Sadly, eerily prophetic

In 2004, when "W" was running for re-election, there was a terrific, sarcastic bumper sticker that I liked but would no way own or display--I didn't want anyone thinking I was serious.

It said: "Re-elect President Bush. It takes a 8 years to really ruin a country" or some such thing. You get the jist.

We had no idea, at the time, how true and sadly, scarily prophetic that was.

While he's not completely to blame for the economic meltdown the US--and the world--is in, he is responsible for taking apart our constitution, thrusting government more and more into our private lives, getting us into an international war we should never have gotten into and, therefore, seeing to the deaths of more than 4,000 American soldiers, spending more money than any other President or administration in the history of our country, dismantling our environmental laws, ignoring the needs of our own citizens in times of huge natural disasters, politicizing the Justice Department, forcing government into religion--and religion into government--again, in spite of the constitution and much more.

I'll never forget.

But I have to keep asking, just what, exactly, was or is ever "conservative" about this clown?

Randy Newman was--heck, is--so right

Dedicated to our government, in general, this weekend and maybe especially for President George W. Bush and his entire family.

Love ya, George.

Have a great weekend, folks!

Pop quiz!

Okay, kids, since WaMu just failed this evening (formerly worth 307 billion dollars), I thought it was time for a bit of a brief, educational trivia quiz so here goes:

1) What was the last, biggest bank failure, before WaMu's today/tonight?

Answer: Continental Illinois (remember that one?) in 1984 (yeah, that long ago).

2) How much were they worth?

Answer: 40 billion dollars.



kinda puts the current situation in perspective, don't it?

If you're not somewhat concerned yet, stay tuned.

When you're not focused on the 700 billion dollar bailout (for the wealthy, from the White House)

Here's another beauty from the pinheads in this administration:

The EPA "has declared there is no need to rid drinking water of a rocket fuel ingredient."

Wha??

WTF?

Rocket fuel ingredient?

In drinking water in the United States?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. You read right. Read on:

"The EPA reached the conclusion in a draft regulatory document reviewed Monday by the Associated Press. The ingredient, perchlorate, has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states at high enough levels that some scientists say could interfere with thyroid function and pose health risks."

Yow.

The United States.

395 sites.

35 states.

Well, I, for one, am just glad the United States government is here to protect us, aren't you?

Now that we're over either the sarcasm or the laughter, this brings up some terrific, serious questions.

Where are these sites? Where are they mostly located? Are they in--or near--major cities?

What companies would most likely be responsible for these exposures? And please don't tell us it can't be certain. There can't be THAT many organizations handling this stuff.

Boy, I hope we get our government back from the corporations one day.

And soon.

Here's a switch

I'll quote George Will:

"Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama."

"Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that 'McCain untethered' -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a 'false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was 'unpresidential' and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does.'"

"...is not McCain's party now conducting the most leftist administration in American history? The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale."

"In any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox 'betrayed the public's trust' -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or 'betray the public's trust,' two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people."

"Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either."

"It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?"
__________________________________________________________

I can't add anything to that.

For the complete article, go to this link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/22/AR2008092202583.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Yes, folks, it's "Religulous"!

You think the next administration should be open?

After the darkness of the current Presidential and Vice Presidential administrations, don't you want to think the next one will be open and accountable to us, the American taxpaying and voting public?

Sure you do.

So do I, naturally.

And wouldn't you think that, right now, with so little time left in this campaign that the candidates would both be open AND promising that their administrations would be open?

I would. But that's not the case.

Check this out:

According to the Kansas City Star newspaper yesterday, "John McCain hasn't spoken to the press corps that follows him for five weeks, or invited national reporters onto his bus in more than two months."

TWO MONTHS??

And this is the guy who wants us to vote for him?

Are you kidding me?

There's more:

"On the Straight Talk Air Express, reporters chanted: 'Bring Mac back! Bring Mac back!' The staff smiled and pulled the cabin curtain."

Still more:

"Another time, after they asked McCain adviser Steve Duprey to bring the candidate back to talk, Duprey returned--wearing a McCain mask."

Funny, huh?

NOT.

And finally, to really top things off and close out today, there's this: On the campaign trail in the past few days, the McCain staff isn't letting "Little Miss Sunshine", Sarah Palin, interact with reporters and ask questions. They're just propping her up for speeches, letting her regurgitate her studied diatribes and then scurrying her off the stage and out of the public eye.

No questions.

No answers.

So, if all those rocket-scientist "undecideds" out there help vote these 2 clowns into public office in November, don't expect any light coming out of the White House. That place will be so dark, it'll make Dick Cheney proud.

One small satisfaction

The one thing--the only thing--I can take any small comfort from out of all this financial mess we're now dealing with--and will continue to be dealing with, for weeks or months or years to come--is that, out of all the socialism and fascism that is and will continue to come out of it, was all brought to us by the Republican Party.

Oh, yeah, the Republicans.

It was Senators John McCain and his pal Phil ("The United States is a nation of whiners") Graham that wanted to--and did--deregulate the banking industry that we're paying for now and will continue to pay for.

President Adolf Bush and his sidekick, Vice President Goerring Cheney want their tightly controlled, ultra-secret government with its listened to and watched public. That's where the Fascism has come.

And the socialism, what with buying the mortgage markets first, and then the insurance conglomerate, AIG and now, did you hear this? The Congress wants to cover banks on our loans over in Europe and, I guess, around the world.

Not stopping there, Rep. Barney Frank (yeah, OUR guy) said aloud this weekend that maybe we should throw more good federal tax dollars at the credit card industry, too.

Holy cow. Where is this going to stop?

And when?

And how soon?

I like my idea of just buying up the healthcare industry and nationalizing the energy industries.

My plan would have been cheaper.

And had a lot more benefits.


Good luck to us, people.

We need it.

A pertinent question

Okay, so now that things have pretty much gone to heck in a handbasket concerning the nation's financial markets, it seems like a good time to remember our peerless leader's pithy suggestion, some time ago, that we privatize Social Security.

Remember that?

You sure don't hear anything from the White House or Republican Party about that now, do you?

Ol' W wanted so badly to "give us choices", he said, and have us get off that awful Social Security program and let us choose how we wanted that money invested.

Holy cow.

If we had done that, so many years ago, can you imagine the mess the American people would be in today?

Mr. "Deep Thinker" and "Insightful" and "Long-term Strategist" that we know him to be would have us all in much worse "do-do" than we're already in.

Only W could do that.

(Thanks, Michael, for the idea).

Since we're in a buying mode...

Now that you and I--the American taxpayers--own the mortgage companies (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and the largest insurance broker in the nation, I thought it only right that we put the next items on our shopping lists that we want.

For me, I only want two things.

There are two things that this country needs and needs badly.

The first thing we need is to buy the health care system nationwide.

No kidding.

Virtually the rest of the free world has done this--and it works. Why not the United States? Let's buy it and then take the profit out of the industry. Again, the rest of the world has done it--and it works--why shouldn't we? Then we could all have the affordable health care and better health we should all have, as a right as living, breathing human beings.

Why should we let the hospitals, doctors, pharmaceuticals, insurance companies and all other leeches of the American health care system do their best to get rich off the rest of us, all at our ridiculously high expense?

The answer is: we shouldn't.

And the other thing I want?

It wouldn't even cost.

Let's nationalize the energy industry.

We can get rid of those leeches, too.

Are we done yet?

Could we now, once and for all, put to rest the ridiculous, short-sighted and irresponsible idea that the banking industry in the United States doesn't have to be regulated by government?

Please?

That same deregulation of banking in the US allowed for the huge scale of unsupportable, irresponsible loans to people who should never have had them and couldn't afford them in the first place. While it got these institutions absurd, large and, again, unsupportable short-term benefits and false profits, it has brought about the largest collapse of the international banking system since the Great Depression. This is no longer debatable.

The government, while we do want it small, efficient and responsible, is extremely important for its role as watchdog, particularly against corruption within corporations and multinational corporations.

We are now paying the price for not having scrutinized our banking sector. Indeed, the world is paying this price, really, due to the collapse in confidence of the credit markets.

Can we agree that government has its role in the world and move on?

What I've been saying

Pimco: U.S. bank system capital insufficient

Fri Sep 12, 2008 5:38pm EDT
By Jennifer Ablan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mohamed El-Erian, the chief executive of top bond fund Pimco, said on Friday that the U.S. banking system doesn't have enough money to weather the current credit crunch related to massive mortgage-related losses.

Complete article here: http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN1244742820080912
_________________________________________________________

This is what I've been saying.

When you consider the takeover of both Fannie Mae and Freedie Mac, add in the 11 banks that have already failed this year (that one last week, remember, in Nevada, is expected to cost 500 million dollars alone), Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers next and then the other 116 banks that are on the FDIC's list of "troubled" banks, folks, we ain't got enough money.

That's right.

The United States of America doesn't have enough money, ladies and gentlemen.

Hang on to your seats.

Oh, and the driver of the bus is asleep at the wheel.

But don't panic.

(P.S. Merrill Lynch is crumbling now, too.)

 

So the world's goin' to hell. Have a good weekend, anyway.

Insanity in 3 parts

Is it because of the Presidential campaign or what?

The last 24 hours has pulled so much craziness out of virtual thin air, I can hardly believe what I'm hearing.

Insanity, Part I:

I'm reeling over what this administration has done, is doing and what they've gotten away with and what they're getting away with.

Did you see all this stuff?

First, it's shown that, once again, one of George W. Bush's departments is so incredibly corrupt that it's staggering. The Department of Interior's Mineral Management Service (MMS), which is supposed to oversee contracts with Big Oil, is shown to have had cocaine, marijuana, sex and monetary payoffs within its ranks. It's happened before, with both the Dallas and Denver offices but this time, most of it came out of the Denver office.

Can you imagine if this happened on a Democratic Presidential watch? People would be raising bloody hell.

That's a lot to digest right there, all by itself.

What will it take to get the American public and media--both--to pay attention to what this administration is doing and has done, all in its name?

When is one of these scandals going to hit that will resonate with the public?

One of these would have already brought down a Democratic administration.

It's incredible, truly.

Insanity, Part II

Then, as if that isn't enough insanity in one day, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah ("I'm not for earmarks any more") Palin declares, publicly, that war with the former Soviet Union probably isn't avoidable?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

What, in God's name, will it take to get people to pay attention to what these people are saying and thinking, in order to derail the nightmare that is John McCain and Sarah Palin??

The rest of the sane, logical world wants peace and cooperation, at all costs, and Senator McCain and his running mate are out on the Presidential campaign trail, saber-rattling for World War III.

For the love of all that is good, can we not inject some intelligence and sanity back into these 2?

I'm very nearly panicking here and I want calm, intelligence, sanity and clear-headed thinking.

And we're running "neck and neck" with these people, in the polls?

You have to be kidding me.

Have I lost my mind or has just McCain and Palin lost theirs?

When are we all going to wake up from this nightmare?

Wake up, people! Write your representative. Write you Congress-person. Write your newspaper! Talk to your friends!

Tell everyone you can that we want peace, intelligence and negotiations in our lifetimes--and not chosen, arbitrary, military conflict.

It doesn't have to be this way at all.

Insanity, Part III

Finally, the third insanity in 24 hours from the Bush Administration, it's found that this cabal of people in our White House apparently okayed a special operations force to attack, within a foreign country--within Pakistan--without Pakistan's consent or knowledge.

IS THERE ANYTHING THIS WHITE HOUSE WON'T DO, UNILATERALLY, AGAINST ALL INTERNATIONAL LAW AND COMMON, INTELLIGENT DECENCY, WHEN IT MERELY WANTS TO?

For pity's sake, people! Wake up! Do something about these maniacs! Write your legislators! Write the White House! Vote! And vote intelligently!

How far is this going?

And where do we say "stop!"?

Lehman Brothers' situation keeps getting worse and worse. They're going to start selling off portions of the company.

All well and good, right?

But I heard on the radio this morning (NPR, of course), that the government may have to go in and bail them out.

Sound familiar?

It seems we keep going through this again and again lately.

This on top of taking over 11 failed banks this year, so far, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Bear Stearns.

So next is Lehman Brothers?

Sure glad we're a capitalistic system, aren't you?

In the same radio story, it told of both former car giants Ford and GM going to the Feds to ask for "low interest loans", to get them through their rough spots--which they created, of course.

Holy cow.

Where does it stop?

At what point are we either going to say "enough!" or just give up and admit we're a socialistic country?

If we're going to do socialism and the government is going to own business, let's have them buy the health care and energy systems (oil, in particular) and call it a day.

THAT we'd benefit from.

But not cars--not the auto industry.

What kind of system are we running here, exactly?

News flash: we can't afford all of this.

Thought before sleep

 

There isn't enough intelligence, clear-minded thinking, calm and altruism in the world to overcome the ignorance, paranoia, emotionalism and greed.

Change?

Unbelievable, once again.

This is, without doubt, the most unpredictable, nearly insane election the United States or, indeed, possibly, the world has ever seen.

Ever since the Republican National Convention, Senator "McSame" or, as he was accidentally referred to at that same gathering, John Bush, has been claiming he and his ticket are the "change" America needs.

WTF?

Are you kidding me?

Here's a 72 year old rich, white guy--a Senator--someone absolutely FROM WASHINGTON, who has worked there on the inside for years and he claims he and his reactionary, "take us back in time" female sidekick are the party of change?

Wisely, the Democratic Obama campaign has shown videotape of the good Senator, bragging of how he has voted with the current President (who got us in our messes, by the way) "90% of the time."

What's more unbelievable is that PEOPLE ARE FALLING FOR IT. I know it's temporary--it is, after all, only a poll and it's the extremely fickle American Public but right now, Senator "I haven't got any fresh ideas" is running ahead of Sen. Obama.

I'm not going to panic because there's 56 days between now and the election but it's pretty unfathomable that people would fall for this line.

Also nearly completely unbelievable is that people who would have voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton are, at least some of them, swinging toward voting Republican for and because of Sarah Palin.

Can they not think?

Sarah Palin is virtually completely against everything Sen. Clinton EVER stood or campaigned for.

Here's another unbelievability: a "swing" voter, undecided as to whether they should vote for McSame & Co. or Barack Obama.

Are you kidding me?

Could they possibly represent more different ideas and groups?

It's like not knowing if you're for the North or South in the Civil War. It just shouldn't happen.

No way.

Talk about clay for brains.
__________________________________________________________________________

On a different, closing note: Get this. On the way in to work this morning, I heard of an Army soldier in nearby Fort Riley, Kansas who declared himself to be an atheist.

It seems someone--a Christian, sadly, again, unbelievably--has threatened this person's life, saying they would kill him, apparently, unless he became a Christian and disavowed his non-belief.

If just doesn't get much better, for a laugh, or sicker, than that, does it?

A riddle

What Presidential candidate's adopted son resigned this past July for "personal reasons" from Silver State Bank, in Nevada--the one that was seized this past Friday evening by the FDIC?


Clue: His father owns WAY more than one home.

Clue No. 2: It's close to Arizona.


Find the answer here (as though you need it): http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN0530678420080906

From the article: "The failure is expected to cost the FDIC deposit insurance fund between $450 million and $550 million."

Translation: at or near one-half billion dollars.



God, if we lose the election, I'll never be able to explain it--or figure it out.

What's going on

So, yesterday, before breakfast--on our way to breakfast, really--we read in the newspaper (it wasn't on CNN, amazingly enough-- I guess no boobs were involved so it's not news) that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were being "seized" (scary, huh?) by the Federal Government and another bank failed. (see yesterday's entry).

Then, after breakfast, driving to a lesson on tile installation (for the kitchen, if you must know), we drove past one young man, with his car windows down, yelling into his car phone about how--"Oh, yeah?--well, I been cheatin' on your ass for a LONG time!"

Nice.

Then, a very short time later, in that same drive, a big, black SUV pulls up alongside our car at a stoplight, windows also down, radio blaring, so we could hear this person's preacher, at full voice, yelling of some outrage or another.

The point?

It seems that, with all the changes in our society--our falling financial and moral stature in the world (thank you, George W. Bush and everyone who voted Republican in the last 2 elections, along with anyone and everyone else at fault), we're sliding rather precipitously into a real 2nd-class world status, it seems.

With so many people either un- or under-insured, regarding healthcare, so many mortgages defaulting, so many in debt in so many ways--credit cards, more loans, etc., it's a lot to keep up with.

All this change is difficult to track and digest.

And you know how it is with changing societies.

In them, reactionary thoughts and feelings flood in. It's always been that way.

Everyone wants to go back to "the good ol' days".

It was true in Russia and the Soviet Union. Heck, it's still that way over there. They want a strong-armed dictator to tell everyone just how things are--and should be.

Trouble is, most people suffer from "going back".

The people bringing you Socialism

Sure a bank failed last night--the nation's 11th this year--as I predicted but hoped wouldn't happen. But the big news, along with this bank failure, is the government stepping in to "seize" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

That's gonna hurt.

For people in the industry, it was writing on the wall but to the rest of the American public, it's news. And it's gonna cost.

It'll be billions. Literally.

Of all the things that's to be said about all this--and there is a lot--what's ironic is that, if, indeed, we are slipping into more and more Socialism here--and we seem to be--it is the Republicans that have brought it about.

Let there be no doubt.

It was the Republicans who brought us the deregulated banking industry, which took us to all the high profits from bad loans that were handed out like so much candy, which begat this credit crisis and collapse of the banking industry.

So why would anyone put faith and trust back in Republicans, of all groups, at this time, by considering or even voting for that old rich white man, Sen. McCain (or "John Bush" as he was just referred to at the Republican National Convention this week, albeit unintentionally)? He is, as he himself said, unaware of how the financial system works.

Crazy.

Stay tuned, folks. It ain't over and it's gonna get uglier before it gets better.

The real reason the Republicans were in Minnesota

You want funny?

Do you want to see funny stuff on and from this campaign?

Go to this website:

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blinsanity-archive.htm

It has terrific stuff, some of which is David Letterman, Robin Williams and a lot more.



Have a terrific weekend!

Random thoughts before the weekend

First thought: watch for stocks to fall tomorrow. Things are getting gloomier.

The Fed is getting less optimistic all the time. Yesterday was no exception. They came out and said things look rough.

Added to that, unemployment is on the rise.

Finally, one Mr. Bill Gross of Pimco (manager of the world's largest bond fund) recommended publicly that the Federal Government should start buying up shares of stocks or risk a--get this--"financial tsunami".

Ow.

Doesn't sound very good.

Add to the above which, really, came out earlier today--Thursday--the government has what is expected to be more bad news to announce in statistics tomorrow morning.

As of this moment, the London FTSE, Hong Kong's market and Japan's NIKKEI are all down.

If you can sell--particularly bank stocks--do it right now, right away.

Sell. Definitely sell. Now.

(full story here: http://business.theage.com.au/business/steps-needed-to-halt-financial-tsunami-20080905-4a3a.html)

Finally, to close, instead of trashing Sarah Palin (or John McCain, for picking her), let's let her represent herself in her own words:

"As for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day?" --Sarah Palin, in an interview with CNBC's "Kudlow & Co."

"I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq." --Palin

"It's great to see another part of the country." --Palin, campaigning in Pennsylvania

And then there's her family and friends:

"I'm not sure what she brings to the ticket other than she's a woman and a conservative." –Sarah Palin's mother-in-law, Faye Palin, who said she may vote for Obama

"She's old enough. She's a U.S. citizen." --John Harris, Alaska's Republican speaker of the house, when asked about Palin's qualifications for vice president.

If John McCain can and does get elected President this Fall, he will defy all American history. No candidate of the same party that's in power in a really bad, down market gets elected. Add the fact that he's a really old dude who's out of touch, with bad judgement. a temper and a really awful pick for his VP and it just looks like he couldn't possibly be elected President.

Unless all the racists pour out for the election, God forbid.

At least the brutal heat of summer is over, huh?

Have a good weekend, y'all.

And you thought that "Bridge to Nowhere" died

Yeah. I know I did, too.

I thought the $223,000,000.00 requested by now-indicted Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska had been laughed out of the government and it died.

Right.

Seems the bridge, so far, isn't going to be built but check this out: Alaska still got the $223,000,000.00.

To me, this is even worse.

They asked for one quarter of a billion dollars for a bridge to serve an island of less than 100 people, they still got the money and the American people weren't really "let in" on the little secret.

In addition--making matters much worse--THEY GOT ANOTHER 38 MILLION DOLLARS for a road that, right now, apparently, is being built UP TO THE BEGINNING OF SAID BRIDGE.

Oh, and folks, Sarah Palin, current Republican Vice Presidential candidate, was all for it, when she was in Alaska, in spite of what she says on the road now. She's on the record.

Some maverick, huh?

To quote McDonad's, of all things: "I'm lovin' it"

Noonan, Murphy trash Palin on hot mic: 'It's over'

Ben Smith

After a segment with NBC's Chuck Todd ended today, Republican consultant Mike Murphy and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan were caught on a live mic ridiculing the choice of Sarah Palin.

"It's over," said Noonan, and then responded to a question of whether Palin is the most qualified Republican woman McCain could have chosen.

"The most qualified? No. I think they went for this — excuse me — political bullsh** about narratives," she said. "Every time Republicans do that ... because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at and they blow it."

Murphy chimed in:

"The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical."

Original story here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080903/pl_politico/20576
________________________________________________________

Translation: They see what you and I see, folks. The roller-coaster election continues.

More of what the Republicans want--and are doing

...this time, here in Missouri.

This is a beauty.

The REPUBLICAN CONGRESS in Missouri just took away, obscenely enough, any and all campaign contribution limits in legislative campaigns.

Unbelievable.

Seems these same REPUBLICANS (never forget) wanted to make sure all the wealthy people and corporations could and would dump all the money they can on the REPUBLICAN candidate of their choice.

And that's exactly what they're doing.

Their boy, Kenny Hulshof, who's running for Governor, was about out of money for his campaign, after spending through his Republican Primary. So, after just 3 days of having lifted these campaign contribution limits, he's taken in $1,209,006.00.

Three days, ladies and gentlemen.

This is ugly.

This is stupid.

This is no way to run a government.

If you didn't think your government was for sale before, it most surely is now. At least it is here in Missouri.

And never forget---REPUBLICANS DID IT.
________________________________________________________
For more on the story, go here, to the Kansas City Star:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/story/779307.html

The question

Quoted from "The Bill Maher Show", this past Friday night:

"The real, big question of this election is, will America be able to see the larger mistakes of the Bush Administrtion and Republican Party of the last 7 years and vote for a Black man?"



Good question.

Their duty

To everyone, everywhere in the United States who ever voted for President George W. Bush for that position: make sure you watch and listen this evening, as that chucklehead thanks you for allowing him to do to this country just exactly what all he's done to us for the past 7 years--deceit, war, debt, his administration's unconstitutional reach into our personal lives and more.

Sarah Palin?

Okay, Biden I get now, of course.

And I get the choice of Sarah Palin, too. She fits right in with the right-wing, conservative, religious, intolerant gun-toters. It's easy to see the appeal to that group.

But really. How easy is this?

I can't wait 'til the debate.

Question: If a 17 year-old young lady is pregnant, isn't SOMEBODY guilty of statutory rape?

Just askin'.

Thoughts on a holiday

So many things going on.

First, unfortunately, the timing of this Hurricane Gustav worked against both the Gulf Coast and the Democrats--and everyone against John McCain, George Bush and the Republican Party. Instead of having our peerless leader speak at the "Dark Side" convention opener tonight, he gets a pass because of that same storm.

Dang.

Hearing and seeing that boob speak of the last 7 years was going to be something I cherished. Trying to put lipstick on that pig would be a big hoot--if not infuriating.

Then, did you see this? Right out of the shoot, Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin said she was against the "bridge to nowhere" for $223 million dollars from Anchorage to a small town of a few dozen people. Uh-huh. Well, we're used to Republicans rewriting history but that one just isn't going to fly. She was all for it and was on the record as such. I guess Alaskans are--rightly--upset about this about-face and slap in theirs.

Great. She's already shown her true, shallow colors.

I think the one debate between her and Sen. Biden and the three between Senators "McSame" and Obama should be a real hoot. Intelligence and experience vs. short-term goals and experience with the Veeps while the old white guy with no new ideas--who supported wrong, horrible ones--goes against a young, energetic, eloquent guy with ideas and inspiration. I hope they're as good for us as I think they can be.

Then, yesterday, Sen. McCain, in a really feeble attempt to distance himself from President Know-nothing, Greedhead Bush, went on "Marshmallow News" Fox Network with Rightist Chris Wallace and said waterboarding is torture, that we did it, apparently, (really? no kidding) and that it's wrong.

Well, Senator--far too little and far too late.

For the last 7 years, you've largely supported George W. Bush and his administration and look where it's gotten us:

A wrong war, for the wrong reasons, full of deceipt and deception, if not out and out lies; the largest debt in the history of the nation and more ways for our government to reach into our private lives than ever before. (WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT WAS EVER CONSERVATIVE ABOUT GEORGE W. BUSH??)

Too late, Senator McCain.

You're more of the same and you're the wrong man for the wrong time, period.

Anyway, it's been an insane, wild, completely unpredictable and new election and these last 60 days should be more of the same ride.

Let's hope it has the conclusion to it we want--and need.

It should be.