This whole Bear Stearns JPMorgan Fed bailout/buyout has the smell of manipulation rising like the stink from the carcass of a dead whale washed up on the beach and left to rot in the summer sun for about 2 weeks. Or like driving behind a full Honey Truck, i.e. Environmental Services truck, at the end of its daily run on an August day.
“Also, under the new terms, JPMorgan will bear the risk of the first $1 billion of losses if any of Bear Stearns' assets go bad. The Federal Reserve will run the risk for the remaining $29 billion, instead of being on the hook for all of the first $30 billion in losses, as was originally announced March 16.”
Well, that’s reassuring! And a classic in understated reassurance as well. Instead of being on the hook for 100 percent of the $30 billion, we only need to worry about 97% of it! Woo freakin’ hoo!!!
I should’ve known to buy some shares when it didn’t stay at $2 but was up around $4-5 last week. Now what we need to figure out is what this new deal means within the framework of the original deal. Was that original deal just a pure PR move to manipulate the markets as a calming gesture, was JPM greenmailing the taxpayers by demanding that absurd $2 share price, or was that a patriotic move by JPM to help ease the troubled financial markets, and just incidentally almost bagged a billion dollar savings on the deal?
Or was it as good a demonstration as you will ever see of why the almighty Free Market is not infallible, not free, not the answer to our financial woes. Because what I see in this debacle is fear, pure unadulterated fear, manifested as cowardice, a fear that drives a $22 billion market cap corporation a year ago to $237 million a week ago.
The fear that somebody is selling so I better sell too, until that panic selling drives a company over the brink on nothing but that oh so wonderful sense of the Market. The Fed stampeded Bear Stearns to accept JPMs offer because the Bushies are terrified of what will happen if the stock market collapses under the weight of their laisse faire regulation, the greed and corruption of their Wall Street cronies and supporters.
If the American People really take a hit because of the failure of the scams and schemes they have allowed and encouraged, BushCo can forget about privatizing Social Security, they can forget about hegemony in the Middle East, they can forget about a Presidential Library, because all of their deeds will become exposed in the unraveling of the American Economy.
Of course we'll be screwed and all that, we can forget about healthcare for all Americans, and retirement, and ponies, and stuff, but we will all know the truth about Bush's economic plan, and the value of a Harvard MBA.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
FISA and You
Just a reminder for my faithful readers, that between the FBI's abusive NSL's, and BushCo's abuses of the FISA system, you might feel lost and powerless.
Well, the ACLU and the EFF think otherwise, and I suggest that you support both of these organizations if you want to reclaim our power, the power that people like John Adams fought for his whole life, the power of Liberty and Freedom, the power laid out in our Declaration of Independence and enshrined in our Constitution.
Think about this charge from Barry Steinhardt then give and support these two groups who are leading the Fight against this gross violation of our rights, fighting directly against the Bush Administration and its Justice Department, every rotten stinking Republican in Congress, and the masses of ignorant and frightened Americans full of fear and anger and misguided loyalty to their "protectors" on the right.
Well, the ACLU and the EFF think otherwise, and I suggest that you support both of these organizations if you want to reclaim our power, the power that people like John Adams fought for his whole life, the power of Liberty and Freedom, the power laid out in our Declaration of Independence and enshrined in our Constitution.
Think about this charge from Barry Steinhardt then give and support these two groups who are leading the Fight against this gross violation of our rights, fighting directly against the Bush Administration and its Justice Department, every rotten stinking Republican in Congress, and the masses of ignorant and frightened Americans full of fear and anger and misguided loyalty to their "protectors" on the right.
"Year after year, we have warned that our great nation is turning into a surveillance society where our every move is tracked and monitored," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project. "Now we have before us a program that appears to do that very thing. It brings together
numerous programs that we and many others have fought for years, and it confirms what the ACLU has been saying the NSA is up to: mass surveillance of Americans."
Monday, March 10, 2008
While I was Out
On Saturday, the news spread like wildfire, Blackwater was giving up on Blackwater West in San Diego's backcountry.
The people of Potrero, population 1047 or so, led by Jan Hedlum and Carl Meyer and many others, and supported by the East County Democratic Club, 77th Assembly Candidate Raymond Lutz, San Diego Democrats, Peace Activists, the Stop Blackwater group, people from Illinois and North Carolina, Jeremy Scahill, all united in stopping Blackwater from setting up their "law enforcement" training camp in San Diego's border wilderness.
First they recalled the Planning Board that had so blithely approved the initial proposal. Then they made a stink, raised public awareness, capitalized on Blackwaters bad deeds and attached publicity, held marches and protests and letter writing campaigns and contended any and every thing Blackwater said, and enlisted strong allies like Congressman Fightin Bob Filner to raise the bar for Blackwater to proceed.
And they just folded up their table as soon as they could wothout looking like they were forced out by Citizens standing up for their community and their Rights.
I was busy on Friday, and on Saturday I was out taking pictures of some local meadows, NTodd, not snow. And it wasn't until late Saturday that I heard the news. Blackwater turned tail before a bunch of angry citizens and Democrats.
Ha, losers! Run away, Illinois is next I think.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Election Insanity
Or is it hysteria?
Christ, if it weren't so complicating for the general election, the hate that the bloggers on the left spew against Hillary Clinton would be amusingly pathetic.
Well, it is pretty sorry, I have to say.
You would think that the presidency of Bill Clinton was the worst presidency ever until Bush came along, that nothing good was accomplished during the eight years of Bill Clinton's administration at all. That Haiti started moving towards some kind of normalcy until the GOP Congress screwed that all up, that never happened.
Something about budget surplusses, I guess that never happend, and taxing the rich, that never happened either.
That peace deal between Israel and Palestine, that never happened either, or that an Israeli NEO-CON lunatic idiot sabotaged that deal as well.
Never bailed out our southern neighbor and made a profit in the process, that didn't happen, nope.
Oh yes, there was NAFTA, but the Republican Congress keeping the critical side deals on labor and the environment from getting properly made, that never happened either.
Well, you get my drift.
Personally, I don't think he's suitable for the job because I don't think he's got the experience. Being President is as far as you can get from being a precinct organizer, and being an agent for some amorphus change isn't experience or reality. If he wins the nomination, well, he'll have proved he's got some chops, then it will be up to all Democrats to get him elected, up to all Democrats to put pressure on him to be the progressive agent of change you all think he is.
Frankly, all this talk about working with Republicans casts serious doubt on his chops as far as I'm concerned, but time will tell.
Christ, if it weren't so complicating for the general election, the hate that the bloggers on the left spew against Hillary Clinton would be amusingly pathetic.
Well, it is pretty sorry, I have to say.
You would think that the presidency of Bill Clinton was the worst presidency ever until Bush came along, that nothing good was accomplished during the eight years of Bill Clinton's administration at all. That Haiti started moving towards some kind of normalcy until the GOP Congress screwed that all up, that never happened.
Something about budget surplusses, I guess that never happend, and taxing the rich, that never happened either.
That peace deal between Israel and Palestine, that never happened either, or that an Israeli NEO-CON lunatic idiot sabotaged that deal as well.
Never bailed out our southern neighbor and made a profit in the process, that didn't happen, nope.
Oh yes, there was NAFTA, but the Republican Congress keeping the critical side deals on labor and the environment from getting properly made, that never happened either.
Well, you get my drift.
Personally, I don't think he's suitable for the job because I don't think he's got the experience. Being President is as far as you can get from being a precinct organizer, and being an agent for some amorphus change isn't experience or reality. If he wins the nomination, well, he'll have proved he's got some chops, then it will be up to all Democrats to get him elected, up to all Democrats to put pressure on him to be the progressive agent of change you all think he is.
Frankly, all this talk about working with Republicans casts serious doubt on his chops as far as I'm concerned, but time will tell.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Border Security
It seems like just yesterday that Bush was telling us how he was going to make us safe and secure like 2 year olds nestled in their mothers busom, by building us a fence to keep all those terrorists that keep snaking over our southern border, you know, those scary folks that wash our dishes and pick our lettuce and clean our motel rooms and all of the other things they do that don't involve unimagined Saudi Arabians flying jetliners into buildings. [My bolds throughout.]
Why, just last week, DHS Chief Brownie, er Michael Chertoff, said "I have personally witnessed the value of this system, refering to Boeings $20 million boondoggle of a virtual fence.
Boondoggle I say?
Boondoggle indeed. Note the dates on these articles. 2/22/08 and 2/28/08. You go from A high-tech "virtual fence" on part of the U.S. border with Mexico is finally ready for service and the technology can fight illegal crossings all along the frontier, the Homeland Security chief said, to The Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a "virtual fence" along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of the first phase of the project by at least three years and shifting away from linked, tower-mounted sensors and communications and surveillance gear, [DHS] officials said yesterday.
That's got to be some kind of record for incompetence, just in the time frame. But it gets better. The physical part of the 700 mile fence BushCo wants to hack across our southern border is going to cost $4 million a mile, but, "The total cost is not yet known," said Richard M. Stana, the GAO's director of homeland security and justice issues, told members of the subcommittee, because DHS officials "do not yet know the type of terrain where the fencing is to be constructed, the materials to be used, or the cost to acquire the land."
They don't know the type of terrain? Terrain? What they're going to use to build the fence, and how much the land will cost? I'm simply not astonished, I picture one of Rummy's 20 something running this project too, after their successes in Iraq.
This article leaves me with many questions, and amply demonstrates the need to remove the Republicans from control of the government. This was just another politicized operation run by political hacks, cronies, and "operatives" from the cesspool of Karl Roves world, a photo op PR campaign to justify the $7.6 Billion they planned to give to their corporate sponsors, while showering us and the media with their yet another heckuva job handjob.
This pretty well encapsulates what voting for republicans in general, and Bush in particular, has given us.
He added that the system was developed with "minimal input" from Border Patrol agents, resulting in an unworkable "demonstration project" instead of a operating pilot system. He blamed the DHS for acting too hastily in trying to deliver a working pilot by last June.
...
A nongovernment source familiar with the project said that the Bush administration's push to speed the project during last year's immigration debate led Boeing to deploy equipment without enough testing or consultation.
...
Those running the project "basically took equipment, [an erector set], put it on towers and put it out there without any testing as such" because of the tight deadline.
Feel safe yet?
Why, just last week, DHS Chief Brownie, er Michael Chertoff, said "I have personally witnessed the value of this system, refering to Boeings $20 million boondoggle of a virtual fence.
Boondoggle I say?
Boondoggle indeed. Note the dates on these articles. 2/22/08 and 2/28/08. You go from A high-tech "virtual fence" on part of the U.S. border with Mexico is finally ready for service and the technology can fight illegal crossings all along the frontier, the Homeland Security chief said, to The Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a "virtual fence" along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of the first phase of the project by at least three years and shifting away from linked, tower-mounted sensors and communications and surveillance gear, [DHS] officials said yesterday.
That's got to be some kind of record for incompetence, just in the time frame. But it gets better. The physical part of the 700 mile fence BushCo wants to hack across our southern border is going to cost $4 million a mile, but, "The total cost is not yet known," said Richard M. Stana, the GAO's director of homeland security and justice issues, told members of the subcommittee, because DHS officials "do not yet know the type of terrain where the fencing is to be constructed, the materials to be used, or the cost to acquire the land."
They don't know the type of terrain? Terrain? What they're going to use to build the fence, and how much the land will cost? I'm simply not astonished, I picture one of Rummy's 20 something running this project too, after their successes in Iraq.
This article leaves me with many questions, and amply demonstrates the need to remove the Republicans from control of the government. This was just another politicized operation run by political hacks, cronies, and "operatives" from the cesspool of Karl Roves world, a photo op PR campaign to justify the $7.6 Billion they planned to give to their corporate sponsors, while showering us and the media with their yet another heckuva job handjob.
This pretty well encapsulates what voting for republicans in general, and Bush in particular, has given us.
He added that the system was developed with "minimal input" from Border Patrol agents, resulting in an unworkable "demonstration project" instead of a operating pilot system. He blamed the DHS for acting too hastily in trying to deliver a working pilot by last June.
...
A nongovernment source familiar with the project said that the Bush administration's push to speed the project during last year's immigration debate led Boeing to deploy equipment without enough testing or consultation.
...
Those running the project "basically took equipment, [an erector set], put it on towers and put it out there without any testing as such" because of the tight deadline.
Feel safe yet?
Monday, February 25, 2008
Just a Small Change
That's what Steve Leesman said this morning on CNBC, refering to the report by the NABE on the unemployment outlook for 2009. (Not in the article, but on the teevee report graphic-DGR) From 4.9 to 5.2%, just a drop really.
Doing a rough calculus, based on these statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, that works out to around 450,000 more people unemployed.
So if you're one of those folks, you're just a drop and so sorry. To put that number in some perspective, that's a city the size of Sacramento or Cleveland or Kansas City, more than Omaha or Minneapolis or Miami FL.
Just a little statistics for your Monday morning.
Doing a rough calculus, based on these statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, that works out to around 450,000 more people unemployed.
So if you're one of those folks, you're just a drop and so sorry. To put that number in some perspective, that's a city the size of Sacramento or Cleveland or Kansas City, more than Omaha or Minneapolis or Miami FL.
Just a little statistics for your Monday morning.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Circular Firing Squad
At least on the blogs. Niw it seems that TalkLeft is a bunch of traitorous assholes. Jeralyn for chrissakes. Karl Rove is laughing his fat, pasty, ass off at the mighty bloggers right now, I guarantee it.
Thank goodness the bloggers aren't running the country, it would be like having a petulent, immature, loud mouthed bully running things.
Oh, that's what we have now.
It would seem that a lot of people are forgetting themselves in their passion for their candidate. I agree that Mark Penn is questionable at best, Hillary shows regrettable judgement in letting him run her campaign, advise, I know, what with his book tour in the middle of her campaign, and someone over at Booman I think suggested that you should never have a bipartisan shop running a political campaign, I agree, which it appears Penn has.
eriposte posted on this Clinton bashing. To me, it's overzealous Obama supporters lifting out of context the whole Clinton presidency, which e encapsulates her pretty well. It's something I've written about many times. What can be said of Bill Clinton can be said about hillary as well. I highlight this graph:
We forget our history at our peril.
Thank goodness the bloggers aren't running the country, it would be like having a petulent, immature, loud mouthed bully running things.
Oh, that's what we have now.
It would seem that a lot of people are forgetting themselves in their passion for their candidate. I agree that Mark Penn is questionable at best, Hillary shows regrettable judgement in letting him run her campaign, advise, I know, what with his book tour in the middle of her campaign, and someone over at Booman I think suggested that you should never have a bipartisan shop running a political campaign, I agree, which it appears Penn has.
eriposte posted on this Clinton bashing. To me, it's overzealous Obama supporters lifting out of context the whole Clinton presidency, which e encapsulates her pretty well. It's something I've written about many times. What can be said of Bill Clinton can be said about hillary as well. I highlight this graph:
What is fascinating to me is that I sometimes get arguments defending Obama along the lines of "well, he's not doing much more than what Bill Clinton did in the 1990s". Actually, what Obama is doing is strategically much worse for the progressive movement than what Bill Clinton did. Bill Clinton acted as a "triangulator" during an era of conservative dominance and when fighting Republicans (like Gingrich) were on their ascendance. After Clinton's failure to pass universal healthcare, skittish Democrats were afraid of Clinton pushing for very liberal policies and Republicans went on a full-frontal attack, that included blocking legislation (even shutting down Government - a tactic that Clinton fought them on and won) and non-stop investigations against him and Hillary Clinton. During most of that era, the media was firmly in the Republican camp and hated the Clintons and manufactured stories about them, and there was no real "fighting progressive" movement online as we have today, to support and defend progressive Democrats. It was in that era that Clinton tried to keep the Presidency in the hands of the Democratic party by appealing to Independents and Republicans - and interestingly, despite some of the bad Bills he passed, he got through numerous progressive Bills because he and Sen. Clinton knew they would not take the right's attacks and obstruction lying down.
We forget our history at our peril.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Do We Deserve To Win? Internets Out Of Control?
Those are the questions I have to ask myself after reading some blogs and comments lately. First it was a thread over at the Left Coaster, take your pick, with formerly agreeable lefties just wailing away at each other and the candidates for all their failings and lies and grotesque imperfections.
Then it was this piece via Atrios, and the particularly rancid comment thread that spent a lot of time trashing John Edwards for being a politician I guess. Maybe these were really gopper trolls, after all, Politico is a DC Beltway creature.
Who knows, it's hard to say on the Internets for sure. But I will say this, again and again. There is absolutely no justification for a liberal minded person to not vote for the Democratic nominee for president, none whatsoever. The republicans are greedy, selfish, little creatures, YET THEY ALWAYS SEEM TO VOTE FOR THEIR PARTY.
Time for Demcorats to step up to the plate.
Hey, how about the Congress, eh? Not passing that fear mongered FISA bill, letting it expire? That's what I'm talking about, Nancy! Good job, Steny! Way to pull together as a team, and stick it to the man, man!
That's why you vote for the Democrats, because just when you think that they're hopeless, they do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons.
Then it was this piece via Atrios, and the particularly rancid comment thread that spent a lot of time trashing John Edwards for being a politician I guess. Maybe these were really gopper trolls, after all, Politico is a DC Beltway creature.
Who knows, it's hard to say on the Internets for sure. But I will say this, again and again. There is absolutely no justification for a liberal minded person to not vote for the Democratic nominee for president, none whatsoever. The republicans are greedy, selfish, little creatures, YET THEY ALWAYS SEEM TO VOTE FOR THEIR PARTY.
Time for Demcorats to step up to the plate.
Hey, how about the Congress, eh? Not passing that fear mongered FISA bill, letting it expire? That's what I'm talking about, Nancy! Good job, Steny! Way to pull together as a team, and stick it to the man, man!
That's why you vote for the Democrats, because just when you think that they're hopeless, they do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons.
Monday, February 4, 2008
The Lull
between Super Sunday and Super Tuesday. They call it Monday.
Thank the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster the "Patriots" lost, I don't think I could have stomached the endless peons to the perfect Patriots and their brilliant coach, their BMOC Brady, the whole corporate worshipping of the doing whatever it takes to get the job done Belichicks, i.e. industrial espionage, you're not trying hard enough if you don't get caught now and then.
I like football, I can take spectacle and corporatization up to a certain point, but the NFL is just really making it near impossible to enjoy the game. That's why I always root for the least profitable outcomes. But you have to hand it to the marketeers and corpses of the NFL, getting people to voluntarily watch their commercials, that's some good work on their part.
I wish the Democrats would take a little lesson from the whole soulless affair though, and market themselves a bit more relentlessly. And their allies like MoveOn, the Unions, the Lawyers, and the Environmentalists.
You know, instead of letting the corps and their agents paint MoveOn as some radical bunch of liberal crazies, instead of getting smeared as ambulance chasers and derided as being more concerned with the fate of the speckled red titmouse snail than with people, it would be a good idea if we all spent some of the money raised telling people what we do and why, how perfectly mundane and normal most of us are, and some practical reasons why liberal issues are important to our daily lives.
In the long run it would help all of us, regardless of the candidate or office involved.
As for Super Tuesday, I'm voting for Hillary Clinton, and my next choice would be Barack Obama, since my guy John Edwards has quit the campaign. And to anybody reading this who thinks that either candidate is unacceptable in November, would you prefer that John McCain were there picking his appointees from the same gene pool that gave us Michael Brown and Stephen Johnson and Lurita Doan and Harriet Meiers and Condi Rice?
Thank the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster the "Patriots" lost, I don't think I could have stomached the endless peons to the perfect Patriots and their brilliant coach, their BMOC Brady, the whole corporate worshipping of the doing whatever it takes to get the job done Belichicks, i.e. industrial espionage, you're not trying hard enough if you don't get caught now and then.
I like football, I can take spectacle and corporatization up to a certain point, but the NFL is just really making it near impossible to enjoy the game. That's why I always root for the least profitable outcomes. But you have to hand it to the marketeers and corpses of the NFL, getting people to voluntarily watch their commercials, that's some good work on their part.
I wish the Democrats would take a little lesson from the whole soulless affair though, and market themselves a bit more relentlessly. And their allies like MoveOn, the Unions, the Lawyers, and the Environmentalists.
You know, instead of letting the corps and their agents paint MoveOn as some radical bunch of liberal crazies, instead of getting smeared as ambulance chasers and derided as being more concerned with the fate of the speckled red titmouse snail than with people, it would be a good idea if we all spent some of the money raised telling people what we do and why, how perfectly mundane and normal most of us are, and some practical reasons why liberal issues are important to our daily lives.
In the long run it would help all of us, regardless of the candidate or office involved.
As for Super Tuesday, I'm voting for Hillary Clinton, and my next choice would be Barack Obama, since my guy John Edwards has quit the campaign. And to anybody reading this who thinks that either candidate is unacceptable in November, would you prefer that John McCain were there picking his appointees from the same gene pool that gave us Michael Brown and Stephen Johnson and Lurita Doan and Harriet Meiers and Condi Rice?
Friday, December 21, 2007
3 Things I learned Tonight
Perhaps learned isn't the correct word. From the NewsHour tonight.
Harry Reid is not a leader. Leaders extol the virtues of their side, their vision, while highlighting the incorrectness of their opposition. Harry Reid is not proud of his party or its values, because he never talked it up during the painful interview with Ray Suarez. Even Suarez didn't know what to do with Reid, he is such a lame interview.
Given every opportunity to defend his party and place the "blockage" squarely on the shoulders of the GOP, Reid failed. Harry, the problem is that the GOP refuses to change their position. While you, Senator, have flopped and prostrated the Democrats trying to appease the inflexible Republicans. I guess the values of the Democratic Party aren't worth fighting for, the evidence seems to indicate that the Leaders of the Party are more concerned with moving towards the positions of the GOP than fight for your values.
The second thing I learned was that the Democrats simply are too inexperienced in being a majority party after 13 years, that they've discovered that it's easier to block the other party than to pass your own legislation. Which they should have known, seeing as how they did that to George W Bush so many t i m e s s s , in t he p... a. s .. t 7, oh never mind.
And third, there are a lot of obvious questions being left out of the CIA Tapes case. Like, why weren't these two al Qaeda operatives at Gitmo in the first place? That seems like an easy way to get around US laws, doesn't it? Like, why would they only tape two al Qaeda operatives interrogations, and not all of them, or at least some of them, like Khalid Sheik Mohammad, or should we just take them at their word? If Harriet Meiers was there when they were discussing destroying the tapes, she being the Presidents legal counsel at the time I believe, why would we believe that Bush knew nothing about the tapes or their destruction when his personal legal representative was in the discussions?
Could we suppose that the fact that they were discussing this at such a high Administration level suggest that perhaps somebody recognized that destruction of evidence could be construed as obstruction, as a cover-up, that whatever dubious legal excuses they offered to the judge today, that maybe somebody knew this was inherently wrong, and the meetings were meant to provide cover for those involved-see we said they shouldn't destroy those tapes-as well as work on a good and unified storyline to explain it?
Too bad the press never asks those questions. Like given how this latest revelation has played out over the past two weeks or so, why should anybody have the least bit of confidence in an internal investigation by the same agencies involved in the cover-up, like how could this Justice Dept investigation have any credibility, given the immeasurable lies and I don't recalls that they have pawned off on us?
That's the perfect lawyerly counter to whatever justifications the Bushies give for conducting an investigation, in fact. Seeing as how so many of you can't recall much of anything in the way of names, dates, actions, meetings, e-mails, advice, arguments, policies, practices, and so on, it's clear that you couldn't possibly conduct a thorough investigation. We need an outside and credible investigator for the job. And not George Mitchell, please.
Harry Reid is not a leader. Leaders extol the virtues of their side, their vision, while highlighting the incorrectness of their opposition. Harry Reid is not proud of his party or its values, because he never talked it up during the painful interview with Ray Suarez. Even Suarez didn't know what to do with Reid, he is such a lame interview.
Given every opportunity to defend his party and place the "blockage" squarely on the shoulders of the GOP, Reid failed. Harry, the problem is that the GOP refuses to change their position. While you, Senator, have flopped and prostrated the Democrats trying to appease the inflexible Republicans. I guess the values of the Democratic Party aren't worth fighting for, the evidence seems to indicate that the Leaders of the Party are more concerned with moving towards the positions of the GOP than fight for your values.
The second thing I learned was that the Democrats simply are too inexperienced in being a majority party after 13 years, that they've discovered that it's easier to block the other party than to pass your own legislation. Which they should have known, seeing as how they did that to George W Bush so many t i m e s s s , in t he p... a. s .. t 7, oh never mind.
And third, there are a lot of obvious questions being left out of the CIA Tapes case. Like, why weren't these two al Qaeda operatives at Gitmo in the first place? That seems like an easy way to get around US laws, doesn't it? Like, why would they only tape two al Qaeda operatives interrogations, and not all of them, or at least some of them, like Khalid Sheik Mohammad, or should we just take them at their word? If Harriet Meiers was there when they were discussing destroying the tapes, she being the Presidents legal counsel at the time I believe, why would we believe that Bush knew nothing about the tapes or their destruction when his personal legal representative was in the discussions?
Could we suppose that the fact that they were discussing this at such a high Administration level suggest that perhaps somebody recognized that destruction of evidence could be construed as obstruction, as a cover-up, that whatever dubious legal excuses they offered to the judge today, that maybe somebody knew this was inherently wrong, and the meetings were meant to provide cover for those involved-see we said they shouldn't destroy those tapes-as well as work on a good and unified storyline to explain it?
Too bad the press never asks those questions. Like given how this latest revelation has played out over the past two weeks or so, why should anybody have the least bit of confidence in an internal investigation by the same agencies involved in the cover-up, like how could this Justice Dept investigation have any credibility, given the immeasurable lies and I don't recalls that they have pawned off on us?
That's the perfect lawyerly counter to whatever justifications the Bushies give for conducting an investigation, in fact. Seeing as how so many of you can't recall much of anything in the way of names, dates, actions, meetings, e-mails, advice, arguments, policies, practices, and so on, it's clear that you couldn't possibly conduct a thorough investigation. We need an outside and credible investigator for the job. And not George Mitchell, please.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Let's dump the horserace notion, please
[Cross posted over at Daily Kos]
I posted this comment on the recommended thread about the tip heard round the world.
How does her (Hillary) tip story relate to her stance on Global Warming? Or Healthcare? Or her stance on the Constitution? Or anything else for that matter?
Stupid obsession with parsing every word somebody says, every body movement, every event or location they physically appear in, it's beyond meaningful. IT SERVES NO PURPOSE, except to sell crap on teevee and does nothing for the political process.
Just like if John Edwards doesn't win Iowa he is done. How many delegates does Iowa have? And how many are needed to win the nomination?
[ed-this is expanded from my comment hereon down] This is not a game, people, let's try treating it appropriately.
Yet Iowa could destroy his campaign, ACCORDING TO THE NEWS MEDIA and parroted all over the blogs like this one (Daily Kos, not mine fer dogs sake!!).
How does that serve democracy? How does that benefit me? Or you?
Rather than debate whether somebody's healthcare plan plays well with this or that group of voters, lets debate about how to make it happen, what are the best mechanisms or programs or POLICIES that can provide us with national healthcare for all Americans.
Because that's the kind of thing that matters, not who has the best soundbite, the best debate performance, who looked effing "Presidential" under the glare of the camera and under the inane and disgusting self serving questions of lazy fat assholes like Tim Russert.
I hear that somebody is working on making ethanol from tree farms, how does that affect agricultural policy, is ethanol the best route to go for cutting greenhouse gasses and our dependence on terrorist oil? Not the same issues, btw, greenhouse gasses and oil dependence.
Why does it matter if a candidate criticizes another candidate? On their policies, that's what I want to know, it doesn't mean anything except that they don't agree. This isn't the schoolyard, people, yet that's how everybody acts, and it's stupid and serves no purpose except the media narrative. And the media, people, is out to kill us, they are as much the enemy as bin Laden, scrath that, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.
Iowa and New Hampshire do not represent me, and I'm tired of the news media and then all the campaign experts and political operatives who have no real deep abiding values, allowing those states to decide who my parties candidate will be. They did it to Howard Dean, and we got John Kerry, who still beat Bush if everything had been done properly. They did it to Al Gore, they're doing it again, and I say that THIS MUST END.
So long as you all insist that money is the defining aspect of a political campaign, and that's what all this momentum bullshit during the early primaries is all about, then we will continue to get lackluster, half assed, timid politicians, and no leadership.
I posted this comment on the recommended thread about the tip heard round the world.
How does her (Hillary) tip story relate to her stance on Global Warming? Or Healthcare? Or her stance on the Constitution? Or anything else for that matter?
Stupid obsession with parsing every word somebody says, every body movement, every event or location they physically appear in, it's beyond meaningful. IT SERVES NO PURPOSE, except to sell crap on teevee and does nothing for the political process.
Just like if John Edwards doesn't win Iowa he is done. How many delegates does Iowa have? And how many are needed to win the nomination?
[ed-this is expanded from my comment hereon down] This is not a game, people, let's try treating it appropriately.
Yet Iowa could destroy his campaign, ACCORDING TO THE NEWS MEDIA and parroted all over the blogs like this one (Daily Kos, not mine fer dogs sake!!).
How does that serve democracy? How does that benefit me? Or you?
Rather than debate whether somebody's healthcare plan plays well with this or that group of voters, lets debate about how to make it happen, what are the best mechanisms or programs or POLICIES that can provide us with national healthcare for all Americans.
Because that's the kind of thing that matters, not who has the best soundbite, the best debate performance, who looked effing "Presidential" under the glare of the camera and under the inane and disgusting self serving questions of lazy fat assholes like Tim Russert.
I hear that somebody is working on making ethanol from tree farms, how does that affect agricultural policy, is ethanol the best route to go for cutting greenhouse gasses and our dependence on terrorist oil? Not the same issues, btw, greenhouse gasses and oil dependence.
Why does it matter if a candidate criticizes another candidate? On their policies, that's what I want to know, it doesn't mean anything except that they don't agree. This isn't the schoolyard, people, yet that's how everybody acts, and it's stupid and serves no purpose except the media narrative. And the media, people, is out to kill us, they are as much the enemy as bin Laden, scrath that, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.
Iowa and New Hampshire do not represent me, and I'm tired of the news media and then all the campaign experts and political operatives who have no real deep abiding values, allowing those states to decide who my parties candidate will be. They did it to Howard Dean, and we got John Kerry, who still beat Bush if everything had been done properly. They did it to Al Gore, they're doing it again, and I say that THIS MUST END.
So long as you all insist that money is the defining aspect of a political campaign, and that's what all this momentum bullshit during the early primaries is all about, then we will continue to get lackluster, half assed, timid politicians, and no leadership.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Here's irony for ya
This perfectly describes the Bush disconnect from reality:
Four to five days seems to be about the standard Bush reaction time, gives time for the corporations or the Saudi's or whoever is benefiting from the situation to take care of immediate needs before the Worst President Ever opens his yap. And to be clear, he's the Worst President Ever because he does nothing that satisfies the job description, unless they've slipped corporations all over the place into the Constitution, via some signing statement.
I was watching some show about Reagan's assassination attempt, the medical surgery aspect of it. Reagan, whose nearly every policy was wrong in the long run for this country, was at the least, a leader who recognized his responsibilities. Why, on the day he was shot he was giving a speech at an AFL-CIO convention, can you imagine Bush doing that?
No, I'll say it again, Bush was set up to destroy our government, and aided by stupid Democrats who still think he's an American interested in the fate of our country, who can't imagine that Bush/Cheney doesn't care about people or the nation, that is just exactly what he's done.
Look at Katrina. Look at Iraq. Look at the State Department, backlogged and undermanned, forcing people to work in Iraq because they don't have the bodies to do the job. Look at the Army's stop-loss policies. Look at the Justice Department. Look at Lurita Doan's GSA. Look at the Defense Department. Look at the Budget deficits. Look at the wage gap. Look at how the Veterans are treated.
See any improvements anywhere?
"You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time," Bush said Wednesday
Four to five days seems to be about the standard Bush reaction time, gives time for the corporations or the Saudi's or whoever is benefiting from the situation to take care of immediate needs before the Worst President Ever opens his yap. And to be clear, he's the Worst President Ever because he does nothing that satisfies the job description, unless they've slipped corporations all over the place into the Constitution, via some signing statement.
I was watching some show about Reagan's assassination attempt, the medical surgery aspect of it. Reagan, whose nearly every policy was wrong in the long run for this country, was at the least, a leader who recognized his responsibilities. Why, on the day he was shot he was giving a speech at an AFL-CIO convention, can you imagine Bush doing that?
No, I'll say it again, Bush was set up to destroy our government, and aided by stupid Democrats who still think he's an American interested in the fate of our country, who can't imagine that Bush/Cheney doesn't care about people or the nation, that is just exactly what he's done.
Look at Katrina. Look at Iraq. Look at the State Department, backlogged and undermanned, forcing people to work in Iraq because they don't have the bodies to do the job. Look at the Army's stop-loss policies. Look at the Justice Department. Look at Lurita Doan's GSA. Look at the Defense Department. Look at the Budget deficits. Look at the wage gap. Look at how the Veterans are treated.
See any improvements anywhere?
Monday, October 22, 2007
San Diego Burning
Well my friends, once again San Diego County is on fire, fires to the North of me having burned 145,000 acres and hundreds of homes, a fire to the South of me 20,000 acres and unknown how many homes, but one life has been lost in the area where it started, Potrero.
We're fine, I don't think that the fires are going to head my way, but I'm keeping my eyes open just in case.
A quarter of a million people have been ordered to evacuate, or have evacuated, you never can be sure which it is. But it's a big mess, a true disaster, you look at pictures of the wind whipping the fire, it just doesn't look real, but look at this slide show for yourself. Look at that picture, 16, fire from side to side. Look at some of those pictures of this huge billowing cloud of smoke looming, boiling, on the horizon. Look at that blood red sunset picture.
All real. I've seen that tower of smoke so many times in my life, but somehow the last couple of times have just been disastrous to the people of the county. I remember the Laguna Fire in '70 as a young lad, the air brown and thick with ash, I remember the Cedar Fire in '03, the flames creeping down the hillsides by my house, I remember the canyon behind my Dad's house burning every other summer fior some reason (damn kids and firecrackers, a cherry bomb one year I know because I heard it go off!) and let me tell you, this shit ain't no fun.
But that's how it goes, I always knew that summer was over when the fires started up in the mountains, that's just the cycle we live by in San Diego. Only when I was a kid nobody lived in those areas. Now, they either are subdivisions like San Diego Country Estates, or people building on their remote properties to get away from the subdivisions and housing tracts.
Right now people are setting up camp with their animals, horses and dogs and cats, you just don't realize how many people have horses in this area, but they're all over the place, there are just so many rural areas in San Diego, it's not just this big ol beach town and biotech metropolis at all. The High School by my house is setting up, I'm going to go take a look and see if they need stuff, I'll give an update when i get back.
For now it's all quiet, but like Sunday afternoon, it can go from nothng to something in a matter of moments. Right now they're evacuating the northern beach cities, Del Mar, Solana Beach, Encinitas, so the Northern fire, the Witch Creek Fire, has gone from the mountains to the ocean in a day, not sure when it's going to stop. Pretty freaky.
Update:
Nobody needs stuff, everything seems pretty calm in my neck of the woods. That's it, not much of an update.
We're fine, I don't think that the fires are going to head my way, but I'm keeping my eyes open just in case.
A quarter of a million people have been ordered to evacuate, or have evacuated, you never can be sure which it is. But it's a big mess, a true disaster, you look at pictures of the wind whipping the fire, it just doesn't look real, but look at this slide show for yourself. Look at that picture, 16, fire from side to side. Look at some of those pictures of this huge billowing cloud of smoke looming, boiling, on the horizon. Look at that blood red sunset picture.
All real. I've seen that tower of smoke so many times in my life, but somehow the last couple of times have just been disastrous to the people of the county. I remember the Laguna Fire in '70 as a young lad, the air brown and thick with ash, I remember the Cedar Fire in '03, the flames creeping down the hillsides by my house, I remember the canyon behind my Dad's house burning every other summer fior some reason (damn kids and firecrackers, a cherry bomb one year I know because I heard it go off!) and let me tell you, this shit ain't no fun.
But that's how it goes, I always knew that summer was over when the fires started up in the mountains, that's just the cycle we live by in San Diego. Only when I was a kid nobody lived in those areas. Now, they either are subdivisions like San Diego Country Estates, or people building on their remote properties to get away from the subdivisions and housing tracts.
Right now people are setting up camp with their animals, horses and dogs and cats, you just don't realize how many people have horses in this area, but they're all over the place, there are just so many rural areas in San Diego, it's not just this big ol beach town and biotech metropolis at all. The High School by my house is setting up, I'm going to go take a look and see if they need stuff, I'll give an update when i get back.
For now it's all quiet, but like Sunday afternoon, it can go from nothng to something in a matter of moments. Right now they're evacuating the northern beach cities, Del Mar, Solana Beach, Encinitas, so the Northern fire, the Witch Creek Fire, has gone from the mountains to the ocean in a day, not sure when it's going to stop. Pretty freaky.
Update:
Nobody needs stuff, everything seems pretty calm in my neck of the woods. That's it, not much of an update.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
In Our Name, Do Not Try This At Home
Just picture this in your neighborhood, think about what that would be like in your own town, and consider how that might influence your neighbors thinking. I'll highlight the key sentence from this article.
The US military is bombing a city, just consider how that works in reality, try to picture yourself on the ground as these innocuous sounding "airstrikes" start falling all around you in the middle of the night.
It's not a particularly comforting image, and it's why we will never "win" in Iraq, not just because there is no description of what "winning" is, but because the Iraqi people will never accept the American presence in Iraq. Look at how long the Jews and Arabs have been fighting in Canaan, do you think the Iraqi's are going to forget what we are doing to them now?
We will be paying the price of Cheney's and the Oil Lobby's stupidity and greed and fear for a long time to come. Thanks to one and all who made this possible.
U.S. forces backed by airstrikes raided Sadr City, Baghdad's main Shiite district, killing 49 militants on Sunday as they targeted a militia leader accused in high-profile kidnappings, the military said. Iraqi officials said women and children were among the dead.
The US military is bombing a city, just consider how that works in reality, try to picture yourself on the ground as these innocuous sounding "airstrikes" start falling all around you in the middle of the night.
It's not a particularly comforting image, and it's why we will never "win" in Iraq, not just because there is no description of what "winning" is, but because the Iraqi people will never accept the American presence in Iraq. Look at how long the Jews and Arabs have been fighting in Canaan, do you think the Iraqi's are going to forget what we are doing to them now?
We will be paying the price of Cheney's and the Oil Lobby's stupidity and greed and fear for a long time to come. Thanks to one and all who made this possible.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Why Democrats Lose Arguments
In response to Mary's post at the mothership, I commented on the article about why the FISA Telcon debate matters. And it's long so I thought to immortalize it here for my edification. With some editorial improvements or additions.
Frankly, I have a HUGE problem with Dean's article, or rather Solove's article.
Yes, it's fine as an intellectual exercise, an underpinning of the philosophical in a broader context.
But that's the god damned problem. It's why people think the Democrats are weak and feeble. And they are. Because they never get practical and down and dirty. They still don't tell people why "I've got nothing to hide" completely misses the point and why it matters to YOU.
Privacy is namby pamby amorphous bullshit. How about it matters because the government can use the information they gather to ruin your life? Give your confidential business affairs to your competitor? Twist your innocent e-mail into a rendition trip to Kazakhistan? Find out about your health issues and use that information as leverage to shut you up?
Suppose you're a random blogger, and the Bushites want to shut you up. You haven't done anything wrong. But they can use information gleaned by spying on you to make you late for a Doctor's appointment, or let your red necked boss know about your political activities, and he can fire you for some bs reason.
They could say, "Steve, we know what schools your kids are going to, we know who you work for, we know what things concern you the most, and we can make sure that those things happen to you."
"Congressman McNerny, we can ruin the business you built, we can make sure that freeway offramp goes by Mr. Issa's car alarm shop, we can find out your scheduled flight and get it cancelled, we can find out where those runaway Democrats went from the Texas Statehouse, and get one of them to switch his vote by threats and pressure and demonstrations of crossing Tom DeLay because look at what power he can access from the NSA, even though he hadn't done anything wrong."
They can threaten to expose reporters sources unless the reporter stops asking questions, it goes on and on and on.
Yes, Solove is correct, that defense only works when you assume that privacy is only used to hide wrong doing. And yes, a lot of what we do is nobody else's business, i.e teenage angst, And yes, a leering, lurking government watcher inhibits freedom of expression.
But that doesn't account for the practical abuses, and that's what the republicans specialize in. Remember, republicans are, at their core, stupid and/or ignorant (at least the ones we have to deal with today). They don't trouble themselves with high notions or concepts. They only want to know how they can make MONEY from the deal. Who is on your side and who isn't. Who is helping Blackwater set up shop in Potrero, and who is working to stop them
Give practical reasons for why this spying must stop. Not because it's wrong, and runs completely counter to the basic core of the Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights, which it is and which it does, but because they can use it to screw over innocent Americans who get in the way of their greed and lust for power.
Why do you think republicans always seem to get the best deals, the best contracts, the best jobs? Dumb luck? Because they earned it? Please.
So, to sum up, don't just make the philosophical argument, make the practical argument, and make the practical argument first, then buoy it up with the deeper underpinnings. I'm sure you all can think of real examples of how all that gathered information can be used against perfectly innocent Americans, so use them instead of the touchy feely weak ass stupidity that Democrats usually use and lose with.
Thanks, rant off.
Frankly, I have a HUGE problem with Dean's article, or rather Solove's article.
Yes, it's fine as an intellectual exercise, an underpinning of the philosophical in a broader context.
But that's the god damned problem. It's why people think the Democrats are weak and feeble. And they are. Because they never get practical and down and dirty. They still don't tell people why "I've got nothing to hide" completely misses the point and why it matters to YOU.
Privacy is namby pamby amorphous bullshit. How about it matters because the government can use the information they gather to ruin your life? Give your confidential business affairs to your competitor? Twist your innocent e-mail into a rendition trip to Kazakhistan? Find out about your health issues and use that information as leverage to shut you up?
Suppose you're a random blogger, and the Bushites want to shut you up. You haven't done anything wrong. But they can use information gleaned by spying on you to make you late for a Doctor's appointment, or let your red necked boss know about your political activities, and he can fire you for some bs reason.
They could say, "Steve, we know what schools your kids are going to, we know who you work for, we know what things concern you the most, and we can make sure that those things happen to you."
"Congressman McNerny, we can ruin the business you built, we can make sure that freeway offramp goes by Mr. Issa's car alarm shop, we can find out your scheduled flight and get it cancelled, we can find out where those runaway Democrats went from the Texas Statehouse, and get one of them to switch his vote by threats and pressure and demonstrations of crossing Tom DeLay because look at what power he can access from the NSA, even though he hadn't done anything wrong."
They can threaten to expose reporters sources unless the reporter stops asking questions, it goes on and on and on.
Yes, Solove is correct, that defense only works when you assume that privacy is only used to hide wrong doing. And yes, a lot of what we do is nobody else's business, i.e teenage angst, And yes, a leering, lurking government watcher inhibits freedom of expression.
But that doesn't account for the practical abuses, and that's what the republicans specialize in. Remember, republicans are, at their core, stupid and/or ignorant (at least the ones we have to deal with today). They don't trouble themselves with high notions or concepts. They only want to know how they can make MONEY from the deal. Who is on your side and who isn't. Who is helping Blackwater set up shop in Potrero, and who is working to stop them
Give practical reasons for why this spying must stop. Not because it's wrong, and runs completely counter to the basic core of the Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights, which it is and which it does, but because they can use it to screw over innocent Americans who get in the way of their greed and lust for power.
Why do you think republicans always seem to get the best deals, the best contracts, the best jobs? Dumb luck? Because they earned it? Please.
So, to sum up, don't just make the philosophical argument, make the practical argument, and make the practical argument first, then buoy it up with the deeper underpinnings. I'm sure you all can think of real examples of how all that gathered information can be used against perfectly innocent Americans, so use them instead of the touchy feely weak ass stupidity that Democrats usually use and lose with.
Thanks, rant off.
Friday, October 12, 2007
San Diego's own Bush
I'm tellin ya, readers, the rest of you got nothin on San Diego.
Long ruled by Building Developers, we're finally getting to the point of unsustainability. Everybody wants to live here because of the weather, never mind the realities that make it possible to actually live here, like water and housing and infrastructure. There were plenty of jobs thanks to the Navy, airplane pioneers like Ryan and Lindburgh, Jonas Salk, and others. There was lots of open land to build on, and so we grew, and grew, and grew, 600,000+ when I was a lad to 1.2 million today, just for the city mind you, county population growth is even bigger.
Lots of changes, twists, turns, as America's Finest City has become Enron by the Bay. And you might have seen the sinkhole/landslide/slippage recently in La Jolla, up on Mt Soledad specifically, CNN had it I'm sure, and like all good teevee journalists, they showed the disaster, then left.
But what really happened there? Did this just suddenly appear overnight? Were there no warnings? Mountains (okay, it's a tall hill, covered in houses) generally don't just move on their own, so what preciptated the move? Mayor Sanders was quick to deny City culpability, that evil bastard City Attorney Mike Aguirre said we better look into it.
Could it be that maybe the developers have built in places they shouldn't be? Like on an earthquake fault, hillside slip zone? And could it be that the bought and paid for mayor, former Police Chief and Savior of the corrupt Red Cross of San Diego is working overtime to protect the developers and the city from assignation of fault? Because if the city gets assigned the blame, more questions arise, like who let them build there, who wasn't doing their jobs, and how much money did the developers spend to get their way?
Look at these e-mails and tell me that the City, and by extension, the Mayor, weren't aware of a looming problem on the Mountain.
The designated area of concern, the 5700 block of Soledad Mountain Road, is on the verge of possible catastrophic failure due to continual ground movement caused by an unknown condition...
Which is why they were letting a quarter million dollar sole source request for monitoring ground movement in the area, on 9/27/07. And the slide occured on 10/3/07, and the city's responses had been band-aid at best.
After all, they were getting reports about problems since June, there had been serious slides in the area in the past, and yet, the Mayor was vacationing, er, sitting in a classroom, sorry, lobbying in Washington DC when the slide occured, and nothing had been done to address the problem, or prepare for an inevitable problem.
So the next time you think you have it bad, think about San Diego. We have the worst President ever, the most evil Vice President ever, a horrible actor as Governor, and Mini Me Jerry Sanders Bush as Mayor, a real trifecta if there ever was one.
Long ruled by Building Developers, we're finally getting to the point of unsustainability. Everybody wants to live here because of the weather, never mind the realities that make it possible to actually live here, like water and housing and infrastructure. There were plenty of jobs thanks to the Navy, airplane pioneers like Ryan and Lindburgh, Jonas Salk, and others. There was lots of open land to build on, and so we grew, and grew, and grew, 600,000+ when I was a lad to 1.2 million today, just for the city mind you, county population growth is even bigger.
Lots of changes, twists, turns, as America's Finest City has become Enron by the Bay. And you might have seen the sinkhole/landslide/slippage recently in La Jolla, up on Mt Soledad specifically, CNN had it I'm sure, and like all good teevee journalists, they showed the disaster, then left.
But what really happened there? Did this just suddenly appear overnight? Were there no warnings? Mountains (okay, it's a tall hill, covered in houses) generally don't just move on their own, so what preciptated the move? Mayor Sanders was quick to deny City culpability, that evil bastard City Attorney Mike Aguirre said we better look into it.
Could it be that maybe the developers have built in places they shouldn't be? Like on an earthquake fault, hillside slip zone? And could it be that the bought and paid for mayor, former Police Chief and Savior of the corrupt Red Cross of San Diego is working overtime to protect the developers and the city from assignation of fault? Because if the city gets assigned the blame, more questions arise, like who let them build there, who wasn't doing their jobs, and how much money did the developers spend to get their way?
Look at these e-mails and tell me that the City, and by extension, the Mayor, weren't aware of a looming problem on the Mountain.
The designated area of concern, the 5700 block of Soledad Mountain Road, is on the verge of possible catastrophic failure due to continual ground movement caused by an unknown condition...
Which is why they were letting a quarter million dollar sole source request for monitoring ground movement in the area, on 9/27/07. And the slide occured on 10/3/07, and the city's responses had been band-aid at best.
After all, they were getting reports about problems since June, there had been serious slides in the area in the past, and yet, the Mayor was vacationing, er, sitting in a classroom, sorry, lobbying in Washington DC when the slide occured, and nothing had been done to address the problem, or prepare for an inevitable problem.
So the next time you think you have it bad, think about San Diego. We have the worst President ever, the most evil Vice President ever, a horrible actor as Governor, and Mini Me Jerry Sanders Bush as Mayor, a real trifecta if there ever was one.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Corpirate America
I typo'ed that title but it seems appropo so I left it!
Looking for something to do? Strike a blow against the corporations. Just got a Cisco proxy material in the mail, perusing the Board of Directors to elect, I had recently decided to just vote no against all directors regardless, but then when I was looking at the list I thought that might dilute the impact of my no votes, so I did my due diligence.
Anything to do with Wal Mart ever, "No" vote. Stanford University, until they repudiate Rice, "No" vote. Bankers, "No" vote. Too many boards already, "No" vote (although none of Cisco's fell into that category. Michael Powell, "Noooooooo" hold on, can I vote twice?
Yes, that feckless, soulless, lever on Dad's soul, Michael Powell. They list the committees the members sit on, and guess what, Michael Powell doesn't sit on a committee. He just gets his $50,000 fee and $69,699 option award to do nothing, to show up at a couple of posh board meetings and agree with everybody else and pocket over a hundred grand.
So, my fellow ducklings, if you happen to own Cisco stock and get to vote your proxy, please vote no against Michael Powell. And should you happen to be at the shareholder meeting, ask them what it is that he did to earn that money.
Looking for something to do? Strike a blow against the corporations. Just got a Cisco proxy material in the mail, perusing the Board of Directors to elect, I had recently decided to just vote no against all directors regardless, but then when I was looking at the list I thought that might dilute the impact of my no votes, so I did my due diligence.
Anything to do with Wal Mart ever, "No" vote. Stanford University, until they repudiate Rice, "No" vote. Bankers, "No" vote. Too many boards already, "No" vote (although none of Cisco's fell into that category. Michael Powell, "Noooooooo" hold on, can I vote twice?
Yes, that feckless, soulless, lever on Dad's soul, Michael Powell. They list the committees the members sit on, and guess what, Michael Powell doesn't sit on a committee. He just gets his $50,000 fee and $69,699 option award to do nothing, to show up at a couple of posh board meetings and agree with everybody else and pocket over a hundred grand.
So, my fellow ducklings, if you happen to own Cisco stock and get to vote your proxy, please vote no against Michael Powell. And should you happen to be at the shareholder meeting, ask them what it is that he did to earn that money.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Airport Security Isn't
This story just outrages, me as it does you all I'm sure. There's just no excuse for this kind of crap happening in this country, just imagine if that had been Bob Filner getting treated that way, as it probably almost was.
Authorities have said Gotbaum, who was handcuffed and shackled to a bench, may have accidentally strangled herself Friday.
Does that sound like a likely scenario, shackled to the bench and handcuffed she somehow managed to strangle herself?
Just another dead American to chalk up to the Republicans fear and cowardice and greed.
Authorities have said Gotbaum, who was handcuffed and shackled to a bench, may have accidentally strangled herself Friday.
Does that sound like a likely scenario, shackled to the bench and handcuffed she somehow managed to strangle herself?
Just another dead American to chalk up to the Republicans fear and cowardice and greed.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Free Trade with Columbia on CNBC
Yes, I'm still alive, faithful readers.
Just watched a bit of debate about the looming free trade agreement with Columbia. What I love the most is that the reporter had a pro and con and some business talkers on, and as soon as the con started talking, she, the reporter, had to talk over and interrupt her because she wanted to argue with what the woman was saying. Was I watching O'Leilly all of the sudden?
Say what you will about Jim Lehrer (I won't, much) but the strongest part of his show is that the reporters DO NOT become part of the report. When they do, they get axed, like Stuart Taylor did some years back to be replaced by Jan Crawford Greenburg.
Back to CNBC. The great Gen. McCafferty said, "Polls, schmolls" when asked to comment on the fact that the majority of Columbians oppose the agreement, because the business community is all for it. And we know who matters in the world, right, great General? Then some Wall Street guy started talking about how it helps keep cheap, low cost goods available for Americans. To which I say, WE ALREADY GET THAT POISON FROM CHINA, why do we need somebody else's?
Then the reporter was all happy, at which point I cursed the teevee and turned it off. Better Democrats, better reporters, how about better JOURNALISM SCHOOLS?
Just watched a bit of debate about the looming free trade agreement with Columbia. What I love the most is that the reporter had a pro and con and some business talkers on, and as soon as the con started talking, she, the reporter, had to talk over and interrupt her because she wanted to argue with what the woman was saying. Was I watching O'Leilly all of the sudden?
Say what you will about Jim Lehrer (I won't, much) but the strongest part of his show is that the reporters DO NOT become part of the report. When they do, they get axed, like Stuart Taylor did some years back to be replaced by Jan Crawford Greenburg.
Back to CNBC. The great Gen. McCafferty said, "Polls, schmolls" when asked to comment on the fact that the majority of Columbians oppose the agreement, because the business community is all for it. And we know who matters in the world, right, great General? Then some Wall Street guy started talking about how it helps keep cheap, low cost goods available for Americans. To which I say, WE ALREADY GET THAT POISON FROM CHINA, why do we need somebody else's?
Then the reporter was all happy, at which point I cursed the teevee and turned it off. Better Democrats, better reporters, how about better JOURNALISM SCHOOLS?
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
It's Going To Be a Long Campaign, People
Talking Points has this discussion about some comment that Bill Richardson made about God and Iowa the other day. I would be happier if god were not a part of our elections at all, in fact the more irreligious the candidate the more I like them, which pretty much leaves me out in the cold these days, so I have to go by other criteria.
I won't even characterize Richardson's comments as a mistake, dumb, bad joke, whatever, it's just a comment that the bloggers want to blow up into something else. Tongue in cheek or irreverent sarcasm perhaps. Yet, people on the left are attacking one of our own as if it's the worst thing ever said. Today. Brilliant! (Which reminds me, is it too early for a Guinness?) Well, I posted a comment, which I'll repost on MY blog, that pretty much sums up my feelings about the matter. Then can we move on to more important matters, like attacking the Republicans and trying to get OUR Democratic Senators and Congressmen to stop Bush from attacking Iran? Huh, how about it? Please.
What Malangali and Not the senator said. We need to stop with the Alpha Girls behavior, let these people talk, and stop getting your panties, that's right, PANTIES, all in a wringer because a candidate said something imperfect or unfunny or unappealing or what you found offensive.
Jeebus effing christ, parse this! They all say crap like this, if they don't there's something seriously wrong with that person. I do not want a robot as president, an uptight, scripted, automaton (Hillary) who never speaks in a more direct manner to people, who calculates all.
In fact, that's the problem with our politics today, the candidates get placed on some sort of platform where all of their utterences are given such weight, that they lose their connection to reality. I want a guy who, yes, I said GUY, because that's my generic for person, christ give ita rest already, might speak more directly and colorfully, maybe stumble and mumble once in a while, not like a retard like Bush, and yes, I said RETARD coz that's the euphemism for god damned effing idiot in my book if that's okay with you, so get off the guys back already.
For those who don't remember, here's a reminder, read it and weep at what might have been if not for this bs:
Al Gore and the Alpha Girls
I won't even characterize Richardson's comments as a mistake, dumb, bad joke, whatever, it's just a comment that the bloggers want to blow up into something else. Tongue in cheek or irreverent sarcasm perhaps. Yet, people on the left are attacking one of our own as if it's the worst thing ever said. Today. Brilliant! (Which reminds me, is it too early for a Guinness?) Well, I posted a comment, which I'll repost on MY blog, that pretty much sums up my feelings about the matter. Then can we move on to more important matters, like attacking the Republicans and trying to get OUR Democratic Senators and Congressmen to stop Bush from attacking Iran? Huh, how about it? Please.
What Malangali and Not the senator said. We need to stop with the Alpha Girls behavior, let these people talk, and stop getting your panties, that's right, PANTIES, all in a wringer because a candidate said something imperfect or unfunny or unappealing or what you found offensive.
Jeebus effing christ, parse this! They all say crap like this, if they don't there's something seriously wrong with that person. I do not want a robot as president, an uptight, scripted, automaton (Hillary) who never speaks in a more direct manner to people, who calculates all.
In fact, that's the problem with our politics today, the candidates get placed on some sort of platform where all of their utterences are given such weight, that they lose their connection to reality. I want a guy who, yes, I said GUY, because that's my generic for person, christ give ita rest already, might speak more directly and colorfully, maybe stumble and mumble once in a while, not like a retard like Bush, and yes, I said RETARD coz that's the euphemism for god damned effing idiot in my book if that's okay with you, so get off the guys back already.
For those who don't remember, here's a reminder, read it and weep at what might have been if not for this bs:
Al Gore and the Alpha Girls
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