Sep 14 2008
It’s war for sure, and it’s being waged upon us, the People of the United States.
It’s being waged for reasons we’ll never fully understand.
It’s being waged for reasons not openly explained.
It’s being waged for guesswork-reasons that make little sense.
War waged as a shot in the dark making little sense to any free-thinking person.
Sep 13 2008
Much of the focus of John McCain’s campaign for president has been on his reputed experience (and just as often, the alleged lack of same for his opponent). But there has been sparse actual examination of how that argument should be measured. Is spending five and a half years in a prisoner of war camp 40 years ago preparation to run the largest governmental bureaucracy in the world? If so, then, as Jon Stewart said, “Guantanamo Bay isn’t a prison, it’s a leadership academy.” Is 36 years in Congress the yardstick for executive readiness? Or is it two years as governor of the third smallest state in the nation, preceded by the mayoralty of a frosty township of 6,000? McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, appear to disagree on this issue:
Sep 13 2008
Let’s play “let’s pretend” and the issue is the events that led up to Milk Creek in 1879. Who would have listened to the Indian agent Nathan C. Meeker in this current election, and who would have listened to Chief Colorow who had told Major Thomas T. Thornburgh that there would be bloodshed if they crossed into the Ute’s reservation in this current election? Let’s start off with what’s current, remembering that polar bears aren’t the only ones who have had to relocate.
…but the Arctic is the scene for a new kind of international gold rush…
Arctic a potential conflict zone, Europe warnedBRUSSELS, Belgium – European Union leaders will receive a stark warning next week of potential conflict with Russia over energy resources at the North Pole as global warning melts the ice cap and aggravates international security threats.
See video
Sep 12 2008
What do you feel when you see this (warning, sick and wrong attack on Obama follows):
Angry? Incensed? Stay with that emotion and watch this next one:
Sep 12 2008
Crossposted to Agent Orange … please help make Susan Kraemer’s good work on this more visible. And click through to the article on the original site, vote it up and leave comments, so her boss knows that her hard work is appreciated.
I just read up on John McCain’s 50 Votes Against Clean Energy, on the MatteR Network(1).
The take home message is really straightforward. The only energy sector that John McCain supports is Nuclear Power. When a “clean”(2) vote comes up for any Sustainable Energy Source, McCain’s position is simple: He’s Agin It.
It seems that the claim at the DNC that McCain voted against Renewable Power 25 times has been attacked by a fact checking web site, so what Susan Kraemer has done is go through 50 votes, and the picture is that of one of the dirtiest Sustainable Energy voting records in the Senate:
Summary
McCain voted with Boxer 1 out of 50 times – against signing the Kyoto protocol (vote 14). McCain voted with Inhofe 42 out of 44 times unless Inhofe voted with Boxer (see votes 34 and 35). McCain voted with Republicans unless the majority voted with Democrats (see votes 9, 10, 12, 15,16 and 36). I will similarly review Senator Obama’s voting record in a future post.
The full tally is 37 votes against, and, during his current run for the White House, Missing 13 times on bills where he has stated opposition.
The Take-Home message is: on Sustainable Energy, John McCain is Inhofe’s twin, and Boxer’s opposite.
Sep 12 2008
Crossposted from MY LEFT WING
To call a spade a bloody shovel means more than speaking plainly; rather, it means saying something that is true but unpalatable — or impolitic.
During an otherwise stellar appearance on David Letterman’s show last night, Barack Obama missed an opportunity to deliver a kidney punch to John McCain. In my view, this missed opportunity vividly exemplifies a weakness in the election style Democrats have used over the past three decades.
(I’m not saying Obama’s campaign exemplifies this style; to the contrary, despite a few missteps — and who among us could do better? — I submit that, given the fact that Barack Obama has steamrolled over every obstacle thus far, this man just might know better than anyone how to correct the Democratic Party’s mistakes of the past and finally, FINALLY beat these bastards in this rigged game. But I’m making a point here, so… bear with me.)
Letterman asked, and I’m paraphrasing,
“If you’d been able to pick your Vice-Presidential running mate after McCain picked Palin, would you have chosen differently?”
Obama answered — and again, I’m paraphrasing:
“I chose the person I want in the room with me, giving me wise advice and different points of view…”
Intelligent, cogent and sincere.
But I think he should have phrased it thusly:
“Maybe this is another difference between Senator McCain and me:I didn’t pick my running mate because I thought he would help me WIN; I picked him because I thought he would help me GOVERN.”
Stark, simple and true. Did John McCain pick Sarah Palin because he thought she was the best of all possible candidates for the role of Vice-President in a McCain Administration?
The very suggestion is a joke. Nobody could make that suggestion with a straight face unless he worked for McCain or Fox News. McCain picked Palin to help him win the election.
Just one more in an endless series of proofs that John McCain’s campaign slogan of “Country First” is an empty, shallow and insulting lie.
Sep 11 2008
Dear Senator McCain,
Enter public life determined to tell the truth; to put problem-solving ahead of partisanship; to defend the public interest against the special interests; to risk your personal ambitions for the sake of the country and the ideals that make her great. Keep your promise to America, and you will keep your honor. You will know a happiness far more sublime than pleasure. source
It rains down on you like a cold shower, doesn’t it? These are your own words, Senator. In the rush of the past couple of weeks, have you stopped to take a look at what you are doing, what path you are taking?
We all understand that the truth gets stretched in a political campaign. Usually there is at least the facade of truth, a plausible link to the truth, that lets the practice be tolerated. But you’ve chosen to dispense with the facade of truth. You choose to lie.
Your ambition to be President is so great that you have completely sublimated your identity and personality to grasp that which you covet. Your ability to make decisions and stand for yourself is gone.
Sep 10 2008
Note from GH–this probably applies less to the DocuDharma crowd, who don’t get so easily distracted by bright, shining distractions
These are serious times, and they call for a serious debate about where we need to take the nation.
–Barack Obama
Now, I admit to having a few guilty pleasures in life. Watching back episodes of “What Not To Wear”. Buying earrings at the Kohl’s in the 80% off clearance section. Getting that chai tea latte at Panera. Doing that powerwalk through Ikea and promising myself that someday, somehow my house really will be this organized.
Sarah Palin, over these last fun-filled days since the announcement that she would be Old Man McCain’s Vice President, has been one of these guilty pleasures. But like all guilty pleasures, it doesn’t take a whole lot of exposure to just get, well, a little tired of seeing it day in and day out.
Sep 10 2008
The Framers of our Constitution, the fathers of our country held a simple, but profound truth. They believed in the people.
As put forth in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all …
Our very Declaration of Independence from the British Crown was based on Truths.
The Framers went further in our Constitution to set the imperatives for the Nation, for America:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, …
Presidents, the Congress, the Courts, our Military and our People have lived by these founding principles for more than 200 years. We the People… Will America continue to be for all or will the Constitution need to be changed to “We the privileged few of the people”. A test is coming the first Tuesday of November. Will we get it right?
Sep 10 2008
I’m thinking about Reverse Poll-arity this morning.
Honest to God, the addition of Barracuda to McSame’s ticket and the inflated Poll numbers to ease the election fraud makes me MORE likely to vote for Obama than I was a few days ago.
ANOTHER BLATANT LIAR IN THE WHITE HOUSE? ANOTHER FUCKWEASEL WHO DOESN’T EVEN TRY TO HIDE THE LIES FROM THE GET GO?
Random Sidebar:
Yesterday I tried my googlest best to find the lyrics to an old Roy Rogers song to no avail.I just had this riff going about “Palin, you no Pal O’Mine” to the tune of “Palamino Pal o’Mine” and nowhere to go with it.
That song so pre-dates even my old ass, I have no idea why I even know it, and yet I found it hilarious snark, and wish I had been able to parody the lyrics. The refrain is all I remembered.
Ok, back to the wonky shit.
Sep 10 2008
It is her facility in lying, her habit of lying, that is so bad. It’s second nature to Palin, self-professed Christian, to lie when convenient, when it would get her people’s sympathy or votes or good opinion.
Lying is perhaps the biggest liability for the “pistol packin mama.” Her tendency to rewrite her own history to gain advantage. She’ll get tripped up in debates when she does this. It’s her habit, as seen in interviews she’s given prior to her getting tapped by McCain.
Before long she’ll be forced by revelations to come out and say it was due to media glare, please feel sorry for me! Alas, that will be yet another lie. But she is now deeply trapped in the lies she has told us so convincingly.
Will America be fooled? It is not just recent behavior under the glare of the national media as VP candidate. Interviews prior to her selection, and from 2007, show that her lying behavior is ingrained and pervasive, as easy as flipping the mooseburgers.
Sep 10 2008
You’re riding in the car, and you and your friends are having a good time, laughing, four of you out on a ride… and then the conversation stops.
There’s an embarrassed pause, as the stink spreads; silence, then either a confession or accusations of who caused the stench. Sooner or later, a window is opened, and the offending fart is gone.
The fact is, one person farted, but EVERYBODY in the car is affected. There isn’t anybody wearing an air filter on their nose, so the experience is shared by everyone.
It’s like that with the situation in the U.S.A. and the world right now; there’s nobody OUT THERE; we’re all IN HERE. A person gets shot in Pennsylvania, or Iraq, and we all suffer.
I have a cousin who is very, very rich, we’re talking MEGA- and guess what? She has problems. Problems that make her heart bleed, that cause the kind of pain that makes grown people go to another room so you can’t see them crying. Problems, strangely enough, very much like yours and mine. It’s true, she’s not in Darfur; but she still has to survive in this life, just like you and me.
I see people on the street begging, and I can tell that some of them, like me, are veterans- people who served their country but didn’t marry beer heiresses. They gave of themselves, and a horrible system pumped on greed sold them the idea of patriotism, then spat them out onto the street when it had used them.
I guess what I’m trying to get across is that when there’s suffering, we all suffer. We all suffer from the greed of the weapon makers, the board of directors of companies that make all the hardware necessary for modern war. Pharmaceutical companies that sell a drug for a hundred times what it really costs. Intelligent people who sell the idea that it’s cool to be ignorant.
The most ignorant manifestation of this is people who pollute the environment for profit, thinking that the air they breathe is not polluted with what their factories spew out.
Republicans, Democrats, Independents, rednecks, hippies, plutocrats, beauty queens, smack freaks, presidents, the bottom line is that we’re all in this car together; and finding the solutions to our common problems is more important than fighting over who made the mess. When finally the accusations get old, somebody will have to open a window… so to speak.
So enjoy the sideshow, the electoral race, but don’t forget that after it’s over you are going to HAVE to cooperate with that neighbor with the political sign on his lawn, in order to save your family, HIS family, all your neighbors, and all the people in the world. Save your energy; WE’re going to need it.
Ben Franklin said it very well:
“We must hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.”