"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." To evil, "I fart in your general direction." Check out our podcast Jav & Charles Talk Comics at JavandCharles.com. Email: contact@AfterThoughtsNow.com
First, Iceland's economy collapses sending shock waves around the world, now this volcano there blows it's top. To say that things have not been going well for Iceland recently would be like saying Sandra Bullock's marriage has been just a little shaky recently.
I remember hearing about a Tea Party strike planned for Jan. 20, 2010. Back in late December and early January it received a great deal of media coverage.
So what the heck happened?
The great, sure-to-show-the-strength-of-the-Tea Party strike of 2010 never happened.
Welcome to the world of populist movements where many different talking heads try to pull the "movement" in different directions. Organization is difficult at best and long term sustainability rare. The Tea Party is already showing signs of being pulled in multiple, different directions.
I mention this only because the of the forthcoming Tea Party convention, Feb. 4-6. The Tea Party convention will restrict media coverage of their event. Way to go supressing the freedom of the press Tea Partiers! I wonder what other rights found in the Bill of Rights will be restricted at their convention. Maybe the Tea Partiers will search some convention goers without a warrant, detain others without probable cause and force other conventioneers to quarter troops while attending.
Plus, the $500.00+ per ticket price tag to attend all the Tea Party convention events sure seems steep for a grassroots, every-person, working class movement. And that price doesn't include the travel and lodging for out-of-towners. How many "real Americans" can afford that I wonder?
That is if the convention actually happens. I mean, remember, the Jan. 20 Tea Party strike was going to happen too. So herd them cats away from the Jan. 20 Tea Party strike and toward the Feb. 4 Tea Party convention!
More on the Tea Party convention to come.
Update: Bachmann and one other Representative, Marsha Blackburn, have backed out on the Tea Partiers. And the convention is apparently having trouble selling tickets to Palin's keynote address.
OK, now that Bachmann has backed out will Palin actually show up? What wheels off moments will happen during the convention ? Please, comment below.
Seriously. Product? Service? What, from Goldman Sachs, reaches every day schmoes like you and me? I'd feel better about our government giving corporations like Goldman Sachs money if, and only if, they could answer those questions. Could someone explain what they do and why they seem to make so much money? Or is it just another pyramid scheme. I'll call it. The emperor has no clothes.
A comment to the cartoon/post on Jan. 1, 2010 read, "[I] don't get it why did the decade suck."
I hope/think maybe they were joking. I essentially responded, in a comment to that post, as follows:
You're joking right? What about:
9/11
Iraq
Anthrax attacks
Afghanistan
Osama Bin Laden is still alive
Bush took the White House in 2000 after probably losing Florida and losing the popular vote
We re-elected him in 2004
The snuggy was invented
I'm pretty sure 1980's "fashion" was coming back towards the end of the decade there
We owe China WAY, WAY, WAY too much money now.
The Steelers won another Super Bowl and now have more than the Cowboys
Bennifer
Wall Street collapse
We bailed out Wall Street and they laughed all the way to he bank
Bernie Madoff
Housing bubble
ARM mortgages
DC sniper
Perry has been governor of Texas THE WHOLE DECADE
swine flu
bird flu
Sarah Palin
Tea Parties/Partiers/Baggers
Tiger is human
WAY too much reality TV tsunami
Katrina
Ike
That's all I can think of right now. If anyone can think of more add a comment.
Side Note: Someone may bring up the whole argument/discussion that a decade doesn't begin until year one (1). For example, we don't start counting with the number zero (0) we start counting with one (1). So you wouldn't start a decade, much less a millennium with number zero would you? Meaning the past decade would have started in 2001 not 2000. Also, meaning a decade would end with year ten (10), in this past decade's case the year 2010 would actually be the last year of the decade not 2009. Weird to consider at best, boring at worst. I thought it was worth noting.
* the D.E.V.I.L. Corporation stands for Data Enhanced Visually Integrated Logistics. and CSO's are Collateralized Soul Obligations which should not be confused with Collateralized Debt Obligations, some of which were composed of bad mortgages and helped lead to our economic meltdown. Click here for more on that.
Ex-VP Dick Cheney visits a credit rating agency...
( * CSO's or Consolidated Soul Obligations are not to be confused with CDO's.)
If you need a reminder of what happened when CDO's were rated and traded with reckless abandon click here.
Click here for part 6 of Soul Reaper.
In case you didn't hear, Gov. Perry made a joke about the recession.
Apparently, according to Gov. Perry it's OK to joke about the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The recession is no laughing matter to Texans and Americans suffering the affects of the the economic downturn. People have lost their jobs. Companies have gone out business. And, yes, that is happening in Texas too. Perry again demonstrated his remarkable ability to discount, marginalize and make jokes at the expense ordinary people and voters.
Side Note / Question: Are we looking at a "the lesser of two evils" decision for governor in Texas between Perry and Sen. Hutchison? And is Sen. Hutchison really the lesser? At least she's against toll roads everywhere, all the time. That's about all I know regarding the differences between the two, otherwise I need to educate myself on where Hutchison stands on different issues.
And I am just now educating myself on the Democrats running for the nomination. Any insight into the Dem candidates would be appreciated. Is there already a "front runner"? Are they going to be another sacrificial lamb put up for the slaughter?
Way back in October of 2008, during the presidential campaign, I expressed my thoughts about cries of "socialist" and "socialism"by McCain and other GOP'ers. The point being, if a public health insurance option is socialist so is social security, social security disability, unemployment benifits, police and fire departments, medicare, medicaid, etc...
RNC chairman Steele railed against the GM bankruptcy and the general administration's auto bailout plan. Again Steele, the RNC and the GOP generally come off sounding like the party of "No".
Moreover, conservatives again attacked a policy without offering any type of tenable counter proposal.
If the bailout of the auto industry is a bad idea then the logical alternative would necessarily have been to let GM fail. No one, liberal or conservative, has explained how letting GM fail would have been a good thing. If there is a cogent argument for allowing GM's failure I would genuinely be interested in hearing / reading it.
Instead of GM filing a Chapter 11 (reorganization, stay in business) bankruptcy, GM would have likely been forced to file a Chapter 7 (liquidate, go out business) bankruptcy without the government bailout.
The below ad appeared in the Warren Times Observer, a paper in Pennsylvania:
The Secret Service is investigating. But, here's a question, why would any newspaper agree to run such an ad? The publisher of the paper claims they didn't understand the sentiment of the ad. Really? That's the story the publisher is going with? I guess the publisher really can't say anything else . The publisher either has to claim ignorance or essentially say that they didn't think there was anything wrong with the ad. But, surely someone working at any newspaper would know what Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy have in common. Or maybe this publisher's ignorance is the exhibit "A" demonstrating why print media companies and newspapers in particular are going out of business.
This article illuminates what many already know, being poor has more disadvantages than most have ever considered. Consider the fact that those with less actually pay more for things that middle-class Americans, for the most part, take for granted. -article from the Washington Post-
First here's Gov. Perry's comments regarding Texas secession at a "Tea Bag" demonstration:
Next is a clip of Delay on Chris Matthews defending Gov. Perry's secessionist comments:
It is sad that this is even a topic of conversation (using the word "conversation" in the loosest way). I only offer the following observations:
1) The bailouts and record spending began under the previous Republican administration yet there was not this outcry and demand that people "tea bag" D.C. or understanding from Republicans regarding some fringe Texans advocating secession from the Union.
2) The hard core Texas secessionists are out there (even though, thankfully, they are a fringe movement) and they are dangerous. Leaders of the movement have been convicted of threatening to kill political leaders.
3) Many understand secessionist talk as code for racism.
4) Questions: Is actively advocating and working towards Texas secession treason? If so, does Perry and Delay's "understanding" of secessionists make them, at the very least, sympathetic towards traitors?
5) Lastly, I sarcastically applaud Gov. Perry and Delay for again making Texas look oh so good when in the national spotlight.
Again, this secessionist talk is so inane that it's troubling the amount of media attention it is receiving. However, these "red herrings" continue to be rolled out, whether promoted by Republicans or Democrats, and distract from the very real problems at hand.
Some recent "red herrings":
1) tea parties
2) tea bag D.C.
3) Obama bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia
4) Steele
5) Limbaugh hopes Obama fails and is leader of conservative movement
6) Levi Johnston calls Palin a liar regarding living with Palin's family before birth of child (really, who cares about this?)
7) Chuck Norris being taken seriously by anyone, including Glenn Beck
I'm sure there are more red herrings. Keep in mind, the above distract from serious issues facing the nation including, but not limited to, two wars, economy losing half a million jobs per month, recession and failing businesses. So, when folks talk about tea parties and secession I wonder why, especially given the gravity of the multiple dilemmas we face.
Of course the economy is not doing well in France either. Angry French workers at a Caterpillar factory are holding executives hostage after the company announced layoffs. The CEO's and executives of American companies laying off hundreds of thousands of workers each month here in the United States should at least be glad they're not French executives being held against their will by the very workers they are preparing to lay off. Otherwise we'd have had executives being held hostage every other day at companies like AIG, Chrysler, GM, Ford and Lehman Brothers to just name a few. But, we're American, we take our lumps and move on. When Americans get angry about the economy and/or losing their jobs they send off some strongly worded emails, maybe in all caps, and go to the polls. Lucky for American executives that we're Americans and not the French.
Of course the French historically have also done away with lying, self-serving, authoritarian governance (monarchy) by employing the guillotine. Granted that was over 200 years ago and I'm not suggesting the French would do anything like that to deceitful, power hungry politicians nowadays. But it's interesting to speculate about what the French might do now to lying, self-serving, authoritarian-like politicians. Maybe the French, through their government, would arrest and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law, the same laws that those same politicians chose to ignore. Of course that's only what the French hypothetically might do. And we're Americans, we take our lumps and move on. When Americans get angry about the bad politicians they send off some strongly worded emails, maybe in all caps, and go to the polls and vote them out. Lucky for some American politicians that we're Americans and not the hypothetical French I described.
* "Your economic stimulus bill will strangle the economy." This is borrowed, in part, from Sen. Jim Demint of South Carolina who said on the floor of the Senate that Pres. Obama's stimulus bill, "will not rescue our economy, it will strangle it." Apparently Sen. Demint seems to think that the economy is breathing A-OK right now. Out of touch much?
