You know that colored gentleman, with the ay-rabic-sounding middle name and the lofty rhetoric? You know the one feller? He’s gonna be president, man. He’s building the mother of all campaign war chests. 170,000 NEW donors. He’ll be able to buy votes to compensate for the dead people who will vote for Hillary.
Now that federal law requires full disclosure of fund-raising activites (or some such approximation), maybe we as a people will want to actually pay attention and know the score. USA Today tries to help. But, keeping in full-disclosure mode, I’m hardly riveted by this. It’s crooked, and now it’s out in the open, but it’s still crooked. I’m just saying…
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And…they’re OFF! The delegate scramble is on, ladies and gentlemen…and it’s…OBAMA leading after the first round. The brown-eyed, handsome man from Illinois has scored FOUR, count them FOUR Edwards’ delegates. Hillary Clinton has yet to say anything, but sources say she was chewing glass to calm herself on the campaign bus. Updates as the scoreboard changes. Back to you, Ned…
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A satellite falling out of Earth orbit is “unlikely” to pose any danger to people, according to those that know about these things. It goes on to say, and I swear I’m not making this up, that if the US wanted to, they could shoot the satellite down with a missile, but that when the Chinese did that last year, it didn’t really do anything but create more dangerous debris.
I’m sorry?
A) We are really to the point where we can shoot satellites down out of Earth orbit with total accuracy?!
and
B) CHINA can too?
Yikes.
Sometimes when democracy fails to work, it stops a bad idea. I’m no economist, but Gregg Easterbrook sounds like one sometimes. To wit…
The stimulus bill will cost about $150 billion and consists entirely of deficit spending. The secondary euphemism being employed in Washington is to call the checks “tax rebates.” But they are not rebates, meaning partial returns of monies paid — they are pure borrowing. Which is to say, Congress will award most current American adults $300 to $1,200 each, then send the bill to future American adults. Suppose that instead, each American adult today set aside $300 at 5 percent interest. In 20 years, that money would grow to $800, and likely much more if invested in stocks. Such savings would be good for the U.S. economy, which, since 2001, has seen a negative national savings rate. China’s national savings rate is currently almost 50 percent. Savings is one reason the Chinese economy is growing far faster than the U.S. economy; the U.S. savings rate is close to negative-4 percent, and our economic growth is sputtering.
The framers said, “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” Today’s Congress: “We mutually pledge to pretend to believe what we just promised until the first second it is politically convenient to do the opposite.”
But rather than help the U.S. economy grow in a generous way that forgoes a little today to gain a lot tomorrow, the American people — through their representatives in Congress — just reached into the pockets of future citizens in order to spend more on themselves right now. Explain to me why this is considered a populist action by Congress?
He thinks the stimulus package is a bad idea, and I’ll take his word on it. So it’s funny that Congress, in their “me too, sir!” attitude towards sending gubment monies back to you and me in the mail, can’t get on the same page. Founding Fathers, congratulations. The bicameral system has totally eliminated tyranny. There is no tyranny of good ideas (bad thing) but we are, for the moment, saved from the tyranny of the bad ones (cool for now).
John Edwards’ two-time failure to capture the popular imagination of the American electorate shows that empathy is still not an American value. To put it another way, Americans really don’t give a shit about poor people as long as it’s not them.
No one can deny Edwards’ framing of reality in this country as “two Americas”. I was on Dr. Drew’s radio show yesterday, and we talked about how there is really no such thing as people who have “no healthcare”, but instead those without a healthcare plan must go to the county clinic and receive poor, perhaps less-than-responsive treatment. This is the perfect example of the two Americas. there are those with decent, privatized health care, and there are those who must wait in the hell-holes of the free public clinics to get treatment. There are those who must shop at the 99 cent store for at least some household staples compared to those who can maintain at Ralph’s, Whole Foods, and Trader Joes. There are those who must bus it to work or school, and therefore have their ability to be productive beyond their main wage-earning (or primary educational) tasks greatly reduced; those with cars can drive quickly from their dayjob to their nightime passion or invention or whatever. And so on.
Edwards has been right for two elections now. Too bad no one cared.
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Did Rudy Giuliani ever really want to be president? He shirked Iowa AND New Hampshire despite Titanic-like trends in his poll numbers since last summer. He had no message. He had no hook. He had 9/11 and that’s it. I know the polls favored him months ago, but any poll taken 18 months prior to the actual election is inherently a hypothetical exercise. Rudy was too damn lazy to mount a respectable, or even competent campaign. How was the voting public supposed to think that made him presidential material? How do people this forehead-smackingly retarded get to be in these positions? Why am I just a jack-ass blogger and he’s former mayor of New York City? Why does Kid Rock sell records? Why can’t Larry Craig be gay? I digress…
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This is not the kind of proof I prefer to cite, but I will anyway because sometimes I feel compelled to defend the relevancy of my first medium: Radio. I guess someone has been running severly inflammatory smack in Kenya over the airwaves, to the point where the recent unrest has been linked to it. Knock it off, already. And put on some JJ Cale, for chrissakes. Mellow out.
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OH! I almost left this out, which would be ridiculous. Our attorney general is actually entertaining the idea that the ends of water boarding justify the means if somehow information leading to the saving of lives is gleaned from the inhumane practice. This is where someone dumb makes the argument “hey, torture is awful but if we get information about a terrorist attack that can save lives, it can’t be ruled out.”
To this I respond that if our society must use torture to ensure our safety from enemies, we probably deserve what’s coming.
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Death-defying stunts performed successfully from 200 miles up in Earth orbit going like 20,000 miles per hour. Does anybody care but me?
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Cardiologists confirm it’s bad for your heart when your favorite team plays in a dramatic game. This is why I’ve pretty much given up the idea of “rooting” for teams like I did when I was a kid. Actually, no. This justifies that I’ve pretty much given up the idea of “rooting” for teams like when I was a kid. Plus, now I enjoy almost any game even if I don’t know much about the participating teams…it’s just really good theatre to me, right?
And if you must know, YES. I would still try to fight Scott Spiezio if I met him in a bar. Nothing personal, Scott. I feel you.
McCain likes Mexicans but the GOP will have to nominate him because he can win. No one else can. Good night, sweet Mormon prince.