I gotta tell ya

I'm beginning to hate Hillary Clinton. I find her marginally more tolerable than McCain to watch on TV (but of course immensely more watchable than Bush--but then, so is Mussolini).

Her latest gimmick--the "summer vacation" from federal gasoline tax, which is but a parody of McCain's, with a politically-expedient announcement of a years-later, after-the-fact "windfall-profits" tax--is merely a capper in a long string of her "say-anything-to-get-elected" ploys that have made a mess of this nation for more than a generation. She's but a chip off Bill's block (the substituting of "bl" for "c" is purposeful): President "Don't-ask-don't-tell"; President "Welfare-reform"; President "Deregulate-media-ownership"; President "Nafta-Cafta-America-afta" (I made that up, BTW.) Clinton's presidency was a disaster, saved only by a dot-com bubble. Without that--and a few saving Executive Orders in his last days, all of which were, by law, reversible (and reversed) by Bush--he wrecked the Democratic Party, turning it into an amorphous mass of yea-sayers to corporate influence.

I won't vote for McCain if Hillary's the nominee of the Democratic Party. But I sure don't know what I'll do. (Do they accept mail-in ballots from Tahiti?)

A matter of judgment

I suppose it won't get much play in the corporate media, but the gas-tax holiday story is important, very important, in demonstrating both that Obama brings a fresh outlook to Washington and possesses judgment superior to the other two candidates for President. First, McCain proposed a suspension of the federal excise tax on gasoline, and he was then quickly followed by Hillary Clinton. Obama opposed such a measure as being merely a political gesture that would have a negative impact on the problem of gasoline consumption, while offering drivers little--and only palliative--relief.

Guess who's right, according to a host of economists, including Bush's own former chief economist.

I wonder

what was the bank's first clue that the check was forged?

Have you done this yet?

Try it, it's fun. And, if you're a believer, it's inspiring.

Brilliant, if sick

First, the North Carolina Republican Party contemplates placing an unsavory TV ad against Obama and local Democratic candidates that features Rev. Wright's "God damn America" rant. Next, McCain speaks out against the ad, saying he condemns such tactics. But, he says, he can't stop the local party from airing it. So that when the ad is evenually shown, (a) it's viewed by more than would normally view it; and (b) McCain looks like a good guy for opposing it. Talk about a two-fer.

Now wait a goddam minute

Outsourcing debt-collection phonecalls to India?

What we eat

You need to see this, and you need to scroll to the bottom.

I've never felt so powerless

I realized, when we marched against the Iraq war in early 2003, that we wouldn't stop it from happening. Once Colin Powell signed on, I realized it was just a matter of time before we invaded. Now, five-plus years later, as the ongoing carnage drifts farther and farther from our national awareness, and all efforts to stop it have come to naught, I truly despair, not just for the dead and injured, but for our nation.

And now this: Our government concealing burials of the dead at Arlington National Cemetary. More outrage--and more teeth-gritting frustration--I cannot feel.

LOL

The other day I spotted a news report that the Baghdad city council (or whatever they call it) was contemplating passing an ordinance requiring automobile drivers and passengers to wear seatbelts. I didn't enter a post about it and can't now find the link, but I gotta admit the item raised a wry, cynical smile. Arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, or something.

But this one's too good to pass.

No mystery there

Any wonder why I moved from Arizona? Recall, this is Goldwater country, one of the few states that voted from him in 1964.

(To be fair, these numbers are driven by the deep-conservative hordes in and around Phoenix, and in the backcountry. The Tucson area, where I'm from, is quite liberal, still.)

I oppose capital punishment

but if I didn't, here are some folks I would hang.

"Unmitigated disaster"

For some reason--could it be because they invented the language?--the British newspapers describe the Iraqi military's effort in Basra with a pithy accuracy that is missing from the US media.

I've checked this out

and I still can't tell if it's a joke.

Letter to the editor

I've had success lately in getting my letters to the SB News-Press published. Here's my latest. I'll let you know if they print it.

Update: It appeared in the newpaper on Friday, April 18.

To the editor:

Consider me a "bitter small-town American." True, I live in blessed Santa Barbara, California, not in Pennsylvania or Ohio or any of the other "rust-belt" states that have lost so many well-paying jobs in the last twenty years, without recourse or redress. But I, like most Americans, have seen my civil liberties vanish, my health-care costs increase, my gasoline and grocery prices skyrocket, my Earth deteriorate, my national debt explode, my nation wage an immoral war and incur the disdain of billions of fellow humans.

To be sure, I don't "cling" to guns or religion as a result, and I don't take my bitterness out on immigrants. But I surely do blame the Bush/Cheney/Clinton line of leaders, as well as the rest of the media and political cabal, that doesn't respond to the needs of ordinary Americans. I want--I yearn for--America to change, fundamentally. I want Americans to run America again.

I therefore support Barack Obama for president, because of the remaining candidates, only he, to his credit, "gets it"; and only he, however inartfully, addresses it.

Uh, oh

Could this be a first flicker of a sellout? (Check out what's on Obama's lapel during this talk in "small town" Pennsylvania.)

I have a dream...

that such a man--not Bryant Gumbel, the other man--is our president. After viewing this video, how can any sentient U.S. male not agree?

Okay, maybe I'm no genius

but am I the only sentient progressive Obama supporter who's thought of starting a movement (triggered and fueled by a website, of course) entitled, "Small-town bitter Americans for Obama"? I'm of course disqualified from doing so because SB is hardly an embittered locale, nor does my comfortably retired status make me (necessarily, financially) embittered, but C'mon guys, get with it! Not only will such a movement defuse by ridicule the Clinton/McCain rhetoric, it might actually catch on as a catch-phrase for reality. I mean, after all, as he did with the race thing, Obama in a few words (perhaps not all well-chosen) captured an American reality, and we ought to be embracing and fostering it, not running from it.

Obama--Oh, really?

Here's a complete, unspun exposition of the supposedly anti-small-town remarks the Obama made to a California fundraising audience. You tell me: Is this truth, or is it denigration?

And here's Obama's reply to Hillary and McCain, who attacked Obama's comments as being condescending to working stiffs, as being outrageous and out of touch with America's mainstream: I'm right. I'm in touch. I speak truth to reality.

I must say, Obama's good. In fact, great.

If I'm Hillary

I'd quit when this happens.

Say it isn't so

CBS News--the revered Columbia Broadcasting System, home of Cronkite, Severeid, Murrow, many others--is considering using CNN's facilities and broadcasters to augment its reporting? As much as I like Anderson Cooper, are we talking Larry King? Ohmigod.