This post will be a jumble of different news items that struck me today as somewhat important.
First up, to paraphrase Tom Hanks, there's no crying in presidential politics! According to Yahoo News! a teary-eyed Hillary Clinton pushed for support on Monday as polls showed her poised for a huge New Hampshire loss to Democratic rival Barack Obama, but the former front-runner vowed to carry on with her presidential quest even if she loses. How pathetic! And she has had my support up until now. Nobody wants a crying president, especially when it just reeks of "Oh, poor me, I'm losing." Perhaps if she was overcoming a personal tragedy or something, but not losing Iowa and being behind in the NH polls. I may have to switch my support over to Obama.
Of course, none of the other candidates have to face troglodytes shouting "iron my shirt!" the way Hillary Clinton does, so perhaps she deserves some understanding.
At the same time, the federal budget deficit continues to grow. The budget deficit is $27 billion higher after the first three months of the 2008 budget year that began Oct. 1 than it was after a comparable period for 2007, said the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. We need some fiscal discipline and, believe it or not, I think that will come from Democrats, not Republicans. You cannot decrease taxes and increase spending on a long-term basis folks... it just won't work.
And then there is the Middle East. Yahoo News! reports: Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, the commander of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, which is based in the Gulf, said five Iranian fast boats moved aggressively toward the U.S. ships in international waters and their actions were "unduly provocative." "The ships received a radio call that was threatening in nature, to the effect that they were closing on our ships and ... the U.S. ships would explode," Cosgriff told reporters at the Pentagon via videolink from his Bahrain headquarters.
Conversely, Iran on Monday downplayed the significant of an incident which involved three U.S. Navy ships and Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said the act taken during the weakend in connection with the American navy ship "is something normal."
It'd be a lot easier if we had on-going diplomatic communications with Iran, wouldn't it?
And finally, The McLaughlin Group voted on whether the "atheism trend" would continue in popular culture. I didn't see it (haven't watched McLaughlin in ages), but I get this vision of Dana Carvey shouting "Wrong!" at Pat Buchanon as he says it will. Wow... I think I'd like to watch this just to see Pat saying that!
How about you?
Monday, January 7, 2008
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4 comments:
csm,
I'll tackle a couple of these(hell sometimes I feel like I am the only one posting here, are you still lurking cerioll?).
First, we have already(in another thread)talked about Clinton's tear ducts so I'll move on to the next one.(As an aside though, I will pat myself on the back and relate that my wife of 25 years has never ironed my shirts(though I don't iron much anymore either)as long as we have been married.)
As far as the budget deficit goes I would like to propose a pact between the citizens and the government. I would not be opposed to a general tax increase, but I cannot trust our elected officials to cut spending. My proposal would be, once the spending has come down to levels which could be considered sane and instruments are in place to KEEP it that way, then and only then we can discuss tax increases. Sound fair?
Now on to Iran. csm, we are and have been officially and unofficially having discussions with Iran over the disposition of Iraq for awhile now. This has really been a chess match between the countries(and Russia has edged into the game for it's own reasons)and much of the problem now lies with our respective publics. Our government has been saying since 1979 that Iran is a very evil society. Iranian leaders have been calling our fair nation the "Great Satan" for the same amount of time. Could you imagine the outcry if we were to just come out and say, "that's all behind us, we were just kidding, they aren't so bad." This stuff takes time. Our respective publics are being "groomed" for the impending message(2 to 3 years maybe?)that a full diplomatic relationship between the two has been achieved and that the final determination of Iraq's future is in cement. There is much more to this(as I alluded to the Russian angle and, of course, we have the Israelis)and this answer IS somewhat simplistic, but there it is.
As far as the "atheistic trend"(I didn't know there was one), I believe the trend is to a more "personal view" as I see the coming generations as being more individualistic(less collective)and more cynical towards power bases. Some of this has to do with the pervasiveness of the Internet which, I believe, paradoxically pushes people together and pulls them apart at the same time. Less time in churches and more in front of the computer equals more individual thinking; and not just about religion. There I'm done.
I'm here. I just haven't checked in for a few days. Sorry about that. Let's see what I can contribute here. Crying Hillary? Ok. Big whoop. Politician during campaigning being a drama queen. I see no import there at all.
Taxes? I'm staying out of this one. Sorry.
Atheist trend? I think this must be the new catchprase for the long opined "war on christianity". I woiuldn't be surprised that what it's really prompted by is things like the books that have been mentioned here from time to time, and media events like the movie and book "The Golden Compass". I did not see one review of that film that didn't go to great pains to explain how much stronger the 'anti-religious' or 'anti-christian' (depending on the reviewer) message is in the book.
Oops, sorry for the misspelling, ceroill.
Not a problem, just call me Bob. Easier to spell.
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