Sunday, March 27, 2011

The Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines brings out the potential POTUS GOP candidates. It is scary.

The Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines brings out the potential POTUS GOP candidates. It is scary.


The Iowan Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines winds up today.
I have watched some of the speeches on CSpan, and I am afraid for our country.
The GOP POTUS lineup are a weak group of radicals.

Newt Gingrich wants to " “defeat Gadhafi as rapidly as possible.I would do it by using Egyptian, Moroccan, Jordanian and Iraqi ground forces as advisers and as air controllers with the rebels using all of Western air power as decisively as possible. Once you get involved, I believe you get involved decisively, you win quickly, you minimize casualties, you get it over with.”

Newt makes the neo-conservative empire warriors resemble Mother Theresa.
How do you move the Egypitan army into Libya?
Newt will scare the children, as well as all us adults.

The mashioed John Bolton spoke, and his speech was scary. He is a neo-con warrior excelsior. As POTUS, all the major powers in the world would be put on a enemies list, including Russia and China. We would have troops in wars everywhere.

Miss.Governor Haley Barbour spoke, and he was boring. He seems to seriously believe he will do well in the GOP primaries.

Former Pa. Senator Rick Santorum spoke, and gave big portions of red meat to the cultural conservatives in Iowa. If he lost a Senate re-election bid in Pa., what would make him believe he can win the POTUS race?

Herman Cain, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO and black conservative, spoke. If he were to become POTUS (not likely), would pizza delivery trucks be able to drive up to the White House east portico every night?

And, of course, Michele Bachmann wowed the cultural conservatives. They like her, and she likely would do well in the Iowian caucuses where these cultural rightwingers dominant.
If Mike Huckabee and Palin dont't come in, the Iowian caucus may be Michele's to lose.

I continue to be amazed that the media give Bachmann serious attention as a POTUS candidate. There is something wrong with our political scene. We are in serious trouble as a nation if Michele becomes a serious candidate.

I have taken the coffeepartyusa pledge of civility, but Michele stretches my civility sensabilities to the limit. And I have no qualms in applying George Burns' quip of long ago, describing the then young singer John Davidson,"how can such an attractive face be attached to such an empty head?"

http://kgoradio.com/rssItem.asp?feedid=1...

Sunday, March 20, 2011

The world in 2100. I can't wait.

The world in 2100. I can't wait.
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Michio Kaku has a stimulating op.ed. in today’s NY Post. It describes what the world will look like in a 100 years, 2100.
Now, some of the obvious events we would predict are not described.
Such as:
.the last battalion of US troops will withdraw from Afghan.
.the West’s Libyan “Operation Odyssey Dawn” will be winding down.
.Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann will be putting the finishing touches on their Presidential libraries.
.Glenn Beck will lament,and cry, over the fact that the world did not end in 2012; and that we are still functioning in 2100. He blames George Soros.
.many cable channels will still be showing reruns of “2 and ½ Men”. Hey, it brings in the ad. puhtaytuhs.
. Lindsay Lohan will be ending her community service and parole requirements.

Instead, Kaku predicts:
.the Internet will be in our contact lenses. To navigate the net, we would just blink.
Can you imagine this? In all the offices worldwide, all employees will no longer be hogtied to desktop computers;no longer ignoring human interaction. Instead, millions of bureaucratic trolls will wear contacts, and pretend to look at other humans. But, in reality, they will be using the net.
And if blinking will navigate the net, what happens to congential lyiers. Lyiers blink when lying.
They will crash the net as they spin their fictional tales.

.Computers,cell phones,clocks,watches, and MP3 players will disappear. Instead, there will be millions of chips,costing just one penny, everywhere.
Kaku writes that we will be able to command these chips with our brains…we will be able to move furniture, brew coffee, and bring to life anything with the chips and our brain waves.
The chips will be in everything. We know they have been put in new clothing, and have been used to track us wearing the clothes. Lohan’s necklace,borrowed of course, will be loaded with penny chips tracking her everywhere.

.”Cars will be driverless and will fly through the air”. I drive up and down the Northway from Albany to Saratoga Springs. And believe me, cars on this highway are already driverless and fly through the air.

.”spare parts” for our body organs will be instantly available. By 2100, I’ll need many, quite quickly.

.”the human life span will be extended”. All of us will have 30 year old bodies forever, as far as the contact lense can see. When I was 30 (not too long ago,methinks), I could walk from the upper 50ies to Greenwich Village in Manhattan. In 2100, I’ll still be able to do that, but I’ll have to dodge the penny chips everywhere.
And we’ll be able to groom “designer children”. Martin Sheen and Dina Lohan will proclaim it can’t come soon enough.

.Robots will be everywhere. And millions of blue- and white-collar jobs will no longer use humans.

.There will be a space elevator. Pushing the up button will move us on a long carbon fiber cable. But only the wealthy Donald Trumps will be able to use the elevator. This is a good argument for more equal distribution of wealth and income, so more of us can travel to Mars. Right now, The Donald could land on Mars, but he still wouldn’t get many primary votes for POTUS.

.And of course there are dangers. As the GOP House climate change deniers hold power, 2100 will see disasters only the robotic mind can now imagine. NYC will be “surrounded by seawalls” and Silicone Valley will become a dead zone.

Linked below is the Kaku op.ed., and it makes for exciting reading.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/ope...

Thursday, March 17, 2011

"Many aspects of Japanese culture are condensed in the cosmological triad of Heaven, Earth, and Man."

"Many aspects of Japanese culture are condensed in the cosmological triad of Heaven, Earth, and Man."


The Japanese will recover, and their resilence in the face of this terrible tragedy will make their country and culture stronger than ever.

We are concerned that Japanese electronic parts will not be supplied to Best Buy. We worry that Apple's IPad may not have the parts and accessories supplied by Japan factories. We worry about paying more for gasoline to fill our SUV's. We wonder if Lohan will go to prison, wearing her diamond necklace. And Charlie Sheen's concert tour is sold out on Ticketmaster within 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, we can watch PBS's News Hour and BBC as a Japanese young father searches a long list of dead and missing, hoping not to see his wife's name. The wife was caught in the tsunami,grapped her two young children, got them to a safe house, and then was swept away in the tsunami landslide.

We watch as the Japanese fight to prevent the total meltdown in the nuclear reactors, as the squad of fighters go into the reactors, knowing that the radiation will kill them.

The Japanese know about nuclear dangers.
It may not be the appropriate time to discuss our dropping of two military atomic bombs on Japan, ending WW2.
But the Japanese live with that history.
Was it necessary for us to use those two bombs?
It's a question still being debated.
If we had agreed to have the Japanese keep their Emperor in place, which we eventually did, would the Japanese have surrended earlier.
When Truman was told that an invasion of the island could cost up to a million US soldier lives, was it accurate?
So many questions, and few real final answers.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Earthquakes,climate change,the Koch Brothers,and the House GOP majority of climate change deniers.

Earthquakes,climate change,the Koch Brothers,and the House GOP majority of climate change deniers.


Our condolences go out to the Japanese that suffered the onslaught of the very large earthquake, and subsequent tsunamies.

Nostrodomous predicted 20th-21st century proliferation of earthquakes..but what did he really know and predict?

We do know that climate change,ice melting,warming,and human gashouse emissions can trigger earthquakes. See link 1 below.

And the majority of House GOP no-nothings are gutting the EPA in budget cuts; and the majority are climate change deniers.
The irresponsible behavior of the GOP House conference is a threat to our future survival on this planet.

One of my favorite climate change activists is Bill McKibben. He writes well (see his most recent book The Eaarth); and he is very gloomy on our prospects to save the earth.

He is directly taking on the Koch brothers, and also the National Chamber of Commerce. The latter is a very rightwing lobbyiest representing the interests of, at most, two dozen very large corporations.

McKibben has started a new website, http://chamber.350.org/(The US Chamber doesn't speak for me).

http://www.grist.org/article/2011-03-11-...

http://www.wbur.org/npr/134237203/gop-bu...

http://chamber.350.org/

Friday, March 11, 2011

Gingrich and Trump

Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump
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Gingrich traveled to Georgia yesterday, his original political base.
He is exploring running for POTUS.
It's assumed he is going to go full throttle into the 2012 ocean.
The Wash. Post's Dan Balz has a good writeup on Gingrich.(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...)

He has the network,and very likely could raise the money.
He is a Southern-based politico,and has the strong Southern GOP base to cultivate.
The question is whether his persona will sell elsewhere.
Our system has little tolerance,or appreciation, for intellectualism among our politicos.
He has 100 ideas each minute, and one or two may be worth considering.
He also,as Eugene Robinson wrote, will frighten the children.

Donald Trump also continues to tease us with the possibility of running. Responding to his well known germaphobia, he promises to shake every hand in Iowa. LOL.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/031...
Mike Huckabee, Obama and Natalie Portman
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Huckabee may dive into the 2012 POTUS water.
On the other hand, he may not.
If he announces, he quickly loses $500,000-$1 million in income.
He has strong support among social conservatives, and likely would do well in the Southern primaries.
He is also a good communicator, with an “ol’ shucks” Southern persona.
He constantly attacks Obama, and went further than usual last week.
He borrowed Dinesh D’Souza’s thesis (in The Roots of Obama’s Rage) that the best way to understand Obama’s mindset is through his anti-colonial African heritage.
But Huck mistakenly stated that Obama grew up in Kenya, and is strongly influenced by his Mau Mau (anti-colonial) grandfather.
Neither is true.
The rightwing has grabbed D’Souza’s book, and is using it to put Obama into a narrow ideological box.. that Obama is not one of us; that he is foreign; and that he is an alien agent in control of our government.
It is so tiresome. I don’t know where Huck and the rightwing sees rage in Obama. To progressives, the POTUS lacks sufficient rage; is too smooth and nice; and as one suggests, it is a question of finding Waldo in Obama.

Huck also attacked the actress Natalie Portman, for being (at least now) a single pregnant mother-to-be.
Huck cleverly framed his argument in rightwing populist terms. Portman is wealthy, and will have no problem supporting her child.
But , as Huck proclaimed, millions of women are single, poor, and having children out-of-wedlock.
This is true.
But Huck becomes hypocritical when he allegedly opposes birth control ,sex education and other programs that help single women. He also supports federal de-funding of Planned Parenthood.

I predict Huck will NOT enter the 2012 race.

Happenings at the Chat N Chew

The Chat N Chew group had a good round of chatter in our recent gathering.
***********
The Chat N Chew group met last night, and warmed up over steaming lattes.
And the conversation got even steamier.
When given the phrase "they love me", more than half the group said it was Charlie Sheen and the other half guessed it was Moammar Gadhafi. It was the latter.
The entire group agreed that both had to go, and go quickly. But where will Gadhafi find exile?
Gadhafi has ruled without a constitution, a parliment, or any political parties. His overthrow will need some post-Gadhafi political structuring.

Gadhafi's turmoil is allegedly raising gasoline prices domestically. The group's rightwingers,and libertarians, held their lattes' high as they cheered that gasoline prices will be the issue that will defeat Obama in 2012.
Liberals like myself agreed, although it is the oil speculators,the Wall Streeters, that are the hidden hand behind the gasoline rises.
If gas goes to $4 gallon, Obama will be Carter redux.
And the sad part is that this gas rise is not an environmental tax, and it will do nothing to move us to a post-petroleum world.

The group's libertarians are looking forward to the possible shutdown of the fed. government.
Us liberals see that as a disaster.
This scenario may be delayed for a least a couple of weeks.

The rightwingers,tea party activists all, want primaries against 3 (RINO) Senators, Maine's Snowne,Indiana's Luger, and Utah's Hatch.
Hatch is moving so far to the right, he might be excommunicated from the Mormon Church.

And, finally the group lowered the chat a notch, and all concurred that the Academy Awards show sucked. It took a 94-yr. old stroke victim, Kirk Douglas, to save it.

Maureen Dowd

Maureen Dowd
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It was a packed SUNY-Albany Page Hall last night.SUNY-Albany’s writers institute founder,Pulitizer prize winner William Kennedy, attended.

The Albany Times Union’s Casey Seiler asked the audience to give it up for newspapers…which we all did.

He then introduced Maureen Dowd. She read two of her opinion columns, and then went directly to Q & A.

She was articulate, funny, and candid in her views of politicos.
Of all the Bushes, she admires G.W. (41) the most. It’s a positive feeling I don’t share, but then I haven’t met the man.
She at least twice mentioned Jerry Brown, whom she recently interviewed and opined about.
Her take on Brown is that he, along with Andrew Cuomo, offers a “middle” way between the traditional blue liberalism and the GOP scorched earth bomb throwers.

Again, I’m rather skeptical about Brown. Her column on Brown’s interview (linked above) conveyed the feeling that he was playing with her..using cryptic Buddhist,new-agey rhetoric. Brown was very elusive…like attempting to pin jello to the wall.

The DC scripe cognescenti, and the political class like Dowd, with most of them reading her first over morning coffee.

She writes well, and is now at the peak of her influence.

It was an enjoyable evening.

Addendum: she believes the repealing of Obamacare by the GOP House is really dumb. I concure