DRILL, Baby, dri.......
I found this article in the
Smirking Chimp. It's too good to pass up...
Palin calls for oil drilling while speaking at solar panel plantsubmitted by classwarfare on October 30, 2008 - 1:08pm
click to view article from
ap.google.comPalin spoke after touring Xunlight Corp., one of a handful of solar technology startup companies in Toledo, a struggling industrial city in this swing state. The city's leaders are hoping that the solar companies will create jobs to replace some of those lost by downsizing in the auto industry.
But Palin made only a passing reference to solar power in her speech and instead renewed her call for more drilling in U.S. coastal waters. She repeated her signature anthem, "drill, baby, drill," which seemed to fall a bit flat on the audience at the plant even as it's become a popular chant at her rallies.
Ideological Stupidity
I just continue to be amazed that anyone can possibly buy into McStupid's tax plan. He calls for tax cut. So does Obama. But, the differences are vast. Completely ideological opposites.
Obama has stated in a recent rally, including yesterday, I believe, that McStupid's plan calls for $200 billion in tax breaks for corporations, including $4 billion to oil industries. Was that hyperbole on Obama's part? Apparently not.
According to
CNN Political Ticker's Fact CheckThe Statement:
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, speaking in Canton, Ohio, on October 27, referred to Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain's tax plans and said, "It's not change when he wants to give $200 billion to the biggest corporations or $4 billion to the oil companies."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Verdict: True. Obama's statement accurately reflects two studies of McCain's tax proposals.
Two days later, on October 30, 2008,
CNBC's Exxon Mobil posts biggest US quarterly profit ever is published. Per the article,
Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, reported income Thursday that shattered its own record for the biggest profit from operations by a U.S. corporation, earning $14.83 billion in the third quarter.
Combine this with the fact that major corporations already don't pay taxes. This from the
Huffington Post,
In a stunning report released by the United States Government Accountability Office in July 2008, Americans learned that many corporations, including those with assets over $250M, reported no tax liabilities. In fact, from 1998-2005, 72% of foreign-controlled domestic corporations (FCDC's), and 55% of US-controlled corporations (USCC's), reported zero tax liability for at least one of those years.
In total, two-thirds of the corporations doing business in the U.S. paid no taxes from 1998-2005, while collectively reporting $2.5 trillion dollars in sales.
John McCain's official website would make it seem as if corporate taxes are somehow crippling American business.
I don't know how McStupid's proposal can pass the straight face test given that CNBC article and the GAO report. If, after the past eight years of dubya's trickle down tax policies hasn't convinced people that it's a pile of hooey that accomplishes only one task - transfer money from the middle class to the very wealthy - then I am not sure what anyone can say or do to convince those that vote for McStupid, particularly those of the lower or middle class, that they're absolutely voting against their own self interests. There has to be something else at play here. Maybe, the answer is just very simple. They're stupid. They're incurious, ignorant, and just plain ideologically stupid. I know this is harsh, but I just don't know what else to say.
The Undecided
You gotta wonder.... Who the hell are they? Well, I had a conversation with one this week. She really hasn't made up her mind yet. Huh???
When I asked her what she was confused about, her response was typical to what I've been hearing - "I hate them both." In my opinion, of which I have many, that's such a ignorant and mindless answer. It's a cop out. It means that all she is basing her decisions upon are the TV sound bites. If that's all you've got, of course you're gonna hate them both. They are trashing each other, McStupid way more than Obama (another opinion of mine), that all you'll hear is negative crap.
I asked her what she "hated" about both of them. Her response, again quite typical - "They both are horrific liars." "OK," I said,"So putting aside the exaggerations and hyperbole that they are both guilty of, what exactly is Obama lying about?" All she could come up with was Obama's relationship with Jeremiah Wright, and Wright's hatred of white people.
Amazing. Another person who was participating in this conversation piped in, "That's nonsense." She had read some of Wright's sermons, and heard him speak, and she did not read or hear anything that indicated any across the board hatred of white people, the way the McStupid camp portrayed him to do, and want the electorate to believe." I concurred, as I also read and heard him speak. I stated that what the McStupid camp quoted of Wright was taken completely out of context to make him out to be a hateful bigot, and in fact, what Wright was preaching was his disdain for the horrific treatment that blacks have had to endure at the hands of whites.
I find it hard to believe that anyone in McStupid's camp really believes that Wright is practicing this concept of "reverse" racism, but they don't care. They know that if they continue to spew this garbage, the Obama camp must remain silent, or else they,
the Obama camp, will be accused of racism. It's truly a catch 22 for the Obama campaign.
When I see the campaign rallies on TV (I've not been to any in person), the differences in the attendees is striking. Obama's rallies are truly a representation of our melting pot, multiracial society. There is a sea of people of all races, attending the rallies by the tens of thousands. The McStupid rallies always have a single black person strategically located right behind the candidate who is doing the yakking, so the camera will capture him, and it's virtually always a him (I've never seen a her). Those rallies are a sea of white people, all a single one thousand of them. My tendency is to say, "Draw your own conclusion." But, I am taking the next step, as I have already drawn the conclusion, of which I share herein. Believe me, this is not something I've noticed alone. There is a lot of discussion on the internet already about this very issue.
I'll start with McCain. Per
Capitol Hill Blue,
McCain loved to tell jokes about lesbians, blacks, Hispanics and the Vietnamese community that occupied a large section of Arlington County, Virginia, just south of the District of Columbia.
Of course, McCain didn't use polite language in the jokes: He used names like "fags" or "queers" or "dykes" or "niggers" or "spics" or "wetbacks" or "gooks."
Feel free to read more from that article, as it has lots of other links and specific examples of the racist pile of crap that McStupid really is. It's really telling of who and what the republican party is and represents if they think that this poor excuse for a human being is the best they have to represent their party. There's plenty more where that came from. Just do a search on the words "McCain racist" and you'll get lots of hits. Miggod, it's just sickening.
Sarah Palin is her own racist bitch. This from the
LA ProgressiveBesides insulting Obama with a Step-N’-Fetch-It, “darkie musical” swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska’s Aboriginal people as “Arctic Arabs” – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful “mukluks” along with the totally unimaginative “f**king Eskimo’s,” according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.
Again, read more of this article and again put "Palin racist" into a google search, and you'll get many hits. Again, it's just sickening.
Back to my conversation with the undecided. When the only thing that she could come up with when I asked her about any Obama lies was the Jeremiah Wright issue, which of course had nothing to do with any Obama lies, my only conclusion is that she's going to vote for McStupid. She can do nothing else. Although I have always liked this person, and still do, I do believe she is a racist. I think that she doesn't even realize she's a racist, and certainly would never admit it, if she did. But, she is. Period. And sadly, I do believe that she is very likely representative of lots of undecided voters. Unquestioning, incurious, and subconsciously (at the very least) racist. It is a very sad reality of our American society.
Having written all of this, I am so hopeful that Obama will win. Aside from the fact that I do believe that he is America's best hope for progress, fairness, and respect (to undo the past eight years of the dubya and his dick regime) for our country, he will also be a role model for black people to look up to, and for white people to hopefully realize that being black does not diminish, in any way, a person's stature as a human being. That's my hope in this election.
Images:
Decision 2008 - http://current.com/items/89399625_who_really_are_these_undecided_voters
White/Black Hands - http://bolsonon.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/racist-the-latest-version-of-gotcha-politics/
McCain Rally - http://entequilaesverdad.blogspot.com/2008/08/relative-enthusiasm.html
Sarah Palin - http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1155/527062966_cc0f58daa3.jpg
Obama Hope - http://obamamedia.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/high-quality-obama-wallpapers-and-signs/
The Horrors of an Obama Presidency.....
....
NOT!! Oh, the thought......
If Obama is elected, we're going to see:
1. Civil discourse in the White House for the first time since 2001.
2. A president who actually reads books and is curious about the world around him for the first time since 2001.
3. Respect on the world stage for the first time since 2001
4. A White House cabinet made up of competent, intelligent people, instead of losers and cronies for the first time since 2001.
5. The possibility of a competent and fair Supreme Court justice pick, instead of an extremist whack job, for the first time since 2001.
6. A truly compassionate administration, instead of the bogus "compassionate conservatism" that we've seen in the White House for the past 8 years.
7. Restoration of civil liberties as described (and one would have thought required) in the Bill of Rights, from what was eroded during the past 8 years.
8. A real, plausible discussion of how to end the Iraq debacle, thereby bringing our troops home, and restoring $10 billion a month back into the American economy.
9. Consideration of health care for all Americans, instead of continuing to base fair health care solely on employment.
The list goes on and on. I'm shaking in my boots. The excitement has me obsessing. Now, look at that list above, consider what I'm very likely missing, and think about what it would be under a McStupid administration. That would be the real horror.
As The Race Tightens......
I found this graphic on the
Randi Rhodes message board this morning. Credit goes to someone named RoyPDX. I love it.
The Dusty Dog
As I resurrect my blog, I feel compelled to start with an article about the Dusty Dog. In lots of ways, she was the inspiration for this blog, and one thing I noticed as I was looking at the dates of my last articles is that I basically stopped writing here when she fell ill in May 2007. I did try to come back, but I guess I wasn't ready. I am now.
This article is a tribute to that great dog.
Those of you who are reading this who never knew Zuki, the Dusty Dog, have probably already surmised that she is deceased. After falling ill in May with severe arthritis in her lumbar spine, she required surgery to get her walking again. That surgery was a resounding success. But, after about six weeks, she went down again. This time, her diagnosis was
fibrocartilagenous embolism (FCE) of her cervical spine. It rendered her, a 110 lbs German Shepherd/wolf mix, a quadriplegic. Zuki was humanely euthanized on July 18, 2007.
The name of this site is my tribute to her. As I was developing this blog in 2005, I was sitting at my computer trying to come up with a clever name for the blog, when she came into the house from her den under the front porch. I hated that she went under there. She always came out filthy. Anyway, when she walked in, I put my hand on her back, resulting in a huge cloud of dust that flew up into the room. My site was named.
When I adopted her from a shelter, she was only 1-1/2 years old, and I was her fourth owner. She was a mess. A gigantic scared, untrained and I do believe, a dangerous animal. I really started to think that I bit off more than I could chew. But, if she and I could not make it work, I promised her that she'd never spend another day in a shelter. I promised her that I would drive her out to Minnesota to a wolfdog rescue facility, if necessary. And so the challenge began.
First, she had to learn how to not hate or fear men. That was the most dangerous aspect of her behavior. It took a ton of work, and many men who I managed to coerce to test her as I trained her. She always continued to hate/fear the men whom she first met when I got her, though newer acquaintances were more acceptable to her. She also had to learn how to ride in a car. Her fear of cars was inexplicable, though I'm sure her car sickness had something to do with it. She had to learn basic commands - walk on a leash, sit, down, stay, come, and of course, paw. She was a quick study, but she was also strong willed. She knew what I wanted, but teaching her that obedience was not optional was the challenge. She had to learn not to chew on my electronics (palm pilot, TV remote, cell phone). But, the most goddess awful challenge was overcoming her horrifically severe separation anxiety. All in all, the training took two years, and two trainers. I think I was the challenge for trainers more than the dog.
Zuki was a gorgeous dog. She was a wolf hybrid, mixed with German Shepherd, and I think the most shepherd part of her was her ears. Pure shepherd. Her body, her size, her coat were all wolf. And, she shed like a wolf. She blew her coat twice a year, big clumps of fur hanging onto her, and piles and piles of fur brushed off of her. She was a fur machine.
Zuki was also very intimidating looking. I felt safe with her at my side and in my house. I knew what most people didn't - that her wolf nature made her a terrible watch dog. She rarely barked. If she felt threatened, her leary, shy wolf nature predominated, which meant that her nature was to shy away from challenges. I'm not sure how she would have done if we, I would have been seriously threatened. I like to think she would have protected me. I don't know. We were never tested.
As Zuki lay on the floor the day she died, I told her that I was supposed to use her as an ambassador to instruct people that crossing wolves and dogs is an awful thing to do. Zuki would have been a good ambassador. She had clearly straddled both worlds. She always had this feral thing going on. She was independent, proud, and confident. But, she was also a dog. She was dependent, proud and confident. She was a wolf first, I think, and a dog second. Her wolfness predominated, but she had to live in a human/dog world. For all that I truly believe is wrong with cross breeding these animals, I also feel honored to have spent five years of my life with one. I was honored to spend five years with a wolf, and with a huge, gorgeous pet. We learned our places in the house, and clearly I was alpha. Otherwise, I think she would have been living in Minnesota.
Zuki was my project and my challenge. She gave me an enormous sense of accomplishment. I know in my heart that we rescued each other. She changed my life when she came into it, and she changed it when she left, as I changed hers. I miss her more than anyone can imagine. Over a year later, I still cry. I am crying now.
Time To Resurrect My Blog
It's been a while since I've posted anything. I've been totally preoccupied with my photography. But, now that we're one week from Election Day, and Barack Obama will very likely be elected as our next president, I think I'd love to start weighing in again.
So, I need to fix my banner. Fix my links. New links, new pics, and just some same ol' fashioned political hammering. It's cathartic for me, I guess. The need to vent, and the need to share what I learn to my very limited audience of readers is important to me. And, it's fun!
Stay tuned....
