Because

I have not posted in forever. It's too hot and discouraging.

State of the Nation?

I didn't have this bloggy thing 14 months ago, but Heidi will back me up on this prediction. I predicted that whichever candidate was elected, McCain or Obama, that president would witness the demise of his party. That prediction, sadly, seems to be on track. Obama, who came into office to the right of Richard Nixon, is moving still further right. Perhaps it's a wrongheaded attempt to make peace in a divided Washington, perhaps it's simply the myopic flailing of someone who wants, more than anything to be loved. Perhaps it's just plain forgetting who the hell got him where he is.

But one thing is plain, with all the speculation over the last year about whether Obama was playing chess while the opposition played checkers turned out to be wrong. Obama's playing Badminton, and the GOP is playing Rugby. And we are all getting the shit kicked out of us.

Unintended Consequences

Thanks to the recent SCROTUS decision in the Citizens United case, Theoretically a foreign leader, say a Hugo Chavez, could through a Corporation, say Citgo, exert a lot of influence in our political system. Democrats would get the blame of course.

The arc of history is bending back towards injustice.

More evidence that crackers are in full freakout mode, an all white basketball league formed in Georgia. The All American Basketball Alliance is looking for host cities.

"Only players that are natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league,"

There is a segment of our society that was driven a little bit mad a year ago. They couldn't conceive that Their Country could have elected a black man, and they snapped. They groped for some explanation of how this could happen, and came to the conclusion that it couldn't have. Their Country has gone missing, and they wanted Their Country back. Just as Don "Moose" Lewis claims his all-white basketball league is not about racism, the shrill ,unfocused anxiety and rage of the Teabaggers is supposedly not about race. It's about how Obama (A big-business friendly corporatist centrist) Is enacting, somehow a vast and radical leftist agenda, he has appointed himself dictator, he's going to take your guns! Lots of vague fears expressed, but not the real one. "There's a black man in the white house! Lock up your daughters".

The AABA is a disturbing sign. The hate and fear are bubbling closer to the surface. The robes and ropes are being unpacked.

Praying for death part II

Well we have a date for the Rapture, it's May 21, 2011 according to scriptural numbers runner Harold Camping. Seems he and his hangers-on can't wait for the wholesale slaughter Camping has breathlessly predicted. He predicted it would happen 16 years ago, but, apparently, no soap.

This guy owns over 50 radio stations. I think He should put his money where his mouth is and sign ownership of all of those stations over to Pacifica Radio as of May 22, 2011. No problem, right?

Praying for death.

I am always dismayed by the Democrats' inability to do good, and the GOP's uncanny ability to do ill. Here is an example of the latter.

CALLER: Yeah doctor. Our small tea bag group here in Waycross, we got our vigil together and took Dr. Coburn’s instructions and prayed real hard that Sen. Byrd would either die or couldn’t show up at the vote the other night.

How hard did you pray because I see one of our members was missing this morning. Did it backfire on us? One of our members died? How hard did you pray senator? Did you pray hard enough

HOST: Senator Barasso, he was referring to Senator Inhofe, who was not part of the round of voting this morning.

BARASSO: The votes today, they needed 60 votes in favor of the bill. Senator Inhofe is opposed to the bill, and whether he was there or not didn’t make any difference. There was no way that Jim Inhofe was going to vote for the bill, the senator from Oklahoma. So that’s why he wasn’t there this morning.

HOST: Do you know where he was, senator, why he wasn’t able to make the vote this morning?

BARASSO: No, I don’t know.

The problem with Optimism

Optimism can be a good thing in the right measure. In the same way, pessimism can be a good thing. The pessimistic eye can spot trouble, and the optimistic heart can supply possibilities for solving that trouble. But you need a bit of both. Taken to extremes, Optimism and pessimism will end up looking virtually identical. The pathological Pessimist will say there’s nothing we can do, the pathological Optimist will say that there’s nothing we need to do. In either case, the house burns down.

George W. Bush rightly calls himself an Optimist. Look where that got us.