and, speaking of politics...

I really wish that i wasn't, it seems so pointless.




not that it matters of course ....


Some of you/us may have an opportunity to actually meet, and/or pose a question to one or more candidates at some level this year. consider one of these topics. they are timely this week, but may have faded from the scene somewhat depending on the drama of the week.

Much has been said about offering various private companies, mainly, (but not limited to), telecommunications carriers retroactive immunity for actions taken on behalf of and in concert with the government in regard to various forms of wiretapping and other forms of electronic surveillance following the incidents of 9/11. Ask a candidate where they stand on the issue of retroactive immunity, ongoing immunity from prosecution, lawsuits and oversight of any meaningful kind, and how they would deal with the issue. If they do not give a short, clear answer with a defensible thesis statement up front, consider the answer to be bullsh*t.


Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that a patient cannot sue for damages over a defective medical product if the FDA approved the product, (it is not clear if the defect was a design flaw, affecting the entire product line, or simply a bad unit). This is a bit confusing, as it denies a plaintiff his or her day in court for the adjudication of a grievance, citing a government agency that has already cleared a potential defendant of any wrongdoing. Except in most cases, it hasn't. Another branch of the government, in the interest of efficiency, has left industries of various stripes to police themselves, to certify that they are doing no harm or wrong and to promise to fix any mistakes that they make in exchange for an endorsement from the appropriate agency, like say, the FDA, and it seems, the Supreme Court. How does a potential executive feel about this bit of legal circular logic, and how would they deal with it, as well as the the potential bloat in our already supersized bureaucracy?


Another issue, not on too many radar screens, but symbolic, (in my view), of a growing trend in American life is something that has been called Net Neutrality. We hear much from many of the larger telecom carriers, (AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, to name just a few), that their networks are being inundated by more and more internet usage, and thay have no way to recoup the cost of providing service. This is largely a load of crap, but it does have a bit of truth to it. These large carriers own what is termed the backbone of the net, and traffic that neither originates nor terminates with their users travels across fiber-optic highways that they own. So what? The backbone providers charge smaller, 2nd tier users, (ISP's) to connect to the larger network, just as they charge us to connect. That should be the source of revenue, not who pays most for preferential treatment, or who'se traffic gives the carrier the most advantage in a "you scratch my back" business world. The internet was, and is, a government sanctioned network, its charter specifies neutrality in connectivity. That principal should not be sold to the highest bidder.


And finally.


The twentieth century, (and I bring that epoch up to this day...), saw some pretty monumental changes in human history, advances in medicine, space travel, yes, the internet, the proliferation of weapons and ideas, but can you guess what the single most ubiquitous "advancement" has been?


The cellular phone.



According to the Washington Post, as of now, there is one cell phone for every two people in the world, and in a short time, there will be five for every six. The other billion or so will follow along shortly. One can think about this in all sorts of contexts, but I have to wonder if this is the beginning of, or possibly just symptomatic of our downfall. If I was a religious fatalist, I would say that this, among a few other things, may be the mark of the beast as mentioned in the Book of Revelation. We are no longer free just to be ourselves, we are tied to a central (as of yet) indeterminate being. Even now, we cannot communicate on a human level. I see people talking to each other on the cell, text messaging and web chatting with others who are less than ten feet away. I guess it is less threatening that way.



Combined with the advances in reproductive technologies, well, married life just ain't gonna be the same in the next century....


Have a nice day.

YIPPEEEEEEE !!!!!!!

Our troubles are over friends, a new day is upon us!

Ralph Nader is running for President.
He must be trying to give the Writers Guild a boost or something. Anyway, welcome back Ralph!
Now, get a cookie, and go back to your room.

it was bound to come to this

I just didn't think it would happen this soon.

The primary season is all but over. On the right, kudo's to the pachyderms for running, more or less, a higher level, (or maybe a less imaginative or less energetic) campaign than the jackasses on the left who are still engaged in the grade school tactics that usually mark election year tactics.

Against most odds, Barak Obama seems to be headed towards the winners circle on the left side of the field, much to the chagrin of the lady who has waited oh so very long for her turn. It is my opinion and suspicion that she will get downnright nasty in the next few months, turning what is left of the democratic race into a scorched earth battle for the ideological soul of the party. It seems to be the principle of the thing.

That is probably the big reason why she is not winning. (There are others of course, not the least of which is her surname and the reputation that she built in her last period of residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave).

Ideology. Mitt Romney has it. Fred Thompson seems to sweat it. Look where those guys aren't right now. Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly have it. They would be great in a Broadway revue together, or in a travelling roadshow like the Blue Collar comedians, but they are not being taken real seriously these days, a lot like the other over-the-hill entertainers, televangelists. Good to listen to while you are driving to get your unemployment check, but not much else.

The (apparent) candidates to be give a sense of being genuine and being pragmatic. They are not afraid to try something new, even if it is something that the opposition might suggest, and if it doesn't work, they seem to be the type of people who will try something else. They seem to understand enough about the times we are in to understand what people expect from a leader.

It will be an interesting summer and fall, if the far right and far left don't cripple the guys first.

In other news this week:

The air force killed a satellite. My favorite analysis of the event came from a 'name the project' contest in "Wired" Magazine: Anything Hu Can Do, I Can Do Better.



Lindsay Lohan proved, once and for all, that those are real.

Are we really up for this? (I hope so!)

We could be in for some serious trouble. The GOP primary race has been all but won by John McCain, but he is being bird-dogged by a faction of his party that is devoted not to a candidate, but to a notion of ideological purity that would make the Taliban turn green with envy (before they detonated the body-conforming bomb....).


This is some serious stuff. On the other side of the fence, we have an ongoing fight that looks to turn into a stalemate between ambition and idealism. If the electorate settles that question, it will be anybodies guess, if it comes to a brokered convention, my money is on ambition.


On the right, the veneer is coming off the party structure. The ideologues are laying claim, or trying to, and will settle for ruining the chances of a moderate succeeding, thus depriving them of a member of a party on the left to demonize in the next election cycle.



This particular brand of politics is quite disconcerting to me. I know that both parties have their own faction of "purists", but these people seem to be the kamikaze's of the American experience, those who know what is best for us and are willing to do whatever is necessary to get what they know to be best and to hell, (literally, it seems), with those who might not agree.


I am not sure how to describe this strategy and behavior. I cannot call it undemocratic, but it really is. It reminds me a lot of what is termed obstructionist when these tactics are used in the Congress. It is a form of fillibister, but its intent is not to bring compromise, it is to wear the opposition, and the electorate down, in order to secure a bit more power, that is a bit less restrained.



We are the targets. Not the Liberals. Not the Extremists. Not any of the other -ists. Us, the ones that can really hold an agenda back or push it forward.. This election is a test of us. What happens this year will determine to a great extent what will happen for years to come. This is not your run-of-the-mill presidential election, and not just for external reasons. The power structure within the nation has shifted, who comes to power this year, and how, will determine how things run for a long time to come, certainly for the rest of my life, and most likely for the largest part of the productive lives of my family. That is a sobering thought.



Is there a practical alternative here? I honestly don't know, (the term practical being an inconvenient modifier).


There are fairly stressful times, it is easy to not be engaged, to just go with things and keep ones blood pressure low, but I don't think we can afford that. There has been an old adage that we need to simply turn the government over every few years, (the old "throw the bum's out" school of thought), and there is something to that, but for that to really be effective, the shape and footprint of government is going to have to change, radically I think. We need to pick our battles, literally and figuratively, and let the rest of the chips fall where they may.


Right now, (and I admit that these are really vague and nebulous terms), I see the themes of the election shaping up this way: ambition, idealism, pragmatism or ideology. Speaking for myself, I can safely eliminate ideology as a choice, (I think those folks are a bit more dangerous and just a tad less tolerant than say al Quaida), but as for the other adjectives, I will have to wait and see which of those fades first...


Stay focused. Stay very focused.

Super Tuesday

Well kids, tomorrow is the big day. He or she who has momentum at the end of the day tomorrow will really have something. In the past week or so, there has been some weeping and gnashing of teeth in the popular media over a couple of the candidates, but surprisingly, (to me anyway), this time, (much of) the babbling seems to have come from the party on the (far) right.





On the other hand, it really shouldn't be a surprise. News has become entertainment in some segments of our society, and entertainment has become news. Take a look at the headlines, we look for blood, suicide bombings, wars, rumors of wars and Britney Spears. Last week, Max Baer, Jr, who made his mark on the world playing Jethro on The Beverley Hillbillies in the 60's, suffered the loss of his (much) younger girlfriend, and the headline was right there next to Ben Bernake.





But that is not what this is about.





Last week, such noteworthy's as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter publically bemoaned the lack of a Conservative leading the republican pack in the race for the White House. ms Coulter even went so far as to say she would support Hillary Clinton over John McCain, because McCain isn't a Conservative.





(Note the capitalization, making the 'C' word a noun, rather than an adjective).





Methinks that Rush and Ms Coulter, along with other noteworthy's such as Bill O'reilly, are merely feathering thier own media nest for the next four years, just so they have something to attack in the event the party on the right becomes dominant again. (Nothing could be worse for the news/entertainment industry than to first get what they want in terms of electoral results and then have things go south anyway...)



So, this makes me ask, what is a Conservative, (again, note capitalization)?



A Conservative seems to be a person whose political bent adheres to a philosophy under any and all circumstances, regardless of the apparent need in any given situation. The philosophy is not rigid, it is, what a somewhat nebulous "they" says it is. In economics, the Conservative creed holds that fiscal resposibility and minimalism in government spending is the path to true prosperity, but in the face of record spending deficits, the true Conservative plans to cut taxes and spend even more as a path to the balanced budget. An explanation of how one leads to the other need not be presented. Ron Paul may be considered a Conservative, but that apparently is not the case.



The true Conservative recognizes that threats to our cherished way of life and our liberties must be defended at all costs, even if it means having a Conservative taking our freedoms, in order to prevent a Radical from taking them. The fact that we lose our freedom is secondary, apparently, to who takes them. It can be assumed that the true Conservatives will retain their freedoms.

The thing about the use of the term Conservative as opposed to conservative in the broadcasr media is that the listener/viewer cannot readily determine which part of speech that he or she is dealing with, the noun, denoting something of an exclusive group of pretty smart people who seem to be, collectively anyway, always right, and if they aren't they will modify the record later so it appears that they were; or the adjective, which can be taken to mean "marked by moderation, tradition, or caution". I sometimes translate that to mean common sense, with a knack for not reinventing the wheel when the situation does not require it. That is sometimes confusing to the listener, and in some, but by no means all, circumstances, it can lead one to believe that one might be in accord with the beliefs and objectives of another, when in fact one might very well be the polar opposite, simply because of the use of a word.

Garrison Keillor made a good point about Liberals and Conservatives in his column this past week, (he was actually aiming at Liberals, using education as an example). The Capitalized folks seem to be tied to dogma, even if an idea is getting good results at a practical cost. They are tied to the idea that the other side is never, ever right, and results be damned.

So, as you get the recorded messages this evening, and listen to the commercials, and hear the speeches and endorsements and commentaries, ask yourself, what sense of the many words that you may hear is that person using?

This year, I think that the top two candidates will be the two that least fit the mold, just because most people who case enough to vote are the ones most fed up with molds. Who do think that will be?

Stay focused. This is no time for idle assumptions.

a little weekend humor, (not an endorsement)

just keepin things on the light side...