Recent Comments:

Ah, if only they'd make a similar effort for their articles.

BTW, one commenter on the article suggested that the paper just shell out the $7 and request a copy from the state of Hawaii.  Is this possible?  I would love for this ridiculous non-issue to go away.

it cancels ballgames!

http://www.wichitawingnuts.com/

GO NUTS!

OUCH!

You know, I'm planning on getting down to DC for the FISA capitulation. I've been searching for any kind of organized protest but coming up empty. As cynical as I've become and as low an opinion as I have of American's desire or willingness to resist the assault on them, I'm still somewhat stunned to find nothing in the way of formal opposition anymore. It's disheartening. Still, as easy as it might be to throw up my hands and retreat back within my own tiny world I'm going anyway. If for no other reason, I need to be able to live with myself and I couldn't if I said nothing at all. I only wish I had half the courage those people in the video exhibited.

Peace

GM has never been very forward thinking, it's always been about profit.  they were demonstrably responsible, along with all the usual suspects, for much of the widespread decline of public transportation, specifically street car lines, in the period between 1936 and 1950.

via wiki:

The Great American Streetcar Scandal

was the acquisition of streetcar systems throughout the United States, dismantling, and replacement with buses in the mid 20th century by the National City Lines (NCL) holding company, formed by General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California and Phillips Petroleum. It is alleged that NCL's companies had an ulterior motive in their purchase of streetcar systems of forcing mass use of the automobile among the U.S. population.

Convicted of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act, GM was fined $5,000 and each executive was ordered to pay a fine of $1 for a conspiracy to force the streetcar systems to buy GM buses instead of other buses (but not for dismantling the streetcar systems, which were also being dismantled by non-NCL owned systems).

granted, there were other forces at work as well, but as you can see from just the minimal information referenced above, government wasn't too concerned about it. much as they aren't today. lot's of lip service, but very little action.

instead we get the garbage like chrysler's Let's Refuel America Gas Card incentives, and entrepreneurial endeavors like MyGallons.com rolling out in lieu of any real initiatives, private or public, that could begin the long hard slog toward alternative strategies and solutions.

"there's a sucker born every minute, ad you happened along at the right time"...tom waits

you're certainly correct about this though; they're going to milk their cash cow until it dies, and then blame it on someone else.

"A number of factors opened my eyes. McCain for one. That's where I draw the line"

This is the fear card that BooMan played on you a couple of days ago, Idredit. I recall you weren't too pleased about that. And really, what's to fear when Obama is beginning to adopt GOP talking points?

1.    To be pragmatic - you'll never have a candidate with whom you can agree on all the issues. As Dems, we need to have our candidate win. Imho, we need to adapt the GOP stance: our candidate right or wrong.

Pragmatic, yes. Giving away the store? No thank you. When you adopt the GOP stance, my candidate right or wrong, you are no longer a democrat. Really, what's the point? That is wrong, period.

2. "If you assess Obama carefully, he's a small c Conservative on a whole houseful of issues. It's in his DNA. He's a centrist."

There's nothing centrist about voting to strip my constitutional rights from me. There's nothing centrist about supporting a ban on late term abortions and contributing to the GOP's and McCain's efforts to find an inroad to overturning Roe v. Wade.

3.

a) "It'll be a vote against what it is we don't want"

b) "More wars, He (McCain) has staked out he's against women's rights-Roe v. Wade must be overturned"

c) "McCain is deceitful"

a) It's beginning to look like a vote for what you don't want, given so many hard right reversals and the way he's basically blown off his supporters who've rightfully said 'wtf Barack?'.

b) It looks like the war in Iraq won't be ending anytime soon as Obama's done a doe-see-doe on that position too. It's especially apalling to see him adopt Bush's insincere use of the "I'll listen to the generals on the ground about what we can do" strategy to deflect calls to end the war and hold him to his earlier pledges to end the war and remove combat troops.

Regarding Roe v. Wade, here too your candidate has done an about face on a ban against late term abortions, knowing full well that the GOP is using this issue as a stepping stone, a trojan horse as a means to strip women's civil and human rights from them. Another "sweetie" moment? Again, nothing centrist about this.

c) There's a lot of deceit going around right now, Idredit. I first noticed this when Obama unequivocably stated that he would not run for president in his first term only to spin right round and reverse himself. What I didn't know then was that this was the first visible sign that he has a pattern of deceit. Lying, or habitually and arrogantly shifting policy positions looks just as bad on a democrat as it does on a republican. At this point he might as well have both his eyes surgically moved to one side of his face, preferably the side that he talks out of, like a flounder, for all the flopping around he's done.

4. "On The Hill, we need a landslide to avoid gridlock. Tired of losing is my deal breaker because the challenges ahead are enormous"

Yes well, in my opinion the last thing needed now is bipartisanship, or as he calls it, post-partisanship. What's needed now is a fighter. This guy has revealed himself as not only not that, but a serial backstabber, willing to chuck anyone and any liberal/progressive hope for change under his proverbial bus. I'm most certain that you'll have your desire for no gridlock as he'll grease the skids for the GOP as soon as he has the chance. Then we can have one big harmonious and homogenous political party representing all of us. They might as well remove the aisles now from between the the two sides of both houses.

If this candidate or any democrat is not held to the standards that they themselves professed to us that they held themselves as representing by removing support of them through not only funding but removing the votes they are taking for granted there will never be a reason to do what is needed of them. He/they can continue spitting in the faces of all of us "sweeties".

Truth be told, that's fine by me.    

asklet's trip to Norway yesterday did not proceed, pains returned. Don't know when to reschedule him, since he still is not quite up to par.