Ted Cruise is today’s
Joe Mc Carthy, except he’s a little more careful and exacting in his wording
than the Wisconsin Senator was. But it’s
the same sort of thing. Ted Cruise has
said that the President personally is guilty for sabotaging the Israeli economy
as a means of weakening Israel’s negotiating position. Ted Cruise also went after Chuck Hagal
accusing Hagal of accepting vast sums of money from Saudi Arabia and also from
North Korea of all things. And now
Cruise is threatening a “ne investigation of this matter” because the FAA
cautiously chose to shut down air traffic to Israel for 36 hours. It’s insane!
Of course others such as Rush Limbaugh have said “It’s absurd that John
Kerry should ask Israel to show restraint in their bombing barrages of
Gaza. Let’s get this straight. Gaza is a postage stamp plot of land that is
densely populated with poor defenseless Palistinians- - faced with the vastly
superior military might of Israel.
Israel has lost 40 mostly military in this current conflict. The death toll for Gaza citizens continues to
mount and I’m informed it’s now over 900.
So there is an excess kill ratio of twenty to one- - and Rush Limbaugh
sees no need at all for Israel to show restraint. Of course with people like Ted Cruise “It’s
the seriousness of the charge, not the presence of evidence, that is important”. Cruise will admit “I don’t have anything to
back this up but - - “ and go off leveling all kinds of charges. Marco Rubio has gotten into the act of this “victimization”
thing with Chick Filet. Rubio insists
that heterosexual marriages have been victimized by pro gay advocates, and he
says “After all look at the damage they did to Chick Filet in their boycotts”. The last time I checked- the whole gay controversy
was a Bonanza for Chick Filet- - and they never got more media publicity- - and
had long lines of born again Christians camped out eager to eat there and show
their solidarity. But people like Cruise
and Rubio live in this alternate Universe where they see themselves as
champions of “the oppressed minority of Born Again Christians” or
something. It isn’t as if Stephanie
Miller is going to knock on my door and threaten my wife and kids and ruin my
reputation if I immediately don’t support gay marriage.
Only 65% of the
American people believe we should NOT impeach this current President. Keep in mind growing up being taught history
about Andrew Johnson, we learned that impeachment is an extreme act, and one
that should be employee only as a desperate last measure. It would seem that one third of Americans at
large and 57% of Republicans believe we should impeach this President, despite
the fact it would be an act of political suicide, just as it was for President
Clinton in 1998 for the Republicans.
They apparently don’t care how silly it makes them look. John Boehner didn’t “shut down” talk of
impeachment the way Nancy Pelosi did with Bush- - but to keep the tea party
happy Boehner is “still open to the idea” apparently, and this may figure into
that Montana Republican guy’s speech this morning saying how vital it is that
the Republicans take back the senate. Of
course a Republican senate would not get any actual bills passed and sign by
the President, but a Republican Senate can act to try a President for
Impeachment. But if you think 65% is a
reassuring number- - try getting just 65% of the questions correct in a written
test at the DMV and see if they say you passed.
Try missing seven words out of twenty on a spelling test and see if the
teacher thinks you passed. My point is
that impeachment is no longer the domain of fringe whacko groups but rather is
an “intellectually respectable” thing to have a debate over. A majority of the American people actively
disapprove of the job President Obama is doing, and his job approval numbers
have never been lower.
I’m frustrated with
what I’ll refer to as the “John Boehnerization” of conversation. It’s like talking to an empty wall or a void-
- empty space. When you try and listen
to what the other person claims to be saying- - you just hear a lot of
static. Take the two Saturday morning speeches on KNX
this morning. This morning I got up a
little before six as usual. I did not
have money for coffee but I did go down and get my medication from
Ricardo. President Obama gave a little
pep talk on how well the US economy is doing and had statistics to back it up,
and also made a few suggestions on bills we could pass to make the economy
perform even better. Now contrast this
with this Montanna Republican guy who followed at 8:06. The things he began his speech with I was in
total agreement with. He came from a
hard working family and learned the value of a dollar and all that. He said that Washington is completely dysfunctional
and we can’t get anything done. And
their “work ethic” is non existant, compared to what would be expected working
for any private corporation. This whole
thing of “hard work and diligence, and personal responsibility for one’s
actions” I was in complete agreement with.
But then he goes off on this tyrade against President Obama and Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid. And then he
has the sheer audacity to quote what he claims was the leader of this Crow
Indian reservation in Montana and he says “President Obama is waging war on the
Crow tribe because he won’t let us develop our coal”. And I’m thinking “Yeah, that’s the plot of a
lot of Western movies. The Indian chiefs
are complaining because we settlers won’t strip mine their farm land”. The whole exchange was an insult to anyone’s
intelligence. He lied when he said Obama
has “waged a war on coal” when the opposite is true. Obama has been a fanatically pro Coal presidents,
and has enraged environmentalists from Agusta to San Francisco with his insistence
that “clean coal” is destined to play a key part of America’s energy
revival. And this whole idea that
President Obama is a “job killing” President is also completely absurd. You know- - you try and expand your own
understanding of issues- - but then realize that the other side never THINKS at
all.
This is Saturday
morning after breakfast July 26, 2014 and of course Mick Jagger’s birthday and
the anniversary of Jim Cooper moving into the Bosc house, also on a Saturday. Now I’m informed there is a “Basque” museum
in Boise, Idaho. I don’t know what to
make of that. This machine has been
working much better as to the latter part of yesterday. So whatever CHKDSK did in blue screen that
last time, seems to have worked, at least for now. There is that cold draft of the air
conditioning blowing on me now and it’s not that warm yet. You know, I’d like to think of myself as half
way intelligent and I’m trying to get smarter all the time. Last night I looked Johanes Kepler and the
three mathematical laws or planetary orbits.
Kepler died in 1630 and I thought it was sometime in the 1640’s. The first law is that “all planets travel in
an elipse”, which we all know, but what I didn’t know was that ellipses of the
type he discusses have not one but two “foci” - - within the ellipse, which if
a concept I can’t quite wrap my head around.
And there is some law about all points and the “sum of the distance
between the foci” I’m going to need some math teacher to explain to me. In a parabola the second “focus” is
infinity. That I get, but they go on to
say that in a hyperbola- - there are also two “foci” but you flip the equation
around and turn the plus into a minus sign, kind of like you do with the root
trig formula. But picturing the concept
in my mind eludes me. The second mathematical
law is the one I knew about the distance traversed in orbit in an interval of
time- - subdivides all of the sectors of the elipse into equal areas. The third mathematical rule is something
involving the squares of distance and even certain things cubed. Kepler is referred to as a mathematician rather
than an astronomer. I read decades ago
that Kepler used to rely on Tycho to give you specific readings for the planets
to use in formulating his calculations. One
thing we appreciate is that conversation should be a give and take kind of
thing. You may write a thoughtful letter
to someone like a teacher or pastor and care to sit down face to face and
discuss it- - but you kind of want the other person to bring some Intelligent
ideas of his own to the table, so that you can get necessary feedback and “grow”. My big lament in life is that I have been in
too high a number of conversations where the other person brought almost
nothing of his own to the table and it’s frustrating. And it’s not that their “comprehension” is
merely poor- - but it’s the sort a thing a teacher would put a big, blatant red
F on the paper. Not a “Bart Simpson”
kind of F where you tried studying and “just couldn’t get it” but often it’s a blatant
total lack of any attempt to put forth any effort at all. It’s what I call the
John Boehner effect - - of the other
person deciding a head of time it seems that “No ideas will be exchanged today” no give and take. Let me give you a simple example. Uncle Bob was a meteorologist for the Air
Force. Yet if you were all the things I
learned from Uncle Bob and compared it to what you get on a local TV news
weatherman- - speaking to the general public- - the amount of useful
information by the TV weatherman- - exceeds the useful information by Uncle Bob
by- - I don’t know- - a ratio of twenty or thirty - - to one. People can actually learn useful things from
the Media. For instance Melinda Lee said
this morning that adding wine to foods actually creates new flavors in the food
because the alcohol unlocks certain flavor compounds. Fats in other foods does the same thing,
which is why these low fat foods are often so inherently bland. So it’s not a question at all of “disagreeing”
with a person over something, because at least there is “something” to have a
conversation about. Not with Uncle
Bob. Worse than that- - most information
I did get from Uncle Bob dates from when I was a little kid. Uncle Bob seemed to have interactions with a
lot of people who considered him a marvelous conversationalist in many
ways. But it’s almost as if he went out
of his way to “hide” who he was from us- - my immediate family. Why?
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