Do They Have The Slightest Idea How They Look?. PART DEUX.

Ok.

Now Sen. Obama speculates, as in not making a accusation of Present or Past wrong doing, but predicting in the future the McCampaign will try to scare Americans against him in various ways, like pointing out he doesn't look like the faces on our money, and how does the McCain campaign respond?

They accuse him of playing the race card?

Am I the only person who sees not only the irony but the prescience here?

Do They Have The Slightest Idea How They Look?

Scots Poet Robbie Burns said it best, when he said it thusly:

"Oh wad the gift He ge us. To see ourselves as others see us."

Well what did you expect from me? Quoting the lyrics from Michael Jackson's "Man in the mirror?"


Anyway, the point today is, do these peeps have the slightest clue how they look to the rest of us? I mean these republicans. Gimmie a break!

Let's first pick on the ka-ray-zee old man, Sen. McCain.

He challenges Sen. Obama to go to Iraq, only to criticize him for it after he does it.

This comes after saying that he would not allow lobbyists in his campaign, only to lie when caught. Oh and remember when he said he was not gonna run a negative campaign? Oh ya, but now he is saying Sen. Obama would rather win an election than a war.

Well, we know ka-ray-zee old man Sen. McCain doesn't seem too interested in either.

SERIOUSLY! I mean that.

Beyond that . . . Robert Novak has a brain tumor (poor bastard). At least he has an excuse for the past how many months if not years of his life. Hell, that might get him off for running down that old homeless guy with his Porsche, last week. But say bu-buy to your driving privileges, Bobby.

And lastly Ms. Monica Goodling may no longer be my fellow member of the bar, based on the likely fallout of the DOJ report saying she broke the law.

I am not breaking out the Veuve Clicquot yet, but when the day comes that she is disbarred, I will feel a little better about being a lawyer.

Yea, baby.

How's This For Irony?

John McCain, a supporter of offshore oil drilling, had to cancel a planned photo-op on a offshore drilling rig, because

of the hurricane that was bearing down on that region.


Sometimes life is not only ironic, but damned funny.

Meanwhile, as I am on the topic of the Grumpy Old Man, please, Mr. McCain, continue to act like a Grumpy Old Man, whining about how the other guy is getting better press than you.

I mean, why would you want to act like a sane adult, while running for the office of POTUS, when you can act like an elderly version of a bratty, feeling too-ignored, little girl?

Why NO AMERICANS (save them that actually did the fighting bleeding and dying) Should Be Proud of What Happened In IRAQ.

Again I stress this part up front; I am giving all due respect to those who did the fighting. I am, however, not talking about the nuts and bolts, boots on the ground, side of war. I am talking politics. I am talking geopolitical strategy and initiatives, and results. And with that in mind, I say as follows:

For America as a nation, as a people, as a political agent on this planet, to be proud of the tenuous gains in Iraq makes as much logical and deserving sense as???

My best analogy?

It makes as much sense as a firefighter being proud about putting out the fire . . . that he deliberately started in the first damn place!

Getting Iraq to the point where Al Qada in Iraq ™ is now contained, if not seriously whupped, means only that Iraq's status as a state not under significant threat from Al Qada in Iraq ™ is almost nearly, but not quite exactly truly back to 2002 levels; back to before the Third I.D. crossed the frontier. It is more like . . . we can see a day when that is almost reality, than it is, we are back to the good old days, when we only had domestic thugs to deal with, and they were running the damn country.

And I said it before, and I will say it again, personally, I do not think the removal of Saddam was worth one American's life. So sorry, don't try to sell me that shit, as if it were such a good result to risk loss of one American's life, leave alone thousands.

We (as a nation, more fully) broke an already broken nation of Iraq. And Iraq is far from fixed yet.

Don't believe the hype.

Shouldn't Sean Hannity and the Rest of Those Cons who Slavishly Parroted the "Whiners" on the Economy Line . . .

so inelegantly (can we say tone-deaf) puked-up by that genius of macroeconomics, Phil Gramm, feel so used? And I mean used, like the semi-pro porn star who agreed to do the blow job, but not to a facial, only to find out too late, that it was a bukkae shoot -- now that Phildo apologized, and resigned?

That is all I got today.


Or, that is all I am gonna publish. I just heard this on TV and it MADE MY WEEK.


Oh. One other thing. That video of Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Whoppi where Whoopi tells Lizzie DA TRUTH about how black peeps and white peeps do not live in the same world?

Now Lizzie, trust Whoppie on this. She knows what she is talking about and you don't.

Personally I do not use the N word with my nizzys . . . as I ain't got no nizzys, and I am not ghetto either, but honey, (Lizzie) please watch that "South Park" episode "Apology to Jesse Jackson."

I will here and now give you the punch line (I might have posted this bit earlier but it bears repeating) but if you are white and American, you have to start your awareness at a certain level and this is the level.

You have to realize that you don't get it. You have to truly understand that you have no fraking clue what it is like to be black in America. At that point, you will get it, meaning you will get the minimum. We can build on that.

But if all you got is some awareness that the N word is bad? If that is where you are starting from, and likely not really advanced past, yet?

YOU TRULY DON'T GET IT.

SO LISTEN TO WHOPPI.

SHE IS AN EXPERT.

YOU ARE NOT!

Ancient Egypt Goes Ghetto

Now I might be what we here in America call black (mostly because I am not white enough for it to count for anything), but I most definitely am not ghetto.

I could say that is on account of my native turf, Northern New Jersey, but we have more than our share of ghetto hood and ghetto peeps here. Thing is, above and beyond my family values, I grew up in a rather small, yet overly densely populated town, which was, when I was in high school, close to half latino/Cuban, and the next concentrations were Italian and then German. All other group of peeps accounted for less than 5% (my guess, I do not have the 1980 census figs here.)

Anyway, that was a rather long intro to my actual point, here. That is, that when ever I talk or type "Ghetto" I am playing at it.

My natural (meaning home town, regional) patois is best described as two parts "Sopranos" and one part "Salsa." The Sopranos gets the lion's share as the town's culture was still transitioning from old style mafia turf, to latino turf, as far as who ruled the streets and the town government, back then. As it is now, the current mayor is Cuban, who took over from the previous Cuban mayor, who is now our congress critter, who took over from the previous Cuban congress critter, who is now the Cuban Senator from NJ.

Again, I went on tangent, there, sorry.

But let me get back to the matter in the subject line.

As you can see a couple posts back, I have a link to a Online Hieroglyphics Translator. And I like to play with it. And one of my favorite (don't ask me why, it amuses me) ghettoisms is:

"I Will Cut You, Bitch."

This is how that would look in Hieroglyphics.

No Country For Old Men.

And I mean to say, based on the performances of both Phil Gramm and John McCain, I say this is no country for old men (to be trusted to run.)

I know it is likely I am not the first person today to come up with this chestnut, but if you heard it here first, that suits me fine.

This is a Subjective, Politically-inspired Comment.

(Ok -- I was catching up on what the partisan D Listers were up to, on the internet, today. Color me disgusted. Well, no more than usual, honestly.)

Things I Have Learned on Account of the Event of the Death of Jesse Helms.

(From Jesse Helms' apologists, I should say)

(1) It is no longer necessary for someone with a well-documented, decades old history of bigotry, racism, intolerance, and hate to confess and apologize. All you got to to to clean up your record as a hate monger and as an odious oppressive shit, is deny it.

(2) Never mind the actual quotes from Jesse Helms like:

White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories?

and

"No intelligent Negro citizen should be insulted by a reference to this very plain fact of life. It is time to face honestly and sincerely the purely scientific statistical evidence of natural racial distinction in group intellect. ... There is no bigotry either implicit or intended in such a realistic confrontation with the facts of life."

show that he clearly believed in the inferiority of blacks, and that that hateful, bigoted racist view was at the core of his opposition to desegregation. We can instead couch it in terms that it wasn't the idea of having to be fair to the nig-rahs that upset him, but it was the Federals forcing people (under authority of, and in order to enforce the mandates of several Sections and Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Supreme Law of the Land) to be fair to the nig-rahs.

(Just between you and me, that warped logic makes as much sense as saying the Civil War was not about the right to keep the institution of slavery legal, but instead was about the right to claim a right that would allow states the keep the institution of slavery legal.)


Moving on:

(3) it was not more than four hundred years of institutional white on black racism, starting in the year 1620, when the first boatload of African slaves were brought to and sold into bondage in Virgina, that is the cause of racial unrest and resentment. Instead, it was forced integration (busing) in the 1960s. Never mind the asinine dimensions of this rhetorical fallacy, such as it's blame the remedy, not the wrong doer, inversion. Never mind that if the white people in those communities were behaving right and decently to begin with, instead of discriminating in housing and schooling and everything else they could get away with, there never would have been a need to have to sue to to force desegregation, in the first place. Never mind the inherent racism in believing (as that argument infers) racial unrest only counts when it is the white people feeling oppressed. Oh, and before I end this bit, even if everyone affected by busing was not transformed into a better person for it, there is no credible evidence that it was even 1/2 bad, leave alone mostly. Sorry, but show me the math, don't expect me to universalize your cousin Trudy's experience to the whole of the thing.

And lastly let me say (4) sticking to your guns (even if the guns in question are the guns of hate, bigotry and racism) is an admirable quality.

Yes, to be accurate, I am being very sarcastic. I just can not stomach it (well, to be honest, find it hard to stomach), that some people (including the White House) are saying this dead piece of shit deserves the label 'patriot.'

Since I really really do not really believe in Hell, let me add to my "special place in Hell" fantasy for Jesse Helms, with something more spicy.

Actually no. I had several ideas there in my head, but I am going to aim higher than the gutter, this time (not too high, but still I am not going for the cheap shot.)

Imagine Jesse Helms standing before the Gates of Heaven.

St. Peter stops him and asks him for his name.

He says ,"Jesse Helms. I was/I am a God fearin' Christian man."

St. Peter replies,"We'll be the judge of that. Wait here."

St. Peter disappears, for a few moments, and re appears, this time with an angel driving a tractor trailer.

Jesse asks, "What's with the truck?"

St. Peter answers,"Well we were expecting you, as you could guess. That is your life's record. Well, that is the part of your record that contains hard-copy files of the life stories of each and every person you debased, dehumanized, and for whom you actions in life, both professionally and personally, harmed, either directly or indirectly."

"That is a lot of files. I harmed that many people?" Jesse gets down on his hands and knees and start blubbering,"Lord forgive me! I am I sinner! I did not mean harm! I thought I was doing right by my people . . ."

St. Peter snaps his fingers, and a loud, thunderous boom roars above Jesse's head, causing him to stop in mid sentence.

"For such an experienced politician, you never did learn that all important first rule. When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Anyway, stop you blubbering for now. NO ONE up here is impressed with that song and dance. And more importantly, you do not yet know the full reason why the truck is here."

Jesse tries to compose himself, and manages a weak,"Why, St. Peter, is that truck here?"

"Well we (meaning the Boss) really try really hard to find a reason to forgive trespasses, ect. And we are really big on giving people the chance to make amends, if they did not have enough time, on earth. So these files are part of your penance."

"You mean I do not get into Heaven . . . " Jesse realizes his mistake and blurts out,"but I get a chance to make amends? Ok good. I still don't know what I am supposed to do."

"First you have to read all the files of all the people who you have harmed. And after you have done that, and after you are truly aware of the harm you have caused to each and every one of them, and what you did to each and every one of their lives, and are truly and knowingly remorseful for the harms you have caused, then, and only then, will you be judged as properly repentant, and allowed to enter Heaven."

"I will do what God requires me to do." Chastised, and daunted by the work he has before him, Jesse, still the politician, tries to play the one card he thinks he has left.

"But one last thing. What about the people who I helped?"

St. Peter shoots Jesse a scolding looks that could cause milk to instantly turn to cheese. "Didn't you hear what I said about holes and stopping digging? But for the record, your account has been adjusted. Like I said, we have been expecting you. Now get to it."



Well it is not the stuff of lakes of fire and brimstone, but I really don't go for that nonsense myself. But as far as appropriate justice goes, what I describe there seems sorta fitting, I think. Granted and I admit freely, that sort of 'redemption' is an idea as old as the hills, I suppose.

Jesse Helms Reported to be DEAD.

I almost sorta wish I could let the moment pass with out cracking on him (I mean I did that for Rehnquist, and he had his own well documented racist moments in his record), but honestly I do not really feel one iota of guilt for the following:

Jesse Helms was a notoriously bigoted, racist, evil piece of shit.

I hope there is a special place in Hell for him, and all people like him.

Actual Details About Sen. McCain's Actual Military Record.

And I am not being critical. These are just the facts.

{*Delete*Delete*Delete*}

Now let me explain why I deleted the chunk I had here already. I have a more salient point to make than the actual details of his actual record. Having read (a sampling) what is on line, I now know why his supporters were going so hypocritically and seemingly delusionally batshit about any attention being paid to Sen. McCain's record that was contrary to the mythology.

The actual record is not so much a story like fictional fighter pilot Maverick's, of the movie "Top Gun," but more like fictional pilot Capt. Orr, from the book and movie,"Catch-22."

But Orr deliberately crashed that many planes (as Capt. Yossarian finally figures out, at the end of that story.)


My prediction? I am not 100% sure but I will weasel, and say it this way;

McCain's running on his military record might be the worst general election strategy since John Kerry's infamous utterance:

"Reporting for duty."



And if it works out that way, you can say you heard it here, from me, first!

Does Having Been A Fighter Pilot Qualify Someone to be a Neurosurgeon?

Easy answer. Hell no.

How about a symphony conductor?

Again, hell no.

What about computer programmer?

Still, hell no.

What then, if we change it to FBI Agent?

As with the others, hell no.



So why the hell do some people think it is unfair to say it does not qualify one to be Chief Executive of the Federal Government of the United States?


Anyway, I am sort of happy Gen. Clark opened this issue up, this way. Perhaps accidentally, and perhaps sort of as a tactical 'recon by fire,' but now that the cat is out of the bag, we can now discuss the objective reality behind the myth that military service is an actual and objective positive for a potential and/or actual POTUS.

I respect people's service in the service. But the thing that I find most juvenile and demented about the McCain defenders here is they are so ginned up on the mythology, that they are monomanical with their "Sacred Cow" mantra -- any attempt to qualify McCain's service = disparagement -- that they miss the real salient points about McCain's record.

Let Uncle Abstentus give you the objective facts.

Merely being in the service = ZERO, as for any thing remotely resembling a positive point towards a qualification for the office of POTUS. Never mind, the having been a pilot, being captured, and all that heroic stuff. There is no 'flying' or 'hero' qualification for being POTUS. However, being properly educated in the ways of the country and the world, counts. Also, being trained in the art of strategic thinking and having a functional grasp of geopolitical theory, are actual skills that go to the actual requirements of the job of POTUS, specifically in the area of setting and conducting foreign policy, domestic security policy, and war policy, if necessary.

So let's point to the two things that McCain has in his resume that actually count for something:

(1) Graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, and
(2) Graduate of the National War College (one of the military schools where they actually teach the mid and senior level officers things like strategic analysis and geopolitical theory.)

Of course, that does not cover the possible mitigating factor; whether McCain still has a functional grasp of the applications and theories he learned at the War College?

My guess is not.

But still. He did finish the program, far as I know.