Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The Over-Under on…

the number of times San Fran Nan bounces out of her chair during Barry’s STFU speech?

I’ll say 43… (for the record, Obama has just left the White House.)

Okay, enough is enough

I took some time off from blogging, primarily because I was getting too angry at what was going on. I would be watching the news and my face would be getting red as I listened to the litany of destruction and devastation being performed in the face of direct and specific feelings being publicly displayed.

In Town Hall Meetings and public gatherings, where they were ignored, insulted, slandered and told “we know what’s best for you so sit down and shut up you moron.”

In public opinion polls, where no matter how it was spun, it required a violation of the principles of statistical mathematics to distort reality enough to display any subset of a subset that was actually in favor of it, margins of error or no…

In Congressional debates where it took out-and-out bribes of one Senator by another, using the taxpayers’ money (nothing more than “business as usual” by politicians) in order to get him to ignore such clear warnings....

Spending bills that were passed under threat of conditions better than we have it now that the bills have been passed. (Remember when they were threatening that we would have 8% unemployment without their massive spending programs, instead of the 10+% “official unemployment rate” we actually have now? Well, neither does the media.) That does NOT include the hundreds of thousands who have simply used up all of their benefits from unemployment insurance and been dropped from their rolls, nor does it count those who have simply quit looking for work. A more honest - and, frankly, more frightening - employment indicator is the total number of employed people in the United States. (Here’s the PDF file, scroll down to Table C.)

Until… Finally. Something happened that was so shocking that it has actually managed to get Barry’s attention. A slap across the chops from the voters of a State so blue that there have been five Presidential Administrations that have come and gone since the last time a Republican held that seat (when he lost to John “Jenjis Khan War Criminal” Kerry).

Scott Brown was elected to be the Republican’s 41st vote. He made that the issue and the voters responded. He promised to stop ObamaCare, and he did. It is now effectively dead in its current incarnations, and even Harry Reid (who is losing to anyone and everyone with an ‘R’ after their name in his bid for re-election this fall) says that he might not have even the 51 votes necessary to try and backdoor it through the highly questionable procedure known as “reconciliation”. The Republicans have responded that they will load up every socially and politically divisive amendment they can squeeze into it, just to force the Democrats to take a stand on some very uncomfortable issues, such as the war in Afghanistan, defunding domestic terrorist trials under civilian criminal statutes, English as an official language, taxpayer funded abortions, the works, during an election cycle where their primary issues have already proven so unpopular.

Serious political punditry have estimated that the DFems may lose 5-7 Senate seats and 20-30 House seats. Not enough to give the Republicans back majority control, but one where serious compromise on every bill would be required before any cloture vote could be attempted in the Senate (while still being able to lose the squishies from Maine and the Maverick from Arizona), and strong support from both sides of the House division before any substantive legislation could be taken up, much less debated and voted upon.

I am in favor of this - the more impediments to legislation, the better.

But much of the next ten months will depend on how Barry chooses to play the game in tonight’s STFU speech. Will he be able to say “You’re right, I was trying to bite off more than I could chew, but I was trying to do the best I could. Now let’s get some real work done.”? (Which is one of the reasons Clinton was re-elected after the avalanche of ‘94.)

Or will he play the angry populist, trying to rewrite history to show that the people voted for Scott Brown not in order to stop ObamaCare, but (as Howard Dean asserted), but because they wanted more from Obama?

He has time to change his mind, right up until the teleprompters get loaded…

Anyhow, I will try to be here more frequently.

Also, if you’ve read this far, I am also announcing a new trivia contest, which will appear in the coming days. Pretty much standard rules, but keep checking back for more details.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Little Slow on the Blog….

I had a few little observations that I wanted to share with the masses and garner some comments…

-Coakley-Scott election in Massachusetts:  First off, could the Democrats have put a less personable person in in this election?  Maybe a big piece of bark?  Scott is running around her like a tornado around a trailer park, and if this was in just about any other state, it would be a smashing win for Scott.  It’s only because there’s a 30-point or so registration advantage for Democrats in the state that Coakley’s still within shouting distance. 

-Barack Obama spends most of the last five years bashing George W. Bush.  Uses hatred of Bush to get himself elected.  Blames every bad thing on the man.  Then, when Haiti happens, he asks Bush to help raise money?  It’s only proof that GWB is an adult and a good man that he is helping with no complaints. 

-Does anyone think that, with the exception of earthquake help, that we should just stop aiding Haiti?  That’s like flushing money down a black hole.  I mean, how many times can we keep interceding in that hellhole before we get the idea that it isn’t helping?  This is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and a failed state in every way that is used to define the term.  Get them back on their feet from this earthquake, bury their dead, get them to the level they were at before the disaster, and cut them loose. 

-Can we now drop all pretense and say that the stimulus projects that Obama pushed through Congress are big pieces of crap?

-Drummy ought to start taking predictions for the 2010 congressional elections. 

-Hulk Hogan returning to wrestling and Bret Hart returning to the WWE are two rather big events.  I think that the WWE did it better, until the end of the show, which was pretty formulaic.  Having McMahon kick Hart in the groin when they were supposed to be making up sets up a pretty familiar situation....can you say “Match at Wrestlemania?”

-I’m off today.  Is this a proper way to celebrate the civil rights leader MLK? Closing government offices? 

Friday, January 01, 2010

So what shall we call it?

Welcome to the new year, and the new decade. Exactly ten years ago today we changed to having a year number that started with ‘2’ for the first time in our shared Christian historical context. The years that started with ‘200__’ were one decade, and we are now starting on the second decade of the 21st century.

Presuming that we call the last decade the “Oughties” (a point I can get nothing but startled expressions concerning), what should we call this upcoming one? The “Teens”?

I’m open for suggestions. While we’re at it, though, is it “Two Thousand Ten” or “Twenty Ten”?