Hillary

Hillary Clinton is certainly doing a wonderful job now of proving to me exactly what it is that I don't like about politics as usual. Her campaign has started emitting a particularly distasteful odor in the past week.
She seems to be trying to convince us who support Barak Obama that we should be ashamed of ourselves. I'm almost wondering if secretly she has hired on Karl Rove because this new barrage is so reminiscent of Bush and the Rove political era.
There's the Obama dressed as a Somali thing. Note how Clinton's campaign turns this one back against Obama as if there was no malintent on Clinton's part here. Reactionary politics, anyone? Obama's mistake here, by the way, is that he didn't just laugh Hillary right off the earth over this.
Then there was last week's outburst by Hillary against the flier that suggested Hillary favored NAFTA. Factcheck.org hedged on this but finally sided somewhat with Clinton on this, but it is interesting that they partly based their conclusion on the fact that Clinton's record can't be used to comprehend her position on NAFTA. So much for Hillary's claim that we can judge her on her record and experience. If she doesn't have a clear position on free trade agreements, does she have a clear position on anything?
Again from the same Factcheck website, Hillary wants us to know that Obama supporters should be ashamed of themselves if they believe that Hillary's health care plan would mandate people to buy health insurance. Good Lord Hillary! Isn't it clear that that's how you intend to reach 100% compliance? It's not like anyone is dumb enough to think your plan wouldn't include paying for that insurance with taxpayer money for those below some threshold income. We aren't stupid, Hillary. But aren't you suggesting that anyone over that low-income threshold should be forced by law to purchase health insurance? Hasn't that been your position on this? If so, why not stand on your policy? Why try to confuse the electorate?
Now you have a 5-point campaign to belittle Obama and his support?
You say Obama doesn't have foreign policy experience? You compare Obama to GW Bush in this regard? Well let me ask you, did Dick Cheney have foreign policy experience? Did Donald Rumsfeld? Did Condoleezza Rice? Clearly they all did yet here we are in this big mess. The problem isn't that the Bush White House lacked foreign policy experience. The problem is that the Bush policy was the natural outcome from decades of American military hegemony. We think we are the all-powerful good guys. We ignore our own greed and our own dependence on foreign oil. The result? George Bush and Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice. Now you come along, Hillary, and try to convince us that what we really need is eight years of you while you turn the hands of time back to where they were in 2000? Well excuse my disgraceful self for not voting for you!
A vote for Hillary is a vote for more Karl Rove politics. That's what I'm beginning to believe. Your campaign stinks.
But here's the thing. Obama should be ignoring Hillary and he isn't. He is reacting and Hillary is using his reactions against him. Hillary is using tactics familiar to some Mainers. Susan Collins campaigns this way. She uses dirty politics to paint herself white while pointing the finger of shame at her opponent whenever he does anything she feels threatened by.
Obama has so far been able to keep himself out of the pigpen. Let's hope he sees this for what it is and joins our laughter rather than Hillary's supporters' fear. Oh, and when you demean Obama's message of hope, Hillary, just go stick your sickening rhetoric up some sour old hole, you bitch.

Deeper Down the Hole

I wonder if there is anybody in America who doesn't comprehend yet why it is that the phone companies need immunity from the law with reference to the Bush spy programs. I mean by that that it seems obvious to me that these phone companies wouldn't need immunity unless they were breaking laws.
What laws are they breaking, you may ask?
Isn't it obvious? They are allowing the US government to spy on you and me without probable cause. They are setting up monitoring equipment that can intercept everything we do on the phone lines, every Internet connection, every phone call, every word recorded, computer-scanned, and memorized for posterity.
The argument we give to justify this is that we are such good citizens that we would never have anything to fear from being monitored this way. I've heard that from my own right-thinking relatives.
But guess what.....
It's illegal and we all perfectly well know it. It's unconstitutional.
Who cares about the Constitution, you ask?
We hope someone does this coming November when We the People get to speak our minds.

Michelle Is Right

Reactionary politics is no way to run a country, but that doesn't seem to stop us. It especially doesn't stop the Republicans among us. Michelle Obama recently confessed that as an adult, she hasn't until now felt real pride for America. Immediately a reactionary fire swept through Republican politics and into the mainstream media. How could any patriotic American ever say she isn't proud of America!!! React! React! React!
Without overtaxing my compassion towards Michelle Obama, I felt I had some idea what she was referring to. I went through the Vietnam era, the Watergate era, the Iran hostage crisis, the outsourcing of nearly everything in the Reagan era and every era since. I went through the era of Desert Storm and the denial of benefits to soldiers injured in that war. I went through the Clinton disgrace. And I've survived the George W. Bush and Dick Cheney disgrace. And I haven't even touched yet on the racial disgrace in this country, something for which Michelle Obama is a front row spectator.
I know the shame of being American.
I grew up proud of my country, just as I am sure Michelle did. But the shame of it all... the shame of all this secret imperialism... the shame of all this racism... the shame of all this scandal... the shame of reactionary politics dominating our political consciousness...
How can a thinking person be proud of an America like that?
Michelle is right. Take a look at this and tell me where she is going wrong in her thinking.

Fast Car

Ever since I was first told in a science class that nobody can travel faster then the speed of light, I've pretty much believed that claim. It would seem to be a reasonable theory.
Just yesterday, though, it dawned on me that this theory has a little glitch in it, or at least to my simple mind it seems to be a glitch. Someone straighten me out here if this idea is based on false understandings of science and Einstein's theories.
The thing is, Einstein theorized in such a way that if you were to put a clock in a moving object, let's say a spacecraft, the clock would be observed to run slower the faster that spacecraft moved. I think scientists have been skeptical about this but it is my understanding that this has actually been tested and indeed the clock ran slow as predicted.
Assuming that is the case, let's enter into the imaginary...
Imagine that mankind discovered a way to accelerate a spacecraft to somewhere near the speed of light which happens to be 186,000 miles per second, or thereabouts.
Imagine such a spacecraft existed and it had a clock in it. Not only that but imagine it had room for you inside of it as well.
Now imagine you were riding in this spacecraft at close to the speed of light. Got it in your mind? Good! According to Einstein, your clock would be running slow. I don't know the math but let's imagine for argument sake that at 180,000 miles per second the clock is running at only a tenth of its stationary rate.
Now imagine you flew right past someone else up in space who was stationary, not moving much. Let's call that person the stationary observer. The stationary observer also has a clock that she is watching.
From the stationary observer's perspective, one second after you pass by her, you will be a distance of 180,000 miles away from her. You will have traveled that far. In fact if you glanced out your window you would no doubt observe that you had traveled that far.
But...!!! Look at your clock! Since your clock is running slow, it was only one tenth of one second ago that you passed by the stationary observer. You traveled 180,000 miles in only one tenth of a second according to your own perception! - according to your own scientifically calibrated spaceship clock...
OK, so let's say from the stationary observer's point of view, another nine seconds pass by. From her perspective you have traveled 180,000 miles times ten seconds since you did your flyby. You are now 1,800,000 miles away. But on your very own clock, even though you indeed are 1,800,000 miles from the stationary observer, only one second has passed by since you passed that person.
You are traveling at 1,800,000 miles per second by your own speedometer! - 10 times the speed of light!!
This effect would only become more and more pronounced the closer your spacecraft approached the speed of light as observed by stationary observers. Maybe you could slow your clock down enough to travel a billion miles per second according to your own spacecraft clock! Maybe you could go even faster than that!
Was Star Trek's "warp speed" not so far fetched after all?
Fix my faulty thinking, someone...

Galaxy Funding

I have to laugh. It seems that the Republican Party has suddenly come to the faith that earmark spending is a bad thing. Newt Gingrich just sent me an email stating:
****
Dear Friend,
A few weeks ago, I called on the President and Congress to listen to the demands for real change coming from the American people in campaign '08 and to act immediately -- without waiting for the election.
Speaking directly to the President and Congress, this is what I said:
"The country is speaking loudly and clearly. The American people are rejecting the special interests, and the bureaucratic status quo in Washington. The question for you now is: What are you going to do about it?"
Well, today at least on one front, the answer is in. President Bush and the Congress, led by House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio), are leading an all-out fight for real change by ending the undemocratic, corrupt practice of pork-barrel spending through earmarks.
****
Funny, a couple years ago the Republicans could have cared less that earmarks were "undemocratic" and "corrupt" and "pork-barrel."
I don't know if the $5 million the federal government dumped into leveling the 4,000 foot main runway at our little airport a couple years ago was an earmark, but it certainly came from a Republican congress and a Republican White House. Mind you they didn't extend the runway or even widen it by much, just leveled it out and in the process, laid down a base strong enough to launch a C5 Galaxy, not that they'll ever be doing that, mind you. I can't help but wonder how much of that $5 million wound up back in Republican campaigns.
Well good, under the guidance of George Bush and Newt Gingrich and representative Boehner, the Democrats are to have their filthy hands held to the fire. Maybe then America will give Congress back to the Republicans so Republican earmarks can once again flow like a river to nowhere from Washington.
Way to go, Newt.

Conservative

What an irony it is to watch the Republican primaries evolve. Last week John McCain was looking rosy as Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the race. Giuliani, if I am not mistaken, had been the conservative of choice coming into this primary, but fell into disgrace over his marital affairs and nose-dived into oblivion. In the early Republican debates, it was Giuliani who pointed out the glaring flaws in Romney's "conservative" record.
But now that it's down to just four real candidates, everyone is wondering which one is the real Republican.
Ron Paul is out because of his opposition to war. That's a no brainer. Republicans are, if nothing else, Islam-reactionary. So despite Paul's actual credentials as the one and only real conservative in the race, he's just out of the picture for most Republican voters.
Huckabee is out because his only claim to the conservative crown is his right-wing Christianity. That wins Republican votes in some circles, but it isn't the only thing needed to win Republican elections.
John McCain is getting slandered by the right primarily because of his stand on immigration.
By default, that leaves Romney as the only one worthy of the "conservative" crown and sure enough, he's the one being heralded by the right. Who cares if the Christian Right sees Mormonism as a cult? Who cares that Romney downsized his employees? Who cares that he had illegal aliens working on his place? Who cares that his claim to fame was being governor of one of the most liberal state in the US? He is conservative by default. All the other candidates are unworthy which leaves Romney as the only one left to win the support of the right.
Isn't it a shame that so many of the leaders of the right over the past decade have disgraced themselves?