Hot Air & Other Expensive Gasses

So, the prophets have spoken, and both Obama and Clinton are appearing or have appeared on the Fox news thing.

How sad is that...

Isn't it enough that they will do all kinds of crap to whatever you say in order to smear you once you're actually the nominee? Whichever one of you that is...

Don't give them ammo, don't talk about the other nominee, talk about policy and only policy and make sure you answer the "when did you stop beating your wife?" questions with a simple "irrelevant." When asked about Reverend Wright, please say, what does he have to do with me (or the other person) being President? Rev. Wright is a man with an opinion, not the mouth of God.

Just stop.

And there are the various proposals for gasoline prices this summer. Clinton and McCain have both decided that we could have a gas tax holiday this summer. This would (according to Obama) give us a break worth half a tank of gas for the whole period, while de-funding the roads and highways trust fund for the summer. Wanna buy a bridge in Minneapolis? Many economists and pundits have weighed in, and they've all come to the same conclusion: gas prices are high, and there is very little we can do about it in the short term. And the high prices are a harbinger of bad things to come (food prices are going up in direct proportion of the gas prices going up), but perhaps the high gas prices will finally persuade Americans that the free ride is pretty much over.

To those of you out there riding around in big-ass four-wheel-drive SUVs/pickup trucks used to ferry the child to and from soccer practice and the occasional hauling job from the grocery store: yes, YOU are safer from other cars on the road, but the other cars are less safe from you; 4WD is not helpful in the snow except to propel you forward - it doesn't help you stop; the actual cost of your vehicle is approximately $40,000 worth of pollution and environmental costs (waste oil, waste tires, road wear, and disposing of the carcass of your super-heavy vehicle) more than you paid for it, but don't worry, I'll be paying my share of your car's leftover crap when it comes due.

So, from my smug, Prius-owning mouth comes a request: buy smaller cars, or cars that run on biodiesel (not corn-thanol - no energy savings there). You'll be just as safe in a modern, smaller car, as you are in a big-ass SUV, especially when you are only likely to be hit by other small cars.

This is your election on Voter Fraud

The Supremes have spoken, and voter fraud will now be a thing of the past in Indiana.

So long as Diebold isn't making the machines, that is.

The Indiana state legislature (in its infinite wisdom) has decided that, in order to combat Voter Fraud, voters will now be required to present either a valid driver's license or a free state voter ID card. But, as they say in Country Western music, freedom isn't free - the only way to get one of these precious voter ID cards is to present a certified birth certificate. If you have just moved to Indiana, get a new Driver's License.

None of these things are cheap. And if you're trying to lock out the poor and possibly the elderly, this is certainly an effective way of keeping the riff-raff out of the voting booths. At least, that was the argument put forward by the folks trying to invalidate this nifty new law.

However, in their Supreme wisdom, the court came down on the side of the "everyone's trying to put one over on us" types, who believe that most voters probably shouldn't.

Sadly, this means that even the Democrats will have a problem when it comes to voting for one of their own. Obama supporters tend to be the kind of people that are going to be hosed by this law, and so Clinton may come in and beat Obama because of a law passed by Republicans, and okay-ed by a predominantly Republican Supreme Court (though Justice Stevens crossed the wire to write the majority opinion this time).

Since the investigations have been going on extensively for some time, what the Justice Department found is that there is very little voter fraud. Not enough to affect a national election, anyway. Maybe a sheriff or mayor might get in, based on dead voters, etc., but not a whole president.

And Scalia, this last week on 60 Minutes, doing the whole "get over it" thing. Again. And blaming Al Gore for involving the courts. Oy. One of you old creeps, make sure you retire after the Dems have taken the White House back, because we can't live with this kind of pro-corporate, anti-personnel justice any more.

Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy of Friends

Hillary is now making nice-nice with Richard Mellon Scaife?!? So that she can criticize Obama in big public forum?!?

Why am I surprised!?

Okay, I'm not. And if no one remembers, Scaife was behind a lot of the bad publicity (AKA the Arkansas Project) that Bill Clinton got when he was being persecuted for having an affair while in the White House (thcandalous!). Scaife has deep pockets, and his own little vanity press newspaper, the Pittsburgh Star-Review. Even better, Clinton's negative comments re: Rev. Wright were given at an editorial board meeting at the PSR with Scaife sitting next to her.

So, far from distancing herself from her enemies, she has made friends with them (and let's not go into Rupert Murdich throwing her a fundraiser for her first senatorial bid).

Now, in politics, one should not be surprised by this sort of thing. Unless of course, the politician has ethics.

Caucusssssssing

Many thanks to our great democracy for allowing me to go out and have my mug stared at by other potential voters. This lets me know that people will do anything, overcome any obstacle, to vote.

Here in the great Pacific Northwest, we had a lot of Obama supporters and a few very perturbed-looking Hillary supporters. It was interesting to me how some of the Hillary supporters actually appeared angry with the rest of us - like, "How can you people be so stoopid?!" They didn't say it to our faces of course - that wouldn't be polite. But they also didn't argue their candidate's viability.

Which, of course, is just ever so persuasive. The not arguing part, I mean.

If you believe in your candidate, for God's sake say something. Don't just sit there and look at the rest of us like we're nuts. Maybe we are nuts, but ya know, be something other than condescending. We keep hearing from our fellow Democrats and a lot of Republicans that us Obama supporters are, you know, "cult-like." I suppose we are: it's such a change to listen to a politican that doesn't just tell you what you want to hear, that makes you think, "what can I do to help?".

So here it is, Obama with ten wins in a row, with Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania ahead. And Hillary is planning on going negative.

I love that: planning on going negative.

While I won't rehash everything all of her various surrogates have been saying about Mr. Obama, I will say that, for as far as his star has risen, hers has fallen further. It's depressing to watch. She has the potential to be an excellent president, as much as Mr. Obama does. She's right, she has more experience in Washington politics and how to get things done than he probably has. But she's sacrificing herself on the altar of political expediency, from some deep need to win at all costs.

Caucussing was amusing, though. the poor precinct captain was beside himself with fear - too many people! Something like eighty-five people in our precinct when the normal turnout would have been thirty-five. The whole district was jam-packed into a tiny middle-school auditorium, where no one can hear you think. "Use your number 2 voice indoors." I wish they had.

Now with Obama appearing to have an unstoppable momentum, growing with every victory (3-1 in Hawaii!), we may yet have a black president in the White House.

And not one damn minute too soon.

(MBM vs MWW) vs (MWM vs MWM vs MWM vs MWM)

So, it's coming up on Super Tuesday, the day we've all been waiting for, when we might finally find out which inappropriately-dressed individual gets chosen to be the next nominee from whichever party you feel most allegiance to.

I'm rooting for Lassie, but he refuses to run. (yes, Lassie was a male collie in drag)

Seriously, since Mr. Edwards has dropped out, my choice is Mr. Obama. Ms. Clinton, while certainly an acceptable candidate, is nonetheless less acceptable to me than Mr. Obama. If she gets the nom, I will vote for her, but I'm casting my first ballot in this delirious mess to the Black Guy, rather than the White Woman.

I don't believe he is necessarily more qualified to be the candidate. I don't believe that her years of experience are any more of a detriment to her abilities than his supposed lack of experience is to him. However (and this is partly where things get a little shallow), he's not another f**king Clinton, or another f**king Bush. He is, however, less beholden to corporate interests than I think she might be. He has never sat on the Board of Directors of WalMart (specifically, when they were waging their most successful campaign on labor in their history). He has not taken lobbyist money from big Pharma or big Healthcare in the quantities she has (though he's not far behind). He doesn't have advisors like Mark Penn or friends like Richard Mellon Scaife.

So, I'd rather have the Black Guy for president than the White Woman. And better either of them than the current crop of (mostly) old white men (in order of likelihood of being nominated):

Ron Paul thinks we should get out of Iraq as soon as possible, as well as out of NAFTA, GATT, and WTO. He also believes that Federal involvement in Education, Regulation, etc. is immoral, and that any form of income Tax is unconstitutional. So he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell.

Mike Huckabee believes in the true word of God, i.e., the Bible, rather than all those other true words of God, the Talmud, the Koran, the Baghavad-Gita, the Bodhisattva, etc. He also thinks that the Consitution needs to be brought back to it's original form, i.e., more in line with the word of God, despite the fact that the Founding Fathers were violently opposed to such framing, and did everything they could to keep the word "God" out of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. But he also wants to help poor people, and Republicans don't like to be reminded that there are poor people in America. Little chance.

Mitt Romney is a Mormon and looks like a Ken Doll. As far as positions are concerned, he's for everything he used to be against. So there's still hope.

John McCain thought the war in Iraq was kind of a bad idea, but supports adding more troops to the fire zone. He opposed a tax cut for rich people until it came up for a vote again, so now he's going to vote to extend the tax cuts to rich people on past the deadline date of 2010, as a short-term stimulus to the economy. Say that again? Anyway, he's not opposed to the idea of having permanent bases in Iraq, or anywhere else in the middle east, if they'll have us. What he seems to be forgetting is that the Iraqis don't want us there, any more than the Lebanese, Syrians, Egyptians, etc., do. While he may not have been crazy before, he's looking crazier all the time. Even Mann Coulter is threatening to vote for Hillary if McCain is the nominee. But the people are voting for him, because they think he is a true old-guard Republican, no matter what the right wing of the right wing says.

How will it all turn out? I'm hoping for unity in the Democratic convention, and something like a political bloodbath at the Republican convention.

All in all, good TV.

Godlinesslessness

While I might believe in some of the teachings of Christ (most specifically, the way slaves should be treated by their masters - I'm all into that whole master/slave thing), I don't believe that Christ was divine. He might have been Divine, but not divine.

However, here in the land of more Godly than thou art -

Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is saying some pretty outrageous things, and I'm not sure the mainstream media is picking up on any of it (yet). Like how it's easier to change the Constitution than the word of God, so let's make the Constitution more in line with the word of God, rather than making it fit with some contemporary ideas about morality and justice.

Other presidential hopeful (and part-time underwear model) Mitt Romney says "no freedom without religion." And here I thought I could be free from religion if I so choose.

Barack Hussein Obama (yes, that's an Arabic name in the middle) is having his history/ upbringing/ color/ authenticity/ hygiene/ articulatedness/ hairstyle (oops, sorry - that's John Edwards) questioned by everyone, including his (current) chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Hillary (& Bill) Clinton. He is being smeared (through a variety of tortured arguments) over whether or not he's got Islam in his heritage, but now he's a Christian, so he might be apostate in the eyes of Muslims, and is he only a Half-rican? I'm beginning to think I'd vote for him out of spite, which is a rotten way to choose any candidate (unless you're a Repugnican).

Hillary (& Bill) Clinton is doing the "I've done more for the African-American cause than you have" mambo, roping in a variety of African-Americans to help out, like Tyra Banks. Always good to have the supermodel vote on your side. She's done more for them probably because she's OLDER than Obama. And not that not being black has anything to do with working for the African-American community, but I'm sure it would give you a certain perspective. Oh, AND she can cry, proving her humanity. Or that she has a good sprinkler system. As far as how long she's been working for the African-American community, didn't she start her political career as a Goldwater Girl? And didn't Barry Goldwater originate the Southern Strategy? So, in the beginning of her career, Hillary (& Bill) Clinton was part of the whole "scare the Southerners into voting Republican because otherwise they'll have to sit next to black people."

Since when are Democrats the party of my skin is darker/ my gender is more caring/ YOU SUCK! politics? Can't we all just get along?

Enough with the Bush / Clinton / Bush / Clinton / Bush routine. I want someone with a different name, and preferably someone who hasn't been politicking since I was seven.

Shock and Aw, Shucks

I have been taking a little time off of my usually highly sporadic posting schedule to work on a book, which I'm now considering abandoning, as Naomi Klein has gone me one (waaaaay) better with The Shock Doctrine, a fantastic exploration of Milton Friedman's economic theories and how they've created much of the mess we're currently in, economically speaking, in the world.

I've also just read a great piece on AlterNet by the always wonderful Barbara Ehrenreich (of Nickel & Dimed fame) on how the country has been in this wonderful period of growth, while everyone is feeling more and more pinched. We're working longer, more productive hours than any other nation on the planet, and yet every year, we make a little less, get by a little less.

As Adbusters once said, it's time the economists learned how to subtract.

The economy is only seen by the macroeconomics folks as a matter of growth, growth growth. As Ehrenreich's article says, if that was happening to you, you wouldn't think it was such a wonderful thing.

When you get cancer, the Gross Domestic Product goes up (because you have to pay the hospital for all that lovely medication). When your house is hit by a tree, contractors are hired to fix the damage, and GDP goes up. Any new car costs the environment, taxes and a multitude of other factors approximately $42,000, assuming a twelve year life span. That's on top of the sticker price. But that's all growth, so to the Chicago School of Economics, that's perfection!

Milton Friedman, the godfather of modern despotism (sorry, free-market economics), was responsible for South America becoming more third world than it already was. As a matter of fact, he helped South America make multiple steps back, by helping coup leaders in various countries sell off their social security systems, educational systems, and health systems to various corporate cronies who were (and I love this part) brought in by the coup leaders to decide who should get all of these businesses at fire sale prices. Strangely enough, the CEOs of these major firms thought they would be best suited to run these formerly state-run systems.

There are many stories in The Shock Doctrine of economists influencing foreign coup leaders into using the shock of the coup to decouple citizens from their money, from their rights, and in many cases, their freedom to change any of it short of violent revolution.

It also works when planes fly into buildings, or a hurricane drowns a city.

I will continue to write my book, tentatively titled, "Our Son of a Bitch! A Short History of Making the World Safe for Democracy."