Well…as I said this morning, there has not been much going on in politics for me to write about and I guess it’s one of the problems a couterpuncher has…someone has to punch first…and no one is punching so I guess I’ll have to come up with something on my own. Hmmmmm…oh, Ohio State…as a Michigan fan, I’m having a hard time dredging up any sympathy for the situation there…I’m glad that Tressel resigned and that the shenanigans with almost their whole team has been exposed; the smirk has been taken off the face of their fans and they are going through what we went through with Rodriguez. They will always be known as cheaters now…
Oh, on politics….just some general stuff that has been percolating…I hope the repub idiots here in Michigan get their victory dances in now because they are going to pay in 2012….we may still have a repub governor, but we will have at least the house or senate back after these thugs gave the state away to business on the backs of retirees and the poor…the pendulum is going to swing back to sanity after the flirtation with the tea party and it’s right wing radicals. You heard it here first….that’s about it for now…thinking is not coming easily right now….but is is so much better than this morning…I think I’ll do a no booze day count…might be fun to chronicle…
Well…just sitting here waiting for the Man U match to start and thought I’d get to some of the musings that I promised a few days back…the rail trail is looking so cool now with the foliage finally filling in and making it a green tunnel that not even light can get through and that makes it it almost immune to the wind, too. Pretty neat stuff and the other day “No Quarter” came on when I entered the tunnel and it fit just so well that I couldn’t help grinning….as I’ve always said, it doesn’t take much to make me happy. It seems that lately the people on the trail are nicer, too, paying attention and reining in their dogs when I go by…maybe the “thank yous” are starting to help…hope so…it is nice to see smiles and not scowls when I blow past in a sprint. I do have to put the bike on the back of the car soon to take it to the car wash to clean it…it is as dirty as I can remember it and I am a little ashamed even thought I know that bikes are supposed to be dirty if you’re using them right.
I wasn’t going to talk about politics today but some heartening patterns are starting to emerge when we look at the overreach of the radical right wing of the repub party….they have lost almost every special election that has been held this year and people are rejecting their vision of America where all of the benefits of the country accrue to just the few rich and business. And we see the plummeting approval ratings of the repub governors that have pushed through anti worker legislation and given away their states to business. I hope the recall of gov Snyder gains steam here in Michigan since he is governing only to his base and his business masters…we are ripe for a revolution here where the dems are going to take back both houses and then where will that idiot be? Okay….the match is ready to start in a few so I’ll end here…
Well….I’ve got the problem again where I don’t have enough to say about any one topic so I’m going to put a bunch of them in one and keep adding to it as the day goes on…or not….first a little about ole Newt….I’m old enough to remember when the Nixon administration was wading through Watergate and the Newt meltdown reminds me so much of the disclaimer that Nixon’s cronies used…”that statement is no longer operative” I think it was….made me laugh then and Newt is giving me a huge case of the grins with his verbal gymnastics and assertions that David Gregory’s question on Ryan’s Medicare plan was not fair…I think he’s come down with the Sarah Palin disease where she thinks any question asked of her is a “gotcha” from the media….why does anyone think Newt is such a “towering intellect”? Maybe in his own mind….
Next…this could be the next to last one of these…you know, the world is going to end tomorrow and, as you already know, I won’t be one of the ones getting raptured….I will be toasting with a beer and a shot at 6 PM Saturday…can’t wait to see what the end of the world looks like and feel huge earthquakes here in Michigan….maybe it won’t happen in MP? It was weird seeing the full page ad in the newspapers today…and I can’t wait to see the ones in the paper Sunday saying they “miscalculated” again…you just gotta love these religious nuts who are just so sure they are right about everything….I think this whole thing may be a marketing plan from some of the papers since there is a statement urging people to go out and buy “multiple” copies of the paper and give them to family and friends….
Okay, that’s it for now…I need to get a bike ride in with the fog still here…it looks really cool with all of the spider webs showing up in the dew…
One last thing….my spam filter on Yahoo has been trapping hundreds of e-mails from psychics….shouldn’t they know that the e-mails won’t get through? Just a thought…
Well..just when I thought I wasn’t going to have a topic for today, ole Manny Lopez from the Detroit News comes up with another of his ideology driven, ridiculous columns that I just have to comment on. Manny actually went to California and goes off on the administration and it’s attempt to lower the countries oil usage by the subsidies for hybrids…basing all of his vitriol on his observations that everyone in California is not driving one. He then goes on to try to make the point that California’s regulations are so stringent that they will force only small cars to be purchased then in the next paragraph he contradicts himself by saying people are still buying what they want using the example of the Ford F-150 being the best selling vehicle in the country. It was hard for me to even get my head around this pretzel logic (thanks Steely Dan) to see what his point is. I think he was trying to make the point that the government is interfering in the markets by the hybrid subsidies and trying to force us into cars we don’t want.
But, who knows….you should go read that for yourself…if you don’t have a headache after it, I am jealous…and I can’t figure out why he still has a job…
Well…still not a lot happening in politics so far this week so I think I’ll just wander around again like yesterday and go off on some topics that aren’t really formed yet but I’m going to give it a try anyway. First, let’s start with the laugher of the day, ole Newt is going to run for president, yeah, I laughed my ass off, too. What is he going to run as? The family values candidate? He was on tv the other day trying to explain cheating on the first two of his three wives and said that since god forgives him, no one should question him about it. Pretty frickin convenient when you think of it….trying to place all of the bad behavior off limits and saying “trust me” that he can still be the arbiter of family values and a role model for America. Yow….he does have a huge set….
What else? Not sure right now…I’m going back to think for a while….should be back before 1 or so…okay, I’m late but the Red Wings are pushing everything else out of my head today…so I’ll talk about them….Sunday’s was one of the most exciting games I’ve seen in a long time and my concern is that they left it all on the ice out in Cali…but they didn’t work that hard in the first three games so maybe they have something left in the tank…and the Sharks do have a reputation for choking in the playoffs so maybe they’ll do it again….we do have an injury problem with Frantzen’s ankle and Pavel’s wrist but it would be nice to see Modano in for one last game, no matter what, it’s going to give me a damn heart attack..Go Wings!!
Well….I’ve read all the newspapers and still haven’t been able to come up with a topic so I’m just going to let the brain wander around a bit and see what happens…I have almost weaned myself from the NY Times since they went to a paywall model a couple of months ago…I guess the only thing that I miss is the commentary from their columnists that were commonly a trigger for my own thinking and writing…could be part of why I’ve been struggling lately and I really think it has been a slow news cycle….
There are more culture wars going on here in Michigan with the crazy right idiots spending time trying to vent their homophobia on the employees of universities here by withholding funding if they give health benefits to same-sex partners….this bill has been proposed by rep David Agema from here in west Michigan….all I have to say is this..Dave, where are the jobs? While you fiddle with this nonsense, more than 13% of the citizens here are out of work and you and your crazy religious nut allies try to impose your narrow minded agenda on the whole state. I grew up in west Michigan where the religious have always tried to impose their view on everyone….we even had the ONLY McDonalds in the world that was not open Sunday here in Jenison, and if you tried to mow your lawn on Sunday, they would call the police…not kidding…it’s like Westmichistan….
Hmmmm….oh, have to talk about the Wings and their inspired comeback last night…almost gave up on them when they were down 3-1 but then the texts from my friends started coming in with whoops and hollers and I knew something special was happening…so I put the computer back on and listened….it’s not like listening to baseball on the radio I grew up with…hockey is too fast to fit the radio format and I am glad I can watch the game at noon today…and they even shorten it by moving from perlod to perlod without any break….yep, you see it..misspelled period but if you’ve been here before, you know the reason….if not, leave a comment and I’ll explain again….
Well….I was watching tv the other day…barely paying attention when an ad for Progressive Insurance with their spokesperson “Flo” snapped me to attention….have you heard of their new ploy? They will lower your insurance rate if you allow them to put a data tracker in your car, in their words, to “confirm your great driving”…yeah, you heard it, these people want you to put a device in your car that will give them more ammunition to not pay any claims..not that any insurance company needs a reason to deny claims since they deny them all of the time for no reason…or I should say trumped up ones that force you to fight to get what you paid for. What’s next? Will they propose that they put an ear tag in all of their customers that will track you at all times….that’s just what this new device will do…it will have gps tracking for speed but more than that, g meters that will label you as an “aggressive driver” and will raise your rates; no matter that you have no tickets or accidents. When are we going to say stop to these folks, to the cellphone companies that track our every move, and to the insurance companies that control what we eat and what we do to ensure higher profits for them….and if you expect lower premiums from giving up your freedom…I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you….
One last thing…boycott Progressive Insurance! Or at the very least, if you are a Progressive customer, throw the damn data logger at them when they show it to you….geez….
Well…I’m just getting ready to go out and do twenty on the bike and wanted to get this thought out on the turmoil in the commodities markets over the past week where we’ve seen silver fall almost 25% and oil down almost 12% in the past three days. In the case of silver, the trading board that governs these trades raised the margin percentage that traders had to risk in the market; making it more expensive for traders to speculate and drive the price up. This is exactly what I advocated last week in the case of oil and the results were exactly what I and some of the experts predicted; that when the traders actually had to put skin in the game they would flee like the rats they are. Even though we’ve seen oil correct over the past few days, I still advocate raising the margin percentages there, too, since it has been way too easy for speculators to maintain their grip on the market and manipulate it in their own interests… a tax that we pay to the rich who don’t care at all about tanking the economy just so they can line their pockets….geez…
Well…wanted to get at this one before the day gets busy…it deals with a fear I have about how the news of bin Laden’s death will be exploited by the fear-based community (repubs and the security-military complex) to place further restrictions on American citizens and continue the undermining of the constitution and our individual rights. Now, I realize that bin Laden had pretty much been marginalized by the manhunt for him, left to communicate by human couriers to the world outside his complex, and that there were still terrorist attacks attributed to his metastitizing organization going on around the world; dangers that may or may not get worse with the killing. But, we already see the security-military complex taking advantage of the purported higher risk by asking for more money to increase police patrols and surveillance on the general public in the oft chance there may be reprisals. When is this going to stop? When are we, as a country going to say “enough” that we can take a little danger if it means that the government won’t be reading our e-mails, tapping our phones, and watching us with cameras everywhere we go. One of the things that the security organizations do not want you to know is the experience of England, where there is a camera on every corner and every move of their citizens is watched…with all of that watching, not one terrorist attack has been prevented by seeing the perpetrators ahead of time…at best, it may be a tool for hindsight but it is not preventative…and isn’t that what the increasing intrusion in our lives was sold as? I think the death of bin Laden should be the trigger for a real dialogue on what kind of society we want to be…a free one or the one of George Orwell from “1984″….we can’t be both….
Well..I know I commented on the death of bin Laden in the earlier post but I have a few more thoughts that I would like to share….some of them kind of personal….in that terrible week in 2001, so many punches hit that when I look back, I wonder how I got through it as well as I did….on the day of the attacks, my beloved mother-in-law died heaping shock upon shock…and only a week later, the job that I had held for 28years was eliminated and I was out of work for the first time in my adult life. If you’ve read this at all, you know it was initially intended as a chronicle of the life of an “overqualified and unemployed” old guy looking for work in the worst economy in the past century….and that as really the focus for the first few months…oh, getting off track here.
When I thought about bin Laden’s death this morning out for coffee, my mind goes to the changes for the worse in our society that came from the overreaction of our government to the threat…the warrantless wiretapping, taking your shoes off at the airport, getting groped by strangers as a price for flying…how do we go back from this restriction on our freedom? After all, we did this to ourselves and, as Ezra Klein said this morning ” we can undo this if we have the will”, that was a paraphrase…not a quote…and I hope we start undoing these as soon as possible…