Thursday, September 29, 2011

Senator Wacko

‘”I am doing this pretty early in my career. Yeah, I realize that,” said Johnson, who called himself an “impatient” legislator. “I wouldn’t look at this as a career move.  [many years ago Ron, with just two words, became a captain of industry.  Amazing what can be built from scratch by merely uttering "I do".]  I would look at it as a way I believe I can be effective and can have an impact.”
Johnson said he viewed the position as mainly a communications job, helping the GOP caucus marshal information [gibberish] and arguments [the circular kind].
“My primary goal in the first two years here is to communicate to the voters of Wisconsin, really to the voters of America, how serious our financial situation is in this country and how urgent it is we address it,” he said in an interview.
“Certainly sitting at the leadership table is going to dramatically increase my learning curve here,” said Johnson, who said his private-sector, non-Washington background would be a good addition to leadership. [Oshkosh is fundamentally a microcosm of the whole universe]   “I do believe I bring a valuable personal perspective, particularly from a communication standpoint.  I’ve been the audience for what comes out of Washington for 31 years.  I hear things differently."  [and I occasionally have visions].     MJS   September 30, 2011

I'd bet the GOP Caucus is going to ease Ron down a bit from his hallucinations.  They'll likely suggest a more behind-the-scenes communications, private-sector, non-Washington background, career path in the Senate.  In the land 'o crocodiles, the impatient barge into the middle of things and the crocs do what crocs have always done.

Rejection might impel him to start mulling a flying hop into the mosh pit of Iowa caucuses.

Monday, September 19, 2011

We're wasting our time....

Doc Daneeka: You're wasting your time
Yossarian: Can't you ground someone who's crazy?
Doc Daneeka: Oh, sure. I have to. There's a rule saying I have to ground anyone who's crazy.
Yossarian: Then why don't you ground me? I'm crazy. Ask Clevinger.
Doc Daneeka: Clevinger? Where is Clevinger? You find Clevinger and I'll ask him.
Yossarian: Then ask any of the others. They'll tell you how crazy I am.
Doc Daneeka: They're crazy
Yossarian: Then why don't you ground them?
Doc Daneeka: Why don't they ask me to ground them?
Yossarian: Because they're crazy, that's what you said.
Doc Daneeka: Of course they're crazy, I just told you they're crazy, didn't I? And you can't let crazy people decide if they are crazy or not.
Yossarian: Is Orr crazy?
Doc Daneeka: He sure is.
Yossarian: Can you ground him?
Doc Daneeka: I sure can. But first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule.
Yossarian: Then why doesn't he ask you to?
Doc Daneeka: Because he's crazy. He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close calls he's had. Sure, I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to.
Yossarian: That's all he has to do to be grounded?
Doc Daneeka: That's all. Let him ask me.
Yossarian: And then you can ground him?
Doc Daneeka: No. Then I can't ground him.
Yossarian: You mean there's a catch?
Doc Daneeka: Sure there's a catch, Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy.
Yossarian: That's some catch, that Catch-22.
Doc Daneeka: It's the best there is.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Between the Illusory Tenant and Dahlia Lithwick, I think emigre Canadians are miles ahead of most local thinkers...

 

Republicans like Rick Perry are skeptical of everything the government does—except when it executes people.



Either you believe in government or you don't.
The current field of Republican contenders for president are hard at work to prove they don't. The best government, they insist, will leave you alone to repair your own ruptured kidney while your neighbors bring you casseroles and cigarettes. In recent weeks, leading Republicans have made plain they don't believe in government-run health care (lo, even unto death). They don't believe in inoculating children again HPV (lo, even unto death). They don't believe in government-run disaster relief (ditto, re death), the minimum wage, Social Security, or the Federal Reserve. There is nothing, it seems—from protecting civil rights to safeguarding the environment—that big government bureaucracies can't foul up.

Read the rest

Sunday, September 11, 2011

I remember September 11th, 1973 with anger and contempt for filthy murdering thugs...

Filthy murdering thug #1:  Richard Milhous Nixon
Filthy murdering thug #2:  Henry Kissinger

 From the Nixon tapes, five days after thug/murderer Pinochet (#3) murdered the democratically -elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende and took over in Chile:

Nixon: Nothing new of any importance...or is there?
Kissinger: Nothing of very great consequence. The Chilean thing is getting consolidated and of course the newspapers are bleeding because a pro-Communist government has been overthrown.
Nixon: Isn't that something. Isn't that something.
Kissinger: I mean instead of celebrating – in the Eisenhower period we would be heroes.
Nixon: Well we didn't – as you know – our hand doesn't show on this one though.
Kissinger: We didn't do it. I mean we helped them. [garbled] created the conditions as great as possible.
Nixon: That is right. And that is the way it is going to be played
 Every bit of it caught on tape in the Oval Office:
^ The Kissinger Telcons: Kissinger Telcons on Chile, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 123, edited by Peter Kornbluh, posted May 26, 2004. This particular dialogue can be found at TELCON: September 16, 1973, 11:50 a.m. Kissinger Talking to Nixon. Accessed online November 26, 2006.









Saturday, September 10, 2011

I've gotta agree with TBogg...

"...making plans for Sunday’s 9/11 observance which is shaping up to be 'stretching out on the couch and napping during NFL games' like most American’s who don’t feel the need for calculated show-offy somber reflection designed for public display.

To do so would mean that the terrorists won."

Friday, September 09, 2011

for those who believe in the death penalty...

     "...it's hardly surprising for a country which long considered public hangings a form of entertainment and in which support for the death penalty is mandated orthodoxy for national politicians in both parties.  Still, even for those who believe in the death penalty, it should be a very somber and sober affair for the state, with regimented premeditation, to end the life of a human being no matter the crimes committed.  Wildly cheering the execution of human beings as though one's favorite football team just scored a touchdown is primitive, twisted and base."
  Glenn Greenwald
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Of the biblical allotment of three score and ten I have lived only three of them more than a bicycle ride from one of the Great Lakes. I grew up ten blocks from Lake Erie in the (once Irish/Italian ghetto, now newly-hip) "Near West Side" of Cleveland. I can still cycle to the Milwaukee lakefront in an hour and a half; but, a round-trip has always been more than I would (noror ever did) attempt. -0- I'm a "...somewhat combative pacifist and fairly cooperative anarchist," after the example of Grace Paley (1922-2007). -0- I'm always cheerful when I pay my taxes (having refused--when necessary--to pay that portion of them dedicated to war). -0- And I always, always vote.