Incomplete Information

I notice more and more the casualties of the side of contemporary life Bill McKibben describes in The Age of Missing Information. The world around us isn't just coming to us in smaller and smaller fragments. It's that even when an accurate portrayal of the matter at hand is readily available, it just isn't absorbed. In particular, if you read comments to blog posts linked to particular article, the level of comprehension of the article itself is often just........missing. The commenter either doesn't read the linked material at all, or else does a defective skim of it.....and then feels possessed of an opinion well-formed enough that they can write and post it. The end product might as well be gabble.

And, if I am not mistaken, this is occurring with increasing frequency.....

Why, You Ask?

Well, my reason for a post entitled "Merry Christmas," and nothing more, is because I'm not going to say "Season's Greetings," "Happy Holidays," or any of the rest of that careful-not-to-offend crap....which, unfortunately, it's all become. True, the generic wishes have been around for a long time, and for most of that time have been innocuous. However, like many other things in our Age of Apology, they're supposed to prevail when communicated to anyone else.

Baloney. It's Christmas......or it's nothing. Certainly nothing I care to be associated with.

Merry Christmas!

NM.......

A Pox on Them...and you know who I mean

Now that we have some expectation of justice (notice I didn't say we were going to get it) in the arrest and charge of Gov. Blagojevich of Illinois for various malfeasances, it's time to give other politicians equal time to demonstrate in just how much contempt they hold our system of government.

Today's example: Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan Seeks Governor's Ouster

This is an abominable precedent, period. Madigan has demonstrated -not for the first time- her unfitness for public office. She seeks to maneuver the Illinois Constitution by her own clever definition of the charges against the Boy Blunder Blagojevich as "equivalent to a medical condition." Once this breathtaking redefinition is accepted, it then becomes trivial to accept (according to a never-employed clause in the Illinois Constitution) the removal of gubernatorial powers by the Illinois Supreme Court, making Blagojevich merely the inhabitant of a governor's mansion he has never physically occupied for the 6 years he's been in office.
Apart from Madigan's rather transparent move to spare the Legislature (aka her father) an impeachment trial, it merely exacerbates one of the truly dangerous trends in our government, where more and more important decisions are channeled into an unarguable decision by the Judiciary of either the Federal or a state government. Thus, the elected officials can avoid controversy, and a vote that will go against them in the next election.
An opinion held by many pundits seems to be that the Attorney General's request has no chance at all of even being considered by the Illinois Supreme Court. We can only pray that this is true, just as we may hope that Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald continues to successfully charge the gang of corrupt politicians who every day screw on their pants (or skirts) and feed off the commonwealth.

I believe it was Karl Marx who said that "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." When it comes to politicians in this state, we're way beyond farce. This is yet another of a series of symptoms of our disease; I begin to think our Republic won't survive it.

A Glimmer of Hope?

Looks like Rod Blagojevich, corrupt Governor of Illinois (I know, how can you possibly tell which one, without a scorecard?), finally had the hammer dropped on him by Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. What will come of this? Unless all the present publicity and uproar makes it impossible, I frankly wouldn't be surprised if all the indictments just faded away after January 20th.

Fitzgerald may have moved now because he'd already been told that he was history in 2009......

I'll pour a pint....

Today is the 75th Anniversary of Repeal Day. The title says is all; if you need to know more about the 21st Amendment.......

It could also be broadened into Get Government Out Of Our Face Day.

"It's the Government's job to print the money, deliver the mail and declare war. Now give me my cigarettes."

- Florence King

Thanks, I Needed That

Since I'm constantly pounded by the disingenuous crap that pours in a nauseous river from most media outlets, it's nice to read something like this, from The Roller of Big Cigars. It would be nice if I had something about this long (i.e., nice and short) to read, say, once a week:

Shocked, I say

I am completely and utterly shocked that a government would value the rights of a multi-million dollar corporation over the rights of it’s broke, apathetic citizens. Shocked how a company that can afford lobbyists and campaign contributions could be have such sway over the people it helped elect. How fucking bizarre! I mean who knew that politicians could be corrupted? Who knew that companies wanted to use government to help them make more money? How could anybody guess that greedy people would be ruthless in getting what they wanted? This all sounds like something from science-fiction doesn’t it? The next thing you know guys will start liking porn and geeks will start watching Star Trek.