Friday's Random Thoughts

The week flew by and I can't keep straight in my mind what happened this week and what happened last week. I'm not sure what that means for my personal big picture, but maybe I've been taking anti-depressants for too long and they've affected my brain. I mean in a way they're not supposed to. On the other hand, almost nothing gets me worried these days.

Movie Reviews!

Iron Man - Man, this movie totally rocks! Robert Downey Jr. is GREAT in it. Gwineth Paltrow is sweetly alluring as his capable assistant, a sort of combination of Miss Moneypenny, Dr. Watson, Albert, and Agent 99. And Jeff Bridges is perfect. The plot's even good. And timely. Sneak a couple of beers into the theater and see it. Not for kids though. Too violent.

Kung Fu Panda - This one the kids absolutely loved. And my wife and I enjoyed it, too. An inspiring "Rocky" type tale of a chubby Panda who gets his chance to be a real life hero, and struggles to make himself ready.

Sports Update

I'm sorry, but I'm not ready to embrace the NBA even though the Celts are back in the finals, as long as lowlifes like Kobe Bryant are served up as the league's stars. Despite what they say, they are role models.

Big Brown ends his career in a pile of big brown. Last place? Really? How can that even happen?

But the big question about sports I have these days is why our Federal Government is spending my tax dollars investigating professional sports "scandals." Like whether or not NBA referees threw games. OK, maybe that's important to a lot of people, mostly professional gamblers and the "gaming industry. But I don't think it's something for the US government to be wasting time on. Since when did our government become the muscle for professional gamblers? Same point on baseball or football players taking steroids. What the hell do I care? I don't! It's a private sector matter. Suddenly our pols have no faith in the power of the market?

The feds should be spending their time and money finding Osama bin Laden, and stop fucking around with the likes of Barry Bonds. They've probably already spent more money chasing Barry Bonds that you and I paid in taxes last year. Do any of the federal prosecutors stop and ask themselves why their talents and abilities are being spent on such foolishness? Is that really what they signed up for? Or is getting their names in the paper any way they can the name of the game here?

Impeachments

Good for Dennis Kucinich in his Don Quixote attempt to bring accountability to our government by submitting articles of impeachment against George Bush. Wars of aggression are illegal. These articles of impeachment will go nowhere now, because of the lack of moral courage of our leading Democrats in Congress, and of course the blatant hypocrisy that we politely call "political partisanship" by Republicans. But he has set an historical record that will indict these dickheads in history for abusing our soldiers.

Looking to the Past for What the Future Holds

Pat Buchanan has a new book about the 2 world wars that reminds us of George Washington's admonition against foreign entanglements and Dwight D. Eisenhower's warnings of the military-industrial complex. The US is over-committed abroad today, and the conservative Ron Paul is correct on this, despite the attempts by Republicans who try to portray him as a laughingstock. For instance, would we really go to war with China if it invaded Taiwan? China, unlike Iraq or Iran, really could both attack us and invade the US mainland. Would we risk that for Taiwan?

Free Advice For Obama

Get the GI's on your side

Promise to raise military pay and support the proposed new GI Bill. Say that our service people are our greatest asset in our lines of defense, and they deserve to be treated as such. Improve military medicine, including providing mental health benefits for military children. Learn, acknowledge, and pay tribute to the very different culture that lifelong military members belong to. Allow "homesteading" where service families are allowed to serve from the same base for many years. This will earn the support of military families who suffer the disruption of the military policy of moving them every 3 or 4 years.

Re-evaluate and re-define our military posture in the world

Reduce the number of foreign bases. 700 is too many. This will save money, reduce resentment of foreign citizens, and improve military retention.

Take the position that we've already won the second Iraq War. Saddam is dead, there are no WMD's, and Iraq is not a military threat to anybody. There is no reason to stay.

Show leadership in moving toward new policies for new challenges

LEAD the democrats into accepting the necessity for an aggressive energy independence policy that will include increased oil drilling in the US, building 100 new nuclear power plants, "clean" coal plants, wind farms, and special mortgage programs for small, energy efficient homes. Geodesic domes. anyone? FYI, Jimmy Carter had a plan like this about 30 plus years ago.

LEAD us away from a "consumer economy" to an "infrastructure economy." An economy based on buying junk that we cannot personally afford is just silly.

Redefine the debates on social problems

Acknowledge that 1 million abortions a year is a social problem. Find solutions that don't involve the police or the courts looking into women's vaginas. Whatever happened to homes for unwed mothers? Break the logjam on the debate on this issue or it will cost you social conservatives.

Court the libertarian vote. These are the 25% of Republicans who, after John McCain won the nomination, still continued to get out of bed to go stand in line to fruitlessly vote against him. You can get these people. Liberty used to be a Democratic party line. Reclaim it.

Acknowledge that many people view their right to bear arms as a civil right. Taking away a person's right to self preservation is not right.

Get the doctors and the clergy onboard your universal healthcare program. It's a natural fit for both.

Count the votes

You've got to get the Jews on your side. Consider Bloomberg for VP. Visit Israel.

Show that you can use your own brand to restore America's standing in the world

Use the excitement of your nomination in the Mid-East to improve relations there now with the Arab nations. Push Bush out of the spotlight, take a fact finding trip, and start to act as the de-facto President. Show that you will be able to cool off the US - Arab tensions to get a fresh start and re-assert America's influence in the region peacefully.

When signing foreign aid treaties or weapons sales agreements, make it a condition that the counter-country add English to their school curriculum and protect the rights of Christian churches and missionaries. The only way the US will survive and thrive for centuries to come is to export our culture worldwide, like Rome did. And this doesn't mean having McDonalds and KFC restaurants in Beijing.

Don't spend our money

Don't raise taxes. We can't afford it now.

If we've gone global, talk about "Team America"

Don't go after big American companies. In a global economy, Exxon Mobil is our team. They are already minuscule compared to PetroChina and Aramco. We need American companies to be big and strong to compete in a world economy.

Attack Hugo Chavez as America's newest enemy. Everybody hates him, especially the Cubans and expat Venezualians. Paint him as the new Castro.

Call out McCain

Make McCain angry. He'll expose himself for the intemperate lunatic he is, and the press will turn against him. Yes, he was a POW, but that doesn't mean he's not a jerk.

Good luck.

Clinton Getting Even More Embarrassing

Hillary Clinton got her clocked cleaned last night. Then she gave a victory speech.

It was a bizarre and surreal moment to watch, thinking that she couldn't possibly believe that the words coming out her mouth had any truth or relation to what had just happened. Hillary's shrill and tactless self-congratulations stood in stark contrast to Barack Obama's short and humble, but very upbeat, victory speech, in which he graciously gave an early congratulatory concession to Hillary's Indiana win of the popular vote. Hillary even inserted a tacky plea for donations to her website.

When will this horrible woman go away?

When Mike Huckabee kept up his Republican Presidential campaign even when it became clear that he hadn't a snowball's chance in heck, and that McCain would easily wrap it up, he said he wanted to continue to shape and debate the issues that were important to a lot of Americans. That was a statesmanlike rationale that lent validity to his continued campaign. While I'm not a huge Huckabee fan, I really respect that he put forth that idea. I believe it not only enhanced Mike's personal reputation, but it put forward a standard for a legitimate purpose for maintaining a longshot campaign.


In stark contrast, we Democrats have had to watch the neverending spectacle of Hillary Rodham Clinton continue her longshot campaign based on the rationale that "I, I, I, Me, Me, I, I" can still win it. "I" can still win it by smearing her opponents reputation, by race-baiting, by trying to change the rules of the election in mid-contest, by fear mongering, by sabre rattling, by pandering with candy policy proposals, and of course, the outright lying.


Shall we elaborate? Oh, yes. Let's!

• In speeches, Clinton's theme is "I will fight for you." Obama's theme is "Together we can build." Her campaign is all about her.
• Clinton smears Obama with "he can't win" (we all know why not), no experience (after all, I was a President's wife, so I know how to run a country), elitist, goes to the wrong church, and insults his manliness. She's one classy gal.
• Clinton compares Obama to Jesse Jackson, tells white crowds that she works for people "just like you," and loves to talk about Jeremiah Wright.
• Clinton reneges on her agreement about Michigan and Florida, and now tries to move the number of delegates needed to win. Around here we call this "cheating."
• She likes to scare folks with those 3:00 am ads.
• She likes to sabre rattle by threatening to annihilate Iran. She did this to score cheap political points. This is incredibly bad. By doing this she lends legitimacy to Iran to come forward with an as yet unstated need for an effective nuclear deterrent to the stated threats of the U.S. Nice going.
• This gas-tax holiday nonsense is one of the most meaningless election year give-away proposals I've ever seen. That she is sticking with it in the face of near universal dismissal and ridicule is astounding.
• And the lying. Ah yes. That poor, dying woman who was turned away from the emergency room for lack of $100. Running for cover under sniper fire. The Clinton White House policy of sending the First Lady if a place was "too dangerous." Chelsea jogging around the Twin Towers when the planes hit. As Tony Soprano said, "The bullshit never ends."

Looking at the numbers, Obama won North Carolina by 14.7% and won 20 more delegates than Clinton, with a few delegates still to be determined. Clinton won Indiana by 1.8% and won 3 more delegates that Obama. So the night was a net win for Obama of 17 delegates, so far.

Counting the popular vote, as Hillary is wont to do, Barry was more popular in NC by 232,775 votes. She won in Indiana by 18,440. So in popular votes Barry adds 214,335 to his margin over Hillary to date.

Did I mention that Hillary gave a victory speech?

Watching this go down on the tv, MSNBC had the best coverage, hands down. (Thank you, Snake.) Keith Olberman does a great job of keeping the pace going with a lively and diverse bunch, including Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, and cranky old man Pat Buchanan. Crazily, sitting Maddow next to Buchannan works great. Tom Brokaw pops up every so often with some pearl of insight. And Nora O'Donnell tries awkwardly to give some number analysis on a board that she always has trouble with. But as always she has great presence and boy did she look great. She has, by far, the best hair on tv (though I suspect the new "super thick" style was inspired by Becky Quick.) Eat your heart out David Gregory. Oh yeah, he's on there, too. Didn't see Shuster, though. Where was he?

When things got slow, I'd jump over to CNN. There was Wolf Blitzer in "The Situation Room." Wolf is a weak choice for MC. Despite his Wrestlemania inspired name, he has a squeaky voice and kind of reminds me of a mouse scurrying around the set. That blond guy with the fancy electronic white board is pretty good, and so is the chubby cheeked black guy who's name I also can't remember. I'd peg those two as the real up and comers over there. Campbell Brown is the pundit panel moderator. While she looks good and is smooth on camera, she seems light on substance. Gloria Borger is there, too, adding energy and insight as always. There's one other guy on the end with glasses who's smart but not terribly memorable. Donna Brazile was in the background so I didn't hear what she had to say, but generally to my ear she sounds like a loud, obnoxious dingaling.

So, then as it's getting late I jump over to Fox News to see what they have going on. My God! It was the most awful news show I had ever seen. I've been to livelier funerals. Well, actually I'm Irish so that may be an unfair comparison. But it really was terrible. Brit Hume looked like that old man wearing a diaper from the movie The Savages. Long pauses of silence. Half of his panel with heads down taking notes while on camera. William Kristol, with his crazy, giant, frozen "I swear I'm not gay, I just look like this" smile, making some inane point. To which nobody, even Hume, responded. Dead silence. It was embarrassing to see.

But, to refocus, Obama seems firmly on track. I'm very happy about that. To paraphrase the words of Gerald Ford, our long national nightmare is almost over.