The Patriot

Millionaire Tax Relief

2010-12-17T12:51:00.001-05:00

Julian Assange has been released from a British prison and is now giving interviews from the splendid estate where he is confined under what his lawyer describes as “mansion arrest.” He is, as he should be, unrepentant and feisty, pledging more document releases and legal battles. If only the Democrats in the White House and Congress had one tenth the backbone of a Julian Assange the poor in this country might stand a fighting chance.

Unfortunately, such strength is in short supply down in DC, where the Democrats capitulated late last night, passing Obama’s millionaire tax relief bill after token opposition from the so-called “liberal” caucus. Arguments have been made by the “less liberal” caucus that this bill was a necessity to ensure that unemployment insurance could be extended, but no matter how much lipstick you slather on that pig, it’s still a pig. This bill creates no jobs and, with its supposedly temporary payroll tax holiday, basically guarantees that the social security trust fund will become insolvent. Republicans are not stupid. Mean, arrogant, batshit crazy, yes, but stupid, no. They know that starving Social Security now will make it all that much easier to sell a gullible public on the idea that there is an urgent need for “reform”, which would likely take the form of privatized accounts with the certainty of Wall Street involvement.

Some Democrats recognize the danger. From the Times:

“Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, said he feared the one-year cut in the Social Security payroll tax, to 4.2 percent from 6.2 percent on income up to $106,800, would weaken Social Security because Republicans would insist on it being made permanent, and Democrats would relent. “We know that politically once you make that tax cut it will be impossible to restore it,” Mr. Nadler said.”

It’s interesting, and a little pathetic, that Nadler takes it for a given that the Democrats will roll over on the issue of restoring the tax, but he’s probably correct. Certainly there’s nothing in the recent actions of Congress or the Administration that would lead one to believe they’re spoiling for a fight. On anything.

Keeping an Eye on Things

2010-12-15T13:41:00.000-05:00

Sorry folks, I’ve been a little off this week. I’ve been fighting a cold that’s taken some zing out of my stinger and I’ve been running around after work a bit lately. It doesn’t mean I’ve given up being outraged and disgusted, but my body has been permitting a little less outrage these past few days.

With the help of Michael Moore and some other members of the Hollywood set, Julian Assange was granted bail yesterday, yet he continues to sit in prison so the government can appeal the judges ruling. So it goes. If that poor bastard gets out of prison before the US Government indicts him and hauls him off to Gitmo he should consider himself lucky. Meanwhile, Wikileaks keeps churning out the hits. Cable after cable proving that the cynical leftists were essentially right about, well, almost everything. Yet the administration is pissed off because someone turned over their rock and shined a light on the snakes underneath. Amazing. This government has extended the Bush administration’s full frontal assault on civil liberties without apology. Wikileaks is just their big fat chicken flying home to roost for the holidays. Michael Moore in his letter explaining why he contributed to Assange’s bail fund said, “Openness, transparency -- these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt.” Is it any surprise that the powerful and corrupt are calling for show trials and executions? Nah.

Moore goes on to aptly describe what I think is the real benefit to having Wikileaks out there firing rhetorical missiles into the heartland-the possibility for future government restraint.

“Might WikiLeaks cause some unintended harm to diplomatic negotiations and U.S. interests around the world? Perhaps. But that's the price you pay when you and your government take us into a war based on a lie. Your punishment for misbehaving is that someone has to turn on all the lights in the room so that we can see what you're up to. You simply can't be trusted. So every cable, every email you write is now fair game. Sorry, but you brought this upon yourself. No one can hide from the truth now. No one can plot the next Big Lie if they know that they might be exposed.”

I agree that the government needs to be exposed, but unlike Moore I’m not entirely convinced that they’ll change their ways overnight, certainly not without a constant parade of Private Mannings and Julian Assanges holding the torch up to their misdeeds. Repressive governments are like vampires. Once you turn the lights out they’ll come slinking back in the dark to resume sucking your blood. They can’t help it. It’s their nature, the poor dears.

Remember people, whether you accept the paradigm or not, there is a class war going on in this country. It’s the wealthy and powerful against the rest of us, just like it’s always been. You don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s the unvarnished opinion of the incoming chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., who told the Birmingham news that "in Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."

At least he's intellectually honest. That must count for something.

A Taxing Plan

2010-12-13T15:40:00.003-05:00

Obama’s capitulation on tax breaks for the rich has finally gotten some of the mainstream Democrats pissed off to the point where they are articulating sentiments heretofore unheard in the polite company of the two party system. Here’s one unhappy Obama voter:

“At this point, only 3 kinds of people think their vote counts for anything: 1) the absurdly naive, 2) the authoritarian cheerleader, and 3) the perpetually stupid. Pick your category.”

That bit of cynical wisdom comes from a comment made on Salon.com responding to an article by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, which concluded that anyone who still sees government as our last bulwark against privilege and power is aghast at Obama's tax deal.

Nevertheless, the unwashed masses actually support the tax plan, probably because they aren’t mentally tying that 2% payroll tax holiday to the cat food they’re going to be eating when social security goes belly-up. Well, live for the moment has always been the American way.

The government giveth and the government taketh away. Citizens in New York won’t see that much in savings even with the tax cut. The $67 to $178 a month you'll be saving will just go to things like fare hikes and parking meters. One financial planner opined that, "It sounds like you'll be able to live a better life—but when you work it out, it doesn't create any new disposable income." The dirty secret about taxes is that you will never, ever get a real break. The less money the feds have to give to the states, the more local taxes will rise to meet local expenses. It’s a shell game, and you are the nut.

Way Over Yonder in the Monarchy

2010-12-10T09:24:00.002-05:00

Things are starting to heat up in Europe. Last night Prince Charles and his wife were taking the Rolls out for a spin when they were set upon by a mob of socialists and anarchists with pitchforks. The crowd was chanting “off with their heads” and “Tory Scum” while smashing the car’s windows and attempting to drag the royal personages into the street to administer a little mob justice. A commenter at the NY Times noted that this might be the first attack on members of the Royal Family on the streets of London since George III's carriage was attacked en route to the opening of Parliament in October 1795. You remember George the III; he was King at the time of the American Revolution. Plus ca change.

The look of utter shock on the royal faces was pretty telling. It was the same startled look of privileged people everywhere who are confronted with agitated serfs. In their heart of hearts the uber-rich and powerful believe that poor and working class people owe them a free life of luxury. Thus, the incredible consternation when they realize the people would just as soon string them up as look at them. Let’s hope the privileged have many more such shocking surprises in their near future.

The attempted regicide occurred after a day of pitched battles between students and police on the streets of London. It is unfortunate that the attack on the royals has diverted some attention from the fact that England appears to be convulsed in chaos, largely brought on by the government’s attempts to restore the economy on the backs of the workers and students. The students, quite rightly, see the writing on the wall and realize that if the government isn’t stopped now, England will start to resemble the United States, with no healthcare and unattainably expensive higher education. Another commenter on the Times web site hit the nail on the head:

“Why shouldn't the students attack Prince Charles's limousine, paid for no doubt by tax money that could be used to subsidize higher education tuition? English students don't want their educational system becoming Americanized: available to those with money, a heavy if not impossible burden for those who don't.”

Back here in the colonies, the silence has been deafening. We’re all too busy staring at our little screens and venting our frustrations on Facebook to be bothered to get out in the streets and fight for our due. The government is well aware of citizen apathy and takes full advantage thereof. Yesterday I heard a Republican, Jim DeMint float a proposal to make unemployment insurance into a loan, rather than an entitlement, to be paid back with interest and administered by Wall Street. You would think that in a country with 10% unemployment this would elicit howls of protest from the citizenry. You would think, but you would be wrong.

The only thing that gives me a glimmer of hope, just a glimmer mind you, is that the comments on the last few articles in the Times about the European protests are brimming with barely contained anger at the government. With the Obama tax sellout and the coming evisceration of the social safety net, it feels like we’re sitting on a big pile of gunpowder. I just wonder who is going to light the match.

Free Speech Under Fire

2010-12-08T12:57:00.001-05:00

One of the most valuable things to come out of the Wikileaks brouhaha is that average citizen can finally observe the lengths to which the Unites States government will go to squelch speech that doesn’t agree with the sanctioned narrative. Usually the government uses dirty tricks against someone they’ve defined as a pain in the ass, well outside of the media glare. Tactics like destroying someone’s reputation and sending them down the road to financial ruin have typically been reserved for the more marginal left wing activists, who were unlikely to garner much sympathy from the general public in any event. Here, we have an intelligent, charismatic anarchist who cleans up well and looks good on television-a totalitarian government’s worst nightmare. As a consequence, they were forced to use their biggest guns, and fire them in full view of the media.

Obama’s government, (let’s not lose sight of that salient fact), has thus far exerted pressure on Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, Twitter, the Swiss Banking and legal institutions and the mainstream media, sufficient to drive Wikileaks to the brink of nonexistence, all because it was doing what journalists are supposed to do-report the news. I seem to remember learning way back in civics class that a free press was a vital component of a free society. The fact that most of the media outlets in this country have abdicated any pretense that they are still practicing anything resembling investigative journalism, seems to have given the government the idea that they are free to squash dissent with cavalier impunity.

Even I was taken aback by Lieberman’s call to investigate whether criminal charges could be brought against the NY Times for publishing the Wikileaks cables, but I guess that is part of the whole plan to re-frame the debate. Two weeks ago, Wikipedia was regularly described in the media as “whistleblowers”. Over the past week, news organizations Reuters, NBC, and the Associated Press have formally decided to stop identifying WikiLeaks as a "whistleblower" organization. Clearly, the media is attempting to turn public opinion to the government’s view of Wikipedia, that is, that they are cyber terrorists.

From the Atlantic: “Gawker's Ryan Tate thinks it is telling that the three news outlets amended their style guidelines to fit with the White House's official characterization of the leaks. "What a coincidence!" he marvels. Tate is also skeptical of the AP's claim that "a website that specializes in displaying leaked information" is a clearer and more accurate designation. "[That] rolls right off the tongue," Tate scoffs.”

Language is power. If you can frame the issue with your language, you’ve won more than half the battle in the court of public opinion. Here, the government has pressed the bankers and the media into service to achieve its totalitarian aim to stifle dissent. This should be resisted firmly by every patriot worthy of the name.

Wikileaks Needs Your Support

2010-12-07T13:59:00.000-05:00

Take two days off and the world explodes. I’m not sure which story merits more consideration today, Obama’s complete capitulation to the Republicans on the tax “compromise”, or the concerted global effort to shut down Wikileaks. The Obama tax cut disaster was a foregone conclusion, so I guess venting my spleen at the administration wouldn’t add anything to the conversation. I’d simply like to suggest two words to the suddenly disillusioned Democrats who really, really thought that this time Obama was fighting for their interests: Primary. Challenge. He could care less about you. Dump him in the ditch like a sack of old potatoes and try to find someone liberal enough to stave off the utter dismantling of the social safety net. I’m not saying you’re going to be able to do it, but for heavens sake, at least try. And take that ring out of your nose. The party has led you around by the nose long enough.

Let’s review today’s developments in the Wikileak saga, shall we? Assange was arrested (no surprise there) and denied bail (also not surprising) in England where he will presumably be held long enough for the United States to charge him under some particularly Orwellian section of the Patriot Act. Attorney General Eric Holder is lauding the arrest, which doesn’t bode well for Assante’s future. As I was writing the preceding paragraph, I noticed that Mastercard, Paypal and Visa both shut down electronic donations to Wikileaks, thereby resolving any lingering doubts you may have had about the whether the government and bankers are one and the same. The move also deprives Assange of the funds he will undoubtedly need to avoid ending up in a CIA prison somewhere in Bumfuckistan.

It is perhaps worthy of note that Mastercard, Paypal and Visa continue to allow organizations like the KKK to utilize their services. Not sure about their reasoning there.

Fortunately, Philadelphia-based Xipwire has stepped in and set up a page where Wikileaks supporters can donate. "Our motivation is really simple," Xipline founder Sharif Aleandre explained in an email. "While people may or may not agree with WikiLeaks and the documents it has released, we feel that PayPal's recent decision to refuse to process donations on their behalf effectively silences voices in this democracy. In fact, it was the Citizens United case that basically equated donations with free speech and if the Supreme Court decided that our government doesn't have the power to regulate that speech then it's our opinion that corporations certainly shouldn't have that power either."

I can’t fault his reasoning. Reaction on the interwebs to the concentrated attack on Wikileaks has been pretty intense. Most savvy internet users know that this is bigger than Wikileaks. Glen Greenwald rightly noted over at Salon that 'What's really going on here is a war over control of the nternet and whether or not the internet can actually serve what a lot of people hoped its ultimate purpose was, which was to allow citizens to band together and democratize the checks on the world’s most powerful factions."

If governments are allowed to dictate what can or cannot be published and debated in the public square, the chilling effect on free speech cannot be denied.

Donations to Wikileaks can be made HERE. You can also donate $10 by texting WL to 56624.

Fat Cats vs. We the Sheeple

2010-12-03T13:39:00.003-05:00

Deficit reduction is the hot topic in the MSM these days. Various ostensibly "bipartisan” panels are meeting behind closed doors and deciding exactly how much fleecing the citizenry can stand, in order to ensure that a regular supply of money flows unimpeded into the higher income brackets. The media has been dutifully reporting the recommendations presented by these panels of aristocrats (or, aristocats?) without question; certainly without positing other, more obvious solutions that would impact the wealthy more than the rest of us. In other words, its business as usual.

Excuse me, but General Electric paid NO corporate income tax last year, and you want me to work until I’m 70 years old to pay some bankers year-end bonus? Go fuck yourself!! You know who else paid no federal income tax last year? Bank of America. Yup, one of the largest recipients of taxpayer bailout money had sufficient profits to pay out millions of dollars in bonuses to its top executives, but had a federal tax liability of exactly zero. Let’s see, who else……..oh, I almost forgot, Exxon Mobil also paid NO federal income tax last year, despite raking in $10.3 billion in pretax income. How do they do it? Easy, they report all of the losses in the United States, and declare all of their overseas income, which they don’t have to pay taxes on. Yup, the US Government rewards giant corporations for moving their operations overseas by giving them massive tax breaks.

I'm really having trouble wrapping my mind around this. Rather than suggesting that corporate welfare be eliminated to substantially reduce the deficit, the bipartisan commission actually suggested REDUCING the corporate income tax rate to 26% from 35%! (Presumably this would only apply to those corporations whose accountants aren’t smart enough to figure out how completely elude their tax liabilites.) It's still kind of breathtaking to actually see it written down in the same document that purports to be a responsible approach to the deficit.

Other highlights from the commission:

-Collapsing today's five income tax rates into three brackets: 8 percent for the lowest incomes, 14 percent for middle incomes and 23 percent for the wealthiest. (Note the wealthiest would see the most significant reduction in their federal taxes under this plan);

-Ending $1.1 trillion in popular tax breaks ranging from deducting mortgage interest to receiving health insurance from employers on a pre-tax basis. (That would broaden the tax base and make virtually all Americans pay more in taxes.);

-Increasing the federal gas tax by 15 cents a gallon to pay for transportation improvements. (I actually agree with this one);

-Raising the age at which Americans can get Social Security benefits - to 68 by 2050 and 69 by 2075 - reflecting that Americans are living and working longer. (Unless you are poor, or black, in which case you’ll likely die at your desk).

The deficit reduction seems to forget the fact that the 6-8 billion dollars we’re spending EVERY MONTH in Afghanistan would be better spent here at home, but are you really surprised?

And then there's the tax cuts, which honestly deserve a post all to themselves.The most conservative estimates show that continuing the Bush tax cuts for those making over 250k a year adding adding four trillion dollars to the deficit. Let me say that slowly. Four. Trillion. Dollars. Yet the Deficit Commission declares that they need to get their money by strip mining Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid and from raising taxes on the middle class? Bullshit! (Firedog Lake has a great posting on the Obama administration's duplicity on this issue.)

The current hysterical urgency surrounding the need for immediate deficit reduction, smells a lot like the manufactured urgency that was used to sell the bank bailout package. Remember how that ended up? Don’t buy it. There’s money aplenty. (After all, we keep printing it when we run out.) This is all a matter of choices, and the banks and the fat cats are making those choices right now, while we the people are distracted by dancing B list celebrities and shiny electronic things. I don't know about you, but I'm more than a little concerned that Americans are behaving more sheepish now than at any time in our history. Now would be an excellent time to get out in the streets and make a little noise. Anybody? Anybody?

My Wiki is Leaking

2010-12-01T09:10:00.000-05:00

How pissed is the US government at Julian Assange? Well, if I were him I wouldn’t go for any long walks in public without armed guards. Everybody from the CIA to Interpol is no doubt looking for a way for Assange to have an unfortunate single-vehicle accident on a secluded mountain road. Plan B includes fictitious charges of rape followed by a lengthy prison term where Julian could be more easily dispatched by an intelligence operative disguised as an inmate. This is how our government has dealt with this sort of thing in the past, so I have absolutely no doubt that Assange is for all intents and purposes, a walking dead man, unless he has a secret stash of photos of Obama and Hillary Clinton with a transsexual hooker. Even then, I’d still fear for his safety. The only thing that gives me hope is that the CIA is pretty clueless about how to do anything.

It has been strangely satisfying to watch the administration freak out about having its foreign policy lies exposed for the entire world to see. I only wish these revelations had come out when Bush was still president. He probably would have ordered a drone strike on Sweden and invaded Western Europe to grab Assange and subject him to extraordinary rendition somewhere in a neutral third country. The Obama administration’s response has been a bit more restrained, although it’s starting to sound a little hysterical. I think it’s worthwhile to read Daniel Ellsberg’s take on the government’s response. The man who leaked the Pentagon papers had this to say about the State Department’s assertion that lives would be put at risk as a result of Wikileak’s publication:

That’s a script that they roll out, every administration rolls out, every time there’s a leak of any sort. The best justification for secrecy that they can find is that lives are at stake. Actually, lives are at stake as a result of silence and lies, which a lot of these leaks reveal. Certainly the same charges were made about the Pentagon Papers and turned out to be quite invalid over the years, the same things that Hillary Clinton is saying now about WikiLeaks. As a matter of fact.

Pretty standard, that script. Maybe the media will have the temerity to question the administration on that point. Nah, who am I kidding?

Assange’s life expectancy is sure to be further shortened once he turns Wikileak’s attention to the financial sector, which he has promised to do next. I mean, fuck with the government ok, fuck with the banking system? Swim with the fishes.

I Need to Take A WikiLeak

2010-11-30T09:07:00.002-05:00

Whatever you think of the propriety of the recent document dump that the anarchists over at Wikileaks have graced us with, one thing is inarguable-there really are some awfully stupid people in charge of national security. As my wife aptly pointed out in a text message to me this morning: “Really, an army private has access to what King Abdullah says in his bathroom? Hahahaha.” Every time I start to think that maybe there is something to all those conspiracy theories out there, I’m confronted with the reality that governments are completely incapable of keeping any secrets.

Our government sure is pissed about this latest release of secret diplomatic cables, although one wonders how secret they really were when roughly three million people had access to them. Their protestations of injury ring a little hollow to me. This is a government that justifies its intrusion on the lives of its citizens with increasingly oppressive security and surveillance by intoning, “you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide." Talk about being hoisted by your own petard. The government is clearly pissed at having thousands of ready examples of how their back room maneuvering was completely at odds with their propaganda, circulating so freely on the interwebs. Compared to what's in those the diplomatic cables, our government's everyday press releases and public pronouncements on the same subjects appear to have been totally fabricated.

As Norman Solomon noted over at the Huff Post, “In a democracy, people have a right to know what their government is actually doing. In a pseudo-democracy, a bunch of fairy tales from high places will do the trick. No government wants to face documentation of actual policies, goals and priorities that directly contradict its public claims of virtue. In societies with democratic freedoms, the governments that have the most to fear from such disclosures are the ones that have been doing the most lying to their own people.”

The foregoing does much to explain why the administration has been much more interested in assigning blame for the leaks than discussing their contents. Concentrating on what is in the cables would open up all sorts of uncomfortable subjects for discussion in the main-stream media. (Although, I wonder. They usually report the administration's nonsense as factual without letting anything like best-practices journalism get in the way.) Since diplomatic malfeasance reaches across the aisle these days, Congress is similarly outraged. Not at the contents of the cables, but at their dissemination. Peter King-(R)NY has gone so far as to suggest that Wikileaks be charged under the USA Patriot Act as a terrorist organization. Joe Lieberman (Lieberman-CT), frames the leak as an attack on our national security, and presumably would recommend torture and indefinite imprisonment in a secret CIA prison for Julian Assange.

I’ll close this entry with the same question Solomon posed in his article, which is a really, really good question: “[W]hat kind of "national security" can be built on duplicity from a government that is discredited and refuted by its own documents?” Indeed.

A Triumphant Return

2010-11-29T15:08:00.002-05:00

Hi, I’m back. I might explain my absence at some point, or I might not. This blog might still be about politics, or it might not. I haven’t decided yet. All I know is that I find myself getting bored and feeling mildly depressed that I don’t have some outlet for my mental diarrhea. Since this page was already set up I figured, why not? With all the Cialis spam clogging up the comments section it looks like I have a readership in the millions. Why not build on that base?

Speaking of the base….tsk, tsk Obama. Freezing the salaries of Federal employees is one sure fire way of dooming your re-election hopes for 2012. Not that I give a crap. You lost me somewhere between the Wall Street bailout and that blow-job you gave the insurance companies that you call “health care reform”. Nevertheless, what kind of president cuts middle-class salaries in the middle of a recession in a country where 70% of the economy is driven by consumer spending? A one-term president, that’s who.

I only hope that at some point prior to the drubbing you’re bound to receive at the polls two Novembers hence, your fixation on deficit reduction draws your sleepy eyes towards the disaster in Afghanistan. Our little foray in nation-building in the Middle East is costing us six billion dollars a month, which is enough to hand each and every American taxpayer a million dollars. Imagine how putting all those dollars into the stream of commerce would stimulate the economy? But Americans aren’t bankers, are they? So we won’t be the recipient of any government largesse this holiday season, will we? In fact, all the grannies and disabled widows and the blind people will have to tighten the belt another notch this year because there isn’t enough money in the budget for a cost of living increase. Bah, humbug indeed.

And yet….we both know that the money really is there, don’t we. Unfortunately it’s locked up in yachts and mansions and private jets, all purchased with our tax dollars that you gave to the bankers in the naïve hope that some of it would trickle down to the masses and stimulate the economy. I, for one, have always been able to tell the difference between getting stimulated and getting fucked, and I must say this feels more like the latter than the former.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

2009-07-10T15:41:00.000-04:00

I haven’t been posting here regularly, mostly because it seems like an exercise in futility. Obama has proven himself to be a Bush-lite clone whose administration has bent over backwards to line the pockets of the bankers and corporations. I see little evidence that the man has done anything but continue the Republicans’ agenda of screwing the American people by presiding over the biggest wealth transfer in the history of the republic. When I think of all of that taxpayer money going to Wall Street and then hear that Obama is planning to tax employer provided health benefits, do away with the mortgage exemption and continue the war in Afghanistan without an end strategy, I have to draw the conclusion that Ralph Nader came to years ago: there is no fundamental difference between the Republican and Democratic parties.

The situation with the government’s bail-out of General Motors is a great example. I can’t say it better than some letter-writers to the Times today whose thoughts are excerpted below:

"I simply don't understand why our government chose to back G.M. Wasn't the rationale behind the handouts to save millions of jobs and local economies? Taxpayers have invested 50 billion dollars into this company only to watch hundreds of thousands of jobs being slashed with the transition to the "new G.M." Left behind are the little guys.”

“Most offensive was GM's chief attorney's claim that the Union members left behind opposed the sale because they were "envious" of the UAW workers, and that such workers had naively and delusionally imagined a "conspiracy" between GM and the government. As someone from a working-class background who belongs to a union, and whose family members have benefited from union membership, I find it appalling that President Obama would and his administration would sanction such contemptuous, class-ridden, smears against working Americans. These people lost their health benefits because of you, Barack. They were not a jealous, disgruntled paranoid mob, but rather workers who now face retirement without their union benefits. Shame.”

“Odd that corporate socialism is desirable(GM, AIG, Chrysler, Citi) but public socialism such as health care for all causes our president and congress to have second thoughts.
I guess they're just dancing with the ones that brought 'em.”

Not odd my friend, just business as usual in Washington.

Torturing the Truth

2009-05-06T13:50:00.000-04:00

I completed the Long Island ½ marathon on Sunday with a new PR for the distance-1:47.53. This marks the third consecutive ½ marathon in the last year where my time has improved. I do realize that at some point the limitations of flesh and bone will invariably intersect with the decreasing numbers on the clock and I will be forced to confront the reality of aging and diminishing performance. But not quite yet. Running has saved my more times than I can count so I will keep at it until they carry me off the road kicking and screaming.

Speaking of kicking and screaming, it appears that the Obama DOJ has decided not to prosecute the attorneys who wrote the so-called “torture memos,” which gave the CIA permission under color of law to torture suspected Al Qaeda operatives to extract information about future attacks on the United States. Instead, they plan on wagging a stern finger at the naughty lawyers and suggesting that they be reported to their local bar association for disciplinary action. I don’t know where these lawyers practice, but the only thing that will get you disciplined by the bar where I live is if you flagrantly steal a client’s money. Using flimsy legal arguments to justify torture that ends in death? We call that zealous advocacy ‘round these parts.

I had thought that when I pulled the lever for a Democrat in this last election that I would be doing my part to help reverse the general collapse of the rule of law in the United States. The Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, torture were legacies of a reactionary Republican administration, or so I thought. It is worth recalling that we prosecuted Japanese soldiers who used waterboarding in WWII. Why is Obama willing to look the other way while those who perpetrated the act in our name get away with murder?

Running

2009-05-01T15:31:00.001-04:00

This Sunday I’ll be towing the line at the Long Island half-marathon; the second year in a row I’ve braved the boredom of the Wantagh Parkway in pursuit of inner excellence. This will be my 3rd ½ marathon in the last year. I discovered that the distance is perfect for the time constraints I have; the training isn’t so onerous that I’m away from the house for too long on the week-ends, and the race (with any luck) is over in less than two hours. At times I wish I could get back into running full marathons, ultras even, but I simply do not have the time to adequately train and also spend enough quality time with the family. Plus, when I’m running a race my 41 year old knees start telling me that 13.2 miles is QUITE enough. Erin is kind enough to allow me an hour on Saturday and Sunday to run, unencumbered by either guilt or a baby jogger, so I have been learning to squeeze as much joy out of my runs as possible.

The north shore of Long Island is a great place to run but it can also be fairly challenging. Despite the relatively empty roads and bucolic scenery-views of the Sound abound-there are also a lot of very wealthy people driving around in big cars while simultaneously talking on cell phones. I have had to jump the curb many times to avoid being flattened by Bentleys and Hummers whose drivers were more intent on their phone calls than on what was going on in the space around their cars. After running for 20 years on the roads you develop a 6th sense of which cars pose the most danger, even if you’re jamming down the road blasting your i-pod. There are also a lot of hills, but I prefer running up hills to running on the flats.

Have a good week-end everyone.

Obama, Prosecute the War Criminals

2009-04-29T13:26:00.002-04:00

Obama’s decision not to prosecute the perpetrators of the torture that was carried out in secret military bases, torture that resulted in the death of at least 100 people is completely inexcusable. Article 2.2 of the U.N. Convention Against Torture, to which the U.S. became a State Party in 1998 under Ronald Reagan is quite clear:

"No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."

The Bush administration and its legal enablers violated the treaty. Treaties which have been ratified by the United States Senate have the same force and effect as laws passed in the United States. Those responsible MUST be put on trial and, if found guilty, sent to prison. Yes it was a group of pretty despicable people who were subjected to this treatment, but that shouldn’t matter. Laws against torture and abuse of prisoners were not put in place to stop crimes against people we like, but to stop interrogators from misusing their power to harm people we despise. It is very strange to me, this idea that we should just “move on”. Why? As a letter writer to the Times astutely noted this morning, if some average Joe imprisoned somebody in his basement, chained them from the ceiling, kept them awake for 11 days straight, and waterboarded them 183 times resulting in their death you wouldn't question for a moment the need for prosecution. In fact, in most states, murder of this sort is a first degree offense and would subject the perpetrator to the death penalty. Yet Obama, in the name of God knows what, has decided that this is somehow an inappropriate path to tread down. Perhaps he doesn’t want to start taking whacks at the increased presidential power that Bush seized during his reign of terror for fear that his own power would be truncated. Who knows?

Nevertheless, Presidents are not above the law and history will not treat us kindly if we choose to look the other way at this monumental crime for the sake of political expediency.

100 Days

2009-04-29T09:00:00.001-04:00

Like most of you I was raised with the aphorism, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” Of course I routinely ignored that advice during the Bush tenure, but I promised a few people I would give Obama the benefit of the doubt before subjecting him to the same sort of critical review due politicians of lesser intellect and stature. So, I took a little hiatus during the first 100 days of the Obama administration, hopeful that when I returned I would be able to report that the ship of state was sailing along smoothly under the steady hand of our taciturn commander-in-chief. Well…….not really. Obama has proven himself an able leader and a masterful politician, but in some areas he has fumbled badly and should be brought to task for his mistakes. For example, he has deeply disappointed the left and hasn’t made any new friends on the right-so much for change in Washington. He has supported the Bush administration’s assault on the Constitution and failed to prosecute the perpetrators of torture at the CIA. The stimulus plan gives too much money to Wall Street, etc., etc. At least he is taking a stab at healthcare and I can’t say enough positive things about his push towards green energy and support for a high-speed rail system. But he won’t get a free ride from this blogger. Not anymore.

For a part-time blogging hack like myself, Obama poses a dilemma. He is so active, on so many fronts, that it is impossible to analyze his performance in the amount of time I have to devote to this blog. So I’ll take little bites and chew thoroughly. Stay tuned.

Baby You Can Drive My Car

2009-03-30T14:46:00.001-04:00

Obama’s finger wagging at Detroit is mighty curious considering that the amount of money being sought by the automakers is a mere drop in the bucket compared with the bail-out of the fat cats on Wall Street. I guess you get what you pay for. The financial sector has spent over $20 billion over the last ten years to curry favor on the Hill and in the White House, and now they’re calling in their chips.

You could also argue that the auto industry is being treated like garbage because the government blew the bank bailout badly by pouring $350 billion down the drain with no benefit on Main Street. The political reality of the moment is that somebody has to get in it in the shorts to satisfy the public's need for blood. The sheeple glued to CNN apparently buy the party line that the collapse of GM and Chrysler was the fault of the union line worker (damn those people who can afford THREE meals a day on their salary), rather than bone headed management decisions. Couple the public perception with the fact that the industry’s influence in Washington is on the wane and presto, the auto industry gets to die in place of the financial industry that caused our current problems.

Yes, the banking industry is important to the American economy, but the banking industry is not wholly composed of BofA, Citibank, et al. As long as they remain the sole focus of the discussion and the people are browbeat into believing that their rescue is absolutely necessary, it becomes clear in whose interests these banks are being saved. Hint: it ain’t ours.

Legalize It

2009-03-27T10:10:00.000-04:00

I’m coming off hiatus to issue a stern wag of the finger at Obama’s cavalier treatment of the marijuana legalization issue in his internet town hall meeting yesterday. As anyone with ½ a brain knows, and Obama has much more than ½ a brain, the war on drugs has been a total failure. There are over 1 million Americans in jail for the victimless crime of possession of marijuana. Ending the prohibition on drugs would solve numerous problems. Crime rates would plummet (big time organized crime, small time stealing, possession), taxes go up as drugs are sold legally like liquor. The cost of the War on Drugs (billions wasted) eliminated. Prison costs cut in half. The money saved can be used to treat drug addiction as a medical condition and there would be a lot of money left over. Whole countries are now being destabilized because of drugs. Why is Obama a coward on this issue, when the solution is obvious?

Maybe because decriminalizing pot would actually be counter to his goals. Prisons create jobs. Building prisons creates jobs. Spending billions on the War on Drugs every year creates jobs. All those potheads getting locked up are just more Americans sacrificing in the name of economic recovery.

I’m starting to think that this guy is too slick for his own good. One week after the Attorney General seemed to indicate the feds would no longer raid pot clubs, DEA agents busted a medical marijuana facility in San Francisco the night before his speech. If this is the position an administration filled with intelligent thinkers is going to take on this issue, I have to question their motives. This one is a no-brainer.

Back in the USSA

2009-02-25T09:33:00.000-05:00

The Patriot recently returned from a short vacation to Italy and has been having some trouble readjusting to the American lifestyle. Some of this may be related to lingering jet lag, but I suspect a good deal is malaise at returning to a country that seems so small minded and paranoid compared to its European neighbors. Returning to US soil through Immigration and Customs was a humiliating experience; poorly educated bureaucrats drunk with their own power, screaming at people for talking on cell phones and deigning to ask impertinent questions about what line to stand in while waiting to be evaluated for the rubber glove treatment. So it goes. We may have gotten rid of Bush, but his legacy lives on in the police state that he created and which Obama shows little interest in dismantling.

I’m not holding out Italy as some sort of paradise. Far from it. But what Italy, and the rest of “old Europe” have going for it is a lifestyle outlook that eschews consumerism in favor of simple pleasures like friends, good food, and an appreciation of leisure. Before you all write in to flame me, I am aware that Europe has issues with rigid class structures and an appalling record on dealing with immigrants. Nevertheless, the small cars, small apartments, rigidly enforced recycling program and focus on living life rather than buying crap you don’t need is something American’s should pay attention to. For better or worse we’re all going to have to start living small.

I watched Obama’s speech last night and I was not at all impressed. After a few minutes, I felt as if I was hearing the campaign rhetoric repackaged and rebranded for a slightly different audience. The speech was long on style and short on substance. With the stock market still in freefall and the "details" of our economic salvation yet to be revealed, this administration can hardly be said to have taken the bull by the horns-despite the lofty rhetoric.

Many of the ideals espoused by our Dear Leader lacked a basis in anything approaching objective reality. Obama sternly lectured that corporate executives will not be allowed to profit form the financial bailout-and yet refused to push for any strings to be attached to the money. He stated that bold action was necessary to save the country from the economic crisis and yet was short on specifics. I have a few ideas. How about bold actions like FBI forensic accountants pouring over the books of bad banks looking for fraud. How about bold action to claw back the bonuses paid to executives from the last round of TARP money? None of this is in the stimulus plan he was crowing about last night.

I see no evidence that Obama's plan to fix the banks does what the American people are demanding-hold those who gambled with the public's money accountable-or what the economy requires. His plan seems to be little more than a continuation of the philosophy of the Bush years.

While our president speaks of “necessary sacrifice”, the centerpiece of the economic recovery plan is apparently more lending and more debt. Oh, and printing more money to pay for everything. Am I alone in finding this approach to be, well, insane? Wasn’t it the accumulation of debt and laxity in lending that started us down the rabbit hole?

Meet the New Boss

2009-02-10T13:27:00.002-05:00

I would have thought that this administration would have had a better read on the pulse of the populist rage sweeping the county, but I guess I was wrong. The new stimulus plan is a disaster and it won’t work. It also isn’t very much different from the first TARP plan, who’s funds disappeared down the rabbit hole of $40,000 commodes and corporate jets.

The architect of Tarp II is none other then Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, erstwhile head of the New York Federal Reserve and overseer of the financial meltdown. Why Obama put this man in charge of The Treasury when his short-sightedness was instrumental in causing the problem in the first place, I don’t know. The man couldn’t even be bothered to pay his own taxes, but he is rewarded by control over the entuire financial system. Nice.

As intended by Mr. Geithner, the current stimulus plan stops short of intruding too significantly into bankers’ affairs even as they start to receive corporate welfare. The $500,000 pay cap for executives at companies receiving assistance applies only to very senior executives, who will likely find a way around it anyway. The plan also will not require shareholders of companies receiving significant assistance to lose most or all of their investment. Perhaps most galling, while the administration will “urge” banks to increase lending, it will not attach any conditions to the billions of dollars in new government money. This plan is hardly different from the Bush administration’s approach of greasing the palms of the same companies and executives who peddled risky loans and investments at the heart of the crisis. How is this a change from “the failed economic policies of the last eight years?”

I think the plan is a mistake. I also think that any plan which props up home values, and extends more credit to overextended consumers is ill conceived at best. Irresponsible use of credit got us into this mess in the first place. How is extending more credit so people can resume living beyond their means going to solve this financial crisis?

This is just more protection for the wealthy and their money. I cannot understand the thought process behind a government decision that risks economic catastrophe to protect the wealthiest Americans while enraging everyone else. I think the administration will come to deeply regret this decision.

Down the Drain

2009-02-06T09:38:00.001-05:00

The Senate on Wednesday voted to expand the economic stimulus package with a tax credit for homebuyers of up to $15,000, a provision championed by Republicans as addressing a root cause of the recession. The tax credit would give buyers 10 percent of the price of a primary residence bought within one year, up to $15,000, and is intended to stabilize plummeting home prices. This single-minded obsession government has with propping up housing values is misguided at best and seriously damaging to the economy at worst. Housing prices have to continue to fall until they are in line with incomes and the government should not do anything to screw around with the natural correction currently going on in the housing market.

The tax credit assumes that people have sufficient liquid resources for a 10-20% downpayment. The US has had a negative savings rate for the last ten years and the value of most people’s investments has been cut by ½ in the last quarter of the last year alone. I doubt too many Americans are sitting on a big wad of cash they feel would be best spent gambling on the unstable housing market right now.

The housing industry needs to downsize. There are over 2,000,000 excess housing units in the US, most of them overpriced. There was far too much construction during the boom. This not only created an excess of housing but also an excess of unsustainable jobs. Having an economy based upon building houses and selling them to each other rather than on the production of tangible goods or innovative technologies is the difference between a consumption economy and a production economy. Consumption economies are inherently unsustainable and bound to fail.

And frankly, the whole ideology of saving the economy by spending was discredited, wasn’t it? We're supposed to spend our way out of this? With what real income? With what credit? Isn't spending imaginary money what got us into this mess in the first place?

“Businesses are panicked and fighting for survival and slashing their payrolls,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “I think we’re trapped in a very adverse, self-reinforcing cycle. The downturn is intensifying, and likely to intensify further unless policy makers respond aggressively.” The Obama administration needs to stop fucking around with bipartisanship and come up with some drastic solutions to what is fast becoming a spiraling economic disaster. 598,000 jobs were lost in January of this year. A half million jobs. In one month.

Parenting

2009-02-02T14:52:00.001-05:00

There has been a lot of discussion in the blogosphere about a “study” that was done last week by Parenting magazine which broke the startling news that married women, as a whole, are pissed at their husbands. The reason? According to author Martha Brockenborough:

"We're mad that having children has turned our lives upside down much more than theirs. We're mad that these guys, who can manage businesses or keep track of thousands of pieces of sports trivia, can be clueless when it comes to what our kids are eating and what supplies they need for school. And more than anything else, we're mad that they get more time to themselves than we do."

I am going to reserve comment for a minute on how completely banal and stereotypical such a depiction of lazy husbands and nagging wives sounds. I have to wonder though, who lives like this? Are there really still places in America where Everybody Loves Raymond is an accurate depiction of life in the suburbs? My gut instinct is that this “scientific” survey is nothing more than a reflection of the views of a cross section of the irate mommies who read Parenting magazine. In other words, white, upper middle class women who, for whatever reason, are stuck in lousy relationships with men they have little in common with.

The real problem? Our relationships are out of whack because our economic system is out of whack. If both parents are working full time the home is always one step away from chaos. Our children are not only being being raised by strangers out of necessity but they are being taught rigid social conformity as if it is some kind of civic virtue. (We sacrifice art and music in school for business and math and expect that we are going to have well-rounded kids-but that’s another posting entirely).

Our society needs to follow the European model and give more support to families with children. A fraction of that bailout money could go a long way towards paying for programs that allow more flexible work hours and options for part time work for both parents. We should demand that Obama and Congress pass laws that insist that companies allow more work-from-home options, and provide paid maternity and paternity leave. We need an economy that brings the buying power of our wages out of the 1970, and we need universal, single-payer health care, and publicly funded college, and retirement. Don’t tell me the government can’t afford it. If we can afford the banking bailout and bankroll two wars simultaneously, we can afford it.

Fuck Parenting magazine and their facile approach to a serious social problem. Instead of fomenting a war between the sexes, if they have any interest in helping parents they should use their platform as a bully pulpit to steer some of the billions of dollars going to bail out the Wall Street Fuckers to support working families.

Pull Back the Tarp

2009-01-30T14:45:00.000-05:00

Is anyone surprised, really surprised, that the Wall Street folks took our taxpayer bailout money and gave it to their already super-wealthy friends as bonuses? I sure ain’t. You cannot give a crack addict more crack and delude yourself into thinking he’s going to share it with others. Obama was right to express his anger at the misuse of the TARP money, but that doesn’t go far enough. While there may be no legal means by which he can claw back the compensation already paid, he can certainly place stringent conditions on the dispersion of future funds. The question is whether he has the will. Have a nice week-end everyone.

The First Seven Days

2009-01-27T13:40:00.002-05:00

I promised Erin the day of the inauguration that I would refrain from making any negative comments about Obama until at least 100 days had passed. At the time I expected this period of self-imposed silence to be a teeth-gritting, hand-wringing sort of affair. I imagined sitting in front of the keyboard, vein throbbing in my head, willing my fingers not to smash out a bitter screed of betrayal and dashed dreams. Much to my pleasant surprise, this has not been the case. Yes, I know it’s only been seven days, but the ability of a politician to keep his promises and tell the truth usually has a half-life measured in hours, not days. Consequently, there is reason to hope that the next 93 days will be as filled with fresh-baked cookies and hot chocolate as these first seven were.

Obama’s first week in office has been such a clear repudiation of the Bush years that one scarcely knows where to begin. Let’s begin with this, a partial transcript from an interview-the first of his presidency- Obama sat for with Al Arabiya:

“I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries….[t]he largest one, Indonesia. And so what I want to communicate is the fact that in all my travels throughout the Muslim world, what I've come to understand is that regardless of your faith – and America is a country of Muslims, Jews, Christians, non-believers – regardless of your faith, people all have certain common hopes and common dreams.

And my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that. And that I think is going to be an important task.”

Quite a sea change, isn’t it? Contrast that with the Bush administration’s paranoia and inability to draw fine distinctions between terrorists and, well, anyone else. Quite refreshing. In the same interview, the President acknowledges that the tone of a conversation is just as important as its content-something else lost on our last president:

“[T]he language we use matters. And what we need to understand is, is that there are extremist organizations – whether Muslim or any other faith in the past – that will use faith as a justification for violence. We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name.”

Obama has more faith in religion than I, but the point that we, as a country, will use our collective intellect to discern intent from context is something I can get behind 100%.

Year of the Earth Ox

2009-01-26T14:36:00.001-05:00

The Times reported today on a recent Danish study which showed that people who drink coffee are at a greatly reduced risk for developing dementia later in life. Scientists found that the subjects who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two cups or less. People who drank more than five cups a day also were at reduced risk of dementia, the researchers said, but there were not enough people in this group to draw statistically significant conclusions-probably because they couldn’t sit still long enough to complete the questionnaire. The Patriot is greatly relieved that he has an excuse to increase his coffee consumption without guilt.

Welcome to the year of the Earth Ox. Generally The Ox is the sign of prosperity gained through fortitude and hard work. The Ox is unswervingly patient, tireless in his work, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship without complaint-a very Protestant Animal, in the Weberian sense. According to a Chinese astrology web site I happened across while engaging in the very non ox-like activity of shirking my own work, “Effort, commitment and duty will be the keywords for 2009. Creatively and artistically, the Year of the Ox could see influential and exciting new works and creations being announced. Environmental and green issues will also dominate the world stage with countries establishing tighter controls and regulations.” Amazing how Chinese astrology can be so issue specific. I wonder what all the little rats in Congress-whose year has ended- think about their feng shui prospects for the coming year? Perhaps they should get a reading.

The Audacity of Hope

2009-01-22T15:49:00.002-05:00

There are endings and there are beginnings. The United States, and by extension the world, experienced both this week. The ending, of course, was the final exit of George Dubya Bush, who decamped to his suburban ranch in Texas, smarting in the wake of Obama’s devastating indictment of his legacy so eloquently framed in his inaugural speech. While Bush no doubt wished for nothing less than full imperial powers, he also must feel relieved, finally left alone to indulge his penchant for mountain biking and brush-clearing unencumbered by the unceasing demands of the Oval Office. Like a house full of graduating frat boys, he and his cowboy cabinet left one helluva mess for the rest of us to clean up. The Patriot Act, FISA, torture of prisoners and the suspension of habeus corpus, have left our Constitution tattered and faded, brittled by spending too much time immersed in the fires of ignorance and self-righteousness. Much damage was done and much needs to be undone.

The beginning of the Obama era started on Election Day and really lifted off in Washington on Tuesday. Along with everyone else on the globe I was riveted by the spectacle of an African American with a Muslim father and a strange name, take the oath of office a scant eight years after the World Trade Center collapsed into a hole in the ground, dragging with it our leaders moral compass and our collective sanity. I felt something that I haven’t felt in a long time. Hope. For those of you who have read this blog with any regularity over the last four years, you are well aware that hope is not an emotion I have usually expressed when holding forth about the capability and intent of our leaders. Nevertheless, the sheer size of the paradigm shift which is occurring here is, I think, beyond all of our capacity to fully appreciate.

Let’s face it, the perception of America around the world is of a country full of scoundrels and self-interested, naval-gazing consumers. We pull our heads out of the feeding trough just long enough to turn the channel on the television, pray to Jesus or start a war, then its back to our slop. Yet this very same group of people put a (relatively) young black man in the White House and gave him the keys to the treasury. It defies stereotype. It further defies stereotype that our new president is single-handedly restoring faith in reason and intellectualism. (The fact that concepts like “reason” and “intelligence” have taken on a pejorative air speaks volumes about how far off track we’ve gotten in the last eight years.)

I’m not expecting miracles. Obama is an establishment politician and still beholden to the interests that allowed him to accede to the seat of power. However, in his first two days in office he has suspended the Guantanamo show-trials and issued an executive order to close the prison within a year. If he keeps going in that direction we’ll be in pretty good shape in 100 days, or even eight years.I think Jefferson would be proud of us today.

Senate Intrigue

2009-01-06T21:17:00.001-05:00

Greetings readers and happy new year! The Patriot is energized by two weeks off from working and blogging and has digested several news cycles in his never ending quest to keep you, the reader, informed about hidden agendas, abuse of the public fisc and a general disregard for the will of the people evinced by our "leaders" in Congress and the White House.

Without delay, I urge the immediate appointment of Senator Burris from Chicago and Senator Franken from Minnesota. We all know Harry Reid is a pussy-that's not news-but he has come out in favor of seating Franken so I urge you all to write to the great ballless one and urge him to continue his public support of the erstwhile comic turned legislator. For fucks sake, Franken is EXACTLY the sort of senator this country needs. He would be a great foil for the do-nothing assholes currently posing as Democrats.

As for Burris...well, Blagojevich has neither been convicted nor indicted and his (Burris) resume is rock solid. So, in the spirit of the Constitution, which does not allow any additional qualifications to be added to the job, let the man get to work. The pussy dems are hewing to the CNN party line and coming out against Blagojevich because of the public performance of a US Attorney General who has presented nothing other than politics as usual in his attempt to launch his career a la Elliott Ness.

I'm a lawyer and know full well that an accusation, unsupported by evidence, means shit. From what I hear on the new the US "attorney" has shit, by that I mean nothing, on the Illinois Governor. The whole thing sounds like a Republican plan to disrupt the government before King Obama takes office. Chicago, Whitewater, don't be fooled again! I love you all.

Ho Ho Ho

2008-12-23T13:02:00.004-05:00

The Patriot has been very busy around the holidays and hasn’t had much time to post. I’m taking some time off from work starting today and won’t be back until early January, so I’m going to throw the blog on hiatus until then. Here’s something to tide you over:

"Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science.

The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of morons promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass. When catalysed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons."

And remember to celebrate Christmas the way the Founding Fathers did, by getting blind drunk and beating people up. In the early 1800s, Christmas was, as one historian once noted, "like a nightmarish cross between Halloween and a particularly violent, rowdy Mardi Gras."

The founding fathers would no doubt be appalled by our obsession with lights, tinsel, singing chipmunks and revolving credit card balances. In fact, the U.S. government didn't even recognize Christmas as a holiday until 1870. Prior to that, Congress routinely met and conducted business on Christmas day. It was, in fact, just another workday.

Newspapers of the 19th century are filled with disturbing accounts of what Christmas was really like: widespread rioting, sexual assault, vandalism, drunkenness, street violence and general lawlessness. Most of these "traditions" were carried over from Europe, where, dating back to the Middle Ages, Christmas had been regarded by the wealthy classes as a safety valve for releasing the peasants' pent-up frustrations.

So peasants, release your inner frustrations! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

Here We Go Again...

2008-12-17T16:08:00.000-05:00

Obama is fast proving that when it comes to rewarding your corporate donors, no price is too steep, including larding the cabinet with industry friendly right-wing hacks. Correct me if I’m misstating, but one of the centerpieces of Obama’s campaign (“Change We Can Believe In”) was the complete restructuring of our energy policy to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil and advance new technologies for greener power. So, to accomplish this end he appoints to head the scandal plagued Department of the Interior ………Ken Salazar from Colorado? What a sell-out. Here’s the Times describing the traditional energy sector’s reaction to the appointment: “Oil and mining interests praised Mr. Salazar’s performance as a state official and as a senator, saying that he was not doctrinaire about the use of public lands. “Nothing in his record suggests he’s an ideologue,” said Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association. “Here’s a man who understands the issues, is open-minded and can see at least two sides of an issue.” Meaning, of course, more drilling on public lands, more concessions to power companies and more coal mining. Besides his obvious bias towards industry the guy is also a buffoon. “Salazar, wearing his customary ten-gallon hat and bolo tie, said (at the announcement of his appointment) that his job entails helping the nation address climate change through a “moon shot” on energy independence……..” which he pointedly stated also required, “the continued domestic development of coal, oil and natural gas, fossil fuels” which, one might note, generate copious amounts of greenhouse gases when they are burned.

Environmentalists are feeling burned. Kieran Suckling, executive director of Center for Biological Diversity, which tracks endangered species and habitat issues described Salazar as“[A] right-of-center Democrat who often favors industry and big agriculture in battles over global warming, fuel efficiency and endangered species. He is very unlikely to bring significant change to the scandal-plagued Department of Interior. It’s a very disappointing choice for a presidency which promised visionary change.”

So far Obama has failed to appoint a single progressive to any top cabinet level position. Liberals who were expecting anything more than another Republican-lite administration are going to be very disappointed. Cynics like me are reluctantly dusting off the “I told you so” and readying its imminent deployment.

Tooting my Own Horn

2008-12-15T08:39:00.001-05:00

For those of you who expressed skepticism that the Republicans were using the fight against the auto bail-out as a platform to destroy organized labor, I give you this, from Krugman's Op-Ed piece in the Times today:

"(Why was the plan blocked? An e-mail message circulated among Senate Republicans declared that denying the auto industry a loan was an opportunity for Republicans to “take their first shot against organized labor.”)"

And so it goes.

The Sin of Wages

2008-12-12T13:14:00.002-05:00

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. “
-Henry Ford

I feel like I have been living in the Twilight Zone the last few days. Will someone explain to me why is it fair to demand immediate cuts in wage and benefit packages for union workers, cuts that would amount to an average of 30% of a worker’s salary, without requiring similar cuts in the wage and benefit packages of the white collar employees and management? Kind of shows you what the real agenda is. And what about all those high-cost union jobs? The reality is that all new GM employees hired in the last year initially were brought on as temps or contract workers. If they eventually are hired on full-time, they make a whopping $14 per hour on the line with no full benefits for 2 years. How much more can the UAW give? Those wages are bullshit.

The biggest waste in that company is sitting in the CEO’s office. Wagoner got a 15 million dollar bonus for running GM into the ground yet he and the politicians are pointing the finger at the UAW. Please.

From the Times letters section: “For the last couple of weeks all one hears regarding the auto industry problem is the media drumbeat, "the unions", "labor", "the contracts", as if the workers who manage to make the only living wage left in the blue collar class are responsible for the complete lack of innovation or decent product design by an industry led by air-headed millionaires. It's not the fault of people making 40 bucks and hour with, OHMYGOD, health benefits and pensions who are at fault for the fact that Americans buy Hondas and Toyotas because they last, have few repair problems and get great gas mileage.” The UAW and its members have been fighting for years for a standard of living that allowed a middle class to flourish in America. Isn't that the American dream? Isn't it what we all want?

It is so much easier to blame the worker. For whatever reason, envy, jealousy, Americans identify more with those above them in the class structure. Plus, once you start blaming the system you are confronted with the reality that the (capitalist free-market) system has failed. This is frightening. Nevertheless it is a reality that has to be faced eventually. Clearly, our government & monetary system no longer work. It's time for re-invention, Thomas Jefferson style.

Killing the UAW

2008-12-11T14:54:00.001-05:00

14 Billion dollars is roughly the amount of money spent by the United States in Iraq in five weeks. It is also the amount the big three automakers are requesting in an effort to forestall the collapse of the US manufacturing system. While the Republicans refuse to even discuss exercising fiscal discipline in the conduct of the Iraq war, when it comes to the elimination of the jobs of workers in this country, they are more willing to take a strong stand. Their resistance to the House plan that was passed yesterday is a transparent attempt by the Republicans to kill the UAW and by extension, the larger labor movement. Congress is ok with 700 million for the big bankers, but none for the unions.

While it is true that a bail-out of the auto industry makes little long-term sense without requiring significant change from the companies, the relatively small amount of money needed to tide them over until a more far-reaching plan can be implemented won’t bust the treasury any more than it’s already busted. Remember, we just doled out billions to financial institutions that created this crisis without a single string attached. Why aren’t American workers due the same consideration as Wall Street?

Happy Friday!

2008-12-05T13:42:00.006-05:00

You can't run a consumer-based economy without consumers. From a letter-writer to today's Times in response to the unemployment report:

"Ever since Reagan and his band of "voodoo priests" began breaking the backs of American workers, we've seen a steady decline in the incomes of the majority of Americans. This was aided and abetted by Bill Clinton (NAFTA, etc.) and a compliant Congress, both Dem and Republican-led. This decline was masked by the relative availability of credit, enabling average Americans to stave off the wolf at the door as long as they could refinance or get another credit card. But simply loosening credit won't end this crisis. Most people are way over-extended and giving them more credit is like crack to an addict. The ONLY solution to this crisis that has been building for almost four decades is the creation of good paying, dependable jobs. To paraphrase Mr. Clinton: "It's the JOBS stupid!".

Indeed. The solutions being floated down in Washington all have as their common denominator loosening up the credit markets and encouraging Americans to go deeper into hock. Who in their right mind is going to buy a house, car or even a big TV if they think they aren't going to have a job next year? And speaking of Washington, what's going on down there? Congress had no problem committing a few trillion dollars, without condition, to prop up the balance sheets of large banks who now sit on this money. Nevertheless, when three very large, possibly indispensable manufacturers representing thousands of high paying American jobs approach them for what is a drop in the bucket compared to that assistance we get to watch ridiculous show trials. The bankers already got their money. The workers are fucked. The feds already claim to have no idea where billions of the initial bailout have gone. Fun stuff. A naked grab for money without pretense of accountability.

I do not believe that even the saintly Barack Obama will be able to stem the tide of destruction wrought by the Wall Street titans, should he have the time between walking on water and curing the sick, but he may be our best hope under the current system.

Speaking of the current system, it's all been quite funny to read the comments section of the Times where irate readers are blaming Republicans or Democrats for this economic mess. The true blame, my friends, belongs at the feet of capitalism. This is how the system works. Marx knew it and you all know it too, even though you're too indoctrinated by phony propaganda to actually say it. The post WWII economic boom is a blip in our history. For most of the last 238 years the workers and middle class have scrabbled in the dirt just to survive while the rich hoard all the money. We're just getting back to our robber-baron roots.

The power elite sold us on the idea that the elimination of civil rights and a bigger domestic police force are necessary to keep us safe from radical terrorists and everyone bought it. Forgive me if I think there was a larger agenda at work. What do you think the government is going to do with all those expanded powers and robo-cops when it starts to get ugly in the streets? Dark days ahead.

Food for Thought-Pie Graphs

2008-12-03T15:20:00.003-05:00

Remember the bailout? The one Wall Street, uh, I mean Congress, passed despite near universal opposition from the people? Here's what it cost relative to some other fairly expensive American projects of the last few centuries. Remember this visual the next time a lying sack of shit politician tells you there's no money in the budget to extend job benefits or food stamps. Courtesy of Consumerist.com

Road Trip

2008-12-03T10:50:00.002-05:00

Michigan is coming back to Congress, hat in hand, and they’re taking the family station wagon to get there. The suddenly chastened CEO’s of the big three automakers are driving to Washington from Detroit in an effort to show that they really, really need the bail-out money that Pelosi has been withholding. This cartoonish display of faux populism is almost comical, but for the fact that all three retrenchment plans on offer essentially rely on gutting the workforce, thus sacrificing the very jobs that Congress claims to be interested in saving.

The Times reports that, “G.M., the world’s largest automaker for decades, said Tuesday that it was in such dire straits that it would deeply cut jobs, factories, brands and executive pay as part of its plea to get $12 billion in federal loans and an additional $6 billion line of credit. G.M. also promised that it could be competitive on labor costs with Toyota by 2012… G.M. (also) said it would cut more than 20 percent of its remaining jobs, shut nine factories, seek to renegotiate the terms of $66 billion in debt, and push to reopen contract talks with the United Automobile Workers to reduce labor costs.” Excuse me, but what is the point of saving the American auto industry with taxpayer money if the end result is still the loss of thousands of American jobs? Who, exactly, is benefiting by this government subsidy? Principally shareholders, I suppose. If Congress really wants to benefit the American worker they should nationalize the auto industry and eliminate the executive officers whole cloth. Needless to say, this option isn’t being considered.

For its part, the UAW isn’t taking this obvious attempt to put the nail in the coffin of organized labor quietly. “The U.A.W. can’t be the low-hanging fruit,” said UAW chairman Ron Gettlefinger. “While we’re at the table, we’re asking that others come in and sacrifice as well.” The sacrifice presumably means more than a chauffeured drive to Washington in a SUV hybrid. If I were the UAW or in Congress I’d be looking to recoup some of that $22,000,000 in compensation that Ford CEO Alan Mulally was paid last year and which he haughtily claimed entitlement to in his Congressional testimony. Seriously folks, it’s easy to make a token concession like accepting $1 in compensation for 2009 when you were paid $22 million in 2008. That money should be seized by Congress and redistributed to the line workers.

30 year veteran GM line worker Doug Hanscomb pretty much summed it up the other day when he said, “I know one thing. If I lose my pension, I bet you Rick Wagoner” — the G.M. chief executive — “and all those guys won’t lose theirs.” Clearly, here in America, we take care of the top first and let the people who do the actual work fend for themselves. It has been ever thus.

One Big Union

2008-11-21T13:53:00.002-05:00

Next bail-out: The Auto Industry. Chief Executives of the big three flew to Washington on their private jets to beg Congress for money, a scene likened by one commentator to a man in a tuxedo and top hat stepping out of his limo at the front door of a soup kitchen. While most of the blame for Detroit’s problems can be laid square at the feet of the corporate boardrooms of GM and Ford (Chrysler is a private company) , the auto industry lobbyists have been working overtime trying to blame the UAW and other unions for the sorry state of the industry.

Clearly there are forces are lined up attempting to put the death nail in organized labor's coffin. Unfortunately, they have a lot of support among non-unionized Americans who think that the average GM line worker is a coddled relic of history. Does it ever occur to people who argue that Unions “had their place in American history but aren’t necessary now” that one of the reasons why real wages have declined over the last 25 years is a lack of worker’s ability to collectively bargain?

Why is it that the general public doesn’t demand better working conditions, fair pay, health care and pensions for all workers rather than begrudge the workers who actually have them? There is plenty of money out there. Look at CEO pay as a ratio to the average worker’s salary, for one example. Look at how much of the country’s money has been concentrated in the hands of 5% of the population for another.

The reason we somehow find it easier to blame the UAW member rather than the greedy bastard in the corner office is that we have been subjected to capitalist propaganda of the worst sort, since around the end of WWII. Think about your most closely held beliefs about the social structure of this Country. Chances are you consider yourself middle-class. You are encouraged to think this way so that the playing field appears much more level than it is. What is middle class? 25k per year in income? 50? 150?

Who do you resent more, the “poor” who take around 2% of the federal budget or the rich, whose tax breaks and financial chicanery cost the government billions more? Do you believe that income redistribution is un-American? Why? Isn’t social security income redistribution? How about we take all the money from the richest 3% of the population and hand it out to everyone equally?

Unfortunately the dirty little secret of globalization is that rather than raising all boats, the global movement of capitol is creating a race to the bottom for wages. The auto industries that are now coming to Congress with hat in hand have exported millions of jobs overseas in the last 20 years while at the same time lobbying against labor protections for the remainder of their workforce. All this at a time when GM and Ford were making record profits.

What good will bailing out Detroit do if no one has the means to buy more vehicles? If the big 3 get any money at all it should come with hefty strings attached, including a complete re-tooling of the manufacturing process to plug-in hybrids, a strengthening of the UAW and a cap on executive pay at 8:1 the average line worker. If that is too draconian for Congress to swallow, why not raise the cafe standards to 50 mph and let the industry sort it out on its own?

My personal belief is that the current capitalist system is unsustainable without massive government regulation-and not by this current crop of lobbyists currently posing as legislators. If things start to get really bad over the next year or two we could face the specter of an enraged citizenry dragging the rich out of their fancy homes and redistributing the wealth at the point of a gun.

Lieberman Redux

2008-11-18T15:13:00.001-05:00

Joe Lieberman drives me up a fucking tree. Let’s take a look at Joe’s career over the last few years. In 2004 the guy does an end-run around his own party to run as an independent even though the Connecticut Democrats voted for a staunch anti-war candidate, Ned Lamott, in the primaries. He goes on to win the general election while continuing to act as a shill for Bush on the Iraq war. Because of the general spinelessness of the Congressional Democrats, Lieberman is allowed to retain his committee chairs, even though he is no longer a Democrat. While the Democrats make much of the fact that the reason for rewarding the traitor was the single-vote majority in the Senate, one could plausibly argue that the Democrats never really needed the vote anyway because they passed most of Bush’s agenda by wide margins and failed to exhibit any real leadership on a single issue. (As The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin observed at the end of last year: "Historians looking back on the Bush presidency may well wonder if Congress actually existed.") Fast-forward to 2008 when Lieberman actively campaigned for John McCain in the presidential race. Surely, one would think, now that the Democrats have taken the White House and both houses of Congress, Lieberman would finally be taken to the wood-shed and receive his much-deserved comeuppance. Think again.

The vote to keep Lieberman in his Chair was hardly a nail-biter -- 42-13. Everyone involved in the process tacitly acknowledges that it was Obama's desire that Lieberman retain his chairmanship of the powerful Homeland Security Committee-which doesn’t bode well for Congressional independence in the new administration, although I suspect Congress has simply forgotten how to say no to the President.
I can’t out it better than Glen Greenwald in Salon today: “Senate Democrats believe it's important to reward someone with a powerful Chairmanship who has been a vehement supporter of George Bush, the war in Iraq, the full panoply of anti-constitutional abuses, and an amplifier of the most toxic right-wing toxic points. At the same time, they consider it a good thing to scorn their supporters on what they consider to be "the Left." For anyone willing to hear it, they've made as clear and resounding a statement -- again -- about who they are and who they do and don't listen to.”
Is that Change We Can Believe In? I have my doubts.

Yes We Can

2008-11-05T15:04:00.003-05:00

Remarkable. People dancing in the streets, Times Square filled with cheering people, the Empire State building lit up a bright blue while people weep in the streets at the sheer joy of seeing Barack Obama elected the first African-American president of the United States. I will be the first to admit that after the last eight years I never thought I would see a day where Americans could be brought together so cohesively around one thing. After all, the Bush administration at its rotten, stinking core was all about fear. Fear of the terrorists, fear of your neighbor, fear of anyone or anything that was somehow different. This fear showed up in the McCain campaign with its divisive talk about the “real America” and McCain’s reference to Obama as “that one.” In the dark days after 9/11 the Republican Party learned to manipulate people’s fear and turn it in to an ugly, divisive force that could be brought to bear against anyone it considered a threat to it’s plans for a perpetual right-wing oligarchy. The strategy was so successful in 2000 and 2004 that I fully expected it to work again in 2008. I was wrong. Last night Americans proved that they have the ability to rise above the cesspool of hate and venom and coalesce around something far greater than a set of political beliefs. Last night Americans showed the world that our “great experiment” with Democracy still has some life left in it; that it couldn’t be killed by the fear mongers and haters presently occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The most noteworthy, and uplifting thing about Obama's success is that he assumed that Americans are capable of going beyond self-interest. To borrow from Gary Kamiya on Salon today ,"[t]he America envisioned by Obama is one in which the privileged care about the plight of the less fortunate because that care, that solidarity, is an inseparable part of who we are as Americans." When was the last time you heard THAT from a politician?

The import of this election cannot be overstated. Sure, Obama may end up being a centrist and frankly, I don’t see how he could possibly live up to the lofty expectations everyone has of him, but how he governs is much less important than what he represents. 40 years ago, when I was born, African-Americans were still relegated to separate bathrooms and water fountains. Lyndon Johnson had to expend almost all of his political capital ramming a civil rights bill through a reluctant Congress. Today, a scant ½ lifetime later, a black man is the president-elect of the United States. Watching Jesse Jackson weep last night on television I realized, quite viscerally, that we have come a long way. My son, who is now almost two years old, will grow up in a country without ever thinking it strange that the president of the United States is an African American. All of his friends, and all of the children who will learn about the Presidents in school for the next 50 years will see Barack Obama’s face and not think it strange that he resided in the White House. That, my friends is the real impact of this election. As Tom Friedman put it in the Times today, the Civil War is finally over.

Here We Go

2008-11-04T21:31:00.005-05:00

Looks like Obama is ahead, at least at 9:30pm EST. While I am no strong believer in the ability of the Democrats to affect real change, I am amazed that when we wake up tomorrow, a black man, a "community organizer" from Chicago, may be the next president of the United States. This is truly an election of historic proportions. Hopefully Obama's political instinct to run from the center will morph into a true leftist government. I have my doubts, but I am cautiously optimistic. A Democratic victory in this election will go a long way towards restoring confidence in the rule of law. The reason I say this is because the next president will have two, possibly three, Supreme Court appointments. I know the kind of judges John McCain would appoint were he to pull out a last minute miracle, and they would evince the same disregard for the Constitution as the Bush appointees. Obama, being a lawyer and community organizer, will no doubt appoint judges who will decide the cases before them based on the principle of stare decisis rather than on the somewhat dubious political doctrine of hocus pocus. (Thanks to EMW for the analogy)

More later.

Might As Well Go And Vote Tomorrow

2008-11-03T14:45:00.000-05:00

You all know what tomorrow is, and you all know what to do. As my friend the late great Jerry Garcia said, “Choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil”. Unfortunately, this time around the stakes are too high to allow the Republican nutbags another four years to loot the treasury and polish off the rest of our civil liberties. So, I’m voting for Obama, even though I agree with Nader’s analysis that the two party system has been co-opted by special interests and cannot take a principled stand on any issue without the consent of its corporate masters.

I had the pleasure of shaking Congressman Gary Ackerman’s hand this morning at the Great Neck train station and telling him in no uncertain terms that his vote for the bailout came at the expense of my vote in the election. That was satisfying. If there is no 3^rd party candidate running for that seat I’ll simply not pull any lever for that slot. Congress is full of whores and thieves and has pretty much rubber stamped its own irrelevancy by failing to confront any of the Bush administration’s clearly unconstitutional power grabs while at the same time handing the banks billions of dollars of taxpayer money with no preconditions on how it’s to be spent. Rock the vote.

Dateline: Lafayette Indiana

2008-10-21T23:56:00.001-04:00

Lafayette Indiana. Eleven o’clock in the evening. The man has been up since six in the morning. He is watching the Daily Show. It is the man’s favorite show. The man realizes that mental masturbation can only put off the day when everyone realizes that the two party system is horseshit. The man doesn’t care. He is tired and the stylings of John Stewart bring him pleasure. The man knows that Barak Obama will be a better president than John McCain. The man also realizes that no matter who gets elected, the fortunes of the average American will still be heading southward. No one seems to care. The left is pacified by Obama, who they see as the second coming of Jesus. The right has destroyed itself on cultural issues that no one cares about. Jesus is apparently dead as a campaign issue. (Thank God). The governor of Alaska has been caught in another scandal. The election staggers on.

The man takes a sip of a glass of piss poor Indiana wine and wonders whether the heartland cares one whit about the Constitution. He concludes that they do not. Indiana is a battleground state, leaning towards Obama. The fact that the race isn’t closer, in Indiana or elsewhere, troubles the man. Who the fuck is voting for McCain, he wonders. People who either don't understand the issues or can't be bothered to care. The man thinks the hicks from the sticks should spend more time on Sunday reading books other than the Bible. The man gets weary. And sleeps.

Pundits

2008-10-15T22:36:00.002-04:00

The PBS pundits seem to think McCain did ok, but Obama held ground. McCain's performance was very engaging, but didn't deliver the necessary knock-out. I agree, it seems like Gramps was on the Viagra tonight, but I don't think his performance was good enough to change the momentum that has been building behind the Obama campaign. Polls bear out the fact that going negative has hurt McCain's campaign and I don't think McCain visiting the Ayres matter helped him with the swing voters, which is all that really matters at this point. He has the base. He needs the moderates, and the moderates are more worried about their 401ks than any past associations Obama has with radicals from the 1960s.

The elections are 2 weeks away and both candidates have approval rates in the 50% range. This is almost unheard of this late in the game. Obama has squandered a great opportunity in this race by failing to hammer the Republicans on the economy, but he could hardly do so without calling attention to his own support by the financial industry. Nader, as usual, is right. You cannot have a debate between two establishment candidates and expect anything other than moderate differences between the major candidates. The economy is heading into a recession, maybe a depression, and neither candidate thought the issue was important enough to engage on a meaningful level. The lack of a meaningful articulable difference on economic issues makes the debate, and indeed the election, a mystery to the average voter, which makes them susceptible to attack ads and the like. McCain would be a disaster for the economy, but to expect much more from Obama might be a fools errand.

Part VI

2008-10-15T22:11:00.002-04:00

Still on abortion. Taking a bathroom break.Back. Still on abortion. Smoking a cigarette. Back. Still on abortion.

Next (and last) question: Education. "We spend more than anyone but still suck compared to the rest of the world. Comments?" Obama says more money and reform. Recruit an army of new teachers and pay them well but would require pay for performance. Proposes a national $4k tax credit for a volunteer program. McCain says the civil rights issue of the 21st century. Supports charter schools and would let the rest of the people rot. Both favors competition, which is odd because it is an inherently uncompetitive field. McCain seems to favor allowing ex army people to get into schools without being accredited. Obama supports tradition of local control of schools but favors feds getting involved somewhere. Says the problem with no child left behind is that the feds also left the money behind. Obama is against vouchers and attacks McCain on college funding. McCain favors choice with vouchers. Unsurprising positions for both.

I'm getting slightly drunk. Thank god this is over soon. This election has taken years off my life.

Closing remarks: You know what they are saying. It's all bullshit.

Part V

2008-10-15T22:01:00.002-04:00

Healthcare, blah, blah. If Obama wanted to win this election he would come out in favor of universal healthcare. All he has to say is, "if we can find $700 billion to bail out Wall Street, we can certainly find the money to create a healthcare system for every American". Election over. But he can't. Because they own him. They own both of them.

Boy, I'd hate to be "Joe" right about now. Every media outlet in America is sending a van to his house right about now.

Next Question: Abortion. McCain will appoint pro-life judges to please his base, Obama will appoint judges who actually understand the law. Although on second thought, his support of the FISA law makes me question his judgment, Harvard Law degree notwithstanding. Personal comment: Roe was decided on the wrong basis and as legal precedent it is questionable. That is very different from believing that the issue was "wrongly decided" which it wasn't. Next question!

Part IV

2008-10-15T21:44:00.002-04:00

Deep into the second bottle of Bogle Pinot Noir. McCain attacks Biden for the vote on the first Iraq war and his idea to partition the country after the failure of the second-a good idea in my opinion.

New question: Climate change. How can we reduce our dependence on foreign oil? McCain says Canadian oil is ok, but Venezuela and Middle Eastern Oil is off limits. Accuses Obama of being an extremist. Advocates Nuclear, hydrogen and clean coal. Obama thinks that in 10 years we can reduce our dependence on that nasty oil. Obama drifts over into borrowing 700 billion (an interesting number) from China being a bad idea. Says we cannot drill our way out of the problem and advocates wind, solar, and geothermal. Much cleaner than McCain's plan. Obama reiterates support of free trade but suggests enforceable labor and environmental components to future trade agreements. Frankly, with gas prices falling, who really gives a shit? McCain does. "Drill now! Drill now!"

Missing from this debate thus far is any suggestion that the banks should be held accountable for bankrupting our children's future. Or the fact that there is a recession. Or that the Wall Street titans should be hauled up in front of a tribunal, found guilty, and shot. I suppose that is too much to expect. Why the fuck are they talking about the high-tech cars of the future when the economy is in a total meltdown? See last week's post on contributions to their respective PACs for my answer.

Next question: Healthcare. Both of them have no serious answer to this problem because they are both in the pockets of the insurance industry. Nevertheless, McCain's plan is a complete disaster and would cost most people thousands of dollars a year. Because he is a Republican, and they could care less about you.

Blogging part III

2008-10-15T21:33:00.002-04:00

Getting nasty. McCain hiding behind the flag and defending the nazis who come to his rallys and suggest killing Obama. Obama, a bit less aggressive, but brings it back on message. Suggests tough vigorous debates but says we need to focus on the issues. McCain hits Acorn. Obama says Bill Ayres actions were despicable, but notes that the panel he served on with Ayres was funded by Republicans. With respect to Acorn, Obama says he represented them, alongside the DOJ, in a motor voter issue. Obama then reels off a long list of positive associates who have thrown nothing more than rhetorical bombs. McCain isn't letting this go, but sounds a bit petulant.

Next topic: "Who are you going to bring into the government. Specifically, why did McCain pick such a freak?" Obama defends Biden. McCain attempts to defend Palin. Round III to Obama. (And I haven't even heard McCain's answer yet).

Live Blogging the Debate Part II

2008-10-15T21:20:00.002-04:00

McSame claims he can balance the budget in 4 years, which is completely unrealistic. Also claims he isn't president Bush. Accuses Obama of raising taxes on people making 42k per year. Talks about being a maverick. Obama takes the bait and answers McCain's attack, which is counterproductive. Denies the McCain claim on his tax plan. "On the core economic issues that matter to the American people...you have been a major supporter of President Bush." Keeps trying to push McCain into the Bush administration. McCain is very feisty tonight. Knows its his last chance.

Blogging the Debate

2008-10-15T21:01:00.003-04:00

Hofstra University. Repository of underachieving college students for decades. Our two underachieving candidates meet for the final time answering the softball questions of the main stream media. This one takes place with both candidates seated facing each other, which makes it easier to stick a knife in your opponent's neck, but harder to attack them verbally.

First question is about the respective candidates tax plans. First question, "which of your economic plans sucks less". McCain opens with a violin sonata to Nancy Reagan who broke a hip or something. McCain then goes on to pretend to care about homeowners by proposing an outright purchase of home loans and expresses disappointment at Paulson for not proposing this in the plan that he enthusiastically voted for. Obama agrees that supporting the corporate bail-out was a good idea, since he voted for it too, and proposes his own rescue plan for the middle class. Obama offers tax cuts, cotton candy and free pony rides, and also proposes that we invest in clean energy and something else. McCain appears on edge and a bit combative. He is talking directly to some guy named Joe who is one of the 25 people who would be affected by Obama's tax increase on the rich people. Obama calmly explains that McCain favors more corporate tax reductions. I feel like I watched this debate last week, which, in fact, I did.

Stock answers follow thinly veiled attacks. Etc., etc. McCain accuses Obama of class warfare and wealth redistribution (which I enthusiastically support)and Obama reiterates the fact that he is proposing a tax increase on the wealthy. McCain, the owner of seven houses and at least as many ex wives, is arguing that the $700 billion we sent to Wall Street has no tax implications. Yawn.

Next question: deficit. "Aren't you both ignoring reality?" Good question. Obama is talking about structuring the bail-out properly and argues that America has been living beyond our means and needs to suffer. Suffer! He wants to end subsidies to insurance companies (there goes my job), and make government work better. Obama wants to invest in healthcare (preventive) and energy, sending young people to college. Good stuff. McCain is talking about adopting Roosevelt's policies in the Great Depression., developing nuclear power and offshore drilling. McCain proposes an across the board spending freeze. All of a sudden the Republican maverick has become a Grover Norquist conservative. "I know how to save billions", says McCain. Accuses Obama of porkyness.Brings up the projector at the planetarium. Obama gives a history lesson on the history of the national debt. Everyone not living on either coast is sleeping.

Of Looming Depressions and Credit

2008-10-15T13:10:00.005-04:00

Recessions are interesting. Even more interesting is the collective attempt of the media and government to minimize the seriousness of the upcoming economic doomsday staring the country in the face. Even the Times got it wrong by referring to the “looming recession” in an article on the decrease in consumer spending as if it were an event yet to come. As a number of people noted in comments attached to the article, its hard to conceptualize the recession as “looming” when the stock market is down 40 percent for the year, one in three houses in some communities are in foreclosure, consumer spending is down, people are maxed out on their credit cards, new credit is unattainable for anyone except those who don't need it, and the banks are broke. “I expect those sort of semantics from that idiot in the White House, not from the New York Times,” observed one reader.

I’m thinking of investing in coal, since it is bound to feature prominently in a majority of Christmas stockings this year. I’m also wondering how long major retailers like Target and even Walmart can hang on if American consumers have no credit with which to purchase their large televisions and super-sized bags of corn chips. While interbank credit liquidity has grabbed the headlines, perhaps more pernicious is the drying up of previously available consumer credit. This is a big part of the crisis that is being underreported. Here’s an example: I have a friend who had an unused Citibank card with a $25,000 spending limit and a WaMu card with a $7000 limit. After inadvertently being 30 days late on one payment on the WaMu card-with an otherwise perfect payment history-Citibank closed his account and WaMu reduced his credit limit to the balance owned. So my friend went from having a credit cushion of $30,000 to zero, in less than one month. I have heard other reports that the banks are simply slashing credit limits for no reason whatsoever and closing inactive accounts, effectively leaving consumers with no credit at all.

So, in addition to the late payment dinging his credit report, canceling his Citibank card and reducing the limit on his WaMu card caused his FICO score to drop like a stone. Why? Because he was, all of a sudden, using 100% of his available credit. Mind you, this is a person who one year ago had a FICO score of 800. Now his score is in the low 600s and probably heading further south. Does this make any sense? The banks already loaned all of their available capital to people who truly should never have gotten credit, and now they are trying to balance the books and make up for their own sloppy underwriting by destroying the credit of their remaining customers.

Mind you, these same banks were just gifted with billions of dollars by the U.S. Treasury with no strings attached in the hopes of shaking loose the credit market. Ben Bernanke, said yesterday that he "hoped "the banks would put this money into circulation, although apparently the banks are not required to do so. Given their prior track record, does anyone really think that this money will do anything to help the economy? I sure have my doubts.

Oh, well. The family and I went apple picking this week-end so at least we'll have something for the boys to sell from a cart when the whole economy winds up in the shitter. Have a pleasant day.

Abuse of Power and Appeasement

2008-10-09T13:33:00.004-04:00

While we have all been running around stashing our acorns for the coming apocalypse, there has been no let up in the government's campaign of spying on American citizens. In a piece of perhaps unsurprising news, two low-level NSA employees being interviewed for a forthcoming book on the warrantless wiretap program said in interviews that they routinely intercepted the phone calls of average Americans-Red Cross volunteers, aid workers, etc. and transcribed those calls at the request of their superiors. These are not people suspected of any terrorist activity, simply people overseas making calls to their families. On more than one occasion, phone sex calls were intercepted and transcribed.

I don't have the best of memories, but I seem to recall Bush swearing on live television that the only calls that were being intercepted were those of, hmm, how did he put it..........oh yeah, "It’s phone calls of known Al Qaeda suspects making a phone call into the United States. " It turns out that he was lying. Another surprise. Since listening in on phone calls of American citizens without a warrant is actually a felony, one would think that the Congress would have something to say on the matter.

Alas, the Senate Intelligence Committee (har har) which was created in the 1970s because the U.S. Government was abusing its surveillance power then, did nothing. They knew what the administration was up to because the administration told them what they were doing, and they did nothing. As Glen Greenwald points out in his excellent post on the subject over in Salon, "the Senate Intelligence Committee never bothered to investigate what the Bush administration was doing with its secret, unlawful spying powers, whether those powers were abused, which Americans were spied upon, and how they were selected. To this day, they have never bothered to investigate those questions. "

The "to this day" part is important because at the time the initial abuses were made public the committee was run by the Republicans. Since 2006 it has been headed by Democrat Jay Rockefeller, who has still decided to let the issue lie.

Let's be clear, we are talking about MAJOR abuses of civil rights. Again from Greenwald, "the extent of the abuses disclosed here is substantial — “hundreds of Americans”; journalists, Red Cross and aid workers; military officers speaking to their friends and families — these disclosures are from only two relatively low-level individual NSA linguists at one NSA facility in Georgia. If just these two individuals are aware of this level of abuse, just imagine what the true extent of the abuses is — both quantitatively (how many innocent Americans had their conversations eavesdropped on?) and qualitatively (who, beyond journalists and aid workers, were listened to?)."

I think if the Democrats want to earn their seats in Congress they have to stop acting like little Neville Chamberlins and more like an opposition party. Their failure to act to stop the dismantiling of the Constitution will not be kindly remembered by history.

Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum(b)

2008-10-06T12:53:00.002-04:00

No mystery why our two contenders for the Oval Office voted Yea on the bailout:

Top 10 Corporate PAC Contributors to OBAMA:

Goldman Sachs $739,521
UBS AG $419,550
Lehman Brothers $391,774
Citigroup Inc $492,548
Morgan Stanley $341,380
Latham & Watkins $328,879
Google Inc $487,355
JPMorgan Chase & Co $475,112
Sidley Austin LLP $370,916
Skadden, Arps et al $360,409

Top 10 Corporate PAC Contributors to MCCAIN:

Merrill Lynch $349,170
Citigroup Inc $287,801
Morgan Stanley $249,377
Wachovia Corp $147,456
Goldman Sachs $220,045
Lehman Brothers $115,707
Bear Stearns $108,000
JPMorgan Chase & Co $206,392
Bank of America $133,975
Credit Suisse Group $175,503

Quiet Riot

2008-10-04T08:47:00.002-04:00

As bad as the bailout was, perhaps worse was the spectacle of the Democrats and Republicans laughing and backslapping as the bill was signed. If this bill was really necessary to save the economy from imminent collapse, one would think a sense of quiet decorum would have prevailed at the signing. Instead, Congress celebrated like it was 1929. Here's a quote from a first hand observer, originally posted on Salon:

"A couple of hours later, upstairs in Republican whip Roy Blunt's office suite (in the middle of which the House, for some reason, has nestled the workspace for magazine writers), staffers cracked open cans of Heineken and blasted "The Final Countdown" and "Cum On Feel the Noise" ('80s music being the natural soundtrack as $700 billion prepares to leave the U.S. Treasury). And a cloud of cigar smoke hung in the air. It was the smell of a victory for Wall Street -- but, if the dire predictions of economic collapse were right, maybe not a loss for the rest of us."

California asked to borrow 8,000,000,000 from the feds so they could make payroll, but hey, at least Goldman Sachs will get to issue bonuses this Christmas. We were just sucker-punched, bigtime.

Tar and Feathers

2008-10-03T13:37:00.002-04:00

Well, they went ahead and passed it, like we all knew they would eventually. The Congressional “mutiny” over the bail-out bill was quelled by the addition of several tons of pork which rendered the odious document greasy enough for the House to swallow without further dissent. Highlights of the newly larded bail-out plan include money for American Samoa, a repeal of a tax on wooden arrows designed to be used for children’s toys, and, in a blatant attempt to secure the pirate vote, a rebate against excise taxes charged on rum imported from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

It’s almost a relief to see that Congress has reverted back to its usual way of doing business. I was getting concerned that people were starting to think that by voting down the bill on Monday, the House was taking a principled stance against bailing out Wall Street on the backs of taxpayers. How comforting to know that there are no principles left in American government. Speaking of a lack of principles, I would note that Senator John, “Maverick” McCain voted for this bill after promising throughout his campaign that he would veto any bill containing pork that came across his desk in the oval office. Wall Street money talks, doesn’t it senator?

As for the rest of us who aren’t drinking rum in Samoa and shooting arrows at each other, the bill offers nothing except the banker’s hand in our pockets and the taxman at our doors. Apparently some Democrats also wanted to amend the bill to add an extension of unemployment benefits, but that change would also have required additional Senate action and it was deemed unlikely to pass. Unemployed voters don’t donate as much campaign cash as Wall Street bankers, I suppose.

I would like to formally inform my representative Gary L. Ackerman (D) NY-5, who supported the bill on Monday and voted for it today, that he will not be receiving my vote in November. He is also attempting to keep that vote a secret from his constituents. His web-site’s “press releases” for today make no mention of the bail-out vote. In fact, the bail-out package isn’t mentioned anywhere on the site. If our representatives thought this was such a good thing for Main Street, why are they hiding their positions. Oh yeah, right, I forgot. What this country needs is a good old fashioned revolution, because it seems like the only thing Congress would understand. If we let them get away with this, they will be able to get away with anything.

A Modest Proposal

2008-10-01T13:22:00.001-04:00

It looks as if the House’s defeat of Paulson’s Raw Deal Wall Street bailout package on Monday afternoon was just a bit of theater to set let the market soften us up for a retry tomorrow. I read the new bill-it’s still horseshit. How will injecting cash into a bankrupt system ease credit and save us? Most Americans have car loans, mortgages, student loans, and credit card debt to the point where they have nothing to save. America's total debt, consumer, state, local, and federal is estimated to be over $50 trillion and this bill will do NOTHING to ease the debt burden on the average citizen.

Sorry, but I still smell a rat. This financial crisis has been a decade in the making, but we have to act on it in a week? We are being stampeded into supporting a plan that benefits few on the backs of many by fear mongering of the worst sort. No facts, no detailed analysis, just panic driven hyperbole. But don’t take my word for it, I’m not an economist. But hey, this guy is: Nouriel Robini, a professor of economics at NYU said that “[t]he Treasury plan is a disgrace: a bailout of reckless bankers, lenders and investors that provides little direct debt relief to borrowers and financially stressed households and that will come at a very high cost to the US taxpayer. And the plan does nothing to resolve the severe stress in money markets and interbank markets that are now close to a systemic meltdown. It is pathetic that Congress did not consult any of the many professional economists that have presented - many on the RGE Monitor Finance blog forum - alternative plans that were more fair and efficient and less costly ways to resolve this crisis.”

If the government really wanted to help out Main Street they would also stop fighting tooth and nail against any of the bankruptcy reform being proposed for inclusion in this bill. Why is Congress resisting changing the law that would enable judges to work with people in bankruptcy to avoid defaulting on their mortgages? This is a simple solution that -- while not perfect -- would shore up some of the base of the problem (defaulting mortgages) and would cost tax payers nothing. Guess who would stand to lose money under this scenario? Bankers. Wall Street. Thus, it’s a non-starter. But Congress cares about Main Street? Ha!

I’d like to put forth my own modest proposal. I say we give every registered voter in America $1,000,000. This would cost much, much less than the proposed bailout and allow countless Americans to pay off their mortgages, eliminate their credit card debt and at the same time, pump large amounts of money into the economy that would eventually trickle up to the banks. If secretary Paulson wants to discuss the plan with me I’m ready to take his call. But I’m not holding my breath.

Robber Barons

2008-09-29T13:46:00.002-04:00

Congress is about to give away my son’s future so their banker friends on Wall Street get to keep their houses in Greenwich. There is simply no other way to explain what is happening down in that cesspool at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Our politicians should be drawn and quartered for this and their bodies hung from the Treasury building. The bailout is unnecessary, unamerican, and it will likely be ineffective. The whole thing has been pushed forward with a manufactured urgency backed up with lie upon lie.

The best lie came from the Democrats: "All of this was done in a way to insulate Main St. and everyday Americans from the crisis on Wall St." (Nancy Pelosi). Insulate? Then why no bankruptcy reform? Why no money for investigators and auditors? Why no commitment to reform the way the street does business? Why no credit card reform? Why no automatic way to restructure the mortgages to make the (presently worthless) derivatives worth more to the taxpayer? Why? Because they are lying to you. This has nothing to do with Main Street.

Virtually no professional economists were invited to comment and testify on this plan, or appear to have been involved in coming up with it. Virtually all of the people involved, including those in Congress who are voting on it, are millionaires who have major investments in the markets. Especially Pelosi, who appears to be the ringleader. They all stand to make millions and possibly billions. Paulson owns $600 million in Goldman Sachs stock alone.

The fundamental principle of this bi-partisan plan is a $700 billion dollar tax shift from Wall Street to Main Street. That's just a fact. Any possibility of taxpayers recouping their losses on those worthless credit derivatives would depend on the housing bubble re-inflating. If it does, God help us, it will only be brief before it bursts again. Talk about voodoo economics. This is the economic equivalent of using leeches to cure cancer.

200 economists wrote to Barney Frank and Co. urging them to wait and study alternatives and they were ignored, as were the millions of Americans who wrote to their representatives screaming with fury. Every single one of those fuckers who vote for this bill, Republican or Democrat, should be held accountable.

What really speaks to how inept and corrupt Congress has become is the fact that if anyone were to ever introduce a $700,000,000,000 bill geared towards tackling our crumbling infrastructure, educational system, or healthcare problem they would be laughed out of the building. If the government is too "broke" to finance Medicare and Social Security, where is this money coming from? It’s all about priorities……….and you are not theirs.

Load the Rifle

2008-09-26T13:50:00.003-04:00

It is interesting to watch the reactions of my fellow citizens to the Congressional wrangling over the capitalist system bailout. I’ve been keeping a close eye on the New York Times letters section for a few days now and what stands out to me is the apparently genuine confusion shown by many writers about the fact that their representatives are going to issue Paulson and the rest of the thieves at Treasury a $700,000,000,000 blank check when polls show the American public squarely against the plan. They profess to be shocked, shocked when their elected officials bend over backwards to save the asses of Wall Street titans but can’t muster enough votes to expand children’s healthcare by an amount less than two days funding of the Iraq war. Is anyone in this sorry excuse for a democracy really so naive as to think that the people in Washington are nothing more than paid lackeys of their corporate masters? How else to explain the intense effort to bail out the crooks on the backs of the middle-class?

And can we please stop calling the bailout socialism? Socialism would be if we took the people’s confiscated labor (that's what taxes are) and widely distributed it to the people in the form of social programs. In the bailout scenario being discussed in Washington we would be taking the people’s money and redistributing it to the upper class. That sounds more like fascism to me.

Even as the economy crumbles around them, the fat cats are still finding a way to hold onto their money while they try to steal yours. The Times story about the take-over of Washington Mutual by the Feds had this little gem of a sentence buried way down deep in paragraph 13: “Mr. Fishman (WAMU’s CEO), who has been on the job for less than three weeks, is eligible for $11.6 million in cash severance and will get to keep his $7.5 million signing bonus.” The audacity! Even as the lobbyists for the banking industry, and by that I mean Congress, haggle over the size of their piece of the bail-out pie in Washington, their masters are still stuffing their pockets with ill gotten lucre.

If the elites on Wall Street and Washington are worried about the people’s reaction to their massive attempt to loot the treasury they aren’t showing it publicly. They may, however, think that some behind-the-scenes preparation might be necessary if things start to get ugly in the heartland. From Glen Greenwald’s blog on Salon: “Several bloggers today have pointed to this obviously disturbing article from Army Times, which announces that "beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the [1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division] will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities. They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control (within the United States)… [W]hat possible rationale is there for permanently deploying the U.S. Army inside the United States -- under the command of the President -- for any purpose, let alone things such as "crowd control." Any guesses? I’ve got a few ideas.

Time to stock up on canned goods and load the rifle kids. Things are looking bleak out there.

There You go Again

2008-09-24T21:21:00.001-04:00

So I’m watching Bush, who looks slightly hungover, read a speech off the teleprompter which proports to explain the financial crisis. Seems like the same scare tactics that the administration trotted out to support the invasion of Iraq. I just don’t see the urgency here, especially in light of the fact that Goldman Sachs was able to raise 7.5 billion dollars without any government intervention. There is money out there. What the government wants to do it to transfer the risk to the taxpayer. This, in and of itself might be acceptable if the crisis is as severe as it’s been portrayed, but the fact that the administration is still fighting against any curbs on executive pay and really fighting tooth and nail against any citizen participation in the buyout, I have to wonder about their motives. After eight years of consistently lying to the American people on every issue their credibility here is nonexistent. Perhaps Bush don’t seem to realize that people trust the government less than Wall Street.

What Bush is proposing is the greatest intervention in the economy since the great depression with absolutely no benefit to the average American. Bush just engaged in a defense of the capitalist system on national television without offering one reason why the American taxpayer should give the treasury secretary unfettered power to fuck with the banking system without judicial review. I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it not because I don’t think there is a crisis. I don’t buy it because I fail to see the wisdom of giving $700,000,000,000 to the former CEO of Goldman Sachs when it was he and his cronies who got us into this mess in the first place. If the Democrats cave on this then I’m voting for Nader.

First Count

2008-09-22T15:43:00.002-04:00

The old carnival hucksters liked to say that the person who got "first count" of the day's receipts always made out pretty well, since he skimmed a bit off the top before handing it over to the next in line. The carnival hucksters had nothing on Paulson and the rest of the carnies over at the Treasury Department. I'm not feeling too creative today so here's something from Joe Bageant's web site (link at right):

"I never make predictions, but now I'm willing to guess that it's going to take a genuinely brutal collapse, one in which our citizens cannot get even the most basic necessities of life before the spell of American exceptionalism is broken. And even when that happens I have no doubt the citizenry will be provided with some appropriate scapegoat abroad, most likely a Muslim or Russian one. Hell, they are already ginning up the case against several suspects.

I find it amazing that after the highest rolling scam artists are given a walk for their theft. Our government is now letting the collapsing industries consolidate and actually own thousands of banks at the local level. I suspect that having raped the public for fees and having exhausted all the other mortgage racket scams, they now want to get closer to the pockets of the people and "get first count of the dough," as the carnies used to say. He who gets first count always makes money in the carnie world.

Another local citizen I talked to said: "Well, it's all more complicated than we can understand. You have to leave it to the experts." As if "the experts" somehow are not human beings prone to greed or other human folly. That people can watch such a disaster happen before their very eyes and somehow not relate it to their own lives as Americans boggles the imagination. It goes beyond apathy and into the realm of learned helplessness. Complete helplessness in the face of the corporate state. Complete reliance upon unseen "people in high places" who somehow know what is best for the rest of us, and belief these people will act first in our interests instead of their own.

I fear for this country's fate. I really do."

Kleptocracy

2008-09-18T15:25:00.004-04:00

The fuckers are actually going to do it. Bail out Wall Street while the rest of us struggle under credit card debt at 30% interest, onerous mortgages, $4 a gallon gas and rampant increases in the cost of goods. A kleptocracy is a term applied to a government that extends the personal wealth and political power of government officials and the ruling class (collectively, kleptocrats) at the expense of the population. Our government has abandoned all pretense of being interested in the welfare of the people. If the government has the resources to assume the cost of billions of dollars of bad debt from financial institutions and manage these investments, then the arguments against socialized universal healthcare seem a bit specious, don’t they?

The architects of this disaster should be arrested and sent to prison, not allowed to retain their stature in finance and hoard their ill-gotten lucre. Why the hell is the government using my tax money to bail out private companies? Is there no way to stop this? From what I understand Congress has to sign off on the bailout and I am going to send my senators a copy of this post and let them know in no uncertain terms that I consider this vast transfer of wealth from the workers to the super-rich as nothing short of treason. And why does the government only nationalize the companies that lose money by the fistful? I think if they are going to start seizing corporations why don't we nationalize a few of the big profitable corporations as well? Exxon would be a good start. They seem to make a decent amount of money.

As a letter-writer to the NY Times succinctly put it, “A bailout like this is anathema to those who responsibly sat on the sidelines while avaricious moneylenders and their debtors made wildly risky bets that have now gone terribly wrong.” I say it again, if we can nationalize" our most hallowed financial institutions with no debate and no public discussion, why can't we nationalize health care and energy development in the same way?

Down the Rabbit Hole

2008-09-18T15:25:00.003-04:00

"I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies ... If the American people ever allow the private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”-Thomas Jefferson

I think the most interesting thing about the economic meltdown in the financial industry is how little immediate effect the crisis is having on Main Street. People are somewhat nervous but they really aren’t sure exactly why. I know from looking at my 401k that I have approximately half the money I used to six months ago and I am one of millions. One thing is clear, by bailing out AIG and others of its ilk while leaving their shareholders twisting in the wind, the government has made its position quite clear: socialism for the rich and capitalism for everyone else. The last 10 days have seen the most intense period of government intervention in the financial system since the Great Depression. If this was the 1930s, Wall Street would be flooded with angry investors brandishing pitchforks and demanding the heads of CEOs but, alas, this is not the 1930s. The idea that this sick society could produce the likes of an Emma Goldman or John Reed is laughable. The government has successfully brainwashed the radicalism out of the people by giving them an endless parade of consumable goods and low-cost flat screen televisions. Food is also cheap enough that the government won’t have to worry about mobs of unemployed hungry people roaming around committing devilish acts of anarchy. Hell, most of us are so fat we couldn’t get off our couches to load our guns even if we wanted to. Let’s not forget that over the last seven years the totalitarian state has implemented mechanisms of control like surveillance and the abolition of the 4^th amendment, and the police are well armed.

It is going to take a lot more than shrinking retirement funds to get the populace out into the streets, but something tells me that a lot more is coming. I have this strange feeling that with one swift kick the whole shitbox will come crashing down around us. At some point it is going to dawn on people that there is an inherent unfairness to punishing the taxpayers while reckless financiers get to walk with their golden parachutes more or less intact. This kind of thing wouldn't happen if we extended capital punishment to white-collar crimes of sufficient gravity. My personal belief is that all the robber barons should be lined up against a wall and offered a last cigarette. A good old fashioned blood sacrifice is just the catharsis this country needs.

Caribou Barbie

2008-09-12T11:29:00.002-04:00

I'm going to apologize in advance for another posting on Sarah Palin. I realize that issues are more important than personalities, but I fear the prospect of an end-times Armageddon believer having the nuclear codes, I really do. By most accounts Palin’s interview with Charlie Gibson yesterday was a complete train wreck. The Eskimo queen was stilted in her delivery and apparently had no idea what the Bush Doctrine was, despite the fact that it will form the basis of McSame’s foreign policy. (Gibson described it to the clueless Palin as, “anticipatory self-defense.” ) Whatever, what is important is sticking to your plan, not thinking for yourself: “You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war.” Uh, yeah.

What came out of her mouth wasn’t reasoned analysis or thoughtful consideration of the questions asked, rather, she regurgitated Republican talking points and sounded as if she had just memorized a stack of cue cards with titles like, “Ten Things I Should Know About NATO”. Oh, and she also indicated that it might be necessary to attack Russia. Then again, she’s an expert on Russia, being the governor of Alaska and all, which is sort of close to Russia. Slate’s lead sentence in today’s article Palin v. Gibson Round One pretty much summed it up, “Without being smarmy about it or unfurling gotcha questions, ABC News anchor Charles Gibson demonstrated that he knows volumes more about national security and foreign policy than does Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.”

As if the interview wasn’t enough, yesterday, Palin also took a leap off the straight talk express by telling a group US troops heading to Iraq that they would be fighting “the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.” I suppose this played well to the 33% of idiots who still believe that Iraq had something to do with 9/11, but it left a bad taste in my mouth and as someone who survived the actual attack, I found it appalling.

After yesterday’s interview it isn’t hard to see why the McCain campaign has kept Palin away from reporters and off the interview circuit. The woman is as moronic as the voters the Republicans are trying to pander to. Frankly, this is getting ridiculous. Somebody should arrest John McCain for endangering democracy.

September 11, 2001

2008-09-11T07:34:00.003-04:00

Although it has been seven years since the 911 attacks, their impact continues to shape the way the country reacts to perceived threats and has pretty much lead to a complete gutting of the Constitution in the name of national security. The attacks have been used as cover by the Republican Party to start a war and engage in intrusive warrantless spying on the American people. I have a deeper connection to the attacks than most because I was there. I worked a block away from the Trade Center and stuck around long enough to get immersed in the mayhem and have to run for my life up Church Street when the towers collapsed. I’ve posted my story before, in 2006, but I felt like putting it up again as a memorial to everything we lost that day.

“On the morning of September 11, 2001 I and a number of other newly hired attorneys were due to have our picture taken with then Mayor Rudy Giuliani on the steps of City Hall. We were all supposed to meet on the second floor of the Law Department and then proceed to City Hall as a group. I was running late that morning and didn’t get to 100 Church Street until shortly after 8:30am. The first plane must have struck the tower when I was in the elevator because I don’t recall hearing any explosion. When I arrived on the second floor, I was somewhat surprised that no one else was there yet. Apparently the folks who were on the floor at the time the first plane hit had immediately gone downstairs to see what was happening. I grabbed a co-worker and went back to the lobby of my building. As I was pushing through the front door of the building the second plane hit the tower. There was a tremendous explosion and flash of light reflected in the windows of the building across the street which promptly shattered due to the explosion. A piece of the plane’s engine (I could see the flywheel clearly) tore through a section of roof of the next building north of 100 Church and landed with a tremendous thud about 20 yards from where I was standing. It was still there, smoking, when I ran up Church Street later on that morning.

Immediately after the second plane hit I bolted back into the lobby which was already full of FBI agents who were screaming at everyone to evacuate the building because it was about to collapse. I remember thinking at the time that this fact was kind of curious since only about 20 minutes had passed since the first plane struck the tower. To my knowledge the only tenants of 100 Church Street at the time were the Bank of New York, the City Law Department and a private law firm. At this point I still didn’t know what had happened; my first thought was that someone had blown up the Federal building next door. It was only when I exited the lobby into the street that I saw the towers burning for the first time.

Instead of leaving the area immediately as many of my colleagues did, I bummed a cigarette from a co-worker and stood in front of my building watching the tragedy unfold. I saw many, many people jumping to their deaths from the holes where the planes went into the tower. Fortunately, the Federal building blocked any view of them landing. The streets were full of paper blowing from the Trade Center offices like it was a perverse ticker-tape parade.

There were a lot of people on Church Street and the rumor mill was grinding out information every second; there was a third plane, the Met Life Building had also been hit, etc. At some point before the first Tower collapsed a fighter jet appeared in the sky which started a panic because people thought it was another hijacked plane. When the first Tower collapsed I was standing on the corner of Church Street and Chambers Street. I remember very clearly thinking and telling a number of friends and family that additional explosives must have been placed in the Tower because I saw puffs of smoke emanating from several stories below the fire just prior to the building collapse. I also thought I heard an explosion but I can’t be sure if this is a real memory or not. I watched the implosion and then ran for my life up Church Street with thousands of my fellow New Yorkers.

I was much further away when the second tower collapsed; on Canal Street and I could only see the top of the building as it disappeared.

We were shut out of the building for eight months as it was inside the frozen zone. We returned in April of 2002. Meanwhile life changed for me and for everyone else in the world. Anyway that’s the outline of my story. Hopefully many of you were a lot further away and only had to watch it on TV because, frankly I have had a difficult time processing all of that destruction. The fact that our government has seen fit to expend all of the world’s positive feelings toward the United States by waging war on the entire world saddens me beyond all description. Peace.”

The Undeciders

2008-09-10T09:18:00.002-04:00

The onset of cooler weather and the ramping up of the Republican vote stealing apparatus makes me want to run off to a cabin with a wood stove and sit there tying fishing lures until the election is over. The fact that McCain is slightly leading in the polls (though not in the electoral college) is evidence that most Americans don’t have the intellectual rigor to investigate the cause of their discontent and vote accordingly. Strident McCain supporters are mostly made up of an aggregate of the super-rich and the intellectually incurious and no amount of reason is going to woo them to the Democratic ticket. However, the undecided voters, especially those of modest means, drive me up a fucking tree.

Talk about voting against your self-interest! Undecided voters have to be uneducated or uninformed and if the polls are to be believed, seemingly have no ability to analyze a complex decision. That lack of intellectual curiosity is what allows Grandpa McSame to run under the mantle of change despite the fact that the Republican Party has been in power for most of the last 20 years and is the principal reason the economy is going belly-up. It’s the reason a long-term ultra rich senator with deep ties to lobbyists and a history of scandal (Keating Five anyone? The bailout cost American taxpayers $3.4 billion.) can run on a platform of reforming Washington. It’s the reason McCain can pick an equally wealthy and corrupt running mate who ripped off the Alaska State Treasury to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars and portray her as a squeaky clean suburban mom. Get the picture? They lie, but they do it draped in the American flag while waving a bloody steak and a six pack of Budweiser. People have no idea how fucked up this country can still get. Drill now? Who gives a fuck? Gay marriage? Who gives a fuck? This election is about the survival of America as a country, but most Americans are too goddamn lazy to pick their heads out of a bag of Doritos long enough to realize what’s at stake.

Unfortunately, the mockery of intellectualism that Republicans have advanced with great gusto has inexorably led to a dumbing down of society as a whole. I would have to guess this was their strategy all along. An intellectual populace would never swallow Republican Party platform. As always, America elects its Presidents not on the basis of what they promise, but whether they project “leadership” even if their ideas are morally and intellectually bankrupt. McCain has already won.

The Palin Effect

2008-09-05T14:15:00.002-04:00

The Patriot has been observing the emergence of Sarah Palin the candidate with great interest. I believe that McCain’s pick, far from being a hasty ill-conceived mistake, was one of the most brilliant strategic moves by a presidential candidate in recent history. Let me be clear, Sarah Palin is not qualified for the job of vice-president. There is no one who can seriously argue that her limited experience in state government is enough to put her on par with Joe Biden, Al Gore or Dick Cheney. But who cares? What the Democrats and pundits fail to realize is that far from being a handicap, her lack of experience, mediocre educational credentials, wacky family and gun-toting Ms. Mooseburger shtick make her vastly appealing to the hicks in the flyover states. After all, THEY used to play on their high-school basketball teams and went to mediocre colleges. Sarah is JUST LIKE THEM. Plus, her good looks (for a politician) and Cinderella story of being plucked from her igloo and thrust into the national spotlight have guaranteed that her personal story has dominated the news during the convention. Instead of the major media outlets focusing on the fact that the Republicans have no actual plan for rescuing the faltering economy, we were treated to three days of the Sarah Palin show, complete with pregnant daughter, shotgun weddings, moose hunting and snowmobile racing.

The media shows no sign of letting up on this wall to wall Wassila coverage either. Today at around noon CNN interrupted its coverage of an Obama rally in Pennsylvania after about 45 seconds to cover a McCain rally where Palin was giving substantially the same speech she gave on the floor in Minneapolis two days earlier. McCain just stood next to her like a proud father for about 20 minutes while she denigrated community organizing, told a few lies about Barak Obama and bragged about being mayor of a small town. After she was done frothing he took the mike and pronounced her the greatest Vice-Presidential pick in the history of the country.” The crowd ate it up.

It appears to me that the Obama campaign has no idea what to do about Palin fever. Obama is even starting to look very tired while McCain is shedding years just by standing next to Sarah Barracuda. It wouldn’t surprise me if the McCain Palin father-daughter road show continued to barnstorm every small town in the swing states right up to the day of the election.

I have been reading the comment boards of the New York Times and Salon and the Daily Kos and I am getting the sinking feeling that Democrats are seriously underestimating this ticket. Too many times I have seen defeat snatched from the jaws of victory and it usually happens when Democrats overestimate the intellectual capacity of independent voters. Let’s face it, Americans who are still sitting on the fence in this election are not particularly smart. This group can easily be swayed by flag-waving and appeals to patriotism and have little patience for difficult policy arguments or words more complicated than “delicatessen”. Any “independent” voter who would return a Republican to the executive branch after the tragedy of the last eight years either isn’t doing their research or just doesn’t care that we are staring into the abyss of another great depression brought on by supply-side economic theory and unregulated financial markets. What Republicans have learned over the last two elections is that they can just get up in front of the American people and simply lie to their faces, and no one will question them. They learned that lesson after seeing the tepid response to the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004. The media doesn’t get it. The Democrats don’t. The only thing I agreed with in Palin’s speech is that Harry Reid is, in fact, a pussy. The Republicans do get it: "“This election is not about issues,” Rick Davis, John McCain’s campaign manager said this week. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.”

If Obama wants to win this thing he has to get out there and go for the throat. If Kerry could be swift-boated, so can McCain. If not on his military record, than on the Keating S&L scandal, his adulterous affairs and his connections with the lobbyists he claims to disavow. I’m getting a sinking feeling that McCain's post-convention bounce is going to last a lot longer than a week or two.

Subject: The George W. Bush Presidential Library

2008-09-04T08:30:00.001-04:00

With thanks to Rebecca H.:

The George W. Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages.
The Library will include:
The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction.
The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything.
The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't even have to show up.
The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in.
The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out.
The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one has been able to find.
The National Debt room, which is huge and has no ceiling.
The Tax Cut Room, with entry only to the wealthy.
The Economy Room, which is in the toilet.
The Iraq War Room. After you complete your first tour, they make you go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tour.
The Dick Cheney Room, in an undisclosed location, complete with shotgun gallery.
The Environmental Conservation Room, still empty.
The Supremes Gift Shop, where you can buy an election.
The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators.
The 'Decider Room' , complete with dart board, magic 8-ball, Ouija board, dice, coins, and straws.

Admission: Republicans - free; Democrats - $1000 or 3 Euros

Unstable/Unable 08!

2008-09-03T22:51:00.003-04:00

After watching the fascist parade in Minneapolis tonight from beginning to end (admittedly with the help of a six pack of some elitist microbrews from Vermont) I have decided that whatever Barak Obama’s faults as a candidate, it is imperative that the Republicans cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to run this government for the next four years. I think Romney’s speech put me over the edge. His Nazi impersonation scared the holy crap out of me. The Alito Court is comprised of a bunch of liberals?? WTF?

Giuliani was also frightening. He was able to channel his inner trial lawyer in a way that he couldn’t during the campaign and his speech was like red meat to a bunch of hungry jackals. I’m in the middle of watching Sara Palin explain how being the mayor of Wassila Alaska was really a lot like running a country and I am starting to wonder whether the beer I drank was somehow laced with hallucinogens. McCain advisor Charlie Black on questions about Sarah Palin's foreign policy competence. "She's going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he'll be around at least that long."

Lest we forget, Palin was elected to her second term as mayor by a landslide, 800 votes to her opponent’s 240. Why should we question her experience? A degree from Idaho State and a few years running a backwater in Alaska after her career as a beauty contest also-ran is plenty of experience. And for gods sake woman, let your child go home and go to sleep. I had a four month old not too long ago and would never think of letting him sit in a convention hall surrounded by screaming people for four hours so I could make a point on national television. Republican family values. America is so fucked up. Thank you Republican Party. You got me off the sofa to get my credit card and send Obama $100. I suggest you all do the same.

Wish I had My Camera Cause This is a Kodiak Moment

2008-09-02T13:17:00.003-04:00

The Daily Kos has done an admirable job digging up mud on Sarah Palin that has nothing to do with unwed teenage daughters who may have been 16 at the time they were inseminated by their high-school boyfriends. (Side note-does anyone in the media have the balls to ask Palin whether she still supports abstinence only sex-education in light of its apparent failure in the Palin home?) My personal belief is that candidate’s families are only off limits to the extent that those candidates feel similarly about your family. Palin supports an abortion ban and other planks in the Republican platform that intrude into the privacy of your home. She should expect no quarter from the rest of us. Another bit of “family-values” hypocrisy that popped up is the fact that Palin unexpectedly eloped with her snowmobile racing husband and had her first child eight months later. Guess the fruit doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Far be it from me to moralize about personal behavior, but I’m not running on a platform that advocates teaching about Jesus in the public schools and attempting to enforce a Christian-based morality on everyone else. Palin is. The decisions she makes in her private life are fair game for public discourse.

Of course you don’t really need to get into her private life. Her public life is repugnant enough. Aside from the oddities like her support for a bill allowing the hunting of wolves from airplanes, there is this from her days as mayor of Wassila:

“[Former Wasilla mayor John Stein] says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving "full support" to the mayor.”

Any doubt as to whether Palin is a true conservative in the Bush/Cheney mode need look no further. While mayor, Palin continuously exhibited a contempt for the rule of law and showed a predilection for abusing executive power. Here's a news report citing another example:

"City librarian Mary Ellen Emmons [Baker] will stay, but Police Chief Irl Stambaugh is on his own, Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin announced Friday. The decision came one day after letters signed by Palin were dropped on Stambaugh's and Emmon's desks, telling them their jobs were over as of Feb. 13.

Both Stambaugh and Emmons [Baker] publicly supported Palin's opponent, long-time mayor John Stein during the campaign last fall. When she was elected, Palin questioned their loyalty and initially asked for their resignations. But Stambaugh said he thought any questions had been resolved.”

I guess not. She'll fit in pretty well in Washington, especially in such executive branch corridors as those at the DOJ. How about foreign policy? Can expect Governor Palin to focus on the important issues like the war in Iraq. In her own words, "I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq," she said. I'll bet Bush loves her. Bravo McCain. Now I am convinced that you are totally senile. No one in their right mind would nominate someone like this to the vice presidency.

Minneapolis

2008-09-02T09:47:00.003-04:00

The mainstream media would like you to believe that Sarah Palin’s daughter’s love-child is somehow important. They most certainly do not want you to realize that the Republican convention is beset by protesters and that the Minneapolis PD has been resorting to Gestapo like tactics to stifle the free expression of ideas. The mission of the media is to maintain the illusion that everything is fine out there in the heartland and that America isn’t beset by mounting internal tensions that threaten to overcome the social order. "Nothing Unusual Is Going On, protesters are demonstrating peacefully, no one is getting clubbed or gassed, there is no disturbance, continue shopping. That is all." Here is a video of an unarmed woman being tear-gassed by the police while trying to hand them a flower. Journalists are also being rounded up and arrested including Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke and Democracy Now! TV and radio show host Amy Goodman. Rourke was since released. Police had been holding him on a (obviously false) gross misdemeanor riot charge. An AP spokesman said of the arrest: "covering news is constitutionally protected, and photographers should not be detained for covering breaking news." Well, we all know about how strong those Constitutional Protections are after eight years of proto-fascist rule. The media would be better off reporting on the real news than invoking the protections of a Constitution which they stood by and allowed to be eviscerated.

What was barely reported over the week-end was the fact that the federal government was the architect behind the heavy-handed policing at the convention as well as taking the lead in a number of illegal raids on protest groups in the days leading up to it. Minnesota Public Radio reported that "the searches (of the protester headquarters) were led by the Ramsey County Sheriff's office. Deputies coordinated searches with the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation." The raids were executed after the Minneapolis Joint Terrorism Task force actively infiltrated dangerous groups of vegans who were supposedly plotting the overthrow of the government over their bowls of seitan stew. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the raids to me was not that they happened-after FISA and the Patriot Act there are no checks on the government’s ability to investigate and detain anyone they declare a “terrorist”-the real problem is that the rest of America doesn’t seem to give a shit. American’s talk a good game about freedom of speech, but when it comes to actually practicing tolerance and allowing dissenting viewpoints, we possess distinctly totalitarian inclinations. It defies explanation. Either we’re a nation of closet Nazis, or the government has us so cowed in fear that we have been paralyzed into a sort of dull witted complacency. As Glen Greenwald noted in Salon on Sunday, “After all, if you don't want the FBI spying on you, or the Police surrounding and then invading your home with rifles and seizing your computers, there's a very simple solution: don't protest the Government. Just sit quietly in your house and mind your own business. That way, the Government will have no reason to monitor what you say and feel the need to intimidate you by invading your home. Anyone who decides to protest -- especially with something as unruly and disrespectful as an unauthorized street march -- gets what they deserve.”

Into the Wild

2008-08-29T12:25:00.006-04:00

Well, maybe Obama will have an easier time of it in November after all. “Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,” said Bill Burton, an Obama campaign spokesperson. Appointing a soccer mom to the number 2 spot sort of undercuts McSame’s claim that the most significant challenge facing America is the risk of international terrorism. Alaska has what, 670,053 people living in it? That's less people than live in Brooklyn. McCain took his strongest argument against Barak Obama's candidacy and just neutralized it by appointing someone with less experience in government than a New York City councilman.

So who is this woman? All the Patriot can say for sure is that she's anti-choice, an oil company handmaiden, and a creationist whack-job. Plus, this so-called "maverick" is under investigation for trying to have a state official fire her ex-brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper. (The brother-in-law was in the middle of a custody dispute with Palin's sister.) When the Public Safety Commissioner refused, Palin fired him too. Abuse of power and executive entitlement? Hmm, where else have I seen that in the last 8 years?

Governer Palin would probably be on my short list of people I’d want to go moose hunting with, but her lack of foreign policy credentials render her unqualified to take the position of Vice President. If Gramps McCain thinks this maverick choice will be a plus for the ticket I think he has made a serious miscalculation. Denali is not just a mountain in Alaska. (The picture is Governer Palin's head shot from when she was the winner of the Miss Wasilla beauty pageant winner in 1984. She was also a one time Miss Alaska beauty pageant runner-up, journalism major, brief sports beat writer, and former city council member turned mayor of a the megaopolis that is Wasilla Alaska. If that resume doesn't scream "Vice Presidential Material, " I don't know what does).

Mile-High Milquetoast Meeting

2008-08-29T10:16:00.002-04:00

Ok, it’s over. The Democrats have had their historic convention, stage managed and scripted in a way that would make Joseph Goebbels proud. Another middle of the road Republican-lite candidate has been nominated by the party hacks and set loose in the ether. For anyone who is anticipating any sort of actual change in the way America comports itself, I submit the following for your review:

1. Influence peddling. There were more lobbyists in Denver throwing parties for Democratic lawmakers than are scheduled to be in Minnesota for the Republicans next week. I’d hazard a guess that these firms are not dispensing peeky-toed crab on toast points and Grey Goose martinis because of some new-found respect for the Democratic Party platform. The corporations sponsoring these lavish events have legislation pending before Congress and they know the Democrats stand to make substantial gains in November. Politics as usual.

2. An amazing failure to discuss of issues that are actually important. Glen Greenwald had a great column on this yesterday in Salon. He noted that while healthcare and the price of a gallon of gas are important issues, they are strange thing to focus on when compared against “the sheer radicalism and extremism of the last eight years. During that time, our Government has systematically tortured people using sadistic techniques ordered by the White House; illegally and secretly spied on its own citizens; broken more laws than can be counted based on the twisted theory that the President has that power; asserted the authority to arrest and detain even U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and hold them for years without charges; abolished habeas corpus; created secret prisons in Eastern Europe and a black hole of lawlessness in Guantanamo; and explicitly abandoned and destroyed virtually every political value the U.S. has long claimed to embrace.” The fact that Obama and the rest of the Party stalwarts hardly mentioned any of these insane perversions of the Constitution makes me question whether they have enough moral indignation to deserve the opportunity to govern.

3. Obama’s people edited Kucinich’s speech. Remember Dennis Kucinich? He actually spoke at the convention, although his speech was conspicuously absent from news reports. Obama's team edited out a line in the Kucinich speech which went "they want four more years, what they deserve is ten to twenty". Meaning that Obama has no plans to investigate or prosecute anyone in the Bush regime. As one letter-writer on Salon put it, “That would be divisive and we all know Obama is the MUPpet (Magical Unity Pony).”

I could go on and on, and I hate to rain on the parade of good feelings produced at the Mile-High Milquetoast Meeting, but take a look at what is being said between the lines. My guess is Obama won’t change a hell of a lot of anything too important. But aren't his kids cute? Isn't his wife glamorous? Aren't they tall and slim and sophisticated? It's Camelot all over again!

Rocky Mountain Fever

2008-08-27T22:21:00.001-04:00

The Patriot is blogging live from the Democratic convention, i.e. watching the public broadcasting coverage. I doubt I will have the stomach to watch the Republicans for more an a few minutes next week, unless McCains ex wife shows up to start some trouble.

Bill Clinton just made the greatest speech that I have heard him make since he left the White House. I am not a Clinton fan, far from it, but even I admit that his capacity for stirring oratory is unsurpassed by anyone with the exception of Barak Obama. In contrast, John Kerry has taken the stage and is making me very sleepy. I’m still not sure how he ended up as the party nominee in ’04. Nonetheless, it appears that the Dems have taken the gloves off. Kerry is fighting harder against the Republicans now than he did in the 2004 election. He did make some strange reference to Swift-boating, although he made it sound as if it happened to someone else. If I were him I would have said something along the lines of, “and those Republican rat-bastards had the nerve to question my military service while Dick Cheney and Karl Rove did everything they could to dodge the draft”. He didn’t say it in 2004 so I guess he isn’t going to say it now.

More tomorrow.

Rocky Mountain High

2008-08-26T15:18:00.001-04:00

The Democrat’s Dog and Pony Review pulled into Denver on Sunday with their weeping and overtly emotional vignettes polished just so for prime time television. As someone who hasn’t completely lost his faith in America, I was heartened by the tribute to Ted Kennedy and thought Michelle Obama did a credible job of Stepfordizing herself for middle America, but there was something missing…Oh yes, it was any mention of the fact that if you vote for John McCain you are a fucking moron. I am hoping that Joe Biden will take off the gloves and start swinging, but his voting record, yes to the war, yes to the bankruptcy bill, gives me little hope that he has the stones to take on anything more substantial than a dry martini.

Salon led today with a story on the PUMAS (Party Unity My Ass), who have been making a racket which is wholly disproportionate to their size. Despite the fact that this group of ostensibly maligned Hilary supporters is largely comprised of Republican operatives and slightly deranged illiterates, CNN and MSNBC have been devoting large blocks of air time to covering their protests. Never mind the fact that there were anti-war demonstrations with 100 times the numbers marching two blocks away, the main stream media has decided that the story of the convention is to be of a splintered Democratic party unable to unite behind its candidate. From my informal survey of the cable outlets the Clintons have gotten more press than the nominee in the last few days and the talking heads are playing up the posturing between the Hilary and Obama teams as if discussing the negotiation of the treaty of Versailles. Lost in all of this superficiality is any discussion of the poor, the disappearing middle-class, the economic meltdown, the housing crisis, the energy crisis, the failure of financial institutions and the war in Iraq. But really, do the Democrats really want to talk about that stuff? After all it was the Democrats who continued to fund the war after seizing Congress in 2006, the Democrats who caved in on FISA (with Obama’s support), the Democrats who failed to repeal the Patriot Act, the Democrats who put the bankruptcy bill over the top a few years back and the Democrats who have failed to take an aggressive stance against the predatory lenders and banks. In my opinion their credibility on these issues is somewhat lacking.

Nevertheless, Obama talks a good game, and that may be enough to get him in a position to thwart the electoral fraud that is sure to return for an encore in the swing states. He has to widen the gap in the polls by at least 7 points or the Republicans will simply rig the ballot boxes like they did in 2000 in Florida and 2004 in Ohio. In order for him to do that he has to start swinging the axe and chop the McCain campaign down to size. I'm not holding my breath.

Tonight we get to hear from the spurned prom queen with the big ego. I can’t wait to see who she is going to support in this election.

Surfin' Safari

2008-08-15T11:50:00.004-04:00

So, while Russian tanks are rumbling through Georgia, Obambi (thanks Cormac!) takes a page from the John Kerry playbook and allows himself to be photographed engaging in water sports. In Hawaii. Who exactly is running that campaign, the ghost of Lee Atwater?

Meanwhile, back in the United States, McCain has been running around polishing his foreign policy credentials to a high gloss while issuing grave pronouncements about Russian aggression that are sure to resonate with the hillbillies in the flyover states.

I think Obama is starting to believe his own press and is starting to fancy himself the second coming of Christ. (Or Neo from the Matrix, or something like that). What Obama fails to remember, is that despite the adoring crowds and hotties singing for him on youtube, he is coming into this election with three strikes against him: 1. he’s a Democrat; 2. he’s black; and 3. he’s intelligent. McCain is taking full advantage of his supporters innate racism and ignorance by portraying Obama as an effete, vainglorious elitist. Obama's response to these attacks? ? Takes a vacation in Hawaii in the middle of a European military conflict and spend his days bodysurfing at Waikiki. The Democratic Party’s circular firing squad tactics are in full effect this season, aren’t they?

Obama is being assisted down the path of self-destruction by the mass media. I uncovered this little gem on CNN.com today: “the images that are shaping Americans' lasting perceptions (of the Russia/Georgia dispute) are of a president playing in the sand with the women's beach volleyball team and the presumptive Democratic nominee alternately walking along Kailua Beach and playing golf in Hawaii.” Nice job, CNN, managing to link Obama with Bush, even placing them both on a beach engaging in frivolous activity! If only they could come up with a few photos of Obama patting the fanny of some tall girl from Santa Monica they could run it in a split screen in The Situation Room.

It appears that the main stream media has already decided the winner of the election. Witness the follow-up commentary from a paragraph or two later: “In contrast to both Bush and Obama, McCain conveyed strength and determination. While Obama timidly urged Georgia and Russia to "show restraint and to avoid an escalation to full-scale war," McCain took to the airwaves to deliver a blunt warning to Russian President Dimitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.” See, McCain is the real man. Obama is just a pussy. The problem is that Obama isn’t doing anything to make the case that this isn’t an accurate analysis. Ultimately, I have to agree with the CNN piece to the extent that perception matters: “If he fails to cut this holiday short, he might soon wind up being remembered as the guy who blew his chance to be president because he played on the beach while the Russian tanks rolled through Georgia.” Yup.

Obama Problems

2008-08-13T15:41:00.005-04:00

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." - Sir Winston Churchill

Maureen Dowd in her op-ed in today's Times made an interesting observation. Dowd's column was mostly about the potential for Hilary to make a stink at the convention, but she also had this to say about the state of the Democratic Party:

"The Clintons know that a lot of Democrats are muttering that their solipsistic behavior is “disgusting.” But they’re too filled with delicious schadenfreude at the wave of buyer’s remorse that has swept the Democratic Party; many Democrats are questioning whether Obama is fighting back hard enough against McCain, and many are wondering, given his inability to open up a lead in a country fed up with Republicans, if race will be an insurmountable factor.”

This appears to be the real story, if you ask me. Obama is languishing in the polls and his tepid response to McCain’s nasty ad campaign is giving the Patriot that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he remembers from election season 2004. In fact, if I squint hard enough when watching Obama on TV, I notice a heretofore unrecognized resemblance to John Kerry.

Obama may be a great orator and a charismatic man, but he is a center-right Democrat who has come out recently in favor of the death penalty and the so-called “compromise” on warrantless surveillance. He is running a fairly traditional campaign from the ideological center and in this respect he is no different from Kerry and Pelosi, and Reid and the rest of the feckless Democrats who sold out the Constitution for a few more years of personal power. Those remnants of the Democratic Party who were still able to conjure up some sense of hope that all is not lost (and for a while I counted myself among them) are starting to realize that they were duped into supporting a sheep in wolf’s clothing.

Obama doesn’t represent change so much as the illusion of change. This has secured for him the backing of a percentage of the corporate elite that he needs to make a good run; they know he’ll play ball once he’s elected. The problem is he ahs to get elected. By allowing his followers to get a glimpse of the man behind the curtain so early in the election cycle, i.e. before the convention, he runs the very real risk of reenergizing the nutty Clinton supporters, making a huge mess at the convention, and ensuring another 4 years of right wing hegemony. This is a mistake that only a neophyte politician would make. It took Bill Clinton well over his first 100 days in office to exhibit the Republican-lite attributes that alienated the left wing of the party for a generation. It has taken Obama about three months.

Despite my revulsion at Obama’s stance on the death penalty and most constitutional issues, I may be forced to vote for him anyway. The Supreme Court must not be allowed to suffer any more Republican appointments in the next four years lest we run the risk of descending into complete, overt, totalitarian rule. Can we stand to allow McCain’s finger on the button with a conservative Court rubber-stamping every unilateral expansion of executive power? Not with a resurgent militaristic Russia in Europe. Not with the middle-east still in a state of near chaos, and certainly not with a weak Democratic Congress who has clearly indicated that they will not confront the President on issues of “national security”, or anything else.

I'm Baaack.....

2008-08-12T13:59:00.003-04:00

I’m back. I really would rather not be, but every time I read the paper or watch the vapid “reporters” on CNN hold forth on important topics like the “staycation” and the second Phil Specter trial, I start frothing at the mouth and my left eye starts twitching. I think holding in all of my anger at the fascist oligarchs running this country is going to start causing me health issues. So, it’s back to ranting and raving on the internet for me.

A random survey of the morning papers produced one item of immediate interest. In a spectacular victory for the 911 terrorists, the City of New York is now completing its transition to a police state with its plan to scan and archive the license plates of every car that crosses into Manhattan through the tunnels and over the bridges. The invasive program is desperately needed in order to “strengthen the city’s guard against a potential terror attack,” according to the NYPD’s chief spokesman. (I suppose it should pass without mention-but I’m going to mention it anyway- that such a plan, had it been in effect on 9/11, would have done nothing to deter the hijackers who flew the planes into the Towers. After all, they didn’t fly the freaking planes through the Holland Tunnel, did they?)

The plan to take snapshots of the subversive bumper stickers on your minivan is part of a much larger operation with the Orwellian name “Operation Sentinel”. The backbone of this plan is the integration of various frighteningly intrusive new technologies with the goal of encasing Manhattan in a web of surveillance. In addition to photographing and scanning the license plates of cars and trucks at all bridges and tunnels, and using sensors to detect the presence of radioactivity, data on each vehicle “including its time-stamped image, license plate imprint and radiological signature — would be sent to a command center in Lower Manhattan, where it would be indexed and stored.” (NY Times). Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, flush with Homeland Security dollars that would arguably be better spent on classrooms and improved transportation infrastructure, “has been urging the creation of a London-style surveillance system for the financial district that relies on license plate readers, movable roadblocks and 3,000 (!) public and private security cameras below Canal Street, all linked to a coordination center called the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative. The goal, according to Kelly, is to save the financial center from a possible disruptive terrorist attack. From what I’ve seen of the economy lately, I’m more inclined to think that the people need to be protected from the financial center rather than the other way around.

Operation Sentinel is also part of the NYPD’s 39 page vision for security at the 9/11 site. Call me crazy, but I kind of remember that right after 9/11, before the country went completely mad, the thinking of designers and politicians alike was that the public space that would rise on the ashes of the World Trade Center site should reflect the angels of our better nature; wide pedestrian spaces, a vibrant streetscape, etc. I am forced to admit that the current plan, with a dozen guard-booths to control pedestrian traffic and placing the entire area of the former WTC within a security zone in which only specially screened taxis, limousines and cars would be allowed through barriers staffed by police officers, to be much more reflective of the small-minded, paranoid, mean-spirited, war-mongering fascists we have become in the last seven years.

It's good to be back.

Mission Accomplished

2008-03-26T13:54:00.000-04:00

Well my friends, the Patriot has had a good run over the course of the past two years but I think it’s time to pull the plug. From the day I started hacking away at this blog in 2006 to the present day my life has changed in ways that would have seemed inconceivable to me then. The country has also gone through a lot of changes, very few of them positive ones, and whether we survive with our principles intact is a very open question in my mind.

I have decided to continue to blog, although postings on politics and political ideology will take a back seat to comments on the far more frustrating (yet rewarding) job of parenting little Jack Becket. I invite you all to stop by the new blog, “Who’s Your Daddy” www.whosyourdaddie.blogspot.com and have a look around. The blog will primarily be concerned with, “Meditations and musings on being a single dad in New York. “ What this means exactly isn’t quite clear to me yet. Stay tuned. And thank you, dear readers, for your support over the last two years. It has been a real treat foaming at the mouth with all of you.

"You should not have to have your penis fall off to get medical treatment from the government."

2008-03-14T15:16:00.003-04:00

Very true. Unfortunately, it happens occasionally:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031408G.shtml

WTF?

2008-03-11T13:01:00.002-04:00

Now I don't care that Spitzerwas sleeping with hookers, although to do so on Valentine's Day seems the height of bad taste when you are married and have three daughters waiting at home with heart-shaped cards and all that. What I do care about is how cavalierly he was shuffling money around and how his outsized ego seemed to warp his capacity for critical thinking. Did he really think that noone was watching? The man made a lot of enemies and all of them were lined up waiting for him to fuck up in some way. The hubris! I never really liked him personally; he was a bully and abused his office as attorney general, even though the net result of his prosecutions was generally positive for the people of New York. But he is also a lawyer, and the State Bar takes a dim view of lawyers who commit felonies. In fact, upon conviction they are instantly disbarred. Spitzer is familiar with what charges one can bring down on the heads of high priced call girl agencies through his moralistic crusade against them while he was attorney general, so he must have been aware that he was in violation of the Mann Act when he was arranging for Kristin to hop on the 5:39 Amtrak to DC. (The same train, incidentally, that I used to take home when I was commuting from to Philadelphia a few years ago). He also must have known that "stacking" your financial transactions to avoid raising the attention of the IRS is also a felony. This incredible lapse of judgment makes me question whether he is suffering from some sort of mental illness. The Republicans will have some fun with this one, but they probably shouldn't get out the knives until they find out who clients 1 through 8 were. What a flameout. See ya Spitzer.

Police State, Useless Congress, The Usual Stuff

2008-03-07T15:50:00.001-05:00

I haven’t posted in a while. Mostly this is because I have not had any time, but it’s also partly because I have come to realize that living life is more interesting than writing about it. So what’s new? Things have been slow at work and I’ve taken a step back from distance running. I’m back to 5 miles per day for 6 days per week. I found that when I was running 10 on Sunday and continuing my weekly mileage I was pretty sore and I was also shoving a fair amount of high calorie food into my face because I was constantly hungry. As a result, despite getting my mileage up around 40 a week, I was incrementally gaining weight. This was not the result I hoped for so I’m circling in a running holding pattern until I can figure out when to up the mileage to better prepare for the Long Island ½ Marathon in May. The runner’s term for what I’m doing is accumulating “junk miles,” but I never liked the term. Holding pattern is more descriptive.

So, what has the government been up to lately? Let’s see, the Democratic controlled Congress is circulating a draft of its FISA bill which essentially gives Bush everything he asked for. The current draft does not contain telecom immunity (solely for temporary strategic reasons), but incorporates every substantive warrantless surveillance provision of the Rockefeller/Cheney bill passed by the Senate. The bill was drafted by Pelosi and Reyes, may they rot in hell, and is expected to be signed by the President without any complaints. Your opposition party at work in the Brave New World folks.

What else? Well, the Washington Post is reporting that the DOJ has created a domestic intelligence system set up through computer networks which will gather together broad new categories of behavior of Americans, from the suspicious to the innocuous. Federal authorities hope that The National Data Exchange, or N-DEx. DEx will become a "one-stop shop" enabling federal law enforcement, counterterrorism and intelligence analysts to automatically examine enormous caches of local and state records for the first time. But wait, doesn’t this violate our constitutional privacy rights? The answer is it depends on what your definition of “privacy” is:

"As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information. . . . "

You can trust us, we’re from the government! Remind me again why I should care who wins this election.

Stuff White People Like

2008-02-27T16:05:00.004-05:00

Probably the funniest blog in the history of the internet. A sample from #60, "The Toyota Prius".

"Over the years, white people have gone through a number of official cars. In the 1980s it was the Saab and the Volvo. By the 1990s it was the Volkswagen Jetta or a Subaru 4WD stastion wagon. But these days, there is only one car for white people. One car that defines all that they love: the Toyota Prius.

The Prius might be the most perfect white product ever. It’s expensive, gives the idea that you are helping the environment, and requires no commitment/changes other than money.

The Toyota Prius gets 45 miles per gallon. That’s right, you can drive 45 miles and burn only one gallon of gasoline. So somehow, through marketing or perception, the Prius lets people think that driving their car is GOOD for the environment.

It’s a pretty sweet deal for white people. You can buy a car, continue to drive to work and Barak Obama rallies and feel like you are helping the environment!"

LOL!!

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

William F. Buckley

2008-02-27T14:07:00.003-05:00

So William Buckley kicked the bucket today. Was he a smart man? Indubitably. Was he a charismatic man? Verily. I even agree with many of his libertarian views. A good leftist need look no further than the National Review for a principled stance on the drug war and on the dangers of giving the government too much power to search and seize. From a speech Buckley gave to the New York State Bar association against the “war on drugs” in late 1995:

“I came to the conclusion that the so-called war against drugs was not working, that it would not work absent a change in the structure of the civil rights to which we are accustomed and to which we cling as a valuable part of our patrimony… I leave it at this, that it is outrageous to live in a society whose laws tolerate sending young people to life in prison because they grew, or distributed, a dozen ounces of marijuana. I would hope that the good offices of your vital profession would mobilize at least to protest such excesses of wartime zeal, the legal equivalent of a My Lai massacre. And perhaps proceed to recommend the legalization of the sale of most drugs, except to minors.”

I might also mention that he was outspoken in his opposition to the Iraq war. However, I do not agree with Buckley on a great deal. The idea, for example, that people with HIV should be tattooed on their forearms as a warning to those who would share needles with them is the sort of thing that makes one’s stomach turn. (He recommended a similar tattoo on the rear ends of people with AIDS to, as he put it, “prevent the victimization of homosexuals.”) Nevertheless, compared to the current crop of Neo-Cons who lay claim to his legacy without possessing his intellectual acumen, he was a giant and a worthy adversary.

Perhaps the best tribute I have read thus far is from leftist author and blogger Rick Perlstein who used Buckley as a source for his book on Barry Goldwater. One excerpt:

“He did the honor of respecting his ideological adversaries, without covering up the adversarial nature of the relationship in false bonhommie. A remarkable quality, all too rare in an era of the false fetishization of "post-partisanship" and Broderism and go-along-to-get-along. He was friends with those he fought. He fought with friends. These are the highest civic ideals to which an American patriot can aspire…”

See ya Bill. Your type of conservative is hard to come by these days.

Nader Redux

2008-02-26T10:23:00.004-05:00

Nader is in the race. This causes me a host of philosophical and practical problems. I’m not quite ready to jump ship yet, but I have been carefully considering Obama’s stance on a variety of issues and find them wanting. Granted, he is probably the most progressive candidate one can expect, but this isn’t such a great allocade when one considers the sorry state of progressive politics in America. On the issues, Ralph and I have no disagreement. Ralph Nader takes these stands: Adopt single payer national health insurance. Cut the huge, bloated, wasteful military budget. No to nuclear power, solar energy first. Aggressive crackdown on corporate crime and corporate welfare. Open up the Presidential debates to legitimate third party candidates. Adopt a carbon pollution tax. Reverse U.S. policy in the Middle East. Repeal the Taft-Hartley anti-union law. Adopt a Wall Street securities speculation tax. Put an end to ballot access obstructionism. Work to end corporate personhood. Obama supports, well, none of those things.

What does it mean to be a progressive? What does it mean to be a leftist? These are not simply meaningless philosophical questions. Obama is probably the best we can expect from the Democrats. He’s no JFK, but even Nader himself called Obama "a person of substance" and "the first liberal evangelist in a long time". Unfortunately, when you look at his positions, he stands for, at best, incremental change. I feel like that isn’t enough. It only took the Republicans seven years to destroy the economy, eviscerate the constitution and trash America’s reputation in the world. They certainly weren’t holding back on their agenda for the sake of political expediency. I don’t know. Maybe I am so disenchanted with the inherent corruption of the political system that I cannot get beyond the fact that these great media driven personality contests that are trotted out for public consumption every four years have very little to do with things that concern average Americans. Presidential elections aren’t about issues; they are about money and personality. Issues tend to bore the media. Plus, well, we know who controls the media. Corporations are perfectly happy to allow us to wallow in ignorance as long as we are spending money to buy their products. Some days I feel like a human ATM. But I have questions. I want to know why are we the only western democracy without government sponsored universal healthcare? Why is no one running for president talking about that? How come the war in Iraq isn’t being debated? Why isn’t Obama demanding the repeal of the Patriot Act and coming out strongly against warrantless wiretapping?

Silver Lake Park, Staten Island

2008-02-24T12:43:00.003-05:00

Saturday in the park. We finally got a decent snowstorm, although it still doesn't seem as substantial as the ones I remember when I was a lad. Nevertheless there was a good sledding hill...

Not Dogs and Soysages

2008-02-19T16:27:00.000-05:00

A week-end in the mountains is a wonderful prescription for a long list of society induced stress related ailments. Despite the unseasonably warm weather, the Patriot was even able to get in a day of skiing at Plattekill, a small family ski resort in the Catskills. The trails certainly didn’t rival anything in Colorado, or even Vermont, but the Mountain had one virtue which made the skiing the equivalent of what you would find at a much better situated resort-daycare. What an enlightened concept. I have always had an affinity for the Catskills. I have camped and hiked all over the park at one point or another since I was in high school and I like the fact that the place (with a few exceptions like Woodstock) hasn’t been overrun by yuppies. Unfortunately there is a large development project slated for Bellayre which will probably forever change the air of gentle sleepiness that hangs over the smaller towns.

I was watching CNN the other day and they were playing video taken by an undercover animal rights activist of workers in a slaughterhouse kicking and tasering cows that were too sick to walk on their own into the killing chute. It was a pretty gruesome sight. Workers also sprayed water with high intensity hoses up the cattle’s up noses, and rolled them with forklifts in attempt to get them to stand . The abuse was probably motivated more by economics than any sadistic impulse on the part of the workers. Federal rule prohibits the slaughter of non-ambulatory disabled ("down") cattle for human consumption. If the cow can be tortured into walking into the slaughterhouse under its own power then it isn’t a down animal and can be made into McDonald’s ¼ pounders. If it has to be dragged to the killing floor then it’s basically worthless and has to be sold as dog food.

I am not an animal rights activist and although I was a vegetarian for 10 years, over the last several years incorporated small amounts of meat, including beef, into my diet. My personal belief, supported by science, is that man is an omnivore. However, I also believe that eating low on the food chain is a wise choice for a variety of ecological and health reasons. When I do eat meat I try to obtain it from reputable sources like local farmers and try to ensure that the animals were raised humanely. Unfortunately this is not always possible, so I suppose I have to accept responsibility for helping create the demand for factory farmed meat. It should not be surprising to anyone that scenes such as those played out in the video result from treating animals as commodities.

I confess that watching the mistreatment of sentient beings like those cows has gotten me to reconsider how much suffering I want served up with my potato and side salad. The first precept mandates that Buddhists refrain from taking life. The fact that American’s are several steps removed from the actual killing seems a flimsy rationale for ignoring the reality that a demand for meat causes the death of sentient beings. Not to mention the fact that the process that eventually results in meat under cellophane at the grocery contributes greatly to the immense suffering of human beings due to the unsustainable demand on the earth’s resources and the contribution of factory farming to the pollution of the world’s drinking water. Perhaps a first step to turning around America’s unsustainable lifestyle should be a decrease in meat consumption. How to sell it to the public is quite another question.

Amerian Unreason

2008-02-14T09:11:00.001-05:00

Why are Americans so stupid? Perhaps more importantly, why are they so proud of their ignorance? Author Susan Jacoby probes the issue in her new book, “The Age of American Unreason.” Jacoby is hardly the first social commentator to address the subject; a number of books have been written lately which lament American’s growing hostility to rational thought, but Jacoby has cast her gaze over the land and sees a perfect storm of ignorance that has been brewing for quiet some time.

According to her observations, at this point in our history anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way. The blame can be laid at the feet of our failing public educational system as well as religious fundamentalism’s antipathy toward science. She cites a disturbing statistic that nearly two thirds of Americans want creationism taught alongside evolution. Two thirds!

A good review of Jacoby’s book can be found here.

The Matrix

2008-02-12T13:46:00.000-05:00

My friend Joe Bageant has been living in exile down in Belize for a little while. His most recent essay is a thoughtful (and very, very funny) indictment of American consumer culture and its lack of sustainability. Unfortunately, Americans are not known for their selfless nor are they prone to naval gazing, which explains why the Dalai Lama quipped a few years ago that Americans had “perfected Samsara”. All of our electronic diversions and digital entertainment have left us bloated and lethargic, in a state of complete delusion and almost willful ignorance about the dangers posed by a rapidly increasing world population and dwindling resources. Here’s Joe:

“Mainly though, aware Americans are watching and waiting for someone else to make an important move. Guts are nonexistent in Americans these days, programmed out of us during the posh captivity of the "cheap oil fiesta" that drove our grotesque and brief civilization. Still, if ever there were a time to show some guts, it's now. Not by protesting -- which has become a security state supervised liberal pussy sport -- but by giving up the material life, the consumer life. Damned near all of it. Including all those leftie and alternative books from Amazon -- sitting on our asses reading and drinking green tea just because we can afford to is just another type of inaction and consumerism. It's the only real act of protest possible by the prisoners of our consumption driven monolith. True, you'll be just one iPodless and carless little guy throwing a single stone at the United States of Jabba the Hutt. But assuming you're still capable of any kind of life after the stellazine mind conditioning we've all been administered for past 40 years, I've got folding cash that says you will own your life in a way that seemed previously impossible. Hanging onto or chasing the bling is over with anyway, as dead as the economy. The Olive Garden and Circuit City are still open, true, but only because the hair and nails still grow on Jabba's corpse. Would somebody please quit pretending he's alive and yank the feeding tube?”

Yanking the feeding tube. A great visual that conjures up images of Neo in the Matrix after he swallowed the red pill.. We are all like little Neos, safely wrapped in our cocoons being pumped full of food while our warmth and humanity is being harvested to feed our machine overlords. Except in our reality our overlords aren’t machines (unless you consider the system of international capitalism to be a machine), our overlords are our own greed and complacency. Unless enough of us wake up and swallow the red pill, our planet is fucked and all of us along with it.

Dongshan’s Heat and Cold

2008-02-11T13:46:00.000-05:00

“A monk asked Master Dongshan, “Cold and heat descend upon us. How can we avoid them?” Dongshan answered, “Why don’t you go to the place where there is no cold or heat?” The monk continued, “Where is the place where there is no cold or heat?” Dongshan said, “When it is cold, let it be so cold that it kills you. When hot, let it be so hot that it kills you.”

It is freaking freezing in New York today; 10 degrees this morning when I went out to the car. Today is one of those few days of the year when wearing a large puffy down jacket is acceptable, fashion be damned. The wind came roaring up the coast like an angry dragon last night, bringing the sub-zero temperatures from somewhere west of the Jersey state line. Jack and I were awakened a few times during the night by gusts that shook the house down to the foundation. I am generally ambivalent about the weather. Winter is cold, summer is hot. To accept this idea and then to complain about this state of affairs seems kind of crazy. But, come on, 10 degrees?

I ran 9 miles yesterday in much better weather. I was supposed to head up to the Bronx to run the Bronx ½ marathon, but this would have required getting up at an ungodly hour and making all manner of complicated arrangements so I decided to just continue my tour of industrial Staten Island that I started on last week’s run. I was running with an i-pod and listening to a dharma talk given by John Daido Loori Roshi, the abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper New York. Zen Mountain Monastery back in the early 1990s and always felt attracted to Loori’s teaching style. The inscription at the door of Zen Mountain Monastery reads: Only those concerned with the questions of life and death need enter here. A reminder, no doubt, that life is short and opportunities to penetrate the great matter quickly slip by, like the rest of earthly phenomena. To paraphrase Nyogen Senzaki, like a lightning flash or a dewdrop. Ephemeral, fleeting.

One thing that did not feel ephemeral or fleeting yesterday was my 9 mile run through the Staten Island hills. At about mile 6 I was so intent on listening to Loori expound on the Dharma that I tripped on a cracked sidewalk on Bay Street and fell on my ass. Well, hip more than ass. Such are the risks of running in an urban environment without paying attention to where your feet are going to land. Zen practice and running are all about paying attention.

Staten Island is a place of many micro-environments. On yesterday’s run I passed by the mansions of Todt Hill, the Staten Island Ferry drydocks and the Alice Austin House, all within 5 miles of one another. There was a long stretch by the Staten Island Homeport that was extremely industrial and grimy. Staten Island never quite got accustomed to the concept of zoning so it is not unusual to find beautiful Victorian homes snugly nestled next to busy auto body shops. I try not to discriminate between the ugly and the beautiful; its all about non-duality and acceptance, right? Still, I much more enjoy running along the curve of the shoreline by the ferry terminal where I can watch Manhattan shimmering in the distance across the harbor than through the industrial wasteland over by the Homeport where I’m dodging stray dogs and the occasional crack addict. I guess I have a little way to go with my understanding of the universe.

Is it the weather that is cold,

Or is it the person that is cold?

Think neither cold nor heat.

At that moment,

Where is the self to be found?

Today

2008-02-07T16:00:00.001-05:00

So I went out for a long run on Sunday. This is a typical thing that I do every week-end, but this particular Sunday it was a bit more challenging since I was recovering from Jack’s party, which started early and ended late. Still, I managed to get in 8 miles by patching together a route that included both Snug Harbor and the Staten Island Ferry terminal pathway. Buying a Garmin Forerunner has completely changed the quality of my week-end runs. The Forerunner is a GPS device that you wear on your wrist and it accurately logs your distance and pace, thereby untethering you from your established running routes and eliminating the need to run circle after circle around the perimeter of your local park. Thanks to this little device, I have rediscovered the fun part of running; just heading down the road and exploring without worrying whether I’m covering a set distance in a certain period of time.

The treadmill has been wearing me down lately, as has the grey, non-winter we’ve been having here in the Northeast. I feel like Jack and I have been spending too much time inside in front of the television when there is so much else I could/should be doing. But it is a challenge to leave the house once I get home from work, and where does one go on Staten Island in the dark anyway? I miss the summer-time walks Jack and I used to take around Silver Lake Park every night. I guess cabin fever is setting in. Our local rodent weather prognosticator Staten Island Chuck says winter will be over soon, but how much faith can you put in a ground hog? At least the sun is staying up a little longer these days. As of today I have 23 miles in for the week, and Mitt Rmoney has been sent packing back to whatever hole he crawled out of . I suppose spring is really just around the corner.

Obama for President

2008-02-04T14:33:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday. I suppose as a registered Democrat and erstwhile political blogger I should weigh in on who I’m thinking of jerking the lever for tomorrow. Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know that I have devoted a considerable amount of space excoriating the Democrats for their feckless, chicken-little like behavior in the face of the Bush administration’s assault on the constitution. I still think that the Democratic leadership is about as useless as tits on a bull, but the thought of four more years of trickle-down economics, electronic snooping and military expenditures of $12 billion per month in Iraq make sitting this election out an unreasonable option. Since Obama and Hillary are essentially the same politically, the only way to distinguish them is by their character. This is a contest that Obama wins hands down. Hilary Clinton has spent this entire election cycle lying about almost everything. Her “35 years of experience” really translate into one year of volunteer work at a non-profit, followed by 15 years at a corporate law firm and 8 years of hiding Easter eggs on the South Lawn of the White House. How this qualifies the woman to be the standard-bearer of the party of Franklin Roosevelt is beyond me. Yes, she’s smart. Yes she would probably be a neutral enough President, but her triangulation on every issue and her tendency to vote with the herd in the Senate make me think that she has no core values that she believes in enough to fight for. Her vote for the Iraq war was pure political pandering and her vote for the Patriot Act inexcusable. She is also probably the only figure alive who can get the Republican base off their hillbilly asses and into a voting booth. She is, quite frankly, a liability to the party as a presidential candidate.

Obama, on the other hand, has a short track-record in the Senate. This will make him less susceptible to the Rovian slime machine, drug use not withstanding. He also possesses a certain physical and psychic appeal that transcends the issues. He spouts exactly the kind of empty feel-good platitudes that Americans find so endearing in a politician. He also looks really good on TV and he sure sounds confident. He is, in a word, electable. For whatever reason he is able to excite masses of people in a way that John McCain just can’t seem to pull off. (McCain’s closest traveling companion these days is the phlegmatic Joe Lieberman. Need I say more?)

So it is with a small glimmer of hope for the future that the Patriot endorses Barack Obama in the New York primary. The politics of hope should trump the politics of fear any day.

Kids and Bars

2008-01-30T09:15:00.000-05:00

I have been really enjoying reading a blog I discovered recently whose author discusses issues relating to running and Zen practice. Check it out. Jack and I have been recovering from some sort of a nasty virus that was causing us to manifest illness this past week. It kept me from the starting line of the NYC ½ marathon and made life challenging for a few days. It is interesting, and somewhat frustrating sitting up with a sick child in the middle of the night when you also have a fever. Fortunately we’re both on the mend and I have decided to run the Bronx ½ marathon on February 10th.

I was reading Gothamist yesterday and stumbled across an apparently contentions debate about whether children should be allowed to accompany their parents into upscale bars in New York City. The particular bar in question was the Union Hall bar located in Park Slope Brooklyn, whose owners recently raised the ire of besotted parents everywhere when they instituted a stroller ban at the bar. This is an issue that could only arise in a place like Park Slope, where over privileged children and their yuppie parents often run head on into over privileged single yuppies with no children. The parents are put out because not everyone thinks their beautiful intelligent children are beautiful or intelligent; and the singles are put out because being surrounded by children reminds them that they are getting older and should probably be doing something other than sitting on a bar stool in Park Slope in the middle of the day drinking over-priced beer.

Presumably the parents of these children are meeting other parents to knock back a few pints while their kids frolic around amidst the mid-day drinkers and soggy beer napkins. I was pretty surprised by the venom expressed by the childless tipplers who seemed to see the presence of children in a bar as somehow representative of the decline of western civilization. I wonder if this seeming hatred for children, out of all proportion to the wee ones impact on their immediate surroundings, is a narcissistic trait particular to New Yorkers. I lived in Philadelphia for a while and most bar/restaurants in the better neighborhoods always had a stroller or two parked in front and no one seemed unduly upset by a parent reading the paper and having a pint on a Saturday afternoon. I suppose the air of entitlement that pervades neighborhoods like Park Slope is to blame. I mean, paying $1,000,000 for a one bedroom apartment would sure put me in a bad mood. Really, it’s not the kids at fault here, it’s the self-centered childless adults who apparently never learned to play well with others.

One

2008-01-28T08:25:00.000-05:00

Happy birthday little dude! Over the course of this past year you have brought me many beautiful moments. The sound of your laughter reminds me that it is still possible to see the world with the wondering eyes of a child. Your daddy loves you very much.

Forever Young

2008-01-25T08:26:00.000-05:00

Becky would have turned 40 today. The very idea would have appalled her to no end, but I still wish she was here so I could listen to her complain about it. It is hard to believe that an entire year has gone by since we celebrated her 39th birthday by having dinner at Devi near Union Square where we mostly talked about what to name our little friend whose arrival was (correctly) thought to be imminent. I wrote about the actual dinner in some detail for a blog posting. You can read it by clicking here. It has been a difficult year for those of us left to struggle on without her, but life, as they say, goes on. I take some solace in the fact that even in her absence, Becky has taught me a good deal about many things, including what it means to be a good father. She was many things in her life, but a teacher first among them. She taught both by example and by getting you to look at yourself in a way that somehow brought your hazy confusion about your life into tight focus. She was clearly one of the most unselfish people to ever walk this earth and gave of herself constantly. A true bodhisattva. So, I would rather celebrate the day of her birth than spend undue time thinking about the day she was taken from us. I think she would agree. Happy birthday my dear. You are missed.

Running and Music

2008-01-22T09:10:00.000-05:00

I confess that I have been running with an I-Pod lately, which I never did years ago, mostly because they hadn’t been invented yet. When I was training for the Buffalo Marathon I remember trying a few runs with a Walkman, but giving it up because a 90 minute cassette tape only lasted for around 10 miles. The I-Pod is a great tool for the distance runner, and may offer a competitive advantage to those who wear it while racing. According to a recent article in the Times, studies have shown that listening to music during exercise can improve results, both in terms of being a motivator and as a distraction from negatives like fatigue. The most effective music seems to be that which clocks in at around 120-140 beats per minute, which coincidentally happens to be the roughly the heart-rate aerobic zone of a 40 year old male.

I started running to music much more frequently around a year ago. That's when I started running on my lunch hour-on a treadmill-and without some sort of distraction I would have gone stark raving mad. I am a little worried that I’ve been relying too much on the music lately and that it gives me an artificial sense of my running ability, not to mention that any pretension of running as moving Zen is lost when you’re bopping down the road boogying to the Grateful Dead. I try to mix it up and play some ragas and some eclectic eastern influenced music to restore my sense that I am doing something more meditative than dancing. Bhagavan Das’s “Now” is particularly effective as a focusing tool. When I'm in a more natural setting or somewhere unfamiliar, I eschew the music and just tune into my surroundings. I remember a great 7.4 mile run in Berkeley up Strawberry Canyon, surrounded in white fog that had come streaming in through the Golden Gate, where I felt like my ego disappeared and I had become one with the State of California. An interesting feeling I must say.

Running and Zen

2008-01-21T15:03:00.000-05:00

It’s a pretty cold day here in the Northeast. I doubt we’ll reach anywhere near 30 degrees today and this morning was downright brutal. It was so cold when I went out to warm up the car that I wore a big puffy down jacket and still felt the chill. Yesterday it was somewhat warmer, which was a good thing since I decided to run 10 miles in preparation for the Manhattan ½ marathon, scheduled for next Sunday. It was the first time I ran 10 miles in quite a while and I’m relieved to report that I accomplished the run with minimal discomfort, despite the fact that there was a stiff cold wind blowing and I was underdressed for the temperature. Staten Island is also a pretty hilly place which also presents its own set of challenges. I had forgotten the feeling of bliss associated with runs lasting longer than one hour. The first five miles is the hardest, after that the run begins to flow and is remarkably effortless except for minor aches and pains. Increased alpha waves and endorphins together really make for a winning combination. I think if I can knock off the ½ next Sunday I’ll keep up the long runs and try to run a full marathon in the spring. After all 40 is the new 30 and I ran my last full marathon when I was 30 so what the hell.

Japanese Zen Buddhist monks practice a style of walking mediation known as kinhin. Practitioners walk clockwise around a room while holding their hands in shashu (left fist closed, while the right hand grasps the left fist). During this particular type of walking meditation a step is taken after each full breath. It is a rather slow way of getting around the room, but it works out the kinks in the legs common to long periods of sitting meditation. I have always thought of running as a faster, more fluid type of walking mediation; a running meditation, if you will. Running in the streets of Staten Island certainly requires total concentration. As a byproduct of this intense concentration I find that on the longer runs, solutions to problems that seem intractable when pondered during the working day often have a way of bubbling up from my subconscious. One can see the parallels to the instantaneous enlightenment experience of Zen. In any event, running keeps me sane and the longer I run, the saner I tend to get. Which is a good thing.

Judicial Activism?

2008-01-15T12:55:00.001-05:00

There is an excellent article in Salon today which pretty much deconstructs the right wing-nuts approach to the rule of law in this country. I find it amusing how so many of them declare themselves "strict-constructionists" without having the slightest idea of what that means. They wouldn't know a tort from a contract case, but that doesn't stop them from holding forth on the legal system. Unfortunately for the conservatives, desiring an outcome in a case doen't mean that outcome is legally correct. Here's an excerpt, the link follows:

"The systematic erosion of the rule of law in America has many aspects, and one significant one is that conservatives have been trained that they have the right to have judges issue rulings that produce outcomes they like, and when that doesn't happen, it means the judicial process is flawed and corrupt. Put another way, those marching under the banner purportedly opposed to "judicial activism" have been taught that they are entitled to have courts ignore the law in order to ensure the outcomes they want.

What else could possibly explain how someone can be convinced that they are in a position to condemn a judicial ruling without bothering to learn anything about the laws and legal issues in play? Hence: Bush should be able to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants and any judge who rules that -- under the law -- he can't, is guilty of "judicial activism." They've been trained to believe they're entitled to have judges give them the outcomes they want, and when that doesn't happen, that alone is grounds for proclaiming that the courts and judges are not just corrupt, but illegitimate."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/15/kucinich/

"A few more whacks of the ice axe in the firm snow, and we stood on top."

2008-01-11T08:33:00.000-05:00

A true giant among men, Edmund Hilary, the first man to successfully climb Mount Everest died at his home in New Zealand yesterday. At 11:30 on the morning of May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit, 29,028 feet above sea level, the highest spot on earth. After his ascent in May of 1953, Hilary devoted the rest of his life to helping the Sherpa people of Nepal through the Himalayan trust, which he founded and to which he had given much of his time and energy. Through his efforts he had succeeded in building many schools and hospitals in a fairly remote region of the Himalayas. He was the Honorary President of the American Himalayan Foundation, a United States non-profit body that helps improve the ecology and living conditions in the Himalayas.

A New Blog

2008-01-10T09:23:00.000-05:00

Check out my friend Marty's photo blog. There are some very cool pictures of various California things:

http://mjcphoto.blogspot.com/

Spiritual Materialism

2008-01-10T08:58:00.000-05:00

The Patriot has been a lazy blogger lately. This is especially inexcusable in light of the elections, but my interest in politics has taken a back seat to the day to day drama of raising a toddler. Jack will be a year old in three weeks. I can’t believe an entire year has gone by since he was born. I have an entirely new relationship with the passage of time since Becky left us. Whole months go by effortlessly. Some days I struggle to remember what year it is. I don’t know if this is merely the downside of turning 40 or whether my relationship with the physical structure of the universe has actually changed. I suspect the former.

I was reading an essay by Sharon Salzberg , a Vipassana meditation teacher who said that raising three children taught her more about Buddhism than meditation ever could. I have found this to be true. Any time I sit down with the intention of reading a sutra or meditating, the little being whose care I am charged with reminds me that there is so much more to the world than my own ego. He is constantly teaching me lessons in humility and selflessness. I have looked for a teacher of the Dharma for a long time. Imagine my surprise to find him literally sitting in my lap. My little bald monk with wisdom of the ages.

I have decided that 2008 will be the year of conscious living. Whatever I do I will do it with awareness and compassion. I am trying to cultivate these qualities and the only way to do so is to live them. This is the goal of the Vipassana school of Buddhism. One brings about awareness by the simple and direct practice of moment-to-moment mindfulness. This awareness leads us to accept more fully the pleasure and pain, fear and joy, sadness and happiness that life inevitably brings. When caring for an 11 month old child you have to be mindful constantly. Failure to maintain full awareness could potentially result in your little Buddha sticking a paper clip in an electrical outlet and experiencing enlightenment of an entirely different variety.

In the future this blog will be less about politics and more about Buddhism, although the Patriot is mindful that too much writing about spiritual development has the potential to lead to Spiritual Materialism; the failure to let go of ego clinging in the development of an understanding of spiritual and related areas. Frankly, I am sick to death of politics. Namaste.

Excerpt From My Book

2007-12-28T15:33:00.000-05:00

I'm thinking of writing a little self-help book on exercise and fitness for lazy people. Here's what I have come up with thus far:

In 2007 I lost 40 pounds and went from a size 40 waist to a size 34. My resting heart rate is in the upper 50s, my blood pressure is well within normal limits and my cholesterol is also normal. I will be turning 40 years old next week. Contrast this with my physical condition a year ago-constant pain in the knees and feet, borderline high blood pressure and out of control eating habits. How did I manage to achieve this miracle of self transformation? In a word, running. I have always been a runner, but as of a year ago my routine had dwindled to a paltry 12 miles per week and I shuffled through my 3 milers at a pace in excess of 12 minutes per mile. Back in the 1990s I was much more serious about getting my miles in and consequently I was in far better shape. Then came three years of law school followed by another six years in the stressful yet sedentary position of a trial lawyer. This perfect storm of stress and lack of movement wrecked havoc on my health and caused me to regain the 50 pounds that I had lost way back in 1993.

When my wife Becky died last January I knew I was going to have to embrace something other than a bottle of cabernet to get me through the tough times. What I decided to do was get back into my life and back out on the road. I also adopted a largely vegetarian diet and started counting calories. Not obsessively, but I engaged in what can best be described as “conscious eating”. I considered everything that I was going to put into my mouth very carefully and I simply wouldn’t eat something unless I knew what it’s effect on my weight loss goals was likely to be. By mid February I was up to 20 miles per week. By mid-march 25-30. My speed began to increase as the weight came off. For rapid results there is nothing like running on a treadmill because you know exactly how far you are going at what pace and in what amount of time. This helps you maximize the benefit you receive from the time spent training, an important factor if you train on your lunch hour like I did. The additional benefit from running on your lunch hour is that you have less time to eat lunch. Rather than wander around lower Manhattan stuffing my face with whatever ethnic cuisine struck my fancy, I was grinding out 5 miles on the treadmill at Gold’s gym, listening to music and sweating out the morning’s aggression. Far from tiring me out, the daily runs energized me and kick-started my afternoons they way no cup of coffee ever could.

Are treadmills boring? They sure are. I was lucky enough to find a gym whose machines looked down from their perch on the second floor over a lively scene on John Street in downtown NYC. Watching people scurry about their business on their lunch hours provided hours of amusement. I also for the first time started running to music. My I-pod was a constant companion and turned potentially boring slogs into something akin to dancing at a Dead show.

People who know me are generally surprised that I have anything approaching the discipline needed to actualize a weight-loss routine. The big secret is that it hardly takes any discipline at all and you don’t have to turn into a teetotaling monk to see great results. I still drink too much red wine and smoke an occasional cigarette, but I have reordered my priorities to put my weight loss goals first. If I run 30 miles in a week, I have absolutely no problem going out on Saturday night and painting the town red. After all, I earned it.

Quote of the Day

2007-12-27T10:02:00.000-05:00

Revolution is about consciousness, about rebelling against one's own state conditioned consciousness in favor of the unique one bequeathed us by the very evolutionary process that gave us the killer ape gene, which has proven so handy a tool in the hands of the state.
-Joe Bageant

Ho, Ho, Holy Crap Another Year Has Flown By

2007-12-26T09:28:00.000-05:00

These are the dog days of the holiday season. The no-mans land between Christmas and New Years that nobody really knows what to do with. I’m at work, but not working. I imagine this is the case for almost everyone except teachers, college students and those unfortunate workers who can’t carry over their vacation time into next year. I suppose now is as good a time as any to start contemplating New Years resolutions. For the last several years I’ve tried to pick some sort of challenge to make sure I end the year better than I began it. For obvious reasons I took last year off, although Jack certainly challenged me in ways I couldn’t have expected last January 1. Many thanks little buddy; I learned a lot about life from you this past year.

The two years prior were consumed with getting scuba certified and continuing my scuba diving and training and even this past year with all the insanity I managed to lose 40 pounds and pick up my running to a point where I have started to really enjoy it again. So what to do in 2008? I have been thinking of a number of activities from getting a pilot’s license to going for a walk up Mt. Fuji in Japan, but nothing has really struck me as THE thing to do. I suppose the decision is weightier since I will be turning 40 next week, although I don’t ascribe much meaning to the passage of time. I really have no control over it so why bother. Maybe Great White shark diving? That would be interesting. Perhaps I’ll clean up my diet and run another marathon-it’s been 10 years since the last one-but I hate to chain Jack into a baby-jogger for 15 mile runs on Sunday mornings. The possibilities are really endless.

I think I will settle on a few rather pedestrian goals-eat a good vegetarian diet, run a ½ marathon in the spring, and plan on taking one killer trip this year to do something spectacular. I’ll let you all know what I’m thinking later in the week. I hope everyone had a nice Christmas.