I just don’t get these intrusive bigots who have nothing to do but go around trying to keep people from getting married. Acquire a life! What difference does it make if the couple is of the same or different sexes? They love each other and want to live together. Marriage, whether between different sexes or the same sex is a legal & symbolic institution. Who are they hurting? More to the point, what business is it of these clowns and how does it affect their small lives? Maybe if they had half a brain they’d be worried about something important like all the people who are out of work or what we are doing to our environment. It constantly amazes me, just how stupid a large segment of my fellow American’s really are.
Strictly NYC: Big deal going on about people having garages in their private houses. Why? The city is against it when it should be for it. It gets cars off the street and it raises building values creating higher property taxes. Mr. Mayor, you understand economics even if the dummies who make up your bureaucracy don’t. Tell them to back off.
And speaking of the Mayor. His latest speech, the one in favor of allowing the mosque to be built near the World Trade center is surely correct. It should be anyone’s right to build wherever they want as long as they do it legally. That’s the beauty of this country. I think Muslims have a perfect right to build their mosque where they want it. What they don’t have, what they haven’t displayed for even a second in making this decision, is a spec of sensitivity. This is a glaringly stupid decision that will brand even moderate Muslims, which I am led to believe are the ones trying to build the center, as insensitive hate mongers. German officials in Hamburg have just closed the Mosque where the 911 killers plotted. In wanting to open one near the site of the tragedy, the Muslim community shows a serious disregard for the feelings of those directly affected by the tragedy. There is already one Mosque in the area. We have been led to believe that the new construction will be more of a center, like a, “YMHA” or the old “YMCA” of Hebrew and Catholic affiliation. It’s probably a good thing, but just as probably, more thought should go into the selection of different location.
Every time I hear some dumb rednecks exclaim that they’re going to take their country back, all can think is they wouldn’t have to if they and the clowns they elected hadn’t screwed it up so badly when they had it.
The big noise this past week was about the Wikileaks intelligence documents release. Everyone who seems to have real knowledge of the situation appears to feel that most of the information was out of date but that does not excuse the problem of putting those locals who have cooperated with us in danger. I understand that the young soldier responsible for the leak is a dedicated whistle blower but with the ability to do what he did comes the responsibility for the results of his actions. This isn’t about workers not getting enough coffee breaks, this is about people getting killed. The big question, is does the release of the documents have a point? Whether it does or not, it is an action fraught with dangerous possibilities. If it doesn’t then it is a completely frivolous act that smacks of treason. This is not like outing the Watergate burglars. This is about putting peoples lives in danger.
Why does the banking and financial establishment continue to attack the President. I understand that they don’t want any financial reform, but we saw how well they did without regulations during the Bush administration. No one likes being regulated, but almost everyone needs at least some regulation. It’s the nature of the beast to push the boundaries and especially the nature of the entrepreneurs who head up big business. Obama kept a number of these big businesses alive when most people were shouting for their heads. He understands that the country needs big business just as he understands that big business, like any bad child, needs regulation.
The bicycle situation in NYC has reached critical mass. While Bloomberg’s Traffic Commissioner, Ms Sadek-Khan pushes for more and more places to ride bicycles, the city ignores the fact that they have to be regulated, that the laws, which are on the books, have to be upheld. Bike riders need to be licensed and held to the traffic laws just like drivers. The city is now overflowing with helmeted, knee padded, imbeciles, negotiating bikes with no reflectors, along sidewalks on which they are forbidden; the wrong way on one-way streets; and through red lights that they don’t seem to believe exist. Do we have to wait for a couple of really gory deaths before the Mayor and Traffic Commissioner start dealing with the havoc they have created?
Earlier this week the House passed the state assistance bill and the President signed it into law. This bill will add to the Stimulus bill by saving or creating hundreds of thousands of jobs including school teachers, firemen, policemen etc. yet nearly every Republican voted “no,” calling the jobs saved “special interests.” Anybody who thinks teachers, police and firemen’s jobs are special interests is just too stupid to hold a job himself. Big business getting tax breaks to open factories overseas is a special interest, contracts to build roads going nowhere, are special interests. Saving jobs for the people who hold society together is called national self-interest, not special interest and if you can’t put that together you’ve really been smoking the wrong stuff.
One of the problems of our era’s political life is the absence of a, reform minded press to keep the politicos in line. Today’s press, even the most diligent, are more interested in the story than the message. What will help the country the most has become subservient to what will make better headlines. I was reminded of this, as I watched Chris Matthews show this weekend. John Heilman of New York Magazine had the audacity to say that the most important words for the 2012 election would be “Run Sarah run.” Did Heilman think that a Palin run would give the country the best chance at a rational functioning president or was it because it would make for a circus and better press opportunities? His attitude made it clear that his interest in a Palin run had nothing to do with the good of the country. It was predicated on the story possibilities that a joke candidate like Palin would bring to his profession. A despicable stance.
Let’s talk about stupid:
For years I’ve been hearing the far right knock the Eastern Intellectual Establishment. Is there a Western Intellectual Establishment that they aspire to or are they just against people being smart? I mean what kind of dumb schmuck wants to emulate the stupid elements of the society? Did somebody say Tea Party?
And speaking of the Tea Party, Sharon Angle, is their candidate for Senator of Nevada. Are they kidding? Is this an act of intellectual suicide? Are they trying to prove that they are the stupidest, most bigoted people on earth? This is a woman who has declared against abortion even if the woman has been raped or is the victim of incest. This is a woman who wants to end social security, who called for the elimination of the Energy Department and the department of Environmental Protection, who backed Joe Barton when he proved his idiocy by proclaiming that the BP compensation for victims was just a slush fund and who, with, great religious insight claimed that her candidacy was an act of God. This nutcase shouldn’t be elected, she should be institionalized.
And making a further case for dumb, I saw John Boehner on Meet the Press, unable to answer a single simple question and floundering about like a beached bass. And did you catch the color? Talk about over bronzed. Maybe if he spent as much time reading as he does sitting under a tanning light, he’d actually know what he was talking about.
Any discussion of political stupidity has to come from the mouths of those for whom stupidity is a way of life. These are not all uneducated people, for a lack of education is more often than not an economical problem rather than just a lack of sufficient brain cells. I’ve gathered a group of quotes and paraphrases uttered by my top, dumb politicians and I figured I’d just lay them out for you and let you draw your own conclusions.
Rand Paul: Has stated that cutting unemployment benefits will force people to go back to work. Very good Rand. Where?
Joe Barton: Figured that the President forcing BP to accept financial responsibility for the money lost due to their oil spill was tantamount to extortion. I wouldn’t want to be managing your next campaign Joe.
Sharon Angle: Opposes abortion even for rape and incest victims. Her advice to a 13 year-old girl who was pregnant by her father was to, ”turn a lemon situation into lemonade.” What can be said about a statement like that or the moron who made it?
Carley Fiorino: Ran Hewlett-Packard into the ground, dumped 33,000 employees, was rated one of the worst CEOs by Portfolio Magazine but thought she earned her $42M golden parachute. I’ll bet those out of work former employees thought so too.
Ron Johnson: Is glad there is global warming. He probably owns stock in a desert resort. He wants to go back to a time when corporations ran the country. Right on, Ron. They did such a great job during the Bush years.
Pat Toomey: Thinks the derivative industry has done great things for the country and been a positive force for the economy. He wants to give federal grants to companies that move off-shore. This is a man who must be force fed because he’s obviously too dumb to eat.
Roy Blunt: Is taking credit for Stimulus projects even though he voted against the Stimulus.
John Cornyn and Pete Sessions demanded, on Meet the Press, that we cut taxes and cut services in order to attain a balanced budget but when asked to name a program they would cut in pursuit of their goal neither dullard was able to name a single one. The double talk was hysterical.
Ken Buck: Thinks voters should vote for him and not Jane Norton, “because I do not wear high heels.” Well, at least not to church.
Now these and many other comments by our Republican congressmen or wanna-be congressmen can be taken two ways and neither are very flattering. Either they really are as stupid as they appear, or they are deeply in the pockets of various lobbyists who are taking good care of them for speaking up for the ludicrous and damaging causes they are backing.
I heard an interesting argument this weekend on Fareed Zakaria’s, GPS, where Jeff Sachs a Columba professor, Gavin Schmidt a climatologist and Patrick Michaels of the Cato Institute argued about the solutions to global warming. Interestingly enough, Michaels, a right wing opponent of most of the current solutions, actually admits that the globe is warming, a refreshing lucidity compared to most of his anti-science compatriots.
Schmidt stated flat out that we are getting warmer and that co-2 emissions are at least adding to the problem. Michaels agreed but when Sachs suggested the taxing of co-2 emissions, he disagreed vehemently, stating that the money from those taxes wouldn’t be spent correctly because we still had no real insight and therefore no real plan on how to accomplish the elimination of fossil fuel gasses.
Well, we may not have a complete plan as to how to eliminate the use of fossil fuels and substitute other technology but we sure know, at least, part of how to do it. Economic law tells us that if you tax anything its use goes down and if you subsidize anything its use increases. This in itself, seems to run to a logical conclusion. Tax the hell out of fossil fuel emissions and use the tax money to subsidize new, emission free technologies. This is not rocket science and the guys who have been raving against “Cap & Trade” because it will make us fall behind China economically should stop and take a look at China which is already going from the biggest emitter of co-2 in the world to a country that is fast cleaning up its act and will soon leave us as the biggest villain in this scenario.
A story out of Afghanistan today, tells of the Taliban stoning a pair of young lovers to death because they eloped against the wishes of their families. This would be bad enough, if the gruesome punishment had just been carried out by the Taliban’s religious thugs, but it seems that it was participated in by over 200 of the lover’s friends and neighbors who celebrated after the event. Why are we trying to civilize these sub-human monsters? Why are we spending our children’s lives to turn this mass of prehistoric apes into a country?