CascAda Observer

I find reason tedious and boring.

2008-11-29T05:09:00.000-08:00

Skipper: Kowalski, reason with him.

Kowalski: Ahh, reason...

Skipper: I find reason tedious and boring. We'll use force.

For some reason, the above bit of dialogue reminds me of the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq. "Colin, reason with them." "Ah, reason" "I find reason tedious and boring. We'll use force." At least the penguins accomplished their mission. Of course, the penguins don't create their own reality, their animators do. I wish the bushies had had better animators.

Wall Street Fuckers

2008-11-24T04:22:00.000-08:00

To preserve the backbone of the industrial economy, we have congressional hearings, we have New York Times op ed from traitorous son of Michigan Mitt Romney and numerous others saying that the Big 3 need to go bankrupt, the party of the masters yammers about how the unions have to make concessions, (like they haven't already) Harry Reid doesn't dare take a vote, and the bosses are told to come back in two weeks with a plan.

To bail out a company who caused this mess, and who has been soaking in the mud of financial scandal since at least Enron days, its another nontransparent, unaccountable, no-oversight Sunday Afternoon Special from Chairman Hank and the rest of the Wall Street Fuckers.

Bork in Iraq

2008-11-17T19:51:00.000-08:00

Maliki's government is "quietly dismissing" anti-corruption officials. I think the main reason the dismissal can be called quiet is because papers other than the Times are ignoring the story.

Well, I shouldn't be so hard on the media. In April, I commented on Condi Rice's reply to Henry Waxman's question whether she was aware of Maliki stonewalling anti-corruption investigations.

When Nixon did the same thing, it was big news, the label 'Saturday Night Massacre' is well known. Dragging this news out know might spoil Bush's going away party, I suppose.

Obama Wins!

2008-11-04T18:24:00.000-08:00

ABC calls Ohio for Obama. By the last post, it's done.

Congratulations President Elect Obama.

Obama is close

2008-11-04T18:08:00.000-08:00

NBC has Obama with 174. Give him CA, OR, WA, HI and he only needs 19. He can get that from FL, or OH, or VA + IA, or NC + IA, or NM + CO + IA, or a number of other places.

Texas closing, not ready to project

2008-11-04T18:02:00.000-08:00

LA, Nebraska, SD, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona not ready to project. Electoral vote currently 174 Obama, 76 McCain.

The Hope of the World

2008-10-30T04:36:00.000-07:00

Newsweek gave Henry Kissenger three pages this week to foam at the mouth of his quill pen about the lessons of Vietnam. His concluding sentence:

• THE ADMINISTRATION AS WELL AS CRITICS SHOULD CONDUCT THEIR DEBATES WITH THE RESTRAINT IMPOSED BY THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THE UNITY OF OUR SOCIETY HAS BEEN THE HOPE OF THE WORLD.

Well, excuse me for thinking that protesting an illegal, unjust, murderous war must be restrained to preserve unity. Particularly the unity of a country whose government, of which Kissinger was part, murders war protesters, breaks in to their doctor's offices looking for embarrassing information, and many other dirty tricks. Unity my ass. And then, the delusional assertion that such mythical unity is the HOPE OF THE WORLD. Yeah, right. The hope of the world regarding the U.S. is that it will find someone other than a bunch of maniacs to run the place.

See also.

Requiem for Project for a New American Decade (almost)

2008-10-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

Sleaze campaign expose

2008-10-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama has a web page exposing McCain's sleaze campaign tactics. On it, he has the quote

"Sooner or later people are going to figure out that if all you run is negative attack ads you don't have much of a vision for the future, or you're not ready to articulate it."

The site displays the quote using McCain's own Optima font.

Hoover Barbie

2008-10-24T04:27:00.000-07:00

I saw Margaret Hoover on Today show. She was doing her impersonation of Right Wing Talking Barbie, reciting talking points from the right wing lie machine. One of their lies is that Barack Obama has never 'reached across the aisle' to pass 'significant legislation'. The Lugar/Obama Nuclear Proliferation Act proves the opposite is true. See also Lugar's comments to MSNBC.

Today Scott McClellan endorsed Obama. His ability to reach across the aisle is becoming more apparent.

True Values

2008-10-24T04:21:00.000-07:00

The financial crisis has given us a powerful lesson on the true values of the American establishment. We have been deluged with propaganda on the need for American taxpayers to spend $700 billion to bail out Wall Street. This shows capitalists don’t care about "free market" economics.

In 2005, we were subjected to a similar deluge of propaganda about Social Security. The conservatives, citing projections that Social Security taxes will no longer exceed expenditures in 2018, were trying to divert Social Security funds to their Wall Street cronies. That attempt failed, but last week they succeeded in a different money grab.

Americans face many other problems: 40 million Americans lack health insurance, our bridges are crumbling, executives earn 8 figure bonuses for sending good paying jobs overseas, college is unaffordable for many. None of these problems, which directly impact the quality of life for ordinary Americans, inspires urgent action. Only when the Wall Street crybabies might have to experience what they have been inflicting on the rest of us all these years, does our government (with Treasury Secretary on temporary assignment from Goldman Sachs) show any urgency, writing a check for $700 billion with no strings attached.

Lipstick on a Pit Bull

2008-10-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

How much lipstick does it TAKE to turn a pit bull into a hockey mom?

A hell of a lot.

Elitist my ass. These people are corrupt, money grubbing hypocrites out to line their own pockets. They make mortgage brokers look like Mother Teresa.

Freedom isn't Free?

2008-10-18T07:49:00.000-07:00

Maybe you have seen the obnoxious bumper stickers that the fascists put on their gas guzzling trucks, for which obtaining the fuel apparently requires that American kids be sent to die in Iraq. The bumper stickers say "Freedom isn't Free."

But the fascists don't believe their own propaganda. When it comes to paying taxes, they don't think anyone should pay. Especially Joe the lying plumber's assistant.

Of course, most of these assholes are really fascists who oppose freedom anyway.

"Socialism" accusers are Racist

2008-10-18T07:25:00.001-07:00

The foaming at the mouth right wingers have been going overboard in the presidential campaign calling Obama a socialist, communist, marxist, etc. Even McCain has join in this chant.

Nevermind that Obama was the democrat least supportive of single payer health care, or that his health care plan is a lot like Mitt Romney's. Nevermind that he is as beholden to Wall Street as any other mainstream politician.

I believe that the reason for this gusher of distortion comes from the racist core of the Klan wing of the Republican party (that is, the mainstream of the Republican party.) The racists know that it would be counterproductive to their cause to overtly advocate against Obama as a black man. Thus they use 'socialist' as a code word for black man, despite the utter absence of any socialist policies in Obama's platform.

McCain's insecurity

2008-10-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

I am not too good at psychoanalysis, but I know a pattern when I see it. McCain has twice deflected attention away from himself and towards surprisingly ordinary individuals. First it was his choice of Sarah Palin as vice presidential nominee, and now it is his near obsession with Joe the Plumber in the last debate.

This does not seem particularly helpful to his campaign. People want their generals to lead, not to cower behind privates. Sure, they want their leaders to understand them, to have their interests in mind, and maybe they like to see that they can kick back and enjoy themselves like an ordinary person. But when the job calls for skills that are more than ordinary, you ought to play those up, not emphasize your plumber's smile or your taste for fresh moose.

I am not quite sure why McCain does this. Maybe he has a deep seated hatred for elites, stemming from his elite pedigree as the son and grandson of admirals. Maybe that explains has 'maverick' persona. Or maybe he is just insecure, and surrounds himself with people who do not make him feel insecure, as his more natural peers might.

Either way, I would be happier with a guy who knows how a leader is supposed to act as president. We don't need any more "My Pet Goat" acts.

Drowning in their own greed

2008-10-13T16:02:00.000-07:00

Dean Baker uses the title phrase most accurately.

Google "Bottle Service at the Marquis" for a look at the true despicable culture of the Wall Street Crowd. Not the lowly associates making bloated salaries and blowing them at the bar are responsible for creating the evil. But they cooperated with it.

Understanding the Bailout for Dummies

2008-10-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

Note to middle class Republican voting true believers in the free market: your party is playing you for suckers.

Follow the money.

Pretty Vacant

2008-10-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

Palin cannot name a Supreme Court case that she disagrees with other than Roe v. Wade. She says that historically, she is sure there are others. I am just quivering in anticipation of the headlines in the newspapers she reads ('Which ones do you read?' 'All of them') "Palin opposes McCullough vs Maryland" "Palin opposes Dred Scott decision".

McCain 'Wasted'

2008-09-23T19:43:00.000-07:00

So Obama expressed the view that people who are suffering economically may feel distressed by the situation, and that they may embrace various cultural practices and institutions quite strongly as a result. Of course, he used somewhat blunt language to express that point of view, not the nuanced, refined, elistist, thesaurophilic phrasing that I have used. The right wing noise machine repeats the blunt phrasing over and over, making like its an insult, even though a mindless hack like Hannity doesn't understand what it means.

McCain said American lives were 'wasted' in Iraq. Why isn't he being tarred and feathered with his own blunt language?

Oligarchy

2008-09-19T19:11:00.000-07:00

In my first real post to this blog, I noted an article in which Bernanke warned about the looming Social Security crisis, which amounted to $3.7 trillion over a 75 year horizon. Just a few short years ago, the conservatives were calling for benefit cuts, and Bush wanted to create private accounts and turn over some of the Social Security money to the Wall Street boys.

That seems like a remarkably bad idea now. Particularly galling is how fast Bernanke got $1 trillion (that's with a T) cash together when his buddies came calling, but how resistent he is to the idea of spending any money on the working folks. Even more galling is the possibility that the funding for this bailout of his pals could be coming from the $2 trillion Social Security trust fund, built up over the past 25 years by the working people for whom he appears to have no empathy. Maybe it is just coincidence that the size of the bailout is roughly the size of the SS trust fund, but a few alarm bells are going off in my head.

Meanwhile, people are throwing out the word socialism to describe the bailouts. Folks, that is wrong. Socialism would be the government spending $1 trillion to eliminate poverty, provide health care, and improve quality of life for the whole of the country. A few well connected government officials raiding the public treasury to save their friends' bacon is oligarchy, not socialism.

Too big to fail

2008-09-17T04:04:00.000-07:00

AIG is too big to fail. Enron wasn't. The US Military is too big to fail. That is why there is a bill to declare the surge a success. (Real victories do not require congressional resolutions to be recognized as such.)

With all the bailouts going on, where are the free market faithful railing about socialism. They are quick to incorrectly label Obama as a European socialist, but they do not label Paulsen as a socialist. Of course, a real socialist would be spending money on human needs, not on bailing out wall street billionaires.

In this case, at least, the US gets a cut of the company.

The US is too big to fail.

Wake up America

2008-09-16T16:52:00.000-07:00

Paul Craig Roberts lays out the strategic position of the US in stark but accurate terms in Counterpunch:

a country whose foreign policy goal is world hegemony will continue on the path to destruction until the rest of the world ceases to finance its existence

Voters, I can't tell you that Obama would veer from the path to destruction. But there is a good chance he would, and the part of the world that "finances [our] existence" will give him the chance to correct our path. John McCain, on the other hand, has tunnel vision, and at the end of his tunnel there is no light, just the "path to destruction" envisioned by Roberts, ending in an abyss that could make the Hanoi Hilton appear worthy of Paris Hilton.

The rule of Bush-Cheney has messed up this country beyond repair. Obama is our best hope to clean it up.

McCain's son was on board of failed bank

2008-09-07T20:40:00.001-07:00

Andrew McCain, John's son from his first wife, and CFO of Hensley & Co., the family enterprise of John's second wife, resigned from the board of Silver State Bank six weeks before it failed.

McCain's RNC Speech

2008-09-04T19:32:00.000-07:00

Projected images behind McCain.

Says he stood up to lobbyists ripping off Indian tribes.

NBC shows a veteran in the arena with an "Iraq Veterans Against the War T-Shirt." Another protestor evoked chants of "U S A" from the automatons in the crowd, but I don't know what she was protesting.

The speech is turning into red meat boilerplate.

Standing ovation for attacking public education, and promoting Christian Taliban madrassas.

smears, lies, and calumny

2008-09-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

Almost nobody in the country knows anything about Sarah Heath Palin. Last night was her opportunity to show America how she could be a good vice president. She had an opportunity to talk about issues in a manner that shows she knows Zambia from Zimbabwe and Keynes from Kenya. Instead, she read an attack dog speech, chock full of lies, that could have been read by any of Karl Rove's other trained attack dogs.

Unfortunately for Obama, ignorant, negative campaigning tends to work pretty well, especially when the Republican press lets all sorts of whoppers from Republicans go unchallenged, while they jump all over even the mildest, slightly emotional attacks from Democrats.

Maybe he has seen Letterman's "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches," and has been inspired to put together Great Moments in McCain's Speeches. I also hope that his attack squad has been poring over the Keating 5 hearings. Do you think that in the midst of the current financial meltdown, people might find that relevant?

Well, I will watch John Sidney in a few minutes. I got my Miller brewed Fosters cooling in the fridgy.