Stirring the Pot

Doug Wilder is one of my heroes. He's a classic pot-stirring, rabble-rousing, trouble-making, threat to The Man.

Read his newest--an attack on Tim Kaine and some advice that won't be well-received in the White House.

I agree with everything he says.

Done Deal in Virginia?

I love watching the Intrade election futures market. At Intrade, people put down real money on upcoming elections as well as such doozies as the amount of snow to fall in NYC and academy award winners.

Supposedly, no candidate who ever hit $75 at Intrade (meaning, the market is predicting a 75% chance of winning) has ever lost an election. Don't know if that's true or not, but I do remember that Senator Webb hit $75 within a day of George Allen's infamous macaca flub.

Right now, McDonnell is trading at $95. Doesn't look good for the Dems in Va.

The New Jersey race is much more interesting with Dem incumbent Corzine at $64.50, Republican Christie at $35, and independent Daggett at $2.50. The Real Clear Politcs polls average has Corzine ahead of Christie by only 0.2% (39 to 39) with Daggett trailing at 15%. New Jersey Republicans had better win by more than the polls suggest bc. they don't have a prayer of winning a recount (ref. the jackass Senator from Minnesota).

The most pathetic thing at Intrade? "Charles Rangel departs as Chairman of the the Ways & Means Committee" by 12/31/09 is only selling for $20. What a crook. And it just doesn't matter.

GE: The Dems' Haliburton?

Pres. Obama put Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE, on his Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

We'll all but skip over the fact that by the only measure that matters to his bosses, the shareholders of GE, Immelt is a complete failure as a businessman. GE stock is at a 14 year low. As a stock broker would say, "$10,000 invested in GE stock in 1985 would now be worth . . . . . . $10,000." Tah dah! Shoulda bought a GE washing machine instead, at least then you'd have something clean you cloths with.

The way I see this is that it's payoff for MSNBC and NBC news--GE owned businesses--being in the tank for candidate Obama throughout the campaign. And now it's time to shovel the dollars into govt support for GE products.

Prediction: this advisory board will recommend that we build nuclear plants to create jobs. Guess who's big in the nuclear business? GE. (Pres. Barry will suddenly turn pro-nuke on the advice of this commission. I'm not complaining here. Nuclear is the way to go and it makes no difference how we get there.) Guess who makes all those florescent light bulbs that, thanks to the "stimulus" bill, we will be paying former auto workers to install in govt buildings? GE. Guess who makes bajillions from making windmills and "smart grid", whatever that is? Again, GE.

Guess whose Ecomagination (and here) initiative will start getting millions of dollars in taxpayer dollars to research green technology? GE's. Just you wait and see.

Personally, no problem here with much of this. It's a rough game and as the Pres. says, he won. And so has GE. They bet on the right horse.

Don't tell me, tho, that this is change. It's the same old thing. GE is a special interest just like any other and they have a right to make a buck as does anyone else. Gettin' your guy in office is simply good business. Use that jackass Kieth Olbermann to do it. Jam that "stimulus" package through and let's start opening all those presents under the tree.

What cracks me up, tho, is the hypocrisy, intended or unintended. I 'spect very few of the people who were whining about Haliburton owning the executive branch for eight years will have much to say about this. They either can't see or won't see or simply refuse to mention that this is no different: it's just a different company.

I guess, tho, it's OK for Big Business to own the White House as long as they use it to save the planet. Instead of using it to free 24 million Iraqis.

No More CRAP

I've taken down the CRAPonSundays blog.

If you'd never been there, it stood for Church Regular Against Politics on Sunday. It was created as an answer to the constant flow of politics I was hearing from the pulpit at church--Geo Bush is the devil, we're torturing people in Guantanamo, universal health care and gay marriage are human rights. I've moved on to the Pour It blog and I've moved on from that church and that denomination, tho, have yet to find the right place to sit on Sunday mornings.

Inspiration for cutting the CRAP blog should be attributed to Willie Nelson. Just finished his and Turk Pipkin's book, The Tao of Willie. More on the book at a later date, but suffice it to say here that while the things said on the CRAP blog were straight from the heart, the negativity's no longer worth the effort. Too much hurt.

Wifey'd been telling me from the beginning that no one would read it bc. of the negative blog title. Tried to deny that the title was negative, that it was just clever, but I can no longer even convince myself of that.

I've saved all the posts for post-erity if anyone's curious. I went back a re-read a couple of them and a couple of them are actually pretty good.

But sometimes it's time to move along down The Path. The CRAP blog served its purpose.

And so the Journey continues. . . .