Watching BBC news is a good idea every now and then if for no other reason than to understand it’s not all about us. There are the usual hot spots in the mid East but I only found out this a.m. that our only American airbase in the region (Kyrgyzstan) that supplies our troops in Afghanistan has just been sold to the Russkies for a couple of billion dollars. BBC made it sound like the US wouldn’t pony up the paltry sum, so the head of that country went for the best deal. Now we have to send our stuff through the Khyber pass, a no-fun zone to be sure.
Mind, the Iraqi war still costs ten to twelve billions a month but we’re supposedly winding that down. We know fewer people are dying and we have to assume that the Dexter Filkins-like patrols are not still going on so that our troops are measurably safer and there are cost savings in that. Couldn’t we have spared some money from there to keep that Kyrgy base for ourselves plus blocking Putin from getting it (I know there’s a real president, Medvedev, but he don’t count)? Plus, there is talk of putting in 20 to 30 thousand troops (government types have a tendency to round out numbers in the most obfuscating way) in Afghanaland who will surely be needing supplies.
This is apparently a bigger deal to me than it is to the ‘Merican media who can talk about Tom Daschle’s dilemma and parse the “I screwed up” statement until the cows come home. What crap! Iranians are now orbiting the earth, North Koreans are moving missiles to newly constructed launch sites, The Levant is totally screwed and Maureen Dowd is predicting that disgraced Daschle’s eye-glasses will become a new fashion fad.
It makes sense that with many major newspapers around the world having to trim their budgets it’s a lot cheaper to get stories by just calling or texting contacts to find how what Michelle O’bama wore to the second grade story-time with her husband. It’s a no brainer to just read what others have written and then disagree. And I do wonder how many ways one can disagree. It’s a bit like buying short in the market and hoping things turn out for the worst so your story will have a tinge of truth in it. Ooooh, the Prince of Peace said he was going to change Washington, but ... is he really?
Don’t these latest missteps in the first fourteen days of his administration prove that The One has been under the spell of Rev. Wrong all this time and has a secret cabal to destroy all that is good and holy in the land of the free? Rush doesn’t even want him to succeed. But at least I can understand that. If BHO does well, then the bilious bloviater is in a pinch to explain that to his adoring acolytes.
I shouldn’t be talking about Rush though. Not when I see that J. T. Plumber is back in the news (truly) as a consultant to the Republican party. This guy gives me an eye ache as big as the one I get when I just see an image of Milorad Blago. Letterman killed him last night and he smiles right on through. He’s been kicked out and condemned. He smiles more. He is traduced by all that he sucks up to and he’s all hair and teeth. What a worthy subject for the news.
I happen to think that the media is in cahoots with Congress. In this latest House version of the stimulus bill, we are supposed to believe (again) that the need is crushing. To stall is to guarantee certain economic failure for us and the world. Yet the dumb Ds stick junk into the bill that predictably sets the Rs spinning dizzily in front of Capital Hill mics and the back and forthing is what gets reported. It is more fun to reduce a provision for family planning (a known cure for reigning in house hold expenses) to, “hundreds of millions for rubbers,” than it is to have an honest debate with historical facts and professorial prognostication to determine which really is better: two thirds stimulus to a third tax cuts, or the opposite. I listened to three guys discussing this yesterday on the way to work and they were fairly yelling at each other. Nothing was resolved after an hour of this poisonous prating.
One wonders if anything will ever be resolved. And then there’s poor Latvia.
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How's that hope and change workin' for you Peter? Keep reading and watching TV and writing about it.
ReplyDelete"It’s a no brainer to just read what others have written and then disagree."
Help!! My gag reflex is is on overdrive as tsunamis of nausea overwhelm me. I think I blew a circuit watching those human anal fissures Susan Collins and Ben Nelson preen and smirk with self-important sanctimony at their elevation to imperial commanders of the Stimulus negotiations by the mentally retarded, lobotomized media droolers who control our access to information.
ReplyDeleteTheir proposed spending cuts are precisely in the areas that will have the most immediate benefits to the economy: Education(to avoid teacher, staff and supplier layoffs), aid to states (to prevent firemen, cops and all manner of public employees from job cuts), transit (so that if there are still any jobs left the few remaining employed can actually get to work) and energy efficiency (immediate money for insulating and retrofitting public buildings), not to mention programs like Head Start and food stamps (money that will be immediately spent in local stores).
All of their proposed cuts added together aren't even a third of what we just shoveled into the greedy maw of Bank of America- none of which was returned into the economy through loans or anything else.
Of course, the Defense sector will see a big increase in their proposal, at the expense of those worthless working and poor people.
If this is what we can expect from bipartisanship, then we need to bury that outmoded concept in the same dung heap as corporate welfare, supply side economics and preventive war.
Confused by the profoundly serious discussions on the Sunday talk shows?
ReplyDeleteTHIS SITE provides lucid interpretations for the poor, stupid layperson.