Anagram: Hurricanes and Conventions/Innocent Nervous Arachnids

          I have been watching the news for quite awhile, mostly for politics, tis true,  but it seems that the weather can sometimes play the game of politics.  This time it is a Hurricane named Gustav.  Gus, pictured above, is an angry cuss, who looks like he could possibly hit the New Orleans as a category three and possibly a category four Hurricane.  And his timing could not be worse, at least if you are a Republican.  It is hitting just as the Republican Convention is getting underway, and is hitting almost exactly 3 years to the day after one of the most devastating natural disasters to hit America, Hurricane Katrina.  The Initial reaction to Katrina to that Hurricane was both slow and woefully inadequate. 

       Thousands died.  New Orleans is still not 100%, and may never be. 

        I know you know this.  Why bring it up then?  To highlight the differences in reaction between then and now.  Now both parties and the President seem to be bending over backwards to do what they can to help before it has even made landfall.   The Republicans are suspending all non-necessary business at their convention and are going to look to use their time fund-raising for those in the path of Gustav.  The Democrats are going to use their vast on-line resources, and use their 2,000,000 + person E-mail database to go out and collect relief funds for the victims of Gustav.

      So how is the Hurricane playing politics? Well, in actuality it can’t, it’s simply weather phenomena, it doesn’t have a political affiliation.  But the people affected by it do, as do those who watch what happens as a result of it.  And someone is going to come out looking good here because of that, irrespective of their trying to do so.  The purpose of this post is to paint some potential pictures in this vein.   And understand me, I do not think anyone will try to take advantage of the actual event, the hurricane, but there will be spinning after the fact, you KNOW that.  Let’s see what can go right and wrong here for the Republicans.

   Spin Cycle 1) Republicans can come out smelling like a rose if they can make it look like they are simply trying to help, just being humble Americans trying there best to just help out their fellow man and being equal to the task of helping out everyone in the area. 

   Spin Cycle 2) Republicans can come out looking stupid, even if they give every last dime they have.  How? Play it Up.  Advertise. Tell the World how great a group of Americans they are by pointing out how good they are being to all the poor poor victims of Gustav.  Nobody Likes a showoff. Giving will help, advertising giving won’t

   Spin Cycle 3) Republicans can come out neither ahead nor behind by simply doing just enough to look like their doing something. You know, a lackluster campaign on their part.  I see this as the Least Likely, especially in an election year.   

   Spin Cycle 4) Republicans can die a painful death even if they do everything they can simply by being overwhelmed by the magnitude of the storm.  This is the one no one wants to see.  No One.  the storm simply being so large that there is nothing anyone can do.  Katrina left deep scars and anything that brings those memories to surface, like a complete collapse of the levies, would be the death knell to more than just those in the area.  It would Murder the Republicans.

       Why do I not mention the Democrats? I am not sure that the political repercussions of Gustav are as severe for the Democrats as it is for the Republicans.  I could be wrong though.  We will see. 

       Personally, I would like to live in a world where I don’t have to see these possibilities.  But we don’t get to choose the world we live in, do we?

    I would bitch about the crap going on in my world, which to me is not insignificant, but in terms of those who could lose their homes and even their lives in a hurricane, they are of no consequence. 

    Let’s all hope everything comes out alright here.

  One Video before I go.  A press conference with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on Preparations for Hurricane Gustav:      

     

That’s it for me.  Later.

Today’s Nugget, Via Wikiquote:  Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary. The wider course would be to say that there are certain lines along which humanity must move, the grand strategy is mapped out, but detailed prophecy is not our business. Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness.   George Orwell

Latest edit: 11:03 P.M. 8/31/08

Anagram: All The Wrong Things/ Hallowing Strength

               I am an idiot. there is no way around it.  My name is Mike, and when In doubt, I am wrong.  That’s OK, mind you.  You are exactly the same as me, just as wrong.  The difference between me and you is that I admit the truth, and you do not. 

       What brought this on, you ask? 

 I am, as you know, a fairly political individual, something of the exciteable boy sometimes, and those two don’t always mesh well.  It happened today that I was responding to a story in digg about Sarah Palin, and how she doesn’t believe in the effects of Man made carbon dioxide on the planet…aka she’s a global warming denier.  This gets me set off right away.  To my mind, global warming is a fact.  Then I see people posting about how it’s great that we have someone in the spotlight who has their head screwed on straight, something like that.  This REALLY sets me off.  I go through the whole thing about the ozone layer being eaten away because of carbon based emissions, and how there’s 5,000,000,000 metric tons of crap tossed in the sky annually, and a few years ago it was 6,000,000,000…..

     For those of you who know what’s going on you see where I went wrong.  For those who don’t let me show you.  “ozone layer being eaten away because of carbon based emissions”  This statement is patently false.  It is CFC’S that do that.  Got burnt pretty good for it too.  Deservedly so.  I mentioned science.  I mentioned facts.  Then I went and in my opening statement, got them wrong.  I still think I am right about global warming, but it made me rethink exactly what do I know about the subject.  One of the things thrown at me, and I can neither confirm nor deny the truth of this statement, I don’t own a scale that large, was that the Atmosphere weighs something like 5,700,000,000,000,000 metric tons.  That is over 100 times the annual amount of Co2 created, and Forests, dwindling though they are, still manage to eat a few billion metric tons of the stuff.   

     Again, I still believe in global warming, but now I know there are things I don’t know, due to my own ignorance.  There were other things.  Talk of water vapor and it’s effect, and how it makes up 95% of the atmosphere and it is discounted by scientists who do research on global warming.  This leaves me with a dearth of facts and a bunch of questions.  Questions I want answered.  Those questions are.

      1) What effect does water vapor and forests “eating” (for lack of a better term)Co2 have on Man made carbon based emissions?  Where do i go to find out if this is even a valid question?

     2) Is that number correct, that atmospheric weight number, that 5.7 quadrillion tons, and what effect does that have on Co2 and it’s effect, man made or otherwise, and it’s effect on global warming (or even cooling)

     3) What are the most pertinent facts that I need to know about this entire environmental question? About how best to treat the earth? Because that is, I think, the most fundamental question here, how do we best take care of the earth?

       It seems that when the air in my city is brown, that there is something wrong.  Pollution, ozone depletion, greenhouse gases which are made of the things that turn my city air brown, Melting Ice caps, which i have been led to believe is caused by the same things that make my city air visible to the naked eye, all these things seem tied together.

      Am I wrong? I do not know everything, and I can’t, but I would like to know as much as I can. 

    If you have any facts, any thoughts, anything at all to share on this subject, please, wipe the cobwebs from my eyes, so that I may see the truth in this matter.   

     Two videos for you before I go, First up, Al gore on Global warming:   

     

       The Second, a refutation of Global Warming:

      

       Perhaps I am too small a mind to know the truth, but I would like to have all the relevant facts at hand so that I CAN know. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.

That’s it for me.  Later.

Today’s Nuggets: There’s a better scientific consensus on this than on any issue I know — except maybe Newton’s second law of dynamics,” said D. James Baker, administrator of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Man has reached the point where his impact on the climate can be as significant as nature’s.   Joby Warrick

The European Union and environmental advocacy groups use global warming hysteria to advance their own special agendas. The European Union recognizes any significant reduction in CO2 emissions by the United States will significantly reduce its economic output, thereby bringing it closer to the inferior output of European nations. Environmental advocacy groups work to stifle economic and industrial progress wherever they find it to inhibit the successful advancement of peoples in developing nations, inevitably making mankind a second class citizen of planet Earth.  Dr. Jay Lehr

Anagram: McCain-Palin/Calm in Panic

       Sarah Palin, a person I have written about once or twice, and about whom I have heard from several people here over the last few months, has been picked as the nominee for Vice President of The United States of America by John McCain.  For those of you who aren’t up on the facts, let’s drop a few on ya.  There’s some good stuff here if you’re interested.

    She is Pro Life and also Pro-capital punishment.  She is for drilling in A.N.W.R.,  and thinks it will have an immediate benefit on oil prices, though she admits it won’t help actual supply for 5 years.  She is a Conservative, where John McCain is seen in some ways as a moderate.  I do have an issue with that label on him, the man is Conservative enough to get the Backing of George Bush and Dick Cheney, both of whom will be speaking at the Republican National Convention next week, and there is the whole voting with the president 95% of the time thing you have to remember.  How you call that Moderate I have no idea, but the Label has stuck to him, all the same.  She believes that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.  She is a strong believer in the Second amendment right to bear arms and is a member of the NRA.

     This is a Master-stroke by the Republicans.  In one fell swoop she hands the Republicans it’s first female V.P. candidate, 24 years after the Democrats did it with Geraldine Ferraro.  It helps them to get their hands on disaffected female democratic voters who may STILL feel disenfranchised by Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party after Hillary’s defeat at Barack Obama’s hands.  It creates a large amount of buzz on the political scene, due to the fact that she is a relative unknown. 

   This is about the best pick the Republicans could have come up with.  Tim Pawlenty would not have created the buzz that Sarah Palin did, and would not have had nearly the drawing power for the female vote that Sarah has.  The major issue with the Both Tom Ridge and Mitt Romney was there pro life stance, and Mitt had issues during the campaign for the Republican Nomination with his religion as well.  There might have been one or two more other picks that might have had the positive spin effect that Sarah had, but nothing that would have been as strong. 

    Two videos for you to look at, so you can have a good think about Governor Palin and her stances and what she brings to the Republican Ticket.  The first is from an Interview with Glenn Beck from a few months ago:   

      

   The Second is a video that looks like it was taped off of a computer screen, but still is worth a look, and this one is a broadcast from only a few days ago from KTUU in Anchorage, Alaska:

    

      That’s it for me.  Later.

Today’s Nugget, Via Wikiquote:   Mankind has advanced. Human progress is ceaseless. We can … conclude that building just societies is a fool’s errand. We are always, despite our advances, only one sin away from slipping into the abyss of terror and ignorance. But that is not so. Generations upon generations have driven the human race farther and farther from darkness.   John McCain

Anagram: Obama’s DNC Speech/Cops Chase Bad Men

           This speech was one for the ages folks. The most beautifully crafted, intelligent speech I have ever heard in my 41 years on this earth.  I am sure that most of those who will read this will feel the same way.  The Senator was tough. He was strong.  He was certain.  He made more policy points than I thought he would, I vaguely remember a talking head on television, Olbermann if i remember correctly, say 29 of them.  I believe him.   

        The junior Senator from Illinois called McCain out on a number of topics.  Sen. Obama Pointed out rather deftly that McCain said he would follow Bin Laden to the gates of hell but wouldn’t follow him to his cave.  You McCain supporters out there might not believe that, but several months ago Barack Obama said if he had precise knowledge on where Bid Laden was, even if it was in Pakistan, a nation friendly to us, that he would send the military after him,  and it was John McCain who said that was wrong, it isn’t right to breach another country’s border like that. 

     He took McCain’s judgment to task, and echoed the points that had been made countless times throughout the convention that it was John McCain who had voted for Bush Policies over 90% of the time, policies which have failed this country and it’s people.  How can you talk of another’s judgment when your own is faulty, when your own shows a real lack of judgment.  There’s nothing maverick about being a follower.

    He made a point of showing that 95% of Americans will get a tax cut under an Obama administration.  Only the Super rich will pay more in taxes.

     He said that he will cut costs by making government smaller, by getting rid of government programs that don’t work. 

     He said…..Ya know, maybe I should let you hear the man in his own words. Read the entire transcript here:

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who’s willing to work.

That’s the promise of America the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper.

That’s the promise we need to keep. That’s the change we need right now. So let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am President.

Change means a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.

I will cut taxes cut taxes for 95% of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Washington’s been talking about our oil addiction for the last thirty years, and John McCain has been there for twenty-six of them. In that time, he’s said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office.

Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.

        This is one for the Ages from my perspective folks. He delineated the ideas and ideals of both the American people and the Democratic party, and wove them together so seamlessly that the two, as a great many of us democrats already see it, can be clearly seen as one and the same.

    Here’s another portion of the speech.  He shows real strength here while also showing off a genuine weakness of both The Bush administration and John McCain, Foreign Policy:

You don’t defeat a terrorist network that operates in eighty countries by occupying Iraq. You don’t protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough in Washington. You can’t truly stand up for Georgia when you’ve strained our oldest alliances. If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice but it is not the change we need.

We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don’t tell me that Democrats won’t defend this country. Don’t tell me that Democrats won’t keep us safe. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans — Democrats and Republicans have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.

As Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm’s way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home.

He was emotional, intelligent, strong, and gave America a grand vision of it’s future with an Obama Administration. In front of 80,000+ at Invesco field, and in front tens of millions on television and on the web, he made a powerful case that he is the best man for the job of President of the United States of America.

     Well done Senator, Well Done.

Anagram: Unconventional/Novel Nun Action

       Today, the Third day of the Democratic National Convention, contained the most damning attacks on the worth of John McCain as a candidate.  His alleged strength on National Security has been clearly exposed by the Democrats as a weakness.  It was pointed out that John McCain was wrong about Iraq and Barack Obama was right, that Barack was right about Afghanistan and McCain was wrong.  All of tonight’s speakers were crushing in an emotional plea to America, telling America that if George Bush is bad, and almost everyone agrees that he is, then John McCain, by dint of being of the same mind, and voting for the Policies espoused by The Bush Administration is bad for America….

      ….and dammit, the Democrats did it right.  Joe Biden and Bill Clinton, along with Evan Bayh, Madeline Albright and a great many other speakers both well known and Unknown made the same point with strength and frequency, that Barack Obama’s policies are better than those of his Opponent in this horse race, That John McCain is, for all intents and purposes, another incarnation of George w. Bush. 

    I am going to throw a video or two at the bottom of this blog.

    The Beginning of the night was just a rip roaring party, a festive little lovefest of each state having a delegate, usually a prominent state leader, sometimes well known, sometimes not, who would tout the states rich heritage, and then tell how many delegate votes each person got…after that is the nomination process, which was basically several important people in the party first nominating and then seconding said nomination.  Pageantry, richly choreographed, and well done. 

     The touch of having Hillary Clinton speak for the New York delegation and then ask that Barack Obama be named the Democratic Presidential Candidate by acclamation was a really nice touch.  It had the effect of the Clinton’s actually Handing the torch to the Obama’s, very well done. 

       Noteworthy speeches: Tammy Duckworth, a real American hero, lost both her legs after her helicopter was shot down in Iraq, and is Still Serving her country with two prosthetic legs.  Strong Woman.  To hear her talk about how bad the Bushes have been with the Military,  and how deftly she tied McCain to Bush, from the standpoint of wounded veteran, and of someone still serving, was deeply damning. 

     Bill Clinton.  In no uncertain terms, he laid the groundwork for the night, which was nothing more than an all out assault on Both George Bush and John McCain from beginning to end.  He blasted McCain, but more importantly, he gave a rousing and strong endorsement of Barack Obama to the raucous crowd in Denver.  He was not necessarily bombastic, but he was strong and hard on Both McCain and Bush, read the transcript here.  For those looking for divisiveness, they need to look elsewhere, there was none of that here.

     Joe Biden.  A few verbal gaffes, most notably for me was his saying McCain wanted “$200,000,000 in taxes for corporate America” when he  i think meant “$200,000,000 in tax breaks for corporate America” He had a slip earlier as well, saying:     

You know, folks, that’s the America that George Bush has left us. And that’s the America we’ll continue to get if George — excuse me, if John McCain is elected president of the United States of America. Freudian slip. Freudian slip.

       Nice. Might not have been as Freudian as he’s letting on but it may well have been. Either way, the effect was large and pronounced. So joined at the hip in his mind are these two, Bush and McCain, that in his mind, he’s mixing up their names.

       The speech was well crafted and aside from those two goofs (if goofs they were) was a solid and prolonged attack On John McCain. Read it here.  He REALLY tore McCain a new Asshole near the end of the speech.   Just read the transcript or catch the Viddy.  It’s good stuff.

    Today was a good day to be a Democrat.

    That’s about it except for the Videos. First up,  Joe Biden:

    

 Next Up, John Kerry Whipping John McCain’s Ass, around 13:00 total run time:

    I could not find the Tammy Duckworth speech on youtube, I might post it tomorrow.  we’ll see. 

That’s It for me. Later.

Today’s Nuggets, Via Wikiquote:  In the case of a word like DEMOCRACY, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.   George Orwell

All deductions having been made, democracy has done less harm, and more good, than any other form of government. It gave to human existence a zest and camaraderie that outweighed its pitfalls and defects. It gave to thought and science and enterprise the freedom essential to their operation and growth. It broke down the walls of privilege and class, and in each generation it raised up ability from every rank and place.     Will Durant