Sep 04 2008

John McCain convention speech

Category: election 2008,McCain,Obama,politics — harmonicminer @ 10:00 pm

I watched McCain’s speech to the Republican National Convention tonight.

There will always be some policies that he’ll promote with which I’ll disagree.  I don’t expect to approve of his approach to illegal aliens, campaign finance “reform”, “global warming” or “climate change”, “bipartisanship”, etc.  He is starting to make the right noises about drilling…  now if he’ll add Anwar to his offshore drilling commitment, and nuclear energy as well.  We’ll see on that.  He occasionally makes populist sounding noises, and seemed to be suggesting a new entitlement program for people who have “lost jobs due to globalization”.  That’s worrisome, but maybe he only means to suggest a different way of allocating current unemployment compensation funds.

Nevertheless, with all the likely policy disagreements I’ll have with him, I have nothing but respect for McCain the man, and I think he’ll do the right things on foreign policy, taxes, spending, judges, education, etc.

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Sep 04 2008

Universal lifestyle coverage

Category: election 2008,healthcare,humor,politics,Uncategorized — sardonicwhiner @ 8:52 am

Bluntly, the huge majority of people who “can’t afford health insurance” of any kind at any level have simply made other choices.  They need to:

1)    turn off all the devices that don’t need to be on (save money on electricity),
2)    drive less,
3)    eat at home, simply, no fast food, don’t buy expensive prepared meals from the freezer section, buy basic foods and prepare meals to a menu,
4)    turn in their cell phones back to the phone company and cancel the plan  (paying the turn off fee if they must…  they’ll still save money),
5)    cancel satellite or cable tv plan (you can live without tv if your antenna doesn’t work…  really),
6)    cancel internet service (use the library for “research” and email, listen to the radio for news),
7)    run the air conditioning in your home or apartment much less, or don’t use it at all, like the rest of humanity for all of human history,
8)    give the expensive car back to the loan company, or better yet, don’t buy it to start with…  drive a simple, reliable, middle aged car, and as little as possible,

9)    knock off the “dollar here”, “dollar there” expenditures on soda, coffee, etc.

10)    refuse to buy gadgets, trinkets, techno toys, designer clothes and shoes, etc.
11)    review all the ways they spend money, and impose some budget discipline, not spending on anything that isn’t really essential.

12)   maybe consider getting a job, if they don’t have one, and are able.

This sort of thing used to be taught in economics courses in high school, both “regular” economics and “home” economics.

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Sep 04 2008

Camelot or Spamelot?

Category: Obama — amuzikman @ 12:40 am

There seems to be an effort, conscious or unconscious, on the part of Barack Obama to portray himself as JFK 2.0. He likes to cherry-picks certain historical events involving the former president as justification for his own views. His demeanor, charm, eloquence, and family (attractive wife, two lovely younger children) all invite comparisons with the man who’s abruptly abbreviated time in the White House was referred to as “Camelot”.

interestingly the origins of the connection between JFK and Camelot appear to have come from Jackie Kennedy, and only after JFK’s death (whereas Obama seems to want to perform a self-coronation). The comparison is certainly not surprising when one considers that the Broadway show, Camelot opened just a couple weeks after JFK’s inauguration and the song “Camelot” seems to have been a favorite of his. http://ask.yahoo.com/19990809.html

But beyond appearances there is little to commend a comparison between Obama and JFK. Larry Elder has a wonderful piece this week on Townhall.com showing little doubt that if he were alive today, JFK would have been much more at home in the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. http://townhall.com/Columnists/LarryElder/2008/09/04/jfk_democrats_role_model?page=1

I think in this case as with so many things about Barack Obama, he is a just a paper King Arthur – a life-sized cut-out, a cheap knock-off, a spoof of the original item, insisting to his followers that he also pulled the sword from the stone. But the comparison is only skin-deep and when I look at him I don’t think of Camelot so much as I do Spamelot.

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