than the discredited trickle down economics and all I come up with is POW. It isn't values, Chuck Keating, cheating on and dumping a crippled wife, an anti-abortion privileged male, living off his wife's money while insulting her in public, just setting an example of a POW making good, by marrying money and influence. Since you're a great leader, how did it escape your notice that your wife was an addict and stealing drugs from a charity? Is that how you propose to run a White House? We've had one disengaged idjit in there for 2 terms already.
I didn't like your sorry self in 2000 and I like you a whole lot less in 2008. Now that you've become the George III and hooked up with his unprincipled political machine you've trashed whatever respect you might have been due for your service 35 years ago. The American public deserves something better than the politics of POW, try it. They might vote for it, but don't bet on it, you may find you've over played that hand. Considering how little I like your ideology (or whatever it is - Mr Flipper-Flopper) I think you should just ignore this little post and keep on POWing. It is what you've got...
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Baker City Memory Cruise
**Click Pictures for full size**
Baker City Memory Cruise, the 18th annual, kicked off this morning and considering the price of gasoline had a great turnout. I only shot a few pictures to keep the site from loading too slowly. What I did was to shoot a few representative shots and some friend's cars and some that had particular meaning to me. This year the cars were in pretty much a first come, first parked rather than the usual of being grouped by classes. Cars came from all over Oregon, Idaho, and Washington.
This '58 Chevy Impala is equipped with a tri-power 348 "
W" head Chevy engine. It was a classic high torque engine, a performer for its time. The car is owned by a particular friend of mine. You may have seen the house I framed, sided, roofed and painted for him. There were shots on the site from that job, a three story house. The 58 is a convertible, a fairly rare vehicle, restored a couple years ago. This car was pretty beat up, a friend of mine that I stop to see pretty often runs the restoration shop that did the work and I had the chance to see it in various stages.
Terry has been involved in the Memory Cruise for quite a few years and the Baker City Thunder Mountain Car Club.
This is a "W" head 409 in a 62 Chevy Belaire 2 door. I lost the picture of the car itself, a beautiful black auto. This is a twin 4 barrel high performance 409, the motor which was made famous by the Beach Boys. I have a special place in my heart for the power plant and the cars, I owned a '63 Impala SS 409, purchased my senior year of high school. Probably a bad choice of transportation for a teenager. I, obviously, survived it but that is too much car for the judgement level associated with such as me.
This blue 38 Chevy came over from Twin Falls, Idaho. we were parked within a couple cars of each other and made friends. The car took an award for Best Interior.
My 62 Chevy II parked next to a bone stock 55 Chevy Pickup Cameo. The 62 went to the show because it is for sale, I don't particularly want to sell it and don't have to sell it, but it is silly to keep it in a garage and pay a full ride on insurance for a couple hundred miles per year. It is the kind of car that will sell easily - to the buyer that wants this particular car. You cannot tell from the outside that this car is a 62 Chevy II body and back seat and no more. It is so heavily and specially modified that it is buyer specific.
I parked the Chevy II and got to thinking that the 50 COE dump truck was only a few blocks away. It takes some kind of nerve to put something like this in a car show, but people don't see these things. I walked the 5 blocks, drove the thing to a car wash and knocked off 2 1/2 years dirt and entered it. I had no thought that it was a prize winner but I was quite sure it was the biggest thing in the show. I got two Poker Run cards for two entries, the one for the COE drew five 5s and won $100, how funny, that trumps plaques.
I'd never seen this particular paint treatment before. I thought it was one of the really unusual and cool things I'd seen. It is a very nice car, but it just struck me.
You have to really work to do this, you have to think and you have to plan and you have to work smart. This is an Olds 455 and Tornado front end in the back of the Corvair. The back seat is in stock position so what you're looking at is an absolute monster and an exercise in complete pointlessness. If you tune the engine to perform it wheelies so it needs to be run de-tuned.
It takes a certain kind of person to dedicate the time, energy, and resources to a thing like a car. These are not transportation, they are an extension of the owner and an expression of something not concrete made solid and substantial. Some of these beauties are driven regularly, the purple 78 Chevy PU next to my COE is driven regularly, frequently with a camper into the mountains - it won best 70s Truck. My wife drove the 62 Chevy II all year around, with studded snows on all 4 in the winter for almost 4 years while I used it for weekend fun at the drag strip. Most people use an auto to get around and that is the extent of their interest in them, something to get from here to there with as little hassle as possible. Maybe they'll watch other people's being used for racing or such, but in the end, just a vehicle.
When I first found the 62 in drastic condition I saw a possibly cool body with the potential to be much more than what Chevrolet dreamed possible in 1961. All it took was a lot of research, planning, innovation, and damn hard work to get to a car that they could have built if they'd had late 90s know how. It is fast, it handles, and it stops...and it produces power with out being unmanageable. There are 355 cubic inches producing 425 horse power and 400 pound feet of torque, power that in late 60s would have meant a shuddering shaking gas eating monster that would start once in awhile and only idle when it felt like it. Cars of the period packing that kind of power would stop pretty well, a couple times in a row, but the drums would begin to fade with heat and real pressure was required for hard stops. The suspension systems ranged from comfort sloppy to tank like rigidity and even that didn't assure quick and accurate response. Even the sports cars of the day couldn't handle with most newer cars to day.
It is monetarily more sensible to buy a few years old car than to build a thirty plus year old car that rectifies those short comings, but you would then have the same car anyone else could have. It would look like and sound like any other car. It would be just a car. Here's the deal, the things cost too much money to run and insure and generally keep in repair for it to be just a thing. If I must put put the effort into it, I want something back other than here to there. I want to know that I did this, that this fine piece of machinery is unique and special. That it is not only presentable, but strikingly attractive. Where ever it goes, it is seen and known as an expression of American ingenuity...and power.
There certainly is that bit. On the drag strip with racing tires the car goes from the line to the sixty foot mark in 1.74 seconds, 0 to 44 miles per hour - a head snapping affair. The tachometer goes from the pre-launch 1800 rpm to 6000 rpm in about 1 second, a very busy interval. Life is very interesting for a little over 12 seconds. If you don't get it, that's alright, you don't have to - but it is something, emphatically something.
Baker City Memory Cruise, the 18th annual, kicked off this morning and considering the price of gasoline had a great turnout. I only shot a few pictures to keep the site from loading too slowly. What I did was to shoot a few representative shots and some friend's cars and some that had particular meaning to me. This year the cars were in pretty much a first come, first parked rather than the usual of being grouped by classes. Cars came from all over Oregon, Idaho, and Washington.
This '58 Chevy Impala is equipped with a tri-power 348 "
W" head Chevy engine. It was a classic high torque engine, a performer for its time. The car is owned by a particular friend of mine. You may have seen the house I framed, sided, roofed and painted for him. There were shots on the site from that job, a three story house. The 58 is a convertible, a fairly rare vehicle, restored a couple years ago. This car was pretty beat up, a friend of mine that I stop to see pretty often runs the restoration shop that did the work and I had the chance to see it in various stages.Terry has been involved in the Memory Cruise for quite a few years and the Baker City Thunder Mountain Car Club.
This is a "W" head 409 in a 62 Chevy Belaire 2 door. I lost the picture of the car itself, a beautiful black auto. This is a twin 4 barrel high performance 409, the motor which was made famous by the Beach Boys. I have a special place in my heart for the power plant and the cars, I owned a '63 Impala SS 409, purchased my senior year of high school. Probably a bad choice of transportation for a teenager. I, obviously, survived it but that is too much car for the judgement level associated with such as me.
This blue 38 Chevy came over from Twin Falls, Idaho. we were parked within a couple cars of each other and made friends. The car took an award for Best Interior.
My 62 Chevy II parked next to a bone stock 55 Chevy Pickup Cameo. The 62 went to the show because it is for sale, I don't particularly want to sell it and don't have to sell it, but it is silly to keep it in a garage and pay a full ride on insurance for a couple hundred miles per year. It is the kind of car that will sell easily - to the buyer that wants this particular car. You cannot tell from the outside that this car is a 62 Chevy II body and back seat and no more. It is so heavily and specially modified that it is buyer specific.
I parked the Chevy II and got to thinking that the 50 COE dump truck was only a few blocks away. It takes some kind of nerve to put something like this in a car show, but people don't see these things. I walked the 5 blocks, drove the thing to a car wash and knocked off 2 1/2 years dirt and entered it. I had no thought that it was a prize winner but I was quite sure it was the biggest thing in the show. I got two Poker Run cards for two entries, the one for the COE drew five 5s and won $100, how funny, that trumps plaques.
I'd never seen this particular paint treatment before. I thought it was one of the really unusual and cool things I'd seen. It is a very nice car, but it just struck me.
You have to really work to do this, you have to think and you have to plan and you have to work smart. This is an Olds 455 and Tornado front end in the back of the Corvair. The back seat is in stock position so what you're looking at is an absolute monster and an exercise in complete pointlessness. If you tune the engine to perform it wheelies so it needs to be run de-tuned.
It takes a certain kind of person to dedicate the time, energy, and resources to a thing like a car. These are not transportation, they are an extension of the owner and an expression of something not concrete made solid and substantial. Some of these beauties are driven regularly, the purple 78 Chevy PU next to my COE is driven regularly, frequently with a camper into the mountains - it won best 70s Truck. My wife drove the 62 Chevy II all year around, with studded snows on all 4 in the winter for almost 4 years while I used it for weekend fun at the drag strip. Most people use an auto to get around and that is the extent of their interest in them, something to get from here to there with as little hassle as possible. Maybe they'll watch other people's being used for racing or such, but in the end, just a vehicle.
When I first found the 62 in drastic condition I saw a possibly cool body with the potential to be much more than what Chevrolet dreamed possible in 1961. All it took was a lot of research, planning, innovation, and damn hard work to get to a car that they could have built if they'd had late 90s know how. It is fast, it handles, and it stops...and it produces power with out being unmanageable. There are 355 cubic inches producing 425 horse power and 400 pound feet of torque, power that in late 60s would have meant a shuddering shaking gas eating monster that would start once in awhile and only idle when it felt like it. Cars of the period packing that kind of power would stop pretty well, a couple times in a row, but the drums would begin to fade with heat and real pressure was required for hard stops. The suspension systems ranged from comfort sloppy to tank like rigidity and even that didn't assure quick and accurate response. Even the sports cars of the day couldn't handle with most newer cars to day.
It is monetarily more sensible to buy a few years old car than to build a thirty plus year old car that rectifies those short comings, but you would then have the same car anyone else could have. It would look like and sound like any other car. It would be just a car. Here's the deal, the things cost too much money to run and insure and generally keep in repair for it to be just a thing. If I must put put the effort into it, I want something back other than here to there. I want to know that I did this, that this fine piece of machinery is unique and special. That it is not only presentable, but strikingly attractive. Where ever it goes, it is seen and known as an expression of American ingenuity...and power.
There certainly is that bit. On the drag strip with racing tires the car goes from the line to the sixty foot mark in 1.74 seconds, 0 to 44 miles per hour - a head snapping affair. The tachometer goes from the pre-launch 1800 rpm to 6000 rpm in about 1 second, a very busy interval. Life is very interesting for a little over 12 seconds. If you don't get it, that's alright, you don't have to - but it is something, emphatically something.
Friday, August 22, 2008
I Have A House, One
I have a house. I like my house, it is a pretty nice place to live and nicely appointed, with finishes most people don't have. It has features that belong in pretty upscale houses, but there is something other than wealth that has to do with that. I am a construction contractor. I bought a small and quite run down and somewhat damaged 1870s Victorian. Not the big painted lady Victorian, this was the 'double-wide' of the era and built with standards that would be laughed at today. It is a nice house because I put virtually the entire loan into materials and labored like a dog on it - for free. It did cost me my weekends and all my evenings, into early morning hours and a personal construction work week of over 100 hours for months while living in the mess and with an outhouse for a bathroom. Astonishingly, my wife stayed married to me.
I know how many houses I have - one - and I also know what the monthly payment is and the tax bill and when all of these are due. With all the advantages of running a business I do not manage the Oregon median income in a good year (this isn't one). I don't complain about my income, I chose this line of work for other reasons than getting rich. I don't complain that other people make quite a bit more than I do with less exertion and risk. I do complain when someone insists that the wealthy need help staying wealthy and that they do not take the largest benefit out of the system. I not only complain, I scoff when such an argument is made by someone pretending to understand average Americans who isn't sure how many houses he owns - or his wife owns - or their company owns in their interest. Now I do admit I begin to get somewhat angry about such things when the ignorant party has made an issue about the opponent's celebrity or 'elitism.'
I do not deny a person empathy or understanding on the basis of wealth. I do deny them such on the basis of their policies and statements. Franklin Roosevelt was a child of wealth and a wealthy man who demonstrated in word and deed his concern for ordinary Americans. John and Robert Kennedy were wealthy and beloved by ordinary Americans. There are examples galore of wealthy individuals who gave concrete demonstrations of their understanding of the lives of plain citizens. John McCain just doesn't happen to be one.
Let's start at the beginning, George II's tax breaks for the wealthy, McCain wants to make them permanent - on the basis that they'll trickle down; which has not happened once in history. If wealth trickled down the era of the Robber Barons would be called something else. According to John the oil companies need tax breaks and additional incentives. According to McCainomics the American economy is fundamentally sound...we're debt ridden, our military is broken, everyone under the top half of the economic scale is watching their real income slide, the blue collar has been losing ground throughout BushCo, the divergence in wealth distribution is at historical highs, and banks are imploding. On the latter we already have a concrete demonstration of McCain's concern, it was for Chuck Keating not his depositors. Phil Gramm is still McCain's economic advisor, yes "whiners" Gramm, the architect of the Enron loophole and banking loopholes - including lobbying for USB, a foreign bank (in trouble - bank). If you are not wealthy, these people have nothing to say to you or are willing to do for you.
John McCain is a lying hypocritical bastard, POW and all. If you take his "honesty and maverickness" of today as a measure of his behavior in Hanoi you'd have to have doubts about its narrative of today. No, that isn't some partisan BS. Check his ads and statements against the facts and you'll find them wanting in truthfulness - either that is something new or he has always been a liar and manipulator of reality. I was not in Hanoi or Vietnam, but I sure know plenty who were that are entirely unimpressed with McCain's reliance on POW as CiC credentials. I get pretty pissed off with liars, I don't mean a misstatement, I mean lies. McMaverick only exists as a campaign mantra and media invention, there is nothing there at all, look at the record over the last 6 years.
John McCain can have all the respect he earns from me, but he'll have to earn it on something other than the ability to get shot down and play it to the media. Today he's earned my regard as an unprincipled prick...
I know how many houses I have - one - and I also know what the monthly payment is and the tax bill and when all of these are due. With all the advantages of running a business I do not manage the Oregon median income in a good year (this isn't one). I don't complain about my income, I chose this line of work for other reasons than getting rich. I don't complain that other people make quite a bit more than I do with less exertion and risk. I do complain when someone insists that the wealthy need help staying wealthy and that they do not take the largest benefit out of the system. I not only complain, I scoff when such an argument is made by someone pretending to understand average Americans who isn't sure how many houses he owns - or his wife owns - or their company owns in their interest. Now I do admit I begin to get somewhat angry about such things when the ignorant party has made an issue about the opponent's celebrity or 'elitism.'
I do not deny a person empathy or understanding on the basis of wealth. I do deny them such on the basis of their policies and statements. Franklin Roosevelt was a child of wealth and a wealthy man who demonstrated in word and deed his concern for ordinary Americans. John and Robert Kennedy were wealthy and beloved by ordinary Americans. There are examples galore of wealthy individuals who gave concrete demonstrations of their understanding of the lives of plain citizens. John McCain just doesn't happen to be one.
Let's start at the beginning, George II's tax breaks for the wealthy, McCain wants to make them permanent - on the basis that they'll trickle down; which has not happened once in history. If wealth trickled down the era of the Robber Barons would be called something else. According to John the oil companies need tax breaks and additional incentives. According to McCainomics the American economy is fundamentally sound...we're debt ridden, our military is broken, everyone under the top half of the economic scale is watching their real income slide, the blue collar has been losing ground throughout BushCo, the divergence in wealth distribution is at historical highs, and banks are imploding. On the latter we already have a concrete demonstration of McCain's concern, it was for Chuck Keating not his depositors. Phil Gramm is still McCain's economic advisor, yes "whiners" Gramm, the architect of the Enron loophole and banking loopholes - including lobbying for USB, a foreign bank (in trouble - bank). If you are not wealthy, these people have nothing to say to you or are willing to do for you.
John McCain is a lying hypocritical bastard, POW and all. If you take his "honesty and maverickness" of today as a measure of his behavior in Hanoi you'd have to have doubts about its narrative of today. No, that isn't some partisan BS. Check his ads and statements against the facts and you'll find them wanting in truthfulness - either that is something new or he has always been a liar and manipulator of reality. I was not in Hanoi or Vietnam, but I sure know plenty who were that are entirely unimpressed with McCain's reliance on POW as CiC credentials. I get pretty pissed off with liars, I don't mean a misstatement, I mean lies. McMaverick only exists as a campaign mantra and media invention, there is nothing there at all, look at the record over the last 6 years.
John McCain can have all the respect he earns from me, but he'll have to earn it on something other than the ability to get shot down and play it to the media. Today he's earned my regard as an unprincipled prick...
Sunni Awakening At Risk
Along with the Surge, McCain is so proud of, the Sunni Awakening or Sons of Iraq taking the part of the US military in action against Al Qaida seriously reduced violence. There are two pieces to that reduction, one the Awakening councils were composed of people who, to a great extent, had been doing their level best to kill Americans and two when fighting on the American side had credence with the local population and intimate local knowledge leading to the destruction or removal of Al Qaida elements. The Shiite government of Iraq is putting real pressure on the councils.
McClatchy reports that the Iraqi government has failed to absorb tens of thousands of the Sunni fighters. The US has paid the former militants about $300 per month and promises of jobs with the government to be on our side. Those jobs have not materialized.
It gets worse as the NYT reports, west of Bhagdad former insurgent leaders claim the government is after 650 Awakening leaders, US and Iraqi officials in Diyala Province say there are arrest orders for hundreds. The Iraqi government is beginning this push at just about the time the councils are beginning to try to translate their actions into political power.
This hostile attitude is little more than a guess that the improving Iraqi Army can handle Al Qaida and possibly the now US allied Awakening. You can judge for yourself if it seems a good bet, or an invitation to more sectarian violence.
McClatchy reports that the Iraqi government has failed to absorb tens of thousands of the Sunni fighters. The US has paid the former militants about $300 per month and promises of jobs with the government to be on our side. Those jobs have not materialized.
"We cannot stand them, and we detained many of them recently," said one senior Iraqi commander in Baghdad, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue. "Many of them were part of al Qaida despite the fact that many of them are helping us to fight al Qaida."This attitude is reflected by a possible proposal by the Iraqi Army to set a November 1 deadline for the un-absorbed militias to turn in their weapons or be arrested. The Iraqi and US officials both say the Maliki government never promised to hire more than 20% of the approximately 100,000 militia men. A real problem is in the offing.
"If they disband us now, I will tell you that history will show we will go back to zero," said Mullah Shahab al Aafi, a former emir, or leader, of insurgents in Diyala province who's the acting commander of 24,000 Sons of Iraq there, 11,000 of whom are on the U.S. payroll. "I will not give up my weapons. I will never give them up, and I will carry my weapon again. If it is useless to talk to the government, I will be forced to carry my weapons and my pistol."It pays to remember that the US disbanded the Iraqi Army after beating it and reaped the whirlwind. The US has so far this year paid $303 million to the militias, the Iraqi government has budgeted $150 million for the vocational training they propose to put the remaining militia into, to be bricklayers and plumbers - along with other unemployed people. It is no stretch of imagination to see that these people see themselves as soldiers and resent being treated differently.
It gets worse as the NYT reports, west of Bhagdad former insurgent leaders claim the government is after 650 Awakening leaders, US and Iraqi officials in Diyala Province say there are arrest orders for hundreds. The Iraqi government is beginning this push at just about the time the councils are beginning to try to translate their actions into political power.
“The state cannot accept the Awakening,” said Sheik Jalaladeen al-Sagheer, a leading Shiite member of Parliament. “Their days are numbered.”
This hostile attitude is little more than a guess that the improving Iraqi Army can handle Al Qaida and possibly the now US allied Awakening. You can judge for yourself if it seems a good bet, or an invitation to more sectarian violence.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
How Many Wars, John?
John McCain promotes the "surge" in Iraq, more troops in Afghanistan, doing something concrete about Georgia and Russia, and making Iran sorry. He'll also follow Bin Laden "to the Gates of Hell," a project that will take some doing since George II hasn't done anthing about it.
John McCain is real fond of using the military. The military is already streached thin, so thin that additional deployments aren't possible. John wants to use them some more, and more. There really isn't any way but one. A draft. And Wednesday in Las Cruces, New Mexico at a townhall meeting John let it slip.
For Pete's sake, how else could he do it? Oh, surely after the reactions start, he'll claim to not have heard the "draft" part of the statement. Maybe he'll just deny he said any such thing.
The point in having a military is not to use it. Yes, I mean that, its point is its non-use. It is the iron fist inside the velvet glove. That presence is known and understood while the soft glove gets its work-out. Warfare works on two levels, killing or maiming the opposition and making resistance fearfully inappropriate. Intimidation is not persuasion, it is not even close.
John McCain's idea is to shoot and pick up the pieces later, the immediate problem with that is the loss of life and general mayhem and the future problem is the level of enmity engendered by that mayhem. Unless you obliterate entire nations and groups they live on and their families and friends live on, with a bullseye on the offender's forehead. Does anyone have positive ideas for the viewpoints of today's children of Iraq? Has their childhood given them some reason to like and respect the US? Whatever risks adult life posed in Saddam's Iraq these children's post-Saddam life has not been a positive experience. What booby traps have we set in motion for our own today's children? Exactly how much more of this is John McCain proposing?
John McCain is real fond of using the military. The military is already streached thin, so thin that additional deployments aren't possible. John wants to use them some more, and more. There really isn't any way but one. A draft. And Wednesday in Las Cruces, New Mexico at a townhall meeting John let it slip.
"Disabled veterans, especially in this state, have horrible conditions," the woman said. "Their medical is substandard. They drive four hours one way to Albuquerque for a simple doctor's appointment, which is often cancelled. Our VA hospital is dirty, it's understaffed, it's running on maximum overload. The prescription medicines are ten years behind standard medical care. We have 700 claims stacked up at the VA office in Albuquerque. Some of them are ten--seven years old, waiting to be processed. In the meantime, people are homeless. My son is an officer in the Air Force, I'm a vet, and I was raised in a military family. And I think it's a sorry state of affairs when we have illegal aliens, having a Medicaid card, that can access specialist top physicians--the best of medical--and our vets can't even get to a doctor.
"And these are the people we tied yellow ribbons for, and Bush patted on the back. If we don't reenact the draft, I don't think we'll have anyone to chase bin Laden to the gates of Hell."
"Ma'am," the Senator responded, "let me say that I don't disagree with anything you said. Thank you, and I am grateful for your support of all of our veterans."
For Pete's sake, how else could he do it? Oh, surely after the reactions start, he'll claim to not have heard the "draft" part of the statement. Maybe he'll just deny he said any such thing.
The point in having a military is not to use it. Yes, I mean that, its point is its non-use. It is the iron fist inside the velvet glove. That presence is known and understood while the soft glove gets its work-out. Warfare works on two levels, killing or maiming the opposition and making resistance fearfully inappropriate. Intimidation is not persuasion, it is not even close.
John McCain's idea is to shoot and pick up the pieces later, the immediate problem with that is the loss of life and general mayhem and the future problem is the level of enmity engendered by that mayhem. Unless you obliterate entire nations and groups they live on and their families and friends live on, with a bullseye on the offender's forehead. Does anyone have positive ideas for the viewpoints of today's children of Iraq? Has their childhood given them some reason to like and respect the US? Whatever risks adult life posed in Saddam's Iraq these children's post-Saddam life has not been a positive experience. What booby traps have we set in motion for our own today's children? Exactly how much more of this is John McCain proposing?
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
So, You Think You Count To The McCains?
If you think personal behavior has something to do with public behavior you'd be excused for being dubious. Cindy and the McCain campaign have repeatedly referred to her as an only child, not quite accurately it seems. NPR has a story up about Cindy's father and his other daughter, her step-sister who was cut entirely loose in Jim Hensley's will and since by the McCains.
Precisely what led to this state of affairs I don't pretend to know and it certainly is true that one doesn't get to choose their relatives. It would seem that lack of funds to mitigate some of the Portalski family difficulties isn't an issue so there's a bit more to it. Since Kathleen Hensley Portalski's existence is ignored or really denied there isn't what could be called a familial relationship.
Oddly enough, Cindy's mother had another daughter as well, so that would be three girls not just Cindy McCain. Accuracy and truth have not been highly evident in the McCain campaign since the Primaries and this seems to be another example. If you're figuring on trickle downs from these clowns, you could ask Kathleen Hensley Portalski how that's working for her.
Precisely what led to this state of affairs I don't pretend to know and it certainly is true that one doesn't get to choose their relatives. It would seem that lack of funds to mitigate some of the Portalski family difficulties isn't an issue so there's a bit more to it. Since Kathleen Hensley Portalski's existence is ignored or really denied there isn't what could be called a familial relationship.
Oddly enough, Cindy's mother had another daughter as well, so that would be three girls not just Cindy McCain. Accuracy and truth have not been highly evident in the McCain campaign since the Primaries and this seems to be another example. If you're figuring on trickle downs from these clowns, you could ask Kathleen Hensley Portalski how that's working for her.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Grant County Democrats - After All This Time
After many, many years there is a Grant County Democratic Party, DPO. Nancy Nickle is the Chair and the membership is enthusiastic and involved. Friday night's meeting - 3rd Friday of the month - was primarily aimed a planning for the Grant County Fair.
In my person as Vice-chair of Baker Co Democrats I made the trip to John Day to attend and show our solidarity with the new Party. I also brought with me Merkley, Westland, and Avackian campaign goodies. Our County Party has had access to candidates the the newly formed Grant County Party has not had.
The formation of this Party has pleased DPO, the County Parties, and myself in particular. When I campaigned in the Primary two years ago it was particularly unfortunate to have no direct contact with Grant County Democratic voters. The new party should make reaching the Democratic voters of that county much easier in this important election. We have four state wide races of some import, SoS, Treasurer, Secretary of Labor, and the US Senate seat held by Gordon Smith (R). By far the most hotly contested and contentious race is Jeff Merkley versus Gordon Smith. There are over two thousand registered Democrats in Grant County as well as a nearly equal number of Independents and these numbers may not result in a victory for Jeff Merkley in Eastern Oregon, but decent numbers will help with the State wide total.
It was a real pleasure to meet the smart, enthusiastic, and personable folks from Grant Co Democrats, I hope to have the pleasure again - soon. In our neck of the world the 90 mile drive is nearly next door.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Gordon Smith Would Be A Democrat If Only...
If only Gordon weren't a Bush shill and right wing voter he'd be a Democrat, or maybe if he hadn't done some things...
Gordon Smith, collector of million dollar golf clubs and quick to make international Senatorial jaunts that involve that sport, can't seem to make up his mind how he wants Oregonians to view him. His votes say he's a Right Republican Bush Diehard and Big Money shill. His ads say he's an independent thinker who likes to hook up with Democrats...Democrats like John Kerry. That would be the 2004 Presidential candidate Kerry whom Gordon characterized as "French" as an insult and as a socialist. Oregonians might want to think about that as Gordon touts his "bipartisan" approach to politics. In view of the condition of the nation's economy and Smith's view of Kerry and Bush one has to wonder if that is the course we'd really want to follow.
I suppose Oregonians can figure out why Smith references Barack Obama, though to what end is questionable. He surely didn't think Obama wouldn't notice and make clear his preference for Jeff Merkley. So what happened is that Democratic Senators didn't think too much of their "friend" Gordon using them, there is a limit to Senate collegiality.
Since the Democrats didn't show too much inclination to boost his chances, he ditched his State Co-chair of McCain's campaign and the RNC convention - to concentrate on his campaign... The McCain thing may just piss off ole John, the duties apparently amounted to the use of his name. McCain and St Paul aren't the only Republicans Smith is taking a whack at, Oregon Republican legislators signed off on the bipartisan plan to renovate the Salem building and Smith is now characterizing them as well as Jeff Merkley as spendthrifts. Want to bet they're not pleased to have to defend themselves in their elections from an attack by a fellow Republican?
Gordon's political ambitions and the truth don't have a lot in common, one might note his claims through "Democrats for Smith" to have been amongst the first to oppose the Iraq War. Not even close. This guy will say just about anything to get re-elected, and there is plenty of question as to why. You might expect some legislation to have been authored by someone this desperate to stay in the Senate, but - nope. Maybe he wants an excuse to stay in his mansion in Maryland and not be in nasty old Pendleton, OR. Pendleton's gain, in my opinion.
If you hadn't noticed, I like Jeff Merkley. I first got acquainted with him about 5 years ago and I've watched his Oregon career with interest and admiration from a distance ever since. I've never seen him caught out in a lie or misrepresentation and you can compare that to the pea packer 'from' Pendleton.
Gordon Smith, collector of million dollar golf clubs and quick to make international Senatorial jaunts that involve that sport, can't seem to make up his mind how he wants Oregonians to view him. His votes say he's a Right Republican Bush Diehard and Big Money shill. His ads say he's an independent thinker who likes to hook up with Democrats...Democrats like John Kerry. That would be the 2004 Presidential candidate Kerry whom Gordon characterized as "French" as an insult and as a socialist. Oregonians might want to think about that as Gordon touts his "bipartisan" approach to politics. In view of the condition of the nation's economy and Smith's view of Kerry and Bush one has to wonder if that is the course we'd really want to follow.
I suppose Oregonians can figure out why Smith references Barack Obama, though to what end is questionable. He surely didn't think Obama wouldn't notice and make clear his preference for Jeff Merkley. So what happened is that Democratic Senators didn't think too much of their "friend" Gordon using them, there is a limit to Senate collegiality.
Since the Democrats didn't show too much inclination to boost his chances, he ditched his State Co-chair of McCain's campaign and the RNC convention - to concentrate on his campaign... The McCain thing may just piss off ole John, the duties apparently amounted to the use of his name. McCain and St Paul aren't the only Republicans Smith is taking a whack at, Oregon Republican legislators signed off on the bipartisan plan to renovate the Salem building and Smith is now characterizing them as well as Jeff Merkley as spendthrifts. Want to bet they're not pleased to have to defend themselves in their elections from an attack by a fellow Republican?
Gordon's political ambitions and the truth don't have a lot in common, one might note his claims through "Democrats for Smith" to have been amongst the first to oppose the Iraq War. Not even close. This guy will say just about anything to get re-elected, and there is plenty of question as to why. You might expect some legislation to have been authored by someone this desperate to stay in the Senate, but - nope. Maybe he wants an excuse to stay in his mansion in Maryland and not be in nasty old Pendleton, OR. Pendleton's gain, in my opinion.
If you hadn't noticed, I like Jeff Merkley. I first got acquainted with him about 5 years ago and I've watched his Oregon career with interest and admiration from a distance ever since. I've never seen him caught out in a lie or misrepresentation and you can compare that to the pea packer 'from' Pendleton.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
In The 21st Century Nations Don't Invade Other Nations
John McCain said this to reporters about Russia and Georgia. Apparently a couple instances have slipped his mind, there was a bit of something regarding Iraq and no justification whatever and perhaps Israel didn't do anything whatever to Lebanon. Now S Ossetia is a part of Georgia, nominally anyhow, but the Russian peace keepers there are actually Russian and shooting at them isn't exactly an invitation to dinner. Unless the dinner is in Tbilisi.
Randy Scheunemann may lobby for Georgia while acting as John McCain's foreign policy advisor and maybe John McCain gets along with it, but making things up is pretty stupid. It may not be as stupid as trying to include me as a Georgian because GWB thought poking the bear was good fun and McCain is still fighting the Cold War against the USSR. Since Georgia seems to have thrown the deciding punch in starting this and John McCain seems to have led them to believe something, see President Mikhail Saakashvili's jab at McCain regarding deeds outweighing words.
The Obama campaign said something about McCain having lost his bearings - ethical compass - and got whacked for ageism, I'm pretty sure he has has spun a bearing in his mental motor. That ain't ageism, it's about whether a brain works or not. McCain is like a body of water one inch deep and miles wide, depth being thought and POW being miles. There isn't anything to the guy, he's run and won on being shot down for decades and having the media as his lap dogs hasn't hurt.
I'm not in the least in favor of Russia over running Georgia and people getting killed. Neither am I in favor of Georgia doing that to S Ossetia. What irks me no end is amateur politicization of a serious problem by the security candidate, McCain. Whatever his Georgian shill is telling McCain, the US cannot afford to start an economic pissing match with Russia. What is it about oil that makes Republicans completely stupid?
Randy Scheunemann may lobby for Georgia while acting as John McCain's foreign policy advisor and maybe John McCain gets along with it, but making things up is pretty stupid. It may not be as stupid as trying to include me as a Georgian because GWB thought poking the bear was good fun and McCain is still fighting the Cold War against the USSR. Since Georgia seems to have thrown the deciding punch in starting this and John McCain seems to have led them to believe something, see President Mikhail Saakashvili's jab at McCain regarding deeds outweighing words.
The Obama campaign said something about McCain having lost his bearings - ethical compass - and got whacked for ageism, I'm pretty sure he has has spun a bearing in his mental motor. That ain't ageism, it's about whether a brain works or not. McCain is like a body of water one inch deep and miles wide, depth being thought and POW being miles. There isn't anything to the guy, he's run and won on being shot down for decades and having the media as his lap dogs hasn't hurt.
I'm not in the least in favor of Russia over running Georgia and people getting killed. Neither am I in favor of Georgia doing that to S Ossetia. What irks me no end is amateur politicization of a serious problem by the security candidate, McCain. Whatever his Georgian shill is telling McCain, the US cannot afford to start an economic pissing match with Russia. What is it about oil that makes Republicans completely stupid?
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Condi Gets It Wrong, Again
At one time Russia was an Empire, then it was a Hegemony, then it was broken, and then came oil. Big oil prices, Russia with lots of oil, lots of money for military. Now Russia has a long history of xenophobia and paranoia regarding the West. Not all of that is the result of propaganda, Napoleon and Hitler came from the West and there have been plenty of historical examples of the other making real problems for Russia. Nationalism has been a reality of Russia for a very long time and the time since the fall of the USSR has been ... humiliating. It doesn't take expertise in Russian history and sociology to know this, just paying a bit of attention will do.
Not too long after Putin demonstrated that Bush couldn't really see his soul in his eyes and also refused to intervene in Iran BushCo started poking the Russian bear. Now poking sticks at bears is a bad idea if the bear is loose and you don't have a big gun to back up your puny stick. The purpose of NATO was to have that big gun regarding that bear; the Russians and everybody else knew it. There is a difference between an economic union like the EU and military alliances like NATO and there should be no confusion. The EU enhances the economic and political health of its member nations. NATO is about military protection from ... Russia. NATO has cooperated in military actions outside Europe, for instance Afghanistan, but it is not a world military alliance. The US has been pushing NATO closer and closer to Russia's borders and they don't like it.
The US has a demonstrably unsuccessful ABM program that it is trying to put on Russia's borders, supposedly in regard to Middle Eastern terror states. It doesn't work reliably and the Russians don't like it, big surprise. BushCo has kept pushing it in the face of Russia's objections, which aren't really unrealistic in regard to Russian history. The real trump card in this mess is that there are no credible threats in the Middle East making such a deployment necessary. It looks a lot more like pointless poking at the bear.
Georgia, S Ossetia, and Russia all have a difficult relationship and it dates back quite awhile. S Ossetia, a pretty small place, has made itself pretty clear that it doesn't care to be Georgian and Georgia has made itself pretty clear that it doesn't care to let loose of S Ossetia. Most S Ossetians have Russian passports indicating a preference for Russia and Russia for many reasons, including nationalism and border cushion likes that fine. Enter BushCo and NATO being proffered to Georgia along with military training and equipment aimed at the propaganda aspect of 2000 Georgian troops in Iraq. BushCo led Georgia to think it was important to the US.
Now exactly who is it that is supposed to be an expert in things Russian? Condi Rice. Condi was lately in Georgia and shortly there after they started shooting at S Ossetia and apparently Russian peacekeeping troop. I don't propose that she was stupid enough to tell them to do it, but I don't think it is in the least unreasonable to think she told them how important they were. This woman was the NSA head when September 11, 2001 happened ("no credible threat") and she was the NSA head when George II half-assed Afghanistan, and she was NSA head when smoking guns were mushrooms and Saddam had WMDs and had a hand in Sept 11 attacks. She was Secretary of State when Israel made a spectacular mess in Lebanon and drumbeats of Iranian War began. It doesn't hurt to remember that Iran made itself useful in our aborted Afghani campaign. Now she seems to have had a hand in the Georgian mess.
Now in regard to Russia I'm sure they take a certain amount of glee from our Afghanistan/Iraq quagmire. I'm very sure they don't like our approach to Iran. I'm real sure they haven't liked being jabbed at on their own borders. Nobody would like that, not the US, not Russia, not anybody. Russia is historically very antsy about its borders and that is not exactly specialized knowledge. Either Condi has had a hand in this stupidity or BushCo is ignoring her - and there is no sign of that. I've heard she's a pretty good piano player...
I'm pretty tired of the US being made an international pariah with domestic and international actions that only a few would have dreamed possible a dozen years ago. I am considerably less happy to be a part of those actions. I am extremely tired of militaristic misadventures being the hallmark of this administration, their idiocy is getting a lot of people killed and maimed around the world.
(oh for god's sake, I just heard a clip of Condi asserting the sovereignty of Georgia) [has she heard of Iraq?] Oh crap, the US media is banging the Russia is evil drum. This is a hell of a lot more complicated than that.
Now that BushCo has managed to stir up trouble with Russia we need to... Do exactly what? We don't have any big guns. The military is bogged down and nearly broken. Our economy is in tatters. Cheney and McHero are ranting away, economic sanctions, ditching Russia with G8, oh we'll punish them... I guess neither of them think gasoline prices are high enough. Did somebody forget about oil and the rather large amount of oil and natural gas Russia exports? Who loses in an economic set to? I have to wonder just how stupid Republicans propose to be and just how badly we get to suffer for it? It's enough to make you wish Babs had told GHWB, "NO!" one night...
Not too long after Putin demonstrated that Bush couldn't really see his soul in his eyes and also refused to intervene in Iran BushCo started poking the Russian bear. Now poking sticks at bears is a bad idea if the bear is loose and you don't have a big gun to back up your puny stick. The purpose of NATO was to have that big gun regarding that bear; the Russians and everybody else knew it. There is a difference between an economic union like the EU and military alliances like NATO and there should be no confusion. The EU enhances the economic and political health of its member nations. NATO is about military protection from ... Russia. NATO has cooperated in military actions outside Europe, for instance Afghanistan, but it is not a world military alliance. The US has been pushing NATO closer and closer to Russia's borders and they don't like it.
The US has a demonstrably unsuccessful ABM program that it is trying to put on Russia's borders, supposedly in regard to Middle Eastern terror states. It doesn't work reliably and the Russians don't like it, big surprise. BushCo has kept pushing it in the face of Russia's objections, which aren't really unrealistic in regard to Russian history. The real trump card in this mess is that there are no credible threats in the Middle East making such a deployment necessary. It looks a lot more like pointless poking at the bear.
Georgia, S Ossetia, and Russia all have a difficult relationship and it dates back quite awhile. S Ossetia, a pretty small place, has made itself pretty clear that it doesn't care to be Georgian and Georgia has made itself pretty clear that it doesn't care to let loose of S Ossetia. Most S Ossetians have Russian passports indicating a preference for Russia and Russia for many reasons, including nationalism and border cushion likes that fine. Enter BushCo and NATO being proffered to Georgia along with military training and equipment aimed at the propaganda aspect of 2000 Georgian troops in Iraq. BushCo led Georgia to think it was important to the US.
Now exactly who is it that is supposed to be an expert in things Russian? Condi Rice. Condi was lately in Georgia and shortly there after they started shooting at S Ossetia and apparently Russian peacekeeping troop. I don't propose that she was stupid enough to tell them to do it, but I don't think it is in the least unreasonable to think she told them how important they were. This woman was the NSA head when September 11, 2001 happened ("no credible threat") and she was the NSA head when George II half-assed Afghanistan, and she was NSA head when smoking guns were mushrooms and Saddam had WMDs and had a hand in Sept 11 attacks. She was Secretary of State when Israel made a spectacular mess in Lebanon and drumbeats of Iranian War began. It doesn't hurt to remember that Iran made itself useful in our aborted Afghani campaign. Now she seems to have had a hand in the Georgian mess.
Now in regard to Russia I'm sure they take a certain amount of glee from our Afghanistan/Iraq quagmire. I'm very sure they don't like our approach to Iran. I'm real sure they haven't liked being jabbed at on their own borders. Nobody would like that, not the US, not Russia, not anybody. Russia is historically very antsy about its borders and that is not exactly specialized knowledge. Either Condi has had a hand in this stupidity or BushCo is ignoring her - and there is no sign of that. I've heard she's a pretty good piano player...
I'm pretty tired of the US being made an international pariah with domestic and international actions that only a few would have dreamed possible a dozen years ago. I am considerably less happy to be a part of those actions. I am extremely tired of militaristic misadventures being the hallmark of this administration, their idiocy is getting a lot of people killed and maimed around the world.
(oh for god's sake, I just heard a clip of Condi asserting the sovereignty of Georgia) [has she heard of Iraq?] Oh crap, the US media is banging the Russia is evil drum. This is a hell of a lot more complicated than that.
Now that BushCo has managed to stir up trouble with Russia we need to... Do exactly what? We don't have any big guns. The military is bogged down and nearly broken. Our economy is in tatters. Cheney and McHero are ranting away, economic sanctions, ditching Russia with G8, oh we'll punish them... I guess neither of them think gasoline prices are high enough. Did somebody forget about oil and the rather large amount of oil and natural gas Russia exports? Who loses in an economic set to? I have to wonder just how stupid Republicans propose to be and just how badly we get to suffer for it? It's enough to make you wish Babs had told GHWB, "NO!" one night...
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Baker City Gets A Visit From Jeff Merkley
Friday evening Baker County Democrats held a dinner and speaking meeting for Rep Jeff Merkley as a part of his bid to unseat Sen Gordon Smith (OR-R). The meeting was attended by about 35 people including a couple Republicans and was deemed a success by everyone I was able to check with. Attendees were able to choose a no host dinner from a menu of 4 dinners and spend some informal time meeting Jeff personally. The candidate excels at this, it is easy to see that he enjoys people and that they matter to him as more than potential votes.
His speech covered a fair number of issues of which I'll highlight a couple, he personal story was given to show why it is that he is running and why he cares about what his policies cover. He is the son of a working man, primarily timber related and the first in his family to attend college. He worked for the Defense Dept as a specialist in nuclear weapons issues, as a Director of Habitat For Humanity before the Oregon House. He stressed his ability to get legislation accomplished, deservedly proud of that accomplishment. He believes NAFTA & CAFTA need to be renegotiated and that the tax structure surrounding offshoring needs to be fixed. He stressed that the National Security spending of the US is one of the gateways to improving US manufacturing if it is done here. He covered Health Care, agreeing with Sen Wyden on his Healthy Families Initiative as a gateway health care reform, noting that the status quo has strong reasons to work for the status quo.
Rep Merkley followed up the speech with a Q&A which was mostly about refining his speaking points, but in answer to a question of how often Baker City could expect to see him if he were elected, he noted that he had taken the same pledge Sen Wyden had to visit each of the counties each year with a Town Hall. He believes that if you intend to represent the citizens you need to hear from them.
Jeff Merkley is a comfortable speaker, his thoughts are organized and he is enthusiastic about them without bombast. He seems more saddened by the Rovian electoral behavior of Sen Smith than he is angered. He pointed up the inaccuracies and fake moderate guise of the Smith campaign without taking any real glee in their getting caught out at it. And, yes, they have been caught out by the media rather than just the Merkley campaign. Astonishingly to me, the Oregonian - ordinarily a Smith shill - has poked at Smith several times recently.
Polls are showing a tight race between the two, see-sawing the lead. Smith has more money than God himself, but he also has a voting record and as Jeff Merkley is better introduced to the state wide audience he should gain ground. Smith is regarded as handsome and he is fond of very expensive clothing and other externals but he is not comfortable with audiences - possibly a result of his patrician upbringing and lifestyle - an ordinary citizen of Oregon isn't exactly his metric.
Jeff Merkley has all the equipment to be a real leader in the US Senate, including the enthusiastic support of Sen Ron Wyden and he has all the attributes to be that leader for the ordinary citizens of our State and the Nation. Please remember that state wide campaigns are an expensive proposition and if we'd like to own our elections there is one indispensable tool, lots of small campaign contributions - there is a contribution box on my sidebar...
Republicans, Party of What Ideas?
My pal Nothstine has an article up over at P3 regarding this question. I don't read Nothstine because we agree, though we generally do, I read him because he's a good writer with a 'voice' I enjoy. You'll enjoy his take on where The Party of Ideas has gone.
Republicans will take the most simple minded, in fact stupid, approach to darn near any issue in their appeal to voters. Gen Wesley Clark had the temerity to suggest that there is nothing involved in getting shot down in a fighter bomber over N Vietnam that is a recommendation for the Presidency. The Republican response was to scream that John McCain's service had been attacked. Anybody paying any attention at all would find that this means that every POW ought to run because they've got the Right Stuff. I don't propose that crashing airplanes disqualifies McCain and I don't propose that he didn't behave bravely, I'm just not impressed with either regarding the Presidency. He was a crappy student, a crappy pilot, a crappy Senator, and he's a crappy potential President. It is a stupid argument, it is meaningless, it appeals to nothing other than some kind of militaristic pride.
Trickle down economics were proposed as something new by St Ronnie Reagan and has proven to be a disaster every time it's been tried, by him and since. The appeal to stupidity is two fold, one is that wealth needs help being wealthy - it just isn't historically or contemporaneously accurate. The other piece is that there is something new in the idea, somehow the era of The Robber Barons has escaped notice in this equation and no one seems to notice that the unbridled acquisition of wealth did not tickle down to anyone. The nation came very close to coming apart as a result of the economics of the Robber Baron period. People actually believe that Republican crap. Hey, laborer, those rich folks will spend lots of money on stuff you make - like hell they will. They don't buy that stuff unless you make yachts or private jets, and not many do.
You will find some of the most astonishingly stupid ideas bruited about as something to do with any damn thing that will stand up to reason. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that running very expensive wars "on the cuff" will create problems with money in government and the people who bought into Republican fiscal conservatism bought in hook, line, and sinker.
Gays are a bigger threat to this nation than a broke, broken government that uses the Constitution as toilet paper - honestly. Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears mean what? People who take that seriously could have their heads opened and used as spittoons and be fuller of sense.
Republicans will take the most simple minded, in fact stupid, approach to darn near any issue in their appeal to voters. Gen Wesley Clark had the temerity to suggest that there is nothing involved in getting shot down in a fighter bomber over N Vietnam that is a recommendation for the Presidency. The Republican response was to scream that John McCain's service had been attacked. Anybody paying any attention at all would find that this means that every POW ought to run because they've got the Right Stuff. I don't propose that crashing airplanes disqualifies McCain and I don't propose that he didn't behave bravely, I'm just not impressed with either regarding the Presidency. He was a crappy student, a crappy pilot, a crappy Senator, and he's a crappy potential President. It is a stupid argument, it is meaningless, it appeals to nothing other than some kind of militaristic pride.
Trickle down economics were proposed as something new by St Ronnie Reagan and has proven to be a disaster every time it's been tried, by him and since. The appeal to stupidity is two fold, one is that wealth needs help being wealthy - it just isn't historically or contemporaneously accurate. The other piece is that there is something new in the idea, somehow the era of The Robber Barons has escaped notice in this equation and no one seems to notice that the unbridled acquisition of wealth did not tickle down to anyone. The nation came very close to coming apart as a result of the economics of the Robber Baron period. People actually believe that Republican crap. Hey, laborer, those rich folks will spend lots of money on stuff you make - like hell they will. They don't buy that stuff unless you make yachts or private jets, and not many do.
You will find some of the most astonishingly stupid ideas bruited about as something to do with any damn thing that will stand up to reason. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that running very expensive wars "on the cuff" will create problems with money in government and the people who bought into Republican fiscal conservatism bought in hook, line, and sinker.
Gays are a bigger threat to this nation than a broke, broken government that uses the Constitution as toilet paper - honestly. Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears mean what? People who take that seriously could have their heads opened and used as spittoons and be fuller of sense.
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