A Modest Proposal: Create Limbaughland

My fellow citizens, now-a-days in general, disappoint me.

American people, (supposedly free and intelligent) voting for George Bush, especially his second term, disappoint me. I realized after the 9-11 fiasco that Americans are much more cowardly, and generally stupid, (and proud of it) as a people, than I ever imagined possible. What other country in the world would despise intellectualism? We have no health insurance and more people in prison than any other country in the world. Right now we are bankrupt, in a ridiculous war in Iraq, and people are worried about an assault weapons ban. It is all truly amazing. The set of priorities many of my fellow citizens have, astounds me.

So we have a fat, drug addict, doctor shopper, who hosts a radio show, literally running one of our major political parties. His hate spewing nonsense, it is religiously followed by millions. He loudly states he hopes our current president’s plan of recovery fails, just because his candidate didn’t get elected. This is all despite the fact the last Republican group’s ideas were clearly failures. So what is the thought behind wanting to continue an agenda that is a colossal failure at any and all costs? To crush our country beyond recognition? To ruin our way of life? Why would that be their goal? I don’t get it.

Now the e-mails are flying out, trying to dredge up memories of Jane Fonda and the Dixie Chicks, and anything else that the Neo-Con nutcases can trump up to be bad things, because let’s face it, even they can’t blame Obama for anything evil yet, except being black, and being educated and intelligent, and having a funny sounding name, all hanging offenses to the Puritans apparently. They can’t admit the Dixie Chicks were right on about being very embarrassed to have Bush as our president. They can’t admit Jane Fonda was very right about us having no business in Viet Nam. Clearly she shouldn’t have cheered the North Viet force on in battle, even though they were just protecting their country against foreign invaders. The point is we were wrong to be there. Remember the “domino theory”? Isn’t it funny no one talks about that anymore? Viet Nam had many opportunities to take over other weaker neighbors, like Cambodia, and didn’t. They just wanted to be left alone to decide their own affairs.
We are also wrong in being in Iraq, we have no business whatsoever being there and what we are doing is morally wrong, any way you look at it. It is also way too expensive unless or lives depend on the outcome, which they don’t.

It is too bad these so-called “red states” cannot secede from our union so they can support themselves with their style of economy. They could teach their idiotic brand of science to their scientists. They could constantly wage religious war over perceived threats to their “way of life”. They could let the rich not pay any taxes and they could keep on the credit card style of living they love. They could keep printing valueless money as long as other countries would take it, which wouldn’t be long. They could fail, and I mean really fail badly, all on their own instead of dragging the rest of us down with them.

So I have an idea, a modest proposal. Let the Neo-Cons have their separate country and let them run it as they will. The so called “blue states” will also have our own country. Places like Eastern Washington could glom on with Idaho and Utah and be red as hell itself. We would call the new blue country Liberalia and the red states country could be Hicksville or the New States of No Education or possibly Limbaughland.

In the new true blue country, we could spend our money on mass transit and infrastructure instead of war in Iraq. We could have national health insurance for all and fund social security fully. We could end the ridiculous “war on drugs” and tax them instead, realizing they kill no more people than booze or cigarettes, and trying to legislate morality has never worked in the history of man. We could make education of the best and brightest a priority. If churches acted as political action committees we could tax them as well. We could make truth and justice for all a motto. We could also subscribe to the saying “we have very few rich men, but even fewer poor”.

The red as hell states could continue the holy war in Iraq. They could blow their money on huge gas hog vehicles and bankrupt themselves trying to be macho and Rambo-like. They could get rid of science and teach creation. They could mix their twisted view of Christianity with the state and make prayer mandatory in schools. They could burn books and outlaw everything. They could execute people who have abortions. They could make a national mania of locking people up and throwing away the keys. They could take away all civil rights and make freedom of speech a thing of the past. Moral police would walk the streets looking for offensive behavior. People could be locked up and tortured for years literally with no charges ever filed, let alone a trial of any kind. George W. Bush could be king for life.

After a period of time, say 25 years or so, we could see which country is better off. In terms of: jobs, wealth, technological growth, education scores, life expectancy, you know all the things that actually matter.

I wonder which country would best win a contest like that?

The Basic Difference: Integrity

It is often stated that true personal integrity is doing the right thing when no one else is watching. I think the same rule of thumb can be used to tell how Democrats and Republicans really feel about serving the public …..after they get out of office that is…and there is nothing to gain. They all claim to want to “serve their country” when running of course. What better way to serve than to help non-profit organizations, when stepping down from the highest political offices in the country, to go into a useful retirement?

Going back to Richard Nixon, when he got out, in disgrace, he went into hiding. Little was seen or heard from him afterwards until his death. Let’s face it he was bitter, he should have been grateful for not being behind bars but whatever.

Spiro Agnew was a dirty as Nixon. He resigned and was disbarred from practicing law for his nolo contende plea, for taking bribes while in public office. When Nixon was asked why he kept Agnew on the ticket in 1972 he replied, “No assassin in his right mind would kill me." Ouch! Agnew retired to a job as an “international trade executive”.

Gerald Ford was the longest living US president, living to the ripe age of 93 despite a couple of assassination attempts. In addition he was the fifth president who was not elected, and the only one to have never won any national election of any kind, replacing Spiro Agnew when he was convicted of accepting bribery. After leaving the Whitehouse Ford joined the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. He spent much of his retirement playing golf and making ceremonial appearances with Bob Hope.

Jimmy Carter still kicks ass to this day in terms of helping others. When released from the White House he went into being a key figure in Habitat for Humanity. The next year out of office he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Although evangelical Christians hate him, he taught Sunday school throughout his entire life. As an interesting aside check out the red-blue states in Carter’s election!!

Walter Mondale, carter’s VP, after running for president himself worked as Ambassador to Japan under Clinton.

Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease but not for a few years after he left even though he was clearly addled in office. His wife Nancy claimed he fell and hit his head on a horse ride in Mexico in 1989 five years after his White House stint. He did little of anything after that.

George Bush sr. Had a long political career, he was CIA director under Ford, and Vice President under Reagan. Then he finally got his foot in the door for four years and is primarily known for letting Saddam Hussein off the hook in the first Gulf War. Days before leaving office he pardoned six people convicted and doing time in the Iran-Contra affair. He has, since leaving the White House, participated in many ceremonies mostly commemorating some Republican event. On April 21, 2008 he caught a 134 pound tarpon and enjoys playing golf at private country clubs.

Dan Quayle was viewed as a political liability during his career after his vice-presidential debate with Lloyd Bentsen. He has written several books since his retirement about American values and staying strong while working as an investment banker and Chairman of Cerberus Capital Management. He lives in private gated communities like the “Yellow Stone Club” with Bill Gates as a neighbor. His charitable contributions to society cannot be found.

The Clintons are still in politics and seem to be a pair in whatever they do. While President Bill Clinton relied on his strong, educated wife for help and advice and now she appears to be doing the same. Many people have speculated on their marriage but they are still together and work closer together than many people who supposedly have good marriages. When Bill Clinton left office he had the highest approval rating since WW2. 55% of respondents said he still had something to offer and should stay in the public eye. This could be one reason the Republican candidates do so little after leaving office, they are not wanted.

Since leaving office Bill Clinton has been one of the organizers, along with Carter of the new Baptist Covenant. He has also had meetings at the UN regarding disease prevention in 2007, and the Ontario Economic Summit in 2007, regarding healthcare and environmentalism. Like the Clinton’s or hate them, you cannot call them lazy. Can you imagine them retiring to a life of golf and country clubs? I can’t.

Few can rival the hard work and recognition Carter has garnered since leaving office, but Al Gore can. Gore has actually worked harder and become better known around the world for his tireless work on global warming since leaving office. In 1992 his book “Earth in the Balance” was on the New York Times best seller list. Gore’s accomplishments are too many to fully list; in 2006 he was the main character in the film “An Inconvenient Truth”, which won an Academy Award for best documentary. In 2007 he won the Nobel Peace Prize and it goes on and on, his commitment to the people of America, serving his country and the world at large.

I don’t think it is even necessary to mention Cheny is it?

Now we have Georgie porgie Bush on deck. If I was a betting man, and I am, I would bet he will set new benchmarks of laziness and uselessness in his idle rich retirement. After all this is the man who during times of “emergency” due to terrorist attacks and the USA basically going bankrupt, took more vacation days than any other President in our history!

He is fairly young and he can expect a few years for the “historians to judge his presidency” as he always crows. But what will he do with all his new found idle time? Do you expect him to work hard to serve our country, to help out in this terrible time of need, or to sit and watch from his mansion with a smirk on his face at what he has wrought?

Gee I wonder.

Should I Facebook Myself?

Do I Facebook? No.

I could well be in the minority however. Looking at Alexa, Facebook is numero five in global use and that is pretty high for social networking. I just read during Christmas day Face book had a huge surge in traffic this year. My Space is currently seven, while the useful Craigslist is 39. My Space used to be the rocket to ride, but now if you are over 22 and not in a crappy band you are basically considered a child molester/stalker for My Spacing.

Facebook is supposed to “keep you in contact with your friends”. It would seem if someone was in fact your friend you would call them, or e-mail them, but possibly this contact is a new kind of contact, a casual, voyueresque creature requiring less effort, thought and concentration. The “friend”person can’t ask questions on the phone to find out if you are really listening, this could be handy for relatives who you are somewhat required to stay in contact with, but who really aren’t friends you would hang with, you know, if you weren’t accidentally related to them. It could be these “friends” are really just passing acquaintances in the social salton sea.
At the start, it was used to get to know people in school at Harvard; it makes a great deal of sense to me. Most people are young, and from different parts of the country, and trying to get to know each other and hookup, and screw each other’s brains out, and that makes sense doesn’t it? I think we were all students at one time and thought “hey who is that cute new girl/guy over in the corner”? It helps out to look up the Facebook profile and find out they are a Mormon or Vegan before you start investing in valuable chatup time no?

One of the first companies to buy in was Microsoft and they also have some kind of advertising deal with Facebook. I suppose it makes some strategic sense to have the same kind of thing at Microsoft as at Harvard, to try and bring diverse groups of people together at work. My wife uses the whole social networking concept in her work, so she is a member of damn near all, and experiments with many different platforms and concepts, to see how they interrelate and succeed with or against each other in the great social networking cage match. Who will win out? Will anyone really still Twitter three years from now? I can see why Obama Twittered during the campaign it was like sending a constant bombardment of TV commercials to millions of people for free. Would anyone really care to know though that I was sitting in the airport waiting to go to New York and I was bored? One article I read recently stated that the fallout of Twitter was that regular working folk were finding out that most glamorous star’s lives were actually quite mundane. Really GTFO?

I always thought everyone would just have their own website eventually and that has not materialized. I suppose it is a little too hard to set up, and maintain, and it is not free generally speaking, and so that isn’t working. What is working is a site that is free and very modular and easy to set up. People want the ability to post from cell phones and that includes pictures and text. People want the ability to easily include or exclude whoever they want. They want the flexibility of having various levels of privacy for different areas of their site too. Many posters need significant storage space because all those digital images, and videos and music clips add up after a while. They also want that high school thing of showing off how many “friends” they have, because this makes them feel popular and cool, just like uh..high school cliques. They want to look cutting edge and cool and rad even though all the cutting edge and rad and cool sites all look the same. They want to look like they lead a glamorous life just like Brittany. (See above)
I don’t think any current site offers all this although maybe Facebook comes closest.
One ironic dichotomy is that people think Facebook and networking is must have for work and business contacts. However for every feel good story of meeting someone and making some money together there are ten horror stories of Facebook faux pas. It is a public face and in the super litigious, politically correct, looking for dirt to get ahead over-someone-else’s back world (in this economy); it is like walking through a dark room full of bear traps.

I like this rant:
"A well-meaning friend of mine, whom I love dearly, is always telling me my life isn't fully realized because I don't have a Facebook page. OK, so what would I get with such a glorious thing? "You can promote your blog," she always assures me. Oh, yeah? But my column promotes my blog and my blog promotes my column. How much more promotion do I need? "People can contact you," she adds soothingly. Oh, yeah? Well, I already put my email address at the end of my column and I'm also reachable by phone, fax, text, blog comments, and messenger pigeon. How hard is it to reach me? "But you can make all new friends," she goes on. Oh, yeah? Well, I already know every single person in New York and even a few in Jersey and one in Pennsylvania. And I actually know them in person, not just by typed messages". http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/archives/2008/07/fuck_facebook.php

Right now Facebook might be the best we have but I am getting networking fatigue. How many social networks do I have to be on to be socially connected, information spreading and thought leading enough? Next year will LinkedIn or Hit5 be cool and Facebook just another My Space has-been? What if I do get out there and find myself to be just mundane? The horror, the horror.

Snowy Christmas

AHhhh the snow, I am so very tired of it.

My wife wanted snow, she got snow.

My dog is crazy for the snow, although it has gotten too deep now even for her. Oddly, we have more snow here in town in Duvall this year than anywhere else I have seen this year.

We from the Seattle area have seen the old pictures of Seattle at around 1920 and the snow was three feet deep and we wondered why it didn’t do that anymore? Global warming? Weather cycles?

As a kid it seemed that we got fairly deep snow almost every year to make a snowman. Of course I was smaller, and it probably seemed deeper. I do also remember one Christmas as a grade-schooler that was bright and sunny and warm. I preferred the snow back then of course.
One of the longest winters I remember was 1969, the big Boeing layoff, my father was laid off I think six months. He played cards, solitaire, everyday, all morning long, I got tired of watching him. This was when they put up billboards, “will the last person leaving Seattle please turn off the lights”? We had compacted ice on our street for a month.

One time in high school, driving a 1965 Impala, I turned a corner on the way to school and slid into someone’s front yard. I went right up to their front door, at first I laughed and then thought…O SHIT, what if they come out,…amazingly, I was able to back out and continue and it seemed funny again.

Also in high school, driving the same road, I came up to a stop sign on a hill. I had to stop and then just sat and spun. I wanted to back down but my back window was covered with ice. So I got out with a scraper and as I shut the door the vibration broke the tenuous purchase the tires had on the ice. The car started sliding backyard downhill without me in it, the tires didn’t even turn! YIKE! As I chased the car downhill I fell down. Thank goodness no one else was on the road.

Living here now, on a hill, the kids always sled down the hill and make conditions worse than necessary. There have been several cars and four-wheel drive trucks stuck here within one block of the house. Two were stuck right across from our driveway. Things could be far worse though, we could all have no electricity.

Right now it is hard to drive around town because they have so many signs barricading with “road closed” it is like going through a maze to get to the local grocery store. We were going to have people over for Christmas Eve tonight. My mother in Kirkland can’t make it and we decided to go over there, but that seems silly right now. Lisa’s parents on Big Rock Road seem a couple states away.

I have noticed the last couple of years the very worst day of the year to drive, is in fact Christmas Eve. It used to be New Years Eve, because everyone would be so drunk and it was so late. The state and police have advertised against that so much almost no one does it anymore, it is verbotten. Christmas Eve, however, everyone feels obligated to go out and drive, and they don’t want to, so they are pissed off, and drunk as well. They are very angry drivers for sure and on top of it all they have snow this year. So I expect today to be really, really bad. All kinds of people will drive who haven’t driven the last few days. They will kill themselves for Christmas.

Mumbai Terror: Cancels Seattle Thanksgiving

I am very busy lately, this holiday season, like most. I am working full time and also attending school. I had a job interview yesterday and today I have to put up a curtain rod thing before guests arrive for Thanksgiving dinner, do some reading for school and sometime this weekend I need to get a paper done. I have the Lions/Titans game on the radio, and am drinking coffee at my computer, a typical Holiday morning. So I click on the Seattle Times link and am SHOCKED to see in their infinite editorial wisdom they have some yahoos in India running around with rifles and building burning, and the news medias’ favorite word Terrorism on the front page.

So I read a bit thinking ‘well this must have something to do with me or it wouldn’t be there”, but it does not. Other than a mentioned feeling, that because some programmers at Microsoft came from India, there is no connection whatever to me and mine or this area. I am here to tell you that irritates me. I thought this paper was the “Seattle Times” not the “World Terrorism Watch” or the “Disaster News”. Pulling this wrong-headed stunt today, on a holiday, the Seattle Times is their dupe, their scary news whore and it saddens me.

Apparently the Times thing is going for shock value.

Apparently, the Times can’t come up with a story people would want to read. Apparently, the Times have no writers that can write, about this area, on this holiday weekend. Apparently, they are just knee jerk hacks that publish anything someone else gives them with no ability to produce original, content of their own that has something to do with Seattle, on Thanksgiving.
I don’t have any problem with it being in the paper. But if all they are is a newsprint version of disaster TV channel CNN, and they feel to get on the front page, it has to be about killing, they have nothing to offer me as a reader. It should be noted here the number two story is the “South Center Mall Shooter”!! Amazingly, the third story down I s about a 18karat gold bookmark stolen from an auction house in Madrid in 2002 by a Romanian and his arrest in Bellevue.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008441903_bookmark27m.html

Jesus H!@

Anyway Times, since you are clearly struggling, let me help you. Here is my idea, it will massively get you in the news, and you might even be able to charge people for on-line subscriptions. Just as you already have a sports section, a local section, religion or whatever you can now have a section called: BLOOD AND GORE.

You can name it whatever you want SHOOTINGS AND SHOOTERS, DEAD PEOPLE, TERROISM TIMES. This would be where you would put stories like the India massacre on the front page today. You could publish full color foldouts of death and violence. In addition things like photos of horrific car crashes that are still published in South American newspapers could be reinstituted. You could have celebrity autopsy photos, and all manner of blood and death. There clearly is a market for this, why not mine it?

The Neocons

There are many definitions of Neo-cons and Neo-conservatism. Some think it is a movement started by Irving Kristol, father of the commentator William Kristol, and founder of the Project for the New American Century. Kristol also seems to have coined the term, saying that neo-cons were “liberals mugged by reality”. Others feel it is a reactionary movement to the liberalism of the 60’s. Most feel it was kicked off in the early 70’s and features a traditional conservative approach on social issues; such as limiting welfare and affirming individualism, promoting traditional moral standards, being anti communist, and having a vigorous interventionist foreign policy designed to push American ideas and ideals around the globe.

Many parts of this are traditional values from Barry Goldwater but there are two main diversions. One is the new interventionist philosophy of foreign policy. This was basically spoon fed to George W Bush from the likes of advisors such as Paul Wolfowitz and has become known as the “Bush Doctrine”. Since it is so central to the modern Neocons’ basic plank there is little wonder so many were upset Sarah Palin had no idea what it was when recently interviewed.

The National Security Strategy, published on September 20, 2002, is often quoted as the basis for this as the core to the Bush Doctrine, these four main points: Preemption, Military Primacy, New Multilateralism, and the Spread of Democracy. This policy made a certain amount of sense in Afghanistan since Osama Bin Laden was headquartered and supported their by the ruling regime.

In Iraq however, it has been an unmitigated disaster mainly due to the tremendous cost. The human cost is of course mind-numbing and hard to calculate. Many analysts around the world have spoken of how America has lost a certain “moral high ground” that it seemed to defend in the past. Who would have thought America would be known as a torturer nation and ignorer of the Geneva Convention strictures? Who foresaw special code words like “rendition” would be developed to mean we were shirking international human rights? Most citizens of the world feel George Bush is a war criminal, and many feel he should be arrested and put on trial similarly to Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian and if convicted imprisoned.
The other cost is of course financial. It is clear the US economy is simply not robust enough to pay for the Neocons’ gargantuan spending spree. This is the other way in which Neocons differ from the old school Pat Buchanan and Barry Goldwater Republicans. There is no concern whatsoever in the former Ronald Regan or current George Bush encampments to pay our bills. This new political agenda of the Neocons, to balance the budget by borrowing, to spend way beyond the nation’s means is not sustainable.

This is a very fundamental, basic shift in thinking, about what it means to be a conservative and which political party is the real conservative when it comes to fiscal management.
The Republicans, long a party to not care about the future of the environment for our children, now also have become a party to not care about the future of America’s finances or ability to pay its bills.

What a change from conservative to neocon.

Obama pulls it off!

Well Obama did it. My wife Lisa and I were in San Francisco and November 4th was a very memorable night, it was something I will never forget. We were staying in a hotel near Union Square (aptly named for public demonstrations during the Civil War), and the people there just went completely nutso!

She was down on business and I was maximo-turista; I had walked and walked that day, clear down to the waterfront, and then up the stairs to Coit Tower, down to China Town and back. We were both exhausted. We took a nap and I had gotten reservations to a restaurant called Michael Mina’s, which is supposedly the best restaurant in San Francisco as rated by Michelin and others.

We walked up to the St. Francis Westin where the restaurant was and we could see people gathering. The bar was packed and CNN was on the election results. We paused a moment to watch and a dude jumped up and came over to tell me I was blocking his view. So we went up and were seated in the restaurant and had a fabulous dinner experience, (more on that later). I was seated looking out the window to Union Square and Lisa was looking on the restaurant. Periodically, during dinner a roar of cheers broke out from the hotel bars. I mentioned to Lisa that curiously, a big group of people were milling around in the square, then a line of police cars.
I thought; what the hell, is this all about the election? Lisa was like a little kid with the biggest grin on her face. The odd couple seated next to us (apparently on an internet date), were talking politics loudly. As we left just walking down the stairs from the restaurant to the lobby people were streaming in dressed in Halloween type costumes, yelling, screaming and laughing! It was just so crazy. Now the main lobby bar had about 1000 people in it and you could hardly get through, the hotel staff were unsure what to do, they didn’t want a riot breaking out.

Going out the door to Union Square it was packed with people, all the sidewalks were jammed with people just standing there not walking. People were ripping off their shirts and waving them running through the intersections. People were hopping up and down screaming OBAMA! And the crowd would cheer YEAH back! Cars were honking their horns in time to the chants.
There have only been a few times in my life when people seemed so connected and together, all the various and sundry disparate elements pulled together for a moment in time. Later, I thought of these times in my own life:

• 
  Kennedy’s assassination, I really remember the funeral procession on TV in black and white as a kid, with the horse drawn hearse and the horse being led with no rider.
• 
  The arrival of the Beatles, I was at a cousin’s house and people came running over from next door screaming “you have to come over and see this, there are guys on TV singing and their hair is long like girls”! On the Ed Sullivan show.
• 
  Landing on the moon, everyone held their breath. (whether it was faked or not).
  The first time the 747 flew, people ran outdoors to stare and point, it was just way too big and slow to stay in the air, truly it slipped the brain gears.
• 
  Leaving Viet Nam in 1975, what the hell happened?
• 
  Nixon resigning (a collected sigh of relief).
• 
  The Sonics winning their championship in 1979, now I know how people can get trampled in crowds like that, it was actually scary, moving down the street without moving your legs like being in a river of human flesh.
• 
  The start of the first Gulf War. People put huge American flags, on their huge Ford pickups, and stormed down the street honking their horns.
• 
  911, of course.
• 
  And now this

I realize that in other areas the reception was most likely much different, like Texas for instance. So I was glad I was where I was, to see and enjoy the moment, because their just isn’t many of these kinds of moments that happen in any one person’s life.