Read the News Today Oh Boy

So not an apparently bad pick, by Obama. We'll see how crazy the media and the right get.

On the other hand, I think a bad decision by the California Supremes. It does seem to me that if marriage is a fundamental right, and that all people are entitled to it, then a mere majority vote in a plebiscite can't take that fundamental right away, and the decision is wrong.

Or am I just confused?

Level 3 and What It Means For YOU

Nothing really, but I wanted to think up a title. Well what it means for me is that I'm sitting here in my warm in the middle of a county that has declared a level 3 snow emergency, and wondering whether or not I should try to run to the next county over which is only a level 2 and then on to Columbus for a training (Columbus is also at a level 2).

Otherwise, I am able to look at the news today, oh boy. Obama is still giving away the store to get non-existent republican votes. What is wrong with the guy? He did win the primaries, but the last few were like playing out the clock for a football team that is way ahead -- a prevent defense as they say. He completely out performed Clinton early, then kind of coasted giving up short yardage.

Essentially the general election was his to lose, especially after the stock market melt down. He is obviously a talented politician, but I am not sure that he understands just what we are looking at. He also has what seems to be the democratic disease of our generation. A need to try to get the media (who are in the bag for the republicans, mostly) and the republicans themselves to just kind of like them. Can't we all just get along?

Of course the answer is: "no we can't." There are different political parties because people believe different things. Why do democrats act like abused family members who try to explain away every violent act of the abuser, by taking the blame themselves?

OK, so I guess this post is your punishment for the county sheriff declaring a level 3 and keeping me at home.

Stuff About Yesterday

You know laughing at right wingers is a never ending joy. Just how stupid can these people be? He might not be president because he (and the Chief Justice) miffed a couple of words. Do these people not have anything to do with their lives? Do you not have attorneys who can tell you about these minor errors and how they affect things? Oh, well.

UPDATE: Oops.

The other fun guy was Rick Warren (that is Pastor Rick Warren) who was very careful to make nice to everyone in his invocation. My guess is that he got scared because of the incredible explosion of disapproval that accompanied his choice by Obama. It ain't Billy Graham time any more. I suspect that the good Rev. lives inside a bubble and is never really challenged or confronted by anyone. Even the wealthy and powerful are kind of afraid of him and his power (real or imagined). When people who aren't afraid of him attack he figures he'd better be cool. Of course, with any luck he pissed of a fair number of his own followers who wonder why he didn't "speak truth to power." Power being the LGTB people who complained loud and long.

Obamavilles?

So do you think Obama will do enough to deal with this economic crisis? And with the middle east and our torture regimes now? I am beginning to doubt it. I watched Clinton live up to his campaign promises. That is I watched him govern as the most conservative democratic president since Grover Cleveland (OK maybe Carter was just as conservative).

I figured that I didn't know enough about Obama and I could only hope that he would be progressive, I doubt it now. How narrowly lucky were our parents to get FDR. I guess we will see, if Obama can overcome his roots, but I really don't expect it. I do not want to live the last years of my life in an Obamaville, but I may not have any choice.

When I hear the guy talk about taking on social security and Medicare entitlements. I hear the same people who put Reagan in office. I always figured they could rule with one-quarter of the working population out of work. Perhaps better, because they always had that minority to scare those who are working, all be it at a very suppressed wage. I'm looking at the same thing right now, but with a smiling young black guy saying it.

I Just Don't Know More Gazing At Self

I don't know, but I just don't have a lot to say here in the last few days. Possibly just getting back from vacation and I'm still basking in the afterglow. Or maybe I'm just lazy.

A second rate party hack like Panetta is scaring the torturers left and right. How far gone must our government and oversight be to have them come out of the wood work like they have to try to oppose someone who at most will be a moderate. And is very unlikely to rock the boat much at all. Of course this might just be a little warning shot across the bow of the good ship Obama. We have raised such a ruckus about this guy who is really one of us, just think what we will do if you try to appoint someone who is really progressive or in favor of real change. What do you think that they might know about, these liberal senators? What do think that they might have approved, these liberal senators?

I am getting this very sinking feeling kind of like watching -- dare I say it again -- a slow motion train wreck. A guy is elected who says that he is for change, but it's all wink, wink, nudge nudge. We keep the power we control what goes on in this not so much a democracy. You just think you have any say in this government. It is the Village or runs things here and now.

When did this start? Was it with Carter? Nixon? Our type are the people who must run things. Even though we have been wrong for neigh on twenty years or more (and yes I count Clinton [both of them] who desperately want to be part of the in crowd). The only reason we as a country haven't gone down the tubes already is because we are so damn rich and so damn isolated.

Let us not talk about Reid and Burris/Frankin and Gupta/Moore/Obama. Oh lets, but not right now.

Biden? Biden???

Well the new polls are in and it looks like McCain has pulled ahead. At the same time Obama appears to be taking his advice from the losers who ran the campaigns of 2000, 2002, and 2004.

Now it is reported that Biden will be the one. The VP.

Christ can anybody run a worse campaign. Obama seems to have studied Kerry and decided that Kerry just wasn't Kerry enough in 2004 and he just needs to do more of what Kerry did. Not that he should do anything different.

So lets see you come out of now where with a campaign on the ground that is different and exciting and as soon as you lock up the nomination (not the final win) you start to act just like the people you beat and the people who lost last time.

I am clearly missing something. Because he has to have some idea there, no matter how bad it might be, but I can't figure out what it is. I mean anybody who gets this far must have some sort of idea. Right? Or was it shear dumb luck?

Sociopaths

I would probably be nice to have this amount of complete unself-awareness. On the other hand it is kind of disconcerting that apparently one of the major newspapers in this country has just that lack of self-awareness.

On top of that they really do not expect anyone to call them out on it. Blogging has been around for several years now and it has been important for at least a couple of years. Yet these people think that no one of any importance will notice. It reminds me a lot of the Clinton campaign. Times change and the big boys (and girls) are not capable of responding. In fact when they write or say it they still don't think they have to justify it.

Obama Lurch

So Obama keeps lurching to the right. You know it is weird. Perhaps he really believes what he is doing, but that of course means that when he was running in the primaries, at the best, he permitted his supporters to believe that his positions were more progressive than they really are. At the worst he just lied about it and told the people who were his real support what he wanted them to believe (to be fair, it was what they wanted to believe too).

Clinton (Bill not Hillary) did essentially the same thing. Then he spent the next eight years trying to get the beltway powers and the right wingers to like him. They never did and never would. It is beginning to look like Obama is really trying to do the same thing.

By sucking up to the right wing Clinton accomplished very little of real good in the world. Of course, unlike his successor, his truly evil accomplishments were relatively small. Do you suppose that is all Obama wants?

What has Obama done since securing the nomination? Really nothing at all, but move to the right (from not very left positions to begin with). The other thing is that he hasn't moved subtlety, but nosily and very publicly. What crap.

So I can go for the kinder gentler conservative authoritarian, or the real crazy fascist. How the hell did we get to this point.