I.O.U.S.A.

Tomorrow evening, Thursday, 400 theaters in
the U.S. will show the documentary I.O.U.S.A.
Please check your local area for theater and
time. The importance of this documentary
is that it addresses the indebtedness and the
bankruptcy of the U.S. The movie was put
together my David Walker, the former Comptroller
of the Treasury, and a number of other professionals
who know the seriousness of U.S. finances.
The U.S. is $53 Trillion in debt, and by 2040
the country will be a third world bankrupt nation.
Democrats and Republicans ignore the crisis. If
we think that there are problems on Wall Street and
in our credit markets now, the problem will only
intensify over the coming years. The government
will continue to bail these companies out with
non-existent money. The government has already
intervened three times this year with Wall Street,
Fanny Mae, and Freddie Mac.

The movie will be followed by a a "live" discussion
with Walker, Warren Buffet, Concord Coalition and
others. I hope that there is a theater in your areas
and you can plan on attending. There is one here
in Jackson, unbelievable! More information can be
obtained by searching iousathemovie. If I could find
it, I'm sure anyone can do a google search and find it.

U.S. Invades Poland

The Bush Administration may have just put in
place a cause for another war. Today, in a
hurried up Conference in Poland with Sec. Rice
of the U.S. and Polish political leaders the
two governments entered into an agreement where
the U.S. could put so-called defensive missles
in Poland close to the the Russian border and
in return Poland received assurances that the
U.S. would use its armed forces to resist any
attack on Poland.

Rice, Bush, Gates, et al maintain that all
this is non threatening to Russia. While this
Conference had been scheduled, it had been
scheduled for some future date. The
Conference was held today to 'show' the
Russians that there are consequences for
attacking Georgia. If Rice is really a Russian
scholar, she must have ommitted all the
2000 years of Russian Polish warfare. Why are
we putting ourselves in the middle of centuries
old geopolitical rivals? As a show of force?
Then for what? Russia and Poland are habitual
enemies, and there has never been any love
lost between the two. This may be the 21st
Century and Rice can maintain that in the
21st century the U.S. has decreed there can be
no more border wars or geopolitical considerations
in evaluating national security, but the world
is still composed of national states with
traditional adversaries. For Rice to wave her
magic wand and say there is a new world order is
nothing but fantasy.

Poland is Russia's Cuba. Rice, Bush, Gates, et al
have just destroyed Russian-United States relations
for years.If Russia didn't have any intention of
attacking Poland, Russia certainly does now. What
was that about Soviet Russia missles in Cuba some
45 years ago? So now, it is OK for the U.S. to put
missles in Russia's backyard on the territory of
her bitter centuries old adversary? Russia has no
choice to respond in my opinion. I don't necessarily
mean by attacking Poland, although I could envision
an attack to take out the missles only, as we would
do in Cuba, or maybe today it would be Venezuela.
Putin and Russia have had the U.S. throw the gauntlet
down, and I expect Russia will make some move.....

Atheist challenges ‘In God We Trust’

My email-alert button rang a few minutes ago that alerted me to a new email titled, "In God we Trust." It was one of those forwarded messages- a message that spreads like a virus throughout the Internet. It read:

Here's your chance to let the media know where the people stand on our faith in God, as a nation. NBC is taking a poll on 'In God We Trust' to stay on our American currency. Please send this to every Christian you know so they can vote on this important subject. Please do it right away, before NBC takes this off the web page.

Naturally I clicked over and read the current figures: 32% said remove it; 67% said keep it. No surprise there- we are a God-fearing nation. The Olympics, of all places, reinforce that. In post-race interviews with several of the American athletes, many black athletes 'thanked God' for their victories. Apparently God took the time to push them forward along the track.

The MSNBC article that spurred the poll is titled, Atheist challenges ‘In God We Trust.' It says, "Michael Newdow seeks to remove “In God We Trust” from U.S. coins and dollar bills, claiming in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday that the motto is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion."

No doubt the panties of millions of religious fanatics all across America got tightly knotted at the news of this attempt by 'the atheist' to remove God from our nation's currency. Funny stuff, as always, from that clutch. Odd too that it is on money; what did Jesus think of money?

On my sidebar is this quote from the magazine The Economist:

"It makes no sense in a pluralistic society to give one church special status. Nor does it make sense, in a largely secular country, to give special status to all faiths. The point of democracies is that the public arena is open to all groups—religious, humanist or football fans. The quality of the argument, not the quality of the access to power, is what matters."

The 'religious folks' in this nation, however, think that they ought to have the right to slap 'God' onto coins and other public venues. I find that curious; are they so guilt-ridden, so indoctrinated with fear that they have to make God 'visible' and 'tangible' throughout this nation, because, otherwise God might smite this land? Reminds me of the Roman gods and goddesses that that society erected in their public places.

The other day Obama and McCain appeared on some faith-forum in an evangelical church, pandering for votes. It was shameful. What a farce that these two men, vying for the most powerful political office in the world, were pimping for God-votes. Quite a shameful saga in our history.

How has 'God' shown favor for our nation over other nations? Neither Canada nor Switzerland have 'God' on their coins. The Kuwait's Dinar, however, says, "OobAllah nasteen" which means "We seek God's assistance." That's comforting.

So 'God' favors our 6-year War in Iraq? Our 4,100 dead soldiers? Our recession? Our murder rate? Our poverty? Our unemployment? Our divorce rate?

Sure.

The Folly of 'National Polls'

Each day the cable news networks bring us the latest 'national tracking polls' showing the closing or widening gap between Obama and McCain. They then call in their experts to explain the daily dips and bubbles. It makes for an interesting segment, but it hardly matters.

Apparently these news networks hope that the average audience slept through the civics lesson on the Electoral College- states elect the president. The polling data that actually matters are the individual state tallies. However, that is not as interesting nor as fluctuating as the national poll.

Today the state polls say this:

Obama 216
McCain 88

Not very interesting news, yet we all know that the electoral vote is what counts, not the popular vote. Surely Al Gore knows that lesson well. Using the Slate.com data, the division between the two presidential candidates becomes even more fixed when the 'leaning' states are added to the Numbers:

Obama 284
McCain 169

Even if McCain picked up every 'toss-up' state, he would only have 251 electoral votes, 19 shy of the 270 needed. Seems like the presidential race is about all over save a major disaster from Obama. But that doesn't fill air-time, thus the national polling data.

Toledo's Jeep Products Fail Crash Tests

Today we read that the 2008 Jeep Wrangler scored at the bottom of the safety rankings in crash tests of small SUV's. The Jeep Patriot got acceptable marks for front and rear tests, and good for side crashes when it's equipped with optional side airbags. Without the airbags, its side crash rating dropped to marginal.

Can't Chrysler ever get it right? Last year Daimler gave up on their merger with Chrysler and paid a high price for the foolish marriage; they knew when to get out. Sales of Jeep products have tanked, pardon the pun, due to low gas mileage. Imagine the lack of vision in producing gas-guzzling, boxy SUV's for the American marketplace.

The engineers at Chrysler ought to be fired for producing such low quality and inefficient products and taking the Jeep brand down the drain. The once proud phrase 'Toledo Home of the Jeep' sadly rings quite hollow these days.

John McCain's Appeal to the Dumbed-Down Voters

"Drill here, drill now!" is just one of the idiotic political phrases that John McCain hopes will resonate with the less-than intelligent voter this fall. And there are plenty of them throughout America, ready, like sponges, to sop up the bilge that he spouts.

Here's another: "The surge is working!" He has been touting this one for the past few days; he dropped it on the Veterans just the other day. "My opponent voted against the surge!" he crowed. This, he claims, distinguishes a real leader from an inexperienced one.

I'm amused at John McCain! Amused because I'm smarter than he, but then, he's not trying to 'reach' me. No, he has another target audience- the dumbed-down American. Lots still around, left over from 2000 and 2004.

Big Oil loves John McCain. When given the chance to vote for solar and wind energy and to cut $13 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil, McCain refused to vote. There were 99 other votes. The motion lost by one vote. John McCain- straight talk express goes off the cliff.

Then there's the surge chatter. The Blade printed an editorial about that calling it Bribery, by another name. They said,

"SO, FINALLY, there is concrete evidence that the “surge” is working in Iraq. No, not the 2007 increase in U.S. troop levels that Bush Administration optimists are crediting for a decrease in insurgent violence. We’re talking about the surge in U.S. dollars — nearly 3 billion of them — that our military has been using as a weapon to curry favor and gain cooperation from the Iraqi populace during the five-year occupation of their country."

They go on, "the U.S. has spent a whopping $250 million of the money on what is called the “Sons of Iraq” program. Since about the same time troop levels were boosted a little over a year ago, Iraqi militia men have been paid as neighborhood security guards in cities.Despite attempts by some right-wing columnists to portray the “Sons” as a bunch of civic-minded citizens akin to a Rotary Club, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that they’re really being paid to not shoot at Americans."

Yes, John McCain the surge is working and you supported it [and the war itself back in 2003]. The Straight Talk Express is sinking fast!

Ohio GOP Attempts to Suppress Votes Again

GOP crying foul over law it passed is the title of an article in the Columbus Dispatch. Why should another story about GOP vote-rigging make the news- it occurs all of the time and everywhere. Yet this one is a classic! Why? Because the GOP set the rules and now they want to change them. I suppose Karl Rove might label that a flip-flop.

The article reports: In trying to close a brief window that will allow simultaneous voter registration and absentee voting, Ohio Republicans are engaging in "blatant voter suppression," a leading legal expert on voting said yesterday. "This is exactly what the law says and what it allows," said Daniel Tokaji, a professor at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. "If the Republicans are trying to close the window, they would be violating the law they wrote."
Tokaji, a frequent critic of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, said she is "absolutely right on this one. ... It could be the best thing she's done in office."

Voter suppression is classic GOP stuff. They learned it well from the racist Southern Democrats in the 40's and 50's who suppressed [that's a mild word] the black vote there with all sorts of Jim Crow laws and intimidation [and lynching]. Seems that the right to vote in a democracy has limits. Reminds me of that classic post-9-11 statement of George W. Bush: 'There ought to be limits on freedom of speech.'

Yes, American-style democracy is a quirky thing, filled with 'buts' and 'howevers' put in place to limit freedom and give an advantage to a certain sub-group in the society. The present-day GOP, stocked with fundamentalist christians and neocon warmongers, clearly has an agenda that demands that some votes ought not to be counted. The Founding Fathers would weep at what this 'democracy' has become.

OBAMA'S FOLLY

Starting this comment has not been easy. As I
came out from under my anesthetic on Thursday, it
seemed like I must have been having a nightmare.
What was waking me up from my sedative was the
television in my room for the next four days. With
all the commotion of family, doctors, nurses and
aides was the "braking news" that Obama had agreed
to an interview with McCain at a 20,000 member
mega-fundamentalist church in souther california with
the pastor of this church. At the moment, I could
only passively lay there and think "how stupid Obama
is."

In the next couple of days, as I laid in my bed watching
the news and reading the newespapers, the hype was
never ending. It was crouched in terms like 'learn his word view,
insight to his inner self, discover his personal values,
what is his integrity, and so forth. Obama foolishly agreed
to this religious interview, yet there is no compelling reason
for him to be questioned on religious matters as a candidate for
the public office of president of the United States. He
did poorly, and he walked right into it.

Talk about a set up....My point is that Obama violated the Constitution by
taking part in this "interview". Check ARTICLE VI of the
Constitution of the United States of America. His fitness for
the office of president is determined by his political party
and the system of national primaries he survived. Millions of
voters from past elections in Illinois and in all the States o
2008 deemed him to be qualified.

Moreover, candidates usually conduct campaigns for conservative and
liberal voters, trying to persuade them to vote for him or her
on secular issues. No candidate for president of the United
States has given himself up to be questioned as this. No candidate
has campaigned for religious votes of themselves. Yet, now one
of the major Parties is an openly theological Party, namely, the
neoconservative Republican Party. Does this now mandate that the
opposing candidate has to specifically woo voters on religious
issues? Whose religious tenets? Must be just literal biblical
fundamentalists....

Why is Obama going out of his way to be associated with the
fundmentalist religious fringe? Why is he moving so far right?
Why is he so intent on courting evangelicals? The President
of the United States represents all people of the U.S.,
regardless of whatever their belief. We have one theological
Party already, is Obama suggesting by his actions that another
one is needed? He has already embraced the Bush-Rove faith
based initiatives program. One religious political party is
already one too many; let the neoconservative Republican Party
have the god-vote. Obama needs to be fighting the growing
religious fundamentalism, not joining with it.

Bush's Old Gang Breaking Up

Just this morning the news comes across the wires: Bush's old pal in crime, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan resigned two days before his impeachment process was to begin. Best British buddy Tony Blair stepped down after the citizens protested their participation in the Bush War. Then there was his 'soul buddy,' Vladimir [I call him Vladimir] Putin who slapped Bush's face and Condi's fanny last week.

Gosh, who could have guessed this consequence? What ever happened to loyalty? And, by the way, what ever happened to that Coalition of the Willing? Is Mongolia still sending their horsemen into battle on the streets of Baghdad?

Funny stuff; pathetic, but funny in a dark way. Of course it isn't at all humorous to the families of the +4000 dead U.S. servicemen and women or the 30,000 injured and permanently disfigured. Or those thousands suffering PTSD. Not at all funny.

What happened to all of the flag-waving 'patriots' who cheered the war back in March 2003? Do they still display their flags and yellow ribbons? Or was that merely a scream of Patriotism that has now faded under further observation? And what has happened to those Clear Channel right-wing radio jocks who propagandized 'the war?' What are they saying these days? Or did they leave their microphone and join the Army?

So many questions and no good answers including this humdinger: why hasn't Nancy Pelosi allowed Articles of Impeachment to proceed? Is she just one more slick politician masquerading as a Patriot? What's in it for her? Her support for the two despots in control of the Executive Branch smacks of conspiracy. Perhaps the voters of her California district will throw her out on her ear this November. But don't bet on it.

Maniac Flamebots Still With Us

They are still with us, although noticeably in fewer numbers. Those right-wing flamebots who spew their nonsense as God's truth- the nonsense that they 'heard' from right-wing media. Just this morning on C-Span's Washington Journal one called in all in hysterics about the fact that we are not drilling in Anwr and not drilling off-shore. 'It's the liberal tree-huggers in the Democratic Party who are responsible for the high oil prices!' he mindlessly shouted into his end of the receiver. No doubt he is a John McCain supporter. No doubt he thought the Bush War was just swell as were those tax cuts that he probably thought he received.

Mindless robots, pre-programmed as verbal dolts by the right-wing, disgorging themselves of their pre-programmed 'information.' Economists and experts in the field repeat the facts that this 'easy' oil would save perhaps 3¢ per gallon after 10 years of drilling and refining, if refining is available. Nonetheless they carry 'the message' with great, ignorant passion.

I recently received information from one of the readers of my blog who sent me an email with this interesting information. His friend read a Houston newspaper article saying that one of the oil companies that owned the oil rights and rigs pumping oil out of the Gulf of Mexico had sold ten of the oil rigs to an oil company from Japan. It was his understanding as well that all of the oil being pumped from Alaska is going to Japan and not one barrel to the U.S.

The flamebots forget [or never learned] that it is a global market and 'our oil' is not 'our oil.' Of course these same people are the ones, no doubt, who wonder how out oil got stuck under that Arabian sand. It fits the pattern of neocon thinking: we get what we want and if you don't give it to us, we'll send our army and take it from you. Shock 'n Awe!

The perennial question remains: do the people know the truth? Or are they influenced by these flamebots? You'd think that, after 8 long and miserable years under Bush/Cheney politics and policy, they would see the light. Don't bet on it. After all, the new guy's, well, got the wrong skin color.