sell alaska to the russians for $700 billion.
Month: September 2008
an immodest proposal
while we are nationalizing businesses like aig and fannie mae and freddie mac and bear stearns, why don’t we just get it over with and nationalize the health care industry as well?
it’s ironically amusing to me that the bush administration now walks into the sunset having accomplished the most socialist acquisitions in american history. politicians who have screamed for decades about how inefficient it is to have government control and regulation of business are now screaming about the need to take on the financial industry’s bad debt, which was created by the lack of oversight those politicians promoted.
might as well add the entire health care industry to the total weight we assume, since this ship is going to sink anyway. we have spent $816 billion bailing out what we’ve bailed so far. add to that an estimated $1 trillion dollars for assuming the bad debt. add to that the annual deficit of about $500 billion, which does not include the cost of the war in iraq. so add $10 billion a day for that.
add that shit up.
send that shit to china, if we even still can, at who knows what ultimate cost.
and then realize that we’ve done nothing, nothing, nothing to address the financial insolvency of social security, medicare, and medicaid.
it doesn’t matter. no one is going to give you a truly comprehensive look at what’s wrong, so neither candidate is going to give us a truly comprehensive answer. neither obama or mccain. why not? because they can’t be honest about it. and they know it. because there is no fucking answer, that’s why not. actually there’s one answer — america is going to irretrievably sink under the weight of its own accumulated bloat.
how do these all numbers add up?
they add up to rome burning. and everyone has no choice except to fiddle.
headline of the year
time’s take on the controversy surrounding mccain’s comments about prime minister zapatero:
the pain in spain falls mainly on mccain.
classic.
sarah palin and her three answers
watched her interview with charlie gibson last night. and i can now unequivocally say that charlie gibson is qualified to be vice president.
sarah palin? not so much.
as kirk and i watched, we kept saying that she sounded like she had been given canned answers to give based on keywords in the question. i counted three talking points that she adapts to whatever question is asked:
“that’s basically all about energy. let me talk about that for a while.”
“alaska is near russia. you can see it from the shore.”
“we have to keep america strong and save her from the terrorists.”
andy borowitz thinks she used a magic 8-ball, which may be nearer the truth.
and she wants to go to war with russia, basically.
i hope that the reportage on this eye-opening look into her vapidity doesn’t get lost among the coverage of hurricane ike.
we can’t afford hurricane sarah either.
target’s “bullseye bodega”
on my daily walk at lunchtime (to clear out the cobwebs, get some fresh air, etc.) i passed a new storefront at 57th and 6th in manhattan.
turns out that target has rented four storefronts to sell their designer goods from friday through sunday. they look brilliant, as you’d expect from target. it’s kind of like the simpsons movie rebranding of 7-11 stores, only better. 3 days, and then it’s gone.
on the heels of mizrahi in rock center, and the target boat on chelsea piers, this is yet another fun way to have a target experience in manhattan. without, of course, actually having a target in manhattan.
(although, to be precise, the target store in marble hill at 225th st. is technically in manhattan. but you’d be hard pressed to convince a manhattanite that anywhere not on the island of manhattan is, in fact, manhattan.)
this way, they get the buzz and the benefit of branding their store chain in close proximity to the advertising and marketing center of the universe.
over, and over, and over again.
all you need to know about republican campaign tactics
…is contained in this short post (with accompanying picture) by jake tapper:
The McCain campaign tells the media to stop intruding on the private life of the unmarried pregnant 17-year-old daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin while staging a photo op with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and the 17-year-old’s fiance, Levi Johnston.
talk about have your cake and eat it too.
sarah palin is a very nice lady. her speech last night, if short on specifics, was certainly entertaining. shameless [how many people were passed that poor baby?], but entertaining. the base is no doubt fired up. everyone else probably ranges from horrified to indifferent.
i’m sure i’d enjoy having a beer with her.
i’m also sure that the majority of americans, after the last eight years, no longer see that as a valid electoral test.
laura mcgann
here’s a name you may be hearing from in days to come. i learned about her via talking points memo…she has reported on alaska politics in the past and seems to know the lay of the land.
she’s now in wasilla and has a series of posts at the washington independent. she’s doing the thing that most journalists don’t bother with anymore — shoe leather journalism. digging through archives and records.
here’s a great post as a sample:
I just got off the phone with the very helpful city clerk at the Wasilla City Clerk’s office, Kristie Smithers, who is pulling some documents for me from when Gov. Sarah Palin was mayor.
I told her I appreciated her help, since I’m sure she’s been bombarded with requests these last few weeks. The clerk’s office keeps all City Council meeting agendas, minutes, legislation, ordinances, etc. She chuckled. Then she told me that I’m the first person who has asked her office for anything.
that bears repeating.
“I’m the first person who has asked her office for anything.”
the incompetency is breathtaking.
joe klein nails the palin summary
in a must-read blog post about the desperately devious inanity of the mccain campaign’s newly-started “war on the media”, joe klein neatly summarizes what’s wrong [so far] with sarah palin:
Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is “a task from God.”
and that’s just the topline summary, which leaves out a few choice items. i have faith that american voters are smarter than to fall for yet another republican attempt to slice-and-dice a 50%+1 electoral victory.
obama breaks 50% in polling
for the first time, obama has broken through the 50% support barrier, in gallup and other polls.
a post-convention bounce that will dissipate? maybe. but given that the polling time period includes the beginning of the paling of palin, i’m guessing that 50% may be a new low water mark for obama’s polling.
or at least i’m hoping it is. we’ll see a week or so after the republicans finish their convention.
news you may have missed
i know i did. del martin, pioneer for glbt rights, died last week.
Pioneering lesbian rights activist Del Martin, who married her lifelong partner in June on the first day that same-sex couples here gained that right, has died. She was 87.
Along with six other women, they founded a San Francisco social club for lesbians in 1955 called the Daughters of Bilitis. Under their leadership, the group evolved into the nation’s first lesbian advocacy organization.
at least she got the chance to legally marry her partner of 55 years, just before she died.
i’m just guessing here
but i’d imagine that unmarried 17-year-old high school student bristol palin, who was enough of an adult to make the decision to risk pregnancy, was not presented with a range of options and asked what her preference was.