Crazy Hobbit zombie terrorists get their way
"I am firm. You are obstinate. He is a pig-headed fool." - Katherine Whitehorn
The making of a political deal is messy and crude. The debt ceiling deal was especially so. Tea party supporters took a lot of the abuse during the standoff. They were called just about everything by Democrats in Congress, a few of their fellow Republicans and liberals across the country. Late-night comedians and the mainstream media had a field day excoriating the tea partiers.
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Debt Deal: Winners and Losers
During the contentious negotiations leading to the final deal, a re-orientation of the starting point for developing future federal budgets seems to have occurred. Instead of an emphasis on appropriations and earmarks, with ever-growing federal programs, Congressional budgets may now begin with program cuts.
President Obama did not break the tea parties by forcing the Republicans to accept new tax revenues but the president did get a deal that pushes the deficit ceiling beyond the 2012 election.
Obama's State of the Union: Missing the Message
Overall, Obama's State of the Union address impressed.
I was glad to have him tackle education more honestly than I've been used to with politicians, to the point of proposing the dismantling of the troublesome No Child Left Behind Act. Likewise, I am glad he stuck to his guns on the health care bill, while also offering concessions if they were practical and didn't compromise the overall aim of the bill. On the environmental front, of course, he offered the good talk about the potential stimulating effects of renewable energy and expanded public transportation options on the economy and the potential for job growth. However, he never once mentioned the climate.
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Questions About Obama's Calmness
Is Barack Obama's calmness a mask hiding layers of uncertainty about his role as president? Is the President's seemingly unflappable persona a cover for his frequent failure to use the full range of powers of his office? As others have pointed out, in utter frustration, the President too often offers the Republicans what they want before hard bargaining even begins. Why is this happening?
Both Jackie Robinson, who was the first black Major Leaguer and Obama, the first black President faced enormous pressure to avoid being labeled the "angry black man."
Once Robinson demonstrated his great abilities, he became free to be as aggressive as any white player. The question for Obama is: can he free himself to aggressively and effectively employ the substantial leverage that his office bestows on him? My considered judgment is that it will take intense personal growth to accomplish that.
Republican Elitism Revealed
In a September 15th, 2010 Wall Street Journal article, "Rove Fires Up Talk on O'Donnell", Rove Fires Up, Republican strategist Karl Rove's off-the-cuff comments about Christine O'Donnell's victory as the Republican nominee for Delaware's Senate seat were examined. Rove's reaction to a move in the "right" direction by the defeat of Rep. Mike Castle, labeled a RINO (Republicans In Name Only) due to his liberal voting record, was very perplexing for staunch conservatives.
The WSJ article included the following Hannity-Rove exchange from Fox's "Hannity" show:
Alaska Kills Wolves!
I once had a single bumper stick that emblazoned my first car, a beat-up smurf-blue Chevy, that simply stated, "Little Red Riding Hood LIED."
I grew up in an inner-city area. The only wild animals I ever saw were squirrels, pigeons and the occasional rat, and their wildness was in question. I never saw a deer or raccoon other than behind bars until I went away to college in a more rural and mountainous setting. My eyes opened up...
Moving Towards Sustainability: Why the Plastic Drinking Straw Signals a Starting Point
Even though I consider myself fairly low impact in most of my everyday practices, giving up the plastic straw was an oversight I didn't finally address until fairly recently. I had been on the way to weaning myself slowly off of excess waste: bringing my own tupperware to restaurants to pack leftovers (and simply not eating out as much), refusing paper and plastic bags in favor of my own canvas ones, and bringing my own reusable mugs and cutlery in my bag as part of a permanent carry-along item, along with my wallet, keys, and the ever-present pen & paper that always is on a self-identified writer's person.
But as for straws...well, when did my vendetta against them begin in earnest? I had, these past few years, intermittenly refused them at restaurants, though it didn't bother me so much if I forgot to or not (which I often did). If they still adorned my glass, I took it in stride and shrugged it off. I don't eat meat, rarely drive and hang-dry my clothes, so I have done my part...there are so much bigger things to worry about, right?
Obama, Liberals Threaten Our Nation
Since we just celebrated our nation's victory for independence, it's healthy to step back from the canvas of the current admininstration to better understand the genesis and current context of its policies.
In the area of national security and military intervention, it's been a fascinating exercise in political forensics to witness the response to President Obama's firing of General Stanley McChrystal. If history demonstrates anything it's that its lessons are perpetually susceptible to revision based on new evidence and more informed analysis. So it is that over the centuries, the credibility of Herodotus' rendering of the Peloponnesian War has attenuated, while that of Thucydides is deemed more persuasive.
The Tea Partier in the GOP’s midst
Here is what I wrote in April:
The Republican Party will experience it at the local and state levels first, as Tea Party candidates defeat conventional Republicans and win GOP nominations. Some of those Tea Partiers will be kooky, others will be single-issue ideologues. A few will be anti-immigrant, a smattering will be paranoid. Others will be very like the Republicans they beat.
Blunting the Arizona Boycotts
Those of us who believe the state of Arizona has a right to protect its borders should do our part to blunt the effects of liberal-organized boycotts against that state. We are in the majority here. Most polls show that Americans favor Arizona's new immigration law by nearly two to one. There is power in numbers, and they are on our side this time.
The boycotts are starting to mount up, from school boards meddling in politics and depriving their student athletes of the chance to participate in sporting events in Arizona to the Los Angeles city council's recent vote to suspend business activities with that state. Arizona will soon begin to feel their negative effects.
Europe's search for the new Holy Grail
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
- Pogo, the comic strip philosopher created by Walt Kelly
Texas' New Curriculum - The Founding Father Argument
"This is what the Founding Fathers intended" - a commonly used phrase in the U.S. in defending heatedly discussed issues, such as the right to bear arms. The Founding Fathers are the heavy weights of debate, the killer argument if you will, no more reasoning necessary, discussion completed.
The same argument could be heard in recent months in a public debate over revising Texas' school curriculum. The Texas board of education considered changing the Founding Fathers' strong commitment to a secular government to a more Christian-based interpretation. Never mind that the idea of America as a Judeo-Christian nation has been revised and discussed for decades. The Texas School Board of Education treats these ideas as established and unmovable truth. And never mind that Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, was a strong advocate of a strict separation of church and state. The board simply removed him from its canon.
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Emergent misbehavior
How would you like a beer? How about a beer company along with it?
On Thursday, the 6th of May, for a few minutes, you could have bought a delicious Sam Adams plus a substantial interest in its maker, the Boston Beer Company, all for the price of a pint. Boston Beer stock, along with dozens of others on the major U.S. stock exchanges, plummeted to zero, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average nosedived 700 points in a matter of minutes.
We Should Learn from Socialism's Collapse
We would all be wise to take warning from the recent events in Greece that have led to jitters in our stock market as well as markets around the world. The problems in Greece, of course, were caused created by socialism.
Too many people were getting too many freebies off the backs of too few others. There was no way that such a system could sustain itself. It was doomed from the beginning. It was just a matter of time before it would begin to collapse. The chickens are now coming home to roost.
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Earth Day Reflections: Plastic Ocean Patches, Hermaphrodite Fish and No Talk of Cap and Dividend
Today is Earth Day. I started my morning, as I almost always do, looking up the latest environmental news brought to my email Inbox by the Society of Environmental Journalists. Today's news consisted of: a killer whale who died off the coast of the Puget Sound gorged on plastic debris and other garbage (the objects didn't kill him, though scientists think it might have been the ingestion of invisible industrial chemicals), the latest update about yesterday's explosion of an offshore oil rig off our Southeastern coast, and an AP article about the events that spurred the first Earth Day with a comparison about our current state of the environment.
To begin with this last item, we no longer have waterways that catch on fire or birds falling dead from DDT poisoning mid-flight, and most of our skies are not rendered mere shadows by smog and soot. Our environmental threats are now more concealed and more complex, and so harder to believe in, or combat. Chemical exposure and climate change are more difficult to see, and their threats are for the most part, slower to take hold.