Bubblehead, what terrible news! I sincerely hope that all will go well and that you will quickly recover. All best wishes.
I predicted from very early in the campaign that Obama would win in a landslide. I guess he didn’t quite achieve a true landslide but I am certainly satisfied. It is nice to be right for once, having been wrong so many times. As usual the right-wing media and Rethuglicans began an immediate chorus about Obama not having a mandate. If winning the popular vote by a very large margin, and having double the electoral votes that McCain had doesn’t constitute a mandate, what does? They said Bush had a mandate when he barely scraped by with a much, much smaller margin of victory. But, then, why expect anything but further hypocrisy from this bunch of dishonest clowns. We can look forward to a few years where our government may actually be able to function as something more than just a criminal conspiracy out to rob the taxpayers and deliver the loot to their corporate masters.
Now Obama is going to have to try to govern with both hands tied behind his back, hardly an envious task. But what is he to do with two “wars” and an economy definitely in the tank? There are already three or four “Impeach Obama” sites on MySpace, an indication of just how loony some of the loonies really are. Obama’s pick of Rahm Emanuel for Chief of Staff is, I think, a really good one. But of course people are already complaining that it doesn’t represent change as Emanuel is a hangover from the Clinton administration. No doubt there will be others, too. So who is he supposed to pick, all new people with no experience? Emanuel is a tough, no nonsense type who knows Washington inside and out. Obama is certainly not losing any time in assembling his staff and cabinet.
The Rethuglicans are proving once again there is no honor among thieves. They are all busily pointing fingers of blame at each other, and especially at Sarah Palin (who may or may not deserve it all). I confess it is difficult for me to have sympathy for any of them as they brought it on themselves. Frankly, I hope they never recover and the neocons will be given a featured part in the history of crime and corruption in American politics. Good riddance, I say.
Our first snow of the season tonight. A neighbor reported seeing a bear. They will be denning now, probably already are at higher elevations. Deer season is on and we have the usual photographs in our local paper of all the hunters holding their grisly trophy heads. One of them will win a new hunting rifle. Some of the deer are smart enough to move in closer to the house as they seem to know they are safe there. Most of the hunters here hunt for meat and use what they kill. As there is an overabundance of deer this works out for everyone. It’s trophy hunters I cannot stand. Everything is starting to rest for the winter. Life goes on here at Sandhill.
Though hourly comforts from the gods we see,No life is yet life-proof from misery
Robert Herrick
TILT:
I am far from ready for winter.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Paradigm shattered
Aggressive rooster blocks pedestrians,
threatens women and children,
is given new home in the country.
The election of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th President of the United States represents far more than simply a repudiation of Republican economic philosophy.
I have never believed in miracles. I still don’t. But what we witnessed last night is probably the closest we will ever come to one. The basic paradigm that has informed Western-European thought for the past 600 or more years, that provided the excuse for the unbelievable savagery of colonialism, with its underpinnings of Christian theology, cultural evolution (social Darwinism), the belief in the Great Chain of Being, and its prevailing myth of white superiority: this underlying paradigm that has been slowly eroding for the past few years, was finally shattered once and for all last night with the election of a black man to the Presidency of the United States. However unwittingly, a majority of voters in the United States managed to overcome their lingering racial prejudice and announce to the world that, indeed, all people are equal in dignity and respect within the social contract that binds us together. The full effects of this massive paradigm shift will only be realized over time but will permeate both national and international relations to the benefit of all. I have never been more proud to be an American.
Racism, however, will not disappear easily or quickly in Western-European life. It is part of our literature and even exists in our language and symbolism. The “good guys” wear white hats, the “bad guys” black hats, black is always bad, as in “black hearts,” “black Tuesday,” “blackmail,” “black clouds,” “black thoughts,” “blackhards,” “black widows,” “blackball” “Blackwater,” and so on. Black is a symbol of evil in our culture, of mourning, and of death itself. The very fact that Obama is described as our first Black President is nothing less than a remnant of racial prejudice, a product of the one percent (1%) rule (if you have even 1% of black blood you are considered black). This is why Obama can be described as black, even though he is just as much white as black. In reality he is not our first Black President, he’s our first Black and White President. We insist he is black because of the 1% rule (which I think you have to admit is really pretty stupid). Ideally, his color should be completely irrelevant to his Presidency.
There will be some, of course, who will not rejoice in this monumental achievement, pockets of culture still mired in the early 20th century that will have to be slowly brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Idaho is a good example. Obama apparently received only 36% of the vote in Idaho (I think this is still more votes than any previous Democratic candidate received for a very long time). None of the Democratic candidates here in Boundary County were elected, all losing by large margins. Walt Minnick was elected, defeating Bill Sali, but this is quite an exception as Sali had proven himself not only incompetent but basically useless during his first term in the House. Larry LaRocco, an exceptionally fine candidate for the Senate, was defeated by Jim Risch, a previous Republican Lieutenant Governor. There may have been one or two Democratic candidates elected in the Boise area, and all of the incumbent Democrats were easily re-elected. If this is so, and I guess it is, the pattern would seem to indicate more a fear of change than anything else. To add insult to injury, someone stole our Obama sign last night. Idaho, along with Utah and Wyoming, can retain their place along with the spittoons and six-guns of yesteryear. One good thing about living here, I guess, is that you needn’t worry about being run over by the engines of progress.
LKBIQ:
. The greatest and noblest pleasure which men can have in this world is to discover new truths; and the next is to shake off old prejudices.
Frederick The Great
TILT:
A galantine is a dish made from boned poultry or meat, stuffed and pressed into a symmetrical shape, and cooked in a gelatine stock.
threatens women and children,
is given new home in the country.
The election of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th President of the United States represents far more than simply a repudiation of Republican economic philosophy.
I have never believed in miracles. I still don’t. But what we witnessed last night is probably the closest we will ever come to one. The basic paradigm that has informed Western-European thought for the past 600 or more years, that provided the excuse for the unbelievable savagery of colonialism, with its underpinnings of Christian theology, cultural evolution (social Darwinism), the belief in the Great Chain of Being, and its prevailing myth of white superiority: this underlying paradigm that has been slowly eroding for the past few years, was finally shattered once and for all last night with the election of a black man to the Presidency of the United States. However unwittingly, a majority of voters in the United States managed to overcome their lingering racial prejudice and announce to the world that, indeed, all people are equal in dignity and respect within the social contract that binds us together. The full effects of this massive paradigm shift will only be realized over time but will permeate both national and international relations to the benefit of all. I have never been more proud to be an American.
Racism, however, will not disappear easily or quickly in Western-European life. It is part of our literature and even exists in our language and symbolism. The “good guys” wear white hats, the “bad guys” black hats, black is always bad, as in “black hearts,” “black Tuesday,” “blackmail,” “black clouds,” “black thoughts,” “blackhards,” “black widows,” “blackball” “Blackwater,” and so on. Black is a symbol of evil in our culture, of mourning, and of death itself. The very fact that Obama is described as our first Black President is nothing less than a remnant of racial prejudice, a product of the one percent (1%) rule (if you have even 1% of black blood you are considered black). This is why Obama can be described as black, even though he is just as much white as black. In reality he is not our first Black President, he’s our first Black and White President. We insist he is black because of the 1% rule (which I think you have to admit is really pretty stupid). Ideally, his color should be completely irrelevant to his Presidency.
There will be some, of course, who will not rejoice in this monumental achievement, pockets of culture still mired in the early 20th century that will have to be slowly brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Idaho is a good example. Obama apparently received only 36% of the vote in Idaho (I think this is still more votes than any previous Democratic candidate received for a very long time). None of the Democratic candidates here in Boundary County were elected, all losing by large margins. Walt Minnick was elected, defeating Bill Sali, but this is quite an exception as Sali had proven himself not only incompetent but basically useless during his first term in the House. Larry LaRocco, an exceptionally fine candidate for the Senate, was defeated by Jim Risch, a previous Republican Lieutenant Governor. There may have been one or two Democratic candidates elected in the Boise area, and all of the incumbent Democrats were easily re-elected. If this is so, and I guess it is, the pattern would seem to indicate more a fear of change than anything else. To add insult to injury, someone stole our Obama sign last night. Idaho, along with Utah and Wyoming, can retain their place along with the spittoons and six-guns of yesteryear. One good thing about living here, I guess, is that you needn’t worry about being run over by the engines of progress.
LKBIQ:
. The greatest and noblest pleasure which men can have in this world is to discover new truths; and the next is to shake off old prejudices.
Frederick The Great
TILT:
A galantine is a dish made from boned poultry or meat, stuffed and pressed into a symmetrical shape, and cooked in a gelatine stock.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Julian's election predictions and From disgraceful to despicable
It is pretty much agreed that the McCain/Palin campaign has been one of the most disgraceful in modern political history. But now, in the last couple of days of the campaign it has moved from merely disgraceful to quite despicable. I say this not only because of the content of their accusations, but because they are such blatant lies. For example, they have resurrected the Reverend Wright controversy and are playing it over and over tonight. It claims that Reverend Wright is a “Preacher of Hate,” and they depend upon the now infamous quote where he says “god damn America.” I confess to not being an expert on the Reverend, and I have no real idea of what he must have said over 20 years of giving sermons, but I would bet that moments like the one they continue to quote are much more rare than his positive sermons. And, as I recall, the quote in question was taken from a sermon in which he had just objected to the fact that American troops were killing innocent civilians, including children. Was he supposed to bless that? Furthermore, if I remember correctly, Wright served honorably and patriotically in our military. Another example of how far the McCain/Palin has deteriorated has to do with there newly brought up charge that Obama once said he wanted to bankrupt the coal industry. They have deliberately taken this out of context from a speech he gaver that was in fact in defense of the coal industry. Truth has long since disappeared from their campaign but this is a case even more blatant than most.
“Anyway, my political advisor, my son Julian, wants me to publish his predictions for tomorrow. So here they are:
JULIAN LANGNESS: As I have done several times in the past, I am going to use my dad’s blog to post something of my own. I am very into the specifics of the election- the electoral map, the senate races, the house, etc. so I wanted to post my predictions. The following was originally posted on my facebook account last night but I wanted to put them on my dad’s blog too. So yeah, I hope anyone who reads them enjoys them and yeah, check em out and see if you agree and then see how I do tomorrow night. Thanks, Julian
1) the popular vote
2) the electoral vote and which states each candidate wins
3) all the individiual senate seats that are close and what will happen in the senate
4) and then also the number of house seats the democrats will win.
5) and how walt minnick will do and if he'll beat bill sali and get elected to washington to represent the idaho 1st district (or, as i like to call it- the non mormon half of idaho:) )
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1) okay- the popular vote. some of the polls have obama up by 13. which i think is totally unrealistic. no democrat other than lyndon johnson in 1964 has gotten more than 50.1% of the popular vote since the 1940's. and even though this is a very great year for democrats in terms of the perceptions of republicans b/c of bush, etc. and the economy, i think the country is still pretty much a 50-50 country, and that we are in the middle of an extended period where we have very close elections, starting in 2000 and probably continuing for at least a few more cycles. so, i think obama will end up winning the popular vote 52% - 47%.
2) but, of course, the popular vote doesn't matter in the least bit for who gets elected, as we saw in 2000 (although i think even though gore won the popular vote he deserved to lose the election; first, because i believe in the system of electoral votes (for all the reasons why its good read about it on wikipedia), although i do believe he probly won the popular vote in florida, which would have given him the electoral vote anyway, and 2nd because al gore ran an awful campaign, including making the worst VP selection ever- yes, worse than Dan Quayle, or Palin if you consider her up there.
ELECTORAL VOTE: but yeah, most people agree that obama should win every combined gore/kerry states. this is all the regular democrat states, including pennsylvania, along with New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Iowa. this adds up to 264 electoral votes. you need 270 to win. or 269 to tie, and a tie would go to obama because the house of reps than decides it. so that means that if obama can hold on to all those, which he easily should, even though mccain is tryin real hard on pennsylvania, then he only needs ONE more state to win, nevada (5 EVs) or anything bigger. PREDICTION-------- I PREDICT he will win all the kerry/gore states (that includes Pennsylvania) adding to 264 EV's. PLUS: VIRGNIA, COLORADO, NEVADA, FLORIDA- 318-220. i also think montana will be the surprise of the election. there are no republican incumbents to bring out state voters. and the state is in the west- they may spend all day hearing about how well obama is doing back east and feel its worthless to go vote for mccain. and finally, it is one of two states where Ron Paul is on the ballot. all this could add up to an obama win. so i think it could very well go more obama than ohio or north carolina and surprise alot of people. another very close electoral vote is in nebraska- not the state, but the omaha district: nebraska and maine are the two states that distribute their votes partially based on who wins congresional districts. so obama could potentially win this single electoral vote. the polls are supposed to be about tied, and i think obama could very welll win it, but i am not going to add it to my official prediction. if obama wins more states than the ones i am predicting, then it will be the tipping point for a landslide, which will mean VA, Fl, CO, NV, Ohio, Montana, North Dakota, Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana, and Arizona, and the single Nebraska vote from Omaha: 392-146. again though the first one is my offical prediction, the one up above with obama with 318, the second is what will happen if he exceeds 318, which i think will then likely mean a landslide.
3) THE SENATE- the big question is if the dems will go from their current 51 seats to 60, which means a filibuster-proof majority. that would be huge. i think there is no doubt that obama doing well and getting lots of voters out in states like N.C. and Oregon and Minnesota will help the senate candidates there. I think the following will happen:
In COLORADO Udall will win
In NEW MEXICO his cousin the other Udall will win
VIRGINIA former governor Mark Warner (who would have made a far superior VP to Biden) will win in landslide.
In NEW HAMPSHIRE, John Sununu, a good man, will lose because the state is getting so democratic. thats four guaranteed.
In OREGON Jeff Merkely will beat Gordon Smitth, another very good man.
In ALASKA, the "candidate without the college education", will beat "the felon" as a certain someone described them to me... -so begich over stephens
In NORTH CAROLINA Kay Hagan (my favorite!!!) she's awesome, and a hottie:) will beat Liddy Dole (Bob Doles wife), who ran a disgusting and desperate add that backfired in my opinion.
In MINNESOTA, Al Franken, the comedian, despite running an atrocious campaign, will defeat Norm Coleman, the filthy hypocrite who is famous for having been a documented giant pothead in college- and now is an arch-fascist on drug policy. franken "the only new york jew in the race who is actually from minnesota" as he calls himself lol, will ride obama's coattails to victory, and then very likely lose 6 years from now when up for re-election. both these candidates are pathetic. if the election lasted another two months the third party candidate would probably end up winning. with it right now, i say he wins maybe 15 %?
THAT MAKES 59 SEATS. and brings us to what will be the great tragedy of the election- in GEORGIA, the Democratic Candidate- J. Martin, WILL DEFEAT Saxby Chambliss, the incumbent republican who NOBODY would ever believe would lose if you told them six months ago. BUT!!!! Georgia has a rule that if no candidate wins 50% of the vote, there is then a runoff election. there is a third party candidate running, and he will keep Martin from reaching 50%. this means that there will then be a speciall runoff between Martin and Chambliss. and when it happens there won't be hundreds of thousands of black people and kids going out to vote in order to vote for obama, and republicans will be desperate not to lose that 60th seat, so Chambliss will win because he gets a second try.SO, THE DEMS WILL WIN 9 RACES ON TUESDAY NIGHT, BUT ONE WILL GET REVERSED IN THE RUNOFF ELECTION IN GEORGIA, MEANING THEY WILL GO INTO THE NEXT CONGRESS WITH 59 SEATS SEATS IN THE SENATE. if they drop lieberman it will be 58, but i dont think they will. they will also have olympia snowe and susan collins, the two moderate female republican senators from maine, who will probably vote with them enough to give them basically a filibuster proof majority.
4) IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, every seat is up for grabs, just as they are every two years. the dems already won 31 two year ago. so i don't think they will win a number of seats commenserate to what they will in the senate, because the senate was especially wired for a democratic landslide this year becuase the republicans were by chance defending 24 seats, the Democrats only 10. whereas in the house every seat is up for grabs, not just 1/3 like in the senate. so the democrats don't have the same built in advantage this year in the house like they do in the senate. SO, I PREDICT THAT THE DEMOCRATS WILL WIN 26 SEATS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
5) Walt Minnick is the democrat running to represent north and west idaho in the national house of represenatives for the idaho 1st district (or the non-mormon district as i like to call it). if minnick wins it could very likely be a race talked about in the national media, as it would be represenative of a democratic landslide, as idaho is often talked about as an example of the ultimate republican state. this is probably accurate in a way, because although our leaders, Jim Hansen and Keith Roark, are doing great things in building our state party, idaho still is a very republican state. this is because of several factors- the large numbers of mormons for one, also the fact that some democrats have unfortunately been outspoken in their opposition to the complete rights of gun owners- like Joe Biden for instance. which is very unfortunate as idaho democrats themselves aren't anti-gun in most cases. and also because of dismissive comments made about idaho by hillary and bill clinton on multiple occasions. so its a tough state for democrats to get elected in. although the 1st district is definitely more accessible to dems than the 2nd, and bill sali is not a popular figure, including among member of his own party. he only won his 2006 primary with 26% of the vote, and a lot of inter-party opposition. and only beat larry grant 55-45 in 2006. a poll shocked many people a couple weeks ago that showed minnick up 52 to 45. many people questioned the accuracy of it, but i think at the least it shows that minnick has a chance, and a good enough one that the DNC decided to put money into it, which they don't do just out of the kindness of their heart, but only where they think they have a chance of winning. SO, MY PREDICTION IS THAT MINNICK WILL GET ELECTED TO CONGRESS IF THE DEMOCRATS WIN AT LEAST 34 SEATS. i think that is about his spot. meaning that if the dems win 33, minnick will come closer to winning that any other democrat who loses. and if the dems win 50 lets say, then minnick will win by a margin larger than 16 of the other victors. as i said earlier though i am predicting net gain of only 26 seats though, so therefore i technically am not predicting a minnick win, although i will be hoping with all my heart that he does, as he is a great guy and has worked extremely hard in his campaign, along with jim and keith and jeanne and all the workers and volunteers and everyone else in the state party who have done such a good job. and i will be ecstatic if he does win! i also would like to note the initiative of debbie holmes in running for the 2nd district seat and putting in all the hard work and heart that it takes to do that. and also larry laroccos run for senate. i think that unfortunately it is still to hard for a dem to win statewide, but if anyone deserves to get elected to the u.s. senate it is larry. i went to a fundraiser for him in denver during the national democratic convention and he was VERY impressive. and if walt loses than i hope larry runs for congress against sali eventually. but i think its still too hard for a dem to win statewide in idaho. maybe a mormon democrat, but yeah, eastern idaho is just too solidly republican as a result of its LDS population. but anyway hopefully a few of you found this somewhat interesting:) and if i end up being correct in my estimates i wanted to have this on here as proof of my foretelling abilities:)
LKBIQ:
No wonder Americans hate politics when, year in and year out, they hear politicians make promises that won't come true because they don't even mean them - campaign fantasies that win elections but don't get nations moving again.
Bill Clinton
“Anyway, my political advisor, my son Julian, wants me to publish his predictions for tomorrow. So here they are:
JULIAN LANGNESS: As I have done several times in the past, I am going to use my dad’s blog to post something of my own. I am very into the specifics of the election- the electoral map, the senate races, the house, etc. so I wanted to post my predictions. The following was originally posted on my facebook account last night but I wanted to put them on my dad’s blog too. So yeah, I hope anyone who reads them enjoys them and yeah, check em out and see if you agree and then see how I do tomorrow night. Thanks, Julian
1) the popular vote
2) the electoral vote and which states each candidate wins
3) all the individiual senate seats that are close and what will happen in the senate
4) and then also the number of house seats the democrats will win.
5) and how walt minnick will do and if he'll beat bill sali and get elected to washington to represent the idaho 1st district (or, as i like to call it- the non mormon half of idaho:) )
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1) okay- the popular vote. some of the polls have obama up by 13. which i think is totally unrealistic. no democrat other than lyndon johnson in 1964 has gotten more than 50.1% of the popular vote since the 1940's. and even though this is a very great year for democrats in terms of the perceptions of republicans b/c of bush, etc. and the economy, i think the country is still pretty much a 50-50 country, and that we are in the middle of an extended period where we have very close elections, starting in 2000 and probably continuing for at least a few more cycles. so, i think obama will end up winning the popular vote 52% - 47%.
2) but, of course, the popular vote doesn't matter in the least bit for who gets elected, as we saw in 2000 (although i think even though gore won the popular vote he deserved to lose the election; first, because i believe in the system of electoral votes (for all the reasons why its good read about it on wikipedia), although i do believe he probly won the popular vote in florida, which would have given him the electoral vote anyway, and 2nd because al gore ran an awful campaign, including making the worst VP selection ever- yes, worse than Dan Quayle, or Palin if you consider her up there.
ELECTORAL VOTE: but yeah, most people agree that obama should win every combined gore/kerry states. this is all the regular democrat states, including pennsylvania, along with New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Iowa. this adds up to 264 electoral votes. you need 270 to win. or 269 to tie, and a tie would go to obama because the house of reps than decides it. so that means that if obama can hold on to all those, which he easily should, even though mccain is tryin real hard on pennsylvania, then he only needs ONE more state to win, nevada (5 EVs) or anything bigger. PREDICTION-------- I PREDICT he will win all the kerry/gore states (that includes Pennsylvania) adding to 264 EV's. PLUS: VIRGNIA, COLORADO, NEVADA, FLORIDA- 318-220. i also think montana will be the surprise of the election. there are no republican incumbents to bring out state voters. and the state is in the west- they may spend all day hearing about how well obama is doing back east and feel its worthless to go vote for mccain. and finally, it is one of two states where Ron Paul is on the ballot. all this could add up to an obama win. so i think it could very well go more obama than ohio or north carolina and surprise alot of people. another very close electoral vote is in nebraska- not the state, but the omaha district: nebraska and maine are the two states that distribute their votes partially based on who wins congresional districts. so obama could potentially win this single electoral vote. the polls are supposed to be about tied, and i think obama could very welll win it, but i am not going to add it to my official prediction. if obama wins more states than the ones i am predicting, then it will be the tipping point for a landslide, which will mean VA, Fl, CO, NV, Ohio, Montana, North Dakota, Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana, and Arizona, and the single Nebraska vote from Omaha: 392-146. again though the first one is my offical prediction, the one up above with obama with 318, the second is what will happen if he exceeds 318, which i think will then likely mean a landslide.
3) THE SENATE- the big question is if the dems will go from their current 51 seats to 60, which means a filibuster-proof majority. that would be huge. i think there is no doubt that obama doing well and getting lots of voters out in states like N.C. and Oregon and Minnesota will help the senate candidates there. I think the following will happen:
In COLORADO Udall will win
In NEW MEXICO his cousin the other Udall will win
VIRGINIA former governor Mark Warner (who would have made a far superior VP to Biden) will win in landslide.
In NEW HAMPSHIRE, John Sununu, a good man, will lose because the state is getting so democratic. thats four guaranteed.
In OREGON Jeff Merkely will beat Gordon Smitth, another very good man.
In ALASKA, the "candidate without the college education", will beat "the felon" as a certain someone described them to me... -so begich over stephens
In NORTH CAROLINA Kay Hagan (my favorite!!!) she's awesome, and a hottie:) will beat Liddy Dole (Bob Doles wife), who ran a disgusting and desperate add that backfired in my opinion.
In MINNESOTA, Al Franken, the comedian, despite running an atrocious campaign, will defeat Norm Coleman, the filthy hypocrite who is famous for having been a documented giant pothead in college- and now is an arch-fascist on drug policy. franken "the only new york jew in the race who is actually from minnesota" as he calls himself lol, will ride obama's coattails to victory, and then very likely lose 6 years from now when up for re-election. both these candidates are pathetic. if the election lasted another two months the third party candidate would probably end up winning. with it right now, i say he wins maybe 15 %?
THAT MAKES 59 SEATS. and brings us to what will be the great tragedy of the election- in GEORGIA, the Democratic Candidate- J. Martin, WILL DEFEAT Saxby Chambliss, the incumbent republican who NOBODY would ever believe would lose if you told them six months ago. BUT!!!! Georgia has a rule that if no candidate wins 50% of the vote, there is then a runoff election. there is a third party candidate running, and he will keep Martin from reaching 50%. this means that there will then be a speciall runoff between Martin and Chambliss. and when it happens there won't be hundreds of thousands of black people and kids going out to vote in order to vote for obama, and republicans will be desperate not to lose that 60th seat, so Chambliss will win because he gets a second try.SO, THE DEMS WILL WIN 9 RACES ON TUESDAY NIGHT, BUT ONE WILL GET REVERSED IN THE RUNOFF ELECTION IN GEORGIA, MEANING THEY WILL GO INTO THE NEXT CONGRESS WITH 59 SEATS SEATS IN THE SENATE. if they drop lieberman it will be 58, but i dont think they will. they will also have olympia snowe and susan collins, the two moderate female republican senators from maine, who will probably vote with them enough to give them basically a filibuster proof majority.
4) IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, every seat is up for grabs, just as they are every two years. the dems already won 31 two year ago. so i don't think they will win a number of seats commenserate to what they will in the senate, because the senate was especially wired for a democratic landslide this year becuase the republicans were by chance defending 24 seats, the Democrats only 10. whereas in the house every seat is up for grabs, not just 1/3 like in the senate. so the democrats don't have the same built in advantage this year in the house like they do in the senate. SO, I PREDICT THAT THE DEMOCRATS WILL WIN 26 SEATS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
5) Walt Minnick is the democrat running to represent north and west idaho in the national house of represenatives for the idaho 1st district (or the non-mormon district as i like to call it). if minnick wins it could very likely be a race talked about in the national media, as it would be represenative of a democratic landslide, as idaho is often talked about as an example of the ultimate republican state. this is probably accurate in a way, because although our leaders, Jim Hansen and Keith Roark, are doing great things in building our state party, idaho still is a very republican state. this is because of several factors- the large numbers of mormons for one, also the fact that some democrats have unfortunately been outspoken in their opposition to the complete rights of gun owners- like Joe Biden for instance. which is very unfortunate as idaho democrats themselves aren't anti-gun in most cases. and also because of dismissive comments made about idaho by hillary and bill clinton on multiple occasions. so its a tough state for democrats to get elected in. although the 1st district is definitely more accessible to dems than the 2nd, and bill sali is not a popular figure, including among member of his own party. he only won his 2006 primary with 26% of the vote, and a lot of inter-party opposition. and only beat larry grant 55-45 in 2006. a poll shocked many people a couple weeks ago that showed minnick up 52 to 45. many people questioned the accuracy of it, but i think at the least it shows that minnick has a chance, and a good enough one that the DNC decided to put money into it, which they don't do just out of the kindness of their heart, but only where they think they have a chance of winning. SO, MY PREDICTION IS THAT MINNICK WILL GET ELECTED TO CONGRESS IF THE DEMOCRATS WIN AT LEAST 34 SEATS. i think that is about his spot. meaning that if the dems win 33, minnick will come closer to winning that any other democrat who loses. and if the dems win 50 lets say, then minnick will win by a margin larger than 16 of the other victors. as i said earlier though i am predicting net gain of only 26 seats though, so therefore i technically am not predicting a minnick win, although i will be hoping with all my heart that he does, as he is a great guy and has worked extremely hard in his campaign, along with jim and keith and jeanne and all the workers and volunteers and everyone else in the state party who have done such a good job. and i will be ecstatic if he does win! i also would like to note the initiative of debbie holmes in running for the 2nd district seat and putting in all the hard work and heart that it takes to do that. and also larry laroccos run for senate. i think that unfortunately it is still to hard for a dem to win statewide, but if anyone deserves to get elected to the u.s. senate it is larry. i went to a fundraiser for him in denver during the national democratic convention and he was VERY impressive. and if walt loses than i hope larry runs for congress against sali eventually. but i think its still too hard for a dem to win statewide in idaho. maybe a mormon democrat, but yeah, eastern idaho is just too solidly republican as a result of its LDS population. but anyway hopefully a few of you found this somewhat interesting:) and if i end up being correct in my estimates i wanted to have this on here as proof of my foretelling abilities:)
LKBIQ:
No wonder Americans hate politics when, year in and year out, they hear politicians make promises that won't come true because they don't even mean them - campaign fantasies that win elections but don't get nations moving again.
Bill Clinton
Sunday, November 02, 2008
tax and spend?
Many years ago, when I first went to work in Los Angeles at UCLA, I needed to find someone to do my taxes. I asked some colleagues and was given the name of John (not his real name) and told that he did most everyone’s taxes there at the Institute. John also would make appointments to see you in your office. So I duly made an appointment with John who came to my office at the appointed time. I was enthralled, and somewhat surprised when John turned out to be a large black man dressed in modish clothes with his shirt open to his waist displaying two or three heavy gold chains. He also had a very large diamond ring. I thought to myself, as I often did in those days, “only in L.A.” John’s first question was, “How do you feel about paying your taxes?” I interpreted this to mean that how he did my taxes might have something to do with how I felt about paying them. In fairness to John I must admit he turned out to be a perfectly conscientious and honest tax preparer, at least within his bounds of being a lawyer as well as an accountant. I was very pleased with him for many years.
This encounter did, however, cause me to think about paying taxes. I told John I didn’t mind payi8ng taxes, in principle, but I objected strongly to how they were being spent, which was then, as it is now, mostly to fund wars and kill people. Obviously you have to pay taxes if you wish to have highways, police and firemen, public amenities and such, as well as national security. I thought then, as I do now, that national security was grossly overfunded, and did not require fighting wars on foreign shores for reasons that were questionable at best. This waste of taxpayer dollars under the Bush/Cheney administration has now reached the point of absolute obscenity, although there is a slight twist to the procedure. Thanks to the festered mind of Dick the Slimy, who observed that “Reagan proved that deficits didn’t matter,” the Bush/Cheney bunch lowered the taxes on the wealthiest people and corporations and changed the policy from “tax and spend,” to “borrow and waste.” And waste they have done on a scale so massive as to bankrupt our country. This way they did not have to use taxpayer money or raise taxes to spend for their idiocy, they could just borrow and borrow instead. Ultimately, of course, the taxpayers will get stuck with having to repay this debt, but what do Bush/Cheney care, they’ve got theirs, and their friends’ as well, and will be gone when our children and their children (and perhaps even their children) will have to fork over all this wasted money. Clever bastards, aren’t they? Not satisfied with how many billions upon billions they already ripped off, they got away with a final 700 plus billion dollar going-away present. Notice you never hear them complain about tax dollars that go to the military/industrial/political complex they have created, it’s always the “entitlements” that are to blame for our financial problems, useless (in their view) things like Social Security, Medicare, and so on.
Thus I hope that when you hear any of these thugs accuse Democrats of being tax and spend liberals, I hope you will remind them of their own policy of borrow and waste. Having run up our national debt now to over 10 trillion dollars they still want to keep their tax breaks for the obscenely wealthy and corporations that have made profits so huge as to be unprecedented. The money these greedy criminals already have has no purpose any more other than making more money through the usurious credit card industry they have promoted. Don’t be fooled by their claim that this wealth “trickles down” and benefits the rest of us. Any “trickling down” that occurs in the form of manufacturing jobs, or productive endeavors is occurring more and more on foreign shores where labor is cheaper and tax breaks are plentiful. Even Ponzi would be awed by the audacity of these bandits.
LKBIQ:
Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone
John Maynard Keynes
TILT:
Australian researchers have learned that bees can count, but only up to 4. Dumb bees!
This encounter did, however, cause me to think about paying taxes. I told John I didn’t mind payi8ng taxes, in principle, but I objected strongly to how they were being spent, which was then, as it is now, mostly to fund wars and kill people. Obviously you have to pay taxes if you wish to have highways, police and firemen, public amenities and such, as well as national security. I thought then, as I do now, that national security was grossly overfunded, and did not require fighting wars on foreign shores for reasons that were questionable at best. This waste of taxpayer dollars under the Bush/Cheney administration has now reached the point of absolute obscenity, although there is a slight twist to the procedure. Thanks to the festered mind of Dick the Slimy, who observed that “Reagan proved that deficits didn’t matter,” the Bush/Cheney bunch lowered the taxes on the wealthiest people and corporations and changed the policy from “tax and spend,” to “borrow and waste.” And waste they have done on a scale so massive as to bankrupt our country. This way they did not have to use taxpayer money or raise taxes to spend for their idiocy, they could just borrow and borrow instead. Ultimately, of course, the taxpayers will get stuck with having to repay this debt, but what do Bush/Cheney care, they’ve got theirs, and their friends’ as well, and will be gone when our children and their children (and perhaps even their children) will have to fork over all this wasted money. Clever bastards, aren’t they? Not satisfied with how many billions upon billions they already ripped off, they got away with a final 700 plus billion dollar going-away present. Notice you never hear them complain about tax dollars that go to the military/industrial/political complex they have created, it’s always the “entitlements” that are to blame for our financial problems, useless (in their view) things like Social Security, Medicare, and so on.
Thus I hope that when you hear any of these thugs accuse Democrats of being tax and spend liberals, I hope you will remind them of their own policy of borrow and waste. Having run up our national debt now to over 10 trillion dollars they still want to keep their tax breaks for the obscenely wealthy and corporations that have made profits so huge as to be unprecedented. The money these greedy criminals already have has no purpose any more other than making more money through the usurious credit card industry they have promoted. Don’t be fooled by their claim that this wealth “trickles down” and benefits the rest of us. Any “trickling down” that occurs in the form of manufacturing jobs, or productive endeavors is occurring more and more on foreign shores where labor is cheaper and tax breaks are plentiful. Even Ponzi would be awed by the audacity of these bandits.
LKBIQ:
Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone
John Maynard Keynes
TILT:
Australian researchers have learned that bees can count, but only up to 4. Dumb bees!
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Speculation
After 45 years of bowling,
man bowls a perfect game,
dies of a heart attack.
Wouldn’t it be funny – if what used to be the Republican party split in two? It seems to me one might argue that it has been split into two rough segments for the last eight years. The primary segment, which I have called the Brafia, the Bush/Republican cunning criminal conspiracy that has systematically robbed the taxpayers blind while transferring most of the wealth from the middle-class to the obscenely wealthy and their corporations, and another segment which, for want of a better term, let me call here the Loonies. The Loonies, of course, being the racist and homophobic, bible-thumping, evolution denying, armageddon-loving evangelical ultra-rightists that have been shamelessly used to do the bidding of the Brafia by encouraging them to vote for anti-abortion legislation, against gay marriages, and other “cultural issues” that the Brafia itself could not have cared less about and were even against their best interests. It was in interesting strategy and provided a strong enough coalition to manage to steal a couple of elections.
Now, however, the Loonies seem to have found a leader of their own, a shrill young female demagogue who obviously speaks their language and seems to be on the way to establishing them as her own “base.” Ambitious and clever, she has been increasingly independent of John McCain who rather unthinkingly picked her as his running mate. She has broken with him on some issues and has been campaigning lately in Florida with signs that do not even include his name. She once even referred to the Palin/McCain ticket (a slip of the tongue, perhaps). There seems to be little doubt where she is trying to go and admits to wanting to be a big player in the future Republican party. As the Loonies only represent at most about 25% of the voting public she would have to somehow maintain the unholy alliance that has existed between the Loonies and the Brafia. As this has now been exposed it could be difficult.
The Brafia, on the other hand, are basically leaderless at the moment. Although John McCain is their candidate for President it is obvious they are not happy with him and are deserting him in droves. This group is not going to accept Palin as their leader as she is too extreme in her views and too much affiliated with religious zealots and gun nuts. Some say that the Mormon, Mitt Romney, will become the leader of the Brafia. This remains to be seen and may or may not happen, if only because it was the Loonies who opposed him so vigorously this time (evangelicals think Mormonism is a cult and does not represent their version of Christianity). But whoever emerges as the leader of the Brafia probably could not gain enough support without the Loonies, and that would seem to be about where things stand at the moment. Assuming that Barack Obama will, in fact, be elected as our first Black and White President, these factions of what used to be the Republican party will certainly have their work cut out for them. After their terrible excesses of the past eight years they may never recover.
Obama’s lead seems to be increasing day by day, what with so many Republican defections from the McCain campaign, so many newspaper and other endorsements for Obama, the huge early turnout, and so on. I have predicted all along Obama would win with a landslide, primarily because I thought McCain was such a terrible candidate, and it looks like I might actually be at least almost right for a change. Only a couple of days now and this fantastic campaign will finally and mercifully come to an end.
Favorite short poems:
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and
bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is
called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful
stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and
be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It
answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back
again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to
Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost
on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The
forest knows Where you are. You must let it find
you.
David Wagoner
TILT:
One of my best friend’s wife died unexpectedly, after 45 years of marriage, completing her inevitable journey to the west.
man bowls a perfect game,
dies of a heart attack.
Wouldn’t it be funny – if what used to be the Republican party split in two? It seems to me one might argue that it has been split into two rough segments for the last eight years. The primary segment, which I have called the Brafia, the Bush/Republican cunning criminal conspiracy that has systematically robbed the taxpayers blind while transferring most of the wealth from the middle-class to the obscenely wealthy and their corporations, and another segment which, for want of a better term, let me call here the Loonies. The Loonies, of course, being the racist and homophobic, bible-thumping, evolution denying, armageddon-loving evangelical ultra-rightists that have been shamelessly used to do the bidding of the Brafia by encouraging them to vote for anti-abortion legislation, against gay marriages, and other “cultural issues” that the Brafia itself could not have cared less about and were even against their best interests. It was in interesting strategy and provided a strong enough coalition to manage to steal a couple of elections.
Now, however, the Loonies seem to have found a leader of their own, a shrill young female demagogue who obviously speaks their language and seems to be on the way to establishing them as her own “base.” Ambitious and clever, she has been increasingly independent of John McCain who rather unthinkingly picked her as his running mate. She has broken with him on some issues and has been campaigning lately in Florida with signs that do not even include his name. She once even referred to the Palin/McCain ticket (a slip of the tongue, perhaps). There seems to be little doubt where she is trying to go and admits to wanting to be a big player in the future Republican party. As the Loonies only represent at most about 25% of the voting public she would have to somehow maintain the unholy alliance that has existed between the Loonies and the Brafia. As this has now been exposed it could be difficult.
The Brafia, on the other hand, are basically leaderless at the moment. Although John McCain is their candidate for President it is obvious they are not happy with him and are deserting him in droves. This group is not going to accept Palin as their leader as she is too extreme in her views and too much affiliated with religious zealots and gun nuts. Some say that the Mormon, Mitt Romney, will become the leader of the Brafia. This remains to be seen and may or may not happen, if only because it was the Loonies who opposed him so vigorously this time (evangelicals think Mormonism is a cult and does not represent their version of Christianity). But whoever emerges as the leader of the Brafia probably could not gain enough support without the Loonies, and that would seem to be about where things stand at the moment. Assuming that Barack Obama will, in fact, be elected as our first Black and White President, these factions of what used to be the Republican party will certainly have their work cut out for them. After their terrible excesses of the past eight years they may never recover.
Obama’s lead seems to be increasing day by day, what with so many Republican defections from the McCain campaign, so many newspaper and other endorsements for Obama, the huge early turnout, and so on. I have predicted all along Obama would win with a landslide, primarily because I thought McCain was such a terrible candidate, and it looks like I might actually be at least almost right for a change. Only a couple of days now and this fantastic campaign will finally and mercifully come to an end.
Favorite short poems:
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and
bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is
called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful
stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and
be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It
answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back
again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to
Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost
on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The
forest knows Where you are. You must let it find
you.
David Wagoner
TILT:
One of my best friend’s wife died unexpectedly, after 45 years of marriage, completing her inevitable journey to the west.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Disgraceful
Bubblehead: This is what I originally said:
“While I still believe Obama will win big I confess this makes me nervous. I also worry that Obama may not stay alive until next Tuesday, or there will be another terrorist attack of some kind, or Bush will declare martial law, or the sky will fall. “
I guess if Obama is not assassinated, there is not a terrorist attack, Bush does not declare martial law, or the sky doesn’t fall, I am going to look really foolish. Well, so be it. But I assure you, there is absolutely nothing you (or they) could possibly do now to make me change my opinion of Bush/Cheney. They should be held accountable for their crimes.
Is there anything much going on at the moment in our country that could not adequately be described by the single word – disgraceful?
The fact that our citizens are being forced to stand in line for up to 10 hours in order to vote strikes me as completely disgraceful.
We have launched at least 16 air strikes in Pakistan recently, each one a violation of their airspace and sovereignty. Disgraceful.
We launched an attack on Syria, another sovereign nation that is no threat to us, equally disgraceful.
The McCain/Palin campaign is almost universally considered disgraceful, especially their personal attacks on Obama.
McCain’s purely politically motivated choice of Sarah Palin and disregard for the well-being of our country was disgraceful.
McCain’s utter nonsense and continued bleating about Joe the Plumber is an insult to both the public intelligence and the electoral system. Disgraceful.
The “war” in Iraq and its continuation is disgraceful.
Our treatment of the Palestinians and biased support for Israel is disgraceful.
Our so-called “war” on Afghanistan is not only disgraceful but probably pointless and doomed to fail.
Our “war on drugs” is a complete and utter failure and a disgrace.
Our now mostly forgotten "war on poverty" likewise a failure and a disgrace.
Our failure to provide universal health care has been, and continues to be a disgrace.
Our obscene, bloated, and largely unnecessary defense budget, primarily benefitting the military/industrial/political complex rather than genuine national defense is surely disgraceful.
Our lack of action on global warming is also a disgrace.
Our failure to create a coherent energy plan is similarly a disgrace.
I suppose I could go on, as it appears to me that virtually everything that has been allowed to happen in the past eight years has been a disgrace of one kind or another – think Katrina, our financial system, deregulation, our standing in the community of nations, the deterioration of our military, and on and on. We can thank the Republicans for this (along with some help from their Democratic friends and fellow travelers).
Vote for Obama and hope for the best. Without even hope we are surely doomed.
LKBIQ:
“Who knows what goes on in the mind of a baboon?”
Gary Metz
TILT:
Although she was deaf, Mabel Bell bought her new husband, Alexander Graham Bell, a piano, and insisted he play it for her every day.
“While I still believe Obama will win big I confess this makes me nervous. I also worry that Obama may not stay alive until next Tuesday, or there will be another terrorist attack of some kind, or Bush will declare martial law, or the sky will fall. “
I guess if Obama is not assassinated, there is not a terrorist attack, Bush does not declare martial law, or the sky doesn’t fall, I am going to look really foolish. Well, so be it. But I assure you, there is absolutely nothing you (or they) could possibly do now to make me change my opinion of Bush/Cheney. They should be held accountable for their crimes.
Is there anything much going on at the moment in our country that could not adequately be described by the single word – disgraceful?
The fact that our citizens are being forced to stand in line for up to 10 hours in order to vote strikes me as completely disgraceful.
We have launched at least 16 air strikes in Pakistan recently, each one a violation of their airspace and sovereignty. Disgraceful.
We launched an attack on Syria, another sovereign nation that is no threat to us, equally disgraceful.
The McCain/Palin campaign is almost universally considered disgraceful, especially their personal attacks on Obama.
McCain’s purely politically motivated choice of Sarah Palin and disregard for the well-being of our country was disgraceful.
McCain’s utter nonsense and continued bleating about Joe the Plumber is an insult to both the public intelligence and the electoral system. Disgraceful.
The “war” in Iraq and its continuation is disgraceful.
Our treatment of the Palestinians and biased support for Israel is disgraceful.
Our so-called “war” on Afghanistan is not only disgraceful but probably pointless and doomed to fail.
Our “war on drugs” is a complete and utter failure and a disgrace.
Our now mostly forgotten "war on poverty" likewise a failure and a disgrace.
Our failure to provide universal health care has been, and continues to be a disgrace.
Our obscene, bloated, and largely unnecessary defense budget, primarily benefitting the military/industrial/political complex rather than genuine national defense is surely disgraceful.
Our lack of action on global warming is also a disgrace.
Our failure to create a coherent energy plan is similarly a disgrace.
I suppose I could go on, as it appears to me that virtually everything that has been allowed to happen in the past eight years has been a disgrace of one kind or another – think Katrina, our financial system, deregulation, our standing in the community of nations, the deterioration of our military, and on and on. We can thank the Republicans for this (along with some help from their Democratic friends and fellow travelers).
Vote for Obama and hope for the best. Without even hope we are surely doomed.
LKBIQ:
“Who knows what goes on in the mind of a baboon?”
Gary Metz
TILT:
Although she was deaf, Mabel Bell bought her new husband, Alexander Graham Bell, a piano, and insisted he play it for her every day.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Homosexuality?
World’s heaviest man (1230 lbs.), confined
to his bed for six years, loses 560 lbs. and
is married from his special bed to girlfriend.
Bubblehead, you are soooo… weird. First of all, there is nothing unreasonable about my belief that Bush/Cheney are either stupid or evil or both. They are known war criminals, guilty of multiple war crimes, including attacking a country that was not a threat to us (the premier war crime), war profiteering, using banned weapons, killing innocent civilians, including many children, hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, renditions, and worst of all, torture. These are not merely my opinions, they are widely shared by a great many people who believe Bush/Cheney should be both impeached and tried in court for the horrors they have wrought. And this says nothing about their blatant violations of our constitution such as abolishing habeas corpus, illegal spying on American citizens, and so forth. So, yes, it is true that Bush/Cheney have made me believe they are stupid and evil. There is nothing circular about it. If you wish to defend such people I guess that is your prerogative (although I confess I cannot understand it), but don’t accuse me of being illogical.
I am so sick of hearing about politics I think I may be losing it. When I heard the latest accusation today from some right-wing lunatic, that Barack Obama is really a love child of Malcolm X, I decided it probably couldn’t get much worse so I turned off the TV and decided to think about other things. This led me to this brief discussion of homosexuality. If you don’t like hearing about homosexuality or are particularly squeamish I suggest you stop reading right here.
Homosexuality?
This is a question that has been in my mind off and on for quite some time, but as I have not been active in anthropology also for some time, I am perhaps not conversant enough with these issues to speak in any detail about any recent developments. Here I will present only a rough general outline of what I think about so-called “ritual homosexuality,” usually associated with “male cults.”
In parts of the New Guinea Highlands there were groups of people that practiced what is often called ritual homosexuality, that was part of male cult behavior. Young boys were taught and encouraged to practice fellatio on the older youths. As they became youths in turn they were fellated by the next generation of younger boys. Once a youth was considered an adult, certainly by the time of his marriage, he no longer engaged in this kind of activity at all. Indeed, for an adult male to have continued this he would have become the subject of much laughter and disdain. Thus, after a few years of being engaged in homosexual acts, a man became and remained entirely heterosexual. There were few, if any, exceptions.
Further south, especially on the northern coast of the Papuan Gulf, there were homosexual practices that utilized anal intercourse. Here, part of the initiation rites involved sodomizing the initiates. The men and boys involved in these rites were not otherwise homosexual. The men were married men who cohabited exclusively with their wives or, at least, with women, and not with other males.
In neither of these cases was there any indication that males were naturally attracted sexually to other males. That is, they were not born homosexuals, but engaged in these homosexual acts for other reasons, and only on certain specific occasions. It is possible to argue that these practices in some sense were not basically sexual at all. The males involved were subject to strong cultural prescriptions that demanded they participate in these (to us) rather strange and even outrageous customs. There is some evidence that, especially in the Highlands, many of the youths sometimes actively resisted being made to participate, and, on the coast, the initiates did not regard the practice as in any way enjoyable..
So, how does one explain this behavior? It has to do primarily with cultural beliefs about the nature of semen and its critical use for fertility. That is, the youths were believed not to grow and mature properly unless they ingested semen. Semen was the most powerful life force, the function of which was to promote healthy growth and fertility in general (of the gardens, the females, and etc.), as well as for the youth men. Semen was not only ingested, but was also often rubbed over young people and sometimes cooked in their food. It was regarded as the most powerful life force. Sometimes, in Papua, a woman, especially a newly married woman, would be forced to have sex with multiple men of the group and semen for ritual purposes would be acquired in this way. Women, like the boys, did not enjoy this practice but were told it was for the good of the community, etc.
These practices pose some obvious questions about the nature, practice, and definition of homosexuality. Here you find what are obvious homosexual acts, but homosexual acts performed by those who are essentially non-homosexuals. The men and boys who participate are not born homosexuals, they have no sexual attraction to other males, and in spite of being introduced to homosexuality, do not continue to engage in it. If this is so, and as far as I can determine it is so, can this truly even be considered homosexuality? In its most fundamental sense it is a part of religious ritual that just happens to employ this idiom in the service of transmitting the most vital life force from generation to generation and for the well-being and fertility of all.
LKBIQ:
We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of superstitious fears which were implanted in his imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
TILT:
Switching from contact lenses, after many years of wearing them, to ordinary glasses, is quite uncomfortable.
to his bed for six years, loses 560 lbs. and
is married from his special bed to girlfriend.
Bubblehead, you are soooo… weird. First of all, there is nothing unreasonable about my belief that Bush/Cheney are either stupid or evil or both. They are known war criminals, guilty of multiple war crimes, including attacking a country that was not a threat to us (the premier war crime), war profiteering, using banned weapons, killing innocent civilians, including many children, hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, renditions, and worst of all, torture. These are not merely my opinions, they are widely shared by a great many people who believe Bush/Cheney should be both impeached and tried in court for the horrors they have wrought. And this says nothing about their blatant violations of our constitution such as abolishing habeas corpus, illegal spying on American citizens, and so forth. So, yes, it is true that Bush/Cheney have made me believe they are stupid and evil. There is nothing circular about it. If you wish to defend such people I guess that is your prerogative (although I confess I cannot understand it), but don’t accuse me of being illogical.
I am so sick of hearing about politics I think I may be losing it. When I heard the latest accusation today from some right-wing lunatic, that Barack Obama is really a love child of Malcolm X, I decided it probably couldn’t get much worse so I turned off the TV and decided to think about other things. This led me to this brief discussion of homosexuality. If you don’t like hearing about homosexuality or are particularly squeamish I suggest you stop reading right here.
Homosexuality?
This is a question that has been in my mind off and on for quite some time, but as I have not been active in anthropology also for some time, I am perhaps not conversant enough with these issues to speak in any detail about any recent developments. Here I will present only a rough general outline of what I think about so-called “ritual homosexuality,” usually associated with “male cults.”
In parts of the New Guinea Highlands there were groups of people that practiced what is often called ritual homosexuality, that was part of male cult behavior. Young boys were taught and encouraged to practice fellatio on the older youths. As they became youths in turn they were fellated by the next generation of younger boys. Once a youth was considered an adult, certainly by the time of his marriage, he no longer engaged in this kind of activity at all. Indeed, for an adult male to have continued this he would have become the subject of much laughter and disdain. Thus, after a few years of being engaged in homosexual acts, a man became and remained entirely heterosexual. There were few, if any, exceptions.
Further south, especially on the northern coast of the Papuan Gulf, there were homosexual practices that utilized anal intercourse. Here, part of the initiation rites involved sodomizing the initiates. The men and boys involved in these rites were not otherwise homosexual. The men were married men who cohabited exclusively with their wives or, at least, with women, and not with other males.
In neither of these cases was there any indication that males were naturally attracted sexually to other males. That is, they were not born homosexuals, but engaged in these homosexual acts for other reasons, and only on certain specific occasions. It is possible to argue that these practices in some sense were not basically sexual at all. The males involved were subject to strong cultural prescriptions that demanded they participate in these (to us) rather strange and even outrageous customs. There is some evidence that, especially in the Highlands, many of the youths sometimes actively resisted being made to participate, and, on the coast, the initiates did not regard the practice as in any way enjoyable..
So, how does one explain this behavior? It has to do primarily with cultural beliefs about the nature of semen and its critical use for fertility. That is, the youths were believed not to grow and mature properly unless they ingested semen. Semen was the most powerful life force, the function of which was to promote healthy growth and fertility in general (of the gardens, the females, and etc.), as well as for the youth men. Semen was not only ingested, but was also often rubbed over young people and sometimes cooked in their food. It was regarded as the most powerful life force. Sometimes, in Papua, a woman, especially a newly married woman, would be forced to have sex with multiple men of the group and semen for ritual purposes would be acquired in this way. Women, like the boys, did not enjoy this practice but were told it was for the good of the community, etc.
These practices pose some obvious questions about the nature, practice, and definition of homosexuality. Here you find what are obvious homosexual acts, but homosexual acts performed by those who are essentially non-homosexuals. The men and boys who participate are not born homosexuals, they have no sexual attraction to other males, and in spite of being introduced to homosexuality, do not continue to engage in it. If this is so, and as far as I can determine it is so, can this truly even be considered homosexuality? In its most fundamental sense it is a part of religious ritual that just happens to employ this idiom in the service of transmitting the most vital life force from generation to generation and for the well-being and fertility of all.
LKBIQ:
We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of superstitious fears which were implanted in his imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
TILT:
Switching from contact lenses, after many years of wearing them, to ordinary glasses, is quite uncomfortable.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Depressions
Guy fires repeated shotgun blasts
into gas pump, crashes while fleeing,
ends up under guard in hospital.
Seventy-nine years ago, black Tuesday, the day I was born, the stock market crashed. Happy birthday to me! I do not believe my coming into the world had anything to do with bringing about the Great Depression, nor do I believe my presence here has anything to do with the current financial disaster. But I do know we have mainly Republicans to thank for both events. Thanks to their misguided philosophy of free market capitalism conditions are now pretty much as they were in the 1930’s and once again corporations reign and the filthy rich get even filthier rich. There are at least some hopeful signs for meaningful change.
Barack Obama’s half-hour infomercial I thought was reasonably successful. At least I cannot imagine it will hurt him in any way. It was certainly very professionally done, just as his campaign has been. Contrast Obama’s campaign with McCain’s and it is difficult not to just laugh out loud. A three day “Joe the Plumber” tour? How absurd. And now good ‘ol Joe is touring with Palin and offereing his advice on foreign policy (“Obama means the death of Israel”), even more absurd. Now Joe has hired a publicist and is trying to get books deals and a recording contract. Ah, fifteen minutes of fame. Palin seems to think that having rather disgracefully flunked VP 101 she is now ready for the Presidency itself. While the McCain/Palin campaign is falling apart right in front of our eyes, they keep insisting they are going to win, especially in Pennsylvania. Does McCain know something we don’t know? This reminds me of Bush in 2004 when he asserted very positively that he was going to win (he did know something apparently that we did not know). While I still believe Obama will win big I confess this makes me nervous. I also worry that Obama may not stay alive until next Tuesday, or there will be another terrorist attack of some kind, or Bush will declare martial law, or the sky will fall. The past eight years have done nothing to build my trust in the Brafia/Republicans. My prediction of an Obama landslide might not come true – but it certainly ought to.
I have no idea what Obama may be thinking and obviously I am in no position to speak for him. I do believe, however, there are many things that must be left unsaid in a campaign if you wish to be elected President of the United States. For example, the important question now arises as to how Obama will be able to find the funds to offer all the programs he would like to begin. I suggest there is one answer to this question that cannot be stated publicly at the moment because it would obviously raise such right-wing objections. Namely, cutting our obscene and bloated national defense budget. As probably half of our resources go into maintaining the largest military on earth, more than all other countries combined, and as most of this money is being used for nothing but maintaining the military/industrial/political complex that is only remotely connected to genuine national defense, it is a potential source of almost unlimited funds. Whether Obama believes in reducing this absolute waste of taxpayer money I do not know. The argument that it is necessary to keep our industry going, creating jobs and such, I find unconvincing as those monies could easily be funneled into useful domestic programs also creating jobs. This would seem to me to be eminently sensible but, of course, the national defense budget and the pentagon have become virtually sacred, however misguided. With the money that would be gained from doing away with the Bush tax cuts, plus the money that could be saved by giving up dreams of empire, it would not take too long to actually restore our country and economy to a position of power and influence once again. And we would actually be much stronger than we are at the moment. But what do I know, I’m just the 97 pound weakling in the room.
I have just re-read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby. I read it once very long ago, once again not so very long ago, and now once again. Some say it is the greatest American novel. I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I can’t think of a better one offhand. It is also supposed to be great because it is so representative of America, the American dream, of the constant striving upwards, ambition, dedication, and etc. But again, I don’t know. Gatsby strives upward it is true, but by using illegal means (although when it comes to prohibition one might argue that it really wasn’t, or should not have been, illegal or somehow bad or immoral). Then there were Tom and Daisy, wealthy racist snobs, adultery, drunkenness, dishonesty, conspicuous consumers, and, ultimately, the cause of much unhappiness. I guess one might accept that as the American way, but however representative it may be, it certainly is not a very flattering presentation of American life and values. You cannot, however, take away the fact that Fitzgerald was an absolute master of writing prose. I enjoy reading it for that reason, but it is a sad.story.
LKBIQ:
In a real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read. It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.
S. I. Hayakawa
TILT: A hinnie is a cross between a stallion and a female donkey.
into gas pump, crashes while fleeing,
ends up under guard in hospital.
Seventy-nine years ago, black Tuesday, the day I was born, the stock market crashed. Happy birthday to me! I do not believe my coming into the world had anything to do with bringing about the Great Depression, nor do I believe my presence here has anything to do with the current financial disaster. But I do know we have mainly Republicans to thank for both events. Thanks to their misguided philosophy of free market capitalism conditions are now pretty much as they were in the 1930’s and once again corporations reign and the filthy rich get even filthier rich. There are at least some hopeful signs for meaningful change.
Barack Obama’s half-hour infomercial I thought was reasonably successful. At least I cannot imagine it will hurt him in any way. It was certainly very professionally done, just as his campaign has been. Contrast Obama’s campaign with McCain’s and it is difficult not to just laugh out loud. A three day “Joe the Plumber” tour? How absurd. And now good ‘ol Joe is touring with Palin and offereing his advice on foreign policy (“Obama means the death of Israel”), even more absurd. Now Joe has hired a publicist and is trying to get books deals and a recording contract. Ah, fifteen minutes of fame. Palin seems to think that having rather disgracefully flunked VP 101 she is now ready for the Presidency itself. While the McCain/Palin campaign is falling apart right in front of our eyes, they keep insisting they are going to win, especially in Pennsylvania. Does McCain know something we don’t know? This reminds me of Bush in 2004 when he asserted very positively that he was going to win (he did know something apparently that we did not know). While I still believe Obama will win big I confess this makes me nervous. I also worry that Obama may not stay alive until next Tuesday, or there will be another terrorist attack of some kind, or Bush will declare martial law, or the sky will fall. The past eight years have done nothing to build my trust in the Brafia/Republicans. My prediction of an Obama landslide might not come true – but it certainly ought to.
I have no idea what Obama may be thinking and obviously I am in no position to speak for him. I do believe, however, there are many things that must be left unsaid in a campaign if you wish to be elected President of the United States. For example, the important question now arises as to how Obama will be able to find the funds to offer all the programs he would like to begin. I suggest there is one answer to this question that cannot be stated publicly at the moment because it would obviously raise such right-wing objections. Namely, cutting our obscene and bloated national defense budget. As probably half of our resources go into maintaining the largest military on earth, more than all other countries combined, and as most of this money is being used for nothing but maintaining the military/industrial/political complex that is only remotely connected to genuine national defense, it is a potential source of almost unlimited funds. Whether Obama believes in reducing this absolute waste of taxpayer money I do not know. The argument that it is necessary to keep our industry going, creating jobs and such, I find unconvincing as those monies could easily be funneled into useful domestic programs also creating jobs. This would seem to me to be eminently sensible but, of course, the national defense budget and the pentagon have become virtually sacred, however misguided. With the money that would be gained from doing away with the Bush tax cuts, plus the money that could be saved by giving up dreams of empire, it would not take too long to actually restore our country and economy to a position of power and influence once again. And we would actually be much stronger than we are at the moment. But what do I know, I’m just the 97 pound weakling in the room.
I have just re-read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby. I read it once very long ago, once again not so very long ago, and now once again. Some say it is the greatest American novel. I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I can’t think of a better one offhand. It is also supposed to be great because it is so representative of America, the American dream, of the constant striving upwards, ambition, dedication, and etc. But again, I don’t know. Gatsby strives upward it is true, but by using illegal means (although when it comes to prohibition one might argue that it really wasn’t, or should not have been, illegal or somehow bad or immoral). Then there were Tom and Daisy, wealthy racist snobs, adultery, drunkenness, dishonesty, conspicuous consumers, and, ultimately, the cause of much unhappiness. I guess one might accept that as the American way, but however representative it may be, it certainly is not a very flattering presentation of American life and values. You cannot, however, take away the fact that Fitzgerald was an absolute master of writing prose. I enjoy reading it for that reason, but it is a sad.story.
LKBIQ:
In a real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read. It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.
S. I. Hayakawa
TILT: A hinnie is a cross between a stallion and a female donkey.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Irrationality
The only reason I said anything about Mormons is because some Republicans claim that Mitt Romney is said to become head of the Republican party after the inauguration. I regret that my comments were so glib. I doubt that the Mormon religion is any better or worse than any other organized religion. The question of underwear is really quite trivial but representative of what I believe is the irrationality of so many religious beliefs and practices. Personally, I would not want a President who was wearing a yamulka either. Nor would I want a President who was wearing brocaded gowns and a crucifix. The basic point is that I would not want any President who believes in totally irrational things, like, for example, the literal truth of the bible, that the earth is only 6000 years old, or does not believe in evolution or believes in magic of various kinds. Among all industrialized nations only the U.S. seems to have such a large percentage of people who profess such beliefs. This, I think, is related to the rampant anti-intellectualism that we have nurtured for so long. It is pretty obvious that an atheist could not be elected President in the U.S. And most of our Presidents professed some religious beliefs, or at least attended church. How much they might have believed in irrational beliefs I do not know, but for the most part it has never been a big issue. It could be. Witness the Bush Presidency where science has been virtually ignored and religion has been promoted in its stead. I sincerely believe we cannot accept this in the 21st century and it should be avoided at all costs. What makes matters worse is that in the U.S. not only do our Presidents have to give lip service to some religion, but it really has to be Christianity. No Muslim could become President at the moment no matter what the depth of their faith. As being a Muslim is not illegal in the U.S. there would seem to be no rational reason for this, but, like I say, the whole business is wrapped up in irrationality and magic.
I find it virtually impossible to believe that the campaign for President can be as close as some people seem to think it is. And if it is, I am most disappointed to know there are so many ignorant people in the U.S. McCain/Palin have run what I think may be the worst campaign in history, disorganized, vacillating between positions, racist, and in general just plain sleazy. Indeed, I suspect that one of the reasons McCain/Palin are doing so poorly is because they have come to personify everything that is wrong with American politics. If they were to win now, after their despicable campaign, it would say more about American society and culture than it would just about them. Listening to the few interviews I have seen with McCain/Palin supporters I find myself not only frightened but quite horrified. The depths of ignorance displayed, and their absolute irrationality displayed is something I find difficult to either accept or even believe. I certainly do not want these people picking our next President, call me an elitist if you will. Some very vital changes need to be made in our culture or we will flunk out of the 21st century in disgrace. At the moment our only hope is Barack Obama, who seems to have the right idea, at least where education is concerned. By the way, he is not going to take your guns away. As near as I can determine he will follow a reasonable, common-sense approach to the issue. Anyway, as I have said before, given the millions of guns that exist in the U.S., as well as our attitudes towards them, there is no practical way they could ever be taken away even if it was desireable to do so.
LKBIQ:
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made,,,”
F. Scott Fitzgerals
TILT:
Apparently there have been several assassination plots (more than two) aimed at Barack Obama.
I find it virtually impossible to believe that the campaign for President can be as close as some people seem to think it is. And if it is, I am most disappointed to know there are so many ignorant people in the U.S. McCain/Palin have run what I think may be the worst campaign in history, disorganized, vacillating between positions, racist, and in general just plain sleazy. Indeed, I suspect that one of the reasons McCain/Palin are doing so poorly is because they have come to personify everything that is wrong with American politics. If they were to win now, after their despicable campaign, it would say more about American society and culture than it would just about them. Listening to the few interviews I have seen with McCain/Palin supporters I find myself not only frightened but quite horrified. The depths of ignorance displayed, and their absolute irrationality displayed is something I find difficult to either accept or even believe. I certainly do not want these people picking our next President, call me an elitist if you will. Some very vital changes need to be made in our culture or we will flunk out of the 21st century in disgrace. At the moment our only hope is Barack Obama, who seems to have the right idea, at least where education is concerned. By the way, he is not going to take your guns away. As near as I can determine he will follow a reasonable, common-sense approach to the issue. Anyway, as I have said before, given the millions of guns that exist in the U.S., as well as our attitudes towards them, there is no practical way they could ever be taken away even if it was desireable to do so.
LKBIQ:
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made,,,”
F. Scott Fitzgerals
TILT:
Apparently there have been several assassination plots (more than two) aimed at Barack Obama.
Monday, October 27, 2008
More Republican morons
Forty year-old man on stolen bike
stabs mother with a fork, hits another
woman with 10 pounds of frozen chicken.
Two moronic skinheads were driving around threatening to shoot black children at school and then drive by to shoot Obama from their car. There is apparently no reason to think they had a serious plan or that Obama was ever in danger or if they were smart enough to execute such a plan. But what would you expect after McCain, and especially Palin, works her crowds to the point where they yell out things like “bomb him,” “shoot him,” “kill him,” and so on.
Then there is the Texas girl who falsely claimed she was attacked by a huge black man because of her McCain bumper sticker. After sympathy calls from both McCain and Palin she finally confessed it was all made up. She was apparently a paid representative of some Young Republican group (I guess they teach them dirty tricks while relatively young).
And now, predictably, one of these right-wing loony groups is sponsoring an ad linking Obama once again to the Reverend Wright. The Reverend is widely accused of being anti-American. As far as I know, no one has seriously defended him from this charge. Interestingly enough, Wright served honorably in our military and mostly preaches good will towards all. As evidence for his anti-Americanism they play a video in which he says at one point “god damn America.” This was in the context of a sermon he gave about the fact that American troops were killing innocent civilians, including children. I guess he was supposed to praise them for that? But, of course, truth has nothing to do with the stories they spread about Obama and others, nothing at all. Consider this Republican description of Obama through the eyes of Ed Naha on Smirking Chimp today:
“Today, after a manic McCain makeover, Obama's a baby-killing, out of touch, latte drinking, inexperienced, conniving, messianic, communistic, terrorist-loving, anti-American, gay marriage promoting, Caucasian hating, vote-rigging, Boy Scout destroying, Doomsday-bringing, Nazi-emulating, troop-hating, dictatorial, secretive, Welfare-promoting watermelon connoisseur Marxist who might cause our entire nation to implode. Oh, yeah, he's probably also Islamo-socialisticexpialidocious. Even just the thought of it is really quite atrocious. And he puts "Hollywood above America," too.”
In their latest desperation bid to salvage at least something out of the McCain/Palin disaster they are issuing dire warning of what might happen if the Democrats are allowed to capture all three branches of government, the House, Senate, and White House. When they controlled all three branches for six years they thought it was wonderful (and acted accordingly). Remember when they wouldn’t even allow the Democrats to use a proper meeting room, and held votes open longer than usual in order to insure their passage, and met behind closed doors to draft legislation without even consulting Democrats? Now that the shoe may be on the other foot they are whining and crying like babies. If Democrats can control all three branches they may actually be able to do something for a change. What a breath of fresh air it would be to not have a clique of Republicans who, although a minority, can literally block everything. It is only fitting they should have a dose of their own poisonous medicine.
Some think Sarah the witch is trying to position herself for a run for President in 2012. I suppose she might try to run but I doubt she will get anywhere. Some senior Republicans have already said that the day after the inauguration Mitt Romney will be the titular head of their party. If Mormons breed just a bit faster they may have a majority by then. I still wonder if Romney wears the magical underwear and follows closely the teaching of the Angel Moroni. Personally, I think they should make Joe Lieberman head of their party. He is reputedly looking for a home once again.
LKBIQ:
“..a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
TILT:
The constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the oldest functioning written constitution in the world (written by John Adams).
stabs mother with a fork, hits another
woman with 10 pounds of frozen chicken.
Two moronic skinheads were driving around threatening to shoot black children at school and then drive by to shoot Obama from their car. There is apparently no reason to think they had a serious plan or that Obama was ever in danger or if they were smart enough to execute such a plan. But what would you expect after McCain, and especially Palin, works her crowds to the point where they yell out things like “bomb him,” “shoot him,” “kill him,” and so on.
Then there is the Texas girl who falsely claimed she was attacked by a huge black man because of her McCain bumper sticker. After sympathy calls from both McCain and Palin she finally confessed it was all made up. She was apparently a paid representative of some Young Republican group (I guess they teach them dirty tricks while relatively young).
And now, predictably, one of these right-wing loony groups is sponsoring an ad linking Obama once again to the Reverend Wright. The Reverend is widely accused of being anti-American. As far as I know, no one has seriously defended him from this charge. Interestingly enough, Wright served honorably in our military and mostly preaches good will towards all. As evidence for his anti-Americanism they play a video in which he says at one point “god damn America.” This was in the context of a sermon he gave about the fact that American troops were killing innocent civilians, including children. I guess he was supposed to praise them for that? But, of course, truth has nothing to do with the stories they spread about Obama and others, nothing at all. Consider this Republican description of Obama through the eyes of Ed Naha on Smirking Chimp today:
“Today, after a manic McCain makeover, Obama's a baby-killing, out of touch, latte drinking, inexperienced, conniving, messianic, communistic, terrorist-loving, anti-American, gay marriage promoting, Caucasian hating, vote-rigging, Boy Scout destroying, Doomsday-bringing, Nazi-emulating, troop-hating, dictatorial, secretive, Welfare-promoting watermelon connoisseur Marxist who might cause our entire nation to implode. Oh, yeah, he's probably also Islamo-socialisticexpialidocious. Even just the thought of it is really quite atrocious. And he puts "Hollywood above America," too.”
In their latest desperation bid to salvage at least something out of the McCain/Palin disaster they are issuing dire warning of what might happen if the Democrats are allowed to capture all three branches of government, the House, Senate, and White House. When they controlled all three branches for six years they thought it was wonderful (and acted accordingly). Remember when they wouldn’t even allow the Democrats to use a proper meeting room, and held votes open longer than usual in order to insure their passage, and met behind closed doors to draft legislation without even consulting Democrats? Now that the shoe may be on the other foot they are whining and crying like babies. If Democrats can control all three branches they may actually be able to do something for a change. What a breath of fresh air it would be to not have a clique of Republicans who, although a minority, can literally block everything. It is only fitting they should have a dose of their own poisonous medicine.
Some think Sarah the witch is trying to position herself for a run for President in 2012. I suppose she might try to run but I doubt she will get anywhere. Some senior Republicans have already said that the day after the inauguration Mitt Romney will be the titular head of their party. If Mormons breed just a bit faster they may have a majority by then. I still wonder if Romney wears the magical underwear and follows closely the teaching of the Angel Moroni. Personally, I think they should make Joe Lieberman head of their party. He is reputedly looking for a home once again.
LKBIQ:
“..a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
TILT:
The constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the oldest functioning written constitution in the world (written by John Adams).
Sunday, October 26, 2008
More war crimes?
Today we sent drones into Pakistan, killing a number of people, most likely civilians. We also, for the very first time, sent helicopters into Syria where they killed at least eight people. A U.S. spokesman said they were al Quiada and we did it because Syria was allowing them to stay there and then enter Iraq from Syrian territory. The Syrians say they were innocent civilians. In any case, as neither Pakistan or Syria are a threat to us, I fail to see why these are not war crimes similar to our invasion of Iraq. If this is so, I also fail to see why Bush/Cheney and others responsible for these war crimes should not be arrested and turned over to the Hague. Is it the case that we can now attack with impunity any country we choose? Somewhere (on Buzzflash) it was suggested these attacks were deliberate and meant to bring about an international crisis that would, presumably, help McCain. I have no idea of this is true but I can understand why some people might believe it, based upon what Bush/Cheney have done in the past. If it is true it makes it all the more horrendous, just a few more deaths for Bush/Cheney political purposes. And speaking of Dick the Slimy, what rat hole is he hiding in now, or has he already fled the country for safer foreign lands, leaving the idiot Bush to take the rap?
William Headline, a veteran newsperson who was instrumental in establishing CNN as a credible news source, died from a fall in his home. He was 76. I do not know if he was the source of “Headline News.” People younger than me are dying all over the place. Of course no one actually dies anymore, they merely “pass away.” Why am I still here? I have no idea. Such is growing old.
Now that the idea of free market unfettered capitalism has been shown to be the total disaster it inevitably had to become, and the finger pointing has begun, I can only wonder what the future might bring. Sarah Palin, that economic whiz-kid, has warned us about Obama’s communism, and she even warned us about perhaps adopting Swedish socialism (as if that might be a truly terrible thing). Do you think she knows anything about either communism or Swedish socialism (or pretty much anything at all)? Alan Greenspan is even more amusing, wanting us to believe that he really thought the free market system would actually police itself without regulations. I do not believe even for a moment that Greenspan did not know better. For an economist to believe that would require a naivete beyond belief. But what else can he say now that he helped to create this monstrous financial disaster? You can ignore reality for a time but it inevitably wins. Whatever the future holds, let us hope that we will never return to an unregulated market system. As this trauma is so dramatic and painful I doubt we ever will, just as I doubt that cries of socialism and communism will ever again have the salience they once had, It appears that even racism is losing its power and influence. Here, I think, progress might actually be progressing. Hooray!
trees are barren now
bare limbs stark against the sky
seemingly lifeless
in spring they will recover
not so my embittered heart
Morialekafa
TILT:
Tasers not only don’t work on wild boars, they apparently also don’t work on raccoons (but they work great on little kids and very old ladies)
William Headline, a veteran newsperson who was instrumental in establishing CNN as a credible news source, died from a fall in his home. He was 76. I do not know if he was the source of “Headline News.” People younger than me are dying all over the place. Of course no one actually dies anymore, they merely “pass away.” Why am I still here? I have no idea. Such is growing old.
Now that the idea of free market unfettered capitalism has been shown to be the total disaster it inevitably had to become, and the finger pointing has begun, I can only wonder what the future might bring. Sarah Palin, that economic whiz-kid, has warned us about Obama’s communism, and she even warned us about perhaps adopting Swedish socialism (as if that might be a truly terrible thing). Do you think she knows anything about either communism or Swedish socialism (or pretty much anything at all)? Alan Greenspan is even more amusing, wanting us to believe that he really thought the free market system would actually police itself without regulations. I do not believe even for a moment that Greenspan did not know better. For an economist to believe that would require a naivete beyond belief. But what else can he say now that he helped to create this monstrous financial disaster? You can ignore reality for a time but it inevitably wins. Whatever the future holds, let us hope that we will never return to an unregulated market system. As this trauma is so dramatic and painful I doubt we ever will, just as I doubt that cries of socialism and communism will ever again have the salience they once had, It appears that even racism is losing its power and influence. Here, I think, progress might actually be progressing. Hooray!
trees are barren now
bare limbs stark against the sky
seemingly lifeless
in spring they will recover
not so my embittered heart
Morialekafa
TILT:
Tasers not only don’t work on wild boars, they apparently also don’t work on raccoons (but they work great on little kids and very old ladies)
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Why Bill Sali?
The Marriage Appreciation Training Uplifting
Relationship Program fails to find couple willing
to abstain from premarital sex for $10,000 prize.
I saw somewhere the other day that someone said they would vote for Bill Sali because he represents Idaho values. Here are just a few of Sali’s “no”votes (courtesy of The Mountain Goat Report):
Bill Sali opposes easier access to small-business loans. Bill passed 380-45.
Bill Sali opposes funding for scientific research. Bill passed 397-20.
Bill Sali opposes restrictions on maritime pollution (359-48) and on dogfighting and cockfighting (368-39)
Bill Sali opposes protection for whistleblowers. Bill passed 331-94.
Bill Sali likes noxious weeds. Bill passed 390-10.
Bill Sali opposes the National Science Foundation. Bill passed 399-17.
Bill Sali opposes improving Head Start. Bill passed 365-48.
Bill Sali opposes technology innovation. Bill passed 385-23.
Bill Sali opposes putting more cops on the streets. Bill passed 381-34.
Bill Sali voted against the 911 Commission's recommendations. Bill passed 371-40
Are these really “Idaho values?” Bill Sali has proven himself to be utterly useless as an Idaho Congressman. In fact, examining his votes makes one wonder if he really represents or is useful to anyone at all, even those out-of-state interests that fund his misadventures. Vote for Minnick.
Jim Risch says it would be terrible to have a “liberal” in Congress representing Idaho. He seems to believe the world would end if such were to come to pass. So why not elect another conservative from Idaho and buck the tide of what appears to be an overwhelming Democratic victory. He or she would certainly have a lot of clout in a Democratic Congress and administration. An Idaho conservative at the moment would seem to be as useless as Bill Sali (if that were even possible). Vote for Larry LaRocco, who is not exactly a liberal, unless compared to Craig or Risch, but is a good and competent man who can be depended upon to truly represent Idaho values.
Here in Boundary County we have some unusually fine Democratic candidates for office for the first time in many years. Vote for:
Tom Hollingsworth
Steve Elgar
Jerry Pavia
John O’Connor
It is well past time for a change in our local politics. These are all dedicated and knowledgeable people who have the best interest of our community at heart and will break the pattern of secrecy that has characterized our county government for the past few years.
I do not understand the continuing hysteria over Iran. This seems to me to be an example of ignorance and thoughtlessness. Iran has not attacked anyone for more than 200 years. Iranians are intelligent people that represent a culture thousands of years old, a culture that values poetry and art and a love of learning. There is no evidence they are actually trying to build a bomb, but even if they are it will surely be for purely defensive purposes (to defend themselves from an aggressive U.S. and Israel who keep threatening them and trying to interfere in their affairs). They most certainly would not attack Israel with a nuclear bomb, the very idea is ridiculous. Iran has offered more than once to negotiate with the U.S. only to be spurned by Cheney. And of course they have vital interests in Iraq, a neighboring country that has attacked them in the past. They have far more reason to be “ meddling” there than we do. But when it comes to Iran we seem to throw all reason and common sense out the window and just continue with this blind approach to problems that could quite likely be solved through peaceful negotiations. Perhaps Obama can attempt a more sensible approach to a country that offers no threat to us.
LKBIQ:
Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
Friedrich von Schiller
TILT:
Winston Churchill is said to have started every morning with a bottle of champagne.
Relationship Program fails to find couple willing
to abstain from premarital sex for $10,000 prize.
I saw somewhere the other day that someone said they would vote for Bill Sali because he represents Idaho values. Here are just a few of Sali’s “no”votes (courtesy of The Mountain Goat Report):
Bill Sali opposes easier access to small-business loans. Bill passed 380-45.
Bill Sali opposes funding for scientific research. Bill passed 397-20.
Bill Sali opposes restrictions on maritime pollution (359-48) and on dogfighting and cockfighting (368-39)
Bill Sali opposes protection for whistleblowers. Bill passed 331-94.
Bill Sali likes noxious weeds. Bill passed 390-10.
Bill Sali opposes the National Science Foundation. Bill passed 399-17.
Bill Sali opposes improving Head Start. Bill passed 365-48.
Bill Sali opposes technology innovation. Bill passed 385-23.
Bill Sali opposes putting more cops on the streets. Bill passed 381-34.
Bill Sali voted against the 911 Commission's recommendations. Bill passed 371-40
Are these really “Idaho values?” Bill Sali has proven himself to be utterly useless as an Idaho Congressman. In fact, examining his votes makes one wonder if he really represents or is useful to anyone at all, even those out-of-state interests that fund his misadventures. Vote for Minnick.
Jim Risch says it would be terrible to have a “liberal” in Congress representing Idaho. He seems to believe the world would end if such were to come to pass. So why not elect another conservative from Idaho and buck the tide of what appears to be an overwhelming Democratic victory. He or she would certainly have a lot of clout in a Democratic Congress and administration. An Idaho conservative at the moment would seem to be as useless as Bill Sali (if that were even possible). Vote for Larry LaRocco, who is not exactly a liberal, unless compared to Craig or Risch, but is a good and competent man who can be depended upon to truly represent Idaho values.
Here in Boundary County we have some unusually fine Democratic candidates for office for the first time in many years. Vote for:
Tom Hollingsworth
Steve Elgar
Jerry Pavia
John O’Connor
It is well past time for a change in our local politics. These are all dedicated and knowledgeable people who have the best interest of our community at heart and will break the pattern of secrecy that has characterized our county government for the past few years.
I do not understand the continuing hysteria over Iran. This seems to me to be an example of ignorance and thoughtlessness. Iran has not attacked anyone for more than 200 years. Iranians are intelligent people that represent a culture thousands of years old, a culture that values poetry and art and a love of learning. There is no evidence they are actually trying to build a bomb, but even if they are it will surely be for purely defensive purposes (to defend themselves from an aggressive U.S. and Israel who keep threatening them and trying to interfere in their affairs). They most certainly would not attack Israel with a nuclear bomb, the very idea is ridiculous. Iran has offered more than once to negotiate with the U.S. only to be spurned by Cheney. And of course they have vital interests in Iraq, a neighboring country that has attacked them in the past. They have far more reason to be “ meddling” there than we do. But when it comes to Iran we seem to throw all reason and common sense out the window and just continue with this blind approach to problems that could quite likely be solved through peaceful negotiations. Perhaps Obama can attempt a more sensible approach to a country that offers no threat to us.
LKBIQ:
Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
Friedrich von Schiller
TILT:
Winston Churchill is said to have started every morning with a bottle of champagne.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Polls
Refused sex by his roommate,
young man breaks window
and urinates on her dog.
What can one make out of polls? Most everyone agrees that polls can and are sometimes manipulated to say what they want them to say. So what do you say when you just don’t believe one? For example, virtually all polls, both national and statewide, show Obama leading by anywhere from 4 to 14 points, except for one poll that claims he leads by only 1 point. I don’t know about you, but for me, I’d say I don’t believe it. In this case it seems that 50% of the sample were Evangelists, which, I guess, explains the different result. But sometimes it is not obvious what the problem may be. For example, today I saw where 33% of those polled said they would not vote for a black man. I don’t know what the sample was, where it came from, or anything else about it. But I don’t believe it. I believe there are many people in the U.S. who will not vote for a black man, I just don’t believe it could possibly be 33%. My disbelief in this poll stems simply from the fact that it does not correspond with my personal experience. My personal experience, of course, is biased because among my personal friends there are none who would say such a thing. However, even with people I know more casually, from many different walks of life and different ethnic groups, races, ages, and genders, I do not believe 1 in 3 would vote on the basis of race. I doubt that even in Idaho, the reddest of red states, you could get one in three voters to say such a thing (or even vote that way). One in eight, perhaps at most might hold such sentiments. I cannot prove this but I believe it. We have come a very long way since race-baiting was commonplace and I don’t think younger people fall for it anymore. Thus the young woman’s claim to have been attacked by a 6’ 4” black man because she was a McCain supporter, who reportedly scratched a “B” on her face after giving her a black eye, is not going anywhere (obviously now that she has admitted she lied). She has something to do with the McCain campaign and it is not clear if she thought this story up on her own or if she had help. I suspect in this case it might even end up gaining votes for Obama. Whether the McCain campaign had anything to do with this I do not know, but it is very clear they have been playing the race card all along.
After making fun of Obama’s statement about spreading the wealth around, the McCain campaign takes donor money and spreads it on Sarah Palin. They seem to be unable to do anything right. Now they are even attacking Obama’s visit to Hawaii to see his dying grandmother. Rush Limbaugh, the world’s greatest liar and windbag, thinks Obama is there because of his birth certificate. It has already been established that his Hawaiian birth certificate is perfectly genuine but morons like Rush just can’t give it up. Sarah even outdid herself in a speech when she haughtily made fun of research of fruit flies, not knowing that research on those tiny creatures has already produced material of value on autism. Nothing seems to embarrass her, she just goes on babbling about McCain’s talking points and dragging down his campaign. It has become so bad that some think she is going it on purpose to position herself for a Presidential run in 2012. Wow! It just goes to prove the old saw, “ignorance is bliss.” I hear the fat lady singing.
LKBIQ:
I always wanted a happy ending... Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.
Gilda Radner
TILT:
Cats are known to occasionally make friends with skunks.
young man breaks window
and urinates on her dog.
What can one make out of polls? Most everyone agrees that polls can and are sometimes manipulated to say what they want them to say. So what do you say when you just don’t believe one? For example, virtually all polls, both national and statewide, show Obama leading by anywhere from 4 to 14 points, except for one poll that claims he leads by only 1 point. I don’t know about you, but for me, I’d say I don’t believe it. In this case it seems that 50% of the sample were Evangelists, which, I guess, explains the different result. But sometimes it is not obvious what the problem may be. For example, today I saw where 33% of those polled said they would not vote for a black man. I don’t know what the sample was, where it came from, or anything else about it. But I don’t believe it. I believe there are many people in the U.S. who will not vote for a black man, I just don’t believe it could possibly be 33%. My disbelief in this poll stems simply from the fact that it does not correspond with my personal experience. My personal experience, of course, is biased because among my personal friends there are none who would say such a thing. However, even with people I know more casually, from many different walks of life and different ethnic groups, races, ages, and genders, I do not believe 1 in 3 would vote on the basis of race. I doubt that even in Idaho, the reddest of red states, you could get one in three voters to say such a thing (or even vote that way). One in eight, perhaps at most might hold such sentiments. I cannot prove this but I believe it. We have come a very long way since race-baiting was commonplace and I don’t think younger people fall for it anymore. Thus the young woman’s claim to have been attacked by a 6’ 4” black man because she was a McCain supporter, who reportedly scratched a “B” on her face after giving her a black eye, is not going anywhere (obviously now that she has admitted she lied). She has something to do with the McCain campaign and it is not clear if she thought this story up on her own or if she had help. I suspect in this case it might even end up gaining votes for Obama. Whether the McCain campaign had anything to do with this I do not know, but it is very clear they have been playing the race card all along.
After making fun of Obama’s statement about spreading the wealth around, the McCain campaign takes donor money and spreads it on Sarah Palin. They seem to be unable to do anything right. Now they are even attacking Obama’s visit to Hawaii to see his dying grandmother. Rush Limbaugh, the world’s greatest liar and windbag, thinks Obama is there because of his birth certificate. It has already been established that his Hawaiian birth certificate is perfectly genuine but morons like Rush just can’t give it up. Sarah even outdid herself in a speech when she haughtily made fun of research of fruit flies, not knowing that research on those tiny creatures has already produced material of value on autism. Nothing seems to embarrass her, she just goes on babbling about McCain’s talking points and dragging down his campaign. It has become so bad that some think she is going it on purpose to position herself for a Presidential run in 2012. Wow! It just goes to prove the old saw, “ignorance is bliss.” I hear the fat lady singing.
LKBIQ:
I always wanted a happy ending... Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.
Gilda Radner
TILT:
Cats are known to occasionally make friends with skunks.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Laughable
The McCain campaign would be downright laughable if things were not so serious and if it did not generate so much hate. Could there be anything funnier than McCain saying that Obama would say anything to be elected? What has happened to McCain between 2000 and now? He has changed his positions on just about everything and has obviously said things clearly intended to do nothing but get him elected. For him to criticize Obama for something he has been much worse about cannot be anything other than laughable. And what does his pick of Sarah the wicked say about him other than that he is willing to do anything to get elected. And isn’t it funny how McCain’s descriptions of Obama have changed over time: first he was just a nobody, then a naïve and inexperienced freshman Senator, then a Chicago politician, then an opportunist who just doesn’t understand anything, then a celebrity, a terrorist who hates America, a socialist, and possibly even a communist and Muslim (and of course black all along). Nothing McCain has tried has caught on with the public, and virtually every accusation he has made about Obama has turned out to be more true of himself. He and his imaginary VP have managed to stir up a hotbed of hate to the point where his followers, and especially hers, are shouting out terrorist, treason, waterboard him, and even kill him (interestingly, I think no one has shouted out hang him, I wonder why). I do not think there has been a precedent for a campaign to announce publicly they were just going to attack their opponent’s character and try to destroy him. I know there has been some bitter campaigns in the past, and I know dirty tricks have not been unknown, but even in the bitterest campaigns I don’t believe there was an attempt to actually destroy the opponent. This latter strategy is basically un-American in that even if it fails it damages the winner who has to then go on to the Presidency with that handicap. It is a terrible thing McCain/Palin have done, shameful and unconscionable, and they say they are actually proud of these people who turn out at their hatefests.
I confess to serious wonderment about whether we should even listen to any more campaign talk. If there are those who haven’t yet made up their minds they must be dead from the neck up and probably shouldn’t be allowed to vote in the first place. But more importantly, what is the point in listening? First, it is perfectly obvious that much of what they say are just plain lies. Second, even if they are not just lying they are promising things that realistically can probably never happen, and third, whatever they say, no matter what it is or how sincere they may be about it at the time, will necessarily be what they will do once in office. In other words, realistically, you cannot predict what they are going to do from what they say they will do, so why bother to listen? It becomes very difficult to separate lies from promises well-intended, although sometimes the lies are so obvious and blatant they cannot be overlooked. It seems to be the case that no one could ever get elected to public office unless they told some lies. Sometimes the lies are just embedded under the surface and never have to be publicly faced. For example, if an atheist were to run for President, his atheism would not be an issue because it would be covered up by his membership in some church or other. Or one could claim to have served honorably in the military but had been, in fact, derelect in their duties but had it covered up. Frankly, I sometimes hope (and even expect) that a candidate will not do something he or she claims they are going to do (because they could probably not get elected if they did not take such a position). In any case, McCain/Palin are poisoning the well for the winners, engaging in a political policy of scorched earth. Such is the legacy of Bush/Cheney/Rove.
LKBIQ:
Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.
Margaret Halsey
TILT:
Kumquats can be hydrophytic.
I confess to serious wonderment about whether we should even listen to any more campaign talk. If there are those who haven’t yet made up their minds they must be dead from the neck up and probably shouldn’t be allowed to vote in the first place. But more importantly, what is the point in listening? First, it is perfectly obvious that much of what they say are just plain lies. Second, even if they are not just lying they are promising things that realistically can probably never happen, and third, whatever they say, no matter what it is or how sincere they may be about it at the time, will necessarily be what they will do once in office. In other words, realistically, you cannot predict what they are going to do from what they say they will do, so why bother to listen? It becomes very difficult to separate lies from promises well-intended, although sometimes the lies are so obvious and blatant they cannot be overlooked. It seems to be the case that no one could ever get elected to public office unless they told some lies. Sometimes the lies are just embedded under the surface and never have to be publicly faced. For example, if an atheist were to run for President, his atheism would not be an issue because it would be covered up by his membership in some church or other. Or one could claim to have served honorably in the military but had been, in fact, derelect in their duties but had it covered up. Frankly, I sometimes hope (and even expect) that a candidate will not do something he or she claims they are going to do (because they could probably not get elected if they did not take such a position). In any case, McCain/Palin are poisoning the well for the winners, engaging in a political policy of scorched earth. Such is the legacy of Bush/Cheney/Rove.
LKBIQ:
Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.
Margaret Halsey
TILT:
Kumquats can be hydrophytic.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Vienna Style?
Woman kicks and hits deer attacking
her smallest poodle, suffers abdominal
bruises from defensive counter attack.
According to the RNC, when Hamas or some other similar organization endorses Obama, they are telling the truth. However, when al Quaida endorses McCain they are really endorsing Obama. Got that? As I cannot stand any further Republican nonsense I have decided to focus on one of these occasional items that bother me absolutely needlessly, what is "Vienna Style."
I like liver and onions – occasionally. The other day I found a recipe in one of Mario Batali’s cookbooks for “Liver and onions Vienna style.” I made this for myself and found it quite satisfactory (although if you followed his recipe too faithfully your liver would be somewhat overcooked). Later, out of curiosity, I looked on Google for a recipe for Vienna style liver and onions and found no such recipe. As near as I can make out, “Vienna style” in this context, according to Mario, involves cooking the flip side of the liver on top of the onions and adding a small dash of balsamic vinegar. This seemed to me a rather insignificant difference, but I guess if it makes liver and onions into Vienna style that is all well and good. Similarly, I used to have breakfast with a friend in a rather posh restaurant where he always ordered “Poached eggs Vienna style.” As I recall this was something like a combination of milk toast and poached eggs. I thought it was disgusting but it was, they claimed, “Vienna style.” He claimed it made him more virile.
Anyway, I finally just googled “Vienna style.” Wow! What I learned was mind- boggling. Not only is there a Vienna style for liver and onions and poached eggs, there is also a Vienna style for sausages and frankfurters, veal scallops, beef, schnitzel, spaghetti, and coffee, and probably even more culinary achievements. Interestingly enough, the only Vienna style I could find that was actually defined in some way was for a Vienna style lager.
Pursuing this theme further, I learned there is a Vienna style for clocks, celadon, accordions, towels, porcelain, orchestra parts, chairs, jewelry, vases, shoes, coat racks, home office sets, hotels, printed pages, and even white horses. When I came to “Vienna style love” I threw in the towel, fearful of what else I might actually uncover. I decided that except perhaps in the case of lager (a copper or reddish brown colored beer with a slight malt sweetness) and sausages (a squat, fatty canned creation that is bad for your health but has been around forever), there is no general or quintessential “style” that meaningfully defines these disparate items. Vienna style seemingly has no real meaning, although I suppose in some cases it might mean it was manufactured in Vienna (although even this is giving them the benefit of the doubt). I guess just about everything that exists is or could be described as “Vienna style” if you wished. I hesitate to even think about where “New York Style,” or “Chicago style,” or “San Francisco style,” or “New Orleans style,” might lead you. I’m pretty sure there’s no “Idaho style.” So be pleased to know you have just read an authentic Vienna style essay.
LKBIQ:
It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled sea of thought.
John Kenneth Galbraith
TILT:
American English has far more words for penis than Eskimos have for snow.
her smallest poodle, suffers abdominal
bruises from defensive counter attack.
According to the RNC, when Hamas or some other similar organization endorses Obama, they are telling the truth. However, when al Quaida endorses McCain they are really endorsing Obama. Got that? As I cannot stand any further Republican nonsense I have decided to focus on one of these occasional items that bother me absolutely needlessly, what is "Vienna Style."
I like liver and onions – occasionally. The other day I found a recipe in one of Mario Batali’s cookbooks for “Liver and onions Vienna style.” I made this for myself and found it quite satisfactory (although if you followed his recipe too faithfully your liver would be somewhat overcooked). Later, out of curiosity, I looked on Google for a recipe for Vienna style liver and onions and found no such recipe. As near as I can make out, “Vienna style” in this context, according to Mario, involves cooking the flip side of the liver on top of the onions and adding a small dash of balsamic vinegar. This seemed to me a rather insignificant difference, but I guess if it makes liver and onions into Vienna style that is all well and good. Similarly, I used to have breakfast with a friend in a rather posh restaurant where he always ordered “Poached eggs Vienna style.” As I recall this was something like a combination of milk toast and poached eggs. I thought it was disgusting but it was, they claimed, “Vienna style.” He claimed it made him more virile.
Anyway, I finally just googled “Vienna style.” Wow! What I learned was mind- boggling. Not only is there a Vienna style for liver and onions and poached eggs, there is also a Vienna style for sausages and frankfurters, veal scallops, beef, schnitzel, spaghetti, and coffee, and probably even more culinary achievements. Interestingly enough, the only Vienna style I could find that was actually defined in some way was for a Vienna style lager.
Pursuing this theme further, I learned there is a Vienna style for clocks, celadon, accordions, towels, porcelain, orchestra parts, chairs, jewelry, vases, shoes, coat racks, home office sets, hotels, printed pages, and even white horses. When I came to “Vienna style love” I threw in the towel, fearful of what else I might actually uncover. I decided that except perhaps in the case of lager (a copper or reddish brown colored beer with a slight malt sweetness) and sausages (a squat, fatty canned creation that is bad for your health but has been around forever), there is no general or quintessential “style” that meaningfully defines these disparate items. Vienna style seemingly has no real meaning, although I suppose in some cases it might mean it was manufactured in Vienna (although even this is giving them the benefit of the doubt). I guess just about everything that exists is or could be described as “Vienna style” if you wished. I hesitate to even think about where “New York Style,” or “Chicago style,” or “San Francisco style,” or “New Orleans style,” might lead you. I’m pretty sure there’s no “Idaho style.” So be pleased to know you have just read an authentic Vienna style essay.
LKBIQ:
It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled sea of thought.
John Kenneth Galbraith
TILT:
American English has far more words for penis than Eskimos have for snow.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Something smells fishy
Man wins first prize for handcrafts
at county fair for designing and
constructing his own coffin.
There’s something fishy in the state of the campaigns. Barack Obama has a ten point lead in the national polls. He is leading or at least tied for the lead in most of the so-called battleground states, he has been endorsed by a majority of the major newspapers, he raised 150 million dollars from 623,000 new contributors last month, many generals, including Colin Powell have now endorsed him, he plays to completely unprecedented crowds wherever he goes, he is leading in virtually all categories of voters from young voters to Catholics to women, Hispanics, Blacks, and is running ahead or even with white working class voters. Sarah Palin has dragged down McCain, he has already conceded Michigan and Colorado, most everyone agrees his campaign has been a disaster, and yet, much to my amazement, some people claim that the race is narrowing now that it is coming down to the finish line and McCain may even have a chance of winning. Am I missing something? How can this be? McCain apparently has all his hopes pinned on Pennsylvania, where Obama is leading. How could McCain/Palin possibly win under these circumstances? The only chance, it seems to me, is by somehow stealing the election (in Pennsylvania, but also elsewhere). Do Republicans know again that the fix is in (as they apparently did in 2004)? But could they have sufficient chutzpah to believe that they could get away with stealing it, given the overwhelming support for Obama? Remember, there are many more registered Democrats than Republicans in addition to the support for Obama mentioned above. Is it merely the MSM trying to keep us interested in the campaign by claiming over and over that it is going to be a close race?
Now I am advised by my resident political analyst (my son Julian) that as McCain has definitely pulled out of Colorado there is virtually no chance at all that he can win unless, somehow, he can win in Pennsylvania and a couple of other states where he is significantly behind. So he will put everything he has into Pennsylvania where he is at the moment also behind. It looks grim for McCain/Palin (hooray!). But who knows what might happen in two weeks? Don’t count you chickens…It ain’t over ‘til it’s over, the fat lady has to sing, and don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.
I made a slight mistake last night when I reported that bigotry had returned to Boundary County. Actually, I’m sure it never entirely left, but it has been quiet for some time. It appears that the same thing has been happening in Sandpoint where signs have been defaced with a spray painted “N.” I assume they just paint N because they don’t know how to spell what they have in mind (or else they are so frightened of being caught they have to abbreviate). No doubt whoever it is doing this must be numbered among the most ardent supporters of Palin, the “base” that McCain is so proud she brought in for him. I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind being sorry to see them go down in ignominious defeat. I’ve heard it said that Palin has her eyes on running for President in 2012. This is among the most hysterically funny things I have heard in a very long time.
LKBIQ:
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
Mark Twain
TILT: Jelly roll pans have sides on them. Cookie sheets do not have sides.
at county fair for designing and
constructing his own coffin.
There’s something fishy in the state of the campaigns. Barack Obama has a ten point lead in the national polls. He is leading or at least tied for the lead in most of the so-called battleground states, he has been endorsed by a majority of the major newspapers, he raised 150 million dollars from 623,000 new contributors last month, many generals, including Colin Powell have now endorsed him, he plays to completely unprecedented crowds wherever he goes, he is leading in virtually all categories of voters from young voters to Catholics to women, Hispanics, Blacks, and is running ahead or even with white working class voters. Sarah Palin has dragged down McCain, he has already conceded Michigan and Colorado, most everyone agrees his campaign has been a disaster, and yet, much to my amazement, some people claim that the race is narrowing now that it is coming down to the finish line and McCain may even have a chance of winning. Am I missing something? How can this be? McCain apparently has all his hopes pinned on Pennsylvania, where Obama is leading. How could McCain/Palin possibly win under these circumstances? The only chance, it seems to me, is by somehow stealing the election (in Pennsylvania, but also elsewhere). Do Republicans know again that the fix is in (as they apparently did in 2004)? But could they have sufficient chutzpah to believe that they could get away with stealing it, given the overwhelming support for Obama? Remember, there are many more registered Democrats than Republicans in addition to the support for Obama mentioned above. Is it merely the MSM trying to keep us interested in the campaign by claiming over and over that it is going to be a close race?
Now I am advised by my resident political analyst (my son Julian) that as McCain has definitely pulled out of Colorado there is virtually no chance at all that he can win unless, somehow, he can win in Pennsylvania and a couple of other states where he is significantly behind. So he will put everything he has into Pennsylvania where he is at the moment also behind. It looks grim for McCain/Palin (hooray!). But who knows what might happen in two weeks? Don’t count you chickens…It ain’t over ‘til it’s over, the fat lady has to sing, and don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.
I made a slight mistake last night when I reported that bigotry had returned to Boundary County. Actually, I’m sure it never entirely left, but it has been quiet for some time. It appears that the same thing has been happening in Sandpoint where signs have been defaced with a spray painted “N.” I assume they just paint N because they don’t know how to spell what they have in mind (or else they are so frightened of being caught they have to abbreviate). No doubt whoever it is doing this must be numbered among the most ardent supporters of Palin, the “base” that McCain is so proud she brought in for him. I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind being sorry to see them go down in ignominious defeat. I’ve heard it said that Palin has her eyes on running for President in 2012. This is among the most hysterically funny things I have heard in a very long time.
LKBIQ:
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
Mark Twain
TILT: Jelly roll pans have sides on them. Cookie sheets do not have sides.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Bigotry returns to North Idaho
Practicing his “quick draw”
man shoots himself in
both his leg and foot.
Bigoted mental midget surfaced in Boundary County last night. Someone sprayed a black “N” across the O in an Obama sign. No matter how hard you try you can never get rid of all the lice. Write N, for nutcase. Apparently this kind of thing is going on all over the country, signs being stolen, mutilated, homeowners being threatened for having Obama signs in their yards, Obama supporters being threatened and so on. Someone took an Obama sign from the yard of a Minister and replaced it with a Confederate flag. In North Carolina someone shot a bear cub, draped it with Obama signs, and left it on a campus. Hey, what else can you do when you are politically and morally bankrupt? Can such tactics work? Of course not, but those who engage in them are apparently too stupid to realize it. By the way, Paddy Power, an important bookmaker in Ireland, has already paid off the bets on Obama, 1 Euro for every 9 bet on Obama. He says the race is over. Never underestimate the skills and intelligence of Irish bookmakers.
It appears that with only fourteen days left for campaigning McCain and Palin have decided to go with their absurd claims of Obama’s socialistic (or even communistic) tendencies. Next they will tell us Obama has two heads and a tail and is intimate with the Devil himself. McCain has even suggested that tax breaks for the middle class are welfare. Tax breaks for the obscenely wealthy and huge corporations are different. McCain and Republicans just cannot give up on their belief in “trickle down” economics, no matter how blatantly and how many times that has failed. Mitt Romney today, interviewed by David Gregory, repeated the mantra again – tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy stimulate jobs. This has been shown decisively by now not to work, but they are so socialized into it they just cannot conceive of anything different. Perhaps we should have our own “cultural revolution” and send them all to work in the fields for a while where they could be re-socialized. It would help to solve the immigration problem as well. And, as economic conditions are deteriorating so quickly here in the U.S. we probably won’t be getting many immigrants for a while anyway.
And speaking of such things, were you aware that there is the “real America” and everything else? Sarah Palin has indicated this is so, the real America apparently being small towns and rural as opposed to the not real America of the cities. Others of her ilk, like Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota, believe we are divided into anti-Americans and pro-Americans. Now, how do you like that for bipartisanship and national unity? They are not the only two who apparently believe this crap. We are, though, divided into two Americas, the filthy, greedy rich and the middle class and poor. The discrepancy between these two groups has never been wider or more problematical. McCain and the Republicans would keep it as it is, Obama would try to level it a bit.
In a very general sense there are some genuine absurdities built into our contemporary culture. For example, doesn’t it strike you as absurd that insurance companies should be determining medical procedures and such? Similarly, doesn’t it strike you as absurd that Congress should be determining how drugs should be dispensed and available? Doesn’t it also strike you as absurd that a bunch of mostly older white males should determine what a woman does with her body? We have somehow come to accept these things as if they make sense when, in fact, they are nonsensical. We should have a single-payer universal health care system without the interference of insurance companies. We should leave it up to doctors and their patients to determine what and how many drugs individuals need. And Congress should stay out of the abortion business, along with what goes on in the privacy of our bedrooms.
I have said from the beginning, just as many others have said all along, Palin is not qualified to be President. Now Colin Powell has said it. People do seem to be paying attention as Palin is now believed to be the single worst drag on the McCain campaign and Obama’s lead seems to be increasing everywhere. Let’s get it over with and see if we and our country can recover from these nightmare years of the beginning 21st century.
LKBIQ:
“Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life; they are shades armed with tooth and claw, they must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed.
Victor Hugo
TILT: Do not practice your quick draw with a loaded revolver.
man shoots himself in
both his leg and foot.
Bigoted mental midget surfaced in Boundary County last night. Someone sprayed a black “N” across the O in an Obama sign. No matter how hard you try you can never get rid of all the lice. Write N, for nutcase. Apparently this kind of thing is going on all over the country, signs being stolen, mutilated, homeowners being threatened for having Obama signs in their yards, Obama supporters being threatened and so on. Someone took an Obama sign from the yard of a Minister and replaced it with a Confederate flag. In North Carolina someone shot a bear cub, draped it with Obama signs, and left it on a campus. Hey, what else can you do when you are politically and morally bankrupt? Can such tactics work? Of course not, but those who engage in them are apparently too stupid to realize it. By the way, Paddy Power, an important bookmaker in Ireland, has already paid off the bets on Obama, 1 Euro for every 9 bet on Obama. He says the race is over. Never underestimate the skills and intelligence of Irish bookmakers.
It appears that with only fourteen days left for campaigning McCain and Palin have decided to go with their absurd claims of Obama’s socialistic (or even communistic) tendencies. Next they will tell us Obama has two heads and a tail and is intimate with the Devil himself. McCain has even suggested that tax breaks for the middle class are welfare. Tax breaks for the obscenely wealthy and huge corporations are different. McCain and Republicans just cannot give up on their belief in “trickle down” economics, no matter how blatantly and how many times that has failed. Mitt Romney today, interviewed by David Gregory, repeated the mantra again – tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy stimulate jobs. This has been shown decisively by now not to work, but they are so socialized into it they just cannot conceive of anything different. Perhaps we should have our own “cultural revolution” and send them all to work in the fields for a while where they could be re-socialized. It would help to solve the immigration problem as well. And, as economic conditions are deteriorating so quickly here in the U.S. we probably won’t be getting many immigrants for a while anyway.
And speaking of such things, were you aware that there is the “real America” and everything else? Sarah Palin has indicated this is so, the real America apparently being small towns and rural as opposed to the not real America of the cities. Others of her ilk, like Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota, believe we are divided into anti-Americans and pro-Americans. Now, how do you like that for bipartisanship and national unity? They are not the only two who apparently believe this crap. We are, though, divided into two Americas, the filthy, greedy rich and the middle class and poor. The discrepancy between these two groups has never been wider or more problematical. McCain and the Republicans would keep it as it is, Obama would try to level it a bit.
In a very general sense there are some genuine absurdities built into our contemporary culture. For example, doesn’t it strike you as absurd that insurance companies should be determining medical procedures and such? Similarly, doesn’t it strike you as absurd that Congress should be determining how drugs should be dispensed and available? Doesn’t it also strike you as absurd that a bunch of mostly older white males should determine what a woman does with her body? We have somehow come to accept these things as if they make sense when, in fact, they are nonsensical. We should have a single-payer universal health care system without the interference of insurance companies. We should leave it up to doctors and their patients to determine what and how many drugs individuals need. And Congress should stay out of the abortion business, along with what goes on in the privacy of our bedrooms.
I have said from the beginning, just as many others have said all along, Palin is not qualified to be President. Now Colin Powell has said it. People do seem to be paying attention as Palin is now believed to be the single worst drag on the McCain campaign and Obama’s lead seems to be increasing everywhere. Let’s get it over with and see if we and our country can recover from these nightmare years of the beginning 21st century.
LKBIQ:
“Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life; they are shades armed with tooth and claw, they must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed.
Victor Hugo
TILT: Do not practice your quick draw with a loaded revolver.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Socialism. flee for your lives
Man sues Pompano Beach nightclub
where pole dancer’s shoe flew off
hitting mirrored ceiling and him.
Run! Flee! Take to the hills! Hide in your closet or bomb shelter! Obama the socialist is coming! He’s going to (gasp) “spread the wealth around.” Leave it to the Republicans to panic at the mere suggestion of socialism. You might well think the world was coming to an end. Just what is it that Obama wants to do that is such a grave threat to our American way of greed. Let’s see, he wants to increase taxes on the few obscenely wealthy individuals and corporations so he can give tax breaks to the middle class (we already do this with our progressive income tax, he wants to do a bit more of it). He wants to provide universal health care (like all industrialized countries except ours, and we already have Medicaid and medicare, to say nothing of social security). He wants to help people afford to go to college without graduating 50 to 100 thousand dollars in debt (this is not a problem in most other industrialized countries and, of course, universal publicly funded elementary schools have long been in existence in America). McCain wants to deregulate the medical profession as we did the financial institutions (what a marvelous idea, we’ve seen what it did to our financial institutions and also what it did to the energy markets). Obama’s plan for health care for all still (unfortunately) involves the insurance companies and will not be a single payer system, which most everyone acknowledges would be more efficient and less expensive. McCain also wants to privatize social security (another really marvelous idea, especially at the moment). Republicans want us to believe that socialism is really communism and they always compare it to the Russia of Lenin and Stalin, to China, and Cuba. They never compare it to Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and other countries that practice forms of social democracy (and do very well by it). In fact, what Republicans in the U.S. believe in, is a primitive form of social Darwinism that most other “civilized” nations gave up long ago. It’s a dog eat dog world, let the poor starve, they don’t pay taxes, you get only what you pay for, the one with the most toys wins, it’s your own fault for being poor, consume, consume, consume, greed is good. Edward Hyam summed it up nicely: “Capitalism turns men into economic cannibals, and having done so, mistakes economic cannibalism for human nature.” Interestingly enough, most “uncivilized” peoples, being much more egalitarian, do not have this problem. Not all humans are by nature (or nurture) invariably greedy. Sharing is very common among them. Now that one (1) percent of the people in the U.S. control more wealth than the lowest 50 percent, and greed has run rampant for the past eight (or more) years, perhaps we can collectively come to our senses? Not if McCain and his Republican colleagues have anything to say about it. Their idea of socialism is to give more and more to those that have, and less and less to those who have not. It is long past time for them to go (and good riddance).
I have never been a fan of Colin Powell, especially since his disgraceful participation in bringing about the Iraq “war.” But I think he certainly got it right when he endorsed Obama and castigated McCain for his truly dirty campaign and pick of the hopelessly unqualified Sarah Palin as VP candidate. What I thought was even better, however, is when he made it clear there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim in America, and told us about the death of a Muslim soldier buried in Arlington cemetery. The MSM seem to have conveniently ignored this part of his endorsement. So as they would say in Ausralia, “good on ya” General Powell.
LKBIQ:
“When fanatics are in charge there is no end to oppression.”
H. L. Mencken
TILT (things I learned today):
Tasers do not work on wild boars.
where pole dancer’s shoe flew off
hitting mirrored ceiling and him.
Run! Flee! Take to the hills! Hide in your closet or bomb shelter! Obama the socialist is coming! He’s going to (gasp) “spread the wealth around.” Leave it to the Republicans to panic at the mere suggestion of socialism. You might well think the world was coming to an end. Just what is it that Obama wants to do that is such a grave threat to our American way of greed. Let’s see, he wants to increase taxes on the few obscenely wealthy individuals and corporations so he can give tax breaks to the middle class (we already do this with our progressive income tax, he wants to do a bit more of it). He wants to provide universal health care (like all industrialized countries except ours, and we already have Medicaid and medicare, to say nothing of social security). He wants to help people afford to go to college without graduating 50 to 100 thousand dollars in debt (this is not a problem in most other industrialized countries and, of course, universal publicly funded elementary schools have long been in existence in America). McCain wants to deregulate the medical profession as we did the financial institutions (what a marvelous idea, we’ve seen what it did to our financial institutions and also what it did to the energy markets). Obama’s plan for health care for all still (unfortunately) involves the insurance companies and will not be a single payer system, which most everyone acknowledges would be more efficient and less expensive. McCain also wants to privatize social security (another really marvelous idea, especially at the moment). Republicans want us to believe that socialism is really communism and they always compare it to the Russia of Lenin and Stalin, to China, and Cuba. They never compare it to Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and other countries that practice forms of social democracy (and do very well by it). In fact, what Republicans in the U.S. believe in, is a primitive form of social Darwinism that most other “civilized” nations gave up long ago. It’s a dog eat dog world, let the poor starve, they don’t pay taxes, you get only what you pay for, the one with the most toys wins, it’s your own fault for being poor, consume, consume, consume, greed is good. Edward Hyam summed it up nicely: “Capitalism turns men into economic cannibals, and having done so, mistakes economic cannibalism for human nature.” Interestingly enough, most “uncivilized” peoples, being much more egalitarian, do not have this problem. Not all humans are by nature (or nurture) invariably greedy. Sharing is very common among them. Now that one (1) percent of the people in the U.S. control more wealth than the lowest 50 percent, and greed has run rampant for the past eight (or more) years, perhaps we can collectively come to our senses? Not if McCain and his Republican colleagues have anything to say about it. Their idea of socialism is to give more and more to those that have, and less and less to those who have not. It is long past time for them to go (and good riddance).
I have never been a fan of Colin Powell, especially since his disgraceful participation in bringing about the Iraq “war.” But I think he certainly got it right when he endorsed Obama and castigated McCain for his truly dirty campaign and pick of the hopelessly unqualified Sarah Palin as VP candidate. What I thought was even better, however, is when he made it clear there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim in America, and told us about the death of a Muslim soldier buried in Arlington cemetery. The MSM seem to have conveniently ignored this part of his endorsement. So as they would say in Ausralia, “good on ya” General Powell.
LKBIQ:
“When fanatics are in charge there is no end to oppression.”
H. L. Mencken
TILT (things I learned today):
Tasers do not work on wild boars.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Sex and the vacuum cleaner?
Michigan man arrested
for sexual encounter with
car-wash vacuum.
Is there really a law in Michigan that prohibits sex with a vacuum? If so, where did it come from? Is this an ongoing or recurring problem in Michigan? Was there a precedent? Just what does the law say? I’m dying to find out. If anyone knows please advise.
Michelle Bachmann, a Republican Congressperson from Minnesota, claims that Obama is anti-American. But not to worry, she thinks Pelosi, Reid, and many other liberals in Congress need to be investigated as anti-American. This is a Congressperson from Minnestota? I though that was a liberal state. How did this strange woman get elected? Was this part of her platform, or did she just lose her mind after being elected? Republicans say the darndest things.
It is reported that 100,000 people turned out in St. Louis to hear Obama. Apparently 75,000 turned out in Kansas City. Major newspapers all over the country have endorsed Obama, including the Chicago Tribune that has never endorsed a democrat for 161 years. The L.A. Times, the Washington Post, The Seattle Times, and many other of our major newspapers are now on board the Obama express. But interestingly enough, some people are still talking about the Brafia stealing the election once again. I cannot see how this could happen, given the overwhelming support Obama is receiving. Nor can I imagine what might well happen if they do try to steal it and succeed. I suggest there would be such a massive outcry those responsible for the theft would have to leave the country before they were torn limb from limb. I feel pretty confident this is one election that is not going to be stolen, no matter what they try.
Obama has run a brilliant campaign, of that I think there is little doubt. But what makes it even better is that McCain has run a campaign so dismal as to be almost unprecedented. And his pick of Sarah Palin will have to go down in history as one of the most serious blunders ever. I’m reasonably certain that McCain and his advisors realize this now, but there is little they can do about it except go on pretending she has at least some redeeming quality (which I certainly cannot find). The danger in this is that they are in the process pulling Obama down and making his coming Presidency more difficult. I fear it’s going to be another four or eight years like the Clinton Presidency, where the Brafia will make it virtually impossible for him to govern, bringing up one red herring or nonsense charge after another. This was, when they went after Clinton, and will be if they continue the same thing with Obama, anti-Americanism in the extreme. It used to be when an election was over everyone would pretty much support the winner, the new President. There were differences about policies and such, to be sure, but generally speaking there was at least an attempt at cooperation. Not so with this bunch of gangsters. They will stop at nothing to gain back power, the country be damned, all the while carrying on about bipartisanship (I am quite convinced they have no understanding of what bipartisanship might be). Never forget just how much bipartisanship they provided when they were in power (none). Under Bush it has always been “my way or the highway.” Now that they are about to lose they will whine endlessly about the lack of what they themselves never provided in even an elementary form. Nitwit Bachmann and her colleagues are the ones that need to be investigated for anti-Americanism. You can rest assured that as long as the neocons are still around there will be no bipartisanship (and they will blame Democrats, of course). Never, I think, in all of American history, has there been such a sleazy, slimy, slippery, single-minded, bunch of simpletons in charge of a major political party. I doubt we will make much progress on any of the horrendous problems they have brought us until they are purged from our midst. Vote Obama/Biden, vote Democratic as if your life depends upon it, it quite likely does.
LKBIQ:
“ In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.”
Fran Lebowitz
for sexual encounter with
car-wash vacuum.
Is there really a law in Michigan that prohibits sex with a vacuum? If so, where did it come from? Is this an ongoing or recurring problem in Michigan? Was there a precedent? Just what does the law say? I’m dying to find out. If anyone knows please advise.
Michelle Bachmann, a Republican Congressperson from Minnesota, claims that Obama is anti-American. But not to worry, she thinks Pelosi, Reid, and many other liberals in Congress need to be investigated as anti-American. This is a Congressperson from Minnestota? I though that was a liberal state. How did this strange woman get elected? Was this part of her platform, or did she just lose her mind after being elected? Republicans say the darndest things.
It is reported that 100,000 people turned out in St. Louis to hear Obama. Apparently 75,000 turned out in Kansas City. Major newspapers all over the country have endorsed Obama, including the Chicago Tribune that has never endorsed a democrat for 161 years. The L.A. Times, the Washington Post, The Seattle Times, and many other of our major newspapers are now on board the Obama express. But interestingly enough, some people are still talking about the Brafia stealing the election once again. I cannot see how this could happen, given the overwhelming support Obama is receiving. Nor can I imagine what might well happen if they do try to steal it and succeed. I suggest there would be such a massive outcry those responsible for the theft would have to leave the country before they were torn limb from limb. I feel pretty confident this is one election that is not going to be stolen, no matter what they try.
Obama has run a brilliant campaign, of that I think there is little doubt. But what makes it even better is that McCain has run a campaign so dismal as to be almost unprecedented. And his pick of Sarah Palin will have to go down in history as one of the most serious blunders ever. I’m reasonably certain that McCain and his advisors realize this now, but there is little they can do about it except go on pretending she has at least some redeeming quality (which I certainly cannot find). The danger in this is that they are in the process pulling Obama down and making his coming Presidency more difficult. I fear it’s going to be another four or eight years like the Clinton Presidency, where the Brafia will make it virtually impossible for him to govern, bringing up one red herring or nonsense charge after another. This was, when they went after Clinton, and will be if they continue the same thing with Obama, anti-Americanism in the extreme. It used to be when an election was over everyone would pretty much support the winner, the new President. There were differences about policies and such, to be sure, but generally speaking there was at least an attempt at cooperation. Not so with this bunch of gangsters. They will stop at nothing to gain back power, the country be damned, all the while carrying on about bipartisanship (I am quite convinced they have no understanding of what bipartisanship might be). Never forget just how much bipartisanship they provided when they were in power (none). Under Bush it has always been “my way or the highway.” Now that they are about to lose they will whine endlessly about the lack of what they themselves never provided in even an elementary form. Nitwit Bachmann and her colleagues are the ones that need to be investigated for anti-Americanism. You can rest assured that as long as the neocons are still around there will be no bipartisanship (and they will blame Democrats, of course). Never, I think, in all of American history, has there been such a sleazy, slimy, slippery, single-minded, bunch of simpletons in charge of a major political party. I doubt we will make much progress on any of the horrendous problems they have brought us until they are purged from our midst. Vote Obama/Biden, vote Democratic as if your life depends upon it, it quite likely does.
LKBIQ:
“ In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.”
Fran Lebowitz
Friday, October 17, 2008
Did you ever...
Have you ever seen anything like it? The McCain campaign I mean. Can you believe that McCain has actually succeeded in getting two (perhaps more) days of media coverage by inventing a mostly fictitious character called Joe the Plumber? When you don’t dare to talk about the issues because you know you will lose the election if you do, what do you do? First, you try to trash your opponent. When that appears to backfire where do you turn? How do you get everyone’s attention diverted from the issues you do not dare to confront? Why…you invent a mostly fictitious character called Joe the Plumber and you claim, among other things, that Obama is picking on him. Joe the plumber supposedly claimed that if he realized his dream of buying a plumbership (if that’s what you call it) he would have to pay more taxes because of Obama’s tax proposals. The fact that there is barely a thread of truth in this absurd charade seems to have escaped the MSM who have spent the last two days featuring it as something newsworthy. As it turns out, Joe the Plumber is not even a plumber. Whether he is even a plumber’s helper is even in doubt because he has no license to be either plumber or assistant plumber. Then there is the fact that he has apparently no chance whatsoever to buy the business. If he did buy the business, and if it was successful, it would not make a profit of $250,000 per year and would not be subject to any new taxes. Joe the Plumber is also in arrears on his last year’s taxes, is a right-wing loony, thinks Social Security is terrible, and obviously understands virtually nothing about tax plans or anything else. This is a complete non-issue that should not have occupied anyone’s time for more than 30 seconds. But Joe’s house has been ringed with news-people, he’s been interviewed, vetted, examined, and whatever, more than a mere 15 minutes of fame. He finally admitted that yes, under Obama’s tax plan he would in fact pay less in taxes. This is a sad commentary on the state of our news-people, but we have known about them for some time now, inept, uninterested in real news, lazy, partisan and basically useless for the purposes they should be serving. For the past eight years, at least, they seem to have confused reporting with stenography. Can you believe that McCain actually claimed in a speech today that Obama was attacking Joe the Plumber. This episode is so bizarre, so hysterically ridiculous, so devoid of meaning, so pointless, so almost incomprehensible, so beyond the pale, lacking in merit or substance it simply makes a complete mockery of our election system. Frankly, something like this should disqualify a candidate on the grounds that they are not being serious. This is, after all, an election to pick the leader of the most powerful and influential nation on earth. Joe the (fake) Plumber is merely a figment of McCain’s apparently diseased imagination, along with that woman he imagines could actually be President of the United States. It should have been made clear to McCain some time ago that he should either crap or get off the pot, either face up to the issues and be serious or get out. His campaign is nothing but an insult to the American people and Sarah Palin a bad joke. All else having backfired and failed they have now turned to robocalls that are so scurrilous and below-the-belt they give a new meaning to slime. What is worse, this sliming of Obama will carry over into his Presidency, making his job just that much more impossible. It is completely immoral as well as un-American. McCain/Palin are a disgrace to all Americans and should be treated accordingly. But at the moment Palin goes on babbling her lies and hatred and McCain remains more or less fixated on Ayers and anything other than the issues. McCain seemed almost pleasant last night at the annual Alfred E. Smith roast, and did, I thought, a nice routine, slightly better than Obama’s although he was very good also. But the McCain of this campaign is not pleasant, not at all, apparently his unbridled ambition to be President has turned him into a kind of roviating monster, willing to do or say anything to get elected, and seemingly comfortable in the slime that surrounds him. It is sad, even tragic, and too late in the game to do much about it. It won’t happen, of course, but McCain/Palin should probably just concede to spare themselves and the nation any further embarrassment.
Root Canal
It takes a lot of trust
to lie with your head
near the belly of a stranger,
cradled in his arms,
as his hands brush your lips to
perform a mysterious artistry in your mouth.
I never knew a root canal could be so intimate.
Linda Langness
Root Canal
It takes a lot of trust
to lie with your head
near the belly of a stranger,
cradled in his arms,
as his hands brush your lips to
perform a mysterious artistry in your mouth.
I never knew a root canal could be so intimate.
Linda Langness
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