Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Charlie the Wonder Dog


Saturday, August 27, 2011

1970 Allman brothers Duane on guitar

A thought for those lost who cannot be replaced - RIP Duane Allman

Friday, August 26, 2011

Republicans, Democrats, and Messaging

Wingnuts build impressive lies and equally impressive is their mind
numbing and relentless repetition of those lies. Don’t confuse that with
“messaging”. It is not that. It is simply being an organized and
energetic liar, which the teevee cameras love, cause it usually creates
drama. When a hapless liberal shows up to counter the fascinating lie
with the drab dreary facts and truth which actually is “messaging”, the
difference in reactions to the creative lie as compared with the fixed
nature of truth, can be to misidentify what dems are doing and should
do.

It is simply an act of faith, that the consumers of political speech
will somehow someday put more value on dull facts, than on the sensation
that crafted lies can bring. I don’t want dems and liberals to parrot
the wingnut style of campaigning, which all of it is these days,
campaigning. Dems aren’t perfect, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea that
they streamline the facts into snappy soundbites, but I don’t profess to
have a clue what that would be.

Once again. The problem is not primarily dem messaging, nor even the dubious media. IMO. The problem lies within the voting citizenry in this country, and a high level of shallow complacency to selfish mendacity to outright racial tribalism. The only antidote for this condition is experiencing pain and with it the gain of useful knowledge. This is only my opinion, and subject to being completely wrong.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Thoughts On Libya, the U.S. and Military Intervention

It is true that we don't understand many areas of the world, that is why we support a United Nations Charter that was created in part to filter out the bullshit, hopefully, to answer those questions, and if need be, act as a unit to prevent imminent humanitarian disasters, when all the stars line up, and most  the parties agree with the Casus Belli and if it is logistically possible.

For one of the few times in recent, or even distant memory, it looks like UN lived up to it's full purpose, and we took part to a large degree as just one more country contributing to that mission.

I do get the aversion to warfare, what I don't get is the lack of perspective employed by many liberals, to a particular and unique situation, such as Libya. It feels like a time trap for some, always boomeranging back to 2003, Bush, and Iraq. 

Short of doing nothing, Libya was the anti Iraq. As I see it.

As far as the money goes, it was and is a pittance that we have spent, as compared to about any military action I can think of. We can afford it, in lieu of watching a massacre in Benghazi on CNN, that didn't have to be.

As for the future, it is never set, for anything or anybody. Sometimes, You just do what needs doing today and let the future be where it is.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

The GOP Big Idea For Helping America

I think the wingnuts are pathologially fixated on one single thing
right now, and that is to get rid of Obama. Everything they do, is not
weighed for it’s sanity, or it’s effect of doing good for the country.
It is all about getting Obama out of the WH, and Obama knows it. He says
left, they say right. He says up, they say down, and so on. It is why
he can offer them about anything, up to and including, actually all they
want, and they cannot help themselves but to refuse it.


The are completely bumfucked how he got HCR past them and their loose
affiliates on the left, ditto for The Stimulus, DADT, and the rest.
Obama has them so psyched out right now, he could probably announce a
new national project, like bringing Reagan back from the dead, and the
senate wingnuts would filibuster it. And the moron pro left bounces off
the same wall taking every bit of stimuli for nothing more than at face
value.


Boehner hollers “98%” and the firebaggers holler back, hell yea.


I need Quaaludes, lots of Quaaludes

Thursday, August 18, 2011

How To Move An Overton Window

I have some good news. An example of the only way dems will ever
move the Overton Window in their direction again, after 3 decades of it
moving right, because that is what the public wanted. Rhetoric by
liberals to convince the voters does not work well because it is about
doing something, or government doing something via works, on the ground,
in their community. That they can see, feel, and touch. Something that
improves their lives.

They listen to republicans, because republicans want to do nothing,
and doing nothing can be expressed in only a few soundbites at a time,
with messages directed to the primal fear center of the human mind, and
come as nothing but lies. Because it is uncomplicated, doing nothing.




Things like this,
in my little burg in bumfuck, NM, are happening
all around the country, unseen, except locally, or maybe statewide, but
not part of the national political conversation. or, has ObamaCare
reached out and touched you? If not, no worry, it will, eventually? And
no rhetoric required, other than to say this was done by democrats.


The question now is, like the new electric car plants going up from
the Stimulus money, and a bunch of other long term progressive
initiatives will carry on, even past Obama’s term, even if it turns out
to be one. it will be a legacy to be proud of, for an ungrateful nation.


Were it to be, those taking the time on blogs, and elsewhere in the
pol speech arena, that those concerned liberals would spend their days
touting successes like where I live, rather than spank the pol monkey
with myopic eyes of simple minds addicted to defeat.

Obama - Liberal or Not?

Any fair reading of what Obama has accomplished with actual
legislation, he is one of the most liberal pols in our history. The so
called left of a few bloggers, are confusing pragmatism in governance,
and the certainty of compromise in a democracy, with some kind of
ideological failure by Obama. And hanging on every utterance for any
sign of betrayal, without any regard to the art of politics as a debate
with the other half of the country that votes republican. And nary a
second of focus on the greatest reality of all. What ends up getting
passed, compromised for sure, but also most certainly liberal progress
as the real meaning of ‘progressive’
There is a reason why Obama imposed concentrated federal regulation
for the first time on the health insurance agency. That reason is
success, albeit short of the ideal, but success just the same for moving
the country leftward. Why do you thing that zero republicans voted for
the ACA, and have nearly lost their minds trying to destroy it, even if it means destroying the world economy. Hint, because the ACA was nothing republican, and everything democrat and pragmatic liberal.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Obama To Give Major Speeche On Jobs Program

AP)  WASHINGTON — Seeking a jolt for the economy, President Barack Obama
will lay out new ideas for speeding up job growth and helping the
struggling poor and middle class in a major speech in early September, a
senior administration official told The Associated Press.

The
president's plan is likely to contain tax cuts, jobs-boosting
infrastructure ideas and steps that would specifically help the
long-term unemployed. The official emphasized that all of Obama's
proposals would be fresh ones, not a rehash of plans he has pitched for
many weeks and still supports, including his "infrastructure bank" idea
to finance construction jobs.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Democratic Base Solidly Behind Obama



A new CNN/Opinion Research poll
finds President Obama's base is behind him with 70% of Democrats saying
they'd like to see Obama as their party's presidential nominee next
year.



Notes pollster Keating Holland: "In 1994, only 57% of Democrats wanted
the party to renominate Bill Clinton, and he went on to win the
nomination and a second term two years later."

Friday, August 12, 2011

Obama's Supposed Failed Stimulus Bill

About that disappointing stimulus bill and the long term financing of progressive causes, I keep preaching about. And Obama’s doing shit for the environment.

I know President Obama is supposed to be an awful disappointment to environmentalists because he doesn’t talk enough about climate change, just like he’s an awful disappointment to progressives because he doesn’t say enough nasty things about bankers. But people who actually care about what Presidents do, as opposed to how they talk, might be interested in Obama’s trip to Michigan on Thursday. He’s visiting a factory that builds batteries for electric vehicles, a factory that exists for three reasons: 1. Because Obama saved the U.S. auto industry. 2. Because Obama has ratcheted up fuel-efficiency standards, boosting demand for green vehicles. 3. Because Obama created a U.S. advanced battery industry from scratch.

Anyway, the pathetically tiny stimulus included an unprecedented $90 billion for clean-energy investments, including unprecedented investments in wind, solar and geothermal energy, biorefineries, the smart grid, electric vehicles, and factories to manufacture all that green stuff in the U.S. The most radical investment was probably a $2.4 billion grant program that helped finance 30 factories building advanced batteries and components, including $300 million for Johnson Controls, which had to match the government dollars with private dollars.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Thursday, August 4, 2011