“There is a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hand, saying that they’re going to be trimming down and streamlining their businesses. It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high hat and tuxedo. It kind of makes you a little bit suspicious.” He added, “couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here? It would have at least sent a message that you do get it.”
–Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-New York), to the heads of Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, in a House Financial Services Committee meeting on Wednesday
UPDATE: more here.
I’m not of a mind to write these days. I have a few things in the queue, but haven’t been motivated to slap them into shape yet. During the election buildup, I was looking forward to post-election blogging about all things non-political, but nothing really has been flowing for me so far. The gears in my brain haven’t shifted yet, so I just don’t have much to say.
To make matters worse, I’ve been a bit of a bore lately — a happy one, but a yawn nonetheless. What with all the obsessing over Nov. 4th, and especially after hurting my back, things here at Chez 10K were in pretty rough shape. I’ve been poking at it a bit here and there, but was waiting for an all-clear from the physical therapist before I really hit it hard, and I got that on Friday. So, I spent the weekend vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing and generally puttering about the house, and it was wonderful. I loved every minute of it. I fussed over the plants and sucked up the dust bunnies hiding behind the doors and cleaned out the fridge and made homemade pizza and even watched a few movies with Emmie, who came in to keep me company while Ralph was out of town leading a retreat over the weekend.
I assume I’ll eventually get into a groove when I finally setting into some kind of a post-election routine, but at the moment, I’m at a loss. So, I’ll leave you with this, a quote from my rss reader’s clippings folder, in which I’ve been saving up all sorts of fun stuff for non-political posts. I don’t have a link, but this is a post from a now-defunct blog that was called Fly Over This, by a dude named Zack. The post’s title was “Email Signature Politics.”
You know this Margaret Mead quote? “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” That quote seems to have been adopted as the standard email signature for a certain element of the progressive left.
Meanwhile, Christian email is fast adopting Mother Teresa’s quote, “There are no great things, only small things with great love.”
I like both of those quotes. But I always have the feeling that both are being used as bludgeons against out-of-fashion ideas like long-term planning, goal setting, big-picture thinking and even just plain organizing.
So, at the bottom of someone’s email today I saw a great quote that I somehow have not come across before. Maybe I will add it to my own email settings:
“Small acts of humanity amid the chaos of inhumanity provide hope. But small acts are insufficient.”
- Paul Rusesabagina
Rusesabagina is the Rwandan hotel manager who saved a whole bunch of people in the genocide and inspired the movie Hotel Rwanda.
Apparently Bono spoke too soon…
“It’s extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can’t find $25 billion dollars to saved 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.”
Here are a few links responding to the day’s news:
Shorter House GOP: We killed the bailout bill because Pelosi hurt our feelings
Who Are America’s Worst Politicians Today? All Of Them!
Krugman: OK, we are a banana republic
CNN’s Ed Henry: John McCain failed
McCain has another “McCain Moment”
And here’s a quick question from me: Whatever happened to “Country First?” The stock market has set new records in plummeting and the House members have pretty much all split town — and they won’t be back until Thursday?!?!? WTF? What the hell are we supposed to do in the meantime? What do they think the market is going to do for the next few days?!? Did they even bother looking at what this is doing to the world’s markets before they hightailed it out of town?
Uh, would I be speaking for most of the country if I suggested that they just not bother coming back?* With wankers like these, who needs Herbert Hoover?
—–
Oh, and ps! Michael Bérubé is back, and he’s ready to place the blame!
Also, have you checked out the Tennessee’s Progressive Blog Roundup this week?
*If anyone sees Zach Wamp skulking or slithering about town this week, please smack him upside the head for the rest of us!
Growing up, there was a kid on my block who was a lot like John McCain. His team was losing touch football 10-75 so he said, “um my mom needs me” and ran home, and, of course, took the ball with him. That’s John McCain.
Oh, it’s a sad state of affairs. The dog ate his homework and maybe it will snow so he doesn’t have to study and maybe he can ferris his way into getting his mom to keep him home with a fever, and time out into infinity and so on…
But it looks like John McCain isn’t going to get the snow day he was hoping for, after all — we’re having a debate tonight!
Lehman Brothers. Merrill Lynch. AIG.
The Dow dropped over 500 points today — the largest one-day drop since the market reopened after the 9/11 attack seven years ago.
And here’s what John McCain had to say:
The “fundamentals of our economy are strong.”
It brings to mind the words of a US president back on October 29, 1929:
The fundamental business of the country… is on a sound and prosperous basis.
America’s robber barons are once again ruining America’s economy, and John McCain — in his $500 shoes, unmindful of how many homes he owns, after 26 years governing from Congress (if he really had any intention of doing anything to help this economy — or if he “got” the economy — why didn’t he do it in all his years as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee?!?) — is asking us for four more years. That’s if he’s got four years left in him. (If not, we’ll be ‹‹shudder›› stuck with Sarah Palin.)
I’m thinking our answer should be “no.”
Even Greenspan thinks McCain isn’t up to the job.
Even McCain’s chief economic adviser says McCain will have to raise taxes.
And even turdblossom himself, Karl Rove, thinks that McCain is a liar.
And the McCain campaign apparently still thinks America is a bunch of whiners.
- Have the Republicans become the party of instant satisfaction and gratification? This illustration offers some numbers in support of the suggestion:
- Do you have any idea why McCain won’t comment on matters of marital infidelity? It’s not like him to give up a chance to be high and mighty…
- A lot of locals have been excited to discover that Google Street View has come to Chattanooga, and they are pouring over the maps to find all the easter eggs caught in the images. But will they find anything as quite as spooky as a house on fire?
- Tennessee’s progressive blogosphere Sunday roundup.
- Quote of the week, from Ian McKellan, regarding an (yet another) intolerant religious leader: “From the pulpit, homophobia is preached by some arrogant religious leaders who think their beliefs are superior to our inborn and, some would say, God-given nature.” Ha!
- Here’s a puzzler:
So John McCain apparently lifted huge portions of his statement on the unfolding crisis in Georgia from Wikipedia. Here’s a 3 AM question for you: do you want a President with a real strategy for containing such a crisis, or do you want someone who’s stumbling over wikipedia entries after getting internet lessons from his wife? I guess when it comes to McCain and foreign policy, it’s a google!
I don’t think he’s up for the job, but we’ll see. (UPDATE: more here and here!) - Mind-boggling quote of the day, from George W. Bush on Russia’s activities in Georgia: “Russia has invaded a sovereign neighbouring state…. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century…. We have no doubts about it. This is a deliberate attempt to destroy an entire country and change the regime.” I am speechless. (UPDATE: more here!)
- Will a Southern community serve as a nuclear waste dump?
I read this a couple of days ago at Joe. My. God., and it’s been running through my head ever since. It’s from E. B. White.
There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born threre, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something….Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.
Speaking of the City, an Ikea store just opened in Red Hook (amid some controversy), and to ease concerns about traffic congestion in the area, Ikea is offering free public transportation to and from the store. Eager consumers are already planning Ikea Hacks to take advantage of the company’s ground-breaking strategy.
But enough of the city and on to other random matters:
- The Eagles went and sold their souls to their corporate masters and Chris the wandering geneticist totally busts them for it. Nicely done.
- After jumping all over Michelle Obama’s patriotism will the right wing give John McCain a free pass? — or will they at least finally lay off the stupid non-story of what Michelle said?
- So, Charlie “Manhunt” Crist, caved in to the wishes of the Wonder Twins, McCain and Bush, and now thinks that we should drill for oil off the coast of Florida. But has he thought of the damage this could do to Florida’s tourist industry? For new leases that won’t start producing meaningful oil for 20-30 years? Maybe we should be truly innovative and think beyond politics: Here’s a funny thing. While the Republicans are arguing that drilling every square inch of America will cut fuel costs, study after study has shown that the effect will be both minimal and several years down the road. On the other hand, just dropping from 65 to 55 will net most cars a 10% savings in fuel costs. That’s far more than we’ll get by turning Florida into the Tar Sands State.
Plus, Joe Biden rocks. UDPATE: or for instant savings, close the Enron loophole! - Al Franken wants “to invest in America again.”
- I saw a lot of MSNBC’s hagiography (update: see Hitchens) after Tim Russert died, and while I understand that they were only trying to do right by the man after losing one of their own, it also made me a bit uncomfortable to listen to them go on and on about the greatness of Russert in what continues to be a field of failure — and as great a man as he was, it was a failure that Russert shared.
- I remember when my father would not pay more than 19¢ a pound for bananas. Those days are clearly over, never to return, and what’s more, the banana as we now know it may soon go extinct.
- Joe Lance is chasing down a story about voting and privacy that was prompted by a card he received in the mail.
- And finally, there’s lots more from the Tennessee blogosphere: Carole Borges wonders who we can trust in the medical field anymore, Tiny Cat finds something that’s just plain weird, and much, much more!
The man’s going to be remembered as a blithering idiot.
I’m still sorting through my travel photos while also slogging through some blogs, getting caught up on the news I missed. There were a lot of big stories — ranging from the very sad (Ted Kennedy’s health problems) to the exciting (California’s Supreme Court sanely confirming that all people are created equal) — but those stories have been beaten to death. Here are a few links that cover some quieter events:
- Exits: Annika Sorenstam (golf) and Justine Henin (tennis) are both retiring — Justine is the first tennis player to quit while holding the #1 spot!
- Via Boing Boing is this gorgeous public spaces animation
- beep found some incredible photography
- Chris points to some beautiful underwater footage
- Cute Overload discovered some animal odd couple images
- Bush claims that he’s made great golf-related sacrifices because of his war. But he lies. And he got busted. And mocked.
- And finally, a couple of quotes. These are the kind of take-no-prisoners Democrats I’ve been wishing for all these years!
“While I always appreciate hearing the news from John McCain, he should explain to the American people why almost every single promise and prediction that he has made about Iraq has turned to be catastrophically wrong, including his support for a surge that was supposed to achieve political reconciliation. While John McCain offers his poor judgment in supporting George Bush’s war and a failed foreign policy that has left us less secure, I will continue to make the case for a new foreign policy that deploys all elements of American power — including tough, principled and direct diplomacy. It’s stunning that in such a lengthy written statement, John McCain could not articulate a single new idea that hasn’t been tried — and failed — over the last eight years.” — Barack Obama
The Bush-McCain saber rattling is the most self-defeating policy imaginable. It achieves nothing. But it forces Iranians who despise the regime to rally behind their leaders. And it spurs instability in the Middle East, which adds to the price of oil, with the proceeds going right from American wallets into Tehran’s pockets.
The worst nightmare for a regime that thrives on tension with America is an America ready, willing and able to engage. Since when has talking removed the word “no” from our vocabulary?
It’s amazing how little faith George Bush, Joe Lieberman and John McCain have in themselves - and in America. — Joe Biden
- UPDATE: one more… Bob Geiger: Dead Troops Remembered By President Who Had Them Killed (via Nicole Belle)
