In the name of clean energy

News like this makes me wish GOP charges against Obama (i.e. that he is "liberal" or a "socialist") had an ounce of merit:

"In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation’s biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found."

Polluting our way to prosperity

Obama never spent a day in the whitehouse representing the interests of liberals.

Of capes and spandex

Something tells me that democrats would fare far better politically if they listened to people like Roy Temple, who makes the case for heroic narratives:

How heroes help

The more I think over what Mr. Temple has to say, the more I am convinced he is spot-on.

I suppose I would add to his analysis that a hero needs to stand and fight, for instance for a single-payer health-care system, to have any credentials in support of heroic rhetoric. Superman wasn't one to compromise with Lex Luthor.

A porno scanner solution

My solution to the porno-scanner fury is twofold:

1. Let people keep their shoes on if they use the porno scanner (at least this cuts down on inconvenience - which is trebled for the elderly).

2. The scanners would be doing TSA a favor, as well as making the scanners less offensive to people, if they didn't produce a body image. I can say with confidence that a gun floating in mid-air is more noticeable than one sandwiched between a pair of breasts.

I have no idea if number one is feasible, I guess it depends if the porno-scanner can notice whatever the carry-on scanner notices. Number 2, however is self-evidently doable because what can see skin can choose to ignore it.

Chris Hedges

Christopher Hedges is writing powerfully these days.  In a recent article, he writes:

"We have reached a point where stunted and deformed individuals, whose rapacious greed fuels the plunge of tens of millions of Americans into abject poverty and misery, determine the moral fiber of the nation. It is no more morally justifiable to kill someone for profit than it is to kill that person for religious fanaticism. And yet, from health companies to the oil and natural gas industry to private weapons contractors, individual death and the wholesale death of the ecosystem have become acceptable corporate business."

You can read the entire piece here: Tiny acts of Rebellion

Obama's servitude to Wall Street crystalized America's decline for me like nothing else could. As I watch he and spiritless democratic leaders abandon hard working people to people that are simply hard, it does not evoke Hope in my breast.

I suppose Christopher's writing speaks to me in a language I can relate to these days. He seems to see clearly what I see and rail against it, and sometimes that is all you can do.

Video TSA

Bashing the TSA through song...

On the wings of a dove

Apparently American travelers are fed up with "porno scanners" and "groping searches" by TSA agents at airports. Apparently, the head of TSA is tin-eared about it. Apparently, congress postured haughtily on the subject, then did nothing.

Read all about it

My view is that these measures wouldn't have stopped 911 because box-cutters were perfectly legal. They are useless techniques on pilots, who can crash the planes if they wish. Flying was unpleasant already and now it is getting more expensive in order to fund the increasing unpleasantness.

I suppose when the privacy invasion becomes  intrusive enough people will stop flying altogether and al Qaeda and TSA can both claim victory.

Slop bucket of shame

As George Bush sells books and Sarah Palin coins "Words of the Year", I am reminded that American greatness isn't what it used to be.

We are becoming a nation of shabby-minded, tax-gripers with no vison for the future. We wage war,  not to make the world safe for democracy or defend our allies, but rather to feed the beast. While solutions to some of our problems stagnate on the vine, we busy ourselves closing our eyes to bigger challenges. Gone are the dreams of Liberty for All, replaced with trips to the mall.  Gone are the fighting dems, replaced with dem pushovers. Gone are true conservative Republicans, by which I mean civic-minded lovers of tradition who weren't so bedazzled by money as to betray their own children to the catastrophic effects of Global Warming.

The president Obama, he was visionary until he grasped the Power. Then he became another schmuck in a long line of schmucks, betraying hard-working Americans to ingratiate himself at the slop-bucket of the aristocrats. His words are unheeded because they reek of corruption, and his actions go silently into that good night because they are as nothing to the People.

And where are we going?


Is it to a place where work is rewarded and even the least among us have access to opportunity?

Shall earnest destroyers, portraying themselves as saviors, be trusted with atomic weapons?

It is in moods like this that it strikes me as fitting the milky way galaxy resembles a flushing toilet.

Quantitative Easing Explained

Here is the sidewalk version of what happened to the US economy

Take away

Since many commentators are busy broadcasting "Take Away" messages for the democrats in the face of November's losses,  I thought I might add mine.


Don't piss off your base.

For two years the Obama administration treated their base like they were contagious, and it isn't surprising they stayed home because of it.

More words are unecessary.

A terrific interview with Jimmy Carter

Interview with former President Jimmy Carter

Jon Stewart's closing speech

Jon Stewart's closing speech at the "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear":