Sigh
The health nazi strikes again. Do we really want a third term for this guy?
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January 29, 2009
January 28, 2009
Wow
Can you believe that all House Republicans voted against the stimulus bill? Man, it's been a long time since I was proud to be a registered Republican. I'd forgotten what it feels like. I think I like Republicans better when they're in the minority.
Ha ha ha!!
Let's all point at the dumb president and laugh! Obama tried to walk through a window, ROTFLMAO!!! Can you believe this doofus represents our country?!?!!
We all did it when it was Bush, right? This kind of thing is terribly important for judging the timbre of our leaders, right?
(Of course Bush did it in China, not in his own house.)
Heh
This story made me lol.
A 14-year-old Chicago kid - decked out in a police uniform - passed himself off as a cop before the long arm of the law caught up with him.The boy showed up at a precinct house, was teamed with a partner, and worked as a cop for five hours before Chicago's Finest realized something was amiss because his uniform was missing the CPD's star-shaped badge.
Authorities' half-hearted defense was that the kid looked older than his years.
Is it too late...
...for me to vote for Obama now?
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar indicated Tuesday that the Obama administration could be open to expanded offshore drilling and is considering doing away with a controversial program that allows oil companies to pay in kind for oil and natural gas taken from public lands.
January 27, 2009
The politics of stimulus
First, I'll start with a bold prediction. The new economic stimulus package, if passed, will work about as well as the last stimulus package, but at about 10 times the cost. I also predict that some version of it will pass with fairly broad support.
The politics of the debate, however, could get interesting. Like many liberals, I was annoyed by John Boehner's objections to the contraceptive bits in the bill. It's not that larding up an economic stimulus package with birth control spending isn't stupid (it is) but rather because Boehner's objections were too easy to dismiss as stereotypical Republican puritanism. Also, Boehner's comments led me to infer that if you stripped out the sexy bits, he'd be happy enough to climb aboard. (It turns out I owe Boehner an apology, since it looks like he's since come out foursquare in opposition to the bill.)
But it was interesting how President Obama came forward and bitch-slapped Nancy Pelosi's Botoxed face by telling her that condoms do not stimulate the economy, and that line item had no business in an economic rescue bill. Obama could succeed where Boehner couldn't because everyone knows Obama isn't a sex-phobic religious nut. Perhaps he does, however, know partisan stupidity when he sees it, even if it's in his own party.
Granted, the stimulus bill has a lot more problems than a few condoms here and there, and I'm sure there are pork-laden horrors therein that we won't know about for years, if ever. But I also don't doubt for a minute that Congress would be considering some remarkably similar abomination even if Republicans were still running the show. It will be interesting to watch how the debate unfolds, and we begin to get a sense of the dynamic of our new government. I know it's premature, but I'm beginning to think the Obamacons might have been onto something after all.
January 26, 2009
Dear God
Please let this happen.
January 25, 2009
Miss America
So I guess we've got a new Miss America. (First Hoosier ever, so hope and change and all that.) The funny thing was I just happened to see this in my news feed, but I had no idea the pageant was actually happening.
God, remember back when everyone gathered round the TV to watch these things faithfully? I guess there wasn't that much on TV back then.
January 24, 2009
So here's a question
January 23, 2009
Does GW need a new poster boy?
I recently pissed off some friends of mine by expressing my view that on balance Al Gore hasn't really been very good for the global warming movement. Our argument didn't even touch of science or policy, but merely his effectiveness in terms of promoting the issue. They thought I was crazy (not to mention an asshole for being critical of someone so selfless in his zeal to save the planet.)
Well this is exactly what I'm talking about. Gore, as self-appointed global warming czar, makes Bob Shrum look effective. According to this recent Pew Center poll, global warming ranks dead last in terms of domestic policy issues for 2009. Dead last. Coming in below "trade policy." Seriously. Trade policy. LOL!
Global warming clearly has a PR problem. To be fair, I guess we can't lay all the blame on Al Gore. The climate itself hasn't been entirely cooperative these past few years. As many others have noticed elsewhere, there's a reason why why we here the term "climate change" much more often than "global warming" these days.
News you can use
Hillary is replaced with an NRA supporter and President Obama turns churlish when asked a question. Maybe they investigate that reporter's taxes, like they did Joe the Plumber's. (And kudos to Governor Patterson. Who knew New York even had an NRA supporting politician?)
January 22, 2009
Heh
I love how Obama taps Biden's elbow after the veep's dig at John Roberts. As my wife said night when we saw it on the news, "He's going to have to do a lot of tappin' over the next four years."
Kennedy out
Caroline Kennedy is dropping her bid for Hillary's vacant senate seat, and that's big news around here. But isn't it kinda odd to be campaigning for an appointment anyway? Has anyone ever seen something like this before? I can't recall anything similar.
January 19, 2009
Obama's presidency
So what will his first action be after being sworn in? I remember sitting around on election night trying to figure out the first thing I would do if I were Obama. Reversing Bush's stem cell decision seemed like such a no-brainer I would have bet money on it. It's easy, it's popular, he could do it immediately, and it would signal that he really is ready to make some significant changes. Talk about your low-hanging fruit.
Looks like I might have been wrong, though.
President-elect Barack Obama signaled Friday that he might not use his executive authority to reverse Bush-era limits on stem cell research, but instead might wait for Congress to change the policy.Obama pledged during the campaign to lift the restrictions, and political observers had expected him to move swiftly to reverse President Bush’s 2001 executive order -- most likely with his own executive order.
But the president-elect suggested Friday that he would wait for Congress to weigh in on the issue.
Once again, Obama has proved he's smarter than I am. He realizes he can roll with the status quo on one of Bush's most hated legacies, and no one but the hard left will take him to task for it. And he doesn't want them anyway. The rank and file Democrats will find all kinds of ways to either excuse or ignore this kind of equivocation altogether, and he damn well knows it. So why risk re-igniting the culture war at his first at-bat? Genius.
I guess I can also see why more and more people are beginning to believe that McCain voters are going to end up being happier with Obama than the Obama voters.
Perhaps the Obamacons were onto something after all. Granted, if you take the prevailing, operative definition of "conservatism" in practice today as defined by (say) Sean Hannity, it means that if you're not torturing terrorists and deporting Mexicans 24/7, then you're not a conservative. Obama doesn't look very conservative by this standard, but neither did John McCain, much to talk radio's chagrin.
But if we discard this vulgar, cheapened populist notion of "conservatism" and try to recover the term's meaning in a historical context, a different picture emerges. I would argue, for example, that Obama is much more of a Burkean conservative than his predecessor. Granted, that's a low bar, but I can't help but be encouraged.
Time will tell, and I'm sure Obama will disappoint me over the next few years, but you know what? I bet he'll disappoint me much less and much less often than he will the thronging masses of pie-eyed libs currently congregating in our nation's capital to usher in the New Jerusalem.
January 16, 2009
Ditching in the Hudson
There's something surreal about watching something unfold on CNN and out your window at the same time. The funny thing is, that had I not heard it on the news I probably wouldn't have known anything unusual was going on. There was no smoke, no loud noises, no cacophony of sirens. In fact, I had been looking out at the Hudson shortly after the crash and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.
When I went back and had another look, it just looked like a tiny cluster of boats with a helicopter or two in attendance -- not so extraordinary for such a highly-trafficked waterway. But then, looking closer, you could see the tailfin sticking up, and you realized there was nothing ordinary about this.
The other bizarre thing was watching it slowly drift with the currents. I first saw it up around midtown, and over the next couple of hours, as it grew darker, it had meandered all the way down near the World Trade Center. Fascinating though it was, I think I've been around enough exciting news since I moved to New York back in 2000. I'm just glad this one had such a miraculously happy ending.
January 14, 2009
Good lord
Sometimes I think I can be obsessive with problem solving.
An Englishman finally got to celebrate solving his Rubik's Cube puzzle after 26 years of trying."I cannot tell you what a relief it was to finally solve it," said Graham Parker. "It has driven me mad over the years. I would lie awake at night thinking about it."
When his final wrist twist was successful, Parker wept.
I bet he did. The thing had been ruining the poor guy's health since John Mellencamp was still "John Cougar." Well, you've got to admire his stick-to-it-iveness... I guess.
Obama's confab with the cons
Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall at this conservative confab? Imagine, Obama had a dinner party with Bill Kristol, George Will, David Brooks, Larry Kudlow and others. Must have been interesting. Still, I can't get over the sheer chutzpah of this phony, preening poseur trying to pass himself off as a conservative. Oh well, that's David Brooks for ya.
January 12, 2009
JG, what happened??
So the season opener of 24 began last night with Jack Bauer being interrogated by Red Foreman. CTU has evidently been disbanded, and Jack has partnered up with an annoying female FBI agent who reminds me of Bones. So far at least, I find all this conservative hand-wringing about how the show's gone all "liberal" to be misplaced. My biggest disappointment was Janeane Garofalo. Politics aside, I'd always found her very cute. Now she looks like a troll. Oh well.
January 11, 2009
Today's question
What if John McCain had been elected president. Does anyone think that the team he'd be assembling now would be more conservative than Obama's thus far? This is a serious question, not facetious at all. I had expected that Obama would try to govern from the center, but so far he has exceeded my expectations on that point. And as for McCain, I like the old coot, but it's all to believable to imagine his bending over backwards to put together such a "team of rivals" that it would effectively cripple his ability to govern. I have to admit, the answer to this question isn't obvious to me. What do y'all think?
Content warning: NSFW
I can't believe Soobee tagged me with this on a Sunday morning before I've had a shower or even finished my coffee. Oh well, you asked for it. I'll do the humane thing and not tag anyone else.
January 07, 2009
From the "Sweeping Generalizations" department
Madoff: the silver lining
Heh. As both my loyal readers know, the ACLU has pissed me off lately because of their inane response to the Heller decision. Consequently, every time they remind me that my dues are due, I patiently reply that the national chapter won't receive any further monies from me unless and until they revisit their nonsensical position on the Second Amendment in light of recent Supreme Court decisions. They never respond, of course, except to ask again for more money.
Anyway, the latest solicitation I received from them was kind of lol in a schadenfreude kind of way (a little Spanish lingo there.) The tone of the e-mail was desperately urgent, as it seems the ACLU is currently $850k worse off than they thought. Because of the Madoff ponzi scheme, almost a million dollars that they had been counting on simply isn't there.
I wonder if their current financial straits will be enough to induce them to try to tap into that enormous pool of pro-gun cash that keeps the NRA so extraordinarily well funded? Eh, probably not, but their e-mail made me giggle anyway. Hee hee.
CN endorses
I've never told anyone how to vote throughout the entire history of this blog, but I'm telling you now. Go vote for Treacher. He's way funnier than all those also-rans.