Susan Page

I assume most of the "audience" does not read the comments, so you may be surprised to learn that Susan Page left one today. Who is Susan Page? She works for USA Today (which honestly, I don't read) but she also is a frequent guest and substitute host on the Diane Rehm Show which is where I know her from. This morning I posted about something she said on the air, specifically a word she used that I thought was a silly made-up word. It was my normal sort of off-handed absently vitriolic diatribe that started with her and then wandered around the subject of cute little made up words; you can read it two or three posts below if you really want. Her comment back to me was nothing but classy. I don't think I'd have been so restrained if I'd written what I wrote about her comment about something I said. She simply pointed out she had not coined the term "stagflation." For this reason, I feel I should post not just a reply comment, but also post her reply and my reply to that here, at the same level as my original comment. It seems only fair.

Susan's Reply:

Hey, just for the record, I didn't invent "stagflation" as a word. It was coined during the 1970s, when after the oil price shocks we had stagnated growth and inflation -- where we might be headed again. "Stagflation" is a first cousin of "the misery index." Maybe that's a phrase about to make a comeback, too.
Thanks.
Susan Page

My reply to Susan:

I have to say that I never expected to have anyone with celebrity about whom I write respond to one of my rants. I find it a vaguely humbling experience though I’m not entirely sure why; I think there is just a degree of affirmation in knowing that someone unrelated to me reads this thing where I vent from time to time. I also grant you that I just dashed back there and re-read what I wrote about Susan Page.

So, to Susan Page, of USA Today: If it really was you (one always must doubt a bit on the Internet unfortunately), thank you for reading and thank you for commenting. I still think that Stagflation is a silly, overly-cute word as are green collar, whatever-gate, and a whole host of other words people invent all the time. However, none of that lessens, in any way, my appreciation that you took the time to read and comment. I listen to snippets of the Diane Rehm show a lot and I know you are a frequent guest and hostess on the show, so this may not be the last time I take your name in vain. Regardless of what I may say from time to time in the heat of a rant, you should know how much I usually appreciate your rather more neutral view of things during the Friday News Round-up (or on other topics) than the views provided by some of the other guests. I am also quite aware of how much easier it is for me, sitting in my quiet chair here in Illinois, to take cheap, off-the-cuff, shots at those like you who are a bit more in the spotlight and don’t have the luxury of being able to take equally cheap shots back. I don’t believe I could restrain myself half so well.

Hillary Clinton and the Great Debate

Listened to David Korn (I think it's spelled that way) on Diane Rehm today. David is a radical liberal who despises his own right foot and writes for the Nation. They were talking about last night's debate between Obama and Clinton. And he was talking about her "human moment at the end" in spite of the fact that apparently with a minute after it happened, her staff had posted it to YouTube with as propaganda write-up. Staged event anyone? Anyway, Korn was saying that her human moment shined through because it was when she got away from the negative attack posture she had been... wait for it... "forced" into. FORCED? Give me a break! No one forced her, and if they did, do we want a next President who can be so easily forced? She went there all on her own, and you, Mr. Korn, are trying to spin this and make excuses for her. Forced? Phooey!

AD&D

Played AD&D last Wednesday night. I had forgotten how much I missed epic fantasy RPGs. I've been in the world of VtM and other blood sucking nocturnal marauders far too long it seems. I'm really enjoying it and looking forward to two weeks from now. Just need to do a character background and get some character tweaks in. Woot!

Stagflation? Really?

Reporters should not try to be cute and invent words. NPR today has Susan Page (whom I usually like) talking about "Stagflation." Isn't that cute? Last week it was "green collar jobs" (not on Diane Rehm) . Doesn't that just make sense. It's bad enough most people can't use the English they have already, but do we need to go making up new parts of it too? In the past we had White Water gate and Iran-Contragate. Hell, we had everything-gate because if you wanted it to sound scandalous, you'd call it something gate.

I ask you what the hell is a green collar job? A white collar job is management where they wore white shirts, tie, etc. Hence "white collar." A blue collar job is more of an assembly line job where they often wore blue coveralls (picture the Maytag repair man icon). Hence, "blue collar." But if you want to talk about jobs in renewable/environmental energy business, why look we have a color (green) so we call them green color jobs. Aren't we just so clever? We'll ignore the fact that one relates to the type of work while the other relates to the sector of work, because if you don't understand a metaphor (I know this isn't really a metaphor.), we can mix away until we look absurd. Consider that we will now have blue collar green collar jobs and white collar green collar jobs (mint green collar?). Won't that make a lot of sense?

You should have to be licensed to use the English language.

Senatorial reply

Remember when I wrote my Senators and Representatives about using pre-paid visas for tax refunds? I finally got an answer from one.

****

February 21, 2008

Mr. Dan Brackmann
Dear Mr. Brackmann:

Thank you for contacting me regarding Congressional efforts to stimulate the economy. I appreciate hearing from you.

On February 7, 2008, Congress passed and sent to the President legislation designed to stimulate our struggling economy. I voted for this bipartisan bill, which will provide tax rebates for most individuals who in 2007 made at least $3,000 in wages, Social Security benefits, or veterans disability benefits. This rebate will help more than 65,000 veterans in Illinois and more than 20 million seniors across the country. Eligible families with a child who is under the age of 17 will receive an additional per-child rebate of $300. The rebates begin to phase out for those with incomes above $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for families.

Corporations will benefit from accelerated depreciation for new investments and small businesses will be able to write off up to $250,000 in new purchases. The legislation also will take a small step to help address the current housing crisis by increasing the loan limit for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

I supported several important initiatives that were included in the legislation passed by the Senate Finance Committee but that were excluded from the final bill. One such provision would have extended unemployment benefits to help laid-off workers who find that it takes longer to find a new job when businesses are hiring fewer workers. Resistance from the President and his allies in Congress prevented us from enacting this provision in our first attempt, but we will keep trying.

The Senate Finance package would have expanded payments to the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps low-income families meet the high costs of heating or cooling their homes. The package also contained tax credit provisions to encourage the use of alternative and renewable energy sources.

The legislation passed by Congress will prohibit illegal immigrants from receiving rebates.

The economic stimulus package passed by Congress will promote growth in the near term and help address the needs of those affected by the economic downturn. While it is a good start, more work remains to be done so that Americans who most need a helping hand are given the assistance they deserve. I will continue to support efforts to include an expansion of LIHEAP and the food stamp program and an extension of unemployment benefits in further Congressional efforts to stimulate our economy.

In addition, I am working to allow families that have been forced into bankruptcy due to the subprime mortgage crisis to restructure their mortgages rather than having the banks foreclose on their homes. Foreclosures hurt the homeowner, the bank, and the surrounding community, which sees its housing values go down. Bankruptcy relief is one of the most important things we can do to inject greater stability into an economy trying to work its way out of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Thank you again for your message. Please feel free to keep in touch.

Sincerely,

Richard J. Durbin

United States Senator

RJD/jc

P.S. If you are ever visiting Washington, please feel free to join Senator Obama and me at our weekly constituent coffee. When the Senate is in session, we provide coffee and donuts every Thursday at 8:30 a.m. as we hear what is on the minds of Illinoisans and respond to your questions. We would welcome your participation. Please call my D.C. office for more details.

****

What a bunch of twaddle! Thank you for writing and he's a bunch of sophistry that has, at best, a tangential relationship to what you wrote about, but sounds like one of my campaign pamphlets. Oh and let me add a campy P.S. (like I actually thought of it at the last minute) so this seems homey and you might not realize its a form letter.

Political tripe.

Negative ads

NPR also reported today about how it was bad for the Democrats to not have found a candidate yet. Apparently, the failure to consolidate behind either Clinton or Obama is somehow damaging to them because they can’t focus on dealing with McCane.

I just don’t see how that is. Nothing should change their stance on any issue. Nothing should stop them from targeting McCane with their speeches or ads. But then that is the key isn’t it: targeting. Apparently they are targeting each other. Now why should that hurt them you ask? Why should pointing out how great you are as a candidate matter? It doesn’t… unless you are running negative attack ads.

So, what this boils down to is that having two candidates so late in the race is only bad because they stoop to running attack ads against each other. Oh whaaa. The DNC has the ability to punish candidates for negative ads just like it has the right to refuse to seat delegates from Florida. Just start imposing vote penalties for every negative ad and see how fast those ads stop. Then, the Dems won’t have the problem with their candidates undermining each other in a prolonged race.

How old am I?

Writing the last piece just made me think back to Gustavus. The text messaging idea so depends on the ASSUMPTION that everyone will have a mobile device with them. No class I can think of had anyone with a cell phone and probably not with a laptop. In 15 years, cellular phones have gone from nothing to an assumption. Am I really that old?

Solutions that make little sense

NPR reported today on some of the things that are being called for to “fix” the problem posed by all the shootings in the nation’s institutions of higher education. I’m not going to go into all of them, but one caught my attention. The solution advocated was for the school to have a system that text messaged all the students if a shooter happened or a bomb was threatened or some other similar thing happened. Issues with the ability of the system to handle say 36,000 sudden text messages on a campus like Mizzou aside, I wondered a few things.

1. This requires that all students have a cell phone and that they register it with the school. Or will the school issue cell phones?

2. Most of these shooters seem to shoot up classrooms, not dorms, not football games, and not cafeterias. Assuming that students are conscientious they will have any cell phones on silent and will be taking notes. Can you picture how some crusty math prof would react if his students kept getting and receiving messages during his lecture. So the folks who potentially most need to know, are least likely to be getting the messages.

3. Finally, I can’t help but note that these are not largely attacks planned and carried out by groups. They seem to be one shooter going on a rampage. As soon as a shot is fired, anyone in the vicinity just got instant warning faster than any pre-programmed text message and any text message would arrive after the shooting. Only in a Virginia Tech type scenario where the shooter takes a break, would text messages help and most modern colleges would now immediately shut down in that situation because of Virginia Tech.

The 500 pound gorilla

I heard a lot on NPR this morning about the housing market. Senate hearings calling the Secretary of the Treasury on the carpet like the fact that Americans over spent was his fault. Why didn't our government do more. (No one is clear on WHAT it should have done. Can you imagine the reaction if the government started interfering with mortgages or property sales because it decided the borrower/buyer could not afford that?)

Ladies and gentlemen, the home mortgage "crisis" is a small scotch terrier on the couch compared to a couple other animals in the room. First we have the 500 pound gorilla over there on the divan; his name is consumer credit card debt. If he starts rampaging around we'll have a much bigger problem. It's been reported on, noted, etc. and we ignore the reports and move on. But when he shifts, someone will be called on the carpet for not doing Something about it. Over there in the corner, behind the end table, you see the large 1 ton elephant that no one is talking about? That is the Social Security debt. It's so big that some people consider it a scared cow. It is also occasionally reported on, but ignored on the assumption that if we don't think about it, it won't do anything. But if it starts to jump around, well, you'll long for the good old days of the home mortgage crisis.

I guess the Senate did not want to talk about that.

Here Genie Genie, Come see the nice bottle

This will be serious, not sarcastic.

Yesterday, yet another gunman shot up another campus, this time a geology class at Northern Illinois University. I was once a geology major. I visited NIU when I was looking at grad schools for Communication. Last night someone shot up some cars at a local high school basketball game. There have been several shootings at institutions of higher learning since last year. My sister teaches at one. This shooting business obviously has to stop.

Many people locally will advocate that gun control is the answer but it is not. At least as far a VA tech, the guns used were already illegal. When people argue to get rid of guns, they don’t actually mean that. Usually, what they mean is to get rid of guns in the hands of people that shouldn’t be trusted with them or get rid of guns for everyone but the authorities. I don’t think that the “get rid of” advocates have really thought out their position; I think it is largely an emotional reaction. If only the authorities (government) had guns, we would suddenly have a society where the state could impose its will on the people. That scares the hell out of me. It is just as bad if we magically made all firearms/gunpowder technology disappear. That would throw us back to largely muscle powered technology, and being skilled with that takes quite a bit of time and practice. We had a society like that once, from Biblical times to the Feudal lords of Europe. It was a time when the warrior elite (who had weapons and knew how to use them) got to lord it over the peasants. Do we really want to go back to that? What the “get rid of” folks really want to do is get rid of people who break down in violent episodes, but good luck with that.

So what is my answer? I don’t have one, at least not a good one. I don’t think it is reasonable to put metal detectors in all college buildings or to turn them into walled compounds. While some students might like it, we also can’t force a college environment to be a nudist colony where no one can conceal a weapon (nor would that solve the problem; it would just change the point where shooting starts). Moral issues aside (and there are a TON of them for this one), we can’t set up a TV program where disturbed young people can get their moment of fame by shooting up each other and then themselves on camera and not in school because that’s a stupid idea that doesn’t address the anger issue. I doubt very much we can identify the societal ill that is causing this because there probably is not a uniform one nor could we agree on it.

Do we just live with it *shudder*? How do we put the genie back in the bottle?

Falling from glory...

NPR reported this morning (before going into a fund raising segment) that Obama beat Clinton in the VA, MD, and DC primaries. What caught my attention was the part of the story where they said that for the second time in a row, Clinton had not called Obama to congratulate him or even acknowledged him.

It must be tough for her, I’m sure. All those years of planning and pre-positioning. Suffering through Bill’s foibles. Abandoning Arkansas, where she had lived, worked, and connived (Whitewater) for years; where her husband had been governor, and moving to New York, the big city state. All because she calculated that she could get herself elected to the Senate there based on liberal politics, gender, and hip-ness. Spending all those years in the Senate carefully building her resume by adding “experience.” By-passing the 2004 Presidential elections because the moment was not right and because Bush had too even a chance of winning that one. Instead she made herself a household word and a cultural icon. She doesn’t have fundraisers, she has Hillraisers. Kerry’s name is rarely spoken after all, but everyone has heard of “Hillary.” By 2008, Bush and his policies had anything even beginning with the letter ‘r’ in disfavor, and it looked like the perfect moment for Super-Hillary, Candidate of Destiny, to swoop in and rescue the nation. Eight years where every decision, every Senate vote, and every comment had been dictated by cold calculation on how to obtain the White House was about to pay off.

But then this Johnny-come-lately, this junior Senator from Illinois comes along. He doesn’t have “experience.” He hasn’t been involved in National government for eight (16?) years. All he has is a charisma, a genuineness, that exploded on the scene at the National Convention four years ago. Worse, he’s just as hip as she is. But he won’t go away, won’t fall behind. She tries not taking him seriously, but Iowa proves that he must be taken seriously. She replaces her campaign manager, but it does no good. And now, he’s won eight straight primaries. Worse, he’s winning by bigger and bigger margins, and he’s getting those margins by getting more and more of the core “Hillary” voters to vote for him. Now, for the first time, he leads her even counting the superdelagates. Catastrophe! The train is running the wrong way and it’s picking up steam. CNN labels him the “Front-runner.”

It must be terribly frustrating.

Some people have noted that in adversity is when you can get the best look at a person’s true personality. Now, with the cracks beginning to show, we can see the true Hillary. The Hillary who doesn’t call to congratulate her “colleague” and opponent when he wins. Bitter. Resentful. Bitchy. Hillary.

This is the woman who will work to bring the partisans together? This is the diplomat who will solve the Middle-East without troops on the ground? She can’t even be a good sport about losing to a person she has described as a colleague.

Hillary. Who needs her?

Bayer aspirin

I saw a Bayer advertisement today. A woman told the story about how it was right before Christmas and she was in the store when she started to have a heart attack. She knew that dying over Christmas would ruin it for everyone, so she decided not to have a heart attack. Instead she pulled out and chewed a Bayer aspirin and that saved her life. The obvious conclusions:

1) Having a heart attack is a matter of choice. If you really don't want to have one badly enough, you can just will it not to happen. Of course, the obvious thing then is that anyone who has a heart attack was willing to or wanted to have it.

2) If you are having a heart attack, you just need to chew a Bayer aspirin and that will solve the problem. Who needs doctors.

So anyone want to buy some swampland in Florida?

Moronic lyrics

Since NPR is fund raising I listened to a music station over lunch today. Fortunately, even they have some grist for my mill.

This is from a song:
The first line was approximately: I was sitting down town with nothing to do; and there she was;
"Like double (maybe "double-filled") cherry pie, there she was;"

Like what? Double cherry pie? Was she steamy? Was she fruity? did she smell like fruit? Did your Grandma make her? Maybe she was crusty? Now there's an image.

Hopefully the song's author does not believe that the inclusion of a simile de facto makes his work artistically hip. I hope he means the girl was hot in spite of the fact his simile had nothing to do with heat. The only other good possibility I can come up with is that the girl made him hungry, but boy is that a clumsy comparison. Metaphor and simile are fragile things to be used with some precision, not clumsily banged about because someone thinks they make the work more artistic. Nothing ruins a piece or renders it inane faster than a poor metaphor or simile, especially one that invites other comparison dissimilar to what the artist intended. That's because once you tie two things together, any comparison between the two can be made.

Like a lightsaber, simile is less clumsy than a blaster.

Ohio River Storms

Today on CNN the weather headline read: Storms on Ohio River from Kentucky to Ohio. Now, I used to live in Cincinnati during law school and I can remember many a time cruising Columbia Parkway on a nice sunny day, looking out at all the boats zooming up and down the Ohio River, and at Kentucky on the opposite bank.

That’s right folks, Kentucky makes up the entire south eastern border of Ohio. So if we have storms from Kentucky to Ohio on the Ohio River that’s a long, windy storm about a ¼ mile across. People at CNN weather really should look at maps that have political boundaries on them and not just cold fronts.

I did look at a map and what they meant to say was Storms Along Ohio River Valley from the Mississippi River to Eastern Ohio. You could even shorten it a bit. But saying from Kentucky to Ohio means next to nothing.

In Trial

I've been in trial today and will be again tomorrow. Trial = no writing in the ole blog. So to keep you fed on anti-right-wing articles, take a look at this.

Anyone know how to teleport a town?

Apparently my resolve to avoid saying anything lasts about 24 hours. Of course, when people keep saying stupid things, it's difficult. So apparently the City of Berkeley, CA passed an ordinance asking the Marine recruiters to stay out of town. They aren't welcome to the City of Berkeley because they corrupt the young or something.

Per the linked story on CNN, some legislators have responded by threatening to cut Berkeley off from Federal funds. I approve.

Personally, I would like to uproot and teleport the entire City to somewhere in a) Sudan, B) Iraq, c) Iran, or d) China. Let's sit back and see how long it takes them to decide that maybe the Armed Forces might have a place. After all, it's very easy to criticize them when one has a nice safe town with guaranteed civil liberty protections. It would be a hard dose of reality to find out what life is like without the barbarians in the U. S. military.

Liberal cretons. Makes me realize why I began as a Republican.

Don't get your way? Shoot someone.

For anyone who doesn’t know it this morning, last night a gunman entered the Kirkwood City Council meeting and opened fire. He killed 6 people including a Councilwoman, the Director of Public Works, and two police officers. He injured the mayor (critical condition) and a reporter (recovering). Local media reports that the man owned a construction company and had been at odds with the city several times over issues involving permits, parking for his company’s vehicles, etc. He had appeared at several City Council meetings before and had to be escorted out. He had been fined for disorderly conduct for his actions at two of those meetings. He had filed suit against the City on Free Speech grounds and that suit had been dismissed. His brother had this to say, per KMOV,

“The only way that I can put into context that you might understand is that my brother went to war tonight with the people, the government that was putting torment and strife into his life. He has spoke on it as best he could in the courts, and they denied all rights to the access of protection and he took it upon himself to go to war and end the issue.”

I am appalled by this statement and not just because of its butchery of the English language. Does this sound to anyone else like a justification rather than an expression of regret? “…took it upon himself to go to war and end the issue.” Excuse me?

We do not, in civilized society “take it upon ourselves” and “go to war” because we don’t like things; because our lawsuit was dismissed, because the government is composed of petty, self-important, officious, little bureaucrats and unnecessary regulations. Especially when “going to war” involves hurting and killing people who have nothing to do with it other than being there. Oh yes, I understand why someone might be frustrated; might be angry, especially when dealing with the government. BUT. That is absolutely no excuse for this indefensible conduct. This is the Timothy McVeigh defense, and this brother’s commentary should be seen in the light of that event as much as this one.

Further, “going to war” does nothing to resolve the issue and immediately undermines any credibility you might have. All the sympathy here is for the officials in the City Council meeting, not for some poor dumb guy trying to deal with city bureaucracy. So, having completely tanked anyone who might have been inclined to support you against the City or who was sympathetic, what do you gain by going to war? The answer is that “going to war” is a completely selfish act. “Cookie” Thornton, the gunman, only had regard for his desire and his frustration at the moment. Further, his ultimate demise was virtually assured so apparently he believed that somehow his frustrations with City Hall were worth more than his life. He didn’t think of his kid who now has to grow up not only fatherless, but with this looming over him. He didn’t think of his widow who now has to not only cope without his income, but who will be defending the civil suits against his estate. He didn’t think beyond his own gratification. Asshole.

And then his brother offers a justification for the act that stops just short of saying that City Hall deserved it because Cookie couldn’t get his way otherwise. Maybe Cookie was in the wrong. Maybe you aren’t entitled to disrupt City Council meetings. Maybe that was why your case was dismissed. But hey, apparently when you can’t get your way, you are entitled to shoot up other people. Because you’re mad. Because you’re frustrated. Because you’re “going to war.”

My father, when sitting on the bench, made a distinction between mere stupid dirtbaggery (stealing something) and mean dirtbaggery (breaking up the place from spite while stealing something). to Dad, the latter was always much worse than the former and always got a much harsher sentence. Cookie's actions were the latter.

All the brother’s comments prove to me is that he is Cookie’s brother and some things do run in the family.

Update. 2PM 2-8-08

The next week

If anyone is wondering why the guns have gone silent of late, there are a couple of reasons.

1) I have a two day trial starting Monday.

2) NPR (the source of inspiration for many of my posts) is on a fund raising drive which means for the next two weeks, they will be constantly interrupting decent shows with time-filling pratter by folks asking for money for the station. Since, I realized a while ago that sending them money does not seem to shut them up any faster, I usually stop listening to NPR during drives. That means I am not hearing as much stupid media commentary to react to. Of course, the fund-drivers say plenty of stupid things as they ramble on trying to fill their five minute fund-raising breaks, so maybe once my trial is done, I'll have something to write about. This morning as my alarm was going off, one of them said something quite dumb. I was still half asleep, but I remember thinking that what she was suggestion was unsafe for a driver to be doing. I just don't remember what she said. Oh well. They will say more.

No Sonar Zone

I just read this article on CNN.com. It says that a judge has said the Navy cannot have an exemption from a law banning the use of sonar.

In 1941 the Army could not get a radar to the idea site on Oahu because it was a protected national park.

The similarity is noteworthy though 1) Placing the radar in that location would probably NOT have prevented the Pearl Harbor attack, and 2) a 12 nautical mile zone does not seem all that big a problem given the size of the Pacific. Unless of course, that particular area is special somehow from a training point of view.

Comment where no comment is allowed

The fiancee' posted this article to her blog. However, she does not seem to have comments turned on, so I'm posting my comment here. I suggest reading her article before reading my comment. I should also mention how happy I am to see her posting something of substance.

COMMENT:
I believe that what Ms. finds objectionable is that these strong women are being made into jokes or somehow stereotyped. With the titanium vodka ad, I suspect they don't like the idea of the concept of trophy wife being used in a humorous context, for all the implication in the ad that beautiful can be strong. Admittedly, I don't see the Terminator ad as being a joke; far from it. Summer looks pretty bad-ass in the picture. (For those who don't know, Summar Glau played River Tamm in Firefly and Serenity.) I have no idea why they have a problem with her unless it's the fact she's naked. For discussion of that, I suggest reading Defending Pornography by Nadine Strassen, a previous President of the ACLU. All that said, I have to note that this sort of lack of humor and perspective is what I would expect from Ms. Magazine. I also suspect, sadly, that many of their editors and readers will vote in the Presidential Primary based on gender of the candidates alone.

In September, we slept.

On Diane Rehm this morning, the substitute host was discussing the 911 Commission with the author of a new book about it and why it may have been unable to say what it wanted or see all the material it required. The reasons were predictable: Partisan politics, lack of access to secret material, etc. Personally, I take no position on the author’s specific claims; I didn’t hear the entire program let alone do I think I have enough information.

Did you know that post Pearl Harbor there were multiple commissions and investigations both during and after the war? People today still debate what really happened there and who is to blame. My favorite account and, I believe, the most authoritative is At Dawn We Slept and related books by Gordon Prague. Still, isn’t it curious how these things never change? 9-11 was almost sixty years after Pearl Harbor, but the pattern of how we deal with it remains the same.

I cannot help but note the timing of the release of this book vis-à-vis the Presidential election cycle though. Color me cynical, but that timing makes me suspicious of the entire work. Not that people release controversial books during major political contests. Oh, Heaven no.

Super Tuesday

We (Illinoisians) vote today as part of “Super-Tuesday” which is apparently from media coverage something like “Sweet sixteen” or “Elite Eight.” I voted this morning on the way to work, and I’m blogging a nit on how I voted.

As far as the Presidential Primary goes, in the GOP the candidate that will do the least damage is the front runner and will probably win. In the Democrat Party, I don’t know which candidate will do the least damage. (I can’t even express how sad/disgusted I am to realize that I can find NO candidate, in ANY party, that I can support; instead I am stuck trying to figure out which one I would mind the least. Is this what democracy has come to?) Besides, if you read this, you probably realize that I consider the GOP a lost cause in the Presidential election.

Locally, I live in what could be tactfully described as a one-party area. Not that we don’t have Republicans around; we do. But they don’t win here. Ever. So voting in the Republican Primary on a local race around here is… pointless. The obvious codicil is that our local races are decided in the Democratic Primary. And locally, there is a race I care about, between two democrats for Appellate Judge. One is a class-action plaintiff’s lawyer; the other is a more rural guy who was picked by his predecessor to fill out the latter’s term.

So, with a deep breath, I asked for a Democrat ballot. You will recall my feelings about primaries being so a party can pick its candidates and I definitely don’t consider myself a Democrat, so you’ll understand why I felt this way.

The House that Goldwater Built

In a different part of today’s NPR program, they played a speech by Romney where he was claiming to be the true heir and candidate for the “house that Reagan built.” I take issue with that. Reagan was not as conservative or mindlessly so as the candidates of the far right want to believe. And Reagan himself was the heir of the house that Goldwater built. And Goldwater is the guy who said in reference to homosexual military personal that it did not matter if they were straight so long as they shot straight. Goldwater is the guy who at the end of his life was completely at odds with the religious right. There is no way the far right or Romney is the heir of that legacy, for all Romney claims to advocate small government. (My observation is that the religious right’s idea of small government refers to fewer “democrat social programs” rather than the size of the government itself. They don’t seem to mind big government that forwards their agenda.) House that Reagan built indeed. Apparently, you have a different view of the house when you live down the block.

Coulter, Clinton, and McCane

On NPR today, they were discussing Election ’08 (what else is new) and the commentator said the damndest thing. Apparently Ann Coulter, crazy right-wing wack-o, has said that if McCane wins the nomination, she’ll campaign for Hillary. That sounds like about her level of brain power too. Still, I now have a favorite Republican candidate, McCane! (Actually it might be spelled McCain?) I hope he wins because I want to see Ann Coulter and Hillary on the same stage; they deserve each other.

More importantly, I hope that inflames the moderate Republicans who have been putting up with the “my way or I quit” shit from the far right for decades. Two can play at this game, and I hope the religious right realizes how little chance they have of a national candidate without the moderate Republicans. Screw them. If Clinton wins her party and McCane wins his party, and the religious right ends up voting for Clinton, they will so get what they deserve. Of course they are good enough at deluding themselves that they will not realize they wet the bed they are lying in.

If a butterfly in Brazil had just beat its wings a bit differently

I would never call myself a football fanatic, but I had some comments about the Superbowl starting with the Giants wanted it more and came to play. I’m not sure the same could be said for the Pats. That said, there were a could catches the Pats should have made and the runner would have had daylight. There was also the play where manning got free of like six guys and threw to a receiver who made an amazing catch. Had those gone differently, I think we would have seen a different result. However, I see no excuse for the Pats not kicking for the field goal when facing 4^th and long. What the hell? Anyway, congrats to the Giants. My only regret really is that the damn Dolphins can still claim to be the only ever completely undefeated team in history. I hate the Dolphins.

The only thing new is snow

We got eight inches of snow last night. Woot! Digging out was a pain.

This morning Diane Rehm show was talking about the way Florida might or might not count for Democratic delegates. I could go into my diatribe about how it is the party’s candidate which means you follow the party’s rules. After all, ask Ross Perot, you can always run as an indy if you don’t like the party system. No primaries then. But I’ve said that before and don’t really want to repeat myself. Likewise I could wax wrathful about the way states try to jump their primaries up early, but I’ve been there and said that. Consider it said again.

Maybe I’ll think of something more substantive later.