mjh & MR are still grieving a year later …
Happy Birthday, Barrack Hussein Obama!
I don’t like veneration or adulation. That ties into my rejection of religion and certainty there is no god. It’s why I don’t give a damn about American Idol or idolatry or most celebrities.
So, I’m not the kinda guy to wish the President a happy birthday just because he’s president.
It’s troubling how many people who consider themselves patriots absolutely hate Obama beyond all restraint. These are people who stand and cover their hearts for the National Anthem and who pledge allegiance to the flag. I do not. These people coined “My country, right or wrong,” and “America, Love it or leave it.” Indeed, just six years ago, they were joyously hoping for a liberal exodus to Canada or some other socialist nation (hear the sneer). They screamed for us to sit down and shut up. They herded us into Free Speech Zones without a clue about irony.
Today, many good, decent, upright, gawdfearin’ sons and daughters of the Republic hate one man with every fiber of their beings. They pray and hope for his death. He is Satan, as far as they are concerned. And it has nothing to do with his race.
Now, to be fair – and I do want to be fair, even to people who aren’t fair themselves – I know something about anger and hatred and I have plenty of both for some people. I hate George Duhbya Bush to this very day. Spit on the ground. I hate Big Dick Cheney. I hate Karl der Grosse Rove. Yes, I hate them passionately and I won’t shed a tear when they die. But I want them to live out a natural life. I want them to live long enough to realize that if they are remembered at all, it won’t be kindly.
I think the damage those vile men wrecked on the nation is as obvious as taking off your shoes for the Homeland. I think they are evil villains. So, I voted against them and spoke out against them every chance I got. I endured their horrible reign over the nation for eight awful years. I never once waived a gun in their directions.
I believe change is inevitable and only fools fight it. And I think the biggest fools waive their guns the hardest. I know the crazies won’t simply SHUT THE FUCK UP and wait for 2016. With luck, their venom will poison only them or they’ll shoot each other.
Happy Birthday to Barrack Hussein Obama. I thank him for his extraordinary courage in taking on the huge mess made by Duhbya and AmeriCo. I wish Obama good luck, and a long, long life.
Happy “Birth” Day, Mr. President; Welcome to the Post-Fact Era – Tuned In – TIME.com
Posted by James Poniewozik Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Submit a Comment • Related Topics: news media politics , birthers
Barack Obama celebrates his 49th birthday today. Or so he claims. According to a CNN survey, more than a quarter of Americans doubt that Obama was born in the United States; 29% say he probably was; and a mere plurality of 42% have no doubt. This despite widely reported empirical documentation of the President’s birth in Hawaii in 1961, contemporary newspaper reports of his birth and the dismissal of birther rumors by Hawaii’s Republican governor. Speaking of which, big shocker, there’s a
partisan divide in the findings: 41% of Republicans believe Obama probably or definitely was not born here, next to (a not entirely comforting itself) 15% of Democrats.
There is no reasonable basis to believe Obama was born outside the U.S.; a lot of people believe it anyway.
Happy “Birth” Day, Mr. President; Welcome to the Post-Fact Era – Tuned In – TIME.com
This Week’s–no! This Month’s WTF?!
OMG. You thought Tenthers are idiots – meet the Thirteenthers! Read the highlighted text twice.
The Iowa GOP is not trying to overturn this amendment to reinstate slavery. Instead, it wants to reintroduce the “original 13th Amendment” first offered by senator Phillip Reed of Maryland in 1810. The amendment states that “if any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain any title of nobility or honor” from a “foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen” and “shall be incapable of holding any office of trust.” In receiving only 12 out of the 13 votes needed for ratification, the amendment was never adopted.
Traditional supporters of the idea are known as “Thirteenthers,” who seek to prevent those with the title of “esquire,” such as lawyers and bankers, from participating in government. But according to its spokeswoman, Danielle Plogmann, the Iowa GOP supports it as an attack on President Obama’s Nobel Prize win:
There are, of course, other implications of Thirteenthism, such as ensuring that the United States never again suffers the humiliation of having a president win the Nobel Peace Prize. That was just what the Iowa Republicans had in mind, according to Plogmann, who wrote in an e-mail that the plank “was meant to make a statement about the delegates’ opinion about Mr. Obama receiving the prize.” (Presumably they didn’t mind if, in the process, they were also making a statement about any American scientist or writer unlucky enough to win a Nobel.) Unfortunately for them, the Department of Justice looked into whether Obama needed Congressional approval to accept the Nobel under the existing emoluments clause, and based on the meaning of “foreign state” (which would not cover the Nobel Prize Committee) concluded that he did not.
Iowa is currently “the only state where this type of plank has been introduced into the GOP platform.”
the best goal is no goal | zen habits
“With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson [from the best goal is no goal | zen habits]
Obama’s Second Act – Charles Krauthammer – National Review Online
Obama’s Second Act – Charles Krauthammer – National Review Online
I have a warning for Republicans: Don’t underestimate Barack Obama. …
The net effect of 18 months of Obamaism will be to undo much of Reaganism. Both presidencies were highly ideological, grandly ambitious, and often underappreciated by their own side. In his early years as president, Reagan was bitterly attacked from his right. (Typical Washington Post headline: “For Reagan and the New Right, the Honeymoon Is Over” — and that was six months into his presidency!) Obama is attacked from his left for insufficient zeal on gay rights, immigration reform, closing Guantanamo — the list is long. The critics don’t understand the big picture. Obama’s transformational agenda is a play in two acts. …
The next burst of ideological energy — massive regulation of the energy economy, federalizing higher education, and “comprehensive” immigration reform (i.e., amnesty) — will require a second mandate, meaning reelection in 2012.
That’s why there’s so much tension between Obama and the congressional Democrats. For Obama, 2010 matters little. If the Democrats lose control of one or both houses, Obama will likely have an easier time in 2012, just as Bill Clinton used Newt Gingrich and the Republicans as his foil for his 1996 reelection campaign.
Obama is down, but it’s very early in the play. Like Reagan, he came here to do things. And he’s done much in his first 500 days. What he has left to do, he knows, must await his next 500 days — those that come after reelection.
So 2012 is the real prize. Obama sees far, farther than even his own partisans. Republicans underestimate him at their peril.
Obama’s Second Act – Charles Krauthammer – National Review Online
Lighting Bonfires in People’s Minds
Kudos to Garret Vreeland aka dangerousmeta!-
Scott Rosenberg’s Wordyard: Party context of that staggering debt chart.
”Whatever their motivations, every Republican politician who rails against the evils of the debt should be shown this chart and asked to explain it.” Exactly. Reagan fans will try to blame a ‘Democratic’ Congress, ignoring the fact that the Senate was Republican until 1987, and that Reagan requested even more spending than Congress approved, while Bush fans will just implode, because in spite of trying to cast back and blame the Clinton years, the Republican Congress knew no bounds to their spending.
The chart is clear about what needs to be done this fall. If you’re upset with Obama, put more Democrats in Congress to shift him left of center. If you want to run up higher deficits and enjoy a repeat of the mid-’90’s “death by a thousand cuts” (endless idiotic investigations and made-up crises), vote Republicans in. Plain and simple. [I feel and hear Democratic outrage rising. Will it be as strong as ‘08?]
Washington Post: Republicans now blaming Democrats for Bush tax cuts.
”It’s not Democrats who are trying to pass the largest tax hike of all time, but Republicans who are calling for the largest increase in the deficit in memory.” Via Hal Rager’s Twitter.
Let’s Go Swimming after Golf–Ignoring the Reality of Here and Now
Oh, gawd, not another one. The Beach failed, finally. Is this an idea that has to be batted down every few years?
Albuquerque developer plans West Side water park
Dan Serrano, who built the water park at the Radisson Hotel at Carlisle and I-40, is planning a new water park on the West Side. He’s billing it as much easier to access and more affordable.
As far as the probability of the project actually going through, Serrano calls it a 50/50 chance.
“If we can get the financing, it would be an ideal opportunity to go out there and create economic development,” says Serrano. “It’s going to bring jobs during development, construction, thereafter.” [mjh: Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! That’s all you need to say? What about water, water, water, ya fool.]
The 36,000 square foot water park would be built somewhere west of 98th, off I-40. It would be indoors, and have a similar design to Radisson’s water park, but would be 3,000 square feet larger. Admission would be anywhere between $18 to $24 for a day pass.
The cost of the whole project would be around $8 million, about three times less [mjh: is that a third as much?] than the cost of the Radisson Hotel and Water Park. The hotel’s water park project was more expensive because a building had to be demolished, and land costs have changed.
“There are a couple of land owners saying you know what, I’m having a tough time selling this land now, I would be more than happy to come down and deal with you and bring the land as part of my investment,” says Serrano.
People that Eyewitness News 4 interviewed in Albuquerque think it’s a great idea.
“I would love a water park,” says Adrianna Zachary, who moved to Albuquerque four months ago from Maine [mjh: get used to the desert, Adrianna – this isn’t Maine]. “I think it’s so hot here, we need to cool off and there aren’t a lot of places to do that; there’s Tingley Beach, but who wants to swim in Tingley Beach?”
“I think it’s a great idea, I really do,” said Linda Vikdel. “I think it would be a very healthy, fit way for kids to get some activities in.”
Serrano wants to have the water park built sometime within the next two years. The design work is about 70 percent complete. He says the biggest hurdle now is getting the financing. [mjh: because getting the water is no problem at all. Yeah, right.]