Friday, January 30, 2009

Bye-bye Blagojevich

What was virtually inevitable has occurred, the Illinois State Senate having convicted and removed Rod Blagojevich as Governor of Illinois, and further voted to prohibit him from holding any state office in future. For those who aren't familiar with the document, these things have been done pursuant to specific provisions of the Illinois Constitution of 1970....the law, in other words.

What I am going to say now should not be confused as any sort of encomium for Blag-O, but the performance of the Illinois Legislature, certain other Illinois elected officials, as well as certain member of Congress and other Federal officials (specifically exempting Federal Prosecutor Fitzgerald) has been alternately clownish, discreditable and cowardly in the weeks since Blagojevich's indictment.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan attempted to circumvent the provisions of the Illinois Constitution of 1970 by attempting to have the Illinois Supreme Court declare Blagojevich "incompetent." No provision for doing this is a part of Illinois law. Madigan should resign as Attorney General and be forced to wear a placard in public (I'll settle for a tattoo on her forehead) saying: "I tried to suborn the state."

Congressional Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid attempted to exert pressure to have Blagojevich removed. For this the Illinois Legislature should pass a declaration specifically condeming these actions, including the names.

President Barack Obama went on the record, lending presidential weight to the attempt to speed up Blagojevich's removal. For this, the President and his associates should be vigilantly watched. While Blagojevich probably deserved to be removed from office, there's little doubt the skids were greased because he represented (and perhaps still does.....) an embarassment to the current administration in Washington......which I don't believe is part of his Federal criminal indictment, nor, I believe, is embarrassing someone part of sufficient grounds for impeachment.

As Blagojevich's Federal indictment moves forward, the matter of his other involvements may bear closer watching than it did before "Little Rod" left office.

Sidetracked

I'm afraid my initial impression of President Obama -that of a politician who has the best appearance and presence of any president since Warren G. Harding, and a better speaking voice than any politician I can remember hearing- has been coupled in the days since his election by a sense of "nobody home."
This man has gone into office with significant political capital (which can never be repeated), simply by virtue of his race. And this week he has spent valuable time 1) chiding the opposition party for listening to a popular radio talk-show host, and 2) criticizing the bonuses paid to corporate executives. Neither of these actions is of any importance whatever. I find it impossible to believe that any inhabitant of the White House fears Rush Limbaugh, and the provisions of existing contracts (which the bonuses of the executives in question surely must be) are simply none of his business. I can only conclude (at least I hope!) that these are simply filler material, perhaps diversions of some kind.
Something about Obama has seemed familiar to me since he came to prominence last year, and I finally figured out what it was. He sounds and talks like every good used car salesman I've ever listened to, hoping the volume of his rhetoric will overcome that rattle in the valve train, or the gurgle indicating oatmeal in the radiator.
What should the president be doing? For starters, how about making sure the various energy initiatives begun in the last few years are maintained and go forward? With the current slump to $2 gasoline, many are already fading fast. But I've seen.....nothing.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Are Facts Overrated?

Studies have (again) found that there is no link between autism and the preservative Thimerosal, used in vaccines. But the same voices are raised, over and over again -with no basis for their claims- that somehow Thimerosal is the problem....as I commented on in an earlier post. A broader issue is the irrational spillover that starts to blame ALL vaccination for a whole array of conditions.
There is no doubt there are many terrible afflictions in this vale of tears, and people are going to clutch desperately to anything that appears to provide an answer. There are celebrities with loud voices who have taken up this baseless cause, and for that reason, as the noise bounces around on the rocks and appears credible because of its volume, a number of weak-minded politicians join this ill-considered crusade.
But at some point facts must be acknowledged....or we are just "the tribe that lost its head."

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Never Mind

I guess those Polar Bears might be safe for a while longer. All the croaking about the Arctic sea ice melting away, to be followed by Greenland, Antarctica, and the cubes in your Scotch. Now this- back to 1979 levels. Thanking the University of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Center(these people haven't heard that the U of I's just supposed to be called "Illinois" now), without wondering too much why the university has one.......

Thursday, January 22, 2009

I've Encountered This, I Think

Fox News Channel: "Today President Obama goes to work full bore."

That's the politics I know......

Sunday, January 18, 2009

You Can't Top This

Now we have another of those pieces of back-door legislation that sneak in and fulfill Harry Truman's dicum that one bad law breeds contempt for all law. There may be trace amounts of lead in printer's ink, so now we're going to test The Grinch for lead, or he goes in the fire. Ribbentrop and Goebbels approve, and I'll have a double helping of Cat in the Hat and some Little Red Hen on the side, please. With mustard.

.....which leads to the question of the day: What would be symptomatic of an entire nation suffering from mass psychosis? Ten minutes, no talking among yourselves.

Friday, January 16, 2009

We're News, Too!

Even if you didn't know that The Weather Channel had been bought by NBC, you could guess. They're already making the move to reporting pure news, with some sop to "-it was 20 degrees!!!" This was already in the works with all the "weather history" filler stuff they were doing, references to Hurricane Katrina nearly on a daily basis, etc. The latest example would be the US Air Airbus 320 ditching in the Hudson River. So- would it not have been "weather-news worthy" if the temperature had been 68° F?

They're already gearing up for next Tuesday- the Inauguration references have become incessant. Part of this may be the report (comically delivered with positively long faces) that the weather for the rest of the week is going to be uneventful......

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The Chump Factor

The outgoing Governor of Illinois, "Little Rod," and his appointee to the Senate, former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris, have succeeded in making chumps of a considerable fraction of the top national Democratic, uh, "leadership," and this before the games truly begin in 2009.

Harry Reid qualifies as Top Chump for announcing a priori that Burris would not be seated if he was appointed because Blagojevich is "tainted." Funny how that word doesn't appear in the Constitution.

President-Elect Obama qualifies as Fellow Traveler Chump for his knee-jerk endorsement of Reid's pronunciamento.

Rules Committee Chair Feinstein is nominated Craven Folding Chump for whining to Reid that he had to back down the moment some obscure Illinois politician flipped over the race card in the matter.

Dick Durbin, Illinois' other Senator, simply played Follow-Along Chump, but he was a chump already.

Ten minutes' reflection at the start of this whole episode would have shown anyone with a grain of common sense that Burris' appointment needed to be considered on its merits- but noooooo. These are the people heading the majority party running this country. But I'm not worried........

Sunday, January 4, 2009

At It Again

As I recorded in this journal in December, the moves by government officials to circumvent or maneuver the Constitution (or just make stuff up) to avoid impeaching Illinois Governor "Little Rod" are despicable and cowardly enough, but the current announcement of Donk "leadership" in Congress that they will refuse to seat former IL Attorney General Roland Burris in The President-Elect's Senate seat is worse....they show that they can't even understand the difference between ex opere operato and ex opere operantis, if I may borrow a comparison from the early Church.

One. More. Time. Just because Governor Blagojevich is impossibly corrupt, false, fleeting, and perjured -which he is- it doesn't invalidate his actions as Governor, because he has neither been impeached nor convicted yet. Therefore, his appointment of Mr. Burris is within his powers as the sitting Governor of Illinois. Congress has no choice, therefore (except a wrong one) to refuse to seat Mr. Burris based on their opinion of Blag-O, they must debate Burris on HIS merits, not Blagojevich's.

Friday, January 2, 2009

The Eighth Sin

The History Channel, having covered all possible significant subjects, as well as a myriad other topics such as "Hitler's Women," (an hour's narrative over some old black & white photos and interviews with a few octogenarians) "Crash: The Next Great Depression," (reaching for some Recessionsploitation here, folks), "Cities of the Underworld" (digging around in the sewers while recounting what we think people might have done there), we now have -wait for it- "The Seven Deadly Sins." I note that tonight's episode is "Greed." Given all this, I think that there is a definite call for an episode on the Eighth Sin: "Producing Cable Shows To Fill Up A Vacuous Schedule."

Fashionable Catastrophe

I love reading this type of science article.....but then I have to stop and reflect that there's not all that much science in it. Right now, it's quite the fashion to blither on about catastrophe and Armageddons of all sorts and stripes, but this article -in a putatively respectable "journal of record," is typical of much of what one reads and/or views. A theory built upon linked hypotheses, all resting on very limited and even tenuous physical evidence. The problem is that once the "fashion effect" takes hold, and the theory begins to appear on multiple web sites, then The Hysteria Channel takes over, or The Discovery of a New Disaster Channel, The Learning about Lahars and Tsunamis Channel, or The All Weather is a Disaster Channel....and suddenly a fringe theory has become a sort of "fact" in the common wisdom, a mountain of speculation with only the most tenuous base of support in fact. But facts are such dreary things......