Ok A Some Fun, Maybe

So skippy posted this and was attacked almost immediately. Maybe I can be too and drive up my traffic..

Some Fun or Oh To Be Joe the Plumber Right Now

So I was looking around the inter-tubes and I saw this. My how interesting. Who could have imagined?

These things have a certain morbid interest (hehe) for me, particularly when I receive a notice in the mail from my credit card company that they are about to raise my interest rates to pay for their screw ups.

At the same time we've got alleged democratic office holders who are still running around trying to screw their constituents.

The number of people who are still in power who seem to not understand just where we are as a nation right now is amazing. At the same time I see that Joe the Plumber is still running around getting paid to not be a plumber and not to open that business that will net him $250,000.00 this year. So if only I had spoken truth to power on TV. Oh wait, that would be speak right wing shibboleths to a moderately progressive candidate and then sell my immortal soul to fascists while selling out my co-workers and friends. No quite as catchy, but more accurate.

Just Because It's My Blog and I Can

Divorce Mid-Western Style

Finally got the decision on the divorce I bloged about a couple of weeks ago.

Essentially, we won. Well we didn't exactly win, but we didn't lose. By that I mean that my guy didn't want anything that his [ex]wife had, he just didn't want her to get anything he has right now. In my opinion, the magistrate decided that nobody was to be believed (that is parties and witnesses). That the parties each stole, wasted, and hid all the money and property they could get their hands on while they were married. So essentially they are told to go and try not to sin anymore in this court's jurisdiction.

My guys pretty happy, I suspect the other party isn't, because I do believe that she thought there was a lot of money out there and that she was going to get it.

Personally, I don't think either of them has much of anything. Good fun while it lasted.

This

Owned a couple of these.

Then it decided to do this


Except that this was inside it
Which should have been removed like this, but wasn't

So we had to have this done to our yard

So now we are waiting for the church to hire a real asbestos removal firm to take away the stuff that is still laying across the street. In the meantime people are wondering about their kids and their dogs. There are serious questions about just what the hell the church thought it was doing and why no one bothered to figure out what was in a house that was about fifty or so years old.

As a Speices We Are Not Fit To LIve

This does not give me much hope for us as a species. This is a guy who helped get us into this mess and now he is telling us it's all better. He knew nothing last year, why should we believe him now. Incidentally, his song was the same last year just before the plunge.

It was said of the French aristocracy: That they forgot nothing, and they learned nothing. I think that our ruling class and money managers remember nothing and learn nothing.

Taxes and Real Work

Many things to do this week. Custody trial coming up tomorrow.

However, how is this an apology? "Gee, we're really sorry if you thought this was racist, cause you know it really wasn't. But, if you miss-interpreted it then we are really sorry."

Actually, the monkey imagery was nasty, more nasty than monkey imagery of Bush, because African Americans have been compared to monkeys for ever. It's all part of our racist history. But it was the fact that the cartoon cops killed the monkey which put it over the edge. You'll notice that Murdoch doesn't mention that little part of his cartoon. Doesn't apologize for that either, you'll notice. You'll also remember than no comparison of Bush to a monkey ever showed the monkey (or Bush) getting killed.

It's a bait and switch kind of thing. Hey look at my left hand and ignore what my right is doing. I'll apologize for the lesser offense not the greater. Now let's all go out and by my paper, OK?

OK, back to the working world now.

A Quick Thought

Does it bother anyone else that the first United States Secretary of War was a Quaker?

Another Lazy Sunday

If I don't get my 20 hours I just don't feel rested.

The Big Guys At Rest

Yeah, so what it's mine now.

Saturday at the Bookstore

So went into Columbus and went to a book store, something we really don't have much of here. A Walden's and a used book store (the used book store is really very nice). Picked up another book on Linux (I will learn it, damn it.)

Then got back and started reading the two books we've got for the two book clubs we're part of. The mystery book club: We'll Always Have Parrots and the Quaker book club: Karen Armstrong's: A History of God.

I'm already a little irritated by Armstrong's definition of atheist. I would say that at least atheists don't insist on capitalizing their belief.

OK, I'm on my way back to the book. Perhaps we will watch the Ruling Class tonight too.

Just going hog wild for culture today, I guess.

California

So California passed a budget finally. It amazes me how a few republicans who are really marginalized can hijack a state (or country). Insisting on their rejected policies and essentially ignore any facts out there to continue these really failed policies. I can see where former Communists/Trotskyites would love the republicans as they are now constituted.

Never surrender, never give up, never admit defeat. Never forget, never learn. Conservatives/ republicans seem to have the ability to enforce their policies on a country that has rejected them. They are willing to drive the country into a deep and lasting depression in order to maintain their ideological control. And don't forget, that is what they have right now: ideological control and they are not about to give it up:

'The plane's engine is on fire.
How about a cup of coffee?
No really the engine is burning.
How about a cup of tea?
You don't understand we're doomed.
Well then how about a martini?"
Shelley Berman

Surfs Up

It's 19 outside and watched The Endless Summer just now. I'm ready to head out. I'd forgotten how pleasant that movie is. Particularly right about this time of year. An endless summer and an endless youth. How nice. It was just yesterday.

Shut Up And Listen, Damn It

You know I've always thought that one of my most endearing traits is my ability to go from complete and utter silence into a full rant in about thirty seconds. Particularly when I think somebody doesn't seem to understand a certain political or economic fact that is clear as day to me. Or alternatively, when a jurist or opposing lawyer has just done something that is clearly beyond the pale.

I often wonder how those in Washington think in the way they do when little ole me here in East Jesus Rural by god Ohio can see things so clearly. Still gullibility or stupidity knows no geographic boundaries. I am still owed a bottle of the most expensive Scotch I can find in this god forsaken area by a judge (unnamed) who bet me that WMD would be found within six months after the end of the "war" in Iraq. Unfortunately, when one practices in front of a judge it is not a good idea to be right about these kind of things. Particularly when the judge in question does not want to "remember" the bet.

I am still surprised at the value stupidity has for those who govern and those who write about those who govern. If it had a dollar value then they would all be rich. Oh wait.

So then I guess intelligence would be the opposite and that would explain why I am poor. I'll go with that.

Social Security Again

Not quite dead yet.

WTF is it with Obama and Social Security. No place (other than right wing rags) is there any intimation and no place is there any real evidence that Social Security is in any trouble before 2042. And then all the information currently available is that a minor shift can fix it at that point. Yet Obama puts it on the table again and again.

I suspect that his butt and his coalition were saved by Pelosi and (of all people) Reid when they let him know that they would not allow an up or down vote for an extra legislative committee's recommendations. This is particularly true since the committee would be heavily larded with the economists who did not foresee the current crisis and those Wall Streeters who also lost trillions.

I mean really WTF?

Is American ready for self-government?*

You know I was pretty upset when I read this. So some republican governors are considering turning down their share of the stimulus. Of course a [an?] heroic democratic senator managed to get a section into the bill which will permit state legislatures to over rule any governor who is "brave" enough (or is planning on running for president on the republican ticket) to turn down their state's share of the stimulus.

So they can easily say that: "Hey I tried to be true to my principles, but the guys in the legislature wouldn't let me." So that they will just have to take that money and use it to keep their state afloat. Then brag about how clever they were in helping their people without that damned Obama.

I think that maybe I'm not so upset with the republican governors, but rather with a voting population that could be fooled that easily. (Yeah, I know, I was indeed here in 2000 and 2004.) But hope, as someone says, springs eternal. Also, although I would expect no less than that kind of stupid trick from the ruling? democrats, I am still shall we say disappointed.

*Dog House Riley

Ohio Politics

Well, hmmmmmmmmm. I don't know just how I feel about this. I would think that this might harm the party in the general election, but still if we're strong and Obama's policies are working I suspect that a decent primary fight won't matter much.

On the other hand given Fishers history of losing elections, including to both Montgomery and Taft he would, I think, be a less than stellar candidate. Then again Brunner has been a welcome breath of fresh air given our last secretary of state. It is hard to over estimate the importance of a good secretary of state in promoting strong democracy. She has been great in the job. Perhaps that is where she would best serve. Well there is a lot of time to decide.

A Quick Social Security Moment

I'm always willing to let somebody else do my work for me. Check out Hulabaloo on what it appears that Obama is ready to do to Social Security.

I think that she is right, if he moves forward on this, essentially paying off people who voted against his stimulus package he will probably crack his coalition. I hope he's smarter than that, but we will see. He was willing to give the republicans billions in unnecessary tax cuts so we will see what else he is willing to give them.

Michael Phelps

Yeah, everybody else is talking about it. Or maybe I just like the poster. So today the sheriff of the county he apparently smoked dope in had to say he wouldn't prosecute him. So we look at the penalties for possession of marijuana in South Carolina and what do we see. Something really surprising: a maximum of 30 days and a maximum $200.00 fine. Essentially, what you could get for a speeding ticket.

Hell Phelps had a previous DUI charge, but that didn't have anything like the negative effect of the marijuana. Good old booze.

The fact that marijuana is probably the least harmful drug you can put into your body for fun doesn't seem to interest those in the media or the people who are our rulers at all.

And Now For Some Good News

So Hugo Chavez has been allowed to run "indefinitely" for president, eh? You mean just what all American Presidents were allowed to do until FDR scared the shit out of the Republicans? What if the ghost of FDR came back to run again? So Chavez can run and be re-elected again and again as long as he is successful. How dangerous is that? Well I guess those who rule really do not like the little people to control things.

Anything that makes the plutocrats squeal like little piggies is usually good news.

Forgive and Forget

So I'm at home kind of celebrating what I now understand is Washington's and not Washington & Lincoln's Birthdays.

So what do I run into, but Greenwald and Firedoglake commenting on Conason's article arguing that Obama should pardon the Bush people who approved the torture. Now at last a guard from Guantanamo has come out. He talks about massive amounts of torture which are still being justified by those formally in charge.

New information is also coming out about Yoo and the others who wrote the torture justifying memo. A bunch of lawyers violating their oaths. Interestingly enough lawyers don't like other lawyers violating our codes of ethics. We look bad enough as it is.

Lets say you asked me to give you a legal opinion as to whether or not you could smoke crack in your office and I came back and said that in my legal opinion you can't. Then, let's say you offered me something to tell you, you could (or let's just say I'm some sort of pathetic puppy dog who wants your love). After that, if I came back with an opinion that you could indeed smoke crack in your office you might be surprised when the cops came and arrested you (but if you can tie your own shoes, probably not). Guess what, you wouldn't be able to show the cops and the judge that opinion and walk out of the court a free man or woman. Not only that, but I would be referred to the Bar Association and proceedings would be instituted to prevent me from giving such (or any) opinions in the future. One thing that wouldn't happen is that I wouldn't be given a tenured position at a law school.

Of course as Greenwald points out enabling torture is a crime. So Yoo and Bush and those guys are not just enablers, but criminals themselves. By any definition really. My clients often end up in jail or prison. Why not jail for the powerful and wealthy too? Oh wait: powerful and wealthy, I guess I've answered my own question.

So Conason, who was so right about the proceedings against Clinton, is so wrong here. He might be one of those folks Thoreau wrote about who are too limited by their own experiences to see something new.

Sunday And The Living Is Easy

This seems about right.

Wanna play or jess hang?

Yes?

Progressive Politics

So I read Greenwald's post about how progressives/liberals need to constantly push Obama. How we cannot allow him to become our "cause." Just as conservative allowed Bush to become their cause and got badly burned we will have the same thing happen to us. Read the whole thing......I think it's for more than just political junkies.

But at any rate I started to think about the most progressive/liberal presidents: Lincoln, FDR, and LBJ (domestically). A pretty short list, really. But each of those guys came into office with a long history of independent progressive groups pushing liberal/progressive agendas.

The anti-slavery people for generations before Lincoln, the unions and good government folks for generations before FDR, and the civil rights folks and the remnants of the New Deal coalition for LBJ. They did indeed all push their presidents to the left.

So what do we have? A few years of blog activism?

The Trial or a Reasonable Facsimile Thereof

So we had the divorce today. For some reason the magistrate did not seem to believe my client although I am not sure if she believed the wife either.

Nor did the magistrate want to hear about hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card bills on my client's accounts (accounts he knew nothing about, or at least that is his testimony). The information I didn't get until yesterday evening. I managed to get yelled at by the magistrate which at least, I think, convinced my client and his girl friend (who is married to his wife's current boyfriend) that I was fighting on their behalf.

So here we have a couple who by all accounts made between a million and a million and a half gross each year for at least three years with nothing especially to show for it now, fighting over it. I do not think the magistrate was amused.

By all testimony the wife handled all the finances and by all testimony they paid most if not all of their bills in cash.

Nobody on our side is sure where the money went, some think the wife as into a Ponzi scheme which she attempted to get others to invest in. Otherwise, it would sure have been nice to get the witness who ran away to testify. My client decided not to make him come, because he was afraid for him. But it would have been nice to have him testify that the wife told him she'd taken twenty thousand in cash when she left. Oh well.

Now we just wait and see what the decision will be.

My Day Job

So I do have a day job. I am a lawyer and today I had to serve a subpoena. Generally, I don't do it, but because I was brought in at a late date I had to go deliver it. I've done it before, but not much.

Today was interesting because the guy literally ran away from me. He had told me on the phone that he was afraid that the other party would hurt his family if he testified against them. It's a divorce with a couple of thousand dollars floating around for god sakes. I am beginning to believe my client who tells me that burned houses and dead pets follow the soon to be ex. Certainly the witness thought that and he has known the opposing party for most of his life.

The family home had burned down. Well there was some question as to whether or not it was marital property and whether or not the insurance money should go all to my client or be divided. My client took the money (before he had hired me) cashed the checks paid off the mortgage and then took the remainder (all in cash, about $50,000.00) and ......................... he testified and told me and everybody he put it in an envelope and put it in a mail slot he thought went to his previous attorney's office. As far as I know no one has seen it since. Or at least nobody admits to seeing it since.

The other side and the court are not thrilled with my guy and for some strange reason they do not seem to believe him. All I can say is that is the story he told me too.

So any way I'm sitting in my office with my client and his father in law (who is on his side) and not really believing much of what I'm being told. Then I get some outside information and all of a sudden my client seems much more believable.

In the mean time I'm sitting here thinking holy cow and I hope my dogs are not out where anybody can get to them. Of course on top of everything else I've been given four years of various financial information today, to go over. Something I haven't been able to share with the other side, as one is supposed to do. Some fun tomorrow.

Doesn't Anybody Know How To Play This Game

So I read yesterday in Greenwald and Hullabaloo about the "new" position on state secrets (that is either irony or sarcasm, I'm not sure which). A position which seems to have more in common with Kafka or Joseph Heller than with the United States Constitution. Although, to be fair perhaps more to do with the Constitution as it is currently interpreted than one would like to admit. No need to really know the evidence against you is there?

Then there are the various things concerning the bailout and a vary scary thing about entitlements which is code for Social Security. When really Social Security isn't an entitlement at all, but is rather earned, something that people pay into to get back their money at a later time (you know like insurance).

Once the market collapsed it was probably not possible for a republican to be elected, but by then there was already a democratic nominee. I was worried about Obama, but I figured that he couldn't be worse than Clinton. I might have been wrong.

Well back to my day job, to try to keep the wolves away. At this point I'm really not sure that will be possible.

Just a Little Krugman

Saw Sundays article by Krugman and so a brief post before I go back and try to earn some real money. I don't understand a lot of what Obama has been doing recently, like Krugman. It seems that Obama has just wanted that sparkle pony of post partisanship to sprinkle down upon D.C. like fairy dust or perhaps sparkle pony shit.

Is it possible that he may have been awakened? Probably not, but we can hope.

And A Pleasant Good Morning To You Too

Just starting the morning when I saw this. Admittedly the original article is from the Politico (or Us for the political class) still if true one can only wonder what these people in D.C. are thinking.

Apparently the republicans are at an ideological place much like the Stalinist of old. Facts and now even their "friends" (friends being the people who give them money) have no influence.

Lucy and the football, Alice in Wonderland or perhaps Leiningen versus the Ants. We are all fictional characters now. Actually we are all minor fictional characters now, kind of like the character that was always added to the Star Trek cast to be killed by the aliens just for that episode. Or like the not so happy natives eated by the ants in Naked Jungle.

OK wait for it:

UHHHH

OK, it's time to learn a little more about this here bloggy thingy. I r not too bright.

Forty years ago my father put in an answering machine for his business which he was now running from our home (answering machines being somewhat new at that time). My grandparents called while we were gone and got the answering machine. When we got home there was this message on the phone: "Curtis, Curtis are you there? David (my grandfather) he won't talk to me I can't understand it. I can hear him. Curtis?" I don't think they ever figured out it was tape.

Some days I think that maybe I have the same relationship to the computer.

We're All Juss Moderates Here

Wow, these people have no clue. To cut between 700,000 and 1,200,000 jobs from a "stimulus" bill is simply beyond belief. Then they brag about it. Then the President's spokes person congratulates them. Massive tax cuts in the bill apparently which the CBO has already said isn't a good idea.

These moderates are not moderates. Has Lieberman ever been a "moderate?" He is one thing that nothing that Al Gore does can make up for. Of course, I hope that Reed and Obama are happy they put him in the position of power he now has in this senate.

Moderates in D.C. = Reactionaries in the real world. (MDC=RRW). Gee, I think I'm getting this economics thingy.

Would You Like Some Nice Apples With That Soup?

So the unemployment figures are out and one measure is 7.6%, but an other measure, also in the figures just released is 13.9% it's called the U6 and it measures the whole picture as it were. More accurately I would argue. That is part time workers who want to be full time and others. Read it and weep.

Torture Fucking Lite

Holy (or world that be wholly) fucking shit.

Well, in the back of my mind I always wondered about the use of an Army field manual as a kinder and gentler method of interrogation. So appendix M lets in everything that is necessary to torture someone without actually physically harming them. Nope just make them crazy.

You know, I'd have to say that just wasn't funny.

Centrists Urge [Insert Own Historical Analogy Here]

That would be us the people currently.

Other than the fact that anyone called a centrist (is that a word?) is really a conservative or more likely a reactionary and a friend of Mr. O, is that news story a surprise? I think not.

I guess we can all make up our own joke, but it does get kind of old.

Generally speaking when I make a terrible error in judgement I normally try to either correct it or just keep my mouth shut and not attract any more attention to myself. What do you suppose drives these people? They have really screwed up and yet they continue as if their actions have been validated by history. Both of my dogs and most of the cats are able to learn from their mistakes, why can't senators?

Well alrighty then, I might do that too, if I thought that I could get away with it. On the other hand, I would hope that I would have the ability to learn a little something from destroying the nation's economy. But hey why learn if you don't have to, right? You can bail out your friends and your bosses (just remember that we, the people, are not considered the bosses of those we elect). But really the little people do not count as we count, do not think as we think, are not really human, as they are human. So fuck em.

We are kind of the lesser breeds without the law, you know. I do believe that our present rulers have the same feeling for us little people that the Romanov's, Bourbons, and southern whites had for the serfs, peasants, and blacks. And you know what I'm beginning to think that we might deserve it cause we keep sending the same kind of people back to D.C. every election cycle.

So maybe the question is: Is we uneducable?

Oh Brother How Often Can I Keep Saying the Same Thing

OK, here we go, what I said yesterday. We can't get the votes within a month of our guy being inaugurated. We are indeed fucked.

I had a thought about what Obama and the democrats in congress are doing. They are placing a mattress on the ground for us to jump from a fourth floor window to (pardon my construction, but it is no worse than what is happening in congress -- the construction I mean). No firemen to catch us.

We're Fucked

As best as I can figure from hearing the politicos talk this guy is our hero now

Rather than this one

I thought the other day that I could use the same tag for almost all of my posts recently (see below). Kind of almost Jazz improvisation like, you know.

Reading this by Krugman. How individual actions, each rational in itself, become destructive of our society when put together. The movie I posted about in the last post The Wild River has a nice line in it. The old Tennessee woman who owns the very good bottom land and doesn't want to sell she says "because she loves the land." Is countered by the TVA guy he points out that the river, unchecked, is destroying lives and families and in fact is washing tons of land down to the gulf every year. He says: "You don't love the land, you love your land."

If each of us save and hoard for ourselves then we end up ruining our country and our economy, while trying to protect each of us individually. Of course, in the end we end up screwing ourselves too, because where the larger society goes there goes each of us.

Got to cut us some spending so we don't upset some conservatives and villagers cause I mean after all they are the ones who count, aren't they.

New Deal Economics 101 and a Movie

So how many movies have you all seen where the romantic male lead is a middle level federal bureaucrat? Huh, Huh? Well the only one that I can think of is The Wild River staring Montgomery Clift and Lee Remick. It's great.

Watch Montgomery Clift get beat up more than once. Watch him propose to Lee Remick after they both get knocked out by Albert Salami (the only one dimensional character in the film). What's even better is the proposal line: "I'll probably regret this and I know you will." I had forgotten that I'd taped it some time ago and we watched it again last night. What a great film. Having a hard time finding a DVD of it though.

The feeling for the time and the place are near perfect. The writers' and director's liberalism shines through all. Highly recommended.

And just for the wonks a little Krugman. Just in time for the new Depression the right rides forth to attack the New Deal and try to convince us that it is better to starve and freeze then to try to do once again what worked in the past. (No I'm not talking about the New Deal itself [which tried, but didn't go far enough], but rather the spending from the Second World War).

I sometimes wonder if that isn't what has gotten us here. The lesson learned from the period 1932 through 1940 isn't that we can spend on stuff to make our lives better to get out of depressions. Nope. It's that we can get out of and keep out of depressions if we put mass amounts of money into our military. 1984 anyone?